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Diffstat (limited to 'old')
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diff --git a/old/44566-0.txt b/old/44566-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ab652d7 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/44566-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,17983 @@ +Project Gutenberg's A History of Caricature and Grotesque, by Thomas Wright + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A History of Caricature and Grotesque + in Literature and Art + +Author: Thomas Wright + +Illustrator: F. W. Fairholt + +Release Date: January 2, 2014 [EBook #44566] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORY OF CARICATURE *** + + + + +Produced by KD Weeks, Chris Curnow and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive) + + + + + +Transcriber's Notes + +Typographical features such as italic and bold fonts are indicated +as _italic_ and =bold=. The 'oe' ligature is given as separate +characters. Text shown in mixed 'small capital' letters has been +shifted to all uppercase. Superscripted letters are prefixed with +a carat (^) character. When multiple letters appear as superscripts, +they are enclosed in brackets ({}). + +Illustrations appear as [Illustration: caption] in their approximate +positions in the text. There are several decorative illustrations which +appear merely as [Illustration]. Two illustrations, on pp. 199 and 204, +were labelled No. 127. To resolve this, the second of them, and +references to it, were changed to No. 127a. + +Footnotes have been moved to the end of the paragraphs where they are +referenced. + +Please consult the Transcriber's Note at the end of this text for +details regarding the resolution of any other textual issues. + + + + + A HISTORY + + OF + + CARICATURE AND GROTESQUE. + + [Illustration: _ARISTOTLE AND PYTHAÏS._ + _From an Engraving by Burgmair_ (_15th cent._)] + + + + + A HISTORY + + OF + + CARICATURE AND GROTESQUE + + In Literature and Art. + + BY THOMAS WRIGHT, M.A., F.S.A. + + [Illustration] + + THE ILLUSTRATIONS DRAWN AND ENGRAVED BY + + F. W. FAIRHOLT, F.S.A. + + London: + + CHATTO AND WINDUS, PICCADILLY. + + 1875. + + + + + LONDON: + SAVILL, EDWARDS, AND CO., PRINTERS, CHANDOS STREET, + COVENT GARDEN. + + [Illustration] + + + + +PREFACE. + + +I have felt some difficulty in selecting a title for the contents of +the following pages, in which it was, in fact, my design to give, as +far as may be done within such moderate limits, and in as popular a +manner as such information can easily be imparted, a general view of +the History of Comic Literature and Art. Yet the word comic seems to +me hardly to express all the parts of the subject which I have sought +to bring together in my book. Moreover, the field of this history is +very large, and, though I have only taken as my theme one part of it, +it was necessary to circumscribe even that, in some degree; and my +plan, therefore, is to follow it chiefly through those branches which +have contributed most towards the formation of modern comic and satiric +literature and art in our own island. + +Thus, as the comic literature of the middle ages to a very great +extent, and comic art in a considerable degree also, were founded +upon, or rather arose out of, those of the Romans which had preceded +them, it seemed desirable to give a comprehensive history of this +branch of literature and art as it was cultivated among the peoples of +antiquity. Literature and art in the middle ages presented a certain +unity of general character, arising, probably, from the uniformity of +the influence of the Roman element of society, modified only by its +lower degree of intensity at a greater distance from the centre, and +by secondary causes attendant upon it. To understand the literature +of any one country in Western Europe, especially during what we may +term the feudal period--and the remark applies to art equally--it +is necessary to make ourselves acquainted with the whole history of +literature in Western Europe during that time. The peculiarities in +different countries naturally became more marked in the progress of +society, and more strongly individualised; but it was not till towards +the close of the feudal period that the literature of each of these +different countries was becoming more entirely its own. At that period +the plan I have formed restricts itself, according to the view stated +above. Thus, the satirical literature of the Reformation and pictorial +caricature had their cradle in Germany, and, in the earlier half of +the sixteenth century, carried their influence largely into France and +England; but from that time any influence of German literature on these +two countries ceases. Modern satirical literature has its models in +France during the sixteenth century, and the direct influence of this +literature in France upon English literature continued during that and +the succeeding century, but no further. Political caricature rose to +importance in France in the sixteenth century, and was transplanted +to Holland in the seventeenth century, and until the beginning of the +eighteenth century England owed its caricature, indirectly or directly, +to the French and the Dutch; but after that time a purely English +school of caricature was formed, which was entirely independent of +Continental caricaturists. + +There are two senses in which the word history may be taken in regard +to literature and art. It has been usually employed to signify a +chronological account of authors or artists and their works, though +this comes more properly under the title of biography and bibliography. +But there is another and a very different application of the word, and +this is the meaning which I attach to it in the present volume. During +the middle ages, and for some period after (in special branches), +literature--I mean poetry, satire, and popular literature of all +kinds--belonged to society, and not to the individual authors, who +were but workmen who gained a living by satisfying society's wants; +and its changes in form or character depended all upon the varying +progress, and therefore changing necessities, of society itself. This +is the reason why, especially in the earlier periods, nearly the whole +mass of the popular--I may, perhaps, be allowed to call it the social +literature of the middle ages, is anonymous; and it was only at rare +intervals that some individual rose and made himself a great name by +the superiority of his talents. A certain number of writers of fabliaux +put their names to their compositions, probably because they were names +of writers who had gained the reputation of telling better or racier +stories than many of their fellows. In some branches of literature--as +in the satirical literature of the sixteenth century--society still +exercised this kind of influence over it; and although its great +monuments owe everything to the peculiar genius of their authors, they +were produced under the pressure of social circumstances. To trace all +these variations in literature connected with society, to describe the +influences of society upon literature and of literature upon society, +during the progress of the latter, appears to me to be the true meaning +of the word history, and it is in this sense that I take it. + +This will explain why my history of the different branches of popular +literature and art ends at very different periods. The grotesque and +satirical sculpture, which adorned the ecclesiastical buildings, +ceased with the middle ages. The story-books, as a part of this social +literature, came down to the sixteenth century, and the history of +the jest-books which arose out of them cannot be considered to extend +further than the beginning of the seventeenth; for, to give a list of +jest-books since that time would be to compile a catalogue of books +made by booksellers for sale, copied from one another, and, till +recently, each more contemptible than its predecessor. The school of +satirical literature in France, at all events as far as it had any +influence in England, lasted no longer than the earlier part of the +seventeenth century. England can hardly be said to have had a school of +satirical literature, with the exception of its comedy, which belongs +properly to the seventeenth century; and its caricature belongs +especially to the last century and to the earlier part of the present, +beyond which it is not a part of my plan to carry it. + +These few remarks will perhaps serve to explain what some may consider +to be defects in my book; and with them I venture to trust it to the +indulgence of its readers. It is a subject which will have some novelty +for the English reader, for I am not aware that we have any previous +book devoted to it. At all events, it is not a mere compilation from +other people's labours. + + THOMAS WRIGHT. + + [Illustration] + + + + + CONTENTS. + + + CHAPTER I. + PAGE + ORIGIN OF CARICATURE AND GROTESQUE--SPIRIT OF CARICATURE + IN EGYPT--MONSTERS: PYTHON AND GORGON--GREECE--THE + DIONYSIAC CEREMONIES, AND ORIGIN OF THE DRAMA--THE OLD + COMEDY--LOVE OF PARODY--PARODIES ON SUBJECTS TAKEN + FROM GRECIAN MYTHOLOGY: THE VISIT TO THE LOVER; APOLLO + AT DELPHI--THE PARTIALITY FOR PARODY CONTINUED AMONG + THE ROMANS: THE FLIGHT OF ÆNEAS 1 + + CHAPTER II. + + ORIGIN OF THE STAGE IN ROME--USES OF THE MASK + AMONG THE ROMANS--SCENES FROM ROMAN COMEDY--THE + SANNIO AND MIMUS--THE ROMAN DRAMA--THE ROMAN + SATIRISTS--CARICATURE--ANIMALS INTRODUCED IN THE + CHARACTERS OF MEN--THE PIGMIES, AND THEIR INTRODUCTION + INTO CARICATURE; THE FARM-YARD; THE PAINTER'S STUDIO; + THE PROCESSION--POLITICAL CARICATURE IN POMPEII; THE + GRAFFITI 23 + + CHAPTER III. + + THE PERIOD OF TRANSITION FROM ANTIQUITY TO THE MIDDLE + AGES--THE ROMAN MIMI CONTINUED TO EXIST--THE TEUTONIC + AFTER-DINNER ENTERTAINMENTS--CLERICAL SATIRES: + ARCHBISHOP HERIGER AND THE DREAMER; THE SUPPER OF THE + SAINTS--TRANSITION FROM ANCIENT TO MEDIÆVAL ART--TASTE + FOR MONSTROUS ANIMALS, DRAGONS, ETC.; CHURCH OF SAN + FEDELE, AT COMO--SPIRIT OF CARICATURE AND LOVE OF + GROTESQUE AMONG THE ANGLO-SAXONS--GROTESQUE FIGURES OF + DEMONS--NATURAL TENDENCY OF THE EARLY MEDIÆVAL ARTISTS + TO DRAW IN CARICATURE--EXAMPLES FROM EARLY MANUSCRIPTS + AND SCULPTURES 40 + + CHAPTER IV. + + THE DIABOLICAL IN CARICATURE--MEDIÆVAL LOVE OF THE + LUDICROUS--CAUSES WHICH MADE IT INFLUENCE THE NOTIONS + OF DEMONS--STORIES OF THE PIOUS PAINTER AND THE ERRING + MONK--DARKNESS AND UGLINESS CARICATURED--THE DEMONS IN + THE MIRACLE PLAYS--THE DEMON OF NOTRE DAME 61 + + CHAPTER V. + + EMPLOYMENT OF ANIMALS IN MEDIÆVAL SATIRE--POPULARITY + OF FABLES; ODO DE CIRINGTON--REYNARD THE + FOX--BURNELLUS AND FAUVEL--THE CHARIVARI--LE MONDE + BESTORNÉ--ENCAUSTIC TILES--SHOEING THE GOOSE, AND + FEEDING PIGS WITH ROSES--SATIRICAL SIGNS; THE MUSTARD + MAKER 75 + + CHAPTER VI. + + THE MONKEY IN BURLESQUE AND CARICATURE--TOURNAMENTS + AND SINGLE COMBATS--MONSTROUS COMBINATIONS OF + ANIMAL FORMS--CARICATURES ON COSTUME--THE HAT--THE + HELMET--LADIES' HEAD-DRESSES--THE GOWN, AND ITS LONG + SLEEVES 95 + + CHAPTER VII. + + PRESERVATION OF THE CHARACTER OF THE MIMUS AFTER THE FALL + OF THE EMPIRE--THE MINSTREL AND JOGELOUR--HISTORY OF + POPULAR STORIES--THE FABLIAUX--ACCOUNT OF THEM--THE + CONTES DEVOTS 106 + + CHAPTER VIII. + + CARICATURES OF DOMESTIC LIFE--STATE OF DOMESTIC LIFE + IN THE MIDDLE AGES--EXAMPLES OF DOMESTIC CARICATURE + FROM THE CARVINGS OF THE MISERERES--KITCHEN + SCENES--DOMESTIC BRAWLS--THE FIGHT FOR THE + BREECHES--THE JUDICIAL DUEL BETWEEN MAN AND WIFE AMONG + THE GERMANS--ALLUSIONS TO WITCHCRAFT--SATIRES ON THE + TRADES: THE BAKER, THE MILLER, THE WINE-PEDLAR AND + TAVERN KEEPER, THE ALE-WIFE, ETC. 118 + + CHAPTER IX. + + GROTESQUE FACES AND FIGURES--PREVALENCE OF THE TASTE FOR + UGLY AND GROTESQUE FACES--SOME OF THE POPULAR FORMS + DERIVED FROM ANTIQUITY: THE TONGUE LOLLING OUT, AND + THE DISTORTED MOUTH--HORRIBLE SUBJECTS: THE MAN + AND THE SERPENTS--ALLEGORICAL FIGURES: GLUTTONY AND + LUXURY--OTHER REPRESENTATIONS OF CLERICAL GLUTTONY + AND DRUNKENNESS--GROTESQUE FIGURES OF INDIVIDUALS, + AND GROTESQUE GROUPS--ORNAMENTS OF THE BORDERS OF + BOOKS--UNINTENTIONAL CARICATURE; THE MOTE AND THE BEAM 144 + + CHAPTER X. + + SATIRICAL LITERATURE IN THE MIDDLE AGES--JOHN + DE HAUTEVILLE AND ALAN DE LILLE--GOLIAS AND + THE GOLIARDS--THE GOLIARDIC POETRY--TASTE FOR + PARODY--PARODIES ON RELIGIOUS SUBJECTS--POLITICAL + CARICATURE IN THE MIDDLE AGES--THE JEWS OF + NORWICH--CARICATURE REPRESENTATIONS OF + COUNTRIES--LOCAL SATIRE--POLITICAL SONGS AND POEMS 159 + + CHAPTER XI. + + MINSTRELSY A SUBJECT OF BURLESQUE AND + CARICATURE--CHARACTER OF THE MINSTRELS--THEIR JOKES + UPON THEMSELVES AND UPON ONE ANOTHER--VARIOUS + MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS REPRESENTED IN THE SCULPTURES + OF THE MEDIÆVAL ARTISTS--SIR MATTHEW GOURNAY AND + THE KING OF PORTUGAL--DISCREDIT OF THE TABOR AND + BAGPIPES--MERMAIDS 188 + + CHAPTER XII. + + THE COURT FOOL--THE NORMANS AND THEIR GABS--EARLY + HISTORY OF COURT FOOLS--THEIR COSTUME--CARVINGS IN + THE CORNISH CHURCHES--THE BURLESQUE SOCIETIES OF THE + MIDDLE AGES--THE FEASTS OF ASSES, AND OF FOOLS--THEIR + LICENCE--THE LEADEN MONEY OF THE FOOLS--THE BISHOP'S + BLESSING 200 + + CHAPTER XIII. + + THE DANCE OF DEATH--THE PAINTINGS IN THE CHURCH OF + LA CHAISE DIEU--THE REIGN OF FOLLY--SEBASTIAN + BRANDT; THE SHIP OF FOOLS--DISTURBERS OF + CHURCH SERVICE--TROUBLESOME BEGGARS--GEILER'S + SERMONS--BADIUS, AND HIS SHIP OF FOOLISH WOMEN--THE + PLEASURES OF SMELL--ERASMUS; THE PRAISE OF FOLLY 214 + + CHAPTER XIV. + + POPULAR LITERATURE AND ITS HEROES; BROTHER RUSH, TYLL + EULENSPIEGEL, THE WISE MEN OF GOTHAM--STORIES AND + JEST-BOOKS--SKELTON, SCOGIN, TARLTON, PEELE 228 + + CHAPTER XV. + + THE AGE OF THE REFORMATION--THOMAS MURNER; HIS GENERAL + SATIRES--FRUITFULNESS OF FOLLY--HANS SACHS--THE + TRAP FOR FOOLS--ATTACKS ON LUTHER--THE POPE AS + ANTICHRIST--THE POPE-ASS AND THE MONK-CALF--OTHER + CARICATURES AGAINST THE POPE--THE GOOD AND BAD + SHEPHERDS 244 + + CHAPTER XVI. + + ORIGIN OF MEDIÆVAL FARCE AND MODERN + COMEDY--HROTSVITHA--MEDIÆVAL NOTIONS OF TERENCE--THE + EARLY RELIGIOUS PLAYS--MYSTERIES AND MIRACLE + PLAYS--THE FARCES--THE DRAMA IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 264 + + CHAPTER XVII. + + DIABLERIE IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY--EARLY TYPES OF THE + DIABOLICAL FORMS--ST. ANTHONY--ST. GUTHLAC--REVIVAL OF + THE TASTE FOR SUCH SUBJECTS IN THE BEGINNING OF THE + SIXTEENTH CENTURY--THE FLEMISH SCHOOL OF BREUGHEL--THE + FRENCH AND ITALIAN SCHOOLS--CALLOT, SALVATOR ROSA 288 + + CHAPTER XVIII. + + CALLOT AND HIS SCHOOL--CALLOT'S ROMANTIC HISTORY--HIS + "CAPRICI," AND OTHER BURLESQUE WORKS--THE "BALLI" + AND THE BEGGARS--IMITATORS OF CALLOT; DELLA + BELLA--EXAMPLES OF DELLA BELLA--ROMAIN DE HOOGHE 300 + + CHAPTER XIX. + + THE SATIRICAL LITERATURE OF THE SIXTEENTH + CENTURY--PASQUIL--MACARONIC POETRY--THE EPISTOLÆ + OBSCURORUM VIRORUM--RABELAIS--COURT OF THE QUEEN OF + NAVARRE, AND ITS LITERARY CIRCLE; BONAVENTURE DES + PERIERS--HENRI ETIENNE--THE LIGUE, AND ITS SATIRE: THE + "SATYRE MENIPPEE" 312 + + CHAPTER XX. + + POLITICAL CARICATURE IN ITS INFANCY--THE REVERS DU + JEU DES SUYSSES--CARICATURE IN FRANCE--THE THREE + ORDERS--PERIOD OF THE LIGUE; CARICATURES AGAINST HENRI + III.--CARICATURES AGAINST THE LIGUE--CARICATURE IN + FRANCE IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY--GENERAL GALAS--THE + QUARREL OF AMBASSADORS--CARICATURE AGAINST LOUIS XXV.; + WILLIAM OF FURSTEMBERG 347 + + CHAPTER XXI. + + EARLY POLITICAL CARICATURE IN ENGLAND--THE SATIRICAL + WRITINGS AND PICTURES OF THE COMMONWEALTH + PERIOD--SATIRES AGAINST THE BISHOPS; BISHOP + WILLIAMS--CARICATURES ON THE CAVALIERS; SIR JOHN + SUCKLING--THE ROARING BOYS; VIOLENCE OF THE ROYALIST + SOLDIERS--CONTEST BETWEEN THE PRESBYTERIANS AND + INDEPENDENTS--GRINDING THE KING'S NOSE--PLAYING-CARDS + USED AS THE MEDIUM FOR CARICATURE; HASELRIGGE AND + LAMBERT--SHROVETIDE 360 + + CHAPTER XXII. + + ENGLISH COMEDY--BEN JONSON--THE OTHER WRITERS OF HIS + SCHOOL--INTERRUPTION OF DRAMATIC PERFORMANCES--COMEDY + AFTER THE RESTORATION--THE HOWARDS BROTHERS; THE DUKE + OF BUCKINGHAM; THE REHEARSAL--WRITERS OF COMEDY IN THE + LATTER PART OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY--INDECENCY OF + THE STAGE--COLLEY CIBBER--FOOTE 375 + + CHAPTER XXIII. + + CARICATURE IN HOLLAND--ROMAIN DE HOOGHE--THE ENGLISH + REVOLUTION--CARICATURES ON LOUIS XIV. AND + JAMES II.--DR. SACHEVERELL--CARICATURE BROUGHT + FROM HOLLAND TO ENGLAND--ORIGIN OF THE WORD + "CARICATURE"--MISSISSIPPI AND THE SOUTH SEA; THE YEAR + OF BUBBLES 406 + + CHAPTER XXIV. + + ENGLISH CARICATURE IN THE AGE OF GEORGE II.--ENGLISH + PRINTSELLERS--ARTISTS EMPLOYED BY THEM--SIR ROBERT + WALPOLE'S LONG MINISTRY--THE WAR WITH FRANCE--THE + NEWCASTLE ADMINISTRATION--OPERA INTRIGUES--ACCESSION + OF GEORGE III., AND LORD BUTE IN POWER 420 + + CHAPTER XXV. + + HOGARTH--HIS EARLY HISTORY--HIS SETS OF PICTURES--THE + HARLOT'S PROGRESS--THE RAKE'S PROGRESS--THE MARRIAGE A + LA MODE--HIS OTHER PRINTS--THE ANALYSIS OF BEAUTY, AND + THE PERSECUTION ARISING OUT OF IT--HIS PATRONAGE BY + LORD BUTE--CARICATURE OF THE TIMES--ATTACKS TO WHICH + HE WAS EXPOSED BY IT, AND WHICH HASTENED HIS DEATH 434 + + CHAPTER XXVI. + + THE LESSER CARICATURISTS OF THE REIGN OF GEORGE + III.--PAUL SANDBY--COLLET: THE DISASTER, + AND FATHER PAUL IN HIS CUPS--JAMES SAYER: + HIS CARICATURES IN SUPPORT OF PITT, AND HIS + REWARD--CARLO KHAN'S TRIUMPH--BUNBURY'S: HIS + CARICATURES ON HORSEMANSHIP--WOODWARD: GENERAL + COMPLAINT--ROWLANDSON'S INFLUENCE ON THE STYLE OF + THOSE WHOSE DESIGNS HE ETCHED--JOHN KAY OF EDINBURGH: + LOOKING A ROCK IN THE FACE 450 + + CHAPTER XXVII. + + GILLRAY--HIS FIRST ATTEMPTS--HIS CARICATURES BEGIN + WITH THE SHELBURNE MINISTRY--IMPEACHMENT OF + WARREN HASTINGS--CARICATURES ON THE KING; NEW + WAY TO PAY THE NATIONAL DEBT--ALLEGED REASON FOR + GILLRAY'S HOSTILITY TO THE KING--THE KING AND THE + APPLE-DUMPLINGS--GILLRAY'S LATER LABOURS--HIS IDIOTCY + AND DEATH 464 + + CHAPTER XXVIII. + + GILLRAY'S CARICATURES ON SOCIAL LIFE--THOMAS + ROWLANDSON--HIS EARLY LIFE--HE BECOMES A + CARICATURIST--HIS STYLE AND WORKS--HIS DRAWINGS--THE + CRUIKSHANKS 480 + + + + + A HISTORY + + OF + + CARICATURE AND GROTESQUE. + + + + + CHAPTER I. + + ORIGIN OF CARICATURE AND GROTESQUE.--SPIRIT OF CARICATURE IN + EGYPT.--MONSTERS: PYTHON AND GORGON.--GREECE.--THE DIONYSIAC + CEREMONIES, AND ORIGIN OF THE DRAMA.--THE OLD COMEDY.--LOVE OF + PARODY.--PARODIES ON SUBJECTS TAKEN FROM GRECIAN MYTHOLOGY: THE + VISIT TO THE LOVER: APOLLO AT DELPHI.--THE PARTIALITY FOR PARODY + CONTINUED AMONG THE ROMANS: THE FLIGHT OF ÆNEAS. + + +It is not my intention in the following pages to discuss the question +what constitutes the comic or the laughable, or, in other words, to +enter into the philosophy of the subject; I design only to trace +the history of its outward development, the various forms it has +assumed, and its social influence. Laughter appears to be almost a +necessity of human nature, in all conditions of man's existence, +however rude or however cultivated; and some of the greatest men of +all ages, men of the most refined intellects, such as Cicero in the +ages of antiquity, and Erasmus among the moderns, have been celebrated +for their indulgence in it. The former was sometimes called by his +opponents _scurra consularis_, the "consular jester;" and the latter, +who has been spoken of as the "mocking-bird," is said to have laughed +so immoderately over the well-known "Epistolæ Obscurorum Virorum," +that he brought upon himself a serious fit of illness. The greatest of +comic writers, Aristophanes, has always been looked upon as a model of +literary perfection. An epigram in the Greek Anthology, written by the +divine Plato, tells us how, when the Graces sought a temple which would +not fall, they found the soul of Aristophanes:-- + + Ἁι χάριτες τέμενός τι λαβεῖν ὁπερ οὐχὶ πεσεῖται + Ζητοῦσαι, ψυχὴν εὔρον Ἀριστοφάνους. + +On the other hand, the men who never laughed, the ἀγέλαστοι, were +looked upon as the least respectable of mortals. + +A tendency to burlesque and caricature appears, indeed, to be a feeling +deeply implanted in human nature, and it is one of the earliest talents +displayed by people in a rude state of society. An appreciation of, and +sensitiveness to, ridicule, and a love of that which is humorous, are +found even among savages, and enter largely into their relations with +their fellow men. When, before people cultivated either literature or +art, the chieftain sat in his rude hall surrounded by his warriors, +they amused themselves by turning their enemies and opponents into +mockery, by laughing at their weaknesses, joking on their defects, +whether physical or mental, and giving them nicknames in accordance +therewith,--in fact, caricaturing them in words, or by telling stories +which were calculated to excite laughter. When the agricultural slaves +(for the tillers of the land were then slaves) were indulged with a +day of relief from their labours, they spent it in unrestrained mirth. +And when these same people began to erect permanent buildings, and +to ornament them, the favourite subjects of their ornamentation were +such as presented ludicrous ideas. The warrior, too, who caricatured +his enemy in his speeches over the festive board, soon sought to give +a more permanent form to his ridicule, which he endeavoured to do by +rude delineations on the bare rock, or on any other convenient surface +which presented itself to his hand. Thus originated caricature and +the grotesque in art. In fact, art itself, in its earliest forms, is +caricature; for it is only by that exaggeration of features which +belongs to caricature, that unskilful draughtsmen could make themselves +understood. + + [Illustration: _No. 1. An Egyptian Lady at a Feast._] + +Although we might, perhaps, find in different countries examples of +these principles in different states of development, we cannot in any +one country trace the entire course of the development itself: for in +all the highly civilised races of mankind, we first become acquainted +with their history when they had already reached a considerable +degree of refinement; and even at that period of their progress, our +knowledge is almost confined to their religious, and to their more +severely historical, monuments. Such is especially the case with +Egypt, the history of which country, as represented by its monuments +of art, carries us back to the remotest ages of antiquity. Egyptian +art generally presents itself in a sombre and massive character, with +little of gaiety or joviality in its designs or forms. Yet, as Sir +Gardner Wilkinson has remarked in his valuable work on the "Manners +and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians," the early Egyptian artists +cannot always conceal their natural tendency to the humorous, which +creeps out in a variety of little incidents. Thus, in a series of grave +historical pictures on one of the great monuments at Thebes, we find +a representation of a wine party, where the company consists of both +sexes, and which evidently shows that the ladies were not restricted +in the use of the juice of the grape in their entertainments; and, +as he adds, "the painters, in illustrating this fact, have sometimes +sacrificed their gallantry to a love of caricature." Among the +females, evidently of rank, represented in this scene, "some call the +servants to support them as they sit, others with difficulty prevent +themselves from falling on those behind them, and the faded flower, +which is ready to drop from their heated hands, is intended to be +characteristic of their own sensations." One group, a lady whose +excess has been carried too far, and her servant who comes to her +assistance, is represented in our cut No. 1. Sir Gardner observes that +"many similar instances of a talent for caricature are observable in +the compositions of the Egyptian artists, who executed the paintings +of the tombs" at Thebes, which belong to a very early period of the +Egyptian annals. Nor is the application of this talent restricted +always to secular subjects, but we see it at times intruding into the +most sacred mysteries of their religion. I give as a curious example, +taken from one of Sir Gardner Wilkinson's engravings, a scene in the +representation of a funeral procession crossing the Lake of the Dead +(No. 2), that appears in one of these early paintings at Thebes, in +which "the love of caricature common to the Egyptians is shown to have +been indulged even in this serious subject; and the retrograde movement +of the large boat, which has grounded and is pushed off the bank, +striking the smaller one with its rudder, has overturned a large table +loaded with cakes and other things, upon the rowers seated below, in +spite of all the efforts of the prowman, and the earnest vociferations +of the alarmed steersman." The accident which thus overthrows and +scatters the provisions intended for the funeral feast, and the +confusion attendant upon it, form a ludicrous scene in the midst of a +solemn picture, that would be worthy of the imagination of a Rowlandson. + + [Illustration: _No. 2. Catastrophe in a Funeral Procession._] + + [Illustration: _No. 3. An Unfortunate Soul._] + +Another cut (No. 3), taken from one of the same series of paintings, +belongs to a class of caricatures which dates from a very remote +period. One of the most natural ideas among all people would be to +compare men with the animals whose particular qualities they possessed. +Thus, one might be as bold as a lion, another as faithful as a dog, +or as cunning as a fox, or as swinish as a hog. The name of the +animal would thus often be given as a nickname to the man, and in +the sequel he would be represented pictorially under the form of the +animal. It was partly out of this kind of caricature, no doubt, that +the singular class of apologues which have been since distinguished +by the name of fables arose. Connected with it was the belief in +the metempsychosis, or transmission of the soul into the bodies of +animals after death, which formed a part of several of the primitive +religions. The earliest examples of this class of caricature of mankind +are found on the Egyptian monuments, as in the instance just referred +to, which represents "a soul condemned to return to earth under the +form of a pig, having been weighed in the scales before Osiris and +been found wanting. Being placed in a boat, and accompanied by two +monkeys, it is dismissed the sacred precinct." The latter animals, it +may be remarked, as they are here represented, are the cynocephali, or +dog-headed monkeys (the _simia inuus_), which were sacred animals among +the Egyptians, and the peculiar characteristic of which--the dog-shaped +head--is, as usual, exaggerated by the artist. + +The representation of this return of a condemned soul under the +repulsive form of a pig, is painted on the left side wall of the long +entrance-gallery to the tomb of King Rameses V., in the valley of +royal catacombs known as the Biban-el-Molook, at Thebes. Wilkinson +gives the date of the accession of this monarch to the throne as 1185, +B.C. In the original picture, Osiris is seated on his throne +at some distance from the stern of the boat, and is dismissing it from +his presence by a wave of the hand. This tomb was open in the time of +the Romans, and termed by them the "Tomb of Memnon;" it was greatly +admired, and is covered with laudatory inscriptions by Greek and Roman +visitors. One of the most interesting is placed beneath this picture, +recording the name of a _daduchus_, or torch-bearer in the Eleusinian +mysteries, who visited this tomb in the reign of Constantine. + + [Illustration: _No. 4. The Cat and the Geese._] + + [Illustration: _No. 5. The Fox turned Piper._] + +The practice having been once introduced of representing men under the +character of animals, was soon developed into other applications of the +same idea--such as that of figuring animals employed in the various +occupations of mankind, and that of reversing the position of man and +the inferior animals, and representing the latter as treating their +human tyrant in the same manner as they are usually treated by him. +The latter idea became a very favourite one at a later period, but +the other is met with not unfrequently among the works of art which +have been saved from the wrecks of antiquity. Among the treasures +of the British Museum, there is a long Egyptian picture on papyrus, +originally forming a roll, consisting of representations of this +description, from which I give three curious examples. The first (see +cut No. 4) represents a cat in charge of a drove of geese. It will be +observed that the cat holds in her hand the same sort of rod, with a +hook at the end, with which the monkeys are furnished in the preceding +picture. The second (No. 5) represents a fox carrying a basket by means +of a pole supported on his shoulder (a method of carrying burthens +frequently represented on the monuments of ancient art), and playing on +the well-known double flute, or pipe. The fox soon became a favourite +personage in this class of caricatures, and we know what a prominent +part he afterwards played in mediæval satire. Perhaps, however, the +most popular of all animals in this class of drolleries was the monkey, +which appears natural enough when we consider its singular aptitude +to mimic the actions of man. The ancient naturalists tell us some +curious, though not very credible, stories of the manner in which this +characteristic of the monkey tribes was taken advantage of to entrap +them, and Pliny (Hist. Nat. lib. viii. c. 80) quotes an older writer, +who asserted that they had even been taught to play at draughts. Our +third subject from the Egyptian papyrus of the British Museum (No. 6) +represents a scene in which the game of draughts--or, more properly +speaking, the game which the Romans called the _ludus latrunculorum_, +and which is believed to have resembled our draughts--is played by two +animals well known to modern heraldry, the lion and the unicorn. The +lion has evidently gained the victory, and is fingering the money; and +his bold air of swaggering superiority, as well as the look of surprise +and disappointment of his vanquished opponent, are by no means ill +pictured. This series of caricatures, though Egyptian, belongs to the +Roman period. + + [Illustration: _No. 6. The Lion and the Unicorn._] + + [Illustration: _No. 7. Typhon._] + +The monstrous is closely allied to the grotesque, and both come within +the province of caricature, when we take this term in its widest +sense. The Greeks, especially, were partial to representations of +monsters, and monstrous forms are continually met with among their +ornaments and works of art. The type of the Egyptian monster is +represented in the accompanying cut (No. 7), taken from the work of +Sir Gardner Wilkinson before quoted, and is said to be the figure +of the god Typhon. It occurs frequently on Egyptian monuments, with +some variation in its forms, but always characterised by the broad, +coarse, and frightful face, and by the large tongue lolling out. It is +interesting to us, because it is the apparent origin of a long series +of faces, or masks, of this form and character, which are continually +recurring in the grotesque ornamentation, not only of the Greeks and +Romans, but of the middle ages. It appears to have been sometimes given +by the Romans to the representations of people whom they hated or +despised; and Pliny, in a curious passage of his "Natural History,"[1] +informs us that at one time, among the pictures exhibited in the Forum +at Rome, there was one in which a Gaul was represented, "thrusting +out his tongue in a very unbecoming manner." The Egyptian Typhons had +their exact representations in ancient Greece in a figure of frequent +occurrence, to which antiquaries have, I know not why, given the name +of Gorgon. The example in our cut No. 8, is a figure in terra-cotta, +now in the collection of the Royal Museum at Berlin.[2] + + [1] Plin. Hist. Nat., lib. xxxv. c. 8. + + [2] Panoska Terracotten des Museums Berlin, pl. lxi. p. 154. + + [Illustration: _No. 8. Gorgon._] + +In Greece, however, the spirit of caricature and burlesque +representation had assumed a more regular form than in other +countries, for it was inherent in the spirit of Grecian society. +Among the population of Greece, the worship of Dionysus, or Bacchus, +had taken deep root from a very early period--earlier than we can +trace back--and it formed the nucleus of the popular religion and +superstitions, the cradle of poetry and the drama. The most popular +celebrations of the people of Greece, were the Dionysiac festivals, +and the phallic rites and processions which accompanied them, in +which the chief actors assumed the disguise of satyrs and fawns, +covering themselves with goat-skins, and disfiguring their faces by +rubbing them over with the lees of wine. Thus, in the guise of noisy +bacchanals, they displayed an unrestrained licentiousness of gesture +and language, uttering indecent jests and abusive speeches, in which +they spared nobody. This portion of the ceremony was the especial +attribute of a part of the performers, who accompanied the procession +in waggons, and acted something like dramatic performances, in which +they uttered an abundance of loose extempore satire on those who +passed or who accompanied the procession, a little in the style of +the modern carnivals. It became thus the occasion for an unrestrained +publication of coarse pasquinades. In the time of Pisistratus, these +performances are assumed to have been reduced to a little more order by +an individual named Thespis, who is said to have invented masks as a +better disguise than dirty faces, and is looked upon as the father of +the Grecian drama. There can be no doubt, indeed, that the drama arose +out of these popular ceremonies, and it long bore the unmistakable +marks of its origin. Even the name of tragedy has nothing tragic in +its derivation, for it is formed from the Greek word _tragos_ +(τράγος), a goat, in the skins of which animal the satyrs clothed +themselves, and hence the name was given also to those who personated +the satyrs in the processions. A _tragodus_ (τραγῳδὸς) was the singer, +whose words accompanied the movements of a chorus of satyrs, and the +term _tragodia_ was applied to his performance. In the same manner, +a _comodus_ (κωμωδὸς) was one who accompanied similarly, with chants +of an abusive or satirical character, a _comus_ (κῶμος), or band of +revellers, in the more riotous and licentious portion of the +performances in the Bacchic festivals. The Greek drama always betrayed +its origin by the circumstance that the performances took place +annually, only at the yearly festivals in honour of Bacchus, of which +in fact they constituted a part. Moreover, as the Greek drama became +perfected, it still retained from its origin a triple division, into +tragedy, comedy, and the satiric drama; and, being still performed +at the Dionysiac festival in Athens, each dramatic author was expected +to produce what was called a _trilogy_, that is, a tragedy, a satirical +play, and a comedy. So completely was all this identified in the +popular mind with the worship of Bacchus, that, long afterwards, when +even a tragedy did not please the audience by its subject, the common +form of disapproval was, τί ταῦτα πρὸς τὸν Διόνυσον--"What has this +to do with Bacchus?" and, οὐδὲν πρὸς τὸν Διόνυσον--"This has nothing +to do with Bacchus." + +We have no perfect remains of the Greek satiric drama, which was, +perhaps, of a temporary character, and less frequently preserved; but +the early Greek comedy is preserved in a certain number of the plays +of Aristophanes, in which we can contemplate it in all its freedom of +character. It represented the waggon-jesting, of the age of Thespis, in +its full development. In its form it was burlesque to a wanton degree +of extravagance, and its essence was personal vilification, as well as +general satire. Individuals were not only attacked by the application +to them of abusive epithets, but they were represented personally on +the stage as performing every kind of contemptible action, and as +suffering all sorts of ludicrous and disgraceful treatment. The drama +thus bore marks of its origin in its extraordinary licentiousness +of language and costume, and in the constant use of the mask. One +of its most favourite instruments of satire was parody, which was +employed unsparingly on everything which society in its solemn moments +respected--against everything that the satirist considered worthy of +being held up to public derision or scorn. Religion itself, philosophy, +social manners and institutions--even poetry--were all parodied in +their turn. The comedies of Aristophanes are full of parodies on the +poetry of the tragic and other writers of his age. He is especially +happy in parodying the poetry of the tragic dramatist Euripides. The +old comedy of Greece has thus been correctly described as the comedy of +caricature; and the spirit, and even the scenes, of this comedy, being +transferred to pictorial representations, became entirely identical +with that branch of art to which we give the name of caricature in +modern times. Under the cover of bacchanalian buffoonery, a serious +purpose, it is true, was aimed at; but the general satire was chiefly +implied in the violent personal attacks on individuals, and this became +so offensive that when such persons obtained greater power in Athens +than the populace the old comedy was abolished. + +Aristophanes was the greatest and most perfect poet of the Old Comedy, +and his remaining comedies are as strongly marked representations of +the hostility of political and social parties in his time, as the +caricatures of Gillray are of party in the reign of our George III., +and, we may add, even more minute. They range through the memorable +period of the Peloponnesian war, and the earlier ones give us the +regular annual series of these performances, as far as Aristophanes +contributed them, during several years. The first of them, "The +Acharnians," was performed at the Lenæan feast of Bacchus in the sixth +year of the Peloponnesian war, the year 425 B.C., when it gained the +first prize. It is a bold attack on the factious prolongation of the +war through the influence of the Athenian demagogues. The next, "The +Knights," brought out in B.C. 424, is a direct attack upon Cleon, the +chief of these demagogues, although he is not mentioned by name; and +it is recorded that, finding nobody who had courage enough to make a +mask representing Cleon, or to play the character, Aristophanes was +obliged to perform it himself, and that he smeared his face with lees +of wine, in order to represent the flushed and bloated countenance of +the great demagogue, thus returning to the original mode of acting +of the predecessors of Thespis. This, too, was the first of the +comedies of Aristophanes which he published in his own name. "The +Clouds," published in 423, is aimed at Socrates and the philosophers. +The fourth, "The Wasps," published in B.C. 422, presents a satire on +the litigious spirit of the Athenians. The fifth, entitled "Peace" +(Ἔιρηνη), appeared in the year following, at the time of the peace of +Nicias, and is another satire on the bellicose spirit of the Athenian +democracy. The next in the list of extant plays comes after an interval +of several years, having been published in B.C. 414, the first year of +the Sicilian war, and relates to an irreligious movement in Athens, +which had caused a great sensation. Two Athenians are represented as +leaving Athens, in disgust at the vices and follies of their fellow +citizens, and seeking the kingdom of the birds, where they form a new +state, by which the communication between the mortals and the immortals +is cut off, and is only opened again by an arrangement between all +the parties. In the "Lysistrata," believed to have been brought out +in 411, when the war was still at its height, the women of Athens are +represented as engaging in a cunning and successful plot, by which +they gain possession of the government of the state, and compel their +husbands to make peace. "The Thesmophoriazusæ," appears to have been +published in B.C. 410; it is a satire upon Euripides, whose writings +were remarkable for their bitter attacks on the character of the +female sex, who, in this comedy, conspire against him to secure his +punishment. The comedy of "The Frogs" was brought out in the year +405 B.C., and is a satire on the literature of the day; it +is aimed especially at Euripides, and was perhaps written soon after +his death, its real subject being the decline of the tragic drama, +which Euripides was accused of having promoted. It is perhaps the most +witty of the plays of Aristophanes which have been preserved. "The +Ecclesiazusæ," published in 392, is a burlesque upon the theories of +republican government, which were then started among the philosophers, +some of which differed little from our modern communism. The ladies +again, by a clever conspiracy, gain the mastery in the estate, and they +decree a community of goods and women, with some laws very peculiar +to that state of things. The humour of the piece, which is extremely +broad, turns upon the disputes and embarrassments resulting from this +state of things. The last of his comedies extant, "Plutus," appears to +be a work of the concluding years of the active life of Aristophanes; +it is the least striking of them all, and is rather a moral than a +political satire. + +In a comedy brought out in 426, the year before "The Archarnians," +under the title of "The Babylonians," Aristophanes appears to have +given great offence to the democratic party, a circumstance to which +he alludes more than once in the former play. However, his talents and +popularity seem to have carried him over the danger, and certainly +nothing can have exceeded the bitterness of satire employed in his +subsequent comedies. Those who followed him were less fortunate. + +One of the latest writers of the Old Comedy was Anaximandrides, +who cast a reflection on the state of Athens in parodying a line of +Euripides. This poet had said,-- + + ἡ φύσις ἐβούλεθ’ ἦ νόμων οὐδεν μέλει + (Nature has commanded, which cares nothing for the laws); + +which Anaximandrides changed to-- + + ἡ πόλις ἐβούλεθ’ ἦ νόμων οὐδεν μέλει + (The state has commanded, which cares nothing for the laws). + +Nowhere is oppression exercised with greater harshness than under +democratic governments; and Anaximandrides was prosecuted for this +joke as a crime against the state, and condemned to death. As may be +supposed, liberty of speech ceased to exist in Athens. We are well +acquainted with the character of the Old Comedy, in its greatest +freedom, through the writings of Aristophanes. What was called the +Middle Comedy, in which political satire was prohibited, lasted from +this time until the age of Philip of Macedon, when the old liberty of +Greece was finally crushed. The last form of Greek comedy followed, +which is known as the New Comedy, and was represented by such names as +Epicharmus and Menander. In the New Comedy all caricature and parody, +and all personal allusions, were entirely proscribed; it was changed +entirely into a comedy of manners and domestic life, a picture of +contemporary society under conventional names and characters. From this +New Comedy was taken the Roman comedy, such as we now have it in the +plays of Plautus and Terence, who were professed imitators of Menander +and the other writers of the new comedy of the Greeks. + + [Illustration: _No. 9. A Greek Parody._] + +Pictorial caricature was, of course, rarely to be seen on the public +monuments of Greece or Rome, but must have been consigned to objects +of a more popular character and to articles of common use; and, +accordingly, modern antiquarian research has brought it to light +somewhat abundantly on the pottery of Greece and Etruria, and on the +wall-paintings of domestic buildings in Herculaneum and Pompeii. The +former contains comic scenes, especially parodies, which are evidently +transferred to them from the stage, and which preserve the marks and +other attributes--some of which I have necessarily omitted--proving the +model from which they were taken. The Greeks, as we know from many +sources, were extremely fond of parodies of every description, whether +literary or pictorial. The subject of our cut No. 9 is a good example +of the parodies found on the Greek pottery; it is taken from a fine +Etruscan vase,[3] and has been supposed to be a parody on the visit of +Jupiter to Alcmena. This appears rather doubtful, but there can be no +doubt that it is a burlesque representation of the visit of a lover +to the object of his aspirations. The lover, in the comic mask and +costume, mounts by a ladder to the window at which the lady presents +herself, who, it must be confessed, presents the appearance of giving +her admirer a very cold reception. He tries to conciliate her by a +present of what seem to be apples, instead of gold, but without much +effect. He is attended by his servant with a torch, to give him light +on the way, which shows that it is a night adventure. Both master and +servant have wreaths round their heads, and the latter carries a third +in his hand, which, with the contents of his basket, are also probably +intended as presents to the lady. + + [3] Given in Panofka, "Antiques du Cabinet Pourtalès," pl. x. + +A more unmistakable burlesque on the visit of Jupiter to Alcmena is +published by Winckelmann from a vase, formerly in the library of the +Vatican, and now at St. Petersburg. The treatment of the subject is +not unlike the picture just described. Alcmena appears just in the +same posture at her chamber window, and Jupiter is carrying his ladder +to mount up to her, but has not yet placed it against the wall. His +companion is identified with Mercury by the well-known caduceus he +carries in his left hand, while with his right hand he holds a lamp +up to the window, in order to enable Jupiter to see the object of his +amour. + +It is astonishing with how much boldness the Greeks parodied and +ridiculed sacred subjects. The Christian father, Arnobius, in writing +against his heathen opponents, reproached them with this circumstance. +The laws, he says, were made to protect the characters of men from +slander and libel, but there was no such protection for the characters +of the gods, which were treated with the greatest disrespect.[4] This +was especially the case in their pictorial representations. + + [4] Arnobius (_contra Gentes_), lib. iv. p. 150. Carmen malum + conscribere, quo fama alterius coinquinatur et vita, decemviralibus + scitis evadere noluistis impune: ac ne vestras aures convitio + aliquis petulantiore pulsaret, de atrocibus formulas constituistis + injuriis. Soli dii sunt apud vos superi inhonorati, contemtibiles, + viles: in quos jus est vobis datum quæ quisque voluerit dicere + turpitudinem, jacere quas libido confinxerit atque excogitaverit + formas. + +Pliny informs us that Ctesilochus, a pupil of the celebrated Apelles, +painted a burlesque picture of Jupiter giving birth to Bacchus, in +which the god was represented in a very ridiculous posture.[5] Ancient +writers intimate that similar examples were not uncommon, and mention +the names of several comic painters, whose works of this class were +in repute. Some of these were bitter personal caricatures, like a +celebrated work of a painter named Ctesicles, described also by Pliny. +It appears that Stratonice, the queen of Seleucus Nicator, had received +this painter ill when he visited her court, and in revenge he executed +a picture in which she was represented, according to a current scandal, +as engaged in an amour with a common fisherman, which he exhibited in +the harbour of Ephesus, and then made his escape on ship-board. Pliny +adds that the queen admired the beauty and accuracy of the painting +more than she felt the insult, and that she forbade the removal of the +picture.[6] + + [5] Pliny, Hist. Nat., lib. xxxv. c. 40. + + [6] Pliny, Hist. Nat., lib. xxxv. c. 40. + + [Illustration: _No. 10. Apollo at Delphi._] + +The subject of our second example of the Greek caricature is better +known. It is taken from an oxybaphon which was brought from the +Continent to England, where it passed into the collection of Mr. +William Hope.[7] The _oxybaphon_ (ὀξύβαφον), or, as it was called +by the Romans, _acetabulum_, was a large vessel for holding vinegar, +which formed one of the important ornaments of the table, and was +therefore very susceptible of pictorial embellishment of this +description. It is one of the most remarkable Greek caricatures +of this kind yet known, and represents a parody on one of the most +interesting stories of the Grecian mythology, that of the arrival of +Apollo at Delphi. The artist, in his love of burlesque, has spared +none of the personages who belonged to the story. The Hyperborean +Apollo himself appears in the character of a quack doctor, on his +temporary stage, covered by a sort of roof, and approached by wooden +steps. On the stage lies Apollo's luggage, consisting of a bag, a +bow, and his Scythian cap. Chiron (ΧΙΡΩΝ) is represented as labouring +under the effects of age and blindness, and supporting himself by the +aid of a crooked staff, as he repairs to the Delphian quack-doctor for +relief. The figure of the centaur is made to ascend by the aid of a +companion, both being furnished with the masks and other attributes of +the comic performers. Above are the mountains, and on them the nymphs +of Parnassus (ΝΥΜΦΑΙ), who, like all the other actors in the scene, are +disguised with masks, and those of a very grotesque character. On the +right-hand side stands a figure which is considered as representing the +_epoptes_, the inspector or overseer of the performance, who alone wears +no mask. Even a pun is employed to heighten the drollery of the scene, +for instead of ΠΥΘΙΑΣ, the Pythian, placed over the head of the +burlesque Apollo, it seems evident that the artist had written ΠΕΙΘΙΑΣ, +the consoler, in allusion, perhaps, to the consolation which the +quack-doctor is administering to his blind and aged visitor. + + [7] Engraved by Ch. Lenormant et J. de Witt, "Elite des Monuments + Céramographiques," pl. xciv. + + [Illustration: _No. 11. The Flight of Æneas from Troy._] + +The Greek spirit of parody, applied even to the most sacred subjects, +however it may have declined in Greece, was revived at Rome, and we +find examples of it on the walls of Pompeii and Herculaneum. They +show the same readiness to turn into burlesque the most sacred and +popular legends of the Roman mythology. The example given (cut No. 11), +from one of the wall-paintings, is peculiarly interesting, both from +circumstances in the drawing itself, and because it is a parody on +one of the favourite national legends of the Roman people, who prided +themselves on their descent from Æneas. Virgil has told, with great +effect, the story of his hero's escape from the destruction of Troy--or +rather has put the story into his hero's mouth. When the devoted +city was already in flames, Æneas took his father, Anchises, on his +shoulder, and his boy, Iulus, or, as he was otherwise called, Ascanius, +by the hand, and thus fled from his home, followed by his wife-- + + _Ergo age, care pater, cervici imponere nostræ; + Ipse subibo humeris, nec me labor iste gravabit. + Quo res cumque cadent, unum et commune periclum, + Una salus ambobus erit. Mihi parvus Iulus + Sit comes, et longe servat vestigia conjux._ + --Virg. Æn., lib. ii. l. 707. + +Thus they hurried on, the child holding by his father's right hand, and +dragging after with "unequal steps,"-- + + _dextræ se parvus Iulus + Implicuit sequiturque patrem non passibus æquis._ + --Virg. Æn., lib. ii. 1. 723. + +And thus Æneas bore away both father and son, and the penates, or +household gods, of his family, which were to be transferred to another +country, and become the future guardians of Rome-- + + _Ascanium, Anchisemque patrem, Tencrosque penates._--Ib., 1. 747. + + [Illustration: _No. 12. The Flight of Æneas._] + +In this case we know that the design is intended to be a parody, or +burlesque, upon a picture which appears to have been celebrated at the +time, and of which at least two different copies are found upon ancient +intaglios. It is the only case I know in which both the original and +the parody have been preserved from this remote period, and this is so +curious a circumstance, that I give in the cut on the preceding page +a copy of one of the intaglios.[8] It represented literally Virgil's +account of the story, and the only difference between the design on the +intaglios and the one given in our first cut is, that in the latter +the personages are represented under the forms of monkeys. Æneas, +personified by the strong and vigorous animal, carrying the old monkey, +Anchises, on his left shoulder, hurries forward, and at the same time +looks back on the burning city. With his right hand he drags along +the boy Iulus, or Ascanius, who is evidently proceeding _non passibus +æquis_, and with difficulty keeps up with his father's pace. The boy +wears a Phrygian bonnet, and holds in his right hand the instrument +of play which we should now call a "bandy"--the pedun. Anchises has +charge of the box, which contains the sacred penates. It is a curious +circumstance that the monkeys in this picture are the same dog-headed +animals, or cynocephali, which are found on the Egyptian monuments. + + [8] These intaglios are engraved in the Museum Florentinum of Gorius, + vol. ii. pl. 30. On one of them the figures are reversed. + + * * * * * + + When this chapter was already given for press, I first became + acquainted with an interesting paper, by Panofka, on the "Parodieen + und Karikaturen auf Werken der Klassischen Kunst," in the + "Abhandlungen der Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin," for the + year 1854, and I can only now refer my readers to it. + + + + + CHAPTER II. + + ORIGIN OF THE STAGE IN ROME.--USES OF THE MASK AMONG THE + ROMANS.--SCENES FROM ROMAN COMEDY.--THE SANNIO AND MIMUS.--THE + ROMAN DRAMA.--THE ROMAN SATIRISTS.--CARICATURE.--ANIMALS + INTRODUCED IN THE CHARACTERS OF MEN.--THE PIGMIES, AND THEIR + INTRODUCTION INTO CARICATURE; THE FARM-YARD; THE PAINTER'S STUDIO; + THE PROCESSION.--POLITICAL CARICATURE IN POMPEII; THE GRAFFITI. + + +The Romans appear to have never had any real taste for the regular +drama, which they merely copied from the Greeks, and from the earliest +period of their history we find them borrowing all their arts of this +description from their neighbours. In Italy, as in Greece, the first +germs of comic literature may be traced in the religious festivals, +which presented a mixture of religious worship and riotous festivity, +where the feasters danced and sung, and, as they became excited with +wine and enthusiasm, indulged in mutual reproaches and abuse. The +oldest poetry of the Romans, which was composed in irregular measure, +was represented by the _versus saturnini_, said to have been so called +from their antiquity (for things of remote antiquity were believed to +belong to the age of Saturn). Nævius, one of the oldest of Latin poets, +is said to have written in this verse. Next in order of time came the +Fescennine verses, which appear to have been distinguished chiefly +by their license, and received their name because they were brought +from Fescennia, in Etruria, where they were employed originally in the +festivals of Ceres and Bacchus. In the year 391 of Rome, or 361 B.C., +the city was visited by a dreadful plague, and the citizens hit upon +what will appear to us the rather strange expedient of sending for +performers (_ludiones_) from Etruria, hoping, by employing them, to +appease the anger of the gods. Any performer of this kind appears to +have been so little known to the Romans before this, that there was +not even a name for him in the language, and they were obliged to adopt +the Tuscan word, and call him a _histrio_, because _hister_ in that +language meant a player or pantomimist. This word, we know, remained +in the Latin language. These first Etrurian performers appear indeed +to have been mere pantomimists, who accompanied the flute with all +sorts of mountebank tricks, gestures, dances, gesticulations, and the +like, mixed with satirical songs, and sometimes with the performance of +coarse farces. The Romans had also a class of performances rather more +dramatic in character, consisting of stories which were named _Fabulæ +Atellanæ_, because these performers were brought from Atella, a city of +the Osci. + +A considerable advance was made in dramatic Art in Rome about the +middle of the third century before Christ. It is ascribed to a freedman +named Livius Andronicus, a Greek by birth, who is said to have brought +out, in the year 240 B.C., the first regular comedy ever performed in +Rome. Thus we trace not only the Roman comedy, but the very rudiments +of dramatic art in Rome, either direct to the Greeks, or to the Grecian +colonies in Italy. With the Romans, as well as with the Greeks, the +theatre was a popular institution, open to the public, and the state +or a wealthy individual paid for the performance; and therefore the +building itself was necessarily of very great extent, and, in both +countries open to the sky, except that the Romans provided for throwing +an awning over it. As the Roman comedy was copied from the new comedy +of the Greeks, and therefore did not admit of the introduction of +caricature and burlesque on the stage, these were left especially to +the province of the pantomime and farce, which the Romans, as just +stated, had received from a still earlier period. + + [Illustration: _No. 13. A Scene from Terence._] + + [Illustration: _No. 14. Geta and Demea._] + +Whether the Romans borrowed the mask from the Greeks, or not, is +rather uncertain, but it was used as generally in the Roman theatres, +whether in comedy or tragedy, as among the Greeks. The Greek actors +performed upon stilts, in order to magnify their figures, as the area +of the theatre was very large and uncovered, and without this help +they were not so well seen at a distance; and one object of utility +aimed at by the mask is said to have been to make the head appear +proportionate in size to the artificial height of the body. It may +be remarked that the mask seems generally to have been made to cover +the whole head, representing the hair as well as the face, so that +the character of age or complexion might be given complete. Among the +Romans the stilts were certainly not in general use, but still the +mask, besides its comic or tragic character, is supposed to have served +useful purposes. The first improvement upon its original structure +is said to have been the making it of brass, or some other sonorous +metal, or at least lining the mouth with it, so as to reverberate, and +give force to the voice, and also to the mouth of the mask something +of the character of a speaking-trumpet.[9] All these accessories could +not fail to detract much from the effect of the acting, which must in +general have been very measured and formal, and have received most of +its importance from the excellence of the poetry, and the declamatory +talents of the actors. We have pictures in which scenes from the Roman +stage are accurately represented. Several rather early manuscripts of +Terence have been preserved, illustrated with drawings of the scenes +as represented on the stage, and these, though belonging to a period +long subsequent to the age in which the Roman stage existed in its +original character, are, no doubt, copied from drawings of an earlier +date. A German antiquary of the last century, Henry Berger, published +in a quarto volume a series of such illustrations from a manuscript of +Terence in the library of the Vatican at Rome, from which two examples +are selected, as showing the usual style of Roman comic acting, and +the use of the mask. The first (No. 13) is the opening scene in the +_Andria_. On the right, two servants have brought provisions, and on +the left appear Simo, the master of the household, and his freedman, +Sosia, who seems to be entrusted with the charge of his domestic +affairs. Simo tells his servants to go away with the provisions, while +he beckons Sosia to confer with him in private:-- + + Si. _Vos istæc intro auferte; abite. Sosia, + Adesdum; paucis te volo._ So. _Dictum puta + Nempe ut curentur recte hæc._ Si. _Imo aliud_. + Terent. Andr., Actus i., Scena 1. + +When we compare these words with the picture, we cannot but feel +that in the latter there is an unnecessary degree of energy put into +the _pose_ of the figures; which is perhaps less the case in the +other (No. 14), an illustration of the sixth scene of the fifth act +of the _Adelphi_ of Terence. It represents the meeting of Geta, a +rather talkative and conceited servant, and Demea, a countryfied and +churlish old man, his acquaintance, and of course superior. To Geta's +salutation, Demea asks churlishly, as not at first knowing him, "Who +are you?" but when he finds that it is Geta, he changes suddenly to an +almost fawning tone:-- + + G. ... _Sed eccum Demeam. Salvus fies._ + D. _Oh, qui vocare?_ G. _Geta._ D. _Geta, hominem maximi + Pretii esse te hodie judicavi animo mei._ + + [9] It is said to have received its Latin name from this circumstance, + _persona, a personando_. See Aulus Gellius, Noct. Att., lib. v. + c. 7. + + [Illustration: _No. 15. Comic Scene from Pompeii._] + +That these representations are truthful, the scenes in the +wall-paintings of Pompeii leave us no room to doubt. One of these is +produced in our cut No. 15, which is no doubt taken from a comedy +now lost, and we are ignorant whom the characters are intended to +represent. The _pose_ given to the two comic figures, compared with +the example given from Berger, would lead us to suppose that this +over-energetic action was considered as part of the character of comic +acting. + + [Illustration: _No. 16. Cupids at Play._] + +The subject of the Roman masks is the more interesting, because they +were probably the origin of many of the grotesque faces so often met +with in mediæval sculpture. The comic mask was, indeed, a very popular +object among the Romans, and appears to have been taken as symbolical +of everything that was droll and burlesque. From the comic scenes of +the theatre, to which it was first appropriated, it passed to the +popular festivals of a public character, such as the Lupercalia, with +which, no doubt, it was carried into the carnival of the middle ages, +and to our masquerades. Among the Romans, also, the use of the mask +soon passed from the public festivals to private supper parties. Its +use was so common that it became a plaything among children, and was +sometimes used as a bugbear to frighten them. Our cut No. 16, taken +from a painting at Resina, represents two cupids playing with a mask, +and using it for this latter purpose, that is, to frighten one another; +and it is curious that the mediæval gloss of Ugutio explains _larva_, +a mask, as being an image, "which was put over the face to frighten +children."[10] The mask thus became a favourite ornament, especially on +lamps, and on the antefixa and gargoyls of Roman buildings, to which +were often given the form of grotesque masks, monstrous faces, with +great mouths wide open, and other figures, like those of the gargoyls +of the mediæval architects. + + [10] "Simulacrum ... quod opponitur faciei ad terrendos parvos." + (Ugutio, ap. Ducange, v. _Masca_.) + + [Illustration: _No. 17. The Roman Sannio, or Buffoon._] + +While the comic mask was used generally in the burlesque +entertainments, it also became distinctive of particular characters. +One of these was the _sannio_, or buffoon, whose name was derived from +the Greek word σάννος, "a fool," and who was employed in performing +burlesque dances, making grimaces, and in other acts calculated to +excite the mirth of the spectator. A representation of the _sannio_ +is given in our cut No. 17, copied from one of the engravings in the +"Dissertatio de Larvis Scenicis," by the Italian antiquary Ficoroni, +who took it from an engraved gem. The sannio holds in his hand what is +supposed to be a brass rod, and he has probably another in the other +hand, so that he could strike them together. He wears the _soccus_, or +low shoe peculiar to the comic actors. This buffoon was a favourite +character among the Romans, who introduced him constantly into their +feasts and supper parties. The _manducus_ was another character of this +description, represented with a grotesque mask, presenting a wide mouth +and tongue lolling out, and said to have been peculiar to the Atellane +plays. A character in Plautus (Rud., ii. 6, 51) talks of hiring himself +as a _manducus_ in the plays. + + "_Quid si aliquo ad ludos me pro manduco locem?_" + +The mediæval glosses interpret _manducus_ by _joculator_, "a jogelor," +and add that the characteristic from which he took his name was the +practice of making grimaces like a man gobbling up his food in a vulgar +and gluttonous manner. + + [Illustration: _No. 18. Roman Tom Fool._] + +Ficoroni gives, from an engraved onyx, a figure of another burlesque +performer, copied in our cut No. 18, and which he compares to the +Catanian dancer of his time (his book was published in 1754), who was +called a _giangurgolo_. This is considered to represent the Roman +_mimus_, a class of performers who told with mimicry and action scenes +taken from common life, and more especially scandalous and indecent +anecdotes, like the jogelors and performers of farces in the middle +ages. The Romans were very much attached to these performances, so much +so, that they even had them at their funeral processions and at their +funeral feasts. In our figure, the _mimus_ is represented naked, masked +(with an exaggerated nose), and wearing what is perhaps intended as a +caricature of the Phrygian bonnet. In his right hand he holds a bag, +or purse, full of objects which rattle and make a noise when shaken, +while the other holds the _crotalum_, or castanets, an instrument in +common use among the ancients. One of the statues in the Barberini +Palace represents a youth in a Phrygian cap playing on the _crotalum_. +We learn, from an early authority, that it was an instrument especially +used in the satirical and burlesque dances which were so popular among +the Romans. + +As I have remarked before, the Romans had no taste for the regular +drama, but they retained to the last their love for the performances +of the popular _mimi_, or _comædi_ (as they were often called), the +players of farces, and the dancers. These performed on the stage, in +the public festivals, in the streets, and were usually introduced at +private parties.[11] Suetonius tells us that on one occasion, the +emperor Caligula ordered a poet who composed the Atellanes (_Attellanæ +poetam_) to be burnt in the middle of the amphitheatre, for a pun. A +more regular comedy, however, did flourish, to a certain degree, at +the same time with these more popular compositions. Of the works of +the earliest of the Roman comic writers, Livius Andronicus and Nævius, +we know only one or two titles, and a few fragments quoted in the +works of the later Roman writers. They were followed by Plautus, who +died B.C. 184, and nineteen of whose comedies are preserved and well +known; by several other writers, whose names are almost forgotten, and +whose comedies are all lost; and by Terence, six of whose comedies are +preserved. Terence died about the year 159 B.C. About the same time +with Terence lived Lucius Afranius and Quinctius Atta, who appear to +close the list of the Roman writers of comedy. + + [11] See, for allusions to the private employment of these + performances, Pliny, Epist. i. 15, and ix. 36. + +But another branch of comic literature had sprung out of the satire of +the religious festivities. A year after Livius Andronicus produced the +first drama at Rome, in the year 239 B.C., the poet Ennius was born +at Rudiæ, in Magna Græcia. The satirical verse, whether Saturnine or +Fescennine, had been gradually improving in its form, although still +very rude, but Ennius is said to have given at least a new polish, and +perhaps a new metrical shape, to it. The verse was still irregular, but +it appears to have been no longer intended for recitation, accompanied +by the flute. The Romans looked upon Ennius not only as their earliest +epic poet, but as the father of satire, a class of literary composition +which appears to have originated with them, and which they claimed +as their own.[12] Ennius had an imitator in M. Terentius Varro. The +satires of these first writers are said to have been very irregular +compositions, mixing prose with verse, and sometimes even Greek with +Latin; and to have been rather general in their aim than personal. But +soon after this period, and rather more than a century before Christ, +came Caius Lucilius, who raised Roman satirical literature to its +perfection. Lucilius, we are told, was the first who wrote satires in +heroic verse, or hexameters, mixing with them now and then, though +rarely, an iambic or trochaic line. He was more refined, more pointed, +and more personal, than his predecessors, and he had rescued satire +from the street performer to make it a class of literature which was +to be read by the educated, and not merely listened to by the vulgar. +Lucilius is said to have written thirty books of satires, of which, +unfortunately, only some scattered lines remain. + + [12] Quintilian says, "_Satira quidem tota nostra est_." De Instit. + Orator., lib. x. c. 1. + +Lucilius had imitators, the very names of most of whom are now +forgotten, but about forty years after his death, and sixty-five +years before the birth of Christ, was born Quintus Horatius Flaccus, +the oldest of the satirists whose works we now possess, and the most +polished of Roman poets. In the time of Horace, the satire of the +Romans had reached its highest degree of perfection. Of the two other +great satirists whose works are preserved, Juvenal was born about the +year 40 of the Christian era, and Persius in 43. During the period +through which these writers flourished, Rome saw a considerable number +of other satirists of the same class, whose works have perished. + +In the time of Juvenal another variety of the same class of literature +had already sprung up, more artificial and somewhat more indirect +than the other, the prose satiric romance. Three celebrated writers +represent this school. Petronius, who, born about the commencement +of our era, died in A.D. 65, is the earliest and most remarkable of +them. He compiled a romance, designed as a satire on the vices of the +age of Nero, in which real persons are supposed to be aimed at under +fictitious names, and which rivals in license, at least, anything +that could have been uttered in the Atellanes or other farces of the +_mimi_. Lucian, of Samosata, who died an old man in the year 200, and +who, though he wrote in Greek, may be considered as belonging to the +Roman school, composed several satires of this kind, in one of the +most remarkable of which, entitled "Lucius, or the Ass," the author +describes himself as changed by sorcery into the form of that animal, +under which he passes through a number of adventures which illustrate +the vices and weaknesses of contemporary society. Apuleius, who was +considerably the junior of Lucian, made this novel the groundwork of +his "Golden Ass," a much larger and more elaborate work, written in +Latin. This work of Apuleius was very popular through subsequent ages. + + [Illustration: _No. 19. The Farm-yard in Burlesque._] + + [Illustration: _No. 20. An Asilla-Bearer._] + +Let us return to Roman caricature, one form of which seems to have +been especially a favourite among the people. It is difficult to +imagine how the story of the pigmies and of their wars with the cranes +originated, but it is certainly of great antiquity, as it is spoken +of in Homer, and it was a very popular legend among the Romans, who +eagerly sought and purchased dwarfs to make domestic pets of them. The +pigmies and cranes occur frequently among the pictorial ornamentations +of the houses of Pompeii and Herculaneum; and the painters of Pompeii +not only represented them in their proper character, but they made use +of them for the purpose of caricaturing the various occupations of +life--domestic and social scenes, grave conferences, and many other +subjects, and even personal character. In this class of caricatures +they gave to the pigmies, or dwarfs, very large heads, and very small +legs and arms. I need hardly remark that this is a class of caricature +which is very common in modern times. Our first group of these pigmy +caricatures (No. 19) is taken from a painting on the walls of the +Temple of Venus, at Pompeii, and represents the interior of a farm-yard +in burlesque. The structure in the background is perhaps intended for a +hayrick. In front of it, one of the farm servants is attending on the +poultry. The more important-looking personage with the pastoral staff +is possibly the overseer of the farm, who is visiting the labourers, +and this probably is the cause why their movements have assumed so much +activity. The labourer on the right is using the _asilla_, a wooden +yoke or pole, which was carried over the shoulder, with the _corbis_, +or basket, suspended at each end. This was a common method of carrying, +and is not unfrequently represented on Roman works of art. Several +examples might be quoted from the antiquities of Pompeii. Our cut No. +20, from a gem in the Florentine Museum, and illustrating another class +of caricature, that of introducing animals performing the actions and +duties of men, represents a grasshopper carrying the _asilla_ and the +_corbes_. + + [Illustration: _No. 21. A Painter's Studio._] + +A private house in Pompeii furnished another example of this style +of caricature, which is given in our cut No. 21. It represents the +interior of a painter's studio, and is extremely curious on account +of the numerous details of his method of operation with which it +furnishes us. The painter, who is, like most of the figures in these +pigmy caricatures, very scantily clothed, is occupied with the portrait +of another, who, by the rather exaggerated fulness of the gathering +of his toga, is evidently intended for a dashing and fashionable +patrician, though he is seated as bare-legged and bare-breeched as the +artist himself. Both are distinguished by a large allowance of nose. +The easel here employed resembles greatly the same article now in use, +and might belong to the studio of a modern painter. Before it is a +small table, probably formed of a slab of stone, which serves for a +palette, on which the painter spreads and mixes his colours. To the +right a servant, who fills the office of colour-grinder, is seated by +the side of a vessel placed over hot coals, and appears to be preparing +colours, mixed, according to the directions given in old writers, +with punic wax and oil. In the background is seated a student, whose +attention is taken from his drawing by what is going on at the other +side of the room, where two small personages are entering, who look as +if they were amateurs, and who appear to be talking about the portrait. +Behind them stands a bird, and when the painting was first uncovered +there were two. Mazois, who made the drawing from which our cut is +taken, before the original had perished--for it was found in a state +of decay--imagined that the birds typified some well-known singers or +musicians, but they are, perhaps, merely intended for cranes, birds so +generally associated with the pigmies. + + [Illustration: _No. 22. Part of a Triumphal Procession._] + +According to an ancient writer, combats of pigmies were favourite +representations on the walls of taverns and shops;[13] and, curiously +enough, the walls of a shop in Pompeii have furnished the picture +represented in our cut No. 22, which has evidently been intended for +a caricature, probably a parody. All the pigmies in this picture +are crowned with laurel, as though the painter intended to turn to +ridicule some over-pompous triumph, or some public, perhaps religious, +ceremony. The two figures to the left, who are clothed in yellow +and green garments, appear to be disputing the possession of a bowl +containing a liquid. One of these, like the two figures on the right, +has a hoop thrown over his shoulder. The first of the latter personages +wears a violet dress, and holds in his right hand a rod, and in his +left a statuette, apparently of a deity, but its attributes are not +distinguishable. The last figure to the right has a robe, or mantle, of +two colours, red and green, and holds in his hand a branch of a lily, +or some similar plant; the rest of the picture is lost. Behind the +other figure stands a fifth, who appears younger and more refined in +character than the others, and seems to be ordering or directing them. +His dress is red. + + [13] ἐπί των καπηλίων. Problem. Aristotelic. Sec. x. 7. + +We can have no doubt that political and personal caricature flourished +among the Romans, as we have some examples of it on their works of art, +chiefly on engraved stones, though these are mostly of a character +we could not here conveniently introduce; but the same rich mine of +Roman art and antiquities, Pompeii, has furnished us with one sample +of what may be properly considered as a political caricature. In the +year 59 of the Christian era, at a gladiatorial exhibition in the +amphitheatre of Pompeii, where the people of Nuceria were present, +the latter expressed themselves in such scornful terms towards the +Pompeians, as led to a violent quarrel, which was followed by a pitched +battle between the inhabitants of the two towns, and the Nucerians, +being defeated, carried their complaints before the reigning emperor, +Nero, who gave judgment in their favour, and condemned the people of +Pompeii to suspension from all theatrical amusements for ten years. +The feelings of the Pompeians on this occasion are displayed in the +rude drawing represented in our cut No. 23, which is scratched on the +plaster of the external wall of a house in the street to which the +Italian antiquarians have given the name of the street of Mercury. A +figure, completely armed, his head covered with what might be taken +for a mediæval helmet, is descending what appear to be intended for +the steps of the amphitheatre. He carries in his hand a palm-branch, +the emblem of victory. Another palm-branch stands erect by his side, +and underneath is the inscription, in rather rustic Latin, "CAMPANI +VICTORIA VNA CVM NVCERINIS PERISTIS"--"O Campanians, you perished in +the victory together with the Nucerians." The other side of the picture +is more rudely and hastily drawn. It has been supposed to represent +one of the victors dragging a prisoner, with his arms bound, up a +ladder to a stage or platform, on which he was perhaps to be exhibited +to the jeers of the populace. Four years after this event, Pompeii +was greatly damaged by an earthquake, and sixteen years later came +the eruption of Vesuvius, which buried the town, and left it in the +condition in which it is now found. + + [Illustration: _No. 23. A Popular Caricature._] + + [Illustration: _No. 24. Early Caricature upon a Christian._] + +This curious caricature belongs to a class of monuments to which +archæologists have given technically the Italian name of _graffiti_, +scratches or scrawls, of which a great number, consisting chiefly of +writing, have been found on the walls of Pompeii. They also occur +among the remains on other Roman sites, and one found in Rome itself +is especially interesting. During the alterations and extensions which +were made from time to time in the palace of the Cæsars, it had been +found necessary to build across a narrow street which intersected the +Palatine, and, in order to give support to the structure above, a +portion of the street was walled off, and remained thus hermetically +sealed until about the year 1857, when some excavations on the spot +brought it to view. The walls of the street were found to be covered +with these _graffiti_, among which one attracted especial attention, +and, having been carefully removed, is now preserved in the museum +of the Collegio Romano. It is a caricature upon a Christian named +Alexamenos, by some pagan who despised Christianity. The Saviour is +represented under the form of a man with the head of an ass, extended +upon a cross, the Christian, Alexamenos, standing on one side in the +attitude of worship of that period. Underneath we read the inscription, +ΑΛΕΞΑΜΕΝΟΣ CΕΒΕΤΕ (for σεβεται), "Alexamenos worships God." This +curious figure, which may be placed among the most interesting as well +as early evidences of the truth of Gospel history, is copied in our cut +No. 24. It was drawn when the prevailing religion at Rome was still +pagan, and a Christian was an object of contempt. + + + + + CHAPTER III. + + THE PERIOD OF TRANSITION FROM ANTIQUITY TO THE MIDDLE AGES.--THE + ROMAN MIMI CONTINUED TO EXIST.--THE TEUTONIC AFTER-DINNER + ENTERTAINMENTS.--CLERICAL SATIRES; ARCHBISHOP HERIGER AND THE + DREAMER; THE SUPPER OF THE SAINTS.--TRANSITION FROM ANCIENT + TO MEDIÆVAL ART.--TASTE FOR MONSTROUS ANIMALS, DRAGONS, ETC.; + CHURCH OF SAN FEDELE, AT COMO.--SPIRIT OF CARICATURE AND LOVE + OF GROTESQUE AMONG THE ANGLO-SAXONS.--GROTESQUE FIGURES OF + DEMONS.--NATURAL TENDENCY OF THE EARLY MEDIÆVAL ARTISTS TO DRAW IN + CARICATURE.--EXAMPLES FROM EARLY MANUSCRIPTS AND SCULPTURES. + + +The transition from antiquity to what we usually understand by the name +of the middle ages was long and slow; it was a period during which much +of the texture of the old society was destroyed, while at the same +time a new life was gradually given to that which remained. We know +very little of the comic literature of this period of transition; its +literary remains consist chiefly of a mass of heavy theology and of +lives of saints. The stage in its perfectly dramatic form--theatre and +amphitheatre--had disappeared. The pure drama, indeed, appears never +to have had great vitality among the Romans, whose tastes lay far more +among the vulgar performances of the mimics and jesters, and among +the savage scenes of the amphitheatre. While probably the performance +of comedies, such as those of Plautus and Terence, soon went out of +fashion, and tragedies, like those of Seneca, were only written as +literary compositions, imitations of the similar works which formed +so remarkable a feature in the literature of Greece, the Romans of +all ranks loved to witness the loose attitudes of their _mimi_, or +listen to their equally loose songs and stories. The theatre and the +amphitheatre were state institutions, kept up at the national expense, +and, as just stated, they perished with the overthrow of the western +empire; and the sanguinary performances of the amphitheatre, if the +amphitheatre itself continued to be used (which was perhaps the case +in some parts of western Europe), and they gave place to the more +harmless exhibitions of dancing bears and other tamed animals,[14] for +deliberate cruelty was not a characteristic of the Teutonic race. But +the mimi, the performers who sung songs and told stories, accompanied +with dancing and music, survived the fall of the empire, and continued +to be as popular as ever. St. Augustine, in the fourth century, calls +these things _nefaria_, detestable things, and says that they were +performed at night.[15] We trace in the capitularies the continuous +existence of these performances during the ages which followed the +empire, and, as in the time of St. Augustine, they still formed the +amusement of nocturnal assemblies. The capitulary of Childebert +proscribes those who passed their nights with drunkenness, jesting, +and songs.[16] The council of Narbonne, in the year 589, forbade +people to spend their nights "with dancings and filthy songs."[17] The +council of Mayence, in 813, calls these songs "filthy and licentious" +(_turpia atque luxuriosa_); and that of Paris speaks of them as +"obscene and filthy" (_obscæna et turpia_); while in another they are +called "frivolous and diabolic." From the bitterness with which the +ecclesiastical ordinances are expressed, it is probable that these +performances continued to preserve much of their old paganism; yet it +is curious that they are spoken of in these capitularies and acts of +the councils as being still practised in the religious festivals, and +even in the churches, so tenaciously did the old sentiments of the +race keep their possession of the minds of the populace, long after +they had embraced Christianity. These "songs," as they are called, +continued also to consist not only of general, but of personal satire, +and contained scandalous stories of persons living, and well known to +those who heard them. A capitulary of the Frankish king Childeric III., +published in the year 744, is directed against those who compose and +sing songs in defamation of others (_in blasphemiam alterius_, to use +the rather energetic language of the original); and it is evident that +this offence was a very common one, for it is not unfrequently repeated +in later records of this character in the same words or in words to the +same purpose. Thus one result of the overthrow of the Roman empire was +to leave comic literature almost in the same condition in which it was +found by Thespis in Greece and by Livius Andronicus in Rome. There was +nothing in it which would be contrary to the feelings of the new races +who had now planted themselves in the Roman provinces. + + [14] On this subject, see my "History of Domestic Manners and + Sentiments," p. 65. The dancing bear appears to have been a + favourite performer among the Germans at a very early period. + + [15] Per totam noctem cantabantur hic nefaria et a cantatoribus + saltabatur. Augustini Serm. 311, part v. + + [16] Noctes pervigiles cum ebrietate, scurrilitate, vel canticis. See + the Capitulary in Labbei Concil., vol. v. + + [17] Ut populi.....saltationibus et turpibus invigilant canticis. + +The Teutonic and Scandinavian nations had no doubt their popular +festivals, in which mirth and frolic bore sway, though we know little +about them; but there were circumstances in their domestic manners +which implied a necessity for amusement. After the comparatively early +meal, the hall of the primitive Teuton was the scene--especially in the +darker months of winter--of long sittings over the festive board, in +which there was much drinking and much talking, and, as we all know, +such talking could not preserve long a very serious tone. From Bede's +account of the poet Cædmon, we learn that it was the practice of the +Anglo-Saxons in the seventh century, at their entertainments, for all +those present to sing in their turns, each accompanying himself with a +musical instrument. From the sequel of the story we are led to suppose +that these songs were extemporary effusions, probably mythic legends, +stories of personal adventure, praise of themselves, or vituperation +of their enemies. In the chieftain's household there appears to have +been usually some individual who acted the part of the satirist, or, as +we should perhaps now say, the comedian. Hunferth appears as holding +some such position in Beowulf; in the later romances, Sir Kay held a +similar position at the court of king Arthur. At a still later period, +the place of these heroes was occupied by the court fool. The Roman +_mimus_ must have been a welcome addition to the entertainments of the +Teutonic hall, and there is every reason to think that he was cordially +received. The performances of the hall were soon delegated from the +guests to such hired actors, and we have representations of them in +the illuminations of Anglo-Saxon manuscripts.[18] Among the earliest +amusements of the Anglo-Saxon table were riddles, which in every form +present some of the features of the comic, and are capable of being +made the source of much laughter. The saintly Aldhelm condescended to +write such riddles in Latin verse, which were, of course, intended for +the tables of the clergy. In primitive society, verse was the ordinary +form of conveying ideas. A large portion of the celebrated collection +of Anglo-Saxon poetry known as the "Exeter Book," consists of riddles, +and this taste for riddles has continued to exist down to our own +times. But other forms of entertainment, if they did not already +exist, were soon introduced. In a curious Latin poem, older than the +twelfth century, of which fragments only are preserved, and have been +published under the title of "Ruodlieb," and which appears to have +been a translation of a much earlier German romance, we have a curious +description of the post-prandial entertainments after the dinner of a +great Teutonic chieftain, or king. In the first place there was a grand +distribution of rich presents, and then were shown strange animals, and +among the rest tame bears. These bears stood upon their hind legs, and +performed some of the offices of a man; and when the minstrels (_mimi_) +came in, and played upon their musical instruments, these animals +danced to the music, and performed all sorts of strange tricks. + + _Et pariles ursi.... + Qui vas tollebant, ut homo, bipedesque gerebant. + Mimi quando fides digitis tangunt modulantes, + Illi saltabant, neumas pedibus variabant. + Interdum saliunt, seseque super jaciebant. + Alterutrum dorso se portabant residendo, + Amplexando se, luctando deficiunt se._ + +Then followed dancing-girls, and exhibitions of other kinds.[19] + + [18] The reader is referred, for further information on this subject, + to my "History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments," pp. 33-39. + + [19] This curious Latin poem was printed by Grimm and Schmeller, in + their Lateinische Gedichte des x. und xi. Jh., p. 129. + +Although these performances were proscribed by the ecclesiastical laws, +they were not discountenanced by the ecclesiastics themselves, who, on +the contrary, indulged as much in after-dinner amusements as anybody. +The laws against the profane songs are often directed especially at +the clergy; and it is evident that among the Anglo-Saxons, as well as +on the Continent, not only the priests and monks, but the nuns also, +in their love of such amusements, far transgressed the bounds of +decency.[22] These entertainments were the cradle of comic literature, +but, as this literature in the early ages of its history was rarely +committed to writing, it has almost entirely perished. But, at the +tables of the ecclesiastics, these stories were sometimes told in +Latin verse, and as Latin was not so easily carried in the memory as +the vernacular tongue, in this language they were sometimes committed +to writing, and thus a few examples of early comic literature have +fortunately been preserved. These consist chiefly of popular stories, +which were among the favourite amusements of mediæval society--stories +many of which are derived from the earliest period of the history of +our race, and are still cherished among our peasantry. Such are the +stories of the Child of Snow, and of the Mendacious Hunter, preserved +in a manuscript of the eleventh century.[21] The first of these was +a very popular story in the middle ages. According to this early +version, a merchant of Constance, in Switzerland, was detained abroad +for several years, during which time his wife made other acquaintance, +and bore a child. On his return, she excused her fault by telling him +that on a cold wintry day she had swallowed snow, by which she had +conceived; and, in revenge, the husband carried away the child, and +sold it into slavery, and returning, told its mother, that the infant +which had originated in snow, had melted away under a hotter sun. Some +of these stories originated in the different collections of fables, +which were part of the favourite literature of the later Roman period. +Another is rather a ridiculous story of an ass belonging to two sisters +in a nunnery, which was devoured by a wolf.[20] curious how soon the +mediæval clergy began to imitate their pagan predecessors in parodying +religious subjects and forms, of which we have one or two very curious +examples. Visits to purgatory, hell, and paradise, in body or spirit, +were greatly in fashion during the earlier part of the middle ages, +and afforded extremely good material for satire. In a metrical Latin +story, preserved in a manuscript of the eleventh century, we are +told how a "prophet," or visionary, went to Heriger, archbishop of +Mayence from 912 to 926, and told him that he had been carried in a +vision to the regions below, and described them as a place surrounded +by thick woods. It was the Teutonic notion of hell, and indeed of +all settlements of peoples; and Heriger replied with a sneer that he +would send his herdsmen there with his lean swine to fatten them. Each +"mark," or land of a family or clan, in the early Teutonic settlements, +was surrounded by woodland, which was common to all members of the clan +for fattening their swine and hunting. The false dreamer added, that he +was afterwards carried to heaven, where he saw Christ sitting at the +table and eating. John the Baptist was butler, and served excellent +wine round to the saints, who were the Lord's guests. St. Peter was +the chief cook. After some remarks on the appointments to these two +offices, archbishop Heriger asked the informant how he was received in +the heavenly hall, where he sat, and what he eat. He replied that he +sat in a corner, and stole from the cooks a piece of liver, which he +eat, and then departed. Instead of rewarding him for his information, +Heriger took him on his own confession for the theft, and ordered him +to be bound to a stake and flogged, which, for the offence, was rather +a light punishment. + + [20] On the character of the nuns among the Anglo-Saxons, and indeed of + the inmates of the monastic houses generally, I would refer my + readers to the excellent and interesting volume by Mr. John + Thrupp, "The Anglo-Saxon Home: a History of the Domestic + Institutions and Customs of England from the fifth to the eleventh + century." London, 1862. + + [21] These will be found in M. Edélestand du Méril's Poésies Populaires + Latines antérieures au douzième siècle, pp. 275, 276. + + [22] This, and the metrical story next referred to, were printed in + the "Altdeutsche Blätter," edited by Moriz Haupt and Heinrich + Hoffmann, vol. i. pp. 390, 392, to whom I communicated them from + a manuscript in the University Library at Cambridge. + + _Heriger illum + jussit ad palum + loris ligari, + scopisque cedi, + sermone duro + hunc arguendo._ + +These lines will serve as a specimen of the popular Latin verse in +which these monkish after-dinner stories were written; but the most +remarkable of these early parodies on religious subjects, is one which +may be described as the supper of the saints; its title is simply +_Cœna_. It is falsely ascribed to St. Cyprian, who lived in the +third century; but it is as old as the tenth century, as a copy was +printed by professor Endlicher from a manuscript of that period at +Vienna. It was so popular, that it is found and known to have existed +in different forms in verse and in prose. It is a sort of drollery, +founded upon the wedding feast at which the Saviour changed water into +wine, though that miracle is not at all introduced into it. It was a +great king of the East, named Zoel, who held his nuptial feast at Cana +of Galilee. The personages invited are all scriptural, beginning with +Adam. Before the feast, they wash in the river Jordan, and the number +of the guests was so great, that seats could not be provided for them, +and they took their places as they could. Adam took the first place, +and seated himself in the middle of the assembly, and next to him Eve +sat upon leaves (_super folia_),--fig-leaves, we may suppose. Cain sat +on a plough, Abel on a milk-pail, Noah on an ark, Japhet on tiles, +Abraham on a tree, Isaac on an altar, Lot near the door, and so with +a long list of others. Two were obliged to stand--Paul, who bore it +patiently, and Esau, who grumbled--while Job lamented bitterly because +he was obliged to sit on a dunghill. Moses, and others, who came late, +were obliged to find seats out of doors. When the king saw that all +his guests had arrived, he took them into his wardrobe, and there, in +the spirit of mediæval generosity, distributed to them dresses, which +had all some burlesque allusion to their particular characters. Before +they were allowed to sit down to the feast, they were obliged to go +through other ceremonies, which, as well as the eating, are described +in the same style of caricature. The wines, of which there was great +variety, were served to the guests with the same allusions to their +individual characters; but some of them complained that they were badly +mixed, although Jonah was the butler. In the same manner are described +the proceedings which followed the dinner, the washing of hands, and +the dessert, to the latter of which Adam contributed apples, Samson +honey; while David played on the harp and Mary on the tabor; Judith led +the round dance; Jubal played on the psalter; Asael sung songs, and +Herodias acted the part of the dancing-girl:-- + + _Tunc Adam poma ministrat, Samson favi dulcia. + David cytharum percussit, et Maria tympana. + Judith choreas ducebat, et Jubal psalteria. + Asael metra canebat, saltabat Herodias._ + +Mambres entertained the company with his magical performances; and +the other incidents of a mediæval festival followed, throughout which +the same tone of burlesque is continued; and so the story continues, +to the end.[23] We shall find these incipient forms of mediæval comic +literature largely developed as we go on. + + [23] The text of this singular composition, with a full account of the + various forms in which it was published, will be found in M. du + Méril's "Poésies Populaires Latines antérieures au douzième + siècle," p. 193. + + [Illustration: _No. 25. Saturn Devouring his Child._] + +The period between antiquity and the middle ages was one of such great +and general destruction, that the gulf between ancient and mediæval art +seems to us greater and more abrupt than it really was. The want of +monuments, no doubt, prevents our seeing the gradual change of one into +the other, but nevertheless enough of facts remain to convince us that +it was not a sudden change. It is now indeed generally understood that +the knowledge and practice of the arts and manufactures of the Romans +were handed onward from master to pupil after the empire had fallen; +and this took place especially in the towns, so that the workmanship +which had been declining in character during the later periods of the +empire, only continued in the course of degradation afterwards. Thus, +in the first Christian edifices, the builders who were employed, or at +least many of them, must have been pagans, and they would follow their +old models of ornamentation, introducing the same grotesque figures, +the same masks and monstrous faces, and even sometimes the same +subjects from the old mythology, to which they had been accustomed. It +is to be observed, too, that this kind of iconographical ornamentation +had been encroaching more and more upon the old architectural purity +during the latter ages of the empire, and that it was employed more +profusely in the later works, from which this taste was transferred +to the ecclesiastical and to the domestic architecture of the middle +ages. After the workmen themselves had become Christians, they still +found pagan emblems and figures in their models, and still went on +imitating them, sometimes merely copying, and at others turning them +to caricature or burlesque. And this tendency continued so long, that, +at a much later date, where there still existed remains of Roman +buildings, the mediæval architects adopted them as models, and did not +hesitate to copy the sculpture, although it might be evidently pagan in +character. The accompanying cut (No. 25) represents a bracket in the +church of Mont Majour, near Nismes, built in the tenth century. The +subject is a monstrous head eating a child, and we can hardly doubt +that it was really intended for a caricature on Saturn devouring one of +his children. + +Sometimes the mediæval sculptors mistook the emblematical designs +of the Romans, and misapplied them, and gave an allegorical meaning +to that which was not intended to be emblematical or allegorical, +until the subjects themselves became extremely confused. They readily +employed that class of parody of the ancients in which animals were +represented performing the actions of men, and they had a great taste +for monsters of every description, especially those which were made up +of portions of incongruous animals joined together, in contradiction to +the precept of Horace:-- + + _Humano capiti cervicem pictor equinam + Jungere si velit, et varias inducere plumas, + Undique collatis membris, ut turpiter atrum + Desinet in piscem mulier formosa superne; + Spectatum admissi risum teneatis, amici?_ + + [Illustration: _No. 26. Sculpture from San Fedele, at Como._] + +The mediæval architects loved such representations, always and in all +parts, and examples are abundant. At Como, in Italy, there is a very +ancient and remarkable church dedicated to San Fedele (Saint Fidelis); +it has been considered to be of so early a date as the fifth century. +The sculptures that adorn the doorway, which is triangular-headed, are +especially interesting. On one of these, represented in our cut No. 26, +in a compartment to the left, appears a figure of an angel, holding in +one hand a dwarf figure, probably intended for a child, by a lock of +his hair, and with the other hand directing his attention to a seated +figure in the compartment below. This latter figure has apparently the +head of a sheep, and as the head is surrounded with a large nimbus, +and the right hand is held out in the attitude of benediction, it +may be intended to represent the Lamb. This personage is seated on +something which is difficult to make out, but which looks somewhat +like a crab-fish. The boy in the compartment above carries a large +basin in his arms. The adjoining compartment to the right contains the +representation of a conflict between a dragon, a winged serpent, and a +winged fox. On the opposite side of the door, two winged monsters are +represented devouring a lamb's head. I owe the drawing from which this +and the preceding engraving were made to my friend Mr. John Robinson, +the architect, who made the sketches while travelling with the medal +of the Royal Academy. Figures of dragons, as ornaments, were great +favourites with the peoples of the Teutonic race; they were creatures +intimately wrapped up in their national mythology and romance, and they +are found on all their artistic monuments mingled together in grotesque +forms and groups. When the Anglo-Saxons began to ornament their books, +the dragon was continually introduced for ornamental borders and +in forming initial letters. One of the latter, from an Anglo-Saxon +manuscript of the tenth century (the well-known manuscript of Cædmon, +where it is given as an initial V), is represented in our cut on the +next page, No. 27. + + [Illustration: _No. 27. Anglo-Saxon Dragons._] + +Caricature and burlesque are naturally intended to be heard and seen +publicly, and would therefore be figured on such monuments as were most +exposed to popular gaze. Such was the case, in the earlier periods of +the middle ages, chiefly with ecclesiastical buildings, which explains +how they became the grand receptacles of this class of Art. We have few +traces of what may be termed comic literature among our Anglo-Saxon +forefathers, but this is fully explained by the circumstance that very +little of the popular Anglo-Saxon literature has been preserved. In +their festive hours the Anglo-Saxons seem to have especially amused +themselves in boasting of what they had done, and what they could do; +and these boasts were perhaps often of a burlesque character, like the +_gabs_ of the French and Anglo-Norman romancers of a later date, or +so extravagant as to produce laughter. The chieftains appear also to +have encouraged men who could make jokes, and satirise and caricature +others; for the company of such men seems to have been cherished, and +they are not unfrequently introduced in the stories. Such a personage, +as I have remarked before, is Hunferth in Beowulf; such was the Sir +Kay of the later Arthurian romances; and such too was the Norman +minstrel in the history of Hereward, who amused the Norman soldiers at +their feasts by mimicry of the manners of their Anglo-Saxon opponents. +The too personal satire of these wits often led to quarrels, which +ended in sanguinary brawls. The Anglo-Saxon love of caricature is +shown largely in their proper names, which were mostly significant of +personal qualities their parents hoped they would possess; and in these +we remark the proneness of the Teutonic race, as well as the peoples +of antiquity, to represent these qualities by the animals supposed to +possess them, the animals most popular being the wolf and the bear. +But it is not to be expected that the hopes of the parents in giving +the name would always be fulfilled, and it is not an uncommon thing +to find individuals losing their original names to receive in their +place nicknames, or names which probably expressed qualities they did +possess, and which were given to them by their acquaintances. These +names, though often not very complimentary, and even sometimes very +much the contrary, completely superseded the original name, and were +even accepted by the individuals to whom they applied. The second names +were indeed so generally acknowledged, that they were used in signing +legal documents. An Anglo-Saxon abbess of rank, whose real name was +Hrodwaru, but who was known universally by the name Bugga, the Bug, +wrote this latter name in signing charters. We can hardly doubt that +such a name was intended to ascribe to her qualities of a not agreeable +character, and very different to those implied by the original name, +which perhaps meant, a dweller in heaven. Another lady gained the name +of the Crow. It is well known that surnames did not come into use +till long after the Anglo-Saxon period, but appellatives, like these +nicknames, were often added to the name for the purpose of distinction, +or at pleasure, and these, too, being given by other people, were +frequently satirical. Thus, one Harold, for his swiftness, was called +Hare-foot; a well-known Edith, for the elegant form of her neck, +was called Swan-neck; and a Thurcyl, for a form of his head, which +can hardly have been called beautiful, was named Mare's-head. Among +many other names, quite as satirical as the last-mentioned, we find +Flat-nose, the Ugly Squint-eye, Hawk-nose, &c. + +Of Anglo-Saxon sculpture we have little left, but we have a few +illuminated manuscripts which present here and there an attempt at +caricature, though they are rare. It would seem, however, that the two +favourite subjects of caricature among the Anglo-Saxons were the clergy +and the evil one. We have abundant evidence that, from the eighth +century downwards, neither the Anglo-Saxon clergy nor the Anglo-Saxon +nuns were generally objects of much respect among the people; and their +character and the manner of their lives sufficiently account for it. +Perhaps, also, it was increased by the hostility between the old clergy +and the new reformers of Dunstan's party, who would no doubt caricature +each other. A manuscript psalter, in the University Library, Cambridge +(Ff. 1, 23), of the Anglo-Saxon period, and apparently of the tenth +century, illustrated with rather grotesque initial letters, furnishes +us with the figure of a jolly Anglo-Saxon monk, given in our cut No. +28, and which it is hardly necessary to state represents the letter Q. +As we proceed, we shall see the clergy continuing to furnish a butt for +the shafts of satire through all the middle ages. + + [Illustration: _No. 28. A Jolly Monk._] + + [Illustration: _No. 29. Satan in Bonds._] + +The inclination to give to the demons (the middle ages always looked +upon them as innumerable) monstrous forms, which easily ran into the +grotesque, was natural, and the painter, indeed, prided himself on +drawing them ugly; but he was no doubt influenced in so generally +caricaturing them, by mixing up this idea with those furnished by the +popular superstitions of the Teutonic race, who believed in multitudes +of spirits, representatives of the ancient satyrs, who were of a +playfully malicious description, and went about plaguing mankind in +a very droll manner, and sometimes appeared to them in equally droll +forms. They were the Pucks and Robin Goodfellows of later times; +but the Christian missionaries to the west taught their converts to +believe, and probably believed themselves, that all these imaginary +beings were real demons, who wandered over the earth for people's ruin +and destruction. Thus the grotesque imagination of the converted people +was introduced into the Christian system of demonology. It is a part of +the subject to which we shall return in our next chapter; but I will +here introduce two examples of the Anglo-Saxon demons. To explain the +first of these, it will be necessary to state that, according to the +mediæval notions, Satan, the arch demon, who had fallen from heaven +for his rebellion against the Almighty, was not a free agent who went +about tempting mankind, but he was himself plunged in the abyss, +where he was held in bonds, and tormented by the demons who peopled +the infernal regions, and also issued thence to seek their prey upon +God's newest creation, the earth. The history of Satan's fall, and the +description of his position (No. 29), form the subject of the earlier +part of the Anglo-Saxon poetry ascribed to Cædmon, and it is one of +the illuminations to the manuscript of Cædmon (which is now preserved +at Oxford), which has furnished us with our cut, representing Satan +in his bonds. The fiend is here pictured bound to stakes, over what +appears to be a gridiron, while one of the demons, rising out of a +fiery furnace, and holding in his hand an instrument of punishment, +seems to be exulting over him, and at the same time urging on the troop +of grotesque imps who are swarming round and tormenting their victim. +The next cut, No. 30, is also taken from an Anglo-Saxon manuscript, +preserved in the British Museum (MS. Cotton., Tiberius, C. vi.), which +belongs to the earlier half of the eleventh century, and contains a +copy of the psalter. It gives us the Anglo-Saxon notion of the demon +under another form, equally characteristic, wearing only a girdle +of flames, but in this case the especial singularity of the design +consists in the eyes in the fiend's wings. + + [Illustration: _No. 30. Satan._] + + [Illustration: _No. 31. The Temptation._] + + [Illustration: _No. 32. David and the Lion._] + +Another circumstance had no doubt an influence on the mediæval taste +for grotesque and caricature--the natural rudeness of early mediæval +art. The writers of antiquity tell us of a remote period of Grecian +art when it was necessary to write under each figure of a picture the +name of what it was intended to represent, in order to make the whole +intelligible--"this is a horse," "this is a man," "this is a tree." +Without being quite so rude as this, the early mediæval artists, +through ignorance of perspective, want of knowledge of proportion, and +of skill in drawing, found great difficulty in representing a scene in +which there was more than one figure, and in which it was necessary +to distinguish them from each other; and they were continually trying +to help themselves by adopting conventional forms or conventional +positions, and by sometimes adding symbols that did not exactly +represent what they meant. The exaggeration in form consisted chiefly +in giving an undue prominence to some characteristic feature, which +answered the same purpose as the Anglo-Saxon nickname and distinctive +name, and which is, in fact, one of the first principles of all +caricature. Conventional positions partook much of the character of +conventional forms, but gave still greater room for grotesque. Thus +the very first characteristics of mediæval art implied the existence +of caricature, and no doubt led to the taste for the grotesque. The +effect of this influence is apparent everywhere, and in innumerable +cases serious pictures of the gravest and most important subjects are +simply and absolutely caricatures. Anglo-Saxon art ran much into this +style, and is often very grotesque in character. The first example we +give (cut No. 31) is taken from one of the illustrations to Alfric's +Anglo-Saxon version of the Pentateuch, in the profusely illuminated +manuscript in the British Museum (MS. Cotton., Claudius B iv.), which +was written at the end of the tenth, or beginning of the eleventh, +century. It represents the temptation and fall of man; and the subject +is treated, as will be seen, in a rather grotesque manner. Eve is +evidently dictating to her husband, who, in obeying her, shows a +mixture of eagerness and trepidation. Adam is no less evidently going +to swallow the apple whole, which is, perhaps, in accordance with the +mediæval legend, according to which the fruit stuck in his throat. It +is hardly necessary to remark that the tree is entirely a conventional +one; and it would be difficult to imagine how it came to bear apples at +all. The mediæval artists were extremely unskilful in drawing trees; +to these they usually gave the forms of cabbages, or some such plants, +of which the form was simple, or often of a mere bunch of leaves. Our +next example (cut No. 32) is also Anglo-Saxon, and is furnished by +the manuscript in the British Museum already mentioned (MS. Cotton., +Tiberius C vi.) It probably represents young David killing the lion, +and is remarkable not only for the strange posture and bad proportions +of the man, but for the tranquillity of the animal and the exaggerated +and violent action of its slayer. This is very commonly the case in the +mediæval drawings and sculptures, the artists apparently possessing +far less skill in representing action in an animal than in man, and +therefore more rarely attempting it. These illustrations are both taken +from illuminated manuscripts. The two which follow are furnished by +sculptures, and are of a rather later date than the preceding. The +abbey of St. George of Boscherville, in the diocese of Auxerre (in +Normandy), was founded by Ralph de Tancarville, one of the ministers of +William the Conqueror, and therefore in the latter half of the eleventh +century. A history of this religious house was published by a clever +local antiquary--M. Achille Deville--from whose work we take our cut +No. 33, one of a few rude sculptures on the abbey church, which no +doubt belonged to the original fabric. It is not difficult to recognise +the subject as Joseph taking the Virgin Mary with her Child into +Egypt; but there is something exceedingly droll in the unintentional +caricature of the faces, as well as in the whole design. The Virgin +Mary appears without a nimbus, while the nimbus of the Infant Jesus +is made to look very like a bonnet. It may be remarked that this +subject of the flight into Egypt is by no means an uncommon one in +mediæval art; and a drawing of the same subject, copied in my "History +of Domestic Manners and Sentiments" (p. 115), presents a remarkable +illustration of the contrast of the skill of a Norman sculptor and of +an almost contemporary Anglo-Norman illuminator. Our cut also furnishes +us with evidence of the error of the old opinion that ladies rode +astride in the middle ages. Even one, who by his style of art must have +been an obscure local carver on stone, when he represented a female on +horseback, placed her in the position which has always been considered +suitable to the sex. + + [Illustration: _No. 33. The flight into Egypt._] + + [Illustration: _No. 34. David and Goliah._] + +For the drawing of the other sculpture to which I allude, I am indebted +to Mr. Robinson. It is one of the subjects carved on the façade of +the church of St. Gilles, near Nismes, and is a work of the twelfth +century. It appears to represent the young David slaying the giant +Goliah, the latter fully armed in scale armour, and with shield and +spear, like a Norman knight; while to David the artist has given a +figure which is feminine in its forms. What we might take at first +sight for a basket of apples, appears to be meant for a supply of +stones for the sling which the young hero carries suspended from his +neck. He has slain the giant with one of these, and is cutting off his +head with his own sword. + + + + + CHAPTER IV. + + THE DIABOLICAL IN CARICATURE.--MEDIÆVAL LOVE OF THE + LUDICROUS.--CAUSES WHICH MADE IT INFLUENCE THE NOTIONS + OF DEMONS.--STORIES OF THE PIOUS PAINTER AND THE ERRING + MONK.--DARKNESS AND UGLINESS CARICATURED.--THE DEMONS IN THE + MIRACLE PLAYS.--THE DEMON OF NOTRE DAME. + + +As I have already stated in the last chapter, there can be no doubt +that the whole system of the demonology of the middle ages was +derived from the older pagan mythology. The demons of the monkish +legends were simply the elves and hobgoblins of our forefathers, who +haunted woods, and fields, and waters, and delighted in misleading +or plaguing mankind, though their mischief was usually of a rather +mirthful character. They were represented in classical mythology by +the fauns and satyrs who had, as we have seen, much to do with the +birth of comic literature among the Greeks and Romans; but these +Teutonic elves were more ubiquitous than the satyrs, as they even +haunted men's houses, and played tricks, not only of a mischievous, +but of a very familiar character. The Christian clergy did not look +upon the personages of the popular superstitions as fabulous beings, +but they taught that they were all diabolical, and that they were +so many agents of the evil one, constantly employed in enticing and +entrapping mankind. Hence, in the mediæval legends, we frequently find +demons presenting themselves under ludicrous forms or in ludicrous +situations; or performing acts, such as eating and drinking, which are +not in accordance with their real character; or at times even letting +themselves be outwitted or entrapped by mortals in a very undignified +manner. Although they assumed any form they pleased, their natural form +was remarkable chiefly for being extremely ugly; one of them, which +appeared in a wild wood, is described by Giraldus Cambrensis, who wrote +at the end of the twelfth century, as being hairy, shaggy, and rough, +and monstrously deformed.[24] According to a mediæval story, which +was told in different forms, a great man's cellar was once haunted by +these demons, who drank all his wine, while the owner was totally at a +loss to account for its rapid disappearance. After many unsuccessful +attempts to discover the depredators, some one, probably suspecting +the truth, suggested that he should mark one of the barrels with holy +water, and next morning a demon, much resembling the description given +by Giraldus, was found stuck fast to the barrel. It is told also of +Edward the Confessor, that he once went to see the tribute called +the Danegeld, and it was shown to him all packed up in great barrels +ready to be sent away--for this appears to have been the usual mode +of transporting large quantities of money. The saintly king had the +faculty of being able to see spiritual beings--a sort of spiritual +second-sight--and he beheld seated on the largest barrel, a devil, who +was "black and hideous." + + _Vit un déable saer desus + Le tresor, noir et hidus._--Life of S. Edward, l. 944. + + [Illustration: _No. 35. The Demon of the Treasure._] + +An early illuminator, in a manuscript preserved in the library of +Trinity College, Cambridge (MS. Trin. Col., B x. 2), has left us a +pictorial representation of this scene, from which I copy his notion +of the form of the demon in cut No. 35. The general idea is evidently +taken from the figure of the goat, and the relationship between the +demon and the classical satyr is very evident. + + [24] "Formam quandam villosam, hispidam, et hirsutam, adeoque enormiter + deformem." Girald. Camb., Itiner. Camb., lib. i. c. 5. + +Ugliness was an essential characteristic of the demons, and, moreover, +their features have usually a mirthful cast, as though they greatly +enjoyed their occupation. There is a mediæval story of a young +monk, who was sacristan to an abbey, and had the directions of the +building and ornamentation. The carvers of stone were making admirable +representations of hell and paradise, in the former of which the demons +"seemed to take great delight in well tormenting their victims"-- + + _Qui par semblant se delitoit + En ce que bien les tormentoit._ + +The sacristan, who watched the sculptors every day, was at last moved +by pious zeal to try and imitate them, and he set to work to make a +devil himself, with such success, that his fiend was so black and ugly +that nobody could look at it without terror. + + _Tant qu'un déable à fere emprist; + Si i mist sa poine et sa cure, + Que la forme fu si oscure + Et si laide, que cil doutast + Que entre deus oilz l'esgardast._ + +The sacristan, encouraged by his success--for it must be understood +that his art was a sudden inspiration (as he had not been an artist +before)--continued his work till it was completed, and then "it was so +horrible and so ugly, that all who saw it affirmed upon their oaths +that they had never seen so ugly a figure either in sculpture or in +painting, or one which had so repulsive an appearance, or a devil which +was a better likeness than the one this monk had made for them"-- + + _Si horribles fu et si lez, + Que trestouz cels que le véoient + Seur leur serement afermoient + C'onques mès si laide figure, + Ne en taille ne en peinture, + N'avoient à nul jor véue, + Qui si éust laide véue, + Ne déable miex contrefet + Que cil moines leur avoit fet._--Meon's Fabliaux, tom. ii. p. 414. + +The demon himself now took offence at the affront which had been +put upon him, and appearing the night following to the sacristan, +reproached him with having made him so ugly, and enjoined him to break +the sculpture, and execute another representing him better looking, on +pain of very severe punishment; but, although this visit was repeated +thrice, the pious monk refused to comply. The evil one now began to +work in another way, and, by his cunning, he drew the sacristan into a +disgraceful amour with a lady of the neighbourhood, and they plotted +not only to elope together by night, but to rob the monastery of its +treasure, which was of course in the keeping of the sacristan. They +were discovered, and caught in their flight, laden with the treasure, +and the unfaithful sacristan was thrown into prison. The fiend now +appeared to him, and promised to clear him out of all his trouble on +the mere condition that he should break his ugly statue, and make +another representing him as looking handsome--a bargain to which the +sacristan acceded without further hesitation. It would thus appear that +the demons did not like to be represented ugly. In this case, the fiend +immediately took the form and place of the sacristan, while the latter +went to his bed as if nothing had happened. When the other monks found +him there next morning, and heard him disclaim all knowledge of the +robbery or of the prison, they hurried to the latter place, and found +the devil in chains, who, when they attempted to exorcise him, behaved +in a very turbulent manner, and disappeared from their sight. The +monks believed that it was all a deception of the evil one, while the +sacristan, who was not inclined to brave his displeasure a second time, +performed faithfully his part of the contract, and made a devil who +did not look ugly. In another version of the story, however, it ends +differently. After the third warning, the monk went in defiance of the +devil, and made his picture uglier than ever; in revenge for which the +demon came unexpectedly and broke the ladder on which he was mounted +at his work, whereby the monk would undoubtedly have been killed. But +the Virgin, to whom he was much devoted, came to his assistance, and, +seizing him with her hand, and holding him in the air, disappointed +the devil of his purpose. It is this latter _dénouement_ which is +represented in the cut No. 36, taken from the celebrated manuscript in +the British Museum known as "Queen Mary's Psalter" (MS. Reg. 2 B vii.). +The two demons employed here present, well defined, the air of mirthful +jollity which was evidently derived from the popular hobgoblins. + + [Illustration: _No. 36. The Pious Sculptor._] + + [Illustration: _No. 37. The Monk's Disaster._] + + [Illustration: _No. 38. The Demons Disappointed._] + +There was another popular story, which also was told under several +forms. The old Norman historians tell it of their duke Richard +Sans-Peur. There was a monk of the abbey of St. Ouen, who also held +the office of sacristan, but, neglecting the duties of his position, +entered into an intrigue with a lady who dwelt in the neighbourhood, +and was accustomed at night to leave the abbey secretly, and repair +to her. His place as sacristan enabled him thus to leave the house +unknown to the other brethren. On his way, he had to pass the little +river Robec, by means of a plank or wooden bridge, and one night +the demons, who had been watching him on his errand of sin, caught +him on the bridge, and threw him over into the water, where he was +drowned. One devil seized his soul, and would have carried it away, +but an angel came to claim him on account of his good actions, and +the dispute ran so high, that duke Richard, whose piety was as great +as his courage, was called in to decide it. The same manuscript from +which our last cut was taken has furnished our cut No. 37, which +represents two demons tripping up the monk, and throwing him very +unceremoniously into the river. The body of one of the demons here +assumes the form of an animal, instead of taking, like the other, that +of a man, and he is, moreover, furnished with a dragon's wings. There +was one version of this story, in which it found its place among the +legends of the Virgin Mary, instead of those of duke Richard. The +monk, in spite of his failings, had been a constant worshipper of the +Virgin, and, as he was falling from the bridge into the river, she +stepped forward to protect him from his persecutors, and taking hold +of him with her hand, saved him from death. One of the compartments +of the rather early wall-paintings in Winchester Cathedral represents +the scene according to this version of the story, and is copied in +our cut No. 38. The fiends here take more fantastic shapes than we +have previously seen given to them. They remind us already of the +infinitely varied grotesque forms which the painters of the age of the +Renaissance crowded together in such subjects as "The Temptation of +St. Anthony." In fact these strange notions of the forms of the demons +were not only preserved through the whole period of the middle ages, +but are still hardly extinct. They appear in almost exaggerated forms +in the illustrations to books of a popular religious character which +appeared in the first ages of printing. I may quote, as an example, one +of the cuts of an early and very rare block-book, entitled the _Ars +Moriendi_, or "Art of Dying," or, in a second title, _De Tentationibus +Morientium_, on the temptations to which dying men are exposed. The +scene, of which a part is given in the annexed cut (No. 39), is in the +room of the dying man, whose bed is surrounded by three demons, who +are come to tempt him, while his relatives of both sexes are looking +on quite unconscious of their presence. The figures of these demons +are particularly grotesque, and their ugly features betray a degree of +vulgar cunning which adds not a little to this effect. The one leaning +over the dying man suggests to him the words expressed in the label +issuing from his mouth, _Provideas amicis_, "provide for your friends;" +while the one whose head appears to the left whispers to him, _Yntende +thesauro_, "think of your treasure." The dying man seems grievously +perplexed with the various thoughts thus suggested to him. + + [Illustration: _No. 39. A Mediæval Death-bed._] + + [Illustration: _No. 40. Condemned Souls carried to their Place of + Punishment._] + +Why did the mediæval Christians think it necessary to make the devils +black and ugly? The first reply to this question which presents itself +is, that the characteristics intended to be represented were the +blackness and ugliness of sin. This, however, is only partially the +explanation of the fact; for there can be no doubt that the notion +was a popular one, and that it had previously existed in the popular +mythology; and, as has been already remarked, the ugliness exhibited +by them is a vulgar, mirthful ugliness, which makes you laugh instead +of shudder. Another scene, from the interesting drawings at the foot +of the pages in "Queen Mary's Psalter," is given in our cut No. 40. It +represents that most popular of mediæval pictures, and, at the same +time, most remarkable of literal interpretations, hell mouth. The +entrance to the infernal regions was always represented pictorially +as the mouth of a monstrous animal, where the demons appeared leaving +and returning. Here they are seen bringing the sinful souls to their +last destination, and it cannot be denied that they are doing the work +right merrily and jovially. In our cut No. 41, from the manuscript in +the library of Trinity College, Cambridge, which furnished a former +subject, three demons, who appear to be the guardians of the entrance +to the regions below--for it is upon the brow above the monstrous mouth +that they are standing--present varieties of the diabolical form. The +one in the middle is the most remarkable, for he has wings not only +on his shoulders, but also on his knees and heels. All three have +horns; in fact, the three special characteristics of mediæval demons +were horns, hoofs--or, at least, the feet of beasts,--and tails, which +sufficiently indicate the source from which the popular notions of +these beings were derived. In the cathedral of Treves, there is a mural +painting by William of Cologne, a painter of the fifteenth century, +which represents the entrance to the shades, the monstrous mouth, with +its keepers, in still more grotesque forms. Our cut No. 42 gives but a +small portion of this picture, in which the porter of the regions of +punishment is sitting astride the snout of the monstrous mouth, and +is sounding with a trumpet what may be supposed to be the call for +those who are condemned. Another minstrel of the same stamp, spurred, +though not booted, sits astride the tube of the trumpet, playing on +the bagpipes; and the sound which issues from the former instrument is +represented by a host of smaller imps who are scattering themselves +about. + + [Illustration: _No. 41. The Guardians of Hell Mouth._] + + [Illustration: _No. 42. The Trumpeter of Evil._] + +It must not be supposed that, in subjects like these, the drollery of +the scene was accidental; but, on the contrary, the mediæval artists +and popular writers gave them this character purposely. The demons and +the executioners--the latter of whom were called in Latin _tortores_, +and in popular old English phraseology the "tormentours"--were the +comic characters of the time, and the scenes in the old mysteries or +religious plays in which they were introduced were the comic scenes, +or farce, of the piece. The love of burlesque and caricature was, +indeed, so deeply planted in the popular mind, that it was found +necessary to introduce them even in pious works, in which such scenes +as the slaughter of the innocents, where the "knights" and the women +abused each other in vulgar language, the treatment of Christ at +the time of His trial, some parts of the scene of the crucifixion, +and the day of judgment, were essentially comic. The last of these +subjects, especially, was a scene of mirth, because it often consisted +throughout of a coarse satire on the vices of the age, especially on +those which were most obnoxious to the populace, such as the pride and +vanity of the higher ranks, and the extortions and frauds of usurers, +bakers, taverners, and others. In the play of "Juditium," or the day +of doom, in the "Towneley Mysteries," one of the earliest collections +of mysteries in the English language, the whole conversation among +the demons is exactly of that joking kind which we might expect from +their countenances in the pictures. When one of them appears carrying +a bag full of different offences, another, his companion, is so joyful +at this circumstance, that he says it makes him laugh till he is out +of breath, or, in other words, till he is ready to burst; and, while +asking if anger be not among the sins he had collected, proposes to +treat him with something to drink-- + + Primus dæmon. _Peasze, I pray the, be stille; I laghe that I kynke. + Is oghte ire in thi bille? and then salle thou drynke._ + --Towneley Mysteries, p. 309. + +And in the continuation of the conversation, one telling of the events +which had preceded the announcement of Doomsday says, rather jeeringly, +and somewhat exultingly, "Souls came so thick now of late to hell, that +our porter at hell gate is ever held so close at work, up early and +down late, that he never rests"-- + + _Saules cam so thyk now late unto helle, + As ever + Oure porter at helle gate + Is halden so strate, + Up erly and downe late, + He rystys never._--Ib., p. 314. + +With such popular notions on the subject, we have no reason to be +surprised that the artists of the middle ages frequently chose the +figures of demons as objects on which to exercise their skill in +burlesque and caricature, that they often introduced grotesque figures +of their heads and bodies in the sculptured ornamentation of building, +and that they presented them in ludicrous situations and attitudes in +their pictures. They are often brought in as secondary actors in a +picture in a very singular manner, of which an excellent example is +furnished by the beautifully illuminated manuscript known as "Queen +Mary's Psalter," which is copied in our cut No. 43. Nothing is more +certain than that in this instance the intention of the artist was +perfectly serious. Eve, under the influence of a rather singularly +formed serpent, having the head of a beautiful woman and the body of +a dragon, is plucking the apples and offering them to Adam, who is +preparing to eat one, with evident hesitation and reluctance. But three +demons, downright hobgoblins, appear as secondary actors in the scene, +who exercise an influence upon the principals. One is patting Eve +on the shoulder, with an air of approval and encouragement, while a +second, with wings, is urging on Adam, and apparently laughing at his +apprehensions; and a third, in a very ludicrous manner, is preventing +him from drawing back from the trial. + + [Illustration: _No. 43. The Fall of Man._] + +In all the delineations of demons we have yet seen, the ludicrous is +the spirit which chiefly predominates, and in no one instance have +we had a figure which is really demoniacal. The devils are droll but +not frightful; they provoke laughter, or at least excite a smile, +but they create no horror. Indeed, they torment their victims so +good-humouredly, that we hardly feel for them. There is, however, one +well-known instance in which the mediæval artist has shown himself +fully successful in representing the features of the spirit of evil. On +the parapet of the external gallery of the cathedral church of Notre +Dame in Paris, there is a figure in stone, of the ordinary stature of +a man, representing the demon, apparently looking with satisfaction +upon the inhabitants of the city as they were everywhere indulging in +sin and wickedness. We give a sketch of this figure in our cut No. 44. +The unmixed evil--horrible in its expression in this countenance--is +marvellously portrayed. It is an absolute Mephistophiles, carrying in +his features a strange mixture of hateful qualities--malice, pride, +envy--in fact, all the deadly sins combined in one diabolical whole. + + [Illustration: _No. 44. The Spirit of Evil._] + + + + + CHAPTER V. + + EMPLOYMENT OF ANIMALS IN MEDIÆVAL SATIRE.--POPULARITY OF FABLES; + ODO DE CIRINGTON.--REYNARD THE FOX.--BURNELLUS AND FAUVEL.--THE + CHARIVARI.--LE MONDE BESTORNÉ.--ENCAUSTIC TILES.--SHOEING THE + GOOSE, AND FEEDING PIGS WITH ROSES.--SATIRICAL SIGNS; THE MUSTARD + MAKER. + + +The people of the middle ages appear to have been great admirers +of animals, to have observed closely their various characters and +peculiarities, and to have been fond of domesticating them. They +soon began to employ their peculiarities as means of satirising and +caricaturing mankind; and among the literature bequeathed to them by +the Romans, they received no book more eagerly than the "Fables of +Æsop," and the other collections of fables which were published under +the empire. We find no traces of fables among the original literature +of the German race; but the tribes who took possession of the Roman +provinces no sooner became acquainted with the fables of the ancients, +than they began to imitate them, and stories in which animals acted +the part of men were multiplied immensely, and became a very important +branch of mediæval fiction. + +Among the Teutonic peoples especially, these fables often assumed very +grotesque forms, and the satire they convey is very amusing. One of the +earliest of these collections of original fables was composed by an +English ecclesiastic named Odo de Cirington, who lived in the time of +Henry II. and Richard I. In Odo's fables, we find the animals figuring +under the same popular names by which they were afterwards so well +known, such as Reynard for the Fox, Isengrin for the wolf, Teburg for +the cat, and the like. Thus the subject of one of them is "Isengrin +made Monk" (_de Isengrino monacho_). "Once," we are told, "Isengrin +desired to be a monk. By dint of fervent supplications, he obtained +the consent of the chapter, and received the tonsure, the cowl, and +the other insignia of monachism. At length they put him to school, +and he was to learn the 'Paternoster,' but he always replied, 'lamb' +(_agnus_) or 'ram' (_aries_). The monks taught him that he ought to +look upon the crucifix and upon the sacrament, but he ever directed his +eyes to the lambs and rams." The fable is droll enough, but the moral, +or application is still more grotesque. "Such is the conduct of many +of the monks, whose only cry is 'aries,' that is, good wine, and who +have their eyes always fixed on fat flesh and their platter;" whence the +saying in English-- + + _They thou the vulf hore_ _Though thou the hoary wolf_ + _hod to preste,_ _consecrate to a priest,_ + _they thou him to skole sette_ _though thou put him to school_ + _salmes to lerne,_ _to learn Psalms,_ + _hevere bet hise geres_ _ever are his ears turned_ + _to the grove grene_. _to the green grove._ + +These lines are in the alliterative verse of the Anglo-Saxons, and +show that such fables had already found their place in the popular +poetry of the English people. Another of these fables is entitled "Of +the Beetle (_serabo_) and his Wife." "A beetle, flying through the +land, passed among most beautiful blooming trees, through orchards +and among roses and lilies, in the most lovely places, and at length +threw himself upon a dunghill among the dung of horses, and found there +his wife, who asked him whence he came. And the beetle said, 'I have +flown all round the earth and through it; I have seen the flowers of +almonds, and lilies, and roses, but I have seen no place so pleasant as +this,' pointing to the dunghill." The application is equally droll with +the former and equally uncomplimentary to the religious part of the +community. Odo de Cirington tells us that, "Thus many of the clergy, +monks, and laymen listen to the lives of the fathers, pass among the +lilies of the virgins, among the roses of the martyrs, and among the +violets of the confessors, yet nothing ever appears so pleasant and +agreeable as a strumpet, or the tavern, or a singing party, though it +is but a stinking dunghill and congregation of sinners." + + [Illustration: _No. 45. The Fox in the Pulpit._] + + [Illustration: _No. 46. Ecclesiastical Sincerity._] + + [Illustration: _No. 47. Reynard turned Monk._] + +Popular sculpture and painting were but the translation of popular +literature, and nothing was more common to represent, in pictures +and carvings, than individual men under the forms of the animals +who displayed similar characters or similar propensities. Cunning, +treachery, and intrigue were the prevailing vices of the middle ages, +and they were those also of the fox, who hence became a favourite +character in satire. The victory of craft over force always provoked +mirth. The fabulists, or, we should perhaps rather say, the satirists, +soon began to extend their canvas and enlarge their picture, and, +instead of single examples of fraud or injustice, they introduced +a variety of characters, not only foxes, but wolves, and sheep, +and bears, with birds also, as the eagle, the cock, and the crow, +and mixed them up together in long narratives, which thus formed +general satires on the vices of contemporary society. In this manner +originated the celebrated romance of "Reynard the Fox," which in +various forms, from the twelfth century to the eighteenth, has enjoyed +a popularity which was granted probably to no other book. The plot of +this remarkable satire turns chiefly on the long struggle between the +brute force of Isengrin the Wolf, possessed only with a small amount +of intelligence, which is easily deceived--under which character is +presented the powerful feudal baron--and the craftiness of Reynard +the Fox, who represents the intelligent portion of society, which had +to hold its ground by its wits, and these were continually abused to +evil purposes. Reynard is swayed by a constant impulse to deceive +and victimise everybody, whether friends or enemies, but especially +his uncle Isengrin. It was somewhat the relationship between the +ecclesiastical and baronial aristocracy. Reynard was educated in the +schools, and intended for the clerical order; and at different times +he is represented as acting under the disguise of a priest, of a monk, +of a pilgrim, or even of a prelate of the church. Though frequently +reduced to the greatest straits by the power of Isengrin, Reynard +has generally the better of it in the end: he robs and defrauds +Isengrin continually, outrages his wife, who is half in alliance +with him, and draws him into all sorts of dangers and sufferings, +for which the latter never succeeds in obtaining justice. The old +sculptors and artists appear to have preferred exhibiting Reynard in +his ecclesiastical disguises, and in these he appears often in the +ornamentation of mediæval architectural sculpture, in wood-carvings, +in the illuminations of manuscripts, and in other objects of art. The +popular feeling against the clergy was strong in the middle ages, and +no caricature was received with more favour than those which exposed +the immorality or dishonesty of a monk or a priest. Our cut No. 45 is +taken from a sculpture in the church of Christchurch, in Hampshire, for +the drawing of which I am indebted to my friend, Mr. Llewellynn Jewitt. +It represents Reynard in the pulpit preaching; behind, or rather +perhaps beside him, a diminutive cock stands upon a stool--in modern +times we should be inclined to say he was acting as clerk. Reynard's +costume consists merely of the ecclesiastical hood or cowl. Such +subjects are frequently found on the carved seats, or misereres, in the +stalls of the old cathedrals and collegiate churches. The painted glass +of the great window of the north cross-aisle of St. Martin's church in +Leicester, which was destroyed in the last century, represented the +fox, in the character of an ecclesiastic, preaching to a congregation +of geese, and addressing them in the words--_Testis est mihi Deus, +quam cupiam vos omnes visceribus meis_ (God is witness, how I desire +you all in my bowels), a parody on the words of the New Testament.[25] +Our cut No. 46 is taken from one of the misereres in the church of +St. Mary, at Beverley, in Yorkshire. Two foxes are represented in the +disguise of ecclesiastics, each furnished with a pastoral staff, and +they appear to be receiving instructions from a prelate or personage +of rank--perhaps they are undertaking a pilgrimage of penance. But +their sincerity is rendered somewhat doubtful by the geese concealed +in their hoods. In one of the incidents of the romance of Reynard, +the hero enters a monastery and becomes a monk, in order to escape the +wrath of King Noble, the lion. For some time he made an outward show of +sanctity and self-privation, but unknown to his brethren he secretly +helped himself freely to the good things of the monastery. One day he +observed, with longing lips, a messenger who brought four fat capons as +a present from a lay neighbour to the abbot. That night, when all the +monks had retired to rest, Reynard obtained admission to the larder, +regaled himself with one of the capons, and as soon as he had eaten it, +trussed the three others on his back, escaped secretly from the abbey, +and, throwing away his monastic garment, hurried home with his prey. We +might almost imagine our cut No. 47, taken from one of the stalls of +the church of Nantwich, in Cheshire, to have been intended to represent +this incident, or, at least, a similar one. Our next cut, No. 48, is +taken from a stall in the church of Boston, in Lincolnshire. A prelate, +equally false, is seated in his chair, with a mitre on his head, and +the pastoral staff in his right hand. His flock are represented by a +cock and hens, the former of which he holds securely with his right +hand, while he appears to be preaching to them. + + [25] An engraving of this scene, modernised in character, is given in + Nichols's "Leicestershire," vol. i. plate 43. + + [Illustration: _No. 48. The Prelate and his Flock._] + +Another mediæval sculpture has furnished events for a rather curious +history, at the same time that it is a good illustration of our +subject. Odo de Cirington, the fabulist, tells us how, one day, the +wolf died, and the lion called the animals together to celebrate his +exequies. The hare carried the holy water, hedgehogs bore the candles, +the goats rang the bells, the moles dug the grave, the foxes carried +the corpse on the bier. Berengarius, the bear, celebrated mass, the ox +read the gospel, and the ass the epistle. When the mass was concluded, +and Isengrin buried, the animals made a splendid feast out of his +goods, and wished for such another funeral. Our satirical ecclesiastic +makes an application of this story which tells little to the credit +of the monks of his time. "So it frequently happens," he says, "that +when some rich man, an extortionist or a usurer, dies, the abbot or +prior of a convent of beasts, _i.e._ of men living like beasts, causes +them to assemble. For it commonly happens that in a great convent of +black or white monks (Benedictines or Augustinians) there are none +but beasts--lions by their pride, foxes by their craftiness, bears by +their voracity, stinking goats by their incontinence, asses by their +sluggishness, hedgehogs by their asperity, hares by their timidity, +because they were cowardly where there was no fear, and oxen by their +laborious cultivation of their land."[26] + + [26] The Latin text of this and some others of the fables of Odo de + Cirington will be found in my "Selection of Latin Stories," pp. + 50-52, 55-58, and 80. + + [Illustration: _No. 49. The Funeral of the Fox._] + +A scene closely resembling that here described by Odo, differing only +in the distribution of the characters, was translated from some such +written story into the pictorial language of the ancient sculptured +ornamentation of Strasburg Cathedral, where it formed, apparently, +two sides of the capital or entablature of a column near the chancel. +The deceased in this picture appears to be a fox, which was probably +the animal intended to be represented in the original, although, in +the copy of it preserved, it looks more like a squirrel. The bier is +carried by the goat and the boar, while a little dog underneath is +taking liberties with the tail of the latter. Immediately before the +bier, the hare carries the lighted taper, preceded by the wolf, who +carries the cross, and the bear, who holds in one hand the holy-water +vessel and in the other the aspersoir. This forms the first division +of the subject, and is represented in our cut No. 49. In the next +division (cut No. 50), the stag is represented celebrating mass, and +the ass reads the Gospel from a book which the cat supports with its +head. + + [Illustration: _No. 50. The Mass for the Fox._] + +This curious sculpture is said to have been of the thirteenth century. +In the fifteenth century it attracted the attention of the reformers, +who looked upon it as an ancient protest against the corruptions of +the mass, and one of the more distinguished of them, John Fischart, +had it copied and engraved on wood, and published it about the year +1580, with some verses of his own, in which it was interpreted as a +satire upon the papacy. This publication gave such dire offence to the +ecclesiastical authorities of Strasburg, that the Lutheran bookseller +who had ventured to publish it, was compelled to make a public apology +in the church, and the wood-engraving and all the impressions were +seized and burnt by the common hangman. A few years later, however, in +1608, another engraving was made, and published in a large folio with +Fischart's verses; and it is from the diminished copy of this second +edition--given in Flögel's "Geschichte des Komisches Literatur"--that +our cuts are taken. The original Sculpture was still more unfortunate. +Its publication and explanation by Fischart was the cause of no little +scandal among the Catholics, who tried to retort upon their opponents +by asserting that the figures in this funeral celebration were intended +to represent the ignorance of the Protestant preachers; and the +sculpture in the church continued to be regarded by the ecclesiastical +authorities with dissatisfaction until the year 1685, when, to take +away all further ground of scandal, it was entirely defaced. + + [Illustration: _No. 51. The Fox Provided._] + +Reynard's mediæval celebrity dates certainly from a rather early +period. Montflaucon has given an alphabet of ornamental initial +letters, formed chiefly of figures of men and animals, from a +manuscript which he ascribes to the ninth century, among which is the +one copied in our cut No. 51, representing a fox walking upon his hind +legs, and carrying two small cocks, suspended at the ends of a cross +staff. It is hardly necessary to say that this group forms the letter +T. Long before this, the Frankish historian Fredegarius, who wrote +about the middle of the seventh century, introduces a fable in which +the fox figures at the court of the lion. The same fable is repeated +by a monkish writer of Bavaria, named Fromond, who flourished in the +tenth century, and by another named Aimoinus, who lived about the year +1,000. At length, in the twelfth century, Guibert de Nogent, who died +about the year 1124, and who has left us his autobiography (_de Vita +sua_), relates an anecdote in that work, in explanation of which he +tells us that the wolf was then popularly designated by the name of +Isengrin; and in the fables of Odo, as we have already seen, this name +is commonly given to the wolf, Reynard to the fox, Teburg to the cat, +and so on with the others. This only shows that in the fables of the +twelfth century the various animals were known by these names, but it +does not prove that what we know as the romance of Reynard existed. +Jacob Grimm argued from the derivation and forms of these names, that +the fables themselves, and the romance, originated with the Teutonic +peoples, and were indigenous to them; but his reasons appear to me to +be more specious than conclusive, and I certainly lean to the opinion +of my friend Paulin Paris, that the romance of Reynard was native of +France,[27] and that it was partly founded upon old Latin legends +perhaps poems. Its character is altogether feudal, and it is strictly +a picture of society, in France primarily, and secondly in England and +the other nations of feudalism, in the twelfth century. The earliest +form in which this romance is known is in the French poem--or rather +poems, for it consists of several branches or continuations--and is +supposed to date from about the middle of the twelfth century. It soon +became so popular, that it appeared in different forms in all the +languages of Western Europe, except in England, where there appears +to have existed no edition of the romance of Reynard the Fox until +Caxton printed his prose English version of the story. From that time +it became, if possible, more popular in England than elsewhere, and +that popularity had hardly diminished down to the commencement of the +present century. + + [27] See the dissertation by M. Paulin Paris, published in his nice + popular modern abridgment of the French romance, published in + 1861, under the title "Les Aventures de Maître Renart et + d'Ysengrin son compère." On the debated question of the origin + of the Romance, see the learned and able work by Jonckbloet, + 8vo., Groningue, 1863. + +The popularity of the story of Reynard caused it to be imitated in a +variety of shapes, and this form of satire, in which animals acted +the part of men, became altogether popular. In the latter part of the +twelfth century, an Anglo-Latin poet, named Nigellus Wireker, composed +a very severe satire in elegiac verse, under the title of _Speculum +Stultorum_, the "Mirror of Fools." It is not a wise animal like the +fox, but a simple animal, the ass, who, under the name of Brunellus, +passes among the various ranks and classes of society, and notes their +crimes and vices. A prose introduction to this poem informs us that its +hero is the representative of the monks in general, who were always +longing for some new acquisition which was inconsistent with their +profession. In fact, Brunellus is absorbed with the notion that his +tail was too short, and his great ambition is to get it lengthened. +For this purpose he consults a physician, who, after representing to +him in vain the folly of his pursuit, gives him a receipt to make +his tail grow longer, and sends him to the celebrated medical school +of Salerno to obtain the ingredients. After various adventures, in +the course of which he loses a part of his tail instead of its being +lengthened, Brunellus proceeds to the University of Paris to study and +obtain knowledge; and we are treated with a most amusingly satirical +account of the condition and manners of the scholars of that time. +Soon convinced of his incapacity for learning, Brunellus abandons the +university in despair, and he resolves to enter one of the monastic +orders, the character of all which he passes in review. The greater +part of the poem consists of a very bitter satire on the corruptions of +the monkish orders and of the Church in general. While still hesitating +which order to choose, Brunellus falls into the hands of his old +master, from whom he had run away in order to seek his fortune in the +world, and he is compelled to pass the rest of his days in the same +humble and servile condition in which he had begun them. + +A more direct imitation of "Reynard the Fox" is found in the early +French romance of "Fauvel," the hero of which is neither a fox nor +an ass, but a horse. People of all ranks and classes repair to the +court of Fauvel, the horse, and furnish abundant matter for satire +on the moral, political, and religious hypocrisy which pervaded the +whole frame of society. At length the hero resolves to marry, and, +in a finely illuminated manuscript of this romance, preserved in the +Imperial Library in Paris, this marriage furnishes the subject of a +picture, which gives the only representation I have met with of one of +the popular burlesque ceremonies which were so common in the middle +ages. + + [Illustration: _No. 52. A Mediæval Charivari._] + +Among other such ceremonies, it was customary with the populace, on the +occasion of a man's or woman's second marriage, or an ill-sorted match, +or on the espousals of people who were obnoxious to their neighbours, +to assemble outside the house, and greet them with discordant music. +This custom is said to have been practised especially in France, and +it was called a _charivari_. There is still a last remnant of it in +our country in the music of marrow-bones and cleavers, with which the +marriages of butchers are popularly celebrated; but the derivation +of the French name appears not to be known. It occurs in old Latin +documents, for it gave rise to such scandalous scenes of riot and +licentiousness, that the Church did all it could, though in vain, to +suppress it. The earliest mention of this custom, furnished in the +_Glossarium_ of Ducange, is contained in the synodal statutes of the +church of Avignon, passed in the year 1337, from which we learn that +when such marriages occurred, people forced their way into the houses +of the married couple, and carried away their goods, which they were +obliged to pay a ransom for before they were returned, and the money +thus raised was spent in getting up what is called in the statute +relating to it a _Chalvaricum_. It appears from this statute, that +the individuals who performed the _charivari_ accompanied the happy +couple to the church, and returned with them to their residence, +with coarse and indecent gestures and discordant music, and uttering +scurrilous and indecent abuse, and that they ended with feasting. +In the statutes of Meaux, in 1365, and in those of Hugh, bishop of +Beziers, in 1368, the same practice is forbidden, under the name of +_Charavallium_; and it is mentioned in a document of the year 1372, +also quoted by Ducange, under that of _Carivarium_, as then existing at +Nîmes. Again, in 1445, the Council of Tours made a decree, forbidding, +under pain of excommunication, "the insolences, clamours, sounds, and +other tumults practised at second and third nuptials, called by the +vulgar a _Charivarium_, on account of the many and grave evils arising +out of them."[28] It will be observed that these early allusions to +the _charivari_ are found almost solely in documents coming from the +Roman towns in the south of France, so that this practice was probably +one of the many popular customs derived directly from the Romans. +When Cotgrave's "Dictionary" was published (that is, in 1632) the +practice of the _charivari_ appears to have become more general in its +existence, as well as its application; for he describes it as "a public +defamation, or traducing of; a foule noise made, blacke santus rung, +to the shame and disgrace of another; hence an infamous (or infaming) +ballad sung, by an armed troupe, under the window of an old dotard, +married the day before unto a yong wanton, in mockerie of them both." +And, again, a _charivaris de poelles_ is explained as "the carting of +an infamous person, graced with the harmonie of tinging kettles and +frying-pan musicke."[29] The word is now generally used in the sense +of a great tumult of discordant music, produced often by a number of +persons playing different tunes on different instruments at the same +time. + + [28] "Insultationes, clamores, sonos, et alios tumultus, in + secundis et tertiis quorundam nuptiis, quos charivarium vulgo + appellant, propter multa et gravia incommoda, prohibemus sub pœna + excommunitationis."--Ducange, v. _Charivarium_. + + [29] Cotgrave's Dictionarie, v. _Charivaris_. + + [Illustration: _No. 53. Continuation of the Charivari._] + +As I have stated above, the manuscript of the romance of "Fauvel" is in +the Imperial Library in Paris. A copy of this illumination is engraved +in Jaime's "Musée de la Caricature," from which our cuts Nos. 52 and 53 +are taken. It is divided into three compartments, one above another, +in the uppermost of which Fauvel is seen entering the nuptial chamber +to his young wife, who is already in bed. The scene in the compartment +below, which is copied in our cut No. 52, represents the street +outside, and the mock revellers performing the _charivari_; and this is +continued in the third, or lowest, compartment, which is represented +in our cut No. 53. Down each side of the original illumination is a +frame-work of windows, from which people, who have been disturbed by +the noise, are looking out upon the tumult. It will be seen that all +the performers wear masks, and that they are dressed in burlesque +costume. In confirmation of the statement of the ecclesiastical synods +as to the licentiousness of these exhibitions, we see one of the +performers here disguised as a woman, who lifts up his dress to expose +his person while dancing. The musical instruments are no less grotesque +than the costumes, for they consist chiefly of kitchen utensils, such +as frying-pans, mortars, saucepans, and the like. + + [Illustration: _No. 54. The Tables Turned._] + +There was another series of subjects in which animals were introduced +as the instruments of satire. This satire consisted in reverting +the position of man with regard to the animals over which he had +been accustomed to tyrannise, so that he was subjected to the same +treatment from the animals which, in his actual position, he uses +towards them. This change of relative position was called in old French +and Anglo-Norman, _le monde bestorné_, which was equivalent to the +English phrase, "the world turned upside down." It forms the subject +of rather old verses, I believe, both in French and English, and +individual scenes from it are met with in pictorial representation at +a rather early date. During the year 1862, in the course of accidental +excavations on the site of the Friary, at Derby, a number of encaustic +tiles, such as were used for the floors of the interiors of churches +and large buildings, were found.[30] The ornamentation of these tiles, +especially of the earlier ones, is, like all mediæval ornamentations, +extremely varied, and even these tiles sometimes present subjects of +a burlesque and satirical character, though they are more frequently +adorned with the arms and badges of benefactors to the church or +convent. The tiles found on the site of the priory at Derby are +believed to be of the thirteenth century, and one pattern, a diminished +copy of which is given in our cut No. 54, presents a subject taken +from the _monde bestorné_. The hare, master of his old enemy, the +dog, has become hunter himself, and seated upon the dog's back he +rides vigorously to the chace, blowing his horn as he goes. The design +is spiritedly executed, and its satirical intention is shown by the +monstrous and mirthful face, with the tongue lolling out, figured on +the outer corner of the tile. It will be seen that four of these tiles +are intended to be joined together to make the complete piece. In an +illumination in a manuscript of the fourteenth century in the British +Museum (MS. Reg. 10 E iv.), the hares are taking a still more severe +vengeance on their old enemy. The dog has been caught, brought to trial +for his numerous murders, and condemned, and they are represented here +(cut No. 55) conducting him in the criminal's cart to the gallows. Our +cut No. 56, the subject of which is furnished by one of the carved +stalls in Sherborne Minster (it is here copied from the engraving +in Carter's "Specimens of Ancient Sculpture"), represents another +execution scene, similar in spirit to the former. The geese have seized +their old enemy, Reynard, and are hanging him on a gallows, while two +monks, who attend the execution, appear to be amused at the energetic +manner in which the geese perform their task. Mr. Jewitt mentions two +other subjects belonging to this series, one of them taken from an +illuminated manuscript; they are, the mouse chasing the cat, and the +horse driving the cart--the former human carter in this case taking the +place of the horse between the shafts. + + [30] Mr. Llewellynn Jewitt, in his excellent publication, the + _Reliquary_, for October, 1862, has given an interesting paper on + the encaustic tiles found on this occasion, and on the conventual + house to which they belonged. + + [Illustration: _No. 55. Justice in the Hands of the Persecuted._] + + [Illustration: _No. 56. Reynard brought to Account at Last._] + +"The World turned upside down; or, the Folly of Man," has continued +amongst us to be a popular chap-book and child's book till within a +very few years, and I have now a copy before me printed in London +about the year 1790. It consists of a series of rude woodcuts, with a +few doggrel verses under each. One of these, entitled "The Ox turned +Farmer," represents two men drawing the plough, driven by an ox. In the +next, a rabbit is seen turning the spit on which a man is roasting, +while a cock holds a ladle and bastes. In a third, we see a tournament, +in which the horses are armed and ride upon the men. Another represents +the ox killing the butcher. In others we have birds netting men and +women; the ass, turned miller, employing the man-miller to carry his +sacks; the horse turned groom, and currying the man; and the fishes +angling for men and catching them. + +In a cleverly sculptured ornament in Beverley Minster, represented +in our cut No. 57, the goose herself is represented in a grotesque +situation, which might almost give her a place in "The World turned +upside down," although it is a mere burlesque, without any apparent +satirical aim. The goose has here taken the place of the horse at the +blacksmith's, who is vigorously nailing the shoe on her webbed foot. + + [Illustration: _No. 57. Shoeing the Goose._] + + [Illustration: _No. 58. Food for Swine._] + +Burlesque subjects of this description are not uncommon, especially +among architectural sculpture and wood-carving, and, at a rather +later period, on all ornamental objects. The field for such subjects +was so extensive, that the artist had an almost unlimited choice, +and therefore his subjects might be almost infinitely varied, though +we usually find them running on particular classes. The old popular +proverbs, for instance, furnished a fruitful source for drollery, and +are at times delineated in an amusingly literal or practical manner. +Pictorial proverbs and popular sayings are sometimes met with on the +carved misereres. For example, in one of those at Rouen, in Normandy, +represented in our cut No. 58, the carver has intended to represent +the idea of the old saying, in allusion to misplaced bounty, of +throwing pearls to swine, and has given it a much more picturesque and +pictorially intelligible form, by introducing a rather dashing female +feeding her swine with roses, or rather offering them roses for food, +for the swine display no eagerness to feed upon them. + + [Illustration: _No. 59. The Industrious Sow._] + +We meet with such subjects as these scattered over all mediæval +works of art, and at a somewhat later period they were transferred +to other objects, such as the signs of houses. The custom of placing +signs over the doors of shops and taverns, was well known to the +ancients, as is abundantly manifested by their frequent occurrence +in the ruins of Pompeii; but in the middle ages, the use of signs +and badges was universal, and as--contrary to the apparent practice +in Pompeii, where certain badges were appropriated to certain trades +and professions--every individual was free to choose his own sign, +the variety was unlimited. Many still had reference, no doubt, to the +particular calling of those to whom they belonged, while others were of +a religious character, and indicated the saint under whose protection +the householder had placed himself. Some people took animals for their +signs, others monstrous or burlesque figures; and, in fact, there were +hardly any of the subjects of caricature or burlesque familiar to +the mediæval sculptor and illuminator which did not from time to time +appear on these popular signs. A few of the old signs still preserved, +especially in the quaint old towns of France, Germany, and the +Netherlands, show us how frequently they were made the instruments of +popular satire. A sign not uncommon in France was _La Truie qui file_ +(the sow spinning). Our cut No. 59 represents this subject as treated +on an old sign, a carving in bas-relief of the sixteenth century, on +a house in the Rue du Marché-aux-Poirées, in Rouen. The sow appears +here in the character of the industrious housewife, employing herself +in spinning at the same time that she is attending to the wants of her +children. There is a singularly satirical sign at Beauvais, on a house +which was formerly occupied by an _épicier-moutardier_, or grocer who +made mustard, in the Rue du Châtel. In front of this sign, which is +represented in our cut No. 60, appears a large mustard-mill, on one +side of which stands Folly with a staff in her hand, with which she +is stirring the mustard, while an ape with a sort of sardonic grin, +throws in a seasoning, which may be conjectured by his posture.[31] The +trade-mark of the individual who adopted this strange device, is carved +below. + + [31] See an interesting little book on this subject by M. Ed. de + la Quérière, entitled "Recherches sur les Enseignes des Maisons + Particulières," 8vo., Rouen, 1852, from which both the above + examples are taken. + + [Illustration: _No. 60. Adulteration._] + + + + + CHAPTER VI. + + THE MONKEY IN BURLESQUE AND CARICATURE.--TOURNAMENTS AND SINGLE + COMBATS.--MONSTROUS COMBINATIONS OF ANIMAL FORMS.--CARICATURES ON + COSTUME.--THE HAT.--THE HELMET.--LADIES' HEAD-DRESSES.--THE GOWN, + AND ITS LONG SLEEVES. + + +The fox, the wolf, and their companions, were introduced as instruments +of satire, on account of their peculiar characters; but there were +other animals which were also favourites with the satirist, because +they displayed an innate inclination to imitate; they formed, as it +were, natural parodies upon mankind. I need hardly say that of these +the principal and most remarkable was the monkey. This animal must +have been known to our Anglo-Saxon forefathers from a remote period, +for they had a word for it in their own language--_apa_, our _ape_. +Monkey is a more modern name, and seems to be equivalent with maniken, +or a little man. The earliest _Bestiaries_, or popular treatises on +natural history, give anecdotes illustrative of the aptness of this +animal for imitating the actions of men, and ascribe to it a degree of +understanding which would almost raise it above the level of the brute +creation. Philip de Thaun, an Anglo-Norman poet of the reign of Henry +I., in his _Bestiary_, tells us that "the monkey, by imitation, as +books say, counterfeits what it sees, and mocks people:"-- + + _Li singe par figure, si cum dit escripture, + Ceo que il vait contrefait, de gent escar hait._[32] + +He goes on to inform us, as a proof of the extraordinary instinct of +this animal, that it has more affection for some of its cubs than for +others, and that, when running away, it carried those which it liked +before it, and those it disliked behind its back. The sketch from the +illuminated manuscript of the Romance of the Comte d'Artois, of the +fifteenth century, which forms our cut No. 61, represents the monkey, +carrying, of course, its favourite child before it in its flight, and +what is more, it is taking that flight mounted on a donkey. A monkey on +horseback appears not to have been a novelty, as we shall see in the +sequel. + + [32] See my "Popular Treatises on Science written during the Middle + Ages," p. 107. + + [Illustration: _No. 61. A Monkey Mounted._] + +Alexander Neckam, a very celebrated English scholar of the latter part +of the twelfth century, and one of the most interesting of the early +mediæval writers on natural history, gives us many anecdotes, which +show us how much attached our mediæval forefathers were to domesticated +animals, and how common a practice it was to keep them in their houses. +The baronial castle appears often to have presented the appearance +of a menagerie of animals, among which some were of that strong and +ferocious character that rendered it necessary to keep them in close +confinement, while others, such as monkeys, roamed about the buildings +at will. One of Neckam's stories is very curious in regard to our +subject, for it shows that the people in those days exercised their +tamed animals in practically caricaturing contemporary weaknesses and +fashions. This writer remarks that "the nature of the ape is so ready +at acting, by ridiculous gesticulations, the representations of things +it has seen, and thus gratifying the vain curiosity of worldly men +in public exhibitions, that it will even dare to imitate a military +conflict. A jougleur (_histrio_) was in the habit of constantly taking +two monkeys to the military exercises which are commonly called +tournaments, that the labour of teaching might be diminished by +frequent inspection. He afterwards taught two dogs to carry these apes, +who sat on their backs, furnished with proper arms. Nor did they want +spurs, with which they strenuously urged on the dogs. Having broken +their lances, they drew out their swords, with which they spent many +blows on each other's shields. Who at this sight could refrain from +laughter?"[33] + + [33] Alexander Neckam, De Naturis Rerum, lib. ii. c. 129. + + [Illustration: _No. 62. A Tournament._] + +Such contemporary caricatures of the mediæval tournament, which was +in its greatest fashion during the period from the twelfth to the +fourteenth century, appear to have been extremely popular, and are not +unfrequently represented in the borders of illuminated manuscripts. +The manuscript now so well known as "Queen Mary's Psalter" (MS. Reg. +2 B vii.), and written and illuminated very early in the fourteenth +century, contains not a few illustrations of this description. One of +these, which forms our cut No. 62, represents a tournament not much +unlike that described by Alexander Neckam, except that the monkeys +are here riding upon other monkeys, and not upon dogs. In fact, all +the individuals here engaged are monkeys, and the parody is completed +by the introduction of the trumpeter on one side, and of minstrelsy, +represented by a monkey playing on the tabor, on the other; or, +perhaps, the two monkeys are simply playing on the pipe and tabor, +which were looked upon as the lowest description of minstrelsy, and are +therefore the more aptly introduced into the scene. + +The same manuscript has furnished us with the cut No. 63. Here the +combat takes place between a monkey and a stag, the latter having +the claws of a griffin. They are mounted, too, on rather nondescript +animals--one having the head and body of a lion, with the forefeet +of an eagle; the other having a head somewhat like that of a lion, +on a lion's body, with the hind parts of a bear. This subject may, +perhaps, be intended as a burlesque on the mediæval romances, filled +with combats between the Christians and the Saracens; for the ape--who, +in the moralisations which accompany the _Bestiaries_, is said to +represent the devil--is here armed with what are evidently intended for +the sabre and shield of a Saracen, while the flag carries the shield +and lance of a Christian knight. + + [Illustration: _No. 63. A Feat of Arms._] + +The love of the mediæval artists for monstrous figures of animals, +and for mixtures of animals and men, has been alluded to in a former +chapter. The combatants in the accompanying cut (No. 64), taken from +the same manuscript, present a sort of combination of the rider and +the animal, and they again seem to be intended for a Saracen and a +Christian. The figure to the right, which is composed of the body of +a satyr, with the feet of a goose and the wings of a dragon, is armed +with a similar Saracenic sabre; while that to the left, which is on +the whole less monstrous, wields a Norman sword. Both have human faces +below the navel as well as above, which was a favourite idea in the +grotesque of the middle ages. Our mediæval forefathers appear to +have had a decided taste for monstrosities of every description, and +especially for mixtures of different kinds of animals, and of animals +and men. There is no doubt, to judge by the anecdotes recorded by such +writers as Giraldus Cambrensis, that a belief in the existence of such +unnatural creatures was widely entertained. In his account of Ireland, +this writer tells us of animals which were half ox and half man, half +stag and half cow, and half dog and half monkey.[34] It is certain that +there was a general belief in such animals, and nobody could be more +credulous than Giraldus himself. + + [34] See Girald. Cambr., Topog. Hiberniæ, dist. ii. cc. 21, 22; and the + Itinerary of Wales, lib. ii. c. 11. + + [Illustration: _No. 64. A Terrible Combat._] + + [Illustration: _No. 65. Fashionable Dress._] + +The design to caricature, which is tolerably evident in the subjects +just given, is still more apparent in other grotesques that adorn +the borders of the mediæval manuscripts, as well as in some of the +mediæval carvings and sculpture. Thus, in our cut No. 65, taken from +one of the borders in the Romance of the Comte d'Artois, a manuscript +of the fifteenth century, we cannot fail to recognise an attempt at +turning to ridicule the contemporary fashions in dress. The hat is +only an exaggerated form of one which appears to have been commonly +used in France in the latter half of the fifteenth century, and which +appears frequently in illuminated manuscripts executed in Burgundy; +and the boot also belongs to the same period. The latter reappeared at +different times, until at length it became developed into the modern +top-boots. In cut No. 66, from the same manuscript, where it forms the +letter T, we have the same form of hat, still more exaggerated, and +combined at the same time with grotesque faces. + + [Illustration: _No. 66. Heads and Hats._] + +Caricatures on costume are by no means uncommon among the artistic +remains of the middle ages, and are not confined to illuminated +manuscripts. The fashionable dresses of those days went into far more +ridiculous excesses of shape than anything we see in our times--at +least, so far as we can believe the drawings in the manuscripts; +but these, however seriously intended, were constantly degenerating +into caricature, from circumstances which are easily explained, and +which have, in fact, been explained already in their influence on +other parts of our subject. The mediæval artists in general were not +very good delineators of form, and their outlines are much inferior +to their finish. Conscious of this, though perhaps unknowingly, +they sought to remedy the defect in a spirit which has always been +adopted in the early stages of art-progress--they aimed at making +themselves understood by giving a special prominence to the peculiar +characteristics of the objects they wished to represent. These were +the points which naturally attracted people's first attention, and +the resemblance was felt most by people in general when these points +were put forward in excessive prominence in the picture. The dresses, +perhaps, hardly existed in the exact forms in which we see them in +the illuminations, or at least those were only exceptions to the +generally more moderate forms; and hence, in using these pictorial +records as materials for the history of costume, we ought to make a +certain allowance for exaggeration--we ought, indeed, to treat them +almost as caricatures. In fact, much of what we now call caricature, +was then characteristic of serious art, and of what was considered its +high development. Many of the attempts which have been made of late +years to introduce ancient costume on the stage, would probably be +regarded by the people who lived in the age which they were intended to +represent, as a mere design to turn them into ridicule. Nevertheless, +the fashions in dress were, especially from the twelfth century to the +sixteenth, carried to a great degree of extravagance, and were not only +the objects of satire and caricature, but drew forth the indignant +declamations of the Church, and furnished a continuous theme to the +preachers. The contemporary chronicles abound with bitter reflections +on the extravagance in costume, which was considered as one of the +outward signs of the great corruption of particular periods; and they +give us not unfrequent examples of the coarse manner in which the +clergy discussed them in their sermons. The readers of Chaucer will +remember the manner in which this subject is treated in the "Parson's +Tale." In this respect the satirists of the Church went hand in hand +with the pictorial caricaturists of the illuminated manuscripts, +and of the sculptures with which we sometimes meet in contemporary +architectural ornamentation. In the latter, this class of caricature is +perhaps less frequent, but it is sometimes very expressive. The very +curious _misereres_ in the church of Ludlow, in Shropshire, present the +caricature reproduced in our cut No. 67. It represents an ugly, and, to +judge by the expression of the countenance, an ill-tempered old woman, +wearing the fashionable head-dress of the earlier half of the fifteenth +century, which seems to have been carried to its greatest extravagance +in the beginning of the reign of Henry VI. It is the style of coiffure +known especially as the horned head-dress, and the very name carries +with it a sort of relationship to an individual who was notoriously +horned--the spirit of evil. This dashing dame of the olden time appears +to have struck terror into two unfortunates who have fallen within +her influence, one of whom, as though he took her for a new Gorgon, +is attempting to cover himself with his buckler, while the other, +apprehending danger of another kind, is prepared to defend himself with +his sword. The details of the head-dress in this figure are interesting +for the history of costume. + + [Illustration: _No. 67. A Fashionable Beauty._] + + [Illustration: _No. 68. A Man of War._] + +Our next cut, No. 68, is taken from a manuscript in private possession, +which is now rather well known among antiquaries by the name of the +"Luttrell Psalter," and which belongs to the fourteenth century. It +seems to involve a satire on the aristocratic order of society--on the +knight who was distinguished by his helmet, his shield, and his armour. +The individual here represented presents a type which is anything +but aristocratic. While he holds a helmet in his hand to show the +meaning of the satire, his own helmet, which he wears on his head, is +simply a bellows. He may be a knight of the kitchen, or perhaps a mere +_quistron_, or kitchen lad. + + [Illustration: _No. 69. A Lady's Head-dress._] + +We have just seen a caricature of one of the ladies' head-dresses of +the earlier half of the fifteenth century, and our cut No. 69, from +an illuminated manuscript in the British Museum of the latter half of +the same century (MS. Harl., No. 4379), furnishes us with a caricature +of a head-dress of a different character, which came into fashion in +the reign of our Edward IV. The horned head-dress of the previous +generation had been entirely laid aside, and the ladies adopted in its +place a sort of steeple-shaped head-dress, or rather of the form of a +spire, made by rolling a piece of linen into the form of a long cone. +Over this lofty cap was thrown a piece of fine lawn or muslin, which +descended almost to the ground, and formed, as it were, two wings. A +short transparent veil was thrown over the face, and reached not quite +to the chin, resembling rather closely the veils in use among our +ladies of the present day (1864). The whole head-dress, indeed, has +been preserved by the Norman peasantry; for it may be observed that, +during the feudal ages, the fashions in France and England were always +identical. These steeple head-dresses greatly provoked the indignation +of the clergy, and zealous preachers attacked them roughly in their +sermons. A French monk, named Thomas Conecte, distinguished himself +especially in this crusade, and inveighed against the head-dress with +such effect, that we are assured that many of the women threw down +their head-dresses in the middle of the sermon, and made a bonfire +of them at its conclusion. The zeal of the preacher soon extended +itself to the populace, and, for a while, when ladies appeared in this +head-dress in public, they were exposed to be pelted by the rabble. +Under such a double persecution it disappeared for a moment, but when +the preacher was no longer present, it returned again, and, to use the +words of the old writer who has preserved this anecdote, "the women +who, like snails in a fright, had drawn in their horns, shot them out +again as soon as the danger was over." The caricaturist would hardly +overlook so extravagant a fashion, and accordingly the manuscript in +the British Museum, just mentioned, furnishes us with the subject of +our cut No. 69. In those times, when the passions were subjected to no +restraint, the fine ladies indulged in such luxury and licentiousness, +that the caricaturist has chosen as their fit representative a sow, who +wears the objectionable head-dress in full fashion. The original forms +one of the illustrations of a copy of the historian Froissart, and was, +therefore, executed in France, or, more probably, in Burgundy. + +The sermons and satires against extravagance in costume began at +an early period. The Anglo-Norman ladies, in the earlier part of +the twelfth century, first brought in vogue in our island this +extravagance in fashion, which quickly fell under the lash of satirist +and caricaturist. It was first exhibited in the robes rather than +in the head-dress. These Anglo-Norman ladies are understood to have +first introduced stays, in order to give an artificial appearance of +slenderness to their waists; but the greatest extravagance appeared in +the forms of their sleeves. The robe, or gown, instead of being loose, +as among the Anglo-Saxons, was laced close round the body, and the +sleeves, which fitted the arm tightly till they reached the elbows, +or sometimes nearly to the wrist, then suddenly became larger, and +hung down to an extravagant length, often trailing on the ground, and +sometimes shortened by means of a knot. The gown, also, was itself +worn very long. The clergy preached against these extravagances in +fashion, and at times, it is said, with effect; and they fell under +the vigorous lash of the satirist. In a class of satires which became +extremely popular in the twelfth century, and which produced in the +thirteenth the immortal poem of Dante--the visions of purgatory and of +hell--these contemporary extravagances in fashion are held up to public +detestation, and are made the subject of severe punishment. They were +looked upon as among the outward forms of pride. It arose, no doubt, +from this taste--from the darker shade which spread over men's minds in +the twelfth century--that demons, instead of animals, were introduced +to personify the evil-doers of the time. Such is the figure (cut No. +70) which we take from a very interesting manuscript in the British +Museum (MS. Cotton. Nero, C iv.). The demon is here dressed in the +fashionable gown with its long sleeves, of which one appears to have +been usually much longer than the other. Both the gown and sleeve are +shortened by means of knots, while the former is brought close round +the waist by tight lacing. It is a picture of the use of stays made at +the time of their first introduction. + + [Illustration: _No. 70. Sin in Satins._] + +This superfluity of length in the different parts of the dress was a +subject of complaint and satire at various and very distant periods, +and contemporary illuminations of a perfectly serious character show +that these complaints were not without foundation. + + + + + CHAPTER VII. + + PRESERVATION OF THE CHARACTER OF THE MIMUS AFTER THE FALL OF + THE EMPIRE.--THE MINSTREL AND JOGELOUR.--HISTORY OF POPULAR + STORIES.--THE FABLIAUX.--ACCOUNT OF THEM.--THE CONTES DEVOTS. + + +I have already remarked that, upon the fall of the Roman empire, the +popular institutions of the Romans were more generally preserved to +the middle ages than those of a higher and more refined character. +This is understood without difficulty, when we consider that the lower +class of the population--in the towns, what we might perhaps call the +lower and middle classes--continued to exist much the same as before, +while the barbarian conquerors came in and took the place of the ruling +classes. The drama, which had never much hold upon the love of the +Roman populace, was lost, and the theatres and the amphitheatres, which +had been supported only by the wealth of the imperial court and of +the ruling class, were abandoned and fell into ruin; but the _mimus_, +who furnished mirth to the people, continued to exist, and probably +underwent no immediate change in his character. It will be well to +state again the chief characteristics of the ancient _mimus_, before we +proceed to describe his mediæval representative. + +The grand aim of the _mimus_ was to make people laugh, and he employed +generally every means he knew of for effecting this purpose, by +language, by gestures or motions of the body, or by dress. Thus he +carried, strapped over his loins, a wooden sword, which was called +_gladius histricus_ and _clunaculum_, and wore sometimes a garment +made of a great number of small pieces of cloth of different colours, +which was hence called _centunculus_, or the hundred-patched dress.[35] +These two characteristics have been preserved in the modern harlequin. +Other peculiarities of costume may conveniently be left undescribed; +the female mimæ sometimes exhibited themselves unrestricted by dress. +They danced and sung; repeated jokes and told merry stories; recited +or acted farces and scandalous anecdotes; performed what we now call +mimicry, a word derived from the name of mimus; and they put themselves +in strange postures, and made frightful faces. They sometimes acted +the part of a fool or zany (_morio_), or of a madman. They added to +these performances that of the conjurer or juggler (_præstigiator_), +and played tricks of sleight of hand. The mimi performed in the streets +and public places, or in the theatres, and especially at festivals, and +they were often employed at private parties, to entertain the guests at +a supper. + + [35] "Uti me consuesse tragœdi syrmate, histrionis crotalone ad + trieterica orgia, aut mimi centunculo."--Apuleius, Apolog. + +We trace the existence of this class of performers during the earlier +period of the middle ages by the expressions of hostility towards +them used from time to time by the ecclesiastical writers, and the +denunciations of synods and councils, which have been quoted in a +former chapter.[36] Nevertheless, it is evident from many allusions +to them, that they found their way into the monastic houses, and were +in great favour not only among the monks, but among the nuns also; +that they were introduced into the religious festivals; and that they +were tolerated even in the churches. It is probable that they long +continued to be known in Italy and the countries near the centre +of Roman influence, and where the Latin language was continued, by +their old name of _mimus_. The writers of the mediæval vocabularies +appear all to have been much better acquainted with the meaning of +this word than of most of the Latin words of the same class, and they +evidently had a class of performers existing in their own times to whom +they considered that the name applied. The Anglo-Saxon vocabularies +interpret the Latin _mimus_ by _glig-mon_, a gleeman. In Anglo-Saxon, +_glig_ or _gliu_ meant mirth and game of every description, and as the +Anglo-Saxon teachers who compiled the vocabularies give, as synonyms +of _mimus_, the words _scurra_, _jocista_, and _pantomimus_, it is +evident that all these were included in the character of the gleeman, +and that the latter was quite identical with his Roman type. It was +the Roman _mimus_ introduced into Saxon England. We have no traces of +the existence of such a class of performers among the Teutonic race +before they became acquainted with the civilisation of imperial Rome. +We know from drawings in contemporary illuminated manuscripts that the +performances of the gleeman did include music, singing, and dancing, +and also the tricks of mountebanks and jugglers, such as throwing up +and catching knives and balls, and performing with tamed bears, &c.[37] + + [36] See before, p. 41 of the present volume. + + [37] See examples of these illuminations in my "History of Domestic + Manners and Sentiments," pp. 34, 35, 37, 65. + +But even among the peoples who preserved the Latin language, the word +_mimus_ was gradually exchanged for others employed to signify the +same thing. The word _jocus_ had been used in the signification of a +jest, playfulness, _jocari_ signified to jest, and _joculator_ was a +word for a jester; but, in the debasement of the language, _jocus_ +was taken in the signification of everything which created mirth. It +became, in the course of time the French word _jeu_, and the Italian +_gioco_, or _giuoco_. People introduced a form of the verb, _jocare_, +which became the French _juer_, to play or perform. _Joculator_ was +then used in the sense of _mimus_. In French the word became _jogléor_, +or _jougléor_, and in its later form _jougleur_. I may remark that, in +mediæval manuscripts, it is almost impossible to distinguish between +the _u_ and the _n_, and that modern writers have misread this last +word as _jongleur_, and thus introduced into the language a word which +never existed, and which ought to be abandoned. In old English, as we +see in Chaucer, the usual form was _jogelere_. The mediæval joculator, +or jougleur, embraced all the attributes of the Roman _mimus_,[38] and +perhaps more. In the first place he was very often a poet himself, and +composed the pieces which it was one of his duties to sing or recite. +These were chiefly songs, or stories, the latter usually told in verse, +and so many of them are preserved in manuscripts that they form a very +numerous and important class of mediæval literature. The songs were +commonly satirical and abusive, and they were made use of for purposes +of general or personal vituperation. Out of them, indeed, grew the +political songs of a later period. There were female jougleurs, and +both sexes danced, and, to create mirth among those who encouraged +them, they practised a variety of performances, such as mimicking +people, making wry and ugly faces, distorting their bodies into strange +postures, often exposing their persons in a very unbecoming manner, and +performing many vulgar and indecent acts, which it is not necessary to +describe more particularly. They carried about with them for exhibition +tame bears, monkeys, and other animals, taught to perform the actions +of men. As early as the thirteenth century, we find them including +among their other accomplishments that of dancing upon the tight-rope. +Finally, the jougleurs performed tricks of sleight of hand, and were +often conjurers and magicians. As, in modern times, the jougleurs of +the middle ages gradually passed away, sleight of hand appears to have +become their principal accomplishment, and the name only was left in +the modern word _juggler_. The jougleurs of the middle ages, like +the mimi of antiquity, wandered about from place to place, and often +from country to country, sometimes singly and at others in companies, +exhibited their performances in the roads and streets, repaired to all +great festivals, and were employed especially in the baronial hall, +where, by their songs, stories, and other performances, they created +mirth after dinner. + +[38] People in the middle ages were so fully conscious of the identity +of the mediæval jougleur with the Roman mimus, that the Latin writers +often use mimus to signify a jougleur, and the one is interpreted by +the others in the vocabularies. Thus, in Latin-English vocabularies of +the fifteenth century, we have-- + + _Hic joculator_, } + } _Anglice_ jogulour. + _Hic mimus_, } + +This class of society had become known by another name, the origin of +which is not so easily explained. The primary meaning of the Latin word +_minister_ was a servant, one who ministers to another, either in his +wants or in his pleasures and amusements. It was applied particularly +to the cup-bearer. In low Latinity, a diminutive of this word was +formed, _minestellus_, or _ministrellus_, a petty servant, or minister. +When we first meet with this word, which is not at a very early date, +it is used as perfectly synonymous with _joculator_, and, as the +word is certainly of Latin derivation, it is clear that it was from +it the middle ages derived the French word _menestrel_ (the modern +_ménétrier_), and the English _minstrel_. The mimi or jougleurs were +perhaps considered as the petty ministers to the amusements of their +lord, or of him who for the time employed them. Until the close of the +middle ages, the minstrel and the jougleur were absolutely identical. +Possibly the former may have been considered the more courtly of the +two names. But in England, as the middle ages disappeared, and lost +their influence on society sooner than in France, the word minstrel +remained attached only to the musical part of the functions of the old +mimus, while, as just observed, the juggler took the sleight of hand +and the mountebank tricks. In modern French, except where employed +technically by the antiquary, the word _ménétrier_ means a fiddler. + +The jougleurs, or minstrels, formed a very numerous and important, +though a low and despised, class of mediæval society. The dulness of +every-day life in a feudal castle or mansion required something more +than ordinary excitement in the way of amusement, and the old family +bard, who continually repeated to the Teutonic chief the praises of +himself and his ancestors, was soon felt to be a wearisome companion. +The mediæval knights and their ladies wanted to laugh, and to make +them laugh sufficiently it required that the jokes, or tales, or comic +performances, should be broad, coarse, and racy, with a good spicing of +violence and of the wonderful. Hence the jougleur was always welcome +to the feudal mansion, and he seldom went away dissatisfied. But the +subject of the present chapter is rather the literature of the jougleur +than his personal history, and, having traced his origin to the Roman +mimus, we will now proceed to one class of his performances. + +It has been stated that the mimus and the jougleurs told stories. +Of those of the former, unfortunately, none are preserved, except, +perhaps, in a few anecdotes scattered in the pages of such writers as +Apuleius and Lucian, and we are obliged to guess at their character, +but of the stories of the jougleurs a considerable number has been +preserved. It becomes an interesting question how far these stories +have been derived from the mimi, handed down traditionally from mimus +to jougleur, how far they are native in our race, or how far they were +derived at a later date from other sources. And in considering this +question, we must not forget that the mediæval jougleurs were not the +only representatives of the mimi, for among the Arabs of the East also +there had originated from them, modified under different circumstances, +a very important class of minstrels and story-tellers, and with these +the jougleurs of the west were brought into communication at the +commencement of the crusades. There can be no doubt that a very large +number of the stories of the jougleurs were borrowed from the East, for +the evidence is furnished by the stories themselves; and there can be +little doubt also that the jougleurs improved themselves, and underwent +some modification, by their intercourse with Eastern performers of the +same class. + +On the other hand, we have traces of the existence of these popular +stories before the jougleurs can have had communication with the East. +Thus, as already mentioned, we find, composed in Germany, apparently +in the tenth century, in rhythmical Latin, the well-known story of the +wife of a merchant who bore a child during the long absence of her +husband, and who excused herself by stating that her pregnancy had been +the result of swallowing a flake of snow in a snow-storm. This, and +another of the same kind, were evidently intended to be sung. Another +poem in popular Latin verse, which Grimm and Schmeller, who edited +it,[39] believe may be of the eleventh century, relates a very amusing +story of an adventurer named Unibos, who, continually caught in his own +snares, finishes by getting the better of all his enemies, and becoming +rich, by mere ingenious cunning and good fortune. This story is not +met with among those of the jougleurs, as far as they are yet known, +but, curiously enough, Lover found it existing orally among the Irish +peasantry, and inserted the Irish story among his "Legends of Ireland." +It is a curious illustration of the pertinacity with which the popular +stories descend along with peoples through generations from the +remotest ages of antiquity. The same story is found in an oriental form +among the tales of the Tartars published in French by Guenlette. + + [39] In a volume entitled "Lateinische Gedichte des x. und xi. Jh." + 8vo. Göttingen, 1838. + +The people of the middle ages, who took their word _fable_ from the +Latin _fabula_, which they appear to have understood as a mere term for +any short narration, included under it the stories told by the mimi and +jougleurs; but, in the fondness of the middle ages for diminutives, by +which they intended to express familiarity and attachment, applied to +them more particularly the Latin _fabella_, which in the old French +became _fablel_, or, more usually, _fabliau_. The fabliaux of the +jougleurs form a most important class of the comic literature of the +middle ages. They must have been wonderfully numerous, for a very large +quantity of them still remain, and these are only the small portion of +what once existed, which have escaped perishing like the others by the +accident of being written in manuscripts which have had the fortune to +survive; while manuscripts containing others have no doubt perished, +and it is probable that many were only preserved orally, and never +written down at all.[40] The recital of these fabliaux appears to have +been the favourite employment of the jougleurs, and they became so +popular that the mediæval preachers turned them into short stories in +Latin prose, and made use of them as illustrations in their sermons. +Many collections of these short Latin stories are found in manuscripts +which had served as note-books to the preachers,[41] and out of them +was originally compiled that celebrated mediæval book called the "Gesta +Romanorum." + + [40] Many of the Fabliaux have been printed, but the two principal + collections, and to which I shall chiefly refer in the text, are + those of Barbazan, re-edited and much enlarged by Méon, 4 vols. + 8vo., 1808, and of Méon, 2 vols. 8vo., 1823. + + [41] A collection of these short Latin stories was edited by the author + of the present work, in a volume printed for the Percy Society in + 1842. + +It is to be regretted that the subjects and language of a large portion +of these fabliaux are such as to make it impossible to present them +before modern readers, for they furnish singularly interesting and +minute pictures of mediæval life in all classes of society. Domestic +scenes are among those most frequent, and they represent the interior +of the mediæval household in no favourable point of view. The majority +of these tell loose stories of husbands deceived by their fair spouses, +or of tricks played upon unsuspecting damsels. In some instances the +treatment of the husband is perhaps what may be called of a less +objectionable character, as in the fabliau of La Vilain Mire (the +clown doctor), printed in Barbazan (iii. 1), which was the origin of +Molière's well-known comedy of "Le Médecin malgré lui." A rich peasant +married the daughter of a poor knight; it was of course a marriage of +ambition on his part, and of interest on hers--one of those ill-sorted +matches which, according to feudal sentiments, could never be happy, +and in which the wife was considered as privileged to treat her husband +with all possible contempt. In this instance the lady hit upon an +ingenious mode of punishing her husband for his want of submission to +her ill-treatment. Messengers from the king passed that way, seeking +a skilful doctor to cure the king's daughter of a dangerous malady. +The lady secretly informed these messengers that her husband was a +physician of extraordinary talent, but of an eccentric temper, for he +would never acknowledge or exercise his art until first subjected to +a severe beating. The husband is seized, bound, and carried by force +to the king's court, where, of course, he denies all knowledge of the +healing art, but a severe beating obliges him to compliance, and he is +successful by a combination of impudence and chance. This is only the +beginning of the poor man's miseries. Instead of being allowed to go +home, his fame has become so great that he is retained at court for +the public good, and, with a rapid succession of patients, fearful +of the results of his conscious ignorance, he refuses them all, and +is subjected in every case to the same ill-treatment to force his +compliance. The examples in which the husband, on the other hand, +outwits the wife are few. A fabliau by a poet who gives himself the +name of Cortebarbe, printed also by Barbazan (iii. 398), relates how +three blind beggars were deceived by a clerc, or scholar, of Paris, who +met them on the road near Compiègne. The clerk pretended to give the +three beggars a bezant, which was then a good sum of money, and they +hastened joyfully to the next tavern, where they ordered a plentiful +supper, and feasted to their hearts' content. But, in fact, the clerk +had not given them a bezant at all, although, as he said he did so, +and they could only judge by their hearing, they imagined that they +had the coin, and each thought that it was in the keeping of one of +his companions. Thus, when the time of paying came, and the money +was not forthcoming, in the common belief that one of the three had +received the bezant and intended to keep it and cheat the others, they +quarrelled violently, and from abuse soon came to blows. The landlord, +drawn to the spot by the uproar, and informed of the state of the case, +accused the three blind men of a conspiracy to cheat him, and demanded +payment with great threats. The clerk of Paris, who had followed them +to the inn, and taken his lodging there in order to witness the result, +delivered the blind men by an equally ingenious trick which he plays +upon the landlord and the priest of the parish. + +Some of these stories have for their subject tricks played among +thieves. In one printed by Méon (i. 124), we have the story of a rich +but simple villan, or countryman, named Brifaut, who is robbed at +market by a cunning sharper, and severely corrected by his wife for +his carelessness. Robbery, both by force and by sleight of hand and +craft, prevailed to an extraordinary degree during the middle ages. The +plot of the fabliau of Barat and Haimet, by Jean de Boves (Barbazan, +iv. 233), turns upon a trial of skill among three robbers to determine +who shall commit the cleverest act of thievery, and the result is, at +least, an extremely amusing story. It may be mentioned as an example +of the numerous stories which the jougleurs certainly obtained from +the East, that the well-known story of the Hunchback in the "Arabian +Nights" appears among them in two or three different forms. + +The social vices of the middle ages, their general licentiousness, +the prevalence of injustice and extortion, are very fully exposed to +view in these compositions, in which no class of society is spared. +The villan, or peasant, is always treated very contemptuously; he +formed the class from which the jougleur received least benefit. But +the aristocracy, the great barons, the lords of the soil, come in for +their full share of satire, and they no doubt enjoyed the ridiculous +pictures of their own order. I will not venture to introduce the reader +to female life in the baronial castle, as it appears in many of these +stories, and as it is no doubt truly painted, although, of course, +in many instances, much exaggerated. We have already seen how in the +story of Reynard, the character of mediæval society was represented +by the long struggle between brute force represented by the wolf, the +emblem of the aristocratic class, and the low astuteness of the fox, +or the unaristocratic class. The success of the craft of the human fox +over the force of his lordly antagonist is often told in the fabliaux +in ludicrous colours. In that of Trubert, printed by Méon (i. 192), +the "duke" of a country, with his wife and family, become repeatedly +the dupes of the gross deceptions of a poor but impudent peasant. +These satires upon the aristocracy were no doubt greatly enjoyed by +the good _bourgeoisie_, who, in their turn, furnished abundance of +stories, of the drollest description, to provoke the mirth of the lords +of the soil, between whom and themselves there was a kind of natural +antipathy. Nor are the clergy spared. The priest is usually described +as living with a concubine--his order forbade marrying--and both are +considered as fair game to the community; while the monk figures more +frequently as the hero of gallant adventures. Both priest and monk are +usually distinguished by their selfishness and love of indulgence. In +the fabliau Du Bouchier d'Abbeville, in Barbazan (iv. 1), a butcher, on +his way home from the fair, seeks a night's lodging at the house of an +inhospitable priest, who refuses it. But when the former returns, and +offers, in exchange for his hospitality, one of his fat sheep which he +has purchased at the fair, and not only to kill it for their supper, +but to give all the meat they do not eat to his host, he is willingly +received into the house, and they make an excellent supper. By the +promise of the skin of the sheep, the guest succeeds in seducing both +the concubine and the maid-servant, and it is only after his departure +the following morning, in the middle of a domestic uproar caused by +the conflicting claims of the priest, the concubine, and the maid, to +the possession of the skin, that it is discovered that the butcher had +stolen the sheep from the priest's own flock. + +The fabliaux, as remarked before, form the most important class of the +extensive mass of the popular literature of the middle ages, and the +writers, confident in their strong hold upon public favour, sometimes +turn round and burlesque the literature of other classes, especially +the long heavy monotony of style of the great romances of chivalry and +the extravagant adventures they contained, as though conscious that +they were gradually undermining the popularity of the romance writers. +One of these poems, entitled "De Audigier," and printed in Barbazan +(iv. 217), is a parody on the romance writers and on their style, not +at all wanting in spirit or wit, but the satire is coarse and vulgar. +Another printed in Barbazan (iv. 287), under the title "De Berengier," +is a satire upon a sort of knight-errantry which had found its way +into mediæval chivalry. Berengier was a knight of Lombardy, much given +to boasting, who had a beautiful lady for his wife. He used to leave +her alone in his castle, under pretext of sallying forth in search +of chivalrous adventures, and, after a while, having well hacked his +sword and shield, he returned to vaunt the desperate exploits he had +performed. But the lady was shrewd as well as handsome, and, having +some suspicions of his truthfulness as well as of his courage, she +determined to make trial of both. One morning, when her husband rode +forth as usual, she hastily disguised herself in a suit of armour, +mounted a good steed, and hurrying round by a different way, met the +boastful knight in the middle of a wood, where he no sooner saw that he +had to encounter a real assailant, than he displayed the most abject +cowardice, and his opponent exacted from him an ignominious condition +as the price of his escape. On his return home at night, boasting as +usual of his success, he found his lady taking her revenge upon him in +a still less respectful manner, but he was silenced by her ridicule. + +The _trouvères_, or poets, who wrote the fabliaux--I need hardly +remark that _trouvère_ is the same word as _trobador_, but in the +northern dialect of the French language--appear to have flourished +chiefly from the close of the twelfth century to the earlier part of +the fourteenth. They all composed in French, which was a language then +common to England and France, but some of their compositions bear +internal evidence of having been composed in England, and others are +found in contemporary manuscripts written in this island. The scene of +a fabliau, printed by Méon (i. 113), is laid at Colchester; and that +of La Male Honte, printed in Barbazan (iii. 204), is laid in Kent. The +latter, however, was written by a trouvère named Hugues de Cambrai. +No objection appears to have been entertained to the recital of these +licentious stories before the ladies of the castle or of the domestic +circle, and their general popularity was so great, that the more pious +clergy seem to have thought necessary to find something to take their +place in the post-prandial society of the monastery, and especially +of the nunnery; and religious stories were written in the same form +and metre as the fabliaux. Some of these have been published under the +title of "Contes Devots," and, from their general dulness, it may be +doubted if they answered their purpose of furnishing amusement so well +as the others. + + + + + CHAPTER VIII. + + CARICATURES OF DOMESTIC LIFE.--STATE OF DOMESTIC LIFE IN THE MIDDLE + AGES.--EXAMPLES OF DOMESTIC CARICATURE FROM THE CARVINGS OF THE + MISERERES.--KITCHEN SCENES.--DOMESTIC BRAWLS.--THE FIGHT FOR + THE BREECHES.--THE JUDICIAL DUEL BETWEEN MAN AND WIFE AMONG + THE GERMANS.--ALLUSIONS TO WITCHCRAFT.--SATIRES ON THE TRADES; + THE BAKER, THE MILLER, THE WINE-PEDLAR AND TAVERN-KEEPER, THE + ALE-WIFE, ETC. + + +The influence of the jougleurs over people's minds generally, with +their stories and satirical pieces, their grimaces, their postures, +and their wonderful performances, was very considerable, and may be +easily traced in mediæval manners and sentiments. This influence would +naturally be exerted upon inventive art, and when a painter had to +adorn the margin of a book, or the sculptor to decorate the ornamental +parts of a building, we might expect the ideas which would first +present themselves to him to be those suggested by the jougleur's +performance, for the same taste had to be indulged in the one as in the +other. The same wit or satire would pervade them both. + + [Illustration: _No. 71. A Mediæval Kitchen Scene._] + +Among the most popular subjects of satire during the middle ages, were +domestic scenes. Domestic life at that period appears to have been in +its general character coarse, turbulent, and, I should say, anything +but happy. In all its points of view, it presented abundant subjects +for jest and burlesque. There is little room for doubt that the Romish +Church, as it existed in the middle ages, was extremely hostile to +domestic happiness among the middle and lower classes, and that the +interference of the priest in the family was only a source of domestic +trouble. The satirical writings of the period, the popular tales, +the discourses of those who sought reform, even the pictures in the +manuscripts and the sculptures on the walls invariably represent the +female portion of the family as entirely under the influence of the +priests, and that influence as exercised for the worst of purposes. +They encouraged faithlessness as well as disobedience in wives, and +undermined the virtue of daughters, and were consequently regarded with +anything but kindly feeling by the male portion of the population. The +priest, the wife, and the husband, form the usual leading characters +in a mediæval farce. Subjects of this kind are not very unfrequent in +the illuminations of manuscripts, and more especially in the sculptures +of buildings, and those chiefly ecclesiastical, in which monks or +priests are introduced in very equivocal situations. This part of the +subject, however, is one into which we shall not here venture, as we +find the mediæval caricaturists drawing plenty of materials from the +less vicious shades of contemporary life; and, in fact, some of their +most amusing pictures are taken from the droll, rather than from the +vicious, scenes of the interior of the household. Such scenes are +very frequent on the misereres of the old cathedrals and collegiate +churches. Thus, in the stalls at Worcester Cathedral, there is a droll +figure of a man seated before a fire in a kitchen well stored with +flitches of bacon, he himself occupied in attending to the boiling pot, +while he warms his feet, for which purpose he has taken off his shoes. +In a similar carving in Hereford Cathedral, a man, also in the kitchen, +is seen attempting to take liberties with the cook maid, who throws a +platter at his head. A copy of this curious subject is given in cut +No. 71, and the cut No. 72 is taken from a similar miserere in Minster +Church, in the Isle of Thanet. It represents an old lady seated, +occupied industriously in spinning, and accompanied by her cats. + + [Illustration: _No. 72. An Old Lady and her Friends._] + + [Illustration: _No. 73. The Lady and her Cat._] + +We might easily add other examples of similar subjects from the same +sources, such as the scene in our cut No. 73, taken from one of the +stalls of Winchester Cathedral, which seems to be intended to represent +a witch riding away upon her cat, an enormous animal, whose jovial +look is only outdone by that of its mistress. The latter has carried +her distaff with her, and is diligently employed in spinning. A stall +in Sherborne Minster, given in our cut No. 74, represents a scene in a +school, in which an unfortunate scholar is experiencing punishment of +a rather severe description, to the great alarm of his companions, on +whom his disgrace is evidently acting as a warning. The flogging scene +at school appears to have been rather a favourite subject among the +early caricaturists, for the scourge was looked upon in the middle ages +as the grand stimulant to scholarship. In those good old times, when a +man recalled to memory his schoolboy days, he did not say, "When I was +at school," but, "When I was under the rod." + + [Illustration: _No. 74. Scholastic Discipline._] + + [Illustration: _No. 75. A Point in Dispute._] + +An extensive field for the study of this interesting part of our +subject will be found in the architectural gallery in the Kensington +Museum, which contains a large number of calls from stalls and other +sculptures, chiefly selected from the French cathedrals. One of these, +engraved in our cut No. 75, represents a couple of females, seated +before the kitchen fire. The date of this sculpture is stated to be +1382. To judge by their looks and attitude, there is a disagreement +between them, and the object in dispute seems to be a piece of meat, +which one has taken out of the pot and placed on a dish. This lady +wields her ladle as though she were prepared to use it as a weapon, +while her opponent is armed with the bellows. The ale-pot was not +unfrequently the subject of pictures of a turbulent character, and +among the grotesque and monstrous figures in the margins of the noble +manuscript of the fourteenth century, known as the "Luttrell Psalter," +one represents two personages not only quarrelling over their pots, +which they appear to have emptied, but actually fighting with them. One +of them has literally broken his pot over his companion's head. The +scene is copied in our cut No. 76. + + [Illustration: _No. 76. Want of Harmony over the Pot._] + + [Illustration: _No. 77. Domestic Strife._] + + [Illustration: _No. 78. A Struggle for the Mastery._] + +It must be stated, however, that the more common subjects of these +homely scenes are domestic quarrels, and that the man, or his wife, +enjoying their fireside, or similar bits of domestic comfort, only +make their appearance at rare intervals. Domestic quarrels and combats +are much more frequent. We have already seen, in the cut No. 75, +two dames of the kitchen evidently beginning to quarrel over their +cookery. A stall in the church of Stratford-upon-Avon gives us the +group represented in our cut No. 77. The battle has here become +desperate, but whether the male combatant be an oppressed husband or +an impertinent intruder, is not clear. The quarrel would seem to have +arisen during the process of cooking, as the female, who has seized +her opponent by the beard, has evidently snatched up the ladle as +the readiest weapon at hand. The anger appears to be mainly on her +side, and the rather tame countenance of her antagonist contrasts +strangely with her inflamed features. Our next cut, No. 78, is taken +from the sculpture of a column in Ely Cathedral, here copied from an +engraving in Carter's "Specimens of Ancient Sculpture." A man and +wife, apparently, are struggling for the possession of a staff, which +is perhaps intended to be the emblem of mastery. As is generally +represented to be the case in these scenes of domestic strife, the +woman shows more energy and more strength than her opponent, and she +is evidently overcoming him. The mastery of the wife over the husband +seems to have been a universally acknowledged state of things. A stall +in Sherborne Minster, in Dorset, which has furnished the subject of our +cut No. 79, might almost be taken as the sequel of the last cut. The +lady has possessed herself of the staff, has overthrown her husband, +and is even striking him on the head with it when he is down. In our +next cut, No. 80, which is taken from one of the casts of stalls in +the French cathedrals exhibited in the Kensington Museum, it is not +quite clear which of the two is the offender, but, perhaps, in this +case, the archer, as his profession is indicated by his bow and arrows, +has made a gallant assault, which, although she does not look much +displeased at it, the offended dame certainly resists with spirit. + + [Illustration: _No. 79. The Wife in the Ascendant._] + + [Illustration: _No. 80. Violence Resisted._] + +One idea connected with this picture of domestic antagonism appears +to have been very popular from a rather early period. There is a +proverbial phrase to signify that the wife is master in the household, +by which it is intimated that "she wears the breeches." The phrase +is, it must be confessed, an odd one, and is only half understood by +modern explanations; but in mediæval story we learn how "she" first +put in her claim to wear this particular article of dress, how it was +first disputed and contested, how she was at times defeated, but how, +as a general rule, the claim was enforced. There was a French poet of +the thirteenth century, Hugues Piaucelles, two of whose _fabliaux_, or +metrical tales, entitled the "Fabliau d'Estourmi," and the "Fabliau de +Sire Hains et de Dame Anieuse," are preserved in manuscript, and have +been printed in the collection of Barbazan. The second of these relates +some of the adventures of a mediæval couple, whose household was not +the best regulated in the world. The name of the heroine of this +story, Anieuse, is simply an old form of the French word _ennuyeuse_, +and certainly dame Anieuse was sufficiently "ennuyeuse" to her lord +and husband. "Sire Hains," her husband, was, it appears, a maker of +"cottes" and mantles, and we should judge also, by the point on which +the quarrel turned, that he was partial to a good dinner. Dame Anieuse +was of that disagreeable temper, that whenever Sire Hains told her of +some particularly nice thing which he wished her to buy for his meal, +she bought instead something which she knew was disagreeable to him. +If he ordered boiled meat, she invariably roasted it, and further +contrived that it should be so covered with cinders and ashes that +he could not eat it. This would show that people in the middle ages +(except, perhaps, professional cooks) were very unapt at roasting meat. +This state of things had gone on for some time, when one day Sire Hains +gave orders to his wife to buy him fish for his dinner. The disobedient +wife, instead of buying fish, provided nothing for his meal but a dish +of spinage, telling him falsely that all the fish stank. This leads to +a violent quarrel, in which, after some fierce wrangling, especially +on the part of the lady, Sire Hains proposes to decide their difference +in a novel manner. "Early in the morning," he said, "I will take off +my breeches and lay them down in the middle of the court, and the one +who can win them shall be acknowledged to be master or mistress of the +house." + + _Le matinet, sans contredire, + Voudrai mes braies deschaucier, + Et enmi nostre cort couchier; + Et qui conquerre les porra, + Par bone reson mousterra + Qu'il ert sire ou dame du nostre._ + Barbazan, Fabliaux, tome iii. p. 383. + +Dame Anieuse accepted the challenge with eagerness, and each prepared +for the struggle. After due preparation, two neighbours, friend Symon +and Dame Aupais, having been called in as witnesses, and the object +of dispute, the breeches, having been placed on the pavement of the +court, the battle began, with some slight parody on the formalities +of the judicial combat. The first blow was given by the dame, who was +so eager for the fray that she struck her husband before he had put +himself on his guard; and the war of tongues, in which at least Dame +Anieuse had the best of it, went on at the same time as the other +battle. Sire Hains ventured a slight expostulation on her eagerness +for the fray, in answer to which she only threw in his teeth a fierce +defiance to do his worst. Provoked at this, Sire Hains struck at her, +and hit her over the eyebrows, so effectively, that the skin was +discoloured; and, over-confident in the effect of this first blow, he +began rather too soon to exult over his wife's defeat. But Dame Anieuse +was less disconcerted than he expected, and recovering quickly from +the effect of the blow, she turned upon him and struck him on the same +part of his face with such force, that she nearly knocked him over the +sheepfold. Dame Anieuse, in her turn, now sneered over him, and while +he was recovering from his confusion, her eyes fell upon the object of +contention, and she rushed to it, and laid her hands upon it to carry +it away. This movement roused Sire Hains, who instantly seized another +part of the article of his dress of which he was thus in danger of +being deprived, and began a struggle for possession, in which the said +article underwent considerable dilapidation, and fragments of it were +scattered over the court. In the midst of this struggle the actual +fight recommenced, by the husband giving his wife so heavy a blow on +the teeth that her mouth was filled with blood. The effect was such +that Sire Hains already reckoned on the victory, and proclaimed himself +lord of the breeches. + + _Hains fiert sa fame enmi les denz + Tel cop, que la bouche dedenz + Li a toute emplie de sancz. + "Tien ore," dist Sire Hains, "anc, + Je cuit que je t'ai bien atainte, + Or t'ai-je de deux colors tainte-- + J'aurai les braies toutes voies."_ + +But the immediate effect on Dame Anieuse was only to render her more +desperate. She quitted her hold on the disputed garment, and fell upon +her husband with such a shower of blows that he hardly knew which way +to turn. She was thus, however, unconsciously exhausting herself, and +Sire Hains soon recovered. The battle now became fiercer than ever, +and the lady seemed to be gaining the upper hand, when Sire Hains gave +her a skilful blow in the ribs, which nearly broke one of them, and +considerably checked her ardour. Friend Symon here interposed, with +the praiseworthy aim of restoring peace before further harm might be +done, but in vain, for the lady was only rendered more obstinate by +her mishap; and he agreed that it was useless to interfere until one +had got a more decided advantage over the other. The fight therefore +went on, the two combatants having now seized each other by the hair +of the head, a mode of combat in which the advantages were rather on +the side of the male. At this moment, one of the judges, Dame Aupais, +sympathising too much with Dame Anieuse, ventured some words of +encouragement, which drew upon her a severe rebuke from her colleague, +Symon, who intimated that if she interfered again there might be two +pairs of combatants instead of one. Meanwhile Dame Anieuse was becoming +exhausted, and was evidently getting the worst of the contest, until at +length, staggering from a vigorous push, she fell back into a large +basket which lay behind her. Sire Hains stood over her exultingly, +and Symon, as umpire, pronounced him victorious. He thereupon took +possession of the disputed article of raiment, and again invested +himself with it, while the lady accepted faithfully the conditions +imposed upon her, and we are assured by the poet that she was a good +and obedient wife during the rest of her life. In this story, which +affords a curious picture of mediæval life, we learn the origin of the +proverb relating to the possession and wearing of the breeches. Hugues +Piaucelles concludes his _fabliau_ by recommending every man who has a +disobedient wife to treat her in the same manner; and mediæval husbands +appear to have followed his advice, without fear of laws against the +ill-treatment of women. + + [Illustration: _No. 81. The Fight for the Breeches._] + +A subject like this was well fitted for the burlesques on the stalls, +and accordingly we find on one of those in the cathedral at Rouen, the +group given in our cut No. 81, which seems to represent the part of the +story in which both combatants seize hold of the disputed garment, and +struggle for possession of it. The husband here grasps a knife in his +hand, with which he seems to be threatening to cut it to pieces rather +than give it up. The _fabliau_ gives the victory to the husband, but +the wife was generally considered as in a majority of cases carrying +off the prize. In an extremely rare engraving by the Flemish artist +Van Mecken, dated in 1480, of which I give a copy in our cut No. 82. +the lady, while putting on the breeches, of which she has just become +possessed, shows an inclination to lord it rather tyrannically over her +other half, whom she has condemned to perform the domestic drudgery of +the mansion. + + [Illustration: _No. 82. The Breeches Won._] + + [Illustration: _No. 83. A Legal Combat._] + +In Germany, where there was still more roughness in mediæval life, what +was told in England and France as a good story of domestic doings, +was actually carried into practice under the authority of the laws. +The judicial duel was there adopted by the legal authorities as a +mode of settling the differences between husband and wife. Curious +particulars on this subject are given in an interesting paper entitled +"Some observations on Judicial Duels as practised in Germany," +published in the twenty-ninth volume of the Archæologia of the Society +of Antiquaries (p. 348). These observations are chiefly taken from +a volume of directions, accompanied with drawings, for the various +modes of attack and defence, compiled by Paulus Kall, a celebrated +teacher of defence at the court of Bavaria about the year 1400. Among +these drawings we have one representing the mode of combat between +husband and wife. The only weapon allowed the female, but that a very +formidable one, was, according to these directions, a heavy stone +wrapped up in an elongation of her chemise, while her opponent had only +a short staff, and he was placed up to the waist in a pit formed in +the ground. The following is a literal translation of the directions +given in the manuscript, and our cut No. 83 is a copy of the drawing +which illustrates it:--"The woman must be so prepared, that a sleeve +of her chemise extend a small ell beyond her hand, like a little sack; +there indeed is put a stone weighing three pounds; and she has nothing +else but her chemise, and that is bound together between the legs with +a lace. Then the man makes himself ready in the pit over against his +wife. He is buried therein up to the girdle, and one hand is bound at +the elbow to the side." At this time the practice of such combats in +Germany seems to have been long known, for it is stated that in the +year 1200 a man and his wife fought under the sanction of the civic +authorities at Bâle, in Switzerland. In a picture of a combat between +man and wife, from a manuscript resembling that of Paulus Kall, but +executed nearly a century later, the man is placed in a tub instead +of a pit, with his left arm tied to his side as before, and his right +holding a short heavy staff; while the woman is dressed, and not +stripped to the chemise, as in the former case. The man appears to be +holding the stick in such a manner that the sling in which the stone +was contained would twist round it, and the woman would thus be at +the mercy of her opponent. In an ancient manuscript on the science of +defence in the library at Gotha, the man in the tub is represented as +the conqueror of his wife, having thus dragged her head-foremost into +the tub, where she appears with her legs kicking up in the air. + +This was the orthodox mode of combat between man and wife, but it was +sometimes practised under more sanguinary forms. In one picture given +from these old books on the science of defence by the writer of the +paper on the subject in the Archæologia, the two combatants, naked +down to the waist, are represented fighting with sharp knives, and +inflicting upon each other's bodies frightful gashes. + + [Illustration: _No. 84. The Witch and the Demon._] + + [Illustration: _No. 85. The Witch and her Victim._] + +A series of stall carvings at Corbeil, near Paris, of which more will +be said a little farther on in this chapter, has furnished the curious +group represented in our cut No. 84, which is one of the rather rare +pictorial allusions to the subject of witchcraft. It represents a +woman who must, by her occupation, be a witch, for she has so far got +the mastery of the demon that she is sawing off his head with a very +uncomfortable looking instrument. Another story of witchcraft is told +in the sculpture of a stone panel at the entrance of the cathedral of +Lyons, which is represented in our cut No. 85. One power, supposed to +be possessed by witches, was that of transforming people to animals at +will. William of Malmesbury, in his Chronicle, tells a story of two +witches in the neighbourhood of Rome, who used to allure travellers +into their cottage, and there transform them into horses, pigs, or +other animals, which they sold, and feasted themselves with the money. +One day a young man, who lived by the profession of a jougleur, sought +a night's lodging at their cottage, and was received, but they turned +him into an ass, and, as he retained his understanding and his power of +acting, they gained much money by exhibiting him. At length a rich man +of the neighbourhood, who wanted him for his private amusement, offered +the two women a large sum for him, which they accepted, but they warned +the new possessor of the ass that he should carefully restrain him +from going into the water, as that would deprive him of his power of +performing. The man who had purchased the ass acted upon this advice, +and carefully kept him from water, but one day, through the negligence +of his keeper, the ass escaped from his stable, and, rushing to a pond +at no great distance, threw himself into it. Water--and running water +especially--was believed to destroy the power of witchcraft or magic; +and no sooner was the ass immersed in the water, than he recovered his +original form of a young man. He told his story, which soon reached the +ears of the pope, and the two women were seized, and confessed their +crimes. The carving from Lyons Cathedral appears to represent some such +scene of sorcery. The naked woman, evidently a witch, is, perhaps, +seated on a man whom she has transformed into a goat, and she seems to +be whirling the cat over him in such a manner that it may tear his face +with its claws. + +There was still another class of subjects for satire and caricature +which belongs to this part of our subject--I mean that of the trader +and manufacturer. We must not suppose that fraudulent trading, that +deceptive and imperfect workmanship, that adulteration of everything +that could be adulterated, are peculiar to modern times. On the +contrary, there was no period in the world's history in which dishonest +dealing was carried on to such an extraordinary extent, in which there +was so much deception used in manufactures, or in which adulteration +was practised on so shameless a scale, as during the middle ages. These +vices, or, as we may, perhaps, more properly describe them, these +crimes, are often mentioned in the mediæval writers, but they were +not easily represented pictorially, and therefore we rarely meet with +direct allusions to them, either in sculpture, on stone or wood, or +in the paintings of illuminated manuscripts. Representations of the +trades themselves are not so rare, and are sometimes droll and almost +burlesque. A curious series of such representations of arts and trades +was carved on the _misereres_ of the church of St. Spire, at Corbeil, +near Paris, which only exist now in Millin's engravings, but they seem +to have been works of the fifteenth century. Among them the first +place is given to the various occupations necessary for the production +of bread, that article so important to the support of life. Thus we +see, in these carvings at Corbeil, the labours of the reaper, cutting +the wheat and forming it into sheaves, the miller carrying it away to +be ground into meal, and the baker thrusting it into the oven, and +drawing it out in the shape of loaves. Our cut No. 86, taken from one +of these sculptures, represents the baker either putting in or taking +out the bread with his peel; by the earnest manner in which he looks at +it, we may suppose that it is the latter, and that he is ascertaining +if it be sufficiently baked. We have an earlier representation of a +mediæval oven in our cut No. 87, taken from the celebrated illuminated +manuscript of the "Romance of Alexandre," in the Bodleian Library at +Oxford, which appears to belong to an early period of the fourteenth +century. Here the baker is evidently going to take a loaf out of the +oven, for his companion holds a dish for the purpose of receiving it. + + [Illustration: _No. 86. A Baker of the Fifteenth Century._] + + [Illustration: _No. 87. A Mediæval Baker._] + +In nothing was fraud and adulteration practised to so great an +extent as in the important article of bread, and the two occupations +especially employed in making it were objects of very great dislike and +of scornful satire. The miller was proverbially a thief. Every reader +of Chaucer will remember his character so admirably drawn in that of +the miller of Trumpington, who, though he was as proud and gay "as eny +pecok," was nevertheless eminently dishonest. + + _A theef he was for soth of corn and mele, + And that a sleigh_ (sly), _and usyng_ (practised) _for to stele_. + Chaucer's Reeves Tale. + +This practice included a large college then existing in Cambridge, +but now forgotten, the Soler Hall, which suffered greatly by his +depredations. + + _And on a day it happed in a stounde, + Syk lay the mauncyple on a maledye, + Men wenden wisly that he schulde dye; + For which this meller stal bothe mele and corn + A thousend part more than byforn. + For ther biforn he stal but curteysly; + But now he is a theef outrageously. + For which the wardeyn chidde and made fare, + But therof sette the meller not a tare; + He crakked boost, and swor it was nat so._ + +Two of the scholars of this college resolved to go with the corn to the +mill, and by their watchfulness prevent his depredations. Those who are +acquainted with the story know how the scholars succeeded, or rather +how they failed; how the miller stole half a bushel of their flour and +caused his wife to make a cake of it; and how the victims had their +revenge and recovered the cake. + +As already stated, the baker had in these good old times no better +character than the miller, if not worse. There was an old saying, that +if three persons of three obnoxious professions were put together in a +sack and shaken up, the first who came out would certainly be a rogue, +and one of these was a baker. Moreover, the opinion concerning the +baker was so strong that, as in the phrase taken from the old legends +of the witches, who in their festivals sat thirteen at a table, this +number was popularly called a devil's dozen, and was believed to be +unlucky--so, when the devil's name was abandoned, perhaps for the +sake of euphony, the name substituted for it was that of the baker, +and the number thirteen was called "a baker's dozen." The makers of +nearly all sorts of provisions for sale were, in the middle ages, +tainted with the same vice, and there was nothing from which society in +general, especially in the towns where few made bread for themselves, +suffered so much. This evil is alluded to more than once in that +curious educational treatise, the "Dictionarius" of John de Garlande, +printed in my "Volume of Vocabularies." This writer, who wrote in the +earlier half of the thirteenth century, insinuates that the makers +of pies (_pastillarii_), an article of food which was greatly in +repute during the middle ages, often made use of bad eggs. The cooks, +he says further, sold, especially in Paris to the scholars of the +university, cooked meats, sausages, and such things, which were not +fit to eat; while the butchers furnished the meat of animals which had +died of disease. Even the spices and drugs sold by the apothecaries, +or _épiciers_, were not, he says, to be trusted. John de Garlande +had evidently an inclination to satire, and he gives way to it not +unfrequently in the little book of which I am speaking. He says that +the glovers of Paris cheated the scholars of the university, by selling +them gloves made of bad materials; that the women who gained their +living by winding thread (_devacuatrices_, in the Latin of the time), +not only emptied the scholars' purses, but wasted their bodies also (it +is intended as a pun upon the Latin word); and the hucksters sold them +unripe fruit for ripe. The drapers, he says, cheated people not only +by selling bad materials, but by measuring them with false measures; +while the hawkers, who went about from house to house, robbed as well +as cheated. + +M. Jubinal has published in his curious volume entitled "Jongleurs et +Trouvères," a rather jocular poem on the bakers, written in French +of, perhaps, the thirteenth century, in which their art is lauded as +much better and more useful than that of the goldsmith's. The millers' +depredations on the corn sent to be ground at the mill, are laid to the +charge of the rats, which attack it by night, and the hens, which find +their way to it by day; and he explains the diminution the bakings +experienced in the hands of the baker as arising out of the charity of +the latter towards the poor and needy, to whom they gave the meal and +paste before it had even been put into the oven. The celebrated English +poet, John Lydgate, in a short poem preserved in a manuscript in the +Harleian Library in the British Museum (MS. Harl. No. 2,255, fol. 157, +v^o), describes the pillory, which he calls their Bastile, as the +proper heritage of the miller and the baker:-- + + _Put out his hed, lyst nat for to dare, + But lyk a man upon that tour to abyde, + For cast of eggys wil not oonys spare, + Tyl he be quallyd body, bak, and syde. + His heed endooryd, and of verray pryde + Put out his armys, shewith abrood his face; + The fenestrallys be made for hym so wyde, + Claymyth to been a capteyn of that place._ + + _The bastyle longith of verray dewe ryght + To fals bakerys, it is trewe herytage + Severalle to them, this knoweth every wyght, + Be kynde assygned for ther sittyng stage; + Wheer they may freely shewe out ther visage, + Whan they tak oonys their possessioun, + Owthir in youthe or in myddyl age; + Men doon hem wrong yif they take hym down._ + + _Let mellerys and bakerys gadre hem a gilde, + And alle of assent make a fraternité, + Undir the pillory a letil chapelle bylde, + The place amorteyse, and purchase lyberté, + For alle thos that of ther noumbre be; + What evir it coost afftir that they wende, + They may clayme, be just auctorité, + Upon that bastile to make an ende._ + +The wine-dealer and the publican formed another class in mediæval +society who lived by fraud and dishonesty, and were the objects of +satire. The latter gave both bad wine and bad measure, and he often +also acted as a pawnbroker, and when people had drunk more than they +could pay for, he would take their clothes as pledges for their money. +The tavern, in the middle ages, was the resort of very miscellaneous +company; gamblers and loose women were always on the watch there to +lead more honest people into ruin, and the tavern-keeper profited +largely by their gains; and the more vulgar minstrel and "jogelour" +found employment there; for the middle classes of society, and even +their betters, frequented the tavern much more generally than at the +present day. In the carved stalls of the church of Corbeil, the liquor +merchant is represented by the figure of a man wheeling a hogshead +in a barrow, as shown in our cut No. 88. The graveness and air of +importance with which he regards it would lead us to suppose that the +barrel contains wine; and the cup and jug on the shelf above show that +it was to be sold retail. The wine-sellers called out their wines +from their doors, and boasted of their qualities, in order to tempt +people in; and John de Garlande assures us that when they entered, +they were served with wine which was not worth drinking. "The criers +of wine," he says, "proclaim with extended throat the diluted wine +they have in their taverns, offering it at four pennies, at six, at +eight, and at twelve, fresh poured out from the gallon cask into the +cup, to tempt people." ("Volume of Vocabularies," p. 126.) The ale-wife +was an especial subject of jest and satire, and is not unfrequently +represented on the pictorial monuments of our forefathers. Our cut No. +89 is taken from one of the misereres in the church of Wellingborough, +in Northamptonshire; the ale-wife is pouring her liquor from her jug +into a cup to serve a rustic, who appears to be waiting for it with +impatience. + + [Illustration: _No. 88. The Wine Dealer._] + + [Illustration: _No. 89. The Ale-Wife._] + + [Illustration: _No. 90. The Ale-Drawer._] + +The figure of the ale-drawer, No. 90, is taken from one of the +misereres in the parish church of Ludlow, in Shropshire. The size +of his jug is somewhat disproportionate to that of the barrel from +which he obtains the ale. The same misereres of Ludlow Church furnish +the next scene, cut No. 91, which represents the end of the wicked +ale-wife. The day of judgment is supposed to have arrived, and she has +received her sentence. A demon, seated on one side, is reading a list +of the crimes she has committed, which the magnitude of the parchment +shows to be a rather copious one. Another demon (whose head has been +broken off in the original) carries on his back, in a very irreverent +manner, the unfortunate lady, in order to throw her into hell-mouth, on +the other side of the picture. She is naked with the exception of the +fashionable head-gear, which formed one of her vanities in the world, +and she carries with her the false measure with which she cheated her +customers. A demon bagpiper welcomes her on her arrival. The scene is +full of wit and humour. + + [Illustration: _No. 91. The Ale-Wife's End._] + +The rustic classes, and instances of their rusticity, are not +unfrequently met with in these interesting carvings. The stalls of +Corbeil present several agricultural scenes. Our cut No. 92 is taken +from those of Gloucester cathedral, of an earlier date, and represents +the three shepherds, astonished at the appearance of the star which +announced the birth of the Saviour of mankind. Like the three kings, +the shepherds to whom this revelation was made were always in the +middle ages represented as three in number. In our drawing from the +miserere in Gloucester cathedral, the costume of the shepherds is +remarkably well depicted, even to the details, with the various +implements appertaining to their profession, most of which are +suspended to their girdles. They are drawn with much spirit, and even +the dog is well represented as an especially active partaker in the +scene. + + [Illustration: _No. 92. The Shepherds of the East._] + + [Illustration: _No. 93. The Carpenter._] + + [Illustration: _No. 94. The Shoemaker._] + +Of the two other examples we select from the misereres of Corbeil, the +first represents the carpenter, or, as he was commonly called by our +Anglo-Saxon and mediæval forefathers, the _wright_, which signifies +simply the "maker." The application of this higher and more general +term--for the Almighty himself is called, in the Anglo-Saxon poetry, +_ealra gescefta wyrhta_, the Maker, or Creator, of all things--shows +how important an art that of the carpenter was considered in the +middle ages. Everything made of wood came within his province. In the +Anglo-Saxon "Colloquy" of archbishop Alfric, where some of the more +useful artisans are introduced disputing about the relative value of +their several crafts, the "wright" says, "Who of you can do without +my craft, since I make houses and all sorts of vessels (_vasa_), and +ships for you all?" ("Volume of Vocabularies," p. 11.) And John de +Garlande, in the thirteenth century, describes the carpenter as making, +among other things, tubs, and barrels, and wine-cades. The workmanship +of those times was exercised, before all other materials, on wood +and metals, and the wright, or worker in the former material, was +distinguished by this circumstance from the smith, or worker in metal. +The carpenter is still called a wright in Scotland. Our last cut (No. +94), taken also from one of the misereres at Corbeil, represents the +shoemaker, or as he was then usually called, the cordwainer, because +the leather which he chiefly used came from Cordova in Spain, and was +thence called _cordewan_, or _cordewaine_. Our shoemaker is engaged +in cutting a skin of leather with an instrument of a rather singular +form. Shoes, and perhaps forms for making shoes, are suspended on pegs +against the wall. + + + + + CHAPTER IX. + + GROTESQUE FACES AND FIGURES.--PREVALENCE OF THE TASTE FOR UGLY + AND GROTESQUE FACES.--SOME OF THE POPULAR FORMS DERIVED + FROM ANTIQUITY; THE TONGUE LOLLING OUT, AND THE DISTORTED + MOUTH.--HORRIBLE SUBJECTS: THE MAN AND THE SERPENTS.--ALLEGORICAL + FIGURES: GLUTTONY AND LUXURY.--OTHER REPRESENTATIONS OF + CLERICAL GLUTTONY AND DRUNKENNESS.--GROTESQUE FIGURES OF + INDIVIDUALS, AND GROTESQUE GROUPS.--ORNAMENTS OF THE BORDERS OF + BOOKS.--UNINTENTIONAL CARICATURE; THE MOTE AND THE BEAM. + + +The grimaces and strange postures of the jougleurs seem to have had +great attractions for those who witnessed them. To unrefined and +uneducated minds no object conveys so perfect a notion of mirth as an +ugly and distorted face. Hence it is that among the common peasantry +at a country fair few exhibitions are more satisfactory than that of +grinning through a horse-collar. This sentiment is largely exemplified +in the sculpture especially of the middle ages, a long period, +during which the general character of society presented that want +of refinement which we now observe chiefly in its least cultivated +classes. Among the most common decorations of our ancient churches and +other mediæval buildings, are grotesque and monstrous heads and faces. +Antiquity, which lent us the types of many of these monstrosities, +saw in her Typhons and Gorgons a signification beyond the surface of +the picture, and her grotesque masks had a general meaning, and were +in a manner typical of the whole field of comic literature. The mask +was less an individual grotesque to be laughed at for itself, than +a personification of comedy. In the middle ages, on the contrary, +although in some cases certain forms were often regarded as typical +of certain ideas, in general the design extended no farther than the +forms which the artist had given to it; the grotesque features, like +the grinning through the horse-collar, gave satisfaction by their mere +ugliness. Even the applications, when such figures were intended to +have one, were coarsely satirical, without any intellectuality, and, +where they had a meaning beyond the plain text of the sculpture or +drawing, it was not far-fetched, but plain and easily understood. When +the Anglo-Saxon drew the face of a bloated and disfigured monk, he no +doubt intended thereby to proclaim the popular notion of the general +character of monastic life, but this was a design which nobody could +misunderstand, an interpretation which everybody was prepared to give +to it. We have already seen various examples of this description of +satire, scattered here and there among the immense mass of grotesque +sculpture which has no such meaning. A great proportion, indeed, of +these grotesque sculptures appears to present mere variations of a +certain number of distinct types which had been handed down from a +remote period, some of them borrowed, perhaps involuntarily, from +antiquity. Hence we naturally look for the earlier and more curious +examples of this class of art to Italy and the south of France, where +the transition from classical to mediæval was more gradual, and the +continued influence of classical forms is more easily traced. The +early Christian masons appear to have caricatured under the form of +such grotesques the personages of the heathen mythology, and to this +practice we perhaps owe some of the types of the mediæval monsters. +We have seen in a former chapter a grotesque from the church of Monte +Majour, near Nismes, the original type of which had evidently been some +burlesque figure of Saturn eating one of his children. The classical +mask doubtless furnished the type for those figures, so common in +mediæval sculpture, of faces with disproportionately large mouths; just +as another favourite class of grotesque faces, those with distended +mouths and tongues lolling out, were taken originally from the Typhons +and Gorgons of the ancients. Many other popular types of faces rendered +artificially ugly are mere exaggerations of the distortions produced on +the features by different operations, such, for instance, as that of +blowing a horn. + +The practice of blowing the horn, is, indeed, peculiarly calculated +to exhibit the features of the face to disadvantage, and was not +overlooked by the designers of the mediæval decorative sculpture. One +of the large collection of casts of sculptures from French cathedrals +exhibited in the museum at South Kensington, has furnished the two +subjects given in our cut No. 95. The first is represented as blowing +a horn, but he is producing the greatest possible distortion in his +features, and especially in his mouth, by drawing the horn forcibly +on one side with his left hand, while he pulls his beard in the other +direction with the right hand. The force with which he is supposed to +be blowing is perhaps represented by the form given to his eyes. The +face of the lower figure is in at least comparative repose. The design +of representing general distortion in the first is further shown by the +ridiculously unnatural position of the arms. Such distortion of the +members was not unfrequently introduced to heighten the effect of the +grimace in the face; and, as in these examples, it was not uncommon to +introduce as a further element of grotesque, the bodies, or parts of +the bodies, of animals, or even of demons. + + [Illustration: _No. 95. Grotesque Monsters._] + + [Illustration: _No. 96. Diabolical Mirth._] + + [Illustration: _No. 97. Making Faces._] + +Another cast in the Kensington Museum is the subject of our cut No. +96, which presents the same idea of stretching the mouth. The subject +is here exhibited by another rather mirthful looking individual, but +whether the exhibitor is intended to be a goblin or demon, or whether +he is merely furnished with the wings and claws of a bat, seems rather +uncertain. The bat was looked upon as an unpropitious if not an unholy +animal; like the owl, it was the companion of the witches, and of the +spirits of darkness. The group in our cut No. 97 is taken from one of +the carved stalls in the church of Stratford-upon-Avon, and represents +a trio of grimacers. The first of these three grotesque faces is +lolling out the tongue to an extravagant length; the second is simply +grinning; while the third has taken a sausage between his teeth to +render his grimace still more ridiculous. The number and variety of +such grotesque faces, which we find scattered over the architectural +decoration of our old ecclesiastical buildings, are so great that I +will not attempt to give any more particular classification of them. +All this church decoration was calculated especially to produce its +effect upon the middle and lower classes, and mediæval art was, perhaps +more than anything else, suited to mediæval society, for it belonged to +the mass and not to the individual. The man who could enjoy a match at +grinning through horse-collars, must have been charmed by the grotesque +works of the mediæval stone sculptor and wood carver; and we may add +that these display, though often rather rude, a very high degree of +skill in art, a great power of producing striking imagery. + +These mediæval artists loved also to produce horrible objects as well +as laughable ones, though even in their horrors they were continually +running into the grotesque. Among the adjuncts to these sculptured +figures, we sometimes meet with instruments of pain, and very talented +attempts to exhibit this on the features of the victims. The creed of +the middle ages gave great scope for the indulgence of this taste in +the infinitely varied terrors of purgatory and hell; and, not to speak +of the more crude descriptions that are so common in mediæval popular +literature, the account to which these descriptions might be turned by +the poet as well as the artist are well known to the reader of Dante. +Coils of serpents and dragons, which were the most usual instruments +in the tortures of the infernal regions, were always favourite objects +in mediæval ornamentation, whether sculptured or drawn, in the details +of architectural decoration, or in the initial letters and margins +of books. They are often combined in forming grotesque tracery with +the bodies of animals or of human beings, and their movements are +generally hostile to the latter. We have already seen, in previous +chapters, examples of this use of serpents and dragons, dating from the +earliest periods of mediæval art; and it is perhaps the most common +style of ornamentation in the buildings and illuminated manuscripts +in our island from the earlier Saxon times to the thirteenth century. +This ornamentation is sometimes strikingly bold and effective. In the +cathedral of Wells there is a series of ornamental bosses, formed by +faces writhing under the attacks of numerous dragons, who are seizing +upon the lips, eyes, and cheeks of their victims. One of these bosses, +which are of the thirteenth century, is represented in our cut No. 98. +A large, coarsely featured face is the victim of two dragons, one of +which attacks his mouth, while the other has seized him by the eye. The +expression of the face is strikingly horrible. + + [Illustration: _No. 98. Horror._] + +The higher mind of the middle ages loved to see inner meanings through +outward forms; or, at least, it was a fashion which manifested itself +most strongly in the latter half of the twelfth century, to adapt these +outward forms to inward meanings by comparisons and moralisations; +and under the effect of this feeling certain figures were at times +adopted, with a view to some other purpose than mere ornament, though +this was probably an innovation upon mediæval art. The tongue lolling +out, taken originally, as we have seen, from the imagery of classic +times, was accepted rather early in the middle ages as the emblem or +symbol of luxury; and, when we find it among the sculptured ornaments +of the architecture especially of some of the larger and more important +churches, it implied probably an allusion to that vice--at least the +face presented to us was intended to be that of a voluptuary. Among +the remarkable series of sculptures which crown the battlements of +the cloisters of Magdalen College, Oxford, executed a very few years +after the middle of the fifteenth century, amid many figures of a very +miscellaneous character, there are several which were thus, no doubt, +intended to be representatives of vices, if not of virtues. I give two +examples of these curious sculptures. + + [Illustration: _No. 99. Gluttony._] + + [Illustration: _No. 100. Luxury._] + +The first, No. 99, is generally considered to represent gluttony, and +it is a remarkable circumstance that, in a building the character of +which was partly ecclesiastical, and which was erected at the expense +and under the directions of a great prelate, Bishop Wainflete, the +vice of gluttony, with which the ecclesiastical order was especially +reproached, should be represented in ecclesiastical costume. It is an +additional proof that the detail of the work of the building was left +entirely to the builders. The coarse, bloated features of the face, +and the "villainous" low forehead, are characteristically executed; +and the lolling tongue may perhaps be intended to intimate that, in +the lives of the clergy, luxury went hand in hand with its kindred +vice. The second of our examples, No. 100, appears by its different +characteristics (some of which we have been unable to introduce in our +woodcut) to be intended to represent luxury itself. Sometimes qualities +of the individual man, or even the class of society, are represented in +a manner far less disguised by allegorical clothing, and therefore much +more plainly to the understanding of the vulgar. Thus in an illuminated +manuscript of the fourteenth century, in the British Museum (MS. +Arundel, No. 91), gluttony is represented by a monk devouring a pie +alone and in secret, except that a little cloven-footed imp holds up +the dish, and seems to enjoy the prospect of monastic indulgence. This +picture is copied in our cut No. 101. Another manuscript of the same +date (MS. Sloane, No. 2435) contains a scene, copied in our cut No. +102, representing drunkenness under the form of another monk, who has +obtained the keys and found his way into the cellar of his monastery, +and is there indulging his love for good ale in similar secrecy. It +is to be remarked that here, again, the vices are laid to the charge +of the clergy. Our cut No. 103, from a bas-relief in Ely Cathedral, +given in Carter's "Specimens of Ancient Sculpture," represents a man +drinking from a horn, and evidently enjoying his employment, but his +costume is not sufficiently characteristic to betray his quality. + + [Illustration: _No. 101. Monkish Gluttony._] + + [Illustration: _No. 102. The Monastic Cellarer._] + + [Illustration: _No. 103. Drunkenness._] + + [Illustration: _No. 104. A Strange Monster._] + +The subject of grotesque faces and heads naturally leads us to +that of monstrous and grotesque bodies and groups of bodies, which +has already been partly treated in a former chapter, where we have +noticed the great love shown in the middle ages for monstrous animated +figures, not only monsters of one nature, but, and that especially, +of figures formed by joining together the parts of different, and +entirely dissimilar, animals, of similar mixtures between animals and +men. This, as stated above, was often effected by joining the body +of some nondescript animal to a human head and face; so that, by the +disproportionate size of the latter, the body, as a secondary part +of the picture, became only an adjunct to set off still further the +grotesque character of the human face. More importance was sometimes +given to the body combined with fantastic forms, which baffle any +attempt at giving an intelligible description. The accompanying cut, +No. 104, represents a winged monster of this kind; it is taken from +one of the casts from French churches exhibited in the Kensington +Museum. + + [Illustration: _No. 105. Rolling Topsy Turvy._] + +Sometimes the mediæval artist, without giving any unusual form to +his human figures, placed them in strange postures, or joined them +in singular combinations. These latter are commonly of a playful +character, or sometimes they represent droll feats of skill, or +puzzles, or other subjects, all of which have been published +pictorially and for the amusement of children down to very recent +times. There were a few of these groups which are of rather frequent +occurrence, and they were evidently favourite types. One of these is +given in the annexed cut, No. 105. It is taken from one of the carved +misereres of the stalls in Ely cathedral, as given in Carter, and +represents two men who appear to be rolling over each other. The upper +figure exhibits animal's ears on his cap, which seem to proclaim him +a member of the fraternity of fools: the ears of the lower figure +are concealed from view. This group is not a rare one, especially on +similar monuments in France, where the architectural antiquaries have a +technical name for it; and this shows us how even the particular forms +of art in the middle ages were not confined to any particular country, +but more or less, and with exceptions, they pervaded all those which +acknowledged the ecclesiastical supremacy of the church of Rome; +whatever peculiarity of style it took in particular countries, the same +forms were spread through all western Europe. Our next cut, No. 106, +gives another of these curious groups, consisting, in fact, of two +individuals, one of which is evidently an ecclesiastic. It will be seen +that, as we follow this round, we obtain, by means of the two heads, +four different figures in so many totally different positions. This +group is taken from one of the very curious seats in the cathedral of +Rouen in Normandy, which were engraved and published in an interesting +volume by the late Monsieur E. H. Langlois. + + [Illustration: _No. 106. A Continuous Group._] + + [Illustration: _No. 107. Border Ornament._] + + [Illustration: _No. 108. A Triumphal Procession._] + +Among the most interesting of the mediæval burlesque drawings are +those which are found in such abundance in the borders of the pages of +illuminated manuscripts. During the earlier periods of the mediæval +miniatures, the favourite objects for these borders were monstrous +animals, especially dragons, which could easily be twined into +grotesque combinations. In course of time, the subjects thus introduced +became more numerous, and in the fifteenth century they were very +varied. Strange animals still continued to be favourites, but they +were more light and elegant in their forms, and were more gracefully +designed. Our cut No. 107, taken from the beautifully-illuminated +manuscript of the romance of the "Comte d'Artois," of the fifteenth +century, which has furnished us previously with several cuts, will +illustrate my meaning. The graceful lightness of the tracery of the +foliage shown in this design is found in none of the earlier works +of art of this class. This, of course, is chiefly to be ascribed to +the great advance which had been made in the art of design since the +thirteenth century. But, though so greatly improved in the style of +art, the same class of subjects continued to be introduced in this +border ornamentation long after the art of printing, and that of +engraving, which accompanied it, had been introduced. The revolution +in the ornamentation of the borders of the pages of books was effected +by the artists of the sixteenth century, at which time people had +become better acquainted with, and had learnt to appreciate, ancient +art and Roman antiquities, and they drew their inspiration from a +correct knowledge of what the middle ages had copied blindly, but had +not understood. Among the subjects of burlesque which the monuments +of Roman art presented to them, the stumpy figures of the pigmies +appear to have gained special favour, and they are employed in a manner +which reminds us of the pictures found in Pompeii. Jost Amman, the +well-known artist, who exercised his profession at Nüremberg in the +latter half of the sixteenth century, engraved a set of illustrations +to Ovid's Metamorphoses, which were printed at Lyons in 1574, and each +cut and page of which is enclosed in a border of very fanciful and +neatly-executed burlesque. The pigmies are introduced in these borders +very freely, and are grouped with great spirit. I select as an example, +cut No. 108, a scene which represents a triumphal procession--some +pigmy Alexander returning from his conquests. The hero is seated on +a throne carried by an elephant, and before him a bird, perhaps a +vanquished crane, proclaims loudly his praise. Before them a pigmy +attendant marches proudly, carrying in one hand the olive branch of +peace, and leading in the other a ponderous but captive ostrich, as a +trophy of his master's victories. Before him again a pigmy warrior, +heavily armed with battle-axe and falchion, is mounting the steps +of a stage, on which a nondescript animal, partaking somewhat of +the character of a sow, but perhaps intended as a burlesque on the +strange animals which, in mediæval romance, Alexander was said to have +encountered in Egypt, blows a horn, to celebrate or announce the return +of the conqueror. A snail, also advancing slowly up the stage, implies, +perhaps, a sneer at the whole scene. + + [Illustration: _No. 109. The Mote and the Beam._] + +Nevertheless, these old German, Flemish, and Dutch artists were still +much influenced by the mediæval spirit, which they displayed in their +coarse and clumsy imagination, in their neglect of everything like +congruity in their treatment of the subject with regard to time and +place, and their _naïve_ exaggerations and blunders. Extreme examples +of these characteristics are spoken of, in which the Israelites +crossing the Red Sea are armed with muskets, and all the other +accoutrements of modern soldiers, and in which Abraham is preparing +to sacrifice his son Isaac by shooting him with a matchlock. In +delineating scriptural subjects, an attempt is generally made to +clothe the figures in an imaginary ancient oriental costume, but the +landscapes are filled with the modern castles and mansion houses, +churches, and monasteries of western Europe. These half-mediæval +artists, too, like their more ancient predecessors, often fall into +unintentional caricature by the exaggeration or simplicity with which +they treat their subjects. There was one subject which the artists of +this period of regeneration of art seemed to have agreed to treat in +a very unimaginative manner. In the beautiful Sermon on the Mount, +our Saviour, in condemning hasty judgments of other people's actions, +says (Matt. vii. 3-5), "And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy +brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? +Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of +thine eye, and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, +first cast out the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see +clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye." Whatever be +the exact nature of the beam which the man was expected to overlook +in his "own eye," it certainly was not a large beam of timber. Yet +such was the conception of it by artists of the sixteenth century. +One of them, named Solomon Bernard, designed a series of woodcuts +illustrating the New Testament, which were published at Lyons in 1553; +and the manner in which he treated the subject will be seen in our +cut No. 109, taken from one of the illustrations to that book. The +individual seated is the man who has a mote in his eye, which the +other, approaching him, points out; and he retorts by pointing to the +"beam," which is certainly such a massive object as could not easily +have been overlooked. About thirteen years before this, an artist of +Augsburg, named Daniel Hopfer, had published a large copper-plate +engraving of this same subject, a reduced copy of which is given in the +cut No. 110. The individual who sees the mote in his brother's eye, is +evidently treating it in the character of a physician or surgeon. It +is only necessary to add that the beam in his own eye is of still more +extraordinary dimensions than the former, and that, though it seems +to escape the notice both of himself and his patient, it is evident +that the group in the distance contemplate it with astonishment. The +building accompanying this scene appears to be a church, with paintings +of saints in the windows. + + [Illustration: _No. 110. The Mote and the Beam--Another Treatment._] + + + + + CHAPTER X. + + SATIRICAL LITERATURE IN THE MIDDLE AGES.--JOHN DE HAUTEVILLE AND ALAN + DE LILLE.--GOLIAS AND THE GOLIARDS.--THE GOLIARDIC POETRY.--TASTE + FOR PARODY.--PARODIES ON RELIGIOUS SUBJECTS.--POLITICAL + CARICATURE IN THE MIDDLE AGES.--THE JEWS OF NORWICH.--CARICATURE + REPRESENTATIONS OF COUNTRIES.--LOCAL SATIRE.--POLITICAL SONGS AND + POEMS. + + +In a previous chapter I have spoken of a class of satirical literature +which was entirely popular in its character. Not that on this account +it was original among the peoples who composed mediæval society, for +the intellectual development of the middle ages came almost all from +Rome through one medium or other, although we know so little of the +details of the popular literature of the Romans that we cannot always +trace it. The mediæval literature of western Europe was mostly modelled +upon that of France, which was received, like its language, from Rome. +But when the great university system became established, towards the +end of the eleventh century, the scholars of western Europe became +more directly acquainted with the models of literature which antiquity +had left them; and during the twelfth century these found imitators +so skilful that some of them almost deceive us into accepting them +for classical writers themselves. Among the first of these models to +attract the attention of mediæval scholars, were the Roman satirists, +and the study of them produced, during the twelfth century, a number of +satirical writers in Latin prose and verse, who are remarkable not only +for their boldness and poignancy, but for the elegance of their style. +I may mention among those of English birth, John of Salisbury, Walter +Mapes, and Giraldus Cambrensis, who all wrote in prose, and Nigellus +Wireker, already mentioned in a former chapter, and John de Hauteville, +who wrote in verse. The first of these, in his "Polycraticus," Walter +Mapes, in his book "De Nugis Curialium," and Giraldus, in his "Speculum +Ecclesiæ," and several other of his writings, lay the lash on the +corruptions and vices of their contemporaries with no tender hand. +The two most remarkable English satirists of the twelfth century were +John de Hauteville and Nigellus Wireker. The former wrote, in the year +1184, a poem in nine books of Latin hexameters, entitled, after the +name of its hero, "Architrenius," or the Arch-mourner. Architrenius +is represented as a youth, arrived at years of maturity, who sorrows +over the spectacle of human vices and weaknesses, until he resolves to +go on a pilgrimage to Dame Nature, in order to expostulate with her +for having made him feeble to resist the temptations of the world, +and to entreat her assistance. On his way, he arrives successively at +the court of Venus and at the abode of Gluttony, which give him the +occasion to dwell at considerable length on the license and luxury +which prevailed among his contemporaries. He next reaches Paris, and +visits the famous mediæval university, and his satire on the manners of +the students and the fruitlessness of their studies, forms a remarkable +and interesting picture of the age. The pilgrim next arrives at the +Mount of Ambition, tempting by its beauty and by the stately palace +with which it was crowned, and here we are presented with a satire on +the manners and corruptions of the court. Near to this was the Hill of +Presumption, which was inhabited by ecclesiastics of all classes, great +scholastic doctors and professors, monks, and the like. It is a satire +on the manners of the clergy. As Architrenius turns from this painful +spectacle, he encounters a gigantic and hideous monster named Cupidity, +is led into a series of reflections upon the greediness and avarice +of the prelates, from which he is roused by the uproar caused by a +fierce combat between the prodigals and the misers. He is subsequently +carried to the island of far-distant Thule, which he finds to be the +resting-place of the philosophers of ancient Greece, and he listens +to their declamations against the vices of mankind. After this visit, +Architrenius reaches the end of his pilgrimage. He finds Nature in the +form of a beautiful woman, dwelling with a host of attendants in the +midst of a flowery plain, and meats with a courteous reception, but she +begins by giving him a long lecture on natural philosophy. After this +is concluded, Dame Nature listens to his complaints, and, to console +him, gives him a handsome woman, named Moderation, for a wife, and +dismisses him with a chapter of good counsels on the duties of married +life. The general moral intended to be inculcated appears to be that +the retirement of domestic happiness is to be preferred to the vain and +heartless turmoils of active life in all its phases. It will be seen +that the kind of allegory which subsequently produced the "Pilgrim's +Progress," had already made its appearance in mediæval literature. + +Another of the celebrated satirists of the scholastic ages was +named Alanus de Insulis, or Alan of Lille, because he is understood +to have been born at Lille in Flanders. He occupied the chair of +theology for many years in the university of Paris with great +distinction, and his learning was so extensive that he gained the +name of _doctor universalis_, the universal doctor. In one of his +books, which is an imitation of that favourite book in the middle +ages "Boethius de Consolatione Philosophiæ," Dame Nature, in the +place of Philosophy--not, as in John de Hauteville, as the referee, +but as the complainant--is introduced bitterly lamenting over the +deep depravity of the thirteenth century, especially displayed in +the prevalence of vices of a revolting character. This work, which, +like Boethius, consists of alternate chapters in verse and prose, is +entitled "De Planctu Naturæ," the lamentation of nature. I will not, +however, go on here to give a list of the graver satirical writers, but +we will proceed to another class of satirists which sprang up among +the mediæval scholars, more remarkable and more peculiar in their +character--I mean peculiar to the middle ages. + +The satires of the time show us that the students in the universities +in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, who enjoyed a great amount +of independence from authority, were generally wild and riotous, and, +among the vast number of youths who then devoted themselves to a +scholastic life, we can have no doubt that the habit of dissipation +became permanent. Among these wild students there existed, probably, +far more wit and satirical talent than among their steadier and more +laborious brethren, and this wit, and the manner in which it was +displayed, made its possessors welcome guests at the luxurious tables +of the higher and richer clergy, at which Latin seems to have been +the language in ordinary use. In all probability it was from this +circumstance (in allusion to the Latin word _gula_, as intimating their +love of the table) that these merry scholars, who displayed in Latin +some of the accomplishments which the jougleurs professed in the vulgar +tongue, took or received the name of _goliards_ (in the Latin of that +time, _goliardi_, or _goliardenses_).[42] The name at least appears +to have been adopted towards the end of the twelfth century. In the +year 1229, during the minority of Louis IX., and while the government +of France was in the hands of the queen-mother, troubles arose in the +university of Paris through the intrigues of the papal legate, and the +turbulence of the scholars led to their dispersion and to the temporary +closing of the schools; and the contemporary historian, Matthew Paris, +tells us how "some of the servants of the departing scholars, or those +whom we used to call goliardenses," composed an indecent epigram on +the rumoured familiarities between the legate and the queen. But this +is not the first mention of the goliards, for a statute of the council +of Treves, in 1227, forbade "all priests to permit truants, or other +wandering scholars, or goliards, to sing verses or _Sanctus_ and +_Angelus Dei_ in the service of the mass."[43] This probably refers to +parodies on the religious service, such as those of which I shall soon +have to speak. From this time the goliards are frequently mentioned. In +ecclesiastical statutes published in the year 1289, it is ordered that +the clerks or clergy (_clerici_, that is, men who had their education +in the university) "should not be jougleurs, goliards, or buffoons;"[44] +and the same statute proclaims a heavy penalty against those _clerici_ +"who persist in the practice of goliardy or stage performance during a +year,"[45] which shows that they exercised more of the functions of the +jougleur than the mere singing of songs. + + [42] In the mediæval Latin, the word _goliardia_ was introduced to + express the profession of the goliard, and the verb + _goliardizare_, to signify the practice of it. + + [43] "Item, præcipimus ut omnes sacerdotes non permittant trutannos et + alios vagos scholares, aut goliardos, cantare versus super + _Sanctus_ et _Angelus Dei_ in missis," etc.--Concil. Trevir., + an. 1227, ap. Marten. et Durand. Ampliss. Coll., vii. col. 117. + + [44] "Item, præcipimus quod clerici non sint joculatores, goliardi, seu + bufones."--Stat. Synod. Caduacensis, Ruthenensis, et Tutelensis + Eccles. ap. Martene, Thes. Anecd., iv. col. 727. + + [45] "Clerici ... si in goliardia vel histrionatu per annum + fuerint."--Ib. col. 729. In one of the editions of this statute it + is added, "after they have been warned three times." + +These vagabond clerks made for themselves an imaginary chieftain, +or president of their order, to whom they gave the name of Golias, +probably as a pun on the name of the giant who combated against David, +and, to show further their defiance of the existing church government, +they made him a bishop--_Golias episcopus_. Bishop Golias was the +burlesque representative of the clerical order, the general satirist, +the reformer of eclesiastical and all other corruptions. If he was not +a doctor of divinity, he was a master of arts, for he is spoken of as +_Magister Golias_. But above all he was the father of the Goliards, +the "ribald clerks," as they are called, who all belonged to his +household,[46] and they are spoken of as his children. + + _Summa salus omnium, filius Mariæ, + Pascat, potat, vestiat pueros Golyæ!_[47] + +"May the Saviour of all, the Son of Mary, give food, drink, and clothes +to the children of Golias!" Still the name was clothed in so much +mystery, that Giraldus Cambrensis, who flourished towards the latter +end of the twelfth century, believed Golias to be a real personage, +and his contemporary. It may be added that Golias not only boasts of +the dignity of bishop, but he appears sometimes under the title of +_archipoeta_, the archpoet or poet-in-chief. + + [46] "Clerici ribaldi, maxime qui vulgo dicuntur _de famila + Goliæ_."--Concil. Sen. ap. Concil., tom. ix. p. 578. + + [47] See my "Poems of Walter Mapes," p. 70. + +Cæsarius of Heisterbach, who completed his book of the miracles of his +time in the year 1222, tells us a curious anecdote of the character +of the wandering clerk. In the year before he wrote, he tells us, "It +happened at Bonn, in the diocese of Cologne, that a certain wandering +clerk, named Nicholas, of the class they call archpoet, was grievously +ill, and when he supposed that he was dying, he obtained from our +abbot, through his own pleading, and the intercession of the canons +of the same church, admission into the order. What more? He put on +the tunic, as it appeared to us, with much contrition, but, when the +danger was past, he took it off immediately, and, throwing it down with +derision, took to flight." We learn best the character of the goliards +from their own poetry, a considerable quantity of which is preserved. +They wandered about from mansion to mansion, probably from monastery +to monastery, just like the jougleurs, but they seem to have been +especially welcome at the tables of the prelates of the church, and, +like the jougleurs, besides being well feasted, they received gifts of +clothing and other articles. In few instances only were they otherwise +than welcome, as described in the rhyming epigram printed in my "Latin +Poems attributed to Walter Mapes." "I come uninvited," says the goliard +to the bishop, "ready for dinner; such is my fate, never to dine +invited." The bishop replies, "I care not for vagabonds, who wander +among the fields, and cottages, and villages; such guests are not for +my table. I do not invite you, for I avoid such as you; yet without my +will you may eat the bread you ask. Wash, wipe, sit, dine, drink, wipe, +and depart." + + Goliardus. + _Non invitatus venio prandere paratus; + Sic sum fatatus, nunquam prandere vocatus._ + + Episcopus. + _Non ego curo vagos, qui rura, mapalia, pagos + Perlustrant, tales non vult mea mensa sodales. + Te non invito, tibi consimiles ego vito; + Me tamen invito potieris pane petito. + Ablue, terge, sede, prande, bibe, terge, recede._ + +In another similar epigram, the goliard complains of the bishop who +had given him as his reward nothing but an old worn-out mantle. Most +of the writers of the goliardic poetry complain of their poverty, and +some of them admit that this poverty arose from the tavern and the love +of gambling. One of them alleges as his claim to the liberality of +his host, that, as he was a scholar, he had not learnt to labour, that +his parents were knights, but he had no taste for fighting, and that, +in a word, he preferred poetry to any occupation. Another speaks still +more to the point, and complains that he is in danger of being obliged +to sell his clothes. "If this garment of vair which I wear," he says, +"be sold for money, it will be a great disgrace to me; I would rather +suffer a long fast. A bishop, who is the most generous of all generous +men, gave me this cloak, and will have for it heaven, a greater reward +than St. Martin has, who only gave half of his cloak. It is needful +now that the poet's want be relieved by your liberality [addressing +his hearers]; let noble men give noble gifts--gold, and robes, and the +like." + + _Si vendatur propter denarium + Indumentum quod porto varium, + Grande mihi fiet opprobrium; + Malo diu pati jejunium. + Largissimus largorum omnium + Prœsul dedit mihi hoc pallium, + Majus habens in cælis præmium + Quam Martinus, qui dedit medium. + Nunc est opus ut vestra copia + Sublevetur vatis inopia; + Dent nobiles dona nobilia,-- + Aurum, vestes, et his similia._ + +There has been some difference of opinion as to the country to which +this poetry more especially belongs. Giraldus Cambrensis, writing at +the end of the twelfth or the beginning of the thirteenth century, +evidently thought that Golias was an Englishman; and at a later date +the goliardic poetry was almost all ascribed to Giraldus's contemporary +and friend, the celebrated humourist, Walter Mapes. This was, no doubt, +an error. Jacob Grimm seemed inclined to claim them for Germany; but +Grimm, on this occasion, certainly took a narrow view of the question. +We shall probably be more correct in saying that they belonged in +common to all the countries over which university learning extended; +that in whatever country a particular poem of this class was composed, +it became the property of the whole body of these scholastic jougleurs, +and that it was thus carried from one land to another, receiving +sometimes alterations or additions to adapt it to each. Several of +these poems are found in manuscripts written in different countries +with such alterations and additions, as, for instance, that in the +well-known "Confession," in the English copies of which we have, near +the conclusion, the line-- + + _Præsul Coventrensium, parce confitenti;_ + +an appeal to the bishop of Coventry, which is changed, in a copy in a +German manuscript, to + + _Electe Coloniæ, parce pœnitenti,_ + + +"O elect of Cologne, spare me penitent." From a comparison of what +remains of this poetry in manuscripts written in different countries, +it appears probable that the names Golias and goliard originated in the +university of Paris, but were more especially popular in England, while +the term _archipoeta_ was more commonly used in Germany. + +In 1841 I collected all the goliardic poetry which I could then find in +English manuscripts, and edited it, under the name of Walter Mapes, as +one of the publications of the Camden Society.[48] At a rather later +date I gave a chapter of additional matter of the same description +in my "Anecdota Literaria."[49] All the poems I have printed in +these two volumes are found in manuscripts written in England, and +some of them are certainly the compositions of English writers. They +are distinguished by remarkable facility and ease in versification +and rhyme, and by great pungency of satire. The latter is directed +especially against the clerical order, and none are spared, from the +pope at the summit of the scale down to the lowest of the clergy. In +the "Apocalypsis Goliæ," or Golias's Revelations, which appears to +have been the most popular of all these poems,[50] the poet describes +himself as carried up in a vision to heaven, where the vices and +disorders of the various classes of the popish clergy are successively +revealed to him. The pope is a devouring lion; in his eagerness for +pounds, he pawns books; at the sight of a mark of money, he treats Mark +the Evangelist with disdain; while he sails aloft, money alone is his +anchoring-place. The original lines will serve as a specimen of the +style of these curious compositions, and of the love of punning which +was so characteristic of the literature of that age:-- + + _Est leo pontifex summus, qui devorat, + Qui libras sitiens, libros impignorat; + Marcam respiciet, Marcum dedecorat; + In summis navigans, in nummis anchorat._ + + [48] The Latin Poems commonly attributed to Walter Mapes, collected and + edited by Thomas Wright, Esq., 4to., London, 1841. + + [49] "Anecdota Literaria; a Collection of Short Poems in English, + Latin, and French, illustrative of the Literature and History of + England in the Thirteenth Century." Edited by Thomas Wright, Esq. + 8vo., London, 1844. + + [50] In my edition I have collated no less than sixteen copies which + occur among the MSS. in the British Museum, and in the libraries + at Oxford and Cambridge, and there are, no doubt, many more. + +The bishop is in haste to intrude himself into other people's pastures, +and fills himself with other people's goods. The ravenous archdeacon +is compared to an eagle, because he has sharp eyes to see his prey +afar off, and is swift to seize upon it. The dean is represented by an +animal with a man's face, full of silent guile, who covers fraud with +the form of justice, and by the show of simplicity would make others +believe him to be pious. In this spirit the faults of the clergy, of +all degrees, are minutely criticised through between four and five +hundred lines; and it must not be forgotten that it was the English +clergy whose character was thus exposed. + + _Tu scribes etiam, forma sed alia, + Septem ecclesiis quæ sunt in Anglia._ + +Others of these pieces are termed Sermons, and are addressed, some to +the bishops and dignitaries of the church, others to the pope, others +to the monastic orders, and others to the clergy in general. The court +of Rome, we are told, was infamous for its greediness; there all right +and justice were put up for sale, and no favour could be had without +money. In this court money occupies everybody's thoughts; its cross--i. +e. the mark on the reverse of the coin--its roundness, and its +whiteness, all please the Romans; where money speaks law is silent. + + _Nummis in hac curia non est qui non vacet; + Crux placet, rotunditas, et albedo placet, + Et cum totum placeat, et Romanis placet, + Ubi nummus loquitur, et lex omnis tacet._ + +Perhaps one of the most curious of these poems is the "Confession of +Golias," in which the poet is made to satirise himself, and he thus +gives us a curious picture of the goliard's life. He complains that +he is made of light material, which is moved by every wind; that he +wanders about irregularly, like the ship on the sea or the bird in the +air, seeking worthless companions like himself. He is a slave to the +charms of the fair sex. He is a martyr to gambling, which often turns +him out naked to the cold, but he is warmed inwardly by the inspiration +of his mind, and he writes better poetry than ever. Lechery and +gambling are two of his vices, and the third is drinking. "The tavern," +he says, "I never despised, nor shall I ever despise it, until I see +the holy angels coming to sing the eternal requiem over my corpse. It +is my design to die in the tavern; let wine be placed to my mouth when +I am expiring, that when the choirs of angels come, they may say, 'Be +God propitious to this drinker!' The lamp of the soul is lighted with +cups; the heart steeped in nectar flies up to heaven; and the wine in +the tavern has for me a better flavour than that which the bishop's +butler mixes with water.... Nature gives to every one his peculiar +gift: I never could write fasting; a boy could beat me in composition +when I am hungry; I hate thirst and fasting as much as death." + + _Tertio capitulo memoro tabernam: + Illam nullo tempore sprevi, neque spernam, + Donec sanctos angelos venientes cernam, + Cantantes pro mortuo requiem æternam._ + + _Meum est propositum in taberna mori; + Vindum sit appositum morientis ori, + Ut dicant cum venerint angelorum chori, + 'Deus sit propitius huic potatori!'_ + + _Poculis accenditur animi lucerna; + Cor imbutum nectare volat ad superna: + Mihi sapit dulcius vinum in taberna, + Quam quod aqua miscuit præsulis pincerna._ + + _Unicuique proprium dat natura munus: + Ego nunquam potui scribere jejunus; + Me jejunum vincere posset puer unus; + Sitim et jejunium odi tanquam funus._[51] + +Another of the more popular of these goliardic poems was the advice of +Golias against marriage, a gross satire upon the female sex. Contrary +to what we might perhaps expect from their being written in Latin, many +of these metrical satires are directed against the vices of the laity, +as well as against those of the clergy. + + [51] Poems attributed to Walter Mapes, p. 73. The stanzas here quoted, + with some others, were afterwards made up into a drinking song, + which was rather popular in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. + +In 1844 the celebrated German scholar, Jacob Grimm, published in the +"Transactions of the Academy of Sciences at Berlin" a selection of +goliardic verses from manuscripts in Germany, which had evidently been +written by Germans, and some of them containing allusions to German +affairs in the thirteenth century.[52] They present the same form of +verse and the same style of satire as those found in England, but the +name of Golias is exchanged for _archipoeta_, the archpoet. Some of +the stanzas of the "Confession of Golias" are found in a poem in which +the archpoet addresses a petition to the archchancellor for assistance +in his distress, and confesses his partiality for wine. A copy of the +Confession itself is also found in this German collection, under the +title of the "Poet's Confession." + + [52] "Gedichte des Mittelalters auf König Friedrich I. den Staufar, und + aus seiner so wie der nächstfolgenden Zeit," 4to. Separate copies + of this work were printed off and distributed among mediæval + scholars. + +The Royal Library at Munich contains a very important manuscript of +this goliardic Latin poetry, written in the thirteenth century. It +belonged originally to one of the great Benedictine abbeys in Bavaria, +where it appears to have been very carefully preserved, but still +with an apparent consciousness that it was not exactly a book for a +religious brotherhood, which led the monks to omit it in the catalogue +of their library, no doubt as a book the possession of which was not +to be proclaimed publicly. When written, it was evidently intended +to be a careful selection of the poetry of this class then current. +One part of it consists of poetry of a more serious character, such +as hymns, moral poems, and especially satirical pieces. In this class +there are more than one piece which are also found in the manuscripts +written in England. A very large portion of the collection consists +of love songs, which, although evidently treasured by the Benedictine +monks, are sometimes licentious in character. A third class consists +of drinking and gambling songs (_potatoria et lusoria_). The general +character of this poetry is more playful, more ingenious and intricate +in its metrical structure, in fact, more lyric than that of the poetry +we have been describing; yet it came, in all probability, from the same +class of poets--the clerical jougleurs. The touches of sentiment, the +descriptions of female beauty, the admiration of nature, are sometimes +expressed with remarkable grace. Thus, the green wood sweetly enlivened +by the joyous voices of its feathered inhabitants, the shade of its +branches, the thorns covered with flowers, which, says the poet, are +emblematical of love, which pricks like a thorn and then soothes like a +flower, are tastefully described in the following lines:-- + + _Cantu nemus avium + Lascivia canentium + Suave delinitur, + Fronde redimitur, + Vernant spinæ floribus + Micantibus, + Venerem signantibus + Quia spina pungit, flos blanditur._ + +And the following scrap of the description of a beautiful damsel shows +no small command of language and versification-- + + _Allicit dulcibus + Verbis et osculis, + Labellulis + Castigate tumentibus, + Roseo nectareus + Odor infusus ori; + Pariter eburneus + Sedat ordo dentium + Par niveo candori._ + +The whole contents of this manuscript were printed in 1847, in an +octavo volume, issued by the Literary Society at Stuttgard.[53] I had +already printed some examples of such amatory Latin lyric poetry in +1838, in a volume of "Early Mysteries and Latin Poems;"[54] but this +poetry does not belong properly to the subject of the present volume, +and I pass on from it. + + [53] "Carmina Burana. Lateinische und Deutsche Lieder und Gedichte + einer Handschrift des XIII. Jahrhunderts aus Benedictbeurn auf + der K. Bibliothek zu München." 8vo. Stuttgart, 1847. + + [54] "Early Mysteries and other Latin Poems of the Twelfth and + Thirteenth Centuries," edited by Thomas Wright, Esq. 8vo. London, + 1838. + +The goliards did not always write in verse, for we have some of +their prose compositions, and these appear especially in the form +of parodies. We trace a great love for parody in the middle ages, +which spared not even things the most sacred, and the examples +brought forward in the celebrated trial of William Hone, were mild in +comparison to some which are found scattered here and there in mediæval +manuscripts. In my Poems, attributed to Walter Mapes,[55] I have +printed a satire in prose entitled "_Magister Golyas de quodam abbate_" +(i.e., Master Golias's account of a certain abbot), which has somewhat +the character of a parody upon a saint's legend. The voluptuous life of +the superior of a monastic house is here described in a tone of banter +which nothing could excel. Several parodies, more direct in their +character, are printed in the two volumes of the "Reliquæ Antiquæ."[56] +One of these (vol. ii. p. 208) is a complete parody on the service of +the mass, which is entitled in the original, "_Missa de Potatoribus_," +the Mass of the Drunkard. In this extraordinary composition, even the +pater-noster is parodied. A portion of this, with great variations, is +found in the German collection of the Carmina Burana, under the title +of _Officium Lusorum_, the Office of the Gamblers. In the "Reliquæ +Antiquæ" (ii. 58) we have a parody on the Gospel of St. Luke, beginning +with the words, _Initium fallacis Evangelii secundum Lupum_, this last +word being, of course, a sort of pun upon Lucam. Its subject also is +Bacchus, and the scene having been laid in a tavern in Oxford, we have +no difficulty in ascribing it to some scholar of that university in the +thirteenth century. Among the Carmina Burana we find a similar parody +on the Gospel of St. Mark, which has evidently belonged to one of these +burlesques on the church service; and as it is less profane than the +others, and at the same time pictures the mediæval hatred towards the +church of Rome, I will give a translation of it as an example of this +singular class of compositions. It is hardly necessary to remind the +reader that a mark was a coin of the value of thirteen shillings and +fourpence:-- + + "The beginning of the holy gospel according to Marks of silver. + At that time the pope said to the Romans: 'When the son of man + shall come to the seat of our majesty, first say, Friend, for what + hast thou come? But if he should persevere in knocking without + giving you anything, cast him out into utter darkness.' And it + came to pass, that a certain poor clerk came to the court of the + lord the pope, and cried out, saying, 'Have pity on me at least, + you doorkeepers of the pope, for the hand of poverty has touched + me. For I am needy and poor, and therefore I seek your assistance + in my calamity and misery.' But they hearing this were highly + indignant, and said to him: 'Friend, thy poverty be with thee in + perdition; get thee backward, Satan, for thou dost not savour of + those things which have the savour of money. Verily, verily, I say + unto thee, Thou shalt not enter into the joy of thy lord, until + thou shalt have given thy last farthing.' + + "Then the poor man went away, and sold his cloak and his gown, + and all that he had, and gave it to the cardinals, and to the + doorkeepers, and to the chamberlains. But they said, 'And what is + this among so many?' And they cast him out of the gates, and going + out he wept bitterly, and was without consolation. After him there + came to the court a certain clerk who was rich, and gross, and + fat, and large, and who in a tumult had committed manslaughter. He + gave first to the doorkeeper, secondly to the chamberlain, third + to the cardinals. But they judged among themselves, that they + were to receive more. Then the lord the pope, hearing that the + cardinals and officials had received many gifts from the clerk, + became sick unto death. But the rich man sent him an electuary of + gold and silver, and he was immediately made whole. Then the lord + the pope called before him the cardinals and officials, and said + to them: 'Brethren, see that no one deceive you with empty words. + For I give you an example, that, as I take, so take ye also.'" + + [55] Introduction, p. xl. + + [56] "Reliquiæ Antiquæ. Scraps from Ancient Manuscripts, illustrating + chiefly Early English Literature and the English Language." Edited + by Thomas Wright, Esq., and J. O. Halliwell, Esq. 2 vols. 8vo. + Vol. i., London, 1841; vol. ii., 1843. + +This mediæval love of parody was not unfrequently displayed in a +more popular form, and in the language of the people. In the _Reliquæ +Antiquæ_ (i. 82) we have a very singular parody in English on the +sermons of the Catholic priesthood, a good part of which is so written +as to present no consecutive sense, which circumstance itself implies +a sneer at the preachers. Thus our burlesque preacher, in the middle +of his discourse, proceeds to narrate as follows (I modernise the +English):-- + + "Sirs, what time that God and St. Peter came to Rome, Peter asked + Adam a full great doubtful question, and said, 'Adam, Adam, why + ate thou the apple unpared?' 'Forsooth,' quod he, 'for I had no + wardens (pears) fried.' And Peter saw the fire, and dread him, and + stepped into a plum-tree that hanged full of ripe red cherries. + And there he saw all the parrots in the sea. There he saw steeds + and stockfish pricking 'swose' (?) in the water. There he saw hens + and herrings that hunted after harts in hedges. There he saw eels + roasting larks. There he saw haddocks were done on the pillory for + wrong roasting of May butter; and there he saw how bakers baked + butter to grease with old monks' boots. There he saw how the fox + preached," &c. + +The same volume contains some rather clever parodies on the old English +alliterative romances, composed in a similar style of consecutive +nonsense. It is a class of parody which we trace to a rather early +period, which the French term a _coq-à-l'âne_, and which became +fashionable in England in the seventeenth century in the form of +songs entitled "Tom-a-Bedlams." M. Jubinal has printed two such poems +in French, perhaps of the thirteenth century,[57] and others are +found scattered through the old manuscripts. There is generally so +much coarseness in them that it is not easy to select a portion for +translation, and in fact their point consists in going on through the +length of a poem of this kind without imparting a single clear idea. +Thus, in the second of those published by Jubinal, we are told how, +"The shadow of an egg carried the new year upon the bottom of a pot; +two old new combs made a ball to run the trot; when it came to paying +the scot, I, who never move myself, cried out, without saying a word, +'Take the feather of an ox, and clothe a wise fool with it.'"-- + + _Li ombres d'un oef + Portoit l'an reneuf + Sur la fonz d'un pot; + Deus viez pinges neuf + Firent un estuef + Pour courre le trot; + Quant vint au paier l'escot, + Je, qui onques ne me muef, + M'escriai, si ne dis mot:-- + 'Prenés la plume d'un buef, + S'en vestez un sage sot.'_--Jubinal, Nouv. Rec., ii. 217. + + [57] "Achille Jubinal, Jongleurs et Trouvères." 8vo., Paris, 1835, p. + 34; and "Nouveau Recueil de Contes, Dits, Fabliaux," &c. 8vo., + Paris, 1842. Vol. ii. p. 208. In the first instance M. Jubinal has + given to this little poem the title _Resveries_, in the second, + _Fatrasies_. + +The spirit of the goliards continued to exist long after the name +had been forgotten; and the mass of bitter satire which they had +left behind them against the whole papal system, and against the +corruptions of the papal church of the middle ages, were a perfect +godsend to the reformers of the sixteenth century, who could point +to them triumphantly as irresistible evidence in their favour. Such +scholars as Flacius Illyricus, eagerly examined the manuscripts +which contained this goliardic poetry, and printed it, chiefly as +good and effective weapons in the great religious strife which was +then convulsing European society. To us, besides their interest as +literary compositions, they have also a historical value, for they +introduce us to a more intimate acquaintance with the character of the +great mental struggle for emancipation from mediæval darkness which +extended especially through the thirteenth century, and which was only +overcome for a while to begin more strongly and more successfully at +a later period. They display to us the gross ignorance, as well as +the corruption of manners, of the great mass of the mediæval clergy. +Nothing can be more amusing than the satire which some of these pieces +throw on the character of monkish Latin. I printed in the "Reliquæ +Antiquæ," under the title of "The Abbot of Gloucester's Feast," a +complaint supposed to issue from the mouth of one of the common herd +of the monks, against the selfishness of their superiors, in which all +the rules of Latin grammar are entirely set at defiance. The abbot and +prior of Gloucester, with their whole convent, are invited to a feast, +and on their arrival, "the abbot," says the complainant, "goes to sit +at the top, and the prior next to him, but I stood always in the back +place among the low people." + + _Abbas ire sede sursum, + Et prioris juxta ipsum; + Ego semper stavi dorsum + inter rascalilia._ + +The wine was served liberally to the prior and the abbot, but "nothing +was give to us poor folks--everything was for the rich." + + _Vinum venit sanguinatis + Ad prioris et abbatis; + Nihil nobis paupertatis, + sed ad dives omnia._ + +When some dissatisfaction was displayed by the poor monks, which the +great men treated with contempt, "said the prior to the abbot, 'They +have wine enough; will you give all our drink to the poor? What does +their poverty regard us? they have little, and that is enough, since +they came uninvited to our feast.'" + + _Prior dixit ad abbatis, + 'Ipsi habent vinum satis; + Vultis dare paupertatis + noster potus omnia? + Quid nos spectat paupertatis? + Postquam venit non vocatis + ad noster convivia.'_ + +Thus through several pages this amusing poem goes on to describe the +gluttony and drunkenness of the abbot and prior, and the ill-treatment +of their inferiors. This composition belongs to the close of the +thirteenth century. A song very similar to it in character, but much +shorter, is found in a manuscript of the middle of the fifteenth +century, and printed with the other contents of this manuscript in a +little volume issued by the Percy Society.[58] The writer complains +that the abbot and prior drunk good and high-flavoured wine, while +nothing but inferior stuff was usually given to the convent; "But," +he says, "it is better to go drink good wine at the tavern, where the +wines are of the best quality, and money is the butler." + + _Bonum vinum cum sapore + Bibit abbas cum priore; + Sed conventus de pejore + semper solet bibere. + Bonum vinum in taberna, + Ubi vina sunt valarna_ (for Falerna), + _Ubi nummus est pincerna, + Ibi prodest bibere._ + + [58] "Songs and Carols, now first printed from a Manuscript of the + Fifteenth Century." Edited by Thomas Wright, Esq. 8vo., London, + 1847, p. 2. + + [Illustration: _No. 111. Caricature upon the Jews at Norwich._] + +Partly out of the earnest, though playful, satire described in this +chapter, arose political satire, and at a later period political +caricature. I have before remarked that the period we call the middle +ages was not that of political or personal caricature, because it +wanted that means of circulating quickly and largely which is necessary +for it. Yet, no doubt, men who could draw, did, in the middle ages, +sometimes amuse themselves in sketching caricatures, which, in general, +have perished, because nobody cared to preserve them; but the fact of +the existence of such works is proved by a very curious example, which +has been preserved, and which is copied in our cut No. 111. It is a +caricature on the Jews of Norwich, which some one of the clerks of the +king's courts in the thirteenth century has drawn with a pen, on one +of the official rolls of the Pell office, where it has been preserved. +Norwich, as it is well known, was one of the principal seats of the +Jews in England at this early period, and Isaac of Norwich, the crowned +Jew with three faces, who towers over the other figures, was no doubt +some personage of great importance among them. Dagon, as a two-headed +demon, occupies a tower, which a party of demon knights is attacking. +Beneath the figure of Isaac there is a lady, whose name appears to be +Avezarden, who has some relation or other with a male figure named +Nolle-Mokke, in which another demon, named Colbif, is interfering. As +this latter name is written in capital letters, we may perhaps conclude +that he is the most important personage in the scene; but, without any +knowledge of the circumstances to which it relates, it would be in vain +to attempt to explain this curious and rather elaborate caricature. + + [Illustration: _No. 112. An Irishman._] + +Similar attempts at caricature, though less direct and elaborate, are +found in others of our national records. One of these, pointed out to +me by an excellent and respected friend, the Rev. Lambert B. Larking, +is peculiarly interesting, as well as amusing. It belongs to the +Treasury of the Exchequer, and consists of two volumes of vellum called +Liber A and Liber B, forming a register of treaties, marriages, and +similar documents of the reign of Edward I., which have been very fully +used by Rymer. The clerk who was employed in writing it, seems to have +been, like many of these official clerks, somewhat of a wag, and he +has amused himself by drawing in the margin figures of the inhabitants +of the provinces of Edward's crown to which the documents referred. +Some of these are evidently designed for caricature. Thus, the figure +given in our cut No. 112 was intended to represent an Irishman. One +trait, at least, in this caricature is well known from the description +given by Giraldus Cambrensis, who speaks with a sort of horror of the +formidable axes which the Irish were accustomed to carry about with +them. In treating of the manner in which Ireland ought to be governed +when it had been entirely reduced to subjection, he recommends that, +"in the meantime, they ought not to be allowed in time of peace, on +any pretence or in any place, to use that detestable instrument of +destruction, which, by an ancient but accursed custom, they constantly +carry in their hands instead of a staff." In a chapter of his +"Topography of Ireland," Giraldus treats of this "ancient and wicked +custom" of always carrying in their hand an axe, instead of a staff, +to the danger of all persons who had any relations with them. Another +Irishman, from a drawing in the same manuscript, given in our cut No. +113, carries his axe in the same threatening attitude. The costume of +these figures answers with sufficient accuracy to the description given +by Giraldus Cambrensis. The drawings exhibit more exactly than that +writer's description the "small close-fitting hoods, hanging a cubit's +length (half-a-yard) below the shoulders," which, he tells us, they +were accustomed to wear. This small hood, with the flat cap attached to +it, is shown better perhaps in the second figure than in the first. The +"breeches and hose of one piece, or hose and breeches joined together," +are also exhibited here very distinctly, and appear to be tied over +the heel, but the feet are clearly naked, and evidently the use of the +"brogues" was not yet general among the Irish of the thirteenth century. + + [Illustration: _No. 113. Another Irishman._] + +If the Welshman of this period was somewhat more scantily clothed +than the Irishman, he had the advantage of him, to judge by this +manuscript, in wearing at least one shoe. Our cut No. 114, taken from +it, represents a Welshman armed with bow and arrow, whose clothing +consists apparently only of a plain tunic and a light mantle. This +is quite in accordance with the description by Giraldus Cambrensis, +who tells us that in all seasons their dress was the same, and that, +however severe the weather, "they defended themselves from the cold +only by a thin cloak and tunic." Giraldus says nothing of the practice +of the Welsh in wearing but one shoe, yet it is evident that at the +time of this record that was their practice, for in another figure of +a Welshman, given in our cut No. 115, we see the same peculiarity, +and in both cases the shoe is worn on the left foot. Giraldus merely +says that the Welshmen in general, when engaged in warfare, "either +walked bare-footed, or made use of high shoes, roughly made of untanned +leather." He describes them as armed sometimes with bows and arrows, +and sometimes with long spears; and accordingly our first example of +a Welshman from this manuscript is using the bow, while the second +carries the spear, which he apparently rests on the single shoe of +his left foot, while he brandishes a sword in his left hand. Both our +Welshmen present a singularly grotesque appearance. + + [Illustration: _No. 114. A Welsh Archer._] + + [Illustration: _No. 115. A Welshman with his Spear._] + + [Illustration: _No. 116. A Gascon at his Vine._] + + [Illustration: _No. 117. The Wine Manufacturer._] + +The Gascon is represented with more peaceful attributes. Gascony was +the country of vineyards, from whence we drew our great supply of +wines, a very important article of consumption in the middle ages. +When the official clerk who wrote this manuscript came to documents +relating to Gascony, his thoughts wandered naturally enough to its +rich vineyards and the wine they supplied so plentifully, and to +which, according to old reports, clerks seldom showed any dislike, and +accordingly, in the sketch, which we copy in our cut No. 116, we have +a Gascon occupied diligently in pruning his vine-tree. He, at least, +wears two shoes, though his clothing is of the lightest description. He +is perhaps the _vinitor_ of the mediæval documents on this subject, a +serf attached to the vineyard. Our second sketch, cut No. 117, presents +a more enlarged scene, and introduces us to the whole process of making +wine. First we see a man better clothed, with shoes (or boots) of much +superior make, and a hat on his head, carrying away the grapes from +the vineyard to the place where another man, with no clothing at all, +is treading out the juice in a large vat. This is still in some of the +wine countries the common method of extracting the juice from the +grape. Further to the left is the large cask in which the juice is put +when turned into wine. + +Satires on the people of particular localities were not uncommon +during the middle ages, because local rivalries and consequent local +feuds prevailed everywhere. The records of such feuds were naturally +of a temporary character, and perished when the feuds and rivalries +themselves ceased to exist, but a few curious satires of this kind have +been preserved. A monk of Peterborough, who lived late in the twelfth +or early in the thirteenth century, and for some reason or other +nourished an unfriendly feeling to the people of Norfolk, gave vent +to his hostility in a short Latin poem in what we may call goliardic +verse. He begins by abusing the county itself, which, he says, was as +bad and unfruitful as its inhabitants were vile; and he suggests that +the evil one, when he fled from the anger of the Almighty, had passed +through it and left his pollution upon it. Among other anecdotes of +the simplicity and folly of the people of this county, which closely +resemble the stories of the wise men of Gotham of a later date, he +informs us that one day the peasantry of one district were so grieved +by the oppressions of their feudal lord, that they subscribed together +and bought their freedom, which he secured to them by formal deed, +ratified with a ponderous seal. They adjourned to the tavern, and +celebrated their deliverance by feasting and drinking until night came +on, and then, for want of a candle, they agreed to burn the wax of the +seal. Next day their former lord, informed of what had taken place, +brought them before a court, where the deed was judged to be void for +want of the seal, and they lost all their money, were reduced to their +old position of slavery, and treated worse than ever. Other stories, +still more ridiculous, are told of these old Norfolkians, but few of +them are worth repeating. Another monk, apparently, who calls himself +John de St. Omer, took up the cudgels for the people of Norfolk, +and replied to the Peterborough satirist in similar language.[59] I +have printed in another collection,[60] a satirical poem against +the people of a place called Stockton (perhaps Stockton-on-Tees in +Durham), by the monk of a monastic house, of which they were serfs. +It appeared that they had risen against the tyranny of their lord, +but had been unsuccessful in defending their cause in a court of law, +and the ecclesiastical satirist exults over their defeat in a very +uncharitable tone. There will be found in the "Reliquæ Antiquæ,"[61] +a very curious satire in Latin prose directed against the inhabitants +of Rochester, although it is in truth aimed against Englishmen in +general, and is entitled in the manuscript, which is of the fourteenth +century, "Proprietates Anglicorum" (the Peculiarities of Englishmen). +In the first place, we are told, that the people of Rochester had +tails, and the question is discussed, very scholastically, what +species of animals these Rocestrians were. We are then told that the +cause of their deformity arose from the insolent manner in which +they treated St. Augustine, when he came to preach the Gospel to the +heathen English. After visiting many parts of England, the saint came +to Rochester, where the people, instead of listening to him, hooted +at him through the streets, and, in derision, attached tails of pigs +and calves to his vestments, and so turned him out of the city. The +vengeance of Heaven came upon them, and all who inhabited the city and +the country round it, and their descendants after them, were condemned +to bear tails exactly like those of pigs. This story of the tails +was not an invention of the author of the satire, but was a popular +legend connected with the history of St. Augustine's preaching, though +the scene of the legend was laid in Dorsetshire. The writer of this +singular composition goes on to describe the people of Rochester as +seducers of other people, as men without gratitude, and as traitors. +He proceeds to show that Rochester being situated in England, its +vices had tainted the whole nation, and he illustrates the baseness of +the English character by a number of anecdotes of worse than doubtful +authenticity. It is, in fact, a satire on the English composed in +France, and leads us into the domains of political satire. + + [59] Both these poems are printed in my "Early Mysteries, and other + Latin Poems of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries." 8vo., + London, 1838. + + [60] "Anecdota Literaria," p. 49. + + [61] "Reliquæ Antiquæ," vol. ii. p. 230. + +Political satire in the middle ages appeared chiefly in the form of +poetry and song, and it was especially in England that it flourished, +a sure sign that there was in our country a more advanced feeling of +popular independence, and greater freedom of speech, than in France or +Germany.[62] M. Leroux de Lincy, who undertook to make a collection +of this poetry for France, found so little during the mediæval period +that came under the character of political, that he was obliged to +substitute the word "historical" in the title of his book.[63] Where +feudalism was supreme, indeed, the songs which arose out of private +or public strife, which then were almost inseparable from society, +contained no political sentiment, but consisted chiefly of personal +attacks on the opponents of those who employed them. Such are the four +short songs written in the time of the revolt of the French during +the minority of St. Louis, which commenced in 1226; they are all of a +political character which M. Leroux de Lincy has been able to collect +previous to the year 1270, and they consist merely of personal taunts +against the courtiers by the dissatisfied barons who were out of power. +We trace a similar feeling in some of the popular records of our +baronial wars of the reign of Henry III., especially in a song, in the +baronial language (Anglo-Norman), preserved in a small roll of vellum, +which appears to have belonged to the minstrel who chanted it in the +halls of the partisans of Simon de Montfort. The fragment which remains +consists of stanzas in praise of the leaders of the popular party, and +in reproach of their opponents. Thus of Roger de Clifford, one of earl +Simon's friends, we are told that "the good Roger de Clifford behaved +like a noble baron, and exercised great justice; he suffered none, +either small or great, or secretly or openly, to do any wrong." + + _Et de Cliffort ly bon Roger + Se contint cum noble ber, + Si fu de grant justice; + Ne suffri pas petit ne grant, + Ne arère ne par devant, + Fere nul mesprise._ + +On the other hand, one of Montfort's opponents, the bishop of Hereford, +is treated rather contemptuously. We are told that he "learnt well that +the earl was strong when he took the matter in hand; before that he +(the bishop) was very fierce, and thought to eat up all the English; +but now he is reduced to straits." + + _Ly eveske de Herefort + Sout bien que ly quens fu fort, + Kant il prist l'affère; + Devant ce esteit mult fer, + Les Englais quida touz manger, + Mès ore ne set que fere._ + +This bishop was Peter de Aigueblanche, one of the foreign favourites, +who had been intruded into the see of Hereford, to the exclusion of +a better man, and had been an oppressor of those who were under his +rule. The barons seized him, threw him into prison, and plundered his +possessions, and at the time this song was written, he was suffering +under the imprisonment which appears to have shortened his life. + + [62] I have published from the original manuscripts the mass of the + political poetry composed in England during the middle ages in my + three volumes--"The Political Songs of England, from the Reign + of John to that of Edward II." 4to., London, 1839 (issued by + the Camden Society); and "Political Poems and Songs relating to + English History, composed during the Period from the Accession of + Edward III. to that of Richard III." 8vo., vol i., London, 1859; + vol. ii., 1861 (published by the Treasury, under the direction of + the Master of the Rolls.) + + [63] "Receuil de Chants Historiques Français depuis le xii^e. jusqu'au + xviii^e. Siècle, par Leroux de Lincy.... Première Série, xii^e., + xiii^e., xiv^e, et xv^e., Siècles." 8vo., Paris, 1841. + +The universities and the clerical body in general were deeply involved +in these political movements of the thirteenth century; and our +earliest political songs now known are composed in Latin, and in that +form and style of verse which seems to have been peculiar to the +goliards, and which I venture to call goliardic. Such is a song against +the three bishops who supported king John in his quarrel with the +pope about the presentation to the see of Canterbury, printed in my +Political Songs. Such, too, is the song of the Welsh, and one or two +others, in the same volume. And such, above all, is that remarkable +Latin poem in which a partisan of the barons, immediately after the +victory at Lewes, set forth the political tenets of his party, and gave +the principles of English liberty nearly the same broad basis on which +they stand at the present. It is an evidence of the extent to which +these principles were now acknowledged, that in this great baronial +struggle our political songs began to be written in the English +language, an acknowledgment that they concerned the whole English +public. + +We trace little of this class of literature during the reign of Edward +I.; but, when the popular feelings became turbulent again under the +reign of his son and successor, political songs became more abundant, +and their satire was directed more even than formerly against measures +and principles, and was less an instrument of mere personal abuse. One +satirical poem of this period, which I had printed from an imperfect +copy in a manuscript at Edinburgh, but of which a more complete copy +was subsequently found in a manuscript in the library of St. Peter's +College, Cambridge,[64] is extremely curious as being the earliest +satire of this kind written in English that we possess. It appears to +have been written in the year 1320. The writer of this poem begins by +telling us that his object is to explain the cause of the war, ruin, +and manslaughter which then prevailed throughout the land, and why +the poor were suffering from hunger and want, the cattle perished in +the field, and the corn was dear. These he ascribes to the increasing +wickedness of all orders of society. To begin with the church, Rome +was the head of all corruptions, at the papal court false-hood and +treachery only reigned, and the door of the pope's palace was shut +against truth. During the twelfth and following centuries these +complaints, in terms more or less forcible, against the corruptions of +Rome, are continually repeated, and show that the evil must have been +one under which everybody felt oppressed. The old charge of Romish +simony is repeated in this poem in very strong terms. "The clerk's +voice shall be little heard at the court of Rome, were he ever so good, +unless he bring silver with him; though he were the holiest man that +ever was born, unless he bring gold or silver, all his time and anxiety +are lost. Alas! why love they so much that which is perishable?" + + _Voys of clerk shall lytyl be heard at the court of Rome, + Were he never so gode a clerk, without silver and he come; + Though he were the holyst man that ever yet was ibore, + But he bryng gold or sylver, al hys while is forlore + And his thowght. + Allas! whi love thei that so much that schal turne to nowght?_ + + [64] "A Poem on the Times of Edward III., from a MS. preserved in the + Library of St. Peter's College, Cambridge." Edited by the Rev. + C. Hardwick. 8vo. London, 1849. (One of the publications of the + Percy Society.) + +When, on the contrary, a wicked man presented himself at the pope's +court, he had only to carry plenty of money thither, and all went well +with him. According to our satirist, the bishops were "fools," and the +other dignitaries and officials of the church were influenced chiefly +by the love of money and self-indulgence. The parson began humbly, when +he first obtained his benefice, but no sooner had he gathered money +together, than he took "a wenche" to live with him as his wife, and +rode a hunting with hawks and hounds like a gentleman. The priests were +men with no learning, who preached by rote what they neither understood +nor appreciated. "Truely," he says, "it fares by our unlearned priests +as by a jay in a cage, who curses himself: he speaks good English, but +he knows not what it means. No more does an unlearned priest know his +gospel that he reads daily. An unlearned priest, then, is no better +than a jay." + + _Certes at so hyt fareth by a prest that is lewed, + As by a jay in a cage that hymself hath beshrewed: + Gode Englysh he speketh, but he not never what. + No more wot a lewed prest hys gospel wat he rat + By day. + Than is a lewed prest no better than a jay._ + +Abbots and priors were remarkable chiefly for their pride and luxury, +and the monks naturally followed their examples. Thus was religion +debased everywhere. The character of the physician is treated with +equal severity, and his various tricks to obtain money are amusingly +described. In this manner the songster presents to view the failings of +the various orders of lay society also, the selfishness and oppressive +bearing of the knights and aristocracy, and their extravagance in +dress and living, the neglect of justice, the ill-management of the +wars, the weight of taxation, and all the other evils which then +afflicted the state. This poem marks a period in our social history, +and led the way to that larger work of the same character, which +came about thirty years later, the well-known "Visions of Piers +Ploughman,"[65] one of the most remarkable satires, as well as one of +the most remarkable poems, in the English language. + +We will do no more than glance at the further progress of political +satire which had now taken a permanent footing in English literature. +We see less of it during the reign of Edward III., the greater part of +which was occupied with foreign wars and triumphs, but there appeared +towards the close of his reign, a very remarkable satire, which I have +printed in my "Political Poems and Songs." It is written in Latin, and +consists of a pretended prophecy in verse by an inspired monk named +John of Bridlington, with a mock commentary in prose--in fact, a parody +on the commentaries in which the scholastics of that age displayed +their learning, but in this case the commentary contains a bold though +to us rather obscure criticism on the whole policy of Edward's reign. +The reign of Richard II. was convulsed by the great struggle for +religious reform, by the insurrections of the lower orders, and by +the ambition and feuds of the nobles, and produced a vast quantity of +political and religious satire, both in prose and verse, but especially +the latter. We must not overlook our great poet Chaucer, as one of the +powerful satirists of this period. Political song next makes itself +heard loudly in the wars of the Roses. It was the last struggle of +feudalism in England, and the character of the song had fallen back +to its earlier characteristics, in which all patriotic feelings were +abandoned to make place for personal hatred. + + [65] "The Vision and the Creed of Piers Ploughman;" with Notes and a + Glossary by Thomas Wright. 2 vols. 12mo. London, 1842. Second and + revised edition, 2 vols. 12mo. London, 1856. + + + + + CHAPTER XI. + + MINSTRELSY A SUBJECT OF BURLESQUE AND CARICATURE.--CHARACTER + OF THE MINSTRELS.--THEIR JOKES UPON THEMSELVES AND UPON ONE + ANOTHER.--VARIOUS MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS REPRESENTED IN THE + SCULPTURES OF THE MEDIÆVAL ARTISTS.--SIR MATTHEW GOURNAY AND THE + KING OF PORTUGAL.--DISCREDIT OF THE TABOR AND BAGPIPES.--MERMAIDS. + + +One of the principal classes of the satirists of the middle ages, the +minstrels, or jougleurs, were far from being unamenable to satire +themselves. They belonged generally to a low class of the population, +one that was hardly acknowledged by the law, which merely administered +to the pleasures and amusements of others, and, though sometimes +liberally rewarded, they were objects rather of contempt than of +respect. Of course there were minstrels belonging to a class more +respectable than the others, but these were comparatively few; and the +ordinary minstrel seems to have been simply an unprincipled vagabond, +who hardly possessed any settled resting-place, who wandered about from +place to place, and was not too nice as to the means by which he gained +his living--perhaps fairly represented by the street minstrel, or +mountebank, of the present day. One of his talents was that of mocking +and ridiculing others, and it is not to be wondered at, therefore, if +he sometimes became an object of mockery and ridicule himself. One of +the well-known minstrels of the thirteenth century, Rutebeuf, was, like +many of his fellows, a poet also, and he has left several short pieces +of verse descriptive of himself and of his own mode of life. In one +of these he complains of his poverty, and tells us that the world had +in his time--the reign of St. Louis--become so degenerate, that few +people gave anything to the unfortunate minstrel. According to his own +account, he was without food, and in a fair way towards starvation, +exposed to the cold without sufficient clothing, and with nothing but +straw for his bed. + + _Je touz de froit, de fain baaille, + Dont je suis mors et maubailliz, + Je suis sanz coutes et sans liz; + N'a si povre jusqu'à Senliz. + Sire, si ne sai quel part aille; + Mes costeiz connoit le pailliz, + Et liz de paille n'est pas liz, + Et en mon lit n'a fors la paille._ + --Œuvres de Rutebeuf, vol. i. p. 3. + +In another poem, Rutebeuf laments that he has rendered his condition +still more miserable by marrying, when he had not wherewith to keep +a wife and family. In a third, he complains that in the midst of his +poverty, his wife has brought him a child to increase his domestic +expenses, while his horse, on which he was accustomed to travel to +places where he might exercise his profession, had broken its leg, and +his nurse was dunning him for money. In addition to all these causes of +grief, he had lost the use of one of his eyes. + + _Or a d'enfant géu ma fame; + Mon cheval a brisié la jame + A une lice; + Or veut de l'argent ma norrice, + Qui m'en destraint et me pélice, + For l'enfant pestre._ + +Throughout his complaint, although he laments over the decline of +liberality among his contemporaries, he nevertheless turns his poverty +into a joke. In several other pieces of verse he speaks in the same +way, half joking and half lamenting over his condition, and he does not +conceal that the love of gambling was one of the causes of it. "The +dice," he says, "have stripped me entirely of my robe; the dice watch +and spy me; it is these which kill me; they assault and ruin me, to my +grief." + + _Li dé que li détier ont fet, + M'ont de ma robe tout desfet; + Li dé m'ocient. + Li dé m'aguetent et espient; + Li dé m'assaillent et dessient, + Ce poise moi._--Ib., vol. i. p. 27. + +And elsewhere he intimates that what the minstrels sometimes gained +from the lavish generosity of their hearers, soon passed away at the +tavern in dice and drinking. + +One of Rutebeuf's contemporaries in the same profession, Colin Muset, +indulges in similar complaints, and speaks bitterly of the want of +generosity displayed by the great barons of his time. In addressing one +of them who had treated him ungenerously, he says, "Sir Count, I have +fiddled before you in your hostel, and you neither gave me a gift, nor +paid me my wages. It is discreditable behaviour. By the duty I owe to +St. Mary, I cannot continue in your service at this rate. My purse is +ill furnished, and my wallet is empty." + + _Sire quens, j'ai vielé + Devant vos en vostre ostel; + Si ne m'avez riens donné, + Ne mes gages acquitez, + C'est vilanie. + Foi que doi sainte Marie, + Ensi ne vos sieurré-je mie. + M'aumosnière est mal garnie, + Et ma male mal farsie._ + +He proceeds to state that when he went home to his wife (for Colin +Muset also was a married minstrel), he was ill received if his purse +and wallet were empty; but it was very different when they were full. +His wife then sprang forward and threw her arms round his neck; she +took his wallet from his horse with alacrity, while his lad conducted +the animal cheerfully to the stable, and his maiden killed a couple of +capons, and prepared them with piquant sauce. His daughter brought a +comb for his hair. "Then," he exclaims, "I am master in my own house." + + _Ma fame va destroser + Ma male sans demorer; + Mon garçon va abuvrer + Men cheval et conreer; + Ma pucele va tuer + Deux chapons por deporter + A la sause aillie. + Ma fille m'aporte un pigne + En sa main par cortoisie. + Lors sui de mon ostel sire._ + +When the minstrels could thus joke upon themselves, we need not be +surprised if they satirised one another. In a poem of the thirteenth +century, entitled "Les deux Troveors Ribauz," two minstrels are +introduced on the stage abusing and insulting one another, and while +indulging in mutual accusations of ignorance in their art, they display +their ignorance at the same time by misquoting the titles of the poems +which they profess to be able to recite. One of them boasts of the +variety of instruments on which he could perform:-- + + _Je suis jugleres de viele, + Si sai de muse et frestele, + Et de harpes et de chifonie, + De la gigue, de l'armonie, + De l'salteire, et en la rote + Sai-ge bien chanter une note._ + +It appears, however, that among all these instruments, the viol, or +fiddle, was the one most generally in use. + + [Illustration: _No. 118. A Charming Fiddler._] + +The mediæval monuments of art abound with burlesques and satires on the +minstrels, whose instruments of music are placed in the hands sometimes +of monsters, and at others in those of animals of a not very refined +character. Our cut No. 118 is taken from a manuscript in the British +Museum (MS. Cotton, Domitian A. ii.), and represents a female minstrel +playing on the fiddle; she has the upper part of a lady, and the lower +parts of a mare, a combination which appears to have been rather +familiar to the imagination of the mediæval artists. In our cut No. +119, which is taken from a copy made by Carter of one of the misereres +in Ely Cathedral, it is not quite clear whether the performer on the +fiddle be a monster or merely a cripple; but perhaps the latter was +intended. The instrument, too, assumes a rather singular form. Our cut +No. 120, also taken from Carter, was furnished by a sculpture in the +church of St. John, at Cirencester, and represents a man performing on +an instrument rather closely resembling the modern hurdy-gurdy, which +is evidently played by turning a handle, and the music is produced by +striking wires or strings inside. The face is evidently intended to be +that of a jovial companion. + + [Illustration: _No. 119. A Crippled Minstrel._] + + [Illustration: _No. 120. The Hurdy-Gurdy._] + +Gluttony was an especial characteristic of that class of society to +which the minstrel belonged, and perhaps this was the idea intended to +be conveyed in the next picture, No. 121, taken from one of the stalls +in Winchester Cathedral, in which a pig is performing on the fiddle, +and appears to be accompanied by a juvenile of the same species of +animal. One of the same stalls, copied in our cut No. 122, represents +a sow performing on another sort of musical instrument, which is not +at all uncommon in mediæval delineations. It is the double pipe or +flute, which was evidently borrowed from the ancients. Minstrelsy was +the usual accompaniment of the mediæval meal, and perhaps this picture +is intended to be a burlesque on that circumstance, as the mother is +playing to her brood while they are feeding. They all seem to listen +quietly, except one, who is evidently much more affected by the music +than his companions. The same instrument is placed in the hands of a +rather jolly-looking female in one of the sculptures of St. John's +Church in Cirencester, copied in our cut No. 123. + + [Illustration: _No. 121. A Swinish Minstrel._] + + [Illustration: _No. 122. A Musical Mother._] + + [Illustration: _No. 123. The Double Flute._] + +Although this instrument is rather frequently represented in mediæval +works of art, we have no account of or allusion to it in mediæval +writers; and perhaps it was not held in very high estimation, and was +used only by a low class of performers. As in many other things, the +employment of particular musical instruments was guided, no doubt, by +fashion, new ones coming in as old ones went out. Such was the case +with the instrument which is named in one of the above extracts, and +in some other mediæval writers, a _chiffonie_, and which has been +supposed to be the dulcimer, that had fallen into discredit in the +fourteenth century. This instrument is introduced in a story which is +found in Cuvelier's metrical history of the celebrated warrior Bertrand +du Gueselin. In the course of the war for the expulsion of Pedro the +Cruel from the throne of Castile, an English knight, Sir Matthew +Gournay, was sent as a special ambassador to the court of Portugal. The +Portuguese monarch had in his service two minstrels whose performances +he vaunted greatly, and on whom he let great store, and he insisted +on their performing in the presence of the new ambassador. It turned +out that they played on the instrument just mentioned, and Sir Matthew +Gournay could not refrain from laughing at the performance. When the +king pressed him to give his opinion, he said, with more regard for +truth than politeness, "in France and Normandy, the instruments your +minstrels play upon are regarded with contempt, and are only in use +among beggars and blind people, so that they are popularly called +beggar's instruments." The king, we are told, took great offence at the +bluntness of his English guest. + +The fiddle itself appears at this time to have been gradually sinking +in credit, and the poets complained that a degraded taste for more +vulgar musical instruments was introducing itself. Among these we +may mention especially the pipe and tabor. The French antiquary, +M. Jubinal, in a very valuable collection of early popular poetry, +published under the title of "Jongleurs et Trouvères," has printed +a curious poem of the thirteenth or fourteenth century, intended as +a protest against the use of the tabor and the bagpipes, which he +characterises as properly the musical instruments of the peasantry. Yet +people then, he says, were becoming so besotted on such instruments, +that they introduced them in places where better minstrelsy would be +more suitable. The writer thinks that the introduction of so vulgar an +instrument as the tabor into grand festivals could be looked upon in +no other light than as one of the signs which might be expected to be +the precursors of the coming of Antichrist. "If such people are to come +to grand festivals as carry a bushel [_i.e._ a tabor made in the form +of a bushel measure, on the end of which they beat], and make such a +terrible noise, it would seem that Antichrist must now be being born; +people ought to break the head of each of them with a staff." + + _Déussent itiels genz venir à bele feste + Qui portent un boissel, qui mainent tel tempeste, + Il samble que Antecrist doie maintenant nestre; + L'en duroit d'un baston chascun brisier la teste._ + +This satirist adds, as a proof of the contempt in which the Virgin Mary +held such instruments, that she never loved a tabor, or consented to +hear one, and that no tabor was introduced among the minstrelsy at her +espousals. "The gentle mother of God," he says, "loved the sound of the +fiddle," and he goes on to prove her partiality for that instrument by +citing some of her miracles. + + _Onques le mère Dieu, qui est virge honorée, + Et est avoec les angles hautement coronée, + N'ama onques tabour, ne point ne li agrée, + N'onques tabour n'i ot quant el fu espousée. + La douce mère Dieu ama son de viele._ + + [Illustration: _No. 124. The Tabor, or Drum._] + + [Illustration: _No. 125. Bruin turned Piper._] + +The artist who carved the curious stalls in Henry VII.'s Chapel at +Westminster, seems to have entered fully into the spirit displayed by +this satirist, for in one of them, represented in our cut No. 124, he +has introduced a masked demon playing on the tabor, with an expression +apparently of derision. This tabor presents much the form of a bushel +measure, or rather, perhaps, of a modern drum. It may be remarked that +the drum is, in fact, the same instrument as the tabor, or, at least, +is derived from it, and they were called by the same names, _tabor_ +or _tambour_. The English name _drum_, which has equivalents in the +later forms of the Teutonic dialects, perhaps means simply something +which makes a noise, and is not, as far as I know, met with before the +sixteenth century. Another carving of the same series of stalls at +Westminster, copied in our cut No. 125, represents a tame bear playing +on the bagpipes. This is perhaps intended to be at the same time a +satire on the instrument itself, and upon the strange exhibitions of +animals domesticated and taught various singular performances, which +were then so popular. + + [Illustration: _No. 126. Royal Minstrelsy._] + +In our cut No. 126 we come to the fiddle again, which long sustained +its place in the highest rank of musical instruments. It is taken +from one of the sculptures on the porch of the principal entrance to +the Cathedral of Lyons in France, and represents a mermaid with her +child, listening to the music of the fiddle. She wears a crown, and +is intended, no doubt, to be one of the queens of the sea, and the +introduction of the fiddle under such circumstances can leave no doubt +how highly it was esteemed. + +The mermaid is a creature of the imagination, which appears to have +been at all times a favourite object of poetry and legend. It holds +an important place in the mediæval bestiaries, or popular treatises +on natural history, and it has only been expelled from the domains of +science at a comparatively recent date. It still retains its place in +popular legends of our sea-coasts, and more especially in the remoter +parts of our islands. The stories of the merrow, or Irish fairy, hold a +prominent place among my late friend Crofton Croker's "Fairy Legends of +the South of Ireland." The mermaid is also introduced not unfrequently +in mediæval sculpture and carving. Our cut No. 127, representing a +mermaid and a merman, is copied from one of the stalls of Winchester +Cathedral. The usual attributes of the mermaid are a looking-glass and +comb, by the aid of which she is dressing her hair; but here she holds +the comb alone. Her companion, the male, holds a fish, which he appears +to have just caught, in his hand. + + [Illustration: _No. 127. Mermaids._] + +While, after the fifteenth century the profession of the minstrel +became entirely degraded, and he was looked upon more than ever as a +rogue and vagabond, the fiddle accompanied him, and it long remained, +as it still remains in Ireland, the favourite instrument of the +peasantry. The blind fiddler, even at the present day, is not unknown +in our rural districts. It has always been in England the favourite +instrument of minstrelsy. + + + + + CHAPTER XII. + + THE COURT FOOL.--THE NORMANS AND THEIR GABS.--EARLY HISTORY OF COURT + FOOLS.--THEIR COSTUME.--CARVINGS IN THE CORNISH CHURCHES.--THE + BURLESQUE SOCIETIES OF THE MIDDLE AGES.--THE FEASTS OF ASSES, AND + OF FOOLS.--THEIR LICENCE.--THE LEADEN MONEY OF THE FOOLS.--THE + BISHOP'S BLESSING. + + +From the employment of minstrels attached to the family, probably arose +another and well-known character of later times, the court fool, who +took the place of satirist in the great households. I do not consider +what we understand by the court fool to be a character of any great +antiquity. + +It is somewhat doubtful whether what we call a jest, was really +appreciated in the middle ages. Puns seem to have been considered +as elegant figures of speech in literary composition, and we rarely +meet with anything like a quick and clever repartee. In the earlier +ages, when a party of warriors would be merry, their mirth appears +to have consisted usually in ridiculous boasts, or in rude remarks, +or in sneers at enemies or opponents. These jests were termed by the +French and Normans _gabs_ (_gabæ_, in mediæval Latin), a word supposed +to have been derived from the classical Latin word _cavilla_, a mock +or taunt; and a short poem in Anglo-Norman has been preserved which +furnishes a curious illustration of the meaning attached to it in the +twelfth century. This poem relates how Charlemagne, piqued by the +taunts of his empress on the superiority of Hugh the Great, emperor +of Constantinople, went to Constantinople, accompanied by his _douze +pairs_ and a thousand knights, to verify the truth of his wife's story. +They proceeded first to Jerusalem, where, when Charlemagne and his +twelve peers entered the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, they looked so +handsome and majestic, that they were taken at first for Christ and +his twelve apostles, but the mystery was soon cleared up, and they were +treated by the patriarch with great hospitality during four months. +They then continued their progress till they reached Constantinople, +where they were equally well received by the emperor Hugo. At night +the emperor placed his guests in a chamber furnished with thirteen +splendid beds, one in the middle of the room, and the other twelve +distributed around it, and illuminated by a large carbuncle, which gave +a light as bright as that of day. When Hugh left them in their quarters +for the night, he lent them wine and whatever was necessary to make +them comfortable; and, when alone, they proceeded to amuse themselves +with _gabs_, or jokes, each being expected to say his joke in his +turn. Charlemagne took the lead, and boasted that if the emperor Hugh +would place before him his strongest "bachelor," in full armour, and +mounted on his good steed, he would, with one blow of his sword, cut +him through from the head downwards, and through the saddle and horse, +and that the sword should, after all this, sink into the ground to the +handle. Charlemagne then called upon Roland for his _gab_, who boasted +that his breath was so strong, that if the emperor Hugh would lend him +his horn, he would take it out into the fields and blow it with such +force, that the wind and noise of it would shake down the whole city of +Constantinople. Oliver, whose turn came next, boasted of exploits of +another description if he were left alone with the beautiful princess, +Hugh's daughter. The rest of the peers indulged in similar boasts, and +when the _gabs_ had gone round, they went to sleep. Now the emperor of +Constantinople had very cunningly, and rather treacherously, made a +hole through the wall, by which all that passed inside could be seen +and heard, and he had placed a spy on the outside, who gave a full +account of the conversation of the distinguished guests to his imperial +master. Next morning Hugh called his guests before him, told them what +he had heard by his spy, and declared that each of them should perform +his boast, or, if he failed, be put to death. Charlemagne expostulated, +and represented that it was the custom in France when people retired +for the night to amuse themselves in that manner. "Such is the custom +in France," he said, "at Paris, and at Chartres, when the French are +in bed they amuse themselves and make jokes, and say things both of +wisdom and of folly." + + _Si est tel custume en France, à Paris e à Cartres, + Quand Franceis sunt culchiez, que se giuunt e gabent, + E si dient ambure e saver e folage._ + +But Charlemagne expostulated in vain, and they were only saved from the +consequence of their imprudence by the intervention of so many miracles +from above.[66] + + [66] "Charlemagne, an Anglo-Norman Poem of the Twelfth Century, now + first published, by Francisque Michel," 12mo., 8vo., London, 1836. + +In such trials of skill as this, an individual must continually have +arisen who excelled in some at least of the qualities needful for +raising mirth and making him a good companion, by showing himself more +brilliant in wit, or more biting in sarcasms, or more impudent in his +jokes, and he would thus become the favourite mirth-maker of the court, +the boon companion of the chieftain and his followers in their hours of +relaxation. We find such an individual not unusually introduced in the +early romances and in the mythology of nations, and he sometimes unites +the character of court orator with the other. Such a personage was the +Sir Kay of the cycle of the romances of king Arthur. I have remarked +in a former chapter that Hunferth, in the Anglo-Saxon poem of Beowulf, +is described as holding a somewhat similar position at the court of +king Hrothgar. To go farther back in the mythology of our forefathers, +the Loki of Scandinavian fable appears sometimes to have performed a +similar character in the assembly of his fellow deities; and we know +that, among the Greeks, Homer on one occasion introduces Vulcan acting +the part of joker (γελωτοποιὸς) to the gods of Olympus. But all these +have no relationship whatever to the court-fool of modern times. + +The German writer Flögel, in his "History of Court Fools,"[67] has +thrown this subject into much confusion by introducing a great mass +of irrelevant matter; and those who have since compiled from Flögel, +have made the confusion still greater. Much of this confusion has +arisen from the misunderstanding and confounding of names and terms. +The mimus, the joculator, the ministrel, or whatever name this class +of society went by, was not in any respects identical with what we +understand by a court fool, nor does any such character as the latter +appear in the feudal household before the fourteenth century, as +far as we are acquainted with the social manners and customs of the +olden time. The vast extent of the early French _romans de geste_, or +Carlovingian romances, which are filled with pictures of courts both of +princes and barons, in which the court fool must have been introduced +had he been known at the time they were composed, that is, in the +twelfth and thirteenth centuries, contains, I believe, no trace of such +personage; and the same may be said of the numerous other romances, +fabliaux, and in fact all the literature of that period, one so rich in +works illustrative of contemporary manners in their most minute detail. +From these facts I conclude that the single brief charter published +by M. Rigollot from a manuscript in the Imperial Library in Paris, +is either misunderstood or it presents a very exceptional case. By +this charter, John, king of England, grants to his _follus_, William +Picol, or Piculph (as he is called at the close of the document), an +estate in Normandy named in the document Fons Ossanæ (Menil-Ozenne in +Mortain), with all its appurtenances, "to have and to hold, to him and +to his heirs, by doing there-for to us once a year the service of one +_follus_, as long as he lives; and after his death his heirs shall +hold it of us, by the service of one pair of gilt spurs to be rendered +annually to us."[68] The service (_servitium_) here enjoined means the +annual payment of the obligation of the feudal tenure, and therefore +if _follus_ is to be taken as signifying "a fool," it only means that +Picol was to perform that character on one occasion in the course of +the year. In this case, he may have been some fool whom king John had +taken into his special favour; but it certainly is no proof that the +practice of keeping court fools then existed. It is not improbable +that this practice was first introduced in Germany, for Flögel speaks, +though rather doubtfully, of one who was kept at the court of the +emperor Rudolph I. (of Hapsburg), whose reign lasted from 1273 to 1292. +It is more certain, however, that the kings of France possessed court +fools before the middle of the fourteenth century, and from this time +anecdotes relating to them begin to be common. One of the earliest +and most curious of these anecdotes, if it be true, relates to the +celebrated victory of Sluys gained over the French fleet by our king +Edward III. in the year 1340. It is said that no one dared to announce +this disaster to the French king, Philippe VI., until a court fool +undertook the task. Entering the king's chamber, he continued muttering +to himself, but loud enough to be heard, "Those cowardly English! the +chicken-hearted Britons!" "How so, cousin?" the king inquired. "Why," +replied the fool, "because they have not courage enough to jump into +the sea, like your French soldiers, who went over headlong from their +ships, leaving those to the enemy who showed no inclination to follow +them." Philippe thus became aware of the full extent of his calamity. +The institution of the court fool was carried to its greatest degree of +perfection during the fifteenth century; it only expired in the age of +Louis XIV. + + [67] "Geschichte der Hofnarren, von Karl Friedrich Flögel," 8vo. + Liegnitz und Leipzig, 1789. + + [68] The words of this charter, as given by Rigollot, are:--"Joannes, + D G., etc. Sciatis nos dedisse et præsenti charta confirmasse + Willelmo Picol, follo nostro, Fontem Ossanæ, cum omnibus + pertinenciis suis, habendum et tenendum sibi et hæredibus suis, + faciendo inde nobis annuatim servitium unius folli quoad vixerit; + et post ejus decessum hæredes sui eam tenebunt, et per servitium + unius paris calcarium deauratorum nobis annuatim reddendo. + Quare volumus et firmiter præcipimus quod prædictius Piculphus + et hæredes sui habeant et teneant in perpetuum, bene et in + pace, libere et quiete, prædictam terram."--Rigollot, Monnaies + inconnues des Evêques des Innocens, etc., 8vo., Paris, 1837. + +It was apparently with the court fool that the costume was introduced +which has ever since been considered as the characteristic mark of +folly. Some parts of this costume, at least, appear to have been +borrowed from an earlier date. The _gelotopœi_ of the Greeks, and +the _mimi_ and _moriones_ of the Romans, shaved their heads; but the +court fools perhaps adopted this fashion as a satire upon the clergy +and monks. Some writers professed to doubt whether the fools borrowed +from the monks, or the monks from the fools; and Cornelius Agrippa, +in his treatise on the Vanity of Sciences, remarks that the monks had +their heads "all shaven like fools" (_raso toto capite ut fatui_). +The cowl, also, was perhaps adopted in derision of the monks, but +it was distinguished by the addition of a pair of asses' ears, or by +a cock's head and comb, which formed its termination above, or by +both. The court fool was also furnished with a staff or club, which +became eventually his bauble. The bells were another necessary article +in the equipment of a court fool, perhaps also intended as a satire +on the custom of wearing small bells in the dress, which prevailed +largely during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, especially among +people who were fond of childish ostentation. The fool wore also a +party-coloured, or motley, garment, probably with the same aim--that of +satirising one of the ridiculous fashions of the fourteenth century. + + [Illustration: _No. 127a. Court Fools._] + +It is in the fifteenth century that we first meet with the fool in +full costume in the illuminations or manuscripts, and towards the end +of the century this costume appears continually in engravings. It is +also met with at this time among the sculptures of buildings and the +carvings of wood-work. The two very interesting examples given in our +cut No. 127a are taken from carvings of the fifteenth century, in the +church of St. Levan, in Cornwall, near the Land's End. They represent +the court fool in two varieties of costume; in the first, the fool's +cowl, or cap, ends in the cock's head; in the other, it is fitted with +asses' ears. There are variations also in other parts of the dress; +for the second only has bells to his sleeves, and the first carries +a singularly formed staff, which may perhaps be intended for a strap +or belt, with a buckle at the end; while the other has a ladle in +his hand. As one possesses a beard, and presents marks of age in his +countenance, while the other is beardless and youthful, we may consider +the pair as an old fool and a young fool. + + [Illustration: _No. 128. A Fool and a Grimace-maker._] + +The Cornish churches are rather celebrated for their early carved +wood-work, chiefly of the fifteenth century, of which two examples +are given in our cut, No. 128, taken from bench pannels in the church +of St. Mullion, on the Cornish coast, a little to the north of the +Lizard Point. The first has bells hanging to the sleeves, and is no +doubt intended to represent folly in some form; the other appears to be +intended for the head of a woman making grimaces.[69] + + [69] For the drawings of these interesting carvings from the Cornish + churches, I am indebted to the kindness of Mr. J. T. Blight, the + author of an extremely pleasing and useful guide to the beauties + of a well-known district of Cornwall, entitled "A Week at the + Land's End." + +The fool had long been a character among the people before he became a +court fool, for Folly--or, as she was then called, "Mother Folly"--was +one of the favourite objects of popular worship in the middle ages, +and, where that worship sprang up spontaneously among the people, +it grew with more energy, and presented more hearty joyousness and +bolder satire than under the patronage of the great. Our forefathers +in those times were accustomed to form themselves into associations or +societies of a mirthful character, parodies of those of a more serious +description, especially ecclesiastical, and elected as their officers +mock popes, cardinals, archbishops and bishops, kings, &c. They held +periodical festivals, riotous and licentious carnivals, which were +admitted into the churches, and even taken under the especial patronage +of the clergy, under such titles as "the feast of fools," "the feast of +the ass," "the feast of the innocents," and the like. There was hardly +a Continental town of any account which had not its "company of fools," +with its mock ordinances and mock ceremonies. In our own island we +had our abbots of misrule and of unreason. At their public festivals +satirical songs were sung and satirical masks and dresses were worn; +and in many of them, especially at a later date, brief satirical dramas +were acted. These satires assumed much of the functions of modern +caricature; the caricature of the pictorial representations, which were +mostly permanent monuments and destined for future generations, was +naturally general in its character, but in the representations of which +I am speaking, which were temporary, and designed to excite the mirth +of the moment, it became personal, and, often, even political, and it +was constantly directed against the ecclesiastical order. The scandal +of the day furnished it with abundant materials. A fragment of one of +their songs of an early date, sung at one of these "feasts" at Rouen, +has been preserved, and contains the following lines, written in Latin +and French:-- + + _De asino bono nostro, + Meliori et optimo, + Debemus_ faire fête. + En revenant _de Gravinaria_, + Un gros chardon _reperit in via_, + Il lui coupa la tête. + + _Vir monachus in mense Julio + Egressus est e monasterio_, + C'est dom de la Bucaille; + _Egressus est sine licentia_, + Pour aller voir dona Venissia, + Et faire la ripaille. + + TRANSLATION. + + _For our good ass, + The better and the best, + We ought to rejoice. + In returning from Gravinière, + A great thistle he found in the way, + He cut off its head._ + + _A monk in the month of July + Went out of his monastery, + It is dom de la Bucaille; + He went out without license, + To pay a visit to the dame de Venisse, + And make jovial cheer._ + +It appears that De la Bucaille was the prior of the abbey of St. +Taurin, at Rouen, and that the dame de Venisse was prioress of St. +Saviour, and these lines, no doubt, commemorate some great scandal of +the day relating to the private relations between these two individuals. + +These mock religious ceremonies are supposed to have been derived from +the Roman Saturnalia; they were evidently of great antiquity in the +mediæval church, and were most prevalent in France and Italy. Under the +name of "the feast of the sub-deacons" they are forbidden by the acts +of the council of Toledo, in 633; at a later period, the French punned +on the word _sous-diacres_, and called them _Saouls-diacres_ (Drunken +Deacons), words which had nearly the same sound. The "feast of the +ass" is said to be traced back in France as far as the ninth century. +It was celebrated in most of the great towns in that country, such as +Rouen, Sens, Douai, &c., and the service for the occasion is actually +preserved in some of the old church books. From this it appears that +the ass was led in procession to a place in the middle of the church, +which had been decked out to receive it, and that the procession was +led by two clerks, who sung a Latin song in praise of the animal. This +song commences by telling us how "the ass came from the east, handsome +and very strong, and most fit for carrying burthens":-- + + _Orientis partibus + Adventavit asinus, + Pulcher et fortissimus, + Sarcinis aptissimus._ + +The refrain or burthen of the song is in French, and exhorts the animal +to join in the uproar--"Eh! sir ass, chant now, fair mouth, bray, you +shall have hay enough, and oats in abundance:"-- + + _Hez, sire asnes, car chantez, + Belle bouche, rechignez, + Vous aurez du foin assez, + Et de l'avoine à plantez._ + +In this tone the chant continues through nine similar stanzas, +describing the mode of life and food of the ass. When the procession +reached the altar, the priest began a service in prose. Beleth, one +of the celebrated doctors of the university of Paris, who flourished +in 1182, speaks of the "feast of fools" as in existence in his time; +and the acts of the council of Paris, held in 1212, forbid the +presence of archbishops and bishops, and more especially of monks and +nuns, at the feasts of fools, "in which a staff was carried."[70] We +know the proceedings of this latter festival rather minutely from +the accounts given in the ecclesiastical censures. It was in the +cathedral churches that they elected the archbishop or bishop of +fools, whose election was confirmed, and he was consecrated, with a +multitude of buffooneries. He then entered upon his pontifical duties +wearing the mitre and carrying the crosier before the people, on whom +he bestowed his solemn benediction. In the exempt churches, or those +which depended immediately upon the Holy See, they elected a pope of +fools (_unum papam fatuorum_), who wore similarly the ensigns of the +papacy. These dignitaries were assisted by an equally burlesque and +licentious clergy, who uttered and performed a mixture of follies and +impieties during the church service of the day, which they attended in +disguises and masquerade dresses. Some wore masks, or had their faces +painted, and others were dressed in women's clothing, or in ridiculous +costumes. On entering the choir, they danced and sang licentious songs. +The deacons and sub-deacons ate black puddings and sausages on the +altar while the priest was celebrating; others played at cards or dice +under his eyes; and others threw bits of old leather into the censer +in order to raise a disagreeable smell. After the mass was ended, the +people broke out into all sorts of riotous behaviour in the church, +leaping, dancing, and exhibiting themselves in indecent postures, and +some went as far as to strip themselves naked, and in this condition +they were drawn through the streets with tubs full of ordure and filth, +which they threw about at the mob. Every now and then they halted, +when they exhibited immodest postures and actions, accompanied with +songs and speeches of the same character. Many of the laity took part +in the procession, dressed as monks and nuns. These disorders seem to +have been carried to their greatest degree of extravagance during the +fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.[71] + + [70] "A festis follorum ubi baculus accipitur omnino abstineatur.... + Idem fortius monachis et monialibus prohibemus." + + [71] On the subject of all these burlesques and popular feasts and + ceremonies, the reader may consult Flögel's "Geschichte des + Grotesk-Komischen," of which a new and enlarged edition has + recently been given by Dr. Friedrich W. Ebeling, 8vo., Leipzig, + 1862. Much interesting information on the subject was collected + by Du Tilliot, in his "Memoires pour servir à l'Histoire de la + Fête des Fous," 8vo., Lausanne, 1751. See also Rigollot, in the + work quoted above, and a popular article on the same subject will + be found in my "Archæological Album." + +Towards the fifteenth century, lay societies, having apparently +no connection with the clergy or the church, but of just the same +burlesque character, arose in France. One of the earliest of these was +formed by the clerks of the Bazoche, or lawyers' clerks of the Palais +de Justice in Paris, whose president was a sort of king of misrule. The +other principal society of this kind in Paris took the rather mirthful +name of _Enfans sans Souci_ (Careless Boys); it consisted of young men +of education, who gave to their president or chieftain the title of +_Prince des Sots_ (the Prince of Fools). Both these societies composed +and performed farces, and other small dramatic pieces. These farces +were satires on contemporary society, and appear to have been often +very personal. + + [Illustration: _No. 129. Money of the Archbishop of the Innocents._] + + [Illustration: _No. 130. Money of the Pope of Fools._] + +Almost the only monuments of the older of these societies consist of +coins, or tokens, struck in lead, and sometimes commemorating the +names of their mock dignitaries. A considerable number of these have +been found in France, and an account of them, with engravings, was +published by Dr. Rigollot some years ago.[72] Our cut No. 129 will +serve as an example. It represents a leaden token of the Archbishop of +the Innocents of the parish of St. Firmin, at Amiens, and is curious +as bearing a date. On one side the archbishop of the Innocents is +represented in the act of giving his blessing to his flock, surrounded +by the inscription, MONETA · ARCHIEPI · SCTI · FIRMINI. On the other +side we have the name of the individual who that year held the office +of archbishop, NICOLAVS · GAVDRAM · ARCHIEPVS · 1520, surrounding a +group consisting of two men, one of whom is dressed as a fool, holding +between them a bird, which has somewhat the appearance of a magpie. +Our cut No. 130 is still more curious; it is a token of the _pope_ of +fools. On one side appears the pope with his tiara and double cross, +and a fool in full costume, who approaches his bauble to the pontifical +cross. It is certainly a bitter caricature on the papacy, whether that +were the intention or not. Two persons behind, dressed apparently in +scholastic costume, seem to be merely spectators. The inscription is, +MONETA · NOVA · ADRIANI · STVLTORV [M]· PAPE (the last E being in the +field of the piece), "new money of Adrian, the pope of fools." The +inscription on the other side of the token is one frequently repeated +on these leaden medals, STVLTORV [M] · INFINITVS · EST · NVMERVS, "the +number of fools is infinite." In the field we see Mother Folly holding +up her bauble, and before her a grotesque figure in a cardinal's hat, +apparently kneeling to her. It is rather surprising that we find so +few allusions to these burlesque societies in the various classes +of pictorial records from which the subject of these chapters has +been illustrated; but we have evidence that they were not altogether +overlooked. Until the latter end of the last century, the misereres of +the church of St. Spire, at Corbeil, near Paris, were remarkable for +the singular carvings with which they were decorated, and which have +since been destroyed, but fortunately they were engraved by Millin. +One of them, copied in our cut No. 131, evidently represents the bishop +of fools conferring his blessing; the fool's bauble occupies the place +of the pastoral staff. + + [72] "Monnaies inconnues des Evêques des Innocens, des Fous," &c., + Paris, 1837. + + [Illustration: _No. 131. The Bishop of Fools._] + + + + + CHAPTER XIII. + + THE DANCE OF DEATH.--THE PAINTINGS IN THE CHURCH OF LA CHAISE + DIEU.--THE REIGN OF FOLLY.--SEBASTIAN BRANDT; THE "SHIP + OF FOOLS."--DISTURBERS OF CHURCH SERVICE.--TROUBLESOME + BEGGARS.--GEILER'S SERMONS.--BADIUS, AND HIS SHIP OF FOOLISH + WOMEN.--THE PLEASURES OF SMELL.--ERASMUS; THE "PRAISE OF FOLLY." + + +There is still one cycle of satire which almost belongs to the middle +ages, though it only became developed at their close, and became most +popular after they were past. There existed, at least as early as the +beginning of the thirteenth century, a legendary story of an interview +between three living and three dead men, which is usually told in +French verse, and appears under the title of "Des trois vifs et des +trois morts." According to some versions of the legend, it was St. +Macarius, the Egyptian recluse, who thus introduced the living to the +dead. The verses are sometimes accompanied with figures, and these have +been found both sculptured and painted on ecclesiastical buildings. At +a later period, apparently early in the fifteenth century, some one +extended this idea to all ranks of society, and pictured a skeleton, +the emblem of death, or even more than one, in communication with an +individual of each class; and this extended scene, from the manner +of the grouping--in which the dead appeared to be wildly dancing off +with the living--became known as the "Dance of Death." As the earlier +legend of the three dead and the three living was, however, still +often introduced at the beginning of it, the whole group was most +generally known--especially during the fifteenth century--as the "Danse +Macabre," or Dance of Macabre, this name being considered as a mere +corruption of Macarius. The temper of the age--in which death in every +form was constantly before the eyes of all, and in which people sought +to regard life as a mere transitory moment of enjoyment--gave to this +grim idea of the fellowship of death and life great popularity, and it +was not only painted on the walls of churches, but it was suspended +in tapestry around people's chambers. Sometimes they even attempted +to represent it in masquerade, and we are told that in the month of +October, 1424, the "Danse Macabre" was publicly danced by living +people in the cemetery of the Innocents, in Paris--a fit place for so +lugubrious a performance--in the presence of the Duke of Bedford and +the Duke of Burgundy, who came to Paris after the battle of Verneuil. +During the rest of the century we find not unfrequently allusions +to the "Danse Macabre." The English poet Lydgate wrote a series of +stanzas to accompany the figures, and it was the subject of some of +the earliest engravings on wood. In the posture and accompaniments +of the figures representing the different classes of society, and in +the greater or less reluctance with which the living accept their not +very attractive partners, satire is usually implied, and it is in +some cases accompanied with drollery. The figure representing death +has almost always a grimly mirthful countenance, and appears to be +dancing with good will. The most remarkable early representation of +the "Danse Macabre" now preserved, is that painted on the wall of the +church of La Chaise Dieu, in Auvergne, a beautiful fac-simile of which +was published a few years ago by the well-known antiquary M. Jubinal. +This remarkable picture begins with the figures of Adam and Eve, who +are introducing death into the world in the form of a serpent with a +death's head. The dance is opened by an ecclesiastic preaching from +a pulpit, towards whom death is leading first in the dance the pope, +for each individual takes his precedence strictly according to his +class--alternately an ecclesiastic and a layman. Thus next after the +pope comes the emperor, and the cardinal is followed by the king. The +baron is followed by the bishop, and the grim partner of the latter +appears to pay more intention to the layman than to his own priest, so +that two dead men appear to have the former in charge. The group thus +represented by the nobleman and the two deaths, is copied in our cut +No. 132, and will serve as an example of the style and grouping of this +remarkable painting. After a few other figures, perhaps less striking, +we come to the merchant, who receives the advances of his partner with +a thoughtful air; while immediately after him another death is trying +to make himself more acceptable to the bashful nun by throwing a cloak +over his nakedness. In another place two deaths armed with bows and +arrows are scattering their shafts rather dangerously. Soon follow +some of the more gay and youthful members of society. Our cut No. 133 +represents the musician, who appears also to attract the attentions +of two of the persecutors. In his dismay he is treading under foot +his own viol. The dance closes with the lower orders of society, and +is concluded by a group which is not so easily understood. Before the +end of the fifteenth century, there had appeared in Paris several +editions of a series of bold engravings on wood, in a small folio +size, representing the same dance, though somewhat differently treated. +France, indeed, appears to have been the native country of the "Danse +Macabre." But in the century following the beautiful set of drawings by +the great artist Hans Holbein, first published at Lyons in 1538, gave +to the Dance of Death a still greater and wider celebrity. From this +time the subjects of this dance were commonly introduced in initial +letters, and in the engraved borders of pages, especially in books of a +religious character. + + [Illustration: _No. 132. The Knight in the Dance of Death._] + + [Illustration: _No. 133. The Musician in Death's Hands._] + +Death may truly be said to have shared with Folly that melancholy +period--the fifteenth century. As society then presented itself to +the eye, people might easily suppose that the world was running mad, +and folly, in one shape or other, seemed to be the principle which +ruled most men's actions. The jocular societies, described in my last +chapter, which multiplied in France during the fifteenth century, +initiated a sort of mock worship of Folly. That sort of inauguration +of death which was performed in the "Danse Macabre," was of French +growth, but the grand crusade against folly appears to have originated +in Germany. Sebastian Brandt was a native of Strasburg, born in 1458. +He studied in that city and in Bâle, became a celebrated professor in +both those places, and died at the former in 1520. The "Ship of Fools," +which has immortalised the name of Sebastian Brandt, is believed to +have been first published in the year 1494. The original German text +went through numerous editions within a few years; a Latin translation +was equally popular, and it was afterwards edited and enlarged by +Jodocus Badius Ascensius. A French text was no less successful; an +English translation was printed by Richard Pynson in 1509; a Dutch +version appeared in 1519. During the sixteenth century, Brandt's "Ship +of Fools" was the most popular of books. It consists of a series of +bold woodcuts, which form its characteristic feature, and of metrical +explanations, written by Brandt, and annexed to each cut. Taking his +text from the words of the preacher, "Stultorum numerus est infinitus," +Brandt exposes to the eye, in all its shades and forms, the folly +of his contemporaries, and bares to view its roots and causes. The +cuts are especially interesting as striking pictures of contemporary +manners. The "Ship of Fools" is the great ship of the world, into which +the various descriptions of fatuity are pouring from all quarters +in boat-loads. The first folly is that of men who collected great +quantities of books, not for their utility, but for their rarity, or +beauty of execution, or rich bindings, so that we see that bibliomania +had already taken its place among human vanities. The second class +of fools were interested and partial judges, who sold justice for +money, and are represented under the emblem of two fools throwing a +boar into a caldron, according to the old Latin proverb, _Agere aprum +in lebetem_. Then come the various follies of misers, fops, dotards, +men who are foolishly indulgent to their children, mischief-makers, +and despisers of good advice; of nobles and men in power; of the +profane and the improvident; of foolish lovers; of extravagant +eaters and drinkers, &c., &c. Foolish talking, hypocrisy, frivolous +pursuits, ecclesiastical corruptions, impudicity, and a great number +of other vices as well as follies, are duly passed in review, and are +represented in various forms of satirical caricature, and sometimes +in simpler unadorned pictures. Thus the foolish valuers of things are +represented by a fool holding a balance, one scale of which contains +the sun, moon, and stars, to represent heaven and heavenly things, and +the other a castle and fields, to represent earthly things, the latter +scale overweighing the other; and the procrastinator is pictured by +another fool, with a parrot perched on his head, and a magpie on each +hand, all repeating _cras, cras, cras_ (to-morrow). Our cut No. 134 +represents a group of disturbers of church service. It was a common +practice in former days to take to church hawks (which were constantly +carried about as the outward ensign of the gentleman) and dogs. The +fool has here thrown back his fool's-cap to exhibit more fully the +fashionable "gent" of the day; he carries his hawk on his hand, and +wears not only a fashionable pair of shoes, but very fashionable clogs +also. These gentlemen _à la mode, turgentes genere et natalibus altis_, +we are told, were the persons who disturbed the church service by +the creaking of their shoes and clogs, the noise made by their birds, +the barking and quarrelling of their dogs, by their own whisperings, +and especially with immodest women, whom they met in church as in a +convenient place of assignation. All these forms of the offence are +expressed in the picture. Our second example cut No. 135, which forms +the fifty-ninth title or subject in the "Ship of Fools," represents +a party of the beggars with which, either lay or ecclesiastical, the +country was then overrun. In the explanation, these wicked beggars are +described as indulging in idleness, in eating, drinking, rioting, and +sleep, while they levy contributions on the charitable feelings of the +honest and industrious, and, under cover of begging, commit robbery +wherever they find the opportunity. The beggar, who appears to be only +a deceptive cripple, leads his donkey laden with children, whom he is +bringing up in the same profession, while his wife lingers behind to +indulge in her bibulous propensities. These cuts will give a tolerable +notion of the general character of the whole, which amount in number to +a hundred and twelve, and therefore present a great variety of subjects +relative to almost every class and profession of life. + + [Illustration: _No. 134. Disturbers of Church Service._] + + [Illustration: _No. 135. Mendicants on their Travels._] + +We may remark, however, that after Folly had thus run through all the +stages of society, until it had reached the lowest of all, the ranks +of mendicity, the gods themselves became alarmed, the more so as this +great movement was directed especially against Minerva, the goddess +of wisdom, and they held a conclave to provide against it. The result +is not told, but the course of Folly goes on as vigorously as ever. +Ignorant fools who set up for physicians, fools who cannot understand +jokes, unwise mathematicians, astrologers, of the latter of which the +moraliser says, in his Latin verse-- + + _Siqua voles sortis prænoscere damna futuræ, + Et vitare malum, sol tibi signa dabit. + Sed tibi, stulte, tui cur non dedit ille furoris + Signa? aut, si dederit, cur tanta mala subis? + Nondum grammaticæ callis primordia, et audes + Vim cœli radio supposuisse tuo._ + +The next cut is a very curious one, and appears to represent a +dissecting-house of this early period. Among other chapters which +afford interesting pictures of that time, and indeed of all times, we +may instance those of litigious fools, who are always going to law, +and who confound blind justice, or rather try to unbind her eyes; +of filthy-tongued fools, who glorify the race of swine; of ignorant +scholars; of gamblers; of bad and thievish cooks; of low men who seek +to be high, and of high who are despisers of poverty; of men who +forget that they will die; of irreligious men and blasphemers; of +the ridiculous indulgence of parents to children, and the ungrateful +return which was made to them for it; and of women's pride. Another +title describes the ruin of Christianity: the pope, emperor, king, +cardinals, &c., are receiving willingly from a suppliant fool the cap +of Folly, while two other fools are looking derisively upon them from +an adjoining wall. It need hardly be said that this was published on +the eve of the Reformation. + +In the midst of the popularity which greeted the appearance of the +work of Sebastian Brandt, it attracted the special attention of a +celebrated preacher of the time named Johann Geiler. Geiler was born +at Schaffhausen, in Switzerland, in 1445, but having lost his father +when only three years of age, he was educated by his grandfather, who +lived at Keysersberg, in Alsace, and hence he was commonly called +Geiler of Keysersberg. He studied in Freiburg and Bâle, obtained a +great reputation for learning, was esteemed a profound theologian, and +was finally settled in Strasburg, where he continued to shine as a +preacher until his death in 1510. He was a bold man, too, in the cause +of truth, and declaimed with earnest zeal against the corruptions of +the church, and especially against the monkish orders, for he compared +the black monks to the devil, the white monks to his dam, and the +others he said were their chickens. On another occasion he said that +the qualities of a good monk were an almighty belly, an ass's back, +and a raven's mouth. He told his congregation from the pulpit that a +great reformation was at hand, that he did not expect to live to see +it himself, but that many of those who heard him would live to see +it. As may be supposed, the monks hated him, and spoke of him with +contempt. They said, that in his sermons he took his texts, not from +the Scriptures, but from the "Ship of Fools" of Sebastian Brandt; and, +in fact, during the year 1498, Geiler preached at Strasburg a series of +sermons on the follies of his time, which were evidently founded upon +Brandt's book, for the various follies were taken in the same order. +They were originally compiled in German, but one of Geiler's scholars, +Jacob Other, translated them into Latin, and published them, in 1501, +under the title of "Navicula sive Speculum Fatuorum præstantissimi +sacrarum literarum doctoris Johannis Geiler." Within a few years this +work went through several editions both in Latin and in German, some +of them illustrated by woodcuts. The style of preaching is quaint and +curious, full of satirical wit, which is often coarse, according to the +manner of the time, sometimes very indelicate. Each sermon is headed +by the motto, "Stultorum infinitus est numerus." Geiler takes for his +theme in each sermon one of the titles of Brandt's "Ship of Fools," and +he separates them into subdivisions, or branches, which he calls the +bells (_nolas_) from the fool's-cap. + +The other scholar who did most to spread the knowledge of Brandt's +work, was Jodocus Badius, who assumed the additional name of Ascensius +because he was born at Assen, near Brussels, in 1462. He was a very +distinguished scholar, but is best known for having established a +celebrated printing establishment in Paris, where he died in 1535. I +have already stated that Badius edited the Latin translation of the +"Ship of Fools" of Sebastian Brandt, with additional explanations of +his own, but he was one of the first of Brandt's imitators. He seems to +have thought that Brandt's book was not complete--that the weaker sex +had not received its fair share of importance; and apparently in 1498, +while Geiler was turning the "Stultifera Navis" into sermons, Badius +compiled a sort of supplement to it (_additamentum_), to which he gave +the title of "Stultiferæ naviculæ, seu Scaphæ, Fatuarum Mulierum," the +Boats of Foolish Women. As far as can be traced, the first edition +appears to have been printed in 1502. The first cut represents the +ship carrying Eve alone of the female race, whose folly involved the +whole world. The book is divided into five chapters, according to the +number of the five senses, each sense represented by a boat carrying +its particular class of foolish women to the great ship of foolish +women, which lies off at anchor. The text consists of a dissertation +on the use and abuse of the particular sense which forms the substance +of the chapter, and it ends with Latin verses, which are given as the +boatman's _celeusma_, or boat song. The first of these boats is the +_scapha stultæ visionis ad stultiferam navem perveniens_--the boat of +foolish seeing proceeding to the ship of fools. A party of gay ladies +are taking possession of the boat, carrying with them their combs, +looking-glasses, and all other implements necessary for making them +fair to be looked upon. The second boat is the _scapha auditionis +fatuæ_, the boat of foolish hearing, in which the ladies are playing +upon musical instruments. The third is the _scapha olfactionis stultæ_, +the boat of foolish smell, and the pictorial illustration to it is +partly copied in our cut No. 136. In the original some of the ladies +are gathering sweet-smelling flowers before they enter the boat, while +on board a pedlar is vending his perfume. One _folle femme_, with her +fool's cap on her head, is buying a pomander, or, as we should perhaps +now say, a scent-ball, from the itinerant dealer. Figures of pomanders +are extremely rare, and this is an interesting example; in fact, it +is only recently that our Shakspearian critics really understood the +meaning of the word. A pomander was a small globular vessel, perforated +with holes, and filled with strong perfumes, as it is represented in +our woodcut. The fourth of these boats is that of foolish tasting, +_scapha gustationis fatuæ_, and the ladies have their well-furnished +table on board the boat, and are largely indulging in eating and +drinking. In the last of these boats, the _scapha contactionis fatuæ_, +or boat of foolish feeling, the women have men on board, and are +proceeding to great liberties with them; one of the gentle damsels, +too, is picking the pocket of her male companion in a very unlady-like +manner. + + [Illustration: _No. 136. The Boat of Pleasant Odours._] + +Two ideas combined in this peculiar field of satiric literature, that +of the ship and that of the fools, now became popular, and gave rise +to a host of imitators. There appeared ships of health, ships of +penitence, ships of all sorts of things, on the one hand; and on the +other, folly was a favourite theme of satire from many quarters. One of +the most remarkable of the personages involved in this latter warfare, +was the great scholar Desiderius Erasmus, of Rotterdam, who was born in +that city in 1467. Like most of these satirists, Erasmus was strongly +imbued with the spirit of the Reformation, and he was the acquaintance +and friend of those to whom the Reformation owed a great part of its +success. In 1497, when the "Ship of Fools" of Sebastian Brandt was in +the first full flush of its popularity, Erasmus came to England, and +was so well received, that from that time forward his literary life +seemed more identified with our island than with any other country. His +name is still a sort of household word in our universities, especially +in that of Cambridge. He made here the friendly acquaintance of the +great Sir Thomas More, himself a lover of mirth, and one of those whose +names are celebrated for having kept a court fool. In the earlier years +of the sixteenth century, Erasmus visited Italy, and passed two or +three years there. He returned thence to England, as appears, early +in the year 1508. It is not easy to decide whether his experience of +society in Italy had convinced him more than ever that folly was the +presiding genius of mankind, or what other feeling influenced him, +but one of the first results of his voyage was the Μωρίας Ἐγκώμιον +(_Moriæ Encomium_), or "Praise of Folly." Erasmus dedicated this +little jocular treatise to Sir Thomas More as a sort of pun upon his +name, although he protests that there was a great contrast between +the two characters. Erasmus takes much the same view of folly as +Brandt, Geiler, Badius, and the others, and under this name he writes +a bold satire on the whole frame of contemporary society. The satire +is placed in the mouth of Folly herself (the Mère Folie of the jocular +clubs), who delivers from her pulpit a declamation in which she sets +forth her qualities and praises. She boasts of the greatness of her +origin, claims as her kindred the sophists, rhetoricians, and many of +the pretentious scholars and wise men, and describes her birth and +education. She claims divine affinity, and boasts of her influence over +the world, and of the beneficent manner in which it was exercised. +All the world, she pretends, was ruled under her auspices, and it was +only in her presence that mankind was really happy. Hence the happiest +ages of man are infancy, before wisdom has come to interfere, and old +age, when it has passed away. Therefore, she says, if men would remain +faithful to her, and avoid wisdom altogether, they would pass a life +of perpetual youth. In this long discourse of the influence of folly, +written by a man of the known sentiments of Erasmus, it would be +strange if the Romish church, with its monks and ignorant priesthood, +its saints, and relics, and miracles, did not find a place. Erasmus +intimates that the superstitious follies had become permanent, because +they were profitable. There are some, he tells us, who cherished the +foolish yet pleasant persuasion, that if they fixed their eyes devoutly +on a figure of St. Christopher, carved in wood or painted on the wall, +they would be safe from death on that day; with many other examples +of equal credulity. Then there are your pardons, your measures of +purgatory, which may be bought off at so much the hour, or the day, +or the month, and a multitude of other absurdities. Ecclesiastics, +scholars, mathematicians, philosophers, all come in for their share of +the refined satire of this book, which, like the "Ship of Fools," has +gone through innumerable editions, and has been translated into many +languages. + + [Illustration: _No. 137. Superstition._] + +In an early French translation, the text of this work of Erasmus +is embellished with some of the woodcuts belonging to Brandt's +"Ship of Fools," which, it need hardly be remarked, are altogether +inappropriate, but the "Praise of Folly" was detained to receive +illustrations from a more distinguished pencil. A copy of the book came +into the hands of Hans Holbein--it may possibly have been presented to +him by the author--and Holbein took so much interest in it, that he +amused himself with drawing illustrative sketches with a pen in the +margins. This book afterwards passed into the library of the University +of Bâle, where it was found in the latter part of the seventeenth +century, and these drawings have since been engraved and added to most +of the subsequent editions. Many of these sketches are very slight, and +some have not a very close connection with the text of Erasmus, but +they are all characteristic, and show the spirit--the spirit of the +age--in which Holbein read his author. I give two examples of them, +taken almost haphazard, for it would require a longer analysis of the +book than can be given here to make many of them understood. The first +of these, our cut No. 137, represents the foolish warrior, who has a +sword long enough to trust to it for defence, bowing with trembling +superstition before a painting of St. Christopher crossing the water +with the infant Christ on his shoulder, as a more certain security for +his safety during that day. The other, our cut No. 138, represents +the preacher, Lady Folly, descending from her pulpit, after she has +concluded her sermon. + + [Illustration: _No. 138. Preacher Folly ending her Sermon._] + + + + + CHAPTER XIV. + + POPULAR LITERATURE AND ITS HEROES; BROTHER RUSH, TYLL EULENSPIEGEL, + THE WISE MEN OF GOTHAM.--STORIES AND JEST-BOOKS.--SKELTON, SCOGIN, + TARLTON, PEELE. + + +The people in the middle ages, as well as its superiors, had its +comic literature and legend. Legend was the literature especially of +the peasant, and in it the spirit of burlesque and satire manifested +itself in many ways. Simplicity, combined with vulgar cunning, and the +circumstances arising out of the exercise of these qualities, presented +the greatest stimulants to popular mirth. They produced their popular +heroes, who, at first, were much more than half legendary, such as +the familiar spirit, Robin Goodfellow, whose pranks were a source of +continual amusement rather than of terror to the simple minds which +listened to those who told them. These stories excited with still +greater interest as their spiritual heroes became incarnate, and the +auditors were persuaded that the perpetrators of so many artful acts of +cunning and of so many mischievous practical jokes, were but ordinary +men like themselves. It was but a sign or symbol of the change from +the mythic age to that of practical life. One of the earliest of these +stories of mythic comedy transformed into, or at least presented under +the guise of, humanity, is that of Brother Ruth. Although the earliest +version of this story with which we are acquainted dates only from the +beginning of the sixteenth century,[73] there is no reason for doubt +that the story itself was in existence at a much more remote period. + + [73] This earliest known version is in German verse, and was printed + in 1515. An English version, in prose, was printed in 1620, and + is reprinted in Thoms's "Collection of Early Prose Romances." + +Rush was, in truth, a spirit of darkness, whose mission it was +to wander on the earth tempting and impelling people to do evil. +Perceiving that the internal condition of a certain abbey was well +suited to his purpose, he presented himself at its gates in the +disguise of a youth who wanted employment, and was received as an +assistant in the kitchen, but he pleased the monks best by the skill +with which he furnished them all with fair companions. At length he +quarrelled with the cook, and threw him into the boiling caldron, and +the monks, assuming that his death was accidental, appointed Rush to be +cook in his place. After a service of seven years in the kitchen--which +appears to have been considered a fair apprenticeship for the new +honour which was to be conferred upon him--the abbot and convent +rewarded him by making him a monk. He now followed still more earnestly +his design for the ruin of his brethren, both soul and body, and began +by raising a quarrel about a woman, which led, through his contrivance, +to a fight, in which the monks all suffered grievous bodily injuries, +and in which Brother Rush was especially active. He went on in this +way until at last his true character was accidentally discovered. A +neighbouring farmer, overtaken by night, took shelter in a hollow tree. +It happened to be the night appointed by Lucifer to meet his agents +on earth, and hear from them the report of their several proceedings, +and he had selected this very oak as the place of rendezvous. There +Brother Rush appeared, and the farmer, in his hiding-place, heard his +confession from his own lips, and told it to the abbot, who, being as +it would appear a magician, conjured him into the form of a horse, and +banished him. Rush hurried away to England, where he laid aside his +equine form, and entered the body of the king's daughter, who suffered +great torments from his possession. At length some of the great doctors +from Paris came and obliged the spirit to confess that nobody but the +abbot of the distant monastery had any power over him. The abbot came, +called him out of the maiden, and conjured him more forcibly than ever +into the form of a horse. + +Such is, in mere outline, the story of Brother Rush, which was +gradually enlarged by the addition of new incidents. But the people +wanted a hero who presented more of the character of reality, who, +in fact, might be recognised as one of themselves; and such heroes +appear to have existed at all times. They usually represented a +class in society, and especially that class which consisted of idle +sharpers, who lived by their wits, and which was more numerous and more +familiarly known in the middle ages than at the present day. Folly +and cunning combined presented a never-failing subject of mirth. This +class of adventurers first came into print in Germany, and it is there +that we find its first popular hero, to whom they gave the name of +Eulenspiegel, which means literally "the owl's mirror," and has been +since used in German in the sense of a merry fool. Tyll Eulenspiegel, +and his story, are supposed to have belonged to the fourteenth century, +though we first know them in the printed book of the commencement of +the sixteenth, which is believed to have come from the pen of the +well-known popular writer, Thomas Murner, of whom I shall have to speak +more at length in another chapter. The popularity of this work was very +great, and it was quickly translated into French, English, Latin, and +almost every other language of Western Europe. In the English version +the name also was translated, and appears under the form of Owleglass, +or, as it often occurs with the superfluous aspirate, Howleglass.[74] +According to the story, Tyll Eulenspiegel was the son of a peasant, and +was born at a village called Kneitlingen, in the land of Brunswick. +The story of his birth may be given in the words of the early English +version, as a specimen of its quaint and antiquated language:-- + + "Yn the lande of Sassen, in the vyllage of Ruelnige, there + dwelleth a man that was named Nicholas Howleglas, that had a wife + named Wypeke, that lay a childbed in the same wyllage, and that + chylde was borne to christening; and named Tyell Howleglass. And + than the chyld was brought into a taverne, where the father was + wyth his gosseppes and made good chere. Whan the mydwife had wel + dronke, she toke the childe to bere it home, and in the wai was a + litle bridg over a muddy water. And as the mydwife would have gone + over the lytle brydge, she fel into the mudde with the chylde, + for she had a lytel dronk to much wyne, for had not helpe come + quickly, the had both be drowned in the mudde. And whan she came + home with the childe, the made a kettle of warm water to be made + redi, and therin they washed the child clen of the mudde. And + thus was Howleglas thre tymes in one dai cristened, once at the + churche, once in the mudde, and once in the warm water." + + [74] The title of this English translation is, "Here beginneht a merye + Jest of a man that was called Howleglas, and of many marveylous + thinges and jestes that he dyd in his lyfe, in Eastlande, and in + many other places." It was printed by Coplande, supposed about + 1520. An edition of Eulenspiegel in English, by Mr. Kenneth + Mackenzie, has recently been published by Messrs. Trübner & Co., + of Paternoster Row. + +It will be seen that the English translator was not very correct in his +geography or in his names. The child, having thus escaped destruction, +grew rapidly, and displayed an extraordinary love of mischief, with +various other evil propensities, as well as a cunning beyond his age, +in escaping the risks to which these exposed him. At a very early age, +he displayed a remarkable talent for setting the other children by the +ears, and this was his favourite amusement during life. His mother, +who was now a widow, contemplating the extraordinary cunning of her +child, which, as she thought, must necessarily ensure his advancement +in the world, resolved that he should no longer remain idle, and put +him apprentice to a baker; but his wicked and restless disposition +defeated all the good intentions of his parent, and Eulenspiegel was +obliged to leave his master in consequence of his mal-practices. One +day his mother took him to a church-dedication, and the child drank +so much at the feast on that occasion, that he crept into an empty +beehive and fell asleep, while his mother, thinking he had gone home, +returned without him. In the night-time two thieves came into the +garden to steal the bees, and they agreed to take first the hive which +was heaviest. This, as may be supposed, proved to be the hive in +which Eulenspiegel was hidden, and they fixed it on a pole which they +carried on their shoulders, one before and one behind, the hive hanging +between them. Eulenspiegel, awakened by the movement, soon discovered +the position in which he was placed, and hit upon a plan for escaping. +Gently lifting the lid of the hive, he put out his arm and plucked the +hair of the man before, who turned about and accused his companion of +insulting him. The other asserted that he had not touched him, and the +first, only half satisfied, continued to bear his share of the burthen, +but he had not advanced many steps when a still sharper pull at his +hair excited his great anger, and from wrathful words the two thieves +proceeded to blows. While they were fighting, Eulenspiegel crept out of +the hive and ran away. + +After leaving the baker, Eulenspiegel became a wanderer in the world, +gaining his living by his trickery and deception, and engaging himself +in all sorts of strange and ludicrous adventures. He ended everywhere +by creating discord and strife. He became at different times a +blacksmith, a shoemaker, a tailor, a cook, a drawer of teeth, and +assumed a variety of other characters, but remained in each situation +only long enough to make it too hot for him, and to be obliged to +secure his retreat. He intruded himself into all classes of society, +and invariably came to similar results. Many of his adventures, indeed, +are so droll that we can easily understand the great popularity +they once enjoyed. But they are not merely amusing--they present a +continuous satire upon contemporary society, upon a social condition in +which every pretender, every reckless impostor, every private plunderer +or public depredator, saw the world exposed to him in its folly and +credulity as an easy prey. + +The middle ages possessed another class of these popular satirical +histories, which were attached to places rather than to persons. There +were few countries which did not possess a town or a district, the +inhabitants of which were celebrated for stupidity, or for roguery, +or for some other ridiculous or contemptible quality. We have seen, +in a former chapter, the people of Norfolk enjoying this peculiarity, +and, at a later period, the inhabitants of Pevensey in Sussex, and +more especially those of Gotham in Nottinghamshire, were similarly +distinguished. The inhabitants of many places in Germany bore this +character, but their grand representatives among the Germans were the +Schildburgers, a name which appears to belong entirely to the domain +of fable. Schildburg, we are told, was a town "in Misnopotamia, beyond +Utopia, in the kingdom of Calecut." The Schildburgers were originally +so renowned for their wisdom, that they were continually invited into +foreign countries to give their advice, until at length not a man was +left at home, and their wives were obliged to assume the charge of the +duties of their husbands. This became at length so onerous, that the +wives held a council, and resolved on despatching a solemn message +in writing to call the men home. This had the desired effect; all the +Schildburgers returned to their own town, and were so joyfully received +by their wives that they resolved upon leaving it no more. They +accordingly held a council, and it was decided that, having experienced +the great inconvenience of a reputation of wisdom, they would avoid +it in future by assuming the character of fools. One of the first +evil results of their long neglect of home affairs was the want of a +council-hall, and this want they now resolved to supply without delay. +They accordingly went to the hills and woods, cut down the timber, +dragged it with great labour to the town, and in due time completed +the erection of a handsome and substantial building. But, when they +entered their new council-hall, what was their consternation to find +themselves in perfect darkness! In fact, they had forgotten to make +any windows. Another council was held, and one who had been among the +wisest in the days of their wisdom, gave his opinion very oracularly; +the result of which was that they should experiment on every possible +expedient for introducing light into the hall, and that they should +first try that which seemed most likely to succeed. They had observed +that the light of day was caused by sunshine, and the plan proposed was +to meet at mid-day when the sun was brightest, and fill sacks, hampers, +jugs, and vessels of all kinds, with sunshine and daylight, which they +proposed afterwards to empty into the unfortunate council-hall. Next +day, as the clock struck one, you might see a crowd of Schildburgers +before the council-house door, busily employed, some holding the sacks +open, and others throwing the light into them with shovels and any +other appropriate implements which came to hand. While they were thus +labouring, a stranger came into the town of Schildburg, and, hearing +what they were about, told them they were labouring to no purpose, +and offered to show them how to get the daylight into the hall. It is +unnecessary to say more than that this new plan was to make an opening +in the roof, and that the Schildburgers witnessed the effect with +astonishment, and were loud in their gratitude to their new comer. + +The Schildburgers met with further difficulties before they completed +their council-hall. They sowed a field with salt, and when the +salt-plant grew up next year, after a meeting of the council, at +which it was stiffly disputed whether it ought to be reaped, or mowed, +or gathered in in some other manner, it was finally discovered that +the crop consisted of nothing but nettles. After many accidents of +this kind, the Schildburgers are noticed by the emperor, and obtain a +charter of incorporation and freedom, but they profit little by it. In +trying some experiments to catch mice, they set fire to their houses, +and the whole town is burnt to the ground, upon which, in their sorrow, +they abandon it altogether, and become, like the Jews of old, scattered +over the world, carrying their own folly into every country they visit. + +The earliest known edition of the history of the Schildburgers was +printed in 1597,[75] but the story itself is no doubt older. It will +be seen at once that it involves a satire upon the municipal towns of +the middle ages. A similar series of adventures, only a little more +clerical, bore the title of "Der Pfarrherrn vom Kalenberg," or the +Parson of Kalenberg, and was first, as far as we know, published in the +latter half of the sixteenth century. The first known edition, printed +in 1582, is in prose. Von der Hagen, who reprinted a subsequent edition +in verse, in a volume already quoted, seems to think that in its first +form the story belongs to the fourteenth century. + + [75] It was reprinted by Von der Hagen, in a little volume entitled + "Narrenbuch; herausgegeben durch Friedrich Heinrich von der + Hagen." 12mo., Halle, 1811. + +The Schildburgers of Germany were represented in England by the wise +men of Gotham. Gotham is a village and parish about seven miles to +the south-west of Nottingham, and, curiously enough, a story is told +according to which the folly of the men of Gotham, like that of the +Schildburgers, was at first assumed. It is pretended that one day +king John, on his way to Nottingham, intended to pass through the +village of Gotham, and that the Gothamites, under the influence of +some vague notion that his presence would be injurious to them, raised +difficulties in his way which prevented his visit. The men of Gotham +were now apprehensive of the king's vengeance, and they resolved +to try and evade it by assuming the character of simpletons. When +the king's officers came to Gotham to inquire into the conduct of +the inhabitants, they found them engaged in the most extraordinary +pursuits, some of them seeking to drown an eel in a pond of water, +others making a hedge round a tree to confine a cuckoo which had +settled in it, and others employing themselves in similar futile +pursuits. The commissioners reported the people of Gotham to be no +better than fools, and by this stratagem they escaped any further +persecution, but the character they assumed remained attached to them. + +This explanation is, of course, very late and very apocryphal; but +there can be little doubt that the character of the wise men of Gotham +is one of considerable antiquity. The story is believed to have been +drawn up in its present form by Andrew Borde, an English writer of the +reign of Henry VIII. It was reprinted a great number of times under +the form of those popular books called chap-books, because they were +hawked about the country by itinerant booksellers or chap-men. The +acts of the Gothamites displayed a greater degree of simplicity even +than those of the Schildburgers, but they are less connected. Here +is one anecdote told in the unadorned language of the chap-books, in +explanation of which it is only necessary to state that the men of +Gotham admired greatly the note of the cuckoo. "On a time the men of +Gotham fain would have pinn'd in the cuckow, that she might sing all +the year; and, in the midst of the town, they had a hedge made round in +compass, and got a cuckow and put her into it, and said, 'Sing here, +and you shall lack neither meat nor drink all the year.' The cuckow, +when she perceived herself encompassed with the hedge, flew away. 'A +vengeance on her,' said these wise men, 'we did not make our hedge high +enough.'" On another occasion, having caught a large eel which offended +them by its voracity, they assembled in council to deliberate on an +appropriate punishment, which ended in a resolution that it should be +drowned, and the criminal was ceremoniously thrown into a great pond. +One day twelve men of Gotham went a-fishing, and on their way home they +suddenly discovered that they had lost one of their number, and each +counted in his turn, and could find only eleven. In fact, each forgot +to count himself. In the midst of their distress--for they believed +their companion to be drowned--a stranger approached, and learnt the +cause of their sorrow. Finding they were not to be convinced of their +mistake by mere argument, he offered, on certain conditions, to find +the lost Gothamite, and he proceeded as follows. He took one by one +each of the twelve Gothamites, struck him a hard blow on the shoulder, +which made him scream, and at each cry counted one, two, three, &c. +When it came to twelve, they were all satisfied that the lost Gothamite +had returned, and paid the man for the service he had rendered them. + +As a chap-book, this history of the men of Gotham became so popular, +that it gave rise to a host of other books of similar character, which +were compiled at a later period under such titles--formerly well +known to children--as, "The Merry Frolicks, or the Comical Cheats of +Swalpo;" "The Witty and Entertaining Exploits of George Buchanan, +commonly called the King's Fool;" "Simple Simon's Misfortunes;" and the +like. Nor must it be forgotten that the history of Eulenspiegel was +the prototype of a class of popular histories of larger dimensions, +represented in our own literature by "The English Rogue," the work of +Richard Head and Francis Kirkman, in the reign of Charles II., and +various other "rogues" belonging to different countries, which appeared +about that time, or not long afterwards. The earliest of these books +was "The Spanish Rogue, or Life of Guzman de Alfarache," written in +Spanish by Mateo Aleman in the latter part of the sixteenth century. +Curiously enough, some Englishman, not knowing apparently that the +history of Eulenspiegel had appeared in English under the name of +Owlglass, took it into his head to introduce him among the family of +rogues which had thus come into fashion, and, in 1720, published as +"Made English from the High Dutch," what he called "The German Rogue, +or the Life and Merry Adventures, Cheats, Stratagems, and Contrivances +of Tiel Eulespiegle." + +The fifteenth century was the period during which mediæval forms +generally were changing into forms adapted to another state of society, +and in which much of the popular literature which has been in vogue +during modern times took its rise. In the fourteenth century, the +fabliaux of the jougleurs were already taking what we may perhaps term +a more literary form, and were reduced into prose narratives. This +took place especially in Italy, where these prose tales were called +_novelle_, implying some novelty in their character, a word which was +transferred into the French language under the form of _nouvelles_, +and was the origin of our modern English _novel_, applied to a work of +fiction. The Italian novelists adopted the Eastern plan of stringing +these stories together on the slight framework of one general plot, +in which are introduced causes for telling them and persons who tell +them. Thus the Decameron of Boccaccio holds towards the fabliaux +exactly the same position as that of the "Arabian Nights" to the older +Arabian tales. The Italian novelists became numerous and celebrated +throughout Europe, from the time of Boccaccio to that of Straparola, +at the commencement of the sixteenth century, and later. The taste for +this class of literature appears to have been introduced into France at +the court of Burgundy, where, under duke Philippe le Bon, a well-known +courtier and man of letters named Antoine de La Sale, who had, during +a sojourn in Italy, become acquainted with one of the most celebrated +of the earlier Italian collections, the "Cento Novello," or the Hundred +Novels, compiled a collection in French in imitation of them, under the +title of "Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles," or the Hundred new Novels, +one of the purest examples of the French language in the fifteenth +century.[76] The later French story-books, such as the Heptameron of +the queen of Navarre, and others, belong chiefly to the sixteenth +century. These collections of stories can hardly be said to have ever +taken root in this island as a part of English literature. + + [76] I am obliged to pass over this part of the subject very rapidly. + For the history of that remarkable book, the "Cent Nouvelles + Nouvelles," I would refer the reader to the preface to my own + edition, "Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles, publiées d'après le + seul manuscrit connu, avec Introduction et Notes, par M. Thomas + Wright." 2 vols, 12mo., Paris, 1858. + +But there arose partly out of these stories a class of books which +became greatly multiplied, and were, during a long period, extremely +popular. With the household fool, or jester, instead of the old +jougleur, the stories had been shorn of their detail, and sank into +the shape of mere witty anecdotes, and at the same time a taste arose +for what we now class under the general term of jests, clever sayings, +what the French call _bons mots_, and what the English of the sixteenth +century termed "quick answers." The word _jest_ itself arose from the +circumstance that the things designated by it arose out of the older +stories, for it is a mere corruption of gestes, the Latin _gesta_, in +the sense of narratives of acts or deeds, or tales. The Latin writers, +who first began to collect them into books, included them under the +general name of _facetiæ_. The earlier of these collections of facetiæ +were written in Latin, and of the origin of the first with which we +are acquainted, that by the celebrated scholar Poggio of Florence, +a curious anecdote is told. Some wits of the court of pope Martin +V., elected to the papacy in 1417, among whom were the pope's two +secretaries, Poggio and Antonio Lusco, Cincio of Rome, and Ruzello of +Bologna, appropriated to themselves a private corner in the Vatican, +where they assembled to chat freely among themselves. They called +it their _buggiale_, a word which signifies in Italian, a place of +recreation, where they tell stories, make jests, and amuse themselves +with discussing satirically the doings and characters of everybody. +This was the way in which Poggio and his friends entertained themselves +in their buggiale, and we are assured that in their talk they neither +spared the church nor the pope himself or his government. The facetiæ +of Poggio, in fact, which are said to be a selection of the good things +said in these meetings, show neither reverence for the church of Rome +nor respect for decency, but they are mostly stories which had been +told over and over again, long before Poggio came into the world. It +was perhaps this satire upon the church and upon the ecclesiastics +which gave much of their popularity to these facetiæ at a time when +a universal agitation of men's minds on religious affairs prevailed, +which was the great harbinger of the Reformation; and the next Latin +books of facetiæ came from men such as Henry Bebelius, who were zealous +reformers themselves. + +Many of the jests in these Latin collections are put into the mouths of +jesters, or domestic fools, _fatui_, or _moriones_, as they are called +in the Latin; and in England, where these jest-books in the vernacular +tongue became more popular perhaps than in any other country, many +of them were published under the names of celebrated jesters, as the +"Merie Tales of Skelton," "The Jests of Scogin," "Tarlton's Jests," and +"The Jests of George Peele." + +John Skelton, poet-laureat of his time, appears to have been known in +the courts of Henry VII. and Henry VIII. quite as much in the character +of a jester as in that of a poet. Poet-laureat was then a title or +degree given in the university of Oxford. His "Merye Tales" are all +personal of himself, and we should be inclined to say that his jests +and his poetry are equally bad. The former picture him as holding a +place somewhere between Eulenspiegel and the ordinary court-fool. We +may give as a sample of the best of them the tale No. 1.-- + + "_How Skelton came home late to Oxford from Abington._ + + "Skelton was an Englysheman borne as Skogyn was, and hee was + educated and broughte up in Oxfoorde, and there was he made a + poete lauriat. And on a tyme he had ben at Abbington to make mery, + wher that he had eate salte meates, and hee did com late home to + Oxforde, and he did lye in an ine named the Tabere, whyche is now + the Angell, and hee dyd drynke, and went to bed. About midnight + he was so thyrstie or drye that he was constrained to call to + the tapster for drynke, and the tapster harde him not. Then hee + cryed to hys oste and hys ostes, and to the ostler, for drinke, + and no man would here hym. Alacke, sayd Skelton, I shall peryshe + for lacke of drynke! What reamedye? At the last he dyd crie out + and sayd, Fyer, fyer, fyer! When Skelton hard every man bustle + hymselfe upward, and some of them were naked, and some were halfe + asleepe and amased, and Skelton dyd crye, Fier, fier! styll, that + everye man knewe not whether to resorte. Skelton did go to bed, + and the oste and ostis, and the tapster, with the ostler, dyd + runne to Skeltons chamber with candles lyghted in theyr handes, + saying, Where, where, where is the fyer? Here, here, here, said + Skelton, and poynted hys fynger to hys mouth, saying, Fetch me + some drynke to quenche the fyer and the heate and the drinesse in + my mouthe. And so they dyd." + +Another of these "Merye Tales" of Skelton contains a satire upon +the practice which prevailed in the sixteenth and early part of the +seventeenth centuries of obtaining letters-patent of monopoly from the +crown, and also on the bibulous propensities of Welshmen-- + + "_How the Welshman dyd desyre Skelton to ayde hym in hys sute to + the kynge for a patent to sell drynke._ + + "Skelton, when he was in London, went to the kynges courte, + where there did come to hym a Welshman, saying, Syr, it is so, + that manye dooth come upp of my country to the kynges court, and + some doth get of the kyng by patent a castell, and some a parke, + and some a forest, and some one fee and some another, and they + dooe lyve lyke honest men; and I shoulde lyve as honestly as + the best, if I myght have a patyne for good dryncke, wherefore + I dooe praye yow to write a fewe woords for mee in a lytle byll + to geve the same to the kynges handes, and I wil geve you well + for your laboure. I am contented, sayde Skelton. Syt downe then, + sayde the Welshman, and write. What shall I wryte? sayde Skelton. + The Welshman sayde wryte _dryncke_. Nowe, sayde the Welshman, + write _more dryncke_. What now? sayde Skelton. Wryte nowe, _a + great deale of dryncke_. Nowe, sayd the Welshman, putte to all + thys dryncke _a littell crome of breade_, and _a great deale of + drynke_ to it, and reade once agayne. Skelton dyd reade, _Dryncke, + more dryncke, and a great deale of dryncke, and a lytle crome of + breade, and a great deale of dryncke to it_. Than the Welshman + sayde, Put oute _the litle crome of breade_, and sette in, _all + dryncke and no breade_. And if I myght have thys sygned of the + kynge, sayde the Welshman, I care for no more, as longe as I dooe + lyve. Well then, sayde Skelton, when you have thys signed of the + kyng, then wyll I labour for a patent to have bread, that you wyth + your drynke and I with the bread may fare well, and seeke our + livinge with bagge and staffe." + +These two tales are rather favourable specimens of the collection +published under the name of Skelton, which, as far as we know, was +first printed about the middle of the sixteenth century. The collection +of the jests of Scogan, or, as he was popularly called, Scogin, which +is said to have been compiled by Andrew Borde, was probably given to +the world a few years before, but no copies of the earlier editions are +now known to exist. Scogan, the hero of these jests, is described as +occupying at the court of Henry VII. a position not much different from +that of an ordinary court-fool. Good old Holinshed the chronicler says +of him, perhaps a little too gently, that he was "a learned gentleman +and student for a time in Oxford, of a pleasant wit, and bent to merrie +devices, in respect whereof he was called into the court, where, giving +himselfe to his naturall inclination of mirth and pleasant pastime, +he plaied manie sporting parts, although not in such uncivil manner +as hath beene of him reported." This allusion refers most probably to +the jests, which represent him as leading a life of low and coarse +buffoonery, in the course of which he displayed a considerable +share of the dishonest and mischievous qualities of the less real +Eulenspiegel. He is even represented as personally insulting the king +and queen, and as being consequently banished over the Channel, to +show no more respect to the majesty of the king of France. Scogin's +jests, like Skelton's, consist in a great measure of those practical +jokes which appear in all former ages to have been the delight of the +Teutonic race. Many of them are directed against the ignorance and +worldliness of the clergy. Scogin is described as being at one time +himself a teacher in the university, and on one occasion, we are told, +a husbandman sent his son to school to him that he might be made a +priest. The whole story, which runs through several chapters, is an +excellent caricature on the way in which men vulgarly ignorant were +intruded into the priesthood before the Reformation. At length, after +much blundering, the scholar came to be ordained, and his examination +is reported as follows:-- + + "_How the scholler said Tom Miller of Oseney was Jacob's father._ + + "After this, the said scholler did come to the next orders, and + brought a present to the ordinary from Scogin, but the scholler's + father paid for all. Then said the ordinary to the scholler, I + must needes oppose you, and for master Scogin's sake, I will + oppose you in a light matter. Isaac had two sons, Esau and Jacob. + Who was Jacob's father? The scholler stood still, and could not + tell. Well, said the ordinary, I cannot admit you to be priest + untill the next orders, and then bring me an answer. The scholler + went home with a heavy heart, bearing a letter to master Scogin, + how his scholler could not answer to this question: Isaac had + two sons, Esau and Jacob; who was Jacob's father? Scogin said to + his scholler, Thou foole and asse-head! Dost thou not know Tom + Miller of Oseney? Yes, said the scholler! Then, said Scogin, thou + knowest he had two sonnes, Tom and Jacke; who is Jacke's father? + The scholler said, Tom Miller. Why, said Scogin, thou mightest + have said that Isaac was Jacob's father. Then said Scogin, Thou + shalt arise betime in the morning, and carry a letter to the + ordinary, and I trust he will admit thee before the orders shall + be given. The scholler rose up betime in the morning, and carried + the letter to the ordinary. The ordinary said, For Master Scogin's + sake I will oppose you no farther than I did yesterday. Isaac had + two sons, Esau and Jacob; who was Jacob's father? Marry, said the + scholler, I can tell you now that was Tom Miller of Oseney. Goe, + foole, goe, said the ordinary, and let thy master send thee no + more to me for orders, for it is impossible to make a foole a wise + man." + +Scogin's scholar was, however, made a priest, and some of the stories +which follow describe the ludicrous manner in which he exercised the +priesthood. Two other stories illustrate Scogin's supposed position at +court:-- + + "_How Scogin told those that mocked him that he had a wall-eye._ + + "Scogin went up and down in the king's hall, and his hosen hung + downe, and his coat stood awry, and his hat stood a boonjour, so + every man did mocke Scogin. Some said he was a proper man, and did + wear his rayment cleanly; some said the foole could not put on his + owne rayment; some said one thing, and some said another. At last + Scogin said, Masters, you have praised me wel, but you did not + espy one thing in me. What is that, Tom? said the men. Marry, said + Scogin, I have a wall-eye. What meanest thou by that? said the + men. Marry, said Scogin, I have spyed a sort of knaves that doe + mocke me, and are worse fooles themselves." + + "_How Scogin drew his sonne up and downe the court._ + + "After this Scogin went from the court, and put off his foole's + garments, and came to the court like an honest man, and brought + his son to the court with him, and within the court he drew his + sonne up and downe by the heeles. The boy cried out, and Scogin + drew the boy in every corner. At last every body had pity on the + boy, and said, Sir, what doe you meane, to draw the boy about the + court? Masters, said Scogin, he is my sonne, and I doe it for this + cause. Every man doth say, that man or child which is drawne up in + the court shall be the better as long as hee lives; and therefore + I will every day once draw him up and downe the court, after that + hee may come to preferment in the end." + +The appreciation of a good joke cannot at this time have been very +great or very general, for Scogin's jests were wonderfully popular +during at least a century, from the first half of the sixteenth +century. They passed through many editions, and are frequently +alluded to by the writers of the Elizabethan age. The next individual +whose name appears at the head of a collection of his jests, was the +well-known wit, Richard Tarlton, who may be fairly considered as court +fool to Queen Elizabeth. His jests belong to the same class as those +of Skelton and Scogin, and if possible, they present a still greater +amount of dulness. Tarlton's jests were soon followed by the "merrie +conceited jests" of George Peele, the dramatist, who is described in +the title as "gentleman, sometimes student in Oxford;" and it is added +that in these jests "is shewed the course of his life, how he lived; +a man very well knowne in the city of London and elsewhere." In fact, +Peele's jests are chiefly curious for the striking picture they give +us of the wilder shades of town life under the reigns of Elizabeth and +James I. + +During the period which witnessed the publication in England of these +books, many other jest-books appeared, for they had already become +an important class of English popular literature. Most of them were +published anonymously, and indeed they are mere compilations from the +older collections in Latin and French. All that was at all good, even +in the jests of Skelton, Scogin, Tarlton, and Peele, had been repeated +over and over again by the story-tellers and jesters of former ages. +Two of the earlier English collections have gained a greater celebrity +than the rest, chiefly through adventitious circumstances. One of +these, entitled "A Hundred Merry Tales," has gained distinction among +Shakespearian critics as the one especially alluded to by the great +poet in "Much Ado about Nothing," (Act ii., Sc. 1), where Beatrice +complains that somebody had said "that I had my good wit out of the +Hundred Merry Tales." The other collection alluded to was entitled +"Mery Tales, Wittie Questions, and Quicke Answeres, very pleasant +to be readde," and was printed in 1567. Its modern fame appears to +have arisen chiefly from the circumstance that, until the accidental +discovery of the unique and imperfect copy of the "Hundred Merry +Tales," it was supposed to be the book alluded to by Shakespeare. +Both these collections are mere compilations from the "Cent Nouvelles +Nouvelles," "Poggio," "Straparola," and other foreign works.[77] The +words put into the mouth of Beatrice are correctly descriptive of the +use made of these jest-books. It had become fashionable to learn out +of them jests and stories, in order to introduce them into polite +conversation, and especially at table; and this practice continued +to prevail until a very recent period. The number of such jest-books +published during the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, +was quite extraordinary. Many of these were given anonymously; but many +also were put forth under names which possessed temporary celebrity, +such as Hobson the carrier, Killigrew the jester, the friend of Charles +II., Ben Jonson, Garrick, and a multitude of others. It is, perhaps, +unnecessary to remind the reader that the great modern representative +of this class of literature is the illustrious Joe Miller. + + [77] A neat and useful edition of these two jest-books, with the + other most curious books of the same class, published during the + Elizabethan period, has recently been published in two volumes, + by Mr. W. C. Hazlitt. + + + + + CHAPTER XV. + + THE AGE OF THE REFORMATION.--THOMAS MURNER; HIS GENERAL + SATIRES.--FRUITFULNESS OF FOLLY.--HANS SACHS.--THE TRAP FOR + FOOLS.--ATTACKS ON LUTHER.--THE POPE AS ANTICHRIST.--THE POPE-ASS + AND THE MONK-CALF.--OTHER CARICATURES AGAINST THE POPE.--THE GOOD + AND BAD SHEPHERDS. + + +The reign of Folly did not pass away with the fifteenth century--on the +whole the sixteenth century can hardly be said to have been more sane +than its predecessor, but it was agitated by a long and fierce struggle +to disengage European society from the trammels of the middle ages. We +have entered upon what is technically termed the _renaissance_, and +are approaching the great religious reformation. The period during +which the art of printing began first to spread generally over Western +Europe, was peculiarly favourable to the production of satirical +books and pamphlets, and a considerable number of clever and spirited +satirists and comic writers appeared towards the end of the fifteenth +century, especially in Germany, where circumstances of a political +character had at an early period given to the intellectual agitation +a more permanent strength than it could easily or quickly gain in the +great monarchies. Among the more remarkable of these satirists was +Thomas Murner, who was born at Strasburg, in 1475. The circumstances +even of his childhood are singular, for he was born a cripple, or +became one in his earliest infancy, though he was subsequently healed, +and it was so universally believed that this malady was the effect +of witchcraft, that he himself wrote afterwards a treatise upon this +subject under the title of "De Phitonico Contractu." The school in +which he was taught may at least have encouraged his satirical spirit, +for his master was Jacob Locher, the same who translated into Latin +verse the "Ship of Fools" of Sebastian Brandt. At the end of the +century Murner had become a master of arts in the University of Paris, +and had entered the Franciscan order. His reputation as a German +popular poet was so great, that the emperor Maximilian[ ]I., who +died in 1519, conferred upon him the crown of poetry, or, in other +words, made him poet-laureat. He took the degree of doctor in theology +in 1509. Still Murner was known best as the popular writer, and he +published several satirical poems, which were remarkable for the bold +woodcuts that illustrated them, for engraving on wood flourished at +this period. He exposed the corruptions of all classes of society, +and, before the Reformation broke out, he did not even spare the +corruptions of the ecclesiastical state, but soon declared himself a +fierce opponent of the Reformers. When the Lutheran revolt against the +Papacy became strong, our king, Henry VIII., who took a decided part +against Luther, invited Murner to England, and on his return to his +own country, the satiric Franciscan became more bitter against the +Reformation than ever. He advocated the cause of the English monarch in +a pamphlet, now very rare, in which he discussed the question whether +Henry VIII. or Luther was the liar--"Antwort dem Murner uff seine +frag, ob der künig von Engllant ein Lügner sey oder Martinus Luther." +Murner appears to have divided the people of his age into rogues and +fools, or perhaps he considered the two titles as identical. His +"Narrenbeschwerung," or Conspiracy of Fools, in which Brandt's idea +was followed up, is supposed to have been published as early as 1506, +but the first printed edition with a date, appeared in 1512. It became +so popular, that it went through several editions during subsequent +years; and that which I have before me was printed at Strasburg in +1518. It is, like Brandt's "Ship of Fools," a general satire against +society, in which the clergy are not spared, for the writer had not yet +come in face of Luther's Reformation. The cuts are superior to those +of Brandt's book, and some of them are remarkable for their design and +execution. In one of the earliest of them, copied in the cut No. 139, +Folly is introduced in the garb of a husbandman, scattering his feed +over the earth, the result of which is a very quick and flourishing +crop, the fool's heads rising above ground, almost instantaneously, +like so many turnips. In a subsequent engraving, represented in our +cut No. 140, Folly holds out, as an object of emulation, the fool's +cap, and people of all classes, the pope himself, and the emperor, and +all the great dignitaries of this world, press forward eagerly to seize +upon it. + + [Illustration: _No. 139. Sowing a Fruitful Crop._] + +The same year (1512) witnessed the appearance of another poetical, +or at least metrical, satire by Murner, entitled "Schelmenzunft," or +the Confraternity of Rogues, similarly illustrated with very spirited +engravings on wood. It is another demonstration of the prevailing +dominion of folly under its worst forms, and the satire is equally +general with the preceding. Murner's satire appears to have been felt +not only generally, but personally; and we are told that he was often +threatened with assassination, and he raised up a number of literary +opponents, who treated him with no little rudeness; in fact, he had +got on the wrong side of politics, or at all events on the unpopular +side, and men who had more talents and greater weight appeared as his +opponents--men like Ulrich von Utten, and Luther himself. + + [Illustration: _No. 140. An Acceptable Offering._] + +Among the satirists who espoused the cause to which Murner was +opposed, we must not overlook a man who represented in its strongest +features, though in a rather debased form, the old spontaneous poetry +of the middle ages. His name was Hans Sachs, at least that was the +name under which he was known, for his real name is said to have +been Loutrdorffer. His spirit was entirely that of the old wandering +minstrel, and it was so powerful in him, that, having been apprenticed +to the craft of a weaver, he was no sooner freed from his indentures, +than he took to a vagabond life, and wandered from town to town, +gaining his living by singing the verses he composed upon every +occasion which presented itself. In 1519, he married and settled in +Nüremberg, and his compositions were then given to the public through +the press. The number of these was quite extraordinary--songs, ballads, +satires, and dramatic pieces, rude in style, in accordance with the +taste of the time, but full of cleverness. Many of them were printed +on broadsides, and illustrated with large engravings on wood. Hans +Sachs joined in the crusade against the empire of Folly, and one of +his broadsides is illustrated with a graceful design, the greater part +of which is copied in our cut No. 141. A party of ladies have set a +bird-trap to catch the fools of the age, who are waiting to be caught. +One fool is taken in the trap, while another is already secured and +pinioned, and others are rushing into the snare. A number of people of +the world, high in their dignities and stations, are looking on at this +remarkable scene. + + [Illustration: _No. 141. Bird-Traps._] + +The evil influence of the female sex was at this time proverbial, and, +in fact, it was an age of extreme licentiousness. Another poet-laureat +of the time, Henricus Bebelius, born in the latter half of the +fifteenth century, and rather well known in the literature of his time, +published, in 1515, a satirical poem in Latin, under the title of +"Triumphus Veneris," which was a sort of exposition of the generally +licentious character of the age in which he lived. It is distributed +into six books, in the third of which the poet attacks the whole +ecclesiastical state, not sparing the pope himself, and we are thereby +perfectly well initiated into the weaknesses of the clergy. Bebelius +had been preceded by another writer on this part of the subject, and we +might say by many, for the incontinence of monks and nuns, and indeed +of all the clergy, had long been a subject of satire. But the writer to +whom I especially allude was named Paulus Olearius, his name in German +being Oelschlägel. He published, about the year 1500, a satirical +tract, under the title of "De Fide Concubinarum in Sacerdotes." It +was a bitter attack on the licentiousness of the clergy, and was +rendered more effective by the engravings which accompanied it. We +give one of these as a curious picture of contemporary manners; the +individual who comes within the range of the lady's attractions, though +he may be a scholar, has none of the characteristics of a priest. She +presents a nosegay, which we may suppose to represent the influence of +perfume upon the senses; but the love of the ladies for pet animals +is especially typified in the monkey, attached by a chain. A donkey +appears to show by his heels his contempt for the lover. + + [Illustration: _No. 142. Courtship._] + +From an early period, the Roman church had been accustomed to +treat contemptuously, as well as cruelly, all who dissented from +its doctrines, or objected to its government, and this feeling was +continued down to the age of the Reformation, in spite of the tone +of liberalism which was beginning to shine forth in the writings +of some of its greatest ornaments. Some research among the dusty, +because little used, records of national archives and libraries would +no doubt bring to light more than one singular caricature upon the +"heretics" of the middle ages, and my attention has been called to one +which is possessed of peculiar interest. There is, among the imperial +archives of France, in Paris, among records relating to the country of +the Albigeois in the thirteenth century, a copy of the bull of pope +Innocent IV. giving directions for the proceedings against dissenters +from Romanism, on the back of which the scribe, as a mark of his +contempt for these arch-heretics of the south, has drawn a caricature +of a woman bound to a stake over the fire which is to burn her as an +open opponent of the church of Rome. The choice of a woman for the +victim was perhaps intended to show that the proselytism of heresy was +especially successful among the weaker sex, or that it was considered +as having some relation to witchcraft. It is, by a long period, the +earliest known pictorial representation of the punishment of burning +inflicted on a heretic. + + [Illustration: _No. 143. Burning a Heretic._] + +The shafts of satire were early employed against Luther and his new +principles, and men like Murner, already mentioned, Emser, Cochlæus, +and others, signalised themselves by their zeal in the papal cause. +As already stated, Murner distinguished himself as the literary ally +of our king Henry VIII. The taste for satirical writings had then +become so general, that Murner complains in one of his satires that +the printers would print nothing but abusive or satirical works, and +neglected his more serious writings. + + _Da sindt die trucker schuld daran, + Die trucken als die Gauchereien, + Und lassen mein ernstliche bücher leihen._ + +Some of Murner's writings against Luther, most of which are now very +rare, are extremely violent, and they are generally illustrated with +satirical woodcuts. One of these books, printed without name of place +or date, is entitled, "Of the great Lutheran Fool, how Doctor Murner +has exorcised him" (_Von dem grossen Lutherisschen Narren, wie in +Doctor Murner beschworen hat_). In the woodcuts to this book Murner +himself is introduced, as is usually the case in these satirical +engravings, under the character of a Franciscan friar, with the head of +a cat, while Luther appears as a fat and jolly monk, wearing a fool's +cap, and figuring in various ridiculous circumstances. In one of the +first woodcuts, the cat Franciscan is drawing a rope so tight round the +great Lutheran fool's neck, that he compels him to disgorge a multitude +of smaller fools. In another the great Lutheran fool has his purse, or +pouch, full of little fools suspended at his girdle. This latter figure +is copied in the cut No. 144, as an example of the form under which the +great reformer appears in these satirical representations. + + [Illustration: _No. 144. Folly in Monastic Habit._] + +In a few other caricatures of this period which have been preserved, +the apostle of the Reformation is attacked still more savagely. The +one here given (Fig. 145), taken from a contemporary engraving on +wood, presents a rather fantastic figure of the demon playing on the +bagpipes. The instrument is formed of Luther's head, the pipe through +which the devil blows entering his ear, and that through which the +music is produced forming an elongation of the reformer's nose. It was +a broad intimation that Luther was a mere tool of the evil one, created +for the purpose of bringing mischief into the world. + + [Illustration: _No. 145. The Music of the Demon._] + +The reformers, however, were more than a match for their opponents in +this sort of warfare. Luther himself was full of comic and satiric +humour, and a mass of the talent of that age was ranged on his side, +both literary and artistic. After the reformer's marriage, the papal +party quoted the old legend, that Antichrist was to be born of the +union of a monk and a nun, and it was intimated that if Luther himself +could not be directly identified with Antichrist, he had, at least, a +fair chance of becoming his parent. But the reformers had resolved, on +what appeared to be much more conclusive evidence, that Antichrist was +only emblematical of the papacy, that under this form he had been long +dominant on earth, and that the end of his reign was then approaching. +A remarkable pamphlet, designed to place this idea pictorially before +the public, was produced from the pencil of Luther's friend, the +celebrated painter, Lucas Cranach, and appeared in the year 1521 under +the title of "The Passionale of Christ and Antichrist" (_Passional +Christi und Antichristi_). It is a small quarto, each page of which is +nearly filled by a woodcut, having a few lines of explanation in German +below. The cut to the left represents some incident in the life of +Christ, while that facing it to the right gives a contrasting fact in +the history of papal tyranny. Thus the first cut on the left represents +Jesus in His humility, refusing earthly dignities and power, while on +the adjoining page we see the pope, with his cardinals and bishops, +supported by his hosts of warriors, his cannon, and his fortifications, +in his temporal dominion over secular princes. When we open again we +see on one side Christ crowned with thorns by the insulting soldiery, +and on the other the pope, enthroned in all his worldly glory, exacting +the worship of his courtiers. On another we have Christ washing the +feet of His disciples, and in contrast the pope compelling the emperor +to kiss his toe. And so on, through a number of curious illustrations, +until at last we come to Christ's ascension into heaven, in contrast +with which a troop of demons, of the most varied and singular forms, +have seized upon the papal Antichrist, and are casting him down into +the flames of hell, where some of his own monks wait to receive him. +This last picture is drawn with so much spirit, that I have copied it +in the cut No. 146. + + [Illustration: _No. 146. The Descent of the Pope._] + + [Illustration: _No. 147. The Pope-ass._] + +The monstrous figures of animals which had amused the sculptors and +miniaturists of an earlier period came in time to be looked upon +as realities, and were not only regarded with wonder as physical +deformities, but were objects of superstition, for they were believed +to be sent into the world as warnings of great revolutions and +calamities. During the age preceding the Reformation, the reports +of the births or discoveries of such monsters were very common, and +engravings of them were no doubt profitable articles of merchandise +among the early book-hawkers. Two of these were very celebrated in +the time of the Reformation, the Pope-ass and the Monk-calf, and were +published and republished with an explanation under the names of +Luther and Melancthon, which made them emblematical of the Papacy and +of the abuses of the Romish church, and, of course, prognostications +of their approaching exposure and fall. It was pretended that the +Pope-ass was found dead in the river Tiber, at Rome, in the year +1496. It is represented in our cut No. 147, taken from an engraving +preserved in a very curious volume of broadside Lutheran caricatures, +in the library of the British Museum, all belonging to the year 1545, +though this design had been published many years before. The head of +an ass, we are told, represented the pope himself, with his false and +carnal doctrines. The right hand resembled the foot of an elephant, +signifying the spiritual power of the pope, which was heavy, and +stamped down and crushed people's consciences. The left hand was that +of a man, signifying the worldly power of the pope, which grasped at +universal empire over kings and princes. The right foot was that of +an ox, signifying the spiritual ministers of the papacy, the doctors +of the church, the preachers, confessors, and scholastic theologians, +and especially the monks and nuns, those who aided and supported +the pope in oppressing people's bodies and souls. The left foot was +that of a griffin, an animal which, when it once seizes its prey, +never lets it escape, and signified the canonists, the monsters of +the pope's temporal power, who grasped people's temporal goods, and +never returned them. The breast and belly of this monster were those +of a woman, and signified the papal body, the cardinals, bishops, +priests, monks, &c., who spent their lives in eating, drinking, and +incontinence; and this part of the body was naked, because the popish +clergy were not ashamed to expose their vices to the public. The legs, +arms, and neck, on the contrary, were clothed with fishes' scales; +these signified the temporal princes and lords, who were mostly in +alliance with the papacy. The old man's head behind the monster, meant +that the papacy had become old, and was approaching its end; and +the head of a dragon, vomiting flames, which served for a tail, was +significative of the great threats, the venomous horrible bulls and +blasphemous writings, which the pontiff and his ministers, enraged at +seeing their end approach, were launching into the world against all +who opposed them. These explanations were supported by apt quotations +from the Scriptures, and were so effective, and became so popular, that +the picture was published in various shapes, and was seen adorning the +walls of the humblest cottages. I believe it is still to be met with in +a similar position in some parts of Germany. It was considered at the +time to be a masterly piece of satire. The picture of the Monk-calf, +which is represented in our cut No. 148, was published at the same +time, and usually accompanies it. This monster is said to have been +born at Freyburg, in Misnia, and is simply a rather coarse emblem of +the monachal character. + + [Illustration: _No. 148. The Monk-Calf._] + + [Illustration: _No. 149. The Head of the Papacy._] + +The volume of caricatures just mentioned contains several satires on +the pope, which are all very severe, and many of them clever. One has +a movable leaf, which covers the upper part of the picture; when it is +down, we have a representation of the pope in his ceremonial robes, +and over it the inscription ALEX · VI · PONT · MAX. Pope Alexander VI. +was the infamous Roderic Borgia, a man stained with all the crimes +and vices which strike most horror into men's minds. When the leaf is +raised, another figure joins itself with the lower part of the former, +and represents a papal demon, crowned, the cross being transformed into +an instrument of infernal punishment. This figure is represented in our +cut No. 149. Above it are inscribed the words EGO · SVM · PAPA, "I am +the Pope." Attached to it is a page of explanation in German, in which +the legend of that pope's death is given, a legend that his wicked +life appeared sufficient to sanction. It was said that, distrusting +the success of his intrigues to secure the papacy for himself, he +applied himself to the study of the black art, and sold himself to +the Evil One. He then asked the tempter if it were his destiny to be +pope, and received an answer in the affirmative. He next inquired how +long he should hold the papacy, but Satan returned an equivocal and +deceptive answer, for Borgia understood that he was to be pope fifteen +years, whereas he died at the end of eleven. It is well known that +Pope Alexander VI. died suddenly and unexpectedly through accidentally +drinking the poisoned wine he had prepared with his own hand for the +murder of another man. + + [Illustration: _No. 150. The Pope's Nurse._] + +An Italian theatine wrote a poem against the Reformation, in which +he made Luther the offspring of Megæra, one of the furies, who is +represented as having been sent from hell into Germany to be delivered +of him. This sarcasm was thrown back upon the pope with much greater +effect by the Lutheran caricaturists. One of the plates in the +above-mentioned volume represents the "birth and origin of the pope" +(_ortus et origo papæ_), making the pope identical with Antichrist. +In different groups, in this rather elaborate design, the child is +represented as attended by the three furies, Megæra acting as his +wet-nurse, Alecto as nursery-maid, and Tisiphone in another capacity, +&c. The name of Martin Luther is added to this caricature also. + + _Hie wird geborn der Widerchrist. + Megera sein Seugamme ist; + Alecto sein Keindermeidlin, + Tisiphone die gengelt in._--M. Luth., D. 1545. + +One of the groups in this plate, representing the fury Megæra, a +becoming foster-mother, suckling the pope-infant, is given in our cut, +No. 150. + +In another of these caricatures the pope is represented trampling on +the emperor, to show the manner in which he usurped and tyrannised +over the temporal power. Another illustrates "the kingdom of Satan and +the Pope" (_regnum Satanæ et Papæ_), and the latter is represented +as presiding over hell-mouth in all his state. One, given in our cut +No. 151, represents the pope under the form of an ass playing on the +bagpipes, and is entitled _Papa doctor theologiæ et magister fidei_. +Four lines of German verse beneath the engraving state how "the pope +can alone expound Scripture and purge error, just as the ass alone can +pipe and touch the notes correctly." + + [Illustration: _No. 151. The Pope giving the Tune._] + + _Der Bapst kan allein auslegen + Die Schrifft, und irthum ausfegen; + Wie der esel allein pfeiffen + Kan, und die noten recht greiffen._--1545. + +This was the last year of Luther's active labours. At the commencement +of the year following he died at Eissleben, whither he had gone to +attend the council of princes. These caricatures may perhaps be +considered as so many proclamations of satisfaction and exultation in +the final triumph of the great reformer. + +Books, pamphlets, and prints of this kind were multiplied to an +extraordinary degree during the age of the Reformation, but the +majority of them were in the interest of the new movement. Luther's +opponent, Eckius, complained of the infinite number of people who +gained their living by wandering over all parts of Germany, and +selling Lutheran books.[78] Among those who administered largely to +this circulation of polemic books was the poet of farces, comedies, and +ballads, Hans Sachs, already mentioned. Hans Sachs had in one poem, +published in 1535, celebrated Luther under the title of "the Wittemberg +Nightingale:"-- + + _Die Wittembergisch' Nachtigall, + Die man jetzt höret überall_; + +and described the effects of his song over all the other animals; and +he published, also in verse, what he called a Monument, or Lament, on +his death ("Ein Denkmal oder Klagred' ob der Leiche Doktors Martin +Luther"). Among the numerous broadsides published by Hans Sachs, one +contains the very clever caricature of which we give a copy in our cut +No. 152. It is entitled "Der gut Hirt und böss Hirt," the good shepherd +and bad shepherd, and has for its text the opening verses of the tenth +chapter of the gospel of St. John. The good and bad shepherds are, +as may be supposed, Christ and the pope. The church is here pictured +as a not very stately building; the entrance, especially, is a plain +structure of timber. Jesus said to the Pharisees, "He that entereth not +by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the +same is a thief and a robber. But he that entereth in by the door is +the shepherd of the flock." In the engraving, the pope, as the hireling +shepherd, sits on the roof of the stateliest part of the building, +pointing out to the Christian flock the wrong way, and blessing the +climbers. Under him two men of worldly distinction are making their +way into the church through a window; and on a roof below a friar is +pointing to the people the way up. At another window a monk holds +out his arms to invite people up; and one in spectacles, no doubt +emblematical of the doctors of the church, is looking out from an +opening over the entrance door to watch the proceedings of the Good +Shepherd. To the right, on the papal side of the church, the lords +and great men are bringing the people under their influence, till +they are stopped by the cardinals and bishops, who prevent them from +going forward to the door and point out very energetically the way +up the roof. At the door stands, the Saviour, as the good shepherd, +who has knocked, and the porter has opened it with his key. Christ's +true teachers, the evangelists, show the way to the solitary man of +worth who comes by this road, and who listens with calm attention to +the gospel teachers, while he opens his purse to bestow his charity +on the poor man by the road side. In the original engraving, in the +distance on the left, the Good Shepherd is seen followed by his flock, +who are obedient to his voice; on the right, the bad shepherd, who has +ostentatiously drawn up his sheep round the image of the cross, is +abandoning them, and taking to flight on the approach of the wolf. "He +that entereth in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the +porter openeth; and the sheep hear his voice, and he calleth his own +sheep by name, and leadeth them out. And when he putteth forth his own +sheep he goeth before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his +voice.... But he that is an hireling, and not the shepherd, whose own +the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and +fleeth; and the wolf catcheth them, and scattereth the sheep." (John x. +2-4, 12.) + + [78] "Infinitus jam erat numerus qui victum ex Lutheranis libris + quæritantes, in speciem bibliopolarum longe lateque per Germaniæ + provincias vagabantur."--Eck., p. 58. + + [Illustration: _No. 152. The Two Shepherds._] + + [Illustration: _No. 153. Murner and Luther's Daughter._] + +The triumph of Luther is the subject of a rather large and elaborate +caricature, which is an engraving of great rarity, but a copy of it is +given in Jaime's "Musée de Caricature." Leo X. is represented seated +on his throne upon the edge of the abyss, into which his cardinals are +trying to prevent his falling; but their efforts are rendered vain by +the appearance of Luther on the other side supported by his principal +adherents, and wielding the Bible as his weapon, and the pope is +overthrown, in spite of the support he receives from a vast host of +popish clergy, doctors, &c. + +The popish writers against Luther charged him with vices for which +there was probably no foundation, and invented the most scandalous +stories against him. They accused him, among other things, of +drunkenness and licentiousness. and there may, perhaps, be some +allusion to the latter charge in our cut No. 153, which is taken from +one of the comic illustrations to Murner's book, "Von dem grossen +Lutherischen Narren," which was published in 1522; but, at all events, +it will serve as a specimen of these illustrations, and of Murner's +fancy of representing himself with the head of a cat. In 1525, Luther +married a nun who had turned Protestant and quitted her convent, +named Catherine de Bora, and this became the signal to his opponents +for indulging in abusive songs, and satires, and caricatures, most +of them too coarse and indelicate to be described in these pages. +In many of the caricatures made on this occasion, which are usually +woodcut illustrations to books written against the reformer, Luther is +represented dancing with Catherine de Bora, or sitting at table with a +glass in his hand. An engraving of this kind, which forms one of the +illustrations to a work by Dr. Konrad Wimpina, one of the reformer's +violent opponents, represents Luther's marriage. It is divided into +three compartments; to the left, Luther, whom the Catholics always +represented in the character of a monk, gives the marriage ring to +Catherine de Bora, and above them, in a sort of aureole, is inscribed +the word _Vovete_; on the right appears the nuptial bed, with the +curtains drawn, and the inscription _Reddite_; and in the middle the +monk and nun are dancing joyously together, and over their heads we +read the words-- + + Discedat ab aris + Cui tulit hesterna gaudia nocte Venus. + +While Luther was heroically fighting the great fight of reform in +Germany, the foundation of religious reform was laid in France by +John Calvin, a man equally sincere and zealous in the cause, but of +a totally different temper, and he espoused doctrines and forms of +church government which a Lutheran would not admit. Literary satire +was used with great effect by the French Calvinists against their +popish opponents, but they have left us few caricatures or burlesque +engravings of any kind; at least, very few belonging to the earlier +period of their history. Jaime, in his "Musée de Caricature," has given +a copy of a very rare plate, representing the pope struggling with +Luther and Calvin, as his two assailants. Both are tearing the pope's +hair, but it is Calvin who is here armed with the Bible, with which +he is striking at Luther, who is pulling him by the beard. The pope +has his hands upon their heads. This scene takes place in the choir of +a church, but I give here (cut No. 154) only the group of the three +combatants, intended to represent how the two great opponents to papal +corruptions were hostile at the same time to each other. + + [Illustration: _No. 154. Luther and Calvin._] + + + + + CHAPTER XVI. + + ORIGIN OF MEDIÆVAL FARCE AND MODERN COMEDY.--HROTSVITHA.--MEDIÆVAL + NOTIONS OF TERENCE.--THE EARLY RELIGIOUS PLAYS.--MYSTERIES AND + MIRACLE PLAYS.--THE FARCES.--THE DRAMA IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. + + +There is still another branch of literature which, however it may have +been modified, has descended to us from the middle ages. It has been +remarked more than once in the course of this book, that the theatre +of the Romans perished in the transition from the empire to the middle +ages; but something in the shape of theatrical performances appears +to be inseparable from society even in its most barbarous state, and +we soon trace among the peoples who had settled upon the ruins of the +empire of Rome an approach towards a drama. It is worthy of remark, +too, that the mediæval drama originated exactly in the same way as that +of ancient Greece, that is, from religious ceremonies. + +Such was the ignorance of the ancient stage in the middle ages, +that the meaning of the word _comœdia_ was not understood. The +Anglo-Saxon glossaries interpret the word by _racu_, a narrative, +especially an epic recital, and this was the sense in which it was +generally taken until late in the fourteenth or the fifteenth century. +It is the sense in which it is used in the title of Dante's great poem, +the "Divina Commedia." When the mediæval scholars became acquainted in +manuscripts with the comedies of Terence, they considered them only as +fine examples of a particular sort of literary composition, as metrical +narratives in dialogue, and in this feeling they began to imitate them. +One of the first of these mediæval imitators was a lady. There lived +in the tenth century a maiden of Saxony, named Hrotsvitha--a rather +unfortunate name for one of her sex, for it means simply "a loud noise +of voices," or, as she explains it herself, in her Latin, _clamor +validus_. Hrotsvitha, as was common enough among the ladies of those +days, had received a very learned education, and her Latin is very +respectable. About the middle of the tenth century, she became a nun +in the very aristocratic Benedictine abbey of Gandesheim, in Saxony, +the abbesses of which were all princesses, and which had been founded +only a century before. She wrote in Latin verse a short history of +that religious house, but she is best known by seven pieces, which are +called comedies (_comœdiæ_), and which consist simply of legends of +saints, told dialogue-wise, some in verse and some in prose. As may +be supposed, there is not much of real comedy in these compositions, +although one of them, the Dulcitius, is treated in a style which +approaches that of farce. It is the story of the martyrdom of the three +virgin saints--Agape, Chione, and Irene--who excite the lust of the +persecutor Dulcitius; and it may be remarked, that in this "comedy," +and in that of Callimachus and one or two of the others, the lady +Hrotsvitha displays a knowledge of love-making and of the language of +love, which was hardly to be expected from a holy nun.[79] + + [79] Several editions of the writings of Hrotsvitha, texts and + translations, have been published of late years both in Germany + and in France, of which I may point out the following as most + useful and complete--"Théatre de Hrotsvitha, Religieuse Allemande + du x^e siècle....par Charles Magnin," 8vo., Paris, 1845; + "Hrotsvithæ Gandeshemensis, virginis et monialis Germanicæ, gente + Saxonica ortæ, Comœdias sex, ad fidem codicis Emmeranensis + typis expressas edidit.... J. Benedixen," 16mo., Lubecæ, 1857; + "Die Werke der Hrotsvitha: Herausgegeben von Dr. K. A. Barack," + 8vo., Nürnberg, 1858. + +Hrotsvitha, in her preface, complains that, in spite of the general +love for the reading of the Scriptures, and contempt for everything +derived from ancient paganism, people still too often read the +"fictions" of Terence, and thus, seduced by the beauties of his style, +soiled their minds with the knowledge of the criminal acts which are +described in his writings. A rather early manuscript has preserved a +very curious fragment illustrative of the manner in which the comedies +of the Romans were regarded by one class of people in the middle ages, +and it has also a further meaning. Its form is that of a dialogue in +Latin verse between Terence and a personage called in the original +_delusor_, which was no doubt intended to express a performer of some +kind, and may be probably considered as synonymous with _jougleur_. It +is a contention between the new jouglerie of the middle ages and the +old jouglerie of the schools, somewhat in the same style as the fabliau +of "Les deux Troveors Ribauz," described in a former chapter.[80] We +are to suppose that the name of Terence has been in some way or other +brought forward in laudatory terms, upon which the jougleur steps +forward from among the spectators and expresses himself towards the +Roman writer very contemptuously. Terence then makes his appearance to +speak in his own defence, and the two go on abusing one another in no +very measured language. Terence asks his assailant who he is? to which +the other replies, "If you ask who I am, I reply, I am better than +thee. Thou art old and broken with years; I am a tyro, full of vigour, +and in the force of youth. You are but a barren trunk, while I am a +good and fertile tree. If you hold your tongue, old fellow, it will be +much better for you." + + _Si rogitas quis sum, respondeo: te melior sum. + Tu vetus atque senex; ego tyro, valens, adulescens. + Tu sterilis truncus; ego fertilis arbor, opimus. + Si taceas, o vetule, lucrum tibi quæris enorme._ + + Terence replies:--"What sense have you left? Are you, think you, + better than me? Let me see you, young as you are, compose what + I, however old and broken, will compose. If you be a good tree, + show us some proofs of your fertility. Although I may be a barren + trunk, I produce abundance of better fruit than thine." + + _Quis tibi sensus inest? numquid melior me es? + Nunc vetus atque senex quæ fecero fac adolescens. + Si bonus arbor ades, qua fertilitate redundas? + Cum sim truncus iners, fructu meliore redundo._ + +And so the dispute continues, but unfortunately the latter part has +been lost with a leaf or two of the manuscript. I will only add that I +think the age of this curious piece has been overrated.[81] + + [80] See p. 191 of the present volume. + + [81] This singular composition was published with notes by M. de + Montaiglon, in a Parisian journal entitled, "L'Amateur de + Livres," in 1849, under the title of "Fragment d'un Dialogue + Latin du ix^e siècle entre Terence et un Bouffon." A few separate + copies were printed, of which I possess one. + +Hrotsvitha is the earliest example we have of mediæval writers in this +particular class of literature. We find no other until the twelfth +century, when two writers flourished named Vital of Blois (_Vitalis +Blesensis_) and Matthew of Vendôme (_Matthæus Vindocinensis_), the +authors of several of the mediæval poems distinguished by the title of +_comœdiæ_, which give us a clearer and more distinct idea of what +was meant by the word. They are written in Latin Elegiac verse, a form +of composition which was very popular among the mediæval scholars, and +consist of stories told in dialogue. Hence Professor Osann, of Giessen, +who edited two of those of Vital of Blois, gives them the title of +eclogues (_eclogæ_). The name comedy is, however, given to them in +manuscripts, and it may perhaps admit of the following explanation. +These pieces seem to have been first mere abridgments of the plots of +the Roman comedies, especially those of Plautus, and the authors appear +to have taken the Latin title of the original as applied to the plot, +in the sense of a narrative, and not to its dramatic form. Of the two +"comedies" by Vital of Blois, one is entitled "Geta," and is taken from +the "Amphytrio" of Plautus, and the other, which in the manuscripts +bears the title of "Querulus," represents the "Aulularia" of the +same writer. Independent of the form of composition, the scholastic +writer has given a strangely mediæval turn to the incidents of the +classic story of Jupiter and Alcmena. Another similar "comedy," that +of Babio, which I first printed from the manuscripts, is still more +mediæval in character. Its plot, perhaps taken from a fabliau, for the +mediæval writers rarely invented stories, is as follows, although it +must be confessed that it comes out rather obscurely in the dialogue +itself. Babio, the hero of the piece, is a priest, who, as was still +common at that time (the twelfth century), has a wife, or, as the +strict religionists would then say, a concubine, named Pecula. She has +a daughter named Viola, with whom Babio is in love, and he pursues +his design upon her, of course unknown to his wife. Babio has also a +man-servant named Fodius, who is engaged in a secret intrigue with +his mistress, Pecula, and also seeks to seduce her daughter, Viola. +To crown the whole, the lord of the manor, a knight named Croceus, is +also in love with Viola, though with more honourable designs. Here is +surely intrigue enough and a sufficient absence of morality to satisfy +a modern French novelist of the first water. At the opening of the +piece, amid some by-play between the four individuals who form the +household of Babio, it is suddenly announced that Croceus is on his +way to visit him, and a feast is hastily prepared for his reception. +It ends in the knight carrying away Viola by force. Babio, after a +little vain bluster, consoles himself for the loss of the damsel with +reflections on the virtue of his wife, Pecula, and the faithfulness of +his man, Fodius, when, at this moment, Fame carries to his ear reports +which excite his suspicions against them. He adopts a stratagem very +frequently introduced in the mediæval stories, surprises the two lovers +under circumstances which leave no room for doubting their guilt, and +then forgives them, enters a monastery, and leaves them to themselves. +In form, these "comedies" are little more than scholastic exercises; +but, at a later period, we shall see the same stories adopted as the +subjects of farces.[82] + + [82] To judge by the number of copies found in manuscripts, + especially of the "Geta," these dramatic poems must have enjoyed + considerable popularity. The "Geta" and the "Querulus" were + published in a volume entitled, "Vitalis Blesensis Amphitryon et + Aulularia Eclogæ. Edidit Fridericus Osannus, Professor Gisensis," + 8vo., Darmstadt, 1836. The "Geta" and the "Babio" are included + in my "Early Mysteries, and other Latin Poems of the Twelfth and + Thirteenth Centuries." + +Already, however, by the side of these dramatic poems, a real +drama--the drama of the middle ages--was gradually developing +itself. As stated before, it arose, like the drama of the Greeks, +out of the religious ceremonies. We know nothing of the existence of +anything approaching to dramatic forms which may have existed among +the religious rites of the peoples of the Teutonic race before +their conversion to Christianity, but the Christian clergy felt the +necessity of keeping up festive religious ceremonies in some form or +other, and also of impressing upon people's imagination and memory by +means of rude scenical representations some of the broader facts of +scriptural and ecclesiastical history. These performances at first +consisted probably in mere dumb show, or at the most the performers +may have chanted the scriptural account of the transaction they were +representing. In this manner the choral boys, or the younger clergy, +would, on some special Saint's day, perform some striking act in +the life of the saint commemorated, or, on particular festivals of +the church, those incidents of gospel history to which the festival +especially related. By degrees, a rather more imposing character was +given to these performances by the addition of a continuous dialogue, +which, however, was written in Latin verse, and was no doubt chanted. +This incipient drama in Latin, as far as we know it, belongs to the +twelfth century, and is represented by a tolerably large number of +examples still preserved in mediæval manuscripts. Some of the earliest +of these have for their author a pupil of the celebrated Abelard, named +Hilarius, who lived in the first half of the twelfth century, and is +understood to have been by birth an Englishman. Hilarius appears before +us as a playful Latin poet, and among a number of short pieces, which +may be almost called lyric, he has left us three of these religious +plays. The subject of the first of these is the raising of Lazarus +from the dead, the chief peculiarity of which consists of the songs of +lamentation placed in the mouths of the two sisters of Lazarus, Mary +and Martha. The second represents one of the miracles attributed to St. +Nicholas; and the third, the history of Daniel. The latter is longer +and more elaborate than the others, and at its conclusion, the stage +direction tells us that, if it were performed at matins, Darius, king +of the Medes and Persians, was to chant _Te Deum Laudamus_, but if it +were at vespers, the great king was to chant _Magnificat anima mea +Dominum_.[83] + + [83] "Hilarii Versus et Ludi," 8vo., Paris, 1835. Edited by M. + Champollion Figeac. + +That this mediæval drama was not derived from that of the Roman is +evident from the circumstance that entirely new terms were applied +to it. The western people in the middle ages had no words exactly +equivalent with the Latin _comœdia_, _tragœdia_, _theatrum_, &c.; +and even the Latinists, to designate the dramatic pieces performed +at the church festivals, employed the word _ludus_, a play. The +French called them by a word having exactly the same meaning, _jeu_ +(from _jocus_). Similarly in English they were termed _plays_. The +Anglo-Saxon glossaries present as the representative of the Latin +_theatrum_, the compounded words _plege-stow_, or _pleg-stow_, a +play-place, and _pleg-hus_, a play-house. It is curious that we +Englishmen have preferred to the present time the Anglo-Saxon words +in _play_, _player_, and _play-house_. Another Anglo-Saxon word with +exactly the same signification, _lac_, or _gelac_, play, appears to +have been more in use in the dialect of the Northumbrians, and a +Yorkshireman still calls a play a _lake_, and a player a _laker_. So +also the Germans called a dramatic performance a _spil_, _i.e._ a play, +the modern _spiel_, and a theatre, a _spil-hus_. One of the pieces of +Hilarius is thus entitled "Ludus super iconia sancti Nicolai," and the +French _jeu_ and the English _play_ are constantly used in the same +sense. But besides this general term, words gradually came into use to +characterise different sorts of plays. The church plays consisted of +two descriptions of subjects, they either represented the miraculous +acts of certain saints, which had a plain meaning, or some incident +taken from the Holy Scriptures, which was supposed to have a hidden +mysterious signification as well as an apparent one, and hence the +one class of subject was usually spoken of simply as _miraculum_, a +miracle, and the other as _mysterium_, a mystery. _Mysteries_ and +_miracle-plays_ are still the names usually given to the old religious +plays by writers on the history of the stage. + +We have a proof that the Latin religious plays, and the festivities +in which they were employed, had become greatly developed in the +twelfth century, in the notice taken of them in the ecclesiastical +councils of that period, for they were disapproved by the stricter +church disciplinarians. So early as the papacy of Gregory VIII., the +pope urged the clergy to "extirpate" from their churches theatrical +plays, and other festive practices which were not quite in harmony +with the sacred character of these buildings.[84] Such performances are +forbidden by a council held at Treves in 1227.[85] We learn from the +annals of the abbey of Corbei, published by Leibnitz, that the younger +monks at Heresburg performed on one occasion a "sacred comedy" (_sacram +comœdiam_) of the selling into captivity and the exaltation of +Joseph, which was disapproved by the other heads of the order.[86] Such +performances are included in a proclamation of the bishop of Worms, in +1316, against the various abuses which had crept into the festivities +observed in his diocese at Easter and St. John's tide.[87] Similar +prohibitions of the acting of such plays in churches are met with at +subsequent periods. + + [84] "Interdum ludi fiunt in ecclesiis theatrales," &c.--_Decret + Gregorii_, lib. iii. tit. i. + + [85] "Item non permittant sacerdotes ludos theatrales fieri in + ecclesia et alios ludos inhonestos." + + [86] "Juniores fratres in Heresburg sacram habuere comœdiam de + Josepho vendito et exalto, quod vero reliqui ordinis nostri + prælati male interpretati sunt."--_Leibn., Script. Brunsv._ tom. + ii. p. 311. + + [87] The acts of this synod of Worms are printed in Harzheim, tom. iv. + p. 258. + +While these performances were thus falling under the censure of the +church authorities, they were taken up by the laity, and under their +management both the plays and the machinery for acting them underwent +considerable extension. The municipal guilds contained in their +constitution a considerable amount of religious spirit. They were +great benefactors of the churches in cities and municipal towns, and +had usually some parts of the sacred edifice appropriated to them, +and they may, perhaps, have taken a part in these performances, while +they were still confined to the church. These guilds, and subsequently +the municipal corporations, took them entirely into their own hands. +Certain annual religious festivals, and especially the feast of _Corpus +Christi_, were still the occasions on which the plays were acted, but +they were taken entirely from the churches, and the performances took +place in the open streets. Each guild had its particular play, and +they acted on movable stages, which were dragged along the streets in +the procession of the guild. These stages appear to have been rather +complicated. They were divided into three floors, that in the middle, +which was the principal stage, representing this world, while the upper +division represented heaven, and that at the bottom hell. The mediæval +writers in Latin called this machinery a _pegma_, from the Greek word +πῆγμα, a scaffold; and they also applied to it, for a reason which +is not is easily seen, unless the one word arose out of a corruption +of the other, that of _pagina_, and from a further corruption of these +came into the French and English languages the word _pageant_, which +originally signified one of these movable stages, though it has since +received secondary meanings which have a much wider application. Each +guild in a town had its pageant and its own actors, who performed +in masks and costumes, and each had one of a series of plays, which +were performed at places where they halted in the procession. The +subjects of these plays were taken from Scripture, and they usually +formed a regular series of the principal histories of the Old and New +Testaments. For this reason they were generally termed _mysteries_, a +title already explained; and among the few series of these plays still +preserved, we have the "Coventry Mysteries," which were performed by +the guilds of that town, the "Chester Mysteries," belonging to the +guilds in the city of Chester, and the "Towneley Mysteries," so called +from the name of the possessor of the manuscript, but which probably +belonged to the guilds of Wakefield in Yorkshire. + +During these changes in the method of performance, the plays themselves +had also been considerably modified. The simple Latin phrases, even +when in rhyme, which formed the dialogue of the earlier _ludi_--as in +the four miracles of St. Nicholas, and the six Latin mysteries taken +from the New Testament, printed in my volume of "Early Mysteries and +other Latin Poems"--must have been very uninteresting to the mass of +the spectators, and an attempt was made to enliven them by introducing +among the Latin phrases popular proverbs, or even sometimes a song +in the vulgar tongue. Thus in the play of "Lazarus" by Hilarius, the +Latin of the lamentations of his two sisters is intermixed with French +verses. Such is the case also with the play of "St. Nicholas" by +the same writer, as well as with the curious mystery of the Foolish +Virgins, printed in my "Early Mysteries" just alluded to, in which +latter the Latin is intermingled with Provençal verse. A much greater +advance was made when these performances were transferred to the +guilds. The Latin was then discarded altogether, and the whole play +was written in French, or English, or German, as the case might be, +the plot was made more elaborate, and the dialogue greatly extended. +But now that the whole institution had become secularised, the want +of something to amuse people--to make them laugh, as people liked to +laugh in the middle ages--was felt more than ever, and this want was +supplied by the introduction of droll and ludicrous scenes, which are +often very slightly, if at all, connected with the subject of the play. +In one of the earliest of the French plays, that of "St. Nicholas," by +Jean Bodel, the characters who form the burlesque scene are a party +of gamblers in a tavern. In others, robbers, or peasants, or beggars +form the comic scene, or vulgar women, or any personages who could be +introduced acting vulgarly and using coarse language, for these were +great incitements to mirth among the populace. + +In the English plays now remaining, these scenes are, on the whole, +less frequent, and they are usually more closely connected with +the general subject. The earliest English collection that has been +published is that known as the "Towneley Mysteries," the manuscript of +which belongs to the fifteenth century, and the plays themselves may +have been composed in the latter part of the fourteenth. It contains +thirty-two plays, beginning with the Creation, and ending with the +Ascension and the Day of Judgment, with two supplementary plays, the +"Raising of Lazarus" and the "Hanging of Judas." The play of "Cain and +Abel" is throughout a vulgar drollery, in which Cain, who exhibits +the character of a blustering ruffian, is accompanied by a _garcio_, +or lad, who is the very type of a vulgar and insolent horse-boy, and +the conversation of these two worthies reminds us a little of that +between the clown and his master in the open-air performances of the +old wandering mountebanks. Even the death of Abel by the hand of his +brother is performed in a manner calculated to provoke great laughter. +In the old mirthful spirit, to hear two persons load each other with +vulgar abuse, was as good as seeing them grin through a horse-collar, +if not better. Hence the droll scene in the play of "Noah" is a +domestic quarrel between Noah and his wife, who was proverbially a +shrew, and here gives a tolerable example of abusive language, as it +might then come from a woman's tongue. The quarrel arises out of her +obstinate refusal to go into the ark. In the New Testament series the +play of "The Shepherds" was one of those most susceptible of this sort +of embellishment. There are two plays of the Shepherds in the "Towneley +Mysteries," the first of which is amusing enough, as it represents, +in clever burlesque, the acts and conversation of a party of mediæval +shepherds guarding their flocks at night; but the second play of the +Shepherds is a much more remarkable example of a comic drama. The +shepherds are introduced at the opening of the piece conversing very +satirically on the corruptions of the time, and complaining how the +people were impoverished by over-taxation, to support the pride and +vanity of the aristocracy. After a good deal of very amusing talk, the +shepherds, who, as usual, are three in number, agree to sing a song, +and it is this song, it appears, which brings to them a fourth, named +Mak, who proves to be a sheep-stealer; and, in fact, no sooner have +the shepherds resigned themselves to sleep for the night, than Mak +chooses one of the best sheep in their flocks, and carries it home +to his hut. Knowing that he will be suspected of the theft, and that +he will soon be pursued, he is anxious to conceal the plunder, and +is only helped out of his difficulty by his wife, who suggests that +the carcase shall be laid at the bottom of her cradle, and that she +shall lie upon it and groan, pretending to be in labour. Meanwhile the +shepherds awake, discover the loss of a sheep, and perceiving that Mak +has disappeared also, they naturally suspect him to be the depredator, +and pursue him. They find everything very cunningly prepared in the +cottage to deceive them, but, after a large amount of roundabout +inquiry and research, and much drollery, they discover that the boy of +which Mak's wife pretends to have been just delivered, is nothing else +but the sheep which had been stolen from their flocks. The wife still +asserts that it is her child, and Mak sets up as his defence that the +baby had been "forspoken," or enchanted, by an elf at midnight, and +that it had thus been changed into the appearance of a sheep; but the +shepherds refuse to be satisfied with this explanation. The whole of +this little comedy is carried out with great skill, and with infinite +drollery. The shepherds, while still wrangling with Mak and his wife, +are seized with drowsiness, and lie down to sleep; but they are aroused +by the voice of the angel, who proclaims the birth of the Saviour. The +next play in which the drollery is introduced, is that of "Herod and +the Slaughter of the Innocents." Herod's bluster and bombast, and the +vulgar abuse which passes between the Hebrew mothers and the soldiers +who are murdering their children, are wonderfully laughable. The plays +which represented the arrest, trial, and execution of Jesus, are all +full of drollery, for the grotesque character which had been given to +the demons in the earlier middle ages, appears to have been transferred +to the executioners, or, as they were called, the "tormentors," and +the language and manner in which they executed their duties, must have +kept the audience in a continual roar of laughter. In the play of +"Doomsday," the fiends retained their old character, and the manner +in which they joke over the distress of the sinful souls, and the +details they give of their sinfulness, are equally mirth-provoking. The +"Coventry Mysteries" are also printed from a manuscript of the middle +of the fifteenth century, and are, perhaps, as old as the "Towneley +Mysteries." They consist of forty-two plays, but they contain, on the +whole, fewer droll scenes than those of the Towneley collection. But +a very remarkable example is furnished in the play of the "Trial of +Joseph and Mary," which is a very grotesque picture of the proceedings +in a mediæval consistory court. The sompnour, a character so well +known by Chaucer's picture of him, opens the piece by reading from his +book a long list of offenders against chastity. At its conclusion, +two "detractors" make their appearance, who repeat various scandalous +stories against the Virgin Mary and her husband Joseph, which are +overheard by some of the high officers of the court, and Mary and +Joseph are formally accused and placed upon their trial. The trial +itself is a scene of low ribaldry, which can only have afforded +amusement to a very vulgar audience. There is a certain amount of the +same kind of indelicate drollery in the play of "The Woman taken in +Adultery," in this collection. The "Chester Mysteries" are still more +sparing of such scenes, but they are printed from manuscripts written +after the Reformation, which had, perhaps, gone through the process +of expurgation, in which such excrescences had been lopped off. +However, in the play of "Noah's Flood," we have the old quarrel between +Noah and his wife, which is carried so far that the latter actually +beats her husband in the presence of the audience. There is a little +drollery in the play of "The Shepherds," a considerable amount of what +may be called "Billingsgate" language in the play of the "Slaughter +of the Innocents," but less than the usual amount of insolence in the +tormentors and demons.[88] It is probable, however, that these droll +scenes were not always considered an integral part of the play in which +they were introduced, but that they were kept as separate subjects, to +be introduced at will, and not always in the same play, and therefore +that they were not copied with the play in the manuscripts. + + [88] The editions of the three principal collections of English + mysteries are--1. "The Towneley Mysteries," 8vo., London, + 1836, published by the Surtees Society; 2. "Ludus Coventriæ: a + Collection of Mysteries, formerly represented at Coventry on the + Feast of Corpus Christi," edited by James Orchard Halliwell, + Esq., 8vo., London, 1841, published by the Shakespeare Society; + 3. "The Chester Plays: a Collection of Mysteries founded upon + Scriptural Subjects, and formerly represented by the Trades of + Chester at Whitsuntide," edited by Thomas Wright, Esq., 2 vols. + 8vo., London, 1843 and 1847, published by the Shakespeare Society. + +In the Coventry play of "Noah's Flood," when Noah has received the +directions from an angel for the building of the ark, he leaves the +stage to proceed to this important work. On his departure, Lamech comes +forward, blind and led by a youth, who directs his hand to shoot at a +beast concealed in a bush. Lamech shoots, and kills Cain, upon which, +in his anger, he beats the youth to death, and laments the misfortune +into which the latter has led him. This was the legendary explanation +of the passage in the fourth chapter of Genesis: "And Lamech said ... +I have slain a man to my wounding, and a young man to my hurt; if Cain +shall be avenged seven-fold, truly Lamech seventy and seven-fold." It +is evident that this is a piece of scriptural story which has nothing +to do with Noah's flood, and accordingly, in the Coventry play, we +are told in the stage directions, that it was introduced in the place +of the "interlude,"[89] as if there were a place in the machinery of +the pageant where the episode, which was not an integral part of the +subject, was performed, and that this part of the performance was +called an interlude, or play introduced in the interval of the action +of the main subject. The word _interlude_ remained long in our language +as applied to such short and simple dramatic pieces as we may suppose +to have formed the drolleries of the mysteries. But they had another +name in France which has had a greater and more lulling celebrity. +In one of the early French miracle-plays, that of "St. Fiacre," an +interlude of this kind is introduced, containing five personages--a +brigand or robber, a peasant, a sergeant, and the wives of the two +latter. The brigand, meeting the peasant on the highway, asks the way +to St. Omer, and receives a clownish answer, which is followed by one +equally rude on a second question. The brigand, in revenge, steals +the peasant's capon, but the sergeant comes up at this moment and, +attempting to arrest the thief, receives a blow from the latter which +is supposed to break his right arm. The brigand thus escapes, and the +peasant and the sergeant quit the scene, which is immediately occupied +by their wives. The sergeant's wife is informed by the other of the +injury sustained by her husband, and she exults over it because it will +deprive him of the power of beating her. They then proceed to a tavern, +call for wine, and make merry, the conversation turning upon the faults +of their respective husbands, who are not spared. In the midst of +their enjoyments, the two husbands return, and show, by beating their +wives, that they are not very greatly disabled. In the manuscript of +the miracle-play of "St. Fiacre," in which this amusing episode is +introduced, a marginal stage direction is expressed in the following +words, "_cy est interposé une farsse_" (here a farce is introduced). +This is one of the earliest instances of the application of the term +_farce_ to these short dramatic facetiæ. Different opinions have been +expressed as to the origin of the word, but it seems most probable +that it is derived from an old French verb, _farcer_, to jest, to make +merry, whence the modern word _farceur_ for a joker, and that it thus +means merely a drollery or merriment. + + [89] "Hic transit Noe cum familia sua pro navi, quo exeunte, _locum + interludii subintret_ statim Lameth, conductus ab adolescente, et + dicens," &c. + +I have just suggested as a reason for the absence of these interludes, +or farces, in the mysteries as they are found in the manuscripts, +that they were probably not looked upon as parts of the mysteries +themselves, but as separate pieces which might be used at pleasure. +When we reach a certain period in their history, we find that not only +was this the case, but that these farces were performed separately and +altogether independently of the religious plays. It is in France that +we find information which enables us to trace the gradual revolution +in the mediæval drama. A society was formed towards the close of the +fourteenth century under the title of _Confrères de la Passion_, who, +in 1398, established a regular theatre at St. Maur-des-Fossés, and +subsequently obtained from Charles VI. a privilege to transport their +theatre into Paris, and to perform in it mysteries and miracle-plays. +They now rented of the monks of Hermières a hall in the hospital of the +Trinity, outside of the Porte St. Denis, performing there regularly +on Sundays and saints' days, and probably making a good thing of it, +for, during a long period, they enjoyed great popularity. Gradually, +however, this popularity was so much diminished, that the _confrères_ +were obliged to have recourse to expedients for reviving it. Meanwhile +other similar societies had arisen into importance. The clerks of +the Bazoche, or lawyers' clerks of the Palais de Justice, had thus +associated together, it is said, as early as the beginning of the +fourteenth century, and they distinguished themselves by composing +and performing farces, for which they appear to have obtained a +privilege. Towards the close of the fourteenth century, there arose +in Paris another society, which took the name of _Enfans sans souci_, +or Careless Boys, who elected a president or chief with the title +of _Prince des Sots_, or King of the Fools, and who composed a sort +of dramatic satires which they called _Sotties_. Jealousies soon +arose between these two societies, either because the sotties were +made sometimes to resemble too closely the farces, or because each +trespassed too often on the territories of the other. Their differences +were finally arranged by a compromise, whereby the Bazochians yielded +to their rivals the privilege of performing farces, and received in +return the permission to perform sotties. The Bazochians, too, had +invented a new class of dramatic pieces which they called _Moralities_, +and in which allegorical personages were introduced. Thus three +dramatic societies continued to exist in France through the fifteenth +century, and until the middle of the sixteenth. + +These various pieces, under the titles of farces, sotties, moralities, +or whatever other names might be given to them, had become exceedingly +popular at the beginning of the sixteenth century, and a very +considerable number of them were printed, and many of them are still +preserved, but they are books of great rarity, and often unique.[90] +Of these the farces form the most numerous class. They consist simply +of the tales of the older jougleurs or story-tellers represented in a +dramatic form, but they often display great skill in conducting the +plot, and a considerable amount of wit. The story of the sheep-stealer +in the Towneley play of "The Shepherds," is a veritable farce. As +in the fabliaux, the most common subjects of these farces are love +intrigues, carried on in a manner which speaks little for the morality +of the age in which they were written. Family quarrels frequently +form the subject of a farce, and the weaknesses and vices of women. +The priests, as usual, are not spared, but are introduced as the +seducers of wives and daughters. In one the wives have found a means of +re-modelling their husbands and making them young again, which they put +in practice with various ludicrous circumstances. Tricks of servants +are also common subjects for these farces. One is the story of a boy +who does not know his own father, and some of the subjects are of a +still more trivial character, as that of the boy who steals a tart from +the pastrycook's shop. Two hungry boys, prowling about the streets, +come to the shop door just as the pastrycook is giving directions for +sending an eel-pie after him. By an ingenious deception the boys gain +possession of the pie and eat it, and they are both caught and severely +chastised. This is the whole plot of the farce. A dull schoolboy +examined by his master in the presence of his parents, and the mirth +produced by his blunders and their ignorance, formed also a favourite +subject among these farces. One or two examples are preserved, and, +from a companion of them, we might be led to suspect that Shakespeare +took the idea of the opening scene in the fourth act of the "Merry +Wives of Windsor" from one of these old farces. + + [90] The most remarkable collection of these early farces, sotties, + and moralities yet known, was found accidentally in 1845, and + is now in the British Museum. These were all edited in Paris + as the first three volumes of a work in ten, entitled "Ancien + Théatre François, ou Collection des Ouvrages dramatiques les plus + remarquable depuis les Mystères jusqu'à Corneille, publié ... par + M. Viollet le Duc," 12mo., Paris, 1854. It is right to state that + these three volumes were edited, not by M. Viollet le Duc, but + by a scholar better known for his learning in the older French + literature, M. Anatole de Montaiglon. + +The sotties and moralities were more imaginative and extravagant +than the farces, and were filled with allegorical personages. The +characters introduced in the former have generally some relation to +the kingdom of folly. Thus, in one of the sotties, the king of fools +(_le roy des sotz_) is represented as holding his court, and consulting +with his courtiers, whose names are Triboulet, Mitouflet, Sottinet, +Coquibus, and Guippelin. Their conversation, as may be supposed, is +of a satirical character. Another is entitled "The Sottie of the +Deceivers," or cheats. Sottie--another name for mother Folly--opens +the piece with a proclamation or address to fools of all descriptions, +summoning them to her presence. Two, named Teste-Verte and Fine-Mine, +obey the call, and they are questioned as to their own condition, and +their proceedings, but their conversation is interrupted by the sudden +intrusion of another personage named Everyone (_Chascun_), who, on +examination, is found to be as perfect a fool as any of them. They +accordingly fraternise, and join in a song. Finally, another character, +The Time (_le Temps_), joins them, and they agree to submit to his +directions. Accordingly he instructs them in the arts of flattery +and deceiving, and the other similar means by which men of that time +sought to thrive. Another is the Sottie of Foolish Ostentation (_de +folle bobance_). This lady similarly opens the scene with an address +to all the fools who hold allegiance to her, and three of these make +their appearance. The first fool is the gentleman, the second the +merchant, the fourth the peasant, and their conversation is a satire +on contemporary society. The personification of abstract principles is +far bolder. The three characters who compose one of these moralities +are Everything (_tout_), Nothing (_rien_), and Everyone (_chascun_). +How the personification of Nothing was to be represented, we are not +told. The title of another of these moralities will be enough to give +the reader a notion of their general title; it is, "A New Morality of +the Children of Now-a-Days (_Maintenant_), who are the Scholars of +Once-good (_Jabien_), who shows them how to play at Cards and at Dice, +and to entertain Luxury, whereby one comes to Shame (_Honte_), and +from Shame to Despair (_Desespoir_), and from Despair to the gibbet of +Perdition, and then turns himself to Good-doing." The characters in +this play are Now-a-Days, Once-good, Luxury, Shame, Despair, Perdition, +and Good-doing. + +The three dramatic societies which produced all these farces, sotties, +and moralities, continued to flourish in France until the middle of +the sixteenth century, at which period a great revolution in dramatic +literature took place in that country. The performance of the Mysteries +had been forbidden by authority, and the Bazochians themselves were +suppressed. The petty drama represented by the farces and sotties +went rapidly out of fashion, in the great change through which the +mind of society was at this time passing, and in which the taste for +classical literature overcame all others. The old drama in France had +disappeared, and a new one, formed entirely upon an imitation of the +classical drama, was beginning to take its place. This incipient drama +was represented in the sixteenth century by Etienne Jodel, by Jacques +Grevin, by Rémy Belleau, and especially by Pierre de Larivey, the most +prolific, and perhaps the most talented, of the earlier French regular +dramatic authors. + +These French dramatic essays, the farces, the sotties, and the +moralities, were imitated, and sometimes translated, in English, and +many of them were printed; for the further our researches are carried +into the early history of printing, the more we are astonished at the +extreme activity of the press, even in its infancy, in multiplying +literature of a popular character. In England, as in France, the +farces had been, at a rather early period, detached from the mysteries +and miracle-plays, but the word _interludes_ had been adopted here +as the general title for them, and continued in use even after the +establishment of the regular drama. Perhaps this name owed its +popularity to the circumstance that it seemed more appropriate to its +object, when it became so fashionable in England to act these plays at +intervals in the great festivals and entertainments given at court, or +in the households of the great nobles. At all events, there can be +no doubt that this fashion had a great influence on the fate of the +English stage. The custom of performing plays in the universities, +great schools, and inns of court, had also the effect of producing a +number of very clever dramatic writers; for when this literature was +so warmly patronised by princes and nobles, people of the highest +qualifications sought to excel in it. Hence we find from books of +household expenses and similar records of the period, that there was, +during the sixteenth century, an immense number of such plays compiled +in England which were never printed, and of which, therefore, very few +are preserved. + +The earliest known plays of this description in the English language +belong to the class which were called in France moralities. They are +three in number, and are preserved in a manuscript in the possession +of Mr. Hudson Gurney, which I have not seen, but which is said to be +of the reign of our king Henry VI. Several words and allusions in them +seem to me to show that they were translated, or adapted, from the +French. They contain exactly the same kind of allegorical personages. +The allegory itself is a simple one, and easily understood. In the +first, which is entitled the "Castle of Perseverance," the hero is +_Humanum Genus_ (Mankynd), for the names of the parts are all given in +Latin. On the birth of this personage, a good and a bad angel offer +themselves as his protectors and guides, and he chooses the latter, who +introduces him to _Mundus_ (the World), and to his friends, _Stultitia_ +(Folly), and _Voluptas_ (Pleasure). These and some other personages +bring him under the influence of the seven deadly sins, and _Humanum +Genus_ takes for his bedfellow a lady named _Luxuria_. At length +_Confessio_ and _Pœnitentia_ succeed in reclaiming _Humanum Genus_, +and they conduct him for security to the Castle of Perseverance, where +the seven cardinal virtues attend upon him. He is besieged in this +castle by the seven deadly sins, who are led to the attack by Belial, +but are defeated. _Humanum Genus_ has now become aged, and is exposed +to the attacks of another assailant. This is _Avaritia_, who enters +the Castle stealthily by undermining the wall, and artfully persuades +_Humanum Genus_ to leave it. He thus comes again under the influence +of _Mundus_, until _Mors_ (Death) arrives, and the bad angel carries +off the victim to the domains of Satan. This, however, is not the end +of the piece. God appears, seated on His throne, and Mercy, Peace, +Justice, and Truth appear before Him, the two former pleading for, +and the latter against, _Humanum Genus_, who, after some discussion, +is saved. This allegorical picture of human life was, in one form or +other, a favourite subject of the moralisers. I may quote as examples +the interludes of "Lusty Juventus," reprinted in Hawkins's "Origin +of the English Drama," and the "Disobedient Child," and "Trial of +Treasure," reprinted by the Percy Society. + +The second of the moralities ascribed to the reign of Henry VI., has +for its principal characters Mind, Will, and Understanding. These are +assailed by Lucifer, who succeeds in alluring them to vice, and they +change their modest raiment for the dress of gay gallants. Various +other characters are introduced in a similar strain of allegory, until +they are reclaimed by Wisdom. Mankind is again the principal personage +of the third of these moralities, and some of the other characters in +the play, such as Nought, New-guise, and Now-a-days, remind us of the +similar allegorical personages in the French moralities described above. + +These interludes bring us into acquaintance with a new comic character. +The great part which folly acted in the social destinies of mankind, +had become an acknowledged fact; and as the court and almost every +great household had its professed fool, so it seems to have been +considered that a play also was incomplete without a fool. But, +as the character of the fool was usually given to one of the most +objectionable characters in it, so, for this reason apparently, the +fool in a play was called the _Vice_. Thus, in "Lusty Juventus," the +character of Hypocrisy is called the Vice; in the play of "All for +Money," it is Sin; in that of "Tom Tyler and his Wife," it is Desire; +in the "Trial of Treasure" it is Inclination; and in some instances the +Vice appears to be the demon himself. The Vice seems always to have +been dressed in the usual costume of a court fool, and he perhaps had +other duties besides his mere part in the plot, such as making jests of +his own, and using other means for provoking the mirth of the audience +in the intervals of the action. + +A few of our early English interludes were, in the strict sense of the +word, farces. Such is the "mery play" of "John the Husband, Tyb the +Wife, and Sir John the Priest," written by John Heywood, the plot of +which presents the same simplicity as those of the farces which were so +popular in France. John has a shrew for his wife, and has good causes +for suspecting an undue intimacy between her and the priest; but they +find means to blind his eyes, which is the more easily done, because +he is a great coward, except when he is alone. Tyb, the wife, makes a +pie, and proposes that the priest shall be invited to assist in eating +it. The husband is obliged, very unwillingly, to be the bearer of the +invitation, and is not a little surprised when the priest refuses it. +He gives as his reason, that he was unwilling to intrude himself into +company where he knew he was disliked, and persuaded John that he had +fallen under the wife's displeasure, because, in private interviews +with her, he had laboured to induce her to bridle her temper, and treat +her husband with more gentleness. John, delighted at the discovery +of the priest's honesty, insists on his going home with him to feast +upon the pie. There the guilty couple contrive to put the husband to a +disagreeable penance, while they eat the pie, and treat him otherwise +very ignominiously, in consequence of which the married couple fight. +The priest interferes, and the fight thus becomes general, and is only +ended by the departure of Tyb and the priest, leaving the husband alone. + +The popularity of the moralities in England is, perhaps, to be +explained by peculiarities in the condition of society, and the +greater pre-occupation of men's minds in our country at that time +with the religious and social revolution which was then in progress. +The Reformers soon saw the use which might be made of the stage, and +compiled and caused to be acted interludes in which the old doctrines +and ceremonies were turned to ridicule, and the new ones were held up +in a favourable light. We have excellent examples of the success with +which this plan was carried out in the plays of the celebrated John +Bale. His play of "Kyng Johan," an edition of which was published by +the Camden Society, is not only a remarkable work of a very remarkable +man, but it may be considered as the first rude model of the English +historical drama. The stage became now a political instrument in +England, almost as it had been in ancient Greece, and it thus became +frequently the object of particular as well as general persecution. +In 1543, the vicar of Yoxford, in Suffolk, drew upon himself the +violent hostility of the other clergy in that county by composing and +causing to be performed plays against the pope's counsellors. Six years +afterwards, in 1549, a royal proclamation prohibited for a time the +performance of interludes throughout the kingdom, on the ground that +they contained "matter tendyng to sedicion and contempnyng of sundery +good orders and lawes, whereupon are growen daily, and are likely +to growe, muche disquiet, division, tumultes, and uproares in this +realme." From this time forward we begin to meet with laws for the +regulation of stage performances, and proceedings in cases of supposed +infractions of them, and it became customary to obtain the approval of +a play by the privy council before it was allowed to be acted. Thus +gradually arose the office of a dramatic censor. + +With Bale and with John Heywood, the English plays began to approach +the form of a regular drama, and the two now rather celebrated pieces, +"Ralph Roister Doister," and "Gammer Gurton's Needle," which belong +to the middle of the sixteenth century, may be considered as comedies +rather than as interludes. The former, written by a well-known scholar +of that time, Nicholas Udall, master of Eton, is a satirical picture +of some phases of London life, and relates the ridiculous adventures +of a weak-headed and vain-glorious gallant, who believes that all +the women must be in love with him, and who is led by a needy and +designing parasite named Matthew Merygreeke. Rude as it is as a +dramatic composition, it displays no lack of talent, and it is full +of genuine humour. The humour in "Gammer Gurton's Needle" is none +the less rich because it is of coarser and rather broader cast. The +good dame of the piece, Gammer Gurton, during an interruption in the +process of mending the breeches of her husband, Hodge, has lost her +needle, and much lamentation follows a misfortune so great at a time +when needles appear to have been rare and valuable articles in the +rural household. In the midst of their trouble appears Diccon, who is +described in the _dramatis personæ_ as "Diccon the Bedlam," meaning +that he was an idiot, and who appears to hold the position of Vice in +the play. Diccon, however, though weak-minded, is a cunning fellow, and +especially given to making mischief, and he accuses a neighbour, Dame +Chat, of stealing the needle. At the same time, the same mischievous +individual tells Dame Chat that Gammer Gurton's cock had been stolen in +the night from the henroost, and that she, Dame Chat, was accused of +being the thief. Amid the general misunderstanding which results from +Diccon's successful endeavours, they send for the parson of the parish, +Dr. Rat, who appears to unite in himself the three parts of preacher, +physician, and conjurer, in order to have advantage of his experience +in finding the needle. Diccon now contrives a new piece of mischief. +He persuades Dame Chat that Hodge intends to hide himself in a certain +hole in the premises, in order, that night, to creep out and kill all +her hens; and at the same time he informs Dr. Rat, that if he will +hide in the same hole, he will give him ocular demonstration of Dame +Chat's guilt of stealing the needle. The consequence is that Dame Chat +attacks by surprise, and somewhat violently, the supposed depredator +in the hole, and that Dr. Rat gets a broken head. Dame Chat is brought +before "Master Bayly" for the assault, and the proceedings in the trial +bring to light the deceptions which have been played upon them all, +and Diccon stands convicted as the wicked perpetrator. In fact, the +"bedlam" confesses it all, and it is finally decided by "Master Bayly" +that there shall be a general reconciliation, and that Diccon shall +take a solemn oath on Hodge's breech, that he will do his best to find +the lost needle. Diccon has still the spirit of mischief in him, and +instead of laying his hand quietly on Hodge's breech, he gives him a +sharp blow, which is responded to by an unexpected scream. The needle, +indeed, which has never quitted the breeches, is driven rather deep +into the fleshy part of Hodge's body, and the general joy at having +found it again overruling all other considerations, they all agree to +be friends over a jug of "drink." + +We cannot but feel astonished at the short period which it required +to develop rude attempts at dramatic composition like this into the +wonderful creations of a Shakespeare; and it can only be explained +by the fact that it was an age remarkable for producing men of +extraordinary genius in every branch of intellectual development. +Hitherto, the literature of the stage had represented the intelligence +of the mass; it became individualised in Shakespeare, and this fact +marks an entirely new era in the history of the drama. In the writings +of our great bard, nearly all the peculiarities of the older national +drama are preserved, even some which may be perhaps considered as its +defects, but carried to a degree of perfection which they had never +attained before. The drollery, which, as we have seen, could not be +dispensed with even in the religious mysteries and miracle-plays, had +become so necessary, that it could not be dispensed with in tragedy. +Its omission belonged to a later period, when the foreign dramatists +became objects of imitation in England. But in the earlier drama, these +scenes of drollery seem frequently to have no connection whatever with +the general plot, while Shakespeare always interweaves them skilfully +with it, and they seem to form an integral and necessary part of it. + + + + + CHAPTER XVII. + + DIABLERIE IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.--EARLY TYPES OF THE DIABOLICAL + FORMS.--ST. ANTHONY.--ST. GUTHLAC.--REVIVAL OF THE TASTE FOR SUCH + SUBJECTS IN THE BEGINNING OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.--THE FLEMISH + SCHOOL OF BREUGHEL.--THE FRENCH AND ITALIAN SCHOOLS, CALLOT, + SALVATOR ROSA. + + +We have seen how the popular demonology furnished materials for the +earliest exercise of comic art in the middle ages, and how the taste +for this particular class of grotesque lasted until the close of the +mediæval period. After the "renaissance" of art and literature, this +taste took a still more remarkable form, and the school of grotesque +_diablerie_ which flourished during the sixteenth century, and the +first half of the seventeenth, justly claims a chapter to itself. + +The birthplace of this demonology, as far as it belongs to +Christianity, must probably be sought in the deserts of Egypt. It +spread thence over the east and the west, and when it reached our +part of the world, it grafted itself, as I have remarked in a former +chapter, on the existing popular superstitions of Teutonic paganism. +The playfully burlesque, which held so great a place in these +superstitions, no doubt gave a more comic character to this Christian +demonology than it had possessed before the mixture. Its primitive +representative was the Egyptian monk, St. Anthony, who is said to have +been born at a village called Coma, in Upper Egypt, in the year 251. +His history was written in Greek by St. Athanasius, and was translated +into Latin by the ecclesiastical historian Evagrius. Anthony was +evidently a fanatical visionary, subject to mental illusions, which +were fostered by his education. To escape from the temptations of the +world, he sold all his property, which was considerable, gave it to +the poor, and then retired into the desert of the Thebaid, to live a +life of the strictest asceticism. The evil one persecuted him in his +solitude, and sought to drive him back into the corruptions of worldly +life. He first tried to fill his mind with regretful reminiscences +of his former wealth, position in society, and enjoyments; when this +failed, he disturbed his mind with voluptuous images and desires, which +the saint resisted with equal success. The persecutor now changed his +tactics, and presenting himself to Anthony in the form of a black and +ugly youth, confessed to him, with apparent candour, that he was the +spirit of uncleanness, and acknowledged that he had been vanquished by +the extraordinary merits of Anthony's sanctity. The saint, however, +saw that this was only a stratagem to stir up in him the spirit of +pride and self-confidence, and he met it by subjecting himself to +greater mortifications than ever, which of course made him still more +liable to these delusions. Now he sought greater solitude by taking +up his residence in a ruined Egyptian sepulchre, but the farther he +withdrew from the world, the more he became the object of diabolical +persecution. Satan broke in upon his privacy with a host of attendants, +and during the night beat him to such a degree, that one morning the +attendant who brought him food found him lying senseless in his cell, +and had him carried to the town, where his friends were on the point of +burying him, believing him to be dead, when he suddenly revived, and +insisted on being taken back to his solitary dwelling. The legend tells +us that the demons appeared to him in the forms of the most ferocious +animals, such as lions, bulls, wolves, asps, serpents, scorpions, +panthers, and bears, each attacking him in the manner peculiar to its +species, and with its peculiar voice, thus making together a horrible +din. Anthony left his tomb to retire farther into the desert, where he +made a ruined castle his residence; and here he was again frightfully +persecuted by the demons, and the noise they made was so great and +horrible that it was often heard at a vast distance. According to the +narrative, Anthony reproached the demons in very abusive language, +called them hard names, and even spat in their faces; but his most +effective weapon was always the cross. Thus the saint became bolder, +and sought a still more lonely abode, and finally established himself +on the top of a high mountain in the upper Thebaid. The demons still +continued to persecute him, under a great variety of forms; on one +occasion their chief appeared to him under the form of a man, with the +lower members of an ass. + +The demons which tormented St. Anthony became the general type for +subsequent creations, in which these first pictures were gradually, and +in the sequel, greatly improved upon. St. Anthony's persecutors usually +assumed the shapes of _bonâ fide_ animals, but those of later stories +took monstrous and grotesque forms, strange mixtures of the parts of +different animals, and of others which never existed. Such were seen +by St. Guthlac, the St. Anthony of the Anglo-Saxons, among the wild +morasses of Croyland. One night, which he was passing at his devotions +in his cell, they poured in upon him in great numbers; "and they filled +all the house with their coming, and they poured in on every side, +from above and from beneath, and everywhere. They were in countenance +horrible, and they had great heads, and a long neck, and lean visage; +they were filthy and squalid in their beards, and they had rough ears, +and distorted face, and fierce eyes, and foul mouths; and their teeth +were like horses' tusks, and their throats were filled with flame, and +they were grating in their voice; they had crooked shanks, and knees +big and great behind, and distorted toes, and shrieked hoarsely with +their voices; and they came with such immoderate noises and immense +horror, that it seemed to him that all between heaven and earth +resounded with their dreadful cries." On another similar occasion, "it +happened one night, when the holy man Guthlac fell to his prayers, he +heard the howling of cattle and various wild beasts. Not long after +he saw the appearance of animals and wild beasts and creeping things +coming in to him. First he saw the visage of a lion that threatened him +with his bloody tusks, also the likeness of a bull, and the visage of +a bear, as when they are enraged. Also he perceived the appearance of +vipers, and a hog's grunting, and the howling of wolves, and croaking +of ravens, and the various whistlings of birds, that they might, with +their fantastic appearance, divert the mind of the holy man." + +Such were the suggestions on which the mediæval sculptors and +illuminators worked with so much effect, as we have seen repeatedly +in the course of our preceding chapters. After the revival of art +in western Europe in the fifteenth century, this class of legends +became great favourites with painters and engravers, and soon gave +rise to the peculiar school of _diablerie_ mentioned above. At that +time the story of the Temptation of St. Anthony attracted particular +attention, and it is the subject of many remarkable prints belonging +to the earlier ages of the art of engraving. It employed the pencils +of such artists as Martin Schongauer, Israel van Mechen, and Lucas +Cranach. Of the latter we have two different engravings on the same +subject--St. Anthony carried into the air by the demons, who are +represented in a great variety of grotesque and monstrous forms. The +most remarkable of the two bears the date of 1506, and was, therefore, +one of Cranach's earlier works. But the great representative of this +earlier school of _diablerie_ was Peter Breughel, a Flemish painter +who flourished in the middle of the sixteenth century. He was born at +Breughel, near Breda, and lived some time at Antwerp, but afterwards +established himself at Brussels. So celebrated was he for the love of +the grotesque displayed in his pictures, that he was known by the name +of Peter the Droll. Breughel's "Temptation of St. Anthony," like one +or two others of his subjects of the same class, was engraved in a +reduced form by J. T. de Bry. Breughel's demons are figures of the most +fantastic description--creations of a wildly grotesque imagination; +they present incongruous and laughable mixtures of parts of living +things which have no relation whatever to one another. Our cut No. 155 +represents a group of these grotesque demons, from a plate by Breughel, +engraved in 1565, and entitled _Divus Jacobus diabolicis præstigiis +ante magnum sistitur_ (St. James is arrested before the magician by +diabolical delusions). The engraving is full of similarly grotesque +figures. On the right is a spacious chimney, and up it witches, riding +on brooms, are making their escape, while in the air are seen other +witches riding away upon dragons and a goat. A kettle is boiling over +the fire, around which a group of monkeys are seen sitting and warming +themselves. Behind these a cat and a toad are holding a very intimate +conversation. In the background stands and boils the great witches' +caldron. On the right of the picture the _magus_, or magician, is +seated, reading his _grimoire_; with a frame before him supporting the +pot containing his magical ingredients. The saint occupies the middle +of the picture, surrounded by the demons represented in our cut and by +many others; and as he approaches the magician, he is seen raising his +right hand in the attitude of pronouncing a benediction, the apparent +consequence of which is a frightful explosion of the magician's pot, +which strikes the demons with evident consternation. Nothing can be +more _bizarre_ than the horse's head upon human legs in armour, the +parody upon a crawling spider behind it, the skull (apparently of a +horse) supported upon naked human legs, the strangely excited animal +behind the latter, and the figure furnished with pilgrim's hood +and staff, which appears to be mocking the saint. Another print--a +companion to the foregoing--represents the still more complete +discomfiture of the _magus_. The saint here occupies the right-hand +side of the picture, and is raising his hand higher, with apparently +a greater show of authority. The demons have all turned against their +master the magician, whom they are beating and hurling headlong from +his chair. They seem to be proclaiming their joy at his fall by all +sorts of playful attitudes. It is a sort of demon fair. Some of them, +to the left of the picture, are dancing and standing upon their heads +on a tight-rope. Near them another is playing some game like that +which we now call the thimble-rig. The monkeys are dancing to the +tune of a great drum. A variety of their mountebank tricks are going +on in different parts of the scene. Three of these playful actors are +represented in our cut No. 156. + + [Illustration: _No. 156. Strange Demons._] + +Breughel also executed a series of similarly grotesque engravings, +representing in this same fantastic manner the virtues and vices, such +as Pride (_superbia_), Courage (_fortitudo_), Sloth (_desidia_), &c. +These bear the date of 1558. They are crowded with figures equally +grotesque with those just mentioned, but a great part of which it +would be almost impossible to describe. I give two examples from the +engraving of "Sloth," in the accompanying cut (No. 157). + + [Illustration: _No. 155. St. James and his Persecutors._] + + [Illustration: _No. 157. Imps of Sloth._] + + [Illustration: _No. 158. The Folly of Hunting._] + +From making up figures from parts of animals, this early school of +grotesque proceeded to create animated figures out of inanimate +things, such as machines, implements of various kinds, household +utensils, and other such articles. A German artist, of about the same +time as Breughel, has left us a singular series of etchings of this +description, which are intended as an allegorical satire on the follies +of mankind. The allegory is here of such a singular character, that +we can only guess at the meaning of these strange groups through four +lines of German verse which are attached to each of them. In this +manner we learn that the group represented in our cut, No. 158, which +is the second in this series, is intended as a satire upon those who +waste their time in hunting, which, the verses tell us, they will in +the sequel lament bitterly; and they are exhorted to cry loud and +continually to God, and to let that serve them in the place of hound +and hawk. + + _Die zeit die du verleurst mit jagen, + Die wirstu zwar noch schmertzlich klagen; + Ruff laut zu Gott gar oft und vil, + Das sey dein hund und federspil._ + + [Illustration: _No. 159. The Wastefulness of Youth._] + +The next picture in the series, which is equally difficult to describe, +is aimed against those who fail in attaining virtue or honour through +sluggishness. Others follow, but I will only give one more example. It +forms our cut No. 159, and appears, from the verses accompanying it, +to be aimed against those who practice wastefulness in their youth, +and thus become objects of pity and scorn in old age. Whatever may be +the point of the allegory contained in the engraving, it is certainly +far-fetched, and not very apparent. + +This German-Flemish school of grotesque does not appear to have +outlived the sixteenth century, or at least it had ceased to flourish +in the century following. But the taste for the _diablerie_ of the +Temptation scenes passed into France and Italy, in which countries +it assumed a much more refined character, though at the same time +one equally grotesque and imaginative. These artists, too, returned +to the original legend, and gave it forms of their own conception. +Daniel Rabel, a French artist, who lived at the end of the sixteenth +century, published a rather remarkable engraving of the "Temptation of +St. Anthony," in which the saint appears on the right of the picture, +kneeling before a mound on which three demons are dancing. On the +right hand of the saint stands a naked woman, sheltering herself with +a parasol, and tempting the saint with her charms. The rest of the +piece is filled with demons in a great variety of forms and postures. +Another French artist, Nicholas Cochin, has left us two "Temptations of +St. Anthony," in rather spirited etching, of the earlier part of the +seventeenth century. In the first, the saint is represented kneeling +before a crucifix, surrounded by demons. The youthful and charming +temptress is here dressed in the richest garments, and the highest +style of fashion, and displays all her powers of seduction. The body of +the picture is, as usual, occupied by multitudes of diabolical figures, +in grotesque forms. In Cochin's other picture of the Temptation of St. +Anthony, the saint is represented as a hermit engaged in his prayers; +the female figure of voluptuousness (_voluptas_) occupies the middle of +the picture, and behind the saint is seen a witch with her besom. + + [Illustration: _No. 160. The Demon Tilter (Callot)._] + + [Illustration: _No. 161. Uneasy Riding (Callot)._] + +But the artist who excelled in this subject at the period at which we +now arrive, was the celebrated Jacques Callot, who was born at Nancy, +in Brittany, in 1593, and died at Florence on the 24th of March, 1635, +which, according to the old style of calculating, may mean March, +1636. Of Callot we shall have to speak in another chapter. He treated +the subject of the Temptation of St. Anthony in two different plates, +which are considered as ranking among the most remarkable of his +works, and to which, in fact, he appears to have given much thought +and attention. He is known, indeed, to have worked diligently at it. +They resemble those of the older artists in the number of diabolical +figures introduced into the picture, but they display an extraordinary +vivid imagination in the forms, postures, physiognomies, and even +the equipments, of the chimerical figures, all equally droll and +burlesque, but which present an entire contrast to the more coarse and +vulgar conceptions of the German-Flemish school. This difference will +be understood best by an example. One of Callot's demons is represented +in our cut No. 160. Many of them are mounted on nondescript animals, +of the most extraordinary demoniacal character, and such is the case +of the demon in our cut, who is running a tilt at the saint with his +tilting spear in his hand, and, to make more sure, his eyes well +furnished with a pair of spectacles. In our next cut, No. 161, we give +a second example of the figures in Callot's peculiar _diablerie_. +The demon in this case is riding very uneasily, and, in fact, seems +in danger of being thrown. The steeds of both are of an anomalous +character; the first is a sort of dragon-horse; the second a mixture +of a lobster, a spider, and a craw-fish. Mariette, the art-collector +and art-writer of the reign of Louis XV. as well as artist, considers +this grotesque, or, as he calls it, "fantastic and comic character," +as almost necessary to the pictures of the Temptation of St. Anthony, +which he treats as one of Callot's especially _serious_ subjects. +"It was allowable," he says, "to Callot, to give a flight to his +imagination. The more his fictions were of the nature of dreams, +the more they were fitted to what he had to express. For the demon +intending to torment St. Anthony, it is to be supposed that he must +have thought of all the forms most hideous, and most likely to strike +terror." + +Callot's first and larger print of the Temptation of St. Anthony is +rare. It is filled with a vast number of figures. Above is a fantastic +being who vomits thousands of demons. The saint is seen at the entrance +of a cavern, tormented by some of these. Others are scattered about in +different occupations. On one side, a demoniacal party are drinking +together, and pledging each other in their glasses; here, a devil is +playing on the guitar; there, others are occupied in a dance; all +such grotesque figures as our two examples would lead the reader to +expect. In the second of Callot's "Temptations," which is dated in +1635, and must therefore have been one of his latest works, the same +figure vomiting the demons occupies the upper part of the plate, and +the field is covered with a prodigious number of imps, more hideous in +their forms, and more varied in their extraordinary attitudes, than in +the same artist's first design. Below, a host of demons are dragging +the saint to a place where new torments are prepared for him. Callot's +prints of the Temptation of St. Anthony gained so great a reputation, +that imitations of them were subsequently published, some of which so +far approached his style, that they were long supposed to be genuine. + +Callot, though a Frenchman, studied and flourished in Italy, and +his style is founded upon Italian art. The last great artist whose +treatment of the Temptation I shall quote, is Salvator Rosa, an Italian +by birth, who flourished in the middle of the seventeenth century. +His style, according to some opinions, is refined from that of Callot; +at all events, it is bolder in design. Our cut No. 162 represents St. +Anthony protecting himself with the cross against the assaults of the +demon, as represented by Salvator Rosa. With this artist the school of +_diablerie_ of the sixteenth century may be considered to have come to +its end. + + [Illustration: _No. 162. St. Anthony and his Persecutor._] + + + + + CHAPTER XVIII. + + CALLOT AND HIS SCHOOL.--CALLOT'S ROMANTIC HISTORY.--HIS + "CAPRICI," AND OTHER BURLESQUE WORKS.--THE "BALLI" AND THE + BEGGARS.--IMITATORS OF CALLOT; DELLA BELLA.--EXAMPLES OF DELLA + BELLA.--ROMAIN DE HOOGHE. + + +The art of engraving on copper, although it had made rapid advances +during the sixteenth century, was still very far from perfection; but +the close of that century witnessed the birth of a man who was destined +not only to give a new character to this art, but also to bring in a +new style of caricature and burlesque. This was the celebrated Jacques +Callot, a native of Lorraine, and descended from a noble Burgundian +family. His father, Jean Callot, held the office of herald of Lorraine. +Jacques was born in the year 1592,[91] at Nancy, and appears to have +been destined for the church, with a view to which his early education +was regulated. But the early life of Jacques Callot presents a +romantic episode in the history of art aspirations. While yet hardly +more than an infant, he seized every opportunity of neglecting more +serious studies to practise drawing, and he displayed especially a +very precocious taste for satire, for his artistic talent was shown +principally in caricaturing all the people he knew. His father, and +apparently all his relatives, disapproved of his love for drawing, and +did what they could to discourage it; but in vain, for he still found +means of indulging it. Claude Henriet, the painter to the court of +Lorraine, gave him lessons, and his son, Israel Henriet, formed for +him a boy's friendship. He also learnt the elements of the art of +engraving of Demange Crocq, the engraver to the duke of Lorraine. + + [91] This is the date fixed by Meaume, in his excellent work on + Callot, entitled "Recherches sur la Vie et les Ouvrages de + Jacques Callot," 2 tom. 8vo., 1860. + +About this time, the painter Bellange, who had been a pupil of Claude +Henriet, returned from Italy, and gave young Callot an exciting account +of the wonders of art to be seen in that country; and soon afterwards +Claude Henriet dying, his son Israel went to Rome, and his letters +from thence had no less effect on the mind of the young artist at +Nancy, than the conversation of Bellange. Indeed the passion of the boy +for art was so strong, that, finding his parents obstinately opposed +to all his longings in this direction, he left his father's house +secretly, and, in the spring of 1604, when he had only just entered his +thirteenth year, he set out for Italy on foot, without introductions +and almost without money. He was even unacquainted with the road, but +after proceeding a short distance, he fell in with a band of gipsies, +and, as they were going to Florence, he joined their company. His +life among the gipsies, which lasted seven or eight weeks, appears to +have furnished food to his love of burlesque and caricature, and he +has handed down to us his impressions, in a series of four engravings +of scenes in gipsy life, admirably executed at a rather later period +of his life, which are full of comic humour. When they arrived at +Florence, Jacques Callot parted company with the gipsies, and was +fortunate enough to meet with an officer of the grand duke's household, +who listened to his story, and took so much interest in him, that he +obtained him admission to the studio of Remigio Canta Gallina. This +artist gave him instructions in drawing and engraving, and sought to +correct him of his taste for the grotesque by keeping him employed upon +serious subjects. + +After studying for some months under Canta Gallina, Jacques Callot +left Florence, and proceeded to Rome, to seek his old friend Israel +Henriet; but he had hardly arrived, when he was recognised in the +streets by some merchants from Nancy, who took him, and in spite of +his tears and resistance, carried him home to his parents. He was +now kept to his studies more strictly than ever, but nothing could +overcome his passion for art, and, having contrived to lay by some +money, after a short interval he again ran away from home. This time +he took the road to Lyons, and crossed Mont Cenis, and he had reached +Turin when he met in the street of that city his elder brother Jean, +who again carried him home to Nancy. Nothing could now repress young +Callot's ardour, and soon after this second escapade, he engraved a +copy of a portrait of Charles III., duke of Lorraine, to which he put +his name and the date 1607, and which, though it displays little skill +in engraving, excited considerable interest at the time. His parents +were now persuaded that it was useless to thwart any longer his natural +inclinations, and they not only allowed him to follow them, but they +yielded to his wish to return to Italy. The circumstances of the moment +were especially favourable. Charles III., duke of Lorraine, was dead, +and his successor, Henry II., was preparing to send an embassy to Rome +to announce his accession. Jean Callot, by his position of herald, +had sufficient interest to obtain for his son an appointment in the +ambassador's retinue, and Jacques Callot started for Rome on the 1st +of December, 1608, under more favourable auspices than those which had +attended his former visits to Italy. + +Callot reached Rome at the beginning of the year 1609, and now at +length he joined the friend of his childhood, Israel Henriet, and began +to throw all his energy into his art-labours. It is more than probable +that he studied under Tempesta, with Henriet, who was a pupil of that +painter, and another Lorrainer, Claude Dervet. After a time, Callot +began to feel the want of money, and obtained employment of a French +engraver, then residing in Rome, named Philippe Thomassin, with whom he +worked nearly three years, and became perfect in handling the graver. +Towards the end of the year 1611, Callot went to Florence, to place +himself under Julio Parigi, who then flourished there as a painter and +engraver. Tuscany was at this time ruled by its duke Cosmo de' Medicis, +a great lover of the arts, who took Callot under his patronage, giving +him the means to advance himself. Hitherto his occupation had been +principally copying the works of others, but under Parigi he began to +practise more in original design, and his taste for the grotesque came +upon him stronger than ever. Although Parigi blamed it, he could not +help admiring the talent it betrayed. In 1615, the grand duke gave a +great entertainment to the prince of Urbino, and Callot was employed +to make engravings of the festivities; it was his first commencement +in a class of designs by which he afterwards attained great celebrity. +In the year following, his engagement with Parigi ended, and he became +his own master. He now came out unfettered in his own originality. The +first fruits were seen in a new kind of designs, to which he gave the +name of "Caprices," a series of which appeared about the year 1617, +under the title of "Caprici di varie Figure." Callot re-engraved them +at Nancy in later years, and in the new title they were stated to have +been originally engraved in 1616. In a short preface, he speaks of +these as the first of his works on which he set any value. They now +strike us as singular examples of the fanciful creations of a most +grotesque imagination, but they no doubt preserve many traits of the +festivals, ceremonies, and manners of that land of masquerade, which +must have been then familiar to the Florentines; and these engravings +would, doubtless, be received by them with absolute delight. One is +copied in our cut No. 163; it represents a cripple supporting himself +on a short crutch, with his right arm in a sling. Our cut No. 164 is +another example from the same set, and represents a masked clown, with +his left hand on the hilt of his dagger, or perhaps of a wooden sword. +From this time, although he was very industrious and produced much, +Callot engraved only his own designs. + + [Illustration: _No. 163. A Cripple._] + + [Illustration: _No. 164. A Grotesque Masker._] + +While employed for others, Callot had worked chiefly with the graver, +but now that he was his own master, he laid aside that implement, and +devoted himself almost entirely to etching, in which he attained the +highest proficiency. His work is remarkable for the cleanness and ease +of his lines, and for the life and spirit he gave to his figures. +His talent lay especially in the extraordinary skill with which he +grouped together great numbers of diminutive figures, each of which +preserved its proper and full action and effect. The great annual fair +of the Impruneta was held with extraordinary festivities, and attended +by an immense concourse of people of all classes on St. Luke's Day, +the 18th of October, in the outskirts of Florence. Callot engraved +a large picture of this fair, which is absolutely wonderful. The +picture embraces an extensive space of ground, which is covered with +hundreds of figures, all occupied, singly or in groups, in different +manners, conversing, masquerading, buying and selling, playing games, +and performing in various ways; each group or figure is a picture in +itself. This engraving produced quite a sensation, and it was followed +by other pictures of fairs, and, after his final return to Nancy, +Callot engraved it anew. It was this talent for grouping large masses +of persons which caused the artist to be so often employed in drawing +great public ceremonies, sieges, and other warlike operations. + +By the duke of Florence, Cosmo II., Callot was liberally patronised +and loaded with benefits, but on his death the government had to be +placed in the hands of a regency, and art and literature no longer met +with the same encouragement. In this state of things, Callot was found +by Charles of Lorraine, afterwards duke Charles IV., and persuaded to +return to his native country. He arrived at Nancy in 1622, and began to +work there with greater activity even than he had displayed before. It +was not long after this that he produced his sets of grotesques, the +Balli (or dancers), the Gobbi (or hunchbacks), and the Beggars. The +first of these sets, called in the title _Balli_, or _Cucurucu_,[92] +consists of twenty-four small plates, each of them containing two comic +characters in grotesque attitudes, with groups of smaller figures in +the distance. Beneath the two prominent figures are their names, now +unintelligible, but at that time no doubt well known on the comic stage +at Florence. Thus, in the couple given in our cut No. 165, which is +taken from the fourth plate of the series, the personage to the left +is named Smaraolo Cornuto, which means simply Smaraolo the cuckold; +and the one on the right is called Ratsa di Boio. In the original the +background is occupied by a street, full of spectators, looking on at +a dance of pantaloons, round one who is mounted on stilts and playing +on the tabour. The couple in our cut No. 166, represents another of +Callot's "Caprices," from a set differing from the first "Caprices," +or the Balli. The Gobbi, or hunchbacks, form a set of twenty-one +engravings; and the set of the Gipsies, already alluded to, which was +also executed at Nancy, was included in four plates, the subjects of +which were severally--1, the gipsies travelling; 2, the avant-guard; +3, the halt; and 4, the preparations for the feast. Nothing could be +more truthful, and at the same time more comic, than this last set of +subjects. We give, as an example of the set of the Baroni, or beggars, +Callot's figure of one of that particular class--for beggars and rogues +of all kinds were classified in those days--whose part it was to +appeal to charity by wounds and sores artificially represented. In the +English slang of the seventeenth century, these artificial sores were +called _clymes_, and a curious account of the manner in which they were +made will be found in that singular picture of the vicious classes of +society in this country at that period, the "English Rogue," by Head +and Kirkman. The false cripple in our cut is holding up his leg to make +a display of his pretended infirmity. + + [92] Meaume appears to be doubtful of the meaning of this word; a + friend has pointed out to me the correction. It was the title + of a song, so called because the burden was an imitation of the + crowing of a cock, the singer mimicking also the action of the + bird. When Bacchus, in Redi's "Bacco in Toscana," is beginning + to feel the exhilarating effects of his critical investigation + of the Tuscan wines, he calls upon Ariadne to sing to him "sulla + mandola la Cucurucù," "on the mandola the Cucurucu." A note + fully explains the word as we have stated it--"Canzone cosi + detta, perchè in esse si replica molte volte la voce del gallo; e + cantandola si fanno atti e moti simili a quegli di esso gallo." + + [Illustration: _No. 165. Smaraolo Cornuto.--Ratsa di Boio._] + + [Illustration: _No. 166. A Caprice._] + + [Illustration: _No. 167. The False Cripple._] + +Callot remained at Nancy, with merely temporary absences, during the +remainder of his life. In 1628, he was employed at Brussels in drawing +and engraving the "Siege of Breda," one of the most finished of his +works, and he there made the personal acquaintance of Vandyck. Early +in 1629, he was called to Paris to execute engravings of the siege of +La Rochelle, and of the defence of the Isle of Rhé, but he returned to +Nancy in 1630. Three years afterwards his native country was invaded +by the armies of Louis XIII., and Nancy surrendered to the French on +the 25th of September, 1633. Callot was required to make engravings +to celebrate the fall of his native town; but, although he is said +to have been threatened with violence, he refused; and afterwards he +commemorated the evils brought upon his country by the French invasion +in those two immortal sets of prints, the lesser and greater "Misères +de la Guerre." About two years after this, Callot died, in the prime of +life, on the 24th of March, 1635. + +The fame of Callot was great among his contemporaries, and his name +is justly respected as one of the most illustrious in the history of +French art. He had, as might be expected, many imitators, and the +Caprices, the Balli, and the Gobbi, became very favourite subjects. +Among these imitators, the most successful and the most distinguished +was Stephano Della Bella; and, indeed, the only one deserving of +particular notice. Della Bella was born at Florence, on the 18th of +May, 1610;[93] his father, dying two years afterwards, left him an +orphan, and his mother in great poverty. As he grew up, he showed, like +Callot himself, precocious talents in art, and of the same kind. He +eagerly attended all public festivals, games, &c., and on his return +from them made them the subject of grotesque sketches. It was remarked +of him, especially, that he had a curious habit of always beginning +to draw a human figure from the feet, and proceeding upwards to the +head. He was struck at a very early period of his pursuit of art by the +style of Callot, of which, at first, he was a servile imitator, but he +afterwards abandoned some of its peculiarities, and adopted a style +which was more his own, though still founded upon that of Callot. He +almost rivalled Callot in his success in grouping multitudes of figures +together, and hence he also was much employed in producing engravings +of sieges, festive entertainments, and such elaborate subjects. As +Callot's aspirations had been directed towards Italy, those of Della +Bella were turned towards France, and when in the latter days of +the ministry of Cardinal Richelieu, the grand duke of Florence sent +Alexandro del Nero as his resident ambassador in Paris, Della Bella +was permitted to accompany him. Richelieu was occupied in the siege +of Arras, and the engraving of that event was the foundation of Della +Bella's fame in France, where he remained about ten years, frequently +employed on similar subjects. He subsequently visited Flanders and +Holland, and at Amsterdam made the acquaintance of Rembrandt. He +returned to Florence in 1650, and died there on the 23rd of July, 1664. + + [93] The materials for the history of Della Bella and his works, + will be found in a carefully compiled volume, by C. A. Jombert, + entitled, "Essai d'un Catalogue de l'Oeuvre d'Etienne de la + Bella." 8vo., Paris, 1772. + + [Illustration: _No. 168. A Witch Mounted._] + +While still in Florence, Della Bella executed four prints of dwarfs +quite in the grotesque style of Callot. In 1637, on the occasion of +the marriage of the grand duke Ferdinand II., Della Bella published +engravings of the different scenes represented, or performed, on that +occasion. These were effected by very elaborate machinery, and were +represented in six engravings, the fifth of which (_scena quinta_) +represents hell (_d' Inferno_), and is filled with furies, demons, and +witches, which might have found a place in Callot's "Temptation of St. +Anthony." + +A specimen of these is given in our cut No. 168--a naked witch seated +upon a skeleton of an animal that might have been borrowed from some +far distant geological period. In 1642, Della Bella executed a set of +small "Caprices," consisting of thirteen plates, from the eighth of +which we take our cut No. 169. It represents a beggar-woman, carrying +one child on her back, while another is stretched on the ground. In +this class of subjects Della Bella imitated Callot, but the copyist +never succeeded in equalling the original. His best style, as an +original artist of burlesque and caricature, is shown in a set of five +plates of Death carrying away people of different ages, which he +executed in 1648. The fourth of this set is copied in our cut No. 170, +and represents Death carrying off, on his shoulder, a young woman, in +spite of her struggles to escape from him. + + [Illustration: _No. 169. Beggary._] + +With the close of the seventeenth century these "Caprices" and +masquerade scenes began to be no longer in vogue, and caricature and +burlesque assumed new forms; but Callot and Della Bella had many +followers, and their examples had a lasting influence upon art. + +We must not forget that a celebrated artist, in another country, at the +end of the same century, the well-known Romain de Hooghe, was produced +from the school of Callot, in which he had learnt, not the arts of +burlesque and caricature, but that of skilfully grouping multitudes of +figures, especially in subjects representing episodes of war, tumults, +massacres, and public processions. + +Of Romain de Hooghe we shall have to speak again in a subsequent +chapter. In his time the art of engraving had made great advance +on the Continent, and especially in France, where it met with more +encouragement than elsewhere. In England this art had, on the whole, +made much less progress, and was in rather a low condition, one branch +only excepted, that of portraits. Of the two distinguished engravers +in England during the seventeenth century, Hollar was a Bohemian, and +Faithorne, though an Englishman, learnt his art in France. We only +began to have an English school when Dutch and French engravers came in +with King William to lay the groundwork. + + [Illustration: _No. 170. Death carrying off his Prey._] + + + + + CHAPTER XIX. + + THE SATIRICAL LITERATURE OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.--PASQUIL.-- + MACARONIC POETRY.--THE EPISTOLÆ OBSURORUM VIRORUM.--RABELAIS.-- + COURT OF THE QUEEN OF NAVARRE, AND ITS LITERARY CIRCLE; + BONAVENTURE DES PERIERS.--HENRI ETIENNE.--THE LIGUE, AND ITS + SATIRE: THE "SATYRE MÉNIPPÉE." + + +The sixteenth century, especially on the Continent, was a period of +that sort of violent agitation which is most favourable to the growth +of satire. Society was breaking up, and going through a course of +decomposition, and it presented to the view on every side spectacles +which provoked the mockery, perhaps more than the indignation, of +lookers-on. Even the clergy had learnt to laugh at themselves, and +almost at their own religion; and people who thought or reflected were +gradually separating into two classes--those who cast all religion +from them, and rushed into a jeering scepticism, and those who entered +seriously and with resolution into the work of reformation. The +latter found most encouragement among the Teutonic nations, while the +sceptical element appears to have had its birth in Italy, and even in +Rome itself, where, among popes and cardinals, religion had degenerated +into empty forms. + +At some period towards the close of the fifteenth century, a mutilated +ancient statue was accidentally dug up in Rome, and it was erected +on a pedestal in a place not far from the Ursini Palace. Opposite +it stood the shop of a shoemaker, named Pasquillo, or Pasquino, the +latter being the form most commonly adopted at a later period. This +Pasquillo was notorious as a facetious fellow, and his shop was usually +crowded by people who went there to tell tales and hear news; and, as +no other name had been invented for the statue, people agreed to give +it the name of the shoemaker, and they called it Pasquillo. It became +a custom, at certain seasons, to write on pieces of paper satirical +epigrams, sonnets, and other short compositions in Latin or Italian, +mostly of a personal character, in which the writer declared whatever +he had seen or heard to the discredit of somebody, and these were +published by depositing them with the statue, whence they were taken +and read. One of the Latin epigrams which pleads against committing +these short personal satires to print, calls the time at which it was +usual to compose them Pasquil's festival:-- + + Jam redit illa dies in qua Romana juventus + Pasquilli festum concelebrabit ovans. + Sed versus impressos obsecro ut edere omittas, + Ne noceant iterum quæ nocuere semel. + +The festival was evidently a favourite one, and well celebrated. "The +soldiers of Xerxes," says another epigram, placed in Pasquil's mouth, +"were not so plentiful as the paper bestowed upon me; I shall soon +become a bookseller"-- + + Armigerûm Xerxi non copia tanta papyri + Quanta mihi: fiam bibliopola statim. + +The name of Pasquil was soon given to the papers which were deposited +with the statue, and eventually a _pasquil_, or _pasquin_, was only +another name for a lampoon or libel. Not far from this statue stood +another, which was found in the forum of Mars (_Martis forum_), and was +thence popularly called Marforio. Some of these satirical writings were +composed in the form of dialogues between Pasquil and Marforio, or of +messages from one to the other. + +A collection of these pasquils was published in 1544 in two small +volumes.[94] Many of them are extremely clever, and they are sharply +pointed. The popes are frequent objects of bitterest satire. Thus we +are reminded in two lines upon pope Alexander VI. (_sextus_), the +infamous Borgia, that Tarquin had been a Sextus, and Nero also, and now +another Sextus was at the head of the Romans, and told that Rome was +always ruined under a Sextus-- + + De Alexandro VI. Pont. + _Sextus Tarquinius, Sextus Nero, Sextus et iste: + Semper sub Sextis perdita Roma fuit._ + +The following is given for an epitaph on Lucretia Borgia, pope +Alexander's profligate daughter:-- + + _Hoc tumulo dormit Lucretia nomine, sed re + Thais, Alexandri filia, sponsa, nurus._ + +[94] "Pasquillorum Tomi duo." Eleutheropoli, MDXLIIII. + +In another of a rather later date, Rome, addressing herself to Pasquil, +is made to complain of two successive popes, Clement VII. (Julio de +Medicis, 1523-1534) and Paul III. (Alexandro Farnese, 1534-1549), and +also of Leo X. (1513-1521). "I am," Rome says, "sick enough with the +physician (_Medicus_, as a pun on the Medicis), I was also the prey of +the lion (_Leo_), now, Paul, you tear my vitals like a wolf. You, Paul, +are not a god to me, as I thought in my folly, but you are a wolf, +since you tear the food from my mouth"-- + + _Sum Medico satis ægra, fui quoque præda Leonis, + Nunc mea dilaceras viscera, Paule, lupus. + Non es, Paule, mihi numen, ceu stulta putabam, + Sed lupus es, quoniam subtrahis ore cibum._ + +Another epigram, addressed to Rome herself, involves a pun in Greek +(in the words _Paulos_, Paul, and _Phaulos_, wicked). "Once, Rome," it +says, "lords of lords were thy subjects, now thou in thy wretchedness +art subject to the serfs of serfs; once you listened to the oracles of +St. Paul, but now you perform the abominable commands of the wicked"-- + + _Quondam, Roma, tibi suberant domini dominorum, + Servorum servis nunc miseranda subes; + Audisti quondam divini oracula Παύλου, + At nunc των φαύλων jussa nefanda facis._ + +The idea, of course, is the contrast of Rome in her Pagan glory, with +Rome in her Christian debasement, very much the same as that which +struck Gibbon, and gave birth to his great history of Rome's "decline +and fall."[95] + + [95] Pasquil and Pasquin became, during the latter part of the + sixteenth and the whole of the seventeenth centuries, a + well-known name in French and English literature. In English + popular literature he was turned into a jester, and a book was + published in 1604 under the title "Pasquil's Jests; with the + Merriments of Mother Bunch. Wittie, pleasant, and delightfull." + +The pasquils formed a body of satire which struck indiscriminately at +everybody within its range, but satirists were now rising who took for +their subjects special cases of the general disorder. Rotten at the +heart, society presented an external glossiness, a mixture of pedantry +and affectation, which offered subjects enough for ridicule in whatever +point of view it was taken. The ecclesiastical body was in a state of +fermentation, out of which new feelings and new doctrines were about to +rise. The old learning and literature of the middle ages remained in +form after their spirit had passed away, and they were now contending +clumsily and unsuccessfully against new learning and literature of a +more refined and healthier character. Feudalism itself had fallen, or +it was struggling vainly against new political principles, yet the +aristocracy clung to feudal forms and feudal assumptions, with an +exaggeration which was meant for an appearance of strength. Among the +literary affectations of this false feudalism, was the fashion for +reading the long, dry, old romances of chivalry; while the churchmen +and schoolmen were corrupting the language in which mediæval learning +had been expressed, into a form the most barbarous, or introducing +words compounded from the later into the vernacular tongue. These +peculiarities were among the first to provoke literary satire. Italy, +where this class of satire originated, gave it its name also, though it +appears still to be a matter of doubt why it was called _macaronic_, +or in its Italian form _maccharonea_. Some have considered this name +to have been taken from the article of food called _macaroni_, to +which the Italians were, and still are, so much attached; while others +pretend that it was derived from an old Italian word _macarone_, which +meant a lubberly fellow. Be this, however, as it may, what is called +macaronic composition, which consists in giving a Latin form to words +taken from the vulgar tongue, and mixing them with words which are +purely Latin, was introduced in Italy at the close of the fifteenth +century. + +Four Italian writers in macaronic verse are known to have lived before +the year 1500.[96] The first of these was named Fossa, and he tells +us that he composed his poem entitled "Vigonce," on the second day +of May, 1494. It was printed in 1502. Bassano, a native of Mantua, +and the author of a macaronic which bears no title, was dead in 1499; +and another, a Paduan named Fifi degli Odassi, was born about the +year 1450. Giovan Georgio Allione, of Asti, who is believed also to +have written during the last ten years of the fifteenth century, +is a name better known through the edition of his French works, +published by Monsieur J. C. Brunet in 1836. All these present the +same coarseness and vulgarity of sentiment, and the same licence in +language and description, which appear to have been taken as necessary +characteristics of macaronic composition. Odassi appears to give +support to the derivation of the name from macaroni, by making the +principal character of his poem a fabricator of that article in Padua-- + + _Est unus in Padua natus speciale cusinus, + In maccharonea princeps bonus atque magister._ + + [96] The great authority on the history of Macaronic literature is my + excellent friend Monsieur Octave Delepierre, and I will simply + refer the reader to his two valuable publications, "Macaronéana, + ou Mélanges de Littérature Macaronique des differents Peuples de + l'Europe," 8vo., Paris, 1852; and "Macaronéana," 4to., 1863; the + latter printed for the Philobiblon Club. + +But the great matter of macaronic poetry was Teofilo Folengo, of whose +life we know just sufficient to give us a notion of the personal +character of these old literary caricaturists. Folengo was descended +from a noble family, which had its seat at the village of Cipada, near +Mantua, where he was born on the 8th of November, 1491, and baptised by +the name of Girolamo. He pursued his studies, first in the university +of Ferrara, under the professor Visago Cocaio, and afterwards in that +of Bologna, under Pietro Pomponiazzo; or rather, he ought to have +pursued them, for his love of poetry, and his gaiety of character, led +him to neglect them, and at length his irregularities became so great, +that he was obliged to make a hasty flight from Bologna. He was ill +received at home, and he left it also, and appears to have subsequently +led a wild life, during part of which he adopted the profession of a +soldier, until at length he took refuge in a Benedictine convent near +Brescia, in 1507, and became a monk. The discipline of this house +had become entirely relaxed, and the monks appear to have lived very +licentiously; and Folengo, who, on his admission to the order, had +exchanged his former baptismal name for Teofilo, readily conformed to +their example. Eventually he abandoned the convent and the habit, ran +away with a lady named Girolama Dedia, and for some years he led a +wandering, and, it would seem, very irregular life. Finally, in 1527, +he returned to his old profession of a monk, and remained in it until +his death, in the December of 1544. He is said to have been extremely +vain of his poetical talents, and a story is told of him which, even if +it were invented, illustrates well the character which was popularly +given to him. It is said that when young, he aspired to excel in +Latin poetry, and that he wrote an epic which he himself believed to +be _superior_ to the Æneid. When, however, he had communicated the +work to his friend the bishop of Mantua, and that prelate, intending +to compliment him, told him that he had equalled Virgil, he was so +mortified, that he threw the manuscript on the fire, and from that time +devoted his talents entirely to the composition of macaronic verse. + +Such was the man who has justly earned the reputation of being the +first of macaronic poets. When he adopted this branch of literature, +while he was in the university of Bologna, he assumed in writing it +the name of Merlinus Cocaius, or Coccaius, probably from the name of +his professor at Ferrara. Folengo's printed poems consist of--1. The +Zanitonella, a pastoral in seven eclogues, describing the love of +Tonellus for Zanina; 2, the macaronic romance of Baldus, Folengo's +principal and most remarkable work; 3, the Moschæa, or dreadful battle +between the flies and the ants; and 4, a book of Epistles and Epigrams. + +The first edition of the Baldus appeared in 1517. It is a sort of +parody on the romances of chivalry, and combines a jovial satire upon +everything, which, as has been remarked, spares neither religion nor +politics, science nor literature, popes, kings, clergy, nobility, or +people. It consists of twenty-five cantos, or, as they are termed in +the original, _phantasiæ_, fantasies. In the first we are told of the +origin of Baldus. There was at the court of France a famous knight +named Guy, descended from that memorable paladin Renaud of Montauban. +The king, who showed a particular esteem for Guy, had also a daughter +of surpassing beauty, named Balduine, who had fallen in love with +Guy, and he was equally amorous of the princess. In the sequel of a +grand tournament, at which Guy has distinguished himself greatly, he +carries off Balduine, and the two lovers fly on foot, in the disguise +of beggars, reach the Alps in safety, and cross them into Italy. At +Cipada, in the territory of Brescia, they are hospitably entertained by +a generous peasant named Berte Panade, with whom the princess Balduine, +who approaches her time of confinement, is left; while her lover goes +forth to conquer at least a marquisate for her. After his departure +she gives birth to a fine boy, which is named Baldus. Such, as told +in the second canto, is the origin of Folengo's hero, who is destined +to perform marvellous acts of chivalry. The peasant Berte Panade has +also a son named Zambellus, by a mother who had died in childbirth +of him. Baldus passes for the son of Berte also, so that the two are +supposed to be brothers. Baldus is successively led through a series of +extraordinary adventures, some low and vulgar, others more chivalrous, +and some of them exhibiting a wild fertility of imagination, which are +too long to enable me to take my readers through them, until at length +he is left by the poet in the country of Falsehood and Charlatanism, +which is inhabited by astrologers, necromancers, and poets. Thus +is the hero Baldus dragged through a great number of marvellous +accidents, some of them vulgar, many of them ridiculous, and some, +again, wildly poetical, but all of them presenting, in one form or +other, an opportunity for satire upon some of the follies, or vices, +or corruptions of his age. The hybrid language in which the whole is +written, gives it a singularly grotesque appearance; yet from time to +time we have passages which show that the author was capable of writing +true poetry, although it is mixed with a great amount of coarse and +licentious ideas, expressed no less coarsely and licentiously. What we +may term the filth, indeed, forms a large proportion of the Italian +macaronic poetry. The pastoral of Zanitonella presents, as might be +expected, more poetic beauty than the romance of Balbus. As an example +of the language of the latter, and indeed of that of the Italian +macaronics in general, I give a few lines of a description of a storm +at sea, from the twelfth canto, with a literal translation:-- + + _Jam gridor æterias hominum concussit abyssos, + Sentiturque ingens cordarum stridor, et ipse + Pontus habet pavidos vultus, mortisque colores. + Nunc Sirochus habit palmam, nunc Borra superchiat; + Irrugit pelagus, tangit quoque fluctibus astra, + Fulgure flammigero creber lampezat Olympus; + Vela forata micant crebris lacerata balottis; + Horrendam mortem nautis ea cuncta minazzant. + Nunc sbalzata ratis celsum tangebat Olympum, + Nunc subit infernam unda sbadacchiante paludem._ + + TRANSLATION + + _Now the clamour of the men shook the ethereal abysses, + And the mighty crashing of the ropes is felt, and the very + Sea has pale looks, and the hue of death. + Now the Sirocco has the palm, now Eurus exults over it; + The sea roars, and touches the stars with its waves, + Olympus continually blazes out with flaming thunder, + The pierced sails glitter torn with frequent thunderbolts; + All these threaten frightful death to the sailors. + Now the ship tossed up touched the top of Olympus, + Now, the wave yawning, it sinks into the infernal lake._ + +Teofilo Folengo was followed by a number of imitators, of whom it +will be sufficient to state that he stands in talent as far above his +followers as above those who preceded him. One of these minor Italian +macaronic writers, named Bartolommeo Bolla, of Bergamo, who flourished +in the latter half of the sixteenth century, had the vanity to call +himself, in the title of one of his books, "the Apollo of poets, and +the Cocaius of this age;" but a modern critic has remarked of him +that he is as far removed from his model Folengo, as his native +town Bergamo is distant from Siberia. An earlier poet, named Guarino +Capella, a native of the town of Sarsina, in the country of Forli, on +the borders of Tuscany, approached far nearer in excellence to the +prince of macaronic writers. His work also is a mock romance, the +history of "Cabrinus, king of Gagamagoga," in six books or cantos, +which was printed at Arimini in 1526, and is now a book of excessive +rarity. + +The taste for macaronics passed rather early, like all other fashions +in that age, from Italy into France, where it first brought into +literary reputation a man who, if he had not the great talent of +Folengo, possessed a very considerable amount of wit and gaiety. +Antoine de la Sable, who Latinised his name into Antonius de Arena, +was born of a highly respectable family at Soliers, in the diocese +of Toulon, about the year 1500, and, being destined from his youth +to follow the profession of the law, studied under the celebrated +jurisconsult Alciatus. He had only arrived at the simple dignity of +_juge_, at St. Remy, in the diocese of Arles, when he died in the year +1544. In fact, he appears to have been no very diligent student, and we +gather from his own confessions that his youth had been rather wild. +The volume containing his macaronics, the second edition of which (as +far as the editions are known) was printed in 1529, bears a title which +will give some notion of the character of its contents,--"_Provencalis +de bragardissima villa de Soleriis, ad suos compagnones qui sunt de +persona friantes, bassas dansas et branlas practicantes novellas, de +guerra Romana, Neapolitana, et Genuensi mandat; una cum epistola ad +falotissimam suam garsam, Janam Rosæam, pro passando tempora_"--(_i.e._ +a Provençal of the most swaggering town of Soliers, sends this to his +companions, who are dainty of their persons, practising basse dances +and new brawls, concerning the war of Rome, Naples, and Genoa; with an +epistle to his most merry wench, Jeanne Rosée, for pastime). In the +first of these poems Arena traces in his burlesque verse, which is an +imitation of Folengo, his own adventures and sufferings in the war in +Italy which led to the sack of Rome, in 1527, and in the subsequent +expeditions to Naples and Genoa. From the picture of the horrors of +war, he passes very willingly to describe the joyous manners of the +students in Provençal universities, of whom he tells us, that they are +all fine gallants, and always in love with the pretty girls. + + _Gentigalantes sunt omnes instudiantes, + Et bellas garsas semper amare solent._ + +He goes on to describe the scholars as great quarrellers, as well as +lovers of the other sex, and after dwelling on their gaiety and love +of the dance, he proceeds to treat in the same burlesque style on the +subject of dancing; but I pass over this to speak of Arena's principal +piece, the satirical description of the invasion of Provence by the +emperor Charles V. in 1536. This curious poem, which is entitled +"Meygra Enterprisa Catoloqui imperatoris," and which extends to upwards +of two thousand lines, opens with a laudatory address to the king of +France, François I., and with a sneer at the pride of the emperor, who, +believing himself to be the master of the whole world, had foolishly +thought to take away France and the cities of Provence from their +rightful monarch. It was Antonio de Leyva, the boaster, who had put +this project into the emperor's head, and they had already pillaged +and ravaged a good part of Provence, and were dividing the plunder, +when, harassed continually by the peasantry, the invaders were brought +to a stand by the difficulty of subsisting in a devastated country, +and by the diseases to which this difficulty gave rise. Nevertheless, +the Spaniards and their allies committed terrible devastation, which +is described by Arena in strong language. He commemorates the valiant +resistance of his native town of Soliers, which, however, was taken +and sacked, and he lost in it his house and property. Arles held the +imperialists at bay, while the French, under the constable Montmorency, +established themselves firmly at Avignon. At length disease gained +possession of Antonio de Leyva himself, and the emperor, who had been +making an unsuccessful demonstration against Marseilles, came to him +in his sickness. The first lines of the description of this interview, +will serve as a specimen of the language of the French macaronics:-- + + _Sed de Marsella bragganti quando retornat, + Fort male contentus, quando repolsat eum, + Antonium Levam trobavit forte maladum, + Cui mors terribilis triste cubile parat. + Ethica torquet eum per costas, et dolor ingens: + Cum male res vadit, vivere fachat eum. + Dixerunt medici, speransa est nulla salutis: + Ethicus in testa vivere pauca potest. + Ante suam mortem voluit parlare per horam + Imperelatori, consiliumque dare. + Scis, Cæsar, stricte nostri groppantur amores, + Namque duas animas corpus utrumque tenet, + Heu! fuge Provensam fortem, fuge littus amarum, + Fac tibi non noceat gloria tanta modo._ + + TRANSLATION. + + _But when he returns from boasting Marseilles, + Very ill content, that she had repulsed him, + He found Antonio de Leyva very ill, + For whom terrible death is preparing a sorrowful bed. + Hectic fever tortures him in the ribs, and great pain; + Since things are going ill, he is weary of life. + Before his death he wished to speak an hour + To the emperor, and to give him counsel. + "You know, Cæsar, our affections are closely bound together, + For either body holds the two souls, + Alas! fly Provence the strong, fly the bitter shore, + Take care that your great glory prove not an injury to you."_ + +Thus Leyva goes on to persuade the emperor to abandon his enterprise, +and then dies. Arena exults over his death, and over the emperor's +grief for his loss, and then proceeds to describe the disastrous +retreat of the imperial army, and the glory of France in her king. + +Antonius de Arena wrote with vigour and humour, but his verses are +tame in comparison with his model, Folengo. The taste for macaronic +verse never took strong root in France, and the few obscure writers +who attempted to shine in that kind of composition are now forgotten, +except by the laborious bibliographer. One named Jean Germain, wrote +a macaronic history of the invasion of Provence by the imperialists +in rivalry of Arenas. I will not follow the taste for this class of +burlesque composition into Spain or Germany, but merely add that it +was not adopted in England until the beginning of the seventeenth +century, when several authors employed it at about the same time. +The most perfect example of these early English macaronics is the +"Polemo-Middiana," _i.e._ battle of the dunghill, by the talented and +elegant-minded Drummond of Hawthornden. We may take a single example of +the English macaronic from this poem, which will not need an English +translation. One of the female characters in the dunghill war, calls, +among others, to her aid-- + + _Hunc qui dirtiferas tersit cum dishclouty dishras, + Hunc qui gruelias scivit bene lickere plettas, + Et saltpannifumos, et widebricatos fisheros, + Hellæosque etiam salteros duxit ab antris, + Coalheughos nigri girnantes more divelli; + Lifeguardamque sibi sævas vocat improba lassas, + Maggyam magis doctam milkare covœas, + Et doctam suepare flouras, et sternere beddas, + Quæque novit spinnare, et longas ducere threddas; + Nansyam, claves bene quæ keepaverat omnes, + Quæque lanam cardare solet greasy-fingria Betty._ + +Perhaps before this was written, the eccentric Thomas Coryat had +published in the volume of his Crudities, printed in 1611, a short +piece of verse, which is perfect in its macaronic style, but in which +Italian and other foreign words are introduced, as well as English. The +celebrated comedy of "Ignoramus," composed by George Ruggle in 1615, +may also be mentioned as containing many excellent examples of English +macaronics. + +While Italy was giving birth to macaronic verse, the satire upon the +ignorance and bigotry of the clergy was taking another form in Germany, +which arose from some occurrences which it will be necessary to relate. +In the midst of the violent religious agitation at the beginning of +the sixteenth century in Germany, there lived a German Jew named +Pfeffercorn, who embraced Christianity, and to show his zeal for his +new faith, he obtained from the emperor an edict ordering the Talmud +and all the Jewish writings which were contrary to the Christian faith +to be burnt. There lived at the same time a scholar of distinction, +and of more liberal views than most of the scholastics of his time, +named John Reuchlin. He was a relative of Melancthon, and was secretary +to the palsgrave, who was tolerant like himself. The Jews, as might +be expected, were unwilling to give up their books to be burnt, and +Reuchlin wrote in their defence, under the assumed name of Capnion, +which is a Hebrew translation of his own name of Reuchlin, meaning +smoke, and urged that it was better to refute the books in question +than to burn them. The converted Pfeffercorn replied in a book entitled +"Speculum Manuale," in answer to which Reuchlin wrote his "Speculum +Oculare." The controversy had already provoked much bigoted ill-feeling +against Reuchlin. The learned doctors of the university of Cologne +espoused the cause of Pfeffercorn, and the principal of the university, +named in Latin Ortuinus Gratius, supported by the Sorbonne in Paris, +lent himself to be the violent organ of the intolerant party. Hard +pressed by his bigoted opponents, Reuchlin found good allies, but one +of the best of these was a brave baron named Ulric von Hutten, of an +old and noble family, born in 1488 in the castle of Staeckelberg, +in Franconia. He had studied in the schools at Fulda, Cologne, and +Frankfort on the Oder, and distinguished himself so much as a scholar, +that he obtained the degree of Master of Arts before the usual age. +But Ulric possessed an adventurous and chivalrous spirit, which led +him to embrace the profession of a soldier, and he served in the wars +in Italy, where he was distinguished by his bravery. He was at Rome +in 1516, and defended Reuchlin against the Dominicans. The same year +appeared the first edition of that marvellous book, the "Epistolæ +Obscurorum Virorum," one of the most remarkable satires that the world +has yet seen. It is believed that this book came entirely from the +pen of Ulric von Hutten; and the notion that Reuchlin himself, or +any others of his friends, had a share in it appears to be without +foundation. Ulric was in the following year made poet-laureat. +Nevertheless, this book greatly incensed the monks against him, and he +was often threatened with assassination. Yet he boldly advocated the +cause and embraced the opinions of Luther, and was one of the staunch +supporters of Lutheranism. After a very turbulent life, Ulric von +Hutten died in the August of the year 1523. + +The "Epistolæ Obscurorum Virorum," or letters of obscure men, are +supposed to be addressed to Ortuinus Gratius, mentioned above, by +various individuals, some his scholars, others his friends, but all +belonging to the bigoted party opposed to Reuchlin, and they were +designed to throw ridicule on the ignorance, bigotry, and immorality +of the clergy of the Romish church. The old scholastic learning +had become debased into a heavy and barbarous system of theology, +literary composition consisted in writing a no less barbarous Latin, +and even the few classical writers who were admitted into the schools, +were explained and commented upon in a strange half-theological +fashion. These old scholastics were bitterly opposed to the new +learning, which had taken root in Italy, and was spreading abroad, +and they spoke contemptuously of it as "secular." The letters of the +obscure individuals relate chiefly to the dispute between Reuchlin +and Pfeffercorn, to the rivalry between the old scholarship and the +new, and to the low licentious lives of the theologists; and they +are written in a style of Latin which is intended for a parody on +that of the latter, and which closely resembles that which we call +"dog-Latin."[97] They are full of wit and humour of the most exquisite +description, but they too often descend into details, treated in terms +which can only be excused by the coarse and licentious character of +the age. The literary and scientific questions discussed in these +letters are often very droll. The first in order of the correspondents +of Ortuinus Gratius, who boasts of the rather formidable name, Thomas +Langschneiderius, and addresses master Ortuinus as "poet, orator, +philosopher, and theologist, and more if he would," propounds to him a +difficult question:-- + + "There was here one day an Aristotelian dinner, and doctors, + licenciates, and masters too, were very jovial, and I was + there too, and we drank at the first course three draughts of + Malmsey, ... and then we had six dishes of flesh and chickens + and capons, and one of fish, and as we passed from one dish to + another, we continually drunk wine of Kotzburg and the Rhine, + and ale of Embeck, and Thurgen, and Neuburg. And the masters + were well satisfied, and said that the new masters had acquitted + themselves well and with great honour. Then the masters in their + hilarity began to talk learnedly on great questions, and one + asked whether it were correct to say _magister nostrandus_, or + _noster magistrandus_, for a person fit to be made doctor in + theology.... And immediately Master Warmsemmel, who is a subtle + Scotist, and has been master eighteen years, and was in his time + twice rejected and thrice delayed for the degree of master, + and he went on offering himself, until he was promoted for the + honour of the university, ... spoke, and held that we should say + _noster magistrandus_.... Then Master Andreas Delitsch, who is + very subtle, and half poet, half artist (_i.e._ one who professed + in the faculty of arts), physician, and jurist; and now he + reads ordinarily 'Ovid on the Metamorphoses,' and expounds all + the fables allegorically and literally, and I was his hearer, + because he expounds very fundamentally, and he also reads at home + Quintillian and Juvencus, and he held the opposite to Master + Warmsemmel, and said that we ought to say _magister nostrandus_. + For as there is a difference between _magister noster_ and _noster + magister_, so also there is a difference between _magister + nostrandus_ and _noster magistrandus_; for a doctor in theology + is called _magister noster_, and it is one word, but _noster + magister_ are two words, and it is taken for any master; and he + quoted Horace in support of this. Then the masters much admired + his subtlety, and one drank to him a cup of Neuburg ale. And + he said, 'I will wait, but spare me,' and touched his hat, and + laughed heartily, and drank to Master Warmsemmel, and said, + 'There, master, don't think I am an enemy,' and he drank it off at + one draught, and Master Warmsemmel replied to him with a strong + draught. And the masters were all merry till the bell rang for + Vespers." + + [97] This style differs entirely from the macaronic. It consists + merely in using the words of the Latin language with the forms + and construction of the vulgar tongue, as illustrated by the + directions of the professor who, lecturing in the schools, was + interrupted by the entrance of a dog, and shouted out to the + doorkeeper, _Verte canem ex_, meaning thereby that he should + "turn the dog out." It was perhaps from this, or some similar + occurrence, that this barbarous Latin gained the name of + dog-Latin. The French call it _Latin de cuisine_. + +Master Ortuin is pressed for his judgment on this weighty question. A +similar scene described in another letter ends less peacefully. The +correspondent on this occasion is Magister Bornharddus Plumilegus, who +addresses Ortuinus Gratius as follows:-- + + "Wretched is the mouse which has only one hole for a refuge! So + also I may say of myself, most venerable sir, for I should be poor + if I had only one friend, and when that one should fail me, then + I should not have another to treat me with kindness. As is the + case now with a certain poet here, who is called George Sibutus, + and he is one of the secular poets, and reads publicly in poetry, + and is in other respects a good fellow (_bonus socius_). But as + you know these poets, when they are not theologists like you, will + always reprehend others, and despise the theologists. And once + in a drinking party in his house, when we were drinking Thurgen + ale, and sat until the hour of tierce, and I was moderately drunk, + because that ale rose into my head, then there was one who was not + before friendly with me, and I drank to him half a cup, and he + accepted it. But afterwards he would not return the compliment. + And thrice I cautioned him, and he would not reply, but sat in + silence and said nothing. Then I thought to myself, Behold this + man treats thee with contempt, and is proud, and always wants to + confound you. And I was stirred in my anger, and took the cup, and + threw it at his head. Then that poet was angry at me, and said + that I had caused a disturbance in his house, and said I should go + out of his house in the devil's name. Then I replied, 'What matter + is it if you are my enemy? I have had as bad enemies as you, and + yet I have stood in spite of them. What matters it if you are a + poet? I have other poets who are my friends, and they are quite as + good as you, _ego bene merdarem in vestram poetriam_! Do you think + I am a fool, or that I was born under a tree like apples?' Then he + called me an ass, and said that I never saw a poet. And I said, + 'You are an ass in your skin, I have seen many more poets than + you.' And I spoke of you.... Wherefore I ask you very earnestly to + write me one piece of verse, and then I will show it to this poet + and others, and I will boast that you are my friend, and you are a + much better poet than he." + +The war against the secular poets, or advocates of the new learning, +is kept up with spirit through this ludicrous correspondence. One +correspondent presses Ortuinus Gratius to "write to me whether it be +necessary for eternal salvation that scholars learn grammar from the +secular poets, such as Virgil, Tullius, Pliny, and others; for," he +adds, "it seems to me that this is not a good method of studying." "As +I have often written to you," says another, "I am grieved that this +ribaldry (_ista ribaldria_), namely, the faculty of poetry, becomes +common, and is spread through all provinces and regions. In my time +there was only one poet, who was called Samuel; and now, in this city +alone, there are at least twenty, and they vex us all who hold with the +ancients. Lately I thoroughly defeated one, who said that _scholaris_ +does not signify a person who goes to the school for the purpose of +learning; and I said, 'Ass! will you correct the holy doctor who +expounded this word?'" The new learning was, of course, identified +with the supporters of Reuchlin. "It is said here," continues the same +correspondent, "that all the poets will side with doctor Reuchlin +against the theologians. I wish all the poets were in the place where +pepper grows, that they might let us go in peace!" + +Master William Lamp, "master of arts," sends to Master Ortuinus +Gratius, a narrative of his adventures in a journey from Cologne to +Rome. First he went to Mayence, where his indignation was moved by the +open manner in which people spoke in favour of Reuchlin, and when he +hazarded a contrary opinion, he was only laughed at, but he held his +tongue, because his opponents all carried arms and looked fierce. "One +of them is a count, and is a long man, and has white hair; and they +say that he takes a man in armour in his hand, and throws him to the +ground, and he has a sword as long as a giant; when I saw him, then I +held my tongue." At Worms, he found things no better, for the "doctors" +spoke bitterly against the theologians, and when he attempted to +expostulate, he got foul words as well as threats, a learned doctor in +medicine affirming "_quod merdaret super nos omnes_." On leaving Worms, +Lamp and his companion, another theologist, fell in with plunderers who +made them pay two florins to drink, "and I said _occulte_, Drink what +may the devil bless to you!" Subsequently they fell into low amours +at country inns, which are described coarsely, and then they reached +Insprucken, where they found the emperor, and his court and army, with +whole manners and proceedings Magister Lamp became sorely disgusted. +I pass over other adventures till they reach Mantua, the birthplace +of Virgil, and of a late mediæval Latin poet, named from it Baptista +Mantuanus. Lamp, in his hostile spirit towards the "secular poets," +proceeds,--"And my companion said, 'Here Virgil was born.' I replied, +'What do I care for that pagan? We will go to the Carmelites, and see +Baptista Mantuanus, who is twice as good as Virgil, as I have heard +full ten times from Ortuinus;' and I told him how you once reprehended +Donatus, when he says, 'Virgil was the most learned of poets, and +the best;' and you said, 'If Donatus were here, I would tell him to +his face that he lies, for Baptista Mantuanus is above Virgil.' And +when we came to the monastery of the Carmelites, we were told that +Baptista Mantuanus was dead; then I said, 'May he rest in peace!'" They +continued their journey by Bologna, where they found the inquisitor +Jacob de Hochstraten, and Florence, to Siena. "After this there are +small towns, and one is called Monte-flascon, where we drunk excellent +wine, such as I never drank in my life. And I asked the host what that +wine is called, and he replied that it is lachryma Christi. Then said +my companion, 'I wish Christ would cry in our country!' And so we drank +a good bout, and two days after we entered Rome." + +In the course of these letters the theologists, the poets especially, +the character of the clergy, and particularly Reuchlin and +Pfeffercorn, afford continual subjects for dispute and pleasantry. +The last mentioned individual, in the opinion of some, had merited +hanging for theft, and it was pretended that the Jews had expelled +him from their society for his wicked courses. One argued that all +Jews stink, and as it was well known that Pfeffercorn continued to +stink like a Jew, it was quite evident that he could not be a good +Christian. Some of Ortuinus's correspondents consult him on difficult +theological questions. Here is an example in a letter from one Henricus +Schaffmulius, another of his scholars who had made the journey to +Rome:-- + + "Since, before I journeyed to the Court, you said to me that I am + to write often to you, and that sometimes I am to send you any + theological questions, which you will solve for me better than + the courtiers of Rome, therefore now I ask your mastership what + you hold as to the case when any one on a Friday, or any other + fast day, eats an egg, and there is a chicken inside. Because + the other day we sat in a tavern in the Campo-flore, and made a + collation, and eat eggs, and I, opening an egg, saw that there was + a young chicken in it, which I showed to my companion, and then he + said, 'Eat it quickly before the host sees it, for if he sees it, + then you will be obliged to give a carlino or a julio for a hen, + because it is the custom here that, when the host places anything + on the table, you must pay for it, for they will not take it back. + And when he sees there is a young hen in the egg, he will say, + Pay me for the hen, because he reckons a small one the same as a + large one.' And I immediately sucked up the egg, and with it the + chicken, and afterwards I bethought me that it was Friday, and I + said to my companion. 'You have caused me to commit a mortal sin, + in eating flesh on Friday.' And he said that it is not a mortal + sin, nor even a venial sin, because that embryo of a chicken is + not reckoned other than an egg till it is born; and he told me + that it is as in cheeses, in which there are sometimes worms, + and in cherries, and fresh peas and beans, yet they are eaten on + Fridays, and also in the vigils of the apostles. But the hosts + are such rogues, that they say that they are flesh, that they may + have more money. Then I went away, and thought about it. And, _per + Deum_! Magister Ortuinus, I am much troubled, and I know not how + I ought to rule myself. If I went to ask advice of a courtier [of + the papal court], I know that they have not good consciences. It + seems to me that these young hens in the eggs are flesh, because + the matter is already formed and figured in members and bodies of + an animal, and it has life; it is otherwise with worms in cheeses + and other things, because worms are reputed for fishes, as I have + heard from a physician, who is a very good naturalist. Therefore I + ask you very earnestly, that you will give me your reply on this + question. Because if you hold that it is a mortal sin, then I will + purchase an absolution here, before I return to Germany. Also you + must know that our master Jacobus de Hochstraten has obtained a + thousand florins from the bank, and I think that with these he + will gain his cause, and the devil confound that John Reuchlin, + and the other poets and jurists, because they will be against + the church of God, that is, against the theologists, in whom is + founded the church, as Christ said: Thou art Peter, and upon this + rock I will build my church. And so I commend you to the Lord God. + Farewell. Given from the city of Rome." + +While in Italy macaronic literature was reaching its greatest +perfection, there arose in the very centre of France a man of great +original genius, who was soon to astonish the world by a new form of +satire, more grotesque and more comprehensive than anything that had +been seen before. Teofilo Folengo may fairly be considered as the +precursor of Rabelais, who appears to have taken the Italian satirist +as his model. What we know of the life of François Rabelais is rather +obscure at best, and is in some parts no doubt fabulous. He was born +at Chinon in Touraine, either in 1483 or in 1487, for this seems to +be a disputed point, and some doubt has been thrown on the trade or +profession of his father, but the most generally received opinion is +that he was an apothecary. He is said to have shown from his youth a +disposition more inclined to gaiety than to serious pursuits, yet at +an early age he had made great proficiency in learning, and is said to +have acquired a very sufficient knowledge of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, +two of which, at least, were not popular among the popish clergy, and +not only of the modern languages and literature of Italy, Germany, and +Spain, but even of Arabic. Probably this estimate of his acquirements +in learning is rather exaggerated. It is not quite clear where the +young Rabelais gained all this knowledge, for he is said to have been +educated in convents and among monks, and to have become at a rather +early age a Franciscan friar in the convent of Fontenai-le-Compte, in +Lower Poitou, where he became an object of jealousy and ill-feeling to +the other friars by his superior acquirements. It was a tradition, at +least, that the conduct of Rabelais was not very strictly conventual, +and that he had so far shown his contempt for monastic rule, and for +the bigotry of the Romish church, that he was condemned to the prison +of his monastery, upon a diet of bread and water, which, according to +common report, was very uncongenial with the tastes of this jovial +friar. Out of this difficulty he is said to have been helped by his +friend the bishop of Maillezais, who obtained for him the pope's +licence to change the order of St. Francis for the much more easy and +liberal order of St. Benedict, and he became a member of the bishop's +own chapter in the abbey of Maillezais. His unsteady temper, however, +was not long satisfied with this retreat, which he left, and, laying +aside the regular habit, assumed that of a secular priest. In this +character he wandered for some time, and then settled at Montpellier, +where he took a degree as doctor in medicine, and practised for some +time with credit. There he published in 1532 a translation of some +works of Hippocrates and Galen, which he dedicated to his friend the +bishop of Maillezais. The circumstances under which he left Montpellier +are not known, but he is supposed to have gone to Paris upon some +business of the university, and to have remained there. He found +there a staunch friend in Jean de Bellay, bishop of Paris, who soon +afterwards was raised to the rank of cardinal. When the cardinal de +Bellay went as ambassador to Rome from the court of France, Rabelais +accompanied him, it is said in the character of his private medical +adviser, but during his stay in the metropolis of Christendom, as +Christendom was understood in those days by the Romish church, Rabelais +obtained, on the 17th of January, 1536 the papal absolution for all +his transgressions, and licence to return to Maillezais, and practise +medicine there and elsewhere as an act of charity. Thus he became again +a Benedictine monk. He, however, changed again, and became a secular +canon, and finally settled down as the curé of Meudon, near Paris, with +which he also held a fair number of ecclesiastical benefices. Rabelais +died in 1553, according to some in a very religious manner, but others +have given strange accounts of his last moments, representing that, +even when dying, he conversed in the same spirit of mockery, not only +of Romish forms and ceremonies, but of all religions whatever, which +was ascribed to him during his life, and which are but too openly +manifested in the extraordinary satirical romance which has given so +much celebrity to his name. + +During the greater part of his life, Rabelais was exposed to troubles +and persecutions. He was saved from the intrigues of the monks by +the friendly influence of popes and cardinals; and the favour of two +successive kings, François I. and Henri II., protected him against the +still more dangerous hostility of the Sorbonne and the parliament of +Paris. This high protection has been advanced as a reason for rejecting +the anecdotes and accounts which have been commonly received relating +to the personal character of Rabelais, and his irregularities may +possibly have been exaggerated by the hatred which he had drawn upon +himself by his writings. But nobody, I think, who knows the character +of society at that time, who compares what we know of the lives of +the other satirists, and who has read the history of Gargantua and +Pantagruel, will consider such an argument of much weight against the +deliberate statements of those who were his contemporaries, or be +inclined to doubt that the writer of this history was a man of jovial +character, who loved a good bottle and a broad joke, and perhaps other +things that were equally objectionable. His books present a sort +of wild riotous orgy, without much order or plan, except the mere +outline of the story, in which is displayed an extraordinary extent +of reading in all classes of literature, from the most learned to the +most popular, with a wonderful command of language, great imagination, +and some poetry, intermixed with a perhaps larger amount of downright +obscene ribaldry, than can be found in the macaronics of Folengo, +in the "Epistolæ Obscurorum Virorum," or in the works of any of the +other satirists who had preceded him, or were his contemporaries. It +is a broad caricature, poor enough in its story, but enriched with +details, which are brilliant with imagery, though generally coarse, +and which are made the occasions for turning to ridicule everything +that existed. The five books of this romance were published separately +and at different periods, apparently without any fixed intention of +continuing them. The earlier editions of the first part were published +without date, but the earliest editions with dates belong to the year +1535, when it was several times reprinted. It appeared as the life of +Gargantua. This hero is supposed to have flourished in the first half +of the fifteenth century, and to have been the son of Grandgousier, +king of Utopia, a country which lay somewhere in the direction of +Chinon, a prince of an ancient dynasty, but a jovial fellow, who loved +good eating and drinking better than anything else. Grandgousier +married Gargamelle, daughter of the king of the Parpaillos, who became +the mother of Gargantua. The first chapters relate rather minutely +how the child was born, and came out at its mother's ear, why it was +called Gargantua, how it was dressed and treated in infancy, what were +its amusements and disposition, and how Gargantua was put to learning +under the sophists, and made no progress. Thereupon Grandgousier sent +his son to Paris, to seek instruction there, and he proceeds thither +mounted on an immense mare, which had been sent as a present by the +king of Numidia--it must be borne in mind that the royal race of Utopia +were all giants. At Paris the populace assembled tumultuously to +gratify their curiosity in looking at this new scholar; but Gargantua, +besides treating them in a very contemptuous manner, carried off the +great bells of Notre Dame to suspend at the neck of his mare. Great +was the indignation caused by this theft. "All the city was risen up +in sedition, they being, as you know, upon any slight occasions, so +ready to uproars and insurrections, that foreign nations wonder at the +patience of the kings of France, who do not by good justice restrain +them from such tumultuous courses." The citizens take counsel, and +resolve on sending one of the great orators of the university, Master +Janotus de Bragmardo, to expostulate with Gargantua, and obtain the +restoration of the bells. The speech which this worthy addresses to +Gargantua, in fulfilment of his mission, is an amusing parody on the +pedantic style of Parisian oratory. The bells, however, are recovered, +and Gargantua, under skilful instructors, pursues his studies with +credit, until he is suddenly called home by a letter from his father. +In fact, Grandgousier was suddenly involved in a war with his neighbour +Picrocole, king of Lerné, caused by a quarrel about cakes between some +cake-makers of Lerné and Grandgousier's shepherds, in consequence of +which Picrocole had invaded the dominions of Grandgousier, and was +plundering and ravaging them. His warlike humour is stirred up by the +counsels of his three lieutenants, who persuade him that he is going +to become a great conqueror, and that they will make him master of the +whole world. It is not difficult to see, in the circumstances of the +time, the general aim of the satire contained in the history of this +war. It ends in the entire defeat and disappearance of king Picrocole. +A sensual and jovial monk named brother Jean des Entommeurs, who has +first distinguished himself by his prowess and strength in defending +his own abbey against the invaders, contributes largely to the victory +gained by Gargantua against his father's enemies, and Gargantua +rewards him by founding for him that pleasant abbey of Thélème, a +grand establishment, stored with everything which could contribute to +terrestrial happiness, from which all hypocrites and bigots were to be +excluded, and the rule of which was comprised in the four simple words, +"Do as you like." + +Such is the history of Gargantua, which was afterwards formed by +Rabelais into the first book of his great comic romance. It was +published anonymously, the author merely describing himself as +"l'abstracteur de quinte essence;" but he afterwards adopted the +pseudonyme of Alcofribas Nasier, which is merely an anagram of his own +name, François Rabelais. A very improbable story has been handed down +to us relating to this book. It is pretended that, having published +a book of medical science which had no sale, and the publisher +complaining that he had lost money by it, Rabelais promised to make +amends for his loss, and immediately wrote the history of Gargantua, +by which the same book-seller made his fortune. There can be no doubt +that this remarkable satire had a deeper origin than any casual +accident like this; but it was exactly suited to the taste and temper +of the age. It was quite original in its form and style, and it met +with immediate and great success. Numerous editions followed each +other rapidly, and its author, encouraged by its popularity, very soon +afterwards produced a second romance, in continuation, to which he +gave the title of Pantagruel. The caricature in this second romance +is bolder even than in the first, the humour broader, and the satire +more pungent. Grandgousier has disappeared from the scene, and his son, +Gargantua, is king, and has a son named Pantagruel, whose kingdom is +that of the Dipsodes. The first part of this new romance is occupied +chiefly with Pantagruel's youth and education, and is a satire on +the university and on the lawyers, in which the parodies on their +style of pleading as then practised is admirable. In the latter part, +Pantagruel, like his father Gargantua, is engaged in great wars. It was +perhaps the continued success of this new production of his pen which +led Rabelais to go on with it, and form the design of making these two +books part only of a more extensive romance. During his studies in +Paris, Pantagruel has made the acquaintance of a singular individual +named Panurge, who becomes his attached friend and constant companion, +holding somewhat the position of brother Jean in the first book, but +far more crafty and versatile. The whole subject of the third book +arises out of Pantagreul's desire to marry, and its various amusing +episodes describe the different expedients which, at the suggestion of +Panurge, he adopts to arrive at a solution of the question whether his +marriage would be fortunate or not. + +In publishing his fourth book, Rabelais complains that his writings +had raised him enemies, and that he was accused of having at least +written heresy. In fact, he had bitterly provoked both the monks and +the university and parliament; and, as the increasing reaction of +Romanism in France gave more power of persecution to the two latter, +he was not writing without some degree of danger, yet the satire of +each successive book became bolder and more direct. The fifth, which +was left unfinished at his death, and which was published posthumously, +was the most severe of them all. The character of Gargantua, indeed, +was almost forgotten in that of Pantagruel, and Pantagruelism became +an accepted name for the sort of gay, reckless satire of which he was +looked upon as the model. He described it himself as a _certaine gaieté +d'esprit confite en mépris des choses fortuites_, in fact, neither +Romanism nor Protestantism, but simply a jovial kind of Epicurianism. +All the gay wits of the time aspired to be Pantagruelists, and the +remainder of the sixteenth century abounded in wretched imitations of +the style of Rabelais, which are now consigned as mere rarities to the +shelves of the bibliophilist. + +Among the dangers which began to threaten them in France in the earlier +part of the sixteenth century, liberal opinions found an asylum at the +court of a princess who was equally distinguished by her beauty, by her +talents and noble sentiments, and by her accomplishments. Marguerite +d'Angoulême, queen of Navarre, was the only sister of François I., who +was her junior by two years, and was affectionately attached to her. +She was born on the 11th of April, 1492. She had married, first, that +unfortunate duke d'Alençon, whose misconduct at Pavia was the cause of +the disastrous defeat of the French, and the captivity of their king. +The duke died, it was said of grief at his misfortune, in 1525; and +two years afterwards, on the 24th of January, 1527, she married Henri +d'Albret, king of Navarre. Their daughter, Jeanne d'Albret, carried +this petty royalty to the house of Bourbon, and was the mother of Henri +IV. + +Marguerite held her court in true princely manner in the castle of Pau +or at Nérac, and she loved to surround herself with a circle of men +remarkable for their character and talents, and ladies distinguished +by beauty and accomplishments, which made it rival in brilliance +even that of her brother François. She placed nearest to her person, +under the character of her _valets-de-chambre_, the principal poets +and _beaux-esprits_ of her time, such as Clement Marot, Bonaventure +des Periers, Claude Gruget, Antoine du Moulin, and Jean de la Haye, +and admitted them to such a tender familiarity of intercourse, as to +excite the jealousy of the king her husband, from whose ill-treatment +she was only protected by her brother's interference. The poets called +her chamber a "veritable Parnassus." Hers was certainly a great +mind, greedy of knowledge, dissatisfied with what was, and eager for +novelties, and therefore she encouraged all who sought for them. It +was in this spirit, combined with her earnest love for letters, that +she threw her protection over both the sceptics and the religious +reformers. At the beginning of the persecutions, as early as 1523, +she openly declared herself the advocate of the Protestants. When +Clement Marot was arrested by order of the Sorbonne and the Inquisitor +on the charge of having eaten bacon in Lent, Marguerite caused him +to be liberated from prison, in defiance of his persecutors. Some of +the purest and ablest of the early French reformers, such as Roussel +and Le Fèvre d'Etaples, and Calvin himself, found a safe asylum from +danger in her dominions. As might be supposed, the bigoted party were +bitterly incensed against the queen of Navarre, and were not backward +in taking advantage of an opportunity for showing it. A moral treatise, +entitled "Le Miroir de l'Ame Pécheresse," of which Marguerite was the +author, was condemned by the Sorbonne in 1533, but the king compelled +the university, in the person of its rector, Nicolas Cop, to disavow +publicly the censure. This was followed by a still greater act of +insolence, for, at the instigation of some of the more bigoted papists, +the scholars of the college of Navarre, in concert with their regents, +performed a farce in which Marguerite was transformed into a fury of +hell. François I., greatly indignant, sent his archers to arrest the +offenders, who further provoked his anger by resistance, and only +obtained their pardon through the generous intercession of the princess +whom they had so grossly insulted. + +Marguerite was herself a poetess, and she loved above all things +those gay, and seldom very delicate, stories, the telling of which +was at that time one of the favourite amusements of the evening, +and one in which she was known to excel. Her poetical writings were +collected and printed, under her own authority, in 1547, by her then +_valet-de-chambre_, Jean de la Haye, who dedicated the volume to her +daughter. They are all graceful, and some of them worthy of the best +poets of her time. The title of this collection was, punning upon +her name, which means a pearl, "Marguerites de la Marguerite des +princesses, très illustre reyne de Navarre." Marguerite's stories +(_nouvelles_) were more celebrated than her verses, and are said to +have been committed to writing under her own dictation. All the ladies +of her court possessed copies of them in writing. It is understood to +have been her intention to form them into ten days' tales, of ten in +each day, so as to resemble the "Decameron" of Boccaccio, but only +eight days were finished at the time of her death, and the imperfect +work was published posthumously by her _valet-de-chambre_, Claude +Gruget, under the title of "L'Heptameron, ou Histoire des Amants +Fortunés." It is by far the best collection of stories of the sixteenth +century. They are told charmingly, in language which is a perfect model +of French composition of that age, but they are all tales of gallantry +such as could only be repeated in polite society in an age which was +essentially licentious. Queen Marguerite died on the 21st of December, +1549, and was buried in the cathedral of Pau. Her death was a subject +of regret to all that was good and all that was poetic, not only in +France, but in Europe, which had been accustomed to look upon her as +the tenth Muse and the fourth Grace:-- + + _Musarum decima et Charitum quarta, inclyta regum + Et soror et conjux, Marguaris illa jacet._ + +Before Marguerite's death, her literary circle had been broken up by +the hatred of religious persecutors. Already, in 1536, the imprudent +boldness of Marot had rendered it impossible to protect him any +longer, and he had been obliged to retire to a place of concealment, +from whence he sometimes paid a stealthy visit to her court. His +place of _valet-de-chambre_ was given to a man of talents, even more +remarkable, and who shared equally the personal esteem of the queen of +Navarre, Bonaventure des Periers. Marot's successor paid a graceful +compliment to him in a short poem entitled "L'Apologie de Marot +absent," published in 1537. The earlier part of the year following +witnessed the publication of the most remarkable work of Bonaventure +des Periers, the "Cymbalum Mundi," concerning the real character +of which writers are still divided in opinion. In it Des Periers +introduced a new form of satire, imitated from the dialogues of Lucian. +The book consists of four dialogues, written in language which forms a +model of French composition, the personages introduced in them intended +evidently to represent living characters, whose names are concealed +in anagrams and other devices, among whom was Clement Marot. It was +the boldest declaration of scepticism which had yet issued from the +Epicurean school represented by Rabelais. The author sneers at the +Romish church as an imposture, ridicules the Protestants as seekers +after the philosopher's stone, and shows disrespect to Christianity +itself. Such a book could hardly be published in Paris with impunity, +yet it was printed there, secretly, it is said, by a well-known +bookseller, Jean Morin, in the Rue St. Jacques, and therefore in the +immediate vicinity of the persecuting Sorbonne. Private information +had been given of the character of this work, possibly by the printer +himself or by one of his men, and on the 6th of March, 1538, when it +was on the eve of publication, the whole impression was seized at the +printer's, and Morin himself was arrested and thrown into prison. He +was treated rigorously, and is understood to have escaped only by +disavowing all knowledge of the character of the book, and giving up +the name of the author. The first edition of the "Cymbalum Mundi" was +burnt, and Bonaventure des Periers, alarmed by the personal dangers +in which he was thus involved, retired from the court of the queen of +Navarre, and took refuge in the city of Lyons, where liberal opinions +at that time found a greater degree of tolerance than elsewhere. There +he printed a second edition of the "Cymbalum Mundi," which also was +burnt, and copies of either edition are now excessively rare.[98] +Bonaventure des Periers felt so much the weight of the persecution in +which he had now involved himself, that, in the year 1539, as far as +can be ascertained, he put an end to his own existence. This event cast +a gloom over the court of the queen of Navarre, from which it seems +never to have entirely recovered. The school of scepticism to which Des +Periers belonged had now fallen into equal discredit with Catholics and +Protestants, and the latter looked upon Marguerite herself, who had +latterly conformed outwardly with Romanism, as an apostate from their +cause. Henri Estienne, in his "Apologie pour Herodote," speaks of the +"Cymbalum Mundi" as an infamous book. + + [98] A cheap and convenient edition of the "Cymbalum Mundi," edited + by the Bibliophile Jacob (Paul Lacroix), was published in Paris + in 1841. I may here state that similar editions of the principal + French satirists of the sixteenth century have been printed + during the last twenty-five years. + +Bonaventure des Periers left behind him another work more amusing to us +at the present day, and more characteristic of the literary tastes of +the court of Marguerite of Navarre. This is a collection of facetious +stories, which was published several years after the death of its +author, under the title of "Les Contes, ou Les Nouvelles Récréations et +Joyeux Devis de Bonaventure des Periers." They have some resemblance +in style to the stories of the Heptameron, but are shorter, and rather +more facetious, and are characterised by their bitter spirit of satire +against the monks and popish clergy. Some of these stories remind us, +in their peculiar character and tone, of the "Epistolæ Obscurorum +Virorum," as, for an example, the following, which is given as an +anecdote of the curé de Brou:-- + + "This curé had a way of his own to chant the different offices + of the church, and above all he disliked the way of saying the + Passion in the manner it was ordinarily said in churches, and he + chanted it quite differently. For when our Lord said anything to + the Jews, or to Pilate, he made him talk high and loud, so that + everybody could hear him, and when it was the Jews or somebody + else who spoke, he spoke so low that he could hardly be heard + at all. It happened that a lady of rank and importance, on her + way to Châteaudun, to keep there the festival of Easter, passed + through Brou on Good Friday, about ten o'clock in the morning, + and, wishing to hear service, she went to the church where the + curé was officiating. When it came to the Passion, he said it + in his own manner, and made the whole church ring again when + he said _Quem quæritis_? But when it came to the reply, _Jesum + Nazarenum_, he spoke as low as he possibly could. And in this + manner he continued the Passion. The lady, who was very devout, + and, for a woman, well informed in the holy scriptures, and + attentive to the ecclesiastical ceremonies, felt scandalised + at this mode of chanting, and wished she had never entered the + church. She had a mind to speak to the curé, and tell him what + she thought of it; and for this purpose sent for him to come to + her after the service. When he came, she said to him, 'Monsieur + le Curé, I don't know where you learnt to officiate on a day like + this, when the people ought to be all humility; but to hear you + perform the service, is enough to drive away anybody's devotion.' + 'How so, madame?' said the curé. 'How so?' said she, 'you have + said a Passion contrary to all rules of decency. When our Lord + speaks, you cry as if you were in the town-hall; and when it is a + Caiaphas, or Pilate, or the Jews, you speak softly like a young + bride. Is this becoming in one like you? are you fit to be a curé? + If you had what you deserve, you would be turned out of your + benefice, and then you would be made to know your fault!' When the + curé had very attentively listened to her, he said, 'Is this what + you had to say to me, madame? By my soul! it is very true, what + they say; and the truth is, that there are many people who talk of + things which they do not understand. Madame, I believe that I know + my office as well as another, and I beg all the world to know that + God is as well served in this parish according to its condition, + as in any place within a hundred leagues of it. I know very well + that the other curés chant the Passion quite differently; I could + easily chant it like them if I would; but they do not understand + their business at all. I should like to know if it becomes those + rogues of Jews to speak as loud as our Lord! No, no, madame; rest + assured that in my parish it is my will that God be the master, + and He shall be as long as I live; and let the others do in their + parishes according to their understanding.'" + +Another story, equally worthy of Ulric von Hutten, is satirical enough +on priestly pedantry:-- + + "There was a priest of a village who was as proud as might be, + because he had seen a little more than his Cato; for he had read + _De Syntaxi_, and his _Fauste precor gelida_ [the first eclogue + of Baptista Mantuanus]. And this made him set up his feathers, + and talk very grand, using words that filled his mouth, in order + to make people think him a great doctor. Even at confession, he + made use of terms which astonished the poor people. One day he + was confessing a poor working man, of whom he asked, 'Here, now, + my friend, tell me, art thou ambitious?' The poor man said 'No,' + thinking this was a word which belonged to great lords, and almost + repented of having come to confess to this priest; for he had + already heard that he was such a great clerk, and that he spoke + so grandly, that nobody understood him, which he now knew by this + word _ambitious_; for although he might have heard it somewhere, + yet he did not know at all what it was. The priest went on to + ask 'Art thou not a fornicator?' 'No,' said the labourer, who + understood as little as before. 'Art thou not a gourmand?' said + the priest. 'No.' 'Art thou not superbe [_proud_]?' 'No.' 'Art + thou not iracund?' 'No.' The priest seeing the man answer always + 'No,' was somewhat surprised. 'Art thou not concupiscent?' 'No.' + 'And what art thou, then?' said the priest. 'I am,' said he, 'a + mason; here is my trowel!'" + +At this time "Pantagruelism" had mixed itself more or less largely in +all the satirical literature of France. It is very apparent in the +writings of Bonaventure des Periers, and in a considerable number of +satirical publications which now issued, many of them anonymously, or +under the then fashionable form of anagrams, from the press in France. +Among these writers were a few who, though far inferior to Rabelais, +may be considered as not unequal to Des Periers himself. One of the +most remarkable of these was a gentleman of Britany, Noel du Fail, lord +of La Hérissaye, who was, like so many of these satirists, a lawyer, +and who died, apparently at an advanced age, at the end of 1585, or +beginning of 1586. In his publications, according to the fashion of +that age, he concealed his name under an anagram, and called himself +Leon Ladulfil (doubling the _l_ in the name Fail). Noel du Fail has +been called the ape of Rabelais, though the mere imitation is not very +apparent. He published (as far as has been ascertained), in 1548, +his "Discours d'aucuns propos ruftiques facétieux, et de singulière +récréation." This was followed immediately by a work entitled +"Baliverneries, ou Contes Nouveaux d'Eutrapel;" but his last, and most +celebrated book, the "Contes et Discours d'Eutrapel," was not printed +until 1586, after the death of its author. The writings of Noel du Fail +are full of charming pictures of rural life in the sixteenth century, +and, though sufficiently free, they present less than most similar +books of that period of the coarseness of Rabelais. I cannot say the +same of a book which is much more celebrated than either of these, +and the history of which is still enveloped in obscurity. I mean the +"Moyen de Parvenir." This book, which is full of wit and humour, but +the licentiousness of which is carried to a degree which renders it +unreadable at the present day, is now ascribed by bibliographers, in +its present form, to Béroalde de Verville, a gentleman of a Protestant +family who had embraced Catholicism, and obtained advancements in the +church, and it was not printed until 1610, but it is supposed that in +its present form it is only a revision of an earlier composition, +perhaps even an unacknowledged work of Rabelais himself, which had been +preserved in manuscript in Beroald's family. + +Pantagruelism, or, if you like, Rabelaism, did not, during the +sixteenth century, make much progress beyond the limits of France. +In the Teutonic countries of Europe, and in England, the sceptical +sentiment was small in comparison with the religious feeling, and the +only satirical work at all resembling those we have been describing, +was the "Utopia" of Sir Thomas More, a work comparatively spiritless, +and which produced a very slight sensation. In Spain, the state of +social feeling was still less favourable to the writings of Rabelais, +yet he had there a worthy and true representative in the author of +Don Quixote. It was only in the seventeenth century that the works of +Rabelais were translated into English; but we must not forget that our +satirists of the last century, such as Swift and Sterne, derived their +inspiration chiefly from Rabelais, and from the Pantagruelistic writers +of the latter half of the sixteenth century. These latter were most of +them poor imitators of their original, and, like all poor imitators, +pursued to exaggeration his least worthy characteristics. There is +still some humour in the writings of Tabourot, the sieur des Accords, +especially in his "Bigarrures," but the later productions, which +appeared under such names as Bruscambille and Tabarin, sink into mere +dull ribaldry. + +There had arisen, however, by the side of this satire which smelt +somewhat too much of the tavern, another satire, more serious, +which still contained a little of the style of Rabelais. The French +Protestants at first looked upon Rabelais as one of their towers of +strength, and embraced with gratitude the powerful protection they +received from the graceful queen of Navarre; but their gratitude +failed them, when Marguerite, though she never ceased to give them her +protection, conformed outwardly, from attachment to her brother, to the +forms of the Catholic faith, and they rejected the school of Rabelais +as a mere school of Atheists. Among them arose another school of +satire, a sort of branch from the other, which was represented in its +infancy by the celebrated scholar and printer, Henri Estienne, better +known among us as Henry Stephens. + +The remarkable book called an "Apologie pour Herodote," arose out of +an attack upon its writer by the Romanists. Henri Estienne, who was +known as a staunch Protestant, published, at great expense, an edition +of Herodotus in Greek and Latin, and the zealous Catholics, out of +spite to the editor, decried his author, and spoke of Herodotus as a +mere collector of monstrous and incredible tales. Estienne, in revenge, +published what, under the form of an apology for Herodotus, was really +a violent attack on the Romish church. His argument is that all +historians must relate transactions which appear to many incredible, +and that the events of modern times were much more incredible, if +they were not known to be true, than anything which is recorded by +the historian of antiquity. After an introductory dissertation on the +light in which we ought to regard the fable of the Golden Age, and on +the moral character of the ancient peoples, he goes on to show that +their depravity was much less than that of the middle ages and of his +own time, indeed of all periods during which people were governed by +the Church of Rome. Not only did this dissoluteness of morals pervade +lay society, but the clergy were more vicious even than the people, to +whom they ought to serve as an example. A large part of the book is +filled with anecdotes of the immoral lives of the popish clergy of the +sixteenth century, and of their ignorance and bigotry; and he describes +in detail the methods employed by the Romish church to keep the mass +of the people in ignorance, and to repress all attempts at inquiry. +Out of all this, he says, had risen a school of atheists and scoffers, +represented by Rabelais and Bonaventure des Periers, both of whom he +mentions by name. + +As we approach the end of the sixteenth century, the struggle of +parties became more political than religious, but not less bitter than +before. The literature of the age of that celebrated "Ligue," which +seemed at one time destined to overthrow the ancient royalty of France, +consisted chiefly of libellous and abusive pamphlets, but in the midst +of them there appeared a work far superior to any purely political +satire which had yet been seen, and the fame of which has never passed +away. Its object was to turn to ridicule the meeting of the Estates +of France, convoked by the duke of Mayenne, as leader of the Ligue, +and held at Paris on the 10th of February, 1503. The grand object of +this meeting was to exclude Henri IV. from the throne; and the Spanish +party proposed to abolish the Salic law, and proclaim the infanta of +Spain queen of France. The French ligueurs proposed plans hardly less +unpatriotic, and the duke of Mayenne, indignant at the small account +made of his own personal pretensions, prorogued the meeting, and +persuaded the two parties to hold what proved a fruitless conference at +Suresne. It was the meeting of the Estates in Paris which gave rise to +that celebrated _Satyre Ménippée_, of which it was said, that it served +the cause of Henri IV. as much as the battle of Ivry itself. + +This satire originated among a party of friends, of men distinguished +by learning, wit, and talent, though most of their names are obscure, +who used to meet in an evening in the hospitable house of one of +them, Jacques Gillot, on the Quai des Orfèvres in Paris, and there +talk satirically over the violence and insolence of the ligueurs. +They all belonged either to the bar or to the university, or to the +church. Gillot himself, a Burgundian, born about the year 1560, had +been a dean in the church of Langres, and afterwards canon of the +Sainte Chapelle in Paris, and was at this time conseiller-clerc to +the parliament of Paris. In 1589 he was committed to the Bastille, +but was soon afterwards liberated. Nicolas Rapin, one of his friends, +was born in 1535, and was said to have been the son of a priest, and +therefore illegitimate. He was a lawyer, a poet, and a soldier, for he +fought bravely in the ranks of Henri IV. at Ivry, and his devotion to +that prince was so well known, that he was banished from Paris by the +ligueurs, but had returned thither before the meeting of the Estates in +1593. Jean Passerat, born in 1534, was also a poet, and a professor in +the Collège Royal. Florent Chrestien, born at Orleans in 1540, had been +the tutor of Henri IV., and was well known as a man of sound learning. +The most learned of the party was Pierre Pithou, born at Troyes in +1539, who had abjured Calvinism to return to Romanism, and who held +a distinguished position at the French bar. The last of this little +party of men of letters was a canon of Rouen named Pierre le Roy, a +patriotic ecclesiastic, who held the office of almoner to the cardinal +de Bourbon. It was Le Roy who drew up the first sketch of the "Satyre +Ménippée," each of the others executed his part in the composition, and +Pithou finally revised it. For several years this remarkable satire +circulated only secretly, and in manuscript, and it was not printed +until Henri IV. was established on the throne. + +The satire opens with an account of the virtues of the "Catholicon," +or nostrum for curing all political diseases, or the _higuiero +d'infierno_, which had been so effective in the hands of the Spaniards, +who invented it. Some of these are extraordinary enough. If, we are +told, the lieutenant of Don Philip "have some of this Catholicon on +his flags, he will enter without a blow into an enemy's country, and +they will meet him with crosses and banners, legates and primates; and +though he ruin, ravage, usurp, massacre, and sack everything, and carry +away, ravish, burn, and reduce everything to a desert, the people of +the country will say, 'These are our friends, they are good Catholics; +they do it for our peace, and for our mother holy church.'" "If an +indolent king amuse himself with refining this drug in his escurial, +let him write a word into Flanders to Father Ignatius, sealed with +the Catholicon, he will find him a man who (_salva conscientia_) will +assassinate his enemy whom he has not been able to conquer by arms in +twenty years." This, of course, is an allusion to the murder of the +prince of Orange. "If this king proposes to assure his estates to his +children after his death, and to invade another's kingdom at little +expense, let him write a word to Mendoza, his ambassador, or to Father +Commelet (one of the most seditious orators of the Ligue), and if he +write with the _higuiero del infierno_, at the bottom of his letter, +the words _Yo el Rey_, they will furnish him with an apostate monk, who +will go under a fair semblance, like a Judas, and assassinate in cold +blood a great king of France, his brother-in-law, in the middle of his +camp, without fear of God or men; they will do more, they will canonise +the murderer, and place this Judas above St. Peter, and baptise this +prodigious and horrible crime with the name of a providential event, +of which the godfathers will be cardinals, legates, and primates." The +allusion here is to the assassination of Henri III. by Jacques Clement. +These are but a few of the marvellous properties of the political drug, +after the enumeration of which the report of the meeting of the Estates +is introduced by a burlesque description of the grand procession +which preceded it. Then we are introduced to the hall of assembly, and +different subjects pictured on the tapestries which cover its walls, +all having reference to the politics of the Ligue, are described fully. +Then we come to the report of the meeting, and to the speeches of the +different speakers, each of which is a model of satire. It is not known +which of the little club of satirists wrote the open speech of the duke +of Mayenne, but that of the Roman legate is known to be the work of +Gillot, and that of the cardinal de Pelvé, a masterpiece of Latin in +the style of the "Epistolæ Obscurorum Virorum," was written by Florent +Chrestien. Nicolas Rapin composed the "harangue" placed in the mouth +of the archbishop of Lyons, as well as that of Rose, the rector of +the university; and the long speech of Claude d'Aubray was by Pithou. +Passerat composed most of the verses which are scattered through the +book, and it is understood that Pithou finally revised the whole. This +mock report of the meeting of the Estates closes with a description of +a series of political pictures which are arranged on the wall of the +staircase of the hall. + +These pictures, as well as those on the tapestries of the hall of +meeting, are simply so many caricatures, and the same may be said of +another set of pictures, of which a description is given in one of the +satirical pieces which followed the "Satyre Ménippée," on the same +side, entitled, "Histoire des Singeries de la Ligue." It was amid +the political turmoil of the sixteenth century in France that modern +political caricature took its rise. + + + + + CHAPTER XX. + + POLITICAL CARICATURE IN ITS INFANCY.--THE REVERS DU JEU DES + SUYSSES.--CARICATURE IN FRANCE.--THE THREE ORDERS.--PERIOD OF THE + LEAGUE; CARICATURES AGAINST HENRI III.--CARICATURES AGAINST THE + LEAGUE.--CARICATURE IN FRANCE IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.--GENERAL + GALAS.--THE QUARREL OF AMBASSADORS.--CARICATURE AGAINST LOUIS + XIV.; WILLIAM OF FÜRSTEMBERG. + + +It has been already remarked that political caricature, in the modern +sense of the word, or even personal caricature, was inconsistent with +the state of things in the middle ages, until the arts of engraving +and printing became sufficiently developed, because it requires the +facility of quick and extensive circulation. The political or satirical +song was carried everywhere by the minstrel, but the satirical picture, +represented only in some solitary sculpture or illumination, could +hardly be finished before it had become useless even in the small +sphere of its influence, and then remained for ages a strange figure, +with no meaning that could be understood. No sooner, however, was +the art of printing introduced, than the importance of political +caricature was understood and turned to account. We have seen what a +powerful agent it became in the Reformation, which in spirit was no +less political than religious; but even before the great religious +movement had begun, this agent had been brought into activity. One +of the earliest engravings which can be called a caricature--perhaps +the oldest of our modern caricatures known--is represented in our +cut No. 171, is no doubt French, and belongs to the year 1499. It is +sufficiently explained by the history of the time. + + [Illustration: _No. 171. The Political Game of Cards._] + +At the date just mentioned, Louis XII. of France, who had been king +less than twelve months, was newly married to Anne of Britany, and +had resolved upon an expedition into Italy, to unite the crown of +Naples with that of France. Such an expedition affected many political +interests and Louis had to employ a certain amount of diplomacy with +his neighbours, several of whom were strongly opposed to his projects +of ambition, and among those who acted most openly were the Swiss, +who were believed to have been secretly supported by England and the +Netherlands. Louis, however, overcame their opposition, and obtained a +renewal of the alliance which had expired with his predecessor Charles +VIII. This temporary difficulty with the Swiss is the subject of our +caricature, the original of which bears the title "Le Revers du Jeu +des Suysses" (the defeat of the game of the Swiss). The princes most +interested are assembled round a card-table, at which are seated the +king of France to the right, opposite him the Swiss, and in front the +doge of Venice, who was in alliance with the French against Milan. At +the moment represented, the king of France is announcing that he has a +flush of cards, the Swiss acknowledges the weakness of his hand, and +the doge lays down his cards--in fact, Louis XII. has won the game. +But the point of the caricature lies principally in the group around. +To the extreme right the king of England, Henry VII., distinguished +by his three armorial lions, and the king of Spain, are engaged in +earnest conversation. Behind the former stands the infanta Margarita, +who is evidently winking at the Swiss to give him information of the +state of the cards of his opponents. At her side stands the duke of +Wirtemberg, and just before him the pope, the infamous Alexander VI. +(Borgia), who, though in alliance with Louis, is not able, with all his +efforts, to read the king's game, and looks on with evident anxiety. +Behind the doge of Venice stands the Italian refugee, Trivulci, an able +warrior, devoted to the interests of France; and at the doge's right +hand, the emperor, holding in his hands another pack of cards, and +apparently exulting in the belief that he has thrown confusion into +the king of France's game. In the background to the left are seen the +count Palatine and the marquis of Montserrat, who also look uncertain +about the result; and below the former appears the duke of Savoy, who +was giving assistance to the French designs. The duke of Lorraine is +serving drink to the gamblers, while the duke of Milan, who was at this +time playing rather a double part, is gathering up the cards which have +fallen to the ground, in order to make a game for himself. Louis XII. +carried his designs into execution; the duke of Milan, Ludovico Sforza, +nick-named the Moor, played his cards badly, lost his duchy, and died +in prison. + + [Illustration: _No. 172. The Three Orders of the State._] + +Such is this earliest of political caricatures--and in this case it +was purely political--but the question of religion soon began not only +to mix itself up with the political question, but almost to absorb it, +as we have seen in the review of the history of caricature under the +Reformation. Before this period, indeed, political caricature was only +an affair between crowned heads, or between kings and their nobles, but +the religious agitation had originated a vast social movement, which +brought into play popular feelings and passions: these gave caricature +a totally new value. Its power was greatest on the middle and lower +classes of society, that is, on the people, the _tiers état_, which was +now thrown prominently forward. The new social theory is proclaimed +in a print, of which a fac-simile will be found in the "Musée de la +Caricature," by E. J. Jaime, and which, from the style and costume, +appears to be German. The three orders, the church, the lord of the +land, and the people, represented respectively by a bishop, a knight, +and a cultivator, stand upon the globe in an honourable equality, each +receiving direct from heaven the emblems or implements of his duties. +To the bishop is delivered his bible, to the husbandman his mattock, +and to the knight the sword with which he is to protect and defend the +others. This print--see cut No. 172--which bears the title, in Latin, +"Quis te prætulit?" (Who chose thee?) belongs probably to the earlier +half of the sixteenth century. A painting in the Hôtel de Ville of +Aix, in Provence, represents the same subject much more satirically, +intending to delineate the three orders as they were, and not as they +ought to be. The divine hand is letting down from heaven an immense +frame in the form of a heart, in which is a picture representing a king +kneeling before the cross, intimating that the civil power was to be +subordinate to the ecclesiastical. The three orders are represented +by a cardinal, a noble, and a peasant, the latter of whom is bending +under the burthen of the heart, the whole of which is thrown upon his +shoulders, while the cardinal and the noble, the latter dressed in +the fashionable attire of the court minions of the day, are placing +one hand to the heart on each side, in a manner which shows that they +support none of the weight. + +Amid the fierce agitation which fell upon France in the sixteenth +century, for a while we find but few traces of the employment of +caricature by either party. The religious reformation there was rather +aristocratic than popular, and the reformers sought less to excite +the feelings of the multitude, which, indeed, went generally in the +contrary direction. There was, moreover, a character of gloom in the +religion of Calvin, which contracted strongly with the joyousness of +that of the followers of Luther; and the factions in France sought to +slaughter, rather than to laugh at, each other. The few caricatures +of this period which are known, are very bitter and coarse. As far as +I am aware, no early Huguenot caricatures are known, but there are a +few directed against the Huguenots. It was, however, with the rise of +the Ligue that the taste for political caricature may be said to have +taken root in France, and in that country it long continued to flourish +more than anywhere else. The first caricatures of the ligueurs were +directed against the person of the king, Henri de Valois, and possess +a brutality almost beyond description. It was now an object to keep up +the bitterness of spirit of the fanatical multitude. In one of these +caricatures a demon is represented waiting on the king to summon him +to a meeting of the "Estates" in hell; and in the distance we see +another demon flying away with him. Another relates to the murder of +the Guises, in 1588, which the ligueurs professed to ascribe to the +councils of M. d'Epernon, one of his favourites, on whom they looked +with great hatred. It is entitled, "Soufflement et Conseil diabolique +de d'Epernon à Henri de Valois pour faccager les Catholiques." In the +middle of the picture stands the king, and beside him D'Epernon, who +is blowing into his ear with a bellows. On the ground before them lie +the headless corpses of the _deux frères Catholiques_, the duke of +Guise, and his brother the cardinal, while the executioner of royal +vengeance is holding up their heads by the hair. In the distance is +seen the castle of Blois, in which this tragedy took place; and on the +left of the picture appear the cardinal de Bourbon, the archbishop of +Blois, and other friends of the Guises, expressing their horror at the +deed. Henri III. was himself murdered in the year following, and the +caricatures against him became still more brutal during the period in +which the ligueurs tried to set up a king of their own in his place. In +one caricature, which has more of an emblematical character than most +of the others, he is pictured as "Henri le Monstrueux;" and in others, +entitled "Les Hermaphrodites," he is exhibited under forms which point +at the infamous vices with which he was charged. + + [Illustration: _No. 173. The Assembly of Apes._] + +The tide of caricature, however, soon turned in the contrary direction, +and the coarse, unprincipled abuse employed by the ligueurs found a +favourable contrast in the powerful wit and talent of the satirists +and caricaturists who now took up pen and pencil in the cause of +Henri IV. The former was, on the whole, the more formidable weapon, +but the latter represented to some eyes more vividly in picture what +had already been done in type. This was the case on both sides; the +caricature last mentioned was founded upon a very libellous satirical +pamphlet against Henri III., entitled "L'Isle des Hermaphrodites." It +is the case also with the first caricatures against the ligueurs, which +I have to mention. The Estates held in Paris by the duke of Mayenne +and the ligueurs for the purpose of electing a new king in opposition +to Henri of Navarre, were made the subject of the celebrated "Satyre +Ménippée," in which the proceedings of these Estates were turned to +ridicule in the most admirable manner. Four large editions were sold +in less than as many months. Several caricatures arose out of or +accompanied this remarkable book. One of these is a rather large print, +entitled "La Singerie des Estats de la Ligue, l'an 1593," in which the +members of the Estates and the ligueurs are pictured with the heads +of monkeys. The central part represents the meeting of the Estates, +at which the lieutenant-general of the kingdom, the duke of Mayenne, +seated on the throne, presides. Above him is suspended a large portrait +of the infanta of Spain, _L'Espousée de la Ligue_, as she is called +in the satire, ready to marry any one whom the Estates shall declare +king of France. In chairs, on each side of Mayenne, are the two "ladies +of honour" of the said future spouse. To the left are seated in a row +the celebrated council of sixteen (_les seize_), reduced at this time +to twelve, because the duke of Mayenne, to check their turbulence, +had caused four of them to be hanged. They wear the favours of the +future spouse. Opposite to them are the representatives of the three +orders, all, we are told, devoted to the service of "the said lady." +Before the throne are the two musicians of the Ligue, one described as +Phelipottin, the blind performer on the viel, or hurdy-gurdy, to the +Ligue, and his subordinate, the player on the triangle, "kept at the +expense of the future spouse." These were to entertain the assembly +during the pauses between the orations of the various speakers. All +this is a satire on the efforts of the king of Spain to establish a +monarch of his own choice. On the bench behind the musicians sit the +deputies from Lyons, Poitiers, Orleans, and Rheims, cities where the +influence of the Ligue was strong, discussing the question as to who +should be king. Thus much of this picture is represented in our cut +No. 173. There are other groups of figures in the representation of +the assembly of the Estates; and there are two side compartments--that +on the left representing a forge, on which the fragments of a broken +king are laid to be refounded, and a multitude of apes, with hammers +and an anvil, ready to work him into a new king; the other side of +the picture represents the circumstances of a then well-known act of +tyranny perpetrated by the Estates of the Ligue. Another large and +well-executed engraving, published at Paris in 1594, immediately after +Henri IV. had obtained possession of his capital, also represents the +grand procession of the Ligue as described at the commencement of the +"Satyre Ménippée," and was intended to hold up to ridicule the warlike +temper of the French Catholic clergy. It is entitled, "La Procession de +la Ligue." + +Henri's triumph over the Ligue was made the subject of a series of +three caricatures, or perhaps, more correctly, of a caricature in three +divisions. The first is entitled the "Naissance de la Ligue," and +represents it under the form of a monster with three heads, severally +those of a wolf, a fox, and a serpent, issuing from hell-mouth. Under +it are the following lines:-- + + _L'enfer, pour asservir soubs ses loix tout le monde, + Vomit ce monstre hideux, fait d'un loup ravisseur, + D'un renard enveilly, et d'un serpent immonde, + Affublé d'un manteau propre à toute couleur._ + +The second division, the "Declin de la Ligue," representing its +downfall, is copied in our cut No. 174. Henri of Navarre, in the form +of a lion, has pounced fiercely upon it, and not too soon, for it had +already seized the crown and sceptre. In the distance, the sun of +national prosperity is seen rising over the country. The third picture, +the "Effets de la Ligue," represents the destruction of the kingdom and +the slaughter of the people, of which the Ligue had been the cause. + + [Illustration: _No. 174. The Destruction of the Ligue._] + + [Illustration: _No. 175. General Galas._] + +The caricatures in France became more numerous during the seventeenth +century, but they are either so elaborate or so obscure, that each +requires almost a dissertation to explain it, and they often relate to +questions or events which have little interest for us at the present +day. Several rather spirited ones appeared at the time of the disgrace +of the mareschal d'Ancre and his wife; and the inglorious war with +the Netherlands, in 1635, furnished the occasion for others, for +the French, as usual, could make merry in their reverses as well as +in their successes. The imperialist general Galas inflicted serious +defeat on the French armies, and compelled them to a very disastrous +retreat from the countries they had invaded, and they tried to amuse +themselves at the expense of their conqueror. Galas was rather +remarkable for obesity, and the French caricaturists of the day made +this circumstance a subject for their satire. Our cut No. 175 is copied +from a print in which the magnitude of the stomach of General Galas +is certainly somewhat exaggerated. He is represented, not apparently +with any good reason, as puffed up with his own importance, which is +evaporating in smoke; and along with the smoke thus issuing from his +mouth, he is made to proclaim his greatness in the following rather +doggrel verses:-- + + _Je suis ce grand Galas, autrefois dans l'armée + La gloire de l'Espagne et de mes compagnons; + Maintenant je ne suis qu'un corps plein de fumée, + Pour avoir trop mangé de raves et d'oignons. + Gargantua jamais n'eut une telle panse, &c._ + + [Illustration: _No. 176. Batteville Humiliated._] + +Caricatures in France began to be tolerably abundant during the middle +of the seventeenth century, but under the crushing tyranny of Louis +XIV., the freedom of the press, in all its forms, ceased to exist, and +caricatures relating to France, unless they came from the court party, +had to be published in other countries, especially in Holland. It will +be sufficient to give two examples from the reign of Louis XIV. In the +year 1661, a dispute arose in London between the ambassador of France, +M. D'Estrades, and the Spanish ambassador, the baron de Batteville, +on the question of precedence, which was carried so far as to give +rise to a tumult in the streets of the English capital. At this very +moment, a new Spanish ambassador, the marquis de Fuentes, was on his +way to Paris, but Louis, indignant at Batteville's behaviour in London, +sent orders to stop Fuentes on the frontier, and forbid his further +advance into his kingdom. The king of Spain disavowed the act of his +ambassador in England, who was recalled, and Fuentes received orders +to make an apology to king Louis. This event was made the subject of +a rather boasting caricature, the greater portion of which is given in +our cut No. 176. It is entitled "Batteville vient adorer le Soliel" +(Batteville comes to worship the sun). In the original the sun is seen +shining in the upper corner of the picture to the right, and presenting +the juvenile face of Louis XIV., but the caricaturist appears to have +substituted Batteville in the place of Fuentes. Beneath the whole are +the following boastful lines:-- + + _On ne va plus à Rome, on vient de Rome en France, + Mériter le pardon de quelque grande offence. + L'Italie tout entière est soumise à ces loix; + Un Espagnol s'oppose à ce droit de nos rois. + Mais un Français puissant joua des bastonnades, + Et punit l'insolent de ses rodomontades._ + +From this time there sprung up many caricatures against the Spaniards; +but the most ferocious caricature, or rather book of caricatures, of +the reign of Louis XIV., came from without, and was directed against +the king and his ministers and courtiers. The revocation of the edict +of Nantes took place in October, 1685, and was preceded and followed +by frightful persecutions of the Protestants, which drove away in +thousands the earnest, intelligent, and industrious part of the +population of France. They carried with them a deep hatred to their +oppressors, and sought refuge especially in the countries most hostile +to Louis XIV.--England and Holland. The latter country, where they +then enjoyed the greatest freedom of action, soon sent forth numerous +satirical books and prints against the French king and his ministers, +of which the book just alluded to was one of the most remarkable. It +is entitled "Les Heros de la Ligue, ou la Procession Monacale conduite +par Louis XIV. pour la Conversion des Protestans de son Royaume," and +consists of a series of twenty-four most grotesque faces, intended to +represent the ministers and courtiers of the "grand roi" most odious +to the Calvinists. It must have provoked their wrath exceedingly. I +give one example, and as it is difficult to select, I take the first in +the list, which represents William of Fürstemberg, one of the German +princes devoted to Louis XIV., who, by his intrigues, had forced him +into the archbishopric of Cologne, by which he became an elector +of the empire. For many reasons William of Fürstemberg was hated by +the French Protestants, but it is not quite clear why he is here +represented in the character of one of the low merchants of the Halles. +Over the picture, in the original, we read, _Guillaume de Furstemberg, +crie, ite, missa est_, and beneath are the four lines:-- + + _J'ay quitté mon pais pour servir à la France, + Soit par ma trahison, soit par ma lacheté; + J'ay troublé les états par ma méchanceté, + Une abbaye est ma recompense._ + + [Illustration: _No. 177. William of Fürstemberg._] + + + + + CHAPTER XXI. + + EARLY POLITICAL CARICATURE IN ENGLAND.--THE SATIRICAL WRITINGS + AND PICTURES OF THE COMMONWEALTH PERIOD.--SATIRES AGAINST + THE BISHOPS; BISHOP WILLIAMS.--CARICATURES ON THE CAVALIERS; + SIR JOHN SUCKLING.--THE ROARING BOYS; VIOLENCE OF THE + ROYALIST SOLDIERS.--CONTEST BETWEEN THE PRESBYTERIANS AND + INDEPENDENTS.--GRINDING THE KING'S NOSE.--PLAYING-CARDS USED AS + THE MEDIUM FOR CARICATURE; HASELRIGGE AND LAMBERT.--SHROVETIDE. + + +During the sixteenth century caricature can hardly be said to have +existed in England, and it did not come much into fashion, until the +approach of the great struggle which convulsed our country in the +century following. The popular reformers have always been the first to +appreciate the value of pictorial satire as an offensive weapon. Such +was the case with the German reformers in the age of Luther; as it was +again with the English reformers in the days of Charles I., a period +which we may justly consider as that of the birth of English political +caricature. From 1640 to 1661 the press launched forth an absolute +deluge of political pamphlets, many of which were of a satirical +character, scurrilous in form and language, and, on whatever side +they were written, very unscrupulous in regard to the truth of their +statements. Among them appeared a not unfrequent engraving, seldom +well executed, whether on copper or wood, but displaying a coarse and +pungent wit that must have told with great effect on those for whom it +was intended. The first objects of attack in these caricatures were +the Episcopalian party in the church and the profaneness and insolence +of the cavaliers. The Puritans or Presbyterians who took the lead +in, and at first directed, the great political movement, looked upon +Episcopalianism as differing in little from popery, and, at all events, +as leading direct to it. Arminianism was with them only another name +for the same thing, and was equally detested. In a caricature published +in 1641, Arminius is represented supported on one side by Heresy, +wearing the triple crown, while on the other side Truth is turning away +from him, and carrying with her the Bible. It was the indiscreet zeal +of archbishop Laud which led to the triumph of the Puritan party, and +the downfall of the episcopal church government, and Laud became the +butt for attacks of all descriptions, in pamphlets, songs and satirical +prints, the latter usually figuring in the titles of the pamphlets. +Laud was especially obnoxious to the Puritans for the bitterness with +which he had persecuted them. + +In 1640 Laud was committed to the Tower, an event which was hailed +as the first grand step towards the overthrow of the bishops. As an +example of the feeling of exultation displayed on this occasion by his +enemies, we may quote a few lines from a satirical song, published in +1641, and entitled "The Organs Eccho. To the Tune of the Cathedrall +Service." It is a general attack on the prelacy, and opens with a cry +of triumph over the fall of William Laud, of whom the song says-- + + _As he was in his braverie, + And thought to bring us all in slaverie, + The parliament found out his knaverie; + And so fell William. + Alas! poore William!_ + + _His pope-like domineering, + And some other tricks appearing, + Provok'd Sir Edward Deering + To blame the old prelate. + Alas! poore prelate!_ + + _Some say he was in hope + To bring England againe to th' pope; + But now he is in danger of an axe or a rope. + Farewell, old Canterbury. + Alas! poore Canterbury!_ + +Wren, bishop of Ely, was another of the more obnoxious of the prelates, +and there was hardly less joy among the popular party when he was +committed to the Tower in the course of the year 1641. Another song, +in verse similar to the last, contains a general review of the demerits +of the members of the prelacy, under the title of "The Bishops Last +Good-night." At the head of the broadside on which it is printed stand +two satirical woodcuts, but it must be confessed that the words of the +song are better than the engraving. The bishop of Ely, we are told, had +just gone to join his friend Laud in the Tower-- + + _Ely, thou hast alway to thy power + Left the church naked in a storme and showre, + And now for 't thou must to thy old friend i' th' Tower. + To the Tower must Ely; + Come away, Ely._ + +A third obnoxious prelate was bishop Williams. Williams was a Welshman +who had been high in favour with James I., but he had given offence +to the government of Charles I., and been imprisoned in the Tower +during the earlier part of that king's reign. He was released by the +parliament in 1640, and so far regained the favour of king Charles, +that he was raised to the archbishopric of York in the year following. +When the civil war began, he retired into Wales, and garrisoned Conway +for the king. Williams's warlike behaviour was the source of much mirth +among the Roundheads. In 1642 was published a large caricature on the +three classes to whom the parliamentarians were especially hostile--the +royalist judges, the prelates, and the ruffling cavaliers; represented +here, as we are told in writing in the copy among the king's pamphlets, +by judge Mallet, bishop Williams, and colonel Lunsford. These three +figures are placed in as many compartments with doggrel verses under +each. That of bishop Williams is copied in our cut No. 178. The bishop +is armed cap-à-pie, and in the distance behind him are seen on one +side his cathedral church, and on the other his war-horse. The verses +beneath it contain an allusion to this prelate's Welsh extraction in +the orthography of some of the words:-- + + _Oh, sir, I'me ready, did you never heere + How forward I have byn t'is many a yeare, + T'oppose the practice dat is now on foote, + Which plucks my brethren up both pranch and roote? + My posture and my hart toth well agree + To fight; now plud is up: come, follow mee._ + + [Illustration: _No. 178. The Church Militant._] + +The country had now begun to experience the miseries of war, and to +smart under them; and the cavaliers were especially reproached for the +cruelty with which they plundered and ill-treated people whenever they +gained the mastery. Colonel Lunsford was especially notorious for the +barbarities committed by himself and his men--to such a degree that he +was popularly accused of eating children, a charge which is frequently +alluded to in the popular songs of the time. Thus one of these songs +couples him with two other obnoxious royalists:-- + + _From Fielding, and from Vavasour, + Both ill-affected men, + From Lunsford eke deliver us, + Who eateth up children._ + + [Illustration: _No. 179. The Sucklington Faction._] + +In the third compartment of the caricature just mentioned, we see in +the background of the picture, behind colonel Lunsford, his soldiers +occupied in burning towns, and massacring women and children. The model +of the gay cavalier of the earlier period of this great revolution, +before the war had broken out in its intensity, was the courtly Sir +John Suckling, the poet of the drawing-room and tavern, the admired +of "roaring boys," and the hated of rigid Puritans. Sir John outdid +his companions in extravagance in everything which was fashionable, +and the display of his zeal in the cause of royalty was not calculated +to conciliate the reformers. When the king led an army against the +Scottish Covenanters in 1639, Suckling raised a troop of a hundred +horse at his own expense; but they gained more reputation by their +extraordinary dress than by their courage, and the whole affair was +made a subject of ridicule. From this time the name of Suckling became +identified with that gay and profligate class who, disgusted by the +outward show of sanctity which the Puritans affected, rushed into +the other extreme, and became notorious for their profaneness, their +libertinism, and their indulgence in vice, which threw a certain degree +of discredit upon the royalist party. There is a large broadside +among the King's Pamphlets in the British Museum, entitled, "The +Sucklington Faction; or (Sucklings) Roaring Boys." It is one of those +satirical compositions which were then fashionable under the title +of "Characters," and is illustrated by an engraving, from which our +cut No. 179 is copied. This engraving, which from its superior style +is perhaps the work of a foreign artist, represents the interior of +a chamber, in which two of the Roaring Boys are engaged in drinking +and smoking, and forms a curious picture of contemporary manners. +Underneath the engraving we read the following lines:-- + + _Much meate doth gluttony produce, + And makes a man a swine; + But hee's a temperate man indeed + That with a leafe can dine._ + + _Hee needes no napkin for his handes, + His fingers for to wipe; + He hath his kitchin in a box, + His roast meate in a pipe._ + +When the war spread itself over the country, many of these Roaring +Boys became soldiers, and disgraced the profession by rapacity and +cruelty. The pamphlets of the parliamentarians abound with complaints +of the outrages perpetrated by the Cavaliers, and the evil appears to +have been increased by the ill-conduct of the auxiliaries brought over +from Ireland to serve the king, who were especially objects of hatred +to the Puritans. A broadside among the king's pamphlets is adorned +by a satirical picture of "The English Irish Souldier, with his new +discipline, new armes, old stomacke, and new taken pillage; who had +rather eat than fight." It was published in 1642. The English Irish +soldier is, as may be supposed, heavily laden with plunder. In 1646 +appeared another caricature, which is copied in our cut No. 180. It +represents "England's Wolfe with Eagles clawes: the cruell impieties +of bloud-thirsty royalists and blasphemous anti-parliamentarians, +under the command of that inhumane prince Rupert, Digby, and the rest, +wherein the barbarous crueltie of our civill uncivill warres is briefly +discovered." England's wolf, as will be seen, is dressed in the high +fashion of the gay courtiers of the time. + + [Illustration: _No. 180. "England's Wolf."_] + +A few large caricatures, embodying satire of a more comprehensive +description, appeared from time to time, during this troubled age. Such +is a large emblematical picture, published on the 9th of November, +1642, and entitled "Heraclitus' Dream," for the scene is supposed to +be manifested to the philosopher in a vision. In the middle of the +picture the sheep are seen shearing their shepherd; while one cuts his +hair, another treats his beard in the same manner. Under the picture we +read the couplet-- + + _The flocke that was wont to be shorne by the herd, + Now polleth the shepherd in spight of his beard_. + + [Illustration: _No. 181. Folly Uppermost._] + +On the 19th of January, 1647, a caricature appeared under the title +"An Embleme of the Times." On one side War, represented as a giant in +armour, is seen standing upon a heap of dead and mutilated bodies, +while Hypocrisy, in the form of a woman with two faces, is flying +towards a distant city. "Libertines," "anti-sabbatarians," and others, +are hastening in the same direction; and the angel of pestilence, +hovering over the city, is ready to pounce upon it. + +The party of the parliament was now triumphant, and the question of +religion again became the subject of dispute. The Presbyterians had +been establishing a sort of tyranny over men's minds, and sought to +proscribe all other sects, till their intolerance gradually raised up +a strong and general feeling of resistance. Since 1643 a brisk war of +political pamphlets had been carried on between the Presbyterians and +their opponents, when, in 1647, the Independents, whose cause had been +espoused by the army, gained the mastery. "Sir John Presbyter" or to +use the more familiar phrase, "Jack Presbyter," furnished a subject +for frequent satire, and the Presbyterians were not slow in returning +the blow. In the collection in the British Museum we find a caricature +which must have come from the Presbyterian party, entitled "Reall +Persecution, or the Foundation of a general Toleration, displaied +and portrayed by a proper emblem, and adorned with the same flowers +wherewith the scoffers of this last age have strowed their libellous +pamphlets." The group which occupies the middle part of this broadside, +is copied in our cut No. 181. It has its separate title, "The Picture +of an English Persecutor, or a foole-ridden ante-Presbeterian sectary." +(I give the spelling as in the original.) Folly is riding on the +sectarian, whom he holds with a bridle, the sectarian having the ears +of an ass. The following homely rhymes are placed in the mouth of +Folly,-- + + _Behould my habit, like my witt, + Equalls his on whom sitt._ + +Anti-Presbyterian is, as will be seen, dressed in the height of the +fashion, and says-- + + _My cursed speeches against Presbetry + Declares unto the world my foolery._ + +The mortification of the Presbyterians led in Scotland to the +proclamation of Charles II. as king, and to the ill-fated expedition +which ended in the battle of Worcester in 1651, when satirical +pamphlets, ballads, and caricatures against the Scottish Presbyterians +became for a while very popular. One of the best of the latter +is represented in our cut No. 182. Its object is to ridicule the +conditions which the Presbyterians exacted from the young prince +before they offered him the crown. It is printed in the middle of the +broadside, in prose, published on the 14th of July, 1651, with the +general title, "Old Sayings and Predictions verified and fulfilled, +touching the young King of Scotland and his gude subjects." The +picture has its separate title, "The Scots holding their young kinges +nose to the grinstone." followed by the lines-- + + _Come to the grinstone, Charles, 'tis now to late + To recolect, 'tis presbiterian fate, + You covinant pretenders, must I bee + The subject of youer tradgie-comedie?_ + + [Illustration: _No. 182. Conditions of Royalty._] + +In fact, the picture represents Presbyterianism--Jack +Presbyter--holding the young king's nose to the grindstone, which is +turned by the Scots, personified as Jockey. The following lines are put +into the mouths of the three actors in this scene:-- + + _Jockey._--I, Jockey, turne the stone of all your plots, + For none turnes faster than the turne-coat Scots. + + _Presbyter._--We for our ends did make thee king, be sure, + Not to rule us, we will not that endure. + + _King._--You deep dissemblers, I kow what you doe, + And, for revenges sake, I will dissemble too. + +Charles's defeat and flight from Worcester furnished materials for a +much more elaborate caricature than most of the similar productions +of this period, and of a somewhat singular design. It was published +on the 6th of November, 1651, and bears the title "A Mad Designe; or +a Description of the king of Scots marching in his disguise, after +the Rout at Worcester." A long, and not unnecessary, explanation of +the several groups forming this picture, enables us to understand it. +On the left Charles is seated on the globe "in a melancholy posture." +A little to the right, and nearly in front, the bishop of Clogher is +performing mass, at which lords Ormond and Inchquin, in the shapes of +strange animals, hold torches, and the lord Taaf, in the form of a +monkey, holds up the bishop's train. The Scottish army is seen marching +up, consisting, according to the description, of papists, prelatical +malignants, Presbyterians, and old cavaliers; the latter of whom are +represented by the "fooles head upon a pole in the rear." The next +group consists of two monkeys, one with a fiddle, the other carrying +a long staff with a torch at the end, concerning which we learn that +"The two ridiculous anticks, one with a fiddle, and the other with +a torch, set forth the ridiculousness of their condition when they +marched into England, carried up with high thoughts, yet altogether +in the darke, having onely a fooles bawble to be their light to walke +by, mirth of their own whimsies to keep up their spirits, and a +sheathed sword to truste in." Next come a troop of women, children, +and papists, lamenting over their defeat. Two monkeys on foot, and one +on horseback, follow, the latter riding with his face turned to the +horse's tail, and carrying in his hand a spit with provisions on it. +It is explained as "The Scots Kings flight from Worcester, represented +by the foole on horseback, riding backward, turning his face every way +in feares, ushered by duke Hambleton and the lord Wilmot." Lastly, +a crowd of women with flags bring up the rear. It cannot be said +that the wit displayed in this satire is of the very highest order. + +After this period we meet with comparatively few caricatures until the +death of Cromwell, and the eve of the Restoration, when there came +a new and fierce struggle of political parties. The Dutch were the +subject of some satirical prints and pamphlets in 1652; and we find a +small number of caricatures on the social evils, such as drunkenness +and gluttony, and on one or two subjects of minor agitation. With the +close of the Commonwealth a new form of caricature came in. Playing +cards had, during this seventeenth century, been employed for various +purposes which were quite alien to their original character. In France +they were made the means of conveying instruction to children. In +England, at the time of which we are speaking, they were adopted as +the medium for spreading political caricature. The earliest of these +packs of cards known is one which appears to have been published at the +very moment of the restoration of Charles II., and which was, perhaps, +engraved in Holland. It contains a series of caricatures on the +principal acts of the Commonwealth, and on the parliamentary leaders. +Among other cards of a similar character which have been preserved is +a pack relating to the popish plot, another relating to the Rye House +conspiracy, one on the Mississippi scheme, published in Holland, and +one on the South Sea bubble. + + [Illustration: _No. 183. Arthur Haselrigg._] + + [Illustration: _No. 184. General Lambert_.] + +The earliest of these packs of satirical cards, that on the +Commonwealth, belonged a few years ago to a lady of the name of Prest, +and is very fully described in a paper by Mr. Pettigrew, printed in +the "Journal of the British Archæological Association." Each of the +fifty-two cards presents a picture with a satirical title. Thus the +ace of diamonds represents "The High Court of Justice, or Oliver's +Slaughter House." The eight of diamonds is represented in our cut No. +183; its subject is "Don Haselrigg, Knight of the Codled Braine." It +is hardly necesiary to say that Sir Arthur Haselrigg acted a very +prominent and remarkable part during the whole of the Commonwealth +period, and that his manners were impetuous and authoritative, which +was probably the meaning of the epithet here given to him. The card +of the king of diamonds represents rather unequivocally the subject +indicated by its title, "Sir H. Mildmay solicits a citizen's wife, for +which his owne corrects him." It is an allusion to one of the petty +scandals of the republican period. The eight of hearts is a satire on +major-general Lambert. This able and distinguished man was remarkably +fond of flowers, took great pleasure in cultivating them, and was +skilful in drawing them, which was one of his favourite amusements. +He withdrew to Amsterdam during the Protectorate, and there gave +full indulgence to this love of flowers, and I need hardly say that +it was the age of the great tulip mania in Holland. When, after the +Restoration, he was involved in the fate of the regicides, but had +his sentence commuted for thirty years of imprisonment, he alleviated +the dulness of his long confinement in the isle of Guernsey by the +same amusement. In the card we have engraved, Lambert is represented +in his garden, holding a large tulip in his hand; and it is no doubt +in allusion to this innocent taste that he is here entitled "Lambert, +Knight of the Golden Tulip." + + [Illustration: _No. 185. Shrovetide._] + +The Restoration furnished better songs than prints, and many years +passed before any caricatures worthy of notice appeared in England. +Even burlesque subjects of any merit occur but rarely, and I hardly +know of one which is worth describing here. Among the best of those I +have met with, is a pair of plates, published in 1660, representing +Lent and Shrovetide, and these, I believe, are copied or imitated from +foreign prints. Lent is come as a thin miserable-looking knight-errant, +appropriately armed and mounted, ready to give battle to Shrovetide, +whose good living is pernicious to the whole community, and he abuses +his opponent in good round terms. In the companion print, of which our +cut No. 185 is a copy, Shrovetide appears as a jolly champion, quite +ready to meet his enemy. He is best described in the following lines, +extracted from the verses which accompany the prints:-- + + _Fatt Shrovetyde, mounted on a good fatt oxe, + Supposd that Lent was mad, or caught a foxe,[99] + Armed cap-a-pea from head unto the heel, + A spit his long sword, somewhat worse than steale, + (Sheath'd in a fatt pigge and a peece of porke), + His bottles fild with wine, well stopt with corke; + The two plump capons fluttering at his crupper; + And 's shoulders lac'd with sawsages for supper; + The gridir'n (like a well strung instrument) + Hung at his backe, and for the turnament + His helmet is a brasse pott, and his flagge + A cookes foule apron, which the wind doth wagg, + Fixd to a broome: thus bravely he did ride, + And boldly to his foe he thus replied._ + + [99] _i.e._, was drunk. + + + + + CHAPTER XXII. + + ENGLISH COMEDY.--BEN JONSON.--THE OTHER WRITERS OF HIS + SCHOOL.--INTERRUPTION OF DRAMATIC PERFORMANCES.--COMEDY AFTER + THE RESTORATION.--THE HOWARDS BROTHERS; THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM; + THE REHEARSAL.--WRITERS OF COMEDY IN THE LATTER PART OF + THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.--INDECENCY OF THE STAGE.--COLLEY + CIBBER.--FOOTE. + + +In England, as in Athens of old, perfect comedy arose gradually out +of the personalities of the rude dramatic attempts of an earlier +period. Such productions as Ralph Roister Doister and Gammer Gurton's +Needle were mere imperfect attempts at, we may perhaps rather say +feelers towards, comedy itself--that drama, the object of which was to +caricature, and thus to dissect and apply correctives to, the vices +and weaknesses of contemporary society. The genius of Shakespeare was +far too exquisitely poetical to qualify him for a task like this; it +wanted some one who could use the lancet and scalpel skilfully, but +soberly, and who was not liable to be led astray by too much vigour of +imagination. + +Such a one was Ben Jonson, whom we may rightly consider as the father +of English comedy. "Bartholomew Fair," first performed at the Hope +Theatre, on Bankside, London, on the 31st of October, 1614, is the +most perfect and most remarkable example of the truly English comedy, +remarkable, among many other things, for the extraordinary number of +characters who were brought upon the stage in one piece, and who are +all at the same time grouped and individualised with a skill that +reminds us of the pictorial triumphs of a Callot or a Hogarth. London +life is placed before us in all its more popular forms in one grand +tableau, the one in which it would show itself in its more grotesque +attitudes; the London citizen, his vain or easy wife, sharpers of +every description, and their victims no less varied in character, +the petty city officers, all come in for their share of satire. The +different groups are distributed so naturally, that it is difficult +to say who is the principal character of the piece--and who ever was +the principal character in Bartholomew Fair? Perhaps the character of +Cokes, the young booby squire from Harrow--for in those times even +so near London as Harrow, a young squire was considered to be in all +probability but a young country booby--strikes us most. It is said to +have been at a later period the favourite character of Charles II. +Among the other principal characters of the play are a proctor of +the Arches Court named Littlewit, who imagines himself to be a _bel +esprit_ of the first order; his wife, and her mother, dame Purecraft, +who is a widow; Justice Overdo, a London magistrate, to whose ward, +Grace Wellborn, Cokes is affianced in marriage; a zealous Puritan, +named Zeal-of-the-land Busy, who is a suitor to the widow Purecraft, +herself also a Puritan; Winwife, Busy's rival; and a gamester named +Tom Quarlous, who figures as Winwife's friend and companion. All these +meet in town, on the morning of the fair, Cokes under the care of a +sort of steward or upper servant, named Waspe, who was of a quarrelsome +disposition, and separate in groups among the crowd which filled +Smithfield and its vicinity, each having their separate adventures, but +meeting from time to time, and reassembling at the end. Cokes behaves +as a simpleton from the country, longs for everything, and wonders at +everything, buys up toys and gingerbread, is separated from all his +companions, robbed of his money and even of his outer garments, and in +this condition finally settles down at a puppet-show. Meanwhile the +Puritan Busy, by his zeal against the "heathen abominations" of the +fair on one hand, and Waspe, by his quarrelsome temper on the other, +fall into a series of scrapes, which end in both being carried to the +stocks. They are there joined by another important personage. Justice +Overdo, who is distinguished by an extraordinary zeal for the right +administration of justice and the suppression of social vices of all +kinds, has come into the fair in disguise, in order to make himself +acquainted with its various abuses, and he passes among them unknown; +and his inquisitive intermeddling brings him into a variety of mishaps, +in the course of which he also is seized by the constable, and allows +himself to be taken to the stocks, rather than betray his identity. +Thus all three, Busy, Waspe, and Overdo, are placed in the stocks +at the same time; but Waspe, by a clever trick, escapes, and leaves +the Puritan and the justice confined together, the one looking upon +himself as a martyr for religion's sake, the other rather glorying in +suffering through his disinterested zeal for the common good. They, +too, after a while make their escape through an accidental oversight of +their keepers, and mix again with the mob. The women, likewise, have +been separated from their male companions, have fallen among sharpers +and bullies, been made drunk, and escaped but narrowly from still +worse disasters. They all finally meet before the puppet-show, which +has fixed the attention of Cokes, and there justice Overdo discovers +himself. Such are the materials of Ben Jonson's "Bartholomew Fair," +the busiest and most amusing of plays. It is said, when first acted, +to have given great satisfaction to king James, by the ridicule thrown +upon the Puritans, and it continued to be a favourite comedy when +revived after the Restoration. + +"The Alchemist," by the same author, preceded "Bartholomew Fair," by +four years, and was designed as a satire upon a class of impostors +who, in that age, were among the greatest pests of society, and were +instruments, one way or other, in the greatest crimes of the day. +"The Alchemist" belongs, also, to the pure English comedy, but its +plot is more simple and distinct than that of "Bartholomew Fair." It +involves events which may have occurred frequently, at periods when the +metropolis was from time to time exposed to the vicissitudes of the +plague. On one of these occasions, Lovewit, a London gentleman, obliged +to quit the metropolis in order to avoid the plague, leaves his town +house to the charge of one man-servant, Face, who proves dishonest, +associates himself with a rogue named Subtle, and an immoral woman +named Dol Common, and introduces them into the house, which is made the +basis for their subsequent operations. Subtle assumes the character of +a magician and alchemist, while Dol acts various female parts, and Face +goes about alluring people into their snares. Among their dupes are a +knight who lives upon the town, two English Puritans from Amsterdam, a +lawyer's clerk, a tobacco man, a young country squire, and his sister +dame Pliant, a widow. The various intrigues in which these individuals +are involved, show us the way in which the pretended conjurers and +alchemists contributed to all the vices of the town. At length their +base dealings are on the point of being exposed by the cunning of +one upon whom they had attempted to impose, when Truewit, the master +of the house, returns unexpectedly, and all is discovered, but the +alchemist and his female associate contrive to escape. The object of +their last intrigue had been to entrap dame Pliant, who was rich, into +a marriage with a needy sharper; and Lovewit, finding the lady in the +house, and liking her, marries her himself, and, in consideration of +the satisfaction he has thus procured, forgives his unfaithful servant. +Many have considered the Alchemist to be the best of Jonson's dramas. +"Epicœne, or the Silent Woman," which belongs to the year 1609, is +another satirical picture of London society, in which the same class of +characters appear. Morose, an eccentric gentleman of fortune, who has +a great horror for noise, and even obliges his servants to communicate +with him by signs, has a nephew, a young knight named Sir Dauphine +Eugenie, with whom he is dissatisfied, and he refuses to allow him +money for his support. A plot is laid by his friends, whereby the uncle +is led into a marriage with a supposed silent woman, named Epicœne, +but she only sustains the character until the wedding formalities +are completed, and these are followed by a scene of noise and riot, +which completely horrifies Morose, and leads to a reconciliation with +his nephew, to whom he makes over half his fortune. The earliest of +Ben Jonson's comedies, "Every Man in his Humour," was composed in +its present form in 1598, and is the first of these dramatic satires +on the manners and character of the citizens of London, of whom it +was fashionable at the courts of James I. and Charles I. to speak +contemptuously. Kno'well, an old gentleman of respectability, is +highly displeased with his son Edward, because the latter has taken to +writing poetry, and has formed a friendship with another gentleman of +his own age, who loves poetry and frequents the rather gay society of +the poets and wits of the town. Wellbred has a half-brother, a "plain +squire," named Downright, and a sister married to a rich city merchant +named Kitely. Kitely, the merchant, who is extremely jealous of his +wife, has a great desire to reform Wellbred, and draw him to a steadier +line of life, a sentiment in which Downright heartily joins. Kitely's +jealousy, and the steps taken to reform Wellbred, lead to the most +comic parts of the play, which concludes with the marriage of young +Kno'well to Kitely's daughter, Miss Bridget, and his reconciliation +with his father. Among the other characters in the piece are captain +Bobadil, "a blustering coward," justice Clement, "an old merry +magistrate," his clerk, Roger Formal, and a country gull and a town +gull. + +These comedies of London life became popular, and continued so +during this and the following reign--in fact, the mass of those who +attended the theatres could understand and appreciate them better +than any others, and, what was more, they felt them. Among Jonson's +contemporaries in the literature of this English comedy were Middleton +and Thomas Heywood, both very prolific writers, Chapman, and Marston. +Certain classes of characters are continually repeated in this comedy, +because they belonged especially to the London society of the time, +but the employment and distribution of these characters admitted of +great variations, and they perhaps often had at the time a special +interest, as representing known individuals, or as being combined in a +plot which was built upon real incidents in London life. Among these +were usually a country gentleman of fortune, who was very avaricious, +and had a spendthrift son, or who had a daughter, a rich heiress, who +was the object of the intrigues of spendthrift suitors; young heirs, +who have just come to their estates, and are spending them in London; +young country squires who are easy victims; a needy knight, as poor +in principles as in money, who lived upon the public in every way he +could; designing and unscrupulous women; bullies and sharpers of every +description. In fact, we seem to be always in the smell of the tavern, +and in the midst of dissipation. Then there are fat, sleek, and wealthy +citizens, whole souls are entirely wrapt up in their merchandise, +who are proud, nevertheless, of their position; and easy, credulous +city wives, who are fond of finery and of praise, eager for gaiety +and display, impatient of the rule of husbands, or of the dulness of +home, and very ready to listen to the advances of the gay gallants +from the court end of the town, or from the tavern. The city tradesman +has generally an apprentice or two, sometimes very sober but perhaps +more frequently dissipated, who play their parts in the piece; and +often a daughter, who is either a model of modesty and all the domestic +virtues, and is finally the reward of some hero of good principles, +who has been temporarily led astray, and his character misinterpreted, +or who is gay and intriguing, and comes to disgrace. But the favourite +idea of excellence, or, to use a technical phrase, the _beau ideal_ +of this comedy, appears to have been a wild youth, who goes through +every scene of dissipation, in a gentlemanly manner (as the term was +then understood), and comes out at the end of the play as an honest, +virtuous man, and receives the reward for qualities which he had not +previously displayed. + +Sometimes the writers of this comedy indulged in personal, or even +in political, allusions which brought them into trouble. In the year +1605, Ben Jonson, George Chapman, and John Marston, wrote jointly a +comedy entitled "Eastward Hoe." It is a very excellent and amusing +comedy, and was very popular. Touchstone, an honest goldsmith in the +city, has two apprentices, Golding, a sober and industrious youth, and +Quicksilver, who is an irreclaimable rake. Touchstone has also two +daughters, the eldest of whom, Gertrude, affects the fine lady, and +is ambitious of finding a husband in the fashionable world, while her +younger sister, Mildred, is all virtue and humility. An attachment +arises between Golding and Mildred. Another character in this drama +is a needy, scheming knight, who lives upon the town, and rejoices in +the name of Sir Petronel Flash. Sir Petronel is attracted by the rich +dowry which the young lady, Gertrude, had to expect, pays his court +to her, and easily works upon her vanity; and, her mother encouraging +her, they are hastily married, contrary to the wishes of her father. +The knight is supposed to possess a magnificent castle somewhere to the +east of London, and the young bride and her mother proceed in search of +this, from which the comedy derives its title of "Eastward Hoe," but +they are involved in various disagreeable adventures in the search, +which ends in the conviction that it is all a fable. Another character +in the play is a greedy and unprincipled usurer, who is so jealous of +his young and pretty wife, that he keeps her under lock and key; and +this man is deeply involved in money-lending with Sir Petronel Flash, +and they are engaged in a series of unprincipled transactions, which +lead to the disgrace of them all, and in the course of which the virtue +of the usurer's wife falls a sacrifice. Meanwhile the fortunes of the +two apprentices have been advancing in directly opposite directions. +Quicksilver, the unworthy apprentice, leaves his master, proceeds +from bad to worse, and finally is committed to prison, for a crime +the punishment of which was death. On the other hand, Golding has not +only gained his master's esteem and married his daughter Mildred, and +been adopted as the heir to his wealth, but he has merited the respect +of his fellow-citizens, and has been promoted in municipal rank. It +becomes Golding's duty to preside over the trial of his old fellow +apprentice Quicksilver, but the latter escapes through Golding's +generosity. + +There is some sound morality in the spirit of this comedy, and a +very large amount of immorality in the text. There was, indeed, a +coarse licence in the relations of society at this period, which are +but too faithfully represented in its literature. But there are two +circumstances, accidentally attached to this drama, which give it +a peculiar interest. When brought out upon the stage it contained +reflections upon Scotchmen which provoked the anger of king James I. +to such a degree, that all the authors were seized and thrown into +prison, and narrowly escaped the loss of their ears and noses, but they +obtained their release with some difficulty, and only through powerful +intercession. In the copy which has been brought down to us through +the press, we find no reflections whatever upon Scotchmen, so that it +must have been altered from the original text. When we consider that, +at this time, the English court and capital were crowded with needy +Scottish adventurers, who were looked upon with great jealousy, it is +not improbable that in the original form of the comedy, Sir Petronel +Flash may have been a Scotchman, and intended not only as a satire upon +the Scottish adventurers in general, but to have been designed for some +one in particular who had the means of bringing upon the authors the +extreme displeasure of the court. + +The other circumstance which has given celebrity to this comedy, is one +of still greater interest. After the Restoration, it was new modelled +by Nicholas Tate, and brought again upon the stage under the title of +"Cuckold's Haven." Perhaps through this remodelled edition, Hogarth +took from the comedy of "Eastward Hoe," the idea of his series of +plates of the history of the Idle and Industrious Apprentices. + +When we consider the ridicule which was continually thrown upon them +in this earlier period of the English comedy, we can easily understand +the bitterness with which the Puritans regarded the stage and the +drama. When they obtained power, the stage, as might be expected, was +suppressed, and for some years England was without a theatre. At the +Restoration, however, the theatres were opened again, and with greater +freedom than ever. At first the old comedies of the days of James I. +and Charles I. were revived, and many of them, modified and adapted to +the new circumstances, were again brought upon the stage. The original +comedies which appeared immediately after the Restoration, were often +marked with a political tinge; as the stage saw its natural protectors +in the court, and in the court party, it embraced their politics; and +Puritans, Roundheads, Whigs, all whose principles were supposed to be +contrary to royalty and arbitrary power, fell under its satire. Such +was the character of the comedy of "The Cheats," by a play-writer of +some repute named Wilson, which was brought out in 1662. The object +of this play appears to have been, in the first place, to satirise +the Nonconformists or Puritanical clergy--with whom were classed the +astrologers and conjurers, who had increased in number during the +Commonwealth time, and infested society more than ever--and the city +magistrates, who were not looked upon as being generally over-loyal. +The three cheats who are the heroes of this comedy, are Scruple, the +Nonconformist, Mopus, a pretender to physic and astrology, and alderman +Whitebroth. Direct personal attacks had been introduced into the comedy +of the Restoration, and it is probable that somebody of influence was +satirised under the name of Scruple, for the play was suppressed by +authority, and at a later period, when it was revived, the prologue +announces this fact in the following words:-- + + _Sad news, my masters; and too true, I fear, + For us--Scruple's a silenc'd minister. + Would ye the cause? The brethren snivel, and say, + 'Tis scandalous that any cheat but they._ + +Many of the dramatists of the Restoration were men of good and +aristocratic families, witty and profligate cavaliers, who had returned +from exile with their king. The family of the earl of Berkshire +produced no less than four writers of comedy, all brothers, Edward +Howard, colonel Henry Howard, sir Robert Howard, and James Howard, +while their sister, the lady Elizabeth Howard, was married to the +poet Dryden. Edward Howard's first dramatic piece was a tragi-comedy +entitled "The Usurper," which came out in 1668, and was intended as +a satire upon Cromwell. His best known comedies were "The Man of +Newmarket," and "Woman's Conquest." Colonel Henry Howard composed a +comedy entitled "United Kingdoms," which appears not to have been +printed. To James Howard, the youngest of the brothers, the play-going +public, even then rather a large one, owed "The English Mounsieur," +and "All Mistaken, or the Mad Couple." Sir Robert Howard was the best +writer of the four, and wrote both tragedies and comedies, which were +afterwards published collectively. The best of his comedies is "The +Committee," which was first brought on the stage in 1665, and through +some chance, certainly not by its merit, continued to be an acting play +during the whole of the last century. + +"The Committee" is by far the best of the dramatic writings of the +Howards. Its design was to turn to ridicule the Commonwealth men and +the Puritans. Colonel Blunt and colonel Careless are two royalists, +whose estates are in the hands of the committee of sequestrations, +and who repair to London for the purpose of compounding for them. +The chairman of the committee is a Mr. Day, a worldly-minded and +sufficiently selfish Puritan, but who is ruled by his more crafty and +still less scrupulous wife, a designing and very talkative woman. Both +are of low origin, for Mrs. Day had been a kitchen-woman, and both are +very proud and very tyrannical. Among the other principal characters +are Abel Day, their son, Obadiah, the clerk to the committee, a man in +the interest of the Days, and an Irish servant named Teague, who had +been the servant of Careless's dear friend, a royalist officer killed +in battle, and whom the colonel finds in great distress, and takes into +his own service out of charity. The character of Teague is a very poor +caricature upon an Irishman, and his blunders and bulls are of a very +spiritless description. Here is an example. Teague has overheard the +two colonels state that they should be obliged to take the Covenant, +and express their reluctance to do it, and in his inconsiderate zeal, +he hurries away to try if he cannot take the covenant for them, and +thus save them a disagreeable operation. In the street he meets a +wandering bookseller--a class of pedlars who were then common--and a +scene takes place which is best given in the words of the original:-- + + _Bookseller._--New books, new books! A Desperate Plot and + Engagement of the Bloody Cavaliers! Mr. Saltmarshe's Alarum + to the Nation, after having been three days dead! Mercurius + Britannicus-- + + _Teague._--How's that? They cannot live in Ireland after they are + dead three days! + + _Book._--Mercurius Britannicus, or the Weekly Post, or the Solemn + League and Covenant! + + _Teag._--What is that you say? Is it the Covenant you have? + + _Book._--Yes; what then, sir? + + _Teag._--Which is that Covenant? + + _Book._--Why, this is the Covenant. + + _Teag._--Well, I must take that Covenant. + + _Book._--You take my commodities? + + _Teag._--I must take that Covenant, upon my soul, now. + + _Book._--Stand off, sir, or I'll set you further! + + _Teag._--Well, upon my soul, now, I will take the Covenant for my + master. + + _Book._--Your master must pay me for't, then! + + _Teag._--I must take it first, and my master will pay you + afterwards. + + _Book._--You must pay me now. + + _Teag._--Oh! that I will [_Knocks him down_]. Now you're paid, you + thief of the world. Here's Covenants enough to poison the whole + nation. + + [_Exit._ + + _Book._--What a devil ails this fellow? [_Crying_]. He did not come + to rob me, certainly; for he has not taken above two-pennyworth + of lamentable ware away; but I feel the rascal's fingers. I may + light upon my wild Irishman again, and, if I do, I will fix him + with some catchpole, that shall be worse than his own country + bogs. + + [_Exit._ + +In the sequel, Teague is caught by the constables, and is liberated +at the interference of his master, who pays twopence for the book. +The plot of the comedy is but a simple one, and is neither skilfully +nor naturally carried out. Colonel Blunt comes to London from Reading +in the inside of a stage-coach, having for his travelling companions +Mrs. Day, her supposed daughter Ruth, and Arabella, a young lady whose +father is recently dead, leaving his estates in the hands of the +committee of sequestrations. Ruth is, in truth, a young lady whose +estates the Days have, under similar circumstances, robbed her of, and +it is their design to treat Arabella in the same manner, under disguise +of forcing her to marry their son Abel, a vain silly lad. To effect +this, as the committee itself requires some influencing to engage them +in the selfish plans of their chairman, Day and his wife forge a letter +from the exiled king, complimenting the former on his great power and +influence and talents as a statesman, and offering him great rewards +if he will secretly promote his cause. Day communicates this to the +committee under the pretext that it is his duty to make them acquainted +with all such perfidious designs that might come to his knowledge, and +they, convinced of his honesty and value to them, give up Arabella's +estates to the Days, and she falls entirely under their power. +Meanwhile, on the one hand, Arabella has gained the confidence of +Ruth, who makes her acquainted with the whole plot against her and her +estates, and on the other, Ruth falls in love with colonel Careless, +and colonel Blunt is smitten with the charms of Arabella, and all this +takes place in the committee room. Various incidents follow, which seem +not very much to the purpose, but at last, as the marriage of Arabella +to Abel Day is pressed forward, the two young ladies, although as yet +they have hardly had an interview with the colonels, resolve to make +their escape from the house of the chairman of the committee, and fly +to their lovers for protection. A short absence from the house of Mr. +and Mrs. Day and their son together, presents the desired opportunity, +and Day having accidentally left his keys behind him, the idea suggests +itself to Ruth to open his cabinet, and gain possession of the deeds +and papers of her own estates and those of Arabella. As she had before +this secretly observed the private drawer in which they were placed, +she met with no difficulty in effecting her purpose, and not only found +these documents, but also with them the forged letter from the king, +and some letters addressed to Day by young women whom he was secretly +keeping, and who demanded money for the support of children they had by +him, and alluded to matters of a still more serious character. Ruth +takes possession of all these, and thus laden, the two damsels hurry +away, and reach without interruption the house where they were to meet +the colonels. The Days return home immediately after the departure +of their wards, and at once suspect the real state of affairs, which +is fully confirmed, when Mr. Day finds that his most private drawer +has been opened, and his most important papers carried off. They +immediately proceed in search of the fugitives, having sent orders for +a detachment of soldiers to assist them, and the house in which the +lovers have taken refuge is surrounded before they have had time to +escape. Finding it useless to attempt resistance by force, the besieged +call for a parley, and then Ruth frightens Day by acquainting him with +the contents of the private letters she has become possessed of, and +his wife by the knowledge she has obtained of the forged letter, which +also she has in her possession. The Days are thus overreached, and the +play ends with a general reconciliation. The ladies are left with the +titles of their estates, and with their lovers, and we are left to +suppose that they afterwards married, and were happy. + +The plot of "The Committee," it will be seen, is not a very capital +one, but the manner in which it is worked out is still worse. The +dialogue is extremely tame, and the incidents are badly interwoven. +When I say that the example of wit given above is the best in the play, +and that there are not many attempts at wit in it, it will hardly be +thought that it could be amusing, and we cannot but feel astonished +at the popularity which it once enjoyed. This popularity, indeed, is +only explained by the fashion of ridiculing the Puritans, which then +prevailed so strongly; and it perhaps retained its place on the stage +during the last century chiefly from the circumstance of its wanting +the objectionable qualities which characterised the written plays of +the latter half of the seventeenth century. + +"The Committee" is, after all, one of the very best comedies of the +school of dramatists represented by the brothers Howard. Contemporary +with this school of flat comedies, there was a school of equally +inflated tragedy, and both soon became objects of ridicule to the +satirists of the day. Of these, one of the boldest was George Villiers, +duke of Buckingham, the son of the favourite of king James I., and +equally celebrated for his talents and his profligacy. Buckingham is +said to have planned and begun his satirical comedy of "The Rehearsal" +as early as the year 1663, and to have had it ready for representation +towards the December of 1665, when the breaking out of the great plague +caused the theatres to be closed. After this interruption its author, +who was a desultory writer, appears to have laid it aside for some +time and then, new objects for satire having presented themselves, he +altered and modified it, and it was finally completed in 1671, when it +was brought out at the Theatre Royal in Covent Garden. It is said that +Buckingham was assisted in the composition of this satire, but it is +not stated in what manner, by Butler, and by Martin Clifford, of the +Charter-house. It is understood that, in the first form of his satire, +Buckingham had chosen the Hon. Edward Howard for its hero, and that he +afterwards exchanged him for Sir William Davenant, but he finally fixed +upon Dryden, whose tragedies and comedies are certainly not the best of +his writings--possibly some personal pique may have had an influence +in the selection. Nevertheless, with Dryden, the Howards, Davenant, +and one or two other writers of comedy, come in for their share of +ridicule. Dryden, under the name of Bayes, has composed a new drama, +and a friend named Johnson goes to witness the rehearsal of this play, +taking with him a country friend of the name of Smith. The play itself +is a piece of mockery throughout, made up of parodies, often very +happy, on the different play-writers of the day, and especially upon +Dryden; and it is mixed up with a running conversation between Bayes, +the author, and his two visitors, which is full of satirical humour. +The first part of the prologue explains to us sufficiently the spirit +in which this satire was written. + + _We might well call this short mock-play of ours + A posie made of weeds instead of flowers; + Yet such have been presented to your noses, + And there are such, I fear, who thought 'em roses. + Would some of 'em were here, to see this night + What stuff it is in which they took delight. + Here, brisk, insipid rogues, for wit, let fall + Sometimes dull sense, but oft'ner none at all; + There, strutting heroes, with a grim-fac'd train, + Shalt brave the gods, in king Cambyses vein. + For (changing rules, of late, as if men writ + In spite of reason, nature, art, and wit) + Our poets make us laugh at tragedy, + And with their comedies they make us cry._ + +A short account of this satire will, perhaps, be best understood, if I +explain that the antagonism of two contending kings of Granada having +been a favourite idea of Dryden in his tragedies, Buckingham is said to +have designed to ridicule him in making two, not rival, but associate +kings of Brentford, though others say that these two kings of Brentford +were intended for a sneer upon king Charles II. and the duke of York. +These two kings are the heroes of Bayes's play. The first act of +"The Rehearsal" consists of a discussion between Bayes, Johnson, and +Smith, on the general character of the play, in which Bayes exhibits +a large amount of vanity and self-confidence, said to have been a +characteristic of all these play-writers of the earlier period of the +Restoration, and he informs them that he has "made a prologue and an +epilogue, which may both serve for either; that is, the prologue for +the epilogue, or the epilogue for the prologue, (do you mark!) nay, +they may both serve, too, 'egad, for any other play as well as this." +Smith observes, "That's indeed artificial." Finally Bayes explains, +that as other authors, in their prologues, sought to flatter and +propitiate their audience, in order to gain their favourable opinion of +the plot, he, on the contrary, intended to force their applause out of +them by mere dint of terror, and for that purpose, he had introduced +as speakers of his prologue, no less personages than Thunder and +Lightning. This prologue, disengaged from the remarks of Bayes and his +friends, runs as follows:-- + + _Enter_ THUNDER _and_ LIGHTNING. + + _Thun._--I am the bold Thunder. + + _Light._--The brisk Lightning I. + + _Thun._--I am the bravest Hector of the sky. + + _Light._--And I fair Helen, that made Hector die. + + _Thun._--I strike men down. + + _Light._--I fire the town. + + _Thun_.--Let critics take heed how they grumble, + For then I begin for to rumble. + + _Light_.--Let the ladies allow us their graces, + Or I'll blast all the paint on their faces, + And dry up their peter to soot. + + _Thun_.--Let the critics look to't. + + _Light_.--Let the ladies look to't. + + _Thun_.--For the Thunder will do't. + + _Light_.--For the Lightning will shoot. + + _Thun_.--I'll give you dash for dash. + + _Light_.--I'll give you flash for flash. + Gallants, I'll singe your feather. + + _Thun_.--I'll Thunder you together. + + _Both_.--Look to't, look to't; we'll do't, we'll do't; + look to't; we'll do't. [_Twice or thrice repeated._ + +Bayes calls this "but a slash of a prologue," in reply to which, Smith +observes, "Yes; 'tis short, indeed, but very terrible." It is a parody +on a scene in "The Slighted Maid," a play by Sir Robert Stapleton, +where Thunder and Lightning were introduced, and their conversation +begins in the same words. But the poet has another difficulty on which +he desires the opinion of his visitors. "I have made," he says, "one of +the most delicate, dainty similes in the whole world, 'egad, if I knew +how to apply it. 'Tis," he adds, "an allusion to love." This is the +simile-- + + _So boar and sow, when any storm is nigh + Snuff up, and smell it gathering in the sky; + Boar beckons sow to trot in chesnut groves, + And there consummate their unfinished loves: + Pensive in mud they wallow all alone, + And snore and gruntle to each others moan._ + +It is a rather coarse, but clever parody on a simile in Dryden's +"Conquest of Granada," part ii.:-- + + _So two kind turtles, when a storm is nigh, + Look up, and see it gathering in the sky; + Each calls his mate to shelter in the groves, + Leaving, in murmurs, their unfinished loves; + Perch'd on some dropping branch, they sit alone, + And coo, and hearken to each other's moan._ + +It is decided that the simile should be added to the prologue, for, as +Johnson remarks to Bayes, "Faith, 'tis extraordinary fine, and very +applicable to Thunder and Lightning, methinks, because it speaks of a +storm." In the second act we come to the opening of the play, the first +scene consisting of whispering, in ridicule of a scene in Davenant's +"Play-house to Let," where Drake senior says-- + + _Draw up your men, + And in low whispers give your orders out._ + +In fact, the Gentleman-Usher and the Physician of the two kings of +Brentford appear upon the scene alone, and discuss a plot to dethrone +the two kings of Brentford, which they communicate by whispers into +each other's ears, which are totally inaudible. In Scene ii., "Enter +the two kings, hand in hand," and Bayes remarks to his visitors, +"Oh! these are now the two kings of Brentford; take notice of their +style--'twas never yet upon the stage; but, if you like it, I could +make a shift, perhaps, to show you a whole play, writ all just so." The +kings begin, rather familiarly, because, as Bayes adds, "they are both +persons of the same quality:"-- + + _1st King._--Did you observe their whispers, brother king? + + _2nd King._--I did, and heard, besides, a grave bird sing, + That they intend, sweetheart, to play us pranks. + + _1st King._--If that design appears, + I'll lay them by the ears, + Until I make 'em crack. + + _2nd King._--And so will I, i' fack! + + _1st King._--You must begin, _mon foi_. + + _2nd King._--Sweet sir, _pardonnez moi_. + +Bayes observes that he makes the two kings talk French in order +"to show their breeding." In the third act, Bayes introduces a new +character, prince Prettyman, a parody upon the character of Leonidas, +in Dryden's "Marriage-a-la-Mode." The prince falls asleep, and then +his beloved Cloris comes in, and is surprised, upon which Bayes +remarks, "Now, here she must make a simile." "Where's the necessity of +that, Mr. Bayes?" asks the critical Mr. Smith. "Oh," replies Bayes, +"because she's surprised. That's a general rule. You must ever make +a simile when you are surprised; 'tis a new way of writing." Now +we have another parody upon one of Dryden's similes. In the fourth +scene, the Gentleman-Usher and Physician appear again, discussing the +question whether their whispers had been heard or not, a discussion +which they conclude by seizing on the two thrones, and occupying them +with their drawn swords in their hands. Then they march out to raise +their forces, and a battle to music takes place, four soldiers on each +side, who are all killed. Next we have a scene between prince Prettyman +and his tailor, Tom Thimble, which involves a joke upon the princely +principle of non-payment. A scene or two follows in a similar tone, +without at all advancing the plot; although it appears that another +prince, Volscius, who, we are to suppose, supports the old dynasty of +Brentford, has made his escape to Piccadilly, while the army which he +is to lead has assembled, and is concealed, at Knightsbridge. This +incident produces a discussion between Mr. Bayes and his friends:-- + + _Smith._--But pray, Mr. Bayes, is not this a little difficult, that + you were saying e'en now, to keep an army thus concealed in + Knightsbridge? + + _Bayes._--In Knightsbridge?--stay. + + _Johnson._--No, not if inn-keepers be his friends.[100] + + _Bayes._--His friends? Ay, sir, his intimate acquaintance; or else, + indeed, I grant it could not be. + + _Smith._--Yes, faith, so it might be very easy. + + _Bayes._--Nay, if I don't make all things easy, 'egad, I'll give + 'em leave to hang me. Now you would think that he is going + out of town; but you will see how prettily I have contrived + to stop him, presently. + + [100] Knightsbridge, as the principal entrance to London from the west, + was full of inns. + +Accordingly, prince Volscius yields to the influence of a fair +_demoiselle_, who bears the classical name of Parthenope, and after +various exhibitions of hesitation, he does not leave town. Another +scene or two, with little meaning, but full of clever parodies on the +plays of Dryden, the Howards, and their contemporaries. The first scene +of the fourth act opens with a funeral, a parody upon colonel Henry +Howard's play of the "United Kingdoms." Pallas interferes, brings the +lady who is to be buried to life, gets up a dance, and furnishes a very +extempore feast. The princes Prettyman and Volscius dispute about their +sweethearts. At the commencement of the fifth act the two usurping +kings appear in state, attended by four cardinals, the two princes, +all the lady-loves, heralds, and sergeants-at-arms, &c. In the middle +of all this state, "the two right kings of Brentford descend in the +clouds, singing, in white garments, and three fiddlers sitting before +them in green." "Now," says Bayes to his friends, "because the two +right kings descend from above, I make 'em sing to the tune and style +of our modern spirits." And accordingly they proceeded in a continuous +parody:-- + + _1st King._--Haste, brother king, we are sent from above. + + _2nd King._--Let us move, let us move; + Move, to remove the fate + Of Brentford's long united state. + + _1st King._--Tara, tan, tara!--full east and by south. + + _2nd King._--We sail with thunder in our mouth. + In scorching noon-day, whilst the traveller stays, + Busy, busy, busy, busy, we bustle along, + Mounted upon warm Phœbus's rays, + Through the heavenly throng, + Hasting to those + Who will feast us at night with a pig's pettytoes. + + _1st King._--And we'll fall with our plate + In an olio of hate + + _2nd King._--But, now supper's done, the servitors try, + Like soldiers, to storm a whole half-moon pie. + + _1st King._--They gather, they gather, hot custards in spoons: + But, alas! I must leave these half-moons, + And repair to my trusty dragoons. + + _2nd King._--O stay! for you need not as yet go astray; + The tide, like a friend, has brought ships in our way, + And on their high ropes we will play; + Like maggots in filberts, we'll snug in our shell, + We'll frisk in our shell, + We'll firk in our shell, + And farewell. + + _1st King._--But the ladies have all inclination to dance, + And the green frogs croak out a coranto of France. + +All this is quite Aristophanic. It is interrupted by a discussion +between Bayes and his visitors on the music and the dance, and then the +two kings continue:-- + + _2nd King._--Now mortals, that hear + How we tilt and career, + With wonder, will fear + The event of such things as shall never appear. + + _1st King._--Stay you to fulfil what the gods have decreed. + + _2nd King._--Then call me to help you, if there shall be need. + + _1st King._--So firmly resolved is a true Brentford king, + To save the distressed, and help to 'em bring, + That, ere a full pot of good ale you can swallow, + He's here with a whoop, and gone with a halloo. + +The rather too inquisitive Smith wonders at all this, and complains +that, to him, the sense of this is "not very plain." "Plain!" exclaims +Bayes, "why, did you ever hear any people in the clouds speak plain? +They must be all for flight of fancy, at its full range, without the +least check or control upon it. When once you tie up sprites and people +in clouds to speak plain, you spoil all." The two kings of Brentford +now "light out of the clouds, and step into the throne," continuing the +same _dignified_ conversation:-- + + _1st King._--Come, now to serious council we'll advance. + + _2nd King._--I do agree; but first, let's have a dance. + +This confidence of the two kings of Brentford is suddenly disturbed +by the sound of war. Two heralds announce that the army, that of +Knightsbridge, had come to protect them, and that it had come _in +disguise_, an arrangement which puzzles the author's two visitors:-- + + _1st King._--What saucy groom molests our privacies? + + _1st Herald._--The army's at the door, and, in disguise, + Desires a word with both your majesties. + + _2nd Herald._--Having from Knightsbridge hither march'd by stealth. + + _2nd King._--Bid 'em attend a while, and drink our health. + + _Smith._--How, Mr. Bayes? The army in disguise! + + _Bayes._--Ay, sir, for fear the usurpers might discover them, that + went out but just now. + +War itself follows, and the commanders of the two armies, the general +and the lieutenant-general, appear upon the stage in another parody +upon the opening scenes of Dryden's "Siege of Rhodes:"-- + + _Enter, at several doors, the_ GENERAL _and_ LIEUTENANT-GENERAL, + _armed cap-à-pie, with each a lute in his hand, and his sword + drawn, and hung with a scarlet riband at the wrist_. + + _Lieut.-Gen._--Villain, thou liest. + + _Gen._--Arm, arm, Gonsalvo, arm. What! ho! + The lie no flesh can brook, I trow. + + _Lieut.-Gen._--Advance from Acton with the musqueteers. + + _Gen._--Draw down the Chelsea cuirassiers. + + _Lieut.-Gen._--The band you boast of, Chelsea cuirassiers, + Shall in my Putney pikes now meet their peers. + + _Gen._--Chiswickians, aged, and renowned in fight, + Join with the Hammersmith brigade. + + _Lieut.-Gen._--You'll find my Mortlake boys will do them right, + Unless by Fulham numbers over-laid. + + _Gen._--Let the left wing of Twick'n'am foot advance, + And line that eastern hedge. + + _Lieut.-Gen._--The horse I raised in Petty France + Shall try their chance, + And scour the meadows, overgrown with sedge. + + _Gen._--Stand: give the word. + + _Lieut.-Gen._--Bright sword. + + _Gen._--That may be thine, + But 'tis not mine. + + _Lieut.-Gen._--Give fire, give fire, at once give fire, + And let those recreant troops perceive mine ire. + + _Gen._--Pursue, pursue; they fly, + That first did give the lie! [_Exeunt._ + +Thus the battle is carried on in talk between two individuals. Bayes +alleges, as an excuse for introducing these trivial names of places, +that "the spectators know all these towns, and may easily conceive +them to be within the dominions of the two kings of Brentford." +The battle is finally stopped by an eclipse, and three personages, +representing the sun, moon, and earth, advance upon the stage, and +by dint of singing and manœuvring, one gets in a line between the +other two, and this, according to the strict rules of astronomy, +constituted the eclipse. The eclipse is followed by another battle +of a more desperate character, to which a stop is put in an equally +extraordinary manner, by the entrance of the furious hero Drawcansir, +who slays all the combatants on both sides. The marriage of prince +Prettyman was to form the subject of the fifth act, but while Bayes, +Johnson, and Smith withdraw temporarily, all the players, in disgust, +run away to their dinners, and thus ends "The Rehearsal" of Mr. Bayes's +play. The epilogue returns to the moral which the play was designed to +inculcate:-- + + _The play is at an end, but where's the plot? + That circumstance the poet Bayes forgot. + And we can boast, though 'tis a plotting age, + No place is freer from it than the stage._ + +Formerly people sought to write so that they might be understood, but +"this new way of wit" was altogether incomprehensible:-- + + _Wherefore, for ours, and for the kingdom's peace, + May this prodigious way of writing cease; + Let's have, at least once in our lives, a time + When we may hear some reason, not all rhyme. + We have this ten years felt its influence; + Pray let this prove a year of prose and sense._ + +English comedy was certainly greatly reformed, in some senses of the +word reform, during the period which followed the publication of "The +Rehearsal," and, in the hands of writers like Wycherley, Shadwell, +Congreve, and D'Urfey, the dulness of the Howards was exchanged for +an extreme degree of vivacity. The plot was as little considered as +ever--it was a mere peg on which to hang scenes brilliant with wit +and _repartee_. The small intrigue is often but a frame for a great +picture of society in its forms then most open to caricature, with +all the petty intrigues inseparable from it. "Epsom Wells," one of +Shadwell's earlier comedies, and perhaps his best, will bear comparison +with Jonson's "Bartholomew Fair." The personages represented in it +are exactly those which then shone in such society--three "men of wit +and pleasure," one of the class of country squires whom the wits of +London loved to laugh at, and who is described as "a country justice, +a public spirited, politick, discontented fop, an immoderate hater of +London, and a lover of the country above measure, a hearty true English +coxcomb." Then we have "two cheating, sharking, cowardly bullies." +The citizens of London are represented by Bisket, "a comfit-maker, a +quiet, humble, civil cuckold, governed by his wife, whom he very much +fears and loves at the same time, and is very proud of," and Fribble, +"a haberdasher, a surly cuckold, very conceited, and proud of his +wife, but pretends to govern and keep her under," and their wives, the +first "an impertinent, imperious strumpet," and the other, "an humble, +submitting wife, who jilts her husband that way, a very ----." One +or two other characters of the same stamp, with "two young ladies of +wit, beauty, and fortune," who behave themselves not much better than +the others, and a full allowance of "parsons, hectors, constables, +watchmen, and fiddlers," complete the _dramatis personæ_ of "Epsom +Wells." With such materials anybody will understand the character of +the piece, which was brought out on the stage in 1672. "The Squire of +Alsatia," by the same author, brought upon the stage in the eventful +year 1688, is a vivid picture of one of the wildest phases of London +life in those still rather primitive times. Alsatia, as every reader of +Walter Scott knows, was a cant name for the White Friars, in London, a +locality which, at that time, was beyond the reach of the law and its +officers, a refuge for thieves and rogues, and especially for debtors, +where they could either resist with no great fear of being overcome, +or, when resistance was no longer possible, escape with ease. With such +a scene, and such people for characters, we are not surprised that the +printed edition of this play is prefaced by a vocabulary of the cant +words employed in it. The principal characters in the play are of the +same class with those which form the staple of all these old comedies. +First there is a country father or uncle, who is rich and severe upon +the vices of youth, or arbitrary, or avaricious. He is here represented +by sir William Belfond, "a gentleman of about £3000 per annum, who in +his youth had been a spark of the town; but married and retired into +the country, where he turned to the other extreme--rigid, morose, most +sordidly covetous, clownish, obstinate, positive, and forward." He must +have a London brother, or near relative, endowed with exactly contrary +qualities, here represented by sir Edward Belfond, sir William's +brother, "a merchant, who by lucky hits had gotten a great estate, +lives single with ease and pleasure, reasonably and virtuously, a man +of great humanity and gentleness and compassion towards mankind, well +read in good books, possessed with all gentlemanlike qualities." Sir +William Belfond has two sons. Belfond senior, the eldest, is "bred +after his father's rustic, swinish manner, with great rigour and +severity, upon whom his father's estate is entailed, the confidence +of which makes him break out into open rebellion to his father, and +become lewd, abominably vicious, stubborn, and obstinate." The younger +Belfond, Sir William's second son, had been "adopted by Sir Edward, +and bred from his childhood by him, with all the tenderness and +familiarity, and bounty, and liberty that can be;" he was "instructed +in all the liberal sciences, and in all gentleman-like education; +somewhat given to women, and now and then to good fellowship; but +an ingenious, well-accomplished gentleman; a man of honour, and of +excellent disposition and temper." Then we have some of the leading +heroes of Alsatia, and first Cheatly, who is described as "a rascal, +who by reason of debts, dares not stir out of Whitefryers, but there +inveigles young heirs in tail; and helps 'em to goods and money upon +great disadvantages; is bound for them, and shares with them, till he +undoes them; a lewd, impudent, debauched fellow, very expert in the +cant about the town." Shamwell is "cousin to the Belfonds, an heir, +who, being ruined by Cheatly, is made a decoy-duck for others; not +daring to stay out of Alsatia, where he lives; is bound with Cheatly +for heirs, and lives upon them, a dissolute, debauch'd life." Another +of these characters is captain Hackum, "a block-headed bully of +Alsatia; a cowardly, impudent, blustering fellow; formerly a sergeant +in Flanders, run from his colours, retreating into Whitefryers for a +very small debt; where by the Alsatians he is dubb'd a captain; marries +one that lets lodgings, sells cherry-brandy, and is a bawd." Nor is +Alsatia without a representative of the Puritanical part of society, in +Scrapeall, "a hypocritical, repeating, praying, psalm-singing, precise +fellow, pretending to great piety; a godly knave, who joins with +Cheatly, and supplies young heirs with goods and money." A rather large +number of inferior characters fill up the canvas; and the females, +with two exceptions, belong to the same class. The plot of this play is +very simple. The elder son of sir William Belfond has taken to Alsatia, +but sir William, on his return from abroad, hearing talk of the fame of +a squire Belfond among the Alsatians, imagines that it is his younger +son, and out of this mistake a considerable amount of misunderstanding +arises. At last sir William discovers his error, and finds his eldest +son in Whitefryers, but the youth sets him at defiance. The father, in +great anger, brings tipstaff constables, to take away his son by force; +but the Alsatians rise in force, the officers of the law are beaten, +and sir William himself taken prisoner. He is rescued by the younger +Belfond, and in the conclusion the elder brother becomes penitent, and +is reconciled with his father. There is an underplot, far from moral +in its character, which ends in the marriage of Belfond junior. It is +a busy, noisy play, and was a great favourite on the stage; but it is +now chiefly interesting as a vivid picture of London life in the latter +half of the seventeenth century. "Bury Fair," by Shadwell, is another +comedy of the same description; with little interest in the plot, but +full of life and movement. If "The Squire of Alsatia" was noisy, "The +Scowrers," another comedy by the same author, first brought on the +stage in 1691, was still more so. The wild and riotous gallants who, +in former times of inefficient police regulation, infested the streets +at night, and committed all sorts of outrages, were known at different +periods by a variety of names. In the reign of James I. and Charles +I. they were the "roaring boys;" in the time of Shadwell, they were +called the "scowrers," because they scowered the streets at night, and +rather roughly cleared them of all passengers; a few years later they +took the name of Mohocks, or Mohawks. During the night London lay at +the mercy of these riotous classes, and the streets witnessed scenes of +brutal violence, which, at the present day, we can hardly imagine. This +state of things is pictured in Shadwell's comedy. Sir William Rant, +Wildfire, and Tope, are noted scowrers, well known in the town, whose +fame has excited emulation in men of less distinction in their way, +Whachum, "a city wit and scowrer, imitator of sir William," and "two +scoundrells," his companions, Bluster and Dingboy. Great enmity arises +between the two parties of rival scowrers. The more serious characters +in the play are Mr. Rant, sir William Rant's father, and sir Richard +Maggot, "a foolish Jacobite alderman" (it must be remembered that we +are now in the reign of king William). Sir Richard's wife, lady Maggot, +like the citizen's wives of the comedy of the Restoration generally, +is a lady rather wanting in virtue, ambitious of mixing with the gay +and fashionable world, and somewhat of a tyrant over her husband. She +has two handsome daughters, whom she seeks to keep confined from the +world, lest they should become her rivals. There are low characters +of both sexes, who need not be enumerated. Much of the play is taken +up with street rows, capital satirical pictures of London life. The +play ends with marriages, and with the reconciliation of sir William +Rant with his father, the serious old gentleman of the play. Shadwell +excelled in these busy comedies. One of the nearest approaches to him +is Mountfort's comedy of "Greenwich Park," which is another striking +satire on the looseness of London life at that time. As in the others, +the plot is simply nothing. The play consists of a number of intrigues, +such as may be imagined, at a time when morality was little respected, +in places of fashionable resort like Greenwich Park and Deptford Wells. + +An element of satire was now introduced into English comedy which does +not appear to have belonged to it before--this was mimicry. Although +the principal characters in the play bore conventional names, they +appear often to have been intended to represent individuals then well +known in society, and these individuals were caricatured in their +dress, and mimicked in their language and manners. We are told that +this mimicry contributed greatly to the success of "The Rehearsal," +the duke of Buckingham having taken incredible pains to make Lacy, who +acted the part of Bayes, perfect in imitating the voice and manner +of Dryden, whose dress and gait were minutely copied. This personal +satire was not always performed with impunity. On the 1st of February, +1669, Pepys went to the Theatre Royal to see the performance of "The +Heiress," in which it appears that sir Charles Sedley was personally +caricatured, and the secretary of king Charles's admiralty has left +in his diary the following entry:--"To the king's house, thinking to +have seen the Heyresse, first acted on Saturday, but when we come +thither we find no play there; Kynaston, that did act a part therein +in abuse to sir Charles Sedley, being last night exceedingly beaten +with sticks by two or three that saluted him, so as he is mightily +bruised, and forced to keep his bed." It is said that Dryden's comedy +of "Limberham," brought on the stage in 1678, was prohibited after the +first night, because the character of Limberham was considered to be +too open a satire on the duke of Lauderdale. + +Another peculiarity in the comedies of the age of the Restoration was +their extraordinary indelicacy. The writers seemed to emulate each +other in presenting upon the stage scenes and language which no modest +ear or pure mind could support. In the earlier period coarseness in +conversation was characteristic of an unpolished age--the language put +in the mouths of the actors, as remarked before, smelt of the tavern; +but under Charles II. the tone of fashionable society, as represented +on the stage, is modelled upon that of the brothel. Even the veiled +allusion is no longer resorted to, broad and direct language is +substituted in its place. This open profligacy of the stage reached its +greatest height between the years 1670 and 1680. The staple material +of this comedy may be considered to be the commission of adultery, +which is presented as one of the principal ornaments in the character +of the well-bred gentleman, varied with the seducing of other men's +mistresses, for the keeping of mistresses appears as the rule of +social life. The "Country Wife," one of Wycherley's comedies, which is +supposed to have been brought on the stage perhaps as early as 1672, +is a mass of gross indecency from beginning to end. It involves two +principal plots, that of a voluptuary who feigns himself incapable of +love and insensible to the other sex, in order to pursue his intrigues +with greater liberty; and that of a citizen who takes to his wife a +silly and innocent country girl, whose ignorance he believes will be +a protection to her virtue, but the very means he takes to prevent +her, lead to her fall. The "Parson's Wedding," by Thomas Killigrew, +first acted in 1673, is equally licentious. The same at least may be +said of Dryden's "Limberham, or the Kind Keeper," first performed in +1678, which, according to the author's own statement, was prohibited +on account of its freeness, but more probably because the character +of Limberham was believed to be intended for a personal satire on the +unpopular earl of Lauderdale. Its plot is simple enough; it is the +story of a debauched old gentleman, named Aldo, whose son, after a +rather long absence on the Continent, returns to England, and assumes +the name of Woodall, in order to enjoy freely the pleasures of London +life before he makes himself known to his friends. He takes a lodging +in a house occupied by some loose women, and there meets with his +father, but, as the latter does not recognise his son, they become +friends, and live together licentiously so long, that when the son at +length discovers himself, the old man is obliged to overlook his vices. +Otway's comedy of "Friendship in Fashion," performed the same year, was +not a whit more moral. But all these are far outdone by Ravenscroft's +comedy of "The London Cuckolds," first brought out in 1682, which, +nevertheless, continued to be acted until late in the last century. It +is a clever comedy, full of action, and consisting of a great number +of different incidents, selected from the less moral tales of the old +story-tellers as they appear in the "Decameron" of Boccaccio, among +which that of the ignorant and uneducated young wife, similar to the +plot of Wycherley's "Country Wife," is again introduced. + +The corruption of morals had become so great, that when women took +up the pen, they exceeded in licentiousness even the other sex, as +was the case with Mrs. Behn. Aphra Behn is understood to have been +born at Canterbury, but to have passed some part of her youth in the +colony of Surinam, of which her father was governor. She evidently +possessed a disposition for intrigue, and she was employed by the +English government, a few years after the Restoration, as a political +spy at Antwerp. She subsequently settled in London, and gained a living +by her pen, which was very prolific in novels, poems, and plays. It +would be difficult to point out in any other works such scenes of +open profligacy as those presented in Mrs. Behn's two comedies of +"Sir Patient Fancy" and "The City Heiress, or Sir Timothy Treat-all," +which appeared in 1678 and 1681. Concealment of the slightest kind is +avoided, and even that which cannot be exposed to view, is tolerably +broadly described. + +It appears that the performance of the "London Cuckolds" had been the +cause of some scandal, and there were, even among play-goers, some who +took offence at such outrages on the ordinary feelings of modesty. +The excess of the evil had begun to produce a reaction. Ravenscroft, +the author of that comedy, produced on the stage, in 1684, a comedy, +entitled "Dame Dobson, or the Cunning Woman," which was intended to be +a modest play, but it was unceremoniously "damned" by the audience. +The prologue to this new comedy intimates that the "London Cuckolds" +had pleased the town and diverted the court, but that some "squeamish +females" had taken offence at it, and that he had now written a "dull, +civill" play to make amends. They are addressed, therefore, in such +terms as these:-- + + _In you, chaste ladies, then we hope to-day, + This is the poet's recantation play. + Come often to 't, that he at length may see + 'Tis more than a pretended modesty. + Stick by him now, for if he finds you falter, + He quickly will his way of writing alter; + And every play shall send you blushing home, + For, though you rail, yet then we're sure you'll come._ + +And it is further intimated,-- + + _A naughty play was never counted dull-- + Nor modest comedy e'er pleased you much._ + +"I remember," says Colley Cibber in his "Apology," looking back to +these times, "I remember the ladies were then observed to be decently +afraid of venturing bare-faced to a new comedy, till they had been +assured they might do it without the risk of an insult to their +modesty; or if their curiosity were too strong for their patience, +they took care at least to save appearances, and rarely came upon the +first days of acting but in masks (then daily worn, and admitted in the +pit, the side boxes, and gallery), which custom, however, had so many +ill consequences attending it, that it has been abolished these many +years." According to the _Spectator_, ladies began now to desert the +theatre when comedies were brought out, except those who "never miss +the first day of a new play, lest it should prove too luscious to admit +of their going with any countenance to the second." + +In the midst of this abuse, there suddenly appeared a book which +created at the time a great sensation. The comedies of the latter half +of the seventeenth century were not only indecent, but they were filled +with profane language, and contained scenes in which religion itself +was treated with contempt. At that time there lived a divine of the +Church of England, celebrated for his Jacobitism--for I am now speaking +of the reign of king William--for his talents as a controversial +writer, and for his zeal in any cause which he undertook. This was +Jeremy Collier, the author of several books of some merit, which are +seldom read now, and who suffered for his zeal in the cause of king +James, and for his refusal to take the oath of allegiance to king +William. In the year 1698 Collier published his "Short View of the +Immorality and Profaneness of the English stage," in which he boldly +attacked the licentiousness of the English comedy. Perhaps Collier's +zeal carried him a little too far; but he had offended the wits, and +especially the dramatic poets, on all sides, and he was exposed to +attacks from all quarters, in which Dryden himself took an active part. +Collier showed himself fully capable of dealing with his opponents, and +the controversy had the effect of calling attention to the immoralities +of the stage, and certainly contributed much towards reforming them. +They were become much less frequent and less gross at the opening of +the eighteenth century. + +Towards the end of the reign of king Charles II., the stage was more +largely employed as a political agent, and under his successor, James +II., the Puritans and the Whigs were constantly held up to scorn. After +the Revolution, the tables were turned, and the satire of the stage +was often aimed at Tories and Non-jurors. "The Non-juror," by Colley +Cibber, which appeared in 1717, at a very opportune moment, gained for +its author a pension and the office of poet-laureate. It was founded +upon the "Tartuffe" of Molière, for the English comedy writers borrowed +much from the foreign stage. A disguised priest, who passes under the +name of Dr. Wolf, and who had been engaged in the rebellion of 1715, +has insinuated himself into the household of a gentleman of fortune, of +not very strong judgment, Sir John Woodvil, whom, under the title of a +Non-juror, he has not only induced to become an abettor of rebels, but +he has persuaded him to disinherit his son, and he labours to seduce +his wife and to deceive his daughter. His baseness is exposed only just +soon enough to defeat his designs. Such a production as this could +not fail to give great offence to all the Jacobite party, of whatever +shade, who were then rather numerous in London, and Cibber assures us +that his reward was a considerable amount of adverse criticism in every +quarter where the Tory influence reached. His comedies were inferior in +brilliance of dialogue to those of the previous age, but the plots were +well imagined and conducted, and they are generally good acting plays. + +To Samuel Foote, born in 1722, we owe the last change in the form and +character of English comedy. A man of infinite wit and humour, and +possessed of extraordinary talent as a mimic, Foote made mimicry the +principal instrument of his success on the stage. His plays are above +all light and amusing; he reduced the old comedy of five acts to three +acts, and his plots were usually simple, the dialogue full of wit and +humour; but their peculiar characteristic was their open boldness of +personal satire. It is entirely a comedy of his own. He sought to +direct his wit against all the vices of society, but this he did by +holding up to ridicule and scorn the individuals who had in some way +or other made themselves notorious by the practice of them. All his +principal characters were real characters, who were more or less known +to the public, and who were so perfectly mimicked on the stage in +their dress, gait, and speech, that it was impossible to mistake them. +Thus, in "The Devil upon Two Sticks," which is a general satire on the +low condition to which the practice of medicine had then fallen, the +personages introduced in it all represented quacks well known about the +town. "The Maid of Bath" dragged upon the stage scandals which were +then the talk of Bath society. The nabob of the comedy which bears +that title, had also his model in real life. "The Bankrupt" may be +considered as a general satire on the baseness of the newspaper press +of that day, which was made the means of propagating private scandals +and libellous accusations in order to extort money, yet the characters +introduced are said to have been all portraits from the life; and the +same statement is made with regard to the comedy of "The Author." + +It is evident that a drama of this inquisitorial character is a +dangerous thing, and that it could hardly be allowed to exist where the +rights of society are properly defined; and we are not surprised if +Foote provoked a host of bitter enemies. But in some cases the author +met with punishment of a heavier and more substantial description. +One of the individuals introduced into "The Maid of Bath," extorted +damages to the amount of £3,000. One of the persons who figured in +"The Author," obtained an order from the lord chamberlain for putting +a stop to the performance after it had had a short run; and the +consequences of "The Trip to Calais," were still more disastrous. +It is well known that the character of lady Kitty Crocodile in that +play was a broad caricature on the notorious duchess of Kingston. +Through the treachery of some of the people employed by Foote, the +duchess obtained information of the nature of this play before it was +ready for representation, and she had sufficient influence to obtain +the lord chamberlain's prohibition for bringing it on the stage. Nor +was this all, for as the play was printed, if not acted,--and it was +subsequently brought out in a modified form, with omission of the part +of lady Kitty Crocodile, though the characters of some of her agents +were still retained,--infamous charges were got up against Foote, in +retaliation, which caused him so much trouble and grief, that they are +said to have shortened his days. + +The drama which Samuel Foote had invented did not outlive him; its +caricature was itself transferred to the caricature of the print-shop. + + + + + CHAPTER XXIII. + + CARICATURE IN HOLLAND.--ROMAIN DE HOOGHE.--THE ENGLISH + REVOLUTION.--CARICATURES ON LOUIS XIV. AND JAMES II.--DR. + SACHEVERELL.--CARICATURE BROUGHT FROM HOLLAND TO ENGLAND.--ORIGIN + OF THE WORD "CARICATURE."--MISSISSIPPI AND THE SOUTH SEA; THE YEAR + OF BUBBLES. + + +Modern political caricature, born, as we have seen, in France, may be +considered to have had its cradle in Holland. The position of that +country, and its greater degree of freedom, made it, in the seventeenth +century, the general place of refuge to the political discontents of +other lands, and especially to the French who fled from the tyranny of +Louis XIV. It possessed at that time some of the most skilful artists +and best engravers in Europe, and it became the central spot from which +were launched a multitude of satirical prints against that monarch's +policy, and against himself and his favourites and ministers. This was +in a great measure the cause of the bitter hatred which Louis always +displayed towards that country. He feared the caricatures of the Dutch +more than their arms, and the pencil and graver of Romain de Hooghe +were among the most effective weapons employed by William of Nassau. + +The marriage of William with Mary, daughter of the duke of York, in +1677, naturally gave the Dutch a greater interest than they could +have felt before in the domestic affairs of Great Britain, and a new +stimulus to their zeal against Louis of France, or, which was the +same thing, against arbitrary power and Popery, both of which had +been rendered odious under his name. The accession of James II. to +the throne of England, and his attempt to re-establish Popery, added +religious as well as political fuel to these feelings, for everybody +understood that James was acting under the protection of the king +of France. The very year of king James's accession, in 1685, the +caricature appeared which we have copied in our cut No. 186, and which, +although the inscription is in English, appears to have been the work +of a foreign artist. It was probably intended to represent Mary of +Modena, the queen of James II., and her rather famous confessor, father +Petre, the latter under the character of the wolf among the sheep. Its +aim is sufficiently evident to need no explanation. At the top, in the +original, are the Latin words, _Converte Angliam_, "convert England," +and beneath, in English, "It is a foolish sheep that makes the wolf her +confessor." + + [Illustration: _No. 186. A Dangerous Confessor._] + +The period during which the Dutch school of caricature flourished, +extended through the reign of Louis XIV., and into the regency in +France, and two great events, the revolution of 1688 in England, and +the wild money speculations of the year 1720, exercised especially the +pencils of its caricaturists. The first of these events belongs almost +entirely to Romain de Hooghe. Very little is known of the personal +history of this remarkable artist, but he is believed to have been born +towards the middle of the seventeenth century, and to have died in +the earlier years of the eighteenth century. The older French writers +on art, who were prejudiced against Romain de Hooghe for his bitter +hostility to Louis XIV., inform us that in his youth he employed his +graver on obscene subjects, and led a life so openly licentious, that +he was banished from his native town of Amsterdam, and went to live +at Haerlem. He gained celebrity by the series of plates, executed in +1672, which represented the horrible atrocities committed in Holland by +the French troops, and which raised against Louis XIV. the indignation +of all Europe. It is said that the prince of Orange (William III. +of England), appreciating the value of his satire as a political +weapon, secured it in his own interests by liberally patronising the +caricaturist; and we owe to Romain de Hooghe a succession of large +prints in which the king of France, his _protégé_ James II., and the +adherents of the latter, are covered with ridicule. One, published +in 1688, and entitled "Les Monarches Tombants," commemorates the +flight of the royal family from England. Another, which appeared at +the same date, is entitled, in French, "Arlequin fur l'hypogryphe à +la croisade Loioliste," and in Dutch, "Armeé van de Heylige League +voor der Jesuiten Monarchy" (_i.e._ "the army of the holy league for +establishing the monarchy of the Jesuits"). Louis XIV. and James II. +were represented under the characters of Arlequin and Panurge, who are +seated on the animal here called a "hypogryphe," but which is really +a wild ass. The two kings have their heads joined together under one +Jesuit's cap. Other figures, forming part of this army of Jesuitism, +are distributed over the field, the most grotesque of which is that +given in our cut No. 187. Two personages introduced in some ridiculous +position or other, in most of these caricatures, are father Petre, the +Jesuit, and the infant prince of Wales, afterwards the old Pretender. +It was pretended that this infant was in fact the child of a miller, +secretly introduced into the queen's bed concealed in a warming-pan; +and that this ingenious plot was contrived by father Petre. Hence the +boy was popularly called Peterkin, or Perkin, _i.e._ little Peter, +which was the name given afterwards to the Pretender in songs and +satires at the time of his rebellion; and in the prints a windmill +was usually given to the child as a sign of its father's trade. In +the group represented in our cut, father Petre, with the child in his +arms, is seated on a rather singular steed, a lobster. The young prince +here carries the windmill on his head. On the lobster's back, behind +the Jesuit, are carried the papal crown, surmounted by a fleur-de-lis, +with a bundle of relics, indulgences, &c., and it has seized in one +claw the English church service book, and in the other the book of the +laws of England. In the Dutch description of this print, the child is +called "the new born Antichrist." Another of Romain de Hooghe's prints, +entitled "Panurge secondé par Arlequin Deodaat à la croisade d'Irlande, +1689," is a satire on king James's expedition to Ireland, which led to +the memorable battle of the Boyne. James and his friends are proceeding +to the place of embarkation, and, as represented in our cut No. 188, +father Petre marches in front, carrying the infant prince in his arms. + + [Illustration: _No. 187. A Jesuit well Mounted._] + +The drawing of Romain de Hooghe is not always correct, especially in +his larger subjects, which perhaps may be ascribed to his hasty and +careless manner of working; but he displays great skill in grouping +his figures, and great power in investing them with a large amount of +satirical humour. Most of the other caricatures of the time are poor +both in design and execution. Such is the case with a vulgar satirical +print which was published in France in the autumn of 1690, on the +arrival of a false rumour that king William had been killed in Ireland. +In the field of the picture the corpse of the king is followed by a +procession consisting of his queen and the principal supporters of +his cause. The lower corner on the left hand is occupied by a view of +the interior of the infernal regions, and king William introduced in +the place allotted to him among the flames. In different parts of the +picture there are several inscriptions, all breathing a spirit of very +insolent exultation. One of them is the-- + + _Billet d'Enterrement._ + + Vous estes priez d'assister au convoy, service, et enterrement + du tres haut, tres grand, et tres infame Prince infernal, grand + stadouter, des Armés diaboliques de la ligue d'Ausbourg, et + insigne usurpateur des Royaumes d'Angleterre, d'Eccosse, et + d'Irlande, décédé dans l'Irlande au mois d'Aoust 1690, qui se + fera le dit mois, dans sa paroisse infernale, ou assisteront Dame + Proserpine, Radamonte, et les Ligueurs. + + Les Dames lui diront s'il leur plaist des injures. + + [Illustration: _No. 188. Off to Ireland._] + +The prints executed in England at this time were, if possible, worse +than those published in France. Almost the only contemporary caricature +on the downfall of the Stuarts that I know, is an ill-executed print, +published immediately after the accession of William III., under the +title, "England's Memorial of its wonderful deliverance from French +Tyranny and Popish Oppression." The middle of the picture is occupied +by "the royal orange tree," which flourishes in spite of all the +attempts to destroy it. At the upper corner, on the left side, is a +representation of the French king's "council," consisting of an equal +number of Jesuits and devils, seated alternately at a round table. + +The circumstance that the titles and inscriptions of nearly all +these caricatures are in Dutch, seems to show that their influence +was intended to be exercised in Holland rather than elsewhere. In +two or three only of them these descriptions were accompanied with +translations in English or French; and after a time, copies of them +began to be made in England, accompanied with English descriptions. A +curious example of this is given in the fourth volume of the "Poems +on State Affairs," printed in 1707. In the preface to this volume the +editor takes occasion to inform the reader--"That having procur'd +from beyond sea a Collection of Satyrical Prints done in Holland and +elsewhere, by Rom. de Hoog, and other the best masters, relating to +the French King and his Adherents, since he unjustly begun this war, +I have persuaded the Bookseller to be at the expense of ingraving +several of them; to each of which I have given the Explanation in +English verse, they being in Dutch, French, or Latin in the originals." +Copies of seven of these caricatures are accordingly given at the end +of the volume, which are certainly inferior in every respect to those +of the best period of Romain de Hooghe. One of them commemorates the +eclipse of the sun on the 12th of May, 1706. The sun, as it might be +conjectured, is Louis XIV., eclipsed by queen Anne, whose face occupies +the place of the moon. In the foreground of the picture, just under the +eclipse, the queen is seated on her throne under a canopy, surrounded +by her counsellors and generals. With her left arm she holds down the +Gallic cock, while with the other hand she clips one of its wings +(see our cut No. 189). In the upper corner on the right, is inserted +a picture of the battle of Ramillies, and in the lower corner on the +left, a sea-fight under admiral Leake, both victories gained in that +year. Another of these copies of foreign prints is given in our cut +No. 190. We are told that "these figures represent a French trumpet and +drum, sent by Louis le Grand to enquire news of several citys lost by +the Mighty Monarch last campaign." The trumpeter holds in his hand a +list of lost towns, and another is pinned to the breast of the drummer; +the former list is headed by the names of "Gaunt, Brussels, Antwerp, +Bruges," the latter by "Barcelona." + + [Illustration: _No. 189. Clipping the Cock's Wings._] + + [Illustration: _No. 190. Trumpet and Drum._] + + [Illustration: _No. 191. The Three False Brethren._] + +The first remarkable outburst of caricatures in England was caused by +the proceedings against the notorious Dr. Sacheverell in 1710. It is +somewhat curious that Sacheverell's partisans speak of caricatures +as things brought recently from Holland, and new in England, and +ascribe the use of them as peculiar to the Whig party. The writer of +a pamphlet, entitled "The Picture of Malice, or a true Account of Dr. +Sacheverell's Enemies, and their behaviour with regard to him," informs +us that "the chief means by which all the lower order of that sort of +men call'd Whigs, shall ever be found to act for the ruin of a potent +adversary, are the following three--by the Print, the Canto or Doggrell +Poem, and by the Libell, grave, calm, and cool, as the author of the +'True Answer' describes it. These are not all employed at the same +time, any more than the ban and arierban of a kingdom is raised, unless +to make sure work, or in cases of great exigency and imminent danger." +"The Print," he goes on to say, "is originally a Dutch talisman +(bequeathed to the ancient Batavians by a certain Chinese necromancer +and painter), with a virtue far exceeding that of the Palladium, not +only of guarding their cities and provinces, but also of annoying their +enemies, and preserving a due balance amongst the neighbouring powers +around." This writer warms up so much in his indignation against this +new weapon of the Whigs, that he breaks out in blank verse to tell +us how even the mysterious power of the magician did not destroy its +victims-- + + _Swifter than heretofore the Print effac'd + The pomp of mightiest monarchs, and dethron'd + The dread idea of royal majesty; + Dwindling the prince below the pigmy size. + Witness the once Great Louis in youthful pride, + And Charles of happy days, who both confess'd + The magic power of mezzotinto[101] shade, + And form grotesque, in manifestoes loud + Denouncing death to boor and burgomaster. + Witness, ye sacred popes with triple crown, + Who likewise victims fell to hideous print, + Spurn'd by the populace who whilome lay + Prostrate, and ev'n adored before your thrones._ + + [101] The method of engraving called mezzotinto was very generally + adopted in England in the earlier part of the last century for + prints and caricatures. It was continued to rather a late period + by the publishing house of Carrington Bowles. + +We are then told that "this, if not the first, has yet been the chief +machine which his enemies have employ'd against the doctor; they have +exposed him in the same piece with the pope and the devil, and who now +could imagine that any simple priest should be able to stand before a +power which had levelled popes and monarchs?" At least one copy of the +caricature here alluded to is preserved, although a great rarity, and +it is represented in our cut No. 191. Two of the party remained long +associated together in the popular outcry, and as the name of the third +fell into contempt and oblivion, the doctor's place in this association +was taken by a new cause of alarm, the Pretender, the child whom we +have just seen so joyously brandishing his windmill. It is evident, +however, that this caricature greatly exasperated Sacheverell and the +party which supported him. + +It will have been noticed that the writer just quoted, in using the +term "print," ignores altogether that of caricature, which, however, +was about this time beginning to come into use, although it is not +found in the dictionaries, I believe, until the appearance of that of +Dr. Johnson, in 1755. _Caricature_ is, of course, an Italian word, +derived from the verb _caricare_, to charge or load; and therefore, +it means a picture which is charged, or exaggerated (the old French +dictionaries say, "_c'est la même chose que charge en peinture_"). +The word appears not to have come into use in Italy until the latter +half of the seventeenth century, and the earliest instance I know of +its employment by an English writer is that quoted by Johnson from +the "Christian Morals" of Sir Thomas Brown, who died in 1682, but it +was one of his latest writings, and was not printed till long after +his death:--"Expose not thyself by four-footed manners unto monstrous +draughts (_i.e._ drawings) and _caricatura_ representations." This very +quaint writer, who had passed some time in Italy, evidently uses it as +an exotic word. We find it next employed by the writer of the Essay No. +537, of the "Spectator," who, speaking of the way in which different +people were led by feelings of jealousy and prejudice to detract from +the characters of others, goes on to say, "From all these hands we +have such draughts of mankind as are represented in those burlesque +pictures which the Italians call _caricaturas_, where the art consists +in preserving, amidst distorted proportions and aggravated features, +some distinguishing likeness of the person, but in such a manner as to +transform the most agreeable beauty into the most odious monster." The +word was not fully established in our language in its English form of +_caricature_ until late in the last century. + + [Illustration: _No. 192. Atlas._] + +The subject of agitation which produced a greater number of caricatures +than any previous event was the wild financial scheme introduced into +France by the Scottish adventurer, Law, and imitated in England in +the great South Sea Bubble. It would be impossible here, within our +necessary limits, to attempt to trace the history of these bubbles, +which all burst in the course of the year 1720; and, in fact, it is a +history of which few are ignorant. On this, as on former occasions, the +great mass of the caricatures, especially those against the Mississippi +scheme, were executed in Holland, but they are much inferior to the +works of Romain de Hooghe. In fact, so great was the demand for these +caricatures, that the publishers, in their eagerness for gain, not +only deluged the world with plates by artists of no talent, which were +without point or interest, but they took old plates of any subject +in which there was a multitude of figures, put new titles to them, +and published them as satires on the Mississippi scheme; for people +were ready to take anything which represented a crowd as a satire on +the eagerness with which Frenchmen rushed into the share-market. +One or two curious instances of this deception might be pointed out. +Thus, an old picture, evidently intended to represent the meeting +of a king and a nobleman, in the court of a palace, surrounded by +a crowd of courtiers, in the costume probably of the time of Henri +IV., was republished as a picture of people crowding to the grand +scene of stock-jobbing in Paris, the Rue Quinquenpoix; and the old +picture of the battle between Carnival and Lent came out again, a +little re-touched, under the Dutch title, "Stryd tuszen de smullende +Bubbel-Heeren en de aanstaande Armoede," _i.e._, "The battle between +the good-living bubble-lords and approaching poverty." + +Besides being issued singly, a considerable number of these prints +were collected and published in a volume, which is still met with not +unfrequently, under the title "Het groote Tafereel der Dwaasheid," +"The great picture of folly." One of this set of prints represents a +multitude of persons, of all ages and sexes, acting the part of Atlas +in supporting on their backs globes, which, though made only of paper, +had become, through the agitation of the stock exchange, heavier than +gold. Law himself (see our cut No. 192) stands foremost, and requires +the assistance of Hercules to support his enormous burthen. In the +French verses accompanying this print, the writer says-- + + _Ami Atlas, on voit (sans conter vous et moi) + Faire l'Atlas partout des divers personnages, + Riche, pauvre, homme, femme, et sot et quasi-sage, + Valet, et paisan, le gueux s'eleve en roi._ + +Another of these caricatures represents Law in the character of Don +Quixote, riding upon Sancho's donkey. He is hastening to his Dulcinia, +who waits for him in the _actie huis_ (action or share-house), towards +which people are dragging the animal on which he is seated. The +devil (see our cut No. 193), sits behind Law, and holds up the ass's +tail, while a shower of paper, in the form of shares in companies, +is scattered around, and scrambled for by the eager _actionnaires_. +In front, the animal is laden with the money into which this paper +has been turned,--the box bears the inscription, "_Bombarioos +Geldkist_, 1720," "Bombario's (Law's) gold chest;" and the flag bears +the inscription, "_Ik koom, ik koom, Dulcinia_," "I come, I come, +Dulcinia." The best, perhaps, of this lot of caricatures is a large +engraving by the well-known Picart, inserted among the Dutch collection +with explanations in Dutch and French, and which was re-engraved in +London, with English descriptions and applications. It is a general +satire on the madness of the memorable year 1720. Folly appears as +the charioteer of Fortune, whose car is drawn by the representatives +of the numerous companies which had sprung up at this time, most of +which appear to be more or less unsound. Many of these agents have the +tails of foxes, "to show their policy and cunning," as the explanation +informs us. The devil is seen in the clouds above, blowing bubbles of +soap, which mix with the paper which Fortune is distributing to the +crowd. The picture is crowded with figures, scattered in groups, who +are employed in a variety of occupations connected with the great folly +of the day, one of which, as an example, is given in our cut No. 194. +It is a transfer of stock, made through the medium of a Jew broker. + + [Illustration: _No. 193. The Don Quixote of Finance._] + + [Illustration: _No. 194. Transfer of Stock._] + +It was in this bubble agitation that the English school of caricature +began, and a few specimens are preserved, though others which are +advertised in the newspapers of that day, seem to be entirely lost. In +fact, a very considerable portion of the caricature literature of a +period so comparatively recent as the first half of the last century, +appears to have perished; for the interest of these prints was in +general so entirely temporary that few people took any care to preserve +them, and few of them were very attractive as pictures. As yet, indeed, +these English prints are but poor imitations of the works of Picart +and other continental artists. A pair of English prints, entitled +"The Bubbler's Mirrour," represents, one a head joyful at the rise in +the value of stock, the other, a similar head sorrowful at its fall, +surrounded in each case with lists of companies and epigrams upon them. +They are engraved in mezzotinto, a style of art supposed to have been +invented in England--its invention was ascribed to Prince Rupert--and +at this time very popular. In the imprint of these last-mentioned +plates, we are informed that they were "Printed for Carington Bowles, +next y^e Chapter House, in St. Paul's Ch. Yard, London," a well-known +name in former years, and even now one quite familiar to collectors, +of this class of prints, especially. Of Carington Bowles we shall have +more to say in the next chapter. With him begins the long list of +celebrated English printsellers. + + + + + CHAPTER XXIV. + + ENGLISH CARICATURE IN THE AGE OF GEORGE II.--ENGLISH + PRINTSELLERS.--ARTISTS EMPLOYED BY THEM.--SIR ROBERT + WALPOLE'S LONG MINISTRY.--THE WAR WITH FRANCE.--THE NEWCASTLE + ADMINISTRATION.--OPERA INTRIGUES.--ACCESSION OF GEORGE III., AND + LORD BUTE IN POWER. + + +With the accession of George II., the taste for political caricatures +increased greatly, and they had become almost a necessity of social +life. At this time, too, a distinct English school of political +caricature had been established, and the print-sellers became more +numerous, and took a higher position in the commerce of literature +and art. Among the earliest of these printsellers the name of Bowles +stands especially conspicuous. Hogarth's burlesque on the Beggar's +Opera, published in 1728, was "printed for John Bowles, at the Black +Horse, in Cornhill." Some copies of "King Henry the Eighth and Anna +Bullen," engraved by the same great artist in the following year, +bear the imprint of John Bowles; and others were "printed for Robert +Wilkinson, Cornhill, Carington Bowles, in St. Paul's Church Yard, and +R. Sayer, in Fleet Street." Hogarth's "Humours of Southwark Fair" was +also published, in 1733, by Carington and John Bowles. This Carington +Bowles was, perhaps, dead in 1755, for in that year the caricature +entitled "British Resentment" bears the imprint, "Printed for T. +Bowles, in St. Paul's Church Yard, and Jno. Bowles & Son, in Cornhill." +John Bowles appears to have been the brother of the first Carington +Bowles in St. Paul's Churchyard, and a son named Carington succeeded to +that business, which, under him and his son Carington, and then as the +establishment of Bowles and Carver, has continued to exist within the +memory of the present generation. Another very celebrated printshop was +established in Fleet Street by Thomas Overton, probably as far back +as the close of the seventeenth century. On his death his business was +purchased by Robert Sayers, a mezzotinto engraver of merit, whose name +appears as joint publisher of a print by Hogarth in 1729. Overton is +said to have been a personal friend of Hogarth. Sayers was succeeded in +the business by his pupil in mezzotinto engraving, named Laurie, from +whom it descended to his son, Robert H. Laurie, known in city politics, +and it became subsequently the firm of Laurie and Whittle. This +business still exists at 53, Fleet Street, the oldest establishment +in London for the publication of maps and prints. During the reign of +the second George, the number of publishers of caricatures increased +considerably, and among others, we meet with the names of J. Smith, "at +Hogarth's Head, Cheapside," attached to a caricature published August, +1756; Edwards and Darly, "at the Golden Acorn, facing Hungerford, +Strand," who also published caricatures during the years 1756-7; +caricatures and burlesque prints were published by G. Bickham, May's +Buildings, Covent Garden, and one, directed against the employment of +foreign troops, and entitled "A Nurse for the Hessians," is stated to +have been "sold in May's Buildings, Covent Garden, where is 50 more;" +"The Raree Show," published in 1762, was "sold at Sumpter's Political +Print-shop, Fleet Street," and many caricatures on contemporary +costume, especially on the Macaronis, about the year 1772, were +"published by T. Bowen, opposite the Haymarket, Piccadilly." Sledge, +"printseller, Henrietta Street, Covent Garden," is also met with about +the middle of the last century. Among other burlesque prints, Bickham, +of May's Buildings, issued a series of figures representing the various +trades, made up of the different tools, &c., used by each. The house +of Carington Bowles, in St. Paul's Churchyard, produced an immense +number of caricatures, during the last century and the present, and of +the most varied character, but they consisted more of comic scenes of +society than of political subjects, and many of them were engraved in +mezzotinto, and rather highly coloured. Among them were caricatures on +the fashions and foibles of the day, amusing accidents and incidents, +common occurrences of life, characters, &., and they are frequently +aimed at lawyers and priests, and especially at monks and friars, +for the anti-Catholic feeling was strong in the last century. J. +Brotherton, at No. 132, New Bond Street, published many of Bunbury's +caricatures; while the house of Laurie and Whittle gave employment +especially to the Cruikshanks. But perhaps the most extensive publisher +of caricatures of them all was S. W. Fores, who dwelt first at No. 3, +Piccadilly, but afterwards established himself at No. 50, the corner +of Sackville Street, where the name still remains. Fores seems to have +been most fertile in ingenious expedients for the extension of his +business. He formed a sort of library of caricatures and other prints, +and charged for admission to look at them; and he afterwards adopted a +system of lending them out in portfolios for evening parties, at which +these portfolios of caricatures became a very fashionable amusement +in the latter part of the last century. At times, some remarkable +curiosity was employed to add to the attractions of his shop. Thus, on +caricatures published in 1790, we find the statement that, "In Fores' +Caricature Museum is the completest collection in the kingdom. Also +_the head and hand of Count Struenzee_. Admittance, 1_s._" Caricatures +against the French revolutionists, published in 1793, bear imprints +stating that they were "published by S. W. Fores, No. 3, Piccadilly, +where may be seen _a complete Model of the Guillotine_--admittance, one +shilling." In some this model is said to be six feet high. + +Among the artists employed by the print-publishers of the age of +George II., we still find a certain number of foreigners. Coypel, who +caricatured the opera in the days of Farinelli, and pirated Hogarth, +belonged to a distinguished family of French painters. Goupy, who +also caricatured the _artistes_ of the opera (in 1727), and Boitard, +who worked actively for Carington Bowles from 1750 to 1770, were also +Frenchmen. Liotard, another caricaturist of the time of George II., +was a native of Geneva. The names of two others, Vandergucht and +Vanderbank, proclaim them Dutchmen. Among the English caricaturists who +worked for the house of Bowles, were George Bickham, the brother of +the printseller, John Collet, and Robert Dighton, with others of less +repute. R. Attwold, who published caricatures against admiral Byng in +1750, was an imitator of Hogarth. Among the more obscure caricaturists +of the latter part of the half-century, were MacArdell--whose print +of "The Park Shower," representing the confusion raised among the +fashionable company in the Mall in St. James's Park by a sudden fall +of rain, is so well known--and Darley. Paul Sandby, who was patronised +by the duke of Cumberland, executed caricatures upon Hogarth. Many of +these artists of the earlier period of the English school of caricature +appear to have been very ill paid--the first of the family of Bowles is +said to have boasted that he bought many of the plates for little more +than their value as metal. The growing taste for caricature had also +brought forward a number of amateurs, among whom were the countess of +Burlington, and general, afterwards marquis, Townshend. The former, who +was the lady of that earl who built Burlington House, in Piccadilly, +was the leader of one of the factions in the opera disputes at the +close of the reign of George I., and is understood to have designed the +well-known caricature upon Cuzzoni, Farinelli, and Heidegger, which was +etched by Goupy, whom she patronised. It must not be forgotten that +Bunbury himself, as well as Sayers, were amateurs; and among other +amateurs I may name captain Minthull, captain Baillie, and John Nixon. +The first of these published caricatures against the Macaronis (as the +dandies of the earlier part of the reign of George III. were called), +one of which, entitled "The Macaroni Dressing-Room," was especially +popular. + + [Illustration: _No. 195. A Party of Mourners._] + +English political caricature came into its full activity with the +ministry of Sir Robert Walpole, which, beginning in 1721, lasted +through the long period of twenty years. In the previous period +the Whigs were accused of having invented caricature, but now the +Tories certainly took the utmost advantage of the invention, for, +during several years, the greater number of the caricatures which +were published were aimed against the Whig ministry. It is also a +rather remarkable characteristic of society at this period, that the +ladies took so great an interest in politics, that the caricatures +were largely introduced upon fans, as well as upon other objects of +an equally personal character. Moreover, the popular notion of what +constituted a caricature was still so little fixed, that they were +usually called _hieroglyphics_, a term, indeed, which was not ill +applied, for they were so elaborate, and so filled with mystical +allusions, that now it is by no means easy to understand or appreciate +them. Towards the year 1739, there was a marked improvement in the +political caricatures--they were better designed, and displayed more +talent, but still they required rather long descriptions to render them +intelligible. One of the most celebrated was produced by the motion in +the House of Commons, Feb. 13, 1741, against the minister Walpole. It +was entitled "The Motion," and was a Whig satire upon the opposition, +who are represented as driving so hurriedly and inconsiderately to +obtain places, that they are overthrown before they reach their object. +The party of the opposition retaliated by a counter-caricature, +entitled, "The Reason," which was in some respects a parody upon the +other, to which it was inferior in point and spirit. At the same time +appeared another caricature against the ministry, under the title of +"The Motive." These provoked another, entitled, "A Consequence of the +Motion;" which was followed the day after its publication by another +caricature upon the opposition, entitled, "The Political Libertines; +or, Motion upon Motion;" while the opponents of the government also +brought out a caricature, entitled, "The Grounds," a violent and rather +gross attack upon the Whigs. Among other caricatures published on this +occasion, one of the best was entitled, "The Funeral of Faction," +and bears the date of March 26, 1741. Beneath it are the words, +"Funerals performed by Squire S----s," alluding to Sandys, who was the +motion-maker in the House of Commons, and who thus brought on his party +a signal defeat. Among the chief mourners on this occasion are seen the +opposition journals, _The Craftsman_, the creation of Bolingbroke and +Pulteney, the still more scurrilous _Champion_, _The Daily Post_, _The +London and Evening Post_, and _The Common Sense Journal_. This mournful +group is reproduced in our cut No. 195. + + [Illustration: _No. 196. British Resentment._] + + [Illustration: _No. 197. Britannia in a New Dress._] + + [Illustration: _No. 198. Caught by a Bait._] + +From this time there was no falling off in the supply of caricatures, +which, on the contrary, seemed to increase every year, until +the activity of the pictorial satirists was roused anew by the +hostilities with France in 1755, and the ministerial intrigues of +the two following years. The war, accepted by the English government +reluctantly, and ill prepared for, was the subject of much discontent, +although at first hopes were given of great success. One of the +caricatures, published in the middle of these early hopes, at a time +when an English fleet lay before Louisbourg, in Canada, is entitled, +"British Resentment, or the French fairly coop'd at Louisbourg," +and came from the pencil of the French artist Boitard. One of its +groups, representing the courageous English sailor and the despairing +Frenchman, is given in our cut No. 196, and may serve as an example +of Boitard's style of drawing. It became now the fashion to print +political caricatures, in a diminished form, on cards, and seventy-five +of these were formed into a small volume, under the title of "A +Political and Satirical History of the years 1756 and 1757. In a +series of seventy-five humorous and entertaining Prints, containing +all the most remarkable Transactions, Characters, and Caricaturas of +those two memorable years.... London: printed for E. Morris, near St. +Paul's." The imprints of the plates, which bear the dates of their +several publications, inform us that they came from the well-known +shop of "Darly and Edwards, at the Acorn, facing Hungerford, Strand." +These caricatures begin with our foreign relations, and express the +belief that the ministers were sacrificing English interests to French +influence. In one of them (our cut No. 197), entitled, "England made +odious, or the French Dressers," the minister, Newcastle, in the garb +of a woman, and his colleague, Fox, have dressed Britannia in a new +French robe, which does not fit her. She exclaims, "Let me have my own +cloathes. I cannot stir my arms in these; besides, everybody laughs at +me." Newcastle replies, rather imperiously, "Hussy, be quiet, you have +no need to stir your arms--why, sure! what's here to do?" While Fox, in +a more insinuating tone, offers her a fleur-de-lis, and says, "Here, +madam, stick this in your bosom, next your heart." The two pictures +which adorn the walls of the room represent an axe and a halter; and +underneath we read the lines,-- + + _And shall the substitutes of power + Our genius thus bedeck? + Let them remember there's an hour + Of quittance--then, ware neck._ + +In another print of this series, this last idea is illustrated more +fully. It is aimed at the ministers, who were believed to be enriching +themselves at the expense of the nation, and is entitled, "The Devil +turned Bird-catcher." On one side, while Fox is greedily scrambling +for the gold, the fiend has caught him in a halter suspended to the +gallows; on the other side another demon is letting down the fatal +axe on Newcastle, who is similarly employed. The latter (see our cut +No. 198) is described as a "Noddy catching at the bait, while the +bird-catcher lets drop an axe." This implement of execution is a +perfect picture of a guillotine, long before it was so notoriously in +use in France. + + [Illustration: _No. 199. British Idolatry._] + +The third example of these caricatures which I shall quote is entitled +"The Idol," and has for its subject the extravagancies and personal +jealousies connected with the Italian opera. The rivalry between +Mingotti and Vanneschi was now making as much noise there as that of +Cuzzoni and Faustina some years before. The former acted arbitrarily +and capriciously, and could with difficulty be bound to sing a few +times during the season for a high salary: it is said, £2,000 for the +season. In the caricature to which I allude, this lady appears raised +upon a stool, inscribed "£2,000 per annum," and is receiving the +worship of her admirers. Immediately before her an ecclesiastic is seen +on his knees, exclaiming, "Unto thee be praise now and for evermore!" +In the background a lady appears, holding up her pug-dog, then the +fashionable pet, and addressing the opera favourite, "'Tis only pug and +you I love." Other men are on their knees behind the ecclesiastic, all +persons of distinction; and last comes a nobleman and his lady, the +former holding in his hand an order for £2,000, his subscription to the +opera, and remarking, "We shall have but twelve songs for all this +money." The lady replies, with an air of contempt, "Well, and enough +too, for the paltry trifle." The idol, in return for all this homage, +sings rather contemptuously-- + + _Ra, ru, ra, rot ye, + My name is Mingotti, + If you worship me notti, + You shall all go to potti._ + +The closing years of the reign of George II., under the vigorous +administration of the first William Pitt, witnessed a calm in the +domestic politics of the country, which presented a strange contrast +to the agitation of the previous period. Faction seemed to have hidden +its head, and there was comparatively little employment for the +caricaturist. But this calm lasted only a short time after that king's +death, and the new reign was ushered in by indications of approaching +political agitation of the most violent description, in which satirists +who had hitherto contented themselves with other subjects were tempted +to embark in the strife of politics. Among these was Hogarth, whose +discomforts as a political caricaturist we shall have to describe in +our next chapter. + + [Illustration: _No. 200. Fox on Boots._] + +Perhaps no name ever provoked a greater amount of caricature and +satirical abuse than that of Lord Bute, who, through the favour of +the Princess of Wales, ruled supreme at court during the first period +of the reign of George III. Bute had taken into the ministry, as his +confidential colleague, Fox--the Henry Fox who became subsequently +the first Lord Holland, a man who had enriched himself enormously +with the money of the nation, and these two appeared to be aiming at +the establishment of arbitrary power in the place of constitutional +government. Fox was usually represented in the caricatures with the +head and tail of the animal represented by his name rather strongly +developed; while Bute was drawn, as a very bad pun upon his name, in +the garb of a Scotchman, wearing two large boots, or sometimes a single +boot of still greater magnitude. In these caricatures Bute and Fox are +generally coupled together. Thus, a little before the resignation of +the duke of Newcastle in 1762, there appeared a caricature entitled +"The State Nursery," in which the various members of the ministry, as +it was then formed under Lord Bute's influence, are represented as +engaged in childish games. Fox, as the whipper-in of parliamentary +majorities, is riding, armed with his whip, on Bute's shoulders (see +our cut No. 200), while the duke of Newcastle performs the more menial +service of rocking the cradle. In the rhymes which accompany this +caricature, the first of these groups is described as follows (Fox was +commonly spoken of in satire by the title of Volpone)-- + + _First you see old sly Volpone-y, + Riding on the shoulders brawny + Of the muckle favourite Sawny; + Doodle, doodle, doo._ + + [Illustration: _No. 201. Fanaticism in another Shape._] + +The number of caricatures published at this period was very great, and +they were almost all aimed in one direction, against Bute and Fox, +the Princess of Wales, and the government they directed. Caricature, +at this time, ran into the least disguised licence, and the coarsest +allusions were made to the supposed secret intercourse between the +minister and the Princess of Wales, of which perhaps the most harmless +was the addition of a petticoat to the boot, as a symbol of the +influence under which the country was governed. In mock processions +and ceremonies a Scotchman was generally introduced carrying the +standard of the boot and petticoat. Lord Bute, frightened at the amount +of odium which was thus heaped upon him, fought to stem the torrent +by employing satirists to defend the government, and it is hardly +necessary to state that among these mercenary auxiliaries was the great +Hogarth himself, who accepted a pension, and published his caricature +entitled, "The Times, Nov. 1," in the month of September, 1762. Hogarth +did not excel in political caricature, and there was little in this +print to distinguish it above the ordinary publications of a similar +character. It was the moment of negotiations for Lord Bute's unpopular +peace, and Hogarth's satire is directed against the foreign policy of +the great ex-minister Pitt. It represents Europe in a state of general +conflagration, and the flames already communicating to Great Britain. +While Pitt is blowing the fire, Bute, with a party of soldiers and +sailors zealously assisted by his favourite Scotchmen, is labouring +to extinguish it. In this he is impeded by the interference of the +duke of Newcastle, who brings a wheelbarrow full of _Monitors_ and +_North Britons,_ the violent opposition journals, to feed the flames. +The advocacy of Bute's mercenaries, whether literary or artistic, did +little service to the government, for they only provoked increased +activity among its opponents. Hogarth's caricature of "The Times," drew +several answers, one of the best of which was a large print entitled +"The Raree Show: a political contrast to the print of 'The Times,' by +William Hogarth." It is the house of John Bull which is here on fire, +and the Scots are dancing and exulting at it. In the centre of the +picture appears a great actors' barn, from an upper window of which +Fox thrusts out his head and points to the sign, representing Æneas +and Dido entering the cave together, as the performance which was +acting within. It is an allusion to the scandal in general circulation +relating to Bute and the princess, who, of course, were the Æneas and +Dido of the piece, and appear in those characters on the scaffold in +front, with two of Bute's mercenary writers, Smollett, who edited the +_Briton_, and Murphy, who wrote in the _Auditor_, one blowing the +trumpet and the other beating the drum. Among the different groups +which fill the picture, one, behind the actors' barn (see our cut No. +201), is evidently intended for a satire on the spirit of religious +fanaticism which was at this time spreading through the country. +An open-air preacher, mounted on a stool, is addressing a not very +intellectual-looking audience, while his inspiration is conveyed to him +in a rather vulgar manner by the spirit, not of good, but of evil. + +The violence of this political warfare at length drove Lord Bute from +at least ostensible power. He resigned on the 6th of April, 1763. One +of the popular favourites at this time was the duke of Cumberland, the +hero of Culloden, who was regarded as the leader of the opposition +in the House of Lords. People now believed that it was the duke of +Cumberland who had overthrown "the boot," and his popularity increased +on a sudden. The triumph was commemorated in several caricatures. One +of these is entitled, "The Jack-Boot kick'd down, or English Will +triumphant: a Dream." The duke of Cumberland, whip in hand, has kicked +the boot out of the house, exclaiming to a young man in tailor's +garb who follows him, "Let me alone, Ned; I know how to deal with +Scotsmen. Remember Culloden." The youth replies, "Kick hard, uncle, +keep him down. Let me have a kick too." Nearly the same group, using +similar language, is introduced into a caricature of the same date, +entitled, "The Boot and the Blockhead." The youthful personage is no +doubt intended for Cumberland's nephew, Edward, duke of York, who was +a sailor, and was raised to the rank of rear-admiral, and who appears +to have joined his uncle in his opposition to Lord Bute. The "boot," as +seen in our cut No. 202, is encircled with Hogarth's celebrated "line +of beauty," of which I shall have to speak more at length in the next +chapter. + + [Illustration: _No. 202. The Overthrow of the Boot._] + +With the overthrow of Bute's ministry, we may consider the English +school of caricature as completely formed and fully established. From +this time the names of the caricaturists are better known, and we shall +have to consider them in their individual characters. One of these, +William Hogarth, had risen in fame far above the group of the ordinary +men by whom he was surrounded. + + + + + CHAPTER XXV. + + HOGARTH.--HIS EARLY HISTORY.--HIS SETS OF PICTURES.--THE HARLOT'S + PROGRESS.--THE RAKE'S PROGRESS.--THE MARRIAGE A LA MODE.--HIS + OTHER PRINTS.--THE ANALYSIS OF BEAUTY, AND THE PERSECUTION ARISING + OUT OF IT.--HIS PATRONAGE BY LORD BUTE.--CARICATURE OF THE + TIMES.--ATTACKS TO WHICH HE WAS EXPOSED BY IT, AND WHICH HASTENED + HIS DEATH. + + +On the 10th of November, 1697, William Hogarth was born in the city of +London. His father, Richard Hogarth, was a London schoolmaster, who +laboured to increase the income derived from his scholars by compiling +books, but with no great success. From his childhood, as he tells us +in his "Anecdotes" of himself, the young Hogarth displayed a taste for +drawing, and especially for caricature; and, out of school, he appears +to have been seldom without a pencil in his hand. The limited means +of Richard Hogarth compelled him to take the boy from school at an +early age, and bind him apprentice to a steel-plate engraver. But this +occupation proved little to the taste of one whose ambition rose much +higher; and when the term of his apprenticeship had expired, he applied +himself to engraving on copper; and, setting up on his own account, did +considerable amount of work, first in engraving arms and shop-bills, +and afterwards in designing and engraving book illustrations, none +of which displayed any superiority over the ordinary run of such +productions. Towards 1728 Hogarth began to practice as a painter, and +he subsequently attended the academy of sir James Thornhill, in Covent +Garden, where he became acquainted with that painter's only daughter, +Jane. The result was a clandestine marriage in 1730, which met the +disapproval and provoked the anger of the lady's father. Subsequently, +however, sir James became convinced of the genius of his son-in-law, +and a reconciliation was effected through the medium of lady Thornhill. + +At this time Hogarth had already commenced that new style of design +which was destined to raise him soon to a degree of fame as an artist +few men have ever attained. In his "Anecdotes" of himself, the +painter has given us an interesting account of the motives by which +he was guided. "The reasons," he says, "which induced me to adopt +this mode of designing were, that I thought both writers and painters +had, in the historical style, totally overlooked that intermediate +species of subjects which may be placed between the sublime and the +grotesque. I therefore wished to compose pictures on canvas similar +to representations on the stage; and further hope that they will be +tried by the same test, and criticised by the same criterion. Let it +be observed, that I mean to speak only of those scenes where the human +species are actors, and these, I think, have not often been delineated +in a way of which they are worthy and capable. In these compositions, +those subjects that will both entertain and improve the mind bid fair +to be of the greatest public utility, and must therefore be entitled to +rank in the highest class. If the execution is difficult (though that +is but a secondary merit), the author has claim to a higher degree of +praise. If this be admitted, comedy, in painting as well as writing, +ought to be allotted the first place, though _the sublime_, as it is +called, has been opposed to it. Ocular demonstration will carry more +conviction to the mind of a sensible man than all he would find in a +thousand volumes, and this has been attempted in the prints I have +composed. Let the decision be left to every unprejudiced eye; let the +figures in either pictures or prints be considered as players dressed +either for the sublime, for genteel comedy or farce, for high or low +life. I have endeavoured to treat my subjects as a dramatic writer: my +picture is my stage, and men and women my players, who, by means of +certain actions and gestures, are to exhibit _a dumb-show_." + +The great series of pictures, indeed, which form the principal +foundation of Hogarth's fame, are comedies rather than caricatures, +and noble comedies they are. Like comedies, they are arranged, by a +series of successive plates, in acts and scenes; and they represent +contemporary society pictorially, just as it had been and was +represented on the stage in English comedy. It is not by delicacy +or excellence of drawing that Hogarth excels, for he often draws +incorrectly; but it is by his extraordinary and minute delineation of +character, and by his wonderful skill in telling a story thoroughly. In +each of his plates we see a whole act of a play, in which nothing is +lost, nothing glossed over, and, I may add, nothing exaggerated. The +most trifling object introduced into the picture is made to have such +an intimate relationship with the whole, that it seems as if it would +be imperfect without it. The art of producing this effect was that in +which Hogarth excelled. The first of Hogarth's great _suites_ of prints +was "The Harlot's Progress," which was the work of the years 1733 and +1734. It tells a story which was then common in London, and was acted +more openly in the broad face of society than at the present day; and +therefore the effect and consequent success were almost instantaneous. +It had novelty, as well as excellence, to recommend it. This series +of plates was followed, in 1735, by another, under the title of "The +Rake's Progress." In the former, Hogarth depicted the shame and ruin +which attended a life of prostitution; in this, he represented the +similar consequences which a life of profligacy entailed on the other +sex. In many respects it is superior to the "Harlot's Progress," and +its details come more home to the feelings of people in general, +because those of the prostitute's history are more veiled from the +public gaze. The progress of the spendthrift in dissipation and riot, +from the moment he becomes possessed of the fruits of paternal avarice, +until his career ends in prison and madness, forms a marvellous drama, +in which every incident presents itself, and every agent performs his +part, so naturally, that it seems almost beyond the power of acting. +Perhaps no one ever pictured despair with greater perfection than it +is shown in the face and bearing of the unhappy hero of this history, +in the last plate but one of the series, where, thrown into prison +for debt, he receives from the manager of a theatre the announcement +that the play which he had written in the hope of retrieving somewhat +of his position--his last resource--has been refused. The returned +manuscript and the manager's letter lie on the wretched table (cut No. +203); while on the one side his wife reproaches him heartlessly with +the deprivations and sufferings which he has brought upon her, and +on the other the jailer is reminding him of the fact that the fees +exacted for the slight indulgence he has obtained in prison are unpaid, +and even the pot-boy refuses to deliver him his beer without first +receiving his money. It is but a step further to Bedlam, which, in the +next plate, closes his unblessed career. + + [Illustration: _No. 203. Despair._] + +Ten years almost from this time had passed away before Hogarth gave to +the world his next grand series of what he called his "modern moral +subjects." This was "The Marriage _à la mode_," which was published in +six plates in 1745, and which fully sustained the reputation built upon +the "Harlot's Progress" and the "Rake's Progress." Perhaps the best +plate of the "Marriage _à la mode_," is the fourth--the music scene--in +which one principal group of figures especially arrests the attention. +It is represented in our cut No. 204. William Hazlitt has justly +remarked upon it that, "the preposterous, overstrained admiration of +the lady of quality; the sentimental, insipid, patient delight of the +man with his hair in papers, and sipping his tea; the pert, smirking, +conceited, half-distorted approbation of the figure next to him; the +transition to the total insensibility of the round face in profile, and +then to the wonder of the negro boy at the rapture of his mistress, +form a perfect whole." + + [Illustration: _No. 204. Fashionable Society._] + + [Illustration: _No. 205. An Old Maid and her Page._] + + [Illustration: _No. 206. Loss and Gain._] + +In the interval between these three great monuments of his talent, +Hogarth had published various other plates, belonging to much the same +class of subjects, and displaying different degrees of excellence. His +engraving of "Southwark Fair," published in 1733, which immediately +preceded the "Harlot's Progress," may be regarded almost as an attempt +to rival the fairs of Gallot. "The Midnight Modern Conversation" +appeared in the interval between the "Harlot's Progress" and the +"Rake's Progress;" and three years after the series last mentioned, in +1738, the engraving, remarkable equally in design and execution, of +the "Strolling Actresses in a Barn," and the four plates of "Morning," +"Noon," "Evening," and "Night," all full of choicest bits of humour. +Such is the group of the old maid and her footboy in the first of this +series (cut No. 205)--the former stiff and prudish, whose religion +is evidently not that of charity; while the latter crawls after, +shrinking at the same time under the effects of cold and hunger, +which he sustains in consequence of the hard, niggardly temper of his +mistress. Among the humorous events which fill the plate of "Noon," we +may point to the disaster of the boy who has been sent to the baker's +to fetch home the family dinner, and who, as represented in our cut No. +206, has broken his pie-dish, and spilt its contents on the ground; +and it is difficult to say which is expressed with most fidelity to +nature--the terror and shame of the unfortunate lad, or the feeling +of enjoyment in the face of the little girl who is feasting on the +fragments of the scattered meal. In 1741 appeared the plate of "The +Enraged Musician." During this period Hogarth appears to have been +hesitating between two subjects for his third grand pictorial drama. +Some unfinished sketches have been found, from which it would seem +that, after depicting the miseries of a life of dissipation in either +sex, he intended to represent the domestic happiness which resulted +from a prudent and well-assorted marriage; but for some reason or +other he abandoned this design, and gave the picture of wedlock in +a less amiable light, in his "Marriage _à la mode_." The title was +probably taken from that of Dryden's comedy. In 1750 appeared "The +March to Finchley," in many respects one of Hogarth's best works. It +is a striking exposure of the want of discipline, and the low _morale_ +of the English army under George II. Many amusing groups fill this +picture, the scene of which is laid in Tottenham Court Road, along +which the guards are supposed to be marching to encamp at Finchley, in +consequence of rumours of the approach of the Pretender's army in the +Rebellion of '45. The soldiers in front are moving on with some degree +of order, but in the rear we see nothing but confusion, some reeling +about under the effects of liquor, and confounded by the cries of women +and children, camp-followers, ballad-singers, plunderers, and the like. +One of the latter, as represented in our cut No. 207, is assisting a +fallen soldier with an additional dose of liquor, while his pilfering +propensities are betrayed by the hen screaming from his wallet, and by +the chickens following distractedly the cries of their parent. + + [Illustration: _No. 207. A brave Soldier._] + + [Illustration: _No. 208. A Painter's Amusements._] + +Hogarth presents a singular example of a satirist who suffered under +the very punishment which he inflicted on others. He made many personal +enemies in the course of his labours. He had begun his career with a +well-known personal satire, entitled "The Man of Taste," which was +a caricature on Pope, and the poet is said never to have forgiven +it. Although the satire in his more celebrated works appears to us +general, it told upon his contemporaries personally; for the figures +which act their parts in them were so many portraits of individuals +who moved in contemporary society, and who were known to everybody, +and thus he provoked a host of enemies. It was like Foote's mimicry. +He was to an extraordinary degree vain of his own talent, and jealous +of that of others in the same profession; and he spoke in terms of +undisguised contempt of almost all artists, past or present. Thus, the +painter introduced into the print of "Beer Street," is said to be a +caricature upon John Stephen Liotard, one of the artists mentioned in +the last chapter. He thus provoked the hostility of the greatest part +of his contemporaries in his own profession, and in the sequel had +to support the full weight of their anger. When George II., who had +more taste for soldiers than pictures, saw the painting of the "March +to Finchley," instead of admiring it as a work of art, he is said to +have expressed himself with anger at the insult which he believed +was offered to his army; and Hogarth not only revenged himself by +dedicating his print to the king of Prussia, by which it did become +a satire on the British army, but he threw himself into the faction +of the prince of Wales at Leicester House. The first occasion for the +display of all these animosities was given in the year 1753, at the +close of which he published his "Analysis of Beauty." Though far from +being himself a successful painter of beauty, Hogarth undertook in +this work to investigate its principles, which he referred to a waving +or serpentine line, and this he termed the "line of beauty." In 1745 +Hogarth had published his own portrait as the frontispiece to a volume +of his collected works, and in one corner of the plate he introduced a +painter's palette, on which was this waving line, inscribed "The line +of beauty." For several years the meaning of this remained either quite +a mystery, or was only known to a few of Hogarth's acquaintances, until +the appearance of the book just mentioned. Hogarth's manuscript was +revised by his friend, Dr. Morell, the compiler of the "Thesaurus," +whose name became thus associated with the book. This work exposed +its author to a host of violent attacks, and to unbounded ridicule, +especially from the whole tribe of offended artists. A great number of +caricatures upon Hogarth and his line of beauty appeared during the +year 1754, which show the bitterness of the hatred he had provoked; +and to hold still further their terror over his head, most of them +are inscribed with the words, "To be continued." Among the artists +who especially signalised themselves by their zeal against him, was +Paul Sandby, to whom we owe some of the best of these anti-Hogarthian +caricatures. One of these is entitled, "A New Dunciad, done with a view +of [fixing] the fluctuating ideas of taste." In the principal group +(which is given in our cut No. 208), Hogarth is represented playing +with a _pantin_, or figure which was moved into activity by pulling a +string. The string takes somewhat the form of the line of beauty, which +is also drawn upon his palette. This figure is described underneath the +picture as "a painter at the proper exercise of his taste." To his +breast is attached a card (the knave of hearts), which is described +by a very bad pun as "the fool of arts." On one side "his genius" is +represented in the form of a black harlequin; while behind appears a +rather jolly personage (intended, perhaps, for Dr. Morell), who, we +are told, is one of his admirers. On the table are the foundations, or +the remains, of "a house of cards." Near him is Hogarth's favourite +dog, named Trump, which always accompanies him in these caricatures. +Another caricature which appeared at this time represents Hogarth on +the stage as a quack doctor, holding in his hand the line of beauty, +and recommending its extraordinary qualities. This print is entitled +"A Mountebank Painter demonstrating to his admirers and subscribers +that crookedness is y^e most beautifull." Lord Bute, whose patronage at +Leicester House Hogarth now enjoyed, is represented fiddling, and the +black harlequin serves as "his puff." In the front a crowd of deformed +and hump-backed people are pressing forwards (see our cut No. 209), and +the line of beauty fits them all admirably. + + [Illustration: _No. 209. The Line of Beauty exemplified._] + + [Illustration: _No. 210. Piracy Exposed._] + +Much as this famous line of beauty was ridiculed, Hogarth was not +allowed to retain the small honour which seemed to arise from it +undisputed. It was said that he had stolen the idea from an Italian +writer named Lomazzo, Latinised into Lomatius, who had enounced it in +a treatise on the Fine Arts, published in the sixteenth century.[102] +In another caricature by Paul Sandby, with a vulgar title which I will +not repeat, Hogarth is visited, in the midst of his glory, by the ghost +of Lomazzo, carrying in one hand his treatise on the arts, and with his +other holding up to view the line of beauty itself. In the inscriptions +on the plate, the principal figure is described as "An author sinking +under the weight of his saturnine analysis;" and, indeed, Hogarth's +terror is broadly painted, while the volume of his analysis is resting +heavily upon "a strong support bent in the line of beauty by the mighty +load upon it." Beside Hogarth stands "his faithful pug," and behind +him "a friend of the author endeavouring to prevent his sinking to his +natural lowness." On the other side stands Dr. Morell, or, perhaps, +Mr. Townley, the master of Merchant Taylors' School, who continued +his service in preparing the book for the press after Morell's death, +described as "the author's friend and corrector," astonished at the +sight of the ghost. The ugly figure on the left hand of the picture +is described as "Deformity weeping at the condition of her darling +son," while the dog is "a greyhound bemoaning his friend's condition." +This group is represented in our cut No. 210. The other caricatures +which appeared at this time were two numerous to allow us to give a +particular description of them. The artist is usually represented, +under the influence of his line of beauty, painting ugly pictures from +deformed models, or attempting historical pictures in a style bordering +on caricature, or, on one occasion, as locked up in a mad-house, and +allowed only to exercise his skill upon the bare walls. One of these +caricatures is entitled, in allusion to the title of one of his most +popular prints, "The Painter's March through Finchley, dedicated to the +king of the gipsies, as an encourager of arts, &c." Hogarth appears in +full flight through the village, closely pursued by women and children, +and animals in great variety, and defended only by his favourite dog. + + [102] It was translated into English by Richard Haydocke, under the + title of "The Artes of Curious Paintinge, Carvinge, Buildinge," + fol. 1598. This is one of the earliest works on art in the + English language. + +With the "Marriage _à la mode_," Hogarth may be considered as having +reached his highest point of excellence. The set of "Industry and +Idleness" tells a good and useful moral story, but displays inferior +talent in design. "Beer Street" and "Gin Lane" disgust us by their +vulgarity, and the "Four Stages of Cruelty" are equally repulsive +to our feelings by the unveiled horrors of the scenes which are too +coarsely depicted in them. In the four prints of the proceedings at +an election, which are the last of his pictures of this description, +published in 1754, Hogarth rises again, and approaches in some degree +to his former elevation. + +In 1757, on the death of his brother-in-law, John Thornhill, the office +of sergeant-painter of all his Majesty's works became vacant, and it +was bestowed upon Hogarth, who, according to his own account, received +from it an income of about £200 a-year. This appointment caused another +display of hostility towards him, and his enemies called him jeeringly +the king's chief panel painter. It was at this moment that a plan for +the establishment of an academy of the fine arts was agitated, which, +a few years later, came into existence under the title of the Royal +Academy, and Hogarth proclaimed so loud an opposition to this project, +that the old cry was raised anew, that he was jealous and envious of +all his profession, and that he sought to stand alone as superior to +them all. It was the signal for a new onslaught of caricatures upon +himself and his line of beauty. Hitherto his assailants had been found +chiefly among the artists, but the time was now approaching when he +was destined to thrust himself into the midst of a political struggle, +where the attacks of a new class of enemies carried with them a more +bitter sting. + +George II. died on the 17th of October, 1760, and his grandson +succeeded him to the throne as George III. It appears evident that +before this time Hogarth had gained the favour of lord Bute, who, +by his interest with the princess of Wales, was all-powerful in the +household of the young prince. The painter had hitherto kept tolerably +clear of politics in his prints, but now, unluckily for himself, +he suddenly rushed into the arena of political caricature. It was +generally said that Hogarth's object was, by displaying his zeal in the +cause of his patron, lord Bute, to obtain an increase in his pension; +and he acknowledges himself that his object was gain. "This," he says, +"being a period when war abroad and contention at home engrossed every +one's mind, prints were thrown into the background; and the stagnation +rendered it necessary that I should do some _timed thing_ [the italics +are Hogarth's] to recover my lost time, and stop a gap in my income." +Accordingly he determined to attack the great minister, Pitt, who had +then recently been compelled to resign his office, and had gone over to +the opposition. It is said that John Wilkes, who had previously been +Hogarth's friend, having been privately informed of his design, went +to the painter, expostulated with him, and, as he continued obstinate, +threatened him with retaliation. In September, 1762, appeared the print +entitled "The Times, No. I," indicating that it was to be followed by +a second caricature. The principal features of the picture are these: +Europe is represented in flames, which are communicating to Great +Britain, but lord Bute, with soldiers and sailors, and the assistance +of Highlanders, is labouring to extinguish them, while Pitt is blowing +the fire, and the duke of Newcastle brings a barrowful of _Monitors_ +and _North Britons_, the violent journals of the popular party, to +feed it. There is much detail in the print which it is not necessary +to describe. In fulfilment of his threat, Wilkes, in the number of +the _North Briton_ published on the Saturday immediately following +the publication of this print, attacked Hogarth with extraordinary +bitterness, casting cruel reflections upon his domestic as well as his +professional character. Hogarth, stung to the quick, retaliated by +publishing the well-known caricature of Wilkes. Thereupon Churchill, +the poet, Wilkes's friend, and formerly the friend of Hogarth also, +published a bitter invective in verse against the painter, under the +title of an "Epistle to William Hogarth." Hogarth retaliated again: +"Having an old plate by me," he tells us, "with some parts ready, +such as a background and a dog, I began to consider how I could turn +so much work laid aside to some account, so patched up a print of +Master Churchill in the character of a bear." The unfinished picture +was intended to be a portrait of Hogarth himself; the canonical bear, +which represented Churchill, held a pot of porter in one hand, and +in the other a knotted club, each knot labelled "lie 1," "lie 2," &c. +The painter, in his "Anecdotes," exults over the pecuniary profit he +derived from the extensive sale of these two prints. + + [Illustration: _No. 211. An Independent Draughtsman._] + +The virulence of the caricaturists against Hogarth became on this +occasion greater than ever. Parodies on his own works, sneers at his +personal appearance and manners, reflections upon his character, were +all embodied in prints which bore such names as Hogg-ass, Hoggart, +O'Garth, &c. Our cut No. 211 represents one of the caricature portraits +of the artist. It is entitled "Wm. Hogarth, Esq., drawn from the Life." +Hogarth wears the thistle on his hat, as the sign of his dependence on +lord Bute. At his breast hangs his palette, with the line of beauty +inscribed upon it. He holds behind his back a roll of paper inscribed +"Burlesque on L--d B--t." In his right hand he presents to view two +pictures, "The Times," and the "Portrait of Wilkes." At the upper +corner to the left is the figure of Bute, offering him in a bag a +pension of "£300 per ann." Some of the allusions in this picture are +now obscure, but they no doubt relate to anecdotes well known at the +time. They receive some light from the following mock letters which are +written at the foot of the plate:-- + + "_Copy of a Letter from Mr. Hog-garth to Lord Mucklemon, w^{th} + his Lordship's Answer._ + + "My Lord,--The enclosed is a design I intend to publish; you are + sensible it will not redound to your honour, as it will expose you + to all the world in your proper colours. You likewise know what + induced me to do this; but it is in y^r power to prevent it from + appearing in publick, which I would have you do immediately. + + "WILL^M HOG-GARTH. + + "Mais^r Hog-garth,--By my saul, mon, I am sare troobled for what + I have done; I did na ken y^r muckle merit till noow; say na mair + aboot it; I'll mak au things easy to you, & gie you bock your + Pension. + + "SAWNEY MUCKLEMON." + +In an etching without a title, published at this time, and copied in +our cut No. 212, the Hogarthian dog is represented barking from a +cautious distance at the canonical bear, who appears to be meditating +further mischief. Pugg stands upon his master's palette and the line of +beauty, while Bruin rests upon the "Epistle to Wm. Hogarth," with the +pen and ink by its side. On the left, behind the dog, is a large frame, +with the words "Pannel Painting" inscribed upon it. + + [Illustration: _No. 212. Beauty and the Bear._] + +The article by Wilkes in the _North Briton_, and Churchill's metrical +epistle, irritated Hogarth more than all the hostile caricatures, and +were generally believed to have broken his heart. He died on the 26th +of October, 1764, little more than a year after the appearance of the +attack by Wilkes, and with the taunts of his political as well as his +professional enemies still ringing in his ears. + + + + + CHAPTER XXVI. + + THE LESSER CARICATURISTS OF THE REIGN OF GEORGE III.--PAUL + SANDBY.--COLLET; THE DISASTER, AND FATHER PAUL IN HIS + CUPS.--JAMES SAYER; HIS CARICATURES IN SUPPORT OF PITT, AND + HIS REWARD.--CARLO KHAN'S TRIUMPH.--BUNBURY; HIS CARICATURES + ON HORSEMANSHIP.--WOODWARD; GENERAL COMPLAINT.--ROWLANDSON'S + INFLUENCE ON THE STYLE OF THOSE WHOSE DESIGNS HE ETCHED.--JOHN KAY + OF EDINBURGH: LOOKING A ROCK IN THE FACE. + + +The school of caricature which had grown amid the political agitation +of the reigns of the two first Georges, gave birth to a number of men +of greater talent in the same branch of art, who carried it to its +highest degree of perfection during that of George III. Among them are +the three great names of Gillray, Rowlandson, and Cruikshank, and a +few who, though second in rank to these, are still well remembered for +the talent displayed in their works, or with the effect they produced +on contemporaries. Among these the principal were Paul Sandby, John +Collet, Sayer, Bunbury, and Woodward. + +Sandby has been spoken of in the last chapter. He was not by profession +a caricaturist, but he was one of those rising artists who were +offended by the sneering terms in which Hogarth spoke of all artists +but himself, and he was foremost among those who turned their satire +against him. Examples of his caricatures upon Hogarth have already been +given, sufficient to show that they display skill in composition as +well as a large amount of wit and humour. After his death, they were +republished collectively, under the title, "Retrospective Art, from the +Collection of the late Paul Sandby, Esq., R.A." Sandby was, indeed, one +of the original members of the Royal Academy. He was an artist much +admired in his time, but is now chiefly remembered as a topographical +draughtsman. He was a native of Nottingham, where he was born in +1725,[103] and he died on the 7th of November, 1809.[104] + + [103] His death is usually placed, but erroneously, in 1732. + + [104] Sandby etched landscapes on steel, and in aquatinta, the latter + by a method peculiarly his own, besides painting in oil and + opaque colours. But his fame rests _mainly_ on being the founder + of the English school of _water-colour painting_, since he was + the first to show the capability of that material to produce + finished pictures, and to lead the way to the perfection in + effect and colour to which that branch of art has since attained. + + [Illustration: _No. 213. A Disaster._] + +John Collet, who also has been mentioned in a previous chapter, was +born in London in 1725, and died there in 1780. Collet is said to have +been a pupil of Hogarth, and there is a large amount of Hogarthian +character in all his designs. Few artists have been more industrious +and produced a greater number of engravings. He worked chiefly for +Carrington Bowles, in St. Paul's Churchyard, and for Robert Sayers, +at 53, Fleet Street. His prints published by Bowles were engraved +generally in mezzotinto, and highly coloured for sale; while those +published by Sayers were usually line engravings, and sometimes +remarkably well executed. Collet chose for his field of labour that +to which Hogarth had given the title of comedy in art, but he did not +possess Hogarth's power of delineating whole acts and scenes in one +picture, and he contented himself with bits of detail and groups of +characters only. His caricatures are rarely political--they are aimed +at social manners and social vanities and weaknesses, and altogether +they form a singularly curious picture of society during an important +period of the last century. The first example I give (No. 213) is taken +from a line engraving, published by Sayers in 1776. At this time the +natural adornments of the person in both sexes had so far yielded to +artificial ornament, that even women cut off their own hair in order to +replace it by an ornamental _peruque_, supporting a head-dress, which +varied from time to time in form and in extravagance. Collet has here +introduced to us a lady who, encountering a sudden and violent wind, +has lost all her upper coverings, and wig, cap, and hat are caught by +her footman behind. The lady is evidently suffering under the feeling +of shame; and hard by, a cottager and his wife, at their door, are +laughing at her discomfiture. A bill fixed against a neighbouring wall +announces "A Lecture upon Heads." + +At this time the "no-popery" feeling ran very high. Four years +afterwards it broke out violently in the celebrated lord Gordon riots. +It was this feeling which contributed greatly to the success of +Sheridan's comedy of "The Duenna," brought out in 1775. Collet drew +several pictures founded upon scenes in this play, one of which is +given in our cut No. 214. It forms one of Carington Bowles's rather +numerous series of prints from designs by Collet, and represents the +well-known drinking scene in the convent, in the fifth scene of the +third act of "The Duenna." The scene, it will be remembered, is "a room +in the priory," and the excited monks are toasting, among other objects +of devotion, the abbess of St. Ursuline and the blue-eyed nun of St. +Catherine's. The "blue-eyed nun" is, perhaps, the lady seen through the +window, and the patron saint of her convent is represented in one of +the pictures on the wall. There is great spirit in this picture, which +is entitled "Father Paul in his Cups, or the Private Devotions of a +Convent." It is accompanied with the following lines:-- + + _See with these friars how religion thrives, + Who love good living better than good lives; + Paul, the superior father, rules the roast, + His god's the glass, the blue-eyed nun his toast. + Thus priests consume what fearful fools bestow, + And saints' donations make the bumpers flow. + The butler sleeps--the cellar door is free-- + This is a modern cloister's piety._ + + [Illustration: _No. 214. Father Paul in his Cups._] + +From Collet to Sayer we rush into the heat--I may say into the +bitterness--of politics, for James Sayer is known, with very trifling +exceptions, as a political caricaturist. He was the son of a captain +of a merchant ship at Great Yarmouth, but was himself put to the +profession of an attorney. As, however, he was possessed of a moderate +independence, and appears to have had no great taste for the law, he +neglected his business, and, with considerable talent for satire and +caricature, he threw himself into the political strife of the day. +Sayer was a bad draughtsman, and his pictures are produced more by +labour than by skill in drawing, but they possess a considerable +amount of humour, and were sufficiently severe to obtain popularity +at a time when this latter character excused worse drawing even than +that of Sayer. He made the acquaintance and gained the favour of the +younger William Pitt, when that statesman was aspiring to power, and +he began his career as a caricaturist by attacking the Rockingham +ministry in 1782--of course in the interest of Pitt. Sayer's earliest +productions which are now known, are a series of caricature portraits +of the Rockingham administration, that appear to have been given to +the public in instalments, at the several dates of April 6, May 14, +June 17, and July 3, 1782, and bear the name of C. Bretherton as +publisher. He published his first veritable caricature on the occasion +of the ministerial changes which followed the death of lord Rockingham, +when lord Shelburne was placed at the head of the cabinet, and Fox +and Burke retired, while Pitt became chancellor of the exchequer. +This caricature, which bears the title of "Paradise Lost," and is, in +fact, a parody upon Milton, represents the once happy pair, Fox and +Burke, turned out of their paradise, the Treasury, the arch of the +gate of which is ornamented with the heads of Shelburne, the prime +minister, and Dunning and Barré, two of his staunch supporters, who +were considered to be especially obnoxious to Fox and Burke. Between +these three heads appear the faces of two mocking fiends, and groups +of pistols, daggers, and swords. Beneath are inscribed the well-known +lines of Milton-- + + _To the eastern side + Of Paradise, so late their happy seat, + Waved over by that flaming brand; the gate + With dreadful faces thronged and fiery arms! + Some natural tears they dropt, but wiped them soon. + The world was all before them, where to choose + Their place of rest, and providence their guide. + They, arm in arm, with wand'ring steps, and slow, + Thro' Eden took their solitary way._ + +Nothing can be more lugubrious than the air of the two friends, +Fox and Burke, as they walk away, arm in arm, from the gate of the +ministerial paradise. From this time Sayer, who adopted all Pitt's +virulence towards Fox, made the latter a continual subject of his +satire. Nor did this zeal pass unrewarded, for Pitt, in power, gave the +caricaturist the not unlucrative offices of marshal of the court of +exchequer, receiver of the sixpenny duties, and cursitor. Sayer was, +in fact, Pitt's caricaturist, and was employed by him in attacking +successively the coalition under Fox and North, Fox's India Bill, and +even, at a later period, Warren Hastings on his trial. + + [Illustration: _No. 215. A Contrast._] + +I have already remarked that Sayer was almost exclusively a political +caricaturist. The exceptions are a few prints on theatrical subjects, +in which contemporary actors and actresses are caricatured, and a +single subject from fashionable life. A copy of the latter forms our +cut No. 215. It has no title in the original, but in a copy in my +possession a contemporary has written on the margin in pencil that +the lady is Miss Snow and the gentleman Mr. Bird, no doubt well-known +personages in contemporary society. It was published on the 19th of +July, 1783. + +One of Sayer's most successful caricatures, in regard to the effect +it produced on the public, was that on Fox's India Bill, published on +the 5th of September, 1783. It was entitled "Carlo Khan's Triumphal +Entry into Leadenhall Street," Carlo Khan being personified by Fox, +who is carried in triumph to the door of the India House on the back +of an elephant, which presents the face of lord North. Burke, who had +been the principal supporter of the bill in debate, appears in the +character of the imperial trumpeter, and leads the elephant on its way. +On a banner behind Carlo, the old inscription, "The Man of the People," +the title popularly given to Fox, is erased, and the two Greek words, +ΒΑΣΙΛΕΥΣ ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΝ "king of kings," substituted in its place. From +a chimney above, the bird of ill omen croaks forth the doom of the +ambitious minister, who, it was pretended, aimed at making himself more +powerful than the king himself; and on the side of the house just below +we read the words-- + + _The night-crow cried foreboding luckless time._--Shakespeare. + +Henry William Bunbury belonged to a more aristocratic class in society +than any of the preceding. He was the second son of sir William +Bunbury, Bart., of Mildenhall, in the county of Suffolk, and was +born in 1750. How he first took so zealously to caricature we have +no information, but he began to publish before he was twenty-one +years of age. Bunbury's drawing was bold and often good, but he had +little skill in etching, for some of his earlier prints, published +in 1771, which he etched himself, are coarsely executed. His designs +were afterwards engraved by various persons, and his own style was +sometimes modified in this process. His earlier prints were etched and +sold by James Bretherton, who has been already mentioned as publishing +the works of James Sayer. This Bretherton was in some esteem as an +engraver, and he also had a print-shop at 132, New Bond Street, where +his engravings were published. James had a son named Charles, who +displayed great talent at an early age, but he died young. As early as +1772, when the macaronis (the dandies of the eighteenth century) came +into fashion, James Bretherton's name appears on prints by Bunbury as +the engraver and publisher, and it occurs again as the engraver of +his print of "Strephon and Chloe" in 1801, which was published by +Fores. At this and a later period some of his designs were engraved +by Rowlandson, who always transferred his own style to the drawings +he copied. A remarkable instance of this is furnished by a print of a +party of anglers of both sexes in a punt, entitled "Anglers of 1811" +(the year of Bunbury's death). But for the name, "H. Bunbury, del.," +very distinctly inscribed upon it, we should take this to be a genuine +design by Rowlandson; and in 1803 Rowlandson engraved some copies of +Bunbury's prints on horsemanship for Ackermann, of the Strand, in which +all traces of Bunbury's style are lost. Bunbury's style is rather +broadly burlesque. + + [Illustration: _No. 216. How to Travel on Two Legs in a Frost._] + +Bunbury had evidently little taste for political caricature, and he +seldom meddled with it. Like Collet, he preferred scenes of social +life, and humorous incidents of contemporary manners, fashionable +or popular. He had a great taste for caricaturing bad or awkward +horsemanship or unmanageable horses, and his prints of such subjects +were numerous and greatly admired. This taste for equestrian pieces +was shown in prints published in 1772, and several droll series of +such subjects appeared at different times, between 1781 and 1791, +one of which was long famous under the title of "Geoffrey Gambado's +Horsemanship." An example of these incidents of horsemanship is copied +in our cut No. 216, where a not very skilful rider, with a troublesome +horse, is taking advantage of the state of the ground for accelerating +locomotion. It is entitled, "How to travel on Two Legs in a Frost," and +is accompanied with the motto, in Latin, "_Ostendunt terris hunc tantum +fata, neque ultra esse sinent_." + + [Illustration: _No. 217. Strephon and Chloe._] + +Occasionally Bunbury drew in a broader style of caricature, especially +in some of his later works. Of our examples of this broader style, the +first cut, No. 217, entitled "Strephon and Chloe," is dated the 1st of +July, 1801. It is the very acme of sentimental courtship, expressed +in a spirit of drollery which could not easily be excelled. The next +group (cut No. 218), from a similar print published on the 21st of +July in the same year, is a no less admirable picture of overstrained +politeness. It is entitled in the original, "The Salutation Tavern," +probably with a temporary allusion beyond the more apparent design of +the picture. Bunbury, as before stated, died in 1811. It is enough to +say that sir Joshua Reynolds used to express a high opinion of him as +an artist. + + [Illustration: _No. 218. A Fashionable Salutation._] + +Bunbury's prints rarely appeared without his name, and, except when +they had passed through the engraving of Rowlandson, are easily +recognised. No doubt his was considered a popular name, which was +almost of as much importance as the print itself. But a large +mass of the caricatures published at the latter end of the last +century and the beginning of the present, appeared anonymously, or +with imaginary names. Thus a political print, entitled "The Modern +Atlas," bears the inscription "Mas^r Hook fecit;" another entitled +"Farmer George delivered," has that of "Poll Pitt del." "Everybody +delin^{it}," is inscribed on a caricature entitled "The Lover's Leap;" +and one which appeared under the title of "Veterinary Operations," +is inscribed "Giles Grinagain fect." Some of these were probably +the works of amateurs, for there appear to have been many amateur +caricaturists in England at that time. In a caricature entitled +"The Scotch Arms," published by Fores on the 3rd of January, 1787, +we find the announcement, "Gentlemen's designs executed gratis," +which means, of course, that Fores would publish the caricatures of +amateurs, if he approved them, without making the said amateurs pay +for the engraving. But also some of the best caricaturists of the +day published much anonymously, and we know that this was the case +to a very great extent with such artists as Cruikshank, Woodward, +&c., at all events until such time as their names became sufficiently +popular to be a recommendation to the print. It is certain that many +of Woodward's designs were published without his name. Such was the +case with the print of which we give a copy in our cut No. 219, which +was published on the 5th of May, 1796, and which bears strongly the +marks of Woodward's style. The spring of this year, 1796, witnessed a +general disappointment at the failure of the negociations for peace, +and therefore the necessity of new sacrifices for carrying on the war, +and of increased taxation. Many clever caricatures appeared on this +occasion, of which this by Woodward was one. Of course, when war was +inevitable, the question of generals was a very important one, and +the caricaturist pretends that the greatest general of the age was +"General Complaint." The general appears here with an empty purse in +his right hand, and in his left a handful of papers containing a list +of bankrupts, the statement of the budget, &c. Four lines beneath, in +rather doggrel verse, explain the situation as follows:-- + + _Don't tell me of generals raised from mere boys, + Though, believe me, I mean not their laurel to taint; + But the general, I'm sure, that will make the most noise, + If the war still goes on, will be General Complaint._ + + [Illustration: _No. 219. General Complaint._] + + [Illustration: _No. 220. Desire._] + +There was much of Bunbury's style in that of Woodward, who had a taste +for the same broad caricatures upon society, which he executed in a +similar spirit. Some of the _suites_ of subjects of this description +that he published, such as the series of the "Symptoms of the Shop," +those of "Everybody out of town" and "Everybody in Town," and the +"Specimens of Domestic Phrensy," are extremely clever and amusing. +Woodward's designs were also not unfrequently engraved by Rowlandson, +who, as usual, imprinted his own style upon them. A very good example +of this practice is seen in the print of which we give a copy in our +cut No. 220. Its title, in the original, is "Desire," and the passion +is exemplified in the case of a hungry schoolboy watching through a +window a jolly cook carrying by a tempting plum-pudding. We are told in +an inscription underneath: "Various are the ways this passion might be +depicted; in this delineation the subjects chosen are simple--a hungry +boy and a plum-pudding." The design of this print is stated to be +Woodward's; but the style is altogether that of Rowlandson, whose name +appears on it as the etcher. It was published by R. Ackermann, on the +20th of January, 1800. Woodward is well known by his prolific pencil, +but we are so little acquainted with the man himself, that I cannot +state the date either of his birth or of his death. + + [Illustration: _No. 221. Looking a Rock in the Face._] + +There lived at this time in Edinburgh an engraver of some eminence in +his way, but whose name is now nearly forgotten, and, in fact, it does +not occur in the last edition of Bryan's "Dictionary of Engravers." +This name was John Kay, which is found attached to prints, of which +about four hundred are known, with dates extending from 1784 to 1817. +As an engraver, Kay possessed no great talent, but he had considerable +humour, and he excelled in catching and delineating the striking +points in the features and gait of the individuals who then moved in +Edinburgh Society. In fact, a large proportion of his prints consist of +caricature portraits, often several figures on the same plate, which is +usually of small dimensions. Among them are many of the professors and +other distinguished members of the university of Edinburgh. Thus one, +copied in our cut No. 221, represents the eminent old geologist, Dr. +James Hutton, rather astonished at the shapes which his favourite rocks +have suddenly taken. The original print is dated in 1787, ten years +before Dr. Hutton's death. The idea of giving faces to rocks was not +new in the time of John Kay, and it has been frequently repeated. Some +of these caricature portraits are clever and amusing, and they are at +times very satirical. Kay appears to have rarely ventured on caricature +of any other description, but there is one rare plate by him, entitled +"The Craft in Danger," which is stated in a few words pencilled on the +copy I have before me, to have been aimed at a cabal for proposing Dr. +Barclay for a professorship in the university of Edinburgh. It displays +no great talent, and is, in fact, now not very intelligible. The +figures introduced in it are evidently intended for rather caricatured +portraits of members of the university engaged in the cabal, and are in +the style of Kay's other portraits.[105] + + [105] In the library of the British Museum there is a collection of + John Kay's works bound in two volumes quarto, with a title and + table of contents in manuscript, but whether it is one of a few + copies intended for publication, or whether it is merely the + collection of some individual, I am not prepared to say. It + contains 343 plates, which are stated to be all Kay's works down + to the year 1813, when this collection was made. "The Craft in + Danger" is not among them. I have before me a smaller, but a very + choice selection, of Kay's caricatures, the loan of which I owe + to the kindness of Mr. John Camden Hotten, of Piccadilly. I am + indebted to Mr. Hotten for many courtesies of this description, + and especially for the use of a very valuable collection of + caricatures of the latter part of the eighteenth century and + earlier part of the present, mounted in four large folio volumes, + which has been of much use to me. + + + + + CHAPTER XXVII. + + GILLRAY.--HIS FIRST ATTEMPTS.--HIS CARICATURES BEGIN WITH THE + SHELBURNE MINISTRY.--IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.--CARICATURES + ON THE KING; "NEW WAY TO PAY THE NATIONAL DEBT."--ALLEGED + REASON FOR GILLRAY'S HOSTILITY TO THE KING.--THE KING AND THE + APPLE-DUMPLINGS.--GILLRAY'S LATER LABOURS.--HIS IDIOTCY AND DEATH. + + +In the year 1757 was born the greatest of English caricaturists, +and perhaps of all caricaturists of modern times whose works are +known--James Gillray. His father, who was named like himself, James, +was a Scotchman, a native of Lanark, and a soldier, and, having +lost one arm at the battle of Fontenoy, became an out-pensioner of +Chelsea Hospital. He obtained also the appointment of sexton at the +Moravian burial-ground at Chelsea, which he held forty years, and it +was at Chelsea that James Gillray the younger was born. The latter, +having no doubt shown signs of artistic talent, was put apprentice +to letter-engraving; but after a time, becoming disgusted with this +employment, he ran away, and joined a party of strolling players, +and in their company passed through many adventures, and underwent +many hardships. He returned, however to London, and received some +encouragement as a promising artist, and obtained admission as a +student in the Royal Academy--the then young institution to which +Hogarth had been opposed. Gillray soon became known as a designer and +engraver, and worked in these capacities for the publishers. Among +his earlier productions, two illustrations of Goldsmith's "Deserted +Village" are spoken of with praise, as displaying a remarkable freedom +of effect. For a long time after Gillray became known as a caricaturist +he continued to engrave the designs of other artists. The earliest +known caricature which can be ascribed to him with any certainty, is +the plate entitled "Paddy on Horseback," and dated in 1779, when he +was twenty-two years of age. The "horse" on which Paddy rides is a +bull; he is seated with his face turned to the tail. The subject of +satire is supposed to be the character then enjoyed by the Irish as +fortune-hunters. The point, however, is not very apparent, and indeed +Gillray's earliest caricatures are tame, although it is remarkable +how rapidly he improved, and how soon he arrived at excellence. Two +caricatures, published in June and July, 1782, on the occasion of +admiral Rodney's victory, are looked upon as marking his first decided +appearance in politics. + +A distinguishing characteristic of Gillray's style is, the wonderful +tact with which he seizes upon the points in his subject open to +ridicule, and the force with which he brings those points out. In the +fineness of his design, and in his grouping and drawing, he excels all +the other caricaturists. He was, indeed, born with all the talents of +a great historical painter, and, but for circumstances, he probably +would have shone in that branch of art. This excellence will be the +more appreciated when it is understood that he drew his picture with +the needle on the plate, without having made any previous sketch of +it, except sometimes a few hasty outlines of individual portraits or +characters scrawled on cards or scraps of paper as they struck him. + +Soon after the two caricatures on Rodney's naval victory, the +Rockingham administration was broken up by the death of its chief, and +another was formed under the direction of Lord Shelburne, from which +Fox and Burke retired, leaving in it their old colleague, Pitt, who +now deserted the Whig party in parliament. Fox and Burke became from +this moment the butt of all sorts of abuse and scornful satire from the +caricaturists, such as Sayer, and newspaper writers in the pay of their +opponents; and Gillray, perhaps because it offered at that moment the +best chance of popularity and success, joined in the crusade against +the two ex-ministers and their friends. In one of his caricatures, +which is a parody upon Milton, Fox is represented in the character of +Satan, turning his back upon the ministerial Paradise, but looking +enviously over his shoulder at the happy pair (Shelburne and Pitt) who +are counting their money on the treasury table:-- + + _Aside he turned + For envy, yet with jealous leer malign + Eyed them askance._ + +Another, also by Gillray, is entitled "Guy Faux and Judas Iscariot," +the former represented by Fox, who discovers the desertion of his +late colleague, lord Shelburne, by the light of his lantern, and +recriminates angrily, "Ah! what, I've found you out, have I? Who arm'd +the high priests and the people? Who betray'd his mas--?" At this +point he is interrupted by a sneering retort from Shelburne, who is +carrying away the treasury bag with a look of great self-complacency, +"Ha, ha! poor Gunpowder's vexed! He, he, he!--Shan't have the bag, I +tell you, old Goosetooth!" Burke was usually caricatured as a Jesuit; +and in another of Gillray's prints of this time (published Aug. 23, +1782), entitled "Cincinnatus in Retirement," Burke is represented as +driven into the retirement of his Irish cabin, where he is surrounded +by Popish relics and emblems of superstition, and by the materials +for drinking whisky. A vessel, inscribed "Relick No. 1., used by St. +Peter," is filled with boiled potatoes, which Jesuit Burke is paring. +Three imps are seen dancing under the table. + + [Illustration: _No. 222. A Strong Dose._] + +In 1783 the Shelburne ministry itself was dissolved, and succeeded +by the Portland ministry, in which Fox was secretary of state for +foreign affairs, and Burke, paymaster of the forces, and Lord North, +who had joined the Whigs against lord Shelburne, now obtained office +as secretary for the home department. Gillray joined warmly in the +attacks on this coalition of parties, and from this time his great +activity as a caricaturist begins. Fox, especially, and Burke, still +under the character of a Jesuit, were incessantly held up to ridicule +in his prints. In another year this ministry also was overthrown, and +young William Pitt became established in power, while the ex-ministers, +now the opposition, had become unpopular throughout the country. The +caricature of Gillray followed them, and Fox and Burke constantly +appeared under his hands in some ridiculous situation or other. But +Gillray was not a hired libeller, like Sayer and some of the lower +caricaturists of that time; he evidently chose his subjects, in some +degree independently, as those which offered him the best mark for +ridicule; and he had so little respect for the ministers or the court, +that they all felt his satire in turn. Thus, when the plan of national +fortifications--brought forward by the duke of Richmond, who had +deserted the Whigs to be made a Tory minister, as master-general of +the ordnance--was defeated in the House of Commons in 1787, the best +caricature it provoked was one by Gillray, entitled "Honi soit qui +mal y pense," which represents the horror of the duke of Richmond at +being so unceremoniously compelled to swallow his own fortifications +(cut No. 222). It is lord Shelburne, who had now become marquis of +Lansdowne, who is represented as administering the bitter dose. Some +months afterwards, in the famous impeachment against Warren Hastings, +Gillray sided warmly against the impeachers, perhaps partly because +these were Burke and his friends; yet several of his caricatures on +this affair are aimed at the ministers, and even at the king himself. +Lord Thurlow, who was a favourite with the king, and who supported the +cause of Warren Hastings with firmness, after he had been deserted by +Pitt and the other ministers, was especially an object of Gillray's +satire. Thurlow, it will be remembered, was rather celebrated for +profane swearing, and was sometimes spoken of as the thunderer. One +of the finest of Gillray's caricatures at this period, published on +the 1st of March, 1788, is entitled "Blood on Thunder fording the Red +Sea," and represents Warren Hastings carried on chancellor Thurlow's +shoulders through a sea of blood, strewed with the mangled corpses +of Hindoos. As will be seen in our copy of the most important part of +this print (cut No. 223), the "saviour of India," as he was called by +his friends, has taken care to secure his gains. A remarkably bold +caricature by Gillray against the government appeared on the 2nd of May +in this year. It is entitled "Market-Day--every man has his price," and +represents a scene in Smithfield, where the horned cattle exposed for +sale are the supporters of the king's ministry. Lord Thurlow, with his +characteristic frown, appears as the principal purchaser. Pitt, and +his friend and colleague Dundas, are represented drinking and smoking +jovially at the window of a public-house. On one side Warren Hastings +is riding off with the king in the form of a calf, which he has just +purchased, for Hastings was popularly believed to have worked upon king +George's avarice by rich presents of diamonds. On another side, the +overwhelming rush of the cattle is throwing over the van in which Fox, +Burke, and Sheridan are driving. This plate deserves to be placed among +Gillray's finest works. + + [Illustration: _No. 223. Blood on Thunder._] + +Gillray caricatured the heir to the throne with bitterness, perhaps +because his dissipation and extravagance rendered him a fair subject +of ridicule, and because he associated himself with Fox's party in +politics; but his hostility to the king is ascribed in part to personal +feelings. A large and very remarkable print by our artist, though his +name was not attached to it, and one which displays in a special manner +the great characteristics of Gillray's style, appeared on the 21st of +April, 1786, just after an application had been made to the House of +Commons for a large sum of money to pay off the king's debts, which +were very great, in spite of the enormous income then attached to the +crown. George was known as a careful and even a parsimonious man, and +the queen was looked upon generally as a mean and very avaricious +woman, and people were at a loss to account for this extraordinary +expenditure, and they tried to explain it in various ways which were +not to the credit of the royal pair. It was said that immense sums were +spent in secret corruption to pave the way to the establishment of +arbitrary power; that the king was making large savings, and hoarding +up treasures at Hanover; and that, instead of spending money on his +family, he allowed his eldest son to run into serious difficulties +through the smallness of his allowance, and thus to become an object of +pity to his French friend, the wealthy duc d'Orleans, who had offered +him relief. The caricature just mentioned, which is extremely severe, +is entitled "A new way to pay the National Debt." It represents the +entrance to the treasury, from which king George and his queen, with +their band of pensioners, are issuing, their pockets, and the queen's +apron, so full of money, that the coins are rolling out and scattering +about the ground. Nevertheless, Pitt, whose pockets also are full, +adds to the royal treasures large bags of the national revenue, which +are received with smiles of satisfaction. To the left, a crippled +soldier sits on the ground, and asks in vain for relief; while the +wall above is covered with torn placards, on some of which may be +read, "God save the King;" "Charity, a romance;" "From Germany, just +arrived a large and royal assortment...;" and "Last dying speech of +fifty-four malefactors executed for robbing a hen-roost." The latter +is a satirical allusion to the notorious severity with which the most +trifling depredators on the king's private farm were prosecuted. In the +background, on the right hand side of the picture, the prince appears +in ragged garments, and in want of charity no less than the cripple, +and near him is the duke of Orleans, who offers him a draft for +£200,000. On the placards on the walls here we read such announcements +as "Economy, an old song;" "British property, a farce;" and "Just +published, for the benefit of posterity, the dying groans of Liberty;" +and one, immediately over the prince's head, bears the prince's +feathers, with the motto, "Ich starve." Altogether this is one of the +most remarkable of Gillray's caricatures. + + [Illustration: _No. 224. Farmer George and his Wife._] + +The parsimoniousness of the king and queen was the subject of +caricatures and songs in abundance, in which these illustrious +personages appeared haggling with their tradesmen, and making bargains +in person, rejoicing in having thus saved a small sum of money. It +was said that George kept a farm at Windsor, not for his amusement, +but to draw a small profit from it. By Peter Pindar he is described +as rejoicing over the skill he has shown in purchasing his live stock +as bargains. Gillray seized greedily all these points of ridicule, +and, as early as 1786, he published a print of "Farmer George and his +Wife" (see our cut No. 224), in which the two royal personages are +represented in the very familiar manner in which they were accustomed +to walk about Windsor and its neighbourhood. This picture appears to +have been very popular; and years afterwards, in a caricature on a +scene in "The School for Scandal," where, in the sale of the young +profligate's effects, the auctioneer puts up a family portrait, for +which a broker offers five shillings, and Careless, the auctioneer, +says, "Going for no more than one crown," the family piece is the +well-known picture of "Farmer George and his Wife," and the ruined +prodigal is the prince of Wales, who exclaims, "Careless, knock down +the farmer." + +Many caricatures against the undignified meanness of the royal +household appeared during the years 1791 and 1792, when the king +passed much of his time at his favourite watering-place, Weymouth; +and there his domestic habits had become more and more an object of +remark. It was said that, under the pretence of Weymouth being an +expensive place, and taking advantage of the obligations of the royal +mail to carry parcels for the king free, he had his provisions brought +to him by that conveyance from his farm at Windsor. On the 28th of +November, 1791, Gillray published a caricature on the homeliness of +the royal household, in two compartments, in one of which the king +is represented, in a dress which is anything but that of royalty, +toasting his muffins for breakfast; and in the other, queen Charlotte, +in no less homely dress, though her pocket is overflowing with money, +toasting sprats for supper. In another of Gillray's prints, entitled +"Anti-saccharites," the king and queen are teaching their daughters +economy in taking their tea without sugar; as the young princesses show +some dislike to the experiment, the queen admonishes them, concluding +with the remark, "Above all, remember how much expense it will save +your poor papa!" + + [Illustration: _No. 225. A Flemish Proclamation._] + +According to a story which seems to be authentic, Gillray's dislike +of the king was embittered at this time by an incident somewhat +similar to that by which George II. had provoked the anger of Hogarth. +Gillray had visited France, Flanders, and Holland, and he had made +sketches, a few of which he engraved. Our cut No. 225 represents +a group from one of these sketches, which explains itself, and is +a fair example of Gillray's manner of drawing such subjects. He +accompanied the painter Loutherbourg, who had left his native city +of Strasburg to settle in England, and become the king's favourite +artist, to assist him in making sketches for his great painting of +"The Siege of Valenciennes," Gillray sketching groups of figures +while Loutherbourg drew the landscape and buildings. After their +return, the king expressed a desire to see their sketches, and they +were placed before him. Loutherbourg's landscapes and buildings +were plain drawings, and easy to understand, and the king expressed +himself greatly pleased with them. But the king's mind was already +prejudiced against Gillray for his satirical prints, and when he +saw his hasty and rough, though spirited sketches, of the French +soldiers, he threw them aside contemptuously, with the remark, "I +don't understand these caricatures." Perhaps the very word he used was +intended as a sneer upon Gillray, who, we are told, felt the affront +deeply, and he proceeded to retort by a caricature, which struck at +once at one of the king's vanities, and at his political prejudices. +George III. imagined himself a great connoisseur in the fine arts, and +the caricature was entitled "A Connoisseur examining a Cooper." It +represented the king looking at the celebrated miniature of Oliver +Cromwell, by the English painter, Samuel Cooper. When Gillray had +completed this print, he is said to have exclaimed, "I wonder if the +royal connoisseur will understand this!" It was published on the 18th +of June, 1792, and cannot have failed to produce a sensation at that +period of revolutions. The king is made to exhibit a strange mixture +of alarm with astonishment in contemplating the features of this +great overthrower of kingly power, at a moment when all kingly power +was threatened. It will be remarked, too, that the satirist has not +overlooked the royal character for domestic economy, for, as will be +seen in our cut No. 226, the king is looking at the picture by the +light of a candle-end stuck on a "save-all." + + [Illustration: _No. 226. A Connoisseur in Art._] + +From this time Gillray rarely let pass an opportunity of caricaturing +the king. Sometimes he pictured his awkward and undignified gait, as he +was accustomed to shuffle along the esplanade at Weymouth; sometimes +in the familiar manner in which, in the course of his walks in the +neighbourhood of his Windsor farm, he accosted the commonest labourers +and cottagers, and overwhelmed them with a long repetition of trivial +questions--for king George had a characteristic manner of repeating his +questions, and of frequently giving the reply to them himself. + + [Illustration: _No. 227. Royal Affability._] + + [Illustration: _No. 228. A Lesson in Apple Dumplings._] + + _Then asks the farmer's wife, or farmer's maid, + How many eggs the fowls have laid; + What's in the oven, in the pot, the crock; + Whether 'twill rain or no, and what's o'clock; + Thus from poor hovels gleaning information, + To serve as future treasure for the nation._ + +So said Peter Pindar; and in this _rôle_ king George was represented +not unfrequently in satirical prints. On the 10th of February Gillray +illustrated the quality of "Affability" in a picture of one of these +rustic encounters. The king and queen, taking their walk, have arrived +at a cottage, where a very coarse example of English peasantry is +feeding his pigs with wash. The scene is represented in our cut No. +227. The vacant stare of the countryman betrays his confusion at the +rapid succession of questions--"Well, friend, where a' you going, +hay?--What's your name, hay?--Where do you live, hay?--hay?" In other +prints the king is represented running into ludicrous adventures while +hunting, an amusement to which he was extremely attached. One of the +best known of these has been celebrated equally by the pen of Peter +Pindar and by the needle of Gillray. It was said that one day while +king George was following the chase, he came to a poor cottage, where +his usual curiosity was rewarded by the discovery of an old woman +making apple dumplings. When informed what they were, he could not +conceal his astonishment how the apples could have been introduced +without leaving a seam in their covering. In the caricature by Gillray, +from which we take our cut No. 228, the king is represented looking +at the process of dumpling making through the window, inquiring +in astonishment, "Hay? hay? apple dumplings?--how get the apples +in?--how? Are they made without seams?" The story is told more fully +in the following verses of Peter Pindar, which will serve as the best +commentary on the engraving:-- + + _THE KING AND THE APPLE DUMPLING._ + + _Once on a time a monarch, tired with whooping, + Whipping and spurring, + Happy in worrying + A poor, defenceless, harmless buck + (The horse and rider wet as muck), + From his high consequence and wisdom stooping, + Enter'd through curiosity a cot, + Where sat a poor old woman and her pot._ + _The wrinkled, blear-eyed, good old granny, + In this same cot, illum'd by many a cranny. + Had finish'd apple dumplings for her pot. + In tempting row the naked dumplings lay, + When lo! the monarch in his usual way + Like lightning spoke, "What this? what this? what? what?" + Then taking up a dumpling in his hand, + His eyes with admiration did expand, + And oft did majesty the dumpling grapple. + "'Tis monstrous, monstrous hard, indeed?" he cried; + "What makes it, pray, so hard?"--The dame replied, + Low curtseying, "Please your majesty, the apple." + "Very astonishing, indeed! strange thing!" + Turning the dumpling round, rejoined the king; + "'Tis most extraordinary then, all this is-- + It beats Pinetti's conjuring all to pieces-- + Strange I should never of a dumpling dream! + But, Goody, tell me where, where, where's the seam?" + "Sir, there's no seam," quoth she, "I never knew + That folks did apple dumplings sew." + "No!" cried the staring monarch with a grin, + "How, how the devil got the apple in?" + On which the dame the curious scheme reveal'd + By which the apple lay so sly conceal'd, + Which made the Solomon of Britain start; + Who to the palace with full speed repair'd + And queen, and princesses so beauteous, scared, + All with the wonders of the dumpling art. + There did he labour one whole week, to show + The wisdom of an apple dumpling maker; + And lo! so deep was majesty in dough, + The palace seem'd the lodging of a baker!_ + +Gillray was not the only caricaturist who turned the king's weaknesses +to ridicule, but none caricatured them with so little gentleness, or +evidently with so good a will. On the 7th of March, 1796, the princess +of Wales gave birth to a daughter, so well known since as the princess +Charlotte. The king is said to have been charmed with his grandchild, +and this sentiment appears to have been anticipated by the public, for +on the 13th of February, when the princess's accouchment was looked +forward to with general interest, a print appeared under the title of +"Grandpapa in his Glory." In this caricature, which is given in our +cut No. 229, king George, seated, is represented nursing and feeding +the royal infant in an extraordinary degree of homeliness. He is +singing the nursery rhyme-- + + _There was a laugh and a craw, + There was a giggling honey, + Goody good girl shall be fed, + But naughty girl shall have noney._ + +This print bears no name, but it is known to be by Woodward, though it +betrays an attempt to imitate the style of Gillray. Gillray was often +imitated in this manner, and his prints were not unfrequently copied +and pirated. He even at times copied himself, and disguised his own +style, for the sake of gaining money. + + [Illustration: _No. 229. Grandfather George._] + +At the period of the regency bill in 1789, Gillray attacked Pitt's +policy in that affair with great severity. In a caricature published +on the 3rd of January, he drew the premier in the character of an +over-gorged vulture, with one claw fixed firmly on the crown and +sceptre, and with the other seizing upon the prince's coronet, from +which he is plucking the feathers. Among other good caricatures on this +occasion, perhaps the finest is a parody on Fuseli's picture of "The +Weird Sisters," in which Dundas, Pitt, and Thurlow, as the sisters, +are contemplating the moon, the bright side of whose disc represents +the face of the queen, and the other that of the king, overcast with +mental darkness. Gillray took a strongly hostile view of the French +revolution, and produced an immense number of caricatures against the +French and their rulers, and their friends, or supposed friends, in +this country, during the period extending from 1790 to the earlier +years of the present century. Through all the changes of ministry or +policy, he seems to have fixed himself strongly on individuals, and +he seldom ceased to caricature the person who had once provoked his +attacks. So it was with the lord chancellor Thurlow, who became the +butt of savage satire in some of his prints which appeared in 1792, +at the time when Pitt forced him to resign the chancellorship. Among +these is one of the boldest caricatures which he ever executed. It is a +parody, fine almost to sublimity, on a well-known scene in Milton, and +is entitled, "Sin, Death, and the Devil." The queen, as Sin, rushes to +separate the two combatants, Death (in the semblance of Pitt) and Satan +(in that of Thurlow). During the latter part of the century Gillray +caricatured all parties in turn, whether ministerial or opposition, +with indiscriminate vigour; but his hostility towards the party of +Fox, whom he persisted in regarding, or at least in representing, +as unpatriotic revolutionists, was certainly greatest. In 1803 he +worked energetically against the Addington ministry; and in 1806 he +caricatured that which was known by the title of "All the Talents;" but +during this later period of his life his labours were more especially +aimed at keeping up the spirit of his countrymen against the threats +and designs of our foreign enemies. It was, in fact, the caricature +which at that time met with the greatest encouragement. + +In his own person, Gillray had lived a life of great irregularity, and +as he grew older, his habits of dissipation and intemperance increased, +and gradually broke down his intellect. Towards the year 1811 he +ceased producing any original works; the last plate he executed was a +drawing of Bunbury's, entitled "A Barber's Shop in Assize Time," which +is supposed to have been finished in the January of that year. Soon +afterwards his mind sank into idiotcy, from which it never recovered. +James Gillray died in 1815, and was buried in St. James's churchyard, +Piccadilly, near the rectory house. + + + + + CHAPTER XXVIII. + + GILLRAY'S CARICATURES ON SOCIAL LIFE.--THOMAS ROWLANDSON.--HIS EARLY + LIFE.--HE BECOMES A CARICATURIST.--HIS STYLE AND WORKS.--HIS + DRAWINGS.--THE CRUIKSHANKS. + + +Gillray was, beyond all others, the great political caricaturist of +his age. His works form a complete history of the greater and more +important portion of the reign of George III. He appears to have had +less taste for general caricature, and his caricatures on social life +are less numerous, and with a few exceptions less important, than +those which were called forth by political events. The exceptions are +chiefly satires on individual characters, which are marked by the same +bold style which is displayed in his political attacks. Some of his +caricatures on the extravagant costume of the time, and on its more +prominent vices, such as the rage for gambling, are also fine, but his +social sketches generally are much inferior to his other works. + +This, however, was not the case with his contemporary, Thomas +Rowlandson, who doubtlessly stands second to Gillray, and may, in some +respects, be considered his equal. Rowlandson was born in the Old +Jewry in London, the year before that of the birth of Gillray, in the +July of 1756. His father was a city merchant, who had the means to +give him a good education, but embarking rashly in some unsuccessful +speculations, he fell into reduced circumstances, and the son had to +depend upon the liberality of a relative. His uncle, Thomas Rowlandson, +after whom probably he was named, had married a French lady, a +Mademoiselle Chatelier, who was now a widow, residing in Paris, with +what would be considered in that capital a handsome fortune, and she +appears to have been attached to her English nephew, and supplied him +rather freely with money. Young Rowlandson had shown at an early age +great talent for drawing, with an especial turn for satire. As a +schoolboy, he covered the margins of his books with caricatures upon +his master and upon his fellow-scholars, and at the age of sixteen he +was admitted a student in the Royal Academy in London, then in its +infancy. But he did not profit immediately by this admission, for his +aunt invited him to Paris, where he began and followed his studies in +art with great success, and was remarked for the skill with which he +drew the human body. His studies from nature, while in Paris, are said +to have been remarkably fine. Nor did his taste for satirical design +fail him, for it was one of his greatest amusements to caricature the +numerous individuals, and groups of individuals, who must in that age +have presented objects of ridicule to a lively Englishman. During +this time his aunt died, leaving him all her property, consisting of +about £7,000 in money, and a considerable amount in plate and other +objects. The sudden possession of so much money proved a misfortune to +young Rowlandson. He appears to have had an early love for gaiety, and +he now yielded to all the temptations to vice held out by the French +metropolis, and especially to an uncontrollable passion for gambling, +through which he soon dissipated his fortune. + +Before this, however, had been effected, Rowlandson, after having +resided in Paris about two years, returned to London, and continued +his studies in the Royal Academy. But he appears for some years +to have given himself up entirely to his dissipated habits, and +to have worked only at intervals, when he was driven to it by the +want of money. We are told by one who was intimate with him, that, +when reduced to this condition, he used to exclaim, holding up his +pencil, "I have been playing the fool, but here is my resource!" +and he would then produce--with extraordinary rapidity--caricatures +enough to supply his momentary wants. Most of Rowlandson's earlier +productions were published anonymously, but here and there, among +large collections, we meet with a print, which, by companion of the +style with that of his earliest known works, we can hardly hesitate +in ascribing to him; and from these it would appear that he had begun +with political caricature, because, perhaps, at that period of great +agitation, it was most called for, and, therefore, most profitable. +Three of the earliest of the political caricatures thus ascribed to +Rowlandson belong to the year 1784, when he was twenty-eight years +of age, and relate to the dissolution of parliament in that year, +the result of which was the establishment of William Pitt in power. +The first, published on the 11th of March, is entitled "The Champion +of the People." Fox is represented under this title, armed with the +sword of Justice and the shield of Truth, combating the many-headed +hydra, its mouths respectively breathing forth "Tyranny," "Assumed +Prerogative," "Despotism," "Oppression," "Secret Influence," "Scotch +Politics," "Duplicity," and "Corruption." Some of these heads are +already cut off. The Dutchman, Frenchman, and other foreign enemies +are seen in the background, dancing round the standard of "Sedition." +Fox is supported by numerous bodies of English and Irishmen, the +English shouting, "While he protects us, we will support him." The +Irish, "He gave us a free trade and all we asked; he shall have our +firm support." Natives of India, in allusion to his unsuccessful India +Bill, kneel by his side and pray for his success. The second of these +caricatures was published on the 26th of March, and is entitled "The +State Auction." Pitt is the auctioneer, and is represented as knocking +down with the hammer of "prerogative" all the valuable articles of +the constitution. The clerk is his colleague, Henry Dundas, who holds +up a weighty lot, entitled, "Lot 1. The Rights of the People." Pitt +calls to him, "Show the lot this way, Harry--a'going, a'going--speak +quick, or it's gone--hold up the lot, ye Dund-ass!" The clerk replies +in his Scottish accent, "I can hould it na higher, sir." The Whig +members, under the title of the "chosen representers," are leaving +the auction room in discouragement, with reflections in their mouths, +such as, "Adieu to Liberty!" "Despair not!" "Now or never!" While Fox +stands firm in the cause, and exclaims--"I am determined to bid with +spirit for Lot 1; he shall pay dear for it that outbids me!" Pitt's +Tory supporters are ranged under the auctioneer, and are called the +"hereditary virtuosis;" and their leader, who appears to be the lord +chancellor, addresses them in the words, "Mind not the nonsensical +biddings of those common fellows." Dundas remarks, "We shall get the +supplies by this sale." The third of these caricatures is dated on the +31st of March, when the elections had commenced, and is entitled, +"The Hanoverian Horse and British Lion--a Scene in a new Play, lately +acted in Westminster, with distinguished applause. Act 2nd, Scene +last." At the back of the picture stands the vacant throne, with the +intimation, "We shall resume our situation here at pleasure, _Leo +Rex_." In front, the Hanoverian horse, unbridled, and without saddle, +neighs "pre-ro-ro-ro-ro-rogative," and is trampling on the safeguard of +the constitution, while it kicks out violently the "faithful commons" +(alluding to the recent dissolution of parliament). Pitt, on the back +of the horse, cries, "Bravo!--go it again!--I love to ride a mettled +steed; send the vagabonds packing!" Fox appears on the other side of +the picture, mounted on the British lion, and holding a whip and bridle +in his hand. He says to Pitt, "Prithee, Billy, dismount before ye get a +fall, and let some abler jockey take your seat;" and the lion observes, +indignantly, but with gravity, "If this horse is not tamed, he will +soon be absolute king of our forest." + + [Illustration: _No. 230. Opera Beauties._] + +If these prints are correctly ascribed to Rowlandson, we see him here +fairly entered in the lists of political caricature, and siding with +Fox and the Whig party. He displays the same boldness in attacking +the king and his ministers which was displayed by Gillray--a boldness +that probably did much towards preserving the liberties of the country +from what was no doubt a resolute attempt to trample upon them, at a +time when caricature formed a very powerful weapon. Before this time, +however, Rowlandson's pencil had become practised in those burlesque +pictures of social life for which he became afterwards so celebrated. +At first he seems to have published his designs under fictitious names, +and one now before me, entitled "The Tythe Pig," bears the early date +of 1786, with the name of "Wigstead," no doubt an assumed one, which +is found on some others of his early prints. It represents the country +parson, in his own parlour, receiving the tribute of the tithe pig +from an interesting looking farmer's wife. The name of Rowlandson, +with the date 1792, is attached to a very clever and humorous etching +which is now also before me, entitled "Cold Broth and Calamity," and +representing a party of skaters, who have fallen in a heap upon the +ice, which is breaking under their weight. It bears the name of Fores +as publisher. From this time, and especially toward the close of the +century, Rowlandson's caricatures on social life became very numerous, +and they are so well known that it becomes unnecessary, nor indeed +would it be easy, to select a few examples which would illustrate all +his characteristic excellencies. In prints published by Fores at the +beginning of 1794, the address of the publisher is followed by the +words, "where may be had all Rowlandson's works," which shows how +great was his reputation as a caricaturist at that time. It may be +stated briefly that he was distinguished by a remarkable versatility of +talent, by a great fecundity of imagination, and by a skill in grouping +quite equal to that of Gillray, and with a singular ease in forming his +groups of a great number of figures. Among those of his contemporaries +who spoke of him with the highest praise were sir Joshua Reynolds and +Benjamin West. It has been remarked, too, that no artist ever possessed +the power of Rowlandson of expressing so much with so little effort. We +trace a great difference in style between Rowlandson's earlier and his +later works; although there is a general identity of character which +cannot be mistaken. The figures in the former show a taste for grace +and elegance that is rare in his later works, and we find a delicacy +of beauty in his females which he appears afterwards to have entirely +laid aside. An example of his earlier style in depicting female faces +is furnished by the pretty farmer's wife, in the print of "The Tythe +Pig," just alluded to; and I may quote as another example, an etching +published on the 1st of January, 1794, under the title of "English +Curiosity; or, the foreigner stared out of countenance." An individual, +in a foreign costume, is seated in the front row of the boxes of a +theatre, probably intended for the opera, where he has become the +object of curiosity of the whole audience, and all eyes are eagerly +directed upon him. The faces of the men are rather coarsely grotesque, +but those of the ladies, two of which are given in our cut No. 230, +possess a considerable degree of refinement. He appears, however, +to have been naturally a man of no real refinement, who easily gave +himself up to low and vulgar tastes, and, as his caricature became more +exaggerated and coarse, his females became less and less graceful, +until his model of female beauty appears to have been represented +by something like a fat oyster-woman. Our cut No. 231, taken from a +print in the possession of Mr. Fairholt, entitled, "The Trumpet and +Bassoon," presents a good example of Rowlandson's broad humour, and of +his favourite models of the human face. We can almost fancy we hear the +different tones of this brace of snorers. + + [Illustration: _No. 231. The Trumpet and Bassoon._] + +A good example of Rowlandson's grotesques of the human figure is given +in our cut No. 232, taken from a print published on the 1st of January, +1796, under the title of "Anything will do for an Officer." People +complained of the mean appearance of the officers in our armies, who +obtained their rank, it was pretended, by favour and purchase rather +than by merit; and this caricature is explained by an inscription +beneath, which informs us how "Some school-boys, who were playing at +soldiers, found one of their number so ill-made, and so much under +size, that he would have disfigured the whole body if put into the +ranks. 'What shall we do with him?' asked one. 'Do with him?' says +another, 'why make an officer of him.'" This plate is inscribed with +his name, "Rowlandson fecit." + + [Illustration: _No. 232. A Model Officer._] + + [Illustration: _No. 233. Antiquaries at Work._] + +At this time Rowlandson still continued to work for Fores, but +before the end of the century we find him working for Ackermann, of +the Strand, who continued to be his friend and employer during the +rest of his life, and is said to have helped him generously in many +difficulties. In these, indeed, he was continually involved by his +dissipation and thoughtlessness. Ackermann not only employed him in +etching the drawings of other caricaturists, especially of Bunbury, +but in furnishing illustrations to books, such as the several series +of Dr. Syntax, the "New Dance of Death," and others. Rowlandson's +illustrations to editions of the older standard novels, such as "Tom +Jones," are remarkably clever. In transferring the works of other +caricaturists to the copper, Rowlandson was in the habit of giving his +own style to them to such a degree, that nobody would suspect that +they were not his own, if the name of the designer were not attached +to them. I have given one example of this in a former chapter, and +another very curious one is furnished by a print now before me, +entitled "Anglers of 1811," which bears only the name "H. Bunbury +del.," but which is in every particular a perfect example of the style +of Rowlandson. During the latter part of his life Rowlandson amused +himself with making an immense number of drawings which were never +engraved, but many of which have been preserved and are still found +scattered through the portfolios of collectors. These are generally +better finished than his etchings, and are all more or less burlesque. +Our cut No. 233 is taken from one of these drawings, in the possession +of Mr. Fairholt; it represents a party of antiquaries engaged +in important excavations. No doubt the figures were intended for +well-known archæologists of the day. + +Thomas Rowlandson died in poverty, in lodgings in the Adelphi, on the +22nd of April, 1827. + +Among the most active caricaturists of the beginning of the present +century we must not overlook Isaac Cruikshank, even if it were only +because the name has become so celebrated in that of his more talented +son. Isaac's caricatures, too, were equal to those of any of his +contemporaries, after Gillray and Rowlandson. One of the earliest +examples which I have seen bearing the well-known initials, I. C., +was published on the 10th of March, 1794, the year in which George +Cruikshank was born, and probably, therefore, when Isaac was quite +a young man. It is entitled "A Republican Belle," and is an evident +imitation of Gillray. In another, dated the 1st of November, 1795, Pitt +is represented as "The Royal Extinguisher," putting out the flame of +"Sedition." Isaac Cruikshank published many prints anonymously, and +among the numerous caricatures of the latter end of the last century we +meet with many which have no name attached to them, but which resemble +so exactly his known style, that we can hardly hesitate in ascribing +them to him. It will be remarked that in his acknowledged works he +caricatures the opposition; but perhaps, like other caricaturists of +his time, he worked privately for anybody who would pay him, and was +as willing to work against the government as for it, for most of the +prints which betray their author only by their style are caricatures +on Pitt and his measures. Such is the group given in our cut No. 234, +which was published on the 15th of August, 1797, at a time when there +were loud complaints against the burthen of taxation. It is entitled +"Billy's Raree-Show; or, John Bull En-lighten'd," and represents Pitt, +in the character of a showman, exhibiting to John Bull, and picking +his pocket while his attention is occupied with the show. Pitt, in +a true showman's style, says to his victim, "Now, pray lend your +attention to the enchanting prospect before you,--this is the prospect +of peace--only observe what a busy scene presents itself--the ports are +filled with shipping, the quays loaded with merchandise, riches are +flowing in from every quarter--this prospect alone is worth all the +money you have got about you." Accordingly, the showman abstracts the +same money from his pocket, while John Bull, unconscious of the theft +exclaims with surprise, "Mayhap it may, master showman, but I canna zee +ony thing like what you mentions,--I zees nothing but a woide plain, +with some mountains and molehills upon't--as sure as a gun, it must be +all behoind one of those!" The flag of the show is inscribed, "Licensed +by authority, Billy Hum's grand exhibition of moving mechanism; or, +deception of the senses." + + [Illustration: _No. 234. The Raree-Show._] + + [Illustration: _No. 235. Flight across the Herring Pond._] + +In a caricature with the initials of I. C., and published on the 20th +of June, 1797, Fox is represented as "The Watchman of the State," +ironically, of course, for he is betraying the truth which he had +ostentatiously assumed, and absenting himself at the moment when his +agents are putting the match to the train they have laid to blow up +the constitution. Yet Cruikshank's caricatures on the Irish union +were rather opposed to ministers. One of these, published on the 20th +of June, 1800, is full of humour. It is entitled "A Flight across the +Herring Pond." England and Ireland are separated by a rough sea, over +which a crowd of Irish "patriots" are flying, allured by the prospect +of honours and rewards. On the Irish shore, a few wretched natives, +with a baby and a dog, are in an attitude of prayer, expostulating +with the fugitives,--"Och, och! do not leave us--consider your old +house, it will look like a big wallnut-shell without a kernel." On the +English shore, Pitt is holding open the "Imperial Pouch," and welcoming +them,--"Come on, my little fellows, there's plenty of room for you +all--the budget is not half full." Inside the "pouch" appears a host +of men covered with honours and dignities, one of whom says to the +foremost of the Irish candidates for favour, "Very snug and convenient, +brother, I allure you." Behind Pitt, Dundas, seated on a pile of public +offices united in his person, calls out to the immigrants, "If you've +ony consciences at a', here's enugh to satisfy ye a'." A portion of +this clever caricature is represented in our cut No. 235. + + [Illustration: _No. 236. A Case of Abduction._] + +There is a rare caricature on the subject of the Irish union, which +exhibits a little of the style of Isaac Cruikshank, and a copy of which +is in the possession of Mr. Fairholt. From this I have taken merely +the group which forms our cut No. 236. It is a long print, dated on +the 1st of January, 1800, and is entitled "The Triumphal entry of the +Union into London." Pitt, with a paper entitled "Irish Freedom" in his +pocket, is carrying off the young lady (Ireland) by force, with her +natural accompaniment, a keg of whisky. The lord chancellor of Ireland +(lord Clare) sits on the horse and performs the part of fiddler. +In advance of this group are a long rabble of radicals, Irishman, +&c., while close behind comes Grattan, carried in a sedan-chair, and +earnestly appealing to the lady, "Ierne, Ierne! my sweet maid, listen +not to him--he's a false, flattering, gay deceiver." Still farther in +the rear follows St. Patrick, riding on a bull, with a sack of potatoes +for his saddle, and playing on the Irish harp. An Irishman expostulates +in the following words--"Ah, long life to your holy reverence's memory, +why will you lave your own nate little kingdom, and go to another +where they will tink no more of you then they would of an old brogue? +Shure, of all the saints in the red-letter calendar, we give you the +preference! och hone! och hone!" Another Irishman pulls the bull by +the tail, with the lament, "Ah, masther, honey, why will you be after +leaving us? What will become of poor Shelagh and all of us, when you +are gone?" It is a regular Irish case of abduction. + + [Illustration: _No. 237. The Farthing Rushlight._] + +The last example I shall give of the caricatures of Isaac Cruikshank is +the copy of one entitled "The Farthing Rushlight," which, I need hardly +say, is a parody on the subject of a well-known song. The rushlight +is the poor old king, George, whom the prince of Wales and his Whig +associates, Fox, Sheridan, and others, are labouring in vain to blow +out. The latest caricature I possess, bearing the initials of Isaac +Cruikshank, was published by Fores, on the 19th of April, 1810, and +is entitled, "The Last Grand Ministerial Expedition (on the Street, +Piccadilly)." The subject is the riot on the arrest of sir Francis +Burdett, and it shows that Cruikshank was at this time caricaturing on +the radical side in politics. + +Isaac Cruikshank left two sons who became distinguished as +caricaturists, George, already mentioned, and Robert. George +Cruikshank, who is still amongst us, has raised caricature in art to +perhaps the highest degree of excellence it has yet reached. He began +as a political caricaturist, in imitation of his father Isaac--in +fact the two brothers are understood to have worked jointly with +their father before they engraved on their own account. I have in my +own possession two of his earliest works of this class, published by +Fores, of Piccadilly, and dated respectively the 3rd and the 19th of +March, 1815. George was then under twenty-one years of age. The first +of these prints is a caricature on the restrictions laid upon the trade +in corn, and is entitled "The Blessings of Peace, or, the Curse of +the Corn Bill." A foreign boat has arrived, laden with corn at a low +price--one of the foreign traders holds out a sample and says, "Here +is de best for 50s." A group of bloated aristocrats and landholders +stand on the shore, with a closed storehouse, filled with corn behind +them; the foremost, warning the boat away with his hand, replies to +the merchant, "We won't have it at any price--we are determined to +keep up our own to 80s., and if the poor can't buy at that price, why +they must starve. We love money too well to lower our rents again; the +income tax is taken off." One of his companions exclaims, "No, no, we +won't have it at all." A third adds, "Ay, ay, let 'em starve, and be +d-- to 'em." Upon this another of the foreign merchants cries, "By +gar, if they will not have it at all, we must throw it overboard!" and +a sailor is carrying this alternative into execution by emptying a +sack into the sea. Another group stands near the closed storehouse--it +consists of a poor Englishman, his wife with an infant in the arms, +and two ragged children, a boy and a girl. The father is made to say, +"No, no, masters, I'll not starve; but quit my native country, where +the poor are crushed by those they labour to support, and retire to one +more hospitable, and where the arts of the rich do not interpose to +defeat the providence of God." The corn bill was passed in the spring +of 1815, and was the cause of much popular agitation and rioting. The +second of these caricatures, on the same subject, is entitled, "The +Scale of Justice reversed," and represents the rich exulting over the +disappearance of the tax on property, while the poor are crushed under +the weight of taxes which bore only upon them. These two caricatures +present unmistakable traces of the peculiarities of style of George +Cruikshank, but not as yet fully developed. + +George Cruikshank rose into great celebrity and popularity as a +political caricaturist by his illustrations to the pamphlets of William +Houe, such as "The Political House that Jack built," "The Political +Showman at Home," and others upon the trial of queen Caroline; but this +sort of work suited the taste of the public at that time, and not that +of the artist, which lay in another direction. The ambition of George +Cruikshank was to draw what Hogarth called moral comedies, pictures of +society carried through a series of acts and scenes, always pointed +with some great moral; and it must be confessed that he has, through a +long career, succeeded admirably. He possesses more of the true spirit +of Hogarth than any other artist since Hogarth's time, with greater +skill in drawing. He possesses, even to a greater degree than Hogarth +himself, that admirable talent of filling a picture with an immense +number of figures, every one telling a part of the story, without +which, however minute, the whole picture would seem to us incomplete. +The picture of the "Camp at Vinegar Hill," and one or two other +illustrations to Maxwell's "History of the Irish Rebellion in 1798," +are equal, if not superior, to anything ever produced by Hogarth or by +Callot. + +The name of George Cruikshank forms a worthy conclusion to the "History +of Caricature and Grotesque." He is the last representative of the +great school of caricaturists formed during the reign of George III. +Though there can hardly be said to be a school at the present day, yet +our modern artists in this field have been all formed more or less +under his influence; and it must not be forgotten that we owe to that +influence, and to his example, to a great degree, the cleansing of this +branch of art from the objectionable characteristics of which I have on +more than one occasion been obliged to speak. May he still live long +among the friends who not only admire him for his talents, but love him +for his kindly and genial spirit; and none among them love and admire +him more sincerely than the author of the present volume. + + FINIS. + + + + +[_Post Office Orders payable [DECEMBER, 1874. +at Piccadilly Circus._ + + + [Illustration] + + A List of Books + + PUBLISHED BY + + CHATTO & WINDUS + + 74 & 75, _PICCADILLY, LONDON, W._ + + * * * * * + + THE + TURNER GALLERY: + + A Series of Sixty Engravings + + From the Principal Works of JOSEPH MALLORD WILLIAM TURNER. + + _With a Memoir and Illustrative Text_ + + BY RALPH NICHOLSON WORNUM, + + KEEPER AND SECRETARY, NATIONAL GALLERY. + + Handsomely half-bound, India Proofs, Royal folio, £10; LARGE + PAPER copies, Artists' India Proofs, Elephant folio, £20. + + _A Descriptive Pamphlet will be sent upon application._ + + * * * * * + + NEW COPYRIGHT AMERICAN WORK. + + LOTOS LEAVES: + + Comprising Original Stories, Essays, and Poems by <sc>Wilkie + Collins</sc>, MARK TWAIN, WHITELAW REED, JOHN HAY, NOAH BROOKS, + JOHN BROUGHAM, EDMUND YATES, P. 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It has evidently been written, + not for the purpose of showing--what, however, it often shows--how + well its author can write, but for the purpose of vindicating, + as far as truth will permit, the memory of a celebrated man who + can no longer vindicate himself. Mr. Moore never thrusts himself + between Lord Byron and the public. With the strongest temptations + to egotism, he has said no more about himself than the subject + absolutely required. A great part, indeed the greater part, of + these volumes consists of extracts from the Letters and Journals + of Lord Byron; and it is difficult to speak too highly of the + skill which has been shown in the selection and arrangement.... + It is impossible, on a general survey, to deny that the task has + been executed with great judgment and great humanity. When we + consider the life which Lord Byron had led, his petulance, his + irritability, and his communicativeness, we cannot but admire the + dexterity with which Mr. Moore has contrived to exhibit so much + of the character and opinions of his friend, with so little pain + to the feelings of the living."--LORD MACAULAY, in the _Edinburgh + Review_. + + * * * * * + + Carols of Cockayne: Vers de Société descriptive of London Life. By + HENRY S. LEIGH. Third Edition. With numerous Illustrations by ALFRED + CONCANEN. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, gilt, 5_s._ + + * * * * * + + Carlyle (T.) on the Choice of Books. With New Life and Anecdotes. + Brown cloth, UNIFORM WITH THE 2_s._ EDITIONS OF HIS WORKS, 1_s._ 6_d._ + + Celebrated Claimants, Ancient and Modern. Being the Histories of all + the most celebrated Pretenders and Claimants from PERKINS WARBECK to + ARTHUR ORTON. Fcap. 8vo, 350 pages, illustrated boards, price 2_s._ + + * * * * * + + MR. WILKIE COLLINS'S NEW NOVEL. + + =The Law and the Lady=: A Novel. By WILKIE COLLINS, Author of "The + Woman in White." 3 vols., crown 8vo, 31_s._ 6_d._ [_Shortly._ + + * * * * * + + =Christmas Carols and Ballads.= Selected and Edited by JOSHUA + SYLVESTER. A New Edition, beautifully printed and bound in cloth, + extra gilt, gilt edges, 3_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + =Cruikshank's Comic Almanack.= + + Complete in TWO SERIES: the FIRST from 1835 to 1843; the SECOND + from 1844 to 1853. A Gathering of the BEST HUMOUR of THACKERAY, + HOOD, MAYHEW, ALBERT SMITH, A'BECKETT, ROBERT BROUGH, &c. With + 2,000 Woodcuts and Steel Engravings by CRUIKSHANK, HINE, LANDELLS, + &c. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, two very thick volumes, 15_s._; or, + separately, 7_s._ 6_d._ per volume. + + *** _The "Comic Almanacks" of George Cruikshank have long been + regarded by admirers of this inimitable artist as among his + finest, most characteristic productions. Extending over a period + of nineteen years, from 1835 to 1853, inclusive, they embrace + the best period of his artistic career, and show the varied + excellences of his marvellous power. The late Mr. Tilt, of Fleet + Street, first conceived the idea of the "Comic Almanack," and + at various times there were engaged upon it such writers as_ + THACKERAY, ALBERT SMITH, _the Brothers_ MAYHEW, _the late_ ROBERT + BROUGH, GILBERT A'BECKETT, _and, it has been asserted,_ TOM HOOD + _the elder._ THACKERAY'S _stories of "Stubbs' Calendar; or, The + Fatal Boots," which subsequently appeared as "Stubbs' Diary;" and + "Barber Cox; or, The Cutting of his Comb," formed the leading + attractions in the numbers for 1839 and 1840._ + + * * * * * + + THE BEST GUIDE TO HERALDRY. + + =Cussans' Handbook of Heraldry=; with Instructions for Tracing + Pedigrees and Deciphering Ancient MSS.; also, Rules for the + Appointment of Liveries, &c., &c. By JOHN E. CUSSANS. Illustrated + with 360 Plates and Woodcuts. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, gilt and + emblazoned, 7_s._ 6_d._ + + [Illustration] + + *** _This volume, beautifully printed on toned paper, contains + not only the ordinary matter to be found in the best books on the + science of Armory, but several other subjects hitherto unnoticed. + Amongst these may be mentioned:_--1. DIRECTIONS FOR TRACING + PEDIGREES. 2. DECIPHERING ANCIENT MSS., ILLUSTRATED BY ALPHABETS + AND FACSIMILES. 3. THE APPOINTMENT OF LIVERIES. 4. CONTINENTAL AND + AMERICAN HERALDRY, &c. + + * * * * * + + NEW AND IMPORTANT WORK. + + =Cyclopædia of Costume=; or, A Dictionary of Dress, Regal, + Ecclesiastical, Civil, and Military, from the Earliest Period in + England to the reign of George the Third. Including Notices of + Contemporaneous Fashions on the Continent, and preceded by a General + History of the Costume of the Principal Countries of Europe. By J. R. + PLANCHÉ, F.S.A., Somerset Herald. + + _This work will be published in Twenty-four Monthly Parts, quarto, + at Five Shillings, profusely illustrated by Plates and Wood + Engravings; with each Part will also be issued a splendid Coloured + Plate, from an original Painting or Illumination, of Royal and + Noble Personages, and National Costume, both foreign and domestic. + The First Part will be ready on Jan. 1, 1875._ + + [Illustration] + + In collecting materials for a History of Costume of more + importance than the little handbook which has met with so much + favour as an elementary work, I was not only made aware of my + own deficiencies, but surprised to find how much more vague are + the explanations, and contradictory the statements, of our best + authorities, than they appeared to me, when, in the plenitude of + my ignorance, I rushed upon almost untrodden ground, and felt + bewildered by the mass of unsifted evidence and unhesitating + assertion which met my eyes at every turn. + + During the forty years which have elapsed since the publication + of the first edition of my "History of British Costume" in the + "Library of Entertaining Knowledge," archæological investigation + has received such an impetus by the establishment of metropolitan + and provincial peripatetic antiquarian societies, that a flood + of light has been poured upon us, by which we are enabled to + re-examine our opinions and discover reasons to doubt, if we + cannot find facts to authenticate. + + That the former greatly preponderate is a grievous acknowledgment + to make after assiduously devoting the leisure of half my life + to the pursuit of information on this, to me, most fascinating + subject. It is some consolation, however, to feel that where I + cannot instruct, I shall certainly not mislead, and that the + reader will find, under each head, all that is known to, or + suggested by, the most competent writers I am acquainted with, + either here or on the Continent. + + That this work appears in a glossarial form arises from the + desire of many artists, who have expressed to me the difficulty + they constantly meet with in their endeavours to ascertain the + complete form of a garment, or the exact mode of fastening a + piece of armour, or buckling of a belt, from their study of a + sepulchral effigy or a figure in an illumination; the attitude of + the personages represented, or the disposition of other portions + of their attire, effectually preventing the requisite examination. + + The books supplying any such information are very few, and the + best confined to armour or ecclesiastical costume. The only + English publication of the kind required, that I am aware of, + is the late Mr. Fairholt's "Costume in England" (8vo, London, + 1846), the last two hundred pages of which contain a glossary, + the most valuable portion whereof are the quotations from old + plays, mediæval romances, and satirical ballads, containing + allusions to various articles of attire in fashion at the time + of their composition. Twenty-eight years have expired since that + book appeared, and it has been thought that a more comprehensive + work on the subject than has yet issued from the English press, + combining the pith of the information of many costly foreign + publications, and, in its illustrations, keeping in view the + special requirement of the artist, to which I have alluded, would + be, in these days of educational progress and critical inquiry, a + welcome addition to the library of an English gentleman. + + J. R. PLANCHÉ. + + * * * * * + + =Cussans' History of Hertfordshire.= + + A County History, got up in a very superior manner, and ranging + with the finest works of its class. By JOHN E. CUSSANS. Illustrated + with full-page Plates on Copper and Stone, and a profusion of small + Woodcuts. Parts I. to VIII. are now ready, price 21_s._ each. + + *** _An entirely new History of this important County, great + attention being given to all matters pertaining to Family History._ + + * * * * * + + =Dickens' Life and Speeches.= By THEODORE TAYLOR. Complete in One + Volume, square 16mo, cloth extra, 2_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + "DON QUIXOTE" IN THE ORIGINAL SPANISH. */ + + =El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha.= Nueva Edicion, + corregida y revisada. Por MIGUEL DE CERVANTES SAAVEDRA. Complete in + one volume, post 8vo, nearly 700 pages, cloth extra, price 4_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + GIL BLAS IN SPANISH. + + =Historia de Gil Blas de Santillana.= + + Por LE SAGE. Traducida al Castellano por el PADRE ISLA. Nueva + Edicion, corregida y revisada. Complete in One Volume. Post 8vo, + cloth extra, nearly 600 pages, price 4_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + =Earthward Pilgrimage=, from the Next World to that which now is. By + MONCURE D. CONWAY. Crown 8vo, beautifully printed and bound, 7_s._ + 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + =Ellis's (Mrs.) Mothers of Great Men.= A New Edition, with + Illustrations by VALENTINE W. BROMLEY. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, over + 500 pages, 6_s._ + + "Mrs. Ellis believes, as most of us do, that the character of the + mother goes a long way; and, in illustration of this doctrine, she + has given us several lives written in her charming, yet earnest, + style. We especially commend the life of Byron's and Napoleon's + mothers.... The volume has some solid merits."--_Echo._ + + "This is a book which ought to be in the libraries of all who + interest themselves in the education of women."--_Victoria Magazine._ + + "An extremely agreeable and readable book, ... and its value is not + a little enhanced by Mr. Bromley's illustrations."--_Illustrated + Dramatic News._ + + * * * * * + + =Emanuel on Diamonds and Precious Stones=; Their History, Value, + and Properties; with Simple Tests for ascertaining their Reality. + By HARRY EMANUEL, F.R.G.S. With numerous Illustrations, Tinted and + Plain. A New Edition, Crown 8vo, cloth extra, gilt, 6_s._ + + * * * * * + + [Illustration: POE'S COTTAGE AT FORDHAM.] + + =Edgar Allan Poe's Prose and Poetical Works=; including Additional + Tales and his fine Critical Essays. With a Translation of CHARLES + BAUDELAIRE'S "Essay." 750 pages, crown 8vo, fine Portrait and + Illustrations, cloth extra, 7_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + =English Surnames=: Their Sources and Significations. By CHARLES + WAREING BARDSLEY, M.A. SECOND EDITION, revised throughout, + considerably enlarged, and partially re-written. Crown 8vo, cloth + extra, 9_s._ + + "Mr. Bardsley has faithfully consulted the original mediæval + documents and works from which the origin and development of + surnames can alone be satisfactorily traced. He has furnished a + valuable contribution to the literature of surnames, and we hope + to hear more of him in this field."--_Times._ + + "Mr. Bardsley's volume is a very good specimen of the work + which the nineteenth century can turn out. He has evidently + bestowed a great deal of attention, not only upon surnames, + but upon philology in general. The book is a mine of + information."--_Westminster Review._ + + "We welcome this book as an important addition to our knowledge of + an important and interesting subject."--_Athenæum._ + + * * * * * + + =Englishman's House= (The): A Practical Guide to all interested + in Selecting or Building a House, with full Estimates of Cost, + Quantities, &c. By C. J. RICHARDSON, Architect, Author of "Old + English Mansions," &c. Third Edition. With nearly 600 Illustrations. + Crown 8vo, cloth extra, 7_s._ 6_d._ + + [Illustration] + + *** _This Work might not inappropriately be termed "A Book of + Houses." It gives every variety of house, from a workman's cottage to + a nobleman's palace. The book is intended to supply a want long felt, + viz., a plain, non-technical account of every style of house, with + the cost and manner of building._ + + * * * * * + + =Faraday's Chemical History of a Candle.= Lectures delivered to a + Juvenile Audience. A New Edition, edited by W. CROOKES, Esq., F.C.S., + &c. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, with all the Original Illustrations, + 4_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + =Faraday's Various Forces of Nature.= A New Edition, edited by W. + CROOKES, Esq., F.C.S., &c. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, with all the + Original Illustrations, 4_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + FATHER PROUT'S REMAINS. + + =Final Reliques of Father Prout.= Collected and Edited, from MSS. + supplied by the Family of the Rev. FRANCIS MAHONEY, by BLANCHARD + JERROLD. [_In preparation._ + + =Finish to Life in and out of London=; or, The Final Adventures of + Tom, Jerry, and Logic. By PIERCE EGAN. Royal 8vo, cloth extra, with + Spirited Coloured Illustrations by CRUIKSHANK, 21_s._ + + =Flagellation and the Flagellants.=--A History of the Rod in all + Countries, from the Earliest Period to the Present Time. By the Rev. + W. COOPER, B.A. Third Edition, revised and corrected, with numerous + Illustrations. Thick crown 8vo, cloth extra, gilt, 12_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + =Fools' Paradise=; with the Many Wonderful Adventures there, as seen + in the strange, surprising Peep-Show of Professor Wolley Cobble. + Crown 4to, with nearly 350 very funny Coloured Pictures, cloth extra, + gilt, 7_s._ 6_d._ + + [Illustration: THE PROFESSOR'S LEETLE MUSIC LESSON.] + + * * * * * + + RUSKIN AND CRUIKSHANK. + + =German Popular Stories.= Collected by the Brothers GRIMM, and + Translated by EDGAR TAYLOR. Edited, with an Introduction, by JOHN + RUSKIN. With 22 Illustrations after the inimitable designs of GEORGE + CRUIKSHANK. Both Series complete. Square crown 8vo, 6_s._ 6_d._; gilt + leaves, 7_s._ 6_d._ + + "The illustrations of this volume ... are of quite sterling and + admirable art, in a class precisely parallel in elevation to the + character of the tales which they illustrate; and the original + etchings, as I have before said in the Appendix to my 'Elements + of Drawing,' were unrivalled in masterfulness of touch since + Rembrandt (in some qualities of delineation, unrivalled even by + him).... To make somewhat enlarged copies of them, looking at them + through a magnifying glass, and never putting two lines where + Cruikshank has put only one, would be an exercise in decision and + severe drawing which would leave afterwards little to be learnt in + schools."--_Extract from Introduction by_ JOHN RUSKIN. + + * * * * * + + =Golden Treasury of Thought.= The Best Encyclopædia of Quotations + and Elegant Extracts, from Writers of all Times and all Countries, + ever formed. Selected and Edited by THEODORE TAYLOR. Crown 8vo, very + handsomely bound, cloth gilt, and gilt edges, 7_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + =Genial Showman=; or, Show Life in the New World. Adventures with + Artemus Ward, and the Story of his Life. By E. P. HINGSTON. Third + Edition. Crown 8vo, Illustrated by W. BRUNTON, cloth extra, 7_s._ + 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + THE GOLDEN LIBRARY. + + Square 16mo (Tauchnitz size), cloth, extra gilt, price 2_s._ per vol. + + =Clerical Anecdotes=: The Humours and Eccentricities of "the Cloth." + + * * * + + =Holmes's Autocrat of the Breakfast Table.= With an Introduction by + GEORGE AUGUSTUS SALA. + + * * * + + =Holmes's Professor at the Breakfast Table.= With the STORY OF IRIS. + + * * * + + =Hood's Whims and Oddities.= Both Series complete in One Volume, with + all the original Illustrations. + + * * * + + =Lamb's Essays of Elia.= Both Series complete in One Volume. + + * * * + + =Leigh Hunt's Essays=: A Tale for a Chimney Corner, and other Pieces. + With Portrait, and Introduction by EDMUND OLLIER. + + * * * + + =Shelley's Early Poems=: Queen Mab, &c. Reprinted from the Author's + Original Editions. With Essay by LEIGH HUNT. (First Series of his + Works.) + + * * * + + =Shelley's Later Poems=: Laon and Cythna, the Cenci, and other + Pieces. Reprinted from the Author's Original Editions. With an + Introductory Essay. (Second Series of his Works.) + + * * * + + =Shelley's Miscellaneous Poems and Prose Works.= The Third and + Fourth Series. These Two Volumes will include the Posthumous Poems, + published by Mrs. SHELLEY in 1824; the Shelley Papers, published in + 1833; the Six Weeks' Tour (1816); the Notes to "Queen Mab," &c.; the + Marlow and Dublin Pamphlets; "The Wandering Jew," a Poem; and the + two Novels, "Zastrozzi" and "St. Irvyne." The three last now first + included in any edition of Shelley. + + * * * * * + + =Great Condé (The), and the Period of the Fronde=: An Historical + Sketch. By WALTER FITZPATRICK. Second Edition, in 2 vols. 8vo, cloth + extra, 15_s._ + + * * * * * + + =Greenwood's (James) Wilds of London=: Being Descriptive Sketches, + from the Personal Observations and Experiences of the Writer, of + Remarkable Scenes, People, and Places in London. By JAMES GREENWOOD, + the "Lambeth Casual." With Twelve full-page tinted Illustrations by + ALFRED CONCANEN. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, gilt, 7_s._ 6_d._ + + "Mr. James Greenwood presents himself once more in the character + of 'one whose delight it is to do his humble endeavour towards + exposing and extirpating social abuses and those hole-and-corner + evils which afflict society.'"--_Saturday Review._ + + * * * * * + + =Hall's (Mrs. S. C.) Sketches of Irish Character=. "WOOING AND + WEDDING," "JACK THE SHRIMP," "PETER THE PROPHET," "GOOD AND + BAD SPIRITS," "MABEL O'NEIL'S CURSE," &c., &c. With numerous + Illustrations on Steel and Wood, by DANIEL MACLISE, R.A., Sir JOHN + GILBERT, W. HARVEY, and G. CRUIKSHANK. 8vo, pp. 450, cloth extra, + 7_s._ 6_d._ + + [Illustration] + + "The Irish sketches of this lady resemble Miss Mitford's beautiful + English Sketches in 'Our Village,' but they are far more vigorous + and picturesque and bright."--_Blackwood's Magazine._ + + * * * * * + + THE MOST COMPLETE HOGARTH EVER PUBLISHED. + + =Hogarth's Works=: with Life and Anecdotal Descriptions of the + Pictures, by JOHN IRELAND and JOHN NICHOLS. The Work includes 160 + Engravings, reduced in exact facsimile of the Original Plates, + specimens of which have now become very scarce. The whole in Three + Series, 8vo, cloth, gilt, 22_s._ 6_d._; or, separately, 7_s._ 6_d._ + per volume. Each Series is Complete in itself. + + [Illustration: THE TALKING HAND.] + + "Will be a great boon to authors and artists as well as + amateurs.... Very cheap and very complete."--_Standard._ + + "For all practical purposes the three handsome volumes comprising + this edition are equal to a collection of Hogarthian prints. We + are quite sure that any one who adds this work to his library + will be amply repaid by the inexhaustible charms of its facsimile + prints."--_Birmingham Daily Mail._ + + "The plates are reduced in size, but yet truthfully reproduced. + The best and cheapest edition of Hogarth's complete works yet + brought forward."--_Building News._ + + "Three very interesting volumes, important and valuable additions + to the library. The edition is thoroughly well brought out, and + carefully printed on fine paper."--_Art Journal._ + + * * * * * + + =Hogarth's Five Days' Frolic=; or, Peregrinations by Land and Water. + Illustrated with Tinted Drawings, made by HOGARTH and SCOTT during + the Journey. 4to, beautifully printed, cloth, extra gilt, 10_s._ 6_d._ + + *** _A graphic and most extraordinary picture of the hearty + English times in which these merry artists lived._ + + * * * * * + + =Hogg's Jacobite Relics of Scotland=: Being the Songs, Airs, and + Legends of the Adherents to the House of Stuart. Collected and + Illustrated by JAMES HOGG. In 2 vols. Vol. I., a Facsimile of the + original Edition; Vol. II., the _original_ Edition. 8vo, cloth, 28_s._ + + * * * * * + + =Haunted=; or, Tales of the Weird and Wonderful. A new and entirely + original series of GHOST STORIES, by FRANCIS E. STAINFORTH. Post 8vo, + illust. bds., 2_s._ [_Nearly ready_. + + * * * * * + + =Hawthorne's English and American Note Books=. Edited, with an + Introduction, by MONCURE D. CONWAY. Royal 16mo, paper cover, 1_s._; + in cloth, 1_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + =Hone's Scrap-Books=: The Miscellaneous Writings of WILLIAM HONE, + Author of "The Table-Book," "Every-Day Book," and the "Year Book:" + being a Supplementary Volume to those works. Now first collected. + With Notes, Portraits, and numerous Illustrations of curious and + eccentric objects. Crown 8vo, cloth extra. [_Preparing_. + + * * * * * + + MR. HORNE'S EPIC. + + =Orion.= An Epic Poem, in Three Books. By RICHARD HENGIST HORNE. With + Photographic Portrait-Frontispiece. TENTH EDITION. Crown 8vo, cloth + extra, 7_s._ + + "Orion will be admitted, by every man of genius, to be one of the + noblest, if not the very noblest poetical work of the age. Its + defects are trivial and conventional, its beauties intrinsic and + supreme."--EDGAR ALLAN POE. + + * * * * * + + =Hunt's (Robert) Drolls of Old Cornwall=; or, POPULAR ROMANCES OF THE + WEST OF ENGLAND. With Illustrations by GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. Crown 8vo, + cloth extra, gilt, 7_s._ 6_d._ + + [Illustration] + + *** "Mr. Hunt's charming book of the Drolls and Stories of the West of + England."--_Saturday Review._ + + * * * * * + + =Irish Guide.--How to Spend a Month in Ireland.= Being a complete + Guide to the Country, with an Appendix containing information as + to the Fares between the Principal Towns in England and Ireland, + and as to Tourist Arrangements for the Season. With a Map and 80 + Illustrations. By Sir CUSACK P. RONEY. A New Edition, Edited by Mrs. + J. H. RIDDELL. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, price 1_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + [Illustration] + + =Jennings' (Hargrave) One of the Thirty.= With curious Illustrations. + Crown 8vo, cloth extra, 10_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * + + =Jennings' (Hargrave) The Rosicrucians: Their Rites and Mysteries.= + With Chapters on the Ancient Fire and Serpent Worshippers and + Explanations of Mystic Symbols in Monuments and Talismans of Primeval + Philosophers. Crown 8vo, 300 Illustrations, 10_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + =Jerrold's (Blanchard) Cent. per Cent.= A Story Written on a Bill + Stamp. A New Edition. Fcap. 8vo, illustrated boards, 2_s._ + + * * * * * + + NEW WORK BY DOUGLAS JERROLD. + + =Jerrold's (Douglas) The Barber's Chair, and The Hedgehog Letters.= + Now first collected. Edited, with an Introduction, by his Son, + BLANCHARD JERROLD. Crown 8vo, with Steel Plate Portrait from his + Bust, engraved by W. H. MOTE, cloth extra, 7_s._ 6_d._ + + "No library is complete without Douglas Jerrold's Works; _ergo_, + no library is complete without the 'Barber's Chair.' A delightful + volume; the papers are most amusing; they abound with sly touches + of sarcasm; they are full of playful wit and fancy."--_Pictorial + World._ + + "An amusing volume, full of Douglas Jerrold's well-known sharpness + and repartee."--_Daily News._ + + "Better fitted than any other of his productions to give an idea + of Douglas Jerrold's amazing wit; the 'Barber's Chair' may be + presumed to give as near an approach as is possible in print to + the wit of Jerrold's conversation."--_Examiner._ + + * * * + =Jerrold's (Douglas) Brownrigg Papers=: The Actress at the Duke's; + Baron von Boots; Christopher Snubb; The Tutor Fiend and his Three + Pupils; Papers of a Gentleman at Arms, &c. By DOUGLAS JERROLD. Edited + by his Son, BLANCHARD JERROLD. Post 8vo, illustrated boards, 2_s._ + + * * * * * + + =Kalendars of Gwynedd.= Compiled by EDWARD BREESE, F.S.A. With Notes + by WILLIAM WATKIN EDWARD WYNNE, Esq., F.S.A. Demy 4to, cloth extra, + 28_s._ + + * * * * * + + =Lamb's (Charles) Complete Works=, in Prose and Verse, reprinted from + the Original Editions, with many pieces now first included in any + Edition. Edited, with Notes and Introduction, by R. H. SHEPHERD. With + Two Portraits and facsimile of a page of the "Essay on Roast Pig." + Crown 8vo, cloth extra, gilt, 7_s._ 6_d._ + + "Is it not time for a new and final edition of Lamb's Works--a + finer tribute to his memory than any monument in Edmonton + churchyard? Lamb's writings, and more especially his fugitive + productions, have scarcely yet escaped from a state of + chaos."--_Westminster Review_, October, 1874. + + ABSTRACT OF CONTENTS. + + ESSAYS OF ELIA, as originally published in _The London Magazine_, + _The Examiner_, _The Indicator_, _The Reflector_, _The New + Monthly_, _The Englishman's Magazine_, _The Athenæum_, &c. + + PAPERS contributed to "Hone's Table Book," "Year Book," and "Every + Day Book," and to Walter Wilson's "Life of Defoe." + + NOTES ON THE ENGLISH DRAMATISTS, 1808-1827. + + REVIEW OF WORDSWORTH'S "EXCURSION" (from the _Quarterly Review_). + + ROSAMOND GRAY (from the Edition of 1798). + + TALES FROM SHAKESPEARE and from MRS. LEICESTER'S SCHOOL. + + THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES. + + DRAMATIC PIECES: + + John Woodvil: a Tragedy (from the Edition of 1802). + + Mr. H----, a Farce. + + The Wife's Trial; or, The Intruding Widow. + + The Pawnbroker's Daughter. + + POEMS: + + Sonnets and other Poems printed with those of Coleridge in 1796-7, + 1800, and 1813. + + Blank Verse (from the Edition of 1798). + + Poetry for Children, 1809. + + Album Verses, 1830. + + Satan in Search of a Wife, 1831, &c. + + * * * * * + + =Lamb (Mary & Charles): Their Poems, Letters, and Remains.= Now first + collected, with Reminiscences and Notes, by W. CAREW HAZLITT. With + HANCOCK'S Portrait of the Essayist, Facsimiles of the Title-pages of + the rare First Editions of Lamb's and Coleridge's Works, Facsimile of + a Page of the Original MS. of the "Essay on Roast Pig," and numerous + Illustrations of Lamb's Favourite Haunts. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, + 10_s._ 6_d._; LARGE-PAPER COPIES 21_s._ + + "Mr. W.C. Hazlitt has published a very pretty and interesting + little volume. It has many pictorial illustrations, which were + supplied by Mr. Camden Hotten; and, above all, it contains a + facsimile of the first page of Elia on 'Roast Pig.' It is well + got up, and has a good portrait of Elia. There are also some + letters and poems of Mary Lamb which are not easily accessible + elsewhere."--_Westminster Review._ + + "Must be consulted by all future biographers of the + Lambs."--_Daily News._ + + "Tells us a good deal that is interesting and something that is + fairly new."--_Graphic._ + + "Very many passages will delight those fond of literary trifles; + hardly any portion will fail to have its interest for lovers of + Charles Lamb and his sister."--_Standard._ + + "Mr. Hazlitt's work is very important and valuable, and all lovers + of Elia will thank him for what he has done."--_Sunday Times._ + + "Will be joyfully received by all Lambites."--_Globe._ + + * * * * * + + =Lee (General Edward): His Life and Campaigns.= By his Nephew, + EDWARD LEE CHILDE. With Portrait and Plans. 1 vol. Crown 8vo. [_In + preparation._ + + * * * * * + + =Life in London=; or, The Day and Night Scenes of Jerry Hawthorn + and Corinthian Tom. WITH THE WHOLE OF CRUIKSHANK'S VERY DROLL + ILLUSTRATIONS, in Colours, after the Originals. Crown 8vo, cloth + extra, 7_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + =Literary Scraps.= A Folio Scrap-Book of 340 columns, with guards, + for the reception of Cuttings from Newspapers, Extracts, Miscellanea, + &c. In folio, half-roan, 7_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + =Little London Directory of 1677.= The Oldest Printed List of the + Merchants and Bankers of London. Reprinted from the Rare Original, + with an Introduction by JOHN CAMDEN HOTTEN. 16mo, binding after the + original, 6_s._ 6_d._ + + [Illustration] + + =Longfellow's Prose Works=, complete, including "Outre-Mer," + "Hyperion," "Kavanagh," "Driftwood," "On the Poets and Poetry of + Europe." With Portrait and Illustrations by BROMLEY. 800 pages, crown + 8vo, cloth gilt, 7_s._ 6_d._ + + *** _The reader will find the present edition of Longfellow's + Prose Writings by far the most complete ever issued in this + country. "Outre-Mer" contains two additional chapters, restored + from the first edition; while "The Poets and Poetry of Europe," + and the little collection of Sketches entitled "Driftwood," are + now first introduced to the English public._ + + * * * * * + + =Lost Beauties of the English Language.= An Appeal to Authors, Poets, + Clergymen, and Public Speakers. By CHARLES MACKAY, LL.D. Crown 8vo, + cloth extra, 6_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + =Linton's (Mrs. E. Lynn) True History of Joshua Davidson, Christian + and Communist.= SIXTH EDITION, with a New Preface. Small crown 8vo, + cloth extra, 4_s._ 6_d._ + + "In a short and vigorous preface, Mrs. Linton defends, in certain + points, her notion of the logical outcome of Christianity as + embodied in this attempt to conceive how Christ would have + acted, with whom He would have fraternised, and who would + have declined to receive Him, had He appeared in the present + generation."--_Examiner._ + + * * * * * + + MRS. LYNN LINTON'S NEW NOVEL. + + =Patricia Kemball=: A Novel, by E. LYNN LINTON, Author of "Joshua + Davidson," &c., in Three Vols. crown 8vo, is now ready at all the + Libraries and at the Booksellers'. + + "Perhaps the ablest novel published in London this year.... We + know of nothing in the novels we have lately read equal to the + scene in which Mr. Hamley proposes to Dora.... We advise our + readers to send to the library for the story."--_Athenæum._ + + "This novel is distinguished by qualities which entitle it to a + place apart from the ordinary fiction of the day; ... displays + genuine humour, as well as keen social observation.... Enough + graphic portraiture and witty observation to furnish materials for + half a dozen novels of the ordinary kind."--_Saturday Review._ + + * * * * * + + =Madre Natura= _versus_ The Moloch of Fashion.= A Social Essay. By + LUKE LIMNER. With 32 Illustrations by the Author. FOURTH EDITION, + revised, corrected, and enlarged. Crown 8vo, cloth extra gilt, red + edges, price 2_s._ 6_d._ + + [Illustration] + + "Bravo, Luke Limner! In this treatise, aptly and ably illustrated, + the well-known artist scathingly exposes the evils of the present + fashions--more especially of tight-lacing. Girls should be made to + learn it by heart, and act on its precepts."--_Fun._ + + "Agreeably written and amusingly illustrated. Common sense and + erudition are brought to bear on the subjects discussed in + it."--_Lancet._ + + * * * * * + + =Magna Charta.= An exact Facsimile of the Original Document in the + British Museum, carefully drawn, and printed on fine plate paper, + nearly 3 feet long by 2 feet wide, with the Arms and Seals of the + Barons emblazoned in Gold and Colours. Price 5_s._ + + A full Translation, with Notes, printed on a large sheet, price 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + AUTHOR'S CORRECTED EDITION. + + =Mark Twain's Choice Works.= Revised and Corrected throughout by the + Author. With Life, Portrait, and numerous Illustrations. 700 pages, + cloth extra gilt, 7_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * + + =Mark Twain's Pleasure Trip on the Continent of Europe.= With + Frontispiece. 500 pages, illustrated boards, 2_s._; or cloth extra, + 2_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + =Marston's (Dr. Westland) Poetical and Dramatic Works.= A New and + Collected Library Edition, in Two Vols. crown 8vo, is now in the + press, and will be ready very shortly. + + * * * * * + + MR. PHILIP MARSTON'S POEMS. + + =Song Tide=, and other Poems. By PHILIP BOURKE MARSTON. SECOND + EDITION. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, 8_s._ + + "This is a first work of extraordinary performance and of still + more extraordinary promise. The youngest school of English poetry + has received an important accession to its ranks in Philip Bourke + Marston."--_Examiner._ + + "Mr. Marston has fairly established his claim to be heard as a + poet.... His present volume is well worthy of careful perusal, as + the utterance of a poetic, cultivated mind."--_Standard._ + + "We have spoken plainly of some defects in the poetry before + us, but we have read much of it with interest, and even + admiration."--_Pall Mall Gazette._ + + * * * + + =All in All=: Poems and Sonnets. By PHILIP BOURKE MARSTON. Crown 8vo, + cloth extra, 8_s._ + + * * * * * + + =Mayhew's London Characters=: Illustrations of the Humour, Pathos, + and Peculiarities of London Life. By HENRY MAYHEW, Author of "London + Labour and the London Poor," and other Writers. With nearly 100 + graphic Illustrations by W. S. GILBERT, and others. Crown 8vo, cloth + extra, 6_s._ + + "Well fulfils the promise of its title.... The book is an + eminently interesting one, and will probably attract many + readers."--_Court Circular._ + + * * * * * + + =Memorials of Manchester Streets.= By RICHARD WRIGHT PROCTER. With + an Appendix, containing "The Chetham Library," by JAMES CROSSLEY, + F.S.A.; and "Old Manchester and its Worthies," by JAMES CROSTON, + F.S.A. Demy 8vo, cloth extra, with Photographic Frontispiece and + numerous Illustrations, 15_s._ + + * * * * * + + =Monumental Inscriptions of the West Indies=, from the Earliest + Date, with Genealogical and Historical Annotations, &c., from + Original, Local, and other Sources. Illustrative of the Histories + and Genealogies of the Seventeenth Century, the Calendars of State + Papers, Peerages, and Baronetages. With Engravings of the Arms of + the principal Families. Chiefly collected on the spot by the Author, + Capt. J. H. LAWRENCE-ARCHER. Demy 4to, cloth extra, 42_s._ [_Nearly + ready._ + + * * * * * + + =Muses of Mayfair=: Vers de Société of the Nineteenth Century, + including selections from TENNYSON, BROWNING, SWINBURNE, + ROSSETTI, JEAN INGELOW, LOCKER, INGOLDSBY, HOOD, LYTTON, C. S. + C., LANDOR, HENRY S. LEIGH, and very many others. Edited by H. + CHOLMONDELEY-PENNELL, Author of "Puck on Pegasus." Beautifully + printed, cloth extra gilt, gilt edges, uniform with "The Golden + Treasury of Thought," 7_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + MR. O'SHAUGHNESSY'S POEMS. + + =Music and Moonlight=: Poems and Songs. By ARTHUR O'SHAUGHNESSY, + Author of "An Epic of Women." Fcap. 8vo, cloth extra, 7_s._ 6_d._ + + "It is difficult to say which is more exquisite, the technical + perfection of structure and melody, or the delicate pathos of + thought. Mr. O'Shaughnessy will enrich our literature with some of + the very best songs written in our generation."--_Academy._ + + * * * * * + + =An Epic of Women=, and other Poems. SECOND EDITION. Fcap. 8vo, cloth + extra, 6_s._ + + "Of the formal art of poetry he is in many senses quite a master; + his metres are not only good,--they are his own, and often of an + invention most felicitous as well as careful."--_Academy._ + + * * * * * + + =Lays of France.= (Founded on the "Lays of Marie.") SECOND EDITION. + Crown 8vo, cloth extra, 10_s._ 6_d._ + + "As we have before remarked in noticing an earlier volume of + his, this modern votary of Marie has, in imaginative power, keen + intuition, and ear, a genuine claim to be writing poetry, as + things go now.... And Mr. O'S. is also an accomplished master in + those peculiar turns of rhythm which are designed to reproduce the + manner of the mediæval originals."--_Saturday Review._ + + * * * * * + + =Mystery of the Good Old Cause=: Sarcastic Notices of those Members + of the Long Parliament that held Places, both Civil and Military, + contrary to the Self-denying Ordinance of April 3, 1645; with the + Sums of Money and Lands they divided among themselves. Small 4to, + half-morocco, 7_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + =Napoleon III., the Man of His Time=; from Caricatures. PART I. THE + STORY OF THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON III., as told by J. M. HASWELL. PART + II. THE SAME STORY, as told by the POPULAR CARICATURES of the past + Thirty-five Years. Crown 8vo, with Coloured Frontispiece and over 100 + Caricatures, 7_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + =Original Lists of Persons of Quality=; Emigrants; Religious Exiles; + Political Rebels; Serving Men Sold for a Term of Years; Apprentices; + Children Stolen; Maidens Pressed; and others who went from Great + Britain to the American Plantations, 1600-1700. With their Ages, the + Localities where they formerly Lived in the Mother Country, Names of + the Ships in which they embarked, and other interesting particulars. + From MSS. preserved in the State Paper Department of Her Majesty's + Public Record Office, England. Edited by JOHN CAMDEN HOTTEN. A very + handsome volume, crown 4to, cloth gilt, 700 pages, 38_s._ A few Large + Paper copies have been printed, price 60_s._ + + "This volume is an English Family Record, and as such may be + commended to English families, and the descendants of English + families, wherever they exist."--_Academy._ + + * * * * * + + THE OLD DRAMATISTS. + + MR. SWINBURNE'S NEW ESSAY. + +=George Chapman's Poems and Minor +Translations.= Complete, including some Pieces now first printed. +With an Essay on the Dramatic and Poetical Works of GEORGE +CHAPMAN, by ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE. Crown 8vo, with Frontispiece, +cloth extra, 6_s._ + + * * * + +=George Chapman's Translations of +Homer's Iliad and Odyssey.= Edited by RICHARD HERNE +SHEPHERD. In one volume, crown 8vo, cloth extra, 6_s._ + + * * * + +=George Chapman's Plays=, Complete, from +the Original Quartos, including the doubtful Plays. Edited by +R. H. SHEPHERD. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, with Frontispiece, 6_s._ + + * * * + +=Ben Jonson's Works.= With Notes, Critical +and Explanatory, and a Biographical Memoir by WILLIAM +GIFFORD. Edited by Lieut.-Col. FRANCIS CUNNINGHAM. Complete +in 3 vols., crown 8vo, cloth extra, gilt, Portrait, 6_s._ each. + + * * * + +=Christopher Marlowe's Works=; Including +his Translations. Edited, with Notes and Introduction, by +Lt.-Col. F. CUNNINGHAM. Cr. 8vo, cloth extra, gilt, Portrait, 6_s._ + + * * * + +=Philip Massinger's Plays.= From the +Text of WM. GIFFORD. With the addition of the Tragedy of +"Believe as You List." Edited by Lieut.-Col. FRANCIS CUNNINGHAM. +Crown 8vo, cloth extra gilt, with Portrait, price 6_s._ + + * * * * * + + OLD BOOKS--FACSIMILE REPRINTS. + + =Musarum Deliciæ=; or, The Muses' Recreation, 1656; Wit Restor'd, + 1658; and Wit's Recreations, 1640. The whole compared with the + originals; with all the Wood Engravings, Plates, Memoirs, and Notes. + A New Edition, in 2 vols., post 8vo, printed on antique laid paper, + and bound in antique boards, 21_s._ + + * * * + + =Rump (The)=; or, An Exact Collection of the choicest POEMS and SONGS + relating to the late Times, and continued by the most eminent Wits; + from Anno 1639 to 1661. A Facsimile Reprint of the rare Original + Edition (London, 1662), with Frontispiece and Engraved Title-page. In + 2 vols., large fcap. 8vo, printed on antique laid paper, and bound in + antique boards, 17_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * + + =D'Urfey's ("Tom") Wit and Mirth=; or, PILLS TO PURGE MELANCHOLY: + Being a Collection of the best Merry Ballads and Songs, Old and New. + Fitted to all Humours, having each their proper Tune for either Voice + or Instrument: most of the Songs being new set. London: Printed by W. + Pearson, for J. Tonson, at Shakespeare's Head, over-against Catherine + Street in the Strand, 1719. An exact reprint. In 6 vols., large fcap. + 8vo, printed on antique laid paper, antique boards, £3 3_s._ + + * * * + + =English Rogue (The)=, described in the Life of MERITON LATROON, and + other Extravagants, comprehending the most Eminent Cheats of both + Sexes. By RICHARD HEAD and FRANCIS KIRKMAN. A Facsimile Reprint of + the rare Original Edition (1665-1672), with Frontispiece, Facsimiles + of the 12 copper plates, and Portraits of the Authors. In 4 vols., + large fcap. 8vo, printed on antique laid paper, and bound in antique + boards, 36_s._ + + * * * + + =Westminster Drolleries=: Being a choice Collection of Songs + and Poems sung at Court and Theatres. With Additions made by a + Person of Quality. Now first reprinted in exact facsimile from the + Original Editions of 1671 and 1672. Edited, with an Introduction + on the Literature of the Drolleries, a copious Appendix of Notes, + Illustrations, and Emendations of Text, Table of Contents, and Index + of First Lines, by J. WOODFALL EBSWORTH, M.A. Cantab. Large fcap. + 8vo, printed on antique paper, and bound in antique boards, 10_s._ + 6_d._; large paper copies, 21_s._ + + * * * + + =Ireland Forgeries.--Confessions of= WILLIAM-HENRY IRELAND. + Containing the Particulars of his Fabrication of the Shakspeare + Manuscripts; together with Anecdotes and Opinions (hitherto + unpublished) of many Distinguished Persons in the Literary, + Political, and Theatrical World. A Facsimile Reprint from the + Original Edition, with several additional Facsimiles. Fcap. 8vo, + printed on antique laid paper, and bound in antique boards, 10_s._ + 6_d._; a few Large Paper copies, at 21_s._ + + * * * + + =Grose's Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue.= 1785. An unmutilated + Reprint of the First Edition. Quarto, bound in half-Roxburghe, gilt + top, price 8_s._ + + * * * + + =Joe Miller's Jests=: the politest Repartees, most elegant Bon-Mots, + and most pleasing short Stories in the English Language. London: + printed by T. Read. 1739. A Facsimile of the Original Edition. 8vo, + half-morocco, 9_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * + + =Old Prose Stories (The)= whence TENNYSON'S "Idylls of the King" were + taken. By B. M. RANKING. Royal 16mo, paper cover, 1_s._; cloth extra, + 1_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + OLD SHEKARRY'S WORKS. + + =Forest and Field=: Life and Adventure in Wild Africa. By the OLD + SHEKARRY. With Eight Illustrations. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, gilt, + 6_s._ + + * * * + + =Wrinkles=; or, Hints to Sportsmen and Travellers upon Dress, + Equipment, Armament, and Camp Life. By the OLD SHEKARRY. A New + Edition, with Illustrations. Small crown 8vo, cloth extra, gilt, 6_s._ + + * * * * * + + OUIDA'S NOVELS. + + Uniform Edition, each Complete in One Volume, crown 8vo, red + cloth extra, price 5_s._ each. + + =Folle Farine.= + + =Idalia=: A Romance. + + =Chandos=: A Novel. + + =Under Two Flags.= + + =Cecil Castlemaine's Gage.= + + =Tricotrin=: The Story of a Waif and Stray. + + =Pascarèl=: Only a Story. + + =Held In Bondage=; or, Granville de Vigne. + + =Puck=: His Vicissitudes, Adventures, &c. + + =A Dog of Flanders=, and other Stories. + + =Strathmore=; or, Wrought by his Own Hand. + + =Two Little Wooden Shoes.= + + * * * * * + + =Parochial History of the County of Cornwall.= Compiled from the best + Authorities, and corrected and improved from actual Survey. 4 vols. + 4to, cloth extra, £3 3_s._ the set; or, separately, the first three + volumes, 16_s._ each; the fourth volume, 18_s._ + + * * * * * + + =Plain English.= By JOHN HOLLINGSHEAD. One vol., crown 8vo. + [_Preparing._ + + * * * * * + + =Private Book of Useful Alloys and Memoranda for Goldsmiths and + Jewellers.= By JAMES E. COLLINS, C.E. Royal 16mo, 3_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + SEVENTH EDITION OF + =Puck on Pegasus.= By H. CHOLMONDELEY-PENNELL. + + Profusely illustrated by the late JOHN LEECH, H. K. BROWNE, Sir NOEL + PATON, JOHN MILLAIS, JOHN TENNIEL, RICHARD DOYLE, Miss ELLEN EDWARDS, + and other artists. A New Edition (the SEVENTH), crown 8vo, cloth + extra, gilt, price 5_s._; or gilt edges, 6_s._ + + "The book is clever and amusing, vigorous and healthy."--_Saturday + Review._ + + "The epigrammatic drollery of Mr. Cholmondeley-Pennell's 'Puck + on Pegasus' is well known to many of our readers.... The present + (_the sixth_) is a superb and handsomely printed and illustrated + edition of the book."--_Times._ + + "Specially fit for reading in the family circle."--_Observer._ + + * * * * * + + "AN AWFULLY JOLLY BOOK FOR PARTIES." + + =Puniana=: Thoughts Wise and Otherwise. By the Hon. HUGH ROWLEY. Best + Book of Riddles and Puns ever formed. With nearly 100 exquisitely + Fanciful Drawings. Contains nearly 3000 of the best Riddles, and + 10,000 most outrageous Puns, and is one of the most Popular Books + ever issued. New Edition, small quarto, green and gold, gilt edges, + price 6_s._ + + "Enormous burlesque--unapproachable and pre-eminent. We think this + very queer volume will be a favourite. We should suggest that, + to a dull person desirous to get credit with the young holiday + people, it would be good policy to invest in the book, and dole it + out by instalments."--_Saturday Review._ + + Also, + + =More Puniana.= + + By the Hon. HUGH ROWLEY. Containing nearly 100 beautifully + executed Drawings, and a splendid Collection of Riddles and Puns, + rivalling those in the First Volume. Small 4to, green and gold, + gilt edges, uniform with the First Series, 6_s._ + + + [Illustration: _When are persons entitled to speak like a + book? Only when they are a tome on the subject._] + + * * * * * + + [Illustration] + + =Pursuivant of Arms (The)=; or, Heraldry founded upon Facts. A + Popular Guide to the Science of Heraldry. By J. R. PLANCHÉ, Esq., + F.S.A., Somerset Herald. To which are added, Essays on the BADGES OF + THE HOUSES OF LANCASTER AND YORK. A New Edition, enlarged and revised + by the Author, illustrated with Coloured Frontispiece, Five full-page + Plates, and about 200 Illustrations. Crown 8vo, bound in cloth extra, + gilt, 7_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + =Practical Assayer=: A Guide to Miners and Explorers. By OLIVER + NORTH. With Tables and Illustrative Woodcuts. Crown 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ + + *** _This book gives directions, in the simplest form, for + assaying bullion and the baser metals by the cheapest, quickest, + and best methods. Those interested in mining property will be + enabled, by following its instructions, to form a tolerably + correct idea of the value of ores, without previous knowledge of + assaying; while to the young man seeking his fortune in mining + countries it is indispensable._ + + "Likely to prove extremely useful. The instructions are clear and + precise."--_Chemist and Druggist._ + + "An admirable little volume."--_Mining Journal._ + + "We cordially recommend this compact little volume to all engaged + in mining enterprize, and especially to explorers."--_Monetary and + Mining Review._ + + * * * * * + + GUSTAVE DORÉ'S DESIGNS. + + =Rabelais' Works.= Faithfully translated from the French, with + variorum Notes, and numerous characteristic Illustrations by GUSTAVE + DORÉ. Cr. 8vo, cl. extra, 700 pp. 7_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + UNIFORM WITH "WONDERFUL CHARACTERS." + + =Remarkable Trials and Notorious Characters.= From "Half-Hanged + Smith," 1700, to Oxford, who shot at the Queen, 1840. By Captain L. + BENSON. With spirited full-page Engravings by PHIZ. 8vo, 550 pages, + 7_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + =Rochefoucauld's Reflections and Moral Maxims.= With Introductory + Essay by SAINTE-BEUVE, and Explanatory Notes. Cloth extra, 1_s._ + 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + =Reminiscences of the late Thomas Assheton Smith, Esq.=; or, The + Pursuits of an English Country Gentleman. By Sir J. E. EARDLEY + WILMOT, Bart. A New and Revised Edition, with Steel-plate Portrait, + and plain and coloured Illustrations. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, 7_s._ + 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + =Roll of Battle Abbey=; or, A List of the Principal Warriors who came + over from Normandy with William the Conqueror, and Settled in this + Country, A.D. 1066-7. Carefully drawn, and printed on fine plate + paper, nearly three feet by two feet, with the Arms of the principal + Barons elaborately emblazoned in Gold and Colours. Price 5_s._; or, + handsomely framed in carved oak of an antique pattern, 22_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + =Roll of Caerlaverock=, the Oldest Heraldic Roll; including the + Original Anglo-Norman Poem, and an English Translation of the MS. in + the British Museum. By THOMAS WRIGHT, M.A. The Arms emblazoned in + Gold and Colours. In 4to, very handsomely printed, extra gold cloth, + 12_s._ + + * * * * * + + =Roman Catholics in the County of York in 1604.= Transcribed from the + Original MS. in the Bodleian Library, and Edited, with Genealogical + Notes, by EDWARD PEACOCK, F.S.A., Editor of "Army Lists of the + Roundheads and Cavaliers, 1642." Small 4to, handsomely printed and + bound, 15_s._ + + *** _Genealogists and Antiquaries will find much new and curious + matter in this work. An elaborate Index refers to every name in + the volume, among which will be found many of the highest local + interest._ + + * * * * * + + =Ross's (Chas. H.) Story of a Honeymoon.= A New Edition of this + charmingly humorous book, with numerous Illustrations by the Author. + Fcap. 8vo, illustrated boards, 2_s._ + + * * * * * + + =School Life at Winchester College=; or, The Reminiscences of a + Winchester Junior. By the Author of "The Log of the Water Lily;" and + "The Water Lily on the Danube." Second Edition, Revised, COLOURED + PLATES, 7_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + =Schopenhauer's The World Considered as Will and Imagination.= + Translated by Dr. FRANZ HUEFFER, Author of "Richard Wagner and the + Music of the Future." [_In preparation._ + + * * * * * + + THE "SECRET OUT" SERIES. + + Crown 8vo, cloth extra, profusely Illustrated, price 4_s._ 6_d._ each. + + =Art of Amusing.= A Collection of Graceful Arts, Games, Tricks, + Puzzles, and Charades, intended to Amuse Everybody. By FRANK BELLEW. + With nearly 300 Illustrations. + + * * * + + =Hanky-Panky.= A Wonderful Book of Very Easy Tricks, Very Difficult + Tricks, White Magic, Sleight of Hand; in fact, all those startling + Deceptions which the Great Wizards call "Hanky-Panky." Edited by W. + H. CREMER. With nearly 200 Illustrations. + + * * * + + =Magician's Own Book.= Ample Instruction for Performances with Cups + and Balls, Eggs, Hats, Handkerchiefs, &c. All from Actual Experience. + Edited by W. H. CREMER. With 200 Illustrations. + + * * * + + =Magic No Mystery.= A Splendid Collection of Tricks with Cards, Dice, + Balls, &c., with fully descriptive working Directions. With very + numerous Illustrations. [_Nearly ready._ + + * * * + + =Merry Circle (The)=, and How the Visitors were entertained during + Twelve Pleasant Evenings. A Book of New Intellectual Games and + Amusements. Edited by Mrs. CLARA BELLEW. With numerous Illustrations. + + * * * + + =Secret Out=; or, One Thousand Tricks with Cards, and other + Recreations; with Entertaining Experiments in Drawing Room or "White + Magic." Edited by W. H. CREMER. With 300 Engravings. + + * * * + + =Shelley's Early Life.= From Original Sources. With Curious + Incidents, Letters, and Writings, now First Published or Collected. + By DENIS FLORENCE MAC-CARTHY. Crown 8vo, with Illustrations, 440 + pages, 7_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * + + =Sheridan's Complete Works=, with Life and Anecdotes. Including his + Dramatic Writings, printed from the Original Editions, his Works + in Prose and Poetry, Translations, Speeches, Jokes, Puns, &c.; + with a Collection of Sheridaniana. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, with 10 + beautifully executed Portraits and Scenes from his Plays, 7_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + =Signboards=: Their History. With Anecdotes of Famous Taverns and + Remarkable Characters. By JACOB LARWOOD and JOHN CAMDEN HOTTEN. + SEVENTH EDITION. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, 7_s._ 6_d._ + + "It is not fair on the part of a reviewer to pick out the plums of + an author's book, thus filching away his cream, and leaving little + but skim-milk remaining; but, even if we were ever so maliciously + inclined, we could not in the present instance pick out all + Messrs. Larwood and Hotten's plums, because the good things are so + numerous as to defy the most wholesale depredation."--_The Times._ + +[Illustration: HELP ME THROUGH THIS WORLD!] + + *** _Nearly 100 most curious illustrations on wood are given, + showing the signs which were formerly hung from taverns, &c._ + +HANDBOOK OF COLLOQUIALISMS. + + * * * * * + + [Illustration: THE WEDGE AND THE WOODEN SPOON.] + + =The Slang Dictionary=: Etymological, Historical, and Anecdotal. An + ENTIRELY NEW EDITION, revised throughout, and considerably Enlarged, + containing upwards of a thousand more words than the last edition. + Crown 8vo, with Curious Illustrations, cloth extra, 6_s._ 6_d._ + + "Peculiarly a book which 'no gentleman's library should be + without,' while to costermongers and thieves it is absolutely + indispensable."--_Dispatch._ + + "Interesting and curious. Contains as many as it was possible to + collect of all the words and phrases of modern slang in use at the + present time."--_Public Opinion._ + + "In every way a great improvement on the edition of 1864. 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Exquisitely printed from + "silver-faced" type, cloth, very neat, gilt edges, 2_s._ 6_d._, post + free. + + * * * * * + + CHARMING NEW TRAVEL-BOOK. + + [Illustration: "It may be we shall touch the happy isles."] + + =Summer Cruising in the South Seas.= By CHARLES WARREN STODDARD. With + Twenty-five Engravings on Wood, drawn by WALLIS MACKAY. Crown 8vo, + cloth, extra gilt, 7_s._ 6_d._ + + "This is a very amusing book, and full of that quiet humour for + which the Americans are so famous. We have not space to enumerate + all the picturesque descriptions, the poetical thoughts, which + have so charmed us in this volume; but we recommend our readers to + go to the South Seas with Mr. Stoddard in his prettily illustrated + and amusingly written little book."--_Vanity Fair._ + + "Mr. Stoddard's book is delightful reading, and in Mr. + Wallis Mackay he has found a most congenial and poetical + illustrator."--_Bookseller._ + + "A remarkable book, which has a certain wild + picturesqueness."--_Standard._ + + "The author's experiences are very amusingly related, and, in + parts, with much freshness and originality."--_Judy._ + + "Mr. Stoddard is a humourist; 'Summer Cruising' has a good deal of + undeniable amusement."--_Nation._ + + * * * * * + + =Syntax's (Dr.) Three Tours.= With the whole of ROWLANDSON'S very + droll full-page Illustrations, in Colours, after the Original + Drawings. Comprising the well-known TOURS--1. IN SEARCH OF THE + PICTURESQUE. 2. IN SEARCH OF CONSOLATION. 3. IN SEARCH OF A WIFE. + The Three Series Complete, with a Life of the Author by JOHN CAMDEN + HOTTEN. Medium 8vo, cloth extra, gilt, price 7_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + =Theseus: A Greek Fairy Legend.= Illustrated, in a series of Designs + in Gold and Sepia, by JOHN MOYR SMITH. With descriptive text. Oblong + folio, price 7_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + [Illustration: THEODORE HOOK'S HOUSE, NEAR PUTNEY.] + + =Theodore Hook's Choice Humorous Works=, with his Ludicrous + Adventures, Bons-mots, Puns, and Hoaxes. With a new Life of the + Author, PORTRAITS, FACSIMILES, and ILLUSTRATIONS. Crown 8vo, 600 + pages, cloth extra, 7_s._ 6_d._ + + + *** "As a wit and humourist of the highest order his name will + be preserved. His political songs and _jeux d'esprit_, when the + hour comes for collecting them, _will form a volume of sterling + and lasting attraction_!"--J. G. LOCKHART. + + * * * * * + + MR. SWINBURNE'S WORKS. + + SECOND EDITION NOW READY OF + + =Bothwell=: A Tragedy. By ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE. Crown 8vo, + cloth extra, pp. 540, 12_s._ 6_d._ + + "Mr. Swinburne's most prejudiced critic cannot, we think, deny + that 'Bothwell' is a poem of a very high character. Every line + bears traces of power, individuality, and vivid imagination. The + versification, while characteristically supple and melodious, also + attains, in spite of some affectations, to a sustained strength + and dignity of a remarkable kind. Mr. Swinburne is not only a + master of the music of language, but he has that indescribable + touch which discloses the true poet--the touch that lifts from off + the ground."--_Saturday Review._ + + "It is not too much to say that, should he never write anything + more, the poet has by this work firmly established his position, + and given us a poem upon which his fame may safely rest. He no + longer indulges in that frequent alliteration, or that oppressive + wealth of imagery and colour, which gave rhythm and splendour to + some of his works, but would have been out of place in a grand + historical poem; we have now a fair opportunity of judging what + the poet can do when deprived of such adventitious aid,--and the + verdict is, that he must henceforth rank amongst the first of + British authors."--_Graphic._ + + "The whole drama flames and rings with high passions and + great deeds. The imagination is splendid; the style large and + imperial; the insight into character keen; the blank verse + varied, sensitive, flexible, alive. Mr. Swinburne has once more + proved his right to occupy a seat among the lofty singers of our + land."--_Daily News._ + + "A really grand, statuesque dramatic work.... The reader will + here find Mr. Swinburne at his very best; if manliness, dignity, + and fulness of style are superior to mere pleasant singing and + alliterative lyrics."--_Standard._ + + "Splendid pictures, subtle analyses of passion, and wonderful + studies of character will repay him who attains the end.... In + this huge volume are many fine and some unsurpassable things. + Subtlest traits of character abound, and descriptive passages of + singular delicacy."--_Athenæum._ + + "There can be no doubt of the dramatic force of the poem. It + is severely simple in its diction, and never dull; there are + innumerable fine touches on almost every page."--_Scotsman._ + + "'Bothwell' shows us Mr. Swinburne at a point immeasurably + superior to any that he has yet achieved. It will confirm and + increase the reputation which his daring genius has already won. + He has handled a difficult subject with a mastery of art which is + a true intellectual triumph."--_Hour._ + + * * * + + =Chastelard=: A Tragedy. Foolscap 8vo, 7_s._ + + * * * + + =Poems and Ballads.= Foolscap 8vo, 9_s._ + + * * * + + =Notes on "Poems and Ballads,"= and on the Reviews of them. Demy 8vo, + 1_s._ + + * * * + + =Songs before Sunrise.= Post 8vo, 10_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * + + =Atalanta in Calydon.= Fcap. 8vo, 6_s._ + + * * * + + =The Queen Mother and Rosamond.= Foolscap 8vo, 5_s._ + + * * * + + =A Song of Italy.= Foolscap 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * + + =Ode on the Proclamation of the French Republic.= Demy 8vo, 1_s._ + + * * * + + =Under the Microscope.= Post 8vo, 2_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * + + =William Blake=: A Critical Essay. With facsimile Paintings, Coloured + by Hand, after the Drawings by Blake and his Wife. Demy 8vo, 16_s._ + + * * * * * + + THE THACKERAY SKETCH-BOOK. + + [Illustration] + + =THACKERAYANA=: Notes and Anecdotes, Illustrated by about Six Hundred + Sketches by WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY, depicting Humorous Incidents + in his School-life, and Favourite Scenes and Characters in the books + of his every-day reading, NOW FOR THE FIRST TIME PUBLISHED, from the + Original Drawings made on the margins of his books, &c. Large post + 8vo, clth. extra gilt, gilt top, price 12_s._ 6_d._ + + [Illustration] + + "It is Thackeray's aim to represent life as it is actually and + historically--men and women as they are, in those situations in + which they are usually placed, with that mixture of good and + evil, of strength and foible, which is to be found in their + characters, and liable only to those incidents which are of + ordinary occurrence. He will have no faultless characters, no + demi-gods,--nothing but men and brethren."--DAVID MASSON. + + * * * * * + + =Timbs' English Eccentrics and Eccentricities.= Stories of Wealth + and Fashion, Delusions, Impostures and Fanatic Missions, Strange + Sights and Sporting Scenes, Eccentric Artists, Theatrical Folks, Men + of Letters, &c. By JOHN TIMES, F.S.A. An entirely New Edition, with + about 50 Illustrations. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, 600 pages, 7_s._ 6_d._ + + [Illustration: _Sir Lumley Skeffington at the Birthday Ball._] + + =Timbs' Clubs and Club Life in London.= With ANECDOTES of its FAMOUS + COFFEE HOUSES, HOSTELRIES, and TAVERNS. By JOHN TIMBS, F.S.A. New + Edition, with NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS drawn expressly. Crown 8vo, + cloth extra, 600 pages, 7_s._ 6_d._ + + *** _A Companion to "The History of Sign-Boards."_ _It abounds in + quaint stories of the_ Blue Stocking, Kit-Kat, Beef Steak, Robin + Hood, Mohocks, Scriblerus, One o'Clock, the Civil, _and hundreds + of other Clubs; together with_ Tom's, Dick's, Button's, Ned's, + Will's, _and the famous Coffee Houses of the last century_. + + "The book supplies a much-felt want. The club is the avenue to + general society at the present day, and Mr. Timbs gives the + _entrée_ to the club. The scholar and antiquary will also find + the work a repertory of information on many disputed points of + literary interest, and especially respecting various well-known + anecdotes, the value of which only increases with the lapse of + time."--_Morning Post._ + + =Blake's Works.= Messrs. CHATTO & WINDUS have in preparation a + series of Reproductions in Facsimile of the Works of WILLIAM + BLAKE, including the "Songs of Innocence and Experience," "The + Book of Thel," "America," "The Vision of the Daughters of + Albion," "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell," "Europe, a Prophecy," + "Jerusalem," "Milton," "Urizen," "The Song of Los," &c. These + Works will be issued both coloured and plain. + + * * * * * + + =Taylor's History of Playing Cards.= With Sixty curious + Illustrations. 550 pp., crown 8vo, cloth, extra gilt, price 7_s._ + 6_d._ + + *** _Ancient and Modern Games, Conjuring, Fortune-Telling, + and Card Sharping, Gambling and Calculation, Cartomancy, Old + Gaming-Houses, Card Revels and Blind Hookey, Picquet and + Vingt-et-un, Whist and Cribbage, Tricks, &c._ + + * * * * * + + =Vagabondiana=; or, Anecdotes of Mendicant Wanderers through the + Streets of London; with Portraits of the most remarkable, drawn from + the Life by JOHN THOMAS SMITH, late Keeper of the Prints in the + British Museum. With Introduction by FRANCIS DOUCE, and descriptive + text. Reprinted from the original, with the Woodcuts, and the 32 + Plates, from the original Coppers, in crown 4to, half Roxburghe, + price 12_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + "LES MISÉRABLES." Complete in Three Parts. + + =Victor Hugo's Fantine.= Now first published in an English + Translation, complete and unabridged, with the exception of a few + advisable omissions. Post 8vo, illustrated boards, 2_s._ + + "This work has something more than the beauties of an exquisite + style or the word-compelling power of a literary Zeus to recommend + it to the tender care of a distant posterity: in dealing with all + the emotions, passions, doubts, fears, which go to make up our + common humanity, M. Victor Hugo has stamped upon every page the + Hall-mark of genius and the loving patience and conscientious + labour of a true artist. But the merits of 'Les Misérables' do not + merely consist in the conception of it as a whole; it abounds, + page after page, with details of unequalled beauty."--_Quarterly + Review._ + * * * + =Victor Hugo's Cosette and Marius.= Translated into English, + complete, uniform with "Fantine." Post 8vo, illustrated boards, 2_s._ + + * * * + + =Victor Hugo's Saint Denis and Jean Valjean.= Translated into + English, complete, uniform with the above. Post 8vo, illustrated + boards, 2_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + =Vyner's Notitia Venatica=: A Treatise on Fox-Hunting, the General + Management of Hounds, and the Diseases of Dogs; Distemper and Rabies; + Kennel Lameness, &c. Sixth Edition, Enlarged. By ROBERT C. VYNER. + WITH SPIRITED ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOURS, BY ALKEN, OF MEMORABLE + FOX-HUNTING SCENES. Royal 8vo, cloth extra, 21_s._ + + *** _An entirely new edition of the best work on Fox-Hunting._ + + * * * * * + + =Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass.= The Complete Work, precisely as + issued by the Author in Washington. A thick volume, 8vo, green cloth, + price 9_s._ + + * * * * * + + [Illustration] + + =Walton and Cotton, Illustrated.=--=The Complete Angler=; or, + the Contemplative Man's Recreation; being a Discourse of Rivers, + Fish-ponds, Fish and Fishing, written by IZAAK WALTON; and + Instructions how to Angle for a Trout or Grayling in a clear Stream, + by CHARLES COTTON. With Original Memoirs and Notes by Sir HARRIS + NICOLAS, K.C.M.G. With the whole 61 Illustrations, precisely as in + the royal 8vo two-volume Edition issued by Pickering. A New Edition, + complete in One Volume, large crown 8vo, with the Illustrations from + the original plates, printed on full pages, separately from the text, + 7_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + =Warrant to Execute Charles I.= An exact Facsimile of this important + Document, with the Fifty-nine Signatures of the Regicides, and + corresponding Seals, admirably executed on paper made to imitate + the original document, 22 in. by 14 in. Price 2_s._; or, handsomely + framed and glazed in carved oak of antique pattern, 14_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + =Warrant to Execute Mary Queen of Scots.= The Exact Facsimile of this + important Document, including the Signature of Queen Elizabeth and + Facsimile of the Great Seal, on tinted paper, to imitate the Original + MS. Price 2_s._; or, handsomely framed and glazed in carved oak, + antique pattern, 14_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + =Waterford Roll (The).=--Illuminated Charter-Roll of Waterford, Temp. + Richard II. + + *** _Amongst the Corporation Muniments of the City of Waterford + is preserved an ancient Illuminated Roll, of great interest + and beauty, comprising all the early Charters and Grants to + the City of Waterford, from the time of Henry II. to Richard + II. A full-length Portrait of each King, whose Charter is + given--including Edward III., when young, and again at an advanced + age--adorns the margin. These Portraits, with the exception of + four which are smaller, and on one sheet of vellum, vary from + eight to nine inches in length--some in armour, and some in robes + of state. In addition to these are Portraits of an Archbishop + in full canonicals, of a Chancellor, and of many of the chief + Burgesses of the City of Waterford, as well as singularly curious + Portraits of the Mayors of Dublin, Waterford, Limerick, and + Cork, figured for the most part in the quaint bipartite costume + of the Second Richard's reign, though partaking of many of the + peculiarities of that of Edward III. Altogether this ancient + work of art is unique of its kind in Ireland, and deserves to + be rescued from oblivion, by the publication of the unedited + Charters, and of fac-similes of all the Illuminations. The + production of such a work would throw much light on the question + of the art and social habits of the Anglo-Norman settlers in + Ireland at the close of the fourteenth century. The Charters are, + many of them, highly important from an historic point of view._ + + _The Illuminations have been accurately traced and coloured for + the work from a copy carefully made, by permission of the Mayor + and Corporation of Waterford, by the late George V. Du Noyer, + Esq., M.R.I.A.; and those Charters which have not already appeared + in print will be edited by the Rev. James Graves, A.B., M.R.I.A., + Hon. Secretary Kilkenny and South-East of Ireland Archæological + Society._ + + _The Work will be brought out in the best manner, with embossed + cover and characteristic title-page; and it will be put to press + as soon as 250 subscribers are obtained. The price, in imperial + 4to, is 20s. to subscribers, or 30s. to non-subscribers._ + + * * * * * + + =Wonderful Characters=: Memoirs and Anecdotes of Remarkable and + Eccentric Persons of Every Age and Nation. From the text of HENRY + WILSON and JAMES CAULFIELD. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, with Sixty-one + full-page Engravings of Extraordinary Persons, 7_s._ 6_d._ + + *** _There are so many curious matters discussed in this volume, + that any person who takes it up will not readily lay it down + until he has read it through. The Introduction is almost entirety + devoted to a consideration of Pig-Faced Ladies, and the various + stories concerning them._ + + * * * * * + + =Wright's (Andrew) Court-Hand Restored=; or, Student's Assistant + in Reading Old Deeds, Charters, Records, &c. Half Morocco, a New + Edition, 10_s._ 6_d._ + + *** _The best guide to the reading of old Records, &c._ + + * * * * * + + =Wright's Caricature History of the Georges= (House of Hanover). With + 400 Pictures, Caricatures, Squibs, Broadsides, Window Pictures, &c. + By THOMAS WRIGHT, Esq., M.A., F.S.A. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, 7_s._ + 6_d._ + + [Illustration] + + "A set of caricatures such as we have in Mr. Wright's volume + brings the surface of the age before us with a vividness that no + prose writer, even of the highest power, could emulate. Macaulay's + most brilliant sentence is weak by the side of the little woodcut + from Gillray, which gives us Burke and Fox."--_Saturday Review._ + + "A more amusing work of its kind was never issued."--_Art Journal._ + + "It is emphatically one of the liveliest of books, as also one of + the most interesting. It has the twofold merit of being at once + amusing and edifying."--_Morning Post._ + + * * * * * + + =Yankee Drolleries=, Edited by G. A. SALA. Containing ARTEMUS WARD'S + BOOK; BIGLOW PAPERS; ORPHEUS C. KERR; JACK DOWNING; and NASBY PAPERS. + 700 pp., 3_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + =More Yankee Drolleries.= Containing ARTEMUS WARD'S TRAVELS; HANS + BREITMANN; PROFESSOR AT BREAKFAST TABLE; BIGLOW PAPERS, Part II.; and + JOSH BILLINGS; with Introduction by G. A. SALA. 700 pp., cloth, 3_s._ + 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + =A Third Supply of Yankee Drolleries.= Containing ARTEMUS WARD'S + FENIANS; AUTOCRAT OF BREAKFAST TABLE; BRET HARTE'S STORIES; INNOCENTS + ABROAD; and NEW PILGRIM'S PROGRESS; with an Introduction by G. A. + SALA. 700 pp., cloth, 3_s._ 6_d._ + + + + + Transcriber's Notes + +In general, spelling is retained as printed. On occasion, apparent +printer's errors, however, are corrected, where the author uses a more +standard spelling elsewhere (e.g., 'acknowleges' on p. 283). Where the +printer simply missed a word (e.g.,'hand' on p. 151), it is added. + +Incidental punctuation, especially of abbreviated words and in captions, +which is missing from the printed original, has been silently restored. + +In the advertisement section at the end of the text, an asterism (three +asterisks arranged in an inverted triangle) are used as a 'bullet'. +In this text, these will be retained as "***". + +This table summarizes the various issues detected, and their resolution. + + p. xii LE MONDE BESTORN[E/É] Corrected. + p. 6 as 1185[,] B.C. Removed. + p. 57 and trepidation[.] Added. + p. 76 fat flesh and their platter;["] Probable + placement + p. 107 i[t] is evident from many allusions Added. + p. 151 luxury went hand in [hand] Added. + p. 153 a playful character[./,] or sometimes Added. + p. 155 N[u/ü]remberg Corrected. + p. 160 and [meats] with a courteous reception _sic._ + p. 162 ["]should not be jougleurs, goliards, Probable + or buffoons;" placement. + p. 163 de [famila] Goliæ _sic._ + p. 173 ["/']Adam, Adam ... Corrected. + p. 201 received by the [the ]emperor Hugo Removed. + p. 230 Here [beginneht] a merye jest _sic._ + n. 74 + p. 243 "Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles," ["]Poggio," + "Straparola," Added. + seventee[n]th Added. + p. 254 the early book-hawkers[,/.] Corrected. + p. 289 acknowle[d]ged Added. + p. 335 aspired to be P[l]antagruelists Removed. + p. 344 Florent Chr[e]stien Added. + p. 396 who jilts her husband that way, a very ----[.]" Added. + p. 445 were [two/too] numerous Corrected. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A History of Caricature and Grotesque, by +Thomas Wright + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORY OF CARICATURE *** + +***** This file should be named 44566-0.txt or 44566-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/4/4/5/6/44566/ + +Produced by KD Weeks, Chris Curnow and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For forty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + diff --git a/old/44566-0.zip b/old/44566-0.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..b51d40e --- /dev/null +++ b/old/44566-0.zip diff --git a/old/44566-8.txt b/old/44566-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7a5f56d --- /dev/null +++ b/old/44566-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,17989 @@ +Project Gutenberg's A History of Caricature and Grotesque, by Thomas Wright + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A History of Caricature and Grotesque + in Literature and Art + +Author: Thomas Wright + +Illustrator: F. W. Fairholt + +Release Date: January 2, 2014 [EBook #44566] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORY OF CARICATURE *** + + + + +Produced by KD Weeks, Chris Curnow and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive) + + + + + +Transcriber's Notes + +Typographical features such as italic and bold fonts are indicated +as _italic_ and =bold=. The 'oe' ligature is given as separate +characters. Text shown in mixed 'small capital' letters has been +shifted to all uppercase. Superscripted letters are prefixed with +a carat (^) character. When multiple letters appear as superscripts, +they are enclosed in brackets ({}). + +There are frequent instances of Greek text, which have been +transliterated here. These appear delimited with the '+' character. +There is a unicode as well as an html version of this text, both +of which retain the original Greek characters. + +Illustrations appear as [Illustration: caption] in their approximate +positions in the text. There are several decorative illustrations which +appear merely as [Illustration]. Two illustrations, on pp. 199 and 204, +were labelled No. 127. To resolve this, the second of them, and +references to it, were changed to No. 127a. + +Footnotes have been moved to the end of the paragraphs where they are +referenced. + +Please consult the Transcriber's Note at the end of this text for +details regarding the resolution of any other textual issues. + + + + + A HISTORY + + OF + + CARICATURE AND GROTESQUE. + + [Illustration: _ARISTOTLE AND PYTHAS._ + _From an Engraving by Burgmair_ (_15th cent._)] + + + + + A HISTORY + + OF + + CARICATURE AND GROTESQUE + + In Literature and Art. + + BY THOMAS WRIGHT, M.A., F.S.A. + + [Illustration] + + THE ILLUSTRATIONS DRAWN AND ENGRAVED BY + + F. W. FAIRHOLT, F.S.A. + + London: + + CHATTO AND WINDUS, PICCADILLY. + + 1875. + + + + + LONDON: + SAVILL, EDWARDS, AND CO., PRINTERS, CHANDOS STREET, + COVENT GARDEN. + + [Illustration] + + + + +PREFACE. + + +I have felt some difficulty in selecting a title for the contents of +the following pages, in which it was, in fact, my design to give, as +far as may be done within such moderate limits, and in as popular a +manner as such information can easily be imparted, a general view of +the History of Comic Literature and Art. Yet the word comic seems to +me hardly to express all the parts of the subject which I have sought +to bring together in my book. Moreover, the field of this history is +very large, and, though I have only taken as my theme one part of it, +it was necessary to circumscribe even that, in some degree; and my +plan, therefore, is to follow it chiefly through those branches which +have contributed most towards the formation of modern comic and satiric +literature and art in our own island. + +Thus, as the comic literature of the middle ages to a very great +extent, and comic art in a considerable degree also, were founded +upon, or rather arose out of, those of the Romans which had preceded +them, it seemed desirable to give a comprehensive history of this +branch of literature and art as it was cultivated among the peoples of +antiquity. Literature and art in the middle ages presented a certain +unity of general character, arising, probably, from the uniformity of +the influence of the Roman element of society, modified only by its +lower degree of intensity at a greater distance from the centre, and +by secondary causes attendant upon it. To understand the literature +of any one country in Western Europe, especially during what we may +term the feudal period--and the remark applies to art equally--it +is necessary to make ourselves acquainted with the whole history of +literature in Western Europe during that time. The peculiarities in +different countries naturally became more marked in the progress of +society, and more strongly individualised; but it was not till towards +the close of the feudal period that the literature of each of these +different countries was becoming more entirely its own. At that period +the plan I have formed restricts itself, according to the view stated +above. Thus, the satirical literature of the Reformation and pictorial +caricature had their cradle in Germany, and, in the earlier half of +the sixteenth century, carried their influence largely into France and +England; but from that time any influence of German literature on these +two countries ceases. Modern satirical literature has its models in +France during the sixteenth century, and the direct influence of this +literature in France upon English literature continued during that and +the succeeding century, but no further. Political caricature rose to +importance in France in the sixteenth century, and was transplanted +to Holland in the seventeenth century, and until the beginning of the +eighteenth century England owed its caricature, indirectly or directly, +to the French and the Dutch; but after that time a purely English +school of caricature was formed, which was entirely independent of +Continental caricaturists. + +There are two senses in which the word history may be taken in regard +to literature and art. It has been usually employed to signify a +chronological account of authors or artists and their works, though +this comes more properly under the title of biography and bibliography. +But there is another and a very different application of the word, and +this is the meaning which I attach to it in the present volume. During +the middle ages, and for some period after (in special branches), +literature--I mean poetry, satire, and popular literature of all +kinds--belonged to society, and not to the individual authors, who +were but workmen who gained a living by satisfying society's wants; +and its changes in form or character depended all upon the varying +progress, and therefore changing necessities, of society itself. This +is the reason why, especially in the earlier periods, nearly the whole +mass of the popular--I may, perhaps, be allowed to call it the social +literature of the middle ages, is anonymous; and it was only at rare +intervals that some individual rose and made himself a great name by +the superiority of his talents. A certain number of writers of fabliaux +put their names to their compositions, probably because they were names +of writers who had gained the reputation of telling better or racier +stories than many of their fellows. In some branches of literature--as +in the satirical literature of the sixteenth century--society still +exercised this kind of influence over it; and although its great +monuments owe everything to the peculiar genius of their authors, they +were produced under the pressure of social circumstances. To trace all +these variations in literature connected with society, to describe the +influences of society upon literature and of literature upon society, +during the progress of the latter, appears to me to be the true meaning +of the word history, and it is in this sense that I take it. + +This will explain why my history of the different branches of popular +literature and art ends at very different periods. The grotesque and +satirical sculpture, which adorned the ecclesiastical buildings, +ceased with the middle ages. The story-books, as a part of this social +literature, came down to the sixteenth century, and the history of +the jest-books which arose out of them cannot be considered to extend +further than the beginning of the seventeenth; for, to give a list of +jest-books since that time would be to compile a catalogue of books +made by booksellers for sale, copied from one another, and, till +recently, each more contemptible than its predecessor. The school of +satirical literature in France, at all events as far as it had any +influence in England, lasted no longer than the earlier part of the +seventeenth century. England can hardly be said to have had a school of +satirical literature, with the exception of its comedy, which belongs +properly to the seventeenth century; and its caricature belongs +especially to the last century and to the earlier part of the present, +beyond which it is not a part of my plan to carry it. + +These few remarks will perhaps serve to explain what some may consider +to be defects in my book; and with them I venture to trust it to the +indulgence of its readers. It is a subject which will have some novelty +for the English reader, for I am not aware that we have any previous +book devoted to it. At all events, it is not a mere compilation from +other people's labours. + + THOMAS WRIGHT. + + [Illustration] + + + + + CONTENTS. + + + CHAPTER I. + PAGE + ORIGIN OF CARICATURE AND GROTESQUE--SPIRIT OF CARICATURE + IN EGYPT--MONSTERS: PYTHON AND GORGON--GREECE--THE + DIONYSIAC CEREMONIES, AND ORIGIN OF THE DRAMA--THE OLD + COMEDY--LOVE OF PARODY--PARODIES ON SUBJECTS TAKEN + FROM GRECIAN MYTHOLOGY: THE VISIT TO THE LOVER; APOLLO + AT DELPHI--THE PARTIALITY FOR PARODY CONTINUED AMONG + THE ROMANS: THE FLIGHT OF NEAS 1 + + CHAPTER II. + + ORIGIN OF THE STAGE IN ROME--USES OF THE MASK + AMONG THE ROMANS--SCENES FROM ROMAN COMEDY--THE + SANNIO AND MIMUS--THE ROMAN DRAMA--THE ROMAN + SATIRISTS--CARICATURE--ANIMALS INTRODUCED IN THE + CHARACTERS OF MEN--THE PIGMIES, AND THEIR INTRODUCTION + INTO CARICATURE; THE FARM-YARD; THE PAINTER'S STUDIO; + THE PROCESSION--POLITICAL CARICATURE IN POMPEII; THE + GRAFFITI 23 + + CHAPTER III. + + THE PERIOD OF TRANSITION FROM ANTIQUITY TO THE MIDDLE + AGES--THE ROMAN MIMI CONTINUED TO EXIST--THE TEUTONIC + AFTER-DINNER ENTERTAINMENTS--CLERICAL SATIRES: + ARCHBISHOP HERIGER AND THE DREAMER; THE SUPPER OF THE + SAINTS--TRANSITION FROM ANCIENT TO MEDIVAL ART--TASTE + FOR MONSTROUS ANIMALS, DRAGONS, ETC.; CHURCH OF SAN + FEDELE, AT COMO--SPIRIT OF CARICATURE AND LOVE OF + GROTESQUE AMONG THE ANGLO-SAXONS--GROTESQUE FIGURES OF + DEMONS--NATURAL TENDENCY OF THE EARLY MEDIVAL ARTISTS + TO DRAW IN CARICATURE--EXAMPLES FROM EARLY MANUSCRIPTS + AND SCULPTURES 40 + + CHAPTER IV. + + THE DIABOLICAL IN CARICATURE--MEDIVAL LOVE OF THE + LUDICROUS--CAUSES WHICH MADE IT INFLUENCE THE NOTIONS + OF DEMONS--STORIES OF THE PIOUS PAINTER AND THE ERRING + MONK--DARKNESS AND UGLINESS CARICATURED--THE DEMONS IN + THE MIRACLE PLAYS--THE DEMON OF NOTRE DAME 61 + + CHAPTER V. + + EMPLOYMENT OF ANIMALS IN MEDIVAL SATIRE--POPULARITY + OF FABLES; ODO DE CIRINGTON--REYNARD THE + FOX--BURNELLUS AND FAUVEL--THE CHARIVARI--LE MONDE + BESTORN--ENCAUSTIC TILES--SHOEING THE GOOSE, AND + FEEDING PIGS WITH ROSES--SATIRICAL SIGNS; THE MUSTARD + MAKER 75 + + CHAPTER VI. + + THE MONKEY IN BURLESQUE AND CARICATURE--TOURNAMENTS + AND SINGLE COMBATS--MONSTROUS COMBINATIONS OF + ANIMAL FORMS--CARICATURES ON COSTUME--THE HAT--THE + HELMET--LADIES' HEAD-DRESSES--THE GOWN, AND ITS LONG + SLEEVES 95 + + CHAPTER VII. + + PRESERVATION OF THE CHARACTER OF THE MIMUS AFTER THE FALL + OF THE EMPIRE--THE MINSTREL AND JOGELOUR--HISTORY OF + POPULAR STORIES--THE FABLIAUX--ACCOUNT OF THEM--THE + CONTES DEVOTS 106 + + CHAPTER VIII. + + CARICATURES OF DOMESTIC LIFE--STATE OF DOMESTIC LIFE + IN THE MIDDLE AGES--EXAMPLES OF DOMESTIC CARICATURE + FROM THE CARVINGS OF THE MISERERES--KITCHEN + SCENES--DOMESTIC BRAWLS--THE FIGHT FOR THE + BREECHES--THE JUDICIAL DUEL BETWEEN MAN AND WIFE AMONG + THE GERMANS--ALLUSIONS TO WITCHCRAFT--SATIRES ON THE + TRADES: THE BAKER, THE MILLER, THE WINE-PEDLAR AND + TAVERN KEEPER, THE ALE-WIFE, ETC. 118 + + CHAPTER IX. + + GROTESQUE FACES AND FIGURES--PREVALENCE OF THE TASTE FOR + UGLY AND GROTESQUE FACES--SOME OF THE POPULAR FORMS + DERIVED FROM ANTIQUITY: THE TONGUE LOLLING OUT, AND + THE DISTORTED MOUTH--HORRIBLE SUBJECTS: THE MAN + AND THE SERPENTS--ALLEGORICAL FIGURES: GLUTTONY AND + LUXURY--OTHER REPRESENTATIONS OF CLERICAL GLUTTONY + AND DRUNKENNESS--GROTESQUE FIGURES OF INDIVIDUALS, + AND GROTESQUE GROUPS--ORNAMENTS OF THE BORDERS OF + BOOKS--UNINTENTIONAL CARICATURE; THE MOTE AND THE BEAM 144 + + CHAPTER X. + + SATIRICAL LITERATURE IN THE MIDDLE AGES--JOHN + DE HAUTEVILLE AND ALAN DE LILLE--GOLIAS AND + THE GOLIARDS--THE GOLIARDIC POETRY--TASTE FOR + PARODY--PARODIES ON RELIGIOUS SUBJECTS--POLITICAL + CARICATURE IN THE MIDDLE AGES--THE JEWS OF + NORWICH--CARICATURE REPRESENTATIONS OF + COUNTRIES--LOCAL SATIRE--POLITICAL SONGS AND POEMS 159 + + CHAPTER XI. + + MINSTRELSY A SUBJECT OF BURLESQUE AND + CARICATURE--CHARACTER OF THE MINSTRELS--THEIR JOKES + UPON THEMSELVES AND UPON ONE ANOTHER--VARIOUS + MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS REPRESENTED IN THE SCULPTURES + OF THE MEDIVAL ARTISTS--SIR MATTHEW GOURNAY AND + THE KING OF PORTUGAL--DISCREDIT OF THE TABOR AND + BAGPIPES--MERMAIDS 188 + + CHAPTER XII. + + THE COURT FOOL--THE NORMANS AND THEIR GABS--EARLY + HISTORY OF COURT FOOLS--THEIR COSTUME--CARVINGS IN + THE CORNISH CHURCHES--THE BURLESQUE SOCIETIES OF THE + MIDDLE AGES--THE FEASTS OF ASSES, AND OF FOOLS--THEIR + LICENCE--THE LEADEN MONEY OF THE FOOLS--THE BISHOP'S + BLESSING 200 + + CHAPTER XIII. + + THE DANCE OF DEATH--THE PAINTINGS IN THE CHURCH OF + LA CHAISE DIEU--THE REIGN OF FOLLY--SEBASTIAN + BRANDT; THE SHIP OF FOOLS--DISTURBERS OF + CHURCH SERVICE--TROUBLESOME BEGGARS--GEILER'S + SERMONS--BADIUS, AND HIS SHIP OF FOOLISH WOMEN--THE + PLEASURES OF SMELL--ERASMUS; THE PRAISE OF FOLLY 214 + + CHAPTER XIV. + + POPULAR LITERATURE AND ITS HEROES; BROTHER RUSH, TYLL + EULENSPIEGEL, THE WISE MEN OF GOTHAM--STORIES AND + JEST-BOOKS--SKELTON, SCOGIN, TARLTON, PEELE 228 + + CHAPTER XV. + + THE AGE OF THE REFORMATION--THOMAS MURNER; HIS GENERAL + SATIRES--FRUITFULNESS OF FOLLY--HANS SACHS--THE + TRAP FOR FOOLS--ATTACKS ON LUTHER--THE POPE AS + ANTICHRIST--THE POPE-ASS AND THE MONK-CALF--OTHER + CARICATURES AGAINST THE POPE--THE GOOD AND BAD + SHEPHERDS 244 + + CHAPTER XVI. + + ORIGIN OF MEDIVAL FARCE AND MODERN + COMEDY--HROTSVITHA--MEDIVAL NOTIONS OF TERENCE--THE + EARLY RELIGIOUS PLAYS--MYSTERIES AND MIRACLE + PLAYS--THE FARCES--THE DRAMA IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 264 + + CHAPTER XVII. + + DIABLERIE IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY--EARLY TYPES OF THE + DIABOLICAL FORMS--ST. ANTHONY--ST. GUTHLAC--REVIVAL OF + THE TASTE FOR SUCH SUBJECTS IN THE BEGINNING OF THE + SIXTEENTH CENTURY--THE FLEMISH SCHOOL OF BREUGHEL--THE + FRENCH AND ITALIAN SCHOOLS--CALLOT, SALVATOR ROSA 288 + + CHAPTER XVIII. + + CALLOT AND HIS SCHOOL--CALLOT'S ROMANTIC HISTORY--HIS + "CAPRICI," AND OTHER BURLESQUE WORKS--THE "BALLI" + AND THE BEGGARS--IMITATORS OF CALLOT; DELLA + BELLA--EXAMPLES OF DELLA BELLA--ROMAIN DE HOOGHE 300 + + CHAPTER XIX. + + THE SATIRICAL LITERATURE OF THE SIXTEENTH + CENTURY--PASQUIL--MACARONIC POETRY--THE EPISTOL + OBSCURORUM VIRORUM--RABELAIS--COURT OF THE QUEEN OF + NAVARRE, AND ITS LITERARY CIRCLE; BONAVENTURE DES + PERIERS--HENRI ETIENNE--THE LIGUE, AND ITS SATIRE: THE + "SATYRE MENIPPEE" 312 + + CHAPTER XX. + + POLITICAL CARICATURE IN ITS INFANCY--THE REVERS DU + JEU DES SUYSSES--CARICATURE IN FRANCE--THE THREE + ORDERS--PERIOD OF THE LIGUE; CARICATURES AGAINST HENRI + III.--CARICATURES AGAINST THE LIGUE--CARICATURE IN + FRANCE IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY--GENERAL GALAS--THE + QUARREL OF AMBASSADORS--CARICATURE AGAINST LOUIS XXV.; + WILLIAM OF FURSTEMBERG 347 + + CHAPTER XXI. + + EARLY POLITICAL CARICATURE IN ENGLAND--THE SATIRICAL + WRITINGS AND PICTURES OF THE COMMONWEALTH + PERIOD--SATIRES AGAINST THE BISHOPS; BISHOP + WILLIAMS--CARICATURES ON THE CAVALIERS; SIR JOHN + SUCKLING--THE ROARING BOYS; VIOLENCE OF THE ROYALIST + SOLDIERS--CONTEST BETWEEN THE PRESBYTERIANS AND + INDEPENDENTS--GRINDING THE KING'S NOSE--PLAYING-CARDS + USED AS THE MEDIUM FOR CARICATURE; HASELRIGGE AND + LAMBERT--SHROVETIDE 360 + + CHAPTER XXII. + + ENGLISH COMEDY--BEN JONSON--THE OTHER WRITERS OF HIS + SCHOOL--INTERRUPTION OF DRAMATIC PERFORMANCES--COMEDY + AFTER THE RESTORATION--THE HOWARDS BROTHERS; THE DUKE + OF BUCKINGHAM; THE REHEARSAL--WRITERS OF COMEDY IN THE + LATTER PART OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY--INDECENCY OF + THE STAGE--COLLEY CIBBER--FOOTE 375 + + CHAPTER XXIII. + + CARICATURE IN HOLLAND--ROMAIN DE HOOGHE--THE ENGLISH + REVOLUTION--CARICATURES ON LOUIS XIV. AND + JAMES II.--DR. SACHEVERELL--CARICATURE BROUGHT + FROM HOLLAND TO ENGLAND--ORIGIN OF THE WORD + "CARICATURE"--MISSISSIPPI AND THE SOUTH SEA; THE YEAR + OF BUBBLES 406 + + CHAPTER XXIV. + + ENGLISH CARICATURE IN THE AGE OF GEORGE II.--ENGLISH + PRINTSELLERS--ARTISTS EMPLOYED BY THEM--SIR ROBERT + WALPOLE'S LONG MINISTRY--THE WAR WITH FRANCE--THE + NEWCASTLE ADMINISTRATION--OPERA INTRIGUES--ACCESSION + OF GEORGE III., AND LORD BUTE IN POWER 420 + + CHAPTER XXV. + + HOGARTH--HIS EARLY HISTORY--HIS SETS OF PICTURES--THE + HARLOT'S PROGRESS--THE RAKE'S PROGRESS--THE MARRIAGE A + LA MODE--HIS OTHER PRINTS--THE ANALYSIS OF BEAUTY, AND + THE PERSECUTION ARISING OUT OF IT--HIS PATRONAGE BY + LORD BUTE--CARICATURE OF THE TIMES--ATTACKS TO WHICH + HE WAS EXPOSED BY IT, AND WHICH HASTENED HIS DEATH 434 + + CHAPTER XXVI. + + THE LESSER CARICATURISTS OF THE REIGN OF GEORGE + III.--PAUL SANDBY--COLLET: THE DISASTER, + AND FATHER PAUL IN HIS CUPS--JAMES SAYER: + HIS CARICATURES IN SUPPORT OF PITT, AND HIS + REWARD--CARLO KHAN'S TRIUMPH--BUNBURY'S: HIS + CARICATURES ON HORSEMANSHIP--WOODWARD: GENERAL + COMPLAINT--ROWLANDSON'S INFLUENCE ON THE STYLE OF + THOSE WHOSE DESIGNS HE ETCHED--JOHN KAY OF EDINBURGH: + LOOKING A ROCK IN THE FACE 450 + + CHAPTER XXVII. + + GILLRAY--HIS FIRST ATTEMPTS--HIS CARICATURES BEGIN + WITH THE SHELBURNE MINISTRY--IMPEACHMENT OF + WARREN HASTINGS--CARICATURES ON THE KING; NEW + WAY TO PAY THE NATIONAL DEBT--ALLEGED REASON FOR + GILLRAY'S HOSTILITY TO THE KING--THE KING AND THE + APPLE-DUMPLINGS--GILLRAY'S LATER LABOURS--HIS IDIOTCY + AND DEATH 464 + + CHAPTER XXVIII. + + GILLRAY'S CARICATURES ON SOCIAL LIFE--THOMAS + ROWLANDSON--HIS EARLY LIFE--HE BECOMES A + CARICATURIST--HIS STYLE AND WORKS--HIS DRAWINGS--THE + CRUIKSHANKS 480 + + + + + A HISTORY + + OF + + CARICATURE AND GROTESQUE. + + + + + CHAPTER I. + + ORIGIN OF CARICATURE AND GROTESQUE.--SPIRIT OF CARICATURE IN + EGYPT.--MONSTERS: PYTHON AND GORGON.--GREECE.--THE DIONYSIAC + CEREMONIES, AND ORIGIN OF THE DRAMA.--THE OLD COMEDY.--LOVE OF + PARODY.--PARODIES ON SUBJECTS TAKEN FROM GRECIAN MYTHOLOGY: THE + VISIT TO THE LOVER: APOLLO AT DELPHI.--THE PARTIALITY FOR PARODY + CONTINUED AMONG THE ROMANS: THE FLIGHT OF NEAS. + + +It is not my intention in the following pages to discuss the question +what constitutes the comic or the laughable, or, in other words, to +enter into the philosophy of the subject; I design only to trace +the history of its outward development, the various forms it has +assumed, and its social influence. Laughter appears to be almost a +necessity of human nature, in all conditions of man's existence, +however rude or however cultivated; and some of the greatest men of +all ages, men of the most refined intellects, such as Cicero in the +ages of antiquity, and Erasmus among the moderns, have been celebrated +for their indulgence in it. The former was sometimes called by his +opponents _scurra consularis_, the "consular jester;" and the latter, +who has been spoken of as the "mocking-bird," is said to have laughed +so immoderately over the well-known "Epistol Obscurorum Virorum," +that he brought upon himself a serious fit of illness. The greatest of +comic writers, Aristophanes, has always been looked upon as a model of +literary perfection. An epigram in the Greek Anthology, written by the +divine Plato, tells us how, when the Graces sought a temple which would +not fall, they found the soul of Aristophanes:-- + + +Hai charites temenos ti labein oper ouchi peseitai + Ztousai, psychn euron Aristophanous.+ + +On the other hand, the men who never laughed, the +agelastoi+, were +looked upon as the least respectable of mortals. + +A tendency to burlesque and caricature appears, indeed, to be a feeling +deeply implanted in human nature, and it is one of the earliest talents +displayed by people in a rude state of society. An appreciation of, and +sensitiveness to, ridicule, and a love of that which is humorous, are +found even among savages, and enter largely into their relations with +their fellow men. When, before people cultivated either literature or +art, the chieftain sat in his rude hall surrounded by his warriors, +they amused themselves by turning their enemies and opponents into +mockery, by laughing at their weaknesses, joking on their defects, +whether physical or mental, and giving them nicknames in accordance +therewith,--in fact, caricaturing them in words, or by telling stories +which were calculated to excite laughter. When the agricultural slaves +(for the tillers of the land were then slaves) were indulged with a +day of relief from their labours, they spent it in unrestrained mirth. +And when these same people began to erect permanent buildings, and +to ornament them, the favourite subjects of their ornamentation were +such as presented ludicrous ideas. The warrior, too, who caricatured +his enemy in his speeches over the festive board, soon sought to give +a more permanent form to his ridicule, which he endeavoured to do by +rude delineations on the bare rock, or on any other convenient surface +which presented itself to his hand. Thus originated caricature and +the grotesque in art. In fact, art itself, in its earliest forms, is +caricature; for it is only by that exaggeration of features which +belongs to caricature, that unskilful draughtsmen could make themselves +understood. + + [Illustration: _No. 1. An Egyptian Lady at a Feast._] + +Although we might, perhaps, find in different countries examples of +these principles in different states of development, we cannot in any +one country trace the entire course of the development itself: for in +all the highly civilised races of mankind, we first become acquainted +with their history when they had already reached a considerable +degree of refinement; and even at that period of their progress, our +knowledge is almost confined to their religious, and to their more +severely historical, monuments. Such is especially the case with +Egypt, the history of which country, as represented by its monuments +of art, carries us back to the remotest ages of antiquity. Egyptian +art generally presents itself in a sombre and massive character, with +little of gaiety or joviality in its designs or forms. Yet, as Sir +Gardner Wilkinson has remarked in his valuable work on the "Manners +and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians," the early Egyptian artists +cannot always conceal their natural tendency to the humorous, which +creeps out in a variety of little incidents. Thus, in a series of grave +historical pictures on one of the great monuments at Thebes, we find +a representation of a wine party, where the company consists of both +sexes, and which evidently shows that the ladies were not restricted +in the use of the juice of the grape in their entertainments; and, +as he adds, "the painters, in illustrating this fact, have sometimes +sacrificed their gallantry to a love of caricature." Among the +females, evidently of rank, represented in this scene, "some call the +servants to support them as they sit, others with difficulty prevent +themselves from falling on those behind them, and the faded flower, +which is ready to drop from their heated hands, is intended to be +characteristic of their own sensations." One group, a lady whose +excess has been carried too far, and her servant who comes to her +assistance, is represented in our cut No. 1. Sir Gardner observes that +"many similar instances of a talent for caricature are observable in +the compositions of the Egyptian artists, who executed the paintings +of the tombs" at Thebes, which belong to a very early period of the +Egyptian annals. Nor is the application of this talent restricted +always to secular subjects, but we see it at times intruding into the +most sacred mysteries of their religion. I give as a curious example, +taken from one of Sir Gardner Wilkinson's engravings, a scene in the +representation of a funeral procession crossing the Lake of the Dead +(No. 2), that appears in one of these early paintings at Thebes, in +which "the love of caricature common to the Egyptians is shown to have +been indulged even in this serious subject; and the retrograde movement +of the large boat, which has grounded and is pushed off the bank, +striking the smaller one with its rudder, has overturned a large table +loaded with cakes and other things, upon the rowers seated below, in +spite of all the efforts of the prowman, and the earnest vociferations +of the alarmed steersman." The accident which thus overthrows and +scatters the provisions intended for the funeral feast, and the +confusion attendant upon it, form a ludicrous scene in the midst of a +solemn picture, that would be worthy of the imagination of a Rowlandson. + + [Illustration: _No. 2. Catastrophe in a Funeral Procession._] + + [Illustration: _No. 3. An Unfortunate Soul._] + +Another cut (No. 3), taken from one of the same series of paintings, +belongs to a class of caricatures which dates from a very remote +period. One of the most natural ideas among all people would be to +compare men with the animals whose particular qualities they possessed. +Thus, one might be as bold as a lion, another as faithful as a dog, +or as cunning as a fox, or as swinish as a hog. The name of the +animal would thus often be given as a nickname to the man, and in +the sequel he would be represented pictorially under the form of the +animal. It was partly out of this kind of caricature, no doubt, that +the singular class of apologues which have been since distinguished +by the name of fables arose. Connected with it was the belief in +the metempsychosis, or transmission of the soul into the bodies of +animals after death, which formed a part of several of the primitive +religions. The earliest examples of this class of caricature of mankind +are found on the Egyptian monuments, as in the instance just referred +to, which represents "a soul condemned to return to earth under the +form of a pig, having been weighed in the scales before Osiris and +been found wanting. Being placed in a boat, and accompanied by two +monkeys, it is dismissed the sacred precinct." The latter animals, it +may be remarked, as they are here represented, are the cynocephali, or +dog-headed monkeys (the _simia inuus_), which were sacred animals among +the Egyptians, and the peculiar characteristic of which--the dog-shaped +head--is, as usual, exaggerated by the artist. + +The representation of this return of a condemned soul under the +repulsive form of a pig, is painted on the left side wall of the long +entrance-gallery to the tomb of King Rameses V., in the valley of +royal catacombs known as the Biban-el-Molook, at Thebes. Wilkinson +gives the date of the accession of this monarch to the throne as 1185, +B.C. In the original picture, Osiris is seated on his throne +at some distance from the stern of the boat, and is dismissing it from +his presence by a wave of the hand. This tomb was open in the time of +the Romans, and termed by them the "Tomb of Memnon;" it was greatly +admired, and is covered with laudatory inscriptions by Greek and Roman +visitors. One of the most interesting is placed beneath this picture, +recording the name of a _daduchus_, or torch-bearer in the Eleusinian +mysteries, who visited this tomb in the reign of Constantine. + + [Illustration: _No. 4. The Cat and the Geese._] + + [Illustration: _No. 5. The Fox turned Piper._] + +The practice having been once introduced of representing men under the +character of animals, was soon developed into other applications of the +same idea--such as that of figuring animals employed in the various +occupations of mankind, and that of reversing the position of man and +the inferior animals, and representing the latter as treating their +human tyrant in the same manner as they are usually treated by him. +The latter idea became a very favourite one at a later period, but +the other is met with not unfrequently among the works of art which +have been saved from the wrecks of antiquity. Among the treasures +of the British Museum, there is a long Egyptian picture on papyrus, +originally forming a roll, consisting of representations of this +description, from which I give three curious examples. The first (see +cut No. 4) represents a cat in charge of a drove of geese. It will be +observed that the cat holds in her hand the same sort of rod, with a +hook at the end, with which the monkeys are furnished in the preceding +picture. The second (No. 5) represents a fox carrying a basket by means +of a pole supported on his shoulder (a method of carrying burthens +frequently represented on the monuments of ancient art), and playing on +the well-known double flute, or pipe. The fox soon became a favourite +personage in this class of caricatures, and we know what a prominent +part he afterwards played in medival satire. Perhaps, however, the +most popular of all animals in this class of drolleries was the monkey, +which appears natural enough when we consider its singular aptitude +to mimic the actions of man. The ancient naturalists tell us some +curious, though not very credible, stories of the manner in which this +characteristic of the monkey tribes was taken advantage of to entrap +them, and Pliny (Hist. Nat. lib. viii. c. 80) quotes an older writer, +who asserted that they had even been taught to play at draughts. Our +third subject from the Egyptian papyrus of the British Museum (No. 6) +represents a scene in which the game of draughts--or, more properly +speaking, the game which the Romans called the _ludus latrunculorum_, +and which is believed to have resembled our draughts--is played by two +animals well known to modern heraldry, the lion and the unicorn. The +lion has evidently gained the victory, and is fingering the money; and +his bold air of swaggering superiority, as well as the look of surprise +and disappointment of his vanquished opponent, are by no means ill +pictured. This series of caricatures, though Egyptian, belongs to the +Roman period. + + [Illustration: _No. 6. The Lion and the Unicorn._] + + [Illustration: _No. 7. Typhon._] + +The monstrous is closely allied to the grotesque, and both come within +the province of caricature, when we take this term in its widest +sense. The Greeks, especially, were partial to representations of +monsters, and monstrous forms are continually met with among their +ornaments and works of art. The type of the Egyptian monster is +represented in the accompanying cut (No. 7), taken from the work of +Sir Gardner Wilkinson before quoted, and is said to be the figure +of the god Typhon. It occurs frequently on Egyptian monuments, with +some variation in its forms, but always characterised by the broad, +coarse, and frightful face, and by the large tongue lolling out. It is +interesting to us, because it is the apparent origin of a long series +of faces, or masks, of this form and character, which are continually +recurring in the grotesque ornamentation, not only of the Greeks and +Romans, but of the middle ages. It appears to have been sometimes given +by the Romans to the representations of people whom they hated or +despised; and Pliny, in a curious passage of his "Natural History,"[1] +informs us that at one time, among the pictures exhibited in the Forum +at Rome, there was one in which a Gaul was represented, "thrusting +out his tongue in a very unbecoming manner." The Egyptian Typhons had +their exact representations in ancient Greece in a figure of frequent +occurrence, to which antiquaries have, I know not why, given the name +of Gorgon. The example in our cut No. 8, is a figure in terra-cotta, +now in the collection of the Royal Museum at Berlin.[2] + + [1] Plin. Hist. Nat., lib. xxxv. c. 8. + + [2] Panoska Terracotten des Museums Berlin, pl. lxi. p. 154. + + [Illustration: _No. 8. Gorgon._] + +In Greece, however, the spirit of caricature and burlesque +representation had assumed a more regular form than in other +countries, for it was inherent in the spirit of Grecian society. +Among the population of Greece, the worship of Dionysus, or Bacchus, +had taken deep root from a very early period--earlier than we can +trace back--and it formed the nucleus of the popular religion and +superstitions, the cradle of poetry and the drama. The most popular +celebrations of the people of Greece, were the Dionysiac festivals, +and the phallic rites and processions which accompanied them, in +which the chief actors assumed the disguise of satyrs and fawns, +covering themselves with goat-skins, and disfiguring their faces by +rubbing them over with the lees of wine. Thus, in the guise of noisy +bacchanals, they displayed an unrestrained licentiousness of gesture +and language, uttering indecent jests and abusive speeches, in which +they spared nobody. This portion of the ceremony was the especial +attribute of a part of the performers, who accompanied the procession +in waggons, and acted something like dramatic performances, in which +they uttered an abundance of loose extempore satire on those who +passed or who accompanied the procession, a little in the style of +the modern carnivals. It became thus the occasion for an unrestrained +publication of coarse pasquinades. In the time of Pisistratus, these +performances are assumed to have been reduced to a little more order by +an individual named Thespis, who is said to have invented masks as a +better disguise than dirty faces, and is looked upon as the father of +the Grecian drama. There can be no doubt, indeed, that the drama arose +out of these popular ceremonies, and it long bore the unmistakable +marks of its origin. Even the name of tragedy has nothing tragic in +its derivation, for it is formed from the Greek word _tragos_ +(+tragos+), a goat, in the skins of which animal the satyrs clothed +themselves, and hence the name was given also to those who personated +the satyrs in the processions. A _tragodus_ (+tragdos+) was the singer, +whose words accompanied the movements of a chorus of satyrs, and the +term _tragodia_ was applied to his performance. In the same manner, +a _comodus_ (+kmdos+) was one who accompanied similarly, with chants +of an abusive or satirical character, a _comus_ (+kmos+), or band of +revellers, in the more riotous and licentious portion of the +performances in the Bacchic festivals. The Greek drama always betrayed +its origin by the circumstance that the performances took place +annually, only at the yearly festivals in honour of Bacchus, of which +in fact they constituted a part. Moreover, as the Greek drama became +perfected, it still retained from its origin a triple division, into +tragedy, comedy, and the satiric drama; and, being still performed at +the Dionysiac festival in Athens, each dramatic author was expected to +produce what was called a _trilogy_, that is, a tragedy, a satirical +play, and a comedy. So completely was all this identified in the +popular mind with the worship of Bacchus, that, long afterwards, when +even a tragedy did not please the audience by its subject, the common +form of disapproval was, +ti tauta pros ton Dionyson+--"What has this +to do with Bacchus?" and, +ouden pros ton Dionyson+--"This has nothing +to do with Bacchus." + +We have no perfect remains of the Greek satiric drama, which was, +perhaps, of a temporary character, and less frequently preserved; but +the early Greek comedy is preserved in a certain number of the plays +of Aristophanes, in which we can contemplate it in all its freedom of +character. It represented the waggon-jesting, of the age of Thespis, in +its full development. In its form it was burlesque to a wanton degree +of extravagance, and its essence was personal vilification, as well as +general satire. Individuals were not only attacked by the application +to them of abusive epithets, but they were represented personally on +the stage as performing every kind of contemptible action, and as +suffering all sorts of ludicrous and disgraceful treatment. The drama +thus bore marks of its origin in its extraordinary licentiousness +of language and costume, and in the constant use of the mask. One +of its most favourite instruments of satire was parody, which was +employed unsparingly on everything which society in its solemn moments +respected--against everything that the satirist considered worthy of +being held up to public derision or scorn. Religion itself, philosophy, +social manners and institutions--even poetry--were all parodied in +their turn. The comedies of Aristophanes are full of parodies on the +poetry of the tragic and other writers of his age. He is especially +happy in parodying the poetry of the tragic dramatist Euripides. The +old comedy of Greece has thus been correctly described as the comedy of +caricature; and the spirit, and even the scenes, of this comedy, being +transferred to pictorial representations, became entirely identical +with that branch of art to which we give the name of caricature in +modern times. Under the cover of bacchanalian buffoonery, a serious +purpose, it is true, was aimed at; but the general satire was chiefly +implied in the violent personal attacks on individuals, and this became +so offensive that when such persons obtained greater power in Athens +than the populace the old comedy was abolished. + +Aristophanes was the greatest and most perfect poet of the Old Comedy, +and his remaining comedies are as strongly marked representations of +the hostility of political and social parties in his time, as the +caricatures of Gillray are of party in the reign of our George III., +and, we may add, even more minute. They range through the memorable +period of the Peloponnesian war, and the earlier ones give us the +regular annual series of these performances, as far as Aristophanes +contributed them, during several years. The first of them, "The +Acharnians," was performed at the Lenan feast of Bacchus in the sixth +year of the Peloponnesian war, the year 425 B.C., when it gained the +first prize. It is a bold attack on the factious prolongation of the +war through the influence of the Athenian demagogues. The next, "The +Knights," brought out in B.C. 424, is a direct attack upon Cleon, the +chief of these demagogues, although he is not mentioned by name; and +it is recorded that, finding nobody who had courage enough to make a +mask representing Cleon, or to play the character, Aristophanes was +obliged to perform it himself, and that he smeared his face with lees +of wine, in order to represent the flushed and bloated countenance of +the great demagogue, thus returning to the original mode of acting +of the predecessors of Thespis. This, too, was the first of the +comedies of Aristophanes which he published in his own name. "The +Clouds," published in 423, is aimed at Socrates and the philosophers. +The fourth, "The Wasps," published in B.C. 422, presents a satire on +the litigious spirit of the Athenians. The fifth, entitled "Peace" +(+Eirn+), appeared in the year following, at the time of the peace of +Nicias, and is another satire on the bellicose spirit of the Athenian +democracy. The next in the list of extant plays comes after an interval +of several years, having been published in B.C. 414, the first year of +the Sicilian war, and relates to an irreligious movement in Athens, +which had caused a great sensation. Two Athenians are represented as +leaving Athens, in disgust at the vices and follies of their fellow +citizens, and seeking the kingdom of the birds, where they form a new +state, by which the communication between the mortals and the immortals +is cut off, and is only opened again by an arrangement between all +the parties. In the "Lysistrata," believed to have been brought out +in 411, when the war was still at its height, the women of Athens are +represented as engaging in a cunning and successful plot, by which +they gain possession of the government of the state, and compel their +husbands to make peace. "The Thesmophoriazus," appears to have been +published in B.C. 410; it is a satire upon Euripides, whose writings +were remarkable for their bitter attacks on the character of the +female sex, who, in this comedy, conspire against him to secure his +punishment. The comedy of "The Frogs" was brought out in the year +405 B.C., and is a satire on the literature of the day; it +is aimed especially at Euripides, and was perhaps written soon after +his death, its real subject being the decline of the tragic drama, +which Euripides was accused of having promoted. It is perhaps the most +witty of the plays of Aristophanes which have been preserved. "The +Ecclesiazus," published in 392, is a burlesque upon the theories of +republican government, which were then started among the philosophers, +some of which differed little from our modern communism. The ladies +again, by a clever conspiracy, gain the mastery in the estate, and they +decree a community of goods and women, with some laws very peculiar +to that state of things. The humour of the piece, which is extremely +broad, turns upon the disputes and embarrassments resulting from this +state of things. The last of his comedies extant, "Plutus," appears to +be a work of the concluding years of the active life of Aristophanes; +it is the least striking of them all, and is rather a moral than a +political satire. + +In a comedy brought out in 426, the year before "The Archarnians," +under the title of "The Babylonians," Aristophanes appears to have +given great offence to the democratic party, a circumstance to which +he alludes more than once in the former play. However, his talents and +popularity seem to have carried him over the danger, and certainly +nothing can have exceeded the bitterness of satire employed in his +subsequent comedies. Those who followed him were less fortunate. + +One of the latest writers of the Old Comedy was Anaximandrides, +who cast a reflection on the state of Athens in parodying a line of +Euripides. This poet had said,-- + + +h physis ebouleth' h nomn ouden melei+ + (Nature has commanded, which cares nothing for the laws); + +which Anaximandrides changed to-- + + +h polis ebouleth' h nomn ouden melei+ + (The state has commanded, which cares nothing for the laws). + +Nowhere is oppression exercised with greater harshness than under +democratic governments; and Anaximandrides was prosecuted for this +joke as a crime against the state, and condemned to death. As may be +supposed, liberty of speech ceased to exist in Athens. We are well +acquainted with the character of the Old Comedy, in its greatest +freedom, through the writings of Aristophanes. What was called the +Middle Comedy, in which political satire was prohibited, lasted from +this time until the age of Philip of Macedon, when the old liberty of +Greece was finally crushed. The last form of Greek comedy followed, +which is known as the New Comedy, and was represented by such names as +Epicharmus and Menander. In the New Comedy all caricature and parody, +and all personal allusions, were entirely proscribed; it was changed +entirely into a comedy of manners and domestic life, a picture of +contemporary society under conventional names and characters. From this +New Comedy was taken the Roman comedy, such as we now have it in the +plays of Plautus and Terence, who were professed imitators of Menander +and the other writers of the new comedy of the Greeks. + + [Illustration: _No. 9. A Greek Parody._] + +Pictorial caricature was, of course, rarely to be seen on the public +monuments of Greece or Rome, but must have been consigned to objects +of a more popular character and to articles of common use; and, +accordingly, modern antiquarian research has brought it to light +somewhat abundantly on the pottery of Greece and Etruria, and on the +wall-paintings of domestic buildings in Herculaneum and Pompeii. The +former contains comic scenes, especially parodies, which are evidently +transferred to them from the stage, and which preserve the marks and +other attributes--some of which I have necessarily omitted--proving the +model from which they were taken. The Greeks, as we know from many +sources, were extremely fond of parodies of every description, whether +literary or pictorial. The subject of our cut No. 9 is a good example +of the parodies found on the Greek pottery; it is taken from a fine +Etruscan vase,[3] and has been supposed to be a parody on the visit of +Jupiter to Alcmena. This appears rather doubtful, but there can be no +doubt that it is a burlesque representation of the visit of a lover +to the object of his aspirations. The lover, in the comic mask and +costume, mounts by a ladder to the window at which the lady presents +herself, who, it must be confessed, presents the appearance of giving +her admirer a very cold reception. He tries to conciliate her by a +present of what seem to be apples, instead of gold, but without much +effect. He is attended by his servant with a torch, to give him light +on the way, which shows that it is a night adventure. Both master and +servant have wreaths round their heads, and the latter carries a third +in his hand, which, with the contents of his basket, are also probably +intended as presents to the lady. + + [3] Given in Panofka, "Antiques du Cabinet Pourtals," pl. x. + +A more unmistakable burlesque on the visit of Jupiter to Alcmena is +published by Winckelmann from a vase, formerly in the library of the +Vatican, and now at St. Petersburg. The treatment of the subject is +not unlike the picture just described. Alcmena appears just in the +same posture at her chamber window, and Jupiter is carrying his ladder +to mount up to her, but has not yet placed it against the wall. His +companion is identified with Mercury by the well-known caduceus he +carries in his left hand, while with his right hand he holds a lamp +up to the window, in order to enable Jupiter to see the object of his +amour. + +It is astonishing with how much boldness the Greeks parodied and +ridiculed sacred subjects. The Christian father, Arnobius, in writing +against his heathen opponents, reproached them with this circumstance. +The laws, he says, were made to protect the characters of men from +slander and libel, but there was no such protection for the characters +of the gods, which were treated with the greatest disrespect.[4] This +was especially the case in their pictorial representations. + + [4] Arnobius (_contra Gentes_), lib. iv. p. 150. Carmen malum + conscribere, quo fama alterius coinquinatur et vita, decemviralibus + scitis evadere noluistis impune: ac ne vestras aures convitio + aliquis petulantiore pulsaret, de atrocibus formulas constituistis + injuriis. Soli dii sunt apud vos superi inhonorati, contemtibiles, + viles: in quos jus est vobis datum qu quisque voluerit dicere + turpitudinem, jacere quas libido confinxerit atque excogitaverit + formas. + +Pliny informs us that Ctesilochus, a pupil of the celebrated Apelles, +painted a burlesque picture of Jupiter giving birth to Bacchus, in +which the god was represented in a very ridiculous posture.[5] Ancient +writers intimate that similar examples were not uncommon, and mention +the names of several comic painters, whose works of this class were +in repute. Some of these were bitter personal caricatures, like a +celebrated work of a painter named Ctesicles, described also by Pliny. +It appears that Stratonice, the queen of Seleucus Nicator, had received +this painter ill when he visited her court, and in revenge he executed +a picture in which she was represented, according to a current scandal, +as engaged in an amour with a common fisherman, which he exhibited in +the harbour of Ephesus, and then made his escape on ship-board. Pliny +adds that the queen admired the beauty and accuracy of the painting +more than she felt the insult, and that she forbade the removal of the +picture.[6] + + [5] Pliny, Hist. Nat., lib. xxxv. c. 40. + + [6] Pliny, Hist. Nat., lib. xxxv. c. 40. + + [Illustration: _No. 10. Apollo at Delphi._] + +The subject of our second example of the Greek caricature is better +known. It is taken from an oxybaphon which was brought from the +Continent to England, where it passed into the collection of Mr. +William Hope.[7] The _oxybaphon_ (+oxybaphon+), or, as it was +called by the Romans, _acetabulum_, was a large vessel for holding +vinegar, which formed one of the important ornaments of the table, +and was therefore very susceptible of pictorial embellishment of +this description. It is one of the most remarkable Greek caricatures +of this kind yet known, and represents a parody on one of the most +interesting stories of the Grecian mythology, that of the arrival of +Apollo at Delphi. The artist, in his love of burlesque, has spared +none of the personages who belonged to the story. The Hyperborean +Apollo himself appears in the character of a quack doctor, on his +temporary stage, covered by a sort of roof, and approached by wooden +steps. On the stage lies Apollo's luggage, consisting of a bag, a +bow, and his Scythian cap. Chiron (+CHIRN+) is represented +as labouring under the effects of age and blindness, and supporting +himself by the aid of a crooked staff, as he repairs to the Delphian +quack-doctor for relief. The figure of the centaur is made to ascend +by the aid of a companion, both being furnished with the masks and +other attributes of the comic performers. Above are the mountains, and +on them the nymphs of Parnassus (+NYMPHAI+), who, like all the +other actors in the scene, are disguised with masks, and those of a +very grotesque character. On the right-hand side stands a figure which +is considered as representing the _epoptes_, the inspector or overseer +of the performance, who alone wears no mask. Even a pun is employed to +heighten the drollery of the scene, for instead of +PYTHIAS+, +the Pythian, placed over the head of the burlesque Apollo, it seems +evident that the artist had written +PEITHIAS+, the consoler, +in allusion, perhaps, to the consolation which the quack-doctor is +administering to his blind and aged visitor. + + [7] Engraved by Ch. Lenormant et J. de Witt, "Elite des Monuments + Cramographiques," pl. xciv. + + [Illustration: _No. 11. The Flight of neas from Troy._] + +The Greek spirit of parody, applied even to the most sacred subjects, +however it may have declined in Greece, was revived at Rome, and we +find examples of it on the walls of Pompeii and Herculaneum. They +show the same readiness to turn into burlesque the most sacred and +popular legends of the Roman mythology. The example given (cut No. 11), +from one of the wall-paintings, is peculiarly interesting, both from +circumstances in the drawing itself, and because it is a parody on +one of the favourite national legends of the Roman people, who prided +themselves on their descent from neas. Virgil has told, with great +effect, the story of his hero's escape from the destruction of Troy--or +rather has put the story into his hero's mouth. When the devoted +city was already in flames, neas took his father, Anchises, on his +shoulder, and his boy, Iulus, or, as he was otherwise called, Ascanius, +by the hand, and thus fled from his home, followed by his wife-- + + _Ergo age, care pater, cervici imponere nostr; + Ipse subibo humeris, nec me labor iste gravabit. + Quo res cumque cadent, unum et commune periclum, + Una salus ambobus erit. Mihi parvus Iulus + Sit comes, et longe servat vestigia conjux._ + --Virg. n., lib. ii. l. 707. + +Thus they hurried on, the child holding by his father's right hand, and +dragging after with "unequal steps,"-- + + _dextr se parvus Iulus + Implicuit sequiturque patrem non passibus quis._ + --Virg. n., lib. ii. 1. 723. + +And thus neas bore away both father and son, and the penates, or +household gods, of his family, which were to be transferred to another +country, and become the future guardians of Rome-- + + _Ascanium, Anchisemque patrem, Tencrosque penates._--Ib., 1. 747. + + [Illustration: _No. 12. The Flight of neas._] + +In this case we know that the design is intended to be a parody, or +burlesque, upon a picture which appears to have been celebrated at the +time, and of which at least two different copies are found upon ancient +intaglios. It is the only case I know in which both the original and +the parody have been preserved from this remote period, and this is so +curious a circumstance, that I give in the cut on the preceding page +a copy of one of the intaglios.[8] It represented literally Virgil's +account of the story, and the only difference between the design on the +intaglios and the one given in our first cut is, that in the latter +the personages are represented under the forms of monkeys. neas, +personified by the strong and vigorous animal, carrying the old monkey, +Anchises, on his left shoulder, hurries forward, and at the same time +looks back on the burning city. With his right hand he drags along +the boy Iulus, or Ascanius, who is evidently proceeding _non passibus +quis_, and with difficulty keeps up with his father's pace. The boy +wears a Phrygian bonnet, and holds in his right hand the instrument +of play which we should now call a "bandy"--the pedun. Anchises has +charge of the box, which contains the sacred penates. It is a curious +circumstance that the monkeys in this picture are the same dog-headed +animals, or cynocephali, which are found on the Egyptian monuments. + + [8] These intaglios are engraved in the Museum Florentinum of Gorius, + vol. ii. pl. 30. On one of them the figures are reversed. + + * * * * * + + When this chapter was already given for press, I first became + acquainted with an interesting paper, by Panofka, on the "Parodieen + und Karikaturen auf Werken der Klassischen Kunst," in the + "Abhandlungen der Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin," for the + year 1854, and I can only now refer my readers to it. + + + + + CHAPTER II. + + ORIGIN OF THE STAGE IN ROME.--USES OF THE MASK AMONG THE + ROMANS.--SCENES FROM ROMAN COMEDY.--THE SANNIO AND MIMUS.--THE + ROMAN DRAMA.--THE ROMAN SATIRISTS.--CARICATURE.--ANIMALS + INTRODUCED IN THE CHARACTERS OF MEN.--THE PIGMIES, AND THEIR + INTRODUCTION INTO CARICATURE; THE FARM-YARD; THE PAINTER'S STUDIO; + THE PROCESSION.--POLITICAL CARICATURE IN POMPEII; THE GRAFFITI. + + +The Romans appear to have never had any real taste for the regular +drama, which they merely copied from the Greeks, and from the earliest +period of their history we find them borrowing all their arts of this +description from their neighbours. In Italy, as in Greece, the first +germs of comic literature may be traced in the religious festivals, +which presented a mixture of religious worship and riotous festivity, +where the feasters danced and sung, and, as they became excited with +wine and enthusiasm, indulged in mutual reproaches and abuse. The +oldest poetry of the Romans, which was composed in irregular measure, +was represented by the _versus saturnini_, said to have been so called +from their antiquity (for things of remote antiquity were believed to +belong to the age of Saturn). Nvius, one of the oldest of Latin poets, +is said to have written in this verse. Next in order of time came the +Fescennine verses, which appear to have been distinguished chiefly +by their license, and received their name because they were brought +from Fescennia, in Etruria, where they were employed originally in the +festivals of Ceres and Bacchus. In the year 391 of Rome, or 361 B.C., +the city was visited by a dreadful plague, and the citizens hit upon +what will appear to us the rather strange expedient of sending for +performers (_ludiones_) from Etruria, hoping, by employing them, to +appease the anger of the gods. Any performer of this kind appears to +have been so little known to the Romans before this, that there was +not even a name for him in the language, and they were obliged to adopt +the Tuscan word, and call him a _histrio_, because _hister_ in that +language meant a player or pantomimist. This word, we know, remained +in the Latin language. These first Etrurian performers appear indeed +to have been mere pantomimists, who accompanied the flute with all +sorts of mountebank tricks, gestures, dances, gesticulations, and the +like, mixed with satirical songs, and sometimes with the performance of +coarse farces. The Romans had also a class of performances rather more +dramatic in character, consisting of stories which were named _Fabul +Atellan_, because these performers were brought from Atella, a city of +the Osci. + +A considerable advance was made in dramatic Art in Rome about the +middle of the third century before Christ. It is ascribed to a freedman +named Livius Andronicus, a Greek by birth, who is said to have brought +out, in the year 240 B.C., the first regular comedy ever performed in +Rome. Thus we trace not only the Roman comedy, but the very rudiments +of dramatic art in Rome, either direct to the Greeks, or to the Grecian +colonies in Italy. With the Romans, as well as with the Greeks, the +theatre was a popular institution, open to the public, and the state +or a wealthy individual paid for the performance; and therefore the +building itself was necessarily of very great extent, and, in both +countries open to the sky, except that the Romans provided for throwing +an awning over it. As the Roman comedy was copied from the new comedy +of the Greeks, and therefore did not admit of the introduction of +caricature and burlesque on the stage, these were left especially to +the province of the pantomime and farce, which the Romans, as just +stated, had received from a still earlier period. + + [Illustration: _No. 13. A Scene from Terence._] + + [Illustration: _No. 14. Geta and Demea._] + +Whether the Romans borrowed the mask from the Greeks, or not, is +rather uncertain, but it was used as generally in the Roman theatres, +whether in comedy or tragedy, as among the Greeks. The Greek actors +performed upon stilts, in order to magnify their figures, as the area +of the theatre was very large and uncovered, and without this help +they were not so well seen at a distance; and one object of utility +aimed at by the mask is said to have been to make the head appear +proportionate in size to the artificial height of the body. It may +be remarked that the mask seems generally to have been made to cover +the whole head, representing the hair as well as the face, so that +the character of age or complexion might be given complete. Among the +Romans the stilts were certainly not in general use, but still the +mask, besides its comic or tragic character, is supposed to have served +useful purposes. The first improvement upon its original structure +is said to have been the making it of brass, or some other sonorous +metal, or at least lining the mouth with it, so as to reverberate, and +give force to the voice, and also to the mouth of the mask something +of the character of a speaking-trumpet.[9] All these accessories could +not fail to detract much from the effect of the acting, which must in +general have been very measured and formal, and have received most of +its importance from the excellence of the poetry, and the declamatory +talents of the actors. We have pictures in which scenes from the Roman +stage are accurately represented. Several rather early manuscripts of +Terence have been preserved, illustrated with drawings of the scenes +as represented on the stage, and these, though belonging to a period +long subsequent to the age in which the Roman stage existed in its +original character, are, no doubt, copied from drawings of an earlier +date. A German antiquary of the last century, Henry Berger, published +in a quarto volume a series of such illustrations from a manuscript of +Terence in the library of the Vatican at Rome, from which two examples +are selected, as showing the usual style of Roman comic acting, and +the use of the mask. The first (No. 13) is the opening scene in the +_Andria_. On the right, two servants have brought provisions, and on +the left appear Simo, the master of the household, and his freedman, +Sosia, who seems to be entrusted with the charge of his domestic +affairs. Simo tells his servants to go away with the provisions, while +he beckons Sosia to confer with him in private:-- + + Si. _Vos istc intro auferte; abite. Sosia, + Adesdum; paucis te volo._ So. _Dictum puta + Nempe ut curentur recte hc._ Si. _Imo aliud_. + Terent. Andr., Actus i., Scena 1. + +When we compare these words with the picture, we cannot but feel +that in the latter there is an unnecessary degree of energy put into +the _pose_ of the figures; which is perhaps less the case in the +other (No. 14), an illustration of the sixth scene of the fifth act +of the _Adelphi_ of Terence. It represents the meeting of Geta, a +rather talkative and conceited servant, and Demea, a countryfied and +churlish old man, his acquaintance, and of course superior. To Geta's +salutation, Demea asks churlishly, as not at first knowing him, "Who +are you?" but when he finds that it is Geta, he changes suddenly to an +almost fawning tone:-- + + G. ... _Sed eccum Demeam. Salvus fies._ + D. _Oh, qui vocare?_ G. _Geta._ D. _Geta, hominem maximi + Pretii esse te hodie judicavi animo mei._ + + [9] It is said to have received its Latin name from this circumstance, + _persona, a personando_. See Aulus Gellius, Noct. Att., lib. v. + c. 7. + + [Illustration: _No. 15. Comic Scene from Pompeii._] + +That these representations are truthful, the scenes in the +wall-paintings of Pompeii leave us no room to doubt. One of these is +produced in our cut No. 15, which is no doubt taken from a comedy +now lost, and we are ignorant whom the characters are intended to +represent. The _pose_ given to the two comic figures, compared with +the example given from Berger, would lead us to suppose that this +over-energetic action was considered as part of the character of comic +acting. + + [Illustration: _No. 16. Cupids at Play._] + +The subject of the Roman masks is the more interesting, because they +were probably the origin of many of the grotesque faces so often met +with in medival sculpture. The comic mask was, indeed, a very popular +object among the Romans, and appears to have been taken as symbolical +of everything that was droll and burlesque. From the comic scenes of +the theatre, to which it was first appropriated, it passed to the +popular festivals of a public character, such as the Lupercalia, with +which, no doubt, it was carried into the carnival of the middle ages, +and to our masquerades. Among the Romans, also, the use of the mask +soon passed from the public festivals to private supper parties. Its +use was so common that it became a plaything among children, and was +sometimes used as a bugbear to frighten them. Our cut No. 16, taken +from a painting at Resina, represents two cupids playing with a mask, +and using it for this latter purpose, that is, to frighten one another; +and it is curious that the medival gloss of Ugutio explains _larva_, +a mask, as being an image, "which was put over the face to frighten +children."[10] The mask thus became a favourite ornament, especially on +lamps, and on the antefixa and gargoyls of Roman buildings, to which +were often given the form of grotesque masks, monstrous faces, with +great mouths wide open, and other figures, like those of the gargoyls +of the medival architects. + + [10] "Simulacrum ... quod opponitur faciei ad terrendos parvos." + (Ugutio, ap. Ducange, v. _Masca_.) + + [Illustration: _No. 17. The Roman Sannio, or Buffoon._] + +While the comic mask was used generally in the burlesque +entertainments, it also became distinctive of particular characters. +One of these was the _sannio_, or buffoon, whose name was derived from +the Greek word +sannos+, "a fool," and who was employed in performing +burlesque dances, making grimaces, and in other acts calculated to +excite the mirth of the spectator. A representation of the _sannio_ +is given in our cut No. 17, copied from one of the engravings in the +"Dissertatio de Larvis Scenicis," by the Italian antiquary Ficoroni, +who took it from an engraved gem. The sannio holds in his hand what is +supposed to be a brass rod, and he has probably another in the other +hand, so that he could strike them together. He wears the _soccus_, or +low shoe peculiar to the comic actors. This buffoon was a favourite +character among the Romans, who introduced him constantly into their +feasts and supper parties. The _manducus_ was another character of this +description, represented with a grotesque mask, presenting a wide mouth +and tongue lolling out, and said to have been peculiar to the Atellane +plays. A character in Plautus (Rud., ii. 6, 51) talks of hiring himself +as a _manducus_ in the plays. + + "_Quid si aliquo ad ludos me pro manduco locem?_" + +The medival glosses interpret _manducus_ by _joculator_, "a jogelor," +and add that the characteristic from which he took his name was the +practice of making grimaces like a man gobbling up his food in a vulgar +and gluttonous manner. + + [Illustration: _No. 18. Roman Tom Fool._] + +Ficoroni gives, from an engraved onyx, a figure of another burlesque +performer, copied in our cut No. 18, and which he compares to the +Catanian dancer of his time (his book was published in 1754), who was +called a _giangurgolo_. This is considered to represent the Roman +_mimus_, a class of performers who told with mimicry and action scenes +taken from common life, and more especially scandalous and indecent +anecdotes, like the jogelors and performers of farces in the middle +ages. The Romans were very much attached to these performances, so much +so, that they even had them at their funeral processions and at their +funeral feasts. In our figure, the _mimus_ is represented naked, masked +(with an exaggerated nose), and wearing what is perhaps intended as a +caricature of the Phrygian bonnet. In his right hand he holds a bag, +or purse, full of objects which rattle and make a noise when shaken, +while the other holds the _crotalum_, or castanets, an instrument in +common use among the ancients. One of the statues in the Barberini +Palace represents a youth in a Phrygian cap playing on the _crotalum_. +We learn, from an early authority, that it was an instrument especially +used in the satirical and burlesque dances which were so popular among +the Romans. + +As I have remarked before, the Romans had no taste for the regular +drama, but they retained to the last their love for the performances +of the popular _mimi_, or _comdi_ (as they were often called), the +players of farces, and the dancers. These performed on the stage, in +the public festivals, in the streets, and were usually introduced at +private parties.[11] Suetonius tells us that on one occasion, the +emperor Caligula ordered a poet who composed the Atellanes (_Attellan +poetam_) to be burnt in the middle of the amphitheatre, for a pun. A +more regular comedy, however, did flourish, to a certain degree, at +the same time with these more popular compositions. Of the works of +the earliest of the Roman comic writers, Livius Andronicus and Nvius, +we know only one or two titles, and a few fragments quoted in the +works of the later Roman writers. They were followed by Plautus, who +died B.C. 184, and nineteen of whose comedies are preserved and well +known; by several other writers, whose names are almost forgotten, and +whose comedies are all lost; and by Terence, six of whose comedies are +preserved. Terence died about the year 159 B.C. About the same time +with Terence lived Lucius Afranius and Quinctius Atta, who appear to +close the list of the Roman writers of comedy. + + [11] See, for allusions to the private employment of these + performances, Pliny, Epist. i. 15, and ix. 36. + +But another branch of comic literature had sprung out of the satire of +the religious festivities. A year after Livius Andronicus produced the +first drama at Rome, in the year 239 B.C., the poet Ennius was born +at Rudi, in Magna Grcia. The satirical verse, whether Saturnine or +Fescennine, had been gradually improving in its form, although still +very rude, but Ennius is said to have given at least a new polish, and +perhaps a new metrical shape, to it. The verse was still irregular, but +it appears to have been no longer intended for recitation, accompanied +by the flute. The Romans looked upon Ennius not only as their earliest +epic poet, but as the father of satire, a class of literary composition +which appears to have originated with them, and which they claimed +as their own.[12] Ennius had an imitator in M. Terentius Varro. The +satires of these first writers are said to have been very irregular +compositions, mixing prose with verse, and sometimes even Greek with +Latin; and to have been rather general in their aim than personal. But +soon after this period, and rather more than a century before Christ, +came Caius Lucilius, who raised Roman satirical literature to its +perfection. Lucilius, we are told, was the first who wrote satires in +heroic verse, or hexameters, mixing with them now and then, though +rarely, an iambic or trochaic line. He was more refined, more pointed, +and more personal, than his predecessors, and he had rescued satire +from the street performer to make it a class of literature which was +to be read by the educated, and not merely listened to by the vulgar. +Lucilius is said to have written thirty books of satires, of which, +unfortunately, only some scattered lines remain. + + [12] Quintilian says, "_Satira quidem tota nostra est_." De Instit. + Orator., lib. x. c. 1. + +Lucilius had imitators, the very names of most of whom are now +forgotten, but about forty years after his death, and sixty-five +years before the birth of Christ, was born Quintus Horatius Flaccus, +the oldest of the satirists whose works we now possess, and the most +polished of Roman poets. In the time of Horace, the satire of the +Romans had reached its highest degree of perfection. Of the two other +great satirists whose works are preserved, Juvenal was born about the +year 40 of the Christian era, and Persius in 43. During the period +through which these writers flourished, Rome saw a considerable number +of other satirists of the same class, whose works have perished. + +In the time of Juvenal another variety of the same class of literature +had already sprung up, more artificial and somewhat more indirect +than the other, the prose satiric romance. Three celebrated writers +represent this school. Petronius, who, born about the commencement +of our era, died in A.D. 65, is the earliest and most remarkable of +them. He compiled a romance, designed as a satire on the vices of the +age of Nero, in which real persons are supposed to be aimed at under +fictitious names, and which rivals in license, at least, anything +that could have been uttered in the Atellanes or other farces of the +_mimi_. Lucian, of Samosata, who died an old man in the year 200, and +who, though he wrote in Greek, may be considered as belonging to the +Roman school, composed several satires of this kind, in one of the +most remarkable of which, entitled "Lucius, or the Ass," the author +describes himself as changed by sorcery into the form of that animal, +under which he passes through a number of adventures which illustrate +the vices and weaknesses of contemporary society. Apuleius, who was +considerably the junior of Lucian, made this novel the groundwork of +his "Golden Ass," a much larger and more elaborate work, written in +Latin. This work of Apuleius was very popular through subsequent ages. + + [Illustration: _No. 19. The Farm-yard in Burlesque._] + + [Illustration: _No. 20. An Asilla-Bearer._] + +Let us return to Roman caricature, one form of which seems to have +been especially a favourite among the people. It is difficult to +imagine how the story of the pigmies and of their wars with the cranes +originated, but it is certainly of great antiquity, as it is spoken +of in Homer, and it was a very popular legend among the Romans, who +eagerly sought and purchased dwarfs to make domestic pets of them. The +pigmies and cranes occur frequently among the pictorial ornamentations +of the houses of Pompeii and Herculaneum; and the painters of Pompeii +not only represented them in their proper character, but they made use +of them for the purpose of caricaturing the various occupations of +life--domestic and social scenes, grave conferences, and many other +subjects, and even personal character. In this class of caricatures +they gave to the pigmies, or dwarfs, very large heads, and very small +legs and arms. I need hardly remark that this is a class of caricature +which is very common in modern times. Our first group of these pigmy +caricatures (No. 19) is taken from a painting on the walls of the +Temple of Venus, at Pompeii, and represents the interior of a farm-yard +in burlesque. The structure in the background is perhaps intended for a +hayrick. In front of it, one of the farm servants is attending on the +poultry. The more important-looking personage with the pastoral staff +is possibly the overseer of the farm, who is visiting the labourers, +and this probably is the cause why their movements have assumed so much +activity. The labourer on the right is using the _asilla_, a wooden +yoke or pole, which was carried over the shoulder, with the _corbis_, +or basket, suspended at each end. This was a common method of carrying, +and is not unfrequently represented on Roman works of art. Several +examples might be quoted from the antiquities of Pompeii. Our cut No. +20, from a gem in the Florentine Museum, and illustrating another class +of caricature, that of introducing animals performing the actions and +duties of men, represents a grasshopper carrying the _asilla_ and the +_corbes_. + + [Illustration: _No. 21. A Painter's Studio._] + +A private house in Pompeii furnished another example of this style +of caricature, which is given in our cut No. 21. It represents the +interior of a painter's studio, and is extremely curious on account +of the numerous details of his method of operation with which it +furnishes us. The painter, who is, like most of the figures in these +pigmy caricatures, very scantily clothed, is occupied with the portrait +of another, who, by the rather exaggerated fulness of the gathering +of his toga, is evidently intended for a dashing and fashionable +patrician, though he is seated as bare-legged and bare-breeched as the +artist himself. Both are distinguished by a large allowance of nose. +The easel here employed resembles greatly the same article now in use, +and might belong to the studio of a modern painter. Before it is a +small table, probably formed of a slab of stone, which serves for a +palette, on which the painter spreads and mixes his colours. To the +right a servant, who fills the office of colour-grinder, is seated by +the side of a vessel placed over hot coals, and appears to be preparing +colours, mixed, according to the directions given in old writers, +with punic wax and oil. In the background is seated a student, whose +attention is taken from his drawing by what is going on at the other +side of the room, where two small personages are entering, who look as +if they were amateurs, and who appear to be talking about the portrait. +Behind them stands a bird, and when the painting was first uncovered +there were two. Mazois, who made the drawing from which our cut is +taken, before the original had perished--for it was found in a state +of decay--imagined that the birds typified some well-known singers or +musicians, but they are, perhaps, merely intended for cranes, birds so +generally associated with the pigmies. + + [Illustration: _No. 22. Part of a Triumphal Procession._] + +According to an ancient writer, combats of pigmies were favourite +representations on the walls of taverns and shops;[13] and, curiously +enough, the walls of a shop in Pompeii have furnished the picture +represented in our cut No. 22, which has evidently been intended for +a caricature, probably a parody. All the pigmies in this picture +are crowned with laurel, as though the painter intended to turn to +ridicule some over-pompous triumph, or some public, perhaps religious, +ceremony. The two figures to the left, who are clothed in yellow +and green garments, appear to be disputing the possession of a bowl +containing a liquid. One of these, like the two figures on the right, +has a hoop thrown over his shoulder. The first of the latter personages +wears a violet dress, and holds in his right hand a rod, and in his +left a statuette, apparently of a deity, but its attributes are not +distinguishable. The last figure to the right has a robe, or mantle, of +two colours, red and green, and holds in his hand a branch of a lily, +or some similar plant; the rest of the picture is lost. Behind the +other figure stands a fifth, who appears younger and more refined in +character than the others, and seems to be ordering or directing them. +His dress is red. + + [13] +epi tn kaplin+. Problem. Aristotelic. Sec. x. 7. + +We can have no doubt that political and personal caricature flourished +among the Romans, as we have some examples of it on their works of art, +chiefly on engraved stones, though these are mostly of a character +we could not here conveniently introduce; but the same rich mine of +Roman art and antiquities, Pompeii, has furnished us with one sample +of what may be properly considered as a political caricature. In the +year 59 of the Christian era, at a gladiatorial exhibition in the +amphitheatre of Pompeii, where the people of Nuceria were present, +the latter expressed themselves in such scornful terms towards the +Pompeians, as led to a violent quarrel, which was followed by a pitched +battle between the inhabitants of the two towns, and the Nucerians, +being defeated, carried their complaints before the reigning emperor, +Nero, who gave judgment in their favour, and condemned the people of +Pompeii to suspension from all theatrical amusements for ten years. +The feelings of the Pompeians on this occasion are displayed in the +rude drawing represented in our cut No. 23, which is scratched on the +plaster of the external wall of a house in the street to which the +Italian antiquarians have given the name of the street of Mercury. A +figure, completely armed, his head covered with what might be taken +for a medival helmet, is descending what appear to be intended for +the steps of the amphitheatre. He carries in his hand a palm-branch, +the emblem of victory. Another palm-branch stands erect by his side, +and underneath is the inscription, in rather rustic Latin, "CAMPANI +VICTORIA VNA CVM NVCERINIS PERISTIS"--"O Campanians, you perished in +the victory together with the Nucerians." The other side of the picture +is more rudely and hastily drawn. It has been supposed to represent +one of the victors dragging a prisoner, with his arms bound, up a +ladder to a stage or platform, on which he was perhaps to be exhibited +to the jeers of the populace. Four years after this event, Pompeii +was greatly damaged by an earthquake, and sixteen years later came +the eruption of Vesuvius, which buried the town, and left it in the +condition in which it is now found. + + [Illustration: _No. 23. A Popular Caricature._] + + [Illustration: _No. 24. Early Caricature upon a Christian._] + +This curious caricature belongs to a class of monuments to which +archologists have given technically the Italian name of _graffiti_, +scratches or scrawls, of which a great number, consisting chiefly of +writing, have been found on the walls of Pompeii. They also occur +among the remains on other Roman sites, and one found in Rome itself +is especially interesting. During the alterations and extensions which +were made from time to time in the palace of the Csars, it had been +found necessary to build across a narrow street which intersected the +Palatine, and, in order to give support to the structure above, a +portion of the street was walled off, and remained thus hermetically +sealed until about the year 1857, when some excavations on the spot +brought it to view. The walls of the street were found to be covered +with these _graffiti_, among which one attracted especial attention, +and, having been carefully removed, is now preserved in the museum +of the Collegio Romano. It is a caricature upon a Christian named +Alexamenos, by some pagan who despised Christianity. The Saviour is +represented under the form of a man with the head of an ass, extended +upon a cross, the Christian, Alexamenos, standing on one side in the +attitude of worship of that period. Underneath we read the inscription, ++ALEXAMENOS+ CEBETE (for +sebetai+), "Alexamenos worships God." This +curious figure, which may be placed among the most interesting as well +as early evidences of the truth of Gospel history, is copied in our cut +No. 24. It was drawn when the prevailing religion at Rome was still +pagan, and a Christian was an object of contempt. + + + + + CHAPTER III. + + THE PERIOD OF TRANSITION FROM ANTIQUITY TO THE MIDDLE AGES.--THE + ROMAN MIMI CONTINUED TO EXIST.--THE TEUTONIC AFTER-DINNER + ENTERTAINMENTS.--CLERICAL SATIRES; ARCHBISHOP HERIGER AND THE + DREAMER; THE SUPPER OF THE SAINTS.--TRANSITION FROM ANCIENT + TO MEDIVAL ART.--TASTE FOR MONSTROUS ANIMALS, DRAGONS, ETC.; + CHURCH OF SAN FEDELE, AT COMO.--SPIRIT OF CARICATURE AND LOVE + OF GROTESQUE AMONG THE ANGLO-SAXONS.--GROTESQUE FIGURES OF + DEMONS.--NATURAL TENDENCY OF THE EARLY MEDIVAL ARTISTS TO DRAW IN + CARICATURE.--EXAMPLES FROM EARLY MANUSCRIPTS AND SCULPTURES. + + +The transition from antiquity to what we usually understand by the name +of the middle ages was long and slow; it was a period during which much +of the texture of the old society was destroyed, while at the same +time a new life was gradually given to that which remained. We know +very little of the comic literature of this period of transition; its +literary remains consist chiefly of a mass of heavy theology and of +lives of saints. The stage in its perfectly dramatic form--theatre and +amphitheatre--had disappeared. The pure drama, indeed, appears never +to have had great vitality among the Romans, whose tastes lay far more +among the vulgar performances of the mimics and jesters, and among +the savage scenes of the amphitheatre. While probably the performance +of comedies, such as those of Plautus and Terence, soon went out of +fashion, and tragedies, like those of Seneca, were only written as +literary compositions, imitations of the similar works which formed +so remarkable a feature in the literature of Greece, the Romans of +all ranks loved to witness the loose attitudes of their _mimi_, or +listen to their equally loose songs and stories. The theatre and the +amphitheatre were state institutions, kept up at the national expense, +and, as just stated, they perished with the overthrow of the western +empire; and the sanguinary performances of the amphitheatre, if the +amphitheatre itself continued to be used (which was perhaps the case +in some parts of western Europe), and they gave place to the more +harmless exhibitions of dancing bears and other tamed animals,[14] for +deliberate cruelty was not a characteristic of the Teutonic race. But +the mimi, the performers who sung songs and told stories, accompanied +with dancing and music, survived the fall of the empire, and continued +to be as popular as ever. St. Augustine, in the fourth century, calls +these things _nefaria_, detestable things, and says that they were +performed at night.[15] We trace in the capitularies the continuous +existence of these performances during the ages which followed the +empire, and, as in the time of St. Augustine, they still formed the +amusement of nocturnal assemblies. The capitulary of Childebert +proscribes those who passed their nights with drunkenness, jesting, +and songs.[16] The council of Narbonne, in the year 589, forbade +people to spend their nights "with dancings and filthy songs."[17] The +council of Mayence, in 813, calls these songs "filthy and licentious" +(_turpia atque luxuriosa_); and that of Paris speaks of them as +"obscene and filthy" (_obscna et turpia_); while in another they are +called "frivolous and diabolic." From the bitterness with which the +ecclesiastical ordinances are expressed, it is probable that these +performances continued to preserve much of their old paganism; yet it +is curious that they are spoken of in these capitularies and acts of +the councils as being still practised in the religious festivals, and +even in the churches, so tenaciously did the old sentiments of the +race keep their possession of the minds of the populace, long after +they had embraced Christianity. These "songs," as they are called, +continued also to consist not only of general, but of personal satire, +and contained scandalous stories of persons living, and well known to +those who heard them. A capitulary of the Frankish king Childeric III., +published in the year 744, is directed against those who compose and +sing songs in defamation of others (_in blasphemiam alterius_, to use +the rather energetic language of the original); and it is evident that +this offence was a very common one, for it is not unfrequently repeated +in later records of this character in the same words or in words to the +same purpose. Thus one result of the overthrow of the Roman empire was +to leave comic literature almost in the same condition in which it was +found by Thespis in Greece and by Livius Andronicus in Rome. There was +nothing in it which would be contrary to the feelings of the new races +who had now planted themselves in the Roman provinces. + + [14] On this subject, see my "History of Domestic Manners and + Sentiments," p. 65. The dancing bear appears to have been a + favourite performer among the Germans at a very early period. + + [15] Per totam noctem cantabantur hic nefaria et a cantatoribus + saltabatur. Augustini Serm. 311, part v. + + [16] Noctes pervigiles cum ebrietate, scurrilitate, vel canticis. See + the Capitulary in Labbei Concil., vol. v. + + [17] Ut populi.....saltationibus et turpibus invigilant canticis. + +The Teutonic and Scandinavian nations had no doubt their popular +festivals, in which mirth and frolic bore sway, though we know little +about them; but there were circumstances in their domestic manners +which implied a necessity for amusement. After the comparatively early +meal, the hall of the primitive Teuton was the scene--especially in the +darker months of winter--of long sittings over the festive board, in +which there was much drinking and much talking, and, as we all know, +such talking could not preserve long a very serious tone. From Bede's +account of the poet Cdmon, we learn that it was the practice of the +Anglo-Saxons in the seventh century, at their entertainments, for all +those present to sing in their turns, each accompanying himself with a +musical instrument. From the sequel of the story we are led to suppose +that these songs were extemporary effusions, probably mythic legends, +stories of personal adventure, praise of themselves, or vituperation +of their enemies. In the chieftain's household there appears to have +been usually some individual who acted the part of the satirist, or, as +we should perhaps now say, the comedian. Hunferth appears as holding +some such position in Beowulf; in the later romances, Sir Kay held a +similar position at the court of king Arthur. At a still later period, +the place of these heroes was occupied by the court fool. The Roman +_mimus_ must have been a welcome addition to the entertainments of the +Teutonic hall, and there is every reason to think that he was cordially +received. The performances of the hall were soon delegated from the +guests to such hired actors, and we have representations of them in +the illuminations of Anglo-Saxon manuscripts.[18] Among the earliest +amusements of the Anglo-Saxon table were riddles, which in every form +present some of the features of the comic, and are capable of being +made the source of much laughter. The saintly Aldhelm condescended to +write such riddles in Latin verse, which were, of course, intended for +the tables of the clergy. In primitive society, verse was the ordinary +form of conveying ideas. A large portion of the celebrated collection +of Anglo-Saxon poetry known as the "Exeter Book," consists of riddles, +and this taste for riddles has continued to exist down to our own +times. But other forms of entertainment, if they did not already +exist, were soon introduced. In a curious Latin poem, older than the +twelfth century, of which fragments only are preserved, and have been +published under the title of "Ruodlieb," and which appears to have +been a translation of a much earlier German romance, we have a curious +description of the post-prandial entertainments after the dinner of a +great Teutonic chieftain, or king. In the first place there was a grand +distribution of rich presents, and then were shown strange animals, and +among the rest tame bears. These bears stood upon their hind legs, and +performed some of the offices of a man; and when the minstrels (_mimi_) +came in, and played upon their musical instruments, these animals +danced to the music, and performed all sorts of strange tricks. + + _Et pariles ursi.... + Qui vas tollebant, ut homo, bipedesque gerebant. + Mimi quando fides digitis tangunt modulantes, + Illi saltabant, neumas pedibus variabant. + Interdum saliunt, seseque super jaciebant. + Alterutrum dorso se portabant residendo, + Amplexando se, luctando deficiunt se._ + +Then followed dancing-girls, and exhibitions of other kinds.[19] + + [18] The reader is referred, for further information on this subject, + to my "History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments," pp. 33-39. + + [19] This curious Latin poem was printed by Grimm and Schmeller, in + their Lateinische Gedichte des x. und xi. Jh., p. 129. + +Although these performances were proscribed by the ecclesiastical laws, +they were not discountenanced by the ecclesiastics themselves, who, on +the contrary, indulged as much in after-dinner amusements as anybody. +The laws against the profane songs are often directed especially at +the clergy; and it is evident that among the Anglo-Saxons, as well as +on the Continent, not only the priests and monks, but the nuns also, +in their love of such amusements, far transgressed the bounds of +decency.[22] These entertainments were the cradle of comic literature, +but, as this literature in the early ages of its history was rarely +committed to writing, it has almost entirely perished. But, at the +tables of the ecclesiastics, these stories were sometimes told in +Latin verse, and as Latin was not so easily carried in the memory as +the vernacular tongue, in this language they were sometimes committed +to writing, and thus a few examples of early comic literature have +fortunately been preserved. These consist chiefly of popular stories, +which were among the favourite amusements of medival society--stories +many of which are derived from the earliest period of the history of +our race, and are still cherished among our peasantry. Such are the +stories of the Child of Snow, and of the Mendacious Hunter, preserved +in a manuscript of the eleventh century.[21] The first of these was +a very popular story in the middle ages. According to this early +version, a merchant of Constance, in Switzerland, was detained abroad +for several years, during which time his wife made other acquaintance, +and bore a child. On his return, she excused her fault by telling him +that on a cold wintry day she had swallowed snow, by which she had +conceived; and, in revenge, the husband carried away the child, and +sold it into slavery, and returning, told its mother, that the infant +which had originated in snow, had melted away under a hotter sun. Some +of these stories originated in the different collections of fables, +which were part of the favourite literature of the later Roman period. +Another is rather a ridiculous story of an ass belonging to two sisters +in a nunnery, which was devoured by a wolf.[20] curious how soon the +medival clergy began to imitate their pagan predecessors in parodying +religious subjects and forms, of which we have one or two very curious +examples. Visits to purgatory, hell, and paradise, in body or spirit, +were greatly in fashion during the earlier part of the middle ages, +and afforded extremely good material for satire. In a metrical Latin +story, preserved in a manuscript of the eleventh century, we are +told how a "prophet," or visionary, went to Heriger, archbishop of +Mayence from 912 to 926, and told him that he had been carried in a +vision to the regions below, and described them as a place surrounded +by thick woods. It was the Teutonic notion of hell, and indeed of +all settlements of peoples; and Heriger replied with a sneer that he +would send his herdsmen there with his lean swine to fatten them. Each +"mark," or land of a family or clan, in the early Teutonic settlements, +was surrounded by woodland, which was common to all members of the clan +for fattening their swine and hunting. The false dreamer added, that he +was afterwards carried to heaven, where he saw Christ sitting at the +table and eating. John the Baptist was butler, and served excellent +wine round to the saints, who were the Lord's guests. St. Peter was +the chief cook. After some remarks on the appointments to these two +offices, archbishop Heriger asked the informant how he was received in +the heavenly hall, where he sat, and what he eat. He replied that he +sat in a corner, and stole from the cooks a piece of liver, which he +eat, and then departed. Instead of rewarding him for his information, +Heriger took him on his own confession for the theft, and ordered him +to be bound to a stake and flogged, which, for the offence, was rather +a light punishment. + + [20] On the character of the nuns among the Anglo-Saxons, and indeed of + the inmates of the monastic houses generally, I would refer my + readers to the excellent and interesting volume by Mr. John + Thrupp, "The Anglo-Saxon Home: a History of the Domestic + Institutions and Customs of England from the fifth to the eleventh + century." London, 1862. + + [21] These will be found in M. Edlestand du Mril's Posies Populaires + Latines antrieures au douzime sicle, pp. 275, 276. + + [22] This, and the metrical story next referred to, were printed in + the "Altdeutsche Bltter," edited by Moriz Haupt and Heinrich + Hoffmann, vol. i. pp. 390, 392, to whom I communicated them from + a manuscript in the University Library at Cambridge. + + _Heriger illum + jussit ad palum + loris ligari, + scopisque cedi, + sermone duro + hunc arguendo._ + +These lines will serve as a specimen of the popular Latin verse in +which these monkish after-dinner stories were written; but the most +remarkable of these early parodies on religious subjects, is one which +may be described as the supper of the saints; its title is simply +_Coena_. It is falsely ascribed to St. Cyprian, who lived in the +third century; but it is as old as the tenth century, as a copy was +printed by professor Endlicher from a manuscript of that period at +Vienna. It was so popular, that it is found and known to have existed +in different forms in verse and in prose. It is a sort of drollery, +founded upon the wedding feast at which the Saviour changed water into +wine, though that miracle is not at all introduced into it. It was a +great king of the East, named Zoel, who held his nuptial feast at Cana +of Galilee. The personages invited are all scriptural, beginning with +Adam. Before the feast, they wash in the river Jordan, and the number +of the guests was so great, that seats could not be provided for them, +and they took their places as they could. Adam took the first place, +and seated himself in the middle of the assembly, and next to him Eve +sat upon leaves (_super folia_),--fig-leaves, we may suppose. Cain sat +on a plough, Abel on a milk-pail, Noah on an ark, Japhet on tiles, +Abraham on a tree, Isaac on an altar, Lot near the door, and so with +a long list of others. Two were obliged to stand--Paul, who bore it +patiently, and Esau, who grumbled--while Job lamented bitterly because +he was obliged to sit on a dunghill. Moses, and others, who came late, +were obliged to find seats out of doors. When the king saw that all +his guests had arrived, he took them into his wardrobe, and there, in +the spirit of medival generosity, distributed to them dresses, which +had all some burlesque allusion to their particular characters. Before +they were allowed to sit down to the feast, they were obliged to go +through other ceremonies, which, as well as the eating, are described +in the same style of caricature. The wines, of which there was great +variety, were served to the guests with the same allusions to their +individual characters; but some of them complained that they were badly +mixed, although Jonah was the butler. In the same manner are described +the proceedings which followed the dinner, the washing of hands, and +the dessert, to the latter of which Adam contributed apples, Samson +honey; while David played on the harp and Mary on the tabor; Judith led +the round dance; Jubal played on the psalter; Asael sung songs, and +Herodias acted the part of the dancing-girl:-- + + _Tunc Adam poma ministrat, Samson favi dulcia. + David cytharum percussit, et Maria tympana. + Judith choreas ducebat, et Jubal psalteria. + Asael metra canebat, saltabat Herodias._ + +Mambres entertained the company with his magical performances; and +the other incidents of a medival festival followed, throughout which +the same tone of burlesque is continued; and so the story continues, +to the end.[23] We shall find these incipient forms of medival comic +literature largely developed as we go on. + + [23] The text of this singular composition, with a full account of the + various forms in which it was published, will be found in M. du + Mril's "Posies Populaires Latines antrieures au douzime + sicle," p. 193. + + [Illustration: _No. 25. Saturn Devouring his Child._] + +The period between antiquity and the middle ages was one of such great +and general destruction, that the gulf between ancient and medival art +seems to us greater and more abrupt than it really was. The want of +monuments, no doubt, prevents our seeing the gradual change of one into +the other, but nevertheless enough of facts remain to convince us that +it was not a sudden change. It is now indeed generally understood that +the knowledge and practice of the arts and manufactures of the Romans +were handed onward from master to pupil after the empire had fallen; +and this took place especially in the towns, so that the workmanship +which had been declining in character during the later periods of the +empire, only continued in the course of degradation afterwards. Thus, +in the first Christian edifices, the builders who were employed, or at +least many of them, must have been pagans, and they would follow their +old models of ornamentation, introducing the same grotesque figures, +the same masks and monstrous faces, and even sometimes the same +subjects from the old mythology, to which they had been accustomed. It +is to be observed, too, that this kind of iconographical ornamentation +had been encroaching more and more upon the old architectural purity +during the latter ages of the empire, and that it was employed more +profusely in the later works, from which this taste was transferred +to the ecclesiastical and to the domestic architecture of the middle +ages. After the workmen themselves had become Christians, they still +found pagan emblems and figures in their models, and still went on +imitating them, sometimes merely copying, and at others turning them +to caricature or burlesque. And this tendency continued so long, that, +at a much later date, where there still existed remains of Roman +buildings, the medival architects adopted them as models, and did not +hesitate to copy the sculpture, although it might be evidently pagan in +character. The accompanying cut (No. 25) represents a bracket in the +church of Mont Majour, near Nismes, built in the tenth century. The +subject is a monstrous head eating a child, and we can hardly doubt +that it was really intended for a caricature on Saturn devouring one of +his children. + +Sometimes the medival sculptors mistook the emblematical designs +of the Romans, and misapplied them, and gave an allegorical meaning +to that which was not intended to be emblematical or allegorical, +until the subjects themselves became extremely confused. They readily +employed that class of parody of the ancients in which animals were +represented performing the actions of men, and they had a great taste +for monsters of every description, especially those which were made up +of portions of incongruous animals joined together, in contradiction to +the precept of Horace:-- + + _Humano capiti cervicem pictor equinam + Jungere si velit, et varias inducere plumas, + Undique collatis membris, ut turpiter atrum + Desinet in piscem mulier formosa superne; + Spectatum admissi risum teneatis, amici?_ + + [Illustration: _No. 26. Sculpture from San Fedele, at Como._] + +The medival architects loved such representations, always and in all +parts, and examples are abundant. At Como, in Italy, there is a very +ancient and remarkable church dedicated to San Fedele (Saint Fidelis); +it has been considered to be of so early a date as the fifth century. +The sculptures that adorn the doorway, which is triangular-headed, are +especially interesting. On one of these, represented in our cut No. 26, +in a compartment to the left, appears a figure of an angel, holding in +one hand a dwarf figure, probably intended for a child, by a lock of +his hair, and with the other hand directing his attention to a seated +figure in the compartment below. This latter figure has apparently the +head of a sheep, and as the head is surrounded with a large nimbus, +and the right hand is held out in the attitude of benediction, it +may be intended to represent the Lamb. This personage is seated on +something which is difficult to make out, but which looks somewhat +like a crab-fish. The boy in the compartment above carries a large +basin in his arms. The adjoining compartment to the right contains the +representation of a conflict between a dragon, a winged serpent, and a +winged fox. On the opposite side of the door, two winged monsters are +represented devouring a lamb's head. I owe the drawing from which this +and the preceding engraving were made to my friend Mr. John Robinson, +the architect, who made the sketches while travelling with the medal +of the Royal Academy. Figures of dragons, as ornaments, were great +favourites with the peoples of the Teutonic race; they were creatures +intimately wrapped up in their national mythology and romance, and they +are found on all their artistic monuments mingled together in grotesque +forms and groups. When the Anglo-Saxons began to ornament their books, +the dragon was continually introduced for ornamental borders and +in forming initial letters. One of the latter, from an Anglo-Saxon +manuscript of the tenth century (the well-known manuscript of Cdmon, +where it is given as an initial V), is represented in our cut on the +next page, No. 27. + + [Illustration: _No. 27. Anglo-Saxon Dragons._] + +Caricature and burlesque are naturally intended to be heard and seen +publicly, and would therefore be figured on such monuments as were most +exposed to popular gaze. Such was the case, in the earlier periods of +the middle ages, chiefly with ecclesiastical buildings, which explains +how they became the grand receptacles of this class of Art. We have few +traces of what may be termed comic literature among our Anglo-Saxon +forefathers, but this is fully explained by the circumstance that very +little of the popular Anglo-Saxon literature has been preserved. In +their festive hours the Anglo-Saxons seem to have especially amused +themselves in boasting of what they had done, and what they could do; +and these boasts were perhaps often of a burlesque character, like the +_gabs_ of the French and Anglo-Norman romancers of a later date, or +so extravagant as to produce laughter. The chieftains appear also to +have encouraged men who could make jokes, and satirise and caricature +others; for the company of such men seems to have been cherished, and +they are not unfrequently introduced in the stories. Such a personage, +as I have remarked before, is Hunferth in Beowulf; such was the Sir +Kay of the later Arthurian romances; and such too was the Norman +minstrel in the history of Hereward, who amused the Norman soldiers at +their feasts by mimicry of the manners of their Anglo-Saxon opponents. +The too personal satire of these wits often led to quarrels, which +ended in sanguinary brawls. The Anglo-Saxon love of caricature is +shown largely in their proper names, which were mostly significant of +personal qualities their parents hoped they would possess; and in these +we remark the proneness of the Teutonic race, as well as the peoples +of antiquity, to represent these qualities by the animals supposed to +possess them, the animals most popular being the wolf and the bear. +But it is not to be expected that the hopes of the parents in giving +the name would always be fulfilled, and it is not an uncommon thing +to find individuals losing their original names to receive in their +place nicknames, or names which probably expressed qualities they did +possess, and which were given to them by their acquaintances. These +names, though often not very complimentary, and even sometimes very +much the contrary, completely superseded the original name, and were +even accepted by the individuals to whom they applied. The second names +were indeed so generally acknowledged, that they were used in signing +legal documents. An Anglo-Saxon abbess of rank, whose real name was +Hrodwaru, but who was known universally by the name Bugga, the Bug, +wrote this latter name in signing charters. We can hardly doubt that +such a name was intended to ascribe to her qualities of a not agreeable +character, and very different to those implied by the original name, +which perhaps meant, a dweller in heaven. Another lady gained the name +of the Crow. It is well known that surnames did not come into use +till long after the Anglo-Saxon period, but appellatives, like these +nicknames, were often added to the name for the purpose of distinction, +or at pleasure, and these, too, being given by other people, were +frequently satirical. Thus, one Harold, for his swiftness, was called +Hare-foot; a well-known Edith, for the elegant form of her neck, +was called Swan-neck; and a Thurcyl, for a form of his head, which +can hardly have been called beautiful, was named Mare's-head. Among +many other names, quite as satirical as the last-mentioned, we find +Flat-nose, the Ugly Squint-eye, Hawk-nose, &c. + +Of Anglo-Saxon sculpture we have little left, but we have a few +illuminated manuscripts which present here and there an attempt at +caricature, though they are rare. It would seem, however, that the two +favourite subjects of caricature among the Anglo-Saxons were the clergy +and the evil one. We have abundant evidence that, from the eighth +century downwards, neither the Anglo-Saxon clergy nor the Anglo-Saxon +nuns were generally objects of much respect among the people; and their +character and the manner of their lives sufficiently account for it. +Perhaps, also, it was increased by the hostility between the old clergy +and the new reformers of Dunstan's party, who would no doubt caricature +each other. A manuscript psalter, in the University Library, Cambridge +(Ff. 1, 23), of the Anglo-Saxon period, and apparently of the tenth +century, illustrated with rather grotesque initial letters, furnishes +us with the figure of a jolly Anglo-Saxon monk, given in our cut No. +28, and which it is hardly necessary to state represents the letter Q. +As we proceed, we shall see the clergy continuing to furnish a butt for +the shafts of satire through all the middle ages. + + [Illustration: _No. 28. A Jolly Monk._] + + [Illustration: _No. 29. Satan in Bonds._] + +The inclination to give to the demons (the middle ages always looked +upon them as innumerable) monstrous forms, which easily ran into the +grotesque, was natural, and the painter, indeed, prided himself on +drawing them ugly; but he was no doubt influenced in so generally +caricaturing them, by mixing up this idea with those furnished by the +popular superstitions of the Teutonic race, who believed in multitudes +of spirits, representatives of the ancient satyrs, who were of a +playfully malicious description, and went about plaguing mankind in +a very droll manner, and sometimes appeared to them in equally droll +forms. They were the Pucks and Robin Goodfellows of later times; +but the Christian missionaries to the west taught their converts to +believe, and probably believed themselves, that all these imaginary +beings were real demons, who wandered over the earth for people's ruin +and destruction. Thus the grotesque imagination of the converted people +was introduced into the Christian system of demonology. It is a part of +the subject to which we shall return in our next chapter; but I will +here introduce two examples of the Anglo-Saxon demons. To explain the +first of these, it will be necessary to state that, according to the +medival notions, Satan, the arch demon, who had fallen from heaven +for his rebellion against the Almighty, was not a free agent who went +about tempting mankind, but he was himself plunged in the abyss, +where he was held in bonds, and tormented by the demons who peopled +the infernal regions, and also issued thence to seek their prey upon +God's newest creation, the earth. The history of Satan's fall, and the +description of his position (No. 29), form the subject of the earlier +part of the Anglo-Saxon poetry ascribed to Cdmon, and it is one of +the illuminations to the manuscript of Cdmon (which is now preserved +at Oxford), which has furnished us with our cut, representing Satan +in his bonds. The fiend is here pictured bound to stakes, over what +appears to be a gridiron, while one of the demons, rising out of a +fiery furnace, and holding in his hand an instrument of punishment, +seems to be exulting over him, and at the same time urging on the troop +of grotesque imps who are swarming round and tormenting their victim. +The next cut, No. 30, is also taken from an Anglo-Saxon manuscript, +preserved in the British Museum (MS. Cotton., Tiberius, C. vi.), which +belongs to the earlier half of the eleventh century, and contains a +copy of the psalter. It gives us the Anglo-Saxon notion of the demon +under another form, equally characteristic, wearing only a girdle +of flames, but in this case the especial singularity of the design +consists in the eyes in the fiend's wings. + + [Illustration: _No. 30. Satan._] + + [Illustration: _No. 31. The Temptation._] + + [Illustration: _No. 32. David and the Lion._] + +Another circumstance had no doubt an influence on the medival taste +for grotesque and caricature--the natural rudeness of early medival +art. The writers of antiquity tell us of a remote period of Grecian +art when it was necessary to write under each figure of a picture the +name of what it was intended to represent, in order to make the whole +intelligible--"this is a horse," "this is a man," "this is a tree." +Without being quite so rude as this, the early medival artists, +through ignorance of perspective, want of knowledge of proportion, and +of skill in drawing, found great difficulty in representing a scene in +which there was more than one figure, and in which it was necessary +to distinguish them from each other; and they were continually trying +to help themselves by adopting conventional forms or conventional +positions, and by sometimes adding symbols that did not exactly +represent what they meant. The exaggeration in form consisted chiefly +in giving an undue prominence to some characteristic feature, which +answered the same purpose as the Anglo-Saxon nickname and distinctive +name, and which is, in fact, one of the first principles of all +caricature. Conventional positions partook much of the character of +conventional forms, but gave still greater room for grotesque. Thus +the very first characteristics of medival art implied the existence +of caricature, and no doubt led to the taste for the grotesque. The +effect of this influence is apparent everywhere, and in innumerable +cases serious pictures of the gravest and most important subjects are +simply and absolutely caricatures. Anglo-Saxon art ran much into this +style, and is often very grotesque in character. The first example we +give (cut No. 31) is taken from one of the illustrations to Alfric's +Anglo-Saxon version of the Pentateuch, in the profusely illuminated +manuscript in the British Museum (MS. Cotton., Claudius B iv.), which +was written at the end of the tenth, or beginning of the eleventh, +century. It represents the temptation and fall of man; and the subject +is treated, as will be seen, in a rather grotesque manner. Eve is +evidently dictating to her husband, who, in obeying her, shows a +mixture of eagerness and trepidation. Adam is no less evidently going +to swallow the apple whole, which is, perhaps, in accordance with the +medival legend, according to which the fruit stuck in his throat. It +is hardly necessary to remark that the tree is entirely a conventional +one; and it would be difficult to imagine how it came to bear apples at +all. The medival artists were extremely unskilful in drawing trees; +to these they usually gave the forms of cabbages, or some such plants, +of which the form was simple, or often of a mere bunch of leaves. Our +next example (cut No. 32) is also Anglo-Saxon, and is furnished by +the manuscript in the British Museum already mentioned (MS. Cotton., +Tiberius C vi.) It probably represents young David killing the lion, +and is remarkable not only for the strange posture and bad proportions +of the man, but for the tranquillity of the animal and the exaggerated +and violent action of its slayer. This is very commonly the case in the +medival drawings and sculptures, the artists apparently possessing +far less skill in representing action in an animal than in man, and +therefore more rarely attempting it. These illustrations are both taken +from illuminated manuscripts. The two which follow are furnished by +sculptures, and are of a rather later date than the preceding. The +abbey of St. George of Boscherville, in the diocese of Auxerre (in +Normandy), was founded by Ralph de Tancarville, one of the ministers of +William the Conqueror, and therefore in the latter half of the eleventh +century. A history of this religious house was published by a clever +local antiquary--M. Achille Deville--from whose work we take our cut +No. 33, one of a few rude sculptures on the abbey church, which no +doubt belonged to the original fabric. It is not difficult to recognise +the subject as Joseph taking the Virgin Mary with her Child into +Egypt; but there is something exceedingly droll in the unintentional +caricature of the faces, as well as in the whole design. The Virgin +Mary appears without a nimbus, while the nimbus of the Infant Jesus +is made to look very like a bonnet. It may be remarked that this +subject of the flight into Egypt is by no means an uncommon one in +medival art; and a drawing of the same subject, copied in my "History +of Domestic Manners and Sentiments" (p. 115), presents a remarkable +illustration of the contrast of the skill of a Norman sculptor and of +an almost contemporary Anglo-Norman illuminator. Our cut also furnishes +us with evidence of the error of the old opinion that ladies rode +astride in the middle ages. Even one, who by his style of art must have +been an obscure local carver on stone, when he represented a female on +horseback, placed her in the position which has always been considered +suitable to the sex. + + [Illustration: _No. 33. The flight into Egypt._] + + [Illustration: _No. 34. David and Goliah._] + +For the drawing of the other sculpture to which I allude, I am indebted +to Mr. Robinson. It is one of the subjects carved on the faade of +the church of St. Gilles, near Nismes, and is a work of the twelfth +century. It appears to represent the young David slaying the giant +Goliah, the latter fully armed in scale armour, and with shield and +spear, like a Norman knight; while to David the artist has given a +figure which is feminine in its forms. What we might take at first +sight for a basket of apples, appears to be meant for a supply of +stones for the sling which the young hero carries suspended from his +neck. He has slain the giant with one of these, and is cutting off his +head with his own sword. + + + + + CHAPTER IV. + + THE DIABOLICAL IN CARICATURE.--MEDIVAL LOVE OF THE + LUDICROUS.--CAUSES WHICH MADE IT INFLUENCE THE NOTIONS + OF DEMONS.--STORIES OF THE PIOUS PAINTER AND THE ERRING + MONK.--DARKNESS AND UGLINESS CARICATURED.--THE DEMONS IN THE + MIRACLE PLAYS.--THE DEMON OF NOTRE DAME. + + +As I have already stated in the last chapter, there can be no doubt +that the whole system of the demonology of the middle ages was +derived from the older pagan mythology. The demons of the monkish +legends were simply the elves and hobgoblins of our forefathers, who +haunted woods, and fields, and waters, and delighted in misleading +or plaguing mankind, though their mischief was usually of a rather +mirthful character. They were represented in classical mythology by +the fauns and satyrs who had, as we have seen, much to do with the +birth of comic literature among the Greeks and Romans; but these +Teutonic elves were more ubiquitous than the satyrs, as they even +haunted men's houses, and played tricks, not only of a mischievous, +but of a very familiar character. The Christian clergy did not look +upon the personages of the popular superstitions as fabulous beings, +but they taught that they were all diabolical, and that they were +so many agents of the evil one, constantly employed in enticing and +entrapping mankind. Hence, in the medival legends, we frequently find +demons presenting themselves under ludicrous forms or in ludicrous +situations; or performing acts, such as eating and drinking, which are +not in accordance with their real character; or at times even letting +themselves be outwitted or entrapped by mortals in a very undignified +manner. Although they assumed any form they pleased, their natural form +was remarkable chiefly for being extremely ugly; one of them, which +appeared in a wild wood, is described by Giraldus Cambrensis, who wrote +at the end of the twelfth century, as being hairy, shaggy, and rough, +and monstrously deformed.[24] According to a medival story, which +was told in different forms, a great man's cellar was once haunted by +these demons, who drank all his wine, while the owner was totally at a +loss to account for its rapid disappearance. After many unsuccessful +attempts to discover the depredators, some one, probably suspecting +the truth, suggested that he should mark one of the barrels with holy +water, and next morning a demon, much resembling the description given +by Giraldus, was found stuck fast to the barrel. It is told also of +Edward the Confessor, that he once went to see the tribute called +the Danegeld, and it was shown to him all packed up in great barrels +ready to be sent away--for this appears to have been the usual mode +of transporting large quantities of money. The saintly king had the +faculty of being able to see spiritual beings--a sort of spiritual +second-sight--and he beheld seated on the largest barrel, a devil, who +was "black and hideous." + + _Vit un dable saer desus + Le tresor, noir et hidus._--Life of S. Edward, l. 944. + + [Illustration: _No. 35. The Demon of the Treasure._] + +An early illuminator, in a manuscript preserved in the library of +Trinity College, Cambridge (MS. Trin. Col., B x. 2), has left us a +pictorial representation of this scene, from which I copy his notion +of the form of the demon in cut No. 35. The general idea is evidently +taken from the figure of the goat, and the relationship between the +demon and the classical satyr is very evident. + + [24] "Formam quandam villosam, hispidam, et hirsutam, adeoque enormiter + deformem." Girald. Camb., Itiner. Camb., lib. i. c. 5. + +Ugliness was an essential characteristic of the demons, and, moreover, +their features have usually a mirthful cast, as though they greatly +enjoyed their occupation. There is a medival story of a young +monk, who was sacristan to an abbey, and had the directions of the +building and ornamentation. The carvers of stone were making admirable +representations of hell and paradise, in the former of which the demons +"seemed to take great delight in well tormenting their victims"-- + + _Qui par semblant se delitoit + En ce que bien les tormentoit._ + +The sacristan, who watched the sculptors every day, was at last moved +by pious zeal to try and imitate them, and he set to work to make a +devil himself, with such success, that his fiend was so black and ugly +that nobody could look at it without terror. + + _Tant qu'un dable fere emprist; + Si i mist sa poine et sa cure, + Que la forme fu si oscure + Et si laide, que cil doutast + Que entre deus oilz l'esgardast._ + +The sacristan, encouraged by his success--for it must be understood +that his art was a sudden inspiration (as he had not been an artist +before)--continued his work till it was completed, and then "it was so +horrible and so ugly, that all who saw it affirmed upon their oaths +that they had never seen so ugly a figure either in sculpture or in +painting, or one which had so repulsive an appearance, or a devil which +was a better likeness than the one this monk had made for them"-- + + _Si horribles fu et si lez, + Que trestouz cels que le voient + Seur leur serement afermoient + C'onques ms si laide figure, + Ne en taille ne en peinture, + N'avoient nul jor vue, + Qui si ust laide vue, + Ne dable miex contrefet + Que cil moines leur avoit fet._--Meon's Fabliaux, tom. ii. p. 414. + +The demon himself now took offence at the affront which had been +put upon him, and appearing the night following to the sacristan, +reproached him with having made him so ugly, and enjoined him to break +the sculpture, and execute another representing him better looking, on +pain of very severe punishment; but, although this visit was repeated +thrice, the pious monk refused to comply. The evil one now began to +work in another way, and, by his cunning, he drew the sacristan into a +disgraceful amour with a lady of the neighbourhood, and they plotted +not only to elope together by night, but to rob the monastery of its +treasure, which was of course in the keeping of the sacristan. They +were discovered, and caught in their flight, laden with the treasure, +and the unfaithful sacristan was thrown into prison. The fiend now +appeared to him, and promised to clear him out of all his trouble on +the mere condition that he should break his ugly statue, and make +another representing him as looking handsome--a bargain to which the +sacristan acceded without further hesitation. It would thus appear that +the demons did not like to be represented ugly. In this case, the fiend +immediately took the form and place of the sacristan, while the latter +went to his bed as if nothing had happened. When the other monks found +him there next morning, and heard him disclaim all knowledge of the +robbery or of the prison, they hurried to the latter place, and found +the devil in chains, who, when they attempted to exorcise him, behaved +in a very turbulent manner, and disappeared from their sight. The +monks believed that it was all a deception of the evil one, while the +sacristan, who was not inclined to brave his displeasure a second time, +performed faithfully his part of the contract, and made a devil who +did not look ugly. In another version of the story, however, it ends +differently. After the third warning, the monk went in defiance of the +devil, and made his picture uglier than ever; in revenge for which the +demon came unexpectedly and broke the ladder on which he was mounted +at his work, whereby the monk would undoubtedly have been killed. But +the Virgin, to whom he was much devoted, came to his assistance, and, +seizing him with her hand, and holding him in the air, disappointed +the devil of his purpose. It is this latter _dnouement_ which is +represented in the cut No. 36, taken from the celebrated manuscript in +the British Museum known as "Queen Mary's Psalter" (MS. Reg. 2 B vii.). +The two demons employed here present, well defined, the air of mirthful +jollity which was evidently derived from the popular hobgoblins. + + [Illustration: _No. 36. The Pious Sculptor._] + + [Illustration: _No. 37. The Monk's Disaster._] + + [Illustration: _No. 38. The Demons Disappointed._] + +There was another popular story, which also was told under several +forms. The old Norman historians tell it of their duke Richard +Sans-Peur. There was a monk of the abbey of St. Ouen, who also held +the office of sacristan, but, neglecting the duties of his position, +entered into an intrigue with a lady who dwelt in the neighbourhood, +and was accustomed at night to leave the abbey secretly, and repair +to her. His place as sacristan enabled him thus to leave the house +unknown to the other brethren. On his way, he had to pass the little +river Robec, by means of a plank or wooden bridge, and one night +the demons, who had been watching him on his errand of sin, caught +him on the bridge, and threw him over into the water, where he was +drowned. One devil seized his soul, and would have carried it away, +but an angel came to claim him on account of his good actions, and +the dispute ran so high, that duke Richard, whose piety was as great +as his courage, was called in to decide it. The same manuscript from +which our last cut was taken has furnished our cut No. 37, which +represents two demons tripping up the monk, and throwing him very +unceremoniously into the river. The body of one of the demons here +assumes the form of an animal, instead of taking, like the other, that +of a man, and he is, moreover, furnished with a dragon's wings. There +was one version of this story, in which it found its place among the +legends of the Virgin Mary, instead of those of duke Richard. The +monk, in spite of his failings, had been a constant worshipper of the +Virgin, and, as he was falling from the bridge into the river, she +stepped forward to protect him from his persecutors, and taking hold +of him with her hand, saved him from death. One of the compartments +of the rather early wall-paintings in Winchester Cathedral represents +the scene according to this version of the story, and is copied in +our cut No. 38. The fiends here take more fantastic shapes than we +have previously seen given to them. They remind us already of the +infinitely varied grotesque forms which the painters of the age of the +Renaissance crowded together in such subjects as "The Temptation of +St. Anthony." In fact these strange notions of the forms of the demons +were not only preserved through the whole period of the middle ages, +but are still hardly extinct. They appear in almost exaggerated forms +in the illustrations to books of a popular religious character which +appeared in the first ages of printing. I may quote, as an example, one +of the cuts of an early and very rare block-book, entitled the _Ars +Moriendi_, or "Art of Dying," or, in a second title, _De Tentationibus +Morientium_, on the temptations to which dying men are exposed. The +scene, of which a part is given in the annexed cut (No. 39), is in the +room of the dying man, whose bed is surrounded by three demons, who +are come to tempt him, while his relatives of both sexes are looking +on quite unconscious of their presence. The figures of these demons +are particularly grotesque, and their ugly features betray a degree of +vulgar cunning which adds not a little to this effect. The one leaning +over the dying man suggests to him the words expressed in the label +issuing from his mouth, _Provideas amicis_, "provide for your friends;" +while the one whose head appears to the left whispers to him, _Yntende +thesauro_, "think of your treasure." The dying man seems grievously +perplexed with the various thoughts thus suggested to him. + + [Illustration: _No. 39. A Medival Death-bed._] + + [Illustration: _No. 40. Condemned Souls carried to their Place of + Punishment._] + +Why did the medival Christians think it necessary to make the devils +black and ugly? The first reply to this question which presents itself +is, that the characteristics intended to be represented were the +blackness and ugliness of sin. This, however, is only partially the +explanation of the fact; for there can be no doubt that the notion +was a popular one, and that it had previously existed in the popular +mythology; and, as has been already remarked, the ugliness exhibited +by them is a vulgar, mirthful ugliness, which makes you laugh instead +of shudder. Another scene, from the interesting drawings at the foot +of the pages in "Queen Mary's Psalter," is given in our cut No. 40. It +represents that most popular of medival pictures, and, at the same +time, most remarkable of literal interpretations, hell mouth. The +entrance to the infernal regions was always represented pictorially +as the mouth of a monstrous animal, where the demons appeared leaving +and returning. Here they are seen bringing the sinful souls to their +last destination, and it cannot be denied that they are doing the work +right merrily and jovially. In our cut No. 41, from the manuscript in +the library of Trinity College, Cambridge, which furnished a former +subject, three demons, who appear to be the guardians of the entrance +to the regions below--for it is upon the brow above the monstrous mouth +that they are standing--present varieties of the diabolical form. The +one in the middle is the most remarkable, for he has wings not only +on his shoulders, but also on his knees and heels. All three have +horns; in fact, the three special characteristics of medival demons +were horns, hoofs--or, at least, the feet of beasts,--and tails, which +sufficiently indicate the source from which the popular notions of +these beings were derived. In the cathedral of Treves, there is a mural +painting by William of Cologne, a painter of the fifteenth century, +which represents the entrance to the shades, the monstrous mouth, with +its keepers, in still more grotesque forms. Our cut No. 42 gives but a +small portion of this picture, in which the porter of the regions of +punishment is sitting astride the snout of the monstrous mouth, and +is sounding with a trumpet what may be supposed to be the call for +those who are condemned. Another minstrel of the same stamp, spurred, +though not booted, sits astride the tube of the trumpet, playing on +the bagpipes; and the sound which issues from the former instrument is +represented by a host of smaller imps who are scattering themselves +about. + + [Illustration: _No. 41. The Guardians of Hell Mouth._] + + [Illustration: _No. 42. The Trumpeter of Evil._] + +It must not be supposed that, in subjects like these, the drollery of +the scene was accidental; but, on the contrary, the medival artists +and popular writers gave them this character purposely. The demons and +the executioners--the latter of whom were called in Latin _tortores_, +and in popular old English phraseology the "tormentours"--were the +comic characters of the time, and the scenes in the old mysteries or +religious plays in which they were introduced were the comic scenes, +or farce, of the piece. The love of burlesque and caricature was, +indeed, so deeply planted in the popular mind, that it was found +necessary to introduce them even in pious works, in which such scenes +as the slaughter of the innocents, where the "knights" and the women +abused each other in vulgar language, the treatment of Christ at +the time of His trial, some parts of the scene of the crucifixion, +and the day of judgment, were essentially comic. The last of these +subjects, especially, was a scene of mirth, because it often consisted +throughout of a coarse satire on the vices of the age, especially on +those which were most obnoxious to the populace, such as the pride and +vanity of the higher ranks, and the extortions and frauds of usurers, +bakers, taverners, and others. In the play of "Juditium," or the day +of doom, in the "Towneley Mysteries," one of the earliest collections +of mysteries in the English language, the whole conversation among +the demons is exactly of that joking kind which we might expect from +their countenances in the pictures. When one of them appears carrying +a bag full of different offences, another, his companion, is so joyful +at this circumstance, that he says it makes him laugh till he is out +of breath, or, in other words, till he is ready to burst; and, while +asking if anger be not among the sins he had collected, proposes to +treat him with something to drink-- + + Primus dmon. _Peasze, I pray the, be stille; I laghe that I kynke. + Is oghte ire in thi bille? and then salle thou drynke._ + --Towneley Mysteries, p. 309. + +And in the continuation of the conversation, one telling of the events +which had preceded the announcement of Doomsday says, rather jeeringly, +and somewhat exultingly, "Souls came so thick now of late to hell, that +our porter at hell gate is ever held so close at work, up early and +down late, that he never rests"-- + + _Saules cam so thyk now late unto helle, + As ever + Oure porter at helle gate + Is halden so strate, + Up erly and downe late, + He rystys never._--Ib., p. 314. + +With such popular notions on the subject, we have no reason to be +surprised that the artists of the middle ages frequently chose the +figures of demons as objects on which to exercise their skill in +burlesque and caricature, that they often introduced grotesque figures +of their heads and bodies in the sculptured ornamentation of building, +and that they presented them in ludicrous situations and attitudes in +their pictures. They are often brought in as secondary actors in a +picture in a very singular manner, of which an excellent example is +furnished by the beautifully illuminated manuscript known as "Queen +Mary's Psalter," which is copied in our cut No. 43. Nothing is more +certain than that in this instance the intention of the artist was +perfectly serious. Eve, under the influence of a rather singularly +formed serpent, having the head of a beautiful woman and the body of +a dragon, is plucking the apples and offering them to Adam, who is +preparing to eat one, with evident hesitation and reluctance. But three +demons, downright hobgoblins, appear as secondary actors in the scene, +who exercise an influence upon the principals. One is patting Eve +on the shoulder, with an air of approval and encouragement, while a +second, with wings, is urging on Adam, and apparently laughing at his +apprehensions; and a third, in a very ludicrous manner, is preventing +him from drawing back from the trial. + + [Illustration: _No. 43. The Fall of Man._] + +In all the delineations of demons we have yet seen, the ludicrous is +the spirit which chiefly predominates, and in no one instance have +we had a figure which is really demoniacal. The devils are droll but +not frightful; they provoke laughter, or at least excite a smile, +but they create no horror. Indeed, they torment their victims so +good-humouredly, that we hardly feel for them. There is, however, one +well-known instance in which the medival artist has shown himself +fully successful in representing the features of the spirit of evil. On +the parapet of the external gallery of the cathedral church of Notre +Dame in Paris, there is a figure in stone, of the ordinary stature of +a man, representing the demon, apparently looking with satisfaction +upon the inhabitants of the city as they were everywhere indulging in +sin and wickedness. We give a sketch of this figure in our cut No. 44. +The unmixed evil--horrible in its expression in this countenance--is +marvellously portrayed. It is an absolute Mephistophiles, carrying in +his features a strange mixture of hateful qualities--malice, pride, +envy--in fact, all the deadly sins combined in one diabolical whole. + + [Illustration: _No. 44. The Spirit of Evil._] + + + + + CHAPTER V. + + EMPLOYMENT OF ANIMALS IN MEDIVAL SATIRE.--POPULARITY OF FABLES; + ODO DE CIRINGTON.--REYNARD THE FOX.--BURNELLUS AND FAUVEL.--THE + CHARIVARI.--LE MONDE BESTORN.--ENCAUSTIC TILES.--SHOEING THE + GOOSE, AND FEEDING PIGS WITH ROSES.--SATIRICAL SIGNS; THE MUSTARD + MAKER. + + +The people of the middle ages appear to have been great admirers +of animals, to have observed closely their various characters and +peculiarities, and to have been fond of domesticating them. They +soon began to employ their peculiarities as means of satirising and +caricaturing mankind; and among the literature bequeathed to them by +the Romans, they received no book more eagerly than the "Fables of +sop," and the other collections of fables which were published under +the empire. We find no traces of fables among the original literature +of the German race; but the tribes who took possession of the Roman +provinces no sooner became acquainted with the fables of the ancients, +than they began to imitate them, and stories in which animals acted +the part of men were multiplied immensely, and became a very important +branch of medival fiction. + +Among the Teutonic peoples especially, these fables often assumed very +grotesque forms, and the satire they convey is very amusing. One of the +earliest of these collections of original fables was composed by an +English ecclesiastic named Odo de Cirington, who lived in the time of +Henry II. and Richard I. In Odo's fables, we find the animals figuring +under the same popular names by which they were afterwards so well +known, such as Reynard for the Fox, Isengrin for the wolf, Teburg for +the cat, and the like. Thus the subject of one of them is "Isengrin +made Monk" (_de Isengrino monacho_). "Once," we are told, "Isengrin +desired to be a monk. By dint of fervent supplications, he obtained +the consent of the chapter, and received the tonsure, the cowl, and +the other insignia of monachism. At length they put him to school, +and he was to learn the 'Paternoster,' but he always replied, 'lamb' +(_agnus_) or 'ram' (_aries_). The monks taught him that he ought to +look upon the crucifix and upon the sacrament, but he ever directed his +eyes to the lambs and rams." The fable is droll enough, but the moral, +or application is still more grotesque. "Such is the conduct of many +of the monks, whose only cry is 'aries,' that is, good wine, and who +have their eyes always fixed on fat flesh and their platter;" whence the +saying in English-- + + _They thou the vulf hore_ _Though thou the hoary wolf_ + _hod to preste,_ _consecrate to a priest,_ + _they thou him to skole sette_ _though thou put him to school_ + _salmes to lerne,_ _to learn Psalms,_ + _hevere bet hise geres_ _ever are his ears turned_ + _to the grove grene_. _to the green grove._ + +These lines are in the alliterative verse of the Anglo-Saxons, and +show that such fables had already found their place in the popular +poetry of the English people. Another of these fables is entitled "Of +the Beetle (_serabo_) and his Wife." "A beetle, flying through the +land, passed among most beautiful blooming trees, through orchards +and among roses and lilies, in the most lovely places, and at length +threw himself upon a dunghill among the dung of horses, and found there +his wife, who asked him whence he came. And the beetle said, 'I have +flown all round the earth and through it; I have seen the flowers of +almonds, and lilies, and roses, but I have seen no place so pleasant as +this,' pointing to the dunghill." The application is equally droll with +the former and equally uncomplimentary to the religious part of the +community. Odo de Cirington tells us that, "Thus many of the clergy, +monks, and laymen listen to the lives of the fathers, pass among the +lilies of the virgins, among the roses of the martyrs, and among the +violets of the confessors, yet nothing ever appears so pleasant and +agreeable as a strumpet, or the tavern, or a singing party, though it +is but a stinking dunghill and congregation of sinners." + + [Illustration: _No. 45. The Fox in the Pulpit._] + + [Illustration: _No. 46. Ecclesiastical Sincerity._] + + [Illustration: _No. 47. Reynard turned Monk._] + +Popular sculpture and painting were but the translation of popular +literature, and nothing was more common to represent, in pictures +and carvings, than individual men under the forms of the animals +who displayed similar characters or similar propensities. Cunning, +treachery, and intrigue were the prevailing vices of the middle ages, +and they were those also of the fox, who hence became a favourite +character in satire. The victory of craft over force always provoked +mirth. The fabulists, or, we should perhaps rather say, the satirists, +soon began to extend their canvas and enlarge their picture, and, +instead of single examples of fraud or injustice, they introduced +a variety of characters, not only foxes, but wolves, and sheep, +and bears, with birds also, as the eagle, the cock, and the crow, +and mixed them up together in long narratives, which thus formed +general satires on the vices of contemporary society. In this manner +originated the celebrated romance of "Reynard the Fox," which in +various forms, from the twelfth century to the eighteenth, has enjoyed +a popularity which was granted probably to no other book. The plot of +this remarkable satire turns chiefly on the long struggle between the +brute force of Isengrin the Wolf, possessed only with a small amount +of intelligence, which is easily deceived--under which character is +presented the powerful feudal baron--and the craftiness of Reynard +the Fox, who represents the intelligent portion of society, which had +to hold its ground by its wits, and these were continually abused to +evil purposes. Reynard is swayed by a constant impulse to deceive +and victimise everybody, whether friends or enemies, but especially +his uncle Isengrin. It was somewhat the relationship between the +ecclesiastical and baronial aristocracy. Reynard was educated in the +schools, and intended for the clerical order; and at different times +he is represented as acting under the disguise of a priest, of a monk, +of a pilgrim, or even of a prelate of the church. Though frequently +reduced to the greatest straits by the power of Isengrin, Reynard +has generally the better of it in the end: he robs and defrauds +Isengrin continually, outrages his wife, who is half in alliance +with him, and draws him into all sorts of dangers and sufferings, +for which the latter never succeeds in obtaining justice. The old +sculptors and artists appear to have preferred exhibiting Reynard in +his ecclesiastical disguises, and in these he appears often in the +ornamentation of medival architectural sculpture, in wood-carvings, +in the illuminations of manuscripts, and in other objects of art. The +popular feeling against the clergy was strong in the middle ages, and +no caricature was received with more favour than those which exposed +the immorality or dishonesty of a monk or a priest. Our cut No. 45 is +taken from a sculpture in the church of Christchurch, in Hampshire, for +the drawing of which I am indebted to my friend, Mr. Llewellynn Jewitt. +It represents Reynard in the pulpit preaching; behind, or rather +perhaps beside him, a diminutive cock stands upon a stool--in modern +times we should be inclined to say he was acting as clerk. Reynard's +costume consists merely of the ecclesiastical hood or cowl. Such +subjects are frequently found on the carved seats, or misereres, in the +stalls of the old cathedrals and collegiate churches. The painted glass +of the great window of the north cross-aisle of St. Martin's church in +Leicester, which was destroyed in the last century, represented the +fox, in the character of an ecclesiastic, preaching to a congregation +of geese, and addressing them in the words--_Testis est mihi Deus, +quam cupiam vos omnes visceribus meis_ (God is witness, how I desire +you all in my bowels), a parody on the words of the New Testament.[25] +Our cut No. 46 is taken from one of the misereres in the church of +St. Mary, at Beverley, in Yorkshire. Two foxes are represented in the +disguise of ecclesiastics, each furnished with a pastoral staff, and +they appear to be receiving instructions from a prelate or personage +of rank--perhaps they are undertaking a pilgrimage of penance. But +their sincerity is rendered somewhat doubtful by the geese concealed +in their hoods. In one of the incidents of the romance of Reynard, +the hero enters a monastery and becomes a monk, in order to escape the +wrath of King Noble, the lion. For some time he made an outward show of +sanctity and self-privation, but unknown to his brethren he secretly +helped himself freely to the good things of the monastery. One day he +observed, with longing lips, a messenger who brought four fat capons as +a present from a lay neighbour to the abbot. That night, when all the +monks had retired to rest, Reynard obtained admission to the larder, +regaled himself with one of the capons, and as soon as he had eaten it, +trussed the three others on his back, escaped secretly from the abbey, +and, throwing away his monastic garment, hurried home with his prey. We +might almost imagine our cut No. 47, taken from one of the stalls of +the church of Nantwich, in Cheshire, to have been intended to represent +this incident, or, at least, a similar one. Our next cut, No. 48, is +taken from a stall in the church of Boston, in Lincolnshire. A prelate, +equally false, is seated in his chair, with a mitre on his head, and +the pastoral staff in his right hand. His flock are represented by a +cock and hens, the former of which he holds securely with his right +hand, while he appears to be preaching to them. + + [25] An engraving of this scene, modernised in character, is given in + Nichols's "Leicestershire," vol. i. plate 43. + + [Illustration: _No. 48. The Prelate and his Flock._] + +Another medival sculpture has furnished events for a rather curious +history, at the same time that it is a good illustration of our +subject. Odo de Cirington, the fabulist, tells us how, one day, the +wolf died, and the lion called the animals together to celebrate his +exequies. The hare carried the holy water, hedgehogs bore the candles, +the goats rang the bells, the moles dug the grave, the foxes carried +the corpse on the bier. Berengarius, the bear, celebrated mass, the ox +read the gospel, and the ass the epistle. When the mass was concluded, +and Isengrin buried, the animals made a splendid feast out of his +goods, and wished for such another funeral. Our satirical ecclesiastic +makes an application of this story which tells little to the credit +of the monks of his time. "So it frequently happens," he says, "that +when some rich man, an extortionist or a usurer, dies, the abbot or +prior of a convent of beasts, _i.e._ of men living like beasts, causes +them to assemble. For it commonly happens that in a great convent of +black or white monks (Benedictines or Augustinians) there are none +but beasts--lions by their pride, foxes by their craftiness, bears by +their voracity, stinking goats by their incontinence, asses by their +sluggishness, hedgehogs by their asperity, hares by their timidity, +because they were cowardly where there was no fear, and oxen by their +laborious cultivation of their land."[26] + + [26] The Latin text of this and some others of the fables of Odo de + Cirington will be found in my "Selection of Latin Stories," pp. + 50-52, 55-58, and 80. + + [Illustration: _No. 49. The Funeral of the Fox._] + +A scene closely resembling that here described by Odo, differing only +in the distribution of the characters, was translated from some such +written story into the pictorial language of the ancient sculptured +ornamentation of Strasburg Cathedral, where it formed, apparently, +two sides of the capital or entablature of a column near the chancel. +The deceased in this picture appears to be a fox, which was probably +the animal intended to be represented in the original, although, in +the copy of it preserved, it looks more like a squirrel. The bier is +carried by the goat and the boar, while a little dog underneath is +taking liberties with the tail of the latter. Immediately before the +bier, the hare carries the lighted taper, preceded by the wolf, who +carries the cross, and the bear, who holds in one hand the holy-water +vessel and in the other the aspersoir. This forms the first division +of the subject, and is represented in our cut No. 49. In the next +division (cut No. 50), the stag is represented celebrating mass, and +the ass reads the Gospel from a book which the cat supports with its +head. + + [Illustration: _No. 50. The Mass for the Fox._] + +This curious sculpture is said to have been of the thirteenth century. +In the fifteenth century it attracted the attention of the reformers, +who looked upon it as an ancient protest against the corruptions of +the mass, and one of the more distinguished of them, John Fischart, +had it copied and engraved on wood, and published it about the year +1580, with some verses of his own, in which it was interpreted as a +satire upon the papacy. This publication gave such dire offence to the +ecclesiastical authorities of Strasburg, that the Lutheran bookseller +who had ventured to publish it, was compelled to make a public apology +in the church, and the wood-engraving and all the impressions were +seized and burnt by the common hangman. A few years later, however, in +1608, another engraving was made, and published in a large folio with +Fischart's verses; and it is from the diminished copy of this second +edition--given in Flgel's "Geschichte des Komisches Literatur"--that +our cuts are taken. The original Sculpture was still more unfortunate. +Its publication and explanation by Fischart was the cause of no little +scandal among the Catholics, who tried to retort upon their opponents +by asserting that the figures in this funeral celebration were intended +to represent the ignorance of the Protestant preachers; and the +sculpture in the church continued to be regarded by the ecclesiastical +authorities with dissatisfaction until the year 1685, when, to take +away all further ground of scandal, it was entirely defaced. + + [Illustration: _No. 51. The Fox Provided._] + +Reynard's medival celebrity dates certainly from a rather early +period. Montflaucon has given an alphabet of ornamental initial +letters, formed chiefly of figures of men and animals, from a +manuscript which he ascribes to the ninth century, among which is the +one copied in our cut No. 51, representing a fox walking upon his hind +legs, and carrying two small cocks, suspended at the ends of a cross +staff. It is hardly necessary to say that this group forms the letter +T. Long before this, the Frankish historian Fredegarius, who wrote +about the middle of the seventh century, introduces a fable in which +the fox figures at the court of the lion. The same fable is repeated +by a monkish writer of Bavaria, named Fromond, who flourished in the +tenth century, and by another named Aimoinus, who lived about the year +1,000. At length, in the twelfth century, Guibert de Nogent, who died +about the year 1124, and who has left us his autobiography (_de Vita +sua_), relates an anecdote in that work, in explanation of which he +tells us that the wolf was then popularly designated by the name of +Isengrin; and in the fables of Odo, as we have already seen, this name +is commonly given to the wolf, Reynard to the fox, Teburg to the cat, +and so on with the others. This only shows that in the fables of the +twelfth century the various animals were known by these names, but it +does not prove that what we know as the romance of Reynard existed. +Jacob Grimm argued from the derivation and forms of these names, that +the fables themselves, and the romance, originated with the Teutonic +peoples, and were indigenous to them; but his reasons appear to me to +be more specious than conclusive, and I certainly lean to the opinion +of my friend Paulin Paris, that the romance of Reynard was native of +France,[27] and that it was partly founded upon old Latin legends +perhaps poems. Its character is altogether feudal, and it is strictly +a picture of society, in France primarily, and secondly in England and +the other nations of feudalism, in the twelfth century. The earliest +form in which this romance is known is in the French poem--or rather +poems, for it consists of several branches or continuations--and is +supposed to date from about the middle of the twelfth century. It soon +became so popular, that it appeared in different forms in all the +languages of Western Europe, except in England, where there appears +to have existed no edition of the romance of Reynard the Fox until +Caxton printed his prose English version of the story. From that time +it became, if possible, more popular in England than elsewhere, and +that popularity had hardly diminished down to the commencement of the +present century. + + [27] See the dissertation by M. Paulin Paris, published in his nice + popular modern abridgment of the French romance, published in + 1861, under the title "Les Aventures de Matre Renart et + d'Ysengrin son compre." On the debated question of the origin + of the Romance, see the learned and able work by Jonckbloet, + 8vo., Groningue, 1863. + +The popularity of the story of Reynard caused it to be imitated in a +variety of shapes, and this form of satire, in which animals acted +the part of men, became altogether popular. In the latter part of the +twelfth century, an Anglo-Latin poet, named Nigellus Wireker, composed +a very severe satire in elegiac verse, under the title of _Speculum +Stultorum_, the "Mirror of Fools." It is not a wise animal like the +fox, but a simple animal, the ass, who, under the name of Brunellus, +passes among the various ranks and classes of society, and notes their +crimes and vices. A prose introduction to this poem informs us that its +hero is the representative of the monks in general, who were always +longing for some new acquisition which was inconsistent with their +profession. In fact, Brunellus is absorbed with the notion that his +tail was too short, and his great ambition is to get it lengthened. +For this purpose he consults a physician, who, after representing to +him in vain the folly of his pursuit, gives him a receipt to make +his tail grow longer, and sends him to the celebrated medical school +of Salerno to obtain the ingredients. After various adventures, in +the course of which he loses a part of his tail instead of its being +lengthened, Brunellus proceeds to the University of Paris to study and +obtain knowledge; and we are treated with a most amusingly satirical +account of the condition and manners of the scholars of that time. +Soon convinced of his incapacity for learning, Brunellus abandons the +university in despair, and he resolves to enter one of the monastic +orders, the character of all which he passes in review. The greater +part of the poem consists of a very bitter satire on the corruptions of +the monkish orders and of the Church in general. While still hesitating +which order to choose, Brunellus falls into the hands of his old +master, from whom he had run away in order to seek his fortune in the +world, and he is compelled to pass the rest of his days in the same +humble and servile condition in which he had begun them. + +A more direct imitation of "Reynard the Fox" is found in the early +French romance of "Fauvel," the hero of which is neither a fox nor +an ass, but a horse. People of all ranks and classes repair to the +court of Fauvel, the horse, and furnish abundant matter for satire +on the moral, political, and religious hypocrisy which pervaded the +whole frame of society. At length the hero resolves to marry, and, +in a finely illuminated manuscript of this romance, preserved in the +Imperial Library in Paris, this marriage furnishes the subject of a +picture, which gives the only representation I have met with of one of +the popular burlesque ceremonies which were so common in the middle +ages. + + [Illustration: _No. 52. A Medival Charivari._] + +Among other such ceremonies, it was customary with the populace, on the +occasion of a man's or woman's second marriage, or an ill-sorted match, +or on the espousals of people who were obnoxious to their neighbours, +to assemble outside the house, and greet them with discordant music. +This custom is said to have been practised especially in France, and +it was called a _charivari_. There is still a last remnant of it in +our country in the music of marrow-bones and cleavers, with which the +marriages of butchers are popularly celebrated; but the derivation +of the French name appears not to be known. It occurs in old Latin +documents, for it gave rise to such scandalous scenes of riot and +licentiousness, that the Church did all it could, though in vain, to +suppress it. The earliest mention of this custom, furnished in the +_Glossarium_ of Ducange, is contained in the synodal statutes of the +church of Avignon, passed in the year 1337, from which we learn that +when such marriages occurred, people forced their way into the houses +of the married couple, and carried away their goods, which they were +obliged to pay a ransom for before they were returned, and the money +thus raised was spent in getting up what is called in the statute +relating to it a _Chalvaricum_. It appears from this statute, that +the individuals who performed the _charivari_ accompanied the happy +couple to the church, and returned with them to their residence, +with coarse and indecent gestures and discordant music, and uttering +scurrilous and indecent abuse, and that they ended with feasting. +In the statutes of Meaux, in 1365, and in those of Hugh, bishop of +Beziers, in 1368, the same practice is forbidden, under the name of +_Charavallium_; and it is mentioned in a document of the year 1372, +also quoted by Ducange, under that of _Carivarium_, as then existing at +Nmes. Again, in 1445, the Council of Tours made a decree, forbidding, +under pain of excommunication, "the insolences, clamours, sounds, and +other tumults practised at second and third nuptials, called by the +vulgar a _Charivarium_, on account of the many and grave evils arising +out of them."[28] It will be observed that these early allusions to +the _charivari_ are found almost solely in documents coming from the +Roman towns in the south of France, so that this practice was probably +one of the many popular customs derived directly from the Romans. +When Cotgrave's "Dictionary" was published (that is, in 1632) the +practice of the _charivari_ appears to have become more general in its +existence, as well as its application; for he describes it as "a public +defamation, or traducing of; a foule noise made, blacke santus rung, +to the shame and disgrace of another; hence an infamous (or infaming) +ballad sung, by an armed troupe, under the window of an old dotard, +married the day before unto a yong wanton, in mockerie of them both." +And, again, a _charivaris de poelles_ is explained as "the carting of +an infamous person, graced with the harmonie of tinging kettles and +frying-pan musicke."[29] The word is now generally used in the sense +of a great tumult of discordant music, produced often by a number of +persons playing different tunes on different instruments at the same +time. + + [28] "Insultationes, clamores, sonos, et alios tumultus, in + secundis et tertiis quorundam nuptiis, quos charivarium vulgo + appellant, propter multa et gravia incommoda, prohibemus sub poena + excommunitationis."--Ducange, v. _Charivarium_. + + [29] Cotgrave's Dictionarie, v. _Charivaris_. + + [Illustration: _No. 53. Continuation of the Charivari._] + +As I have stated above, the manuscript of the romance of "Fauvel" is in +the Imperial Library in Paris. A copy of this illumination is engraved +in Jaime's "Muse de la Caricature," from which our cuts Nos. 52 and 53 +are taken. It is divided into three compartments, one above another, +in the uppermost of which Fauvel is seen entering the nuptial chamber +to his young wife, who is already in bed. The scene in the compartment +below, which is copied in our cut No. 52, represents the street +outside, and the mock revellers performing the _charivari_; and this is +continued in the third, or lowest, compartment, which is represented +in our cut No. 53. Down each side of the original illumination is a +frame-work of windows, from which people, who have been disturbed by +the noise, are looking out upon the tumult. It will be seen that all +the performers wear masks, and that they are dressed in burlesque +costume. In confirmation of the statement of the ecclesiastical synods +as to the licentiousness of these exhibitions, we see one of the +performers here disguised as a woman, who lifts up his dress to expose +his person while dancing. The musical instruments are no less grotesque +than the costumes, for they consist chiefly of kitchen utensils, such +as frying-pans, mortars, saucepans, and the like. + + [Illustration: _No. 54. The Tables Turned._] + +There was another series of subjects in which animals were introduced +as the instruments of satire. This satire consisted in reverting +the position of man with regard to the animals over which he had +been accustomed to tyrannise, so that he was subjected to the same +treatment from the animals which, in his actual position, he uses +towards them. This change of relative position was called in old French +and Anglo-Norman, _le monde bestorn_, which was equivalent to the +English phrase, "the world turned upside down." It forms the subject +of rather old verses, I believe, both in French and English, and +individual scenes from it are met with in pictorial representation at +a rather early date. During the year 1862, in the course of accidental +excavations on the site of the Friary, at Derby, a number of encaustic +tiles, such as were used for the floors of the interiors of churches +and large buildings, were found.[30] The ornamentation of these tiles, +especially of the earlier ones, is, like all medival ornamentations, +extremely varied, and even these tiles sometimes present subjects of +a burlesque and satirical character, though they are more frequently +adorned with the arms and badges of benefactors to the church or +convent. The tiles found on the site of the priory at Derby are +believed to be of the thirteenth century, and one pattern, a diminished +copy of which is given in our cut No. 54, presents a subject taken +from the _monde bestorn_. The hare, master of his old enemy, the +dog, has become hunter himself, and seated upon the dog's back he +rides vigorously to the chace, blowing his horn as he goes. The design +is spiritedly executed, and its satirical intention is shown by the +monstrous and mirthful face, with the tongue lolling out, figured on +the outer corner of the tile. It will be seen that four of these tiles +are intended to be joined together to make the complete piece. In an +illumination in a manuscript of the fourteenth century in the British +Museum (MS. Reg. 10 E iv.), the hares are taking a still more severe +vengeance on their old enemy. The dog has been caught, brought to trial +for his numerous murders, and condemned, and they are represented here +(cut No. 55) conducting him in the criminal's cart to the gallows. Our +cut No. 56, the subject of which is furnished by one of the carved +stalls in Sherborne Minster (it is here copied from the engraving +in Carter's "Specimens of Ancient Sculpture"), represents another +execution scene, similar in spirit to the former. The geese have seized +their old enemy, Reynard, and are hanging him on a gallows, while two +monks, who attend the execution, appear to be amused at the energetic +manner in which the geese perform their task. Mr. Jewitt mentions two +other subjects belonging to this series, one of them taken from an +illuminated manuscript; they are, the mouse chasing the cat, and the +horse driving the cart--the former human carter in this case taking the +place of the horse between the shafts. + + [30] Mr. Llewellynn Jewitt, in his excellent publication, the + _Reliquary_, for October, 1862, has given an interesting paper on + the encaustic tiles found on this occasion, and on the conventual + house to which they belonged. + + [Illustration: _No. 55. Justice in the Hands of the Persecuted._] + + [Illustration: _No. 56. Reynard brought to Account at Last._] + +"The World turned upside down; or, the Folly of Man," has continued +amongst us to be a popular chap-book and child's book till within a +very few years, and I have now a copy before me printed in London +about the year 1790. It consists of a series of rude woodcuts, with a +few doggrel verses under each. One of these, entitled "The Ox turned +Farmer," represents two men drawing the plough, driven by an ox. In the +next, a rabbit is seen turning the spit on which a man is roasting, +while a cock holds a ladle and bastes. In a third, we see a tournament, +in which the horses are armed and ride upon the men. Another represents +the ox killing the butcher. In others we have birds netting men and +women; the ass, turned miller, employing the man-miller to carry his +sacks; the horse turned groom, and currying the man; and the fishes +angling for men and catching them. + +In a cleverly sculptured ornament in Beverley Minster, represented +in our cut No. 57, the goose herself is represented in a grotesque +situation, which might almost give her a place in "The World turned +upside down," although it is a mere burlesque, without any apparent +satirical aim. The goose has here taken the place of the horse at the +blacksmith's, who is vigorously nailing the shoe on her webbed foot. + + [Illustration: _No. 57. Shoeing the Goose._] + + [Illustration: _No. 58. Food for Swine._] + +Burlesque subjects of this description are not uncommon, especially +among architectural sculpture and wood-carving, and, at a rather +later period, on all ornamental objects. The field for such subjects +was so extensive, that the artist had an almost unlimited choice, +and therefore his subjects might be almost infinitely varied, though +we usually find them running on particular classes. The old popular +proverbs, for instance, furnished a fruitful source for drollery, and +are at times delineated in an amusingly literal or practical manner. +Pictorial proverbs and popular sayings are sometimes met with on the +carved misereres. For example, in one of those at Rouen, in Normandy, +represented in our cut No. 58, the carver has intended to represent +the idea of the old saying, in allusion to misplaced bounty, of +throwing pearls to swine, and has given it a much more picturesque and +pictorially intelligible form, by introducing a rather dashing female +feeding her swine with roses, or rather offering them roses for food, +for the swine display no eagerness to feed upon them. + + [Illustration: _No. 59. The Industrious Sow._] + +We meet with such subjects as these scattered over all medival +works of art, and at a somewhat later period they were transferred +to other objects, such as the signs of houses. The custom of placing +signs over the doors of shops and taverns, was well known to the +ancients, as is abundantly manifested by their frequent occurrence +in the ruins of Pompeii; but in the middle ages, the use of signs +and badges was universal, and as--contrary to the apparent practice +in Pompeii, where certain badges were appropriated to certain trades +and professions--every individual was free to choose his own sign, +the variety was unlimited. Many still had reference, no doubt, to the +particular calling of those to whom they belonged, while others were of +a religious character, and indicated the saint under whose protection +the householder had placed himself. Some people took animals for their +signs, others monstrous or burlesque figures; and, in fact, there were +hardly any of the subjects of caricature or burlesque familiar to +the medival sculptor and illuminator which did not from time to time +appear on these popular signs. A few of the old signs still preserved, +especially in the quaint old towns of France, Germany, and the +Netherlands, show us how frequently they were made the instruments of +popular satire. A sign not uncommon in France was _La Truie qui file_ +(the sow spinning). Our cut No. 59 represents this subject as treated +on an old sign, a carving in bas-relief of the sixteenth century, on +a house in the Rue du March-aux-Poires, in Rouen. The sow appears +here in the character of the industrious housewife, employing herself +in spinning at the same time that she is attending to the wants of her +children. There is a singularly satirical sign at Beauvais, on a house +which was formerly occupied by an _picier-moutardier_, or grocer who +made mustard, in the Rue du Chtel. In front of this sign, which is +represented in our cut No. 60, appears a large mustard-mill, on one +side of which stands Folly with a staff in her hand, with which she +is stirring the mustard, while an ape with a sort of sardonic grin, +throws in a seasoning, which may be conjectured by his posture.[31] The +trade-mark of the individual who adopted this strange device, is carved +below. + + [31] See an interesting little book on this subject by M. Ed. de + la Qurire, entitled "Recherches sur les Enseignes des Maisons + Particulires," 8vo., Rouen, 1852, from which both the above + examples are taken. + + [Illustration: _No. 60. Adulteration._] + + + + + CHAPTER VI. + + THE MONKEY IN BURLESQUE AND CARICATURE.--TOURNAMENTS AND SINGLE + COMBATS.--MONSTROUS COMBINATIONS OF ANIMAL FORMS.--CARICATURES ON + COSTUME.--THE HAT.--THE HELMET.--LADIES' HEAD-DRESSES.--THE GOWN, + AND ITS LONG SLEEVES. + + +The fox, the wolf, and their companions, were introduced as instruments +of satire, on account of their peculiar characters; but there were +other animals which were also favourites with the satirist, because +they displayed an innate inclination to imitate; they formed, as it +were, natural parodies upon mankind. I need hardly say that of these +the principal and most remarkable was the monkey. This animal must +have been known to our Anglo-Saxon forefathers from a remote period, +for they had a word for it in their own language--_apa_, our _ape_. +Monkey is a more modern name, and seems to be equivalent with maniken, +or a little man. The earliest _Bestiaries_, or popular treatises on +natural history, give anecdotes illustrative of the aptness of this +animal for imitating the actions of men, and ascribe to it a degree of +understanding which would almost raise it above the level of the brute +creation. Philip de Thaun, an Anglo-Norman poet of the reign of Henry +I., in his _Bestiary_, tells us that "the monkey, by imitation, as +books say, counterfeits what it sees, and mocks people:"-- + + _Li singe par figure, si cum dit escripture, + Ceo que il vait contrefait, de gent escar hait._[32] + +He goes on to inform us, as a proof of the extraordinary instinct of +this animal, that it has more affection for some of its cubs than for +others, and that, when running away, it carried those which it liked +before it, and those it disliked behind its back. The sketch from the +illuminated manuscript of the Romance of the Comte d'Artois, of the +fifteenth century, which forms our cut No. 61, represents the monkey, +carrying, of course, its favourite child before it in its flight, and +what is more, it is taking that flight mounted on a donkey. A monkey on +horseback appears not to have been a novelty, as we shall see in the +sequel. + + [32] See my "Popular Treatises on Science written during the Middle + Ages," p. 107. + + [Illustration: _No. 61. A Monkey Mounted._] + +Alexander Neckam, a very celebrated English scholar of the latter part +of the twelfth century, and one of the most interesting of the early +medival writers on natural history, gives us many anecdotes, which +show us how much attached our medival forefathers were to domesticated +animals, and how common a practice it was to keep them in their houses. +The baronial castle appears often to have presented the appearance +of a menagerie of animals, among which some were of that strong and +ferocious character that rendered it necessary to keep them in close +confinement, while others, such as monkeys, roamed about the buildings +at will. One of Neckam's stories is very curious in regard to our +subject, for it shows that the people in those days exercised their +tamed animals in practically caricaturing contemporary weaknesses and +fashions. This writer remarks that "the nature of the ape is so ready +at acting, by ridiculous gesticulations, the representations of things +it has seen, and thus gratifying the vain curiosity of worldly men +in public exhibitions, that it will even dare to imitate a military +conflict. A jougleur (_histrio_) was in the habit of constantly taking +two monkeys to the military exercises which are commonly called +tournaments, that the labour of teaching might be diminished by +frequent inspection. He afterwards taught two dogs to carry these apes, +who sat on their backs, furnished with proper arms. Nor did they want +spurs, with which they strenuously urged on the dogs. Having broken +their lances, they drew out their swords, with which they spent many +blows on each other's shields. Who at this sight could refrain from +laughter?"[33] + + [33] Alexander Neckam, De Naturis Rerum, lib. ii. c. 129. + + [Illustration: _No. 62. A Tournament._] + +Such contemporary caricatures of the medival tournament, which was +in its greatest fashion during the period from the twelfth to the +fourteenth century, appear to have been extremely popular, and are not +unfrequently represented in the borders of illuminated manuscripts. +The manuscript now so well known as "Queen Mary's Psalter" (MS. Reg. +2 B vii.), and written and illuminated very early in the fourteenth +century, contains not a few illustrations of this description. One of +these, which forms our cut No. 62, represents a tournament not much +unlike that described by Alexander Neckam, except that the monkeys +are here riding upon other monkeys, and not upon dogs. In fact, all +the individuals here engaged are monkeys, and the parody is completed +by the introduction of the trumpeter on one side, and of minstrelsy, +represented by a monkey playing on the tabor, on the other; or, +perhaps, the two monkeys are simply playing on the pipe and tabor, +which were looked upon as the lowest description of minstrelsy, and are +therefore the more aptly introduced into the scene. + +The same manuscript has furnished us with the cut No. 63. Here the +combat takes place between a monkey and a stag, the latter having +the claws of a griffin. They are mounted, too, on rather nondescript +animals--one having the head and body of a lion, with the forefeet +of an eagle; the other having a head somewhat like that of a lion, +on a lion's body, with the hind parts of a bear. This subject may, +perhaps, be intended as a burlesque on the medival romances, filled +with combats between the Christians and the Saracens; for the ape--who, +in the moralisations which accompany the _Bestiaries_, is said to +represent the devil--is here armed with what are evidently intended for +the sabre and shield of a Saracen, while the flag carries the shield +and lance of a Christian knight. + + [Illustration: _No. 63. A Feat of Arms._] + +The love of the medival artists for monstrous figures of animals, +and for mixtures of animals and men, has been alluded to in a former +chapter. The combatants in the accompanying cut (No. 64), taken from +the same manuscript, present a sort of combination of the rider and +the animal, and they again seem to be intended for a Saracen and a +Christian. The figure to the right, which is composed of the body of +a satyr, with the feet of a goose and the wings of a dragon, is armed +with a similar Saracenic sabre; while that to the left, which is on +the whole less monstrous, wields a Norman sword. Both have human faces +below the navel as well as above, which was a favourite idea in the +grotesque of the middle ages. Our medival forefathers appear to +have had a decided taste for monstrosities of every description, and +especially for mixtures of different kinds of animals, and of animals +and men. There is no doubt, to judge by the anecdotes recorded by such +writers as Giraldus Cambrensis, that a belief in the existence of such +unnatural creatures was widely entertained. In his account of Ireland, +this writer tells us of animals which were half ox and half man, half +stag and half cow, and half dog and half monkey.[34] It is certain that +there was a general belief in such animals, and nobody could be more +credulous than Giraldus himself. + + [34] See Girald. Cambr., Topog. Hiberni, dist. ii. cc. 21, 22; and the + Itinerary of Wales, lib. ii. c. 11. + + [Illustration: _No. 64. A Terrible Combat._] + + [Illustration: _No. 65. Fashionable Dress._] + +The design to caricature, which is tolerably evident in the subjects +just given, is still more apparent in other grotesques that adorn +the borders of the medival manuscripts, as well as in some of the +medival carvings and sculpture. Thus, in our cut No. 65, taken from +one of the borders in the Romance of the Comte d'Artois, a manuscript +of the fifteenth century, we cannot fail to recognise an attempt at +turning to ridicule the contemporary fashions in dress. The hat is +only an exaggerated form of one which appears to have been commonly +used in France in the latter half of the fifteenth century, and which +appears frequently in illuminated manuscripts executed in Burgundy; +and the boot also belongs to the same period. The latter reappeared at +different times, until at length it became developed into the modern +top-boots. In cut No. 66, from the same manuscript, where it forms the +letter T, we have the same form of hat, still more exaggerated, and +combined at the same time with grotesque faces. + + [Illustration: _No. 66. Heads and Hats._] + +Caricatures on costume are by no means uncommon among the artistic +remains of the middle ages, and are not confined to illuminated +manuscripts. The fashionable dresses of those days went into far more +ridiculous excesses of shape than anything we see in our times--at +least, so far as we can believe the drawings in the manuscripts; +but these, however seriously intended, were constantly degenerating +into caricature, from circumstances which are easily explained, and +which have, in fact, been explained already in their influence on +other parts of our subject. The medival artists in general were not +very good delineators of form, and their outlines are much inferior +to their finish. Conscious of this, though perhaps unknowingly, +they sought to remedy the defect in a spirit which has always been +adopted in the early stages of art-progress--they aimed at making +themselves understood by giving a special prominence to the peculiar +characteristics of the objects they wished to represent. These were +the points which naturally attracted people's first attention, and +the resemblance was felt most by people in general when these points +were put forward in excessive prominence in the picture. The dresses, +perhaps, hardly existed in the exact forms in which we see them in +the illuminations, or at least those were only exceptions to the +generally more moderate forms; and hence, in using these pictorial +records as materials for the history of costume, we ought to make a +certain allowance for exaggeration--we ought, indeed, to treat them +almost as caricatures. In fact, much of what we now call caricature, +was then characteristic of serious art, and of what was considered its +high development. Many of the attempts which have been made of late +years to introduce ancient costume on the stage, would probably be +regarded by the people who lived in the age which they were intended to +represent, as a mere design to turn them into ridicule. Nevertheless, +the fashions in dress were, especially from the twelfth century to the +sixteenth, carried to a great degree of extravagance, and were not only +the objects of satire and caricature, but drew forth the indignant +declamations of the Church, and furnished a continuous theme to the +preachers. The contemporary chronicles abound with bitter reflections +on the extravagance in costume, which was considered as one of the +outward signs of the great corruption of particular periods; and they +give us not unfrequent examples of the coarse manner in which the +clergy discussed them in their sermons. The readers of Chaucer will +remember the manner in which this subject is treated in the "Parson's +Tale." In this respect the satirists of the Church went hand in hand +with the pictorial caricaturists of the illuminated manuscripts, +and of the sculptures with which we sometimes meet in contemporary +architectural ornamentation. In the latter, this class of caricature is +perhaps less frequent, but it is sometimes very expressive. The very +curious _misereres_ in the church of Ludlow, in Shropshire, present the +caricature reproduced in our cut No. 67. It represents an ugly, and, to +judge by the expression of the countenance, an ill-tempered old woman, +wearing the fashionable head-dress of the earlier half of the fifteenth +century, which seems to have been carried to its greatest extravagance +in the beginning of the reign of Henry VI. It is the style of coiffure +known especially as the horned head-dress, and the very name carries +with it a sort of relationship to an individual who was notoriously +horned--the spirit of evil. This dashing dame of the olden time appears +to have struck terror into two unfortunates who have fallen within +her influence, one of whom, as though he took her for a new Gorgon, +is attempting to cover himself with his buckler, while the other, +apprehending danger of another kind, is prepared to defend himself with +his sword. The details of the head-dress in this figure are interesting +for the history of costume. + + [Illustration: _No. 67. A Fashionable Beauty._] + + [Illustration: _No. 68. A Man of War._] + +Our next cut, No. 68, is taken from a manuscript in private possession, +which is now rather well known among antiquaries by the name of the +"Luttrell Psalter," and which belongs to the fourteenth century. It +seems to involve a satire on the aristocratic order of society--on the +knight who was distinguished by his helmet, his shield, and his armour. +The individual here represented presents a type which is anything +but aristocratic. While he holds a helmet in his hand to show the +meaning of the satire, his own helmet, which he wears on his head, is +simply a bellows. He may be a knight of the kitchen, or perhaps a mere +_quistron_, or kitchen lad. + + [Illustration: _No. 69. A Lady's Head-dress._] + +We have just seen a caricature of one of the ladies' head-dresses of +the earlier half of the fifteenth century, and our cut No. 69, from +an illuminated manuscript in the British Museum of the latter half of +the same century (MS. Harl., No. 4379), furnishes us with a caricature +of a head-dress of a different character, which came into fashion in +the reign of our Edward IV. The horned head-dress of the previous +generation had been entirely laid aside, and the ladies adopted in its +place a sort of steeple-shaped head-dress, or rather of the form of a +spire, made by rolling a piece of linen into the form of a long cone. +Over this lofty cap was thrown a piece of fine lawn or muslin, which +descended almost to the ground, and formed, as it were, two wings. A +short transparent veil was thrown over the face, and reached not quite +to the chin, resembling rather closely the veils in use among our +ladies of the present day (1864). The whole head-dress, indeed, has +been preserved by the Norman peasantry; for it may be observed that, +during the feudal ages, the fashions in France and England were always +identical. These steeple head-dresses greatly provoked the indignation +of the clergy, and zealous preachers attacked them roughly in their +sermons. A French monk, named Thomas Conecte, distinguished himself +especially in this crusade, and inveighed against the head-dress with +such effect, that we are assured that many of the women threw down +their head-dresses in the middle of the sermon, and made a bonfire +of them at its conclusion. The zeal of the preacher soon extended +itself to the populace, and, for a while, when ladies appeared in this +head-dress in public, they were exposed to be pelted by the rabble. +Under such a double persecution it disappeared for a moment, but when +the preacher was no longer present, it returned again, and, to use the +words of the old writer who has preserved this anecdote, "the women +who, like snails in a fright, had drawn in their horns, shot them out +again as soon as the danger was over." The caricaturist would hardly +overlook so extravagant a fashion, and accordingly the manuscript in +the British Museum, just mentioned, furnishes us with the subject of +our cut No. 69. In those times, when the passions were subjected to no +restraint, the fine ladies indulged in such luxury and licentiousness, +that the caricaturist has chosen as their fit representative a sow, who +wears the objectionable head-dress in full fashion. The original forms +one of the illustrations of a copy of the historian Froissart, and was, +therefore, executed in France, or, more probably, in Burgundy. + +The sermons and satires against extravagance in costume began at +an early period. The Anglo-Norman ladies, in the earlier part of +the twelfth century, first brought in vogue in our island this +extravagance in fashion, which quickly fell under the lash of satirist +and caricaturist. It was first exhibited in the robes rather than +in the head-dress. These Anglo-Norman ladies are understood to have +first introduced stays, in order to give an artificial appearance of +slenderness to their waists; but the greatest extravagance appeared in +the forms of their sleeves. The robe, or gown, instead of being loose, +as among the Anglo-Saxons, was laced close round the body, and the +sleeves, which fitted the arm tightly till they reached the elbows, +or sometimes nearly to the wrist, then suddenly became larger, and +hung down to an extravagant length, often trailing on the ground, and +sometimes shortened by means of a knot. The gown, also, was itself +worn very long. The clergy preached against these extravagances in +fashion, and at times, it is said, with effect; and they fell under +the vigorous lash of the satirist. In a class of satires which became +extremely popular in the twelfth century, and which produced in the +thirteenth the immortal poem of Dante--the visions of purgatory and of +hell--these contemporary extravagances in fashion are held up to public +detestation, and are made the subject of severe punishment. They were +looked upon as among the outward forms of pride. It arose, no doubt, +from this taste--from the darker shade which spread over men's minds in +the twelfth century--that demons, instead of animals, were introduced +to personify the evil-doers of the time. Such is the figure (cut No. +70) which we take from a very interesting manuscript in the British +Museum (MS. Cotton. Nero, C iv.). The demon is here dressed in the +fashionable gown with its long sleeves, of which one appears to have +been usually much longer than the other. Both the gown and sleeve are +shortened by means of knots, while the former is brought close round +the waist by tight lacing. It is a picture of the use of stays made at +the time of their first introduction. + + [Illustration: _No. 70. Sin in Satins._] + +This superfluity of length in the different parts of the dress was a +subject of complaint and satire at various and very distant periods, +and contemporary illuminations of a perfectly serious character show +that these complaints were not without foundation. + + + + + CHAPTER VII. + + PRESERVATION OF THE CHARACTER OF THE MIMUS AFTER THE FALL OF + THE EMPIRE.--THE MINSTREL AND JOGELOUR.--HISTORY OF POPULAR + STORIES.--THE FABLIAUX.--ACCOUNT OF THEM.--THE CONTES DEVOTS. + + +I have already remarked that, upon the fall of the Roman empire, the +popular institutions of the Romans were more generally preserved to +the middle ages than those of a higher and more refined character. +This is understood without difficulty, when we consider that the lower +class of the population--in the towns, what we might perhaps call the +lower and middle classes--continued to exist much the same as before, +while the barbarian conquerors came in and took the place of the ruling +classes. The drama, which had never much hold upon the love of the +Roman populace, was lost, and the theatres and the amphitheatres, which +had been supported only by the wealth of the imperial court and of +the ruling class, were abandoned and fell into ruin; but the _mimus_, +who furnished mirth to the people, continued to exist, and probably +underwent no immediate change in his character. It will be well to +state again the chief characteristics of the ancient _mimus_, before we +proceed to describe his medival representative. + +The grand aim of the _mimus_ was to make people laugh, and he employed +generally every means he knew of for effecting this purpose, by +language, by gestures or motions of the body, or by dress. Thus he +carried, strapped over his loins, a wooden sword, which was called +_gladius histricus_ and _clunaculum_, and wore sometimes a garment +made of a great number of small pieces of cloth of different colours, +which was hence called _centunculus_, or the hundred-patched dress.[35] +These two characteristics have been preserved in the modern harlequin. +Other peculiarities of costume may conveniently be left undescribed; +the female mim sometimes exhibited themselves unrestricted by dress. +They danced and sung; repeated jokes and told merry stories; recited +or acted farces and scandalous anecdotes; performed what we now call +mimicry, a word derived from the name of mimus; and they put themselves +in strange postures, and made frightful faces. They sometimes acted +the part of a fool or zany (_morio_), or of a madman. They added to +these performances that of the conjurer or juggler (_prstigiator_), +and played tricks of sleight of hand. The mimi performed in the streets +and public places, or in the theatres, and especially at festivals, and +they were often employed at private parties, to entertain the guests at +a supper. + + [35] "Uti me consuesse tragoedi syrmate, histrionis crotalone ad + trieterica orgia, aut mimi centunculo."--Apuleius, Apolog. + +We trace the existence of this class of performers during the earlier +period of the middle ages by the expressions of hostility towards +them used from time to time by the ecclesiastical writers, and the +denunciations of synods and councils, which have been quoted in a +former chapter.[36] Nevertheless, it is evident from many allusions +to them, that they found their way into the monastic houses, and were +in great favour not only among the monks, but among the nuns also; +that they were introduced into the religious festivals; and that they +were tolerated even in the churches. It is probable that they long +continued to be known in Italy and the countries near the centre +of Roman influence, and where the Latin language was continued, by +their old name of _mimus_. The writers of the medival vocabularies +appear all to have been much better acquainted with the meaning of +this word than of most of the Latin words of the same class, and they +evidently had a class of performers existing in their own times to whom +they considered that the name applied. The Anglo-Saxon vocabularies +interpret the Latin _mimus_ by _glig-mon_, a gleeman. In Anglo-Saxon, +_glig_ or _gliu_ meant mirth and game of every description, and as the +Anglo-Saxon teachers who compiled the vocabularies give, as synonyms +of _mimus_, the words _scurra_, _jocista_, and _pantomimus_, it is +evident that all these were included in the character of the gleeman, +and that the latter was quite identical with his Roman type. It was +the Roman _mimus_ introduced into Saxon England. We have no traces of +the existence of such a class of performers among the Teutonic race +before they became acquainted with the civilisation of imperial Rome. +We know from drawings in contemporary illuminated manuscripts that the +performances of the gleeman did include music, singing, and dancing, +and also the tricks of mountebanks and jugglers, such as throwing up +and catching knives and balls, and performing with tamed bears, &c.[37] + + [36] See before, p. 41 of the present volume. + + [37] See examples of these illuminations in my "History of Domestic + Manners and Sentiments," pp. 34, 35, 37, 65. + +But even among the peoples who preserved the Latin language, the word +_mimus_ was gradually exchanged for others employed to signify the +same thing. The word _jocus_ had been used in the signification of a +jest, playfulness, _jocari_ signified to jest, and _joculator_ was a +word for a jester; but, in the debasement of the language, _jocus_ +was taken in the signification of everything which created mirth. It +became, in the course of time the French word _jeu_, and the Italian +_gioco_, or _giuoco_. People introduced a form of the verb, _jocare_, +which became the French _juer_, to play or perform. _Joculator_ was +then used in the sense of _mimus_. In French the word became _joglor_, +or _jouglor_, and in its later form _jougleur_. I may remark that, in +medival manuscripts, it is almost impossible to distinguish between +the _u_ and the _n_, and that modern writers have misread this last +word as _jongleur_, and thus introduced into the language a word which +never existed, and which ought to be abandoned. In old English, as we +see in Chaucer, the usual form was _jogelere_. The medival joculator, +or jougleur, embraced all the attributes of the Roman _mimus_,[38] and +perhaps more. In the first place he was very often a poet himself, and +composed the pieces which it was one of his duties to sing or recite. +These were chiefly songs, or stories, the latter usually told in verse, +and so many of them are preserved in manuscripts that they form a very +numerous and important class of medival literature. The songs were +commonly satirical and abusive, and they were made use of for purposes +of general or personal vituperation. Out of them, indeed, grew the +political songs of a later period. There were female jougleurs, and +both sexes danced, and, to create mirth among those who encouraged +them, they practised a variety of performances, such as mimicking +people, making wry and ugly faces, distorting their bodies into strange +postures, often exposing their persons in a very unbecoming manner, and +performing many vulgar and indecent acts, which it is not necessary to +describe more particularly. They carried about with them for exhibition +tame bears, monkeys, and other animals, taught to perform the actions +of men. As early as the thirteenth century, we find them including +among their other accomplishments that of dancing upon the tight-rope. +Finally, the jougleurs performed tricks of sleight of hand, and were +often conjurers and magicians. As, in modern times, the jougleurs of +the middle ages gradually passed away, sleight of hand appears to have +become their principal accomplishment, and the name only was left in +the modern word _juggler_. The jougleurs of the middle ages, like +the mimi of antiquity, wandered about from place to place, and often +from country to country, sometimes singly and at others in companies, +exhibited their performances in the roads and streets, repaired to all +great festivals, and were employed especially in the baronial hall, +where, by their songs, stories, and other performances, they created +mirth after dinner. + +[38] People in the middle ages were so fully conscious of the identity +of the medival jougleur with the Roman mimus, that the Latin writers +often use mimus to signify a jougleur, and the one is interpreted by +the others in the vocabularies. Thus, in Latin-English vocabularies of +the fifteenth century, we have-- + + _Hic joculator_, } + } _Anglice_ jogulour. + _Hic mimus_, } + +This class of society had become known by another name, the origin of +which is not so easily explained. The primary meaning of the Latin word +_minister_ was a servant, one who ministers to another, either in his +wants or in his pleasures and amusements. It was applied particularly +to the cup-bearer. In low Latinity, a diminutive of this word was +formed, _minestellus_, or _ministrellus_, a petty servant, or minister. +When we first meet with this word, which is not at a very early date, +it is used as perfectly synonymous with _joculator_, and, as the +word is certainly of Latin derivation, it is clear that it was from +it the middle ages derived the French word _menestrel_ (the modern +_mntrier_), and the English _minstrel_. The mimi or jougleurs were +perhaps considered as the petty ministers to the amusements of their +lord, or of him who for the time employed them. Until the close of the +middle ages, the minstrel and the jougleur were absolutely identical. +Possibly the former may have been considered the more courtly of the +two names. But in England, as the middle ages disappeared, and lost +their influence on society sooner than in France, the word minstrel +remained attached only to the musical part of the functions of the old +mimus, while, as just observed, the juggler took the sleight of hand +and the mountebank tricks. In modern French, except where employed +technically by the antiquary, the word _mntrier_ means a fiddler. + +The jougleurs, or minstrels, formed a very numerous and important, +though a low and despised, class of medival society. The dulness of +every-day life in a feudal castle or mansion required something more +than ordinary excitement in the way of amusement, and the old family +bard, who continually repeated to the Teutonic chief the praises of +himself and his ancestors, was soon felt to be a wearisome companion. +The medival knights and their ladies wanted to laugh, and to make +them laugh sufficiently it required that the jokes, or tales, or comic +performances, should be broad, coarse, and racy, with a good spicing of +violence and of the wonderful. Hence the jougleur was always welcome +to the feudal mansion, and he seldom went away dissatisfied. But the +subject of the present chapter is rather the literature of the jougleur +than his personal history, and, having traced his origin to the Roman +mimus, we will now proceed to one class of his performances. + +It has been stated that the mimus and the jougleurs told stories. +Of those of the former, unfortunately, none are preserved, except, +perhaps, in a few anecdotes scattered in the pages of such writers as +Apuleius and Lucian, and we are obliged to guess at their character, +but of the stories of the jougleurs a considerable number has been +preserved. It becomes an interesting question how far these stories +have been derived from the mimi, handed down traditionally from mimus +to jougleur, how far they are native in our race, or how far they were +derived at a later date from other sources. And in considering this +question, we must not forget that the medival jougleurs were not the +only representatives of the mimi, for among the Arabs of the East also +there had originated from them, modified under different circumstances, +a very important class of minstrels and story-tellers, and with these +the jougleurs of the west were brought into communication at the +commencement of the crusades. There can be no doubt that a very large +number of the stories of the jougleurs were borrowed from the East, for +the evidence is furnished by the stories themselves; and there can be +little doubt also that the jougleurs improved themselves, and underwent +some modification, by their intercourse with Eastern performers of the +same class. + +On the other hand, we have traces of the existence of these popular +stories before the jougleurs can have had communication with the East. +Thus, as already mentioned, we find, composed in Germany, apparently +in the tenth century, in rhythmical Latin, the well-known story of the +wife of a merchant who bore a child during the long absence of her +husband, and who excused herself by stating that her pregnancy had been +the result of swallowing a flake of snow in a snow-storm. This, and +another of the same kind, were evidently intended to be sung. Another +poem in popular Latin verse, which Grimm and Schmeller, who edited +it,[39] believe may be of the eleventh century, relates a very amusing +story of an adventurer named Unibos, who, continually caught in his own +snares, finishes by getting the better of all his enemies, and becoming +rich, by mere ingenious cunning and good fortune. This story is not +met with among those of the jougleurs, as far as they are yet known, +but, curiously enough, Lover found it existing orally among the Irish +peasantry, and inserted the Irish story among his "Legends of Ireland." +It is a curious illustration of the pertinacity with which the popular +stories descend along with peoples through generations from the +remotest ages of antiquity. The same story is found in an oriental form +among the tales of the Tartars published in French by Guenlette. + + [39] In a volume entitled "Lateinische Gedichte des x. und xi. Jh." + 8vo. Gttingen, 1838. + +The people of the middle ages, who took their word _fable_ from the +Latin _fabula_, which they appear to have understood as a mere term for +any short narration, included under it the stories told by the mimi and +jougleurs; but, in the fondness of the middle ages for diminutives, by +which they intended to express familiarity and attachment, applied to +them more particularly the Latin _fabella_, which in the old French +became _fablel_, or, more usually, _fabliau_. The fabliaux of the +jougleurs form a most important class of the comic literature of the +middle ages. They must have been wonderfully numerous, for a very large +quantity of them still remain, and these are only the small portion of +what once existed, which have escaped perishing like the others by the +accident of being written in manuscripts which have had the fortune to +survive; while manuscripts containing others have no doubt perished, +and it is probable that many were only preserved orally, and never +written down at all.[40] The recital of these fabliaux appears to have +been the favourite employment of the jougleurs, and they became so +popular that the medival preachers turned them into short stories in +Latin prose, and made use of them as illustrations in their sermons. +Many collections of these short Latin stories are found in manuscripts +which had served as note-books to the preachers,[41] and out of them +was originally compiled that celebrated medival book called the "Gesta +Romanorum." + + [40] Many of the Fabliaux have been printed, but the two principal + collections, and to which I shall chiefly refer in the text, are + those of Barbazan, re-edited and much enlarged by Mon, 4 vols. + 8vo., 1808, and of Mon, 2 vols. 8vo., 1823. + + [41] A collection of these short Latin stories was edited by the author + of the present work, in a volume printed for the Percy Society in + 1842. + +It is to be regretted that the subjects and language of a large portion +of these fabliaux are such as to make it impossible to present them +before modern readers, for they furnish singularly interesting and +minute pictures of medival life in all classes of society. Domestic +scenes are among those most frequent, and they represent the interior +of the medival household in no favourable point of view. The majority +of these tell loose stories of husbands deceived by their fair spouses, +or of tricks played upon unsuspecting damsels. In some instances the +treatment of the husband is perhaps what may be called of a less +objectionable character, as in the fabliau of La Vilain Mire (the +clown doctor), printed in Barbazan (iii. 1), which was the origin of +Molire's well-known comedy of "Le Mdecin malgr lui." A rich peasant +married the daughter of a poor knight; it was of course a marriage of +ambition on his part, and of interest on hers--one of those ill-sorted +matches which, according to feudal sentiments, could never be happy, +and in which the wife was considered as privileged to treat her husband +with all possible contempt. In this instance the lady hit upon an +ingenious mode of punishing her husband for his want of submission to +her ill-treatment. Messengers from the king passed that way, seeking +a skilful doctor to cure the king's daughter of a dangerous malady. +The lady secretly informed these messengers that her husband was a +physician of extraordinary talent, but of an eccentric temper, for he +would never acknowledge or exercise his art until first subjected to +a severe beating. The husband is seized, bound, and carried by force +to the king's court, where, of course, he denies all knowledge of the +healing art, but a severe beating obliges him to compliance, and he is +successful by a combination of impudence and chance. This is only the +beginning of the poor man's miseries. Instead of being allowed to go +home, his fame has become so great that he is retained at court for +the public good, and, with a rapid succession of patients, fearful +of the results of his conscious ignorance, he refuses them all, and +is subjected in every case to the same ill-treatment to force his +compliance. The examples in which the husband, on the other hand, +outwits the wife are few. A fabliau by a poet who gives himself the +name of Cortebarbe, printed also by Barbazan (iii. 398), relates how +three blind beggars were deceived by a clerc, or scholar, of Paris, who +met them on the road near Compigne. The clerk pretended to give the +three beggars a bezant, which was then a good sum of money, and they +hastened joyfully to the next tavern, where they ordered a plentiful +supper, and feasted to their hearts' content. But, in fact, the clerk +had not given them a bezant at all, although, as he said he did so, +and they could only judge by their hearing, they imagined that they +had the coin, and each thought that it was in the keeping of one of +his companions. Thus, when the time of paying came, and the money +was not forthcoming, in the common belief that one of the three had +received the bezant and intended to keep it and cheat the others, they +quarrelled violently, and from abuse soon came to blows. The landlord, +drawn to the spot by the uproar, and informed of the state of the case, +accused the three blind men of a conspiracy to cheat him, and demanded +payment with great threats. The clerk of Paris, who had followed them +to the inn, and taken his lodging there in order to witness the result, +delivered the blind men by an equally ingenious trick which he plays +upon the landlord and the priest of the parish. + +Some of these stories have for their subject tricks played among +thieves. In one printed by Mon (i. 124), we have the story of a rich +but simple villan, or countryman, named Brifaut, who is robbed at +market by a cunning sharper, and severely corrected by his wife for +his carelessness. Robbery, both by force and by sleight of hand and +craft, prevailed to an extraordinary degree during the middle ages. The +plot of the fabliau of Barat and Haimet, by Jean de Boves (Barbazan, +iv. 233), turns upon a trial of skill among three robbers to determine +who shall commit the cleverest act of thievery, and the result is, at +least, an extremely amusing story. It may be mentioned as an example +of the numerous stories which the jougleurs certainly obtained from +the East, that the well-known story of the Hunchback in the "Arabian +Nights" appears among them in two or three different forms. + +The social vices of the middle ages, their general licentiousness, +the prevalence of injustice and extortion, are very fully exposed to +view in these compositions, in which no class of society is spared. +The villan, or peasant, is always treated very contemptuously; he +formed the class from which the jougleur received least benefit. But +the aristocracy, the great barons, the lords of the soil, come in for +their full share of satire, and they no doubt enjoyed the ridiculous +pictures of their own order. I will not venture to introduce the reader +to female life in the baronial castle, as it appears in many of these +stories, and as it is no doubt truly painted, although, of course, +in many instances, much exaggerated. We have already seen how in the +story of Reynard, the character of medival society was represented +by the long struggle between brute force represented by the wolf, the +emblem of the aristocratic class, and the low astuteness of the fox, +or the unaristocratic class. The success of the craft of the human fox +over the force of his lordly antagonist is often told in the fabliaux +in ludicrous colours. In that of Trubert, printed by Mon (i. 192), +the "duke" of a country, with his wife and family, become repeatedly +the dupes of the gross deceptions of a poor but impudent peasant. +These satires upon the aristocracy were no doubt greatly enjoyed by +the good _bourgeoisie_, who, in their turn, furnished abundance of +stories, of the drollest description, to provoke the mirth of the lords +of the soil, between whom and themselves there was a kind of natural +antipathy. Nor are the clergy spared. The priest is usually described +as living with a concubine--his order forbade marrying--and both are +considered as fair game to the community; while the monk figures more +frequently as the hero of gallant adventures. Both priest and monk are +usually distinguished by their selfishness and love of indulgence. In +the fabliau Du Bouchier d'Abbeville, in Barbazan (iv. 1), a butcher, on +his way home from the fair, seeks a night's lodging at the house of an +inhospitable priest, who refuses it. But when the former returns, and +offers, in exchange for his hospitality, one of his fat sheep which he +has purchased at the fair, and not only to kill it for their supper, +but to give all the meat they do not eat to his host, he is willingly +received into the house, and they make an excellent supper. By the +promise of the skin of the sheep, the guest succeeds in seducing both +the concubine and the maid-servant, and it is only after his departure +the following morning, in the middle of a domestic uproar caused by +the conflicting claims of the priest, the concubine, and the maid, to +the possession of the skin, that it is discovered that the butcher had +stolen the sheep from the priest's own flock. + +The fabliaux, as remarked before, form the most important class of the +extensive mass of the popular literature of the middle ages, and the +writers, confident in their strong hold upon public favour, sometimes +turn round and burlesque the literature of other classes, especially +the long heavy monotony of style of the great romances of chivalry and +the extravagant adventures they contained, as though conscious that +they were gradually undermining the popularity of the romance writers. +One of these poems, entitled "De Audigier," and printed in Barbazan +(iv. 217), is a parody on the romance writers and on their style, not +at all wanting in spirit or wit, but the satire is coarse and vulgar. +Another printed in Barbazan (iv. 287), under the title "De Berengier," +is a satire upon a sort of knight-errantry which had found its way +into medival chivalry. Berengier was a knight of Lombardy, much given +to boasting, who had a beautiful lady for his wife. He used to leave +her alone in his castle, under pretext of sallying forth in search +of chivalrous adventures, and, after a while, having well hacked his +sword and shield, he returned to vaunt the desperate exploits he had +performed. But the lady was shrewd as well as handsome, and, having +some suspicions of his truthfulness as well as of his courage, she +determined to make trial of both. One morning, when her husband rode +forth as usual, she hastily disguised herself in a suit of armour, +mounted a good steed, and hurrying round by a different way, met the +boastful knight in the middle of a wood, where he no sooner saw that he +had to encounter a real assailant, than he displayed the most abject +cowardice, and his opponent exacted from him an ignominious condition +as the price of his escape. On his return home at night, boasting as +usual of his success, he found his lady taking her revenge upon him in +a still less respectful manner, but he was silenced by her ridicule. + +The _trouvres_, or poets, who wrote the fabliaux--I need hardly +remark that _trouvre_ is the same word as _trobador_, but in the +northern dialect of the French language--appear to have flourished +chiefly from the close of the twelfth century to the earlier part of +the fourteenth. They all composed in French, which was a language then +common to England and France, but some of their compositions bear +internal evidence of having been composed in England, and others are +found in contemporary manuscripts written in this island. The scene of +a fabliau, printed by Mon (i. 113), is laid at Colchester; and that +of La Male Honte, printed in Barbazan (iii. 204), is laid in Kent. The +latter, however, was written by a trouvre named Hugues de Cambrai. +No objection appears to have been entertained to the recital of these +licentious stories before the ladies of the castle or of the domestic +circle, and their general popularity was so great, that the more pious +clergy seem to have thought necessary to find something to take their +place in the post-prandial society of the monastery, and especially +of the nunnery; and religious stories were written in the same form +and metre as the fabliaux. Some of these have been published under the +title of "Contes Devots," and, from their general dulness, it may be +doubted if they answered their purpose of furnishing amusement so well +as the others. + + + + + CHAPTER VIII. + + CARICATURES OF DOMESTIC LIFE.--STATE OF DOMESTIC LIFE IN THE MIDDLE + AGES.--EXAMPLES OF DOMESTIC CARICATURE FROM THE CARVINGS OF THE + MISERERES.--KITCHEN SCENES.--DOMESTIC BRAWLS.--THE FIGHT FOR + THE BREECHES.--THE JUDICIAL DUEL BETWEEN MAN AND WIFE AMONG + THE GERMANS.--ALLUSIONS TO WITCHCRAFT.--SATIRES ON THE TRADES; + THE BAKER, THE MILLER, THE WINE-PEDLAR AND TAVERN-KEEPER, THE + ALE-WIFE, ETC. + + +The influence of the jougleurs over people's minds generally, with +their stories and satirical pieces, their grimaces, their postures, +and their wonderful performances, was very considerable, and may be +easily traced in medival manners and sentiments. This influence would +naturally be exerted upon inventive art, and when a painter had to +adorn the margin of a book, or the sculptor to decorate the ornamental +parts of a building, we might expect the ideas which would first +present themselves to him to be those suggested by the jougleur's +performance, for the same taste had to be indulged in the one as in the +other. The same wit or satire would pervade them both. + + [Illustration: _No. 71. A Medival Kitchen Scene._] + +Among the most popular subjects of satire during the middle ages, were +domestic scenes. Domestic life at that period appears to have been in +its general character coarse, turbulent, and, I should say, anything +but happy. In all its points of view, it presented abundant subjects +for jest and burlesque. There is little room for doubt that the Romish +Church, as it existed in the middle ages, was extremely hostile to +domestic happiness among the middle and lower classes, and that the +interference of the priest in the family was only a source of domestic +trouble. The satirical writings of the period, the popular tales, +the discourses of those who sought reform, even the pictures in the +manuscripts and the sculptures on the walls invariably represent the +female portion of the family as entirely under the influence of the +priests, and that influence as exercised for the worst of purposes. +They encouraged faithlessness as well as disobedience in wives, and +undermined the virtue of daughters, and were consequently regarded with +anything but kindly feeling by the male portion of the population. The +priest, the wife, and the husband, form the usual leading characters +in a medival farce. Subjects of this kind are not very unfrequent in +the illuminations of manuscripts, and more especially in the sculptures +of buildings, and those chiefly ecclesiastical, in which monks or +priests are introduced in very equivocal situations. This part of the +subject, however, is one into which we shall not here venture, as we +find the medival caricaturists drawing plenty of materials from the +less vicious shades of contemporary life; and, in fact, some of their +most amusing pictures are taken from the droll, rather than from the +vicious, scenes of the interior of the household. Such scenes are +very frequent on the misereres of the old cathedrals and collegiate +churches. Thus, in the stalls at Worcester Cathedral, there is a droll +figure of a man seated before a fire in a kitchen well stored with +flitches of bacon, he himself occupied in attending to the boiling pot, +while he warms his feet, for which purpose he has taken off his shoes. +In a similar carving in Hereford Cathedral, a man, also in the kitchen, +is seen attempting to take liberties with the cook maid, who throws a +platter at his head. A copy of this curious subject is given in cut +No. 71, and the cut No. 72 is taken from a similar miserere in Minster +Church, in the Isle of Thanet. It represents an old lady seated, +occupied industriously in spinning, and accompanied by her cats. + + [Illustration: _No. 72. An Old Lady and her Friends._] + + [Illustration: _No. 73. The Lady and her Cat._] + +We might easily add other examples of similar subjects from the same +sources, such as the scene in our cut No. 73, taken from one of the +stalls of Winchester Cathedral, which seems to be intended to represent +a witch riding away upon her cat, an enormous animal, whose jovial +look is only outdone by that of its mistress. The latter has carried +her distaff with her, and is diligently employed in spinning. A stall +in Sherborne Minster, given in our cut No. 74, represents a scene in a +school, in which an unfortunate scholar is experiencing punishment of +a rather severe description, to the great alarm of his companions, on +whom his disgrace is evidently acting as a warning. The flogging scene +at school appears to have been rather a favourite subject among the +early caricaturists, for the scourge was looked upon in the middle ages +as the grand stimulant to scholarship. In those good old times, when a +man recalled to memory his schoolboy days, he did not say, "When I was +at school," but, "When I was under the rod." + + [Illustration: _No. 74. Scholastic Discipline._] + + [Illustration: _No. 75. A Point in Dispute._] + +An extensive field for the study of this interesting part of our +subject will be found in the architectural gallery in the Kensington +Museum, which contains a large number of calls from stalls and other +sculptures, chiefly selected from the French cathedrals. One of these, +engraved in our cut No. 75, represents a couple of females, seated +before the kitchen fire. The date of this sculpture is stated to be +1382. To judge by their looks and attitude, there is a disagreement +between them, and the object in dispute seems to be a piece of meat, +which one has taken out of the pot and placed on a dish. This lady +wields her ladle as though she were prepared to use it as a weapon, +while her opponent is armed with the bellows. The ale-pot was not +unfrequently the subject of pictures of a turbulent character, and +among the grotesque and monstrous figures in the margins of the noble +manuscript of the fourteenth century, known as the "Luttrell Psalter," +one represents two personages not only quarrelling over their pots, +which they appear to have emptied, but actually fighting with them. One +of them has literally broken his pot over his companion's head. The +scene is copied in our cut No. 76. + + [Illustration: _No. 76. Want of Harmony over the Pot._] + + [Illustration: _No. 77. Domestic Strife._] + + [Illustration: _No. 78. A Struggle for the Mastery._] + +It must be stated, however, that the more common subjects of these +homely scenes are domestic quarrels, and that the man, or his wife, +enjoying their fireside, or similar bits of domestic comfort, only +make their appearance at rare intervals. Domestic quarrels and combats +are much more frequent. We have already seen, in the cut No. 75, +two dames of the kitchen evidently beginning to quarrel over their +cookery. A stall in the church of Stratford-upon-Avon gives us the +group represented in our cut No. 77. The battle has here become +desperate, but whether the male combatant be an oppressed husband or +an impertinent intruder, is not clear. The quarrel would seem to have +arisen during the process of cooking, as the female, who has seized +her opponent by the beard, has evidently snatched up the ladle as +the readiest weapon at hand. The anger appears to be mainly on her +side, and the rather tame countenance of her antagonist contrasts +strangely with her inflamed features. Our next cut, No. 78, is taken +from the sculpture of a column in Ely Cathedral, here copied from an +engraving in Carter's "Specimens of Ancient Sculpture." A man and +wife, apparently, are struggling for the possession of a staff, which +is perhaps intended to be the emblem of mastery. As is generally +represented to be the case in these scenes of domestic strife, the +woman shows more energy and more strength than her opponent, and she +is evidently overcoming him. The mastery of the wife over the husband +seems to have been a universally acknowledged state of things. A stall +in Sherborne Minster, in Dorset, which has furnished the subject of our +cut No. 79, might almost be taken as the sequel of the last cut. The +lady has possessed herself of the staff, has overthrown her husband, +and is even striking him on the head with it when he is down. In our +next cut, No. 80, which is taken from one of the casts of stalls in +the French cathedrals exhibited in the Kensington Museum, it is not +quite clear which of the two is the offender, but, perhaps, in this +case, the archer, as his profession is indicated by his bow and arrows, +has made a gallant assault, which, although she does not look much +displeased at it, the offended dame certainly resists with spirit. + + [Illustration: _No. 79. The Wife in the Ascendant._] + + [Illustration: _No. 80. Violence Resisted._] + +One idea connected with this picture of domestic antagonism appears +to have been very popular from a rather early period. There is a +proverbial phrase to signify that the wife is master in the household, +by which it is intimated that "she wears the breeches." The phrase +is, it must be confessed, an odd one, and is only half understood by +modern explanations; but in medival story we learn how "she" first +put in her claim to wear this particular article of dress, how it was +first disputed and contested, how she was at times defeated, but how, +as a general rule, the claim was enforced. There was a French poet of +the thirteenth century, Hugues Piaucelles, two of whose _fabliaux_, or +metrical tales, entitled the "Fabliau d'Estourmi," and the "Fabliau de +Sire Hains et de Dame Anieuse," are preserved in manuscript, and have +been printed in the collection of Barbazan. The second of these relates +some of the adventures of a medival couple, whose household was not +the best regulated in the world. The name of the heroine of this +story, Anieuse, is simply an old form of the French word _ennuyeuse_, +and certainly dame Anieuse was sufficiently "ennuyeuse" to her lord +and husband. "Sire Hains," her husband, was, it appears, a maker of +"cottes" and mantles, and we should judge also, by the point on which +the quarrel turned, that he was partial to a good dinner. Dame Anieuse +was of that disagreeable temper, that whenever Sire Hains told her of +some particularly nice thing which he wished her to buy for his meal, +she bought instead something which she knew was disagreeable to him. +If he ordered boiled meat, she invariably roasted it, and further +contrived that it should be so covered with cinders and ashes that +he could not eat it. This would show that people in the middle ages +(except, perhaps, professional cooks) were very unapt at roasting meat. +This state of things had gone on for some time, when one day Sire Hains +gave orders to his wife to buy him fish for his dinner. The disobedient +wife, instead of buying fish, provided nothing for his meal but a dish +of spinage, telling him falsely that all the fish stank. This leads to +a violent quarrel, in which, after some fierce wrangling, especially +on the part of the lady, Sire Hains proposes to decide their difference +in a novel manner. "Early in the morning," he said, "I will take off +my breeches and lay them down in the middle of the court, and the one +who can win them shall be acknowledged to be master or mistress of the +house." + + _Le matinet, sans contredire, + Voudrai mes braies deschaucier, + Et enmi nostre cort couchier; + Et qui conquerre les porra, + Par bone reson mousterra + Qu'il ert sire ou dame du nostre._ + Barbazan, Fabliaux, tome iii. p. 383. + +Dame Anieuse accepted the challenge with eagerness, and each prepared +for the struggle. After due preparation, two neighbours, friend Symon +and Dame Aupais, having been called in as witnesses, and the object +of dispute, the breeches, having been placed on the pavement of the +court, the battle began, with some slight parody on the formalities +of the judicial combat. The first blow was given by the dame, who was +so eager for the fray that she struck her husband before he had put +himself on his guard; and the war of tongues, in which at least Dame +Anieuse had the best of it, went on at the same time as the other +battle. Sire Hains ventured a slight expostulation on her eagerness +for the fray, in answer to which she only threw in his teeth a fierce +defiance to do his worst. Provoked at this, Sire Hains struck at her, +and hit her over the eyebrows, so effectively, that the skin was +discoloured; and, over-confident in the effect of this first blow, he +began rather too soon to exult over his wife's defeat. But Dame Anieuse +was less disconcerted than he expected, and recovering quickly from +the effect of the blow, she turned upon him and struck him on the same +part of his face with such force, that she nearly knocked him over the +sheepfold. Dame Anieuse, in her turn, now sneered over him, and while +he was recovering from his confusion, her eyes fell upon the object of +contention, and she rushed to it, and laid her hands upon it to carry +it away. This movement roused Sire Hains, who instantly seized another +part of the article of his dress of which he was thus in danger of +being deprived, and began a struggle for possession, in which the said +article underwent considerable dilapidation, and fragments of it were +scattered over the court. In the midst of this struggle the actual +fight recommenced, by the husband giving his wife so heavy a blow on +the teeth that her mouth was filled with blood. The effect was such +that Sire Hains already reckoned on the victory, and proclaimed himself +lord of the breeches. + + _Hains fiert sa fame enmi les denz + Tel cop, que la bouche dedenz + Li a toute emplie de sancz. + "Tien ore," dist Sire Hains, "anc, + Je cuit que je t'ai bien atainte, + Or t'ai-je de deux colors tainte-- + J'aurai les braies toutes voies."_ + +But the immediate effect on Dame Anieuse was only to render her more +desperate. She quitted her hold on the disputed garment, and fell upon +her husband with such a shower of blows that he hardly knew which way +to turn. She was thus, however, unconsciously exhausting herself, and +Sire Hains soon recovered. The battle now became fiercer than ever, +and the lady seemed to be gaining the upper hand, when Sire Hains gave +her a skilful blow in the ribs, which nearly broke one of them, and +considerably checked her ardour. Friend Symon here interposed, with +the praiseworthy aim of restoring peace before further harm might be +done, but in vain, for the lady was only rendered more obstinate by +her mishap; and he agreed that it was useless to interfere until one +had got a more decided advantage over the other. The fight therefore +went on, the two combatants having now seized each other by the hair +of the head, a mode of combat in which the advantages were rather on +the side of the male. At this moment, one of the judges, Dame Aupais, +sympathising too much with Dame Anieuse, ventured some words of +encouragement, which drew upon her a severe rebuke from her colleague, +Symon, who intimated that if she interfered again there might be two +pairs of combatants instead of one. Meanwhile Dame Anieuse was becoming +exhausted, and was evidently getting the worst of the contest, until at +length, staggering from a vigorous push, she fell back into a large +basket which lay behind her. Sire Hains stood over her exultingly, +and Symon, as umpire, pronounced him victorious. He thereupon took +possession of the disputed article of raiment, and again invested +himself with it, while the lady accepted faithfully the conditions +imposed upon her, and we are assured by the poet that she was a good +and obedient wife during the rest of her life. In this story, which +affords a curious picture of medival life, we learn the origin of the +proverb relating to the possession and wearing of the breeches. Hugues +Piaucelles concludes his _fabliau_ by recommending every man who has a +disobedient wife to treat her in the same manner; and medival husbands +appear to have followed his advice, without fear of laws against the +ill-treatment of women. + + [Illustration: _No. 81. The Fight for the Breeches._] + +A subject like this was well fitted for the burlesques on the stalls, +and accordingly we find on one of those in the cathedral at Rouen, the +group given in our cut No. 81, which seems to represent the part of the +story in which both combatants seize hold of the disputed garment, and +struggle for possession of it. The husband here grasps a knife in his +hand, with which he seems to be threatening to cut it to pieces rather +than give it up. The _fabliau_ gives the victory to the husband, but +the wife was generally considered as in a majority of cases carrying +off the prize. In an extremely rare engraving by the Flemish artist +Van Mecken, dated in 1480, of which I give a copy in our cut No. 82. +the lady, while putting on the breeches, of which she has just become +possessed, shows an inclination to lord it rather tyrannically over her +other half, whom she has condemned to perform the domestic drudgery of +the mansion. + + [Illustration: _No. 82. The Breeches Won._] + + [Illustration: _No. 83. A Legal Combat._] + +In Germany, where there was still more roughness in medival life, what +was told in England and France as a good story of domestic doings, +was actually carried into practice under the authority of the laws. +The judicial duel was there adopted by the legal authorities as a +mode of settling the differences between husband and wife. Curious +particulars on this subject are given in an interesting paper entitled +"Some observations on Judicial Duels as practised in Germany," +published in the twenty-ninth volume of the Archologia of the Society +of Antiquaries (p. 348). These observations are chiefly taken from +a volume of directions, accompanied with drawings, for the various +modes of attack and defence, compiled by Paulus Kall, a celebrated +teacher of defence at the court of Bavaria about the year 1400. Among +these drawings we have one representing the mode of combat between +husband and wife. The only weapon allowed the female, but that a very +formidable one, was, according to these directions, a heavy stone +wrapped up in an elongation of her chemise, while her opponent had only +a short staff, and he was placed up to the waist in a pit formed in +the ground. The following is a literal translation of the directions +given in the manuscript, and our cut No. 83 is a copy of the drawing +which illustrates it:--"The woman must be so prepared, that a sleeve +of her chemise extend a small ell beyond her hand, like a little sack; +there indeed is put a stone weighing three pounds; and she has nothing +else but her chemise, and that is bound together between the legs with +a lace. Then the man makes himself ready in the pit over against his +wife. He is buried therein up to the girdle, and one hand is bound at +the elbow to the side." At this time the practice of such combats in +Germany seems to have been long known, for it is stated that in the +year 1200 a man and his wife fought under the sanction of the civic +authorities at Ble, in Switzerland. In a picture of a combat between +man and wife, from a manuscript resembling that of Paulus Kall, but +executed nearly a century later, the man is placed in a tub instead +of a pit, with his left arm tied to his side as before, and his right +holding a short heavy staff; while the woman is dressed, and not +stripped to the chemise, as in the former case. The man appears to be +holding the stick in such a manner that the sling in which the stone +was contained would twist round it, and the woman would thus be at +the mercy of her opponent. In an ancient manuscript on the science of +defence in the library at Gotha, the man in the tub is represented as +the conqueror of his wife, having thus dragged her head-foremost into +the tub, where she appears with her legs kicking up in the air. + +This was the orthodox mode of combat between man and wife, but it was +sometimes practised under more sanguinary forms. In one picture given +from these old books on the science of defence by the writer of the +paper on the subject in the Archologia, the two combatants, naked +down to the waist, are represented fighting with sharp knives, and +inflicting upon each other's bodies frightful gashes. + + [Illustration: _No. 84. The Witch and the Demon._] + + [Illustration: _No. 85. The Witch and her Victim._] + +A series of stall carvings at Corbeil, near Paris, of which more will +be said a little farther on in this chapter, has furnished the curious +group represented in our cut No. 84, which is one of the rather rare +pictorial allusions to the subject of witchcraft. It represents a +woman who must, by her occupation, be a witch, for she has so far got +the mastery of the demon that she is sawing off his head with a very +uncomfortable looking instrument. Another story of witchcraft is told +in the sculpture of a stone panel at the entrance of the cathedral of +Lyons, which is represented in our cut No. 85. One power, supposed to +be possessed by witches, was that of transforming people to animals at +will. William of Malmesbury, in his Chronicle, tells a story of two +witches in the neighbourhood of Rome, who used to allure travellers +into their cottage, and there transform them into horses, pigs, or +other animals, which they sold, and feasted themselves with the money. +One day a young man, who lived by the profession of a jougleur, sought +a night's lodging at their cottage, and was received, but they turned +him into an ass, and, as he retained his understanding and his power of +acting, they gained much money by exhibiting him. At length a rich man +of the neighbourhood, who wanted him for his private amusement, offered +the two women a large sum for him, which they accepted, but they warned +the new possessor of the ass that he should carefully restrain him +from going into the water, as that would deprive him of his power of +performing. The man who had purchased the ass acted upon this advice, +and carefully kept him from water, but one day, through the negligence +of his keeper, the ass escaped from his stable, and, rushing to a pond +at no great distance, threw himself into it. Water--and running water +especially--was believed to destroy the power of witchcraft or magic; +and no sooner was the ass immersed in the water, than he recovered his +original form of a young man. He told his story, which soon reached the +ears of the pope, and the two women were seized, and confessed their +crimes. The carving from Lyons Cathedral appears to represent some such +scene of sorcery. The naked woman, evidently a witch, is, perhaps, +seated on a man whom she has transformed into a goat, and she seems to +be whirling the cat over him in such a manner that it may tear his face +with its claws. + +There was still another class of subjects for satire and caricature +which belongs to this part of our subject--I mean that of the trader +and manufacturer. We must not suppose that fraudulent trading, that +deceptive and imperfect workmanship, that adulteration of everything +that could be adulterated, are peculiar to modern times. On the +contrary, there was no period in the world's history in which dishonest +dealing was carried on to such an extraordinary extent, in which there +was so much deception used in manufactures, or in which adulteration +was practised on so shameless a scale, as during the middle ages. These +vices, or, as we may, perhaps, more properly describe them, these +crimes, are often mentioned in the medival writers, but they were +not easily represented pictorially, and therefore we rarely meet with +direct allusions to them, either in sculpture, on stone or wood, or +in the paintings of illuminated manuscripts. Representations of the +trades themselves are not so rare, and are sometimes droll and almost +burlesque. A curious series of such representations of arts and trades +was carved on the _misereres_ of the church of St. Spire, at Corbeil, +near Paris, which only exist now in Millin's engravings, but they seem +to have been works of the fifteenth century. Among them the first +place is given to the various occupations necessary for the production +of bread, that article so important to the support of life. Thus we +see, in these carvings at Corbeil, the labours of the reaper, cutting +the wheat and forming it into sheaves, the miller carrying it away to +be ground into meal, and the baker thrusting it into the oven, and +drawing it out in the shape of loaves. Our cut No. 86, taken from one +of these sculptures, represents the baker either putting in or taking +out the bread with his peel; by the earnest manner in which he looks at +it, we may suppose that it is the latter, and that he is ascertaining +if it be sufficiently baked. We have an earlier representation of a +medival oven in our cut No. 87, taken from the celebrated illuminated +manuscript of the "Romance of Alexandre," in the Bodleian Library at +Oxford, which appears to belong to an early period of the fourteenth +century. Here the baker is evidently going to take a loaf out of the +oven, for his companion holds a dish for the purpose of receiving it. + + [Illustration: _No. 86. A Baker of the Fifteenth Century._] + + [Illustration: _No. 87. A Medival Baker._] + +In nothing was fraud and adulteration practised to so great an +extent as in the important article of bread, and the two occupations +especially employed in making it were objects of very great dislike and +of scornful satire. The miller was proverbially a thief. Every reader +of Chaucer will remember his character so admirably drawn in that of +the miller of Trumpington, who, though he was as proud and gay "as eny +pecok," was nevertheless eminently dishonest. + + _A theef he was for soth of corn and mele, + And that a sleigh_ (sly), _and usyng_ (practised) _for to stele_. + Chaucer's Reeves Tale. + +This practice included a large college then existing in Cambridge, +but now forgotten, the Soler Hall, which suffered greatly by his +depredations. + + _And on a day it happed in a stounde, + Syk lay the mauncyple on a maledye, + Men wenden wisly that he schulde dye; + For which this meller stal bothe mele and corn + A thousend part more than byforn. + For ther biforn he stal but curteysly; + But now he is a theef outrageously. + For which the wardeyn chidde and made fare, + But therof sette the meller not a tare; + He crakked boost, and swor it was nat so._ + +Two of the scholars of this college resolved to go with the corn to the +mill, and by their watchfulness prevent his depredations. Those who are +acquainted with the story know how the scholars succeeded, or rather +how they failed; how the miller stole half a bushel of their flour and +caused his wife to make a cake of it; and how the victims had their +revenge and recovered the cake. + +As already stated, the baker had in these good old times no better +character than the miller, if not worse. There was an old saying, that +if three persons of three obnoxious professions were put together in a +sack and shaken up, the first who came out would certainly be a rogue, +and one of these was a baker. Moreover, the opinion concerning the +baker was so strong that, as in the phrase taken from the old legends +of the witches, who in their festivals sat thirteen at a table, this +number was popularly called a devil's dozen, and was believed to be +unlucky--so, when the devil's name was abandoned, perhaps for the +sake of euphony, the name substituted for it was that of the baker, +and the number thirteen was called "a baker's dozen." The makers of +nearly all sorts of provisions for sale were, in the middle ages, +tainted with the same vice, and there was nothing from which society in +general, especially in the towns where few made bread for themselves, +suffered so much. This evil is alluded to more than once in that +curious educational treatise, the "Dictionarius" of John de Garlande, +printed in my "Volume of Vocabularies." This writer, who wrote in the +earlier half of the thirteenth century, insinuates that the makers +of pies (_pastillarii_), an article of food which was greatly in +repute during the middle ages, often made use of bad eggs. The cooks, +he says further, sold, especially in Paris to the scholars of the +university, cooked meats, sausages, and such things, which were not +fit to eat; while the butchers furnished the meat of animals which had +died of disease. Even the spices and drugs sold by the apothecaries, +or _piciers_, were not, he says, to be trusted. John de Garlande +had evidently an inclination to satire, and he gives way to it not +unfrequently in the little book of which I am speaking. He says that +the glovers of Paris cheated the scholars of the university, by selling +them gloves made of bad materials; that the women who gained their +living by winding thread (_devacuatrices_, in the Latin of the time), +not only emptied the scholars' purses, but wasted their bodies also (it +is intended as a pun upon the Latin word); and the hucksters sold them +unripe fruit for ripe. The drapers, he says, cheated people not only +by selling bad materials, but by measuring them with false measures; +while the hawkers, who went about from house to house, robbed as well +as cheated. + +M. Jubinal has published in his curious volume entitled "Jongleurs et +Trouvres," a rather jocular poem on the bakers, written in French +of, perhaps, the thirteenth century, in which their art is lauded as +much better and more useful than that of the goldsmith's. The millers' +depredations on the corn sent to be ground at the mill, are laid to the +charge of the rats, which attack it by night, and the hens, which find +their way to it by day; and he explains the diminution the bakings +experienced in the hands of the baker as arising out of the charity of +the latter towards the poor and needy, to whom they gave the meal and +paste before it had even been put into the oven. The celebrated English +poet, John Lydgate, in a short poem preserved in a manuscript in the +Harleian Library in the British Museum (MS. Harl. No. 2,255, fol. 157, +v^o), describes the pillory, which he calls their Bastile, as the +proper heritage of the miller and the baker:-- + + _Put out his hed, lyst nat for to dare, + But lyk a man upon that tour to abyde, + For cast of eggys wil not oonys spare, + Tyl he be quallyd body, bak, and syde. + His heed endooryd, and of verray pryde + Put out his armys, shewith abrood his face; + The fenestrallys be made for hym so wyde, + Claymyth to been a capteyn of that place._ + + _The bastyle longith of verray dewe ryght + To fals bakerys, it is trewe herytage + Severalle to them, this knoweth every wyght, + Be kynde assygned for ther sittyng stage; + Wheer they may freely shewe out ther visage, + Whan they tak oonys their possessioun, + Owthir in youthe or in myddyl age; + Men doon hem wrong yif they take hym down._ + + _Let mellerys and bakerys gadre hem a gilde, + And alle of assent make a fraternit, + Undir the pillory a letil chapelle bylde, + The place amorteyse, and purchase lybert, + For alle thos that of ther noumbre be; + What evir it coost afftir that they wende, + They may clayme, be just auctorit, + Upon that bastile to make an ende._ + +The wine-dealer and the publican formed another class in medival +society who lived by fraud and dishonesty, and were the objects of +satire. The latter gave both bad wine and bad measure, and he often +also acted as a pawnbroker, and when people had drunk more than they +could pay for, he would take their clothes as pledges for their money. +The tavern, in the middle ages, was the resort of very miscellaneous +company; gamblers and loose women were always on the watch there to +lead more honest people into ruin, and the tavern-keeper profited +largely by their gains; and the more vulgar minstrel and "jogelour" +found employment there; for the middle classes of society, and even +their betters, frequented the tavern much more generally than at the +present day. In the carved stalls of the church of Corbeil, the liquor +merchant is represented by the figure of a man wheeling a hogshead +in a barrow, as shown in our cut No. 88. The graveness and air of +importance with which he regards it would lead us to suppose that the +barrel contains wine; and the cup and jug on the shelf above show that +it was to be sold retail. The wine-sellers called out their wines +from their doors, and boasted of their qualities, in order to tempt +people in; and John de Garlande assures us that when they entered, +they were served with wine which was not worth drinking. "The criers +of wine," he says, "proclaim with extended throat the diluted wine +they have in their taverns, offering it at four pennies, at six, at +eight, and at twelve, fresh poured out from the gallon cask into the +cup, to tempt people." ("Volume of Vocabularies," p. 126.) The ale-wife +was an especial subject of jest and satire, and is not unfrequently +represented on the pictorial monuments of our forefathers. Our cut No. +89 is taken from one of the misereres in the church of Wellingborough, +in Northamptonshire; the ale-wife is pouring her liquor from her jug +into a cup to serve a rustic, who appears to be waiting for it with +impatience. + + [Illustration: _No. 88. The Wine Dealer._] + + [Illustration: _No. 89. The Ale-Wife._] + + [Illustration: _No. 90. The Ale-Drawer._] + +The figure of the ale-drawer, No. 90, is taken from one of the +misereres in the parish church of Ludlow, in Shropshire. The size +of his jug is somewhat disproportionate to that of the barrel from +which he obtains the ale. The same misereres of Ludlow Church furnish +the next scene, cut No. 91, which represents the end of the wicked +ale-wife. The day of judgment is supposed to have arrived, and she has +received her sentence. A demon, seated on one side, is reading a list +of the crimes she has committed, which the magnitude of the parchment +shows to be a rather copious one. Another demon (whose head has been +broken off in the original) carries on his back, in a very irreverent +manner, the unfortunate lady, in order to throw her into hell-mouth, on +the other side of the picture. She is naked with the exception of the +fashionable head-gear, which formed one of her vanities in the world, +and she carries with her the false measure with which she cheated her +customers. A demon bagpiper welcomes her on her arrival. The scene is +full of wit and humour. + + [Illustration: _No. 91. The Ale-Wife's End._] + +The rustic classes, and instances of their rusticity, are not +unfrequently met with in these interesting carvings. The stalls of +Corbeil present several agricultural scenes. Our cut No. 92 is taken +from those of Gloucester cathedral, of an earlier date, and represents +the three shepherds, astonished at the appearance of the star which +announced the birth of the Saviour of mankind. Like the three kings, +the shepherds to whom this revelation was made were always in the +middle ages represented as three in number. In our drawing from the +miserere in Gloucester cathedral, the costume of the shepherds is +remarkably well depicted, even to the details, with the various +implements appertaining to their profession, most of which are +suspended to their girdles. They are drawn with much spirit, and even +the dog is well represented as an especially active partaker in the +scene. + + [Illustration: _No. 92. The Shepherds of the East._] + + [Illustration: _No. 93. The Carpenter._] + + [Illustration: _No. 94. The Shoemaker._] + +Of the two other examples we select from the misereres of Corbeil, the +first represents the carpenter, or, as he was commonly called by our +Anglo-Saxon and medival forefathers, the _wright_, which signifies +simply the "maker." The application of this higher and more general +term--for the Almighty himself is called, in the Anglo-Saxon poetry, +_ealra gescefta wyrhta_, the Maker, or Creator, of all things--shows +how important an art that of the carpenter was considered in the +middle ages. Everything made of wood came within his province. In the +Anglo-Saxon "Colloquy" of archbishop Alfric, where some of the more +useful artisans are introduced disputing about the relative value of +their several crafts, the "wright" says, "Who of you can do without +my craft, since I make houses and all sorts of vessels (_vasa_), and +ships for you all?" ("Volume of Vocabularies," p. 11.) And John de +Garlande, in the thirteenth century, describes the carpenter as making, +among other things, tubs, and barrels, and wine-cades. The workmanship +of those times was exercised, before all other materials, on wood +and metals, and the wright, or worker in the former material, was +distinguished by this circumstance from the smith, or worker in metal. +The carpenter is still called a wright in Scotland. Our last cut (No. +94), taken also from one of the misereres at Corbeil, represents the +shoemaker, or as he was then usually called, the cordwainer, because +the leather which he chiefly used came from Cordova in Spain, and was +thence called _cordewan_, or _cordewaine_. Our shoemaker is engaged +in cutting a skin of leather with an instrument of a rather singular +form. Shoes, and perhaps forms for making shoes, are suspended on pegs +against the wall. + + + + + CHAPTER IX. + + GROTESQUE FACES AND FIGURES.--PREVALENCE OF THE TASTE FOR UGLY + AND GROTESQUE FACES.--SOME OF THE POPULAR FORMS DERIVED + FROM ANTIQUITY; THE TONGUE LOLLING OUT, AND THE DISTORTED + MOUTH.--HORRIBLE SUBJECTS: THE MAN AND THE SERPENTS.--ALLEGORICAL + FIGURES: GLUTTONY AND LUXURY.--OTHER REPRESENTATIONS OF + CLERICAL GLUTTONY AND DRUNKENNESS.--GROTESQUE FIGURES OF + INDIVIDUALS, AND GROTESQUE GROUPS.--ORNAMENTS OF THE BORDERS OF + BOOKS.--UNINTENTIONAL CARICATURE; THE MOTE AND THE BEAM. + + +The grimaces and strange postures of the jougleurs seem to have had +great attractions for those who witnessed them. To unrefined and +uneducated minds no object conveys so perfect a notion of mirth as an +ugly and distorted face. Hence it is that among the common peasantry +at a country fair few exhibitions are more satisfactory than that of +grinning through a horse-collar. This sentiment is largely exemplified +in the sculpture especially of the middle ages, a long period, +during which the general character of society presented that want +of refinement which we now observe chiefly in its least cultivated +classes. Among the most common decorations of our ancient churches and +other medival buildings, are grotesque and monstrous heads and faces. +Antiquity, which lent us the types of many of these monstrosities, +saw in her Typhons and Gorgons a signification beyond the surface of +the picture, and her grotesque masks had a general meaning, and were +in a manner typical of the whole field of comic literature. The mask +was less an individual grotesque to be laughed at for itself, than +a personification of comedy. In the middle ages, on the contrary, +although in some cases certain forms were often regarded as typical +of certain ideas, in general the design extended no farther than the +forms which the artist had given to it; the grotesque features, like +the grinning through the horse-collar, gave satisfaction by their mere +ugliness. Even the applications, when such figures were intended to +have one, were coarsely satirical, without any intellectuality, and, +where they had a meaning beyond the plain text of the sculpture or +drawing, it was not far-fetched, but plain and easily understood. When +the Anglo-Saxon drew the face of a bloated and disfigured monk, he no +doubt intended thereby to proclaim the popular notion of the general +character of monastic life, but this was a design which nobody could +misunderstand, an interpretation which everybody was prepared to give +to it. We have already seen various examples of this description of +satire, scattered here and there among the immense mass of grotesque +sculpture which has no such meaning. A great proportion, indeed, of +these grotesque sculptures appears to present mere variations of a +certain number of distinct types which had been handed down from a +remote period, some of them borrowed, perhaps involuntarily, from +antiquity. Hence we naturally look for the earlier and more curious +examples of this class of art to Italy and the south of France, where +the transition from classical to medival was more gradual, and the +continued influence of classical forms is more easily traced. The +early Christian masons appear to have caricatured under the form of +such grotesques the personages of the heathen mythology, and to this +practice we perhaps owe some of the types of the medival monsters. +We have seen in a former chapter a grotesque from the church of Monte +Majour, near Nismes, the original type of which had evidently been some +burlesque figure of Saturn eating one of his children. The classical +mask doubtless furnished the type for those figures, so common in +medival sculpture, of faces with disproportionately large mouths; just +as another favourite class of grotesque faces, those with distended +mouths and tongues lolling out, were taken originally from the Typhons +and Gorgons of the ancients. Many other popular types of faces rendered +artificially ugly are mere exaggerations of the distortions produced on +the features by different operations, such, for instance, as that of +blowing a horn. + +The practice of blowing the horn, is, indeed, peculiarly calculated +to exhibit the features of the face to disadvantage, and was not +overlooked by the designers of the medival decorative sculpture. One +of the large collection of casts of sculptures from French cathedrals +exhibited in the museum at South Kensington, has furnished the two +subjects given in our cut No. 95. The first is represented as blowing +a horn, but he is producing the greatest possible distortion in his +features, and especially in his mouth, by drawing the horn forcibly +on one side with his left hand, while he pulls his beard in the other +direction with the right hand. The force with which he is supposed to +be blowing is perhaps represented by the form given to his eyes. The +face of the lower figure is in at least comparative repose. The design +of representing general distortion in the first is further shown by the +ridiculously unnatural position of the arms. Such distortion of the +members was not unfrequently introduced to heighten the effect of the +grimace in the face; and, as in these examples, it was not uncommon to +introduce as a further element of grotesque, the bodies, or parts of +the bodies, of animals, or even of demons. + + [Illustration: _No. 95. Grotesque Monsters._] + + [Illustration: _No. 96. Diabolical Mirth._] + + [Illustration: _No. 97. Making Faces._] + +Another cast in the Kensington Museum is the subject of our cut No. +96, which presents the same idea of stretching the mouth. The subject +is here exhibited by another rather mirthful looking individual, but +whether the exhibitor is intended to be a goblin or demon, or whether +he is merely furnished with the wings and claws of a bat, seems rather +uncertain. The bat was looked upon as an unpropitious if not an unholy +animal; like the owl, it was the companion of the witches, and of the +spirits of darkness. The group in our cut No. 97 is taken from one of +the carved stalls in the church of Stratford-upon-Avon, and represents +a trio of grimacers. The first of these three grotesque faces is +lolling out the tongue to an extravagant length; the second is simply +grinning; while the third has taken a sausage between his teeth to +render his grimace still more ridiculous. The number and variety of +such grotesque faces, which we find scattered over the architectural +decoration of our old ecclesiastical buildings, are so great that I +will not attempt to give any more particular classification of them. +All this church decoration was calculated especially to produce its +effect upon the middle and lower classes, and medival art was, perhaps +more than anything else, suited to medival society, for it belonged to +the mass and not to the individual. The man who could enjoy a match at +grinning through horse-collars, must have been charmed by the grotesque +works of the medival stone sculptor and wood carver; and we may add +that these display, though often rather rude, a very high degree of +skill in art, a great power of producing striking imagery. + +These medival artists loved also to produce horrible objects as well +as laughable ones, though even in their horrors they were continually +running into the grotesque. Among the adjuncts to these sculptured +figures, we sometimes meet with instruments of pain, and very talented +attempts to exhibit this on the features of the victims. The creed of +the middle ages gave great scope for the indulgence of this taste in +the infinitely varied terrors of purgatory and hell; and, not to speak +of the more crude descriptions that are so common in medival popular +literature, the account to which these descriptions might be turned by +the poet as well as the artist are well known to the reader of Dante. +Coils of serpents and dragons, which were the most usual instruments +in the tortures of the infernal regions, were always favourite objects +in medival ornamentation, whether sculptured or drawn, in the details +of architectural decoration, or in the initial letters and margins +of books. They are often combined in forming grotesque tracery with +the bodies of animals or of human beings, and their movements are +generally hostile to the latter. We have already seen, in previous +chapters, examples of this use of serpents and dragons, dating from the +earliest periods of medival art; and it is perhaps the most common +style of ornamentation in the buildings and illuminated manuscripts +in our island from the earlier Saxon times to the thirteenth century. +This ornamentation is sometimes strikingly bold and effective. In the +cathedral of Wells there is a series of ornamental bosses, formed by +faces writhing under the attacks of numerous dragons, who are seizing +upon the lips, eyes, and cheeks of their victims. One of these bosses, +which are of the thirteenth century, is represented in our cut No. 98. +A large, coarsely featured face is the victim of two dragons, one of +which attacks his mouth, while the other has seized him by the eye. The +expression of the face is strikingly horrible. + + [Illustration: _No. 98. Horror._] + +The higher mind of the middle ages loved to see inner meanings through +outward forms; or, at least, it was a fashion which manifested itself +most strongly in the latter half of the twelfth century, to adapt these +outward forms to inward meanings by comparisons and moralisations; +and under the effect of this feeling certain figures were at times +adopted, with a view to some other purpose than mere ornament, though +this was probably an innovation upon medival art. The tongue lolling +out, taken originally, as we have seen, from the imagery of classic +times, was accepted rather early in the middle ages as the emblem or +symbol of luxury; and, when we find it among the sculptured ornaments +of the architecture especially of some of the larger and more important +churches, it implied probably an allusion to that vice--at least the +face presented to us was intended to be that of a voluptuary. Among +the remarkable series of sculptures which crown the battlements of +the cloisters of Magdalen College, Oxford, executed a very few years +after the middle of the fifteenth century, amid many figures of a very +miscellaneous character, there are several which were thus, no doubt, +intended to be representatives of vices, if not of virtues. I give two +examples of these curious sculptures. + + [Illustration: _No. 99. Gluttony._] + + [Illustration: _No. 100. Luxury._] + +The first, No. 99, is generally considered to represent gluttony, and +it is a remarkable circumstance that, in a building the character of +which was partly ecclesiastical, and which was erected at the expense +and under the directions of a great prelate, Bishop Wainflete, the +vice of gluttony, with which the ecclesiastical order was especially +reproached, should be represented in ecclesiastical costume. It is an +additional proof that the detail of the work of the building was left +entirely to the builders. The coarse, bloated features of the face, +and the "villainous" low forehead, are characteristically executed; +and the lolling tongue may perhaps be intended to intimate that, in +the lives of the clergy, luxury went hand in hand with its kindred +vice. The second of our examples, No. 100, appears by its different +characteristics (some of which we have been unable to introduce in our +woodcut) to be intended to represent luxury itself. Sometimes qualities +of the individual man, or even the class of society, are represented in +a manner far less disguised by allegorical clothing, and therefore much +more plainly to the understanding of the vulgar. Thus in an illuminated +manuscript of the fourteenth century, in the British Museum (MS. +Arundel, No. 91), gluttony is represented by a monk devouring a pie +alone and in secret, except that a little cloven-footed imp holds up +the dish, and seems to enjoy the prospect of monastic indulgence. This +picture is copied in our cut No. 101. Another manuscript of the same +date (MS. Sloane, No. 2435) contains a scene, copied in our cut No. +102, representing drunkenness under the form of another monk, who has +obtained the keys and found his way into the cellar of his monastery, +and is there indulging his love for good ale in similar secrecy. It +is to be remarked that here, again, the vices are laid to the charge +of the clergy. Our cut No. 103, from a bas-relief in Ely Cathedral, +given in Carter's "Specimens of Ancient Sculpture," represents a man +drinking from a horn, and evidently enjoying his employment, but his +costume is not sufficiently characteristic to betray his quality. + + [Illustration: _No. 101. Monkish Gluttony._] + + [Illustration: _No. 102. The Monastic Cellarer._] + + [Illustration: _No. 103. Drunkenness._] + + [Illustration: _No. 104. A Strange Monster._] + +The subject of grotesque faces and heads naturally leads us to +that of monstrous and grotesque bodies and groups of bodies, which +has already been partly treated in a former chapter, where we have +noticed the great love shown in the middle ages for monstrous animated +figures, not only monsters of one nature, but, and that especially, +of figures formed by joining together the parts of different, and +entirely dissimilar, animals, of similar mixtures between animals and +men. This, as stated above, was often effected by joining the body +of some nondescript animal to a human head and face; so that, by the +disproportionate size of the latter, the body, as a secondary part +of the picture, became only an adjunct to set off still further the +grotesque character of the human face. More importance was sometimes +given to the body combined with fantastic forms, which baffle any +attempt at giving an intelligible description. The accompanying cut, +No. 104, represents a winged monster of this kind; it is taken from +one of the casts from French churches exhibited in the Kensington +Museum. + + [Illustration: _No. 105. Rolling Topsy Turvy._] + +Sometimes the medival artist, without giving any unusual form to +his human figures, placed them in strange postures, or joined them +in singular combinations. These latter are commonly of a playful +character, or sometimes they represent droll feats of skill, or +puzzles, or other subjects, all of which have been published +pictorially and for the amusement of children down to very recent +times. There were a few of these groups which are of rather frequent +occurrence, and they were evidently favourite types. One of these is +given in the annexed cut, No. 105. It is taken from one of the carved +misereres of the stalls in Ely cathedral, as given in Carter, and +represents two men who appear to be rolling over each other. The upper +figure exhibits animal's ears on his cap, which seem to proclaim him +a member of the fraternity of fools: the ears of the lower figure +are concealed from view. This group is not a rare one, especially on +similar monuments in France, where the architectural antiquaries have a +technical name for it; and this shows us how even the particular forms +of art in the middle ages were not confined to any particular country, +but more or less, and with exceptions, they pervaded all those which +acknowledged the ecclesiastical supremacy of the church of Rome; +whatever peculiarity of style it took in particular countries, the same +forms were spread through all western Europe. Our next cut, No. 106, +gives another of these curious groups, consisting, in fact, of two +individuals, one of which is evidently an ecclesiastic. It will be seen +that, as we follow this round, we obtain, by means of the two heads, +four different figures in so many totally different positions. This +group is taken from one of the very curious seats in the cathedral of +Rouen in Normandy, which were engraved and published in an interesting +volume by the late Monsieur E. H. Langlois. + + [Illustration: _No. 106. A Continuous Group._] + + [Illustration: _No. 107. Border Ornament._] + + [Illustration: _No. 108. A Triumphal Procession._] + +Among the most interesting of the medival burlesque drawings are +those which are found in such abundance in the borders of the pages of +illuminated manuscripts. During the earlier periods of the medival +miniatures, the favourite objects for these borders were monstrous +animals, especially dragons, which could easily be twined into +grotesque combinations. In course of time, the subjects thus introduced +became more numerous, and in the fifteenth century they were very +varied. Strange animals still continued to be favourites, but they +were more light and elegant in their forms, and were more gracefully +designed. Our cut No. 107, taken from the beautifully-illuminated +manuscript of the romance of the "Comte d'Artois," of the fifteenth +century, which has furnished us previously with several cuts, will +illustrate my meaning. The graceful lightness of the tracery of the +foliage shown in this design is found in none of the earlier works +of art of this class. This, of course, is chiefly to be ascribed to +the great advance which had been made in the art of design since the +thirteenth century. But, though so greatly improved in the style of +art, the same class of subjects continued to be introduced in this +border ornamentation long after the art of printing, and that of +engraving, which accompanied it, had been introduced. The revolution +in the ornamentation of the borders of the pages of books was effected +by the artists of the sixteenth century, at which time people had +become better acquainted with, and had learnt to appreciate, ancient +art and Roman antiquities, and they drew their inspiration from a +correct knowledge of what the middle ages had copied blindly, but had +not understood. Among the subjects of burlesque which the monuments +of Roman art presented to them, the stumpy figures of the pigmies +appear to have gained special favour, and they are employed in a manner +which reminds us of the pictures found in Pompeii. Jost Amman, the +well-known artist, who exercised his profession at Nremberg in the +latter half of the sixteenth century, engraved a set of illustrations +to Ovid's Metamorphoses, which were printed at Lyons in 1574, and each +cut and page of which is enclosed in a border of very fanciful and +neatly-executed burlesque. The pigmies are introduced in these borders +very freely, and are grouped with great spirit. I select as an example, +cut No. 108, a scene which represents a triumphal procession--some +pigmy Alexander returning from his conquests. The hero is seated on +a throne carried by an elephant, and before him a bird, perhaps a +vanquished crane, proclaims loudly his praise. Before them a pigmy +attendant marches proudly, carrying in one hand the olive branch of +peace, and leading in the other a ponderous but captive ostrich, as a +trophy of his master's victories. Before him again a pigmy warrior, +heavily armed with battle-axe and falchion, is mounting the steps +of a stage, on which a nondescript animal, partaking somewhat of +the character of a sow, but perhaps intended as a burlesque on the +strange animals which, in medival romance, Alexander was said to have +encountered in Egypt, blows a horn, to celebrate or announce the return +of the conqueror. A snail, also advancing slowly up the stage, implies, +perhaps, a sneer at the whole scene. + + [Illustration: _No. 109. The Mote and the Beam._] + +Nevertheless, these old German, Flemish, and Dutch artists were still +much influenced by the medival spirit, which they displayed in their +coarse and clumsy imagination, in their neglect of everything like +congruity in their treatment of the subject with regard to time and +place, and their _nave_ exaggerations and blunders. Extreme examples +of these characteristics are spoken of, in which the Israelites +crossing the Red Sea are armed with muskets, and all the other +accoutrements of modern soldiers, and in which Abraham is preparing +to sacrifice his son Isaac by shooting him with a matchlock. In +delineating scriptural subjects, an attempt is generally made to +clothe the figures in an imaginary ancient oriental costume, but the +landscapes are filled with the modern castles and mansion houses, +churches, and monasteries of western Europe. These half-medival +artists, too, like their more ancient predecessors, often fall into +unintentional caricature by the exaggeration or simplicity with which +they treat their subjects. There was one subject which the artists of +this period of regeneration of art seemed to have agreed to treat in +a very unimaginative manner. In the beautiful Sermon on the Mount, +our Saviour, in condemning hasty judgments of other people's actions, +says (Matt. vii. 3-5), "And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy +brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? +Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of +thine eye, and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, +first cast out the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see +clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye." Whatever be +the exact nature of the beam which the man was expected to overlook +in his "own eye," it certainly was not a large beam of timber. Yet +such was the conception of it by artists of the sixteenth century. +One of them, named Solomon Bernard, designed a series of woodcuts +illustrating the New Testament, which were published at Lyons in 1553; +and the manner in which he treated the subject will be seen in our +cut No. 109, taken from one of the illustrations to that book. The +individual seated is the man who has a mote in his eye, which the +other, approaching him, points out; and he retorts by pointing to the +"beam," which is certainly such a massive object as could not easily +have been overlooked. About thirteen years before this, an artist of +Augsburg, named Daniel Hopfer, had published a large copper-plate +engraving of this same subject, a reduced copy of which is given in the +cut No. 110. The individual who sees the mote in his brother's eye, is +evidently treating it in the character of a physician or surgeon. It +is only necessary to add that the beam in his own eye is of still more +extraordinary dimensions than the former, and that, though it seems +to escape the notice both of himself and his patient, it is evident +that the group in the distance contemplate it with astonishment. The +building accompanying this scene appears to be a church, with paintings +of saints in the windows. + + [Illustration: _No. 110. The Mote and the Beam--Another Treatment._] + + + + + CHAPTER X. + + SATIRICAL LITERATURE IN THE MIDDLE AGES.--JOHN DE HAUTEVILLE AND ALAN + DE LILLE.--GOLIAS AND THE GOLIARDS.--THE GOLIARDIC POETRY.--TASTE + FOR PARODY.--PARODIES ON RELIGIOUS SUBJECTS.--POLITICAL + CARICATURE IN THE MIDDLE AGES.--THE JEWS OF NORWICH.--CARICATURE + REPRESENTATIONS OF COUNTRIES.--LOCAL SATIRE.--POLITICAL SONGS AND + POEMS. + + +In a previous chapter I have spoken of a class of satirical literature +which was entirely popular in its character. Not that on this account +it was original among the peoples who composed medival society, for +the intellectual development of the middle ages came almost all from +Rome through one medium or other, although we know so little of the +details of the popular literature of the Romans that we cannot always +trace it. The medival literature of western Europe was mostly modelled +upon that of France, which was received, like its language, from Rome. +But when the great university system became established, towards the +end of the eleventh century, the scholars of western Europe became +more directly acquainted with the models of literature which antiquity +had left them; and during the twelfth century these found imitators +so skilful that some of them almost deceive us into accepting them +for classical writers themselves. Among the first of these models to +attract the attention of medival scholars, were the Roman satirists, +and the study of them produced, during the twelfth century, a number of +satirical writers in Latin prose and verse, who are remarkable not only +for their boldness and poignancy, but for the elegance of their style. +I may mention among those of English birth, John of Salisbury, Walter +Mapes, and Giraldus Cambrensis, who all wrote in prose, and Nigellus +Wireker, already mentioned in a former chapter, and John de Hauteville, +who wrote in verse. The first of these, in his "Polycraticus," Walter +Mapes, in his book "De Nugis Curialium," and Giraldus, in his "Speculum +Ecclesi," and several other of his writings, lay the lash on the +corruptions and vices of their contemporaries with no tender hand. +The two most remarkable English satirists of the twelfth century were +John de Hauteville and Nigellus Wireker. The former wrote, in the year +1184, a poem in nine books of Latin hexameters, entitled, after the +name of its hero, "Architrenius," or the Arch-mourner. Architrenius +is represented as a youth, arrived at years of maturity, who sorrows +over the spectacle of human vices and weaknesses, until he resolves to +go on a pilgrimage to Dame Nature, in order to expostulate with her +for having made him feeble to resist the temptations of the world, +and to entreat her assistance. On his way, he arrives successively at +the court of Venus and at the abode of Gluttony, which give him the +occasion to dwell at considerable length on the license and luxury +which prevailed among his contemporaries. He next reaches Paris, and +visits the famous medival university, and his satire on the manners of +the students and the fruitlessness of their studies, forms a remarkable +and interesting picture of the age. The pilgrim next arrives at the +Mount of Ambition, tempting by its beauty and by the stately palace +with which it was crowned, and here we are presented with a satire on +the manners and corruptions of the court. Near to this was the Hill of +Presumption, which was inhabited by ecclesiastics of all classes, great +scholastic doctors and professors, monks, and the like. It is a satire +on the manners of the clergy. As Architrenius turns from this painful +spectacle, he encounters a gigantic and hideous monster named Cupidity, +is led into a series of reflections upon the greediness and avarice +of the prelates, from which he is roused by the uproar caused by a +fierce combat between the prodigals and the misers. He is subsequently +carried to the island of far-distant Thule, which he finds to be the +resting-place of the philosophers of ancient Greece, and he listens +to their declamations against the vices of mankind. After this visit, +Architrenius reaches the end of his pilgrimage. He finds Nature in the +form of a beautiful woman, dwelling with a host of attendants in the +midst of a flowery plain, and meats with a courteous reception, but she +begins by giving him a long lecture on natural philosophy. After this +is concluded, Dame Nature listens to his complaints, and, to console +him, gives him a handsome woman, named Moderation, for a wife, and +dismisses him with a chapter of good counsels on the duties of married +life. The general moral intended to be inculcated appears to be that +the retirement of domestic happiness is to be preferred to the vain and +heartless turmoils of active life in all its phases. It will be seen +that the kind of allegory which subsequently produced the "Pilgrim's +Progress," had already made its appearance in medival literature. + +Another of the celebrated satirists of the scholastic ages was +named Alanus de Insulis, or Alan of Lille, because he is understood +to have been born at Lille in Flanders. He occupied the chair of +theology for many years in the university of Paris with great +distinction, and his learning was so extensive that he gained the +name of _doctor universalis_, the universal doctor. In one of his +books, which is an imitation of that favourite book in the middle +ages "Boethius de Consolatione Philosophi," Dame Nature, in the +place of Philosophy--not, as in John de Hauteville, as the referee, +but as the complainant--is introduced bitterly lamenting over the +deep depravity of the thirteenth century, especially displayed in +the prevalence of vices of a revolting character. This work, which, +like Boethius, consists of alternate chapters in verse and prose, is +entitled "De Planctu Natur," the lamentation of nature. I will not, +however, go on here to give a list of the graver satirical writers, but +we will proceed to another class of satirists which sprang up among +the medival scholars, more remarkable and more peculiar in their +character--I mean peculiar to the middle ages. + +The satires of the time show us that the students in the universities +in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, who enjoyed a great amount +of independence from authority, were generally wild and riotous, and, +among the vast number of youths who then devoted themselves to a +scholastic life, we can have no doubt that the habit of dissipation +became permanent. Among these wild students there existed, probably, +far more wit and satirical talent than among their steadier and more +laborious brethren, and this wit, and the manner in which it was +displayed, made its possessors welcome guests at the luxurious tables +of the higher and richer clergy, at which Latin seems to have been +the language in ordinary use. In all probability it was from this +circumstance (in allusion to the Latin word _gula_, as intimating their +love of the table) that these merry scholars, who displayed in Latin +some of the accomplishments which the jougleurs professed in the vulgar +tongue, took or received the name of _goliards_ (in the Latin of that +time, _goliardi_, or _goliardenses_).[42] The name at least appears +to have been adopted towards the end of the twelfth century. In the +year 1229, during the minority of Louis IX., and while the government +of France was in the hands of the queen-mother, troubles arose in the +university of Paris through the intrigues of the papal legate, and the +turbulence of the scholars led to their dispersion and to the temporary +closing of the schools; and the contemporary historian, Matthew Paris, +tells us how "some of the servants of the departing scholars, or those +whom we used to call goliardenses," composed an indecent epigram on +the rumoured familiarities between the legate and the queen. But this +is not the first mention of the goliards, for a statute of the council +of Treves, in 1227, forbade "all priests to permit truants, or other +wandering scholars, or goliards, to sing verses or _Sanctus_ and +_Angelus Dei_ in the service of the mass."[43] This probably refers to +parodies on the religious service, such as those of which I shall soon +have to speak. From this time the goliards are frequently mentioned. In +ecclesiastical statutes published in the year 1289, it is ordered that +the clerks or clergy (_clerici_, that is, men who had their education +in the university) "should not be jougleurs, goliards, or buffoons;"[44] +and the same statute proclaims a heavy penalty against those _clerici_ +"who persist in the practice of goliardy or stage performance during a +year,"[45] which shows that they exercised more of the functions of the +jougleur than the mere singing of songs. + + [42] In the medival Latin, the word _goliardia_ was introduced to + express the profession of the goliard, and the verb + _goliardizare_, to signify the practice of it. + + [43] "Item, prcipimus ut omnes sacerdotes non permittant trutannos et + alios vagos scholares, aut goliardos, cantare versus super + _Sanctus_ et _Angelus Dei_ in missis," etc.--Concil. Trevir., + an. 1227, ap. Marten. et Durand. Ampliss. Coll., vii. col. 117. + + [44] "Item, prcipimus quod clerici non sint joculatores, goliardi, seu + bufones."--Stat. Synod. Caduacensis, Ruthenensis, et Tutelensis + Eccles. ap. Martene, Thes. Anecd., iv. col. 727. + + [45] "Clerici ... si in goliardia vel histrionatu per annum + fuerint."--Ib. col. 729. In one of the editions of this statute it + is added, "after they have been warned three times." + +These vagabond clerks made for themselves an imaginary chieftain, +or president of their order, to whom they gave the name of Golias, +probably as a pun on the name of the giant who combated against David, +and, to show further their defiance of the existing church government, +they made him a bishop--_Golias episcopus_. Bishop Golias was the +burlesque representative of the clerical order, the general satirist, +the reformer of eclesiastical and all other corruptions. If he was not +a doctor of divinity, he was a master of arts, for he is spoken of as +_Magister Golias_. But above all he was the father of the Goliards, +the "ribald clerks," as they are called, who all belonged to his +household,[46] and they are spoken of as his children. + + _Summa salus omnium, filius Mari, + Pascat, potat, vestiat pueros Goly!_[47] + +"May the Saviour of all, the Son of Mary, give food, drink, and clothes +to the children of Golias!" Still the name was clothed in so much +mystery, that Giraldus Cambrensis, who flourished towards the latter +end of the twelfth century, believed Golias to be a real personage, +and his contemporary. It may be added that Golias not only boasts of +the dignity of bishop, but he appears sometimes under the title of +_archipoeta_, the archpoet or poet-in-chief. + + [46] "Clerici ribaldi, maxime qui vulgo dicuntur _de famila + Goli_."--Concil. Sen. ap. Concil., tom. ix. p. 578. + + [47] See my "Poems of Walter Mapes," p. 70. + +Csarius of Heisterbach, who completed his book of the miracles of his +time in the year 1222, tells us a curious anecdote of the character +of the wandering clerk. In the year before he wrote, he tells us, "It +happened at Bonn, in the diocese of Cologne, that a certain wandering +clerk, named Nicholas, of the class they call archpoet, was grievously +ill, and when he supposed that he was dying, he obtained from our +abbot, through his own pleading, and the intercession of the canons +of the same church, admission into the order. What more? He put on +the tunic, as it appeared to us, with much contrition, but, when the +danger was past, he took it off immediately, and, throwing it down with +derision, took to flight." We learn best the character of the goliards +from their own poetry, a considerable quantity of which is preserved. +They wandered about from mansion to mansion, probably from monastery +to monastery, just like the jougleurs, but they seem to have been +especially welcome at the tables of the prelates of the church, and, +like the jougleurs, besides being well feasted, they received gifts of +clothing and other articles. In few instances only were they otherwise +than welcome, as described in the rhyming epigram printed in my "Latin +Poems attributed to Walter Mapes." "I come uninvited," says the goliard +to the bishop, "ready for dinner; such is my fate, never to dine +invited." The bishop replies, "I care not for vagabonds, who wander +among the fields, and cottages, and villages; such guests are not for +my table. I do not invite you, for I avoid such as you; yet without my +will you may eat the bread you ask. Wash, wipe, sit, dine, drink, wipe, +and depart." + + Goliardus. + _Non invitatus venio prandere paratus; + Sic sum fatatus, nunquam prandere vocatus._ + + Episcopus. + _Non ego curo vagos, qui rura, mapalia, pagos + Perlustrant, tales non vult mea mensa sodales. + Te non invito, tibi consimiles ego vito; + Me tamen invito potieris pane petito. + Ablue, terge, sede, prande, bibe, terge, recede._ + +In another similar epigram, the goliard complains of the bishop who +had given him as his reward nothing but an old worn-out mantle. Most +of the writers of the goliardic poetry complain of their poverty, and +some of them admit that this poverty arose from the tavern and the love +of gambling. One of them alleges as his claim to the liberality of +his host, that, as he was a scholar, he had not learnt to labour, that +his parents were knights, but he had no taste for fighting, and that, +in a word, he preferred poetry to any occupation. Another speaks still +more to the point, and complains that he is in danger of being obliged +to sell his clothes. "If this garment of vair which I wear," he says, +"be sold for money, it will be a great disgrace to me; I would rather +suffer a long fast. A bishop, who is the most generous of all generous +men, gave me this cloak, and will have for it heaven, a greater reward +than St. Martin has, who only gave half of his cloak. It is needful +now that the poet's want be relieved by your liberality [addressing +his hearers]; let noble men give noble gifts--gold, and robes, and the +like." + + _Si vendatur propter denarium + Indumentum quod porto varium, + Grande mihi fiet opprobrium; + Malo diu pati jejunium. + Largissimus largorum omnium + Proesul dedit mihi hoc pallium, + Majus habens in clis prmium + Quam Martinus, qui dedit medium. + Nunc est opus ut vestra copia + Sublevetur vatis inopia; + Dent nobiles dona nobilia,-- + Aurum, vestes, et his similia._ + +There has been some difference of opinion as to the country to which +this poetry more especially belongs. Giraldus Cambrensis, writing at +the end of the twelfth or the beginning of the thirteenth century, +evidently thought that Golias was an Englishman; and at a later date +the goliardic poetry was almost all ascribed to Giraldus's contemporary +and friend, the celebrated humourist, Walter Mapes. This was, no doubt, +an error. Jacob Grimm seemed inclined to claim them for Germany; but +Grimm, on this occasion, certainly took a narrow view of the question. +We shall probably be more correct in saying that they belonged in +common to all the countries over which university learning extended; +that in whatever country a particular poem of this class was composed, +it became the property of the whole body of these scholastic jougleurs, +and that it was thus carried from one land to another, receiving +sometimes alterations or additions to adapt it to each. Several of +these poems are found in manuscripts written in different countries +with such alterations and additions, as, for instance, that in the +well-known "Confession," in the English copies of which we have, near +the conclusion, the line-- + + _Prsul Coventrensium, parce confitenti;_ + +an appeal to the bishop of Coventry, which is changed, in a copy in a +German manuscript, to + + _Electe Coloni, parce poenitenti,_ + + +"O elect of Cologne, spare me penitent." From a comparison of what +remains of this poetry in manuscripts written in different countries, +it appears probable that the names Golias and goliard originated in the +university of Paris, but were more especially popular in England, while +the term _archipoeta_ was more commonly used in Germany. + +In 1841 I collected all the goliardic poetry which I could then find in +English manuscripts, and edited it, under the name of Walter Mapes, as +one of the publications of the Camden Society.[48] At a rather later +date I gave a chapter of additional matter of the same description +in my "Anecdota Literaria."[49] All the poems I have printed in +these two volumes are found in manuscripts written in England, and +some of them are certainly the compositions of English writers. They +are distinguished by remarkable facility and ease in versification +and rhyme, and by great pungency of satire. The latter is directed +especially against the clerical order, and none are spared, from the +pope at the summit of the scale down to the lowest of the clergy. In +the "Apocalypsis Goli," or Golias's Revelations, which appears to +have been the most popular of all these poems,[50] the poet describes +himself as carried up in a vision to heaven, where the vices and +disorders of the various classes of the popish clergy are successively +revealed to him. The pope is a devouring lion; in his eagerness for +pounds, he pawns books; at the sight of a mark of money, he treats Mark +the Evangelist with disdain; while he sails aloft, money alone is his +anchoring-place. The original lines will serve as a specimen of the +style of these curious compositions, and of the love of punning which +was so characteristic of the literature of that age:-- + + _Est leo pontifex summus, qui devorat, + Qui libras sitiens, libros impignorat; + Marcam respiciet, Marcum dedecorat; + In summis navigans, in nummis anchorat._ + + [48] The Latin Poems commonly attributed to Walter Mapes, collected and + edited by Thomas Wright, Esq., 4to., London, 1841. + + [49] "Anecdota Literaria; a Collection of Short Poems in English, + Latin, and French, illustrative of the Literature and History of + England in the Thirteenth Century." Edited by Thomas Wright, Esq. + 8vo., London, 1844. + + [50] In my edition I have collated no less than sixteen copies which + occur among the MSS. in the British Museum, and in the libraries + at Oxford and Cambridge, and there are, no doubt, many more. + +The bishop is in haste to intrude himself into other people's pastures, +and fills himself with other people's goods. The ravenous archdeacon +is compared to an eagle, because he has sharp eyes to see his prey +afar off, and is swift to seize upon it. The dean is represented by an +animal with a man's face, full of silent guile, who covers fraud with +the form of justice, and by the show of simplicity would make others +believe him to be pious. In this spirit the faults of the clergy, of +all degrees, are minutely criticised through between four and five +hundred lines; and it must not be forgotten that it was the English +clergy whose character was thus exposed. + + _Tu scribes etiam, forma sed alia, + Septem ecclesiis qu sunt in Anglia._ + +Others of these pieces are termed Sermons, and are addressed, some to +the bishops and dignitaries of the church, others to the pope, others +to the monastic orders, and others to the clergy in general. The court +of Rome, we are told, was infamous for its greediness; there all right +and justice were put up for sale, and no favour could be had without +money. In this court money occupies everybody's thoughts; its cross--i. +e. the mark on the reverse of the coin--its roundness, and its +whiteness, all please the Romans; where money speaks law is silent. + + _Nummis in hac curia non est qui non vacet; + Crux placet, rotunditas, et albedo placet, + Et cum totum placeat, et Romanis placet, + Ubi nummus loquitur, et lex omnis tacet._ + +Perhaps one of the most curious of these poems is the "Confession of +Golias," in which the poet is made to satirise himself, and he thus +gives us a curious picture of the goliard's life. He complains that +he is made of light material, which is moved by every wind; that he +wanders about irregularly, like the ship on the sea or the bird in the +air, seeking worthless companions like himself. He is a slave to the +charms of the fair sex. He is a martyr to gambling, which often turns +him out naked to the cold, but he is warmed inwardly by the inspiration +of his mind, and he writes better poetry than ever. Lechery and +gambling are two of his vices, and the third is drinking. "The tavern," +he says, "I never despised, nor shall I ever despise it, until I see +the holy angels coming to sing the eternal requiem over my corpse. It +is my design to die in the tavern; let wine be placed to my mouth when +I am expiring, that when the choirs of angels come, they may say, 'Be +God propitious to this drinker!' The lamp of the soul is lighted with +cups; the heart steeped in nectar flies up to heaven; and the wine in +the tavern has for me a better flavour than that which the bishop's +butler mixes with water.... Nature gives to every one his peculiar +gift: I never could write fasting; a boy could beat me in composition +when I am hungry; I hate thirst and fasting as much as death." + + _Tertio capitulo memoro tabernam: + Illam nullo tempore sprevi, neque spernam, + Donec sanctos angelos venientes cernam, + Cantantes pro mortuo requiem ternam._ + + _Meum est propositum in taberna mori; + Vindum sit appositum morientis ori, + Ut dicant cum venerint angelorum chori, + 'Deus sit propitius huic potatori!'_ + + _Poculis accenditur animi lucerna; + Cor imbutum nectare volat ad superna: + Mihi sapit dulcius vinum in taberna, + Quam quod aqua miscuit prsulis pincerna._ + + _Unicuique proprium dat natura munus: + Ego nunquam potui scribere jejunus; + Me jejunum vincere posset puer unus; + Sitim et jejunium odi tanquam funus._[51] + +Another of the more popular of these goliardic poems was the advice of +Golias against marriage, a gross satire upon the female sex. Contrary +to what we might perhaps expect from their being written in Latin, many +of these metrical satires are directed against the vices of the laity, +as well as against those of the clergy. + + [51] Poems attributed to Walter Mapes, p. 73. The stanzas here quoted, + with some others, were afterwards made up into a drinking song, + which was rather popular in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. + +In 1844 the celebrated German scholar, Jacob Grimm, published in the +"Transactions of the Academy of Sciences at Berlin" a selection of +goliardic verses from manuscripts in Germany, which had evidently been +written by Germans, and some of them containing allusions to German +affairs in the thirteenth century.[52] They present the same form of +verse and the same style of satire as those found in England, but the +name of Golias is exchanged for _archipoeta_, the archpoet. Some of +the stanzas of the "Confession of Golias" are found in a poem in which +the archpoet addresses a petition to the archchancellor for assistance +in his distress, and confesses his partiality for wine. A copy of the +Confession itself is also found in this German collection, under the +title of the "Poet's Confession." + + [52] "Gedichte des Mittelalters auf Knig Friedrich I. den Staufar, und + aus seiner so wie der nchstfolgenden Zeit," 4to. Separate copies + of this work were printed off and distributed among medival + scholars. + +The Royal Library at Munich contains a very important manuscript of +this goliardic Latin poetry, written in the thirteenth century. It +belonged originally to one of the great Benedictine abbeys in Bavaria, +where it appears to have been very carefully preserved, but still +with an apparent consciousness that it was not exactly a book for a +religious brotherhood, which led the monks to omit it in the catalogue +of their library, no doubt as a book the possession of which was not +to be proclaimed publicly. When written, it was evidently intended +to be a careful selection of the poetry of this class then current. +One part of it consists of poetry of a more serious character, such +as hymns, moral poems, and especially satirical pieces. In this class +there are more than one piece which are also found in the manuscripts +written in England. A very large portion of the collection consists +of love songs, which, although evidently treasured by the Benedictine +monks, are sometimes licentious in character. A third class consists +of drinking and gambling songs (_potatoria et lusoria_). The general +character of this poetry is more playful, more ingenious and intricate +in its metrical structure, in fact, more lyric than that of the poetry +we have been describing; yet it came, in all probability, from the same +class of poets--the clerical jougleurs. The touches of sentiment, the +descriptions of female beauty, the admiration of nature, are sometimes +expressed with remarkable grace. Thus, the green wood sweetly enlivened +by the joyous voices of its feathered inhabitants, the shade of its +branches, the thorns covered with flowers, which, says the poet, are +emblematical of love, which pricks like a thorn and then soothes like a +flower, are tastefully described in the following lines:-- + + _Cantu nemus avium + Lascivia canentium + Suave delinitur, + Fronde redimitur, + Vernant spin floribus + Micantibus, + Venerem signantibus + Quia spina pungit, flos blanditur._ + +And the following scrap of the description of a beautiful damsel shows +no small command of language and versification-- + + _Allicit dulcibus + Verbis et osculis, + Labellulis + Castigate tumentibus, + Roseo nectareus + Odor infusus ori; + Pariter eburneus + Sedat ordo dentium + Par niveo candori._ + +The whole contents of this manuscript were printed in 1847, in an +octavo volume, issued by the Literary Society at Stuttgard.[53] I had +already printed some examples of such amatory Latin lyric poetry in +1838, in a volume of "Early Mysteries and Latin Poems;"[54] but this +poetry does not belong properly to the subject of the present volume, +and I pass on from it. + + [53] "Carmina Burana. Lateinische und Deutsche Lieder und Gedichte + einer Handschrift des XIII. Jahrhunderts aus Benedictbeurn auf + der K. Bibliothek zu Mnchen." 8vo. Stuttgart, 1847. + + [54] "Early Mysteries and other Latin Poems of the Twelfth and + Thirteenth Centuries," edited by Thomas Wright, Esq. 8vo. London, + 1838. + +The goliards did not always write in verse, for we have some of +their prose compositions, and these appear especially in the form +of parodies. We trace a great love for parody in the middle ages, +which spared not even things the most sacred, and the examples +brought forward in the celebrated trial of William Hone, were mild in +comparison to some which are found scattered here and there in medival +manuscripts. In my Poems, attributed to Walter Mapes,[55] I have +printed a satire in prose entitled "_Magister Golyas de quodam abbate_" +(i.e., Master Golias's account of a certain abbot), which has somewhat +the character of a parody upon a saint's legend. The voluptuous life of +the superior of a monastic house is here described in a tone of banter +which nothing could excel. Several parodies, more direct in their +character, are printed in the two volumes of the "Reliqu Antiqu."[56] +One of these (vol. ii. p. 208) is a complete parody on the service of +the mass, which is entitled in the original, "_Missa de Potatoribus_," +the Mass of the Drunkard. In this extraordinary composition, even the +pater-noster is parodied. A portion of this, with great variations, is +found in the German collection of the Carmina Burana, under the title +of _Officium Lusorum_, the Office of the Gamblers. In the "Reliqu +Antiqu" (ii. 58) we have a parody on the Gospel of St. Luke, beginning +with the words, _Initium fallacis Evangelii secundum Lupum_, this last +word being, of course, a sort of pun upon Lucam. Its subject also is +Bacchus, and the scene having been laid in a tavern in Oxford, we have +no difficulty in ascribing it to some scholar of that university in the +thirteenth century. Among the Carmina Burana we find a similar parody +on the Gospel of St. Mark, which has evidently belonged to one of these +burlesques on the church service; and as it is less profane than the +others, and at the same time pictures the medival hatred towards the +church of Rome, I will give a translation of it as an example of this +singular class of compositions. It is hardly necessary to remind the +reader that a mark was a coin of the value of thirteen shillings and +fourpence:-- + + "The beginning of the holy gospel according to Marks of silver. + At that time the pope said to the Romans: 'When the son of man + shall come to the seat of our majesty, first say, Friend, for what + hast thou come? But if he should persevere in knocking without + giving you anything, cast him out into utter darkness.' And it + came to pass, that a certain poor clerk came to the court of the + lord the pope, and cried out, saying, 'Have pity on me at least, + you doorkeepers of the pope, for the hand of poverty has touched + me. For I am needy and poor, and therefore I seek your assistance + in my calamity and misery.' But they hearing this were highly + indignant, and said to him: 'Friend, thy poverty be with thee in + perdition; get thee backward, Satan, for thou dost not savour of + those things which have the savour of money. Verily, verily, I say + unto thee, Thou shalt not enter into the joy of thy lord, until + thou shalt have given thy last farthing.' + + "Then the poor man went away, and sold his cloak and his gown, + and all that he had, and gave it to the cardinals, and to the + doorkeepers, and to the chamberlains. But they said, 'And what is + this among so many?' And they cast him out of the gates, and going + out he wept bitterly, and was without consolation. After him there + came to the court a certain clerk who was rich, and gross, and + fat, and large, and who in a tumult had committed manslaughter. He + gave first to the doorkeeper, secondly to the chamberlain, third + to the cardinals. But they judged among themselves, that they + were to receive more. Then the lord the pope, hearing that the + cardinals and officials had received many gifts from the clerk, + became sick unto death. But the rich man sent him an electuary of + gold and silver, and he was immediately made whole. Then the lord + the pope called before him the cardinals and officials, and said + to them: 'Brethren, see that no one deceive you with empty words. + For I give you an example, that, as I take, so take ye also.'" + + [55] Introduction, p. xl. + + [56] "Reliqui Antiqu. Scraps from Ancient Manuscripts, illustrating + chiefly Early English Literature and the English Language." Edited + by Thomas Wright, Esq., and J. O. Halliwell, Esq. 2 vols. 8vo. + Vol. i., London, 1841; vol. ii., 1843. + +This medival love of parody was not unfrequently displayed in a +more popular form, and in the language of the people. In the _Reliqu +Antiqu_ (i. 82) we have a very singular parody in English on the +sermons of the Catholic priesthood, a good part of which is so written +as to present no consecutive sense, which circumstance itself implies +a sneer at the preachers. Thus our burlesque preacher, in the middle +of his discourse, proceeds to narrate as follows (I modernise the +English):-- + + "Sirs, what time that God and St. Peter came to Rome, Peter asked + Adam a full great doubtful question, and said, 'Adam, Adam, why + ate thou the apple unpared?' 'Forsooth,' quod he, 'for I had no + wardens (pears) fried.' And Peter saw the fire, and dread him, and + stepped into a plum-tree that hanged full of ripe red cherries. + And there he saw all the parrots in the sea. There he saw steeds + and stockfish pricking 'swose' (?) in the water. There he saw hens + and herrings that hunted after harts in hedges. There he saw eels + roasting larks. There he saw haddocks were done on the pillory for + wrong roasting of May butter; and there he saw how bakers baked + butter to grease with old monks' boots. There he saw how the fox + preached," &c. + +The same volume contains some rather clever parodies on the old English +alliterative romances, composed in a similar style of consecutive +nonsense. It is a class of parody which we trace to a rather early +period, which the French term a _coq--l'ne_, and which became +fashionable in England in the seventeenth century in the form of +songs entitled "Tom-a-Bedlams." M. Jubinal has printed two such poems +in French, perhaps of the thirteenth century,[57] and others are +found scattered through the old manuscripts. There is generally so +much coarseness in them that it is not easy to select a portion for +translation, and in fact their point consists in going on through the +length of a poem of this kind without imparting a single clear idea. +Thus, in the second of those published by Jubinal, we are told how, +"The shadow of an egg carried the new year upon the bottom of a pot; +two old new combs made a ball to run the trot; when it came to paying +the scot, I, who never move myself, cried out, without saying a word, +'Take the feather of an ox, and clothe a wise fool with it.'"-- + + _Li ombres d'un oef + Portoit l'an reneuf + Sur la fonz d'un pot; + Deus viez pinges neuf + Firent un estuef + Pour courre le trot; + Quant vint au paier l'escot, + Je, qui onques ne me muef, + M'escriai, si ne dis mot:-- + 'Prens la plume d'un buef, + S'en vestez un sage sot.'_--Jubinal, Nouv. Rec., ii. 217. + + [57] "Achille Jubinal, Jongleurs et Trouvres." 8vo., Paris, 1835, p. + 34; and "Nouveau Recueil de Contes, Dits, Fabliaux," &c. 8vo., + Paris, 1842. Vol. ii. p. 208. In the first instance M. Jubinal has + given to this little poem the title _Resveries_, in the second, + _Fatrasies_. + +The spirit of the goliards continued to exist long after the name +had been forgotten; and the mass of bitter satire which they had +left behind them against the whole papal system, and against the +corruptions of the papal church of the middle ages, were a perfect +godsend to the reformers of the sixteenth century, who could point +to them triumphantly as irresistible evidence in their favour. Such +scholars as Flacius Illyricus, eagerly examined the manuscripts +which contained this goliardic poetry, and printed it, chiefly as +good and effective weapons in the great religious strife which was +then convulsing European society. To us, besides their interest as +literary compositions, they have also a historical value, for they +introduce us to a more intimate acquaintance with the character of the +great mental struggle for emancipation from medival darkness which +extended especially through the thirteenth century, and which was only +overcome for a while to begin more strongly and more successfully at +a later period. They display to us the gross ignorance, as well as +the corruption of manners, of the great mass of the medival clergy. +Nothing can be more amusing than the satire which some of these pieces +throw on the character of monkish Latin. I printed in the "Reliqu +Antiqu," under the title of "The Abbot of Gloucester's Feast," a +complaint supposed to issue from the mouth of one of the common herd +of the monks, against the selfishness of their superiors, in which all +the rules of Latin grammar are entirely set at defiance. The abbot and +prior of Gloucester, with their whole convent, are invited to a feast, +and on their arrival, "the abbot," says the complainant, "goes to sit +at the top, and the prior next to him, but I stood always in the back +place among the low people." + + _Abbas ire sede sursum, + Et prioris juxta ipsum; + Ego semper stavi dorsum + inter rascalilia._ + +The wine was served liberally to the prior and the abbot, but "nothing +was give to us poor folks--everything was for the rich." + + _Vinum venit sanguinatis + Ad prioris et abbatis; + Nihil nobis paupertatis, + sed ad dives omnia._ + +When some dissatisfaction was displayed by the poor monks, which the +great men treated with contempt, "said the prior to the abbot, 'They +have wine enough; will you give all our drink to the poor? What does +their poverty regard us? they have little, and that is enough, since +they came uninvited to our feast.'" + + _Prior dixit ad abbatis, + 'Ipsi habent vinum satis; + Vultis dare paupertatis + noster potus omnia? + Quid nos spectat paupertatis? + Postquam venit non vocatis + ad noster convivia.'_ + +Thus through several pages this amusing poem goes on to describe the +gluttony and drunkenness of the abbot and prior, and the ill-treatment +of their inferiors. This composition belongs to the close of the +thirteenth century. A song very similar to it in character, but much +shorter, is found in a manuscript of the middle of the fifteenth +century, and printed with the other contents of this manuscript in a +little volume issued by the Percy Society.[58] The writer complains +that the abbot and prior drunk good and high-flavoured wine, while +nothing but inferior stuff was usually given to the convent; "But," +he says, "it is better to go drink good wine at the tavern, where the +wines are of the best quality, and money is the butler." + + _Bonum vinum cum sapore + Bibit abbas cum priore; + Sed conventus de pejore + semper solet bibere. + Bonum vinum in taberna, + Ubi vina sunt valarna_ (for Falerna), + _Ubi nummus est pincerna, + Ibi prodest bibere._ + + [58] "Songs and Carols, now first printed from a Manuscript of the + Fifteenth Century." Edited by Thomas Wright, Esq. 8vo., London, + 1847, p. 2. + + [Illustration: _No. 111. Caricature upon the Jews at Norwich._] + +Partly out of the earnest, though playful, satire described in this +chapter, arose political satire, and at a later period political +caricature. I have before remarked that the period we call the middle +ages was not that of political or personal caricature, because it +wanted that means of circulating quickly and largely which is necessary +for it. Yet, no doubt, men who could draw, did, in the middle ages, +sometimes amuse themselves in sketching caricatures, which, in general, +have perished, because nobody cared to preserve them; but the fact of +the existence of such works is proved by a very curious example, which +has been preserved, and which is copied in our cut No. 111. It is a +caricature on the Jews of Norwich, which some one of the clerks of the +king's courts in the thirteenth century has drawn with a pen, on one +of the official rolls of the Pell office, where it has been preserved. +Norwich, as it is well known, was one of the principal seats of the +Jews in England at this early period, and Isaac of Norwich, the crowned +Jew with three faces, who towers over the other figures, was no doubt +some personage of great importance among them. Dagon, as a two-headed +demon, occupies a tower, which a party of demon knights is attacking. +Beneath the figure of Isaac there is a lady, whose name appears to be +Avezarden, who has some relation or other with a male figure named +Nolle-Mokke, in which another demon, named Colbif, is interfering. As +this latter name is written in capital letters, we may perhaps conclude +that he is the most important personage in the scene; but, without any +knowledge of the circumstances to which it relates, it would be in vain +to attempt to explain this curious and rather elaborate caricature. + + [Illustration: _No. 112. An Irishman._] + +Similar attempts at caricature, though less direct and elaborate, are +found in others of our national records. One of these, pointed out to +me by an excellent and respected friend, the Rev. Lambert B. Larking, +is peculiarly interesting, as well as amusing. It belongs to the +Treasury of the Exchequer, and consists of two volumes of vellum called +Liber A and Liber B, forming a register of treaties, marriages, and +similar documents of the reign of Edward I., which have been very fully +used by Rymer. The clerk who was employed in writing it, seems to have +been, like many of these official clerks, somewhat of a wag, and he +has amused himself by drawing in the margin figures of the inhabitants +of the provinces of Edward's crown to which the documents referred. +Some of these are evidently designed for caricature. Thus, the figure +given in our cut No. 112 was intended to represent an Irishman. One +trait, at least, in this caricature is well known from the description +given by Giraldus Cambrensis, who speaks with a sort of horror of the +formidable axes which the Irish were accustomed to carry about with +them. In treating of the manner in which Ireland ought to be governed +when it had been entirely reduced to subjection, he recommends that, +"in the meantime, they ought not to be allowed in time of peace, on +any pretence or in any place, to use that detestable instrument of +destruction, which, by an ancient but accursed custom, they constantly +carry in their hands instead of a staff." In a chapter of his +"Topography of Ireland," Giraldus treats of this "ancient and wicked +custom" of always carrying in their hand an axe, instead of a staff, +to the danger of all persons who had any relations with them. Another +Irishman, from a drawing in the same manuscript, given in our cut No. +113, carries his axe in the same threatening attitude. The costume of +these figures answers with sufficient accuracy to the description given +by Giraldus Cambrensis. The drawings exhibit more exactly than that +writer's description the "small close-fitting hoods, hanging a cubit's +length (half-a-yard) below the shoulders," which, he tells us, they +were accustomed to wear. This small hood, with the flat cap attached to +it, is shown better perhaps in the second figure than in the first. The +"breeches and hose of one piece, or hose and breeches joined together," +are also exhibited here very distinctly, and appear to be tied over +the heel, but the feet are clearly naked, and evidently the use of the +"brogues" was not yet general among the Irish of the thirteenth century. + + [Illustration: _No. 113. Another Irishman._] + +If the Welshman of this period was somewhat more scantily clothed +than the Irishman, he had the advantage of him, to judge by this +manuscript, in wearing at least one shoe. Our cut No. 114, taken from +it, represents a Welshman armed with bow and arrow, whose clothing +consists apparently only of a plain tunic and a light mantle. This +is quite in accordance with the description by Giraldus Cambrensis, +who tells us that in all seasons their dress was the same, and that, +however severe the weather, "they defended themselves from the cold +only by a thin cloak and tunic." Giraldus says nothing of the practice +of the Welsh in wearing but one shoe, yet it is evident that at the +time of this record that was their practice, for in another figure of +a Welshman, given in our cut No. 115, we see the same peculiarity, +and in both cases the shoe is worn on the left foot. Giraldus merely +says that the Welshmen in general, when engaged in warfare, "either +walked bare-footed, or made use of high shoes, roughly made of untanned +leather." He describes them as armed sometimes with bows and arrows, +and sometimes with long spears; and accordingly our first example of +a Welshman from this manuscript is using the bow, while the second +carries the spear, which he apparently rests on the single shoe of +his left foot, while he brandishes a sword in his left hand. Both our +Welshmen present a singularly grotesque appearance. + + [Illustration: _No. 114. A Welsh Archer._] + + [Illustration: _No. 115. A Welshman with his Spear._] + + [Illustration: _No. 116. A Gascon at his Vine._] + + [Illustration: _No. 117. The Wine Manufacturer._] + +The Gascon is represented with more peaceful attributes. Gascony was +the country of vineyards, from whence we drew our great supply of +wines, a very important article of consumption in the middle ages. +When the official clerk who wrote this manuscript came to documents +relating to Gascony, his thoughts wandered naturally enough to its +rich vineyards and the wine they supplied so plentifully, and to +which, according to old reports, clerks seldom showed any dislike, and +accordingly, in the sketch, which we copy in our cut No. 116, we have +a Gascon occupied diligently in pruning his vine-tree. He, at least, +wears two shoes, though his clothing is of the lightest description. He +is perhaps the _vinitor_ of the medival documents on this subject, a +serf attached to the vineyard. Our second sketch, cut No. 117, presents +a more enlarged scene, and introduces us to the whole process of making +wine. First we see a man better clothed, with shoes (or boots) of much +superior make, and a hat on his head, carrying away the grapes from +the vineyard to the place where another man, with no clothing at all, +is treading out the juice in a large vat. This is still in some of the +wine countries the common method of extracting the juice from the +grape. Further to the left is the large cask in which the juice is put +when turned into wine. + +Satires on the people of particular localities were not uncommon +during the middle ages, because local rivalries and consequent local +feuds prevailed everywhere. The records of such feuds were naturally +of a temporary character, and perished when the feuds and rivalries +themselves ceased to exist, but a few curious satires of this kind have +been preserved. A monk of Peterborough, who lived late in the twelfth +or early in the thirteenth century, and for some reason or other +nourished an unfriendly feeling to the people of Norfolk, gave vent +to his hostility in a short Latin poem in what we may call goliardic +verse. He begins by abusing the county itself, which, he says, was as +bad and unfruitful as its inhabitants were vile; and he suggests that +the evil one, when he fled from the anger of the Almighty, had passed +through it and left his pollution upon it. Among other anecdotes of +the simplicity and folly of the people of this county, which closely +resemble the stories of the wise men of Gotham of a later date, he +informs us that one day the peasantry of one district were so grieved +by the oppressions of their feudal lord, that they subscribed together +and bought their freedom, which he secured to them by formal deed, +ratified with a ponderous seal. They adjourned to the tavern, and +celebrated their deliverance by feasting and drinking until night came +on, and then, for want of a candle, they agreed to burn the wax of the +seal. Next day their former lord, informed of what had taken place, +brought them before a court, where the deed was judged to be void for +want of the seal, and they lost all their money, were reduced to their +old position of slavery, and treated worse than ever. Other stories, +still more ridiculous, are told of these old Norfolkians, but few of +them are worth repeating. Another monk, apparently, who calls himself +John de St. Omer, took up the cudgels for the people of Norfolk, +and replied to the Peterborough satirist in similar language.[59] I +have printed in another collection,[60] a satirical poem against +the people of a place called Stockton (perhaps Stockton-on-Tees in +Durham), by the monk of a monastic house, of which they were serfs. +It appeared that they had risen against the tyranny of their lord, +but had been unsuccessful in defending their cause in a court of law, +and the ecclesiastical satirist exults over their defeat in a very +uncharitable tone. There will be found in the "Reliqu Antiqu,"[61] +a very curious satire in Latin prose directed against the inhabitants +of Rochester, although it is in truth aimed against Englishmen in +general, and is entitled in the manuscript, which is of the fourteenth +century, "Proprietates Anglicorum" (the Peculiarities of Englishmen). +In the first place, we are told, that the people of Rochester had +tails, and the question is discussed, very scholastically, what +species of animals these Rocestrians were. We are then told that the +cause of their deformity arose from the insolent manner in which +they treated St. Augustine, when he came to preach the Gospel to the +heathen English. After visiting many parts of England, the saint came +to Rochester, where the people, instead of listening to him, hooted +at him through the streets, and, in derision, attached tails of pigs +and calves to his vestments, and so turned him out of the city. The +vengeance of Heaven came upon them, and all who inhabited the city and +the country round it, and their descendants after them, were condemned +to bear tails exactly like those of pigs. This story of the tails +was not an invention of the author of the satire, but was a popular +legend connected with the history of St. Augustine's preaching, though +the scene of the legend was laid in Dorsetshire. The writer of this +singular composition goes on to describe the people of Rochester as +seducers of other people, as men without gratitude, and as traitors. +He proceeds to show that Rochester being situated in England, its +vices had tainted the whole nation, and he illustrates the baseness of +the English character by a number of anecdotes of worse than doubtful +authenticity. It is, in fact, a satire on the English composed in +France, and leads us into the domains of political satire. + + [59] Both these poems are printed in my "Early Mysteries, and other + Latin Poems of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries." 8vo., + London, 1838. + + [60] "Anecdota Literaria," p. 49. + + [61] "Reliqu Antiqu," vol. ii. p. 230. + +Political satire in the middle ages appeared chiefly in the form of +poetry and song, and it was especially in England that it flourished, +a sure sign that there was in our country a more advanced feeling of +popular independence, and greater freedom of speech, than in France or +Germany.[62] M. Leroux de Lincy, who undertook to make a collection +of this poetry for France, found so little during the medival period +that came under the character of political, that he was obliged to +substitute the word "historical" in the title of his book.[63] Where +feudalism was supreme, indeed, the songs which arose out of private +or public strife, which then were almost inseparable from society, +contained no political sentiment, but consisted chiefly of personal +attacks on the opponents of those who employed them. Such are the four +short songs written in the time of the revolt of the French during +the minority of St. Louis, which commenced in 1226; they are all of a +political character which M. Leroux de Lincy has been able to collect +previous to the year 1270, and they consist merely of personal taunts +against the courtiers by the dissatisfied barons who were out of power. +We trace a similar feeling in some of the popular records of our +baronial wars of the reign of Henry III., especially in a song, in the +baronial language (Anglo-Norman), preserved in a small roll of vellum, +which appears to have belonged to the minstrel who chanted it in the +halls of the partisans of Simon de Montfort. The fragment which remains +consists of stanzas in praise of the leaders of the popular party, and +in reproach of their opponents. Thus of Roger de Clifford, one of earl +Simon's friends, we are told that "the good Roger de Clifford behaved +like a noble baron, and exercised great justice; he suffered none, +either small or great, or secretly or openly, to do any wrong." + + _Et de Cliffort ly bon Roger + Se contint cum noble ber, + Si fu de grant justice; + Ne suffri pas petit ne grant, + Ne arre ne par devant, + Fere nul mesprise._ + +On the other hand, one of Montfort's opponents, the bishop of Hereford, +is treated rather contemptuously. We are told that he "learnt well that +the earl was strong when he took the matter in hand; before that he +(the bishop) was very fierce, and thought to eat up all the English; +but now he is reduced to straits." + + _Ly eveske de Herefort + Sout bien que ly quens fu fort, + Kant il prist l'affre; + Devant ce esteit mult fer, + Les Englais quida touz manger, + Ms ore ne set que fere._ + +This bishop was Peter de Aigueblanche, one of the foreign favourites, +who had been intruded into the see of Hereford, to the exclusion of +a better man, and had been an oppressor of those who were under his +rule. The barons seized him, threw him into prison, and plundered his +possessions, and at the time this song was written, he was suffering +under the imprisonment which appears to have shortened his life. + + [62] I have published from the original manuscripts the mass of the + political poetry composed in England during the middle ages in my + three volumes--"The Political Songs of England, from the Reign + of John to that of Edward II." 4to., London, 1839 (issued by + the Camden Society); and "Political Poems and Songs relating to + English History, composed during the Period from the Accession of + Edward III. to that of Richard III." 8vo., vol i., London, 1859; + vol. ii., 1861 (published by the Treasury, under the direction of + the Master of the Rolls.) + + [63] "Receuil de Chants Historiques Franais depuis le xii^e. jusqu'au + xviii^e. Sicle, par Leroux de Lincy.... Premire Srie, xii^e., + xiii^e., xiv^e, et xv^e., Sicles." 8vo., Paris, 1841. + +The universities and the clerical body in general were deeply involved +in these political movements of the thirteenth century; and our +earliest political songs now known are composed in Latin, and in that +form and style of verse which seems to have been peculiar to the +goliards, and which I venture to call goliardic. Such is a song against +the three bishops who supported king John in his quarrel with the +pope about the presentation to the see of Canterbury, printed in my +Political Songs. Such, too, is the song of the Welsh, and one or two +others, in the same volume. And such, above all, is that remarkable +Latin poem in which a partisan of the barons, immediately after the +victory at Lewes, set forth the political tenets of his party, and gave +the principles of English liberty nearly the same broad basis on which +they stand at the present. It is an evidence of the extent to which +these principles were now acknowledged, that in this great baronial +struggle our political songs began to be written in the English +language, an acknowledgment that they concerned the whole English +public. + +We trace little of this class of literature during the reign of Edward +I.; but, when the popular feelings became turbulent again under the +reign of his son and successor, political songs became more abundant, +and their satire was directed more even than formerly against measures +and principles, and was less an instrument of mere personal abuse. One +satirical poem of this period, which I had printed from an imperfect +copy in a manuscript at Edinburgh, but of which a more complete copy +was subsequently found in a manuscript in the library of St. Peter's +College, Cambridge,[64] is extremely curious as being the earliest +satire of this kind written in English that we possess. It appears to +have been written in the year 1320. The writer of this poem begins by +telling us that his object is to explain the cause of the war, ruin, +and manslaughter which then prevailed throughout the land, and why +the poor were suffering from hunger and want, the cattle perished in +the field, and the corn was dear. These he ascribes to the increasing +wickedness of all orders of society. To begin with the church, Rome +was the head of all corruptions, at the papal court false-hood and +treachery only reigned, and the door of the pope's palace was shut +against truth. During the twelfth and following centuries these +complaints, in terms more or less forcible, against the corruptions of +Rome, are continually repeated, and show that the evil must have been +one under which everybody felt oppressed. The old charge of Romish +simony is repeated in this poem in very strong terms. "The clerk's +voice shall be little heard at the court of Rome, were he ever so good, +unless he bring silver with him; though he were the holiest man that +ever was born, unless he bring gold or silver, all his time and anxiety +are lost. Alas! why love they so much that which is perishable?" + + _Voys of clerk shall lytyl be heard at the court of Rome, + Were he never so gode a clerk, without silver and he come; + Though he were the holyst man that ever yet was ibore, + But he bryng gold or sylver, al hys while is forlore + And his thowght. + Allas! whi love thei that so much that schal turne to nowght?_ + + [64] "A Poem on the Times of Edward III., from a MS. preserved in the + Library of St. Peter's College, Cambridge." Edited by the Rev. + C. Hardwick. 8vo. London, 1849. (One of the publications of the + Percy Society.) + +When, on the contrary, a wicked man presented himself at the pope's +court, he had only to carry plenty of money thither, and all went well +with him. According to our satirist, the bishops were "fools," and the +other dignitaries and officials of the church were influenced chiefly +by the love of money and self-indulgence. The parson began humbly, when +he first obtained his benefice, but no sooner had he gathered money +together, than he took "a wenche" to live with him as his wife, and +rode a hunting with hawks and hounds like a gentleman. The priests were +men with no learning, who preached by rote what they neither understood +nor appreciated. "Truely," he says, "it fares by our unlearned priests +as by a jay in a cage, who curses himself: he speaks good English, but +he knows not what it means. No more does an unlearned priest know his +gospel that he reads daily. An unlearned priest, then, is no better +than a jay." + + _Certes at so hyt fareth by a prest that is lewed, + As by a jay in a cage that hymself hath beshrewed: + Gode Englysh he speketh, but he not never what. + No more wot a lewed prest hys gospel wat he rat + By day. + Than is a lewed prest no better than a jay._ + +Abbots and priors were remarkable chiefly for their pride and luxury, +and the monks naturally followed their examples. Thus was religion +debased everywhere. The character of the physician is treated with +equal severity, and his various tricks to obtain money are amusingly +described. In this manner the songster presents to view the failings of +the various orders of lay society also, the selfishness and oppressive +bearing of the knights and aristocracy, and their extravagance in +dress and living, the neglect of justice, the ill-management of the +wars, the weight of taxation, and all the other evils which then +afflicted the state. This poem marks a period in our social history, +and led the way to that larger work of the same character, which +came about thirty years later, the well-known "Visions of Piers +Ploughman,"[65] one of the most remarkable satires, as well as one of +the most remarkable poems, in the English language. + +We will do no more than glance at the further progress of political +satire which had now taken a permanent footing in English literature. +We see less of it during the reign of Edward III., the greater part of +which was occupied with foreign wars and triumphs, but there appeared +towards the close of his reign, a very remarkable satire, which I have +printed in my "Political Poems and Songs." It is written in Latin, and +consists of a pretended prophecy in verse by an inspired monk named +John of Bridlington, with a mock commentary in prose--in fact, a parody +on the commentaries in which the scholastics of that age displayed +their learning, but in this case the commentary contains a bold though +to us rather obscure criticism on the whole policy of Edward's reign. +The reign of Richard II. was convulsed by the great struggle for +religious reform, by the insurrections of the lower orders, and by +the ambition and feuds of the nobles, and produced a vast quantity of +political and religious satire, both in prose and verse, but especially +the latter. We must not overlook our great poet Chaucer, as one of the +powerful satirists of this period. Political song next makes itself +heard loudly in the wars of the Roses. It was the last struggle of +feudalism in England, and the character of the song had fallen back +to its earlier characteristics, in which all patriotic feelings were +abandoned to make place for personal hatred. + + [65] "The Vision and the Creed of Piers Ploughman;" with Notes and a + Glossary by Thomas Wright. 2 vols. 12mo. London, 1842. Second and + revised edition, 2 vols. 12mo. London, 1856. + + + + + CHAPTER XI. + + MINSTRELSY A SUBJECT OF BURLESQUE AND CARICATURE.--CHARACTER + OF THE MINSTRELS.--THEIR JOKES UPON THEMSELVES AND UPON ONE + ANOTHER.--VARIOUS MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS REPRESENTED IN THE + SCULPTURES OF THE MEDIVAL ARTISTS.--SIR MATTHEW GOURNAY AND THE + KING OF PORTUGAL.--DISCREDIT OF THE TABOR AND BAGPIPES.--MERMAIDS. + + +One of the principal classes of the satirists of the middle ages, the +minstrels, or jougleurs, were far from being unamenable to satire +themselves. They belonged generally to a low class of the population, +one that was hardly acknowledged by the law, which merely administered +to the pleasures and amusements of others, and, though sometimes +liberally rewarded, they were objects rather of contempt than of +respect. Of course there were minstrels belonging to a class more +respectable than the others, but these were comparatively few; and the +ordinary minstrel seems to have been simply an unprincipled vagabond, +who hardly possessed any settled resting-place, who wandered about from +place to place, and was not too nice as to the means by which he gained +his living--perhaps fairly represented by the street minstrel, or +mountebank, of the present day. One of his talents was that of mocking +and ridiculing others, and it is not to be wondered at, therefore, if +he sometimes became an object of mockery and ridicule himself. One of +the well-known minstrels of the thirteenth century, Rutebeuf, was, like +many of his fellows, a poet also, and he has left several short pieces +of verse descriptive of himself and of his own mode of life. In one +of these he complains of his poverty, and tells us that the world had +in his time--the reign of St. Louis--become so degenerate, that few +people gave anything to the unfortunate minstrel. According to his own +account, he was without food, and in a fair way towards starvation, +exposed to the cold without sufficient clothing, and with nothing but +straw for his bed. + + _Je touz de froit, de fain baaille, + Dont je suis mors et maubailliz, + Je suis sanz coutes et sans liz; + N'a si povre jusqu' Senliz. + Sire, si ne sai quel part aille; + Mes costeiz connoit le pailliz, + Et liz de paille n'est pas liz, + Et en mon lit n'a fors la paille._ + --OEuvres de Rutebeuf, vol. i. p. 3. + +In another poem, Rutebeuf laments that he has rendered his condition +still more miserable by marrying, when he had not wherewith to keep +a wife and family. In a third, he complains that in the midst of his +poverty, his wife has brought him a child to increase his domestic +expenses, while his horse, on which he was accustomed to travel to +places where he might exercise his profession, had broken its leg, and +his nurse was dunning him for money. In addition to all these causes of +grief, he had lost the use of one of his eyes. + + _Or a d'enfant gu ma fame; + Mon cheval a brisi la jame + A une lice; + Or veut de l'argent ma norrice, + Qui m'en destraint et me plice, + For l'enfant pestre._ + +Throughout his complaint, although he laments over the decline of +liberality among his contemporaries, he nevertheless turns his poverty +into a joke. In several other pieces of verse he speaks in the same +way, half joking and half lamenting over his condition, and he does not +conceal that the love of gambling was one of the causes of it. "The +dice," he says, "have stripped me entirely of my robe; the dice watch +and spy me; it is these which kill me; they assault and ruin me, to my +grief." + + _Li d que li dtier ont fet, + M'ont de ma robe tout desfet; + Li d m'ocient. + Li d m'aguetent et espient; + Li d m'assaillent et dessient, + Ce poise moi._--Ib., vol. i. p. 27. + +And elsewhere he intimates that what the minstrels sometimes gained +from the lavish generosity of their hearers, soon passed away at the +tavern in dice and drinking. + +One of Rutebeuf's contemporaries in the same profession, Colin Muset, +indulges in similar complaints, and speaks bitterly of the want of +generosity displayed by the great barons of his time. In addressing one +of them who had treated him ungenerously, he says, "Sir Count, I have +fiddled before you in your hostel, and you neither gave me a gift, nor +paid me my wages. It is discreditable behaviour. By the duty I owe to +St. Mary, I cannot continue in your service at this rate. My purse is +ill furnished, and my wallet is empty." + + _Sire quens, j'ai viel + Devant vos en vostre ostel; + Si ne m'avez riens donn, + Ne mes gages acquitez, + C'est vilanie. + Foi que doi sainte Marie, + Ensi ne vos sieurr-je mie. + M'aumosnire est mal garnie, + Et ma male mal farsie._ + +He proceeds to state that when he went home to his wife (for Colin +Muset also was a married minstrel), he was ill received if his purse +and wallet were empty; but it was very different when they were full. +His wife then sprang forward and threw her arms round his neck; she +took his wallet from his horse with alacrity, while his lad conducted +the animal cheerfully to the stable, and his maiden killed a couple of +capons, and prepared them with piquant sauce. His daughter brought a +comb for his hair. "Then," he exclaims, "I am master in my own house." + + _Ma fame va destroser + Ma male sans demorer; + Mon garon va abuvrer + Men cheval et conreer; + Ma pucele va tuer + Deux chapons por deporter + A la sause aillie. + Ma fille m'aporte un pigne + En sa main par cortoisie. + Lors sui de mon ostel sire._ + +When the minstrels could thus joke upon themselves, we need not be +surprised if they satirised one another. In a poem of the thirteenth +century, entitled "Les deux Troveors Ribauz," two minstrels are +introduced on the stage abusing and insulting one another, and while +indulging in mutual accusations of ignorance in their art, they display +their ignorance at the same time by misquoting the titles of the poems +which they profess to be able to recite. One of them boasts of the +variety of instruments on which he could perform:-- + + _Je suis jugleres de viele, + Si sai de muse et frestele, + Et de harpes et de chifonie, + De la gigue, de l'armonie, + De l'salteire, et en la rote + Sai-ge bien chanter une note._ + +It appears, however, that among all these instruments, the viol, or +fiddle, was the one most generally in use. + + [Illustration: _No. 118. A Charming Fiddler._] + +The medival monuments of art abound with burlesques and satires on the +minstrels, whose instruments of music are placed in the hands sometimes +of monsters, and at others in those of animals of a not very refined +character. Our cut No. 118 is taken from a manuscript in the British +Museum (MS. Cotton, Domitian A. ii.), and represents a female minstrel +playing on the fiddle; she has the upper part of a lady, and the lower +parts of a mare, a combination which appears to have been rather +familiar to the imagination of the medival artists. In our cut No. +119, which is taken from a copy made by Carter of one of the misereres +in Ely Cathedral, it is not quite clear whether the performer on the +fiddle be a monster or merely a cripple; but perhaps the latter was +intended. The instrument, too, assumes a rather singular form. Our cut +No. 120, also taken from Carter, was furnished by a sculpture in the +church of St. John, at Cirencester, and represents a man performing on +an instrument rather closely resembling the modern hurdy-gurdy, which +is evidently played by turning a handle, and the music is produced by +striking wires or strings inside. The face is evidently intended to be +that of a jovial companion. + + [Illustration: _No. 119. A Crippled Minstrel._] + + [Illustration: _No. 120. The Hurdy-Gurdy._] + +Gluttony was an especial characteristic of that class of society to +which the minstrel belonged, and perhaps this was the idea intended to +be conveyed in the next picture, No. 121, taken from one of the stalls +in Winchester Cathedral, in which a pig is performing on the fiddle, +and appears to be accompanied by a juvenile of the same species of +animal. One of the same stalls, copied in our cut No. 122, represents +a sow performing on another sort of musical instrument, which is not +at all uncommon in medival delineations. It is the double pipe or +flute, which was evidently borrowed from the ancients. Minstrelsy was +the usual accompaniment of the medival meal, and perhaps this picture +is intended to be a burlesque on that circumstance, as the mother is +playing to her brood while they are feeding. They all seem to listen +quietly, except one, who is evidently much more affected by the music +than his companions. The same instrument is placed in the hands of a +rather jolly-looking female in one of the sculptures of St. John's +Church in Cirencester, copied in our cut No. 123. + + [Illustration: _No. 121. A Swinish Minstrel._] + + [Illustration: _No. 122. A Musical Mother._] + + [Illustration: _No. 123. The Double Flute._] + +Although this instrument is rather frequently represented in medival +works of art, we have no account of or allusion to it in medival +writers; and perhaps it was not held in very high estimation, and was +used only by a low class of performers. As in many other things, the +employment of particular musical instruments was guided, no doubt, by +fashion, new ones coming in as old ones went out. Such was the case +with the instrument which is named in one of the above extracts, and +in some other medival writers, a _chiffonie_, and which has been +supposed to be the dulcimer, that had fallen into discredit in the +fourteenth century. This instrument is introduced in a story which is +found in Cuvelier's metrical history of the celebrated warrior Bertrand +du Gueselin. In the course of the war for the expulsion of Pedro the +Cruel from the throne of Castile, an English knight, Sir Matthew +Gournay, was sent as a special ambassador to the court of Portugal. The +Portuguese monarch had in his service two minstrels whose performances +he vaunted greatly, and on whom he let great store, and he insisted +on their performing in the presence of the new ambassador. It turned +out that they played on the instrument just mentioned, and Sir Matthew +Gournay could not refrain from laughing at the performance. When the +king pressed him to give his opinion, he said, with more regard for +truth than politeness, "in France and Normandy, the instruments your +minstrels play upon are regarded with contempt, and are only in use +among beggars and blind people, so that they are popularly called +beggar's instruments." The king, we are told, took great offence at the +bluntness of his English guest. + +The fiddle itself appears at this time to have been gradually sinking +in credit, and the poets complained that a degraded taste for more +vulgar musical instruments was introducing itself. Among these we +may mention especially the pipe and tabor. The French antiquary, +M. Jubinal, in a very valuable collection of early popular poetry, +published under the title of "Jongleurs et Trouvres," has printed +a curious poem of the thirteenth or fourteenth century, intended as +a protest against the use of the tabor and the bagpipes, which he +characterises as properly the musical instruments of the peasantry. Yet +people then, he says, were becoming so besotted on such instruments, +that they introduced them in places where better minstrelsy would be +more suitable. The writer thinks that the introduction of so vulgar an +instrument as the tabor into grand festivals could be looked upon in +no other light than as one of the signs which might be expected to be +the precursors of the coming of Antichrist. "If such people are to come +to grand festivals as carry a bushel [_i.e._ a tabor made in the form +of a bushel measure, on the end of which they beat], and make such a +terrible noise, it would seem that Antichrist must now be being born; +people ought to break the head of each of them with a staff." + + _Dussent itiels genz venir bele feste + Qui portent un boissel, qui mainent tel tempeste, + Il samble que Antecrist doie maintenant nestre; + L'en duroit d'un baston chascun brisier la teste._ + +This satirist adds, as a proof of the contempt in which the Virgin Mary +held such instruments, that she never loved a tabor, or consented to +hear one, and that no tabor was introduced among the minstrelsy at her +espousals. "The gentle mother of God," he says, "loved the sound of the +fiddle," and he goes on to prove her partiality for that instrument by +citing some of her miracles. + + _Onques le mre Dieu, qui est virge honore, + Et est avoec les angles hautement corone, + N'ama onques tabour, ne point ne li agre, + N'onques tabour n'i ot quant el fu espouse. + La douce mre Dieu ama son de viele._ + + [Illustration: _No. 124. The Tabor, or Drum._] + + [Illustration: _No. 125. Bruin turned Piper._] + +The artist who carved the curious stalls in Henry VII.'s Chapel at +Westminster, seems to have entered fully into the spirit displayed by +this satirist, for in one of them, represented in our cut No. 124, he +has introduced a masked demon playing on the tabor, with an expression +apparently of derision. This tabor presents much the form of a bushel +measure, or rather, perhaps, of a modern drum. It may be remarked that +the drum is, in fact, the same instrument as the tabor, or, at least, +is derived from it, and they were called by the same names, _tabor_ +or _tambour_. The English name _drum_, which has equivalents in the +later forms of the Teutonic dialects, perhaps means simply something +which makes a noise, and is not, as far as I know, met with before the +sixteenth century. Another carving of the same series of stalls at +Westminster, copied in our cut No. 125, represents a tame bear playing +on the bagpipes. This is perhaps intended to be at the same time a +satire on the instrument itself, and upon the strange exhibitions of +animals domesticated and taught various singular performances, which +were then so popular. + + [Illustration: _No. 126. Royal Minstrelsy._] + +In our cut No. 126 we come to the fiddle again, which long sustained +its place in the highest rank of musical instruments. It is taken +from one of the sculptures on the porch of the principal entrance to +the Cathedral of Lyons in France, and represents a mermaid with her +child, listening to the music of the fiddle. She wears a crown, and +is intended, no doubt, to be one of the queens of the sea, and the +introduction of the fiddle under such circumstances can leave no doubt +how highly it was esteemed. + +The mermaid is a creature of the imagination, which appears to have +been at all times a favourite object of poetry and legend. It holds +an important place in the medival bestiaries, or popular treatises +on natural history, and it has only been expelled from the domains of +science at a comparatively recent date. It still retains its place in +popular legends of our sea-coasts, and more especially in the remoter +parts of our islands. The stories of the merrow, or Irish fairy, hold a +prominent place among my late friend Crofton Croker's "Fairy Legends of +the South of Ireland." The mermaid is also introduced not unfrequently +in medival sculpture and carving. Our cut No. 127, representing a +mermaid and a merman, is copied from one of the stalls of Winchester +Cathedral. The usual attributes of the mermaid are a looking-glass and +comb, by the aid of which she is dressing her hair; but here she holds +the comb alone. Her companion, the male, holds a fish, which he appears +to have just caught, in his hand. + + [Illustration: _No. 127. Mermaids._] + +While, after the fifteenth century the profession of the minstrel +became entirely degraded, and he was looked upon more than ever as a +rogue and vagabond, the fiddle accompanied him, and it long remained, +as it still remains in Ireland, the favourite instrument of the +peasantry. The blind fiddler, even at the present day, is not unknown +in our rural districts. It has always been in England the favourite +instrument of minstrelsy. + + + + + CHAPTER XII. + + THE COURT FOOL.--THE NORMANS AND THEIR GABS.--EARLY HISTORY OF COURT + FOOLS.--THEIR COSTUME.--CARVINGS IN THE CORNISH CHURCHES.--THE + BURLESQUE SOCIETIES OF THE MIDDLE AGES.--THE FEASTS OF ASSES, AND + OF FOOLS.--THEIR LICENCE.--THE LEADEN MONEY OF THE FOOLS.--THE + BISHOP'S BLESSING. + + +From the employment of minstrels attached to the family, probably arose +another and well-known character of later times, the court fool, who +took the place of satirist in the great households. I do not consider +what we understand by the court fool to be a character of any great +antiquity. + +It is somewhat doubtful whether what we call a jest, was really +appreciated in the middle ages. Puns seem to have been considered +as elegant figures of speech in literary composition, and we rarely +meet with anything like a quick and clever repartee. In the earlier +ages, when a party of warriors would be merry, their mirth appears +to have consisted usually in ridiculous boasts, or in rude remarks, +or in sneers at enemies or opponents. These jests were termed by the +French and Normans _gabs_ (_gab_, in medival Latin), a word supposed +to have been derived from the classical Latin word _cavilla_, a mock +or taunt; and a short poem in Anglo-Norman has been preserved which +furnishes a curious illustration of the meaning attached to it in the +twelfth century. This poem relates how Charlemagne, piqued by the +taunts of his empress on the superiority of Hugh the Great, emperor +of Constantinople, went to Constantinople, accompanied by his _douze +pairs_ and a thousand knights, to verify the truth of his wife's story. +They proceeded first to Jerusalem, where, when Charlemagne and his +twelve peers entered the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, they looked so +handsome and majestic, that they were taken at first for Christ and +his twelve apostles, but the mystery was soon cleared up, and they were +treated by the patriarch with great hospitality during four months. +They then continued their progress till they reached Constantinople, +where they were equally well received by the emperor Hugo. At night +the emperor placed his guests in a chamber furnished with thirteen +splendid beds, one in the middle of the room, and the other twelve +distributed around it, and illuminated by a large carbuncle, which gave +a light as bright as that of day. When Hugh left them in their quarters +for the night, he lent them wine and whatever was necessary to make +them comfortable; and, when alone, they proceeded to amuse themselves +with _gabs_, or jokes, each being expected to say his joke in his +turn. Charlemagne took the lead, and boasted that if the emperor Hugh +would place before him his strongest "bachelor," in full armour, and +mounted on his good steed, he would, with one blow of his sword, cut +him through from the head downwards, and through the saddle and horse, +and that the sword should, after all this, sink into the ground to the +handle. Charlemagne then called upon Roland for his _gab_, who boasted +that his breath was so strong, that if the emperor Hugh would lend him +his horn, he would take it out into the fields and blow it with such +force, that the wind and noise of it would shake down the whole city of +Constantinople. Oliver, whose turn came next, boasted of exploits of +another description if he were left alone with the beautiful princess, +Hugh's daughter. The rest of the peers indulged in similar boasts, and +when the _gabs_ had gone round, they went to sleep. Now the emperor of +Constantinople had very cunningly, and rather treacherously, made a +hole through the wall, by which all that passed inside could be seen +and heard, and he had placed a spy on the outside, who gave a full +account of the conversation of the distinguished guests to his imperial +master. Next morning Hugh called his guests before him, told them what +he had heard by his spy, and declared that each of them should perform +his boast, or, if he failed, be put to death. Charlemagne expostulated, +and represented that it was the custom in France when people retired +for the night to amuse themselves in that manner. "Such is the custom +in France," he said, "at Paris, and at Chartres, when the French are +in bed they amuse themselves and make jokes, and say things both of +wisdom and of folly." + + _Si est tel custume en France, Paris e Cartres, + Quand Franceis sunt culchiez, que se giuunt e gabent, + E si dient ambure e saver e folage._ + +But Charlemagne expostulated in vain, and they were only saved from the +consequence of their imprudence by the intervention of so many miracles +from above.[66] + + [66] "Charlemagne, an Anglo-Norman Poem of the Twelfth Century, now + first published, by Francisque Michel," 12mo., 8vo., London, 1836. + +In such trials of skill as this, an individual must continually have +arisen who excelled in some at least of the qualities needful for +raising mirth and making him a good companion, by showing himself more +brilliant in wit, or more biting in sarcasms, or more impudent in his +jokes, and he would thus become the favourite mirth-maker of the court, +the boon companion of the chieftain and his followers in their hours of +relaxation. We find such an individual not unusually introduced in the +early romances and in the mythology of nations, and he sometimes unites +the character of court orator with the other. Such a personage was the +Sir Kay of the cycle of the romances of king Arthur. I have remarked +in a former chapter that Hunferth, in the Anglo-Saxon poem of Beowulf, +is described as holding a somewhat similar position at the court of +king Hrothgar. To go farther back in the mythology of our forefathers, +the Loki of Scandinavian fable appears sometimes to have performed a +similar character in the assembly of his fellow deities; and we know +that, among the Greeks, Homer on one occasion introduces Vulcan acting +the part of joker (+geltopoios+) to the gods of Olympus. But all these +have no relationship whatever to the court-fool of modern times. + +The German writer Flgel, in his "History of Court Fools,"[67] has +thrown this subject into much confusion by introducing a great mass +of irrelevant matter; and those who have since compiled from Flgel, +have made the confusion still greater. Much of this confusion has +arisen from the misunderstanding and confounding of names and terms. +The mimus, the joculator, the ministrel, or whatever name this class +of society went by, was not in any respects identical with what we +understand by a court fool, nor does any such character as the latter +appear in the feudal household before the fourteenth century, as +far as we are acquainted with the social manners and customs of the +olden time. The vast extent of the early French _romans de geste_, or +Carlovingian romances, which are filled with pictures of courts both of +princes and barons, in which the court fool must have been introduced +had he been known at the time they were composed, that is, in the +twelfth and thirteenth centuries, contains, I believe, no trace of such +personage; and the same may be said of the numerous other romances, +fabliaux, and in fact all the literature of that period, one so rich in +works illustrative of contemporary manners in their most minute detail. +From these facts I conclude that the single brief charter published +by M. Rigollot from a manuscript in the Imperial Library in Paris, +is either misunderstood or it presents a very exceptional case. By +this charter, John, king of England, grants to his _follus_, William +Picol, or Piculph (as he is called at the close of the document), an +estate in Normandy named in the document Fons Ossan (Menil-Ozenne in +Mortain), with all its appurtenances, "to have and to hold, to him and +to his heirs, by doing there-for to us once a year the service of one +_follus_, as long as he lives; and after his death his heirs shall +hold it of us, by the service of one pair of gilt spurs to be rendered +annually to us."[68] The service (_servitium_) here enjoined means the +annual payment of the obligation of the feudal tenure, and therefore +if _follus_ is to be taken as signifying "a fool," it only means that +Picol was to perform that character on one occasion in the course of +the year. In this case, he may have been some fool whom king John had +taken into his special favour; but it certainly is no proof that the +practice of keeping court fools then existed. It is not improbable +that this practice was first introduced in Germany, for Flgel speaks, +though rather doubtfully, of one who was kept at the court of the +emperor Rudolph I. (of Hapsburg), whose reign lasted from 1273 to 1292. +It is more certain, however, that the kings of France possessed court +fools before the middle of the fourteenth century, and from this time +anecdotes relating to them begin to be common. One of the earliest +and most curious of these anecdotes, if it be true, relates to the +celebrated victory of Sluys gained over the French fleet by our king +Edward III. in the year 1340. It is said that no one dared to announce +this disaster to the French king, Philippe VI., until a court fool +undertook the task. Entering the king's chamber, he continued muttering +to himself, but loud enough to be heard, "Those cowardly English! the +chicken-hearted Britons!" "How so, cousin?" the king inquired. "Why," +replied the fool, "because they have not courage enough to jump into +the sea, like your French soldiers, who went over headlong from their +ships, leaving those to the enemy who showed no inclination to follow +them." Philippe thus became aware of the full extent of his calamity. +The institution of the court fool was carried to its greatest degree of +perfection during the fifteenth century; it only expired in the age of +Louis XIV. + + [67] "Geschichte der Hofnarren, von Karl Friedrich Flgel," 8vo. + Liegnitz und Leipzig, 1789. + + [68] The words of this charter, as given by Rigollot, are:--"Joannes, + D G., etc. Sciatis nos dedisse et prsenti charta confirmasse + Willelmo Picol, follo nostro, Fontem Ossan, cum omnibus + pertinenciis suis, habendum et tenendum sibi et hredibus suis, + faciendo inde nobis annuatim servitium unius folli quoad vixerit; + et post ejus decessum hredes sui eam tenebunt, et per servitium + unius paris calcarium deauratorum nobis annuatim reddendo. + Quare volumus et firmiter prcipimus quod prdictius Piculphus + et hredes sui habeant et teneant in perpetuum, bene et in + pace, libere et quiete, prdictam terram."--Rigollot, Monnaies + inconnues des Evques des Innocens, etc., 8vo., Paris, 1837. + +It was apparently with the court fool that the costume was introduced +which has ever since been considered as the characteristic mark of +folly. Some parts of this costume, at least, appear to have been +borrowed from an earlier date. The _gelotopoei_ of the Greeks, and +the _mimi_ and _moriones_ of the Romans, shaved their heads; but the +court fools perhaps adopted this fashion as a satire upon the clergy +and monks. Some writers professed to doubt whether the fools borrowed +from the monks, or the monks from the fools; and Cornelius Agrippa, +in his treatise on the Vanity of Sciences, remarks that the monks had +their heads "all shaven like fools" (_raso toto capite ut fatui_). +The cowl, also, was perhaps adopted in derision of the monks, but +it was distinguished by the addition of a pair of asses' ears, or by +a cock's head and comb, which formed its termination above, or by +both. The court fool was also furnished with a staff or club, which +became eventually his bauble. The bells were another necessary article +in the equipment of a court fool, perhaps also intended as a satire +on the custom of wearing small bells in the dress, which prevailed +largely during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, especially among +people who were fond of childish ostentation. The fool wore also a +party-coloured, or motley, garment, probably with the same aim--that of +satirising one of the ridiculous fashions of the fourteenth century. + + [Illustration: _No. 127a. Court Fools._] + +It is in the fifteenth century that we first meet with the fool in +full costume in the illuminations or manuscripts, and towards the end +of the century this costume appears continually in engravings. It is +also met with at this time among the sculptures of buildings and the +carvings of wood-work. The two very interesting examples given in our +cut No. 127a are taken from carvings of the fifteenth century, in the +church of St. Levan, in Cornwall, near the Land's End. They represent +the court fool in two varieties of costume; in the first, the fool's +cowl, or cap, ends in the cock's head; in the other, it is fitted with +asses' ears. There are variations also in other parts of the dress; +for the second only has bells to his sleeves, and the first carries +a singularly formed staff, which may perhaps be intended for a strap +or belt, with a buckle at the end; while the other has a ladle in +his hand. As one possesses a beard, and presents marks of age in his +countenance, while the other is beardless and youthful, we may consider +the pair as an old fool and a young fool. + + [Illustration: _No. 128. A Fool and a Grimace-maker._] + +The Cornish churches are rather celebrated for their early carved +wood-work, chiefly of the fifteenth century, of which two examples +are given in our cut, No. 128, taken from bench pannels in the church +of St. Mullion, on the Cornish coast, a little to the north of the +Lizard Point. The first has bells hanging to the sleeves, and is no +doubt intended to represent folly in some form; the other appears to be +intended for the head of a woman making grimaces.[69] + + [69] For the drawings of these interesting carvings from the Cornish + churches, I am indebted to the kindness of Mr. J. T. Blight, the + author of an extremely pleasing and useful guide to the beauties + of a well-known district of Cornwall, entitled "A Week at the + Land's End." + +The fool had long been a character among the people before he became a +court fool, for Folly--or, as she was then called, "Mother Folly"--was +one of the favourite objects of popular worship in the middle ages, +and, where that worship sprang up spontaneously among the people, +it grew with more energy, and presented more hearty joyousness and +bolder satire than under the patronage of the great. Our forefathers +in those times were accustomed to form themselves into associations or +societies of a mirthful character, parodies of those of a more serious +description, especially ecclesiastical, and elected as their officers +mock popes, cardinals, archbishops and bishops, kings, &c. They held +periodical festivals, riotous and licentious carnivals, which were +admitted into the churches, and even taken under the especial patronage +of the clergy, under such titles as "the feast of fools," "the feast of +the ass," "the feast of the innocents," and the like. There was hardly +a Continental town of any account which had not its "company of fools," +with its mock ordinances and mock ceremonies. In our own island we +had our abbots of misrule and of unreason. At their public festivals +satirical songs were sung and satirical masks and dresses were worn; +and in many of them, especially at a later date, brief satirical dramas +were acted. These satires assumed much of the functions of modern +caricature; the caricature of the pictorial representations, which were +mostly permanent monuments and destined for future generations, was +naturally general in its character, but in the representations of which +I am speaking, which were temporary, and designed to excite the mirth +of the moment, it became personal, and, often, even political, and it +was constantly directed against the ecclesiastical order. The scandal +of the day furnished it with abundant materials. A fragment of one of +their songs of an early date, sung at one of these "feasts" at Rouen, +has been preserved, and contains the following lines, written in Latin +and French:-- + + _De asino bono nostro, + Meliori et optimo, + Debemus_ faire fte. + En revenant _de Gravinaria_, + Un gros chardon _reperit in via_, + Il lui coupa la tte. + + _Vir monachus in mense Julio + Egressus est e monasterio_, + C'est dom de la Bucaille; + _Egressus est sine licentia_, + Pour aller voir dona Venissia, + Et faire la ripaille. + + TRANSLATION. + + _For our good ass, + The better and the best, + We ought to rejoice. + In returning from Gravinire, + A great thistle he found in the way, + He cut off its head._ + + _A monk in the month of July + Went out of his monastery, + It is dom de la Bucaille; + He went out without license, + To pay a visit to the dame de Venisse, + And make jovial cheer._ + +It appears that De la Bucaille was the prior of the abbey of St. +Taurin, at Rouen, and that the dame de Venisse was prioress of St. +Saviour, and these lines, no doubt, commemorate some great scandal of +the day relating to the private relations between these two individuals. + +These mock religious ceremonies are supposed to have been derived from +the Roman Saturnalia; they were evidently of great antiquity in the +medival church, and were most prevalent in France and Italy. Under the +name of "the feast of the sub-deacons" they are forbidden by the acts +of the council of Toledo, in 633; at a later period, the French punned +on the word _sous-diacres_, and called them _Saouls-diacres_ (Drunken +Deacons), words which had nearly the same sound. The "feast of the +ass" is said to be traced back in France as far as the ninth century. +It was celebrated in most of the great towns in that country, such as +Rouen, Sens, Douai, &c., and the service for the occasion is actually +preserved in some of the old church books. From this it appears that +the ass was led in procession to a place in the middle of the church, +which had been decked out to receive it, and that the procession was +led by two clerks, who sung a Latin song in praise of the animal. This +song commences by telling us how "the ass came from the east, handsome +and very strong, and most fit for carrying burthens":-- + + _Orientis partibus + Adventavit asinus, + Pulcher et fortissimus, + Sarcinis aptissimus._ + +The refrain or burthen of the song is in French, and exhorts the animal +to join in the uproar--"Eh! sir ass, chant now, fair mouth, bray, you +shall have hay enough, and oats in abundance:"-- + + _Hez, sire asnes, car chantez, + Belle bouche, rechignez, + Vous aurez du foin assez, + Et de l'avoine plantez._ + +In this tone the chant continues through nine similar stanzas, +describing the mode of life and food of the ass. When the procession +reached the altar, the priest began a service in prose. Beleth, one +of the celebrated doctors of the university of Paris, who flourished +in 1182, speaks of the "feast of fools" as in existence in his time; +and the acts of the council of Paris, held in 1212, forbid the +presence of archbishops and bishops, and more especially of monks and +nuns, at the feasts of fools, "in which a staff was carried."[70] We +know the proceedings of this latter festival rather minutely from +the accounts given in the ecclesiastical censures. It was in the +cathedral churches that they elected the archbishop or bishop of +fools, whose election was confirmed, and he was consecrated, with a +multitude of buffooneries. He then entered upon his pontifical duties +wearing the mitre and carrying the crosier before the people, on whom +he bestowed his solemn benediction. In the exempt churches, or those +which depended immediately upon the Holy See, they elected a pope of +fools (_unum papam fatuorum_), who wore similarly the ensigns of the +papacy. These dignitaries were assisted by an equally burlesque and +licentious clergy, who uttered and performed a mixture of follies and +impieties during the church service of the day, which they attended in +disguises and masquerade dresses. Some wore masks, or had their faces +painted, and others were dressed in women's clothing, or in ridiculous +costumes. On entering the choir, they danced and sang licentious songs. +The deacons and sub-deacons ate black puddings and sausages on the +altar while the priest was celebrating; others played at cards or dice +under his eyes; and others threw bits of old leather into the censer +in order to raise a disagreeable smell. After the mass was ended, the +people broke out into all sorts of riotous behaviour in the church, +leaping, dancing, and exhibiting themselves in indecent postures, and +some went as far as to strip themselves naked, and in this condition +they were drawn through the streets with tubs full of ordure and filth, +which they threw about at the mob. Every now and then they halted, +when they exhibited immodest postures and actions, accompanied with +songs and speeches of the same character. Many of the laity took part +in the procession, dressed as monks and nuns. These disorders seem to +have been carried to their greatest degree of extravagance during the +fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.[71] + + [70] "A festis follorum ubi baculus accipitur omnino abstineatur.... + Idem fortius monachis et monialibus prohibemus." + + [71] On the subject of all these burlesques and popular feasts and + ceremonies, the reader may consult Flgel's "Geschichte des + Grotesk-Komischen," of which a new and enlarged edition has + recently been given by Dr. Friedrich W. Ebeling, 8vo., Leipzig, + 1862. Much interesting information on the subject was collected + by Du Tilliot, in his "Memoires pour servir l'Histoire de la + Fte des Fous," 8vo., Lausanne, 1751. See also Rigollot, in the + work quoted above, and a popular article on the same subject will + be found in my "Archological Album." + +Towards the fifteenth century, lay societies, having apparently +no connection with the clergy or the church, but of just the same +burlesque character, arose in France. One of the earliest of these was +formed by the clerks of the Bazoche, or lawyers' clerks of the Palais +de Justice in Paris, whose president was a sort of king of misrule. The +other principal society of this kind in Paris took the rather mirthful +name of _Enfans sans Souci_ (Careless Boys); it consisted of young men +of education, who gave to their president or chieftain the title of +_Prince des Sots_ (the Prince of Fools). Both these societies composed +and performed farces, and other small dramatic pieces. These farces +were satires on contemporary society, and appear to have been often +very personal. + + [Illustration: _No. 129. Money of the Archbishop of the Innocents._] + + [Illustration: _No. 130. Money of the Pope of Fools._] + +Almost the only monuments of the older of these societies consist of +coins, or tokens, struck in lead, and sometimes commemorating the +names of their mock dignitaries. A considerable number of these have +been found in France, and an account of them, with engravings, was +published by Dr. Rigollot some years ago.[72] Our cut No. 129 will +serve as an example. It represents a leaden token of the Archbishop of +the Innocents of the parish of St. Firmin, at Amiens, and is curious +as bearing a date. On one side the archbishop of the Innocents is +represented in the act of giving his blessing to his flock, surrounded +by the inscription, MONETA ARCHIEPI SCTI FIRMINI. On the other +side we have the name of the individual who that year held the office +of archbishop, NICOLAVS GAVDRAM ARCHIEPVS 1520, surrounding a +group consisting of two men, one of whom is dressed as a fool, holding +between them a bird, which has somewhat the appearance of a magpie. +Our cut No. 130 is still more curious; it is a token of the _pope_ of +fools. On one side appears the pope with his tiara and double cross, +and a fool in full costume, who approaches his bauble to the pontifical +cross. It is certainly a bitter caricature on the papacy, whether that +were the intention or not. Two persons behind, dressed apparently in +scholastic costume, seem to be merely spectators. The inscription is, +MONETA NOVA ADRIANI STVLTORV [M] PAPE (the last E being in the +field of the piece), "new money of Adrian, the pope of fools." The +inscription on the other side of the token is one frequently repeated +on these leaden medals, STVLTORV [M] INFINITVS EST NVMERVS, "the +number of fools is infinite." In the field we see Mother Folly holding +up her bauble, and before her a grotesque figure in a cardinal's hat, +apparently kneeling to her. It is rather surprising that we find so +few allusions to these burlesque societies in the various classes +of pictorial records from which the subject of these chapters has +been illustrated; but we have evidence that they were not altogether +overlooked. Until the latter end of the last century, the misereres of +the church of St. Spire, at Corbeil, near Paris, were remarkable for +the singular carvings with which they were decorated, and which have +since been destroyed, but fortunately they were engraved by Millin. +One of them, copied in our cut No. 131, evidently represents the bishop +of fools conferring his blessing; the fool's bauble occupies the place +of the pastoral staff. + + [72] "Monnaies inconnues des Evques des Innocens, des Fous," &c., + Paris, 1837. + + [Illustration: _No. 131. The Bishop of Fools._] + + + + + CHAPTER XIII. + + THE DANCE OF DEATH.--THE PAINTINGS IN THE CHURCH OF LA CHAISE + DIEU.--THE REIGN OF FOLLY.--SEBASTIAN BRANDT; THE "SHIP + OF FOOLS."--DISTURBERS OF CHURCH SERVICE.--TROUBLESOME + BEGGARS.--GEILER'S SERMONS.--BADIUS, AND HIS SHIP OF FOOLISH + WOMEN.--THE PLEASURES OF SMELL.--ERASMUS; THE "PRAISE OF FOLLY." + + +There is still one cycle of satire which almost belongs to the middle +ages, though it only became developed at their close, and became most +popular after they were past. There existed, at least as early as the +beginning of the thirteenth century, a legendary story of an interview +between three living and three dead men, which is usually told in +French verse, and appears under the title of "Des trois vifs et des +trois morts." According to some versions of the legend, it was St. +Macarius, the Egyptian recluse, who thus introduced the living to the +dead. The verses are sometimes accompanied with figures, and these have +been found both sculptured and painted on ecclesiastical buildings. At +a later period, apparently early in the fifteenth century, some one +extended this idea to all ranks of society, and pictured a skeleton, +the emblem of death, or even more than one, in communication with an +individual of each class; and this extended scene, from the manner +of the grouping--in which the dead appeared to be wildly dancing off +with the living--became known as the "Dance of Death." As the earlier +legend of the three dead and the three living was, however, still +often introduced at the beginning of it, the whole group was most +generally known--especially during the fifteenth century--as the "Danse +Macabre," or Dance of Macabre, this name being considered as a mere +corruption of Macarius. The temper of the age--in which death in every +form was constantly before the eyes of all, and in which people sought +to regard life as a mere transitory moment of enjoyment--gave to this +grim idea of the fellowship of death and life great popularity, and it +was not only painted on the walls of churches, but it was suspended +in tapestry around people's chambers. Sometimes they even attempted +to represent it in masquerade, and we are told that in the month of +October, 1424, the "Danse Macabre" was publicly danced by living +people in the cemetery of the Innocents, in Paris--a fit place for so +lugubrious a performance--in the presence of the Duke of Bedford and +the Duke of Burgundy, who came to Paris after the battle of Verneuil. +During the rest of the century we find not unfrequently allusions +to the "Danse Macabre." The English poet Lydgate wrote a series of +stanzas to accompany the figures, and it was the subject of some of +the earliest engravings on wood. In the posture and accompaniments +of the figures representing the different classes of society, and in +the greater or less reluctance with which the living accept their not +very attractive partners, satire is usually implied, and it is in +some cases accompanied with drollery. The figure representing death +has almost always a grimly mirthful countenance, and appears to be +dancing with good will. The most remarkable early representation of +the "Danse Macabre" now preserved, is that painted on the wall of the +church of La Chaise Dieu, in Auvergne, a beautiful fac-simile of which +was published a few years ago by the well-known antiquary M. Jubinal. +This remarkable picture begins with the figures of Adam and Eve, who +are introducing death into the world in the form of a serpent with a +death's head. The dance is opened by an ecclesiastic preaching from +a pulpit, towards whom death is leading first in the dance the pope, +for each individual takes his precedence strictly according to his +class--alternately an ecclesiastic and a layman. Thus next after the +pope comes the emperor, and the cardinal is followed by the king. The +baron is followed by the bishop, and the grim partner of the latter +appears to pay more intention to the layman than to his own priest, so +that two dead men appear to have the former in charge. The group thus +represented by the nobleman and the two deaths, is copied in our cut +No. 132, and will serve as an example of the style and grouping of this +remarkable painting. After a few other figures, perhaps less striking, +we come to the merchant, who receives the advances of his partner with +a thoughtful air; while immediately after him another death is trying +to make himself more acceptable to the bashful nun by throwing a cloak +over his nakedness. In another place two deaths armed with bows and +arrows are scattering their shafts rather dangerously. Soon follow +some of the more gay and youthful members of society. Our cut No. 133 +represents the musician, who appears also to attract the attentions +of two of the persecutors. In his dismay he is treading under foot +his own viol. The dance closes with the lower orders of society, and +is concluded by a group which is not so easily understood. Before the +end of the fifteenth century, there had appeared in Paris several +editions of a series of bold engravings on wood, in a small folio +size, representing the same dance, though somewhat differently treated. +France, indeed, appears to have been the native country of the "Danse +Macabre." But in the century following the beautiful set of drawings by +the great artist Hans Holbein, first published at Lyons in 1538, gave +to the Dance of Death a still greater and wider celebrity. From this +time the subjects of this dance were commonly introduced in initial +letters, and in the engraved borders of pages, especially in books of a +religious character. + + [Illustration: _No. 132. The Knight in the Dance of Death._] + + [Illustration: _No. 133. The Musician in Death's Hands._] + +Death may truly be said to have shared with Folly that melancholy +period--the fifteenth century. As society then presented itself to +the eye, people might easily suppose that the world was running mad, +and folly, in one shape or other, seemed to be the principle which +ruled most men's actions. The jocular societies, described in my last +chapter, which multiplied in France during the fifteenth century, +initiated a sort of mock worship of Folly. That sort of inauguration +of death which was performed in the "Danse Macabre," was of French +growth, but the grand crusade against folly appears to have originated +in Germany. Sebastian Brandt was a native of Strasburg, born in 1458. +He studied in that city and in Ble, became a celebrated professor in +both those places, and died at the former in 1520. The "Ship of Fools," +which has immortalised the name of Sebastian Brandt, is believed to +have been first published in the year 1494. The original German text +went through numerous editions within a few years; a Latin translation +was equally popular, and it was afterwards edited and enlarged by +Jodocus Badius Ascensius. A French text was no less successful; an +English translation was printed by Richard Pynson in 1509; a Dutch +version appeared in 1519. During the sixteenth century, Brandt's "Ship +of Fools" was the most popular of books. It consists of a series of +bold woodcuts, which form its characteristic feature, and of metrical +explanations, written by Brandt, and annexed to each cut. Taking his +text from the words of the preacher, "Stultorum numerus est infinitus," +Brandt exposes to the eye, in all its shades and forms, the folly +of his contemporaries, and bares to view its roots and causes. The +cuts are especially interesting as striking pictures of contemporary +manners. The "Ship of Fools" is the great ship of the world, into which +the various descriptions of fatuity are pouring from all quarters +in boat-loads. The first folly is that of men who collected great +quantities of books, not for their utility, but for their rarity, or +beauty of execution, or rich bindings, so that we see that bibliomania +had already taken its place among human vanities. The second class +of fools were interested and partial judges, who sold justice for +money, and are represented under the emblem of two fools throwing a +boar into a caldron, according to the old Latin proverb, _Agere aprum +in lebetem_. Then come the various follies of misers, fops, dotards, +men who are foolishly indulgent to their children, mischief-makers, +and despisers of good advice; of nobles and men in power; of the +profane and the improvident; of foolish lovers; of extravagant +eaters and drinkers, &c., &c. Foolish talking, hypocrisy, frivolous +pursuits, ecclesiastical corruptions, impudicity, and a great number +of other vices as well as follies, are duly passed in review, and are +represented in various forms of satirical caricature, and sometimes +in simpler unadorned pictures. Thus the foolish valuers of things are +represented by a fool holding a balance, one scale of which contains +the sun, moon, and stars, to represent heaven and heavenly things, and +the other a castle and fields, to represent earthly things, the latter +scale overweighing the other; and the procrastinator is pictured by +another fool, with a parrot perched on his head, and a magpie on each +hand, all repeating _cras, cras, cras_ (to-morrow). Our cut No. 134 +represents a group of disturbers of church service. It was a common +practice in former days to take to church hawks (which were constantly +carried about as the outward ensign of the gentleman) and dogs. The +fool has here thrown back his fool's-cap to exhibit more fully the +fashionable "gent" of the day; he carries his hawk on his hand, and +wears not only a fashionable pair of shoes, but very fashionable clogs +also. These gentlemen _ la mode, turgentes genere et natalibus altis_, +we are told, were the persons who disturbed the church service by +the creaking of their shoes and clogs, the noise made by their birds, +the barking and quarrelling of their dogs, by their own whisperings, +and especially with immodest women, whom they met in church as in a +convenient place of assignation. All these forms of the offence are +expressed in the picture. Our second example cut No. 135, which forms +the fifty-ninth title or subject in the "Ship of Fools," represents +a party of the beggars with which, either lay or ecclesiastical, the +country was then overrun. In the explanation, these wicked beggars are +described as indulging in idleness, in eating, drinking, rioting, and +sleep, while they levy contributions on the charitable feelings of the +honest and industrious, and, under cover of begging, commit robbery +wherever they find the opportunity. The beggar, who appears to be only +a deceptive cripple, leads his donkey laden with children, whom he is +bringing up in the same profession, while his wife lingers behind to +indulge in her bibulous propensities. These cuts will give a tolerable +notion of the general character of the whole, which amount in number to +a hundred and twelve, and therefore present a great variety of subjects +relative to almost every class and profession of life. + + [Illustration: _No. 134. Disturbers of Church Service._] + + [Illustration: _No. 135. Mendicants on their Travels._] + +We may remark, however, that after Folly had thus run through all the +stages of society, until it had reached the lowest of all, the ranks +of mendicity, the gods themselves became alarmed, the more so as this +great movement was directed especially against Minerva, the goddess +of wisdom, and they held a conclave to provide against it. The result +is not told, but the course of Folly goes on as vigorously as ever. +Ignorant fools who set up for physicians, fools who cannot understand +jokes, unwise mathematicians, astrologers, of the latter of which the +moraliser says, in his Latin verse-- + + _Siqua voles sortis prnoscere damna futur, + Et vitare malum, sol tibi signa dabit. + Sed tibi, stulte, tui cur non dedit ille furoris + Signa? aut, si dederit, cur tanta mala subis? + Nondum grammatic callis primordia, et audes + Vim coeli radio supposuisse tuo._ + +The next cut is a very curious one, and appears to represent a +dissecting-house of this early period. Among other chapters which +afford interesting pictures of that time, and indeed of all times, we +may instance those of litigious fools, who are always going to law, +and who confound blind justice, or rather try to unbind her eyes; +of filthy-tongued fools, who glorify the race of swine; of ignorant +scholars; of gamblers; of bad and thievish cooks; of low men who seek +to be high, and of high who are despisers of poverty; of men who +forget that they will die; of irreligious men and blasphemers; of +the ridiculous indulgence of parents to children, and the ungrateful +return which was made to them for it; and of women's pride. Another +title describes the ruin of Christianity: the pope, emperor, king, +cardinals, &c., are receiving willingly from a suppliant fool the cap +of Folly, while two other fools are looking derisively upon them from +an adjoining wall. It need hardly be said that this was published on +the eve of the Reformation. + +In the midst of the popularity which greeted the appearance of the +work of Sebastian Brandt, it attracted the special attention of a +celebrated preacher of the time named Johann Geiler. Geiler was born +at Schaffhausen, in Switzerland, in 1445, but having lost his father +when only three years of age, he was educated by his grandfather, who +lived at Keysersberg, in Alsace, and hence he was commonly called +Geiler of Keysersberg. He studied in Freiburg and Ble, obtained a +great reputation for learning, was esteemed a profound theologian, and +was finally settled in Strasburg, where he continued to shine as a +preacher until his death in 1510. He was a bold man, too, in the cause +of truth, and declaimed with earnest zeal against the corruptions of +the church, and especially against the monkish orders, for he compared +the black monks to the devil, the white monks to his dam, and the +others he said were their chickens. On another occasion he said that +the qualities of a good monk were an almighty belly, an ass's back, +and a raven's mouth. He told his congregation from the pulpit that a +great reformation was at hand, that he did not expect to live to see +it himself, but that many of those who heard him would live to see +it. As may be supposed, the monks hated him, and spoke of him with +contempt. They said, that in his sermons he took his texts, not from +the Scriptures, but from the "Ship of Fools" of Sebastian Brandt; and, +in fact, during the year 1498, Geiler preached at Strasburg a series of +sermons on the follies of his time, which were evidently founded upon +Brandt's book, for the various follies were taken in the same order. +They were originally compiled in German, but one of Geiler's scholars, +Jacob Other, translated them into Latin, and published them, in 1501, +under the title of "Navicula sive Speculum Fatuorum prstantissimi +sacrarum literarum doctoris Johannis Geiler." Within a few years this +work went through several editions both in Latin and in German, some +of them illustrated by woodcuts. The style of preaching is quaint and +curious, full of satirical wit, which is often coarse, according to the +manner of the time, sometimes very indelicate. Each sermon is headed +by the motto, "Stultorum infinitus est numerus." Geiler takes for his +theme in each sermon one of the titles of Brandt's "Ship of Fools," and +he separates them into subdivisions, or branches, which he calls the +bells (_nolas_) from the fool's-cap. + +The other scholar who did most to spread the knowledge of Brandt's +work, was Jodocus Badius, who assumed the additional name of Ascensius +because he was born at Assen, near Brussels, in 1462. He was a very +distinguished scholar, but is best known for having established a +celebrated printing establishment in Paris, where he died in 1535. I +have already stated that Badius edited the Latin translation of the +"Ship of Fools" of Sebastian Brandt, with additional explanations of +his own, but he was one of the first of Brandt's imitators. He seems to +have thought that Brandt's book was not complete--that the weaker sex +had not received its fair share of importance; and apparently in 1498, +while Geiler was turning the "Stultifera Navis" into sermons, Badius +compiled a sort of supplement to it (_additamentum_), to which he gave +the title of "Stultifer navicul, seu Scaph, Fatuarum Mulierum," the +Boats of Foolish Women. As far as can be traced, the first edition +appears to have been printed in 1502. The first cut represents the +ship carrying Eve alone of the female race, whose folly involved the +whole world. The book is divided into five chapters, according to the +number of the five senses, each sense represented by a boat carrying +its particular class of foolish women to the great ship of foolish +women, which lies off at anchor. The text consists of a dissertation +on the use and abuse of the particular sense which forms the substance +of the chapter, and it ends with Latin verses, which are given as the +boatman's _celeusma_, or boat song. The first of these boats is the +_scapha stult visionis ad stultiferam navem perveniens_--the boat of +foolish seeing proceeding to the ship of fools. A party of gay ladies +are taking possession of the boat, carrying with them their combs, +looking-glasses, and all other implements necessary for making them +fair to be looked upon. The second boat is the _scapha auditionis +fatu_, the boat of foolish hearing, in which the ladies are playing +upon musical instruments. The third is the _scapha olfactionis stult_, +the boat of foolish smell, and the pictorial illustration to it is +partly copied in our cut No. 136. In the original some of the ladies +are gathering sweet-smelling flowers before they enter the boat, while +on board a pedlar is vending his perfume. One _folle femme_, with her +fool's cap on her head, is buying a pomander, or, as we should perhaps +now say, a scent-ball, from the itinerant dealer. Figures of pomanders +are extremely rare, and this is an interesting example; in fact, it +is only recently that our Shakspearian critics really understood the +meaning of the word. A pomander was a small globular vessel, perforated +with holes, and filled with strong perfumes, as it is represented in +our woodcut. The fourth of these boats is that of foolish tasting, +_scapha gustationis fatu_, and the ladies have their well-furnished +table on board the boat, and are largely indulging in eating and +drinking. In the last of these boats, the _scapha contactionis fatu_, +or boat of foolish feeling, the women have men on board, and are +proceeding to great liberties with them; one of the gentle damsels, +too, is picking the pocket of her male companion in a very unlady-like +manner. + + [Illustration: _No. 136. The Boat of Pleasant Odours._] + +Two ideas combined in this peculiar field of satiric literature, that +of the ship and that of the fools, now became popular, and gave rise +to a host of imitators. There appeared ships of health, ships of +penitence, ships of all sorts of things, on the one hand; and on the +other, folly was a favourite theme of satire from many quarters. One of +the most remarkable of the personages involved in this latter warfare, +was the great scholar Desiderius Erasmus, of Rotterdam, who was born in +that city in 1467. Like most of these satirists, Erasmus was strongly +imbued with the spirit of the Reformation, and he was the acquaintance +and friend of those to whom the Reformation owed a great part of its +success. In 1497, when the "Ship of Fools" of Sebastian Brandt was in +the first full flush of its popularity, Erasmus came to England, and +was so well received, that from that time forward his literary life +seemed more identified with our island than with any other country. His +name is still a sort of household word in our universities, especially +in that of Cambridge. He made here the friendly acquaintance of the +great Sir Thomas More, himself a lover of mirth, and one of those whose +names are celebrated for having kept a court fool. In the earlier years +of the sixteenth century, Erasmus visited Italy, and passed two or +three years there. He returned thence to England, as appears, early +in the year 1508. It is not easy to decide whether his experience of +society in Italy had convinced him more than ever that folly was the +presiding genius of mankind, or what other feeling influenced him, +but one of the first results of his voyage was the +Mrias Enkmion+ +(_Mori Encomium_), or "Praise of Folly." Erasmus dedicated this +little jocular treatise to Sir Thomas More as a sort of pun upon his +name, although he protests that there was a great contrast between +the two characters. Erasmus takes much the same view of folly as +Brandt, Geiler, Badius, and the others, and under this name he writes +a bold satire on the whole frame of contemporary society. The satire +is placed in the mouth of Folly herself (the Mre Folie of the jocular +clubs), who delivers from her pulpit a declamation in which she sets +forth her qualities and praises. She boasts of the greatness of her +origin, claims as her kindred the sophists, rhetoricians, and many of +the pretentious scholars and wise men, and describes her birth and +education. She claims divine affinity, and boasts of her influence over +the world, and of the beneficent manner in which it was exercised. +All the world, she pretends, was ruled under her auspices, and it was +only in her presence that mankind was really happy. Hence the happiest +ages of man are infancy, before wisdom has come to interfere, and old +age, when it has passed away. Therefore, she says, if men would remain +faithful to her, and avoid wisdom altogether, they would pass a life +of perpetual youth. In this long discourse of the influence of folly, +written by a man of the known sentiments of Erasmus, it would be +strange if the Romish church, with its monks and ignorant priesthood, +its saints, and relics, and miracles, did not find a place. Erasmus +intimates that the superstitious follies had become permanent, because +they were profitable. There are some, he tells us, who cherished the +foolish yet pleasant persuasion, that if they fixed their eyes devoutly +on a figure of St. Christopher, carved in wood or painted on the wall, +they would be safe from death on that day; with many other examples +of equal credulity. Then there are your pardons, your measures of +purgatory, which may be bought off at so much the hour, or the day, +or the month, and a multitude of other absurdities. Ecclesiastics, +scholars, mathematicians, philosophers, all come in for their share of +the refined satire of this book, which, like the "Ship of Fools," has +gone through innumerable editions, and has been translated into many +languages. + + [Illustration: _No. 137. Superstition._] + +In an early French translation, the text of this work of Erasmus +is embellished with some of the woodcuts belonging to Brandt's +"Ship of Fools," which, it need hardly be remarked, are altogether +inappropriate, but the "Praise of Folly" was detained to receive +illustrations from a more distinguished pencil. A copy of the book came +into the hands of Hans Holbein--it may possibly have been presented to +him by the author--and Holbein took so much interest in it, that he +amused himself with drawing illustrative sketches with a pen in the +margins. This book afterwards passed into the library of the University +of Ble, where it was found in the latter part of the seventeenth +century, and these drawings have since been engraved and added to most +of the subsequent editions. Many of these sketches are very slight, and +some have not a very close connection with the text of Erasmus, but +they are all characteristic, and show the spirit--the spirit of the +age--in which Holbein read his author. I give two examples of them, +taken almost haphazard, for it would require a longer analysis of the +book than can be given here to make many of them understood. The first +of these, our cut No. 137, represents the foolish warrior, who has a +sword long enough to trust to it for defence, bowing with trembling +superstition before a painting of St. Christopher crossing the water +with the infant Christ on his shoulder, as a more certain security for +his safety during that day. The other, our cut No. 138, represents +the preacher, Lady Folly, descending from her pulpit, after she has +concluded her sermon. + + [Illustration: _No. 138. Preacher Folly ending her Sermon._] + + + + + CHAPTER XIV. + + POPULAR LITERATURE AND ITS HEROES; BROTHER RUSH, TYLL EULENSPIEGEL, + THE WISE MEN OF GOTHAM.--STORIES AND JEST-BOOKS.--SKELTON, SCOGIN, + TARLTON, PEELE. + + +The people in the middle ages, as well as its superiors, had its +comic literature and legend. Legend was the literature especially of +the peasant, and in it the spirit of burlesque and satire manifested +itself in many ways. Simplicity, combined with vulgar cunning, and the +circumstances arising out of the exercise of these qualities, presented +the greatest stimulants to popular mirth. They produced their popular +heroes, who, at first, were much more than half legendary, such as +the familiar spirit, Robin Goodfellow, whose pranks were a source of +continual amusement rather than of terror to the simple minds which +listened to those who told them. These stories excited with still +greater interest as their spiritual heroes became incarnate, and the +auditors were persuaded that the perpetrators of so many artful acts of +cunning and of so many mischievous practical jokes, were but ordinary +men like themselves. It was but a sign or symbol of the change from +the mythic age to that of practical life. One of the earliest of these +stories of mythic comedy transformed into, or at least presented under +the guise of, humanity, is that of Brother Ruth. Although the earliest +version of this story with which we are acquainted dates only from the +beginning of the sixteenth century,[73] there is no reason for doubt +that the story itself was in existence at a much more remote period. + + [73] This earliest known version is in German verse, and was printed + in 1515. An English version, in prose, was printed in 1620, and + is reprinted in Thoms's "Collection of Early Prose Romances." + +Rush was, in truth, a spirit of darkness, whose mission it was +to wander on the earth tempting and impelling people to do evil. +Perceiving that the internal condition of a certain abbey was well +suited to his purpose, he presented himself at its gates in the +disguise of a youth who wanted employment, and was received as an +assistant in the kitchen, but he pleased the monks best by the skill +with which he furnished them all with fair companions. At length he +quarrelled with the cook, and threw him into the boiling caldron, and +the monks, assuming that his death was accidental, appointed Rush to be +cook in his place. After a service of seven years in the kitchen--which +appears to have been considered a fair apprenticeship for the new +honour which was to be conferred upon him--the abbot and convent +rewarded him by making him a monk. He now followed still more earnestly +his design for the ruin of his brethren, both soul and body, and began +by raising a quarrel about a woman, which led, through his contrivance, +to a fight, in which the monks all suffered grievous bodily injuries, +and in which Brother Rush was especially active. He went on in this +way until at last his true character was accidentally discovered. A +neighbouring farmer, overtaken by night, took shelter in a hollow tree. +It happened to be the night appointed by Lucifer to meet his agents +on earth, and hear from them the report of their several proceedings, +and he had selected this very oak as the place of rendezvous. There +Brother Rush appeared, and the farmer, in his hiding-place, heard his +confession from his own lips, and told it to the abbot, who, being as +it would appear a magician, conjured him into the form of a horse, and +banished him. Rush hurried away to England, where he laid aside his +equine form, and entered the body of the king's daughter, who suffered +great torments from his possession. At length some of the great doctors +from Paris came and obliged the spirit to confess that nobody but the +abbot of the distant monastery had any power over him. The abbot came, +called him out of the maiden, and conjured him more forcibly than ever +into the form of a horse. + +Such is, in mere outline, the story of Brother Rush, which was +gradually enlarged by the addition of new incidents. But the people +wanted a hero who presented more of the character of reality, who, +in fact, might be recognised as one of themselves; and such heroes +appear to have existed at all times. They usually represented a +class in society, and especially that class which consisted of idle +sharpers, who lived by their wits, and which was more numerous and more +familiarly known in the middle ages than at the present day. Folly +and cunning combined presented a never-failing subject of mirth. This +class of adventurers first came into print in Germany, and it is there +that we find its first popular hero, to whom they gave the name of +Eulenspiegel, which means literally "the owl's mirror," and has been +since used in German in the sense of a merry fool. Tyll Eulenspiegel, +and his story, are supposed to have belonged to the fourteenth century, +though we first know them in the printed book of the commencement of +the sixteenth, which is believed to have come from the pen of the +well-known popular writer, Thomas Murner, of whom I shall have to speak +more at length in another chapter. The popularity of this work was very +great, and it was quickly translated into French, English, Latin, and +almost every other language of Western Europe. In the English version +the name also was translated, and appears under the form of Owleglass, +or, as it often occurs with the superfluous aspirate, Howleglass.[74] +According to the story, Tyll Eulenspiegel was the son of a peasant, and +was born at a village called Kneitlingen, in the land of Brunswick. +The story of his birth may be given in the words of the early English +version, as a specimen of its quaint and antiquated language:-- + + "Yn the lande of Sassen, in the vyllage of Ruelnige, there + dwelleth a man that was named Nicholas Howleglas, that had a wife + named Wypeke, that lay a childbed in the same wyllage, and that + chylde was borne to christening; and named Tyell Howleglass. And + than the chyld was brought into a taverne, where the father was + wyth his gosseppes and made good chere. Whan the mydwife had wel + dronke, she toke the childe to bere it home, and in the wai was a + litle bridg over a muddy water. And as the mydwife would have gone + over the lytle brydge, she fel into the mudde with the chylde, + for she had a lytel dronk to much wyne, for had not helpe come + quickly, the had both be drowned in the mudde. And whan she came + home with the childe, the made a kettle of warm water to be made + redi, and therin they washed the child clen of the mudde. And + thus was Howleglas thre tymes in one dai cristened, once at the + churche, once in the mudde, and once in the warm water." + + [74] The title of this English translation is, "Here beginneht a merye + Jest of a man that was called Howleglas, and of many marveylous + thinges and jestes that he dyd in his lyfe, in Eastlande, and in + many other places." It was printed by Coplande, supposed about + 1520. An edition of Eulenspiegel in English, by Mr. Kenneth + Mackenzie, has recently been published by Messrs. Trbner & Co., + of Paternoster Row. + +It will be seen that the English translator was not very correct in his +geography or in his names. The child, having thus escaped destruction, +grew rapidly, and displayed an extraordinary love of mischief, with +various other evil propensities, as well as a cunning beyond his age, +in escaping the risks to which these exposed him. At a very early age, +he displayed a remarkable talent for setting the other children by the +ears, and this was his favourite amusement during life. His mother, +who was now a widow, contemplating the extraordinary cunning of her +child, which, as she thought, must necessarily ensure his advancement +in the world, resolved that he should no longer remain idle, and put +him apprentice to a baker; but his wicked and restless disposition +defeated all the good intentions of his parent, and Eulenspiegel was +obliged to leave his master in consequence of his mal-practices. One +day his mother took him to a church-dedication, and the child drank +so much at the feast on that occasion, that he crept into an empty +beehive and fell asleep, while his mother, thinking he had gone home, +returned without him. In the night-time two thieves came into the +garden to steal the bees, and they agreed to take first the hive which +was heaviest. This, as may be supposed, proved to be the hive in +which Eulenspiegel was hidden, and they fixed it on a pole which they +carried on their shoulders, one before and one behind, the hive hanging +between them. Eulenspiegel, awakened by the movement, soon discovered +the position in which he was placed, and hit upon a plan for escaping. +Gently lifting the lid of the hive, he put out his arm and plucked the +hair of the man before, who turned about and accused his companion of +insulting him. The other asserted that he had not touched him, and the +first, only half satisfied, continued to bear his share of the burthen, +but he had not advanced many steps when a still sharper pull at his +hair excited his great anger, and from wrathful words the two thieves +proceeded to blows. While they were fighting, Eulenspiegel crept out of +the hive and ran away. + +After leaving the baker, Eulenspiegel became a wanderer in the world, +gaining his living by his trickery and deception, and engaging himself +in all sorts of strange and ludicrous adventures. He ended everywhere +by creating discord and strife. He became at different times a +blacksmith, a shoemaker, a tailor, a cook, a drawer of teeth, and +assumed a variety of other characters, but remained in each situation +only long enough to make it too hot for him, and to be obliged to +secure his retreat. He intruded himself into all classes of society, +and invariably came to similar results. Many of his adventures, indeed, +are so droll that we can easily understand the great popularity +they once enjoyed. But they are not merely amusing--they present a +continuous satire upon contemporary society, upon a social condition in +which every pretender, every reckless impostor, every private plunderer +or public depredator, saw the world exposed to him in its folly and +credulity as an easy prey. + +The middle ages possessed another class of these popular satirical +histories, which were attached to places rather than to persons. There +were few countries which did not possess a town or a district, the +inhabitants of which were celebrated for stupidity, or for roguery, +or for some other ridiculous or contemptible quality. We have seen, +in a former chapter, the people of Norfolk enjoying this peculiarity, +and, at a later period, the inhabitants of Pevensey in Sussex, and +more especially those of Gotham in Nottinghamshire, were similarly +distinguished. The inhabitants of many places in Germany bore this +character, but their grand representatives among the Germans were the +Schildburgers, a name which appears to belong entirely to the domain +of fable. Schildburg, we are told, was a town "in Misnopotamia, beyond +Utopia, in the kingdom of Calecut." The Schildburgers were originally +so renowned for their wisdom, that they were continually invited into +foreign countries to give their advice, until at length not a man was +left at home, and their wives were obliged to assume the charge of the +duties of their husbands. This became at length so onerous, that the +wives held a council, and resolved on despatching a solemn message +in writing to call the men home. This had the desired effect; all the +Schildburgers returned to their own town, and were so joyfully received +by their wives that they resolved upon leaving it no more. They +accordingly held a council, and it was decided that, having experienced +the great inconvenience of a reputation of wisdom, they would avoid +it in future by assuming the character of fools. One of the first +evil results of their long neglect of home affairs was the want of a +council-hall, and this want they now resolved to supply without delay. +They accordingly went to the hills and woods, cut down the timber, +dragged it with great labour to the town, and in due time completed +the erection of a handsome and substantial building. But, when they +entered their new council-hall, what was their consternation to find +themselves in perfect darkness! In fact, they had forgotten to make +any windows. Another council was held, and one who had been among the +wisest in the days of their wisdom, gave his opinion very oracularly; +the result of which was that they should experiment on every possible +expedient for introducing light into the hall, and that they should +first try that which seemed most likely to succeed. They had observed +that the light of day was caused by sunshine, and the plan proposed was +to meet at mid-day when the sun was brightest, and fill sacks, hampers, +jugs, and vessels of all kinds, with sunshine and daylight, which they +proposed afterwards to empty into the unfortunate council-hall. Next +day, as the clock struck one, you might see a crowd of Schildburgers +before the council-house door, busily employed, some holding the sacks +open, and others throwing the light into them with shovels and any +other appropriate implements which came to hand. While they were thus +labouring, a stranger came into the town of Schildburg, and, hearing +what they were about, told them they were labouring to no purpose, +and offered to show them how to get the daylight into the hall. It is +unnecessary to say more than that this new plan was to make an opening +in the roof, and that the Schildburgers witnessed the effect with +astonishment, and were loud in their gratitude to their new comer. + +The Schildburgers met with further difficulties before they completed +their council-hall. They sowed a field with salt, and when the +salt-plant grew up next year, after a meeting of the council, at +which it was stiffly disputed whether it ought to be reaped, or mowed, +or gathered in in some other manner, it was finally discovered that +the crop consisted of nothing but nettles. After many accidents of +this kind, the Schildburgers are noticed by the emperor, and obtain a +charter of incorporation and freedom, but they profit little by it. In +trying some experiments to catch mice, they set fire to their houses, +and the whole town is burnt to the ground, upon which, in their sorrow, +they abandon it altogether, and become, like the Jews of old, scattered +over the world, carrying their own folly into every country they visit. + +The earliest known edition of the history of the Schildburgers was +printed in 1597,[75] but the story itself is no doubt older. It will +be seen at once that it involves a satire upon the municipal towns of +the middle ages. A similar series of adventures, only a little more +clerical, bore the title of "Der Pfarrherrn vom Kalenberg," or the +Parson of Kalenberg, and was first, as far as we know, published in the +latter half of the sixteenth century. The first known edition, printed +in 1582, is in prose. Von der Hagen, who reprinted a subsequent edition +in verse, in a volume already quoted, seems to think that in its first +form the story belongs to the fourteenth century. + + [75] It was reprinted by Von der Hagen, in a little volume entitled + "Narrenbuch; herausgegeben durch Friedrich Heinrich von der + Hagen." 12mo., Halle, 1811. + +The Schildburgers of Germany were represented in England by the wise +men of Gotham. Gotham is a village and parish about seven miles to +the south-west of Nottingham, and, curiously enough, a story is told +according to which the folly of the men of Gotham, like that of the +Schildburgers, was at first assumed. It is pretended that one day +king John, on his way to Nottingham, intended to pass through the +village of Gotham, and that the Gothamites, under the influence of +some vague notion that his presence would be injurious to them, raised +difficulties in his way which prevented his visit. The men of Gotham +were now apprehensive of the king's vengeance, and they resolved +to try and evade it by assuming the character of simpletons. When +the king's officers came to Gotham to inquire into the conduct of +the inhabitants, they found them engaged in the most extraordinary +pursuits, some of them seeking to drown an eel in a pond of water, +others making a hedge round a tree to confine a cuckoo which had +settled in it, and others employing themselves in similar futile +pursuits. The commissioners reported the people of Gotham to be no +better than fools, and by this stratagem they escaped any further +persecution, but the character they assumed remained attached to them. + +This explanation is, of course, very late and very apocryphal; but +there can be little doubt that the character of the wise men of Gotham +is one of considerable antiquity. The story is believed to have been +drawn up in its present form by Andrew Borde, an English writer of the +reign of Henry VIII. It was reprinted a great number of times under +the form of those popular books called chap-books, because they were +hawked about the country by itinerant booksellers or chap-men. The +acts of the Gothamites displayed a greater degree of simplicity even +than those of the Schildburgers, but they are less connected. Here +is one anecdote told in the unadorned language of the chap-books, in +explanation of which it is only necessary to state that the men of +Gotham admired greatly the note of the cuckoo. "On a time the men of +Gotham fain would have pinn'd in the cuckow, that she might sing all +the year; and, in the midst of the town, they had a hedge made round in +compass, and got a cuckow and put her into it, and said, 'Sing here, +and you shall lack neither meat nor drink all the year.' The cuckow, +when she perceived herself encompassed with the hedge, flew away. 'A +vengeance on her,' said these wise men, 'we did not make our hedge high +enough.'" On another occasion, having caught a large eel which offended +them by its voracity, they assembled in council to deliberate on an +appropriate punishment, which ended in a resolution that it should be +drowned, and the criminal was ceremoniously thrown into a great pond. +One day twelve men of Gotham went a-fishing, and on their way home they +suddenly discovered that they had lost one of their number, and each +counted in his turn, and could find only eleven. In fact, each forgot +to count himself. In the midst of their distress--for they believed +their companion to be drowned--a stranger approached, and learnt the +cause of their sorrow. Finding they were not to be convinced of their +mistake by mere argument, he offered, on certain conditions, to find +the lost Gothamite, and he proceeded as follows. He took one by one +each of the twelve Gothamites, struck him a hard blow on the shoulder, +which made him scream, and at each cry counted one, two, three, &c. +When it came to twelve, they were all satisfied that the lost Gothamite +had returned, and paid the man for the service he had rendered them. + +As a chap-book, this history of the men of Gotham became so popular, +that it gave rise to a host of other books of similar character, which +were compiled at a later period under such titles--formerly well +known to children--as, "The Merry Frolicks, or the Comical Cheats of +Swalpo;" "The Witty and Entertaining Exploits of George Buchanan, +commonly called the King's Fool;" "Simple Simon's Misfortunes;" and the +like. Nor must it be forgotten that the history of Eulenspiegel was +the prototype of a class of popular histories of larger dimensions, +represented in our own literature by "The English Rogue," the work of +Richard Head and Francis Kirkman, in the reign of Charles II., and +various other "rogues" belonging to different countries, which appeared +about that time, or not long afterwards. The earliest of these books +was "The Spanish Rogue, or Life of Guzman de Alfarache," written in +Spanish by Mateo Aleman in the latter part of the sixteenth century. +Curiously enough, some Englishman, not knowing apparently that the +history of Eulenspiegel had appeared in English under the name of +Owlglass, took it into his head to introduce him among the family of +rogues which had thus come into fashion, and, in 1720, published as +"Made English from the High Dutch," what he called "The German Rogue, +or the Life and Merry Adventures, Cheats, Stratagems, and Contrivances +of Tiel Eulespiegle." + +The fifteenth century was the period during which medival forms +generally were changing into forms adapted to another state of society, +and in which much of the popular literature which has been in vogue +during modern times took its rise. In the fourteenth century, the +fabliaux of the jougleurs were already taking what we may perhaps term +a more literary form, and were reduced into prose narratives. This +took place especially in Italy, where these prose tales were called +_novelle_, implying some novelty in their character, a word which was +transferred into the French language under the form of _nouvelles_, +and was the origin of our modern English _novel_, applied to a work of +fiction. The Italian novelists adopted the Eastern plan of stringing +these stories together on the slight framework of one general plot, +in which are introduced causes for telling them and persons who tell +them. Thus the Decameron of Boccaccio holds towards the fabliaux +exactly the same position as that of the "Arabian Nights" to the older +Arabian tales. The Italian novelists became numerous and celebrated +throughout Europe, from the time of Boccaccio to that of Straparola, +at the commencement of the sixteenth century, and later. The taste for +this class of literature appears to have been introduced into France at +the court of Burgundy, where, under duke Philippe le Bon, a well-known +courtier and man of letters named Antoine de La Sale, who had, during +a sojourn in Italy, become acquainted with one of the most celebrated +of the earlier Italian collections, the "Cento Novello," or the Hundred +Novels, compiled a collection in French in imitation of them, under the +title of "Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles," or the Hundred new Novels, +one of the purest examples of the French language in the fifteenth +century.[76] The later French story-books, such as the Heptameron of +the queen of Navarre, and others, belong chiefly to the sixteenth +century. These collections of stories can hardly be said to have ever +taken root in this island as a part of English literature. + + [76] I am obliged to pass over this part of the subject very rapidly. + For the history of that remarkable book, the "Cent Nouvelles + Nouvelles," I would refer the reader to the preface to my own + edition, "Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles, publies d'aprs le + seul manuscrit connu, avec Introduction et Notes, par M. Thomas + Wright." 2 vols, 12mo., Paris, 1858. + +But there arose partly out of these stories a class of books which +became greatly multiplied, and were, during a long period, extremely +popular. With the household fool, or jester, instead of the old +jougleur, the stories had been shorn of their detail, and sank into +the shape of mere witty anecdotes, and at the same time a taste arose +for what we now class under the general term of jests, clever sayings, +what the French call _bons mots_, and what the English of the sixteenth +century termed "quick answers." The word _jest_ itself arose from the +circumstance that the things designated by it arose out of the older +stories, for it is a mere corruption of gestes, the Latin _gesta_, in +the sense of narratives of acts or deeds, or tales. The Latin writers, +who first began to collect them into books, included them under the +general name of _faceti_. The earlier of these collections of faceti +were written in Latin, and of the origin of the first with which we +are acquainted, that by the celebrated scholar Poggio of Florence, +a curious anecdote is told. Some wits of the court of pope Martin +V., elected to the papacy in 1417, among whom were the pope's two +secretaries, Poggio and Antonio Lusco, Cincio of Rome, and Ruzello of +Bologna, appropriated to themselves a private corner in the Vatican, +where they assembled to chat freely among themselves. They called +it their _buggiale_, a word which signifies in Italian, a place of +recreation, where they tell stories, make jests, and amuse themselves +with discussing satirically the doings and characters of everybody. +This was the way in which Poggio and his friends entertained themselves +in their buggiale, and we are assured that in their talk they neither +spared the church nor the pope himself or his government. The faceti +of Poggio, in fact, which are said to be a selection of the good things +said in these meetings, show neither reverence for the church of Rome +nor respect for decency, but they are mostly stories which had been +told over and over again, long before Poggio came into the world. It +was perhaps this satire upon the church and upon the ecclesiastics +which gave much of their popularity to these faceti at a time when +a universal agitation of men's minds on religious affairs prevailed, +which was the great harbinger of the Reformation; and the next Latin +books of faceti came from men such as Henry Bebelius, who were zealous +reformers themselves. + +Many of the jests in these Latin collections are put into the mouths of +jesters, or domestic fools, _fatui_, or _moriones_, as they are called +in the Latin; and in England, where these jest-books in the vernacular +tongue became more popular perhaps than in any other country, many +of them were published under the names of celebrated jesters, as the +"Merie Tales of Skelton," "The Jests of Scogin," "Tarlton's Jests," and +"The Jests of George Peele." + +John Skelton, poet-laureat of his time, appears to have been known in +the courts of Henry VII. and Henry VIII. quite as much in the character +of a jester as in that of a poet. Poet-laureat was then a title or +degree given in the university of Oxford. His "Merye Tales" are all +personal of himself, and we should be inclined to say that his jests +and his poetry are equally bad. The former picture him as holding a +place somewhere between Eulenspiegel and the ordinary court-fool. We +may give as a sample of the best of them the tale No. 1.-- + + "_How Skelton came home late to Oxford from Abington._ + + "Skelton was an Englysheman borne as Skogyn was, and hee was + educated and broughte up in Oxfoorde, and there was he made a + poete lauriat. And on a tyme he had ben at Abbington to make mery, + wher that he had eate salte meates, and hee did com late home to + Oxforde, and he did lye in an ine named the Tabere, whyche is now + the Angell, and hee dyd drynke, and went to bed. About midnight + he was so thyrstie or drye that he was constrained to call to + the tapster for drynke, and the tapster harde him not. Then hee + cryed to hys oste and hys ostes, and to the ostler, for drinke, + and no man would here hym. Alacke, sayd Skelton, I shall peryshe + for lacke of drynke! What reamedye? At the last he dyd crie out + and sayd, Fyer, fyer, fyer! When Skelton hard every man bustle + hymselfe upward, and some of them were naked, and some were halfe + asleepe and amased, and Skelton dyd crye, Fier, fier! styll, that + everye man knewe not whether to resorte. Skelton did go to bed, + and the oste and ostis, and the tapster, with the ostler, dyd + runne to Skeltons chamber with candles lyghted in theyr handes, + saying, Where, where, where is the fyer? Here, here, here, said + Skelton, and poynted hys fynger to hys mouth, saying, Fetch me + some drynke to quenche the fyer and the heate and the drinesse in + my mouthe. And so they dyd." + +Another of these "Merye Tales" of Skelton contains a satire upon +the practice which prevailed in the sixteenth and early part of the +seventeenth centuries of obtaining letters-patent of monopoly from the +crown, and also on the bibulous propensities of Welshmen-- + + "_How the Welshman dyd desyre Skelton to ayde hym in hys sute to + the kynge for a patent to sell drynke._ + + "Skelton, when he was in London, went to the kynges courte, + where there did come to hym a Welshman, saying, Syr, it is so, + that manye dooth come upp of my country to the kynges court, and + some doth get of the kyng by patent a castell, and some a parke, + and some a forest, and some one fee and some another, and they + dooe lyve lyke honest men; and I shoulde lyve as honestly as + the best, if I myght have a patyne for good dryncke, wherefore + I dooe praye yow to write a fewe woords for mee in a lytle byll + to geve the same to the kynges handes, and I wil geve you well + for your laboure. I am contented, sayde Skelton. Syt downe then, + sayde the Welshman, and write. What shall I wryte? sayde Skelton. + The Welshman sayde wryte _dryncke_. Nowe, sayde the Welshman, + write _more dryncke_. What now? sayde Skelton. Wryte nowe, _a + great deale of dryncke_. Nowe, sayd the Welshman, putte to all + thys dryncke _a littell crome of breade_, and _a great deale of + drynke_ to it, and reade once agayne. Skelton dyd reade, _Dryncke, + more dryncke, and a great deale of dryncke, and a lytle crome of + breade, and a great deale of dryncke to it_. Than the Welshman + sayde, Put oute _the litle crome of breade_, and sette in, _all + dryncke and no breade_. And if I myght have thys sygned of the + kynge, sayde the Welshman, I care for no more, as longe as I dooe + lyve. Well then, sayde Skelton, when you have thys signed of the + kyng, then wyll I labour for a patent to have bread, that you wyth + your drynke and I with the bread may fare well, and seeke our + livinge with bagge and staffe." + +These two tales are rather favourable specimens of the collection +published under the name of Skelton, which, as far as we know, was +first printed about the middle of the sixteenth century. The collection +of the jests of Scogan, or, as he was popularly called, Scogin, which +is said to have been compiled by Andrew Borde, was probably given to +the world a few years before, but no copies of the earlier editions are +now known to exist. Scogan, the hero of these jests, is described as +occupying at the court of Henry VII. a position not much different from +that of an ordinary court-fool. Good old Holinshed the chronicler says +of him, perhaps a little too gently, that he was "a learned gentleman +and student for a time in Oxford, of a pleasant wit, and bent to merrie +devices, in respect whereof he was called into the court, where, giving +himselfe to his naturall inclination of mirth and pleasant pastime, +he plaied manie sporting parts, although not in such uncivil manner +as hath beene of him reported." This allusion refers most probably to +the jests, which represent him as leading a life of low and coarse +buffoonery, in the course of which he displayed a considerable +share of the dishonest and mischievous qualities of the less real +Eulenspiegel. He is even represented as personally insulting the king +and queen, and as being consequently banished over the Channel, to +show no more respect to the majesty of the king of France. Scogin's +jests, like Skelton's, consist in a great measure of those practical +jokes which appear in all former ages to have been the delight of the +Teutonic race. Many of them are directed against the ignorance and +worldliness of the clergy. Scogin is described as being at one time +himself a teacher in the university, and on one occasion, we are told, +a husbandman sent his son to school to him that he might be made a +priest. The whole story, which runs through several chapters, is an +excellent caricature on the way in which men vulgarly ignorant were +intruded into the priesthood before the Reformation. At length, after +much blundering, the scholar came to be ordained, and his examination +is reported as follows:-- + + "_How the scholler said Tom Miller of Oseney was Jacob's father._ + + "After this, the said scholler did come to the next orders, and + brought a present to the ordinary from Scogin, but the scholler's + father paid for all. Then said the ordinary to the scholler, I + must needes oppose you, and for master Scogin's sake, I will + oppose you in a light matter. Isaac had two sons, Esau and Jacob. + Who was Jacob's father? The scholler stood still, and could not + tell. Well, said the ordinary, I cannot admit you to be priest + untill the next orders, and then bring me an answer. The scholler + went home with a heavy heart, bearing a letter to master Scogin, + how his scholler could not answer to this question: Isaac had + two sons, Esau and Jacob; who was Jacob's father? Scogin said to + his scholler, Thou foole and asse-head! Dost thou not know Tom + Miller of Oseney? Yes, said the scholler! Then, said Scogin, thou + knowest he had two sonnes, Tom and Jacke; who is Jacke's father? + The scholler said, Tom Miller. Why, said Scogin, thou mightest + have said that Isaac was Jacob's father. Then said Scogin, Thou + shalt arise betime in the morning, and carry a letter to the + ordinary, and I trust he will admit thee before the orders shall + be given. The scholler rose up betime in the morning, and carried + the letter to the ordinary. The ordinary said, For Master Scogin's + sake I will oppose you no farther than I did yesterday. Isaac had + two sons, Esau and Jacob; who was Jacob's father? Marry, said the + scholler, I can tell you now that was Tom Miller of Oseney. Goe, + foole, goe, said the ordinary, and let thy master send thee no + more to me for orders, for it is impossible to make a foole a wise + man." + +Scogin's scholar was, however, made a priest, and some of the stories +which follow describe the ludicrous manner in which he exercised the +priesthood. Two other stories illustrate Scogin's supposed position at +court:-- + + "_How Scogin told those that mocked him that he had a wall-eye._ + + "Scogin went up and down in the king's hall, and his hosen hung + downe, and his coat stood awry, and his hat stood a boonjour, so + every man did mocke Scogin. Some said he was a proper man, and did + wear his rayment cleanly; some said the foole could not put on his + owne rayment; some said one thing, and some said another. At last + Scogin said, Masters, you have praised me wel, but you did not + espy one thing in me. What is that, Tom? said the men. Marry, said + Scogin, I have a wall-eye. What meanest thou by that? said the + men. Marry, said Scogin, I have spyed a sort of knaves that doe + mocke me, and are worse fooles themselves." + + "_How Scogin drew his sonne up and downe the court._ + + "After this Scogin went from the court, and put off his foole's + garments, and came to the court like an honest man, and brought + his son to the court with him, and within the court he drew his + sonne up and downe by the heeles. The boy cried out, and Scogin + drew the boy in every corner. At last every body had pity on the + boy, and said, Sir, what doe you meane, to draw the boy about the + court? Masters, said Scogin, he is my sonne, and I doe it for this + cause. Every man doth say, that man or child which is drawne up in + the court shall be the better as long as hee lives; and therefore + I will every day once draw him up and downe the court, after that + hee may come to preferment in the end." + +The appreciation of a good joke cannot at this time have been very +great or very general, for Scogin's jests were wonderfully popular +during at least a century, from the first half of the sixteenth +century. They passed through many editions, and are frequently +alluded to by the writers of the Elizabethan age. The next individual +whose name appears at the head of a collection of his jests, was the +well-known wit, Richard Tarlton, who may be fairly considered as court +fool to Queen Elizabeth. His jests belong to the same class as those +of Skelton and Scogin, and if possible, they present a still greater +amount of dulness. Tarlton's jests were soon followed by the "merrie +conceited jests" of George Peele, the dramatist, who is described in +the title as "gentleman, sometimes student in Oxford;" and it is added +that in these jests "is shewed the course of his life, how he lived; +a man very well knowne in the city of London and elsewhere." In fact, +Peele's jests are chiefly curious for the striking picture they give +us of the wilder shades of town life under the reigns of Elizabeth and +James I. + +During the period which witnessed the publication in England of these +books, many other jest-books appeared, for they had already become +an important class of English popular literature. Most of them were +published anonymously, and indeed they are mere compilations from the +older collections in Latin and French. All that was at all good, even +in the jests of Skelton, Scogin, Tarlton, and Peele, had been repeated +over and over again by the story-tellers and jesters of former ages. +Two of the earlier English collections have gained a greater celebrity +than the rest, chiefly through adventitious circumstances. One of +these, entitled "A Hundred Merry Tales," has gained distinction among +Shakespearian critics as the one especially alluded to by the great +poet in "Much Ado about Nothing," (Act ii., Sc. 1), where Beatrice +complains that somebody had said "that I had my good wit out of the +Hundred Merry Tales." The other collection alluded to was entitled +"Mery Tales, Wittie Questions, and Quicke Answeres, very pleasant +to be readde," and was printed in 1567. Its modern fame appears to +have arisen chiefly from the circumstance that, until the accidental +discovery of the unique and imperfect copy of the "Hundred Merry +Tales," it was supposed to be the book alluded to by Shakespeare. +Both these collections are mere compilations from the "Cent Nouvelles +Nouvelles," "Poggio," "Straparola," and other foreign works.[77] The +words put into the mouth of Beatrice are correctly descriptive of the +use made of these jest-books. It had become fashionable to learn out +of them jests and stories, in order to introduce them into polite +conversation, and especially at table; and this practice continued +to prevail until a very recent period. The number of such jest-books +published during the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, +was quite extraordinary. Many of these were given anonymously; but many +also were put forth under names which possessed temporary celebrity, +such as Hobson the carrier, Killigrew the jester, the friend of Charles +II., Ben Jonson, Garrick, and a multitude of others. It is, perhaps, +unnecessary to remind the reader that the great modern representative +of this class of literature is the illustrious Joe Miller. + + [77] A neat and useful edition of these two jest-books, with the + other most curious books of the same class, published during the + Elizabethan period, has recently been published in two volumes, + by Mr. W. C. Hazlitt. + + + + + CHAPTER XV. + + THE AGE OF THE REFORMATION.--THOMAS MURNER; HIS GENERAL + SATIRES.--FRUITFULNESS OF FOLLY.--HANS SACHS.--THE TRAP FOR + FOOLS.--ATTACKS ON LUTHER.--THE POPE AS ANTICHRIST.--THE POPE-ASS + AND THE MONK-CALF.--OTHER CARICATURES AGAINST THE POPE.--THE GOOD + AND BAD SHEPHERDS. + + +The reign of Folly did not pass away with the fifteenth century--on the +whole the sixteenth century can hardly be said to have been more sane +than its predecessor, but it was agitated by a long and fierce struggle +to disengage European society from the trammels of the middle ages. We +have entered upon what is technically termed the _renaissance_, and +are approaching the great religious reformation. The period during +which the art of printing began first to spread generally over Western +Europe, was peculiarly favourable to the production of satirical +books and pamphlets, and a considerable number of clever and spirited +satirists and comic writers appeared towards the end of the fifteenth +century, especially in Germany, where circumstances of a political +character had at an early period given to the intellectual agitation +a more permanent strength than it could easily or quickly gain in the +great monarchies. Among the more remarkable of these satirists was +Thomas Murner, who was born at Strasburg, in 1475. The circumstances +even of his childhood are singular, for he was born a cripple, or +became one in his earliest infancy, though he was subsequently healed, +and it was so universally believed that this malady was the effect +of witchcraft, that he himself wrote afterwards a treatise upon this +subject under the title of "De Phitonico Contractu." The school in +which he was taught may at least have encouraged his satirical spirit, +for his master was Jacob Locher, the same who translated into Latin +verse the "Ship of Fools" of Sebastian Brandt. At the end of the +century Murner had become a master of arts in the University of Paris, +and had entered the Franciscan order. His reputation as a German +popular poet was so great, that the emperor Maximilian I., who +died in 1519, conferred upon him the crown of poetry, or, in other +words, made him poet-laureat. He took the degree of doctor in theology +in 1509. Still Murner was known best as the popular writer, and he +published several satirical poems, which were remarkable for the bold +woodcuts that illustrated them, for engraving on wood flourished at +this period. He exposed the corruptions of all classes of society, +and, before the Reformation broke out, he did not even spare the +corruptions of the ecclesiastical state, but soon declared himself a +fierce opponent of the Reformers. When the Lutheran revolt against the +Papacy became strong, our king, Henry VIII., who took a decided part +against Luther, invited Murner to England, and on his return to his +own country, the satiric Franciscan became more bitter against the +Reformation than ever. He advocated the cause of the English monarch in +a pamphlet, now very rare, in which he discussed the question whether +Henry VIII. or Luther was the liar--"Antwort dem Murner uff seine +frag, ob der knig von Engllant ein Lgner sey oder Martinus Luther." +Murner appears to have divided the people of his age into rogues and +fools, or perhaps he considered the two titles as identical. His +"Narrenbeschwerung," or Conspiracy of Fools, in which Brandt's idea +was followed up, is supposed to have been published as early as 1506, +but the first printed edition with a date, appeared in 1512. It became +so popular, that it went through several editions during subsequent +years; and that which I have before me was printed at Strasburg in +1518. It is, like Brandt's "Ship of Fools," a general satire against +society, in which the clergy are not spared, for the writer had not yet +come in face of Luther's Reformation. The cuts are superior to those +of Brandt's book, and some of them are remarkable for their design and +execution. In one of the earliest of them, copied in the cut No. 139, +Folly is introduced in the garb of a husbandman, scattering his feed +over the earth, the result of which is a very quick and flourishing +crop, the fool's heads rising above ground, almost instantaneously, +like so many turnips. In a subsequent engraving, represented in our +cut No. 140, Folly holds out, as an object of emulation, the fool's +cap, and people of all classes, the pope himself, and the emperor, and +all the great dignitaries of this world, press forward eagerly to seize +upon it. + + [Illustration: _No. 139. Sowing a Fruitful Crop._] + +The same year (1512) witnessed the appearance of another poetical, +or at least metrical, satire by Murner, entitled "Schelmenzunft," or +the Confraternity of Rogues, similarly illustrated with very spirited +engravings on wood. It is another demonstration of the prevailing +dominion of folly under its worst forms, and the satire is equally +general with the preceding. Murner's satire appears to have been felt +not only generally, but personally; and we are told that he was often +threatened with assassination, and he raised up a number of literary +opponents, who treated him with no little rudeness; in fact, he had +got on the wrong side of politics, or at all events on the unpopular +side, and men who had more talents and greater weight appeared as his +opponents--men like Ulrich von Utten, and Luther himself. + + [Illustration: _No. 140. An Acceptable Offering._] + +Among the satirists who espoused the cause to which Murner was +opposed, we must not overlook a man who represented in its strongest +features, though in a rather debased form, the old spontaneous poetry +of the middle ages. His name was Hans Sachs, at least that was the +name under which he was known, for his real name is said to have +been Loutrdorffer. His spirit was entirely that of the old wandering +minstrel, and it was so powerful in him, that, having been apprenticed +to the craft of a weaver, he was no sooner freed from his indentures, +than he took to a vagabond life, and wandered from town to town, +gaining his living by singing the verses he composed upon every +occasion which presented itself. In 1519, he married and settled in +Nremberg, and his compositions were then given to the public through +the press. The number of these was quite extraordinary--songs, ballads, +satires, and dramatic pieces, rude in style, in accordance with the +taste of the time, but full of cleverness. Many of them were printed +on broadsides, and illustrated with large engravings on wood. Hans +Sachs joined in the crusade against the empire of Folly, and one of +his broadsides is illustrated with a graceful design, the greater part +of which is copied in our cut No. 141. A party of ladies have set a +bird-trap to catch the fools of the age, who are waiting to be caught. +One fool is taken in the trap, while another is already secured and +pinioned, and others are rushing into the snare. A number of people of +the world, high in their dignities and stations, are looking on at this +remarkable scene. + + [Illustration: _No. 141. Bird-Traps._] + +The evil influence of the female sex was at this time proverbial, and, +in fact, it was an age of extreme licentiousness. Another poet-laureat +of the time, Henricus Bebelius, born in the latter half of the +fifteenth century, and rather well known in the literature of his time, +published, in 1515, a satirical poem in Latin, under the title of +"Triumphus Veneris," which was a sort of exposition of the generally +licentious character of the age in which he lived. It is distributed +into six books, in the third of which the poet attacks the whole +ecclesiastical state, not sparing the pope himself, and we are thereby +perfectly well initiated into the weaknesses of the clergy. Bebelius +had been preceded by another writer on this part of the subject, and we +might say by many, for the incontinence of monks and nuns, and indeed +of all the clergy, had long been a subject of satire. But the writer to +whom I especially allude was named Paulus Olearius, his name in German +being Oelschlgel. He published, about the year 1500, a satirical +tract, under the title of "De Fide Concubinarum in Sacerdotes." It +was a bitter attack on the licentiousness of the clergy, and was +rendered more effective by the engravings which accompanied it. We +give one of these as a curious picture of contemporary manners; the +individual who comes within the range of the lady's attractions, though +he may be a scholar, has none of the characteristics of a priest. She +presents a nosegay, which we may suppose to represent the influence of +perfume upon the senses; but the love of the ladies for pet animals +is especially typified in the monkey, attached by a chain. A donkey +appears to show by his heels his contempt for the lover. + + [Illustration: _No. 142. Courtship._] + +From an early period, the Roman church had been accustomed to +treat contemptuously, as well as cruelly, all who dissented from +its doctrines, or objected to its government, and this feeling was +continued down to the age of the Reformation, in spite of the tone +of liberalism which was beginning to shine forth in the writings +of some of its greatest ornaments. Some research among the dusty, +because little used, records of national archives and libraries would +no doubt bring to light more than one singular caricature upon the +"heretics" of the middle ages, and my attention has been called to one +which is possessed of peculiar interest. There is, among the imperial +archives of France, in Paris, among records relating to the country of +the Albigeois in the thirteenth century, a copy of the bull of pope +Innocent IV. giving directions for the proceedings against dissenters +from Romanism, on the back of which the scribe, as a mark of his +contempt for these arch-heretics of the south, has drawn a caricature +of a woman bound to a stake over the fire which is to burn her as an +open opponent of the church of Rome. The choice of a woman for the +victim was perhaps intended to show that the proselytism of heresy was +especially successful among the weaker sex, or that it was considered +as having some relation to witchcraft. It is, by a long period, the +earliest known pictorial representation of the punishment of burning +inflicted on a heretic. + + [Illustration: _No. 143. Burning a Heretic._] + +The shafts of satire were early employed against Luther and his new +principles, and men like Murner, already mentioned, Emser, Cochlus, +and others, signalised themselves by their zeal in the papal cause. +As already stated, Murner distinguished himself as the literary ally +of our king Henry VIII. The taste for satirical writings had then +become so general, that Murner complains in one of his satires that +the printers would print nothing but abusive or satirical works, and +neglected his more serious writings. + + _Da sindt die trucker schuld daran, + Die trucken als die Gauchereien, + Und lassen mein ernstliche bcher leihen._ + +Some of Murner's writings against Luther, most of which are now very +rare, are extremely violent, and they are generally illustrated with +satirical woodcuts. One of these books, printed without name of place +or date, is entitled, "Of the great Lutheran Fool, how Doctor Murner +has exorcised him" (_Von dem grossen Lutherisschen Narren, wie in +Doctor Murner beschworen hat_). In the woodcuts to this book Murner +himself is introduced, as is usually the case in these satirical +engravings, under the character of a Franciscan friar, with the head of +a cat, while Luther appears as a fat and jolly monk, wearing a fool's +cap, and figuring in various ridiculous circumstances. In one of the +first woodcuts, the cat Franciscan is drawing a rope so tight round the +great Lutheran fool's neck, that he compels him to disgorge a multitude +of smaller fools. In another the great Lutheran fool has his purse, or +pouch, full of little fools suspended at his girdle. This latter figure +is copied in the cut No. 144, as an example of the form under which the +great reformer appears in these satirical representations. + + [Illustration: _No. 144. Folly in Monastic Habit._] + +In a few other caricatures of this period which have been preserved, +the apostle of the Reformation is attacked still more savagely. The +one here given (Fig. 145), taken from a contemporary engraving on +wood, presents a rather fantastic figure of the demon playing on the +bagpipes. The instrument is formed of Luther's head, the pipe through +which the devil blows entering his ear, and that through which the +music is produced forming an elongation of the reformer's nose. It was +a broad intimation that Luther was a mere tool of the evil one, created +for the purpose of bringing mischief into the world. + + [Illustration: _No. 145. The Music of the Demon._] + +The reformers, however, were more than a match for their opponents in +this sort of warfare. Luther himself was full of comic and satiric +humour, and a mass of the talent of that age was ranged on his side, +both literary and artistic. After the reformer's marriage, the papal +party quoted the old legend, that Antichrist was to be born of the +union of a monk and a nun, and it was intimated that if Luther himself +could not be directly identified with Antichrist, he had, at least, a +fair chance of becoming his parent. But the reformers had resolved, on +what appeared to be much more conclusive evidence, that Antichrist was +only emblematical of the papacy, that under this form he had been long +dominant on earth, and that the end of his reign was then approaching. +A remarkable pamphlet, designed to place this idea pictorially before +the public, was produced from the pencil of Luther's friend, the +celebrated painter, Lucas Cranach, and appeared in the year 1521 under +the title of "The Passionale of Christ and Antichrist" (_Passional +Christi und Antichristi_). It is a small quarto, each page of which is +nearly filled by a woodcut, having a few lines of explanation in German +below. The cut to the left represents some incident in the life of +Christ, while that facing it to the right gives a contrasting fact in +the history of papal tyranny. Thus the first cut on the left represents +Jesus in His humility, refusing earthly dignities and power, while on +the adjoining page we see the pope, with his cardinals and bishops, +supported by his hosts of warriors, his cannon, and his fortifications, +in his temporal dominion over secular princes. When we open again we +see on one side Christ crowned with thorns by the insulting soldiery, +and on the other the pope, enthroned in all his worldly glory, exacting +the worship of his courtiers. On another we have Christ washing the +feet of His disciples, and in contrast the pope compelling the emperor +to kiss his toe. And so on, through a number of curious illustrations, +until at last we come to Christ's ascension into heaven, in contrast +with which a troop of demons, of the most varied and singular forms, +have seized upon the papal Antichrist, and are casting him down into +the flames of hell, where some of his own monks wait to receive him. +This last picture is drawn with so much spirit, that I have copied it +in the cut No. 146. + + [Illustration: _No. 146. The Descent of the Pope._] + + [Illustration: _No. 147. The Pope-ass._] + +The monstrous figures of animals which had amused the sculptors and +miniaturists of an earlier period came in time to be looked upon +as realities, and were not only regarded with wonder as physical +deformities, but were objects of superstition, for they were believed +to be sent into the world as warnings of great revolutions and +calamities. During the age preceding the Reformation, the reports +of the births or discoveries of such monsters were very common, and +engravings of them were no doubt profitable articles of merchandise +among the early book-hawkers. Two of these were very celebrated in +the time of the Reformation, the Pope-ass and the Monk-calf, and were +published and republished with an explanation under the names of +Luther and Melancthon, which made them emblematical of the Papacy and +of the abuses of the Romish church, and, of course, prognostications +of their approaching exposure and fall. It was pretended that the +Pope-ass was found dead in the river Tiber, at Rome, in the year +1496. It is represented in our cut No. 147, taken from an engraving +preserved in a very curious volume of broadside Lutheran caricatures, +in the library of the British Museum, all belonging to the year 1545, +though this design had been published many years before. The head of +an ass, we are told, represented the pope himself, with his false and +carnal doctrines. The right hand resembled the foot of an elephant, +signifying the spiritual power of the pope, which was heavy, and +stamped down and crushed people's consciences. The left hand was that +of a man, signifying the worldly power of the pope, which grasped at +universal empire over kings and princes. The right foot was that of +an ox, signifying the spiritual ministers of the papacy, the doctors +of the church, the preachers, confessors, and scholastic theologians, +and especially the monks and nuns, those who aided and supported +the pope in oppressing people's bodies and souls. The left foot was +that of a griffin, an animal which, when it once seizes its prey, +never lets it escape, and signified the canonists, the monsters of +the pope's temporal power, who grasped people's temporal goods, and +never returned them. The breast and belly of this monster were those +of a woman, and signified the papal body, the cardinals, bishops, +priests, monks, &c., who spent their lives in eating, drinking, and +incontinence; and this part of the body was naked, because the popish +clergy were not ashamed to expose their vices to the public. The legs, +arms, and neck, on the contrary, were clothed with fishes' scales; +these signified the temporal princes and lords, who were mostly in +alliance with the papacy. The old man's head behind the monster, meant +that the papacy had become old, and was approaching its end; and +the head of a dragon, vomiting flames, which served for a tail, was +significative of the great threats, the venomous horrible bulls and +blasphemous writings, which the pontiff and his ministers, enraged at +seeing their end approach, were launching into the world against all +who opposed them. These explanations were supported by apt quotations +from the Scriptures, and were so effective, and became so popular, that +the picture was published in various shapes, and was seen adorning the +walls of the humblest cottages. I believe it is still to be met with in +a similar position in some parts of Germany. It was considered at the +time to be a masterly piece of satire. The picture of the Monk-calf, +which is represented in our cut No. 148, was published at the same +time, and usually accompanies it. This monster is said to have been +born at Freyburg, in Misnia, and is simply a rather coarse emblem of +the monachal character. + + [Illustration: _No. 148. The Monk-Calf._] + + [Illustration: _No. 149. The Head of the Papacy._] + +The volume of caricatures just mentioned contains several satires on +the pope, which are all very severe, and many of them clever. One has +a movable leaf, which covers the upper part of the picture; when it is +down, we have a representation of the pope in his ceremonial robes, +and over it the inscription ALEX VI PONT MAX. Pope Alexander VI. +was the infamous Roderic Borgia, a man stained with all the crimes +and vices which strike most horror into men's minds. When the leaf is +raised, another figure joins itself with the lower part of the former, +and represents a papal demon, crowned, the cross being transformed into +an instrument of infernal punishment. This figure is represented in our +cut No. 149. Above it are inscribed the words EGO SVM PAPA, "I am +the Pope." Attached to it is a page of explanation in German, in which +the legend of that pope's death is given, a legend that his wicked +life appeared sufficient to sanction. It was said that, distrusting +the success of his intrigues to secure the papacy for himself, he +applied himself to the study of the black art, and sold himself to +the Evil One. He then asked the tempter if it were his destiny to be +pope, and received an answer in the affirmative. He next inquired how +long he should hold the papacy, but Satan returned an equivocal and +deceptive answer, for Borgia understood that he was to be pope fifteen +years, whereas he died at the end of eleven. It is well known that +Pope Alexander VI. died suddenly and unexpectedly through accidentally +drinking the poisoned wine he had prepared with his own hand for the +murder of another man. + + [Illustration: _No. 150. The Pope's Nurse._] + +An Italian theatine wrote a poem against the Reformation, in which +he made Luther the offspring of Megra, one of the furies, who is +represented as having been sent from hell into Germany to be delivered +of him. This sarcasm was thrown back upon the pope with much greater +effect by the Lutheran caricaturists. One of the plates in the +above-mentioned volume represents the "birth and origin of the pope" +(_ortus et origo pap_), making the pope identical with Antichrist. +In different groups, in this rather elaborate design, the child is +represented as attended by the three furies, Megra acting as his +wet-nurse, Alecto as nursery-maid, and Tisiphone in another capacity, +&c. The name of Martin Luther is added to this caricature also. + + _Hie wird geborn der Widerchrist. + Megera sein Seugamme ist; + Alecto sein Keindermeidlin, + Tisiphone die gengelt in._--M. Luth., D. 1545. + +One of the groups in this plate, representing the fury Megra, a +becoming foster-mother, suckling the pope-infant, is given in our cut, +No. 150. + +In another of these caricatures the pope is represented trampling on +the emperor, to show the manner in which he usurped and tyrannised +over the temporal power. Another illustrates "the kingdom of Satan and +the Pope" (_regnum Satan et Pap_), and the latter is represented +as presiding over hell-mouth in all his state. One, given in our cut +No. 151, represents the pope under the form of an ass playing on the +bagpipes, and is entitled _Papa doctor theologi et magister fidei_. +Four lines of German verse beneath the engraving state how "the pope +can alone expound Scripture and purge error, just as the ass alone can +pipe and touch the notes correctly." + + [Illustration: _No. 151. The Pope giving the Tune._] + + _Der Bapst kan allein auslegen + Die Schrifft, und irthum ausfegen; + Wie der esel allein pfeiffen + Kan, und die noten recht greiffen._--1545. + +This was the last year of Luther's active labours. At the commencement +of the year following he died at Eissleben, whither he had gone to +attend the council of princes. These caricatures may perhaps be +considered as so many proclamations of satisfaction and exultation in +the final triumph of the great reformer. + +Books, pamphlets, and prints of this kind were multiplied to an +extraordinary degree during the age of the Reformation, but the +majority of them were in the interest of the new movement. Luther's +opponent, Eckius, complained of the infinite number of people who +gained their living by wandering over all parts of Germany, and +selling Lutheran books.[78] Among those who administered largely to +this circulation of polemic books was the poet of farces, comedies, and +ballads, Hans Sachs, already mentioned. Hans Sachs had in one poem, +published in 1535, celebrated Luther under the title of "the Wittemberg +Nightingale:"-- + + _Die Wittembergisch' Nachtigall, + Die man jetzt hret berall_; + +and described the effects of his song over all the other animals; and +he published, also in verse, what he called a Monument, or Lament, on +his death ("Ein Denkmal oder Klagred' ob der Leiche Doktors Martin +Luther"). Among the numerous broadsides published by Hans Sachs, one +contains the very clever caricature of which we give a copy in our cut +No. 152. It is entitled "Der gut Hirt und bss Hirt," the good shepherd +and bad shepherd, and has for its text the opening verses of the tenth +chapter of the gospel of St. John. The good and bad shepherds are, +as may be supposed, Christ and the pope. The church is here pictured +as a not very stately building; the entrance, especially, is a plain +structure of timber. Jesus said to the Pharisees, "He that entereth not +by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the +same is a thief and a robber. But he that entereth in by the door is +the shepherd of the flock." In the engraving, the pope, as the hireling +shepherd, sits on the roof of the stateliest part of the building, +pointing out to the Christian flock the wrong way, and blessing the +climbers. Under him two men of worldly distinction are making their +way into the church through a window; and on a roof below a friar is +pointing to the people the way up. At another window a monk holds +out his arms to invite people up; and one in spectacles, no doubt +emblematical of the doctors of the church, is looking out from an +opening over the entrance door to watch the proceedings of the Good +Shepherd. To the right, on the papal side of the church, the lords +and great men are bringing the people under their influence, till +they are stopped by the cardinals and bishops, who prevent them from +going forward to the door and point out very energetically the way +up the roof. At the door stands, the Saviour, as the good shepherd, +who has knocked, and the porter has opened it with his key. Christ's +true teachers, the evangelists, show the way to the solitary man of +worth who comes by this road, and who listens with calm attention to +the gospel teachers, while he opens his purse to bestow his charity +on the poor man by the road side. In the original engraving, in the +distance on the left, the Good Shepherd is seen followed by his flock, +who are obedient to his voice; on the right, the bad shepherd, who has +ostentatiously drawn up his sheep round the image of the cross, is +abandoning them, and taking to flight on the approach of the wolf. "He +that entereth in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the +porter openeth; and the sheep hear his voice, and he calleth his own +sheep by name, and leadeth them out. And when he putteth forth his own +sheep he goeth before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his +voice.... But he that is an hireling, and not the shepherd, whose own +the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and +fleeth; and the wolf catcheth them, and scattereth the sheep." (John x. +2-4, 12.) + + [78] "Infinitus jam erat numerus qui victum ex Lutheranis libris + quritantes, in speciem bibliopolarum longe lateque per Germani + provincias vagabantur."--Eck., p. 58. + + [Illustration: _No. 152. The Two Shepherds._] + + [Illustration: _No. 153. Murner and Luther's Daughter._] + +The triumph of Luther is the subject of a rather large and elaborate +caricature, which is an engraving of great rarity, but a copy of it is +given in Jaime's "Muse de Caricature." Leo X. is represented seated +on his throne upon the edge of the abyss, into which his cardinals are +trying to prevent his falling; but their efforts are rendered vain by +the appearance of Luther on the other side supported by his principal +adherents, and wielding the Bible as his weapon, and the pope is +overthrown, in spite of the support he receives from a vast host of +popish clergy, doctors, &c. + +The popish writers against Luther charged him with vices for which +there was probably no foundation, and invented the most scandalous +stories against him. They accused him, among other things, of +drunkenness and licentiousness. and there may, perhaps, be some +allusion to the latter charge in our cut No. 153, which is taken from +one of the comic illustrations to Murner's book, "Von dem grossen +Lutherischen Narren," which was published in 1522; but, at all events, +it will serve as a specimen of these illustrations, and of Murner's +fancy of representing himself with the head of a cat. In 1525, Luther +married a nun who had turned Protestant and quitted her convent, +named Catherine de Bora, and this became the signal to his opponents +for indulging in abusive songs, and satires, and caricatures, most +of them too coarse and indelicate to be described in these pages. +In many of the caricatures made on this occasion, which are usually +woodcut illustrations to books written against the reformer, Luther is +represented dancing with Catherine de Bora, or sitting at table with a +glass in his hand. An engraving of this kind, which forms one of the +illustrations to a work by Dr. Konrad Wimpina, one of the reformer's +violent opponents, represents Luther's marriage. It is divided into +three compartments; to the left, Luther, whom the Catholics always +represented in the character of a monk, gives the marriage ring to +Catherine de Bora, and above them, in a sort of aureole, is inscribed +the word _Vovete_; on the right appears the nuptial bed, with the +curtains drawn, and the inscription _Reddite_; and in the middle the +monk and nun are dancing joyously together, and over their heads we +read the words-- + + Discedat ab aris + Cui tulit hesterna gaudia nocte Venus. + +While Luther was heroically fighting the great fight of reform in +Germany, the foundation of religious reform was laid in France by +John Calvin, a man equally sincere and zealous in the cause, but of +a totally different temper, and he espoused doctrines and forms of +church government which a Lutheran would not admit. Literary satire +was used with great effect by the French Calvinists against their +popish opponents, but they have left us few caricatures or burlesque +engravings of any kind; at least, very few belonging to the earlier +period of their history. Jaime, in his "Muse de Caricature," has given +a copy of a very rare plate, representing the pope struggling with +Luther and Calvin, as his two assailants. Both are tearing the pope's +hair, but it is Calvin who is here armed with the Bible, with which +he is striking at Luther, who is pulling him by the beard. The pope +has his hands upon their heads. This scene takes place in the choir of +a church, but I give here (cut No. 154) only the group of the three +combatants, intended to represent how the two great opponents to papal +corruptions were hostile at the same time to each other. + + [Illustration: _No. 154. Luther and Calvin._] + + + + + CHAPTER XVI. + + ORIGIN OF MEDIVAL FARCE AND MODERN COMEDY.--HROTSVITHA.--MEDIVAL + NOTIONS OF TERENCE.--THE EARLY RELIGIOUS PLAYS.--MYSTERIES AND + MIRACLE PLAYS.--THE FARCES.--THE DRAMA IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. + + +There is still another branch of literature which, however it may have +been modified, has descended to us from the middle ages. It has been +remarked more than once in the course of this book, that the theatre +of the Romans perished in the transition from the empire to the middle +ages; but something in the shape of theatrical performances appears +to be inseparable from society even in its most barbarous state, and +we soon trace among the peoples who had settled upon the ruins of the +empire of Rome an approach towards a drama. It is worthy of remark, +too, that the medival drama originated exactly in the same way as that +of ancient Greece, that is, from religious ceremonies. + +Such was the ignorance of the ancient stage in the middle ages, +that the meaning of the word _comoedia_ was not understood. The +Anglo-Saxon glossaries interpret the word by _racu_, a narrative, +especially an epic recital, and this was the sense in which it was +generally taken until late in the fourteenth or the fifteenth century. +It is the sense in which it is used in the title of Dante's great poem, +the "Divina Commedia." When the medival scholars became acquainted in +manuscripts with the comedies of Terence, they considered them only as +fine examples of a particular sort of literary composition, as metrical +narratives in dialogue, and in this feeling they began to imitate them. +One of the first of these medival imitators was a lady. There lived +in the tenth century a maiden of Saxony, named Hrotsvitha--a rather +unfortunate name for one of her sex, for it means simply "a loud noise +of voices," or, as she explains it herself, in her Latin, _clamor +validus_. Hrotsvitha, as was common enough among the ladies of those +days, had received a very learned education, and her Latin is very +respectable. About the middle of the tenth century, she became a nun +in the very aristocratic Benedictine abbey of Gandesheim, in Saxony, +the abbesses of which were all princesses, and which had been founded +only a century before. She wrote in Latin verse a short history of +that religious house, but she is best known by seven pieces, which are +called comedies (_comoedi_), and which consist simply of legends of +saints, told dialogue-wise, some in verse and some in prose. As may +be supposed, there is not much of real comedy in these compositions, +although one of them, the Dulcitius, is treated in a style which +approaches that of farce. It is the story of the martyrdom of the three +virgin saints--Agape, Chione, and Irene--who excite the lust of the +persecutor Dulcitius; and it may be remarked, that in this "comedy," +and in that of Callimachus and one or two of the others, the lady +Hrotsvitha displays a knowledge of love-making and of the language of +love, which was hardly to be expected from a holy nun.[79] + + [79] Several editions of the writings of Hrotsvitha, texts and + translations, have been published of late years both in Germany + and in France, of which I may point out the following as most + useful and complete--"Thatre de Hrotsvitha, Religieuse Allemande + du x^e sicle....par Charles Magnin," 8vo., Paris, 1845; + "Hrotsvith Gandeshemensis, virginis et monialis Germanic, gente + Saxonica ort, Comoedias sex, ad fidem codicis Emmeranensis + typis expressas edidit.... J. Benedixen," 16mo., Lubec, 1857; + "Die Werke der Hrotsvitha: Herausgegeben von Dr. K. A. Barack," + 8vo., Nrnberg, 1858. + +Hrotsvitha, in her preface, complains that, in spite of the general +love for the reading of the Scriptures, and contempt for everything +derived from ancient paganism, people still too often read the +"fictions" of Terence, and thus, seduced by the beauties of his style, +soiled their minds with the knowledge of the criminal acts which are +described in his writings. A rather early manuscript has preserved a +very curious fragment illustrative of the manner in which the comedies +of the Romans were regarded by one class of people in the middle ages, +and it has also a further meaning. Its form is that of a dialogue in +Latin verse between Terence and a personage called in the original +_delusor_, which was no doubt intended to express a performer of some +kind, and may be probably considered as synonymous with _jougleur_. It +is a contention between the new jouglerie of the middle ages and the +old jouglerie of the schools, somewhat in the same style as the fabliau +of "Les deux Troveors Ribauz," described in a former chapter.[80] We +are to suppose that the name of Terence has been in some way or other +brought forward in laudatory terms, upon which the jougleur steps +forward from among the spectators and expresses himself towards the +Roman writer very contemptuously. Terence then makes his appearance to +speak in his own defence, and the two go on abusing one another in no +very measured language. Terence asks his assailant who he is? to which +the other replies, "If you ask who I am, I reply, I am better than +thee. Thou art old and broken with years; I am a tyro, full of vigour, +and in the force of youth. You are but a barren trunk, while I am a +good and fertile tree. If you hold your tongue, old fellow, it will be +much better for you." + + _Si rogitas quis sum, respondeo: te melior sum. + Tu vetus atque senex; ego tyro, valens, adulescens. + Tu sterilis truncus; ego fertilis arbor, opimus. + Si taceas, o vetule, lucrum tibi quris enorme._ + + Terence replies:--"What sense have you left? Are you, think you, + better than me? Let me see you, young as you are, compose what + I, however old and broken, will compose. If you be a good tree, + show us some proofs of your fertility. Although I may be a barren + trunk, I produce abundance of better fruit than thine." + + _Quis tibi sensus inest? numquid melior me es? + Nunc vetus atque senex qu fecero fac adolescens. + Si bonus arbor ades, qua fertilitate redundas? + Cum sim truncus iners, fructu meliore redundo._ + +And so the dispute continues, but unfortunately the latter part has +been lost with a leaf or two of the manuscript. I will only add that I +think the age of this curious piece has been overrated.[81] + + [80] See p. 191 of the present volume. + + [81] This singular composition was published with notes by M. de + Montaiglon, in a Parisian journal entitled, "L'Amateur de + Livres," in 1849, under the title of "Fragment d'un Dialogue + Latin du ix^e sicle entre Terence et un Bouffon." A few separate + copies were printed, of which I possess one. + +Hrotsvitha is the earliest example we have of medival writers in this +particular class of literature. We find no other until the twelfth +century, when two writers flourished named Vital of Blois (_Vitalis +Blesensis_) and Matthew of Vendme (_Matthus Vindocinensis_), the +authors of several of the medival poems distinguished by the title of +_comoedi_, which give us a clearer and more distinct idea of what +was meant by the word. They are written in Latin Elegiac verse, a form +of composition which was very popular among the medival scholars, and +consist of stories told in dialogue. Hence Professor Osann, of Giessen, +who edited two of those of Vital of Blois, gives them the title of +eclogues (_eclog_). The name comedy is, however, given to them in +manuscripts, and it may perhaps admit of the following explanation. +These pieces seem to have been first mere abridgments of the plots of +the Roman comedies, especially those of Plautus, and the authors appear +to have taken the Latin title of the original as applied to the plot, +in the sense of a narrative, and not to its dramatic form. Of the two +"comedies" by Vital of Blois, one is entitled "Geta," and is taken from +the "Amphytrio" of Plautus, and the other, which in the manuscripts +bears the title of "Querulus," represents the "Aulularia" of the +same writer. Independent of the form of composition, the scholastic +writer has given a strangely medival turn to the incidents of the +classic story of Jupiter and Alcmena. Another similar "comedy," that +of Babio, which I first printed from the manuscripts, is still more +medival in character. Its plot, perhaps taken from a fabliau, for the +medival writers rarely invented stories, is as follows, although it +must be confessed that it comes out rather obscurely in the dialogue +itself. Babio, the hero of the piece, is a priest, who, as was still +common at that time (the twelfth century), has a wife, or, as the +strict religionists would then say, a concubine, named Pecula. She has +a daughter named Viola, with whom Babio is in love, and he pursues +his design upon her, of course unknown to his wife. Babio has also a +man-servant named Fodius, who is engaged in a secret intrigue with +his mistress, Pecula, and also seeks to seduce her daughter, Viola. +To crown the whole, the lord of the manor, a knight named Croceus, is +also in love with Viola, though with more honourable designs. Here is +surely intrigue enough and a sufficient absence of morality to satisfy +a modern French novelist of the first water. At the opening of the +piece, amid some by-play between the four individuals who form the +household of Babio, it is suddenly announced that Croceus is on his +way to visit him, and a feast is hastily prepared for his reception. +It ends in the knight carrying away Viola by force. Babio, after a +little vain bluster, consoles himself for the loss of the damsel with +reflections on the virtue of his wife, Pecula, and the faithfulness of +his man, Fodius, when, at this moment, Fame carries to his ear reports +which excite his suspicions against them. He adopts a stratagem very +frequently introduced in the medival stories, surprises the two lovers +under circumstances which leave no room for doubting their guilt, and +then forgives them, enters a monastery, and leaves them to themselves. +In form, these "comedies" are little more than scholastic exercises; +but, at a later period, we shall see the same stories adopted as the +subjects of farces.[82] + + [82] To judge by the number of copies found in manuscripts, + especially of the "Geta," these dramatic poems must have enjoyed + considerable popularity. The "Geta" and the "Querulus" were + published in a volume entitled, "Vitalis Blesensis Amphitryon et + Aulularia Eclog. Edidit Fridericus Osannus, Professor Gisensis," + 8vo., Darmstadt, 1836. The "Geta" and the "Babio" are included + in my "Early Mysteries, and other Latin Poems of the Twelfth and + Thirteenth Centuries." + +Already, however, by the side of these dramatic poems, a real +drama--the drama of the middle ages--was gradually developing +itself. As stated before, it arose, like the drama of the Greeks, +out of the religious ceremonies. We know nothing of the existence of +anything approaching to dramatic forms which may have existed among +the religious rites of the peoples of the Teutonic race before +their conversion to Christianity, but the Christian clergy felt the +necessity of keeping up festive religious ceremonies in some form or +other, and also of impressing upon people's imagination and memory by +means of rude scenical representations some of the broader facts of +scriptural and ecclesiastical history. These performances at first +consisted probably in mere dumb show, or at the most the performers +may have chanted the scriptural account of the transaction they were +representing. In this manner the choral boys, or the younger clergy, +would, on some special Saint's day, perform some striking act in +the life of the saint commemorated, or, on particular festivals of +the church, those incidents of gospel history to which the festival +especially related. By degrees, a rather more imposing character was +given to these performances by the addition of a continuous dialogue, +which, however, was written in Latin verse, and was no doubt chanted. +This incipient drama in Latin, as far as we know it, belongs to the +twelfth century, and is represented by a tolerably large number of +examples still preserved in medival manuscripts. Some of the earliest +of these have for their author a pupil of the celebrated Abelard, named +Hilarius, who lived in the first half of the twelfth century, and is +understood to have been by birth an Englishman. Hilarius appears before +us as a playful Latin poet, and among a number of short pieces, which +may be almost called lyric, he has left us three of these religious +plays. The subject of the first of these is the raising of Lazarus +from the dead, the chief peculiarity of which consists of the songs of +lamentation placed in the mouths of the two sisters of Lazarus, Mary +and Martha. The second represents one of the miracles attributed to St. +Nicholas; and the third, the history of Daniel. The latter is longer +and more elaborate than the others, and at its conclusion, the stage +direction tells us that, if it were performed at matins, Darius, king +of the Medes and Persians, was to chant _Te Deum Laudamus_, but if it +were at vespers, the great king was to chant _Magnificat anima mea +Dominum_.[83] + + [83] "Hilarii Versus et Ludi," 8vo., Paris, 1835. Edited by M. + Champollion Figeac. + +That this medival drama was not derived from that of the Roman is +evident from the circumstance that entirely new terms were applied +to it. The western people in the middle ages had no words exactly +equivalent with the Latin _comoedia_, _tragoedia_, _theatrum_, &c.; +and even the Latinists, to designate the dramatic pieces performed +at the church festivals, employed the word _ludus_, a play. The +French called them by a word having exactly the same meaning, _jeu_ +(from _jocus_). Similarly in English they were termed _plays_. The +Anglo-Saxon glossaries present as the representative of the Latin +_theatrum_, the compounded words _plege-stow_, or _pleg-stow_, a +play-place, and _pleg-hus_, a play-house. It is curious that we +Englishmen have preferred to the present time the Anglo-Saxon words +in _play_, _player_, and _play-house_. Another Anglo-Saxon word with +exactly the same signification, _lac_, or _gelac_, play, appears to +have been more in use in the dialect of the Northumbrians, and a +Yorkshireman still calls a play a _lake_, and a player a _laker_. So +also the Germans called a dramatic performance a _spil_, _i.e._ a play, +the modern _spiel_, and a theatre, a _spil-hus_. One of the pieces of +Hilarius is thus entitled "Ludus super iconia sancti Nicolai," and the +French _jeu_ and the English _play_ are constantly used in the same +sense. But besides this general term, words gradually came into use to +characterise different sorts of plays. The church plays consisted of +two descriptions of subjects, they either represented the miraculous +acts of certain saints, which had a plain meaning, or some incident +taken from the Holy Scriptures, which was supposed to have a hidden +mysterious signification as well as an apparent one, and hence the +one class of subject was usually spoken of simply as _miraculum_, a +miracle, and the other as _mysterium_, a mystery. _Mysteries_ and +_miracle-plays_ are still the names usually given to the old religious +plays by writers on the history of the stage. + +We have a proof that the Latin religious plays, and the festivities +in which they were employed, had become greatly developed in the +twelfth century, in the notice taken of them in the ecclesiastical +councils of that period, for they were disapproved by the stricter +church disciplinarians. So early as the papacy of Gregory VIII., the +pope urged the clergy to "extirpate" from their churches theatrical +plays, and other festive practices which were not quite in harmony +with the sacred character of these buildings.[84] Such performances are +forbidden by a council held at Treves in 1227.[85] We learn from the +annals of the abbey of Corbei, published by Leibnitz, that the younger +monks at Heresburg performed on one occasion a "sacred comedy" (_sacram +comoediam_) of the selling into captivity and the exaltation of +Joseph, which was disapproved by the other heads of the order.[86] Such +performances are included in a proclamation of the bishop of Worms, in +1316, against the various abuses which had crept into the festivities +observed in his diocese at Easter and St. John's tide.[87] Similar +prohibitions of the acting of such plays in churches are met with at +subsequent periods. + + [84] "Interdum ludi fiunt in ecclesiis theatrales," &c.--_Decret + Gregorii_, lib. iii. tit. i. + + [85] "Item non permittant sacerdotes ludos theatrales fieri in + ecclesia et alios ludos inhonestos." + + [86] "Juniores fratres in Heresburg sacram habuere comoediam de + Josepho vendito et exalto, quod vero reliqui ordinis nostri + prlati male interpretati sunt."--_Leibn., Script. Brunsv._ tom. + ii. p. 311. + + [87] The acts of this synod of Worms are printed in Harzheim, tom. iv. + p. 258. + +While these performances were thus falling under the censure of the +church authorities, they were taken up by the laity, and under their +management both the plays and the machinery for acting them underwent +considerable extension. The municipal guilds contained in their +constitution a considerable amount of religious spirit. They were +great benefactors of the churches in cities and municipal towns, and +had usually some parts of the sacred edifice appropriated to them, +and they may, perhaps, have taken a part in these performances, while +they were still confined to the church. These guilds, and subsequently +the municipal corporations, took them entirely into their own hands. +Certain annual religious festivals, and especially the feast of _Corpus +Christi_, were still the occasions on which the plays were acted, but +they were taken entirely from the churches, and the performances took +place in the open streets. Each guild had its particular play, and +they acted on movable stages, which were dragged along the streets in +the procession of the guild. These stages appear to have been rather +complicated. They were divided into three floors, that in the middle, +which was the principal stage, representing this world, while the upper +division represented heaven, and that at the bottom hell. The medival +writers in Latin called this machinery a _pegma_, from the Greek word ++pgma+, a scaffold; and they also applied to it, for a reason which +is not is easily seen, unless the one word arose out of a corruption +of the other, that of _pagina_, and from a further corruption of these +came into the French and English languages the word _pageant_, which +originally signified one of these movable stages, though it has since +received secondary meanings which have a much wider application. Each +guild in a town had its pageant and its own actors, who performed +in masks and costumes, and each had one of a series of plays, which +were performed at places where they halted in the procession. The +subjects of these plays were taken from Scripture, and they usually +formed a regular series of the principal histories of the Old and New +Testaments. For this reason they were generally termed _mysteries_, a +title already explained; and among the few series of these plays still +preserved, we have the "Coventry Mysteries," which were performed by +the guilds of that town, the "Chester Mysteries," belonging to the +guilds in the city of Chester, and the "Towneley Mysteries," so called +from the name of the possessor of the manuscript, but which probably +belonged to the guilds of Wakefield in Yorkshire. + +During these changes in the method of performance, the plays themselves +had also been considerably modified. The simple Latin phrases, even +when in rhyme, which formed the dialogue of the earlier _ludi_--as in +the four miracles of St. Nicholas, and the six Latin mysteries taken +from the New Testament, printed in my volume of "Early Mysteries and +other Latin Poems"--must have been very uninteresting to the mass of +the spectators, and an attempt was made to enliven them by introducing +among the Latin phrases popular proverbs, or even sometimes a song +in the vulgar tongue. Thus in the play of "Lazarus" by Hilarius, the +Latin of the lamentations of his two sisters is intermixed with French +verses. Such is the case also with the play of "St. Nicholas" by +the same writer, as well as with the curious mystery of the Foolish +Virgins, printed in my "Early Mysteries" just alluded to, in which +latter the Latin is intermingled with Provenal verse. A much greater +advance was made when these performances were transferred to the +guilds. The Latin was then discarded altogether, and the whole play +was written in French, or English, or German, as the case might be, +the plot was made more elaborate, and the dialogue greatly extended. +But now that the whole institution had become secularised, the want +of something to amuse people--to make them laugh, as people liked to +laugh in the middle ages--was felt more than ever, and this want was +supplied by the introduction of droll and ludicrous scenes, which are +often very slightly, if at all, connected with the subject of the play. +In one of the earliest of the French plays, that of "St. Nicholas," by +Jean Bodel, the characters who form the burlesque scene are a party +of gamblers in a tavern. In others, robbers, or peasants, or beggars +form the comic scene, or vulgar women, or any personages who could be +introduced acting vulgarly and using coarse language, for these were +great incitements to mirth among the populace. + +In the English plays now remaining, these scenes are, on the whole, +less frequent, and they are usually more closely connected with +the general subject. The earliest English collection that has been +published is that known as the "Towneley Mysteries," the manuscript of +which belongs to the fifteenth century, and the plays themselves may +have been composed in the latter part of the fourteenth. It contains +thirty-two plays, beginning with the Creation, and ending with the +Ascension and the Day of Judgment, with two supplementary plays, the +"Raising of Lazarus" and the "Hanging of Judas." The play of "Cain and +Abel" is throughout a vulgar drollery, in which Cain, who exhibits +the character of a blustering ruffian, is accompanied by a _garcio_, +or lad, who is the very type of a vulgar and insolent horse-boy, and +the conversation of these two worthies reminds us a little of that +between the clown and his master in the open-air performances of the +old wandering mountebanks. Even the death of Abel by the hand of his +brother is performed in a manner calculated to provoke great laughter. +In the old mirthful spirit, to hear two persons load each other with +vulgar abuse, was as good as seeing them grin through a horse-collar, +if not better. Hence the droll scene in the play of "Noah" is a +domestic quarrel between Noah and his wife, who was proverbially a +shrew, and here gives a tolerable example of abusive language, as it +might then come from a woman's tongue. The quarrel arises out of her +obstinate refusal to go into the ark. In the New Testament series the +play of "The Shepherds" was one of those most susceptible of this sort +of embellishment. There are two plays of the Shepherds in the "Towneley +Mysteries," the first of which is amusing enough, as it represents, +in clever burlesque, the acts and conversation of a party of medival +shepherds guarding their flocks at night; but the second play of the +Shepherds is a much more remarkable example of a comic drama. The +shepherds are introduced at the opening of the piece conversing very +satirically on the corruptions of the time, and complaining how the +people were impoverished by over-taxation, to support the pride and +vanity of the aristocracy. After a good deal of very amusing talk, the +shepherds, who, as usual, are three in number, agree to sing a song, +and it is this song, it appears, which brings to them a fourth, named +Mak, who proves to be a sheep-stealer; and, in fact, no sooner have +the shepherds resigned themselves to sleep for the night, than Mak +chooses one of the best sheep in their flocks, and carries it home +to his hut. Knowing that he will be suspected of the theft, and that +he will soon be pursued, he is anxious to conceal the plunder, and +is only helped out of his difficulty by his wife, who suggests that +the carcase shall be laid at the bottom of her cradle, and that she +shall lie upon it and groan, pretending to be in labour. Meanwhile the +shepherds awake, discover the loss of a sheep, and perceiving that Mak +has disappeared also, they naturally suspect him to be the depredator, +and pursue him. They find everything very cunningly prepared in the +cottage to deceive them, but, after a large amount of roundabout +inquiry and research, and much drollery, they discover that the boy of +which Mak's wife pretends to have been just delivered, is nothing else +but the sheep which had been stolen from their flocks. The wife still +asserts that it is her child, and Mak sets up as his defence that the +baby had been "forspoken," or enchanted, by an elf at midnight, and +that it had thus been changed into the appearance of a sheep; but the +shepherds refuse to be satisfied with this explanation. The whole of +this little comedy is carried out with great skill, and with infinite +drollery. The shepherds, while still wrangling with Mak and his wife, +are seized with drowsiness, and lie down to sleep; but they are aroused +by the voice of the angel, who proclaims the birth of the Saviour. The +next play in which the drollery is introduced, is that of "Herod and +the Slaughter of the Innocents." Herod's bluster and bombast, and the +vulgar abuse which passes between the Hebrew mothers and the soldiers +who are murdering their children, are wonderfully laughable. The plays +which represented the arrest, trial, and execution of Jesus, are all +full of drollery, for the grotesque character which had been given to +the demons in the earlier middle ages, appears to have been transferred +to the executioners, or, as they were called, the "tormentors," and +the language and manner in which they executed their duties, must have +kept the audience in a continual roar of laughter. In the play of +"Doomsday," the fiends retained their old character, and the manner +in which they joke over the distress of the sinful souls, and the +details they give of their sinfulness, are equally mirth-provoking. The +"Coventry Mysteries" are also printed from a manuscript of the middle +of the fifteenth century, and are, perhaps, as old as the "Towneley +Mysteries." They consist of forty-two plays, but they contain, on the +whole, fewer droll scenes than those of the Towneley collection. But +a very remarkable example is furnished in the play of the "Trial of +Joseph and Mary," which is a very grotesque picture of the proceedings +in a medival consistory court. The sompnour, a character so well +known by Chaucer's picture of him, opens the piece by reading from his +book a long list of offenders against chastity. At its conclusion, +two "detractors" make their appearance, who repeat various scandalous +stories against the Virgin Mary and her husband Joseph, which are +overheard by some of the high officers of the court, and Mary and +Joseph are formally accused and placed upon their trial. The trial +itself is a scene of low ribaldry, which can only have afforded +amusement to a very vulgar audience. There is a certain amount of the +same kind of indelicate drollery in the play of "The Woman taken in +Adultery," in this collection. The "Chester Mysteries" are still more +sparing of such scenes, but they are printed from manuscripts written +after the Reformation, which had, perhaps, gone through the process +of expurgation, in which such excrescences had been lopped off. +However, in the play of "Noah's Flood," we have the old quarrel between +Noah and his wife, which is carried so far that the latter actually +beats her husband in the presence of the audience. There is a little +drollery in the play of "The Shepherds," a considerable amount of what +may be called "Billingsgate" language in the play of the "Slaughter +of the Innocents," but less than the usual amount of insolence in the +tormentors and demons.[88] It is probable, however, that these droll +scenes were not always considered an integral part of the play in which +they were introduced, but that they were kept as separate subjects, to +be introduced at will, and not always in the same play, and therefore +that they were not copied with the play in the manuscripts. + + [88] The editions of the three principal collections of English + mysteries are--1. "The Towneley Mysteries," 8vo., London, + 1836, published by the Surtees Society; 2. "Ludus Coventri: a + Collection of Mysteries, formerly represented at Coventry on the + Feast of Corpus Christi," edited by James Orchard Halliwell, + Esq., 8vo., London, 1841, published by the Shakespeare Society; + 3. "The Chester Plays: a Collection of Mysteries founded upon + Scriptural Subjects, and formerly represented by the Trades of + Chester at Whitsuntide," edited by Thomas Wright, Esq., 2 vols. + 8vo., London, 1843 and 1847, published by the Shakespeare Society. + +In the Coventry play of "Noah's Flood," when Noah has received the +directions from an angel for the building of the ark, he leaves the +stage to proceed to this important work. On his departure, Lamech comes +forward, blind and led by a youth, who directs his hand to shoot at a +beast concealed in a bush. Lamech shoots, and kills Cain, upon which, +in his anger, he beats the youth to death, and laments the misfortune +into which the latter has led him. This was the legendary explanation +of the passage in the fourth chapter of Genesis: "And Lamech said ... +I have slain a man to my wounding, and a young man to my hurt; if Cain +shall be avenged seven-fold, truly Lamech seventy and seven-fold." It +is evident that this is a piece of scriptural story which has nothing +to do with Noah's flood, and accordingly, in the Coventry play, we +are told in the stage directions, that it was introduced in the place +of the "interlude,"[89] as if there were a place in the machinery of +the pageant where the episode, which was not an integral part of the +subject, was performed, and that this part of the performance was +called an interlude, or play introduced in the interval of the action +of the main subject. The word _interlude_ remained long in our language +as applied to such short and simple dramatic pieces as we may suppose +to have formed the drolleries of the mysteries. But they had another +name in France which has had a greater and more lulling celebrity. +In one of the early French miracle-plays, that of "St. Fiacre," an +interlude of this kind is introduced, containing five personages--a +brigand or robber, a peasant, a sergeant, and the wives of the two +latter. The brigand, meeting the peasant on the highway, asks the way +to St. Omer, and receives a clownish answer, which is followed by one +equally rude on a second question. The brigand, in revenge, steals +the peasant's capon, but the sergeant comes up at this moment and, +attempting to arrest the thief, receives a blow from the latter which +is supposed to break his right arm. The brigand thus escapes, and the +peasant and the sergeant quit the scene, which is immediately occupied +by their wives. The sergeant's wife is informed by the other of the +injury sustained by her husband, and she exults over it because it will +deprive him of the power of beating her. They then proceed to a tavern, +call for wine, and make merry, the conversation turning upon the faults +of their respective husbands, who are not spared. In the midst of +their enjoyments, the two husbands return, and show, by beating their +wives, that they are not very greatly disabled. In the manuscript of +the miracle-play of "St. Fiacre," in which this amusing episode is +introduced, a marginal stage direction is expressed in the following +words, "_cy est interpos une farsse_" (here a farce is introduced). +This is one of the earliest instances of the application of the term +_farce_ to these short dramatic faceti. Different opinions have been +expressed as to the origin of the word, but it seems most probable +that it is derived from an old French verb, _farcer_, to jest, to make +merry, whence the modern word _farceur_ for a joker, and that it thus +means merely a drollery or merriment. + + [89] "Hic transit Noe cum familia sua pro navi, quo exeunte, _locum + interludii subintret_ statim Lameth, conductus ab adolescente, et + dicens," &c. + +I have just suggested as a reason for the absence of these interludes, +or farces, in the mysteries as they are found in the manuscripts, +that they were probably not looked upon as parts of the mysteries +themselves, but as separate pieces which might be used at pleasure. +When we reach a certain period in their history, we find that not only +was this the case, but that these farces were performed separately and +altogether independently of the religious plays. It is in France that +we find information which enables us to trace the gradual revolution +in the medival drama. A society was formed towards the close of the +fourteenth century under the title of _Confrres de la Passion_, who, +in 1398, established a regular theatre at St. Maur-des-Fosss, and +subsequently obtained from Charles VI. a privilege to transport their +theatre into Paris, and to perform in it mysteries and miracle-plays. +They now rented of the monks of Hermires a hall in the hospital of the +Trinity, outside of the Porte St. Denis, performing there regularly +on Sundays and saints' days, and probably making a good thing of it, +for, during a long period, they enjoyed great popularity. Gradually, +however, this popularity was so much diminished, that the _confrres_ +were obliged to have recourse to expedients for reviving it. Meanwhile +other similar societies had arisen into importance. The clerks of +the Bazoche, or lawyers' clerks of the Palais de Justice, had thus +associated together, it is said, as early as the beginning of the +fourteenth century, and they distinguished themselves by composing +and performing farces, for which they appear to have obtained a +privilege. Towards the close of the fourteenth century, there arose +in Paris another society, which took the name of _Enfans sans souci_, +or Careless Boys, who elected a president or chief with the title +of _Prince des Sots_, or King of the Fools, and who composed a sort +of dramatic satires which they called _Sotties_. Jealousies soon +arose between these two societies, either because the sotties were +made sometimes to resemble too closely the farces, or because each +trespassed too often on the territories of the other. Their differences +were finally arranged by a compromise, whereby the Bazochians yielded +to their rivals the privilege of performing farces, and received in +return the permission to perform sotties. The Bazochians, too, had +invented a new class of dramatic pieces which they called _Moralities_, +and in which allegorical personages were introduced. Thus three +dramatic societies continued to exist in France through the fifteenth +century, and until the middle of the sixteenth. + +These various pieces, under the titles of farces, sotties, moralities, +or whatever other names might be given to them, had become exceedingly +popular at the beginning of the sixteenth century, and a very +considerable number of them were printed, and many of them are still +preserved, but they are books of great rarity, and often unique.[90] +Of these the farces form the most numerous class. They consist simply +of the tales of the older jougleurs or story-tellers represented in a +dramatic form, but they often display great skill in conducting the +plot, and a considerable amount of wit. The story of the sheep-stealer +in the Towneley play of "The Shepherds," is a veritable farce. As +in the fabliaux, the most common subjects of these farces are love +intrigues, carried on in a manner which speaks little for the morality +of the age in which they were written. Family quarrels frequently +form the subject of a farce, and the weaknesses and vices of women. +The priests, as usual, are not spared, but are introduced as the +seducers of wives and daughters. In one the wives have found a means of +re-modelling their husbands and making them young again, which they put +in practice with various ludicrous circumstances. Tricks of servants +are also common subjects for these farces. One is the story of a boy +who does not know his own father, and some of the subjects are of a +still more trivial character, as that of the boy who steals a tart from +the pastrycook's shop. Two hungry boys, prowling about the streets, +come to the shop door just as the pastrycook is giving directions for +sending an eel-pie after him. By an ingenious deception the boys gain +possession of the pie and eat it, and they are both caught and severely +chastised. This is the whole plot of the farce. A dull schoolboy +examined by his master in the presence of his parents, and the mirth +produced by his blunders and their ignorance, formed also a favourite +subject among these farces. One or two examples are preserved, and, +from a companion of them, we might be led to suspect that Shakespeare +took the idea of the opening scene in the fourth act of the "Merry +Wives of Windsor" from one of these old farces. + + [90] The most remarkable collection of these early farces, sotties, + and moralities yet known, was found accidentally in 1845, and + is now in the British Museum. These were all edited in Paris + as the first three volumes of a work in ten, entitled "Ancien + Thatre Franois, ou Collection des Ouvrages dramatiques les plus + remarquable depuis les Mystres jusqu' Corneille, publi ... par + M. Viollet le Duc," 12mo., Paris, 1854. It is right to state that + these three volumes were edited, not by M. Viollet le Duc, but + by a scholar better known for his learning in the older French + literature, M. Anatole de Montaiglon. + +The sotties and moralities were more imaginative and extravagant +than the farces, and were filled with allegorical personages. The +characters introduced in the former have generally some relation to +the kingdom of folly. Thus, in one of the sotties, the king of fools +(_le roy des sotz_) is represented as holding his court, and consulting +with his courtiers, whose names are Triboulet, Mitouflet, Sottinet, +Coquibus, and Guippelin. Their conversation, as may be supposed, is +of a satirical character. Another is entitled "The Sottie of the +Deceivers," or cheats. Sottie--another name for mother Folly--opens +the piece with a proclamation or address to fools of all descriptions, +summoning them to her presence. Two, named Teste-Verte and Fine-Mine, +obey the call, and they are questioned as to their own condition, and +their proceedings, but their conversation is interrupted by the sudden +intrusion of another personage named Everyone (_Chascun_), who, on +examination, is found to be as perfect a fool as any of them. They +accordingly fraternise, and join in a song. Finally, another character, +The Time (_le Temps_), joins them, and they agree to submit to his +directions. Accordingly he instructs them in the arts of flattery +and deceiving, and the other similar means by which men of that time +sought to thrive. Another is the Sottie of Foolish Ostentation (_de +folle bobance_). This lady similarly opens the scene with an address +to all the fools who hold allegiance to her, and three of these make +their appearance. The first fool is the gentleman, the second the +merchant, the fourth the peasant, and their conversation is a satire +on contemporary society. The personification of abstract principles is +far bolder. The three characters who compose one of these moralities +are Everything (_tout_), Nothing (_rien_), and Everyone (_chascun_). +How the personification of Nothing was to be represented, we are not +told. The title of another of these moralities will be enough to give +the reader a notion of their general title; it is, "A New Morality of +the Children of Now-a-Days (_Maintenant_), who are the Scholars of +Once-good (_Jabien_), who shows them how to play at Cards and at Dice, +and to entertain Luxury, whereby one comes to Shame (_Honte_), and +from Shame to Despair (_Desespoir_), and from Despair to the gibbet of +Perdition, and then turns himself to Good-doing." The characters in +this play are Now-a-Days, Once-good, Luxury, Shame, Despair, Perdition, +and Good-doing. + +The three dramatic societies which produced all these farces, sotties, +and moralities, continued to flourish in France until the middle of +the sixteenth century, at which period a great revolution in dramatic +literature took place in that country. The performance of the Mysteries +had been forbidden by authority, and the Bazochians themselves were +suppressed. The petty drama represented by the farces and sotties +went rapidly out of fashion, in the great change through which the +mind of society was at this time passing, and in which the taste for +classical literature overcame all others. The old drama in France had +disappeared, and a new one, formed entirely upon an imitation of the +classical drama, was beginning to take its place. This incipient drama +was represented in the sixteenth century by Etienne Jodel, by Jacques +Grevin, by Rmy Belleau, and especially by Pierre de Larivey, the most +prolific, and perhaps the most talented, of the earlier French regular +dramatic authors. + +These French dramatic essays, the farces, the sotties, and the +moralities, were imitated, and sometimes translated, in English, and +many of them were printed; for the further our researches are carried +into the early history of printing, the more we are astonished at the +extreme activity of the press, even in its infancy, in multiplying +literature of a popular character. In England, as in France, the +farces had been, at a rather early period, detached from the mysteries +and miracle-plays, but the word _interludes_ had been adopted here +as the general title for them, and continued in use even after the +establishment of the regular drama. Perhaps this name owed its +popularity to the circumstance that it seemed more appropriate to its +object, when it became so fashionable in England to act these plays at +intervals in the great festivals and entertainments given at court, or +in the households of the great nobles. At all events, there can be +no doubt that this fashion had a great influence on the fate of the +English stage. The custom of performing plays in the universities, +great schools, and inns of court, had also the effect of producing a +number of very clever dramatic writers; for when this literature was +so warmly patronised by princes and nobles, people of the highest +qualifications sought to excel in it. Hence we find from books of +household expenses and similar records of the period, that there was, +during the sixteenth century, an immense number of such plays compiled +in England which were never printed, and of which, therefore, very few +are preserved. + +The earliest known plays of this description in the English language +belong to the class which were called in France moralities. They are +three in number, and are preserved in a manuscript in the possession +of Mr. Hudson Gurney, which I have not seen, but which is said to be +of the reign of our king Henry VI. Several words and allusions in them +seem to me to show that they were translated, or adapted, from the +French. They contain exactly the same kind of allegorical personages. +The allegory itself is a simple one, and easily understood. In the +first, which is entitled the "Castle of Perseverance," the hero is +_Humanum Genus_ (Mankynd), for the names of the parts are all given in +Latin. On the birth of this personage, a good and a bad angel offer +themselves as his protectors and guides, and he chooses the latter, who +introduces him to _Mundus_ (the World), and to his friends, _Stultitia_ +(Folly), and _Voluptas_ (Pleasure). These and some other personages +bring him under the influence of the seven deadly sins, and _Humanum +Genus_ takes for his bedfellow a lady named _Luxuria_. At length +_Confessio_ and _Poenitentia_ succeed in reclaiming _Humanum Genus_, +and they conduct him for security to the Castle of Perseverance, where +the seven cardinal virtues attend upon him. He is besieged in this +castle by the seven deadly sins, who are led to the attack by Belial, +but are defeated. _Humanum Genus_ has now become aged, and is exposed +to the attacks of another assailant. This is _Avaritia_, who enters +the Castle stealthily by undermining the wall, and artfully persuades +_Humanum Genus_ to leave it. He thus comes again under the influence +of _Mundus_, until _Mors_ (Death) arrives, and the bad angel carries +off the victim to the domains of Satan. This, however, is not the end +of the piece. God appears, seated on His throne, and Mercy, Peace, +Justice, and Truth appear before Him, the two former pleading for, +and the latter against, _Humanum Genus_, who, after some discussion, +is saved. This allegorical picture of human life was, in one form or +other, a favourite subject of the moralisers. I may quote as examples +the interludes of "Lusty Juventus," reprinted in Hawkins's "Origin +of the English Drama," and the "Disobedient Child," and "Trial of +Treasure," reprinted by the Percy Society. + +The second of the moralities ascribed to the reign of Henry VI., has +for its principal characters Mind, Will, and Understanding. These are +assailed by Lucifer, who succeeds in alluring them to vice, and they +change their modest raiment for the dress of gay gallants. Various +other characters are introduced in a similar strain of allegory, until +they are reclaimed by Wisdom. Mankind is again the principal personage +of the third of these moralities, and some of the other characters in +the play, such as Nought, New-guise, and Now-a-days, remind us of the +similar allegorical personages in the French moralities described above. + +These interludes bring us into acquaintance with a new comic character. +The great part which folly acted in the social destinies of mankind, +had become an acknowledged fact; and as the court and almost every +great household had its professed fool, so it seems to have been +considered that a play also was incomplete without a fool. But, +as the character of the fool was usually given to one of the most +objectionable characters in it, so, for this reason apparently, the +fool in a play was called the _Vice_. Thus, in "Lusty Juventus," the +character of Hypocrisy is called the Vice; in the play of "All for +Money," it is Sin; in that of "Tom Tyler and his Wife," it is Desire; +in the "Trial of Treasure" it is Inclination; and in some instances the +Vice appears to be the demon himself. The Vice seems always to have +been dressed in the usual costume of a court fool, and he perhaps had +other duties besides his mere part in the plot, such as making jests of +his own, and using other means for provoking the mirth of the audience +in the intervals of the action. + +A few of our early English interludes were, in the strict sense of the +word, farces. Such is the "mery play" of "John the Husband, Tyb the +Wife, and Sir John the Priest," written by John Heywood, the plot of +which presents the same simplicity as those of the farces which were so +popular in France. John has a shrew for his wife, and has good causes +for suspecting an undue intimacy between her and the priest; but they +find means to blind his eyes, which is the more easily done, because +he is a great coward, except when he is alone. Tyb, the wife, makes a +pie, and proposes that the priest shall be invited to assist in eating +it. The husband is obliged, very unwillingly, to be the bearer of the +invitation, and is not a little surprised when the priest refuses it. +He gives as his reason, that he was unwilling to intrude himself into +company where he knew he was disliked, and persuaded John that he had +fallen under the wife's displeasure, because, in private interviews +with her, he had laboured to induce her to bridle her temper, and treat +her husband with more gentleness. John, delighted at the discovery +of the priest's honesty, insists on his going home with him to feast +upon the pie. There the guilty couple contrive to put the husband to a +disagreeable penance, while they eat the pie, and treat him otherwise +very ignominiously, in consequence of which the married couple fight. +The priest interferes, and the fight thus becomes general, and is only +ended by the departure of Tyb and the priest, leaving the husband alone. + +The popularity of the moralities in England is, perhaps, to be +explained by peculiarities in the condition of society, and the +greater pre-occupation of men's minds in our country at that time +with the religious and social revolution which was then in progress. +The Reformers soon saw the use which might be made of the stage, and +compiled and caused to be acted interludes in which the old doctrines +and ceremonies were turned to ridicule, and the new ones were held up +in a favourable light. We have excellent examples of the success with +which this plan was carried out in the plays of the celebrated John +Bale. His play of "Kyng Johan," an edition of which was published by +the Camden Society, is not only a remarkable work of a very remarkable +man, but it may be considered as the first rude model of the English +historical drama. The stage became now a political instrument in +England, almost as it had been in ancient Greece, and it thus became +frequently the object of particular as well as general persecution. +In 1543, the vicar of Yoxford, in Suffolk, drew upon himself the +violent hostility of the other clergy in that county by composing and +causing to be performed plays against the pope's counsellors. Six years +afterwards, in 1549, a royal proclamation prohibited for a time the +performance of interludes throughout the kingdom, on the ground that +they contained "matter tendyng to sedicion and contempnyng of sundery +good orders and lawes, whereupon are growen daily, and are likely +to growe, muche disquiet, division, tumultes, and uproares in this +realme." From this time forward we begin to meet with laws for the +regulation of stage performances, and proceedings in cases of supposed +infractions of them, and it became customary to obtain the approval of +a play by the privy council before it was allowed to be acted. Thus +gradually arose the office of a dramatic censor. + +With Bale and with John Heywood, the English plays began to approach +the form of a regular drama, and the two now rather celebrated pieces, +"Ralph Roister Doister," and "Gammer Gurton's Needle," which belong +to the middle of the sixteenth century, may be considered as comedies +rather than as interludes. The former, written by a well-known scholar +of that time, Nicholas Udall, master of Eton, is a satirical picture +of some phases of London life, and relates the ridiculous adventures +of a weak-headed and vain-glorious gallant, who believes that all +the women must be in love with him, and who is led by a needy and +designing parasite named Matthew Merygreeke. Rude as it is as a +dramatic composition, it displays no lack of talent, and it is full +of genuine humour. The humour in "Gammer Gurton's Needle" is none +the less rich because it is of coarser and rather broader cast. The +good dame of the piece, Gammer Gurton, during an interruption in the +process of mending the breeches of her husband, Hodge, has lost her +needle, and much lamentation follows a misfortune so great at a time +when needles appear to have been rare and valuable articles in the +rural household. In the midst of their trouble appears Diccon, who is +described in the _dramatis person_ as "Diccon the Bedlam," meaning +that he was an idiot, and who appears to hold the position of Vice in +the play. Diccon, however, though weak-minded, is a cunning fellow, and +especially given to making mischief, and he accuses a neighbour, Dame +Chat, of stealing the needle. At the same time, the same mischievous +individual tells Dame Chat that Gammer Gurton's cock had been stolen in +the night from the henroost, and that she, Dame Chat, was accused of +being the thief. Amid the general misunderstanding which results from +Diccon's successful endeavours, they send for the parson of the parish, +Dr. Rat, who appears to unite in himself the three parts of preacher, +physician, and conjurer, in order to have advantage of his experience +in finding the needle. Diccon now contrives a new piece of mischief. +He persuades Dame Chat that Hodge intends to hide himself in a certain +hole in the premises, in order, that night, to creep out and kill all +her hens; and at the same time he informs Dr. Rat, that if he will +hide in the same hole, he will give him ocular demonstration of Dame +Chat's guilt of stealing the needle. The consequence is that Dame Chat +attacks by surprise, and somewhat violently, the supposed depredator +in the hole, and that Dr. Rat gets a broken head. Dame Chat is brought +before "Master Bayly" for the assault, and the proceedings in the trial +bring to light the deceptions which have been played upon them all, +and Diccon stands convicted as the wicked perpetrator. In fact, the +"bedlam" confesses it all, and it is finally decided by "Master Bayly" +that there shall be a general reconciliation, and that Diccon shall +take a solemn oath on Hodge's breech, that he will do his best to find +the lost needle. Diccon has still the spirit of mischief in him, and +instead of laying his hand quietly on Hodge's breech, he gives him a +sharp blow, which is responded to by an unexpected scream. The needle, +indeed, which has never quitted the breeches, is driven rather deep +into the fleshy part of Hodge's body, and the general joy at having +found it again overruling all other considerations, they all agree to +be friends over a jug of "drink." + +We cannot but feel astonished at the short period which it required +to develop rude attempts at dramatic composition like this into the +wonderful creations of a Shakespeare; and it can only be explained +by the fact that it was an age remarkable for producing men of +extraordinary genius in every branch of intellectual development. +Hitherto, the literature of the stage had represented the intelligence +of the mass; it became individualised in Shakespeare, and this fact +marks an entirely new era in the history of the drama. In the writings +of our great bard, nearly all the peculiarities of the older national +drama are preserved, even some which may be perhaps considered as its +defects, but carried to a degree of perfection which they had never +attained before. The drollery, which, as we have seen, could not be +dispensed with even in the religious mysteries and miracle-plays, had +become so necessary, that it could not be dispensed with in tragedy. +Its omission belonged to a later period, when the foreign dramatists +became objects of imitation in England. But in the earlier drama, these +scenes of drollery seem frequently to have no connection whatever with +the general plot, while Shakespeare always interweaves them skilfully +with it, and they seem to form an integral and necessary part of it. + + + + + CHAPTER XVII. + + DIABLERIE IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.--EARLY TYPES OF THE DIABOLICAL + FORMS.--ST. ANTHONY.--ST. GUTHLAC.--REVIVAL OF THE TASTE FOR SUCH + SUBJECTS IN THE BEGINNING OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.--THE FLEMISH + SCHOOL OF BREUGHEL.--THE FRENCH AND ITALIAN SCHOOLS, CALLOT, + SALVATOR ROSA. + + +We have seen how the popular demonology furnished materials for the +earliest exercise of comic art in the middle ages, and how the taste +for this particular class of grotesque lasted until the close of the +medival period. After the "renaissance" of art and literature, this +taste took a still more remarkable form, and the school of grotesque +_diablerie_ which flourished during the sixteenth century, and the +first half of the seventeenth, justly claims a chapter to itself. + +The birthplace of this demonology, as far as it belongs to +Christianity, must probably be sought in the deserts of Egypt. It +spread thence over the east and the west, and when it reached our +part of the world, it grafted itself, as I have remarked in a former +chapter, on the existing popular superstitions of Teutonic paganism. +The playfully burlesque, which held so great a place in these +superstitions, no doubt gave a more comic character to this Christian +demonology than it had possessed before the mixture. Its primitive +representative was the Egyptian monk, St. Anthony, who is said to have +been born at a village called Coma, in Upper Egypt, in the year 251. +His history was written in Greek by St. Athanasius, and was translated +into Latin by the ecclesiastical historian Evagrius. Anthony was +evidently a fanatical visionary, subject to mental illusions, which +were fostered by his education. To escape from the temptations of the +world, he sold all his property, which was considerable, gave it to +the poor, and then retired into the desert of the Thebaid, to live a +life of the strictest asceticism. The evil one persecuted him in his +solitude, and sought to drive him back into the corruptions of worldly +life. He first tried to fill his mind with regretful reminiscences +of his former wealth, position in society, and enjoyments; when this +failed, he disturbed his mind with voluptuous images and desires, which +the saint resisted with equal success. The persecutor now changed his +tactics, and presenting himself to Anthony in the form of a black and +ugly youth, confessed to him, with apparent candour, that he was the +spirit of uncleanness, and acknowledged that he had been vanquished by +the extraordinary merits of Anthony's sanctity. The saint, however, +saw that this was only a stratagem to stir up in him the spirit of +pride and self-confidence, and he met it by subjecting himself to +greater mortifications than ever, which of course made him still more +liable to these delusions. Now he sought greater solitude by taking +up his residence in a ruined Egyptian sepulchre, but the farther he +withdrew from the world, the more he became the object of diabolical +persecution. Satan broke in upon his privacy with a host of attendants, +and during the night beat him to such a degree, that one morning the +attendant who brought him food found him lying senseless in his cell, +and had him carried to the town, where his friends were on the point of +burying him, believing him to be dead, when he suddenly revived, and +insisted on being taken back to his solitary dwelling. The legend tells +us that the demons appeared to him in the forms of the most ferocious +animals, such as lions, bulls, wolves, asps, serpents, scorpions, +panthers, and bears, each attacking him in the manner peculiar to its +species, and with its peculiar voice, thus making together a horrible +din. Anthony left his tomb to retire farther into the desert, where he +made a ruined castle his residence; and here he was again frightfully +persecuted by the demons, and the noise they made was so great and +horrible that it was often heard at a vast distance. According to the +narrative, Anthony reproached the demons in very abusive language, +called them hard names, and even spat in their faces; but his most +effective weapon was always the cross. Thus the saint became bolder, +and sought a still more lonely abode, and finally established himself +on the top of a high mountain in the upper Thebaid. The demons still +continued to persecute him, under a great variety of forms; on one +occasion their chief appeared to him under the form of a man, with the +lower members of an ass. + +The demons which tormented St. Anthony became the general type for +subsequent creations, in which these first pictures were gradually, and +in the sequel, greatly improved upon. St. Anthony's persecutors usually +assumed the shapes of _bon fide_ animals, but those of later stories +took monstrous and grotesque forms, strange mixtures of the parts of +different animals, and of others which never existed. Such were seen +by St. Guthlac, the St. Anthony of the Anglo-Saxons, among the wild +morasses of Croyland. One night, which he was passing at his devotions +in his cell, they poured in upon him in great numbers; "and they filled +all the house with their coming, and they poured in on every side, +from above and from beneath, and everywhere. They were in countenance +horrible, and they had great heads, and a long neck, and lean visage; +they were filthy and squalid in their beards, and they had rough ears, +and distorted face, and fierce eyes, and foul mouths; and their teeth +were like horses' tusks, and their throats were filled with flame, and +they were grating in their voice; they had crooked shanks, and knees +big and great behind, and distorted toes, and shrieked hoarsely with +their voices; and they came with such immoderate noises and immense +horror, that it seemed to him that all between heaven and earth +resounded with their dreadful cries." On another similar occasion, "it +happened one night, when the holy man Guthlac fell to his prayers, he +heard the howling of cattle and various wild beasts. Not long after +he saw the appearance of animals and wild beasts and creeping things +coming in to him. First he saw the visage of a lion that threatened him +with his bloody tusks, also the likeness of a bull, and the visage of +a bear, as when they are enraged. Also he perceived the appearance of +vipers, and a hog's grunting, and the howling of wolves, and croaking +of ravens, and the various whistlings of birds, that they might, with +their fantastic appearance, divert the mind of the holy man." + +Such were the suggestions on which the medival sculptors and +illuminators worked with so much effect, as we have seen repeatedly +in the course of our preceding chapters. After the revival of art +in western Europe in the fifteenth century, this class of legends +became great favourites with painters and engravers, and soon gave +rise to the peculiar school of _diablerie_ mentioned above. At that +time the story of the Temptation of St. Anthony attracted particular +attention, and it is the subject of many remarkable prints belonging +to the earlier ages of the art of engraving. It employed the pencils +of such artists as Martin Schongauer, Israel van Mechen, and Lucas +Cranach. Of the latter we have two different engravings on the same +subject--St. Anthony carried into the air by the demons, who are +represented in a great variety of grotesque and monstrous forms. The +most remarkable of the two bears the date of 1506, and was, therefore, +one of Cranach's earlier works. But the great representative of this +earlier school of _diablerie_ was Peter Breughel, a Flemish painter +who flourished in the middle of the sixteenth century. He was born at +Breughel, near Breda, and lived some time at Antwerp, but afterwards +established himself at Brussels. So celebrated was he for the love of +the grotesque displayed in his pictures, that he was known by the name +of Peter the Droll. Breughel's "Temptation of St. Anthony," like one +or two others of his subjects of the same class, was engraved in a +reduced form by J. T. de Bry. Breughel's demons are figures of the most +fantastic description--creations of a wildly grotesque imagination; +they present incongruous and laughable mixtures of parts of living +things which have no relation whatever to one another. Our cut No. 155 +represents a group of these grotesque demons, from a plate by Breughel, +engraved in 1565, and entitled _Divus Jacobus diabolicis prstigiis +ante magnum sistitur_ (St. James is arrested before the magician by +diabolical delusions). The engraving is full of similarly grotesque +figures. On the right is a spacious chimney, and up it witches, riding +on brooms, are making their escape, while in the air are seen other +witches riding away upon dragons and a goat. A kettle is boiling over +the fire, around which a group of monkeys are seen sitting and warming +themselves. Behind these a cat and a toad are holding a very intimate +conversation. In the background stands and boils the great witches' +caldron. On the right of the picture the _magus_, or magician, is +seated, reading his _grimoire_; with a frame before him supporting the +pot containing his magical ingredients. The saint occupies the middle +of the picture, surrounded by the demons represented in our cut and by +many others; and as he approaches the magician, he is seen raising his +right hand in the attitude of pronouncing a benediction, the apparent +consequence of which is a frightful explosion of the magician's pot, +which strikes the demons with evident consternation. Nothing can be +more _bizarre_ than the horse's head upon human legs in armour, the +parody upon a crawling spider behind it, the skull (apparently of a +horse) supported upon naked human legs, the strangely excited animal +behind the latter, and the figure furnished with pilgrim's hood +and staff, which appears to be mocking the saint. Another print--a +companion to the foregoing--represents the still more complete +discomfiture of the _magus_. The saint here occupies the right-hand +side of the picture, and is raising his hand higher, with apparently +a greater show of authority. The demons have all turned against their +master the magician, whom they are beating and hurling headlong from +his chair. They seem to be proclaiming their joy at his fall by all +sorts of playful attitudes. It is a sort of demon fair. Some of them, +to the left of the picture, are dancing and standing upon their heads +on a tight-rope. Near them another is playing some game like that +which we now call the thimble-rig. The monkeys are dancing to the +tune of a great drum. A variety of their mountebank tricks are going +on in different parts of the scene. Three of these playful actors are +represented in our cut No. 156. + + [Illustration: _No. 156. Strange Demons._] + +Breughel also executed a series of similarly grotesque engravings, +representing in this same fantastic manner the virtues and vices, such +as Pride (_superbia_), Courage (_fortitudo_), Sloth (_desidia_), &c. +These bear the date of 1558. They are crowded with figures equally +grotesque with those just mentioned, but a great part of which it +would be almost impossible to describe. I give two examples from the +engraving of "Sloth," in the accompanying cut (No. 157). + + [Illustration: _No. 155. St. James and his Persecutors._] + + [Illustration: _No. 157. Imps of Sloth._] + + [Illustration: _No. 158. The Folly of Hunting._] + +From making up figures from parts of animals, this early school of +grotesque proceeded to create animated figures out of inanimate +things, such as machines, implements of various kinds, household +utensils, and other such articles. A German artist, of about the same +time as Breughel, has left us a singular series of etchings of this +description, which are intended as an allegorical satire on the follies +of mankind. The allegory is here of such a singular character, that +we can only guess at the meaning of these strange groups through four +lines of German verse which are attached to each of them. In this +manner we learn that the group represented in our cut, No. 158, which +is the second in this series, is intended as a satire upon those who +waste their time in hunting, which, the verses tell us, they will in +the sequel lament bitterly; and they are exhorted to cry loud and +continually to God, and to let that serve them in the place of hound +and hawk. + + _Die zeit die du verleurst mit jagen, + Die wirstu zwar noch schmertzlich klagen; + Ruff laut zu Gott gar oft und vil, + Das sey dein hund und federspil._ + + [Illustration: _No. 159. The Wastefulness of Youth._] + +The next picture in the series, which is equally difficult to describe, +is aimed against those who fail in attaining virtue or honour through +sluggishness. Others follow, but I will only give one more example. It +forms our cut No. 159, and appears, from the verses accompanying it, +to be aimed against those who practice wastefulness in their youth, +and thus become objects of pity and scorn in old age. Whatever may be +the point of the allegory contained in the engraving, it is certainly +far-fetched, and not very apparent. + +This German-Flemish school of grotesque does not appear to have +outlived the sixteenth century, or at least it had ceased to flourish +in the century following. But the taste for the _diablerie_ of the +Temptation scenes passed into France and Italy, in which countries +it assumed a much more refined character, though at the same time +one equally grotesque and imaginative. These artists, too, returned +to the original legend, and gave it forms of their own conception. +Daniel Rabel, a French artist, who lived at the end of the sixteenth +century, published a rather remarkable engraving of the "Temptation of +St. Anthony," in which the saint appears on the right of the picture, +kneeling before a mound on which three demons are dancing. On the +right hand of the saint stands a naked woman, sheltering herself with +a parasol, and tempting the saint with her charms. The rest of the +piece is filled with demons in a great variety of forms and postures. +Another French artist, Nicholas Cochin, has left us two "Temptations of +St. Anthony," in rather spirited etching, of the earlier part of the +seventeenth century. In the first, the saint is represented kneeling +before a crucifix, surrounded by demons. The youthful and charming +temptress is here dressed in the richest garments, and the highest +style of fashion, and displays all her powers of seduction. The body of +the picture is, as usual, occupied by multitudes of diabolical figures, +in grotesque forms. In Cochin's other picture of the Temptation of St. +Anthony, the saint is represented as a hermit engaged in his prayers; +the female figure of voluptuousness (_voluptas_) occupies the middle of +the picture, and behind the saint is seen a witch with her besom. + + [Illustration: _No. 160. The Demon Tilter (Callot)._] + + [Illustration: _No. 161. Uneasy Riding (Callot)._] + +But the artist who excelled in this subject at the period at which we +now arrive, was the celebrated Jacques Callot, who was born at Nancy, +in Brittany, in 1593, and died at Florence on the 24th of March, 1635, +which, according to the old style of calculating, may mean March, +1636. Of Callot we shall have to speak in another chapter. He treated +the subject of the Temptation of St. Anthony in two different plates, +which are considered as ranking among the most remarkable of his +works, and to which, in fact, he appears to have given much thought +and attention. He is known, indeed, to have worked diligently at it. +They resemble those of the older artists in the number of diabolical +figures introduced into the picture, but they display an extraordinary +vivid imagination in the forms, postures, physiognomies, and even +the equipments, of the chimerical figures, all equally droll and +burlesque, but which present an entire contrast to the more coarse and +vulgar conceptions of the German-Flemish school. This difference will +be understood best by an example. One of Callot's demons is represented +in our cut No. 160. Many of them are mounted on nondescript animals, +of the most extraordinary demoniacal character, and such is the case +of the demon in our cut, who is running a tilt at the saint with his +tilting spear in his hand, and, to make more sure, his eyes well +furnished with a pair of spectacles. In our next cut, No. 161, we give +a second example of the figures in Callot's peculiar _diablerie_. +The demon in this case is riding very uneasily, and, in fact, seems +in danger of being thrown. The steeds of both are of an anomalous +character; the first is a sort of dragon-horse; the second a mixture +of a lobster, a spider, and a craw-fish. Mariette, the art-collector +and art-writer of the reign of Louis XV. as well as artist, considers +this grotesque, or, as he calls it, "fantastic and comic character," +as almost necessary to the pictures of the Temptation of St. Anthony, +which he treats as one of Callot's especially _serious_ subjects. +"It was allowable," he says, "to Callot, to give a flight to his +imagination. The more his fictions were of the nature of dreams, +the more they were fitted to what he had to express. For the demon +intending to torment St. Anthony, it is to be supposed that he must +have thought of all the forms most hideous, and most likely to strike +terror." + +Callot's first and larger print of the Temptation of St. Anthony is +rare. It is filled with a vast number of figures. Above is a fantastic +being who vomits thousands of demons. The saint is seen at the entrance +of a cavern, tormented by some of these. Others are scattered about in +different occupations. On one side, a demoniacal party are drinking +together, and pledging each other in their glasses; here, a devil is +playing on the guitar; there, others are occupied in a dance; all +such grotesque figures as our two examples would lead the reader to +expect. In the second of Callot's "Temptations," which is dated in +1635, and must therefore have been one of his latest works, the same +figure vomiting the demons occupies the upper part of the plate, and +the field is covered with a prodigious number of imps, more hideous in +their forms, and more varied in their extraordinary attitudes, than in +the same artist's first design. Below, a host of demons are dragging +the saint to a place where new torments are prepared for him. Callot's +prints of the Temptation of St. Anthony gained so great a reputation, +that imitations of them were subsequently published, some of which so +far approached his style, that they were long supposed to be genuine. + +Callot, though a Frenchman, studied and flourished in Italy, and +his style is founded upon Italian art. The last great artist whose +treatment of the Temptation I shall quote, is Salvator Rosa, an Italian +by birth, who flourished in the middle of the seventeenth century. +His style, according to some opinions, is refined from that of Callot; +at all events, it is bolder in design. Our cut No. 162 represents St. +Anthony protecting himself with the cross against the assaults of the +demon, as represented by Salvator Rosa. With this artist the school of +_diablerie_ of the sixteenth century may be considered to have come to +its end. + + [Illustration: _No. 162. St. Anthony and his Persecutor._] + + + + + CHAPTER XVIII. + + CALLOT AND HIS SCHOOL.--CALLOT'S ROMANTIC HISTORY.--HIS + "CAPRICI," AND OTHER BURLESQUE WORKS.--THE "BALLI" AND THE + BEGGARS.--IMITATORS OF CALLOT; DELLA BELLA.--EXAMPLES OF DELLA + BELLA.--ROMAIN DE HOOGHE. + + +The art of engraving on copper, although it had made rapid advances +during the sixteenth century, was still very far from perfection; but +the close of that century witnessed the birth of a man who was destined +not only to give a new character to this art, but also to bring in a +new style of caricature and burlesque. This was the celebrated Jacques +Callot, a native of Lorraine, and descended from a noble Burgundian +family. His father, Jean Callot, held the office of herald of Lorraine. +Jacques was born in the year 1592,[91] at Nancy, and appears to have +been destined for the church, with a view to which his early education +was regulated. But the early life of Jacques Callot presents a +romantic episode in the history of art aspirations. While yet hardly +more than an infant, he seized every opportunity of neglecting more +serious studies to practise drawing, and he displayed especially a +very precocious taste for satire, for his artistic talent was shown +principally in caricaturing all the people he knew. His father, and +apparently all his relatives, disapproved of his love for drawing, and +did what they could to discourage it; but in vain, for he still found +means of indulging it. Claude Henriet, the painter to the court of +Lorraine, gave him lessons, and his son, Israel Henriet, formed for +him a boy's friendship. He also learnt the elements of the art of +engraving of Demange Crocq, the engraver to the duke of Lorraine. + + [91] This is the date fixed by Meaume, in his excellent work on + Callot, entitled "Recherches sur la Vie et les Ouvrages de + Jacques Callot," 2 tom. 8vo., 1860. + +About this time, the painter Bellange, who had been a pupil of Claude +Henriet, returned from Italy, and gave young Callot an exciting account +of the wonders of art to be seen in that country; and soon afterwards +Claude Henriet dying, his son Israel went to Rome, and his letters +from thence had no less effect on the mind of the young artist at +Nancy, than the conversation of Bellange. Indeed the passion of the boy +for art was so strong, that, finding his parents obstinately opposed +to all his longings in this direction, he left his father's house +secretly, and, in the spring of 1604, when he had only just entered his +thirteenth year, he set out for Italy on foot, without introductions +and almost without money. He was even unacquainted with the road, but +after proceeding a short distance, he fell in with a band of gipsies, +and, as they were going to Florence, he joined their company. His +life among the gipsies, which lasted seven or eight weeks, appears to +have furnished food to his love of burlesque and caricature, and he +has handed down to us his impressions, in a series of four engravings +of scenes in gipsy life, admirably executed at a rather later period +of his life, which are full of comic humour. When they arrived at +Florence, Jacques Callot parted company with the gipsies, and was +fortunate enough to meet with an officer of the grand duke's household, +who listened to his story, and took so much interest in him, that he +obtained him admission to the studio of Remigio Canta Gallina. This +artist gave him instructions in drawing and engraving, and sought to +correct him of his taste for the grotesque by keeping him employed upon +serious subjects. + +After studying for some months under Canta Gallina, Jacques Callot +left Florence, and proceeded to Rome, to seek his old friend Israel +Henriet; but he had hardly arrived, when he was recognised in the +streets by some merchants from Nancy, who took him, and in spite of +his tears and resistance, carried him home to his parents. He was +now kept to his studies more strictly than ever, but nothing could +overcome his passion for art, and, having contrived to lay by some +money, after a short interval he again ran away from home. This time +he took the road to Lyons, and crossed Mont Cenis, and he had reached +Turin when he met in the street of that city his elder brother Jean, +who again carried him home to Nancy. Nothing could now repress young +Callot's ardour, and soon after this second escapade, he engraved a +copy of a portrait of Charles III., duke of Lorraine, to which he put +his name and the date 1607, and which, though it displays little skill +in engraving, excited considerable interest at the time. His parents +were now persuaded that it was useless to thwart any longer his natural +inclinations, and they not only allowed him to follow them, but they +yielded to his wish to return to Italy. The circumstances of the moment +were especially favourable. Charles III., duke of Lorraine, was dead, +and his successor, Henry II., was preparing to send an embassy to Rome +to announce his accession. Jean Callot, by his position of herald, +had sufficient interest to obtain for his son an appointment in the +ambassador's retinue, and Jacques Callot started for Rome on the 1st +of December, 1608, under more favourable auspices than those which had +attended his former visits to Italy. + +Callot reached Rome at the beginning of the year 1609, and now at +length he joined the friend of his childhood, Israel Henriet, and began +to throw all his energy into his art-labours. It is more than probable +that he studied under Tempesta, with Henriet, who was a pupil of that +painter, and another Lorrainer, Claude Dervet. After a time, Callot +began to feel the want of money, and obtained employment of a French +engraver, then residing in Rome, named Philippe Thomassin, with whom he +worked nearly three years, and became perfect in handling the graver. +Towards the end of the year 1611, Callot went to Florence, to place +himself under Julio Parigi, who then flourished there as a painter and +engraver. Tuscany was at this time ruled by its duke Cosmo de' Medicis, +a great lover of the arts, who took Callot under his patronage, giving +him the means to advance himself. Hitherto his occupation had been +principally copying the works of others, but under Parigi he began to +practise more in original design, and his taste for the grotesque came +upon him stronger than ever. Although Parigi blamed it, he could not +help admiring the talent it betrayed. In 1615, the grand duke gave a +great entertainment to the prince of Urbino, and Callot was employed +to make engravings of the festivities; it was his first commencement +in a class of designs by which he afterwards attained great celebrity. +In the year following, his engagement with Parigi ended, and he became +his own master. He now came out unfettered in his own originality. The +first fruits were seen in a new kind of designs, to which he gave the +name of "Caprices," a series of which appeared about the year 1617, +under the title of "Caprici di varie Figure." Callot re-engraved them +at Nancy in later years, and in the new title they were stated to have +been originally engraved in 1616. In a short preface, he speaks of +these as the first of his works on which he set any value. They now +strike us as singular examples of the fanciful creations of a most +grotesque imagination, but they no doubt preserve many traits of the +festivals, ceremonies, and manners of that land of masquerade, which +must have been then familiar to the Florentines; and these engravings +would, doubtless, be received by them with absolute delight. One is +copied in our cut No. 163; it represents a cripple supporting himself +on a short crutch, with his right arm in a sling. Our cut No. 164 is +another example from the same set, and represents a masked clown, with +his left hand on the hilt of his dagger, or perhaps of a wooden sword. +From this time, although he was very industrious and produced much, +Callot engraved only his own designs. + + [Illustration: _No. 163. A Cripple._] + + [Illustration: _No. 164. A Grotesque Masker._] + +While employed for others, Callot had worked chiefly with the graver, +but now that he was his own master, he laid aside that implement, and +devoted himself almost entirely to etching, in which he attained the +highest proficiency. His work is remarkable for the cleanness and ease +of his lines, and for the life and spirit he gave to his figures. +His talent lay especially in the extraordinary skill with which he +grouped together great numbers of diminutive figures, each of which +preserved its proper and full action and effect. The great annual fair +of the Impruneta was held with extraordinary festivities, and attended +by an immense concourse of people of all classes on St. Luke's Day, +the 18th of October, in the outskirts of Florence. Callot engraved +a large picture of this fair, which is absolutely wonderful. The +picture embraces an extensive space of ground, which is covered with +hundreds of figures, all occupied, singly or in groups, in different +manners, conversing, masquerading, buying and selling, playing games, +and performing in various ways; each group or figure is a picture in +itself. This engraving produced quite a sensation, and it was followed +by other pictures of fairs, and, after his final return to Nancy, +Callot engraved it anew. It was this talent for grouping large masses +of persons which caused the artist to be so often employed in drawing +great public ceremonies, sieges, and other warlike operations. + +By the duke of Florence, Cosmo II., Callot was liberally patronised +and loaded with benefits, but on his death the government had to be +placed in the hands of a regency, and art and literature no longer met +with the same encouragement. In this state of things, Callot was found +by Charles of Lorraine, afterwards duke Charles IV., and persuaded to +return to his native country. He arrived at Nancy in 1622, and began to +work there with greater activity even than he had displayed before. It +was not long after this that he produced his sets of grotesques, the +Balli (or dancers), the Gobbi (or hunchbacks), and the Beggars. The +first of these sets, called in the title _Balli_, or _Cucurucu_,[92] +consists of twenty-four small plates, each of them containing two comic +characters in grotesque attitudes, with groups of smaller figures in +the distance. Beneath the two prominent figures are their names, now +unintelligible, but at that time no doubt well known on the comic stage +at Florence. Thus, in the couple given in our cut No. 165, which is +taken from the fourth plate of the series, the personage to the left +is named Smaraolo Cornuto, which means simply Smaraolo the cuckold; +and the one on the right is called Ratsa di Boio. In the original the +background is occupied by a street, full of spectators, looking on at +a dance of pantaloons, round one who is mounted on stilts and playing +on the tabour. The couple in our cut No. 166, represents another of +Callot's "Caprices," from a set differing from the first "Caprices," +or the Balli. The Gobbi, or hunchbacks, form a set of twenty-one +engravings; and the set of the Gipsies, already alluded to, which was +also executed at Nancy, was included in four plates, the subjects of +which were severally--1, the gipsies travelling; 2, the avant-guard; +3, the halt; and 4, the preparations for the feast. Nothing could be +more truthful, and at the same time more comic, than this last set of +subjects. We give, as an example of the set of the Baroni, or beggars, +Callot's figure of one of that particular class--for beggars and rogues +of all kinds were classified in those days--whose part it was to +appeal to charity by wounds and sores artificially represented. In the +English slang of the seventeenth century, these artificial sores were +called _clymes_, and a curious account of the manner in which they were +made will be found in that singular picture of the vicious classes of +society in this country at that period, the "English Rogue," by Head +and Kirkman. The false cripple in our cut is holding up his leg to make +a display of his pretended infirmity. + + [92] Meaume appears to be doubtful of the meaning of this word; a + friend has pointed out to me the correction. It was the title + of a song, so called because the burden was an imitation of the + crowing of a cock, the singer mimicking also the action of the + bird. When Bacchus, in Redi's "Bacco in Toscana," is beginning + to feel the exhilarating effects of his critical investigation + of the Tuscan wines, he calls upon Ariadne to sing to him "sulla + mandola la Cucuruc," "on the mandola the Cucurucu." A note + fully explains the word as we have stated it--"Canzone cosi + detta, perch in esse si replica molte volte la voce del gallo; e + cantandola si fanno atti e moti simili a quegli di esso gallo." + + [Illustration: _No. 165. Smaraolo Cornuto.--Ratsa di Boio._] + + [Illustration: _No. 166. A Caprice._] + + [Illustration: _No. 167. The False Cripple._] + +Callot remained at Nancy, with merely temporary absences, during the +remainder of his life. In 1628, he was employed at Brussels in drawing +and engraving the "Siege of Breda," one of the most finished of his +works, and he there made the personal acquaintance of Vandyck. Early +in 1629, he was called to Paris to execute engravings of the siege of +La Rochelle, and of the defence of the Isle of Rh, but he returned to +Nancy in 1630. Three years afterwards his native country was invaded +by the armies of Louis XIII., and Nancy surrendered to the French on +the 25th of September, 1633. Callot was required to make engravings +to celebrate the fall of his native town; but, although he is said +to have been threatened with violence, he refused; and afterwards he +commemorated the evils brought upon his country by the French invasion +in those two immortal sets of prints, the lesser and greater "Misres +de la Guerre." About two years after this, Callot died, in the prime of +life, on the 24th of March, 1635. + +The fame of Callot was great among his contemporaries, and his name +is justly respected as one of the most illustrious in the history of +French art. He had, as might be expected, many imitators, and the +Caprices, the Balli, and the Gobbi, became very favourite subjects. +Among these imitators, the most successful and the most distinguished +was Stephano Della Bella; and, indeed, the only one deserving of +particular notice. Della Bella was born at Florence, on the 18th of +May, 1610;[93] his father, dying two years afterwards, left him an +orphan, and his mother in great poverty. As he grew up, he showed, like +Callot himself, precocious talents in art, and of the same kind. He +eagerly attended all public festivals, games, &c., and on his return +from them made them the subject of grotesque sketches. It was remarked +of him, especially, that he had a curious habit of always beginning +to draw a human figure from the feet, and proceeding upwards to the +head. He was struck at a very early period of his pursuit of art by the +style of Callot, of which, at first, he was a servile imitator, but he +afterwards abandoned some of its peculiarities, and adopted a style +which was more his own, though still founded upon that of Callot. He +almost rivalled Callot in his success in grouping multitudes of figures +together, and hence he also was much employed in producing engravings +of sieges, festive entertainments, and such elaborate subjects. As +Callot's aspirations had been directed towards Italy, those of Della +Bella were turned towards France, and when in the latter days of +the ministry of Cardinal Richelieu, the grand duke of Florence sent +Alexandro del Nero as his resident ambassador in Paris, Della Bella +was permitted to accompany him. Richelieu was occupied in the siege +of Arras, and the engraving of that event was the foundation of Della +Bella's fame in France, where he remained about ten years, frequently +employed on similar subjects. He subsequently visited Flanders and +Holland, and at Amsterdam made the acquaintance of Rembrandt. He +returned to Florence in 1650, and died there on the 23rd of July, 1664. + + [93] The materials for the history of Della Bella and his works, + will be found in a carefully compiled volume, by C. A. Jombert, + entitled, "Essai d'un Catalogue de l'Oeuvre d'Etienne de la + Bella." 8vo., Paris, 1772. + + [Illustration: _No. 168. A Witch Mounted._] + +While still in Florence, Della Bella executed four prints of dwarfs +quite in the grotesque style of Callot. In 1637, on the occasion of +the marriage of the grand duke Ferdinand II., Della Bella published +engravings of the different scenes represented, or performed, on that +occasion. These were effected by very elaborate machinery, and were +represented in six engravings, the fifth of which (_scena quinta_) +represents hell (_d' Inferno_), and is filled with furies, demons, and +witches, which might have found a place in Callot's "Temptation of St. +Anthony." + +A specimen of these is given in our cut No. 168--a naked witch seated +upon a skeleton of an animal that might have been borrowed from some +far distant geological period. In 1642, Della Bella executed a set of +small "Caprices," consisting of thirteen plates, from the eighth of +which we take our cut No. 169. It represents a beggar-woman, carrying +one child on her back, while another is stretched on the ground. In +this class of subjects Della Bella imitated Callot, but the copyist +never succeeded in equalling the original. His best style, as an +original artist of burlesque and caricature, is shown in a set of five +plates of Death carrying away people of different ages, which he +executed in 1648. The fourth of this set is copied in our cut No. 170, +and represents Death carrying off, on his shoulder, a young woman, in +spite of her struggles to escape from him. + + [Illustration: _No. 169. Beggary._] + +With the close of the seventeenth century these "Caprices" and +masquerade scenes began to be no longer in vogue, and caricature and +burlesque assumed new forms; but Callot and Della Bella had many +followers, and their examples had a lasting influence upon art. + +We must not forget that a celebrated artist, in another country, at the +end of the same century, the well-known Romain de Hooghe, was produced +from the school of Callot, in which he had learnt, not the arts of +burlesque and caricature, but that of skilfully grouping multitudes of +figures, especially in subjects representing episodes of war, tumults, +massacres, and public processions. + +Of Romain de Hooghe we shall have to speak again in a subsequent +chapter. In his time the art of engraving had made great advance +on the Continent, and especially in France, where it met with more +encouragement than elsewhere. In England this art had, on the whole, +made much less progress, and was in rather a low condition, one branch +only excepted, that of portraits. Of the two distinguished engravers +in England during the seventeenth century, Hollar was a Bohemian, and +Faithorne, though an Englishman, learnt his art in France. We only +began to have an English school when Dutch and French engravers came in +with King William to lay the groundwork. + + [Illustration: _No. 170. Death carrying off his Prey._] + + + + + CHAPTER XIX. + + THE SATIRICAL LITERATURE OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.--PASQUIL.-- + MACARONIC POETRY.--THE EPISTOL OBSURORUM VIRORUM.--RABELAIS.-- + COURT OF THE QUEEN OF NAVARRE, AND ITS LITERARY CIRCLE; + BONAVENTURE DES PERIERS.--HENRI ETIENNE.--THE LIGUE, AND ITS + SATIRE: THE "SATYRE MNIPPE." + + +The sixteenth century, especially on the Continent, was a period of +that sort of violent agitation which is most favourable to the growth +of satire. Society was breaking up, and going through a course of +decomposition, and it presented to the view on every side spectacles +which provoked the mockery, perhaps more than the indignation, of +lookers-on. Even the clergy had learnt to laugh at themselves, and +almost at their own religion; and people who thought or reflected were +gradually separating into two classes--those who cast all religion +from them, and rushed into a jeering scepticism, and those who entered +seriously and with resolution into the work of reformation. The +latter found most encouragement among the Teutonic nations, while the +sceptical element appears to have had its birth in Italy, and even in +Rome itself, where, among popes and cardinals, religion had degenerated +into empty forms. + +At some period towards the close of the fifteenth century, a mutilated +ancient statue was accidentally dug up in Rome, and it was erected +on a pedestal in a place not far from the Ursini Palace. Opposite +it stood the shop of a shoemaker, named Pasquillo, or Pasquino, the +latter being the form most commonly adopted at a later period. This +Pasquillo was notorious as a facetious fellow, and his shop was usually +crowded by people who went there to tell tales and hear news; and, as +no other name had been invented for the statue, people agreed to give +it the name of the shoemaker, and they called it Pasquillo. It became +a custom, at certain seasons, to write on pieces of paper satirical +epigrams, sonnets, and other short compositions in Latin or Italian, +mostly of a personal character, in which the writer declared whatever +he had seen or heard to the discredit of somebody, and these were +published by depositing them with the statue, whence they were taken +and read. One of the Latin epigrams which pleads against committing +these short personal satires to print, calls the time at which it was +usual to compose them Pasquil's festival:-- + + Jam redit illa dies in qua Romana juventus + Pasquilli festum concelebrabit ovans. + Sed versus impressos obsecro ut edere omittas, + Ne noceant iterum qu nocuere semel. + +The festival was evidently a favourite one, and well celebrated. "The +soldiers of Xerxes," says another epigram, placed in Pasquil's mouth, +"were not so plentiful as the paper bestowed upon me; I shall soon +become a bookseller"-- + + Armigerm Xerxi non copia tanta papyri + Quanta mihi: fiam bibliopola statim. + +The name of Pasquil was soon given to the papers which were deposited +with the statue, and eventually a _pasquil_, or _pasquin_, was only +another name for a lampoon or libel. Not far from this statue stood +another, which was found in the forum of Mars (_Martis forum_), and was +thence popularly called Marforio. Some of these satirical writings were +composed in the form of dialogues between Pasquil and Marforio, or of +messages from one to the other. + +A collection of these pasquils was published in 1544 in two small +volumes.[94] Many of them are extremely clever, and they are sharply +pointed. The popes are frequent objects of bitterest satire. Thus we +are reminded in two lines upon pope Alexander VI. (_sextus_), the +infamous Borgia, that Tarquin had been a Sextus, and Nero also, and now +another Sextus was at the head of the Romans, and told that Rome was +always ruined under a Sextus-- + + De Alexandro VI. Pont. + _Sextus Tarquinius, Sextus Nero, Sextus et iste: + Semper sub Sextis perdita Roma fuit._ + +The following is given for an epitaph on Lucretia Borgia, pope +Alexander's profligate daughter:-- + + _Hoc tumulo dormit Lucretia nomine, sed re + Thais, Alexandri filia, sponsa, nurus._ + +[94] "Pasquillorum Tomi duo." Eleutheropoli, MDXLIIII. + +In another of a rather later date, Rome, addressing herself to Pasquil, +is made to complain of two successive popes, Clement VII. (Julio de +Medicis, 1523-1534) and Paul III. (Alexandro Farnese, 1534-1549), and +also of Leo X. (1513-1521). "I am," Rome says, "sick enough with the +physician (_Medicus_, as a pun on the Medicis), I was also the prey of +the lion (_Leo_), now, Paul, you tear my vitals like a wolf. You, Paul, +are not a god to me, as I thought in my folly, but you are a wolf, +since you tear the food from my mouth"-- + + _Sum Medico satis gra, fui quoque prda Leonis, + Nunc mea dilaceras viscera, Paule, lupus. + Non es, Paule, mihi numen, ceu stulta putabam, + Sed lupus es, quoniam subtrahis ore cibum._ + +Another epigram, addressed to Rome herself, involves a pun in Greek +(in the words _Paulos_, Paul, and _Phaulos_, wicked). "Once, Rome," it +says, "lords of lords were thy subjects, now thou in thy wretchedness +art subject to the serfs of serfs; once you listened to the oracles of +St. Paul, but now you perform the abominable commands of the wicked"-- + + _Quondam, Roma, tibi suberant domini dominorum, + Servorum servis nunc miseranda subes; + Audisti quondam divini oracula +Paulou+, + At nunc +tn phauln+ jussa nefanda facis._ + +The idea, of course, is the contrast of Rome in her Pagan glory, with +Rome in her Christian debasement, very much the same as that which +struck Gibbon, and gave birth to his great history of Rome's "decline +and fall."[95] + + [95] Pasquil and Pasquin became, during the latter part of the + sixteenth and the whole of the seventeenth centuries, a + well-known name in French and English literature. In English + popular literature he was turned into a jester, and a book was + published in 1604 under the title "Pasquil's Jests; with the + Merriments of Mother Bunch. Wittie, pleasant, and delightfull." + +The pasquils formed a body of satire which struck indiscriminately at +everybody within its range, but satirists were now rising who took for +their subjects special cases of the general disorder. Rotten at the +heart, society presented an external glossiness, a mixture of pedantry +and affectation, which offered subjects enough for ridicule in whatever +point of view it was taken. The ecclesiastical body was in a state of +fermentation, out of which new feelings and new doctrines were about to +rise. The old learning and literature of the middle ages remained in +form after their spirit had passed away, and they were now contending +clumsily and unsuccessfully against new learning and literature of a +more refined and healthier character. Feudalism itself had fallen, or +it was struggling vainly against new political principles, yet the +aristocracy clung to feudal forms and feudal assumptions, with an +exaggeration which was meant for an appearance of strength. Among the +literary affectations of this false feudalism, was the fashion for +reading the long, dry, old romances of chivalry; while the churchmen +and schoolmen were corrupting the language in which medival learning +had been expressed, into a form the most barbarous, or introducing +words compounded from the later into the vernacular tongue. These +peculiarities were among the first to provoke literary satire. Italy, +where this class of satire originated, gave it its name also, though it +appears still to be a matter of doubt why it was called _macaronic_, +or in its Italian form _maccharonea_. Some have considered this name +to have been taken from the article of food called _macaroni_, to +which the Italians were, and still are, so much attached; while others +pretend that it was derived from an old Italian word _macarone_, which +meant a lubberly fellow. Be this, however, as it may, what is called +macaronic composition, which consists in giving a Latin form to words +taken from the vulgar tongue, and mixing them with words which are +purely Latin, was introduced in Italy at the close of the fifteenth +century. + +Four Italian writers in macaronic verse are known to have lived before +the year 1500.[96] The first of these was named Fossa, and he tells +us that he composed his poem entitled "Vigonce," on the second day +of May, 1494. It was printed in 1502. Bassano, a native of Mantua, +and the author of a macaronic which bears no title, was dead in 1499; +and another, a Paduan named Fifi degli Odassi, was born about the +year 1450. Giovan Georgio Allione, of Asti, who is believed also to +have written during the last ten years of the fifteenth century, +is a name better known through the edition of his French works, +published by Monsieur J. C. Brunet in 1836. All these present the +same coarseness and vulgarity of sentiment, and the same licence in +language and description, which appear to have been taken as necessary +characteristics of macaronic composition. Odassi appears to give +support to the derivation of the name from macaroni, by making the +principal character of his poem a fabricator of that article in Padua-- + + _Est unus in Padua natus speciale cusinus, + In maccharonea princeps bonus atque magister._ + + [96] The great authority on the history of Macaronic literature is my + excellent friend Monsieur Octave Delepierre, and I will simply + refer the reader to his two valuable publications, "Macaronana, + ou Mlanges de Littrature Macaronique des differents Peuples de + l'Europe," 8vo., Paris, 1852; and "Macaronana," 4to., 1863; the + latter printed for the Philobiblon Club. + +But the great matter of macaronic poetry was Teofilo Folengo, of whose +life we know just sufficient to give us a notion of the personal +character of these old literary caricaturists. Folengo was descended +from a noble family, which had its seat at the village of Cipada, near +Mantua, where he was born on the 8th of November, 1491, and baptised by +the name of Girolamo. He pursued his studies, first in the university +of Ferrara, under the professor Visago Cocaio, and afterwards in that +of Bologna, under Pietro Pomponiazzo; or rather, he ought to have +pursued them, for his love of poetry, and his gaiety of character, led +him to neglect them, and at length his irregularities became so great, +that he was obliged to make a hasty flight from Bologna. He was ill +received at home, and he left it also, and appears to have subsequently +led a wild life, during part of which he adopted the profession of a +soldier, until at length he took refuge in a Benedictine convent near +Brescia, in 1507, and became a monk. The discipline of this house +had become entirely relaxed, and the monks appear to have lived very +licentiously; and Folengo, who, on his admission to the order, had +exchanged his former baptismal name for Teofilo, readily conformed to +their example. Eventually he abandoned the convent and the habit, ran +away with a lady named Girolama Dedia, and for some years he led a +wandering, and, it would seem, very irregular life. Finally, in 1527, +he returned to his old profession of a monk, and remained in it until +his death, in the December of 1544. He is said to have been extremely +vain of his poetical talents, and a story is told of him which, even if +it were invented, illustrates well the character which was popularly +given to him. It is said that when young, he aspired to excel in +Latin poetry, and that he wrote an epic which he himself believed to +be _superior_ to the neid. When, however, he had communicated the +work to his friend the bishop of Mantua, and that prelate, intending +to compliment him, told him that he had equalled Virgil, he was so +mortified, that he threw the manuscript on the fire, and from that time +devoted his talents entirely to the composition of macaronic verse. + +Such was the man who has justly earned the reputation of being the +first of macaronic poets. When he adopted this branch of literature, +while he was in the university of Bologna, he assumed in writing it +the name of Merlinus Cocaius, or Coccaius, probably from the name of +his professor at Ferrara. Folengo's printed poems consist of--1. The +Zanitonella, a pastoral in seven eclogues, describing the love of +Tonellus for Zanina; 2, the macaronic romance of Baldus, Folengo's +principal and most remarkable work; 3, the Moscha, or dreadful battle +between the flies and the ants; and 4, a book of Epistles and Epigrams. + +The first edition of the Baldus appeared in 1517. It is a sort of +parody on the romances of chivalry, and combines a jovial satire upon +everything, which, as has been remarked, spares neither religion nor +politics, science nor literature, popes, kings, clergy, nobility, or +people. It consists of twenty-five cantos, or, as they are termed in +the original, _phantasi_, fantasies. In the first we are told of the +origin of Baldus. There was at the court of France a famous knight +named Guy, descended from that memorable paladin Renaud of Montauban. +The king, who showed a particular esteem for Guy, had also a daughter +of surpassing beauty, named Balduine, who had fallen in love with +Guy, and he was equally amorous of the princess. In the sequel of a +grand tournament, at which Guy has distinguished himself greatly, he +carries off Balduine, and the two lovers fly on foot, in the disguise +of beggars, reach the Alps in safety, and cross them into Italy. At +Cipada, in the territory of Brescia, they are hospitably entertained by +a generous peasant named Berte Panade, with whom the princess Balduine, +who approaches her time of confinement, is left; while her lover goes +forth to conquer at least a marquisate for her. After his departure +she gives birth to a fine boy, which is named Baldus. Such, as told +in the second canto, is the origin of Folengo's hero, who is destined +to perform marvellous acts of chivalry. The peasant Berte Panade has +also a son named Zambellus, by a mother who had died in childbirth +of him. Baldus passes for the son of Berte also, so that the two are +supposed to be brothers. Baldus is successively led through a series of +extraordinary adventures, some low and vulgar, others more chivalrous, +and some of them exhibiting a wild fertility of imagination, which are +too long to enable me to take my readers through them, until at length +he is left by the poet in the country of Falsehood and Charlatanism, +which is inhabited by astrologers, necromancers, and poets. Thus +is the hero Baldus dragged through a great number of marvellous +accidents, some of them vulgar, many of them ridiculous, and some, +again, wildly poetical, but all of them presenting, in one form or +other, an opportunity for satire upon some of the follies, or vices, +or corruptions of his age. The hybrid language in which the whole is +written, gives it a singularly grotesque appearance; yet from time to +time we have passages which show that the author was capable of writing +true poetry, although it is mixed with a great amount of coarse and +licentious ideas, expressed no less coarsely and licentiously. What we +may term the filth, indeed, forms a large proportion of the Italian +macaronic poetry. The pastoral of Zanitonella presents, as might be +expected, more poetic beauty than the romance of Balbus. As an example +of the language of the latter, and indeed of that of the Italian +macaronics in general, I give a few lines of a description of a storm +at sea, from the twelfth canto, with a literal translation:-- + + _Jam gridor terias hominum concussit abyssos, + Sentiturque ingens cordarum stridor, et ipse + Pontus habet pavidos vultus, mortisque colores. + Nunc Sirochus habit palmam, nunc Borra superchiat; + Irrugit pelagus, tangit quoque fluctibus astra, + Fulgure flammigero creber lampezat Olympus; + Vela forata micant crebris lacerata balottis; + Horrendam mortem nautis ea cuncta minazzant. + Nunc sbalzata ratis celsum tangebat Olympum, + Nunc subit infernam unda sbadacchiante paludem._ + + TRANSLATION + + _Now the clamour of the men shook the ethereal abysses, + And the mighty crashing of the ropes is felt, and the very + Sea has pale looks, and the hue of death. + Now the Sirocco has the palm, now Eurus exults over it; + The sea roars, and touches the stars with its waves, + Olympus continually blazes out with flaming thunder, + The pierced sails glitter torn with frequent thunderbolts; + All these threaten frightful death to the sailors. + Now the ship tossed up touched the top of Olympus, + Now, the wave yawning, it sinks into the infernal lake._ + +Teofilo Folengo was followed by a number of imitators, of whom it +will be sufficient to state that he stands in talent as far above his +followers as above those who preceded him. One of these minor Italian +macaronic writers, named Bartolommeo Bolla, of Bergamo, who flourished +in the latter half of the sixteenth century, had the vanity to call +himself, in the title of one of his books, "the Apollo of poets, and +the Cocaius of this age;" but a modern critic has remarked of him +that he is as far removed from his model Folengo, as his native +town Bergamo is distant from Siberia. An earlier poet, named Guarino +Capella, a native of the town of Sarsina, in the country of Forli, on +the borders of Tuscany, approached far nearer in excellence to the +prince of macaronic writers. His work also is a mock romance, the +history of "Cabrinus, king of Gagamagoga," in six books or cantos, +which was printed at Arimini in 1526, and is now a book of excessive +rarity. + +The taste for macaronics passed rather early, like all other fashions +in that age, from Italy into France, where it first brought into +literary reputation a man who, if he had not the great talent of +Folengo, possessed a very considerable amount of wit and gaiety. +Antoine de la Sable, who Latinised his name into Antonius de Arena, +was born of a highly respectable family at Soliers, in the diocese +of Toulon, about the year 1500, and, being destined from his youth +to follow the profession of the law, studied under the celebrated +jurisconsult Alciatus. He had only arrived at the simple dignity of +_juge_, at St. Remy, in the diocese of Arles, when he died in the year +1544. In fact, he appears to have been no very diligent student, and we +gather from his own confessions that his youth had been rather wild. +The volume containing his macaronics, the second edition of which (as +far as the editions are known) was printed in 1529, bears a title which +will give some notion of the character of its contents,--"_Provencalis +de bragardissima villa de Soleriis, ad suos compagnones qui sunt de +persona friantes, bassas dansas et branlas practicantes novellas, de +guerra Romana, Neapolitana, et Genuensi mandat; una cum epistola ad +falotissimam suam garsam, Janam Rosam, pro passando tempora_"--(_i.e._ +a Provenal of the most swaggering town of Soliers, sends this to his +companions, who are dainty of their persons, practising basse dances +and new brawls, concerning the war of Rome, Naples, and Genoa; with an +epistle to his most merry wench, Jeanne Rose, for pastime). In the +first of these poems Arena traces in his burlesque verse, which is an +imitation of Folengo, his own adventures and sufferings in the war in +Italy which led to the sack of Rome, in 1527, and in the subsequent +expeditions to Naples and Genoa. From the picture of the horrors of +war, he passes very willingly to describe the joyous manners of the +students in Provenal universities, of whom he tells us, that they are +all fine gallants, and always in love with the pretty girls. + + _Gentigalantes sunt omnes instudiantes, + Et bellas garsas semper amare solent._ + +He goes on to describe the scholars as great quarrellers, as well as +lovers of the other sex, and after dwelling on their gaiety and love +of the dance, he proceeds to treat in the same burlesque style on the +subject of dancing; but I pass over this to speak of Arena's principal +piece, the satirical description of the invasion of Provence by the +emperor Charles V. in 1536. This curious poem, which is entitled +"Meygra Enterprisa Catoloqui imperatoris," and which extends to upwards +of two thousand lines, opens with a laudatory address to the king of +France, Franois I., and with a sneer at the pride of the emperor, who, +believing himself to be the master of the whole world, had foolishly +thought to take away France and the cities of Provence from their +rightful monarch. It was Antonio de Leyva, the boaster, who had put +this project into the emperor's head, and they had already pillaged +and ravaged a good part of Provence, and were dividing the plunder, +when, harassed continually by the peasantry, the invaders were brought +to a stand by the difficulty of subsisting in a devastated country, +and by the diseases to which this difficulty gave rise. Nevertheless, +the Spaniards and their allies committed terrible devastation, which +is described by Arena in strong language. He commemorates the valiant +resistance of his native town of Soliers, which, however, was taken +and sacked, and he lost in it his house and property. Arles held the +imperialists at bay, while the French, under the constable Montmorency, +established themselves firmly at Avignon. At length disease gained +possession of Antonio de Leyva himself, and the emperor, who had been +making an unsuccessful demonstration against Marseilles, came to him +in his sickness. The first lines of the description of this interview, +will serve as a specimen of the language of the French macaronics:-- + + _Sed de Marsella bragganti quando retornat, + Fort male contentus, quando repolsat eum, + Antonium Levam trobavit forte maladum, + Cui mors terribilis triste cubile parat. + Ethica torquet eum per costas, et dolor ingens: + Cum male res vadit, vivere fachat eum. + Dixerunt medici, speransa est nulla salutis: + Ethicus in testa vivere pauca potest. + Ante suam mortem voluit parlare per horam + Imperelatori, consiliumque dare. + Scis, Csar, stricte nostri groppantur amores, + Namque duas animas corpus utrumque tenet, + Heu! fuge Provensam fortem, fuge littus amarum, + Fac tibi non noceat gloria tanta modo._ + + TRANSLATION. + + _But when he returns from boasting Marseilles, + Very ill content, that she had repulsed him, + He found Antonio de Leyva very ill, + For whom terrible death is preparing a sorrowful bed. + Hectic fever tortures him in the ribs, and great pain; + Since things are going ill, he is weary of life. + Before his death he wished to speak an hour + To the emperor, and to give him counsel. + "You know, Csar, our affections are closely bound together, + For either body holds the two souls, + Alas! fly Provence the strong, fly the bitter shore, + Take care that your great glory prove not an injury to you."_ + +Thus Leyva goes on to persuade the emperor to abandon his enterprise, +and then dies. Arena exults over his death, and over the emperor's +grief for his loss, and then proceeds to describe the disastrous +retreat of the imperial army, and the glory of France in her king. + +Antonius de Arena wrote with vigour and humour, but his verses are +tame in comparison with his model, Folengo. The taste for macaronic +verse never took strong root in France, and the few obscure writers +who attempted to shine in that kind of composition are now forgotten, +except by the laborious bibliographer. One named Jean Germain, wrote +a macaronic history of the invasion of Provence by the imperialists +in rivalry of Arenas. I will not follow the taste for this class of +burlesque composition into Spain or Germany, but merely add that it +was not adopted in England until the beginning of the seventeenth +century, when several authors employed it at about the same time. +The most perfect example of these early English macaronics is the +"Polemo-Middiana," _i.e._ battle of the dunghill, by the talented and +elegant-minded Drummond of Hawthornden. We may take a single example of +the English macaronic from this poem, which will not need an English +translation. One of the female characters in the dunghill war, calls, +among others, to her aid-- + + _Hunc qui dirtiferas tersit cum dishclouty dishras, + Hunc qui gruelias scivit bene lickere plettas, + Et saltpannifumos, et widebricatos fisheros, + Hellosque etiam salteros duxit ab antris, + Coalheughos nigri girnantes more divelli; + Lifeguardamque sibi svas vocat improba lassas, + Maggyam magis doctam milkare covoeas, + Et doctam suepare flouras, et sternere beddas, + Quque novit spinnare, et longas ducere threddas; + Nansyam, claves bene qu keepaverat omnes, + Quque lanam cardare solet greasy-fingria Betty._ + +Perhaps before this was written, the eccentric Thomas Coryat had +published in the volume of his Crudities, printed in 1611, a short +piece of verse, which is perfect in its macaronic style, but in which +Italian and other foreign words are introduced, as well as English. The +celebrated comedy of "Ignoramus," composed by George Ruggle in 1615, +may also be mentioned as containing many excellent examples of English +macaronics. + +While Italy was giving birth to macaronic verse, the satire upon the +ignorance and bigotry of the clergy was taking another form in Germany, +which arose from some occurrences which it will be necessary to relate. +In the midst of the violent religious agitation at the beginning of +the sixteenth century in Germany, there lived a German Jew named +Pfeffercorn, who embraced Christianity, and to show his zeal for his +new faith, he obtained from the emperor an edict ordering the Talmud +and all the Jewish writings which were contrary to the Christian faith +to be burnt. There lived at the same time a scholar of distinction, +and of more liberal views than most of the scholastics of his time, +named John Reuchlin. He was a relative of Melancthon, and was secretary +to the palsgrave, who was tolerant like himself. The Jews, as might +be expected, were unwilling to give up their books to be burnt, and +Reuchlin wrote in their defence, under the assumed name of Capnion, +which is a Hebrew translation of his own name of Reuchlin, meaning +smoke, and urged that it was better to refute the books in question +than to burn them. The converted Pfeffercorn replied in a book entitled +"Speculum Manuale," in answer to which Reuchlin wrote his "Speculum +Oculare." The controversy had already provoked much bigoted ill-feeling +against Reuchlin. The learned doctors of the university of Cologne +espoused the cause of Pfeffercorn, and the principal of the university, +named in Latin Ortuinus Gratius, supported by the Sorbonne in Paris, +lent himself to be the violent organ of the intolerant party. Hard +pressed by his bigoted opponents, Reuchlin found good allies, but one +of the best of these was a brave baron named Ulric von Hutten, of an +old and noble family, born in 1488 in the castle of Staeckelberg, +in Franconia. He had studied in the schools at Fulda, Cologne, and +Frankfort on the Oder, and distinguished himself so much as a scholar, +that he obtained the degree of Master of Arts before the usual age. +But Ulric possessed an adventurous and chivalrous spirit, which led +him to embrace the profession of a soldier, and he served in the wars +in Italy, where he was distinguished by his bravery. He was at Rome +in 1516, and defended Reuchlin against the Dominicans. The same year +appeared the first edition of that marvellous book, the "Epistol +Obscurorum Virorum," one of the most remarkable satires that the world +has yet seen. It is believed that this book came entirely from the +pen of Ulric von Hutten; and the notion that Reuchlin himself, or +any others of his friends, had a share in it appears to be without +foundation. Ulric was in the following year made poet-laureat. +Nevertheless, this book greatly incensed the monks against him, and he +was often threatened with assassination. Yet he boldly advocated the +cause and embraced the opinions of Luther, and was one of the staunch +supporters of Lutheranism. After a very turbulent life, Ulric von +Hutten died in the August of the year 1523. + +The "Epistol Obscurorum Virorum," or letters of obscure men, are +supposed to be addressed to Ortuinus Gratius, mentioned above, by +various individuals, some his scholars, others his friends, but all +belonging to the bigoted party opposed to Reuchlin, and they were +designed to throw ridicule on the ignorance, bigotry, and immorality +of the clergy of the Romish church. The old scholastic learning +had become debased into a heavy and barbarous system of theology, +literary composition consisted in writing a no less barbarous Latin, +and even the few classical writers who were admitted into the schools, +were explained and commented upon in a strange half-theological +fashion. These old scholastics were bitterly opposed to the new +learning, which had taken root in Italy, and was spreading abroad, +and they spoke contemptuously of it as "secular." The letters of the +obscure individuals relate chiefly to the dispute between Reuchlin +and Pfeffercorn, to the rivalry between the old scholarship and the +new, and to the low licentious lives of the theologists; and they +are written in a style of Latin which is intended for a parody on +that of the latter, and which closely resembles that which we call +"dog-Latin."[97] They are full of wit and humour of the most exquisite +description, but they too often descend into details, treated in terms +which can only be excused by the coarse and licentious character of +the age. The literary and scientific questions discussed in these +letters are often very droll. The first in order of the correspondents +of Ortuinus Gratius, who boasts of the rather formidable name, Thomas +Langschneiderius, and addresses master Ortuinus as "poet, orator, +philosopher, and theologist, and more if he would," propounds to him a +difficult question:-- + + "There was here one day an Aristotelian dinner, and doctors, + licenciates, and masters too, were very jovial, and I was + there too, and we drank at the first course three draughts of + Malmsey, ... and then we had six dishes of flesh and chickens + and capons, and one of fish, and as we passed from one dish to + another, we continually drunk wine of Kotzburg and the Rhine, + and ale of Embeck, and Thurgen, and Neuburg. And the masters + were well satisfied, and said that the new masters had acquitted + themselves well and with great honour. Then the masters in their + hilarity began to talk learnedly on great questions, and one + asked whether it were correct to say _magister nostrandus_, or + _noster magistrandus_, for a person fit to be made doctor in + theology.... And immediately Master Warmsemmel, who is a subtle + Scotist, and has been master eighteen years, and was in his time + twice rejected and thrice delayed for the degree of master, + and he went on offering himself, until he was promoted for the + honour of the university, ... spoke, and held that we should say + _noster magistrandus_.... Then Master Andreas Delitsch, who is + very subtle, and half poet, half artist (_i.e._ one who professed + in the faculty of arts), physician, and jurist; and now he + reads ordinarily 'Ovid on the Metamorphoses,' and expounds all + the fables allegorically and literally, and I was his hearer, + because he expounds very fundamentally, and he also reads at home + Quintillian and Juvencus, and he held the opposite to Master + Warmsemmel, and said that we ought to say _magister nostrandus_. + For as there is a difference between _magister noster_ and _noster + magister_, so also there is a difference between _magister + nostrandus_ and _noster magistrandus_; for a doctor in theology + is called _magister noster_, and it is one word, but _noster + magister_ are two words, and it is taken for any master; and he + quoted Horace in support of this. Then the masters much admired + his subtlety, and one drank to him a cup of Neuburg ale. And + he said, 'I will wait, but spare me,' and touched his hat, and + laughed heartily, and drank to Master Warmsemmel, and said, + 'There, master, don't think I am an enemy,' and he drank it off at + one draught, and Master Warmsemmel replied to him with a strong + draught. And the masters were all merry till the bell rang for + Vespers." + + [97] This style differs entirely from the macaronic. It consists + merely in using the words of the Latin language with the forms + and construction of the vulgar tongue, as illustrated by the + directions of the professor who, lecturing in the schools, was + interrupted by the entrance of a dog, and shouted out to the + doorkeeper, _Verte canem ex_, meaning thereby that he should + "turn the dog out." It was perhaps from this, or some similar + occurrence, that this barbarous Latin gained the name of + dog-Latin. The French call it _Latin de cuisine_. + +Master Ortuin is pressed for his judgment on this weighty question. A +similar scene described in another letter ends less peacefully. The +correspondent on this occasion is Magister Bornharddus Plumilegus, who +addresses Ortuinus Gratius as follows:-- + + "Wretched is the mouse which has only one hole for a refuge! So + also I may say of myself, most venerable sir, for I should be poor + if I had only one friend, and when that one should fail me, then + I should not have another to treat me with kindness. As is the + case now with a certain poet here, who is called George Sibutus, + and he is one of the secular poets, and reads publicly in poetry, + and is in other respects a good fellow (_bonus socius_). But as + you know these poets, when they are not theologists like you, will + always reprehend others, and despise the theologists. And once + in a drinking party in his house, when we were drinking Thurgen + ale, and sat until the hour of tierce, and I was moderately drunk, + because that ale rose into my head, then there was one who was not + before friendly with me, and I drank to him half a cup, and he + accepted it. But afterwards he would not return the compliment. + And thrice I cautioned him, and he would not reply, but sat in + silence and said nothing. Then I thought to myself, Behold this + man treats thee with contempt, and is proud, and always wants to + confound you. And I was stirred in my anger, and took the cup, and + threw it at his head. Then that poet was angry at me, and said + that I had caused a disturbance in his house, and said I should go + out of his house in the devil's name. Then I replied, 'What matter + is it if you are my enemy? I have had as bad enemies as you, and + yet I have stood in spite of them. What matters it if you are a + poet? I have other poets who are my friends, and they are quite as + good as you, _ego bene merdarem in vestram poetriam_! Do you think + I am a fool, or that I was born under a tree like apples?' Then he + called me an ass, and said that I never saw a poet. And I said, + 'You are an ass in your skin, I have seen many more poets than + you.' And I spoke of you.... Wherefore I ask you very earnestly to + write me one piece of verse, and then I will show it to this poet + and others, and I will boast that you are my friend, and you are a + much better poet than he." + +The war against the secular poets, or advocates of the new learning, +is kept up with spirit through this ludicrous correspondence. One +correspondent presses Ortuinus Gratius to "write to me whether it be +necessary for eternal salvation that scholars learn grammar from the +secular poets, such as Virgil, Tullius, Pliny, and others; for," he +adds, "it seems to me that this is not a good method of studying." "As +I have often written to you," says another, "I am grieved that this +ribaldry (_ista ribaldria_), namely, the faculty of poetry, becomes +common, and is spread through all provinces and regions. In my time +there was only one poet, who was called Samuel; and now, in this city +alone, there are at least twenty, and they vex us all who hold with the +ancients. Lately I thoroughly defeated one, who said that _scholaris_ +does not signify a person who goes to the school for the purpose of +learning; and I said, 'Ass! will you correct the holy doctor who +expounded this word?'" The new learning was, of course, identified +with the supporters of Reuchlin. "It is said here," continues the same +correspondent, "that all the poets will side with doctor Reuchlin +against the theologians. I wish all the poets were in the place where +pepper grows, that they might let us go in peace!" + +Master William Lamp, "master of arts," sends to Master Ortuinus +Gratius, a narrative of his adventures in a journey from Cologne to +Rome. First he went to Mayence, where his indignation was moved by the +open manner in which people spoke in favour of Reuchlin, and when he +hazarded a contrary opinion, he was only laughed at, but he held his +tongue, because his opponents all carried arms and looked fierce. "One +of them is a count, and is a long man, and has white hair; and they +say that he takes a man in armour in his hand, and throws him to the +ground, and he has a sword as long as a giant; when I saw him, then I +held my tongue." At Worms, he found things no better, for the "doctors" +spoke bitterly against the theologians, and when he attempted to +expostulate, he got foul words as well as threats, a learned doctor in +medicine affirming "_quod merdaret super nos omnes_." On leaving Worms, +Lamp and his companion, another theologist, fell in with plunderers who +made them pay two florins to drink, "and I said _occulte_, Drink what +may the devil bless to you!" Subsequently they fell into low amours +at country inns, which are described coarsely, and then they reached +Insprucken, where they found the emperor, and his court and army, with +whole manners and proceedings Magister Lamp became sorely disgusted. +I pass over other adventures till they reach Mantua, the birthplace +of Virgil, and of a late medival Latin poet, named from it Baptista +Mantuanus. Lamp, in his hostile spirit towards the "secular poets," +proceeds,--"And my companion said, 'Here Virgil was born.' I replied, +'What do I care for that pagan? We will go to the Carmelites, and see +Baptista Mantuanus, who is twice as good as Virgil, as I have heard +full ten times from Ortuinus;' and I told him how you once reprehended +Donatus, when he says, 'Virgil was the most learned of poets, and +the best;' and you said, 'If Donatus were here, I would tell him to +his face that he lies, for Baptista Mantuanus is above Virgil.' And +when we came to the monastery of the Carmelites, we were told that +Baptista Mantuanus was dead; then I said, 'May he rest in peace!'" They +continued their journey by Bologna, where they found the inquisitor +Jacob de Hochstraten, and Florence, to Siena. "After this there are +small towns, and one is called Monte-flascon, where we drunk excellent +wine, such as I never drank in my life. And I asked the host what that +wine is called, and he replied that it is lachryma Christi. Then said +my companion, 'I wish Christ would cry in our country!' And so we drank +a good bout, and two days after we entered Rome." + +In the course of these letters the theologists, the poets especially, +the character of the clergy, and particularly Reuchlin and +Pfeffercorn, afford continual subjects for dispute and pleasantry. +The last mentioned individual, in the opinion of some, had merited +hanging for theft, and it was pretended that the Jews had expelled +him from their society for his wicked courses. One argued that all +Jews stink, and as it was well known that Pfeffercorn continued to +stink like a Jew, it was quite evident that he could not be a good +Christian. Some of Ortuinus's correspondents consult him on difficult +theological questions. Here is an example in a letter from one Henricus +Schaffmulius, another of his scholars who had made the journey to +Rome:-- + + "Since, before I journeyed to the Court, you said to me that I am + to write often to you, and that sometimes I am to send you any + theological questions, which you will solve for me better than + the courtiers of Rome, therefore now I ask your mastership what + you hold as to the case when any one on a Friday, or any other + fast day, eats an egg, and there is a chicken inside. Because + the other day we sat in a tavern in the Campo-flore, and made a + collation, and eat eggs, and I, opening an egg, saw that there was + a young chicken in it, which I showed to my companion, and then he + said, 'Eat it quickly before the host sees it, for if he sees it, + then you will be obliged to give a carlino or a julio for a hen, + because it is the custom here that, when the host places anything + on the table, you must pay for it, for they will not take it back. + And when he sees there is a young hen in the egg, he will say, + Pay me for the hen, because he reckons a small one the same as a + large one.' And I immediately sucked up the egg, and with it the + chicken, and afterwards I bethought me that it was Friday, and I + said to my companion. 'You have caused me to commit a mortal sin, + in eating flesh on Friday.' And he said that it is not a mortal + sin, nor even a venial sin, because that embryo of a chicken is + not reckoned other than an egg till it is born; and he told me + that it is as in cheeses, in which there are sometimes worms, + and in cherries, and fresh peas and beans, yet they are eaten on + Fridays, and also in the vigils of the apostles. But the hosts + are such rogues, that they say that they are flesh, that they may + have more money. Then I went away, and thought about it. And, _per + Deum_! Magister Ortuinus, I am much troubled, and I know not how + I ought to rule myself. If I went to ask advice of a courtier [of + the papal court], I know that they have not good consciences. It + seems to me that these young hens in the eggs are flesh, because + the matter is already formed and figured in members and bodies of + an animal, and it has life; it is otherwise with worms in cheeses + and other things, because worms are reputed for fishes, as I have + heard from a physician, who is a very good naturalist. Therefore I + ask you very earnestly, that you will give me your reply on this + question. Because if you hold that it is a mortal sin, then I will + purchase an absolution here, before I return to Germany. Also you + must know that our master Jacobus de Hochstraten has obtained a + thousand florins from the bank, and I think that with these he + will gain his cause, and the devil confound that John Reuchlin, + and the other poets and jurists, because they will be against + the church of God, that is, against the theologists, in whom is + founded the church, as Christ said: Thou art Peter, and upon this + rock I will build my church. And so I commend you to the Lord God. + Farewell. Given from the city of Rome." + +While in Italy macaronic literature was reaching its greatest +perfection, there arose in the very centre of France a man of great +original genius, who was soon to astonish the world by a new form of +satire, more grotesque and more comprehensive than anything that had +been seen before. Teofilo Folengo may fairly be considered as the +precursor of Rabelais, who appears to have taken the Italian satirist +as his model. What we know of the life of Franois Rabelais is rather +obscure at best, and is in some parts no doubt fabulous. He was born +at Chinon in Touraine, either in 1483 or in 1487, for this seems to +be a disputed point, and some doubt has been thrown on the trade or +profession of his father, but the most generally received opinion is +that he was an apothecary. He is said to have shown from his youth a +disposition more inclined to gaiety than to serious pursuits, yet at +an early age he had made great proficiency in learning, and is said to +have acquired a very sufficient knowledge of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, +two of which, at least, were not popular among the popish clergy, and +not only of the modern languages and literature of Italy, Germany, and +Spain, but even of Arabic. Probably this estimate of his acquirements +in learning is rather exaggerated. It is not quite clear where the +young Rabelais gained all this knowledge, for he is said to have been +educated in convents and among monks, and to have become at a rather +early age a Franciscan friar in the convent of Fontenai-le-Compte, in +Lower Poitou, where he became an object of jealousy and ill-feeling to +the other friars by his superior acquirements. It was a tradition, at +least, that the conduct of Rabelais was not very strictly conventual, +and that he had so far shown his contempt for monastic rule, and for +the bigotry of the Romish church, that he was condemned to the prison +of his monastery, upon a diet of bread and water, which, according to +common report, was very uncongenial with the tastes of this jovial +friar. Out of this difficulty he is said to have been helped by his +friend the bishop of Maillezais, who obtained for him the pope's +licence to change the order of St. Francis for the much more easy and +liberal order of St. Benedict, and he became a member of the bishop's +own chapter in the abbey of Maillezais. His unsteady temper, however, +was not long satisfied with this retreat, which he left, and, laying +aside the regular habit, assumed that of a secular priest. In this +character he wandered for some time, and then settled at Montpellier, +where he took a degree as doctor in medicine, and practised for some +time with credit. There he published in 1532 a translation of some +works of Hippocrates and Galen, which he dedicated to his friend the +bishop of Maillezais. The circumstances under which he left Montpellier +are not known, but he is supposed to have gone to Paris upon some +business of the university, and to have remained there. He found +there a staunch friend in Jean de Bellay, bishop of Paris, who soon +afterwards was raised to the rank of cardinal. When the cardinal de +Bellay went as ambassador to Rome from the court of France, Rabelais +accompanied him, it is said in the character of his private medical +adviser, but during his stay in the metropolis of Christendom, as +Christendom was understood in those days by the Romish church, Rabelais +obtained, on the 17th of January, 1536 the papal absolution for all +his transgressions, and licence to return to Maillezais, and practise +medicine there and elsewhere as an act of charity. Thus he became again +a Benedictine monk. He, however, changed again, and became a secular +canon, and finally settled down as the cur of Meudon, near Paris, with +which he also held a fair number of ecclesiastical benefices. Rabelais +died in 1553, according to some in a very religious manner, but others +have given strange accounts of his last moments, representing that, +even when dying, he conversed in the same spirit of mockery, not only +of Romish forms and ceremonies, but of all religions whatever, which +was ascribed to him during his life, and which are but too openly +manifested in the extraordinary satirical romance which has given so +much celebrity to his name. + +During the greater part of his life, Rabelais was exposed to troubles +and persecutions. He was saved from the intrigues of the monks by +the friendly influence of popes and cardinals; and the favour of two +successive kings, Franois I. and Henri II., protected him against the +still more dangerous hostility of the Sorbonne and the parliament of +Paris. This high protection has been advanced as a reason for rejecting +the anecdotes and accounts which have been commonly received relating +to the personal character of Rabelais, and his irregularities may +possibly have been exaggerated by the hatred which he had drawn upon +himself by his writings. But nobody, I think, who knows the character +of society at that time, who compares what we know of the lives of +the other satirists, and who has read the history of Gargantua and +Pantagruel, will consider such an argument of much weight against the +deliberate statements of those who were his contemporaries, or be +inclined to doubt that the writer of this history was a man of jovial +character, who loved a good bottle and a broad joke, and perhaps other +things that were equally objectionable. His books present a sort +of wild riotous orgy, without much order or plan, except the mere +outline of the story, in which is displayed an extraordinary extent +of reading in all classes of literature, from the most learned to the +most popular, with a wonderful command of language, great imagination, +and some poetry, intermixed with a perhaps larger amount of downright +obscene ribaldry, than can be found in the macaronics of Folengo, +in the "Epistol Obscurorum Virorum," or in the works of any of the +other satirists who had preceded him, or were his contemporaries. It +is a broad caricature, poor enough in its story, but enriched with +details, which are brilliant with imagery, though generally coarse, +and which are made the occasions for turning to ridicule everything +that existed. The five books of this romance were published separately +and at different periods, apparently without any fixed intention of +continuing them. The earlier editions of the first part were published +without date, but the earliest editions with dates belong to the year +1535, when it was several times reprinted. It appeared as the life of +Gargantua. This hero is supposed to have flourished in the first half +of the fifteenth century, and to have been the son of Grandgousier, +king of Utopia, a country which lay somewhere in the direction of +Chinon, a prince of an ancient dynasty, but a jovial fellow, who loved +good eating and drinking better than anything else. Grandgousier +married Gargamelle, daughter of the king of the Parpaillos, who became +the mother of Gargantua. The first chapters relate rather minutely +how the child was born, and came out at its mother's ear, why it was +called Gargantua, how it was dressed and treated in infancy, what were +its amusements and disposition, and how Gargantua was put to learning +under the sophists, and made no progress. Thereupon Grandgousier sent +his son to Paris, to seek instruction there, and he proceeds thither +mounted on an immense mare, which had been sent as a present by the +king of Numidia--it must be borne in mind that the royal race of Utopia +were all giants. At Paris the populace assembled tumultuously to +gratify their curiosity in looking at this new scholar; but Gargantua, +besides treating them in a very contemptuous manner, carried off the +great bells of Notre Dame to suspend at the neck of his mare. Great +was the indignation caused by this theft. "All the city was risen up +in sedition, they being, as you know, upon any slight occasions, so +ready to uproars and insurrections, that foreign nations wonder at the +patience of the kings of France, who do not by good justice restrain +them from such tumultuous courses." The citizens take counsel, and +resolve on sending one of the great orators of the university, Master +Janotus de Bragmardo, to expostulate with Gargantua, and obtain the +restoration of the bells. The speech which this worthy addresses to +Gargantua, in fulfilment of his mission, is an amusing parody on the +pedantic style of Parisian oratory. The bells, however, are recovered, +and Gargantua, under skilful instructors, pursues his studies with +credit, until he is suddenly called home by a letter from his father. +In fact, Grandgousier was suddenly involved in a war with his neighbour +Picrocole, king of Lern, caused by a quarrel about cakes between some +cake-makers of Lern and Grandgousier's shepherds, in consequence of +which Picrocole had invaded the dominions of Grandgousier, and was +plundering and ravaging them. His warlike humour is stirred up by the +counsels of his three lieutenants, who persuade him that he is going +to become a great conqueror, and that they will make him master of the +whole world. It is not difficult to see, in the circumstances of the +time, the general aim of the satire contained in the history of this +war. It ends in the entire defeat and disappearance of king Picrocole. +A sensual and jovial monk named brother Jean des Entommeurs, who has +first distinguished himself by his prowess and strength in defending +his own abbey against the invaders, contributes largely to the victory +gained by Gargantua against his father's enemies, and Gargantua +rewards him by founding for him that pleasant abbey of Thlme, a +grand establishment, stored with everything which could contribute to +terrestrial happiness, from which all hypocrites and bigots were to be +excluded, and the rule of which was comprised in the four simple words, +"Do as you like." + +Such is the history of Gargantua, which was afterwards formed by +Rabelais into the first book of his great comic romance. It was +published anonymously, the author merely describing himself as +"l'abstracteur de quinte essence;" but he afterwards adopted the +pseudonyme of Alcofribas Nasier, which is merely an anagram of his own +name, Franois Rabelais. A very improbable story has been handed down +to us relating to this book. It is pretended that, having published +a book of medical science which had no sale, and the publisher +complaining that he had lost money by it, Rabelais promised to make +amends for his loss, and immediately wrote the history of Gargantua, +by which the same book-seller made his fortune. There can be no doubt +that this remarkable satire had a deeper origin than any casual +accident like this; but it was exactly suited to the taste and temper +of the age. It was quite original in its form and style, and it met +with immediate and great success. Numerous editions followed each +other rapidly, and its author, encouraged by its popularity, very soon +afterwards produced a second romance, in continuation, to which he +gave the title of Pantagruel. The caricature in this second romance +is bolder even than in the first, the humour broader, and the satire +more pungent. Grandgousier has disappeared from the scene, and his son, +Gargantua, is king, and has a son named Pantagruel, whose kingdom is +that of the Dipsodes. The first part of this new romance is occupied +chiefly with Pantagruel's youth and education, and is a satire on +the university and on the lawyers, in which the parodies on their +style of pleading as then practised is admirable. In the latter part, +Pantagruel, like his father Gargantua, is engaged in great wars. It was +perhaps the continued success of this new production of his pen which +led Rabelais to go on with it, and form the design of making these two +books part only of a more extensive romance. During his studies in +Paris, Pantagruel has made the acquaintance of a singular individual +named Panurge, who becomes his attached friend and constant companion, +holding somewhat the position of brother Jean in the first book, but +far more crafty and versatile. The whole subject of the third book +arises out of Pantagreul's desire to marry, and its various amusing +episodes describe the different expedients which, at the suggestion of +Panurge, he adopts to arrive at a solution of the question whether his +marriage would be fortunate or not. + +In publishing his fourth book, Rabelais complains that his writings +had raised him enemies, and that he was accused of having at least +written heresy. In fact, he had bitterly provoked both the monks and +the university and parliament; and, as the increasing reaction of +Romanism in France gave more power of persecution to the two latter, +he was not writing without some degree of danger, yet the satire of +each successive book became bolder and more direct. The fifth, which +was left unfinished at his death, and which was published posthumously, +was the most severe of them all. The character of Gargantua, indeed, +was almost forgotten in that of Pantagruel, and Pantagruelism became +an accepted name for the sort of gay, reckless satire of which he was +looked upon as the model. He described it himself as a _certaine gaiet +d'esprit confite en mpris des choses fortuites_, in fact, neither +Romanism nor Protestantism, but simply a jovial kind of Epicurianism. +All the gay wits of the time aspired to be Pantagruelists, and the +remainder of the sixteenth century abounded in wretched imitations of +the style of Rabelais, which are now consigned as mere rarities to the +shelves of the bibliophilist. + +Among the dangers which began to threaten them in France in the earlier +part of the sixteenth century, liberal opinions found an asylum at the +court of a princess who was equally distinguished by her beauty, by her +talents and noble sentiments, and by her accomplishments. Marguerite +d'Angoulme, queen of Navarre, was the only sister of Franois I., who +was her junior by two years, and was affectionately attached to her. +She was born on the 11th of April, 1492. She had married, first, that +unfortunate duke d'Alenon, whose misconduct at Pavia was the cause of +the disastrous defeat of the French, and the captivity of their king. +The duke died, it was said of grief at his misfortune, in 1525; and +two years afterwards, on the 24th of January, 1527, she married Henri +d'Albret, king of Navarre. Their daughter, Jeanne d'Albret, carried +this petty royalty to the house of Bourbon, and was the mother of Henri +IV. + +Marguerite held her court in true princely manner in the castle of Pau +or at Nrac, and she loved to surround herself with a circle of men +remarkable for their character and talents, and ladies distinguished +by beauty and accomplishments, which made it rival in brilliance +even that of her brother Franois. She placed nearest to her person, +under the character of her _valets-de-chambre_, the principal poets +and _beaux-esprits_ of her time, such as Clement Marot, Bonaventure +des Periers, Claude Gruget, Antoine du Moulin, and Jean de la Haye, +and admitted them to such a tender familiarity of intercourse, as to +excite the jealousy of the king her husband, from whose ill-treatment +she was only protected by her brother's interference. The poets called +her chamber a "veritable Parnassus." Hers was certainly a great +mind, greedy of knowledge, dissatisfied with what was, and eager for +novelties, and therefore she encouraged all who sought for them. It +was in this spirit, combined with her earnest love for letters, that +she threw her protection over both the sceptics and the religious +reformers. At the beginning of the persecutions, as early as 1523, +she openly declared herself the advocate of the Protestants. When +Clement Marot was arrested by order of the Sorbonne and the Inquisitor +on the charge of having eaten bacon in Lent, Marguerite caused him +to be liberated from prison, in defiance of his persecutors. Some of +the purest and ablest of the early French reformers, such as Roussel +and Le Fvre d'Etaples, and Calvin himself, found a safe asylum from +danger in her dominions. As might be supposed, the bigoted party were +bitterly incensed against the queen of Navarre, and were not backward +in taking advantage of an opportunity for showing it. A moral treatise, +entitled "Le Miroir de l'Ame Pcheresse," of which Marguerite was the +author, was condemned by the Sorbonne in 1533, but the king compelled +the university, in the person of its rector, Nicolas Cop, to disavow +publicly the censure. This was followed by a still greater act of +insolence, for, at the instigation of some of the more bigoted papists, +the scholars of the college of Navarre, in concert with their regents, +performed a farce in which Marguerite was transformed into a fury of +hell. Franois I., greatly indignant, sent his archers to arrest the +offenders, who further provoked his anger by resistance, and only +obtained their pardon through the generous intercession of the princess +whom they had so grossly insulted. + +Marguerite was herself a poetess, and she loved above all things +those gay, and seldom very delicate, stories, the telling of which +was at that time one of the favourite amusements of the evening, +and one in which she was known to excel. Her poetical writings were +collected and printed, under her own authority, in 1547, by her then +_valet-de-chambre_, Jean de la Haye, who dedicated the volume to her +daughter. They are all graceful, and some of them worthy of the best +poets of her time. The title of this collection was, punning upon +her name, which means a pearl, "Marguerites de la Marguerite des +princesses, trs illustre reyne de Navarre." Marguerite's stories +(_nouvelles_) were more celebrated than her verses, and are said to +have been committed to writing under her own dictation. All the ladies +of her court possessed copies of them in writing. It is understood to +have been her intention to form them into ten days' tales, of ten in +each day, so as to resemble the "Decameron" of Boccaccio, but only +eight days were finished at the time of her death, and the imperfect +work was published posthumously by her _valet-de-chambre_, Claude +Gruget, under the title of "L'Heptameron, ou Histoire des Amants +Fortuns." It is by far the best collection of stories of the sixteenth +century. They are told charmingly, in language which is a perfect model +of French composition of that age, but they are all tales of gallantry +such as could only be repeated in polite society in an age which was +essentially licentious. Queen Marguerite died on the 21st of December, +1549, and was buried in the cathedral of Pau. Her death was a subject +of regret to all that was good and all that was poetic, not only in +France, but in Europe, which had been accustomed to look upon her as +the tenth Muse and the fourth Grace:-- + + _Musarum decima et Charitum quarta, inclyta regum + Et soror et conjux, Marguaris illa jacet._ + +Before Marguerite's death, her literary circle had been broken up by +the hatred of religious persecutors. Already, in 1536, the imprudent +boldness of Marot had rendered it impossible to protect him any +longer, and he had been obliged to retire to a place of concealment, +from whence he sometimes paid a stealthy visit to her court. His +place of _valet-de-chambre_ was given to a man of talents, even more +remarkable, and who shared equally the personal esteem of the queen of +Navarre, Bonaventure des Periers. Marot's successor paid a graceful +compliment to him in a short poem entitled "L'Apologie de Marot +absent," published in 1537. The earlier part of the year following +witnessed the publication of the most remarkable work of Bonaventure +des Periers, the "Cymbalum Mundi," concerning the real character +of which writers are still divided in opinion. In it Des Periers +introduced a new form of satire, imitated from the dialogues of Lucian. +The book consists of four dialogues, written in language which forms a +model of French composition, the personages introduced in them intended +evidently to represent living characters, whose names are concealed +in anagrams and other devices, among whom was Clement Marot. It was +the boldest declaration of scepticism which had yet issued from the +Epicurean school represented by Rabelais. The author sneers at the +Romish church as an imposture, ridicules the Protestants as seekers +after the philosopher's stone, and shows disrespect to Christianity +itself. Such a book could hardly be published in Paris with impunity, +yet it was printed there, secretly, it is said, by a well-known +bookseller, Jean Morin, in the Rue St. Jacques, and therefore in the +immediate vicinity of the persecuting Sorbonne. Private information +had been given of the character of this work, possibly by the printer +himself or by one of his men, and on the 6th of March, 1538, when it +was on the eve of publication, the whole impression was seized at the +printer's, and Morin himself was arrested and thrown into prison. He +was treated rigorously, and is understood to have escaped only by +disavowing all knowledge of the character of the book, and giving up +the name of the author. The first edition of the "Cymbalum Mundi" was +burnt, and Bonaventure des Periers, alarmed by the personal dangers +in which he was thus involved, retired from the court of the queen of +Navarre, and took refuge in the city of Lyons, where liberal opinions +at that time found a greater degree of tolerance than elsewhere. There +he printed a second edition of the "Cymbalum Mundi," which also was +burnt, and copies of either edition are now excessively rare.[98] +Bonaventure des Periers felt so much the weight of the persecution in +which he had now involved himself, that, in the year 1539, as far as +can be ascertained, he put an end to his own existence. This event cast +a gloom over the court of the queen of Navarre, from which it seems +never to have entirely recovered. The school of scepticism to which Des +Periers belonged had now fallen into equal discredit with Catholics and +Protestants, and the latter looked upon Marguerite herself, who had +latterly conformed outwardly with Romanism, as an apostate from their +cause. Henri Estienne, in his "Apologie pour Herodote," speaks of the +"Cymbalum Mundi" as an infamous book. + + [98] A cheap and convenient edition of the "Cymbalum Mundi," edited + by the Bibliophile Jacob (Paul Lacroix), was published in Paris + in 1841. I may here state that similar editions of the principal + French satirists of the sixteenth century have been printed + during the last twenty-five years. + +Bonaventure des Periers left behind him another work more amusing to us +at the present day, and more characteristic of the literary tastes of +the court of Marguerite of Navarre. This is a collection of facetious +stories, which was published several years after the death of its +author, under the title of "Les Contes, ou Les Nouvelles Rcrations et +Joyeux Devis de Bonaventure des Periers." They have some resemblance +in style to the stories of the Heptameron, but are shorter, and rather +more facetious, and are characterised by their bitter spirit of satire +against the monks and popish clergy. Some of these stories remind us, +in their peculiar character and tone, of the "Epistol Obscurorum +Virorum," as, for an example, the following, which is given as an +anecdote of the cur de Brou:-- + + "This cur had a way of his own to chant the different offices + of the church, and above all he disliked the way of saying the + Passion in the manner it was ordinarily said in churches, and he + chanted it quite differently. For when our Lord said anything to + the Jews, or to Pilate, he made him talk high and loud, so that + everybody could hear him, and when it was the Jews or somebody + else who spoke, he spoke so low that he could hardly be heard + at all. It happened that a lady of rank and importance, on her + way to Chteaudun, to keep there the festival of Easter, passed + through Brou on Good Friday, about ten o'clock in the morning, + and, wishing to hear service, she went to the church where the + cur was officiating. When it came to the Passion, he said it + in his own manner, and made the whole church ring again when + he said _Quem quritis_? But when it came to the reply, _Jesum + Nazarenum_, he spoke as low as he possibly could. And in this + manner he continued the Passion. The lady, who was very devout, + and, for a woman, well informed in the holy scriptures, and + attentive to the ecclesiastical ceremonies, felt scandalised + at this mode of chanting, and wished she had never entered the + church. She had a mind to speak to the cur, and tell him what + she thought of it; and for this purpose sent for him to come to + her after the service. When he came, she said to him, 'Monsieur + le Cur, I don't know where you learnt to officiate on a day like + this, when the people ought to be all humility; but to hear you + perform the service, is enough to drive away anybody's devotion.' + 'How so, madame?' said the cur. 'How so?' said she, 'you have + said a Passion contrary to all rules of decency. When our Lord + speaks, you cry as if you were in the town-hall; and when it is a + Caiaphas, or Pilate, or the Jews, you speak softly like a young + bride. Is this becoming in one like you? are you fit to be a cur? + If you had what you deserve, you would be turned out of your + benefice, and then you would be made to know your fault!' When the + cur had very attentively listened to her, he said, 'Is this what + you had to say to me, madame? By my soul! it is very true, what + they say; and the truth is, that there are many people who talk of + things which they do not understand. Madame, I believe that I know + my office as well as another, and I beg all the world to know that + God is as well served in this parish according to its condition, + as in any place within a hundred leagues of it. I know very well + that the other curs chant the Passion quite differently; I could + easily chant it like them if I would; but they do not understand + their business at all. I should like to know if it becomes those + rogues of Jews to speak as loud as our Lord! No, no, madame; rest + assured that in my parish it is my will that God be the master, + and He shall be as long as I live; and let the others do in their + parishes according to their understanding.'" + +Another story, equally worthy of Ulric von Hutten, is satirical enough +on priestly pedantry:-- + + "There was a priest of a village who was as proud as might be, + because he had seen a little more than his Cato; for he had read + _De Syntaxi_, and his _Fauste precor gelida_ [the first eclogue + of Baptista Mantuanus]. And this made him set up his feathers, + and talk very grand, using words that filled his mouth, in order + to make people think him a great doctor. Even at confession, he + made use of terms which astonished the poor people. One day he + was confessing a poor working man, of whom he asked, 'Here, now, + my friend, tell me, art thou ambitious?' The poor man said 'No,' + thinking this was a word which belonged to great lords, and almost + repented of having come to confess to this priest; for he had + already heard that he was such a great clerk, and that he spoke + so grandly, that nobody understood him, which he now knew by this + word _ambitious_; for although he might have heard it somewhere, + yet he did not know at all what it was. The priest went on to + ask 'Art thou not a fornicator?' 'No,' said the labourer, who + understood as little as before. 'Art thou not a gourmand?' said + the priest. 'No.' 'Art thou not superbe [_proud_]?' 'No.' 'Art + thou not iracund?' 'No.' The priest seeing the man answer always + 'No,' was somewhat surprised. 'Art thou not concupiscent?' 'No.' + 'And what art thou, then?' said the priest. 'I am,' said he, 'a + mason; here is my trowel!'" + +At this time "Pantagruelism" had mixed itself more or less largely in +all the satirical literature of France. It is very apparent in the +writings of Bonaventure des Periers, and in a considerable number of +satirical publications which now issued, many of them anonymously, or +under the then fashionable form of anagrams, from the press in France. +Among these writers were a few who, though far inferior to Rabelais, +may be considered as not unequal to Des Periers himself. One of the +most remarkable of these was a gentleman of Britany, Noel du Fail, lord +of La Hrissaye, who was, like so many of these satirists, a lawyer, +and who died, apparently at an advanced age, at the end of 1585, or +beginning of 1586. In his publications, according to the fashion of +that age, he concealed his name under an anagram, and called himself +Leon Ladulfil (doubling the _l_ in the name Fail). Noel du Fail has +been called the ape of Rabelais, though the mere imitation is not very +apparent. He published (as far as has been ascertained), in 1548, +his "Discours d'aucuns propos ruftiques factieux, et de singulire +rcration." This was followed immediately by a work entitled +"Baliverneries, ou Contes Nouveaux d'Eutrapel;" but his last, and most +celebrated book, the "Contes et Discours d'Eutrapel," was not printed +until 1586, after the death of its author. The writings of Noel du Fail +are full of charming pictures of rural life in the sixteenth century, +and, though sufficiently free, they present less than most similar +books of that period of the coarseness of Rabelais. I cannot say the +same of a book which is much more celebrated than either of these, +and the history of which is still enveloped in obscurity. I mean the +"Moyen de Parvenir." This book, which is full of wit and humour, but +the licentiousness of which is carried to a degree which renders it +unreadable at the present day, is now ascribed by bibliographers, in +its present form, to Broalde de Verville, a gentleman of a Protestant +family who had embraced Catholicism, and obtained advancements in the +church, and it was not printed until 1610, but it is supposed that in +its present form it is only a revision of an earlier composition, +perhaps even an unacknowledged work of Rabelais himself, which had been +preserved in manuscript in Beroald's family. + +Pantagruelism, or, if you like, Rabelaism, did not, during the +sixteenth century, make much progress beyond the limits of France. +In the Teutonic countries of Europe, and in England, the sceptical +sentiment was small in comparison with the religious feeling, and the +only satirical work at all resembling those we have been describing, +was the "Utopia" of Sir Thomas More, a work comparatively spiritless, +and which produced a very slight sensation. In Spain, the state of +social feeling was still less favourable to the writings of Rabelais, +yet he had there a worthy and true representative in the author of +Don Quixote. It was only in the seventeenth century that the works of +Rabelais were translated into English; but we must not forget that our +satirists of the last century, such as Swift and Sterne, derived their +inspiration chiefly from Rabelais, and from the Pantagruelistic writers +of the latter half of the sixteenth century. These latter were most of +them poor imitators of their original, and, like all poor imitators, +pursued to exaggeration his least worthy characteristics. There is +still some humour in the writings of Tabourot, the sieur des Accords, +especially in his "Bigarrures," but the later productions, which +appeared under such names as Bruscambille and Tabarin, sink into mere +dull ribaldry. + +There had arisen, however, by the side of this satire which smelt +somewhat too much of the tavern, another satire, more serious, +which still contained a little of the style of Rabelais. The French +Protestants at first looked upon Rabelais as one of their towers of +strength, and embraced with gratitude the powerful protection they +received from the graceful queen of Navarre; but their gratitude +failed them, when Marguerite, though she never ceased to give them her +protection, conformed outwardly, from attachment to her brother, to the +forms of the Catholic faith, and they rejected the school of Rabelais +as a mere school of Atheists. Among them arose another school of +satire, a sort of branch from the other, which was represented in its +infancy by the celebrated scholar and printer, Henri Estienne, better +known among us as Henry Stephens. + +The remarkable book called an "Apologie pour Herodote," arose out of +an attack upon its writer by the Romanists. Henri Estienne, who was +known as a staunch Protestant, published, at great expense, an edition +of Herodotus in Greek and Latin, and the zealous Catholics, out of +spite to the editor, decried his author, and spoke of Herodotus as a +mere collector of monstrous and incredible tales. Estienne, in revenge, +published what, under the form of an apology for Herodotus, was really +a violent attack on the Romish church. His argument is that all +historians must relate transactions which appear to many incredible, +and that the events of modern times were much more incredible, if +they were not known to be true, than anything which is recorded by +the historian of antiquity. After an introductory dissertation on the +light in which we ought to regard the fable of the Golden Age, and on +the moral character of the ancient peoples, he goes on to show that +their depravity was much less than that of the middle ages and of his +own time, indeed of all periods during which people were governed by +the Church of Rome. Not only did this dissoluteness of morals pervade +lay society, but the clergy were more vicious even than the people, to +whom they ought to serve as an example. A large part of the book is +filled with anecdotes of the immoral lives of the popish clergy of the +sixteenth century, and of their ignorance and bigotry; and he describes +in detail the methods employed by the Romish church to keep the mass +of the people in ignorance, and to repress all attempts at inquiry. +Out of all this, he says, had risen a school of atheists and scoffers, +represented by Rabelais and Bonaventure des Periers, both of whom he +mentions by name. + +As we approach the end of the sixteenth century, the struggle of +parties became more political than religious, but not less bitter than +before. The literature of the age of that celebrated "Ligue," which +seemed at one time destined to overthrow the ancient royalty of France, +consisted chiefly of libellous and abusive pamphlets, but in the midst +of them there appeared a work far superior to any purely political +satire which had yet been seen, and the fame of which has never passed +away. Its object was to turn to ridicule the meeting of the Estates +of France, convoked by the duke of Mayenne, as leader of the Ligue, +and held at Paris on the 10th of February, 1503. The grand object of +this meeting was to exclude Henri IV. from the throne; and the Spanish +party proposed to abolish the Salic law, and proclaim the infanta of +Spain queen of France. The French ligueurs proposed plans hardly less +unpatriotic, and the duke of Mayenne, indignant at the small account +made of his own personal pretensions, prorogued the meeting, and +persuaded the two parties to hold what proved a fruitless conference at +Suresne. It was the meeting of the Estates in Paris which gave rise to +that celebrated _Satyre Mnippe_, of which it was said, that it served +the cause of Henri IV. as much as the battle of Ivry itself. + +This satire originated among a party of friends, of men distinguished +by learning, wit, and talent, though most of their names are obscure, +who used to meet in an evening in the hospitable house of one of +them, Jacques Gillot, on the Quai des Orfvres in Paris, and there +talk satirically over the violence and insolence of the ligueurs. +They all belonged either to the bar or to the university, or to the +church. Gillot himself, a Burgundian, born about the year 1560, had +been a dean in the church of Langres, and afterwards canon of the +Sainte Chapelle in Paris, and was at this time conseiller-clerc to +the parliament of Paris. In 1589 he was committed to the Bastille, +but was soon afterwards liberated. Nicolas Rapin, one of his friends, +was born in 1535, and was said to have been the son of a priest, and +therefore illegitimate. He was a lawyer, a poet, and a soldier, for he +fought bravely in the ranks of Henri IV. at Ivry, and his devotion to +that prince was so well known, that he was banished from Paris by the +ligueurs, but had returned thither before the meeting of the Estates in +1593. Jean Passerat, born in 1534, was also a poet, and a professor in +the Collge Royal. Florent Chrestien, born at Orleans in 1540, had been +the tutor of Henri IV., and was well known as a man of sound learning. +The most learned of the party was Pierre Pithou, born at Troyes in +1539, who had abjured Calvinism to return to Romanism, and who held +a distinguished position at the French bar. The last of this little +party of men of letters was a canon of Rouen named Pierre le Roy, a +patriotic ecclesiastic, who held the office of almoner to the cardinal +de Bourbon. It was Le Roy who drew up the first sketch of the "Satyre +Mnippe," each of the others executed his part in the composition, and +Pithou finally revised it. For several years this remarkable satire +circulated only secretly, and in manuscript, and it was not printed +until Henri IV. was established on the throne. + +The satire opens with an account of the virtues of the "Catholicon," +or nostrum for curing all political diseases, or the _higuiero +d'infierno_, which had been so effective in the hands of the Spaniards, +who invented it. Some of these are extraordinary enough. If, we are +told, the lieutenant of Don Philip "have some of this Catholicon on +his flags, he will enter without a blow into an enemy's country, and +they will meet him with crosses and banners, legates and primates; and +though he ruin, ravage, usurp, massacre, and sack everything, and carry +away, ravish, burn, and reduce everything to a desert, the people of +the country will say, 'These are our friends, they are good Catholics; +they do it for our peace, and for our mother holy church.'" "If an +indolent king amuse himself with refining this drug in his escurial, +let him write a word into Flanders to Father Ignatius, sealed with +the Catholicon, he will find him a man who (_salva conscientia_) will +assassinate his enemy whom he has not been able to conquer by arms in +twenty years." This, of course, is an allusion to the murder of the +prince of Orange. "If this king proposes to assure his estates to his +children after his death, and to invade another's kingdom at little +expense, let him write a word to Mendoza, his ambassador, or to Father +Commelet (one of the most seditious orators of the Ligue), and if he +write with the _higuiero del infierno_, at the bottom of his letter, +the words _Yo el Rey_, they will furnish him with an apostate monk, who +will go under a fair semblance, like a Judas, and assassinate in cold +blood a great king of France, his brother-in-law, in the middle of his +camp, without fear of God or men; they will do more, they will canonise +the murderer, and place this Judas above St. Peter, and baptise this +prodigious and horrible crime with the name of a providential event, +of which the godfathers will be cardinals, legates, and primates." The +allusion here is to the assassination of Henri III. by Jacques Clement. +These are but a few of the marvellous properties of the political drug, +after the enumeration of which the report of the meeting of the Estates +is introduced by a burlesque description of the grand procession +which preceded it. Then we are introduced to the hall of assembly, and +different subjects pictured on the tapestries which cover its walls, +all having reference to the politics of the Ligue, are described fully. +Then we come to the report of the meeting, and to the speeches of the +different speakers, each of which is a model of satire. It is not known +which of the little club of satirists wrote the open speech of the duke +of Mayenne, but that of the Roman legate is known to be the work of +Gillot, and that of the cardinal de Pelv, a masterpiece of Latin in +the style of the "Epistol Obscurorum Virorum," was written by Florent +Chrestien. Nicolas Rapin composed the "harangue" placed in the mouth +of the archbishop of Lyons, as well as that of Rose, the rector of +the university; and the long speech of Claude d'Aubray was by Pithou. +Passerat composed most of the verses which are scattered through the +book, and it is understood that Pithou finally revised the whole. This +mock report of the meeting of the Estates closes with a description of +a series of political pictures which are arranged on the wall of the +staircase of the hall. + +These pictures, as well as those on the tapestries of the hall of +meeting, are simply so many caricatures, and the same may be said of +another set of pictures, of which a description is given in one of the +satirical pieces which followed the "Satyre Mnippe," on the same +side, entitled, "Histoire des Singeries de la Ligue." It was amid +the political turmoil of the sixteenth century in France that modern +political caricature took its rise. + + + + + CHAPTER XX. + + POLITICAL CARICATURE IN ITS INFANCY.--THE REVERS DU JEU DES + SUYSSES.--CARICATURE IN FRANCE.--THE THREE ORDERS.--PERIOD OF THE + LEAGUE; CARICATURES AGAINST HENRI III.--CARICATURES AGAINST THE + LEAGUE.--CARICATURE IN FRANCE IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.--GENERAL + GALAS.--THE QUARREL OF AMBASSADORS.--CARICATURE AGAINST LOUIS + XIV.; WILLIAM OF FRSTEMBERG. + + +It has been already remarked that political caricature, in the modern +sense of the word, or even personal caricature, was inconsistent with +the state of things in the middle ages, until the arts of engraving +and printing became sufficiently developed, because it requires the +facility of quick and extensive circulation. The political or satirical +song was carried everywhere by the minstrel, but the satirical picture, +represented only in some solitary sculpture or illumination, could +hardly be finished before it had become useless even in the small +sphere of its influence, and then remained for ages a strange figure, +with no meaning that could be understood. No sooner, however, was +the art of printing introduced, than the importance of political +caricature was understood and turned to account. We have seen what a +powerful agent it became in the Reformation, which in spirit was no +less political than religious; but even before the great religious +movement had begun, this agent had been brought into activity. One +of the earliest engravings which can be called a caricature--perhaps +the oldest of our modern caricatures known--is represented in our +cut No. 171, is no doubt French, and belongs to the year 1499. It is +sufficiently explained by the history of the time. + + [Illustration: _No. 171. The Political Game of Cards._] + +At the date just mentioned, Louis XII. of France, who had been king +less than twelve months, was newly married to Anne of Britany, and +had resolved upon an expedition into Italy, to unite the crown of +Naples with that of France. Such an expedition affected many political +interests and Louis had to employ a certain amount of diplomacy with +his neighbours, several of whom were strongly opposed to his projects +of ambition, and among those who acted most openly were the Swiss, +who were believed to have been secretly supported by England and the +Netherlands. Louis, however, overcame their opposition, and obtained a +renewal of the alliance which had expired with his predecessor Charles +VIII. This temporary difficulty with the Swiss is the subject of our +caricature, the original of which bears the title "Le Revers du Jeu +des Suysses" (the defeat of the game of the Swiss). The princes most +interested are assembled round a card-table, at which are seated the +king of France to the right, opposite him the Swiss, and in front the +doge of Venice, who was in alliance with the French against Milan. At +the moment represented, the king of France is announcing that he has a +flush of cards, the Swiss acknowledges the weakness of his hand, and +the doge lays down his cards--in fact, Louis XII. has won the game. +But the point of the caricature lies principally in the group around. +To the extreme right the king of England, Henry VII., distinguished +by his three armorial lions, and the king of Spain, are engaged in +earnest conversation. Behind the former stands the infanta Margarita, +who is evidently winking at the Swiss to give him information of the +state of the cards of his opponents. At her side stands the duke of +Wirtemberg, and just before him the pope, the infamous Alexander VI. +(Borgia), who, though in alliance with Louis, is not able, with all his +efforts, to read the king's game, and looks on with evident anxiety. +Behind the doge of Venice stands the Italian refugee, Trivulci, an able +warrior, devoted to the interests of France; and at the doge's right +hand, the emperor, holding in his hands another pack of cards, and +apparently exulting in the belief that he has thrown confusion into +the king of France's game. In the background to the left are seen the +count Palatine and the marquis of Montserrat, who also look uncertain +about the result; and below the former appears the duke of Savoy, who +was giving assistance to the French designs. The duke of Lorraine is +serving drink to the gamblers, while the duke of Milan, who was at this +time playing rather a double part, is gathering up the cards which have +fallen to the ground, in order to make a game for himself. Louis XII. +carried his designs into execution; the duke of Milan, Ludovico Sforza, +nick-named the Moor, played his cards badly, lost his duchy, and died +in prison. + + [Illustration: _No. 172. The Three Orders of the State._] + +Such is this earliest of political caricatures--and in this case it +was purely political--but the question of religion soon began not only +to mix itself up with the political question, but almost to absorb it, +as we have seen in the review of the history of caricature under the +Reformation. Before this period, indeed, political caricature was only +an affair between crowned heads, or between kings and their nobles, but +the religious agitation had originated a vast social movement, which +brought into play popular feelings and passions: these gave caricature +a totally new value. Its power was greatest on the middle and lower +classes of society, that is, on the people, the _tiers tat_, which was +now thrown prominently forward. The new social theory is proclaimed +in a print, of which a fac-simile will be found in the "Muse de la +Caricature," by E. J. Jaime, and which, from the style and costume, +appears to be German. The three orders, the church, the lord of the +land, and the people, represented respectively by a bishop, a knight, +and a cultivator, stand upon the globe in an honourable equality, each +receiving direct from heaven the emblems or implements of his duties. +To the bishop is delivered his bible, to the husbandman his mattock, +and to the knight the sword with which he is to protect and defend the +others. This print--see cut No. 172--which bears the title, in Latin, +"Quis te prtulit?" (Who chose thee?) belongs probably to the earlier +half of the sixteenth century. A painting in the Htel de Ville of +Aix, in Provence, represents the same subject much more satirically, +intending to delineate the three orders as they were, and not as they +ought to be. The divine hand is letting down from heaven an immense +frame in the form of a heart, in which is a picture representing a king +kneeling before the cross, intimating that the civil power was to be +subordinate to the ecclesiastical. The three orders are represented +by a cardinal, a noble, and a peasant, the latter of whom is bending +under the burthen of the heart, the whole of which is thrown upon his +shoulders, while the cardinal and the noble, the latter dressed in +the fashionable attire of the court minions of the day, are placing +one hand to the heart on each side, in a manner which shows that they +support none of the weight. + +Amid the fierce agitation which fell upon France in the sixteenth +century, for a while we find but few traces of the employment of +caricature by either party. The religious reformation there was rather +aristocratic than popular, and the reformers sought less to excite +the feelings of the multitude, which, indeed, went generally in the +contrary direction. There was, moreover, a character of gloom in the +religion of Calvin, which contracted strongly with the joyousness of +that of the followers of Luther; and the factions in France sought to +slaughter, rather than to laugh at, each other. The few caricatures +of this period which are known, are very bitter and coarse. As far as +I am aware, no early Huguenot caricatures are known, but there are a +few directed against the Huguenots. It was, however, with the rise of +the Ligue that the taste for political caricature may be said to have +taken root in France, and in that country it long continued to flourish +more than anywhere else. The first caricatures of the ligueurs were +directed against the person of the king, Henri de Valois, and possess +a brutality almost beyond description. It was now an object to keep up +the bitterness of spirit of the fanatical multitude. In one of these +caricatures a demon is represented waiting on the king to summon him +to a meeting of the "Estates" in hell; and in the distance we see +another demon flying away with him. Another relates to the murder of +the Guises, in 1588, which the ligueurs professed to ascribe to the +councils of M. d'Epernon, one of his favourites, on whom they looked +with great hatred. It is entitled, "Soufflement et Conseil diabolique +de d'Epernon Henri de Valois pour faccager les Catholiques." In the +middle of the picture stands the king, and beside him D'Epernon, who +is blowing into his ear with a bellows. On the ground before them lie +the headless corpses of the _deux frres Catholiques_, the duke of +Guise, and his brother the cardinal, while the executioner of royal +vengeance is holding up their heads by the hair. In the distance is +seen the castle of Blois, in which this tragedy took place; and on the +left of the picture appear the cardinal de Bourbon, the archbishop of +Blois, and other friends of the Guises, expressing their horror at the +deed. Henri III. was himself murdered in the year following, and the +caricatures against him became still more brutal during the period in +which the ligueurs tried to set up a king of their own in his place. In +one caricature, which has more of an emblematical character than most +of the others, he is pictured as "Henri le Monstrueux;" and in others, +entitled "Les Hermaphrodites," he is exhibited under forms which point +at the infamous vices with which he was charged. + + [Illustration: _No. 173. The Assembly of Apes._] + +The tide of caricature, however, soon turned in the contrary direction, +and the coarse, unprincipled abuse employed by the ligueurs found a +favourable contrast in the powerful wit and talent of the satirists +and caricaturists who now took up pen and pencil in the cause of +Henri IV. The former was, on the whole, the more formidable weapon, +but the latter represented to some eyes more vividly in picture what +had already been done in type. This was the case on both sides; the +caricature last mentioned was founded upon a very libellous satirical +pamphlet against Henri III., entitled "L'Isle des Hermaphrodites." It +is the case also with the first caricatures against the ligueurs, which +I have to mention. The Estates held in Paris by the duke of Mayenne +and the ligueurs for the purpose of electing a new king in opposition +to Henri of Navarre, were made the subject of the celebrated "Satyre +Mnippe," in which the proceedings of these Estates were turned to +ridicule in the most admirable manner. Four large editions were sold +in less than as many months. Several caricatures arose out of or +accompanied this remarkable book. One of these is a rather large print, +entitled "La Singerie des Estats de la Ligue, l'an 1593," in which the +members of the Estates and the ligueurs are pictured with the heads +of monkeys. The central part represents the meeting of the Estates, +at which the lieutenant-general of the kingdom, the duke of Mayenne, +seated on the throne, presides. Above him is suspended a large portrait +of the infanta of Spain, _L'Espouse de la Ligue_, as she is called +in the satire, ready to marry any one whom the Estates shall declare +king of France. In chairs, on each side of Mayenne, are the two "ladies +of honour" of the said future spouse. To the left are seated in a row +the celebrated council of sixteen (_les seize_), reduced at this time +to twelve, because the duke of Mayenne, to check their turbulence, +had caused four of them to be hanged. They wear the favours of the +future spouse. Opposite to them are the representatives of the three +orders, all, we are told, devoted to the service of "the said lady." +Before the throne are the two musicians of the Ligue, one described as +Phelipottin, the blind performer on the viel, or hurdy-gurdy, to the +Ligue, and his subordinate, the player on the triangle, "kept at the +expense of the future spouse." These were to entertain the assembly +during the pauses between the orations of the various speakers. All +this is a satire on the efforts of the king of Spain to establish a +monarch of his own choice. On the bench behind the musicians sit the +deputies from Lyons, Poitiers, Orleans, and Rheims, cities where the +influence of the Ligue was strong, discussing the question as to who +should be king. Thus much of this picture is represented in our cut +No. 173. There are other groups of figures in the representation of +the assembly of the Estates; and there are two side compartments--that +on the left representing a forge, on which the fragments of a broken +king are laid to be refounded, and a multitude of apes, with hammers +and an anvil, ready to work him into a new king; the other side of +the picture represents the circumstances of a then well-known act of +tyranny perpetrated by the Estates of the Ligue. Another large and +well-executed engraving, published at Paris in 1594, immediately after +Henri IV. had obtained possession of his capital, also represents the +grand procession of the Ligue as described at the commencement of the +"Satyre Mnippe," and was intended to hold up to ridicule the warlike +temper of the French Catholic clergy. It is entitled, "La Procession de +la Ligue." + +Henri's triumph over the Ligue was made the subject of a series of +three caricatures, or perhaps, more correctly, of a caricature in three +divisions. The first is entitled the "Naissance de la Ligue," and +represents it under the form of a monster with three heads, severally +those of a wolf, a fox, and a serpent, issuing from hell-mouth. Under +it are the following lines:-- + + _L'enfer, pour asservir soubs ses loix tout le monde, + Vomit ce monstre hideux, fait d'un loup ravisseur, + D'un renard enveilly, et d'un serpent immonde, + Affubl d'un manteau propre toute couleur._ + +The second division, the "Declin de la Ligue," representing its +downfall, is copied in our cut No. 174. Henri of Navarre, in the form +of a lion, has pounced fiercely upon it, and not too soon, for it had +already seized the crown and sceptre. In the distance, the sun of +national prosperity is seen rising over the country. The third picture, +the "Effets de la Ligue," represents the destruction of the kingdom and +the slaughter of the people, of which the Ligue had been the cause. + + [Illustration: _No. 174. The Destruction of the Ligue._] + + [Illustration: _No. 175. General Galas._] + +The caricatures in France became more numerous during the seventeenth +century, but they are either so elaborate or so obscure, that each +requires almost a dissertation to explain it, and they often relate to +questions or events which have little interest for us at the present +day. Several rather spirited ones appeared at the time of the disgrace +of the mareschal d'Ancre and his wife; and the inglorious war with +the Netherlands, in 1635, furnished the occasion for others, for +the French, as usual, could make merry in their reverses as well as +in their successes. The imperialist general Galas inflicted serious +defeat on the French armies, and compelled them to a very disastrous +retreat from the countries they had invaded, and they tried to amuse +themselves at the expense of their conqueror. Galas was rather +remarkable for obesity, and the French caricaturists of the day made +this circumstance a subject for their satire. Our cut No. 175 is copied +from a print in which the magnitude of the stomach of General Galas +is certainly somewhat exaggerated. He is represented, not apparently +with any good reason, as puffed up with his own importance, which is +evaporating in smoke; and along with the smoke thus issuing from his +mouth, he is made to proclaim his greatness in the following rather +doggrel verses:-- + + _Je suis ce grand Galas, autrefois dans l'arme + La gloire de l'Espagne et de mes compagnons; + Maintenant je ne suis qu'un corps plein de fume, + Pour avoir trop mang de raves et d'oignons. + Gargantua jamais n'eut une telle panse, &c._ + + [Illustration: _No. 176. Batteville Humiliated._] + +Caricatures in France began to be tolerably abundant during the middle +of the seventeenth century, but under the crushing tyranny of Louis +XIV., the freedom of the press, in all its forms, ceased to exist, and +caricatures relating to France, unless they came from the court party, +had to be published in other countries, especially in Holland. It will +be sufficient to give two examples from the reign of Louis XIV. In the +year 1661, a dispute arose in London between the ambassador of France, +M. D'Estrades, and the Spanish ambassador, the baron de Batteville, +on the question of precedence, which was carried so far as to give +rise to a tumult in the streets of the English capital. At this very +moment, a new Spanish ambassador, the marquis de Fuentes, was on his +way to Paris, but Louis, indignant at Batteville's behaviour in London, +sent orders to stop Fuentes on the frontier, and forbid his further +advance into his kingdom. The king of Spain disavowed the act of his +ambassador in England, who was recalled, and Fuentes received orders +to make an apology to king Louis. This event was made the subject of +a rather boasting caricature, the greater portion of which is given in +our cut No. 176. It is entitled "Batteville vient adorer le Soliel" +(Batteville comes to worship the sun). In the original the sun is seen +shining in the upper corner of the picture to the right, and presenting +the juvenile face of Louis XIV., but the caricaturist appears to have +substituted Batteville in the place of Fuentes. Beneath the whole are +the following boastful lines:-- + + _On ne va plus Rome, on vient de Rome en France, + Mriter le pardon de quelque grande offence. + L'Italie tout entire est soumise ces loix; + Un Espagnol s'oppose ce droit de nos rois. + Mais un Franais puissant joua des bastonnades, + Et punit l'insolent de ses rodomontades._ + +From this time there sprung up many caricatures against the Spaniards; +but the most ferocious caricature, or rather book of caricatures, of +the reign of Louis XIV., came from without, and was directed against +the king and his ministers and courtiers. The revocation of the edict +of Nantes took place in October, 1685, and was preceded and followed +by frightful persecutions of the Protestants, which drove away in +thousands the earnest, intelligent, and industrious part of the +population of France. They carried with them a deep hatred to their +oppressors, and sought refuge especially in the countries most hostile +to Louis XIV.--England and Holland. The latter country, where they +then enjoyed the greatest freedom of action, soon sent forth numerous +satirical books and prints against the French king and his ministers, +of which the book just alluded to was one of the most remarkable. It +is entitled "Les Heros de la Ligue, ou la Procession Monacale conduite +par Louis XIV. pour la Conversion des Protestans de son Royaume," and +consists of a series of twenty-four most grotesque faces, intended to +represent the ministers and courtiers of the "grand roi" most odious +to the Calvinists. It must have provoked their wrath exceedingly. I +give one example, and as it is difficult to select, I take the first in +the list, which represents William of Frstemberg, one of the German +princes devoted to Louis XIV., who, by his intrigues, had forced him +into the archbishopric of Cologne, by which he became an elector +of the empire. For many reasons William of Frstemberg was hated by +the French Protestants, but it is not quite clear why he is here +represented in the character of one of the low merchants of the Halles. +Over the picture, in the original, we read, _Guillaume de Furstemberg, +crie, ite, missa est_, and beneath are the four lines:-- + + _J'ay quitt mon pais pour servir la France, + Soit par ma trahison, soit par ma lachet; + J'ay troubl les tats par ma mchancet, + Une abbaye est ma recompense._ + + [Illustration: _No. 177. William of Frstemberg._] + + + + + CHAPTER XXI. + + EARLY POLITICAL CARICATURE IN ENGLAND.--THE SATIRICAL WRITINGS + AND PICTURES OF THE COMMONWEALTH PERIOD.--SATIRES AGAINST + THE BISHOPS; BISHOP WILLIAMS.--CARICATURES ON THE CAVALIERS; + SIR JOHN SUCKLING.--THE ROARING BOYS; VIOLENCE OF THE + ROYALIST SOLDIERS.--CONTEST BETWEEN THE PRESBYTERIANS AND + INDEPENDENTS.--GRINDING THE KING'S NOSE.--PLAYING-CARDS USED AS + THE MEDIUM FOR CARICATURE; HASELRIGGE AND LAMBERT.--SHROVETIDE. + + +During the sixteenth century caricature can hardly be said to have +existed in England, and it did not come much into fashion, until the +approach of the great struggle which convulsed our country in the +century following. The popular reformers have always been the first to +appreciate the value of pictorial satire as an offensive weapon. Such +was the case with the German reformers in the age of Luther; as it was +again with the English reformers in the days of Charles I., a period +which we may justly consider as that of the birth of English political +caricature. From 1640 to 1661 the press launched forth an absolute +deluge of political pamphlets, many of which were of a satirical +character, scurrilous in form and language, and, on whatever side +they were written, very unscrupulous in regard to the truth of their +statements. Among them appeared a not unfrequent engraving, seldom +well executed, whether on copper or wood, but displaying a coarse and +pungent wit that must have told with great effect on those for whom it +was intended. The first objects of attack in these caricatures were +the Episcopalian party in the church and the profaneness and insolence +of the cavaliers. The Puritans or Presbyterians who took the lead +in, and at first directed, the great political movement, looked upon +Episcopalianism as differing in little from popery, and, at all events, +as leading direct to it. Arminianism was with them only another name +for the same thing, and was equally detested. In a caricature published +in 1641, Arminius is represented supported on one side by Heresy, +wearing the triple crown, while on the other side Truth is turning away +from him, and carrying with her the Bible. It was the indiscreet zeal +of archbishop Laud which led to the triumph of the Puritan party, and +the downfall of the episcopal church government, and Laud became the +butt for attacks of all descriptions, in pamphlets, songs and satirical +prints, the latter usually figuring in the titles of the pamphlets. +Laud was especially obnoxious to the Puritans for the bitterness with +which he had persecuted them. + +In 1640 Laud was committed to the Tower, an event which was hailed +as the first grand step towards the overthrow of the bishops. As an +example of the feeling of exultation displayed on this occasion by his +enemies, we may quote a few lines from a satirical song, published in +1641, and entitled "The Organs Eccho. To the Tune of the Cathedrall +Service." It is a general attack on the prelacy, and opens with a cry +of triumph over the fall of William Laud, of whom the song says-- + + _As he was in his braverie, + And thought to bring us all in slaverie, + The parliament found out his knaverie; + And so fell William. + Alas! poore William!_ + + _His pope-like domineering, + And some other tricks appearing, + Provok'd Sir Edward Deering + To blame the old prelate. + Alas! poore prelate!_ + + _Some say he was in hope + To bring England againe to th' pope; + But now he is in danger of an axe or a rope. + Farewell, old Canterbury. + Alas! poore Canterbury!_ + +Wren, bishop of Ely, was another of the more obnoxious of the prelates, +and there was hardly less joy among the popular party when he was +committed to the Tower in the course of the year 1641. Another song, +in verse similar to the last, contains a general review of the demerits +of the members of the prelacy, under the title of "The Bishops Last +Good-night." At the head of the broadside on which it is printed stand +two satirical woodcuts, but it must be confessed that the words of the +song are better than the engraving. The bishop of Ely, we are told, had +just gone to join his friend Laud in the Tower-- + + _Ely, thou hast alway to thy power + Left the church naked in a storme and showre, + And now for 't thou must to thy old friend i' th' Tower. + To the Tower must Ely; + Come away, Ely._ + +A third obnoxious prelate was bishop Williams. Williams was a Welshman +who had been high in favour with James I., but he had given offence +to the government of Charles I., and been imprisoned in the Tower +during the earlier part of that king's reign. He was released by the +parliament in 1640, and so far regained the favour of king Charles, +that he was raised to the archbishopric of York in the year following. +When the civil war began, he retired into Wales, and garrisoned Conway +for the king. Williams's warlike behaviour was the source of much mirth +among the Roundheads. In 1642 was published a large caricature on the +three classes to whom the parliamentarians were especially hostile--the +royalist judges, the prelates, and the ruffling cavaliers; represented +here, as we are told in writing in the copy among the king's pamphlets, +by judge Mallet, bishop Williams, and colonel Lunsford. These three +figures are placed in as many compartments with doggrel verses under +each. That of bishop Williams is copied in our cut No. 178. The bishop +is armed cap--pie, and in the distance behind him are seen on one +side his cathedral church, and on the other his war-horse. The verses +beneath it contain an allusion to this prelate's Welsh extraction in +the orthography of some of the words:-- + + _Oh, sir, I'me ready, did you never heere + How forward I have byn t'is many a yeare, + T'oppose the practice dat is now on foote, + Which plucks my brethren up both pranch and roote? + My posture and my hart toth well agree + To fight; now plud is up: come, follow mee._ + + [Illustration: _No. 178. The Church Militant._] + +The country had now begun to experience the miseries of war, and to +smart under them; and the cavaliers were especially reproached for the +cruelty with which they plundered and ill-treated people whenever they +gained the mastery. Colonel Lunsford was especially notorious for the +barbarities committed by himself and his men--to such a degree that he +was popularly accused of eating children, a charge which is frequently +alluded to in the popular songs of the time. Thus one of these songs +couples him with two other obnoxious royalists:-- + + _From Fielding, and from Vavasour, + Both ill-affected men, + From Lunsford eke deliver us, + Who eateth up children._ + + [Illustration: _No. 179. The Sucklington Faction._] + +In the third compartment of the caricature just mentioned, we see in +the background of the picture, behind colonel Lunsford, his soldiers +occupied in burning towns, and massacring women and children. The model +of the gay cavalier of the earlier period of this great revolution, +before the war had broken out in its intensity, was the courtly Sir +John Suckling, the poet of the drawing-room and tavern, the admired +of "roaring boys," and the hated of rigid Puritans. Sir John outdid +his companions in extravagance in everything which was fashionable, +and the display of his zeal in the cause of royalty was not calculated +to conciliate the reformers. When the king led an army against the +Scottish Covenanters in 1639, Suckling raised a troop of a hundred +horse at his own expense; but they gained more reputation by their +extraordinary dress than by their courage, and the whole affair was +made a subject of ridicule. From this time the name of Suckling became +identified with that gay and profligate class who, disgusted by the +outward show of sanctity which the Puritans affected, rushed into +the other extreme, and became notorious for their profaneness, their +libertinism, and their indulgence in vice, which threw a certain degree +of discredit upon the royalist party. There is a large broadside +among the King's Pamphlets in the British Museum, entitled, "The +Sucklington Faction; or (Sucklings) Roaring Boys." It is one of those +satirical compositions which were then fashionable under the title +of "Characters," and is illustrated by an engraving, from which our +cut No. 179 is copied. This engraving, which from its superior style +is perhaps the work of a foreign artist, represents the interior of +a chamber, in which two of the Roaring Boys are engaged in drinking +and smoking, and forms a curious picture of contemporary manners. +Underneath the engraving we read the following lines:-- + + _Much meate doth gluttony produce, + And makes a man a swine; + But hee's a temperate man indeed + That with a leafe can dine._ + + _Hee needes no napkin for his handes, + His fingers for to wipe; + He hath his kitchin in a box, + His roast meate in a pipe._ + +When the war spread itself over the country, many of these Roaring +Boys became soldiers, and disgraced the profession by rapacity and +cruelty. The pamphlets of the parliamentarians abound with complaints +of the outrages perpetrated by the Cavaliers, and the evil appears to +have been increased by the ill-conduct of the auxiliaries brought over +from Ireland to serve the king, who were especially objects of hatred +to the Puritans. A broadside among the king's pamphlets is adorned +by a satirical picture of "The English Irish Souldier, with his new +discipline, new armes, old stomacke, and new taken pillage; who had +rather eat than fight." It was published in 1642. The English Irish +soldier is, as may be supposed, heavily laden with plunder. In 1646 +appeared another caricature, which is copied in our cut No. 180. It +represents "England's Wolfe with Eagles clawes: the cruell impieties +of bloud-thirsty royalists and blasphemous anti-parliamentarians, +under the command of that inhumane prince Rupert, Digby, and the rest, +wherein the barbarous crueltie of our civill uncivill warres is briefly +discovered." England's wolf, as will be seen, is dressed in the high +fashion of the gay courtiers of the time. + + [Illustration: _No. 180. "England's Wolf."_] + +A few large caricatures, embodying satire of a more comprehensive +description, appeared from time to time, during this troubled age. Such +is a large emblematical picture, published on the 9th of November, +1642, and entitled "Heraclitus' Dream," for the scene is supposed to +be manifested to the philosopher in a vision. In the middle of the +picture the sheep are seen shearing their shepherd; while one cuts his +hair, another treats his beard in the same manner. Under the picture we +read the couplet-- + + _The flocke that was wont to be shorne by the herd, + Now polleth the shepherd in spight of his beard_. + + [Illustration: _No. 181. Folly Uppermost._] + +On the 19th of January, 1647, a caricature appeared under the title +"An Embleme of the Times." On one side War, represented as a giant in +armour, is seen standing upon a heap of dead and mutilated bodies, +while Hypocrisy, in the form of a woman with two faces, is flying +towards a distant city. "Libertines," "anti-sabbatarians," and others, +are hastening in the same direction; and the angel of pestilence, +hovering over the city, is ready to pounce upon it. + +The party of the parliament was now triumphant, and the question of +religion again became the subject of dispute. The Presbyterians had +been establishing a sort of tyranny over men's minds, and sought to +proscribe all other sects, till their intolerance gradually raised up +a strong and general feeling of resistance. Since 1643 a brisk war of +political pamphlets had been carried on between the Presbyterians and +their opponents, when, in 1647, the Independents, whose cause had been +espoused by the army, gained the mastery. "Sir John Presbyter" or to +use the more familiar phrase, "Jack Presbyter," furnished a subject +for frequent satire, and the Presbyterians were not slow in returning +the blow. In the collection in the British Museum we find a caricature +which must have come from the Presbyterian party, entitled "Reall +Persecution, or the Foundation of a general Toleration, displaied +and portrayed by a proper emblem, and adorned with the same flowers +wherewith the scoffers of this last age have strowed their libellous +pamphlets." The group which occupies the middle part of this broadside, +is copied in our cut No. 181. It has its separate title, "The Picture +of an English Persecutor, or a foole-ridden ante-Presbeterian sectary." +(I give the spelling as in the original.) Folly is riding on the +sectarian, whom he holds with a bridle, the sectarian having the ears +of an ass. The following homely rhymes are placed in the mouth of +Folly,-- + + _Behould my habit, like my witt, + Equalls his on whom sitt._ + +Anti-Presbyterian is, as will be seen, dressed in the height of the +fashion, and says-- + + _My cursed speeches against Presbetry + Declares unto the world my foolery._ + +The mortification of the Presbyterians led in Scotland to the +proclamation of Charles II. as king, and to the ill-fated expedition +which ended in the battle of Worcester in 1651, when satirical +pamphlets, ballads, and caricatures against the Scottish Presbyterians +became for a while very popular. One of the best of the latter +is represented in our cut No. 182. Its object is to ridicule the +conditions which the Presbyterians exacted from the young prince +before they offered him the crown. It is printed in the middle of the +broadside, in prose, published on the 14th of July, 1651, with the +general title, "Old Sayings and Predictions verified and fulfilled, +touching the young King of Scotland and his gude subjects." The +picture has its separate title, "The Scots holding their young kinges +nose to the grinstone." followed by the lines-- + + _Come to the grinstone, Charles, 'tis now to late + To recolect, 'tis presbiterian fate, + You covinant pretenders, must I bee + The subject of youer tradgie-comedie?_ + + [Illustration: _No. 182. Conditions of Royalty._] + +In fact, the picture represents Presbyterianism--Jack +Presbyter--holding the young king's nose to the grindstone, which is +turned by the Scots, personified as Jockey. The following lines are put +into the mouths of the three actors in this scene:-- + + _Jockey._--I, Jockey, turne the stone of all your plots, + For none turnes faster than the turne-coat Scots. + + _Presbyter._--We for our ends did make thee king, be sure, + Not to rule us, we will not that endure. + + _King._--You deep dissemblers, I kow what you doe, + And, for revenges sake, I will dissemble too. + +Charles's defeat and flight from Worcester furnished materials for a +much more elaborate caricature than most of the similar productions +of this period, and of a somewhat singular design. It was published +on the 6th of November, 1651, and bears the title "A Mad Designe; or +a Description of the king of Scots marching in his disguise, after +the Rout at Worcester." A long, and not unnecessary, explanation of +the several groups forming this picture, enables us to understand it. +On the left Charles is seated on the globe "in a melancholy posture." +A little to the right, and nearly in front, the bishop of Clogher is +performing mass, at which lords Ormond and Inchquin, in the shapes of +strange animals, hold torches, and the lord Taaf, in the form of a +monkey, holds up the bishop's train. The Scottish army is seen marching +up, consisting, according to the description, of papists, prelatical +malignants, Presbyterians, and old cavaliers; the latter of whom are +represented by the "fooles head upon a pole in the rear." The next +group consists of two monkeys, one with a fiddle, the other carrying +a long staff with a torch at the end, concerning which we learn that +"The two ridiculous anticks, one with a fiddle, and the other with +a torch, set forth the ridiculousness of their condition when they +marched into England, carried up with high thoughts, yet altogether +in the darke, having onely a fooles bawble to be their light to walke +by, mirth of their own whimsies to keep up their spirits, and a +sheathed sword to truste in." Next come a troop of women, children, +and papists, lamenting over their defeat. Two monkeys on foot, and one +on horseback, follow, the latter riding with his face turned to the +horse's tail, and carrying in his hand a spit with provisions on it. +It is explained as "The Scots Kings flight from Worcester, represented +by the foole on horseback, riding backward, turning his face every way +in feares, ushered by duke Hambleton and the lord Wilmot." Lastly, +a crowd of women with flags bring up the rear. It cannot be said +that the wit displayed in this satire is of the very highest order. + +After this period we meet with comparatively few caricatures until the +death of Cromwell, and the eve of the Restoration, when there came +a new and fierce struggle of political parties. The Dutch were the +subject of some satirical prints and pamphlets in 1652; and we find a +small number of caricatures on the social evils, such as drunkenness +and gluttony, and on one or two subjects of minor agitation. With the +close of the Commonwealth a new form of caricature came in. Playing +cards had, during this seventeenth century, been employed for various +purposes which were quite alien to their original character. In France +they were made the means of conveying instruction to children. In +England, at the time of which we are speaking, they were adopted as +the medium for spreading political caricature. The earliest of these +packs of cards known is one which appears to have been published at the +very moment of the restoration of Charles II., and which was, perhaps, +engraved in Holland. It contains a series of caricatures on the +principal acts of the Commonwealth, and on the parliamentary leaders. +Among other cards of a similar character which have been preserved is +a pack relating to the popish plot, another relating to the Rye House +conspiracy, one on the Mississippi scheme, published in Holland, and +one on the South Sea bubble. + + [Illustration: _No. 183. Arthur Haselrigg._] + + [Illustration: _No. 184. General Lambert_.] + +The earliest of these packs of satirical cards, that on the +Commonwealth, belonged a few years ago to a lady of the name of Prest, +and is very fully described in a paper by Mr. Pettigrew, printed in +the "Journal of the British Archological Association." Each of the +fifty-two cards presents a picture with a satirical title. Thus the +ace of diamonds represents "The High Court of Justice, or Oliver's +Slaughter House." The eight of diamonds is represented in our cut No. +183; its subject is "Don Haselrigg, Knight of the Codled Braine." It +is hardly necesiary to say that Sir Arthur Haselrigg acted a very +prominent and remarkable part during the whole of the Commonwealth +period, and that his manners were impetuous and authoritative, which +was probably the meaning of the epithet here given to him. The card +of the king of diamonds represents rather unequivocally the subject +indicated by its title, "Sir H. Mildmay solicits a citizen's wife, for +which his owne corrects him." It is an allusion to one of the petty +scandals of the republican period. The eight of hearts is a satire on +major-general Lambert. This able and distinguished man was remarkably +fond of flowers, took great pleasure in cultivating them, and was +skilful in drawing them, which was one of his favourite amusements. +He withdrew to Amsterdam during the Protectorate, and there gave +full indulgence to this love of flowers, and I need hardly say that +it was the age of the great tulip mania in Holland. When, after the +Restoration, he was involved in the fate of the regicides, but had +his sentence commuted for thirty years of imprisonment, he alleviated +the dulness of his long confinement in the isle of Guernsey by the +same amusement. In the card we have engraved, Lambert is represented +in his garden, holding a large tulip in his hand; and it is no doubt +in allusion to this innocent taste that he is here entitled "Lambert, +Knight of the Golden Tulip." + + [Illustration: _No. 185. Shrovetide._] + +The Restoration furnished better songs than prints, and many years +passed before any caricatures worthy of notice appeared in England. +Even burlesque subjects of any merit occur but rarely, and I hardly +know of one which is worth describing here. Among the best of those I +have met with, is a pair of plates, published in 1660, representing +Lent and Shrovetide, and these, I believe, are copied or imitated from +foreign prints. Lent is come as a thin miserable-looking knight-errant, +appropriately armed and mounted, ready to give battle to Shrovetide, +whose good living is pernicious to the whole community, and he abuses +his opponent in good round terms. In the companion print, of which our +cut No. 185 is a copy, Shrovetide appears as a jolly champion, quite +ready to meet his enemy. He is best described in the following lines, +extracted from the verses which accompany the prints:-- + + _Fatt Shrovetyde, mounted on a good fatt oxe, + Supposd that Lent was mad, or caught a foxe,[99] + Armed cap-a-pea from head unto the heel, + A spit his long sword, somewhat worse than steale, + (Sheath'd in a fatt pigge and a peece of porke), + His bottles fild with wine, well stopt with corke; + The two plump capons fluttering at his crupper; + And 's shoulders lac'd with sawsages for supper; + The gridir'n (like a well strung instrument) + Hung at his backe, and for the turnament + His helmet is a brasse pott, and his flagge + A cookes foule apron, which the wind doth wagg, + Fixd to a broome: thus bravely he did ride, + And boldly to his foe he thus replied._ + + [99] _i.e._, was drunk. + + + + + CHAPTER XXII. + + ENGLISH COMEDY.--BEN JONSON.--THE OTHER WRITERS OF HIS + SCHOOL.--INTERRUPTION OF DRAMATIC PERFORMANCES.--COMEDY AFTER + THE RESTORATION.--THE HOWARDS BROTHERS; THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM; + THE REHEARSAL.--WRITERS OF COMEDY IN THE LATTER PART OF + THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.--INDECENCY OF THE STAGE.--COLLEY + CIBBER.--FOOTE. + + +In England, as in Athens of old, perfect comedy arose gradually out +of the personalities of the rude dramatic attempts of an earlier +period. Such productions as Ralph Roister Doister and Gammer Gurton's +Needle were mere imperfect attempts at, we may perhaps rather say +feelers towards, comedy itself--that drama, the object of which was to +caricature, and thus to dissect and apply correctives to, the vices +and weaknesses of contemporary society. The genius of Shakespeare was +far too exquisitely poetical to qualify him for a task like this; it +wanted some one who could use the lancet and scalpel skilfully, but +soberly, and who was not liable to be led astray by too much vigour of +imagination. + +Such a one was Ben Jonson, whom we may rightly consider as the father +of English comedy. "Bartholomew Fair," first performed at the Hope +Theatre, on Bankside, London, on the 31st of October, 1614, is the +most perfect and most remarkable example of the truly English comedy, +remarkable, among many other things, for the extraordinary number of +characters who were brought upon the stage in one piece, and who are +all at the same time grouped and individualised with a skill that +reminds us of the pictorial triumphs of a Callot or a Hogarth. London +life is placed before us in all its more popular forms in one grand +tableau, the one in which it would show itself in its more grotesque +attitudes; the London citizen, his vain or easy wife, sharpers of +every description, and their victims no less varied in character, +the petty city officers, all come in for their share of satire. The +different groups are distributed so naturally, that it is difficult +to say who is the principal character of the piece--and who ever was +the principal character in Bartholomew Fair? Perhaps the character of +Cokes, the young booby squire from Harrow--for in those times even +so near London as Harrow, a young squire was considered to be in all +probability but a young country booby--strikes us most. It is said to +have been at a later period the favourite character of Charles II. +Among the other principal characters of the play are a proctor of +the Arches Court named Littlewit, who imagines himself to be a _bel +esprit_ of the first order; his wife, and her mother, dame Purecraft, +who is a widow; Justice Overdo, a London magistrate, to whose ward, +Grace Wellborn, Cokes is affianced in marriage; a zealous Puritan, +named Zeal-of-the-land Busy, who is a suitor to the widow Purecraft, +herself also a Puritan; Winwife, Busy's rival; and a gamester named +Tom Quarlous, who figures as Winwife's friend and companion. All these +meet in town, on the morning of the fair, Cokes under the care of a +sort of steward or upper servant, named Waspe, who was of a quarrelsome +disposition, and separate in groups among the crowd which filled +Smithfield and its vicinity, each having their separate adventures, but +meeting from time to time, and reassembling at the end. Cokes behaves +as a simpleton from the country, longs for everything, and wonders at +everything, buys up toys and gingerbread, is separated from all his +companions, robbed of his money and even of his outer garments, and in +this condition finally settles down at a puppet-show. Meanwhile the +Puritan Busy, by his zeal against the "heathen abominations" of the +fair on one hand, and Waspe, by his quarrelsome temper on the other, +fall into a series of scrapes, which end in both being carried to the +stocks. They are there joined by another important personage. Justice +Overdo, who is distinguished by an extraordinary zeal for the right +administration of justice and the suppression of social vices of all +kinds, has come into the fair in disguise, in order to make himself +acquainted with its various abuses, and he passes among them unknown; +and his inquisitive intermeddling brings him into a variety of mishaps, +in the course of which he also is seized by the constable, and allows +himself to be taken to the stocks, rather than betray his identity. +Thus all three, Busy, Waspe, and Overdo, are placed in the stocks +at the same time; but Waspe, by a clever trick, escapes, and leaves +the Puritan and the justice confined together, the one looking upon +himself as a martyr for religion's sake, the other rather glorying in +suffering through his disinterested zeal for the common good. They, +too, after a while make their escape through an accidental oversight of +their keepers, and mix again with the mob. The women, likewise, have +been separated from their male companions, have fallen among sharpers +and bullies, been made drunk, and escaped but narrowly from still +worse disasters. They all finally meet before the puppet-show, which +has fixed the attention of Cokes, and there justice Overdo discovers +himself. Such are the materials of Ben Jonson's "Bartholomew Fair," +the busiest and most amusing of plays. It is said, when first acted, +to have given great satisfaction to king James, by the ridicule thrown +upon the Puritans, and it continued to be a favourite comedy when +revived after the Restoration. + +"The Alchemist," by the same author, preceded "Bartholomew Fair," by +four years, and was designed as a satire upon a class of impostors +who, in that age, were among the greatest pests of society, and were +instruments, one way or other, in the greatest crimes of the day. +"The Alchemist" belongs, also, to the pure English comedy, but its +plot is more simple and distinct than that of "Bartholomew Fair." It +involves events which may have occurred frequently, at periods when the +metropolis was from time to time exposed to the vicissitudes of the +plague. On one of these occasions, Lovewit, a London gentleman, obliged +to quit the metropolis in order to avoid the plague, leaves his town +house to the charge of one man-servant, Face, who proves dishonest, +associates himself with a rogue named Subtle, and an immoral woman +named Dol Common, and introduces them into the house, which is made the +basis for their subsequent operations. Subtle assumes the character of +a magician and alchemist, while Dol acts various female parts, and Face +goes about alluring people into their snares. Among their dupes are a +knight who lives upon the town, two English Puritans from Amsterdam, a +lawyer's clerk, a tobacco man, a young country squire, and his sister +dame Pliant, a widow. The various intrigues in which these individuals +are involved, show us the way in which the pretended conjurers and +alchemists contributed to all the vices of the town. At length their +base dealings are on the point of being exposed by the cunning of +one upon whom they had attempted to impose, when Truewit, the master +of the house, returns unexpectedly, and all is discovered, but the +alchemist and his female associate contrive to escape. The object of +their last intrigue had been to entrap dame Pliant, who was rich, into +a marriage with a needy sharper; and Lovewit, finding the lady in the +house, and liking her, marries her himself, and, in consideration of +the satisfaction he has thus procured, forgives his unfaithful servant. +Many have considered the Alchemist to be the best of Jonson's dramas. +"Epicoene, or the Silent Woman," which belongs to the year 1609, is +another satirical picture of London society, in which the same class of +characters appear. Morose, an eccentric gentleman of fortune, who has +a great horror for noise, and even obliges his servants to communicate +with him by signs, has a nephew, a young knight named Sir Dauphine +Eugenie, with whom he is dissatisfied, and he refuses to allow him +money for his support. A plot is laid by his friends, whereby the uncle +is led into a marriage with a supposed silent woman, named Epicoene, +but she only sustains the character until the wedding formalities +are completed, and these are followed by a scene of noise and riot, +which completely horrifies Morose, and leads to a reconciliation with +his nephew, to whom he makes over half his fortune. The earliest of +Ben Jonson's comedies, "Every Man in his Humour," was composed in +its present form in 1598, and is the first of these dramatic satires +on the manners and character of the citizens of London, of whom it +was fashionable at the courts of James I. and Charles I. to speak +contemptuously. Kno'well, an old gentleman of respectability, is +highly displeased with his son Edward, because the latter has taken to +writing poetry, and has formed a friendship with another gentleman of +his own age, who loves poetry and frequents the rather gay society of +the poets and wits of the town. Wellbred has a half-brother, a "plain +squire," named Downright, and a sister married to a rich city merchant +named Kitely. Kitely, the merchant, who is extremely jealous of his +wife, has a great desire to reform Wellbred, and draw him to a steadier +line of life, a sentiment in which Downright heartily joins. Kitely's +jealousy, and the steps taken to reform Wellbred, lead to the most +comic parts of the play, which concludes with the marriage of young +Kno'well to Kitely's daughter, Miss Bridget, and his reconciliation +with his father. Among the other characters in the piece are captain +Bobadil, "a blustering coward," justice Clement, "an old merry +magistrate," his clerk, Roger Formal, and a country gull and a town +gull. + +These comedies of London life became popular, and continued so +during this and the following reign--in fact, the mass of those who +attended the theatres could understand and appreciate them better +than any others, and, what was more, they felt them. Among Jonson's +contemporaries in the literature of this English comedy were Middleton +and Thomas Heywood, both very prolific writers, Chapman, and Marston. +Certain classes of characters are continually repeated in this comedy, +because they belonged especially to the London society of the time, +but the employment and distribution of these characters admitted of +great variations, and they perhaps often had at the time a special +interest, as representing known individuals, or as being combined in a +plot which was built upon real incidents in London life. Among these +were usually a country gentleman of fortune, who was very avaricious, +and had a spendthrift son, or who had a daughter, a rich heiress, who +was the object of the intrigues of spendthrift suitors; young heirs, +who have just come to their estates, and are spending them in London; +young country squires who are easy victims; a needy knight, as poor +in principles as in money, who lived upon the public in every way he +could; designing and unscrupulous women; bullies and sharpers of every +description. In fact, we seem to be always in the smell of the tavern, +and in the midst of dissipation. Then there are fat, sleek, and wealthy +citizens, whole souls are entirely wrapt up in their merchandise, +who are proud, nevertheless, of their position; and easy, credulous +city wives, who are fond of finery and of praise, eager for gaiety +and display, impatient of the rule of husbands, or of the dulness of +home, and very ready to listen to the advances of the gay gallants +from the court end of the town, or from the tavern. The city tradesman +has generally an apprentice or two, sometimes very sober but perhaps +more frequently dissipated, who play their parts in the piece; and +often a daughter, who is either a model of modesty and all the domestic +virtues, and is finally the reward of some hero of good principles, +who has been temporarily led astray, and his character misinterpreted, +or who is gay and intriguing, and comes to disgrace. But the favourite +idea of excellence, or, to use a technical phrase, the _beau ideal_ +of this comedy, appears to have been a wild youth, who goes through +every scene of dissipation, in a gentlemanly manner (as the term was +then understood), and comes out at the end of the play as an honest, +virtuous man, and receives the reward for qualities which he had not +previously displayed. + +Sometimes the writers of this comedy indulged in personal, or even +in political, allusions which brought them into trouble. In the year +1605, Ben Jonson, George Chapman, and John Marston, wrote jointly a +comedy entitled "Eastward Hoe." It is a very excellent and amusing +comedy, and was very popular. Touchstone, an honest goldsmith in the +city, has two apprentices, Golding, a sober and industrious youth, and +Quicksilver, who is an irreclaimable rake. Touchstone has also two +daughters, the eldest of whom, Gertrude, affects the fine lady, and +is ambitious of finding a husband in the fashionable world, while her +younger sister, Mildred, is all virtue and humility. An attachment +arises between Golding and Mildred. Another character in this drama +is a needy, scheming knight, who lives upon the town, and rejoices in +the name of Sir Petronel Flash. Sir Petronel is attracted by the rich +dowry which the young lady, Gertrude, had to expect, pays his court +to her, and easily works upon her vanity; and, her mother encouraging +her, they are hastily married, contrary to the wishes of her father. +The knight is supposed to possess a magnificent castle somewhere to the +east of London, and the young bride and her mother proceed in search of +this, from which the comedy derives its title of "Eastward Hoe," but +they are involved in various disagreeable adventures in the search, +which ends in the conviction that it is all a fable. Another character +in the play is a greedy and unprincipled usurer, who is so jealous of +his young and pretty wife, that he keeps her under lock and key; and +this man is deeply involved in money-lending with Sir Petronel Flash, +and they are engaged in a series of unprincipled transactions, which +lead to the disgrace of them all, and in the course of which the virtue +of the usurer's wife falls a sacrifice. Meanwhile the fortunes of the +two apprentices have been advancing in directly opposite directions. +Quicksilver, the unworthy apprentice, leaves his master, proceeds +from bad to worse, and finally is committed to prison, for a crime +the punishment of which was death. On the other hand, Golding has not +only gained his master's esteem and married his daughter Mildred, and +been adopted as the heir to his wealth, but he has merited the respect +of his fellow-citizens, and has been promoted in municipal rank. It +becomes Golding's duty to preside over the trial of his old fellow +apprentice Quicksilver, but the latter escapes through Golding's +generosity. + +There is some sound morality in the spirit of this comedy, and a +very large amount of immorality in the text. There was, indeed, a +coarse licence in the relations of society at this period, which are +but too faithfully represented in its literature. But there are two +circumstances, accidentally attached to this drama, which give it +a peculiar interest. When brought out upon the stage it contained +reflections upon Scotchmen which provoked the anger of king James I. +to such a degree, that all the authors were seized and thrown into +prison, and narrowly escaped the loss of their ears and noses, but they +obtained their release with some difficulty, and only through powerful +intercession. In the copy which has been brought down to us through +the press, we find no reflections whatever upon Scotchmen, so that it +must have been altered from the original text. When we consider that, +at this time, the English court and capital were crowded with needy +Scottish adventurers, who were looked upon with great jealousy, it is +not improbable that in the original form of the comedy, Sir Petronel +Flash may have been a Scotchman, and intended not only as a satire upon +the Scottish adventurers in general, but to have been designed for some +one in particular who had the means of bringing upon the authors the +extreme displeasure of the court. + +The other circumstance which has given celebrity to this comedy, is one +of still greater interest. After the Restoration, it was new modelled +by Nicholas Tate, and brought again upon the stage under the title of +"Cuckold's Haven." Perhaps through this remodelled edition, Hogarth +took from the comedy of "Eastward Hoe," the idea of his series of +plates of the history of the Idle and Industrious Apprentices. + +When we consider the ridicule which was continually thrown upon them +in this earlier period of the English comedy, we can easily understand +the bitterness with which the Puritans regarded the stage and the +drama. When they obtained power, the stage, as might be expected, was +suppressed, and for some years England was without a theatre. At the +Restoration, however, the theatres were opened again, and with greater +freedom than ever. At first the old comedies of the days of James I. +and Charles I. were revived, and many of them, modified and adapted to +the new circumstances, were again brought upon the stage. The original +comedies which appeared immediately after the Restoration, were often +marked with a political tinge; as the stage saw its natural protectors +in the court, and in the court party, it embraced their politics; and +Puritans, Roundheads, Whigs, all whose principles were supposed to be +contrary to royalty and arbitrary power, fell under its satire. Such +was the character of the comedy of "The Cheats," by a play-writer of +some repute named Wilson, which was brought out in 1662. The object +of this play appears to have been, in the first place, to satirise +the Nonconformists or Puritanical clergy--with whom were classed the +astrologers and conjurers, who had increased in number during the +Commonwealth time, and infested society more than ever--and the city +magistrates, who were not looked upon as being generally over-loyal. +The three cheats who are the heroes of this comedy, are Scruple, the +Nonconformist, Mopus, a pretender to physic and astrology, and alderman +Whitebroth. Direct personal attacks had been introduced into the comedy +of the Restoration, and it is probable that somebody of influence was +satirised under the name of Scruple, for the play was suppressed by +authority, and at a later period, when it was revived, the prologue +announces this fact in the following words:-- + + _Sad news, my masters; and too true, I fear, + For us--Scruple's a silenc'd minister. + Would ye the cause? The brethren snivel, and say, + 'Tis scandalous that any cheat but they._ + +Many of the dramatists of the Restoration were men of good and +aristocratic families, witty and profligate cavaliers, who had returned +from exile with their king. The family of the earl of Berkshire +produced no less than four writers of comedy, all brothers, Edward +Howard, colonel Henry Howard, sir Robert Howard, and James Howard, +while their sister, the lady Elizabeth Howard, was married to the +poet Dryden. Edward Howard's first dramatic piece was a tragi-comedy +entitled "The Usurper," which came out in 1668, and was intended as +a satire upon Cromwell. His best known comedies were "The Man of +Newmarket," and "Woman's Conquest." Colonel Henry Howard composed a +comedy entitled "United Kingdoms," which appears not to have been +printed. To James Howard, the youngest of the brothers, the play-going +public, even then rather a large one, owed "The English Mounsieur," +and "All Mistaken, or the Mad Couple." Sir Robert Howard was the best +writer of the four, and wrote both tragedies and comedies, which were +afterwards published collectively. The best of his comedies is "The +Committee," which was first brought on the stage in 1665, and through +some chance, certainly not by its merit, continued to be an acting play +during the whole of the last century. + +"The Committee" is by far the best of the dramatic writings of the +Howards. Its design was to turn to ridicule the Commonwealth men and +the Puritans. Colonel Blunt and colonel Careless are two royalists, +whose estates are in the hands of the committee of sequestrations, +and who repair to London for the purpose of compounding for them. +The chairman of the committee is a Mr. Day, a worldly-minded and +sufficiently selfish Puritan, but who is ruled by his more crafty and +still less scrupulous wife, a designing and very talkative woman. Both +are of low origin, for Mrs. Day had been a kitchen-woman, and both are +very proud and very tyrannical. Among the other principal characters +are Abel Day, their son, Obadiah, the clerk to the committee, a man in +the interest of the Days, and an Irish servant named Teague, who had +been the servant of Careless's dear friend, a royalist officer killed +in battle, and whom the colonel finds in great distress, and takes into +his own service out of charity. The character of Teague is a very poor +caricature upon an Irishman, and his blunders and bulls are of a very +spiritless description. Here is an example. Teague has overheard the +two colonels state that they should be obliged to take the Covenant, +and express their reluctance to do it, and in his inconsiderate zeal, +he hurries away to try if he cannot take the covenant for them, and +thus save them a disagreeable operation. In the street he meets a +wandering bookseller--a class of pedlars who were then common--and a +scene takes place which is best given in the words of the original:-- + + _Bookseller._--New books, new books! A Desperate Plot and + Engagement of the Bloody Cavaliers! Mr. Saltmarshe's Alarum + to the Nation, after having been three days dead! Mercurius + Britannicus-- + + _Teague._--How's that? They cannot live in Ireland after they are + dead three days! + + _Book._--Mercurius Britannicus, or the Weekly Post, or the Solemn + League and Covenant! + + _Teag._--What is that you say? Is it the Covenant you have? + + _Book._--Yes; what then, sir? + + _Teag._--Which is that Covenant? + + _Book._--Why, this is the Covenant. + + _Teag._--Well, I must take that Covenant. + + _Book._--You take my commodities? + + _Teag._--I must take that Covenant, upon my soul, now. + + _Book._--Stand off, sir, or I'll set you further! + + _Teag._--Well, upon my soul, now, I will take the Covenant for my + master. + + _Book._--Your master must pay me for't, then! + + _Teag._--I must take it first, and my master will pay you + afterwards. + + _Book._--You must pay me now. + + _Teag._--Oh! that I will [_Knocks him down_]. Now you're paid, you + thief of the world. Here's Covenants enough to poison the whole + nation. + + [_Exit._ + + _Book._--What a devil ails this fellow? [_Crying_]. He did not come + to rob me, certainly; for he has not taken above two-pennyworth + of lamentable ware away; but I feel the rascal's fingers. I may + light upon my wild Irishman again, and, if I do, I will fix him + with some catchpole, that shall be worse than his own country + bogs. + + [_Exit._ + +In the sequel, Teague is caught by the constables, and is liberated +at the interference of his master, who pays twopence for the book. +The plot of the comedy is but a simple one, and is neither skilfully +nor naturally carried out. Colonel Blunt comes to London from Reading +in the inside of a stage-coach, having for his travelling companions +Mrs. Day, her supposed daughter Ruth, and Arabella, a young lady whose +father is recently dead, leaving his estates in the hands of the +committee of sequestrations. Ruth is, in truth, a young lady whose +estates the Days have, under similar circumstances, robbed her of, and +it is their design to treat Arabella in the same manner, under disguise +of forcing her to marry their son Abel, a vain silly lad. To effect +this, as the committee itself requires some influencing to engage them +in the selfish plans of their chairman, Day and his wife forge a letter +from the exiled king, complimenting the former on his great power and +influence and talents as a statesman, and offering him great rewards +if he will secretly promote his cause. Day communicates this to the +committee under the pretext that it is his duty to make them acquainted +with all such perfidious designs that might come to his knowledge, and +they, convinced of his honesty and value to them, give up Arabella's +estates to the Days, and she falls entirely under their power. +Meanwhile, on the one hand, Arabella has gained the confidence of +Ruth, who makes her acquainted with the whole plot against her and her +estates, and on the other, Ruth falls in love with colonel Careless, +and colonel Blunt is smitten with the charms of Arabella, and all this +takes place in the committee room. Various incidents follow, which seem +not very much to the purpose, but at last, as the marriage of Arabella +to Abel Day is pressed forward, the two young ladies, although as yet +they have hardly had an interview with the colonels, resolve to make +their escape from the house of the chairman of the committee, and fly +to their lovers for protection. A short absence from the house of Mr. +and Mrs. Day and their son together, presents the desired opportunity, +and Day having accidentally left his keys behind him, the idea suggests +itself to Ruth to open his cabinet, and gain possession of the deeds +and papers of her own estates and those of Arabella. As she had before +this secretly observed the private drawer in which they were placed, +she met with no difficulty in effecting her purpose, and not only found +these documents, but also with them the forged letter from the king, +and some letters addressed to Day by young women whom he was secretly +keeping, and who demanded money for the support of children they had by +him, and alluded to matters of a still more serious character. Ruth +takes possession of all these, and thus laden, the two damsels hurry +away, and reach without interruption the house where they were to meet +the colonels. The Days return home immediately after the departure +of their wards, and at once suspect the real state of affairs, which +is fully confirmed, when Mr. Day finds that his most private drawer +has been opened, and his most important papers carried off. They +immediately proceed in search of the fugitives, having sent orders for +a detachment of soldiers to assist them, and the house in which the +lovers have taken refuge is surrounded before they have had time to +escape. Finding it useless to attempt resistance by force, the besieged +call for a parley, and then Ruth frightens Day by acquainting him with +the contents of the private letters she has become possessed of, and +his wife by the knowledge she has obtained of the forged letter, which +also she has in her possession. The Days are thus overreached, and the +play ends with a general reconciliation. The ladies are left with the +titles of their estates, and with their lovers, and we are left to +suppose that they afterwards married, and were happy. + +The plot of "The Committee," it will be seen, is not a very capital +one, but the manner in which it is worked out is still worse. The +dialogue is extremely tame, and the incidents are badly interwoven. +When I say that the example of wit given above is the best in the play, +and that there are not many attempts at wit in it, it will hardly be +thought that it could be amusing, and we cannot but feel astonished +at the popularity which it once enjoyed. This popularity, indeed, is +only explained by the fashion of ridiculing the Puritans, which then +prevailed so strongly; and it perhaps retained its place on the stage +during the last century chiefly from the circumstance of its wanting +the objectionable qualities which characterised the written plays of +the latter half of the seventeenth century. + +"The Committee" is, after all, one of the very best comedies of the +school of dramatists represented by the brothers Howard. Contemporary +with this school of flat comedies, there was a school of equally +inflated tragedy, and both soon became objects of ridicule to the +satirists of the day. Of these, one of the boldest was George Villiers, +duke of Buckingham, the son of the favourite of king James I., and +equally celebrated for his talents and his profligacy. Buckingham is +said to have planned and begun his satirical comedy of "The Rehearsal" +as early as the year 1663, and to have had it ready for representation +towards the December of 1665, when the breaking out of the great plague +caused the theatres to be closed. After this interruption its author, +who was a desultory writer, appears to have laid it aside for some +time and then, new objects for satire having presented themselves, he +altered and modified it, and it was finally completed in 1671, when it +was brought out at the Theatre Royal in Covent Garden. It is said that +Buckingham was assisted in the composition of this satire, but it is +not stated in what manner, by Butler, and by Martin Clifford, of the +Charter-house. It is understood that, in the first form of his satire, +Buckingham had chosen the Hon. Edward Howard for its hero, and that he +afterwards exchanged him for Sir William Davenant, but he finally fixed +upon Dryden, whose tragedies and comedies are certainly not the best of +his writings--possibly some personal pique may have had an influence +in the selection. Nevertheless, with Dryden, the Howards, Davenant, +and one or two other writers of comedy, come in for their share of +ridicule. Dryden, under the name of Bayes, has composed a new drama, +and a friend named Johnson goes to witness the rehearsal of this play, +taking with him a country friend of the name of Smith. The play itself +is a piece of mockery throughout, made up of parodies, often very +happy, on the different play-writers of the day, and especially upon +Dryden; and it is mixed up with a running conversation between Bayes, +the author, and his two visitors, which is full of satirical humour. +The first part of the prologue explains to us sufficiently the spirit +in which this satire was written. + + _We might well call this short mock-play of ours + A posie made of weeds instead of flowers; + Yet such have been presented to your noses, + And there are such, I fear, who thought 'em roses. + Would some of 'em were here, to see this night + What stuff it is in which they took delight. + Here, brisk, insipid rogues, for wit, let fall + Sometimes dull sense, but oft'ner none at all; + There, strutting heroes, with a grim-fac'd train, + Shalt brave the gods, in king Cambyses vein. + For (changing rules, of late, as if men writ + In spite of reason, nature, art, and wit) + Our poets make us laugh at tragedy, + And with their comedies they make us cry._ + +A short account of this satire will, perhaps, be best understood, if I +explain that the antagonism of two contending kings of Granada having +been a favourite idea of Dryden in his tragedies, Buckingham is said to +have designed to ridicule him in making two, not rival, but associate +kings of Brentford, though others say that these two kings of Brentford +were intended for a sneer upon king Charles II. and the duke of York. +These two kings are the heroes of Bayes's play. The first act of +"The Rehearsal" consists of a discussion between Bayes, Johnson, and +Smith, on the general character of the play, in which Bayes exhibits +a large amount of vanity and self-confidence, said to have been a +characteristic of all these play-writers of the earlier period of the +Restoration, and he informs them that he has "made a prologue and an +epilogue, which may both serve for either; that is, the prologue for +the epilogue, or the epilogue for the prologue, (do you mark!) nay, +they may both serve, too, 'egad, for any other play as well as this." +Smith observes, "That's indeed artificial." Finally Bayes explains, +that as other authors, in their prologues, sought to flatter and +propitiate their audience, in order to gain their favourable opinion of +the plot, he, on the contrary, intended to force their applause out of +them by mere dint of terror, and for that purpose, he had introduced +as speakers of his prologue, no less personages than Thunder and +Lightning. This prologue, disengaged from the remarks of Bayes and his +friends, runs as follows:-- + + _Enter_ THUNDER _and_ LIGHTNING. + + _Thun._--I am the bold Thunder. + + _Light._--The brisk Lightning I. + + _Thun._--I am the bravest Hector of the sky. + + _Light._--And I fair Helen, that made Hector die. + + _Thun._--I strike men down. + + _Light._--I fire the town. + + _Thun_.--Let critics take heed how they grumble, + For then I begin for to rumble. + + _Light_.--Let the ladies allow us their graces, + Or I'll blast all the paint on their faces, + And dry up their peter to soot. + + _Thun_.--Let the critics look to't. + + _Light_.--Let the ladies look to't. + + _Thun_.--For the Thunder will do't. + + _Light_.--For the Lightning will shoot. + + _Thun_.--I'll give you dash for dash. + + _Light_.--I'll give you flash for flash. + Gallants, I'll singe your feather. + + _Thun_.--I'll Thunder you together. + + _Both_.--Look to't, look to't; we'll do't, we'll do't; + look to't; we'll do't. [_Twice or thrice repeated._ + +Bayes calls this "but a slash of a prologue," in reply to which, Smith +observes, "Yes; 'tis short, indeed, but very terrible." It is a parody +on a scene in "The Slighted Maid," a play by Sir Robert Stapleton, +where Thunder and Lightning were introduced, and their conversation +begins in the same words. But the poet has another difficulty on which +he desires the opinion of his visitors. "I have made," he says, "one of +the most delicate, dainty similes in the whole world, 'egad, if I knew +how to apply it. 'Tis," he adds, "an allusion to love." This is the +simile-- + + _So boar and sow, when any storm is nigh + Snuff up, and smell it gathering in the sky; + Boar beckons sow to trot in chesnut groves, + And there consummate their unfinished loves: + Pensive in mud they wallow all alone, + And snore and gruntle to each others moan._ + +It is a rather coarse, but clever parody on a simile in Dryden's +"Conquest of Granada," part ii.:-- + + _So two kind turtles, when a storm is nigh, + Look up, and see it gathering in the sky; + Each calls his mate to shelter in the groves, + Leaving, in murmurs, their unfinished loves; + Perch'd on some dropping branch, they sit alone, + And coo, and hearken to each other's moan._ + +It is decided that the simile should be added to the prologue, for, as +Johnson remarks to Bayes, "Faith, 'tis extraordinary fine, and very +applicable to Thunder and Lightning, methinks, because it speaks of a +storm." In the second act we come to the opening of the play, the first +scene consisting of whispering, in ridicule of a scene in Davenant's +"Play-house to Let," where Drake senior says-- + + _Draw up your men, + And in low whispers give your orders out._ + +In fact, the Gentleman-Usher and the Physician of the two kings of +Brentford appear upon the scene alone, and discuss a plot to dethrone +the two kings of Brentford, which they communicate by whispers into +each other's ears, which are totally inaudible. In Scene ii., "Enter +the two kings, hand in hand," and Bayes remarks to his visitors, +"Oh! these are now the two kings of Brentford; take notice of their +style--'twas never yet upon the stage; but, if you like it, I could +make a shift, perhaps, to show you a whole play, writ all just so." The +kings begin, rather familiarly, because, as Bayes adds, "they are both +persons of the same quality:"-- + + _1st King._--Did you observe their whispers, brother king? + + _2nd King._--I did, and heard, besides, a grave bird sing, + That they intend, sweetheart, to play us pranks. + + _1st King._--If that design appears, + I'll lay them by the ears, + Until I make 'em crack. + + _2nd King._--And so will I, i' fack! + + _1st King._--You must begin, _mon foi_. + + _2nd King._--Sweet sir, _pardonnez moi_. + +Bayes observes that he makes the two kings talk French in order +"to show their breeding." In the third act, Bayes introduces a new +character, prince Prettyman, a parody upon the character of Leonidas, +in Dryden's "Marriage-a-la-Mode." The prince falls asleep, and then +his beloved Cloris comes in, and is surprised, upon which Bayes +remarks, "Now, here she must make a simile." "Where's the necessity of +that, Mr. Bayes?" asks the critical Mr. Smith. "Oh," replies Bayes, +"because she's surprised. That's a general rule. You must ever make +a simile when you are surprised; 'tis a new way of writing." Now +we have another parody upon one of Dryden's similes. In the fourth +scene, the Gentleman-Usher and Physician appear again, discussing the +question whether their whispers had been heard or not, a discussion +which they conclude by seizing on the two thrones, and occupying them +with their drawn swords in their hands. Then they march out to raise +their forces, and a battle to music takes place, four soldiers on each +side, who are all killed. Next we have a scene between prince Prettyman +and his tailor, Tom Thimble, which involves a joke upon the princely +principle of non-payment. A scene or two follows in a similar tone, +without at all advancing the plot; although it appears that another +prince, Volscius, who, we are to suppose, supports the old dynasty of +Brentford, has made his escape to Piccadilly, while the army which he +is to lead has assembled, and is concealed, at Knightsbridge. This +incident produces a discussion between Mr. Bayes and his friends:-- + + _Smith._--But pray, Mr. Bayes, is not this a little difficult, that + you were saying e'en now, to keep an army thus concealed in + Knightsbridge? + + _Bayes._--In Knightsbridge?--stay. + + _Johnson._--No, not if inn-keepers be his friends.[100] + + _Bayes._--His friends? Ay, sir, his intimate acquaintance; or else, + indeed, I grant it could not be. + + _Smith._--Yes, faith, so it might be very easy. + + _Bayes._--Nay, if I don't make all things easy, 'egad, I'll give + 'em leave to hang me. Now you would think that he is going + out of town; but you will see how prettily I have contrived + to stop him, presently. + + [100] Knightsbridge, as the principal entrance to London from the west, + was full of inns. + +Accordingly, prince Volscius yields to the influence of a fair +_demoiselle_, who bears the classical name of Parthenope, and after +various exhibitions of hesitation, he does not leave town. Another +scene or two, with little meaning, but full of clever parodies on the +plays of Dryden, the Howards, and their contemporaries. The first scene +of the fourth act opens with a funeral, a parody upon colonel Henry +Howard's play of the "United Kingdoms." Pallas interferes, brings the +lady who is to be buried to life, gets up a dance, and furnishes a very +extempore feast. The princes Prettyman and Volscius dispute about their +sweethearts. At the commencement of the fifth act the two usurping +kings appear in state, attended by four cardinals, the two princes, +all the lady-loves, heralds, and sergeants-at-arms, &c. In the middle +of all this state, "the two right kings of Brentford descend in the +clouds, singing, in white garments, and three fiddlers sitting before +them in green." "Now," says Bayes to his friends, "because the two +right kings descend from above, I make 'em sing to the tune and style +of our modern spirits." And accordingly they proceeded in a continuous +parody:-- + + _1st King._--Haste, brother king, we are sent from above. + + _2nd King._--Let us move, let us move; + Move, to remove the fate + Of Brentford's long united state. + + _1st King._--Tara, tan, tara!--full east and by south. + + _2nd King._--We sail with thunder in our mouth. + In scorching noon-day, whilst the traveller stays, + Busy, busy, busy, busy, we bustle along, + Mounted upon warm Phoebus's rays, + Through the heavenly throng, + Hasting to those + Who will feast us at night with a pig's pettytoes. + + _1st King._--And we'll fall with our plate + In an olio of hate + + _2nd King._--But, now supper's done, the servitors try, + Like soldiers, to storm a whole half-moon pie. + + _1st King._--They gather, they gather, hot custards in spoons: + But, alas! I must leave these half-moons, + And repair to my trusty dragoons. + + _2nd King._--O stay! for you need not as yet go astray; + The tide, like a friend, has brought ships in our way, + And on their high ropes we will play; + Like maggots in filberts, we'll snug in our shell, + We'll frisk in our shell, + We'll firk in our shell, + And farewell. + + _1st King._--But the ladies have all inclination to dance, + And the green frogs croak out a coranto of France. + +All this is quite Aristophanic. It is interrupted by a discussion +between Bayes and his visitors on the music and the dance, and then the +two kings continue:-- + + _2nd King._--Now mortals, that hear + How we tilt and career, + With wonder, will fear + The event of such things as shall never appear. + + _1st King._--Stay you to fulfil what the gods have decreed. + + _2nd King._--Then call me to help you, if there shall be need. + + _1st King._--So firmly resolved is a true Brentford king, + To save the distressed, and help to 'em bring, + That, ere a full pot of good ale you can swallow, + He's here with a whoop, and gone with a halloo. + +The rather too inquisitive Smith wonders at all this, and complains +that, to him, the sense of this is "not very plain." "Plain!" exclaims +Bayes, "why, did you ever hear any people in the clouds speak plain? +They must be all for flight of fancy, at its full range, without the +least check or control upon it. When once you tie up sprites and people +in clouds to speak plain, you spoil all." The two kings of Brentford +now "light out of the clouds, and step into the throne," continuing the +same _dignified_ conversation:-- + + _1st King._--Come, now to serious council we'll advance. + + _2nd King._--I do agree; but first, let's have a dance. + +This confidence of the two kings of Brentford is suddenly disturbed +by the sound of war. Two heralds announce that the army, that of +Knightsbridge, had come to protect them, and that it had come _in +disguise_, an arrangement which puzzles the author's two visitors:-- + + _1st King._--What saucy groom molests our privacies? + + _1st Herald._--The army's at the door, and, in disguise, + Desires a word with both your majesties. + + _2nd Herald._--Having from Knightsbridge hither march'd by stealth. + + _2nd King._--Bid 'em attend a while, and drink our health. + + _Smith._--How, Mr. Bayes? The army in disguise! + + _Bayes._--Ay, sir, for fear the usurpers might discover them, that + went out but just now. + +War itself follows, and the commanders of the two armies, the general +and the lieutenant-general, appear upon the stage in another parody +upon the opening scenes of Dryden's "Siege of Rhodes:"-- + + _Enter, at several doors, the_ GENERAL _and_ LIEUTENANT-GENERAL, + _armed cap--pie, with each a lute in his hand, and his sword + drawn, and hung with a scarlet riband at the wrist_. + + _Lieut.-Gen._--Villain, thou liest. + + _Gen._--Arm, arm, Gonsalvo, arm. What! ho! + The lie no flesh can brook, I trow. + + _Lieut.-Gen._--Advance from Acton with the musqueteers. + + _Gen._--Draw down the Chelsea cuirassiers. + + _Lieut.-Gen._--The band you boast of, Chelsea cuirassiers, + Shall in my Putney pikes now meet their peers. + + _Gen._--Chiswickians, aged, and renowned in fight, + Join with the Hammersmith brigade. + + _Lieut.-Gen._--You'll find my Mortlake boys will do them right, + Unless by Fulham numbers over-laid. + + _Gen._--Let the left wing of Twick'n'am foot advance, + And line that eastern hedge. + + _Lieut.-Gen._--The horse I raised in Petty France + Shall try their chance, + And scour the meadows, overgrown with sedge. + + _Gen._--Stand: give the word. + + _Lieut.-Gen._--Bright sword. + + _Gen._--That may be thine, + But 'tis not mine. + + _Lieut.-Gen._--Give fire, give fire, at once give fire, + And let those recreant troops perceive mine ire. + + _Gen._--Pursue, pursue; they fly, + That first did give the lie! [_Exeunt._ + +Thus the battle is carried on in talk between two individuals. Bayes +alleges, as an excuse for introducing these trivial names of places, +that "the spectators know all these towns, and may easily conceive +them to be within the dominions of the two kings of Brentford." +The battle is finally stopped by an eclipse, and three personages, +representing the sun, moon, and earth, advance upon the stage, and +by dint of singing and manoeuvring, one gets in a line between the +other two, and this, according to the strict rules of astronomy, +constituted the eclipse. The eclipse is followed by another battle +of a more desperate character, to which a stop is put in an equally +extraordinary manner, by the entrance of the furious hero Drawcansir, +who slays all the combatants on both sides. The marriage of prince +Prettyman was to form the subject of the fifth act, but while Bayes, +Johnson, and Smith withdraw temporarily, all the players, in disgust, +run away to their dinners, and thus ends "The Rehearsal" of Mr. Bayes's +play. The epilogue returns to the moral which the play was designed to +inculcate:-- + + _The play is at an end, but where's the plot? + That circumstance the poet Bayes forgot. + And we can boast, though 'tis a plotting age, + No place is freer from it than the stage._ + +Formerly people sought to write so that they might be understood, but +"this new way of wit" was altogether incomprehensible:-- + + _Wherefore, for ours, and for the kingdom's peace, + May this prodigious way of writing cease; + Let's have, at least once in our lives, a time + When we may hear some reason, not all rhyme. + We have this ten years felt its influence; + Pray let this prove a year of prose and sense._ + +English comedy was certainly greatly reformed, in some senses of the +word reform, during the period which followed the publication of "The +Rehearsal," and, in the hands of writers like Wycherley, Shadwell, +Congreve, and D'Urfey, the dulness of the Howards was exchanged for +an extreme degree of vivacity. The plot was as little considered as +ever--it was a mere peg on which to hang scenes brilliant with wit +and _repartee_. The small intrigue is often but a frame for a great +picture of society in its forms then most open to caricature, with +all the petty intrigues inseparable from it. "Epsom Wells," one of +Shadwell's earlier comedies, and perhaps his best, will bear comparison +with Jonson's "Bartholomew Fair." The personages represented in it +are exactly those which then shone in such society--three "men of wit +and pleasure," one of the class of country squires whom the wits of +London loved to laugh at, and who is described as "a country justice, +a public spirited, politick, discontented fop, an immoderate hater of +London, and a lover of the country above measure, a hearty true English +coxcomb." Then we have "two cheating, sharking, cowardly bullies." +The citizens of London are represented by Bisket, "a comfit-maker, a +quiet, humble, civil cuckold, governed by his wife, whom he very much +fears and loves at the same time, and is very proud of," and Fribble, +"a haberdasher, a surly cuckold, very conceited, and proud of his +wife, but pretends to govern and keep her under," and their wives, the +first "an impertinent, imperious strumpet," and the other, "an humble, +submitting wife, who jilts her husband that way, a very ----." One +or two other characters of the same stamp, with "two young ladies of +wit, beauty, and fortune," who behave themselves not much better than +the others, and a full allowance of "parsons, hectors, constables, +watchmen, and fiddlers," complete the _dramatis person_ of "Epsom +Wells." With such materials anybody will understand the character of +the piece, which was brought out on the stage in 1672. "The Squire of +Alsatia," by the same author, brought upon the stage in the eventful +year 1688, is a vivid picture of one of the wildest phases of London +life in those still rather primitive times. Alsatia, as every reader of +Walter Scott knows, was a cant name for the White Friars, in London, a +locality which, at that time, was beyond the reach of the law and its +officers, a refuge for thieves and rogues, and especially for debtors, +where they could either resist with no great fear of being overcome, +or, when resistance was no longer possible, escape with ease. With such +a scene, and such people for characters, we are not surprised that the +printed edition of this play is prefaced by a vocabulary of the cant +words employed in it. The principal characters in the play are of the +same class with those which form the staple of all these old comedies. +First there is a country father or uncle, who is rich and severe upon +the vices of youth, or arbitrary, or avaricious. He is here represented +by sir William Belfond, "a gentleman of about 3000 per annum, who in +his youth had been a spark of the town; but married and retired into +the country, where he turned to the other extreme--rigid, morose, most +sordidly covetous, clownish, obstinate, positive, and forward." He must +have a London brother, or near relative, endowed with exactly contrary +qualities, here represented by sir Edward Belfond, sir William's +brother, "a merchant, who by lucky hits had gotten a great estate, +lives single with ease and pleasure, reasonably and virtuously, a man +of great humanity and gentleness and compassion towards mankind, well +read in good books, possessed with all gentlemanlike qualities." Sir +William Belfond has two sons. Belfond senior, the eldest, is "bred +after his father's rustic, swinish manner, with great rigour and +severity, upon whom his father's estate is entailed, the confidence +of which makes him break out into open rebellion to his father, and +become lewd, abominably vicious, stubborn, and obstinate." The younger +Belfond, Sir William's second son, had been "adopted by Sir Edward, +and bred from his childhood by him, with all the tenderness and +familiarity, and bounty, and liberty that can be;" he was "instructed +in all the liberal sciences, and in all gentleman-like education; +somewhat given to women, and now and then to good fellowship; but +an ingenious, well-accomplished gentleman; a man of honour, and of +excellent disposition and temper." Then we have some of the leading +heroes of Alsatia, and first Cheatly, who is described as "a rascal, +who by reason of debts, dares not stir out of Whitefryers, but there +inveigles young heirs in tail; and helps 'em to goods and money upon +great disadvantages; is bound for them, and shares with them, till he +undoes them; a lewd, impudent, debauched fellow, very expert in the +cant about the town." Shamwell is "cousin to the Belfonds, an heir, +who, being ruined by Cheatly, is made a decoy-duck for others; not +daring to stay out of Alsatia, where he lives; is bound with Cheatly +for heirs, and lives upon them, a dissolute, debauch'd life." Another +of these characters is captain Hackum, "a block-headed bully of +Alsatia; a cowardly, impudent, blustering fellow; formerly a sergeant +in Flanders, run from his colours, retreating into Whitefryers for a +very small debt; where by the Alsatians he is dubb'd a captain; marries +one that lets lodgings, sells cherry-brandy, and is a bawd." Nor is +Alsatia without a representative of the Puritanical part of society, in +Scrapeall, "a hypocritical, repeating, praying, psalm-singing, precise +fellow, pretending to great piety; a godly knave, who joins with +Cheatly, and supplies young heirs with goods and money." A rather large +number of inferior characters fill up the canvas; and the females, +with two exceptions, belong to the same class. The plot of this play is +very simple. The elder son of sir William Belfond has taken to Alsatia, +but sir William, on his return from abroad, hearing talk of the fame of +a squire Belfond among the Alsatians, imagines that it is his younger +son, and out of this mistake a considerable amount of misunderstanding +arises. At last sir William discovers his error, and finds his eldest +son in Whitefryers, but the youth sets him at defiance. The father, in +great anger, brings tipstaff constables, to take away his son by force; +but the Alsatians rise in force, the officers of the law are beaten, +and sir William himself taken prisoner. He is rescued by the younger +Belfond, and in the conclusion the elder brother becomes penitent, and +is reconciled with his father. There is an underplot, far from moral +in its character, which ends in the marriage of Belfond junior. It is +a busy, noisy play, and was a great favourite on the stage; but it is +now chiefly interesting as a vivid picture of London life in the latter +half of the seventeenth century. "Bury Fair," by Shadwell, is another +comedy of the same description; with little interest in the plot, but +full of life and movement. If "The Squire of Alsatia" was noisy, "The +Scowrers," another comedy by the same author, first brought on the +stage in 1691, was still more so. The wild and riotous gallants who, +in former times of inefficient police regulation, infested the streets +at night, and committed all sorts of outrages, were known at different +periods by a variety of names. In the reign of James I. and Charles +I. they were the "roaring boys;" in the time of Shadwell, they were +called the "scowrers," because they scowered the streets at night, and +rather roughly cleared them of all passengers; a few years later they +took the name of Mohocks, or Mohawks. During the night London lay at +the mercy of these riotous classes, and the streets witnessed scenes of +brutal violence, which, at the present day, we can hardly imagine. This +state of things is pictured in Shadwell's comedy. Sir William Rant, +Wildfire, and Tope, are noted scowrers, well known in the town, whose +fame has excited emulation in men of less distinction in their way, +Whachum, "a city wit and scowrer, imitator of sir William," and "two +scoundrells," his companions, Bluster and Dingboy. Great enmity arises +between the two parties of rival scowrers. The more serious characters +in the play are Mr. Rant, sir William Rant's father, and sir Richard +Maggot, "a foolish Jacobite alderman" (it must be remembered that we +are now in the reign of king William). Sir Richard's wife, lady Maggot, +like the citizen's wives of the comedy of the Restoration generally, +is a lady rather wanting in virtue, ambitious of mixing with the gay +and fashionable world, and somewhat of a tyrant over her husband. She +has two handsome daughters, whom she seeks to keep confined from the +world, lest they should become her rivals. There are low characters +of both sexes, who need not be enumerated. Much of the play is taken +up with street rows, capital satirical pictures of London life. The +play ends with marriages, and with the reconciliation of sir William +Rant with his father, the serious old gentleman of the play. Shadwell +excelled in these busy comedies. One of the nearest approaches to him +is Mountfort's comedy of "Greenwich Park," which is another striking +satire on the looseness of London life at that time. As in the others, +the plot is simply nothing. The play consists of a number of intrigues, +such as may be imagined, at a time when morality was little respected, +in places of fashionable resort like Greenwich Park and Deptford Wells. + +An element of satire was now introduced into English comedy which does +not appear to have belonged to it before--this was mimicry. Although +the principal characters in the play bore conventional names, they +appear often to have been intended to represent individuals then well +known in society, and these individuals were caricatured in their +dress, and mimicked in their language and manners. We are told that +this mimicry contributed greatly to the success of "The Rehearsal," +the duke of Buckingham having taken incredible pains to make Lacy, who +acted the part of Bayes, perfect in imitating the voice and manner +of Dryden, whose dress and gait were minutely copied. This personal +satire was not always performed with impunity. On the 1st of February, +1669, Pepys went to the Theatre Royal to see the performance of "The +Heiress," in which it appears that sir Charles Sedley was personally +caricatured, and the secretary of king Charles's admiralty has left +in his diary the following entry:--"To the king's house, thinking to +have seen the Heyresse, first acted on Saturday, but when we come +thither we find no play there; Kynaston, that did act a part therein +in abuse to sir Charles Sedley, being last night exceedingly beaten +with sticks by two or three that saluted him, so as he is mightily +bruised, and forced to keep his bed." It is said that Dryden's comedy +of "Limberham," brought on the stage in 1678, was prohibited after the +first night, because the character of Limberham was considered to be +too open a satire on the duke of Lauderdale. + +Another peculiarity in the comedies of the age of the Restoration was +their extraordinary indelicacy. The writers seemed to emulate each +other in presenting upon the stage scenes and language which no modest +ear or pure mind could support. In the earlier period coarseness in +conversation was characteristic of an unpolished age--the language put +in the mouths of the actors, as remarked before, smelt of the tavern; +but under Charles II. the tone of fashionable society, as represented +on the stage, is modelled upon that of the brothel. Even the veiled +allusion is no longer resorted to, broad and direct language is +substituted in its place. This open profligacy of the stage reached its +greatest height between the years 1670 and 1680. The staple material +of this comedy may be considered to be the commission of adultery, +which is presented as one of the principal ornaments in the character +of the well-bred gentleman, varied with the seducing of other men's +mistresses, for the keeping of mistresses appears as the rule of +social life. The "Country Wife," one of Wycherley's comedies, which is +supposed to have been brought on the stage perhaps as early as 1672, +is a mass of gross indecency from beginning to end. It involves two +principal plots, that of a voluptuary who feigns himself incapable of +love and insensible to the other sex, in order to pursue his intrigues +with greater liberty; and that of a citizen who takes to his wife a +silly and innocent country girl, whose ignorance he believes will be +a protection to her virtue, but the very means he takes to prevent +her, lead to her fall. The "Parson's Wedding," by Thomas Killigrew, +first acted in 1673, is equally licentious. The same at least may be +said of Dryden's "Limberham, or the Kind Keeper," first performed in +1678, which, according to the author's own statement, was prohibited +on account of its freeness, but more probably because the character +of Limberham was believed to be intended for a personal satire on the +unpopular earl of Lauderdale. Its plot is simple enough; it is the +story of a debauched old gentleman, named Aldo, whose son, after a +rather long absence on the Continent, returns to England, and assumes +the name of Woodall, in order to enjoy freely the pleasures of London +life before he makes himself known to his friends. He takes a lodging +in a house occupied by some loose women, and there meets with his +father, but, as the latter does not recognise his son, they become +friends, and live together licentiously so long, that when the son at +length discovers himself, the old man is obliged to overlook his vices. +Otway's comedy of "Friendship in Fashion," performed the same year, was +not a whit more moral. But all these are far outdone by Ravenscroft's +comedy of "The London Cuckolds," first brought out in 1682, which, +nevertheless, continued to be acted until late in the last century. It +is a clever comedy, full of action, and consisting of a great number +of different incidents, selected from the less moral tales of the old +story-tellers as they appear in the "Decameron" of Boccaccio, among +which that of the ignorant and uneducated young wife, similar to the +plot of Wycherley's "Country Wife," is again introduced. + +The corruption of morals had become so great, that when women took +up the pen, they exceeded in licentiousness even the other sex, as +was the case with Mrs. Behn. Aphra Behn is understood to have been +born at Canterbury, but to have passed some part of her youth in the +colony of Surinam, of which her father was governor. She evidently +possessed a disposition for intrigue, and she was employed by the +English government, a few years after the Restoration, as a political +spy at Antwerp. She subsequently settled in London, and gained a living +by her pen, which was very prolific in novels, poems, and plays. It +would be difficult to point out in any other works such scenes of +open profligacy as those presented in Mrs. Behn's two comedies of +"Sir Patient Fancy" and "The City Heiress, or Sir Timothy Treat-all," +which appeared in 1678 and 1681. Concealment of the slightest kind is +avoided, and even that which cannot be exposed to view, is tolerably +broadly described. + +It appears that the performance of the "London Cuckolds" had been the +cause of some scandal, and there were, even among play-goers, some who +took offence at such outrages on the ordinary feelings of modesty. +The excess of the evil had begun to produce a reaction. Ravenscroft, +the author of that comedy, produced on the stage, in 1684, a comedy, +entitled "Dame Dobson, or the Cunning Woman," which was intended to be +a modest play, but it was unceremoniously "damned" by the audience. +The prologue to this new comedy intimates that the "London Cuckolds" +had pleased the town and diverted the court, but that some "squeamish +females" had taken offence at it, and that he had now written a "dull, +civill" play to make amends. They are addressed, therefore, in such +terms as these:-- + + _In you, chaste ladies, then we hope to-day, + This is the poet's recantation play. + Come often to 't, that he at length may see + 'Tis more than a pretended modesty. + Stick by him now, for if he finds you falter, + He quickly will his way of writing alter; + And every play shall send you blushing home, + For, though you rail, yet then we're sure you'll come._ + +And it is further intimated,-- + + _A naughty play was never counted dull-- + Nor modest comedy e'er pleased you much._ + +"I remember," says Colley Cibber in his "Apology," looking back to +these times, "I remember the ladies were then observed to be decently +afraid of venturing bare-faced to a new comedy, till they had been +assured they might do it without the risk of an insult to their +modesty; or if their curiosity were too strong for their patience, +they took care at least to save appearances, and rarely came upon the +first days of acting but in masks (then daily worn, and admitted in the +pit, the side boxes, and gallery), which custom, however, had so many +ill consequences attending it, that it has been abolished these many +years." According to the _Spectator_, ladies began now to desert the +theatre when comedies were brought out, except those who "never miss +the first day of a new play, lest it should prove too luscious to admit +of their going with any countenance to the second." + +In the midst of this abuse, there suddenly appeared a book which +created at the time a great sensation. The comedies of the latter half +of the seventeenth century were not only indecent, but they were filled +with profane language, and contained scenes in which religion itself +was treated with contempt. At that time there lived a divine of the +Church of England, celebrated for his Jacobitism--for I am now speaking +of the reign of king William--for his talents as a controversial +writer, and for his zeal in any cause which he undertook. This was +Jeremy Collier, the author of several books of some merit, which are +seldom read now, and who suffered for his zeal in the cause of king +James, and for his refusal to take the oath of allegiance to king +William. In the year 1698 Collier published his "Short View of the +Immorality and Profaneness of the English stage," in which he boldly +attacked the licentiousness of the English comedy. Perhaps Collier's +zeal carried him a little too far; but he had offended the wits, and +especially the dramatic poets, on all sides, and he was exposed to +attacks from all quarters, in which Dryden himself took an active part. +Collier showed himself fully capable of dealing with his opponents, and +the controversy had the effect of calling attention to the immoralities +of the stage, and certainly contributed much towards reforming them. +They were become much less frequent and less gross at the opening of +the eighteenth century. + +Towards the end of the reign of king Charles II., the stage was more +largely employed as a political agent, and under his successor, James +II., the Puritans and the Whigs were constantly held up to scorn. After +the Revolution, the tables were turned, and the satire of the stage +was often aimed at Tories and Non-jurors. "The Non-juror," by Colley +Cibber, which appeared in 1717, at a very opportune moment, gained for +its author a pension and the office of poet-laureate. It was founded +upon the "Tartuffe" of Molire, for the English comedy writers borrowed +much from the foreign stage. A disguised priest, who passes under the +name of Dr. Wolf, and who had been engaged in the rebellion of 1715, +has insinuated himself into the household of a gentleman of fortune, of +not very strong judgment, Sir John Woodvil, whom, under the title of a +Non-juror, he has not only induced to become an abettor of rebels, but +he has persuaded him to disinherit his son, and he labours to seduce +his wife and to deceive his daughter. His baseness is exposed only just +soon enough to defeat his designs. Such a production as this could +not fail to give great offence to all the Jacobite party, of whatever +shade, who were then rather numerous in London, and Cibber assures us +that his reward was a considerable amount of adverse criticism in every +quarter where the Tory influence reached. His comedies were inferior in +brilliance of dialogue to those of the previous age, but the plots were +well imagined and conducted, and they are generally good acting plays. + +To Samuel Foote, born in 1722, we owe the last change in the form and +character of English comedy. A man of infinite wit and humour, and +possessed of extraordinary talent as a mimic, Foote made mimicry the +principal instrument of his success on the stage. His plays are above +all light and amusing; he reduced the old comedy of five acts to three +acts, and his plots were usually simple, the dialogue full of wit and +humour; but their peculiar characteristic was their open boldness of +personal satire. It is entirely a comedy of his own. He sought to +direct his wit against all the vices of society, but this he did by +holding up to ridicule and scorn the individuals who had in some way +or other made themselves notorious by the practice of them. All his +principal characters were real characters, who were more or less known +to the public, and who were so perfectly mimicked on the stage in +their dress, gait, and speech, that it was impossible to mistake them. +Thus, in "The Devil upon Two Sticks," which is a general satire on the +low condition to which the practice of medicine had then fallen, the +personages introduced in it all represented quacks well known about the +town. "The Maid of Bath" dragged upon the stage scandals which were +then the talk of Bath society. The nabob of the comedy which bears +that title, had also his model in real life. "The Bankrupt" may be +considered as a general satire on the baseness of the newspaper press +of that day, which was made the means of propagating private scandals +and libellous accusations in order to extort money, yet the characters +introduced are said to have been all portraits from the life; and the +same statement is made with regard to the comedy of "The Author." + +It is evident that a drama of this inquisitorial character is a +dangerous thing, and that it could hardly be allowed to exist where the +rights of society are properly defined; and we are not surprised if +Foote provoked a host of bitter enemies. But in some cases the author +met with punishment of a heavier and more substantial description. +One of the individuals introduced into "The Maid of Bath," extorted +damages to the amount of 3,000. One of the persons who figured in +"The Author," obtained an order from the lord chamberlain for putting +a stop to the performance after it had had a short run; and the +consequences of "The Trip to Calais," were still more disastrous. +It is well known that the character of lady Kitty Crocodile in that +play was a broad caricature on the notorious duchess of Kingston. +Through the treachery of some of the people employed by Foote, the +duchess obtained information of the nature of this play before it was +ready for representation, and she had sufficient influence to obtain +the lord chamberlain's prohibition for bringing it on the stage. Nor +was this all, for as the play was printed, if not acted,--and it was +subsequently brought out in a modified form, with omission of the part +of lady Kitty Crocodile, though the characters of some of her agents +were still retained,--infamous charges were got up against Foote, in +retaliation, which caused him so much trouble and grief, that they are +said to have shortened his days. + +The drama which Samuel Foote had invented did not outlive him; its +caricature was itself transferred to the caricature of the print-shop. + + + + + CHAPTER XXIII. + + CARICATURE IN HOLLAND.--ROMAIN DE HOOGHE.--THE ENGLISH + REVOLUTION.--CARICATURES ON LOUIS XIV. AND JAMES II.--DR. + SACHEVERELL.--CARICATURE BROUGHT FROM HOLLAND TO ENGLAND.--ORIGIN + OF THE WORD "CARICATURE."--MISSISSIPPI AND THE SOUTH SEA; THE YEAR + OF BUBBLES. + + +Modern political caricature, born, as we have seen, in France, may be +considered to have had its cradle in Holland. The position of that +country, and its greater degree of freedom, made it, in the seventeenth +century, the general place of refuge to the political discontents of +other lands, and especially to the French who fled from the tyranny of +Louis XIV. It possessed at that time some of the most skilful artists +and best engravers in Europe, and it became the central spot from which +were launched a multitude of satirical prints against that monarch's +policy, and against himself and his favourites and ministers. This was +in a great measure the cause of the bitter hatred which Louis always +displayed towards that country. He feared the caricatures of the Dutch +more than their arms, and the pencil and graver of Romain de Hooghe +were among the most effective weapons employed by William of Nassau. + +The marriage of William with Mary, daughter of the duke of York, in +1677, naturally gave the Dutch a greater interest than they could +have felt before in the domestic affairs of Great Britain, and a new +stimulus to their zeal against Louis of France, or, which was the +same thing, against arbitrary power and Popery, both of which had +been rendered odious under his name. The accession of James II. to +the throne of England, and his attempt to re-establish Popery, added +religious as well as political fuel to these feelings, for everybody +understood that James was acting under the protection of the king +of France. The very year of king James's accession, in 1685, the +caricature appeared which we have copied in our cut No. 186, and which, +although the inscription is in English, appears to have been the work +of a foreign artist. It was probably intended to represent Mary of +Modena, the queen of James II., and her rather famous confessor, father +Petre, the latter under the character of the wolf among the sheep. Its +aim is sufficiently evident to need no explanation. At the top, in the +original, are the Latin words, _Converte Angliam_, "convert England," +and beneath, in English, "It is a foolish sheep that makes the wolf her +confessor." + + [Illustration: _No. 186. A Dangerous Confessor._] + +The period during which the Dutch school of caricature flourished, +extended through the reign of Louis XIV., and into the regency in +France, and two great events, the revolution of 1688 in England, and +the wild money speculations of the year 1720, exercised especially the +pencils of its caricaturists. The first of these events belongs almost +entirely to Romain de Hooghe. Very little is known of the personal +history of this remarkable artist, but he is believed to have been born +towards the middle of the seventeenth century, and to have died in +the earlier years of the eighteenth century. The older French writers +on art, who were prejudiced against Romain de Hooghe for his bitter +hostility to Louis XIV., inform us that in his youth he employed his +graver on obscene subjects, and led a life so openly licentious, that +he was banished from his native town of Amsterdam, and went to live +at Haerlem. He gained celebrity by the series of plates, executed in +1672, which represented the horrible atrocities committed in Holland by +the French troops, and which raised against Louis XIV. the indignation +of all Europe. It is said that the prince of Orange (William III. +of England), appreciating the value of his satire as a political +weapon, secured it in his own interests by liberally patronising the +caricaturist; and we owe to Romain de Hooghe a succession of large +prints in which the king of France, his _protg_ James II., and the +adherents of the latter, are covered with ridicule. One, published +in 1688, and entitled "Les Monarches Tombants," commemorates the +flight of the royal family from England. Another, which appeared at +the same date, is entitled, in French, "Arlequin fur l'hypogryphe +la croisade Loioliste," and in Dutch, "Arme van de Heylige League +voor der Jesuiten Monarchy" (_i.e._ "the army of the holy league for +establishing the monarchy of the Jesuits"). Louis XIV. and James II. +were represented under the characters of Arlequin and Panurge, who are +seated on the animal here called a "hypogryphe," but which is really +a wild ass. The two kings have their heads joined together under one +Jesuit's cap. Other figures, forming part of this army of Jesuitism, +are distributed over the field, the most grotesque of which is that +given in our cut No. 187. Two personages introduced in some ridiculous +position or other, in most of these caricatures, are father Petre, the +Jesuit, and the infant prince of Wales, afterwards the old Pretender. +It was pretended that this infant was in fact the child of a miller, +secretly introduced into the queen's bed concealed in a warming-pan; +and that this ingenious plot was contrived by father Petre. Hence the +boy was popularly called Peterkin, or Perkin, _i.e._ little Peter, +which was the name given afterwards to the Pretender in songs and +satires at the time of his rebellion; and in the prints a windmill +was usually given to the child as a sign of its father's trade. In +the group represented in our cut, father Petre, with the child in his +arms, is seated on a rather singular steed, a lobster. The young prince +here carries the windmill on his head. On the lobster's back, behind +the Jesuit, are carried the papal crown, surmounted by a fleur-de-lis, +with a bundle of relics, indulgences, &c., and it has seized in one +claw the English church service book, and in the other the book of the +laws of England. In the Dutch description of this print, the child is +called "the new born Antichrist." Another of Romain de Hooghe's prints, +entitled "Panurge second par Arlequin Deodaat la croisade d'Irlande, +1689," is a satire on king James's expedition to Ireland, which led to +the memorable battle of the Boyne. James and his friends are proceeding +to the place of embarkation, and, as represented in our cut No. 188, +father Petre marches in front, carrying the infant prince in his arms. + + [Illustration: _No. 187. A Jesuit well Mounted._] + +The drawing of Romain de Hooghe is not always correct, especially in +his larger subjects, which perhaps may be ascribed to his hasty and +careless manner of working; but he displays great skill in grouping +his figures, and great power in investing them with a large amount of +satirical humour. Most of the other caricatures of the time are poor +both in design and execution. Such is the case with a vulgar satirical +print which was published in France in the autumn of 1690, on the +arrival of a false rumour that king William had been killed in Ireland. +In the field of the picture the corpse of the king is followed by a +procession consisting of his queen and the principal supporters of +his cause. The lower corner on the left hand is occupied by a view of +the interior of the infernal regions, and king William introduced in +the place allotted to him among the flames. In different parts of the +picture there are several inscriptions, all breathing a spirit of very +insolent exultation. One of them is the-- + + _Billet d'Enterrement._ + + Vous estes priez d'assister au convoy, service, et enterrement + du tres haut, tres grand, et tres infame Prince infernal, grand + stadouter, des Arms diaboliques de la ligue d'Ausbourg, et + insigne usurpateur des Royaumes d'Angleterre, d'Eccosse, et + d'Irlande, dcd dans l'Irlande au mois d'Aoust 1690, qui se + fera le dit mois, dans sa paroisse infernale, ou assisteront Dame + Proserpine, Radamonte, et les Ligueurs. + + Les Dames lui diront s'il leur plaist des injures. + + [Illustration: _No. 188. Off to Ireland._] + +The prints executed in England at this time were, if possible, worse +than those published in France. Almost the only contemporary caricature +on the downfall of the Stuarts that I know, is an ill-executed print, +published immediately after the accession of William III., under the +title, "England's Memorial of its wonderful deliverance from French +Tyranny and Popish Oppression." The middle of the picture is occupied +by "the royal orange tree," which flourishes in spite of all the +attempts to destroy it. At the upper corner, on the left side, is a +representation of the French king's "council," consisting of an equal +number of Jesuits and devils, seated alternately at a round table. + +The circumstance that the titles and inscriptions of nearly all +these caricatures are in Dutch, seems to show that their influence +was intended to be exercised in Holland rather than elsewhere. In +two or three only of them these descriptions were accompanied with +translations in English or French; and after a time, copies of them +began to be made in England, accompanied with English descriptions. A +curious example of this is given in the fourth volume of the "Poems +on State Affairs," printed in 1707. In the preface to this volume the +editor takes occasion to inform the reader--"That having procur'd +from beyond sea a Collection of Satyrical Prints done in Holland and +elsewhere, by Rom. de Hoog, and other the best masters, relating to +the French King and his Adherents, since he unjustly begun this war, +I have persuaded the Bookseller to be at the expense of ingraving +several of them; to each of which I have given the Explanation in +English verse, they being in Dutch, French, or Latin in the originals." +Copies of seven of these caricatures are accordingly given at the end +of the volume, which are certainly inferior in every respect to those +of the best period of Romain de Hooghe. One of them commemorates the +eclipse of the sun on the 12th of May, 1706. The sun, as it might be +conjectured, is Louis XIV., eclipsed by queen Anne, whose face occupies +the place of the moon. In the foreground of the picture, just under the +eclipse, the queen is seated on her throne under a canopy, surrounded +by her counsellors and generals. With her left arm she holds down the +Gallic cock, while with the other hand she clips one of its wings +(see our cut No. 189). In the upper corner on the right, is inserted +a picture of the battle of Ramillies, and in the lower corner on the +left, a sea-fight under admiral Leake, both victories gained in that +year. Another of these copies of foreign prints is given in our cut +No. 190. We are told that "these figures represent a French trumpet and +drum, sent by Louis le Grand to enquire news of several citys lost by +the Mighty Monarch last campaign." The trumpeter holds in his hand a +list of lost towns, and another is pinned to the breast of the drummer; +the former list is headed by the names of "Gaunt, Brussels, Antwerp, +Bruges," the latter by "Barcelona." + + [Illustration: _No. 189. Clipping the Cock's Wings._] + + [Illustration: _No. 190. Trumpet and Drum._] + + [Illustration: _No. 191. The Three False Brethren._] + +The first remarkable outburst of caricatures in England was caused by +the proceedings against the notorious Dr. Sacheverell in 1710. It is +somewhat curious that Sacheverell's partisans speak of caricatures +as things brought recently from Holland, and new in England, and +ascribe the use of them as peculiar to the Whig party. The writer of +a pamphlet, entitled "The Picture of Malice, or a true Account of Dr. +Sacheverell's Enemies, and their behaviour with regard to him," informs +us that "the chief means by which all the lower order of that sort of +men call'd Whigs, shall ever be found to act for the ruin of a potent +adversary, are the following three--by the Print, the Canto or Doggrell +Poem, and by the Libell, grave, calm, and cool, as the author of the +'True Answer' describes it. These are not all employed at the same +time, any more than the ban and arierban of a kingdom is raised, unless +to make sure work, or in cases of great exigency and imminent danger." +"The Print," he goes on to say, "is originally a Dutch talisman +(bequeathed to the ancient Batavians by a certain Chinese necromancer +and painter), with a virtue far exceeding that of the Palladium, not +only of guarding their cities and provinces, but also of annoying their +enemies, and preserving a due balance amongst the neighbouring powers +around." This writer warms up so much in his indignation against this +new weapon of the Whigs, that he breaks out in blank verse to tell +us how even the mysterious power of the magician did not destroy its +victims-- + + _Swifter than heretofore the Print effac'd + The pomp of mightiest monarchs, and dethron'd + The dread idea of royal majesty; + Dwindling the prince below the pigmy size. + Witness the once Great Louis in youthful pride, + And Charles of happy days, who both confess'd + The magic power of mezzotinto[101] shade, + And form grotesque, in manifestoes loud + Denouncing death to boor and burgomaster. + Witness, ye sacred popes with triple crown, + Who likewise victims fell to hideous print, + Spurn'd by the populace who whilome lay + Prostrate, and ev'n adored before your thrones._ + + [101] The method of engraving called mezzotinto was very generally + adopted in England in the earlier part of the last century for + prints and caricatures. It was continued to rather a late period + by the publishing house of Carrington Bowles. + +We are then told that "this, if not the first, has yet been the chief +machine which his enemies have employ'd against the doctor; they have +exposed him in the same piece with the pope and the devil, and who now +could imagine that any simple priest should be able to stand before a +power which had levelled popes and monarchs?" At least one copy of the +caricature here alluded to is preserved, although a great rarity, and +it is represented in our cut No. 191. Two of the party remained long +associated together in the popular outcry, and as the name of the third +fell into contempt and oblivion, the doctor's place in this association +was taken by a new cause of alarm, the Pretender, the child whom we +have just seen so joyously brandishing his windmill. It is evident, +however, that this caricature greatly exasperated Sacheverell and the +party which supported him. + +It will have been noticed that the writer just quoted, in using the +term "print," ignores altogether that of caricature, which, however, +was about this time beginning to come into use, although it is not +found in the dictionaries, I believe, until the appearance of that of +Dr. Johnson, in 1755. _Caricature_ is, of course, an Italian word, +derived from the verb _caricare_, to charge or load; and therefore, +it means a picture which is charged, or exaggerated (the old French +dictionaries say, "_c'est la mme chose que charge en peinture_"). +The word appears not to have come into use in Italy until the latter +half of the seventeenth century, and the earliest instance I know of +its employment by an English writer is that quoted by Johnson from +the "Christian Morals" of Sir Thomas Brown, who died in 1682, but it +was one of his latest writings, and was not printed till long after +his death:--"Expose not thyself by four-footed manners unto monstrous +draughts (_i.e._ drawings) and _caricatura_ representations." This very +quaint writer, who had passed some time in Italy, evidently uses it as +an exotic word. We find it next employed by the writer of the Essay No. +537, of the "Spectator," who, speaking of the way in which different +people were led by feelings of jealousy and prejudice to detract from +the characters of others, goes on to say, "From all these hands we +have such draughts of mankind as are represented in those burlesque +pictures which the Italians call _caricaturas_, where the art consists +in preserving, amidst distorted proportions and aggravated features, +some distinguishing likeness of the person, but in such a manner as to +transform the most agreeable beauty into the most odious monster." The +word was not fully established in our language in its English form of +_caricature_ until late in the last century. + + [Illustration: _No. 192. Atlas._] + +The subject of agitation which produced a greater number of caricatures +than any previous event was the wild financial scheme introduced into +France by the Scottish adventurer, Law, and imitated in England in +the great South Sea Bubble. It would be impossible here, within our +necessary limits, to attempt to trace the history of these bubbles, +which all burst in the course of the year 1720; and, in fact, it is a +history of which few are ignorant. On this, as on former occasions, the +great mass of the caricatures, especially those against the Mississippi +scheme, were executed in Holland, but they are much inferior to the +works of Romain de Hooghe. In fact, so great was the demand for these +caricatures, that the publishers, in their eagerness for gain, not +only deluged the world with plates by artists of no talent, which were +without point or interest, but they took old plates of any subject +in which there was a multitude of figures, put new titles to them, +and published them as satires on the Mississippi scheme; for people +were ready to take anything which represented a crowd as a satire on +the eagerness with which Frenchmen rushed into the share-market. +One or two curious instances of this deception might be pointed out. +Thus, an old picture, evidently intended to represent the meeting +of a king and a nobleman, in the court of a palace, surrounded by +a crowd of courtiers, in the costume probably of the time of Henri +IV., was republished as a picture of people crowding to the grand +scene of stock-jobbing in Paris, the Rue Quinquenpoix; and the old +picture of the battle between Carnival and Lent came out again, a +little re-touched, under the Dutch title, "Stryd tuszen de smullende +Bubbel-Heeren en de aanstaande Armoede," _i.e._, "The battle between +the good-living bubble-lords and approaching poverty." + +Besides being issued singly, a considerable number of these prints +were collected and published in a volume, which is still met with not +unfrequently, under the title "Het groote Tafereel der Dwaasheid," +"The great picture of folly." One of this set of prints represents a +multitude of persons, of all ages and sexes, acting the part of Atlas +in supporting on their backs globes, which, though made only of paper, +had become, through the agitation of the stock exchange, heavier than +gold. Law himself (see our cut No. 192) stands foremost, and requires +the assistance of Hercules to support his enormous burthen. In the +French verses accompanying this print, the writer says-- + + _Ami Atlas, on voit (sans conter vous et moi) + Faire l'Atlas partout des divers personnages, + Riche, pauvre, homme, femme, et sot et quasi-sage, + Valet, et paisan, le gueux s'eleve en roi._ + +Another of these caricatures represents Law in the character of Don +Quixote, riding upon Sancho's donkey. He is hastening to his Dulcinia, +who waits for him in the _actie huis_ (action or share-house), towards +which people are dragging the animal on which he is seated. The +devil (see our cut No. 193), sits behind Law, and holds up the ass's +tail, while a shower of paper, in the form of shares in companies, +is scattered around, and scrambled for by the eager _actionnaires_. +In front, the animal is laden with the money into which this paper +has been turned,--the box bears the inscription, "_Bombarioos +Geldkist_, 1720," "Bombario's (Law's) gold chest;" and the flag bears +the inscription, "_Ik koom, ik koom, Dulcinia_," "I come, I come, +Dulcinia." The best, perhaps, of this lot of caricatures is a large +engraving by the well-known Picart, inserted among the Dutch collection +with explanations in Dutch and French, and which was re-engraved in +London, with English descriptions and applications. It is a general +satire on the madness of the memorable year 1720. Folly appears as +the charioteer of Fortune, whose car is drawn by the representatives +of the numerous companies which had sprung up at this time, most of +which appear to be more or less unsound. Many of these agents have the +tails of foxes, "to show their policy and cunning," as the explanation +informs us. The devil is seen in the clouds above, blowing bubbles of +soap, which mix with the paper which Fortune is distributing to the +crowd. The picture is crowded with figures, scattered in groups, who +are employed in a variety of occupations connected with the great folly +of the day, one of which, as an example, is given in our cut No. 194. +It is a transfer of stock, made through the medium of a Jew broker. + + [Illustration: _No. 193. The Don Quixote of Finance._] + + [Illustration: _No. 194. Transfer of Stock._] + +It was in this bubble agitation that the English school of caricature +began, and a few specimens are preserved, though others which are +advertised in the newspapers of that day, seem to be entirely lost. In +fact, a very considerable portion of the caricature literature of a +period so comparatively recent as the first half of the last century, +appears to have perished; for the interest of these prints was in +general so entirely temporary that few people took any care to preserve +them, and few of them were very attractive as pictures. As yet, indeed, +these English prints are but poor imitations of the works of Picart +and other continental artists. A pair of English prints, entitled +"The Bubbler's Mirrour," represents, one a head joyful at the rise in +the value of stock, the other, a similar head sorrowful at its fall, +surrounded in each case with lists of companies and epigrams upon them. +They are engraved in mezzotinto, a style of art supposed to have been +invented in England--its invention was ascribed to Prince Rupert--and +at this time very popular. In the imprint of these last-mentioned +plates, we are informed that they were "Printed for Carington Bowles, +next y^e Chapter House, in St. Paul's Ch. Yard, London," a well-known +name in former years, and even now one quite familiar to collectors, +of this class of prints, especially. Of Carington Bowles we shall have +more to say in the next chapter. With him begins the long list of +celebrated English printsellers. + + + + + CHAPTER XXIV. + + ENGLISH CARICATURE IN THE AGE OF GEORGE II.--ENGLISH + PRINTSELLERS.--ARTISTS EMPLOYED BY THEM.--SIR ROBERT + WALPOLE'S LONG MINISTRY.--THE WAR WITH FRANCE.--THE NEWCASTLE + ADMINISTRATION.--OPERA INTRIGUES.--ACCESSION OF GEORGE III., AND + LORD BUTE IN POWER. + + +With the accession of George II., the taste for political caricatures +increased greatly, and they had become almost a necessity of social +life. At this time, too, a distinct English school of political +caricature had been established, and the print-sellers became more +numerous, and took a higher position in the commerce of literature +and art. Among the earliest of these printsellers the name of Bowles +stands especially conspicuous. Hogarth's burlesque on the Beggar's +Opera, published in 1728, was "printed for John Bowles, at the Black +Horse, in Cornhill." Some copies of "King Henry the Eighth and Anna +Bullen," engraved by the same great artist in the following year, +bear the imprint of John Bowles; and others were "printed for Robert +Wilkinson, Cornhill, Carington Bowles, in St. Paul's Church Yard, and +R. Sayer, in Fleet Street." Hogarth's "Humours of Southwark Fair" was +also published, in 1733, by Carington and John Bowles. This Carington +Bowles was, perhaps, dead in 1755, for in that year the caricature +entitled "British Resentment" bears the imprint, "Printed for T. +Bowles, in St. Paul's Church Yard, and Jno. Bowles & Son, in Cornhill." +John Bowles appears to have been the brother of the first Carington +Bowles in St. Paul's Churchyard, and a son named Carington succeeded to +that business, which, under him and his son Carington, and then as the +establishment of Bowles and Carver, has continued to exist within the +memory of the present generation. Another very celebrated printshop was +established in Fleet Street by Thomas Overton, probably as far back +as the close of the seventeenth century. On his death his business was +purchased by Robert Sayers, a mezzotinto engraver of merit, whose name +appears as joint publisher of a print by Hogarth in 1729. Overton is +said to have been a personal friend of Hogarth. Sayers was succeeded in +the business by his pupil in mezzotinto engraving, named Laurie, from +whom it descended to his son, Robert H. Laurie, known in city politics, +and it became subsequently the firm of Laurie and Whittle. This +business still exists at 53, Fleet Street, the oldest establishment +in London for the publication of maps and prints. During the reign of +the second George, the number of publishers of caricatures increased +considerably, and among others, we meet with the names of J. Smith, "at +Hogarth's Head, Cheapside," attached to a caricature published August, +1756; Edwards and Darly, "at the Golden Acorn, facing Hungerford, +Strand," who also published caricatures during the years 1756-7; +caricatures and burlesque prints were published by G. Bickham, May's +Buildings, Covent Garden, and one, directed against the employment of +foreign troops, and entitled "A Nurse for the Hessians," is stated to +have been "sold in May's Buildings, Covent Garden, where is 50 more;" +"The Raree Show," published in 1762, was "sold at Sumpter's Political +Print-shop, Fleet Street," and many caricatures on contemporary +costume, especially on the Macaronis, about the year 1772, were +"published by T. Bowen, opposite the Haymarket, Piccadilly." Sledge, +"printseller, Henrietta Street, Covent Garden," is also met with about +the middle of the last century. Among other burlesque prints, Bickham, +of May's Buildings, issued a series of figures representing the various +trades, made up of the different tools, &c., used by each. The house +of Carington Bowles, in St. Paul's Churchyard, produced an immense +number of caricatures, during the last century and the present, and of +the most varied character, but they consisted more of comic scenes of +society than of political subjects, and many of them were engraved in +mezzotinto, and rather highly coloured. Among them were caricatures on +the fashions and foibles of the day, amusing accidents and incidents, +common occurrences of life, characters, &., and they are frequently +aimed at lawyers and priests, and especially at monks and friars, +for the anti-Catholic feeling was strong in the last century. J. +Brotherton, at No. 132, New Bond Street, published many of Bunbury's +caricatures; while the house of Laurie and Whittle gave employment +especially to the Cruikshanks. But perhaps the most extensive publisher +of caricatures of them all was S. W. Fores, who dwelt first at No. 3, +Piccadilly, but afterwards established himself at No. 50, the corner +of Sackville Street, where the name still remains. Fores seems to have +been most fertile in ingenious expedients for the extension of his +business. He formed a sort of library of caricatures and other prints, +and charged for admission to look at them; and he afterwards adopted a +system of lending them out in portfolios for evening parties, at which +these portfolios of caricatures became a very fashionable amusement +in the latter part of the last century. At times, some remarkable +curiosity was employed to add to the attractions of his shop. Thus, on +caricatures published in 1790, we find the statement that, "In Fores' +Caricature Museum is the completest collection in the kingdom. Also +_the head and hand of Count Struenzee_. Admittance, 1_s._" Caricatures +against the French revolutionists, published in 1793, bear imprints +stating that they were "published by S. W. Fores, No. 3, Piccadilly, +where may be seen _a complete Model of the Guillotine_--admittance, one +shilling." In some this model is said to be six feet high. + +Among the artists employed by the print-publishers of the age of +George II., we still find a certain number of foreigners. Coypel, who +caricatured the opera in the days of Farinelli, and pirated Hogarth, +belonged to a distinguished family of French painters. Goupy, who +also caricatured the _artistes_ of the opera (in 1727), and Boitard, +who worked actively for Carington Bowles from 1750 to 1770, were also +Frenchmen. Liotard, another caricaturist of the time of George II., +was a native of Geneva. The names of two others, Vandergucht and +Vanderbank, proclaim them Dutchmen. Among the English caricaturists who +worked for the house of Bowles, were George Bickham, the brother of +the printseller, John Collet, and Robert Dighton, with others of less +repute. R. Attwold, who published caricatures against admiral Byng in +1750, was an imitator of Hogarth. Among the more obscure caricaturists +of the latter part of the half-century, were MacArdell--whose print +of "The Park Shower," representing the confusion raised among the +fashionable company in the Mall in St. James's Park by a sudden fall +of rain, is so well known--and Darley. Paul Sandby, who was patronised +by the duke of Cumberland, executed caricatures upon Hogarth. Many of +these artists of the earlier period of the English school of caricature +appear to have been very ill paid--the first of the family of Bowles is +said to have boasted that he bought many of the plates for little more +than their value as metal. The growing taste for caricature had also +brought forward a number of amateurs, among whom were the countess of +Burlington, and general, afterwards marquis, Townshend. The former, who +was the lady of that earl who built Burlington House, in Piccadilly, +was the leader of one of the factions in the opera disputes at the +close of the reign of George I., and is understood to have designed the +well-known caricature upon Cuzzoni, Farinelli, and Heidegger, which was +etched by Goupy, whom she patronised. It must not be forgotten that +Bunbury himself, as well as Sayers, were amateurs; and among other +amateurs I may name captain Minthull, captain Baillie, and John Nixon. +The first of these published caricatures against the Macaronis (as the +dandies of the earlier part of the reign of George III. were called), +one of which, entitled "The Macaroni Dressing-Room," was especially +popular. + + [Illustration: _No. 195. A Party of Mourners._] + +English political caricature came into its full activity with the +ministry of Sir Robert Walpole, which, beginning in 1721, lasted +through the long period of twenty years. In the previous period +the Whigs were accused of having invented caricature, but now the +Tories certainly took the utmost advantage of the invention, for, +during several years, the greater number of the caricatures which +were published were aimed against the Whig ministry. It is also a +rather remarkable characteristic of society at this period, that the +ladies took so great an interest in politics, that the caricatures +were largely introduced upon fans, as well as upon other objects of +an equally personal character. Moreover, the popular notion of what +constituted a caricature was still so little fixed, that they were +usually called _hieroglyphics_, a term, indeed, which was not ill +applied, for they were so elaborate, and so filled with mystical +allusions, that now it is by no means easy to understand or appreciate +them. Towards the year 1739, there was a marked improvement in the +political caricatures--they were better designed, and displayed more +talent, but still they required rather long descriptions to render them +intelligible. One of the most celebrated was produced by the motion in +the House of Commons, Feb. 13, 1741, against the minister Walpole. It +was entitled "The Motion," and was a Whig satire upon the opposition, +who are represented as driving so hurriedly and inconsiderately to +obtain places, that they are overthrown before they reach their object. +The party of the opposition retaliated by a counter-caricature, +entitled, "The Reason," which was in some respects a parody upon the +other, to which it was inferior in point and spirit. At the same time +appeared another caricature against the ministry, under the title of +"The Motive." These provoked another, entitled, "A Consequence of the +Motion;" which was followed the day after its publication by another +caricature upon the opposition, entitled, "The Political Libertines; +or, Motion upon Motion;" while the opponents of the government also +brought out a caricature, entitled, "The Grounds," a violent and rather +gross attack upon the Whigs. Among other caricatures published on this +occasion, one of the best was entitled, "The Funeral of Faction," +and bears the date of March 26, 1741. Beneath it are the words, +"Funerals performed by Squire S----s," alluding to Sandys, who was the +motion-maker in the House of Commons, and who thus brought on his party +a signal defeat. Among the chief mourners on this occasion are seen the +opposition journals, _The Craftsman_, the creation of Bolingbroke and +Pulteney, the still more scurrilous _Champion_, _The Daily Post_, _The +London and Evening Post_, and _The Common Sense Journal_. This mournful +group is reproduced in our cut No. 195. + + [Illustration: _No. 196. British Resentment._] + + [Illustration: _No. 197. Britannia in a New Dress._] + + [Illustration: _No. 198. Caught by a Bait._] + +From this time there was no falling off in the supply of caricatures, +which, on the contrary, seemed to increase every year, until +the activity of the pictorial satirists was roused anew by the +hostilities with France in 1755, and the ministerial intrigues of +the two following years. The war, accepted by the English government +reluctantly, and ill prepared for, was the subject of much discontent, +although at first hopes were given of great success. One of the +caricatures, published in the middle of these early hopes, at a time +when an English fleet lay before Louisbourg, in Canada, is entitled, +"British Resentment, or the French fairly coop'd at Louisbourg," +and came from the pencil of the French artist Boitard. One of its +groups, representing the courageous English sailor and the despairing +Frenchman, is given in our cut No. 196, and may serve as an example +of Boitard's style of drawing. It became now the fashion to print +political caricatures, in a diminished form, on cards, and seventy-five +of these were formed into a small volume, under the title of "A +Political and Satirical History of the years 1756 and 1757. In a +series of seventy-five humorous and entertaining Prints, containing +all the most remarkable Transactions, Characters, and Caricaturas of +those two memorable years.... London: printed for E. Morris, near St. +Paul's." The imprints of the plates, which bear the dates of their +several publications, inform us that they came from the well-known +shop of "Darly and Edwards, at the Acorn, facing Hungerford, Strand." +These caricatures begin with our foreign relations, and express the +belief that the ministers were sacrificing English interests to French +influence. In one of them (our cut No. 197), entitled, "England made +odious, or the French Dressers," the minister, Newcastle, in the garb +of a woman, and his colleague, Fox, have dressed Britannia in a new +French robe, which does not fit her. She exclaims, "Let me have my own +cloathes. I cannot stir my arms in these; besides, everybody laughs at +me." Newcastle replies, rather imperiously, "Hussy, be quiet, you have +no need to stir your arms--why, sure! what's here to do?" While Fox, in +a more insinuating tone, offers her a fleur-de-lis, and says, "Here, +madam, stick this in your bosom, next your heart." The two pictures +which adorn the walls of the room represent an axe and a halter; and +underneath we read the lines,-- + + _And shall the substitutes of power + Our genius thus bedeck? + Let them remember there's an hour + Of quittance--then, ware neck._ + +In another print of this series, this last idea is illustrated more +fully. It is aimed at the ministers, who were believed to be enriching +themselves at the expense of the nation, and is entitled, "The Devil +turned Bird-catcher." On one side, while Fox is greedily scrambling +for the gold, the fiend has caught him in a halter suspended to the +gallows; on the other side another demon is letting down the fatal +axe on Newcastle, who is similarly employed. The latter (see our cut +No. 198) is described as a "Noddy catching at the bait, while the +bird-catcher lets drop an axe." This implement of execution is a +perfect picture of a guillotine, long before it was so notoriously in +use in France. + + [Illustration: _No. 199. British Idolatry._] + +The third example of these caricatures which I shall quote is entitled +"The Idol," and has for its subject the extravagancies and personal +jealousies connected with the Italian opera. The rivalry between +Mingotti and Vanneschi was now making as much noise there as that of +Cuzzoni and Faustina some years before. The former acted arbitrarily +and capriciously, and could with difficulty be bound to sing a few +times during the season for a high salary: it is said, 2,000 for the +season. In the caricature to which I allude, this lady appears raised +upon a stool, inscribed "2,000 per annum," and is receiving the +worship of her admirers. Immediately before her an ecclesiastic is seen +on his knees, exclaiming, "Unto thee be praise now and for evermore!" +In the background a lady appears, holding up her pug-dog, then the +fashionable pet, and addressing the opera favourite, "'Tis only pug and +you I love." Other men are on their knees behind the ecclesiastic, all +persons of distinction; and last comes a nobleman and his lady, the +former holding in his hand an order for 2,000, his subscription to the +opera, and remarking, "We shall have but twelve songs for all this +money." The lady replies, with an air of contempt, "Well, and enough +too, for the paltry trifle." The idol, in return for all this homage, +sings rather contemptuously-- + + _Ra, ru, ra, rot ye, + My name is Mingotti, + If you worship me notti, + You shall all go to potti._ + +The closing years of the reign of George II., under the vigorous +administration of the first William Pitt, witnessed a calm in the +domestic politics of the country, which presented a strange contrast +to the agitation of the previous period. Faction seemed to have hidden +its head, and there was comparatively little employment for the +caricaturist. But this calm lasted only a short time after that king's +death, and the new reign was ushered in by indications of approaching +political agitation of the most violent description, in which satirists +who had hitherto contented themselves with other subjects were tempted +to embark in the strife of politics. Among these was Hogarth, whose +discomforts as a political caricaturist we shall have to describe in +our next chapter. + + [Illustration: _No. 200. Fox on Boots._] + +Perhaps no name ever provoked a greater amount of caricature and +satirical abuse than that of Lord Bute, who, through the favour of +the Princess of Wales, ruled supreme at court during the first period +of the reign of George III. Bute had taken into the ministry, as his +confidential colleague, Fox--the Henry Fox who became subsequently +the first Lord Holland, a man who had enriched himself enormously +with the money of the nation, and these two appeared to be aiming at +the establishment of arbitrary power in the place of constitutional +government. Fox was usually represented in the caricatures with the +head and tail of the animal represented by his name rather strongly +developed; while Bute was drawn, as a very bad pun upon his name, in +the garb of a Scotchman, wearing two large boots, or sometimes a single +boot of still greater magnitude. In these caricatures Bute and Fox are +generally coupled together. Thus, a little before the resignation of +the duke of Newcastle in 1762, there appeared a caricature entitled +"The State Nursery," in which the various members of the ministry, as +it was then formed under Lord Bute's influence, are represented as +engaged in childish games. Fox, as the whipper-in of parliamentary +majorities, is riding, armed with his whip, on Bute's shoulders (see +our cut No. 200), while the duke of Newcastle performs the more menial +service of rocking the cradle. In the rhymes which accompany this +caricature, the first of these groups is described as follows (Fox was +commonly spoken of in satire by the title of Volpone)-- + + _First you see old sly Volpone-y, + Riding on the shoulders brawny + Of the muckle favourite Sawny; + Doodle, doodle, doo._ + + [Illustration: _No. 201. Fanaticism in another Shape._] + +The number of caricatures published at this period was very great, and +they were almost all aimed in one direction, against Bute and Fox, +the Princess of Wales, and the government they directed. Caricature, +at this time, ran into the least disguised licence, and the coarsest +allusions were made to the supposed secret intercourse between the +minister and the Princess of Wales, of which perhaps the most harmless +was the addition of a petticoat to the boot, as a symbol of the +influence under which the country was governed. In mock processions +and ceremonies a Scotchman was generally introduced carrying the +standard of the boot and petticoat. Lord Bute, frightened at the amount +of odium which was thus heaped upon him, fought to stem the torrent +by employing satirists to defend the government, and it is hardly +necessary to state that among these mercenary auxiliaries was the great +Hogarth himself, who accepted a pension, and published his caricature +entitled, "The Times, Nov. 1," in the month of September, 1762. Hogarth +did not excel in political caricature, and there was little in this +print to distinguish it above the ordinary publications of a similar +character. It was the moment of negotiations for Lord Bute's unpopular +peace, and Hogarth's satire is directed against the foreign policy of +the great ex-minister Pitt. It represents Europe in a state of general +conflagration, and the flames already communicating to Great Britain. +While Pitt is blowing the fire, Bute, with a party of soldiers and +sailors zealously assisted by his favourite Scotchmen, is labouring +to extinguish it. In this he is impeded by the interference of the +duke of Newcastle, who brings a wheelbarrow full of _Monitors_ and +_North Britons,_ the violent opposition journals, to feed the flames. +The advocacy of Bute's mercenaries, whether literary or artistic, did +little service to the government, for they only provoked increased +activity among its opponents. Hogarth's caricature of "The Times," drew +several answers, one of the best of which was a large print entitled +"The Raree Show: a political contrast to the print of 'The Times,' by +William Hogarth." It is the house of John Bull which is here on fire, +and the Scots are dancing and exulting at it. In the centre of the +picture appears a great actors' barn, from an upper window of which +Fox thrusts out his head and points to the sign, representing neas +and Dido entering the cave together, as the performance which was +acting within. It is an allusion to the scandal in general circulation +relating to Bute and the princess, who, of course, were the neas and +Dido of the piece, and appear in those characters on the scaffold in +front, with two of Bute's mercenary writers, Smollett, who edited the +_Briton_, and Murphy, who wrote in the _Auditor_, one blowing the +trumpet and the other beating the drum. Among the different groups +which fill the picture, one, behind the actors' barn (see our cut No. +201), is evidently intended for a satire on the spirit of religious +fanaticism which was at this time spreading through the country. +An open-air preacher, mounted on a stool, is addressing a not very +intellectual-looking audience, while his inspiration is conveyed to him +in a rather vulgar manner by the spirit, not of good, but of evil. + +The violence of this political warfare at length drove Lord Bute from +at least ostensible power. He resigned on the 6th of April, 1763. One +of the popular favourites at this time was the duke of Cumberland, the +hero of Culloden, who was regarded as the leader of the opposition +in the House of Lords. People now believed that it was the duke of +Cumberland who had overthrown "the boot," and his popularity increased +on a sudden. The triumph was commemorated in several caricatures. One +of these is entitled, "The Jack-Boot kick'd down, or English Will +triumphant: a Dream." The duke of Cumberland, whip in hand, has kicked +the boot out of the house, exclaiming to a young man in tailor's +garb who follows him, "Let me alone, Ned; I know how to deal with +Scotsmen. Remember Culloden." The youth replies, "Kick hard, uncle, +keep him down. Let me have a kick too." Nearly the same group, using +similar language, is introduced into a caricature of the same date, +entitled, "The Boot and the Blockhead." The youthful personage is no +doubt intended for Cumberland's nephew, Edward, duke of York, who was +a sailor, and was raised to the rank of rear-admiral, and who appears +to have joined his uncle in his opposition to Lord Bute. The "boot," as +seen in our cut No. 202, is encircled with Hogarth's celebrated "line +of beauty," of which I shall have to speak more at length in the next +chapter. + + [Illustration: _No. 202. The Overthrow of the Boot._] + +With the overthrow of Bute's ministry, we may consider the English +school of caricature as completely formed and fully established. From +this time the names of the caricaturists are better known, and we shall +have to consider them in their individual characters. One of these, +William Hogarth, had risen in fame far above the group of the ordinary +men by whom he was surrounded. + + + + + CHAPTER XXV. + + HOGARTH.--HIS EARLY HISTORY.--HIS SETS OF PICTURES.--THE HARLOT'S + PROGRESS.--THE RAKE'S PROGRESS.--THE MARRIAGE A LA MODE.--HIS + OTHER PRINTS.--THE ANALYSIS OF BEAUTY, AND THE PERSECUTION ARISING + OUT OF IT.--HIS PATRONAGE BY LORD BUTE.--CARICATURE OF THE + TIMES.--ATTACKS TO WHICH HE WAS EXPOSED BY IT, AND WHICH HASTENED + HIS DEATH. + + +On the 10th of November, 1697, William Hogarth was born in the city of +London. His father, Richard Hogarth, was a London schoolmaster, who +laboured to increase the income derived from his scholars by compiling +books, but with no great success. From his childhood, as he tells us +in his "Anecdotes" of himself, the young Hogarth displayed a taste for +drawing, and especially for caricature; and, out of school, he appears +to have been seldom without a pencil in his hand. The limited means +of Richard Hogarth compelled him to take the boy from school at an +early age, and bind him apprentice to a steel-plate engraver. But this +occupation proved little to the taste of one whose ambition rose much +higher; and when the term of his apprenticeship had expired, he applied +himself to engraving on copper; and, setting up on his own account, did +considerable amount of work, first in engraving arms and shop-bills, +and afterwards in designing and engraving book illustrations, none +of which displayed any superiority over the ordinary run of such +productions. Towards 1728 Hogarth began to practice as a painter, and +he subsequently attended the academy of sir James Thornhill, in Covent +Garden, where he became acquainted with that painter's only daughter, +Jane. The result was a clandestine marriage in 1730, which met the +disapproval and provoked the anger of the lady's father. Subsequently, +however, sir James became convinced of the genius of his son-in-law, +and a reconciliation was effected through the medium of lady Thornhill. + +At this time Hogarth had already commenced that new style of design +which was destined to raise him soon to a degree of fame as an artist +few men have ever attained. In his "Anecdotes" of himself, the +painter has given us an interesting account of the motives by which +he was guided. "The reasons," he says, "which induced me to adopt +this mode of designing were, that I thought both writers and painters +had, in the historical style, totally overlooked that intermediate +species of subjects which may be placed between the sublime and the +grotesque. I therefore wished to compose pictures on canvas similar +to representations on the stage; and further hope that they will be +tried by the same test, and criticised by the same criterion. Let it +be observed, that I mean to speak only of those scenes where the human +species are actors, and these, I think, have not often been delineated +in a way of which they are worthy and capable. In these compositions, +those subjects that will both entertain and improve the mind bid fair +to be of the greatest public utility, and must therefore be entitled to +rank in the highest class. If the execution is difficult (though that +is but a secondary merit), the author has claim to a higher degree of +praise. If this be admitted, comedy, in painting as well as writing, +ought to be allotted the first place, though _the sublime_, as it is +called, has been opposed to it. Ocular demonstration will carry more +conviction to the mind of a sensible man than all he would find in a +thousand volumes, and this has been attempted in the prints I have +composed. Let the decision be left to every unprejudiced eye; let the +figures in either pictures or prints be considered as players dressed +either for the sublime, for genteel comedy or farce, for high or low +life. I have endeavoured to treat my subjects as a dramatic writer: my +picture is my stage, and men and women my players, who, by means of +certain actions and gestures, are to exhibit _a dumb-show_." + +The great series of pictures, indeed, which form the principal +foundation of Hogarth's fame, are comedies rather than caricatures, +and noble comedies they are. Like comedies, they are arranged, by a +series of successive plates, in acts and scenes; and they represent +contemporary society pictorially, just as it had been and was +represented on the stage in English comedy. It is not by delicacy +or excellence of drawing that Hogarth excels, for he often draws +incorrectly; but it is by his extraordinary and minute delineation of +character, and by his wonderful skill in telling a story thoroughly. In +each of his plates we see a whole act of a play, in which nothing is +lost, nothing glossed over, and, I may add, nothing exaggerated. The +most trifling object introduced into the picture is made to have such +an intimate relationship with the whole, that it seems as if it would +be imperfect without it. The art of producing this effect was that in +which Hogarth excelled. The first of Hogarth's great _suites_ of prints +was "The Harlot's Progress," which was the work of the years 1733 and +1734. It tells a story which was then common in London, and was acted +more openly in the broad face of society than at the present day; and +therefore the effect and consequent success were almost instantaneous. +It had novelty, as well as excellence, to recommend it. This series +of plates was followed, in 1735, by another, under the title of "The +Rake's Progress." In the former, Hogarth depicted the shame and ruin +which attended a life of prostitution; in this, he represented the +similar consequences which a life of profligacy entailed on the other +sex. In many respects it is superior to the "Harlot's Progress," and +its details come more home to the feelings of people in general, +because those of the prostitute's history are more veiled from the +public gaze. The progress of the spendthrift in dissipation and riot, +from the moment he becomes possessed of the fruits of paternal avarice, +until his career ends in prison and madness, forms a marvellous drama, +in which every incident presents itself, and every agent performs his +part, so naturally, that it seems almost beyond the power of acting. +Perhaps no one ever pictured despair with greater perfection than it +is shown in the face and bearing of the unhappy hero of this history, +in the last plate but one of the series, where, thrown into prison +for debt, he receives from the manager of a theatre the announcement +that the play which he had written in the hope of retrieving somewhat +of his position--his last resource--has been refused. The returned +manuscript and the manager's letter lie on the wretched table (cut No. +203); while on the one side his wife reproaches him heartlessly with +the deprivations and sufferings which he has brought upon her, and +on the other the jailer is reminding him of the fact that the fees +exacted for the slight indulgence he has obtained in prison are unpaid, +and even the pot-boy refuses to deliver him his beer without first +receiving his money. It is but a step further to Bedlam, which, in the +next plate, closes his unblessed career. + + [Illustration: _No. 203. Despair._] + +Ten years almost from this time had passed away before Hogarth gave to +the world his next grand series of what he called his "modern moral +subjects." This was "The Marriage _ la mode_," which was published in +six plates in 1745, and which fully sustained the reputation built upon +the "Harlot's Progress" and the "Rake's Progress." Perhaps the best +plate of the "Marriage _ la mode_," is the fourth--the music scene--in +which one principal group of figures especially arrests the attention. +It is represented in our cut No. 204. William Hazlitt has justly +remarked upon it that, "the preposterous, overstrained admiration of +the lady of quality; the sentimental, insipid, patient delight of the +man with his hair in papers, and sipping his tea; the pert, smirking, +conceited, half-distorted approbation of the figure next to him; the +transition to the total insensibility of the round face in profile, and +then to the wonder of the negro boy at the rapture of his mistress, +form a perfect whole." + + [Illustration: _No. 204. Fashionable Society._] + + [Illustration: _No. 205. An Old Maid and her Page._] + + [Illustration: _No. 206. Loss and Gain._] + +In the interval between these three great monuments of his talent, +Hogarth had published various other plates, belonging to much the same +class of subjects, and displaying different degrees of excellence. His +engraving of "Southwark Fair," published in 1733, which immediately +preceded the "Harlot's Progress," may be regarded almost as an attempt +to rival the fairs of Gallot. "The Midnight Modern Conversation" +appeared in the interval between the "Harlot's Progress" and the +"Rake's Progress;" and three years after the series last mentioned, in +1738, the engraving, remarkable equally in design and execution, of +the "Strolling Actresses in a Barn," and the four plates of "Morning," +"Noon," "Evening," and "Night," all full of choicest bits of humour. +Such is the group of the old maid and her footboy in the first of this +series (cut No. 205)--the former stiff and prudish, whose religion +is evidently not that of charity; while the latter crawls after, +shrinking at the same time under the effects of cold and hunger, +which he sustains in consequence of the hard, niggardly temper of his +mistress. Among the humorous events which fill the plate of "Noon," we +may point to the disaster of the boy who has been sent to the baker's +to fetch home the family dinner, and who, as represented in our cut No. +206, has broken his pie-dish, and spilt its contents on the ground; +and it is difficult to say which is expressed with most fidelity to +nature--the terror and shame of the unfortunate lad, or the feeling +of enjoyment in the face of the little girl who is feasting on the +fragments of the scattered meal. In 1741 appeared the plate of "The +Enraged Musician." During this period Hogarth appears to have been +hesitating between two subjects for his third grand pictorial drama. +Some unfinished sketches have been found, from which it would seem +that, after depicting the miseries of a life of dissipation in either +sex, he intended to represent the domestic happiness which resulted +from a prudent and well-assorted marriage; but for some reason or +other he abandoned this design, and gave the picture of wedlock in +a less amiable light, in his "Marriage _ la mode_." The title was +probably taken from that of Dryden's comedy. In 1750 appeared "The +March to Finchley," in many respects one of Hogarth's best works. It +is a striking exposure of the want of discipline, and the low _morale_ +of the English army under George II. Many amusing groups fill this +picture, the scene of which is laid in Tottenham Court Road, along +which the guards are supposed to be marching to encamp at Finchley, in +consequence of rumours of the approach of the Pretender's army in the +Rebellion of '45. The soldiers in front are moving on with some degree +of order, but in the rear we see nothing but confusion, some reeling +about under the effects of liquor, and confounded by the cries of women +and children, camp-followers, ballad-singers, plunderers, and the like. +One of the latter, as represented in our cut No. 207, is assisting a +fallen soldier with an additional dose of liquor, while his pilfering +propensities are betrayed by the hen screaming from his wallet, and by +the chickens following distractedly the cries of their parent. + + [Illustration: _No. 207. A brave Soldier._] + + [Illustration: _No. 208. A Painter's Amusements._] + +Hogarth presents a singular example of a satirist who suffered under +the very punishment which he inflicted on others. He made many personal +enemies in the course of his labours. He had begun his career with a +well-known personal satire, entitled "The Man of Taste," which was +a caricature on Pope, and the poet is said never to have forgiven +it. Although the satire in his more celebrated works appears to us +general, it told upon his contemporaries personally; for the figures +which act their parts in them were so many portraits of individuals +who moved in contemporary society, and who were known to everybody, +and thus he provoked a host of enemies. It was like Foote's mimicry. +He was to an extraordinary degree vain of his own talent, and jealous +of that of others in the same profession; and he spoke in terms of +undisguised contempt of almost all artists, past or present. Thus, the +painter introduced into the print of "Beer Street," is said to be a +caricature upon John Stephen Liotard, one of the artists mentioned in +the last chapter. He thus provoked the hostility of the greatest part +of his contemporaries in his own profession, and in the sequel had +to support the full weight of their anger. When George II., who had +more taste for soldiers than pictures, saw the painting of the "March +to Finchley," instead of admiring it as a work of art, he is said to +have expressed himself with anger at the insult which he believed +was offered to his army; and Hogarth not only revenged himself by +dedicating his print to the king of Prussia, by which it did become +a satire on the British army, but he threw himself into the faction +of the prince of Wales at Leicester House. The first occasion for the +display of all these animosities was given in the year 1753, at the +close of which he published his "Analysis of Beauty." Though far from +being himself a successful painter of beauty, Hogarth undertook in +this work to investigate its principles, which he referred to a waving +or serpentine line, and this he termed the "line of beauty." In 1745 +Hogarth had published his own portrait as the frontispiece to a volume +of his collected works, and in one corner of the plate he introduced a +painter's palette, on which was this waving line, inscribed "The line +of beauty." For several years the meaning of this remained either quite +a mystery, or was only known to a few of Hogarth's acquaintances, until +the appearance of the book just mentioned. Hogarth's manuscript was +revised by his friend, Dr. Morell, the compiler of the "Thesaurus," +whose name became thus associated with the book. This work exposed +its author to a host of violent attacks, and to unbounded ridicule, +especially from the whole tribe of offended artists. A great number of +caricatures upon Hogarth and his line of beauty appeared during the +year 1754, which show the bitterness of the hatred he had provoked; +and to hold still further their terror over his head, most of them +are inscribed with the words, "To be continued." Among the artists +who especially signalised themselves by their zeal against him, was +Paul Sandby, to whom we owe some of the best of these anti-Hogarthian +caricatures. One of these is entitled, "A New Dunciad, done with a view +of [fixing] the fluctuating ideas of taste." In the principal group +(which is given in our cut No. 208), Hogarth is represented playing +with a _pantin_, or figure which was moved into activity by pulling a +string. The string takes somewhat the form of the line of beauty, which +is also drawn upon his palette. This figure is described underneath the +picture as "a painter at the proper exercise of his taste." To his +breast is attached a card (the knave of hearts), which is described +by a very bad pun as "the fool of arts." On one side "his genius" is +represented in the form of a black harlequin; while behind appears a +rather jolly personage (intended, perhaps, for Dr. Morell), who, we +are told, is one of his admirers. On the table are the foundations, or +the remains, of "a house of cards." Near him is Hogarth's favourite +dog, named Trump, which always accompanies him in these caricatures. +Another caricature which appeared at this time represents Hogarth on +the stage as a quack doctor, holding in his hand the line of beauty, +and recommending its extraordinary qualities. This print is entitled +"A Mountebank Painter demonstrating to his admirers and subscribers +that crookedness is y^e most beautifull." Lord Bute, whose patronage at +Leicester House Hogarth now enjoyed, is represented fiddling, and the +black harlequin serves as "his puff." In the front a crowd of deformed +and hump-backed people are pressing forwards (see our cut No. 209), and +the line of beauty fits them all admirably. + + [Illustration: _No. 209. The Line of Beauty exemplified._] + + [Illustration: _No. 210. Piracy Exposed._] + +Much as this famous line of beauty was ridiculed, Hogarth was not +allowed to retain the small honour which seemed to arise from it +undisputed. It was said that he had stolen the idea from an Italian +writer named Lomazzo, Latinised into Lomatius, who had enounced it in +a treatise on the Fine Arts, published in the sixteenth century.[102] +In another caricature by Paul Sandby, with a vulgar title which I will +not repeat, Hogarth is visited, in the midst of his glory, by the ghost +of Lomazzo, carrying in one hand his treatise on the arts, and with his +other holding up to view the line of beauty itself. In the inscriptions +on the plate, the principal figure is described as "An author sinking +under the weight of his saturnine analysis;" and, indeed, Hogarth's +terror is broadly painted, while the volume of his analysis is resting +heavily upon "a strong support bent in the line of beauty by the mighty +load upon it." Beside Hogarth stands "his faithful pug," and behind +him "a friend of the author endeavouring to prevent his sinking to his +natural lowness." On the other side stands Dr. Morell, or, perhaps, +Mr. Townley, the master of Merchant Taylors' School, who continued +his service in preparing the book for the press after Morell's death, +described as "the author's friend and corrector," astonished at the +sight of the ghost. The ugly figure on the left hand of the picture +is described as "Deformity weeping at the condition of her darling +son," while the dog is "a greyhound bemoaning his friend's condition." +This group is represented in our cut No. 210. The other caricatures +which appeared at this time were two numerous to allow us to give a +particular description of them. The artist is usually represented, +under the influence of his line of beauty, painting ugly pictures from +deformed models, or attempting historical pictures in a style bordering +on caricature, or, on one occasion, as locked up in a mad-house, and +allowed only to exercise his skill upon the bare walls. One of these +caricatures is entitled, in allusion to the title of one of his most +popular prints, "The Painter's March through Finchley, dedicated to the +king of the gipsies, as an encourager of arts, &c." Hogarth appears in +full flight through the village, closely pursued by women and children, +and animals in great variety, and defended only by his favourite dog. + + [102] It was translated into English by Richard Haydocke, under the + title of "The Artes of Curious Paintinge, Carvinge, Buildinge," + fol. 1598. This is one of the earliest works on art in the + English language. + +With the "Marriage _ la mode_," Hogarth may be considered as having +reached his highest point of excellence. The set of "Industry and +Idleness" tells a good and useful moral story, but displays inferior +talent in design. "Beer Street" and "Gin Lane" disgust us by their +vulgarity, and the "Four Stages of Cruelty" are equally repulsive +to our feelings by the unveiled horrors of the scenes which are too +coarsely depicted in them. In the four prints of the proceedings at +an election, which are the last of his pictures of this description, +published in 1754, Hogarth rises again, and approaches in some degree +to his former elevation. + +In 1757, on the death of his brother-in-law, John Thornhill, the office +of sergeant-painter of all his Majesty's works became vacant, and it +was bestowed upon Hogarth, who, according to his own account, received +from it an income of about 200 a-year. This appointment caused another +display of hostility towards him, and his enemies called him jeeringly +the king's chief panel painter. It was at this moment that a plan for +the establishment of an academy of the fine arts was agitated, which, +a few years later, came into existence under the title of the Royal +Academy, and Hogarth proclaimed so loud an opposition to this project, +that the old cry was raised anew, that he was jealous and envious of +all his profession, and that he sought to stand alone as superior to +them all. It was the signal for a new onslaught of caricatures upon +himself and his line of beauty. Hitherto his assailants had been found +chiefly among the artists, but the time was now approaching when he +was destined to thrust himself into the midst of a political struggle, +where the attacks of a new class of enemies carried with them a more +bitter sting. + +George II. died on the 17th of October, 1760, and his grandson +succeeded him to the throne as George III. It appears evident that +before this time Hogarth had gained the favour of lord Bute, who, +by his interest with the princess of Wales, was all-powerful in the +household of the young prince. The painter had hitherto kept tolerably +clear of politics in his prints, but now, unluckily for himself, +he suddenly rushed into the arena of political caricature. It was +generally said that Hogarth's object was, by displaying his zeal in the +cause of his patron, lord Bute, to obtain an increase in his pension; +and he acknowledges himself that his object was gain. "This," he says, +"being a period when war abroad and contention at home engrossed every +one's mind, prints were thrown into the background; and the stagnation +rendered it necessary that I should do some _timed thing_ [the italics +are Hogarth's] to recover my lost time, and stop a gap in my income." +Accordingly he determined to attack the great minister, Pitt, who had +then recently been compelled to resign his office, and had gone over to +the opposition. It is said that John Wilkes, who had previously been +Hogarth's friend, having been privately informed of his design, went +to the painter, expostulated with him, and, as he continued obstinate, +threatened him with retaliation. In September, 1762, appeared the print +entitled "The Times, No. I," indicating that it was to be followed by +a second caricature. The principal features of the picture are these: +Europe is represented in flames, which are communicating to Great +Britain, but lord Bute, with soldiers and sailors, and the assistance +of Highlanders, is labouring to extinguish them, while Pitt is blowing +the fire, and the duke of Newcastle brings a barrowful of _Monitors_ +and _North Britons_, the violent journals of the popular party, to +feed it. There is much detail in the print which it is not necessary +to describe. In fulfilment of his threat, Wilkes, in the number of +the _North Briton_ published on the Saturday immediately following +the publication of this print, attacked Hogarth with extraordinary +bitterness, casting cruel reflections upon his domestic as well as his +professional character. Hogarth, stung to the quick, retaliated by +publishing the well-known caricature of Wilkes. Thereupon Churchill, +the poet, Wilkes's friend, and formerly the friend of Hogarth also, +published a bitter invective in verse against the painter, under the +title of an "Epistle to William Hogarth." Hogarth retaliated again: +"Having an old plate by me," he tells us, "with some parts ready, +such as a background and a dog, I began to consider how I could turn +so much work laid aside to some account, so patched up a print of +Master Churchill in the character of a bear." The unfinished picture +was intended to be a portrait of Hogarth himself; the canonical bear, +which represented Churchill, held a pot of porter in one hand, and +in the other a knotted club, each knot labelled "lie 1," "lie 2," &c. +The painter, in his "Anecdotes," exults over the pecuniary profit he +derived from the extensive sale of these two prints. + + [Illustration: _No. 211. An Independent Draughtsman._] + +The virulence of the caricaturists against Hogarth became on this +occasion greater than ever. Parodies on his own works, sneers at his +personal appearance and manners, reflections upon his character, were +all embodied in prints which bore such names as Hogg-ass, Hoggart, +O'Garth, &c. Our cut No. 211 represents one of the caricature portraits +of the artist. It is entitled "Wm. Hogarth, Esq., drawn from the Life." +Hogarth wears the thistle on his hat, as the sign of his dependence on +lord Bute. At his breast hangs his palette, with the line of beauty +inscribed upon it. He holds behind his back a roll of paper inscribed +"Burlesque on L--d B--t." In his right hand he presents to view two +pictures, "The Times," and the "Portrait of Wilkes." At the upper +corner to the left is the figure of Bute, offering him in a bag a +pension of "300 per ann." Some of the allusions in this picture are +now obscure, but they no doubt relate to anecdotes well known at the +time. They receive some light from the following mock letters which are +written at the foot of the plate:-- + + "_Copy of a Letter from Mr. Hog-garth to Lord Mucklemon, w^{th} + his Lordship's Answer._ + + "My Lord,--The enclosed is a design I intend to publish; you are + sensible it will not redound to your honour, as it will expose you + to all the world in your proper colours. You likewise know what + induced me to do this; but it is in y^r power to prevent it from + appearing in publick, which I would have you do immediately. + + "WILL^M HOG-GARTH. + + "Mais^r Hog-garth,--By my saul, mon, I am sare troobled for what + I have done; I did na ken y^r muckle merit till noow; say na mair + aboot it; I'll mak au things easy to you, & gie you bock your + Pension. + + "SAWNEY MUCKLEMON." + +In an etching without a title, published at this time, and copied in +our cut No. 212, the Hogarthian dog is represented barking from a +cautious distance at the canonical bear, who appears to be meditating +further mischief. Pugg stands upon his master's palette and the line of +beauty, while Bruin rests upon the "Epistle to Wm. Hogarth," with the +pen and ink by its side. On the left, behind the dog, is a large frame, +with the words "Pannel Painting" inscribed upon it. + + [Illustration: _No. 212. Beauty and the Bear._] + +The article by Wilkes in the _North Briton_, and Churchill's metrical +epistle, irritated Hogarth more than all the hostile caricatures, and +were generally believed to have broken his heart. He died on the 26th +of October, 1764, little more than a year after the appearance of the +attack by Wilkes, and with the taunts of his political as well as his +professional enemies still ringing in his ears. + + + + + CHAPTER XXVI. + + THE LESSER CARICATURISTS OF THE REIGN OF GEORGE III.--PAUL + SANDBY.--COLLET; THE DISASTER, AND FATHER PAUL IN HIS + CUPS.--JAMES SAYER; HIS CARICATURES IN SUPPORT OF PITT, AND + HIS REWARD.--CARLO KHAN'S TRIUMPH.--BUNBURY; HIS CARICATURES + ON HORSEMANSHIP.--WOODWARD; GENERAL COMPLAINT.--ROWLANDSON'S + INFLUENCE ON THE STYLE OF THOSE WHOSE DESIGNS HE ETCHED.--JOHN KAY + OF EDINBURGH: LOOKING A ROCK IN THE FACE. + + +The school of caricature which had grown amid the political agitation +of the reigns of the two first Georges, gave birth to a number of men +of greater talent in the same branch of art, who carried it to its +highest degree of perfection during that of George III. Among them are +the three great names of Gillray, Rowlandson, and Cruikshank, and a +few who, though second in rank to these, are still well remembered for +the talent displayed in their works, or with the effect they produced +on contemporaries. Among these the principal were Paul Sandby, John +Collet, Sayer, Bunbury, and Woodward. + +Sandby has been spoken of in the last chapter. He was not by profession +a caricaturist, but he was one of those rising artists who were +offended by the sneering terms in which Hogarth spoke of all artists +but himself, and he was foremost among those who turned their satire +against him. Examples of his caricatures upon Hogarth have already been +given, sufficient to show that they display skill in composition as +well as a large amount of wit and humour. After his death, they were +republished collectively, under the title, "Retrospective Art, from the +Collection of the late Paul Sandby, Esq., R.A." Sandby was, indeed, one +of the original members of the Royal Academy. He was an artist much +admired in his time, but is now chiefly remembered as a topographical +draughtsman. He was a native of Nottingham, where he was born in +1725,[103] and he died on the 7th of November, 1809.[104] + + [103] His death is usually placed, but erroneously, in 1732. + + [104] Sandby etched landscapes on steel, and in aquatinta, the latter + by a method peculiarly his own, besides painting in oil and + opaque colours. But his fame rests _mainly_ on being the founder + of the English school of _water-colour painting_, since he was + the first to show the capability of that material to produce + finished pictures, and to lead the way to the perfection in + effect and colour to which that branch of art has since attained. + + [Illustration: _No. 213. A Disaster._] + +John Collet, who also has been mentioned in a previous chapter, was +born in London in 1725, and died there in 1780. Collet is said to have +been a pupil of Hogarth, and there is a large amount of Hogarthian +character in all his designs. Few artists have been more industrious +and produced a greater number of engravings. He worked chiefly for +Carrington Bowles, in St. Paul's Churchyard, and for Robert Sayers, +at 53, Fleet Street. His prints published by Bowles were engraved +generally in mezzotinto, and highly coloured for sale; while those +published by Sayers were usually line engravings, and sometimes +remarkably well executed. Collet chose for his field of labour that +to which Hogarth had given the title of comedy in art, but he did not +possess Hogarth's power of delineating whole acts and scenes in one +picture, and he contented himself with bits of detail and groups of +characters only. His caricatures are rarely political--they are aimed +at social manners and social vanities and weaknesses, and altogether +they form a singularly curious picture of society during an important +period of the last century. The first example I give (No. 213) is taken +from a line engraving, published by Sayers in 1776. At this time the +natural adornments of the person in both sexes had so far yielded to +artificial ornament, that even women cut off their own hair in order to +replace it by an ornamental _peruque_, supporting a head-dress, which +varied from time to time in form and in extravagance. Collet has here +introduced to us a lady who, encountering a sudden and violent wind, +has lost all her upper coverings, and wig, cap, and hat are caught by +her footman behind. The lady is evidently suffering under the feeling +of shame; and hard by, a cottager and his wife, at their door, are +laughing at her discomfiture. A bill fixed against a neighbouring wall +announces "A Lecture upon Heads." + +At this time the "no-popery" feeling ran very high. Four years +afterwards it broke out violently in the celebrated lord Gordon riots. +It was this feeling which contributed greatly to the success of +Sheridan's comedy of "The Duenna," brought out in 1775. Collet drew +several pictures founded upon scenes in this play, one of which is +given in our cut No. 214. It forms one of Carington Bowles's rather +numerous series of prints from designs by Collet, and represents the +well-known drinking scene in the convent, in the fifth scene of the +third act of "The Duenna." The scene, it will be remembered, is "a room +in the priory," and the excited monks are toasting, among other objects +of devotion, the abbess of St. Ursuline and the blue-eyed nun of St. +Catherine's. The "blue-eyed nun" is, perhaps, the lady seen through the +window, and the patron saint of her convent is represented in one of +the pictures on the wall. There is great spirit in this picture, which +is entitled "Father Paul in his Cups, or the Private Devotions of a +Convent." It is accompanied with the following lines:-- + + _See with these friars how religion thrives, + Who love good living better than good lives; + Paul, the superior father, rules the roast, + His god's the glass, the blue-eyed nun his toast. + Thus priests consume what fearful fools bestow, + And saints' donations make the bumpers flow. + The butler sleeps--the cellar door is free-- + This is a modern cloister's piety._ + + [Illustration: _No. 214. Father Paul in his Cups._] + +From Collet to Sayer we rush into the heat--I may say into the +bitterness--of politics, for James Sayer is known, with very trifling +exceptions, as a political caricaturist. He was the son of a captain +of a merchant ship at Great Yarmouth, but was himself put to the +profession of an attorney. As, however, he was possessed of a moderate +independence, and appears to have had no great taste for the law, he +neglected his business, and, with considerable talent for satire and +caricature, he threw himself into the political strife of the day. +Sayer was a bad draughtsman, and his pictures are produced more by +labour than by skill in drawing, but they possess a considerable +amount of humour, and were sufficiently severe to obtain popularity +at a time when this latter character excused worse drawing even than +that of Sayer. He made the acquaintance and gained the favour of the +younger William Pitt, when that statesman was aspiring to power, and +he began his career as a caricaturist by attacking the Rockingham +ministry in 1782--of course in the interest of Pitt. Sayer's earliest +productions which are now known, are a series of caricature portraits +of the Rockingham administration, that appear to have been given to +the public in instalments, at the several dates of April 6, May 14, +June 17, and July 3, 1782, and bear the name of C. Bretherton as +publisher. He published his first veritable caricature on the occasion +of the ministerial changes which followed the death of lord Rockingham, +when lord Shelburne was placed at the head of the cabinet, and Fox +and Burke retired, while Pitt became chancellor of the exchequer. +This caricature, which bears the title of "Paradise Lost," and is, in +fact, a parody upon Milton, represents the once happy pair, Fox and +Burke, turned out of their paradise, the Treasury, the arch of the +gate of which is ornamented with the heads of Shelburne, the prime +minister, and Dunning and Barr, two of his staunch supporters, who +were considered to be especially obnoxious to Fox and Burke. Between +these three heads appear the faces of two mocking fiends, and groups +of pistols, daggers, and swords. Beneath are inscribed the well-known +lines of Milton-- + + _To the eastern side + Of Paradise, so late their happy seat, + Waved over by that flaming brand; the gate + With dreadful faces thronged and fiery arms! + Some natural tears they dropt, but wiped them soon. + The world was all before them, where to choose + Their place of rest, and providence their guide. + They, arm in arm, with wand'ring steps, and slow, + Thro' Eden took their solitary way._ + +Nothing can be more lugubrious than the air of the two friends, +Fox and Burke, as they walk away, arm in arm, from the gate of the +ministerial paradise. From this time Sayer, who adopted all Pitt's +virulence towards Fox, made the latter a continual subject of his +satire. Nor did this zeal pass unrewarded, for Pitt, in power, gave the +caricaturist the not unlucrative offices of marshal of the court of +exchequer, receiver of the sixpenny duties, and cursitor. Sayer was, +in fact, Pitt's caricaturist, and was employed by him in attacking +successively the coalition under Fox and North, Fox's India Bill, and +even, at a later period, Warren Hastings on his trial. + + [Illustration: _No. 215. A Contrast._] + +I have already remarked that Sayer was almost exclusively a political +caricaturist. The exceptions are a few prints on theatrical subjects, +in which contemporary actors and actresses are caricatured, and a +single subject from fashionable life. A copy of the latter forms our +cut No. 215. It has no title in the original, but in a copy in my +possession a contemporary has written on the margin in pencil that +the lady is Miss Snow and the gentleman Mr. Bird, no doubt well-known +personages in contemporary society. It was published on the 19th of +July, 1783. + +One of Sayer's most successful caricatures, in regard to the effect +it produced on the public, was that on Fox's India Bill, published on +the 5th of September, 1783. It was entitled "Carlo Khan's Triumphal +Entry into Leadenhall Street," Carlo Khan being personified by Fox, +who is carried in triumph to the door of the India House on the back +of an elephant, which presents the face of lord North. Burke, who had +been the principal supporter of the bill in debate, appears in the +character of the imperial trumpeter, and leads the elephant on its way. +On a banner behind Carlo, the old inscription, "The Man of the People," +the title popularly given to Fox, is erased, and the two Greek words, ++BASILEUS BASILEN+ "king of kings," substituted in its place. From +a chimney above, the bird of ill omen croaks forth the doom of the +ambitious minister, who, it was pretended, aimed at making himself more +powerful than the king himself; and on the side of the house just below +we read the words-- + + _The night-crow cried foreboding luckless time._--Shakespeare. + +Henry William Bunbury belonged to a more aristocratic class in society +than any of the preceding. He was the second son of sir William +Bunbury, Bart., of Mildenhall, in the county of Suffolk, and was +born in 1750. How he first took so zealously to caricature we have +no information, but he began to publish before he was twenty-one +years of age. Bunbury's drawing was bold and often good, but he had +little skill in etching, for some of his earlier prints, published +in 1771, which he etched himself, are coarsely executed. His designs +were afterwards engraved by various persons, and his own style was +sometimes modified in this process. His earlier prints were etched and +sold by James Bretherton, who has been already mentioned as publishing +the works of James Sayer. This Bretherton was in some esteem as an +engraver, and he also had a print-shop at 132, New Bond Street, where +his engravings were published. James had a son named Charles, who +displayed great talent at an early age, but he died young. As early as +1772, when the macaronis (the dandies of the eighteenth century) came +into fashion, James Bretherton's name appears on prints by Bunbury as +the engraver and publisher, and it occurs again as the engraver of +his print of "Strephon and Chloe" in 1801, which was published by +Fores. At this and a later period some of his designs were engraved +by Rowlandson, who always transferred his own style to the drawings +he copied. A remarkable instance of this is furnished by a print of a +party of anglers of both sexes in a punt, entitled "Anglers of 1811" +(the year of Bunbury's death). But for the name, "H. Bunbury, del.," +very distinctly inscribed upon it, we should take this to be a genuine +design by Rowlandson; and in 1803 Rowlandson engraved some copies of +Bunbury's prints on horsemanship for Ackermann, of the Strand, in which +all traces of Bunbury's style are lost. Bunbury's style is rather +broadly burlesque. + + [Illustration: _No. 216. How to Travel on Two Legs in a Frost._] + +Bunbury had evidently little taste for political caricature, and he +seldom meddled with it. Like Collet, he preferred scenes of social +life, and humorous incidents of contemporary manners, fashionable +or popular. He had a great taste for caricaturing bad or awkward +horsemanship or unmanageable horses, and his prints of such subjects +were numerous and greatly admired. This taste for equestrian pieces +was shown in prints published in 1772, and several droll series of +such subjects appeared at different times, between 1781 and 1791, +one of which was long famous under the title of "Geoffrey Gambado's +Horsemanship." An example of these incidents of horsemanship is copied +in our cut No. 216, where a not very skilful rider, with a troublesome +horse, is taking advantage of the state of the ground for accelerating +locomotion. It is entitled, "How to travel on Two Legs in a Frost," and +is accompanied with the motto, in Latin, "_Ostendunt terris hunc tantum +fata, neque ultra esse sinent_." + + [Illustration: _No. 217. Strephon and Chloe._] + +Occasionally Bunbury drew in a broader style of caricature, especially +in some of his later works. Of our examples of this broader style, the +first cut, No. 217, entitled "Strephon and Chloe," is dated the 1st of +July, 1801. It is the very acme of sentimental courtship, expressed +in a spirit of drollery which could not easily be excelled. The next +group (cut No. 218), from a similar print published on the 21st of +July in the same year, is a no less admirable picture of overstrained +politeness. It is entitled in the original, "The Salutation Tavern," +probably with a temporary allusion beyond the more apparent design of +the picture. Bunbury, as before stated, died in 1811. It is enough to +say that sir Joshua Reynolds used to express a high opinion of him as +an artist. + + [Illustration: _No. 218. A Fashionable Salutation._] + +Bunbury's prints rarely appeared without his name, and, except when +they had passed through the engraving of Rowlandson, are easily +recognised. No doubt his was considered a popular name, which was +almost of as much importance as the print itself. But a large +mass of the caricatures published at the latter end of the last +century and the beginning of the present, appeared anonymously, or +with imaginary names. Thus a political print, entitled "The Modern +Atlas," bears the inscription "Mas^r Hook fecit;" another entitled +"Farmer George delivered," has that of "Poll Pitt del." "Everybody +delin^{it}," is inscribed on a caricature entitled "The Lover's Leap;" +and one which appeared under the title of "Veterinary Operations," +is inscribed "Giles Grinagain fect." Some of these were probably +the works of amateurs, for there appear to have been many amateur +caricaturists in England at that time. In a caricature entitled +"The Scotch Arms," published by Fores on the 3rd of January, 1787, +we find the announcement, "Gentlemen's designs executed gratis," +which means, of course, that Fores would publish the caricatures of +amateurs, if he approved them, without making the said amateurs pay +for the engraving. But also some of the best caricaturists of the +day published much anonymously, and we know that this was the case +to a very great extent with such artists as Cruikshank, Woodward, +&c., at all events until such time as their names became sufficiently +popular to be a recommendation to the print. It is certain that many +of Woodward's designs were published without his name. Such was the +case with the print of which we give a copy in our cut No. 219, which +was published on the 5th of May, 1796, and which bears strongly the +marks of Woodward's style. The spring of this year, 1796, witnessed a +general disappointment at the failure of the negociations for peace, +and therefore the necessity of new sacrifices for carrying on the war, +and of increased taxation. Many clever caricatures appeared on this +occasion, of which this by Woodward was one. Of course, when war was +inevitable, the question of generals was a very important one, and +the caricaturist pretends that the greatest general of the age was +"General Complaint." The general appears here with an empty purse in +his right hand, and in his left a handful of papers containing a list +of bankrupts, the statement of the budget, &c. Four lines beneath, in +rather doggrel verse, explain the situation as follows:-- + + _Don't tell me of generals raised from mere boys, + Though, believe me, I mean not their laurel to taint; + But the general, I'm sure, that will make the most noise, + If the war still goes on, will be General Complaint._ + + [Illustration: _No. 219. General Complaint._] + + [Illustration: _No. 220. Desire._] + +There was much of Bunbury's style in that of Woodward, who had a taste +for the same broad caricatures upon society, which he executed in a +similar spirit. Some of the _suites_ of subjects of this description +that he published, such as the series of the "Symptoms of the Shop," +those of "Everybody out of town" and "Everybody in Town," and the +"Specimens of Domestic Phrensy," are extremely clever and amusing. +Woodward's designs were also not unfrequently engraved by Rowlandson, +who, as usual, imprinted his own style upon them. A very good example +of this practice is seen in the print of which we give a copy in our +cut No. 220. Its title, in the original, is "Desire," and the passion +is exemplified in the case of a hungry schoolboy watching through a +window a jolly cook carrying by a tempting plum-pudding. We are told in +an inscription underneath: "Various are the ways this passion might be +depicted; in this delineation the subjects chosen are simple--a hungry +boy and a plum-pudding." The design of this print is stated to be +Woodward's; but the style is altogether that of Rowlandson, whose name +appears on it as the etcher. It was published by R. Ackermann, on the +20th of January, 1800. Woodward is well known by his prolific pencil, +but we are so little acquainted with the man himself, that I cannot +state the date either of his birth or of his death. + + [Illustration: _No. 221. Looking a Rock in the Face._] + +There lived at this time in Edinburgh an engraver of some eminence in +his way, but whose name is now nearly forgotten, and, in fact, it does +not occur in the last edition of Bryan's "Dictionary of Engravers." +This name was John Kay, which is found attached to prints, of which +about four hundred are known, with dates extending from 1784 to 1817. +As an engraver, Kay possessed no great talent, but he had considerable +humour, and he excelled in catching and delineating the striking +points in the features and gait of the individuals who then moved in +Edinburgh Society. In fact, a large proportion of his prints consist of +caricature portraits, often several figures on the same plate, which is +usually of small dimensions. Among them are many of the professors and +other distinguished members of the university of Edinburgh. Thus one, +copied in our cut No. 221, represents the eminent old geologist, Dr. +James Hutton, rather astonished at the shapes which his favourite rocks +have suddenly taken. The original print is dated in 1787, ten years +before Dr. Hutton's death. The idea of giving faces to rocks was not +new in the time of John Kay, and it has been frequently repeated. Some +of these caricature portraits are clever and amusing, and they are at +times very satirical. Kay appears to have rarely ventured on caricature +of any other description, but there is one rare plate by him, entitled +"The Craft in Danger," which is stated in a few words pencilled on the +copy I have before me, to have been aimed at a cabal for proposing Dr. +Barclay for a professorship in the university of Edinburgh. It displays +no great talent, and is, in fact, now not very intelligible. The +figures introduced in it are evidently intended for rather caricatured +portraits of members of the university engaged in the cabal, and are in +the style of Kay's other portraits.[105] + + [105] In the library of the British Museum there is a collection of + John Kay's works bound in two volumes quarto, with a title and + table of contents in manuscript, but whether it is one of a few + copies intended for publication, or whether it is merely the + collection of some individual, I am not prepared to say. It + contains 343 plates, which are stated to be all Kay's works down + to the year 1813, when this collection was made. "The Craft in + Danger" is not among them. I have before me a smaller, but a very + choice selection, of Kay's caricatures, the loan of which I owe + to the kindness of Mr. John Camden Hotten, of Piccadilly. I am + indebted to Mr. Hotten for many courtesies of this description, + and especially for the use of a very valuable collection of + caricatures of the latter part of the eighteenth century and + earlier part of the present, mounted in four large folio volumes, + which has been of much use to me. + + + + + CHAPTER XXVII. + + GILLRAY.--HIS FIRST ATTEMPTS.--HIS CARICATURES BEGIN WITH THE + SHELBURNE MINISTRY.--IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.--CARICATURES + ON THE KING; "NEW WAY TO PAY THE NATIONAL DEBT."--ALLEGED + REASON FOR GILLRAY'S HOSTILITY TO THE KING.--THE KING AND THE + APPLE-DUMPLINGS.--GILLRAY'S LATER LABOURS.--HIS IDIOTCY AND DEATH. + + +In the year 1757 was born the greatest of English caricaturists, +and perhaps of all caricaturists of modern times whose works are +known--James Gillray. His father, who was named like himself, James, +was a Scotchman, a native of Lanark, and a soldier, and, having +lost one arm at the battle of Fontenoy, became an out-pensioner of +Chelsea Hospital. He obtained also the appointment of sexton at the +Moravian burial-ground at Chelsea, which he held forty years, and it +was at Chelsea that James Gillray the younger was born. The latter, +having no doubt shown signs of artistic talent, was put apprentice +to letter-engraving; but after a time, becoming disgusted with this +employment, he ran away, and joined a party of strolling players, +and in their company passed through many adventures, and underwent +many hardships. He returned, however to London, and received some +encouragement as a promising artist, and obtained admission as a +student in the Royal Academy--the then young institution to which +Hogarth had been opposed. Gillray soon became known as a designer and +engraver, and worked in these capacities for the publishers. Among +his earlier productions, two illustrations of Goldsmith's "Deserted +Village" are spoken of with praise, as displaying a remarkable freedom +of effect. For a long time after Gillray became known as a caricaturist +he continued to engrave the designs of other artists. The earliest +known caricature which can be ascribed to him with any certainty, is +the plate entitled "Paddy on Horseback," and dated in 1779, when he +was twenty-two years of age. The "horse" on which Paddy rides is a +bull; he is seated with his face turned to the tail. The subject of +satire is supposed to be the character then enjoyed by the Irish as +fortune-hunters. The point, however, is not very apparent, and indeed +Gillray's earliest caricatures are tame, although it is remarkable +how rapidly he improved, and how soon he arrived at excellence. Two +caricatures, published in June and July, 1782, on the occasion of +admiral Rodney's victory, are looked upon as marking his first decided +appearance in politics. + +A distinguishing characteristic of Gillray's style is, the wonderful +tact with which he seizes upon the points in his subject open to +ridicule, and the force with which he brings those points out. In the +fineness of his design, and in his grouping and drawing, he excels all +the other caricaturists. He was, indeed, born with all the talents of +a great historical painter, and, but for circumstances, he probably +would have shone in that branch of art. This excellence will be the +more appreciated when it is understood that he drew his picture with +the needle on the plate, without having made any previous sketch of +it, except sometimes a few hasty outlines of individual portraits or +characters scrawled on cards or scraps of paper as they struck him. + +Soon after the two caricatures on Rodney's naval victory, the +Rockingham administration was broken up by the death of its chief, and +another was formed under the direction of Lord Shelburne, from which +Fox and Burke retired, leaving in it their old colleague, Pitt, who +now deserted the Whig party in parliament. Fox and Burke became from +this moment the butt of all sorts of abuse and scornful satire from the +caricaturists, such as Sayer, and newspaper writers in the pay of their +opponents; and Gillray, perhaps because it offered at that moment the +best chance of popularity and success, joined in the crusade against +the two ex-ministers and their friends. In one of his caricatures, +which is a parody upon Milton, Fox is represented in the character of +Satan, turning his back upon the ministerial Paradise, but looking +enviously over his shoulder at the happy pair (Shelburne and Pitt) who +are counting their money on the treasury table:-- + + _Aside he turned + For envy, yet with jealous leer malign + Eyed them askance._ + +Another, also by Gillray, is entitled "Guy Faux and Judas Iscariot," +the former represented by Fox, who discovers the desertion of his +late colleague, lord Shelburne, by the light of his lantern, and +recriminates angrily, "Ah! what, I've found you out, have I? Who arm'd +the high priests and the people? Who betray'd his mas--?" At this +point he is interrupted by a sneering retort from Shelburne, who is +carrying away the treasury bag with a look of great self-complacency, +"Ha, ha! poor Gunpowder's vexed! He, he, he!--Shan't have the bag, I +tell you, old Goosetooth!" Burke was usually caricatured as a Jesuit; +and in another of Gillray's prints of this time (published Aug. 23, +1782), entitled "Cincinnatus in Retirement," Burke is represented as +driven into the retirement of his Irish cabin, where he is surrounded +by Popish relics and emblems of superstition, and by the materials +for drinking whisky. A vessel, inscribed "Relick No. 1., used by St. +Peter," is filled with boiled potatoes, which Jesuit Burke is paring. +Three imps are seen dancing under the table. + + [Illustration: _No. 222. A Strong Dose._] + +In 1783 the Shelburne ministry itself was dissolved, and succeeded +by the Portland ministry, in which Fox was secretary of state for +foreign affairs, and Burke, paymaster of the forces, and Lord North, +who had joined the Whigs against lord Shelburne, now obtained office +as secretary for the home department. Gillray joined warmly in the +attacks on this coalition of parties, and from this time his great +activity as a caricaturist begins. Fox, especially, and Burke, still +under the character of a Jesuit, were incessantly held up to ridicule +in his prints. In another year this ministry also was overthrown, and +young William Pitt became established in power, while the ex-ministers, +now the opposition, had become unpopular throughout the country. The +caricature of Gillray followed them, and Fox and Burke constantly +appeared under his hands in some ridiculous situation or other. But +Gillray was not a hired libeller, like Sayer and some of the lower +caricaturists of that time; he evidently chose his subjects, in some +degree independently, as those which offered him the best mark for +ridicule; and he had so little respect for the ministers or the court, +that they all felt his satire in turn. Thus, when the plan of national +fortifications--brought forward by the duke of Richmond, who had +deserted the Whigs to be made a Tory minister, as master-general of +the ordnance--was defeated in the House of Commons in 1787, the best +caricature it provoked was one by Gillray, entitled "Honi soit qui +mal y pense," which represents the horror of the duke of Richmond at +being so unceremoniously compelled to swallow his own fortifications +(cut No. 222). It is lord Shelburne, who had now become marquis of +Lansdowne, who is represented as administering the bitter dose. Some +months afterwards, in the famous impeachment against Warren Hastings, +Gillray sided warmly against the impeachers, perhaps partly because +these were Burke and his friends; yet several of his caricatures on +this affair are aimed at the ministers, and even at the king himself. +Lord Thurlow, who was a favourite with the king, and who supported the +cause of Warren Hastings with firmness, after he had been deserted by +Pitt and the other ministers, was especially an object of Gillray's +satire. Thurlow, it will be remembered, was rather celebrated for +profane swearing, and was sometimes spoken of as the thunderer. One +of the finest of Gillray's caricatures at this period, published on +the 1st of March, 1788, is entitled "Blood on Thunder fording the Red +Sea," and represents Warren Hastings carried on chancellor Thurlow's +shoulders through a sea of blood, strewed with the mangled corpses +of Hindoos. As will be seen in our copy of the most important part of +this print (cut No. 223), the "saviour of India," as he was called by +his friends, has taken care to secure his gains. A remarkably bold +caricature by Gillray against the government appeared on the 2nd of May +in this year. It is entitled "Market-Day--every man has his price," and +represents a scene in Smithfield, where the horned cattle exposed for +sale are the supporters of the king's ministry. Lord Thurlow, with his +characteristic frown, appears as the principal purchaser. Pitt, and +his friend and colleague Dundas, are represented drinking and smoking +jovially at the window of a public-house. On one side Warren Hastings +is riding off with the king in the form of a calf, which he has just +purchased, for Hastings was popularly believed to have worked upon king +George's avarice by rich presents of diamonds. On another side, the +overwhelming rush of the cattle is throwing over the van in which Fox, +Burke, and Sheridan are driving. This plate deserves to be placed among +Gillray's finest works. + + [Illustration: _No. 223. Blood on Thunder._] + +Gillray caricatured the heir to the throne with bitterness, perhaps +because his dissipation and extravagance rendered him a fair subject +of ridicule, and because he associated himself with Fox's party in +politics; but his hostility to the king is ascribed in part to personal +feelings. A large and very remarkable print by our artist, though his +name was not attached to it, and one which displays in a special manner +the great characteristics of Gillray's style, appeared on the 21st of +April, 1786, just after an application had been made to the House of +Commons for a large sum of money to pay off the king's debts, which +were very great, in spite of the enormous income then attached to the +crown. George was known as a careful and even a parsimonious man, and +the queen was looked upon generally as a mean and very avaricious +woman, and people were at a loss to account for this extraordinary +expenditure, and they tried to explain it in various ways which were +not to the credit of the royal pair. It was said that immense sums were +spent in secret corruption to pave the way to the establishment of +arbitrary power; that the king was making large savings, and hoarding +up treasures at Hanover; and that, instead of spending money on his +family, he allowed his eldest son to run into serious difficulties +through the smallness of his allowance, and thus to become an object of +pity to his French friend, the wealthy duc d'Orleans, who had offered +him relief. The caricature just mentioned, which is extremely severe, +is entitled "A new way to pay the National Debt." It represents the +entrance to the treasury, from which king George and his queen, with +their band of pensioners, are issuing, their pockets, and the queen's +apron, so full of money, that the coins are rolling out and scattering +about the ground. Nevertheless, Pitt, whose pockets also are full, +adds to the royal treasures large bags of the national revenue, which +are received with smiles of satisfaction. To the left, a crippled +soldier sits on the ground, and asks in vain for relief; while the +wall above is covered with torn placards, on some of which may be +read, "God save the King;" "Charity, a romance;" "From Germany, just +arrived a large and royal assortment...;" and "Last dying speech of +fifty-four malefactors executed for robbing a hen-roost." The latter +is a satirical allusion to the notorious severity with which the most +trifling depredators on the king's private farm were prosecuted. In the +background, on the right hand side of the picture, the prince appears +in ragged garments, and in want of charity no less than the cripple, +and near him is the duke of Orleans, who offers him a draft for +200,000. On the placards on the walls here we read such announcements +as "Economy, an old song;" "British property, a farce;" and "Just +published, for the benefit of posterity, the dying groans of Liberty;" +and one, immediately over the prince's head, bears the prince's +feathers, with the motto, "Ich starve." Altogether this is one of the +most remarkable of Gillray's caricatures. + + [Illustration: _No. 224. Farmer George and his Wife._] + +The parsimoniousness of the king and queen was the subject of +caricatures and songs in abundance, in which these illustrious +personages appeared haggling with their tradesmen, and making bargains +in person, rejoicing in having thus saved a small sum of money. It +was said that George kept a farm at Windsor, not for his amusement, +but to draw a small profit from it. By Peter Pindar he is described +as rejoicing over the skill he has shown in purchasing his live stock +as bargains. Gillray seized greedily all these points of ridicule, +and, as early as 1786, he published a print of "Farmer George and his +Wife" (see our cut No. 224), in which the two royal personages are +represented in the very familiar manner in which they were accustomed +to walk about Windsor and its neighbourhood. This picture appears to +have been very popular; and years afterwards, in a caricature on a +scene in "The School for Scandal," where, in the sale of the young +profligate's effects, the auctioneer puts up a family portrait, for +which a broker offers five shillings, and Careless, the auctioneer, +says, "Going for no more than one crown," the family piece is the +well-known picture of "Farmer George and his Wife," and the ruined +prodigal is the prince of Wales, who exclaims, "Careless, knock down +the farmer." + +Many caricatures against the undignified meanness of the royal +household appeared during the years 1791 and 1792, when the king +passed much of his time at his favourite watering-place, Weymouth; +and there his domestic habits had become more and more an object of +remark. It was said that, under the pretence of Weymouth being an +expensive place, and taking advantage of the obligations of the royal +mail to carry parcels for the king free, he had his provisions brought +to him by that conveyance from his farm at Windsor. On the 28th of +November, 1791, Gillray published a caricature on the homeliness of +the royal household, in two compartments, in one of which the king +is represented, in a dress which is anything but that of royalty, +toasting his muffins for breakfast; and in the other, queen Charlotte, +in no less homely dress, though her pocket is overflowing with money, +toasting sprats for supper. In another of Gillray's prints, entitled +"Anti-saccharites," the king and queen are teaching their daughters +economy in taking their tea without sugar; as the young princesses show +some dislike to the experiment, the queen admonishes them, concluding +with the remark, "Above all, remember how much expense it will save +your poor papa!" + + [Illustration: _No. 225. A Flemish Proclamation._] + +According to a story which seems to be authentic, Gillray's dislike +of the king was embittered at this time by an incident somewhat +similar to that by which George II. had provoked the anger of Hogarth. +Gillray had visited France, Flanders, and Holland, and he had made +sketches, a few of which he engraved. Our cut No. 225 represents +a group from one of these sketches, which explains itself, and is +a fair example of Gillray's manner of drawing such subjects. He +accompanied the painter Loutherbourg, who had left his native city +of Strasburg to settle in England, and become the king's favourite +artist, to assist him in making sketches for his great painting of +"The Siege of Valenciennes," Gillray sketching groups of figures +while Loutherbourg drew the landscape and buildings. After their +return, the king expressed a desire to see their sketches, and they +were placed before him. Loutherbourg's landscapes and buildings +were plain drawings, and easy to understand, and the king expressed +himself greatly pleased with them. But the king's mind was already +prejudiced against Gillray for his satirical prints, and when he +saw his hasty and rough, though spirited sketches, of the French +soldiers, he threw them aside contemptuously, with the remark, "I +don't understand these caricatures." Perhaps the very word he used was +intended as a sneer upon Gillray, who, we are told, felt the affront +deeply, and he proceeded to retort by a caricature, which struck at +once at one of the king's vanities, and at his political prejudices. +George III. imagined himself a great connoisseur in the fine arts, and +the caricature was entitled "A Connoisseur examining a Cooper." It +represented the king looking at the celebrated miniature of Oliver +Cromwell, by the English painter, Samuel Cooper. When Gillray had +completed this print, he is said to have exclaimed, "I wonder if the +royal connoisseur will understand this!" It was published on the 18th +of June, 1792, and cannot have failed to produce a sensation at that +period of revolutions. The king is made to exhibit a strange mixture +of alarm with astonishment in contemplating the features of this +great overthrower of kingly power, at a moment when all kingly power +was threatened. It will be remarked, too, that the satirist has not +overlooked the royal character for domestic economy, for, as will be +seen in our cut No. 226, the king is looking at the picture by the +light of a candle-end stuck on a "save-all." + + [Illustration: _No. 226. A Connoisseur in Art._] + +From this time Gillray rarely let pass an opportunity of caricaturing +the king. Sometimes he pictured his awkward and undignified gait, as he +was accustomed to shuffle along the esplanade at Weymouth; sometimes +in the familiar manner in which, in the course of his walks in the +neighbourhood of his Windsor farm, he accosted the commonest labourers +and cottagers, and overwhelmed them with a long repetition of trivial +questions--for king George had a characteristic manner of repeating his +questions, and of frequently giving the reply to them himself. + + [Illustration: _No. 227. Royal Affability._] + + [Illustration: _No. 228. A Lesson in Apple Dumplings._] + + _Then asks the farmer's wife, or farmer's maid, + How many eggs the fowls have laid; + What's in the oven, in the pot, the crock; + Whether 'twill rain or no, and what's o'clock; + Thus from poor hovels gleaning information, + To serve as future treasure for the nation._ + +So said Peter Pindar; and in this _rle_ king George was represented +not unfrequently in satirical prints. On the 10th of February Gillray +illustrated the quality of "Affability" in a picture of one of these +rustic encounters. The king and queen, taking their walk, have arrived +at a cottage, where a very coarse example of English peasantry is +feeding his pigs with wash. The scene is represented in our cut No. +227. The vacant stare of the countryman betrays his confusion at the +rapid succession of questions--"Well, friend, where a' you going, +hay?--What's your name, hay?--Where do you live, hay?--hay?" In other +prints the king is represented running into ludicrous adventures while +hunting, an amusement to which he was extremely attached. One of the +best known of these has been celebrated equally by the pen of Peter +Pindar and by the needle of Gillray. It was said that one day while +king George was following the chase, he came to a poor cottage, where +his usual curiosity was rewarded by the discovery of an old woman +making apple dumplings. When informed what they were, he could not +conceal his astonishment how the apples could have been introduced +without leaving a seam in their covering. In the caricature by Gillray, +from which we take our cut No. 228, the king is represented looking +at the process of dumpling making through the window, inquiring +in astonishment, "Hay? hay? apple dumplings?--how get the apples +in?--how? Are they made without seams?" The story is told more fully +in the following verses of Peter Pindar, which will serve as the best +commentary on the engraving:-- + + _THE KING AND THE APPLE DUMPLING._ + + _Once on a time a monarch, tired with whooping, + Whipping and spurring, + Happy in worrying + A poor, defenceless, harmless buck + (The horse and rider wet as muck), + From his high consequence and wisdom stooping, + Enter'd through curiosity a cot, + Where sat a poor old woman and her pot._ + _The wrinkled, blear-eyed, good old granny, + In this same cot, illum'd by many a cranny. + Had finish'd apple dumplings for her pot. + In tempting row the naked dumplings lay, + When lo! the monarch in his usual way + Like lightning spoke, "What this? what this? what? what?" + Then taking up a dumpling in his hand, + His eyes with admiration did expand, + And oft did majesty the dumpling grapple. + "'Tis monstrous, monstrous hard, indeed?" he cried; + "What makes it, pray, so hard?"--The dame replied, + Low curtseying, "Please your majesty, the apple." + "Very astonishing, indeed! strange thing!" + Turning the dumpling round, rejoined the king; + "'Tis most extraordinary then, all this is-- + It beats Pinetti's conjuring all to pieces-- + Strange I should never of a dumpling dream! + But, Goody, tell me where, where, where's the seam?" + "Sir, there's no seam," quoth she, "I never knew + That folks did apple dumplings sew." + "No!" cried the staring monarch with a grin, + "How, how the devil got the apple in?" + On which the dame the curious scheme reveal'd + By which the apple lay so sly conceal'd, + Which made the Solomon of Britain start; + Who to the palace with full speed repair'd + And queen, and princesses so beauteous, scared, + All with the wonders of the dumpling art. + There did he labour one whole week, to show + The wisdom of an apple dumpling maker; + And lo! so deep was majesty in dough, + The palace seem'd the lodging of a baker!_ + +Gillray was not the only caricaturist who turned the king's weaknesses +to ridicule, but none caricatured them with so little gentleness, or +evidently with so good a will. On the 7th of March, 1796, the princess +of Wales gave birth to a daughter, so well known since as the princess +Charlotte. The king is said to have been charmed with his grandchild, +and this sentiment appears to have been anticipated by the public, for +on the 13th of February, when the princess's accouchment was looked +forward to with general interest, a print appeared under the title of +"Grandpapa in his Glory." In this caricature, which is given in our +cut No. 229, king George, seated, is represented nursing and feeding +the royal infant in an extraordinary degree of homeliness. He is +singing the nursery rhyme-- + + _There was a laugh and a craw, + There was a giggling honey, + Goody good girl shall be fed, + But naughty girl shall have noney._ + +This print bears no name, but it is known to be by Woodward, though it +betrays an attempt to imitate the style of Gillray. Gillray was often +imitated in this manner, and his prints were not unfrequently copied +and pirated. He even at times copied himself, and disguised his own +style, for the sake of gaining money. + + [Illustration: _No. 229. Grandfather George._] + +At the period of the regency bill in 1789, Gillray attacked Pitt's +policy in that affair with great severity. In a caricature published +on the 3rd of January, he drew the premier in the character of an +over-gorged vulture, with one claw fixed firmly on the crown and +sceptre, and with the other seizing upon the prince's coronet, from +which he is plucking the feathers. Among other good caricatures on this +occasion, perhaps the finest is a parody on Fuseli's picture of "The +Weird Sisters," in which Dundas, Pitt, and Thurlow, as the sisters, +are contemplating the moon, the bright side of whose disc represents +the face of the queen, and the other that of the king, overcast with +mental darkness. Gillray took a strongly hostile view of the French +revolution, and produced an immense number of caricatures against the +French and their rulers, and their friends, or supposed friends, in +this country, during the period extending from 1790 to the earlier +years of the present century. Through all the changes of ministry or +policy, he seems to have fixed himself strongly on individuals, and +he seldom ceased to caricature the person who had once provoked his +attacks. So it was with the lord chancellor Thurlow, who became the +butt of savage satire in some of his prints which appeared in 1792, +at the time when Pitt forced him to resign the chancellorship. Among +these is one of the boldest caricatures which he ever executed. It is a +parody, fine almost to sublimity, on a well-known scene in Milton, and +is entitled, "Sin, Death, and the Devil." The queen, as Sin, rushes to +separate the two combatants, Death (in the semblance of Pitt) and Satan +(in that of Thurlow). During the latter part of the century Gillray +caricatured all parties in turn, whether ministerial or opposition, +with indiscriminate vigour; but his hostility towards the party of +Fox, whom he persisted in regarding, or at least in representing, +as unpatriotic revolutionists, was certainly greatest. In 1803 he +worked energetically against the Addington ministry; and in 1806 he +caricatured that which was known by the title of "All the Talents;" but +during this later period of his life his labours were more especially +aimed at keeping up the spirit of his countrymen against the threats +and designs of our foreign enemies. It was, in fact, the caricature +which at that time met with the greatest encouragement. + +In his own person, Gillray had lived a life of great irregularity, and +as he grew older, his habits of dissipation and intemperance increased, +and gradually broke down his intellect. Towards the year 1811 he +ceased producing any original works; the last plate he executed was a +drawing of Bunbury's, entitled "A Barber's Shop in Assize Time," which +is supposed to have been finished in the January of that year. Soon +afterwards his mind sank into idiotcy, from which it never recovered. +James Gillray died in 1815, and was buried in St. James's churchyard, +Piccadilly, near the rectory house. + + + + + CHAPTER XXVIII. + + GILLRAY'S CARICATURES ON SOCIAL LIFE.--THOMAS ROWLANDSON.--HIS EARLY + LIFE.--HE BECOMES A CARICATURIST.--HIS STYLE AND WORKS.--HIS + DRAWINGS.--THE CRUIKSHANKS. + + +Gillray was, beyond all others, the great political caricaturist of +his age. His works form a complete history of the greater and more +important portion of the reign of George III. He appears to have had +less taste for general caricature, and his caricatures on social life +are less numerous, and with a few exceptions less important, than +those which were called forth by political events. The exceptions are +chiefly satires on individual characters, which are marked by the same +bold style which is displayed in his political attacks. Some of his +caricatures on the extravagant costume of the time, and on its more +prominent vices, such as the rage for gambling, are also fine, but his +social sketches generally are much inferior to his other works. + +This, however, was not the case with his contemporary, Thomas +Rowlandson, who doubtlessly stands second to Gillray, and may, in some +respects, be considered his equal. Rowlandson was born in the Old +Jewry in London, the year before that of the birth of Gillray, in the +July of 1756. His father was a city merchant, who had the means to +give him a good education, but embarking rashly in some unsuccessful +speculations, he fell into reduced circumstances, and the son had to +depend upon the liberality of a relative. His uncle, Thomas Rowlandson, +after whom probably he was named, had married a French lady, a +Mademoiselle Chatelier, who was now a widow, residing in Paris, with +what would be considered in that capital a handsome fortune, and she +appears to have been attached to her English nephew, and supplied him +rather freely with money. Young Rowlandson had shown at an early age +great talent for drawing, with an especial turn for satire. As a +schoolboy, he covered the margins of his books with caricatures upon +his master and upon his fellow-scholars, and at the age of sixteen he +was admitted a student in the Royal Academy in London, then in its +infancy. But he did not profit immediately by this admission, for his +aunt invited him to Paris, where he began and followed his studies in +art with great success, and was remarked for the skill with which he +drew the human body. His studies from nature, while in Paris, are said +to have been remarkably fine. Nor did his taste for satirical design +fail him, for it was one of his greatest amusements to caricature the +numerous individuals, and groups of individuals, who must in that age +have presented objects of ridicule to a lively Englishman. During +this time his aunt died, leaving him all her property, consisting of +about 7,000 in money, and a considerable amount in plate and other +objects. The sudden possession of so much money proved a misfortune to +young Rowlandson. He appears to have had an early love for gaiety, and +he now yielded to all the temptations to vice held out by the French +metropolis, and especially to an uncontrollable passion for gambling, +through which he soon dissipated his fortune. + +Before this, however, had been effected, Rowlandson, after having +resided in Paris about two years, returned to London, and continued +his studies in the Royal Academy. But he appears for some years +to have given himself up entirely to his dissipated habits, and +to have worked only at intervals, when he was driven to it by the +want of money. We are told by one who was intimate with him, that, +when reduced to this condition, he used to exclaim, holding up his +pencil, "I have been playing the fool, but here is my resource!" +and he would then produce--with extraordinary rapidity--caricatures +enough to supply his momentary wants. Most of Rowlandson's earlier +productions were published anonymously, but here and there, among +large collections, we meet with a print, which, by companion of the +style with that of his earliest known works, we can hardly hesitate +in ascribing to him; and from these it would appear that he had begun +with political caricature, because, perhaps, at that period of great +agitation, it was most called for, and, therefore, most profitable. +Three of the earliest of the political caricatures thus ascribed to +Rowlandson belong to the year 1784, when he was twenty-eight years +of age, and relate to the dissolution of parliament in that year, +the result of which was the establishment of William Pitt in power. +The first, published on the 11th of March, is entitled "The Champion +of the People." Fox is represented under this title, armed with the +sword of Justice and the shield of Truth, combating the many-headed +hydra, its mouths respectively breathing forth "Tyranny," "Assumed +Prerogative," "Despotism," "Oppression," "Secret Influence," "Scotch +Politics," "Duplicity," and "Corruption." Some of these heads are +already cut off. The Dutchman, Frenchman, and other foreign enemies +are seen in the background, dancing round the standard of "Sedition." +Fox is supported by numerous bodies of English and Irishmen, the +English shouting, "While he protects us, we will support him." The +Irish, "He gave us a free trade and all we asked; he shall have our +firm support." Natives of India, in allusion to his unsuccessful India +Bill, kneel by his side and pray for his success. The second of these +caricatures was published on the 26th of March, and is entitled "The +State Auction." Pitt is the auctioneer, and is represented as knocking +down with the hammer of "prerogative" all the valuable articles of +the constitution. The clerk is his colleague, Henry Dundas, who holds +up a weighty lot, entitled, "Lot 1. The Rights of the People." Pitt +calls to him, "Show the lot this way, Harry--a'going, a'going--speak +quick, or it's gone--hold up the lot, ye Dund-ass!" The clerk replies +in his Scottish accent, "I can hould it na higher, sir." The Whig +members, under the title of the "chosen representers," are leaving +the auction room in discouragement, with reflections in their mouths, +such as, "Adieu to Liberty!" "Despair not!" "Now or never!" While Fox +stands firm in the cause, and exclaims--"I am determined to bid with +spirit for Lot 1; he shall pay dear for it that outbids me!" Pitt's +Tory supporters are ranged under the auctioneer, and are called the +"hereditary virtuosis;" and their leader, who appears to be the lord +chancellor, addresses them in the words, "Mind not the nonsensical +biddings of those common fellows." Dundas remarks, "We shall get the +supplies by this sale." The third of these caricatures is dated on the +31st of March, when the elections had commenced, and is entitled, +"The Hanoverian Horse and British Lion--a Scene in a new Play, lately +acted in Westminster, with distinguished applause. Act 2nd, Scene +last." At the back of the picture stands the vacant throne, with the +intimation, "We shall resume our situation here at pleasure, _Leo +Rex_." In front, the Hanoverian horse, unbridled, and without saddle, +neighs "pre-ro-ro-ro-ro-rogative," and is trampling on the safeguard of +the constitution, while it kicks out violently the "faithful commons" +(alluding to the recent dissolution of parliament). Pitt, on the back +of the horse, cries, "Bravo!--go it again!--I love to ride a mettled +steed; send the vagabonds packing!" Fox appears on the other side of +the picture, mounted on the British lion, and holding a whip and bridle +in his hand. He says to Pitt, "Prithee, Billy, dismount before ye get a +fall, and let some abler jockey take your seat;" and the lion observes, +indignantly, but with gravity, "If this horse is not tamed, he will +soon be absolute king of our forest." + + [Illustration: _No. 230. Opera Beauties._] + +If these prints are correctly ascribed to Rowlandson, we see him here +fairly entered in the lists of political caricature, and siding with +Fox and the Whig party. He displays the same boldness in attacking +the king and his ministers which was displayed by Gillray--a boldness +that probably did much towards preserving the liberties of the country +from what was no doubt a resolute attempt to trample upon them, at a +time when caricature formed a very powerful weapon. Before this time, +however, Rowlandson's pencil had become practised in those burlesque +pictures of social life for which he became afterwards so celebrated. +At first he seems to have published his designs under fictitious names, +and one now before me, entitled "The Tythe Pig," bears the early date +of 1786, with the name of "Wigstead," no doubt an assumed one, which +is found on some others of his early prints. It represents the country +parson, in his own parlour, receiving the tribute of the tithe pig +from an interesting looking farmer's wife. The name of Rowlandson, +with the date 1792, is attached to a very clever and humorous etching +which is now also before me, entitled "Cold Broth and Calamity," and +representing a party of skaters, who have fallen in a heap upon the +ice, which is breaking under their weight. It bears the name of Fores +as publisher. From this time, and especially toward the close of the +century, Rowlandson's caricatures on social life became very numerous, +and they are so well known that it becomes unnecessary, nor indeed +would it be easy, to select a few examples which would illustrate all +his characteristic excellencies. In prints published by Fores at the +beginning of 1794, the address of the publisher is followed by the +words, "where may be had all Rowlandson's works," which shows how +great was his reputation as a caricaturist at that time. It may be +stated briefly that he was distinguished by a remarkable versatility of +talent, by a great fecundity of imagination, and by a skill in grouping +quite equal to that of Gillray, and with a singular ease in forming his +groups of a great number of figures. Among those of his contemporaries +who spoke of him with the highest praise were sir Joshua Reynolds and +Benjamin West. It has been remarked, too, that no artist ever possessed +the power of Rowlandson of expressing so much with so little effort. We +trace a great difference in style between Rowlandson's earlier and his +later works; although there is a general identity of character which +cannot be mistaken. The figures in the former show a taste for grace +and elegance that is rare in his later works, and we find a delicacy +of beauty in his females which he appears afterwards to have entirely +laid aside. An example of his earlier style in depicting female faces +is furnished by the pretty farmer's wife, in the print of "The Tythe +Pig," just alluded to; and I may quote as another example, an etching +published on the 1st of January, 1794, under the title of "English +Curiosity; or, the foreigner stared out of countenance." An individual, +in a foreign costume, is seated in the front row of the boxes of a +theatre, probably intended for the opera, where he has become the +object of curiosity of the whole audience, and all eyes are eagerly +directed upon him. The faces of the men are rather coarsely grotesque, +but those of the ladies, two of which are given in our cut No. 230, +possess a considerable degree of refinement. He appears, however, +to have been naturally a man of no real refinement, who easily gave +himself up to low and vulgar tastes, and, as his caricature became more +exaggerated and coarse, his females became less and less graceful, +until his model of female beauty appears to have been represented +by something like a fat oyster-woman. Our cut No. 231, taken from a +print in the possession of Mr. Fairholt, entitled, "The Trumpet and +Bassoon," presents a good example of Rowlandson's broad humour, and of +his favourite models of the human face. We can almost fancy we hear the +different tones of this brace of snorers. + + [Illustration: _No. 231. The Trumpet and Bassoon._] + +A good example of Rowlandson's grotesques of the human figure is given +in our cut No. 232, taken from a print published on the 1st of January, +1796, under the title of "Anything will do for an Officer." People +complained of the mean appearance of the officers in our armies, who +obtained their rank, it was pretended, by favour and purchase rather +than by merit; and this caricature is explained by an inscription +beneath, which informs us how "Some school-boys, who were playing at +soldiers, found one of their number so ill-made, and so much under +size, that he would have disfigured the whole body if put into the +ranks. 'What shall we do with him?' asked one. 'Do with him?' says +another, 'why make an officer of him.'" This plate is inscribed with +his name, "Rowlandson fecit." + + [Illustration: _No. 232. A Model Officer._] + + [Illustration: _No. 233. Antiquaries at Work._] + +At this time Rowlandson still continued to work for Fores, but +before the end of the century we find him working for Ackermann, of +the Strand, who continued to be his friend and employer during the +rest of his life, and is said to have helped him generously in many +difficulties. In these, indeed, he was continually involved by his +dissipation and thoughtlessness. Ackermann not only employed him in +etching the drawings of other caricaturists, especially of Bunbury, +but in furnishing illustrations to books, such as the several series +of Dr. Syntax, the "New Dance of Death," and others. Rowlandson's +illustrations to editions of the older standard novels, such as "Tom +Jones," are remarkably clever. In transferring the works of other +caricaturists to the copper, Rowlandson was in the habit of giving his +own style to them to such a degree, that nobody would suspect that +they were not his own, if the name of the designer were not attached +to them. I have given one example of this in a former chapter, and +another very curious one is furnished by a print now before me, +entitled "Anglers of 1811," which bears only the name "H. Bunbury +del.," but which is in every particular a perfect example of the style +of Rowlandson. During the latter part of his life Rowlandson amused +himself with making an immense number of drawings which were never +engraved, but many of which have been preserved and are still found +scattered through the portfolios of collectors. These are generally +better finished than his etchings, and are all more or less burlesque. +Our cut No. 233 is taken from one of these drawings, in the possession +of Mr. Fairholt; it represents a party of antiquaries engaged +in important excavations. No doubt the figures were intended for +well-known archologists of the day. + +Thomas Rowlandson died in poverty, in lodgings in the Adelphi, on the +22nd of April, 1827. + +Among the most active caricaturists of the beginning of the present +century we must not overlook Isaac Cruikshank, even if it were only +because the name has become so celebrated in that of his more talented +son. Isaac's caricatures, too, were equal to those of any of his +contemporaries, after Gillray and Rowlandson. One of the earliest +examples which I have seen bearing the well-known initials, I. C., +was published on the 10th of March, 1794, the year in which George +Cruikshank was born, and probably, therefore, when Isaac was quite +a young man. It is entitled "A Republican Belle," and is an evident +imitation of Gillray. In another, dated the 1st of November, 1795, Pitt +is represented as "The Royal Extinguisher," putting out the flame of +"Sedition." Isaac Cruikshank published many prints anonymously, and +among the numerous caricatures of the latter end of the last century we +meet with many which have no name attached to them, but which resemble +so exactly his known style, that we can hardly hesitate in ascribing +them to him. It will be remarked that in his acknowledged works he +caricatures the opposition; but perhaps, like other caricaturists of +his time, he worked privately for anybody who would pay him, and was +as willing to work against the government as for it, for most of the +prints which betray their author only by their style are caricatures +on Pitt and his measures. Such is the group given in our cut No. 234, +which was published on the 15th of August, 1797, at a time when there +were loud complaints against the burthen of taxation. It is entitled +"Billy's Raree-Show; or, John Bull En-lighten'd," and represents Pitt, +in the character of a showman, exhibiting to John Bull, and picking +his pocket while his attention is occupied with the show. Pitt, in +a true showman's style, says to his victim, "Now, pray lend your +attention to the enchanting prospect before you,--this is the prospect +of peace--only observe what a busy scene presents itself--the ports are +filled with shipping, the quays loaded with merchandise, riches are +flowing in from every quarter--this prospect alone is worth all the +money you have got about you." Accordingly, the showman abstracts the +same money from his pocket, while John Bull, unconscious of the theft +exclaims with surprise, "Mayhap it may, master showman, but I canna zee +ony thing like what you mentions,--I zees nothing but a woide plain, +with some mountains and molehills upon't--as sure as a gun, it must be +all behoind one of those!" The flag of the show is inscribed, "Licensed +by authority, Billy Hum's grand exhibition of moving mechanism; or, +deception of the senses." + + [Illustration: _No. 234. The Raree-Show._] + + [Illustration: _No. 235. Flight across the Herring Pond._] + +In a caricature with the initials of I. C., and published on the 20th +of June, 1797, Fox is represented as "The Watchman of the State," +ironically, of course, for he is betraying the truth which he had +ostentatiously assumed, and absenting himself at the moment when his +agents are putting the match to the train they have laid to blow up +the constitution. Yet Cruikshank's caricatures on the Irish union +were rather opposed to ministers. One of these, published on the 20th +of June, 1800, is full of humour. It is entitled "A Flight across the +Herring Pond." England and Ireland are separated by a rough sea, over +which a crowd of Irish "patriots" are flying, allured by the prospect +of honours and rewards. On the Irish shore, a few wretched natives, +with a baby and a dog, are in an attitude of prayer, expostulating +with the fugitives,--"Och, och! do not leave us--consider your old +house, it will look like a big wallnut-shell without a kernel." On the +English shore, Pitt is holding open the "Imperial Pouch," and welcoming +them,--"Come on, my little fellows, there's plenty of room for you +all--the budget is not half full." Inside the "pouch" appears a host +of men covered with honours and dignities, one of whom says to the +foremost of the Irish candidates for favour, "Very snug and convenient, +brother, I allure you." Behind Pitt, Dundas, seated on a pile of public +offices united in his person, calls out to the immigrants, "If you've +ony consciences at a', here's enugh to satisfy ye a'." A portion of +this clever caricature is represented in our cut No. 235. + + [Illustration: _No. 236. A Case of Abduction._] + +There is a rare caricature on the subject of the Irish union, which +exhibits a little of the style of Isaac Cruikshank, and a copy of which +is in the possession of Mr. Fairholt. From this I have taken merely +the group which forms our cut No. 236. It is a long print, dated on +the 1st of January, 1800, and is entitled "The Triumphal entry of the +Union into London." Pitt, with a paper entitled "Irish Freedom" in his +pocket, is carrying off the young lady (Ireland) by force, with her +natural accompaniment, a keg of whisky. The lord chancellor of Ireland +(lord Clare) sits on the horse and performs the part of fiddler. +In advance of this group are a long rabble of radicals, Irishman, +&c., while close behind comes Grattan, carried in a sedan-chair, and +earnestly appealing to the lady, "Ierne, Ierne! my sweet maid, listen +not to him--he's a false, flattering, gay deceiver." Still farther in +the rear follows St. Patrick, riding on a bull, with a sack of potatoes +for his saddle, and playing on the Irish harp. An Irishman expostulates +in the following words--"Ah, long life to your holy reverence's memory, +why will you lave your own nate little kingdom, and go to another +where they will tink no more of you then they would of an old brogue? +Shure, of all the saints in the red-letter calendar, we give you the +preference! och hone! och hone!" Another Irishman pulls the bull by +the tail, with the lament, "Ah, masther, honey, why will you be after +leaving us? What will become of poor Shelagh and all of us, when you +are gone?" It is a regular Irish case of abduction. + + [Illustration: _No. 237. The Farthing Rushlight._] + +The last example I shall give of the caricatures of Isaac Cruikshank is +the copy of one entitled "The Farthing Rushlight," which, I need hardly +say, is a parody on the subject of a well-known song. The rushlight +is the poor old king, George, whom the prince of Wales and his Whig +associates, Fox, Sheridan, and others, are labouring in vain to blow +out. The latest caricature I possess, bearing the initials of Isaac +Cruikshank, was published by Fores, on the 19th of April, 1810, and +is entitled, "The Last Grand Ministerial Expedition (on the Street, +Piccadilly)." The subject is the riot on the arrest of sir Francis +Burdett, and it shows that Cruikshank was at this time caricaturing on +the radical side in politics. + +Isaac Cruikshank left two sons who became distinguished as +caricaturists, George, already mentioned, and Robert. George +Cruikshank, who is still amongst us, has raised caricature in art to +perhaps the highest degree of excellence it has yet reached. He began +as a political caricaturist, in imitation of his father Isaac--in +fact the two brothers are understood to have worked jointly with +their father before they engraved on their own account. I have in my +own possession two of his earliest works of this class, published by +Fores, of Piccadilly, and dated respectively the 3rd and the 19th of +March, 1815. George was then under twenty-one years of age. The first +of these prints is a caricature on the restrictions laid upon the trade +in corn, and is entitled "The Blessings of Peace, or, the Curse of +the Corn Bill." A foreign boat has arrived, laden with corn at a low +price--one of the foreign traders holds out a sample and says, "Here +is de best for 50s." A group of bloated aristocrats and landholders +stand on the shore, with a closed storehouse, filled with corn behind +them; the foremost, warning the boat away with his hand, replies to +the merchant, "We won't have it at any price--we are determined to +keep up our own to 80s., and if the poor can't buy at that price, why +they must starve. We love money too well to lower our rents again; the +income tax is taken off." One of his companions exclaims, "No, no, we +won't have it at all." A third adds, "Ay, ay, let 'em starve, and be +d-- to 'em." Upon this another of the foreign merchants cries, "By +gar, if they will not have it at all, we must throw it overboard!" and +a sailor is carrying this alternative into execution by emptying a +sack into the sea. Another group stands near the closed storehouse--it +consists of a poor Englishman, his wife with an infant in the arms, +and two ragged children, a boy and a girl. The father is made to say, +"No, no, masters, I'll not starve; but quit my native country, where +the poor are crushed by those they labour to support, and retire to one +more hospitable, and where the arts of the rich do not interpose to +defeat the providence of God." The corn bill was passed in the spring +of 1815, and was the cause of much popular agitation and rioting. The +second of these caricatures, on the same subject, is entitled, "The +Scale of Justice reversed," and represents the rich exulting over the +disappearance of the tax on property, while the poor are crushed under +the weight of taxes which bore only upon them. These two caricatures +present unmistakable traces of the peculiarities of style of George +Cruikshank, but not as yet fully developed. + +George Cruikshank rose into great celebrity and popularity as a +political caricaturist by his illustrations to the pamphlets of William +Houe, such as "The Political House that Jack built," "The Political +Showman at Home," and others upon the trial of queen Caroline; but this +sort of work suited the taste of the public at that time, and not that +of the artist, which lay in another direction. The ambition of George +Cruikshank was to draw what Hogarth called moral comedies, pictures of +society carried through a series of acts and scenes, always pointed +with some great moral; and it must be confessed that he has, through a +long career, succeeded admirably. He possesses more of the true spirit +of Hogarth than any other artist since Hogarth's time, with greater +skill in drawing. He possesses, even to a greater degree than Hogarth +himself, that admirable talent of filling a picture with an immense +number of figures, every one telling a part of the story, without +which, however minute, the whole picture would seem to us incomplete. +The picture of the "Camp at Vinegar Hill," and one or two other +illustrations to Maxwell's "History of the Irish Rebellion in 1798," +are equal, if not superior, to anything ever produced by Hogarth or by +Callot. + +The name of George Cruikshank forms a worthy conclusion to the "History +of Caricature and Grotesque." He is the last representative of the +great school of caricaturists formed during the reign of George III. +Though there can hardly be said to be a school at the present day, yet +our modern artists in this field have been all formed more or less +under his influence; and it must not be forgotten that we owe to that +influence, and to his example, to a great degree, the cleansing of this +branch of art from the objectionable characteristics of which I have on +more than one occasion been obliged to speak. May he still live long +among the friends who not only admire him for his talents, but love him +for his kindly and genial spirit; and none among them love and admire +him more sincerely than the author of the present volume. + + FINIS. + + + + +[_Post Office Orders payable [DECEMBER, 1874. +at Piccadilly Circus._ + + + [Illustration] + + A List of Books + + PUBLISHED BY + + CHATTO & WINDUS + + 74 & 75, _PICCADILLY, LONDON, W._ + + * * * * * + + THE + TURNER GALLERY: + + A Series of Sixty Engravings + + From the Principal Works of JOSEPH MALLORD WILLIAM TURNER. + + _With a Memoir and Illustrative Text_ + + BY RALPH NICHOLSON WORNUM, + + KEEPER AND SECRETARY, NATIONAL GALLERY. + + Handsomely half-bound, India Proofs, Royal folio, 10; LARGE + PAPER copies, Artists' India Proofs, Elephant folio, 20. + + _A Descriptive Pamphlet will be sent upon application._ + + * * * * * + + NEW COPYRIGHT AMERICAN WORK. + + LOTOS LEAVES: + + Comprising Original Stories, Essays, and Poems by <sc>Wilkie + Collins</sc>, MARK TWAIN, WHITELAW REED, JOHN HAY, NOAH BROOKS, + JOHN BROUGHAM, EDMUND YATES, P. V. NASBY, ISAAC BROMLEY, and + others. Profusely illustrated by ALFRED FREDERICKS, ARTHUR + LUMLEY, JOHN LA FARGE, GILBERT BERLING, GEORGE WHITE, and others. + Small quarto, handsomely bound, cloth extra, gilt, and gilt + edges. 21s. + + * * * * * + + THE NATIONAL GALLERY: + + A Selection from its Pictures, + + By CLAUDE, REMBRANDT, CUYP, Sir DAVID WILKIE, CORREGGIO, + GAINSBOROUGH, CANALETTI, VANDYCK, PAUL VERONESE, + CARACCI, RUBENS, N. and G. POUSSIN, + and other great Masters. + + Engraved by GEORGE DOO, JOHN BURNET, WILLIAM FINDEN, JOHN and + HENRY LE KEUX, JOHN PYE, </sc>Walter Bromley</sc>, and others. + With descriptive Text. 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Martyrs of Science.= Small cr. 8vo, cloth, extra + gilt, with full-page Portraits. 4_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + =Bright's (Rt. Hon. J., M.P.) Speeches= on Public Affairs of the last + Twenty Years. Collated with the best Public Reports. Royal 16mo, 370 + pages, cloth extra, 1_s._ + + * * * * * + + [Illustration: "_A Border Song._"] + + COLMAN'S HUMOROUS WORKS. + + =Broad Grins.= My Nightgown and Slippers, and other Humorous Works, + Prose and Poetical, of GEORGE COLMAN the Younger. With Life and + Anecdotes of the Author by G. B. BUCKSTONE, and Frontispiece by + HOGARTH. Crown 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + =Broadstone Hall=, and other Poems. By W. E. WINDUS. With 40 + Illustrations by ALFRED CONCANEN. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, gilt, 5_s._ + + * * * * * + + =Conquest of the Sea=: A History of Diving, from the Earliest Times. + By HENRY SIEBE. Profusely Illustrated. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, 4_s._ + 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + MISS BRADDON'S NEW NOVEL. + + =Lost for Love: A Novel.= By M. E. BRADDON, Author of "Lady Audley's + Secret," &c. Now ready, in 3 vols., crown 8vo, at all Libraries, and + at the Booksellers. + + "One of the best novels lately produced. In several important + respects, it appears to us, Miss Braddon's recent works deserve + the highest commendation."--_Illustrated London News._ + + "We may confidently predict for it a warm welcome from Miss + Braddon's numerous admirers."--_Graphic._ + + "'Lost for Love' must be placed high among Miss Braddon's novels. + It has a quiet power, which makes it attractive in a high + degree."--_Scotsman._ + + "Unaffected, simple, and easily written, it will disappoint Miss + Braddon's early admirers, and please that which we hope is a wider + public."--_Athenum._ + + * * * * * + + =Byron's (Lord) Letters and Journals, with Notices of his Life.= + By THOMAS MOORE. A Reprint of the Original Edition, newly revised, + complete in a thick volume of 1060pp., with Twelve full-page Plates. + Crown 8vo, cloth extra, gilt, 7_s._ 6_d._ + + "We have read this book with the greatest pleasure. Considered + merely as a composition, it deserves to be classed among the + best specimens of English prose which our age has produced. It + contains, indeed, no single passage equal to two or three which + we could select from the Life of Sheridan; but, as a whole, it + is immeasurably superior to that work. The style is agreeable, + clear, and manly, and, when it rises into eloquence, rises + without effort or ostentation. Nor is the matter inferior to the + manner. It would be difficult to name a book which exhibits more + kindness, fairness, and modesty. It has evidently been written, + not for the purpose of showing--what, however, it often shows--how + well its author can write, but for the purpose of vindicating, + as far as truth will permit, the memory of a celebrated man who + can no longer vindicate himself. Mr. Moore never thrusts himself + between Lord Byron and the public. With the strongest temptations + to egotism, he has said no more about himself than the subject + absolutely required. A great part, indeed the greater part, of + these volumes consists of extracts from the Letters and Journals + of Lord Byron; and it is difficult to speak too highly of the + skill which has been shown in the selection and arrangement.... + It is impossible, on a general survey, to deny that the task has + been executed with great judgment and great humanity. When we + consider the life which Lord Byron had led, his petulance, his + irritability, and his communicativeness, we cannot but admire the + dexterity with which Mr. Moore has contrived to exhibit so much + of the character and opinions of his friend, with so little pain + to the feelings of the living."--LORD MACAULAY, in the _Edinburgh + Review_. + + * * * * * + + Carols of Cockayne: Vers de Socit descriptive of London Life. By + HENRY S. LEIGH. Third Edition. With numerous Illustrations by ALFRED + CONCANEN. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, gilt, 5_s._ + + * * * * * + + Carlyle (T.) on the Choice of Books. With New Life and Anecdotes. + Brown cloth, UNIFORM WITH THE 2_s._ EDITIONS OF HIS WORKS, 1_s._ 6_d._ + + Celebrated Claimants, Ancient and Modern. Being the Histories of all + the most celebrated Pretenders and Claimants from PERKINS WARBECK to + ARTHUR ORTON. Fcap. 8vo, 350 pages, illustrated boards, price 2_s._ + + * * * * * + + MR. WILKIE COLLINS'S NEW NOVEL. + + =The Law and the Lady=: A Novel. By WILKIE COLLINS, Author of "The + Woman in White." 3 vols., crown 8vo, 31_s._ 6_d._ [_Shortly._ + + * * * * * + + =Christmas Carols and Ballads.= Selected and Edited by JOSHUA + SYLVESTER. A New Edition, beautifully printed and bound in cloth, + extra gilt, gilt edges, 3_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + =Cruikshank's Comic Almanack.= + + Complete in TWO SERIES: the FIRST from 1835 to 1843; the SECOND + from 1844 to 1853. A Gathering of the BEST HUMOUR of THACKERAY, + HOOD, MAYHEW, ALBERT SMITH, A'BECKETT, ROBERT BROUGH, &c. With + 2,000 Woodcuts and Steel Engravings by CRUIKSHANK, HINE, LANDELLS, + &c. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, two very thick volumes, 15_s._; or, + separately, 7_s._ 6_d._ per volume. + + *** _The "Comic Almanacks" of George Cruikshank have long been + regarded by admirers of this inimitable artist as among his + finest, most characteristic productions. Extending over a period + of nineteen years, from 1835 to 1853, inclusive, they embrace + the best period of his artistic career, and show the varied + excellences of his marvellous power. The late Mr. Tilt, of Fleet + Street, first conceived the idea of the "Comic Almanack," and + at various times there were engaged upon it such writers as_ + THACKERAY, ALBERT SMITH, _the Brothers_ MAYHEW, _the late_ ROBERT + BROUGH, GILBERT A'BECKETT, _and, it has been asserted,_ TOM HOOD + _the elder._ THACKERAY'S _stories of "Stubbs' Calendar; or, The + Fatal Boots," which subsequently appeared as "Stubbs' Diary;" and + "Barber Cox; or, The Cutting of his Comb," formed the leading + attractions in the numbers for 1839 and 1840._ + + * * * * * + + THE BEST GUIDE TO HERALDRY. + + =Cussans' Handbook of Heraldry=; with Instructions for Tracing + Pedigrees and Deciphering Ancient MSS.; also, Rules for the + Appointment of Liveries, &c., &c. By JOHN E. CUSSANS. Illustrated + with 360 Plates and Woodcuts. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, gilt and + emblazoned, 7_s._ 6_d._ + + [Illustration] + + *** _This volume, beautifully printed on toned paper, contains + not only the ordinary matter to be found in the best books on the + science of Armory, but several other subjects hitherto unnoticed. + Amongst these may be mentioned:_--1. DIRECTIONS FOR TRACING + PEDIGREES. 2. DECIPHERING ANCIENT MSS., ILLUSTRATED BY ALPHABETS + AND FACSIMILES. 3. THE APPOINTMENT OF LIVERIES. 4. CONTINENTAL AND + AMERICAN HERALDRY, &c. + + * * * * * + + NEW AND IMPORTANT WORK. + + =Cyclopdia of Costume=; or, A Dictionary of Dress, Regal, + Ecclesiastical, Civil, and Military, from the Earliest Period in + England to the reign of George the Third. Including Notices of + Contemporaneous Fashions on the Continent, and preceded by a General + History of the Costume of the Principal Countries of Europe. By J. R. + PLANCH, F.S.A., Somerset Herald. + + _This work will be published in Twenty-four Monthly Parts, quarto, + at Five Shillings, profusely illustrated by Plates and Wood + Engravings; with each Part will also be issued a splendid Coloured + Plate, from an original Painting or Illumination, of Royal and + Noble Personages, and National Costume, both foreign and domestic. + The First Part will be ready on Jan. 1, 1875._ + + [Illustration] + + In collecting materials for a History of Costume of more + importance than the little handbook which has met with so much + favour as an elementary work, I was not only made aware of my + own deficiencies, but surprised to find how much more vague are + the explanations, and contradictory the statements, of our best + authorities, than they appeared to me, when, in the plenitude of + my ignorance, I rushed upon almost untrodden ground, and felt + bewildered by the mass of unsifted evidence and unhesitating + assertion which met my eyes at every turn. + + During the forty years which have elapsed since the publication + of the first edition of my "History of British Costume" in the + "Library of Entertaining Knowledge," archological investigation + has received such an impetus by the establishment of metropolitan + and provincial peripatetic antiquarian societies, that a flood + of light has been poured upon us, by which we are enabled to + re-examine our opinions and discover reasons to doubt, if we + cannot find facts to authenticate. + + That the former greatly preponderate is a grievous acknowledgment + to make after assiduously devoting the leisure of half my life + to the pursuit of information on this, to me, most fascinating + subject. It is some consolation, however, to feel that where I + cannot instruct, I shall certainly not mislead, and that the + reader will find, under each head, all that is known to, or + suggested by, the most competent writers I am acquainted with, + either here or on the Continent. + + That this work appears in a glossarial form arises from the + desire of many artists, who have expressed to me the difficulty + they constantly meet with in their endeavours to ascertain the + complete form of a garment, or the exact mode of fastening a + piece of armour, or buckling of a belt, from their study of a + sepulchral effigy or a figure in an illumination; the attitude of + the personages represented, or the disposition of other portions + of their attire, effectually preventing the requisite examination. + + The books supplying any such information are very few, and the + best confined to armour or ecclesiastical costume. The only + English publication of the kind required, that I am aware of, + is the late Mr. Fairholt's "Costume in England" (8vo, London, + 1846), the last two hundred pages of which contain a glossary, + the most valuable portion whereof are the quotations from old + plays, medival romances, and satirical ballads, containing + allusions to various articles of attire in fashion at the time + of their composition. Twenty-eight years have expired since that + book appeared, and it has been thought that a more comprehensive + work on the subject than has yet issued from the English press, + combining the pith of the information of many costly foreign + publications, and, in its illustrations, keeping in view the + special requirement of the artist, to which I have alluded, would + be, in these days of educational progress and critical inquiry, a + welcome addition to the library of an English gentleman. + + J. R. PLANCH. + + * * * * * + + =Cussans' History of Hertfordshire.= + + A County History, got up in a very superior manner, and ranging + with the finest works of its class. By JOHN E. CUSSANS. Illustrated + with full-page Plates on Copper and Stone, and a profusion of small + Woodcuts. Parts I. to VIII. are now ready, price 21_s._ each. + + *** _An entirely new History of this important County, great + attention being given to all matters pertaining to Family History._ + + * * * * * + + =Dickens' Life and Speeches.= By THEODORE TAYLOR. Complete in One + Volume, square 16mo, cloth extra, 2_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + "DON QUIXOTE" IN THE ORIGINAL SPANISH. */ + + =El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha.= Nueva Edicion, + corregida y revisada. Por MIGUEL DE CERVANTES SAAVEDRA. Complete in + one volume, post 8vo, nearly 700 pages, cloth extra, price 4_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + GIL BLAS IN SPANISH. + + =Historia de Gil Blas de Santillana.= + + Por LE SAGE. Traducida al Castellano por el PADRE ISLA. Nueva + Edicion, corregida y revisada. Complete in One Volume. Post 8vo, + cloth extra, nearly 600 pages, price 4_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + =Earthward Pilgrimage=, from the Next World to that which now is. By + MONCURE D. CONWAY. Crown 8vo, beautifully printed and bound, 7_s._ + 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + =Ellis's (Mrs.) Mothers of Great Men.= A New Edition, with + Illustrations by VALENTINE W. BROMLEY. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, over + 500 pages, 6_s._ + + "Mrs. Ellis believes, as most of us do, that the character of the + mother goes a long way; and, in illustration of this doctrine, she + has given us several lives written in her charming, yet earnest, + style. We especially commend the life of Byron's and Napoleon's + mothers.... The volume has some solid merits."--_Echo._ + + "This is a book which ought to be in the libraries of all who + interest themselves in the education of women."--_Victoria Magazine._ + + "An extremely agreeable and readable book, ... and its value is not + a little enhanced by Mr. Bromley's illustrations."--_Illustrated + Dramatic News._ + + * * * * * + + =Emanuel on Diamonds and Precious Stones=; Their History, Value, + and Properties; with Simple Tests for ascertaining their Reality. + By HARRY EMANUEL, F.R.G.S. With numerous Illustrations, Tinted and + Plain. A New Edition, Crown 8vo, cloth extra, gilt, 6_s._ + + * * * * * + + [Illustration: POE'S COTTAGE AT FORDHAM.] + + =Edgar Allan Poe's Prose and Poetical Works=; including Additional + Tales and his fine Critical Essays. With a Translation of CHARLES + BAUDELAIRE'S "Essay." 750 pages, crown 8vo, fine Portrait and + Illustrations, cloth extra, 7_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + =English Surnames=: Their Sources and Significations. By CHARLES + WAREING BARDSLEY, M.A. SECOND EDITION, revised throughout, + considerably enlarged, and partially re-written. Crown 8vo, cloth + extra, 9_s._ + + "Mr. Bardsley has faithfully consulted the original medival + documents and works from which the origin and development of + surnames can alone be satisfactorily traced. He has furnished a + valuable contribution to the literature of surnames, and we hope + to hear more of him in this field."--_Times._ + + "Mr. Bardsley's volume is a very good specimen of the work + which the nineteenth century can turn out. He has evidently + bestowed a great deal of attention, not only upon surnames, + but upon philology in general. The book is a mine of + information."--_Westminster Review._ + + "We welcome this book as an important addition to our knowledge of + an important and interesting subject."--_Athenum._ + + * * * * * + + =Englishman's House= (The): A Practical Guide to all interested + in Selecting or Building a House, with full Estimates of Cost, + Quantities, &c. By C. J. RICHARDSON, Architect, Author of "Old + English Mansions," &c. Third Edition. With nearly 600 Illustrations. + Crown 8vo, cloth extra, 7_s._ 6_d._ + + [Illustration] + + *** _This Work might not inappropriately be termed "A Book of + Houses." It gives every variety of house, from a workman's cottage to + a nobleman's palace. The book is intended to supply a want long felt, + viz., a plain, non-technical account of every style of house, with + the cost and manner of building._ + + * * * * * + + =Faraday's Chemical History of a Candle.= Lectures delivered to a + Juvenile Audience. A New Edition, edited by W. CROOKES, Esq., F.C.S., + &c. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, with all the Original Illustrations, + 4_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + =Faraday's Various Forces of Nature.= A New Edition, edited by W. + CROOKES, Esq., F.C.S., &c. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, with all the + Original Illustrations, 4_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + FATHER PROUT'S REMAINS. + + =Final Reliques of Father Prout.= Collected and Edited, from MSS. + supplied by the Family of the Rev. FRANCIS MAHONEY, by BLANCHARD + JERROLD. [_In preparation._ + + =Finish to Life in and out of London=; or, The Final Adventures of + Tom, Jerry, and Logic. By PIERCE EGAN. Royal 8vo, cloth extra, with + Spirited Coloured Illustrations by CRUIKSHANK, 21_s._ + + =Flagellation and the Flagellants.=--A History of the Rod in all + Countries, from the Earliest Period to the Present Time. By the Rev. + W. COOPER, B.A. Third Edition, revised and corrected, with numerous + Illustrations. Thick crown 8vo, cloth extra, gilt, 12_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + =Fools' Paradise=; with the Many Wonderful Adventures there, as seen + in the strange, surprising Peep-Show of Professor Wolley Cobble. + Crown 4to, with nearly 350 very funny Coloured Pictures, cloth extra, + gilt, 7_s._ 6_d._ + + [Illustration: THE PROFESSOR'S LEETLE MUSIC LESSON.] + + * * * * * + + RUSKIN AND CRUIKSHANK. + + =German Popular Stories.= Collected by the Brothers GRIMM, and + Translated by EDGAR TAYLOR. Edited, with an Introduction, by JOHN + RUSKIN. With 22 Illustrations after the inimitable designs of GEORGE + CRUIKSHANK. Both Series complete. Square crown 8vo, 6_s._ 6_d._; gilt + leaves, 7_s._ 6_d._ + + "The illustrations of this volume ... are of quite sterling and + admirable art, in a class precisely parallel in elevation to the + character of the tales which they illustrate; and the original + etchings, as I have before said in the Appendix to my 'Elements + of Drawing,' were unrivalled in masterfulness of touch since + Rembrandt (in some qualities of delineation, unrivalled even by + him).... To make somewhat enlarged copies of them, looking at them + through a magnifying glass, and never putting two lines where + Cruikshank has put only one, would be an exercise in decision and + severe drawing which would leave afterwards little to be learnt in + schools."--_Extract from Introduction by_ JOHN RUSKIN. + + * * * * * + + =Golden Treasury of Thought.= The Best Encyclopdia of Quotations + and Elegant Extracts, from Writers of all Times and all Countries, + ever formed. Selected and Edited by THEODORE TAYLOR. Crown 8vo, very + handsomely bound, cloth gilt, and gilt edges, 7_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + =Genial Showman=; or, Show Life in the New World. Adventures with + Artemus Ward, and the Story of his Life. By E. P. HINGSTON. Third + Edition. Crown 8vo, Illustrated by W. BRUNTON, cloth extra, 7_s._ + 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + THE GOLDEN LIBRARY. + + Square 16mo (Tauchnitz size), cloth, extra gilt, price 2_s._ per vol. + + =Clerical Anecdotes=: The Humours and Eccentricities of "the Cloth." + + * * * + + =Holmes's Autocrat of the Breakfast Table.= With an Introduction by + GEORGE AUGUSTUS SALA. + + * * * + + =Holmes's Professor at the Breakfast Table.= With the STORY OF IRIS. + + * * * + + =Hood's Whims and Oddities.= Both Series complete in One Volume, with + all the original Illustrations. + + * * * + + =Lamb's Essays of Elia.= Both Series complete in One Volume. + + * * * + + =Leigh Hunt's Essays=: A Tale for a Chimney Corner, and other Pieces. + With Portrait, and Introduction by EDMUND OLLIER. + + * * * + + =Shelley's Early Poems=: Queen Mab, &c. Reprinted from the Author's + Original Editions. With Essay by LEIGH HUNT. (First Series of his + Works.) + + * * * + + =Shelley's Later Poems=: Laon and Cythna, the Cenci, and other + Pieces. Reprinted from the Author's Original Editions. With an + Introductory Essay. (Second Series of his Works.) + + * * * + + =Shelley's Miscellaneous Poems and Prose Works.= The Third and + Fourth Series. These Two Volumes will include the Posthumous Poems, + published by Mrs. SHELLEY in 1824; the Shelley Papers, published in + 1833; the Six Weeks' Tour (1816); the Notes to "Queen Mab," &c.; the + Marlow and Dublin Pamphlets; "The Wandering Jew," a Poem; and the + two Novels, "Zastrozzi" and "St. Irvyne." The three last now first + included in any edition of Shelley. + + * * * * * + + =Great Cond (The), and the Period of the Fronde=: An Historical + Sketch. By WALTER FITZPATRICK. Second Edition, in 2 vols. 8vo, cloth + extra, 15_s._ + + * * * * * + + =Greenwood's (James) Wilds of London=: Being Descriptive Sketches, + from the Personal Observations and Experiences of the Writer, of + Remarkable Scenes, People, and Places in London. By JAMES GREENWOOD, + the "Lambeth Casual." With Twelve full-page tinted Illustrations by + ALFRED CONCANEN. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, gilt, 7_s._ 6_d._ + + "Mr. James Greenwood presents himself once more in the character + of 'one whose delight it is to do his humble endeavour towards + exposing and extirpating social abuses and those hole-and-corner + evils which afflict society.'"--_Saturday Review._ + + * * * * * + + =Hall's (Mrs. S. C.) Sketches of Irish Character=. "WOOING AND + WEDDING," "JACK THE SHRIMP," "PETER THE PROPHET," "GOOD AND + BAD SPIRITS," "MABEL O'NEIL'S CURSE," &c., &c. With numerous + Illustrations on Steel and Wood, by DANIEL MACLISE, R.A., Sir JOHN + GILBERT, W. HARVEY, and G. CRUIKSHANK. 8vo, pp. 450, cloth extra, + 7_s._ 6_d._ + + [Illustration] + + "The Irish sketches of this lady resemble Miss Mitford's beautiful + English Sketches in 'Our Village,' but they are far more vigorous + and picturesque and bright."--_Blackwood's Magazine._ + + * * * * * + + THE MOST COMPLETE HOGARTH EVER PUBLISHED. + + =Hogarth's Works=: with Life and Anecdotal Descriptions of the + Pictures, by JOHN IRELAND and JOHN NICHOLS. The Work includes 160 + Engravings, reduced in exact facsimile of the Original Plates, + specimens of which have now become very scarce. The whole in Three + Series, 8vo, cloth, gilt, 22_s._ 6_d._; or, separately, 7_s._ 6_d._ + per volume. Each Series is Complete in itself. + + [Illustration: THE TALKING HAND.] + + "Will be a great boon to authors and artists as well as + amateurs.... Very cheap and very complete."--_Standard._ + + "For all practical purposes the three handsome volumes comprising + this edition are equal to a collection of Hogarthian prints. We + are quite sure that any one who adds this work to his library + will be amply repaid by the inexhaustible charms of its facsimile + prints."--_Birmingham Daily Mail._ + + "The plates are reduced in size, but yet truthfully reproduced. + The best and cheapest edition of Hogarth's complete works yet + brought forward."--_Building News._ + + "Three very interesting volumes, important and valuable additions + to the library. The edition is thoroughly well brought out, and + carefully printed on fine paper."--_Art Journal._ + + * * * * * + + =Hogarth's Five Days' Frolic=; or, Peregrinations by Land and Water. + Illustrated with Tinted Drawings, made by HOGARTH and SCOTT during + the Journey. 4to, beautifully printed, cloth, extra gilt, 10_s._ 6_d._ + + *** _A graphic and most extraordinary picture of the hearty + English times in which these merry artists lived._ + + * * * * * + + =Hogg's Jacobite Relics of Scotland=: Being the Songs, Airs, and + Legends of the Adherents to the House of Stuart. Collected and + Illustrated by JAMES HOGG. In 2 vols. Vol. I., a Facsimile of the + original Edition; Vol. II., the _original_ Edition. 8vo, cloth, 28_s._ + + * * * * * + + =Haunted=; or, Tales of the Weird and Wonderful. A new and entirely + original series of GHOST STORIES, by FRANCIS E. STAINFORTH. Post 8vo, + illust. bds., 2_s._ [_Nearly ready_. + + * * * * * + + =Hawthorne's English and American Note Books=. Edited, with an + Introduction, by MONCURE D. CONWAY. Royal 16mo, paper cover, 1_s._; + in cloth, 1_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + =Hone's Scrap-Books=: The Miscellaneous Writings of WILLIAM HONE, + Author of "The Table-Book," "Every-Day Book," and the "Year Book:" + being a Supplementary Volume to those works. Now first collected. + With Notes, Portraits, and numerous Illustrations of curious and + eccentric objects. Crown 8vo, cloth extra. [_Preparing_. + + * * * * * + + MR. HORNE'S EPIC. + + =Orion.= An Epic Poem, in Three Books. By RICHARD HENGIST HORNE. With + Photographic Portrait-Frontispiece. TENTH EDITION. Crown 8vo, cloth + extra, 7_s._ + + "Orion will be admitted, by every man of genius, to be one of the + noblest, if not the very noblest poetical work of the age. Its + defects are trivial and conventional, its beauties intrinsic and + supreme."--EDGAR ALLAN POE. + + * * * * * + + =Hunt's (Robert) Drolls of Old Cornwall=; or, POPULAR ROMANCES OF THE + WEST OF ENGLAND. With Illustrations by GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. Crown 8vo, + cloth extra, gilt, 7_s._ 6_d._ + + [Illustration] + + *** "Mr. Hunt's charming book of the Drolls and Stories of the West of + England."--_Saturday Review._ + + * * * * * + + =Irish Guide.--How to Spend a Month in Ireland.= Being a complete + Guide to the Country, with an Appendix containing information as + to the Fares between the Principal Towns in England and Ireland, + and as to Tourist Arrangements for the Season. With a Map and 80 + Illustrations. By Sir CUSACK P. RONEY. A New Edition, Edited by Mrs. + J. H. RIDDELL. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, price 1_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + [Illustration] + + =Jennings' (Hargrave) One of the Thirty.= With curious Illustrations. + Crown 8vo, cloth extra, 10_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * + + =Jennings' (Hargrave) The Rosicrucians: Their Rites and Mysteries.= + With Chapters on the Ancient Fire and Serpent Worshippers and + Explanations of Mystic Symbols in Monuments and Talismans of Primeval + Philosophers. Crown 8vo, 300 Illustrations, 10_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + =Jerrold's (Blanchard) Cent. per Cent.= A Story Written on a Bill + Stamp. A New Edition. Fcap. 8vo, illustrated boards, 2_s._ + + * * * * * + + NEW WORK BY DOUGLAS JERROLD. + + =Jerrold's (Douglas) The Barber's Chair, and The Hedgehog Letters.= + Now first collected. Edited, with an Introduction, by his Son, + BLANCHARD JERROLD. Crown 8vo, with Steel Plate Portrait from his + Bust, engraved by W. H. MOTE, cloth extra, 7_s._ 6_d._ + + "No library is complete without Douglas Jerrold's Works; _ergo_, + no library is complete without the 'Barber's Chair.' A delightful + volume; the papers are most amusing; they abound with sly touches + of sarcasm; they are full of playful wit and fancy."--_Pictorial + World._ + + "An amusing volume, full of Douglas Jerrold's well-known sharpness + and repartee."--_Daily News._ + + "Better fitted than any other of his productions to give an idea + of Douglas Jerrold's amazing wit; the 'Barber's Chair' may be + presumed to give as near an approach as is possible in print to + the wit of Jerrold's conversation."--_Examiner._ + + * * * + =Jerrold's (Douglas) Brownrigg Papers=: The Actress at the Duke's; + Baron von Boots; Christopher Snubb; The Tutor Fiend and his Three + Pupils; Papers of a Gentleman at Arms, &c. By DOUGLAS JERROLD. Edited + by his Son, BLANCHARD JERROLD. Post 8vo, illustrated boards, 2_s._ + + * * * * * + + =Kalendars of Gwynedd.= Compiled by EDWARD BREESE, F.S.A. With Notes + by WILLIAM WATKIN EDWARD WYNNE, Esq., F.S.A. Demy 4to, cloth extra, + 28_s._ + + * * * * * + + =Lamb's (Charles) Complete Works=, in Prose and Verse, reprinted from + the Original Editions, with many pieces now first included in any + Edition. Edited, with Notes and Introduction, by R. H. SHEPHERD. With + Two Portraits and facsimile of a page of the "Essay on Roast Pig." + Crown 8vo, cloth extra, gilt, 7_s._ 6_d._ + + "Is it not time for a new and final edition of Lamb's Works--a + finer tribute to his memory than any monument in Edmonton + churchyard? Lamb's writings, and more especially his fugitive + productions, have scarcely yet escaped from a state of + chaos."--_Westminster Review_, October, 1874. + + ABSTRACT OF CONTENTS. + + ESSAYS OF ELIA, as originally published in _The London Magazine_, + _The Examiner_, _The Indicator_, _The Reflector_, _The New + Monthly_, _The Englishman's Magazine_, _The Athenum_, &c. + + PAPERS contributed to "Hone's Table Book," "Year Book," and "Every + Day Book," and to Walter Wilson's "Life of Defoe." + + NOTES ON THE ENGLISH DRAMATISTS, 1808-1827. + + REVIEW OF WORDSWORTH'S "EXCURSION" (from the _Quarterly Review_). + + ROSAMOND GRAY (from the Edition of 1798). + + TALES FROM SHAKESPEARE and from MRS. LEICESTER'S SCHOOL. + + THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES. + + DRAMATIC PIECES: + + John Woodvil: a Tragedy (from the Edition of 1802). + + Mr. H----, a Farce. + + The Wife's Trial; or, The Intruding Widow. + + The Pawnbroker's Daughter. + + POEMS: + + Sonnets and other Poems printed with those of Coleridge in 1796-7, + 1800, and 1813. + + Blank Verse (from the Edition of 1798). + + Poetry for Children, 1809. + + Album Verses, 1830. + + Satan in Search of a Wife, 1831, &c. + + * * * * * + + =Lamb (Mary & Charles): Their Poems, Letters, and Remains.= Now first + collected, with Reminiscences and Notes, by W. CAREW HAZLITT. With + HANCOCK'S Portrait of the Essayist, Facsimiles of the Title-pages of + the rare First Editions of Lamb's and Coleridge's Works, Facsimile of + a Page of the Original MS. of the "Essay on Roast Pig," and numerous + Illustrations of Lamb's Favourite Haunts. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, + 10_s._ 6_d._; LARGE-PAPER COPIES 21_s._ + + "Mr. W.C. Hazlitt has published a very pretty and interesting + little volume. It has many pictorial illustrations, which were + supplied by Mr. Camden Hotten; and, above all, it contains a + facsimile of the first page of Elia on 'Roast Pig.' It is well + got up, and has a good portrait of Elia. There are also some + letters and poems of Mary Lamb which are not easily accessible + elsewhere."--_Westminster Review._ + + "Must be consulted by all future biographers of the + Lambs."--_Daily News._ + + "Tells us a good deal that is interesting and something that is + fairly new."--_Graphic._ + + "Very many passages will delight those fond of literary trifles; + hardly any portion will fail to have its interest for lovers of + Charles Lamb and his sister."--_Standard._ + + "Mr. Hazlitt's work is very important and valuable, and all lovers + of Elia will thank him for what he has done."--_Sunday Times._ + + "Will be joyfully received by all Lambites."--_Globe._ + + * * * * * + + =Lee (General Edward): His Life and Campaigns.= By his Nephew, + EDWARD LEE CHILDE. With Portrait and Plans. 1 vol. Crown 8vo. [_In + preparation._ + + * * * * * + + =Life in London=; or, The Day and Night Scenes of Jerry Hawthorn + and Corinthian Tom. WITH THE WHOLE OF CRUIKSHANK'S VERY DROLL + ILLUSTRATIONS, in Colours, after the Originals. Crown 8vo, cloth + extra, 7_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + =Literary Scraps.= A Folio Scrap-Book of 340 columns, with guards, + for the reception of Cuttings from Newspapers, Extracts, Miscellanea, + &c. In folio, half-roan, 7_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + =Little London Directory of 1677.= The Oldest Printed List of the + Merchants and Bankers of London. Reprinted from the Rare Original, + with an Introduction by JOHN CAMDEN HOTTEN. 16mo, binding after the + original, 6_s._ 6_d._ + + [Illustration] + + =Longfellow's Prose Works=, complete, including "Outre-Mer," + "Hyperion," "Kavanagh," "Driftwood," "On the Poets and Poetry of + Europe." With Portrait and Illustrations by BROMLEY. 800 pages, crown + 8vo, cloth gilt, 7_s._ 6_d._ + + *** _The reader will find the present edition of Longfellow's + Prose Writings by far the most complete ever issued in this + country. "Outre-Mer" contains two additional chapters, restored + from the first edition; while "The Poets and Poetry of Europe," + and the little collection of Sketches entitled "Driftwood," are + now first introduced to the English public._ + + * * * * * + + =Lost Beauties of the English Language.= An Appeal to Authors, Poets, + Clergymen, and Public Speakers. By CHARLES MACKAY, LL.D. Crown 8vo, + cloth extra, 6_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + =Linton's (Mrs. E. Lynn) True History of Joshua Davidson, Christian + and Communist.= SIXTH EDITION, with a New Preface. Small crown 8vo, + cloth extra, 4_s._ 6_d._ + + "In a short and vigorous preface, Mrs. Linton defends, in certain + points, her notion of the logical outcome of Christianity as + embodied in this attempt to conceive how Christ would have + acted, with whom He would have fraternised, and who would + have declined to receive Him, had He appeared in the present + generation."--_Examiner._ + + * * * * * + + MRS. LYNN LINTON'S NEW NOVEL. + + =Patricia Kemball=: A Novel, by E. LYNN LINTON, Author of "Joshua + Davidson," &c., in Three Vols. crown 8vo, is now ready at all the + Libraries and at the Booksellers'. + + "Perhaps the ablest novel published in London this year.... We + know of nothing in the novels we have lately read equal to the + scene in which Mr. Hamley proposes to Dora.... We advise our + readers to send to the library for the story."--_Athenum._ + + "This novel is distinguished by qualities which entitle it to a + place apart from the ordinary fiction of the day; ... displays + genuine humour, as well as keen social observation.... Enough + graphic portraiture and witty observation to furnish materials for + half a dozen novels of the ordinary kind."--_Saturday Review._ + + * * * * * + + =Madre Natura= _versus_ The Moloch of Fashion.= A Social Essay. By + LUKE LIMNER. With 32 Illustrations by the Author. FOURTH EDITION, + revised, corrected, and enlarged. Crown 8vo, cloth extra gilt, red + edges, price 2_s._ 6_d._ + + [Illustration] + + "Bravo, Luke Limner! In this treatise, aptly and ably illustrated, + the well-known artist scathingly exposes the evils of the present + fashions--more especially of tight-lacing. Girls should be made to + learn it by heart, and act on its precepts."--_Fun._ + + "Agreeably written and amusingly illustrated. Common sense and + erudition are brought to bear on the subjects discussed in + it."--_Lancet._ + + * * * * * + + =Magna Charta.= An exact Facsimile of the Original Document in the + British Museum, carefully drawn, and printed on fine plate paper, + nearly 3 feet long by 2 feet wide, with the Arms and Seals of the + Barons emblazoned in Gold and Colours. Price 5_s._ + + A full Translation, with Notes, printed on a large sheet, price 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + AUTHOR'S CORRECTED EDITION. + + =Mark Twain's Choice Works.= Revised and Corrected throughout by the + Author. With Life, Portrait, and numerous Illustrations. 700 pages, + cloth extra gilt, 7_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * + + =Mark Twain's Pleasure Trip on the Continent of Europe.= With + Frontispiece. 500 pages, illustrated boards, 2_s._; or cloth extra, + 2_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + =Marston's (Dr. Westland) Poetical and Dramatic Works.= A New and + Collected Library Edition, in Two Vols. crown 8vo, is now in the + press, and will be ready very shortly. + + * * * * * + + MR. PHILIP MARSTON'S POEMS. + + =Song Tide=, and other Poems. By PHILIP BOURKE MARSTON. SECOND + EDITION. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, 8_s._ + + "This is a first work of extraordinary performance and of still + more extraordinary promise. The youngest school of English poetry + has received an important accession to its ranks in Philip Bourke + Marston."--_Examiner._ + + "Mr. Marston has fairly established his claim to be heard as a + poet.... His present volume is well worthy of careful perusal, as + the utterance of a poetic, cultivated mind."--_Standard._ + + "We have spoken plainly of some defects in the poetry before + us, but we have read much of it with interest, and even + admiration."--_Pall Mall Gazette._ + + * * * + + =All in All=: Poems and Sonnets. By PHILIP BOURKE MARSTON. Crown 8vo, + cloth extra, 8_s._ + + * * * * * + + =Mayhew's London Characters=: Illustrations of the Humour, Pathos, + and Peculiarities of London Life. By HENRY MAYHEW, Author of "London + Labour and the London Poor," and other Writers. With nearly 100 + graphic Illustrations by W. S. GILBERT, and others. Crown 8vo, cloth + extra, 6_s._ + + "Well fulfils the promise of its title.... The book is an + eminently interesting one, and will probably attract many + readers."--_Court Circular._ + + * * * * * + + =Memorials of Manchester Streets.= By RICHARD WRIGHT PROCTER. With + an Appendix, containing "The Chetham Library," by JAMES CROSSLEY, + F.S.A.; and "Old Manchester and its Worthies," by JAMES CROSTON, + F.S.A. Demy 8vo, cloth extra, with Photographic Frontispiece and + numerous Illustrations, 15_s._ + + * * * * * + + =Monumental Inscriptions of the West Indies=, from the Earliest + Date, with Genealogical and Historical Annotations, &c., from + Original, Local, and other Sources. Illustrative of the Histories + and Genealogies of the Seventeenth Century, the Calendars of State + Papers, Peerages, and Baronetages. With Engravings of the Arms of + the principal Families. Chiefly collected on the spot by the Author, + Capt. J. H. LAWRENCE-ARCHER. Demy 4to, cloth extra, 42_s._ [_Nearly + ready._ + + * * * * * + + =Muses of Mayfair=: Vers de Socit of the Nineteenth Century, + including selections from TENNYSON, BROWNING, SWINBURNE, + ROSSETTI, JEAN INGELOW, LOCKER, INGOLDSBY, HOOD, LYTTON, C. S. + C., LANDOR, HENRY S. LEIGH, and very many others. Edited by H. + CHOLMONDELEY-PENNELL, Author of "Puck on Pegasus." Beautifully + printed, cloth extra gilt, gilt edges, uniform with "The Golden + Treasury of Thought," 7_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + MR. O'SHAUGHNESSY'S POEMS. + + =Music and Moonlight=: Poems and Songs. By ARTHUR O'SHAUGHNESSY, + Author of "An Epic of Women." Fcap. 8vo, cloth extra, 7_s._ 6_d._ + + "It is difficult to say which is more exquisite, the technical + perfection of structure and melody, or the delicate pathos of + thought. Mr. O'Shaughnessy will enrich our literature with some of + the very best songs written in our generation."--_Academy._ + + * * * * * + + =An Epic of Women=, and other Poems. SECOND EDITION. Fcap. 8vo, cloth + extra, 6_s._ + + "Of the formal art of poetry he is in many senses quite a master; + his metres are not only good,--they are his own, and often of an + invention most felicitous as well as careful."--_Academy._ + + * * * * * + + =Lays of France.= (Founded on the "Lays of Marie.") SECOND EDITION. + Crown 8vo, cloth extra, 10_s._ 6_d._ + + "As we have before remarked in noticing an earlier volume of + his, this modern votary of Marie has, in imaginative power, keen + intuition, and ear, a genuine claim to be writing poetry, as + things go now.... And Mr. O'S. is also an accomplished master in + those peculiar turns of rhythm which are designed to reproduce the + manner of the medival originals."--_Saturday Review._ + + * * * * * + + =Mystery of the Good Old Cause=: Sarcastic Notices of those Members + of the Long Parliament that held Places, both Civil and Military, + contrary to the Self-denying Ordinance of April 3, 1645; with the + Sums of Money and Lands they divided among themselves. Small 4to, + half-morocco, 7_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + =Napoleon III., the Man of His Time=; from Caricatures. PART I. THE + STORY OF THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON III., as told by J. M. HASWELL. PART + II. THE SAME STORY, as told by the POPULAR CARICATURES of the past + Thirty-five Years. Crown 8vo, with Coloured Frontispiece and over 100 + Caricatures, 7_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + =Original Lists of Persons of Quality=; Emigrants; Religious Exiles; + Political Rebels; Serving Men Sold for a Term of Years; Apprentices; + Children Stolen; Maidens Pressed; and others who went from Great + Britain to the American Plantations, 1600-1700. With their Ages, the + Localities where they formerly Lived in the Mother Country, Names of + the Ships in which they embarked, and other interesting particulars. + From MSS. preserved in the State Paper Department of Her Majesty's + Public Record Office, England. Edited by JOHN CAMDEN HOTTEN. A very + handsome volume, crown 4to, cloth gilt, 700 pages, 38_s._ A few Large + Paper copies have been printed, price 60_s._ + + "This volume is an English Family Record, and as such may be + commended to English families, and the descendants of English + families, wherever they exist."--_Academy._ + + * * * * * + + THE OLD DRAMATISTS. + + MR. SWINBURNE'S NEW ESSAY. + +=George Chapman's Poems and Minor +Translations.= Complete, including some Pieces now first printed. +With an Essay on the Dramatic and Poetical Works of GEORGE +CHAPMAN, by ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE. Crown 8vo, with Frontispiece, +cloth extra, 6_s._ + + * * * + +=George Chapman's Translations of +Homer's Iliad and Odyssey.= Edited by RICHARD HERNE +SHEPHERD. In one volume, crown 8vo, cloth extra, 6_s._ + + * * * + +=George Chapman's Plays=, Complete, from +the Original Quartos, including the doubtful Plays. Edited by +R. H. SHEPHERD. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, with Frontispiece, 6_s._ + + * * * + +=Ben Jonson's Works.= With Notes, Critical +and Explanatory, and a Biographical Memoir by WILLIAM +GIFFORD. Edited by Lieut.-Col. FRANCIS CUNNINGHAM. Complete +in 3 vols., crown 8vo, cloth extra, gilt, Portrait, 6_s._ each. + + * * * + +=Christopher Marlowe's Works=; Including +his Translations. Edited, with Notes and Introduction, by +Lt.-Col. F. CUNNINGHAM. Cr. 8vo, cloth extra, gilt, Portrait, 6_s._ + + * * * + +=Philip Massinger's Plays.= From the +Text of WM. GIFFORD. With the addition of the Tragedy of +"Believe as You List." Edited by Lieut.-Col. FRANCIS CUNNINGHAM. +Crown 8vo, cloth extra gilt, with Portrait, price 6_s._ + + * * * * * + + OLD BOOKS--FACSIMILE REPRINTS. + + =Musarum Delici=; or, The Muses' Recreation, 1656; Wit Restor'd, + 1658; and Wit's Recreations, 1640. The whole compared with the + originals; with all the Wood Engravings, Plates, Memoirs, and Notes. + A New Edition, in 2 vols., post 8vo, printed on antique laid paper, + and bound in antique boards, 21_s._ + + * * * + + =Rump (The)=; or, An Exact Collection of the choicest POEMS and SONGS + relating to the late Times, and continued by the most eminent Wits; + from Anno 1639 to 1661. A Facsimile Reprint of the rare Original + Edition (London, 1662), with Frontispiece and Engraved Title-page. In + 2 vols., large fcap. 8vo, printed on antique laid paper, and bound in + antique boards, 17_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * + + =D'Urfey's ("Tom") Wit and Mirth=; or, PILLS TO PURGE MELANCHOLY: + Being a Collection of the best Merry Ballads and Songs, Old and New. + Fitted to all Humours, having each their proper Tune for either Voice + or Instrument: most of the Songs being new set. London: Printed by W. + Pearson, for J. Tonson, at Shakespeare's Head, over-against Catherine + Street in the Strand, 1719. An exact reprint. In 6 vols., large fcap. + 8vo, printed on antique laid paper, antique boards, 3 3_s._ + + * * * + + =English Rogue (The)=, described in the Life of MERITON LATROON, and + other Extravagants, comprehending the most Eminent Cheats of both + Sexes. By RICHARD HEAD and FRANCIS KIRKMAN. A Facsimile Reprint of + the rare Original Edition (1665-1672), with Frontispiece, Facsimiles + of the 12 copper plates, and Portraits of the Authors. In 4 vols., + large fcap. 8vo, printed on antique laid paper, and bound in antique + boards, 36_s._ + + * * * + + =Westminster Drolleries=: Being a choice Collection of Songs + and Poems sung at Court and Theatres. With Additions made by a + Person of Quality. Now first reprinted in exact facsimile from the + Original Editions of 1671 and 1672. Edited, with an Introduction + on the Literature of the Drolleries, a copious Appendix of Notes, + Illustrations, and Emendations of Text, Table of Contents, and Index + of First Lines, by J. WOODFALL EBSWORTH, M.A. Cantab. Large fcap. + 8vo, printed on antique paper, and bound in antique boards, 10_s._ + 6_d._; large paper copies, 21_s._ + + * * * + + =Ireland Forgeries.--Confessions of= WILLIAM-HENRY IRELAND. + Containing the Particulars of his Fabrication of the Shakspeare + Manuscripts; together with Anecdotes and Opinions (hitherto + unpublished) of many Distinguished Persons in the Literary, + Political, and Theatrical World. A Facsimile Reprint from the + Original Edition, with several additional Facsimiles. Fcap. 8vo, + printed on antique laid paper, and bound in antique boards, 10_s._ + 6_d._; a few Large Paper copies, at 21_s._ + + * * * + + =Grose's Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue.= 1785. An unmutilated + Reprint of the First Edition. Quarto, bound in half-Roxburghe, gilt + top, price 8_s._ + + * * * + + =Joe Miller's Jests=: the politest Repartees, most elegant Bon-Mots, + and most pleasing short Stories in the English Language. London: + printed by T. Read. 1739. A Facsimile of the Original Edition. 8vo, + half-morocco, 9_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * + + =Old Prose Stories (The)= whence TENNYSON'S "Idylls of the King" were + taken. By B. M. RANKING. Royal 16mo, paper cover, 1_s._; cloth extra, + 1_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + OLD SHEKARRY'S WORKS. + + =Forest and Field=: Life and Adventure in Wild Africa. By the OLD + SHEKARRY. With Eight Illustrations. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, gilt, + 6_s._ + + * * * + + =Wrinkles=; or, Hints to Sportsmen and Travellers upon Dress, + Equipment, Armament, and Camp Life. By the OLD SHEKARRY. A New + Edition, with Illustrations. Small crown 8vo, cloth extra, gilt, 6_s._ + + * * * * * + + OUIDA'S NOVELS. + + Uniform Edition, each Complete in One Volume, crown 8vo, red + cloth extra, price 5_s._ each. + + =Folle Farine.= + + =Idalia=: A Romance. + + =Chandos=: A Novel. + + =Under Two Flags.= + + =Cecil Castlemaine's Gage.= + + =Tricotrin=: The Story of a Waif and Stray. + + =Pascarl=: Only a Story. + + =Held In Bondage=; or, Granville de Vigne. + + =Puck=: His Vicissitudes, Adventures, &c. + + =A Dog of Flanders=, and other Stories. + + =Strathmore=; or, Wrought by his Own Hand. + + =Two Little Wooden Shoes.= + + * * * * * + + =Parochial History of the County of Cornwall.= Compiled from the best + Authorities, and corrected and improved from actual Survey. 4 vols. + 4to, cloth extra, 3 3_s._ the set; or, separately, the first three + volumes, 16_s._ each; the fourth volume, 18_s._ + + * * * * * + + =Plain English.= By JOHN HOLLINGSHEAD. One vol., crown 8vo. + [_Preparing._ + + * * * * * + + =Private Book of Useful Alloys and Memoranda for Goldsmiths and + Jewellers.= By JAMES E. COLLINS, C.E. Royal 16mo, 3_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + SEVENTH EDITION OF + =Puck on Pegasus.= By H. CHOLMONDELEY-PENNELL. + + Profusely illustrated by the late JOHN LEECH, H. K. BROWNE, Sir NOEL + PATON, JOHN MILLAIS, JOHN TENNIEL, RICHARD DOYLE, Miss ELLEN EDWARDS, + and other artists. A New Edition (the SEVENTH), crown 8vo, cloth + extra, gilt, price 5_s._; or gilt edges, 6_s._ + + "The book is clever and amusing, vigorous and healthy."--_Saturday + Review._ + + "The epigrammatic drollery of Mr. Cholmondeley-Pennell's 'Puck + on Pegasus' is well known to many of our readers.... The present + (_the sixth_) is a superb and handsomely printed and illustrated + edition of the book."--_Times._ + + "Specially fit for reading in the family circle."--_Observer._ + + * * * * * + + "AN AWFULLY JOLLY BOOK FOR PARTIES." + + =Puniana=: Thoughts Wise and Otherwise. By the Hon. HUGH ROWLEY. Best + Book of Riddles and Puns ever formed. With nearly 100 exquisitely + Fanciful Drawings. Contains nearly 3000 of the best Riddles, and + 10,000 most outrageous Puns, and is one of the most Popular Books + ever issued. New Edition, small quarto, green and gold, gilt edges, + price 6_s._ + + "Enormous burlesque--unapproachable and pre-eminent. We think this + very queer volume will be a favourite. We should suggest that, + to a dull person desirous to get credit with the young holiday + people, it would be good policy to invest in the book, and dole it + out by instalments."--_Saturday Review._ + + Also, + + =More Puniana.= + + By the Hon. HUGH ROWLEY. Containing nearly 100 beautifully + executed Drawings, and a splendid Collection of Riddles and Puns, + rivalling those in the First Volume. Small 4to, green and gold, + gilt edges, uniform with the First Series, 6_s._ + + + [Illustration: _When are persons entitled to speak like a + book? Only when they are a tome on the subject._] + + * * * * * + + [Illustration] + + =Pursuivant of Arms (The)=; or, Heraldry founded upon Facts. A + Popular Guide to the Science of Heraldry. By J. R. PLANCH, Esq., + F.S.A., Somerset Herald. To which are added, Essays on the BADGES OF + THE HOUSES OF LANCASTER AND YORK. A New Edition, enlarged and revised + by the Author, illustrated with Coloured Frontispiece, Five full-page + Plates, and about 200 Illustrations. Crown 8vo, bound in cloth extra, + gilt, 7_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + =Practical Assayer=: A Guide to Miners and Explorers. By OLIVER + NORTH. With Tables and Illustrative Woodcuts. Crown 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ + + *** _This book gives directions, in the simplest form, for + assaying bullion and the baser metals by the cheapest, quickest, + and best methods. Those interested in mining property will be + enabled, by following its instructions, to form a tolerably + correct idea of the value of ores, without previous knowledge of + assaying; while to the young man seeking his fortune in mining + countries it is indispensable._ + + "Likely to prove extremely useful. The instructions are clear and + precise."--_Chemist and Druggist._ + + "An admirable little volume."--_Mining Journal._ + + "We cordially recommend this compact little volume to all engaged + in mining enterprize, and especially to explorers."--_Monetary and + Mining Review._ + + * * * * * + + GUSTAVE DOR'S DESIGNS. + + =Rabelais' Works.= Faithfully translated from the French, with + variorum Notes, and numerous characteristic Illustrations by GUSTAVE + DOR. Cr. 8vo, cl. extra, 700 pp. 7_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + UNIFORM WITH "WONDERFUL CHARACTERS." + + =Remarkable Trials and Notorious Characters.= From "Half-Hanged + Smith," 1700, to Oxford, who shot at the Queen, 1840. By Captain L. + BENSON. With spirited full-page Engravings by PHIZ. 8vo, 550 pages, + 7_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + =Rochefoucauld's Reflections and Moral Maxims.= With Introductory + Essay by SAINTE-BEUVE, and Explanatory Notes. Cloth extra, 1_s._ + 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + =Reminiscences of the late Thomas Assheton Smith, Esq.=; or, The + Pursuits of an English Country Gentleman. By Sir J. E. EARDLEY + WILMOT, Bart. A New and Revised Edition, with Steel-plate Portrait, + and plain and coloured Illustrations. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, 7_s._ + 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + =Roll of Battle Abbey=; or, A List of the Principal Warriors who came + over from Normandy with William the Conqueror, and Settled in this + Country, A.D. 1066-7. 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SWINBURNE'S WORKS. + + SECOND EDITION NOW READY OF + + =Bothwell=: A Tragedy. By ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE. Crown 8vo, + cloth extra, pp. 540, 12_s._ 6_d._ + + "Mr. Swinburne's most prejudiced critic cannot, we think, deny + that 'Bothwell' is a poem of a very high character. Every line + bears traces of power, individuality, and vivid imagination. The + versification, while characteristically supple and melodious, also + attains, in spite of some affectations, to a sustained strength + and dignity of a remarkable kind. Mr. Swinburne is not only a + master of the music of language, but he has that indescribable + touch which discloses the true poet--the touch that lifts from off + the ground."--_Saturday Review._ + + "It is not too much to say that, should he never write anything + more, the poet has by this work firmly established his position, + and given us a poem upon which his fame may safely rest. He no + longer indulges in that frequent alliteration, or that oppressive + wealth of imagery and colour, which gave rhythm and splendour to + some of his works, but would have been out of place in a grand + historical poem; we have now a fair opportunity of judging what + the poet can do when deprived of such adventitious aid,--and the + verdict is, that he must henceforth rank amongst the first of + British authors."--_Graphic._ + + "The whole drama flames and rings with high passions and + great deeds. The imagination is splendid; the style large and + imperial; the insight into character keen; the blank verse + varied, sensitive, flexible, alive. Mr. Swinburne has once more + proved his right to occupy a seat among the lofty singers of our + land."--_Daily News._ + + "A really grand, statuesque dramatic work.... The reader will + here find Mr. Swinburne at his very best; if manliness, dignity, + and fulness of style are superior to mere pleasant singing and + alliterative lyrics."--_Standard._ + + "Splendid pictures, subtle analyses of passion, and wonderful + studies of character will repay him who attains the end.... In + this huge volume are many fine and some unsurpassable things. + Subtlest traits of character abound, and descriptive passages of + singular delicacy."--_Athenum._ + + "There can be no doubt of the dramatic force of the poem. It + is severely simple in its diction, and never dull; there are + innumerable fine touches on almost every page."--_Scotsman._ + + "'Bothwell' shows us Mr. Swinburne at a point immeasurably + superior to any that he has yet achieved. It will confirm and + increase the reputation which his daring genius has already won. + He has handled a difficult subject with a mastery of art which is + a true intellectual triumph."--_Hour._ + + * * * + + =Chastelard=: A Tragedy. Foolscap 8vo, 7_s._ + + * * * + + =Poems and Ballads.= Foolscap 8vo, 9_s._ + + * * * + + =Notes on "Poems and Ballads,"= and on the Reviews of them. Demy 8vo, + 1_s._ + + * * * + + =Songs before Sunrise.= Post 8vo, 10_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * + + =Atalanta in Calydon.= Fcap. 8vo, 6_s._ + + * * * + + =The Queen Mother and Rosamond.= Foolscap 8vo, 5_s._ + + * * * + + =A Song of Italy.= Foolscap 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * + + =Ode on the Proclamation of the French Republic.= Demy 8vo, 1_s._ + + * * * + + =Under the Microscope.= Post 8vo, 2_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * + + =William Blake=: A Critical Essay. With facsimile Paintings, Coloured + by Hand, after the Drawings by Blake and his Wife. 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He will have no faultless characters, no + demi-gods,--nothing but men and brethren."--DAVID MASSON. + + * * * * * + + =Timbs' English Eccentrics and Eccentricities.= Stories of Wealth + and Fashion, Delusions, Impostures and Fanatic Missions, Strange + Sights and Sporting Scenes, Eccentric Artists, Theatrical Folks, Men + of Letters, &c. By JOHN TIMES, F.S.A. An entirely New Edition, with + about 50 Illustrations. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, 600 pages, 7_s._ 6_d._ + + [Illustration: _Sir Lumley Skeffington at the Birthday Ball._] + + =Timbs' Clubs and Club Life in London.= With ANECDOTES of its FAMOUS + COFFEE HOUSES, HOSTELRIES, and TAVERNS. By JOHN TIMBS, F.S.A. New + Edition, with NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS drawn expressly. Crown 8vo, + cloth extra, 600 pages, 7_s._ 6_d._ + + *** _A Companion to "The History of Sign-Boards."_ _It abounds in + quaint stories of the_ Blue Stocking, Kit-Kat, Beef Steak, Robin + Hood, Mohocks, Scriblerus, One o'Clock, the Civil, _and hundreds + of other Clubs; together with_ Tom's, Dick's, Button's, Ned's, + Will's, _and the famous Coffee Houses of the last century_. + + "The book supplies a much-felt want. The club is the avenue to + general society at the present day, and Mr. Timbs gives the + _entre_ to the club. The scholar and antiquary will also find + the work a repertory of information on many disputed points of + literary interest, and especially respecting various well-known + anecdotes, the value of which only increases with the lapse of + time."--_Morning Post._ + + =Blake's Works.= Messrs. CHATTO & WINDUS have in preparation a + series of Reproductions in Facsimile of the Works of WILLIAM + BLAKE, including the "Songs of Innocence and Experience," "The + Book of Thel," "America," "The Vision of the Daughters of + Albion," "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell," "Europe, a Prophecy," + "Jerusalem," "Milton," "Urizen," "The Song of Los," &c. These + Works will be issued both coloured and plain. + + * * * * * + + =Taylor's History of Playing Cards.= With Sixty curious + Illustrations. 550 pp., crown 8vo, cloth, extra gilt, price 7_s._ + 6_d._ + + *** _Ancient and Modern Games, Conjuring, Fortune-Telling, + and Card Sharping, Gambling and Calculation, Cartomancy, Old + Gaming-Houses, Card Revels and Blind Hookey, Picquet and + Vingt-et-un, Whist and Cribbage, Tricks, &c._ + + * * * * * + + =Vagabondiana=; or, Anecdotes of Mendicant Wanderers through the + Streets of London; with Portraits of the most remarkable, drawn from + the Life by JOHN THOMAS SMITH, late Keeper of the Prints in the + British Museum. With Introduction by FRANCIS DOUCE, and descriptive + text. Reprinted from the original, with the Woodcuts, and the 32 + Plates, from the original Coppers, in crown 4to, half Roxburghe, + price 12_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + "LES MISRABLES." Complete in Three Parts. + + =Victor Hugo's Fantine.= Now first published in an English + Translation, complete and unabridged, with the exception of a few + advisable omissions. Post 8vo, illustrated boards, 2_s._ + + "This work has something more than the beauties of an exquisite + style or the word-compelling power of a literary Zeus to recommend + it to the tender care of a distant posterity: in dealing with all + the emotions, passions, doubts, fears, which go to make up our + common humanity, M. Victor Hugo has stamped upon every page the + Hall-mark of genius and the loving patience and conscientious + labour of a true artist. But the merits of 'Les Misrables' do not + merely consist in the conception of it as a whole; it abounds, + page after page, with details of unequalled beauty."--_Quarterly + Review._ + * * * + =Victor Hugo's Cosette and Marius.= Translated into English, + complete, uniform with "Fantine." Post 8vo, illustrated boards, 2_s._ + + * * * + + =Victor Hugo's Saint Denis and Jean Valjean.= Translated into + English, complete, uniform with the above. Post 8vo, illustrated + boards, 2_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + =Vyner's Notitia Venatica=: A Treatise on Fox-Hunting, the General + Management of Hounds, and the Diseases of Dogs; Distemper and Rabies; + Kennel Lameness, &c. Sixth Edition, Enlarged. By ROBERT C. VYNER. + WITH SPIRITED ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOURS, BY ALKEN, OF MEMORABLE + FOX-HUNTING SCENES. Royal 8vo, cloth extra, 21_s._ + + *** _An entirely new edition of the best work on Fox-Hunting._ + + * * * * * + + =Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass.= The Complete Work, precisely as + issued by the Author in Washington. A thick volume, 8vo, green cloth, + price 9_s._ + + * * * * * + + [Illustration] + + =Walton and Cotton, Illustrated.=--=The Complete Angler=; or, + the Contemplative Man's Recreation; being a Discourse of Rivers, + Fish-ponds, Fish and Fishing, written by IZAAK WALTON; and + Instructions how to Angle for a Trout or Grayling in a clear Stream, + by CHARLES COTTON. With Original Memoirs and Notes by Sir HARRIS + NICOLAS, K.C.M.G. With the whole 61 Illustrations, precisely as in + the royal 8vo two-volume Edition issued by Pickering. A New Edition, + complete in One Volume, large crown 8vo, with the Illustrations from + the original plates, printed on full pages, separately from the text, + 7_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + =Warrant to Execute Charles I.= An exact Facsimile of this important + Document, with the Fifty-nine Signatures of the Regicides, and + corresponding Seals, admirably executed on paper made to imitate + the original document, 22 in. by 14 in. Price 2_s._; or, handsomely + framed and glazed in carved oak of antique pattern, 14_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + =Warrant to Execute Mary Queen of Scots.= The Exact Facsimile of this + important Document, including the Signature of Queen Elizabeth and + Facsimile of the Great Seal, on tinted paper, to imitate the Original + MS. Price 2_s._; or, handsomely framed and glazed in carved oak, + antique pattern, 14_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + =Waterford Roll (The).=--Illuminated Charter-Roll of Waterford, Temp. + Richard II. + + *** _Amongst the Corporation Muniments of the City of Waterford + is preserved an ancient Illuminated Roll, of great interest + and beauty, comprising all the early Charters and Grants to + the City of Waterford, from the time of Henry II. to Richard + II. A full-length Portrait of each King, whose Charter is + given--including Edward III., when young, and again at an advanced + age--adorns the margin. These Portraits, with the exception of + four which are smaller, and on one sheet of vellum, vary from + eight to nine inches in length--some in armour, and some in robes + of state. In addition to these are Portraits of an Archbishop + in full canonicals, of a Chancellor, and of many of the chief + Burgesses of the City of Waterford, as well as singularly curious + Portraits of the Mayors of Dublin, Waterford, Limerick, and + Cork, figured for the most part in the quaint bipartite costume + of the Second Richard's reign, though partaking of many of the + peculiarities of that of Edward III. Altogether this ancient + work of art is unique of its kind in Ireland, and deserves to + be rescued from oblivion, by the publication of the unedited + Charters, and of fac-similes of all the Illuminations. The + production of such a work would throw much light on the question + of the art and social habits of the Anglo-Norman settlers in + Ireland at the close of the fourteenth century. The Charters are, + many of them, highly important from an historic point of view._ + + _The Illuminations have been accurately traced and coloured for + the work from a copy carefully made, by permission of the Mayor + and Corporation of Waterford, by the late George V. Du Noyer, + Esq., M.R.I.A.; and those Charters which have not already appeared + in print will be edited by the Rev. James Graves, A.B., M.R.I.A., + Hon. Secretary Kilkenny and South-East of Ireland Archological + Society._ + + _The Work will be brought out in the best manner, with embossed + cover and characteristic title-page; and it will be put to press + as soon as 250 subscribers are obtained. The price, in imperial + 4to, is 20s. to subscribers, or 30s. to non-subscribers._ + + * * * * * + + =Wonderful Characters=: Memoirs and Anecdotes of Remarkable and + Eccentric Persons of Every Age and Nation. From the text of HENRY + WILSON and JAMES CAULFIELD. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, with Sixty-one + full-page Engravings of Extraordinary Persons, 7_s._ 6_d._ + + *** _There are so many curious matters discussed in this volume, + that any person who takes it up will not readily lay it down + until he has read it through. The Introduction is almost entirety + devoted to a consideration of Pig-Faced Ladies, and the various + stories concerning them._ + + * * * * * + + =Wright's (Andrew) Court-Hand Restored=; or, Student's Assistant + in Reading Old Deeds, Charters, Records, &c. Half Morocco, a New + Edition, 10_s._ 6_d._ + + *** _The best guide to the reading of old Records, &c._ + + * * * * * + + =Wright's Caricature History of the Georges= (House of Hanover). With + 400 Pictures, Caricatures, Squibs, Broadsides, Window Pictures, &c. + By THOMAS WRIGHT, Esq., M.A., F.S.A. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, 7_s._ + 6_d._ + + [Illustration] + + "A set of caricatures such as we have in Mr. Wright's volume + brings the surface of the age before us with a vividness that no + prose writer, even of the highest power, could emulate. Macaulay's + most brilliant sentence is weak by the side of the little woodcut + from Gillray, which gives us Burke and Fox."--_Saturday Review._ + + "A more amusing work of its kind was never issued."--_Art Journal._ + + "It is emphatically one of the liveliest of books, as also one of + the most interesting. It has the twofold merit of being at once + amusing and edifying."--_Morning Post._ + + * * * * * + + =Yankee Drolleries=, Edited by G. A. SALA. Containing ARTEMUS WARD'S + BOOK; BIGLOW PAPERS; ORPHEUS C. KERR; JACK DOWNING; and NASBY PAPERS. + 700 pp., 3_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + =More Yankee Drolleries.= Containing ARTEMUS WARD'S TRAVELS; HANS + BREITMANN; PROFESSOR AT BREAKFAST TABLE; BIGLOW PAPERS, Part II.; and + JOSH BILLINGS; with Introduction by G. A. SALA. 700 pp., cloth, 3_s._ + 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + =A Third Supply of Yankee Drolleries.= Containing ARTEMUS WARD'S + FENIANS; AUTOCRAT OF BREAKFAST TABLE; BRET HARTE'S STORIES; INNOCENTS + ABROAD; and NEW PILGRIM'S PROGRESS; with an Introduction by G. A. + SALA. 700 pp., cloth, 3_s._ 6_d._ + + + + + Transcriber's Notes + +In general, spelling is retained as printed. On occasion, apparent +printer's errors, however, are corrected, where the author uses a more +standard spelling elsewhere (e.g., 'acknowleges' on p. 283). Where the +printer simply missed a word (e.g.,'hand' on p. 151), it is added. + +Incidental punctuation, especially of abbreviated words and in captions, +which is missing from the printed original, has been silently restored. + +In the advertisement section at the end of the text, an asterism (three +asterisks arranged in an inverted triangle) are used as a 'bullet'. +In this text, these will be retained as "***". + +This table summarizes the various issues detected, and their resolution. + + p. xii LE MONDE BESTORN[E/] Corrected. + p. 6 as 1185[,] B.C. Removed. + p. 57 and trepidation[.] Added. + p. 76 fat flesh and their platter;["] Probable + placement + p. 107 i[t] is evident from many allusions Added. + p. 151 luxury went hand in [hand] Added. + p. 153 a playful character[./,] or sometimes Added. + p. 155 N[u/]remberg Corrected. + p. 160 and [meats] with a courteous reception _sic._ + p. 162 ["]should not be jougleurs, goliards, Probable + or buffoons;" placement. + p. 163 de [famila] Goli _sic._ + p. 173 ["/']Adam, Adam ... Corrected. + p. 201 received by the [the ]emperor Hugo Removed. + p. 230 Here [beginneht] a merye jest _sic._ + n. 74 + p. 243 "Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles," ["]Poggio," + "Straparola," Added. + seventee[n]th Added. + p. 254 the early book-hawkers[,/.] Corrected. + p. 289 acknowle[d]ged Added. + p. 335 aspired to be P[l]antagruelists Removed. + p. 344 Florent Chr[e]stien Added. + p. 396 who jilts her husband that way, a very ----[.]" Added. + p. 445 were [two/too] numerous Corrected. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A History of Caricature and Grotesque, by +Thomas Wright + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORY OF CARICATURE *** + +***** This file should be named 44566-8.txt or 44566-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/4/4/5/6/44566/ + +Produced by KD Weeks, Chris Curnow and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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+ margin-left:32.5%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } +} + + + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +Project Gutenberg's A History of Caricature and Grotesque, by Thomas Wright + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A History of Caricature and Grotesque + in Literature and Art + +Author: Thomas Wright + +Illustrator: F. W. Fairholt + +Release Date: January 2, 2014 [EBook #44566] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORY OF CARICATURE *** + + + + +Produced by KD Weeks, Chris Curnow and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive) + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<div class="transnote"> + +<p class="titlepage90">Transcriber’s Note</p> + +<p>Illustrations have been placed approximately where they appeared in the +original. Two illustrations, on pp. 199 and 204, were labelled No. 127. +To resolve this, the second of them, and references to it, was changed +to No. 127a.</p> + +<p>Footnotes have been gathered at the end of the text, and linked +to their anchors for convenient reference.</p> + +<p>Incidental punctuation, especially of abbreviated words and in captions, +which is missing from the printed original have been silently restored.</p> + +<p>Please consult the <a href="#endnote">notes</a> at the end of this text for +details regarding the resolution of any other textual issues.</p> + +</div> + + + +<h1>A HISTORY<br /> + + OF<br /> + + CARICATURE AND GROTESQUE.</h1> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/frontispiece.jpg" width="399" height="500" alt="" /> + <div class="caption"><em>ARISTOTLE AND PYTHAÏS.</em></div> + <div class="subcaption"><em>From an Engraving by Burgmair</em> (<em>15th cent.</em>)</div> +</div> + + + +<p class="titlepage xlarge">A HISTORY<br /> + <span class="small">OF</span><br /> + CARICATURE AND GROTESQUE<br /> + In Literature and Art.</p> + +<p class="titlepage"><span class="smcap">By</span> THOMAS WRIGHT, M.A., F.S.A.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/i_006.jpg" width="175" height="174" alt="" /> +</div> + + +<p class="titlepage">THE ILLUSTRATIONS DRAWN AND ENGRAVED BY</p> + +<p class="titlepage">F. W. FAIRHOLT, F.S.A.</p> + +<p class="titlepage p4 small">London:<br /> + CHATTO AND WINDUS, PICCADILLY.<br /> + 1875.</p> + + + + +<p class="titlepage">LONDON:<br /> + SAVILL, EDWARDS, AND CO., PRINTERS, CHANDOS STREET,<br /> + COVENT GARDEN.</p> + + + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <a class="pagenum" id="Page_v" title="v"></a> + <img src="images/i_008.jpg" width="500" height="72" alt="" /> +</div> +<h2>PREFACE.</h2> + + +<p>I have felt some difficulty in selecting a title for the contents of +the following pages, in which it was, in fact, my design to give, as +far as may be done within such moderate limits, and in as popular a +manner as such information can easily be imparted, a general view of +the History of Comic Literature and Art. Yet the word comic seems to +me hardly to express all the parts of the subject which I have sought +to bring together in my book. Moreover, the field of this history is +very large, and, though I have only taken as my theme one part of it, +it was necessary to circumscribe even that, in some degree; and my +plan, therefore, is to follow it chiefly through those branches which +have contributed most towards the formation of modern comic and satiric +literature and art in our own island.</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="Page_vi" title="vi"></a>Thus, as the comic literature of the middle ages to a very great +extent, and comic art in a considerable degree also, were founded +upon, or rather arose out of, those of the Romans which had preceded +them, it seemed desirable to give a comprehensive history of this +branch of literature and art as it was cultivated among the peoples of +antiquity. Literature and art in the middle ages presented a certain +unity of general character, arising, probably, from the uniformity of +the influence of the Roman element of society, modified only by its +lower degree of intensity at a greater distance from the centre, and +by secondary causes attendant upon it. To understand the literature +of any one country in Western Europe, especially during what we may +term the feudal period—and the remark applies to art equally—it +is necessary to make ourselves acquainted with the whole history of +literature in Western Europe during that time. The peculiarities in +different countries naturally became more marked in the progress of +society, and more strongly individualised; but it was not till towards +the close of the feudal period that the literature of each of these +different countries was becoming more entirely its own. At that period +the plan I have formed restricts itself, according to the<a class="pagenum" id="Page_vii" title="vii"></a> view stated +above. Thus, the satirical literature of the Reformation and pictorial +caricature had their cradle in Germany, and, in the earlier half of +the sixteenth century, carried their influence largely into France and +England; but from that time any influence of German literature on these +two countries ceases. Modern satirical literature has its models in +France during the sixteenth century, and the direct influence of this +literature in France upon English literature continued during that and +the succeeding century, but no further. Political caricature rose to +importance in France in the sixteenth century, and was transplanted +to Holland in the seventeenth century, and until the beginning of the +eighteenth century England owed its caricature, indirectly or directly, +to the French and the Dutch; but after that time a purely English +school of caricature was formed, which was entirely independent of +Continental caricaturists.</p> + +<p>There are two senses in which the word history may be taken in regard +to literature and art. It has been usually employed to signify a +chronological account of authors or artists and their works, though +this comes more properly under the title of biography and bibliography. +But there is another and a very different<a class="pagenum" id="Page_viii" title="viii"></a> application of the word, and +this is the meaning which I attach to it in the present volume. During +the middle ages, and for some period after (in special branches), +literature—I mean poetry, satire, and popular literature of all +kinds—belonged to society, and not to the individual authors, who +were but workmen who gained a living by satisfying society’s wants; +and its changes in form or character depended all upon the varying +progress, and therefore changing necessities, of society itself. This +is the reason why, especially in the earlier periods, nearly the whole +mass of the popular—I may, perhaps, be allowed to call it the social +literature of the middle ages, is anonymous; and it was only at rare +intervals that some individual rose and made himself a great name by +the superiority of his talents. A certain number of writers of fabliaux +put their names to their compositions, probably because they were names +of writers who had gained the reputation of telling better or racier +stories than many of their fellows. In some branches of literature—as +in the satirical literature of the sixteenth century—society still +exercised this kind of influence over it; and although its great +monuments owe everything to the peculiar genius of their authors, they +were produced under the pressure of social cir<a class="pagenum" id="Page_ix" title="ix"></a>cumstances. To trace all +these variations in literature connected with society, to describe the +influences of society upon literature and of literature upon society, +during the progress of the latter, appears to me to be the true meaning +of the word history, and it is in this sense that I take it.</p> + +<p>This will explain why my history of the different branches of popular +literature and art ends at very different periods. The grotesque and +satirical sculpture, which adorned the ecclesiastical buildings, +ceased with the middle ages. The story-books, as a part of this social +literature, came down to the sixteenth century, and the history of +the jest-books which arose out of them cannot be considered to extend +further than the beginning of the seventeenth; for, to give a list of +jest-books since that time would be to compile a catalogue of books +made by booksellers for sale, copied from one another, and, till +recently, each more contemptible than its predecessor. The school of +satirical literature in France, at all events as far as it had any +influence in England, lasted no longer than the earlier part of the +seventeenth century. England can hardly be said to have had a school of +satirical literature, with the exception of its comedy, which belongs +properly to the<a class="pagenum" id="Page_x" title="x"></a> seventeenth century; and its caricature belongs +especially to the last century and to the earlier part of the present, +beyond which it is not a part of my plan to carry it.</p> + +<p>These few remarks will perhaps serve to explain what some may consider +to be defects in my book; and with them I venture to trust it to the +indulgence of its readers. It is a subject which will have some novelty +for the English reader, for I am not aware that we have any previous +book devoted to it. At all events, it is not a mere compilation from +other people’s labours.</p> + +<div class="signature"><span class="smcap">Thomas Wright.</span></div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <a class="pagenum" id="Page_xi" title="xi"></a> + <img src="images/i_014.jpg" width="500" height="78" alt="" /> +</div> + +<h2>CONTENTS.</h2> + +<table summary="toc"> +<colgroup> + <col width="80%" /> + <col width="20%" /> +</colgroup> + +<tr><td class="chapname" colspan="2">CHAPTER I.</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr" colspan="2"><span class="small">PAGE</span></td></tr> +<tr><td class="hang">ORIGIN OF CARICATURE AND GROTESQUE—SPIRIT OF CARICATURE + IN EGYPT—MONSTERS: PYTHON AND GORGON—GREECE—THE + DIONYSIAC CEREMONIES, AND ORIGIN OF THE DRAMA—THE OLD + COMEDY—LOVE OF PARODY—PARODIES ON SUBJECTS TAKEN + FROM GRECIAN MYTHOLOGY: THE VISIT TO THE LOVER; APOLLO + AT DELPHI—THE PARTIALITY FOR PARODY CONTINUED AMONG + THE ROMANS: THE FLIGHT OF ÆNEAS</td><td class="pgnumber"><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td></tr> + + +<tr><td class="chapname" colspan="2">CHAPTER II.</td></tr> + +<tr><td class="hang">ORIGIN OF THE STAGE IN ROME—USES OF THE MASK + AMONG THE ROMANS—SCENES FROM ROMAN COMEDY—THE + SANNIO AND MIMUS—THE ROMAN DRAMA—THE ROMAN + SATIRISTS—CARICATURE—ANIMALS INTRODUCED IN THE + CHARACTERS OF MEN—THE PIGMIES, AND THEIR INTRODUCTION + INTO CARICATURE; THE FARM-YARD; THE PAINTER’S STUDIO; + THE PROCESSION—POLITICAL CARICATURE IN POMPEII; THE + GRAFFITI</td><td class="pgnumber"><a href="#Page_23">23</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="chapname" colspan="2">CHAPTER III.</td></tr> + +<tr><td class="hang">THE PERIOD OF TRANSITION FROM ANTIQUITY TO THE MIDDLE + AGES—THE ROMAN MIMI CONTINUED TO EXIST—THE TEUTONIC + AFTER-DINNER ENTERTAINMENTS—CLERICAL SATIRES: + ARCHBISHOP HERIGER AND THE DREAMER; THE SUPPER OF THE + SAINTS—TRANSITION FROM ANCIENT TO MEDIÆVAL ART—TASTE + FOR MONSTROUS ANIMALS, DRAGONS, ETC.; CHURCH OF SAN + FEDELE, AT COMO—SPIRIT OF CARICATURE AND LOVE OF + GROTESQUE AMONG THE ANGLO-SAXONS—GROTESQUE FIGURES OF + DEMONS—NATURAL TENDENCY OF THE EARLY MEDIÆVAL ARTISTS + TO DRAW IN CARICATURE—EXAMPLES FROM EARLY MANUSCRIPTS + AND SCULPTURES</td><td class="pgnumber"><a href="#Page_40">40</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="chapname" colspan="2"><a class="pagenum" id="Page_xii" title="xii"></a>CHAPTER IV.</td></tr> + +<tr><td class="hang">THE DIABOLICAL IN CARICATURE—MEDIÆVAL LOVE OF THE + LUDICROUS—CAUSES WHICH MADE IT INFLUENCE THE NOTIONS + OF DEMONS—STORIES OF THE PIOUS PAINTER AND THE ERRING + MONK—DARKNESS AND UGLINESS CARICATURED—THE DEMONS IN + THE MIRACLE PLAYS—THE DEMON OF NOTRE DAME</td><td class="pgnumber"><a href="#Page_61">61</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="chapname" colspan="2">CHAPTER V.</td></tr> + +<tr><td class="hang">EMPLOYMENT OF ANIMALS IN MEDIÆVAL SATIRE—POPULARITY + OF FABLES; ODO DE CIRINGTON—REYNARD THE + FOX—BURNELLUS AND FAUVEL—THE CHARIVARI—LE MONDE + BESTORNÉ—ENCAUSTIC TILES—SHOEING THE GOOSE, AND + FEEDING PIGS WITH ROSES—SATIRICAL SIGNS; THE MUSTARD + MAKER</td><td class="pgnumber"><a href="#Page_75">75</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="chapname" colspan="2">CHAPTER VI.</td></tr> + +<tr><td class="hang">THE MONKEY IN BURLESQUE AND CARICATURE—TOURNAMENTS + AND SINGLE COMBATS—MONSTROUS COMBINATIONS OF + ANIMAL FORMS—CARICATURES ON COSTUME—THE HAT—THE + HELMET—LADIES’ HEAD-DRESSES—THE GOWN, AND ITS LONG + SLEEVES</td><td class="pgnumber"><a href="#Page_95">95</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="chapname" colspan="2">CHAPTER VII.</td></tr> + +<tr><td class="hang">PRESERVATION OF THE CHARACTER OF THE MIMUS AFTER THE FALL + OF THE EMPIRE—THE MINSTREL AND JOGELOUR—HISTORY OF + POPULAR STORIES—THE FABLIAUX—ACCOUNT OF THEM—THE + CONTES DEVOTS</td><td class="pgnumber"><a href="#Page_106">106</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="chapname" colspan="2">CHAPTER VIII.</td></tr> + +<tr><td class="hang">CARICATURES OF DOMESTIC LIFE—STATE OF DOMESTIC LIFE + IN THE MIDDLE AGES—EXAMPLES OF DOMESTIC CARICATURE + FROM THE CARVINGS OF THE MISERERES—KITCHEN + SCENES—DOMESTIC BRAWLS—THE FIGHT FOR THE + BREECHES—THE JUDICIAL DUEL BETWEEN MAN AND WIFE AMONG + THE GERMANS—ALLUSIONS TO WITCHCRAFT—SATIRES ON THE + TRADES: THE BAKER, THE MILLER, THE WINE-PEDLAR AND + TAVERN KEEPER, THE ALE-WIFE, ETC.</td><td class="pgnumber"><a href="#Page_118">118</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="chapname" colspan="2">CHAPTER IX.</td></tr> + +<tr><td class="hang">GROTESQUE FACES AND FIGURES—PREVALENCE OF THE TASTE FOR + UGLY AND GROTESQUE FACES—SOME OF THE POPULAR FORMS + DERIVED FROM ANTIQUITY: THE TONGUE LOLLING OUT, AND + THE<a class="pagenum" id="Page_xiii" title="xiii"></a> DISTORTED MOUTH—HORRIBLE SUBJECTS: THE MAN + AND THE SERPENTS—ALLEGORICAL FIGURES: GLUTTONY AND + LUXURY—OTHER REPRESENTATIONS OF CLERICAL GLUTTONY + AND DRUNKENNESS—GROTESQUE FIGURES OF INDIVIDUALS, + AND GROTESQUE GROUPS—ORNAMENTS OF THE BORDERS OF + BOOKS—UNINTENTIONAL CARICATURE; THE MOTE AND THE BEAM</td><td class="pgnumber"><a href="#Page_144">144</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="chapname" colspan="2">CHAPTER X.</td></tr> + +<tr><td class="hang">SATIRICAL LITERATURE IN THE MIDDLE AGES—JOHN + DE HAUTEVILLE AND ALAN DE LILLE—GOLIAS AND + THE GOLIARDS—THE GOLIARDIC POETRY—TASTE FOR + PARODY—PARODIES ON RELIGIOUS SUBJECTS—POLITICAL + CARICATURE IN THE MIDDLE AGES—THE JEWS OF + NORWICH—CARICATURE REPRESENTATIONS OF + COUNTRIES—LOCAL SATIRE—POLITICAL SONGS AND POEMS</td><td class="pgnumber"><a href="#Page_159">159</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER XI.</td></tr> + +<tr><td class="hang">MINSTRELSY A SUBJECT OF BURLESQUE AND + CARICATURE—CHARACTER OF THE MINSTRELS—THEIR JOKES + UPON THEMSELVES AND UPON ONE ANOTHER—VARIOUS + MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS REPRESENTED IN THE SCULPTURES + OF THE MEDIÆVAL ARTISTS—SIR MATTHEW GOURNAY AND + THE KING OF PORTUGAL—DISCREDIT OF THE TABOR AND + BAGPIPES—MERMAIDS</td><td class="pgnumber"><a href="#Page_188">188</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="chapname" colspan="2">CHAPTER XII.</td></tr> + +<tr><td class="hang">THE COURT FOOL—THE NORMANS AND THEIR GABS—EARLY + HISTORY OF COURT FOOLS—THEIR COSTUME—CARVINGS IN + THE CORNISH CHURCHES—THE BURLESQUE SOCIETIES OF THE + MIDDLE AGES—THE FEASTS OF ASSES, AND OF FOOLS—THEIR + LICENCE—THE LEADEN MONEY OF THE FOOLS—THE BISHOP’S + BLESSING</td><td class="pgnumber"><a href="#Page_200">200</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="chapname" colspan="2">CHAPTER XIII.</td></tr> + +<tr><td class="hang">THE DANCE OF DEATH—THE PAINTINGS IN THE CHURCH OF + LA CHAISE DIEU—THE REIGN OF FOLLY—SEBASTIAN + BRANDT; THE SHIP OF FOOLS—DISTURBERS OF + CHURCH SERVICE—TROUBLESOME BEGGARS—GEILER’S + SERMONS—BADIUS, AND HIS SHIP OF FOOLISH WOMEN—THE + PLEASURES OF SMELL—ERASMUS; THE PRAISE OF FOLLY</td><td class="pgnumber"><a href="#Page_214">214</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="chapname" colspan="2"><a class="pagenum" id="Page_xiv" title="xiv"></a>CHAPTER XIV.</td></tr> + +<tr><td class="hang">POPULAR LITERATURE AND ITS HEROES; BROTHER RUSH, TYLL + EULENSPIEGEL, THE WISE MEN OF GOTHAM—STORIES AND + JEST-BOOKS—SKELTON, SCOGIN, TARLTON, PEELE</td><td class="pgnumber"><a href="#Page_228">228</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="chapname" colspan="2">CHAPTER XV.</td></tr> + +<tr><td class="hang">THE AGE OF THE REFORMATION—THOMAS MURNER; HIS GENERAL + SATIRES—FRUITFULNESS OF FOLLY—HANS SACHS—THE + TRAP FOR FOOLS—ATTACKS ON LUTHER—THE POPE AS + ANTICHRIST—THE POPE-ASS AND THE MONK-CALF—OTHER + CARICATURES AGAINST THE POPE—THE GOOD AND BAD + SHEPHERDS</td><td class="pgnumber"><a href="#Page_244">244</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="chapname" colspan="2">CHAPTER XVI.</td></tr> + +<tr><td class="hang">ORIGIN OF MEDIÆVAL FARCE AND MODERN + COMEDY—HROTSVITHA—MEDIÆVAL NOTIONS OF TERENCE—THE + EARLY RELIGIOUS PLAYS—MYSTERIES AND MIRACLE + PLAYS—THE FARCES—THE DRAMA IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY</td><td class="pgnumber"><a href="#Page_264">264</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="chapname" colspan="2">CHAPTER XVII.</td></tr> + +<tr><td class="hang">DIABLERIE IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY—EARLY TYPES OF THE + DIABOLICAL FORMS—ST. ANTHONY—ST. GUTHLAC—REVIVAL OF + THE TASTE FOR SUCH SUBJECTS IN THE BEGINNING OF THE + SIXTEENTH CENTURY—THE FLEMISH SCHOOL OF BREUGHEL—THE + FRENCH AND ITALIAN SCHOOLS—CALLOT, SALVATOR ROSA</td><td class="pgnumber"><a href="#Page_288">288</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="chapname" colspan="2">CHAPTER XVIII.</td></tr> + +<tr><td class="hang">CALLOT AND HIS SCHOOL—CALLOT’S ROMANTIC HISTORY—HIS + “CAPRICI,” AND OTHER BURLESQUE WORKS—THE “BALLI” + AND THE BEGGARS—IMITATORS OF CALLOT; DELLA + BELLA—EXAMPLES OF DELLA BELLA—ROMAIN DE HOOGHE</td><td class="pgnumber"><a href="#Page_300">300</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="chapname" colspan="2">CHAPTER XIX.</td></tr> + +<tr><td class="hang">THE SATIRICAL LITERATURE OF THE SIXTEENTH + CENTURY—PASQUIL—MACARONIC POETRY—THE EPISTOLÆ + OBSCURORUM VIRORUM—RABELAIS—COURT OF THE QUEEN OF + NAVARRE, AND ITS LITERARY CIRCLE; BONAVENTURE DES + PERIERS—HENRI ETIENNE—THE LIGUE, AND ITS SATIRE: THE + “SATYRE MENIPPEE”</td><td class="pgnumber"><a href="#Page_312">312</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="chapname" colspan="2"><a class="pagenum" id="Page_xv" title="xv"></a>CHAPTER XX.</td></tr> + +<tr><td class="hang">POLITICAL CARICATURE IN ITS INFANCY—THE REVERS DU + JEU DES SUYSSES—CARICATURE IN FRANCE—THE THREE + ORDERS—PERIOD OF THE LIGUE; CARICATURES AGAINST HENRI + III.—CARICATURES AGAINST THE LIGUE—CARICATURE IN + FRANCE IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY—GENERAL GALAS—THE + QUARREL OF AMBASSADORS—CARICATURE AGAINST LOUIS XXV.; + WILLIAM OF FURSTEMBERG</td><td class="pgnumber"><a href="#Page_347">347</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="chapname" colspan="2">CHAPTER XXI.</td></tr> + +<tr><td class="hang">EARLY POLITICAL CARICATURE IN ENGLAND—THE SATIRICAL + WRITINGS AND PICTURES OF THE COMMONWEALTH + PERIOD—SATIRES AGAINST THE BISHOPS; BISHOP + WILLIAMS—CARICATURES ON THE CAVALIERS; SIR JOHN + SUCKLING—THE ROARING BOYS; VIOLENCE OF THE ROYALIST + SOLDIERS—CONTEST BETWEEN THE PRESBYTERIANS AND + INDEPENDENTS—GRINDING THE KING’S NOSE—PLAYING-CARDS + USED AS THE MEDIUM FOR CARICATURE; HASELRIGGE AND + LAMBERT—SHROVETIDE</td><td class="pgnumber"><a href="#Page_360">360</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="chapname" colspan="2">CHAPTER XXII.</td></tr> + +<tr><td class="hang">ENGLISH COMEDY—BEN JONSON—THE OTHER WRITERS OF HIS + SCHOOL—INTERRUPTION OF DRAMATIC PERFORMANCES—COMEDY + AFTER THE RESTORATION—THE HOWARDS BROTHERS; THE DUKE + OF BUCKINGHAM; THE REHEARSAL—WRITERS OF COMEDY IN THE + LATTER PART OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY—INDECENCY OF + THE STAGE—COLLEY CIBBER—FOOTE</td><td class="pgnumber"><a href="#Page_375">375</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="chapname" colspan="2">CHAPTER XXIII.</td></tr> + +<tr><td class="hang">CARICATURE IN HOLLAND—ROMAIN DE HOOGHE—THE ENGLISH + REVOLUTION—CARICATURES ON LOUIS XIV. AND + JAMES II.—DR. SACHEVERELL—CARICATURE BROUGHT + FROM HOLLAND TO ENGLAND—ORIGIN OF THE WORD + “CARICATURE”—MISSISSIPPI AND THE SOUTH SEA; THE YEAR + OF BUBBLES</td><td class="pgnumber"><a href="#Page_406">406</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="chapname" colspan="2"><a class="pagenum" id="Page_xvi" title="xvi"></a>CHAPTER XXIV.</td></tr> + +<tr><td class="hang">ENGLISH CARICATURE IN THE AGE OF GEORGE II.—ENGLISH + PRINTSELLERS—ARTISTS EMPLOYED BY THEM—SIR ROBERT + WALPOLE’S LONG MINISTRY—THE WAR WITH FRANCE—THE + NEWCASTLE ADMINISTRATION—OPERA INTRIGUES—ACCESSION + OF GEORGE III., AND LORD BUTE IN POWER</td><td class="pgnumber"><a href="#Page_420">420</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="chapname" colspan="2">CHAPTER XXV.</td></tr> + +<tr><td class="hang">HOGARTH—HIS EARLY HISTORY—HIS SETS OF PICTURES—THE + HARLOT’S PROGRESS—THE RAKE’S PROGRESS—THE MARRIAGE A + LA MODE—HIS OTHER PRINTS—THE ANALYSIS OF BEAUTY, AND + THE PERSECUTION ARISING OUT OF IT—HIS PATRONAGE BY + LORD BUTE—CARICATURE OF THE TIMES—ATTACKS TO WHICH + HE WAS EXPOSED BY IT, AND WHICH HASTENED HIS DEATH</td><td class="pgnumber"><a href="#Page_434">434</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="chapname" colspan="2">CHAPTER XXVI.</td></tr> + +<tr><td class="hang">THE LESSER CARICATURISTS OF THE REIGN OF GEORGE + III.—PAUL SANDBY—COLLET: THE DISASTER, + AND FATHER PAUL IN HIS CUPS—JAMES SAYER: + HIS CARICATURES IN SUPPORT OF PITT, AND HIS + REWARD—CARLO KHAN’S TRIUMPH—BUNBURY’S: HIS + CARICATURES ON HORSEMANSHIP—WOODWARD: GENERAL + COMPLAINT—ROWLANDSON’S INFLUENCE ON THE STYLE OF + THOSE WHOSE DESIGNS HE ETCHED—JOHN KAY OF EDINBURGH: + LOOKING A ROCK IN THE FACE</td><td class="pgnumber"><a href="#Page_450">450</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="chapname" colspan="2">CHAPTER XXVII.</td></tr> + +<tr><td class="hang">GILLRAY—HIS FIRST ATTEMPTS—HIS CARICATURES BEGIN + WITH THE SHELBURNE MINISTRY—IMPEACHMENT OF + WARREN HASTINGS—CARICATURES ON THE KING; NEW + WAY TO PAY THE NATIONAL DEBT—ALLEGED REASON FOR + GILLRAY’S HOSTILITY TO THE KING—THE KING AND THE + APPLE-DUMPLINGS—GILLRAY’S LATER LABOURS—HIS IDIOTCY + AND DEATH</td><td class="pgnumber"><a href="#Page_464">464</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="chapname" colspan="2">CHAPTER XXVIII.</td></tr> + +<tr><td class="hang">GILLRAY’S CARICATURES ON SOCIAL LIFE—THOMAS + ROWLANDSON—HIS EARLY LIFE—HE BECOMES A + CARICATURIST—HIS STYLE AND WORKS—HIS DRAWINGS—THE + CRUIKSHANKS</td><td class="pgnumber"><a href="#Page_480">480</a></td></tr> +</table> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <a class="pagenum" id="Page_1" title="1"></a> + <img src="images/i_020.jpg" width="500" height="80" alt="" /> +</div> + +<p class="titlepage">A HISTORY<br /> + OF<br /> + CARICATURE AND GROTESQUE.</p> + +<hr class="chap" /> +<h2>CHAPTER I.</h2> + +<p class="subtitle"> + ORIGIN OF CARICATURE AND GROTESQUE.—SPIRIT OF CARICATURE IN + EGYPT.—MONSTERS: PYTHON AND GORGON.—GREECE.—THE DIONYSIAC + CEREMONIES, AND ORIGIN OF THE DRAMA.—THE OLD COMEDY.—LOVE OF + PARODY.—PARODIES ON SUBJECTS TAKEN FROM GRECIAN MYTHOLOGY: THE + VISIT TO THE LOVER: APOLLO AT DELPHI.—THE PARTIALITY FOR PARODY + CONTINUED AMONG THE ROMANS: THE FLIGHT OF ÆNEAS.</p> + +<p>It is not my intention in the following pages to discuss the question +what constitutes the comic or the laughable, or, in other words, to +enter into the philosophy of the subject; I design only to trace +the history of its outward development, the various forms it has +assumed, and its social influence. Laughter appears to be almost a +necessity of human nature, in all conditions of man’s existence, +however rude or however cultivated; and some of the greatest men of +all ages, men of the most refined intellects, such as Cicero in the +ages of antiquity, and Erasmus among the moderns, have been celebrated +for their indulgence in it. The former was sometimes called by his +opponents <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">scurra consularis</em>, the “consular jester;” and the latter, +who has been spoken of as the “mocking-bird,” is said to have laughed +so immoderately over the well-known <span lang="la" xml:lang="la">“Epistolæ Obscurorum Virorum,”</span> +that he brought upon himself a serious fit of illness. The greatest of +comic writers, Aristophanes, has always been looked upon as a model of +literary perfection. An epigram in the Greek Antho<a class="pagenum" id="Page_2" title="2"></a>logy, written by the +divine Plato, tells us how, when the Graces sought a temple which would +not fall, they found the soul of Aristophanes:—</p> + +<p class="center"> + <span title="Hai charites temenos ti labein oper ouchi peseitai">Ἁι χάριτες τέμενός τι λαβεῖν ὁπερ οὐχὶ πεσεῖται</span><br /> + <span title="Zêtousai, psychên euron Aristophanous.">Ζητοῦσαι, ψυχὴν εὔρον Ἀριστοφάνους.</span></p> + +<p>On the other hand, the men who never laughed, the <span title="agelastoi">ἀγέλαστοι</span>, were looked +upon as the least respectable of mortals.</p> + +<p>A tendency to burlesque and caricature appears, indeed, to be a feeling +deeply implanted in human nature, and it is one of the earliest talents +displayed by people in a rude state of society. An appreciation of, and +sensitiveness to, ridicule, and a love of that which is humorous, are +found even among savages, and enter largely into their relations with +their fellow men. When, before people cultivated either literature or +art, the chieftain sat in his rude hall surrounded by his warriors, +they amused themselves by turning their enemies and opponents into +mockery, by laughing at their weaknesses, joking on their defects, +whether physical or mental, and giving them nicknames in accordance +therewith,—in fact, caricaturing them in words, or by telling stories +which were calculated to excite laughter. When the agricultural slaves +(for the tillers of the land were then slaves) were indulged with a +day of relief from their labours, they spent it in unrestrained mirth. +And when these same people began to erect permanent buildings, and +to ornament them, the favourite subjects of their ornamentation were +such as presented ludicrous ideas. The warrior, too, who caricatured +his enemy in his speeches over the festive board, soon sought to give +a more permanent form to his ridicule, which he endeavoured to do by +rude delineations on the bare rock, or on any other convenient surface +which presented itself to his hand. Thus originated caricature and +the grotesque in art. In fact, art itself, in its earliest forms, is +caricature; for it is only by that exaggeration of features which +belongs to caricature, that unskilful draughtsmen could make themselves +understood.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut001.jpg" width="500" height="336" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 1. An Egyptian Lady at a Feast.</div> +</div> + + +<p>Although we might, perhaps, find in different countries examples of +these principles in different states of development, we cannot in any +one country trace the entire course of the development itself: for in +all the highly<a class="pagenum" id="Page_3" title="3"></a> civilised races of mankind, we first become acquainted +with their history when they had already reached a considerable +degree of refinement; and even at that period of their progress, our +knowledge is almost confined to their religious, and to their more +severely historical, monuments. Such is especially the case with +Egypt, the history of which country, as represented by its monuments +of art, carries us back to the remotest ages of antiquity. Egyptian +art generally presents itself in a sombre and massive character, with +little of gaiety or joviality in its designs or forms. Yet, as Sir +Gardner Wilkinson has remarked in his valuable work on the “Manners +and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians,” the early Egyptian artists +cannot always conceal their natural tendency to the humorous, which +creeps out in a variety of little incidents. Thus, in a series of grave +historical pictures on one of the great monuments at Thebes, we find +a representation of a wine party, where the company consists of both +sexes, and which evidently shows that the ladies were not restricted +in the use of the juice of the grape in their entertainments; and, +as he adds, “the painters, in illustrating this fact, have sometimes +sacrificed their gallantry to a love of caricature.” Among the +females, evidently of rank, represented in this scene, “some call the +servants to support them as they sit, others with difficulty prevent +themselves from falling on those behind<a class="pagenum" id="Page_4" title="4"></a> them, and the faded flower, +which is ready to drop from their heated hands, is intended to be +characteristic of their own sensations.” One group, a lady whose +excess has been carried too far, and her servant who comes to her +assistance, is represented in our cut No. 1. Sir Gardner observes that +“many similar instances of a talent for caricature are observable in +the compositions of the Egyptian artists, who executed the paintings +of the tombs” at Thebes, which belong to a very early period of the +Egyptian annals. Nor is the application of this talent restricted +always to secular subjects, but we see it at times intruding into the +most sacred mysteries of their religion. I give as a curious example, +taken from one of Sir Gardner Wilkinson’s engravings, a scene in the +representation of a funeral procession crossing the Lake of the Dead +(No. 2), that appears in one of these early paintings at Thebes, in +which “the love of caricature common to the Egyptians is shown to have +been indulged even in this serious subject; and the retrograde movement +of the large boat, which has grounded and is pushed off the bank, +striking the smaller one with its rudder, has overturned a large table +loaded with cakes and other things, upon the rowers seated below, in +spite of all the efforts of the prowman, and the earnest vociferations +of the alarmed steersman.” The accident which thus overthrows and +scatters the provisions intended for the funeral feast, and the +confusion attendant upon it, form a ludicrous<a class="pagenum" id="Page_5" title="5"></a> scene in the midst of a +solemn picture, that would be worthy of the imagination of a Rowlandson.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut002.jpg" width="500" height="264" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 2. Catastrophe in a Funeral Procession.</div> +</div> + +<p>Another cut (No. 3), taken from one of the same series of paintings, +belongs to a class of caricatures which dates from a very remote +period. One of the most natural ideas among all people would be to +compare men with the animals whose particular qualities they possessed. +Thus, one might be as bold as a lion, another as faithful as a dog, +or as cunning as a fox, or as swinish as a hog. The name of the +animal would thus often be given as a nickname to the man, and in +the sequel he would be represented pictorially under the form of the +animal. It was partly out of this kind of caricature, no doubt, that +the singular class of apologues which have been since distinguished +by the name of fables arose. Connected with it was the belief in +the metempsychosis, or transmission of the soul into the bodies of +animals after death, which formed a part of several of the primitive +religions. The earliest examples of this class of caricature of mankind +are found on the Egyptian monuments, as in the instance just referred +to, which represents “a soul condemned to return to earth under the +form of a pig, having been weighed in the scales before Osiris and +been found wanting. Being placed in a boat, and accompanied by two +monkeys, it is dismissed the sacred precinct.” The latter animals, it +may be remarked, as they are here represented, are the cynocephali, or +dog-headed monkeys (the <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">simia inuus</em>), which were sacred animals among +the Egyptians, and the peculiar characteristic of which—the dog-shaped +head—is, as usual, exaggerated by the artist.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut003.jpg" width="500" height="197" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 3. An Unfortunate Soul.</div> +</div> + +<p>The representation of this return of a condemned soul under the<a class="pagenum" id="Page_6" title="6"></a> +repulsive form of a pig, is painted on the left side wall of the long +entrance-gallery to the tomb of King Rameses V., in the valley of +royal catacombs known as the Biban-el-Molook, at Thebes. Wilkinson +gives the date of the accession of this monarch to the throne as 1185 +<span class="fakesc">B.C.</span> In the original picture, Osiris is seated on his throne +at some distance from the stern of the boat, and is dismissing it from +his presence by a wave of the hand. This tomb was open in the time of +the Romans, and termed by them the “Tomb of Memnon;” it was greatly +admired, and is covered with laudatory inscriptions by Greek and Roman +visitors. One of the most interesting is placed beneath this picture, +recording the name of a <em>daduchus</em>, or torch-bearer in the Eleusinian +mysteries, who visited this tomb in the reign of Constantine.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut004.jpg" width="350" height="355" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 4. The Cat and the Geese.</div> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut005.jpg" width="350" height="369" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 5. The Fox turned Piper.</div> +</div> + +<p>The practice having been once introduced of representing men under the +character of animals, was soon developed into other applications of the +same idea—such as that of figuring animals employed in the various +occupations of mankind, and that of reversing the position of man and +the inferior animals, and representing the latter as treating their<a class="pagenum" id="Page_7" title="7"></a> +human tyrant in the same manner as they are usually treated by him. +The latter idea became a very favourite one at a later period, but +the other is met with not unfrequently among the works of art which +have been saved from the wrecks of antiquity. Among the treasures +of the British Museum, there is a long Egyptian picture on papyrus, +originally forming a roll, consisting of representations of this +description, from which I give three curious examples. The first (see +cut No. 4) represents a cat in charge of a drove of geese. It will be +observed that the cat holds in her hand the same sort of rod, with a +hook at the end, with which the monkeys are furnished in the preceding +picture. The second (No. 5) represents a fox carrying a basket by means +of a pole supported on his shoulder (a method of carrying burthens +frequently represented on the monuments of ancient art), and playing on +the well-known double flute, or pipe. The fox soon became a favourite +personage in this class of caricatures, and we know what a prominent +part he afterwards played in mediæval satire. Perhaps, however, the +most popular of all animals in this class of drolleries was the monkey, +which appears natural enough<a class="pagenum" id="Page_8" title="8"></a> when we consider its singular aptitude +to mimic the actions of man. The ancient naturalists tell us some +curious, though not very credible, stories of the manner in which this +characteristic of the monkey tribes was taken advantage of to entrap +them, and Pliny (Hist. Nat. lib. viii. c. 80) quotes an older writer, +who asserted that they had even been taught to play at draughts. Our +third subject from the Egyptian papyrus of the British Museum (No. 6) +represents a scene in which the game of draughts—or, more properly +speaking, the game which the Romans called the <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">ludus latrunculorum</em>, +and which is believed to have resembled our draughts—is played by two +animals well known to modern heraldry, the lion and the unicorn. The +lion has evidently gained the victory, and is fingering the money; and +his bold air of swaggering superiority, as well as the look of surprise +and disappointment of his vanquished opponent, are by no means ill +pictured. This series of caricatures, though Egyptian, belongs to the +Roman period.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut006.jpg" width="500" height="376" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 6. The Lion and the Unicorn.</div> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut007.jpg" width="200" height="387" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 7. Typhon.</div> +</div> + +<p>The monstrous is closely allied to the grotesque, and both come within +the province of caricature, when we take this term in its widest +sense.<a class="pagenum" id="Page_9" title="9"></a> The Greeks, especially, were partial to representations of +monsters, and monstrous forms are continually met with among their +ornaments and works of art. The type of the Egyptian monster is +represented in the accompanying cut (No. 7), taken from the work of +Sir Gardner Wilkinson before quoted, and is said to be the figure +of the god Typhon. It occurs frequently on Egyptian monuments, with +some variation in its forms, but always characterised by the broad, +coarse, and frightful face, and by the large tongue lolling out. It is +interesting to us, because it is the apparent origin of a long series +of faces, or masks, of this form and character, which are continually +recurring in the grotesque ornamentation, not only of the Greeks and +Romans, but of the middle ages. It appears to have been sometimes given +by the Romans to the representations of people whom they hated or +despised; and Pliny, in a curious passage of his “Natural<a class="pagenum" id="Page_10" title="10"></a> History,”<a class="fnanchor" id="FNanchor_1" href="#Footnote_1">[1]</a> +informs us that at one time, among the pictures exhibited in the Forum +at Rome, there was one in which a Gaul was represented, “thrusting +out his tongue in a very unbecoming manner.” The Egyptian Typhons had +their exact representations in ancient Greece in a figure of frequent +occurrence, to which antiquaries have, I know not why, given the name +of Gorgon. The example in our cut No. 8, is a figure in terra-cotta, +now in the collection of the Royal Museum at Berlin.<a class="fnanchor" id="FNanchor_2" href="#Footnote_2">[2]</a></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut008.jpg" width="250" height="368" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 8. Gorgon.</div> +</div> + +<p>In Greece, however, the spirit of caricature and burlesque +representation had assumed a more regular form than in other +countries, for it was inherent in the spirit of Grecian society. +Among the population of Greece, the worship of Dionysus, or Bacchus, +had taken deep root from<a class="pagenum" id="Page_11" title="11"></a> a very early period—earlier than we can +trace back—and it formed the nucleus of the popular religion and +superstitions, the cradle of poetry and the drama. The most popular +celebrations of the people of Greece, were the Dionysiac festivals, +and the phallic rites and processions which accompanied them, in +which the chief actors assumed the disguise of satyrs and fawns, +covering themselves with goat-skins, and disfiguring their faces by +rubbing them over with the lees of wine. Thus, in the guise of noisy +bacchanals, they displayed an unrestrained licentiousness of gesture +and language, uttering indecent jests and abusive speeches, in which +they spared nobody. This portion of the ceremony was the especial +attribute of a part of the performers, who accompanied the procession +in waggons, and acted something like dramatic performances, in which +they uttered an abundance of loose extempore satire on those who +passed or who accompanied the procession, a little in the style of +the modern carnivals. It became thus the occasion for an unrestrained +publication of coarse pasquinades. In the time of Pisistratus, these +performances are assumed to have been reduced to a little more order by +an individual named Thespis, who is said to have invented masks as a +better disguise than dirty faces, and is looked upon as the father of +the Grecian drama. There can be no doubt, indeed, that the drama arose +out of these popular ceremonies, and it long bore the unmistakable +marks of its origin. Even the name of tragedy has nothing tragic in +its derivation, for it is formed from the Greek word <em>tragos</em> +(<span title="tragos">τράγος</span>), a goat, in the skins of which animal the satyrs clothed +themselves, and hence the name was given also to those who personated +the satyrs in the processions. A <em>tragodus</em> (<span title="tragados">τραγῳδὸς</span>) was +the singer, whose words accompanied the movements of a chorus of +satyrs, and the term <em>tragodia</em> was applied to his performance. In the +same manner, a <em>comodus</em> (<span title="kômôdos">κωμωδὸς</span>) was one who accompanied +similarly, with chants of an abusive or satirical character, a <em>comus</em> +(<span title="kômos">κῶμος</span>), or band of revellers, in the more riotous and licentious +portion of the performances in the Bacchic festivals. The Greek drama +always betrayed its origin by the circumstance that the performances +took place annually, only at the yearly festivals in honour of Bacchus, +of which in fact they constituted a part. Moreover, as the Greek drama +became perfected, it still retained<a class="pagenum" id="Page_12" title="12"></a> from its origin a triple division, +into tragedy, comedy, and the satiric drama; and, being still performed +at the Dionysiac festival in Athens, each dramatic author was expected +to produce what was called a <em>trilogy</em>, that is, a tragedy, a satirical +play, and a comedy. So completely was all this identified in the +popular mind with the worship of Bacchus, that, long afterwards, when +even a tragedy did not please the audience by its subject, the common +form of disapproval was, <span title="ti tauta pros ton Dionyson">τί ταῦτα πρὸς τὸν Διόνυσον</span>—“What has this +to do with Bacchus?” and, <span title="ouden pros ton Dionyson">οὐδὲν πρὸς τὸν Διόνυσον</span>—“This has nothing +to do with Bacchus.”</p> + +<p>We have no perfect remains of the Greek satiric drama, which was, +perhaps, of a temporary character, and less frequently preserved; but +the early Greek comedy is preserved in a certain number of the plays +of Aristophanes, in which we can contemplate it in all its freedom of +character. It represented the waggon-jesting, of the age of Thespis, in +its full development. In its form it was burlesque to a wanton degree +of extravagance, and its essence was personal vilification, as well as +general satire. Individuals were not only attacked by the application +to them of abusive epithets, but they were represented personally on +the stage as performing every kind of contemptible action, and as +suffering all sorts of ludicrous and disgraceful treatment. The drama +thus bore marks of its origin in its extraordinary licentiousness +of language and costume, and in the constant use of the mask. One +of its most favourite instruments of satire was parody, which was +employed unsparingly on everything which society in its solemn moments +respected—against everything that the satirist considered worthy of +being held up to public derision or scorn. Religion itself, philosophy, +social manners and institutions—even poetry—were all parodied in +their turn. The comedies of Aristophanes are full of parodies on the +poetry of the tragic and other writers of his age. He is especially +happy in parodying the poetry of the tragic dramatist Euripides. The +old comedy of Greece has thus been correctly described as the comedy of +caricature; and the spirit, and even the scenes, of this comedy, being +transferred to pictorial representations, became entirely identical +with that branch of art to which we give the name of caricature in +modern times. Under the cover of bacchanalian buffoonery, a serious<a class="pagenum" id="Page_13" title="13"></a> +purpose, it is true, was aimed at; but the general satire was chiefly +implied in the violent personal attacks on individuals, and this became +so offensive that when such persons obtained greater power in Athens +than the populace the old comedy was abolished.</p> + +<p>Aristophanes was the greatest and most perfect poet of the Old Comedy, +and his remaining comedies are as strongly marked representations of +the hostility of political and social parties in his time, as the +caricatures of Gillray are of party in the reign of our George III., +and, we may add, even more minute. They range through the memorable +period of the Peloponnesian war, and the earlier ones give us the +regular annual series of these performances, as far as Aristophanes +contributed them, during several years. The first of them, “The +Acharnians,” was performed at the Lenæan feast of Bacchus in the +sixth year of the Peloponnesian war, the year 425 <span class="fakesc">B.C.</span>, +when it gained the first prize. It is a bold attack on the factious +prolongation of the war through the influence of the Athenian +demagogues. The next, “The Knights,” brought out in <span class="fakesc">B.C.</span> 424, +is a direct attack upon Cleon, the chief of these demagogues, although +he is not mentioned by name; and it is recorded that, finding nobody +who had courage enough to make a mask representing Cleon, or to play +the character, Aristophanes was obliged to perform it himself, and +that he smeared his face with lees of wine, in order to represent the +flushed and bloated countenance of the great demagogue, thus returning +to the original mode of acting of the predecessors of Thespis. +This, too, was the first of the comedies of Aristophanes which he +published in his own name. “The Clouds,” published in 423, is aimed at +Socrates and the philosophers. The fourth, “The Wasps,” published in +<span class="fakesc">B.C.</span> 422, presents a satire on the litigious spirit of the +Athenians. The fifth, entitled “Peace” (<span title="Eirênê">Ἔιρηνη</span>), appeared in +the year following, at the time of the peace of Nicias, and is another +satire on the bellicose spirit of the Athenian democracy. The next in +the list of extant plays comes after an interval of several years, +having been published in <span class="fakesc">B.C.</span> 414, the first year of the +Sicilian war, and relates to an irreligious movement in Athens, which +had caused a great sensation. Two Athenians are represented as leaving +Athens, in disgust at the vices and follies of their fellow citizens, +and seeking the kingdom<a class="pagenum" id="Page_14" title="14"></a> of the birds, where they form a new state, +by which the communication between the mortals and the immortals is +cut off, and is only opened again by an arrangement between all the +parties. In the “Lysistrata,” believed to have been brought out in +411, when the war was still at its height, the women of Athens are +represented as engaging in a cunning and successful plot, by which +they gain possession of the government of the state, and compel their +husbands to make peace. “The Thesmophoriazusæ,” appears to have been +published in <span class="fakesc">B.C.</span> 410; it is a satire upon Euripides, whose +writings were remarkable for their bitter attacks on the character of +the female sex, who, in this comedy, conspire against him to secure +his punishment. The comedy of “The Frogs” was brought out in the year +405 <span class="fakesc">B.C.</span>, and is a satire on the literature of the day; it +is aimed especially at Euripides, and was perhaps written soon after +his death, its real subject being the decline of the tragic drama, +which Euripides was accused of having promoted. It is perhaps the most +witty of the plays of Aristophanes which have been preserved. “The +Ecclesiazusæ,” published in 392, is a burlesque upon the theories of +republican government, which were then started among the philosophers, +some of which differed little from our modern communism. The ladies +again, by a clever conspiracy, gain the mastery in the estate, and they +decree a community of goods and women, with some laws very peculiar +to that state of things. The humour of the piece, which is extremely +broad, turns upon the disputes and embarrassments resulting from this +state of things. The last of his comedies extant, “Plutus,” appears to +be a work of the concluding years of the active life of Aristophanes; +it is the least striking of them all, and is rather a moral than a +political satire.</p> + +<p>In a comedy brought out in 426, the year before “The Archarnians,” +under the title of “The Babylonians,” Aristophanes appears to have +given great offence to the democratic party, a circumstance to which +he alludes more than once in the former play. However, his talents and +popularity seem to have carried him over the danger, and certainly +nothing can have exceeded the bitterness of satire employed in his +subsequent comedies. Those who followed him were less fortunate.</p> + +<p>One of the latest writers of the Old Comedy was Anaximandrides,<a class="pagenum" id="Page_15" title="15"></a> +who cast a reflection on the state of Athens in parodying a line of +Euripides. This poet had said,—</p> + +<p class="center"> +<span title="hê physis ebouleth’ hê nomôn ouden melei">ἡ φύσις ἐβούλεθ’ ἦ νόμων οὐδεν μέλει</span><br /> +(Nature has commanded, which cares nothing for the laws);</p> + +<p>which Anaximandrides changed to—</p> + +<p class="center"> +<span title="hê polis ebouleth’ hê nomôn ouden melei">ἡ πόλις ἐβούλεθ’ ἦ νόμων οὐδεν μέλει</span><br /> +(The state has commanded, which cares nothing for the laws).</p> + +<p>Nowhere is oppression exercised with greater harshness than under +democratic governments; and Anaximandrides was prosecuted for this +joke as a crime against the state, and condemned to death. As may be +supposed, liberty of speech ceased to exist in Athens. We are well +acquainted with the character of the Old Comedy, in its greatest +freedom, through the writings of Aristophanes. What was called the +Middle Comedy, in which political satire was prohibited, lasted from +this time until the age of Philip of Macedon, when the old liberty of +Greece was finally crushed. The last form of Greek comedy followed, +which is known as the New Comedy, and was represented by such names as +Epicharmus and Menander. In the New Comedy all caricature and parody, +and all personal allusions, were entirely proscribed; it was changed +entirely into a comedy of manners and domestic life, a picture of +contemporary society under conventional names and characters. From this +New Comedy was taken the Roman comedy, such as we now have it in the +plays of Plautus and Terence, who were professed imitators of Menander +and the other writers of the new comedy of the Greeks.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut009.jpg" width="400" height="491" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 9. A Greek Parody.</div> +</div> + +<p>Pictorial caricature was, of course, rarely to be seen on the public +monuments of Greece or Rome, but must have been consigned to objects +of a more popular character and to articles of common use; and, +accordingly, modern antiquarian research has brought it to light +somewhat abundantly on the pottery of Greece and Etruria, and on the +wall-paintings of domestic buildings in Herculaneum and Pompeii. The +former contains comic scenes, especially parodies, which are evidently +transferred to them from the stage, and which preserve the marks and +other attributes—some of which I have necessarily omitted—proving the +model from<a class="pagenum" id="Page_16" title="16"></a> which they were taken. The Greeks, as we know from many +sources, were extremely fond of parodies of every description, whether +literary or pictorial. The subject of our cut No. 9 is a good example +of the parodies found on the Greek pottery; it is taken from a fine +Etruscan vase,<a id="FNanchor_3" href="#Footnote_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> and has been supposed to be a parody on the visit of +Jupiter to Alcmena. This appears rather doubtful, but there can be no +doubt that it is a burlesque representation of the visit of a lover +to the object of his aspirations. The lover, in the comic mask and +costume, mounts by a ladder to the window at which the lady presents +herself, who, it must be confessed, presents the appearance of giving +her admirer a very cold reception. He tries to conciliate her by a +present of what seem to be apples, instead of<a class="pagenum" id="Page_17" title="17"></a> gold, but without much +effect. He is attended by his servant with a torch, to give him light +on the way, which shows that it is a night adventure. Both master and +servant have wreaths round their heads, and the latter carries a third +in his hand, which, with the contents of his basket, are also probably +intended as presents to the lady.</p> + +<p>A more unmistakable burlesque on the visit of Jupiter to Alcmena is +published by Winckelmann from a vase, formerly in the library of the +Vatican, and now at St. Petersburg. The treatment of the subject is +not unlike the picture just described. Alcmena appears just in the +same posture at her chamber window, and Jupiter is carrying his ladder +to mount up to her, but has not yet placed it against the wall. His +companion is identified with Mercury by the well-known caduceus he +carries in his left hand, while with his right hand he holds a lamp +up to the window, in order to enable Jupiter to see the object of his +amour.</p> + +<p>It is astonishing with how much boldness the Greeks parodied and +ridiculed sacred subjects. The Christian father, Arnobius, in writing +against his heathen opponents, reproached them with this circumstance. +The laws, he says, were made to protect the characters of men from +slander and libel, but there was no such protection for the characters +of the gods, which were treated with the greatest disrespect.<a id="FNanchor_4" href="#Footnote_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> This +was especially the case in their pictorial representations.</p> + +<p>Pliny informs us that Ctesilochus, a pupil of the celebrated Apelles, +painted a burlesque picture of Jupiter giving birth to Bacchus, in +which the god was represented in a very ridiculous posture.<a id="FNanchor_5" href="#Footnote_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> Ancient +writers intimate that similar examples were not uncommon, and mention +the names of several comic painters, whose works of this class were +in repute. Some of these were bitter personal caricatures, like a +celebrated work of a<a class="pagenum" id="Page_18" title="18"></a> painter named Ctesicles, described also by Pliny. +It appears that Stratonice, the queen of Seleucus Nicator, had received +this painter ill when he visited her court, and in revenge he executed +a picture in which she was represented, according to a current scandal, +as engaged in an amour with a common fisherman, which he exhibited in +the harbour of Ephesus, and then made his escape on ship-board. Pliny +adds that the queen admired the beauty and accuracy of the painting +more than she felt the insult, and that she forbade the removal of the +picture.<a id="FNanchor_6" href="#Footnote_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut010.jpg" width="500" height="324" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 10. Apollo at Delphi.</div> +</div> + +<p>The subject of our second example of the Greek caricature is better +known. It is taken from an oxybaphon which was brought from the +Continent to England, where it passed into the collection of Mr. +William Hope.<a id="FNanchor_7" href="#Footnote_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> The <em>oxybaphon</em> (<span title="oxybaphon">ὀξύβαφον</span>), or, as it was +called by the Romans, <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">acetabulum</em>, was a large vessel for holding +vinegar, which formed one of the important ornaments of the table, +and was therefore very susceptible of pictorial embellishment of +this description. It is one of the most remarkable Greek caricatures +of this kind yet known, and represents a parody on one of the most +interesting stories of the Grecian mythology, that of the arrival of +Apollo at Delphi. The artist, in his love of burlesque, has spared +none of the personages who belonged to the story. The Hyperborean +Apollo himself appears in the character of a quack doctor, on his +temporary stage, covered by a sort of roof, and approached by wooden +steps. On the stage lies Apollo’s luggage, consisting of a bag, a +bow, and his Scythian cap. Chiron (<span title="CHIRÔN">ΧΙΡΩΝ</span>) is represented +as labouring under the effects of age and blindness, and supporting +himself by the aid of a crooked staff, as he repairs to the Delphian +quack-doctor for relief. The figure of the centaur is made to ascend +by the aid of a companion, both being furnished with the masks and +other attributes of the comic performers. Above are the mountains, and +on them the nymphs of Parnassus (<span title="NYMPHAI">ΝΥΜΦΑΙ</span>), who, like all the +other actors in the scene, are disguised with masks, and those of a +very grotesque character. On the right-hand<a class="pagenum" id="Page_19" title="19"></a> side stands a figure which +is considered as representing the <em>epoptes</em>, the inspector or overseer +of the performance, who alone wears no mask. Even a pun is employed to +heighten the drollery of the scene, for instead of <span title="PYTHIAS">ΠΥΘΙΑΣ</span>, +the Pythian, placed over the head of the burlesque Apollo, it seems +evident that the artist had written <span title="PEITHIAS">ΠΕΙΘΙΑΣ</span>, the consoler, +in allusion, perhaps, to the consolation which the quack-doctor is +administering to his blind and aged visitor.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut011.jpg" width="400" height="549" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 11. The Flight of Æneas from Troy.</div> +</div> + +<p>The Greek spirit of parody, applied even to the most sacred subjects, +however it may have declined in Greece, was revived at Rome, and we +find examples of it on the walls of Pompeii and Herculaneum. They +show the same readiness to turn into burlesque the most sacred and +popular legends of the Roman mythology. The example given (cut No. 11), +from one of the wall-paintings, is peculiarly interesting, both from +circumstances in the drawing itself, and because it is a parody on +one of the favourite national legends of the Roman people, who prided +them<a class="pagenum" id="Page_20" title="20"></a>selves on their descent from Æneas. Virgil has told, with great +effect, the story of his hero’s escape from the destruction of Troy—or +rather has put the story into his hero’s mouth. When the devoted +city was already in flames, Æneas took his father, Anchises, on his +shoulder, and his boy, Iulus, or, as he was otherwise called, Ascanius, +by the hand, and thus fled from his home, followed by his wife—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container" lang="la" xml:lang="la"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">Ergo age, care pater, cervici imponere nostræ;</div> + <div class="line">Ipse subibo humeris, nec me labor iste gravabit.</div> + <div class="line">Quo res cumque cadent, unum et commune periclum,</div> + <div class="line">Una salus ambobus erit. Mihi parvus Iulus</div> + <div class="line">Sit comes, et longe servat vestigia conjux.</div> + <div class="attribution">—Virg. Æn., lib. ii. l. 707.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="Page_21" title="21"></a>Thus they hurried on, the child holding by his father’s right hand, and +dragging after with “unequal steps,”—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container" lang="la" xml:lang="la"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line indent10">dextræ se parvus Iulus</div> + <div class="line">Implicuit sequiturque patrem non passibus æquis.</div> + <div class="attribution">—Virg. Æn., lib. ii. 1. 723.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>And thus Æneas bore away both father and son, and the penates, or +household gods, of his family, which were to be transferred to another +country, and become the future guardians of Rome—</p> + +<p class="center" lang="la" xml:lang="la"> +<em>Ascanium, Anchisemque patrem, Tencrosque penates.</em>—Ib., 1. 747. +</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut012.jpg" width="400" height="530" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 12. The Flight of Æneas.</div> +</div> + +<p>In this case we know that the design is intended to be a parody, or +burlesque, upon a picture which appears to have been celebrated at the +time, and of which at least two different copies are found upon ancient +intaglios. It is the only case I know in which both the original<a class="pagenum" id="Page_22" title="22"></a> and +the parody have been preserved from this remote period, and this is so +curious a circumstance, that I give in the cut on the preceding page +a copy of one of the intaglios.<a id="FNanchor_8" href="#Footnote_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> It represented literally Virgil’s +account of the story, and the only difference between the design on the +intaglios and the one given in our first cut is, that in the latter +the personages are represented under the forms of monkeys. Æneas, +personified by the strong and vigorous animal, carrying the old monkey, +Anchises, on his left shoulder, hurries forward, and at the same time +looks back on the burning city. With his right hand he drags along +the boy Iulus, or Ascanius, who is evidently proceeding <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">non passibus +æquis</em>, and with difficulty keeps up with his father’s pace. The boy +wears a Phrygian bonnet, and holds in his right hand the instrument +of play which we should now call a “bandy”—the pedun. Anchises has +charge of the box, which contains the sacred penates. It is a curious +circumstance that the monkeys in this picture are the same dog-headed +animals, or cynocephali, which are found on the Egyptian monuments.</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>When this chapter was already given for press, I first became + acquainted with an interesting paper, by Panofka, on the <span lang="de" xml:lang="de">“Parodieen + und Karikaturen auf Werken der Klassischen Kunst,” in the + “Abhandlungen der Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin,”</span> for the + year 1854, and I can only now refer my readers to it.</p> +</div> + + + +<hr class="chap" /> +<h2><a class="pagenum" id="Page_23" title="23"></a>CHAPTER II.</h2> + +<p class="subtitle"> + ORIGIN OF THE STAGE IN ROME.—USES OF THE MASK AMONG THE + ROMANS.—SCENES FROM ROMAN COMEDY.—THE SANNIO AND MIMUS.—THE + ROMAN DRAMA.—THE ROMAN SATIRISTS.—CARICATURE.—ANIMALS + INTRODUCED IN THE CHARACTERS OF MEN.—THE PIGMIES, AND THEIR + INTRODUCTION INTO CARICATURE; THE FARM-YARD; THE PAINTER’S STUDIO; + THE PROCESSION.—POLITICAL CARICATURE IN POMPEII; THE GRAFFITI.</p> + + +<p>The Romans appear to have never had any real taste for the regular +drama, which they merely copied from the Greeks, and from the earliest +period of their history we find them borrowing all their arts of this +description from their neighbours. In Italy, as in Greece, the first +germs of comic literature may be traced in the religious festivals, +which presented a mixture of religious worship and riotous festivity, +where the feasters danced and sung, and, as they became excited with +wine and enthusiasm, indulged in mutual reproaches and abuse. The +oldest poetry of the Romans, which was composed in irregular measure, +was represented by the <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">versus saturnini</em>, said to have been so called +from their antiquity (for things of remote antiquity were believed +to belong to the age of Saturn). Nævius, one of the oldest of Latin +poets, is said to have written in this verse. Next in order of time +came the Fescennine verses, which appear to have been distinguished +chiefly by their license, and received their name because they were +brought from Fescennia, in Etruria, where they were employed originally +in the festivals of Ceres and Bacchus. In the year 391 of Rome, or +361 <span class="fakesc">B.C.</span>, the city was visited by a dreadful plague, and the +citizens hit upon what will appear to us the rather strange expedient +of sending for performers (<em lang="la" xml:lang="la">ludiones</em>) from Etruria, hoping, by +employing them, to appease the anger of the gods. Any performer of +this kind appears to have been so little known to the Romans before +this, that<a class="pagenum" id="Page_24" title="24"></a> there was not even a name for him in the language, and +they were obliged to adopt the Tuscan word, and call him a <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">histrio</em>, +because <em lang="it" xml:lang="it">hister</em> in that language meant a player or pantomimist. +This word, we know, remained in the Latin language. These first +Etrurian performers appear indeed to have been mere pantomimists, who +accompanied the flute with all sorts of mountebank tricks, gestures, +dances, gesticulations, and the like, mixed with satirical songs, and +sometimes with the performance of coarse farces. The Romans had also a +class of performances rather more dramatic in character, consisting of +stories which were named <cite lang="la" xml:lang="la">Fabulæ Atellanæ</cite>, because these performers +were brought from Atella, a city of the Osci.</p> + +<p>A considerable advance was made in dramatic Art in Rome about the +middle of the third century before Christ. It is ascribed to a freedman +named Livius Andronicus, a Greek by birth, who is said to have brought +out, in the year 240 <span class="fakesc">B.C.</span>, the first regular comedy ever +performed in Rome. Thus we trace not only the Roman comedy, but the +very rudiments of dramatic art in Rome, either direct to the Greeks, +or to the Grecian colonies in Italy. With the Romans, as well as with +the Greeks, the theatre was a popular institution, open to the public, +and the state or a wealthy individual paid for the performance; and +therefore the building itself was necessarily of very great extent, +and, in both countries open to the sky, except that the Romans provided +for throwing an awning over it. As the Roman comedy was copied from +the new comedy of the Greeks, and therefore did not admit of the +introduction of caricature and burlesque on the stage, these were +left especially to the province of the pantomime and farce, which the +Romans, as just stated, had received from a still earlier period.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut013.jpg" width="500" height="305" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 13. A Scene from Terence.</div> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut014.jpg" width="500" height="357" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 14. Geta and Demea.</div> +</div> + +<p>Whether the Romans borrowed the mask from the Greeks, or not, is +rather uncertain, but it was used as generally in the Roman theatres, +whether in comedy or tragedy, as among the Greeks. The Greek actors +performed upon stilts, in order to magnify their figures, as the area +of the theatre was very large and uncovered, and without this help +they were not so well seen at a distance; and one object of utility +aimed at by the mask is said to have been to make the head appear +proportionate in size<a class="pagenum" id="Page_25" title="25"></a> to the artificial height of the body. It may +be remarked that the mask seems generally to have been made to cover +the whole head, representing the hair as well as the face, so that +the character of age or complexion might be given complete. Among the +Romans the stilts were certainly not in general use, but still the +mask, besides its comic or tragic character, is supposed to have served +useful purposes. The first improvement upon its original structure +is said to have been the making it of brass, or some other sonorous +metal, or at least lining the mouth with it, so as to reverberate, and +give force to the voice, and also to the mouth of the mask something +of the character of a speaking-trumpet.<a id="FNanchor_9" href="#Footnote_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> All these accessories could +not fail to detract much from the effect of the acting, which must in +general have been very measured and formal, and have received most of +its importance from the excellence of the poetry, and the declamatory +talents of the actors. We have pictures in which scenes from the Roman +stage are<a class="pagenum" id="Page_26" title="26"></a> accurately represented. Several rather early manuscripts of +Terence have been preserved, illustrated with drawings of the scenes +as represented on the stage, and these, though belonging to a period +long subsequent to the age in which the Roman stage existed in its +original character, are, no doubt, copied from drawings of an earlier +date. A German antiquary of the last century, Henry Berger, published +in a quarto volume a series of such illustrations from a manuscript of +Terence in the library of the Vatican at Rome, from which two examples +are selected, as showing the usual style of Roman comic acting, and +the use of the mask. The first (No. 13) is the opening scene in the +<cite>Andria</cite>. On the right, two servants have brought provisions, and on +the left appear Simo, the master of the household, and his freedman, +Sosia, who seems to be entrusted with the charge of his domestic +affairs. Simo tells his servants to go away with the provisions, while +he beckons Sosia to confer with him in private:—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container" lang="la" xml:lang="la"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line indent1"><span class="normal">Si.</span> Vos istæc intro auferte; abite. Sosia,</div> + <div class="line">Adesdum; paucis te volo. <span class="normal">So.</span> Dictum puta</div> + <div class="line">Nempe ut curentur recte hæc. <span class="normal">Si.</span> Imo aliud.</div> + <div class="attribution">Terent. Andr., Actus i., Scena 1.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="Page_27" title="27"></a>When we compare these words with the picture, we cannot but feel +that in the latter there is an unnecessary degree of energy put into +the <em>pose</em> of the figures; which is perhaps less the case in the +other (No. 14), an illustration of the sixth scene of the fifth act +of the <cite>Adelphi</cite> of Terence. It represents the meeting of Geta, a +rather talkative and conceited servant, and Demea, a countryfied and +churlish old man, his acquaintance, and of course superior. To Geta’s +salutation, Demea asks churlishly, as not at first knowing him, “Who +are you?” but when he finds that it is Geta, he changes suddenly to an +almost fawning tone:—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line"><span class="normal">G.</span> ... Sed eccum Demeam. Salvus fies.</div> + <div class="line"><span class="normal">D.</span> Oh, qui vocare? <span class="normal">G.</span> Geta. <span class="normal">D.</span> Geta, hominem maximi</div> + <div class="line">Pretii esse te hodie judicavi animo mei.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut015.jpg" width="500" height="394" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 15. Comic Scene from Pompeii.</div> +</div> + +<p>That these representations are truthful, the scenes in the +wall-paintings of Pompeii leave us no room to doubt. One of these is +produced in our cut No. 15, which is no doubt taken from a comedy +now lost, and we are ignorant whom the characters are intended to +represent. The <em>pose</em> given to the two comic figures, compared with +the example given from<a class="pagenum" id="Page_28" title="28"></a> Berger, would lead us to suppose that this +over-energetic action was considered as part of the character of comic +acting.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut016.jpg" width="400" height="292" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 16. Cupids at Play.</div> +</div> + +<p>The subject of the Roman masks is the more interesting, because they +were probably the origin of many of the grotesque faces so often met +with in mediæval sculpture. The comic mask was, indeed, a very popular +object among the Romans, and appears to have been taken as symbolical +of everything that was droll and burlesque. From the comic scenes of +the theatre, to which it was first appropriated, it passed to the +popular festivals of a public character, such as the Lupercalia, with +which, no doubt, it was carried into the carnival of the middle ages, +and to our masquerades. Among the Romans, also, the use of the mask +soon passed from the public festivals to private supper parties. Its +use was so common that it became a plaything among children, and was +sometimes used as a bugbear to frighten them. Our cut No. 16, taken +from a painting at Resina, represents two cupids playing with a mask, +and using it for this latter purpose, that is, to frighten one another; +and it is curious that the mediæval gloss of Ugutio explains <em>larva</em>, +a mask, as being an image, “which was put over the face to frighten +children.”<a id="FNanchor_10" href="#Footnote_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> The mask thus became a favourite ornament, especially on +lamps, and on the antefixa<a class="pagenum" id="Page_29" title="29"></a> and gargoyls of Roman buildings, to which +were often given the form of grotesque masks, monstrous faces, with +great mouths wide open, and other figures, like those of the gargoyls +of the mediæval architects.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut017.jpg" width="350" height="534" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 17. The Roman Sannio, or Buffoon.</div> +</div> + +<p>While the comic mask was used generally in the burlesque +entertainments, it also became distinctive of particular characters. +One of these was the <em>sannio</em>, or buffoon, whose name was derived +from the Greek word <span title="sannos">σάννος</span>, “a fool,” and who was employed +in performing burlesque dances, making grimaces, and in other acts +calculated to excite the mirth of the spectator. A representation +of the <em>sannio</em> is given in our cut No. 17, copied from one of the +engravings in the <span lang="la" xml:lang="la">“Dissertatio de Larvis Scenicis,”</span> by the Italian +antiquary Ficoroni, who took it from an engraved gem. The sannio holds +in his hand what is supposed to be a brass rod, and he has<a class="pagenum" id="Page_30" title="30"></a> probably +another in the other hand, so that he could strike them together. He +wears the <em>soccus</em>, or low shoe peculiar to the comic actors. This +buffoon was a favourite character among the Romans, who introduced him +constantly into their feasts and supper parties. The <em>manducus</em> was +another character of this description, represented with a grotesque +mask, presenting a wide mouth and tongue lolling out, and said to have +been peculiar to the Atellane plays. A character in Plautus (Rud., ii. +6, 51) talks of hiring himself as a <em>manducus</em> in the plays.</p> + +<p class="center">“<em lang="la" xml:lang="la">Quid si aliquo ad ludos me pro manduco locem?</em>”</p> + +<p>The mediæval glosses interpret <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">manducus</em> by <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">joculator</em>, “a jogelor,” +and add that the characteristic from which he took his name was the +practice of making grimaces like a man gobbling up his food in a vulgar +and gluttonous manner.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut018.jpg" width="350" height="340" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 18. Roman Tom Fool.</div> +</div> + +<p>Ficoroni gives, from an engraved onyx, a figure of another burlesque +performer, copied in our cut No. 18, and which he compares to the +Catanian dancer of his time (his book was published in 1754), who was +called a <em lang="it" xml:lang="it">giangurgolo</em>. This is considered to represent the Roman +<em lang="la" xml:lang="la">mimus</em>, a class of performers who told with mimicry and action scenes +taken from<a class="pagenum" id="Page_31" title="31"></a> common life, and more especially scandalous and indecent +anecdotes, like the jogelors and performers of farces in the middle +ages. The Romans were very much attached to these performances, so much +so, that they even had them at their funeral processions and at their +funeral feasts. In our figure, the <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">mimus</em> is represented naked, masked +(with an exaggerated nose), and wearing what is perhaps intended as a +caricature of the Phrygian bonnet. In his right hand he holds a bag, +or purse, full of objects which rattle and make a noise when shaken, +while the other holds the <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">crotalum</em>, or castanets, an instrument in +common use among the ancients. One of the statues in the Barberini +Palace represents a youth in a Phrygian cap playing on the <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">crotalum</em>. +We learn, from an early authority, that it was an instrument especially +used in the satirical and burlesque dances which were so popular among +the Romans.</p> + +<p>As I have remarked before, the Romans had no taste for the regular +drama, but they retained to the last their love for the performances +of the popular <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">mimi</em>, or <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">comædi</em> (as they were often called), the +players of farces, and the dancers. These performed on the stage, in +the public festivals, in the streets, and were usually introduced at +private parties.<a id="FNanchor_11" href="#Footnote_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> Suetonius tells us that on one occasion, the +emperor Caligula ordered a poet who composed the Atellanes (<em lang="la" xml:lang="la">Attellanæ +poetam</em>) to be burnt in the middle of the amphitheatre, for a pun. A +more regular comedy, however, did flourish, to a certain degree, at the +same time with these more popular compositions. Of the works of the +earliest of the Roman comic writers, Livius Andronicus and Nævius, we +know only one or two titles, and a few fragments quoted in the works +of the later Roman writers. They were followed by Plautus, who died +<span class="fakesc">B.C.</span> 184, and nineteen of whose comedies are preserved and +well known; by several other writers, whose names are almost forgotten, +and whose comedies are all lost; and by Terence, six of whose comedies +are preserved. Terence died about the year 159 <span class="fakesc">B.C.</span> About the +same time with Terence lived<a class="pagenum" id="Page_32" title="32"></a> Lucius Afranius and Quinctius Atta, who +appear to close the list of the Roman writers of comedy.</p> + +<p>But another branch of comic literature had sprung out of the satire of +the religious festivities. A year after Livius Andronicus produced the +first drama at Rome, in the year 239 <span class="fakesc">B.C.</span>, the poet Ennius was +born at Rudiæ, in Magna Græcia. The satirical verse, whether Saturnine +or Fescennine, had been gradually improving in its form, although still +very rude, but Ennius is said to have given at least a new polish, and +perhaps a new metrical shape, to it. The verse was still irregular, but +it appears to have been no longer intended for recitation, accompanied +by the flute. The Romans looked upon Ennius not only as their earliest +epic poet, but as the father of satire, a class of literary composition +which appears to have originated with them, and which they claimed +as their own.<a id="FNanchor_12" href="#Footnote_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> Ennius had an imitator in M. Terentius Varro. The +satires of these first writers are said to have been very irregular +compositions, mixing prose with verse, and sometimes even Greek with +Latin; and to have been rather general in their aim than personal. But +soon after this period, and rather more than a century before Christ, +came Caius Lucilius, who raised Roman satirical literature to its +perfection. Lucilius, we are told, was the first who wrote satires in +heroic verse, or hexameters, mixing with them now and then, though +rarely, an iambic or trochaic line. He was more refined, more pointed, +and more personal, than his predecessors, and he had rescued satire +from the street performer to make it a class of literature which was +to be read by the educated, and not merely listened to by the vulgar. +Lucilius is said to have written thirty books of satires, of which, +unfortunately, only some scattered lines remain.</p> + +<p>Lucilius had imitators, the very names of most of whom are now +forgotten, but about forty years after his death, and sixty-five +years before the birth of Christ, was born Quintus Horatius Flaccus, +the oldest of the satirists whose works we now possess, and the most +polished of Roman<a class="pagenum" id="Page_33" title="33"></a> poets. In the time of Horace, the satire of the +Romans had reached its highest degree of perfection. Of the two other +great satirists whose works are preserved, Juvenal was born about the +year 40 of the Christian era, and Persius in 43. During the period +through which these writers flourished, Rome saw a considerable number +of other satirists of the same class, whose works have perished.</p> + +<p>In the time of Juvenal another variety of the same class of literature +had already sprung up, more artificial and somewhat more indirect +than the other, the prose satiric romance. Three celebrated writers +represent this school. Petronius, who, born about the commencement of +our era, died in <span class="fakesc">A.D.</span> 65, is the earliest and most remarkable +of them. He compiled a romance, designed as a satire on the vices of +the age of Nero, in which real persons are supposed to be aimed at +under fictitious names, and which rivals in license, at least, anything +that could have been uttered in the Atellanes or other farces of the +<em lang="la" xml:lang="la">mimi</em>. Lucian, of Samosata, who died an old man in the year 200, and +who, though he wrote in Greek, may be considered as belonging to the +Roman school, composed several satires of this kind, in one of the +most remarkable of which, entitled “Lucius, or the Ass,” the author +describes himself as changed by sorcery into the form of that animal, +under which he passes through a number of adventures which illustrate +the vices and weaknesses of contemporary society. Apuleius, who was +considerably the junior of Lucian, made this novel the groundwork of +his “Golden Ass,” a much larger and more elaborate work, written in +Latin. This work of Apuleius was very popular through subsequent ages.</p> + +<div class="figleft"> + <img src="images/cut019.jpg" width="500" height="175" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 19. The Farm-yard in Burlesque.</div> +</div> + +<div class="figleft"> + <img src="images/cut020.jpg" width="200" height="200" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 20. An Asilla-Bearer.</div> +</div> + +<p>Let us return to Roman caricature, one form of which seems to have +been especially a favourite among the people. It is difficult to +imagine how the story of the pigmies and of their wars with the cranes +originated, but it is certainly of great antiquity, as it is spoken +of in Homer, and it was a very popular legend among the Romans, who +eagerly sought and purchased dwarfs to make domestic pets of them. The +pigmies and cranes occur frequently among the pictorial ornamentations +of the houses of Pompeii and Herculaneum; and the painters of Pompeii +not only represented them in their proper character, but they made use +of them for<a class="pagenum" id="Page_34" title="34"></a> the purpose of caricaturing the various occupations of +life—domestic and social scenes, grave conferences, and many other +subjects, and even personal character. In this class of caricatures +they gave to the pigmies, or dwarfs, very large heads, and very small +legs and arms. I need hardly remark that this is a class of caricature +which is very common in modern times. Our first group of these pigmy +caricatures (No. 19) is taken from a painting on the walls of the +Temple of Venus, at Pompeii, and represents the interior of a farm-yard +in burlesque. The structure in the background is perhaps intended for a +hayrick. In front of it, one of the farm servants is attending on the +poultry. The more important-looking personage with the pastoral staff +is possibly the overseer of the farm, who is visiting the labourers, +and this probably is the cause why their movements have assumed so much +activity. The labourer on the right is using the <em>asilla</em>, a wooden +yoke or pole, which was carried over the shoulder, with the <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">corbis</em>, +or basket, suspended at each end. This was a common method of carrying, +and is not unfrequently represented on Roman works of art. Several +examples might be quoted from the antiquities of Pompeii. Our cut No. +20, from a gem in the Florentine Museum, and illustrating another class +of caricature, that of introducing animals performing the actions and +duties of men, represents a grasshopper carrying the <em>asilla</em> and the +<em>corbes</em>.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut021.jpg" width="500" height="199" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 21. A Painter’s Studio.</div> +</div> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="Page_35" title="35"></a>A private house in Pompeii furnished another example of this style +of caricature, which is given in our cut No. 21. It represents the +interior of a painter’s studio, and is extremely curious on account +of the numerous details of his method of operation with which it +furnishes us. The painter, who is, like most of the figures in these +pigmy caricatures, very scantily clothed, is occupied with the portrait +of another, who, by the rather exaggerated fulness of the gathering +of his toga, is evidently intended for a dashing and fashionable +patrician, though he is seated as bare-legged and bare-breeched as the +artist himself. Both are distinguished by a large allowance of nose. +The easel here employed resembles greatly the same article now in use, +and might belong to the studio of a modern painter. Before it is a +small table, probably formed of a slab of stone, which serves for a +palette, on which the painter spreads and mixes his colours. To the +right a servant, who fills the office of colour-grinder, is seated by +the side of a vessel placed over hot coals, and appears to be preparing +colours, mixed, according to the directions given in old writers, +with punic wax and oil. In the background is seated a student, whose +attention is taken from his drawing by what is going on at the other +side of the room, where two small personages are entering, who look as +if they were amateurs, and who appear to be talking about the portrait. +Behind them stands a bird, and when the painting was first<a class="pagenum" id="Page_36" title="36"></a> uncovered +there were two. Mazois, who made the drawing from which our cut is +taken, before the original had perished—for it was found in a state +of decay—imagined that the birds typified some well-known singers or +musicians, but they are, perhaps, merely intended for cranes, birds so +generally associated with the pigmies.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut022.jpg" width="500" height="297" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 22. Part of a Triumphal Procession.</div> +</div> + +<p>According to an ancient writer, combats of pigmies were favourite +representations on the walls of taverns and shops;<a id="FNanchor_13" href="#Footnote_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> and, curiously +enough, the walls of a shop in Pompeii have furnished the picture +represented in our cut No. 22, which has evidently been intended for +a caricature, probably a parody. All the pigmies in this picture +are crowned with laurel, as though the painter intended to turn to +ridicule some over-pompous triumph, or some public, perhaps religious, +ceremony. The two figures to the left, who are clothed in yellow +and green garments, appear to be disputing the possession of a bowl +containing a liquid. One of these, like the two figures on the right, +has a hoop thrown over his shoulder. The first of the latter personages +wears a violet dress, and holds in his right hand a rod, and in his +left a statuette, apparently of a<a class="pagenum" id="Page_37" title="37"></a> deity, but its attributes are not +distinguishable. The last figure to the right has a robe, or mantle, of +two colours, red and green, and holds in his hand a branch of a lily, +or some similar plant; the rest of the picture is lost. Behind the +other figure stands a fifth, who appears younger and more refined in +character than the others, and seems to be ordering or directing them. +His dress is red.</p> + +<p>We can have no doubt that political and personal caricature flourished +among the Romans, as we have some examples of it on their works of art, +chiefly on engraved stones, though these are mostly of a character +we could not here conveniently introduce; but the same rich mine of +Roman art and antiquities, Pompeii, has furnished us with one sample +of what may be properly considered as a political caricature. In the +year 59 of the Christian era, at a gladiatorial exhibition in the +amphitheatre of Pompeii, where the people of Nuceria were present, +the latter expressed themselves in such scornful terms towards the +Pompeians, as led to a violent quarrel, which was followed by a pitched +battle between the inhabitants of the two towns, and the Nucerians, +being defeated, carried their complaints before the reigning emperor, +Nero, who gave judgment in their favour, and condemned the people of +Pompeii to suspension from all theatrical amusements for ten years. +The feelings of the Pompeians on this occasion are displayed in the +rude drawing represented in our cut No. 23, which is scratched on the +plaster of the external wall of a house in the street to which the +Italian antiquarians have given the name of the street of Mercury. A +figure, completely armed, his head covered with what might be taken +for a mediæval helmet, is descending what appear to be intended for +the steps of the amphitheatre. He carries in his hand a palm-branch, +the emblem of victory. Another palm-branch stands erect by his side, +and underneath is the inscription, in rather rustic Latin, “CAMPANI +VICTORIA VNA CVM NVCERINIS PERISTIS”—“O Campanians, you perished in +the victory together with the Nucerians.” The other side of the picture +is more rudely and hastily drawn. It has been supposed to represent +one of the victors dragging a prisoner, with his arms bound, up a +ladder to a stage or platform, on which he was perhaps to be exhibited +to the jeers of the populace. Four years after this event,<a class="pagenum" id="Page_38" title="38"></a> Pompeii +was greatly damaged by an earthquake, and sixteen years later came +the eruption of Vesuvius, which buried the town, and left it in the +condition in which it is now found.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut023.jpg" width="500" height="356" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 23. A Popular Caricature.</div> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut024.jpg" width="400" height="474" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 24. Early Caricature upon a Christian.</div> +</div> + +<p>This curious caricature belongs to a class of monuments to which +archæologists have given technically the Italian name of <em lang="it" xml:lang="it">graffiti</em>, +scratches or scrawls, of which a great number, consisting chiefly of +writing, have been found on the walls of Pompeii. They also occur +among the remains on other Roman sites, and one found in Rome itself +is especially interesting. During the alterations and extensions which +were made from time to time in the palace of the Cæsars, it had been +found necessary to build across a narrow street which intersected the +Palatine, and, in order to give support to the structure above, a +portion of the street was walled off, and remained thus hermetically +sealed until about the year 1857, when some excavations on the spot +brought it to view. The walls of the street were found to be covered +with these <em lang="it" xml:lang="it">graffiti</em>, among which one attracted especial attention, +and, having been carefully removed, is now preserved in the museum +of the Collegio Romano. It is a caricature upon a Christian<a class="pagenum" id="Page_39" title="39"></a> named +Alexamenos, by some pagan who despised Christianity. The Saviour is +represented under the form of a man with the head of an ass, extended +upon a cross, the Christian, Alexamenos, standing on one side in the +attitude of worship of that period. Underneath we read the inscription, +<span title="ALEXAMENOS CEBETE">ΑΛΕΞΑΜΕΝΟΣ CΕΒΕΤΕ</span> (for <span title="sebetai">σεβεται</span>) <span title="THEON">ΘΕΟΝ</span>, +“Alexamenos worships God.” This curious figure, which may be placed +among the most interesting as well as early evidences of the truth of +Gospel history, is copied in our cut No. 24. It was drawn when the +prevailing religion at Rome was still pagan, and a Christian was an +object of contempt.</p> + + + +<hr class="chap" /> +<h2><a class="pagenum" id="Page_40" title="40"></a>CHAPTER III.</h2> +<p class="subtitle"> + THE PERIOD OF TRANSITION FROM ANTIQUITY TO THE MIDDLE AGES.—THE + ROMAN MIMI CONTINUED TO EXIST.—THE TEUTONIC AFTER-DINNER + ENTERTAINMENTS.—CLERICAL SATIRES; ARCHBISHOP HERIGER AND THE + DREAMER; THE SUPPER OF THE SAINTS.—TRANSITION FROM ANCIENT + TO MEDIÆVAL ART.—TASTE FOR MONSTROUS ANIMALS, DRAGONS, ETC.; + CHURCH OF SAN FEDELE, AT COMO.—SPIRIT OF CARICATURE AND LOVE + OF GROTESQUE AMONG THE ANGLO-SAXONS.—GROTESQUE FIGURES OF + DEMONS.—NATURAL TENDENCY OF THE EARLY MEDIÆVAL ARTISTS TO DRAW IN + CARICATURE.—EXAMPLES FROM EARLY MANUSCRIPTS AND SCULPTURES.</p> + + +<p>The transition from antiquity to what we usually understand by the name +of the middle ages was long and slow; it was a period during which much +of the texture of the old society was destroyed, while at the same +time a new life was gradually given to that which remained. We know +very little of the comic literature of this period of transition; its +literary remains consist chiefly of a mass of heavy theology and of +lives of saints. The stage in its perfectly dramatic form—theatre and +amphitheatre—had disappeared. The pure drama, indeed, appears never +to have had great vitality among the Romans, whose tastes lay far more +among the vulgar performances of the mimics and jesters, and among +the savage scenes of the amphitheatre. While probably the performance +of comedies, such as those of Plautus and Terence, soon went out of +fashion, and tragedies, like those of Seneca, were only written as +literary compositions, imitations of the similar works which formed +so remarkable a feature in the literature of Greece, the Romans of +all ranks loved to witness the loose attitudes of their <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">mimi</em>, or +listen to their equally loose songs and stories. The theatre and the +amphitheatre were state institutions, kept up at the national expense, +and, as just stated, they perished with the overthrow of the western +empire; and the sanguinary performances of the amphitheatre,<a class="pagenum" id="Page_41" title="41"></a> if the +amphitheatre itself continued to be used (which was perhaps the case +in some parts of western Europe), and they gave place to the more +harmless exhibitions of dancing bears and other tamed animals,<a id="FNanchor_14" href="#Footnote_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> for +deliberate cruelty was not a characteristic of the Teutonic race. But +the mimi, the performers who sung songs and told stories, accompanied +with dancing and music, survived the fall of the empire, and continued +to be as popular as ever. St. Augustine, in the fourth century, calls +these things <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">nefaria</em>, detestable things, and says that they were +performed at night.<a id="FNanchor_15" href="#Footnote_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> We trace in the capitularies the continuous +existence of these performances during the ages which followed the +empire, and, as in the time of St. Augustine, they still formed the +amusement of nocturnal assemblies. The capitulary of Childebert +proscribes those who passed their nights with drunkenness, jesting, +and songs.<a id="FNanchor_16" href="#Footnote_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> The council of Narbonne, in the year 589, forbade +people to spend their nights “with dancings and filthy songs.”<a id="FNanchor_17" href="#Footnote_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> The +council of Mayence, in 813, calls these songs “filthy and licentious” +(<em lang="la" xml:lang="la">turpia atque luxuriosa</em>); and that of Paris speaks of them as +“obscene and filthy” (<em lang="la" xml:lang="la">obscæna et turpia</em>); while in another they are +called “frivolous and diabolic.” From the bitterness with which the +ecclesiastical ordinances are expressed, it is probable that these +performances continued to preserve much of their old paganism; yet it +is curious that they are spoken of in these capitularies and acts of +the councils as being still practised in the religious festivals, and +even in the churches, so tenaciously did the old sentiments of the +race keep their possession of the minds of the populace, long after +they had embraced Christianity. These “songs,” as they are called, +continued also to consist not only of general, but of personal satire, +and contained<a class="pagenum" id="Page_42" title="42"></a> scandalous stories of persons living, and well known to +those who heard them. A capitulary of the Frankish king Childeric III., +published in the year 744, is directed against those who compose and +sing songs in defamation of others (<em lang="la" xml:lang="la">in blasphemiam alterius</em>, to use +the rather energetic language of the original); and it is evident that +this offence was a very common one, for it is not unfrequently repeated +in later records of this character in the same words or in words to the +same purpose. Thus one result of the overthrow of the Roman empire was +to leave comic literature almost in the same condition in which it was +found by Thespis in Greece and by Livius Andronicus in Rome. There was +nothing in it which would be contrary to the feelings of the new races +who had now planted themselves in the Roman provinces.</p> + +<p>The Teutonic and Scandinavian nations had no doubt their popular +festivals, in which mirth and frolic bore sway, though we know little +about them; but there were circumstances in their domestic manners +which implied a necessity for amusement. After the comparatively early +meal, the hall of the primitive Teuton was the scene—especially in the +darker months of winter—of long sittings over the festive board, in +which there was much drinking and much talking, and, as we all know, +such talking could not preserve long a very serious tone. From Bede’s +account of the poet Cædmon, we learn that it was the practice of the +Anglo-Saxons in the seventh century, at their entertainments, for all +those present to sing in their turns, each accompanying himself with a +musical instrument. From the sequel of the story we are led to suppose +that these songs were extemporary effusions, probably mythic legends, +stories of personal adventure, praise of themselves, or vituperation +of their enemies. In the chieftain’s household there appears to have +been usually some individual who acted the part of the satirist, or, as +we should perhaps now say, the comedian. Hunferth appears as holding +some such position in Beowulf; in the later romances, Sir Kay held a +similar position at the court of king Arthur. At a still later period, +the place of these heroes was occupied by the court fool. The Roman +<em lang="la" xml:lang="la">mimus</em> must have been a welcome addition to the entertainments of the +Teutonic hall, and there is every reason to think that he was cordially +received. The performances<a class="pagenum" id="Page_43" title="43"></a> of the hall were soon delegated from the +guests to such hired actors, and we have representations of them in +the illuminations of Anglo-Saxon manuscripts.<a id="FNanchor_18" href="#Footnote_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> Among the earliest +amusements of the Anglo-Saxon table were riddles, which in every form +present some of the features of the comic, and are capable of being +made the source of much laughter. The saintly Aldhelm condescended to +write such riddles in Latin verse, which were, of course, intended for +the tables of the clergy. In primitive society, verse was the ordinary +form of conveying ideas. A large portion of the celebrated collection +of Anglo-Saxon poetry known as the “Exeter Book,” consists of riddles, +and this taste for riddles has continued to exist down to our own +times. But other forms of entertainment, if they did not already +exist, were soon introduced. In a curious Latin poem, older than the +twelfth century, of which fragments only are preserved, and have been +published under the title of “Ruodlieb,” and which appears to have +been a translation of a much earlier German romance, we have a curious +description of the post-prandial entertainments after the dinner of a +great Teutonic chieftain, or king. In the first place there was a grand +distribution of rich presents, and then were shown strange animals, and +among the rest tame bears. These bears stood upon their hind legs, and +performed some of the offices of a man; and when the minstrels (<em>mimi</em>) +came in, and played upon their musical instruments, these animals +danced to the music, and performed all sorts of strange tricks.</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry" lang="la" xml:lang="la"> + <div class="line">Et pariles ursi....</div> + <div class="line">Qui vas tollebant, ut homo, bipedesque gerebant.</div> + <div class="line">Mimi quando fides digitis tangunt modulantes,</div> + <div class="line">Illi saltabant, neumas pedibus variabant.</div> + <div class="line">Interdum saliunt, seseque super jaciebant.</div> + <div class="line">Alterutrum dorso se portabant residendo,</div> + <div class="line">Amplexando se, luctando deficiunt se.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Then followed dancing-girls, and exhibitions of other kinds.<a id="FNanchor_19" href="#Footnote_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a></p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="Page_44" title="44"></a>Although these performances were proscribed by the ecclesiastical laws, +they were not discountenanced by the ecclesiastics themselves, who, on +the contrary, indulged as much in after-dinner amusements as anybody. +The laws against the profane songs are often directed especially at +the clergy; and it is evident that among the Anglo-Saxons, as well as +on the Continent, not only the priests and monks, but the nuns also, +in their love of such amusements, far transgressed the bounds of +decency.<a id="FNanchor_20" href="#Footnote_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> These entertainments were the cradle of comic literature, +but, as this literature in the early ages of its history was rarely +committed to writing, it has almost entirely perished. But, at the +tables of the ecclesiastics, these stories were sometimes told in +Latin verse, and as Latin was not so easily carried in the memory as +the vernacular tongue, in this language they were sometimes committed +to writing, and thus a few examples of early comic literature have +fortunately been preserved. These consist chiefly of popular stories, +which were among the favourite amusements of mediæval society—stories +many of which are derived from the earliest period of the history of +our race, and are still cherished among our peasantry. Such are the +stories of the Child of Snow, and of the Mendacious Hunter, preserved +in a manuscript of the eleventh century.<a id="FNanchor_21" href="#Footnote_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> The first of these was +a very popular story in the middle ages. According to this early +version, a merchant of Constance, in Switzerland, was detained abroad +for several years, during which time his wife made other acquaintance, +and bore a child. On his return, she excused her fault by telling him +that on a cold wintry day she had swallowed snow, by which she had +conceived; and, in revenge, the husband carried away the child, and +sold it into slavery, and returning,<a class="pagenum" id="Page_45" title="45"></a> told its mother, that the infant +which had originated in snow, had melted away under a hotter sun. Some +of these stories originated in the different collections of fables, +which were part of the favourite literature of the later Roman period. +Another is rather a ridiculous story of an ass belonging to two sisters +in a nunnery, which was devoured by a wolf.<a id="FNanchor_22" href="#Footnote_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> curious how soon the +mediæval clergy began to imitate their pagan predecessors in parodying +religious subjects and forms, of which we have one or two very curious +examples. Visits to purgatory, hell, and paradise, in body or spirit, +were greatly in fashion during the earlier part of the middle ages, +and afforded extremely good material for satire. In a metrical Latin +story, preserved in a manuscript of the eleventh century, we are +told how a “prophet,” or visionary, went to Heriger, archbishop of +Mayence from 912 to 926, and told him that he had been carried in a +vision to the regions below, and described them as a place surrounded +by thick woods. It was the Teutonic notion of hell, and indeed of +all settlements of peoples; and Heriger replied with a sneer that he +would send his herdsmen there with his lean swine to fatten them. Each +“mark,” or land of a family or clan, in the early Teutonic settlements, +was surrounded by woodland, which was common to all members of the clan +for fattening their swine and hunting. The false dreamer added, that he +was afterwards carried to heaven, where he saw Christ sitting at the +table and eating. John the Baptist was butler, and served excellent +wine round to the saints, who were the Lord’s guests. St. Peter was +the chief cook. After some remarks on the appointments to these two +offices, archbishop Heriger asked the informant how he was received in +the heavenly hall, where he sat, and what he eat. He replied that he +sat in a corner, and stole from the cooks a piece of liver, which he +eat, and then departed. Instead of rewarding him for his information, +Heriger took him on his own confession<a class="pagenum" id="Page_46" title="46"></a> for the theft, and ordered him +to be bound to a stake and flogged, which, for the offence, was rather +a light punishment.</p> + +<div class="poetry-container" lang="la" xml:lang="la"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">Heriger illum</div> + <div class="line">jussit ad palum</div> + <div class="line">loris ligari,</div> + <div class="line">scopisque cedi,</div> + <div class="line">sermone duro</div> + <div class="line">hunc arguendo.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>These lines will serve as a specimen of the popular Latin verse in +which these monkish after-dinner stories were written; but the most +remarkable of these early parodies on religious subjects, is one which +may be described as the supper of the saints; its title is simply +<cite>Cœna</cite>. It is falsely ascribed to St. Cyprian, who lived in the +third century; but it is as old as the tenth century, as a copy was +printed by professor Endlicher from a manuscript of that period at +Vienna. It was so popular, that it is found and known to have existed +in different forms in verse and in prose. It is a sort of drollery, +founded upon the wedding feast at which the Saviour changed water into +wine, though that miracle is not at all introduced into it. It was a +great king of the East, named Zoel, who held his nuptial feast at Cana +of Galilee. The personages invited are all scriptural, beginning with +Adam. Before the feast, they wash in the river Jordan, and the number +of the guests was so great, that seats could not be provided for them, +and they took their places as they could. Adam took the first place, +and seated himself in the middle of the assembly, and next to him Eve +sat upon leaves (<em lang="la" xml:lang="la">super folia</em>),—fig-leaves, we may suppose. Cain sat +on a plough, Abel on a milk-pail, Noah on an ark, Japhet on tiles, +Abraham on a tree, Isaac on an altar, Lot near the door, and so with +a long list of others. Two were obliged to stand—Paul, who bore it +patiently, and Esau, who grumbled—while Job lamented bitterly because +he was obliged to sit on a dunghill. Moses, and others, who came late, +were obliged to find seats out of doors. When the king saw that all +his guests had arrived, he took them into his wardrobe, and there, in +the spirit of mediæval generosity, distributed to them dresses, which +had all some burlesque allusion to their particular characters. Before +they were allowed to sit<a class="pagenum" id="Page_47" title="47"></a> down to the feast, they were obliged to go +through other ceremonies, which, as well as the eating, are described +in the same style of caricature. The wines, of which there was great +variety, were served to the guests with the same allusions to their +individual characters; but some of them complained that they were badly +mixed, although Jonah was the butler. In the same manner are described +the proceedings which followed the dinner, the washing of hands, and +the dessert, to the latter of which Adam contributed apples, Samson +honey; while David played on the harp and Mary on the tabor; Judith led +the round dance; Jubal played on the psalter; Asael sung songs, and +Herodias acted the part of the dancing-girl:—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container" lang="la" xml:lang="la"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">Tunc Adam poma ministrat, Samson favi dulcia.</div> + <div class="line">David cytharum percussit, et Maria tympana.</div> + <div class="line">Judith choreas ducebat, et Jubal psalteria.</div> + <div class="line">Asael metra canebat, saltabat Herodias.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Mambres entertained the company with his magical performances; and +the other incidents of a mediæval festival followed, throughout which +the same tone of burlesque is continued; and so the story continues, +to the end.<a id="FNanchor_23" href="#Footnote_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> We shall find these incipient forms of mediæval comic +literature largely developed as we go on.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut025.jpg" width="400" height="467" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 25. Saturn Devouring his Child.</div> +</div> + +<p>The period between antiquity and the middle ages was one of such great +and general destruction, that the gulf between ancient and mediæval art +seems to us greater and more abrupt than it really was. The want of +monuments, no doubt, prevents our seeing the gradual change of one into +the other, but nevertheless enough of facts remain to convince us that +it was not a sudden change. It is now indeed generally understood that +the knowledge and practice of the arts and manufactures of the Romans +were handed onward from master to pupil after the empire had fallen; +and this took place especially in the towns, so that the workman<a class="pagenum" id="Page_48" title="48"></a>ship +which had been declining in character during the later periods of the +empire, only continued in the course of degradation afterwards. Thus, +in the first Christian edifices, the builders who were employed, or at +least many of them, must have been pagans, and they would follow their +old models of ornamentation, introducing the same grotesque figures, +the same masks and monstrous faces, and even sometimes the same +subjects from the old mythology, to which they had been accustomed. It +is to be observed, too, that this kind of iconographical ornamentation +had been encroaching more and more upon the old architectural purity +during the latter ages of the empire, and that it was employed more +profusely in the later works, from which this taste was transferred +to the<a class="pagenum" id="Page_49" title="49"></a> ecclesiastical and to the domestic architecture of the middle +ages. After the workmen themselves had become Christians, they still +found pagan emblems and figures in their models, and still went on +imitating them, sometimes merely copying, and at others turning them +to caricature or burlesque. And this tendency continued so long, that, +at a much later date, where there still existed remains of Roman +buildings, the mediæval architects adopted them as models, and did not +hesitate to copy the sculpture, although it might be evidently pagan in +character. The accompanying cut (No. 25) represents a bracket in the +church of Mont Majour, near Nismes, built in the tenth century. The +subject is a monstrous head eating a child, and we can hardly doubt +that it was really intended for a caricature on Saturn devouring one of +his children.</p> + +<p>Sometimes the mediæval sculptors mistook the emblematical designs +of the Romans, and misapplied them, and gave an allegorical meaning +to that which was not intended to be emblematical or allegorical, +until the subjects themselves became extremely confused. They readily +employed that class of parody of the ancients in which animals were +represented performing the actions of men, and they had a great taste +for monsters of every description, especially those which were made up +of portions of incongruous animals joined together, in contradiction to +the precept of Horace:—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container" lang="la" xml:lang="la"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">Humano capiti cervicem pictor equinam</div> + <div class="line">Jungere si velit, et varias inducere plumas,</div> + <div class="line">Undique collatis membris, ut turpiter atrum</div> + <div class="line">Desinet in piscem mulier formosa superne;</div> + <div class="line">Spectatum admissi risum teneatis, amici?</div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <a class="pagenum" id="Page_50" title="50"></a> + <img src="images/cut026.jpg" width="450" height="601" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 26. Sculpture from San Fedele, at Como.</div> +</div> + +<p>The mediæval architects loved such representations, always and in all +parts, and examples are abundant. At Como, in Italy, there is a very +ancient and remarkable church dedicated to San Fedele (Saint Fidelis); +it has been considered to be of so early a date as the fifth century. +The sculptures that adorn the doorway, which is triangular-headed, are +especially interesting. On one of these, represented in our cut No. 26, +in a compartment to the left, appears a figure of an angel, holding in +one hand a dwarf figure, probably intended for a child, by a lock of +his hair,<a class="pagenum" id="Page_51" title="51"></a> and with the other hand directing his attention to a seated +figure in the compartment below. This latter figure has apparently the +head of a sheep, and as the head is surrounded with a large nimbus, +and the right hand is held out in the attitude of benediction, it +may be intended to represent the Lamb. This personage is seated on +something which is difficult to make out, but which looks somewhat +like a crab-fish. The boy in the compartment above carries a large +basin in his arms. The adjoining compartment to the right contains the +representation of a conflict between a dragon, a winged serpent, and a +winged fox. On the opposite side of the door, two winged monsters are +represented devouring a lamb’s head. I owe the drawing from which this +and the preceding engraving were made to my friend Mr. John Robinson, +the architect, who made the sketches while travelling with the medal +of the Royal Academy. Figures of dragons, as ornaments, were great +favourites with the peoples of the Teutonic race; they were creatures +intimately wrapped up in their national mythology and romance, and they +are found on all their artistic monuments mingled together in grotesque +forms and groups. When the Anglo-Saxons began to ornament their books, +the dragon was continually introduced for ornamental borders and +in forming initial letters. One of the latter, from an Anglo-Saxon +manuscript of the tenth century (the well-known manuscript of Cædmon, +where it is given as an initial V), is represented in our cut on the +next page, No. 27.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut027.jpg" width="350" height="411" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 27. Anglo-Saxon Dragons.</div> +</div> + +<p>Caricature and burlesque are naturally intended to be heard and seen +publicly, and would therefore be figured on such monuments as were most +exposed to popular gaze. Such was the case, in the earlier periods of +the middle ages, chiefly with ecclesiastical buildings, which explains +how they became the grand receptacles of this class of Art. We have few +traces of what may be termed comic literature among our Anglo-Saxon +forefathers, but this is fully explained by the circumstance that very +little of the popular Anglo-Saxon literature has been preserved. In +their festive hours the Anglo-Saxons seem to have especially amused +themselves in boasting of what they had done, and what they could do; +and these boasts were perhaps often of a burlesque character, like the +<em>gabs</em> of the French and Anglo-Norman romancers of a later date, or +so<a class="pagenum" id="Page_52" title="52"></a> extravagant as to produce laughter. The chieftains appear also to +have encouraged men who could make jokes, and satirise and caricature +others; for the company of such men seems to have been cherished, and +they are not unfrequently introduced in the stories. Such a personage, +as I have remarked before, is Hunferth in Beowulf; such was the Sir +Kay of the later Arthurian romances; and such too was the Norman +minstrel in the history of Hereward, who amused the Norman soldiers at +their feasts by mimicry of the manners of their Anglo-Saxon opponents. +The too personal satire of these wits often led to quarrels, which +ended in sanguinary brawls. The Anglo-Saxon love of caricature is +shown largely in their proper names, which were mostly significant of +personal qualities their parents hoped they would possess; and in these +we remark the proneness of the Teutonic race, as well as the peoples +of antiquity, to represent these qualities by the animals supposed to +possess them, the animals most popular being the wolf and the bear. +But it is not to be expected that the hopes of the parents in giving +the name would always be fulfilled, and it is not an uncommon thing +to find individuals losing their original names to receive in their +place nicknames, or names which<a class="pagenum" id="Page_53" title="53"></a> probably expressed qualities they did +possess, and which were given to them by their acquaintances. These +names, though often not very complimentary, and even sometimes very +much the contrary, completely superseded the original name, and were +even accepted by the individuals to whom they applied. The second names +were indeed so generally acknowledged, that they were used in signing +legal documents. An Anglo-Saxon abbess of rank, whose real name was +Hrodwaru, but who was known universally by the name Bugga, the Bug, +wrote this latter name in signing charters. We can hardly doubt that +such a name was intended to ascribe to her qualities of a not agreeable +character, and very different to those implied by the original name, +which perhaps meant, a dweller in heaven. Another lady gained the name +of the Crow. It is well known that surnames did not come into use +till long after the Anglo-Saxon period, but appellatives, like these +nicknames, were often added to the name for the purpose of distinction, +or at pleasure, and these, too, being given by other people, were +frequently satirical. Thus, one Harold, for his swiftness, was called +Hare-foot; a well-known Edith, for the elegant form of her neck, +was called Swan-neck; and a Thurcyl, for a form of his head, which +can hardly have been called beautiful, was named Mare’s-head. Among +many other names, quite as satirical as the last-mentioned, we find +Flat-nose, the Ugly Squint-eye, Hawk-nose, &c.</p> + +<p>Of Anglo-Saxon sculpture we have little left, but we have a few +illuminated manuscripts which present here and there an attempt at +caricature, though they are rare. It would seem, however, that the two +favourite subjects of caricature among the Anglo-Saxons were the clergy +and the evil one. We have abundant evidence that, from the eighth +century downwards, neither the Anglo-Saxon clergy nor the Anglo-Saxon +nuns were generally objects of much respect among the people; and their +character and the manner of their lives sufficiently account for it. +Perhaps, also, it was increased by the hostility between the old clergy +and the new reformers of Dunstan’s party, who would no doubt caricature +each other. A manuscript psalter, in the University Library, Cambridge +(Ff. 1, 23), of the Anglo-Saxon period, and apparently of the<a class="pagenum" id="Page_54" title="54"></a> tenth +century, illustrated with rather grotesque initial letters, furnishes +us with the figure of a jolly Anglo-Saxon monk, given in our cut No. +28, and which it is hardly necessary to state represents the letter Q. +As we proceed, we shall see the clergy continuing to furnish a butt for +the shafts of satire through all the middle ages.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut028.jpg" width="300" height="280" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 28. A Jolly Monk.</div> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut029.jpg" width="500" height="338" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 29. Satan in Bonds.</div> +</div> + +<div class="figleft"> + <img src="images/cut030.jpg" width="200" height="528" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 30. Satan.</div> +</div> + +<p>The inclination to give to the demons (the middle ages always looked +upon them as innumerable) monstrous forms, which easily ran into the +grotesque, was natural, and the painter, indeed, prided himself on +drawing them ugly; but he was no doubt influenced in so generally +caricaturing them, by mixing up this idea with those furnished by the +popular superstitions of the Teutonic race, who believed in multitudes +of spirits, representatives of the ancient satyrs, who were of a +playfully malicious description, and went about plaguing mankind in +a very droll manner, and sometimes appeared to them in equally droll +forms. They were the Pucks and Robin Goodfellows of later times; +but the Christian missionaries to the west taught their converts to +believe, and probably believed themselves, that all these imaginary +beings were real demons, who wandered over the earth for people’s ruin +and destruction. Thus the grotesque imagination of the converted people +was introduced into the Christian system of demonology. It is a part of +the subject to which we shall return in our next chapter; but I will +here introduce two examples of<a class="pagenum" id="Page_55" title="55"></a> the Anglo-Saxon demons. To explain the +first of these, it will be necessary to state that, according to the +mediæval notions, Satan, the arch demon, who had fallen from heaven +for his rebellion against the Almighty, was not a free agent who went +about tempting mankind, but he was himself plunged in the abyss, +where he was held in bonds, and tormented by the demons who peopled +the infernal regions, and also issued thence to seek their prey upon +God’s newest creation, the earth. The history of Satan’s fall, and the +description of his position (No. 29), form the subject of the earlier +part of the Anglo-Saxon poetry ascribed to Cædmon, and it is one of +the illuminations to the manuscript of Cædmon (which is now preserved +at Oxford), which has furnished us with our cut, representing Satan +in his bonds. The fiend is here pictured bound to stakes, over what +appears to be a gridiron, while one of the demons, rising out of a +fiery furnace, and holding in his hand an instrument of punishment, +seems to be exulting over him, and at the same time urging on the troop +of grotesque imps who are swarming round and tormenting their victim. +The next cut, No. 30, is also taken from an Anglo-Saxon<a class="pagenum" id="Page_56" title="56"></a> manuscript, +preserved in the British Museum (MS. Cotton., Tiberius, C. vi.), which +belongs to the earlier half of the eleventh century, and contains a +copy of the psalter. It gives us the Anglo-Saxon notion of the demon +under another form, equally characteristic, wearing only a girdle +of flames, but in this case the especial singularity of the design +consists in the eyes in the fiend’s wings.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut031.jpg" width="400" height="295" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 31. The Temptation.</div> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut032.jpg" width="350" height="446" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 32. David and the Lion.</div> +</div> + +<p>Another circumstance had no doubt an influence on the mediæval taste +for grotesque and caricature—the natural rudeness of early mediæval +art. The writers of antiquity tell us of a remote period of Grecian +art when it was necessary to write under each figure of a picture the +name of what it was intended to represent, in order to make the whole +intelligible—“this is a horse,” “this is a man,” “this is a tree.” +Without being quite so rude as this, the early mediæval artists, +through ignorance of perspective, want of knowledge of proportion, and +of skill in drawing, found great difficulty in representing a scene in +which there was more than one figure, and in which it was necessary +to distinguish them from each other; and they were continually trying +to help themselves by adopting conventional forms or conventional +positions, and by sometimes adding symbols that did not exactly +represent what they meant. The exaggeration in form consisted chiefly +in giving an undue prominence to some characteristic feature, which +answered the same purpose as the Anglo-Saxon nickname and distinctive +name, and which is, in fact, one of the first principles of all +caricature. Conventional positions partook much of the character of +conventional forms, but gave still greater room for grotesque. Thus +the very first characteristics of mediæval art implied the existence +of caricature, and no doubt led to the taste for the grotesque. The +effect of this<a class="pagenum" id="Page_57" title="57"></a> influence is apparent everywhere, and in innumerable +cases serious pictures of the gravest and most important subjects are +simply and absolutely caricatures. Anglo-Saxon art ran much into this +style, and is often very grotesque in character. The first example we +give (cut No. 31) is taken from one of the illustrations to Alfric’s +Anglo-Saxon version of the Pentateuch, in the profusely illuminated +manuscript in the British Museum (MS. Cotton., Claudius B iv.), which +was written at the end of the tenth, or beginning of the eleventh, +century. It represents the temptation and fall of man; and the subject +is treated, as will be seen, in a rather grotesque manner. Eve is +evidently dictating to her husband, who, in obeying her, shows a +mixture of eagerness and trepidation. Adam is no less evidently going +to swallow the apple whole, which is, perhaps, in accordance with the +mediæval legend, according to which the fruit stuck in his throat. It +is hardly necessary to remark that the tree is entirely a conventional +one; and it would be difficult to imagine how it came to bear apples at +all. The mediæval artists were extremely unskilful in drawing trees; +to these they usually gave the forms of cabbages, or some such plants, +of which the form was simple, or often of a mere bunch of leaves. Our +next example (cut No. 32) is also<a class="pagenum" id="Page_58" title="58"></a> Anglo-Saxon, and is furnished by +the manuscript in the British Museum already mentioned (MS. Cotton., +Tiberius C vi.) It probably represents young David killing the lion, +and is remarkable not only for the strange posture and bad proportions +of the man, but for the tranquillity of the animal and the exaggerated +and violent action of its slayer. This is very commonly the case in the +mediæval drawings and sculptures, the artists apparently possessing +far less skill in representing action in an animal than in man, and +therefore more rarely attempting it. These illustrations are both taken +from illuminated manuscripts. The two which follow are furnished by +sculptures, and are of a rather later date than the preceding. The +abbey of St. George of Boscherville, in the diocese of Auxerre (in +Normandy), was founded by Ralph de Tancarville, one of the ministers of +William the Conqueror, and therefore in the latter half of the eleventh +century. A history of this religious house was published by a clever +local antiquary—M. Achille Deville—from whose work we take our cut +No. 33,<a class="pagenum" id="Page_59" title="59"></a> one of a few rude sculptures on the abbey church, which no +doubt belonged to the original fabric. It is not difficult to recognise +the subject as Joseph taking the Virgin Mary with her Child into +Egypt; but there is something exceedingly droll in the unintentional +caricature of the faces, as well as in the whole design. The Virgin +Mary appears without a nimbus, while the nimbus of the Infant Jesus +is made to look very like a bonnet. It may be remarked that this +subject of the flight into Egypt is by no means an uncommon one in +mediæval art; and a drawing of the same subject, copied in my “History +of Domestic Manners and Sentiments” (p. 115), presents a remarkable +illustration of the contrast of the skill of a Norman sculptor and of +an almost contemporary Anglo-Norman illuminator. Our cut also furnishes +us with evidence of the error of the old opinion that ladies rode +astride in the middle ages. Even one, who by his style of art must have +been an obscure local carver on stone, when he represented a female on +horseback, placed her in the position which has always been considered +suitable to the sex.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut033.jpg" width="400" height="346" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 33. The flight into Egypt.</div> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut034.jpg" width="500" height="272" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 34. David and Goliah.</div> +</div> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="Page_60" title="60"></a>For the drawing of the other sculpture to which I allude, I am indebted +to Mr. Robinson. It is one of the subjects carved on the façade of +the church of St. Gilles, near Nismes, and is a work of the twelfth +century. It appears to represent the young David slaying the giant +Goliah, the latter fully armed in scale armour, and with shield and +spear, like a Norman knight; while to David the artist has given a +figure which is feminine in its forms. What we might take at first +sight for a basket of apples, appears to be meant for a supply of +stones for the sling which the young hero carries suspended from his +neck. He has slain the giant with one of these, and is cutting off his +head with his own sword.</p> + + + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<h2><a class="pagenum" id="Page_61" title="61"></a>CHAPTER IV.</h2> + +<p class="subtitle"> + THE DIABOLICAL IN CARICATURE.—MEDIÆVAL LOVE OF THE + LUDICROUS.—CAUSES WHICH MADE IT INFLUENCE THE NOTIONS + OF DEMONS.—STORIES OF THE PIOUS PAINTER AND THE ERRING + MONK.—DARKNESS AND UGLINESS CARICATURED.—THE DEMONS IN THE + MIRACLE PLAYS.—THE DEMON OF NOTRE DAME.</p> + + +<p>As I have already stated in the last chapter, there can be no doubt +that the whole system of the demonology of the middle ages was +derived from the older pagan mythology. The demons of the monkish +legends were simply the elves and hobgoblins of our forefathers, who +haunted woods, and fields, and waters, and delighted in misleading +or plaguing mankind, though their mischief was usually of a rather +mirthful character. They were represented in classical mythology by +the fauns and satyrs who had, as we have seen, much to do with the +birth of comic literature among the Greeks and Romans; but these +Teutonic elves were more ubiquitous than the satyrs, as they even +haunted men’s houses, and played tricks, not only of a mischievous, +but of a very familiar character. The Christian clergy did not look +upon the personages of the popular superstitions as fabulous beings, +but they taught that they were all diabolical, and that they were +so many agents of the evil one, constantly employed in enticing and +entrapping mankind. Hence, in the mediæval legends, we frequently find +demons presenting themselves under ludicrous forms or in ludicrous +situations; or performing acts, such as eating and drinking, which are +not in accordance with their real character; or at times even letting +themselves be outwitted or entrapped by mortals in a very undignified +manner. Although they assumed any form they pleased, their natural form +was remarkable chiefly for being extremely ugly; one of them, which +appeared in a wild wood, is described by Giraldus Cambrensis, who wrote +at the end of the twelfth century, as being hairy,<a class="pagenum" id="Page_62" title="62"></a> shaggy, and rough, +and monstrously deformed.<a id="FNanchor_24" href="#Footnote_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> According to a mediæval story, which +was told in different forms, a great man’s cellar was once haunted by +these demons, who drank all his wine, while the owner was totally at a +loss to account for its rapid disappearance. After many unsuccessful +attempts to discover the depredators, some one, probably suspecting +the truth, suggested that he should mark one of the barrels with holy +water, and next morning a demon, much resembling the description given +by Giraldus, was found stuck fast to the barrel. It is told also of +Edward the Confessor, that he once went to see the tribute called +the Danegeld, and it was shown to him all packed up in great barrels +ready to be sent away—for this appears to have been the usual mode +of transporting large quantities of money. The saintly king had the +faculty of being able to see spiritual beings—a sort of spiritual +second-<a class="pagenum" id="Page_63" title="63"></a>sight—and he beheld seated on the largest barrel, a devil, who +was “black and hideous.”</p> + +<div class="poetry-container" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">Vit un déable saer desus</div> + <div class="line">Le tresor, noir et hidus.—<span class="normal">Life of S. Edward, l. 944.</span></div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>An early illuminator, in a manuscript preserved in the library of +Trinity College, Cambridge (MS. Trin. Col., B x. 2), has left us a +pictorial representation of this scene, from which I copy his notion +of the form of the demon in cut No. 35. The general idea is evidently +taken from the figure of the goat, and the relationship between the +demon and the classical satyr is very evident.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut035.jpg" width="350" height="404" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 35. The Demon of the Treasure.</div> +</div> + +<p>Ugliness was an essential characteristic of the demons, and, moreover, +their features have usually a mirthful cast, as though they greatly +enjoyed their occupation. There is a mediæval story of a young +monk, who was sacristan to an abbey, and had the directions of the +building and ornamentation. The carvers of stone were making admirable +representations of hell and paradise, in the former of which the demons +“seemed to take great delight in well tormenting their victims”—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">Qui par semblant se delitoit</div> + <div class="line">En ce que bien les tormentoit.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>The sacristan, who watched the sculptors every day, was at last moved +by pious zeal to try and imitate them, and he set to work to make a +devil himself, with such success, that his fiend was so black and ugly +that nobody could look at it without terror.</p> + +<div class="poetry-container" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">Tant qu’un déable à fere emprist;</div> + <div class="line">Si i mist sa poine et sa cure,</div> + <div class="line">Que la forme fu si oscure</div> + <div class="line">Et si laide, que cil doutast</div> + <div class="line">Que entre deus oilz l’esgardast.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>The sacristan, encouraged by his success—for it must be understood +that his art was a sudden inspiration (as he had not been an artist +before)—continued his work till it was completed, and then “it was so +horrible and so ugly, that all who saw it affirmed upon their oaths +that they had<a class="pagenum" id="Page_64" title="64"></a> never seen so ugly a figure either in sculpture or in +painting, or one which had so repulsive an appearance, or a devil which +was a better likeness than the one this monk had made for them”—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">Si horribles fu et si lez,</div> + <div class="line">Que trestouz cels que le véoient</div> + <div class="line">Seur leur serement afermoient</div> + <div class="line">C’onques mès si laide figure,</div> + <div class="line">Ne en taille ne en peinture,</div> + <div class="line">N’avoient à nul jor véue,</div> + <div class="line">Qui si éust laide véue,</div> + <div class="line">Ne déable miex contrefet</div> + <div class="line">Que cil moines leur avoit fet.</div> + <div class="attribution">—Meon’s Fabliaux, tom. ii. p. 414.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>The demon himself now took offence at the affront which had been +put upon him, and appearing the night following to the sacristan, +reproached him with having made him so ugly, and enjoined him to break +the sculpture, and execute another representing him better looking, on +pain of very severe punishment; but, although this visit was repeated +thrice, the pious monk refused to comply. The evil one now began to +work in another way, and, by his cunning, he drew the sacristan into a +disgraceful amour with a lady of the neighbourhood, and they plotted +not only to elope together by night, but to rob the monastery of its +treasure, which was of course in the keeping of the sacristan. They +were discovered, and caught in their flight, laden with the treasure, +and the unfaithful sacristan was thrown into prison. The fiend now +appeared to him, and promised to clear him out of all his trouble on +the mere condition that he should break his ugly statue, and make +another representing him as looking handsome—a bargain to which the +sacristan acceded without further hesitation. It would thus appear that +the demons did not like to be represented ugly. In this case, the fiend +immediately took the form and place of the sacristan, while the latter +went to his bed as if nothing had happened. When the other monks found +him there next morning, and heard him disclaim all knowledge of the +robbery or of the prison, they hurried to the latter place, and found +the devil in chains, who, when they attempted to exorcise him, behaved +in a very turbulent manner, and<a class="pagenum" id="Page_65" title="65"></a> disappeared from their sight. The +monks believed that it was all a deception of the evil one, while the +sacristan, who was not inclined to brave his displeasure a second time, +performed faithfully his part of the contract, and made a devil who +did not look ugly. In another version of the story, however, it ends +differently. After the third warning, the monk went in defiance of the +devil, and made his picture uglier than ever; in revenge for which the +demon came unexpectedly and broke the ladder on which he was mounted +at his work, whereby the monk would undoubtedly have been killed. But +the Virgin, to whom he was much devoted, came to his assistance, and, +seizing him with her hand, and holding him in the air, disappointed +the devil of his purpose. It is this latter <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">dénouement</em> which is +represented in the cut No. 36, taken from the celebrated manuscript in +the British Museum known as “Queen Mary’s Psalter” (MS. Reg. 2 B vii.). +The two demons employed here present, well defined, the air of mirthful +jollity which was evidently derived from the popular hobgoblins.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut036.jpg" width="350" height="426" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 36. The Pious Sculptor.</div> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut037.jpg" width="350" height="256" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 37. The Monk’s Disaster.</div> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut038.jpg" width="400" height="336" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 38. The Demons Disappointed.</div> +</div> + +<p>There was another popular story, which also was told under several<a class="pagenum" id="Page_66" title="66"></a> +forms. The old Norman historians tell it of their duke Richard +Sans-Peur. There was a monk of the abbey of St. Ouen, who also held +the office of sacristan, but, neglecting the duties of his position, +entered into an intrigue with a lady who dwelt in the neighbourhood, +and was accustomed at night to leave the abbey secretly, and repair +to her. His place as sacristan enabled him thus to leave the house +unknown to the other brethren. On his way, he had to pass the little +river Robec, by means of a plank or wooden bridge, and one night +the demons, who had been watching him on his errand of sin, caught +him on the bridge, and threw him over into the water, where he was +drowned. One devil seized his soul, and would have carried it away, +but an angel came to claim him on account of his good actions, and +the dispute ran so high, that duke Richard, whose piety was as great +as his courage, was called in to decide it. The same manuscript from +which our last cut was taken has furnished our cut No. 37, which +represents two demons tripping up the monk, and throwing him very +unceremoniously into the river. The body of one of the demons here +assumes the form of an animal, instead of taking, like the other, that +of a man, and he is, moreover, furnished with a dragon’s wings. There +was one version of this story, in which it found its place among the +legends of the Virgin Mary, instead of those of duke Richard. The +monk, in spite of his failings, had been a constant<a class="pagenum" id="Page_67" title="67"></a> worshipper of the +Virgin, and, as he was falling from the bridge into the river, she +stepped forward to protect him from his persecutors, and taking hold +of him with her hand, saved him from death. One of the compartments +of the rather early wall-paintings in Winchester Cathedral represents +the scene according to this version of the story, and is copied in +our cut No. 38. The fiends here take more fantastic shapes than we +have previously seen given to them. They remind us already of the +infinitely varied grotesque forms which the painters of the age of the +Renaissance crowded together in such subjects as “The Temptation of +St. Anthony.” In fact these strange notions of the forms of the demons +were not only preserved through the whole period of the middle ages, +but are still hardly extinct. They appear in almost exaggerated forms +in the illustrations to books of a popular religious character which +appeared in the first ages of printing. I may quote, as an example, one +of the cuts of an early and very rare block-book, entitled the <cite lang="la" xml:lang="la">Ars +Moriendi</cite>, or “Art of Dying,” or, in a second title, <cite lang="la" xml:lang="la">De Tentationibus +Morientium</cite>, on the temptations to which dying men are exposed. The +scene, of which a part is given in<a class="pagenum" id="Page_68" title="68"></a> the annexed cut (No. 39), is in the +room of the dying man, whose bed is surrounded by three demons, who +are come to tempt him, while his relatives of both sexes are looking +on quite unconscious of their presence. The figures of these demons +are particularly grotesque, and their ugly features betray a degree of +vulgar cunning which adds not a little to this effect. The one leaning +over the dying man suggests to him the words expressed in the label +issuing from his mouth, <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">Provideas amicis</em>, “provide for your friends;” +while the one whose head appears to the left whispers to him, <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">Yntende +thesauro</em>, “think of your treasure.” The dying man seems grievously +perplexed with the various thoughts thus suggested to him.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut039.jpg" width="400" height="379" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 39. A Mediæval Death-bed.</div> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut040.jpg" width="500" height="312" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 40. Condemned Souls carried to their Place of +Punishment.</div> +</div> + +<p>Why did the mediæval Christians think it necessary to make the devils +black and ugly? The first reply to this question which presents itself +is, that the characteristics intended to be represented were the +blackness and ugliness of sin. This, however, is only partially the +explanation of the fact; for there can be no doubt that the notion +was a popular one, and that it had previously existed in the popular +mythology; and, as has been already remarked, the ugliness exhibited +by them is a vulgar, mirthful ugliness, which makes you laugh instead +of shudder. Another scene,<a class="pagenum" id="Page_69" title="69"></a> from the interesting drawings at the foot +of the pages in “Queen Mary’s Psalter,” is given in our cut No. 40. It +represents that most popular of mediæval pictures, and, at the same +time, most remarkable of literal interpretations, hell mouth. The +entrance to the infernal regions was always represented pictorially +as the mouth of a monstrous animal, where the demons appeared leaving +and returning. Here they are seen bringing the sinful souls to their +last destination, and it cannot be denied that they are doing the work +right merrily and jovially. In our cut No. 41, from the manuscript in +the library of Trinity College, Cambridge, which furnished a former +subject, three demons, who appear to be the guardians of the entrance +to the regions below—for it is upon the brow above the monstrous mouth +that they are standing—present varieties of the diabolical form. The +one in the middle is the most remarkable, for he has wings not only +on his shoulders, but also on his knees and heels. All three have +horns; in fact, the three special characteristics of mediæval demons +were horns, hoofs—or, at least, the feet of beasts,—and tails, which +sufficiently indicate the source from which the popular notions of +these beings were derived. In the cathedral of Treves, there is a mural +painting by William of Cologne, a painter of the fifteenth century, +which<a class="pagenum" id="Page_70" title="70"></a> represents the entrance to the shades, the monstrous mouth, with +its keepers, in still more grotesque forms. Our cut No. 42 gives but a +small portion of this picture, in which the porter of the regions of +punishment is sitting astride the snout of the monstrous mouth, and +is sounding with a trumpet what may be supposed to be the call for +those who are condemned. Another minstrel of the same stamp, spurred, +though not booted, sits astride the tube of the trumpet, playing on +the bagpipes; and the sound which issues from the former instrument is +represented by a host of smaller imps who are scattering themselves +about.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut041.jpg" width="500" height="391" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 41. The Guardians of Hell Mouth.</div> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut042.jpg" width="400" height="335" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 42. The Trumpeter of Evil.</div> +</div> + +<p>It must not be supposed that, in subjects like these, the drollery +of the scene was accidental; but, on the contrary, the mediæval +artists and popular writers gave them this character purposely. The +demons and the executioners—the latter of whom were called +in Latin <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">tortores</em>, and in popular old English phraseology the +“tormentours”—were the comic characters of the time, and the +scenes in the old mysteries or religious plays in which they were +introduced were the comic scenes, or farce, of<a class="pagenum" +id="Page_71" title="71"></a> the piece. The love of burlesque and +caricature was, indeed, so deeply planted in the popular mind, that it +was found necessary to introduce them even in pious works, in which +such scenes as the slaughter of the innocents, where the “knights” and +the women abused each other in vulgar language, the treatment of Christ +at the time of His trial, some parts of the scene of the crucifixion, +and the day of judgment, were essentially comic. The last of these +subjects, especially, was a scene of mirth, because it often consisted +throughout of a coarse satire on the vices of the age, especially on +those which were most obnoxious to the populace, such as the pride and +vanity of the higher ranks, and the extortions and frauds of usurers, +bakers, taverners, and others. In the play of “Juditium,” or the day +of doom, in the “Towneley Mysteries,” one of the earliest collections +of mysteries in the English language, the whole conversation among the +demons is exactly of that joking kind which we might expect from their +countenances in the pictures. When one of them appears carrying a bag +full of different offences, another, his companion, is so joyful at +this circumstance, that he says it makes him laugh till he is out<a +class="pagenum" id="Page_72" title="72"></a> of breath, or, in other +words, till he is ready to burst; and, while asking if anger be not +among the sins he had collected, proposes to treat him with something +to drink—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line indent1"><span class="normal">Primus dæmon.</span> Peasze, I pray the, be stille; I laghe that I kynke.</div> + <div class="line">Is oghte ire in thi bille? and then salle thou drynke.</div> + <div class="attribution">—Towneley Mysteries, p. 309.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>And in the continuation of the conversation, one telling of the events +which had preceded the announcement of Doomsday says, rather jeeringly, +and somewhat exultingly, “Souls came so thick now of late to hell, that +our porter at hell gate is ever held so close at work, up early and +down late, that he never rests”—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">Saules cam so thyk now late unto helle,</div> + <div class="line indent5">As ever</div> + <div class="line">Oure porter at helle gate</div> + <div class="line">Is halden so strate,</div> + <div class="line">Up erly and downe late,</div> + <div class="line indent5">He rystys never.—<span class="normal">Ib., p. 314.</span></div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>With such popular notions on the subject, we have no reason to be +surprised that the artists of the middle ages frequently chose the +figures of demons as objects on which to exercise their skill in +burlesque and caricature, that they often introduced grotesque figures +of their heads and bodies in the sculptured ornamentation of building, +and that they presented them in ludicrous situations and attitudes in +their pictures. They are often brought in as secondary actors in a +picture in a very singular manner, of which an excellent example is +furnished by the beautifully illuminated manuscript known as “Queen +Mary’s Psalter,” which is copied in our cut No. 43. Nothing is more +certain than that in this instance the intention of the artist was +perfectly serious. Eve, under the influence of a rather singularly +formed serpent, having the head of a beautiful woman and the body of +a dragon, is plucking the apples and offering them to Adam, who is +preparing to eat one, with evident hesitation and reluctance. But three +demons, downright hobgoblins, appear as secondary actors in the scene, +who exercise an influence upon the principals. One is patting Eve +on<a class="pagenum" id="Page_73" title="73"></a> the shoulder, with an air of approval and encouragement, while a +second, with wings, is urging on Adam, and apparently laughing at his +apprehensions; and a third, in a very ludicrous manner, is preventing +him from drawing back from the trial.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut043.jpg" width="500" height="328" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 43. The Fall of Man.</div> +</div> + +<p>In all the delineations of demons we have yet seen, the ludicrous is +the spirit which chiefly predominates, and in no one instance have +we had a figure which is really demoniacal. The devils are droll but +not frightful; they provoke laughter, or at least excite a smile, +but they create no horror. Indeed, they torment their victims so +good-humouredly, that we hardly feel for them. There is, however, one +well-known instance in which the mediæval artist has shown himself +fully successful in representing the features of the spirit of evil. On +the parapet of the external gallery of the cathedral church of Notre +Dame in Paris, there is a figure in stone, of the ordinary stature of +a man, representing the demon, apparently looking with satisfaction +upon the inhabitants of the city as they were everywhere indulging in +sin and wickedness. We give a sketch of this figure in our cut No. 44. +The unmixed evil—horrible in<a class="pagenum" id="Page_74" title="74"></a> its expression in this countenance—is +marvellously portrayed. It is an absolute Mephistophiles, carrying in +his features a strange mixture of hateful qualities—malice, pride, +envy—in fact, all the deadly sins combined in one diabolical whole.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut044.jpg" width="300" height="376" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 44. The Spirit of Evil.</div> +</div> + + + +<hr class="chap" /> +<h2><a class="pagenum" id="Page_75" title="75"></a>CHAPTER V.</h2> + +<p class="subtitle"> + EMPLOYMENT OF ANIMALS IN MEDIÆVAL SATIRE.—POPULARITY OF FABLES; + ODO DE CIRINGTON.—REYNARD THE FOX.—BURNELLUS AND FAUVEL.—THE + CHARIVARI.—LE MONDE BESTORNÉ.—ENCAUSTIC TILES.—SHOEING THE + GOOSE, AND FEEDING PIGS WITH ROSES.—SATIRICAL SIGNS; THE MUSTARD + MAKER.</p> + + +<p>The people of the middle ages appear to have been great admirers +of animals, to have observed closely their various characters and +peculiarities, and to have been fond of domesticating them. They +soon began to employ their peculiarities as means of satirising and +caricaturing mankind; and among the literature bequeathed to them by +the Romans, they received no book more eagerly than the “Fables of +Æsop,” and the other collections of fables which were published under +the empire. We find no traces of fables among the original literature +of the German race; but the tribes who took possession of the Roman +provinces no sooner became acquainted with the fables of the ancients, +than they began to imitate them, and stories in which animals acted +the part of men were multiplied immensely, and became a very important +branch of mediæval fiction.</p> + +<p>Among the Teutonic peoples especially, these fables often assumed very +grotesque forms, and the satire they convey is very amusing. One of the +earliest of these collections of original fables was composed by an +English ecclesiastic named Odo de Cirington, who lived in the time of +Henry II. and Richard I. In Odo’s fables, we find the animals figuring +under the same popular names by which they were afterwards so well +known, such as Reynard for the Fox, Isengrin for the wolf, Teburg for +the cat, and the like. Thus the subject of one of them is “Isengrin +made Monk” (<em lang="la" xml:lang="la">de Isengrino monacho</em>). “Once,” we are told, “Isengrin +desired to be a monk. By dint of fervent supplications, he obtained +the consent of the<a class="pagenum" id="Page_76" title="76"></a> chapter, and received the tonsure, the cowl, and +the other insignia of monachism. At length they put him to school, +and he was to learn the ‘Paternoster,’ but he always replied, ‘lamb’ +(<em lang="la" xml:lang="la">agnus</em>) or ‘ram’ (<em lang="la" xml:lang="la">aries</em>). The monks taught him that he ought to +look upon the crucifix and upon the sacrament, but he ever directed his +eyes to the lambs and rams.” The fable is droll enough, but the moral, +or application is still more grotesque. “Such is the conduct of many +of the monks, whose only cry is ‘aries,’ that is, good wine, and who +have their eyes always fixed on fat flesh and their platter;” whence the +saying in English—</p> + +<div class="column-container-italic"> + <div class="column col50"> + <div class="line">They thou the vulf hore</div> + <div class="line">hod to preste,</div> + <div class="line">they thou him to skole sette</div> + <div class="line">salmes to lerne,</div> + <div class="line">hevere bet hise geres</div> + <div class="line">to the grove grene</div> + </div> + <div class="column col50"> + <div class="line">Though thou the hoary wolf</div> + <div class="line">consecrate to a priest,</div> + <div class="line">though thou put him to school</div> + <div class="line">to learn Psalms,</div> + <div class="line">ever are his ears turned</div> + <div class="line">to the green grove.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class="figleft"> + <img src="images/cut045.jpg" width="250" height="409" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 45. The Fox in the Pulpit.</div> +</div> + +<p>These lines are in the alliterative verse of the Anglo-Saxons, and +show that such fables had already found their place in the popular +poetry of the English people. Another of these fables is entitled “Of +the Beetle (<em>serabo</em>) and his Wife.” “A beetle, flying through the +land, passed among most beautiful blooming trees, through orchards +and among roses and lilies, in the most lovely places, and at length +threw himself upon a dunghill among the dung of horses, and found there +his wife, who asked him whence he came. And the beetle said, ‘I have +flown all round the earth and through it; I have seen the flowers of +almonds, and lilies, and roses, but I have seen no place so pleasant as +this,’ pointing to the dunghill.” The application is equally droll with +the former and equally uncomplimentary to the religious part of the +community. Odo de Cirington tells us that, “Thus many of the clergy, +monks, and laymen listen to the lives of the fathers, pass among the +lilies of the virgins, among the roses of the martyrs, and among the +violets of the confessors, yet nothing ever appears so pleasant and +agreeable as a strumpet, or the tavern, or a singing party, though it +is but a stinking dunghill and congregation of sinners.”</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut046.jpg" width="500" height="230" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 46. Ecclesiastical Sincerity.</div> +</div> + +<div class="figright"> + <img src="images/cut047.jpg" width="200" height="300" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 47. Reynard turned Monk.</div> +</div> + +<p>Popular sculpture and painting were but the translation of popular +literature, and nothing was more common to represent, in pictures +and<a class="pagenum" id="Page_77" title="77"></a> carvings, than individual men under the forms of the animals +who displayed similar characters or similar propensities. Cunning, +treachery, and intrigue were the prevailing vices of the middle ages, +and they were those also of the fox, who hence became a favourite +character in satire. The victory of craft over force always provoked +mirth. The fabulists, or, we should perhaps rather say, the satirists, +soon began to extend their canvas and enlarge their picture, and, +instead of single examples of fraud or injustice, they introduced +a variety of characters, not only foxes, but wolves, and sheep, +and bears, with birds also, as the eagle, the cock, and the crow, +and mixed them up together in long narratives, which thus formed +general satires on the vices of contemporary society. In this manner +originated the celebrated romance of “Reynard the Fox,” which in +various forms, from the twelfth century to the eighteenth, has enjoyed +a popularity which was granted probably to no other book. The plot of +this remarkable satire turns chiefly on the long struggle between the +brute force of Isengrin the Wolf, possessed only with a small amount +of intelligence, which is easily deceived—under which character is +presented the powerful feudal baron—and the craftiness of Reynard +the Fox, who represents the intelligent portion of society, which had +to hold its ground by its wits, and these were continually abused to +evil purposes. Reynard is swayed by a constant impulse to deceive +and victimise everybody, whether friends or enemies, but especially +his uncle Isengrin. It was somewhat the relationship between the +ecclesiastical and baronial aristocracy. Reynard was educated in the +schools, and intended for the clerical order; and at different times +he is represented as acting under the disguise of a priest, of a monk, +of a pilgrim, or even of a prelate of the church. Though frequently +reduced to the greatest straits by the power of Isengrin, Reynard +has generally the better of it in the end: he robs and defrauds +Isengrin continually, outrages his wife, who is half in alliance +with him, and draws him into all sorts of dangers and sufferings, +for which the latter never succeeds in obtaining justice. The old +sculptors and artists appear to have preferred exhibiting Reynard in +his ecclesiastical disguises, and in these he appears often in the +ornamentation of mediæval architectural sculpture, in wood-carvings, +in<a class="pagenum" id="Page_78" title="78"></a> the illuminations of manuscripts, and in other objects of art. The +popular feeling against the clergy was strong in the middle ages, and +no caricature was received with more favour than those which exposed +the immorality or dishonesty of a monk or a priest. Our cut No. 45 is +taken from a sculpture in the church of Christchurch, in Hampshire, for +the drawing of which I am indebted to my friend, Mr. Llewellynn Jewitt. +It represents Reynard in the pulpit preaching; behind, or rather +perhaps beside him, a diminutive cock stands upon a stool—in modern +times we should be inclined to say he was acting as clerk. Reynard’s +costume consists merely of the ecclesiastical hood or cowl. Such +subjects are frequently found on the carved seats, or misereres, in the +stalls of the old cathedrals and collegiate churches. The painted glass +of the great window of the north cross-aisle of St. Martin’s church in +Leicester, which was destroyed in the last century, represented the +fox, in the character of an ecclesiastic, preaching to a congregation +of geese, and addressing them in the words—<em lang="la" xml:lang="la">Testis est mihi Deus, +quam cupiam vos omnes visceribus meis</em> (God is witness, how I desire +you all in my bowels), a parody on the words of the New Testament.<a id="FNanchor_25" href="#Footnote_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> +Our cut No. 46 is taken from one of the misereres in the church of +St. Mary, at Beverley, in Yorkshire. Two foxes are represented in the +disguise of ecclesiastics, each furnished with a pastoral staff, and +they appear to be receiving instructions from a prelate or personage +of rank—perhaps they are undertaking a pilgrimage of penance. But +their sincerity is rendered somewhat doubtful by the geese concealed +in their<a class="pagenum" id="Page_79" title="79"></a> hoods. In one of the incidents of the romance of Reynard, +the hero enters a monastery and becomes a monk, in order to escape the +wrath of King Noble, the lion. For some time he made an outward show of +sanctity and self-privation, but unknown to his brethren he secretly +helped himself freely to the good things of the monastery. One day he +observed, with longing lips, a messenger who brought four fat capons as +a present from a lay neighbour to the abbot. That night, when all the +monks had retired to rest, Reynard obtained admission to the larder, +regaled himself with one of the capons, and as soon as he had eaten it, +trussed the three others on his back, escaped secretly from the abbey, +and, throwing away his monastic garment, hurried home with his prey. We +might almost imagine our cut No. 47, taken from one of the stalls of +the church of Nantwich, in Cheshire, to have been intended to represent +this incident, or, at least, a similar one. Our next cut, No. 48,<a class="pagenum" id="Page_80" title="80"></a> is +taken from a stall in the church of Boston, in Lincolnshire. A prelate, +equally false, is seated in his chair, with a mitre on his head, and +the pastoral staff in his right hand. His flock are represented by a +cock and hens, the former of which he holds securely with his right +hand, while he appears to be preaching to them.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut048.jpg" width="500" height="247" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 48. The Prelate and his Flock.</div> +</div> + +<p>Another mediæval sculpture has furnished events for a rather curious +history, at the same time that it is a good illustration of our +subject. Odo de Cirington, the fabulist, tells us how, one day, the +wolf died, and the lion called the animals together to celebrate his +exequies. The hare carried the holy water, hedgehogs bore the candles, +the goats rang the bells, the moles dug the grave, the foxes carried +the corpse on the bier. Berengarius, the bear, celebrated mass, the ox +read the gospel, and the ass the epistle. When the mass was concluded, +and Isengrin buried, the animals made a splendid feast out of his +goods, and wished for such another funeral. Our satirical ecclesiastic +makes an application of this story which tells little to the credit +of the monks of his time. “So it frequently happens,” he says, “that +when some rich man, an extortionist or a usurer, dies, the abbot or +prior of a convent of beasts, <em>i.e.</em> of men living like beasts, causes +them to assemble. For it commonly happens that in a great convent of +black or white monks (Benedictines or<a class="pagenum" id="Page_81" title="81"></a> Augustinians) there are none +but beasts—lions by their pride, foxes by their craftiness, bears by +their voracity, stinking goats by their incontinence, asses by their +sluggishness, hedgehogs by their asperity, hares by their timidity, +because they were cowardly where there was no fear, and oxen by their +laborious cultivation of their land.”<a id="FNanchor_26" href="#Footnote_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut049.jpg" width="400" height="236" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 49. The Funeral of the Fox.</div> +</div> + +<p>A scene closely resembling that here described by Odo, differing only +in the distribution of the characters, was translated from some such +written story into the pictorial language of the ancient sculptured +ornamentation of Strasburg Cathedral, where it formed, apparently, +two sides of the capital or entablature of a column near the chancel. +The deceased in this picture appears to be a fox, which was probably +the animal intended to be represented in the original, although, in +the copy of it preserved, it looks more like a squirrel. The bier is +carried by the goat and the boar, while a little dog underneath is +taking liberties with the tail of the latter. Immediately before the +bier, the hare carries the lighted taper, preceded by the wolf, who +carries the cross, and the bear, who holds in one hand the holy-water +vessel and in the other the aspersoir. This forms the first division +of the subject, and is represented in our cut No. 49. In the<a class="pagenum" id="Page_82" title="82"></a> next +division (cut No. 50), the stag is represented celebrating mass, and +the ass reads the Gospel from a book which the cat supports with its +head.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut050.jpg" width="350" height="218" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 50. The Mass for the Fox.</div> +</div> + +<p>This curious sculpture is said to have been of the thirteenth century. +In the fifteenth century it attracted the attention of the reformers, +who looked upon it as an ancient protest against the corruptions of +the mass, and one of the more distinguished of them, John Fischart, +had it copied and engraved on wood, and published it about the year +1580, with some verses of his own, in which it was interpreted as a +satire upon the papacy. This publication gave such dire offence to the +ecclesiastical authorities of Strasburg, that the Lutheran bookseller +who had ventured to publish it, was compelled to make a public apology +in the church, and the wood-engraving and all the impressions were +seized and burnt by the common hangman. A few years later, however, in +1608, another engraving was made, and published in a large folio with +Fischart’s verses; and it is from the diminished copy of this second +edition—given in Flögel’s <span lang="de" xml:lang="de">“Geschichte des Komisches Literatur”</span>—that +our cuts are taken. The original Sculpture was still more unfortunate. +Its publication and explanation by Fischart was the cause of no little +scandal among the Catholics, who tried to retort upon their opponents +by asserting that the figures in this funeral celebration were intended +to represent the ignorance of the Protestant preachers; and the +sculpture in the church continued to be regarded by the ecclesiastical +authorities with dissatisfaction until the year 1685,<a class="pagenum" id="Page_83" title="83"></a> when, to take +away all further ground of scandal, it was entirely defaced.</p> + +<div class="figright"> + <img src="images/cut051.jpg" width="150" height="249" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 51. The Fox Provided.</div> +</div> + +<p>Reynard’s mediæval celebrity dates certainly from a rather early +period. Montflaucon has given an alphabet of ornamental initial +letters, formed chiefly of figures of men and animals, from a +manuscript which he ascribes to the ninth century, among which is the +one copied in our cut No. 51, representing a fox walking upon his hind +legs, and carrying two small cocks, suspended at the ends of a cross +staff. It is hardly necessary to say that this group forms the letter +T. Long before this, the Frankish historian Fredegarius, who wrote +about the middle of the seventh century, introduces a fable in which +the fox figures at the court of the lion. The same fable is repeated +by a monkish writer of Bavaria, named Fromond, who flourished in the +tenth century, and by another named Aimoinus, who lived about the year +1,000. At length, in the twelfth century, Guibert de Nogent, who died +about the year 1124, and who has left us his autobiography (<em lang="la" xml:lang="la">de Vita +sua</em>), relates an anecdote in that work, in explanation of which he +tells us that the wolf was then popularly designated by the name of +Isengrin; and in the fables of Odo, as we have already seen, this name +is commonly given to the wolf, Reynard to the fox, Teburg to the cat, +and so on with the others. This only shows that in the fables of the +twelfth century the various animals were known by these names, but it +does not prove that what we know as the romance of Reynard existed. +Jacob Grimm argued from the derivation and forms of these names, that +the fables themselves, and the romance, originated with the Teutonic +peoples, and were indigenous to them; but his reasons appear to me to +be more specious than conclusive, and I certainly lean to the opinion +of my friend Paulin Paris, that the romance of Reynard was native of +France,<a id="FNanchor_27" href="#Footnote_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a> and that it was partly founded upon old Latin legends<a class="pagenum" id="Page_84" title="84"></a> +perhaps poems. Its character is altogether feudal, and it is strictly +a picture of society, in France primarily, and secondly in England and +the other nations of feudalism, in the twelfth century. The earliest +form in which this romance is known is in the French poem—or rather +poems, for it consists of several branches or continuations—and is +supposed to date from about the middle of the twelfth century. It soon +became so popular, that it appeared in different forms in all the +languages of Western Europe, except in England, where there appears +to have existed no edition of the romance of Reynard the Fox until +Caxton printed his prose English version of the story. From that time +it became, if possible, more popular in England than elsewhere, and +that popularity had hardly diminished down to the commencement of the +present century.</p> + +<p>The popularity of the story of Reynard caused it to be imitated in a +variety of shapes, and this form of satire, in which animals acted +the part of men, became altogether popular. In the latter part of the +twelfth century, an Anglo-Latin poet, named Nigellus Wireker, composed +a very severe satire in elegiac verse, under the title of <cite lang="la" xml:lang="la">Speculum +Stultorum</cite>, the “Mirror of Fools.” It is not a wise animal like the +fox, but a simple animal, the ass, who, under the name of Brunellus, +passes among the various ranks and classes of society, and notes their +crimes and vices. A prose introduction to this poem informs us that its +hero is the representative of the monks in general, who were always +longing for some new acquisition which was inconsistent with their +profession. In fact, Brunellus is absorbed with the notion that his +tail was too short, and his great ambition is to get it lengthened. +For this purpose he consults a physician, who, after representing to +him in vain the folly of his pursuit, gives him a receipt to make +his tail grow longer, and sends him to the celebrated medical school +of Salerno to obtain the ingredients. After various adventures, in +the course of which he loses a part of his tail instead of its being +lengthened, Brunellus proceeds to the University of Paris to study<a class="pagenum" id="Page_85" title="85"></a> and +obtain knowledge; and we are treated with a most amusingly satirical +account of the condition and manners of the scholars of that time. +Soon convinced of his incapacity for learning, Brunellus abandons the +university in despair, and he resolves to enter one of the monastic +orders, the character of all which he passes in review. The greater +part of the poem consists of a very bitter satire on the corruptions of +the monkish orders and of the Church in general. While still hesitating +which order to choose, Brunellus falls into the hands of his old +master, from whom he had run away in order to seek his fortune in the +world, and he is compelled to pass the rest of his days in the same +humble and servile condition in which he had begun them.</p> + +<p>A more direct imitation of “Reynard the Fox” is found in the early +French romance of “Fauvel,” the hero of which is neither a fox nor +an ass, but a horse. People of all ranks and classes repair to the +court of Fauvel, the horse, and furnish abundant matter for satire +on the moral, political, and religious hypocrisy which pervaded the +whole frame of society. At length the hero resolves to marry, and, +in a finely illuminated manuscript of this romance, preserved in the +Imperial Library in Paris, this marriage furnishes the subject of a +picture, which gives the only representation I have met with of one of +the popular burlesque ceremonies which were so common in the middle +ages.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut052.jpg" width="500" height="320" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 52. A Mediæval Charivari.</div> +</div> + +<p>Among other such ceremonies, it was customary with the populace, on the +occasion of a man’s or woman’s second marriage, or an ill-sorted match, +or on the espousals of people who were obnoxious to their neighbours, +to assemble outside the house, and greet them with discordant music. +This custom is said to have been practised especially in France, and +it was called a <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">charivari</em>. There is still a last remnant of it in +our country in the music of marrow-bones and cleavers, with which the +marriages of butchers are popularly celebrated; but the derivation +of the French name appears not to be known. It occurs in old Latin +documents, for it gave rise to such scandalous scenes of riot and +licentiousness, that the Church did all it could, though in vain, to +suppress it. The earliest mention of this custom, furnished in the +<em lang="la" xml:lang="la">Glossarium</em> of Ducange, is contained in the synodal statutes of the +church of Avignon, passed in the<a class="pagenum" id="Page_86" title="86"></a> year 1337, from which we learn that +when such marriages occurred, people forced their way into the houses +of the married couple, and carried away their goods, which they were +obliged to pay a ransom for before they were returned, and the money +thus raised was spent in getting up what is called in the statute +relating to it a <em>Chalvaricum</em>. It appears from this statute, that +the individuals who performed the <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">charivari</em> accompanied the happy +couple to the church, and returned with them to their residence, +with coarse and indecent gestures and discordant music, and uttering +scurrilous and indecent abuse, and that they ended with feasting. +In the statutes of Meaux, in 1365, and in those of Hugh, bishop of +Beziers, in 1368, the same practice is forbidden, under the name of +<em>Charavallium</em>; and it is mentioned in a document of the year 1372, +also quoted by Ducange, under that of <em>Carivarium</em>, as then existing at +Nîmes. Again, in 1445, the Council of Tours made a decree, forbidding, +under pain of excommunication, “the insolences, clamours, sounds, and +other tumults practised at second and third nuptials, called by the +vulgar a<a class="pagenum" id="Page_87" title="87"></a> <em>Charivarium</em>, on account of the many and grave evils arising +out of them.”<a id="FNanchor_28" href="#Footnote_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> It will be observed that these early allusions to +the <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">charivari</em> are found almost solely in documents coming from the +Roman towns in the south of France, so that this practice was probably +one of the many popular customs derived directly from the Romans. +When Cotgrave’s “Dictionary” was published (that is, in 1632) the +practice of the <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">charivari</em> appears to have become more general in its +existence, as well as its application; for he describes it as “a public +defamation, or traducing of; a foule noise made, blacke santus rung, +to the shame and disgrace of another; hence an infamous (or infaming) +ballad sung, by an armed troupe, under the window of an old dotard, +married the day before unto a yong wanton, in mockerie of them both.” +And, again, a <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">charivaris de<a class="pagenum" id="Page_88" title="88"></a> poelles</em> is explained as “the carting of +an infamous person, graced with the harmonie of tinging kettles and +frying-pan musicke.”<a id="FNanchor_29" href="#Footnote_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a> The word is now generally used in the sense +of a great tumult of discordant music, produced often by a number of +persons playing different tunes on different instruments at the same +time.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut053.jpg" width="500" height="341" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 53. Continuation of the Charivari.</div> +</div> + +<p>As I have stated above, the manuscript of the romance of “Fauvel” is in +the Imperial Library in Paris. A copy of this illumination is engraved +in Jaime’s “Musée de la Caricature,” from which our cuts Nos. 52 and 53 +are taken. It is divided into three compartments, one above another, +in the uppermost of which Fauvel is seen entering the nuptial chamber +to his young wife, who is already in bed. The scene in the compartment +below, which is copied in our cut No. 52, represents the street +outside, and the mock revellers performing the <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">charivari</em>; and this is +continued in the third, or lowest, compartment, which is represented +in our cut No. 53. Down each side of the original illumination is a +frame-work of windows, from which people, who have been disturbed by +the noise, are looking out upon the tumult. It will be seen that all +the performers wear masks, and that they are dressed in burlesque +costume. In confirmation of the statement of the ecclesiastical synods +as to the licentiousness of these exhibitions, we see one of the +performers here disguised as a woman, who lifts up his dress to expose +his person while dancing. The musical instruments are no less grotesque +than the costumes, for they consist chiefly of kitchen utensils, such +as frying-pans, mortars, saucepans, and the like.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut054.jpg" width="350" height="350" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 54. The Tables Turned.</div> +</div> + +<p>There was another series of subjects in which animals were introduced +as the instruments of satire. This satire consisted in reverting +the position of man with regard to the animals over which he had +been accustomed to tyrannise, so that he was subjected to the same +treatment from the animals which, in his actual position, he uses +towards them. This change of relative position was called in old French +and Anglo-Norman, <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">le monde bestorné</em>, which was equivalent to the +English phrase, “the world turned upside down.” It forms the subject +of rather old verses, I believe,<a class="pagenum" id="Page_89" title="89"></a> both in French and English, and +individual scenes from it are met with in pictorial representation at +a rather early date. During the year 1862, in the course of accidental +excavations on the site of the Friary, at Derby, a number of encaustic +tiles, such as were used for the floors of the interiors of churches +and large buildings, were found.<a id="FNanchor_30" href="#Footnote_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> The ornamentation of these tiles, +especially of the earlier ones, is, like all mediæval ornamentations, +extremely varied, and even these tiles sometimes present subjects of +a burlesque and satirical character, though they are more frequently +adorned with the arms and badges of benefactors to the church or +convent. The tiles found on the site of the priory at Derby are +believed to be of the thirteenth century, and one pattern, a diminished +copy of which is given in our cut No. 54, presents a subject<a class="pagenum" id="Page_90" title="90"></a> taken +from the <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">monde bestorné</em>. The hare, master of his old enemy, the +dog, has become hunter himself, and seated upon the dog’s back he +rides vigorously to the chace, blowing his horn as he goes. The design +is spiritedly executed, and its satirical intention is shown by the +monstrous and mirthful face, with the tongue lolling out, figured on +the outer corner of the tile. It will be seen that four of these tiles +are intended to be joined together to make the complete piece. In an +illumination in a manuscript of the fourteenth century in the British +Museum (MS. Reg. 10 E iv.), the hares are taking a still more severe +vengeance on their old enemy. The dog has been caught, brought to trial +for his numerous murders, and condemned, and they are represented here +(cut No. 55) conducting him in the criminal’s cart to the gallows. Our +cut No. 56, the subject of which is furnished by one of the carved +stalls in Sherborne Minster (it is here copied from the engraving +in Carter’s “Specimens of Ancient Sculpture”), represents another +execution scene, similar in spirit to the former. The geese have seized +their old enemy, Reynard, and are hanging him on a gallows, while two +monks, who attend the execution, appear to be amused at the energetic +manner in<a class="pagenum" id="Page_91" title="91"></a> which the geese perform their task. Mr. Jewitt mentions two +other subjects belonging to this series, one of them taken from an +illuminated manuscript; they are, the mouse chasing the cat, and the +horse driving the cart—the former human carter in this case taking the +place of the horse between the shafts.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut055.jpg" width="500" height="272" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 55. Justice in the Hands of the Persecuted.</div> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut056.jpg" width="500" height="241" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 56. Reynard brought to Account at Last.</div> +</div> + +<p>“The World turned upside down; or, the Folly of Man,” has continued +amongst us to be a popular chap-book and child’s book till within a +very few years, and I have now a copy before me printed in London +about the year 1790. It consists of a series of rude woodcuts, with a +few doggrel verses under each. One of these, entitled “The Ox turned +Farmer,” represents two men drawing the plough, driven by an ox. In the +next, a rabbit is seen turning the spit on which a man is roasting, +while a cock holds a ladle and bastes. In a third, we see a tournament, +in which the horses are armed and ride upon the men. Another represents +the ox killing the butcher. In others we have birds netting men and +women; the ass, turned miller, employing the man-miller to carry his +sacks; the horse turned groom, and currying the man; and the fishes +angling for men and catching them.</p> + +<p>In a cleverly sculptured ornament in Beverley Minster, represented +in our cut No. 57, the goose herself is represented in a grotesque +situation,<a class="pagenum" id="Page_92" title="92"></a> which might almost give her a place in “The World turned +upside down,” although it is a mere burlesque, without any apparent +satirical aim. The goose has here taken the place of the horse at the +blacksmith’s, who is vigorously nailing the shoe on her webbed foot.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut057.jpg" width="350" height="398" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 57. Shoeing the Goose.</div> +</div> + +<div class="figleft"> + <img src="images/cut058.jpg" width="200" height="133" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 58. Food for Swine.</div> +</div> + +<p>Burlesque subjects of this description are not uncommon, especially +among architectural sculpture and wood-carving, and, at a rather +later period, on all ornamental objects. The field for such subjects +was so extensive, that the artist had an almost unlimited choice, +and therefore his subjects might be almost infinitely varied, though +we usually find them running on particular classes. The old popular +proverbs, for instance, furnished a fruitful source for drollery, and +are at times delineated in an amusingly literal or practical manner. +Pictorial<a class="pagenum" id="Page_93" title="93"></a> proverbs and popular sayings are sometimes met with on the +carved misereres. For example, in one of those at Rouen, in Normandy, +represented in our cut No. 58, the carver has intended to represent +the idea of the old saying, in allusion to misplaced bounty, of +throwing pearls to swine, and has given it a much more picturesque and +pictorially intelligible form, by introducing a rather dashing female +feeding her swine with roses, or rather offering them roses for food, +for the swine display no eagerness to feed upon them.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut059.jpg" width="350" height="268" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 59. The Industrious Sow.</div> +</div> + +<div class="figleft"> + <img src="images/cut060.jpg" width="200" height="402" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 60. Adulteration.</div> +</div> + +<p>We meet with such subjects as these scattered over all mediæval +works of art, and at a somewhat later period they were transferred +to other objects, such as the signs of houses. The custom of placing +signs over the doors of shops and taverns, was well known to the +ancients, as is abundantly manifested by their frequent occurrence +in the ruins of Pompeii; but in the middle ages, the use of signs +and badges was universal, and as—contrary to the apparent practice +in Pompeii, where certain badges were appropriated to certain trades +and professions—every individual was free to choose his own sign, +the variety was unlimited. Many still had reference, no doubt, to the +particular calling of those to whom they belonged, while others were of +a religious character, and indicated the saint under whose protection +the householder had placed himself. Some people took animals for their +signs, others monstrous or burlesque figures; and, in fact, there were +hardly any of the subjects of<a class="pagenum" id="Page_94" title="94"></a> caricature or burlesque familiar to +the mediæval sculptor and illuminator which did not from time to time +appear on these popular signs. A few of the old signs still preserved, +especially in the quaint old towns of France, Germany, and the +Netherlands, show us how frequently they were made the instruments of +popular satire. A sign not uncommon in France was <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">La Truie qui file</em> +(the sow spinning). Our cut No. 59 represents this subject as treated +on an old sign, a carving in bas-relief of the sixteenth century, on +a house in the Rue du Marché-aux-Poirées, in Rouen. The sow appears +here in the character of the industrious housewife, employing herself +in spinning at the same time that she is attending to the wants of her +children. There is a singularly satirical sign at Beauvais, on a house +which was formerly occupied by an <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">épicier-moutardier</em>, or grocer who +made mustard, in the Rue du Châtel. In front of this sign, which is +represented in our cut No. 60, appears a large mustard-mill, on one +side of which stands Folly with a staff in her hand, with which she +is stirring the mustard, while an ape with a sort of sardonic grin, +throws in a seasoning, which may be conjectured by his posture.<a id="FNanchor_31" href="#Footnote_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a> The +trade-mark of the individual who adopted this strange device, is carved +below.</p> + + + + +<hr class="chap" /> +<h2><a class="pagenum" id="Page_95" title="95"></a>CHAPTER VI.</h2> + +<p class="subtitle"> + THE MONKEY IN BURLESQUE AND CARICATURE.—TOURNAMENTS AND SINGLE + COMBATS.—MONSTROUS COMBINATIONS OF ANIMAL FORMS.—CARICATURES ON + COSTUME.—THE HAT.—THE HELMET.—LADIES’ HEAD-DRESSES.—THE GOWN, + AND ITS LONG SLEEVES.</p> + + +<p>The fox, the wolf, and their companions, were introduced as instruments +of satire, on account of their peculiar characters; but there were +other animals which were also favourites with the satirist, because +they displayed an innate inclination to imitate; they formed, as it +were, natural parodies upon mankind. I need hardly say that of these +the principal and most remarkable was the monkey. This animal must +have been known to our Anglo-Saxon forefathers from a remote period, +for they had a word for it in their own language—<em lang="ang" xml:lang="ang">apa</em>, our <em>ape</em>. +Monkey is a more modern name, and seems to be equivalent with maniken, +or a little man. The earliest <em>Bestiaries</em>, or popular treatises on +natural history, give anecdotes illustrative of the aptness of this +animal for imitating the actions of men, and ascribe to it a degree of +understanding which would almost raise it above the level of the brute +creation. Philip de Thaun, an Anglo-Norman poet of the reign of Henry +I., in his <em>Bestiary</em>, tells us that “the monkey, by imitation, as +books say, counterfeits what it sees, and mocks people:”—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">Li singe par figure, si cum dit escripture,</div> + <div class="line">Ceo que il vait contrefait, de gent escar hait.<a class="fnanchor" id="FNanchor_32" href="#Footnote_32">[32]</a></div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>/<a class="pagenum" id="Page_96" title="96"></a>He goes on to inform us, as a proof of the extraordinary instinct of +this animal, that it has more affection for some of its cubs than for +others, and that, when running away, it carried those which it liked +before it, and those it disliked behind its back. The sketch from the +illuminated manuscript of the Romance of the Comte d’Artois, of the +fifteenth century, which forms our cut No. 61, represents the monkey, +carrying, of course, its favourite child before it in its flight, and +what is more, it is taking that flight mounted on a donkey. A monkey on +horseback appears not to have been a novelty, as we shall see in the +sequel.</p> + +<div class="figleft fig150"> + <img src="images/cut061.jpg" width="150" height="143" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 61. A Monkey Mounted.</div> +</div> + +<p>Alexander Neckam, a very celebrated English scholar of the latter part +of the twelfth century, and one of the most interesting of the early +mediæval writers on natural history, gives us many anecdotes, which +show us how much attached our mediæval forefathers were to domesticated +animals, and how common a practice it was to keep them in their houses. +The baronial castle appears often to have presented the appearance +of a menagerie of animals, among which some were of that strong and +ferocious character that rendered it necessary to keep them in close +confinement, while others, such as monkeys, roamed about the buildings +at will. One of Neckam’s stories is very curious in regard to our +subject, for it shows that the people in those days exercised their +tamed animals in practically caricaturing contemporary weaknesses and +fashions. This writer remarks that “the nature of the ape is so ready +at acting, by ridiculous gesticulations, the representations of things +it has seen, and thus gratifying the vain curiosity of worldly men +in public exhibitions, that it will even dare to imitate a military +conflict. A jougleur (<em lang="la" xml:lang="la">histrio</em>) was in the habit of constantly taking +two monkeys to the military exercises which are commonly called +tournaments, that the labour of teaching might be diminished by +frequent inspection. He afterwards taught two dogs to carry these apes, +who sat on their backs, furnished with proper arms. Nor did they want +spurs, with which they<a class="pagenum" id="Page_97" title="97"></a> strenuously urged on the dogs. Having broken +their lances, they drew out their swords, with which they spent many +blows on each other’s shields. Who at this sight could refrain from +laughter?”<a id="FNanchor_33" href="#Footnote_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut062.jpg" width="500" height="181" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 62. A Tournament.</div> +</div> + +<p>Such contemporary caricatures of the mediæval tournament, which was +in its greatest fashion during the period from the twelfth to the +fourteenth century, appear to have been extremely popular, and are not +unfrequently represented in the borders of illuminated manuscripts. +The manuscript now so well known as “Queen Mary’s Psalter” (MS. Reg. +2 B vii.), and written and illuminated very early in the fourteenth +century, contains not a few illustrations of this description. One of +these, which forms our cut No. 62, represents a tournament not much +unlike that described by Alexander Neckam, except that the monkeys +are here riding upon other monkeys, and not upon dogs. In fact, all +the individuals here engaged are monkeys, and the parody is completed +by the introduction of the trumpeter on one side, and of minstrelsy, +represented by a monkey playing on the tabor, on the other; or, +perhaps, the two monkeys are simply playing on the pipe and tabor, +which were looked upon as the lowest description of minstrelsy, and are +therefore the more aptly introduced into the scene.</p> + +<p>The same manuscript has furnished us with the cut No. 63. Here<a class="pagenum" id="Page_98" title="98"></a> the +combat takes place between a monkey and a stag, the latter having +the claws of a griffin. They are mounted, too, on rather nondescript +animals—one having the head and body of a lion, with the forefeet +of an eagle; the other having a head somewhat like that of a lion, +on a lion’s body, with the hind parts of a bear. This subject may, +perhaps, be intended as a burlesque on the mediæval romances, filled +with combats between the Christians and the Saracens; for the ape—who, +in the moralisations which accompany the <em>Bestiaries</em>, is said to +represent the devil—is here armed with what are evidently intended for +the sabre and shield of a Saracen, while the flag carries the shield +and lance of a Christian knight.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut063.jpg" width="500" height="238" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 63. A Feat of Arms.</div> +</div> + +<p>The love of the mediæval artists for monstrous figures of animals, +and for mixtures of animals and men, has been alluded to in a former +chapter. The combatants in the accompanying cut (No. 64), taken from +the same manuscript, present a sort of combination of the rider and +the animal, and they again seem to be intended for a Saracen and a +Christian. The figure to the right, which is composed of the body of +a satyr, with the feet of a goose and the wings of a dragon, is armed +with a similar Saracenic sabre; while that to the left, which is on +the whole less monstrous, wields a Norman sword. Both have human faces +below the navel as well as above, which was a favourite idea in the +grotesque of the<a class="pagenum" id="Page_99" title="99"></a> middle ages. Our mediæval forefathers appear to +have had a decided taste for monstrosities of every description, and +especially for mixtures of different kinds of animals, and of animals +and men. There is no doubt, to judge by the anecdotes recorded by such +writers as Giraldus Cambrensis, that a belief in the existence of such +unnatural creatures was widely entertained. In his account of Ireland, +this writer tells us of animals which were half ox and half man, half +stag and half cow, and half dog and half monkey.<a id="FNanchor_34" href="#Footnote_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a> It is certain that +there was a general belief in such animals, and nobody could be more +credulous than Giraldus himself.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut064.jpg" width="500" height="251" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 64. A Terrible Combat.</div> +</div> + +<div class="figleft"> + <img src="images/cut065.jpg" width="150" height="290" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 65. Fashionable Dress.</div> +</div> + +<p>The design to caricature, which is tolerably evident in the subjects +just given, is still more apparent in other grotesques that adorn +the borders of the mediæval manuscripts, as well as in some of the +mediæval carvings and sculpture. Thus, in our cut No. 65, taken from +one of the borders in the Romance of the Comte<a class="pagenum" id="Page_100" title="100"></a> d’Artois, a manuscript +of the fifteenth century, we cannot fail to recognise an attempt at +turning to ridicule the contemporary fashions in dress. The hat is +only an exaggerated form of one which appears to have been commonly +used in France in the latter half of the fifteenth century, and which +appears frequently in illuminated manuscripts executed in Burgundy; +and the boot also belongs to the same period. The latter reappeared at +different times, until at length it became developed into the modern +top-boots. In cut No. 66, from the same manuscript, where it forms the +letter T, we have the same form of hat, still more exaggerated, and +combined at the same time with grotesque faces.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut066.jpg" width="400" height="191" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 66. Heads and Hats.</div> +</div> + +<p>Caricatures on costume are by no means uncommon among the artistic +remains of the middle ages, and are not confined to illuminated +manuscripts. The fashionable dresses of those days went into far more +ridiculous excesses of shape than anything we see in our times—at +least, so far as we can believe the drawings in the manuscripts; +but these, however seriously intended, were constantly degenerating +into caricature, from circumstances which are easily explained, and +which have, in fact, been explained already in their influence on +other parts of our subject. The mediæval artists in general were not +very good delineators of form, and their outlines are much inferior +to their finish. Conscious of this, though perhaps unknowingly, +they sought to remedy the defect in a spirit which has always been +adopted in the early stages of art-progress—they aimed at making +themselves understood by giving a special prominence to<a class="pagenum" id="Page_101" title="101"></a> the peculiar +characteristics of the objects they wished to represent. These were +the points which naturally attracted people’s first attention, and +the resemblance was felt most by people in general when these points +were put forward in excessive prominence in the picture. The dresses, +perhaps, hardly existed in the exact forms in which we see them in +the illuminations, or at least those were only exceptions to the +generally more moderate forms; and hence, in using these pictorial +records as materials for the history of costume, we ought to make a +certain allowance for exaggeration—we ought, indeed, to treat them +almost as caricatures. In fact, much of what we now call caricature, +was then characteristic of serious art, and of what was considered its +high development. Many of the attempts which have been made of late +years to introduce ancient costume on the stage, would probably be +regarded by the people who lived in the age which they were intended to +represent, as a mere design to turn them into ridicule. Nevertheless, +the fashions in dress were, especially from the twelfth century to the +sixteenth, carried to a great degree of extravagance, and were not only +the objects of satire and caricature, but drew forth the indignant +declamations of the Church, and furnished a continuous theme to the +preachers. The contemporary chronicles abound with bitter reflections +on the extravagance in costume, which was considered as one of the +outward signs of the great corruption of particular periods; and they +give us not unfrequent examples of the coarse manner in which the +clergy discussed them in their sermons. The readers of Chaucer will +remember the manner in which this subject is treated in the “Parson’s +Tale.” In this respect the satirists of the Church went hand in hand +with the pictorial caricaturists of the illuminated manuscripts, +and of the sculptures with which we sometimes meet in contemporary +architectural ornamentation. In the latter, this class of caricature is +perhaps less frequent, but it is sometimes very expressive. The very +curious <em>misereres</em> in the church of Ludlow, in Shropshire, present the +caricature reproduced in our cut No. 67. It represents an ugly, and, to +judge by the expression of the countenance, an ill-tempered old woman, +wearing the fashionable head-dress of the earlier half of the fifteenth +century, which seems to have been carried to its greatest<a class="pagenum" id="Page_102" title="102"></a> extravagance +in the beginning of the reign of Henry VI. It is the style of coiffure +known especially as the horned head-dress, and the very name carries +with it a sort of relationship to an individual who was notoriously +horned—the spirit of evil. This dashing dame of the olden time appears +to have struck terror into two unfortunates who have fallen within +her influence, one of whom, as though he took her for a new Gorgon, +is attempting to cover himself with his buckler, while the other, +apprehending danger of another kind, is prepared to defend himself with +his sword. The details of the head-dress in this figure are interesting +for the history of costume.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut067.jpg" width="400" height="237" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 67. A Fashionable Beauty.</div> +</div> + +<div class="figleft"> + <img src="images/cut068.jpg" width="175" height="248" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 68. A Man of War.</div> +</div> + +<p>Our next cut, No. 68, is taken from a manuscript in private possession, +which is now rather well known among antiquaries by the name of the +“Luttrell Psalter,” and which belongs to the fourteenth century. It +seems to involve a satire on the aristocratic order of society—on the +knight who was distinguished by his helmet, his shield, and his armour. +The individual here represented presents a type which is anything +but aristocratic. While he holds<a class="pagenum" id="Page_103" title="103"></a> a helmet in his hand to show the +meaning of the satire, his own helmet, which he wears on his head, is +simply a bellows. He may be a knight of the kitchen, or perhaps a mere +<em>quistron</em>, or kitchen lad.</p> + +<div class="figright fig150"> + <img src="images/cut069.jpg" width="150" height="354" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 69. A Lady’s Head-dress.</div> +</div> + +<p>We have just seen a caricature of one of the ladies’ head-dresses of +the earlier half of the fifteenth century, and our cut No. 69, from +an illuminated manuscript in the British Museum of the latter half of +the same century (MS. Harl., No. 4379), furnishes us with a caricature +of a head-dress of a different character, which came into fashion in +the reign of our Edward IV. The horned head-dress of the previous +generation had been entirely laid aside, and the ladies adopted in its +place a sort of steeple-shaped head-dress, or rather of the form of a +spire, made by rolling a piece of linen into the form of a long cone. +Over this lofty cap was thrown a piece of fine lawn or muslin, which +descended almost to the ground, and formed, as it were, two wings. A +short transparent veil was thrown over the face, and reached not quite +to the chin, resembling rather closely the veils in use among our +ladies of the present day (1864). The whole head-dress, indeed, has +been preserved by the Norman peasantry; for it may be observed that, +during the feudal ages, the fashions in France and England were always +identical. These steeple head-dresses greatly provoked the indignation +of the clergy, and zealous preachers attacked them roughly in their +sermons. A French monk, named Thomas Conecte, distinguished himself +especially in this crusade, and inveighed against the head-dress with +such effect, that we are assured that many of the women threw down +their head-dresses in the middle of the sermon, and made a bonfire +of them at its conclusion. The zeal of the preacher soon extended +itself to the populace, and, for a while, when ladies appeared in this +head-dress in public, they were exposed to be pelted by the rabble. +Under such a double persecution it disappeared for a moment, but when +the preacher was no longer present, it returned again, and, to use the<a class="pagenum" id="Page_104" title="104"></a> +words of the old writer who has preserved this anecdote, “the women +who, like snails in a fright, had drawn in their horns, shot them out +again as soon as the danger was over.” The caricaturist would hardly +overlook so extravagant a fashion, and accordingly the manuscript in +the British Museum, just mentioned, furnishes us with the subject of +our cut No. 69. In those times, when the passions were subjected to no +restraint, the fine ladies indulged in such luxury and licentiousness, +that the caricaturist has chosen as their fit representative a sow, who +wears the objectionable head-dress in full fashion. The original forms +one of the illustrations of a copy of the historian Froissart, and was, +therefore, executed in France, or, more probably, in Burgundy.</p> + +<p>The sermons and satires against extravagance in costume began at +an early period. The Anglo-Norman ladies, in the earlier part of +the twelfth century, first brought in vogue in our island this +extravagance in fashion, which quickly fell under the lash of satirist +and caricaturist. It was first exhibited in the robes rather than +in the head-dress. These Anglo-Norman ladies are understood to have +first introduced stays, in order to give an artificial appearance of +slenderness to their waists; but the greatest extravagance appeared in +the forms of their sleeves. The robe, or gown, instead of being loose, +as among the Anglo-Saxons, was laced close round the body, and the +sleeves, which fitted the arm tightly till they reached the elbows, +or sometimes nearly to the wrist, then suddenly became larger, and +hung down to an extravagant length, often trailing on the ground, and +sometimes shortened by means of a knot. The gown, also, was itself +worn very long. The clergy preached against these extravagances in +fashion, and at times, it is said, with effect; and they fell under +the vigorous lash of the satirist. In a class of satires which became +extremely popular in the twelfth century, and which produced in the +thirteenth the immortal poem of Dante—the visions of purgatory and of +hell—these contemporary extravagances in fashion are held up to public +detestation, and are made the subject of severe punishment. They were +looked upon as among the outward forms of pride. It arose, no doubt, +from this taste—from the darker shade which spread over men’s minds in +the twelfth century—that demons, instead of animals, were<a class="pagenum" id="Page_105" title="105"></a> introduced +to personify the evil-doers of the time. Such is the figure (cut No. +70) which we take from a very interesting manuscript in the British +Museum (MS. Cotton. Nero, C iv.). The demon is here dressed in the +fashionable gown with its long sleeves, of which one appears to have +been usually much longer than the other. Both the gown and sleeve are +shortened by means of knots, while the former is brought close round +the waist by tight lacing. It is a picture of the use of stays made at +the time of their first introduction.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut070.jpg" width="350" height="443" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 70. Sin in Satins.</div> +</div> + +<p>This superfluity of length in the different parts of the dress was a +subject of complaint and satire at various and very distant periods, +and contemporary illuminations of a perfectly serious character show +that these complaints were not without foundation.</p> + + + +<hr class="chap" /> +<h2><a class="pagenum" id="Page_106" title="106"></a>CHAPTER VII.</h2> + +<p class="subtitle"> + PRESERVATION OF THE CHARACTER OF THE MIMUS AFTER THE FALL OF + THE EMPIRE.—THE MINSTREL AND JOGELOUR.—HISTORY OF POPULAR + STORIES.—THE FABLIAUX.—ACCOUNT OF THEM.—THE CONTES DEVOTS.</p> + + +<p>I have already remarked that, upon the fall of the Roman empire, the +popular institutions of the Romans were more generally preserved to +the middle ages than those of a higher and more refined character. +This is understood without difficulty, when we consider that the lower +class of the population—in the towns, what we might perhaps call the +lower and middle classes—continued to exist much the same as before, +while the barbarian conquerors came in and took the place of the ruling +classes. The drama, which had never much hold upon the love of the +Roman populace, was lost, and the theatres and the amphitheatres, which +had been supported only by the wealth of the imperial court and of +the ruling class, were abandoned and fell into ruin; but the <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">mimus</em>, +who furnished mirth to the people, continued to exist, and probably +underwent no immediate change in his character. It will be well to +state again the chief characteristics of the ancient <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">mimus</em>, before we +proceed to describe his mediæval representative.</p> + +<p>The grand aim of the <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">mimus</em> was to make people laugh, and he employed +generally every means he knew of for effecting this purpose, by +language, by gestures or motions of the body, or by dress. Thus he +carried, strapped over his loins, a wooden sword, which was called +<em lang="la" xml:lang="la">gladius histricus</em> and <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">clunaculum</em>, and wore sometimes a garment +made of a great number of small pieces of cloth of different colours, +which was hence called <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">centunculus</em>, or the hundred-patched dress.<a id="FNanchor_35" href="#Footnote_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a> +These two<a class="pagenum" id="Page_107" title="107"></a> characteristics have been preserved in the modern harlequin. +Other peculiarities of costume may conveniently be left undescribed; +the female mimæ sometimes exhibited themselves unrestricted by dress. +They danced and sung; repeated jokes and told merry stories; recited +or acted farces and scandalous anecdotes; performed what we now call +mimicry, a word derived from the name of mimus; and they put themselves +in strange postures, and made frightful faces. They sometimes acted +the part of a fool or zany (<em lang="la" xml:lang="la">morio</em>), or of a madman. They added to +these performances that of the conjurer or juggler (<em lang="la" xml:lang="la">præstigiator</em>), +and played tricks of sleight of hand. The mimi performed in the streets +and public places, or in the theatres, and especially at festivals, and +they were often employed at private parties, to entertain the guests at +a supper.</p> + +<p>We trace the existence of this class of performers during the earlier +period of the middle ages by the expressions of hostility towards +them used from time to time by the ecclesiastical writers, and the +denunciations of synods and councils, which have been quoted in a +former chapter.<a id="FNanchor_36" href="#Footnote_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a> Nevertheless, it is evident from many allusions +to them, that they found their way into the monastic houses, and were +in great favour not only among the monks, but among the nuns also; +that they were introduced into the religious festivals; and that they +were tolerated even in the churches. It is probable that they long +continued to be known in Italy and the countries near the centre +of Roman influence, and where the Latin language was continued, by +their old name of <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">mimus</em>. The writers of the mediæval vocabularies +appear all to have been much better acquainted with the meaning of +this word than of most of the Latin words of the same class, and they +evidently had a class of performers existing in their own times to whom +they considered that the name applied. The Anglo-Saxon vocabularies +interpret the Latin <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">mimus</em> by <em lang="ang" xml:lang="ang">glig-mon</em>, a gleeman. In Anglo-Saxon, +<em lang="ang" xml:lang="ang">glig</em> or <em lang="ang" xml:lang="ang">gliu</em> meant mirth and game of every description, and as the +Anglo-Saxon teachers who compiled the vocabularies give, as synonyms +of <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">mimus</em>, the words <em lang="ang" xml:lang="ang">scurra</em>, <em lang="ang" xml:lang="ang">jocista</em>, and <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">pantomimus</em>, it is +evident that all these were included in the character<a class="pagenum" id="Page_108" title="108"></a> of the gleeman, +and that the latter was quite identical with his Roman type. It was +the Roman <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">mimus</em> introduced into Saxon England. We have no traces of +the existence of such a class of performers among the Teutonic race +before they became acquainted with the civilisation of imperial Rome. +We know from drawings in contemporary illuminated manuscripts that the +performances of the gleeman did include music, singing, and dancing, +and also the tricks of mountebanks and jugglers, such as throwing up +and catching knives and balls, and performing with tamed bears, &c.<a id="FNanchor_37" href="#Footnote_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a></p> + +<p>But even among the peoples who preserved the Latin language, the word +<em lang="la" xml:lang="la">mimus</em> was gradually exchanged for others employed to signify the +same thing. The word <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">jocus</em> had been used in the signification of a +jest, playfulness, <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">jocari</em> signified to jest, and <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">joculator</em> was a +word for a jester; but, in the debasement of the language, <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">jocus</em> +was taken in the signification of everything which created mirth. It +became, in the course of time the French word <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">jeu</em>, and the Italian +<em lang="it" xml:lang="it">gioco</em>, or <em lang="it" xml:lang="it">giuoco</em>. People introduced a form of the verb, <em lang="it" xml:lang="it">jocare</em>, +which became the French <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">juer</em>, to play or perform. <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">Joculator</em> was +then used in the sense of <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">mimus</em>. In French the word became <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">jogléor</em>, +or <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">jougléor</em>, and in its later form <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">jougleur</em>. I may remark that, in +mediæval manuscripts, it is almost impossible to distinguish between +the <em>u</em> and the <em>n</em>, and that modern writers have misread this last +word as <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">jongleur</em>, and thus introduced into the language a word which +never existed, and which ought to be abandoned. In old English, as we +see in Chaucer, the usual form was <em>jogelere</em>. The mediæval joculator, +or jougleur, embraced all the attributes of the Roman <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">mimus</em>,<a id="FNanchor_38" href="#Footnote_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a> and +perhaps more. In the first<a class="pagenum" id="Page_109" title="109"></a> place he was very often a poet himself, and +composed the pieces which it was one of his duties to sing or recite. +These were chiefly songs, or stories, the latter usually told in verse, +and so many of them are preserved in manuscripts that they form a very +numerous and important class of mediæval literature. The songs were +commonly satirical and abusive, and they were made use of for purposes +of general or personal vituperation. Out of them, indeed, grew the +political songs of a later period. There were female jougleurs, and +both sexes danced, and, to create mirth among those who encouraged +them, they practised a variety of performances, such as mimicking +people, making wry and ugly faces, distorting their bodies into strange +postures, often exposing their persons in a very unbecoming manner, and +performing many vulgar and indecent acts, which it is not necessary to +describe more particularly. They carried about with them for exhibition +tame bears, monkeys, and other animals, taught to perform the actions +of men. As early as the thirteenth century, we find them including +among their other accomplishments that of dancing upon the tight-rope. +Finally, the jougleurs performed tricks of sleight of hand, and were +often conjurers and magicians. As, in modern times, the jougleurs of +the middle ages gradually passed away, sleight of hand appears to have +become their principal accomplishment, and the name only was left in +the modern word <em>juggler</em>. The jougleurs of the middle ages, like +the mimi of antiquity, wandered about from place to place, and often +from country to country, sometimes singly and at others in companies, +exhibited their performances in the roads and streets, repaired to all +great festivals, and were employed especially in the baronial hall, +where, by their songs, stories, and other performances, they created +mirth after dinner.</p> + +<p>This class of society had become known by another name, the origin of +which is not so easily explained. The primary meaning of the Latin word +<em lang="la" xml:lang="la">minister</em> was a servant, one who ministers to another, either in his +wants or in his pleasures and amusements. It was applied particularly +to the cup-bearer. In low Latinity, a diminutive of this word was +formed, <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">minestellus</em>, or <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">ministrellus</em>, a petty servant, or minister. +When we first meet with this word, which is not at a very early date, +it is used as<a class="pagenum" id="Page_110" title="110"></a> perfectly synonymous with <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">joculator</em>, and, as the +word is certainly of Latin derivation, it is clear that it was from +it the middle ages derived the French word <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">menestrel</em> (the modern +<em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">ménétrier</em>), and the English <em>minstrel</em>. The mimi or jougleurs were +perhaps considered as the petty ministers to the amusements of their +lord, or of him who for the time employed them. Until the close of the +middle ages, the minstrel and the jougleur were absolutely identical. +Possibly the former may have been considered the more courtly of the +two names. But in England, as the middle ages disappeared, and lost +their influence on society sooner than in France, the word minstrel +remained attached only to the musical part of the functions of the old +mimus, while, as just observed, the juggler took the sleight of hand +and the mountebank tricks. In modern French, except where employed +technically by the antiquary, the word <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">ménétrier</em> means a fiddler.</p> + +<p>The jougleurs, or minstrels, formed a very numerous and important, +though a low and despised, class of mediæval society. The dulness of +every-day life in a feudal castle or mansion required something more +than ordinary excitement in the way of amusement, and the old family +bard, who continually repeated to the Teutonic chief the praises of +himself and his ancestors, was soon felt to be a wearisome companion. +The mediæval knights and their ladies wanted to laugh, and to make +them laugh sufficiently it required that the jokes, or tales, or comic +performances, should be broad, coarse, and racy, with a good spicing of +violence and of the wonderful. Hence the jougleur was always welcome +to the feudal mansion, and he seldom went away dissatisfied. But the +subject of the present chapter is rather the literature of the jougleur +than his personal history, and, having traced his origin to the Roman +mimus, we will now proceed to one class of his performances.</p> + +<p>It has been stated that the mimus and the jougleurs told stories. +Of those of the former, unfortunately, none are preserved, except, +perhaps, in a few anecdotes scattered in the pages of such writers as +Apuleius and Lucian, and we are obliged to guess at their character, +but of the stories of the jougleurs a considerable number has been +preserved. It becomes an interesting question how far these stories +have been derived from the<a class="pagenum" id="Page_111" title="111"></a> mimi, handed down traditionally from mimus +to jougleur, how far they are native in our race, or how far they were +derived at a later date from other sources. And in considering this +question, we must not forget that the mediæval jougleurs were not the +only representatives of the mimi, for among the Arabs of the East also +there had originated from them, modified under different circumstances, +a very important class of minstrels and story-tellers, and with these +the jougleurs of the west were brought into communication at the +commencement of the crusades. There can be no doubt that a very large +number of the stories of the jougleurs were borrowed from the East, for +the evidence is furnished by the stories themselves; and there can be +little doubt also that the jougleurs improved themselves, and underwent +some modification, by their intercourse with Eastern performers of the +same class.</p> + +<p>On the other hand, we have traces of the existence of these popular +stories before the jougleurs can have had communication with the East. +Thus, as already mentioned, we find, composed in Germany, apparently +in the tenth century, in rhythmical Latin, the well-known story of the +wife of a merchant who bore a child during the long absence of her +husband, and who excused herself by stating that her pregnancy had been +the result of swallowing a flake of snow in a snow-storm. This, and +another of the same kind, were evidently intended to be sung. Another +poem in popular Latin verse, which Grimm and Schmeller, who edited +it,<a id="FNanchor_39" href="#Footnote_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a> believe may be of the eleventh century, relates a very amusing +story of an adventurer named Unibos, who, continually caught in his own +snares, finishes by getting the better of all his enemies, and becoming +rich, by mere ingenious cunning and good fortune. This story is not +met with among those of the jougleurs, as far as they are yet known, +but, curiously enough, Lover found it existing orally among the Irish +peasantry, and inserted the Irish story among his “Legends of Ireland.” +It is a curious illustration of the pertinacity with which the popular +stories descend along with peoples through generations from the<a class="pagenum" id="Page_112" title="112"></a> +remotest ages of antiquity. The same story is found in an oriental form +among the tales of the Tartars published in French by Guenlette.</p> + +<p>The people of the middle ages, who took their word <em>fable</em> from the +Latin <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">fabula</em>, which they appear to have understood as a mere term for +any short narration, included under it the stories told by the mimi and +jougleurs; but, in the fondness of the middle ages for diminutives, by +which they intended to express familiarity and attachment, applied to +them more particularly the Latin <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">fabella</em>, which in the old French +became <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">fablel</em>, or, more usually, <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">fabliau</em>. The fabliaux of the +jougleurs form a most important class of the comic literature of the +middle ages. They must have been wonderfully numerous, for a very large +quantity of them still remain, and these are only the small portion of +what once existed, which have escaped perishing like the others by the +accident of being written in manuscripts which have had the fortune to +survive; while manuscripts containing others have no doubt perished, +and it is probable that many were only preserved orally, and never +written down at all.<a id="FNanchor_40" href="#Footnote_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a> The recital of these fabliaux appears to have +been the favourite employment of the jougleurs, and they became so +popular that the mediæval preachers turned them into short stories in +Latin prose, and made use of them as illustrations in their sermons. +Many collections of these short Latin stories are found in manuscripts +which had served as note-books to the preachers,<a id="FNanchor_41" href="#Footnote_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a> and out of them +was originally compiled that celebrated mediæval book called the “Gesta +Romanorum.”</p> + +<p>It is to be regretted that the subjects and language of a large portion +of these fabliaux are such as to make it impossible to present them +before modern readers, for they furnish singularly interesting and +minute pictures of mediæval life in all classes of society. Domestic +scenes are among those most frequent, and they represent the interior +of the mediæval<a class="pagenum" id="Page_113" title="113"></a> household in no favourable point of view. The majority +of these tell loose stories of husbands deceived by their fair spouses, +or of tricks played upon unsuspecting damsels. In some instances the +treatment of the husband is perhaps what may be called of a less +objectionable character, as in the fabliau of La Vilain Mire (the +clown doctor), printed in Barbazan (iii. 1), which was the origin of +Molière’s well-known comedy of <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Le Médecin malgré lui.”</span> A rich peasant +married the daughter of a poor knight; it was of course a marriage of +ambition on his part, and of interest on hers—one of those ill-sorted +matches which, according to feudal sentiments, could never be happy, +and in which the wife was considered as privileged to treat her husband +with all possible contempt. In this instance the lady hit upon an +ingenious mode of punishing her husband for his want of submission to +her ill-treatment. Messengers from the king passed that way, seeking +a skilful doctor to cure the king’s daughter of a dangerous malady. +The lady secretly informed these messengers that her husband was a +physician of extraordinary talent, but of an eccentric temper, for he +would never acknowledge or exercise his art until first subjected to +a severe beating. The husband is seized, bound, and carried by force +to the king’s court, where, of course, he denies all knowledge of the +healing art, but a severe beating obliges him to compliance, and he is +successful by a combination of impudence and chance. This is only the +beginning of the poor man’s miseries. Instead of being allowed to go +home, his fame has become so great that he is retained at court for +the public good, and, with a rapid succession of patients, fearful +of the results of his conscious ignorance, he refuses them all, and +is subjected in every case to the same ill-treatment to force his +compliance. The examples in which the husband, on the other hand, +outwits the wife are few. A fabliau by a poet who gives himself the +name of Cortebarbe, printed also by Barbazan (iii. 398), relates how +three blind beggars were deceived by a clerc, or scholar, of Paris, who +met them on the road near Compiègne. The clerk pretended to give the +three beggars a bezant, which was then a good sum of money, and they +hastened joyfully to the next tavern, where they ordered a plentiful +supper, and feasted to their hearts’ content. But, in fact, the clerk +had not given them a bezant at<a class="pagenum" id="Page_114" title="114"></a> all, although, as he said he did so, +and they could only judge by their hearing, they imagined that they +had the coin, and each thought that it was in the keeping of one of +his companions. Thus, when the time of paying came, and the money +was not forthcoming, in the common belief that one of the three had +received the bezant and intended to keep it and cheat the others, they +quarrelled violently, and from abuse soon came to blows. The landlord, +drawn to the spot by the uproar, and informed of the state of the case, +accused the three blind men of a conspiracy to cheat him, and demanded +payment with great threats. The clerk of Paris, who had followed them +to the inn, and taken his lodging there in order to witness the result, +delivered the blind men by an equally ingenious trick which he plays +upon the landlord and the priest of the parish.</p> + +<p>Some of these stories have for their subject tricks played among +thieves. In one printed by Méon (i. 124), we have the story of a rich +but simple villan, or countryman, named Brifaut, who is robbed at +market by a cunning sharper, and severely corrected by his wife for +his carelessness. Robbery, both by force and by sleight of hand and +craft, prevailed to an extraordinary degree during the middle ages. The +plot of the fabliau of Barat and Haimet, by Jean de Boves (Barbazan, +iv. 233), turns upon a trial of skill among three robbers to determine +who shall commit the cleverest act of thievery, and the result is, at +least, an extremely amusing story. It may be mentioned as an example +of the numerous stories which the jougleurs certainly obtained from +the East, that the well-known story of the Hunchback in the “Arabian +Nights” appears among them in two or three different forms.</p> + +<p>The social vices of the middle ages, their general licentiousness, +the prevalence of injustice and extortion, are very fully exposed to +view in these compositions, in which no class of society is spared. +The villan, or peasant, is always treated very contemptuously; he +formed the class from which the jougleur received least benefit. But +the aristocracy, the great barons, the lords of the soil, come in for +their full share of satire, and they no doubt enjoyed the ridiculous +pictures of their own order. I will not venture to introduce the reader +to female life in the baronial castle, as it<a class="pagenum" id="Page_115" title="115"></a> appears in many of these +stories, and as it is no doubt truly painted, although, of course, +in many instances, much exaggerated. We have already seen how in the +story of Reynard, the character of mediæval society was represented +by the long struggle between brute force represented by the wolf, the +emblem of the aristocratic class, and the low astuteness of the fox, +or the unaristocratic class. The success of the craft of the human fox +over the force of his lordly antagonist is often told in the fabliaux +in ludicrous colours. In that of Trubert, printed by Méon (i. 192), +the “duke” of a country, with his wife and family, become repeatedly +the dupes of the gross deceptions of a poor but impudent peasant. +These satires upon the aristocracy were no doubt greatly enjoyed by +the good <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">bourgeoisie</em>, who, in their turn, furnished abundance of +stories, of the drollest description, to provoke the mirth of the lords +of the soil, between whom and themselves there was a kind of natural +antipathy. Nor are the clergy spared. The priest is usually described +as living with a concubine—his order forbade marrying—and both are +considered as fair game to the community; while the monk figures more +frequently as the hero of gallant adventures. Both priest and monk are +usually distinguished by their selfishness and love of indulgence. In +the fabliau Du Bouchier d’Abbeville, in Barbazan (iv. 1), a butcher, on +his way home from the fair, seeks a night’s lodging at the house of an +inhospitable priest, who refuses it. But when the former returns, and +offers, in exchange for his hospitality, one of his fat sheep which he +has purchased at the fair, and not only to kill it for their supper, +but to give all the meat they do not eat to his host, he is willingly +received into the house, and they make an excellent supper. By the +promise of the skin of the sheep, the guest succeeds in seducing both +the concubine and the maid-servant, and it is only after his departure +the following morning, in the middle of a domestic uproar caused by +the conflicting claims of the priest, the concubine, and the maid, to +the possession of the skin, that it is discovered that the butcher had +stolen the sheep from the priest’s own flock.</p> + +<p>The fabliaux, as remarked before, form the most important class of the +extensive mass of the popular literature of the middle ages, and the<a class="pagenum" id="Page_116" title="116"></a> +writers, confident in their strong hold upon public favour, sometimes +turn round and burlesque the literature of other classes, especially +the long heavy monotony of style of the great romances of chivalry and +the extravagant adventures they contained, as though conscious that +they were gradually undermining the popularity of the romance writers. +One of these poems, entitled <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“De Audigier,”</span> and printed in Barbazan +(iv. 217), is a parody on the romance writers and on their style, not +at all wanting in spirit or wit, but the satire is coarse and vulgar. +Another printed in Barbazan (iv. 287), under the title <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“De Berengier,”</span> +is a satire upon a sort of knight-errantry which had found its way +into mediæval chivalry. Berengier was a knight of Lombardy, much given +to boasting, who had a beautiful lady for his wife. He used to leave +her alone in his castle, under pretext of sallying forth in search +of chivalrous adventures, and, after a while, having well hacked his +sword and shield, he returned to vaunt the desperate exploits he had +performed. But the lady was shrewd as well as handsome, and, having +some suspicions of his truthfulness as well as of his courage, she +determined to make trial of both. One morning, when her husband rode +forth as usual, she hastily disguised herself in a suit of armour, +mounted a good steed, and hurrying round by a different way, met the +boastful knight in the middle of a wood, where he no sooner saw that he +had to encounter a real assailant, than he displayed the most abject +cowardice, and his opponent exacted from him an ignominious condition +as the price of his escape. On his return home at night, boasting as +usual of his success, he found his lady taking her revenge upon him in +a still less respectful manner, but he was silenced by her ridicule.</p> + +<p>The <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">trouvères</em>, or poets, who wrote the fabliaux—I need hardly +remark that <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">trouvère</em> is the same word as <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">trobador</em>, but in the +northern dialect of the French language—appear to have flourished +chiefly from the close of the twelfth century to the earlier part of +the fourteenth. They all composed in French, which was a language then +common to England and France, but some of their compositions bear +internal evidence of having been composed in England, and others are +found in contemporary manuscripts written in this island. The scene of +a fabliau,<a class="pagenum" id="Page_117" title="117"></a> printed by Méon (i. 113), is laid at Colchester; and that +of La Male Honte, printed in Barbazan (iii. 204), is laid in Kent. The +latter, however, was written by a trouvère named Hugues de Cambrai. +No objection appears to have been entertained to the recital of these +licentious stories before the ladies of the castle or of the domestic +circle, and their general popularity was so great, that the more pious +clergy seem to have thought necessary to find something to take their +place in the post-prandial society of the monastery, and especially +of the nunnery; and religious stories were written in the same form +and metre as the fabliaux. Some of these have been published under the +title of <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Contes Devots,”</span> and, from their general dulness, it may be +doubted if they answered their purpose of furnishing amusement so well +as the others.</p> + + + +<hr class="chap" /> +<h2><a class="pagenum" id="Page_118" title="118"></a>CHAPTER VIII.</h2> + +<p class="subtitle"> + CARICATURES OF DOMESTIC LIFE.—STATE OF DOMESTIC LIFE IN THE + MIDDLE AGES.—EXAMPLES OF DOMESTIC CARICATURE FROM THE CARVINGS + OF THE MISERERES.—KITCHEN SCENES.—DOMESTIC BRAWLS.—THE FIGHT + FOR THE BREECHES.—THE JUDICIAL DUEL BETWEEN MAN AND WIFE AMONG + THE GERMANS.—ALLUSIONS TO WITCHCRAFT.—SATIRES ON THE TRADES; + THE BAKER, THE MILLER, THE WINE-PEDLAR AND TAVERN-KEEPER, THE + ALE-WIFE, ETC.</p> + + +<p>The influence of the jougleurs over people’s minds generally, with +their stories and satirical pieces, their grimaces, their postures, +and their wonderful performances, was very considerable, and may be +easily traced in mediæval manners and sentiments. This influence would +naturally be exerted upon inventive art, and when a painter had to +adorn the margin of a book, or the sculptor to decorate the ornamental +parts of a building, we might expect the ideas which would first +present themselves to him to be those suggested by the jougleur’s +performance, for the same taste had to be indulged in the one as in the +other. The same wit or satire would pervade them both.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut071.jpg" width="500" height="333" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 71. A Mediæval Kitchen Scene.</div> +</div> + +<div class="figleft"> + <img src="images/cut072.jpg" width="125" height="176" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 72. An Old Lady and her Friends.</div> +</div> + +<p>Among the most popular subjects of satire during the middle ages, were +domestic scenes. Domestic life at that period appears to have been in +its general character coarse, turbulent, and, I should say, anything +but happy. In all its points of view, it presented abundant subjects +for jest and burlesque. There is little room for doubt that the Romish +Church, as it existed in the middle ages, was extremely hostile to +domestic happiness among the middle and lower classes, and that the +interference of the priest in the family was only a source of domestic +trouble. The satirical writings of the period, the popular tales, +the discourses of those who sought reform, even the pictures in the<a class="pagenum" id="Page_119" title="119"></a> +manuscripts and the sculptures on the walls invariably represent the +female portion of the family as entirely under the influence of the +priests, and that influence as exercised for the worst of purposes. +They encouraged faithlessness as well as disobedience in wives, and +undermined the virtue of daughters, and were consequently regarded with +anything but kindly feeling by the male portion of the population. The +priest, the wife, and the husband, form the usual leading characters +in a mediæval farce. Subjects of this kind are not very unfrequent in +the illuminations of manuscripts, and more especially in the sculptures +of buildings, and those chiefly ecclesiastical, in which monks or +priests are introduced in very equivocal situations. This part of the +subject, however, is one into which we shall not here venture, as we +find the mediæval caricaturists drawing plenty of materials from the +less vicious shades of contemporary life; and, in fact, some of their +most amusing pictures are taken from the droll, rather than from the +vicious, scenes of the interior of the household. Such scenes are +very frequent on the misereres of the old cathedrals and collegiate +churches. Thus, in the stalls at Worcester Cathedral, there is a droll +figure of a man seated before a fire in a<a class="pagenum" id="Page_120" title="120"></a> kitchen well stored with +flitches of bacon, he himself occupied in attending to the boiling pot, +while he warms his feet, for which purpose he has taken off his shoes. +In a similar carving in Hereford Cathedral, a man, also in the kitchen, +is seen attempting to take liberties with the cook maid, who throws a +platter at his head. A copy of this curious subject is given in cut +No. 71, and the cut No. 72 is taken from a similar miserere in Minster +Church, in the Isle of Thanet. It represents an old lady seated, +occupied industriously in spinning, and accompanied by her cats.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut073.jpg" width="200" height="233" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 73. The Lady and her Cat.</div> +</div> + +<p>We might easily add other examples of similar subjects from the same +sources, such as the scene in our cut No. 73, taken from one of the +stalls of Winchester Cathedral, which seems to be intended to represent +a witch riding away upon her cat, an enormous animal, whose jovial +look is only outdone by that of its mistress. The latter has carried +her distaff with her, and is diligently employed in spinning. A stall +in Sherborne Minster, given in our cut No. 74, represents a scene in a +school, in which an unfortunate scholar is experiencing punishment of +a rather severe description, to the great alarm of his companions, on +whom his disgrace is evidently acting as a warning. The flogging scene +at school appears to have been rather a favourite subject among the +early caricaturists, for the scourge was looked upon in the middle ages +as the grand stimulant to scholarship. In those good old times, when a +man recalled to memory his schoolboy days, he did not say, “When I was +at school,” but, “When I was under the rod.”</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut074.jpg" width="500" height="243" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 74. Scholastic Discipline.</div> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut075.jpg" width="350" height="287" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 75. A Point in Dispute.</div> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut076.jpg" width="500" height="327" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 76. Want of Harmony over the Pot.</div> +</div> + +<div class="figright"> + <img src="images/cut077.jpg" width="200" height="249" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 77. Domestic Strife.</div> +</div> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="Page_121" title="121"></a>An extensive field for the study of this interesting part of our +subject will be found in the architectural gallery in the Kensington +Museum, which contains a large number of calls from stalls and other +sculptures, chiefly selected from the French cathedrals. One of these, +engraved in our cut No. 75, represents a couple of females, seated +before the kitchen fire. The date of this sculpture is stated to be +1382. To judge by their looks and attitude, there is a disagreement +between them, and the object in dispute seems to be a piece of meat, +which one has taken out of the pot and placed on a dish. This lady +wields her ladle as though she were<a class="pagenum" id="Page_122" title="122"></a> prepared to use it as a weapon, +while her opponent is armed with the bellows. The ale-pot was not +unfrequently the subject of pictures of a turbulent character, and +among the grotesque and monstrous figures in the margins of the noble +manuscript of the fourteenth century, known as the “Luttrell Psalter,” +one represents two personages not only quarrelling over their pots, +which they appear to have emptied, but actually fighting with them. One +of them has literally broken his pot over his companion’s head. The +scene is copied in our cut No. 76.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut078.jpg" width="350" height="411" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 78. A Struggle for the Mastery.</div> +</div> + +<p>It must be stated, however, that the more common subjects of these +homely scenes are domestic quarrels, and that the man, or his wife, +enjoying their fireside, or similar bits of domestic comfort, only +make their appearance at rare intervals. Domestic quarrels and combats +are much more frequent. We have already seen, in the cut No. 75, +two dames of the kitchen evidently beginning to quarrel over their +cookery. A stall in the church of Stratford-upon-Avon gives us the +group represented in our cut No. 77. The battle has here become +desperate, but whether the male combatant be an oppressed husband or<a class="pagenum" id="Page_123" title="123"></a> +an impertinent intruder, is not clear. The quarrel would seem to have +arisen during the process of cooking, as the female, who has seized +her opponent by the beard, has evidently snatched up the ladle as +the readiest weapon at hand. The anger appears to be mainly on her +side, and the rather tame countenance of her antagonist contrasts +strangely with her inflamed features. Our next cut, No. 78, is taken +from the sculpture of a column in Ely Cathedral, here copied from an +engraving in Carter’s “Specimens of Ancient Sculpture.” A man and +wife, apparently, are struggling for the possession of a staff, which +is perhaps intended to be the emblem of mastery. As is generally +represented to be the case in these scenes of domestic strife, the +woman shows more energy and more strength than her<a class="pagenum" id="Page_124" title="124"></a> opponent, and she +is evidently overcoming him. The mastery of the wife over the husband +seems to have been a universally acknowledged state of things. A stall +in Sherborne Minster, in Dorset, which has furnished the subject of our +cut No. 79, might almost be taken as the sequel of the last cut. The +lady has possessed herself of the staff, has overthrown her husband, +and is even striking him on the head with it when he is down. In our +next cut, No. 80, which is taken from one of the casts of stalls in +the French cathedrals exhibited in the Kensington Museum, it is not +quite clear which of the two is the offender, but,<a class="pagenum" id="Page_125" title="125"></a> perhaps, in this +case, the archer, as his profession is indicated by his bow and arrows, +has made a gallant assault, which, although she does not look much +displeased at it, the offended dame certainly resists with spirit.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut079.jpg" width="400" height="272" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 79. The Wife in the Ascendant.</div> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut080.jpg" width="400" height="286" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 80. Violence Resisted.</div> +</div> + +<p>One idea connected with this picture of domestic antagonism appears +to have been very popular from a rather early period. There is a +proverbial phrase to signify that the wife is master in the household, +by which it is intimated that “she wears the breeches.” The phrase +is, it must be confessed, an odd one, and is only half understood by +modern explanations; but in mediæval story we learn how “she” first +put in her claim to wear this particular article of dress, how it was +first disputed and contested, how she was at times defeated, but how, +as a general rule, the claim was enforced. There was a French poet of +the thirteenth century, Hugues Piaucelles, two of whose <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">fabliaux</em>, or +metrical tales, entitled the <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Fabliau d’Estourmi,”</span> and the <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Fabliau de +Sire Hains et de Dame Anieuse,”</span> are preserved in manuscript, and have +been printed in the collection of Barbazan. The second of these relates +some of the adventures of a mediæval couple, whose household was not +the best regulated in the world. The name of the heroine of this +story, Anieuse, is simply an old form of the French word <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">ennuyeuse</em>, +and certainly dame Anieuse was sufficiently <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“ennuyeuse”</span> to her lord +and husband. “Sire Hains,” her husband, was, it appears, a maker of +<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“cottes”</span> and mantles, and we should judge also, by the point on which +the quarrel turned, that he was partial to a good dinner. Dame Anieuse +was of that disagreeable temper, that whenever Sire Hains told her of +some particularly nice thing which he wished her to buy for his meal, +she bought instead something which she knew was disagreeable to him. +If he ordered boiled meat, she invariably roasted it, and further +contrived that it should be so covered with cinders and ashes that +he could not eat it. This would show that people in the middle ages +(except, perhaps, professional cooks) were very unapt at roasting meat. +This state of things had gone on for some time, when one day Sire Hains +gave orders to his wife to buy him fish for his dinner. The disobedient +wife, instead of buying fish, provided nothing for his meal but a dish +of spinage, telling him falsely that all the fish stank. This leads to +a violent quarrel, in which, after some fierce<a class="pagenum" id="Page_126" title="126"></a> wrangling, especially +on the part of the lady, Sire Hains proposes to decide their difference +in a novel manner. “Early in the morning,” he said, “I will take off +my breeches and lay them down in the middle of the court, and the one +who can win them shall be acknowledged to be master or mistress of the +house.”</p> + +<div class="poetry-container" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">Le matinet, sans contredire,</div> + <div class="line">Voudrai mes braies deschaucier,</div> + <div class="line">Et enmi nostre cort couchier;</div> + <div class="line">Et qui conquerre les porra,</div> + <div class="line">Par bone reson mousterra</div> + <div class="line">Qu’il ert sire ou dame du nostre.</div> + <div class="attribution">Barbazan, Fabliaux, tome iii. p. 383.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Dame Anieuse accepted the challenge with eagerness, and each prepared +for the struggle. After due preparation, two neighbours, friend Symon +and Dame Aupais, having been called in as witnesses, and the object +of dispute, the breeches, having been placed on the pavement of the +court, the battle began, with some slight parody on the formalities +of the judicial combat. The first blow was given by the dame, who was +so eager for the fray that she struck her husband before he had put +himself on his guard; and the war of tongues, in which at least Dame +Anieuse had the best of it, went on at the same time as the other +battle. Sire Hains ventured a slight expostulation on her eagerness +for the fray, in answer to which she only threw in his teeth a fierce +defiance to do his worst. Provoked at this, Sire Hains struck at her, +and hit her over the eyebrows, so effectively, that the skin was +discoloured; and, over-confident in the effect of this first blow, he +began rather too soon to exult over his wife’s defeat. But Dame Anieuse +was less disconcerted than he expected, and recovering quickly from +the effect of the blow, she turned upon him and struck him on the same +part of his face with such force, that she nearly knocked him over the +sheepfold. Dame Anieuse, in her turn, now sneered over him, and while +he was recovering from his confusion, her eyes fell upon the object of +contention, and she rushed to it, and laid her hands upon it to carry +it away. This movement roused Sire Hains, who instantly seized another +part of the article of his dress of which he<a class="pagenum" id="Page_127" title="127"></a> was thus in danger of +being deprived, and began a struggle for possession, in which the said +article underwent considerable dilapidation, and fragments of it were +scattered over the court. In the midst of this struggle the actual +fight recommenced, by the husband giving his wife so heavy a blow on +the teeth that her mouth was filled with blood. The effect was such +that Sire Hains already reckoned on the victory, and proclaimed himself +lord of the breeches.</p> + +<div class="poetry-container" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">Hains fiert sa fame enmi les denz</div> + <div class="line">Tel cop, que la bouche dedenz</div> + <div class="line">Li a toute emplie de sancz.</div> + <div class="line">“Tien ore,” dist Sire Hains, “anc,</div> + <div class="line">Je cuit que je t’ai bien atainte,</div> + <div class="line">Or t’ai-je de deux colors tainte—</div> + <div class="line">J’aurai les braies toutes voies.”</div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>But the immediate effect on Dame Anieuse was only to render her more +desperate. She quitted her hold on the disputed garment, and fell upon +her husband with such a shower of blows that he hardly knew which way +to turn. She was thus, however, unconsciously exhausting herself, and +Sire Hains soon recovered. The battle now became fiercer than ever, +and the lady seemed to be gaining the upper hand, when Sire Hains gave +her a skilful blow in the ribs, which nearly broke one of them, and +considerably checked her ardour. Friend Symon here interposed, with +the praiseworthy aim of restoring peace before further harm might be +done, but in vain, for the lady was only rendered more obstinate by +her mishap; and he agreed that it was useless to interfere until one +had got a more decided advantage over the other. The fight therefore +went on, the two combatants having now seized each other by the hair +of the head, a mode of combat in which the advantages were rather on +the side of the male. At this moment, one of the judges, Dame Aupais, +sympathising too much with Dame Anieuse, ventured some words of +encouragement, which drew upon her a severe rebuke from her colleague, +Symon, who intimated that if she interfered again there might be two +pairs of combatants instead of one. Meanwhile Dame Anieuse was becoming +exhausted, and was evidently getting the worst of the contest, until at +length, staggering<a class="pagenum" id="Page_128" title="128"></a> from a vigorous push, she fell back into a large +basket which lay behind her. Sire Hains stood over her exultingly, +and Symon, as umpire, pronounced him victorious. He thereupon took +possession of the disputed article of raiment, and again invested +himself with it, while the lady accepted faithfully the conditions +imposed upon her, and we are assured by the poet that she was a good +and obedient wife during the rest of her life. In this story, which +affords a curious picture of mediæval life, we learn the origin of the +proverb relating to the possession and wearing of the breeches. Hugues +Piaucelles concludes his <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">fabliau</em> by recommending every man who has a +disobedient wife to treat her in the same manner; and mediæval husbands +appear to have followed his advice, without fear of laws against the +ill-treatment of women.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut081.jpg" width="350" height="267" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 81. The Fight for the Breeches.</div> +</div> + +<p>A subject like this was well fitted for the burlesques on the stalls, +and accordingly we find on one of those in the cathedral at Rouen, the +group given in our cut No. 81, which seems to represent the part of the +story in which both combatants seize hold of the disputed garment, and +struggle for possession of it. The husband here grasps a knife in his +hand, with which he seems to be threatening to cut it to pieces rather +than give it up. The <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">fabliau</em> gives the victory to the husband, but +the wife was generally considered as in a majority of cases carrying +off the prize. In an extremely rare engraving by the Flemish artist +Van Mecken, dated in 1480, of which I give a copy in our cut No. 82. +the lady, while<a class="pagenum" id="Page_129" title="129"></a> putting on the breeches, of which she has just become +possessed, shows an inclination to lord it rather tyrannically over her +other half, whom she has condemned to perform the domestic drudgery of +the mansion.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut082.jpg" width="400" height="344" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 82. The Breeches Won.</div> +</div> + +<p>In Germany, where there was still more roughness in mediæval life, what +was told in England and France as a good story of domestic doings, +was actually carried into practice under the authority of the laws. +The judicial duel was there adopted by the legal authorities as a +mode of settling the differences between husband and wife. Curious +particulars on this subject are given in an interesting paper entitled +“Some observations on Judicial Duels as practised in Germany,” +published in the twenty-ninth volume of the Archæologia of the Society +of Antiquaries (p. 348). These observations are chiefly taken from +a volume of directions, accompanied with drawings, for the various +modes of attack and defence, compiled by Paulus Kall, a celebrated +teacher of defence at the court of Bavaria about the year 1400. Among +these drawings we have one representing the mode of combat between +husband and wife. The only weapon allowed the female, but that a very +formidable one, was, according to these directions, a heavy stone +wrapped up in an elongation of her chemise, while her opponent had only +a short staff, and he was placed up to the waist in a pit formed in +the ground. The following<a class="pagenum" id="Page_130" title="130"></a> is a literal translation of the directions +given in the manuscript, and our cut No. 83 is a copy of the drawing +which illustrates it:—“The woman must be so prepared, that a sleeve +of her chemise extend a small ell beyond her hand, like a little sack; +there indeed is put a stone weighing three pounds; and she has nothing +else but her chemise, and that is bound together between the legs with +a lace. Then the man makes himself ready in the pit over against his +wife. He is buried therein up to the girdle, and one hand is bound at +the elbow to the side.” At this time the practice of such combats in +Germany seems to have been long known, for it is stated that in the +year 1200 a man and his wife fought under the sanction of the civic +authorities at Bâle, in Switzerland. In a picture of a combat between +man and wife, from a manuscript resembling that of Paulus Kall, but +executed nearly a century later, the man is placed in a tub instead +of a pit, with his left arm tied to his side as before, and his right +holding a short heavy staff; while the woman is dressed, and not +stripped to the<a class="pagenum" id="Page_131" title="131"></a> chemise, as in the former case. The man appears to be +holding the stick in such a manner that the sling in which the stone +was contained would twist round it, and the woman would thus be at +the mercy of her opponent. In an ancient manuscript on the science of +defence in the library at Gotha, the man in the tub is represented as +the conqueror of his wife, having thus dragged her head-foremost into +the tub, where she appears with her legs kicking up in the air.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut083.jpg" width="350" height="419" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 83. A Legal Combat.</div> +</div> + +<p>This was the orthodox mode of combat between man and wife, but it was +sometimes practised under more sanguinary forms. In one picture given +from these old books on the science of defence by the writer of the +paper on the subject in the Archæologia, the two combatants, naked +down to the waist, are represented fighting with sharp knives, and +inflicting upon each other’s bodies frightful gashes.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut084.jpg" width="350" height="335" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 84. The Witch and the Demon.</div> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut085.jpg" width="500" height="373" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 85. The Witch and her Victim.</div> +</div> + +<p>A series of stall carvings at Corbeil, near Paris, of which more will +be said a little farther on in this chapter, has furnished the curious +group represented in our cut No. 84, which is one of the rather rare +pictorial allusions to the subject of witchcraft. It represents a +woman who must, by her occupation, be a witch, for she has so far got +the mastery of the demon that she is sawing off his head with a very +uncomfortable looking<a class="pagenum" id="Page_132" title="132"></a> instrument. Another story of witchcraft is told +in the sculpture of a stone panel at the entrance of the cathedral of +Lyons, which is represented in our cut No. 85. One power, supposed to +be possessed by witches, was that of transforming people to animals at +will. William of Malmesbury, in his Chronicle, tells a story of two +witches in the neighbourhood of Rome, who used to allure travellers +into their cottage, and there transform them into horses, pigs, or +other animals, which they sold, and feasted themselves with the money. +One day a young man, who lived by the profession of a jougleur, sought +a night’s lodging at their cottage, and was received, but they turned +him into an ass, and, as he retained his understanding and his power of +acting, they gained much money by exhibiting him. At length a rich man +of the neighbourhood, who wanted him for his private amusement, offered +the two women a large sum for him, which they accepted, but they warned +the new possessor of the ass that he should carefully restrain him +from going into the water, as that would deprive him of his power of +performing. The man who had purchased the ass acted upon this advice, +and carefully kept him from water, but one day, through the negligence +of his keeper, the<a class="pagenum" id="Page_133" title="133"></a> ass escaped from his stable, and, rushing to a pond +at no great distance, threw himself into it. Water—and running water +especially—was believed to destroy the power of witchcraft or magic; +and no sooner was the ass immersed in the water, than he recovered his +original form of a young man. He told his story, which soon reached the +ears of the pope, and the two women were seized, and confessed their +crimes. The carving from Lyons Cathedral appears to represent some such +scene of sorcery. The naked woman, evidently a witch, is, perhaps, +seated on a man whom she has transformed into a goat, and she seems to +be whirling the cat over him in such a manner that it may tear his face +with its claws.</p> + +<p>There was still another class of subjects for satire and caricature +which belongs to this part of our subject—I mean that of the trader +and manufacturer. We must not suppose that fraudulent trading, that +deceptive and imperfect workmanship, that adulteration of everything +that could be adulterated, are peculiar to modern times. On the +contrary, there was no period in the world’s history in which dishonest +dealing was carried on to such an extraordinary extent, in which there +was so much deception used in manufactures, or in which adulteration +was practised on so shameless a scale, as during the middle ages. These +vices, or, as we may, perhaps, more properly describe them, these +crimes, are often mentioned in the mediæval writers, but they were +not easily represented pictorially, and therefore we rarely meet with +direct allusions to them, either in sculpture, on stone or wood, or +in the paintings of illuminated manuscripts. Representations of the +trades themselves are not so rare, and are sometimes droll and almost +burlesque. A curious series of such representations of arts and trades +was carved on the <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">misereres</em> of the church of St. Spire, at Corbeil, +near Paris, which only exist now in Millin’s engravings, but they seem +to have been works of the fifteenth century. Among them the first +place is given to the various occupations necessary for the production +of bread, that article so important to the support of life. Thus we +see, in these carvings at Corbeil, the labours of the reaper, cutting +the wheat and forming it into sheaves, the miller carrying it away to +be ground into<a class="pagenum" id="Page_134" title="134"></a> meal, and the baker thrusting it into the oven, and +drawing it out in the shape of loaves. Our cut No. 86, taken from one +of these sculptures, represents the baker either putting in or taking +out the bread with his peel; by the earnest manner in which he looks at +it, we may suppose that it is the latter, and that he is ascertaining +if it be sufficiently baked. We have an earlier representation of a +mediæval oven in our cut No. 87, taken from the celebrated illuminated +manuscript of the “Romance of Alexandre,” in the Bodleian Library at +Oxford, which appears to belong to an early period of the fourteenth +century. Here the baker is evidently going to take a loaf out of the +oven, for his companion holds a dish for the purpose of receiving it.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut086.jpg" width="350" height="371" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 86. A Baker of the Fifteenth Century.</div> +</div> + +<div class="figleft"> + <img src="images/cut087.jpg" width="250" height="184" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 87. A Mediæval Baker.</div> +</div> + +<p>In nothing was fraud and adulteration practised to so great an +extent<a class="pagenum" id="Page_135" title="135"></a> as in the important article of bread, and the two occupations +especially employed in making it were objects of very great dislike and +of scornful satire. The miller was proverbially a thief. Every reader +of Chaucer will remember his character so admirably drawn in that of +the miller of Trumpington, who, though he was as proud and gay “as eny +pecok,” was nevertheless eminently dishonest.</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">A theef he was for soth of corn and mele,</div> + <div class="line">And that a sleigh <span class="normal">(sly)</span>, and usyng <span class="normal">(practised)</span> for to stele.</div> + <div class="attribution">Chaucer’s Reeves Tale.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>This practice included a large college then existing in Cambridge, +but now forgotten, the Soler Hall, which suffered greatly by his +depredations.</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">And on a day it happed in a stounde,</div> + <div class="line">Syk lay the mauncyple on a maledye,</div> + <div class="line">Men wenden wisly that he schulde dye;</div> + <div class="line">For which this meller stal bothe mele and corn</div> + <div class="line">A thousend part more than byforn.</div> + <div class="line">For ther biforn he stal but curteysly;</div> + <div class="line">But now he is a theef outrageously.</div> + <div class="line">For which the wardeyn chidde and made fare,</div> + <div class="line">But therof sette the meller not a tare;</div> + <div class="line">He crakked boost, and swor it was nat so.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Two of the scholars of this college resolved to go with the corn to the +mill, and by their watchfulness prevent his depredations. Those who are +acquainted with the story know how the scholars succeeded, or rather +how they failed; how the miller stole half a bushel of their flour and +caused his wife to make a cake of it; and how the victims had their +revenge and recovered the cake.</p> + +<p>As already stated, the baker had in these good old times no better +character than the miller, if not worse. There was an old saying, that +if three persons of three obnoxious professions were put together in a +sack and shaken up, the first who came out would certainly be a rogue, +and one of these was a baker. Moreover, the opinion concerning the +baker was so strong that, as in the phrase taken from the old legends +of the witches, who in their festivals sat thirteen at a table, this +number was<a class="pagenum" id="Page_136" title="136"></a> popularly called a devil’s dozen, and was believed to be +unlucky—so, when the devil’s name was abandoned, perhaps for the +sake of euphony, the name substituted for it was that of the baker, +and the number thirteen was called “a baker’s dozen.” The makers of +nearly all sorts of provisions for sale were, in the middle ages, +tainted with the same vice, and there was nothing from which society in +general, especially in the towns where few made bread for themselves, +suffered so much. This evil is alluded to more than once in that +curious educational treatise, the “Dictionarius” of John de Garlande, +printed in my “Volume of Vocabularies.” This writer, who wrote in the +earlier half of the thirteenth century, insinuates that the makers +of pies (<em lang="la" xml:lang="la">pastillarii</em>), an article of food which was greatly in +repute during the middle ages, often made use of bad eggs. The cooks, +he says further, sold, especially in Paris to the scholars of the +university, cooked meats, sausages, and such things, which were not +fit to eat; while the butchers furnished the meat of animals which had +died of disease. Even the spices and drugs sold by the apothecaries, +or <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">épiciers</em>, were not, he says, to be trusted. John de Garlande +had evidently an inclination to satire, and he gives way to it not +unfrequently in the little book of which I am speaking. He says that +the glovers of Paris cheated the scholars of the university, by selling +them gloves made of bad materials; that the women who gained their +living by winding thread (<em lang="la" xml:lang="la">devacuatrices</em>, in the Latin of the time), +not only emptied the scholars’ purses, but wasted their bodies also (it +is intended as a pun upon the Latin word); and the hucksters sold them +unripe fruit for ripe. The drapers, he says, cheated people not only +by selling bad materials, but by measuring them with false measures; +while the hawkers, who went about from house to house, robbed as well +as cheated.</p> + +<p>M. Jubinal has published in his curious volume entitled <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Jongleurs et +Trouvères,”</span> a rather jocular poem on the bakers, written in French +of, perhaps, the thirteenth century, in which their art is lauded as +much better and more useful than that of the goldsmith’s. The millers’ +depredations on the corn sent to be ground at the mill, are laid to the +charge of the rats, which attack it by night, and the hens, which find +their way to it by day; and he explains the diminution the bakings<a class="pagenum" id="Page_137" title="137"></a> +experienced in the hands of the baker as arising out of the charity of +the latter towards the poor and needy, to whom they gave the meal and +paste before it had even been put into the oven. The celebrated English +poet, John Lydgate, in a short poem preserved in a manuscript in the +Harleian Library in the British Museum (MS. Harl. No. 2,255, fol. 157, +v<sup>o</sup>, describes the pillory, which he calls their Bastile, as the +proper heritage of the miller and the baker:—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="line">Put out his hed, lyst nat for to dare,</div> + <div class="line indent2">But lyk a man upon that tour to abyde,</div> + <div class="line">For cast of eggys wil not oonys spare,</div> + <div class="line indent2">Tyl he be quallyd body, bak, and syde.</div> + <div class="line indent2">His heed endooryd, and of verray pryde</div> + <div class="line">Put out his armys, shewith abrood his face;</div> + <div class="line indent2">The fenestrallys be made for hym so wyde,</div> + <div class="line">Claymyth to been a capteyn of that place.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="line">The bastyle longith of verray dewe ryght</div> + <div class="line indent2">To fals bakerys, it is trewe herytage</div> + <div class="line">Severalle to them, this knoweth every wyght,</div> + <div class="line indent2">Be kynde assygned for ther sittyng stage;</div> + <div class="line indent2">Wheer they may freely shewe out ther visage,</div> + <div class="line">Whan they tak oonys their possessioun,</div> + <div class="line indent2">Owthir in youthe or in myddyl age;</div> + <div class="line">Men doon hem wrong yif they take hym down.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="line">Let mellerys and bakerys gadre hem a gilde,</div> + <div class="line indent2">And alle of assent make a fraternité,</div> + <div class="line">Undir the pillory a letil chapelle bylde,</div> + <div class="line indent2">The place amorteyse, and purchase lyberté,</div> + <div class="line indent2">For alle thos that of ther noumbre be;</div> + <div class="line">What evir it coost afftir that they wende,</div> + <div class="line indent2">They may clayme, be just auctorité,</div> + <div class="line">Upon that bastile to make an ende.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>The wine-dealer and the publican formed another class in mediæval +society who lived by fraud and dishonesty, and were the objects of +satire. The latter gave both bad wine and bad measure, and he often +also acted as a pawnbroker, and when people had drunk more than they +could pay for, he would take their clothes as pledges for their money. +The tavern, in the middle ages, was the resort of very miscellaneous +company;<a class="pagenum" id="Page_138" title="138"></a> gamblers and loose women were always on the watch there to +lead more honest people into ruin, and the tavern-keeper profited +largely by their gains; and the more vulgar minstrel and <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“jogelour”</span> +found employment there; for the middle classes of society, and even +their betters, frequented the tavern much more generally than at the +present day. In the carved stalls of the church of Corbeil, the liquor +merchant is represented by the figure of a man wheeling a hogshead +in a barrow, as shown in our cut No. 88. The graveness and air of +importance with which he regards it would lead us to suppose that the +barrel contains wine; and the cup and jug on the shelf above show that +it was to be sold retail. The wine-sellers called out their wines +from their doors, and boasted of their qualities, in order to tempt +people in; and John de Garlande assures us that when they entered, +they were served with wine which was not worth drinking. “The criers +of wine,” he says, “proclaim with extended throat the diluted wine +they have in their taverns, offering it at four pennies, at six, at +eight, and at twelve, fresh poured out from the gallon cask into the +cup, to tempt people.” (“Volume of Vocabularies,” p. 126.) The ale-wife +was an especial subject of jest<a class="pagenum" id="Page_139" title="139"></a> and satire, and is not unfrequently +represented on the pictorial monuments of our forefathers. Our cut No. +89 is taken from one of the misereres in the church of Wellingborough, +in Northamptonshire; the ale-wife is pouring her liquor from her jug +into a cup to serve a rustic, who appears to be waiting for it with +impatience.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut088.jpg" width="350" height="361" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 88. The Wine Dealer.</div> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut089.jpg" width="350" height="389" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 89. The Ale-Wife.</div> +</div> + +<div class="figright"> + <img src="images/cut090.jpg" width="200" height="235" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 90. The Ale-Drawer.</div> +</div> + +<p>The figure of the ale-drawer, No. 90, is taken from one of the +misereres in the parish church of Ludlow, in Shropshire. The size +of his jug is somewhat disproportionate to that of the barrel from +which he obtains the ale. The same misereres of Ludlow Church furnish +the next scene, cut No. 91, which represents the end of the wicked +ale-wife. The day of judgment is supposed to have arrived, and she has +received her sentence. A demon, seated on one side, is reading a list +of<a class="pagenum" id="Page_140" title="140"></a> the crimes she has committed, which the magnitude of the parchment +shows to be a rather copious one. Another demon (whose head has been +broken off in the original) carries on his back, in a very irreverent +manner, the unfortunate lady, in order to throw her into hell-mouth, on +the other side of the picture. She is naked with the exception of the +fashionable head-gear, which formed one of her vanities in the world, +and she carries with her the false measure with which she cheated her +customers. A demon bagpiper welcomes her on her arrival. The scene is +full of wit and humour.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut091.jpg" width="500" height="332" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 91. The Ale-Wife’s End.</div> +</div> + +<p>The rustic classes, and instances of their rusticity, are not +unfrequently met with in these interesting carvings. The stalls of +Corbeil present several agricultural scenes. Our cut No. 92 is taken +from those of Gloucester cathedral, of an earlier date, and represents +the three shepherds, astonished at the appearance of the star which +announced the birth of the Saviour of mankind. Like the three kings, +the shepherds to whom this revelation was made were always in the +middle ages represented as three in number. In our drawing from the +miserere in Gloucester cathedral, the costume of the shepherds is +remarkably well<a class="pagenum" id="Page_141" title="141"></a> depicted, even to the details, with the various +implements appertaining to their profession, most of which are +suspended to their girdles. They are drawn with much spirit, and even +the dog is well represented as an especially active partaker in the +scene.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut092.jpg" width="400" height="254" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 92. The Shepherds of the East.</div> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut093.jpg" width="350" height="347" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 93. The Carpenter.</div> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut094.jpg" width="350" height="344" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 94. The Shoemaker.</div> +</div> + +<p>Of the two other examples we select from the misereres of Corbeil, the +first represents the carpenter, or, as he was commonly called by our +Anglo-Saxon and mediæval forefathers, the <em>wright</em>, which signifies +simply the “maker.” The application of this higher and more general +term—for the Almighty himself is called, in the Anglo-Saxon poetry, +<em lang="ang" xml:lang="ang">ealra gescefta wyrhta</em>, the Maker, or Creator, of all things—shows +how important an art that of the carpenter was considered in the +middle ages. Everything made of wood came within his province. In the +Anglo-Saxon “Colloquy” of archbishop Alfric, where some of the more +useful artisans are introduced disputing about the relative value of +their several crafts, the “wright” says, “Who of you can do without +my craft, since I make houses and all sorts of vessels (<em lang="ang" xml:lang="ang">vasa</em>), and +ships for you all?” (“Volume of Vocabularies,” p. 11.) And John de +Garlande, in the thirteenth century, describes the carpenter as making, +among other things, tubs, and barrels, and wine-cades. The workmanship +of those times was exercised, before all other materials, on wood +and metals, and<a class="pagenum" id="Page_142" title="142"></a> the wright, or worker in the former material, was +distinguished by this circumstance from the smith, or worker in metal. +The carpenter is still called a wright in Scotland. Our last cut (No. +94), taken also from one of the misereres at Corbeil, represents the +shoemaker, or as he was then<a class="pagenum" id="Page_143" title="143"></a> usually called, the cordwainer, because +the leather which he chiefly used came from Cordova in Spain, and was +thence called <em>cordewan</em>, or <em>cordewaine</em>. Our shoemaker is engaged +in cutting a skin of leather with an instrument of a rather singular +form. Shoes, and perhaps forms for making shoes, are suspended on pegs +against the wall.</p> + + + +<hr class="chap" /> +<h2><a class="pagenum" id="Page_144" title="144"></a>CHAPTER IX.</h2> + +<p class="subtitle"> + GROTESQUE FACES AND FIGURES.—PREVALENCE OF THE TASTE FOR + UGLY AND GROTESQUE FACES.—SOME OF THE POPULAR FORMS DERIVED + FROM ANTIQUITY; THE TONGUE LOLLING OUT, AND THE DISTORTED + MOUTH.—HORRIBLE SUBJECTS: THE MAN AND THE SERPENTS.—ALLEGORICAL + FIGURES: GLUTTONY AND LUXURY.—OTHER REPRESENTATIONS OF + CLERICAL GLUTTONY AND DRUNKENNESS.—GROTESQUE FIGURES OF + INDIVIDUALS, AND GROTESQUE GROUPS.—ORNAMENTS OF THE BORDERS OF + BOOKS.—UNINTENTIONAL CARICATURE; THE MOTE AND THE BEAM.</p> + + +<p>The grimaces and strange postures of the jougleurs seem to have had +great attractions for those who witnessed them. To unrefined and +uneducated minds no object conveys so perfect a notion of mirth as an +ugly and distorted face. Hence it is that among the common peasantry +at a country fair few exhibitions are more satisfactory than that of +grinning through a horse-collar. This sentiment is largely exemplified +in the sculpture especially of the middle ages, a long period, +during which the general character of society presented that want +of refinement which we now observe chiefly in its least cultivated +classes. Among the most common decorations of our ancient churches and +other mediæval buildings, are grotesque and monstrous heads and faces. +Antiquity, which lent us the types of many of these monstrosities, +saw in her Typhons and Gorgons a signification beyond the surface of +the picture, and her grotesque masks had a general meaning, and were +in a manner typical of the whole field of comic literature. The mask +was less an individual grotesque to be laughed at for itself, than +a personification of comedy. In the middle ages, on the contrary, +although in some cases certain forms were often regarded as typical +of certain ideas, in general the design extended no farther than the +forms which the artist had given to it; the<a class="pagenum" id="Page_145" title="145"></a> grotesque features, like +the grinning through the horse-collar, gave satisfaction by their mere +ugliness. Even the applications, when such figures were intended to +have one, were coarsely satirical, without any intellectuality, and, +where they had a meaning beyond the plain text of the sculpture or +drawing, it was not far-fetched, but plain and easily understood. When +the Anglo-Saxon drew the face of a bloated and disfigured monk, he no +doubt intended thereby to proclaim the popular notion of the general +character of monastic life, but this was a design which nobody could +misunderstand, an interpretation which everybody was prepared to give +to it. We have already seen various examples of this description of +satire, scattered here and there among the immense mass of grotesque +sculpture which has no such meaning. A great proportion, indeed, of +these grotesque sculptures appears to present mere variations of a +certain number of distinct types which had been handed down from a +remote period, some of them borrowed, perhaps involuntarily, from +antiquity. Hence we naturally look for the earlier and more curious +examples of this class of art to Italy and the south of France, where +the transition from classical to mediæval was more gradual, and the +continued influence of classical forms is more easily traced. The +early Christian masons appear to have caricatured under the form of +such grotesques the personages of the heathen mythology, and to this +practice we perhaps owe some of the types of the mediæval monsters. +We have seen in a former chapter a grotesque from the church of Monte +Majour, near Nismes, the original type of which had evidently been some +burlesque figure of Saturn eating one of his children. The classical +mask doubtless furnished the type for those figures, so common in +mediæval sculpture, of faces with disproportionately large mouths; just +as another favourite class of grotesque faces, those with distended +mouths and tongues lolling out, were taken originally from the Typhons +and Gorgons of the ancients. Many other popular types of faces rendered +artificially ugly are mere exaggerations of the distortions produced on +the features by different operations, such, for instance, as that of +blowing a horn.</p> + +<p>The practice of blowing the horn, is, indeed, peculiarly calculated +to<a class="pagenum" id="Page_146" title="146"></a> exhibit the features of the face to disadvantage, and was not +overlooked by the designers of the mediæval decorative sculpture. One +of the large collection of casts of sculptures from French cathedrals +exhibited in the museum at South Kensington, has furnished the two +subjects given in our cut No. 95. The first is represented as blowing +a horn, but he is producing the greatest possible distortion in his +features, and especially in his mouth, by drawing the horn forcibly +on one side with his left hand, while he pulls his beard in the other +direction with the right hand. The force with which he is supposed to +be blowing is perhaps represented by the form given to his eyes. The +face of the lower figure is in at least comparative repose. The design +of representing general distortion in the first is further shown by the +ridiculously unnatural position of the arms. Such distortion of the +members was not unfrequently introduced to heighten the effect of the +grimace in the face; and, as in these examples, it was not uncommon to +introduce as a further element of grotesque, the bodies, or parts of +the bodies, of animals, or even of demons.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut095.jpg" width="350" height="402" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 95. Grotesque Monsters.</div> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut096.jpg" width="350" height="290" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 96. Diabolical Mirth.</div> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut097.jpg" width="375" height="168" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 97. Making Faces.</div> +</div> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="Page_147" title="147"></a>Another cast in the Kensington Museum is the subject of our cut No. +96, which presents the same idea of stretching the mouth. The subject +is here exhibited by another rather mirthful looking individual, but +whether the exhibitor is intended to be a goblin or demon, or whether +he is merely furnished with the wings and claws of a bat, seems rather +uncertain. The bat was looked upon as an unpropitious if not an unholy +animal; like the owl, it was the companion of the witches, and of the +spirits of darkness. The group in our cut No. 97 is taken from one of +the carved stalls in the church of Stratford-upon-Avon, and represents +a trio of grimacers. The first of these three grotesque faces is +lolling out the tongue to an extravagant length; the second is simply +grinning; while the third has taken a sausage between his teeth to<a class="pagenum" id="Page_148" title="148"></a> +render his grimace still more ridiculous. The number and variety of +such grotesque faces, which we find scattered over the architectural +decoration of our old ecclesiastical buildings, are so great that I +will not attempt to give any more particular classification of them. +All this church decoration was calculated especially to produce its +effect upon the middle and lower classes, and mediæval art was, perhaps +more than anything else, suited to mediæval society, for it belonged to +the mass and not to the individual. The man who could enjoy a match at +grinning through horse-collars, must have been charmed by the grotesque +works of the mediæval stone sculptor and wood carver; and we may add +that these display, though often rather rude, a very high degree of +skill in art, a great power of producing striking imagery.</p> + +<p>These mediæval artists loved also to produce horrible objects as well +as laughable ones, though even in their horrors they were continually +running into the grotesque. Among the adjuncts to these sculptured +figures, we sometimes meet with instruments of pain, and very talented +attempts to exhibit this on the features of the victims. The creed of +the middle ages gave great scope for the indulgence of this taste in +the infinitely varied terrors of purgatory and hell; and, not to speak +of the more crude descriptions that are so common in mediæval popular +literature, the account to which these descriptions might be turned by +the poet as well as the artist are well known to the reader of Dante. +Coils of serpents and dragons, which were the most usual instruments +in the tortures of the infernal regions, were always favourite objects +in mediæval ornamentation, whether sculptured or drawn, in the details +of architectural decoration, or in the initial letters and margins +of books. They are often combined in forming grotesque tracery with +the bodies of animals or of human beings, and their movements are +generally hostile to the latter. We have already seen, in previous +chapters, examples of this use of serpents and dragons, dating from the +earliest periods of mediæval art; and it is perhaps the most common +style of ornamentation in the buildings and illuminated manuscripts +in our island from the earlier Saxon times to the thirteenth century. +This ornamentation is sometimes strikingly bold and effective. In the +cathedral of Wells there is a series<a class="pagenum" id="Page_149" title="149"></a> of ornamental bosses, formed by +faces writhing under the attacks of numerous dragons, who are seizing +upon the lips, eyes, and cheeks of their victims. One of these bosses, +which are of the thirteenth century, is represented in our cut No. 98. +A large, coarsely featured face is the victim of two dragons, one of +which attacks his mouth, while the other has seized him by the eye. The +expression of the face is strikingly horrible.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut098.jpg" width="350" height="326" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 98. Horror.</div> +</div> + +<p>The higher mind of the middle ages loved to see inner meanings through +outward forms; or, at least, it was a fashion which manifested itself +most strongly in the latter half of the twelfth century, to adapt these +outward forms to inward meanings by comparisons and moralisations; +and under the effect of this feeling certain figures were at times +adopted, with a view to some other purpose than mere ornament, though +this was probably an innovation upon mediæval art. The tongue lolling +out, taken originally, as we have seen, from the imagery of classic +times, was accepted rather early in the middle ages as the emblem or +symbol of luxury; and, when we find it among the sculptured ornaments +of the architecture especially of some of the larger and more important +churches, it implied probably an allusion to that vice—at least the +face presented to us was intended to be that of a voluptuary. Among +the remarkable<a class="pagenum" id="Page_150" title="150"></a> series of sculptures which crown the battlements of +the cloisters of Magdalen College, Oxford, executed a very few years +after the middle of the fifteenth century, amid many figures of a very +miscellaneous character, there are several which were thus, no doubt, +intended to be representatives of vices, if not of virtues. I give two +examples of these curious sculptures.</p> + +<div class="figure-container"> + +<div class="figure200"> + <img src="images/cut099.jpg" width="200" height="420" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 99. Gluttony.</div> +</div> + +<div class="figure200"> + <img src="images/cut100.jpg" width="155" height="420" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 100. Luxury.</div> +</div> + +</div> + +<p>The first, No. 99, is generally considered to represent gluttony, and +it is a remarkable circumstance that, in a building the character of +which was partly ecclesiastical, and which was erected at the expense +and under the directions of a great prelate, Bishop Wainflete, the +vice of gluttony, with which the ecclesiastical order was especially +reproached, should be represented in ecclesiastical costume. It is an +additional proof that the detail of the work of the building was left +entirely to the builders. The coarse, bloated features of the face, +and the “villainous” low forehead,<a class="pagenum" id="Page_151" title="151"></a> are characteristically executed; +and the lolling tongue may perhaps be intended to intimate that, in +the lives of the clergy, luxury went hand in hand with its kindred +vice. The second of our examples, No. 100, appears by its different +characteristics (some of which we have been unable to introduce in our +woodcut) to be intended to represent luxury itself. Sometimes qualities +of the individual man, or even the class of society, are represented in +a manner far less disguised by allegorical clothing, and therefore much +more plainly to the understanding of the vulgar. Thus in an illuminated +manuscript of the fourteenth century, in the British Museum (MS. +Arundel, No. 91), gluttony is represented by a monk devouring a pie +alone and in secret, except that a little cloven-footed imp holds up +the dish, and seems to enjoy the prospect of monastic indulgence. This +picture is copied in our cut No. 101. Another manuscript of the same +date (MS. Sloane, No. 2435) contains a scene, copied in our cut No. +102, representing drunkenness under the form of another monk, who has +obtained the keys and found his way into the cellar of his monastery, +and is there indulging his love for good ale in similar secrecy. It +is to be remarked that here, again, the vices are laid to the charge +of the clergy. Our cut No. 103, from a bas-relief in Ely Cathedral, +given in Carter’s<a class="pagenum" id="Page_152" title="152"></a> “Specimens of Ancient Sculpture,” represents a man +drinking from a horn, and evidently enjoying his employment, but his +costume is not sufficiently characteristic to betray his quality.</p> + +<div class="figright"> + <img src="images/cut101.jpg" width="150" height="122" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 101. Monkish Gluttony.</div> +</div> + +<p>The subject of grotesque faces and heads naturally leads us to +that of monstrous and grotesque bodies and groups of bodies, which +has already been partly treated in a former chapter, where we have +noticed the great love shown in the middle ages for monstrous animated +figures, not only monsters of one nature, but, and that especially, +of figures formed by joining together the parts of different, and +entirely dissimilar, animals, of similar mixtures between animals and +men. This, as stated above, was often effected by joining the body +of some nondescript animal to a human head and face; so that, by the +disproportionate size of the latter, the body, as a secondary part +of the picture, became only an adjunct to set off still further the +grotesque character of the human face. More importance was sometimes +given to the body combined with fantastic forms, which baffle any +attempt at giving an intelligible description. The accompanying cut, +No. 104, represents a winged monster of this<a class="pagenum" id="Page_153" title="153"></a> kind; it is taken from +one of the casts from French churches exhibited in the Kensington +Museum.</p> + +<div class="figure-container"> + <div class="figure200"> + <img src="images/cut102.jpg" width="150" height="181" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 102. The Monastic Cellarer.</div> + </div> + + <div class="figure200"> + <img src="images/cut103.jpg" width="200" height="198" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 103. Drunkenness.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut104.jpg" width="350" height="375" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 104. A Strange Monster.</div> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut105.jpg" width="350" height="351" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 105. Rolling Topsy Turvy.</div> +</div> + +<div class="figleft"> + <img src="images/cut106.jpg" width="250" height="190" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 106. A Continuous Group.</div> +</div> + +<p>Sometimes the mediæval artist, without giving any unusual form to +his human figures, placed them in strange postures, or joined them +in singular combinations. These latter are commonly of a playful +character, or sometimes they represent droll feats of skill, or +puzzles, or other subjects, all of which have been published +pictorially and for the amusement of children down to very recent +times. There were a few of these groups which are of rather frequent +occurrence, and they were evidently favourite types. One of these is +given in the annexed cut, No. 105. It is taken from one of the carved +misereres of the stalls in Ely cathedral, as given in Carter, and +represents two men who appear to be rolling over each other. The upper +figure exhibits animal’s ears on his cap, which seem to proclaim him +a member of the fraternity of fools: the ears of the lower figure +are concealed from view. This group is not a rare one, especially on +similar monuments in France, where the architectural antiquaries have a +technical name for it; and this shows us how even the particular forms +of art in the middle ages were not confined to any particular country, +but more or less, and with exceptions, they pervaded all<a class="pagenum" id="Page_154" title="154"></a> those which +acknowledged the ecclesiastical supremacy of the church of Rome; +whatever peculiarity of style it took in particular countries, the same +forms were spread through all western Europe. Our next cut, No. 106, +gives another of these curious groups, consisting, in fact, of two +individuals, one of which is evidently an ecclesiastic. It will be seen +that, as we follow this round, we obtain, by means of the two heads, +four different figures in so many totally different positions. This +group is taken from one of the very curious seats in the cathedral of +Rouen in Normandy, which were engraved and published in an interesting +volume by the late Monsieur E. H. Langlois.</p> + +<div class="figleft"> + <img src="images/cut107.jpg" width="175" height="442" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 107. Border Ornament.</div> +</div> + +<p>Among the most interesting of the mediæval burlesque drawings are +those which are found in such abundance in the borders of the pages of +illuminated manuscripts. During the earlier periods of the mediæval +miniatures, the favourite objects for these borders were monstrous +animals, especially dragons, which could easily be twined into +grotesque combinations. In course of time, the subjects thus introduced +became more numerous, and in the fifteenth century they were very +varied. Strange animals still continued to be favourites, but they +were more light and elegant in their forms, and were more gracefully +designed. Our cut No. 107, taken from the beautifully-illuminated +manuscript of the romance of the <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Comte d’Artois,”</span> of the fifteenth +century, which has furnished us previously with several cuts, will +illustrate my meaning. The graceful lightness of the tracery of the +foliage shown in<a class="pagenum" id="Page_155" title="155"></a> this design is found in none of the earlier works +of art of this class. This, of course, is chiefly to be ascribed to +the great advance which had been made in the art of design since the +thirteenth century. But, though so greatly improved in the style of +art, the same class of subjects continued to be introduced in this +border ornamentation long after the art of printing, and that of +engraving, which accompanied it, had been introduced. The revolution +in the ornamentation of the borders of the pages of books was effected +by the artists of the sixteenth century, at which time people had +become better acquainted with, and had learnt to appreciate, ancient +art and Roman antiquities, and they drew their inspiration from a +correct knowledge of what the middle ages had copied blindly, but had +not understood. Among the subjects of burlesque which the monuments +of Roman art presented to them, the stumpy figures of the pigmies +appear to have gained special favour, and they are employed in a manner +which reminds us of the pictures found in Pompeii. Jost Amman, the +well-known artist, who exercised his profession at Nüremberg in the +latter half of the sixteenth century, engraved a set of illustrations +to Ovid’s Metamorphoses, which were printed at Lyons in 1574, and each +cut and page of which is enclosed in a border of very fanciful and +neatly-executed burlesque. The pigmies are introduced in these borders +very freely, and are grouped with great spirit. I select as an example, +cut No. 108, a scene which represents a triumphal procession<a class="pagenum" id="Page_156" title="156"></a>—some +pigmy Alexander returning from his conquests. The hero is seated on +a throne carried by an elephant, and before him a bird, perhaps a +vanquished crane, proclaims loudly his praise. Before them a pigmy +attendant marches proudly, carrying in one hand the olive branch of +peace, and leading in the other a ponderous but captive ostrich, as a +trophy of his master’s victories. Before him again a pigmy warrior, +heavily armed with battle-axe and falchion, is mounting the steps +of a stage, on which a nondescript animal, partaking somewhat of +the character of a sow, but perhaps intended as a burlesque on the +strange animals which, in mediæval romance, Alexander was said to have +encountered in Egypt, blows a horn, to celebrate or announce the return +of the conqueror. A snail, also advancing slowly up the stage, implies, +perhaps, a sneer at the whole scene.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut108.jpg" width="400" height="210" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 108. A Triumphal Procession.</div> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut109.jpg" width="300" height="390" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 109. The Mote and the Beam.</div> +</div> + +<p>Nevertheless, these old German, Flemish, and Dutch artists were still +much influenced by the mediæval spirit, which they displayed in their +coarse and clumsy imagination, in their neglect of everything like +congruity in their treatment of the subject with regard to time and +place, and their <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">naïve</em> exaggerations and blunders. Extreme examples +of these characteristics are spoken of, in which the Israelites +crossing the Red Sea are armed with muskets, and all the other +accoutrements of modern soldiers, and in which Abraham is preparing +to sacrifice his son Isaac by shooting him with a matchlock. In +delineating scriptural subjects, an attempt is generally made to +clothe the figures in an imaginary ancient oriental costume, but the +landscapes are filled with the modern castles and mansion houses, +churches, and monasteries of western Europe. These half-mediæval +artists, too, like their more ancient predecessors, often fall into +unintentional caricature by the exaggeration or simplicity with which +they treat their subjects. There was one subject which the artists of +this period of regeneration of art seemed to have agreed to treat in +a very unimaginative manner. In the beautiful Sermon on the Mount, +our Saviour, in condemning hasty judgments of other people’s actions, +says (Matt. vii. 3-5), “And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy +brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? +Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the<a class="pagenum" id="Page_157" title="157"></a> mote out of +thine eye, and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, +first cast out the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see +clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.” Whatever be +the exact nature of the beam which the man was expected to overlook +in his “own eye,” it certainly was not a large beam of timber. Yet +such was the conception of it by artists of the sixteenth century. +One of them, named Solomon Bernard, designed a series of woodcuts +illustrating the New Testament, which were published at Lyons in 1553; +and the manner in which he treated the subject will be seen in our +cut No. 109, taken from one of the illustrations to that book. The +individual seated is the man who has a mote in his eye, which the +other, approaching him, points out; and he retorts by pointing to the +“beam,” which is certainly such a massive object as could not easily +have been overlooked. About thirteen years before this, an artist of +Augsburg, named Daniel Hopfer, had published a large copper-plate +engraving of this same subject, a reduced copy of which is given in the +cut No. 110. The individual who sees the mote in his brother’s eye, is +evidently treating it in the<a class="pagenum" id="Page_158" title="158"></a> character of a physician or surgeon. It +is only necessary to add that the beam in his own eye is of still more +extraordinary dimensions than the former, and that, though it seems +to escape the notice both of himself and his patient, it is evident +that the group in the distance contemplate it with astonishment. The +building accompanying this scene appears to be a church, with paintings +of saints in the windows.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut110.jpg" width="375" height="507" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 110. The Mote and the Beam—Another Treatment.</div> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap" /> +<h2><a class="pagenum" id="Page_159" title="159"></a>CHAPTER X.</h2> + +<p class="subtitle"> + SATIRICAL LITERATURE IN THE MIDDLE AGES.—JOHN DE HAUTEVILLE + AND ALAN DE LILLE.—GOLIAS AND THE GOLIARDS.—THE GOLIARDIC + POETRY.—TASTE FOR PARODY.—PARODIES ON RELIGIOUS + SUBJECTS.—POLITICAL CARICATURE IN THE MIDDLE AGES.—THE JEWS + OF NORWICH.—CARICATURE REPRESENTATIONS OF COUNTRIES.—LOCAL + SATIRE.—POLITICAL SONGS AND POEMS.</p> + + +<p>In a previous chapter I have spoken of a class of satirical literature +which was entirely popular in its character. Not that on this account +it was original among the peoples who composed mediæval society, for +the intellectual development of the middle ages came almost all from +Rome through one medium or other, although we know so little of the +details of the popular literature of the Romans that we cannot always +trace it. The mediæval literature of western Europe was mostly modelled +upon that of France, which was received, like its language, from Rome. +But when the great university system became established, towards the +end of the eleventh century, the scholars of western Europe became +more directly acquainted with the models of literature which antiquity +had left them; and during the twelfth century these found imitators +so skilful that some of them almost deceive us into accepting them +for classical writers themselves. Among the first of these models to +attract the attention of mediæval scholars, were the Roman satirists, +and the study of them produced, during the twelfth century, a number of +satirical writers in Latin prose and verse, who are remarkable not only +for their boldness and poignancy, but for the elegance of their style. +I may mention among those of English birth, John of Salisbury, Walter +Mapes, and Giraldus Cambrensis, who all wrote in prose, and Nigellus +Wireker, already mentioned in a former chapter, and John de Hauteville, +who wrote in<a class="pagenum" id="Page_160" title="160"></a> verse. The first of these, in his “Polycraticus,” Walter +Mapes, in his book <span lang="la" xml:lang="la">“De Nugis Curialium,”</span> and Giraldus, in his <span lang="la" xml:lang="la">“Speculum +Ecclesiæ,”</span> and several other of his writings, lay the lash on the +corruptions and vices of their contemporaries with no tender hand. +The two most remarkable English satirists of the twelfth century were +John de Hauteville and Nigellus Wireker. The former wrote, in the year +1184, a poem in nine books of Latin hexameters, entitled, after the +name of its hero, “Architrenius,” or the Arch-mourner. Architrenius +is represented as a youth, arrived at years of maturity, who sorrows +over the spectacle of human vices and weaknesses, until he resolves to +go on a pilgrimage to Dame Nature, in order to expostulate with her +for having made him feeble to resist the temptations of the world, +and to entreat her assistance. On his way, he arrives successively at +the court of Venus and at the abode of Gluttony, which give him the +occasion to dwell at considerable length on the license and luxury +which prevailed among his contemporaries. He next reaches Paris, and +visits the famous mediæval university, and his satire on the manners of +the students and the fruitlessness of their studies, forms a remarkable +and interesting picture of the age. The pilgrim next arrives at the +Mount of Ambition, tempting by its beauty and by the stately palace +with which it was crowned, and here we are presented with a satire on +the manners and corruptions of the court. Near to this was the Hill of +Presumption, which was inhabited by ecclesiastics of all classes, great +scholastic doctors and professors, monks, and the like. It is a satire +on the manners of the clergy. As Architrenius turns from this painful +spectacle, he encounters a gigantic and hideous monster named Cupidity, +is led into a series of reflections upon the greediness and avarice +of the prelates, from which he is roused by the uproar caused by a +fierce combat between the prodigals and the misers. He is subsequently +carried to the island of far-distant Thule, which he finds to be the +resting-place of the philosophers of ancient Greece, and he listens +to their declamations against the vices of mankind. After this visit, +Architrenius reaches the end of his pilgrimage. He finds Nature in the +form of a beautiful woman, dwelling with a host of attendants in the +midst of a flowery plain, and meats with a courteous reception, but she +begins by<a class="pagenum" id="Page_161" title="161"></a> giving him a long lecture on natural philosophy. After this +is concluded, Dame Nature listens to his complaints, and, to console +him, gives him a handsome woman, named Moderation, for a wife, and +dismisses him with a chapter of good counsels on the duties of married +life. The general moral intended to be inculcated appears to be that +the retirement of domestic happiness is to be preferred to the vain and +heartless turmoils of active life in all its phases. It will be seen +that the kind of allegory which subsequently produced the “Pilgrim’s +Progress,” had already made its appearance in mediæval literature.</p> + +<p>Another of the celebrated satirists of the scholastic ages was +named Alanus de Insulis, or Alan of Lille, because he is understood +to have been born at Lille in Flanders. He occupied the chair of +theology for many years in the university of Paris with great +distinction, and his learning was so extensive that he gained the +name of <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">doctor universalis</em>, the universal doctor. In one of his +books, which is an imitation of that favourite book in the middle +ages <span lang="la" xml:lang="la">“Boethius de Consolatione Philosophiæ,”</span> Dame Nature, in the +place of Philosophy—not, as in John de Hauteville, as the referee, +but as the complainant—is introduced bitterly lamenting over the +deep depravity of the thirteenth century, especially displayed in +the prevalence of vices of a revolting character. This work, which, +like Boethius, consists of alternate chapters in verse and prose, is +entitled <span lang="la" xml:lang="la">“De Planctu Naturæ,”</span> the lamentation of nature. I will not, +however, go on here to give a list of the graver satirical writers, but +we will proceed to another class of satirists which sprang up among +the mediæval scholars, more remarkable and more peculiar in their +character—I mean peculiar to the middle ages.</p> + +<p>The satires of the time show us that the students in the universities +in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, who enjoyed a great amount +of independence from authority, were generally wild and riotous, and, +among the vast number of youths who then devoted themselves to a +scholastic life, we can have no doubt that the habit of dissipation +became permanent. Among these wild students there existed, probably, +far more wit and satirical talent than among their steadier and more +laborious brethren, and this wit, and the manner in which it was +displayed, made its possessors welcome guests at the luxurious tables +of the higher and<a class="pagenum" id="Page_162" title="162"></a> richer clergy, at which Latin seems to have been +the language in ordinary use. In all probability it was from this +circumstance (in allusion to the Latin word <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">gula</em>, as intimating their +love of the table) that these merry scholars, who displayed in Latin +some of the accomplishments which the jougleurs professed in the vulgar +tongue, took or received the name of <em>goliards</em> (in the Latin of that +time, <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">goliardi</em>, or <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">goliardenses</em>).<a id="FNanchor_42" href="#Footnote_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a> The name at least appears +to have been adopted towards the end of the twelfth century. In the +year 1229, during the minority of Louis IX., and while the government +of France was in the hands of the queen-mother, troubles arose in the +university of Paris through the intrigues of the papal legate, and the +turbulence of the scholars led to their dispersion and to the temporary +closing of the schools; and the contemporary historian, Matthew Paris, +tells us how “some of the servants of the departing scholars, or those +whom we used to call goliardenses,” composed an indecent epigram on +the rumoured familiarities between the legate and the queen. But this +is not the first mention of the goliards, for a statute of the council +of Treves, in 1227, forbade “all priests to permit truants, or other +wandering scholars, or goliards, to sing verses or <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">Sanctus</em> and +<em lang="la" xml:lang="la">Angelus Dei</em> in the service of the mass.”<a id="FNanchor_43" href="#Footnote_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a> This probably refers to +parodies on the religious service, such as those of which I shall soon +have to speak. From this time the goliards are frequently mentioned. In +ecclesiastical statutes published in the year 1289, it is ordered that +the clerks or clergy (<em lang="la" xml:lang="la">clerici</em>, that is, men who had their education +in the university) “should not be jougleurs, goliards, or buffoons;”<a id="FNanchor_44" href="#Footnote_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a> +and the same statute proclaims a heavy penalty against those <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">clerici</em> +“who persist in the<a class="pagenum" id="Page_163" title="163"></a> practice of goliardy or stage performance during a +year,”<a id="FNanchor_45" href="#Footnote_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a> which shows that they exercised more of the functions of the +jougleur than the mere singing of songs.</p> + +<p>These vagabond clerks made for themselves an imaginary chieftain, +or president of their order, to whom they gave the name of Golias, +probably as a pun on the name of the giant who combated against David, +and, to show further their defiance of the existing church government, +they made him a bishop—<em lang="la" xml:lang="la">Golias episcopus</em>. Bishop Golias was the +burlesque representative of the clerical order, the general satirist, +the reformer of eclesiastical and all other corruptions. If he was not +a doctor of divinity, he was a master of arts, for he is spoken of as +<em lang="la" xml:lang="la">Magister Golias</em>. But above all he was the father of the Goliards, +the “ribald clerks,” as they are called, who all belonged to his +household,<a id="FNanchor_46" href="#Footnote_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a> and they are spoken of as his children.</p> + +<div class="poetry-container" lang="la" xml:lang="la"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">Summa salus omnium, filius Mariæ,</div> + <div class="line">Pascat, potat, vestiat pueros Golyæ!<a id="FNanchor_47" href="#Footnote_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a></div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>“May the Saviour of all, the Son of Mary, give food, drink, and clothes +to the children of Golias!” Still the name was clothed in so much +mystery, that Giraldus Cambrensis, who flourished towards the latter +end of the twelfth century, believed Golias to be a real personage, +and his contemporary. It may be added that Golias not only boasts of +the dignity of bishop, but he appears sometimes under the title of +<em>archipoeta</em>, the archpoet or poet-in-chief.</p> + +<p>Cæsarius of Heisterbach, who completed his book of the miracles of his +time in the year 1222, tells us a curious anecdote of the character +of the wandering clerk. In the year before he wrote, he tells us, “It +happened at Bonn, in the diocese of Cologne, that a certain wandering<a class="pagenum" id="Page_164" title="164"></a> +clerk, named Nicholas, of the class they call archpoet, was grievously +ill, and when he supposed that he was dying, he obtained from our +abbot, through his own pleading, and the intercession of the canons +of the same church, admission into the order. What more? He put on +the tunic, as it appeared to us, with much contrition, but, when the +danger was past, he took it off immediately, and, throwing it down with +derision, took to flight.” We learn best the character of the goliards +from their own poetry, a considerable quantity of which is preserved. +They wandered about from mansion to mansion, probably from monastery +to monastery, just like the jougleurs, but they seem to have been +especially welcome at the tables of the prelates of the church, and, +like the jougleurs, besides being well feasted, they received gifts of +clothing and other articles. In few instances only were they otherwise +than welcome, as described in the rhyming epigram printed in my “Latin +Poems attributed to Walter Mapes.” “I come uninvited,” says the goliard +to the bishop, “ready for dinner; such is my fate, never to dine +invited.” The bishop replies, “I care not for vagabonds, who wander +among the fields, and cottages, and villages; such guests are not for +my table. I do not invite you, for I avoid such as you; yet without my +will you may eat the bread you ask. Wash, wipe, sit, dine, drink, wipe, +and depart.”</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="line center">Goliardus.</div> + <div class="line">Non invitatus venio prandere paratus;</div> + <div class="line">Sic sum fatatus, nunquam prandere vocatus.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="line center">Episcopus.</div> + <div class="line">Non ego curo vagos, qui rura, mapalia, pagos</div> + <div class="line">Perlustrant, tales non vult mea mensa sodales.</div> + <div class="line">Te non invito, tibi consimiles ego vito;</div> + <div class="line">Me tamen invito potieris pane petito.</div> + <div class="line">Ablue, terge, sede, prande, bibe, terge, recede.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>In another similar epigram, the goliard complains of the bishop who +had given him as his reward nothing but an old worn-out mantle. Most +of the writers of the goliardic poetry complain of their poverty, and +some of them admit that this poverty arose from the tavern and the love +of gambling. One of them alleges as his claim to the liberality of<a class="pagenum" id="Page_165" title="165"></a> +his host, that, as he was a scholar, he had not learnt to labour, that +his parents were knights, but he had no taste for fighting, and that, +in a word, he preferred poetry to any occupation. Another speaks still +more to the point, and complains that he is in danger of being obliged +to sell his clothes. “If this garment of vair which I wear,” he says, +“be sold for money, it will be a great disgrace to me; I would rather +suffer a long fast. A bishop, who is the most generous of all generous +men, gave me this cloak, and will have for it heaven, a greater reward +than St. Martin has, who only gave half of his cloak. It is needful +now that the poet’s want be relieved by your liberality [addressing +his hearers]; let noble men give noble gifts—gold, and robes, and the +like.”</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">Si vendatur propter denarium</div> + <div class="line">Indumentum quod porto varium,</div> + <div class="line">Grande mihi fiet opprobrium;</div> + <div class="line">Malo diu pati jejunium.</div> + <div class="line">Largissimus largorum omnium</div> + <div class="line">Prœsul dedit mihi hoc pallium,</div> + <div class="line">Majus habens in cælis præmium</div> + <div class="line">Quam Martinus, qui dedit medium.</div> + <div class="line">Nunc est opus ut vestra copia</div> + <div class="line">Sublevetur vatis inopia;</div> + <div class="line">Dent nobiles dona nobilia,—</div> + <div class="line">Aurum, vestes, et his similia.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>There has been some difference of opinion as to the country to which +this poetry more especially belongs. Giraldus Cambrensis, writing at +the end of the twelfth or the beginning of the thirteenth century, +evidently thought that Golias was an Englishman; and at a later date +the goliardic poetry was almost all ascribed to Giraldus’s contemporary +and friend, the celebrated humourist, Walter Mapes. This was, no doubt, +an error. Jacob Grimm seemed inclined to claim them for Germany; but +Grimm, on this occasion, certainly took a narrow view of the question. +We shall probably be more correct in saying that they belonged in +common to all the countries over which university learning extended; +that in whatever country a particular poem of this class was composed, +it became the property of the whole body of these scholastic jougleurs, +and that it was<a class="pagenum" id="Page_166" title="166"></a> thus carried from one land to another, receiving +sometimes alterations or additions to adapt it to each. Several of +these poems are found in manuscripts written in different countries +with such alterations and additions, as, for instance, that in the +well-known “Confession,” in the English copies of which we have, near +the conclusion, the line—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">Præsul Coventrensium, parce confitenti;</div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>an appeal to the bishop of Coventry, which is changed, in a copy in a +German manuscript, to</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">Electe Coloniæ, parce pœnitenti,</div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>“O elect of Cologne, spare me penitent.” From a comparison of what +remains of this poetry in manuscripts written in different countries, +it appears probable that the names Golias and goliard originated in the +university of Paris, but were more especially popular in England, while +the term <em>archipoeta</em> was more commonly used in Germany.</p> + +<p>In 1841 I collected all the goliardic poetry which I could then find in +English manuscripts, and edited it, under the name of Walter Mapes, as +one of the publications of the Camden Society.<a id="FNanchor_48" href="#Footnote_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a> At a rather later +date I gave a chapter of additional matter of the same description +in my <span lang="la" xml:lang="la">“Anecdota Literaria.”</span><a id="FNanchor_49" href="#Footnote_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a> All the poems I have printed in +these two volumes are found in manuscripts written in England, and +some of them are certainly the compositions of English writers. They +are distinguished by remarkable facility and ease in versification +and rhyme, and by great pungency of satire. The latter is directed +especially against the clerical order, and none are spared, from the +pope at the summit of the scale down to the lowest of the clergy. In +the <span lang="la" xml:lang="la">“Apocalypsis Goliæ,”</span> or Golias’s Revelations, which appears to +have been the most popular of all these<a class="pagenum" id="Page_167" title="167"></a> poems,<a id="FNanchor_50" href="#Footnote_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a> the poet describes +himself as carried up in a vision to heaven, where the vices and +disorders of the various classes of the popish clergy are successively +revealed to him. The pope is a devouring lion; in his eagerness for +pounds, he pawns books; at the sight of a mark of money, he treats Mark +the Evangelist with disdain; while he sails aloft, money alone is his +anchoring-place. The original lines will serve as a specimen of the +style of these curious compositions, and of the love of punning which +was so characteristic of the literature of that age:—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">Est leo pontifex summus, qui devorat,</div> + <div class="line">Qui libras sitiens, libros impignorat;</div> + <div class="line">Marcam respiciet, Marcum dedecorat;</div> + <div class="line">In summis navigans, in nummis anchorat.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>The bishop is in haste to intrude himself into other people’s pastures, +and fills himself with other people’s goods. The ravenous archdeacon +is compared to an eagle, because he has sharp eyes to see his prey +afar off, and is swift to seize upon it. The dean is represented by an +animal with a man’s face, full of silent guile, who covers fraud with +the form of justice, and by the show of simplicity would make others +believe him to be pious. In this spirit the faults of the clergy, of +all degrees, are minutely criticised through between four and five +hundred lines; and it must not be forgotten that it was the English +clergy whose character was thus exposed.</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">Tu scribes etiam, forma sed alia,</div> + <div class="line">Septem ecclesiis quæ sunt in Anglia.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Others of these pieces are termed Sermons, and are addressed, some to +the bishops and dignitaries of the church, others to the pope, others +to the monastic orders, and others to the clergy in general. The court +of Rome, we are told, was infamous for its greediness; there all right +and justice were put up for sale, and no favour could be had without +money. In this court money occupies everybody’s thoughts; its cross—i. +e. the mark<a class="pagenum" id="Page_168" title="168"></a> on the reverse of the coin—its roundness, and its +whiteness, all please the Romans; where money speaks law is silent.</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">Nummis in hac curia non est qui non vacet;</div> + <div class="line">Crux placet, rotunditas, et albedo placet,</div> + <div class="line">Et cum totum placeat, et Romanis placet,</div> + <div class="line">Ubi nummus loquitur, et lex omnis tacet.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Perhaps one of the most curious of these poems is the “Confession of +Golias,” in which the poet is made to satirise himself, and he thus +gives us a curious picture of the goliard’s life. He complains that +he is made of light material, which is moved by every wind; that he +wanders about irregularly, like the ship on the sea or the bird in the +air, seeking worthless companions like himself. He is a slave to the +charms of the fair sex. He is a martyr to gambling, which often turns +him out naked to the cold, but he is warmed inwardly by the inspiration +of his mind, and he writes better poetry than ever. Lechery and +gambling are two of his vices, and the third is drinking. “The tavern,” +he says, “I never despised, nor shall I ever despise it, until I see +the holy angels coming to sing the eternal requiem over my corpse. It +is my design to die in the tavern; let wine be placed to my mouth when +I am expiring, that when the choirs of angels come, they may say, ‘Be +God propitious to this drinker!’ The lamp of the soul is lighted with +cups; the heart steeped in nectar flies up to heaven; and the wine in +the tavern has for me a better flavour than that which the bishop’s +butler mixes with water.... Nature gives to every one his peculiar +gift: I never could write fasting; a boy could beat me in composition +when I am hungry; I hate thirst and fasting as much as death.”</p> + +<div class="poetry-container" lang="la" xml:lang="la"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="line">Tertio capitulo memoro tabernam:</div> + <div class="line">Illam nullo tempore sprevi, neque spernam,</div> + <div class="line">Donec sanctos angelos venientes cernam,</div> + <div class="line">Cantantes pro mortuo requiem æternam.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="line">Meum est propositum in taberna mori;</div> + <div class="line">Vindum sit appositum morientis ori,</div> + <div class="line">Ut dicant cum venerint angelorum chori,</div> + <div class="line">‘Deus sit propitius huic potatori!’</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <a class="pagenum" id="Page_169" title="169"></a> + <div class="line">Poculis accenditur animi lucerna;</div> + <div class="line">Cor imbutum nectare volat ad superna:</div> + <div class="line">Mihi sapit dulcius vinum in taberna,</div> + <div class="line">Quam quod aqua miscuit præsulis pincerna.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="line">Unicuique proprium dat natura munus:</div> + <div class="line">Ego nunquam potui scribere jejunus;</div> + <div class="line">Me jejunum vincere posset puer unus;</div> + <div class="line">Sitim et jejunium odi tanquam funus.<a id="FNanchor_51" href="#Footnote_51" class="fnanchor">[51]</a></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Another of the more popular of these goliardic poems was the advice of +Golias against marriage, a gross satire upon the female sex. Contrary +to what we might perhaps expect from their being written in Latin, many +of these metrical satires are directed against the vices of the laity, +as well as against those of the clergy.</p> + +<p>In 1844 the celebrated German scholar, Jacob Grimm, published in the +“Transactions of the Academy of Sciences at Berlin” a selection of +goliardic verses from manuscripts in Germany, which had evidently been +written by Germans, and some of them containing allusions to German +affairs in the thirteenth century.<a id="FNanchor_52" href="#Footnote_52" class="fnanchor">[52]</a> They present the same form of +verse and the same style of satire as those found in England, but the +name of Golias is exchanged for <em>archipoeta</em>, the archpoet. Some of +the stanzas of the “Confession of Golias” are found in a poem in which +the archpoet addresses a petition to the archchancellor for assistance +in his distress, and confesses his partiality for wine. A copy of the +Confession itself is also found in this German collection, under the +title of the “Poet’s Confession.”</p> + +<p>The Royal Library at Munich contains a very important manuscript of +this goliardic Latin poetry, written in the thirteenth century. It +belonged originally to one of the great Benedictine abbeys in Bavaria, +where it appears to have been very carefully preserved, but still +with an apparent consciousness that it was not exactly a book for a +religious brotherhood, which led<a class="pagenum" id="Page_170" title="170"></a> the monks to omit it in the catalogue +of their library, no doubt as a book the possession of which was not +to be proclaimed publicly. When written, it was evidently intended +to be a careful selection of the poetry of this class then current. +One part of it consists of poetry of a more serious character, such +as hymns, moral poems, and especially satirical pieces. In this class +there are more than one piece which are also found in the manuscripts +written in England. A very large portion of the collection consists +of love songs, which, although evidently treasured by the Benedictine +monks, are sometimes licentious in character. A third class consists +of drinking and gambling songs (<em lang="la" xml:lang="la">potatoria et lusoria</em>). The general +character of this poetry is more playful, more ingenious and intricate +in its metrical structure, in fact, more lyric than that of the poetry +we have been describing; yet it came, in all probability, from the same +class of poets—the clerical jougleurs. The touches of sentiment, the +descriptions of female beauty, the admiration of nature, are sometimes +expressed with remarkable grace. Thus, the green wood sweetly enlivened +by the joyous voices of its feathered inhabitants, the shade of its +branches, the thorns covered with flowers, which, says the poet, are +emblematical of love, which pricks like a thorn and then soothes like a +flower, are tastefully described in the following lines:—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">Cantu nemus avium</div> + <div class="line">Lascivia canentium</div> + <div class="line">Suave delinitur,</div> + <div class="line">Fronde redimitur,</div> + <div class="line">Vernant spinæ floribus</div> + <div class="line">Micantibus,</div> + <div class="line">Venerem signantibus</div> + <div class="line">Quia spina pungit, flos blanditur.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>And the following scrap of the description of a beautiful damsel shows +no small command of language and versification—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container" lang="la" xml:lang="la"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">Allicit dulcibus</div> + <div class="line">Verbis et osculis,</div> + <div class="line">Labellulis</div> + <div class="line">Castigate tumentibus,</div> + <div class="line">Roseo nectareus</div> + <div class="line">Odor infusus ori;</div> + <div class="line">Pariter eburneus</div> + <div class="line">Sedat ordo dentium</div> + <div class="line">Par niveo candori.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="Page_171" title="171"></a>The whole contents of this manuscript were printed in 1847, in an +octavo volume, issued by the Literary Society at Stuttgard.<a id="FNanchor_53" href="#Footnote_53" class="fnanchor">[53]</a> I had +already printed some examples of such amatory Latin lyric poetry in +1838, in a volume of “Early Mysteries and Latin Poems;”<a id="FNanchor_54" href="#Footnote_54" class="fnanchor">[54]</a> but this +poetry does not belong properly to the subject of the present volume, +and I pass on from it.</p> + +<p>The goliards did not always write in verse, for we have some of +their prose compositions, and these appear especially in the form +of parodies. We trace a great love for parody in the middle ages, +which spared not even things the most sacred, and the examples +brought forward in the celebrated trial of William Hone, were mild in +comparison to some which are found scattered here and there in mediæval +manuscripts. In my Poems, attributed to Walter Mapes,<a id="FNanchor_55" href="#Footnote_55" class="fnanchor">[55]</a> I have +printed a satire in prose entitled “<em lang="la" xml:lang="la">Magister Golyas de quodam abbate</em>” +(i.e., Master Golias’s account of a certain abbot), which has somewhat +the character of a parody upon a saint’s legend. The voluptuous life of +the superior of a monastic house is here described in a tone of banter +which nothing could excel. Several parodies, more direct in their +character, are printed in the two volumes of the <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Reliquæ Antiquæ.”</span><a id="FNanchor_56" href="#Footnote_56" class="fnanchor">[56]</a> +One of these (vol. ii. p. 208) is a complete parody on the service of +the mass, which is entitled in the original, “<em lang="la" xml:lang="la">Missa de Potatoribus</em>,” +the Mass of the Drunkard. In this extraordinary composition, even the +pater-noster is parodied. A portion of this, with great variations, is +found in the German collection of the Carmina Burana, under the title +of <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">Officium Lusorum</em>, the Office of the Gamblers.<a class="pagenum" id="Page_172" title="172"></a> In the <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Reliquæ +Antiquæ”</span> (ii. 58) we have a parody on the Gospel of St. Luke, beginning +with the words, <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">Initium fallacis Evangelii secundum Lupum</em>, this last +word being, of course, a sort of pun upon Lucam. Its subject also is +Bacchus, and the scene having been laid in a tavern in Oxford, we have +no difficulty in ascribing it to some scholar of that university in the +thirteenth century. Among the Carmina Burana we find a similar parody +on the Gospel of St. Mark, which has evidently belonged to one of these +burlesques on the church service; and as it is less profane than the +others, and at the same time pictures the mediæval hatred towards the +church of Rome, I will give a translation of it as an example of this +singular class of compositions. It is hardly necessary to remind the +reader that a mark was a coin of the value of thirteen shillings and +fourpence:—</p> + +<div class="quote"> + <p>“The beginning of the holy gospel according to Marks of silver. + At that time the pope said to the Romans: ‘When the son of man + shall come to the seat of our majesty, first say, Friend, for what + hast thou come? But if he should persevere in knocking without + giving you anything, cast him out into utter darkness.’ And it + came to pass, that a certain poor clerk came to the court of the + lord the pope, and cried out, saying, ‘Have pity on me at least, + you doorkeepers of the pope, for the hand of poverty has touched + me. For I am needy and poor, and therefore I seek your assistance + in my calamity and misery.’ But they hearing this were highly + indignant, and said to him: ‘Friend, thy poverty be with thee in + perdition; get thee backward, Satan, for thou dost not savour of + those things which have the savour of money. Verily, verily, I say + unto thee, Thou shalt not enter into the joy of thy lord, until + thou shalt have given thy last farthing.’</p> + + <p>“Then the poor man went away, and sold his cloak and his gown, + and all that he had, and gave it to the cardinals, and to the + doorkeepers, and to the chamberlains. But they said, ‘And what is + this among so many?’ And they cast him out of the gates, and going + out he wept bitterly, and was without consolation. After him there + came to the court a certain clerk who was rich, and gross, and + fat, and large, and who in a tumult had committed manslaughter. He + gave first to the doorkeeper, secondly to the chamberlain, third + to the cardinals. But they judged among themselves, that they + were to receive more. Then the lord the pope, hearing that the + cardinals and officials had received many gifts from the clerk, + became sick unto death. But the rich man sent him an electuary of + gold and silver, and he was immediately made whole. Then the lord + the pope called before him the cardinals and officials, and said + to them: ‘Brethren, see that no one deceive you with empty words. + For I give you an example, that, as I take, so take ye also.’”</p> +</div> + +<p>This mediæval love of parody was not unfrequently displayed in a<a class="pagenum" id="Page_173" title="173"></a> +more popular form, and in the language of the people. In the <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">Reliquæ +Antiquæ</em> (i. 82) we have a very singular parody in English on the +sermons of the Catholic priesthood, a good part of which is so written +as to present no consecutive sense, which circumstance itself implies +a sneer at the preachers. Thus our burlesque preacher, in the middle +of his discourse, proceeds to narrate as follows (I modernise the +English):—</p> + +<div class="quote"> + <p>“Sirs, what time that God and St. Peter came to Rome, Peter asked + Adam a full great doubtful question, and said, ‘Adam, Adam, why + ate thou the apple unpared?’ ‘Forsooth,’ quod he, ‘for I had no + wardens (pears) fried.’ And Peter saw the fire, and dread him, and + stepped into a plum-tree that hanged full of ripe red cherries. + And there he saw all the parrots in the sea. There he saw steeds + and stockfish pricking ‘swose’ (?) in the water. There he saw hens + and herrings that hunted after harts in hedges. There he saw eels + roasting larks. There he saw haddocks were done on the pillory for + wrong roasting of May butter; and there he saw how bakers baked + butter to grease with old monks’ boots. There he saw how the fox + preached,” &c.</p> +</div> + +<p>The same volume contains some rather clever parodies on the old English +alliterative romances, composed in a similar style of consecutive +nonsense. It is a class of parody which we trace to a rather early +period, which the French term a <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">coq-à-l’âne</em>, and which became +fashionable in England in the seventeenth century in the form of +songs entitled “Tom-a-Bedlams.” M. Jubinal has printed two such poems +in French, perhaps of the thirteenth century,<a id="FNanchor_57" href="#Footnote_57" class="fnanchor">[57]</a> and others are +found scattered through the old manuscripts. There is generally so +much coarseness in them that it is not easy to select a portion for +translation, and in fact their point consists in going on through the +length of a poem of this kind without imparting a single clear idea. +Thus, in the second of those published by Jubinal, we are told how, +“The shadow of an egg carried the new year upon the bottom of a pot; +two old new combs made a ball to run the trot; when it came to paying +the scot, I, who never move<a class="pagenum" id="Page_174" title="174"></a> myself, cried out, without saying a word, +‘Take the feather of an ox, and clothe a wise fool with it.’”—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">Li ombres d’un oef</div> + <div class="line">Portoit l’an reneuf</div> + <div class="line">Sur la fonz d’un pot;</div> + <div class="line">Deus viez pinges neuf</div> + <div class="line">Firent un estuef</div> + <div class="line">Pour courre le trot;</div> + <div class="line">Quant vint au paier l’escot,</div> + <div class="line">Je, qui onques ne me muef,</div> + <div class="line">M’escriai, si ne dis mot:—</div> + <div class="line">‘Prenés la plume d’un buef,</div> + <div class="line">S’en vestez un sage sot.’—<span class="normal">Jubinal, Nouv. Rec., ii. 217.</span></div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>The spirit of the goliards continued to exist long after the name +had been forgotten; and the mass of bitter satire which they had +left behind them against the whole papal system, and against the +corruptions of the papal church of the middle ages, were a perfect +godsend to the reformers of the sixteenth century, who could point +to them triumphantly as irresistible evidence in their favour. Such +scholars as Flacius Illyricus, eagerly examined the manuscripts +which contained this goliardic poetry, and printed it, chiefly as +good and effective weapons in the great religious strife which was +then convulsing European society. To us, besides their interest as +literary compositions, they have also a historical value, for they +introduce us to a more intimate acquaintance with the character of the +great mental struggle for emancipation from mediæval darkness which +extended especially through the thirteenth century, and which was only +overcome for a while to begin more strongly and more successfully at +a later period. They display to us the gross ignorance, as well as +the corruption of manners, of the great mass of the mediæval clergy. +Nothing can be more amusing than the satire which some of these pieces +throw on the character of monkish Latin. I printed in the <span lang="la" xml:lang="la">“Reliquæ +Antiquæ,”</span> under the title of “The Abbot of Gloucester’s Feast,” a +complaint supposed to issue from the mouth of one of the common herd +of the monks, against the selfishness of their superiors, in which all +the rules of Latin grammar are entirely set at defiance. The abbot and +prior of Gloucester, with their whole convent, are invited to a feast, +and on<a class="pagenum" id="Page_175" title="175"></a> their arrival, “the abbot,” says the complainant, “goes to sit +at the top, and the prior next to him, but I stood always in the back +place among the low people.”</p> + +<div class="poetry-container" lang="la" xml:lang="la"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">Abbas ire sede sursum,</div> + <div class="line">Et prioris juxta ipsum;</div> + <div class="line">Ego semper stavi dorsum</div> + <div class="line indent4">inter rascalilia.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>The wine was served liberally to the prior and the abbot, but “nothing +was give to us poor folks—everything was for the rich.”</p> + +<div class="poetry-container" lang="la" xml:lang="la"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">Vinum venit sanguinatis</div> + <div class="line">Ad prioris et abbatis;</div> + <div class="line">Nihil nobis paupertatis,</div> + <div class="line indent4">sed ad dives omnia.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>When some dissatisfaction was displayed by the poor monks, which the +great men treated with contempt, “said the prior to the abbot, ‘They +have wine enough; will you give all our drink to the poor? What does +their poverty regard us? they have little, and that is enough, since +they came uninvited to our feast.’”</p> + +<div class="poetry-container" lang="la" xml:lang="la"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">Prior dixit ad abbatis,</div> + <div class="line">‘Ipsi habent vinum satis;</div> + <div class="line">Vultis dare paupertatis</div> + <div class="line indent4">noster potus omnia?</div> + <div class="line">Quid nos spectat paupertatis?</div> + <div class="line">Postquam venit non vocatis</div> + <div class="line indent4">ad noster convivia.’</div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Thus through several pages this amusing poem goes on to describe the +gluttony and drunkenness of the abbot and prior, and the ill-treatment +of their inferiors. This composition belongs to the close of the +thirteenth century. A song very similar to it in character, but much +shorter, is found in a manuscript of the middle of the fifteenth +century, and printed with the other contents of this manuscript in a +little volume issued by the Percy Society.<a id="FNanchor_58" href="#Footnote_58" class="fnanchor">[58]</a> The writer complains +that the abbot and prior drunk<a class="pagenum" id="Page_176" title="176"></a> good and high-flavoured wine, while +nothing but inferior stuff was usually given to the convent; “But,” +he says, “it is better to go drink good wine at the tavern, where the +wines are of the best quality, and money is the butler.”</p> + +<div class="poetry-container" lang="la" xml:lang="la"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">Bonum vinum cum sapore</div> + <div class="line">Bibit abbas cum priore;</div> + <div class="line">Sed conventus de pejore</div> + <div class="line indent4">semper solet bibere.</div> + <div class="line">Bonum vinum in taberna,</div> + <div class="line">Ubi vina sunt valarna <span class="normal">(for Falerna)</span>,</div> + <div class="line">Ubi nummus est pincerna,</div> + <div class="line indent4">Ibi prodest bibere.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut111.jpg" width="600" height="312" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 111. Caricature upon the Jews at Norwich.</div> +</div> + +<p>Partly out of the earnest, though playful, satire described in this +chapter, arose political satire, and at a later period political +caricature. I have before remarked that the period we call the middle +ages was not that of political or personal caricature, because it +wanted that means of circulating quickly and largely which is necessary +for it. Yet, no doubt, men who could draw, did, in the middle ages, +sometimes amuse themselves in sketching caricatures, which, in general, +have perished, because nobody cared to preserve them; but the fact of +the existence of such works is<a class="pagenum" id="Page_177" title="177"></a> proved by a very curious example, which +has been preserved, and which is copied in our cut No. 111. It is a +caricature on the Jews of Norwich, which some one of the clerks of the +king’s courts in the thirteenth century has drawn with a pen, on one +of the official rolls of the Pell office, where it has been preserved. +Norwich, as it is well known, was one of the principal seats of the +Jews in England at this early period, and Isaac of Norwich, the crowned +Jew with three faces, who towers over the other figures, was no doubt +some personage of great importance among them. Dagon, as a two-headed +demon, occupies a tower, which a party of demon knights is attacking. +Beneath the figure of Isaac there is a lady, whose name appears to be +Avezarden, who has some relation or other with a male figure named +Nolle-Mokke, in which another demon, named Colbif, is interfering. As +this latter name is written in capital letters, we may perhaps conclude +that he is the most important personage in the scene; but, without any +knowledge of the circumstances to which it relates, it would be in vain +to attempt to explain this curious and rather elaborate caricature.</p> + +<div class="figright"> + <img src="images/cut112.jpg" width="150" height="321" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 112. An Irishman.</div> +</div> + +<p>Similar attempts at caricature, though less direct and elaborate, are +found in others of our national records. One of these, pointed out to +me by an excellent and respected friend, the Rev. Lambert B. Larking, +is peculiarly interesting, as well as amusing. It belongs to the +Treasury of the Exchequer, and consists of two volumes of vellum called +Liber A and Liber B, forming a register of treaties, marriages, and +similar documents of the reign of Edward I., which have been very fully +used by Rymer. The clerk who was employed in writing it, seems to have +been, like many of these official clerks, somewhat of a wag, and he +has amused himself by drawing in the margin figures of the inhabitants +of the provinces of Edward’s<a class="pagenum" id="Page_178" title="178"></a> crown to which the documents referred. +Some of these are evidently designed for caricature. Thus, the figure +given in our cut No. 112 was intended to represent an Irishman. One +trait, at least, in this caricature is well known from the description +given by Giraldus Cambrensis, who speaks with a sort of horror of the +formidable axes which the Irish were accustomed to carry about with +them. In treating of the manner in which Ireland ought to be governed +when it had been entirely reduced to subjection, he recommends that, +“in the meantime, they ought not to be allowed in time of peace, on +any pretence or in any place, to use that detestable instrument of +destruction, which, by an ancient but accursed custom, they constantly +carry in their hands instead of a staff.” In a chapter of his +“Topography of Ireland,” Giraldus treats of this “ancient and wicked +custom” of always carrying in their hand an axe, instead of a staff, +to the danger of all persons who had any relations with them. Another +Irishman, from a drawing in the same manuscript, given in our cut No. +113, carries his axe in the same threatening attitude. The costume of +these figures answers with sufficient accuracy to the description given +by Giraldus Cambrensis. The drawings exhibit more exactly than that +writer’s description the “small close-fitting hoods, hanging a cubit’s +length (half-a-yard) below the shoulders,” which, he tells us, they +were accustomed to wear. This small hood, with the flat cap attached to +it, is shown better perhaps in the second figure than in the first. The +“breeches and hose of one piece, or hose and breeches joined together,” +are also exhibited here very distinctly, and appear to be tied over +the heel, but the feet are clearly naked, and evidently the use of the +“brogues” was not yet general among the Irish of the thirteenth century.</p> + +<div class="figleft"> + <img src="images/cut113.jpg" width="150" height="286" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 113. Another Irishman.</div> +</div> + +<p>If the Welshman of this period was somewhat more scantily clothed +than the Irishman, he had the advantage of him, to judge by this +manuscript, in wearing at least one shoe. Our cut No. 114, taken from +it, represents a Welshman armed with bow and arrow, whose clothing<a class="pagenum" id="Page_179" title="179"></a> +consists apparently only of a plain tunic and a light mantle. This +is quite in accordance with the description by Giraldus Cambrensis, +who tells us that in all seasons their dress was the same, and that, +however severe the weather, “they defended themselves from the cold +only by a thin cloak and tunic.” Giraldus says nothing of the practice +of the Welsh in wearing but one shoe, yet it is evident that at the +time of this record that was their practice, for in another figure of +a Welshman, given in our cut No. 115, we see the same peculiarity, +and in both cases the shoe is worn on the left foot. Giraldus merely +says that the Welshmen in general, when engaged in warfare, “either +walked bare-footed, or made use of high shoes, roughly made of untanned +leather.” He describes them as armed sometimes with bows and arrows, +and sometimes with long spears; and accordingly our first example of +a Welshman from this manuscript is using the bow, while the second +carries the spear, which he apparently rests on the single shoe of +his left foot, while he brandishes a sword in his left hand. Both our +Welshmen present a singularly grotesque appearance.</p> + +<div class="figure-container"> + +<div class="figure200"> + <img src="images/cut114.jpg" width="200" height="282" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 114. A Welsh Archer.</div> +</div> + +<div class="figure250"> + <img src="images/cut115.jpg" width="250" height="296" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 115. A Welshman with his Spear.</div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="figleft"> + <img src="images/cut116.jpg" width="200" height="255" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 116. A Gascon at his Vine.</div> +</div> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="Page_180" title="180"></a>The Gascon is represented with more peaceful attributes. Gascony was +the country of vineyards, from whence we drew our great supply of +wines, a very important article of consumption in the middle ages. +When the official clerk who wrote this manuscript came to documents +relating to Gascony, his thoughts wandered naturally enough to its +rich vineyards and the wine they supplied so plentifully, and to +which, according to old reports, clerks seldom showed any dislike, and +accordingly, in the sketch, which we copy in our cut No. 116, we have +a Gascon occupied diligently in pruning his vine-tree. He, at least, +wears two shoes, though his clothing is of the lightest description. He +is perhaps the <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">vinitor</em> of the mediæval documents on this subject, a +serf attached to the vineyard. Our second sketch, cut No. 117, presents +a more enlarged scene, and introduces us to the whole process of making +wine. First we see a man better clothed, with shoes (or boots) of much +superior make, and a hat on his head, carrying away the grapes from +the vineyard to the place where another man, with no clothing at all, +is treading out the juice in a large vat. This is still in some of the +wine countries<a class="pagenum" id="Page_181" title="181"></a> the common method of extracting the juice from the +grape. Further to the left is the large cask in which the juice is put +when turned into wine.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut117.jpg" width="400" height="204" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 117. The Wine Manufacturer.</div> +</div> + +<p>Satires on the people of particular localities were not uncommon +during the middle ages, because local rivalries and consequent local +feuds prevailed everywhere. The records of such feuds were naturally +of a temporary character, and perished when the feuds and rivalries +themselves ceased to exist, but a few curious satires of this kind have +been preserved. A monk of Peterborough, who lived late in the twelfth +or early in the thirteenth century, and for some reason or other +nourished an unfriendly feeling to the people of Norfolk, gave vent +to his hostility in a short Latin poem in what we may call goliardic +verse. He begins by abusing the county itself, which, he says, was as +bad and unfruitful as its inhabitants were vile; and he suggests that +the evil one, when he fled from the anger of the Almighty, had passed +through it and left his pollution upon it. Among other anecdotes of +the simplicity and folly of the people of this county, which closely +resemble the stories of the wise men of Gotham of a later date, he +informs us that one day the peasantry of one district were so grieved +by the oppressions of their feudal lord, that they subscribed together +and bought their freedom, which he secured to them by formal deed, +ratified with a ponderous seal. They adjourned to the tavern, and +celebrated their deliverance by feasting and drinking until night came +on, and then, for want of a candle, they agreed to burn the wax of the +seal. Next day their former lord, informed of what had taken place, +brought them before a court, where the deed was judged to be void for +want of the seal, and they lost all their money, were reduced to their +old position of slavery, and treated worse than ever. Other stories, +still more ridiculous, are told of these old Norfolkians, but few of +them are worth repeating. Another monk, apparently, who calls himself +John de St. Omer, took up the cudgels for the people of Norfolk, +and replied to the Peterborough satirist in similar language.<a id="FNanchor_59" href="#Footnote_59" class="fnanchor">[59]</a> I +have printed in<a class="pagenum" id="Page_182" title="182"></a> another collection,<a id="FNanchor_60" href="#Footnote_60" class="fnanchor">[60]</a> a satirical poem against +the people of a place called Stockton (perhaps Stockton-on-Tees in +Durham), by the monk of a monastic house, of which they were serfs. +It appeared that they had risen against the tyranny of their lord, +but had been unsuccessful in defending their cause in a court of law, +and the ecclesiastical satirist exults over their defeat in a very +uncharitable tone. There will be found in the <span lang="la" xml:lang="la">“Reliquæ Antiquæ,”</span><a id="FNanchor_61" href="#Footnote_61" class="fnanchor">[61]</a> +a very curious satire in Latin prose directed against the inhabitants +of Rochester, although it is in truth aimed against Englishmen in +general, and is entitled in the manuscript, which is of the fourteenth +century, <span lang="la" xml:lang="la">“Proprietates Anglicorum”</span> (the Peculiarities of Englishmen). +In the first place, we are told, that the people of Rochester had +tails, and the question is discussed, very scholastically, what +species of animals these Rocestrians were. We are then told that the +cause of their deformity arose from the insolent manner in which +they treated St. Augustine, when he came to preach the Gospel to the +heathen English. After visiting many parts of England, the saint came +to Rochester, where the people, instead of listening to him, hooted +at him through the streets, and, in derision, attached tails of pigs +and calves to his vestments, and so turned him out of the city. The +vengeance of Heaven came upon them, and all who inhabited the city and +the country round it, and their descendants after them, were condemned +to bear tails exactly like those of pigs. This story of the tails +was not an invention of the author of the satire, but was a popular +legend connected with the history of St. Augustine’s preaching, though +the scene of the legend was laid in Dorsetshire. The writer of this +singular composition goes on to describe the people of Rochester as +seducers of other people, as men without gratitude, and as traitors. +He proceeds to show that Rochester being situated in England, its +vices had tainted the whole nation, and he illustrates the baseness of +the English character by a number of anecdotes of worse than doubtful +authenticity. It is, in fact, a satire on the English composed in +France, and leads us into the domains of political satire.</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="Page_183" title="183"></a>Political satire in the middle ages appeared chiefly in the form of +poetry and song, and it was especially in England that it flourished, +a sure sign that there was in our country a more advanced feeling of +popular independence, and greater freedom of speech, than in France or +Germany.<a id="FNanchor_62" href="#Footnote_62" class="fnanchor">[62]</a> M. Leroux de Lincy, who undertook to make a collection +of this poetry for France, found so little during the mediæval period +that came under the character of political, that he was obliged to +substitute the word “historical” in the title of his book.<a id="FNanchor_63" href="#Footnote_63" class="fnanchor">[63]</a> Where +feudalism was supreme, indeed, the songs which arose out of private +or public strife, which then were almost inseparable from society, +contained no political sentiment, but consisted chiefly of personal +attacks on the opponents of those who employed them. Such are the four +short songs written in the time of the revolt of the French during +the minority of St. Louis, which commenced in 1226; they are all of a +political character which M. Leroux de Lincy has been able to collect +previous to the year 1270, and they consist merely of personal taunts +against the courtiers by the dissatisfied barons who were out of power. +We trace a similar feeling in some of the popular records of our +baronial wars of the reign of Henry III., especially in a song, in the +baronial language (Anglo-Norman), preserved in a small roll of vellum, +which appears to have belonged to the minstrel who chanted it in the +halls of the partisans of Simon de Montfort. The fragment which remains +consists of stanzas in praise of the leaders of the popular party, and +in reproach of their opponents. Thus of Roger de Clifford, one of earl +Simon’s friends, we are told that “the good Roger de Clifford behaved +like a noble baron, and exercised<a class="pagenum" id="Page_184" title="184"></a> great justice; he suffered none, +either small or great, or secretly or openly, to do any wrong.”</p> + +<div class="poetry-container" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">Et de Cliffort ly bon Roger</div> + <div class="line">Se contint cum noble ber,</div> + <div class="line indent3">Si fu de grant justice;</div> + <div class="line">Ne suffri pas petit ne grant,</div> + <div class="line">Ne arère ne par devant,</div> + <div class="line indent3">Fere nul mesprise.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>On the other hand, one of Montfort’s opponents, the bishop of Hereford, +is treated rather contemptuously. We are told that he “learnt well that +the earl was strong when he took the matter in hand; before that he +(the bishop) was very fierce, and thought to eat up all the English; +but now he is reduced to straits.”</p> + +<div class="poetry-container" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">Ly eveske de Herefort</div> + <div class="line">Sout bien que ly quens fu fort,</div> + <div class="line indent3">Kant il prist l’affère;</div> + <div class="line">Devant ce esteit mult fer,</div> + <div class="line">Les Englais quida touz manger,</div> + <div class="line indent3">Mès ore ne set que fere.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>This bishop was Peter de Aigueblanche, one of the foreign favourites, +who had been intruded into the see of Hereford, to the exclusion of +a better man, and had been an oppressor of those who were under his +rule. The barons seized him, threw him into prison, and plundered his +possessions, and at the time this song was written, he was suffering +under the imprisonment which appears to have shortened his life.</p> + +<p>The universities and the clerical body in general were deeply involved +in these political movements of the thirteenth century; and our +earliest political songs now known are composed in Latin, and in that +form and style of verse which seems to have been peculiar to the +goliards, and which I venture to call goliardic. Such is a song against +the three bishops who supported king John in his quarrel with the +pope about the presentation to the see of Canterbury, printed in my +Political Songs. Such, too, is the song of the Welsh, and one or two +others, in the same volume. And such, above all, is that remarkable +Latin poem in which a partisan<a class="pagenum" id="Page_185" title="185"></a> of the barons, immediately after the +victory at Lewes, set forth the political tenets of his party, and gave +the principles of English liberty nearly the same broad basis on which +they stand at the present. It is an evidence of the extent to which +these principles were now acknowledged, that in this great baronial +struggle our political songs began to be written in the English +language, an acknowledgment that they concerned the whole English +public.</p> + +<p>We trace little of this class of literature during the reign of Edward +I.; but, when the popular feelings became turbulent again under the +reign of his son and successor, political songs became more abundant, +and their satire was directed more even than formerly against measures +and principles, and was less an instrument of mere personal abuse. One +satirical poem of this period, which I had printed from an imperfect +copy in a manuscript at Edinburgh, but of which a more complete copy +was subsequently found in a manuscript in the library of St. Peter’s +College, Cambridge,<a id="FNanchor_64" href="#Footnote_64" class="fnanchor">[64]</a> is extremely curious as being the earliest +satire of this kind written in English that we possess. It appears to +have been written in the year 1320. The writer of this poem begins by +telling us that his object is to explain the cause of the war, ruin, +and manslaughter which then prevailed throughout the land, and why +the poor were suffering from hunger and want, the cattle perished in +the field, and the corn was dear. These he ascribes to the increasing +wickedness of all orders of society. To begin with the church, Rome +was the head of all corruptions, at the papal court false-hood and +treachery only reigned, and the door of the pope’s palace was shut +against truth. During the twelfth and following centuries these +complaints, in terms more or less forcible, against the corruptions of +Rome, are continually repeated, and show that the evil must have been +one under which everybody felt oppressed. The old charge of Romish +simony is repeated in this poem in very strong terms. “The clerk’s +voice shall be little heard at the court of Rome, were he ever so good, +unless<a class="pagenum" id="Page_186" title="186"></a> he bring silver with him; though he were the holiest man that +ever was born, unless he bring gold or silver, all his time and anxiety +are lost. Alas! why love they so much that which is perishable?”</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">Voys of clerk shall lytyl be heard at the court of Rome,</div> + <div class="line">Were he never so gode a clerk, without silver and he come;</div> + <div class="line">Though he were the holyst man that ever yet was ibore,</div> + <div class="line">But he bryng gold or sylver, al hys while is forlore</div> + <div class="line indent10">And his thowght.</div> + <div class="line">Allas! whi love thei that so much that schal turne to nowght?</div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>When, on the contrary, a wicked man presented himself at the pope’s +court, he had only to carry plenty of money thither, and all went well +with him. According to our satirist, the bishops were “fools,” and the +other dignitaries and officials of the church were influenced chiefly +by the love of money and self-indulgence. The parson began humbly, when +he first obtained his benefice, but no sooner had he gathered money +together, than he took “a wenche” to live with him as his wife, and +rode a hunting with hawks and hounds like a gentleman. The priests were +men with no learning, who preached by rote what they neither understood +nor appreciated. “Truely,” he says, “it fares by our unlearned priests +as by a jay in a cage, who curses himself: he speaks good English, but +he knows not what it means. No more does an unlearned priest know his +gospel that he reads daily. An unlearned priest, then, is no better +than a jay.”</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">Certes at so hyt fareth by a prest that is lewed,</div> + <div class="line">As by a jay in a cage that hymself hath beshrewed:</div> + <div class="line">Gode Englysh he speketh, but he not never what.</div> + <div class="line">No more wot a lewed prest hys gospel wat he rat</div> + <div class="line indent10">By day.</div> + <div class="line">Than is a lewed prest no better than a jay.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Abbots and priors were remarkable chiefly for their pride and luxury, +and the monks naturally followed their examples. Thus was religion +debased everywhere. The character of the physician is treated with +equal severity, and his various tricks to obtain money are amusingly +described. In this manner the songster presents to view the failings of +the various orders of lay society also, the selfishness and oppressive +bearing of the knights and<a class="pagenum" id="Page_187" title="187"></a> aristocracy, and their extravagance in +dress and living, the neglect of justice, the ill-management of the +wars, the weight of taxation, and all the other evils which then +afflicted the state. This poem marks a period in our social history, +and led the way to that larger work of the same character, which +came about thirty years later, the well-known “Visions of Piers +Ploughman,”<a id="FNanchor_65" href="#Footnote_65" class="fnanchor">[65]</a> one of the most remarkable satires, as well as one of +the most remarkable poems, in the English language.</p> + +<p>We will do no more than glance at the further progress of political +satire which had now taken a permanent footing in English literature. +We see less of it during the reign of Edward III., the greater part of +which was occupied with foreign wars and triumphs, but there appeared +towards the close of his reign, a very remarkable satire, which I have +printed in my “Political Poems and Songs.” It is written in Latin, and +consists of a pretended prophecy in verse by an inspired monk named +John of Bridlington, with a mock commentary in prose—in fact, a parody +on the commentaries in which the scholastics of that age displayed +their learning, but in this case the commentary contains a bold though +to us rather obscure criticism on the whole policy of Edward’s reign. +The reign of Richard II. was convulsed by the great struggle for +religious reform, by the insurrections of the lower orders, and by +the ambition and feuds of the nobles, and produced a vast quantity of +political and religious satire, both in prose and verse, but especially +the latter. We must not overlook our great poet Chaucer, as one of the +powerful satirists of this period. Political song next makes itself +heard loudly in the wars of the Roses. It was the last struggle of +feudalism in England, and the character of the song had fallen back +to its earlier characteristics, in which all patriotic feelings were +abandoned to make place for personal hatred.</p> + + + +<hr class="chap" /> +<h2><a class="pagenum" id="Page_188" title="188"></a>CHAPTER XI.</h2> + +<p class="subtitle"> + MINSTRELSY A SUBJECT OF BURLESQUE AND CARICATURE.—CHARACTER + OF THE MINSTRELS.—THEIR JOKES UPON THEMSELVES AND UPON ONE + ANOTHER.—VARIOUS MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS REPRESENTED IN THE + SCULPTURES OF THE MEDIÆVAL ARTISTS.—SIR MATTHEW GOURNAY AND THE + KING OF PORTUGAL.—DISCREDIT OF THE TABOR AND BAGPIPES.—MERMAIDS.</p> + + +<p>One of the principal classes of the satirists of the middle ages, the +minstrels, or jougleurs, were far from being unamenable to satire +themselves. They belonged generally to a low class of the population, +one that was hardly acknowledged by the law, which merely administered +to the pleasures and amusements of others, and, though sometimes +liberally rewarded, they were objects rather of contempt than of +respect. Of course there were minstrels belonging to a class more +respectable than the others, but these were comparatively few; and the +ordinary minstrel seems to have been simply an unprincipled vagabond, +who hardly possessed any settled resting-place, who wandered about from +place to place, and was not too nice as to the means by which he gained +his living—perhaps fairly represented by the street minstrel, or +mountebank, of the present day. One of his talents was that of mocking +and ridiculing others, and it is not to be wondered at, therefore, if +he sometimes became an object of mockery and ridicule himself. One of +the well-known minstrels of the thirteenth century, Rutebeuf, was, like +many of his fellows, a poet also, and he has left several short pieces +of verse descriptive of himself and of his own mode of life. In one +of these he complains of his poverty, and tells us that the world had +in his time—the reign of St. Louis—become so degenerate, that few +people gave anything to the unfortunate minstrel. According to his own +account, he was without<a class="pagenum" id="Page_189" title="189"></a> food, and in a fair way towards starvation, +exposed to the cold without sufficient clothing, and with nothing but +straw for his bed.</p> + +<div class="poetry-container" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">Je touz de froit, de fain baaille,</div> + <div class="line">Dont je suis mors et maubailliz,</div> + <div class="line">Je suis sanz coutes et sans liz;</div> + <div class="line">N’a si povre jusqu’à Senliz.</div> + <div class="line">Sire, si ne sai quel part aille;</div> + <div class="line">Mes costeiz connoit le pailliz,</div> + <div class="line">Et liz de paille n’est pas liz,</div> + <div class="line">Et en mon lit n’a fors la paille.</div> + <div class="attribution">—Œuvres de Rutebeuf, vol. i. p. 3.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>In another poem, Rutebeuf laments that he has rendered his condition +still more miserable by marrying, when he had not wherewith to keep +a wife and family. In a third, he complains that in the midst of his +poverty, his wife has brought him a child to increase his domestic +expenses, while his horse, on which he was accustomed to travel to +places where he might exercise his profession, had broken its leg, and +his nurse was dunning him for money. In addition to all these causes of +grief, he had lost the use of one of his eyes.</p> + +<div class="poetry-container" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">Or a d’enfant géu ma fame;</div> + <div class="line">Mon cheval a brisié la jame</div> + <div class="line indent4">A une lice;</div> + <div class="line">Or veut de l’argent ma norrice,</div> + <div class="line">Qui m’en destraint et me pélice,</div> + <div class="line indent4">For l’enfant pestre.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Throughout his complaint, although he laments over the decline of +liberality among his contemporaries, he nevertheless turns his poverty +into a joke. In several other pieces of verse he speaks in the same +way, half joking and half lamenting over his condition, and he does not +conceal that the love of gambling was one of the causes of it. “The +dice,” he says, “have stripped me entirely of my robe; the dice watch +and spy me; it is these which kill me; they assault and ruin me, to my +grief.”</p> + +<div class="poetry-container" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">Li dé que li détier ont fet,</div> + <div class="line">M’ont de ma robe tout desfet;</div> + <div class="line indent2">Li dé m’ocient.</div> + <div class="line">Li dé m’aguetent et espient;</div> + <div class="line">Li dé m’assaillent et dessient,</div> + <div class="line indent2">Ce poise moi.—<span class="normal">Ib., vol. i. p. 27.</span></div> + </div> +</div> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="Page_190" title="190"></a>And elsewhere he intimates that what the minstrels sometimes gained +from the lavish generosity of their hearers, soon passed away at the +tavern in dice and drinking.</p> + +<p>One of Rutebeuf’s contemporaries in the same profession, Colin Muset, +indulges in similar complaints, and speaks bitterly of the want of +generosity displayed by the great barons of his time. In addressing one +of them who had treated him ungenerously, he says, “Sir Count, I have +fiddled before you in your hostel, and you neither gave me a gift, nor +paid me my wages. It is discreditable behaviour. By the duty I owe to +St. Mary, I cannot continue in your service at this rate. My purse is +ill furnished, and my wallet is empty.”</p> + +<div class="poetry-container" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">Sire quens, j’ai vielé</div> + <div class="line">Devant vos en vostre ostel;</div> + <div class="line">Si ne m’avez riens donné,</div> + <div class="line">Ne mes gages acquitez,</div> + <div class="line indent4">C’est vilanie.</div> + <div class="line">Foi que doi sainte Marie,</div> + <div class="line">Ensi ne vos sieurré-je mie.</div> + <div class="line">M’aumosnière est mal garnie,</div> + <div class="line">Et ma male mal farsie.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>He proceeds to state that when he went home to his wife (for Colin +Muset also was a married minstrel), he was ill received if his purse +and wallet were empty; but it was very different when they were full. +His wife then sprang forward and threw her arms round his neck; she +took his wallet from his horse with alacrity, while his lad conducted +the animal cheerfully to the stable, and his maiden killed a couple of +capons, and prepared them with piquant sauce. His daughter brought a +comb for his hair. “Then,” he exclaims, “I am master in my own house.”</p> + +<div class="poetry-container" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">Ma fame va destroser</div> + <div class="line">Ma male sans demorer;</div> + <div class="line">Mon garçon va abuvrer</div> + <div class="line">Men cheval et conreer;</div> + <div class="line">Ma pucele va tuer</div> + <div class="line indent2">Deux chapons por deporter</div> + <div class="line">A la sause aillie.</div> + <div class="line">Ma fille m’aporte un pigne</div> + <div class="line">En sa main par cortoisie.</div> + <div class="line">Lors sui de mon ostel sire.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="Page_191" title="191"></a>When the minstrels could thus joke upon themselves, we need not be +surprised if they satirised one another. In a poem of the thirteenth +century, entitled <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Les deux Troveors Ribauz,”</span></span> two minstrels are +introduced on the stage abusing and insulting one another, and while +indulging in mutual accusations of ignorance in their art, they display +their ignorance at the same time by misquoting the titles of the poems +which they profess to be able to recite. One of them boasts of the +variety of instruments on which he could perform:—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">Je suis jugleres de viele,</div> + <div class="line">Si sai de muse et frestele,</div> + <div class="line">Et de harpes et de chifonie,</div> + <div class="line">De la gigue, de l’armonie,</div> + <div class="line">De l’salteire, et en la rote</div> + <div class="line">Sai-ge bien chanter une note.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>It appears, however, that among all these instruments, the viol, or +fiddle, was the one most generally in use.</p> + +<div class="figright fig100"> + <img src="images/cut118.jpg" width="100" height="175" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 118. A Charming Fiddler.</div> +</div> + +<p>The mediæval monuments of art abound with burlesques and satires on the +minstrels, whose instruments of music are placed in the hands sometimes +of monsters, and at others in those of animals of a not very refined +character. Our cut No. 118 is taken from a manuscript in the British +Museum (MS. Cotton, Domitian A. ii.), and represents a female minstrel +playing on the fiddle; she has the upper part of a lady, and the lower +parts of a mare, a combination which appears to have been rather +familiar to the imagination of the mediæval artists. In our cut No. +119, which is taken from a copy made by Carter of one of the misereres +in Ely Cathedral, it is not quite clear whether the performer on the +fiddle be a monster or merely a cripple; but perhaps the latter was +intended. The instrument, too, assumes a rather singular form. Our cut +No. 120, also taken from Carter, was furnished by a sculpture in the +church of St. John, at Cirencester, and represents a man performing on +an instrument rather closely resembling the modern hurdy-gurdy, which +is evidently played by<a class="pagenum" id="Page_192" title="192"></a> turning a handle, and the music is produced by +striking wires or strings inside. The face is evidently intended to be +that of a jovial companion.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut119.jpg" width="300" height="373" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 119. A Crippled Minstrel.</div> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut120.jpg" width="300" height="309" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 120. The Hurdy-Gurdy.</div> +</div> + +<p>Gluttony was an especial characteristic of that class of society to +which<a class="pagenum" id="Page_193" title="193"></a> the minstrel belonged, and perhaps this was the idea intended to +be conveyed in the next picture, No. 121, taken from one of the stalls +in Winchester Cathedral, in which a pig is performing on the fiddle, +and appears<a class="pagenum" id="Page_194" title="194"></a> to be accompanied by a juvenile of the same species of +animal. One of the same stalls, copied in our cut No. 122, represents +a sow performing on another sort of musical instrument, which is not +at all uncommon in mediæval delineations. It is the double pipe or +flute, which was evidently borrowed from the ancients. Minstrelsy was +the usual accompaniment of the mediæval meal, and perhaps this picture +is intended to be a burlesque on that circumstance, as the mother is +playing to her brood while they are feeding. They all seem to listen +quietly, except one, who is evidently much more affected by the music +than his companions. The same instrument is placed in the hands of a +rather jolly-looking female in one of the sculptures of St. John’s +Church in Cirencester, copied in our cut No. 123.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut121.jpg" width="350" height="346" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 121. A Swinish Minstrel.</div> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut122.jpg" width="364" height="346" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 122. A Musical Mother.</div> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut123.jpg" width="350" height="388" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 123. The Double Flute.</div> +</div> + +<p>Although this instrument is rather frequently represented in mediæval +works of art, we have no account of or allusion to it in mediæval +writers; and perhaps it was not held in very high estimation, and was +used only by a low class of performers. As in many other things, the +employment of particular musical instruments was guided, no doubt, by +fashion, new ones coming in as old ones went out. Such was the case +with the<a class="pagenum" id="Page_195" title="195"></a> instrument which is named in one of the above extracts, and +in some other mediæval writers, a <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">chiffonie</em>, and which has been +supposed to be the dulcimer, that had fallen into discredit in the +fourteenth century. This instrument is introduced in a story which is +found in Cuvelier’s metrical history of the celebrated warrior Bertrand +du Gueselin. In the course of the war for the expulsion of Pedro the +Cruel from the throne of Castile, an English knight, Sir Matthew +Gournay, was sent as a special ambassador to the court of Portugal. The +Portuguese monarch had in his service two minstrels whose performances +he vaunted greatly, and on whom he let great store, and he insisted +on their performing in the presence of the new ambassador. It turned +out that they played on the instrument just mentioned, and Sir Matthew +Gournay could not refrain from laughing at the performance. When the +king pressed him to give his opinion, he said, with more regard for +truth than politeness, “in France and Normandy, the instruments your +minstrels play upon are regarded with contempt, and are only in use +among beggars and blind people, so that they are popularly called +beggar’s instruments.” The king, we are told, took great offence at the +bluntness of his English guest.</p> + +<p>The fiddle itself appears at this time to have been gradually sinking +in credit, and the poets complained that a degraded taste for more +vulgar musical instruments was introducing itself. Among these we +may mention especially the pipe and tabor. The French antiquary, +M. Jubinal, in a very valuable collection of early popular poetry, +published under the title of <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Jongleurs et Trouvères,”</span> has printed +a curious poem of the thirteenth or fourteenth century, intended as +a protest against the use of the tabor and the bagpipes, which he +characterises as properly the musical instruments of the peasantry. Yet +people then, he says, were becoming so besotted on such instruments, +that they introduced them in places where better minstrelsy would be +more suitable. The writer thinks that the introduction of so vulgar an +instrument as the tabor into grand festivals could be looked upon in +no other light than as one of the signs which might be expected to be +the precursors of the coming of Antichrist. “If such people are to come +to grand festivals as carry a bushel [<em>i.e.</em> a tabor made in the form +of a bushel measure, on the end of which they beat],<a class="pagenum" id="Page_196" title="196"></a> and make such a +terrible noise, it would seem that Antichrist must now be being born; +people ought to break the head of each of them with a staff.”</p> + +<div class="poetry-container" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">Déussent itiels genz venir à bele feste</div> + <div class="line">Qui portent un boissel, qui mainent tel tempeste,</div> + <div class="line">Il samble que Antecrist doie maintenant nestre;</div> + <div class="line">L’en duroit d’un baston chascun brisier la teste.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>This satirist adds, as a proof of the contempt in which the Virgin Mary +held such instruments, that she never loved a tabor, or consented to +hear one, and that no tabor was introduced among the minstrelsy at her +espousals. “The gentle mother of God,” he says, “loved the sound of the +fiddle,” and he goes on to prove her partiality for that instrument by +citing some of her miracles.</p> + +<div class="poetry-container" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">Onques le mère Dieu, qui est virge honorée,</div> + <div class="line">Et est avoec les angles hautement coronée,</div> + <div class="line">N’ama onques tabour, ne point ne li agrée,</div> + <div class="line">N’onques tabour n’i ot quant el fu espousée.</div> + <div class="line">La douce mère Dieu ama son de viele.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut124.jpg" width="350" height="380" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 124. The Tabor, or Drum.</div> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut125.jpg" width="350" height="382" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 125. Bruin turned Piper.</div> +</div> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="Page_197" title="197"></a>The artist who carved the curious stalls in Henry VII.’s Chapel at +Westminster, seems to have entered fully into the spirit displayed by +this satirist, for in one of them, represented in our cut No. 124, he +has introduced a masked demon playing on the tabor, with an expression +apparently of derision. This tabor presents much the form of a bushel +measure, or rather, perhaps, of a modern drum. It may be remarked that +the drum is, in fact, the same instrument as the tabor, or, at least, +is derived from it, and they were called by the same names, <em>tabor</em> +or <em>tambour</em>. The English name <em>drum</em>, which has equivalents in the +later forms of the Teutonic dialects, perhaps means simply something +which makes a noise, and is not, as far as I know, met with before the +sixteenth century. Another carving of the same series of stalls at +Westminster, copied in our cut No. 125, represents a tame bear playing +on the bagpipes. This is perhaps intended to be at the same time a +satire on the instrument itself, and upon the strange exhibitions of +animals domesticated and taught various singular performances, which +were then so popular.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut126.jpg" width="350" height="383" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 126. Royal Minstrelsy.</div> +</div> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="Page_198" title="198"></a>In our cut No. 126 we come to the fiddle again, which long sustained +its place in the highest rank of musical instruments. It is taken +from one of the sculptures on the porch of the principal entrance to +the Cathedral of Lyons in France, and represents a mermaid with her +child, listening to the music of the fiddle. She wears a crown, and +is intended, no doubt, to be one of the queens of the sea, and the +introduction of the fiddle under such circumstances can leave no doubt +how highly it was esteemed.</p> + +<p>The mermaid is a creature of the imagination, which appears to have +been at all times a favourite object of poetry and legend. It holds +an important place in the mediæval bestiaries, or popular treatises +on natural history, and it has only been expelled from the domains of +science at a comparatively recent date. It still retains its place in +popular legends of our sea-coasts, and more especially in the remoter +parts of our islands. The stories of the merrow, or Irish fairy, hold a +prominent place among my late friend Crofton Croker’s “Fairy Legends of +the South of Ireland.” The mermaid is also introduced not unfrequently +in mediæval<a class="pagenum" id="Page_199" title="199"></a> sculpture and carving. Our cut No. 127, representing a +mermaid and a merman, is copied from one of the stalls of Winchester +Cathedral. The usual attributes of the mermaid are a looking-glass and +comb, by the aid of which she is dressing her hair; but here she holds +the comb alone. Her companion, the male, holds a fish, which he appears +to have just caught, in his hand.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut127.jpg" width="500" height="190" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 127. Mermaids.</div> +</div> + +<p>While, after the fifteenth century the profession of the minstrel +became entirely degraded, and he was looked upon more than ever as a +rogue and vagabond, the fiddle accompanied him, and it long remained, +as it still remains in Ireland, the favourite instrument of the +peasantry. The blind fiddler, even at the present day, is not unknown +in our rural districts. It has always been in England the favourite +instrument of minstrelsy.</p> + + + +<hr class="chap" /> +<h2><a class="pagenum" id="Page_200" title="200"></a>CHAPTER XII.</h2> + +<p class="subtitle"> + THE COURT FOOL.—THE NORMANS AND THEIR GABS.—EARLY HISTORY + OF COURT FOOLS.—THEIR COSTUME.—CARVINGS IN THE CORNISH + CHURCHES.—THE BURLESQUE SOCIETIES OF THE MIDDLE AGES.—THE FEASTS + OF ASSES, AND OF FOOLS.—THEIR LICENCE.—THE LEADEN MONEY OF THE + FOOLS.—THE BISHOP’S BLESSING.</p> + + +<p>From the employment of minstrels attached to the family, probably arose +another and well-known character of later times, the court fool, who +took the place of satirist in the great households. I do not consider +what we understand by the court fool to be a character of any great +antiquity.</p> + +<p>It is somewhat doubtful whether what we call a jest, was really +appreciated in the middle ages. Puns seem to have been considered +as elegant figures of speech in literary composition, and we rarely +meet with anything like a quick and clever repartee. In the earlier +ages, when a party of warriors would be merry, their mirth appears +to have consisted usually in ridiculous boasts, or in rude remarks, +or in sneers at enemies or opponents. These jests were termed by the +French and Normans <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">gabs</em> (<em lang="la" xml:lang="la">gabæ</em>, in mediæval Latin), a word supposed +to have been derived from the classical Latin word <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">cavilla</em>, a mock +or taunt; and a short poem in Anglo-Norman has been preserved which +furnishes a curious illustration of the meaning attached to it in the +twelfth century. This poem relates how Charlemagne, piqued by the +taunts of his empress on the superiority of Hugh the Great, emperor +of Constantinople, went to Constantinople, accompanied by his <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">douze +pairs</em> and a thousand knights, to verify the truth of his wife’s story. +They proceeded first to Jerusalem, where, when Charlemagne and his +twelve peers entered the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, they looked so +handsome and majestic, that they were taken at first for<a class="pagenum" id="Page_201" title="201"></a> Christ and +his twelve apostles, but the mystery was soon cleared up, and they were +treated by the patriarch with great hospitality during four months. +They then continued their progress till they reached Constantinople, +where they were equally well received by the emperor Hugo. At night +the emperor placed his guests in a chamber furnished with thirteen +splendid beds, one in the middle of the room, and the other twelve +distributed around it, and illuminated by a large carbuncle, which gave +a light as bright as that of day. When Hugh left them in their quarters +for the night, he lent them wine and whatever was necessary to make +them comfortable; and, when alone, they proceeded to amuse themselves +with <em>gabs</em>, or jokes, each being expected to say his joke in his +turn. Charlemagne took the lead, and boasted that if the emperor Hugh +would place before him his strongest “bachelor,” in full armour, and +mounted on his good steed, he would, with one blow of his sword, cut +him through from the head downwards, and through the saddle and horse, +and that the sword should, after all this, sink into the ground to the +handle. Charlemagne then called upon Roland for his <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">gab</em>, who boasted +that his breath was so strong, that if the emperor Hugh would lend him +his horn, he would take it out into the fields and blow it with such +force, that the wind and noise of it would shake down the whole city of +Constantinople. Oliver, whose turn came next, boasted of exploits of +another description if he were left alone with the beautiful princess, +Hugh’s daughter. The rest of the peers indulged in similar boasts, and +when the <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">gabs</em> had gone round, they went to sleep. Now the emperor of +Constantinople had very cunningly, and rather treacherously, made a +hole through the wall, by which all that passed inside could be seen +and heard, and he had placed a spy on the outside, who gave a full +account of the conversation of the distinguished guests to his imperial +master. Next morning Hugh called his guests before him, told them what +he had heard by his spy, and declared that each of them should perform +his boast, or, if he failed, be put to death. Charlemagne expostulated, +and represented that it was the custom in France when people retired +for the night to amuse themselves in that manner. “Such is the custom +in France,” he said, “at Paris, and at Chartres, when the French are +in bed they<a class="pagenum" id="Page_202" title="202"></a> amuse themselves and make jokes, and say things both of +wisdom and of folly.”</p> + +<div class="poetry-container" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">Si est tel custume en France, à Paris e à Cartres,</div> + <div class="line">Quand Franceis sunt culchiez, que se giuunt e gabent,</div> + <div class="line">E si dient ambure e saver e folage.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>But Charlemagne expostulated in vain, and they were only saved from the +consequence of their imprudence by the intervention of so many miracles +from above.<a id="FNanchor_66" href="#Footnote_66" class="fnanchor">[66]</a></p> + +<p>In such trials of skill as this, an individual must continually have +arisen who excelled in some at least of the qualities needful for +raising mirth and making him a good companion, by showing himself more +brilliant in wit, or more biting in sarcasms, or more impudent in his +jokes, and he would thus become the favourite mirth-maker of the court, +the boon companion of the chieftain and his followers in their hours of +relaxation. We find such an individual not unusually introduced in the +early romances and in the mythology of nations, and he sometimes unites +the character of court orator with the other. Such a personage was the +Sir Kay of the cycle of the romances of king Arthur. I have remarked +in a former chapter that Hunferth, in the Anglo-Saxon poem of Beowulf, +is described as holding a somewhat similar position at the court of +king Hrothgar. To go farther back in the mythology of our forefathers, +the Loki of Scandinavian fable appears sometimes to have performed a +similar character in the assembly of his fellow deities; and we know +that, among the Greeks, Homer on one occasion introduces Vulcan acting +the part of joker (<span title="gelôtopoios">γελωτοποιὸς</span>) to the gods of Olympus. But +all these have no relationship whatever to the court-fool of modern +times.</p> + +<p>The German writer Flögel, in his “History of Court Fools,”<a id="FNanchor_67" href="#Footnote_67" class="fnanchor">[67]</a> has +thrown this subject into much confusion by introducing a great mass +of irrelevant matter; and those who have since compiled from Flögel, +have made the confusion still greater. Much of this confusion has +arisen from<a class="pagenum" id="Page_203" title="203"></a> the misunderstanding and confounding of names and terms. +The mimus, the joculator, the ministrel, or whatever name this class +of society went by, was not in any respects identical with what we +understand by a court fool, nor does any such character as the latter +appear in the feudal household before the fourteenth century, as +far as we are acquainted with the social manners and customs of the +olden time. The vast extent of the early French <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">romans de geste</em>, or +Carlovingian romances, which are filled with pictures of courts both of +princes and barons, in which the court fool must have been introduced +had he been known at the time they were composed, that is, in the +twelfth and thirteenth centuries, contains, I believe, no trace of such +personage; and the same may be said of the numerous other romances, +fabliaux, and in fact all the literature of that period, one so rich in +works illustrative of contemporary manners in their most minute detail. +From these facts I conclude that the single brief charter published +by M. Rigollot from a manuscript in the Imperial Library in Paris, +is either misunderstood or it presents a very exceptional case. By +this charter, John, king of England, grants to his <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">follus</em>, William +Picol, or Piculph (as he is called at the close of the document), an +estate in Normandy named in the document Fons Ossanæ (Menil-Ozenne in +Mortain), with all its appurtenances, “to have and to hold, to him and +to his heirs, by doing there-for to us once a year the service of one +<em lang="la" xml:lang="la">follus</em>, as long as he lives; and after his death his heirs shall +hold it of us, by the service of one pair of gilt spurs to be rendered +annually to us.”<a id="FNanchor_68" href="#Footnote_68" class="fnanchor">[68]</a> The service (<em lang="la" xml:lang="la">servitium</em>) here enjoined means the +annual payment of the obligation of the feudal tenure, and<a class="pagenum" id="Page_204" title="204"></a> therefore +if <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">follus</em> is to be taken as signifying “a fool,” it only means that +Picol was to perform that character on one occasion in the course of +the year. In this case, he may have been some fool whom king John had +taken into his special favour; but it certainly is no proof that the +practice of keeping court fools then existed. It is not improbable +that this practice was first introduced in Germany, for Flögel speaks, +though rather doubtfully, of one who was kept at the court of the +emperor Rudolph I. (of Hapsburg), whose reign lasted from 1273 to 1292. +It is more certain, however, that the kings of France possessed court +fools before the middle of the fourteenth century, and from this time +anecdotes relating to them begin to be common. One of the earliest +and most curious of these anecdotes, if it be true, relates to the +celebrated victory of Sluys gained over the French fleet by our king +Edward III. in the year 1340. It is said that no one dared to announce +this disaster to the French king, Philippe VI., until a court fool +undertook the task. Entering the king’s chamber, he continued muttering +to himself, but loud enough to be heard, “Those cowardly English! the +chicken-hearted Britons!” “How so, cousin?” the king inquired. “Why,” +replied the fool, “because they have not courage enough to jump into +the sea, like your French soldiers, who went over headlong from their +ships, leaving those to the enemy who showed no inclination to follow +them.” Philippe thus became aware of the full extent of his calamity. +The institution of the court fool was carried to its greatest degree of +perfection during the fifteenth century; it only expired in the age of +Louis XIV.</p> + +<p>It was apparently with the court fool that the costume was introduced +which has ever since been considered as the characteristic mark of +folly. Some parts of this costume, at least, appear to have been +borrowed from an earlier date. The <em>gelotopœi</em> of the Greeks, and +the <em>mimi</em> and <em>moriones</em> of the Romans, shaved their heads; but the +court fools perhaps adopted this fashion as a satire upon the clergy +and monks. Some writers professed to doubt whether the fools borrowed +from the monks, or the monks from the fools; and Cornelius Agrippa, +in his treatise on the Vanity of Sciences, remarks that the monks had +their heads “all shaven like fools” (<em lang="la" xml:lang="la">raso toto capite ut fatui</em>). +The cowl, also, was perhaps adopted<a class="pagenum" id="Page_205" title="205"></a> in derision of the monks, but +it was distinguished by the addition of a pair of asses’ ears, or by +a cock’s head and comb, which formed its termination above, or by +both. The court fool was also furnished with a staff or club, which +became eventually his bauble. The bells were another necessary article +in the equipment of a court fool, perhaps also intended as a satire +on the custom of wearing small bells in the dress, which prevailed +largely during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, especially among +people who were fond of childish ostentation. The fool wore also a +party-coloured, or motley, garment, probably with the same aim—that of +satirising one of the ridiculous fashions of the fourteenth century.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut127a.jpg" width="450" height="492" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 127a. Court Fools.</div> +</div> + +<p>It is in the fifteenth century that we first meet with the fool in +full<a class="pagenum" id="Page_206" title="206"></a> costume in the illuminations or manuscripts, and towards the end +of the century this costume appears continually in engravings. It is +also met with at this time among the sculptures of buildings and the +carvings of wood-work. The two very interesting examples given in our +cut No. 127a are taken from carvings of the fifteenth century, in the +church of St. Levan, in Cornwall, near the Land’s End. They represent +the court fool in two varieties of costume; in the first, the fool’s +cowl, or cap, ends in the cock’s head; in the other, it is fitted with +asses’ ears. There are variations also in other parts of the dress; +for the second only has bells to his sleeves, and the first carries +a singularly formed staff, which may perhaps be intended for a strap +or belt, with a buckle at the end; while the other has a ladle in +his hand. As one possesses a beard, and presents marks of age in his +countenance, while the other is beardless and youthful, we may consider +the pair as an old fool and a young fool.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut128.jpg" width="500" height="331" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 128. A Fool and a Grimace-maker.</div> +</div> + +<p>The Cornish churches are rather celebrated for their early carved +wood-work, chiefly of the fifteenth century, of which two examples +are given in our cut, No. 128, taken from bench pannels in the church +of St. Mullion, on the Cornish coast, a little to the north of the<a class="pagenum" id="Page_207" title="207"></a> +Lizard Point. The first has bells hanging to the sleeves, and is no +doubt intended to represent folly in some form; the other appears to be +intended for the head of a woman making grimaces.<a id="FNanchor_69" href="#Footnote_69" class="fnanchor">[69]</a></p> + +<p>The fool had long been a character among the people before he became a +court fool, for Folly—or, as she was then called, “Mother Folly”—was +one of the favourite objects of popular worship in the middle ages, +and, where that worship sprang up spontaneously among the people, +it grew with more energy, and presented more hearty joyousness and +bolder satire than under the patronage of the great. Our forefathers +in those times were accustomed to form themselves into associations or +societies of a mirthful character, parodies of those of a more serious +description, especially ecclesiastical, and elected as their officers +mock popes, cardinals, archbishops and bishops, kings, &c They held +periodical festivals, riotous and licentious carnivals, which were +admitted into the churches, and even taken under the especial patronage +of the clergy, under such titles as “the feast of fools,” “the feast of +the ass,” “the feast of the innocents,” and the like. There was hardly +a Continental town of any account which had not its “company of fools,” +with its mock ordinances and mock ceremonies. In our own island we +had our abbots of misrule and of unreason. At their public festivals +satirical songs were sung and satirical masks and dresses were worn; +and in many of them, especially at a later date, brief satirical dramas +were acted. These satires assumed much of the functions of modern +caricature; the caricature of the pictorial representations, which were +mostly permanent monuments and destined for future generations, was +naturally general in its character, but in the representations of which +I am speaking, which were temporary, and designed to excite the mirth +of the moment, it became personal, and, often, even political, and it +was constantly directed against the ecclesiastical order. The scandal +of the day furnished it with abundant materials. A fragment of one of +their<a class="pagenum" id="Page_208" title="208"></a> songs of an early date, sung at one of these “feasts” at Rouen, +has been preserved, and contains the following lines, written in Latin +and French:—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container" lang="la" xml:lang="la"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="line">De asino bono nostro,</div> + <div class="line">Meliori et optimo,</div> + <div class="line indent4">Debemus <span class="normal" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">faire fête.</span></div> + <div class="line"><span class="normal" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">En revenant</span> de Gravinaria,</div> + <div class="line"><span class="normal" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Un gros chardon</span> reperit in via,</div> + <div class="line indent4"><span class="normal" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Il lui coupa la tête.</span></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="line">Vir monachus in mense Julio</div> + <div class="line">Egressus est e monasterio,</div> + <div class="line indent4"><span class="normal" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">C’est dom de la Bucaille;</span></div> + <div class="line">Egressus est sine licentia,</div> + <div class="line"><span class="normal">Pour aller voir dona Venissia,</span></div> + <div class="line indent4"><span class="normal" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Et faire la ripaille.</span></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="center normal">TRANSLATION.</p> + +<div class="poetry-container" lang="la" xml:lang="la"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="line">For our good ass,</div> + <div class="line">The better and the best,</div> + <div class="line indent4">We ought to rejoice.</div> + <div class="line">In returning from Gravinière,</div> + <div class="line">A great thistle he found in the way,</div> + <div class="line indent4">He cut off its head.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="line">A monk in the month of July</div> + <div class="line">Went out of his monastery,</div> + <div class="line indent4">It is <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">dom de la Bucaille</span>;</div> + <div class="line">He went out without license,</div> + <div class="line">To pay a visit to the <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">dame de Venisse</span>,</div> + <div class="line indent4">And make jovial cheer.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>It appears that De la Bucaille was the prior of the abbey of St. +Taurin, at Rouen, and that the dame de Venisse was prioress of St. +Saviour, and these lines, no doubt, commemorate some great scandal of +the day relating to the private relations between these two individuals.</p> + +<p>These mock religious ceremonies are supposed to have been derived from +the Roman Saturnalia; they were evidently of great antiquity in the +mediæval church, and were most prevalent in France and Italy. Under the +name of “the feast of the sub-deacons” they are forbidden by the acts +of the council of Toledo, in 633; at a later period, the French punned +on the word <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">sous-diacres</em>, and called them <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Saouls-diacres</em> (Drunken +Deacons), words which had nearly the same sound. The “feast of the<a class="pagenum" id="Page_209" title="209"></a> +ass” is said to be traced back in France as far as the ninth century. +It was celebrated in most of the great towns in that country, such as +Rouen, Sens, Douai, &c, and the service for the occasion is actually +preserved in some of the old church books. From this it appears that +the ass was led in procession to a place in the middle of the church, +which had been decked out to receive it, and that the procession was +led by two clerks, who sung a Latin song in praise of the animal. This +song commences by telling us how “the ass came from the east, handsome +and very strong, and most fit for carrying burthens”:—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container" lang="la" xml:lang="la"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">Orientis partibus</div> + <div class="line">Adventavit asinus,</div> + <div class="line">Pulcher et fortissimus,</div> + <div class="line">Sarcinis aptissimus.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>The refrain or burthen of the song is in French, and exhorts the animal +to join in the uproar—“Eh! sir ass, chant now, fair mouth, bray, you +shall have hay enough, and oats in abundance:”—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">Hez, sire asnes, car chantez,</div> + <div class="line">Belle bouche, rechignez,</div> + <div class="line">Vous aurez du foin assez,</div> + <div class="line">Et de l’avoine à plantez.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>In this tone the chant continues through nine similar stanzas, +describing the mode of life and food of the ass. When the procession +reached the altar, the priest began a service in prose. Beleth, one +of the celebrated doctors of the university of Paris, who flourished +in 1182, speaks of the “feast of fools” as in existence in his time; +and the acts of the council of Paris, held in 1212, forbid the +presence of archbishops and bishops, and more especially of monks and +nuns, at the feasts of fools, “in which a staff was carried.”<a id="FNanchor_70" href="#Footnote_70" class="fnanchor">[70]</a> We +know the proceedings of this latter festival rather minutely from +the accounts given in the ecclesiastical censures.<a class="pagenum" id="Page_210" title="210"></a> It was in the +cathedral churches that they elected the archbishop or bishop of +fools, whose election was confirmed, and he was consecrated, with a +multitude of buffooneries. He then entered upon his pontifical duties +wearing the mitre and carrying the crosier before the people, on whom +he bestowed his solemn benediction. In the exempt churches, or those +which depended immediately upon the Holy See, they elected a pope of +fools (<em lang="la" xml:lang="la">unum papam fatuorum</em>), who wore similarly the ensigns of the +papacy. These dignitaries were assisted by an equally burlesque and +licentious clergy, who uttered and performed a mixture of follies and +impieties during the church service of the day, which they attended in +disguises and masquerade dresses. Some wore masks, or had their faces +painted, and others were dressed in women’s clothing, or in ridiculous +costumes. On entering the choir, they danced and sang licentious songs. +The deacons and sub-deacons ate black puddings and sausages on the +altar while the priest was celebrating; others played at cards or dice +under his eyes; and others threw bits of old leather into the censer +in order to raise a disagreeable smell. After the mass was ended, the +people broke out into all sorts of riotous behaviour in the church, +leaping, dancing, and exhibiting themselves in indecent postures, and +some went as far as to strip themselves naked, and in this condition +they were drawn through the streets with tubs full of ordure and filth, +which they threw about at the mob. Every now and then they halted, +when they exhibited immodest postures and actions, accompanied with +songs and speeches of the same character. Many of the laity took part +in the procession, dressed as monks and nuns. These disorders seem to +have been carried to their greatest degree of extravagance during the +fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.<a id="FNanchor_71" href="#Footnote_71" class="fnanchor">[71]</a></p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="Page_211" title="211"></a>Towards the fifteenth century, lay societies, having apparently +no connection with the clergy or the church, but of just the same +burlesque character, arose in France. One of the earliest of these was +formed by the clerks of the Bazoche, or lawyers’ clerks of the Palais +de Justice in Paris, whose president was a sort of king of misrule. The +other principal society of this kind in Paris took the rather mirthful +name of <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Enfans sans Souci</em> (Careless Boys); it consisted of young men +of education, who gave to their president or chieftain the title of +<em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Prince des Sots</em> (the Prince of Fools). Both these societies composed +and performed farces, and other small dramatic pieces. These farces +were satires on contemporary society, and appear to have been often +very personal.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut129.jpg" width="350" height="147" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 129. Money of the Archbishop of the Innocents.</div> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut130.jpg" width="350" height="160" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 130. Money of the Pope of Fools.</div> +</div> + +<p>Almost the only monuments of the older of these societies consist of +coins, or tokens, struck in lead, and sometimes commemorating the +names of their mock dignitaries. A considerable number of these have +been found in France, and an account of them, with engravings, was +published by Dr. Rigollot some years ago.<a id="FNanchor_72" href="#Footnote_72" class="fnanchor">[72]</a> Our cut No. 129 will +serve as an example. It represents a leaden token of the Archbishop of +the Innocents of the parish of St. Firmin, at Amiens, and is curious +as bearing a date. On one side the archbishop of the Innocents is +represented in the act of giving his blessing to his flock, surrounded +by the inscription, <span class="fakesc">MONETA · ARCHIEPI · SCTI · FIRMINI</span>. On the +other side we have the<a class="pagenum" id="Page_212" title="212"></a> name of the individual who that year held the +office of archbishop, <span class="fakesc">NICOLAVS · GAVDRAM · ARCHIEPVS</span> · 1520, +surrounding a group consisting of two men, one of whom is dressed as a +fool, holding between them a bird, which has somewhat the appearance of +a magpie. Our cut No. 130 is still more curious; it is a token of the +<em>pope</em> of fools. On one side appears the pope with his tiara and double +cross, and a fool in full costume, who approaches his bauble to the +pontifical cross. It is certainly a bitter caricature on the papacy, +whether that were the intention or not. Two persons behind, dressed +apparently in scholastic costume, seem to be merely spectators. The +inscription is, <span class="fakesc">MONETA · NOVA · ADRIANI · STVLTORV [M]· PAPE</span> +(the last <span class="fakesc">E</span> being in the field of the piece), “new money of +Adrian, the pope of fools.” The inscription on the other side of the +token is one frequently repeated on these leaden medals, <span class="fakesc">STVLTORV +[M] · INFINITVS · EST · NVMERVS</span>, “the number of fools is +infinite.” In the field we see Mother Folly holding up her bauble, and +before her a grotesque figure in a cardinal’s hat, apparently kneeling +to her. It is rather surprising that we find so few allusions to these +burlesque societies in the various classes of pictorial records from +which the subject of these chapters has been illustrated; but we have +evidence that they were not altogether overlooked. Until the latter +end of the last century, the misereres of the church of St. Spire, at +Corbeil, near Paris, were remarkable for the singular carvings with +which they were decorated, and which have since been destroyed, but +fortunately they were engraved by<a class="pagenum" id="Page_213" title="213"></a> Millin. One of them, copied in our +cut No. 131, evidently represents the bishop of fools conferring his +blessing; the fool’s bauble occupies the place of the pastoral staff.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut131.jpg" width="350" height="337" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 131. The Bishop of Fools.</div> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap" /> +<h2> +<a class="pagenum" id="Page_214" title="214"></a> +CHAPTER XIII.</h2> + +<p class="subtitle"> + THE DANCE OF DEATH.—THE PAINTINGS IN THE CHURCH OF LA + CHAISE DIEU.—THE REIGN OF FOLLY.—SEBASTIAN BRANDT; THE + “SHIP OF FOOLS.”—DISTURBERS OF CHURCH SERVICE.—TROUBLESOME + BEGGARS.—GEILER’S SERMONS.—BADIUS, AND HIS SHIP OF FOOLISH + WOMEN.—THE PLEASURES OF SMELL.—ERASMUS; THE “PRAISE OF FOLLY.”</p> + + +<p>There is still one cycle of satire which almost belongs to the middle +ages, though it only became developed at their close, and became most +popular after they were past. There existed, at least as early as the +beginning of the thirteenth century, a legendary story of an interview +between three living and three dead men, which is usually told in +French verse, and appears under the title of <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Des trois vifs et des +trois morts.”</span> According to some versions of the legend, it was St. +Macarius, the Egyptian recluse, who thus introduced the living to the +dead. The verses are sometimes accompanied with figures, and these have +been found both sculptured and painted on ecclesiastical buildings. At +a later period, apparently early in the fifteenth century, some one +extended this idea to all ranks of society, and pictured a skeleton, +the emblem of death, or even more than one, in communication with an +individual of each class; and this extended scene, from the manner +of the grouping—in which the dead appeared to be wildly dancing off +with the living—became known as the “Dance of Death.” As the earlier +legend of the three dead and the three living was, however, still +often introduced at the beginning of it, the whole group was most +generally known—especially during the fifteenth century—as the <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Danse +Macabre,”</span> or<a class="pagenum" id="Page_215" title="215"></a> Dance of Macabre, this name being considered as a mere +corruption of Macarius. The temper of the age—in which death in every +form was constantly before the eyes of all, and in which people sought +to regard life as a mere transitory moment of enjoyment—gave to this +grim idea of the fellowship of death and life great popularity, and it +was not only painted on the walls of churches, but it was suspended +in tapestry around people’s chambers. Sometimes they even attempted +to represent it in masquerade, and we are told that in the month of +October, 1424, the <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Danse Macabre”</span> was publicly danced by living +people in the cemetery of the Innocents, in Paris—a fit place for so +lugubrious a performance—in the presence of the Duke of Bedford and +the Duke of Burgundy, who came to Paris after the battle of Verneuil. +During the rest of the century we find not unfrequently allusions +to the <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Danse Macabre.”</span> The English poet Lydgate wrote a series of +stanzas to accompany the figures, and it was the subject of some of +the earliest engravings on wood. In the posture and accompaniments +of the figures representing the different classes of society, and in +the greater or less reluctance with which the living accept their not +very attractive partners, satire is usually implied, and it is in +some cases accompanied with drollery. The figure representing death +has almost always a grimly mirthful countenance, and appears to be +dancing with good will. The most remarkable early representation of +the <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Danse Macabre”</span> now preserved, is that painted on the wall of the +church of La Chaise Dieu, in Auvergne, a beautiful fac-simile of which +was published a few years ago by the well-known antiquary M. Jubinal. +This remarkable picture begins with the figures of Adam and Eve, who +are introducing death into the world in the form of a serpent with a +death’s head. The dance is opened by an ecclesiastic preaching from +a pulpit, towards whom death is leading first in the dance the pope, +for each individual takes his precedence strictly according to his +class—alternately an ecclesiastic and a layman. Thus next after the +pope comes the emperor, and the cardinal is followed by the king. The +baron is followed by the bishop, and the grim partner of the latter +appears to pay more intention to the layman than to his own priest, so +that two dead men appear to have the former in charge. The group thus +repre<a class="pagenum" id="Page_216" title="216"></a>sented by the nobleman and the two deaths, is copied in our cut +No. 132, and will serve as an example of the style and grouping of this +remarkable painting. After a few other figures, perhaps less striking, +we come to the merchant, who receives the advances of his partner with +a thoughtful air; while immediately after him another death is trying +to make himself more acceptable to the bashful nun by throwing a cloak +over his nakedness. In another place two deaths armed with bows and +arrows are scattering their shafts rather dangerously. Soon follow +some of the more gay and youthful members of society. Our cut No. 133 +represents the musician, who appears also to attract the attentions +of two of the persecutors. In his dismay he is treading under foot +his own viol. The dance closes with the lower orders of society, and +is concluded by a group which is not so easily understood. Before the +end of the fifteenth century, there had appeared in Paris several +editions of a series of bold engravings<a class="pagenum" id="Page_217" title="217"></a> on wood, in a small folio +size, representing the same dance, though somewhat differently treated. +France, indeed, appears to have been the native country of the <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Danse +Macabre.”</span> But in the century following the beautiful set of drawings by +the great artist Hans Holbein, first published at Lyons in 1538, gave +to the Dance of Death a still greater and wider celebrity. From this +time the subjects of this dance were commonly introduced in initial +letters, and in the engraved borders of pages, especially in books of a +religious character.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut132.jpg" width="350" height="452" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 132. The Knight in the Dance of Death.</div> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut133.jpg" width="350" height="405" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 133. The Musician in Death’s Hands.</div> +</div> + +<p>Death may truly be said to have shared with Folly that melancholy +period—the fifteenth century. As society then presented itself to +the eye, people might easily suppose that the world was running mad, +and folly, in one shape or other, seemed to be the principle which +ruled most men’s actions. The jocular societies, described in my last +chapter, which multiplied in France during the fifteenth century, +initiated a sort of mock worship of Folly. That sort of inauguration +of death which was<a class="pagenum" id="Page_218" title="218"></a> performed in the <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Danse Macabre,”</span> was of French +growth, but the grand crusade against folly appears to have originated +in Germany. Sebastian Brandt was a native of Strasburg, born in 1458. +He studied in that city and in Bâle, became a celebrated professor in +both those places, and died at the former in 1520. The “Ship of Fools,” +which has immortalised the name of Sebastian Brandt, is believed to +have been first published in the year 1494. The original German text +went through numerous editions within a few years; a Latin translation +was equally popular, and it was afterwards edited and enlarged by +Jodocus Badius Ascensius. A French text was no less successful; an +English translation was printed by Richard Pynson in 1509; a Dutch +version appeared in 1519. During the sixteenth century, Brandt’s “Ship +of Fools” was the most popular of books. It consists of a series of +bold woodcuts, which form its characteristic feature, and of metrical +explanations, written by Brandt, and annexed to each cut. Taking his +text from the words of the preacher, <span lang="la" xml:lang="la">“Stultorum numerus est infinitus,”</span> +Brandt exposes to the eye, in all its shades and forms, the folly +of his contemporaries, and bares to view its roots and causes. The +cuts are especially interesting as striking pictures of contemporary +manners. The “Ship of Fools” is the great ship of the world, into which +the various descriptions of fatuity are pouring from all quarters +in boat-loads. The first folly is that of men who collected great +quantities of books, not for their utility, but for their rarity, or +beauty of execution, or rich bindings, so that we see that bibliomania +had already taken its place among human vanities. The second class +of fools were interested and partial judges, who sold justice for +money, and are represented under the emblem of two fools throwing a +boar into a caldron, according to the old Latin proverb, <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">Agere aprum +in lebetem</em>. Then come the various follies of misers, fops, dotards, +men who are foolishly indulgent to their children, mischief-makers, +and despisers of good advice; of nobles and men in power; of the +profane and the improvident; of foolish lovers; of extravagant +eaters and drinkers, &c, &c Foolish talking, hypocrisy, frivolous +pursuits, ecclesiastical corruptions, impudicity, and a great number +of other vices as well as follies, are duly passed in review, and are +represented in various forms of satirical caricature, and sometimes +in<a class="pagenum" id="Page_219" title="219"></a> simpler unadorned pictures. Thus the foolish valuers of things are +represented by a fool holding a balance, one scale of which contains +the sun, moon, and stars, to represent heaven and heavenly things, and +the other a castle and fields, to represent earthly things, the latter +scale overweighing the other; and the procrastinator is pictured by +another fool, with a parrot perched on his head, and a magpie on each +hand, all repeating <em>cras, cras, cras</em> (to-morrow). Our cut No. 134 +represents a group of disturbers of church service. It was a common +practice in former days to take to church hawks (which were constantly +carried about as the outward ensign of the gentleman) and dogs. The +fool has here thrown back his fool’s-cap to exhibit more fully the +fashionable “gent” of the day; he carries his hawk on his hand, and +wears not only a fashionable pair of shoes, but very fashionable clogs +also. These gentlemen <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">à la mode</em>, <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">turgentes genere et natalibus altis</em>, +we are told, were the persons who disturbed the church<a class="pagenum" id="Page_220" title="220"></a> service by +the creaking of their shoes and clogs, the noise made by their birds, +the barking and quarrelling of their dogs, by their own whisperings, +and especially with immodest women, whom they met in church as in a +convenient place of assignation. All these forms of the offence are +expressed in the picture. Our second example cut No. 135, which forms +the fifty-ninth title or subject in the “Ship of Fools,” represents +a party of the beggars with which, either lay or ecclesiastical, the +country was then overrun. In the explanation, these wicked beggars are +described as indulging in idleness, in eating, drinking, rioting, and +sleep, while they levy contributions on the charitable feelings of the +honest and industrious, and, under cover of begging, commit robbery +wherever they find the opportunity. The beggar, who appears to be only +a deceptive cripple, leads his donkey laden with children, whom he is +bringing up in the same profession, while his wife lingers behind to +indulge in her bibulous pro<a class="pagenum" id="Page_221" title="221"></a>pensities. These cuts will give a tolerable +notion of the general character of the whole, which amount in number to +a hundred and twelve, and therefore present a great variety of subjects +relative to almost every class and profession of life.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut134.jpg" width="400" height="468" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 134. Disturbers of Church Service.</div> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut135.jpg" width="400" height="501" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 135. Mendicants on their Travels.</div> +</div> + +<p>We may remark, however, that after Folly had thus run through all the +stages of society, until it had reached the lowest of all, the ranks +of mendicity, the gods themselves became alarmed, the more so as this +great movement was directed especially against Minerva, the goddess +of wisdom, and they held a conclave to provide against it. The result +is not told, but the course of Folly goes on as vigorously as ever. +Ignorant fools who set up for physicians, fools who cannot understand +jokes, unwise mathematicians, astrologers, of the latter of which the +moraliser says, in his Latin verse—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container" lang="la" xml:lang="la"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">Siqua voles sortis prænoscere damna futuræ,</div> + <div class="line indent2">Et vitare malum, sol tibi signa dabit.</div> + <div class="line">Sed tibi, stulte, tui cur non dedit ille furoris</div> + <div class="line indent2">Signa? aut, si dederit, cur tanta mala subis?</div> + <div class="line">Nondum grammaticæ callis primordia, et audes</div> + <div class="line indent2">Vim cœli radio supposuisse tuo.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>The next cut is a very curious one, and appears to represent a +dissecting-house of this early period. Among other chapters which +afford interesting pictures of that time, and indeed of all times, we +may instance those of litigious fools, who are always going to law, +and who confound blind justice, or rather try to unbind her eyes; +of filthy-tongued fools, who glorify the race of swine; of ignorant +scholars; of gamblers; of bad and thievish cooks; of low men who seek +to be high, and of high who are despisers of poverty; of men who +forget that they will die; of irreligious men and blasphemers; of +the ridiculous indulgence of parents to children, and the ungrateful +return which was made to them for it; and of women’s pride. Another +title describes the ruin of Christianity: the pope, emperor, king, +cardinals, &c, are receiving willingly from a suppliant fool the cap +of Folly, while two other fools are looking derisively upon them from +an adjoining wall. It need hardly be said that this was published on +the eve of the Reformation.</p> + +<p>In the midst of the popularity which greeted the appearance of the<a class="pagenum" id="Page_222" title="222"></a> +work of Sebastian Brandt, it attracted the special attention of a +celebrated preacher of the time named Johann Geiler. Geiler was born +at Schaffhausen, in Switzerland, in 1445, but having lost his father +when only three years of age, he was educated by his grandfather, who +lived at Keysersberg, in Alsace, and hence he was commonly called +Geiler of Keysersberg. He studied in Freiburg and Bâle, obtained a +great reputation for learning, was esteemed a profound theologian, and +was finally settled in Strasburg, where he continued to shine as a +preacher until his death in 1510. He was a bold man, too, in the cause +of truth, and declaimed with earnest zeal against the corruptions of +the church, and especially against the monkish orders, for he compared +the black monks to the devil, the white monks to his dam, and the +others he said were their chickens. On another occasion he said that +the qualities of a good monk were an almighty belly, an ass’s back, +and a raven’s mouth. He told his congregation from the pulpit that a +great reformation was at hand, that he did not expect to live to see +it himself, but that many of those who heard him would live to see +it. As may be supposed, the monks hated him, and spoke of him with +contempt. They said, that in his sermons he took his texts, not from +the Scriptures, but from the “Ship of Fools” of Sebastian Brandt; and, +in fact, during the year 1498, Geiler preached at Strasburg a series of +sermons on the follies of his time, which were evidently founded upon +Brandt’s book, for the various follies were taken in the same order. +They were originally compiled in German, but one of Geiler’s scholars, +Jacob Other, translated them into Latin, and published them, in 1501, +under the title of <span lang="la" xml:lang="la">“Navicula sive Speculum Fatuorum præstantissimi +sacrarum literarum doctoris Johannis Geiler.”</span> Within a few years this +work went through several editions both in Latin and in German, some +of them illustrated by woodcuts. The style of preaching is quaint and +curious, full of satirical wit, which is often coarse, according to the +manner of the time, sometimes very indelicate. Each sermon is headed +by the motto, <span lang="la" xml:lang="la">“Stultorum infinitus est numerus.”</span> Geiler takes for his +theme in each sermon one of the titles of Brandt’s “Ship of Fools,” and +he separates them into subdivisions, or branches, which he calls the +bells (<em lang="la" xml:lang="la">nolas</em>) from the fool’s-cap.</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="Page_223" title="223"></a>The other scholar who did most to spread the knowledge of Brandt’s +work, was Jodocus Badius, who assumed the additional name of Ascensius +because he was born at Assen, near Brussels, in 1462. He was a very +distinguished scholar, but is best known for having established a +celebrated printing establishment in Paris, where he died in 1535. I +have already stated that Badius edited the Latin translation of the +“Ship of Fools” of Sebastian Brandt, with additional explanations of +his own, but he was one of the first of Brandt’s imitators. He seems to +have thought that Brandt’s book was not complete—that the weaker sex +had not received its fair share of importance; and apparently in 1498, +while Geiler was turning the <span lang="la" xml:lang="la">“Stultifera Navis”</span> into sermons, Badius +compiled a sort of supplement to it (<em lang="la" xml:lang="la">additamentum</em>), to which he gave +the title of <cite lang="la" xml:lang="la">“Stultiferæ naviculæ, seu Scaphæ, Fatuarum Mulierum,”</cite> the +Boats of Foolish Women. As far as can be traced, the first edition +appears to have been printed in 1502. The first cut represents the +ship carrying Eve alone of the female race, whose folly involved the +whole world. The book is divided into five chapters, according to the +number of the five senses, each sense represented by a boat carrying +its particular class of foolish women to the great ship of foolish +women, which lies off at anchor. The text consists of a dissertation +on the use and abuse of the particular sense which forms the substance +of the chapter, and it ends with Latin verses, which are given as the +boatman’s <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">celeusma</em>, or boat song. The first of these boats is the +<em lang="la" xml:lang="la">scapha stultæ visionis ad stultiferam navem perveniens</em>—the boat of +foolish seeing proceeding to the ship of fools. A party of gay ladies +are taking possession of the boat, carrying with them their combs, +looking-glasses, and all other implements necessary for making them +fair to be looked upon. The second boat is the <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">scapha auditionis +fatuæ</em>, the boat of foolish hearing, in which the ladies are playing +upon musical instruments. The third is the <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">scapha olfactionis stultæ</em>, +the boat of foolish smell, and the pictorial illustration to it is +partly copied in our cut No. 136. In the original some of the ladies +are gathering sweet-smelling flowers before they enter the boat, while +on board a pedlar is vending his perfume. One <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">folle femme</em>, with her +fool’s cap on her head, is buying a pomander, or, as we should perhaps +now say, a scent-ball, from the itinerant dealer. Figures of pomanders<a class="pagenum" id="Page_224" title="224"></a> +are extremely rare, and this is an interesting example; in fact, it +is only recently that our Shakspearian critics really understood the +meaning of the word. A pomander was a small globular vessel, perforated +with holes, and filled with strong perfumes, as it is represented in +our woodcut. The fourth of these boats is that of foolish tasting, +<em lang="la" xml:lang="la">scapha gustationis fatuæ</em>, and the ladies have their well-furnished +table on board the boat, and are largely indulging in eating and +drinking. In the last of these boats, the <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">scapha contactionis fatuæ</em>, +or boat of foolish feeling, the women have men on board, and are +proceeding to great liberties with them; one of the gentle damsels, +too, is picking the pocket of her male companion in a very unlady-like +manner.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut136.jpg" width="500" height="296" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 136. The Boat of Pleasant Odours.</div> +</div> + +<p>Two ideas combined in this peculiar field of satiric literature, that +of the ship and that of the fools, now became popular, and gave rise +to a host of imitators. There appeared ships of health, ships of +penitence, ships of all sorts of things, on the one hand; and on the +other, folly was a favourite theme of satire from many quarters. One of +the most remarkable of the personages involved in this latter warfare, +was the great scholar Desiderius Erasmus, of Rotterdam, who was born in +that city in 1467. Like most of these satirists, Erasmus was strongly +imbued with the spirit of the<a class="pagenum" id="Page_225" title="225"></a> Reformation, and he was the acquaintance +and friend of those to whom the Reformation owed a great part of its +success. In 1497, when the “Ship of Fools” of Sebastian Brandt was in +the first full flush of its popularity, Erasmus came to England, and +was so well received, that from that time forward his literary life +seemed more identified with our island than with any other country. His +name is still a sort of household word in our universities, especially +in that of Cambridge. He made here the friendly acquaintance of the +great Sir Thomas More, himself a lover of mirth, and one of those whose +names are celebrated for having kept a court fool. In the earlier years +of the sixteenth century, Erasmus visited Italy, and passed two or +three years there. He returned thence to England, as appears, early +in the year 1508. It is not easy to decide whether his experience of +society in Italy had convinced him more than ever that folly was the +presiding genius of mankind, or what other feeling influenced him, +but one of the first results of his voyage was the <span title="Môrias +Enkômion">Μωρίας Ἐγκώμιον</span> (<em lang="la" xml:lang="la">Moriæ Encomium</em>), or “Praise of Folly.” Erasmus dedicated +this little jocular treatise to Sir Thomas More as a sort of pun upon +his name, although he protests that there was a great contrast between +the two characters. Erasmus takes much the same view of folly as +Brandt, Geiler, Badius, and the others, and under this name he writes +a bold satire on the whole frame of contemporary society. The satire +is placed in the mouth of Folly herself (the Mère Folie of the jocular +clubs), who delivers from her pulpit a declamation in which she sets +forth her qualities and praises. She boasts of the greatness of her +origin, claims as her kindred the sophists, rhetoricians, and many of +the pretentious scholars and wise men, and describes her birth and +education. She claims divine affinity, and boasts of her influence over +the world, and of the beneficent manner in which it was exercised. +All the world, she pretends, was ruled under her auspices, and it was +only in her presence that mankind was really happy. Hence the happiest +ages of man are infancy, before wisdom has come to interfere, and old +age, when it has passed away. Therefore, she says, if men would remain +faithful to her, and avoid wisdom altogether, they would pass a life +of perpetual youth. In this long discourse of the influence of folly, +written by a man of the known<a class="pagenum" id="Page_226" title="226"></a> sentiments of Erasmus, it would be +strange if the Romish church, with its monks and ignorant priesthood, +its saints, and relics, and miracles, did not find a place. Erasmus +intimates that the superstitious follies had become permanent, because +they were profitable. There are some, he tells us, who cherished the +foolish yet pleasant persuasion, that if they fixed their eyes devoutly +on a figure of St. Christopher, carved in wood or painted on the wall, +they would be safe from death on that day; with many other examples +of equal credulity. Then there are your pardons, your measures of +purgatory, which may be bought off at so much the hour, or the day, +or the month, and a multitude of other absurdities. Ecclesiastics, +scholars, mathematicians, philosophers, all come in for their share of +the refined satire of this book, which, like the “Ship of Fools,” has +gone through innumerable editions, and has been translated into many +languages.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut137.jpg" width="300" height="410" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 137. Superstition.</div> +</div> + +<p>In an early French translation, the text of this work of Erasmus +is embellished with some of the woodcuts belonging to Brandt’s +“Ship of<a class="pagenum" id="Page_227" title="227"></a> Fools,” which, it need hardly be remarked, are altogether +inappropriate, but the “Praise of Folly” was detained to receive +illustrations from a more distinguished pencil. A copy of the book came +into the hands of Hans Holbein—it may possibly have been presented to +him by the author—and Holbein took so much interest in it, that he +amused himself with drawing illustrative sketches with a pen in the +margins. This book afterwards passed into the library of the University +of Bâle, where it was found in the latter part of the seventeenth +century, and these drawings have since been engraved and added to most +of the subsequent editions. Many of these sketches are very slight, and +some have not a very close connection with the text of Erasmus, but +they are all characteristic, and show the spirit—the spirit of the +age—in which Holbein read his author. I give two examples of them, +taken almost haphazard, for it would require a longer analysis of the +book than can be given here to make many of them understood. The first +of these, our cut No. 137, represents the foolish warrior, who has a +sword long enough to trust to it for defence, bowing with trembling +superstition before a painting of St. Christopher crossing the water +with the infant Christ on his shoulder, as a more certain security for +his safety during that day. The other, our cut No. 138, represents +the preacher, Lady Folly, descending from her pulpit, after she has +concluded her sermon.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut138.jpg" width="500" height="237" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 138. Preacher Folly ending her Sermon.</div> +</div> + + + +<hr class="chap" /> +<h2><a class="pagenum" id="Page_228" title="228"></a> +CHAPTER XIV.</h2> + +<p class="subtitle"> + POPULAR LITERATURE AND ITS HEROES; BROTHER RUSH, TYLL + EULENSPIEGEL, THE WISE MEN OF GOTHAM.—STORIES AND + JEST-BOOKS.—SKELTON, SCOGIN, TARLTON, PEELE.</p> + + +<p>The people in the middle ages, as well as its superiors, had its +comic literature and legend. Legend was the literature especially of +the peasant, and in it the spirit of burlesque and satire manifested +itself in many ways. Simplicity, combined with vulgar cunning, and the +circumstances arising out of the exercise of these qualities, presented +the greatest stimulants to popular mirth. They produced their popular +heroes, who, at first, were much more than half legendary, such as +the familiar spirit, Robin Goodfellow, whose pranks were a source of +continual amusement rather than of terror to the simple minds which +listened to those who told them. These stories excited with still +greater interest as their spiritual heroes became incarnate, and the +auditors were persuaded that the perpetrators of so many artful acts of +cunning and of so many mischievous practical jokes, were but ordinary +men like themselves. It was but a sign or symbol of the change from +the mythic age to that of practical life. One of the earliest of these +stories of mythic comedy transformed into, or at least presented under +the guise of, humanity, is that of Brother Ruth. Although the earliest +version of this story with which we are acquainted dates only from the +beginning of the sixteenth century,<a id="FNanchor_73" href="#Footnote_73" class="fnanchor">[73]</a> there is no reason for doubt +that the story itself was in existence at a much more remote period.</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="Page_229" title="229"></a>Rush was, in truth, a spirit of darkness, whose mission it was +to wander on the earth tempting and impelling people to do evil. +Perceiving that the internal condition of a certain abbey was well +suited to his purpose, he presented himself at its gates in the +disguise of a youth who wanted employment, and was received as an +assistant in the kitchen, but he pleased the monks best by the skill +with which he furnished them all with fair companions. At length he +quarrelled with the cook, and threw him into the boiling caldron, and +the monks, assuming that his death was accidental, appointed Rush to be +cook in his place. After a service of seven years in the kitchen—which +appears to have been considered a fair apprenticeship for the new +honour which was to be conferred upon him—the abbot and convent +rewarded him by making him a monk. He now followed still more earnestly +his design for the ruin of his brethren, both soul and body, and began +by raising a quarrel about a woman, which led, through his contrivance, +to a fight, in which the monks all suffered grievous bodily injuries, +and in which Brother Rush was especially active. He went on in this +way until at last his true character was accidentally discovered. A +neighbouring farmer, overtaken by night, took shelter in a hollow tree. +It happened to be the night appointed by Lucifer to meet his agents +on earth, and hear from them the report of their several proceedings, +and he had selected this very oak as the place of rendezvous. There +Brother Rush appeared, and the farmer, in his hiding-place, heard his +confession from his own lips, and told it to the abbot, who, being as +it would appear a magician, conjured him into the form of a horse, and +banished him. Rush hurried away to England, where he laid aside his +equine form, and entered the body of the king’s daughter, who suffered +great torments from his possession. At length some of the great doctors +from Paris came and obliged the spirit to confess that nobody but the +abbot of the distant monastery had any power over him. The abbot came, +called him out of the maiden, and conjured him more forcibly than ever +into the form of a horse.</p> + +<p>Such is, in mere outline, the story of Brother Rush, which was +gradually enlarged by the addition of new incidents. But the people +wanted a hero who presented more of the character of reality, who, +in<a class="pagenum" id="Page_230" title="230"></a> fact, might be recognised as one of themselves; and such heroes +appear to have existed at all times. They usually represented a +class in society, and especially that class which consisted of idle +sharpers, who lived by their wits, and which was more numerous and more +familiarly known in the middle ages than at the present day. Folly +and cunning combined presented a never-failing subject of mirth. This +class of adventurers first came into print in Germany, and it is there +that we find its first popular hero, to whom they gave the name of +Eulenspiegel, which means literally “the owl’s mirror,” and has been +since used in German in the sense of a merry fool. Tyll Eulenspiegel, +and his story, are supposed to have belonged to the fourteenth century, +though we first know them in the printed book of the commencement of +the sixteenth, which is believed to have come from the pen of the +well-known popular writer, Thomas Murner, of whom I shall have to speak +more at length in another chapter. The popularity of this work was very +great, and it was quickly translated into French, English, Latin, and +almost every other language of Western Europe. In the English version +the name also was translated, and appears under the form of Owleglass, +or, as it often occurs with the superfluous aspirate, Howleglass.<a id="FNanchor_74" href="#Footnote_74" class="fnanchor">[74]</a> +According to the story, Tyll Eulenspiegel was the son of a peasant, and +was born at a village called Kneitlingen, in the land of Brunswick. +The story of his birth may be given in the words of the early English +version, as a specimen of its quaint and antiquated language:—</p> + +<div class="quote"> + <p>“Yn the lande of Sassen, in the vyllage of Ruelnige, there + dwelleth a man that was named Nicholas Howleglas, that had a wife + named Wypeke, that lay a childbed in the same wyllage, and that + chylde was borne to christening; and named Tyell Howleglass. And + than the chyld was brought into a taverne, where the father was + wyth his gosseppes and made good chere. Whan the mydwife had wel<a class="pagenum" id="Page_231" title="231"></a> + dronke, she toke the childe to bere it home, and in the wai was a + litle bridg over a muddy water. And as the mydwife would have gone + over the lytle brydge, she fel into the mudde with the chylde, + for she had a lytel dronk to much wyne, for had not helpe come + quickly, the had both be drowned in the mudde. And whan she came + home with the childe, the made a kettle of warm water to be made + redi, and therin they washed the child clen of the mudde. And + thus was Howleglas thre tymes in one dai cristened, once at the + churche, once in the mudde, and once in the warm water.”</p> +</div> + +<p>It will be seen that the English translator was not very correct in his +geography or in his names. The child, having thus escaped destruction, +grew rapidly, and displayed an extraordinary love of mischief, with +various other evil propensities, as well as a cunning beyond his age, +in escaping the risks to which these exposed him. At a very early age, +he displayed a remarkable talent for setting the other children by the +ears, and this was his favourite amusement during life. His mother, +who was now a widow, contemplating the extraordinary cunning of her +child, which, as she thought, must necessarily ensure his advancement +in the world, resolved that he should no longer remain idle, and put +him apprentice to a baker; but his wicked and restless disposition +defeated all the good intentions of his parent, and Eulenspiegel was +obliged to leave his master in consequence of his mal-practices. One +day his mother took him to a church-dedication, and the child drank +so much at the feast on that occasion, that he crept into an empty +beehive and fell asleep, while his mother, thinking he had gone home, +returned without him. In the night-time two thieves came into the +garden to steal the bees, and they agreed to take first the hive which +was heaviest. This, as may be supposed, proved to be the hive in +which Eulenspiegel was hidden, and they fixed it on a pole which they +carried on their shoulders, one before and one behind, the hive hanging +between them. Eulenspiegel, awakened by the movement, soon discovered +the position in which he was placed, and hit upon a plan for escaping. +Gently lifting the lid of the hive, he put out his arm and plucked the +hair of the man before, who turned about and accused his companion of +insulting him. The other asserted that he had not touched him, and the +first, only half satisfied, continued to bear his share of the burthen, +but he had not advanced many steps when a still sharper pull at his +hair excited<a class="pagenum" id="Page_232" title="232"></a> his great anger, and from wrathful words the two thieves +proceeded to blows. While they were fighting, Eulenspiegel crept out of +the hive and ran away.</p> + +<p>After leaving the baker, Eulenspiegel became a wanderer in the world, +gaining his living by his trickery and deception, and engaging himself +in all sorts of strange and ludicrous adventures. He ended everywhere +by creating discord and strife. He became at different times a +blacksmith, a shoemaker, a tailor, a cook, a drawer of teeth, and +assumed a variety of other characters, but remained in each situation +only long enough to make it too hot for him, and to be obliged to +secure his retreat. He intruded himself into all classes of society, +and invariably came to similar results. Many of his adventures, indeed, +are so droll that we can easily understand the great popularity +they once enjoyed. But they are not merely amusing—they present a +continuous satire upon contemporary society, upon a social condition in +which every pretender, every reckless impostor, every private plunderer +or public depredator, saw the world exposed to him in its folly and +credulity as an easy prey.</p> + +<p>The middle ages possessed another class of these popular satirical +histories, which were attached to places rather than to persons. There +were few countries which did not possess a town or a district, the +inhabitants of which were celebrated for stupidity, or for roguery, +or for some other ridiculous or contemptible quality. We have seen, +in a former chapter, the people of Norfolk enjoying this peculiarity, +and, at a later period, the inhabitants of Pevensey in Sussex, and +more especially those of Gotham in Nottinghamshire, were similarly +distinguished. The inhabitants of many places in Germany bore this +character, but their grand representatives among the Germans were the +Schildburgers, a name which appears to belong entirely to the domain +of fable. Schildburg, we are told, was a town “in Misnopotamia, beyond +Utopia, in the kingdom of Calecut.” The Schildburgers were originally +so renowned for their wisdom, that they were continually invited into +foreign countries to give their advice, until at length not a man was +left at home, and their wives were obliged to assume the charge of the +duties of their husbands. This became at length so onerous, that the +wives held a council, and resolved on despatching a<a class="pagenum" id="Page_233" title="233"></a> solemn message +in writing to call the men home. This had the desired effect; all the +Schildburgers returned to their own town, and were so joyfully received +by their wives that they resolved upon leaving it no more. They +accordingly held a council, and it was decided that, having experienced +the great inconvenience of a reputation of wisdom, they would avoid +it in future by assuming the character of fools. One of the first +evil results of their long neglect of home affairs was the want of a +council-hall, and this want they now resolved to supply without delay. +They accordingly went to the hills and woods, cut down the timber, +dragged it with great labour to the town, and in due time completed +the erection of a handsome and substantial building. But, when they +entered their new council-hall, what was their consternation to find +themselves in perfect darkness! In fact, they had forgotten to make +any windows. Another council was held, and one who had been among the +wisest in the days of their wisdom, gave his opinion very oracularly; +the result of which was that they should experiment on every possible +expedient for introducing light into the hall, and that they should +first try that which seemed most likely to succeed. They had observed +that the light of day was caused by sunshine, and the plan proposed was +to meet at mid-day when the sun was brightest, and fill sacks, hampers, +jugs, and vessels of all kinds, with sunshine and daylight, which they +proposed afterwards to empty into the unfortunate council-hall. Next +day, as the clock struck one, you might see a crowd of Schildburgers +before the council-house door, busily employed, some holding the sacks +open, and others throwing the light into them with shovels and any +other appropriate implements which came to hand. While they were thus +labouring, a stranger came into the town of Schildburg, and, hearing +what they were about, told them they were labouring to no purpose, +and offered to show them how to get the daylight into the hall. It is +unnecessary to say more than that this new plan was to make an opening +in the roof, and that the Schildburgers witnessed the effect with +astonishment, and were loud in their gratitude to their new comer.</p> + +<p>The Schildburgers met with further difficulties before they completed +their council-hall. They sowed a field with salt, and when the +salt-plant<a class="pagenum" id="Page_234" title="234"></a> grew up next year, after a meeting of the council, at +which it was stiffly disputed whether it ought to be reaped, or mowed, +or gathered in in some other manner, it was finally discovered that +the crop consisted of nothing but nettles. After many accidents of +this kind, the Schildburgers are noticed by the emperor, and obtain a +charter of incorporation and freedom, but they profit little by it. In +trying some experiments to catch mice, they set fire to their houses, +and the whole town is burnt to the ground, upon which, in their sorrow, +they abandon it altogether, and become, like the Jews of old, scattered +over the world, carrying their own folly into every country they visit.</p> + +<p>The earliest known edition of the history of the Schildburgers was +printed in 1597,<a id="FNanchor_75" href="#Footnote_75" class="fnanchor">[75]</a> but the story itself is no doubt older. It will +be seen at once that it involves a satire upon the municipal towns of +the middle ages. A similar series of adventures, only a little more +clerical, bore the title of <span lang="de" xml:lang="de">“Der Pfarrherrn vom Kalenberg,”</span> or the +Parson of Kalenberg, and was first, as far as we know, published in the +latter half of the sixteenth century. The first known edition, printed +in 1582, is in prose. Von der Hagen, who reprinted a subsequent edition +in verse, in a volume already quoted, seems to think that in its first +form the story belongs to the fourteenth century.</p> + +<p>The Schildburgers of Germany were represented in England by the wise +men of Gotham. Gotham is a village and parish about seven miles to +the south-west of Nottingham, and, curiously enough, a story is told +according to which the folly of the men of Gotham, like that of the +Schildburgers, was at first assumed. It is pretended that one day +king John, on his way to Nottingham, intended to pass through the +village of Gotham, and that the Gothamites, under the influence of +some vague notion that his presence would be injurious to them, raised +difficulties in his way which prevented his visit. The men of Gotham +were now apprehensive of the king’s vengeance, and they resolved +to try and evade it by assuming the character of simpletons. When +the king’s officers came to Gotham<a class="pagenum" id="Page_235" title="235"></a> to inquire into the conduct of +the inhabitants, they found them engaged in the most extraordinary +pursuits, some of them seeking to drown an eel in a pond of water, +others making a hedge round a tree to confine a cuckoo which had +settled in it, and others employing themselves in similar futile +pursuits. The commissioners reported the people of Gotham to be no +better than fools, and by this stratagem they escaped any further +persecution, but the character they assumed remained attached to them.</p> + +<p>This explanation is, of course, very late and very apocryphal; but +there can be little doubt that the character of the wise men of Gotham +is one of considerable antiquity. The story is believed to have been +drawn up in its present form by Andrew Borde, an English writer of the +reign of Henry VIII. It was reprinted a great number of times under +the form of those popular books called chap-books, because they were +hawked about the country by itinerant booksellers or chap-men. The +acts of the Gothamites displayed a greater degree of simplicity even +than those of the Schildburgers, but they are less connected. Here +is one anecdote told in the unadorned language of the chap-books, in +explanation of which it is only necessary to state that the men of +Gotham admired greatly the note of the cuckoo. “On a time the men of +Gotham fain would have pinn’d in the cuckow, that she might sing all +the year; and, in the midst of the town, they had a hedge made round in +compass, and got a cuckow and put her into it, and said, ‘Sing here, +and you shall lack neither meat nor drink all the year.’ The cuckow, +when she perceived herself encompassed with the hedge, flew away. ‘A +vengeance on her,’ said these wise men, ‘we did not make our hedge high +enough.’” On another occasion, having caught a large eel which offended +them by its voracity, they assembled in council to deliberate on an +appropriate punishment, which ended in a resolution that it should be +drowned, and the criminal was ceremoniously thrown into a great pond. +One day twelve men of Gotham went a-fishing, and on their way home they +suddenly discovered that they had lost one of their number, and each +counted in his turn, and could find only eleven. In fact, each forgot +to count himself. In the midst of their distress—for they believed +their companion to be drowned—a stranger approached, and learnt the +cause of their sorrow.<a class="pagenum" id="Page_236" title="236"></a> Finding they were not to be convinced of their +mistake by mere argument, he offered, on certain conditions, to find +the lost Gothamite, and he proceeded as follows. He took one by one +each of the twelve Gothamites, struck him a hard blow on the shoulder, +which made him scream, and at each cry counted one, two, three, &c +When it came to twelve, they were all satisfied that the lost Gothamite +had returned, and paid the man for the service he had rendered them.</p> + +<p>As a chap-book, this history of the men of Gotham became so popular, +that it gave rise to a host of other books of similar character, which +were compiled at a later period under such titles—formerly well +known to children—as, “The Merry Frolicks, or the Comical Cheats of +Swalpo;” “The Witty and Entertaining Exploits of George Buchanan, +commonly called the King’s Fool;” “Simple Simon’s Misfortunes;” and the +like. Nor must it be forgotten that the history of Eulenspiegel was +the prototype of a class of popular histories of larger dimensions, +represented in our own literature by “The English Rogue,” the work of +Richard Head and Francis Kirkman, in the reign of Charles II., and +various other “rogues” belonging to different countries, which appeared +about that time, or not long afterwards. The earliest of these books +was “The Spanish Rogue, or Life of Guzman de Alfarache,” written in +Spanish by Mateo Aleman in the latter part of the sixteenth century. +Curiously enough, some Englishman, not knowing apparently that the +history of Eulenspiegel had appeared in English under the name of +Owlglass, took it into his head to introduce him among the family of +rogues which had thus come into fashion, and, in 1720, published as +“Made English from the High Dutch,” what he called “The German Rogue, +or the Life and Merry Adventures, Cheats, Stratagems, and Contrivances +of Tiel Eulespiegle.”</p> + +<p>The fifteenth century was the period during which mediæval forms +generally were changing into forms adapted to another state of society, +and in which much of the popular literature which has been in vogue +during modern times took its rise. In the fourteenth century, the +fabliaux of the jougleurs were already taking what we may perhaps term +a more literary form, and were reduced into prose narratives. This +took place especially in Italy, where these prose tales were called +<em lang="it" xml:lang="it">novelle</em>, implying<a class="pagenum" id="Page_237" title="237"></a> some novelty in their character, a word which was +transferred into the French language under the form of <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">nouvelles</em>, +and was the origin of our modern English <em>novel</em>, applied to a work of +fiction. The Italian novelists adopted the Eastern plan of stringing +these stories together on the slight framework of one general plot, +in which are introduced causes for telling them and persons who tell +them. Thus the Decameron of Boccaccio holds towards the fabliaux +exactly the same position as that of the “Arabian Nights” to the older +Arabian tales. The Italian novelists became numerous and celebrated +throughout Europe, from the time of Boccaccio to that of Straparola, +at the commencement of the sixteenth century, and later. The taste for +this class of literature appears to have been introduced into France at +the court of Burgundy, where, under duke Philippe le Bon, a well-known +courtier and man of letters named Antoine de La Sale, who had, during +a sojourn in Italy, become acquainted with one of the most celebrated +of the earlier Italian collections, the <span lang="it" xml:lang="it">“Cento Novello,”</span> or the Hundred +Novels, compiled a collection in French in imitation of them, under the +title of <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles,”</span> or the Hundred new Novels, +one of the purest examples of the French language in the fifteenth +century.<a id="FNanchor_76" href="#Footnote_76" class="fnanchor">[76]</a> The later French story-books, such as the Heptameron of +the queen of Navarre, and others, belong chiefly to the sixteenth +century. These collections of stories can hardly be said to have ever +taken root in this island as a part of English literature.</p> + +<p>But there arose partly out of these stories a class of books which +became greatly multiplied, and were, during a long period, extremely +popular. With the household fool, or jester, instead of the old +jougleur, the stories had been shorn of their detail, and sank into +the shape of mere witty anecdotes, and at the same time a taste arose +for what we now class under the general term of jests, clever sayings, +what the French call <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">bons mots</em>, and what the English of the sixteenth +century termed “quick<a class="pagenum" id="Page_238" title="238"></a> answers.” The word <em>jest</em> itself arose from the +circumstance that the things designated by it arose out of the older +stories, for it is a mere corruption of gestes, the Latin <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">gesta</em>, in +the sense of narratives of acts or deeds, or tales. The Latin writers, +who first began to collect them into books, included them under the +general name of <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">facetiæ</em>. The earlier of these collections of facetiæ +were written in Latin, and of the origin of the first with which we +are acquainted, that by the celebrated scholar Poggio of Florence, +a curious anecdote is told. Some wits of the court of pope Martin +V., elected to the papacy in 1417, among whom were the pope’s two +secretaries, Poggio and Antonio Lusco, Cincio of Rome, and Ruzello of +Bologna, appropriated to themselves a private corner in the Vatican, +where they assembled to chat freely among themselves. They called +it their <em lang="it" xml:lang="it">buggiale</em>, a word which signifies in Italian, a place of +recreation, where they tell stories, make jests, and amuse themselves +with discussing satirically the doings and characters of everybody. +This was the way in which Poggio and his friends entertained themselves +in their buggiale, and we are assured that in their talk they neither +spared the church nor the pope himself or his government. The facetiæ +of Poggio, in fact, which are said to be a selection of the good things +said in these meetings, show neither reverence for the church of Rome +nor respect for decency, but they are mostly stories which had been +told over and over again, long before Poggio came into the world. It +was perhaps this satire upon the church and upon the ecclesiastics +which gave much of their popularity to these facetiæ at a time when +a universal agitation of men’s minds on religious affairs prevailed, +which was the great harbinger of the Reformation; and the next Latin +books of facetiæ came from men such as Henry Bebelius, who were zealous +reformers themselves.</p> + +<p>Many of the jests in these Latin collections are put into the mouths of +jesters, or domestic fools, <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">fatui</em>, or <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">moriones</em>, as they are called +in the Latin; and in England, where these jest-books in the vernacular +tongue became more popular perhaps than in any other country, many +of them were published under the names of celebrated jesters, as the +“Merie Tales of Skelton,” “The Jests of Scogin,” “Tarlton’s Jests,” and +“The Jests of George Peele.”</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="Page_239" title="239"></a> +John Skelton, poet-laureat of his time, appears to have been known in +the courts of Henry VII. and Henry VIII. quite as much in the character +of a jester as in that of a poet. Poet-laureat was then a title or +degree given in the university of Oxford. His “Merye Tales” are all +personal of himself, and we should be inclined to say that his jests +and his poetry are equally bad. The former picture him as holding a +place somewhere between Eulenspiegel and the ordinary court-fool. We +may give as a sample of the best of them the tale No. 1.—</p> + +<div class="quote"> + <p class="center">“<em>How Skelton came home late to Oxford from Abington.</em></p> + + <p>“Skelton was an Englysheman borne as Skogyn was, and hee was + educated and broughte up in Oxfoorde, and there was he made a + poete lauriat. And on a tyme he had ben at Abbington to make mery, + wher that he had eate salte meates, and hee did com late home to + Oxforde, and he did lye in an ine named the Tabere, whyche is now + the Angell, and hee dyd drynke, and went to bed. About midnight + he was so thyrstie or drye that he was constrained to call to + the tapster for drynke, and the tapster harde him not. Then hee + cryed to hys oste and hys ostes, and to the ostler, for drinke, + and no man would here hym. Alacke, sayd Skelton, I shall peryshe + for lacke of drynke! What reamedye? At the last he dyd crie out + and sayd, Fyer, fyer, fyer! When Skelton hard every man bustle + hymselfe upward, and some of them were naked, and some were halfe + asleepe and amased, and Skelton dyd crye, Fier, fier! styll, that + everye man knewe not whether to resorte. Skelton did go to bed, + and the oste and ostis, and the tapster, with the ostler, dyd + runne to Skeltons chamber with candles lyghted in theyr handes, + saying, Where, where, where is the fyer? Here, here, here, said + Skelton, and poynted hys fynger to hys mouth, saying, Fetch me + some drynke to quenche the fyer and the heate and the drinesse in + my mouthe. And so they dyd.”</p> +</div> + +<p>Another of these “Merye Tales” of Skelton contains a satire upon +the practice which prevailed in the sixteenth and early part of the +seventeenth centuries of obtaining letters-patent of monopoly from the +crown, and also on the bibulous propensities of Welshmen—</p> + +<div class="quote"> + <p class="center">“<em>How the Welshman dyd desyre Skelton to ayde hym in hys sute to + the kynge for a patent to sell drynke.</em></p> + + <p>“Skelton, when he was in London, went to the kynges courte, + where there did come to hym a Welshman, saying, Syr, it is so, + that manye dooth come upp of my country to the kynges court, and + some doth get of the kyng by patent a castell, and some a parke, + and some a forest, and some one fee and some another, and they + dooe lyve lyke honest men; and I shoulde lyve as honestly as + the best, if I myght have a patyne for good dryncke, wherefore + I dooe praye yow to write a fewe woords for mee in a lytle byll + to geve the same to the kynges handes, and I wil geve you well<a class="pagenum" id="Page_240" title="240"></a> + for your laboure. I am contented, sayde Skelton. Syt downe then, + sayde the Welshman, and write. What shall I wryte? sayde Skelton. + The Welshman sayde wryte <em>dryncke</em>. Nowe, sayde the Welshman, + write <em>more dryncke</em>. What now? sayde Skelton. Wryte nowe, <em>a + great deale of dryncke</em>. Nowe, sayd the Welshman, putte to all + thys dryncke <em>a littell crome of breade</em>, and <em>a great deale of + drynke</em> to it, and reade once agayne. Skelton dyd reade, <em>Dryncke, + more dryncke, and a great deale of dryncke, and a lytle crome of + breade, and a great deale of dryncke to it</em>. Than the Welshman + sayde, Put oute <em>the litle crome of breade</em>, and sette in, <em>all + dryncke and no breade</em>. And if I myght have thys sygned of the + kynge, sayde the Welshman, I care for no more, as longe as I dooe + lyve. Well then, sayde Skelton, when you have thys signed of the + kyng, then wyll I labour for a patent to have bread, that you wyth + your drynke and I with the bread may fare well, and seeke our + livinge with bagge and staffe.”</p> +</div> + +<p>These two tales are rather favourable specimens of the collection +published under the name of Skelton, which, as far as we know, was +first printed about the middle of the sixteenth century. The collection +of the jests of Scogan, or, as he was popularly called, Scogin, which +is said to have been compiled by Andrew Borde, was probably given to +the world a few years before, but no copies of the earlier editions are +now known to exist. Scogan, the hero of these jests, is described as +occupying at the court of Henry VII. a position not much different from +that of an ordinary court-fool. Good old Holinshed the chronicler says +of him, perhaps a little too gently, that he was “a learned gentleman +and student for a time in Oxford, of a pleasant wit, and bent to merrie +devices, in respect whereof he was called into the court, where, giving +himselfe to his naturall inclination of mirth and pleasant pastime, +he plaied manie sporting parts, although not in such uncivil manner +as hath beene of him reported.” This allusion refers most probably to +the jests, which represent him as leading a life of low and coarse +buffoonery, in the course of which he displayed a considerable +share of the dishonest and mischievous qualities of the less real +Eulenspiegel. He is even represented as personally insulting the king +and queen, and as being consequently banished over the Channel, to +show no more respect to the majesty of the king of France. Scogin’s +jests, like Skelton’s, consist in a great measure of those practical +jokes which appear in all former ages to have been the delight of the +Teutonic race. Many of them are directed against the ignorance and +worldliness of the clergy. Scogin is described as being at one time +himself a teacher in the university,<a class="pagenum" id="Page_241" title="241"></a> and on one occasion, we are told, +a husbandman sent his son to school to him that he might be made a +priest. The whole story, which runs through several chapters, is an +excellent caricature on the way in which men vulgarly ignorant were +intruded into the priesthood before the Reformation. At length, after +much blundering, the scholar came to be ordained, and his examination +is reported as follows:—</p> + +<div class="quote"> + <p class="center">“<em>How the scholler said Tom Miller of Oseney was Jacob’s father.</em></p> + + <p>“After this, the said scholler did come to the next orders, and + brought a present to the ordinary from Scogin, but the scholler’s + father paid for all. Then said the ordinary to the scholler, I + must needes oppose you, and for master Scogin’s sake, I will + oppose you in a light matter. Isaac had two sons, Esau and Jacob. + Who was Jacob’s father? The scholler stood still, and could not + tell. Well, said the ordinary, I cannot admit you to be priest + untill the next orders, and then bring me an answer. The scholler + went home with a heavy heart, bearing a letter to master Scogin, + how his scholler could not answer to this question: Isaac had + two sons, Esau and Jacob; who was Jacob’s father? Scogin said to + his scholler, Thou foole and asse-head! Dost thou not know Tom + Miller of Oseney? Yes, said the scholler! Then, said Scogin, thou + knowest he had two sonnes, Tom and Jacke; who is Jacke’s father? + The scholler said, Tom Miller. Why, said Scogin, thou mightest + have said that Isaac was Jacob’s father. Then said Scogin, Thou + shalt arise betime in the morning, and carry a letter to the + ordinary, and I trust he will admit thee before the orders shall + be given. The scholler rose up betime in the morning, and carried + the letter to the ordinary. The ordinary said, For Master Scogin’s + sake I will oppose you no farther than I did yesterday. Isaac had + two sons, Esau and Jacob; who was Jacob’s father? Marry, said the + scholler, I can tell you now that was Tom Miller of Oseney. Goe, + foole, goe, said the ordinary, and let thy master send thee no + more to me for orders, for it is impossible to make a foole a wise + man.”</p> +</div> + +<p>Scogin’s scholar was, however, made a priest, and some of the stories +which follow describe the ludicrous manner in which he exercised the +priesthood. Two other stories illustrate Scogin’s supposed position at +court:—</p> + +<div class="quote"> + <p class="center">“<em>How Scogin told those that mocked him that he had a wall-eye.</em></p> + + <p>“Scogin went up and down in the king’s hall, and his hosen hung + downe, and his coat stood awry, and his hat stood a boonjour, so + every man did mocke Scogin. Some said he was a proper man, and did + wear his rayment cleanly; some said the foole could not put on his + owne rayment; some said one thing, and some said another. At last + Scogin said, Masters, you have praised me wel, but you did not<a class="pagenum" id="Page_242" title="242"></a> + espy one thing in me. What is that, Tom? said the men. Marry, said + Scogin, I have a wall-eye. What meanest thou by that? said the + men. Marry, said Scogin, I have spyed a sort of knaves that doe + mocke me, and are worse fooles themselves.”</p> + + <p class="center">“<em>How Scogin drew his sonne up and downe the court.</em></p> + + <p>“After this Scogin went from the court, and put off his foole’s + garments, and came to the court like an honest man, and brought + his son to the court with him, and within the court he drew his + sonne up and downe by the heeles. The boy cried out, and Scogin + drew the boy in every corner. At last every body had pity on the + boy, and said, Sir, what doe you meane, to draw the boy about the + court? Masters, said Scogin, he is my sonne, and I doe it for this + cause. Every man doth say, that man or child which is drawne up in + the court shall be the better as long as hee lives; and therefore + I will every day once draw him up and downe the court, after that + hee may come to preferment in the end.”</p> +</div> + +<p>The appreciation of a good joke cannot at this time have been very +great or very general, for Scogin’s jests were wonderfully popular +during at least a century, from the first half of the sixteenth +century. They passed through many editions, and are frequently +alluded to by the writers of the Elizabethan age. The next individual +whose name appears at the head of a collection of his jests, was the +well-known wit, Richard Tarlton, who may be fairly considered as court +fool to Queen Elizabeth. His jests belong to the same class as those +of Skelton and Scogin, and if possible, they present a still greater +amount of dulness. Tarlton’s jests were soon followed by the “merrie +conceited jests” of George Peele, the dramatist, who is described in +the title as “gentleman, sometimes student in Oxford;” and it is added +that in these jests “is shewed the course of his life, how he lived; +a man very well knowne in the city of London and elsewhere.” In fact, +Peele’s jests are chiefly curious for the striking picture they give +us of the wilder shades of town life under the reigns of Elizabeth and +James I.</p> + +<p>During the period which witnessed the publication in England of these +books, many other jest-books appeared, for they had already become +an important class of English popular literature. Most of them were +published anonymously, and indeed they are mere compilations from the +older collections in Latin and French. All that was at all good, even +in the jests of Skelton, Scogin, Tarlton, and Peele, had been repeated +over and over again by the story-tellers and<a class="pagenum" id="Page_243" title="243"></a> jesters of former ages. +Two of the earlier English collections have gained a greater celebrity +than the rest, chiefly through adventitious circumstances. One of +these, entitled “A Hundred Merry Tales,” has gained distinction among +Shakespearian critics as the one especially alluded to by the great +poet in “Much Ado about Nothing,” (Act ii., Sc. 1), where Beatrice +complains that somebody had said “that I had my good wit out of the +Hundred Merry Tales.” The other collection alluded to was entitled +“Mery Tales, Wittie Questions, and Quicke Answeres, very pleasant +to be readde,” and was printed in 1567. Its modern fame appears to +have arisen chiefly from the circumstance that, until the accidental +discovery of the unique and imperfect copy of the “Hundred Merry +Tales,” it was supposed to be the book alluded to by Shakespeare. +Both these collections are mere compilations from the <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Cent Nouvelles +Nouvelles,”</span> <span lang="it" xml:lang="it">“Poggio,”</span> <span lang="it" xml:lang="it">“Straparola,”</span> and other foreign works.<a id="FNanchor_77" href="#Footnote_77" class="fnanchor">[77]</a> The +words put into the mouth of Beatrice are correctly descriptive of the +use made of these jest-books. It had become fashionable to learn out +of them jests and stories, in order to introduce them into polite +conversation, and especially at table; and this practice continued +to prevail until a very recent period. The number of such jest-books +published during the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, +was quite extraordinary. Many of these were given anonymously; but many +also were put forth under names which possessed temporary celebrity, +such as Hobson the carrier, Killigrew the jester, the friend of Charles +II., Ben Jonson, Garrick, and a multitude of others. It is, perhaps, +unnecessary to remind the reader that the great modern representative +of this class of literature is the illustrious Joe Miller.</p> + + + +<hr class="chap" /> +<h2><a class="pagenum" id="Page_244" title="244"></a> +CHAPTER XV.</h2> + +<p class="subtitle"> + THE AGE OF THE REFORMATION.—THOMAS MURNER; HIS GENERAL + SATIRES.—FRUITFULNESS OF FOLLY.—HANS SACHS.—THE TRAP FOR + FOOLS.—ATTACKS ON LUTHER.—THE POPE AS ANTICHRIST.—THE POPE-ASS + AND THE MONK-CALF.—OTHER CARICATURES AGAINST THE POPE.—THE GOOD + AND BAD SHEPHERDS.</p> + + +<p>The reign of Folly did not pass away with the fifteenth century—on the +whole the sixteenth century can hardly be said to have been more sane +than its predecessor, but it was agitated by a long and fierce struggle +to disengage European society from the trammels of the middle ages. We +have entered upon what is technically termed the <em>renaissance</em>, and +are approaching the great religious reformation. The period during +which the art of printing began first to spread generally over Western +Europe, was peculiarly favourable to the production of satirical +books and pamphlets, and a considerable number of clever and spirited +satirists and comic writers appeared towards the end of the fifteenth +century, especially in Germany, where circumstances of a political +character had at an early period given to the intellectual agitation +a more permanent strength than it could easily or quickly gain in the +great monarchies. Among the more remarkable of these satirists was +Thomas Murner, who was born at Strasburg, in 1475. The circumstances +even of his childhood are singular, for he was born a cripple, or +became one in his earliest infancy, though he was subsequently healed, +and it was so universally believed that this malady was the effect +of witchcraft, that he himself wrote afterwards a treatise upon this +subject under the title of <span lang="la" xml:lang="la">“De Phitonico Contractu.”</span> The school in +which he was taught may at least have encouraged his satirical spirit, +for his master was Jacob Locher, the same who translated into Latin +verse the “Ship of Fools” of Sebastian Brandt.<a class="pagenum" id="Page_245" title="245"></a> At the end of the +century Murner had become a master of arts in the University of Paris, +and had entered the Franciscan order. His reputation as a German +popular poet was so great, that the emperor Maximilian[ ]I., who +died in 1519, conferred upon him the crown of poetry, or, in other +words, made him poet-laureat. He took the degree of doctor in theology +in 1509. Still Murner was known best as the popular writer, and he +published several satirical poems, which were remarkable for the bold +woodcuts that illustrated them, for engraving on wood flourished at +this period. He exposed the corruptions of all classes of society, +and, before the Reformation broke out, he did not even spare the +corruptions of the ecclesiastical state, but soon declared himself a +fierce opponent of the Reformers. When the Lutheran revolt against the +Papacy became strong, our king, Henry VIII., who took a decided part +against Luther, invited Murner to England, and on his return to his +own country, the satiric Franciscan became more bitter against the +Reformation than ever. He advocated the cause of the English monarch in +a pamphlet, now very rare, in which he discussed the question whether +Henry VIII. or Luther was the liar—<span lang="de" xml:lang="de">“Antwort dem Murner uff seine +frag, ob der künig von Engllant ein Lügner sey oder Martinus Luther.”</span> +Murner appears to have divided the people of his age into rogues and +fools, or perhaps he considered the two titles as identical. His +<span lang="de" xml:lang="de">“Narrenbeschwerung,”</span> or Conspiracy of Fools, in which Brandt’s idea +was followed up, is supposed to have been published as early as 1506, +but the first printed edition with a date, appeared in 1512. It became +so popular, that it went through several editions during subsequent +years; and that which I have before me was printed at Strasburg in +1518. It is, like Brandt’s “Ship of Fools,” a general satire against +society, in which the clergy are not spared, for the writer had not yet +come in face of Luther’s Reformation. The cuts are superior to those +of Brandt’s book, and some of them are remarkable for their design and +execution. In one of the earliest of them, copied in the cut No. 139, +Folly is introduced in the garb of a husbandman, scattering his feed +over the earth, the result of which is a very quick and flourishing +crop, the fool’s heads rising above ground, almost instantaneously, +like so many turnips. In a subsequent engraving, repre<a class="pagenum" id="Page_246" title="246"></a>sented in our +cut No. 140, Folly holds out, as an object of emulation, the fool’s +cap, and people of all classes, the pope himself, and the emperor, and +all the great dignitaries of this world, press forward eagerly to seize +upon it.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut139.jpg" width="400" height="341" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 139. Sowing a Fruitful Crop.</div> +</div> + +<p>The same year (1512) witnessed the appearance of another poetical, +or at least metrical, satire by Murner, entitled <span lang="de" xml:lang="de">“Schelmenzunft,”</span> or +the Confraternity of Rogues, similarly illustrated with very spirited +engravings on wood. It is another demonstration of the prevailing +dominion of folly under its worst forms, and the satire is equally +general with the preceding. Murner’s satire appears to have been felt +not only generally, but personally; and we are told that he was often +threatened with assassination, and he raised up a number of literary +opponents, who treated him with no little rudeness; in fact, he had +got on the wrong side of politics, or at all events on the unpopular +side, and men who had more talents and greater weight appeared as his +opponents—men like Ulrich von Utten, and Luther himself.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut140.jpg" width="450" height="344" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 140. An Acceptable Offering.</div> +</div> + +<p>Among the satirists who espoused the cause to which Murner was +opposed, we must not overlook a man who represented in its strongest<a class="pagenum" id="Page_247" title="247"></a> +features, though in a rather debased form, the old spontaneous poetry +of the middle ages. His name was Hans Sachs, at least that was the +name under which he was known, for his real name is said to have +been Loutrdorffer. His spirit was entirely that of the old wandering +minstrel, and it was so powerful in him, that, having been apprenticed +to the craft of a weaver, he was no sooner freed from his indentures, +than he took to a vagabond life, and wandered from town to town, +gaining his living by singing the verses he composed upon every +occasion which presented itself. In 1519, he married and settled in +Nüremberg, and his compositions were then given to the public through +the press. The number of these was quite extraordinary—songs, ballads, +satires, and dramatic pieces, rude in style, in accordance with the +taste of the time, but full of cleverness. Many of them were printed +on broadsides, and illustrated with large engravings on wood. Hans +Sachs joined in the crusade against the empire of Folly, and one of +his broadsides is illustrated with a graceful design, the greater part +of which is copied in our cut No. 141. A party of ladies have set a +bird-trap to catch the fools of the age, who are<a class="pagenum" id="Page_248" title="248"></a> waiting to be caught. +One fool is taken in the trap, while another is already secured and +pinioned, and others are rushing into the snare. A number of people of +the world, high in their dignities and stations, are looking on at this +remarkable scene.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut141.jpg" width="500" height="331" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 141. Bird-Traps.</div> +</div> + +<p>The evil influence of the female sex was at this time proverbial, and, +in fact, it was an age of extreme licentiousness. Another poet-laureat +of the time, Henricus Bebelius, born in the latter half of the +fifteenth century, and rather well known in the literature of his time, +published, in 1515, a satirical poem in Latin, under the title of +<span lang="la" xml:lang="la">“Triumphus Veneris,”</span> which was a sort of exposition of the generally +licentious character of the age in which he lived. It is distributed +into six books, in the third of which the poet attacks the whole +ecclesiastical state, not sparing the pope himself, and we are thereby +perfectly well initiated into the weaknesses of the clergy. Bebelius +had been preceded by another writer on this part of the subject, and we +might say by many, for the incontinence of monks<a class="pagenum" id="Page_249" title="249"></a> and nuns, and indeed +of all the clergy, had long been a subject of satire. But the writer to +whom I especially allude was named Paulus Olearius, his name in German +being Oelschlägel. He published, about the year 1500, a satirical +tract, under the title of <span lang="la" xml:lang="la">“De Fide Concubinarum in Sacerdotes.”</span> It +was a bitter attack on the licentiousness of the clergy, and was +rendered more effective by the engravings which accompanied it. We +give one of these as a curious picture of contemporary manners; the +individual who comes within the range of the lady’s attractions, though +he may be a scholar, has none of the characteristics of a priest. She +presents a nosegay, which we may suppose to represent the influence of +perfume upon the senses; but the love of the ladies for pet animals +is especially typified in the monkey, attached by a chain. A donkey +appears to show by his heels his contempt for the lover.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut142.jpg" width="400" height="412" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 142. Courtship.</div> +</div> + +<p>From an early period, the Roman church had been accustomed to +treat contemptuously, as well as cruelly, all who dissented from +its doctrines, or objected to its government, and this feeling was +continued down to the age of the Reformation, in spite of the tone +of liberalism which was beginning<a class="pagenum" id="Page_250" title="250"></a> to shine forth in the writings +of some of its greatest ornaments. Some research among the dusty, +because little used, records of national archives and libraries would +no doubt bring to light more than one singular caricature upon the +“heretics” of the middle ages, and my attention has been called to one +which is possessed of peculiar interest. There is, among the imperial +archives of France, in Paris, among records relating to the country of +the Albigeois in the thirteenth century, a copy of the bull of pope +Innocent IV. giving directions for the proceedings against dissenters +from Romanism, on the back of which the scribe, as a mark of his +contempt for these arch-heretics of the south, has drawn a caricature +of a woman bound to a stake over the fire which is to burn her as an +open opponent of the church of Rome. The choice of a woman for the +victim was perhaps intended to show that the proselytism of heresy was +especially successful among the weaker sex, or that it was considered +as having some relation to witchcraft. It is, by a long period, the +earliest known pictorial representation of the punishment of burning +inflicted on a heretic.</p> + +<div class="figleft"> + <img src="images/cut143.jpg" width="200" height="264" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 143. Burning a Heretic.</div> +</div> + +<p>The shafts of satire were early employed against Luther and his new +principles, and men like Murner, already mentioned, Emser, Cochlæus, +and others, signalised themselves by their zeal in the papal cause. +As already stated, Murner distinguished himself as the literary ally +of our king Henry VIII. The taste for satirical writings had then +become so general, that Murner complains in one of his satires that +the printers would print nothing but abusive or satirical works, and +neglected his more serious writings.</p> + +<div class="poetry-container" lang="de" xml:lang="de"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">Da sindt die trucker schuld daran,</div> + <div class="line">Die trucken als die Gauchereien,</div> + <div class="line">Und lassen mein ernstliche bücher leihen.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class="figright"> + <img src="images/cut144.jpg" width="200" height="233" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 144. Folly in Monastic Habit.</div> +</div> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="Page_251" title="251"></a> +Some of Murner’s writings against Luther, most of which are now very +rare, are extremely violent, and they are generally illustrated with +satirical woodcuts. One of these books, printed without name of place +or date, is entitled, “Of the great Lutheran Fool, how Doctor Murner +has exorcised him” (<em lang="de" xml:lang="de">Von dem grossen Lutherisschen Narren, wie in +Doctor Murner beschworen hat</em>). In the woodcuts to this book Murner +himself is introduced, as is usually the case in these satirical +engravings, under the character of a Franciscan friar, with the head of +a cat, while Luther appears as a fat and jolly monk, wearing a fool’s +cap, and figuring in various ridiculous circumstances. In one of the +first woodcuts, the cat Franciscan is drawing a rope so tight round the +great Lutheran fool’s neck, that he compels him to disgorge a multitude +of smaller fools. In another the great Lutheran fool has his purse, or +pouch, full of little fools suspended at his girdle. This latter figure +is copied in the cut No. 144, as an example of the form under which the +great reformer appears in these satirical representations.</p> + +<p>In a few other caricatures of this period which have been preserved, +the apostle of the Reformation is attacked still more savagely. The +one here given (Fig. 145), taken from a contemporary engraving on +wood, presents a rather fantastic figure of the demon playing on the +bagpipes. The instrument is formed of Luther’s head, the pipe through +which the devil blows entering his ear, and that through which the +music is produced forming an elongation of the reformer’s nose. It was +a broad intimation that Luther was a mere tool of the evil one, created +for the purpose of bringing mischief into the world.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut145.jpg" width="350" height="417" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 145. The Music of the Demon.</div> +</div> + +<p>The reformers, however, were more than a match for their opponents in +this sort of warfare. Luther himself was full of comic and satiric<a class="pagenum" id="Page_252" title="252"></a> +humour, and a mass of the talent of that age was ranged on his side, +both literary and artistic. After the reformer’s marriage, the papal +party quoted the old legend, that Antichrist was to be born of the +union of a monk and a nun, and it was intimated that if Luther himself +could not be directly identified with Antichrist, he had, at least, a +fair chance of becoming his parent. But the reformers had resolved, on +what appeared to be much more conclusive evidence, that Antichrist was +only emblematical of the papacy, that under this form he had been long +dominant on earth, and that the end of his reign was then approaching. +A remarkable pamphlet, designed to place this idea pictorially before +the public, was produced from the pencil of Luther’s friend, the +celebrated painter, Lucas Cranach, and appeared in the year 1521 under +the title of “The Passionale of Christ and Antichrist” (<em lang="de" xml:lang="de">Passional +Christi und Antichristi</em>). It is a small quarto, each page of which is +nearly filled by a woodcut, having a few lines of explanation in German +below. The cut<a class="pagenum" id="Page_253" title="253"></a> to the left represents some incident in the life of +Christ, while that facing it to the right gives a contrasting fact in +the history of papal tyranny. Thus the first cut on the left represents +Jesus in His humility, refusing earthly dignities and power, while on +the adjoining page we see the pope, with his cardinals and bishops, +supported by his hosts of warriors, his cannon, and his fortifications, +in his temporal dominion over secular princes. When we open again we +see on one side Christ crowned with thorns by the insulting soldiery, +and on the other the pope, enthroned in all his worldly glory, exacting +the worship of his courtiers. On another we have Christ washing the +feet of His disciples, and in contrast the pope compelling the emperor +to kiss his toe. And so on, through a number of curious illustrations, +until at last we come to Christ’s ascension into heaven,<a class="pagenum" id="Page_254" title="254"></a> in contrast +with which a troop of demons, of the most varied and singular forms, +have seized upon the papal Antichrist, and are casting him down into +the flames of hell, where some of his own monks wait to receive him. +This last picture is drawn with so much spirit, that I have copied it +in the cut No. 146.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut146.jpg" width="350" height="470" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 146. The Descent of the Pope.</div> +</div> + +<div class="figleft"> + <img src="images/cut147.jpg" width="175" height="326" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 147. The Pope-ass.</div> +</div> + +<p>The monstrous figures of animals which had amused the sculptors and +miniaturists of an earlier period came in time to be looked upon +as realities, and were not only regarded with wonder as physical +deformities, but were objects of superstition, for they were believed +to be sent into the world as warnings of great revolutions and +calamities. During the age preceding the Reformation, the reports +of the births or discoveries of such monsters were very common, and +engravings of them were no doubt profitable articles of merchandise +among the early book-hawkers. Two of these were very celebrated in +the time of the Reformation, the Pope-ass and the Monk-calf, and were +published and republished with an explanation under the names of +Luther and Melancthon, which made them emblematical of the Papacy and +of the abuses of the Romish church, and, of course, prognostications +of their approaching exposure and fall. It was pretended that the +Pope-ass was found dead in the river Tiber, at Rome, in the year +1496. It is represented in our cut No. 147, taken from an engraving +preserved in a very curious volume of broadside Lutheran caricatures, +in the library of the British Museum, all belonging to the year 1545, +though this design had been published many years before. The head of +an ass, we are told, represented the pope himself, with his false and +carnal doctrines. The right hand resembled the foot of an elephant, +signifying the spiritual power of the pope, which was heavy, and +stamped down and crushed<a class="pagenum" id="Page_255" title="255"></a> people’s consciences. The left hand was that +of a man, signifying the worldly power of the pope, which grasped at +universal empire over kings and princes. The right foot was that of +an ox, signifying the spiritual ministers of the papacy, the doctors +of the church, the preachers, confessors, and scholastic theologians, +and especially the monks and nuns, those who aided and supported +the pope in oppressing people’s bodies and souls. The left foot was +that of a griffin, an animal which, when it once seizes its prey, +never lets it escape, and signified the canonists, the monsters of +the pope’s temporal power, who grasped people’s temporal goods, and +never returned them. The breast and belly of this monster were those +of a woman, and signified the papal body, the cardinals, bishops, +priests, monks, &c, who spent their lives in eating, drinking, and +incontinence; and this part of the body was naked, because the popish +clergy were not ashamed to expose their vices to the public. The legs, +arms, and neck, on the contrary, were clothed with fishes’ scales; +these signified the temporal princes and lords, who were mostly in +alliance with the papacy. The old man’s head behind the monster, meant +that the papacy had become old, and was approaching its end; and +the head of a dragon, vomiting flames, which served for a tail, was +significative of the great threats, the venomous horrible bulls and +blasphemous writings, which the pontiff and his ministers, enraged at +seeing their end approach, were launching into the world against all +who opposed them. These explanations were supported by apt quotations +from the Scriptures, and were so effective, and became so popular, that +the picture was published in various shapes, and was seen adorning the +walls of the humblest cottages. I believe it is still to be met with in +a similar position in some parts of Germany. It was considered at the +time to be a masterly piece of satire. The picture of the Monk-calf, +which is represented in our cut No. 148,<a class="pagenum" id="Page_256" title="256"></a> was published at the same +time, and usually accompanies it. This monster is said to have been +born at Freyburg, in Misnia, and is simply a rather coarse emblem of +the monachal character.</p> + +<div class="figright"> + <img src="images/cut148.jpg" width="150" height="218" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 148. The Monk-Calf.</div> +</div> + +<p>The volume of caricatures just mentioned contains several satires on +the pope, which are all very severe, and many of them clever. One has +a movable leaf, which covers the upper part of the picture; when it is +down, we have a representation of the pope in his ceremonial robes, +and over it the inscription ALEX · VI · PONT · MAX. Pope Alexander VI. +was the infamous Roderic Borgia, a man stained with all the crimes +and vices which strike most horror into men’s minds. When the leaf is +raised, another figure joins itself with the lower part of the former, +and represents a papal demon, crowned, the cross being transformed into +an instrument of infernal punishment. This figure is represented in our +cut No. 149.<a class="pagenum" id="Page_257" title="257"></a> Above it are inscribed the words EGO · SVM · PAPA, “I am +the Pope.” Attached to it is a page of explanation in German, in which +the legend of that pope’s death is given, a legend that his wicked +life appeared sufficient to sanction. It was said that, distrusting +the success of his intrigues to secure the papacy for himself, he +applied himself to the study of the black art, and sold himself to +the Evil One. He then asked the tempter if it were his destiny to be +pope, and received an answer in the affirmative. He next inquired how +long he should hold the papacy, but Satan returned an equivocal and +deceptive answer, for Borgia understood that he was to be pope fifteen +years, whereas he died at the end of eleven. It is well known that +Pope Alexander VI. died suddenly and unexpectedly through accidentally +drinking the poisoned wine he had prepared with his own hand for the +murder of another man.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut149.jpg" width="300" height="461" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 149. The Head of the Papacy.</div> +</div> + +<p>An Italian theatine wrote a poem against the Reformation, in which +he made Luther the offspring of Megæra, one of the furies, who is +represented as having been sent from hell into Germany to be delivered +of him. This sarcasm was thrown back upon the pope with much greater +effect by the Lutheran caricaturists. One of the plates in the +above-mentioned volume represents the “birth and origin of the pope” +(<em lang="la" xml:lang="la">ortus et origo papæ</em>), making the pope identical with Antichrist. +In different groups, in this rather elaborate design, the child is +represented as attended by the three furies, Megæra acting as his +wet-nurse, Alecto as nursery-maid, and Tisiphone in another capacity, +&c The name of Martin Luther is added to this caricature also.</p> + +<div class="poetry-container" lang="de" xml:lang="de"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">Hie wird geborn der Widerchrist.</div> + <div class="line">Megera sein Seugamme ist;</div> + <div class="line">Alecto sein Keindermeidlin,</div> + <div class="line">Tisiphone die gengelt in.—<span class="normal">M. Luth., D. 1545.</span></div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class="figright"> + <img src="images/cut150.jpg" width="150" height="160" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 150. The Pope’s Nurse.</div> +</div> + +<p>One of the groups in this plate, representing the fury Megæra, a<a class="pagenum" id="Page_258" title="258"></a> +becoming foster-mother, suckling the pope-infant, is given in our cut, +No. 150.</p> + +<p>In another of these caricatures the pope is represented trampling on +the emperor, to show the manner in which he usurped and tyrannised +over the temporal power. Another illustrates “the kingdom of Satan and +the Pope” (<em lang="la" xml:lang="la">regnum Satanæ et Papæ</em>), and the latter is represented +as presiding over hell-mouth in all his state. One, given in our cut +No. 151, represents the pope under the form of an ass playing on the +bagpipes, and is entitled <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">Papa doctor theologiæ et magister fidei</em>. +Four lines of German verse beneath the engraving state how “the pope +can alone expound Scripture and purge error, just as the ass alone can +pipe and touch the notes correctly.”</p> + +<div class="figleft fig175"> + <img src="images/cut151.jpg" width="175" height="249" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 151. The Pope giving the Tune.</div> +</div> + +<div class="poetry-container" lang="de" xml:lang="de"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">Der Bapst kan allein auslegen</div> + <div class="line">Die Schrifft, und irthum ausfegen;</div> + <div class="line">Wie der esel allein pfeiffen</div> + <div class="line">Kan, und die noten recht greiffen.—<span class="normal">1545</span>.</div> + </div> +</div> + + + +<p>This was the last year of Luther’s active labours. At the commencement +of the year following he died at Eissleben, whither he had gone to +attend the council of princes. These caricatures may perhaps be +considered as so many proclamations of satisfaction and exultation in +the final triumph of the great reformer.</p> + +<p>Books, pamphlets, and prints of this kind were multiplied to an +extraordinary degree during the age of the Reformation, but the +majority of them were in the interest of the new movement. Luther’s +opponent, Eckius, complained of the infinite number of people who +gained their<a class="pagenum" id="Page_259" title="259"></a> living by wandering over all parts of Germany, and +selling Lutheran books.<a id="FNanchor_78" href="#Footnote_78" class="fnanchor">[78]</a> Among those who administered largely to +this circulation of polemic books was the poet of farces, comedies, and +ballads, Hans Sachs, already mentioned. Hans Sachs had in one poem, +published in 1535, celebrated Luther under the title of “the Wittemberg +Nightingale:”—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">Die Wittembergisch’ Nachtigall,</div> + <div class="line">Die man jetzt höret überall;</div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>and described the effects of his song over all the other animals; and +he published, also in verse, what he called a Monument, or Lament, on +his death (<span lang="de" xml:lang="de">“Ein Denkmal oder Klagred’ ob der Leiche Doktors Martin +Luther”</span>). Among the numerous broadsides published by Hans Sachs, one +contains the very clever caricature of which we give a copy in our cut +No. 152. It is entitled <span lang="de" xml:lang="de">“Der gut Hirt und böss Hirt,”</span> the good shepherd +and bad shepherd, and has for its text the opening verses of the tenth +chapter of the gospel of St. John. The good and bad shepherds are, +as may be supposed, Christ and the pope. The church is here pictured +as a not very stately building; the entrance, especially, is a plain +structure of timber. Jesus said to the Pharisees, “He that entereth not +by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the +same is a thief and a robber. But he that entereth in by the door is +the shepherd of the flock.” In the engraving, the pope, as the hireling +shepherd, sits on the roof of the stateliest part of the building, +pointing out to the Christian flock the wrong way, and blessing the +climbers. Under him two men of worldly distinction are making their +way into the church through a window; and on a roof below a friar is +pointing to the people the way up. At another window a monk holds +out his arms to invite people up; and one in spectacles, no doubt +emblematical of the doctors of the church, is looking out from an +opening over the entrance door to watch the proceedings of the Good +Shepherd. To the<a class="pagenum" id="Page_260" title="260"></a> right, on the papal side of the church, the lords +and great men are bringing the people under their influence, till +they are stopped by the cardinals and bishops, who prevent them from +going forward to the door and point out very energetically the way +up the roof. At the door stands,<a class="pagenum" id="Page_261" title="261"></a> the Saviour, as the good shepherd, +who has knocked, and the porter has opened it with his key. Christ’s +true teachers, the evangelists, show the way to the solitary man of +worth who comes by this road, and who listens with calm attention to +the gospel teachers, while he opens his purse to bestow his charity +on the poor man by the road side. In the original engraving, in the +distance on the left, the Good Shepherd is seen followed by his flock, +who are obedient to his voice; on the right, the bad shepherd, who has +ostentatiously drawn up his sheep round the image of the cross, is +abandoning them, and taking to flight on the approach of the wolf. “He +that entereth in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the +porter openeth; and the sheep hear his voice, and he calleth his own +sheep by name, and leadeth them out. And when he putteth forth his own +sheep he goeth before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his +voice.... But he that is an hireling, and not the shepherd, whose own +the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and +fleeth; and the wolf catcheth them, and scattereth the sheep.” (John x. +2–4, 12.)</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut152.jpg" width="500" height="349" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 152. The Two Shepherds.</div> +</div> + +<div class="figright fig150"> + <img src="images/cut153.jpg" width="150" height="263" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 153. Murner and Luther’s Daughter.</div> +</div> + +<p>The triumph of Luther is the subject of a rather large and elaborate +caricature, which is an engraving of great rarity, but a copy of it is +given in Jaime’s <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Musée de Caricature.”</span> Leo X. is represented seated +on his throne upon the edge of the abyss, into which his cardinals are +trying to prevent his falling; but their efforts are rendered vain by +the appearance of Luther on the other side supported by his principal +adherents, and wielding the Bible as his weapon, and the pope is +overthrown, in spite of the support he receives from a vast host of +popish clergy, doctors, &c.</p> + +<p>The popish writers against Luther charged him with vices for which +there was probably no foundation, and invented the most scandalous +stories against him. They accused him, among other things, of +drunkenness and<a class="pagenum" id="Page_262" title="262"></a> licentiousness. and there may, perhaps, be some +allusion to the latter charge in our cut No. 153, which is taken from +one of the comic illustrations to Murner’s book, <span lang="de" xml:lang="de">“Von dem grossen +Lutherischen Narren,”</span> which was published in 1522; but, at all events, +it will serve as a specimen of these illustrations, and of Murner’s +fancy of representing himself with the head of a cat. In 1525, Luther +married a nun who had turned Protestant and quitted her convent, +named Catherine de Bora, and this became the signal to his opponents +for indulging in abusive songs, and satires, and caricatures, most +of them too coarse and indelicate to be described in these pages. +In many of the caricatures made on this occasion, which are usually +woodcut illustrations to books written against the reformer, Luther is +represented dancing with Catherine de Bora, or sitting at table with a +glass in his hand. An engraving of this kind, which forms one of the +illustrations to a work by Dr. Konrad Wimpina, one of the reformer’s +violent opponents, represents Luther’s marriage. It is divided into +three compartments; to the left, Luther, whom the Catholics always +represented in the character of a monk, gives the marriage ring to +Catherine de Bora, and above them, in a sort of aureole, is inscribed +the word <em>Vovete</em>; on the right appears the nuptial bed, with the +curtains drawn, and the inscription <em>Reddite</em>; and in the middle the +monk and nun are dancing joyously together, and over their heads we +read the words—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line indent6">Discedat ab aris</div> + <div class="line">Cui tulit hesterna gaudia nocte Venus.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>While Luther was heroically fighting the great fight of reform in +Germany, the foundation of religious reform was laid in France by +John Calvin, a man equally sincere and zealous in the cause, but of +a totally different temper, and he espoused doctrines and forms of +church government which a Lutheran would not admit. Literary satire +was used with great effect by the French Calvinists against their +popish opponents, but they have left us few caricatures or burlesque +engravings of any kind; at least, very few belonging to the earlier +period of their history. Jaime, in his <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Musée de Caricature,”</span> has given +a copy of a very rare plate, representing the pope struggling with +Luther and Calvin, as his two assailants.<a class="pagenum" id="Page_263" title="263"></a> Both are tearing the pope’s +hair, but it is Calvin who is here armed with the Bible, with which +he is striking at Luther, who is pulling him by the beard. The pope +has his hands upon their heads. This scene takes place in the choir of +a church, but I give here (cut No. 154) only the group of the three +combatants, intended to represent how the two great opponents to papal +corruptions were hostile at the same time to each other.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut154.jpg" width="400" height="424" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 154. Luther and Calvin.</div> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap" /> +<h2><a class="pagenum" id="Page_264" title="264"></a> +CHAPTER XVI.</h2> + +<p class="subtitle"> + ORIGIN OF MEDIÆVAL FARCE AND MODERN COMEDY.—HROTSVITHA.—MEDIÆVAL + NOTIONS OF TERENCE.—THE EARLY RELIGIOUS PLAYS.—MYSTERIES AND + MIRACLE PLAYS.—THE FARCES.—THE DRAMA IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.</p> + + +<p>There is still another branch of literature which, however it may have +been modified, has descended to us from the middle ages. It has been +remarked more than once in the course of this book, that the theatre +of the Romans perished in the transition from the empire to the middle +ages; but something in the shape of theatrical performances appears +to be inseparable from society even in its most barbarous state, and +we soon trace among the peoples who had settled upon the ruins of the +empire of Rome an approach towards a drama. It is worthy of remark, +too, that the mediæval drama originated exactly in the same way as that +of ancient Greece, that is, from religious ceremonies.</p> + +<p>Such was the ignorance of the ancient stage in the middle ages, +that the meaning of the word <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">comœdia</em> was not understood. The +Anglo-Saxon glossaries interpret the word by <em lang="ang" xml:lang="ang">racu</em>, a narrative, +especially an epic recital, and this was the sense in which it was +generally taken until late in the fourteenth or the fifteenth century. +It is the sense in which it is used in the title of Dante’s great poem, +the <span lang="it" xml:lang="it">“Divina Commedia.”</span> When the mediæval scholars became acquainted in +manuscripts with the comedies of Terence, they considered them only as +fine examples of a particular sort of literary composition, as metrical +narratives in dialogue, and in this feeling they began to imitate them. +One of the first of these<a class="pagenum" id="Page_265" title="265"></a> mediæval imitators was a lady. There lived +in the tenth century a maiden of Saxony, named Hrotsvitha—a rather +unfortunate name for one of her sex, for it means simply “a loud noise +of voices,” or, as she explains it herself, in her Latin, <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">clamor +validus</em>. Hrotsvitha, as was common enough among the ladies of those +days, had received a very learned education, and her Latin is very +respectable. About the middle of the tenth century, she became a nun +in the very aristocratic Benedictine abbey of Gandesheim, in Saxony, +the abbesses of which were all princesses, and which had been founded +only a century before. She wrote in Latin verse a short history of +that religious house, but she is best known by seven pieces, which are +called comedies (<em lang="la" xml:lang="la">comœdiæ</em>), and which consist simply of legends of +saints, told dialogue-wise, some in verse and some in prose. As may +be supposed, there is not much of real comedy in these compositions, +although one of them, the Dulcitius, is treated in a style which +approaches that of farce. It is the story of the martyrdom of the three +virgin saints—Agape, Chione, and Irene—who excite the lust of the +persecutor Dulcitius; and it may be remarked, that in this “comedy,” +and in that of Callimachus and one or two of the others, the lady +Hrotsvitha displays a knowledge of love-making and of the language of +love, which was hardly to be expected from a holy nun.<a id="FNanchor_79" href="#Footnote_79" class="fnanchor">[79]</a></p> + +<p>Hrotsvitha, in her preface, complains that, in spite of the general +love for the reading of the Scriptures, and contempt for everything +derived from ancient paganism, people still too often read the +“fictions” of Terence, and thus, seduced by the beauties of his style, +soiled their minds with the knowledge of the criminal acts which are +described in his writings. A rather early manuscript has preserved a +very curious fragment illustrative<a class="pagenum" id="Page_266" title="266"></a> of the manner in which the comedies +of the Romans were regarded by one class of people in the middle ages, +and it has also a further meaning. Its form is that of a dialogue in +Latin verse between Terence and a personage called in the original +<em lang="la" xml:lang="la">delusor</em>, which was no doubt intended to express a performer of some +kind, and may be probably considered as synonymous with <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">jougleur</em>. It +is a contention between the new jouglerie of the middle ages and the +old jouglerie of the schools, somewhat in the same style as the fabliau +of <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Les deux Troveors Ribauz,”</span> described in a former chapter.<a id="FNanchor_80" href="#Footnote_80" class="fnanchor">[80]</a> We +are to suppose that the name of Terence has been in some way or other +brought forward in laudatory terms, upon which the jougleur steps +forward from among the spectators and expresses himself towards the +Roman writer very contemptuously. Terence then makes his appearance to +speak in his own defence, and the two go on abusing one another in no +very measured language. Terence asks his assailant who he is? to which +the other replies, “If you ask who I am, I reply, I am better than +thee. Thou art old and broken with years; I am a tyro, full of vigour, +and in the force of youth. You are but a barren trunk, while I am a +good and fertile tree. If you hold your tongue, old fellow, it will be +much better for you.”</p> + +<div class="poetry-container" lang="la" xml:lang="la"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">Si rogitas quis sum, respondeo: te melior sum.</div> + <div class="line">Tu vetus atque senex; ego tyro, valens, adulescens.</div> + <div class="line">Tu sterilis truncus; ego fertilis arbor, opimus.</div> + <div class="line">Si taceas, o vetule, lucrum tibi quæris enorme.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Terence replies:—“What sense have you left? Are you, think you, better +than me? Let me see you, young as you are, compose what I, however old +and broken, will compose. If you be a good tree, show us some proofs of +your fertility. Although I may be a barren trunk, I produce abundance +of better fruit than thine.”</p> + +<div class="poetry-container" lang="la" xml:lang="la"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">Quis tibi sensus inest? numquid melior me es?</div> + <div class="line">Nunc vetus atque senex quæ fecero fac adolescens.</div> + <div class="line">Si bonus arbor ades, qua fertilitate redundas?</div> + <div class="line">Cum sim truncus iners, fructu meliore redundo.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="Page_267" title="267"></a> +And so the dispute continues, but unfortunately the latter part has +been lost with a leaf or two of the manuscript. I will only add that I +think the age of this curious piece has been overrated.<a id="FNanchor_81" href="#Footnote_81" class="fnanchor">[81]</a></p> + +<p>Hrotsvitha is the earliest example we have of mediæval writers in this +particular class of literature. We find no other until the twelfth +century, when two writers flourished named Vital of Blois (<em lang="la" xml:lang="la">Vitalis +Blesensis</em>) and Matthew of Vendôme (<em lang="la" xml:lang="la">Matthæus Vindocinensis</em>), the +authors of several of the mediæval poems distinguished by the title of +<em lang="la" xml:lang="la">comœdiæ</em>, which give us a clearer and more distinct idea of what +was meant by the word. They are written in Latin Elegiac verse, a form +of composition which was very popular among the mediæval scholars, and +consist of stories told in dialogue. Hence Professor Osann, of Giessen, +who edited two of those of Vital of Blois, gives them the title of +eclogues (<em lang="la" xml:lang="la">eclogæ</em>). The name comedy is, however, given to them in +manuscripts, and it may perhaps admit of the following explanation. +These pieces seem to have been first mere abridgments of the plots of +the Roman comedies, especially those of Plautus, and the authors appear +to have taken the Latin title of the original as applied to the plot, +in the sense of a narrative, and not to its dramatic form. Of the two +“comedies” by Vital of Blois, one is entitled “Geta,” and is taken from +the “Amphytrio” of Plautus, and the other, which in the manuscripts +bears the title of “Querulus,” represents the “Aulularia” of the +same writer. Independent of the form of composition, the scholastic +writer has given a strangely mediæval turn to the incidents of the +classic story of Jupiter and Alcmena. Another similar “comedy,” that +of Babio, which I first printed from the manuscripts, is still more +mediæval in character. Its plot, perhaps taken from a fabliau, for the +mediæval writers rarely invented stories, is as follows, although it +must be confessed that it comes out rather obscurely in the dialogue +itself. Babio, the hero of the piece, is a priest, who, as was still +common at that time (the<a class="pagenum" id="Page_268" title="268"></a> twelfth century), has a wife, or, as the +strict religionists would then say, a concubine, named Pecula. She has +a daughter named Viola, with whom Babio is in love, and he pursues +his design upon her, of course unknown to his wife. Babio has also a +man-servant named Fodius, who is engaged in a secret intrigue with +his mistress, Pecula, and also seeks to seduce her daughter, Viola. +To crown the whole, the lord of the manor, a knight named Croceus, is +also in love with Viola, though with more honourable designs. Here is +surely intrigue enough and a sufficient absence of morality to satisfy +a modern French novelist of the first water. At the opening of the +piece, amid some by-play between the four individuals who form the +household of Babio, it is suddenly announced that Croceus is on his +way to visit him, and a feast is hastily prepared for his reception. +It ends in the knight carrying away Viola by force. Babio, after a +little vain bluster, consoles himself for the loss of the damsel with +reflections on the virtue of his wife, Pecula, and the faithfulness of +his man, Fodius, when, at this moment, Fame carries to his ear reports +which excite his suspicions against them. He adopts a stratagem very +frequently introduced in the mediæval stories, surprises the two lovers +under circumstances which leave no room for doubting their guilt, and +then forgives them, enters a monastery, and leaves them to themselves. +In form, these “comedies” are little more than scholastic exercises; +but, at a later period, we shall see the same stories adopted as the +subjects of farces.<a id="FNanchor_82" href="#Footnote_82" class="fnanchor">[82]</a></p> + +<p>Already, however, by the side of these dramatic poems, a real +drama—the drama of the middle ages—was gradually developing +itself. As stated before, it arose, like the drama of the Greeks, +out of the religious ceremonies. We know nothing of the existence of +anything approaching to dramatic forms which may have existed among +the religious rites of<a class="pagenum" id="Page_269" title="269"></a> the peoples of the Teutonic race before +their conversion to Christianity, but the Christian clergy felt the +necessity of keeping up festive religious ceremonies in some form or +other, and also of impressing upon people’s imagination and memory by +means of rude scenical representations some of the broader facts of +scriptural and ecclesiastical history. These performances at first +consisted probably in mere dumb show, or at the most the performers +may have chanted the scriptural account of the transaction they were +representing. In this manner the choral boys, or the younger clergy, +would, on some special Saint’s day, perform some striking act in +the life of the saint commemorated, or, on particular festivals of +the church, those incidents of gospel history to which the festival +especially related. By degrees, a rather more imposing character was +given to these performances by the addition of a continuous dialogue, +which, however, was written in Latin verse, and was no doubt chanted. +This incipient drama in Latin, as far as we know it, belongs to the +twelfth century, and is represented by a tolerably large number of +examples still preserved in mediæval manuscripts. Some of the earliest +of these have for their author a pupil of the celebrated Abelard, named +Hilarius, who lived in the first half of the twelfth century, and is +understood to have been by birth an Englishman. Hilarius appears before +us as a playful Latin poet, and among a number of short pieces, which +may be almost called lyric, he has left us three of these religious +plays. The subject of the first of these is the raising of Lazarus +from the dead, the chief peculiarity of which consists of the songs of +lamentation placed in the mouths of the two sisters of Lazarus, Mary +and Martha. The second represents one of the miracles attributed to St. +Nicholas; and the third, the history of Daniel. The latter is longer +and more elaborate than the others, and at its conclusion, the stage +direction tells us that, if it were performed at matins, Darius, king +of the Medes and Persians, was to chant <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">Te Deum Laudamus</em>, but if it +were at vespers, the great king was to chant <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">Magnificat anima mea +Dominum</em>.<a id="FNanchor_83" href="#Footnote_83" class="fnanchor">[83]</a></p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="Page_270" title="270"></a> +That this mediæval drama was not derived from that of the Roman is +evident from the circumstance that entirely new terms were applied +to it. The western people in the middle ages had no words exactly +equivalent with the Latin <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">comœdia</em>, <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">tragœdia</em>, <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">theatrum</em>, &c; +and even the Latinists, to designate the dramatic pieces performed +at the church festivals, employed the word <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">ludus</em>, a play. The +French called them by a word having exactly the same meaning, <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">jeu</em> +(from <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">jocus</em>). Similarly in English they were termed <em>plays</em>. The +Anglo-Saxon glossaries present as the representative of the Latin +<em lang="la" xml:lang="la">theatrum</em>, the compounded words <em lang="ang" xml:lang="ang">plege-stow</em>, or <em lang="ang" xml:lang="la">pleg-stow</em>, a +play-place, and <em lang="ang" xml:lang="ang">pleg-hus</em>, a play-house. It is curious that we +Englishmen have preferred to the present time the Anglo-Saxon words +in <em>play</em>, <em>player</em>, and <em>play-house</em>. Another Anglo-Saxon word with +exactly the same signification, <em lang="ang" xml:lang="ang">lac</em>, or <em lang="ang" xml:lang="ang">gelac</em>, play, appears to +have been more in use in the dialect of the Northumbrians, and a +Yorkshireman still calls a play a <em>lake</em>, and a player a <em>laker</em>. So +also the Germans called a dramatic performance a <em lang="de" xml:lang="de">spil</em>, <em>i.e.</em> a play, +the modern <em lang="de" xml:lang="de">spiel</em>, and a theatre, a <em lang="de" xml:lang="de">spil-hus</em>. One of the pieces of +Hilarius is thus entitled <span lang="la" xml:lang="la">“Ludus super iconia sancti Nicolai,”</span> and the +French <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">jeu</em> and the English <em>play</em> are constantly used in the same +sense. But besides this general term, words gradually came into use to +characterise different sorts of plays. The church plays consisted of +two descriptions of subjects, they either represented the miraculous +acts of certain saints, which had a plain meaning, or some incident +taken from the Holy Scriptures, which was supposed to have a hidden +mysterious signification as well as an apparent one, and hence the +one class of subject was usually spoken of simply as <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">miraculum</em>, a +miracle, and the other as <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">mysterium</em>, a mystery. <em>Mysteries</em> and +<em>miracle-plays</em> are still the names usually given to the old religious +plays by writers on the history of the stage.</p> + +<p>We have a proof that the Latin religious plays, and the festivities +in which they were employed, had become greatly developed in the +twelfth century, in the notice taken of them in the ecclesiastical +councils of that period, for they were disapproved by the stricter +church disciplinarians. So early as the papacy of Gregory VIII., the +pope urged the clergy to “extirpate” from their churches theatrical +plays, and other festive<a class="pagenum" id="Page_271" title="271"></a> practices which were not quite in harmony +with the sacred character of these buildings.<a id="FNanchor_84" href="#Footnote_84" class="fnanchor">[84]</a> Such performances are +forbidden by a council held at Treves in 1227.<a id="FNanchor_85" href="#Footnote_85" class="fnanchor">[85]</a> We learn from the +annals of the abbey of Corbei, published by Leibnitz, that the younger +monks at Heresburg performed on one occasion a “sacred comedy” (<em lang="la" xml:lang="la">sacram +comœdiam</em>) of the selling into captivity and the exaltation of +Joseph, which was disapproved by the other heads of the order.<a id="FNanchor_86" href="#Footnote_86" class="fnanchor">[86]</a> Such +performances are included in a proclamation of the bishop of Worms, in +1316, against the various abuses which had crept into the festivities +observed in his diocese at Easter and St. John’s tide.<a id="FNanchor_87" href="#Footnote_87" class="fnanchor">[87]</a> Similar +prohibitions of the acting of such plays in churches are met with at +subsequent periods.</p> + +<p>While these performances were thus falling under the censure of the +church authorities, they were taken up by the laity, and under their +management both the plays and the machinery for acting them underwent +considerable extension. The municipal guilds contained in their +constitution a considerable amount of religious spirit. They were +great benefactors of the churches in cities and municipal towns, and +had usually some parts of the sacred edifice appropriated to them, +and they may, perhaps, have taken a part in these performances, while +they were still confined to the church. These guilds, and subsequently +the municipal corporations, took them entirely into their own hands. +Certain annual religious festivals, and especially the feast of <em>Corpus +Christi</em>, were still the occasions on which the plays were acted, but +they were taken entirely from the churches, and the performances took +place in the open streets. Each guild had its particular play, and +they acted on movable stages, which were dragged along the streets +in the procession of the guild. These stages appear to have been +rather complicated. They<a class="pagenum" id="Page_272" title="272"></a> were divided into three floors, that in +the middle, which was the principal stage, representing this world, +while the upper division represented heaven, and that at the bottom +hell. The mediæval writers in Latin called this machinery a <em>pegma</em>, +from the Greek word <span title="pêgma">πῆγμα</span>, a scaffold; and they also applied +to it, for a reason which is not is easily seen, unless the one word +arose out of a corruption of the other, that of <em>pagina</em>, and from a +further corruption of these came into the French and English languages +the word <em>pageant</em>, which originally signified one of these movable +stages, though it has since received secondary meanings which have a +much wider application. Each guild in a town had its pageant and its +own actors, who performed in masks and costumes, and each had one of a +series of plays, which were performed at places where they halted in +the procession. The subjects of these plays were taken from Scripture, +and they usually formed a regular series of the principal histories of +the Old and New Testaments. For this reason they were generally termed +<em>mysteries</em>, a title already explained; and among the few series of +these plays still preserved, we have the “Coventry Mysteries,” which +were performed by the guilds of that town, the “Chester Mysteries,” +belonging to the guilds in the city of Chester, and the “Towneley +Mysteries,” so called from the name of the possessor of the manuscript, +but which probably belonged to the guilds of Wakefield in Yorkshire.</p> + +<p>During these changes in the method of performance, the plays themselves +had also been considerably modified. The simple Latin phrases, even +when in rhyme, which formed the dialogue of the earlier <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">ludi</em>—as in +the four miracles of St. Nicholas, and the six Latin mysteries taken +from the New Testament, printed in my volume of “Early Mysteries and +other Latin Poems”—must have been very uninteresting to the mass of +the spectators, and an attempt was made to enliven them by introducing +among the Latin phrases popular proverbs, or even sometimes a song +in the vulgar tongue. Thus in the play of “Lazarus” by Hilarius, the +Latin of the lamentations of his two sisters is intermixed with French +verses. Such is the case also with the play of “St. Nicholas” by +the same writer, as well as with the curious mystery of the Foolish +Virgins, printed in my “Early Mysteries” just alluded to, in which +latter the Latin is<a class="pagenum" id="Page_273" title="273"></a> intermingled with Provençal verse. A much greater +advance was made when these performances were transferred to the +guilds. The Latin was then discarded altogether, and the whole play +was written in French, or English, or German, as the case might be, +the plot was made more elaborate, and the dialogue greatly extended. +But now that the whole institution had become secularised, the want +of something to amuse people—to make them laugh, as people liked to +laugh in the middle ages—was felt more than ever, and this want was +supplied by the introduction of droll and ludicrous scenes, which are +often very slightly, if at all, connected with the subject of the play. +In one of the earliest of the French plays, that of “St. Nicholas,” by +Jean Bodel, the characters who form the burlesque scene are a party +of gamblers in a tavern. In others, robbers, or peasants, or beggars +form the comic scene, or vulgar women, or any personages who could be +introduced acting vulgarly and using coarse language, for these were +great incitements to mirth among the populace.</p> + +<p>In the English plays now remaining, these scenes are, on the whole, +less frequent, and they are usually more closely connected with +the general subject. The earliest English collection that has been +published is that known as the “Towneley Mysteries,” the manuscript of +which belongs to the fifteenth century, and the plays themselves may +have been composed in the latter part of the fourteenth. It contains +thirty-two plays, beginning with the Creation, and ending with the +Ascension and the Day of Judgment, with two supplementary plays, the +“Raising of Lazarus” and the “Hanging of Judas.” The play of “Cain and +Abel ” is throughout a vulgar drollery, in which Cain, who exhibits +the character of a blustering ruffian, is accompanied by a <em>garcio</em>, +or lad, who is the very type of a vulgar and insolent horse-boy, and +the conversation of these two worthies reminds us a little of that +between the clown and his master in the open-air performances of the +old wandering mountebanks. Even the death of Abel by the hand of his +brother is performed in a manner calculated to provoke great laughter. +In the old mirthful spirit, to hear two persons load each other with +vulgar abuse, was as good as seeing them grin through a horse-collar, +if not better. Hence the droll scene in the play of “Noah” is a +domestic quarrel between Noah and his wife, who was proverbially<a class="pagenum" id="Page_274" title="274"></a> a +shrew, and here gives a tolerable example of abusive language, as it +might then come from a woman’s tongue. The quarrel arises out of her +obstinate refusal to go into the ark. In the New Testament series the +play of “The Shepherds” was one of those most susceptible of this sort +of embellishment. There are two plays of the Shepherds in the “Towneley +Mysteries,” the first of which is amusing enough, as it represents, +in clever burlesque, the acts and conversation of a party of mediæval +shepherds guarding their flocks at night; but the second play of the +Shepherds is a much more remarkable example of a comic drama. The +shepherds are introduced at the opening of the piece conversing very +satirically on the corruptions of the time, and complaining how the +people were impoverished by over-taxation, to support the pride and +vanity of the aristocracy. After a good deal of very amusing talk, the +shepherds, who, as usual, are three in number, agree to sing a song, +and it is this song, it appears, which brings to them a fourth, named +Mak, who proves to be a sheep-stealer; and, in fact, no sooner have +the shepherds resigned themselves to sleep for the night, than Mak +chooses one of the best sheep in their flocks, and carries it home +to his hut. Knowing that he will be suspected of the theft, and that +he will soon be pursued, he is anxious to conceal the plunder, and +is only helped out of his difficulty by his wife, who suggests that +the carcase shall be laid at the bottom of her cradle, and that she +shall lie upon it and groan, pretending to be in labour. Meanwhile the +shepherds awake, discover the loss of a sheep, and perceiving that Mak +has disappeared also, they naturally suspect him to be the depredator, +and pursue him. They find everything very cunningly prepared in the +cottage to deceive them, but, after a large amount of roundabout +inquiry and research, and much drollery, they discover that the boy of +which Mak’s wife pretends to have been just delivered, is nothing else +but the sheep which had been stolen from their flocks. The wife still +asserts that it is her child, and Mak sets up as his defence that the +baby had been “forspoken,” or enchanted, by an elf at midnight, and +that it had thus been changed into the appearance of a sheep; but the +shepherds refuse to be satisfied with this explanation. The whole of +this little comedy is carried out with great skill, and with infinite +drollery. The<a class="pagenum" id="Page_275" title="275"></a> shepherds, while still wrangling with Mak and his wife, +are seized with drowsiness, and lie down to sleep; but they are aroused +by the voice of the angel, who proclaims the birth of the Saviour. The +next play in which the drollery is introduced, is that of “Herod and +the Slaughter of the Innocents.” Herod’s bluster and bombast, and the +vulgar abuse which passes between the Hebrew mothers and the soldiers +who are murdering their children, are wonderfully laughable. The plays +which represented the arrest, trial, and execution of Jesus, are all +full of drollery, for the grotesque character which had been given to +the demons in the earlier middle ages, appears to have been transferred +to the executioners, or, as they were called, the “tormentors,” and +the language and manner in which they executed their duties, must have +kept the audience in a continual roar of laughter. In the play of +“Doomsday,” the fiends retained their old character, and the manner +in which they joke over the distress of the sinful souls, and the +details they give of their sinfulness, are equally mirth-provoking. The +“Coventry Mysteries” are also printed from a manuscript of the middle +of the fifteenth century, and are, perhaps, as old as the “Towneley +Mysteries.” They consist of forty-two plays, but they contain, on the +whole, fewer droll scenes than those of the Towneley collection. But +a very remarkable example is furnished in the play of the “Trial of +Joseph and Mary,” which is a very grotesque picture of the proceedings +in a mediæval consistory court. The sompnour, a character so well +known by Chaucer’s picture of him, opens the piece by reading from his +book a long list of offenders against chastity. At its conclusion, +two “detractors” make their appearance, who repeat various scandalous +stories against the Virgin Mary and her husband Joseph, which are +overheard by some of the high officers of the court, and Mary and +Joseph are formally accused and placed upon their trial. The trial +itself is a scene of low ribaldry, which can only have afforded +amusement to a very vulgar audience. There is a certain amount of the +same kind of indelicate drollery in the play of “The Woman taken in +Adultery,” in this collection. The “Chester Mysteries” are still more +sparing of such scenes, but they are printed from manuscripts written +after the Reformation, which had, perhaps, gone through the process +of expurgation, in<a class="pagenum" id="Page_276" title="276"></a> which such excrescences had been lopped off. +However, in the play of “Noah’s Flood,” we have the old quarrel between +Noah and his wife, which is carried so far that the latter actually +beats her husband in the presence of the audience. There is a little +drollery in the play of “The Shepherds,” a considerable amount of what +may be called “Billingsgate” language in the play of the “Slaughter +of the Innocents,” but less than the usual amount of insolence in the +tormentors and demons.<a id="FNanchor_88" href="#Footnote_88" class="fnanchor">[88]</a> It is probable, however, that these droll +scenes were not always considered an integral part of the play in which +they were introduced, but that they were kept as separate subjects, to +be introduced at will, and not always in the same play, and therefore +that they were not copied with the play in the manuscripts.</p> + +<p>In the Coventry play of “Noah’s Flood,” when Noah has received the +directions from an angel for the building of the ark, he leaves the +stage to proceed to this important work. On his departure, Lamech comes +forward, blind and led by a youth, who directs his hand to shoot at a +beast concealed in a bush. Lamech shoots, and kills Cain, upon which, +in his anger, he beats the youth to death, and laments the misfortune +into which the latter has led him. This was the legendary explanation +of the passage in the fourth chapter of Genesis: “And Lamech said ... +I have slain a man to my wounding, and a young man to my hurt; if Cain +shall be avenged seven-fold, truly Lamech seventy and seven-fold.” It +is evident that this is a piece of scriptural story which has nothing +to do with Noah’s flood, and accordingly, in the Coventry play, we +are told in the stage directions, that it was introduced in the place +of the “interlude,”<a id="FNanchor_89" href="#Footnote_89" class="fnanchor">[89]</a> as if there were a place in the machinery of +the pageant where<a class="pagenum" id="Page_277" title="277"></a> the episode, which was not an integral part of the +subject, was performed, and that this part of the performance was +called an interlude, or play introduced in the interval of the action +of the main subject. The word <em>interlude</em> remained long in our language +as applied to such short and simple dramatic pieces as we may suppose +to have formed the drolleries of the mysteries. But they had another +name in France which has had a greater and more lulling celebrity. +In one of the early French miracle-plays, that of “St. Fiacre,” an +interlude of this kind is introduced, containing five personages—a +brigand or robber, a peasant, a sergeant, and the wives of the two +latter. The brigand, meeting the peasant on the highway, asks the way +to St. Omer, and receives a clownish answer, which is followed by one +equally rude on a second question. The brigand, in revenge, steals +the peasant’s capon, but the sergeant comes up at this moment and, +attempting to arrest the thief, receives a blow from the latter which +is supposed to break his right arm. The brigand thus escapes, and the +peasant and the sergeant quit the scene, which is immediately occupied +by their wives. The sergeant’s wife is informed by the other of the +injury sustained by her husband, and she exults over it because it will +deprive him of the power of beating her. They then proceed to a tavern, +call for wine, and make merry, the conversation turning upon the faults +of their respective husbands, who are not spared. In the midst of +their enjoyments, the two husbands return, and show, by beating their +wives, that they are not very greatly disabled. In the manuscript of +the miracle-play of “St. Fiacre,” in which this amusing episode is +introduced, a marginal stage direction is expressed in the following +words, “<em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">cy est interposé une farsse</em>” (here a farce is introduced). +This is one of the earliest instances of the application of the term +<em>farce</em> to these short dramatic facetiæ. Different opinions have been +expressed as to the origin of the word, but it seems most probable +that it is derived from an old French verb, <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">farcer</em>, to jest, to make +merry, whence the modern word <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">farceur</em> for a joker, and that it thus +means merely a drollery or merriment.</p> + +<p>I have just suggested as a reason for the absence of these interludes, +or farces, in the mysteries as they are found in the manuscripts, +that they were probably not looked upon as parts of the mysteries +themselves, but<a class="pagenum" id="Page_278" title="278"></a> as separate pieces which might be used at pleasure. +When we reach a certain period in their history, we find that not only +was this the case, but that these farces were performed separately and +altogether independently of the religious plays. It is in France that +we find information which enables us to trace the gradual revolution +in the mediæval drama. A society was formed towards the close of the +fourteenth century under the title of <cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Confrères de la Passion</cite>, who, +in 1398, established a regular theatre at St. Maur-des-Fossés, and +subsequently obtained from Charles VI. a privilege to transport their +theatre into Paris, and to perform in it mysteries and miracle-plays. +They now rented of the monks of Hermières a hall in the hospital of the +Trinity, outside of the Porte St. Denis, performing there regularly +on Sundays and saints’ days, and probably making a good thing of it, +for, during a long period, they enjoyed great popularity. Gradually, +however, this popularity was so much diminished, that the <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">confrères</em> +were obliged to have recourse to expedients for reviving it. Meanwhile +other similar societies had arisen into importance. The clerks of +the Bazoche, or lawyers’ clerks of the Palais de Justice, had thus +associated together, it is said, as early as the beginning of the +fourteenth century, and they distinguished themselves by composing +and performing farces, for which they appear to have obtained a +privilege. Towards the close of the fourteenth century, there arose +in Paris another society, which took the name of <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Enfans sans souci</em>, +or Careless Boys, who elected a president or chief with the title +of <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Prince des Sots</em>, or King of the Fools, and who composed a sort +of dramatic satires which they called <em>Sotties</em>. Jealousies soon +arose between these two societies, either because the sotties were +made sometimes to resemble too closely the farces, or because each +trespassed too often on the territories of the other. Their differences +were finally arranged by a compromise, whereby the Bazochians yielded +to their rivals the privilege of performing farces, and received in +return the permission to perform sotties. The Bazochians, too, had +invented a new class of dramatic pieces which they called <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Moralities</em>, +and in which allegorical personages were introduced. Thus three +dramatic societies continued to exist in France through the fifteenth +century, and until the middle of the sixteenth.</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="Page_279" title="279"></a> +These various pieces, under the titles of farces, sotties, moralities, +or whatever other names might be given to them, had become exceedingly +popular at the beginning of the sixteenth century, and a very +considerable number of them were printed, and many of them are still +preserved, but they are books of great rarity, and often unique.<a id="FNanchor_90" href="#Footnote_90" class="fnanchor">[90]</a> +Of these the farces form the most numerous class. They consist simply +of the tales of the older jougleurs or story-tellers represented in a +dramatic form, but they often display great skill in conducting the +plot, and a considerable amount of wit. The story of the sheep-stealer +in the Towneley play of “The Shepherds,” is a veritable farce. As +in the fabliaux, the most common subjects of these farces are love +intrigues, carried on in a manner which speaks little for the morality +of the age in which they were written. Family quarrels frequently +form the subject of a farce, and the weaknesses and vices of women. +The priests, as usual, are not spared, but are introduced as the +seducers of wives and daughters. In one the wives have found a means of +re-modelling their husbands and making them young again, which they put +in practice with various ludicrous circumstances. Tricks of servants +are also common subjects for these farces. One is the story of a boy +who does not know his own father, and some of the subjects are of a +still more trivial character, as that of the boy who steals a tart from +the pastrycook’s shop. Two hungry boys, prowling about the streets, +come to the shop door just as the pastrycook is giving directions for +sending an eel-pie after him. By an ingenious deception the boys gain +possession of the pie and eat it, and they are both caught and severely +chastised. This is the whole plot of the farce. A dull schoolboy +examined by his master in the presence of his parents, and the mirth +produced by his blunders and<a class="pagenum" id="Page_280" title="280"></a> their ignorance, formed also a favourite +subject among these farces. One or two examples are preserved, and, +from a companion of them, we might be led to suspect that Shakespeare +took the idea of the opening scene in the fourth act of the “Merry +Wives of Windsor” from one of these old farces.</p> + +<p>The sotties and moralities were more imaginative and extravagant +than the farces, and were filled with allegorical personages. The +characters introduced in the former have generally some relation to +the kingdom of folly. Thus, in one of the sotties, the king of fools +(<em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">le roy des sotz</em>) is represented as holding his court, and consulting +with his courtiers, whose names are Triboulet, Mitouflet, Sottinet, +Coquibus, and Guippelin. Their conversation, as may be supposed, is +of a satirical character. Another is entitled “The Sottie of the +Deceivers,” or cheats. Sottie—another name for mother Folly—opens +the piece with a proclamation or address to fools of all descriptions, +summoning them to her presence. Two, named Teste-Verte and Fine-Mine, +obey the call, and they are questioned as to their own condition, and +their proceedings, but their conversation is interrupted by the sudden +intrusion of another personage named Everyone (<em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Chascun</em>), who, on +examination, is found to be as perfect a fool as any of them. They +accordingly fraternise, and join in a song. Finally, another character, +The Time (<em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">le Temps</em>), joins them, and they agree to submit to his +directions. Accordingly he instructs them in the arts of flattery +and deceiving, and the other similar means by which men of that time +sought to thrive. Another is the Sottie of Foolish Ostentation (<em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">de +folle bobance</em>). This lady similarly opens the scene with an address +to all the fools who hold allegiance to her, and three of these make +their appearance. The first fool is the gentleman, the second the +merchant, the fourth the peasant, and their conversation is a satire +on contemporary society. The personification of abstract principles is +far bolder. The three characters who compose one of these moralities +are Everything (<em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">tout</em>), Nothing (<em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">rien</em>), and Everyone (<em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">chascun</em>). +How the personification of Nothing was to be represented, we are not +told. The title of another of these moralities will be enough to give +the reader a notion of their general title; it is, “A New Morality of +the Children of<a class="pagenum" id="Page_281" title="281"></a> Now-a-Days (<em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Maintenant</em>), who are the Scholars of +Once-good (<em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Jabien</em>), who shows them how to play at Cards and at Dice, +and to entertain Luxury, whereby one comes to Shame (<em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Honte</em>), and +from Shame to Despair (<em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Desespoir</em>), and from Despair to the gibbet of +Perdition, and then turns himself to Good-doing.” The characters in +this play are Now-a-Days, Once-good, Luxury, Shame, Despair, Perdition, +and Good-doing.</p> + +<p>The three dramatic societies which produced all these farces, sotties, +and moralities, continued to flourish in France until the middle of +the sixteenth century, at which period a great revolution in dramatic +literature took place in that country. The performance of the Mysteries +had been forbidden by authority, and the Bazochians themselves were +suppressed. The petty drama represented by the farces and sotties +went rapidly out of fashion, in the great change through which the +mind of society was at this time passing, and in which the taste for +classical literature overcame all others. The old drama in France had +disappeared, and a new one, formed entirely upon an imitation of the +classical drama, was beginning to take its place. This incipient drama +was represented in the sixteenth century by Etienne Jodel, by Jacques +Grevin, by Rémy Belleau, and especially by Pierre de Larivey, the most +prolific, and perhaps the most talented, of the earlier French regular +dramatic authors.</p> + +<p>These French dramatic essays, the farces, the sotties, and the +moralities, were imitated, and sometimes translated, in English, and +many of them were printed; for the further our researches are carried +into the early history of printing, the more we are astonished at the +extreme activity of the press, even in its infancy, in multiplying +literature of a popular character. In England, as in France, the +farces had been, at a rather early period, detached from the mysteries +and miracle-plays, but the word <em>interludes</em> had been adopted here +as the general title for them, and continued in use even after the +establishment of the regular drama. Perhaps this name owed its +popularity to the circumstance that it seemed more appropriate to its +object, when it became so fashionable in England to act these plays at +intervals in the great festivals and entertainments given at court, or +in the households of the great nobles. At all events,<a class="pagenum" id="Page_282" title="282"></a> there can be +no doubt that this fashion had a great influence on the fate of the +English stage. The custom of performing plays in the universities, +great schools, and inns of court, had also the effect of producing a +number of very clever dramatic writers; for when this literature was +so warmly patronised by princes and nobles, people of the highest +qualifications sought to excel in it. Hence we find from books of +household expenses and similar records of the period, that there was, +during the sixteenth century, an immense number of such plays compiled +in England which were never printed, and of which, therefore, very few +are preserved.</p> + +<p>The earliest known plays of this description in the English language +belong to the class which were called in France moralities. They are +three in number, and are preserved in a manuscript in the possession +of Mr. Hudson Gurney, which I have not seen, but which is said to be +of the reign of our king Henry VI. Several words and allusions in them +seem to me to show that they were translated, or adapted, from the +French. They contain exactly the same kind of allegorical personages. +The allegory itself is a simple one, and easily understood. In the +first, which is entitled the “Castle of Perseverance,” the hero is +<em lang="la" xml:lang="la">Humanum Genus</em> (Mankynd), for the names of the parts are all given in +Latin. On the birth of this personage, a good and a bad angel offer +themselves as his protectors and guides, and he chooses the latter, who +introduces him to <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">Mundus</em> (the World), and to his friends, <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">Stultitia</em> +(Folly), and <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">Voluptas</em> (Pleasure). These and some other personages +bring him under the influence of the seven deadly sins, and <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">Humanum +Genus</em> takes for his bedfellow a lady named <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">Luxuria</em>. At length +<em lang="la" xml:lang="la">Confessio</em> and <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">Pœnitentia</em> succeed in reclaiming <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">Humanum Genus</em>, +and they conduct him for security to the Castle of Perseverance, where +the seven cardinal virtues attend upon him. He is besieged in this +castle by the seven deadly sins, who are led to the attack by Belial, +but are defeated. <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">Humanum Genus</em> has now become aged, and is exposed +to the attacks of another assailant. This is <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">Avaritia</em>, who enters +the Castle stealthily by undermining the wall, and artfully persuades +<em lang="la" xml:lang="la">Humanum Genus</em> to leave it. He thus comes again under the influence +of <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">Mundus</em>, until <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">Mors</em> (Death) arrives, and the bad angel carries +off the victim to the domains of Satan. This, however,<a class="pagenum" id="Page_283" title="283"></a> is not the end +of the piece. God appears, seated on His throne, and Mercy, Peace, +Justice, and Truth appear before Him, the two former pleading for, +and the latter against, <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">Humanum Genus</em>, who, after some discussion, +is saved. This allegorical picture of human life was, in one form or +other, a favourite subject of the moralisers. I may quote as examples +the interludes of “Lusty Juventus,” reprinted in Hawkins’s “Origin +of the English Drama,” and the “Disobedient Child,” and “Trial of +Treasure,” reprinted by the Percy Society.</p> + +<p>The second of the moralities ascribed to the reign of Henry VI., has +for its principal characters Mind, Will, and Understanding. These are +assailed by Lucifer, who succeeds in alluring them to vice, and they +change their modest raiment for the dress of gay gallants. Various +other characters are introduced in a similar strain of allegory, until +they are reclaimed by Wisdom. Mankind is again the principal personage +of the third of these moralities, and some of the other characters in +the play, such as Nought, New-guise, and Now-a-days, remind us of the +similar allegorical personages in the French moralities described above.</p> + +<p>These interludes bring us into acquaintance with a new comic character. +The great part which folly acted in the social destinies of mankind, +had become an acknowledged fact; and as the court and almost every +great household had its professed fool, so it seems to have been +considered that a play also was incomplete without a fool. But, +as the character of the fool was usually given to one of the most +objectionable characters in it, so, for this reason apparently, the +fool in a play was called the <em>Vice</em>. Thus, in “Lusty Juventus,” the +character of Hypocrisy is called the Vice; in the play of “All for +Money,” it is Sin; in that of “Tom Tyler and his Wife,” it is Desire; +in the “Trial of Treasure” it is Inclination; and in some instances the +Vice appears to be the demon himself. The Vice seems always to have +been dressed in the usual costume of a court fool, and he perhaps had +other duties besides his mere part in the plot, such as making jests of +his own, and using other means for provoking the mirth of the audience +in the intervals of the action.</p> + +<p>A few of our early English interludes were, in the strict sense of the +word, farces. Such is the “mery play” of “John the Husband, Tyb the<a class="pagenum" id="Page_284" title="284"></a> +Wife, and Sir John the Priest,” written by John Heywood, the plot of +which presents the same simplicity as those of the farces which were so +popular in France. John has a shrew for his wife, and has good causes +for suspecting an undue intimacy between her and the priest; but they +find means to blind his eyes, which is the more easily done, because +he is a great coward, except when he is alone. Tyb, the wife, makes a +pie, and proposes that the priest shall be invited to assist in eating +it. The husband is obliged, very unwillingly, to be the bearer of the +invitation, and is not a little surprised when the priest refuses it. +He gives as his reason, that he was unwilling to intrude himself into +company where he knew he was disliked, and persuaded John that he had +fallen under the wife’s displeasure, because, in private interviews +with her, he had laboured to induce her to bridle her temper, and treat +her husband with more gentleness. John, delighted at the discovery +of the priest’s honesty, insists on his going home with him to feast +upon the pie. There the guilty couple contrive to put the husband to a +disagreeable penance, while they eat the pie, and treat him otherwise +very ignominiously, in consequence of which the married couple fight. +The priest interferes, and the fight thus becomes general, and is only +ended by the departure of Tyb and the priest, leaving the husband alone.</p> + +<p>The popularity of the moralities in England is, perhaps, to be +explained by peculiarities in the condition of society, and the +greater pre-occupation of men’s minds in our country at that time +with the religious and social revolution which was then in progress. +The Reformers soon saw the use which might be made of the stage, and +compiled and caused to be acted interludes in which the old doctrines +and ceremonies were turned to ridicule, and the new ones were held up +in a favourable light. We have excellent examples of the success with +which this plan was carried out in the plays of the celebrated John +Bale. His play of “Kyng Johan,” an edition of which was published by +the Camden Society, is not only a remarkable work of a very remarkable +man, but it may be considered as the first rude model of the English +historical drama. The stage became now a political instrument in +England, almost as it had been in ancient Greece, and it thus became +frequently the object of particular as well as<a class="pagenum" id="Page_285" title="285"></a> general persecution. +In 1543, the vicar of Yoxford, in Suffolk, drew upon himself the +violent hostility of the other clergy in that county by composing and +causing to be performed plays against the pope’s counsellors. Six years +afterwards, in 1549, a royal proclamation prohibited for a time the +performance of interludes throughout the kingdom, on the ground that +they contained “matter tendyng to sedicion and contempnyng of sundery +good orders and lawes, whereupon are growen daily, and are likely +to growe, muche disquiet, division, tumultes, and uproares in this +realme.” From this time forward we begin to meet with laws for the +regulation of stage performances, and proceedings in cases of supposed +infractions of them, and it became customary to obtain the approval of +a play by the privy council before it was allowed to be acted. Thus +gradually arose the office of a dramatic censor.</p> + +<p>With Bale and with John Heywood, the English plays began to approach +the form of a regular drama, and the two now rather celebrated pieces, +“Ralph Roister Doister,” and “Gammer Gurton’s Needle,” which belong +to the middle of the sixteenth century, may be considered as comedies +rather than as interludes. The former, written by a well-known scholar +of that time, Nicholas Udall, master of Eton, is a satirical picture +of some phases of London life, and relates the ridiculous adventures +of a weak-headed and vain-glorious gallant, who believes that all +the women must be in love with him, and who is led by a needy and +designing parasite named Matthew Merygreeke. Rude as it is as a +dramatic composition, it displays no lack of talent, and it is full +of genuine humour. The humour in “Gammer Gurton’s Needle” is none +the less rich because it is of coarser and rather broader cast. The +good dame of the piece, Gammer Gurton, during an interruption in the +process of mending the breeches of her husband, Hodge, has lost her +needle, and much lamentation follows a misfortune so great at a time +when needles appear to have been rare and valuable articles in the +rural household. In the midst of their trouble appears Diccon, who is +described in the <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">dramatis personæ</em> as “Diccon the Bedlam,” meaning +that he was an idiot, and who appears to hold the position of Vice in +the play. Diccon, however, though weak-minded, is a cunning fellow, and +especially given<a class="pagenum" id="Page_286" title="286"></a> to making mischief, and he accuses a neighbour, Dame +Chat, of stealing the needle. At the same time, the same mischievous +individual tells Dame Chat that Gammer Gurton’s cock had been stolen in +the night from the henroost, and that she, Dame Chat, was accused of +being the thief. Amid the general misunderstanding which results from +Diccon’s successful endeavours, they send for the parson of the parish, +Dr. Rat, who appears to unite in himself the three parts of preacher, +physician, and conjurer, in order to have advantage of his experience +in finding the needle. Diccon now contrives a new piece of mischief. +He persuades Dame Chat that Hodge intends to hide himself in a certain +hole in the premises, in order, that night, to creep out and kill all +her hens; and at the same time he informs Dr. Rat, that if he will +hide in the same hole, he will give him ocular demonstration of Dame +Chat’s guilt of stealing the needle. The consequence is that Dame Chat +attacks by surprise, and somewhat violently, the supposed depredator +in the hole, and that Dr. Rat gets a broken head. Dame Chat is brought +before “Master Bayly” for the assault, and the proceedings in the trial +bring to light the deceptions which have been played upon them all, +and Diccon stands convicted as the wicked perpetrator. In fact, the +“bedlam” confesses it all, and it is finally decided by “Master Bayly” +that there shall be a general reconciliation, and that Diccon shall +take a solemn oath on Hodge’s breech, that he will do his best to find +the lost needle. Diccon has still the spirit of mischief in him, and +instead of laying his hand quietly on Hodge’s breech, he gives him a +sharp blow, which is responded to by an unexpected scream. The needle, +indeed, which has never quitted the breeches, is driven rather deep +into the fleshy part of Hodge’s body, and the general joy at having +found it again overruling all other considerations, they all agree to +be friends over a jug of “drink.”</p> + +<p>We cannot but feel astonished at the short period which it required +to develop rude attempts at dramatic composition like this into the +wonderful creations of a Shakespeare; and it can only be explained +by the fact that it was an age remarkable for producing men of +extraordinary genius in every branch of intellectual development. +Hitherto, the literature of the stage had represented the intelligence +of the mass; it became<a class="pagenum" id="Page_287" title="287"></a> individualised in Shakespeare, and this fact +marks an entirely new era in the history of the drama. In the writings +of our great bard, nearly all the peculiarities of the older national +drama are preserved, even some which may be perhaps considered as its +defects, but carried to a degree of perfection which they had never +attained before. The drollery, which, as we have seen, could not be +dispensed with even in the religious mysteries and miracle-plays, had +become so necessary, that it could not be dispensed with in tragedy. +Its omission belonged to a later period, when the foreign dramatists +became objects of imitation in England. But in the earlier drama, these +scenes of drollery seem frequently to have no connection whatever with +the general plot, while Shakespeare always interweaves them skilfully +with it, and they seem to form an integral and necessary part of it.</p> + + + +<hr class="chap" /> +<h2><a class="pagenum" id="Page_288" title="288"></a> +CHAPTER XVII.</h2> + +<p class="subtitle"> + DIABLERIE IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.—EARLY TYPES OF THE DIABOLICAL + FORMS.—ST. ANTHONY.—ST. GUTHLAC.—REVIVAL OF THE TASTE FOR SUCH + SUBJECTS IN THE BEGINNING OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.—THE FLEMISH + SCHOOL OF BREUGHEL.—THE FRENCH AND ITALIAN SCHOOLS, CALLOT, + SALVATOR ROSA.</p> + + +<p>We have seen how the popular demonology furnished materials for the +earliest exercise of comic art in the middle ages, and how the taste +for this particular class of grotesque lasted until the close of the +mediæval period. After the “renaissance” of art and literature, this +taste took a still more remarkable form, and the school of grotesque +<em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">diablerie</em> which flourished during the sixteenth century, and the +first half of the seventeenth, justly claims a chapter to itself.</p> + +<p>The birthplace of this demonology, as far as it belongs to +Christianity, must probably be sought in the deserts of Egypt. It +spread thence over the east and the west, and when it reached our +part of the world, it grafted itself, as I have remarked in a former +chapter, on the existing popular superstitions of Teutonic paganism. +The playfully burlesque, which held so great a place in these +superstitions, no doubt gave a more comic character to this Christian +demonology than it had possessed before the mixture. Its primitive +representative was the Egyptian monk, St. Anthony, who is said to have +been born at a village called Coma, in Upper Egypt, in the year 251. +His history was written in Greek by St. Athanasius, and was translated +into Latin by the ecclesiastical historian Evagrius. Anthony was +evidently a fanatical visionary, subject to mental illusions, which +were fostered by his education. To escape from the temptations of the +world, he sold all his property, which was considerable, gave it to +the poor, and then retired into the desert of the Thebaid, to live a +life of<a class="pagenum" id="Page_289" title="289"></a> the strictest asceticism. The evil one persecuted him in his +solitude, and sought to drive him back into the corruptions of worldly +life. He first tried to fill his mind with regretful reminiscences +of his former wealth, position in society, and enjoyments; when this +failed, he disturbed his mind with voluptuous images and desires, which +the saint resisted with equal success. The persecutor now changed his +tactics, and presenting himself to Anthony in the form of a black and +ugly youth, confessed to him, with apparent candour, that he was the +spirit of uncleanness, and acknowledged that he had been vanquished by +the extraordinary merits of Anthony’s sanctity. The saint, however, +saw that this was only a stratagem to stir up in him the spirit of +pride and self-confidence, and he met it by subjecting himself to +greater mortifications than ever, which of course made him still more +liable to these delusions. Now he sought greater solitude by taking +up his residence in a ruined Egyptian sepulchre, but the farther he +withdrew from the world, the more he became the object of diabolical +persecution. Satan broke in upon his privacy with a host of attendants, +and during the night beat him to such a degree, that one morning the +attendant who brought him food found him lying senseless in his cell, +and had him carried to the town, where his friends were on the point of +burying him, believing him to be dead, when he suddenly revived, and +insisted on being taken back to his solitary dwelling. The legend tells +us that the demons appeared to him in the forms of the most ferocious +animals, such as lions, bulls, wolves, asps, serpents, scorpions, +panthers, and bears, each attacking him in the manner peculiar to its +species, and with its peculiar voice, thus making together a horrible +din. Anthony left his tomb to retire farther into the desert, where he +made a ruined castle his residence; and here he was again frightfully +persecuted by the demons, and the noise they made was so great and +horrible that it was often heard at a vast distance. According to the +narrative, Anthony reproached the demons in very abusive language, +called them hard names, and even spat in their faces; but his most +effective weapon was always the cross. Thus the saint became bolder, +and sought a still more lonely abode, and finally established himself +on the top of a high mountain in the upper Thebaid. The demons still +continued to persecute him, under<a class="pagenum" id="Page_290" title="290"></a> a great variety of forms; on one +occasion their chief appeared to him under the form of a man, with the +lower members of an ass.</p> + +<p>The demons which tormented St. Anthony became the general type for +subsequent creations, in which these first pictures were gradually, and +in the sequel, greatly improved upon. St. Anthony’s persecutors usually +assumed the shapes of <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">bonâ fide</em> animals, but those of later stories +took monstrous and grotesque forms, strange mixtures of the parts of +different animals, and of others which never existed. Such were seen +by St. Guthlac, the St. Anthony of the Anglo-Saxons, among the wild +morasses of Croyland. One night, which he was passing at his devotions +in his cell, they poured in upon him in great numbers; “and they filled +all the house with their coming, and they poured in on every side, +from above and from beneath, and everywhere. They were in countenance +horrible, and they had great heads, and a long neck, and lean visage; +they were filthy and squalid in their beards, and they had rough ears, +and distorted face, and fierce eyes, and foul mouths; and their teeth +were like horses’ tusks, and their throats were filled with flame, and +they were grating in their voice; they had crooked shanks, and knees +big and great behind, and distorted toes, and shrieked hoarsely with +their voices; and they came with such immoderate noises and immense +horror, that it seemed to him that all between heaven and earth +resounded with their dreadful cries.” On another similar occasion, “it +happened one night, when the holy man Guthlac fell to his prayers, he +heard the howling of cattle and various wild beasts. Not long after +he saw the appearance of animals and wild beasts and creeping things +coming in to him. First he saw the visage of a lion that threatened him +with his bloody tusks, also the likeness of a bull, and the visage of +a bear, as when they are enraged. Also he perceived the appearance of +vipers, and a hog’s grunting, and the howling of wolves, and croaking +of ravens, and the various whistlings of birds, that they might, with +their fantastic appearance, divert the mind of the holy man.”</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut155.jpg" width="350" height="521" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 155. St. James and his Persecutors.</div> +</div> + +<p>Such were the suggestions on which the mediæval sculptors and +illuminators worked with so much effect, as we have seen repeatedly +in the course of our preceding chapters. After the revival of art +in western Europe<a class="pagenum" id="Page_291" title="291"></a> in the fifteenth century, this class of legends +became great favourites with painters and engravers, and soon gave +rise to the peculiar school of <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">diablerie</em> mentioned above. At that +time the story of the Temptation of St. Anthony attracted particular +attention, and it is the subject of many remarkable prints belonging +to the earlier ages of the art of engraving. It employed the pencils +of such artists as Martin Schongauer, Israel van Mechen, and Lucas +Cranach. Of the latter we have two different engravings on the same +subject—St. Anthony carried into the air by the demons, who are +represented in a great variety of grotesque and monstrous forms. The +most remarkable of the two bears the date of 1506, and was, therefore, +one of Cranach’s earlier works. But the great representative of this +earlier school of <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">diablerie</em> was Peter Breughel, a Flemish painter +who flourished in the middle of the sixteenth century. He was born at +Breughel, near Breda, and lived some time at Antwerp, but afterwards +established himself at Brussels. So celebrated was he for the love of +the grotesque displayed in his pictures, that he was known by the name +of Peter the Droll. Breughel’s “Temptation of St. Anthony,” like one +or two others of his subjects of the same class, was engraved in a +reduced form by J. T. de Bry. Breughel’s demons are figures of the most +fantastic description—creations of a wildly grotesque imagination; +they present incongruous and laughable mixtures of parts of living +things which have no relation whatever to one another. Our cut No. 155 +represents a group of these grotesque demons, from a plate by Breughel, +engraved in 1565, and entitled <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">Divus Jacobus diabolicis præstigiis +ante magnum sistitur</em> (St. James is arrested before the magician by +diabolical delusions). The engraving is full of similarly grotesque +figures. On the right is a spacious chimney, and up it witches, riding +on brooms, are making their escape, while in the air are seen other +witches riding away upon dragons and a goat. A kettle is boiling over +the fire, around which a group of monkeys are seen sitting and warming +themselves. Behind these a cat and a toad are holding a very intimate +conversation. In the background stands and boils the great witches’ +caldron. On the right of the picture the <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">magus</em>, or magician, is +seated, reading his <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">grimoire</em>; with a frame before him supporting the +pot containing his magical ingredients. The saint occupies<a class="pagenum" id="Page_292" title="292"></a> the middle +of the picture, surrounded by the demons represented in our cut and by +many others; and as he approaches the magician, he is seen raising his +right hand in the attitude of pronouncing a benediction, the apparent +consequence of which is a frightful explosion of the magician’s pot, +which strikes the demons with evident consternation. Nothing can be +more <em>bizarre</em> than the horse’s head upon human legs in armour, the +parody upon a crawling spider behind it, the skull (apparently of a +horse) supported upon naked human legs, the strangely excited animal +behind the latter, and the figure furnished with pilgrim’s hood +and staff, which appears to be mocking the saint. Another print—a +companion to the foregoing—represents the still more complete +discomfiture of the <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">magus</em>. The saint here occupies the right-hand +side of the picture, and is raising his hand higher, with apparently +a greater show of authority. The demons have all turned against their +master the magician, whom they are<a class="pagenum" id="Page_293" title="293"></a> beating and hurling headlong from +his chair. They seem to be proclaiming their joy at his fall by all +sorts of playful attitudes. It is a sort of demon fair. Some of them, +to the left of the picture, are dancing and standing upon their heads +on a tight-rope. Near them another is playing some game like that +which we now call the thimble-rig. The monkeys are dancing to the +tune of a great drum. A variety of their mountebank tricks are going +on in different parts of the scene. Three of these playful actors are +represented in our cut No. 156.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut156.jpg" width="400" height="289" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 156. Strange Demons.</div> +</div> + +<p>Breughel also executed a series of similarly grotesque engravings, +representing in this same fantastic manner the virtues and vices, such +as Pride (<em lang="la" xml:lang="la">superbia</em>), Courage (<em lang="la" xml:lang="la">fortitudo</em>), Sloth (<em lang="la" xml:lang="la">desidia</em>), &c +These bear the date of 1558. They are crowded with figures equally +grotesque with those just mentioned, but a great part of which it +would be almost impossible to describe. I give two examples from the +engraving of “Sloth,” in the accompanying cut (No. 157).</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut157.jpg" width="400" height="299" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 157. Imps of Sloth.</div> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut158.jpg" width="400" height="299" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 158. The Folly of Hunting.</div> +</div> + +<p>From making up figures from parts of animals, this early school of +grotesque proceeded to create animated figures out of inanimate +things, such as machines, implements of various kinds, household +utensils, and other such articles. A German artist, of about the same +time as Breughel,<a class="pagenum" id="Page_294" title="294"></a> has left us a singular series of etchings of this +description, which are intended as an allegorical satire on the follies +of mankind. The allegory is here of such a singular character, that +we can only guess at the meaning of these strange groups through four +lines of German verse which are attached to each of them. In this +manner we learn that the group represented in our cut, No. 158, which +is the second in this series, is<a class="pagenum" id="Page_295" title="295"></a> intended as a satire upon those who +waste their time in hunting, which, the verses tell us, they will in +the sequel lament bitterly; and they are exhorted to cry loud and +continually to God, and to let that serve them in the place of hound +and hawk.</p> + +<div class="poetry-container" lang="de" xml:lang="de"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">Die zeit die du verleurst mit jagen,</div> + <div class="line indent2">Die wirstu zwar noch schmertzlich klagen;</div> + <div class="line">Ruff laut zu Gott gar oft und vil,</div> + <div class="line indent2">Das sey dein hund und federspil.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut159.jpg" width="400" height="310" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 159. The Wastefulness of Youth.</div> +</div> + +<p>The next picture in the series, which is equally difficult to describe, +is aimed against those who fail in attaining virtue or honour through +sluggishness. Others follow, but I will only give one more example. It +forms our cut No. 159, and appears, from the verses accompanying it, +to be aimed against those who practice wastefulness in their youth, +and thus become objects of pity and scorn in old age. Whatever may be +the point of the allegory contained in the engraving, it is certainly +far-fetched, and not very apparent.</p> + +<p>This German-Flemish school of grotesque does not appear to have +outlived the sixteenth century, or at least it had ceased to flourish +in the century following. But the taste for the <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">diablerie</em> of the +Temptation<a class="pagenum" id="Page_296" title="296"></a> scenes passed into France and Italy, in which countries +it assumed a much more refined character, though at the same time +one equally grotesque and imaginative. These artists, too, returned +to the original legend, and gave it forms of their own conception. +Daniel Rabel, a French artist, who lived at the end of the sixteenth +century, published a rather remarkable engraving of the “Temptation of +St. Anthony,” in which the saint appears on the right of the picture, +kneeling before a mound on which three demons are dancing. On the +right hand of the saint stands a naked woman, sheltering herself with +a parasol, and tempting the saint with her charms. The rest of the +piece is filled with demons in a great variety of forms and postures. +Another French artist, Nicholas Cochin, has left us two “Temptations of +St. Anthony,” in rather spirited etching, of the earlier part of the +seventeenth century. In the first, the saint is represented kneeling +before a crucifix, surrounded by demons. The youthful and charming +temptress is here dressed in the richest garments, and the highest +style of fashion, and displays all her powers of seduction. The body of +the picture is, as usual, occupied by multitudes of diabolical figures, +in grotesque forms. In Cochin’s other picture of the Temptation of St. +Anthony, the saint is represented as a hermit engaged in his prayers; +the female figure of voluptuousness (<em lang="la" xml:lang="la">voluptas</em>) occupies the middle of +the picture, and behind the saint is seen a witch with her besom.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut160.jpg" width="400" height="295" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 160. The Demon Tilter (Callot).</div> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut161.jpg" width="400" height="297" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 161. Uneasy Riding (Callot).</div> +</div> + +<p>But the artist who excelled in this subject at the period at which we +now arrive, was the celebrated Jacques Callot, who was born at Nancy, +in Brittany, in 1593, and died at Florence on the 24th of March, 1635, +which, according to the old style of calculating, may mean March, +1636. Of Callot we shall have to speak in another chapter. He treated +the subject of the Temptation of St. Anthony in two different plates, +which are considered as ranking among the most remarkable of his +works, and to which, in fact, he appears to have given much thought +and attention. He is known, indeed, to have worked diligently at it. +They resemble those of the older artists in the number of diabolical +figures introduced into the picture, but they display an extraordinary +vivid imagination in the forms, postures, physiognomies, and even +the equipments, of the<a class="pagenum" id="Page_297" title="297"></a> chimerical figures, all equally droll and +burlesque, but which present an entire contrast to the more coarse and +vulgar conceptions of the German-Flemish school. This difference will +be understood best by an example. One of Callot’s demons is represented +in our cut No. 160. Many of them are mounted on nondescript animals, +of the most extraordinary demoniacal character, and such is the case +of the demon in our cut, who is running a tilt at the saint with his +tilting spear in his hand, and, to make more sure, his eyes well +furnished with a pair of spectacles. In our next cut, No. 161, we give +a second example of the figures in Callot’s peculiar<a class="pagenum" id="Page_298" title="298"></a> <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">diablerie</em>. +The demon in this case is riding very uneasily, and, in fact, seems +in danger of being thrown. The steeds of both are of an anomalous +character; the first is a sort of dragon-horse; the second a mixture +of a lobster, a spider, and a craw-fish. Mariette, the art-collector +and art-writer of the reign of Louis XV. as well as artist, considers +this grotesque, or, as he calls it, “fantastic and comic character,” +as almost necessary to the pictures of the Temptation of St. Anthony, +which he treats as one of Callot’s especially <em>serious</em> subjects. +“It was allowable,” he says, “to Callot, to give a flight to his +imagination. The more his fictions were of the nature of dreams, +the more they were fitted to what he had to express. For the demon +intending to torment St. Anthony, it is to be supposed that he must +have thought of all the forms most hideous, and most likely to strike +terror.”</p> + +<p>Callot’s first and larger print of the Temptation of St. Anthony is +rare. It is filled with a vast number of figures. Above is a fantastic +being who vomits thousands of demons. The saint is seen at the entrance +of a cavern, tormented by some of these. Others are scattered about in +different occupations. On one side, a demoniacal party are drinking +together, and pledging each other in their glasses; here, a devil is +playing on the guitar; there, others are occupied in a dance; all +such grotesque figures as our two examples would lead the reader to +expect. In the second of Callot’s “Temptations,” which is dated in +1635, and must therefore have been one of his latest works, the same +figure vomiting the demons occupies the upper part of the plate, and +the field is covered with a prodigious number of imps, more hideous in +their forms, and more varied in their extraordinary attitudes, than in +the same artist’s first design. Below, a host of demons are dragging +the saint to a place where new torments are prepared for him. Callot’s +prints of the Temptation of St. Anthony gained so great a reputation, +that imitations of them were subsequently published, some of which so +far approached his style, that they were long supposed to be genuine.</p> + +<p>Callot, though a Frenchman, studied and flourished in Italy, and +his style is founded upon Italian art. The last great artist whose +treatment of the Temptation I shall quote, is Salvator Rosa, an Italian +by birth,<a class="pagenum" id="Page_299" title="299"></a> who flourished in the middle of the seventeenth century. +His style, according to some opinions, is refined from that of Callot; +at all events, it is bolder in design. Our cut No. 162 represents St. +Anthony protecting himself with the cross against the assaults of the +demon, as represented by Salvator Rosa. With this artist the school of +<em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">diablerie</em> of the sixteenth century may be considered to have come to +its end.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut162.jpg" width="400" height="504" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 162. St. Anthony and his Persecutor.</div> +</div> + + + +<hr class="chap" /> +<h2><a class="pagenum" id="Page_300" title="300"></a> +CHAPTER XVIII.</h2> + +<p class="subtitle"> + CALLOT AND HIS SCHOOL.—CALLOT’S ROMANTIC HISTORY.—HIS + “CAPRICI,” AND OTHER BURLESQUE WORKS.—THE “BALLI” AND THE + BEGGARS.—IMITATORS OF CALLOT; DELLA BELLA.—EXAMPLES OF DELLA + BELLA.—ROMAIN DE HOOGHE.</p> + + +<p>The art of engraving on copper, although it had made rapid advances +during the sixteenth century, was still very far from perfection; but +the close of that century witnessed the birth of a man who was destined +not only to give a new character to this art, but also to bring in a +new style of caricature and burlesque. This was the celebrated Jacques +Callot, a native of Lorraine, and descended from a noble Burgundian +family. His father, Jean Callot, held the office of herald of Lorraine. +Jacques was born in the year 1592,<a id="FNanchor_91" href="#Footnote_91" class="fnanchor">[91]</a> at Nancy, and appears to have +been destined for the church, with a view to which his early education +was regulated. But the early life of Jacques Callot presents a +romantic episode in the history of art aspirations. While yet hardly +more than an infant, he seized every opportunity of neglecting more +serious studies to practise drawing, and he displayed especially a +very precocious taste for satire, for his artistic talent was shown +principally in caricaturing all the people he knew. His father, and +apparently all his relatives, disapproved of his love for drawing, and +did what they could to discourage it; but in vain, for he still found +means of indulging it. Claude Henriet, the painter to the court of +Lorraine, gave him lessons, and his son, Israel Henriet, formed for +him a boy’s friendship. He also learnt the elements<a class="pagenum" id="Page_301" title="301"></a> of the art of +engraving of Demange Crocq, the engraver to the duke of Lorraine.</p> + +<p>About this time, the painter Bellange, who had been a pupil of Claude +Henriet, returned from Italy, and gave young Callot an exciting account +of the wonders of art to be seen in that country; and soon afterwards +Claude Henriet dying, his son Israel went to Rome, and his letters +from thence had no less effect on the mind of the young artist at +Nancy, than the conversation of Bellange. Indeed the passion of the boy +for art was so strong, that, finding his parents obstinately opposed +to all his longings in this direction, he left his father’s house +secretly, and, in the spring of 1604, when he had only just entered his +thirteenth year, he set out for Italy on foot, without introductions +and almost without money. He was even unacquainted with the road, but +after proceeding a short distance, he fell in with a band of gipsies, +and, as they were going to Florence, he joined their company. His +life among the gipsies, which lasted seven or eight weeks, appears to +have furnished food to his love of burlesque and caricature, and he +has handed down to us his impressions, in a series of four engravings +of scenes in gipsy life, admirably executed at a rather later period +of his life, which are full of comic humour. When they arrived at +Florence, Jacques Callot parted company with the gipsies, and was +fortunate enough to meet with an officer of the grand duke’s household, +who listened to his story, and took so much interest in him, that he +obtained him admission to the studio of Remigio Canta Gallina. This +artist gave him instructions in drawing and engraving, and sought to +correct him of his taste for the grotesque by keeping him employed upon +serious subjects.</p> + +<p>After studying for some months under Canta Gallina, Jacques Callot +left Florence, and proceeded to Rome, to seek his old friend Israel +Henriet; but he had hardly arrived, when he was recognised in the +streets by some merchants from Nancy, who took him, and in spite of +his tears and resistance, carried him home to his parents. He was +now kept to his studies more strictly than ever, but nothing could +overcome his passion for art, and, having contrived to lay by some +money, after a short interval he again ran away from home. This time +he took the road<a class="pagenum" id="Page_302" title="302"></a> to Lyons, and crossed Mont Cenis, and he had reached +Turin when he met in the street of that city his elder brother Jean, +who again carried him home to Nancy. Nothing could now repress young +Callot’s ardour, and soon after this second escapade, he engraved a +copy of a portrait of Charles III., duke of Lorraine, to which he put +his name and the date 1607, and which, though it displays little skill +in engraving, excited considerable interest at the time. His parents +were now persuaded that it was useless to thwart any longer his natural +inclinations, and they not only allowed him to follow them, but they +yielded to his wish to return to Italy. The circumstances of the moment +were especially favourable. Charles III., duke of Lorraine, was dead, +and his successor, Henry II., was preparing to send an embassy to Rome +to announce his accession. Jean Callot, by his position of herald, +had sufficient interest to obtain for his son an appointment in the +ambassador’s retinue, and Jacques Callot started for Rome on the 1st +of December, 1608, under more favourable auspices than those which had +attended his former visits to Italy.</p> + +<p>Callot reached Rome at the beginning of the year 1609, and now at +length he joined the friend of his childhood, Israel Henriet, and began +to throw all his energy into his art-labours. It is more than probable +that he studied under Tempesta, with Henriet, who was a pupil of that +painter, and another Lorrainer, Claude Dervet. After a time, Callot +began to feel the want of money, and obtained employment of a French +engraver, then residing in Rome, named Philippe Thomassin, with whom he +worked nearly three years, and became perfect in handling the graver. +Towards the end of the year 1611, Callot went to Florence, to place +himself under Julio Parigi, who then flourished there as a painter and +engraver. Tuscany was at this time ruled by its duke Cosmo de’ Medicis, +a great lover of the arts, who took Callot under his patronage, giving +him the means to advance himself. Hitherto his occupation had been +principally copying the works of others, but under Parigi he began to +practise more in original design, and his taste for the grotesque came +upon him stronger than ever. Although Parigi blamed it, he could not +help admiring the talent it betrayed. In 1615, the grand duke gave a +great entertainment to the prince of Urbino, and Callot was employed +to make<a class="pagenum" id="Page_303" title="303"></a> engravings of the festivities; it was his first commencement +in a class of designs by which he afterwards attained great celebrity. +In the year following, his engagement with Parigi ended, and he became +his own master. He now came out unfettered in his own originality. The +first fruits were seen in a new kind of designs, to which he gave the +name of “Caprices,” a series of which appeared about the year 1617, +under the title of <span lang="it" xml:lang="it">“Caprici di varie Figure.”</span> Callot re-engraved them +at Nancy in later years, and in the new title they were stated to have +been originally engraved in 1616. In a short preface, he speaks of +these as the first of his works on which he set any value. They now +strike us as singular examples of the fanciful creations of a most +grotesque imagination, but they no doubt preserve many traits of the +festivals, ceremonies, and manners of that land of masquerade, which +must have been then familiar to the Florentines; and these engravings +would, doubtless, be received by them with absolute delight. One is +copied in our cut No. 163; it represents a cripple supporting himself +on a short crutch, with his right arm in a sling. Our cut No. 164 is +another example from the same set, and represents a masked clown, with +his left hand on the hilt of his dagger, or perhaps of a wooden sword. +From this time, although he was very industrious and produced much, +Callot engraved only his own designs.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut163.jpg" width="350" height="295" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 163. A Cripple.</div> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut164.jpg" width="300" height="448" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 164. A Grotesque Masker.</div> +</div> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="Page_304" title="304"></a> +While employed for others, Callot had worked chiefly with the graver, +but now that he was his own master, he laid aside that implement, and +devoted himself almost entirely to etching, in which he attained the +highest proficiency. His work is remarkable for the cleanness and ease +of his lines, and for the life and spirit he gave to his figures. +His talent lay especially in the extraordinary skill with which he +grouped together great numbers of diminutive figures, each of which +preserved its proper and full action and effect. The great annual fair +of the Impruneta was held with extraordinary festivities, and attended +by an immense concourse of people of all classes on St. Luke’s Day, +the 18th of October, in the outskirts of Florence. Callot engraved +a large picture of this fair, which is absolutely wonderful. The +picture embraces an extensive space of ground, which is covered with +hundreds of figures, all occupied, singly or in groups, in different +manners, conversing, masquerading, buying and selling, playing games, +and performing in various ways; each group or<a class="pagenum" id="Page_305" title="305"></a> figure is a picture in +itself. This engraving produced quite a sensation, and it was followed +by other pictures of fairs, and, after his final return to Nancy, +Callot engraved it anew. It was this talent for grouping large masses +of persons which caused the artist to be so often employed in drawing +great public ceremonies, sieges, and other warlike operations.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut165.jpg" width="400" height="318" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 165. Smaraolo Cornuto.—Ratsa di Boio.</div> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut166.jpg" width="400" height="304" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 166. A Caprice.</div> +</div> + +<p>By the duke of Florence, Cosmo II., Callot was liberally patronised +and loaded with benefits, but on his death the government had to be +placed in the hands of a regency, and art and literature no longer met +with the same encouragement. In this state of things, Callot was found +by Charles of Lorraine, afterwards duke Charles IV., and persuaded to +return to his native country. He arrived at Nancy in 1622, and began to +work there with greater activity even than he had displayed before. It +was not long after this that he produced his sets of grotesques, the +Balli (or dancers), the Gobbi (or hunchbacks), and the Beggars. The +first of these sets, called in the title <cite>Balli</cite>, or <cite>Cucurucu</cite>,<a id="FNanchor_92" href="#Footnote_92" class="fnanchor">[92]</a> +consists of twenty-four small plates, each of them containing two comic +characters in grotesque attitudes, with groups of smaller figures in +the distance. Beneath the two prominent figures are their names, now +unintelligible, but at that time no doubt well known on the comic stage +at Florence. Thus, in the couple given in our cut No. 165, which is +taken from the fourth plate of the series, the personage to the left +is named Smaraolo Cornuto, which means simply Smaraolo the cuckold; +and the one on the right is called Ratsa di Boio. In the original the +background is occupied by a street, full of spectators, looking on at +a dance of pantaloons, round one who is mounted on stilts and playing +on the tabour. The couple in our cut<a class="pagenum" id="Page_306" title="306"></a> No. 166, represents another of +Callot’s “Caprices,” from a set differing from the first “Caprices,” +or the Balli. The Gobbi, or hunchbacks, form a set of twenty-one +engravings; and the set of the Gipsies, already alluded to, which was +also executed at Nancy, was included in four plates, the subjects of +which were severally—1, the gipsies travelling; 2, the avant-guard; +3, the halt; and 4, the preparations for the feast. Nothing could<a class="pagenum" id="Page_307" title="307"></a> be +more truthful, and at the same time more comic, than this last set of +subjects. We give, as an example of the set of the Baroni, or beggars, +Callot’s figure of one of that particular class—for beggars and rogues +of all kinds were classified in those days—whose part it was to +appeal to charity by wounds and sores artificially represented. In the +English slang of the seventeenth century, these artificial sores were +called <em>clymes</em>, and a curious account of the manner in which they were +made will be found in that singular picture of the vicious classes of +society in this country at that period, the “English Rogue,” by Head +and Kirkman. The false cripple in our cut is holding up his leg to make +a display of his pretended infirmity.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut167.jpg" width="450" height="426" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 167. The False Cripple.</div> +</div> + +<p>Callot remained at Nancy, with merely temporary absences, during the +remainder of his life. In 1628, he was employed at Brussels in drawing +and engraving the “Siege of Breda,” one of the most finished of his +works, and he there made the personal acquaintance of Vandyck. Early<a class="pagenum" id="Page_308" title="308"></a> +in 1629, he was called to Paris to execute engravings of the siege of +La Rochelle, and of the defence of the Isle of Rhé, but he returned to +Nancy in 1630. Three years afterwards his native country was invaded +by the armies of Louis XIII., and Nancy surrendered to the French on +the 25th of September, 1633. Callot was required to make engravings +to celebrate the fall of his native town; but, although he is said +to have been threatened with violence, he refused; and afterwards he +commemorated the evils brought upon his country by the French invasion +in those two immortal sets of prints, the lesser and greater <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Misères +de la Guerre.”</span> About two years after this, Callot died, in the prime of +life, on the 24th of March, 1635.</p> + +<p>The fame of Callot was great among his contemporaries, and his name +is justly respected as one of the most illustrious in the history of +French art. He had, as might be expected, many imitators, and the +Caprices, the Balli, and the Gobbi, became very favourite subjects. +Among these imitators, the most successful and the most distinguished +was Stephano Della Bella; and, indeed, the only one deserving of +particular notice. Della Bella was born at Florence, on the 18th of +May, 1610;<a id="FNanchor_93" href="#Footnote_93" class="fnanchor">[93]</a> his father, dying two years afterwards, left him an +orphan, and his mother in great poverty. As he grew up, he showed, like +Callot himself, precocious talents in art, and of the same kind. He +eagerly attended all public festivals, games, &c, and on his return +from them made them the subject of grotesque sketches. It was remarked +of him, especially, that he had a curious habit of always beginning +to draw a human figure from the feet, and proceeding upwards to the +head. He was struck at a very early period of his pursuit of art by the +style of Callot, of which, at first, he was a servile imitator, but he +afterwards abandoned some of its peculiarities, and adopted a style +which was more his own, though still founded upon that of Callot. He +almost rivalled Callot in his success in grouping multitudes of figures +together, and hence he also was much employed in<a class="pagenum" id="Page_309" title="309"></a> producing engravings +of sieges, festive entertainments, and such elaborate subjects. As +Callot’s aspirations had been directed towards Italy, those of Della +Bella were turned towards France, and when in the latter days of +the ministry of Cardinal Richelieu, the grand duke of Florence sent +Alexandro del Nero as his resident ambassador in Paris, Della Bella +was permitted to accompany him. Richelieu was occupied in the siege +of Arras, and the engraving of that event was the foundation of Della +Bella’s fame in France, where he remained about ten years, frequently +employed on similar subjects. He subsequently visited Flanders and +Holland, and at Amsterdam made the acquaintance of Rembrandt. He +returned to Florence in 1650, and died there on the 23rd of July, 1664.</p> + +<div class="figright fig200"> + <img src="images/cut168.jpg" width="200" height="179" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 168. A Witch Mounted.</div> +</div> + +<p>While still in Florence, Della Bella executed four prints of dwarfs +quite in the grotesque style of Callot. In 1637, on the occasion of +the marriage of the grand duke Ferdinand II., Della Bella published +engravings of the different scenes represented, or performed, on that +occasion. These were effected by very elaborate machinery, and were +represented in six engravings, the fifth of which (<em lang="it" xml:lang="it">scena quinta</em>) +represents hell (<em lang="it" xml:lang="it">d’ Inferno</em>), and is filled with furies, demons, and +witches, which might have found a place in Callot’s “Temptation of St. +Anthony.”</p> + +<p>A specimen of these is given in our cut No. 168—a naked witch seated +upon a skeleton of an animal that might have been borrowed from some +far distant geological period. In 1642, Della Bella executed a set of +small “Caprices,” consisting of thirteen plates, from the eighth of +which we take our cut No. 169. It represents a beggar-woman, carrying +one child on her back, while another is stretched on the ground. In +this class of subjects Della Bella imitated Callot, but the copyist +never succeeded in equalling the original. His best style, as an +original artist of burlesque and caricature, is shown in a set of five +plates of Death carrying<a class="pagenum" id="Page_310" title="310"></a> away people of different ages, which he +executed in 1648. The fourth of this set is copied in our cut No. 170, +and represents Death carrying off, on his shoulder, a young woman, in +spite of her struggles to escape from him.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut169.jpg" width="300" height="260" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 169. Beggary.</div> +</div> + +<p>With the close of the seventeenth century these “Caprices” and +masquerade scenes began to be no longer in vogue, and caricature and +burlesque assumed new forms; but Callot and Della Bella had many +followers, and their examples had a lasting influence upon art.</p> + +<p>We must not forget that a celebrated artist, in another country, at the +end of the same century, the well-known Romain de Hooghe, was produced +from the school of Callot, in which he had learnt, not the arts of +burlesque and caricature, but that of skilfully grouping multitudes of +figures, especially in subjects representing episodes of war, tumults, +massacres, and public processions.</p> + +<p>Of Romain de Hooghe we shall have to speak again in a subsequent +chapter. In his time the art of engraving had made great advance +on the Continent, and especially in France, where it met with more +encouragement than elsewhere. In England this art had, on the whole, +made much less progress, and was in rather a low condition, one branch +only excepted, that of portraits. Of the two distinguished engravers +in England during the seventeenth century, Hollar was a Bohemian, and +Faithorne, though<a class="pagenum" id="Page_311" title="311"></a> an Englishman, learnt his art in France. We only +began to have an English school when Dutch and French engravers came in +with King William to lay the groundwork.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut170.jpg" width="350" height="453" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 170. Death carrying off his Prey.</div> +</div> + + + +<hr class="chap" /> +<h2><a class="pagenum" id="Page_312" title="312"></a> +CHAPTER XIX. +</h2> + +<p class="subtitle"> + THE SATIRICAL LITERATURE OF THE SIXTEENTH + CENTURY.—PASQUIL.—MACARONIC POETRY.—THE EPISTOLÆ OBSURORUM + VIRORUM.—RABELAIS.—COURT OF THE QUEEN OF NAVARRE, AND ITS + LITERARY CIRCLE; BONAVENTURE DES PERIERS.—HENRI ETIENNE.—THE + LIGUE, AND ITS SATIRE: THE <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“SATYRE MÉNIPPÉE.”</span></p> + + +<p>The sixteenth century, especially on the Continent, was a period of +that sort of violent agitation which is most favourable to the growth +of satire. Society was breaking up, and going through a course of +decomposition, and it presented to the view on every side spectacles +which provoked the mockery, perhaps more than the indignation, of +lookers-on. Even the clergy had learnt to laugh at themselves, and +almost at their own religion; and people who thought or reflected were +gradually separating into two classes—those who cast all religion +from them, and rushed into a jeering scepticism, and those who entered +seriously and with resolution into the work of reformation. The +latter found most encouragement among the Teutonic nations, while the +sceptical element appears to have had its birth in Italy, and even in +Rome itself, where, among popes and cardinals, religion had degenerated +into empty forms.</p> + +<p>At some period towards the close of the fifteenth century, a mutilated +ancient statue was accidentally dug up in Rome, and it was erected +on a pedestal in a place not far from the Ursini Palace. Opposite +it stood the shop of a shoemaker, named Pasquillo, or Pasquino, the +latter being the form most commonly adopted at a later period. This +Pasquillo was notorious as a facetious fellow, and his shop was usually +crowded by people who went there to tell tales and hear news; and, as +no other name had been<a class="pagenum" id="Page_313" title="313"></a> invented for the statue, people agreed to give +it the name of the shoemaker, and they called it Pasquillo. It became +a custom, at certain seasons, to write on pieces of paper satirical +epigrams, sonnets, and other short compositions in Latin or Italian, +mostly of a personal character, in which the writer declared whatever +he had seen or heard to the discredit of somebody, and these were +published by depositing them with the statue, whence they were taken +and read. One of the Latin epigrams which pleads against committing +these short personal satires to print, calls the time at which it was +usual to compose them Pasquil’s festival:—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container" lang="la" xml:lang="la"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">Jam redit illa dies in qua Romana juventus</div> + <div class="line indent4">Pasquilli festum concelebrabit ovans.</div> + <div class="line">Sed versus impressos obsecro ut edere omittas,</div> + <div class="line indent4">Ne noceant iterum quæ nocuere semel.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>The festival was evidently a favourite one, and well celebrated. “The +soldiers of Xerxes,” says another epigram, placed in Pasquil’s mouth, +“were not so plentiful as the paper bestowed upon me; I shall soon +become a bookseller”—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container" lang="la" xml:lang="la"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">Armigerûm Xerxi non copia tanta papyri</div> + <div class="line indent4">Quanta mihi: fiam bibliopola statim.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>The name of Pasquil was soon given to the papers which were deposited +with the statue, and eventually a <em>pasquil</em>, or <em>pasquin</em>, was only +another name for a lampoon or libel. Not far from this statue stood +another, which was found in the forum of Mars (<em lang="la" xml:lang="la">Martis forum</em>), and was +thence popularly called Marforio. Some of these satirical writings were +composed in the form of dialogues between Pasquil and Marforio, or of +messages from one to the other.</p> + +<p>A collection of these pasquils was published in 1544 in two small +volumes.<a id="FNanchor_94" href="#Footnote_94" class="fnanchor">[94]</a> Many of them are extremely clever, and they are sharply +pointed. The popes are frequent objects of bitterest satire. Thus we +are reminded in two lines upon pope Alexander VI. (<em lang="la" xml:lang="la">sextus</em>), the +infamous Borgia, that Tarquin had been a Sextus, and Nero also, and now +another Sextus was<a class="pagenum" id="Page_314" title="314"></a> at the head of the Romans, and told that Rome was +always ruined under a Sextus—</p> + +<p class="center">De Alexandro VI. Pont.<br /> +<em lang="la" xml:lang="la">Sextus Tarquinius, Sextus Nero, Sextus et iste:<br /> + Semper sub Sextis perdita Roma fuit.</em></p> + +<p>The following is given for an epitaph on Lucretia Borgia, pope +Alexander’s profligate daughter:—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">Hoc tumulo dormit Lucretia nomine, sed re</div> + <div class="line indent4">Thais, Alexandri filia, sponsa, nurus.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>In another of a rather later date, Rome, addressing herself to Pasquil, +is made to complain of two successive popes, Clement VII. (Julio de +Medicis, 1523–-1534) and Paul III. (Alexandro Farnese, 1534–1549), and +also of Leo X. (1513–1521). “I am,” Rome says, “sick enough with the +physician (<em lang="la" xml:lang="la">Medicus</em>, as a pun on the Medicis), I was also the prey of +the lion (<em>Leo</em>), now, Paul, you tear my vitals like a wolf. You, Paul, +are not a god to me, as I thought in my folly, but you are a wolf, +since you tear the food from my mouth”—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container" lang="la" xml:lang="la"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">Sum Medico satis ægra, fui quoque præda Leonis,</div> + <div class="line indent2">Nunc mea dilaceras viscera, Paule, lupus.</div> + <div class="line">Non es, Paule, mihi numen, ceu stulta putabam,</div> + <div class="line indent2">Sed lupus es, quoniam subtrahis ore cibum.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Another epigram, addressed to Rome herself, involves a pun in Greek +(in the words <em>Paulos</em>, Paul, and <em>Phaulos</em>, wicked). “Once, Rome,” it +says, “lords of lords were thy subjects, now thou in thy wretchedness +art subject to the serfs of serfs; once you listened to the oracles of +St. Paul, but now you perform the abominable commands of the wicked”—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container" lang="la" xml:lang="la"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">Quondam, Roma, tibi suberant domini dominorum,</div> + <div class="line indent2">Servorum servis nunc miseranda subes;</div> + <div class="line">Audisti quondam divini oracula <span class="normal" title="Paulou">Παύλου</span>,</div> + <div class="line indent2">At nunc <span class="normal" title="tôn phaulôn">των φαύλων</span> jussa nefanda facis.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>The idea, of course, is the contrast of Rome in her Pagan glory, with +Rome in her Christian debasement, very much the same as that which<a class="pagenum" id="Page_315" title="315"></a> +struck Gibbon, and gave birth to his great history of Rome’s “decline +and fall.”<a class="fnanchor" id="FNanchor_95" href="#Footnote_95">[95]</a></p> + +<p>The pasquils formed a body of satire which struck indiscriminately at +everybody within its range, but satirists were now rising who took for +their subjects special cases of the general disorder. Rotten at the +heart, society presented an external glossiness, a mixture of pedantry +and affectation, which offered subjects enough for ridicule in whatever +point of view it was taken. The ecclesiastical body was in a state of +fermentation, out of which new feelings and new doctrines were about to +rise. The old learning and literature of the middle ages remained in +form after their spirit had passed away, and they were now contending +clumsily and unsuccessfully against new learning and literature of a +more refined and healthier character. Feudalism itself had fallen, or +it was struggling vainly against new political principles, yet the +aristocracy clung to feudal forms and feudal assumptions, with an +exaggeration which was meant for an appearance of strength. Among the +literary affectations of this false feudalism, was the fashion for +reading the long, dry, old romances of chivalry; while the churchmen +and schoolmen were corrupting the language in which mediæval learning +had been expressed, into a form the most barbarous, or introducing +words compounded from the later into the vernacular tongue. These +peculiarities were among the first to provoke literary satire. Italy, +where this class of satire originated, gave it its name also, though it +appears still to be a matter of doubt why it was called <em>macaronic</em>, +or in its Italian form <em lang="it" xml:lang="it">maccharonea</em>. Some have considered this name +to have been taken from the article of food called <em lang="it" xml:lang="it">macaroni</em>, to +which the Italians were, and still are, so much attached; while others +pretend that it was derived from an old Italian word <em lang="it" xml:lang="lit">macarone</em>, which +meant a lubberly fellow. Be this, however, as it may, what is called +macaronic composition, which consists in giving a<a class="pagenum" id="Page_316" title="316"></a> Latin form to words +taken from the vulgar tongue, and mixing them with words which are +purely Latin, was introduced in Italy at the close of the fifteenth +century.</p> + +<p>Four Italian writers in macaronic verse are known to have lived before +the year 1500.<a id="FNanchor_96" href="#Footnote_96" class="fnanchor">[96]</a> The first of these was named Fossa, and he tells +us that he composed his poem entitled “Vigonce,” on the second day +of May, 1494. It was printed in 1502. Bassano, a native of Mantua, +and the author of a macaronic which bears no title, was dead in 1499; +and another, a Paduan named Fifi degli Odassi, was born about the +year 1450. Giovan Georgio Allione, of Asti, who is believed also to +have written during the last ten years of the fifteenth century, +is a name better known through the edition of his French works, +published by Monsieur J. C. Brunet in 1836. All these present the +same coarseness and vulgarity of sentiment, and the same licence in +language and description, which appear to have been taken as necessary +characteristics of macaronic composition. Odassi appears to give +support to the derivation of the name from macaroni, by making the +principal character of his poem a fabricator of that article in Padua—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container" lang="la" xml:lang="la"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">Est unus in Padua natus speciale cusinus,</div> + <div class="line">In maccharonea princeps bonus atque magister.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>But the great matter of macaronic poetry was Teofilo Folengo, of whose +life we know just sufficient to give us a notion of the personal +character of these old literary caricaturists. Folengo was descended +from a noble family, which had its seat at the village of Cipada, near +Mantua, where he was born on the 8th of November, 1491, and baptised by +the name of Girolamo. He pursued his studies, first in the university +of Ferrara, under the professor Visago Cocaio, and afterwards in that +of Bologna, under Pietro Pomponiazzo; or rather, he ought to have +pursued<a class="pagenum" id="Page_317" title="317"></a> them, for his love of poetry, and his gaiety of character, led +him to neglect them, and at length his irregularities became so great, +that he was obliged to make a hasty flight from Bologna. He was ill +received at home, and he left it also, and appears to have subsequently +led a wild life, during part of which he adopted the profession of a +soldier, until at length he took refuge in a Benedictine convent near +Brescia, in 1507, and became a monk. The discipline of this house +had become entirely relaxed, and the monks appear to have lived very +licentiously; and Folengo, who, on his admission to the order, had +exchanged his former baptismal name for Teofilo, readily conformed to +their example. Eventually he abandoned the convent and the habit, ran +away with a lady named Girolama Dedia, and for some years he led a +wandering, and, it would seem, very irregular life. Finally, in 1527, +he returned to his old profession of a monk, and remained in it until +his death, in the December of 1544. He is said to have been extremely +vain of his poetical talents, and a story is told of him which, even if +it were invented, illustrates well the character which was popularly +given to him. It is said that when young, he aspired to excel in +Latin poetry, and that he wrote an epic which he himself believed to +be <em>superior</em> to the Æneid. When, however, he had communicated the +work to his friend the bishop of Mantua, and that prelate, intending +to compliment him, told him that he had equalled Virgil, he was so +mortified, that he threw the manuscript on the fire, and from that time +devoted his talents entirely to the composition of macaronic verse.</p> + +<p>Such was the man who has justly earned the reputation of being the +first of macaronic poets. When he adopted this branch of literature, +while he was in the university of Bologna, he assumed in writing it +the name of Merlinus Cocaius, or Coccaius, probably from the name of +his professor at Ferrara. Folengo’s printed poems consist of—1. The +Zanitonella, a pastoral in seven eclogues, describing the love of +Tonellus for Zanina; 2, the macaronic romance of Baldus, Folengo’s +principal and most remarkable work; 3, the Moschæa, or dreadful battle +between the flies and the ants; and 4, a book of Epistles and Epigrams.</p> + +<p>The first edition of the Baldus appeared in 1517. It is a sort of<a class="pagenum" id="Page_318" title="318"></a> +parody on the romances of chivalry, and combines a jovial satire upon +everything, which, as has been remarked, spares neither religion nor +politics, science nor literature, popes, kings, clergy, nobility, or +people. It consists of twenty-five cantos, or, as they are termed in +the original, <em>phantasiæ</em>, fantasies. In the first we are told of the +origin of Baldus. There was at the court of France a famous knight +named Guy, descended from that memorable paladin Renaud of Montauban. +The king, who showed a particular esteem for Guy, had also a daughter +of surpassing beauty, named Balduine, who had fallen in love with +Guy, and he was equally amorous of the princess. In the sequel of a +grand tournament, at which Guy has distinguished himself greatly, he +carries off Balduine, and the two lovers fly on foot, in the disguise +of beggars, reach the Alps in safety, and cross them into Italy. At +Cipada, in the territory of Brescia, they are hospitably entertained by +a generous peasant named Berte Panade, with whom the princess Balduine, +who approaches her time of confinement, is left; while her lover goes +forth to conquer at least a marquisate for her. After his departure +she gives birth to a fine boy, which is named Baldus. Such, as told +in the second canto, is the origin of Folengo’s hero, who is destined +to perform marvellous acts of chivalry. The peasant Berte Panade has +also a son named Zambellus, by a mother who had died in childbirth +of him. Baldus passes for the son of Berte also, so that the two are +supposed to be brothers. Baldus is successively led through a series of +extraordinary adventures, some low and vulgar, others more chivalrous, +and some of them exhibiting a wild fertility of imagination, which are +too long to enable me to take my readers through them, until at length +he is left by the poet in the country of Falsehood and Charlatanism, +which is inhabited by astrologers, necromancers, and poets. Thus +is the hero Baldus dragged through a great number of marvellous +accidents, some of them vulgar, many of them ridiculous, and some, +again, wildly poetical, but all of them presenting, in one form or +other, an opportunity for satire upon some of the follies, or vices, +or corruptions of his age. The hybrid language in which the whole is +written, gives it a singularly grotesque appearance; yet from time to +time we have passages which show that the author was capable of writing +true poetry,<a class="pagenum" id="Page_319" title="319"></a> although it is mixed with a great amount of coarse and +licentious ideas, expressed no less coarsely and licentiously. What we +may term the filth, indeed, forms a large proportion of the Italian +macaronic poetry. The pastoral of Zanitonella presents, as might be +expected, more poetic beauty than the romance of Balbus. As an example +of the language of the latter, and indeed of that of the Italian +macaronics in general, I give a few lines of a description of a storm +at sea, from the twelfth canto, with a literal translation:—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">Jam gridor æterias hominum concussit abyssos,</div> + <div class="line">Sentiturque ingens cordarum stridor, et ipse</div> + <div class="line">Pontus habet pavidos vultus, mortisque colores.</div> + <div class="line">Nunc Sirochus habit palmam, nunc Borra superchiat;</div> + <div class="line">Irrugit pelagus, tangit quoque fluctibus astra,</div> + <div class="line">Fulgure flammigero creber lampezat Olympus;</div> + <div class="line">Vela forata micant crebris lacerata balottis;</div> + <div class="line">Horrendam mortem nautis ea cuncta minazzant.</div> + <div class="line">Nunc sbalzata ratis celsum tangebat Olympum,</div> + <div class="line">Nunc subit infernam unda sbadacchiante paludem.</div> + + <div class="center">TRANSLATION</div> + + <div class="line">Now the clamour of the men shook the ethereal abysses,</div> + <div class="line">And the mighty crashing of the ropes is felt, and the very</div> + <div class="line">Sea has pale looks, and the hue of death.</div> + <div class="line">Now the Sirocco has the palm, now Eurus exults over it;</div> + <div class="line">The sea roars, and touches the stars with its waves,</div> + <div class="line">Olympus continually blazes out with flaming thunder,</div> + <div class="line">The pierced sails glitter torn with frequent thunderbolts;</div> + <div class="line">All these threaten frightful death to the sailors.</div> + <div class="line">Now the ship tossed up touched the top of Olympus,</div> + <div class="line">Now, the wave yawning, it sinks into the infernal lake.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Teofilo Folengo was followed by a number of imitators, of whom it +will be sufficient to state that he stands in talent as far above his +followers as above those who preceded him. One of these minor Italian +macaronic writers, named Bartolommeo Bolla, of Bergamo, who flourished +in the latter half of the sixteenth century, had the vanity to call +himself, in the title of one of his books, “the Apollo of poets, and +the Cocaius of this age;” but a modern critic has remarked of him +that he is as far removed<a class="pagenum" id="Page_320" title="320"></a> from his model Folengo, as his native +town Bergamo is distant from Siberia. An earlier poet, named Guarino +Capella, a native of the town of Sarsina, in the country of Forli, on +the borders of Tuscany, approached far nearer in excellence to the +prince of macaronic writers. His work also is a mock romance, the +history of “Cabrinus, king of Gagamagoga,” in six books or cantos, +which was printed at Arimini in 1526, and is now a book of excessive +rarity.</p> + +<p>The taste for macaronics passed rather early, like all other fashions +in that age, from Italy into France, where it first brought into +literary reputation a man who, if he had not the great talent of +Folengo, possessed a very considerable amount of wit and gaiety. +Antoine de la Sable, who Latinised his name into Antonius de Arena, +was born of a highly respectable family at Soliers, in the diocese +of Toulon, about the year 1500, and, being destined from his youth +to follow the profession of the law, studied under the celebrated +jurisconsult Alciatus. He had only arrived at the simple dignity of +<em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">juge</em>, at St. Remy, in the diocese of Arles, when he died in the year +1544. In fact, he appears to have been no very diligent student, and we +gather from his own confessions that his youth had been rather wild. +The volume containing his macaronics, the second edition of which (as +far as the editions are known) was printed in 1529, bears a title which +will give some notion of the character of its contents,—“<em lang="la" xml:lang="la">Provencalis +de bragardissima villa de Soleriis, ad suos compagnones qui sunt de +persona friantes, bassas dansas et branlas practicantes novellas, de +guerra Romana, Neapolitana, et Genuensi mandat; una cum epistola ad +falotissimam suam garsam, Janam Rosæam, pro passando tempora</em>”—(<em>i.e.</em> +a Provençal of the most swaggering town of Soliers, sends this to his +companions, who are dainty of their persons, practising basse dances +and new brawls, concerning the war of Rome, Naples, and Genoa; with an +epistle to his most merry wench, Jeanne Rosée, for pastime). In the +first of these poems Arena traces in his burlesque verse, which is an +imitation of Folengo, his own adventures and sufferings in the war in +Italy which led to the sack of Rome, in 1527, and in the subsequent +expeditions to Naples and Genoa. From the picture of the horrors of +war, he passes very willingly to describe the joyous manners of the +students in Provençal universities, of whom he<a class="pagenum" id="Page_321" title="321"></a> tells us, that they are +all fine gallants, and always in love with the pretty girls.</p> + +<div class="poetry-container" lang="la" xml:lang="la"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">Gentigalantes sunt omnes instudiantes,</div> + <div class="line indent2">Et bellas garsas semper amare solent.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>He goes on to describe the scholars as great quarrellers, as well as +lovers of the other sex, and after dwelling on their gaiety and love +of the dance, he proceeds to treat in the same burlesque style on the +subject of dancing; but I pass over this to speak of Arena’s principal +piece, the satirical description of the invasion of Provence by the +emperor Charles V. in 1536. This curious poem, which is entitled +<span lang="la" xml:lang="la">“Meygra Enterprisa Catoloqui imperatoris,”</span> and which extends to upwards +of two thousand lines, opens with a laudatory address to the king of +France, François I., and with a sneer at the pride of the emperor, who, +believing himself to be the master of the whole world, had foolishly +thought to take away France and the cities of Provence from their +rightful monarch. It was Antonio de Leyva, the boaster, who had put +this project into the emperor’s head, and they had already pillaged +and ravaged a good part of Provence, and were dividing the plunder, +when, harassed continually by the peasantry, the invaders were brought +to a stand by the difficulty of subsisting in a devastated country, +and by the diseases to which this difficulty gave rise. Nevertheless, +the Spaniards and their allies committed terrible devastation, which +is described by Arena in strong language. He commemorates the valiant +resistance of his native town of Soliers, which, however, was taken +and sacked, and he lost in it his house and property. Arles held the +imperialists at bay, while the French, under the constable Montmorency, +established themselves firmly at Avignon. At length disease gained +possession of Antonio de Leyva himself, and the emperor, who had been +making an unsuccessful demonstration against Marseilles, came to him +in his sickness. The first lines of the description of this interview, +will serve as a specimen of the language of the French macaronics:—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container" lang="la" xml:lang="la"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">Sed de Marsella bragganti quando retornat,</div> + <div class="line indent2">Fort male contentus, quando repolsat eum,</div> + <div class="line">Antonium Levam trobavit forte maladum,</div> + <div class="line indent2">Cui mors terribilis triste cubile parat.<a class="pagenum" id="Page_322" title="322"></a></div> + <div class="line">Ethica torquet eum per costas, et dolor ingens:</div> + <div class="line indent2">Cum male res vadit, vivere fachat eum.</div> + <div class="line">Dixerunt medici, speransa est nulla salutis:</div> + <div class="line indent2">Ethicus in testa vivere pauca potest.</div> + <div class="line">Ante suam mortem voluit parlare per horam</div> + <div class="line indent2">Imperelatori, consiliumque dare.</div> + <div class="line">Scis, Cæsar, stricte nostri groppantur amores,</div> + <div class="line indent2">Namque duas animas corpus utrumque tenet,</div> + <div class="line">Heu! fuge Provensam fortem, fuge littus amarum,</div> + <div class="line indent2">Fac tibi non noceat gloria tanta modo.</div> + + <div class="center">TRANSLATION.</div> + + <div class="line">But when he returns from boasting Marseilles,</div> + <div class="line indent2">Very ill content, that she had repulsed him,</div> + <div class="line">He found Antonio de Leyva very ill,</div> + <div class="line indent2">For whom terrible death is preparing a sorrowful bed.</div> + <div class="line">Hectic fever tortures him in the ribs, and great pain;</div> + <div class="line indent2">Since things are going ill, he is weary of life.</div> + <div class="line">Before his death he wished to speak an hour</div> + <div class="line indent2">To the emperor, and to give him counsel.</div> + <div class="line">“You know, Cæsar, our affections are closely bound together,</div> + <div class="line indent2">For either body holds the two souls,</div> + <div class="line">Alas! fly Provence the strong, fly the bitter shore,</div> + <div class="line indent2">Take care that your great glory prove not an injury to you.”</div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Thus Leyva goes on to persuade the emperor to abandon his enterprise, +and then dies. Arena exults over his death, and over the emperor’s +grief for his loss, and then proceeds to describe the disastrous +retreat of the imperial army, and the glory of France in her king.</p> + +<p>Antonius de Arena wrote with vigour and humour, but his verses are +tame in comparison with his model, Folengo. The taste for macaronic +verse never took strong root in France, and the few obscure writers +who attempted to shine in that kind of composition are now forgotten, +except by the laborious bibliographer. One named Jean Germain, wrote +a macaronic history of the invasion of Provence by the imperialists +in rivalry of Arenas. I will not follow the taste for this class of +burlesque composition into Spain or Germany, but merely add that it +was not adopted in England until the beginning of the seventeenth +century, when several authors employed it at about the same time. +The most perfect example of these early English macaronics is the +“Polemo-Middiana,” <em>i.e.</em> battle of<a class="pagenum" id="Page_323" title="323"></a> the dunghill, by the talented and +elegant-minded Drummond of Hawthornden. We may take a single example of +the English macaronic from this poem, which will not need an English +translation. One of the female characters in the dunghill war, calls, +among others, to her aid—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container" lang="la" xml:lang="la"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">Hunc qui dirtiferas tersit cum dishclouty dishras,</div> + <div class="line">Hunc qui gruelias scivit bene lickere plettas,</div> + <div class="line">Et saltpannifumos, et widebricatos fisheros,</div> + <div class="line">Hellæosque etiam salteros duxit ab antris,</div> + <div class="line">Coalheughos nigri girnantes more divelli;</div> + <div class="line">Lifeguardamque sibi sævas vocat improba lassas,</div> + <div class="line">Maggyam magis doctam milkare covœas,</div> + <div class="line">Et doctam suepare flouras, et sternere beddas,</div> + <div class="line">Quæque novit spinnare, et longas ducere threddas;</div> + <div class="line">Nansyam, claves bene quæ keepaverat omnes,</div> + <div class="line">Quæque lanam cardare solet greasy-fingria Betty.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Perhaps before this was written, the eccentric Thomas Coryat had +published in the volume of his Crudities, printed in 1611, a short +piece of verse, which is perfect in its macaronic style, but in which +Italian and other foreign words are introduced, as well as English. The +celebrated comedy of “Ignoramus,” composed by George Ruggle in 1615, +may also be mentioned as containing many excellent examples of English +macaronics.</p> + +<p>While Italy was giving birth to macaronic verse, the satire upon the +ignorance and bigotry of the clergy was taking another form in Germany, +which arose from some occurrences which it will be necessary to relate. +In the midst of the violent religious agitation at the beginning of +the sixteenth century in Germany, there lived a German Jew named +Pfeffercorn, who embraced Christianity, and to show his zeal for his +new faith, he obtained from the emperor an edict ordering the Talmud +and all the Jewish writings which were contrary to the Christian faith +to be burnt. There lived at the same time a scholar of distinction, +and of more liberal views than most of the scholastics of his time, +named John Reuchlin. He was a relative of Melancthon, and was secretary +to the palsgrave, who was tolerant like himself. The Jews, as might +be expected, were unwilling to give up their books to be burnt, and +Reuchlin wrote in their defence, under the assumed name of Capnion, +which is a<a class="pagenum" id="Page_324" title="324"></a> Hebrew translation of his own name of Reuchlin, meaning +smoke, and urged that it was better to refute the books in question +than to burn them. The converted Pfeffercorn replied in a book entitled +“Speculum Manuale,” in answer to which Reuchlin wrote his “Speculum +Oculare.” The controversy had already provoked much bigoted ill-feeling +against Reuchlin. The learned doctors of the university of Cologne +espoused the cause of Pfeffercorn, and the principal of the university, +named in Latin Ortuinus Gratius, supported by the Sorbonne in Paris, +lent himself to be the violent organ of the intolerant party. Hard +pressed by his bigoted opponents, Reuchlin found good allies, but one +of the best of these was a brave baron named Ulric von Hutten, of an +old and noble family, born in 1488 in the castle of Staeckelberg, +in Franconia. He had studied in the schools at Fulda, Cologne, and +Frankfort on the Oder, and distinguished himself so much as a scholar, +that he obtained the degree of Master of Arts before the usual age. +But Ulric possessed an adventurous and chivalrous spirit, which led +him to embrace the profession of a soldier, and he served in the wars +in Italy, where he was distinguished by his bravery. He was at Rome +in 1516, and defended Reuchlin against the Dominicans. The same year +appeared the first edition of that marvellous book, the <span lang="la" xml:lang="la">“Epistolæ +Obscurorum Virorum,”</span> one of the most remarkable satires that the world +has yet seen. It is believed that this book came entirely from the +pen of Ulric von Hutten; and the notion that Reuchlin himself, or +any others of his friends, had a share in it appears to be without +foundation. Ulric was in the following year made poet-laureat. +Nevertheless, this book greatly incensed the monks against him, and he +was often threatened with assassination. Yet he boldly advocated the +cause and embraced the opinions of Luther, and was one of the staunch +supporters of Lutheranism. After a very turbulent life, Ulric von +Hutten died in the August of the year 1523.</p> + +<p>The <span lang="la" xml:lang="la">“Epistolæ Obscurorum Virorum,”</span> or letters of obscure men, are +supposed to be addressed to Ortuinus Gratius, mentioned above, by +various individuals, some his scholars, others his friends, but all +belonging to the bigoted party opposed to Reuchlin, and they were +designed to throw ridicule on the ignorance, bigotry, and immorality +of the clergy of the<a class="pagenum" id="Page_325" title="325"></a> Romish church. The old scholastic learning +had become debased into a heavy and barbarous system of theology, +literary composition consisted in writing a no less barbarous Latin, +and even the few classical writers who were admitted into the schools, +were explained and commented upon in a strange half-theological +fashion. These old scholastics were bitterly opposed to the new +learning, which had taken root in Italy, and was spreading abroad, +and they spoke contemptuously of it as “secular.” The letters of the +obscure individuals relate chiefly to the dispute between Reuchlin +and Pfeffercorn, to the rivalry between the old scholarship and the +new, and to the low licentious lives of the theologists; and they +are written in a style of Latin which is intended for a parody on +that of the latter, and which closely resembles that which we call +“dog-Latin.”<a id="FNanchor_97" href="#Footnote_97" class="fnanchor">[97]</a> They are full of wit and humour of the most exquisite +description, but they too often descend into details, treated in terms +which can only be excused by the coarse and licentious character of +the age. The literary and scientific questions discussed in these +letters are often very droll. The first in order of the correspondents +of Ortuinus Gratius, who boasts of the rather formidable name, Thomas +Langschneiderius, and addresses master Ortuinus as “poet, orator, +philosopher, and theologist, and more if he would,” propounds to him a +difficult question:—</p> + +<div class="quote"> + <p>“There was here one day an Aristotelian dinner, and doctors, + licenciates, and masters too, were very jovial, and I was + there too, and we drank at the first course three draughts of + Malmsey, ... and then we had six dishes of flesh and chickens + and capons, and one of fish, and as we passed from one dish to + another, we continually drunk wine of Kotzburg and the Rhine, + and ale of Embeck, and Thurgen, and Neuburg. And the masters + were well satisfied, and said that the new masters had acquitted + themselves well and with great honour. Then the masters in their + hilarity began to talk learnedly on great questions, and one + asked whether it were<a class="pagenum" id="Page_326" title="326"></a> correct to say <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">magister nostrandus</em>, or + <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">noster magistrandus</em>, for a person fit to be made doctor in + theology.... And immediately Master Warmsemmel, who is a subtle + Scotist, and has been master eighteen years, and was in his time + twice rejected and thrice delayed for the degree of master, + and he went on offering himself, until he was promoted for the + honour of the university, ... spoke, and held that we should say + <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">noster magistrandus</em>.... Then Master Andreas Delitsch, who is + very subtle, and half poet, half artist (<em>i.e.</em> one who professed + in the faculty of arts), physician, and jurist; and now he + reads ordinarily ‘Ovid on the Metamorphoses,’ and expounds all + the fables allegorically and literally, and I was his hearer, + because he expounds very fundamentally, and he also reads at home + Quintillian and Juvencus, and he held the opposite to Master + Warmsemmel, and said that we ought to say <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">magister nostrandus</em>. + For as there is a difference between <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">magister noster</em> and <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">noster + magister</em>, so also there is a difference between <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">magister + nostrandus</em> and <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">noster magistrandus</em>; for a doctor in theology + is called <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">magister noster</em>, and it is one word, but <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">noster + magister</em> are two words, and it is taken for any master; and he + quoted Horace in support of this. Then the masters much admired + his subtlety, and one drank to him a cup of Neuburg ale. And + he said, ‘I will wait, but spare me,’ and touched his hat, and + laughed heartily, and drank to Master Warmsemmel, and said, + ‘There, master, don’t think I am an enemy,’ and he drank it off at + one draught, and Master Warmsemmel replied to him with a strong + draught. And the masters were all merry till the bell rang for + Vespers.”</p> +</div> + +<p>Master Ortuin is pressed for his judgment on this weighty question. A +similar scene described in another letter ends less peacefully. The +correspondent on this occasion is Magister Bornharddus Plumilegus, who +addresses Ortuinus Gratius as follows:—</p> + +<div class="quote"> + <p>“Wretched is the mouse which has only one hole for a refuge! So + also I may say of myself, most venerable sir, for I should be poor + if I had only one friend, and when that one should fail me, then + I should not have another to treat me with kindness. As is the + case now with a certain poet here, who is called George Sibutus, + and he is one of the secular poets, and reads publicly in poetry, + and is in other respects a good fellow (<em lang="la" xml:lang="la">bonus socius</em>). But as + you know these poets, when they are not theologists like you, will + always reprehend others, and despise the theologists. And once + in a drinking party in his house, when we were drinking Thurgen + ale, and sat until the hour of tierce, and I was moderately drunk, + because that ale rose into my head, then there was one who was not + before friendly with me, and I drank to him half a cup, and he + accepted it. But afterwards he would not return the compliment. + And thrice I cautioned him, and he would not reply, but sat in + silence and said nothing. Then I thought to myself, Behold this + man treats thee with contempt, and is proud, and always wants to + confound you. And I was stirred in my anger, and took the cup, and + threw it at his head. Then that poet was angry at me, and said + that I had caused a disturbance in his house, and said I should go + out of his house in the devil’s name. Then I replied, ‘What matter + is it if you are my<a class="pagenum" id="Page_327" title="327"></a> enemy? I have had as bad enemies as you, and + yet I have stood in spite of them. What matters it if you are a + poet? I have other poets who are my friends, and they are quite as + good as you, <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">ego bene merdarem in vestram poetriam</em>! Do you think + I am a fool, or that I was born under a tree like apples?’ Then he + called me an ass, and said that I never saw a poet. And I said, + ‘You are an ass in your skin, I have seen many more poets than + you.’ And I spoke of you.... Wherefore I ask you very earnestly to + write me one piece of verse, and then I will show it to this poet + and others, and I will boast that you are my friend, and you are a + much better poet than he.”</p> +</div> + +<p>The war against the secular poets, or advocates of the new learning, +is kept up with spirit through this ludicrous correspondence. One +correspondent presses Ortuinus Gratius to “write to me whether it be +necessary for eternal salvation that scholars learn grammar from the +secular poets, such as Virgil, Tullius, Pliny, and others; for,” he +adds, “it seems to me that this is not a good method of studying.” “As +I have often written to you,” says another, “I am grieved that this +ribaldry (<em lang="la" xml:lang="la">ista ribaldria</em>), namely, the faculty of poetry, becomes +common, and is spread through all provinces and regions. In my time +there was only one poet, who was called Samuel; and now, in this city +alone, there are at least twenty, and they vex us all who hold with the +ancients. Lately I thoroughly defeated one, who said that <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">scholaris</em> +does not signify a person who goes to the school for the purpose of +learning; and I said, ‘Ass! will you correct the holy doctor who +expounded this word?’” The new learning was, of course, identified +with the supporters of Reuchlin. “It is said here,” continues the same +correspondent, “that all the poets will side with doctor Reuchlin +against the theologians. I wish all the poets were in the place where +pepper grows, that they might let us go in peace!”</p> + +<p>Master William Lamp, “master of arts,” sends to Master Ortuinus +Gratius, a narrative of his adventures in a journey from Cologne to +Rome. First he went to Mayence, where his indignation was moved by the +open manner in which people spoke in favour of Reuchlin, and when he +hazarded a contrary opinion, he was only laughed at, but he held his +tongue, because his opponents all carried arms and looked fierce. “One +of them is a count, and is a long man, and has white hair; and they +say that he takes a man in armour in his hand, and throws him to the +ground,<a class="pagenum" id="Page_328" title="328"></a> and he has a sword as long as a giant; when I saw him, then I +held my tongue.” At Worms, he found things no better, for the “doctors” +spoke bitterly against the theologians, and when he attempted to +expostulate, he got foul words as well as threats, a learned doctor in +medicine affirming “<em lang="la" xml:lang="la">quod merdaret super nos omnes</em>.” On leaving Worms, +Lamp and his companion, another theologist, fell in with plunderers who +made them pay two florins to drink, “and I said <em>occulte</em>, Drink what +may the devil bless to you!” Subsequently they fell into low amours +at country inns, which are described coarsely, and then they reached +Insprucken, where they found the emperor, and his court and army, with +whole manners and proceedings Magister Lamp became sorely disgusted. +I pass over other adventures till they reach Mantua, the birthplace +of Virgil, and of a late mediæval Latin poet, named from it Baptista +Mantuanus. Lamp, in his hostile spirit towards the “secular poets,” +proceeds,—“And my companion said, ‘Here Virgil was born.’ I replied, +‘What do I care for that pagan? We will go to the Carmelites, and see +Baptista Mantuanus, who is twice as good as Virgil, as I have heard +full ten times from Ortuinus;’ and I told him how you once reprehended +Donatus, when he says, ‘Virgil was the most learned of poets, and +the best;’ and you said, ‘If Donatus were here, I would tell him to +his face that he lies, for Baptista Mantuanus is above Virgil.’ And +when we came to the monastery of the Carmelites, we were told that +Baptista Mantuanus was dead; then I said, ‘May he rest in peace!’” They +continued their journey by Bologna, where they found the inquisitor +Jacob de Hochstraten, and Florence, to Siena. “After this there are +small towns, and one is called Monte-flascon, where we drunk excellent +wine, such as I never drank in my life. And I asked the host what that +wine is called, and he replied that it is lachryma Christi. Then said +my companion, ‘I wish Christ would cry in our country!’ And so we drank +a good bout, and two days after we entered Rome.”</p> + +<p>In the course of these letters the theologists, the poets especially, +the character of the clergy, and particularly Reuchlin and +Pfeffercorn, afford continual subjects for dispute and pleasantry. +The last mentioned individual, in the opinion of some, had merited +hanging for theft, and it was pretended that the Jews had expelled +him from their society for his<a class="pagenum" id="Page_329" title="329"></a> wicked courses. One argued that all +Jews stink, and as it was well known that Pfeffercorn continued to +stink like a Jew, it was quite evident that he could not be a good +Christian. Some of Ortuinus’s correspondents consult him on difficult +theological questions. Here is an example in a letter from one Henricus +Schaffmulius, another of his scholars who had made the journey to +Rome:—</p> + +<div class="quote"> + <p>“Since, before I journeyed to the Court, you said to me that I am + to write often to you, and that sometimes I am to send you any + theological questions, which you will solve for me better than + the courtiers of Rome, therefore now I ask your mastership what + you hold as to the case when any one on a Friday, or any other + fast day, eats an egg, and there is a chicken inside. Because + the other day we sat in a tavern in the Campo-flore, and made a + collation, and eat eggs, and I, opening an egg, saw that there was + a young chicken in it, which I showed to my companion, and then he + said, ‘Eat it quickly before the host sees it, for if he sees it, + then you will be obliged to give a carlino or a julio for a hen, + because it is the custom here that, when the host places anything + on the table, you must pay for it, for they will not take it back. + And when he sees there is a young hen in the egg, he will say, + Pay me for the hen, because he reckons a small one the same as a + large one.’ And I immediately sucked up the egg, and with it the + chicken, and afterwards I bethought me that it was Friday, and I + said to my companion. ‘You have caused me to commit a mortal sin, + in eating flesh on Friday.’ And he said that it is not a mortal + sin, nor even a venial sin, because that embryo of a chicken is + not reckoned other than an egg till it is born; and he told me + that it is as in cheeses, in which there are sometimes worms, + and in cherries, and fresh peas and beans, yet they are eaten on + Fridays, and also in the vigils of the apostles. But the hosts + are such rogues, that they say that they are flesh, that they may + have more money. Then I went away, and thought about it. And, <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">per + Deum</em>! Magister Ortuinus, I am much troubled, and I know not how + I ought to rule myself. If I went to ask advice of a courtier [of + the papal court], I know that they have not good consciences. It + seems to me that these young hens in the eggs are flesh, because + the matter is already formed and figured in members and bodies of + an animal, and it has life; it is otherwise with worms in cheeses + and other things, because worms are reputed for fishes, as I have + heard from a physician, who is a very good naturalist. Therefore I + ask you very earnestly, that you will give me your reply on this + question. Because if you hold that it is a mortal sin, then I will + purchase an absolution here, before I return to Germany. Also you + must know that our master Jacobus de Hochstraten has obtained a + thousand florins from the bank, and I think that with these he + will gain his cause, and the devil confound that John Reuchlin, + and the other poets and jurists, because they will be against + the church of God, that is, against the theologists, in whom is + founded the church, as Christ said: Thou art Peter, and upon this + rock I will build my church. And so I commend you to the Lord God. + Farewell. Given from the city of Rome.”</p> +</div> + +<p>While in Italy macaronic literature was reaching its greatest +perfection,<a class="pagenum" id="Page_330" title="330"></a> there arose in the very centre of France a man of great +original genius, who was soon to astonish the world by a new form of +satire, more grotesque and more comprehensive than anything that had +been seen before. Teofilo Folengo may fairly be considered as the +precursor of Rabelais, who appears to have taken the Italian satirist +as his model. What we know of the life of François Rabelais is rather +obscure at best, and is in some parts no doubt fabulous. He was born +at Chinon in Touraine, either in 1483 or in 1487, for this seems to +be a disputed point, and some doubt has been thrown on the trade or +profession of his father, but the most generally received opinion is +that he was an apothecary. He is said to have shown from his youth a +disposition more inclined to gaiety than to serious pursuits, yet at +an early age he had made great proficiency in learning, and is said to +have acquired a very sufficient knowledge of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, +two of which, at least, were not popular among the popish clergy, and +not only of the modern languages and literature of Italy, Germany, and +Spain, but even of Arabic. Probably this estimate of his acquirements +in learning is rather exaggerated. It is not quite clear where the +young Rabelais gained all this knowledge, for he is said to have been +educated in convents and among monks, and to have become at a rather +early age a Franciscan friar in the convent of Fontenai-le-Compte, in +Lower Poitou, where he became an object of jealousy and ill-feeling to +the other friars by his superior acquirements. It was a tradition, at +least, that the conduct of Rabelais was not very strictly conventual, +and that he had so far shown his contempt for monastic rule, and for +the bigotry of the Romish church, that he was condemned to the prison +of his monastery, upon a diet of bread and water, which, according to +common report, was very uncongenial with the tastes of this jovial +friar. Out of this difficulty he is said to have been helped by his +friend the bishop of Maillezais, who obtained for him the pope’s +licence to change the order of St. Francis for the much more easy and +liberal order of St. Benedict, and he became a member of the bishop’s +own chapter in the abbey of Maillezais. His unsteady temper, however, +was not long satisfied with this retreat, which he left, and, laying +aside the regular habit, assumed that of a secular priest. In this +character he wandered for<a class="pagenum" id="Page_331" title="331"></a> some time, and then settled at Montpellier, +where he took a degree as doctor in medicine, and practised for some +time with credit. There he published in 1532 a translation of some +works of Hippocrates and Galen, which he dedicated to his friend the +bishop of Maillezais. The circumstances under which he left Montpellier +are not known, but he is supposed to have gone to Paris upon some +business of the university, and to have remained there. He found +there a staunch friend in Jean de Bellay, bishop of Paris, who soon +afterwards was raised to the rank of cardinal. When the cardinal de +Bellay went as ambassador to Rome from the court of France, Rabelais +accompanied him, it is said in the character of his private medical +adviser, but during his stay in the metropolis of Christendom, as +Christendom was understood in those days by the Romish church, Rabelais +obtained, on the 17th of January, 1536 the papal absolution for all +his transgressions, and licence to return to Maillezais, and practise +medicine there and elsewhere as an act of charity. Thus he became again +a Benedictine monk. He, however, changed again, and became a secular +canon, and finally settled down as the curé of Meudon, near Paris, with +which he also held a fair number of ecclesiastical benefices. Rabelais +died in 1553, according to some in a very religious manner, but others +have given strange accounts of his last moments, representing that, +even when dying, he conversed in the same spirit of mockery, not only +of Romish forms and ceremonies, but of all religions whatever, which +was ascribed to him during his life, and which are but too openly +manifested in the extraordinary satirical romance which has given so +much celebrity to his name.</p> + +<p>During the greater part of his life, Rabelais was exposed to troubles +and persecutions. He was saved from the intrigues of the monks by +the friendly influence of popes and cardinals; and the favour of two +successive kings, François I. and Henri II., protected him against the +still more dangerous hostility of the Sorbonne and the parliament of +Paris. This high protection has been advanced as a reason for rejecting +the anecdotes and accounts which have been commonly received relating +to the personal character of Rabelais, and his irregularities may +possibly have been exaggerated by the hatred which he had drawn upon +himself by his<a class="pagenum" id="Page_332" title="332"></a> writings. But nobody, I think, who knows the character +of society at that time, who compares what we know of the lives of +the other satirists, and who has read the history of Gargantua and +Pantagruel, will consider such an argument of much weight against the +deliberate statements of those who were his contemporaries, or be +inclined to doubt that the writer of this history was a man of jovial +character, who loved a good bottle and a broad joke, and perhaps other +things that were equally objectionable. His books present a sort +of wild riotous orgy, without much order or plan, except the mere +outline of the story, in which is displayed an extraordinary extent +of reading in all classes of literature, from the most learned to the +most popular, with a wonderful command of language, great imagination, +and some poetry, intermixed with a perhaps larger amount of downright +obscene ribaldry, than can be found in the macaronics of Folengo, +in the <span lang="la" xml:lang="la">“Epistolæ Obscurorum Virorum,”</span> or in the works of any of the +other satirists who had preceded him, or were his contemporaries. It +is a broad caricature, poor enough in its story, but enriched with +details, which are brilliant with imagery, though generally coarse, +and which are made the occasions for turning to ridicule everything +that existed. The five books of this romance were published separately +and at different periods, apparently without any fixed intention of +continuing them. The earlier editions of the first part were published +without date, but the earliest editions with dates belong to the year +1535, when it was several times reprinted. It appeared as the life of +Gargantua. This hero is supposed to have flourished in the first half +of the fifteenth century, and to have been the son of Grandgousier, +king of Utopia, a country which lay somewhere in the direction of +Chinon, a prince of an ancient dynasty, but a jovial fellow, who loved +good eating and drinking better than anything else. Grandgousier +married Gargamelle, daughter of the king of the Parpaillos, who became +the mother of Gargantua. The first chapters relate rather minutely +how the child was born, and came out at its mother’s ear, why it was +called Gargantua, how it was dressed and treated in infancy, what were +its amusements and disposition, and how Gargantua was put to learning +under the sophists, and made no progress. Thereupon Grandgousier sent +his son to Paris, to<a class="pagenum" id="Page_333" title="333"></a> seek instruction there, and he proceeds thither +mounted on an immense mare, which had been sent as a present by the +king of Numidia—it must be borne in mind that the royal race of Utopia +were all giants. At Paris the populace assembled tumultuously to +gratify their curiosity in looking at this new scholar; but Gargantua, +besides treating them in a very contemptuous manner, carried off the +great bells of Notre Dame to suspend at the neck of his mare. Great +was the indignation caused by this theft. “All the city was risen up +in sedition, they being, as you know, upon any slight occasions, so +ready to uproars and insurrections, that foreign nations wonder at the +patience of the kings of France, who do not by good justice restrain +them from such tumultuous courses.” The citizens take counsel, and +resolve on sending one of the great orators of the university, Master +Janotus de Bragmardo, to expostulate with Gargantua, and obtain the +restoration of the bells. The speech which this worthy addresses to +Gargantua, in fulfilment of his mission, is an amusing parody on the +pedantic style of Parisian oratory. The bells, however, are recovered, +and Gargantua, under skilful instructors, pursues his studies with +credit, until he is suddenly called home by a letter from his father. +In fact, Grandgousier was suddenly involved in a war with his neighbour +Picrocole, king of Lerné, caused by a quarrel about cakes between some +cake-makers of Lerné and Grandgousier’s shepherds, in consequence of +which Picrocole had invaded the dominions of Grandgousier, and was +plundering and ravaging them. His warlike humour is stirred up by the +counsels of his three lieutenants, who persuade him that he is going +to become a great conqueror, and that they will make him master of the +whole world. It is not difficult to see, in the circumstances of the +time, the general aim of the satire contained in the history of this +war. It ends in the entire defeat and disappearance of king Picrocole. +A sensual and jovial monk named brother Jean des Entommeurs, who has +first distinguished himself by his prowess and strength in defending +his own abbey against the invaders, contributes largely to the victory +gained by Gargantua against his father’s enemies, and Gargantua +rewards him by founding for him that pleasant abbey of Thélème, a +grand establishment, stored with everything which could contribute to +terrestrial happiness, from which<a class="pagenum" id="Page_334" title="334"></a> all hypocrites and bigots were to be +excluded, and the rule of which was comprised in the four simple words, +“Do as you like.”</p> + +<p>Such is the history of Gargantua, which was afterwards formed by +Rabelais into the first book of his great comic romance. It was +published anonymously, the author merely describing himself as +<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“l’abstracteur de quinte essence;”</span> but he afterwards adopted the +pseudonyme of Alcofribas Nasier, which is merely an anagram of his own +name, François Rabelais. A very improbable story has been handed down +to us relating to this book. It is pretended that, having published +a book of medical science which had no sale, and the publisher +complaining that he had lost money by it, Rabelais promised to make +amends for his loss, and immediately wrote the history of Gargantua, +by which the same book-seller made his fortune. There can be no doubt +that this remarkable satire had a deeper origin than any casual +accident like this; but it was exactly suited to the taste and temper +of the age. It was quite original in its form and style, and it met +with immediate and great success. Numerous editions followed each +other rapidly, and its author, encouraged by its popularity, very soon +afterwards produced a second romance, in continuation, to which he +gave the title of Pantagruel. The caricature in this second romance +is bolder even than in the first, the humour broader, and the satire +more pungent. Grandgousier has disappeared from the scene, and his son, +Gargantua, is king, and has a son named Pantagruel, whose kingdom is +that of the Dipsodes. The first part of this new romance is occupied +chiefly with Pantagruel’s youth and education, and is a satire on +the university and on the lawyers, in which the parodies on their +style of pleading as then practised is admirable. In the latter part, +Pantagruel, like his father Gargantua, is engaged in great wars. It was +perhaps the continued success of this new production of his pen which +led Rabelais to go on with it, and form the design of making these two +books part only of a more extensive romance. During his studies in +Paris, Pantagruel has made the acquaintance of a singular individual +named Panurge, who becomes his attached friend and constant companion, +holding somewhat the position of brother Jean in the first book, but +far more crafty and versatile. The whole subject of the third<a class="pagenum" id="Page_335" title="335"></a> book +arises out of Pantagreul’s desire to marry, and its various amusing +episodes describe the different expedients which, at the suggestion of +Panurge, he adopts to arrive at a solution of the question whether his +marriage would be fortunate or not.</p> + +<p>In publishing his fourth book, Rabelais complains that his writings +had raised him enemies, and that he was accused of having at least +written heresy. In fact, he had bitterly provoked both the monks and +the university and parliament; and, as the increasing reaction of +Romanism in France gave more power of persecution to the two latter, +he was not writing without some degree of danger, yet the satire of +each successive book became bolder and more direct. The fifth, which +was left unfinished at his death, and which was published posthumously, +was the most severe of them all. The character of Gargantua, indeed, +was almost forgotten in that of Pantagruel, and Pantagruelism became +an accepted name for the sort of gay, reckless satire of which he was +looked upon as the model. He described it himself as a <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">certaine gaieté +d’esprit confite en mépris des choses fortuites</em>, in fact, neither +Romanism nor Protestantism, but simply a jovial kind of Epicurianism. +All the gay wits of the time aspired to be Pantagruelists, and the +remainder of the sixteenth century abounded in wretched imitations of +the style of Rabelais, which are now consigned as mere rarities to the +shelves of the bibliophilist.</p> + +<p>Among the dangers which began to threaten them in France in the earlier +part of the sixteenth century, liberal opinions found an asylum at the +court of a princess who was equally distinguished by her beauty, by her +talents and noble sentiments, and by her accomplishments. Marguerite +d’Angoulême, queen of Navarre, was the only sister of François I., who +was her junior by two years, and was affectionately attached to her. +She was born on the 11th of April, 1492. She had married, first, that +unfortunate duke d’Alençon, whose misconduct at Pavia was the cause of +the disastrous defeat of the French, and the captivity of their king. +The duke died, it was said of grief at his misfortune, in 1525; and +two years afterwards, on the 24th of January, 1527, she married Henri +d’Albret, king of Navarre. Their daughter, Jeanne d’Albret, carried +this petty royalty to the house of Bourbon, and was the mother of Henri +IV.</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="Page_336" title="336"></a> +Marguerite held her court in true princely manner in the castle of Pau +or at Nérac, and she loved to surround herself with a circle of men +remarkable for their character and talents, and ladies distinguished +by beauty and accomplishments, which made it rival in brilliance +even that of her brother François. She placed nearest to her person, +under the character of her <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">valets-de-chambre</em>, the principal poets +and <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">beaux-esprits</em> of her time, such as Clement Marot, Bonaventure +des Periers, Claude Gruget, Antoine du Moulin, and Jean de la Haye, +and admitted them to such a tender familiarity of intercourse, as to +excite the jealousy of the king her husband, from whose ill-treatment +she was only protected by her brother’s interference. The poets called +her chamber a “veritable Parnassus.” Hers was certainly a great +mind, greedy of knowledge, dissatisfied with what was, and eager for +novelties, and therefore she encouraged all who sought for them. It +was in this spirit, combined with her earnest love for letters, that +she threw her protection over both the sceptics and the religious +reformers. At the beginning of the persecutions, as early as 1523, +she openly declared herself the advocate of the Protestants. When +Clement Marot was arrested by order of the Sorbonne and the Inquisitor +on the charge of having eaten bacon in Lent, Marguerite caused him +to be liberated from prison, in defiance of his persecutors. Some of +the purest and ablest of the early French reformers, such as Roussel +and Le Fèvre d’Etaples, and Calvin himself, found a safe asylum from +danger in her dominions. As might be supposed, the bigoted party were +bitterly incensed against the queen of Navarre, and were not backward +in taking advantage of an opportunity for showing it. A moral treatise, +entitled <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Le Miroir de l’Ame Pécheresse,”</span> of which Marguerite was the +author, was condemned by the Sorbonne in 1533, but the king compelled +the university, in the person of its rector, Nicolas Cop, to disavow +publicly the censure. This was followed by a still greater act of +insolence, for, at the instigation of some of the more bigoted papists, +the scholars of the college of Navarre, in concert with their regents, +performed a farce in which Marguerite was transformed into a fury of +hell. François I., greatly indignant, sent his archers to arrest the +offenders, who further provoked his anger by<a class="pagenum" id="Page_337" title="337"></a> resistance, and only +obtained their pardon through the generous intercession of the princess +whom they had so grossly insulted.</p> + +<p>Marguerite was herself a poetess, and she loved above all things +those gay, and seldom very delicate, stories, the telling of which +was at that time one of the favourite amusements of the evening, +and one in which she was known to excel. Her poetical writings were +collected and printed, under her own authority, in 1547, by her then +<em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">valet-de-chambre</em>, Jean de la Haye, who dedicated the volume to her +daughter. They are all graceful, and some of them worthy of the best +poets of her time. The title of this collection was, punning upon +her name, which means a pearl, <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Marguerites de la Marguerite des +princesses, très illustre reyne de Navarre.”</span> Marguerite’s stories +(<em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">nouvelles</em>) were more celebrated than her verses, and are said to +have been committed to writing under her own dictation. All the ladies +of her court possessed copies of them in writing. It is understood to +have been her intention to form them into ten days’ tales, of ten in +each day, so as to resemble the “Decameron” of Boccaccio, but only +eight days were finished at the time of her death, and the imperfect +work was published posthumously by her <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">valet-de-chambre</em>, Claude +Gruget, under the title of <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“L’Heptameron, ou Histoire des Amants +Fortunés.”</span> It is by far the best collection of stories of the sixteenth +century. They are told charmingly, in language which is a perfect model +of French composition of that age, but they are all tales of gallantry +such as could only be repeated in polite society in an age which was +essentially licentious. Queen Marguerite died on the 21st of December, +1549, and was buried in the cathedral of Pau. Her death was a subject +of regret to all that was good and all that was poetic, not only in +France, but in Europe, which had been accustomed to look upon her as +the tenth Muse and the fourth Grace:—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">Musarum decima et Charitum quarta, inclyta regum</div> + <div class="line indent2">Et soror et conjux, Marguaris illa jacet.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Before Marguerite’s death, her literary circle had been broken up by +the hatred of religious persecutors. Already, in 1536, the imprudent +boldness of Marot had rendered it impossible to protect him any +longer,<a class="pagenum" id="Page_338" title="338"></a> and he had been obliged to retire to a place of concealment, +from whence he sometimes paid a stealthy visit to her court. His +place of <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">valet-de-chambre</em> was given to a man of talents, even more +remarkable, and who shared equally the personal esteem of the queen of +Navarre, Bonaventure des Periers. Marot’s successor paid a graceful +compliment to him in a short poem entitled <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“L’Apologie de Marot +absent,”</span> published in 1537. The earlier part of the year following +witnessed the publication of the most remarkable work of Bonaventure +des Periers, the <span lang="la" xml:lang="la">“Cymbalum Mundi,”</span> concerning the real character +of which writers are still divided in opinion. In it Des Periers +introduced a new form of satire, imitated from the dialogues of Lucian. +The book consists of four dialogues, written in language which forms a +model of French composition, the personages introduced in them intended +evidently to represent living characters, whose names are concealed +in anagrams and other devices, among whom was Clement Marot. It was +the boldest declaration of scepticism which had yet issued from the +Epicurean school represented by Rabelais. The author sneers at the +Romish church as an imposture, ridicules the Protestants as seekers +after the philosopher’s stone, and shows disrespect to Christianity +itself. Such a book could hardly be published in Paris with impunity, +yet it was printed there, secretly, it is said, by a well-known +bookseller, Jean Morin, in the Rue St. Jacques, and therefore in the +immediate vicinity of the persecuting Sorbonne. Private information +had been given of the character of this work, possibly by the printer +himself or by one of his men, and on the 6th of March, 1538, when it +was on the eve of publication, the whole impression was seized at the +printer’s, and Morin himself was arrested and thrown into prison. He +was treated rigorously, and is understood to have escaped only by +disavowing all knowledge of the character of the book, and giving up +the name of the author. The first edition of the <span lang="la" xml:lang="la">“Cymbalum Mundi”</span> was +burnt, and Bonaventure des Periers, alarmed by the personal dangers +in which he was thus involved, retired from the court of the queen of +Navarre, and took refuge in the city of Lyons, where liberal opinions +at that time found a greater degree of tolerance than elsewhere. There +he printed a second edition of the <span lang="la" xml:lang="la">“Cymbalum Mundi,”</span> which<a class="pagenum" id="Page_339" title="339"></a> also was +burnt, and copies of either edition are now excessively rare.<a id="FNanchor_98" href="#Footnote_98" class="fnanchor">[98]</a> +Bonaventure des Periers felt so much the weight of the persecution in +which he had now involved himself, that, in the year 1539, as far as +can be ascertained, he put an end to his own existence. This event cast +a gloom over the court of the queen of Navarre, from which it seems +never to have entirely recovered. The school of scepticism to which Des +Periers belonged had now fallen into equal discredit with Catholics and +Protestants, and the latter looked upon Marguerite herself, who had +latterly conformed outwardly with Romanism, as an apostate from their +cause. Henri Estienne, in his <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Apologie pour Herodote,”</span> speaks of the +<span lang="la" xml:lang="la">“Cymbalum Mundi”</span> as an infamous book.</p> + +<p>Bonaventure des Periers left behind him another work more amusing to us +at the present day, and more characteristic of the literary tastes of +the court of Marguerite of Navarre. This is a collection of facetious +stories, which was published several years after the death of its +author, under the title of <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Les Contes, ou Les Nouvelles Récréations et +Joyeux Devis de Bonaventure des Periers.”</span> They have some resemblance +in style to the stories of the Heptameron, but are shorter, and rather +more facetious, and are characterised by their bitter spirit of satire +against the monks and popish clergy. Some of these stories remind us, +in their peculiar character and tone, of the <span lang="la" xml:lang="la">“Epistolæ Obscurorum +Virorum,”</span> as, for an example, the following, which is given as an +anecdote of the curé de Brou:—</p> + +<div class="quote"> + <p>“This curé had a way of his own to chant the different offices + of the church, and above all he disliked the way of saying the + Passion in the manner it was ordinarily said in churches, and he + chanted it quite differently. For when our Lord said anything to + the Jews, or to Pilate, he made him talk high and loud, so that + everybody could hear him, and when it was the Jews or somebody + else who spoke, he spoke so low that he could hardly be heard + at all. It happened that a lady of rank and importance, on her + way to Châteaudun, to keep there the festival of Easter, passed + through Brou on Good Friday, about ten o’clock in the morning,<a class="pagenum" id="Page_340" title="340"></a> + and, wishing to hear service, she went to the church where the + curé was officiating. When it came to the Passion, he said it + in his own manner, and made the whole church ring again when + he said <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">Quem quæritis</em>? But when it came to the reply, <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">Jesum + Nazarenum</em>, he spoke as low as he possibly could. And in this + manner he continued the Passion. The lady, who was very devout, + and, for a woman, well informed in the holy scriptures, and + attentive to the ecclesiastical ceremonies, felt scandalised + at this mode of chanting, and wished she had never entered the + church. She had a mind to speak to the curé, and tell him what + she thought of it; and for this purpose sent for him to come to + her after the service. When he came, she said to him, ‘Monsieur + le Curé, I don’t know where you learnt to officiate on a day like + this, when the people ought to be all humility; but to hear you + perform the service, is enough to drive away anybody’s devotion.’ + ‘How so, madame?’ said the curé. ‘How so?’ said she, ‘you have + said a Passion contrary to all rules of decency. When our Lord + speaks, you cry as if you were in the town-hall; and when it is a + Caiaphas, or Pilate, or the Jews, you speak softly like a young + bride. Is this becoming in one like you? are you fit to be a curé? + If you had what you deserve, you would be turned out of your + benefice, and then you would be made to know your fault!’ When the + curé had very attentively listened to her, he said, ‘Is this what + you had to say to me, madame? By my soul! it is very true, what + they say; and the truth is, that there are many people who talk of + things which they do not understand. Madame, I believe that I know + my office as well as another, and I beg all the world to know that + God is as well served in this parish according to its condition, + as in any place within a hundred leagues of it. I know very well + that the other curés chant the Passion quite differently; I could + easily chant it like them if I would; but they do not understand + their business at all. I should like to know if it becomes those + rogues of Jews to speak as loud as our Lord! No, no, madame; rest + assured that in my parish it is my will that God be the master, + and He shall be as long as I live; and let the others do in their + parishes according to their understanding.’”</p> +</div> + +<p>Another story, equally worthy of Ulric von Hutten, is satirical enough +on priestly pedantry:—</p> + +<div class="quote"> + <p>“There was a priest of a village who was as proud as might be, + because he had seen a little more than his Cato; for he had read + <cite lang="la" xml:lang="la">De Syntaxi</cite>, and his <cite lang="la" xml:lang="la">Fauste precor gelida</cite> [the first eclogue + of Baptista Mantuanus]. And this made him set up his feathers, + and talk very grand, using words that filled his mouth, in order + to make people think him a great doctor. Even at confession, he + made use of terms which astonished the poor people. One day he + was confessing a poor working man, of whom he asked, ‘Here, now, + my friend, tell me, art thou ambitious?’ The poor man said ‘No,’ + thinking this was a word which belonged to great lords, and almost + repented of having come to confess to this priest; for he had + already heard that he was such a great clerk, and that he spoke + so grandly, that nobody understood him, which he now knew by this + word <em>ambitious</em>; for although he might have heard it somewhere, + yet he did not know at all what it was. The priest went on to + ask ‘Art thou not a fornicator?’ ‘No,’ said the labourer, who + understood as little as<a class="pagenum" id="Page_341" title="341"></a> before. ‘Art thou not a gourmand?’ said + the priest. ‘No.’ ‘Art thou not superbe [<em>proud</em>]?’ ‘No.’ ‘Art + thou not iracund?’ ‘No.’ The priest seeing the man answer always + ‘No,’ was somewhat surprised. ‘Art thou not concupiscent?’ ‘No.’ + ‘And what art thou, then?’ said the priest. ‘I am,’ said he, ‘a + mason; here is my trowel!’”</p> +</div> + +<p>At this time “Pantagruelism” had mixed itself more or less largely in +all the satirical literature of France. It is very apparent in the +writings of Bonaventure des Periers, and in a considerable number of +satirical publications which now issued, many of them anonymously, or +under the then fashionable form of anagrams, from the press in France. +Among these writers were a few who, though far inferior to Rabelais, +may be considered as not unequal to Des Periers himself. One of the +most remarkable of these was a gentleman of Britany, Noel du Fail, lord +of La Hérissaye, who was, like so many of these satirists, a lawyer, +and who died, apparently at an advanced age, at the end of 1585, or +beginning of 1586. In his publications, according to the fashion of +that age, he concealed his name under an anagram, and called himself +Leon Ladulfil (doubling the <em>l</em> in the name Fail). Noel du Fail has +been called the ape of Rabelais, though the mere imitation is not very +apparent. He published (as far as has been ascertained), in 1548, +his <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Discours d’aucuns propos ruftiques facétieux, et de singulière +récréation.”</span> This was followed immediately by a work entitled +<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Baliverneries, ou Contes Nouveaux d’Eutrapel;”</span> but his last, and most +celebrated book, the <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Contes et Discours d’Eutrapel,”</span> was not printed +until 1586, after the death of its author. The writings of Noel du Fail +are full of charming pictures of rural life in the sixteenth century, +and, though sufficiently free, they present less than most similar +books of that period of the coarseness of Rabelais. I cannot say the +same of a book which is much more celebrated than either of these, +and the history of which is still enveloped in obscurity. I mean the +<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Moyen de Parvenir.”</span> This book, which is full of wit and humour, but +the licentiousness of which is carried to a degree which renders it +unreadable at the present day, is now ascribed by bibliographers, in +its present form, to Béroalde de Verville, a gentleman of a Protestant +family who had embraced Catholicism, and obtained advancements in the +church, and it was not printed until 1610, but it is supposed that in +its present<a class="pagenum" id="Page_342" title="342"></a> form it is only a revision of an earlier composition, +perhaps even an unacknowledged work of Rabelais himself, which had been +preserved in manuscript in Beroald’s family.</p> + +<p>Pantagruelism, or, if you like, Rabelaism, did not, during the +sixteenth century, make much progress beyond the limits of France. +In the Teutonic countries of Europe, and in England, the sceptical +sentiment was small in comparison with the religious feeling, and the +only satirical work at all resembling those we have been describing, +was the “Utopia” of Sir Thomas More, a work comparatively spiritless, +and which produced a very slight sensation. In Spain, the state of +social feeling was still less favourable to the writings of Rabelais, +yet he had there a worthy and true representative in the author of +Don Quixote. It was only in the seventeenth century that the works of +Rabelais were translated into English; but we must not forget that our +satirists of the last century, such as Swift and Sterne, derived their +inspiration chiefly from Rabelais, and from the Pantagruelistic writers +of the latter half of the sixteenth century. These latter were most of +them poor imitators of their original, and, like all poor imitators, +pursued to exaggeration his least worthy characteristics. There is +still some humour in the writings of Tabourot, the sieur des Accords, +especially in his <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Bigarrures,”</span> but the later productions, which +appeared under such names as Bruscambille and Tabarin, sink into mere +dull ribaldry.</p> + +<p>There had arisen, however, by the side of this satire which smelt +somewhat too much of the tavern, another satire, more serious, +which still contained a little of the style of Rabelais. The French +Protestants at first looked upon Rabelais as one of their towers of +strength, and embraced with gratitude the powerful protection they +received from the graceful queen of Navarre; but their gratitude +failed them, when Marguerite, though she never ceased to give them her +protection, conformed outwardly, from attachment to her brother, to the +forms of the Catholic faith, and they rejected the school of Rabelais +as a mere school of Atheists. Among them arose another school of +satire, a sort of branch from the other, which was represented in its +infancy by the celebrated scholar and printer, Henri Estienne, better +known among us as Henry Stephens.</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="Page_343" title="343"></a> +The remarkable book called an <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Apologie pour Herodote,”</span> arose out of +an attack upon its writer by the Romanists. Henri Estienne, who was +known as a staunch Protestant, published, at great expense, an edition +of Herodotus in Greek and Latin, and the zealous Catholics, out of +spite to the editor, decried his author, and spoke of Herodotus as a +mere collector of monstrous and incredible tales. Estienne, in revenge, +published what, under the form of an apology for Herodotus, was really +a violent attack on the Romish church. His argument is that all +historians must relate transactions which appear to many incredible, +and that the events of modern times were much more incredible, if +they were not known to be true, than anything which is recorded by +the historian of antiquity. After an introductory dissertation on the +light in which we ought to regard the fable of the Golden Age, and on +the moral character of the ancient peoples, he goes on to show that +their depravity was much less than that of the middle ages and of his +own time, indeed of all periods during which people were governed by +the Church of Rome. Not only did this dissoluteness of morals pervade +lay society, but the clergy were more vicious even than the people, to +whom they ought to serve as an example. A large part of the book is +filled with anecdotes of the immoral lives of the popish clergy of the +sixteenth century, and of their ignorance and bigotry; and he describes +in detail the methods employed by the Romish church to keep the mass +of the people in ignorance, and to repress all attempts at inquiry. +Out of all this, he says, had risen a school of atheists and scoffers, +represented by Rabelais and Bonaventure des Periers, both of whom he +mentions by name.</p> + +<p>As we approach the end of the sixteenth century, the struggle of +parties became more political than religious, but not less bitter than +before. The literature of the age of that celebrated <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Ligue,”</span> which +seemed at one time destined to overthrow the ancient royalty of France, +consisted chiefly of libellous and abusive pamphlets, but in the midst +of them there appeared a work far superior to any purely political +satire which had yet been seen, and the fame of which has never passed +away. Its object was to turn to ridicule the meeting of the Estates +of France, convoked by the duke of Mayenne, as leader of the Ligue, +and held at<a class="pagenum" id="Page_344" title="344"></a> Paris on the 10th of February, 1503. The grand object of +this meeting was to exclude Henri IV. from the throne; and the Spanish +party proposed to abolish the Salic law, and proclaim the infanta of +Spain queen of France. The French ligueurs proposed plans hardly less +unpatriotic, and the duke of Mayenne, indignant at the small account +made of his own personal pretensions, prorogued the meeting, and +persuaded the two parties to hold what proved a fruitless conference at +Suresne. It was the meeting of the Estates in Paris which gave rise to +that celebrated <cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Satyre Ménippée</cite>, of which it was said, that it served +the cause of Henri IV. as much as the battle of Ivry itself.</p> + +<p>This satire originated among a party of friends, of men distinguished +by learning, wit, and talent, though most of their names are obscure, +who used to meet in an evening in the hospitable house of one of +them, Jacques Gillot, on the Quai des Orfèvres in Paris, and there +talk satirically over the violence and insolence of the ligueurs. +They all belonged either to the bar or to the university, or to the +church. Gillot himself, a Burgundian, born about the year 1560, had +been a dean in the church of Langres, and afterwards canon of the +Sainte Chapelle in Paris, and was at this time conseiller-clerc to +the parliament of Paris. In 1589 he was committed to the Bastille, +but was soon afterwards liberated. Nicolas Rapin, one of his friends, +was born in 1535, and was said to have been the son of a priest, and +therefore illegitimate. He was a lawyer, a poet, and a soldier, for he +fought bravely in the ranks of Henri IV. at Ivry, and his devotion to +that prince was so well known, that he was banished from Paris by the +ligueurs, but had returned thither before the meeting of the Estates in +1593. Jean Passerat, born in 1534, was also a poet, and a professor in +the Collège Royal. Florent Chrestien, born at Orleans in 1540, had been +the tutor of Henri IV., and was well known as a man of sound learning. +The most learned of the party was Pierre Pithou, born at Troyes in +1539, who had abjured Calvinism to return to Romanism, and who held +a distinguished position at the French bar. The last of this little +party of men of letters was a canon of Rouen named Pierre le Roy, a +patriotic ecclesiastic, who held the office of almoner to the cardinal +de Bourbon. It was Le Roy who drew up the first sketch of the<a class="pagenum" id="Page_345" title="345"></a> <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Satyre +Ménippée,”</span> each of the others executed his part in the composition, and +Pithou finally revised it. For several years this remarkable satire +circulated only secretly, and in manuscript, and it was not printed +until Henri IV. was established on the throne.</p> + +<p>The satire opens with an account of the virtues of the <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Catholicon,”</span> +or nostrum for curing all political diseases, or the <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">higuiero +d’infierno</em>, which had been so effective in the hands of the Spaniards, +who invented it. Some of these are extraordinary enough. If, we are +told, the lieutenant of Don Philip “have some of this Catholicon on +his flags, he will enter without a blow into an enemy’s country, and +they will meet him with crosses and banners, legates and primates; and +though he ruin, ravage, usurp, massacre, and sack everything, and carry +away, ravish, burn, and reduce everything to a desert, the people of +the country will say, ‘These are our friends, they are good Catholics; +they do it for our peace, and for our mother holy church.’” “If an +indolent king amuse himself with refining this drug in his escurial, +let him write a word into Flanders to Father Ignatius, sealed with +the Catholicon, he will find him a man who (<em lang="la" xml:lang="la">salva conscientia</em>) will +assassinate his enemy whom he has not been able to conquer by arms in +twenty years.” This, of course, is an allusion to the murder of the +prince of Orange. “If this king proposes to assure his estates to his +children after his death, and to invade another’s kingdom at little +expense, let him write a word to Mendoza, his ambassador, or to Father +Commelet (one of the most seditious orators of the Ligue), and if he +write with the <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">higuiero del infierno</em>, at the bottom of his letter, +the words <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">Yo el Rey</em>, they will furnish him with an apostate monk, who +will go under a fair semblance, like a Judas, and assassinate in cold +blood a great king of France, his brother-in-law, in the middle of his +camp, without fear of God or men; they will do more, they will canonise +the murderer, and place this Judas above St. Peter, and baptise this +prodigious and horrible crime with the name of a providential event, +of which the godfathers will be cardinals, legates, and primates.” The +allusion here is to the assassination of Henri III. by Jacques Clement. +These are but a few of the marvellous properties of the political drug, +after the enumeration of which the report of the meeting of the Estates +is introduced by a<a class="pagenum" id="Page_346" title="346"></a> burlesque description of the grand procession +which preceded it. Then we are introduced to the hall of assembly, and +different subjects pictured on the tapestries which cover its walls, +all having reference to the politics of the Ligue, are described fully. +Then we come to the report of the meeting, and to the speeches of the +different speakers, each of which is a model of satire. It is not known +which of the little club of satirists wrote the open speech of the duke +of Mayenne, but that of the Roman legate is known to be the work of +Gillot, and that of the cardinal de Pelvé, a masterpiece of Latin in +the style of the <span lang="la" xml:lang="la">“Epistolæ Obscurorum Virorum,”</span> was written by Florent +Chrestien. Nicolas Rapin composed the “harangue” placed in the mouth +of the archbishop of Lyons, as well as that of Rose, the rector of +the university; and the long speech of Claude d’Aubray was by Pithou. +Passerat composed most of the verses which are scattered through the +book, and it is understood that Pithou finally revised the whole. This +mock report of the meeting of the Estates closes with a description of +a series of political pictures which are arranged on the wall of the +staircase of the hall.</p> + +<p>These pictures, as well as those on the tapestries of the hall of +meeting, are simply so many caricatures, and the same may be said of +another set of pictures, of which a description is given in one of the +satirical pieces which followed the <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Satyre Ménippée,”</span> on the same +side, entitled, <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Histoire des Singeries de la Ligue.”</span> It was amid +the political turmoil of the sixteenth century in France that modern +political caricature took its rise.</p> + + + +<hr class="chap" /> +<h2><a class="pagenum" id="Page_347" title="347"></a> +CHAPTER XX. +</h2> + +<p class="subtitle"> + POLITICAL CARICATURE IN ITS INFANCY.—THE REVERS DU JEU DES + SUYSSES.—CARICATURE IN FRANCE.—THE THREE ORDERS.—PERIOD OF THE + LEAGUE; CARICATURES AGAINST HENRI III.—CARICATURES AGAINST THE + LEAGUE.—CARICATURE IN FRANCE IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.—GENERAL + GALAS.—THE QUARREL OF AMBASSADORS.—CARICATURE AGAINST LOUIS + XIV.; WILLIAM OF FÜRSTEMBERG.</p> + + +<p>It has been already remarked that political caricature, in the modern +sense of the word, or even personal caricature, was inconsistent with +the state of things in the middle ages, until the arts of engraving +and printing became sufficiently developed, because it requires the +facility of quick and extensive circulation. The political or satirical +song was carried everywhere by the minstrel, but the satirical picture, +represented only in some solitary sculpture or illumination, could +hardly be finished before it had become useless even in the small +sphere of its influence, and then remained for ages a strange figure, +with no meaning that could be understood. No sooner, however, was +the art of printing introduced, than the importance of political +caricature was understood and turned to account. We have seen what a +powerful agent it became in the Reformation, which in spirit was no +less political than religious; but even before the great religious +movement had begun, this agent had been brought into activity. One +of the earliest engravings which can be called a caricature—perhaps +the oldest of our modern caricatures known—is represented in our +cut No. 171, is no doubt French, and belongs to the year 1499. It is +sufficiently explained by the history of the time.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut171.jpg" width="500" height="383" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 171. The Political Game of Cards.</div> +</div> + +<p>At the date just mentioned, Louis XII. of France, who had been king +less than twelve months, was newly married to Anne of Britany, and +had resolved upon an expedition into Italy, to unite the crown of +Naples<a class="pagenum" id="Page_348" title="348"></a> with that of France. Such an expedition affected many political +interests and Louis had to employ a certain amount of diplomacy with +his neighbours, several of whom were strongly opposed to his projects +of ambition, and among those who acted most openly were the Swiss, +who were believed to have been secretly supported by England and the +Netherlands. Louis, however, overcame their opposition, and obtained a +renewal of the alliance which had expired with his predecessor Charles +VIII. This temporary difficulty with the Swiss is the subject of our +caricature, the original of which bears the title <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Le Revers du Jeu +des Suysses”</span> (the defeat of the game of the Swiss). The princes most +interested are assembled round a card-table, at which are seated the +king of France to the right, opposite him the Swiss, and in front the +doge of Venice, who<a class="pagenum" id="Page_349" title="349"></a> was in alliance with the French against Milan. At +the moment represented, the king of France is announcing that he has a +flush of cards, the Swiss acknowledges the weakness of his hand, and +the doge lays down his cards—in fact, Louis XII. has won the game. +But the point of the caricature lies principally in the group around. +To the extreme right the king of England, Henry VII., distinguished +by his three armorial lions, and the king of Spain, are engaged in +earnest conversation. Behind the former stands the infanta Margarita, +who is evidently winking at the Swiss to give him information of the +state of the cards of his opponents. At her side stands the duke of +Wirtemberg, and just before him the pope, the infamous Alexander VI. +(Borgia), who, though in alliance with Louis, is not able, with all his +efforts, to read the king’s game, and looks on with evident anxiety. +Behind the doge of Venice stands the Italian refugee, Trivulci, an able +warrior, devoted to the interests of France; and at the doge’s right +hand, the emperor, holding in his hands another pack of cards, and +apparently exulting in the belief that he has thrown confusion into +the king of France’s game. In the background to the left are seen the +count Palatine and the marquis of Montserrat, who also look uncertain +about the result; and below the former appears the duke of Savoy, who +was giving assistance to the French designs. The duke of Lorraine is +serving drink to the gamblers, while the duke of Milan, who was at this +time playing rather a double part, is gathering up the cards which have +fallen to the ground, in order to make a game for himself. Louis XII. +carried his designs into execution; the duke of Milan, Ludovico Sforza, +nick-named the Moor, played his cards badly, lost his duchy, and died +in prison.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut172.jpg" width="400" height="426" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 172. The Three Orders of the State.</div> +</div> + +<p>Such is this earliest of political caricatures—and in this case it +was purely political—but the question of religion soon began not only +to mix itself up with the political question, but almost to absorb it, +as we have seen in the review of the history of caricature under the +Reformation. Before this period, indeed, political caricature was only +an affair between crowned heads, or between kings and their nobles, but +the religious agitation had originated a vast social movement, which +brought into play popular feelings and passions: these gave caricature +a totally new value.<a class="pagenum" id="Page_350" title="350"></a> Its power was greatest on the middle and lower +classes of society, that is, on the people, the <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">tiers état</em>, which was +now thrown prominently forward. The new social theory is proclaimed +in a print, of which a fac-simile will be found in the <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Musée de la +Caricature,”</span> by E. J. Jaime, and which, from the style and costume, +appears to be German. The three orders, the church, the lord of the +land, and the people, represented respectively by a bishop, a knight, +and a cultivator, stand upon the globe in an honourable equality, each +receiving direct from heaven the emblems or implements of his duties. +To the bishop is delivered his bible, to the husbandman his mattock, +and to the knight the sword with which he is to protect and defend the +others. This print—see cut No. 172—which bears the title, in Latin, +<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Quis te prætulit?”</span> (Who chose thee?) belongs probably to the earlier +half of the sixteenth century. A painting in the Hôtel de Ville of +Aix, in Provence, represents the same subject much more satirically, +intending to delineate the three orders as they were, and<a class="pagenum" id="Page_351" title="351"></a> not as they +ought to be. The divine hand is letting down from heaven an immense +frame in the form of a heart, in which is a picture representing a king +kneeling before the cross, intimating that the civil power was to be +subordinate to the ecclesiastical. The three orders are represented +by a cardinal, a noble, and a peasant, the latter of whom is bending +under the burthen of the heart, the whole of which is thrown upon his +shoulders, while the cardinal and the noble, the latter dressed in +the fashionable attire of the court minions of the day, are placing +one hand to the heart on each side, in a manner which shows that they +support none of the weight.</p> + +<p>Amid the fierce agitation which fell upon France in the sixteenth +century, for a while we find but few traces of the employment of +caricature by either party. The religious reformation there was rather +aristocratic than popular, and the reformers sought less to excite +the feelings of the multitude, which, indeed, went generally in the +contrary direction. There was, moreover, a character of gloom in the +religion of Calvin, which contracted strongly with the joyousness of +that of the followers of Luther; and the factions in France sought to +slaughter, rather than to laugh at, each other. The few caricatures +of this period which are known, are very bitter and coarse. As far as +I am aware, no early Huguenot caricatures are known, but there are a +few directed against the Huguenots. It was, however, with the rise of +the Ligue that the taste for political caricature may be said to have +taken root in France, and in that country it long continued to flourish +more than anywhere else. The first caricatures of the ligueurs were +directed against the person of the king, Henri de Valois, and possess +a brutality almost beyond description. It was now an object to keep up +the bitterness of spirit of the fanatical multitude. In one of these +caricatures a demon is represented waiting on the king to summon him +to a meeting of the “Estates” in hell; and in the distance we see +another demon flying away with him. Another relates to the murder of +the Guises, in 1588, which the ligueurs professed to ascribe to the +councils of M. d’Epernon, one of his favourites, on whom they looked +with great hatred. It is entitled, <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Soufflement et Conseil diabolique +de d’Epernon à Henri de Valois pour faccager les Catholiques.”</span><a class="pagenum" id="Page_352" title="352"></a> In the +middle of the picture stands the king, and beside him D’Epernon, who +is blowing into his ear with a bellows. On the ground before them lie +the headless corpses of the <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">deux frères Catholiques</em>, the duke of +Guise, and his brother the cardinal, while the executioner of royal +vengeance is holding up their heads by the hair. In the distance is +seen the castle of Blois, in which this tragedy took place; and on the +left of the picture appear the cardinal de Bourbon, the archbishop of +Blois, and other friends of the Guises, expressing their horror at the +deed. Henri III. was himself murdered in the year following, and the +caricatures against him became still more brutal during the period in +which the ligueurs tried to set up a king of their own in his place. In +one caricature, which has more of an emblematical character than most +of the others, he is pictured as <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Henri le Monstrueux;”</span> and in others, +entitled <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Les Hermaphrodites,”</span> he is exhibited under forms which point +at the infamous vices with which he was charged.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut173.jpg" width="450" height="496" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 173. The Assembly of Apes.</div> +</div> + +<p>The tide of caricature, however, soon turned in the contrary direction, +and the coarse, unprincipled abuse employed by the ligueurs found a +favourable contrast in the powerful wit and talent of the satirists +and caricaturists who now took up pen and pencil in the cause of +Henri IV. The former was, on the whole, the more formidable weapon, +but the latter represented to some eyes more vividly in picture what +had already been done in type. This was the case on both sides; the +caricature last mentioned was founded upon a very libellous satirical +pamphlet against Henri III., entitled <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“L’Isle des Hermaphrodites.”</span> It +is the case also with the first caricatures against the ligueurs, which +I have to mention. The Estates held in Paris by the duke of Mayenne +and the ligueurs for the purpose of electing a new king in opposition +to Henri of Navarre, were made the subject of the celebrated <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Satyre +Ménippée,”</span> in which the proceedings of these Estates were turned to +ridicule in the most admirable manner. Four large editions were sold +in less than as many months. Several caricatures arose out of or +accompanied this remarkable book. One of these is a rather large print, +entitled <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“La Singerie des Estats de la Ligue, l’an 1593,”</span> in which the +members of the Estates and the ligueurs are pictured with the heads +of monkeys. The central part represents the<a class="pagenum" id="Page_353" title="353"></a> meeting of the Estates, +at which the lieutenant-general of the kingdom, the duke of Mayenne, +seated on the throne, presides. Above him is suspended a large portrait +of the infanta of Spain, <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">L’Espousée de la Ligue</em>, as she is called +in the satire, ready to marry any one whom the Estates shall declare +king of France. In chairs, on each side of Mayenne, are the two “ladies +of honour” of the said future spouse. To the left are seated in a row +the celebrated council of sixteen (<em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">les seize</em>), reduced at this time +to twelve, because the duke of Mayenne, to check their turbulence, +had caused four of them to be hanged. They wear the favours of the +future spouse. Opposite to them are the representatives of the three +orders, all, we are told, devoted to the service of “the said lady.” +Before the throne<a class="pagenum" id="Page_354" title="354"></a> are the two musicians of the Ligue, one described as +Phelipottin, the blind performer on the viel, or hurdy-gurdy, to the +Ligue, and his subordinate, the player on the triangle, “kept at the +expense of the future spouse.” These were to entertain the assembly +during the pauses between the orations of the various speakers. All +this is a satire on the efforts of the king of Spain to establish a +monarch of his own choice. On the bench behind the musicians sit the +deputies from Lyons, Poitiers, Orleans, and Rheims, cities where the +influence of the Ligue was strong, discussing the question as to who +should be king. Thus much of this picture is represented in our cut +No. 173. There are other groups of figures in the representation of +the assembly of the Estates; and there are two side compartments—that +on the left representing a forge, on which the fragments of a broken +king are laid to be refounded, and a multitude of apes, with hammers +and an anvil, ready to work him into a new king; the other side of +the picture represents the circumstances of a then well-known act of +tyranny perpetrated by the Estates of the Ligue. Another large and +well-executed engraving, published at Paris in 1594, immediately after +Henri IV. had obtained possession of his capital, also represents the +grand procession of the Ligue as described at the commencement of the +<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Satyre Ménippée,”</span> and was intended to hold up to ridicule the warlike +temper of the French Catholic clergy. It is entitled, <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“La Procession de +la Ligue.”</span></p> + +<p>Henri’s triumph over the Ligue was made the subject of a series of +three caricatures, or perhaps, more correctly, of a caricature in three +divisions. The first is entitled the <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Naissance de la Ligue,”</span> and +represents it under the form of a monster with three heads, severally +those of a wolf, a fox, and a serpent, issuing from hell-mouth. Under +it are the following lines:—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">L’enfer, pour asservir soubs ses loix tout le monde,</div> + <div class="line">Vomit ce monstre hideux, fait d’un loup ravisseur,</div> + <div class="line">D’un renard enveilly, et d’un serpent immonde,</div> + <div class="line">Affublé d’un manteau propre à toute couleur.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>The second division, the <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Declin de la Ligue,”</span> representing its +downfall,<a class="pagenum" id="Page_355" title="355"></a> is copied in our cut No. 174. Henri of Navarre, in the form +of a lion, has pounced fiercely upon it, and not too soon, for it had +already seized the crown and sceptre. In the distance, the sun of +national prosperity is seen rising over the country. The third picture, +the <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Effets de la Ligue,”</span> represents the destruction of the kingdom and +the slaughter of the people, of which the Ligue had been the cause.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut174.jpg" width="350" height="352" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 174. The Destruction of the Ligue.</div> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut175.jpg" width="350" height="413" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 175. General Galas.</div> +</div> + +<p>The caricatures in France became more numerous during the seventeenth +century, but they are either so elaborate or so obscure, that each +requires almost a dissertation to explain it, and they often relate to +questions or events which have little interest for us at the present +day. Several rather spirited ones appeared at the time of the disgrace +of the mareschal d’Ancre and his wife; and the inglorious war with +the Netherlands, in 1635, furnished the occasion for others, for +the French, as usual, could make merry in their reverses as well as +in their successes. The imperialist general Galas inflicted serious +defeat on the French armies, and compelled them to a very disastrous +retreat from the countries they had invaded, and they tried to amuse +themselves at the expense of their conqueror. Galas was rather +remarkable for obesity, and the French<a class="pagenum" id="Page_356" title="356"></a> caricaturists of the day made +this circumstance a subject for their satire. Our cut No. 175 is copied +from a print in which the magnitude of the stomach of General Galas +is certainly somewhat exaggerated. He is represented, not apparently +with any good reason, as puffed up with his own importance, which is +evaporating in smoke; and along with the smoke thus issuing from his +mouth, he is made to proclaim his greatness in the following rather +doggrel verses:—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">Je suis ce grand Galas, autrefois dans l’armée</div> + <div class="line">La gloire de l’Espagne et de mes compagnons;</div> + <div class="line">Maintenant je ne suis qu’un corps plein de fumée,</div> + <div class="line">Pour avoir trop mangé de raves et d’oignons.</div> + <div class="line">Gargantua jamais n’eut une telle panse, &c.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut176.jpg" width="500" height="351" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 176. Batteville Humiliated.</div> +</div> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="Page_357" title="357"></a> +Caricatures in France began to be tolerably abundant during the middle +of the seventeenth century, but under the crushing tyranny of Louis +XIV., the freedom of the press, in all its forms, ceased to exist, and +caricatures relating to France, unless they came from the court party, +had to be published in other countries, especially in Holland. It will +be sufficient to give two examples from the reign of Louis XIV. In the +year 1661, a dispute arose in London between the ambassador of France, +M. D’Estrades, and the Spanish ambassador, the baron de Batteville, +on the question of precedence, which was carried so far as to give +rise to a tumult in the streets of the English capital. At this very +moment, a new Spanish ambassador, the marquis de Fuentes, was on his +way to Paris, but Louis, indignant at Batteville’s behaviour in London, +sent orders to stop Fuentes on the frontier, and forbid his further +advance into his kingdom. The king of Spain disavowed the act of his +ambassador in England, who was recalled, and Fuentes received orders +to make an<a class="pagenum" id="Page_358" title="358"></a> apology to king Louis. This event was made the subject of +a rather boasting caricature, the greater portion of which is given in +our cut No. 176. It is entitled <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Batteville vient adorer le Soliel”</span> +(Batteville comes to worship the sun). In the original the sun is seen +shining in the upper corner of the picture to the right, and presenting +the juvenile face of Louis XIV., but the caricaturist appears to have +substituted Batteville in the place of Fuentes. Beneath the whole are +the following boastful lines:—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">On ne va plus à Rome, on vient de Rome en France,</div> + <div class="line">Mériter le pardon de quelque grande offence.</div> + <div class="line">L’Italie tout entière est soumise à ces loix;</div> + <div class="line">Un Espagnol s’oppose à ce droit de nos rois.</div> + <div class="line">Mais un Français puissant joua des bastonnades,</div> + <div class="line">Et punit l’insolent de ses rodomontades.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut177.jpg" width="300" height="355" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 177. William of Fürstemberg.</div> +</div> + +<p>From this time there sprung up many caricatures against the Spaniards; +but the most ferocious caricature, or rather book of caricatures, of +the reign of Louis XIV., came from without, and was directed against +the king and his ministers and courtiers. The revocation of the edict +of Nantes took place in October, 1685, and was preceded and followed +by frightful persecutions of the Protestants, which drove away in +thousands the earnest, intelligent, and industrious part of the +population of France. They carried with them a deep hatred to their +oppressors, and sought refuge especially in the countries most hostile +to Louis XIV.—England and Holland. The latter country, where they +then enjoyed the greatest freedom of action, soon sent forth numerous +satirical books and prints against the French king and his ministers, +of which the book just alluded to was one of the most remarkable. It +is entitled <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Les Heros de la Ligue, ou la Procession Monacale conduite +par Louis XIV. pour la Conversion des Protestans de son Royaume,”</span> and +consists of a series of twenty-four most grotesque faces, intended to +represent the ministers and courtiers of the <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“grand roi”</span> most odious +to the Calvinists. It must have provoked their wrath exceedingly. I +give one example, and as it is difficult to select, I take the first in +the list, which represents William of Fürstemberg, one of the German +princes devoted to Louis XIV., who, by his intrigues, had forced him +into the archbishopric of Cologne, by which he became<a class="pagenum" id="Page_359" title="359"></a> an elector +of the empire. For many reasons William of Fürstemberg was hated by +the French Protestants, but it is not quite clear why he is here +represented in the character of one of the low merchants of the Halles. +Over the picture, in the original, we read, <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">Guillaume de Furstemberg, +crie, ite, missa est</em>, and beneath are the four lines:—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">J’ay quitté mon pais pour servir à la France,</div> + <div class="line">Soit par ma trahison, soit par ma lacheté;</div> + <div class="line">J’ay troublé les états par ma méchanceté,</div> + <div class="line indent4">Une abbaye est ma recompense.</div> + </div> +</div> + + + +<hr class="chap" /> +<h2><a class="pagenum" id="Page_360" title="360"></a> +CHAPTER XXI. +</h2> + +<p class="subtitle"> + EARLY POLITICAL CARICATURE IN ENGLAND.—THE SATIRICAL + WRITINGS AND PICTURES OF THE COMMONWEALTH PERIOD.—SATIRES + AGAINST THE BISHOPS; BISHOP WILLIAMS.—CARICATURES ON THE + CAVALIERS; SIR JOHN SUCKLING.—THE ROARING BOYS; VIOLENCE OF + THE ROYALIST SOLDIERS.—CONTEST BETWEEN THE PRESBYTERIANS AND + INDEPENDENTS.—GRINDING THE KING’S NOSE.—PLAYING-CARDS USED AS + THE MEDIUM FOR CARICATURE; HASELRIGGE AND LAMBERT.—SHROVETIDE.</p> + + +<p>During the sixteenth century caricature can hardly be said to have +existed in England, and it did not come much into fashion, until the +approach of the great struggle which convulsed our country in the +century following. The popular reformers have always been the first to +appreciate the value of pictorial satire as an offensive weapon. Such +was the case with the German reformers in the age of Luther; as it was +again with the English reformers in the days of Charles I., a period +which we may justly consider as that of the birth of English political +caricature. From 1640 to 1661 the press launched forth an absolute +deluge of political pamphlets, many of which were of a satirical +character, scurrilous in form and language, and, on whatever side +they were written, very unscrupulous in regard to the truth of their +statements. Among them appeared a not unfrequent engraving, seldom +well executed, whether on copper or wood, but displaying a coarse and +pungent wit that must have told with great effect on those for whom it +was intended. The first objects of attack in these caricatures were +the Episcopalian party in the church and the profaneness and insolence +of the cavaliers. The Puritans or Presbyterians who took the lead +in, and at first directed, the great political movement, looked upon +Episcopalianism as differing in little from popery, and, at all events, +as leading direct to it. Arminianism was with them only another<a class="pagenum" id="Page_361" title="361"></a> name +for the same thing, and was equally detested. In a caricature published +in 1641, Arminius is represented supported on one side by Heresy, +wearing the triple crown, while on the other side Truth is turning away +from him, and carrying with her the Bible. It was the indiscreet zeal +of archbishop Laud which led to the triumph of the Puritan party, and +the downfall of the episcopal church government, and Laud became the +butt for attacks of all descriptions, in pamphlets, songs and satirical +prints, the latter usually figuring in the titles of the pamphlets. +Laud was especially obnoxious to the Puritans for the bitterness with +which he had persecuted them.</p> + +<p>In 1640 Laud was committed to the Tower, an event which was hailed +as the first grand step towards the overthrow of the bishops. As an +example of the feeling of exultation displayed on this occasion by his +enemies, we may quote a few lines from a satirical song, published in +1641, and entitled “The Organs Eccho. To the Tune of the Cathedrall +Service.” It is a general attack on the prelacy, and opens with a cry +of triumph over the fall of William Laud, of whom the song says—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="line">As he was in his braverie,</div> + <div class="line">And thought to bring us all in slaverie,</div> + <div class="line">The parliament found out his knaverie;</div> + <div class="line indent5">And so fell William.</div> + <div class="line indent5">Alas! poore William!</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="line">His pope-like domineering,</div> + <div class="line">And some other tricks appearing,</div> + <div class="line">Provok’d Sir Edward Deering</div> + <div class="line indent5">To blame the old prelate.</div> + <div class="line indent5">Alas! poore prelate!</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="line">Some say he was in hope</div> + <div class="line">To bring England againe to th’ pope;</div> + <div class="line">But now he is in danger of an axe or a rope.</div> + <div class="line indent5">Farewell, old Canterbury.</div> + <div class="line indent5">Alas! poore Canterbury!</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Wren, bishop of Ely, was another of the more obnoxious of the prelates, +and there was hardly less joy among the popular party when he was +committed to the Tower in the course of the year 1641. Another<a class="pagenum" id="Page_362" title="362"></a> song, +in verse similar to the last, contains a general review of the demerits +of the members of the prelacy, under the title of “The Bishops Last +Good-night.” At the head of the broadside on which it is printed stand +two satirical woodcuts, but it must be confessed that the words of the +song are better than the engraving. The bishop of Ely, we are told, had +just gone to join his friend Laud in the Tower—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">Ely, thou hast alway to thy power</div> + <div class="line">Left the church naked in a storme and showre,</div> + <div class="line">And now for ’t thou must to thy old friend i’ th’ Tower.</div> + <div class="line indent5">To the Tower must Ely;</div> + <div class="line indent5">Come away, Ely.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>A third obnoxious prelate was bishop Williams. Williams was a Welshman +who had been high in favour with James I., but he had given offence +to the government of Charles I., and been imprisoned in the Tower +during the earlier part of that king’s reign. He was released by the +parliament in 1640, and so far regained the favour of king Charles, +that he was raised to the archbishopric of York in the year following. +When the civil war began, he retired into Wales, and garrisoned Conway +for the king. Williams’s warlike behaviour was the source of much mirth +among the Roundheads. In 1642 was published a large caricature on the +three classes to whom the parliamentarians were especially hostile—the +royalist judges, the prelates, and the ruffling cavaliers; represented +here, as we are told in writing in the copy among the king’s pamphlets, +by judge Mallet, bishop Williams, and colonel Lunsford. These three +figures are placed in as many compartments with doggrel verses under +each. That of bishop Williams is copied in our cut No. 178. The bishop +is armed cap-à-pie, and in the distance behind him are seen on one +side his cathedral church, and on the other his war-horse. The verses +beneath it contain an allusion to this prelate’s Welsh extraction in +the orthography of some of the words:—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">Oh, sir, I’me ready, did you never heere</div> + <div class="line">How forward I have byn t’is many a yeare,</div> + <div class="line">T’oppose the practice dat is now on foote,</div> + <div class="line">Which plucks my brethren up both pranch and roote?</div> + <div class="line">My posture and my hart toth well agree</div> + <div class="line">To fight; now plud is up: come, follow mee.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut178.jpg" width="350" height="561" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 178. The Church Militant.</div> +</div> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="Page_363" title="363"></a> +The country had now begun to experience the miseries of war, and to +smart under them; and the cavaliers were especially reproached for the +cruelty with which they plundered and ill-treated people whenever they +gained the mastery. Colonel Lunsford was especially notorious for the +barbarities committed by himself and his men—to such a degree that he +was popularly accused of eating children, a charge which is frequently +alluded to in the popular songs of the time. Thus one of these songs +couples him with two other obnoxious royalists:—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">From Fielding, and from Vavasour,</div> + <div class="line indent2">Both ill-affected men,</div> + <div class="line">From Lunsford eke deliver us,</div> + <div class="line indent2">Who eateth up children.</div> + </div> +</div> + + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut179.jpg" width="350" height="439" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 179. The Sucklington Faction.</div> +</div> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="Page_364" title="364"></a> +In the third compartment of the caricature just mentioned, we see in +the background of the picture, behind colonel Lunsford, his soldiers +occupied in burning towns, and massacring women and children. The model +of the gay cavalier of the earlier period of this great revolution, +before the war had broken out in its intensity, was the courtly Sir +John Suckling, the poet of the drawing-room and tavern, the admired +of “roaring boys,” and the hated of rigid Puritans. Sir John outdid +his companions in extravagance in everything which was fashionable, +and the display of his zeal in the cause of royalty was not calculated +to conciliate the reformers.<a class="pagenum" id="Page_365" title="365"></a> When the king led an army against the +Scottish Covenanters in 1639, Suckling raised a troop of a hundred +horse at his own expense; but they gained more reputation by their +extraordinary dress than by their courage, and the whole affair was +made a subject of ridicule. From this time the name of Suckling became +identified with that gay and profligate class who, disgusted by the +outward show of sanctity which the Puritans affected, rushed into +the other extreme, and became notorious for their profaneness, their +libertinism, and their indulgence in vice, which threw a certain degree +of discredit upon the royalist party. There is a large broadside +among the King’s Pamphlets in the British Museum, entitled, “The +Sucklington Faction; or (Sucklings) Roaring Boys.” It is one of those +satirical compositions which were then fashionable under the title +of “Characters,” and is illustrated by an engraving, from which our +cut No. 179 is copied. This engraving, which from its superior style +is perhaps the work of a foreign artist, represents the interior of +a chamber, in which two of the Roaring Boys are engaged in drinking +and smoking, and forms a curious picture of contemporary manners. +Underneath the engraving we read the following lines:—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="line">Much meate doth gluttony produce,</div> + <div class="indent2">And makes a man a swine;</div> + <div class="line">But hee’s a temperate man indeed</div> + <div class="indent2">That with a leafe can dine.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="line">Hee needes no napkin for his handes,</div> + <div class="indent2">His fingers for to wipe;</div> + <div class="line">He hath his kitchin in a box,</div> + <div class="indent2">His roast meate in a pipe.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>When the war spread itself over the country, many of these Roaring +Boys became soldiers, and disgraced the profession by rapacity and +cruelty. The pamphlets of the parliamentarians abound with complaints +of the outrages perpetrated by the Cavaliers, and the evil appears to +have been increased by the ill-conduct of the auxiliaries brought over +from Ireland to serve the king, who were especially objects of hatred +to the Puritans. A broadside among the king’s pamphlets is adorned +by a satirical picture of “The English Irish Souldier, with his new +discipline, new armes, old<a class="pagenum" id="Page_366" title="366"></a> stomacke, and new taken pillage; who had +rather eat than fight.” It was published in 1642. The English Irish +soldier is, as may be supposed, heavily laden with plunder. In 1646 +appeared another caricature, which is copied in our cut No. 180. It +represents “England’s Wolfe with Eagles clawes: the cruell impieties +of bloud-thirsty royalists and blasphemous anti-parliamentarians, +under the command of that inhumane prince Rupert, Digby, and the rest, +wherein the barbarous crueltie of our civill uncivill warres is briefly +discovered.” England’s wolf, as will be seen, is dressed in the high +fashion of the gay courtiers of the time.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut180.jpg" width="300" height="541" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 180. “England’s Wolf.”</div> +</div> + +<p>A few large caricatures, embodying satire of a more comprehensive +description, appeared from time to time, during this troubled age. Such +is a large emblematical picture, published on the 9th of November, +1642,<a class="pagenum" id="Page_367" title="367"></a> and entitled “Heraclitus’ Dream,” for the scene is supposed to +be manifested to the philosopher in a vision. In the middle of the +picture the sheep are seen shearing their shepherd; while one cuts his +hair, another treats his beard in the same manner. Under the picture we +read the couplet—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">The flocke that was wont to be shorne by the herd,</div> + <div class="line">Now polleth the shepherd in spight of his beard.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut181.jpg" width="350" height="315" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 181. Folly Uppermost.</div> +</div> + +<p>On the 19th of January, 1647, a caricature appeared under the title +“An Embleme of the Times.” On one side War, represented as a giant in +armour, is seen standing upon a heap of dead and mutilated bodies, +while Hypocrisy, in the form of a woman with two faces, is flying +towards a distant city. “Libertines,” “anti-sabbatarians,” and others, +are hastening in the same direction; and the angel of pestilence, +hovering over the city, is ready to pounce upon it.</p> + +<p>The party of the parliament was now triumphant, and the question of +religion again became the subject of dispute. The Presbyterians had +been establishing a sort of tyranny over men’s minds, and sought to +proscribe all other sects, till their intolerance gradually raised up +a strong and<a class="pagenum" id="Page_368" title="368"></a> general feeling of resistance. Since 1643 a brisk war of +political pamphlets had been carried on between the Presbyterians and +their opponents, when, in 1647, the Independents, whose cause had been +espoused by the army, gained the mastery. “Sir John Presbyter” or to +use the more familiar phrase, “Jack Presbyter,” furnished a subject +for frequent satire, and the Presbyterians were not slow in returning +the blow. In the collection in the British Museum we find a caricature +which must have come from the Presbyterian party, entitled “Reall +Persecution, or the Foundation of a general Toleration, displaied +and portrayed by a proper emblem, and adorned with the same flowers +wherewith the scoffers of this last age have strowed their libellous +pamphlets.” The group which occupies the middle part of this broadside, +is copied in our cut No. 181. It has its separate title, “The Picture +of an English Persecutor, or a foole-ridden ante-Presbeterian sectary.” +(I give the spelling as in the original.) Folly is riding on the +sectarian, whom he holds with a bridle, the sectarian having the ears +of an ass. The following homely rhymes are placed in the mouth of +Folly,—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">Behould my habit, like my witt,</div> + <div class="line">Equalls his on whom sitt.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Anti-Presbyterian is, as will be seen, dressed in the height of the +fashion, and says—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">My cursed speeches against Presbetry</div> + <div class="line">Declares unto the world my foolery.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>The mortification of the Presbyterians led in Scotland to the +proclamation of Charles II. as king, and to the ill-fated expedition +which ended in the battle of Worcester in 1651, when satirical +pamphlets, ballads, and caricatures against the Scottish Presbyterians +became for a while very popular. One of the best of the latter +is represented in our cut No. 182. Its object is to ridicule the +conditions which the Presbyterians exacted from the young prince +before they offered him the crown. It is printed in the middle of the +broadside, in prose, published on the 14th of July, 1651, with the +general title, “Old Sayings and Predictions verified and fulfilled, +touching the young King of Scotland and his gude subjects.”<a class="pagenum" id="Page_369" title="369"></a> The +picture has its separate title, “The Scots holding their young kinges +nose to the grinstone.” followed by the lines—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">Come to the grinstone, Charles, ’tis now to late</div> + <div class="line">To recolect, ’tis presbiterian fate,</div> + <div class="line">You covinant pretenders, must I bee</div> + <div class="line">The subject of youer tradgie-comedie?</div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut182.jpg" width="500" height="368" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 182. Conditions of Royalty.</div> +</div> + +<p>In fact, the picture represents Presbyterianism—Jack +Presbyter—holding the young king’s nose to the grindstone, which is +turned by the Scots, personified as Jockey. The following lines are put +into the mouths of the three actors in this scene:—</p> + +<div class="drama-container"> + <div class="drama"> + <div class="line"><em>Jockey.</em>—I, Jockey, turne the stone of all your plots,</div> + <div class="line indent4">For none turnes faster than the turne-coat Scots.</div> + <div class="line"><em>Presbyter.</em>—We for our ends did make thee king, be sure,</div> + <div class="line indent5">Not to rule us, we will not that endure.</div> + <div class="line"><em>King.</em>—You deep dissemblers, I kow what you doe,</div> + <div class="line indent3">And, for revenges sake, I will dissemble too.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Charles’s defeat and flight from Worcester furnished materials for a<a class="pagenum" id="Page_370" title="370"></a> +much more elaborate caricature than most of the similar productions +of this period, and of a somewhat singular design. It was published +on the 6th of November, 1651, and bears the title “A Mad Designe; or +a Description of the king of Scots marching in his disguise, after +the Rout at Worcester.” A long, and not unnecessary, explanation of +the several groups forming this picture, enables us to understand it. +On the left Charles is seated on the globe “in a melancholy posture.” +A little to the right, and nearly in front, the bishop of Clogher is +performing mass, at which lords Ormond and Inchquin, in the shapes of +strange animals, hold torches, and the lord Taaf, in the form of a +monkey, holds up the bishop’s train. The Scottish army is seen marching +up, consisting, according to the description, of papists, prelatical +malignants, Presbyterians, and old cavaliers; the latter of whom are +represented by the “fooles head upon a pole in the rear.” The next +group consists of two monkeys, one with a fiddle, the other carrying +a long staff with a torch at the end, concerning which we learn that +“The two ridiculous anticks, one with a fiddle, and the other with +a torch, set forth the ridiculousness of their condition when they +marched into England, carried up with high thoughts, yet altogether +in the darke, having onely a fooles bawble to be their light to walke +by, mirth of their own whimsies to keep up their spirits, and a +sheathed sword to truste in.” Next come a troop of women, children, +and papists, lamenting over their defeat. Two monkeys on foot, and one +on horseback, follow, the latter riding with his face turned to the +horse’s tail, and carrying in his hand a spit with provisions on it. +It is explained as “The Scots Kings flight from Worcester, represented +by the foole on horseback, riding backward, turning his face every way +in feares, ushered by duke Hambleton and the lord Wilmot.” Lastly, +a crowd of women with flags bring up the rear. It cannot be said +that the wit displayed in this satire is of the very highest order.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut183.jpg" width="300" height="501" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 183. Arthur Haselrigg.</div> +</div> + +<p>After this period we meet with comparatively few caricatures until the +death of Cromwell, and the eve of the Restoration, when there came +a new and fierce struggle of political parties. The Dutch were the +subject of some satirical prints and pamphlets in 1652; and we find a +small number of caricatures on the social evils, such as drunkenness +and gluttony, and on<a class="pagenum" id="Page_371" title="371"></a> one or two subjects of minor agitation. With the +close of the Commonwealth a new form of caricature came in. Playing +cards had, during this seventeenth century, been employed for various +purposes which were quite alien to their original character. In France +they were made the means of conveying instruction to children. In +England, at the time of which we are speaking, they were adopted as +the medium for spreading political caricature. The earliest of these +packs of cards known is one which appears to have been published at the +very moment of the restoration of Charles II., and which was, perhaps, +engraved in Holland. It contains a series of caricatures on the +principal acts of the Commonwealth, and on the parliamentary leaders. +Among other cards of a similar character which have been preserved is +a pack relating to the popish plot, another<a class="pagenum" id="Page_372" title="372"></a> relating to the Rye House +conspiracy, one on the Mississippi scheme, published in Holland, and +one on the South Sea bubble.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut184.jpg" width="300" height="517" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 184. General Lambert.</div> +</div> + +<p>The earliest of these packs of satirical cards, that on the +Commonwealth, belonged a few years ago to a lady of the name of Prest, +and is very fully described in a paper by Mr. Pettigrew, printed in +the “Journal of the British Archæological Association.” Each of the +fifty-two cards presents a picture with a satirical title. Thus the +ace of diamonds represents “The High Court of Justice, or Oliver’s +Slaughter House.” The eight of diamonds is represented in our cut No. +183; its subject is “Don Haselrigg, Knight of the Codled Braine.” It +is hardly necesiary to say that Sir Arthur Haselrigg acted a very +prominent and remarkable part during the whole of the Commonwealth +period, and that his manners<a class="pagenum" id="Page_373" title="373"></a> were impetuous and authoritative, which +was probably the meaning of the epithet here given to him. The card +of the king of diamonds represents rather unequivocally the subject +indicated by its title, “Sir H. Mildmay solicits a citizen’s wife, for +which his owne corrects him.” It is an allusion to one of the petty +scandals of the republican period. The eight of hearts is a satire on +major-general Lambert. This able and distinguished man was remarkably +fond of flowers, took great pleasure in cultivating them, and was +skilful in drawing them, which was one of his favourite amusements. +He withdrew to Amsterdam during the Protectorate, and there gave +full indulgence to this love of flowers, and I need hardly say that +it was the age of the great tulip mania in Holland. When, after the +Restoration, he was involved in the fate of the regicides, but had +his sentence commuted for thirty years of imprisonment, he alleviated +the dulness of his long confinement in the isle of Guernsey by the +same amusement. In the card we have engraved, Lambert is represented +in his garden, holding a large tulip in his hand; and it is no doubt +in allusion to this innocent taste that he is here entitled “Lambert, +Knight of the Golden Tulip.”</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut185.jpg" width="350" height="315" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 185. Shrovetide.</div> +</div> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="Page_374" title="374"></a>The Restoration furnished better songs than prints, and many years +passed before any caricatures worthy of notice appeared in England. +Even burlesque subjects of any merit occur but rarely, and I hardly +know of one which is worth describing here. Among the best of those I +have met with, is a pair of plates, published in 1660, representing +Lent and Shrovetide, and these, I believe, are copied or imitated from +foreign prints. Lent is come as a thin miserable-looking knight-errant, +appropriately armed and mounted, ready to give battle to Shrovetide, +whose good living is pernicious to the whole community, and he abuses +his opponent in good round terms. In the companion print, of which our +cut No. 185 is a copy, Shrovetide appears as a jolly champion, quite +ready to meet his enemy. He is best described in the following lines, +extracted from the verses which accompany the prints:—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">Fatt Shrovetyde, mounted on a good fatt oxe,</div> + <div class="line">Supposd that Lent was mad, or caught a foxe,<a id="FNanchor_99" href="#Footnote_99" class="fnanchor">[99]</a></div> + <div class="line">Armed cap-a-pea from head unto the heel,</div> + <div class="line">A spit his long sword, somewhat worse than steale,</div> + <div class="line">(Sheath’d in a fatt pigge and a peece of porke),</div> + <div class="line">His bottles fild with wine, well stopt with corke;</div> + <div class="line">The two plump capons fluttering at his crupper;</div> + <div class="line">And ’s shoulders lac’d with sawsages for supper;</div> + <div class="line">The gridir’n (like a well strung instrument)</div> + <div class="line">Hung at his backe, and for the turnament</div> + <div class="line">His helmet is a brasse pott, and his flagge</div> + <div class="line">A cookes foule apron, which the wind doth wagg,</div> + <div class="line">Fixd to a broome: thus bravely he did ride,</div> + <div class="line">And boldly to his foe he thus replied.</div> + </div> +</div> + + + + +<hr class="chap" /> +<h2><a class="pagenum" id="Page_375" title="375"></a> +CHAPTER XXII. +</h2> + +<p class="subtitle"> + ENGLISH COMEDY.—BEN JONSON.—THE OTHER WRITERS OF HIS + SCHOOL.—INTERRUPTION OF DRAMATIC PERFORMANCES.—COMEDY AFTER + THE RESTORATION.—THE HOWARDS BROTHERS; THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM; + THE REHEARSAL.—WRITERS OF COMEDY IN THE LATTER PART OF + THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.—INDECENCY OF THE STAGE.—COLLEY + CIBBER.—FOOTE.</p> + + +<p>In England, as in Athens of old, perfect comedy arose gradually out +of the personalities of the rude dramatic attempts of an earlier +period. Such productions as Ralph Roister Doister and Gammer Gurton’s +Needle were mere imperfect attempts at, we may perhaps rather say +feelers towards, comedy itself—that drama, the object of which was to +caricature, and thus to dissect and apply correctives to, the vices +and weaknesses of contemporary society. The genius of Shakespeare was +far too exquisitely poetical to qualify him for a task like this; it +wanted some one who could use the lancet and scalpel skilfully, but +soberly, and who was not liable to be led astray by too much vigour of +imagination.</p> + +<p>Such a one was Ben Jonson, whom we may rightly consider as the father +of English comedy. “Bartholomew Fair,” first performed at the Hope +Theatre, on Bankside, London, on the 31st of October, 1614, is the +most perfect and most remarkable example of the truly English comedy, +remarkable, among many other things, for the extraordinary number of +characters who were brought upon the stage in one piece, and who are +all at the same time grouped and individualised with a skill that +reminds us of the pictorial triumphs of a Callot or a Hogarth. London +life is placed before us in all its more popular forms in one grand +tableau, the one in which it would show itself in its more grotesque +attitudes; the London citizen, his vain or easy wife, sharpers of +every description, and their victims no less varied in character, +the petty city officers, all come<a class="pagenum" id="Page_376" title="376"></a> in for their share of satire. The +different groups are distributed so naturally, that it is difficult +to say who is the principal character of the piece—and who ever was +the principal character in Bartholomew Fair? Perhaps the character of +Cokes, the young booby squire from Harrow—for in those times even +so near London as Harrow, a young squire was considered to be in all +probability but a young country booby—strikes us most. It is said to +have been at a later period the favourite character of Charles II. +Among the other principal characters of the play are a proctor of +the Arches Court named Littlewit, who imagines himself to be a <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">bel +esprit</em> of the first order; his wife, and her mother, dame Purecraft, +who is a widow; Justice Overdo, a London magistrate, to whose ward, +Grace Wellborn, Cokes is affianced in marriage; a zealous Puritan, +named Zeal-of-the-land Busy, who is a suitor to the widow Purecraft, +herself also a Puritan; Winwife, Busy’s rival; and a gamester named +Tom Quarlous, who figures as Winwife’s friend and companion. All these +meet in town, on the morning of the fair, Cokes under the care of a +sort of steward or upper servant, named Waspe, who was of a quarrelsome +disposition, and separate in groups among the crowd which filled +Smithfield and its vicinity, each having their separate adventures, but +meeting from time to time, and reassembling at the end. Cokes behaves +as a simpleton from the country, longs for everything, and wonders at +everything, buys up toys and gingerbread, is separated from all his +companions, robbed of his money and even of his outer garments, and in +this condition finally settles down at a puppet-show. Meanwhile the +Puritan Busy, by his zeal against the “heathen abominations” of the +fair on one hand, and Waspe, by his quarrelsome temper on the other, +fall into a series of scrapes, which end in both being carried to the +stocks. They are there joined by another important personage. Justice +Overdo, who is distinguished by an extraordinary zeal for the right +administration of justice and the suppression of social vices of all +kinds, has come into the fair in disguise, in order to make himself +acquainted with its various abuses, and he passes among them unknown; +and his inquisitive intermeddling brings him into a variety of mishaps, +in the course of which he also is seized by the constable, and allows +himself to be taken to the stocks, rather than<a class="pagenum" id="Page_377" title="377"></a> betray his identity. +Thus all three, Busy, Waspe, and Overdo, are placed in the stocks +at the same time; but Waspe, by a clever trick, escapes, and leaves +the Puritan and the justice confined together, the one looking upon +himself as a martyr for religion’s sake, the other rather glorying in +suffering through his disinterested zeal for the common good. They, +too, after a while make their escape through an accidental oversight of +their keepers, and mix again with the mob. The women, likewise, have +been separated from their male companions, have fallen among sharpers +and bullies, been made drunk, and escaped but narrowly from still +worse disasters. They all finally meet before the puppet-show, which +has fixed the attention of Cokes, and there justice Overdo discovers +himself. Such are the materials of Ben Jonson’s “Bartholomew Fair,” +the busiest and most amusing of plays. It is said, when first acted, +to have given great satisfaction to king James, by the ridicule thrown +upon the Puritans, and it continued to be a favourite comedy when +revived after the Restoration.</p> + +<p>“The Alchemist,” by the same author, preceded “Bartholomew Fair,” by +four years, and was designed as a satire upon a class of impostors +who, in that age, were among the greatest pests of society, and were +instruments, one way or other, in the greatest crimes of the day. +“The Alchemist” belongs, also, to the pure English comedy, but its +plot is more simple and distinct than that of “Bartholomew Fair.” It +involves events which may have occurred frequently, at periods when the +metropolis was from time to time exposed to the vicissitudes of the +plague. On one of these occasions, Lovewit, a London gentleman, obliged +to quit the metropolis in order to avoid the plague, leaves his town +house to the charge of one man-servant, Face, who proves dishonest, +associates himself with a rogue named Subtle, and an immoral woman +named Dol Common, and introduces them into the house, which is made the +basis for their subsequent operations. Subtle assumes the character of +a magician and alchemist, while Dol acts various female parts, and Face +goes about alluring people into their snares. Among their dupes are a +knight who lives upon the town, two English Puritans from Amsterdam, a +lawyer’s clerk, a tobacco man, a young country squire, and his sister +dame Pliant, a widow. The various intrigues in which these individuals +are involved, show us the way in<a class="pagenum" id="Page_378" title="378"></a> which the pretended conjurers and +alchemists contributed to all the vices of the town. At length their +base dealings are on the point of being exposed by the cunning of +one upon whom they had attempted to impose, when Truewit, the master +of the house, returns unexpectedly, and all is discovered, but the +alchemist and his female associate contrive to escape. The object of +their last intrigue had been to entrap dame Pliant, who was rich, into +a marriage with a needy sharper; and Lovewit, finding the lady in the +house, and liking her, marries her himself, and, in consideration of +the satisfaction he has thus procured, forgives his unfaithful servant. +Many have considered the Alchemist to be the best of Jonson’s dramas. +“Epicœne, or the Silent Woman,” which belongs to the year 1609, is +another satirical picture of London society, in which the same class of +characters appear. Morose, an eccentric gentleman of fortune, who has +a great horror for noise, and even obliges his servants to communicate +with him by signs, has a nephew, a young knight named Sir Dauphine +Eugenie, with whom he is dissatisfied, and he refuses to allow him +money for his support. A plot is laid by his friends, whereby the uncle +is led into a marriage with a supposed silent woman, named Epicœne, +but she only sustains the character until the wedding formalities +are completed, and these are followed by a scene of noise and riot, +which completely horrifies Morose, and leads to a reconciliation with +his nephew, to whom he makes over half his fortune. The earliest of +Ben Jonson’s comedies, “Every Man in his Humour,” was composed in +its present form in 1598, and is the first of these dramatic satires +on the manners and character of the citizens of London, of whom it +was fashionable at the courts of James I. and Charles I. to speak +contemptuously. Kno’well, an old gentleman of respectability, is +highly displeased with his son Edward, because the latter has taken to +writing poetry, and has formed a friendship with another gentleman of +his own age, who loves poetry and frequents the rather gay society of +the poets and wits of the town. Wellbred has a half-brother, a “plain +squire,” named Downright, and a sister married to a rich city merchant +named Kitely. Kitely, the merchant, who is extremely jealous of his +wife, has a great desire to reform Wellbred, and draw him to a steadier +line of life, a sentiment in which Downright<a class="pagenum" id="Page_379" title="379"></a> heartily joins. Kitely’s +jealousy, and the steps taken to reform Wellbred, lead to the most +comic parts of the play, which concludes with the marriage of young +Kno’well to Kitely’s daughter, Miss Bridget, and his reconciliation +with his father. Among the other characters in the piece are captain +Bobadil, “a blustering coward,” justice Clement, “an old merry +magistrate,” his clerk, Roger Formal, and a country gull and a town +gull.</p> + +<p>These comedies of London life became popular, and continued so +during this and the following reign—in fact, the mass of those who +attended the theatres could understand and appreciate them better +than any others, and, what was more, they felt them. Among Jonson’s +contemporaries in the literature of this English comedy were Middleton +and Thomas Heywood, both very prolific writers, Chapman, and Marston. +Certain classes of characters are continually repeated in this comedy, +because they belonged especially to the London society of the time, +but the employment and distribution of these characters admitted of +great variations, and they perhaps often had at the time a special +interest, as representing known individuals, or as being combined in a +plot which was built upon real incidents in London life. Among these +were usually a country gentleman of fortune, who was very avaricious, +and had a spendthrift son, or who had a daughter, a rich heiress, who +was the object of the intrigues of spendthrift suitors; young heirs, +who have just come to their estates, and are spending them in London; +young country squires who are easy victims; a needy knight, as poor +in principles as in money, who lived upon the public in every way he +could; designing and unscrupulous women; bullies and sharpers of every +description. In fact, we seem to be always in the smell of the tavern, +and in the midst of dissipation. Then there are fat, sleek, and wealthy +citizens, whole souls are entirely wrapt up in their merchandise, +who are proud, nevertheless, of their position; and easy, credulous +city wives, who are fond of finery and of praise, eager for gaiety +and display, impatient of the rule of husbands, or of the dulness of +home, and very ready to listen to the advances of the gay gallants +from the court end of the town, or from the tavern. The city tradesman +has generally an apprentice or two, sometimes very sober<a class="pagenum" id="Page_380" title="380"></a> but perhaps +more frequently dissipated, who play their parts in the piece; and +often a daughter, who is either a model of modesty and all the domestic +virtues, and is finally the reward of some hero of good principles, +who has been temporarily led astray, and his character misinterpreted, +or who is gay and intriguing, and comes to disgrace. But the favourite +idea of excellence, or, to use a technical phrase, the <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">beau ideal</em> +of this comedy, appears to have been a wild youth, who goes through +every scene of dissipation, in a gentlemanly manner (as the term was +then understood), and comes out at the end of the play as an honest, +virtuous man, and receives the reward for qualities which he had not +previously displayed.</p> + +<p>Sometimes the writers of this comedy indulged in personal, or even +in political, allusions which brought them into trouble. In the year +1605, Ben Jonson, George Chapman, and John Marston, wrote jointly a +comedy entitled “Eastward Hoe.” It is a very excellent and amusing +comedy, and was very popular. Touchstone, an honest goldsmith in the +city, has two apprentices, Golding, a sober and industrious youth, and +Quicksilver, who is an irreclaimable rake. Touchstone has also two +daughters, the eldest of whom, Gertrude, affects the fine lady, and +is ambitious of finding a husband in the fashionable world, while her +younger sister, Mildred, is all virtue and humility. An attachment +arises between Golding and Mildred. Another character in this drama +is a needy, scheming knight, who lives upon the town, and rejoices in +the name of Sir Petronel Flash. Sir Petronel is attracted by the rich +dowry which the young lady, Gertrude, had to expect, pays his court +to her, and easily works upon her vanity; and, her mother encouraging +her, they are hastily married, contrary to the wishes of her father. +The knight is supposed to possess a magnificent castle somewhere to the +east of London, and the young bride and her mother proceed in search of +this, from which the comedy derives its title of “Eastward Hoe,” but +they are involved in various disagreeable adventures in the search, +which ends in the conviction that it is all a fable. Another character +in the play is a greedy and unprincipled usurer, who is so jealous of +his young and pretty wife, that he keeps her under lock and key; and +this man is deeply involved in money-lending with Sir Petronel Flash, +and they are engaged in a series of unprincipled<a class="pagenum" id="Page_381" title="381"></a> transactions, which +lead to the disgrace of them all, and in the course of which the virtue +of the usurer’s wife falls a sacrifice. Meanwhile the fortunes of the +two apprentices have been advancing in directly opposite directions. +Quicksilver, the unworthy apprentice, leaves his master, proceeds +from bad to worse, and finally is committed to prison, for a crime +the punishment of which was death. On the other hand, Golding has not +only gained his master’s esteem and married his daughter Mildred, and +been adopted as the heir to his wealth, but he has merited the respect +of his fellow-citizens, and has been promoted in municipal rank. It +becomes Golding’s duty to preside over the trial of his old fellow +apprentice Quicksilver, but the latter escapes through Golding’s +generosity.</p> + +<p>There is some sound morality in the spirit of this comedy, and a +very large amount of immorality in the text. There was, indeed, a +coarse licence in the relations of society at this period, which are +but too faithfully represented in its literature. But there are two +circumstances, accidentally attached to this drama, which give it +a peculiar interest. When brought out upon the stage it contained +reflections upon Scotchmen which provoked the anger of king James I. +to such a degree, that all the authors were seized and thrown into +prison, and narrowly escaped the loss of their ears and noses, but they +obtained their release with some difficulty, and only through powerful +intercession. In the copy which has been brought down to us through +the press, we find no reflections whatever upon Scotchmen, so that it +must have been altered from the original text. When we consider that, +at this time, the English court and capital were crowded with needy +Scottish adventurers, who were looked upon with great jealousy, it is +not improbable that in the original form of the comedy, Sir Petronel +Flash may have been a Scotchman, and intended not only as a satire upon +the Scottish adventurers in general, but to have been designed for some +one in particular who had the means of bringing upon the authors the +extreme displeasure of the court.</p> + +<p>The other circumstance which has given celebrity to this comedy, is one +of still greater interest. After the Restoration, it was new modelled +by Nicholas Tate, and brought again upon the stage under the title of +“Cuckold’s Haven.” Perhaps through this remodelled edition, Hogarth<a class="pagenum" id="Page_382" title="382"></a> +took from the comedy of “Eastward Hoe,” the idea of his series of +plates of the history of the Idle and Industrious Apprentices.</p> + +<p>When we consider the ridicule which was continually thrown upon them +in this earlier period of the English comedy, we can easily understand +the bitterness with which the Puritans regarded the stage and the +drama. When they obtained power, the stage, as might be expected, was +suppressed, and for some years England was without a theatre. At the +Restoration, however, the theatres were opened again, and with greater +freedom than ever. At first the old comedies of the days of James I. +and Charles I. were revived, and many of them, modified and adapted to +the new circumstances, were again brought upon the stage. The original +comedies which appeared immediately after the Restoration, were often +marked with a political tinge; as the stage saw its natural protectors +in the court, and in the court party, it embraced their politics; and +Puritans, Roundheads, Whigs, all whose principles were supposed to be +contrary to royalty and arbitrary power, fell under its satire. Such +was the character of the comedy of “The Cheats,” by a play-writer of +some repute named Wilson, which was brought out in 1662. The object +of this play appears to have been, in the first place, to satirise +the Nonconformists or Puritanical clergy—with whom were classed the +astrologers and conjurers, who had increased in number during the +Commonwealth time, and infested society more than ever—and the city +magistrates, who were not looked upon as being generally over-loyal. +The three cheats who are the heroes of this comedy, are Scruple, the +Nonconformist, Mopus, a pretender to physic and astrology, and alderman +Whitebroth. Direct personal attacks had been introduced into the comedy +of the Restoration, and it is probable that somebody of influence was +satirised under the name of Scruple, for the play was suppressed by +authority, and at a later period, when it was revived, the prologue +announces this fact in the following words:—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">Sad news, my masters; and too true, I fear,</div> + <div class="line">For us—Scruple’s a silenc’d minister.</div> + <div class="line">Would ye the cause? The brethren snivel, and say,</div> + <div class="line">’Tis scandalous that any cheat but they.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Many of the dramatists of the Restoration were men of good and<a class="pagenum" id="Page_383" title="383"></a> +aristocratic families, witty and profligate cavaliers, who had returned +from exile with their king. The family of the earl of Berkshire +produced no less than four writers of comedy, all brothers, Edward +Howard, colonel Henry Howard, sir Robert Howard, and James Howard, +while their sister, the lady Elizabeth Howard, was married to the +poet Dryden. Edward Howard’s first dramatic piece was a tragi-comedy +entitled “The Usurper,” which came out in 1668, and was intended as +a satire upon Cromwell. His best known comedies were “The Man of +Newmarket,” and “Woman’s Conquest.” Colonel Henry Howard composed a +comedy entitled “United Kingdoms,” which appears not to have been +printed. To James Howard, the youngest of the brothers, the play-going +public, even then rather a large one, owed “The English Mounsieur,” +and “All Mistaken, or the Mad Couple.” Sir Robert Howard was the best +writer of the four, and wrote both tragedies and comedies, which were +afterwards published collectively. The best of his comedies is “The +Committee,” which was first brought on the stage in 1665, and through +some chance, certainly not by its merit, continued to be an acting play +during the whole of the last century.</p> + +<p>“The Committee” is by far the best of the dramatic writings of the +Howards. Its design was to turn to ridicule the Commonwealth men and +the Puritans. Colonel Blunt and colonel Careless are two royalists, +whose estates are in the hands of the committee of sequestrations, +and who repair to London for the purpose of compounding for them. +The chairman of the committee is a Mr. Day, a worldly-minded and +sufficiently selfish Puritan, but who is ruled by his more crafty and +still less scrupulous wife, a designing and very talkative woman. Both +are of low origin, for Mrs. Day had been a kitchen-woman, and both are +very proud and very tyrannical. Among the other principal characters +are Abel Day, their son, Obadiah, the clerk to the committee, a man in +the interest of the Days, and an Irish servant named Teague, who had +been the servant of Careless’s dear friend, a royalist officer killed +in battle, and whom the colonel finds in great distress, and takes into +his own service out of charity. The character of Teague is a very poor +caricature upon an Irishman, and his blunders and bulls are of a very +spiritless description. Here is an example.<a class="pagenum" id="Page_384" title="384"></a> Teague has overheard the +two colonels state that they should be obliged to take the Covenant, +and express their reluctance to do it, and in his inconsiderate zeal, +he hurries away to try if he cannot take the covenant for them, and +thus save them a disagreeable operation. In the street he meets a +wandering bookseller—a class of pedlars who were then common—and a +scene takes place which is best given in the words of the original:—</p> + +<div class="hang1"> + <p><em>Bookseller.</em>—New books, new books! A Desperate Plot and + Engagement of the Bloody Cavaliers! Mr. Saltmarshe’s Alarum to the + Nation, after having been three days dead! Mercurius Britannicus—</p> + <p><em>Teague.</em>—How’s that? They cannot live in Ireland after they are + dead three days!</p> + <p><em>Book.</em>—Mercurius Britannicus, or the Weekly Post, or the Solemn + League and Covenant!</p> + <p><em>Teag.</em>—What is that you say? Is it the Covenant you have?</p> + <p><em>Book.</em>—Yes; what then, sir?</p> + <p><em>Teag.</em>—Which is that Covenant?</p> + <p><em>Book.</em>—Why, this is the Covenant.</p> + <p><em>Teag.</em>—Well, I must take that Covenant.</p> + <p><em>Book.</em>—You take my commodities?</p> + <p><em>Teag.</em>—I must take that Covenant, upon my soul, now.</p> + <p><em>Book.</em>—Stand off, sir, or I’ll set you further!</p> + <p><em>Teag.</em>—Well, upon my soul, now, I will take the Covenant for my + master.</p> + <p><em>Book.</em>—Your master must pay me for’t, then!</p> + <p><em>Teag.</em>—I must take it first, and my master will pay you + afterwards.</p> + <p><em>Book.</em>—You must pay me now.</p> + <p><em>Teag.</em>—Oh! that I will [<em>Knocks him down</em>]. Now you’re paid, you + thief of the world. Here’s Covenants enough to poison the whole + nation.</p> + <p class="exit">[<em>Exit.</em></p> + <p><em>Book.</em>—What a devil ails this fellow? [<em>Crying</em>]. He did + not come to rob me, certainly; for he has not taken above + two-pennyworth of lamentable ware away; but I feel the rascal’s + fingers. I may light upon my wild Irishman again, and, if I do, I + will fix him with some catchpole, that shall be worse than his own + country bogs.</p> + <p class="exit">[<em>Exit.</em></p> +</div> + +<p>In the sequel, Teague is caught by the constables, and is liberated +at the interference of his master, who pays twopence for the book. +The plot of the comedy is but a simple one, and is neither skilfully +nor naturally carried out. Colonel Blunt comes to London from Reading +in the<a class="pagenum" id="Page_385" title="385"></a> inside of a stage-coach, having for his travelling companions +Mrs. Day, her supposed daughter Ruth, and Arabella, a young lady whose +father is recently dead, leaving his estates in the hands of the +committee of sequestrations. Ruth is, in truth, a young lady whose +estates the Days have, under similar circumstances, robbed her of, and +it is their design to treat Arabella in the same manner, under disguise +of forcing her to marry their son Abel, a vain silly lad. To effect +this, as the committee itself requires some influencing to engage them +in the selfish plans of their chairman, Day and his wife forge a letter +from the exiled king, complimenting the former on his great power and +influence and talents as a statesman, and offering him great rewards +if he will secretly promote his cause. Day communicates this to the +committee under the pretext that it is his duty to make them acquainted +with all such perfidious designs that might come to his knowledge, and +they, convinced of his honesty and value to them, give up Arabella’s +estates to the Days, and she falls entirely under their power. +Meanwhile, on the one hand, Arabella has gained the confidence of +Ruth, who makes her acquainted with the whole plot against her and her +estates, and on the other, Ruth falls in love with colonel Careless, +and colonel Blunt is smitten with the charms of Arabella, and all this +takes place in the committee room. Various incidents follow, which seem +not very much to the purpose, but at last, as the marriage of Arabella +to Abel Day is pressed forward, the two young ladies, although as yet +they have hardly had an interview with the colonels, resolve to make +their escape from the house of the chairman of the committee, and fly +to their lovers for protection. A short absence from the house of Mr. +and Mrs. Day and their son together, presents the desired opportunity, +and Day having accidentally left his keys behind him, the idea suggests +itself to Ruth to open his cabinet, and gain possession of the deeds +and papers of her own estates and those of Arabella. As she had before +this secretly observed the private drawer in which they were placed, +she met with no difficulty in effecting her purpose, and not only found +these documents, but also with them the forged letter from the king, +and some letters addressed to Day by young women whom he was secretly +keeping, and who demanded money for the support of children they had by +him, and<a class="pagenum" id="Page_386" title="386"></a> alluded to matters of a still more serious character. Ruth +takes possession of all these, and thus laden, the two damsels hurry +away, and reach without interruption the house where they were to meet +the colonels. The Days return home immediately after the departure +of their wards, and at once suspect the real state of affairs, which +is fully confirmed, when Mr. Day finds that his most private drawer +has been opened, and his most important papers carried off. They +immediately proceed in search of the fugitives, having sent orders for +a detachment of soldiers to assist them, and the house in which the +lovers have taken refuge is surrounded before they have had time to +escape. Finding it useless to attempt resistance by force, the besieged +call for a parley, and then Ruth frightens Day by acquainting him with +the contents of the private letters she has become possessed of, and +his wife by the knowledge she has obtained of the forged letter, which +also she has in her possession. The Days are thus overreached, and the +play ends with a general reconciliation. The ladies are left with the +titles of their estates, and with their lovers, and we are left to +suppose that they afterwards married, and were happy.</p> + +<p>The plot of “The Committee,” it will be seen, is not a very capital +one, but the manner in which it is worked out is still worse. The +dialogue is extremely tame, and the incidents are badly interwoven. +When I say that the example of wit given above is the best in the play, +and that there are not many attempts at wit in it, it will hardly be +thought that it could be amusing, and we cannot but feel astonished +at the popularity which it once enjoyed. This popularity, indeed, is +only explained by the fashion of ridiculing the Puritans, which then +prevailed so strongly; and it perhaps retained its place on the stage +during the last century chiefly from the circumstance of its wanting +the objectionable qualities which characterised the written plays of +the latter half of the seventeenth century.</p> + +<p>“The Committee” is, after all, one of the very best comedies of the +school of dramatists represented by the brothers Howard. Contemporary +with this school of flat comedies, there was a school of equally +inflated tragedy, and both soon became objects of ridicule to the +satirists of the day. Of these, one of the boldest was George Villiers, +duke of Buckingham,<a class="pagenum" id="Page_387" title="387"></a> the son of the favourite of king James I., and +equally celebrated for his talents and his profligacy. Buckingham is +said to have planned and begun his satirical comedy of “The Rehearsal” +as early as the year 1663, and to have had it ready for representation +towards the December of 1665, when the breaking out of the great plague +caused the theatres to be closed. After this interruption its author, +who was a desultory writer, appears to have laid it aside for some +time and then, new objects for satire having presented themselves, he +altered and modified it, and it was finally completed in 1671, when it +was brought out at the Theatre Royal in Covent Garden. It is said that +Buckingham was assisted in the composition of this satire, but it is +not stated in what manner, by Butler, and by Martin Clifford, of the +Charter-house. It is understood that, in the first form of his satire, +Buckingham had chosen the Hon. Edward Howard for its hero, and that he +afterwards exchanged him for Sir William Davenant, but he finally fixed +upon Dryden, whose tragedies and comedies are certainly not the best of +his writings—possibly some personal pique may have had an influence +in the selection. Nevertheless, with Dryden, the Howards, Davenant, +and one or two other writers of comedy, come in for their share of +ridicule. Dryden, under the name of Bayes, has composed a new drama, +and a friend named Johnson goes to witness the rehearsal of this play, +taking with him a country friend of the name of Smith. The play itself +is a piece of mockery throughout, made up of parodies, often very +happy, on the different play-writers of the day, and especially upon +Dryden; and it is mixed up with a running conversation between Bayes, +the author, and his two visitors, which is full of satirical humour. +The first part of the prologue explains to us sufficiently the spirit +in which this satire was written.</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">We might well call this short mock-play of ours</div> + <div class="line">A posie made of weeds instead of flowers;</div> + <div class="line">Yet such have been presented to your noses,</div> + <div class="line">And there are such, I fear, who thought ’em roses.</div> + <div class="line">Would some of ’em were here, to see this night</div> + <div class="line">What stuff it is in which they took delight.</div> + <div class="line">Here, brisk, insipid rogues, for wit, let fall</div> + <div class="line">Sometimes dull sense, but oft’ner none at all;</div> + <a class="pagenum" id="Page_388" title="388"></a> + <div class="line">There, strutting heroes, with a grim-fac’d train,</div> + <div class="line">Shalt brave the gods, in king Cambyses vein.</div> + <div class="line">For (changing rules, of late, as if men writ</div> + <div class="line">In spite of reason, nature, art, and wit)</div> + <div class="line">Our poets make us laugh at tragedy,</div> + <div class="line">And with their comedies they make us cry.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>A short account of this satire will, perhaps, be best understood, if I +explain that the antagonism of two contending kings of Granada having +been a favourite idea of Dryden in his tragedies, Buckingham is said to +have designed to ridicule him in making two, not rival, but associate +kings of Brentford, though others say that these two kings of Brentford +were intended for a sneer upon king Charles II. and the duke of York. +These two kings are the heroes of Bayes’s play. The first act of +“The Rehearsal” consists of a discussion between Bayes, Johnson, and +Smith, on the general character of the play, in which Bayes exhibits +a large amount of vanity and self-confidence, said to have been a +characteristic of all these play-writers of the earlier period of the +Restoration, and he informs them that he has “made a prologue and an +epilogue, which may both serve for either; that is, the prologue for +the epilogue, or the epilogue for the prologue, (do you mark!) nay, +they may both serve, too, ’egad, for any other play as well as this.” +Smith observes, “That’s indeed artificial.” Finally Bayes explains, +that as other authors, in their prologues, sought to flatter and +propitiate their audience, in order to gain their favourable opinion of +the plot, he, on the contrary, intended to force their applause out of +them by mere dint of terror, and for that purpose, he had introduced +as speakers of his prologue, no less personages than Thunder and +Lightning. This prologue, disengaged from the remarks of Bayes and his +friends, runs as follows:—</p> + +<p class="center"><em>Enter</em> <span class="smcap">Thunder</span> <em>and</em> <span class="smcap">Lightning</span>.</p> + +<div class="drama-container"> + <div class="drama"> + <div class="line"><em>Thun.</em>—I am the bold Thunder.</div> + <div class="line"><em>Light.</em>—The brisk Lightning I.</div> + <div class="line"><em>Thun.</em>—I am the bravest Hector of the sky.</div> + <div class="line"><em>Light.</em>—And I fair Helen, that made Hector die.</div> + <div class="line"><em>Thun.</em>—I strike men down.</div> + <div class="line"><em>Light.</em>—I fire the town.</div> +<a class="pagenum" id="Page_389" title="389"></a> + <div class="line"><em>Thun</em>.—Let critics take heed how they grumble,</div> + <div class="line indent4">For then I begin for to rumble.</div> + <div class="line"><em>Light</em>.—Let the ladies allow us their graces,</div> + <div class="line indent4">Or I’ll blast all the paint on their faces,</div> + <div class="line indent4">And dry up their peter to soot.</div> + <div class="line"><em>Thun</em>.—Let the critics look to’t.</div> + <div class="line"><em>Light</em>.—Let the ladies look to’t.</div> + <div class="line"><em>Thun</em>.—For the Thunder will do’t.</div> + <div class="line"><em>Light</em>.—For the Lightning will shoot.</div> + <div class="line"><em>Thun</em>.—I’ll give you dash for dash.</div> + <div class="line"><em>Light</em>.—I’ll give you flash for flash.</div> + <div class="line indent4">Gallants, I’ll singe your feather.</div> + <div class="line"><em>Thun</em>.—I’ll Thunder you together.</div> + <div class="line"><em>Both</em>.—Look to’t, look to’t; we’ll do’t, we’ll do’t; look to’t; we’ll do’t.</div> + <div class="exit">[<em>Twice or thrice repeated.</em></div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Bayes calls this “but a slash of a prologue,” in reply to which, Smith +observes, “Yes; ’tis short, indeed, but very terrible.” It is a parody +on a scene in “The Slighted Maid,” a play by Sir Robert Stapleton, +where Thunder and Lightning were introduced, and their conversation +begins in the same words. But the poet has another difficulty on which +he desires the opinion of his visitors. “I have made,” he says, “one of +the most delicate, dainty similes in the whole world, ’egad, if I knew +how to apply it. ’Tis,” he adds, “an allusion to love.” This is the +simile—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">So boar and sow, when any storm is nigh</div> + <div class="line">Snuff up, and smell it gathering in the sky;</div> + <div class="line">Boar beckons sow to trot in chesnut groves,</div> + <div class="line">And there consummate their unfinished loves:</div> + <div class="line">Pensive in mud they wallow all alone,</div> + <div class="line">And snore and gruntle to each others moan.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>It is a rather coarse, but clever parody on a simile in Dryden’s +“Conquest of Granada,” part ii.:—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">So two kind turtles, when a storm is nigh,</div> + <div class="line">Look up, and see it gathering in the sky;</div> + <div class="line">Each calls his mate to shelter in the groves,</div> + <div class="line">Leaving, in murmurs, their unfinished loves;</div> + <div class="line">Perch’d on some dropping branch, they sit alone,</div> + <div class="line">And coo, and hearken to each other’s moan.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="Page_390" title="390"></a>It is decided that the simile should be added to the prologue, for, as +Johnson remarks to Bayes, “Faith, ’tis extraordinary fine, and very +applicable to Thunder and Lightning, methinks, because it speaks of a +storm.” In the second act we come to the opening of the play, the first +scene consisting of whispering, in ridicule of a scene in Davenant’s +“Play-house to Let,” where Drake senior says—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">Draw up your men,</div> + <div class="line">And in low whispers give your orders out.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>In fact, the Gentleman-Usher and the Physician of the two kings of +Brentford appear upon the scene alone, and discuss a plot to dethrone +the two kings of Brentford, which they communicate by whispers into +each other’s ears, which are totally inaudible. In Scene ii., “Enter +the two kings, hand in hand,” and Bayes remarks to his visitors, +“Oh! these are now the two kings of Brentford; take notice of their +style—’twas never yet upon the stage; but, if you like it, I could +make a shift, perhaps, to show you a whole play, writ all just so.” The +kings begin, rather familiarly, because, as Bayes adds, “they are both +persons of the same quality:”—</p> + +<div class="drama-container"> + <div class="drama"> + <div class="line"><em>1st King.</em>—Did you observe their whispers, brother king?</div> + <div class="line"><em>2nd King.</em>—I did, and heard, besides, a grave bird sing,</div> + <div class="line indent5">That they intend, sweetheart, to play us pranks.</div> + + <div class="line"><em>1st King.</em>—If that design appears,</div> + <div class="line indent5">I’ll lay them by the ears,</div> + <div class="line indent5">Until I make ’em crack.</div> + + <div class="line"><em>2nd King.</em>—And so will I, i’ fack!</div> + + <div class="line"><em>1st King.</em>—You must begin, <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">mon foi</em>.</div> + + <div class="line"><em>2nd King.</em>—Sweet sir, <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">pardonnez moi</em>.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Bayes observes that he makes the two kings talk French in order +“to show their breeding.” In the third act, Bayes introduces a new +character, prince Prettyman, a parody upon the character of Leonidas, +in Dryden’s “Marriage-a-la-Mode.” The prince falls asleep, and then +his beloved Cloris comes in, and is surprised, upon which Bayes +remarks, “Now, here she must make a simile.” “Where’s the necessity of +that, Mr. Bayes?” asks the critical Mr. Smith. “Oh,” replies Bayes, +“because she’s surprised. That’s a general rule. You must ever make +a simile<a class="pagenum" id="Page_391" title="391"></a> when you are surprised; ’tis a new way of writing.” Now +we have another parody upon one of Dryden’s similes. In the fourth +scene, the Gentleman-Usher and Physician appear again, discussing the +question whether their whispers had been heard or not, a discussion +which they conclude by seizing on the two thrones, and occupying them +with their drawn swords in their hands. Then they march out to raise +their forces, and a battle to music takes place, four soldiers on each +side, who are all killed. Next we have a scene between prince Prettyman +and his tailor, Tom Thimble, which involves a joke upon the princely +principle of non-payment. A scene or two follows in a similar tone, +without at all advancing the plot; although it appears that another +prince, Volscius, who, we are to suppose, supports the old dynasty of +Brentford, has made his escape to Piccadilly, while the army which he +is to lead has assembled, and is concealed, at Knightsbridge. This +incident produces a discussion between Mr. Bayes and his friends:—</p> + +<div class="hang1"> + <p><em>Smith.</em>—But pray, Mr. Bayes, is not this a little difficult, + that you were saying e’en now, to keep an army thus concealed in + Knightsbridge?</p> + + <p><em>Bayes.</em>—In Knightsbridge?—stay.</p> + + <p><em>Johnson.</em>—No, not if inn-keepers be his friends.<a id="FNanchor_100" href="#Footnote_100" class="fnanchor">[100]</a></p> + + <p><em>Bayes.</em>—His friends? Ay, sir, his intimate acquaintance; or + else, indeed, I grant it could not be.</p> + + <p><em>Smith.</em>—Yes, faith, so it might be very easy.</p> + + <p><em>Bayes.</em>—Nay, if I don’t make all things easy, ’egad, I’ll give + ’em leave to hang me. Now you would think that he is going out of + town; but you will see how prettily I have contrived to stop him, + presently.</p> +</div> + +<p>Accordingly, prince Volscius yields to the influence of a fair +<em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">demoiselle</em>, who bears the classical name of Parthenope, and after +various exhibitions of hesitation, he does not leave town. Another +scene or two, with little meaning, but full of clever parodies on the +plays of Dryden, the Howards, and their contemporaries. The first scene +of the fourth act opens with a<a class="pagenum" id="Page_392" title="392"></a> funeral, a parody upon colonel Henry +Howard’s play of the “United Kingdoms.” Pallas interferes, brings the +lady who is to be buried to life, gets up a dance, and furnishes a very +extempore feast. The princes Prettyman and Volscius dispute about their +sweethearts. At the commencement of the fifth act the two usurping +kings appear in state, attended by four cardinals, the two princes, +all the lady-loves, heralds, and sergeants-at-arms, &c In the middle +of all this state, “the two right kings of Brentford descend in the +clouds, singing, in white garments, and three fiddlers sitting before +them in green.” “Now,” says Bayes to his friends, “because the two +right kings descend from above, I make ’em sing to the tune and style +of our modern spirits.” And accordingly they proceeded in a continuous +parody:—</p> + +<div class="drama-container"> + <div class="drama"> + <div class="line"><em>1st King.</em>— Haste, brother king, we are sent from above.</div> + <div class="line"><em>2nd King.</em>—Let us move, let us move;</div> + <div class="line indent5">Move, to remove the fate</div> + <div class="line indent5">Of Brentford’s long united state.</div> + + <div class="line"><em>1st King.</em>— Tara, tan, tara!—full east and by south.</div> + + <div class="line"><em>2nd King.</em>—We sail with thunder in our mouth.</div> + <div class="line indent6">In scorching noon-day, whilst the traveller stays,</div> + <div class="line indent7">Busy, busy, busy, busy, we bustle along,</div> + <div class="line indent7">Mounted upon warm Phœbus’s rays,</div> + <div class="line indent6">Through the heavenly throng,</div> + <div class="line indent7">Hasting to those</div> + <div class="line indent5">Who will feast us at night with a pig’s pettytoes.</div> + + <div class="line"><em>1st King.</em>— And we’ll fall with our plate</div> + <div class="line indent5">In an olio of hate</div> + + <div class="line"><em>2nd King.</em>—But, now supper’s done, the servitors try,</div> + <div class="line indent5">Like soldiers, to storm a whole half-moon pie.</div> + + <div class="line"><em>1st King.</em>— They gather, they gather, hot custards in spoons:</div> + <div class="line indent5">But, alas! I must leave these half-moons,</div> + <div class="line indent5">And repair to my trusty dragoons.</div> + + <div class="line"><em>2nd King.</em>—O stay! for you need not as yet go astray;</div> + <div class="line indent5">The tide, like a friend, has brought ships in our way,</div> + <div class="line indent5">And on their high ropes we will play;</div> + <div class="line indent5">Like maggots in filberts, we’ll snug in our shell,</div> + <div class="line indent7">We’ll frisk in our shell,</div> + <div class="line indent7">We’ll firk in our shell,</div> + <div class="line indent9">And farewell.</div> + + <div class="line"><em>1st King.</em>— But the ladies have all inclination to dance,</div> + <div class="line indent5">And the green frogs croak out a coranto of France.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="Page_393" title="393"></a> +All this is quite Aristophanic. It is interrupted by a discussion +between Bayes and his visitors on the music and the dance, and then the +two kings continue:—</p> + +<div class="drama-container"> + <div class="drama"> + <div class="line"><em>2nd King.</em>—Now mortals, that hear</div> + <div class="line indent5">How we tilt and career,</div> + <div class="line indent5">With wonder, will fear</div> + <div class="line indent4">The event of such things as shall never appear.</div> + + <div class="line"><em>1st King.</em>—Stay you to fulfil what the gods have decreed.</div> + + <div class="line"><em>2nd King.</em>—Then call me to help you, if there shall be need.</div> + <div class="line"><em>1st King.</em>— So firmly resolved is a true Brentford king,</div> + <div class="line indent5">To save the distressed, and help to ’em bring,</div> + <div class="line indent5">That, ere a full pot of good ale you can swallow,</div> + <div class="line indent5">He’s here with a whoop, and gone with a halloo.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>The rather too inquisitive Smith wonders at all this, and complains +that, to him, the sense of this is “not very plain.” “Plain!” exclaims +Bayes, “why, did you ever hear any people in the clouds speak plain? +They must be all for flight of fancy, at its full range, without the +least check or control upon it. When once you tie up sprites and people +in clouds to speak plain, you spoil all.” The two kings of Brentford +now “light out of the clouds, and step into the throne,” continuing the +same <em>dignified</em> conversation:—</p> + +<div class="drama-container"> + <div class="drama"> + <div class="line"><em>1st King.</em>—Come, now to serious council we’ll advance.</div> + <div class="line"><em>2nd King.</em>—I do agree; but first, let’s have a dance.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>This confidence of the two kings of Brentford is suddenly disturbed +by the sound of war. Two heralds announce that the army, that of +Knightsbridge, had come to protect them, and that it had come <em>in +disguise</em>, an arrangement which puzzles the author’s two visitors:—</p> + +<div class="drama-container"> + <div class="drama"> + <div class="line"><em>1st King.</em>—What saucy groom molests our privacies?</div> + <div class="line"><em>1st Herald.</em>— The army’s at the door, and, in disguise,</div> + <div class="line indent6">Desires a word with both your majesties.</div> + <div class="line"><em>2nd Herald.</em>—Having from Knightsbridge hither march’d by stealth.</div> + <div class="line"><em>2nd King.</em>—Bid ’em attend a while, and drink our health.</div> + <div class="line"><em>Smith.</em>—How, Mr. Bayes? The army in disguise!</div> + <div class="line"><em>Bayes.</em>—Ay, sir, for fear the usurpers might discover them, that went out but just now.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="Page_394" title="394"></a> +War itself follows, and the commanders of the two armies, the general +and the lieutenant-general, appear upon the stage in another parody +upon the opening scenes of Dryden’s “Siege of Rhodes:”—</p> + +<div class="quote"> + <p><em>Enter, at several doors, the</em> <span class="smcap">General</span> <em>and</em> + <span class="smcap">Lieutenant-general</span>, <em>armed cap-à-pie, with each a lute in + his hand, and his sword drawn, and hung with a scarlet riband at + the wrist</em>. + </p> +</div> + +<div class="drama-container"> + <div class="drama"> + <div class="line"><em>Lieut.-Gen.</em>—Villain, thou liest.</div> + + <div class="line"><em>Gen.</em>—Arm, arm, Gonsalvo, arm. What! ho!</div> + <div class="line indent3">The lie no flesh can brook, I trow.</div> + <div class="line"><em>Lieut.-Gen.</em>—Advance from Acton with the musqueteers.</div> + <div class="line"><em>Gen.</em>—Draw down the Chelsea cuirassiers.</div> + <div class="line"><em>Lieut.-Gen.</em>— The band you boast of, Chelsea cuirassiers,</div> + <div class="line indent6">Shall in my Putney pikes now meet their peers.</div> + + <div class="line"><em>Gen.</em>—Chiswickians, aged, and renowned in fight,</div> + <div class="line indent3">Join with the Hammersmith brigade.</div> + + <div class="line"><em>Lieut.-Gen.</em>— You’ll find my Mortlake boys will do them right,</div> + <div class="line indent6">Unless by Fulham numbers over-laid.</div> + + <div class="line"><em>Gen.</em>—Let the left wing of Twick’n’am foot advance,</div> + <div class="line indent3">And line that eastern hedge.</div> + + <div class="line"><em>Lieut.-Gen.</em>— The horse I raised in Petty France</div> + <div class="line indent6">Shall try their chance,</div> + <div class="line indent6">And scour the meadows, overgrown with sedge.</div> + <div class="line"><em>Gen.</em>—Stand: give the word.</div> + <div class="line"><em>Lieut.-Gen.</em>—Bright sword.</div> + <div class="line"><em>Gen.</em>—That may be thine,</div> + <div class="line indent3">But ’tis not mine.</div> + + <div class="line"><em>Lieut.-Gen.</em>— Give fire, give fire, at once give fire,</div> + <div class="line indent6">And let those recreant troops perceive mine ire.</div> + + <div class="line"><em>Gen.</em>—Pursue, pursue; they fly,</div> + <div class="line indent3">That first did give the lie!</div> + <div class="exit">[<em>Exeunt.</em></div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Thus the battle is carried on in talk between two individuals. Bayes +alleges, as an excuse for introducing these trivial names of places, +that “the spectators know all these towns, and may easily conceive +them to be within the dominions of the two kings of Brentford.” +The battle is finally stopped by an eclipse, and three personages, +representing the sun, moon, and earth, advance upon the stage, and +by dint of singing and manœuvring, one gets in a line between the +other two, and this, according to the strict rules of astronomy, +constituted the eclipse. The eclipse is followed by another battle +of a more desperate character, to which a stop<a class="pagenum" id="Page_395" title="395"></a> is put in an equally +extraordinary manner, by the entrance of the furious hero Drawcansir, +who slays all the combatants on both sides. The marriage of prince +Prettyman was to form the subject of the fifth act, but while Bayes, +Johnson, and Smith withdraw temporarily, all the players, in disgust, +run away to their dinners, and thus ends “The Rehearsal” of Mr. Bayes’s +play. The epilogue returns to the moral which the play was designed to +inculcate:—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">The play is at an end, but where’s the plot?</div> + <div class="line">That circumstance the poet Bayes forgot.</div> + <div class="line">And we can boast, though ’tis a plotting age,</div> + <div class="line">No place is freer from it than the stage.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Formerly people sought to write so that they might be understood, but +“this new way of wit” was altogether incomprehensible:—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">Wherefore, for ours, and for the kingdom’s peace,</div> + <div class="line">May this prodigious way of writing cease;</div> + <div class="line">Let’s have, at least once in our lives, a time</div> + <div class="line">When we may hear some reason, not all rhyme.</div> + <div class="line">We have this ten years felt its influence;</div> + <div class="line">Pray let this prove a year of prose and sense.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>English comedy was certainly greatly reformed, in some senses of the +word reform, during the period which followed the publication of “The +Rehearsal,” and, in the hands of writers like Wycherley, Shadwell, +Congreve, and D’Urfey, the dulness of the Howards was exchanged for +an extreme degree of vivacity. The plot was as little considered as +ever—it was a mere peg on which to hang scenes brilliant with wit +and <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">repartee</em>. The small intrigue is often but a frame for a great +picture of society in its forms then most open to caricature, with +all the petty intrigues inseparable from it. “Epsom Wells,” one of +Shadwell’s earlier comedies, and perhaps his best, will bear comparison +with Jonson’s “Bartholomew Fair.” The personages represented in it +are exactly those which then shone in such society—three “men of wit +and pleasure,” one of the class of country squires whom the wits of +London loved to laugh at, and who is described as “a country justice, +a public spirited, politick,<a class="pagenum" id="Page_396" title="396"></a> discontented fop, an immoderate hater of +London, and a lover of the country above measure, a hearty true English +coxcomb.” Then we have “two cheating, sharking, cowardly bullies.” +The citizens of London are represented by Bisket, “a comfit-maker, a +quiet, humble, civil cuckold, governed by his wife, whom he very much +fears and loves at the same time, and is very proud of,” and Fribble, +“a haberdasher, a surly cuckold, very conceited, and proud of his +wife, but pretends to govern and keep her under,” and their wives, the +first “an impertinent, imperious strumpet,” and the other, “an humble, +submitting wife, who jilts her husband that way, a very ——.” One +or two other characters of the same stamp, with “two young ladies of +wit, beauty, and fortune,” who behave themselves not much better than +the others, and a full allowance of “parsons, hectors, constables, +watchmen, and fiddlers,” complete the <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">dramatis personæ</em> of “Epsom +Wells.” With such materials anybody will understand the character of +the piece, which was brought out on the stage in 1672. “The Squire of +Alsatia,” by the same author, brought upon the stage in the eventful +year 1688, is a vivid picture of one of the wildest phases of London +life in those still rather primitive times. Alsatia, as every reader of +Walter Scott knows, was a cant name for the White Friars, in London, a +locality which, at that time, was beyond the reach of the law and its +officers, a refuge for thieves and rogues, and especially for debtors, +where they could either resist with no great fear of being overcome, +or, when resistance was no longer possible, escape with ease. With such +a scene, and such people for characters, we are not surprised that the +printed edition of this play is prefaced by a vocabulary of the cant +words employed in it. The principal characters in the play are of the +same class with those which form the staple of all these old comedies. +First there is a country father or uncle, who is rich and severe upon +the vices of youth, or arbitrary, or avaricious. He is here represented +by sir William Belfond, “a gentleman of about £3000 per annum, who in +his youth had been a spark of the town; but married and retired into +the country, where he turned to the other extreme—rigid, morose, most +sordidly covetous, clownish, obstinate, positive, and forward.” He must +have a London brother, or near relative, endowed with exactly contrary +qualities, here represented<a class="pagenum" id="Page_397" title="397"></a> by sir Edward Belfond, sir William’s +brother, “a merchant, who by lucky hits had gotten a great estate, +lives single with ease and pleasure, reasonably and virtuously, a man +of great humanity and gentleness and compassion towards mankind, well +read in good books, possessed with all gentlemanlike qualities.” Sir +William Belfond has two sons. Belfond senior, the eldest, is “bred +after his father’s rustic, swinish manner, with great rigour and +severity, upon whom his father’s estate is entailed, the confidence +of which makes him break out into open rebellion to his father, and +become lewd, abominably vicious, stubborn, and obstinate.” The younger +Belfond, Sir William’s second son, had been “adopted by Sir Edward, +and bred from his childhood by him, with all the tenderness and +familiarity, and bounty, and liberty that can be;” he was “instructed +in all the liberal sciences, and in all gentleman-like education; +somewhat given to women, and now and then to good fellowship; but +an ingenious, well-accomplished gentleman; a man of honour, and of +excellent disposition and temper.” Then we have some of the leading +heroes of Alsatia, and first Cheatly, who is described as “a rascal, +who by reason of debts, dares not stir out of Whitefryers, but there +inveigles young heirs in tail; and helps ’em to goods and money upon +great disadvantages; is bound for them, and shares with them, till he +undoes them; a lewd, impudent, debauched fellow, very expert in the +cant about the town.” Shamwell is “cousin to the Belfonds, an heir, +who, being ruined by Cheatly, is made a decoy-duck for others; not +daring to stay out of Alsatia, where he lives; is bound with Cheatly +for heirs, and lives upon them, a dissolute, debauch’d life.” Another +of these characters is captain Hackum, “a block-headed bully of +Alsatia; a cowardly, impudent, blustering fellow; formerly a sergeant +in Flanders, run from his colours, retreating into Whitefryers for a +very small debt; where by the Alsatians he is dubb’d a captain; marries +one that lets lodgings, sells cherry-brandy, and is a bawd.” Nor is +Alsatia without a representative of the Puritanical part of society, in +Scrapeall, “a hypocritical, repeating, praying, psalm-singing, precise +fellow, pretending to great piety; a godly knave, who joins with +Cheatly, and supplies young heirs with goods and money.” A rather large +number of inferior characters fill up the canvas; and the<a class="pagenum" id="Page_398" title="398"></a> females, +with two exceptions, belong to the same class. The plot of this play is +very simple. The elder son of sir William Belfond has taken to Alsatia, +but sir William, on his return from abroad, hearing talk of the fame of +a squire Belfond among the Alsatians, imagines that it is his younger +son, and out of this mistake a considerable amount of misunderstanding +arises. At last sir William discovers his error, and finds his eldest +son in Whitefryers, but the youth sets him at defiance. The father, in +great anger, brings tipstaff constables, to take away his son by force; +but the Alsatians rise in force, the officers of the law are beaten, +and sir William himself taken prisoner. He is rescued by the younger +Belfond, and in the conclusion the elder brother becomes penitent, and +is reconciled with his father. There is an underplot, far from moral +in its character, which ends in the marriage of Belfond junior. It is +a busy, noisy play, and was a great favourite on the stage; but it is +now chiefly interesting as a vivid picture of London life in the latter +half of the seventeenth century. “Bury Fair,” by Shadwell, is another +comedy of the same description; with little interest in the plot, but +full of life and movement. If “The Squire of Alsatia” was noisy, “The +Scowrers,” another comedy by the same author, first brought on the +stage in 1691, was still more so. The wild and riotous gallants who, +in former times of inefficient police regulation, infested the streets +at night, and committed all sorts of outrages, were known at different +periods by a variety of names. In the reign of James I. and Charles +I. they were the “roaring boys;” in the time of Shadwell, they were +called the “scowrers,” because they scowered the streets at night, and +rather roughly cleared them of all passengers; a few years later they +took the name of Mohocks, or Mohawks. During the night London lay at +the mercy of these riotous classes, and the streets witnessed scenes of +brutal violence, which, at the present day, we can hardly imagine. This +state of things is pictured in Shadwell’s comedy. Sir William Rant, +Wildfire, and Tope, are noted scowrers, well known in the town, whose +fame has excited emulation in men of less distinction in their way, +Whachum, “a city wit and scowrer, imitator of sir William,” and “two +scoundrells,” his companions, Bluster and Dingboy. Great enmity arises +between the<a class="pagenum" id="Page_399" title="399"></a> two parties of rival scowrers. The more serious characters +in the play are Mr. Rant, sir William Rant’s father, and sir Richard +Maggot, “a foolish Jacobite alderman” (it must be remembered that we +are now in the reign of king William). Sir Richard’s wife, lady Maggot, +like the citizen’s wives of the comedy of the Restoration generally, +is a lady rather wanting in virtue, ambitious of mixing with the gay +and fashionable world, and somewhat of a tyrant over her husband. She +has two handsome daughters, whom she seeks to keep confined from the +world, lest they should become her rivals. There are low characters +of both sexes, who need not be enumerated. Much of the play is taken +up with street rows, capital satirical pictures of London life. The +play ends with marriages, and with the reconciliation of sir William +Rant with his father, the serious old gentleman of the play. Shadwell +excelled in these busy comedies. One of the nearest approaches to him +is Mountfort’s comedy of <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Greenwich Park,”</span> which is another striking +satire on the looseness of London life at that time. As in the others, +the plot is simply nothing. The play consists of a number of intrigues, +such as may be imagined, at a time when morality was little respected, +in places of fashionable resort like Greenwich Park and Deptford Wells.</p> + +<p>An element of satire was now introduced into English comedy which does +not appear to have belonged to it before—this was mimicry. Although +the principal characters in the play bore conventional names, they +appear often to have been intended to represent individuals then well +known in society, and these individuals were caricatured in their +dress, and mimicked in their language and manners. We are told that +this mimicry contributed greatly to the success of <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“The Rehearsal,”</span> +the duke of Buckingham having taken incredible pains to make Lacy, who +acted the part of Bayes, perfect in imitating the voice and manner +of Dryden, whose dress and gait were minutely copied. This personal +satire was not always performed with impunity. On the 1st of February, +1669, Pepys went to the Theatre Royal to see the performance of <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“The +Heiress,”</span> in which it appears that sir Charles Sedley was personally +caricatured, and the secretary of king Charles’s admiralty has left +in his diary the following entry:—“To the king’s house, thinking to +have seen<a class="pagenum" id="Page_400" title="400"></a> the Heyresse, first acted on Saturday, but when we come +thither we find no play there; Kynaston, that did act a part therein +in abuse to sir Charles Sedley, being last night exceedingly beaten +with sticks by two or three that saluted him, so as he is mightily +bruised, and forced to keep his bed.” It is said that Dryden’s comedy +of <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Limberham,”</span> brought on the stage in 1678, was prohibited after the +first night, because the character of Limberham was considered to be +too open a satire on the duke of Lauderdale.</p> + +<p>Another peculiarity in the comedies of the age of the Restoration was +their extraordinary indelicacy. The writers seemed to emulate each +other in presenting upon the stage scenes and language which no modest +ear or pure mind could support. In the earlier period coarseness in +conversation was characteristic of an unpolished age—the language put +in the mouths of the actors, as remarked before, smelt of the tavern; +but under Charles II. the tone of fashionable society, as represented +on the stage, is modelled upon that of the brothel. Even the veiled +allusion is no longer resorted to, broad and direct language is +substituted in its place. This open profligacy of the stage reached its +greatest height between the years 1670 and 1680. The staple material +of this comedy may be considered to be the commission of adultery, +which is presented as one of the principal ornaments in the character +of the well-bred gentleman, varied with the seducing of other men’s +mistresses, for the keeping of mistresses appears as the rule of +social life. The <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Country Wife,”</span> one of Wycherley’s comedies, which is +supposed to have been brought on the stage perhaps as early as 1672, +is a mass of gross indecency from beginning to end. It involves two +principal plots, that of a voluptuary who feigns himself incapable of +love and insensible to the other sex, in order to pursue his intrigues +with greater liberty; and that of a citizen who takes to his wife a +silly and innocent country girl, whose ignorance he believes will be +a protection to her virtue, but the very means he takes to prevent +her, lead to her fall. The <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Parson’s Wedding,”</span> by Thomas Killigrew, +first acted in 1673, is equally licentious. The same at least may be +said of Dryden’s <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Limberham, or the Kind Keeper,”</span> first performed in +1678, which, according to the author’s own statement, was prohibited +on account<a class="pagenum" id="Page_401" title="401"></a> of its freeness, but more probably because the character +of Limberham was believed to be intended for a personal satire on the +unpopular earl of Lauderdale. Its plot is simple enough; it is the +story of a debauched old gentleman, named Aldo, whose son, after a +rather long absence on the Continent, returns to England, and assumes +the name of Woodall, in order to enjoy freely the pleasures of London +life before he makes himself known to his friends. He takes a lodging +in a house occupied by some loose women, and there meets with his +father, but, as the latter does not recognise his son, they become +friends, and live together licentiously so long, that when the son at +length discovers himself, the old man is obliged to overlook his vices. +Otway’s comedy of <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Friendship in Fashion,”</span> performed the same year, was +not a whit more moral. But all these are far outdone by Ravenscroft’s +comedy of <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“The London Cuckolds,”</span> first brought out in 1682, which, +nevertheless, continued to be acted until late in the last century. It +is a clever comedy, full of action, and consisting of a great number +of different incidents, selected from the less moral tales of the old +story-tellers as they appear in the <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Decameron”</span> of Boccaccio, among +which that of the ignorant and uneducated young wife, similar to the +plot of Wycherley’s <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Country Wife,”</span> is again introduced.</p> + +<p>The corruption of morals had become so great, that when women took +up the pen, they exceeded in licentiousness even the other sex, as +was the case with Mrs. Behn. Aphra Behn is understood to have been +born at Canterbury, but to have passed some part of her youth in the +colony of Surinam, of which her father was governor. She evidently +possessed a disposition for intrigue, and she was employed by the +English government, a few years after the Restoration, as a political +spy at Antwerp. She subsequently settled in London, and gained a living +by her pen, which was very prolific in novels, poems, and plays. It +would be difficult to point out in any other works such scenes of +open profligacy as those presented in Mrs. Behn’s two comedies of +<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Sir Patient Fancy”</span> and <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“The City Heiress, or Sir Timothy Treat-all,”</span> +which appeared in 1678 and 1681. Concealment of the slightest kind is +avoided, and even that which cannot be exposed to view, is tolerably +broadly described.</p> + +<p>It appears that the performance of the <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“London Cuckolds”</span> had<a class="pagenum" id="Page_402" title="402"></a> been the +cause of some scandal, and there were, even among play-goers, some who +took offence at such outrages on the ordinary feelings of modesty. +The excess of the evil had begun to produce a reaction. Ravenscroft, +the author of that comedy, produced on the stage, in 1684, a comedy, +entitled <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Dame Dobson, or the Cunning Woman,”</span> which was intended to be +a modest play, but it was unceremoniously <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“damned”</span> by the audience. +The prologue to this new comedy intimates that the <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“London Cuckolds”</span> +had pleased the town and diverted the court, but that some <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“squeamish +females”</span> had taken offence at it, and that he had now written a <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“dull, +civill”</span> play to make amends. They are addressed, therefore, in such +terms as these:—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">In you, chaste ladies, then we hope to-day,</div> + <div class="line">This is the poet’s recantation play.</div> + <div class="line">Come often to ’t, that he at length may see</div> + <div class="line">’Tis more than a pretended modesty.</div> + <div class="line">Stick by him now, for if he finds you falter,</div> + <div class="line">He quickly will his way of writing alter;</div> + <div class="line">And every play shall send you blushing home,</div> + <div class="line">For, though you rail, yet then we’re sure you’ll come.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>And it is further intimated,—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">A naughty play was never counted dull—</div> + <div class="line">Nor modest comedy e’er pleased you much.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<p><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“I remember,”</span> says Colley Cibber in his <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Apology,”</span> looking back to +these times, <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“I remember the ladies were then observed to be decently +afraid of venturing bare-faced to a new comedy, till they had been +assured they might do it without the risk of an insult to their +modesty; or if their curiosity were too strong for their patience, +they took care at least to save appearances, and rarely came upon the +first days of acting but in masks (then daily worn, and admitted in the +pit, the side boxes, and gallery), which custom, however, had so many +ill consequences attending it, that it has been abolished these many +years.”</span> According to the <cite>Spectator</cite>, ladies began now to desert the +theatre when comedies were brought out, except those who <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“never miss +the first day of a new play, lest it should prove too luscious to admit +of their going with any countenance to the second.”</span></p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="Page_403" title="403"></a> +In the midst of this abuse, there suddenly appeared a book which +created at the time a great sensation. The comedies of the latter half +of the seventeenth century were not only indecent, but they were filled +with profane language, and contained scenes in which religion itself +was treated with contempt. At that time there lived a divine of the +Church of England, celebrated for his Jacobitism—for I am now speaking +of the reign of king William—for his talents as a controversial +writer, and for his zeal in any cause which he undertook. This was +Jeremy Collier, the author of several books of some merit, which are +seldom read now, and who suffered for his zeal in the cause of king +James, and for his refusal to take the oath of allegiance to king +William. In the year 1698 Collier published his <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Short View of the +Immorality and Profaneness of the English stage,”</span> in which he boldly +attacked the licentiousness of the English comedy. Perhaps Collier’s +zeal carried him a little too far; but he had offended the wits, and +especially the dramatic poets, on all sides, and he was exposed to +attacks from all quarters, in which Dryden himself took an active part. +Collier showed himself fully capable of dealing with his opponents, and +the controversy had the effect of calling attention to the immoralities +of the stage, and certainly contributed much towards reforming them. +They were become much less frequent and less gross at the opening of +the eighteenth century.</p> + +<p>Towards the end of the reign of king Charles II., the stage was more +largely employed as a political agent, and under his successor, James +II., the Puritans and the Whigs were constantly held up to scorn. After +the Revolution, the tables were turned, and the satire of the stage +was often aimed at Tories and Non-jurors. <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“The Non-juror,”</span> by Colley +Cibber, which appeared in 1717, at a very opportune moment, gained for +its author a pension and the office of poet-laureate. It was founded +upon the <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Tartuffe”</span> of Molière, for the English comedy writers borrowed +much from the foreign stage. A disguised priest, who passes under the +name of Dr. Wolf, and who had been engaged in the rebellion of 1715, +has insinuated himself into the household of a gentleman of fortune, of +not very strong judgment, Sir John Woodvil, whom, under the title of a +Non-juror, he has not only induced to become an abettor of rebels, but +he has<a class="pagenum" id="Page_404" title="404"></a> persuaded him to disinherit his son, and he labours to seduce +his wife and to deceive his daughter. His baseness is exposed only just +soon enough to defeat his designs. Such a production as this could +not fail to give great offence to all the Jacobite party, of whatever +shade, who were then rather numerous in London, and Cibber assures us +that his reward was a considerable amount of adverse criticism in every +quarter where the Tory influence reached. His comedies were inferior in +brilliance of dialogue to those of the previous age, but the plots were +well imagined and conducted, and they are generally good acting plays.</p> + +<p>To Samuel Foote, born in 1722, we owe the last change in the form and +character of English comedy. A man of infinite wit and humour, and +possessed of extraordinary talent as a mimic, Foote made mimicry the +principal instrument of his success on the stage. His plays are above +all light and amusing; he reduced the old comedy of five acts to three +acts, and his plots were usually simple, the dialogue full of wit and +humour; but their peculiar characteristic was their open boldness of +personal satire. It is entirely a comedy of his own. He sought to +direct his wit against all the vices of society, but this he did by +holding up to ridicule and scorn the individuals who had in some way +or other made themselves notorious by the practice of them. All his +principal characters were real characters, who were more or less known +to the public, and who were so perfectly mimicked on the stage in +their dress, gait, and speech, that it was impossible to mistake them. +Thus, in <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“The Devil upon Two Sticks,”</span> which is a general satire on the +low condition to which the practice of medicine had then fallen, the +personages introduced in it all represented quacks well known about the +town. <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“The Maid of Bath”</span> dragged upon the stage scandals which were +then the talk of Bath society. The nabob of the comedy which bears +that title, had also his model in real life. <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“The Bankrupt”</span> may be +considered as a general satire on the baseness of the newspaper press +of that day, which was made the means of propagating private scandals +and libellous accusations in order to extort money, yet the characters +introduced are said to have been all portraits from the life; and the +same statement is made with regard to the comedy of <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“The Author.”</span></p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="Page_405" title="405"></a> +It is evident that a drama of this inquisitorial character is a +dangerous thing, and that it could hardly be allowed to exist where the +rights of society are properly defined; and we are not surprised if +Foote provoked a host of bitter enemies. But in some cases the author +met with punishment of a heavier and more substantial description. +One of the individuals introduced into <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“The Maid of Bath,”</span> extorted +damages to the amount of £3,000. One of the persons who figured in +<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“The Author,”</span> obtained an order from the lord chamberlain for putting +a stop to the performance after it had had a short run; and the +consequences of <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“The Trip to Calais,”</span> were still more disastrous. +It is well known that the character of lady Kitty Crocodile in that +play was a broad caricature on the notorious duchess of Kingston. +Through the treachery of some of the people employed by Foote, the +duchess obtained information of the nature of this play before it was +ready for representation, and she had sufficient influence to obtain +the lord chamberlain’s prohibition for bringing it on the stage. Nor +was this all, for as the play was printed, if not acted,—and it was +subsequently brought out in a modified form, with omission of the part +of lady Kitty Crocodile, though the characters of some of her agents +were still retained,—infamous charges were got up against Foote, in +retaliation, which caused him so much trouble and grief, that they are +said to have shortened his days.</p> + +<p>The drama which Samuel Foote had invented did not outlive him; its +caricature was itself transferred to the caricature of the print-shop.</p> + + + +<hr class="chap" /> +<h2><a class="pagenum" id="Page_406" title="406"></a> +CHAPTER XXIII. +</h2> + +<p class="subtitle"> + CARICATURE IN HOLLAND.—ROMAIN DE HOOGHE.—THE ENGLISH + REVOLUTION.—CARICATURES ON LOUIS XIV. AND JAMES II.—DR. + SACHEVERELL.—CARICATURE BROUGHT FROM HOLLAND TO ENGLAND.—ORIGIN + OF THE WORD <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“CARICATURE.”</span>—MISSISSIPPI AND THE SOUTH SEA; THE YEAR + OF BUBBLES.</p> + + +<p>Modern political caricature, born, as we have seen, in France, may be +considered to have had its cradle in Holland. The position of that +country, and its greater degree of freedom, made it, in the seventeenth +century, the general place of refuge to the political discontents of +other lands, and especially to the French who fled from the tyranny of +Louis XIV. It possessed at that time some of the most skilful artists +and best engravers in Europe, and it became the central spot from which +were launched a multitude of satirical prints against that monarch’s +policy, and against himself and his favourites and ministers. This was +in a great measure the cause of the bitter hatred which Louis always +displayed towards that country. He feared the caricatures of the Dutch +more than their arms, and the pencil and graver of Romain de Hooghe +were among the most effective weapons employed by William of Nassau.</p> + +<p>The marriage of William with Mary, daughter of the duke of York, in +1677, naturally gave the Dutch a greater interest than they could +have felt before in the domestic affairs of Great Britain, and a new +stimulus to their zeal against Louis of France, or, which was the +same thing, against arbitrary power and Popery, both of which had +been rendered odious under his name. The accession of James II. to +the throne of England, and his attempt to re-establish Popery, added +religious as well as political fuel to these feelings, for everybody +understood that James was acting<a class="pagenum" id="Page_407" title="407"></a> under the protection of the king +of France. The very year of king James’s accession, in 1685, the +caricature appeared which we have copied in our cut No. 186, and which, +although the inscription is in English, appears to have been the work +of a foreign artist. It was probably intended to represent Mary of +Modena, the queen of James II., and her rather famous confessor, father +Petre, the latter under the character of the wolf among the sheep. Its +aim is sufficiently evident to need no explanation. At the top, in the +original, are the Latin words, <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">Converte Angliam</em>, <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“convert England,”</span> +and beneath, in English, “It is a foolish sheep that makes the wolf her +confessor.”</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut186.jpg" width="350" height="458" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 186. A Dangerous Confessor.</div> +</div> + +<p>The period during which the Dutch school of caricature flourished, +extended through the reign of Louis XIV., and into the regency in +France, and two great events, the revolution of 1688 in England, and +the wild money speculations of the year 1720, exercised especially the +pencils<a class="pagenum" id="Page_408" title="408"></a> of its caricaturists. The first of these events belongs almost +entirely to Romain de Hooghe. Very little is known of the personal +history of this remarkable artist, but he is believed to have been born +towards the middle of the seventeenth century, and to have died in +the earlier years of the eighteenth century. The older French writers +on art, who were prejudiced against Romain de Hooghe for his bitter +hostility to Louis XIV., inform us that in his youth he employed his +graver on obscene subjects, and led a life so openly licentious, that +he was banished from his native town of Amsterdam, and went to live +at Haerlem. He gained celebrity by the series of plates, executed in +1672, which represented the horrible atrocities committed in Holland by +the French troops, and which raised against Louis XIV. the indignation +of all Europe. It is said that the prince of Orange (William III. +of England), appreciating the value of his satire as a political +weapon, secured it in his own interests by liberally patronising the +caricaturist; and we owe to Romain de Hooghe a succession of large +prints in which the king of France, his <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">protégé</em> James II., and the +adherents of the latter, are covered with ridicule. One, published +in 1688, and entitled <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Les Monarches Tombants,”</span> commemorates the +flight of the royal family from England. Another, which appeared at +the same date, is entitled, in French, <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Arlequin fur l’hypogryphe à +la croisade Loioliste,”</span> and in Dutch, <span lang="nl" xml:lang="nl">“Armeé van de Heylige League +voor der Jesuiten Monarchy”</span> (<em>i.e.</em> “the army of the holy league for +establishing the monarchy of the Jesuits”). Louis XIV. and James II. +were represented under the characters of Arlequin and Panurge, who are +seated on the animal here called a “hypogryphe,” but which is really +a wild ass. The two kings have their heads joined together under one +Jesuit’s cap. Other figures, forming part of this army of Jesuitism, +are distributed over the field, the most grotesque of which is that +given in our cut No. 187. Two personages introduced in some ridiculous +position or other, in most of these caricatures, are father Petre, the +Jesuit, and the infant prince of Wales, afterwards the old Pretender. +It was pretended that this infant was in fact the child of a miller, +secretly introduced into the queen’s bed concealed in a warming-pan; +and that this ingenious plot was contrived by father Petre. Hence the +boy was popularly called Peterkin, or<a class="pagenum" id="Page_409" title="409"></a> Perkin, <em>i.e.</em> little Peter, +which was the name given afterwards to the Pretender in songs and +satires at the time of his rebellion; and in the prints a windmill +was usually given to the child as a sign of its father’s trade. In +the group represented in our cut, father Petre, with the child in his +arms, is seated on a rather singular steed, a lobster. The young prince +here carries the windmill on his head. On the lobster’s back, behind +the Jesuit, are carried the papal crown, surmounted by a fleur-de-lis, +with a bundle of relics, indulgences, &c, and it has seized in one +claw the English church service book, and in the other the book of the +laws of England. In the Dutch description of this print, the child is +called “the new born Antichrist.” Another of Romain de Hooghe’s prints, +entitled <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Panurge secondé par Arlequin Deodaat à la croisade d’Irlande, +1689,”</span> is a satire on king James’s expedition to Ireland, which led to +the memorable battle of the Boyne. James and his friends are proceeding +to the place of embarkation, and, as represented in our cut No. 188, +father Petre marches in front, carrying the infant prince in his arms.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut187.jpg" width="500" height="295" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 187. A Jesuit well Mounted.</div> +</div> + +<p>The drawing of Romain de Hooghe is not always correct, especially in +his larger subjects, which perhaps may be ascribed to his hasty and +careless manner of working; but he displays great skill in grouping +his figures, and great power in investing them with a large amount of +satirical<a class="pagenum" id="Page_410" title="410"></a> humour. Most of the other caricatures of the time are poor +both in design and execution. Such is the case with a vulgar satirical +print which was published in France in the autumn of 1690, on the +arrival of a false rumour that king William had been killed in Ireland. +In the field of the picture the corpse of the king is followed by a +procession consisting of his queen and the principal supporters of +his cause. The lower corner on the left hand is occupied by a view of +the interior of the infernal regions, and king William introduced in +the place allotted to him among the flames. In different parts of the +picture there are several inscriptions, all breathing a spirit of very +insolent exultation. One of them is the—</p> + +<div class="quote" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"> +<p class="center"><em>Billet d’Enterrement.</em></p> + +<p>Vous estes priez d’assister au convoy, service, et enterrement + du tres haut, tres grand, et tres infame Prince infernal, grand + stadouter, des Armés diaboliques de la ligue d’Ausbourg, et + insigne usurpateur des Royaumes d’Angleterre, d’Eccosse, et + d’Irlande, décédé dans l’Irlande au mois d’Aoust 1690, qui se + fera le dit mois, dans sa paroisse infernale, ou assisteront Dame + Proserpine, Radamonte, et les Ligueurs.</p> + +<p> Les Dames lui diront s’il leur plaist des injures.</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut188.jpg" width="300" height="328" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 188. Off to Ireland.</div> +</div> + +<p>The prints executed in England at this time were, if possible, worse +than those published in France. Almost the only contemporary caricature +on the downfall of the Stuarts that I know, is an ill-executed print, +pub<a class="pagenum" id="Page_411" title="411"></a>lished immediately after the accession of William III., under the +title, “England’s Memorial of its wonderful deliverance from French +Tyranny and Popish Oppression.” The middle of the picture is occupied +by “the royal orange tree,” which flourishes in spite of all the +attempts to destroy it. At the upper corner, on the left side, is a +representation of the French king’s “council,” consisting of an equal +number of Jesuits and devils, seated alternately at a round table.</p> + +<p>The circumstance that the titles and inscriptions of nearly all +these caricatures are in Dutch, seems to show that their influence +was intended to be exercised in Holland rather than elsewhere. In +two or three only of them these descriptions were accompanied with +translations in English or French; and after a time, copies of them +began to be made in England, accompanied with English descriptions. A +curious example of this is given in the fourth volume of the “Poems +on State Affairs,” printed in 1707. In the preface to this volume the +editor takes occasion to inform the reader—“That having procur’d +from beyond sea a Collection of Satyrical Prints done in Holland and +elsewhere, by Rom. de Hoog, and other the best masters, relating to +the French King and his Adherents, since he unjustly begun this war, +I have persuaded the Bookseller to be at the expense of ingraving +several of them; to each of which I have given the Explanation in +English verse, they being in Dutch, French, or Latin in the originals.” +Copies of seven of these caricatures are accordingly given at the end +of the volume, which are certainly inferior in every respect to those +of the best period of Romain de Hooghe. One of them commemorates the +eclipse of the sun on the 12th of May, 1706. The sun, as it might be +conjectured, is Louis XIV., eclipsed by queen Anne, whose face occupies +the place of the moon. In the foreground of the picture, just under the +eclipse, the queen is seated on her throne under a canopy, surrounded +by her counsellors and generals. With her left arm she holds down the +Gallic cock, while with the other hand she clips one of its wings +(see our cut No. 189). In the upper corner on the right, is inserted +a picture of the battle of Ramillies, and in the lower corner on the +left, a sea-fight under admiral Leake, both victories gained in that +year. Another of these copies of foreign prints is given in our cut<a class="pagenum" id="Page_412" title="412"></a> +No. 190. We are told that “these figures represent a French trumpet and +drum, sent by Louis le Grand to enquire news of several citys lost by +the Mighty Monarch last campaign.” The trumpeter holds in his hand a +list of lost towns, and another is pinned to the breast of the drummer; +the former list is headed by the names of “Gaunt, Brussels, Antwerp, +Bruges,” the latter by “Barcelona.”</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut189.jpg" width="300" height="375" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 189. Clipping the Cock’s Wings.</div> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut190.jpg" width="350" height="450" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 190. Trumpet and Drum.</div> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut191.jpg" width="400" height="281" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 191. The Three False Brethren.</div> +</div> + +<p>The first remarkable outburst of caricatures in England was caused by +the proceedings against the notorious Dr. Sacheverell in 1710. It is +somewhat curious that Sacheverell’s partisans speak of caricatures +as things brought recently from Holland, and new in England, and +ascribe the use of them as peculiar to the Whig party. The writer of +a pamphlet, entitled “The Picture of Malice, or a true Account of Dr. +Sacheverell’s Enemies, and their behaviour with regard to him,” informs +us that “the chief means by which all the lower order of that sort of +men call’d Whigs, shall ever be found to act for the ruin of a potent +adversary, are the following three—by the Print, the Canto or Doggrell +Poem, and by the Libell, grave, calm, and cool, as the author of the +‘True Answer’ describes it. These are not all employed at the same<a class="pagenum" id="Page_413" title="413"></a> +time, any more than the ban and arierban of a kingdom is raised, unless +to make sure work, or in cases of great exigency and imminent danger.” +“The Print,” he goes on to say, “is originally a Dutch talisman +(bequeathed to the ancient Batavians by a certain Chinese necromancer +and painter), with a virtue far exceeding that of the Palladium, not +only of guarding their cities and provinces, but also of annoying their +enemies, and preserving a due balance amongst the neighbouring powers +around.” This writer warms up so much in his indignation against this +new weapon of the Whigs, that he breaks out in blank verse to tell +us how even the mysterious power of the magician did not destroy its +victims—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">Swifter than heretofore the Print effac’d</div> + <div class="line">The pomp of mightiest monarchs, and dethron’d</div> + <div class="line">The dread idea of royal majesty;</div> + <div class="line">Dwindling the prince below the pigmy size.<a class="pagenum" id="Page_414" title="414"></a></div> + <div class="line">Witness the once Great Louis in youthful pride,</div> + <div class="line">And Charles of happy days, who both confess’d</div> + <div class="line">The magic power of mezzotinto<a id="FNanchor_101" href="#Footnote_101" class="fnanchor">[101]</a> shade,</div> + <div class="line">And form grotesque, in manifestoes loud</div> + <div class="line">Denouncing death to boor and burgomaster.</div> + <div class="line">Witness, ye sacred popes with triple crown,</div> + <div class="line">Who likewise victims fell to hideous print,</div> + <div class="line">Spurn’d by the populace who whilome lay</div> + <div class="line">Prostrate, and ev’n adored before your thrones.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>We are then told that “this, if not the first, has yet been the chief +machine which his enemies have employ’d against the doctor; they have +exposed him in the same piece with the pope and the devil, and who now +could imagine that any simple priest should be able to stand before a +power which had levelled popes and monarchs?” At least one copy of the +caricature here alluded to is preserved, although a great rarity, and +it is represented in our cut No. 191. Two of the party remained long<a class="pagenum" id="Page_415" title="415"></a> +associated together in the popular outcry, and as the name of the third +fell into contempt and oblivion, the doctor’s place in this association +was taken by a new cause of alarm, the Pretender, the child whom we +have just seen so joyously brandishing his windmill. It is evident, +however, that this caricature greatly exasperated Sacheverell and the +party which supported him.</p> + +<p>It will have been noticed that the writer just quoted, in using the +term “print,” ignores altogether that of caricature, which, however, +was about this time beginning to come into use, although it is not +found in the dictionaries, I believe, until the appearance of that of +Dr. Johnson, in 1755. <em lang="it" xml:lang="it">Caricature</em> is, of course, an Italian word, +derived from the verb <em lang="it" xml:lang="it">caricare</em>, to charge or load; and therefore, +it means a picture which is charged, or exaggerated (the old French +dictionaries say, “<em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">c’est la même chose que charge en peinture</em>”). +The word appears not to have come into use in Italy until the latter +half of the seventeenth century, and the earliest instance I know of +its employment by an English writer is that quoted by Johnson from +the “Christian Morals” of Sir Thomas Brown, who died in 1682, but it +was one of his latest writings, and was not printed till long after +his death:—“Expose not thyself by four-footed manners unto monstrous +draughts (<em>i.e.</em> drawings) and <em lang="it" xml:lang="it">caricatura</em> representations.” This very +quaint writer, who had passed some time in Italy, evidently uses it as +an exotic word. We find it next employed by the writer of the Essay No. +537, of the “Spectator,” who, speaking of the way in which different +people were led by feelings of jealousy and prejudice to detract from +the characters of others, goes on to say, “From all these hands we +have such draughts of mankind as are represented in those burlesque +pictures which the Italians call <em lang="it" xml:lang="it">caricaturas</em>, where the art consists +in preserving, amidst distorted proportions and aggravated features, +some distinguishing likeness of the person, but in such a manner as to +transform the most agreeable beauty into the most odious monster.” The +word was not fully established in our language in its English form of +<em>caricature</em> until late in the last century.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut192.jpg" width="350" height="458" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 192. Atlas.</div> +</div> + +<p>The subject of agitation which produced a greater number of caricatures +than any previous event was the wild financial scheme introduced<a class="pagenum" id="Page_416" title="416"></a> into +France by the Scottish adventurer, Law, and imitated in England in +the great South Sea Bubble. It would be impossible here, within our +necessary limits, to attempt to trace the history of these bubbles, +which all burst in the course of the year 1720; and, in fact, it is a +history of which few are ignorant. On this, as on former occasions, the +great mass of the caricatures, especially those against the Mississippi +scheme, were executed in Holland, but they are much inferior to the +works of Romain de Hooghe. In fact, so great was the demand for these +caricatures, that the publishers, in their eagerness for gain, not +only deluged the world with plates by artists of no talent, which were +without point or interest, but they took old plates of any subject +in which there was a multitude of figures, put new titles to them, +and published them as satires on the Mississippi scheme; for people +were ready to take anything which represented a crowd as a satire on +the eagerness with which Frenchmen rushed into the<a class="pagenum" id="Page_417" title="417"></a> share-market. +One or two curious instances of this deception might be pointed out. +Thus, an old picture, evidently intended to represent the meeting +of a king and a nobleman, in the court of a palace, surrounded by +a crowd of courtiers, in the costume probably of the time of Henri +IV., was republished as a picture of people crowding to the grand +scene of stock-jobbing in Paris, the Rue Quinquenpoix; and the old +picture of the battle between Carnival and Lent came out again, a +little re-touched, under the Dutch title, <span lang="nl" xml:lang="nl">“Stryd tuszen de smullende +Bubbel-Heeren en de aanstaande Armoede,”</span> <em>i.e.</em>, “The battle between +the good-living bubble-lords and approaching poverty.”</p> + +<p>Besides being issued singly, a considerable number of these prints +were collected and published in a volume, which is still met with not +unfrequently, under the title <span lang="nl" xml:lang="nl">“Het groote Tafereel der Dwaasheid,”</span> +“The great picture of folly.” One of this set of prints represents a +multitude of persons, of all ages and sexes, acting the part of Atlas +in supporting on their backs globes, which, though made only of paper, +had become, through the agitation of the stock exchange, heavier than +gold. Law himself (see our cut No. 192) stands foremost, and requires +the assistance of Hercules to support his enormous burthen. In the +French verses accompanying this print, the writer says—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">Ami Atlas, on voit (sans conter vous et moi)</div> + <div class="line">Faire l’Atlas partout des divers personnages,</div> + <div class="line">Riche, pauvre, homme, femme, et sot et quasi-sage,</div> + <div class="line">Valet, et paisan, le gueux s’eleve en roi.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Another of these caricatures represents Law in the character of Don +Quixote, riding upon Sancho’s donkey. He is hastening to his Dulcinia, +who waits for him in the <em>actie huis</em> (action or share-house), towards +which people are dragging the animal on which he is seated. The +devil (see our cut No. 193), sits behind Law, and holds up the ass’s +tail, while a shower of paper, in the form of shares in companies, +is scattered around, and scrambled for by the eager <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">actionnaires</em>. +In front, the animal is laden with the money into which this paper +has been turned,—the box bears the inscription, <span lang="nl" xml:lang="nl">“<em>Bombarioos +Geldkist</em>, 1720,”</span> “Bombario’s (Law’s) gold chest;” and the flag bears +the inscription, “<em>Ik koom, ik koom, Dul<a class="pagenum" id="Page_418" title="418"></a>cinia</em>,” “I come, I come, +Dulcinia.” The best, perhaps, of this lot of caricatures is a large +engraving by the well-known Picart, inserted among the Dutch collection +with explanations in Dutch and French, and which was re-engraved in +London, with English descriptions and applications. It is a general +satire on the madness of the memorable year 1720. Folly appears as +the charioteer of Fortune, whose car is drawn by the representatives +of the numerous companies which had sprung up at this time, most of +which appear to be more or less unsound. Many of these agents have the +tails of foxes, “to show their policy and cunning,” as the explanation +informs us. The devil is seen in the clouds above, blowing bubbles of +soap, which mix with the paper which Fortune is distributing to the +crowd. The picture is crowded with figures, scattered in groups, who +are employed in a variety of occupations connected with the great folly +of the day, one of which, as an example, is given in our cut No. 194. +It is a transfer of stock, made through the medium of a Jew broker.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut193.jpg" width="350" height="395" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 193. The Don Quixote of Finance.</div> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut194.jpg" width="350" height="276" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 194. Transfer of Stock.</div> +</div> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="Page_419" title="419"></a> +It was in this bubble agitation that the English school of caricature +began, and a few specimens are preserved, though others which are +advertised in the newspapers of that day, seem to be entirely lost. In +fact, a very considerable portion of the caricature literature of a +period so comparatively recent as the first half of the last century, +appears to have perished; for the interest of these prints was in +general so entirely temporary that few people took any care to preserve +them, and few of them were very attractive as pictures. As yet, indeed, +these English prints are but poor imitations of the works of Picart +and other continental artists. A pair of English prints, entitled +“The Bubbler’s Mirrour,” represents, one a head joyful at the rise in +the value of stock, the other, a similar head sorrowful at its fall, +surrounded in each case with lists of companies and epigrams upon them. +They are engraved in mezzotinto, a style of art supposed to have been +invented in England—its invention was ascribed to Prince Rupert—and +at this time very popular. In the imprint of these last-mentioned +plates, we are informed that they were “Printed for Carington Bowles, +next y<sup>e</sup> Chapter House, in St. Paul’s Ch. Yard, London,” a well-known +name in former years, and even now one quite familiar to collectors, +of this class of prints, especially. Of Carington Bowles we shall have +more to say in the next chapter. With him begins the long list of +celebrated English printsellers.</p> + + + +<hr class="chap" /> +<h2><a class="pagenum" id="Page_420" title="420"></a> +CHAPTER XXIV. +</h2> + +<p class="subtitle"> + ENGLISH CARICATURE IN THE AGE OF GEORGE II.—ENGLISH + PRINTSELLERS.—ARTISTS EMPLOYED BY THEM.—SIR ROBERT + WALPOLE’S LONG MINISTRY.—THE WAR WITH FRANCE.—THE NEWCASTLE + ADMINISTRATION.—OPERA INTRIGUES.—ACCESSION OF GEORGE III., AND + LORD BUTE IN POWER.</p> + + +<p>With the accession of George II., the taste for political caricatures +increased greatly, and they had become almost a necessity of social +life. At this time, too, a distinct English school of political +caricature had been established, and the print-sellers became more +numerous, and took a higher position in the commerce of literature +and art. Among the earliest of these printsellers the name of Bowles +stands especially conspicuous. Hogarth’s burlesque on the Beggar’s +Opera, published in 1728, was “printed for John Bowles, at the Black +Horse, in Cornhill.” Some copies of “King Henry the Eighth and Anna +Bullen,” engraved by the same great artist in the following year, +bear the imprint of John Bowles; and others were “printed for Robert +Wilkinson, Cornhill, Carington Bowles, in St. Paul’s Church Yard, and +R. Sayer, in Fleet Street.” Hogarth’s “Humours of Southwark Fair” was +also published, in 1733, by Carington and John Bowles. This Carington +Bowles was, perhaps, dead in 1755, for in that year the caricature +entitled “British Resentment” bears the imprint, “Printed for T. +Bowles, in St. Paul’s Church Yard, and Jno. Bowles & Son, in Cornhill.” +John Bowles appears to have been the brother of the first Carington +Bowles in St. Paul’s Churchyard, and a son named Carington succeeded to +that business, which, under him and his son Carington, and then as the +establishment of Bowles and Carver, has continued to exist within the +memory of the present generation. Another very celebrated printshop was +established in Fleet Street by Thomas<a class="pagenum" id="Page_421" title="421"></a> Overton, probably as far back +as the close of the seventeenth century. On his death his business was +purchased by Robert Sayers, a mezzotinto engraver of merit, whose name +appears as joint publisher of a print by Hogarth in 1729. Overton is +said to have been a personal friend of Hogarth. Sayers was succeeded in +the business by his pupil in mezzotinto engraving, named Laurie, from +whom it descended to his son, Robert H. Laurie, known in city politics, +and it became subsequently the firm of Laurie and Whittle. This +business still exists at 53, Fleet Street, the oldest establishment +in London for the publication of maps and prints. During the reign of +the second George, the number of publishers of caricatures increased +considerably, and among others, we meet with the names of J. Smith, “at +Hogarth’s Head, Cheapside,” attached to a caricature published August, +1756; Edwards and Darly, “at the Golden Acorn, facing Hungerford, +Strand,” who also published caricatures during the years 1756-7; +caricatures and burlesque prints were published by G. Bickham, May’s +Buildings, Covent Garden, and one, directed against the employment of +foreign troops, and entitled “A Nurse for the Hessians,” is stated to +have been “sold in May’s Buildings, Covent Garden, where is 50 more;” +“The Raree Show,” published in 1762, was “sold at Sumpter’s Political +Print-shop, Fleet Street,” and many caricatures on contemporary +costume, especially on the Macaronis, about the year 1772, were +“published by T. Bowen, opposite the Haymarket, Piccadilly.” Sledge, +“printseller, Henrietta Street, Covent Garden,” is also met with about +the middle of the last century. Among other burlesque prints, Bickham, +of May’s Buildings, issued a series of figures representing the various +trades, made up of the different tools, &c, used by each. The house +of Carington Bowles, in St. Paul’s Churchyard, produced an immense +number of caricatures, during the last century and the present, and of +the most varied character, but they consisted more of comic scenes of +society than of political subjects, and many of them were engraved in +mezzotinto, and rather highly coloured. Among them were caricatures on +the fashions and foibles of the day, amusing accidents and incidents, +common occurrences of life, characters, &c., and they are frequently +aimed at lawyers and priests, and especially at monks and<a class="pagenum" id="Page_422" title="422"></a> friars, +for the anti-Catholic feeling was strong in the last century. J. +Brotherton, at No. 132, New Bond Street, published many of Bunbury’s +caricatures; while the house of Laurie and Whittle gave employment +especially to the Cruikshanks. But perhaps the most extensive publisher +of caricatures of them all was S. W. Fores, who dwelt first at No. 3, +Piccadilly, but afterwards established himself at No. 50, the corner +of Sackville Street, where the name still remains. Fores seems to have +been most fertile in ingenious expedients for the extension of his +business. He formed a sort of library of caricatures and other prints, +and charged for admission to look at them; and he afterwards adopted a +system of lending them out in portfolios for evening parties, at which +these portfolios of caricatures became a very fashionable amusement +in the latter part of the last century. At times, some remarkable +curiosity was employed to add to the attractions of his shop. Thus, on +caricatures published in 1790, we find the statement that, “In Fores’ +Caricature Museum is the completest collection in the kingdom. Also +<em>the head and hand of Count Struenzee</em>. Admittance, 1<em>s.</em>” Caricatures +against the French revolutionists, published in 1793, bear imprints +stating that they were “published by S. W. Fores, No. 3, Piccadilly, +where may be seen <em>a complete Model of the Guillotine</em>—admittance, one +shilling.” In some this model is said to be six feet high.</p> + +<p>Among the artists employed by the print-publishers of the age of +George II., we still find a certain number of foreigners. Coypel, who +caricatured the opera in the days of Farinelli, and pirated Hogarth, +belonged to a distinguished family of French painters. Goupy, who +also caricatured the <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">artistes</em> of the opera (in 1727), and Boitard, +who worked actively for Carington Bowles from 1750 to 1770, were also +Frenchmen. Liotard, another caricaturist of the time of George II., +was a native of Geneva. The names of two others, Vandergucht and +Vanderbank, proclaim them Dutchmen. Among the English caricaturists who +worked for the house of Bowles, were George Bickham, the brother of +the printseller, John Collet, and Robert Dighton, with others of less +repute. R. Attwold, who published caricatures against admiral Byng in +1750, was an imitator of Hogarth. Among the more obscure caricaturists +of the<a class="pagenum" id="Page_423" title="423"></a> latter part of the half-century, were MacArdell—whose print +of “The Park Shower,” representing the confusion raised among the +fashionable company in the Mall in St. James’s Park by a sudden fall +of rain, is so well known—and Darley. Paul Sandby, who was patronised +by the duke of Cumberland, executed caricatures upon Hogarth. Many of +these artists of the earlier period of the English school of caricature +appear to have been very ill paid—the first of the family of Bowles is +said to have boasted that he bought many of the plates for little more +than their value as metal. The growing taste for caricature had also +brought forward a number of amateurs, among whom were the countess of +Burlington, and general, afterwards marquis, Townshend. The former, who +was the lady of that earl who built Burlington House, in Piccadilly, +was the leader of one of the factions in the opera disputes at the +close of the reign of George I., and is understood to have designed the +well-known caricature upon Cuzzoni, Farinelli, and Heidegger, which was +etched by Goupy, whom she patronised. It must not be forgotten that +Bunbury himself, as well as Sayers, were amateurs; and among other +amateurs I may name captain Minthull, captain Baillie, and John Nixon. +The first of these published caricatures against the Macaronis (as the +dandies of the earlier part of the reign of George III. were called), +one of which, entitled “The Macaroni Dressing-Room,” was especially +popular.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut195.jpg" width="350" height="389" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 195. A Party of Mourners.</div> +</div> + +<p>English political caricature came into its full activity with the +ministry of Sir Robert Walpole, which, beginning in 1721, lasted +through the long period of twenty years. In the previous period +the Whigs were accused of having invented caricature, but now the +Tories certainly took the utmost advantage of the invention, for, +during several years, the greater number of the caricatures which +were published were aimed against the Whig ministry. It is also a +rather remarkable characteristic of society at this period, that the +ladies took so great an interest in politics, that the caricatures +were largely introduced upon fans, as well as upon other objects of +an equally personal character. Moreover, the popular notion of what +constituted a caricature was still so little fixed, that they were +usually called <em>hieroglyphics</em>, a term, indeed, which was not ill +applied, for they were so elaborate, and so filled with mystical +allusions, that now it is by<a class="pagenum" id="Page_424" title="424"></a> no means easy to understand or appreciate +them. Towards the year 1739, there was a marked improvement in the +political caricatures—they were better designed, and displayed more +talent, but still they required rather long descriptions to render them +intelligible. One of the most celebrated was produced by the motion in +the House of Commons, Feb. 13, 1741, against the minister Walpole. It +was entitled “The Motion,” and was a Whig satire upon the opposition, +who are represented as driving so hurriedly and inconsiderately to +obtain places, that they are overthrown before they reach their object. +The party of the opposition retaliated by a counter-caricature, +entitled, “The Reason,” which was in some respects a parody upon the +other, to which it was inferior in point and spirit. At the same time +appeared another caricature against the ministry, under the title of +“The Motive.” These provoked another,<a class="pagenum" id="Page_425" title="425"></a> entitled, “A Consequence of the +Motion;” which was followed the day after its publication by another +caricature upon the opposition, entitled, “The Political Libertines; +or, Motion upon Motion;” while the opponents of the government also +brought out a caricature, entitled, “The Grounds,” a violent and rather +gross attack upon the Whigs. Among other caricatures published on this +occasion, one of the best was entitled, “The Funeral of Faction,” +and bears the date of March 26, 1741. Beneath it are the words, +“Funerals performed by Squire S——s,” alluding to Sandys, who was the +motion-maker in the House of Commons, and who thus brought on his party +a signal defeat. Among the chief mourners on this occasion are seen the +opposition journals, <cite>The Craftsman</cite>, the creation of Bolingbroke and +Pulteney, the still more scurrilous <cite>Champion</cite>, <cite>The Daily Post</cite>, <cite>The +London and Evening Post</cite>, and <cite>The Common Sense Journal</cite>. This mournful +group is reproduced in our cut No. 195.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut196.jpg" width="350" height="416" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 196. British Resentment.</div> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut197.jpg" width="400" height="243" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 197. Britannia in a New Dress.</div> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut198.jpg" width="250" height="227" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 198. Caught by a Bait.</div> +</div> + +<p>From this time there was no falling off in the supply of caricatures, +which, on the contrary, seemed to increase every year, until +the activity of the pictorial satirists was roused anew by the +hostilities with France in<a class="pagenum" id="Page_426" title="426"></a> 1755, and the ministerial intrigues of +the two following years. The war, accepted by the English government +reluctantly, and ill prepared for, was the subject of much discontent, +although at first hopes were given of great success. One of the +caricatures, published in the middle of these early hopes, at a time +when an English fleet lay before Louisbourg, in Canada, is entitled, +“British Resentment, or the French fairly coop’d at Louisbourg,” +and came from the pencil of the French artist Boitard. One of its +groups, representing the courageous English sailor and the despairing +Frenchman, is given in our cut No. 196, and may serve as an example +of Boitard’s style of drawing. It became now the fashion to print +political caricatures, in a diminished form, on cards, and seventy-five +of these were formed into a small volume, under the title of “A +Political and Satirical History of the years 1756 and 1757. In a +series of seventy-five humorous and entertaining Prints, containing +all the most remarkable Transactions, Characters, and Caricaturas of +those two memorable years.... London: printed for E. Morris, near St. +Paul’s.” The imprints of the plates, which bear the dates of their +several publications, inform us that they came from the well-known +shop of “Darly and Edwards, at the Acorn, facing Hungerford, Strand.” +These caricatures begin with our foreign relations, and express the +belief that the ministers were sacrificing English interests to French +influence. In one of them<a class="pagenum" id="Page_427" title="427"></a> (our cut No. 197), entitled, “England made +odious, or the French Dressers,” the minister, Newcastle, in the garb +of a woman, and his colleague, Fox, have dressed Britannia in a new +French robe, which does not fit her. She exclaims, “Let me have my own +cloathes. I cannot stir my arms in these; besides, everybody laughs at +me.” Newcastle replies, rather imperiously, “Hussy, be quiet, you have +no need to stir your arms—why, sure! what’s here to do?” While Fox, in +a more insinuating tone, offers her a fleur-de-lis, and says, “Here, +madam, stick this in your bosom, next your heart.” The two pictures +which adorn the walls of the room represent an axe and a halter; and +underneath we read the lines,—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">And shall the substitutes of power</div> + <div class="line indent2">Our genius thus bedeck?</div> + <div class="line">Let them remember there’s an hour</div> + <div class="line indent2">Of quittance—then, ware neck.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>In another print of this series, this last idea is illustrated more +fully. It is aimed at the ministers, who were believed to be enriching +themselves at the expense of the nation, and is entitled, “The Devil +turned Bird-catcher.” On one side, while Fox is greedily scrambling +for the gold, the fiend has caught him in a halter suspended to the +gallows; on the other side another demon is letting down the fatal +axe on Newcastle, who is similarly employed. The latter (see our cut +No. 198) is described<a class="pagenum" id="Page_428" title="428"></a> as a “Noddy catching at the bait, while the +bird-catcher lets drop an axe.” This implement of execution is a +perfect picture of a guillotine, long before it was so notoriously in +use in France.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut199.jpg" width="400" height="319" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 199. British Idolatry.</div> +</div> + +<p>The third example of these caricatures which I shall quote is entitled +“The Idol,” and has for its subject the extravagancies and personal +jealousies connected with the Italian opera. The rivalry between +Mingotti and Vanneschi was now making as much noise there as that of +Cuzzoni and Faustina some years before. The former acted arbitrarily +and capriciously, and could with difficulty be bound to sing a few +times during the season for a high salary: it is said, £2,000 for the +season. In the caricature to which I allude, this lady appears raised +upon a stool, inscribed “£2,000 per annum,” and is receiving the +worship of her admirers. Immediately before her an ecclesiastic is seen +on his knees, exclaiming, “Unto thee be praise now and for evermore!” +In the background a lady appears, holding up her pug-dog, then the +fashionable pet, and addressing the opera favourite, “’Tis only pug and +you I love.” Other men are on their knees behind the ecclesiastic, all +persons of distinction; and last comes a nobleman and his lady, the +former holding in his hand an order for £2,000, his subscription to the +opera, and remarking, “We shall have but<a class="pagenum" id="Page_429" title="429"></a> twelve songs for all this +money.” The lady replies, with an air of contempt, “Well, and enough +too, for the paltry trifle.” The idol, in return for all this homage, +sings rather contemptuously—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">Ra, ru, ra, rot ye,</div> + <div class="line">My name is Mingotti,</div> + <div class="line">If you worship me notti,</div> + <div class="line">You shall all go to potti.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>The closing years of the reign of George II., under the vigorous +administration of the first William Pitt, witnessed a calm in the +domestic politics of the country, which presented a strange contrast +to the agitation of the previous period. Faction seemed to have hidden +its head, and there was comparatively little employment for the +caricaturist. But this calm lasted only a short time after that king’s +death, and the new reign was ushered in by indications of approaching +political agitation of the most violent description, in which satirists +who had hitherto contented themselves with other subjects were tempted +to embark in the strife of politics. Among these was Hogarth, whose +discomforts as a political caricaturist we shall have to describe in +our next chapter.</p> + +<div class="figright fig175"> + <img src="images/cut200.jpg" width="175" height="386" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 200. Fox on Boots.</div> +</div> + +<p>Perhaps no name ever provoked a greater amount of caricature and +satirical abuse than that of Lord Bute, who, through the favour of +the Princess of Wales, ruled supreme at court during the first period +of the reign of George III. Bute had taken into the ministry, as his +confidential colleague, Fox—the Henry Fox who became subsequently +the first Lord Holland, a man who had enriched himself enormously +with the money of the nation, and these two appeared to be aiming at +the establishment of arbitrary power in the place of constitutional +government. Fox was usually represented in<a class="pagenum" id="Page_430" title="430"></a> the caricatures with the +head and tail of the animal represented by his name rather strongly +developed; while Bute was drawn, as a very bad pun upon his name, in +the garb of a Scotchman, wearing two large boots, or sometimes a single +boot of still greater magnitude. In these caricatures Bute and Fox are +generally coupled together. Thus, a little before the resignation of +the duke of Newcastle in 1762, there appeared a caricature entitled +“The State Nursery,” in which the various members of the ministry, as +it was then formed under Lord Bute’s influence, are represented as +engaged in childish games. Fox, as the whipper-in of parliamentary +majorities, is riding, armed with his whip, on Bute’s shoulders (see +our cut No. 200), while the duke of Newcastle performs the more menial +service of rocking the cradle. In the rhymes which accompany this +caricature, the first of these groups is described as follows (Fox was +commonly spoken of in satire by the title of Volpone)—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">First you see old sly Volpone-y,</div> + <div class="line">Riding on the shoulders brawny</div> + <div class="line">Of the muckle favourite Sawny;</div> + <div class="line indent5">Doodle, doodle, doo.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut201.jpg" width="300" height="359" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 201. Fanaticism in another Shape.</div> +</div> + +<p>The number of caricatures published at this period was very great, and +they were almost all aimed in one direction, against Bute and Fox, +the Princess of Wales, and the government they directed. Caricature, +at this time, ran into the least disguised licence, and the coarsest +allusions were made to the supposed secret intercourse between the +minister and the Princess of Wales, of which perhaps the most harmless +was the addition of a petticoat to the boot, as a symbol of the +influence under which the country was governed. In mock processions +and ceremonies a Scotchman was generally introduced carrying the +standard of the boot and petticoat. Lord Bute, frightened at the amount +of odium which was thus heaped upon him, fought to stem the torrent +by employing satirists to defend the government, and it is hardly +necessary to state that among these mercenary auxiliaries was the great +Hogarth himself, who accepted a pension, and published his caricature +entitled, “The Times, Nov. 1,” in the month of September, 1762. Hogarth +did not excel in political caricature, and there was little in this +print to distinguish it above<a class="pagenum" id="Page_431" title="431"></a> the ordinary publications of a similar +character. It was the moment of negotiations for Lord Bute’s unpopular +peace, and Hogarth’s satire is directed against the foreign policy of +the great ex-minister Pitt. It represents Europe in a state of general +conflagration, and the flames already communicating to Great Britain. +While Pitt is blowing the fire, Bute, with a party of soldiers and +sailors zealously assisted by his favourite Scotchmen, is labouring +to extinguish it. In this he is impeded by the interference of the +duke of Newcastle, who brings a wheelbarrow full of <cite>Monitors</cite> and +<cite>North Britons,</cite> the violent opposition journals, to feed the flames. +The advocacy of Bute’s mercenaries, whether literary or artistic, did +little service to the government, for they only provoked increased +activity among its opponents. Hogarth’s caricature of “The Times,” drew +several answers, one of the best of which was a large print entitled +“The Raree Show: a political contrast to the print of ‘The Times,’ by +William Hogarth.” It is the house of John Bull which is here on fire, +and the Scots are dancing and exulting at it. In the centre of the +picture appears a great actors’ barn, from an upper window of which +Fox thrusts out his head and points to the sign, representing Æneas +and Dido<a class="pagenum" id="Page_432" title="432"></a> entering the cave together, as the performance which was +acting within. It is an allusion to the scandal in general circulation +relating to Bute and the princess, who, of course, were the Æneas and +Dido of the piece, and appear in those characters on the scaffold in +front, with two of Bute’s mercenary writers, Smollett, who edited the +<cite>Briton</cite>, and Murphy, who wrote in the <cite>Auditor</cite>, one blowing the +trumpet and the other beating the drum. Among the different groups +which fill the picture, one, behind the actors’ barn (see our cut No. +201), is evidently intended for a satire on the spirit of religious +fanaticism which was at this time spreading through the country. +An open-air preacher, mounted on a stool, is addressing a not very +intellectual-looking audience, while his inspiration is conveyed to him +in a rather vulgar manner by the spirit, not of good, but of evil.</p> + +<p>The violence of this political warfare at length drove Lord Bute from +at least ostensible power. He resigned on the 6th of April, 1763. One +of the popular favourites at this time was the duke of Cumberland, the +hero of Culloden, who was regarded as the leader of the opposition +in the House of Lords. People now believed that it was the duke of +Cumberland who had overthrown “the boot,” and his popularity increased +on a sudden. The triumph was commemorated in several caricatures. One +of these is entitled, “The Jack-Boot kick’d down, or English Will +triumphant: a Dream.” The duke of Cumberland, whip in hand, has kicked +the boot out of the house, exclaiming to a young man in tailor’s +garb who follows him, “Let me alone, Ned; I know how to deal with +Scotsmen. Remember Culloden.” The youth replies, “Kick hard, uncle, +keep him down. Let me have a kick too.” Nearly the same group, using +similar language, is introduced into a caricature of the same date, +entitled, “The Boot and the Blockhead.” The youthful personage is no +doubt intended for Cumberland’s nephew, Edward, duke of York, who was +a sailor, and was raised to the rank of rear-admiral, and who appears +to have joined his uncle in his opposition to Lord Bute. The “boot,” as +seen in our cut No. 202, is encircled with Hogarth’s celebrated “line +of beauty,” of which I shall have to speak more at length in the next +chapter.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut202.jpg" width="300" height="399" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 202. The Overthrow of the Boot.</div> +</div> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="Page_433" title="433"></a> +With the overthrow of Bute’s ministry, we may consider the English +school of caricature as completely formed and fully established. From +this time the names of the caricaturists are better known, and we shall +have to consider them in their individual characters. One of these, +William Hogarth, had risen in fame far above the group of the ordinary +men by whom he was surrounded.</p> + + + +<hr class="chap" /> +<h2><a class="pagenum" id="Page_434" title="434"></a> +CHAPTER XXV. +</h2> + +<p class="subtitle"> + HOGARTH.—HIS EARLY HISTORY.—HIS SETS OF PICTURES.—THE HARLOT’S + PROGRESS.—THE RAKE’S PROGRESS.—THE MARRIAGE A LA MODE.—HIS + OTHER PRINTS.—THE ANALYSIS OF BEAUTY, AND THE PERSECUTION ARISING + OUT OF IT.—HIS PATRONAGE BY LORD BUTE.—CARICATURE OF THE + TIMES.—ATTACKS TO WHICH HE WAS EXPOSED BY IT, AND WHICH HASTENED + HIS DEATH.</p> + + +<p>On the 10th of November, 1697, William Hogarth was born in the city of +London. His father, Richard Hogarth, was a London schoolmaster, who +laboured to increase the income derived from his scholars by compiling +books, but with no great success. From his childhood, as he tells us +in his “Anecdotes” of himself, the young Hogarth displayed a taste for +drawing, and especially for caricature; and, out of school, he appears +to have been seldom without a pencil in his hand. The limited means +of Richard Hogarth compelled him to take the boy from school at an +early age, and bind him apprentice to a steel-plate engraver. But this +occupation proved little to the taste of one whose ambition rose much +higher; and when the term of his apprenticeship had expired, he applied +himself to engraving on copper; and, setting up on his own account, did +considerable amount of work, first in engraving arms and shop-bills, +and afterwards in designing and engraving book illustrations, none +of which displayed any superiority over the ordinary run of such +productions. Towards 1728 Hogarth began to practice as a painter, and +he subsequently attended the academy of sir James Thornhill, in Covent +Garden, where he became acquainted with that painter’s only daughter, +Jane. The result was a clandestine marriage in 1730, which met the +disapproval and provoked the anger of the lady’s father. Subsequently, +however, sir James became convinced of the genius of his son-in-law, +and a reconciliation was effected through the medium of lady Thornhill.</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="Page_435" title="435"></a> +At this time Hogarth had already commenced that new style of design +which was destined to raise him soon to a degree of fame as an artist +few men have ever attained. In his “Anecdotes” of himself, the +painter has given us an interesting account of the motives by which +he was guided. “The reasons,” he says, “which induced me to adopt +this mode of designing were, that I thought both writers and painters +had, in the historical style, totally overlooked that intermediate +species of subjects which may be placed between the sublime and the +grotesque. I therefore wished to compose pictures on canvas similar +to representations on the stage; and further hope that they will be +tried by the same test, and criticised by the same criterion. Let it +be observed, that I mean to speak only of those scenes where the human +species are actors, and these, I think, have not often been delineated +in a way of which they are worthy and capable. In these compositions, +those subjects that will both entertain and improve the mind bid fair +to be of the greatest public utility, and must therefore be entitled to +rank in the highest class. If the execution is difficult (though that +is but a secondary merit), the author has claim to a higher degree of +praise. If this be admitted, comedy, in painting as well as writing, +ought to be allotted the first place, though <em>the sublime</em>, as it is +called, has been opposed to it. Ocular demonstration will carry more +conviction to the mind of a sensible man than all he would find in a +thousand volumes, and this has been attempted in the prints I have +composed. Let the decision be left to every unprejudiced eye; let the +figures in either pictures or prints be considered as players dressed +either for the sublime, for genteel comedy or farce, for high or low +life. I have endeavoured to treat my subjects as a dramatic writer: my +picture is my stage, and men and women my players, who, by means of +certain actions and gestures, are to exhibit <em>a dumb-show</em>.”</p> + +<p>The great series of pictures, indeed, which form the principal +foundation of Hogarth’s fame, are comedies rather than caricatures, +and noble comedies they are. Like comedies, they are arranged, by a +series of successive plates, in acts and scenes; and they represent +contemporary society pictorially, just as it had been and was +represented on the stage in English comedy. It is not by delicacy +or excellence of drawing that Hogarth<a class="pagenum" id="Page_436" title="436"></a> excels, for he often draws +incorrectly; but it is by his extraordinary and minute delineation of +character, and by his wonderful skill in telling a story thoroughly. In +each of his plates we see a whole act of a play, in which nothing is +lost, nothing glossed over, and, I may add, nothing exaggerated. The +most trifling object introduced into the picture is made to have such +an intimate relationship with the whole, that it seems as if it would +be imperfect without it. The art of producing this effect was that in +which Hogarth excelled. The first of Hogarth’s great <em>suites</em> of prints +was “The Harlot’s Progress,” which was the work of the years 1733 and +1734. It tells a story which was then common in London, and was acted +more openly in the broad face of society than at the present day; and +therefore the effect and consequent success were almost instantaneous. +It had novelty, as well as excellence, to recommend it. This series +of plates was followed, in 1735, by another, under the title of “The +Rake’s Progress.” In the former, Hogarth depicted the shame and ruin +which attended a life of prostitution; in this, he represented the +similar consequences which a life of profligacy entailed on the other +sex. In many respects it is superior to the “Harlot’s Progress,” and +its details come more home to the feelings of people in general, +because those of the prostitute’s history are more veiled from the +public gaze. The progress of the spendthrift in dissipation and riot, +from the moment he becomes possessed of the fruits of paternal avarice, +until his career ends in prison and madness, forms a marvellous drama, +in which every incident presents itself, and every agent performs his +part, so naturally, that it seems almost beyond the power of acting. +Perhaps no one ever pictured despair with greater perfection than it +is shown in the face and bearing of the unhappy hero of this history, +in the last plate but one of the series, where, thrown into prison +for debt, he receives from the manager of a theatre the announcement +that the play which he had written in the hope of retrieving somewhat +of his position—his last resource—has been refused. The returned +manuscript and the manager’s letter lie on the wretched table (cut No. +203); while on the one side his wife reproaches him heartlessly with +the deprivations and sufferings which he has brought upon her, and +on the other the jailer is reminding him of the fact that<a class="pagenum" id="Page_437" title="437"></a> the fees +exacted for the slight indulgence he has obtained in prison are unpaid, +and even the pot-boy refuses to deliver him his beer without first +receiving his money. It is but a step further to Bedlam, which, in the +next plate, closes his unblessed career.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut203.jpg" width="350" height="320" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 203. Despair.</div> +</div> + +<p>Ten years almost from this time had passed away before Hogarth gave to +the world his next grand series of what he called his “modern moral +subjects.” This was “The Marriage <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">à la mode</em>,” which was published in +six plates in 1745, and which fully sustained the reputation built upon +the “Harlot’s Progress” and the “Rake’s Progress.” Perhaps the best +plate of the “Marriage <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">à la mode</em>,” is the fourth—the music scene—in +which one principal group of figures especially arrests the attention. +It is represented in our cut No. 204. William Hazlitt has justly +remarked upon it that, “the preposterous, overstrained admiration of +the lady of quality; the sentimental, insipid, patient delight of the +man with his hair in papers, and sipping his tea; the pert, smirking, +conceited, half-distorted approbation of the figure next to him; the +transition to the total insensibility of the round face in profile, and +then to the wonder of the negro boy at the rapture of his mistress, +form a perfect whole.”</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut204.jpg" width="350" height="266" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 204. Fashionable Society.</div> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut205.jpg" width="300" height="328" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 205. An Old Maid and her Page.</div> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut206.jpg" width="300" height="278" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 206. Loss and Gain.</div> +</div> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="Page_438" title="438"></a> +In the interval between these three great monuments of his talent, +Hogarth had published various other plates, belonging to much the same +class of subjects, and displaying different degrees of excellence. His +engraving of “Southwark Fair,” published in 1733, which immediately +preceded the “Harlot’s Progress,” may be regarded almost as an attempt +to rival the fairs of Gallot. “The Midnight Modern Conversation”<a class="pagenum" id="Page_439" title="439"></a> +appeared in the interval between the “Harlot’s Progress” and the +“Rake’s Progress;” and three years after the series last mentioned, in +1738, the engraving, remarkable equally in design and execution, of +the “Strolling Actresses in a Barn,” and the four plates of “Morning,” +“Noon,” “Evening,” and “Night,” all full of choicest bits of humour. +Such is the group of the old maid and her footboy in the first of this +series (cut No. 205)—the former stiff and prudish, whose religion +is evidently not that of charity; while the latter crawls after, +shrinking at the same time under the effects of cold and hunger, +which he sustains in consequence of the hard, niggardly temper of his +mistress. Among the humorous events which fill the plate of “Noon,” we +may point to the disaster of the boy who has been sent to the baker’s +to fetch home the family dinner, and who, as represented in our cut No. +206, has broken his pie-dish, and spilt its contents on the ground; +and it is difficult to say which is expressed with most fidelity to +nature—the terror and shame of the unfortunate lad, or the feeling +of enjoyment in the face of the little girl who is feasting on the +fragments of the scattered meal. In 1741 appeared the plate of “The +Enraged Musician.” During this period Hogarth appears to have been +hesitating between two subjects for his third grand pictorial drama. +Some unfinished sketches have been found,<a class="pagenum" id="Page_440" title="440"></a> from which it would seem +that, after depicting the miseries of a life of dissipation in either +sex, he intended to represent the domestic happiness which resulted +from a prudent and well-assorted marriage; but for some reason or +other he abandoned this design, and gave the picture of wedlock in +a less amiable light, in his “Marriage <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">à la mode</em>.” The title was +probably taken from that of Dryden’s comedy. In 1750 appeared “The +March to Finchley,” in many respects one of Hogarth’s best works. It +is a striking exposure of the want of discipline, and the low <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">morale</em> +of the English army under George II. Many amusing groups fill this +picture, the scene of which is laid in Tottenham Court Road, along +which the guards are supposed to be marching to encamp at Finchley, in +consequence of rumours of the approach of the Pretender’s army in the +Rebellion of ’45. The soldiers in front are moving on with some degree +of order, but in the rear we see nothing but confusion, some reeling +about under the effects of liquor, and confounded by the cries of women +and children, camp-followers, ballad-singers, plunderers, and the like. +One of the latter, as represented in our cut No. 207, is assisting a +fallen soldier with an additional dose of liquor, while his pilfering +propensities are betrayed by the hen screaming from his wallet, and by +the chickens following distractedly the cries of their parent.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut207.jpg" width="350" height="281" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 207. A brave Soldier.</div> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut208.jpg" width="300" height="340" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 208. A Painter’s Amusements.</div> +</div> + +<p>Hogarth presents a singular example of a satirist who suffered under<a class="pagenum" id="Page_441" title="441"></a> +the very punishment which he inflicted on others. He made many personal +enemies in the course of his labours. He had begun his career with a +well-known personal satire, entitled “The Man of Taste,” which was +a caricature on Pope, and the poet is said never to have forgiven +it. Although the satire in his more celebrated works appears to us +general, it told upon his contemporaries personally; for the figures +which act their parts in them were so many portraits of individuals +who moved in contemporary society, and who were known to everybody, +and thus he provoked a host of enemies. It was like Foote’s mimicry. +He was to an extraordinary degree vain of his own talent, and jealous +of that of others in the same profession; and he spoke in terms of +undisguised contempt of almost all artists, past or present. Thus, the +painter introduced into the print of “Beer Street,” is said to be a +caricature upon John Stephen Liotard, one of the artists mentioned in +the last chapter. He thus provoked the hostility of the greatest part +of his contemporaries in his own profession, and in the sequel had +to support the full weight of their anger. When George II., who had +more taste for soldiers than pictures, saw the painting of the “March +to Finchley,” instead of admiring it as a work of art, he is said to +have expressed himself with anger at the insult which he believed +was offered to his army; and Hogarth not only revenged himself by +dedicating his print to the king of Prussia, by which it did become +a satire on the British army, but he threw himself into the faction +of the prince of Wales at Leicester House. The first occasion for the +display of all these animosities was given in the year 1753, at the +close of which he published his “Analysis of Beauty.” Though far from +being himself a successful painter of beauty, Hogarth undertook in +this work to investigate its principles, which he referred to a waving +or serpentine line, and this he termed the “line of beauty.” In 1745 +Hogarth had published his own portrait as the frontispiece to a volume +of his collected works, and in one corner of the plate he introduced a +painter’s palette, on which was this waving line, inscribed “The line +of beauty.” For several years the meaning of this remained either quite +a mystery, or was only known to a few of Hogarth’s acquaintances, until +the appearance of the book just mentioned. Hogarth’s manuscript was<a class="pagenum" id="Page_442" title="442"></a> +revised by his friend, Dr. Morell, the compiler of the “Thesaurus,” +whose name became thus associated with the book. This work exposed +its author to a host of violent attacks, and to unbounded ridicule, +especially from the whole tribe of offended artists. A great number of +caricatures upon Hogarth and his line of beauty appeared during the +year 1754, which show the bitterness of the hatred he had provoked; +and to hold still further their terror over his head, most of them +are inscribed with the words, “To be continued.” Among the artists +who especially signalised themselves by their zeal against him, was +Paul Sandby, to whom we owe some of the best of these anti-Hogarthian +caricatures. One of these is entitled, “A New Dunciad, done with a view +of [fixing] the fluctuating ideas of taste.” In the principal group +(which is given in our cut No. 208), Hogarth is represented playing +with a <em>pantin</em>, or figure which was moved into activity by pulling a +string. The string takes somewhat the form of the line of beauty, which +is also drawn upon his palette. This figure is described underneath the +picture as “a painter<a class="pagenum" id="Page_443" title="443"></a> at the proper exercise of his taste.” To his +breast is attached a card (the knave of hearts), which is described +by a very bad pun as “the fool of arts.” On one side “his genius” is +represented in the form of a black harlequin; while behind appears a +rather jolly personage (intended, perhaps, for Dr. Morell), who, we +are told, is one of his admirers. On the table are the foundations, or +the remains, of “a house of cards.” Near him is Hogarth’s favourite +dog, named Trump, which always accompanies him in these caricatures. +Another caricature which appeared at this time represents Hogarth on +the stage as a quack doctor, holding in his hand the line of beauty, +and recommending its extraordinary qualities. This print is entitled +“A Mountebank Painter demonstrating to his admirers and subscribers +that crookedness is y<sup>e</sup> most beautifull.” Lord Bute, whose patronage at +Leicester House Hogarth now enjoyed, is represented fiddling, and the +black harlequin serves as “his puff.” In the front a crowd of deformed +and hump-backed people are pressing forwards (see our cut No. 209), and +the line of beauty fits them all admirably.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut209.jpg" width="350" height="229" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 209. The Line of Beauty exemplified.</div> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut210.jpg" width="400" height="366" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 210. Piracy Exposed.</div> +</div> + +<p>Much as this famous line of beauty was ridiculed, Hogarth was not +allowed to retain the small honour which seemed to arise from it +undisputed. It was said that he had stolen the idea from an Italian +writer named Lomazzo, Latinised into Lomatius, who had enounced it in +a<a class="pagenum" id="Page_444" title="444"></a> treatise on the Fine Arts, published in the sixteenth century.<a id="FNanchor_102" href="#Footnote_102" class="fnanchor">[102]</a> +In another caricature by Paul Sandby, with a vulgar title which I will +not repeat, Hogarth is visited, in the midst of his glory, by the ghost +of Lomazzo, carrying in one hand his treatise on the arts, and with his +other holding up to view the line of beauty itself. In the inscriptions +on the plate, the principal figure is described as “An author sinking +under the weight of his saturnine analysis;” and, indeed, Hogarth’s +terror is broadly painted, while the volume of his analysis is resting +heavily upon “a strong support bent in the line of beauty by the mighty +load upon it.” Beside Hogarth stands “his faithful pug,” and behind +him “a friend of the author endeavouring to prevent his sinking to his +natural lowness.” On<a class="pagenum" id="Page_445" title="445"></a> the other side stands Dr. Morell, or, perhaps, +Mr. Townley, the master of Merchant Taylors’ School, who continued +his service in preparing the book for the press after Morell’s death, +described as “the author’s friend and corrector,” astonished at the +sight of the ghost. The ugly figure on the left hand of the picture +is described as “Deformity weeping at the condition of her darling +son,” while the dog is “a greyhound bemoaning his friend’s condition.” +This group is represented in our cut No. 210. The other caricatures +which appeared at this time were two numerous to allow us to give a +particular description of them. The artist is usually represented, +under the influence of his line of beauty, painting ugly pictures from +deformed models, or attempting historical pictures in a style bordering +on caricature, or, on one occasion, as locked up in a mad-house, and +allowed only to exercise his skill upon the bare walls. One of these +caricatures is entitled, in allusion to the title of one of his most +popular prints, “The Painter’s March through Finchley, dedicated to the +king of the gipsies, as an encourager of arts, &c” Hogarth appears in +full flight through the village, closely pursued by women and children, +and animals in great variety, and defended only by his favourite dog.</p> + +<p>With the “Marriage <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">à la mode</em>,” Hogarth may be considered as having +reached his highest point of excellence. The set of “Industry and +Idleness” tells a good and useful moral story, but displays inferior +talent in design. “Beer Street” and “Gin Lane” disgust us by their +vulgarity, and the “Four Stages of Cruelty” are equally repulsive +to our feelings by the unveiled horrors of the scenes which are too +coarsely depicted in them. In the four prints of the proceedings at +an election, which are the last of his pictures of this description, +published in 1754, Hogarth rises again, and approaches in some degree +to his former elevation.</p> + +<p>In 1757, on the death of his brother-in-law, John Thornhill, the office +of sergeant-painter of all his Majesty’s works became vacant, and it +was bestowed upon Hogarth, who, according to his own account, received +from it an income of about £200 a-year. This appointment caused another +display of hostility towards him, and his enemies called him jeeringly +the king’s chief panel painter. It was at this moment that a plan for +the establishment of an academy of the fine arts was agitated,<a class="pagenum" id="Page_446" title="446"></a> which, +a few years later, came into existence under the title of the Royal +Academy, and Hogarth proclaimed so loud an opposition to this project, +that the old cry was raised anew, that he was jealous and envious of +all his profession, and that he sought to stand alone as superior to +them all. It was the signal for a new onslaught of caricatures upon +himself and his line of beauty. Hitherto his assailants had been found +chiefly among the artists, but the time was now approaching when he +was destined to thrust himself into the midst of a political struggle, +where the attacks of a new class of enemies carried with them a more +bitter sting.</p> + +<p>George II. died on the 17th of October, 1760, and his grandson +succeeded him to the throne as George III. It appears evident that +before this time Hogarth had gained the favour of lord Bute, who, +by his interest with the princess of Wales, was all-powerful in the +household of the young prince. The painter had hitherto kept tolerably +clear of politics in his prints, but now, unluckily for himself, +he suddenly rushed into the arena of political caricature. It was +generally said that Hogarth’s object was, by displaying his zeal in the +cause of his patron, lord Bute, to obtain an increase in his pension; +and he acknowledges himself that his object was gain. “This,” he says, +“being a period when war abroad and contention at home engrossed every +one’s mind, prints were thrown into the background; and the stagnation +rendered it necessary that I should do some <em>timed thing</em> [the italics +are Hogarth’s] to recover my lost time, and stop a gap in my income.” +Accordingly he determined to attack the great minister, Pitt, who had +then recently been compelled to resign his office, and had gone over to +the opposition. It is said that John Wilkes, who had previously been +Hogarth’s friend, having been privately informed of his design, went +to the painter, expostulated with him, and, as he continued obstinate, +threatened him with retaliation. In September, 1762, appeared the print +entitled “The Times, No. I,” indicating that it was to be followed by +a second caricature. The principal features of the picture are these: +Europe is represented in flames, which are communicating to Great +Britain, but lord Bute, with soldiers and sailors, and the assistance +of Highlanders, is labouring to extinguish them, while Pitt is blowing +the fire, and the duke of Newcastle brings a barrowful of<a class="pagenum" id="Page_447" title="447"></a> <cite>Monitors</cite> +and <cite>North Britons</cite>, the violent journals of the popular party, to +feed it. There is much detail in the print which it is not necessary +to describe. In fulfilment of his threat, Wilkes, in the number of +the <cite>North Briton</cite> published on the Saturday immediately following +the publication of this print, attacked Hogarth with extraordinary +bitterness, casting cruel reflections upon his domestic as well as his +professional character. Hogarth, stung to the quick, retaliated by +publishing the well-known caricature of Wilkes. Thereupon Churchill, +the poet, Wilkes’s friend, and formerly the friend of Hogarth also, +published a bitter invective in verse against the painter, under the +title of an “Epistle to William Hogarth.” Hogarth retaliated again: +“Having an old plate by me,” he tells us, “with some parts ready, +such as a background and a dog, I began to consider how I could turn +so much work laid aside to some account, so patched up a print of +Master Churchill in the character of a bear.” The unfinished picture +was intended to be a portrait of Hogarth himself; the canonical bear, +which represented Churchill, held a pot of<a class="pagenum" id="Page_448" title="448"></a> porter in one hand, and +in the other a knotted club, each knot labelled “lie 1,” “lie 2,” &c +The painter, in his “Anecdotes,” exults over the pecuniary profit he +derived from the extensive sale of these two prints.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut211.jpg" width="350" height="404" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 211. An Independent Draughtsman.</div> +</div> + +<p>The virulence of the caricaturists against Hogarth became on this +occasion greater than ever. Parodies on his own works, sneers at his +personal appearance and manners, reflections upon his character, were +all embodied in prints which bore such names as Hogg-ass, Hoggart, +O’Garth, &c Our cut No. 211 represents one of the caricature portraits +of the artist. It is entitled “Wm. Hogarth, Esq., drawn from the Life.” +Hogarth wears the thistle on his hat, as the sign of his dependence on +lord Bute. At his breast hangs his palette, with the line of beauty +inscribed upon it. He holds behind his back a roll of paper inscribed +“Burlesque on L—d B—t.” In his right hand he presents to view two +pictures, “The Times,” and the “Portrait of Wilkes.” At the upper +corner to the left is the figure of Bute, offering him in a bag a +pension of “£300 per ann.” Some of the allusions in this picture are +now obscure, but they no doubt relate to anecdotes well known at the +time. They receive some light from the following mock letters which are +written at the foot of the plate:—</p> + +<div class="quote"> + <p>“<em>Copy of a Letter from Mr. Hog-garth to Lord Mucklemon, w<sup>th</sup> + his Lordship’s Answer.</em></p> + + <p>“My Lord,—The enclosed is a design I intend to publish; you are + sensible it will not redound to your honour, as it will expose you + to all the world in your proper colours. You likewise know what + induced me to do this; but it is in y<sup>r</sup> power to prevent it from + appearing in publick, which I would have you do immediately.</p> + + <p class="signature">“<span class="smcap">Will<sup>m</sup> Hog-garth.</span></p> + + <p>“Mais<sup>r</sup> Hog-garth,—By my saul, mon, I am sare troobled for what + I have done; I did na ken y<sup>r</sup> muckle merit till noow; say na mair + aboot it; I’ll mak au things easy to you, & gie you bock your + Pension.</p> + + <p class="signature">“<span class="smcap">Sawney Mucklemon.</span>”</p> +</div> + +<p>In an etching without a title, published at this time, and copied in +our cut No. 212, the Hogarthian dog is represented barking from a +cautious distance at the canonical bear, who appears to be meditating +further mischief. Pugg stands upon his master’s palette and the line of +beauty, while Bruin rests upon the “Epistle to Wm. Hogarth,” with the<a class="pagenum" id="Page_449" title="449"></a> +pen and ink by its side. On the left, behind the dog, is a large frame, +with the words “Pannel Painting” inscribed upon it.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut212.jpg" width="400" height="238" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 212. Beauty and the Bear.</div> +</div> + +<p>The article by Wilkes in the <cite>North Briton</cite>, and Churchill’s metrical +epistle, irritated Hogarth more than all the hostile caricatures, and +were generally believed to have broken his heart. He died on the 26th +of October, 1764, little more than a year after the appearance of the +attack by Wilkes, and with the taunts of his political as well as his +professional enemies still ringing in his ears.</p> + + + +<hr class="chap" /> +<h2><a class="pagenum" id="Page_450" title="450"></a> +CHAPTER XXVI. +</h2> + +<p class="subtitle"> + THE LESSER CARICATURISTS OF THE REIGN OF GEORGE III.—PAUL + SANDBY.—COLLET; THE DISASTER, AND FATHER PAUL IN HIS + CUPS.—JAMES SAYER; HIS CARICATURES IN SUPPORT OF PITT, AND + HIS REWARD.—CARLO KHAN’S TRIUMPH.—BUNBURY; HIS CARICATURES + ON HORSEMANSHIP.—WOODWARD; GENERAL COMPLAINT.—ROWLANDSON’S + INFLUENCE ON THE STYLE OF THOSE WHOSE DESIGNS HE ETCHED.—JOHN KAY + OF EDINBURGH: LOOKING A ROCK IN THE FACE.</p> + + +<p>The school of caricature which had grown amid the political agitation +of the reigns of the two first Georges, gave birth to a number of men +of greater talent in the same branch of art, who carried it to its +highest degree of perfection during that of George III. Among them are +the three great names of Gillray, Rowlandson, and Cruikshank, and a +few who, though second in rank to these, are still well remembered for +the talent displayed in their works, or with the effect they produced +on contemporaries. Among these the principal were Paul Sandby, John +Collet, Sayer, Bunbury, and Woodward.</p> + +<p>Sandby has been spoken of in the last chapter. He was not by profession +a caricaturist, but he was one of those rising artists who were +offended by the sneering terms in which Hogarth spoke of all artists +but himself, and he was foremost among those who turned their satire +against him. Examples of his caricatures upon Hogarth have already been +given, sufficient to show that they display skill in composition as +well as a large amount of wit and humour. After his death, they were +republished collectively, under the title, “Retrospective Art, from the +Collection of the late Paul Sandby, Esq., R.A.” Sandby was, indeed, one +of the original members of the Royal Academy. He was an artist<a class="pagenum" id="Page_451" title="451"></a> much +admired in his time, but is now chiefly remembered as a topographical +draughtsman. He was a native of Nottingham, where he was born in +1725,<a id="FNanchor_103" href="#Footnote_103" class="fnanchor">[103]</a> and he died on the 7th of November, 1809.<a id="FNanchor_104" href="#Footnote_104" class="fnanchor">[104]</a></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut213.jpg" width="350" height="357" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 213. A Disaster.</div> +</div> + +<p>John Collet, who also has been mentioned in a previous chapter, was +born in London in 1725, and died there in 1780. Collet is said to have +been a pupil of Hogarth, and there is a large amount of Hogarthian +character in all his designs. Few artists have been more industrious +and produced a greater number of engravings. He worked chiefly for +Carrington Bowles, in St. Paul’s Churchyard, and for Robert Sayers, +at 53, Fleet Street. His prints published by Bowles were engraved +generally in<a class="pagenum" id="Page_452" title="452"></a> mezzotinto, and highly coloured for sale; while those +published by Sayers were usually line engravings, and sometimes +remarkably well executed. Collet chose for his field of labour that +to which Hogarth had given the title of comedy in art, but he did not +possess Hogarth’s power of delineating whole acts and scenes in one +picture, and he contented himself with bits of detail and groups of +characters only. His caricatures are rarely political—they are aimed +at social manners and social vanities and weaknesses, and altogether +they form a singularly curious picture of society during an important +period of the last century. The first example I give (No. 213) is taken +from a line engraving, published by Sayers in 1776. At this time the +natural adornments of the person in both sexes had so far yielded to +artificial ornament, that even women cut off their own hair in order to +replace it by an ornamental <em>peruque</em>, supporting a head-dress, which +varied from time to time in form and in extravagance. Collet has here +introduced to us a lady who, encountering a sudden and violent wind, +has lost all her upper coverings, and wig, cap, and hat are caught by +her footman behind. The lady is evidently suffering under the feeling +of shame; and hard by, a cottager and his wife, at their door, are +laughing at her discomfiture. A bill fixed against a neighbouring wall +announces “A Lecture upon Heads.”</p> + +<p>At this time the “no-popery” feeling ran very high. Four years +afterwards it broke out violently in the celebrated lord Gordon riots. +It was this feeling which contributed greatly to the success of +Sheridan’s comedy of “The Duenna,” brought out in 1775. Collet drew +several pictures founded upon scenes in this play, one of which is +given in our cut No. 214. It forms one of Carington Bowles’s rather +numerous series of prints from designs by Collet, and represents the +well-known drinking scene in the convent, in the fifth scene of the +third act of “The Duenna.” The scene, it will be remembered, is “a room +in the priory,” and the excited monks are toasting, among other objects +of devotion, the abbess of St. Ursuline and the blue-eyed nun of St. +Catherine’s. The “blue-eyed nun” is, perhaps, the lady seen through the +window, and the patron saint of her convent is represented in one of +the pictures on the wall. There is great spirit in this picture, which +is entitled “Father Paul in his<a class="pagenum" id="Page_453" title="453"></a> Cups, or the Private Devotions of a +Convent.” It is accompanied with the following lines:—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">See with these friars how religion thrives,</div> + <div class="line">Who love good living better than good lives;</div> + <div class="line">Paul, the superior father, rules the roast,</div> + <div class="line">His god’s the glass, the blue-eyed nun his toast.</div> + <div class="line">Thus priests consume what fearful fools bestow,</div> + <div class="line">And saints’ donations make the bumpers flow.</div> + <div class="line">The butler sleeps—the cellar door is free—</div> + <div class="line">This is a modern cloister’s piety.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut214.jpg" width="400" height="358" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 214. Father Paul in his Cups.</div> +</div> + +<p>From Collet to Sayer we rush into the heat—I may say into the +bitterness—of politics, for James Sayer is known, with very trifling +exceptions, as a political caricaturist. He was the son of a captain +of a merchant ship at Great Yarmouth, but was himself put to the +profession of an attorney. As, however, he was possessed of a moderate +independence, and appears to have had no great taste for the law, he +neglected his business, and, with considerable talent for satire and +caricature, he threw himself into the political strife of the day. +Sayer was a bad<a class="pagenum" id="Page_454" title="454"></a> draughtsman, and his pictures are produced more by +labour than by skill in drawing, but they possess a considerable +amount of humour, and were sufficiently severe to obtain popularity +at a time when this latter character excused worse drawing even than +that of Sayer. He made the acquaintance and gained the favour of the +younger William Pitt, when that statesman was aspiring to power, and +he began his career as a caricaturist by attacking the Rockingham +ministry in 1782—of course in the interest of Pitt. Sayer’s earliest +productions which are now known, are a series of caricature portraits +of the Rockingham administration, that appear to have been given to +the public in instalments, at the several dates of April 6, May 14, +June 17, and July 3, 1782, and bear the name of C. Bretherton as +publisher. He published his first veritable caricature on the occasion +of the ministerial changes which followed the death of lord Rockingham, +when lord Shelburne was placed at the head of the cabinet, and Fox +and Burke retired, while Pitt became chancellor of the exchequer. +This caricature, which bears the title of “Paradise Lost,” and is, in +fact, a parody upon Milton, represents the once happy pair, Fox and +Burke, turned out of their paradise, the Treasury, the arch of the +gate of which is ornamented with the heads of Shelburne, the prime +minister, and Dunning and Barré, two of his staunch supporters, who +were considered to be especially obnoxious to Fox and Burke. Between +these three heads appear the faces of two mocking fiends, and groups +of pistols, daggers, and swords. Beneath are inscribed the well-known +lines of Milton—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line indent5">To the eastern side</div> + <div class="line">Of Paradise, so late their happy seat,</div> + <div class="line">Waved over by that flaming brand; the gate</div> + <div class="line">With dreadful faces thronged and fiery arms!</div> + <div class="line">Some natural tears they dropt, but wiped them soon.</div> + <div class="line">The world was all before them, where to choose</div> + <div class="line">Their place of rest, and providence their guide.</div> + <div class="line">They, arm in arm, with wand’ring steps, and slow,</div> + <div class="line">Thro’ Eden took their solitary way.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Nothing can be more lugubrious than the air of the two friends, +Fox and Burke, as they walk away, arm in arm, from the gate of the +ministerial paradise. From this time Sayer, who adopted all Pitt’s +virulence towards<a class="pagenum" id="Page_455" title="455"></a> Fox, made the latter a continual subject of his +satire. Nor did this zeal pass unrewarded, for Pitt, in power, gave the +caricaturist the not unlucrative offices of marshal of the court of +exchequer, receiver of the sixpenny duties, and cursitor. Sayer was, +in fact, Pitt’s caricaturist, and was employed by him in attacking +successively the coalition under Fox and North, Fox’s India Bill, and +even, at a later period, Warren Hastings on his trial.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut215.jpg" width="350" height="361" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 215. A Contrast.</div> +</div> + +<p>I have already remarked that Sayer was almost exclusively a political +caricaturist. The exceptions are a few prints on theatrical subjects, +in which contemporary actors and actresses are caricatured, and a +single subject from fashionable life. A copy of the latter forms our +cut No. 215. It has no title in the original, but in a copy in my +possession a contemporary has written on the margin in pencil that +the lady is Miss Snow and the gentleman Mr. Bird, no doubt well-known +personages in contemporary society. It was published on the 19th of +July, 1783.</p> + +<p>One of Sayer’s most successful caricatures, in regard to the effect +it<a class="pagenum" id="Page_456" title="456"></a> produced on the public, was that on Fox’s India Bill, published on +the 5th of September, 1783. It was entitled “Carlo Khan’s Triumphal +Entry into Leadenhall Street,” Carlo Khan being personified by Fox, +who is carried in triumph to the door of the India House on the back +of an elephant, which presents the face of lord North. Burke, who had +been the principal supporter of the bill in debate, appears in the +character of the imperial trumpeter, and leads the elephant on its way. +On a banner behind Carlo, the old inscription, “The Man of the People,” +the title popularly given to Fox, is erased, and the two Greek words, +<span title="BASILEUS BASILEÔN">ΒΑΣΙΛΕΥΣ ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΝ</span> “king of kings,” substituted in its place. +From a chimney above, the bird of ill omen croaks forth the doom of the +ambitious minister, who, it was pretended, aimed at making himself more +powerful than the king himself; and on the side of the house just below +we read the words—</p> + +<p class="center"> + <em>The night-crow cried foreboding luckless time.</em>—Shakespeare. +</p> + +<p>Henry William Bunbury belonged to a more aristocratic class in society +than any of the preceding. He was the second son of sir William +Bunbury, Bart., of Mildenhall, in the county of Suffolk, and was +born in 1750. How he first took so zealously to caricature we have +no information, but he began to publish before he was twenty-one +years of age. Bunbury’s drawing was bold and often good, but he had +little skill in etching, for some of his earlier prints, published +in 1771, which he etched himself, are coarsely executed. His designs +were afterwards engraved by various persons, and his own style was +sometimes modified in this process. His earlier prints were etched and +sold by James Bretherton, who has been already mentioned as publishing +the works of James Sayer. This Bretherton was in some esteem as an +engraver, and he also had a print-shop at 132, New Bond Street, where +his engravings were published. James had a son named Charles, who +displayed great talent at an early age, but he died young. As early as +1772, when the macaronis (the dandies of the eighteenth century) came +into fashion, James Bretherton’s name appears on prints by Bunbury as +the engraver and publisher, and it occurs again as the engraver of +his print of “Strephon and Chloe” in<a class="pagenum" id="Page_457" title="457"></a> 1801, which was published by +Fores. At this and a later period some of his designs were engraved +by Rowlandson, who always transferred his own style to the drawings +he copied. A remarkable instance of this is furnished by a print of a +party of anglers of both sexes in a punt, entitled “Anglers of 1811” +(the year of Bunbury’s death). But for the name, “H. Bunbury, del.,” +very distinctly inscribed upon it, we should take this to be a genuine +design by Rowlandson; and in 1803 Rowlandson engraved some copies of +Bunbury’s prints on horsemanship for Ackermann, of the Strand, in which +all traces of Bunbury’s style are lost. Bunbury’s style is rather +broadly burlesque.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut216.jpg" width="300" height="296" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 216. How to Travel on Two Legs in a Frost.</div> +</div> + +<p>Bunbury had evidently little taste for political caricature, and he +seldom meddled with it. Like Collet, he preferred scenes of social +life, and humorous incidents of contemporary manners, fashionable +or popular. He had a great taste for caricaturing bad or awkward +horsemanship or unmanageable horses, and his prints of such subjects +were numerous and greatly admired. This taste for equestrian pieces +was shown in prints published in 1772, and several droll series of +such subjects appeared at different times, between 1781 and 1791, +one of which was long famous under the title of “Geoffrey Gambado’s +Horsemanship.”<a class="pagenum" id="Page_458" title="458"></a> An example of these incidents of horsemanship is copied +in our cut No. 216, where a not very skilful rider, with a troublesome +horse, is taking advantage of the state of the ground for accelerating +locomotion. It is entitled, “How to travel on Two Legs in a Frost,” and +is accompanied with the motto, in Latin, “<em lang="la" xml:lang="la">Ostendunt terris hunc tantum +fata, neque ultra esse sinent</em>.”</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut217.jpg" width="400" height="246" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 217. Strephon and Chloe.</div> +</div> + +<p>Occasionally Bunbury drew in a broader style of caricature, especially +in some of his later works. Of our examples of this broader style, the +first cut, No. 217, entitled “Strephon and Chloe,” is dated the 1st of +July, 1801. It is the very acme of sentimental courtship, expressed +in a spirit of drollery which could not easily be excelled. The next +group (cut No. 218), from a similar print published on the 21st of +July in the same year, is a no less admirable picture of overstrained +politeness. It is entitled in the original, “The Salutation Tavern,” +probably with a temporary allusion beyond the more apparent design of +the picture. Bunbury, as before stated, died in 1811. It is enough to +say that sir Joshua Reynolds used to express a high opinion of him as +an artist.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut218.jpg" width="400" height="265" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 218. A Fashionable Salutation.</div> +</div> + +<p>Bunbury’s prints rarely appeared without his name, and, except when +they had passed through the engraving of Rowlandson, are easily +recognised. No doubt his was considered a popular name, which was +almost of as much importance as the print itself. But<a class="pagenum" id="Page_459" title="459"></a> a large +mass of the caricatures published at the latter end of the last +century and the beginning of the present, appeared anonymously, or +with imaginary names. Thus a political print, entitled “The Modern +Atlas,” bears the inscription “Mas<sup>r</sup> Hook fecit;” another entitled +“Farmer George delivered,” has that of “Poll Pitt del.” “Everybody +delin<sup>it</sup>,” is inscribed on a caricature entitled “The Lover’s Leap;” +and one which appeared under the title of “Veterinary Operations,” +is inscribed “Giles Grinagain fect.” Some of these were probably +the works of amateurs, for there appear to have been many amateur +caricaturists in England at that time. In a caricature entitled +“The Scotch Arms,” published by Fores on the 3rd of January, 1787, +we find the announcement, “Gentlemen’s designs executed gratis,” +which means, of course, that Fores would publish the caricatures of +amateurs, if he approved them, without making the said amateurs pay +for the engraving. But also some of the best caricaturists of the +day published much anonymously, and we know that this was the case +to a very great extent with such artists as Cruikshank, Woodward, +&c, at all events until such time as their names became sufficiently +popular to be a recommendation to the print. It is certain that many +of Woodward’s designs were published<a class="pagenum" id="Page_460" title="460"></a> without his name. Such was the +case with the print of which we give a copy in our cut No. 219, which +was published on the 5th of May, 1796, and which bears strongly the +marks of Woodward’s style. The spring of this year, 1796, witnessed a +general disappointment at the failure of the negociations for peace, +and therefore the necessity of new sacrifices for carrying on the war, +and of increased taxation. Many clever caricatures appeared on this +occasion, of which this by Woodward was one. Of course, when war was +inevitable, the question of generals was a very important one, and +the caricaturist pretends that the greatest general of the age was +“General Complaint.” The general appears here with an empty purse in +his right hand, and in his left a handful of papers containing a list +of bankrupts, the statement of the budget, &c Four lines beneath, in +rather doggrel verse, explain the situation as follows:—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">Don’t tell me of generals raised from mere boys,</div> + <div class="line indent2">Though, believe me, I mean not their laurel to taint;</div> + <div class="line">But the general, I’m sure, that will make the most noise,</div> + <div class="line indent2">If the war still goes on, will be General Complaint.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut219.jpg" width="300" height="386" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 219. General Complaint.</div> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut220.jpg" width="300" height="337" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 220. Desire.</div> +</div> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="Page_461" title="461"></a> +There was much of Bunbury’s style in that of Woodward, who had a taste +for the same broad caricatures upon society, which he executed in a +similar spirit. Some of the <em>suites</em> of subjects of this description +that he published, such as the series of the “Symptoms of the Shop,” +those of “Everybody out of town” and “Everybody in Town,” and the +“Specimens of Domestic Phrensy,” are extremely clever and amusing. +Woodward’s designs were also not unfrequently engraved by Rowlandson, +who, as usual, imprinted his own style upon them. A very good example +of this practice is seen in the print of which we give a copy in our +cut No. 220. Its title, in the original, is “Desire,” and the passion +is exemplified in the case of a hungry schoolboy watching through a +window a jolly cook carrying by a tempting plum-pudding. We are told in +an inscription underneath: “Various are the ways this passion might be +depicted; in this delineation the subjects chosen are simple—a hungry +boy and a plum-pudding.” The design of this print is stated to be +Woodward’s; but the style is altogether that of Rowlandson, whose name +appears on it as the etcher. It was published by R. Ackermann, on the<a class="pagenum" id="Page_462" title="462"></a> +20th of January, 1800. Woodward is well known by his prolific pencil, +but we are so little acquainted with the man himself, that I cannot +state the date either of his birth or of his death.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut221.jpg" width="300" height="437" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 221. Looking a Rock in the Face.</div> +</div> + +<p>There lived at this time in Edinburgh an engraver of some eminence in +his way, but whose name is now nearly forgotten, and, in fact, it does +not occur in the last edition of Bryan’s “Dictionary of Engravers.” +This name was John Kay, which is found attached to prints, of which +about four hundred are known, with dates extending from 1784 to 1817. +As an engraver, Kay possessed no great talent, but he had considerable +humour, and he excelled in catching and delineating the striking +points in the features and gait of the individuals who then moved in +Edinburgh Society. In fact, a large proportion of his prints consist of +caricature portraits, often several figures on the same plate, which is +usually of small dimensions.<a class="pagenum" id="Page_463" title="463"></a> Among them are many of the professors and +other distinguished members of the university of Edinburgh. Thus one, +copied in our cut No. 221, represents the eminent old geologist, Dr. +James Hutton, rather astonished at the shapes which his favourite rocks +have suddenly taken. The original print is dated in 1787, ten years +before Dr. Hutton’s death. The idea of giving faces to rocks was not +new in the time of John Kay, and it has been frequently repeated. Some +of these caricature portraits are clever and amusing, and they are at +times very satirical. Kay appears to have rarely ventured on caricature +of any other description, but there is one rare plate by him, entitled +“The Craft in Danger,” which is stated in a few words pencilled on the +copy I have before me, to have been aimed at a cabal for proposing Dr. +Barclay for a professorship in the university of Edinburgh. It displays +no great talent, and is, in fact, now not very intelligible. The +figures introduced in it are evidently intended for rather caricatured +portraits of members of the university engaged in the cabal, and are in +the style of Kay’s other portraits.<a id="FNanchor_105" href="#Footnote_105" class="fnanchor">[105]</a></p> + + + + +<hr class="chap" /> +<h2><a class="pagenum" id="Page_464" title="464"></a> +CHAPTER XXVII. +</h2> + +<p class="subtitle"> + GILLRAY.—HIS FIRST ATTEMPTS.—HIS CARICATURES BEGIN WITH THE + SHELBURNE MINISTRY.—IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.—CARICATURES + ON THE KING; “NEW WAY TO PAY THE NATIONAL DEBT.”—ALLEGED + REASON FOR GILLRAY’S HOSTILITY TO THE KING.—THE KING AND THE + APPLE-DUMPLINGS.—GILLRAY’S LATER LABOURS.—HIS IDIOTCY AND DEATH.</p> + + +<p>In the year 1757 was born the greatest of English caricaturists, +and perhaps of all caricaturists of modern times whose works are +known—James Gillray. His father, who was named like himself, James, +was a Scotchman, a native of Lanark, and a soldier, and, having +lost one arm at the battle of Fontenoy, became an out-pensioner of +Chelsea Hospital. He obtained also the appointment of sexton at the +Moravian burial-ground at Chelsea, which he held forty years, and it +was at Chelsea that James Gillray the younger was born. The latter, +having no doubt shown signs of artistic talent, was put apprentice +to letter-engraving; but after a time, becoming disgusted with this +employment, he ran away, and joined a party of strolling players, +and in their company passed through many adventures, and underwent +many hardships. He returned, however to London, and received some +encouragement as a promising artist, and obtained admission as a +student in the Royal Academy—the then young institution to which +Hogarth had been opposed. Gillray soon became known as a designer and +engraver, and worked in these capacities for the publishers. Among +his earlier productions, two illustrations of Goldsmith’s “Deserted +Village” are spoken of with praise, as displaying a remarkable freedom +of effect. For a long time after Gillray became known as a caricaturist +he continued to engrave the designs of other artists. The earliest +known caricature which can be ascribed to him with any certainty, is +the plate entitled “Paddy on Horseback,” and dated in 1779, when he +was twenty-two years of age. The “horse” on which Paddy rides is a +bull; he is<a class="pagenum" id="Page_465" title="465"></a> seated with his face turned to the tail. The subject of +satire is supposed to be the character then enjoyed by the Irish as +fortune-hunters. The point, however, is not very apparent, and indeed +Gillray’s earliest caricatures are tame, although it is remarkable +how rapidly he improved, and how soon he arrived at excellence. Two +caricatures, published in June and July, 1782, on the occasion of +admiral Rodney’s victory, are looked upon as marking his first decided +appearance in politics.</p> + +<p>A distinguishing characteristic of Gillray’s style is, the wonderful +tact with which he seizes upon the points in his subject open to +ridicule, and the force with which he brings those points out. In the +fineness of his design, and in his grouping and drawing, he excels all +the other caricaturists. He was, indeed, born with all the talents of +a great historical painter, and, but for circumstances, he probably +would have shone in that branch of art. This excellence will be the +more appreciated when it is understood that he drew his picture with +the needle on the plate, without having made any previous sketch of +it, except sometimes a few hasty outlines of individual portraits or +characters scrawled on cards or scraps of paper as they struck him.</p> + +<p>Soon after the two caricatures on Rodney’s naval victory, the +Rockingham administration was broken up by the death of its chief, and +another was formed under the direction of Lord Shelburne, from which +Fox and Burke retired, leaving in it their old colleague, Pitt, who +now deserted the Whig party in parliament. Fox and Burke became from +this moment the butt of all sorts of abuse and scornful satire from the +caricaturists, such as Sayer, and newspaper writers in the pay of their +opponents; and Gillray, perhaps because it offered at that moment the +best chance of popularity and success, joined in the crusade against +the two ex-ministers and their friends. In one of his caricatures, +which is a parody upon Milton, Fox is represented in the character of +Satan, turning his back upon the ministerial Paradise, but looking +enviously over his shoulder at the happy pair (Shelburne and Pitt) who +are counting their money on the treasury table:—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line indent5">Aside he turned</div> + <div class="line">For envy, yet with jealous leer malign</div> + <div class="line">Eyed them askance.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="Page_466" title="466"></a> +Another, also by Gillray, is entitled “Guy Faux and Judas Iscariot,” +the former represented by Fox, who discovers the desertion of his +late colleague, lord Shelburne, by the light of his lantern, and +recriminates angrily, “Ah! what, I’ve found you out, have I? Who arm’d +the high priests and the people? Who betray’d his mas—?” At this +point he is interrupted by a sneering retort from Shelburne, who is +carrying away the treasury bag with a look of great self-complacency, +“Ha, ha! poor Gunpowder’s vexed! He, he, he!—Shan’t have the bag, I +tell you, old Goosetooth!” Burke was usually caricatured as a Jesuit; +and in another of Gillray’s prints of this time (published Aug. 23, +1782), entitled “Cincinnatus in Retirement,” Burke is represented as +driven into the retirement of his Irish cabin, where he is surrounded +by Popish relics and emblems of superstition, and by the materials +for drinking whisky. A vessel, inscribed “Relick No. 1., used by St. +Peter,” is filled with boiled potatoes, which Jesuit Burke is paring. +Three imps are seen dancing under the table.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut222.jpg" width="350" height="280" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 222. A Strong Dose.</div> +</div> + +<p>In 1783 the Shelburne ministry itself was dissolved, and succeeded +by the Portland ministry, in which Fox was secretary of state for +foreign affairs, and Burke, paymaster of the forces, and Lord North, +who had joined the Whigs against lord Shelburne, now obtained office +as secretary for the home department. Gillray joined warmly in the +attacks on this coalition of parties, and from this time his great +activity as a caricaturist begins. Fox, especially, and Burke, still +under the character of a Jesuit, were incessantly held up to ridicule +in his prints. In another year this ministry also was overthrown, and +young William Pitt became established in power, while the ex-ministers, +now the opposition, had become unpopular throughout the country. The +caricature of Gillray followed them, and Fox and Burke constantly +appeared under his hands in some ridiculous situation or other. But +Gillray was not a hired libeller, like Sayer and some of the lower +caricaturists of that time; he evidently chose his subjects, in some +degree independently, as those which offered him the best mark for +ridicule; and he had so little respect for the ministers or the court, +that they all felt his satire in turn. Thus, when the plan of national +fortifications—brought forward by the duke of Richmond, who<a class="pagenum" id="Page_467" title="467"></a> had +deserted the Whigs to be made a Tory minister, as master-general of +the ordnance—was defeated in the House of Commons in 1787, the best +caricature it provoked was one by Gillray, entitled <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Honi soit qui +mal y pense,”</span> which represents the horror of the duke of Richmond at +being so unceremoniously compelled to swallow his own fortifications +(cut No. 222). It is lord Shelburne, who had now become marquis of +Lansdowne, who is represented as administering the bitter dose. Some +months afterwards, in the famous impeachment against Warren Hastings, +Gillray sided warmly against the impeachers, perhaps partly because +these were Burke and his friends; yet several of his caricatures on +this affair are aimed at the ministers, and even at the king himself. +Lord Thurlow, who was a favourite with the king, and who supported the +cause of Warren Hastings with firmness, after he had been deserted by +Pitt and the other ministers, was especially an object of Gillray’s +satire. Thurlow, it will be remembered, was rather celebrated for +profane swearing, and was sometimes spoken of as the thunderer. One +of the finest of Gillray’s caricatures at this period, published on +the 1st of March, 1788, is entitled “Blood on Thunder fording the Red +Sea,” and represents Warren Hastings carried on chancellor Thurlow’s +shoulders through a sea of blood, strewed with<a class="pagenum" id="Page_468" title="468"></a> the mangled corpses +of Hindoos. As will be seen in our copy of the most important part of +this print (cut No. 223), the “saviour of India,” as he was called by +his friends, has taken care to secure his gains. A remarkably bold +caricature by Gillray against the government appeared on the 2nd of May +in this year. It is entitled “Market-Day—every man has his price,” and +represents a scene in Smithfield, where the horned cattle exposed for +sale are the supporters of the king’s ministry. Lord Thurlow, with his +characteristic frown, appears as the principal purchaser. Pitt, and +his friend and colleague Dundas, are represented drinking and smoking +jovially at the window of a public-house. On one side Warren Hastings +is riding off with the king in the form of a calf, which he has just +purchased, for Hastings was popularly believed to have worked upon king +George’s avarice by rich presents of diamonds. On another side, the +overwhelming rush of the cattle is throwing over the van in which Fox, +Burke, and Sheridan are driving. This plate deserves to be placed among +Gillray’s finest works.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut223.jpg" width="300" height="352" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 223. Blood on Thunder.</div> +</div> + +<p>Gillray caricatured the heir to the throne with bitterness, perhaps<a class="pagenum" id="Page_469" title="469"></a> +because his dissipation and extravagance rendered him a fair subject +of ridicule, and because he associated himself with Fox’s party in +politics; but his hostility to the king is ascribed in part to personal +feelings. A large and very remarkable print by our artist, though his +name was not attached to it, and one which displays in a special manner +the great characteristics of Gillray’s style, appeared on the 21st of +April, 1786, just after an application had been made to the House of +Commons for a large sum of money to pay off the king’s debts, which +were very great, in spite of the enormous income then attached to the +crown. George was known as a careful and even a parsimonious man, and +the queen was looked upon generally as a mean and very avaricious +woman, and people were at a loss to account for this extraordinary +expenditure, and they tried to explain it in various ways which were +not to the credit of the royal pair. It was said that immense sums were +spent in secret corruption to pave the way to the establishment of +arbitrary power; that the king was making large savings, and hoarding +up treasures at Hanover; and that, instead of spending money on his +family, he allowed his eldest son to run into serious difficulties +through the smallness of his allowance, and thus to become an object of +pity to his French friend, the wealthy duc d’Orleans, who had offered +him relief. The caricature just mentioned, which is extremely severe, +is entitled “A new way to pay the National Debt.” It represents the +entrance to the treasury, from which king George and his queen, with +their band of pensioners, are issuing, their pockets, and the queen’s +apron, so full of money, that the coins are rolling out and scattering +about the ground. Nevertheless, Pitt, whose pockets also are full, +adds to the royal treasures large bags of the national revenue, which +are received with smiles of satisfaction. To the left, a crippled +soldier sits on the ground, and asks in vain for relief; while the +wall above is covered with torn placards, on some of which may be +read, “God save the King;” “Charity, a romance;” “From Germany, just +arrived a large and royal assortment...;” and “Last dying speech of +fifty-four malefactors executed for robbing a hen-roost.” The latter +is a satirical allusion to the notorious severity with which the most +trifling depredators on the king’s private farm were prosecuted. In the +background, on the<a class="pagenum" id="Page_470" title="470"></a> right hand side of the picture, the prince appears +in ragged garments, and in want of charity no less than the cripple, +and near him is the duke of Orleans, who offers him a draft for +£200,000. On the placards on the walls here we read such announcements +as “Economy, an old song;” “British property, a farce;” and “Just +published, for the benefit of posterity, the dying groans of Liberty;” +and one, immediately over the prince’s head, bears the prince’s +feathers, with the motto, “Ich starve.” Altogether this is one of the +most remarkable of Gillray’s caricatures.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut224.jpg" width="300" height="361" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 224. Farmer George and his Wife.</div> +</div> + +<p>The parsimoniousness of the king and queen was the subject of +caricatures and songs in abundance, in which these illustrious +personages appeared haggling with their tradesmen, and making bargains +in person, rejoicing in having thus saved a small sum of money. It +was said that George kept a farm at Windsor, not for his amusement, +but to draw a small profit from it. By Peter Pindar he is described +as rejoicing over the skill he has shown in purchasing his live stock +as bargains. Gillray seized greedily all these points of ridicule, +and, as early as 1786, he published a print of “Farmer George and his +Wife” (see our cut No. 224), in which the two royal<a class="pagenum" id="Page_471" title="471"></a> personages are +represented in the very familiar manner in which they were accustomed +to walk about Windsor and its neighbourhood. This picture appears to +have been very popular; and years afterwards, in a caricature on a +scene in “The School for Scandal,” where, in the sale of the young +profligate’s effects, the auctioneer puts up a family portrait, for +which a broker offers five shillings, and Careless, the auctioneer, +says, “Going for no more than one crown,” the family piece is the +well-known picture of “Farmer George and his Wife,” and the ruined +prodigal is the prince of Wales, who exclaims, “Careless, knock down +the farmer.”</p> + +<p>Many caricatures against the undignified meanness of the royal +household appeared during the years 1791 and 1792, when the king +passed much of his time at his favourite watering-place, Weymouth; +and there his domestic habits had become more and more an object of +remark. It was said that, under the pretence of Weymouth being an +expensive place, and taking advantage of the obligations of the royal +mail to carry parcels for the king free, he had his provisions brought +to him by that conveyance from his farm at Windsor. On the 28th of +November, 1791, Gillray published a caricature on the homeliness of +the royal household, in two compartments, in one of which the king +is represented, in a dress which is anything but that of royalty, +toasting his muffins for breakfast; and in the other, queen Charlotte, +in no less homely dress, though her pocket is overflowing with money, +toasting sprats for supper. In another of Gillray’s prints, entitled +“Anti-saccharites,” the king and queen are teaching their daughters +economy in taking their tea without sugar; as the young princesses show +some dislike to the experiment, the queen admonishes them, concluding +with the remark, “Above all, remember how much expense it will save +your poor papa!”</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut225.jpg" width="350" height="358" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 225. A Flemish Proclamation.</div> +</div> + +<p>According to a story which seems to be authentic, Gillray’s dislike +of the king was embittered at this time by an incident somewhat +similar to that by which George II. had provoked the anger of Hogarth. +Gillray had visited France, Flanders, and Holland, and he had made +sketches, a few of which he engraved. Our cut No. 225 represents +a group from one of these sketches, which explains itself, and is +a fair example of<a class="pagenum" id="Page_472" title="472"></a> Gillray’s manner of drawing such subjects. He +accompanied the painter Loutherbourg, who had left his native city +of Strasburg to settle in England, and become the king’s favourite +artist, to assist him in making sketches for his great painting of +“The Siege of Valenciennes,” Gillray sketching groups of figures +while Loutherbourg drew the landscape and buildings. After their +return, the king expressed a desire to see their sketches, and they +were placed before him. Loutherbourg’s landscapes and buildings +were plain drawings, and easy to understand, and the king expressed +himself greatly pleased with them. But the king’s mind was already +prejudiced against Gillray for his satirical prints, and when he +saw his hasty and rough, though spirited sketches, of the French +soldiers, he threw them aside contemptuously, with the remark, “I +don’t understand these caricatures.” Perhaps the very word he used was +intended as a sneer upon Gillray, who, we are told, felt the affront +deeply, and he proceeded to retort by a caricature, which struck at +once at one of the king’s vanities, and at his political prejudices. +George III. imagined himself a great connoisseur in the fine arts, and +the caricature was entitled “A Connoisseur examining a Cooper.” It +repre<a class="pagenum" id="Page_473" title="473"></a>sented the king looking at the celebrated miniature of Oliver +Cromwell, by the English painter, Samuel Cooper. When Gillray had +completed this print, he is said to have exclaimed, “I wonder if the +royal connoisseur will understand this!” It was published on the 18th +of June, 1792, and cannot have failed to produce a sensation at that +period of revolutions. The king is made to exhibit a strange mixture +of alarm with astonishment in contemplating the features of this +great overthrower of kingly power, at a moment when all kingly power +was threatened. It will be remarked, too, that the satirist has not +overlooked the royal character for domestic economy, for, as will be +seen in our cut No. 226, the king is looking at the picture by the +light of a candle-end stuck on a “save-all.”</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut226.jpg" width="300" height="299" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 226. A Connoisseur in Art.</div> +</div> + +<p>From this time Gillray rarely let pass an opportunity of caricaturing +the king. Sometimes he pictured his awkward and undignified gait, as he +was accustomed to shuffle along the esplanade at Weymouth; sometimes +in the familiar manner in which, in the course of his walks in the +neighbourhood of his Windsor farm, he accosted the commonest labourers +and cottagers, and overwhelmed them with a long repetition of trivial +questions—for king George had a characteristic manner of repeating his +questions, and of frequently giving the reply to them himself.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut227.jpg" width="350" height="444" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 227. Royal Affability.</div> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut228.jpg" width="350" height="304" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 228. A Lesson in Apple Dumplings.</div> +</div> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">Then asks the farmer’s wife, or farmer’s maid,</div> + <div class="line">How many eggs the fowls have laid;</div> + <a class="pagenum" id="Page_474" title="474"></a> + <div class="line">What’s in the oven, in the pot, the crock;</div> + <div class="line">Whether ’twill rain or no, and what’s o’clock;</div> + <div class="line">Thus from poor hovels gleaning information,</div> + <div class="line">To serve as future treasure for the nation.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>So said Peter Pindar; and in this <em>rôle</em> king George was represented +not unfrequently in satirical prints. On the 10th of February Gillray +illustrated the quality of “Affability” in a picture of one of these +rustic encounters. The king and queen, taking their walk, have arrived +at a cottage, where a very coarse example of English peasantry is +feeding his pigs with wash. The scene is represented in our cut No. +227. The vacant stare of the countryman betrays his confusion at the +rapid succession of questions—“Well, friend, where a’ you going, +hay?—What’s your name, hay?—Where do you live, hay?—hay?” In other +prints the king is represented running into ludicrous adventures while +hunting, an amuse<a class="pagenum" id="Page_475" title="475"></a>ment to which he was extremely attached. One of the +best known of these has been celebrated equally by the pen of Peter +Pindar and by the needle of Gillray. It was said that one day while +king George was following the chase, he came to a poor cottage, where +his usual curiosity was rewarded by the discovery of an old woman +making apple dumplings. When informed what they were, he could not +conceal his astonishment how the apples could have been introduced +without leaving a seam in their covering. In the caricature by Gillray, +from which we take our cut No. 228, the king is represented looking +at the process of dumpling making through the window, inquiring +in astonishment, “Hay? hay? apple dumplings?—how get the apples +in?—how? Are they made without seams?” The story is told more fully +in the following verses of Peter Pindar, which will serve as the best +commentary on the engraving:—</p> + +<p class="center"><em>THE KING AND THE APPLE DUMPLING.</em></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">Once on a time a monarch, tired with whooping,</div> + <div class="line indent4">Whipping and spurring,</div> + <div class="line indent4">Happy in worrying</div> + <div class="line indent2">A poor, defenceless, harmless buck</div> + <div class="line indent2">(The horse and rider wet as muck),</div> + <div class="line">From his high consequence and wisdom stooping,</div> + <div class="line indent2">Enter’d through curiosity a cot,</div> + <div class="line indent2">Where sat a poor old woman and her pot.</div> +<a class="pagenum" id="Page_476" title="476"></a> + <div class="line indent2">The wrinkled, blear-eyed, good old granny,</div> + <div class="line indent2">In this same cot, illum’d by many a cranny.</div> + <div class="line">Had finish’d apple dumplings for her pot.</div> + <div class="line indent2">In tempting row the naked dumplings lay,</div> + <div class="line indent2">When lo! the monarch in his usual way</div> + <div class="line">Like lightning spoke, “What this? what this? what? what?”</div> + <div class="line">Then taking up a dumpling in his hand,</div> + <div class="line">His eyes with admiration did expand,</div> + <div class="line indent2">And oft did majesty the dumpling grapple.</div> + <div class="line">“’Tis monstrous, monstrous hard, indeed?” he cried;</div> + <div class="line">“What makes it, pray, so hard?”—The dame replied,</div> + <div class="line indent2">Low curtseying, “Please your majesty, the apple.”</div> + <div class="line">“Very astonishing, indeed! strange thing!”</div> + <div class="line">Turning the dumpling round, rejoined the king;</div> + <div class="line indent2">“’Tis most extraordinary then, all this is—</div> + <div class="line indent2">It beats Pinetti’s conjuring all to pieces—</div> + <div class="line">Strange I should never of a dumpling dream!</div> + <div class="line">But, Goody, tell me where, where, where’s the seam?”</div> + <div class="line">“Sir, there’s no seam,” quoth she, “I never knew</div> + <div class="line">That folks did apple dumplings sew.”</div> + <div class="line">“No!” cried the staring monarch with a grin,</div> + <div class="line">“How, how the devil got the apple in?”</div> + <div class="line">On which the dame the curious scheme reveal’d</div> + <div class="line">By which the apple lay so sly conceal’d,</div> + <div class="line indent2">Which made the Solomon of Britain start;</div> + <div class="line">Who to the palace with full speed repair’d</div> + <div class="line">And queen, and princesses so beauteous, scared,</div> + <div class="line indent2">All with the wonders of the dumpling art.</div> + <div class="line">There did he labour one whole week, to show</div> + <div class="line indent2">The wisdom of an apple dumpling maker;</div> + <div class="line">And lo! so deep was majesty in dough,</div> + <div class="line indent2">The palace seem’d the lodging of a baker!</div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Gillray was not the only caricaturist who turned the king’s weaknesses +to ridicule, but none caricatured them with so little gentleness, or +evidently with so good a will. On the 7th of March, 1796, the princess +of Wales gave birth to a daughter, so well known since as the princess +Charlotte. The king is said to have been charmed with his grandchild, +and this sentiment appears to have been anticipated by the public, for +on the 13th of February, when the princess’s accouchment was looked +forward to with general interest, a print appeared under the title of +“Grandpapa in his Glory.” In this caricature, which is given in<a class="pagenum" id="Page_477" title="477"></a> our +cut No. 229, king George, seated, is represented nursing and feeding +the royal infant in an extraordinary degree of homeliness. He is +singing the nursery rhyme—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="line">There was a laugh and a craw,</div> + <div class="line indent2">There was a giggling honey,</div> + <div class="line">Goody good girl shall be fed,</div> + <div class="line indent2">But naughty girl shall have noney.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>This print bears no name, but it is known to be by Woodward, though it +betrays an attempt to imitate the style of Gillray. Gillray was often +imitated in this manner, and his prints were not unfrequently copied +and pirated. He even at times copied himself, and disguised his own +style, for the sake of gaining money.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut229.jpg" width="300" height="406" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 229. Grandfather George.</div> +</div> + +<p>At the period of the regency bill in 1789, Gillray attacked Pitt’s +policy in that affair with great severity. In a caricature published +on the 3rd of January, he drew the premier in the character of an +over-gorged vulture, with one claw fixed firmly on the crown and +sceptre, and with<a class="pagenum" id="Page_478" title="478"></a> the other seizing upon the prince’s coronet, from +which he is plucking the feathers. Among other good caricatures on this +occasion, perhaps the finest is a parody on Fuseli’s picture of “The +Weird Sisters,” in which Dundas, Pitt, and Thurlow, as the sisters, +are contemplating the moon, the bright side of whose disc represents +the face of the queen, and the other that of the king, overcast with +mental darkness. Gillray took a strongly hostile view of the French +revolution, and produced an immense number of caricatures against the +French and their rulers, and their friends, or supposed friends, in +this country, during the period extending from 1790 to the earlier +years of the present century. Through all the changes of ministry or +policy, he seems to have fixed himself strongly on individuals, and +he seldom ceased to caricature the person who had once provoked his +attacks. So it was with the lord chancellor Thurlow, who became the +butt of savage satire in some of his prints which appeared in 1792, +at the time when Pitt forced him to resign the chancellorship. Among +these is one of the boldest caricatures which he ever executed. It is a +parody, fine almost to sublimity, on a well-known scene in Milton, and +is entitled, “Sin, Death, and the Devil.” The queen, as Sin, rushes to +separate the two combatants, Death (in the semblance of Pitt) and Satan +(in that of Thurlow). During the latter part of the century Gillray +caricatured all parties in turn, whether ministerial or opposition, +with indiscriminate vigour; but his hostility towards the party of +Fox, whom he persisted in regarding, or at least in representing, +as unpatriotic revolutionists, was certainly greatest. In 1803 he +worked energetically against the Addington ministry; and in 1806 he +caricatured that which was known by the title of “All the Talents;” but +during this later period of his life his labours were more especially +aimed at keeping up the spirit of his countrymen against the threats +and designs of our foreign enemies. It was, in fact, the caricature +which at that time met with the greatest encouragement.</p> + +<p>In his own person, Gillray had lived a life of great irregularity, and +as he grew older, his habits of dissipation and intemperance increased, +and gradually broke down his intellect. Towards the year 1811 he +ceased producing any original works; the last plate he executed was a +drawing<a class="pagenum" id="Page_479" title="479"></a> of Bunbury’s, entitled “A Barber’s Shop in Assize Time,” which +is supposed to have been finished in the January of that year. Soon +afterwards his mind sank into idiotcy, from which it never recovered. +James Gillray died in 1815, and was buried in St. James’s churchyard, +Piccadilly, near the rectory house.</p> + + + +<hr class="chap" /> +<h2><a class="pagenum" id="Page_480" title="480"></a> +CHAPTER XXVIII. +</h2> + +<p class="subtitle"> + GILLRAY’S CARICATURES ON SOCIAL LIFE.—THOMAS ROWLANDSON.—HIS + EARLY LIFE.—HE BECOMES A CARICATURIST.—HIS STYLE AND WORKS.—HIS + DRAWINGS.—THE CRUIKSHANKS.</p> + + +<p>Gillray was, beyond all others, the great political caricaturist of +his age. His works form a complete history of the greater and more +important portion of the reign of George III. He appears to have had +less taste for general caricature, and his caricatures on social life +are less numerous, and with a few exceptions less important, than +those which were called forth by political events. The exceptions are +chiefly satires on individual characters, which are marked by the same +bold style which is displayed in his political attacks. Some of his +caricatures on the extravagant costume of the time, and on its more +prominent vices, such as the rage for gambling, are also fine, but his +social sketches generally are much inferior to his other works.</p> + +<p>This, however, was not the case with his contemporary, Thomas +Rowlandson, who doubtlessly stands second to Gillray, and may, in some +respects, be considered his equal. Rowlandson was born in the Old +Jewry in London, the year before that of the birth of Gillray, in the +July of 1756. His father was a city merchant, who had the means to +give him a good education, but embarking rashly in some unsuccessful +speculations, he fell into reduced circumstances, and the son had to +depend upon the liberality of a relative. His uncle, Thomas Rowlandson, +after whom probably he was named, had married a French lady, a +Mademoiselle Chatelier, who was now a widow, residing in Paris, with +what would be considered in that capital a handsome fortune, and she +appears to have been attached to her English nephew, and supplied him +rather freely with money. Young Rowlandson had shown at an early age +great talent for<a class="pagenum" id="Page_481" title="481"></a> drawing, with an especial turn for satire. As a +schoolboy, he covered the margins of his books with caricatures upon +his master and upon his fellow-scholars, and at the age of sixteen he +was admitted a student in the Royal Academy in London, then in its +infancy. But he did not profit immediately by this admission, for his +aunt invited him to Paris, where he began and followed his studies in +art with great success, and was remarked for the skill with which he +drew the human body. His studies from nature, while in Paris, are said +to have been remarkably fine. Nor did his taste for satirical design +fail him, for it was one of his greatest amusements to caricature the +numerous individuals, and groups of individuals, who must in that age +have presented objects of ridicule to a lively Englishman. During +this time his aunt died, leaving him all her property, consisting of +about £7,000 in money, and a considerable amount in plate and other +objects. The sudden possession of so much money proved a misfortune to +young Rowlandson. He appears to have had an early love for gaiety, and +he now yielded to all the temptations to vice held out by the French +metropolis, and especially to an uncontrollable passion for gambling, +through which he soon dissipated his fortune.</p> + +<p>Before this, however, had been effected, Rowlandson, after having +resided in Paris about two years, returned to London, and continued +his studies in the Royal Academy. But he appears for some years +to have given himself up entirely to his dissipated habits, and +to have worked only at intervals, when he was driven to it by the +want of money. We are told by one who was intimate with him, that, +when reduced to this condition, he used to exclaim, holding up his +pencil, “I have been playing the fool, but here is my resource!” +and he would then produce—with extraordinary rapidity—caricatures +enough to supply his momentary wants. Most of Rowlandson’s earlier +productions were published anonymously, but here and there, among +large collections, we meet with a print, which, by companion of the +style with that of his earliest known works, we can hardly hesitate +in ascribing to him; and from these it would appear that he had begun +with political caricature, because, perhaps, at that period of great +agitation, it was most called for, and, therefore, most profitable. +Three of the earliest of the political<a class="pagenum" id="Page_482" title="482"></a> caricatures thus ascribed to +Rowlandson belong to the year 1784, when he was twenty-eight years +of age, and relate to the dissolution of parliament in that year, +the result of which was the establishment of William Pitt in power. +The first, published on the 11th of March, is entitled “The Champion +of the People.” Fox is represented under this title, armed with the +sword of Justice and the shield of Truth, combating the many-headed +hydra, its mouths respectively breathing forth “Tyranny,” “Assumed +Prerogative,” “Despotism,” “Oppression,” “Secret Influence,” “Scotch +Politics,” “Duplicity,” and “Corruption.” Some of these heads are +already cut off. The Dutchman, Frenchman, and other foreign enemies +are seen in the background, dancing round the standard of “Sedition.” +Fox is supported by numerous bodies of English and Irishmen, the +English shouting, “While he protects us, we will support him.” The +Irish, “He gave us a free trade and all we asked; he shall have our +firm support.” Natives of India, in allusion to his unsuccessful India +Bill, kneel by his side and pray for his success. The second of these +caricatures was published on the 26th of March, and is entitled “The +State Auction.” Pitt is the auctioneer, and is represented as knocking +down with the hammer of “prerogative” all the valuable articles of +the constitution. The clerk is his colleague, Henry Dundas, who holds +up a weighty lot, entitled, “Lot 1. The Rights of the People.” Pitt +calls to him, “Show the lot this way, Harry—a’going, a’going—speak +quick, or it’s gone—hold up the lot, ye Dund-ass!” The clerk replies +in his Scottish accent, “I can hould it na higher, sir.” The Whig +members, under the title of the “chosen representers,” are leaving +the auction room in discouragement, with reflections in their mouths, +such as, “Adieu to Liberty!” “Despair not!” “Now or never!” While Fox +stands firm in the cause, and exclaims—“I am determined to bid with +spirit for Lot 1; he shall pay dear for it that outbids me!” Pitt’s +Tory supporters are ranged under the auctioneer, and are called the +“hereditary virtuosis;” and their leader, who appears to be the lord +chancellor, addresses them in the words, “Mind not the nonsensical +biddings of those common fellows.” Dundas remarks, “We shall get the +supplies by this sale.” The third of these caricatures is dated on the +31st of March,<a class="pagenum" id="Page_483" title="483"></a> when the elections had commenced, and is entitled, +“The Hanoverian Horse and British Lion—a Scene in a new Play, lately +acted in Westminster, with distinguished applause. Act 2nd, Scene +last.” At the back of the picture stands the vacant throne, with the +intimation, “We shall resume our situation here at pleasure, <em>Leo +Rex</em>.” In front, the Hanoverian horse, unbridled, and without saddle, +neighs “pre-ro-ro-ro-ro-rogative,” and is trampling on the safeguard of +the constitution, while it kicks out violently the “faithful commons” +(alluding to the recent dissolution of parliament). Pitt, on the back +of the horse, cries, “Bravo!—go it again!—I love to ride a mettled +steed; send the vagabonds packing!” Fox appears on the other side of +the picture, mounted on the British lion, and holding a whip and bridle +in his hand. He says to Pitt, “Prithee, Billy, dismount before ye get a +fall, and let some abler jockey take your seat;” and the lion observes, +indignantly, but with gravity, “If this horse is not tamed, he will +soon be absolute king of our forest.”</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut230.jpg" width="350" height="261" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 230. Opera Beauties.</div> +</div> + +<p>If these prints are correctly ascribed to Rowlandson, we see him here +fairly entered in the lists of political caricature, and siding with +Fox and the Whig party. He displays the same boldness in attacking +the king and his ministers which was displayed by Gillray—a boldness +that probably did much towards preserving the liberties of the country +from what was no doubt a resolute attempt to trample upon them, at a +time when caricature formed a very powerful weapon. Before this time, +however, Rowlandson’s pencil had become practised in those burlesque +pictures of social life for which he became afterwards so celebrated. +At first he seems to have published his designs under fictitious names, +and one now before me, entitled “The Tythe Pig,” bears the early date +of 1786, with the name of “Wigstead,” no doubt an assumed one, which +is found on some others of his early prints. It represents the country +parson, in his own parlour, receiving the tribute of the tithe pig +from an interesting looking farmer’s wife. The name of Rowlandson, +with the date 1792, is attached to a very clever and humorous etching +which is now also before me, entitled “Cold Broth and Calamity,” and +representing a party of skaters, who have fallen in a heap upon the +ice, which is breaking under their weight. It bears the name of Fores +as publisher. From<a class="pagenum" id="Page_484" title="484"></a> this time, and especially toward the close of the +century, Rowlandson’s caricatures on social life became very numerous, +and they are so well known that it becomes unnecessary, nor indeed +would it be easy, to select a few examples which would illustrate all +his characteristic excellencies. In prints published by Fores at the +beginning of 1794, the address of the publisher is followed by the +words, “where may be had all Rowlandson’s works,” which shows how +great was his reputation as a caricaturist at that time. It may be +stated briefly that he was distinguished by a remarkable versatility of +talent, by a great fecundity of imagination, and by a skill in grouping +quite equal to that of Gillray, and with a singular ease in forming his +groups of a great number of figures. Among those of his contemporaries +who spoke of him with the highest praise were sir Joshua Reynolds and +Benjamin West. It has been remarked, too, that no artist ever possessed +the power of Rowlandson of expressing so much with so little effort. We +trace a great difference in style between Rowlandson’s earlier and his +later works; although there is a general identity of character which +cannot be mistaken. The figures in the former show a taste for grace +and elegance that is rare in his later works, and we find a delicacy +of beauty in his females which he appears afterwards to have entirely +laid aside. An example of his earlier style in depicting female faces +is furnished by the pretty farmer’s wife, in the print of “The Tythe +Pig,” just alluded to; and I may quote as another example, an etching +published on<a class="pagenum" id="Page_485" title="485"></a> the 1st of January, 1794, under the title of “English +Curiosity; or, the foreigner stared out of countenance.” An individual, +in a foreign costume, is seated in the front row of the boxes of a +theatre, probably intended for the opera, where he has become the +object of curiosity of the whole audience, and all eyes are eagerly +directed upon him. The faces of the men are rather coarsely grotesque, +but those of the ladies, two of which are given in our cut No. 230, +possess a considerable degree of refinement. He appears, however, +to have been naturally a man of no real refinement, who easily gave +himself up to low and vulgar tastes, and, as his caricature became more +exaggerated and coarse, his females became less and less graceful, +until his model of female beauty appears to have been represented +by something like a fat oyster-woman. Our cut No. 231, taken from a +print in the possession of Mr. Fairholt, entitled, “The Trumpet and +Bassoon,” presents a good example of Rowlandson’s broad humour, and of +his favourite models of the human face. We can almost fancy we hear the +different tones of this brace of snorers.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut231.jpg" width="300" height="390" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 231. The Trumpet and Bassoon.</div> +</div> + +<p>A good example of Rowlandson’s grotesques of the human figure is<a class="pagenum" id="Page_486" title="486"></a> given +in our cut No. 232, taken from a print published on the 1st of January, +1796, under the title of “Anything will do for an Officer.” People +complained of the mean appearance of the officers in our armies, who +obtained their rank, it was pretended, by favour and purchase rather +than by merit; and this caricature is explained by an inscription +beneath, which informs us how “Some school-boys, who were playing at +soldiers, found one of their number so ill-made, and so much under +size, that he would have disfigured the whole body if put into the +ranks. ‘What shall we do with him?’ asked one. ‘Do with him?’ says +another, ‘why make an officer of him.’” This plate is inscribed with +his name, “Rowlandson fecit.”</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut232.jpg" width="300" height="392" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 232. A Model Officer.</div> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut233.jpg" width="400" height="271" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 233. Antiquaries at Work.</div> +</div> + +<p>At this time Rowlandson still continued to work for Fores, but +before the end of the century we find him working for Ackermann, of +the Strand, who continued to be his friend and employer during the +rest of his life, and is said to have helped him generously in many +difficulties. In these, indeed, he was continually involved by his +dissipation and<a class="pagenum" id="Page_487" title="487"></a> thoughtlessness. Ackermann not only employed him in +etching the drawings of other caricaturists, especially of Bunbury, +but in furnishing illustrations to books, such as the several series +of Dr. Syntax, the “New Dance of Death,” and others. Rowlandson’s +illustrations to editions of the older standard novels, such as “Tom +Jones,” are remarkably clever. In transferring the works of other +caricaturists to the copper, Rowlandson was in the habit of giving his +own style to them to such a degree, that nobody would suspect that +they were not his own, if the name of the designer were not attached +to them. I have given one example of this in a former chapter, and +another very curious one is furnished by a print now before me, +entitled “Anglers of 1811,” which bears only the name “H. Bunbury +del.,” but which is in every particular a perfect example of the style +of Rowlandson. During the latter part of his life Rowlandson amused +himself with making an immense number of drawings which were never +engraved, but many of which have been preserved and are still found +scattered through the portfolios of collectors. These are generally +better finished than his etchings, and are all more or less burlesque. +Our cut No. 233 is taken from one of these drawings, in the possession +of<a class="pagenum" id="Page_488" title="488"></a> Mr. Fairholt; it represents a party of antiquaries engaged +in important excavations. No doubt the figures were intended for +well-known archæologists of the day.</p> + +<p>Thomas Rowlandson died in poverty, in lodgings in the Adelphi, on the +22nd of April, 1827.</p> + +<p>Among the most active caricaturists of the beginning of the present +century we must not overlook Isaac Cruikshank, even if it were only +because the name has become so celebrated in that of his more talented +son. Isaac’s caricatures, too, were equal to those of any of his +contemporaries, after Gillray and Rowlandson. One of the earliest +examples which I have seen bearing the well-known initials, I. C., +was published on the 10th of March, 1794, the year in which George +Cruikshank was born, and probably, therefore, when Isaac was quite +a young man. It is entitled “A Republican Belle,” and is an evident +imitation of Gillray. In another, dated the 1st of November, 1795, Pitt +is represented as “The Royal Extinguisher,” putting out the flame of +“Sedition.” Isaac Cruikshank published many prints anonymously, and +among the numerous caricatures of the latter end of the last century we +meet with many which have no name attached to them, but which resemble +so exactly his known style, that we can hardly hesitate in ascribing +them to him. It will be remarked that in his acknowledged works he +caricatures the opposition; but perhaps, like other caricaturists of +his time, he worked privately for anybody who would pay him, and was +as willing to work against the government as for it, for most of the +prints which betray their author only by their style are caricatures +on Pitt and his measures. Such is the group given in our cut No. 234, +which was published on the 15th of August, 1797, at a time when there +were loud complaints against the burthen of taxation. It is entitled +“Billy’s Raree-Show; or, John Bull En-lighten’d,” and represents Pitt, +in the character of a showman, exhibiting to John Bull, and picking +his pocket while his attention is occupied with the show. Pitt, in +a true showman’s style, says to his victim, “Now, pray lend your +attention to the enchanting prospect before you,—this is the prospect +of peace—only observe what a busy scene presents itself—the ports are +filled with shipping, the quays loaded with merchandise, riches<a class="pagenum" id="Page_489" title="489"></a> are +flowing in from every quarter—this prospect alone is worth all the +money you have got about you.” Accordingly, the showman abstracts the +same money from his pocket, while John Bull, unconscious of the theft +exclaims with surprise, “Mayhap it may, master showman, but I canna zee +ony thing like what you mentions,—I zees nothing but a woide plain, +with some mountains and molehills upon’t—as sure as a gun, it must be +all behoind one of those!” The flag of the show is inscribed, “Licensed +by authority, Billy Hum’s grand exhibition of moving mechanism; or, +deception of the senses.”</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut234.jpg" width="350" height="442" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 234. The Raree-Show.</div> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut235.jpg" width="400" height="282" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 235. Flight across the Herring Pond.</div> +</div> + +<p>In a caricature with the initials of I. C., and published on the 20th +of June, 1797, Fox is represented as “The Watchman of the State,” +ironically, of course, for he is betraying the truth which he had +ostentatiously assumed, and absenting himself at the moment when his +agents are putting the match to the train they have laid to blow up +the constitu<a class="pagenum" id="Page_490" title="490"></a>tion. Yet Cruikshank’s caricatures on the Irish union +were rather opposed to ministers. One of these, published on the 20th +of June, 1800, is full of humour. It is entitled “A Flight across the +Herring Pond.” England and Ireland are separated by a rough sea, over +which a crowd of Irish “patriots” are flying, allured by the prospect +of honours and rewards. On the Irish shore, a few wretched natives, +with a baby and a dog, are in an attitude of prayer, expostulating +with the fugitives,—“Och, och! do not leave us—consider your old +house, it will look like a big wallnut-shell without a kernel.” On the +English shore, Pitt is holding open the “Imperial Pouch,” and welcoming +them,—“Come on, my little fellows, there’s plenty of room for you +all—the budget is not half full.” Inside the “pouch” appears a host +of men covered with honours and dignities, one of whom says to the +foremost of the Irish candidates for favour, “Very snug and convenient, +brother, I allure you.” Behind Pitt, Dundas, seated on a pile of public +offices united in his person, calls out to the immigrants, “If you’ve +ony consciences at a’, here’s enugh to satisfy ye a’.” A portion of +this clever caricature is represented in our cut No. 235.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut236.jpg" width="400" height="269" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 236. A Case of Abduction.</div> +</div> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="Page_491" title="491"></a> +There is a rare caricature on the subject of the Irish union, which +exhibits a little of the style of Isaac Cruikshank, and a copy of which +is in the possession of Mr. Fairholt. From this I have taken merely +the group which forms our cut No. 236. It is a long print, dated on +the 1st of January, 1800, and is entitled “The Triumphal entry of the +Union into London.” Pitt, with a paper entitled “Irish Freedom” in his +pocket, is carrying off the young lady (Ireland) by force, with her +natural accompaniment, a keg of whisky. The lord chancellor of Ireland +(lord Clare) sits on the horse and performs the part of fiddler. +In advance of this group are a long rabble of radicals, Irishman, +&c, while close behind comes Grattan, carried in a sedan-chair, and +earnestly appealing to the lady, “Ierne, Ierne! my sweet maid, listen +not to him—he’s a false, flattering, gay deceiver.” Still farther in +the rear follows St. Patrick, riding on a bull, with a sack of potatoes +for his saddle, and playing on the Irish harp. An Irishman expostulates +in the following words—“Ah, long life to your holy reverence’s memory, +why will you lave your own nate little kingdom, and go to another +where they will tink no more of you then they would of an old brogue? +Shure, of all the saints in the red-letter calendar, we give you the +preference! och hone! och hone!”<a class="pagenum" id="Page_492" title="492"></a> Another Irishman pulls the bull by +the tail, with the lament, “Ah, masther, honey, why will you be after +leaving us? What will become of poor Shelagh and all of us, when you +are gone?” It is a regular Irish case of abduction.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cut237.jpg" width="400" height="257" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">No. 237. The Farthing Rushlight.</div> +</div> + +<p>The last example I shall give of the caricatures of Isaac Cruikshank is +the copy of one entitled “The Farthing Rushlight,” which, I need hardly +say, is a parody on the subject of a well-known song. The rushlight +is the poor old king, George, whom the prince of Wales and his Whig +associates, Fox, Sheridan, and others, are labouring in vain to blow +out. The latest caricature I possess, bearing the initials of Isaac +Cruikshank, was published by Fores, on the 19th of April, 1810, and +is entitled, “The Last Grand Ministerial Expedition (on the Street, +Piccadilly).” The subject is the riot on the arrest of sir Francis +Burdett, and it shows that Cruikshank was at this time caricaturing on +the radical side in politics.</p> + +<p>Isaac Cruikshank left two sons who became distinguished as +caricaturists, George, already mentioned, and Robert. George +Cruikshank, who is still amongst us, has raised caricature in art to +perhaps the highest degree of excellence it has yet reached. He began +as a political caricaturist, in imitation of his father Isaac—in +fact the two brothers are understood to<a class="pagenum" id="Page_493" title="493"></a> have worked jointly with +their father before they engraved on their own account. I have in my +own possession two of his earliest works of this class, published by +Fores, of Piccadilly, and dated respectively the 3rd and the 19th of +March, 1815. George was then under twenty-one years of age. The first +of these prints is a caricature on the restrictions laid upon the trade +in corn, and is entitled “The Blessings of Peace, or, the Curse of +the Corn Bill.” A foreign boat has arrived, laden with corn at a low +price—one of the foreign traders holds out a sample and says, “Here +is de best for 50s.” A group of bloated aristocrats and landholders +stand on the shore, with a closed storehouse, filled with corn behind +them; the foremost, warning the boat away with his hand, replies to +the merchant, “We won’t have it at any price—we are determined to +keep up our own to 80s., and if the poor can’t buy at that price, why +they must starve. We love money too well to lower our rents again; the +income tax is taken off.” One of his companions exclaims, “No, no, we +won’t have it at all.” A third adds, “Ay, ay, let ’em starve, and be +d— to ’em.” Upon this another of the foreign merchants cries, “By +gar, if they will not have it at all, we must throw it overboard!” and +a sailor is carrying this alternative into execution by emptying a +sack into the sea. Another group stands near the closed storehouse—it +consists of a poor Englishman, his wife with an infant in the arms, +and two ragged children, a boy and a girl. The father is made to say, +“No, no, masters, I’ll not starve; but quit my native country, where +the poor are crushed by those they labour to support, and retire to one +more hospitable, and where the arts of the rich do not interpose to +defeat the providence of God.” The corn bill was passed in the spring +of 1815, and was the cause of much popular agitation and rioting. The +second of these caricatures, on the same subject, is entitled, “The +Scale of Justice reversed,” and represents the rich exulting over the +disappearance of the tax on property, while the poor are crushed under +the weight of taxes which bore only upon them. These two caricatures +present unmistakable traces of the peculiarities of style of George +Cruikshank, but not as yet fully developed.</p> + +<p>George Cruikshank rose into great celebrity and popularity as a +political caricaturist by his illustrations to the pamphlets of William +Houe,<a class="pagenum" id="Page_494" title="494"></a> such as “The Political House that Jack built,” “The Political +Showman at Home,” and others upon the trial of queen Caroline; but this +sort of work suited the taste of the public at that time, and not that +of the artist, which lay in another direction. The ambition of George +Cruikshank was to draw what Hogarth called moral comedies, pictures of +society carried through a series of acts and scenes, always pointed +with some great moral; and it must be confessed that he has, through a +long career, succeeded admirably. He possesses more of the true spirit +of Hogarth than any other artist since Hogarth’s time, with greater +skill in drawing. He possesses, even to a greater degree than Hogarth +himself, that admirable talent of filling a picture with an immense +number of figures, every one telling a part of the story, without +which, however minute, the whole picture would seem to us incomplete. +The picture of the “Camp at Vinegar Hill,” and one or two other +illustrations to Maxwell’s “History of the Irish Rebellion in 1798,” +are equal, if not superior, to anything ever produced by Hogarth or by +Callot.</p> + +<p>The name of George Cruikshank forms a worthy conclusion to the “History +of Caricature and Grotesque.” He is the last representative of the +great school of caricaturists formed during the reign of George III. +Though there can hardly be said to be a school at the present day, yet +our modern artists in this field have been all formed more or less +under his influence; and it must not be forgotten that we owe to that +influence, and to his example, to a great degree, the cleansing of this +branch of art from the objectionable characteristics of which I have on +more than one occasion been obliged to speak. May he still live long +among the friends who not only admire him for his talents, but love him +for his kindly and genial spirit; and none among them love and admire +him more sincerely than the author of the present volume.</p> + +<p class="center">FINIS.</p> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/i_514.jpg" width="200" height="207" alt="" /> +</div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="Page_A1" title="1"></a></p> + +<div class="column-container"> + <div class="columnleft"> + <em>Post Office Orders payable<br /> + at Piccadilly Circus.</em> + </div> + <div class="columnright"> + [<span class="smcap">December</span>, 1874. + </div> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/i_516.jpg" width="150" height="149" alt="" /> +</div> + +<h2>A List of Books<br /> +<span class="small">PUBLISHED BY</span><br /> +<span class="smcap">Chatto & Windus</span></h2> + +<p class="center"><em>74 & 75, PICCADILLY, LONDON, W.</em></p> + + +<hr class="adwide" /> +<p class="center adtitle"><span class="small">THE</span><br /> + TURNER GALLERY:</p> + +<p class="center"> +A Series of Sixty Engravings<br /> +From the Principal Works of <span class="smcap">Joseph Mallord William Turner</span>.<br /> +<em>With a Memoir and Illustrative Text</em><br /> +<span class="smcap">By RALPH NICHOLSON WORNUM</span>,<br /> +<span class="smcap">Keeper and Secretary, National Gallery</span>.<br /> +</p> + +<p>Handsomely half-bound, India Proofs, Royal folio, £10; <span class="smcap">Large +Paper</span> copies, Artists’ India Proofs, Elephant folio, £20.</p> + +<p class="center"><em>A Descriptive Pamphlet will be sent upon application.</em></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="center small">NEW COPYRIGHT AMERICAN WORK.</p> + +<p class="center adtitle">LOTOS LEAVES:</p> + +<div class="hang1"> +<p>Comprising Original Stories, Essays, and Poems by <span class="smcap">Wilkie +Collins</span>, <span class="smcap">Mark Twain</span>, <span class="smcap">Whitelaw Reed</span>, <span class="smcap">John Hay</span>, <span class="smcap">Noah +Brooks</span>, <span class="smcap">John Brougham</span>, <span class="smcap">Edmund Yates</span>, <span class="smcap">P. V. Nasby</span>, +<span class="smcap">Isaac Bromley</span>, and others. Profusely illustrated by <span class="smcap">Alfred +Fredericks</span>, <span class="smcap">Arthur Lumley</span>, <span class="smcap">John la Farge</span>, <span class="smcap">Gilbert +Berling</span>, <span class="smcap">George White</span>, and others. Small quarto, handsomely +bound, cloth extra, gilt, and gilt edges. 21s.</p> +</div> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="Page_A2" title="2"></a></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> +<p class="center adtitle">THE NATIONAL GALLERY:</p> + +<p class="center">A Selection from its Pictures,</p> + +<p class="hang1">By <span class="smcap">Claude</span>, <span class="smcap">Rembrandt</span>, <span class="smcap">Cuyp</span>, Sir <span class="smcap">David Wilkie</span>, <span class="smcap">Correggio</span>, +<span class="smcap">Gainsborough</span>, <span class="smcap">Canaletti</span>, <span class="smcap">Vandyck</span>, <span class="smcap">Paul Veronese</span>, +<span class="smcap">Caracci</span>, <span class="smcap">Rubens</span>, <span class="smcap">N.</span> and <span class="smcap">G. Poussin</span>, +and other great Masters.</p> + +<p>Engraved by <span class="smcap">George Doo</span>, <span class="smcap">John Burnet</span>, <span class="smcap">William Finden</span>, +<span class="smcap">John</span> and <span class="smcap">Henry le Keux</span>, <span class="smcap">John Pye</span>, <span class="smcap">Walter Bromley</span>, and +others. With descriptive Text. A <span class="smcap">New Edition</span>, from the Original +Plates, in columbier 4to, cloth extra, full gilt and gilt edges, 42<em>s.</em></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="center">THE FAMOUS FRASER PORTRAITS.</p> + +<p class="center">MACLISE’S GALLERY OF<br /> +<span class="adtitle">ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY CHARACTERS.</span></p> + +<p class="center">With Notes by the late WILLIAM MAGINN, LL.D.</p> + +<div class="hang1"> +<p>Edited, with copious Notes, by <span class="smcap">William Bates</span>, B.A. The volume +contains 83 <span class="smcap">Splendid and Most Characteristic Portraits</span>, +now first issued in a complete form. In demy 4to, over 400 pages, +cloth gilt and gilt edges, 31<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> +</div> + +<div class="addescr"> +<p>“Most interesting.”—<cite>Saturday Review.</cite></p> +<p>“Not possible to imagine a more elegant addition to a drawing-room table.”—<cite>Fun.</cite></p> +<p>“One of the most interesting volumes of this year’s literature.”—<cite>Times.</cite></p> +<p>“Deserves a place on every drawing-room table, and may not unfitly be removed +from the drawing-room to the library.”—<cite>Spectator.</cite></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="center adtitle"><span class="small">THE</span><br /> +WORKS OF JAMES GILLRAY, THE CARICATURIST.</p> + +<p class="center"><em>With the Story of his Life and Times, and full and Anecdotal +Descriptions of his Engravings.</em></p> + +<p class="center">Edited by THOMAS WRIGHT, Esq., M.A., F.S.A.</p> + +<p class="center">Illustrated with 83 full-page Plates, and very numerous Wood Engravings. +Demy 4to, 600 pages, cloth extra, 31<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + +<div class="addescr"> +<p>“High as the expectations excited by this description [in the Introduction] may +be, they will not be disappointed. With rare exception, no source of information +has been neglected by the editor, and the most inquisitive or exacting reader will +find ready gathered to his hand, without the trouble of reference, almost every +scrap of narrative, anecdote, gossip, scandal, or epigram, in poetry or prose, that he +can possibly require for the elucidation of the caricatures.”—<cite>Quarterly Review.</cite></p> + +<p>“The publishers have done good service in bringing so much that is full of humour +and of historical interest within the reach of a large class.”—<cite>Saturday Review.</cite></p> + +<p>“One of the most amusing and valuable illustrations of the social and polished +life of that generation which it is possible to conceive.”—<cite>Spectator.</cite></p> +</div> +<p><a class="pagenum" id="Page_A3" title="3"></a></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="center adtitle"><span class="small">NEW SERIES OF</span><br /> + BEAUTIFUL PICTURES.</p> + +<div class="adindent"> +<p>Including Examples by <span class="smcap">Armytage</span>, <span class="smcap">Faed</span>, <span class="smcap">Goodall</span>, <span class="smcap">Hemsley</span>, +<span class="smcap">Horsley</span>, <span class="smcap">Marks</span>, <span class="smcap">Nicholls</span>, Sir <span class="smcap">Noel Paton</span>, <span class="smcap">Pickersgill</span>, +<span class="smcap">G. Smith</span>, <span class="smcap">Marcus Stone</span>, <span class="smcap">Solomon</span>, <span class="smcap">Straight</span>, <span class="smcap">E. M. Ward</span>, +<span class="smcap">Warren</span>; all engraved in the highest style of Art, with Notices of +the Artists and of their Pictures by <span class="smcap">Sydney Armytage</span>, M.A. +Imperial 4to, cloth extra, gilt, and gilt edges, 21<em>s.</em></p> +</div> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="center adtitle">BEAUTIFUL PICTURES BY BRITISH ARTISTS:</p> + +<p class="center"><em>A Gathering of Favourites from our Picture Galleries, 1800-1870.</em></p> + +<p class="adhang">Including examples by <span class="smcap">Wilkie</span>, <span class="smcap">Constable</span>, <span class="smcap">Turner</span>, <span class="smcap">Mulready</span>, +<span class="smcap">Landseer</span>, <span class="smcap">Maclise</span>, <span class="smcap">E. M. Ward</span>, <span class="smcap">Frith</span>, Sir <span class="smcap">John Gilbert</span>, +<span class="smcap">Leslie</span>, <span class="smcap">Ansdell</span>, <span class="smcap">Marcus Stone</span>, Sir <span class="smcap">Noel Paton</span>, <span class="smcap">Faed</span>, +<span class="smcap">Eyre Crowe</span>, <span class="smcap">Gavin</span>, <span class="smcap">O’Neil</span>, and <span class="smcap">Madox Brown</span>. Engraved +on Steel in the highest style of Art. Edited, with Notices of the +Artists, by <span class="smcap">Sydney Armytage</span>, M.A. Imperial 4to, cloth extra, +gilt and gilt edges, 21<em>s.</em></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="center"><strong>TOM HOOD’S NEW STORY FOR CHILDREN.</strong></p> + +<p class="center adtitle">From Nowhere to the North Pole:</p> + +<p class="center">A Noah’s Arkæological Narrative. By TOM HOOD.</p> + +<p>With 25 Illustrations by <span class="smcap">W. Brunton</span> and <span class="smcap">E. C. Barnes</span>. Sq. crown +8vo, in a handsome and specially-designed binding, gilt edges, 6<em>s.</em></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="center"><strong>NEW BOOK BY MR. WALTER THORNBURY.</strong></p> + +<p><span class="adtitle">On the Slopes of Parnassus.</span> Illustrated +by <span class="smcap">J. E. Millais</span>, <span class="smcap">F. Sandys</span>, <span class="smcap">Fred. Walker</span>, <span class="smcap">G. J. Pinwell</span>, +<span class="smcap">J. D. Houghton</span>, <span class="smcap">E. J. Poynter</span>, <span class="smcap">H. S. Marks</span>, <span class="smcap">J. Whistler</span>, +and others. Handsomely printed, crown 4to, cloth extra, gilt and +gilt edges, 21<em>s.</em></p> +<p class="right">[<em>In preparation.</em></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="center large">NEW GROTESQUE GIFT-BOOK.</p> + +<p><span class="adtitle">Queens and Kings, and other Things</span>: +A rare and choice Collection of Pictures, Poetry, and strange but +veritable Histories, designed and written by S. A. the <span class="smcap">Princess +Hesse-Schwarzbourg</span>. The whole imprinted in gold and many +colours by the Brothers <span class="smcap">Dalziel</span>. Imperial 4to, cloth gilt and gilt +edges, One Guinea.</p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p><span class="adtitle">Æsop’s Fables</span>, translated into Human +Nature by <span class="smcap">C. H. Bennett</span>. Descriptive Text. Entirely New Edit. +Cr. 4to, 24 Plates, beautifully printed in colours, cloth extra, gilt, 6<em>s.</em></p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="Page_A4" title="4"></a></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<div class="figleft"> + <img src="images/i_519.jpg" width="200" height="277" alt="" /> + <div class="adcaption">“<cite>The Bellman of London.</cite>”</div> +</div> + +<p><span class="adtitle">Advertising, A History of</span>, from the +Earliest Times. Illustrated +by Anecdotes, Curious +Specimens, and Biographical +Notes of Successful +Advertisers. By <span class="smcap">Henry +Sampson</span>. Cr. 8vo, Coloured +Frontispiece and Illustrations, +cloth gilt, 7<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + +<p class="addescr">“Learned, curious, amusing, and +instructive is this volume.”—<cite>Echo.</cite></p> + +<p class="addescr">“Not only shows a vast amount +of research, but, as a whole, is most +readable. The facsimiles of old +newspapers it contains add not a +little to its value.”—<cite>Pictorial +World.</cite></p> + +<p class="addescr">“Mr. Sampson has exhibited +great diligence and much curious +research; he appears to have overlooked +nothing which could throw +light on his subject.”—<cite>Daily News.</cite></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p><span class="adtitle">Amusing Poetry.</span> A Selection of Humorous +Verse from all the Best Writers. Edited, with Preface, by <span class="smcap">Shirley Brooks</span>. Fcap. 8vo, cl. ex., gt. edges, 3<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p><span class="adtitle">Anacreon.</span> Translated by <span class="smcap">Thomas Moore</span>, +and Illustrated by the Exquisite Designs of <span class="smcap">Girodet</span>. Bound in +Etruscan gold and blue, 12<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p><span class="adtitle">Army Lists of the Roundheads and +Cavaliers in the Civil War, 1642.</span> <span class="smcap">Second Edition</span>, Corrected +and considerably Enlarged. Edited, with Notes and full +Index, by <span class="smcap">Edward Peacock</span>, F.S.A. 4to, hf.-Roxburghe, 7<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p><span class="adtitle">Artemus Ward, Complete.</span>—The Works +of <span class="smcap">Charles Farrer Browne</span>, better known as <span class="smcap">Artemus Ward</span>, +now first collected. Crown 8vo, with fine Portrait, facsimile of +handwriting, &c, 540 pages, cloth extra, 7<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p><span class="adtitle">Artemus Ward’s Lecture at the +Egyptian Hall</span>, with the Panorama. Edited by <span class="smcap">T. W. Robertson</span> +and <span class="smcap">E. P. Hingston</span>. 4to, green and gold, <span class="smcap">Tinted Illust.</span>, 6<em>s.</em> +</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="Page_A5" title="5"></a></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="center"><span class="large smcap">Uniform with Mr. Ruskin’s Edition of “Grimm.”</span></p> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Bechstein’s As Pretty as Seven</span>, and +other Popular German Stories. Collected by <span class="smcap">Ludwig Bechstein</span>. +With Additional Tales by the Brothers <span class="smcap">Grimm</span>. 100 Illustrations +by <span class="smcap">Richter</span>. Small 4to, green and gold, 6<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em>; gilt edges, 7<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Boccaccio’s Decameron</span>; or, Ten Days’ +Entertainment. Now fully translated into English, with Introduction +by <span class="smcap">Thomas Wright</span>, Esq., M.A., F.S.A. With Portrait after +<span class="smcap">Raphael</span>, and <span class="smcap">Stothard’s</span> Ten Copper-plates. Crown 8vo, cloth, +extra gilt, 7<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Booksellers, A History of.</span> Full Accounts +of the Great Publishing Houses and their Founders, both in London +and the Provinces, the History of their Rise and Progress, and of their +greatest Works. By <span class="smcap">Harry Curwen</span>. Crown 8vo, over 500 pages, +frontispiece and numerous Portraits and Illusts., cloth extra, 7<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/i_520.jpg" width="500" height="222" alt="" /> + <div class="adcaption">HEADPIECE USED BY WILLIAM CAXTON.</div> +</div> + +<div class="addescr"> +<p>“<em>In these days, ten ordinary Histories of Kings and Courtiers were well exchanged +against the tenth part of one good History of Booksellers.</em>”—<span class="smcap">Thomas +Carlyle.</span></p> + +<p>“This stout little book is unquestionably amusing. Ill-starred, indeed, must be +the reader who, opening it anywhere, lights upon six consecutive pages within the +entire compass of which some good anecdote or smart repartee is not to be found.”—<cite>Saturday +Review.</cite></p> + +<p>“Mr. Curwen has produced an interesting work.”—<cite>Daily News.</cite></p> + +<p>“Ought to have a permanent place on library shelves.”—<cite>Court Circular.</cite></p> +</div> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Book of Hall-Marks</span>; or, Manual of +Reference for the Goldsmith and Silversmith. By <span class="smcap">Alfred Lutschaunig</span>, +Manager of the Liverpool Assay Office. Crown 8vo, with +46 Plates of the Hall-Marks of the different Assay Towns of the +United Kingdom, as now stamped on Plate and Jewellery, 7<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + +<div class="addescr"> +<p><span class="large">⁂</span> <em>This work gives practical methods for testing the quality of gold and silver. +It was compiled by the author as a Supplement to “Chaffers.”</em></p> +</div> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="Page_A6" title="6"></a></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Boudoir Ballads: Vers de Société.</span> By +<span class="smcap">J. Ashby Sterry</span>. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, gilt, and gilt edges, +6<em>s.</em></p> +<div class="exit">[<em>In preparation.</em></div> + +<hr class="adwide" /> +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Bret Harte’s Complete Works,</span> in Prose +and Poetry. Now First Collected. With Introductory Essay by <span class="smcap">J. +M. Bellew</span>, Portrait of the Author, and 50 Illustrations. Crown +8vo, 650 pages, cloth extra, 7<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> +<p><span class="adtitle">Brewster’s (Sir David) More Worlds +than One,</span> <strong>the Creed of the Philosopher and the Hope +of the Christian.</strong> A <span class="smcap">New Edition</span>, in small crown 8vo, cloth, +extra gilt, with full-page Astronomical Plates. 4<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Brewster’s (Sir D.) Martyrs of Science.</span> +Small cr. 8vo, cloth, extra gilt, with full-page Portraits. 4<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Bright’s (Rt. Hon. J., M.P.) Speeches</span> +on Public Affairs of the last Twenty Years. Collated with the +best Public Reports. Royal 16mo, 370 pages, cloth extra, 1<em>s.</em></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adtitlesmall center">COLMAN’S HUMOROUS WORKS.</p> + +<p class="adhang"> +<span class="adtitle">Broad Grins.</span> My Nightgown and Slippers, +and other Humorous Works, Prose and Poetical, of <span class="smcap">George Colman</span> +the Younger. With Life and Anecdotes of the Author by <span class="smcap">G. B. +Buckstone</span>, and Frontispiece by <span class="smcap">Hogarth</span>. Crown 8vo, 7<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + +<div class="figleft"> + <img src="images/i_521.jpg" width="350" height="290" alt="" /> + <div class="adcaption">“<cite>A Border Song.</cite>”</div> +</div> + +<p><span class="adtitle">Broadstone +Hall</span>, and other +Poems. By <span class="smcap">W. E. +Windus</span>. With 40 +Illustrations by <span class="smcap">Alfred +Concanen</span>. +Crown 8vo, cloth +extra, gilt, 5<em>s.</em></p> + +<p><span class="adtitle">Conquest +of the Sea</span>: A +History of Diving, +from the Earliest +Times. By <span class="smcap">Henry +Siebe</span>. Profusely +Illustrated. Crown +8vo, cloth extra, +4<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="Page_A7" title="7"></a></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="center adtitlesmall">MISS BRADDON’S NEW NOVEL.</p> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Lost for Love:</span> A Novel. By <span class="smcap">M. E. +Braddon</span>, Author of “Lady Audley’s Secret,” &c Now ready, +in 3 vols., crown 8vo, at all Libraries, and at the Booksellers.</p> + +<div class="addescr"> +<p>“One of the best novels lately produced. In several important respects, it +appears to us, Miss Braddon’s recent works deserve the highest commendation.”—<cite>Illustrated +London News.</cite></p> + +<p>“We may confidently predict for it a warm welcome from Miss Braddon’s +numerous admirers.”—<cite>Graphic.</cite></p> + +<p>“‘Lost for Love’ must be placed high among Miss Braddon’s novels. It has a +quiet power, which makes it attractive in a high degree.”—<cite>Scotsman.</cite></p> + +<p>“Unaffected, simple, and easily written, it will disappoint Miss Braddon’s early +admirers, and please that which we hope is a wider public.”—<cite>Athenæum.</cite></p> +</div> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Byron’s (Lord) Letters and Journals</span>, +with Notices of his Life. By <span class="smcap">Thomas Moore</span>. A Reprint of the +Original Edition, newly revised, complete in a thick volume of 1060pp., +with Twelve full-page Plates. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, gilt, 7<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + +<p class="addescr"> +“We have read this book with the greatest pleasure. Considered merely as a +composition, it deserves to be classed among the best specimens of English prose +which our age has produced. It contains, indeed, no single passage equal to two +or three which we could select from the Life of Sheridan; but, as a whole, it is +immeasurably superior to that work. The style is agreeable, clear, and manly, +and, when it rises into eloquence, rises without effort or ostentation. Nor is the +matter inferior to the manner. It would be difficult to name a book which exhibits +more kindness, fairness, and modesty. It has evidently been written, not for the +purpose of showing—what, however, it often shows—how well its author can write, +but for the purpose of vindicating, as far as truth will permit, the memory of a celebrated +man who can no longer vindicate himself. Mr. Moore never thrusts himself +between Lord Byron and the public. With the strongest temptations to egotism, +he has said no more about himself than the subject absolutely required. A great +part, indeed the greater part, of these volumes consists of extracts from the Letters +and Journals of Lord Byron; and it is difficult to speak too highly of the skill which +has been shown in the selection and arrangement.... It is impossible, on a +general survey, to deny that the task has been executed with great judgment and +great humanity. When we consider the life which Lord Byron had led, his petulance, +his irritability, and his communicativeness, we cannot but admire the dexterity +with which Mr. Moore has contrived to exhibit so much of the character and +opinions of his friend, with so little pain to the feelings of the living.”—<span class="smcap">Lord +Macaulay</span>, in the <cite>Edinburgh Review</cite>.</p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Carols of Cockayne:</span> Vers de Société +descriptive of London Life. By <span class="smcap">Henry S. Leigh</span>. Third Edition. +With numerous Illustrations by <span class="smcap">Alfred Concanen</span>. Crown 8vo, +cloth extra, gilt, 5<em>s.</em></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Carlyle (T.) on the Choice of Books.</span> +With New Life and Anecdotes. Brown cloth, <span class="fakesc">UNIFORM WITH THE +2<em>s.</em> EDITIONS OF HIS WORKS</span>, 1<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Celebrated Claimants, Ancient and +Modern.</span> Being the Histories of all the most celebrated Pretenders +and Claimants from <span class="smcap">Perkins Warbeck</span> to <span class="smcap">Arthur Orton</span>. Fcap. +8vo, 350 pages, illustrated boards, price 2<em>s.</em></p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="Page_A8" title="8"></a></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="center adtitlesmall">MR. WILKIE COLLINS’S NEW NOVEL.</p> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">The Law and the Lady</span>: A Novel. By +<span class="smcap">Wilkie Collins</span>, Author of “The Woman in White.” 3 vols., +crown 8vo, 31<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> +<p class="right">[<em>Shortly.</em></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Christmas Carols and Ballads.</span> Selected +and Edited by <span class="smcap">Joshua Sylvester</span>. A New Edition, beautifully +printed and bound in cloth, extra gilt, gilt edges, 3<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + +<div class="ad"> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Cruikshank’s Comic Almanack.</span> +Complete in <span class="smcap">Two Series</span>: the <span class="smcap">First</span> from 1835 to 1843; the +<span class="smcap">Second</span> from 1844 to 1853. A Gathering of the <span class="smcap">Best Humour</span> +of <span class="smcap">Thackeray, Hood, Mayhew, Albert Smith, A’Beckett, +Robert Brough</span>, &c With 2,000 Woodcuts and Steel Engravings +by <span class="smcap">Cruikshank, Hine, Landells</span>, &c Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, +two very thick volumes, 15<em>s.</em>; or, separately, 7<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em> per volume.</p> + +<div class="addescr"> +<p><span class="large">⁂</span> <em>The “Comic Almanacks” of George Cruikshank have long been regarded by +admirers of this inimitable artist as among his finest, most characteristic productions. +Extending over a period of nineteen years, from 1835 to 1853, inclusive, +they embrace the best period of his artistic career, and show the varied excellences +of his marvellous power. The late Mr. Tilt, of Fleet Street, first conceived the +idea of the “Comic Almanack,” and at various times there were engaged upon it +such writers as</em> <span class="smcap">Thackeray</span>, <span class="smcap">Albert Smith</span>, <em>the Brothers</em> <span class="smcap">Mayhew</span>, <em>the late</em> +<span class="smcap">Robert Brough</span>, <span class="smcap">Gilbert A’Beckett</span>, <em>and, it has been asserted,</em> <span class="smcap">Tom Hood</span> <em>the +elder.</em> <span class="smcap">Thackeray’s</span> <em>stories of “Stubbs’ Calendar; or, The Fatal Boots,” which +subsequently appeared as “Stubbs’ Diary;” and “Barber Cox; or, The Cutting +of his Comb,” formed the leading attractions in the numbers for 1839 and 1840.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr class="adwide" /> +<p class="center large">THE BEST GUIDE TO HERALDRY.</p> + +<div class="figleft"> + <img src="images/i_523.jpg" width="150" height="259" alt="Heraldry" /> +</div> + +<p><span class="adtitle"><strong>Cussans’ Handbook of +Heraldry</strong>;</span> with Instructions for Tracing +Pedigrees and Deciphering Ancient MSS.; +also, Rules for the Appointment of Liveries, +&c, &c By <span class="smcap">John E. Cussans</span>. Illustrated +with 360 Plates and Woodcuts. +Crown 8vo, cloth extra, gilt and emblazoned, +7<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + +<div class="addescr"> +<p><span class="large">⁂</span> <em>This volume, beautifully printed on toned paper, +contains not only the ordinary matter to be found +in the best books on the science of Armory, but several +other subjects hitherto unnoticed. Amongst +these may be mentioned:</em>—<span class="smcap">1. Directions for +Tracing Pedigrees. 2. Deciphering Ancient +MSS., illustrated by Alphabets and Facsimiles. +3. The Appointment of Liveries. +4. Continental and American Heraldry</span>, &c.</p> +</div> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="Page_A9" title="9"></a></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + + +<p class="adtitle center"><span class="small">NEW AND IMPORTANT WORK.</span></p> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Cyclopædia of Costume</span>; or, A Dictionary +of Dress, Regal, Ecclesiastical, Civil, and Military, from +the Earliest Period in England to the reign of George the Third. +Including Notices of Contemporaneous Fashions on the Continent, +and preceded by a General History of the Costume of the Principal +Countries of Europe. By <span class="smcap">J. R. Planché, F.S.A.</span>, Somerset Herald.</p> + +<div class="addescr"> +<p><em>This work will be published in Twenty-four Monthly Parts, quarto, at Five +Shillings, profusely illustrated by Plates and Wood Engravings; with each Part +will also be issued a splendid Coloured Plate, from an original Painting or Illumination, +of Royal and Noble Personages, and National Costume, both foreign and +domestic. The First Part will be ready on Jan. 1, 1875.</em></p> + +<div class="figleft"> + <img src="images/i_524.jpg" width="150" height="323" alt="Costume" /> +</div> + +<p>In collecting materials for a History of Costume of +more importance than the little handbook which has +met with so much favour as an elementary work, I was +not only made aware of my own deficiencies, but surprised +to find how much more vague are the explanations, +and contradictory the statements, of our best +authorities, than they appeared to me, when, in the +plenitude of my ignorance, I rushed upon almost untrodden +ground, and felt bewildered by the mass of +unsifted evidence and unhesitating assertion which met +my eyes at every turn.</p> + +<p>During the forty years which have elapsed since the +publication of the first edition of my “History of British +Costume” in the “Library of Entertaining Knowledge,” +archæological investigation has received such +an impetus by the establishment of metropolitan and +provincial peripatetic antiquarian societies, that a flood +of light has been poured upon us, by which we are +enabled to re-examine our opinions and discover reasons +to doubt, if we cannot find facts to authenticate.</p> + +<p>That the former greatly preponderate is a grievous +acknowledgment to make after assiduously devoting +the leisure of half my life to the pursuit of information +on this, to me, most fascinating subject. It is some +consolation, however, to feel that where I cannot instruct, +I shall certainly not mislead, and that the reader +will find, under each head, all that is known to, or +suggested by, the most competent writers I am acquainted +with, either here or on the Continent.</p> + +<p>That this work appears in a glossarial form arises from the desire of many artists, +who have expressed to me the difficulty they constantly meet with in their endeavours +to ascertain the complete form of a garment, or the exact mode of fastening +a piece of armour, or buckling of a belt, from their study of a sepulchral effigy or +a figure in an illumination; the attitude of the personages represented, or the disposition +of other portions of their attire, effectually preventing the requisite examination.</p> + +<p>The books supplying any such information are very few, and the best confined to +armour or ecclesiastical costume. The only English publication of the kind required, +that I am aware of, is the late Mr. Fairholt’s “Costume in England” (8vo, London, +1846), the last two hundred pages of which contain a glossary, the most valuable +portion whereof are the quotations from old plays, mediæval romances, and satirical +ballads, containing allusions to various articles of attire in fashion at the time of +their composition. Twenty-eight years have expired since that book appeared, and +it has been thought that a more comprehensive work on the subject than has yet +issued from the English press, combining the pith of the information of many costly +foreign publications, and, in its illustrations, keeping in view the special requirement +of the artist, to which I have alluded, would be, in these days of educational +progress and critical inquiry, a welcome addition to the library of an English +gentleman.</p> + +<p class="signature">J. R. PLANCHÉ.</p> + +</div> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="Page_A10" title="10"></a></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Cussans’ History of Hertfordshire.</span> +A County History, got up in a very superior manner, and ranging +with the finest works of its class. By <span class="smcap">John E. Cussans</span>. Illustrated +with full-page Plates on Copper and Stone, and a profusion +of small Woodcuts. Parts I. to VIII. are now ready, price 21<em>s.</em> +each.</p> + +<div class="addescr"> +<p><span class="large">⁂</span> <cite>An entirely new History of this important County, great attention being +given to all matters pertaining to Family History.</cite></p> +</div> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Dickens’ Life and Speeches.</span> By +<span class="smcap">Theodore Taylor</span>. Complete in One Volume, square 16mo, +cloth extra, 2<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="center"><span class="adtitle">“DON QUIXOTE” IN THE ORIGINAL SPANISH.</span></p> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quijote de +la Mancha.</span> Nueva Edicion, corregida y revisada. Por <span class="smcap">Miguel +de Cervantes Saavedra</span>. Complete in one volume, post 8vo, +nearly 700 pages, cloth extra, price 4<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p class="center small"><span class="adtitle">GIL BLAS IN SPANISH.</span></p> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Historia de Gil Blas de Santillana.</span> +Por <span class="smcap">Le Sage</span>. Traducida al Castellano por el <span class="smcap">Padre Isla</span>. Nueva +Edicion, corregida y revisada. Complete in One Volume. Post +8vo, cloth extra, nearly 600 pages, price 4<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Earthward Pilgrimage</span>, from the Next +World to that which now is. By <span class="smcap">Moncure D. Conway</span>. Crown +8vo, beautifully printed and bound, 7<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Ellis’s (Mrs.) Mothers of Great Men.</span> +A New Edition, with Illustrations by <span class="smcap">Valentine W. Bromley</span>. +Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, over 500 pages, 6<em>s.</em></p> + +<div class="addescr"> +<p>“Mrs. Ellis believes, as most of us do, that the character of the mother goes a +long way; and, in illustration of this doctrine, she has given us several lives written +in her charming, yet earnest, style. We especially commend the life of Byron’s +and Napoleon’s mothers.... The volume has some solid merits.”—<cite>Echo.</cite></p> + +<p>“This is a book which ought to be in the libraries of all who interest themselves +in the education of women.”—<cite>Victoria Magazine.</cite></p> + +<p>“An extremely agreeable and readable book, ... and its value is not a little +enhanced by Mr. Bromley’s illustrations.”—<cite>Illustrated Dramatic News.</cite></p> +</div> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="Page_A11" title="11"></a></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Emanuel on Diamonds and Precious +Stones</span>; Their History, Value, and Properties; with Simple +Tests for ascertaining their Reality. By <span class="smcap">Harry Emanuel, F.R.G.S.</span> +With numerous Illustrations, Tinted and Plain. A New Edition, +Crown 8vo, cloth extra, gilt, 6<em>s.</em></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Edgar Allan Poe’s Prose and Poetical +Works</span>; including Additional Tales and his fine Critical Essays.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/i_526.jpg" width="400" height="284" alt="" /> + <div class="adcaption">POE’S COTTAGE AT FORDHAM.</div> +</div> + +<p class="addescr">With a Translation of <span class="smcap">Charles Baudelaire’s</span> “Essay.” 750 +pages, crown 8vo, fine Portrait and Illustrations, cloth extra, 7<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">English Surnames</span>: Their Sources and +Significations. By <span class="smcap">Charles Wareing Bardsley, M.A.</span> <span class="smcap">Second +Edition</span>, revised throughout, considerably enlarged, and partially +re-written. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, 9<em>s.</em></p> + +<div class="addescr"> +<p>“Mr. Bardsley has faithfully consulted the original mediæval documents and works +from which the origin and development of surnames can alone be satisfactorily traced. +He has furnished a valuable contribution to the literature of surnames, and we hope +to hear more of him in this field.”—<cite>Times.</cite></p> + +<p>“Mr. Bardsley’s volume is a very good specimen of the work which the nineteenth +century can turn out. He has evidently bestowed a great deal of attention, +not only upon surnames, but upon philology in general. The book is a mine of +information.”—<cite>Westminster Review.</cite></p> + +<p>“We welcome this book as an important addition to our knowledge of an important +and interesting subject.”—<cite>Athenæum.</cite></p> +</div> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="Page_A12" title="12"></a></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<div class="figleft"> + <img src="images/i_527.jpg" width="300" height="238" alt="" /> +</div> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Englishman’s House</span> (The): A Practical +Guide to all interested in Selecting or Building a House, with full +Estimates of Cost, Quantities, &c By <span class="smcap">C. J. Richardson</span>, Architect, +Author of “Old +English Mansions,” +&c Third Edition. +With nearly 600 Illustrations. +Crown 8vo, +cloth extra, 7<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + +<div class="addescr"> +<p><span class="large">⁂</span><i>This Work might +not inappropriately be +termed “A Book of +Houses.” It gives every +variety of house, from a +workman’s cottage to a +nobleman’s palace. The +book is intended to supply +a want long felt, viz., a +plain, non-technical account +of every style of +house, with the cost and +manner of building.</i></p> +</div> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Faraday’s Chemical History of a +Candle.</span> Lectures delivered to a Juvenile Audience. A New +Edition, edited by <span class="smcap">W. Crookes</span>, Esq., F.C.S., &c Crown 8vo, +cloth extra, with all the Original Illustrations, 4<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Faraday’s Various Forces of Nature.</span> +A New Edition, edited by <span class="smcap">W. Crookes</span>, Esq., F.C.S., &c Crown +8vo, cloth extra, with all the Original Illustrations, 4<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adtitlesmall center">FATHER PROUT’S REMAINS.S</p> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Final Reliques of Father Prout.</span> Collected +and Edited, from MSS. supplied by the Family of the Rev. +<span class="smcap">Francis Mahoney</span>, by <span class="smcap">Blanchard Jerrold</span>. [<em>In preparation.</em></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Finish to Life in and out of London</span>; +or, The Final Adventures of Tom, Jerry, and Logic. By +<span class="smcap">Pierce Egan</span>. Royal 8vo, cloth extra, with Spirited Coloured +Illustrations by <span class="smcap">Cruikshank</span>, 21<em>s.</em></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Flagellation and the Flagellants.</span>—A +History of the Rod in all Countries, from the Earliest Period to +the Present Time. By the Rev. <span class="smcap">W. Cooper</span>, B.A. Third Edition, +revised and corrected, with numerous Illustrations. Thick crown +8vo, cloth extra, gilt, 12<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="Page_A13" title="13"></a></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Fools’ Paradise</span>; with the Many Wonderful +Adventures there, as seen in the strange, surprising Peep-Show of +Professor Wolley Cobble. Crown 4to, with nearly 350 very funny +Coloured Pictures, cloth extra, gilt, 7<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/i_528.jpg" width="400" height="262" alt="" /> + <div class="adcaption"><span class="fakesc">"THE PROFESSOR'S LEETLE MUSIC LESSON."</span></div> +</div> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="center small adtitle">RUSKIN AND CRUIKSHANK.</p> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">German Popular Stories.</span> Collected by +the Brothers <span class="smcap">Grimm</span>, and Translated by <span class="smcap">Edgar Taylor</span>. Edited, +with an Introduction, by <span class="smcap">John Ruskin</span>. With 22 Illustrations after +the inimitable designs of <span class="smcap">George Cruikshank</span>. Both Series +complete. Square crown 8vo, 6<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em>; gilt leaves, 7<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + +<div class="addescr"> +<p>“The illustrations of this volume ... are of quite sterling and admirable art, +in a class precisely parallel in elevation to the character of the tales which they +illustrate; and the original etchings, as I have before said in the Appendix to my +‘Elements of Drawing,’ were unrivalled in masterfulness of touch since Rembrandt +(in some qualities of delineation, unrivalled even by him).... To make somewhat +enlarged copies of them, looking at them through a magnifying glass, and +never putting two lines where Cruikshank has put only one, would be an exercise in +decision and severe drawing which would leave afterwards little to be learnt in +schools.”—<em>Extract from Introduction by</em> <span class="smcap">John Ruskin</span>.</p> +</div> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Golden Treasury of Thought.</span> The Best +Encyclopædia of Quotations and Elegant Extracts, from Writers of +all Times and all Countries, ever formed. Selected and Edited by +<span class="smcap">Theodore Taylor</span>. Crown 8vo, very handsomely bound, cloth +gilt, and gilt edges, 7<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="Page_A14" title="14"></a></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Genial Showman</span>; or, Show Life in the +New World. Adventures with Artemus Ward, and the Story of his +Life. By <span class="smcap">E. P. Hingston</span>. Third Edition. Crown 8vo, Illustrated +by <span class="smcap">W. Brunton</span>, cloth extra, 7<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adtitlesmall center">THE GOLDEN LIBRARY.</p> + +<p class="center small">Square 16mo (Tauchnitz size), cloth, extra gilt, price 2<em>s.</em> per vol.</p> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Clerical Anecdotes</span>: The Humours and +Eccentricities of “the Cloth.”</p> + +<hr class="ad" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Holmes’s Autocrat of the Breakfast +Table.</span> With an Introduction by <span class="smcap">George Augustus Sala</span>.</p> + +<hr class="ad" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Holmes’s Professor at the Breakfast +Table.</span> With the <span class="smcap">Story of Iris.</span></p> + +<hr class="ad" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Hood’s Whims and Oddities.</span> Both +Series complete in One Volume, with all the original Illustrations.</p> + +<hr class="ad" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Lamb’s Essays of Elia.</span> Both Series complete +in One Volume.</p> + +<hr class="ad" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Leigh Hunt’s Essays</span>: A Tale for a Chimney +Corner, and other Pieces. With Portrait, and Introduction by +<span class="smcap">Edmund Ollier.</span></p> + +<hr class="ad" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Shelley’s Early Poems</span>: Queen Mab, &c +Reprinted from the Author’s Original Editions. With Essay by +<span class="smcap">Leigh Hunt.</span> (First Series of his Works.)</p> + +<hr class="ad" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Shelley’s Later Poems</span>: Laon and Cythna, +the Cenci, and other Pieces. Reprinted from the Author’s Original +Editions. With an Introductory Essay. (Second Series of his Works.)</p> + +<hr class="ad" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Shelley’s Miscellaneous Poems and +Prose Works.</span> The Third and Fourth Series. These Two Volumes +will include the Posthumous Poems, published by Mrs. <span class="smcap">Shelley</span> +in 1824; the Shelley Papers, published in 1833; the Six Weeks’ +Tour (1816); the Notes to “Queen Mab,” &c; the Marlow and +Dublin Pamphlets; “The Wandering Jew,” a Poem; and the two +Novels, “Zastrozzi” and “St. Irvyne.” The three last now first +included in any edition of Shelley.</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="Page_A15" title="15"></a></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Great Condé (The), and the Period of +the Fronde</span>: An Historical Sketch. By <span class="smcap">Walter Fitzpatrick</span>. +Second Edition, in 2 vols. 8vo, cloth extra, 15<em>s.</em></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Greenwood’s (James) Wilds of +London</span>: Being Descriptive Sketches, from the Personal Observations +and Experiences of the Writer, of Remarkable Scenes, People, +and Places in London. By <span class="smcap">James Greenwood</span>, the “Lambeth +Casual.” With Twelve full-page tinted Illustrations by <span class="smcap">Alfred +Concanen</span>. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, gilt, 7<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + +<div class="addescr"> +<p>“Mr. James Greenwood presents himself once more in the character of ‘one whose +delight it is to do his humble endeavour towards exposing and extirpating social +abuses and those hole-and-corner evils which afflict society.’”—<cite>Saturday Review.</cite></p> +</div> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Hall’s (Mrs. S. C.) Sketches of Irish +Character</span>. “<span class="smcap">Wooing and Wedding</span>,” “<span class="smcap">Jack the Shrimp</span>,” +<span class="smcap">Peter the Prophet</span>,” “<span class="smcap">Good and Bad Spirits</span>,” “<span class="smcap">Mabel +O’Neil’s Curse</span>,” &c, &c With numerous Illustrations on Steel +and Wood, by <span class="smcap">Daniel Maclise</span>, R.A., Sir <span class="smcap">John Gilbert</span>, <span class="smcap">W. +Harvey</span>, and <span class="smcap">G. Cruikshank</span>. 8vo, pp. 450, cloth extra, 7<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/i_530.jpg" width="350" height="339" alt="" /> +</div> + +<div class="addescr"> +<p>“The Irish sketches of this lady resemble Miss Mitford’s beautiful English +Sketches in ‘Our Village,’ but they are far more vigorous and picturesque and +bright.”—<cite>Blackwood’s Magazine.</cite></p> +</div> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="Page_A16" title="16"></a></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adtitle">THE MOST COMPLETE HOGARTH EVER PUBLISHED.</p> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Hogarth’s Works</span>: with Life and Anecdotal +Descriptions of the Pictures, by <span class="smcap">John Ireland</span> and <span class="smcap">John Nichols</span>. +The Work includes 160 Engravings, reduced in exact facsimile of +the Original Plates, specimens of which have now become very +scarce. The whole in Three Series, 8vo, cloth, gilt, 22<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em>; or, +separately, 7<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em> per volume. Each Series is Complete in itself.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/i_531.jpg" width="400" height="247" alt="" /> + <div class="adcaption">THE TALKING HAND.</div> +</div> + +<div class="addescr"> +<p>“Will be a great boon to authors and artists as well as amateurs.... Very +cheap and very complete.”—<cite>Standard.</cite></p> + +<p>“For all practical purposes the three handsome volumes comprising this edition +are equal to a collection of Hogarthian prints. We are quite sure that any one who +adds this work to his library will be amply repaid by the inexhaustible charms of its +facsimile prints.”—<cite>Birmingham Daily Mail.</cite></p> + +<p>“The plates are reduced in size, but yet truthfully reproduced. The best and +cheapest edition of Hogarth’s complete works yet brought forward.”—<cite>Building News.</cite></p> + +<p>“Three very interesting volumes, important and valuable additions to the library. +The edition is thoroughly well brought out, and carefully printed on fine paper.”—<cite>Art +Journal.</cite></p> +</div> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Hogarth’s Five Days’ Frolic</span>; or, Peregrinations +by Land and Water. Illustrated with Tinted Drawings, +made by <span class="smcap">Hogarth</span> and <span class="smcap">Scott</span> during the Journey. 4to, beautifully +printed, cloth, extra gilt, 10<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + +<div class="addescr"> +<p><span class="large">⁂</span> <em>A graphic and most extraordinary picture of the hearty English times +in which these merry artists lived.</em></p> +</div> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="Page_A17" title="17"></a></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Hogg’s Jacobite Relics of Scotland</span>: +Being the Songs, Airs, and Legends of the Adherents to the House +of Stuart. Collected and Illustrated by <span class="smcap">James Hogg</span>. In 2 vols. +Vol. I., a Facsimile of the original Edition; Vol. II., the <em>original</em> +Edition. 8vo, cloth, 28<em>s.</em></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Haunted</span>; or, Tales of the Weird and Wonderful. +A new and entirely original series of <span class="smcap">Ghost Stories</span>, by +<span class="smcap">Francis E. Stainforth</span>. Post 8vo, illust. bds., 2<em>s.</em> [<em>Nearly ready</em>.</p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Hawthorne’s English and American +Note Books</span>. Edited, with an Introduction, by <span class="smcap">Moncure D. +Conway</span>. Royal 16mo, paper cover, 1<em>s.</em>; in cloth, 1<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Hone’s Scrap-Books</span>: The Miscellaneous +Writings of <span class="smcap">William Hone</span>, Author of “The Table-Book,” +“Every-Day Book,” and the “Year Book:” being a Supplementary +Volume to those works. Now first collected. With Notes, Portraits, +and numerous Illustrations of curious and eccentric objects. Crown +8vo, cloth extra.</p> +<p class="right">[<em>Preparing</em>.</p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adtitlesmall center">MR. HORNE’S EPIC.</p> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Orion.</span> An Epic Poem, in Three Books. +By <span class="smcap">Richard Hengist Horne</span>. With Photographic Portrait-Frontispiece. +<span class="smcap">Tenth Edition</span>. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, 7<em>s.</em></p> + +<div class="addescr"> +<p>“Orion will be admitted, by every man of genius, to be one of the noblest, if not +the very noblest poetical work of the age. Its defects are trivial and conventional, +its beauties intrinsic and supreme.”—<span class="smcap">Edgar Allan Poe.</span></p> +</div> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<div class="figright"> + <img src="images/i_532.jpg" width="250" height="147" alt="" /> + </div> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Hunt’s (Robert) +Drolls of Old Cornwall</span>; or, +<span class="smcap">Popular Romances of The +West of England</span>. With Illustrations +by <span class="smcap">George Cruikshank</span>. +Crown 8vo, cloth extra, +gilt, 7<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + +<div class="addescr"> +<p><span class="large">⁂</span> “Mr. Hunt’s charming book of +the Drolls and Stories of the West of +England.”—<cite>Saturday Review.</cite></p> +</div> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Irish Guide.—How to Spend a Month +in Ireland.</span> Being a complete Guide to the Country, with an +Appendix containing information as to the Fares between the Principal +Towns in England and Ireland, and as to Tourist Arrangements +for the Season. With a Map and 80 Illustrations. By Sir <span class="smcap">Cusack +P. Roney</span>. A New Edition, Edited by Mrs. <span class="smcap">J. H. Riddell</span>. Crown +8vo, cloth extra, price 1<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="Page_A18" title="18"></a></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<div class="column-container"> + <div class="column col30"> + <img src="images/i_533.jpg" width="150" height="149" alt="" /> + </div> + <div class="column col70"> + <p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Jennings’ (Hargrave) + One of the Thirty.</span> With curious Illustrations. + Crown 8vo, cloth extra, 10<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + + <hr class="ad" /> + + <p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Jennings’ (Hargrave) + The Rosicrucians: Their Rites and + Mysteries.</span> With Chapters on the + Ancient Fire and Serpent Worshippers + and Explanations of Mystic Symbols in + Monuments and Talismans of Primeval + Philosophers. Crown 8vo, 300 Illustrations, 10<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + </div> +</div> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Jerrold’s (Blanchard) Cent. per Cent.</span> +A Story Written on a Bill Stamp. A New Edition. Fcap. 8vo, +illustrated boards, 2<em>s.</em></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adtitlesmall center">NEW WORK BY DOUGLAS JERROLD.</p> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Jerrold’s (Douglas) The Barber’s +Chair, and The Hedgehog Letters.</span> Now first collected. +Edited, with an Introduction, by his Son, <span class="smcap">Blanchard Jerrold</span>. +Crown 8vo, with Steel Plate Portrait from his Bust, engraved by +<span class="smcap">W. H. Mote</span>, cloth extra, 7<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + +<div class="addescr"> +<p>“No library is complete without Douglas Jerrold’s Works; <em>ergo</em>, no library is +complete without the ‘Barber’s Chair.‘ A delightful volume; the papers are most +amusing; they abound with sly touches of sarcasm; they are full of playful wit and +fancy.”—<cite>Pictorial World.</cite></p> + +<p>“An amusing volume, full of Douglas Jerrold’s well-known sharpness and +repartee.”—<cite>Daily News.</cite></p> + +<p>“Better fitted than any other of his productions to give an idea of Douglas +Jerrold’s amazing wit; the ‘Barber’s Chair’ may be presumed to give as near an +approach as is possible in print to the wit of Jerrold’s conversation.”—<cite>Examiner.</cite></p> +</div> + +<hr class="ad" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Jerrold’s (Douglas) Brownrigg +Papers</span>: The Actress at the Duke’s; Baron von Boots; Christopher +Snubb; The Tutor Fiend and his Three Pupils; Papers of a +Gentleman at Arms, &c By <span class="smcap">Douglas Jerrold</span>. Edited by his +Son, <span class="smcap">Blanchard Jerrold</span>. Post 8vo, illustrated boards, 2<em>s.</em></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Kalendars of Gwynedd.</span> Compiled by +<span class="smcap">Edward Breese</span>, F.S.A. With Notes by <span class="smcap">William Watkin +Edward Wynne</span>, Esq., F.S.A. Demy 4to, cloth extra, 28<em>s.</em></p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="Page_A19" title="19"></a></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Lamb’s (Charles) Complete Works</span>, +in Prose and Verse, reprinted from the Original Editions, with many +pieces now first included in any Edition. Edited, with Notes and +Introduction, by <span class="smcap">R. H. Shepherd</span>. With Two Portraits and +facsimile of a page of the “Essay on Roast Pig.” Crown 8vo, +cloth extra, gilt, 7<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + +<div class="addescr"> +<p>“Is it not time for a new and final edition of Lamb’s Works—a finer tribute to his +memory than any monument in Edmonton churchyard? Lamb’s writings, and +more especially his fugitive productions, have scarcely yet escaped from a state of +chaos.”—<cite>Westminster Review</cite>, October, 1874.</p> +</div> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Abstract of Contents.</span></p> + +<div class="column-container"> + <div class="column col50"> + <p><span class="smcap">Essays of Elia</span>, as originally published + in <cite>The London Magazine</cite>, <cite>The Examiner</cite>, + <cite>The Indicator</cite>, <cite>The Reflector</cite>, + <cite>The New Monthly</cite>, <cite>The Englishman’s + Magazine</cite>, <cite>The Athenæum</cite>, &c.</p> + + <p><span class="smcap">Papers</span> contributed to “Hone’s Table + Book,” “Year Book,” and “Every Day Book,” and to Walter Wilson’s + “Life of Defoe.”</p> + + <p><span class="smcap">Notes on the English Dramatists</span>, + 1808–1827.</p> + + <p><span class="smcap">Review of Wordsworth’s “Excursion”</span> + (from the <cite>Quarterly Review</cite>).</p> + + <p><span class="smcap">Rosamond Gray</span> (from the Edition of + 1798).</p> + + <p><span class="smcap">Tales From Shakespeare</span> and from + <span class="smcap">Mrs. Leicester’s School</span>.</p> + </div> + <div class="column col50"> + <p><span class="smcap">The Adventures of Ulysses.</span></p> + + <p><span class="smcap">Dramatic Pieces</span>:</p> + + <div class="quote"> + <p>John Woodvil: a Tragedy (from the Edition of 1802).</p> + <p>Mr. H——, a Farce.</p> + <p>The Wife’s Trial; or, The Intruding Widow.</p> + <p>The Pawnbroker’s Daughter.</p> + </div> + + <p><span class="smcap">Poems</span>:</p> + <div class="quote"> + <p>Sonnets and other Poems printed with + those of Coleridge in 1796-7, 1800, + and 1813.</p> + <p>Blank Verse (from the Edition of 1798).</p> + <p>Poetry for Children, 1809.</p> + <p>Album Verses, 1830.</p> + <p>Satan in Search of a Wife, 1831, &c.</p> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Lamb (Mary & Charles): Their Poems, +Letters, and Remains.</span> Now first collected, with Reminiscences and +Notes, by <span class="smcap">W. Carew Hazlitt</span>. With <span class="smcap">Hancock’s</span> Portrait of the +Essayist, Facsimiles of the Title-pages of the rare First Editions of +Lamb’s and Coleridge’s Works, Facsimile of a Page of the Original +MS. of the “Essay on Roast Pig,” and numerous Illustrations of +Lamb’s Favourite Haunts. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, 10<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em>; +<span class="smcap">Large-paper Copies</span> 21<em>s.</em></p> + +<div class="addescr"> +<p>“Mr. W.C. Hazlitt has published a very pretty and interesting little volume. It +has many pictorial illustrations, which were supplied by Mr. Camden Hotten; and, +above all, it contains a facsimile of the first page of Elia on ‘Roast Pig.’ It is well +got up, and has a good portrait of Elia. There are also some letters and poems of +Mary Lamb which are not easily accessible elsewhere.”—<cite>Westminster Review.</cite></p> + +<p>“Must be consulted by all future biographers of the Lambs.”—<cite>Daily News.</cite></p> + +<p>“Tells us a good deal that is interesting and something that is fairly new.”—<cite>Graphic.</cite></p> + +<p>“Very many passages will delight those fond of literary trifles; hardly any +portion will fail to have its interest for lovers of Charles Lamb and his sister.”—<cite>Standard.</cite></p> + +<p>“Mr. Hazlitt’s work is very important and valuable, and all lovers of Elia will +thank him for what he has done.”—<cite>Sunday Times.</cite></p> + +<p>“Will be joyfully received by all Lambites.”—<cite>Globe.</cite></p> +</div> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Lee (General Edward): His Life and +Campaigns.</span> By his Nephew, <span class="smcap">Edward Lee Childe</span>. With Portrait +and Plans. 1 vol. Crown 8vo.</p> + +<p class="right">[<em>In preparation.</em></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="Page_A20" title="20"></a></p> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Life in London</span>; or, The Day and Night +Scenes of Jerry Hawthorn and Corinthian Tom. <span class="smcap">With The +Whole of Cruikshank’s Very Droll Illustrations</span>, in +Colours, after the Originals. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, 7<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Literary Scraps.</span> A Folio Scrap-Book of +340 columns, with guards, for the reception of Cuttings from Newspapers, +Extracts, Miscellanea, &c In folio, half-roan, 7<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<div class="column-container"> + + <div class="column col50"> + <img src="images/i_535.jpg" width="250" height="370" alt="" /> + </div> + <div class="column col50"> + <p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Little London Directory + of 1677.</span> The Oldest Printed List of the Merchants + and Bankers of London. Reprinted from the Rare Original, with an + Introduction by <span class="smcap">John Camden Hotten</span>. + 16mo, binding after the original, 6<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + + <hr class="ad" /> + + <p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Longfellow’s Prose Works</span>, + complete, including “Outre-Mer,” “Hyperion,” “Kavanagh,” “Driftwood,” + “On the Poets and Poetry of Europe.” With Portrait and Illustrations by + <span class="smcap">Bromley</span>. 800 pages, crown 8vo, cloth gilt, + 7<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + + <div class="addescr"> + <p><span class="large">⁂</span> <em>The reader will find the present + edition of Longfellow’s Prose Writings by far the most complete ever issued + in this country. “Outre-Mer” contains two additional chapters, restored from + the first edition; while “The Poets and Poetry of Europe,” and the little collection + of Sketches entitled “Driftwood,” are now first introduced to the English + public.</em></p> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Lost Beauties of the English Language.</span> +An Appeal to Authors, Poets, Clergymen, and Public Speakers. +By <span class="smcap">Charles Mackay</span>, LL.D. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, 6<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Linton’s (Mrs. E. Lynn) True History +of Joshua Davidson, Christian and Communist.</span> <span class="smcap">Sixth +Edition</span>, with a New Preface. Small crown 8vo, cloth extra, 4<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + +<div class="addescr"> +<p>“In a short and vigorous preface, Mrs. Linton defends, in certain points, her +notion of the logical outcome of Christianity as embodied in this attempt to conceive +how Christ would have acted, with whom He would have fraternised, and who would +have declined to receive Him, had He appeared in the present generation.”—<cite>Examiner.</cite></p> +</div> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="Page_A21" title="21"></a></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adtitlesmall center">MRS. LYNN LINTON’S NEW NOVEL.</p> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Patricia Kemball</span>: A Novel, by E. <span class="smcap">Lynn +Linton</span>, Author of “Joshua Davidson,” &c, in Three Vols. crown +8vo, is now ready at all the Libraries and at the Booksellers’.</p> + +<div class="addescr"> +<p>“Perhaps the ablest novel published in London this year.... We know of +nothing in the novels we have lately read equal to the scene in which Mr. Hamley +proposes to Dora.... We advise our readers to send to the library for the story.”—<cite>Athenæum.</cite></p> + +<p>“This novel is distinguished by qualities which entitle it to a place apart from the +ordinary fiction of the day; ... displays genuine humour, as well as keen +social observation.... Enough graphic portraiture and witty observation to +furnish materials for half a dozen novels of the ordinary kind.”—<cite>Saturday Review.</cite></p> +</div> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<div class="figright"> + <img src="images/i_536.jpg" width="150" height="138" alt="" /> +</div> +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Madre Natura <em>versus</em> The +Moloch of Fashion.</span> A Social Essay. +By <span class="smcap">Luke Limner</span>. With 32 Illustrations +by the Author. <span class="smcap">Fourth Edition</span>, revised, +corrected, and enlarged. Crown 8vo, cloth +extra gilt, red edges, price 2<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + + + +<div class="addescr"> + +<p>“Bravo, Luke Limner! In this treatise, aptly and +ably illustrated, the well-known artist scathingly exposes +the evils of the present fashions—more especially +of tight-lacing. Girls should be made to learn it +by heart, and act on its precepts.”—<cite>Fun.</cite></p> + +<p>“Agreeably written and amusingly illustrated. Common sense and erudition are +brought to bear on the subjects discussed in it.”—<cite>Lancet.</cite></p> +</div> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Magna Charta.</span> An exact Facsimile of the +Original Document in the British Museum, carefully drawn, and +printed on fine plate paper, nearly 3 feet long by 2 feet wide, with +the Arms and Seals of the Barons emblazoned in Gold and Colours. +Price 5<em>s.</em></p> + +<p>A full Translation, with Notes, printed on a large sheet, price 6<em>d.</em></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adtitlesmall center">AUTHOR’S CORRECTED EDITION.</p> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Mark Twain’s Choice Works.</span> Revised +and Corrected throughout by the Author. With Life, Portrait, and +numerous Illustrations. 700 pages, cloth extra gilt, 7<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + +<hr class="ad" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Mark Twain’s Pleasure Trip on the +Continent of Europe.</span> With Frontispiece. 500 pages, illustrated +boards, 2<em>s.</em>; or cloth extra, 2<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Marston’s (Dr. Westland) Poetical and +Dramatic Works.</span> A New and Collected Library Edition, in Two +Vols. crown 8vo, is now in the press, and will be ready very shortly.</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="Page_A22" title="22"></a></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adtitlesmall center">MR. PHILIP MARSTON’S POEMS.</p> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Song Tide</span>, and other Poems. By <span class="smcap">Philip +Bourke Marston</span>. <span class="smcap">Second Edition.</span> Crown 8vo, cloth extra, 8<em>s.</em></p> + +<div class="addescr"> +<p>“This is a first work of extraordinary performance and of still more extraordinary +promise. The youngest school of English poetry has received an important accession +to its ranks in Philip Bourke Marston.”—<cite>Examiner.</cite></p> + +<p>“Mr. Marston has fairly established his claim to be heard as a poet.... His +present volume is well worthy of careful perusal, as the utterance of a poetic, cultivated +mind.”—<cite>Standard.</cite></p> + +<p>“We have spoken plainly of some defects in the poetry before us, but we have +read much of it with interest, and even admiration.”—<cite>Pall Mall Gazette.</cite></p> +</div> + +<hr class="ad" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">All in All</span>: Poems and Sonnets. By <span class="smcap">Philip +Bourke Marston</span>. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, 8<em>s.</em></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Mayhew’s London Characters</span>: Illustrations +of the Humour, Pathos, and Peculiarities of London Life. +By <span class="smcap">Henry Mayhew</span>, Author of “London Labour and the London +Poor,” and other Writers. With nearly 100 graphic Illustrations +by <span class="smcap">W. S. Gilbert</span>, and others. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, 6<em>s.</em></p> + +<div class="addescr"> +<p>“Well fulfils the promise of its title.... The book is an eminently interesting +one, and will probably attract many readers.”—<cite>Court Circular.</cite></p> +</div> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Memorials of Manchester Streets.</span> By +<span class="smcap">Richard Wright Procter</span>. With an Appendix, containing +“The Chetham Library,” by <span class="smcap">James Crossley</span>, F.S.A.; and “Old +Manchester and its Worthies,” by <span class="smcap">James Croston</span>, F.S.A. Demy +8vo, cloth extra, with Photographic Frontispiece and numerous +Illustrations, 15<em>s.</em></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Monumental Inscriptions of the West +Indies</span>, from the Earliest Date, with Genealogical and Historical +Annotations, &c, from Original, Local, and other Sources. Illustrative +of the Histories and Genealogies of the Seventeenth Century, +the Calendars of State Papers, Peerages, and Baronetages. With +Engravings of the Arms of the principal Families. Chiefly collected +on the spot by the Author, Capt. <span class="smcap">J. H. Lawrence-Archer</span>. Demy +4to, cloth extra, 42<em>s.</em> [<em>Nearly ready.</em></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Muses of Mayfair</span>: <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Vers de Société</span> of +the Nineteenth Century, including selections from <span class="smcap">Tennyson</span>, +<span class="smcap">Browning</span>, <span class="smcap">Swinburne</span>, <span class="smcap">Rossetti</span>, <span class="smcap">Jean Ingelow</span>, <span class="smcap">Locker</span>, +<span class="smcap">Ingoldsby</span>, <span class="smcap">Hood</span>, <span class="smcap">Lytton</span>, C. S. C., <span class="smcap">Landor</span>, <span class="smcap">Henry S. Leigh</span>, +and very many others. Edited by <span class="smcap">H. Cholmondeley-Pennell</span>, +Author of “Puck on Pegasus.” Beautifully printed, cloth extra gilt, +gilt edges, uniform with “The Golden Treasury of Thought,” 7<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="Page_A23" title="23"></a></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adtitlesmall center">MR. O’SHAUGHNESSY’S POEMS.</p> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Music and Moonlight</span>: Poems and Songs. +By <span class="smcap">Arthur O’Shaughnessy</span>, Author of “An Epic of Women.” +Fcap. 8vo, cloth extra, 7<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + +<div class="addescr"> +<p>“It is difficult to say which is more exquisite, the technical perfection of structure +and melody, or the delicate pathos of thought. Mr. O’Shaughnessy will enrich our +literature with some of the very best songs written in our generation.”—<cite>Academy.</cite></p> +</div> + +<hr class="ad" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">An Epic of Women</span>, and other Poems. +<span class="smcap">Second Edition.</span> Fcap. 8vo, cloth extra, 6<em>s.</em></p> + +<div class="addescr"> +<p>“Of the formal art of poetry he is in many senses quite a master; his metres are +not only good,—they are his own, and often of an invention most felicitous as well +as careful.”—<cite>Academy.</cite></p> +</div> + +<hr class="ad" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Lays of France.</span> (Founded on the “Lays +of Marie.”) <span class="smcap">Second Edition.</span> Crown 8vo, cloth extra, 10<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + +<div class="addescr"> +<p>“As we have before remarked in noticing an earlier volume of his, this modern +votary of Marie has, in imaginative power, keen intuition, and ear, a genuine claim +to be writing poetry, as things go now.... And Mr. O’S. is also an accomplished +master in those peculiar turns of rhythm which are designed to reproduce the +manner of the mediæval originals.”—<cite>Saturday Review.</cite></p> +</div> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Mystery of the Good Old Cause</span>: +Sarcastic Notices of those Members of the Long Parliament that +held Places, both Civil and Military, contrary to the Self-denying +Ordinance of April 3, 1645; with the Sums of Money and Lands +they divided among themselves. Small 4to, half-morocco, 7<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Napoleon III., the Man of His Time</span>; +from Caricatures. <span class="smcap">Part I. The Story of the Life of Napoleon +III.</span>, as told by <span class="smcap">J. M. Haswell</span>. <span class="smcap">Part II. The Same +Story</span>, as told by the <span class="smcap">Popular Caricatures</span> of the past Thirty-five +Years. Crown 8vo, with Coloured Frontispiece and over 100 +Caricatures, 7<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Original Lists of Persons of Quality</span>; +Emigrants; Religious Exiles; Political Rebels; Serving Men Sold +for a Term of Years; Apprentices; Children Stolen; Maidens +Pressed; and others who went from Great Britain to the American +Plantations, 1600-1700. With their Ages, the Localities where they +formerly Lived in the Mother Country, Names of the Ships in +which they embarked, and other interesting particulars. From +MSS. preserved in the State Paper Department of Her Majesty’s +Public Record Office, England. Edited by <span class="smcap">John Camden +Hotten</span>. A very handsome volume, crown 4to, cloth gilt, 700 pages, +38<em>s.</em> A few Large Paper copies have been printed, price 60<em>s.</em></p> + +<div class="addescr"> +<p>“This volume is an English Family Record, and as such may be commended to +English families, and the descendants of English families, wherever they exist.”—<cite>Academy.</cite></p> +</div> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="Page_A24" title="24"></a></p> + +<p class="adtitle center">THE OLD DRAMATISTS.</p> + +<p class="adtitlesmall center"><span class="smcap">Mr. Swinburne’s New Essay.</span></p> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">George Chapman’s Poems and Minor +Translations.</span> Complete, including some Pieces now first printed. +With an Essay on the Dramatic and Poetical Works of <span class="smcap">George +Chapman</span>, by <span class="smcap">Algernon Charles Swinburne</span>. Crown 8vo, +with Frontispiece, cloth extra, 6<em>s.</em></p> + +<hr class="ad" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">George Chapman’s Translations of +Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey.</span> Edited by <span class="smcap">Richard Herne +Shepherd</span>. In one volume, crown 8vo, cloth extra, 6<em>s.</em></p> + +<hr class="ad" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">George Chapman’s Plays</span>, Complete, from +the Original Quartos, including the doubtful Plays. Edited by +<span class="smcap">R. H. Shepherd</span>. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, with Frontispiece, 6<em>s.</em></p> + +<hr class="ad" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Ben Jonson’s Works.</span> With Notes, Critical +and Explanatory, and a Biographical Memoir by <span class="smcap">William +Gifford</span>. Edited by Lieut.-Col. <span class="smcap">Francis Cunningham</span>. Complete +in 3 vols., crown 8vo, cloth extra, gilt, Portrait, 6<em>s.</em> each.</p> + +<hr class="ad" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Christopher Marlowe’s Works</span>; Including +his Translations. Edited, with Notes and Introduction, by +Lt.-Col. <span class="smcap">F. Cunningham</span>. Cr. 8vo, cloth extra, gilt, Portrait, 6<em>s.</em></p> + +<hr class="ad" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Philip Massinger’s Plays.</span> From the +Text of <span class="smcap">Wm. Gifford</span>. With the addition of the Tragedy of +“Believe as You List.” Edited by Lieut.-Col. <span class="smcap">Francis Cunningham</span>. +Crown 8vo, cloth extra gilt, with Portrait, price 6<em>s.</em></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adtitle center">OLD BOOKS—FACSIMILE REPRINTS.</p> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Musarum Deliciæ</span>; or, The Muses’ Recreation, +1656; Wit Restor’d, 1658; and Wit’s Recreations, 1640. +The whole compared with the originals; with all the Wood Engravings, +Plates, Memoirs, and Notes. A New Edition, in 2 vols., post +8vo, printed on antique laid paper, and bound in antique boards, 21<em>s.</em></p> + +<hr class="ad" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Rump (The)</span>; or, An Exact Collection of +the choicest <span class="smcap">Poems</span> and <span class="smcap">Songs</span> relating to the late Times, and +continued by the most eminent Wits; from Anno 1639 to 1661. A +Facsimile Reprint of the rare Original Edition (London, 1662), with +Frontispiece and Engraved Title-page. In 2 vols., large fcap. 8vo, +printed on antique laid paper, and bound in antique boards, 17<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="Page_A25" title="25"></a></p> + +<p class="ad" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">D’Urfey’s (“Tom”) Wit and Mirth</span>; +or, <span class="smcap">Pills to Purge Melancholy</span>: Being a Collection of the +best Merry Ballads and Songs, Old and New. Fitted to all Humours, +having each their proper Tune for either Voice or Instrument: +most of the Songs being new set. London: Printed by W. +Pearson, for J. Tonson, at Shakespeare’s Head, over-against Catherine +Street in the Strand, 1719. An exact reprint. In 6 vols., large +fcap. 8vo, printed on antique laid paper, antique boards, £3 3<em>s.</em></p> + +<p class="ad" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">English Rogue (The)</span>, described in the +Life of <span class="smcap">Meriton Latroon</span>, and other Extravagants, comprehending +the most Eminent Cheats of both Sexes. By <span class="smcap">Richard Head</span> and +<span class="smcap">Francis Kirkman</span>. A Facsimile Reprint of the rare Original Edition +(1665-1672), with Frontispiece, Facsimiles of the 12 copper plates, +and Portraits of the Authors. In 4 vols., large fcap. 8vo, printed +on antique laid paper, and bound in antique boards, 36<em>s.</em></p> + +<p class="ad" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Westminster Drolleries</span>: Being a choice +Collection of Songs and Poems sung at Court and Theatres. With +Additions made by a Person of Quality. Now first reprinted in exact +facsimile from the Original Editions of 1671 and 1672. Edited, with +an Introduction on the Literature of the Drolleries, a copious Appendix +of Notes, Illustrations, and Emendations of Text, Table of +Contents, and Index of First Lines, by <span class="smcap">J. Woodfall Ebsworth</span>, +M.A. Cantab. Large fcap. 8vo, printed on antique paper, and bound +in antique boards, 10<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em>; large paper copies, 21<em>s.</em></p> + +<p class="ad" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Ireland Forgeries.—Confessions of</span> +<span class="smcap">William-Henry Ireland</span>. Containing the Particulars of his +Fabrication of the Shakspeare Manuscripts; together with Anecdotes +and Opinions (hitherto unpublished) of many Distinguished Persons +in the Literary, Political, and Theatrical World. A Facsimile +Reprint from the Original Edition, with several additional Facsimiles. +Fcap. 8vo, printed on antique laid paper, and bound in +antique boards, 10<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em>; a few Large Paper copies, at 21<em>s.</em></p> + +<p class="ad" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Grose’s Dictionary of the Vulgar +Tongue.</span> 1785. An unmutilated Reprint of the First Edition. +Quarto, bound in half-Roxburghe, gilt top, price 8<em>s.</em></p> + +<p class="ad" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Joe Miller’s Jests</span>: the politest Repartees, +most elegant Bon-Mots, and most pleasing short Stories in the +English Language. London: printed by T. Read. 1739. A Facsimile +of the Original Edition. 8vo, half-morocco, 9<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="Page_A26" title="26"></a></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Old Prose Stories (The)</span> whence <span class="smcap">Tennyson’s</span> +“Idylls of the King” were taken. By <span class="smcap">B. M. Ranking</span>. +Royal 16mo, paper cover, 1<em>s.</em>; cloth extra, 1<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + +<p class="adtitlesmall center">OLD SHEKARRY’S WORKS.</p> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Forest and Field</span>: Life and Adventure in +Wild Africa. By the <span class="smcap">Old Shekarry</span>. With Eight Illustrations. +Crown 8vo, cloth extra, gilt, 6<em>s.</em></p> + +<hr class="ad" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Wrinkles</span>; or, Hints to Sportsmen and +Travellers upon Dress, Equipment, Armament, and Camp Life. +By the <span class="smcap">Old Shekarry</span>. A New Edition, with Illustrations. Small +crown 8vo, cloth extra, gilt, 6<em>s.</em></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adtitle center">OUIDA’S NOVELS.</p> + +<p class="center">Uniform Edition, each Complete in One Volume, crown 8vo, red +cloth extra, price 5<em>s.</em> each.</p> + +<div class="column-container"> + <div class="column col50"> + <p><strong>Folle Farine.</strong></p> + <p><strong>Idalia</strong>: A Romance.</p> + <p><strong>Chandos</strong>: A Novel.</p> + <p><strong>Under Two Flags.</strong></p> + <p><strong>Cecil Castlemaine’s Gage.</strong></p> + <p><strong>Tricotrin</strong>: The Story of a Waif and Stray.</p> + <p><strong>Pascarèl</strong>: Only a Story.</p> + </div><div class="column col50"> + <p><strong>Held In Bondage</strong>; or, Granville de Vigne.</p> + <p><strong>Puck</strong>: His Vicissitudes, Adventures, &c.</p> + <p><strong>A Dog of Flanders</strong>, and other Stories.</p> + <p><strong>Strathmore</strong>; or, Wrought by his Own Hand.</p> + <p><strong>Two Little Wooden Shoes.</strong></p> + </div> +</div> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Parochial History of the County of +Cornwall.</span> Compiled from the best Authorities, and corrected and +improved from actual Survey. 4 vols. 4to, cloth extra, £3 3<em>s.</em> the +set; or, separately, the first three volumes, 16<em>s.</em> each; the fourth +volume, 18<em>s.</em></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Plain English.</span> By <span class="smcap">John Hollingshead</span>. +One vol., crown 8vo.</p> + +<p class="right">[<em>Preparing.</em></p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="Page_A27" title="27"></a></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Private Book of Useful Alloys and +Memoranda for Goldsmiths and Jewellers.</span> By <span class="smcap">James E. +Collins</span>, C.E. Royal 16mo, 3<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adtitlesmall center"><span class="smcap">Seventh Edition of</span></p> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Puck on Pegasus.</span> By <span class="smcap">H. Cholmondeley-Pennell</span>. +Profusely illustrated by the late <span class="smcap">John Leech</span>, <span class="smcap">H. K. +Browne</span>, Sir <span class="smcap">Noel Paton</span>, <span class="smcap">John Millais</span>, <span class="smcap">John Tenniel</span>, +<span class="smcap">Richard Doyle</span>, Miss <span class="smcap">Ellen Edwards</span>, and other artists. A +New Edition (the <span class="smcap">Seventh</span>), crown 8vo, cloth extra, gilt, price 5<em>s.</em>; +or gilt edges, 6<em>s.</em></p> + +<div class="addescr"> +<p>“The book is clever and amusing, vigorous and healthy.”—<cite>Saturday Review.</cite></p> + +<p>“The epigrammatic drollery of Mr. Cholmondeley-Pennell’s ‘Puck on Pegasus’ +is well known to many of our readers.... The present (<em>the sixth</em>) is a superb +and handsomely printed and illustrated edition of the book.”—<cite>Times.</cite></p> + +<p>“Specially fit for reading in the family circle.”—<cite>Observer.</cite></p> +</div> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="center">“<span class="smcap">An Awfully Jolly Book for Parties.</span>”</p> + +<div class="figright fig250"> + <img src="images/i_542.jpg" width="250" height="334" alt="" /> + <div class="adcaption"><em>When are persons entitled to speak like a +book? Only when they are a tome on the +subject.</em></div> +</div> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Puniana</span>: Thoughts Wise and Otherwise. +By the Hon. <span class="smcap">Hugh Rowley</span>. Best Book of Riddles and Puns +ever formed. With nearly 100 exquisitely Fanciful Drawings. Contains +nearly 3000 of the best +Riddles, and 10,000 most +outrageous Puns, and is one +of the most Popular Books +ever issued. New Edition, +small quarto, green and gold, +gilt edges, price 6<em>s.</em></p> + +<div class="addescr"> +<p>“Enormous burlesque—unapproachable +and pre-eminent. We +think this very queer volume will be +a favourite. We should suggest +that, to a dull person desirous to +get credit with the young holiday +people, it would be good policy to +invest in the book, and dole it out by +instalments.”—<cite>Saturday Review.</cite></p> +</div> + +<p class="center">Also,</p> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">More Puniana.</span> +By the Hon. <span class="smcap">Hugh Rowley</span>. +Containing nearly 100 +beautifully executed Drawings, +and a splendid Collection +of Riddles and Puns, +rivalling those in the First +Volume. Small 4to, green +and gold, gilt edges, uniform +with the First Series, 6<em>s.</em></p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="Page_A28" title="28"></a></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<div class="figleft fig250"> + <img src="images/i_543.jpg" width="250" height="218" alt="" /> +</div> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Pursuivant of +Arms (The)</span>; or, +Heraldry founded upon +Facts. A Popular Guide +to the Science of Heraldry. +By <span class="smcap">J. R. Planché</span>, +Esq., F.S.A., Somerset +Herald. To which are +added, Essays on the +<span class="smcap">Badges of the Houses +of Lancaster and +York</span>. A New Edition, +enlarged and revised by +the Author, illustrated +with Coloured Frontispiece, +Five full-page +Plates, and about 200 +Illustrations. Crown 8vo, bound in cloth extra, gilt, 7<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Practical Assayer</span>: A Guide to Miners +and Explorers. By <span class="smcap">Oliver North</span>. With Tables and Illustrative +Woodcuts. Crown 8vo, 7<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + +<div class="addescr"> +<p><span class="large">⁂</span> <em>This book gives directions, in the simplest form, for assaying bullion and the +baser metals by the cheapest, quickest, and best methods. Those interested in +mining property will be enabled, by following its instructions, to form a tolerably +correct idea of the value of ores, without previous knowledge of assaying; while +to the young man seeking his fortune in mining countries it is indispensable.</em></p> + +<p>“Likely to prove extremely useful. The instructions are clear and precise.”—<cite>Chemist +and Druggist.</cite></p> + +<p>“An admirable little volume.”—<cite>Mining Journal.</cite></p> + +<p>“We cordially recommend this compact little volume to all engaged in mining +enterprize, and especially to explorers.”—<cite>Monetary and Mining Review.</cite></p> +</div> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="center adtitlesmall">GUSTAVE DORÉ’S DESIGNS.</p> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Rabelais’ Works.</span> Faithfully translated +from the French, with variorum Notes, and numerous characteristic +Illustrations by <span class="smcap">Gustave Doré</span>. Cr. 8vo, cl. extra, 700 pp. 7<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adtitlesmall center"><span class="smcap">Uniform with “Wonderful Characters.”</span></p> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Remarkable Trials and Notorious +Characters.</span> From “Half-Hanged Smith,” 1700, to Oxford, who +shot at the Queen, 1840. By Captain <span class="smcap">L. Benson</span>. With spirited +full-page Engravings by <span class="smcap">Phiz</span>. 8vo, 550 pages, 7<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Rochefoucauld’s Reflections and +Moral Maxims.</span> With Introductory Essay by <span class="smcap">Sainte-Beuve</span>, and +Explanatory Notes. Cloth extra, 1<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="Page_A29" title="29"></a></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Reminiscences of the late Thomas +Assheton Smith, Esq.</span>; or, The Pursuits of an English Country +Gentleman. By Sir <span class="smcap">J. E. Eardley Wilmot</span>, Bart. A New and +Revised Edition, with Steel-plate Portrait, and plain and coloured +Illustrations. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, 7<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Roll of Battle Abbey</span>; or, A List of the Principal +Warriors who came over from Normandy with William the +Conqueror, and Settled in this Country, <span class="smcap">A.D.</span> 1066-7. Carefully +drawn, and printed on fine plate paper, nearly three feet by two +feet, with the Arms of the principal Barons elaborately emblazoned +in Gold and Colours. Price 5<em>s.</em>; or, handsomely framed in carved +oak of an antique pattern, 22<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Roll of Caerlaverock</span>, the Oldest Heraldic +Roll; including the Original Anglo-Norman Poem, and an English +Translation of the MS. in the British Museum. By <span class="smcap">Thomas +Wright</span>, M.A. The Arms emblazoned in Gold and Colours. In +4to, very handsomely printed, extra gold cloth, 12<em>s.</em></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Roman Catholics in the County of +York in 1604.</span> Transcribed from the Original MS. in the Bodleian +Library, and Edited, with Genealogical Notes, by <span class="smcap">Edward Peacock</span>, +F.S.A., Editor of “Army Lists of the Roundheads and +Cavaliers, 1642.” Small 4to, handsomely printed and bound, 15<em>s.</em></p> + +<div class="addescr"> +<p><span class="large">⁂</span> <em>Genealogists and Antiquaries will find much new and curious matter in +this work. An elaborate Index refers to every name in the volume, among which +will be found many of the highest local interest.</em></p> +</div> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Ross’s (Chas. H.) Story of a Honeymoon.</span> +A New Edition of this charmingly humorous book, +with numerous Illustrations by the Author. Fcap. 8vo, illustrated +boards, 2<em>s.</em></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">School Life at Winchester College</span>; +or, The Reminiscences of a Winchester Junior. By the Author of +“The Log of the Water Lily;” and “The Water Lily on the +Danube.” Second Edition, Revised, <span class="smcap">Coloured Plates</span>, 7<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> +</div> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Schopenhauer’s The World Considered +as Will and Imagination.</span> Translated by Dr. <span class="smcap">Franz +Hueffer</span>, Author of “Richard Wagner and the Music of the +Future.”</p> + +<p class="right">[<em>In preparation.</em></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="Page_A30" title="30"></a></p> + +<p class="adtitle center">THE “SECRET OUT” SERIES.</p> + +<p>Crown 8vo, cloth extra, profusely Illustrated, price 4<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em> each.</p> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Art of Amusing.</span> A Collection of Graceful +Arts, Games, Tricks, Puzzles, and Charades, intended to Amuse +Everybody. By <span class="smcap">Frank Bellew</span>. With nearly 300 Illustrations.</p> + +<hr class="ad" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Hanky-Panky.</span> A Wonderful Book of +Very Easy Tricks, Very Difficult Tricks, White Magic, Sleight of +Hand; in fact, all those startling Deceptions which the Great +Wizards call “Hanky-Panky.” Edited by <span class="smcap">W. H. Cremer</span>. With +nearly 200 Illustrations.</p> + +<hr class="ad" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Magician’s Own Book.</span> Ample Instruction +for Performances with Cups and Balls, Eggs, Hats, Handkerchiefs, +&c All from Actual Experience. Edited by <span class="smcap">W. H. +Cremer</span>. With 200 Illustrations.</p> + +<hr class="ad" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Magic No Mystery.</span> A Splendid Collection +of Tricks with Cards, Dice, Balls, &c, with fully descriptive working +Directions. With very numerous Illustrations. [<em>Nearly ready.</em></p> + +<hr class="ad" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Merry Circle (The)</span>, and How the Visitors +were entertained during Twelve Pleasant Evenings. A Book of +New Intellectual Games and Amusements. Edited by Mrs. <span class="smcap">Clara +Bellew</span>. With numerous Illustrations.</p> + +<hr class="ad" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Secret Out</span>; or, One Thousand Tricks with +Cards, and other Recreations; with Entertaining Experiments in +Drawing Room or “White Magic.” Edited by <span class="smcap">W. H. Cremer</span>. +With 300 Engravings.</p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Shelley’s Early Life.</span> From Original +Sources. With Curious Incidents, Letters, and Writings, now +First Published or Collected. By <span class="smcap">Denis Florence Mac-Carthy</span>. +Crown 8vo, with Illustrations, 440 pages, 7<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Sheridan’s Complete Works</span>, with +Life and Anecdotes. Including his Dramatic Writings, printed +from the Original Editions, his Works in Prose and Poetry, Translations, +Speeches, Jokes, Puns, &c; with a Collection of Sheridaniana. +Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, with 10 beautifully executed Portraits +and Scenes from his Plays, 7<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="Page_A31" title="31"></a></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<div class="figright"> + <img src="images/i_546a.jpg" width="250" height="237" alt="" /> + <div class="adcaption">HELP ME THROUGH THIS WORLD!</div> +</div> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Signboards</span>: Their +History. With Anecdotes of +Famous Taverns and Remarkable +Characters. By <span class="smcap">Jacob +Larwood</span> and <span class="smcap">John Camden +Hotten</span>. <span class="smcap">Seventh Edition.</span> +Crown 8vo, cloth extra, 7<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + +<div class="addescr"> +<p>“It is not fair on the part of a reviewer +to pick out the plums of an author’s book, +thus filching away his cream, and leaving +little but skim-milk remaining; but, even +if we were ever so maliciously inclined, +we could not in the present instance pick +out all Messrs. Larwood and Hotten’s +plums, because the good things are so +numerous as to defy the most wholesale +depredation.”—<cite>The Times.</cite></p> +</div> + + +<div class="addescr"> +<p><span class="large">⁂</span> <em>Nearly 100 most curious illustrations on wood are given, showing the signs +which were formerly hung from taverns, &c.</em></p> +</div> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="center large">HANDBOOK OF COLLOQUIALISMS.</p> + +<div class="figleft fig150"> + <img src="images/i_546b.jpg" width="150" height="135" alt="" /> + <div class="caption">THE WEDGE AND THE WOODEN SPOON.</div> +</div> + +<p><span class="adtitle"><strong>The Slang Dictionary</strong>:</span> +Etymological, Historical, and Anecdotal. +An <span class="smcap">Entirely New Edition</span>, revised +throughout, and considerably Enlarged, +containing upwards of a thousand more +words than the last edition. Crown 8vo, +with Curious Illustrations, cloth extra, +6<i>s.</i> 6<em>d</em></p> + +<div class="addescr"> +<p>“Peculiarly a book which ‘no gentleman’s library +should be without,’ while to costermongers and thieves +it is absolutely indispensable.”—<cite>Dispatch.</cite></p> + +<p>“Interesting and curious. Contains as many as it was possible to collect of all the +words and phrases of modern slang in use at the present time.”—<cite>Public Opinion.</cite></p> + +<p>“In every way a great improvement on the edition of 1864. Its uses as a dictionary +of the very vulgar tongue do not require to be explained.”—<cite>Notes and Queries.</cite></p> + +<p>“Compiled with most exacting care, and based on the best authorities.”—<cite>Standard.</cite></p> + +<p>“In ‘The Slang Dictionary’ we have not only a book that reflects credit upon the +philologist; it is also a volume that will repay, at any time, a dip into its humorous +pages.”—<cite>Figaro.</cite></p> +</div> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adtitlesmall center">WEST-END LIFE AND DOINGS.</p> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Story of the London Parks.</span> By +<span class="smcap">Jacob Larwood</span>. With numerous Illustrations, Coloured and +Plain. In One thick Volume, crown 8vo, cloth extra, gilt, 7<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + +<div class="addescr"> +<p><span class="large">⁂</span> <em>A most interesting work, giving a complete History of these favourite out-of-door +resorts, from the earliest period to the present time.</em></p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="Page_A32" title="32"></a></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adtitlesmall center">A KEEPSAKE FOR SMOKERS.</p> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Smoker’s Text-Book.</span> By <span class="smcap">J. Hamer</span>, +F.R.S.L. Exquisitely printed from “silver-faced” type, cloth, very +neat, gilt edges, 2<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em>, post free.</p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adtitlesmall center">CHARMING NEW TRAVEL-BOOK.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/i_547.jpg" width="500" height="351" alt="" /> + <div class="adcaption">“It may be we shall touch the happy isles.”</div> +</div> + +<p class="adtitle center">Summer Cruising in the South Seas.</p> + +<p>By <span class="smcap">Charles Warren Stoddard</span>. With Twenty-five Engravings +on Wood, drawn by <span class="smcap">Wallis Mackay</span>. Crown 8vo, cloth, +extra gilt, 7<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + +<div class="addescr"> +<p>“This is a very amusing book, and full of that quiet humour for which the +Americans are so famous. We have not space to enumerate all the picturesque +descriptions, the poetical thoughts, which have so charmed us in this volume; but we +recommend our readers to go to the South Seas with Mr. Stoddard in his prettily +illustrated and amusingly written little book.”—<cite>Vanity Fair.</cite></p> + +<p>“Mr. Stoddard’s book is delightful reading, and in Mr. Wallis Mackay he has +found a most congenial and poetical illustrator.”—<cite>Bookseller.</cite></p> + +<p>“A remarkable book, which has a certain wild picturesqueness.”—<cite>Standard.</cite></p> + +<p>“The author’s experiences are very amusingly related, and, in parts, with much +freshness and originality.”—<cite>Judy.</cite></p> + +<p>“Mr. Stoddard is a humourist; ‘Summer Cruising’ has a good deal of undeniable +amusement.”—<cite>Nation.</cite></p> +</div> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="Page_A33" title="33"></a></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Syntax’s (Dr.) Three Tours.</span> With the +whole of <span class="smcap">Rowlandson’s</span> very droll full-page Illustrations, in +Colours, after the Original Drawings. Comprising the well-known +<span class="smcap">Tours—1. In Search of the Picturesque. 2. In Search +of Consolation. 3. In Search of a Wife.</span> The Three +Series Complete, with a Life of the Author by <span class="smcap">John Camden +Hotten</span>. Medium 8vo, cloth extra, gilt, price 7<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Theseus: A Greek Fairy Legend.</span> +Illustrated, in a series of Designs in Gold and Sepia, by <span class="smcap">John Moyr +Smith</span>. With descriptive text. Oblong folio, price 7<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/i_548.jpg" width="400" height="309" alt="" /> + <div class="adcaption">THEODORE HOOK’S HOUSE, NEAR PUTNEY.</div> +</div> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Theodore Hook’s Choice Humorous +Works</span>, with his Ludicrous Adventures, Bons-mots, Puns, and +Hoaxes. With a new Life of the Author, <span class="smcap">Portraits</span>, <span class="smcap">Facsimiles</span>, +and <span class="smcap">Illustrations</span>. Crown 8vo, 600 pages, cloth extra, 7<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + +<div class="addescr"> +<p><span class="large">⁂</span> “As a wit and humourist of the highest order his name will be preserved. His +political songs and <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">jeux d’esprit</em>, when the hour comes for collecting them, <em>will +form a volume of sterling and lasting attraction</em>!”—<span class="smcap">J. G. Lockhart.</span></p> +</div> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="Page_A34" title="34"></a></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adtitlesmall center">MR. SWINBURNE’S WORKS.</p> + +<hr class="ad" /> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Second Edition now ready of</span></p> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Bothwell</span>: A Tragedy. By <span class="smcap">Algernon +Charles Swinburne</span>. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, pp. 540, 12<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + +<div class="addescr"> +<p>“Mr. Swinburne’s most prejudiced critic cannot, we think, deny that ‘Bothwell’ +is a poem of a very high character. Every line bears traces of power, individuality, +and vivid imagination. The versification, while characteristically supple and melodious, +also attains, in spite of some affectations, to a sustained strength and dignity +of a remarkable kind. Mr. Swinburne is not only a master of the music of language, +but he has that indescribable touch which discloses the true poet—the touch +that lifts from off the ground.”—<cite>Saturday Review.</cite></p> + +<p>“It is not too much to say that, should he never write anything more, the poet +has by this work firmly established his position, and given us a poem upon which his +fame may safely rest. He no longer indulges in that frequent alliteration, or that +oppressive wealth of imagery and colour, which gave rhythm and splendour to some +of his works, but would have been out of place in a grand historical poem; we have +now a fair opportunity of judging what the poet can do when deprived of such +adventitious aid,—and the verdict is, that he must henceforth rank amongst the first +of British authors.”—<cite>Graphic.</cite></p> + +<p>“The whole drama flames and rings with high passions and great deeds. The +imagination is splendid; the style large and imperial; the insight into character +keen; the blank verse varied, sensitive, flexible, alive. Mr. Swinburne has once more +proved his right to occupy a seat among the lofty singers of our land.”—<cite>Daily News.</cite></p> + +<p>“A really grand, statuesque dramatic work.... The reader will here find +Mr. Swinburne at his very best; if manliness, dignity, and fulness of style are superior +to mere pleasant singing and alliterative lyrics.”—<cite>Standard.</cite></p> + +<p>“Splendid pictures, subtle analyses of passion, and wonderful studies of character +will repay him who attains the end.... In this huge volume are many fine and +some unsurpassable things. Subtlest traits of character abound, and descriptive passages +of singular delicacy.”—<cite>Athenæum.</cite></p> + +<p>“There can be no doubt of the dramatic force of the poem. It is severely simple +in its diction, and never dull; there are innumerable fine touches on almost every +page.”—<cite>Scotsman.</cite></p> + +<p>“‘Bothwell’ shows us Mr. Swinburne at a point immeasurably superior to any that +he has yet achieved. It will confirm and increase the reputation which his daring +genius has already won. He has handled a difficult subject with a mastery of art +which is a true intellectual triumph.”—<cite>Hour.</cite></p> +</div> + +<hr class="ad" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Chastelard</span>: A Tragedy. Foolscap 8vo, 7<em>s.</em></p> + +<hr class="ad" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Poems and Ballads.</span> Foolscap 8vo, 9<em>s.</em></p> + +<hr class="ad" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Notes on “Poems and Ballads,”</span> and +on the Reviews of them. Demy 8vo, 1<em>s.</em></p> + +<hr class="ad" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Songs before Sunrise.</span> Post 8vo, 10<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + +<hr class="ad" /> + +<p><span class="adtitle">Atalanta in Calydon.</span> Fcap. 8vo, 6<em>s.</em></p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="Page_A35" title="35"></a></p> + +<hr class="ad" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">The Queen Mother and Rosamond.</span> +Foolscap 8vo, 5<em>s.</em></p> + +<hr class="ad" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">A Song of Italy.</span> Foolscap 8vo, 3<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + +<hr class="ad" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Ode on the Proclamation of the +French Republic.</span> Demy 8vo, 1<em>s.</em></p> + +<hr class="ad" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Under the Microscope.</span> Post 8vo, 2<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + +<hr class="ad" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">William Blake</span>: A Critical Essay. With +facsimile Paintings, Coloured by Hand, after the Drawings by Blake +and his Wife. Demy 8vo, 16<em>s.</em></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adtitlesmall center">THE THACKERAY SKETCH-BOOK.</p> + +<hr class="ad" /> + +<div class="figleft"> + <img src="images/i_550.jpg" width="150" height="275" alt="" /> +</div> + +<p class="adtitle center">THACKERAYANA:</p> + +<p>Notes and Anecdotes, Illustrated by +about Six Hundred Sketches by <span class="smcap">William +Makepeace Thackeray</span>, depicting +Humorous Incidents in his School-life, +and Favourite +Scenes and +Characters in +the books of +his every-day +reading, <span class="smcap">now +for the +First Time +Published</span>, +from the Original +Drawings +made on +the margins of +his books, &c +Large post +8vo, clth. extra +gilt, gilt top, price 12<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + +<div class="figright"> + <img src="images/i_550a.jpg" width="100" height="136" alt="" /> +</div> + + +<div class="addescr"> +<p>“It is Thackeray’s aim to represent life as it is actually and historically—men and +women as they are, in those situations in which they are usually placed, with that +mixture of good and evil, of strength and foible, which is to be found in their +characters, and liable only to those incidents which are of ordinary occurrence. He +will have no faultless characters, no demi-gods,—nothing but men and brethren.”—<span class="smcap">David +Masson.</span></p> +</div> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="Page_A36" title="36"></a></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<div class="figleft"> + <img src="images/i_551.jpg" width="250" height="480" alt="" /> + <div class="adcaption">Sir Lumley Skeffington at the Birthday Ball.</div> +</div> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Timbs’ English +Eccentrics and Eccentricities.</span> +Stories of Wealth +and Fashion, Delusions, Impostures +and Fanatic Missions, +Strange Sights and +Sporting Scenes, Eccentric +Artists, Theatrical Folks, +Men of Letters, &c By +<span class="smcap">John Times</span>, F.S.A. An +entirely New Edition, with +about 50 Illustrations. Crown +8vo, cloth extra, 600 pages, +7<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + + <p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Timbs’ Clubs +and Club Life in London.</span> +With <span class="smcap">Anecdotes</span> of its +<span class="smcap">Famous Coffee Houses</span>, +<span class="smcap">Hostelries</span>, and <span class="smcap">Taverns</span>. +By <span class="smcap">John Timbs</span>, F.S.A. +New Edition, with <span class="smcap">numerous +Illustrations</span> drawn +expressly. Crown 8vo, cloth +extra, 600 pages, 7<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + +<div class="addescr"> +<p><span class="large">⁂</span> <i>A Companion to “The History +of Sign-Boards.”</i> <em>It abounds +in quaint stories of the</em> Blue Stocking, +Kit-Kat, Beef Steak, Robin +Hood, Mohocks, Scriblerus, One +o’Clock, the Civil, <em>and hundreds of +other Clubs; together with</em> Tom’s, +Dick’s, Button’s, Ned’s, Will’s, <em>and +the famous Coffee Houses of the last +century</em>.</p> + +<p>“The book supplies a much-felt want. The club is the avenue to general society +at the present day, and Mr. Timbs gives the <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">entrée</em> to the club. The scholar and +antiquary will also find the work a repertory of information on many disputed +points of literary interest, and especially respecting various well-known anecdotes, +the value of which only increases with the lapse of time.”—<cite>Morning Post.</cite></p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Blake’s Works.</span> Messrs. <span class="smcap">Chatto & Windus</span> +have in preparation a series of Reproductions in Facsimile of the +Works of <span class="smcap">William Blake</span>, including the “Songs of Innocence +and Experience,” “The Book of Thel,” “America,” “The Vision +of the Daughters of Albion,” “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell,” +“Europe, a Prophecy,” “Jerusalem,” “Milton,” “Urizen,” +“The Song of Los,” &c These Works will be issued both coloured +and plain.</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="Page_A37" title="37"></a></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<div class="figright"> + <img src="images/i_552.jpg" width="125" height="163" alt="" /> +</div> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Taylor’s History of +Playing Cards.</span> With Sixty curious +Illustrations. 550 pp., crown 8vo, cloth, +extra gilt, price 7<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + +<div class="addescr"> +<p><span class="large">⁂</span> <em>Ancient and Modern Games, Conjuring, +Fortune-Telling, and Card Sharping, Gambling +and Calculation, Cartomancy, Old Gaming-Houses, +Card Revels and Blind Hookey, Picquet +and Vingt-et-un, Whist and Cribbage, Tricks, +&c.</em></p> +</div> + +<hr class="adwide" /> +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Vagabondiana</span>; or, Anecdotes +of Mendicant Wanderers through +the Streets of London; with Portraits of +the most remarkable, drawn from the +Life by <span class="smcap">John Thomas Smith</span>, late +Keeper of the Prints in the British Museum. With Introduction +by <span class="smcap">Francis Douce</span>, and descriptive text. Reprinted from the +original, with the Woodcuts, and the 32 Plates, from the original +Coppers, in crown 4to, half Roxburghe, price 12<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adtitlesmall center">“LES MISÉRABLES.” Complete in Three Parts.</p> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Victor Hugo’s Fantine.</span> Now first published +in an English Translation, complete and unabridged, with the +exception of a few advisable omissions. Post 8vo, illustrated +boards, 2<em>s.</em></p> + +<div class="addescr"> +<p>“This work has something more than the beauties of an exquisite style or the +word-compelling power of a literary Zeus to recommend it to the tender care of a +distant posterity: in dealing with all the emotions, passions, doubts, fears, which go +to make up our common humanity, M. Victor Hugo has stamped upon every page +the Hall-mark of genius and the loving patience and conscientious labour of a true +artist. But the merits of ‘Les Misérables’ do not merely consist in the conception +of it as a whole; it abounds, page after page, with details of unequalled beauty.”—<cite>Quarterly +Review.</cite></p> +</div> + +<hr class="ad" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Victor Hugo’s Cosette and Marius.</span> +Translated into English, complete, uniform with “Fantine.” Post +8vo, illustrated boards, 2<em>s.</em></p> + +<hr class="ad" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Victor Hugo’s Saint Denis and Jean +Valjean.</span> Translated into English, complete, uniform with the +above. Post 8vo, illustrated boards, 2<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="Page_A38" title="38"></a></p> + +<p class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Vyner’s Notitia Venatica</span>: A Treatise +on Fox-Hunting, the General Management of Hounds, and the +Diseases of Dogs; Distemper and Rabies; Kennel Lameness, &c +Sixth Edition, Enlarged. By <span class="smcap">Robert C. Vyner</span>. <span class="smcap">With spirited +Illustrations in Colours, by Alken, of Memorable Fox-Hunting +Scenes</span>. Royal 8vo, cloth extra, 21<em>s.</em></p> + +<div class="addescr"> +<p><span class="large">⁂</span> <em>An entirely new edition of the best work on Fox-Hunting.</em></p> +</div> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass.</span> +The Complete Work, precisely as issued by the Author in Washington. +A thick volume, 8vo, green cloth, price 9<em>s.</em></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/i_553.jpg" width="500" height="177" alt="" /> +</div> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Walton and Cotton, Illustrated.</span>—<b>The +Complete Angler</b>; or, the Contemplative Man’s Recreation; +being a Discourse of Rivers, Fish-ponds, Fish and Fishing, written +by <span class="smcap">Izaak Walton</span>; and Instructions how to Angle for a Trout or +Grayling in a clear Stream, by <span class="smcap">Charles Cotton</span>. With Original +Memoirs and Notes by Sir <span class="smcap">Harris Nicolas</span>, K.C.M.G. With +the whole 61 Illustrations, precisely as in the royal 8vo two-volume +Edition issued by Pickering. A New Edition, complete in +One Volume, large crown 8vo, with the Illustrations from the +original plates, printed on full pages, separately from the text, 7<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Warrant to Execute Charles I.</span> An +exact Facsimile of this important Document, with the Fifty-nine +Signatures of the Regicides, and corresponding Seals, admirably +executed on paper made to imitate the original document, 22 in. by +14 in. Price 2<em>s.</em>; or, handsomely framed and glazed in carved oak +of antique pattern, 14<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Warrant to Execute Mary Queen of +Scots.</span> The Exact Facsimile of this important Document, including +the Signature of Queen Elizabeth and Facsimile of the Great +Seal, on tinted paper, to imitate the Original MS. Price 2<em>s.</em>; or, +handsomely framed and glazed in carved oak, antique pattern, 14<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="Page_A39" title="39"></a></p> + + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Waterford Roll (The).</span>—Illuminated +Charter-Roll of Waterford, Temp. Richard II.</p> + +<div class="addescr"> +<p><span class="large">⁂</span> <em>Amongst the Corporation Muniments of the City of Waterford is preserved +an ancient Illuminated Roll, of great interest and beauty, comprising all the early +Charters and Grants to the City of Waterford, from the time of Henry II. to +Richard II. A full-length Portrait of each King, whose Charter is given—including +Edward III., when young, and again at an advanced age—adorns the margin. +These Portraits, with the exception of four which are smaller, and on one sheet of +vellum, vary from eight to nine inches in length—some in armour, and some in +robes of state. In addition to these are Portraits of an Archbishop in full canonicals, +of a Chancellor, and of many of the chief Burgesses of the City of Waterford, as +well as singularly curious Portraits of the Mayors of Dublin, Waterford, Limerick, +and Cork, figured for the most part in the quaint bipartite costume of the Second +Richard’s reign, though partaking of many of the peculiarities of that of +Edward III. Altogether this ancient work of art is unique of its kind in Ireland, +and deserves to be rescued from oblivion, by the publication of the unedited Charters, +and of fac-similes of all the Illuminations. The production of such a work would +throw much light on the question of the art and social habits of the Anglo-Norman +settlers in Ireland at the close of the fourteenth century. The Charters are, many +of them, highly important from an historic point of view.</em></p> + +<p><em>The Illuminations have been accurately traced and coloured for the work from a +copy carefully made, by permission of the Mayor and Corporation of Waterford, by +the late George V. Du Noyer, Esq., M.R.I.A.; and those Charters which have not +already appeared in print will be edited by the Rev. James Graves, A.B., +M.R.I.A., Hon. Secretary Kilkenny and South-East of Ireland Archæological +Society.</em></p> + +<p><em>The Work will be brought out in the best manner, with embossed cover and +characteristic title-page; and it will be put to press as soon as 250 subscribers +are obtained. The price, in imperial 4to, is 20s. to subscribers, or 30s. to non-subscribers.</em></p> +</div> + +<hr class="adwide" /> +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Wonderful Characters</span>: Memoirs and +Anecdotes of Remarkable and Eccentric Persons of Every Age and +Nation. From the text of <span class="smcap">Henry Wilson</span> and <span class="smcap">James Caulfield</span>. +Crown 8vo, cloth extra, with Sixty-one full-page Engravings of +Extraordinary Persons, 7<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + +<div class="addescr"> +<p><span class="large">⁂</span> <em>There are so many curious matters discussed in this volume, that any person +who takes it up will not readily lay it down until he has read it through. +The Introduction is almost entirety devoted to a consideration of Pig-Faced +Ladies, and the various stories concerning them.</em></p> +</div> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Wright’s (Andrew) Court-Hand Restored</span>; +or, Student’s Assistant in Reading Old Deeds, Charters, +Records, &c Half Morocco, a New Edition, 10<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + +<div class="addescr"> +<p><span class="large">⁂</span> <em>The best guide to the reading of old Records, &c.</em></p> +</div> + +<p><a class="pagenum" id="Page_A40" title="40"></a></p> + +<hr class="adwide" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Wright’s Caricature History of the +Georges</span> (House of Hanover). With 400 Pictures, Caricatures, +Squibs, Broadsides, Window Pictures, &c By <span class="smcap">Thomas Wright</span>, +Esq., M.A., F.S.A. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, 7<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/i_555.jpg" width="400" height="225" alt="" /> +</div> + +<div class="addescr"> +<p>“A set of caricatures such as we have in Mr. Wright’s volume brings the surface +of the age before us with a vividness that no prose writer, even of the highest power, +could emulate. Macaulay’s most brilliant sentence is weak by the side of the little +woodcut from Gillray, which gives us Burke and Fox.”—<cite>Saturday Review.</cite></p> + +<p>“A more amusing work of its kind was never issued.”—<cite>Art Journal.</cite></p> + +<p>“It is emphatically one of the liveliest of books, as also one of the most interesting. +It has the twofold merit of being at once amusing and edifying.”—<cite>Morning +Post.</cite></p> +</div> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">Yankee Drolleries</span>, Edited by <span class="smcap">G. A. Sala</span>. +Containing <span class="smcap">Artemus Ward’s Book</span>; <span class="smcap">Biglow Papers</span>; <span class="smcap">Orpheus +C. Kerr</span>; <span class="smcap">Jack Downing</span>; and <span class="smcap">Nasby Papers</span>. 700 pp., 3<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + +<hr class="ad" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">More Yankee Drolleries.</span> Containing +<span class="smcap">Artemus Ward’s Travels</span>; <span class="smcap">Hans Breitmann</span>; <span class="smcap">Professor at +Breakfast Table</span>; <span class="smcap">Biglow Papers</span>, Part II.; and <span class="smcap">Josh Billings</span>; +with Introduction by <span class="smcap">G. A. Sala</span>. 700 pp., cloth, 3<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + +<hr class="ad" /> + +<p class="adhang"><span class="adtitle">A Third Supply of Yankee Drolleries.</span> +Containing <span class="smcap">Artemus Ward’s Fenians</span>; <span class="smcap">Autocrat of Breakfast +Table</span>; <span class="smcap">Bret Harte’s Stories</span>; <span class="smcap">Innocents Abroad</span>; and +<span class="smcap">New Pilgrim’s Progress</span>; with an Introduction by <span class="smcap">G. A. Sala</span>. +700 pp., cloth, 3<em>s.</em> 6<em>d.</em></p> + + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<div class="footnotes"> +<div class="footnote"> + +<p><a id="Footnote_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> +Plin. Hist. Nat., lib. xxxv. c. 8.</p> + +<p><a id="Footnote_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> +<span lang="de" xml:lang="de">Panoska Terracotten des Museums Berlin</span>, pl. lxi. p. 154.</p> + +<p><a id="Footnote_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> +Given in Panofka, <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Antiques du Cabinet Pourtalès,”</span></span> pl. x.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_4" id="Footnote_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> +Arnobius (<em lang="la" xml:lang="la">contra Gentes</em>), lib. iv. p. 150. <span lang="la" xml:lang="la">Carmen malum +conscribere, quo fama alterius coinquinatur et vita, decemviralibus +scitis evadere noluistis impune: ac ne vestras aures convitio aliquis +petulantiore pulsaret, de atrocibus formulas constituistis injuriis. +Soli dii sunt apud vos superi inhonorati, contemtibiles, viles: in quos +jus est vobis datum quæ quisque voluerit dicere turpitudinem, jacere +quas libido confinxerit atque excogitaverit formas.</span></p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_5" id="Footnote_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> +Pliny, Hist. Nat., lib. xxxv. c. 40.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_6" id="Footnote_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> +Pliny, Hist. Nat., lib. xxxv. c. 40.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_7" id="Footnote_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> +Engraved by Ch. Lenormant et J. de Witt, <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Elite des +Monuments Céramographiques,”</span></span> pl. xciv.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_8" id="Footnote_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> +These intaglios are engraved in the Museum Florentinum of +Gorius, vol. ii. pl. 30. On one of them the figures are reversed.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_9" id="Footnote_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> +It is said to have received its Latin name from this +circumstance, <em>persona, a personando</em>. See Aulus Gellius, Noct. Att., +lib. v. c. 7.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_10" id="Footnote_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> +<span lang="la" xml:lang="la"><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">“Simulacrum ... quod opponitur faciei ad terrendos +parvos.”</span></span> (Ugutio, ap. Ducange, v. <cite>Masca</cite>.)</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_11" id="Footnote_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> +See, for allusions to the private employment of these +performances, Pliny, Epist. i. 15, and ix. 36.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_12" id="Footnote_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> +Quintilian says, “<em lang="la" xml:lang="la">Satira quidem tota nostra est</em>.” De +Instit. Orator., lib. x. c. 1.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_13" id="Footnote_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> +<span title="epi tôn kapêliôn">ἐπί των καπηλίων</span>. Problem. Aristotelic. Sec. x. +7.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_14" id="Footnote_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> +On this subject, see my “History of Domestic Manners and +Sentiments,” p. 65. The dancing bear appears to have been a favourite +performer among the Germans at a very early period.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_15" id="Footnote_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> +<span lang="la" xml:lang="la">Per totam noctem cantabantur hic nefaria et a +cantatoribus saltabatur.</span> Augustini Serm. 311, part v.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_16" id="Footnote_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> +<span lang="la" xml:lang="la">Noctes pervigiles cum ebrietate, scurrilitate, vel +canticis.</span> See the Capitulary in Labbei Concil., vol. v.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_17" id="Footnote_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> +<span lang="la" xml:lang="la">Ut populi.....saltationibus et turpibus invigilant +canticis.</span></p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_18" id="Footnote_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> +The reader is referred, for further information on this +subject, to my “History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments,” pp. 33-39.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_19" id="Footnote_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> +This curious Latin poem was printed by Grimm and +Schmeller, in their <span lang="de" xml:lang="de">Lateinische Gedichte des x. und xi. Jh.</span>, p. 129.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_20" id="Footnote_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> +On the character of the nuns among the Anglo-Saxons, +and indeed of the inmates of the monastic houses generally, I would +refer my readers to the excellent and interesting volume by Mr. John +Thrupp, “The Anglo-Saxon Home: a History of the Domestic Institutions +and Customs of England from the fifth to the eleventh century.” London, +1862.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_21" id="Footnote_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> +These will be found in M. Edélestand du Méril’s <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Poésies +Populaires Latines antérieures au douzième siècle</span>, pp. 275, 276.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_22" id="Footnote_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> +This, and the metrical story next referred to, were +printed in the <span lang="de" xml:lang="de">“Altdeutsche Blätter,”</span> edited by Moriz Haupt and +Heinrich Hoffmann, vol. i. pp. 390, 392, to whom I communicated them +from a manuscript in the University Library at Cambridge.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_23" id="Footnote_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> +The text of this singular composition, with a full +account of the various forms in which it was published, will be found +in M. du Méril’s <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Poésies Populaires Latines antérieures au douzième +siècle,”</span> p. 193.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_24" id="Footnote_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> +<span lang="la" xml:lang="la">“Formam quandam villosam, hispidam, et hirsutam, adeoque +enormiter deformem.”</span> Girald. Camb., Itiner. Camb., lib. i. c. 5.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_25" id="Footnote_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> +An engraving of this scene, modernised in character, is +given in Nichols’s “Leicestershire,” vol. i. plate 43.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_26" id="Footnote_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> +The Latin text of this and some others of the fables of +Odo de Cirington will be found in my “Selection of Latin Stories,” pp. +50-52, 55-58, and 80.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_27" id="Footnote_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> +See the dissertation by M. Paulin Paris, published in +his nice popular modern abridgment of the French romance, published in +1861, under the title <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Les Aventures de Maître Renart et d’Ysengrin son +compère.”</span> On the debated question of the origin of the Romance, see the +learned and able work by Jonckbloet, 8vo., Groningue, 1863.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_28" id="Footnote_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> +<span lang="la" xml:lang="la">“Insultationes, clamores, sonos, et alios tumultus, +in secundis et tertiis quorundam nuptiis, quos charivarium vulgo +appellant, propter multa et gravia incommoda, prohibemus sub pœna +excommunitationis.”</span>—Ducange, v. <em>Charivarium</em>.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_29" id="Footnote_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> +Cotgrave’s Dictionarie, v. <em>Charivaris</em>.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_30" id="Footnote_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> +r. Llewellynn Jewitt, in his excellent publication, the +<em>Reliquary</em>, for October, 1862, has given an interesting paper on the +encaustic tiles found on this occasion, and on the conventual house to +which they belonged.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_31" id="Footnote_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> +See an interesting little book on this subject by M. Ed. +de la Quérière, entitled <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Recherches sur les Enseignes des Maisons +Particulières,”</span> 8vo., Rouen, 1852, from which both the above examples +are taken.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_32" id="Footnote_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> +See my “Popular Treatises on Science written during the Middle Ages,” p. 107.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_33" id="Footnote_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> +Alexander Neckam, <span lang="la" xml:lang="la">De Naturis Rerum</span>, lib. ii. c. 129.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_34" id="Footnote_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a> +See Girald. Cambr., Topog. Hiberniæ, dist. ii. cc. 21, +22; and the Itinerary of Wales, lib. ii. c. 11.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_35" id="Footnote_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a> +<span lang="la" xml:lang="la">“Uti me consuesse tragœdi syrmate, histrionis +crotalone ad trieterica orgia, aut mimi centunculo.”</span>—Apuleius, Apolog.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_36" id="Footnote_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_36"><span class="label">[36]</span></a> +See before, <a href="#Page_41">p. 41</a> of the present volume.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_37" id="Footnote_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_37"><span class="label">[37]</span></a> +See examples of these illuminations in my “History of +Domestic Manners and Sentiments,” pp. 34, 35, 37, 65.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_38" id="Footnote_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_38"><span class="label">[38]</span></a> +People in the middle ages were so fully conscious of +the identity of the mediæval jougleur with the Roman mimus, that the +Latin writers often use mimus to signify a jougleur, and the one is +interpreted by the others in the vocabularies. Thus, in Latin-English +vocabularies of the fifteenth century, we have—</p> + +<p class="center" lang="la" xml:lang="la"> + <span class="multiline"><em>Hic joculator</em>,<br /> + <em>Hic mimus</em>,</span> + <span class="xlarge">}</span> <em>Anglice</em> jogulour. +</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_39" id="Footnote_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor_39"><span class="label">[39]</span></a> +In a volume entitled <em lang="de" xml:lang="de">“Lateinische Gedichte des x. und xi. +Jh.”</em> 8vo. Göttingen, 1838.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_40" id="Footnote_40"></a><a href="#FNanchor_40"><span class="label">[40]</span></a> +Many of the Fabliaux have been printed, but the two +principal collections, and to which I shall chiefly refer in the text, +are those of Barbazan, re-edited and much enlarged by Méon, 4 vols. +8vo., 1808, and of Méon, 2 vols. 8vo., 1823.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_41" id="Footnote_41"></a><a href="#FNanchor_41"><span class="label">[41]</span></a> +A collection of these short Latin stories was edited +by the author of the present work, in a volume printed for the Percy +Society in 1842.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_42" id="Footnote_42"></a><a href="#FNanchor_42"><span class="label">[42]</span></a> +In the mediæval Latin, the word <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">goliardia</em> was +introduced to express the profession of the goliard, and the verb +<em>goliardizare</em>, to signify the practice of it.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_43" id="Footnote_43"></a><a href="#FNanchor_43"><span class="label">[43]</span></a> +<span lang="la" xml:lang="la">“Item, præcipimus ut omnes sacerdotes non permittant +trutannos et alios vagos scholares, aut goliardos, cantare versus super +<em>Sanctus</em> et <em>Angelus Dei</em> in missis,”</span> etc.—Concil. Trevir., an. 1227, +ap. Marten. et Durand. Ampliss. Coll., vii. col. 117.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_44" id="Footnote_44"></a><a href="#FNanchor_44"><span class="label">[44]</span></a> +<span lang="la" xml:lang="la">“Item, præcipimus quod clerici non sint joculatores, +goliardi, seu bufones.”</span>—Stat. Synod. Caduacensis, Ruthenensis, et +Tutelensis Eccles. ap. Martene, Thes. Anecd., iv. col. 727.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_45" id="Footnote_45"></a><a href="#FNanchor_45"><span class="label">[45]</span></a> +“Clerici ... si in goliardia vel histrionatu per annum +fuerint.”—Ib. col. 729. In one of the editions of this statute it is +added, “after they have been warned three times.”</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_46" id="Footnote_46"></a><a href="#FNanchor_46"><span class="label">[46]</span></a> +<span lang="la" xml:lang="la">“Clerici ribaldi, maxime qui vulgo dicuntur <em>de famila +Goliæ</em>.”</span>—Concil. Sen. ap. Concil., tom. ix. p. 578.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_47" id="Footnote_47"></a><a href="#FNanchor_47"><span class="label">[47]</span></a> +See my “Poems of Walter Mapes,” p. 70.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_48" id="Footnote_48"></a><a href="#FNanchor_48"><span class="label">[48]</span></a> +The Latin Poems commonly attributed to Walter Mapes, +collected and edited by Thomas Wright, Esq., 4to., London, 1841.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_49" id="Footnote_49"></a><a href="#FNanchor_49"><span class="label">[49]</span></a> +“Anecdota Literaria; a Collection of Short Poems in +English, Latin, and French, illustrative of the Literature and History +of England in the Thirteenth Century.” Edited by Thomas Wright, Esq. +8vo., London, 1844.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_50" id="Footnote_50"></a><a href="#FNanchor_50"><span class="label">[50]</span></a> +In my edition I have collated no less than sixteen copies +which occur among the MSS. in the British Museum, and in the libraries +at Oxford and Cambridge, and there are, no doubt, many more.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_51" id="Footnote_51"></a><a href="#FNanchor_51"><span class="label">[51]</span></a> +Poems attributed to Walter Mapes, p. 73. The stanzas here +quoted, with some others, were afterwards made up into a drinking song, +which was rather popular in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_52" id="Footnote_52"></a><a href="#FNanchor_52"><span class="label">[52]</span></a> +<span lang="de" xml:lang="de">“Gedichte des Mittelalters auf König Friedrich I. den +Staufar, und aus seiner so wie der nächstfolgenden Zeit,”</span> 4to. Separate +copies of this work were printed off and distributed among mediæval +scholars.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_53" id="Footnote_53"></a><a href="#FNanchor_53"><span class="label">[53]</span></a> +<span lang="de" xml:lang="de">“Carmina Burana. Lateinische und Deutsche Lieder und +Gedichte einer Handschrift des XIII. Jahrhunderts aus Benedictbeurn auf +der K. Bibliothek zu München.”</span> 8vo. Stuttgart, 1847.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_54" id="Footnote_54"></a><a href="#FNanchor_54"><span class="label">[54]</span></a> +“Early Mysteries and other Latin Poems of the Twelfth and +Thirteenth Centuries,” edited by Thomas Wright, Esq. 8vo. London, 1838.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_55" id="Footnote_55"></a><a href="#FNanchor_55"><span class="label">[55]</span></a> +Introduction, p. xl.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_56" id="Footnote_56"></a><a href="#FNanchor_56"><span class="label">[56]</span></a> +“Reliquiæ Antiquæ. Scraps from Ancient Manuscripts, +illustrating chiefly Early English Literature and the English +Language.” Edited by Thomas Wright, Esq., and J. O. Halliwell, Esq. 2 +vols. 8vo. Vol. i., London, 1841; vol. ii., 1843.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_57" id="Footnote_57"></a><a href="#FNanchor_57"><span class="label">[57]</span></a> +<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Achille Jubinal, Jongleurs et Trouvères.”</span> 8vo., Paris, +1835, p. 34; and <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Nouveau Recueil de Contes, Dits, Fabliaux,”</span> &c +8vo., Paris, 1842. Vol. ii. p. 208. In the first instance M. Jubinal +has given to this little poem the title <cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Resveries</cite>, in the second, +<cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Fatrasies</cite>.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_58" id="Footnote_58"></a><a href="#FNanchor_58"><span class="label">[58]</span></a> +“Songs and Carols, now first printed from a Manuscript +of the Fifteenth Century.” Edited by Thomas Wright, Esq. 8vo., London, +1847, p. 2.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_59" id="Footnote_59"></a><a href="#FNanchor_59"><span class="label">[59]</span></a> +Both these poems are printed in my “Early Mysteries, +and other Latin Poems of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries.” 8vo., +London, 1838.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_60" id="Footnote_60"></a><a href="#FNanchor_60"><span class="label">[60]</span></a> +“Anecdota Literaria,” p. 49.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_61" id="Footnote_61"></a><a href="#FNanchor_61"><span class="label">[61]</span></a> +<span lang="la" xml:lang="la">“Reliquæ Antiquæ,”</span> vol. ii. p. 230.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_62" id="Footnote_62"></a><a href="#FNanchor_62"><span class="label">[62]</span></a> +I have published from the original manuscripts the mass +of the political poetry composed in England during the middle ages in +my three volumes—“The Political Songs of England, from the Reign of +John to that of Edward II.” 4to., London, 1839 (issued by the Camden +Society); and “Political Poems and Songs relating to English History, +composed during the Period from the Accession of Edward III. to that of +Richard III.” 8vo., vol i., London, 1859; vol. ii., 1861 (published by +the Treasury, under the direction of the Master of the Rolls.)</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_63" id="Footnote_63"></a><a href="#FNanchor_63"><span class="label">[63]</span></a> +<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Receuil de Chants Historiques Français depuis le xii^e. +jusqu’au xviii^e. Siècle, par Leroux de Lincy.... Première Série, +xii^e., xiii^e., xiv^e, et xv^e., Siècles.”</span> 8vo., Paris, 1841.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_64" id="Footnote_64"></a><a href="#FNanchor_64"><span class="label">[64]</span></a> +“A Poem on the Times of Edward III., from a MS. preserved +in the Library of St. Peter’s College, Cambridge.” Edited by the Rev. +C. Hardwick. 8vo. London, 1849. (One of the publications of the Percy +Society.)</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_65" id="Footnote_65"></a><a href="#FNanchor_65"><span class="label">[65]</span></a> +“The Vision and the Creed of Piers Ploughman;” with Notes +and a Glossary by Thomas Wright. 2 vols. 12mo. London, 1842. Second and +revised edition, 2 vols. 12mo. London, 1856.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_66" id="Footnote_66"></a><a href="#FNanchor_66"><span class="label">[66]</span></a> +“Charlemagne, an Anglo-Norman Poem of the Twelfth +Century, now first published, by Francisque Michel,” 12mo., 8vo., +London, 1836.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_67" id="Footnote_67"></a><a href="#FNanchor_67"><span class="label">[67]</span></a> +<span lang="de" xml:lang="de">“Geschichte der Hofnarren, von Karl Friedrich Flögel,”</span> +8vo. Liegnitz und Leipzig, 1789.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_68" id="Footnote_68"></a><a href="#FNanchor_68"><span class="label">[68]</span></a> +The words of this charter, as given by Rigollot, +are:—<span lang="la" xml:lang="la">“Joannes, D G., etc. Sciatis nos dedisse et præsenti charta +confirmasse Willelmo Picol, follo nostro, Fontem Ossanæ, cum omnibus +pertinenciis suis, habendum et tenendum sibi et hæredibus suis, +faciendo inde nobis annuatim servitium unius folli quoad vixerit; et +post ejus decessum hæredes sui eam tenebunt, et per servitium unius +paris calcarium deauratorum nobis annuatim reddendo. Quare volumus et +firmiter præcipimus quod prædictius Piculphus et hæredes sui habeant +et teneant in perpetuum, bene et in pace, libere et quiete, prædictam +terram.”</span>—Rigollot, Monnaies inconnues des Evêques des Innocens, etc., +8vo., Paris, 1837.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_69" id="Footnote_69"></a><a href="#FNanchor_69"><span class="label">[69]</span></a> +For the drawings of these interesting carvings from the +Cornish churches, I am indebted to the kindness of Mr. J. T. Blight, +the author of an extremely pleasing and useful guide to the beauties of +a well-known district of Cornwall, entitled “A Week at the Land’s End.”</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_70" id="Footnote_70"></a><a href="#FNanchor_70"><span class="label">[70]</span></a> +<span lang="la" xml:lang="la">“A festis follorum ubi baculus accipitur omnino +abstineatur.... Idem fortius monachis et monialibus prohibemus.”</span></p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_71" id="Footnote_71"></a><a href="#FNanchor_71"><span class="label">[71]</span></a> +On the subject of all these burlesques and popular +feasts and ceremonies, the reader may consult Flögel’s <span lang="de" xml:lang="de">“Geschichte des +Grotesk-Komischen,”</span> of which a new and enlarged edition has recently +been given by Dr. Friedrich W. Ebeling, 8vo., Leipzig, 1862. Much +interesting information on the subject was collected by Du Tilliot, +in his <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Memoires pour servir à l’Histoire de la Fête des Fous,”</span> 8vo., +Lausanne, 1751. See also Rigollot, in the work quoted above, and a +popular article on the same subject will be found in my “Archæological +Album.”</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_72" id="Footnote_72"></a><a href="#FNanchor_72"><span class="label">[72]</span></a> +<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Monnaies inconnues des Evêques des Innocens, des Fous,” +&c.</span>, Paris, 1837.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_73" id="Footnote_73"></a><a href="#FNanchor_73"><span class="label">[73]</span></a> +This earliest known version is in German verse, and was +printed in 1515. An English version, in prose, was printed in 1620, and +is reprinted in Thoms’s “Collection of Early Prose Romances.”</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_74" id="Footnote_74"></a><a href="#FNanchor_74"><span class="label">[74]</span></a> +The title of this English translation is, “Here beginneht +a merye Jest of a man that was called Howleglas, and of many marveylous +thinges and jestes that he dyd in his lyfe, in Eastlande, and in many +other places.” It was printed by Coplande, supposed about 1520. An +edition of Eulenspiegel in English, by Mr. Kenneth Mackenzie, has +recently been published by Messrs. Trübner & Co., of Paternoster Row.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_75" id="Footnote_75"></a><a href="#FNanchor_75"><span class="label">[75]</span></a> +It was reprinted by Von der Hagen, in a little volume +entitled <span lang="de" xml:lang="de">“Narrenbuch; herausgegeben durch Friedrich Heinrich von der +Hagen.”</span> 12mo., Halle, 1811.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_76" id="Footnote_76"></a><a href="#FNanchor_76"><span class="label">[76]</span></a> +I am obliged to pass over this part of the subject very +rapidly. For the history of that remarkable book, the “Cent Nouvelles +Nouvelles,” I would refer the reader to the preface to my own edition, +<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles, publiées d’après le seul manuscrit +connu, avec Introduction et Notes, par M. Thomas Wright.”</span> 2 vols, +12mo., Paris, 1858.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_77" id="Footnote_77"></a><a href="#FNanchor_77"><span class="label">[77]</span></a> +A neat and useful edition of these two jest-books, with +the other most curious books of the same class, published during the +Elizabethan period, has recently been published in two volumes, by Mr. +W. C. Hazlitt.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_78" id="Footnote_78"></a><a href="#FNanchor_78"><span class="label">[78]</span></a> +<span lang="la" xml:lang="la">“Infinitus jam erat numerus qui victum ex Lutheranis +libris quæritantes, in speciem bibliopolarum longe lateque per Germaniæ +provincias vagabantur.”</span>—Eck., p. 58.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_79" id="Footnote_79"></a><a href="#FNanchor_79"><span class="label">[79]</span></a> +Several editions of the writings of Hrotsvitha, texts +and translations, have been published of late years both in Germany +and in France, of which I may point out the following as most useful +and complete—<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Théatre de Hrotsvitha, Religieuse Allemande du x^e +siècle....par Charles Magnin,”</span> 8vo., Paris, 1845; <span lang="la" xml:lang="la">“Hrotsvithæ +Gandeshemensis, virginis et monialis Germanicæ, gente Saxonica ortæ, +Comœdias sex, ad fidem codicis Emmeranensis typis expressas +edidit.... J. Benedixen,”</span> 16mo., Lubecæ, 1857; <span lang="de" xml:lang="de">“Die Werke der +Hrotsvitha: Herausgegeben von Dr. K. A. Barack,”</span> 8vo., Nürnberg, 1858.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_80" id="Footnote_80"></a><a href="#FNanchor_80"><span class="label">[80]</span></a> +See <a href="#Page_191">p. 191</a> of the present volume.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_81" id="Footnote_81"></a><a href="#FNanchor_81"><span class="label">[81]</span></a> +This singular composition was published with notes +by M. de Montaiglon, in a Parisian journal entitled, <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“L’Amateur de +Livres,”</span> in 1849, under the title of <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Fragment d’un Dialogue Latin du +ix^e siècle entre Terence et un Bouffon.”</span> A few separate copies were +printed, of which I possess one.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_82" id="Footnote_82"></a><a href="#FNanchor_82"><span class="label">[82]</span></a> +To judge by the number of copies found in manuscripts, +especially of the “Geta,” these dramatic poems must have enjoyed +considerable popularity. The “Geta” and the “Querulus” were published +in a volume entitled, <span lang="la" xml:lang="la">“Vitalis Blesensis Amphitryon et Aulularia +Eclogæ. Edidit Fridericus Osannus, Professor Gisensis,”</span> 8vo., +Darmstadt, 1836. The “Geta” and the “Babio” are included in my “Early +Mysteries, and other Latin Poems of the Twelfth and Thirteenth +Centuries.”</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_83" id="Footnote_83"></a><a href="#FNanchor_83"><span class="label">[83]</span></a> +<span lang="la" xml:lang="la">“Hilarii Versus et Ludi,”</span> 8vo., Paris, 1835. Edited by M. +Champollion Figeac.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_84" id="Footnote_84"></a><a href="#FNanchor_84"><span class="label">[84]</span></a> +<span lang="la" xml:lang="la">“Interdum ludi fiunt in ecclesiis theatrales,” +&c—<cite>Decret Gregorii</cite>,</span> lib. iii. tit. i.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_85" id="Footnote_85"></a><a href="#FNanchor_85"><span class="label">[85]</span></a> +<span lang="la" xml:lang="la">“Item non permittant sacerdotes ludos theatrales fieri in +ecclesia et alios ludos inhonestos.”</span></p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_86" id="Footnote_86"></a><a href="#FNanchor_86"><span class="label">[86]</span></a> +<span lang="la" xml:lang="la">“Juniores fratres in Heresburg sacram habuere comœdiam +de Josepho vendito et exalto, quod vero reliqui ordinis nostri prælati +male interpretati sunt.”</span>—<cite lang="de" xml:lang="de">Leibn., Script. Brunsv.</cite> tom. ii. p. 311.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_87" id="Footnote_87"></a><a href="#FNanchor_87"><span class="label">[87]</span></a> +The acts of this synod of Worms are printed in Harzheim, +tom. iv. p. 258.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_88" id="Footnote_88"></a><a href="#FNanchor_88"><span class="label">[88]</span></a> +The editions of the three principal collections of +English mysteries are—1. “The Towneley Mysteries,” 8vo., London, 1836, +published by the Surtees Society; 2. “Ludus Coventriæ: a Collection +of Mysteries, formerly represented at Coventry on the Feast of Corpus +Christi,” edited by James Orchard Halliwell, Esq., 8vo., London, +1841, published by the Shakespeare Society; 3. “The Chester Plays: a +Collection of Mysteries founded upon Scriptural Subjects, and formerly +represented by the Trades of Chester at Whitsuntide,” edited by Thomas +Wright, Esq., 2 vols. 8vo., London, 1843 and 1847, published by the +Shakespeare Society.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_89" id="Footnote_89"></a><a href="#FNanchor_89"><span class="label">[89]</span></a> +<span lang="la" xml:lang="la">“Hic transit Noe cum familia sua pro navi, quo exeunte, +<em>locum interludii subintret</em> statim Lameth, conductus ab adolescente, +et dicens,”</span> &c.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_90" id="Footnote_90"></a><a href="#FNanchor_90"><span class="label">[90</span></a> +The most remarkable collection of these early farces, +sotties, and moralities yet known, was found accidentally in 1845, +and is now in the British Museum. These were all edited in Paris as +the first three volumes of a work in ten, entitled <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Ancien Théatre +François, ou Collection des Ouvrages dramatiques les plus remarquable +depuis les Mystères jusqu’à Corneille, publié ... par M. Viollet +le Duc,”</span> 12mo., Paris, 1854. It is right to state that these three +volumes were edited, not by M. Viollet le Duc, but by a scholar better +known for his learning in the older French literature, M. Anatole de +Montaiglon.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_91" id="Footnote_91"></a><a href="#FNanchor_91"><span class="label">[91]</span></a> +This is the date fixed by Meaume, in his excellent work +on Callot, entitled <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Recherches sur la Vie et les Ouvrages de Jacques +Callot,”</span> 2 tom. 8vo., 1860.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_92" id="Footnote_92"></a><a href="#FNanchor_92"><span class="label">[92]</span></a> +Meaume appears to be doubtful of the meaning of this +word; a friend has pointed out to me the correction. It was the title +of a song, so called because the burden was an imitation of the +crowing of a cock, the singer mimicking also the action of the bird. +When Bacchus, in Redi’s “Bacco in Toscana,” is beginning to feel the +exhilarating effects of his critical investigation of the Tuscan wines, +he calls upon Ariadne to sing to him <span lang="it" xml:lang="it">“sulla mandola la Cucurucù,”</span> “on +the mandola the Cucurucu.” A note fully explains the word as we have +stated it—<span lang="it" xml:lang="it">“Canzone cosi detta, perchè in esse si replica molte volte +la voce del gallo; e cantandola si fanno atti e moti simili a quegli di +esso gallo.”</span></p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_93" id="Footnote_93"></a><a href="#FNanchor_93"><span class="label">[93]</span></a> +The materials for the history of Della Bella and his +works, will be found in a carefully compiled volume, by C. A. Jombert, +entitled, <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Essai d’un Catalogue de l’Oeuvre d’Etienne de la Bella.”</span> +8vo., Paris, 1772.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_94" id="Footnote_94"></a><a href="#FNanchor_94"><span class="label">[94]</span></a> +<span lang="la" xml:lang="la">“Pasquillorum Tomi duo.”</span> Eleutheropoli, MDXLIIII.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_95" id="Footnote_95"></a><a href="#FNanchor_95"><span class="label">[95]</span></a> +Pasquil and Pasquin became, during the latter part of +the sixteenth and the whole of the seventeenth centuries, a well-known +name in French and English literature. In English popular literature he +was turned into a jester, and a book was published in 1604 under the +title “Pasquil’s Jests; with the Merriments of Mother Bunch. Wittie, +pleasant, and delightfull.”</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_96" id="Footnote_96"></a><a href="#FNanchor_96"><span class="label">[96]</span></a> +The great authority on the history of Macaronic +literature is my excellent friend Monsieur Octave Delepierre, and +I will simply refer the reader to his two valuable publications, +<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Macaronéana, ou Mélanges de Littérature Macaronique des differents +Peuples de l’Europe,”</span> 8vo., Paris, 1852; and <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Macaronéana,”</span> 4to., 1863; +the latter printed for the Philobiblon Club.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_97" id="Footnote_97"></a><a href="#FNanchor_97"><span class="label">[97]</span></a> +This style differs entirely from the macaronic. It +consists merely in using the words of the Latin language with the forms +and construction of the vulgar tongue, as illustrated by the directions +of the professor who, lecturing in the schools, was interrupted by the +entrance of a dog, and shouted out to the doorkeeper, <em lang="la" xml:lang="la">Verte canem ex</em>, +meaning thereby that he should “turn the dog out.” It was perhaps from +this, or some similar occurrence, that this barbarous Latin gained the +name of dog-Latin. The French call it <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Latin de cuisine</em>.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_98" id="Footnote_98"></a><a href="#FNanchor_98"><span class="label">[98]</span></a> +A cheap and convenient edition of the <span lang="la" xml:lang="la">“Cymbalum Mundi,”</span> +edited by the Bibliophile Jacob (Paul Lacroix), was published in Paris +in 1841. I may here state that similar editions of the principal French +satirists of the sixteenth century have been printed during the last +twenty-five years.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_99" id="Footnote_99"></a><a href="#FNanchor_99"><span class="label">[99]</span></a> +<em>i.e.</em>, was drunk.</p> + +<p><a id="Footnote_100"></a><a href="#FNanchor_100"><span class="label">[100]</span></a> +Knightsbridge, as the principal entrance to London from +the west, was full of inns.</p> + +<p><a id="Footnote_101"></a><a href="#FNanchor_101"><span class="label">[101]</span></a> +The method of engraving called mezzotinto was very +generally adopted in England in the earlier part of the last century +for prints and caricatures. It was continued to rather a late period by +the publishing house of Carrington Bowles.</p> + +<p><a id="Footnote_102"></a><a href="#FNanchor_102"><span class="label">[102]</span></a> +It was translated into English by Richard Haydocke, +under the title of “The Artes of Curious Paintinge, Carvinge, +Buildinge,” fol. 1598. This is one of the earliest works on art in the +English language.</p> + +<p><a id="Footnote_103"></a><a href="#FNanchor_103"><span class="label">[103]</span></a> +His death is usually placed, but erroneously, in 1732.</p> + +<p><a id="Footnote_104"></a><a href="#FNanchor_104"><span class="label">[104]</span></a> +Sandby etched landscapes on steel, and in aquatinta, +the latter by a method peculiarly his own, besides painting in oil and +opaque colours. But his fame rests <em>mainly</em> on being the founder of the +English school of <em>water-colour painting</em>, since he was the first to +show the capability of that material to produce finished pictures, and +to lead the way to the perfection in effect and colour to which that +branch of art has since attained.</p> + +<p><a id="Footnote_105"></a><a href="#FNanchor_105"><span class="label">[105]</span></a> +In the library of the British Museum there is a +collection of John Kay’s works bound in two volumes quarto, with a +title and table of contents in manuscript, but whether it is one of +a few copies intended for publication, or whether it is merely the +collection of some individual, I am not prepared to say. It contains +343 plates, which are stated to be all Kay’s works down to the year +1813, when this collection was made. “The Craft in Danger” is not among +them. I have before me a smaller, but a very choice selection, of Kay’s +caricatures, the loan of which I owe to the kindness of Mr. John Camden +Hotten, of Piccadilly. I am indebted to Mr. Hotten for many courtesies +of this description, and especially for the use of a very valuable +collection of caricatures of the latter part of the eighteenth century +and earlier part of the present, mounted in four large folio volumes, +which has been of much use to me.</p> + +</div> +</div> + +<div class="transnote"> + +<h2><a name="endnote" id="endnote" />Transcriber’s Note</h2> + +<p>In general, spelling is retained as printed. On occasion, apparent +printer’s errors, however, are corrected, where the author uses a more +standard spelling elsewhere (e.g., ’acknowleges’ on p. 283). Where the +printer simply missed a word (e.g.,‘hand’ on p. 151), it is added.</p> + +<p>This table summarizes the various issues detected, and their resolution.</p> + +<table id="errata" summary="errata" cellspacing="3" cellpadding="3"> +<colgroup> + <col width="10%" /> + <col width="45%" /> + <col width="45%" /> +</colgroup> + +<tr><td class="tdr">p. xii</td><td>LE MONDE BESTORN[E/É]</td><td>Corrected.</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">p. 6</td><td>as 1185[,] B.C.</td><td>Removed.</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">p. 57</td><td>and trepidation[.]</td><td>Added.</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">p. 76</td><td>fat flesh and their platter;[”]</td><td>Missing, probable placement</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">p. 107</td><td>i[t] is evident from many allusions</td><td>Added.</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">p. 151</td><td>luxury went hand in [hand]</td><td>Added.</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">p. 153</td><td>a playful character[./,] or sometimes</td><td>Added.</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">p. 155</td><td>N[u/ü]remberg</td><td>Corrected.</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">p. 160</td><td>and [meats] with a courteous reception</td><td><em>sic.</em></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">p. 162</td><td>[“]should not be jougleurs, goliards, or buffoons;”</td><td>Missing, probable placement</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">p. 163</td><td>de [famila] Goliæ</td><td><em>sic.</em></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">p. 173</td><td>[“/‘]Adam, Adam ...</td><td>Corrected.</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">p. 201</td><td>received by the [the ]emperor Hugo</td><td>Removed.</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">p. 230<br />n. 74</td><td>Here [beginneht] a merye jest</td><td><em>sic.</em></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">p. 243</td><td>“Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles,” [“]Poggio,” “Straparola,” </td><td>Added.</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr"> </td><td>seventee[n]th</td><td>Added.</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">p. 254</td><td>the early book-hawkers[,/.]</td><td>Corrected.</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">p. 289</td><td>acknowle[d]ged</td><td>Added.</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">p. 335 </td><td>aspired to be P[l]antagruelists</td><td>Removed.</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">p. 344</td><td>Florent Chr[e]stien</td><td>Added.</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">p. 396</td><td>who jilts her husband that way, a very ——[.]”</td><td>Added.</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">p. 445</td><td>were [two/too] numerous</td><td>Corrected.</td></tr> +</table> +</div> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A History of Caricature and Grotesque, by +Thomas Wright + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORY OF CARICATURE *** + +***** This file should be named 44566-h.htm or 44566-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/4/4/5/6/44566/ + +Produced by KD Weeks, Chris Curnow and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A History of Caricature and Grotesque + in Literature and Art + +Author: Thomas Wright + +Illustrator: F. W. Fairholt + +Release Date: January 2, 2014 [EBook #44566] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORY OF CARICATURE *** + + + + +Produced by KD Weeks, Chris Curnow and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive) + + + + + +Transcriber's Notes + +Typographical features such as italic and bold fonts are indicated +as _italic_ and =bold=. The 'oe' ligature is given as separate +characters. Text shown in mixed 'small capital' letters has been +shifted to all uppercase. Superscripted letters are prefixed with +a carat (^) character. When multiple letters appear as superscripts, +they are enclosed in brackets ({}). + +There are frequent instances of Greek text, which have been +transliterated here. These appear delimited with the '+' character. +There is a unicode as well as an html version of this text, both +of which retain the original Greek characters. + +Illustrations appear as [Illustration: caption] in their approximate +positions in the text. There are several decorative illustrations which +appear merely as [Illustration]. Two illustrations, on pp. 199 and 204, +were labelled No. 127. To resolve this, the second of them, and +references to it, were changed to No. 127a. + +Footnotes have been moved to the end of the paragraphs where they are +referenced. + +Please consult the Transcriber's Note at the end of this text for +details regarding the resolution of any other textual issues. + + + + + A HISTORY + + OF + + CARICATURE AND GROTESQUE. + + [Illustration: _ARISTOTLE AND PYTHAIS._ + _From an Engraving by Burgmair_ (_15th cent._)] + + + + + A HISTORY + + OF + + CARICATURE AND GROTESQUE + + In Literature and Art. + + BY THOMAS WRIGHT, M.A., F.S.A. + + [Illustration] + + THE ILLUSTRATIONS DRAWN AND ENGRAVED BY + + F. W. FAIRHOLT, F.S.A. + + London: + + CHATTO AND WINDUS, PICCADILLY. + + 1875. + + + + + LONDON: + SAVILL, EDWARDS, AND CO., PRINTERS, CHANDOS STREET, + COVENT GARDEN. + + [Illustration] + + + + +PREFACE. + + +I have felt some difficulty in selecting a title for the contents of +the following pages, in which it was, in fact, my design to give, as +far as may be done within such moderate limits, and in as popular a +manner as such information can easily be imparted, a general view of +the History of Comic Literature and Art. Yet the word comic seems to +me hardly to express all the parts of the subject which I have sought +to bring together in my book. Moreover, the field of this history is +very large, and, though I have only taken as my theme one part of it, +it was necessary to circumscribe even that, in some degree; and my +plan, therefore, is to follow it chiefly through those branches which +have contributed most towards the formation of modern comic and satiric +literature and art in our own island. + +Thus, as the comic literature of the middle ages to a very great +extent, and comic art in a considerable degree also, were founded +upon, or rather arose out of, those of the Romans which had preceded +them, it seemed desirable to give a comprehensive history of this +branch of literature and art as it was cultivated among the peoples of +antiquity. Literature and art in the middle ages presented a certain +unity of general character, arising, probably, from the uniformity of +the influence of the Roman element of society, modified only by its +lower degree of intensity at a greater distance from the centre, and +by secondary causes attendant upon it. To understand the literature +of any one country in Western Europe, especially during what we may +term the feudal period--and the remark applies to art equally--it +is necessary to make ourselves acquainted with the whole history of +literature in Western Europe during that time. The peculiarities in +different countries naturally became more marked in the progress of +society, and more strongly individualised; but it was not till towards +the close of the feudal period that the literature of each of these +different countries was becoming more entirely its own. At that period +the plan I have formed restricts itself, according to the view stated +above. Thus, the satirical literature of the Reformation and pictorial +caricature had their cradle in Germany, and, in the earlier half of +the sixteenth century, carried their influence largely into France and +England; but from that time any influence of German literature on these +two countries ceases. Modern satirical literature has its models in +France during the sixteenth century, and the direct influence of this +literature in France upon English literature continued during that and +the succeeding century, but no further. Political caricature rose to +importance in France in the sixteenth century, and was transplanted +to Holland in the seventeenth century, and until the beginning of the +eighteenth century England owed its caricature, indirectly or directly, +to the French and the Dutch; but after that time a purely English +school of caricature was formed, which was entirely independent of +Continental caricaturists. + +There are two senses in which the word history may be taken in regard +to literature and art. It has been usually employed to signify a +chronological account of authors or artists and their works, though +this comes more properly under the title of biography and bibliography. +But there is another and a very different application of the word, and +this is the meaning which I attach to it in the present volume. During +the middle ages, and for some period after (in special branches), +literature--I mean poetry, satire, and popular literature of all +kinds--belonged to society, and not to the individual authors, who +were but workmen who gained a living by satisfying society's wants; +and its changes in form or character depended all upon the varying +progress, and therefore changing necessities, of society itself. This +is the reason why, especially in the earlier periods, nearly the whole +mass of the popular--I may, perhaps, be allowed to call it the social +literature of the middle ages, is anonymous; and it was only at rare +intervals that some individual rose and made himself a great name by +the superiority of his talents. A certain number of writers of fabliaux +put their names to their compositions, probably because they were names +of writers who had gained the reputation of telling better or racier +stories than many of their fellows. In some branches of literature--as +in the satirical literature of the sixteenth century--society still +exercised this kind of influence over it; and although its great +monuments owe everything to the peculiar genius of their authors, they +were produced under the pressure of social circumstances. To trace all +these variations in literature connected with society, to describe the +influences of society upon literature and of literature upon society, +during the progress of the latter, appears to me to be the true meaning +of the word history, and it is in this sense that I take it. + +This will explain why my history of the different branches of popular +literature and art ends at very different periods. The grotesque and +satirical sculpture, which adorned the ecclesiastical buildings, +ceased with the middle ages. The story-books, as a part of this social +literature, came down to the sixteenth century, and the history of +the jest-books which arose out of them cannot be considered to extend +further than the beginning of the seventeenth; for, to give a list of +jest-books since that time would be to compile a catalogue of books +made by booksellers for sale, copied from one another, and, till +recently, each more contemptible than its predecessor. The school of +satirical literature in France, at all events as far as it had any +influence in England, lasted no longer than the earlier part of the +seventeenth century. England can hardly be said to have had a school of +satirical literature, with the exception of its comedy, which belongs +properly to the seventeenth century; and its caricature belongs +especially to the last century and to the earlier part of the present, +beyond which it is not a part of my plan to carry it. + +These few remarks will perhaps serve to explain what some may consider +to be defects in my book; and with them I venture to trust it to the +indulgence of its readers. It is a subject which will have some novelty +for the English reader, for I am not aware that we have any previous +book devoted to it. At all events, it is not a mere compilation from +other people's labours. + + THOMAS WRIGHT. + + [Illustration] + + + + + CONTENTS. + + + CHAPTER I. + PAGE + ORIGIN OF CARICATURE AND GROTESQUE--SPIRIT OF CARICATURE + IN EGYPT--MONSTERS: PYTHON AND GORGON--GREECE--THE + DIONYSIAC CEREMONIES, AND ORIGIN OF THE DRAMA--THE OLD + COMEDY--LOVE OF PARODY--PARODIES ON SUBJECTS TAKEN + FROM GRECIAN MYTHOLOGY: THE VISIT TO THE LOVER; APOLLO + AT DELPHI--THE PARTIALITY FOR PARODY CONTINUED AMONG + THE ROMANS: THE FLIGHT OF AENEAS 1 + + CHAPTER II. + + ORIGIN OF THE STAGE IN ROME--USES OF THE MASK + AMONG THE ROMANS--SCENES FROM ROMAN COMEDY--THE + SANNIO AND MIMUS--THE ROMAN DRAMA--THE ROMAN + SATIRISTS--CARICATURE--ANIMALS INTRODUCED IN THE + CHARACTERS OF MEN--THE PIGMIES, AND THEIR INTRODUCTION + INTO CARICATURE; THE FARM-YARD; THE PAINTER'S STUDIO; + THE PROCESSION--POLITICAL CARICATURE IN POMPEII; THE + GRAFFITI 23 + + CHAPTER III. + + THE PERIOD OF TRANSITION FROM ANTIQUITY TO THE MIDDLE + AGES--THE ROMAN MIMI CONTINUED TO EXIST--THE TEUTONIC + AFTER-DINNER ENTERTAINMENTS--CLERICAL SATIRES: + ARCHBISHOP HERIGER AND THE DREAMER; THE SUPPER OF THE + SAINTS--TRANSITION FROM ANCIENT TO MEDIAEVAL ART--TASTE + FOR MONSTROUS ANIMALS, DRAGONS, ETC.; CHURCH OF SAN + FEDELE, AT COMO--SPIRIT OF CARICATURE AND LOVE OF + GROTESQUE AMONG THE ANGLO-SAXONS--GROTESQUE FIGURES OF + DEMONS--NATURAL TENDENCY OF THE EARLY MEDIAEVAL ARTISTS + TO DRAW IN CARICATURE--EXAMPLES FROM EARLY MANUSCRIPTS + AND SCULPTURES 40 + + CHAPTER IV. + + THE DIABOLICAL IN CARICATURE--MEDIAEVAL LOVE OF THE + LUDICROUS--CAUSES WHICH MADE IT INFLUENCE THE NOTIONS + OF DEMONS--STORIES OF THE PIOUS PAINTER AND THE ERRING + MONK--DARKNESS AND UGLINESS CARICATURED--THE DEMONS IN + THE MIRACLE PLAYS--THE DEMON OF NOTRE DAME 61 + + CHAPTER V. + + EMPLOYMENT OF ANIMALS IN MEDIAEVAL SATIRE--POPULARITY + OF FABLES; ODO DE CIRINGTON--REYNARD THE + FOX--BURNELLUS AND FAUVEL--THE CHARIVARI--LE MONDE + BESTORNE--ENCAUSTIC TILES--SHOEING THE GOOSE, AND + FEEDING PIGS WITH ROSES--SATIRICAL SIGNS; THE MUSTARD + MAKER 75 + + CHAPTER VI. + + THE MONKEY IN BURLESQUE AND CARICATURE--TOURNAMENTS + AND SINGLE COMBATS--MONSTROUS COMBINATIONS OF + ANIMAL FORMS--CARICATURES ON COSTUME--THE HAT--THE + HELMET--LADIES' HEAD-DRESSES--THE GOWN, AND ITS LONG + SLEEVES 95 + + CHAPTER VII. + + PRESERVATION OF THE CHARACTER OF THE MIMUS AFTER THE FALL + OF THE EMPIRE--THE MINSTREL AND JOGELOUR--HISTORY OF + POPULAR STORIES--THE FABLIAUX--ACCOUNT OF THEM--THE + CONTES DEVOTS 106 + + CHAPTER VIII. + + CARICATURES OF DOMESTIC LIFE--STATE OF DOMESTIC LIFE + IN THE MIDDLE AGES--EXAMPLES OF DOMESTIC CARICATURE + FROM THE CARVINGS OF THE MISERERES--KITCHEN + SCENES--DOMESTIC BRAWLS--THE FIGHT FOR THE + BREECHES--THE JUDICIAL DUEL BETWEEN MAN AND WIFE AMONG + THE GERMANS--ALLUSIONS TO WITCHCRAFT--SATIRES ON THE + TRADES: THE BAKER, THE MILLER, THE WINE-PEDLAR AND + TAVERN KEEPER, THE ALE-WIFE, ETC. 118 + + CHAPTER IX. + + GROTESQUE FACES AND FIGURES--PREVALENCE OF THE TASTE FOR + UGLY AND GROTESQUE FACES--SOME OF THE POPULAR FORMS + DERIVED FROM ANTIQUITY: THE TONGUE LOLLING OUT, AND + THE DISTORTED MOUTH--HORRIBLE SUBJECTS: THE MAN + AND THE SERPENTS--ALLEGORICAL FIGURES: GLUTTONY AND + LUXURY--OTHER REPRESENTATIONS OF CLERICAL GLUTTONY + AND DRUNKENNESS--GROTESQUE FIGURES OF INDIVIDUALS, + AND GROTESQUE GROUPS--ORNAMENTS OF THE BORDERS OF + BOOKS--UNINTENTIONAL CARICATURE; THE MOTE AND THE BEAM 144 + + CHAPTER X. + + SATIRICAL LITERATURE IN THE MIDDLE AGES--JOHN + DE HAUTEVILLE AND ALAN DE LILLE--GOLIAS AND + THE GOLIARDS--THE GOLIARDIC POETRY--TASTE FOR + PARODY--PARODIES ON RELIGIOUS SUBJECTS--POLITICAL + CARICATURE IN THE MIDDLE AGES--THE JEWS OF + NORWICH--CARICATURE REPRESENTATIONS OF + COUNTRIES--LOCAL SATIRE--POLITICAL SONGS AND POEMS 159 + + CHAPTER XI. + + MINSTRELSY A SUBJECT OF BURLESQUE AND + CARICATURE--CHARACTER OF THE MINSTRELS--THEIR JOKES + UPON THEMSELVES AND UPON ONE ANOTHER--VARIOUS + MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS REPRESENTED IN THE SCULPTURES + OF THE MEDIAEVAL ARTISTS--SIR MATTHEW GOURNAY AND + THE KING OF PORTUGAL--DISCREDIT OF THE TABOR AND + BAGPIPES--MERMAIDS 188 + + CHAPTER XII. + + THE COURT FOOL--THE NORMANS AND THEIR GABS--EARLY + HISTORY OF COURT FOOLS--THEIR COSTUME--CARVINGS IN + THE CORNISH CHURCHES--THE BURLESQUE SOCIETIES OF THE + MIDDLE AGES--THE FEASTS OF ASSES, AND OF FOOLS--THEIR + LICENCE--THE LEADEN MONEY OF THE FOOLS--THE BISHOP'S + BLESSING 200 + + CHAPTER XIII. + + THE DANCE OF DEATH--THE PAINTINGS IN THE CHURCH OF + LA CHAISE DIEU--THE REIGN OF FOLLY--SEBASTIAN + BRANDT; THE SHIP OF FOOLS--DISTURBERS OF + CHURCH SERVICE--TROUBLESOME BEGGARS--GEILER'S + SERMONS--BADIUS, AND HIS SHIP OF FOOLISH WOMEN--THE + PLEASURES OF SMELL--ERASMUS; THE PRAISE OF FOLLY 214 + + CHAPTER XIV. + + POPULAR LITERATURE AND ITS HEROES; BROTHER RUSH, TYLL + EULENSPIEGEL, THE WISE MEN OF GOTHAM--STORIES AND + JEST-BOOKS--SKELTON, SCOGIN, TARLTON, PEELE 228 + + CHAPTER XV. + + THE AGE OF THE REFORMATION--THOMAS MURNER; HIS GENERAL + SATIRES--FRUITFULNESS OF FOLLY--HANS SACHS--THE + TRAP FOR FOOLS--ATTACKS ON LUTHER--THE POPE AS + ANTICHRIST--THE POPE-ASS AND THE MONK-CALF--OTHER + CARICATURES AGAINST THE POPE--THE GOOD AND BAD + SHEPHERDS 244 + + CHAPTER XVI. + + ORIGIN OF MEDIAEVAL FARCE AND MODERN + COMEDY--HROTSVITHA--MEDIAEVAL NOTIONS OF TERENCE--THE + EARLY RELIGIOUS PLAYS--MYSTERIES AND MIRACLE + PLAYS--THE FARCES--THE DRAMA IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 264 + + CHAPTER XVII. + + DIABLERIE IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY--EARLY TYPES OF THE + DIABOLICAL FORMS--ST. ANTHONY--ST. GUTHLAC--REVIVAL OF + THE TASTE FOR SUCH SUBJECTS IN THE BEGINNING OF THE + SIXTEENTH CENTURY--THE FLEMISH SCHOOL OF BREUGHEL--THE + FRENCH AND ITALIAN SCHOOLS--CALLOT, SALVATOR ROSA 288 + + CHAPTER XVIII. + + CALLOT AND HIS SCHOOL--CALLOT'S ROMANTIC HISTORY--HIS + "CAPRICI," AND OTHER BURLESQUE WORKS--THE "BALLI" + AND THE BEGGARS--IMITATORS OF CALLOT; DELLA + BELLA--EXAMPLES OF DELLA BELLA--ROMAIN DE HOOGHE 300 + + CHAPTER XIX. + + THE SATIRICAL LITERATURE OF THE SIXTEENTH + CENTURY--PASQUIL--MACARONIC POETRY--THE EPISTOLAE + OBSCURORUM VIRORUM--RABELAIS--COURT OF THE QUEEN OF + NAVARRE, AND ITS LITERARY CIRCLE; BONAVENTURE DES + PERIERS--HENRI ETIENNE--THE LIGUE, AND ITS SATIRE: THE + "SATYRE MENIPPEE" 312 + + CHAPTER XX. + + POLITICAL CARICATURE IN ITS INFANCY--THE REVERS DU + JEU DES SUYSSES--CARICATURE IN FRANCE--THE THREE + ORDERS--PERIOD OF THE LIGUE; CARICATURES AGAINST HENRI + III.--CARICATURES AGAINST THE LIGUE--CARICATURE IN + FRANCE IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY--GENERAL GALAS--THE + QUARREL OF AMBASSADORS--CARICATURE AGAINST LOUIS XXV.; + WILLIAM OF FURSTEMBERG 347 + + CHAPTER XXI. + + EARLY POLITICAL CARICATURE IN ENGLAND--THE SATIRICAL + WRITINGS AND PICTURES OF THE COMMONWEALTH + PERIOD--SATIRES AGAINST THE BISHOPS; BISHOP + WILLIAMS--CARICATURES ON THE CAVALIERS; SIR JOHN + SUCKLING--THE ROARING BOYS; VIOLENCE OF THE ROYALIST + SOLDIERS--CONTEST BETWEEN THE PRESBYTERIANS AND + INDEPENDENTS--GRINDING THE KING'S NOSE--PLAYING-CARDS + USED AS THE MEDIUM FOR CARICATURE; HASELRIGGE AND + LAMBERT--SHROVETIDE 360 + + CHAPTER XXII. + + ENGLISH COMEDY--BEN JONSON--THE OTHER WRITERS OF HIS + SCHOOL--INTERRUPTION OF DRAMATIC PERFORMANCES--COMEDY + AFTER THE RESTORATION--THE HOWARDS BROTHERS; THE DUKE + OF BUCKINGHAM; THE REHEARSAL--WRITERS OF COMEDY IN THE + LATTER PART OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY--INDECENCY OF + THE STAGE--COLLEY CIBBER--FOOTE 375 + + CHAPTER XXIII. + + CARICATURE IN HOLLAND--ROMAIN DE HOOGHE--THE ENGLISH + REVOLUTION--CARICATURES ON LOUIS XIV. AND + JAMES II.--DR. SACHEVERELL--CARICATURE BROUGHT + FROM HOLLAND TO ENGLAND--ORIGIN OF THE WORD + "CARICATURE"--MISSISSIPPI AND THE SOUTH SEA; THE YEAR + OF BUBBLES 406 + + CHAPTER XXIV. + + ENGLISH CARICATURE IN THE AGE OF GEORGE II.--ENGLISH + PRINTSELLERS--ARTISTS EMPLOYED BY THEM--SIR ROBERT + WALPOLE'S LONG MINISTRY--THE WAR WITH FRANCE--THE + NEWCASTLE ADMINISTRATION--OPERA INTRIGUES--ACCESSION + OF GEORGE III., AND LORD BUTE IN POWER 420 + + CHAPTER XXV. + + HOGARTH--HIS EARLY HISTORY--HIS SETS OF PICTURES--THE + HARLOT'S PROGRESS--THE RAKE'S PROGRESS--THE MARRIAGE A + LA MODE--HIS OTHER PRINTS--THE ANALYSIS OF BEAUTY, AND + THE PERSECUTION ARISING OUT OF IT--HIS PATRONAGE BY + LORD BUTE--CARICATURE OF THE TIMES--ATTACKS TO WHICH + HE WAS EXPOSED BY IT, AND WHICH HASTENED HIS DEATH 434 + + CHAPTER XXVI. + + THE LESSER CARICATURISTS OF THE REIGN OF GEORGE + III.--PAUL SANDBY--COLLET: THE DISASTER, + AND FATHER PAUL IN HIS CUPS--JAMES SAYER: + HIS CARICATURES IN SUPPORT OF PITT, AND HIS + REWARD--CARLO KHAN'S TRIUMPH--BUNBURY'S: HIS + CARICATURES ON HORSEMANSHIP--WOODWARD: GENERAL + COMPLAINT--ROWLANDSON'S INFLUENCE ON THE STYLE OF + THOSE WHOSE DESIGNS HE ETCHED--JOHN KAY OF EDINBURGH: + LOOKING A ROCK IN THE FACE 450 + + CHAPTER XXVII. + + GILLRAY--HIS FIRST ATTEMPTS--HIS CARICATURES BEGIN + WITH THE SHELBURNE MINISTRY--IMPEACHMENT OF + WARREN HASTINGS--CARICATURES ON THE KING; NEW + WAY TO PAY THE NATIONAL DEBT--ALLEGED REASON FOR + GILLRAY'S HOSTILITY TO THE KING--THE KING AND THE + APPLE-DUMPLINGS--GILLRAY'S LATER LABOURS--HIS IDIOTCY + AND DEATH 464 + + CHAPTER XXVIII. + + GILLRAY'S CARICATURES ON SOCIAL LIFE--THOMAS + ROWLANDSON--HIS EARLY LIFE--HE BECOMES A + CARICATURIST--HIS STYLE AND WORKS--HIS DRAWINGS--THE + CRUIKSHANKS 480 + + + + + A HISTORY + + OF + + CARICATURE AND GROTESQUE. + + + + + CHAPTER I. + + ORIGIN OF CARICATURE AND GROTESQUE.--SPIRIT OF CARICATURE IN + EGYPT.--MONSTERS: PYTHON AND GORGON.--GREECE.--THE DIONYSIAC + CEREMONIES, AND ORIGIN OF THE DRAMA.--THE OLD COMEDY.--LOVE OF + PARODY.--PARODIES ON SUBJECTS TAKEN FROM GRECIAN MYTHOLOGY: THE + VISIT TO THE LOVER: APOLLO AT DELPHI.--THE PARTIALITY FOR PARODY + CONTINUED AMONG THE ROMANS: THE FLIGHT OF AENEAS. + + +It is not my intention in the following pages to discuss the question +what constitutes the comic or the laughable, or, in other words, to +enter into the philosophy of the subject; I design only to trace +the history of its outward development, the various forms it has +assumed, and its social influence. Laughter appears to be almost a +necessity of human nature, in all conditions of man's existence, +however rude or however cultivated; and some of the greatest men of +all ages, men of the most refined intellects, such as Cicero in the +ages of antiquity, and Erasmus among the moderns, have been celebrated +for their indulgence in it. The former was sometimes called by his +opponents _scurra consularis_, the "consular jester;" and the latter, +who has been spoken of as the "mocking-bird," is said to have laughed +so immoderately over the well-known "Epistolae Obscurorum Virorum," +that he brought upon himself a serious fit of illness. The greatest of +comic writers, Aristophanes, has always been looked upon as a model of +literary perfection. An epigram in the Greek Anthology, written by the +divine Plato, tells us how, when the Graces sought a temple which would +not fall, they found the soul of Aristophanes:-- + + +Hai charites temenos ti labein oper ouchi peseitai + Zetousai, psychen euron Aristophanous.+ + +On the other hand, the men who never laughed, the +agelastoi+, were +looked upon as the least respectable of mortals. + +A tendency to burlesque and caricature appears, indeed, to be a feeling +deeply implanted in human nature, and it is one of the earliest talents +displayed by people in a rude state of society. An appreciation of, and +sensitiveness to, ridicule, and a love of that which is humorous, are +found even among savages, and enter largely into their relations with +their fellow men. When, before people cultivated either literature or +art, the chieftain sat in his rude hall surrounded by his warriors, +they amused themselves by turning their enemies and opponents into +mockery, by laughing at their weaknesses, joking on their defects, +whether physical or mental, and giving them nicknames in accordance +therewith,--in fact, caricaturing them in words, or by telling stories +which were calculated to excite laughter. When the agricultural slaves +(for the tillers of the land were then slaves) were indulged with a +day of relief from their labours, they spent it in unrestrained mirth. +And when these same people began to erect permanent buildings, and +to ornament them, the favourite subjects of their ornamentation were +such as presented ludicrous ideas. The warrior, too, who caricatured +his enemy in his speeches over the festive board, soon sought to give +a more permanent form to his ridicule, which he endeavoured to do by +rude delineations on the bare rock, or on any other convenient surface +which presented itself to his hand. Thus originated caricature and +the grotesque in art. In fact, art itself, in its earliest forms, is +caricature; for it is only by that exaggeration of features which +belongs to caricature, that unskilful draughtsmen could make themselves +understood. + + [Illustration: _No. 1. An Egyptian Lady at a Feast._] + +Although we might, perhaps, find in different countries examples of +these principles in different states of development, we cannot in any +one country trace the entire course of the development itself: for in +all the highly civilised races of mankind, we first become acquainted +with their history when they had already reached a considerable +degree of refinement; and even at that period of their progress, our +knowledge is almost confined to their religious, and to their more +severely historical, monuments. Such is especially the case with +Egypt, the history of which country, as represented by its monuments +of art, carries us back to the remotest ages of antiquity. Egyptian +art generally presents itself in a sombre and massive character, with +little of gaiety or joviality in its designs or forms. Yet, as Sir +Gardner Wilkinson has remarked in his valuable work on the "Manners +and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians," the early Egyptian artists +cannot always conceal their natural tendency to the humorous, which +creeps out in a variety of little incidents. Thus, in a series of grave +historical pictures on one of the great monuments at Thebes, we find +a representation of a wine party, where the company consists of both +sexes, and which evidently shows that the ladies were not restricted +in the use of the juice of the grape in their entertainments; and, +as he adds, "the painters, in illustrating this fact, have sometimes +sacrificed their gallantry to a love of caricature." Among the +females, evidently of rank, represented in this scene, "some call the +servants to support them as they sit, others with difficulty prevent +themselves from falling on those behind them, and the faded flower, +which is ready to drop from their heated hands, is intended to be +characteristic of their own sensations." One group, a lady whose +excess has been carried too far, and her servant who comes to her +assistance, is represented in our cut No. 1. Sir Gardner observes that +"many similar instances of a talent for caricature are observable in +the compositions of the Egyptian artists, who executed the paintings +of the tombs" at Thebes, which belong to a very early period of the +Egyptian annals. Nor is the application of this talent restricted +always to secular subjects, but we see it at times intruding into the +most sacred mysteries of their religion. I give as a curious example, +taken from one of Sir Gardner Wilkinson's engravings, a scene in the +representation of a funeral procession crossing the Lake of the Dead +(No. 2), that appears in one of these early paintings at Thebes, in +which "the love of caricature common to the Egyptians is shown to have +been indulged even in this serious subject; and the retrograde movement +of the large boat, which has grounded and is pushed off the bank, +striking the smaller one with its rudder, has overturned a large table +loaded with cakes and other things, upon the rowers seated below, in +spite of all the efforts of the prowman, and the earnest vociferations +of the alarmed steersman." The accident which thus overthrows and +scatters the provisions intended for the funeral feast, and the +confusion attendant upon it, form a ludicrous scene in the midst of a +solemn picture, that would be worthy of the imagination of a Rowlandson. + + [Illustration: _No. 2. Catastrophe in a Funeral Procession._] + + [Illustration: _No. 3. An Unfortunate Soul._] + +Another cut (No. 3), taken from one of the same series of paintings, +belongs to a class of caricatures which dates from a very remote +period. One of the most natural ideas among all people would be to +compare men with the animals whose particular qualities they possessed. +Thus, one might be as bold as a lion, another as faithful as a dog, +or as cunning as a fox, or as swinish as a hog. The name of the +animal would thus often be given as a nickname to the man, and in +the sequel he would be represented pictorially under the form of the +animal. It was partly out of this kind of caricature, no doubt, that +the singular class of apologues which have been since distinguished +by the name of fables arose. Connected with it was the belief in +the metempsychosis, or transmission of the soul into the bodies of +animals after death, which formed a part of several of the primitive +religions. The earliest examples of this class of caricature of mankind +are found on the Egyptian monuments, as in the instance just referred +to, which represents "a soul condemned to return to earth under the +form of a pig, having been weighed in the scales before Osiris and +been found wanting. Being placed in a boat, and accompanied by two +monkeys, it is dismissed the sacred precinct." The latter animals, it +may be remarked, as they are here represented, are the cynocephali, or +dog-headed monkeys (the _simia inuus_), which were sacred animals among +the Egyptians, and the peculiar characteristic of which--the dog-shaped +head--is, as usual, exaggerated by the artist. + +The representation of this return of a condemned soul under the +repulsive form of a pig, is painted on the left side wall of the long +entrance-gallery to the tomb of King Rameses V., in the valley of +royal catacombs known as the Biban-el-Molook, at Thebes. Wilkinson +gives the date of the accession of this monarch to the throne as 1185, +B.C. In the original picture, Osiris is seated on his throne +at some distance from the stern of the boat, and is dismissing it from +his presence by a wave of the hand. This tomb was open in the time of +the Romans, and termed by them the "Tomb of Memnon;" it was greatly +admired, and is covered with laudatory inscriptions by Greek and Roman +visitors. One of the most interesting is placed beneath this picture, +recording the name of a _daduchus_, or torch-bearer in the Eleusinian +mysteries, who visited this tomb in the reign of Constantine. + + [Illustration: _No. 4. The Cat and the Geese._] + + [Illustration: _No. 5. The Fox turned Piper._] + +The practice having been once introduced of representing men under the +character of animals, was soon developed into other applications of the +same idea--such as that of figuring animals employed in the various +occupations of mankind, and that of reversing the position of man and +the inferior animals, and representing the latter as treating their +human tyrant in the same manner as they are usually treated by him. +The latter idea became a very favourite one at a later period, but +the other is met with not unfrequently among the works of art which +have been saved from the wrecks of antiquity. Among the treasures +of the British Museum, there is a long Egyptian picture on papyrus, +originally forming a roll, consisting of representations of this +description, from which I give three curious examples. The first (see +cut No. 4) represents a cat in charge of a drove of geese. It will be +observed that the cat holds in her hand the same sort of rod, with a +hook at the end, with which the monkeys are furnished in the preceding +picture. The second (No. 5) represents a fox carrying a basket by means +of a pole supported on his shoulder (a method of carrying burthens +frequently represented on the monuments of ancient art), and playing on +the well-known double flute, or pipe. The fox soon became a favourite +personage in this class of caricatures, and we know what a prominent +part he afterwards played in mediaeval satire. Perhaps, however, the +most popular of all animals in this class of drolleries was the monkey, +which appears natural enough when we consider its singular aptitude +to mimic the actions of man. The ancient naturalists tell us some +curious, though not very credible, stories of the manner in which this +characteristic of the monkey tribes was taken advantage of to entrap +them, and Pliny (Hist. Nat. lib. viii. c. 80) quotes an older writer, +who asserted that they had even been taught to play at draughts. Our +third subject from the Egyptian papyrus of the British Museum (No. 6) +represents a scene in which the game of draughts--or, more properly +speaking, the game which the Romans called the _ludus latrunculorum_, +and which is believed to have resembled our draughts--is played by two +animals well known to modern heraldry, the lion and the unicorn. The +lion has evidently gained the victory, and is fingering the money; and +his bold air of swaggering superiority, as well as the look of surprise +and disappointment of his vanquished opponent, are by no means ill +pictured. This series of caricatures, though Egyptian, belongs to the +Roman period. + + [Illustration: _No. 6. The Lion and the Unicorn._] + + [Illustration: _No. 7. Typhon._] + +The monstrous is closely allied to the grotesque, and both come within +the province of caricature, when we take this term in its widest +sense. The Greeks, especially, were partial to representations of +monsters, and monstrous forms are continually met with among their +ornaments and works of art. The type of the Egyptian monster is +represented in the accompanying cut (No. 7), taken from the work of +Sir Gardner Wilkinson before quoted, and is said to be the figure +of the god Typhon. It occurs frequently on Egyptian monuments, with +some variation in its forms, but always characterised by the broad, +coarse, and frightful face, and by the large tongue lolling out. It is +interesting to us, because it is the apparent origin of a long series +of faces, or masks, of this form and character, which are continually +recurring in the grotesque ornamentation, not only of the Greeks and +Romans, but of the middle ages. It appears to have been sometimes given +by the Romans to the representations of people whom they hated or +despised; and Pliny, in a curious passage of his "Natural History,"[1] +informs us that at one time, among the pictures exhibited in the Forum +at Rome, there was one in which a Gaul was represented, "thrusting +out his tongue in a very unbecoming manner." The Egyptian Typhons had +their exact representations in ancient Greece in a figure of frequent +occurrence, to which antiquaries have, I know not why, given the name +of Gorgon. The example in our cut No. 8, is a figure in terra-cotta, +now in the collection of the Royal Museum at Berlin.[2] + + [1] Plin. Hist. Nat., lib. xxxv. c. 8. + + [2] Panoska Terracotten des Museums Berlin, pl. lxi. p. 154. + + [Illustration: _No. 8. Gorgon._] + +In Greece, however, the spirit of caricature and burlesque +representation had assumed a more regular form than in other +countries, for it was inherent in the spirit of Grecian society. +Among the population of Greece, the worship of Dionysus, or Bacchus, +had taken deep root from a very early period--earlier than we can +trace back--and it formed the nucleus of the popular religion and +superstitions, the cradle of poetry and the drama. The most popular +celebrations of the people of Greece, were the Dionysiac festivals, +and the phallic rites and processions which accompanied them, in +which the chief actors assumed the disguise of satyrs and fawns, +covering themselves with goat-skins, and disfiguring their faces by +rubbing them over with the lees of wine. Thus, in the guise of noisy +bacchanals, they displayed an unrestrained licentiousness of gesture +and language, uttering indecent jests and abusive speeches, in which +they spared nobody. This portion of the ceremony was the especial +attribute of a part of the performers, who accompanied the procession +in waggons, and acted something like dramatic performances, in which +they uttered an abundance of loose extempore satire on those who +passed or who accompanied the procession, a little in the style of +the modern carnivals. It became thus the occasion for an unrestrained +publication of coarse pasquinades. In the time of Pisistratus, these +performances are assumed to have been reduced to a little more order by +an individual named Thespis, who is said to have invented masks as a +better disguise than dirty faces, and is looked upon as the father of +the Grecian drama. There can be no doubt, indeed, that the drama arose +out of these popular ceremonies, and it long bore the unmistakable +marks of its origin. Even the name of tragedy has nothing tragic in +its derivation, for it is formed from the Greek word _tragos_ +(+tragos+), a goat, in the skins of which animal the satyrs clothed +themselves, and hence the name was given also to those who personated +the satyrs in the processions. A _tragodus_ (+tragodos+) was the singer, +whose words accompanied the movements of a chorus of satyrs, and the +term _tragodia_ was applied to his performance. In the same manner, +a _comodus_ (+komodos+) was one who accompanied similarly, with chants +of an abusive or satirical character, a _comus_ (+komos+), or band of +revellers, in the more riotous and licentious portion of the +performances in the Bacchic festivals. The Greek drama always betrayed +its origin by the circumstance that the performances took place +annually, only at the yearly festivals in honour of Bacchus, of which +in fact they constituted a part. Moreover, as the Greek drama became +perfected, it still retained from its origin a triple division, into +tragedy, comedy, and the satiric drama; and, being still performed at +the Dionysiac festival in Athens, each dramatic author was expected to +produce what was called a _trilogy_, that is, a tragedy, a satirical +play, and a comedy. So completely was all this identified in the +popular mind with the worship of Bacchus, that, long afterwards, when +even a tragedy did not please the audience by its subject, the common +form of disapproval was, +ti tauta pros ton Dionyson+--"What has this +to do with Bacchus?" and, +ouden pros ton Dionyson+--"This has nothing +to do with Bacchus." + +We have no perfect remains of the Greek satiric drama, which was, +perhaps, of a temporary character, and less frequently preserved; but +the early Greek comedy is preserved in a certain number of the plays +of Aristophanes, in which we can contemplate it in all its freedom of +character. It represented the waggon-jesting, of the age of Thespis, in +its full development. In its form it was burlesque to a wanton degree +of extravagance, and its essence was personal vilification, as well as +general satire. Individuals were not only attacked by the application +to them of abusive epithets, but they were represented personally on +the stage as performing every kind of contemptible action, and as +suffering all sorts of ludicrous and disgraceful treatment. The drama +thus bore marks of its origin in its extraordinary licentiousness +of language and costume, and in the constant use of the mask. One +of its most favourite instruments of satire was parody, which was +employed unsparingly on everything which society in its solemn moments +respected--against everything that the satirist considered worthy of +being held up to public derision or scorn. Religion itself, philosophy, +social manners and institutions--even poetry--were all parodied in +their turn. The comedies of Aristophanes are full of parodies on the +poetry of the tragic and other writers of his age. He is especially +happy in parodying the poetry of the tragic dramatist Euripides. The +old comedy of Greece has thus been correctly described as the comedy of +caricature; and the spirit, and even the scenes, of this comedy, being +transferred to pictorial representations, became entirely identical +with that branch of art to which we give the name of caricature in +modern times. Under the cover of bacchanalian buffoonery, a serious +purpose, it is true, was aimed at; but the general satire was chiefly +implied in the violent personal attacks on individuals, and this became +so offensive that when such persons obtained greater power in Athens +than the populace the old comedy was abolished. + +Aristophanes was the greatest and most perfect poet of the Old Comedy, +and his remaining comedies are as strongly marked representations of +the hostility of political and social parties in his time, as the +caricatures of Gillray are of party in the reign of our George III., +and, we may add, even more minute. They range through the memorable +period of the Peloponnesian war, and the earlier ones give us the +regular annual series of these performances, as far as Aristophanes +contributed them, during several years. The first of them, "The +Acharnians," was performed at the Lenaean feast of Bacchus in the sixth +year of the Peloponnesian war, the year 425 B.C., when it gained the +first prize. It is a bold attack on the factious prolongation of the +war through the influence of the Athenian demagogues. The next, "The +Knights," brought out in B.C. 424, is a direct attack upon Cleon, the +chief of these demagogues, although he is not mentioned by name; and +it is recorded that, finding nobody who had courage enough to make a +mask representing Cleon, or to play the character, Aristophanes was +obliged to perform it himself, and that he smeared his face with lees +of wine, in order to represent the flushed and bloated countenance of +the great demagogue, thus returning to the original mode of acting +of the predecessors of Thespis. This, too, was the first of the +comedies of Aristophanes which he published in his own name. "The +Clouds," published in 423, is aimed at Socrates and the philosophers. +The fourth, "The Wasps," published in B.C. 422, presents a satire on +the litigious spirit of the Athenians. The fifth, entitled "Peace" +(+Eirene+), appeared in the year following, at the time of the peace of +Nicias, and is another satire on the bellicose spirit of the Athenian +democracy. The next in the list of extant plays comes after an interval +of several years, having been published in B.C. 414, the first year of +the Sicilian war, and relates to an irreligious movement in Athens, +which had caused a great sensation. Two Athenians are represented as +leaving Athens, in disgust at the vices and follies of their fellow +citizens, and seeking the kingdom of the birds, where they form a new +state, by which the communication between the mortals and the immortals +is cut off, and is only opened again by an arrangement between all +the parties. In the "Lysistrata," believed to have been brought out +in 411, when the war was still at its height, the women of Athens are +represented as engaging in a cunning and successful plot, by which +they gain possession of the government of the state, and compel their +husbands to make peace. "The Thesmophoriazusae," appears to have been +published in B.C. 410; it is a satire upon Euripides, whose writings +were remarkable for their bitter attacks on the character of the +female sex, who, in this comedy, conspire against him to secure his +punishment. The comedy of "The Frogs" was brought out in the year +405 B.C., and is a satire on the literature of the day; it +is aimed especially at Euripides, and was perhaps written soon after +his death, its real subject being the decline of the tragic drama, +which Euripides was accused of having promoted. It is perhaps the most +witty of the plays of Aristophanes which have been preserved. "The +Ecclesiazusae," published in 392, is a burlesque upon the theories of +republican government, which were then started among the philosophers, +some of which differed little from our modern communism. The ladies +again, by a clever conspiracy, gain the mastery in the estate, and they +decree a community of goods and women, with some laws very peculiar +to that state of things. The humour of the piece, which is extremely +broad, turns upon the disputes and embarrassments resulting from this +state of things. The last of his comedies extant, "Plutus," appears to +be a work of the concluding years of the active life of Aristophanes; +it is the least striking of them all, and is rather a moral than a +political satire. + +In a comedy brought out in 426, the year before "The Archarnians," +under the title of "The Babylonians," Aristophanes appears to have +given great offence to the democratic party, a circumstance to which +he alludes more than once in the former play. However, his talents and +popularity seem to have carried him over the danger, and certainly +nothing can have exceeded the bitterness of satire employed in his +subsequent comedies. Those who followed him were less fortunate. + +One of the latest writers of the Old Comedy was Anaximandrides, +who cast a reflection on the state of Athens in parodying a line of +Euripides. This poet had said,-- + + +he physis ebouleth' he nomon ouden melei+ + (Nature has commanded, which cares nothing for the laws); + +which Anaximandrides changed to-- + + +he polis ebouleth' he nomon ouden melei+ + (The state has commanded, which cares nothing for the laws). + +Nowhere is oppression exercised with greater harshness than under +democratic governments; and Anaximandrides was prosecuted for this +joke as a crime against the state, and condemned to death. As may be +supposed, liberty of speech ceased to exist in Athens. We are well +acquainted with the character of the Old Comedy, in its greatest +freedom, through the writings of Aristophanes. What was called the +Middle Comedy, in which political satire was prohibited, lasted from +this time until the age of Philip of Macedon, when the old liberty of +Greece was finally crushed. The last form of Greek comedy followed, +which is known as the New Comedy, and was represented by such names as +Epicharmus and Menander. In the New Comedy all caricature and parody, +and all personal allusions, were entirely proscribed; it was changed +entirely into a comedy of manners and domestic life, a picture of +contemporary society under conventional names and characters. From this +New Comedy was taken the Roman comedy, such as we now have it in the +plays of Plautus and Terence, who were professed imitators of Menander +and the other writers of the new comedy of the Greeks. + + [Illustration: _No. 9. A Greek Parody._] + +Pictorial caricature was, of course, rarely to be seen on the public +monuments of Greece or Rome, but must have been consigned to objects +of a more popular character and to articles of common use; and, +accordingly, modern antiquarian research has brought it to light +somewhat abundantly on the pottery of Greece and Etruria, and on the +wall-paintings of domestic buildings in Herculaneum and Pompeii. The +former contains comic scenes, especially parodies, which are evidently +transferred to them from the stage, and which preserve the marks and +other attributes--some of which I have necessarily omitted--proving the +model from which they were taken. The Greeks, as we know from many +sources, were extremely fond of parodies of every description, whether +literary or pictorial. The subject of our cut No. 9 is a good example +of the parodies found on the Greek pottery; it is taken from a fine +Etruscan vase,[3] and has been supposed to be a parody on the visit of +Jupiter to Alcmena. This appears rather doubtful, but there can be no +doubt that it is a burlesque representation of the visit of a lover +to the object of his aspirations. The lover, in the comic mask and +costume, mounts by a ladder to the window at which the lady presents +herself, who, it must be confessed, presents the appearance of giving +her admirer a very cold reception. He tries to conciliate her by a +present of what seem to be apples, instead of gold, but without much +effect. He is attended by his servant with a torch, to give him light +on the way, which shows that it is a night adventure. Both master and +servant have wreaths round their heads, and the latter carries a third +in his hand, which, with the contents of his basket, are also probably +intended as presents to the lady. + + [3] Given in Panofka, "Antiques du Cabinet Pourtales," pl. x. + +A more unmistakable burlesque on the visit of Jupiter to Alcmena is +published by Winckelmann from a vase, formerly in the library of the +Vatican, and now at St. Petersburg. The treatment of the subject is +not unlike the picture just described. Alcmena appears just in the +same posture at her chamber window, and Jupiter is carrying his ladder +to mount up to her, but has not yet placed it against the wall. His +companion is identified with Mercury by the well-known caduceus he +carries in his left hand, while with his right hand he holds a lamp +up to the window, in order to enable Jupiter to see the object of his +amour. + +It is astonishing with how much boldness the Greeks parodied and +ridiculed sacred subjects. The Christian father, Arnobius, in writing +against his heathen opponents, reproached them with this circumstance. +The laws, he says, were made to protect the characters of men from +slander and libel, but there was no such protection for the characters +of the gods, which were treated with the greatest disrespect.[4] This +was especially the case in their pictorial representations. + + [4] Arnobius (_contra Gentes_), lib. iv. p. 150. Carmen malum + conscribere, quo fama alterius coinquinatur et vita, decemviralibus + scitis evadere noluistis impune: ac ne vestras aures convitio + aliquis petulantiore pulsaret, de atrocibus formulas constituistis + injuriis. Soli dii sunt apud vos superi inhonorati, contemtibiles, + viles: in quos jus est vobis datum quae quisque voluerit dicere + turpitudinem, jacere quas libido confinxerit atque excogitaverit + formas. + +Pliny informs us that Ctesilochus, a pupil of the celebrated Apelles, +painted a burlesque picture of Jupiter giving birth to Bacchus, in +which the god was represented in a very ridiculous posture.[5] Ancient +writers intimate that similar examples were not uncommon, and mention +the names of several comic painters, whose works of this class were +in repute. Some of these were bitter personal caricatures, like a +celebrated work of a painter named Ctesicles, described also by Pliny. +It appears that Stratonice, the queen of Seleucus Nicator, had received +this painter ill when he visited her court, and in revenge he executed +a picture in which she was represented, according to a current scandal, +as engaged in an amour with a common fisherman, which he exhibited in +the harbour of Ephesus, and then made his escape on ship-board. Pliny +adds that the queen admired the beauty and accuracy of the painting +more than she felt the insult, and that she forbade the removal of the +picture.[6] + + [5] Pliny, Hist. Nat., lib. xxxv. c. 40. + + [6] Pliny, Hist. Nat., lib. xxxv. c. 40. + + [Illustration: _No. 10. Apollo at Delphi._] + +The subject of our second example of the Greek caricature is better +known. It is taken from an oxybaphon which was brought from the +Continent to England, where it passed into the collection of Mr. +William Hope.[7] The _oxybaphon_ (+oxybaphon+), or, as it was +called by the Romans, _acetabulum_, was a large vessel for holding +vinegar, which formed one of the important ornaments of the table, +and was therefore very susceptible of pictorial embellishment of +this description. It is one of the most remarkable Greek caricatures +of this kind yet known, and represents a parody on one of the most +interesting stories of the Grecian mythology, that of the arrival of +Apollo at Delphi. The artist, in his love of burlesque, has spared +none of the personages who belonged to the story. The Hyperborean +Apollo himself appears in the character of a quack doctor, on his +temporary stage, covered by a sort of roof, and approached by wooden +steps. On the stage lies Apollo's luggage, consisting of a bag, a +bow, and his Scythian cap. Chiron (+CHIRON+) is represented +as labouring under the effects of age and blindness, and supporting +himself by the aid of a crooked staff, as he repairs to the Delphian +quack-doctor for relief. The figure of the centaur is made to ascend +by the aid of a companion, both being furnished with the masks and +other attributes of the comic performers. Above are the mountains, and +on them the nymphs of Parnassus (+NYMPHAI+), who, like all the +other actors in the scene, are disguised with masks, and those of a +very grotesque character. On the right-hand side stands a figure which +is considered as representing the _epoptes_, the inspector or overseer +of the performance, who alone wears no mask. Even a pun is employed to +heighten the drollery of the scene, for instead of +PYTHIAS+, +the Pythian, placed over the head of the burlesque Apollo, it seems +evident that the artist had written +PEITHIAS+, the consoler, +in allusion, perhaps, to the consolation which the quack-doctor is +administering to his blind and aged visitor. + + [7] Engraved by Ch. Lenormant et J. de Witt, "Elite des Monuments + Ceramographiques," pl. xciv. + + [Illustration: _No. 11. The Flight of AEneas from Troy._] + +The Greek spirit of parody, applied even to the most sacred subjects, +however it may have declined in Greece, was revived at Rome, and we +find examples of it on the walls of Pompeii and Herculaneum. They +show the same readiness to turn into burlesque the most sacred and +popular legends of the Roman mythology. The example given (cut No. 11), +from one of the wall-paintings, is peculiarly interesting, both from +circumstances in the drawing itself, and because it is a parody on +one of the favourite national legends of the Roman people, who prided +themselves on their descent from AEneas. Virgil has told, with great +effect, the story of his hero's escape from the destruction of Troy--or +rather has put the story into his hero's mouth. When the devoted +city was already in flames, AEneas took his father, Anchises, on his +shoulder, and his boy, Iulus, or, as he was otherwise called, Ascanius, +by the hand, and thus fled from his home, followed by his wife-- + + _Ergo age, care pater, cervici imponere nostrae; + Ipse subibo humeris, nec me labor iste gravabit. + Quo res cumque cadent, unum et commune periclum, + Una salus ambobus erit. Mihi parvus Iulus + Sit comes, et longe servat vestigia conjux._ + --Virg. AEn., lib. ii. l. 707. + +Thus they hurried on, the child holding by his father's right hand, and +dragging after with "unequal steps,"-- + + _dextrae se parvus Iulus + Implicuit sequiturque patrem non passibus aequis._ + --Virg. AEn., lib. ii. 1. 723. + +And thus AEneas bore away both father and son, and the penates, or +household gods, of his family, which were to be transferred to another +country, and become the future guardians of Rome-- + + _Ascanium, Anchisemque patrem, Tencrosque penates._--Ib., 1. 747. + + [Illustration: _No. 12. The Flight of AEneas._] + +In this case we know that the design is intended to be a parody, or +burlesque, upon a picture which appears to have been celebrated at the +time, and of which at least two different copies are found upon ancient +intaglios. It is the only case I know in which both the original and +the parody have been preserved from this remote period, and this is so +curious a circumstance, that I give in the cut on the preceding page +a copy of one of the intaglios.[8] It represented literally Virgil's +account of the story, and the only difference between the design on the +intaglios and the one given in our first cut is, that in the latter +the personages are represented under the forms of monkeys. AEneas, +personified by the strong and vigorous animal, carrying the old monkey, +Anchises, on his left shoulder, hurries forward, and at the same time +looks back on the burning city. With his right hand he drags along +the boy Iulus, or Ascanius, who is evidently proceeding _non passibus +aequis_, and with difficulty keeps up with his father's pace. The boy +wears a Phrygian bonnet, and holds in his right hand the instrument +of play which we should now call a "bandy"--the pedun. Anchises has +charge of the box, which contains the sacred penates. It is a curious +circumstance that the monkeys in this picture are the same dog-headed +animals, or cynocephali, which are found on the Egyptian monuments. + + [8] These intaglios are engraved in the Museum Florentinum of Gorius, + vol. ii. pl. 30. On one of them the figures are reversed. + + * * * * * + + When this chapter was already given for press, I first became + acquainted with an interesting paper, by Panofka, on the "Parodieen + und Karikaturen auf Werken der Klassischen Kunst," in the + "Abhandlungen der Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin," for the + year 1854, and I can only now refer my readers to it. + + + + + CHAPTER II. + + ORIGIN OF THE STAGE IN ROME.--USES OF THE MASK AMONG THE + ROMANS.--SCENES FROM ROMAN COMEDY.--THE SANNIO AND MIMUS.--THE + ROMAN DRAMA.--THE ROMAN SATIRISTS.--CARICATURE.--ANIMALS + INTRODUCED IN THE CHARACTERS OF MEN.--THE PIGMIES, AND THEIR + INTRODUCTION INTO CARICATURE; THE FARM-YARD; THE PAINTER'S STUDIO; + THE PROCESSION.--POLITICAL CARICATURE IN POMPEII; THE GRAFFITI. + + +The Romans appear to have never had any real taste for the regular +drama, which they merely copied from the Greeks, and from the earliest +period of their history we find them borrowing all their arts of this +description from their neighbours. In Italy, as in Greece, the first +germs of comic literature may be traced in the religious festivals, +which presented a mixture of religious worship and riotous festivity, +where the feasters danced and sung, and, as they became excited with +wine and enthusiasm, indulged in mutual reproaches and abuse. The +oldest poetry of the Romans, which was composed in irregular measure, +was represented by the _versus saturnini_, said to have been so called +from their antiquity (for things of remote antiquity were believed to +belong to the age of Saturn). Naevius, one of the oldest of Latin poets, +is said to have written in this verse. Next in order of time came the +Fescennine verses, which appear to have been distinguished chiefly +by their license, and received their name because they were brought +from Fescennia, in Etruria, where they were employed originally in the +festivals of Ceres and Bacchus. In the year 391 of Rome, or 361 B.C., +the city was visited by a dreadful plague, and the citizens hit upon +what will appear to us the rather strange expedient of sending for +performers (_ludiones_) from Etruria, hoping, by employing them, to +appease the anger of the gods. Any performer of this kind appears to +have been so little known to the Romans before this, that there was +not even a name for him in the language, and they were obliged to adopt +the Tuscan word, and call him a _histrio_, because _hister_ in that +language meant a player or pantomimist. This word, we know, remained +in the Latin language. These first Etrurian performers appear indeed +to have been mere pantomimists, who accompanied the flute with all +sorts of mountebank tricks, gestures, dances, gesticulations, and the +like, mixed with satirical songs, and sometimes with the performance of +coarse farces. The Romans had also a class of performances rather more +dramatic in character, consisting of stories which were named _Fabulae +Atellanae_, because these performers were brought from Atella, a city of +the Osci. + +A considerable advance was made in dramatic Art in Rome about the +middle of the third century before Christ. It is ascribed to a freedman +named Livius Andronicus, a Greek by birth, who is said to have brought +out, in the year 240 B.C., the first regular comedy ever performed in +Rome. Thus we trace not only the Roman comedy, but the very rudiments +of dramatic art in Rome, either direct to the Greeks, or to the Grecian +colonies in Italy. With the Romans, as well as with the Greeks, the +theatre was a popular institution, open to the public, and the state +or a wealthy individual paid for the performance; and therefore the +building itself was necessarily of very great extent, and, in both +countries open to the sky, except that the Romans provided for throwing +an awning over it. As the Roman comedy was copied from the new comedy +of the Greeks, and therefore did not admit of the introduction of +caricature and burlesque on the stage, these were left especially to +the province of the pantomime and farce, which the Romans, as just +stated, had received from a still earlier period. + + [Illustration: _No. 13. A Scene from Terence._] + + [Illustration: _No. 14. Geta and Demea._] + +Whether the Romans borrowed the mask from the Greeks, or not, is +rather uncertain, but it was used as generally in the Roman theatres, +whether in comedy or tragedy, as among the Greeks. The Greek actors +performed upon stilts, in order to magnify their figures, as the area +of the theatre was very large and uncovered, and without this help +they were not so well seen at a distance; and one object of utility +aimed at by the mask is said to have been to make the head appear +proportionate in size to the artificial height of the body. It may +be remarked that the mask seems generally to have been made to cover +the whole head, representing the hair as well as the face, so that +the character of age or complexion might be given complete. Among the +Romans the stilts were certainly not in general use, but still the +mask, besides its comic or tragic character, is supposed to have served +useful purposes. The first improvement upon its original structure +is said to have been the making it of brass, or some other sonorous +metal, or at least lining the mouth with it, so as to reverberate, and +give force to the voice, and also to the mouth of the mask something +of the character of a speaking-trumpet.[9] All these accessories could +not fail to detract much from the effect of the acting, which must in +general have been very measured and formal, and have received most of +its importance from the excellence of the poetry, and the declamatory +talents of the actors. We have pictures in which scenes from the Roman +stage are accurately represented. Several rather early manuscripts of +Terence have been preserved, illustrated with drawings of the scenes +as represented on the stage, and these, though belonging to a period +long subsequent to the age in which the Roman stage existed in its +original character, are, no doubt, copied from drawings of an earlier +date. A German antiquary of the last century, Henry Berger, published +in a quarto volume a series of such illustrations from a manuscript of +Terence in the library of the Vatican at Rome, from which two examples +are selected, as showing the usual style of Roman comic acting, and +the use of the mask. The first (No. 13) is the opening scene in the +_Andria_. On the right, two servants have brought provisions, and on +the left appear Simo, the master of the household, and his freedman, +Sosia, who seems to be entrusted with the charge of his domestic +affairs. Simo tells his servants to go away with the provisions, while +he beckons Sosia to confer with him in private:-- + + Si. _Vos istaec intro auferte; abite. Sosia, + Adesdum; paucis te volo._ So. _Dictum puta + Nempe ut curentur recte haec._ Si. _Imo aliud_. + Terent. Andr., Actus i., Scena 1. + +When we compare these words with the picture, we cannot but feel +that in the latter there is an unnecessary degree of energy put into +the _pose_ of the figures; which is perhaps less the case in the +other (No. 14), an illustration of the sixth scene of the fifth act +of the _Adelphi_ of Terence. It represents the meeting of Geta, a +rather talkative and conceited servant, and Demea, a countryfied and +churlish old man, his acquaintance, and of course superior. To Geta's +salutation, Demea asks churlishly, as not at first knowing him, "Who +are you?" but when he finds that it is Geta, he changes suddenly to an +almost fawning tone:-- + + G. ... _Sed eccum Demeam. Salvus fies._ + D. _Oh, qui vocare?_ G. _Geta._ D. _Geta, hominem maximi + Pretii esse te hodie judicavi animo mei._ + + [9] It is said to have received its Latin name from this circumstance, + _persona, a personando_. See Aulus Gellius, Noct. Att., lib. v. + c. 7. + + [Illustration: _No. 15. Comic Scene from Pompeii._] + +That these representations are truthful, the scenes in the +wall-paintings of Pompeii leave us no room to doubt. One of these is +produced in our cut No. 15, which is no doubt taken from a comedy +now lost, and we are ignorant whom the characters are intended to +represent. The _pose_ given to the two comic figures, compared with +the example given from Berger, would lead us to suppose that this +over-energetic action was considered as part of the character of comic +acting. + + [Illustration: _No. 16. Cupids at Play._] + +The subject of the Roman masks is the more interesting, because they +were probably the origin of many of the grotesque faces so often met +with in mediaeval sculpture. The comic mask was, indeed, a very popular +object among the Romans, and appears to have been taken as symbolical +of everything that was droll and burlesque. From the comic scenes of +the theatre, to which it was first appropriated, it passed to the +popular festivals of a public character, such as the Lupercalia, with +which, no doubt, it was carried into the carnival of the middle ages, +and to our masquerades. Among the Romans, also, the use of the mask +soon passed from the public festivals to private supper parties. Its +use was so common that it became a plaything among children, and was +sometimes used as a bugbear to frighten them. Our cut No. 16, taken +from a painting at Resina, represents two cupids playing with a mask, +and using it for this latter purpose, that is, to frighten one another; +and it is curious that the mediaeval gloss of Ugutio explains _larva_, +a mask, as being an image, "which was put over the face to frighten +children."[10] The mask thus became a favourite ornament, especially on +lamps, and on the antefixa and gargoyls of Roman buildings, to which +were often given the form of grotesque masks, monstrous faces, with +great mouths wide open, and other figures, like those of the gargoyls +of the mediaeval architects. + + [10] "Simulacrum ... quod opponitur faciei ad terrendos parvos." + (Ugutio, ap. Ducange, v. _Masca_.) + + [Illustration: _No. 17. The Roman Sannio, or Buffoon._] + +While the comic mask was used generally in the burlesque +entertainments, it also became distinctive of particular characters. +One of these was the _sannio_, or buffoon, whose name was derived from +the Greek word +sannos+, "a fool," and who was employed in performing +burlesque dances, making grimaces, and in other acts calculated to +excite the mirth of the spectator. A representation of the _sannio_ +is given in our cut No. 17, copied from one of the engravings in the +"Dissertatio de Larvis Scenicis," by the Italian antiquary Ficoroni, +who took it from an engraved gem. The sannio holds in his hand what is +supposed to be a brass rod, and he has probably another in the other +hand, so that he could strike them together. He wears the _soccus_, or +low shoe peculiar to the comic actors. This buffoon was a favourite +character among the Romans, who introduced him constantly into their +feasts and supper parties. The _manducus_ was another character of this +description, represented with a grotesque mask, presenting a wide mouth +and tongue lolling out, and said to have been peculiar to the Atellane +plays. A character in Plautus (Rud., ii. 6, 51) talks of hiring himself +as a _manducus_ in the plays. + + "_Quid si aliquo ad ludos me pro manduco locem?_" + +The mediaeval glosses interpret _manducus_ by _joculator_, "a jogelor," +and add that the characteristic from which he took his name was the +practice of making grimaces like a man gobbling up his food in a vulgar +and gluttonous manner. + + [Illustration: _No. 18. Roman Tom Fool._] + +Ficoroni gives, from an engraved onyx, a figure of another burlesque +performer, copied in our cut No. 18, and which he compares to the +Catanian dancer of his time (his book was published in 1754), who was +called a _giangurgolo_. This is considered to represent the Roman +_mimus_, a class of performers who told with mimicry and action scenes +taken from common life, and more especially scandalous and indecent +anecdotes, like the jogelors and performers of farces in the middle +ages. The Romans were very much attached to these performances, so much +so, that they even had them at their funeral processions and at their +funeral feasts. In our figure, the _mimus_ is represented naked, masked +(with an exaggerated nose), and wearing what is perhaps intended as a +caricature of the Phrygian bonnet. In his right hand he holds a bag, +or purse, full of objects which rattle and make a noise when shaken, +while the other holds the _crotalum_, or castanets, an instrument in +common use among the ancients. One of the statues in the Barberini +Palace represents a youth in a Phrygian cap playing on the _crotalum_. +We learn, from an early authority, that it was an instrument especially +used in the satirical and burlesque dances which were so popular among +the Romans. + +As I have remarked before, the Romans had no taste for the regular +drama, but they retained to the last their love for the performances +of the popular _mimi_, or _comaedi_ (as they were often called), the +players of farces, and the dancers. These performed on the stage, in +the public festivals, in the streets, and were usually introduced at +private parties.[11] Suetonius tells us that on one occasion, the +emperor Caligula ordered a poet who composed the Atellanes (_Attellanae +poetam_) to be burnt in the middle of the amphitheatre, for a pun. A +more regular comedy, however, did flourish, to a certain degree, at +the same time with these more popular compositions. Of the works of +the earliest of the Roman comic writers, Livius Andronicus and Naevius, +we know only one or two titles, and a few fragments quoted in the +works of the later Roman writers. They were followed by Plautus, who +died B.C. 184, and nineteen of whose comedies are preserved and well +known; by several other writers, whose names are almost forgotten, and +whose comedies are all lost; and by Terence, six of whose comedies are +preserved. Terence died about the year 159 B.C. About the same time +with Terence lived Lucius Afranius and Quinctius Atta, who appear to +close the list of the Roman writers of comedy. + + [11] See, for allusions to the private employment of these + performances, Pliny, Epist. i. 15, and ix. 36. + +But another branch of comic literature had sprung out of the satire of +the religious festivities. A year after Livius Andronicus produced the +first drama at Rome, in the year 239 B.C., the poet Ennius was born +at Rudiae, in Magna Graecia. The satirical verse, whether Saturnine or +Fescennine, had been gradually improving in its form, although still +very rude, but Ennius is said to have given at least a new polish, and +perhaps a new metrical shape, to it. The verse was still irregular, but +it appears to have been no longer intended for recitation, accompanied +by the flute. The Romans looked upon Ennius not only as their earliest +epic poet, but as the father of satire, a class of literary composition +which appears to have originated with them, and which they claimed +as their own.[12] Ennius had an imitator in M. Terentius Varro. The +satires of these first writers are said to have been very irregular +compositions, mixing prose with verse, and sometimes even Greek with +Latin; and to have been rather general in their aim than personal. But +soon after this period, and rather more than a century before Christ, +came Caius Lucilius, who raised Roman satirical literature to its +perfection. Lucilius, we are told, was the first who wrote satires in +heroic verse, or hexameters, mixing with them now and then, though +rarely, an iambic or trochaic line. He was more refined, more pointed, +and more personal, than his predecessors, and he had rescued satire +from the street performer to make it a class of literature which was +to be read by the educated, and not merely listened to by the vulgar. +Lucilius is said to have written thirty books of satires, of which, +unfortunately, only some scattered lines remain. + + [12] Quintilian says, "_Satira quidem tota nostra est_." De Instit. + Orator., lib. x. c. 1. + +Lucilius had imitators, the very names of most of whom are now +forgotten, but about forty years after his death, and sixty-five +years before the birth of Christ, was born Quintus Horatius Flaccus, +the oldest of the satirists whose works we now possess, and the most +polished of Roman poets. In the time of Horace, the satire of the +Romans had reached its highest degree of perfection. Of the two other +great satirists whose works are preserved, Juvenal was born about the +year 40 of the Christian era, and Persius in 43. During the period +through which these writers flourished, Rome saw a considerable number +of other satirists of the same class, whose works have perished. + +In the time of Juvenal another variety of the same class of literature +had already sprung up, more artificial and somewhat more indirect +than the other, the prose satiric romance. Three celebrated writers +represent this school. Petronius, who, born about the commencement +of our era, died in A.D. 65, is the earliest and most remarkable of +them. He compiled a romance, designed as a satire on the vices of the +age of Nero, in which real persons are supposed to be aimed at under +fictitious names, and which rivals in license, at least, anything +that could have been uttered in the Atellanes or other farces of the +_mimi_. Lucian, of Samosata, who died an old man in the year 200, and +who, though he wrote in Greek, may be considered as belonging to the +Roman school, composed several satires of this kind, in one of the +most remarkable of which, entitled "Lucius, or the Ass," the author +describes himself as changed by sorcery into the form of that animal, +under which he passes through a number of adventures which illustrate +the vices and weaknesses of contemporary society. Apuleius, who was +considerably the junior of Lucian, made this novel the groundwork of +his "Golden Ass," a much larger and more elaborate work, written in +Latin. This work of Apuleius was very popular through subsequent ages. + + [Illustration: _No. 19. The Farm-yard in Burlesque._] + + [Illustration: _No. 20. An Asilla-Bearer._] + +Let us return to Roman caricature, one form of which seems to have +been especially a favourite among the people. It is difficult to +imagine how the story of the pigmies and of their wars with the cranes +originated, but it is certainly of great antiquity, as it is spoken +of in Homer, and it was a very popular legend among the Romans, who +eagerly sought and purchased dwarfs to make domestic pets of them. The +pigmies and cranes occur frequently among the pictorial ornamentations +of the houses of Pompeii and Herculaneum; and the painters of Pompeii +not only represented them in their proper character, but they made use +of them for the purpose of caricaturing the various occupations of +life--domestic and social scenes, grave conferences, and many other +subjects, and even personal character. In this class of caricatures +they gave to the pigmies, or dwarfs, very large heads, and very small +legs and arms. I need hardly remark that this is a class of caricature +which is very common in modern times. Our first group of these pigmy +caricatures (No. 19) is taken from a painting on the walls of the +Temple of Venus, at Pompeii, and represents the interior of a farm-yard +in burlesque. The structure in the background is perhaps intended for a +hayrick. In front of it, one of the farm servants is attending on the +poultry. The more important-looking personage with the pastoral staff +is possibly the overseer of the farm, who is visiting the labourers, +and this probably is the cause why their movements have assumed so much +activity. The labourer on the right is using the _asilla_, a wooden +yoke or pole, which was carried over the shoulder, with the _corbis_, +or basket, suspended at each end. This was a common method of carrying, +and is not unfrequently represented on Roman works of art. Several +examples might be quoted from the antiquities of Pompeii. Our cut No. +20, from a gem in the Florentine Museum, and illustrating another class +of caricature, that of introducing animals performing the actions and +duties of men, represents a grasshopper carrying the _asilla_ and the +_corbes_. + + [Illustration: _No. 21. A Painter's Studio._] + +A private house in Pompeii furnished another example of this style +of caricature, which is given in our cut No. 21. It represents the +interior of a painter's studio, and is extremely curious on account +of the numerous details of his method of operation with which it +furnishes us. The painter, who is, like most of the figures in these +pigmy caricatures, very scantily clothed, is occupied with the portrait +of another, who, by the rather exaggerated fulness of the gathering +of his toga, is evidently intended for a dashing and fashionable +patrician, though he is seated as bare-legged and bare-breeched as the +artist himself. Both are distinguished by a large allowance of nose. +The easel here employed resembles greatly the same article now in use, +and might belong to the studio of a modern painter. Before it is a +small table, probably formed of a slab of stone, which serves for a +palette, on which the painter spreads and mixes his colours. To the +right a servant, who fills the office of colour-grinder, is seated by +the side of a vessel placed over hot coals, and appears to be preparing +colours, mixed, according to the directions given in old writers, +with punic wax and oil. In the background is seated a student, whose +attention is taken from his drawing by what is going on at the other +side of the room, where two small personages are entering, who look as +if they were amateurs, and who appear to be talking about the portrait. +Behind them stands a bird, and when the painting was first uncovered +there were two. Mazois, who made the drawing from which our cut is +taken, before the original had perished--for it was found in a state +of decay--imagined that the birds typified some well-known singers or +musicians, but they are, perhaps, merely intended for cranes, birds so +generally associated with the pigmies. + + [Illustration: _No. 22. Part of a Triumphal Procession._] + +According to an ancient writer, combats of pigmies were favourite +representations on the walls of taverns and shops;[13] and, curiously +enough, the walls of a shop in Pompeii have furnished the picture +represented in our cut No. 22, which has evidently been intended for +a caricature, probably a parody. All the pigmies in this picture +are crowned with laurel, as though the painter intended to turn to +ridicule some over-pompous triumph, or some public, perhaps religious, +ceremony. The two figures to the left, who are clothed in yellow +and green garments, appear to be disputing the possession of a bowl +containing a liquid. One of these, like the two figures on the right, +has a hoop thrown over his shoulder. The first of the latter personages +wears a violet dress, and holds in his right hand a rod, and in his +left a statuette, apparently of a deity, but its attributes are not +distinguishable. The last figure to the right has a robe, or mantle, of +two colours, red and green, and holds in his hand a branch of a lily, +or some similar plant; the rest of the picture is lost. Behind the +other figure stands a fifth, who appears younger and more refined in +character than the others, and seems to be ordering or directing them. +His dress is red. + + [13] +epi ton kapelion+. Problem. Aristotelic. Sec. x. 7. + +We can have no doubt that political and personal caricature flourished +among the Romans, as we have some examples of it on their works of art, +chiefly on engraved stones, though these are mostly of a character +we could not here conveniently introduce; but the same rich mine of +Roman art and antiquities, Pompeii, has furnished us with one sample +of what may be properly considered as a political caricature. In the +year 59 of the Christian era, at a gladiatorial exhibition in the +amphitheatre of Pompeii, where the people of Nuceria were present, +the latter expressed themselves in such scornful terms towards the +Pompeians, as led to a violent quarrel, which was followed by a pitched +battle between the inhabitants of the two towns, and the Nucerians, +being defeated, carried their complaints before the reigning emperor, +Nero, who gave judgment in their favour, and condemned the people of +Pompeii to suspension from all theatrical amusements for ten years. +The feelings of the Pompeians on this occasion are displayed in the +rude drawing represented in our cut No. 23, which is scratched on the +plaster of the external wall of a house in the street to which the +Italian antiquarians have given the name of the street of Mercury. A +figure, completely armed, his head covered with what might be taken +for a mediaeval helmet, is descending what appear to be intended for +the steps of the amphitheatre. He carries in his hand a palm-branch, +the emblem of victory. Another palm-branch stands erect by his side, +and underneath is the inscription, in rather rustic Latin, "CAMPANI +VICTORIA VNA CVM NVCERINIS PERISTIS"--"O Campanians, you perished in +the victory together with the Nucerians." The other side of the picture +is more rudely and hastily drawn. It has been supposed to represent +one of the victors dragging a prisoner, with his arms bound, up a +ladder to a stage or platform, on which he was perhaps to be exhibited +to the jeers of the populace. Four years after this event, Pompeii +was greatly damaged by an earthquake, and sixteen years later came +the eruption of Vesuvius, which buried the town, and left it in the +condition in which it is now found. + + [Illustration: _No. 23. A Popular Caricature._] + + [Illustration: _No. 24. Early Caricature upon a Christian._] + +This curious caricature belongs to a class of monuments to which +archaeologists have given technically the Italian name of _graffiti_, +scratches or scrawls, of which a great number, consisting chiefly of +writing, have been found on the walls of Pompeii. They also occur +among the remains on other Roman sites, and one found in Rome itself +is especially interesting. During the alterations and extensions which +were made from time to time in the palace of the Caesars, it had been +found necessary to build across a narrow street which intersected the +Palatine, and, in order to give support to the structure above, a +portion of the street was walled off, and remained thus hermetically +sealed until about the year 1857, when some excavations on the spot +brought it to view. The walls of the street were found to be covered +with these _graffiti_, among which one attracted especial attention, +and, having been carefully removed, is now preserved in the museum +of the Collegio Romano. It is a caricature upon a Christian named +Alexamenos, by some pagan who despised Christianity. The Saviour is +represented under the form of a man with the head of an ass, extended +upon a cross, the Christian, Alexamenos, standing on one side in the +attitude of worship of that period. Underneath we read the inscription, ++ALEXAMENOS+ CEBETE (for +sebetai+), "Alexamenos worships God." This +curious figure, which may be placed among the most interesting as well +as early evidences of the truth of Gospel history, is copied in our cut +No. 24. It was drawn when the prevailing religion at Rome was still +pagan, and a Christian was an object of contempt. + + + + + CHAPTER III. + + THE PERIOD OF TRANSITION FROM ANTIQUITY TO THE MIDDLE AGES.--THE + ROMAN MIMI CONTINUED TO EXIST.--THE TEUTONIC AFTER-DINNER + ENTERTAINMENTS.--CLERICAL SATIRES; ARCHBISHOP HERIGER AND THE + DREAMER; THE SUPPER OF THE SAINTS.--TRANSITION FROM ANCIENT + TO MEDIAEVAL ART.--TASTE FOR MONSTROUS ANIMALS, DRAGONS, ETC.; + CHURCH OF SAN FEDELE, AT COMO.--SPIRIT OF CARICATURE AND LOVE + OF GROTESQUE AMONG THE ANGLO-SAXONS.--GROTESQUE FIGURES OF + DEMONS.--NATURAL TENDENCY OF THE EARLY MEDIAEVAL ARTISTS TO DRAW IN + CARICATURE.--EXAMPLES FROM EARLY MANUSCRIPTS AND SCULPTURES. + + +The transition from antiquity to what we usually understand by the name +of the middle ages was long and slow; it was a period during which much +of the texture of the old society was destroyed, while at the same +time a new life was gradually given to that which remained. We know +very little of the comic literature of this period of transition; its +literary remains consist chiefly of a mass of heavy theology and of +lives of saints. The stage in its perfectly dramatic form--theatre and +amphitheatre--had disappeared. The pure drama, indeed, appears never +to have had great vitality among the Romans, whose tastes lay far more +among the vulgar performances of the mimics and jesters, and among +the savage scenes of the amphitheatre. While probably the performance +of comedies, such as those of Plautus and Terence, soon went out of +fashion, and tragedies, like those of Seneca, were only written as +literary compositions, imitations of the similar works which formed +so remarkable a feature in the literature of Greece, the Romans of +all ranks loved to witness the loose attitudes of their _mimi_, or +listen to their equally loose songs and stories. The theatre and the +amphitheatre were state institutions, kept up at the national expense, +and, as just stated, they perished with the overthrow of the western +empire; and the sanguinary performances of the amphitheatre, if the +amphitheatre itself continued to be used (which was perhaps the case +in some parts of western Europe), and they gave place to the more +harmless exhibitions of dancing bears and other tamed animals,[14] for +deliberate cruelty was not a characteristic of the Teutonic race. But +the mimi, the performers who sung songs and told stories, accompanied +with dancing and music, survived the fall of the empire, and continued +to be as popular as ever. St. Augustine, in the fourth century, calls +these things _nefaria_, detestable things, and says that they were +performed at night.[15] We trace in the capitularies the continuous +existence of these performances during the ages which followed the +empire, and, as in the time of St. Augustine, they still formed the +amusement of nocturnal assemblies. The capitulary of Childebert +proscribes those who passed their nights with drunkenness, jesting, +and songs.[16] The council of Narbonne, in the year 589, forbade +people to spend their nights "with dancings and filthy songs."[17] The +council of Mayence, in 813, calls these songs "filthy and licentious" +(_turpia atque luxuriosa_); and that of Paris speaks of them as +"obscene and filthy" (_obscaena et turpia_); while in another they are +called "frivolous and diabolic." From the bitterness with which the +ecclesiastical ordinances are expressed, it is probable that these +performances continued to preserve much of their old paganism; yet it +is curious that they are spoken of in these capitularies and acts of +the councils as being still practised in the religious festivals, and +even in the churches, so tenaciously did the old sentiments of the +race keep their possession of the minds of the populace, long after +they had embraced Christianity. These "songs," as they are called, +continued also to consist not only of general, but of personal satire, +and contained scandalous stories of persons living, and well known to +those who heard them. A capitulary of the Frankish king Childeric III., +published in the year 744, is directed against those who compose and +sing songs in defamation of others (_in blasphemiam alterius_, to use +the rather energetic language of the original); and it is evident that +this offence was a very common one, for it is not unfrequently repeated +in later records of this character in the same words or in words to the +same purpose. Thus one result of the overthrow of the Roman empire was +to leave comic literature almost in the same condition in which it was +found by Thespis in Greece and by Livius Andronicus in Rome. There was +nothing in it which would be contrary to the feelings of the new races +who had now planted themselves in the Roman provinces. + + [14] On this subject, see my "History of Domestic Manners and + Sentiments," p. 65. The dancing bear appears to have been a + favourite performer among the Germans at a very early period. + + [15] Per totam noctem cantabantur hic nefaria et a cantatoribus + saltabatur. Augustini Serm. 311, part v. + + [16] Noctes pervigiles cum ebrietate, scurrilitate, vel canticis. See + the Capitulary in Labbei Concil., vol. v. + + [17] Ut populi.....saltationibus et turpibus invigilant canticis. + +The Teutonic and Scandinavian nations had no doubt their popular +festivals, in which mirth and frolic bore sway, though we know little +about them; but there were circumstances in their domestic manners +which implied a necessity for amusement. After the comparatively early +meal, the hall of the primitive Teuton was the scene--especially in the +darker months of winter--of long sittings over the festive board, in +which there was much drinking and much talking, and, as we all know, +such talking could not preserve long a very serious tone. From Bede's +account of the poet Caedmon, we learn that it was the practice of the +Anglo-Saxons in the seventh century, at their entertainments, for all +those present to sing in their turns, each accompanying himself with a +musical instrument. From the sequel of the story we are led to suppose +that these songs were extemporary effusions, probably mythic legends, +stories of personal adventure, praise of themselves, or vituperation +of their enemies. In the chieftain's household there appears to have +been usually some individual who acted the part of the satirist, or, as +we should perhaps now say, the comedian. Hunferth appears as holding +some such position in Beowulf; in the later romances, Sir Kay held a +similar position at the court of king Arthur. At a still later period, +the place of these heroes was occupied by the court fool. The Roman +_mimus_ must have been a welcome addition to the entertainments of the +Teutonic hall, and there is every reason to think that he was cordially +received. The performances of the hall were soon delegated from the +guests to such hired actors, and we have representations of them in +the illuminations of Anglo-Saxon manuscripts.[18] Among the earliest +amusements of the Anglo-Saxon table were riddles, which in every form +present some of the features of the comic, and are capable of being +made the source of much laughter. The saintly Aldhelm condescended to +write such riddles in Latin verse, which were, of course, intended for +the tables of the clergy. In primitive society, verse was the ordinary +form of conveying ideas. A large portion of the celebrated collection +of Anglo-Saxon poetry known as the "Exeter Book," consists of riddles, +and this taste for riddles has continued to exist down to our own +times. But other forms of entertainment, if they did not already +exist, were soon introduced. In a curious Latin poem, older than the +twelfth century, of which fragments only are preserved, and have been +published under the title of "Ruodlieb," and which appears to have +been a translation of a much earlier German romance, we have a curious +description of the post-prandial entertainments after the dinner of a +great Teutonic chieftain, or king. In the first place there was a grand +distribution of rich presents, and then were shown strange animals, and +among the rest tame bears. These bears stood upon their hind legs, and +performed some of the offices of a man; and when the minstrels (_mimi_) +came in, and played upon their musical instruments, these animals +danced to the music, and performed all sorts of strange tricks. + + _Et pariles ursi.... + Qui vas tollebant, ut homo, bipedesque gerebant. + Mimi quando fides digitis tangunt modulantes, + Illi saltabant, neumas pedibus variabant. + Interdum saliunt, seseque super jaciebant. + Alterutrum dorso se portabant residendo, + Amplexando se, luctando deficiunt se._ + +Then followed dancing-girls, and exhibitions of other kinds.[19] + + [18] The reader is referred, for further information on this subject, + to my "History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments," pp. 33-39. + + [19] This curious Latin poem was printed by Grimm and Schmeller, in + their Lateinische Gedichte des x. und xi. Jh., p. 129. + +Although these performances were proscribed by the ecclesiastical laws, +they were not discountenanced by the ecclesiastics themselves, who, on +the contrary, indulged as much in after-dinner amusements as anybody. +The laws against the profane songs are often directed especially at +the clergy; and it is evident that among the Anglo-Saxons, as well as +on the Continent, not only the priests and monks, but the nuns also, +in their love of such amusements, far transgressed the bounds of +decency.[22] These entertainments were the cradle of comic literature, +but, as this literature in the early ages of its history was rarely +committed to writing, it has almost entirely perished. But, at the +tables of the ecclesiastics, these stories were sometimes told in +Latin verse, and as Latin was not so easily carried in the memory as +the vernacular tongue, in this language they were sometimes committed +to writing, and thus a few examples of early comic literature have +fortunately been preserved. These consist chiefly of popular stories, +which were among the favourite amusements of mediaeval society--stories +many of which are derived from the earliest period of the history of +our race, and are still cherished among our peasantry. Such are the +stories of the Child of Snow, and of the Mendacious Hunter, preserved +in a manuscript of the eleventh century.[21] The first of these was +a very popular story in the middle ages. According to this early +version, a merchant of Constance, in Switzerland, was detained abroad +for several years, during which time his wife made other acquaintance, +and bore a child. On his return, she excused her fault by telling him +that on a cold wintry day she had swallowed snow, by which she had +conceived; and, in revenge, the husband carried away the child, and +sold it into slavery, and returning, told its mother, that the infant +which had originated in snow, had melted away under a hotter sun. Some +of these stories originated in the different collections of fables, +which were part of the favourite literature of the later Roman period. +Another is rather a ridiculous story of an ass belonging to two sisters +in a nunnery, which was devoured by a wolf.[20] curious how soon the +mediaeval clergy began to imitate their pagan predecessors in parodying +religious subjects and forms, of which we have one or two very curious +examples. Visits to purgatory, hell, and paradise, in body or spirit, +were greatly in fashion during the earlier part of the middle ages, +and afforded extremely good material for satire. In a metrical Latin +story, preserved in a manuscript of the eleventh century, we are +told how a "prophet," or visionary, went to Heriger, archbishop of +Mayence from 912 to 926, and told him that he had been carried in a +vision to the regions below, and described them as a place surrounded +by thick woods. It was the Teutonic notion of hell, and indeed of +all settlements of peoples; and Heriger replied with a sneer that he +would send his herdsmen there with his lean swine to fatten them. Each +"mark," or land of a family or clan, in the early Teutonic settlements, +was surrounded by woodland, which was common to all members of the clan +for fattening their swine and hunting. The false dreamer added, that he +was afterwards carried to heaven, where he saw Christ sitting at the +table and eating. John the Baptist was butler, and served excellent +wine round to the saints, who were the Lord's guests. St. Peter was +the chief cook. After some remarks on the appointments to these two +offices, archbishop Heriger asked the informant how he was received in +the heavenly hall, where he sat, and what he eat. He replied that he +sat in a corner, and stole from the cooks a piece of liver, which he +eat, and then departed. Instead of rewarding him for his information, +Heriger took him on his own confession for the theft, and ordered him +to be bound to a stake and flogged, which, for the offence, was rather +a light punishment. + + [20] On the character of the nuns among the Anglo-Saxons, and indeed of + the inmates of the monastic houses generally, I would refer my + readers to the excellent and interesting volume by Mr. John + Thrupp, "The Anglo-Saxon Home: a History of the Domestic + Institutions and Customs of England from the fifth to the eleventh + century." London, 1862. + + [21] These will be found in M. Edelestand du Meril's Poesies Populaires + Latines anterieures au douzieme siecle, pp. 275, 276. + + [22] This, and the metrical story next referred to, were printed in + the "Altdeutsche Blaetter," edited by Moriz Haupt and Heinrich + Hoffmann, vol. i. pp. 390, 392, to whom I communicated them from + a manuscript in the University Library at Cambridge. + + _Heriger illum + jussit ad palum + loris ligari, + scopisque cedi, + sermone duro + hunc arguendo._ + +These lines will serve as a specimen of the popular Latin verse in +which these monkish after-dinner stories were written; but the most +remarkable of these early parodies on religious subjects, is one which +may be described as the supper of the saints; its title is simply +_Coena_. It is falsely ascribed to St. Cyprian, who lived in the +third century; but it is as old as the tenth century, as a copy was +printed by professor Endlicher from a manuscript of that period at +Vienna. It was so popular, that it is found and known to have existed +in different forms in verse and in prose. It is a sort of drollery, +founded upon the wedding feast at which the Saviour changed water into +wine, though that miracle is not at all introduced into it. It was a +great king of the East, named Zoel, who held his nuptial feast at Cana +of Galilee. The personages invited are all scriptural, beginning with +Adam. Before the feast, they wash in the river Jordan, and the number +of the guests was so great, that seats could not be provided for them, +and they took their places as they could. Adam took the first place, +and seated himself in the middle of the assembly, and next to him Eve +sat upon leaves (_super folia_),--fig-leaves, we may suppose. Cain sat +on a plough, Abel on a milk-pail, Noah on an ark, Japhet on tiles, +Abraham on a tree, Isaac on an altar, Lot near the door, and so with +a long list of others. Two were obliged to stand--Paul, who bore it +patiently, and Esau, who grumbled--while Job lamented bitterly because +he was obliged to sit on a dunghill. Moses, and others, who came late, +were obliged to find seats out of doors. When the king saw that all +his guests had arrived, he took them into his wardrobe, and there, in +the spirit of mediaeval generosity, distributed to them dresses, which +had all some burlesque allusion to their particular characters. Before +they were allowed to sit down to the feast, they were obliged to go +through other ceremonies, which, as well as the eating, are described +in the same style of caricature. The wines, of which there was great +variety, were served to the guests with the same allusions to their +individual characters; but some of them complained that they were badly +mixed, although Jonah was the butler. In the same manner are described +the proceedings which followed the dinner, the washing of hands, and +the dessert, to the latter of which Adam contributed apples, Samson +honey; while David played on the harp and Mary on the tabor; Judith led +the round dance; Jubal played on the psalter; Asael sung songs, and +Herodias acted the part of the dancing-girl:-- + + _Tunc Adam poma ministrat, Samson favi dulcia. + David cytharum percussit, et Maria tympana. + Judith choreas ducebat, et Jubal psalteria. + Asael metra canebat, saltabat Herodias._ + +Mambres entertained the company with his magical performances; and +the other incidents of a mediaeval festival followed, throughout which +the same tone of burlesque is continued; and so the story continues, +to the end.[23] We shall find these incipient forms of mediaeval comic +literature largely developed as we go on. + + [23] The text of this singular composition, with a full account of the + various forms in which it was published, will be found in M. du + Meril's "Poesies Populaires Latines anterieures au douzieme + siecle," p. 193. + + [Illustration: _No. 25. Saturn Devouring his Child._] + +The period between antiquity and the middle ages was one of such great +and general destruction, that the gulf between ancient and mediaeval art +seems to us greater and more abrupt than it really was. The want of +monuments, no doubt, prevents our seeing the gradual change of one into +the other, but nevertheless enough of facts remain to convince us that +it was not a sudden change. It is now indeed generally understood that +the knowledge and practice of the arts and manufactures of the Romans +were handed onward from master to pupil after the empire had fallen; +and this took place especially in the towns, so that the workmanship +which had been declining in character during the later periods of the +empire, only continued in the course of degradation afterwards. Thus, +in the first Christian edifices, the builders who were employed, or at +least many of them, must have been pagans, and they would follow their +old models of ornamentation, introducing the same grotesque figures, +the same masks and monstrous faces, and even sometimes the same +subjects from the old mythology, to which they had been accustomed. It +is to be observed, too, that this kind of iconographical ornamentation +had been encroaching more and more upon the old architectural purity +during the latter ages of the empire, and that it was employed more +profusely in the later works, from which this taste was transferred +to the ecclesiastical and to the domestic architecture of the middle +ages. After the workmen themselves had become Christians, they still +found pagan emblems and figures in their models, and still went on +imitating them, sometimes merely copying, and at others turning them +to caricature or burlesque. And this tendency continued so long, that, +at a much later date, where there still existed remains of Roman +buildings, the mediaeval architects adopted them as models, and did not +hesitate to copy the sculpture, although it might be evidently pagan in +character. The accompanying cut (No. 25) represents a bracket in the +church of Mont Majour, near Nismes, built in the tenth century. The +subject is a monstrous head eating a child, and we can hardly doubt +that it was really intended for a caricature on Saturn devouring one of +his children. + +Sometimes the mediaeval sculptors mistook the emblematical designs +of the Romans, and misapplied them, and gave an allegorical meaning +to that which was not intended to be emblematical or allegorical, +until the subjects themselves became extremely confused. They readily +employed that class of parody of the ancients in which animals were +represented performing the actions of men, and they had a great taste +for monsters of every description, especially those which were made up +of portions of incongruous animals joined together, in contradiction to +the precept of Horace:-- + + _Humano capiti cervicem pictor equinam + Jungere si velit, et varias inducere plumas, + Undique collatis membris, ut turpiter atrum + Desinet in piscem mulier formosa superne; + Spectatum admissi risum teneatis, amici?_ + + [Illustration: _No. 26. Sculpture from San Fedele, at Como._] + +The mediaeval architects loved such representations, always and in all +parts, and examples are abundant. At Como, in Italy, there is a very +ancient and remarkable church dedicated to San Fedele (Saint Fidelis); +it has been considered to be of so early a date as the fifth century. +The sculptures that adorn the doorway, which is triangular-headed, are +especially interesting. On one of these, represented in our cut No. 26, +in a compartment to the left, appears a figure of an angel, holding in +one hand a dwarf figure, probably intended for a child, by a lock of +his hair, and with the other hand directing his attention to a seated +figure in the compartment below. This latter figure has apparently the +head of a sheep, and as the head is surrounded with a large nimbus, +and the right hand is held out in the attitude of benediction, it +may be intended to represent the Lamb. This personage is seated on +something which is difficult to make out, but which looks somewhat +like a crab-fish. The boy in the compartment above carries a large +basin in his arms. The adjoining compartment to the right contains the +representation of a conflict between a dragon, a winged serpent, and a +winged fox. On the opposite side of the door, two winged monsters are +represented devouring a lamb's head. I owe the drawing from which this +and the preceding engraving were made to my friend Mr. John Robinson, +the architect, who made the sketches while travelling with the medal +of the Royal Academy. Figures of dragons, as ornaments, were great +favourites with the peoples of the Teutonic race; they were creatures +intimately wrapped up in their national mythology and romance, and they +are found on all their artistic monuments mingled together in grotesque +forms and groups. When the Anglo-Saxons began to ornament their books, +the dragon was continually introduced for ornamental borders and +in forming initial letters. One of the latter, from an Anglo-Saxon +manuscript of the tenth century (the well-known manuscript of Caedmon, +where it is given as an initial V), is represented in our cut on the +next page, No. 27. + + [Illustration: _No. 27. Anglo-Saxon Dragons._] + +Caricature and burlesque are naturally intended to be heard and seen +publicly, and would therefore be figured on such monuments as were most +exposed to popular gaze. Such was the case, in the earlier periods of +the middle ages, chiefly with ecclesiastical buildings, which explains +how they became the grand receptacles of this class of Art. We have few +traces of what may be termed comic literature among our Anglo-Saxon +forefathers, but this is fully explained by the circumstance that very +little of the popular Anglo-Saxon literature has been preserved. In +their festive hours the Anglo-Saxons seem to have especially amused +themselves in boasting of what they had done, and what they could do; +and these boasts were perhaps often of a burlesque character, like the +_gabs_ of the French and Anglo-Norman romancers of a later date, or +so extravagant as to produce laughter. The chieftains appear also to +have encouraged men who could make jokes, and satirise and caricature +others; for the company of such men seems to have been cherished, and +they are not unfrequently introduced in the stories. Such a personage, +as I have remarked before, is Hunferth in Beowulf; such was the Sir +Kay of the later Arthurian romances; and such too was the Norman +minstrel in the history of Hereward, who amused the Norman soldiers at +their feasts by mimicry of the manners of their Anglo-Saxon opponents. +The too personal satire of these wits often led to quarrels, which +ended in sanguinary brawls. The Anglo-Saxon love of caricature is +shown largely in their proper names, which were mostly significant of +personal qualities their parents hoped they would possess; and in these +we remark the proneness of the Teutonic race, as well as the peoples +of antiquity, to represent these qualities by the animals supposed to +possess them, the animals most popular being the wolf and the bear. +But it is not to be expected that the hopes of the parents in giving +the name would always be fulfilled, and it is not an uncommon thing +to find individuals losing their original names to receive in their +place nicknames, or names which probably expressed qualities they did +possess, and which were given to them by their acquaintances. These +names, though often not very complimentary, and even sometimes very +much the contrary, completely superseded the original name, and were +even accepted by the individuals to whom they applied. The second names +were indeed so generally acknowledged, that they were used in signing +legal documents. An Anglo-Saxon abbess of rank, whose real name was +Hrodwaru, but who was known universally by the name Bugga, the Bug, +wrote this latter name in signing charters. We can hardly doubt that +such a name was intended to ascribe to her qualities of a not agreeable +character, and very different to those implied by the original name, +which perhaps meant, a dweller in heaven. Another lady gained the name +of the Crow. It is well known that surnames did not come into use +till long after the Anglo-Saxon period, but appellatives, like these +nicknames, were often added to the name for the purpose of distinction, +or at pleasure, and these, too, being given by other people, were +frequently satirical. Thus, one Harold, for his swiftness, was called +Hare-foot; a well-known Edith, for the elegant form of her neck, +was called Swan-neck; and a Thurcyl, for a form of his head, which +can hardly have been called beautiful, was named Mare's-head. Among +many other names, quite as satirical as the last-mentioned, we find +Flat-nose, the Ugly Squint-eye, Hawk-nose, &c. + +Of Anglo-Saxon sculpture we have little left, but we have a few +illuminated manuscripts which present here and there an attempt at +caricature, though they are rare. It would seem, however, that the two +favourite subjects of caricature among the Anglo-Saxons were the clergy +and the evil one. We have abundant evidence that, from the eighth +century downwards, neither the Anglo-Saxon clergy nor the Anglo-Saxon +nuns were generally objects of much respect among the people; and their +character and the manner of their lives sufficiently account for it. +Perhaps, also, it was increased by the hostility between the old clergy +and the new reformers of Dunstan's party, who would no doubt caricature +each other. A manuscript psalter, in the University Library, Cambridge +(Ff. 1, 23), of the Anglo-Saxon period, and apparently of the tenth +century, illustrated with rather grotesque initial letters, furnishes +us with the figure of a jolly Anglo-Saxon monk, given in our cut No. +28, and which it is hardly necessary to state represents the letter Q. +As we proceed, we shall see the clergy continuing to furnish a butt for +the shafts of satire through all the middle ages. + + [Illustration: _No. 28. A Jolly Monk._] + + [Illustration: _No. 29. Satan in Bonds._] + +The inclination to give to the demons (the middle ages always looked +upon them as innumerable) monstrous forms, which easily ran into the +grotesque, was natural, and the painter, indeed, prided himself on +drawing them ugly; but he was no doubt influenced in so generally +caricaturing them, by mixing up this idea with those furnished by the +popular superstitions of the Teutonic race, who believed in multitudes +of spirits, representatives of the ancient satyrs, who were of a +playfully malicious description, and went about plaguing mankind in +a very droll manner, and sometimes appeared to them in equally droll +forms. They were the Pucks and Robin Goodfellows of later times; +but the Christian missionaries to the west taught their converts to +believe, and probably believed themselves, that all these imaginary +beings were real demons, who wandered over the earth for people's ruin +and destruction. Thus the grotesque imagination of the converted people +was introduced into the Christian system of demonology. It is a part of +the subject to which we shall return in our next chapter; but I will +here introduce two examples of the Anglo-Saxon demons. To explain the +first of these, it will be necessary to state that, according to the +mediaeval notions, Satan, the arch demon, who had fallen from heaven +for his rebellion against the Almighty, was not a free agent who went +about tempting mankind, but he was himself plunged in the abyss, +where he was held in bonds, and tormented by the demons who peopled +the infernal regions, and also issued thence to seek their prey upon +God's newest creation, the earth. The history of Satan's fall, and the +description of his position (No. 29), form the subject of the earlier +part of the Anglo-Saxon poetry ascribed to Caedmon, and it is one of +the illuminations to the manuscript of Caedmon (which is now preserved +at Oxford), which has furnished us with our cut, representing Satan +in his bonds. The fiend is here pictured bound to stakes, over what +appears to be a gridiron, while one of the demons, rising out of a +fiery furnace, and holding in his hand an instrument of punishment, +seems to be exulting over him, and at the same time urging on the troop +of grotesque imps who are swarming round and tormenting their victim. +The next cut, No. 30, is also taken from an Anglo-Saxon manuscript, +preserved in the British Museum (MS. Cotton., Tiberius, C. vi.), which +belongs to the earlier half of the eleventh century, and contains a +copy of the psalter. It gives us the Anglo-Saxon notion of the demon +under another form, equally characteristic, wearing only a girdle +of flames, but in this case the especial singularity of the design +consists in the eyes in the fiend's wings. + + [Illustration: _No. 30. Satan._] + + [Illustration: _No. 31. The Temptation._] + + [Illustration: _No. 32. David and the Lion._] + +Another circumstance had no doubt an influence on the mediaeval taste +for grotesque and caricature--the natural rudeness of early mediaeval +art. The writers of antiquity tell us of a remote period of Grecian +art when it was necessary to write under each figure of a picture the +name of what it was intended to represent, in order to make the whole +intelligible--"this is a horse," "this is a man," "this is a tree." +Without being quite so rude as this, the early mediaeval artists, +through ignorance of perspective, want of knowledge of proportion, and +of skill in drawing, found great difficulty in representing a scene in +which there was more than one figure, and in which it was necessary +to distinguish them from each other; and they were continually trying +to help themselves by adopting conventional forms or conventional +positions, and by sometimes adding symbols that did not exactly +represent what they meant. The exaggeration in form consisted chiefly +in giving an undue prominence to some characteristic feature, which +answered the same purpose as the Anglo-Saxon nickname and distinctive +name, and which is, in fact, one of the first principles of all +caricature. Conventional positions partook much of the character of +conventional forms, but gave still greater room for grotesque. Thus +the very first characteristics of mediaeval art implied the existence +of caricature, and no doubt led to the taste for the grotesque. The +effect of this influence is apparent everywhere, and in innumerable +cases serious pictures of the gravest and most important subjects are +simply and absolutely caricatures. Anglo-Saxon art ran much into this +style, and is often very grotesque in character. The first example we +give (cut No. 31) is taken from one of the illustrations to Alfric's +Anglo-Saxon version of the Pentateuch, in the profusely illuminated +manuscript in the British Museum (MS. Cotton., Claudius B iv.), which +was written at the end of the tenth, or beginning of the eleventh, +century. It represents the temptation and fall of man; and the subject +is treated, as will be seen, in a rather grotesque manner. Eve is +evidently dictating to her husband, who, in obeying her, shows a +mixture of eagerness and trepidation. Adam is no less evidently going +to swallow the apple whole, which is, perhaps, in accordance with the +mediaeval legend, according to which the fruit stuck in his throat. It +is hardly necessary to remark that the tree is entirely a conventional +one; and it would be difficult to imagine how it came to bear apples at +all. The mediaeval artists were extremely unskilful in drawing trees; +to these they usually gave the forms of cabbages, or some such plants, +of which the form was simple, or often of a mere bunch of leaves. Our +next example (cut No. 32) is also Anglo-Saxon, and is furnished by +the manuscript in the British Museum already mentioned (MS. Cotton., +Tiberius C vi.) It probably represents young David killing the lion, +and is remarkable not only for the strange posture and bad proportions +of the man, but for the tranquillity of the animal and the exaggerated +and violent action of its slayer. This is very commonly the case in the +mediaeval drawings and sculptures, the artists apparently possessing +far less skill in representing action in an animal than in man, and +therefore more rarely attempting it. These illustrations are both taken +from illuminated manuscripts. The two which follow are furnished by +sculptures, and are of a rather later date than the preceding. The +abbey of St. George of Boscherville, in the diocese of Auxerre (in +Normandy), was founded by Ralph de Tancarville, one of the ministers of +William the Conqueror, and therefore in the latter half of the eleventh +century. A history of this religious house was published by a clever +local antiquary--M. Achille Deville--from whose work we take our cut +No. 33, one of a few rude sculptures on the abbey church, which no +doubt belonged to the original fabric. It is not difficult to recognise +the subject as Joseph taking the Virgin Mary with her Child into +Egypt; but there is something exceedingly droll in the unintentional +caricature of the faces, as well as in the whole design. The Virgin +Mary appears without a nimbus, while the nimbus of the Infant Jesus +is made to look very like a bonnet. It may be remarked that this +subject of the flight into Egypt is by no means an uncommon one in +mediaeval art; and a drawing of the same subject, copied in my "History +of Domestic Manners and Sentiments" (p. 115), presents a remarkable +illustration of the contrast of the skill of a Norman sculptor and of +an almost contemporary Anglo-Norman illuminator. Our cut also furnishes +us with evidence of the error of the old opinion that ladies rode +astride in the middle ages. Even one, who by his style of art must have +been an obscure local carver on stone, when he represented a female on +horseback, placed her in the position which has always been considered +suitable to the sex. + + [Illustration: _No. 33. The flight into Egypt._] + + [Illustration: _No. 34. David and Goliah._] + +For the drawing of the other sculpture to which I allude, I am indebted +to Mr. Robinson. It is one of the subjects carved on the facade of +the church of St. Gilles, near Nismes, and is a work of the twelfth +century. It appears to represent the young David slaying the giant +Goliah, the latter fully armed in scale armour, and with shield and +spear, like a Norman knight; while to David the artist has given a +figure which is feminine in its forms. What we might take at first +sight for a basket of apples, appears to be meant for a supply of +stones for the sling which the young hero carries suspended from his +neck. He has slain the giant with one of these, and is cutting off his +head with his own sword. + + + + + CHAPTER IV. + + THE DIABOLICAL IN CARICATURE.--MEDIAEVAL LOVE OF THE + LUDICROUS.--CAUSES WHICH MADE IT INFLUENCE THE NOTIONS + OF DEMONS.--STORIES OF THE PIOUS PAINTER AND THE ERRING + MONK.--DARKNESS AND UGLINESS CARICATURED.--THE DEMONS IN THE + MIRACLE PLAYS.--THE DEMON OF NOTRE DAME. + + +As I have already stated in the last chapter, there can be no doubt +that the whole system of the demonology of the middle ages was +derived from the older pagan mythology. The demons of the monkish +legends were simply the elves and hobgoblins of our forefathers, who +haunted woods, and fields, and waters, and delighted in misleading +or plaguing mankind, though their mischief was usually of a rather +mirthful character. They were represented in classical mythology by +the fauns and satyrs who had, as we have seen, much to do with the +birth of comic literature among the Greeks and Romans; but these +Teutonic elves were more ubiquitous than the satyrs, as they even +haunted men's houses, and played tricks, not only of a mischievous, +but of a very familiar character. The Christian clergy did not look +upon the personages of the popular superstitions as fabulous beings, +but they taught that they were all diabolical, and that they were +so many agents of the evil one, constantly employed in enticing and +entrapping mankind. Hence, in the mediaeval legends, we frequently find +demons presenting themselves under ludicrous forms or in ludicrous +situations; or performing acts, such as eating and drinking, which are +not in accordance with their real character; or at times even letting +themselves be outwitted or entrapped by mortals in a very undignified +manner. Although they assumed any form they pleased, their natural form +was remarkable chiefly for being extremely ugly; one of them, which +appeared in a wild wood, is described by Giraldus Cambrensis, who wrote +at the end of the twelfth century, as being hairy, shaggy, and rough, +and monstrously deformed.[24] According to a mediaeval story, which +was told in different forms, a great man's cellar was once haunted by +these demons, who drank all his wine, while the owner was totally at a +loss to account for its rapid disappearance. After many unsuccessful +attempts to discover the depredators, some one, probably suspecting +the truth, suggested that he should mark one of the barrels with holy +water, and next morning a demon, much resembling the description given +by Giraldus, was found stuck fast to the barrel. It is told also of +Edward the Confessor, that he once went to see the tribute called +the Danegeld, and it was shown to him all packed up in great barrels +ready to be sent away--for this appears to have been the usual mode +of transporting large quantities of money. The saintly king had the +faculty of being able to see spiritual beings--a sort of spiritual +second-sight--and he beheld seated on the largest barrel, a devil, who +was "black and hideous." + + _Vit un deable saer desus + Le tresor, noir et hidus._--Life of S. Edward, l. 944. + + [Illustration: _No. 35. The Demon of the Treasure._] + +An early illuminator, in a manuscript preserved in the library of +Trinity College, Cambridge (MS. Trin. Col., B x. 2), has left us a +pictorial representation of this scene, from which I copy his notion +of the form of the demon in cut No. 35. The general idea is evidently +taken from the figure of the goat, and the relationship between the +demon and the classical satyr is very evident. + + [24] "Formam quandam villosam, hispidam, et hirsutam, adeoque enormiter + deformem." Girald. Camb., Itiner. Camb., lib. i. c. 5. + +Ugliness was an essential characteristic of the demons, and, moreover, +their features have usually a mirthful cast, as though they greatly +enjoyed their occupation. There is a mediaeval story of a young +monk, who was sacristan to an abbey, and had the directions of the +building and ornamentation. The carvers of stone were making admirable +representations of hell and paradise, in the former of which the demons +"seemed to take great delight in well tormenting their victims"-- + + _Qui par semblant se delitoit + En ce que bien les tormentoit._ + +The sacristan, who watched the sculptors every day, was at last moved +by pious zeal to try and imitate them, and he set to work to make a +devil himself, with such success, that his fiend was so black and ugly +that nobody could look at it without terror. + + _Tant qu'un deable a fere emprist; + Si i mist sa poine et sa cure, + Que la forme fu si oscure + Et si laide, que cil doutast + Que entre deus oilz l'esgardast._ + +The sacristan, encouraged by his success--for it must be understood +that his art was a sudden inspiration (as he had not been an artist +before)--continued his work till it was completed, and then "it was so +horrible and so ugly, that all who saw it affirmed upon their oaths +that they had never seen so ugly a figure either in sculpture or in +painting, or one which had so repulsive an appearance, or a devil which +was a better likeness than the one this monk had made for them"-- + + _Si horribles fu et si lez, + Que trestouz cels que le veoient + Seur leur serement afermoient + C'onques mes si laide figure, + Ne en taille ne en peinture, + N'avoient a nul jor veue, + Qui si eust laide veue, + Ne deable miex contrefet + Que cil moines leur avoit fet._--Meon's Fabliaux, tom. ii. p. 414. + +The demon himself now took offence at the affront which had been +put upon him, and appearing the night following to the sacristan, +reproached him with having made him so ugly, and enjoined him to break +the sculpture, and execute another representing him better looking, on +pain of very severe punishment; but, although this visit was repeated +thrice, the pious monk refused to comply. The evil one now began to +work in another way, and, by his cunning, he drew the sacristan into a +disgraceful amour with a lady of the neighbourhood, and they plotted +not only to elope together by night, but to rob the monastery of its +treasure, which was of course in the keeping of the sacristan. They +were discovered, and caught in their flight, laden with the treasure, +and the unfaithful sacristan was thrown into prison. The fiend now +appeared to him, and promised to clear him out of all his trouble on +the mere condition that he should break his ugly statue, and make +another representing him as looking handsome--a bargain to which the +sacristan acceded without further hesitation. It would thus appear that +the demons did not like to be represented ugly. In this case, the fiend +immediately took the form and place of the sacristan, while the latter +went to his bed as if nothing had happened. When the other monks found +him there next morning, and heard him disclaim all knowledge of the +robbery or of the prison, they hurried to the latter place, and found +the devil in chains, who, when they attempted to exorcise him, behaved +in a very turbulent manner, and disappeared from their sight. The +monks believed that it was all a deception of the evil one, while the +sacristan, who was not inclined to brave his displeasure a second time, +performed faithfully his part of the contract, and made a devil who +did not look ugly. In another version of the story, however, it ends +differently. After the third warning, the monk went in defiance of the +devil, and made his picture uglier than ever; in revenge for which the +demon came unexpectedly and broke the ladder on which he was mounted +at his work, whereby the monk would undoubtedly have been killed. But +the Virgin, to whom he was much devoted, came to his assistance, and, +seizing him with her hand, and holding him in the air, disappointed +the devil of his purpose. It is this latter _denouement_ which is +represented in the cut No. 36, taken from the celebrated manuscript in +the British Museum known as "Queen Mary's Psalter" (MS. Reg. 2 B vii.). +The two demons employed here present, well defined, the air of mirthful +jollity which was evidently derived from the popular hobgoblins. + + [Illustration: _No. 36. The Pious Sculptor._] + + [Illustration: _No. 37. The Monk's Disaster._] + + [Illustration: _No. 38. The Demons Disappointed._] + +There was another popular story, which also was told under several +forms. The old Norman historians tell it of their duke Richard +Sans-Peur. There was a monk of the abbey of St. Ouen, who also held +the office of sacristan, but, neglecting the duties of his position, +entered into an intrigue with a lady who dwelt in the neighbourhood, +and was accustomed at night to leave the abbey secretly, and repair +to her. His place as sacristan enabled him thus to leave the house +unknown to the other brethren. On his way, he had to pass the little +river Robec, by means of a plank or wooden bridge, and one night +the demons, who had been watching him on his errand of sin, caught +him on the bridge, and threw him over into the water, where he was +drowned. One devil seized his soul, and would have carried it away, +but an angel came to claim him on account of his good actions, and +the dispute ran so high, that duke Richard, whose piety was as great +as his courage, was called in to decide it. The same manuscript from +which our last cut was taken has furnished our cut No. 37, which +represents two demons tripping up the monk, and throwing him very +unceremoniously into the river. The body of one of the demons here +assumes the form of an animal, instead of taking, like the other, that +of a man, and he is, moreover, furnished with a dragon's wings. There +was one version of this story, in which it found its place among the +legends of the Virgin Mary, instead of those of duke Richard. The +monk, in spite of his failings, had been a constant worshipper of the +Virgin, and, as he was falling from the bridge into the river, she +stepped forward to protect him from his persecutors, and taking hold +of him with her hand, saved him from death. One of the compartments +of the rather early wall-paintings in Winchester Cathedral represents +the scene according to this version of the story, and is copied in +our cut No. 38. The fiends here take more fantastic shapes than we +have previously seen given to them. They remind us already of the +infinitely varied grotesque forms which the painters of the age of the +Renaissance crowded together in such subjects as "The Temptation of +St. Anthony." In fact these strange notions of the forms of the demons +were not only preserved through the whole period of the middle ages, +but are still hardly extinct. They appear in almost exaggerated forms +in the illustrations to books of a popular religious character which +appeared in the first ages of printing. I may quote, as an example, one +of the cuts of an early and very rare block-book, entitled the _Ars +Moriendi_, or "Art of Dying," or, in a second title, _De Tentationibus +Morientium_, on the temptations to which dying men are exposed. The +scene, of which a part is given in the annexed cut (No. 39), is in the +room of the dying man, whose bed is surrounded by three demons, who +are come to tempt him, while his relatives of both sexes are looking +on quite unconscious of their presence. The figures of these demons +are particularly grotesque, and their ugly features betray a degree of +vulgar cunning which adds not a little to this effect. The one leaning +over the dying man suggests to him the words expressed in the label +issuing from his mouth, _Provideas amicis_, "provide for your friends;" +while the one whose head appears to the left whispers to him, _Yntende +thesauro_, "think of your treasure." The dying man seems grievously +perplexed with the various thoughts thus suggested to him. + + [Illustration: _No. 39. A Mediaeval Death-bed._] + + [Illustration: _No. 40. Condemned Souls carried to their Place of + Punishment._] + +Why did the mediaeval Christians think it necessary to make the devils +black and ugly? The first reply to this question which presents itself +is, that the characteristics intended to be represented were the +blackness and ugliness of sin. This, however, is only partially the +explanation of the fact; for there can be no doubt that the notion +was a popular one, and that it had previously existed in the popular +mythology; and, as has been already remarked, the ugliness exhibited +by them is a vulgar, mirthful ugliness, which makes you laugh instead +of shudder. Another scene, from the interesting drawings at the foot +of the pages in "Queen Mary's Psalter," is given in our cut No. 40. It +represents that most popular of mediaeval pictures, and, at the same +time, most remarkable of literal interpretations, hell mouth. The +entrance to the infernal regions was always represented pictorially +as the mouth of a monstrous animal, where the demons appeared leaving +and returning. Here they are seen bringing the sinful souls to their +last destination, and it cannot be denied that they are doing the work +right merrily and jovially. In our cut No. 41, from the manuscript in +the library of Trinity College, Cambridge, which furnished a former +subject, three demons, who appear to be the guardians of the entrance +to the regions below--for it is upon the brow above the monstrous mouth +that they are standing--present varieties of the diabolical form. The +one in the middle is the most remarkable, for he has wings not only +on his shoulders, but also on his knees and heels. All three have +horns; in fact, the three special characteristics of mediaeval demons +were horns, hoofs--or, at least, the feet of beasts,--and tails, which +sufficiently indicate the source from which the popular notions of +these beings were derived. In the cathedral of Treves, there is a mural +painting by William of Cologne, a painter of the fifteenth century, +which represents the entrance to the shades, the monstrous mouth, with +its keepers, in still more grotesque forms. Our cut No. 42 gives but a +small portion of this picture, in which the porter of the regions of +punishment is sitting astride the snout of the monstrous mouth, and +is sounding with a trumpet what may be supposed to be the call for +those who are condemned. Another minstrel of the same stamp, spurred, +though not booted, sits astride the tube of the trumpet, playing on +the bagpipes; and the sound which issues from the former instrument is +represented by a host of smaller imps who are scattering themselves +about. + + [Illustration: _No. 41. The Guardians of Hell Mouth._] + + [Illustration: _No. 42. The Trumpeter of Evil._] + +It must not be supposed that, in subjects like these, the drollery of +the scene was accidental; but, on the contrary, the mediaeval artists +and popular writers gave them this character purposely. The demons and +the executioners--the latter of whom were called in Latin _tortores_, +and in popular old English phraseology the "tormentours"--were the +comic characters of the time, and the scenes in the old mysteries or +religious plays in which they were introduced were the comic scenes, +or farce, of the piece. The love of burlesque and caricature was, +indeed, so deeply planted in the popular mind, that it was found +necessary to introduce them even in pious works, in which such scenes +as the slaughter of the innocents, where the "knights" and the women +abused each other in vulgar language, the treatment of Christ at +the time of His trial, some parts of the scene of the crucifixion, +and the day of judgment, were essentially comic. The last of these +subjects, especially, was a scene of mirth, because it often consisted +throughout of a coarse satire on the vices of the age, especially on +those which were most obnoxious to the populace, such as the pride and +vanity of the higher ranks, and the extortions and frauds of usurers, +bakers, taverners, and others. In the play of "Juditium," or the day +of doom, in the "Towneley Mysteries," one of the earliest collections +of mysteries in the English language, the whole conversation among +the demons is exactly of that joking kind which we might expect from +their countenances in the pictures. When one of them appears carrying +a bag full of different offences, another, his companion, is so joyful +at this circumstance, that he says it makes him laugh till he is out +of breath, or, in other words, till he is ready to burst; and, while +asking if anger be not among the sins he had collected, proposes to +treat him with something to drink-- + + Primus daemon. _Peasze, I pray the, be stille; I laghe that I kynke. + Is oghte ire in thi bille? and then salle thou drynke._ + --Towneley Mysteries, p. 309. + +And in the continuation of the conversation, one telling of the events +which had preceded the announcement of Doomsday says, rather jeeringly, +and somewhat exultingly, "Souls came so thick now of late to hell, that +our porter at hell gate is ever held so close at work, up early and +down late, that he never rests"-- + + _Saules cam so thyk now late unto helle, + As ever + Oure porter at helle gate + Is halden so strate, + Up erly and downe late, + He rystys never._--Ib., p. 314. + +With such popular notions on the subject, we have no reason to be +surprised that the artists of the middle ages frequently chose the +figures of demons as objects on which to exercise their skill in +burlesque and caricature, that they often introduced grotesque figures +of their heads and bodies in the sculptured ornamentation of building, +and that they presented them in ludicrous situations and attitudes in +their pictures. They are often brought in as secondary actors in a +picture in a very singular manner, of which an excellent example is +furnished by the beautifully illuminated manuscript known as "Queen +Mary's Psalter," which is copied in our cut No. 43. Nothing is more +certain than that in this instance the intention of the artist was +perfectly serious. Eve, under the influence of a rather singularly +formed serpent, having the head of a beautiful woman and the body of +a dragon, is plucking the apples and offering them to Adam, who is +preparing to eat one, with evident hesitation and reluctance. But three +demons, downright hobgoblins, appear as secondary actors in the scene, +who exercise an influence upon the principals. One is patting Eve +on the shoulder, with an air of approval and encouragement, while a +second, with wings, is urging on Adam, and apparently laughing at his +apprehensions; and a third, in a very ludicrous manner, is preventing +him from drawing back from the trial. + + [Illustration: _No. 43. The Fall of Man._] + +In all the delineations of demons we have yet seen, the ludicrous is +the spirit which chiefly predominates, and in no one instance have +we had a figure which is really demoniacal. The devils are droll but +not frightful; they provoke laughter, or at least excite a smile, +but they create no horror. Indeed, they torment their victims so +good-humouredly, that we hardly feel for them. There is, however, one +well-known instance in which the mediaeval artist has shown himself +fully successful in representing the features of the spirit of evil. On +the parapet of the external gallery of the cathedral church of Notre +Dame in Paris, there is a figure in stone, of the ordinary stature of +a man, representing the demon, apparently looking with satisfaction +upon the inhabitants of the city as they were everywhere indulging in +sin and wickedness. We give a sketch of this figure in our cut No. 44. +The unmixed evil--horrible in its expression in this countenance--is +marvellously portrayed. It is an absolute Mephistophiles, carrying in +his features a strange mixture of hateful qualities--malice, pride, +envy--in fact, all the deadly sins combined in one diabolical whole. + + [Illustration: _No. 44. The Spirit of Evil._] + + + + + CHAPTER V. + + EMPLOYMENT OF ANIMALS IN MEDIAEVAL SATIRE.--POPULARITY OF FABLES; + ODO DE CIRINGTON.--REYNARD THE FOX.--BURNELLUS AND FAUVEL.--THE + CHARIVARI.--LE MONDE BESTORNE.--ENCAUSTIC TILES.--SHOEING THE + GOOSE, AND FEEDING PIGS WITH ROSES.--SATIRICAL SIGNS; THE MUSTARD + MAKER. + + +The people of the middle ages appear to have been great admirers +of animals, to have observed closely their various characters and +peculiarities, and to have been fond of domesticating them. They +soon began to employ their peculiarities as means of satirising and +caricaturing mankind; and among the literature bequeathed to them by +the Romans, they received no book more eagerly than the "Fables of +AEsop," and the other collections of fables which were published under +the empire. We find no traces of fables among the original literature +of the German race; but the tribes who took possession of the Roman +provinces no sooner became acquainted with the fables of the ancients, +than they began to imitate them, and stories in which animals acted +the part of men were multiplied immensely, and became a very important +branch of mediaeval fiction. + +Among the Teutonic peoples especially, these fables often assumed very +grotesque forms, and the satire they convey is very amusing. One of the +earliest of these collections of original fables was composed by an +English ecclesiastic named Odo de Cirington, who lived in the time of +Henry II. and Richard I. In Odo's fables, we find the animals figuring +under the same popular names by which they were afterwards so well +known, such as Reynard for the Fox, Isengrin for the wolf, Teburg for +the cat, and the like. Thus the subject of one of them is "Isengrin +made Monk" (_de Isengrino monacho_). "Once," we are told, "Isengrin +desired to be a monk. By dint of fervent supplications, he obtained +the consent of the chapter, and received the tonsure, the cowl, and +the other insignia of monachism. At length they put him to school, +and he was to learn the 'Paternoster,' but he always replied, 'lamb' +(_agnus_) or 'ram' (_aries_). The monks taught him that he ought to +look upon the crucifix and upon the sacrament, but he ever directed his +eyes to the lambs and rams." The fable is droll enough, but the moral, +or application is still more grotesque. "Such is the conduct of many +of the monks, whose only cry is 'aries,' that is, good wine, and who +have their eyes always fixed on fat flesh and their platter;" whence the +saying in English-- + + _They thou the vulf hore_ _Though thou the hoary wolf_ + _hod to preste,_ _consecrate to a priest,_ + _they thou him to skole sette_ _though thou put him to school_ + _salmes to lerne,_ _to learn Psalms,_ + _hevere bet hise geres_ _ever are his ears turned_ + _to the grove grene_. _to the green grove._ + +These lines are in the alliterative verse of the Anglo-Saxons, and +show that such fables had already found their place in the popular +poetry of the English people. Another of these fables is entitled "Of +the Beetle (_serabo_) and his Wife." "A beetle, flying through the +land, passed among most beautiful blooming trees, through orchards +and among roses and lilies, in the most lovely places, and at length +threw himself upon a dunghill among the dung of horses, and found there +his wife, who asked him whence he came. And the beetle said, 'I have +flown all round the earth and through it; I have seen the flowers of +almonds, and lilies, and roses, but I have seen no place so pleasant as +this,' pointing to the dunghill." The application is equally droll with +the former and equally uncomplimentary to the religious part of the +community. Odo de Cirington tells us that, "Thus many of the clergy, +monks, and laymen listen to the lives of the fathers, pass among the +lilies of the virgins, among the roses of the martyrs, and among the +violets of the confessors, yet nothing ever appears so pleasant and +agreeable as a strumpet, or the tavern, or a singing party, though it +is but a stinking dunghill and congregation of sinners." + + [Illustration: _No. 45. The Fox in the Pulpit._] + + [Illustration: _No. 46. Ecclesiastical Sincerity._] + + [Illustration: _No. 47. Reynard turned Monk._] + +Popular sculpture and painting were but the translation of popular +literature, and nothing was more common to represent, in pictures +and carvings, than individual men under the forms of the animals +who displayed similar characters or similar propensities. Cunning, +treachery, and intrigue were the prevailing vices of the middle ages, +and they were those also of the fox, who hence became a favourite +character in satire. The victory of craft over force always provoked +mirth. The fabulists, or, we should perhaps rather say, the satirists, +soon began to extend their canvas and enlarge their picture, and, +instead of single examples of fraud or injustice, they introduced +a variety of characters, not only foxes, but wolves, and sheep, +and bears, with birds also, as the eagle, the cock, and the crow, +and mixed them up together in long narratives, which thus formed +general satires on the vices of contemporary society. In this manner +originated the celebrated romance of "Reynard the Fox," which in +various forms, from the twelfth century to the eighteenth, has enjoyed +a popularity which was granted probably to no other book. The plot of +this remarkable satire turns chiefly on the long struggle between the +brute force of Isengrin the Wolf, possessed only with a small amount +of intelligence, which is easily deceived--under which character is +presented the powerful feudal baron--and the craftiness of Reynard +the Fox, who represents the intelligent portion of society, which had +to hold its ground by its wits, and these were continually abused to +evil purposes. Reynard is swayed by a constant impulse to deceive +and victimise everybody, whether friends or enemies, but especially +his uncle Isengrin. It was somewhat the relationship between the +ecclesiastical and baronial aristocracy. Reynard was educated in the +schools, and intended for the clerical order; and at different times +he is represented as acting under the disguise of a priest, of a monk, +of a pilgrim, or even of a prelate of the church. Though frequently +reduced to the greatest straits by the power of Isengrin, Reynard +has generally the better of it in the end: he robs and defrauds +Isengrin continually, outrages his wife, who is half in alliance +with him, and draws him into all sorts of dangers and sufferings, +for which the latter never succeeds in obtaining justice. The old +sculptors and artists appear to have preferred exhibiting Reynard in +his ecclesiastical disguises, and in these he appears often in the +ornamentation of mediaeval architectural sculpture, in wood-carvings, +in the illuminations of manuscripts, and in other objects of art. The +popular feeling against the clergy was strong in the middle ages, and +no caricature was received with more favour than those which exposed +the immorality or dishonesty of a monk or a priest. Our cut No. 45 is +taken from a sculpture in the church of Christchurch, in Hampshire, for +the drawing of which I am indebted to my friend, Mr. Llewellynn Jewitt. +It represents Reynard in the pulpit preaching; behind, or rather +perhaps beside him, a diminutive cock stands upon a stool--in modern +times we should be inclined to say he was acting as clerk. Reynard's +costume consists merely of the ecclesiastical hood or cowl. Such +subjects are frequently found on the carved seats, or misereres, in the +stalls of the old cathedrals and collegiate churches. The painted glass +of the great window of the north cross-aisle of St. Martin's church in +Leicester, which was destroyed in the last century, represented the +fox, in the character of an ecclesiastic, preaching to a congregation +of geese, and addressing them in the words--_Testis est mihi Deus, +quam cupiam vos omnes visceribus meis_ (God is witness, how I desire +you all in my bowels), a parody on the words of the New Testament.[25] +Our cut No. 46 is taken from one of the misereres in the church of +St. Mary, at Beverley, in Yorkshire. Two foxes are represented in the +disguise of ecclesiastics, each furnished with a pastoral staff, and +they appear to be receiving instructions from a prelate or personage +of rank--perhaps they are undertaking a pilgrimage of penance. But +their sincerity is rendered somewhat doubtful by the geese concealed +in their hoods. In one of the incidents of the romance of Reynard, +the hero enters a monastery and becomes a monk, in order to escape the +wrath of King Noble, the lion. For some time he made an outward show of +sanctity and self-privation, but unknown to his brethren he secretly +helped himself freely to the good things of the monastery. One day he +observed, with longing lips, a messenger who brought four fat capons as +a present from a lay neighbour to the abbot. That night, when all the +monks had retired to rest, Reynard obtained admission to the larder, +regaled himself with one of the capons, and as soon as he had eaten it, +trussed the three others on his back, escaped secretly from the abbey, +and, throwing away his monastic garment, hurried home with his prey. We +might almost imagine our cut No. 47, taken from one of the stalls of +the church of Nantwich, in Cheshire, to have been intended to represent +this incident, or, at least, a similar one. Our next cut, No. 48, is +taken from a stall in the church of Boston, in Lincolnshire. A prelate, +equally false, is seated in his chair, with a mitre on his head, and +the pastoral staff in his right hand. His flock are represented by a +cock and hens, the former of which he holds securely with his right +hand, while he appears to be preaching to them. + + [25] An engraving of this scene, modernised in character, is given in + Nichols's "Leicestershire," vol. i. plate 43. + + [Illustration: _No. 48. The Prelate and his Flock._] + +Another mediaeval sculpture has furnished events for a rather curious +history, at the same time that it is a good illustration of our +subject. Odo de Cirington, the fabulist, tells us how, one day, the +wolf died, and the lion called the animals together to celebrate his +exequies. The hare carried the holy water, hedgehogs bore the candles, +the goats rang the bells, the moles dug the grave, the foxes carried +the corpse on the bier. Berengarius, the bear, celebrated mass, the ox +read the gospel, and the ass the epistle. When the mass was concluded, +and Isengrin buried, the animals made a splendid feast out of his +goods, and wished for such another funeral. Our satirical ecclesiastic +makes an application of this story which tells little to the credit +of the monks of his time. "So it frequently happens," he says, "that +when some rich man, an extortionist or a usurer, dies, the abbot or +prior of a convent of beasts, _i.e._ of men living like beasts, causes +them to assemble. For it commonly happens that in a great convent of +black or white monks (Benedictines or Augustinians) there are none +but beasts--lions by their pride, foxes by their craftiness, bears by +their voracity, stinking goats by their incontinence, asses by their +sluggishness, hedgehogs by their asperity, hares by their timidity, +because they were cowardly where there was no fear, and oxen by their +laborious cultivation of their land."[26] + + [26] The Latin text of this and some others of the fables of Odo de + Cirington will be found in my "Selection of Latin Stories," pp. + 50-52, 55-58, and 80. + + [Illustration: _No. 49. The Funeral of the Fox._] + +A scene closely resembling that here described by Odo, differing only +in the distribution of the characters, was translated from some such +written story into the pictorial language of the ancient sculptured +ornamentation of Strasburg Cathedral, where it formed, apparently, +two sides of the capital or entablature of a column near the chancel. +The deceased in this picture appears to be a fox, which was probably +the animal intended to be represented in the original, although, in +the copy of it preserved, it looks more like a squirrel. The bier is +carried by the goat and the boar, while a little dog underneath is +taking liberties with the tail of the latter. Immediately before the +bier, the hare carries the lighted taper, preceded by the wolf, who +carries the cross, and the bear, who holds in one hand the holy-water +vessel and in the other the aspersoir. This forms the first division +of the subject, and is represented in our cut No. 49. In the next +division (cut No. 50), the stag is represented celebrating mass, and +the ass reads the Gospel from a book which the cat supports with its +head. + + [Illustration: _No. 50. The Mass for the Fox._] + +This curious sculpture is said to have been of the thirteenth century. +In the fifteenth century it attracted the attention of the reformers, +who looked upon it as an ancient protest against the corruptions of +the mass, and one of the more distinguished of them, John Fischart, +had it copied and engraved on wood, and published it about the year +1580, with some verses of his own, in which it was interpreted as a +satire upon the papacy. This publication gave such dire offence to the +ecclesiastical authorities of Strasburg, that the Lutheran bookseller +who had ventured to publish it, was compelled to make a public apology +in the church, and the wood-engraving and all the impressions were +seized and burnt by the common hangman. A few years later, however, in +1608, another engraving was made, and published in a large folio with +Fischart's verses; and it is from the diminished copy of this second +edition--given in Floegel's "Geschichte des Komisches Literatur"--that +our cuts are taken. The original Sculpture was still more unfortunate. +Its publication and explanation by Fischart was the cause of no little +scandal among the Catholics, who tried to retort upon their opponents +by asserting that the figures in this funeral celebration were intended +to represent the ignorance of the Protestant preachers; and the +sculpture in the church continued to be regarded by the ecclesiastical +authorities with dissatisfaction until the year 1685, when, to take +away all further ground of scandal, it was entirely defaced. + + [Illustration: _No. 51. The Fox Provided._] + +Reynard's mediaeval celebrity dates certainly from a rather early +period. Montflaucon has given an alphabet of ornamental initial +letters, formed chiefly of figures of men and animals, from a +manuscript which he ascribes to the ninth century, among which is the +one copied in our cut No. 51, representing a fox walking upon his hind +legs, and carrying two small cocks, suspended at the ends of a cross +staff. It is hardly necessary to say that this group forms the letter +T. Long before this, the Frankish historian Fredegarius, who wrote +about the middle of the seventh century, introduces a fable in which +the fox figures at the court of the lion. The same fable is repeated +by a monkish writer of Bavaria, named Fromond, who flourished in the +tenth century, and by another named Aimoinus, who lived about the year +1,000. At length, in the twelfth century, Guibert de Nogent, who died +about the year 1124, and who has left us his autobiography (_de Vita +sua_), relates an anecdote in that work, in explanation of which he +tells us that the wolf was then popularly designated by the name of +Isengrin; and in the fables of Odo, as we have already seen, this name +is commonly given to the wolf, Reynard to the fox, Teburg to the cat, +and so on with the others. This only shows that in the fables of the +twelfth century the various animals were known by these names, but it +does not prove that what we know as the romance of Reynard existed. +Jacob Grimm argued from the derivation and forms of these names, that +the fables themselves, and the romance, originated with the Teutonic +peoples, and were indigenous to them; but his reasons appear to me to +be more specious than conclusive, and I certainly lean to the opinion +of my friend Paulin Paris, that the romance of Reynard was native of +France,[27] and that it was partly founded upon old Latin legends +perhaps poems. Its character is altogether feudal, and it is strictly +a picture of society, in France primarily, and secondly in England and +the other nations of feudalism, in the twelfth century. The earliest +form in which this romance is known is in the French poem--or rather +poems, for it consists of several branches or continuations--and is +supposed to date from about the middle of the twelfth century. It soon +became so popular, that it appeared in different forms in all the +languages of Western Europe, except in England, where there appears +to have existed no edition of the romance of Reynard the Fox until +Caxton printed his prose English version of the story. From that time +it became, if possible, more popular in England than elsewhere, and +that popularity had hardly diminished down to the commencement of the +present century. + + [27] See the dissertation by M. Paulin Paris, published in his nice + popular modern abridgment of the French romance, published in + 1861, under the title "Les Aventures de Maitre Renart et + d'Ysengrin son compere." On the debated question of the origin + of the Romance, see the learned and able work by Jonckbloet, + 8vo., Groningue, 1863. + +The popularity of the story of Reynard caused it to be imitated in a +variety of shapes, and this form of satire, in which animals acted +the part of men, became altogether popular. In the latter part of the +twelfth century, an Anglo-Latin poet, named Nigellus Wireker, composed +a very severe satire in elegiac verse, under the title of _Speculum +Stultorum_, the "Mirror of Fools." It is not a wise animal like the +fox, but a simple animal, the ass, who, under the name of Brunellus, +passes among the various ranks and classes of society, and notes their +crimes and vices. A prose introduction to this poem informs us that its +hero is the representative of the monks in general, who were always +longing for some new acquisition which was inconsistent with their +profession. In fact, Brunellus is absorbed with the notion that his +tail was too short, and his great ambition is to get it lengthened. +For this purpose he consults a physician, who, after representing to +him in vain the folly of his pursuit, gives him a receipt to make +his tail grow longer, and sends him to the celebrated medical school +of Salerno to obtain the ingredients. After various adventures, in +the course of which he loses a part of his tail instead of its being +lengthened, Brunellus proceeds to the University of Paris to study and +obtain knowledge; and we are treated with a most amusingly satirical +account of the condition and manners of the scholars of that time. +Soon convinced of his incapacity for learning, Brunellus abandons the +university in despair, and he resolves to enter one of the monastic +orders, the character of all which he passes in review. The greater +part of the poem consists of a very bitter satire on the corruptions of +the monkish orders and of the Church in general. While still hesitating +which order to choose, Brunellus falls into the hands of his old +master, from whom he had run away in order to seek his fortune in the +world, and he is compelled to pass the rest of his days in the same +humble and servile condition in which he had begun them. + +A more direct imitation of "Reynard the Fox" is found in the early +French romance of "Fauvel," the hero of which is neither a fox nor +an ass, but a horse. People of all ranks and classes repair to the +court of Fauvel, the horse, and furnish abundant matter for satire +on the moral, political, and religious hypocrisy which pervaded the +whole frame of society. At length the hero resolves to marry, and, +in a finely illuminated manuscript of this romance, preserved in the +Imperial Library in Paris, this marriage furnishes the subject of a +picture, which gives the only representation I have met with of one of +the popular burlesque ceremonies which were so common in the middle +ages. + + [Illustration: _No. 52. A Mediaeval Charivari._] + +Among other such ceremonies, it was customary with the populace, on the +occasion of a man's or woman's second marriage, or an ill-sorted match, +or on the espousals of people who were obnoxious to their neighbours, +to assemble outside the house, and greet them with discordant music. +This custom is said to have been practised especially in France, and +it was called a _charivari_. There is still a last remnant of it in +our country in the music of marrow-bones and cleavers, with which the +marriages of butchers are popularly celebrated; but the derivation +of the French name appears not to be known. It occurs in old Latin +documents, for it gave rise to such scandalous scenes of riot and +licentiousness, that the Church did all it could, though in vain, to +suppress it. The earliest mention of this custom, furnished in the +_Glossarium_ of Ducange, is contained in the synodal statutes of the +church of Avignon, passed in the year 1337, from which we learn that +when such marriages occurred, people forced their way into the houses +of the married couple, and carried away their goods, which they were +obliged to pay a ransom for before they were returned, and the money +thus raised was spent in getting up what is called in the statute +relating to it a _Chalvaricum_. It appears from this statute, that +the individuals who performed the _charivari_ accompanied the happy +couple to the church, and returned with them to their residence, +with coarse and indecent gestures and discordant music, and uttering +scurrilous and indecent abuse, and that they ended with feasting. +In the statutes of Meaux, in 1365, and in those of Hugh, bishop of +Beziers, in 1368, the same practice is forbidden, under the name of +_Charavallium_; and it is mentioned in a document of the year 1372, +also quoted by Ducange, under that of _Carivarium_, as then existing at +Nimes. Again, in 1445, the Council of Tours made a decree, forbidding, +under pain of excommunication, "the insolences, clamours, sounds, and +other tumults practised at second and third nuptials, called by the +vulgar a _Charivarium_, on account of the many and grave evils arising +out of them."[28] It will be observed that these early allusions to +the _charivari_ are found almost solely in documents coming from the +Roman towns in the south of France, so that this practice was probably +one of the many popular customs derived directly from the Romans. +When Cotgrave's "Dictionary" was published (that is, in 1632) the +practice of the _charivari_ appears to have become more general in its +existence, as well as its application; for he describes it as "a public +defamation, or traducing of; a foule noise made, blacke santus rung, +to the shame and disgrace of another; hence an infamous (or infaming) +ballad sung, by an armed troupe, under the window of an old dotard, +married the day before unto a yong wanton, in mockerie of them both." +And, again, a _charivaris de poelles_ is explained as "the carting of +an infamous person, graced with the harmonie of tinging kettles and +frying-pan musicke."[29] The word is now generally used in the sense +of a great tumult of discordant music, produced often by a number of +persons playing different tunes on different instruments at the same +time. + + [28] "Insultationes, clamores, sonos, et alios tumultus, in + secundis et tertiis quorundam nuptiis, quos charivarium vulgo + appellant, propter multa et gravia incommoda, prohibemus sub poena + excommunitationis."--Ducange, v. _Charivarium_. + + [29] Cotgrave's Dictionarie, v. _Charivaris_. + + [Illustration: _No. 53. Continuation of the Charivari._] + +As I have stated above, the manuscript of the romance of "Fauvel" is in +the Imperial Library in Paris. A copy of this illumination is engraved +in Jaime's "Musee de la Caricature," from which our cuts Nos. 52 and 53 +are taken. It is divided into three compartments, one above another, +in the uppermost of which Fauvel is seen entering the nuptial chamber +to his young wife, who is already in bed. The scene in the compartment +below, which is copied in our cut No. 52, represents the street +outside, and the mock revellers performing the _charivari_; and this is +continued in the third, or lowest, compartment, which is represented +in our cut No. 53. Down each side of the original illumination is a +frame-work of windows, from which people, who have been disturbed by +the noise, are looking out upon the tumult. It will be seen that all +the performers wear masks, and that they are dressed in burlesque +costume. In confirmation of the statement of the ecclesiastical synods +as to the licentiousness of these exhibitions, we see one of the +performers here disguised as a woman, who lifts up his dress to expose +his person while dancing. The musical instruments are no less grotesque +than the costumes, for they consist chiefly of kitchen utensils, such +as frying-pans, mortars, saucepans, and the like. + + [Illustration: _No. 54. The Tables Turned._] + +There was another series of subjects in which animals were introduced +as the instruments of satire. This satire consisted in reverting +the position of man with regard to the animals over which he had +been accustomed to tyrannise, so that he was subjected to the same +treatment from the animals which, in his actual position, he uses +towards them. This change of relative position was called in old French +and Anglo-Norman, _le monde bestorne_, which was equivalent to the +English phrase, "the world turned upside down." It forms the subject +of rather old verses, I believe, both in French and English, and +individual scenes from it are met with in pictorial representation at +a rather early date. During the year 1862, in the course of accidental +excavations on the site of the Friary, at Derby, a number of encaustic +tiles, such as were used for the floors of the interiors of churches +and large buildings, were found.[30] The ornamentation of these tiles, +especially of the earlier ones, is, like all mediaeval ornamentations, +extremely varied, and even these tiles sometimes present subjects of +a burlesque and satirical character, though they are more frequently +adorned with the arms and badges of benefactors to the church or +convent. The tiles found on the site of the priory at Derby are +believed to be of the thirteenth century, and one pattern, a diminished +copy of which is given in our cut No. 54, presents a subject taken +from the _monde bestorne_. The hare, master of his old enemy, the +dog, has become hunter himself, and seated upon the dog's back he +rides vigorously to the chace, blowing his horn as he goes. The design +is spiritedly executed, and its satirical intention is shown by the +monstrous and mirthful face, with the tongue lolling out, figured on +the outer corner of the tile. It will be seen that four of these tiles +are intended to be joined together to make the complete piece. In an +illumination in a manuscript of the fourteenth century in the British +Museum (MS. Reg. 10 E iv.), the hares are taking a still more severe +vengeance on their old enemy. The dog has been caught, brought to trial +for his numerous murders, and condemned, and they are represented here +(cut No. 55) conducting him in the criminal's cart to the gallows. Our +cut No. 56, the subject of which is furnished by one of the carved +stalls in Sherborne Minster (it is here copied from the engraving +in Carter's "Specimens of Ancient Sculpture"), represents another +execution scene, similar in spirit to the former. The geese have seized +their old enemy, Reynard, and are hanging him on a gallows, while two +monks, who attend the execution, appear to be amused at the energetic +manner in which the geese perform their task. Mr. Jewitt mentions two +other subjects belonging to this series, one of them taken from an +illuminated manuscript; they are, the mouse chasing the cat, and the +horse driving the cart--the former human carter in this case taking the +place of the horse between the shafts. + + [30] Mr. Llewellynn Jewitt, in his excellent publication, the + _Reliquary_, for October, 1862, has given an interesting paper on + the encaustic tiles found on this occasion, and on the conventual + house to which they belonged. + + [Illustration: _No. 55. Justice in the Hands of the Persecuted._] + + [Illustration: _No. 56. Reynard brought to Account at Last._] + +"The World turned upside down; or, the Folly of Man," has continued +amongst us to be a popular chap-book and child's book till within a +very few years, and I have now a copy before me printed in London +about the year 1790. It consists of a series of rude woodcuts, with a +few doggrel verses under each. One of these, entitled "The Ox turned +Farmer," represents two men drawing the plough, driven by an ox. In the +next, a rabbit is seen turning the spit on which a man is roasting, +while a cock holds a ladle and bastes. In a third, we see a tournament, +in which the horses are armed and ride upon the men. Another represents +the ox killing the butcher. In others we have birds netting men and +women; the ass, turned miller, employing the man-miller to carry his +sacks; the horse turned groom, and currying the man; and the fishes +angling for men and catching them. + +In a cleverly sculptured ornament in Beverley Minster, represented +in our cut No. 57, the goose herself is represented in a grotesque +situation, which might almost give her a place in "The World turned +upside down," although it is a mere burlesque, without any apparent +satirical aim. The goose has here taken the place of the horse at the +blacksmith's, who is vigorously nailing the shoe on her webbed foot. + + [Illustration: _No. 57. Shoeing the Goose._] + + [Illustration: _No. 58. Food for Swine._] + +Burlesque subjects of this description are not uncommon, especially +among architectural sculpture and wood-carving, and, at a rather +later period, on all ornamental objects. The field for such subjects +was so extensive, that the artist had an almost unlimited choice, +and therefore his subjects might be almost infinitely varied, though +we usually find them running on particular classes. The old popular +proverbs, for instance, furnished a fruitful source for drollery, and +are at times delineated in an amusingly literal or practical manner. +Pictorial proverbs and popular sayings are sometimes met with on the +carved misereres. For example, in one of those at Rouen, in Normandy, +represented in our cut No. 58, the carver has intended to represent +the idea of the old saying, in allusion to misplaced bounty, of +throwing pearls to swine, and has given it a much more picturesque and +pictorially intelligible form, by introducing a rather dashing female +feeding her swine with roses, or rather offering them roses for food, +for the swine display no eagerness to feed upon them. + + [Illustration: _No. 59. The Industrious Sow._] + +We meet with such subjects as these scattered over all mediaeval +works of art, and at a somewhat later period they were transferred +to other objects, such as the signs of houses. The custom of placing +signs over the doors of shops and taverns, was well known to the +ancients, as is abundantly manifested by their frequent occurrence +in the ruins of Pompeii; but in the middle ages, the use of signs +and badges was universal, and as--contrary to the apparent practice +in Pompeii, where certain badges were appropriated to certain trades +and professions--every individual was free to choose his own sign, +the variety was unlimited. Many still had reference, no doubt, to the +particular calling of those to whom they belonged, while others were of +a religious character, and indicated the saint under whose protection +the householder had placed himself. Some people took animals for their +signs, others monstrous or burlesque figures; and, in fact, there were +hardly any of the subjects of caricature or burlesque familiar to +the mediaeval sculptor and illuminator which did not from time to time +appear on these popular signs. A few of the old signs still preserved, +especially in the quaint old towns of France, Germany, and the +Netherlands, show us how frequently they were made the instruments of +popular satire. A sign not uncommon in France was _La Truie qui file_ +(the sow spinning). Our cut No. 59 represents this subject as treated +on an old sign, a carving in bas-relief of the sixteenth century, on +a house in the Rue du Marche-aux-Poirees, in Rouen. The sow appears +here in the character of the industrious housewife, employing herself +in spinning at the same time that she is attending to the wants of her +children. There is a singularly satirical sign at Beauvais, on a house +which was formerly occupied by an _epicier-moutardier_, or grocer who +made mustard, in the Rue du Chatel. In front of this sign, which is +represented in our cut No. 60, appears a large mustard-mill, on one +side of which stands Folly with a staff in her hand, with which she +is stirring the mustard, while an ape with a sort of sardonic grin, +throws in a seasoning, which may be conjectured by his posture.[31] The +trade-mark of the individual who adopted this strange device, is carved +below. + + [31] See an interesting little book on this subject by M. Ed. de + la Queriere, entitled "Recherches sur les Enseignes des Maisons + Particulieres," 8vo., Rouen, 1852, from which both the above + examples are taken. + + [Illustration: _No. 60. Adulteration._] + + + + + CHAPTER VI. + + THE MONKEY IN BURLESQUE AND CARICATURE.--TOURNAMENTS AND SINGLE + COMBATS.--MONSTROUS COMBINATIONS OF ANIMAL FORMS.--CARICATURES ON + COSTUME.--THE HAT.--THE HELMET.--LADIES' HEAD-DRESSES.--THE GOWN, + AND ITS LONG SLEEVES. + + +The fox, the wolf, and their companions, were introduced as instruments +of satire, on account of their peculiar characters; but there were +other animals which were also favourites with the satirist, because +they displayed an innate inclination to imitate; they formed, as it +were, natural parodies upon mankind. I need hardly say that of these +the principal and most remarkable was the monkey. This animal must +have been known to our Anglo-Saxon forefathers from a remote period, +for they had a word for it in their own language--_apa_, our _ape_. +Monkey is a more modern name, and seems to be equivalent with maniken, +or a little man. The earliest _Bestiaries_, or popular treatises on +natural history, give anecdotes illustrative of the aptness of this +animal for imitating the actions of men, and ascribe to it a degree of +understanding which would almost raise it above the level of the brute +creation. Philip de Thaun, an Anglo-Norman poet of the reign of Henry +I., in his _Bestiary_, tells us that "the monkey, by imitation, as +books say, counterfeits what it sees, and mocks people:"-- + + _Li singe par figure, si cum dit escripture, + Ceo que il vait contrefait, de gent escar hait._[32] + +He goes on to inform us, as a proof of the extraordinary instinct of +this animal, that it has more affection for some of its cubs than for +others, and that, when running away, it carried those which it liked +before it, and those it disliked behind its back. The sketch from the +illuminated manuscript of the Romance of the Comte d'Artois, of the +fifteenth century, which forms our cut No. 61, represents the monkey, +carrying, of course, its favourite child before it in its flight, and +what is more, it is taking that flight mounted on a donkey. A monkey on +horseback appears not to have been a novelty, as we shall see in the +sequel. + + [32] See my "Popular Treatises on Science written during the Middle + Ages," p. 107. + + [Illustration: _No. 61. A Monkey Mounted._] + +Alexander Neckam, a very celebrated English scholar of the latter part +of the twelfth century, and one of the most interesting of the early +mediaeval writers on natural history, gives us many anecdotes, which +show us how much attached our mediaeval forefathers were to domesticated +animals, and how common a practice it was to keep them in their houses. +The baronial castle appears often to have presented the appearance +of a menagerie of animals, among which some were of that strong and +ferocious character that rendered it necessary to keep them in close +confinement, while others, such as monkeys, roamed about the buildings +at will. One of Neckam's stories is very curious in regard to our +subject, for it shows that the people in those days exercised their +tamed animals in practically caricaturing contemporary weaknesses and +fashions. This writer remarks that "the nature of the ape is so ready +at acting, by ridiculous gesticulations, the representations of things +it has seen, and thus gratifying the vain curiosity of worldly men +in public exhibitions, that it will even dare to imitate a military +conflict. A jougleur (_histrio_) was in the habit of constantly taking +two monkeys to the military exercises which are commonly called +tournaments, that the labour of teaching might be diminished by +frequent inspection. He afterwards taught two dogs to carry these apes, +who sat on their backs, furnished with proper arms. Nor did they want +spurs, with which they strenuously urged on the dogs. Having broken +their lances, they drew out their swords, with which they spent many +blows on each other's shields. Who at this sight could refrain from +laughter?"[33] + + [33] Alexander Neckam, De Naturis Rerum, lib. ii. c. 129. + + [Illustration: _No. 62. A Tournament._] + +Such contemporary caricatures of the mediaeval tournament, which was +in its greatest fashion during the period from the twelfth to the +fourteenth century, appear to have been extremely popular, and are not +unfrequently represented in the borders of illuminated manuscripts. +The manuscript now so well known as "Queen Mary's Psalter" (MS. Reg. +2 B vii.), and written and illuminated very early in the fourteenth +century, contains not a few illustrations of this description. One of +these, which forms our cut No. 62, represents a tournament not much +unlike that described by Alexander Neckam, except that the monkeys +are here riding upon other monkeys, and not upon dogs. In fact, all +the individuals here engaged are monkeys, and the parody is completed +by the introduction of the trumpeter on one side, and of minstrelsy, +represented by a monkey playing on the tabor, on the other; or, +perhaps, the two monkeys are simply playing on the pipe and tabor, +which were looked upon as the lowest description of minstrelsy, and are +therefore the more aptly introduced into the scene. + +The same manuscript has furnished us with the cut No. 63. Here the +combat takes place between a monkey and a stag, the latter having +the claws of a griffin. They are mounted, too, on rather nondescript +animals--one having the head and body of a lion, with the forefeet +of an eagle; the other having a head somewhat like that of a lion, +on a lion's body, with the hind parts of a bear. This subject may, +perhaps, be intended as a burlesque on the mediaeval romances, filled +with combats between the Christians and the Saracens; for the ape--who, +in the moralisations which accompany the _Bestiaries_, is said to +represent the devil--is here armed with what are evidently intended for +the sabre and shield of a Saracen, while the flag carries the shield +and lance of a Christian knight. + + [Illustration: _No. 63. A Feat of Arms._] + +The love of the mediaeval artists for monstrous figures of animals, +and for mixtures of animals and men, has been alluded to in a former +chapter. The combatants in the accompanying cut (No. 64), taken from +the same manuscript, present a sort of combination of the rider and +the animal, and they again seem to be intended for a Saracen and a +Christian. The figure to the right, which is composed of the body of +a satyr, with the feet of a goose and the wings of a dragon, is armed +with a similar Saracenic sabre; while that to the left, which is on +the whole less monstrous, wields a Norman sword. Both have human faces +below the navel as well as above, which was a favourite idea in the +grotesque of the middle ages. Our mediaeval forefathers appear to +have had a decided taste for monstrosities of every description, and +especially for mixtures of different kinds of animals, and of animals +and men. There is no doubt, to judge by the anecdotes recorded by such +writers as Giraldus Cambrensis, that a belief in the existence of such +unnatural creatures was widely entertained. In his account of Ireland, +this writer tells us of animals which were half ox and half man, half +stag and half cow, and half dog and half monkey.[34] It is certain that +there was a general belief in such animals, and nobody could be more +credulous than Giraldus himself. + + [34] See Girald. Cambr., Topog. Hiberniae, dist. ii. cc. 21, 22; and the + Itinerary of Wales, lib. ii. c. 11. + + [Illustration: _No. 64. A Terrible Combat._] + + [Illustration: _No. 65. Fashionable Dress._] + +The design to caricature, which is tolerably evident in the subjects +just given, is still more apparent in other grotesques that adorn +the borders of the mediaeval manuscripts, as well as in some of the +mediaeval carvings and sculpture. Thus, in our cut No. 65, taken from +one of the borders in the Romance of the Comte d'Artois, a manuscript +of the fifteenth century, we cannot fail to recognise an attempt at +turning to ridicule the contemporary fashions in dress. The hat is +only an exaggerated form of one which appears to have been commonly +used in France in the latter half of the fifteenth century, and which +appears frequently in illuminated manuscripts executed in Burgundy; +and the boot also belongs to the same period. The latter reappeared at +different times, until at length it became developed into the modern +top-boots. In cut No. 66, from the same manuscript, where it forms the +letter T, we have the same form of hat, still more exaggerated, and +combined at the same time with grotesque faces. + + [Illustration: _No. 66. Heads and Hats._] + +Caricatures on costume are by no means uncommon among the artistic +remains of the middle ages, and are not confined to illuminated +manuscripts. The fashionable dresses of those days went into far more +ridiculous excesses of shape than anything we see in our times--at +least, so far as we can believe the drawings in the manuscripts; +but these, however seriously intended, were constantly degenerating +into caricature, from circumstances which are easily explained, and +which have, in fact, been explained already in their influence on +other parts of our subject. The mediaeval artists in general were not +very good delineators of form, and their outlines are much inferior +to their finish. Conscious of this, though perhaps unknowingly, +they sought to remedy the defect in a spirit which has always been +adopted in the early stages of art-progress--they aimed at making +themselves understood by giving a special prominence to the peculiar +characteristics of the objects they wished to represent. These were +the points which naturally attracted people's first attention, and +the resemblance was felt most by people in general when these points +were put forward in excessive prominence in the picture. The dresses, +perhaps, hardly existed in the exact forms in which we see them in +the illuminations, or at least those were only exceptions to the +generally more moderate forms; and hence, in using these pictorial +records as materials for the history of costume, we ought to make a +certain allowance for exaggeration--we ought, indeed, to treat them +almost as caricatures. In fact, much of what we now call caricature, +was then characteristic of serious art, and of what was considered its +high development. Many of the attempts which have been made of late +years to introduce ancient costume on the stage, would probably be +regarded by the people who lived in the age which they were intended to +represent, as a mere design to turn them into ridicule. Nevertheless, +the fashions in dress were, especially from the twelfth century to the +sixteenth, carried to a great degree of extravagance, and were not only +the objects of satire and caricature, but drew forth the indignant +declamations of the Church, and furnished a continuous theme to the +preachers. The contemporary chronicles abound with bitter reflections +on the extravagance in costume, which was considered as one of the +outward signs of the great corruption of particular periods; and they +give us not unfrequent examples of the coarse manner in which the +clergy discussed them in their sermons. The readers of Chaucer will +remember the manner in which this subject is treated in the "Parson's +Tale." In this respect the satirists of the Church went hand in hand +with the pictorial caricaturists of the illuminated manuscripts, +and of the sculptures with which we sometimes meet in contemporary +architectural ornamentation. In the latter, this class of caricature is +perhaps less frequent, but it is sometimes very expressive. The very +curious _misereres_ in the church of Ludlow, in Shropshire, present the +caricature reproduced in our cut No. 67. It represents an ugly, and, to +judge by the expression of the countenance, an ill-tempered old woman, +wearing the fashionable head-dress of the earlier half of the fifteenth +century, which seems to have been carried to its greatest extravagance +in the beginning of the reign of Henry VI. It is the style of coiffure +known especially as the horned head-dress, and the very name carries +with it a sort of relationship to an individual who was notoriously +horned--the spirit of evil. This dashing dame of the olden time appears +to have struck terror into two unfortunates who have fallen within +her influence, one of whom, as though he took her for a new Gorgon, +is attempting to cover himself with his buckler, while the other, +apprehending danger of another kind, is prepared to defend himself with +his sword. The details of the head-dress in this figure are interesting +for the history of costume. + + [Illustration: _No. 67. A Fashionable Beauty._] + + [Illustration: _No. 68. A Man of War._] + +Our next cut, No. 68, is taken from a manuscript in private possession, +which is now rather well known among antiquaries by the name of the +"Luttrell Psalter," and which belongs to the fourteenth century. It +seems to involve a satire on the aristocratic order of society--on the +knight who was distinguished by his helmet, his shield, and his armour. +The individual here represented presents a type which is anything +but aristocratic. While he holds a helmet in his hand to show the +meaning of the satire, his own helmet, which he wears on his head, is +simply a bellows. He may be a knight of the kitchen, or perhaps a mere +_quistron_, or kitchen lad. + + [Illustration: _No. 69. A Lady's Head-dress._] + +We have just seen a caricature of one of the ladies' head-dresses of +the earlier half of the fifteenth century, and our cut No. 69, from +an illuminated manuscript in the British Museum of the latter half of +the same century (MS. Harl., No. 4379), furnishes us with a caricature +of a head-dress of a different character, which came into fashion in +the reign of our Edward IV. The horned head-dress of the previous +generation had been entirely laid aside, and the ladies adopted in its +place a sort of steeple-shaped head-dress, or rather of the form of a +spire, made by rolling a piece of linen into the form of a long cone. +Over this lofty cap was thrown a piece of fine lawn or muslin, which +descended almost to the ground, and formed, as it were, two wings. A +short transparent veil was thrown over the face, and reached not quite +to the chin, resembling rather closely the veils in use among our +ladies of the present day (1864). The whole head-dress, indeed, has +been preserved by the Norman peasantry; for it may be observed that, +during the feudal ages, the fashions in France and England were always +identical. These steeple head-dresses greatly provoked the indignation +of the clergy, and zealous preachers attacked them roughly in their +sermons. A French monk, named Thomas Conecte, distinguished himself +especially in this crusade, and inveighed against the head-dress with +such effect, that we are assured that many of the women threw down +their head-dresses in the middle of the sermon, and made a bonfire +of them at its conclusion. The zeal of the preacher soon extended +itself to the populace, and, for a while, when ladies appeared in this +head-dress in public, they were exposed to be pelted by the rabble. +Under such a double persecution it disappeared for a moment, but when +the preacher was no longer present, it returned again, and, to use the +words of the old writer who has preserved this anecdote, "the women +who, like snails in a fright, had drawn in their horns, shot them out +again as soon as the danger was over." The caricaturist would hardly +overlook so extravagant a fashion, and accordingly the manuscript in +the British Museum, just mentioned, furnishes us with the subject of +our cut No. 69. In those times, when the passions were subjected to no +restraint, the fine ladies indulged in such luxury and licentiousness, +that the caricaturist has chosen as their fit representative a sow, who +wears the objectionable head-dress in full fashion. The original forms +one of the illustrations of a copy of the historian Froissart, and was, +therefore, executed in France, or, more probably, in Burgundy. + +The sermons and satires against extravagance in costume began at +an early period. The Anglo-Norman ladies, in the earlier part of +the twelfth century, first brought in vogue in our island this +extravagance in fashion, which quickly fell under the lash of satirist +and caricaturist. It was first exhibited in the robes rather than +in the head-dress. These Anglo-Norman ladies are understood to have +first introduced stays, in order to give an artificial appearance of +slenderness to their waists; but the greatest extravagance appeared in +the forms of their sleeves. The robe, or gown, instead of being loose, +as among the Anglo-Saxons, was laced close round the body, and the +sleeves, which fitted the arm tightly till they reached the elbows, +or sometimes nearly to the wrist, then suddenly became larger, and +hung down to an extravagant length, often trailing on the ground, and +sometimes shortened by means of a knot. The gown, also, was itself +worn very long. The clergy preached against these extravagances in +fashion, and at times, it is said, with effect; and they fell under +the vigorous lash of the satirist. In a class of satires which became +extremely popular in the twelfth century, and which produced in the +thirteenth the immortal poem of Dante--the visions of purgatory and of +hell--these contemporary extravagances in fashion are held up to public +detestation, and are made the subject of severe punishment. They were +looked upon as among the outward forms of pride. It arose, no doubt, +from this taste--from the darker shade which spread over men's minds in +the twelfth century--that demons, instead of animals, were introduced +to personify the evil-doers of the time. Such is the figure (cut No. +70) which we take from a very interesting manuscript in the British +Museum (MS. Cotton. Nero, C iv.). The demon is here dressed in the +fashionable gown with its long sleeves, of which one appears to have +been usually much longer than the other. Both the gown and sleeve are +shortened by means of knots, while the former is brought close round +the waist by tight lacing. It is a picture of the use of stays made at +the time of their first introduction. + + [Illustration: _No. 70. Sin in Satins._] + +This superfluity of length in the different parts of the dress was a +subject of complaint and satire at various and very distant periods, +and contemporary illuminations of a perfectly serious character show +that these complaints were not without foundation. + + + + + CHAPTER VII. + + PRESERVATION OF THE CHARACTER OF THE MIMUS AFTER THE FALL OF + THE EMPIRE.--THE MINSTREL AND JOGELOUR.--HISTORY OF POPULAR + STORIES.--THE FABLIAUX.--ACCOUNT OF THEM.--THE CONTES DEVOTS. + + +I have already remarked that, upon the fall of the Roman empire, the +popular institutions of the Romans were more generally preserved to +the middle ages than those of a higher and more refined character. +This is understood without difficulty, when we consider that the lower +class of the population--in the towns, what we might perhaps call the +lower and middle classes--continued to exist much the same as before, +while the barbarian conquerors came in and took the place of the ruling +classes. The drama, which had never much hold upon the love of the +Roman populace, was lost, and the theatres and the amphitheatres, which +had been supported only by the wealth of the imperial court and of +the ruling class, were abandoned and fell into ruin; but the _mimus_, +who furnished mirth to the people, continued to exist, and probably +underwent no immediate change in his character. It will be well to +state again the chief characteristics of the ancient _mimus_, before we +proceed to describe his mediaeval representative. + +The grand aim of the _mimus_ was to make people laugh, and he employed +generally every means he knew of for effecting this purpose, by +language, by gestures or motions of the body, or by dress. Thus he +carried, strapped over his loins, a wooden sword, which was called +_gladius histricus_ and _clunaculum_, and wore sometimes a garment +made of a great number of small pieces of cloth of different colours, +which was hence called _centunculus_, or the hundred-patched dress.[35] +These two characteristics have been preserved in the modern harlequin. +Other peculiarities of costume may conveniently be left undescribed; +the female mimae sometimes exhibited themselves unrestricted by dress. +They danced and sung; repeated jokes and told merry stories; recited +or acted farces and scandalous anecdotes; performed what we now call +mimicry, a word derived from the name of mimus; and they put themselves +in strange postures, and made frightful faces. They sometimes acted +the part of a fool or zany (_morio_), or of a madman. They added to +these performances that of the conjurer or juggler (_praestigiator_), +and played tricks of sleight of hand. The mimi performed in the streets +and public places, or in the theatres, and especially at festivals, and +they were often employed at private parties, to entertain the guests at +a supper. + + [35] "Uti me consuesse tragoedi syrmate, histrionis crotalone ad + trieterica orgia, aut mimi centunculo."--Apuleius, Apolog. + +We trace the existence of this class of performers during the earlier +period of the middle ages by the expressions of hostility towards +them used from time to time by the ecclesiastical writers, and the +denunciations of synods and councils, which have been quoted in a +former chapter.[36] Nevertheless, it is evident from many allusions +to them, that they found their way into the monastic houses, and were +in great favour not only among the monks, but among the nuns also; +that they were introduced into the religious festivals; and that they +were tolerated even in the churches. It is probable that they long +continued to be known in Italy and the countries near the centre +of Roman influence, and where the Latin language was continued, by +their old name of _mimus_. The writers of the mediaeval vocabularies +appear all to have been much better acquainted with the meaning of +this word than of most of the Latin words of the same class, and they +evidently had a class of performers existing in their own times to whom +they considered that the name applied. The Anglo-Saxon vocabularies +interpret the Latin _mimus_ by _glig-mon_, a gleeman. In Anglo-Saxon, +_glig_ or _gliu_ meant mirth and game of every description, and as the +Anglo-Saxon teachers who compiled the vocabularies give, as synonyms +of _mimus_, the words _scurra_, _jocista_, and _pantomimus_, it is +evident that all these were included in the character of the gleeman, +and that the latter was quite identical with his Roman type. It was +the Roman _mimus_ introduced into Saxon England. We have no traces of +the existence of such a class of performers among the Teutonic race +before they became acquainted with the civilisation of imperial Rome. +We know from drawings in contemporary illuminated manuscripts that the +performances of the gleeman did include music, singing, and dancing, +and also the tricks of mountebanks and jugglers, such as throwing up +and catching knives and balls, and performing with tamed bears, &c.[37] + + [36] See before, p. 41 of the present volume. + + [37] See examples of these illuminations in my "History of Domestic + Manners and Sentiments," pp. 34, 35, 37, 65. + +But even among the peoples who preserved the Latin language, the word +_mimus_ was gradually exchanged for others employed to signify the +same thing. The word _jocus_ had been used in the signification of a +jest, playfulness, _jocari_ signified to jest, and _joculator_ was a +word for a jester; but, in the debasement of the language, _jocus_ +was taken in the signification of everything which created mirth. It +became, in the course of time the French word _jeu_, and the Italian +_gioco_, or _giuoco_. People introduced a form of the verb, _jocare_, +which became the French _juer_, to play or perform. _Joculator_ was +then used in the sense of _mimus_. In French the word became _jogleor_, +or _jougleor_, and in its later form _jougleur_. I may remark that, in +mediaeval manuscripts, it is almost impossible to distinguish between +the _u_ and the _n_, and that modern writers have misread this last +word as _jongleur_, and thus introduced into the language a word which +never existed, and which ought to be abandoned. In old English, as we +see in Chaucer, the usual form was _jogelere_. The mediaeval joculator, +or jougleur, embraced all the attributes of the Roman _mimus_,[38] and +perhaps more. In the first place he was very often a poet himself, and +composed the pieces which it was one of his duties to sing or recite. +These were chiefly songs, or stories, the latter usually told in verse, +and so many of them are preserved in manuscripts that they form a very +numerous and important class of mediaeval literature. The songs were +commonly satirical and abusive, and they were made use of for purposes +of general or personal vituperation. Out of them, indeed, grew the +political songs of a later period. There were female jougleurs, and +both sexes danced, and, to create mirth among those who encouraged +them, they practised a variety of performances, such as mimicking +people, making wry and ugly faces, distorting their bodies into strange +postures, often exposing their persons in a very unbecoming manner, and +performing many vulgar and indecent acts, which it is not necessary to +describe more particularly. They carried about with them for exhibition +tame bears, monkeys, and other animals, taught to perform the actions +of men. As early as the thirteenth century, we find them including +among their other accomplishments that of dancing upon the tight-rope. +Finally, the jougleurs performed tricks of sleight of hand, and were +often conjurers and magicians. As, in modern times, the jougleurs of +the middle ages gradually passed away, sleight of hand appears to have +become their principal accomplishment, and the name only was left in +the modern word _juggler_. The jougleurs of the middle ages, like +the mimi of antiquity, wandered about from place to place, and often +from country to country, sometimes singly and at others in companies, +exhibited their performances in the roads and streets, repaired to all +great festivals, and were employed especially in the baronial hall, +where, by their songs, stories, and other performances, they created +mirth after dinner. + +[38] People in the middle ages were so fully conscious of the identity +of the mediaeval jougleur with the Roman mimus, that the Latin writers +often use mimus to signify a jougleur, and the one is interpreted by +the others in the vocabularies. Thus, in Latin-English vocabularies of +the fifteenth century, we have-- + + _Hic joculator_, } + } _Anglice_ jogulour. + _Hic mimus_, } + +This class of society had become known by another name, the origin of +which is not so easily explained. The primary meaning of the Latin word +_minister_ was a servant, one who ministers to another, either in his +wants or in his pleasures and amusements. It was applied particularly +to the cup-bearer. In low Latinity, a diminutive of this word was +formed, _minestellus_, or _ministrellus_, a petty servant, or minister. +When we first meet with this word, which is not at a very early date, +it is used as perfectly synonymous with _joculator_, and, as the +word is certainly of Latin derivation, it is clear that it was from +it the middle ages derived the French word _menestrel_ (the modern +_menetrier_), and the English _minstrel_. The mimi or jougleurs were +perhaps considered as the petty ministers to the amusements of their +lord, or of him who for the time employed them. Until the close of the +middle ages, the minstrel and the jougleur were absolutely identical. +Possibly the former may have been considered the more courtly of the +two names. But in England, as the middle ages disappeared, and lost +their influence on society sooner than in France, the word minstrel +remained attached only to the musical part of the functions of the old +mimus, while, as just observed, the juggler took the sleight of hand +and the mountebank tricks. In modern French, except where employed +technically by the antiquary, the word _menetrier_ means a fiddler. + +The jougleurs, or minstrels, formed a very numerous and important, +though a low and despised, class of mediaeval society. The dulness of +every-day life in a feudal castle or mansion required something more +than ordinary excitement in the way of amusement, and the old family +bard, who continually repeated to the Teutonic chief the praises of +himself and his ancestors, was soon felt to be a wearisome companion. +The mediaeval knights and their ladies wanted to laugh, and to make +them laugh sufficiently it required that the jokes, or tales, or comic +performances, should be broad, coarse, and racy, with a good spicing of +violence and of the wonderful. Hence the jougleur was always welcome +to the feudal mansion, and he seldom went away dissatisfied. But the +subject of the present chapter is rather the literature of the jougleur +than his personal history, and, having traced his origin to the Roman +mimus, we will now proceed to one class of his performances. + +It has been stated that the mimus and the jougleurs told stories. +Of those of the former, unfortunately, none are preserved, except, +perhaps, in a few anecdotes scattered in the pages of such writers as +Apuleius and Lucian, and we are obliged to guess at their character, +but of the stories of the jougleurs a considerable number has been +preserved. It becomes an interesting question how far these stories +have been derived from the mimi, handed down traditionally from mimus +to jougleur, how far they are native in our race, or how far they were +derived at a later date from other sources. And in considering this +question, we must not forget that the mediaeval jougleurs were not the +only representatives of the mimi, for among the Arabs of the East also +there had originated from them, modified under different circumstances, +a very important class of minstrels and story-tellers, and with these +the jougleurs of the west were brought into communication at the +commencement of the crusades. There can be no doubt that a very large +number of the stories of the jougleurs were borrowed from the East, for +the evidence is furnished by the stories themselves; and there can be +little doubt also that the jougleurs improved themselves, and underwent +some modification, by their intercourse with Eastern performers of the +same class. + +On the other hand, we have traces of the existence of these popular +stories before the jougleurs can have had communication with the East. +Thus, as already mentioned, we find, composed in Germany, apparently +in the tenth century, in rhythmical Latin, the well-known story of the +wife of a merchant who bore a child during the long absence of her +husband, and who excused herself by stating that her pregnancy had been +the result of swallowing a flake of snow in a snow-storm. This, and +another of the same kind, were evidently intended to be sung. Another +poem in popular Latin verse, which Grimm and Schmeller, who edited +it,[39] believe may be of the eleventh century, relates a very amusing +story of an adventurer named Unibos, who, continually caught in his own +snares, finishes by getting the better of all his enemies, and becoming +rich, by mere ingenious cunning and good fortune. This story is not +met with among those of the jougleurs, as far as they are yet known, +but, curiously enough, Lover found it existing orally among the Irish +peasantry, and inserted the Irish story among his "Legends of Ireland." +It is a curious illustration of the pertinacity with which the popular +stories descend along with peoples through generations from the +remotest ages of antiquity. The same story is found in an oriental form +among the tales of the Tartars published in French by Guenlette. + + [39] In a volume entitled "Lateinische Gedichte des x. und xi. Jh." + 8vo. Goettingen, 1838. + +The people of the middle ages, who took their word _fable_ from the +Latin _fabula_, which they appear to have understood as a mere term for +any short narration, included under it the stories told by the mimi and +jougleurs; but, in the fondness of the middle ages for diminutives, by +which they intended to express familiarity and attachment, applied to +them more particularly the Latin _fabella_, which in the old French +became _fablel_, or, more usually, _fabliau_. The fabliaux of the +jougleurs form a most important class of the comic literature of the +middle ages. They must have been wonderfully numerous, for a very large +quantity of them still remain, and these are only the small portion of +what once existed, which have escaped perishing like the others by the +accident of being written in manuscripts which have had the fortune to +survive; while manuscripts containing others have no doubt perished, +and it is probable that many were only preserved orally, and never +written down at all.[40] The recital of these fabliaux appears to have +been the favourite employment of the jougleurs, and they became so +popular that the mediaeval preachers turned them into short stories in +Latin prose, and made use of them as illustrations in their sermons. +Many collections of these short Latin stories are found in manuscripts +which had served as note-books to the preachers,[41] and out of them +was originally compiled that celebrated mediaeval book called the "Gesta +Romanorum." + + [40] Many of the Fabliaux have been printed, but the two principal + collections, and to which I shall chiefly refer in the text, are + those of Barbazan, re-edited and much enlarged by Meon, 4 vols. + 8vo., 1808, and of Meon, 2 vols. 8vo., 1823. + + [41] A collection of these short Latin stories was edited by the author + of the present work, in a volume printed for the Percy Society in + 1842. + +It is to be regretted that the subjects and language of a large portion +of these fabliaux are such as to make it impossible to present them +before modern readers, for they furnish singularly interesting and +minute pictures of mediaeval life in all classes of society. Domestic +scenes are among those most frequent, and they represent the interior +of the mediaeval household in no favourable point of view. The majority +of these tell loose stories of husbands deceived by their fair spouses, +or of tricks played upon unsuspecting damsels. In some instances the +treatment of the husband is perhaps what may be called of a less +objectionable character, as in the fabliau of La Vilain Mire (the +clown doctor), printed in Barbazan (iii. 1), which was the origin of +Moliere's well-known comedy of "Le Medecin malgre lui." A rich peasant +married the daughter of a poor knight; it was of course a marriage of +ambition on his part, and of interest on hers--one of those ill-sorted +matches which, according to feudal sentiments, could never be happy, +and in which the wife was considered as privileged to treat her husband +with all possible contempt. In this instance the lady hit upon an +ingenious mode of punishing her husband for his want of submission to +her ill-treatment. Messengers from the king passed that way, seeking +a skilful doctor to cure the king's daughter of a dangerous malady. +The lady secretly informed these messengers that her husband was a +physician of extraordinary talent, but of an eccentric temper, for he +would never acknowledge or exercise his art until first subjected to +a severe beating. The husband is seized, bound, and carried by force +to the king's court, where, of course, he denies all knowledge of the +healing art, but a severe beating obliges him to compliance, and he is +successful by a combination of impudence and chance. This is only the +beginning of the poor man's miseries. Instead of being allowed to go +home, his fame has become so great that he is retained at court for +the public good, and, with a rapid succession of patients, fearful +of the results of his conscious ignorance, he refuses them all, and +is subjected in every case to the same ill-treatment to force his +compliance. The examples in which the husband, on the other hand, +outwits the wife are few. A fabliau by a poet who gives himself the +name of Cortebarbe, printed also by Barbazan (iii. 398), relates how +three blind beggars were deceived by a clerc, or scholar, of Paris, who +met them on the road near Compiegne. The clerk pretended to give the +three beggars a bezant, which was then a good sum of money, and they +hastened joyfully to the next tavern, where they ordered a plentiful +supper, and feasted to their hearts' content. But, in fact, the clerk +had not given them a bezant at all, although, as he said he did so, +and they could only judge by their hearing, they imagined that they +had the coin, and each thought that it was in the keeping of one of +his companions. Thus, when the time of paying came, and the money +was not forthcoming, in the common belief that one of the three had +received the bezant and intended to keep it and cheat the others, they +quarrelled violently, and from abuse soon came to blows. The landlord, +drawn to the spot by the uproar, and informed of the state of the case, +accused the three blind men of a conspiracy to cheat him, and demanded +payment with great threats. The clerk of Paris, who had followed them +to the inn, and taken his lodging there in order to witness the result, +delivered the blind men by an equally ingenious trick which he plays +upon the landlord and the priest of the parish. + +Some of these stories have for their subject tricks played among +thieves. In one printed by Meon (i. 124), we have the story of a rich +but simple villan, or countryman, named Brifaut, who is robbed at +market by a cunning sharper, and severely corrected by his wife for +his carelessness. Robbery, both by force and by sleight of hand and +craft, prevailed to an extraordinary degree during the middle ages. The +plot of the fabliau of Barat and Haimet, by Jean de Boves (Barbazan, +iv. 233), turns upon a trial of skill among three robbers to determine +who shall commit the cleverest act of thievery, and the result is, at +least, an extremely amusing story. It may be mentioned as an example +of the numerous stories which the jougleurs certainly obtained from +the East, that the well-known story of the Hunchback in the "Arabian +Nights" appears among them in two or three different forms. + +The social vices of the middle ages, their general licentiousness, +the prevalence of injustice and extortion, are very fully exposed to +view in these compositions, in which no class of society is spared. +The villan, or peasant, is always treated very contemptuously; he +formed the class from which the jougleur received least benefit. But +the aristocracy, the great barons, the lords of the soil, come in for +their full share of satire, and they no doubt enjoyed the ridiculous +pictures of their own order. I will not venture to introduce the reader +to female life in the baronial castle, as it appears in many of these +stories, and as it is no doubt truly painted, although, of course, +in many instances, much exaggerated. We have already seen how in the +story of Reynard, the character of mediaeval society was represented +by the long struggle between brute force represented by the wolf, the +emblem of the aristocratic class, and the low astuteness of the fox, +or the unaristocratic class. The success of the craft of the human fox +over the force of his lordly antagonist is often told in the fabliaux +in ludicrous colours. In that of Trubert, printed by Meon (i. 192), +the "duke" of a country, with his wife and family, become repeatedly +the dupes of the gross deceptions of a poor but impudent peasant. +These satires upon the aristocracy were no doubt greatly enjoyed by +the good _bourgeoisie_, who, in their turn, furnished abundance of +stories, of the drollest description, to provoke the mirth of the lords +of the soil, between whom and themselves there was a kind of natural +antipathy. Nor are the clergy spared. The priest is usually described +as living with a concubine--his order forbade marrying--and both are +considered as fair game to the community; while the monk figures more +frequently as the hero of gallant adventures. Both priest and monk are +usually distinguished by their selfishness and love of indulgence. In +the fabliau Du Bouchier d'Abbeville, in Barbazan (iv. 1), a butcher, on +his way home from the fair, seeks a night's lodging at the house of an +inhospitable priest, who refuses it. But when the former returns, and +offers, in exchange for his hospitality, one of his fat sheep which he +has purchased at the fair, and not only to kill it for their supper, +but to give all the meat they do not eat to his host, he is willingly +received into the house, and they make an excellent supper. By the +promise of the skin of the sheep, the guest succeeds in seducing both +the concubine and the maid-servant, and it is only after his departure +the following morning, in the middle of a domestic uproar caused by +the conflicting claims of the priest, the concubine, and the maid, to +the possession of the skin, that it is discovered that the butcher had +stolen the sheep from the priest's own flock. + +The fabliaux, as remarked before, form the most important class of the +extensive mass of the popular literature of the middle ages, and the +writers, confident in their strong hold upon public favour, sometimes +turn round and burlesque the literature of other classes, especially +the long heavy monotony of style of the great romances of chivalry and +the extravagant adventures they contained, as though conscious that +they were gradually undermining the popularity of the romance writers. +One of these poems, entitled "De Audigier," and printed in Barbazan +(iv. 217), is a parody on the romance writers and on their style, not +at all wanting in spirit or wit, but the satire is coarse and vulgar. +Another printed in Barbazan (iv. 287), under the title "De Berengier," +is a satire upon a sort of knight-errantry which had found its way +into mediaeval chivalry. Berengier was a knight of Lombardy, much given +to boasting, who had a beautiful lady for his wife. He used to leave +her alone in his castle, under pretext of sallying forth in search +of chivalrous adventures, and, after a while, having well hacked his +sword and shield, he returned to vaunt the desperate exploits he had +performed. But the lady was shrewd as well as handsome, and, having +some suspicions of his truthfulness as well as of his courage, she +determined to make trial of both. One morning, when her husband rode +forth as usual, she hastily disguised herself in a suit of armour, +mounted a good steed, and hurrying round by a different way, met the +boastful knight in the middle of a wood, where he no sooner saw that he +had to encounter a real assailant, than he displayed the most abject +cowardice, and his opponent exacted from him an ignominious condition +as the price of his escape. On his return home at night, boasting as +usual of his success, he found his lady taking her revenge upon him in +a still less respectful manner, but he was silenced by her ridicule. + +The _trouveres_, or poets, who wrote the fabliaux--I need hardly +remark that _trouvere_ is the same word as _trobador_, but in the +northern dialect of the French language--appear to have flourished +chiefly from the close of the twelfth century to the earlier part of +the fourteenth. They all composed in French, which was a language then +common to England and France, but some of their compositions bear +internal evidence of having been composed in England, and others are +found in contemporary manuscripts written in this island. The scene of +a fabliau, printed by Meon (i. 113), is laid at Colchester; and that +of La Male Honte, printed in Barbazan (iii. 204), is laid in Kent. The +latter, however, was written by a trouvere named Hugues de Cambrai. +No objection appears to have been entertained to the recital of these +licentious stories before the ladies of the castle or of the domestic +circle, and their general popularity was so great, that the more pious +clergy seem to have thought necessary to find something to take their +place in the post-prandial society of the monastery, and especially +of the nunnery; and religious stories were written in the same form +and metre as the fabliaux. Some of these have been published under the +title of "Contes Devots," and, from their general dulness, it may be +doubted if they answered their purpose of furnishing amusement so well +as the others. + + + + + CHAPTER VIII. + + CARICATURES OF DOMESTIC LIFE.--STATE OF DOMESTIC LIFE IN THE MIDDLE + AGES.--EXAMPLES OF DOMESTIC CARICATURE FROM THE CARVINGS OF THE + MISERERES.--KITCHEN SCENES.--DOMESTIC BRAWLS.--THE FIGHT FOR + THE BREECHES.--THE JUDICIAL DUEL BETWEEN MAN AND WIFE AMONG + THE GERMANS.--ALLUSIONS TO WITCHCRAFT.--SATIRES ON THE TRADES; + THE BAKER, THE MILLER, THE WINE-PEDLAR AND TAVERN-KEEPER, THE + ALE-WIFE, ETC. + + +The influence of the jougleurs over people's minds generally, with +their stories and satirical pieces, their grimaces, their postures, +and their wonderful performances, was very considerable, and may be +easily traced in mediaeval manners and sentiments. This influence would +naturally be exerted upon inventive art, and when a painter had to +adorn the margin of a book, or the sculptor to decorate the ornamental +parts of a building, we might expect the ideas which would first +present themselves to him to be those suggested by the jougleur's +performance, for the same taste had to be indulged in the one as in the +other. The same wit or satire would pervade them both. + + [Illustration: _No. 71. A Mediaeval Kitchen Scene._] + +Among the most popular subjects of satire during the middle ages, were +domestic scenes. Domestic life at that period appears to have been in +its general character coarse, turbulent, and, I should say, anything +but happy. In all its points of view, it presented abundant subjects +for jest and burlesque. There is little room for doubt that the Romish +Church, as it existed in the middle ages, was extremely hostile to +domestic happiness among the middle and lower classes, and that the +interference of the priest in the family was only a source of domestic +trouble. The satirical writings of the period, the popular tales, +the discourses of those who sought reform, even the pictures in the +manuscripts and the sculptures on the walls invariably represent the +female portion of the family as entirely under the influence of the +priests, and that influence as exercised for the worst of purposes. +They encouraged faithlessness as well as disobedience in wives, and +undermined the virtue of daughters, and were consequently regarded with +anything but kindly feeling by the male portion of the population. The +priest, the wife, and the husband, form the usual leading characters +in a mediaeval farce. Subjects of this kind are not very unfrequent in +the illuminations of manuscripts, and more especially in the sculptures +of buildings, and those chiefly ecclesiastical, in which monks or +priests are introduced in very equivocal situations. This part of the +subject, however, is one into which we shall not here venture, as we +find the mediaeval caricaturists drawing plenty of materials from the +less vicious shades of contemporary life; and, in fact, some of their +most amusing pictures are taken from the droll, rather than from the +vicious, scenes of the interior of the household. Such scenes are +very frequent on the misereres of the old cathedrals and collegiate +churches. Thus, in the stalls at Worcester Cathedral, there is a droll +figure of a man seated before a fire in a kitchen well stored with +flitches of bacon, he himself occupied in attending to the boiling pot, +while he warms his feet, for which purpose he has taken off his shoes. +In a similar carving in Hereford Cathedral, a man, also in the kitchen, +is seen attempting to take liberties with the cook maid, who throws a +platter at his head. A copy of this curious subject is given in cut +No. 71, and the cut No. 72 is taken from a similar miserere in Minster +Church, in the Isle of Thanet. It represents an old lady seated, +occupied industriously in spinning, and accompanied by her cats. + + [Illustration: _No. 72. An Old Lady and her Friends._] + + [Illustration: _No. 73. The Lady and her Cat._] + +We might easily add other examples of similar subjects from the same +sources, such as the scene in our cut No. 73, taken from one of the +stalls of Winchester Cathedral, which seems to be intended to represent +a witch riding away upon her cat, an enormous animal, whose jovial +look is only outdone by that of its mistress. The latter has carried +her distaff with her, and is diligently employed in spinning. A stall +in Sherborne Minster, given in our cut No. 74, represents a scene in a +school, in which an unfortunate scholar is experiencing punishment of +a rather severe description, to the great alarm of his companions, on +whom his disgrace is evidently acting as a warning. The flogging scene +at school appears to have been rather a favourite subject among the +early caricaturists, for the scourge was looked upon in the middle ages +as the grand stimulant to scholarship. In those good old times, when a +man recalled to memory his schoolboy days, he did not say, "When I was +at school," but, "When I was under the rod." + + [Illustration: _No. 74. Scholastic Discipline._] + + [Illustration: _No. 75. A Point in Dispute._] + +An extensive field for the study of this interesting part of our +subject will be found in the architectural gallery in the Kensington +Museum, which contains a large number of calls from stalls and other +sculptures, chiefly selected from the French cathedrals. One of these, +engraved in our cut No. 75, represents a couple of females, seated +before the kitchen fire. The date of this sculpture is stated to be +1382. To judge by their looks and attitude, there is a disagreement +between them, and the object in dispute seems to be a piece of meat, +which one has taken out of the pot and placed on a dish. This lady +wields her ladle as though she were prepared to use it as a weapon, +while her opponent is armed with the bellows. The ale-pot was not +unfrequently the subject of pictures of a turbulent character, and +among the grotesque and monstrous figures in the margins of the noble +manuscript of the fourteenth century, known as the "Luttrell Psalter," +one represents two personages not only quarrelling over their pots, +which they appear to have emptied, but actually fighting with them. One +of them has literally broken his pot over his companion's head. The +scene is copied in our cut No. 76. + + [Illustration: _No. 76. Want of Harmony over the Pot._] + + [Illustration: _No. 77. Domestic Strife._] + + [Illustration: _No. 78. A Struggle for the Mastery._] + +It must be stated, however, that the more common subjects of these +homely scenes are domestic quarrels, and that the man, or his wife, +enjoying their fireside, or similar bits of domestic comfort, only +make their appearance at rare intervals. Domestic quarrels and combats +are much more frequent. We have already seen, in the cut No. 75, +two dames of the kitchen evidently beginning to quarrel over their +cookery. A stall in the church of Stratford-upon-Avon gives us the +group represented in our cut No. 77. The battle has here become +desperate, but whether the male combatant be an oppressed husband or +an impertinent intruder, is not clear. The quarrel would seem to have +arisen during the process of cooking, as the female, who has seized +her opponent by the beard, has evidently snatched up the ladle as +the readiest weapon at hand. The anger appears to be mainly on her +side, and the rather tame countenance of her antagonist contrasts +strangely with her inflamed features. Our next cut, No. 78, is taken +from the sculpture of a column in Ely Cathedral, here copied from an +engraving in Carter's "Specimens of Ancient Sculpture." A man and +wife, apparently, are struggling for the possession of a staff, which +is perhaps intended to be the emblem of mastery. As is generally +represented to be the case in these scenes of domestic strife, the +woman shows more energy and more strength than her opponent, and she +is evidently overcoming him. The mastery of the wife over the husband +seems to have been a universally acknowledged state of things. A stall +in Sherborne Minster, in Dorset, which has furnished the subject of our +cut No. 79, might almost be taken as the sequel of the last cut. The +lady has possessed herself of the staff, has overthrown her husband, +and is even striking him on the head with it when he is down. In our +next cut, No. 80, which is taken from one of the casts of stalls in +the French cathedrals exhibited in the Kensington Museum, it is not +quite clear which of the two is the offender, but, perhaps, in this +case, the archer, as his profession is indicated by his bow and arrows, +has made a gallant assault, which, although she does not look much +displeased at it, the offended dame certainly resists with spirit. + + [Illustration: _No. 79. The Wife in the Ascendant._] + + [Illustration: _No. 80. Violence Resisted._] + +One idea connected with this picture of domestic antagonism appears +to have been very popular from a rather early period. There is a +proverbial phrase to signify that the wife is master in the household, +by which it is intimated that "she wears the breeches." The phrase +is, it must be confessed, an odd one, and is only half understood by +modern explanations; but in mediaeval story we learn how "she" first +put in her claim to wear this particular article of dress, how it was +first disputed and contested, how she was at times defeated, but how, +as a general rule, the claim was enforced. There was a French poet of +the thirteenth century, Hugues Piaucelles, two of whose _fabliaux_, or +metrical tales, entitled the "Fabliau d'Estourmi," and the "Fabliau de +Sire Hains et de Dame Anieuse," are preserved in manuscript, and have +been printed in the collection of Barbazan. The second of these relates +some of the adventures of a mediaeval couple, whose household was not +the best regulated in the world. The name of the heroine of this +story, Anieuse, is simply an old form of the French word _ennuyeuse_, +and certainly dame Anieuse was sufficiently "ennuyeuse" to her lord +and husband. "Sire Hains," her husband, was, it appears, a maker of +"cottes" and mantles, and we should judge also, by the point on which +the quarrel turned, that he was partial to a good dinner. Dame Anieuse +was of that disagreeable temper, that whenever Sire Hains told her of +some particularly nice thing which he wished her to buy for his meal, +she bought instead something which she knew was disagreeable to him. +If he ordered boiled meat, she invariably roasted it, and further +contrived that it should be so covered with cinders and ashes that +he could not eat it. This would show that people in the middle ages +(except, perhaps, professional cooks) were very unapt at roasting meat. +This state of things had gone on for some time, when one day Sire Hains +gave orders to his wife to buy him fish for his dinner. The disobedient +wife, instead of buying fish, provided nothing for his meal but a dish +of spinage, telling him falsely that all the fish stank. This leads to +a violent quarrel, in which, after some fierce wrangling, especially +on the part of the lady, Sire Hains proposes to decide their difference +in a novel manner. "Early in the morning," he said, "I will take off +my breeches and lay them down in the middle of the court, and the one +who can win them shall be acknowledged to be master or mistress of the +house." + + _Le matinet, sans contredire, + Voudrai mes braies deschaucier, + Et enmi nostre cort couchier; + Et qui conquerre les porra, + Par bone reson mousterra + Qu'il ert sire ou dame du nostre._ + Barbazan, Fabliaux, tome iii. p. 383. + +Dame Anieuse accepted the challenge with eagerness, and each prepared +for the struggle. After due preparation, two neighbours, friend Symon +and Dame Aupais, having been called in as witnesses, and the object +of dispute, the breeches, having been placed on the pavement of the +court, the battle began, with some slight parody on the formalities +of the judicial combat. The first blow was given by the dame, who was +so eager for the fray that she struck her husband before he had put +himself on his guard; and the war of tongues, in which at least Dame +Anieuse had the best of it, went on at the same time as the other +battle. Sire Hains ventured a slight expostulation on her eagerness +for the fray, in answer to which she only threw in his teeth a fierce +defiance to do his worst. Provoked at this, Sire Hains struck at her, +and hit her over the eyebrows, so effectively, that the skin was +discoloured; and, over-confident in the effect of this first blow, he +began rather too soon to exult over his wife's defeat. But Dame Anieuse +was less disconcerted than he expected, and recovering quickly from +the effect of the blow, she turned upon him and struck him on the same +part of his face with such force, that she nearly knocked him over the +sheepfold. Dame Anieuse, in her turn, now sneered over him, and while +he was recovering from his confusion, her eyes fell upon the object of +contention, and she rushed to it, and laid her hands upon it to carry +it away. This movement roused Sire Hains, who instantly seized another +part of the article of his dress of which he was thus in danger of +being deprived, and began a struggle for possession, in which the said +article underwent considerable dilapidation, and fragments of it were +scattered over the court. In the midst of this struggle the actual +fight recommenced, by the husband giving his wife so heavy a blow on +the teeth that her mouth was filled with blood. The effect was such +that Sire Hains already reckoned on the victory, and proclaimed himself +lord of the breeches. + + _Hains fiert sa fame enmi les denz + Tel cop, que la bouche dedenz + Li a toute emplie de sancz. + "Tien ore," dist Sire Hains, "anc, + Je cuit que je t'ai bien atainte, + Or t'ai-je de deux colors tainte-- + J'aurai les braies toutes voies."_ + +But the immediate effect on Dame Anieuse was only to render her more +desperate. She quitted her hold on the disputed garment, and fell upon +her husband with such a shower of blows that he hardly knew which way +to turn. She was thus, however, unconsciously exhausting herself, and +Sire Hains soon recovered. The battle now became fiercer than ever, +and the lady seemed to be gaining the upper hand, when Sire Hains gave +her a skilful blow in the ribs, which nearly broke one of them, and +considerably checked her ardour. Friend Symon here interposed, with +the praiseworthy aim of restoring peace before further harm might be +done, but in vain, for the lady was only rendered more obstinate by +her mishap; and he agreed that it was useless to interfere until one +had got a more decided advantage over the other. The fight therefore +went on, the two combatants having now seized each other by the hair +of the head, a mode of combat in which the advantages were rather on +the side of the male. At this moment, one of the judges, Dame Aupais, +sympathising too much with Dame Anieuse, ventured some words of +encouragement, which drew upon her a severe rebuke from her colleague, +Symon, who intimated that if she interfered again there might be two +pairs of combatants instead of one. Meanwhile Dame Anieuse was becoming +exhausted, and was evidently getting the worst of the contest, until at +length, staggering from a vigorous push, she fell back into a large +basket which lay behind her. Sire Hains stood over her exultingly, +and Symon, as umpire, pronounced him victorious. He thereupon took +possession of the disputed article of raiment, and again invested +himself with it, while the lady accepted faithfully the conditions +imposed upon her, and we are assured by the poet that she was a good +and obedient wife during the rest of her life. In this story, which +affords a curious picture of mediaeval life, we learn the origin of the +proverb relating to the possession and wearing of the breeches. Hugues +Piaucelles concludes his _fabliau_ by recommending every man who has a +disobedient wife to treat her in the same manner; and mediaeval husbands +appear to have followed his advice, without fear of laws against the +ill-treatment of women. + + [Illustration: _No. 81. The Fight for the Breeches._] + +A subject like this was well fitted for the burlesques on the stalls, +and accordingly we find on one of those in the cathedral at Rouen, the +group given in our cut No. 81, which seems to represent the part of the +story in which both combatants seize hold of the disputed garment, and +struggle for possession of it. The husband here grasps a knife in his +hand, with which he seems to be threatening to cut it to pieces rather +than give it up. The _fabliau_ gives the victory to the husband, but +the wife was generally considered as in a majority of cases carrying +off the prize. In an extremely rare engraving by the Flemish artist +Van Mecken, dated in 1480, of which I give a copy in our cut No. 82. +the lady, while putting on the breeches, of which she has just become +possessed, shows an inclination to lord it rather tyrannically over her +other half, whom she has condemned to perform the domestic drudgery of +the mansion. + + [Illustration: _No. 82. The Breeches Won._] + + [Illustration: _No. 83. A Legal Combat._] + +In Germany, where there was still more roughness in mediaeval life, what +was told in England and France as a good story of domestic doings, +was actually carried into practice under the authority of the laws. +The judicial duel was there adopted by the legal authorities as a +mode of settling the differences between husband and wife. Curious +particulars on this subject are given in an interesting paper entitled +"Some observations on Judicial Duels as practised in Germany," +published in the twenty-ninth volume of the Archaeologia of the Society +of Antiquaries (p. 348). These observations are chiefly taken from +a volume of directions, accompanied with drawings, for the various +modes of attack and defence, compiled by Paulus Kall, a celebrated +teacher of defence at the court of Bavaria about the year 1400. Among +these drawings we have one representing the mode of combat between +husband and wife. The only weapon allowed the female, but that a very +formidable one, was, according to these directions, a heavy stone +wrapped up in an elongation of her chemise, while her opponent had only +a short staff, and he was placed up to the waist in a pit formed in +the ground. The following is a literal translation of the directions +given in the manuscript, and our cut No. 83 is a copy of the drawing +which illustrates it:--"The woman must be so prepared, that a sleeve +of her chemise extend a small ell beyond her hand, like a little sack; +there indeed is put a stone weighing three pounds; and she has nothing +else but her chemise, and that is bound together between the legs with +a lace. Then the man makes himself ready in the pit over against his +wife. He is buried therein up to the girdle, and one hand is bound at +the elbow to the side." At this time the practice of such combats in +Germany seems to have been long known, for it is stated that in the +year 1200 a man and his wife fought under the sanction of the civic +authorities at Bale, in Switzerland. In a picture of a combat between +man and wife, from a manuscript resembling that of Paulus Kall, but +executed nearly a century later, the man is placed in a tub instead +of a pit, with his left arm tied to his side as before, and his right +holding a short heavy staff; while the woman is dressed, and not +stripped to the chemise, as in the former case. The man appears to be +holding the stick in such a manner that the sling in which the stone +was contained would twist round it, and the woman would thus be at +the mercy of her opponent. In an ancient manuscript on the science of +defence in the library at Gotha, the man in the tub is represented as +the conqueror of his wife, having thus dragged her head-foremost into +the tub, where she appears with her legs kicking up in the air. + +This was the orthodox mode of combat between man and wife, but it was +sometimes practised under more sanguinary forms. In one picture given +from these old books on the science of defence by the writer of the +paper on the subject in the Archaeologia, the two combatants, naked +down to the waist, are represented fighting with sharp knives, and +inflicting upon each other's bodies frightful gashes. + + [Illustration: _No. 84. The Witch and the Demon._] + + [Illustration: _No. 85. The Witch and her Victim._] + +A series of stall carvings at Corbeil, near Paris, of which more will +be said a little farther on in this chapter, has furnished the curious +group represented in our cut No. 84, which is one of the rather rare +pictorial allusions to the subject of witchcraft. It represents a +woman who must, by her occupation, be a witch, for she has so far got +the mastery of the demon that she is sawing off his head with a very +uncomfortable looking instrument. Another story of witchcraft is told +in the sculpture of a stone panel at the entrance of the cathedral of +Lyons, which is represented in our cut No. 85. One power, supposed to +be possessed by witches, was that of transforming people to animals at +will. William of Malmesbury, in his Chronicle, tells a story of two +witches in the neighbourhood of Rome, who used to allure travellers +into their cottage, and there transform them into horses, pigs, or +other animals, which they sold, and feasted themselves with the money. +One day a young man, who lived by the profession of a jougleur, sought +a night's lodging at their cottage, and was received, but they turned +him into an ass, and, as he retained his understanding and his power of +acting, they gained much money by exhibiting him. At length a rich man +of the neighbourhood, who wanted him for his private amusement, offered +the two women a large sum for him, which they accepted, but they warned +the new possessor of the ass that he should carefully restrain him +from going into the water, as that would deprive him of his power of +performing. The man who had purchased the ass acted upon this advice, +and carefully kept him from water, but one day, through the negligence +of his keeper, the ass escaped from his stable, and, rushing to a pond +at no great distance, threw himself into it. Water--and running water +especially--was believed to destroy the power of witchcraft or magic; +and no sooner was the ass immersed in the water, than he recovered his +original form of a young man. He told his story, which soon reached the +ears of the pope, and the two women were seized, and confessed their +crimes. The carving from Lyons Cathedral appears to represent some such +scene of sorcery. The naked woman, evidently a witch, is, perhaps, +seated on a man whom she has transformed into a goat, and she seems to +be whirling the cat over him in such a manner that it may tear his face +with its claws. + +There was still another class of subjects for satire and caricature +which belongs to this part of our subject--I mean that of the trader +and manufacturer. We must not suppose that fraudulent trading, that +deceptive and imperfect workmanship, that adulteration of everything +that could be adulterated, are peculiar to modern times. On the +contrary, there was no period in the world's history in which dishonest +dealing was carried on to such an extraordinary extent, in which there +was so much deception used in manufactures, or in which adulteration +was practised on so shameless a scale, as during the middle ages. These +vices, or, as we may, perhaps, more properly describe them, these +crimes, are often mentioned in the mediaeval writers, but they were +not easily represented pictorially, and therefore we rarely meet with +direct allusions to them, either in sculpture, on stone or wood, or +in the paintings of illuminated manuscripts. Representations of the +trades themselves are not so rare, and are sometimes droll and almost +burlesque. A curious series of such representations of arts and trades +was carved on the _misereres_ of the church of St. Spire, at Corbeil, +near Paris, which only exist now in Millin's engravings, but they seem +to have been works of the fifteenth century. Among them the first +place is given to the various occupations necessary for the production +of bread, that article so important to the support of life. Thus we +see, in these carvings at Corbeil, the labours of the reaper, cutting +the wheat and forming it into sheaves, the miller carrying it away to +be ground into meal, and the baker thrusting it into the oven, and +drawing it out in the shape of loaves. Our cut No. 86, taken from one +of these sculptures, represents the baker either putting in or taking +out the bread with his peel; by the earnest manner in which he looks at +it, we may suppose that it is the latter, and that he is ascertaining +if it be sufficiently baked. We have an earlier representation of a +mediaeval oven in our cut No. 87, taken from the celebrated illuminated +manuscript of the "Romance of Alexandre," in the Bodleian Library at +Oxford, which appears to belong to an early period of the fourteenth +century. Here the baker is evidently going to take a loaf out of the +oven, for his companion holds a dish for the purpose of receiving it. + + [Illustration: _No. 86. A Baker of the Fifteenth Century._] + + [Illustration: _No. 87. A Mediaeval Baker._] + +In nothing was fraud and adulteration practised to so great an +extent as in the important article of bread, and the two occupations +especially employed in making it were objects of very great dislike and +of scornful satire. The miller was proverbially a thief. Every reader +of Chaucer will remember his character so admirably drawn in that of +the miller of Trumpington, who, though he was as proud and gay "as eny +pecok," was nevertheless eminently dishonest. + + _A theef he was for soth of corn and mele, + And that a sleigh_ (sly), _and usyng_ (practised) _for to stele_. + Chaucer's Reeves Tale. + +This practice included a large college then existing in Cambridge, +but now forgotten, the Soler Hall, which suffered greatly by his +depredations. + + _And on a day it happed in a stounde, + Syk lay the mauncyple on a maledye, + Men wenden wisly that he schulde dye; + For which this meller stal bothe mele and corn + A thousend part more than byforn. + For ther biforn he stal but curteysly; + But now he is a theef outrageously. + For which the wardeyn chidde and made fare, + But therof sette the meller not a tare; + He crakked boost, and swor it was nat so._ + +Two of the scholars of this college resolved to go with the corn to the +mill, and by their watchfulness prevent his depredations. Those who are +acquainted with the story know how the scholars succeeded, or rather +how they failed; how the miller stole half a bushel of their flour and +caused his wife to make a cake of it; and how the victims had their +revenge and recovered the cake. + +As already stated, the baker had in these good old times no better +character than the miller, if not worse. There was an old saying, that +if three persons of three obnoxious professions were put together in a +sack and shaken up, the first who came out would certainly be a rogue, +and one of these was a baker. Moreover, the opinion concerning the +baker was so strong that, as in the phrase taken from the old legends +of the witches, who in their festivals sat thirteen at a table, this +number was popularly called a devil's dozen, and was believed to be +unlucky--so, when the devil's name was abandoned, perhaps for the +sake of euphony, the name substituted for it was that of the baker, +and the number thirteen was called "a baker's dozen." The makers of +nearly all sorts of provisions for sale were, in the middle ages, +tainted with the same vice, and there was nothing from which society in +general, especially in the towns where few made bread for themselves, +suffered so much. This evil is alluded to more than once in that +curious educational treatise, the "Dictionarius" of John de Garlande, +printed in my "Volume of Vocabularies." This writer, who wrote in the +earlier half of the thirteenth century, insinuates that the makers +of pies (_pastillarii_), an article of food which was greatly in +repute during the middle ages, often made use of bad eggs. The cooks, +he says further, sold, especially in Paris to the scholars of the +university, cooked meats, sausages, and such things, which were not +fit to eat; while the butchers furnished the meat of animals which had +died of disease. Even the spices and drugs sold by the apothecaries, +or _epiciers_, were not, he says, to be trusted. John de Garlande +had evidently an inclination to satire, and he gives way to it not +unfrequently in the little book of which I am speaking. He says that +the glovers of Paris cheated the scholars of the university, by selling +them gloves made of bad materials; that the women who gained their +living by winding thread (_devacuatrices_, in the Latin of the time), +not only emptied the scholars' purses, but wasted their bodies also (it +is intended as a pun upon the Latin word); and the hucksters sold them +unripe fruit for ripe. The drapers, he says, cheated people not only +by selling bad materials, but by measuring them with false measures; +while the hawkers, who went about from house to house, robbed as well +as cheated. + +M. Jubinal has published in his curious volume entitled "Jongleurs et +Trouveres," a rather jocular poem on the bakers, written in French +of, perhaps, the thirteenth century, in which their art is lauded as +much better and more useful than that of the goldsmith's. The millers' +depredations on the corn sent to be ground at the mill, are laid to the +charge of the rats, which attack it by night, and the hens, which find +their way to it by day; and he explains the diminution the bakings +experienced in the hands of the baker as arising out of the charity of +the latter towards the poor and needy, to whom they gave the meal and +paste before it had even been put into the oven. The celebrated English +poet, John Lydgate, in a short poem preserved in a manuscript in the +Harleian Library in the British Museum (MS. Harl. No. 2,255, fol. 157, +v^o), describes the pillory, which he calls their Bastile, as the +proper heritage of the miller and the baker:-- + + _Put out his hed, lyst nat for to dare, + But lyk a man upon that tour to abyde, + For cast of eggys wil not oonys spare, + Tyl he be quallyd body, bak, and syde. + His heed endooryd, and of verray pryde + Put out his armys, shewith abrood his face; + The fenestrallys be made for hym so wyde, + Claymyth to been a capteyn of that place._ + + _The bastyle longith of verray dewe ryght + To fals bakerys, it is trewe herytage + Severalle to them, this knoweth every wyght, + Be kynde assygned for ther sittyng stage; + Wheer they may freely shewe out ther visage, + Whan they tak oonys their possessioun, + Owthir in youthe or in myddyl age; + Men doon hem wrong yif they take hym down._ + + _Let mellerys and bakerys gadre hem a gilde, + And alle of assent make a fraternite, + Undir the pillory a letil chapelle bylde, + The place amorteyse, and purchase lyberte, + For alle thos that of ther noumbre be; + What evir it coost afftir that they wende, + They may clayme, be just auctorite, + Upon that bastile to make an ende._ + +The wine-dealer and the publican formed another class in mediaeval +society who lived by fraud and dishonesty, and were the objects of +satire. The latter gave both bad wine and bad measure, and he often +also acted as a pawnbroker, and when people had drunk more than they +could pay for, he would take their clothes as pledges for their money. +The tavern, in the middle ages, was the resort of very miscellaneous +company; gamblers and loose women were always on the watch there to +lead more honest people into ruin, and the tavern-keeper profited +largely by their gains; and the more vulgar minstrel and "jogelour" +found employment there; for the middle classes of society, and even +their betters, frequented the tavern much more generally than at the +present day. In the carved stalls of the church of Corbeil, the liquor +merchant is represented by the figure of a man wheeling a hogshead +in a barrow, as shown in our cut No. 88. The graveness and air of +importance with which he regards it would lead us to suppose that the +barrel contains wine; and the cup and jug on the shelf above show that +it was to be sold retail. The wine-sellers called out their wines +from their doors, and boasted of their qualities, in order to tempt +people in; and John de Garlande assures us that when they entered, +they were served with wine which was not worth drinking. "The criers +of wine," he says, "proclaim with extended throat the diluted wine +they have in their taverns, offering it at four pennies, at six, at +eight, and at twelve, fresh poured out from the gallon cask into the +cup, to tempt people." ("Volume of Vocabularies," p. 126.) The ale-wife +was an especial subject of jest and satire, and is not unfrequently +represented on the pictorial monuments of our forefathers. Our cut No. +89 is taken from one of the misereres in the church of Wellingborough, +in Northamptonshire; the ale-wife is pouring her liquor from her jug +into a cup to serve a rustic, who appears to be waiting for it with +impatience. + + [Illustration: _No. 88. The Wine Dealer._] + + [Illustration: _No. 89. The Ale-Wife._] + + [Illustration: _No. 90. The Ale-Drawer._] + +The figure of the ale-drawer, No. 90, is taken from one of the +misereres in the parish church of Ludlow, in Shropshire. The size +of his jug is somewhat disproportionate to that of the barrel from +which he obtains the ale. The same misereres of Ludlow Church furnish +the next scene, cut No. 91, which represents the end of the wicked +ale-wife. The day of judgment is supposed to have arrived, and she has +received her sentence. A demon, seated on one side, is reading a list +of the crimes she has committed, which the magnitude of the parchment +shows to be a rather copious one. Another demon (whose head has been +broken off in the original) carries on his back, in a very irreverent +manner, the unfortunate lady, in order to throw her into hell-mouth, on +the other side of the picture. She is naked with the exception of the +fashionable head-gear, which formed one of her vanities in the world, +and she carries with her the false measure with which she cheated her +customers. A demon bagpiper welcomes her on her arrival. The scene is +full of wit and humour. + + [Illustration: _No. 91. The Ale-Wife's End._] + +The rustic classes, and instances of their rusticity, are not +unfrequently met with in these interesting carvings. The stalls of +Corbeil present several agricultural scenes. Our cut No. 92 is taken +from those of Gloucester cathedral, of an earlier date, and represents +the three shepherds, astonished at the appearance of the star which +announced the birth of the Saviour of mankind. Like the three kings, +the shepherds to whom this revelation was made were always in the +middle ages represented as three in number. In our drawing from the +miserere in Gloucester cathedral, the costume of the shepherds is +remarkably well depicted, even to the details, with the various +implements appertaining to their profession, most of which are +suspended to their girdles. They are drawn with much spirit, and even +the dog is well represented as an especially active partaker in the +scene. + + [Illustration: _No. 92. The Shepherds of the East._] + + [Illustration: _No. 93. The Carpenter._] + + [Illustration: _No. 94. The Shoemaker._] + +Of the two other examples we select from the misereres of Corbeil, the +first represents the carpenter, or, as he was commonly called by our +Anglo-Saxon and mediaeval forefathers, the _wright_, which signifies +simply the "maker." The application of this higher and more general +term--for the Almighty himself is called, in the Anglo-Saxon poetry, +_ealra gescefta wyrhta_, the Maker, or Creator, of all things--shows +how important an art that of the carpenter was considered in the +middle ages. Everything made of wood came within his province. In the +Anglo-Saxon "Colloquy" of archbishop Alfric, where some of the more +useful artisans are introduced disputing about the relative value of +their several crafts, the "wright" says, "Who of you can do without +my craft, since I make houses and all sorts of vessels (_vasa_), and +ships for you all?" ("Volume of Vocabularies," p. 11.) And John de +Garlande, in the thirteenth century, describes the carpenter as making, +among other things, tubs, and barrels, and wine-cades. The workmanship +of those times was exercised, before all other materials, on wood +and metals, and the wright, or worker in the former material, was +distinguished by this circumstance from the smith, or worker in metal. +The carpenter is still called a wright in Scotland. Our last cut (No. +94), taken also from one of the misereres at Corbeil, represents the +shoemaker, or as he was then usually called, the cordwainer, because +the leather which he chiefly used came from Cordova in Spain, and was +thence called _cordewan_, or _cordewaine_. Our shoemaker is engaged +in cutting a skin of leather with an instrument of a rather singular +form. Shoes, and perhaps forms for making shoes, are suspended on pegs +against the wall. + + + + + CHAPTER IX. + + GROTESQUE FACES AND FIGURES.--PREVALENCE OF THE TASTE FOR UGLY + AND GROTESQUE FACES.--SOME OF THE POPULAR FORMS DERIVED + FROM ANTIQUITY; THE TONGUE LOLLING OUT, AND THE DISTORTED + MOUTH.--HORRIBLE SUBJECTS: THE MAN AND THE SERPENTS.--ALLEGORICAL + FIGURES: GLUTTONY AND LUXURY.--OTHER REPRESENTATIONS OF + CLERICAL GLUTTONY AND DRUNKENNESS.--GROTESQUE FIGURES OF + INDIVIDUALS, AND GROTESQUE GROUPS.--ORNAMENTS OF THE BORDERS OF + BOOKS.--UNINTENTIONAL CARICATURE; THE MOTE AND THE BEAM. + + +The grimaces and strange postures of the jougleurs seem to have had +great attractions for those who witnessed them. To unrefined and +uneducated minds no object conveys so perfect a notion of mirth as an +ugly and distorted face. Hence it is that among the common peasantry +at a country fair few exhibitions are more satisfactory than that of +grinning through a horse-collar. This sentiment is largely exemplified +in the sculpture especially of the middle ages, a long period, +during which the general character of society presented that want +of refinement which we now observe chiefly in its least cultivated +classes. Among the most common decorations of our ancient churches and +other mediaeval buildings, are grotesque and monstrous heads and faces. +Antiquity, which lent us the types of many of these monstrosities, +saw in her Typhons and Gorgons a signification beyond the surface of +the picture, and her grotesque masks had a general meaning, and were +in a manner typical of the whole field of comic literature. The mask +was less an individual grotesque to be laughed at for itself, than +a personification of comedy. In the middle ages, on the contrary, +although in some cases certain forms were often regarded as typical +of certain ideas, in general the design extended no farther than the +forms which the artist had given to it; the grotesque features, like +the grinning through the horse-collar, gave satisfaction by their mere +ugliness. Even the applications, when such figures were intended to +have one, were coarsely satirical, without any intellectuality, and, +where they had a meaning beyond the plain text of the sculpture or +drawing, it was not far-fetched, but plain and easily understood. When +the Anglo-Saxon drew the face of a bloated and disfigured monk, he no +doubt intended thereby to proclaim the popular notion of the general +character of monastic life, but this was a design which nobody could +misunderstand, an interpretation which everybody was prepared to give +to it. We have already seen various examples of this description of +satire, scattered here and there among the immense mass of grotesque +sculpture which has no such meaning. A great proportion, indeed, of +these grotesque sculptures appears to present mere variations of a +certain number of distinct types which had been handed down from a +remote period, some of them borrowed, perhaps involuntarily, from +antiquity. Hence we naturally look for the earlier and more curious +examples of this class of art to Italy and the south of France, where +the transition from classical to mediaeval was more gradual, and the +continued influence of classical forms is more easily traced. The +early Christian masons appear to have caricatured under the form of +such grotesques the personages of the heathen mythology, and to this +practice we perhaps owe some of the types of the mediaeval monsters. +We have seen in a former chapter a grotesque from the church of Monte +Majour, near Nismes, the original type of which had evidently been some +burlesque figure of Saturn eating one of his children. The classical +mask doubtless furnished the type for those figures, so common in +mediaeval sculpture, of faces with disproportionately large mouths; just +as another favourite class of grotesque faces, those with distended +mouths and tongues lolling out, were taken originally from the Typhons +and Gorgons of the ancients. Many other popular types of faces rendered +artificially ugly are mere exaggerations of the distortions produced on +the features by different operations, such, for instance, as that of +blowing a horn. + +The practice of blowing the horn, is, indeed, peculiarly calculated +to exhibit the features of the face to disadvantage, and was not +overlooked by the designers of the mediaeval decorative sculpture. One +of the large collection of casts of sculptures from French cathedrals +exhibited in the museum at South Kensington, has furnished the two +subjects given in our cut No. 95. The first is represented as blowing +a horn, but he is producing the greatest possible distortion in his +features, and especially in his mouth, by drawing the horn forcibly +on one side with his left hand, while he pulls his beard in the other +direction with the right hand. The force with which he is supposed to +be blowing is perhaps represented by the form given to his eyes. The +face of the lower figure is in at least comparative repose. The design +of representing general distortion in the first is further shown by the +ridiculously unnatural position of the arms. Such distortion of the +members was not unfrequently introduced to heighten the effect of the +grimace in the face; and, as in these examples, it was not uncommon to +introduce as a further element of grotesque, the bodies, or parts of +the bodies, of animals, or even of demons. + + [Illustration: _No. 95. Grotesque Monsters._] + + [Illustration: _No. 96. Diabolical Mirth._] + + [Illustration: _No. 97. Making Faces._] + +Another cast in the Kensington Museum is the subject of our cut No. +96, which presents the same idea of stretching the mouth. The subject +is here exhibited by another rather mirthful looking individual, but +whether the exhibitor is intended to be a goblin or demon, or whether +he is merely furnished with the wings and claws of a bat, seems rather +uncertain. The bat was looked upon as an unpropitious if not an unholy +animal; like the owl, it was the companion of the witches, and of the +spirits of darkness. The group in our cut No. 97 is taken from one of +the carved stalls in the church of Stratford-upon-Avon, and represents +a trio of grimacers. The first of these three grotesque faces is +lolling out the tongue to an extravagant length; the second is simply +grinning; while the third has taken a sausage between his teeth to +render his grimace still more ridiculous. The number and variety of +such grotesque faces, which we find scattered over the architectural +decoration of our old ecclesiastical buildings, are so great that I +will not attempt to give any more particular classification of them. +All this church decoration was calculated especially to produce its +effect upon the middle and lower classes, and mediaeval art was, perhaps +more than anything else, suited to mediaeval society, for it belonged to +the mass and not to the individual. The man who could enjoy a match at +grinning through horse-collars, must have been charmed by the grotesque +works of the mediaeval stone sculptor and wood carver; and we may add +that these display, though often rather rude, a very high degree of +skill in art, a great power of producing striking imagery. + +These mediaeval artists loved also to produce horrible objects as well +as laughable ones, though even in their horrors they were continually +running into the grotesque. Among the adjuncts to these sculptured +figures, we sometimes meet with instruments of pain, and very talented +attempts to exhibit this on the features of the victims. The creed of +the middle ages gave great scope for the indulgence of this taste in +the infinitely varied terrors of purgatory and hell; and, not to speak +of the more crude descriptions that are so common in mediaeval popular +literature, the account to which these descriptions might be turned by +the poet as well as the artist are well known to the reader of Dante. +Coils of serpents and dragons, which were the most usual instruments +in the tortures of the infernal regions, were always favourite objects +in mediaeval ornamentation, whether sculptured or drawn, in the details +of architectural decoration, or in the initial letters and margins +of books. They are often combined in forming grotesque tracery with +the bodies of animals or of human beings, and their movements are +generally hostile to the latter. We have already seen, in previous +chapters, examples of this use of serpents and dragons, dating from the +earliest periods of mediaeval art; and it is perhaps the most common +style of ornamentation in the buildings and illuminated manuscripts +in our island from the earlier Saxon times to the thirteenth century. +This ornamentation is sometimes strikingly bold and effective. In the +cathedral of Wells there is a series of ornamental bosses, formed by +faces writhing under the attacks of numerous dragons, who are seizing +upon the lips, eyes, and cheeks of their victims. One of these bosses, +which are of the thirteenth century, is represented in our cut No. 98. +A large, coarsely featured face is the victim of two dragons, one of +which attacks his mouth, while the other has seized him by the eye. The +expression of the face is strikingly horrible. + + [Illustration: _No. 98. Horror._] + +The higher mind of the middle ages loved to see inner meanings through +outward forms; or, at least, it was a fashion which manifested itself +most strongly in the latter half of the twelfth century, to adapt these +outward forms to inward meanings by comparisons and moralisations; +and under the effect of this feeling certain figures were at times +adopted, with a view to some other purpose than mere ornament, though +this was probably an innovation upon mediaeval art. The tongue lolling +out, taken originally, as we have seen, from the imagery of classic +times, was accepted rather early in the middle ages as the emblem or +symbol of luxury; and, when we find it among the sculptured ornaments +of the architecture especially of some of the larger and more important +churches, it implied probably an allusion to that vice--at least the +face presented to us was intended to be that of a voluptuary. Among +the remarkable series of sculptures which crown the battlements of +the cloisters of Magdalen College, Oxford, executed a very few years +after the middle of the fifteenth century, amid many figures of a very +miscellaneous character, there are several which were thus, no doubt, +intended to be representatives of vices, if not of virtues. I give two +examples of these curious sculptures. + + [Illustration: _No. 99. Gluttony._] + + [Illustration: _No. 100. Luxury._] + +The first, No. 99, is generally considered to represent gluttony, and +it is a remarkable circumstance that, in a building the character of +which was partly ecclesiastical, and which was erected at the expense +and under the directions of a great prelate, Bishop Wainflete, the +vice of gluttony, with which the ecclesiastical order was especially +reproached, should be represented in ecclesiastical costume. It is an +additional proof that the detail of the work of the building was left +entirely to the builders. The coarse, bloated features of the face, +and the "villainous" low forehead, are characteristically executed; +and the lolling tongue may perhaps be intended to intimate that, in +the lives of the clergy, luxury went hand in hand with its kindred +vice. The second of our examples, No. 100, appears by its different +characteristics (some of which we have been unable to introduce in our +woodcut) to be intended to represent luxury itself. Sometimes qualities +of the individual man, or even the class of society, are represented in +a manner far less disguised by allegorical clothing, and therefore much +more plainly to the understanding of the vulgar. Thus in an illuminated +manuscript of the fourteenth century, in the British Museum (MS. +Arundel, No. 91), gluttony is represented by a monk devouring a pie +alone and in secret, except that a little cloven-footed imp holds up +the dish, and seems to enjoy the prospect of monastic indulgence. This +picture is copied in our cut No. 101. Another manuscript of the same +date (MS. Sloane, No. 2435) contains a scene, copied in our cut No. +102, representing drunkenness under the form of another monk, who has +obtained the keys and found his way into the cellar of his monastery, +and is there indulging his love for good ale in similar secrecy. It +is to be remarked that here, again, the vices are laid to the charge +of the clergy. Our cut No. 103, from a bas-relief in Ely Cathedral, +given in Carter's "Specimens of Ancient Sculpture," represents a man +drinking from a horn, and evidently enjoying his employment, but his +costume is not sufficiently characteristic to betray his quality. + + [Illustration: _No. 101. Monkish Gluttony._] + + [Illustration: _No. 102. The Monastic Cellarer._] + + [Illustration: _No. 103. Drunkenness._] + + [Illustration: _No. 104. A Strange Monster._] + +The subject of grotesque faces and heads naturally leads us to +that of monstrous and grotesque bodies and groups of bodies, which +has already been partly treated in a former chapter, where we have +noticed the great love shown in the middle ages for monstrous animated +figures, not only monsters of one nature, but, and that especially, +of figures formed by joining together the parts of different, and +entirely dissimilar, animals, of similar mixtures between animals and +men. This, as stated above, was often effected by joining the body +of some nondescript animal to a human head and face; so that, by the +disproportionate size of the latter, the body, as a secondary part +of the picture, became only an adjunct to set off still further the +grotesque character of the human face. More importance was sometimes +given to the body combined with fantastic forms, which baffle any +attempt at giving an intelligible description. The accompanying cut, +No. 104, represents a winged monster of this kind; it is taken from +one of the casts from French churches exhibited in the Kensington +Museum. + + [Illustration: _No. 105. Rolling Topsy Turvy._] + +Sometimes the mediaeval artist, without giving any unusual form to +his human figures, placed them in strange postures, or joined them +in singular combinations. These latter are commonly of a playful +character, or sometimes they represent droll feats of skill, or +puzzles, or other subjects, all of which have been published +pictorially and for the amusement of children down to very recent +times. There were a few of these groups which are of rather frequent +occurrence, and they were evidently favourite types. One of these is +given in the annexed cut, No. 105. It is taken from one of the carved +misereres of the stalls in Ely cathedral, as given in Carter, and +represents two men who appear to be rolling over each other. The upper +figure exhibits animal's ears on his cap, which seem to proclaim him +a member of the fraternity of fools: the ears of the lower figure +are concealed from view. This group is not a rare one, especially on +similar monuments in France, where the architectural antiquaries have a +technical name for it; and this shows us how even the particular forms +of art in the middle ages were not confined to any particular country, +but more or less, and with exceptions, they pervaded all those which +acknowledged the ecclesiastical supremacy of the church of Rome; +whatever peculiarity of style it took in particular countries, the same +forms were spread through all western Europe. Our next cut, No. 106, +gives another of these curious groups, consisting, in fact, of two +individuals, one of which is evidently an ecclesiastic. It will be seen +that, as we follow this round, we obtain, by means of the two heads, +four different figures in so many totally different positions. This +group is taken from one of the very curious seats in the cathedral of +Rouen in Normandy, which were engraved and published in an interesting +volume by the late Monsieur E. H. Langlois. + + [Illustration: _No. 106. A Continuous Group._] + + [Illustration: _No. 107. Border Ornament._] + + [Illustration: _No. 108. A Triumphal Procession._] + +Among the most interesting of the mediaeval burlesque drawings are +those which are found in such abundance in the borders of the pages of +illuminated manuscripts. During the earlier periods of the mediaeval +miniatures, the favourite objects for these borders were monstrous +animals, especially dragons, which could easily be twined into +grotesque combinations. In course of time, the subjects thus introduced +became more numerous, and in the fifteenth century they were very +varied. Strange animals still continued to be favourites, but they +were more light and elegant in their forms, and were more gracefully +designed. Our cut No. 107, taken from the beautifully-illuminated +manuscript of the romance of the "Comte d'Artois," of the fifteenth +century, which has furnished us previously with several cuts, will +illustrate my meaning. The graceful lightness of the tracery of the +foliage shown in this design is found in none of the earlier works +of art of this class. This, of course, is chiefly to be ascribed to +the great advance which had been made in the art of design since the +thirteenth century. But, though so greatly improved in the style of +art, the same class of subjects continued to be introduced in this +border ornamentation long after the art of printing, and that of +engraving, which accompanied it, had been introduced. The revolution +in the ornamentation of the borders of the pages of books was effected +by the artists of the sixteenth century, at which time people had +become better acquainted with, and had learnt to appreciate, ancient +art and Roman antiquities, and they drew their inspiration from a +correct knowledge of what the middle ages had copied blindly, but had +not understood. Among the subjects of burlesque which the monuments +of Roman art presented to them, the stumpy figures of the pigmies +appear to have gained special favour, and they are employed in a manner +which reminds us of the pictures found in Pompeii. Jost Amman, the +well-known artist, who exercised his profession at Nueremberg in the +latter half of the sixteenth century, engraved a set of illustrations +to Ovid's Metamorphoses, which were printed at Lyons in 1574, and each +cut and page of which is enclosed in a border of very fanciful and +neatly-executed burlesque. The pigmies are introduced in these borders +very freely, and are grouped with great spirit. I select as an example, +cut No. 108, a scene which represents a triumphal procession--some +pigmy Alexander returning from his conquests. The hero is seated on +a throne carried by an elephant, and before him a bird, perhaps a +vanquished crane, proclaims loudly his praise. Before them a pigmy +attendant marches proudly, carrying in one hand the olive branch of +peace, and leading in the other a ponderous but captive ostrich, as a +trophy of his master's victories. Before him again a pigmy warrior, +heavily armed with battle-axe and falchion, is mounting the steps +of a stage, on which a nondescript animal, partaking somewhat of +the character of a sow, but perhaps intended as a burlesque on the +strange animals which, in mediaeval romance, Alexander was said to have +encountered in Egypt, blows a horn, to celebrate or announce the return +of the conqueror. A snail, also advancing slowly up the stage, implies, +perhaps, a sneer at the whole scene. + + [Illustration: _No. 109. The Mote and the Beam._] + +Nevertheless, these old German, Flemish, and Dutch artists were still +much influenced by the mediaeval spirit, which they displayed in their +coarse and clumsy imagination, in their neglect of everything like +congruity in their treatment of the subject with regard to time and +place, and their _naive_ exaggerations and blunders. Extreme examples +of these characteristics are spoken of, in which the Israelites +crossing the Red Sea are armed with muskets, and all the other +accoutrements of modern soldiers, and in which Abraham is preparing +to sacrifice his son Isaac by shooting him with a matchlock. In +delineating scriptural subjects, an attempt is generally made to +clothe the figures in an imaginary ancient oriental costume, but the +landscapes are filled with the modern castles and mansion houses, +churches, and monasteries of western Europe. These half-mediaeval +artists, too, like their more ancient predecessors, often fall into +unintentional caricature by the exaggeration or simplicity with which +they treat their subjects. There was one subject which the artists of +this period of regeneration of art seemed to have agreed to treat in +a very unimaginative manner. In the beautiful Sermon on the Mount, +our Saviour, in condemning hasty judgments of other people's actions, +says (Matt. vii. 3-5), "And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy +brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? +Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of +thine eye, and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, +first cast out the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see +clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye." Whatever be +the exact nature of the beam which the man was expected to overlook +in his "own eye," it certainly was not a large beam of timber. Yet +such was the conception of it by artists of the sixteenth century. +One of them, named Solomon Bernard, designed a series of woodcuts +illustrating the New Testament, which were published at Lyons in 1553; +and the manner in which he treated the subject will be seen in our +cut No. 109, taken from one of the illustrations to that book. The +individual seated is the man who has a mote in his eye, which the +other, approaching him, points out; and he retorts by pointing to the +"beam," which is certainly such a massive object as could not easily +have been overlooked. About thirteen years before this, an artist of +Augsburg, named Daniel Hopfer, had published a large copper-plate +engraving of this same subject, a reduced copy of which is given in the +cut No. 110. The individual who sees the mote in his brother's eye, is +evidently treating it in the character of a physician or surgeon. It +is only necessary to add that the beam in his own eye is of still more +extraordinary dimensions than the former, and that, though it seems +to escape the notice both of himself and his patient, it is evident +that the group in the distance contemplate it with astonishment. The +building accompanying this scene appears to be a church, with paintings +of saints in the windows. + + [Illustration: _No. 110. The Mote and the Beam--Another Treatment._] + + + + + CHAPTER X. + + SATIRICAL LITERATURE IN THE MIDDLE AGES.--JOHN DE HAUTEVILLE AND ALAN + DE LILLE.--GOLIAS AND THE GOLIARDS.--THE GOLIARDIC POETRY.--TASTE + FOR PARODY.--PARODIES ON RELIGIOUS SUBJECTS.--POLITICAL + CARICATURE IN THE MIDDLE AGES.--THE JEWS OF NORWICH.--CARICATURE + REPRESENTATIONS OF COUNTRIES.--LOCAL SATIRE.--POLITICAL SONGS AND + POEMS. + + +In a previous chapter I have spoken of a class of satirical literature +which was entirely popular in its character. Not that on this account +it was original among the peoples who composed mediaeval society, for +the intellectual development of the middle ages came almost all from +Rome through one medium or other, although we know so little of the +details of the popular literature of the Romans that we cannot always +trace it. The mediaeval literature of western Europe was mostly modelled +upon that of France, which was received, like its language, from Rome. +But when the great university system became established, towards the +end of the eleventh century, the scholars of western Europe became +more directly acquainted with the models of literature which antiquity +had left them; and during the twelfth century these found imitators +so skilful that some of them almost deceive us into accepting them +for classical writers themselves. Among the first of these models to +attract the attention of mediaeval scholars, were the Roman satirists, +and the study of them produced, during the twelfth century, a number of +satirical writers in Latin prose and verse, who are remarkable not only +for their boldness and poignancy, but for the elegance of their style. +I may mention among those of English birth, John of Salisbury, Walter +Mapes, and Giraldus Cambrensis, who all wrote in prose, and Nigellus +Wireker, already mentioned in a former chapter, and John de Hauteville, +who wrote in verse. The first of these, in his "Polycraticus," Walter +Mapes, in his book "De Nugis Curialium," and Giraldus, in his "Speculum +Ecclesiae," and several other of his writings, lay the lash on the +corruptions and vices of their contemporaries with no tender hand. +The two most remarkable English satirists of the twelfth century were +John de Hauteville and Nigellus Wireker. The former wrote, in the year +1184, a poem in nine books of Latin hexameters, entitled, after the +name of its hero, "Architrenius," or the Arch-mourner. Architrenius +is represented as a youth, arrived at years of maturity, who sorrows +over the spectacle of human vices and weaknesses, until he resolves to +go on a pilgrimage to Dame Nature, in order to expostulate with her +for having made him feeble to resist the temptations of the world, +and to entreat her assistance. On his way, he arrives successively at +the court of Venus and at the abode of Gluttony, which give him the +occasion to dwell at considerable length on the license and luxury +which prevailed among his contemporaries. He next reaches Paris, and +visits the famous mediaeval university, and his satire on the manners of +the students and the fruitlessness of their studies, forms a remarkable +and interesting picture of the age. The pilgrim next arrives at the +Mount of Ambition, tempting by its beauty and by the stately palace +with which it was crowned, and here we are presented with a satire on +the manners and corruptions of the court. Near to this was the Hill of +Presumption, which was inhabited by ecclesiastics of all classes, great +scholastic doctors and professors, monks, and the like. It is a satire +on the manners of the clergy. As Architrenius turns from this painful +spectacle, he encounters a gigantic and hideous monster named Cupidity, +is led into a series of reflections upon the greediness and avarice +of the prelates, from which he is roused by the uproar caused by a +fierce combat between the prodigals and the misers. He is subsequently +carried to the island of far-distant Thule, which he finds to be the +resting-place of the philosophers of ancient Greece, and he listens +to their declamations against the vices of mankind. After this visit, +Architrenius reaches the end of his pilgrimage. He finds Nature in the +form of a beautiful woman, dwelling with a host of attendants in the +midst of a flowery plain, and meats with a courteous reception, but she +begins by giving him a long lecture on natural philosophy. After this +is concluded, Dame Nature listens to his complaints, and, to console +him, gives him a handsome woman, named Moderation, for a wife, and +dismisses him with a chapter of good counsels on the duties of married +life. The general moral intended to be inculcated appears to be that +the retirement of domestic happiness is to be preferred to the vain and +heartless turmoils of active life in all its phases. It will be seen +that the kind of allegory which subsequently produced the "Pilgrim's +Progress," had already made its appearance in mediaeval literature. + +Another of the celebrated satirists of the scholastic ages was +named Alanus de Insulis, or Alan of Lille, because he is understood +to have been born at Lille in Flanders. He occupied the chair of +theology for many years in the university of Paris with great +distinction, and his learning was so extensive that he gained the +name of _doctor universalis_, the universal doctor. In one of his +books, which is an imitation of that favourite book in the middle +ages "Boethius de Consolatione Philosophiae," Dame Nature, in the +place of Philosophy--not, as in John de Hauteville, as the referee, +but as the complainant--is introduced bitterly lamenting over the +deep depravity of the thirteenth century, especially displayed in +the prevalence of vices of a revolting character. This work, which, +like Boethius, consists of alternate chapters in verse and prose, is +entitled "De Planctu Naturae," the lamentation of nature. I will not, +however, go on here to give a list of the graver satirical writers, but +we will proceed to another class of satirists which sprang up among +the mediaeval scholars, more remarkable and more peculiar in their +character--I mean peculiar to the middle ages. + +The satires of the time show us that the students in the universities +in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, who enjoyed a great amount +of independence from authority, were generally wild and riotous, and, +among the vast number of youths who then devoted themselves to a +scholastic life, we can have no doubt that the habit of dissipation +became permanent. Among these wild students there existed, probably, +far more wit and satirical talent than among their steadier and more +laborious brethren, and this wit, and the manner in which it was +displayed, made its possessors welcome guests at the luxurious tables +of the higher and richer clergy, at which Latin seems to have been +the language in ordinary use. In all probability it was from this +circumstance (in allusion to the Latin word _gula_, as intimating their +love of the table) that these merry scholars, who displayed in Latin +some of the accomplishments which the jougleurs professed in the vulgar +tongue, took or received the name of _goliards_ (in the Latin of that +time, _goliardi_, or _goliardenses_).[42] The name at least appears +to have been adopted towards the end of the twelfth century. In the +year 1229, during the minority of Louis IX., and while the government +of France was in the hands of the queen-mother, troubles arose in the +university of Paris through the intrigues of the papal legate, and the +turbulence of the scholars led to their dispersion and to the temporary +closing of the schools; and the contemporary historian, Matthew Paris, +tells us how "some of the servants of the departing scholars, or those +whom we used to call goliardenses," composed an indecent epigram on +the rumoured familiarities between the legate and the queen. But this +is not the first mention of the goliards, for a statute of the council +of Treves, in 1227, forbade "all priests to permit truants, or other +wandering scholars, or goliards, to sing verses or _Sanctus_ and +_Angelus Dei_ in the service of the mass."[43] This probably refers to +parodies on the religious service, such as those of which I shall soon +have to speak. From this time the goliards are frequently mentioned. In +ecclesiastical statutes published in the year 1289, it is ordered that +the clerks or clergy (_clerici_, that is, men who had their education +in the university) "should not be jougleurs, goliards, or buffoons;"[44] +and the same statute proclaims a heavy penalty against those _clerici_ +"who persist in the practice of goliardy or stage performance during a +year,"[45] which shows that they exercised more of the functions of the +jougleur than the mere singing of songs. + + [42] In the mediaeval Latin, the word _goliardia_ was introduced to + express the profession of the goliard, and the verb + _goliardizare_, to signify the practice of it. + + [43] "Item, praecipimus ut omnes sacerdotes non permittant trutannos et + alios vagos scholares, aut goliardos, cantare versus super + _Sanctus_ et _Angelus Dei_ in missis," etc.--Concil. Trevir., + an. 1227, ap. Marten. et Durand. Ampliss. Coll., vii. col. 117. + + [44] "Item, praecipimus quod clerici non sint joculatores, goliardi, seu + bufones."--Stat. Synod. Caduacensis, Ruthenensis, et Tutelensis + Eccles. ap. Martene, Thes. Anecd., iv. col. 727. + + [45] "Clerici ... si in goliardia vel histrionatu per annum + fuerint."--Ib. col. 729. In one of the editions of this statute it + is added, "after they have been warned three times." + +These vagabond clerks made for themselves an imaginary chieftain, +or president of their order, to whom they gave the name of Golias, +probably as a pun on the name of the giant who combated against David, +and, to show further their defiance of the existing church government, +they made him a bishop--_Golias episcopus_. Bishop Golias was the +burlesque representative of the clerical order, the general satirist, +the reformer of eclesiastical and all other corruptions. If he was not +a doctor of divinity, he was a master of arts, for he is spoken of as +_Magister Golias_. But above all he was the father of the Goliards, +the "ribald clerks," as they are called, who all belonged to his +household,[46] and they are spoken of as his children. + + _Summa salus omnium, filius Mariae, + Pascat, potat, vestiat pueros Golyae!_[47] + +"May the Saviour of all, the Son of Mary, give food, drink, and clothes +to the children of Golias!" Still the name was clothed in so much +mystery, that Giraldus Cambrensis, who flourished towards the latter +end of the twelfth century, believed Golias to be a real personage, +and his contemporary. It may be added that Golias not only boasts of +the dignity of bishop, but he appears sometimes under the title of +_archipoeta_, the archpoet or poet-in-chief. + + [46] "Clerici ribaldi, maxime qui vulgo dicuntur _de famila + Goliae_."--Concil. Sen. ap. Concil., tom. ix. p. 578. + + [47] See my "Poems of Walter Mapes," p. 70. + +Caesarius of Heisterbach, who completed his book of the miracles of his +time in the year 1222, tells us a curious anecdote of the character +of the wandering clerk. In the year before he wrote, he tells us, "It +happened at Bonn, in the diocese of Cologne, that a certain wandering +clerk, named Nicholas, of the class they call archpoet, was grievously +ill, and when he supposed that he was dying, he obtained from our +abbot, through his own pleading, and the intercession of the canons +of the same church, admission into the order. What more? He put on +the tunic, as it appeared to us, with much contrition, but, when the +danger was past, he took it off immediately, and, throwing it down with +derision, took to flight." We learn best the character of the goliards +from their own poetry, a considerable quantity of which is preserved. +They wandered about from mansion to mansion, probably from monastery +to monastery, just like the jougleurs, but they seem to have been +especially welcome at the tables of the prelates of the church, and, +like the jougleurs, besides being well feasted, they received gifts of +clothing and other articles. In few instances only were they otherwise +than welcome, as described in the rhyming epigram printed in my "Latin +Poems attributed to Walter Mapes." "I come uninvited," says the goliard +to the bishop, "ready for dinner; such is my fate, never to dine +invited." The bishop replies, "I care not for vagabonds, who wander +among the fields, and cottages, and villages; such guests are not for +my table. I do not invite you, for I avoid such as you; yet without my +will you may eat the bread you ask. Wash, wipe, sit, dine, drink, wipe, +and depart." + + Goliardus. + _Non invitatus venio prandere paratus; + Sic sum fatatus, nunquam prandere vocatus._ + + Episcopus. + _Non ego curo vagos, qui rura, mapalia, pagos + Perlustrant, tales non vult mea mensa sodales. + Te non invito, tibi consimiles ego vito; + Me tamen invito potieris pane petito. + Ablue, terge, sede, prande, bibe, terge, recede._ + +In another similar epigram, the goliard complains of the bishop who +had given him as his reward nothing but an old worn-out mantle. Most +of the writers of the goliardic poetry complain of their poverty, and +some of them admit that this poverty arose from the tavern and the love +of gambling. One of them alleges as his claim to the liberality of +his host, that, as he was a scholar, he had not learnt to labour, that +his parents were knights, but he had no taste for fighting, and that, +in a word, he preferred poetry to any occupation. Another speaks still +more to the point, and complains that he is in danger of being obliged +to sell his clothes. "If this garment of vair which I wear," he says, +"be sold for money, it will be a great disgrace to me; I would rather +suffer a long fast. A bishop, who is the most generous of all generous +men, gave me this cloak, and will have for it heaven, a greater reward +than St. Martin has, who only gave half of his cloak. It is needful +now that the poet's want be relieved by your liberality [addressing +his hearers]; let noble men give noble gifts--gold, and robes, and the +like." + + _Si vendatur propter denarium + Indumentum quod porto varium, + Grande mihi fiet opprobrium; + Malo diu pati jejunium. + Largissimus largorum omnium + Proesul dedit mihi hoc pallium, + Majus habens in caelis praemium + Quam Martinus, qui dedit medium. + Nunc est opus ut vestra copia + Sublevetur vatis inopia; + Dent nobiles dona nobilia,-- + Aurum, vestes, et his similia._ + +There has been some difference of opinion as to the country to which +this poetry more especially belongs. Giraldus Cambrensis, writing at +the end of the twelfth or the beginning of the thirteenth century, +evidently thought that Golias was an Englishman; and at a later date +the goliardic poetry was almost all ascribed to Giraldus's contemporary +and friend, the celebrated humourist, Walter Mapes. This was, no doubt, +an error. Jacob Grimm seemed inclined to claim them for Germany; but +Grimm, on this occasion, certainly took a narrow view of the question. +We shall probably be more correct in saying that they belonged in +common to all the countries over which university learning extended; +that in whatever country a particular poem of this class was composed, +it became the property of the whole body of these scholastic jougleurs, +and that it was thus carried from one land to another, receiving +sometimes alterations or additions to adapt it to each. Several of +these poems are found in manuscripts written in different countries +with such alterations and additions, as, for instance, that in the +well-known "Confession," in the English copies of which we have, near +the conclusion, the line-- + + _Praesul Coventrensium, parce confitenti;_ + +an appeal to the bishop of Coventry, which is changed, in a copy in a +German manuscript, to + + _Electe Coloniae, parce poenitenti,_ + + +"O elect of Cologne, spare me penitent." From a comparison of what +remains of this poetry in manuscripts written in different countries, +it appears probable that the names Golias and goliard originated in the +university of Paris, but were more especially popular in England, while +the term _archipoeta_ was more commonly used in Germany. + +In 1841 I collected all the goliardic poetry which I could then find in +English manuscripts, and edited it, under the name of Walter Mapes, as +one of the publications of the Camden Society.[48] At a rather later +date I gave a chapter of additional matter of the same description +in my "Anecdota Literaria."[49] All the poems I have printed in +these two volumes are found in manuscripts written in England, and +some of them are certainly the compositions of English writers. They +are distinguished by remarkable facility and ease in versification +and rhyme, and by great pungency of satire. The latter is directed +especially against the clerical order, and none are spared, from the +pope at the summit of the scale down to the lowest of the clergy. In +the "Apocalypsis Goliae," or Golias's Revelations, which appears to +have been the most popular of all these poems,[50] the poet describes +himself as carried up in a vision to heaven, where the vices and +disorders of the various classes of the popish clergy are successively +revealed to him. The pope is a devouring lion; in his eagerness for +pounds, he pawns books; at the sight of a mark of money, he treats Mark +the Evangelist with disdain; while he sails aloft, money alone is his +anchoring-place. The original lines will serve as a specimen of the +style of these curious compositions, and of the love of punning which +was so characteristic of the literature of that age:-- + + _Est leo pontifex summus, qui devorat, + Qui libras sitiens, libros impignorat; + Marcam respiciet, Marcum dedecorat; + In summis navigans, in nummis anchorat._ + + [48] The Latin Poems commonly attributed to Walter Mapes, collected and + edited by Thomas Wright, Esq., 4to., London, 1841. + + [49] "Anecdota Literaria; a Collection of Short Poems in English, + Latin, and French, illustrative of the Literature and History of + England in the Thirteenth Century." Edited by Thomas Wright, Esq. + 8vo., London, 1844. + + [50] In my edition I have collated no less than sixteen copies which + occur among the MSS. in the British Museum, and in the libraries + at Oxford and Cambridge, and there are, no doubt, many more. + +The bishop is in haste to intrude himself into other people's pastures, +and fills himself with other people's goods. The ravenous archdeacon +is compared to an eagle, because he has sharp eyes to see his prey +afar off, and is swift to seize upon it. The dean is represented by an +animal with a man's face, full of silent guile, who covers fraud with +the form of justice, and by the show of simplicity would make others +believe him to be pious. In this spirit the faults of the clergy, of +all degrees, are minutely criticised through between four and five +hundred lines; and it must not be forgotten that it was the English +clergy whose character was thus exposed. + + _Tu scribes etiam, forma sed alia, + Septem ecclesiis quae sunt in Anglia._ + +Others of these pieces are termed Sermons, and are addressed, some to +the bishops and dignitaries of the church, others to the pope, others +to the monastic orders, and others to the clergy in general. The court +of Rome, we are told, was infamous for its greediness; there all right +and justice were put up for sale, and no favour could be had without +money. In this court money occupies everybody's thoughts; its cross--i. +e. the mark on the reverse of the coin--its roundness, and its +whiteness, all please the Romans; where money speaks law is silent. + + _Nummis in hac curia non est qui non vacet; + Crux placet, rotunditas, et albedo placet, + Et cum totum placeat, et Romanis placet, + Ubi nummus loquitur, et lex omnis tacet._ + +Perhaps one of the most curious of these poems is the "Confession of +Golias," in which the poet is made to satirise himself, and he thus +gives us a curious picture of the goliard's life. He complains that +he is made of light material, which is moved by every wind; that he +wanders about irregularly, like the ship on the sea or the bird in the +air, seeking worthless companions like himself. He is a slave to the +charms of the fair sex. He is a martyr to gambling, which often turns +him out naked to the cold, but he is warmed inwardly by the inspiration +of his mind, and he writes better poetry than ever. Lechery and +gambling are two of his vices, and the third is drinking. "The tavern," +he says, "I never despised, nor shall I ever despise it, until I see +the holy angels coming to sing the eternal requiem over my corpse. It +is my design to die in the tavern; let wine be placed to my mouth when +I am expiring, that when the choirs of angels come, they may say, 'Be +God propitious to this drinker!' The lamp of the soul is lighted with +cups; the heart steeped in nectar flies up to heaven; and the wine in +the tavern has for me a better flavour than that which the bishop's +butler mixes with water.... Nature gives to every one his peculiar +gift: I never could write fasting; a boy could beat me in composition +when I am hungry; I hate thirst and fasting as much as death." + + _Tertio capitulo memoro tabernam: + Illam nullo tempore sprevi, neque spernam, + Donec sanctos angelos venientes cernam, + Cantantes pro mortuo requiem aeternam._ + + _Meum est propositum in taberna mori; + Vindum sit appositum morientis ori, + Ut dicant cum venerint angelorum chori, + 'Deus sit propitius huic potatori!'_ + + _Poculis accenditur animi lucerna; + Cor imbutum nectare volat ad superna: + Mihi sapit dulcius vinum in taberna, + Quam quod aqua miscuit praesulis pincerna._ + + _Unicuique proprium dat natura munus: + Ego nunquam potui scribere jejunus; + Me jejunum vincere posset puer unus; + Sitim et jejunium odi tanquam funus._[51] + +Another of the more popular of these goliardic poems was the advice of +Golias against marriage, a gross satire upon the female sex. Contrary +to what we might perhaps expect from their being written in Latin, many +of these metrical satires are directed against the vices of the laity, +as well as against those of the clergy. + + [51] Poems attributed to Walter Mapes, p. 73. The stanzas here quoted, + with some others, were afterwards made up into a drinking song, + which was rather popular in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. + +In 1844 the celebrated German scholar, Jacob Grimm, published in the +"Transactions of the Academy of Sciences at Berlin" a selection of +goliardic verses from manuscripts in Germany, which had evidently been +written by Germans, and some of them containing allusions to German +affairs in the thirteenth century.[52] They present the same form of +verse and the same style of satire as those found in England, but the +name of Golias is exchanged for _archipoeta_, the archpoet. Some of +the stanzas of the "Confession of Golias" are found in a poem in which +the archpoet addresses a petition to the archchancellor for assistance +in his distress, and confesses his partiality for wine. A copy of the +Confession itself is also found in this German collection, under the +title of the "Poet's Confession." + + [52] "Gedichte des Mittelalters auf Koenig Friedrich I. den Staufar, und + aus seiner so wie der naechstfolgenden Zeit," 4to. Separate copies + of this work were printed off and distributed among mediaeval + scholars. + +The Royal Library at Munich contains a very important manuscript of +this goliardic Latin poetry, written in the thirteenth century. It +belonged originally to one of the great Benedictine abbeys in Bavaria, +where it appears to have been very carefully preserved, but still +with an apparent consciousness that it was not exactly a book for a +religious brotherhood, which led the monks to omit it in the catalogue +of their library, no doubt as a book the possession of which was not +to be proclaimed publicly. When written, it was evidently intended +to be a careful selection of the poetry of this class then current. +One part of it consists of poetry of a more serious character, such +as hymns, moral poems, and especially satirical pieces. In this class +there are more than one piece which are also found in the manuscripts +written in England. A very large portion of the collection consists +of love songs, which, although evidently treasured by the Benedictine +monks, are sometimes licentious in character. A third class consists +of drinking and gambling songs (_potatoria et lusoria_). The general +character of this poetry is more playful, more ingenious and intricate +in its metrical structure, in fact, more lyric than that of the poetry +we have been describing; yet it came, in all probability, from the same +class of poets--the clerical jougleurs. The touches of sentiment, the +descriptions of female beauty, the admiration of nature, are sometimes +expressed with remarkable grace. Thus, the green wood sweetly enlivened +by the joyous voices of its feathered inhabitants, the shade of its +branches, the thorns covered with flowers, which, says the poet, are +emblematical of love, which pricks like a thorn and then soothes like a +flower, are tastefully described in the following lines:-- + + _Cantu nemus avium + Lascivia canentium + Suave delinitur, + Fronde redimitur, + Vernant spinae floribus + Micantibus, + Venerem signantibus + Quia spina pungit, flos blanditur._ + +And the following scrap of the description of a beautiful damsel shows +no small command of language and versification-- + + _Allicit dulcibus + Verbis et osculis, + Labellulis + Castigate tumentibus, + Roseo nectareus + Odor infusus ori; + Pariter eburneus + Sedat ordo dentium + Par niveo candori._ + +The whole contents of this manuscript were printed in 1847, in an +octavo volume, issued by the Literary Society at Stuttgard.[53] I had +already printed some examples of such amatory Latin lyric poetry in +1838, in a volume of "Early Mysteries and Latin Poems;"[54] but this +poetry does not belong properly to the subject of the present volume, +and I pass on from it. + + [53] "Carmina Burana. Lateinische und Deutsche Lieder und Gedichte + einer Handschrift des XIII. Jahrhunderts aus Benedictbeurn auf + der K. Bibliothek zu Muenchen." 8vo. Stuttgart, 1847. + + [54] "Early Mysteries and other Latin Poems of the Twelfth and + Thirteenth Centuries," edited by Thomas Wright, Esq. 8vo. London, + 1838. + +The goliards did not always write in verse, for we have some of +their prose compositions, and these appear especially in the form +of parodies. We trace a great love for parody in the middle ages, +which spared not even things the most sacred, and the examples +brought forward in the celebrated trial of William Hone, were mild in +comparison to some which are found scattered here and there in mediaeval +manuscripts. In my Poems, attributed to Walter Mapes,[55] I have +printed a satire in prose entitled "_Magister Golyas de quodam abbate_" +(i.e., Master Golias's account of a certain abbot), which has somewhat +the character of a parody upon a saint's legend. The voluptuous life of +the superior of a monastic house is here described in a tone of banter +which nothing could excel. Several parodies, more direct in their +character, are printed in the two volumes of the "Reliquae Antiquae."[56] +One of these (vol. ii. p. 208) is a complete parody on the service of +the mass, which is entitled in the original, "_Missa de Potatoribus_," +the Mass of the Drunkard. In this extraordinary composition, even the +pater-noster is parodied. A portion of this, with great variations, is +found in the German collection of the Carmina Burana, under the title +of _Officium Lusorum_, the Office of the Gamblers. In the "Reliquae +Antiquae" (ii. 58) we have a parody on the Gospel of St. Luke, beginning +with the words, _Initium fallacis Evangelii secundum Lupum_, this last +word being, of course, a sort of pun upon Lucam. Its subject also is +Bacchus, and the scene having been laid in a tavern in Oxford, we have +no difficulty in ascribing it to some scholar of that university in the +thirteenth century. Among the Carmina Burana we find a similar parody +on the Gospel of St. Mark, which has evidently belonged to one of these +burlesques on the church service; and as it is less profane than the +others, and at the same time pictures the mediaeval hatred towards the +church of Rome, I will give a translation of it as an example of this +singular class of compositions. It is hardly necessary to remind the +reader that a mark was a coin of the value of thirteen shillings and +fourpence:-- + + "The beginning of the holy gospel according to Marks of silver. + At that time the pope said to the Romans: 'When the son of man + shall come to the seat of our majesty, first say, Friend, for what + hast thou come? But if he should persevere in knocking without + giving you anything, cast him out into utter darkness.' And it + came to pass, that a certain poor clerk came to the court of the + lord the pope, and cried out, saying, 'Have pity on me at least, + you doorkeepers of the pope, for the hand of poverty has touched + me. For I am needy and poor, and therefore I seek your assistance + in my calamity and misery.' But they hearing this were highly + indignant, and said to him: 'Friend, thy poverty be with thee in + perdition; get thee backward, Satan, for thou dost not savour of + those things which have the savour of money. Verily, verily, I say + unto thee, Thou shalt not enter into the joy of thy lord, until + thou shalt have given thy last farthing.' + + "Then the poor man went away, and sold his cloak and his gown, + and all that he had, and gave it to the cardinals, and to the + doorkeepers, and to the chamberlains. But they said, 'And what is + this among so many?' And they cast him out of the gates, and going + out he wept bitterly, and was without consolation. After him there + came to the court a certain clerk who was rich, and gross, and + fat, and large, and who in a tumult had committed manslaughter. He + gave first to the doorkeeper, secondly to the chamberlain, third + to the cardinals. But they judged among themselves, that they + were to receive more. Then the lord the pope, hearing that the + cardinals and officials had received many gifts from the clerk, + became sick unto death. But the rich man sent him an electuary of + gold and silver, and he was immediately made whole. Then the lord + the pope called before him the cardinals and officials, and said + to them: 'Brethren, see that no one deceive you with empty words. + For I give you an example, that, as I take, so take ye also.'" + + [55] Introduction, p. xl. + + [56] "Reliquiae Antiquae. Scraps from Ancient Manuscripts, illustrating + chiefly Early English Literature and the English Language." Edited + by Thomas Wright, Esq., and J. O. Halliwell, Esq. 2 vols. 8vo. + Vol. i., London, 1841; vol. ii., 1843. + +This mediaeval love of parody was not unfrequently displayed in a +more popular form, and in the language of the people. In the _Reliquae +Antiquae_ (i. 82) we have a very singular parody in English on the +sermons of the Catholic priesthood, a good part of which is so written +as to present no consecutive sense, which circumstance itself implies +a sneer at the preachers. Thus our burlesque preacher, in the middle +of his discourse, proceeds to narrate as follows (I modernise the +English):-- + + "Sirs, what time that God and St. Peter came to Rome, Peter asked + Adam a full great doubtful question, and said, 'Adam, Adam, why + ate thou the apple unpared?' 'Forsooth,' quod he, 'for I had no + wardens (pears) fried.' And Peter saw the fire, and dread him, and + stepped into a plum-tree that hanged full of ripe red cherries. + And there he saw all the parrots in the sea. There he saw steeds + and stockfish pricking 'swose' (?) in the water. There he saw hens + and herrings that hunted after harts in hedges. There he saw eels + roasting larks. There he saw haddocks were done on the pillory for + wrong roasting of May butter; and there he saw how bakers baked + butter to grease with old monks' boots. There he saw how the fox + preached," &c. + +The same volume contains some rather clever parodies on the old English +alliterative romances, composed in a similar style of consecutive +nonsense. It is a class of parody which we trace to a rather early +period, which the French term a _coq-a-l'ane_, and which became +fashionable in England in the seventeenth century in the form of +songs entitled "Tom-a-Bedlams." M. Jubinal has printed two such poems +in French, perhaps of the thirteenth century,[57] and others are +found scattered through the old manuscripts. There is generally so +much coarseness in them that it is not easy to select a portion for +translation, and in fact their point consists in going on through the +length of a poem of this kind without imparting a single clear idea. +Thus, in the second of those published by Jubinal, we are told how, +"The shadow of an egg carried the new year upon the bottom of a pot; +two old new combs made a ball to run the trot; when it came to paying +the scot, I, who never move myself, cried out, without saying a word, +'Take the feather of an ox, and clothe a wise fool with it.'"-- + + _Li ombres d'un oef + Portoit l'an reneuf + Sur la fonz d'un pot; + Deus viez pinges neuf + Firent un estuef + Pour courre le trot; + Quant vint au paier l'escot, + Je, qui onques ne me muef, + M'escriai, si ne dis mot:-- + 'Prenes la plume d'un buef, + S'en vestez un sage sot.'_--Jubinal, Nouv. Rec., ii. 217. + + [57] "Achille Jubinal, Jongleurs et Trouveres." 8vo., Paris, 1835, p. + 34; and "Nouveau Recueil de Contes, Dits, Fabliaux," &c. 8vo., + Paris, 1842. Vol. ii. p. 208. In the first instance M. Jubinal has + given to this little poem the title _Resveries_, in the second, + _Fatrasies_. + +The spirit of the goliards continued to exist long after the name +had been forgotten; and the mass of bitter satire which they had +left behind them against the whole papal system, and against the +corruptions of the papal church of the middle ages, were a perfect +godsend to the reformers of the sixteenth century, who could point +to them triumphantly as irresistible evidence in their favour. Such +scholars as Flacius Illyricus, eagerly examined the manuscripts +which contained this goliardic poetry, and printed it, chiefly as +good and effective weapons in the great religious strife which was +then convulsing European society. To us, besides their interest as +literary compositions, they have also a historical value, for they +introduce us to a more intimate acquaintance with the character of the +great mental struggle for emancipation from mediaeval darkness which +extended especially through the thirteenth century, and which was only +overcome for a while to begin more strongly and more successfully at +a later period. They display to us the gross ignorance, as well as +the corruption of manners, of the great mass of the mediaeval clergy. +Nothing can be more amusing than the satire which some of these pieces +throw on the character of monkish Latin. I printed in the "Reliquae +Antiquae," under the title of "The Abbot of Gloucester's Feast," a +complaint supposed to issue from the mouth of one of the common herd +of the monks, against the selfishness of their superiors, in which all +the rules of Latin grammar are entirely set at defiance. The abbot and +prior of Gloucester, with their whole convent, are invited to a feast, +and on their arrival, "the abbot," says the complainant, "goes to sit +at the top, and the prior next to him, but I stood always in the back +place among the low people." + + _Abbas ire sede sursum, + Et prioris juxta ipsum; + Ego semper stavi dorsum + inter rascalilia._ + +The wine was served liberally to the prior and the abbot, but "nothing +was give to us poor folks--everything was for the rich." + + _Vinum venit sanguinatis + Ad prioris et abbatis; + Nihil nobis paupertatis, + sed ad dives omnia._ + +When some dissatisfaction was displayed by the poor monks, which the +great men treated with contempt, "said the prior to the abbot, 'They +have wine enough; will you give all our drink to the poor? What does +their poverty regard us? they have little, and that is enough, since +they came uninvited to our feast.'" + + _Prior dixit ad abbatis, + 'Ipsi habent vinum satis; + Vultis dare paupertatis + noster potus omnia? + Quid nos spectat paupertatis? + Postquam venit non vocatis + ad noster convivia.'_ + +Thus through several pages this amusing poem goes on to describe the +gluttony and drunkenness of the abbot and prior, and the ill-treatment +of their inferiors. This composition belongs to the close of the +thirteenth century. A song very similar to it in character, but much +shorter, is found in a manuscript of the middle of the fifteenth +century, and printed with the other contents of this manuscript in a +little volume issued by the Percy Society.[58] The writer complains +that the abbot and prior drunk good and high-flavoured wine, while +nothing but inferior stuff was usually given to the convent; "But," +he says, "it is better to go drink good wine at the tavern, where the +wines are of the best quality, and money is the butler." + + _Bonum vinum cum sapore + Bibit abbas cum priore; + Sed conventus de pejore + semper solet bibere. + Bonum vinum in taberna, + Ubi vina sunt valarna_ (for Falerna), + _Ubi nummus est pincerna, + Ibi prodest bibere._ + + [58] "Songs and Carols, now first printed from a Manuscript of the + Fifteenth Century." Edited by Thomas Wright, Esq. 8vo., London, + 1847, p. 2. + + [Illustration: _No. 111. Caricature upon the Jews at Norwich._] + +Partly out of the earnest, though playful, satire described in this +chapter, arose political satire, and at a later period political +caricature. I have before remarked that the period we call the middle +ages was not that of political or personal caricature, because it +wanted that means of circulating quickly and largely which is necessary +for it. Yet, no doubt, men who could draw, did, in the middle ages, +sometimes amuse themselves in sketching caricatures, which, in general, +have perished, because nobody cared to preserve them; but the fact of +the existence of such works is proved by a very curious example, which +has been preserved, and which is copied in our cut No. 111. It is a +caricature on the Jews of Norwich, which some one of the clerks of the +king's courts in the thirteenth century has drawn with a pen, on one +of the official rolls of the Pell office, where it has been preserved. +Norwich, as it is well known, was one of the principal seats of the +Jews in England at this early period, and Isaac of Norwich, the crowned +Jew with three faces, who towers over the other figures, was no doubt +some personage of great importance among them. Dagon, as a two-headed +demon, occupies a tower, which a party of demon knights is attacking. +Beneath the figure of Isaac there is a lady, whose name appears to be +Avezarden, who has some relation or other with a male figure named +Nolle-Mokke, in which another demon, named Colbif, is interfering. As +this latter name is written in capital letters, we may perhaps conclude +that he is the most important personage in the scene; but, without any +knowledge of the circumstances to which it relates, it would be in vain +to attempt to explain this curious and rather elaborate caricature. + + [Illustration: _No. 112. An Irishman._] + +Similar attempts at caricature, though less direct and elaborate, are +found in others of our national records. One of these, pointed out to +me by an excellent and respected friend, the Rev. Lambert B. Larking, +is peculiarly interesting, as well as amusing. It belongs to the +Treasury of the Exchequer, and consists of two volumes of vellum called +Liber A and Liber B, forming a register of treaties, marriages, and +similar documents of the reign of Edward I., which have been very fully +used by Rymer. The clerk who was employed in writing it, seems to have +been, like many of these official clerks, somewhat of a wag, and he +has amused himself by drawing in the margin figures of the inhabitants +of the provinces of Edward's crown to which the documents referred. +Some of these are evidently designed for caricature. Thus, the figure +given in our cut No. 112 was intended to represent an Irishman. One +trait, at least, in this caricature is well known from the description +given by Giraldus Cambrensis, who speaks with a sort of horror of the +formidable axes which the Irish were accustomed to carry about with +them. In treating of the manner in which Ireland ought to be governed +when it had been entirely reduced to subjection, he recommends that, +"in the meantime, they ought not to be allowed in time of peace, on +any pretence or in any place, to use that detestable instrument of +destruction, which, by an ancient but accursed custom, they constantly +carry in their hands instead of a staff." In a chapter of his +"Topography of Ireland," Giraldus treats of this "ancient and wicked +custom" of always carrying in their hand an axe, instead of a staff, +to the danger of all persons who had any relations with them. Another +Irishman, from a drawing in the same manuscript, given in our cut No. +113, carries his axe in the same threatening attitude. The costume of +these figures answers with sufficient accuracy to the description given +by Giraldus Cambrensis. The drawings exhibit more exactly than that +writer's description the "small close-fitting hoods, hanging a cubit's +length (half-a-yard) below the shoulders," which, he tells us, they +were accustomed to wear. This small hood, with the flat cap attached to +it, is shown better perhaps in the second figure than in the first. The +"breeches and hose of one piece, or hose and breeches joined together," +are also exhibited here very distinctly, and appear to be tied over +the heel, but the feet are clearly naked, and evidently the use of the +"brogues" was not yet general among the Irish of the thirteenth century. + + [Illustration: _No. 113. Another Irishman._] + +If the Welshman of this period was somewhat more scantily clothed +than the Irishman, he had the advantage of him, to judge by this +manuscript, in wearing at least one shoe. Our cut No. 114, taken from +it, represents a Welshman armed with bow and arrow, whose clothing +consists apparently only of a plain tunic and a light mantle. This +is quite in accordance with the description by Giraldus Cambrensis, +who tells us that in all seasons their dress was the same, and that, +however severe the weather, "they defended themselves from the cold +only by a thin cloak and tunic." Giraldus says nothing of the practice +of the Welsh in wearing but one shoe, yet it is evident that at the +time of this record that was their practice, for in another figure of +a Welshman, given in our cut No. 115, we see the same peculiarity, +and in both cases the shoe is worn on the left foot. Giraldus merely +says that the Welshmen in general, when engaged in warfare, "either +walked bare-footed, or made use of high shoes, roughly made of untanned +leather." He describes them as armed sometimes with bows and arrows, +and sometimes with long spears; and accordingly our first example of +a Welshman from this manuscript is using the bow, while the second +carries the spear, which he apparently rests on the single shoe of +his left foot, while he brandishes a sword in his left hand. Both our +Welshmen present a singularly grotesque appearance. + + [Illustration: _No. 114. A Welsh Archer._] + + [Illustration: _No. 115. A Welshman with his Spear._] + + [Illustration: _No. 116. A Gascon at his Vine._] + + [Illustration: _No. 117. The Wine Manufacturer._] + +The Gascon is represented with more peaceful attributes. Gascony was +the country of vineyards, from whence we drew our great supply of +wines, a very important article of consumption in the middle ages. +When the official clerk who wrote this manuscript came to documents +relating to Gascony, his thoughts wandered naturally enough to its +rich vineyards and the wine they supplied so plentifully, and to +which, according to old reports, clerks seldom showed any dislike, and +accordingly, in the sketch, which we copy in our cut No. 116, we have +a Gascon occupied diligently in pruning his vine-tree. He, at least, +wears two shoes, though his clothing is of the lightest description. He +is perhaps the _vinitor_ of the mediaeval documents on this subject, a +serf attached to the vineyard. Our second sketch, cut No. 117, presents +a more enlarged scene, and introduces us to the whole process of making +wine. First we see a man better clothed, with shoes (or boots) of much +superior make, and a hat on his head, carrying away the grapes from +the vineyard to the place where another man, with no clothing at all, +is treading out the juice in a large vat. This is still in some of the +wine countries the common method of extracting the juice from the +grape. Further to the left is the large cask in which the juice is put +when turned into wine. + +Satires on the people of particular localities were not uncommon +during the middle ages, because local rivalries and consequent local +feuds prevailed everywhere. The records of such feuds were naturally +of a temporary character, and perished when the feuds and rivalries +themselves ceased to exist, but a few curious satires of this kind have +been preserved. A monk of Peterborough, who lived late in the twelfth +or early in the thirteenth century, and for some reason or other +nourished an unfriendly feeling to the people of Norfolk, gave vent +to his hostility in a short Latin poem in what we may call goliardic +verse. He begins by abusing the county itself, which, he says, was as +bad and unfruitful as its inhabitants were vile; and he suggests that +the evil one, when he fled from the anger of the Almighty, had passed +through it and left his pollution upon it. Among other anecdotes of +the simplicity and folly of the people of this county, which closely +resemble the stories of the wise men of Gotham of a later date, he +informs us that one day the peasantry of one district were so grieved +by the oppressions of their feudal lord, that they subscribed together +and bought their freedom, which he secured to them by formal deed, +ratified with a ponderous seal. They adjourned to the tavern, and +celebrated their deliverance by feasting and drinking until night came +on, and then, for want of a candle, they agreed to burn the wax of the +seal. Next day their former lord, informed of what had taken place, +brought them before a court, where the deed was judged to be void for +want of the seal, and they lost all their money, were reduced to their +old position of slavery, and treated worse than ever. Other stories, +still more ridiculous, are told of these old Norfolkians, but few of +them are worth repeating. Another monk, apparently, who calls himself +John de St. Omer, took up the cudgels for the people of Norfolk, +and replied to the Peterborough satirist in similar language.[59] I +have printed in another collection,[60] a satirical poem against +the people of a place called Stockton (perhaps Stockton-on-Tees in +Durham), by the monk of a monastic house, of which they were serfs. +It appeared that they had risen against the tyranny of their lord, +but had been unsuccessful in defending their cause in a court of law, +and the ecclesiastical satirist exults over their defeat in a very +uncharitable tone. There will be found in the "Reliquae Antiquae,"[61] +a very curious satire in Latin prose directed against the inhabitants +of Rochester, although it is in truth aimed against Englishmen in +general, and is entitled in the manuscript, which is of the fourteenth +century, "Proprietates Anglicorum" (the Peculiarities of Englishmen). +In the first place, we are told, that the people of Rochester had +tails, and the question is discussed, very scholastically, what +species of animals these Rocestrians were. We are then told that the +cause of their deformity arose from the insolent manner in which +they treated St. Augustine, when he came to preach the Gospel to the +heathen English. After visiting many parts of England, the saint came +to Rochester, where the people, instead of listening to him, hooted +at him through the streets, and, in derision, attached tails of pigs +and calves to his vestments, and so turned him out of the city. The +vengeance of Heaven came upon them, and all who inhabited the city and +the country round it, and their descendants after them, were condemned +to bear tails exactly like those of pigs. This story of the tails +was not an invention of the author of the satire, but was a popular +legend connected with the history of St. Augustine's preaching, though +the scene of the legend was laid in Dorsetshire. The writer of this +singular composition goes on to describe the people of Rochester as +seducers of other people, as men without gratitude, and as traitors. +He proceeds to show that Rochester being situated in England, its +vices had tainted the whole nation, and he illustrates the baseness of +the English character by a number of anecdotes of worse than doubtful +authenticity. It is, in fact, a satire on the English composed in +France, and leads us into the domains of political satire. + + [59] Both these poems are printed in my "Early Mysteries, and other + Latin Poems of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries." 8vo., + London, 1838. + + [60] "Anecdota Literaria," p. 49. + + [61] "Reliquae Antiquae," vol. ii. p. 230. + +Political satire in the middle ages appeared chiefly in the form of +poetry and song, and it was especially in England that it flourished, +a sure sign that there was in our country a more advanced feeling of +popular independence, and greater freedom of speech, than in France or +Germany.[62] M. Leroux de Lincy, who undertook to make a collection +of this poetry for France, found so little during the mediaeval period +that came under the character of political, that he was obliged to +substitute the word "historical" in the title of his book.[63] Where +feudalism was supreme, indeed, the songs which arose out of private +or public strife, which then were almost inseparable from society, +contained no political sentiment, but consisted chiefly of personal +attacks on the opponents of those who employed them. Such are the four +short songs written in the time of the revolt of the French during +the minority of St. Louis, which commenced in 1226; they are all of a +political character which M. Leroux de Lincy has been able to collect +previous to the year 1270, and they consist merely of personal taunts +against the courtiers by the dissatisfied barons who were out of power. +We trace a similar feeling in some of the popular records of our +baronial wars of the reign of Henry III., especially in a song, in the +baronial language (Anglo-Norman), preserved in a small roll of vellum, +which appears to have belonged to the minstrel who chanted it in the +halls of the partisans of Simon de Montfort. The fragment which remains +consists of stanzas in praise of the leaders of the popular party, and +in reproach of their opponents. Thus of Roger de Clifford, one of earl +Simon's friends, we are told that "the good Roger de Clifford behaved +like a noble baron, and exercised great justice; he suffered none, +either small or great, or secretly or openly, to do any wrong." + + _Et de Cliffort ly bon Roger + Se contint cum noble ber, + Si fu de grant justice; + Ne suffri pas petit ne grant, + Ne arere ne par devant, + Fere nul mesprise._ + +On the other hand, one of Montfort's opponents, the bishop of Hereford, +is treated rather contemptuously. We are told that he "learnt well that +the earl was strong when he took the matter in hand; before that he +(the bishop) was very fierce, and thought to eat up all the English; +but now he is reduced to straits." + + _Ly eveske de Herefort + Sout bien que ly quens fu fort, + Kant il prist l'affere; + Devant ce esteit mult fer, + Les Englais quida touz manger, + Mes ore ne set que fere._ + +This bishop was Peter de Aigueblanche, one of the foreign favourites, +who had been intruded into the see of Hereford, to the exclusion of +a better man, and had been an oppressor of those who were under his +rule. The barons seized him, threw him into prison, and plundered his +possessions, and at the time this song was written, he was suffering +under the imprisonment which appears to have shortened his life. + + [62] I have published from the original manuscripts the mass of the + political poetry composed in England during the middle ages in my + three volumes--"The Political Songs of England, from the Reign + of John to that of Edward II." 4to., London, 1839 (issued by + the Camden Society); and "Political Poems and Songs relating to + English History, composed during the Period from the Accession of + Edward III. to that of Richard III." 8vo., vol i., London, 1859; + vol. ii., 1861 (published by the Treasury, under the direction of + the Master of the Rolls.) + + [63] "Receuil de Chants Historiques Francais depuis le xii^e. jusqu'au + xviii^e. Siecle, par Leroux de Lincy.... Premiere Serie, xii^e., + xiii^e., xiv^e, et xv^e., Siecles." 8vo., Paris, 1841. + +The universities and the clerical body in general were deeply involved +in these political movements of the thirteenth century; and our +earliest political songs now known are composed in Latin, and in that +form and style of verse which seems to have been peculiar to the +goliards, and which I venture to call goliardic. Such is a song against +the three bishops who supported king John in his quarrel with the +pope about the presentation to the see of Canterbury, printed in my +Political Songs. Such, too, is the song of the Welsh, and one or two +others, in the same volume. And such, above all, is that remarkable +Latin poem in which a partisan of the barons, immediately after the +victory at Lewes, set forth the political tenets of his party, and gave +the principles of English liberty nearly the same broad basis on which +they stand at the present. It is an evidence of the extent to which +these principles were now acknowledged, that in this great baronial +struggle our political songs began to be written in the English +language, an acknowledgment that they concerned the whole English +public. + +We trace little of this class of literature during the reign of Edward +I.; but, when the popular feelings became turbulent again under the +reign of his son and successor, political songs became more abundant, +and their satire was directed more even than formerly against measures +and principles, and was less an instrument of mere personal abuse. One +satirical poem of this period, which I had printed from an imperfect +copy in a manuscript at Edinburgh, but of which a more complete copy +was subsequently found in a manuscript in the library of St. Peter's +College, Cambridge,[64] is extremely curious as being the earliest +satire of this kind written in English that we possess. It appears to +have been written in the year 1320. The writer of this poem begins by +telling us that his object is to explain the cause of the war, ruin, +and manslaughter which then prevailed throughout the land, and why +the poor were suffering from hunger and want, the cattle perished in +the field, and the corn was dear. These he ascribes to the increasing +wickedness of all orders of society. To begin with the church, Rome +was the head of all corruptions, at the papal court false-hood and +treachery only reigned, and the door of the pope's palace was shut +against truth. During the twelfth and following centuries these +complaints, in terms more or less forcible, against the corruptions of +Rome, are continually repeated, and show that the evil must have been +one under which everybody felt oppressed. The old charge of Romish +simony is repeated in this poem in very strong terms. "The clerk's +voice shall be little heard at the court of Rome, were he ever so good, +unless he bring silver with him; though he were the holiest man that +ever was born, unless he bring gold or silver, all his time and anxiety +are lost. Alas! why love they so much that which is perishable?" + + _Voys of clerk shall lytyl be heard at the court of Rome, + Were he never so gode a clerk, without silver and he come; + Though he were the holyst man that ever yet was ibore, + But he bryng gold or sylver, al hys while is forlore + And his thowght. + Allas! whi love thei that so much that schal turne to nowght?_ + + [64] "A Poem on the Times of Edward III., from a MS. preserved in the + Library of St. Peter's College, Cambridge." Edited by the Rev. + C. Hardwick. 8vo. London, 1849. (One of the publications of the + Percy Society.) + +When, on the contrary, a wicked man presented himself at the pope's +court, he had only to carry plenty of money thither, and all went well +with him. According to our satirist, the bishops were "fools," and the +other dignitaries and officials of the church were influenced chiefly +by the love of money and self-indulgence. The parson began humbly, when +he first obtained his benefice, but no sooner had he gathered money +together, than he took "a wenche" to live with him as his wife, and +rode a hunting with hawks and hounds like a gentleman. The priests were +men with no learning, who preached by rote what they neither understood +nor appreciated. "Truely," he says, "it fares by our unlearned priests +as by a jay in a cage, who curses himself: he speaks good English, but +he knows not what it means. No more does an unlearned priest know his +gospel that he reads daily. An unlearned priest, then, is no better +than a jay." + + _Certes at so hyt fareth by a prest that is lewed, + As by a jay in a cage that hymself hath beshrewed: + Gode Englysh he speketh, but he not never what. + No more wot a lewed prest hys gospel wat he rat + By day. + Than is a lewed prest no better than a jay._ + +Abbots and priors were remarkable chiefly for their pride and luxury, +and the monks naturally followed their examples. Thus was religion +debased everywhere. The character of the physician is treated with +equal severity, and his various tricks to obtain money are amusingly +described. In this manner the songster presents to view the failings of +the various orders of lay society also, the selfishness and oppressive +bearing of the knights and aristocracy, and their extravagance in +dress and living, the neglect of justice, the ill-management of the +wars, the weight of taxation, and all the other evils which then +afflicted the state. This poem marks a period in our social history, +and led the way to that larger work of the same character, which +came about thirty years later, the well-known "Visions of Piers +Ploughman,"[65] one of the most remarkable satires, as well as one of +the most remarkable poems, in the English language. + +We will do no more than glance at the further progress of political +satire which had now taken a permanent footing in English literature. +We see less of it during the reign of Edward III., the greater part of +which was occupied with foreign wars and triumphs, but there appeared +towards the close of his reign, a very remarkable satire, which I have +printed in my "Political Poems and Songs." It is written in Latin, and +consists of a pretended prophecy in verse by an inspired monk named +John of Bridlington, with a mock commentary in prose--in fact, a parody +on the commentaries in which the scholastics of that age displayed +their learning, but in this case the commentary contains a bold though +to us rather obscure criticism on the whole policy of Edward's reign. +The reign of Richard II. was convulsed by the great struggle for +religious reform, by the insurrections of the lower orders, and by +the ambition and feuds of the nobles, and produced a vast quantity of +political and religious satire, both in prose and verse, but especially +the latter. We must not overlook our great poet Chaucer, as one of the +powerful satirists of this period. Political song next makes itself +heard loudly in the wars of the Roses. It was the last struggle of +feudalism in England, and the character of the song had fallen back +to its earlier characteristics, in which all patriotic feelings were +abandoned to make place for personal hatred. + + [65] "The Vision and the Creed of Piers Ploughman;" with Notes and a + Glossary by Thomas Wright. 2 vols. 12mo. London, 1842. Second and + revised edition, 2 vols. 12mo. London, 1856. + + + + + CHAPTER XI. + + MINSTRELSY A SUBJECT OF BURLESQUE AND CARICATURE.--CHARACTER + OF THE MINSTRELS.--THEIR JOKES UPON THEMSELVES AND UPON ONE + ANOTHER.--VARIOUS MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS REPRESENTED IN THE + SCULPTURES OF THE MEDIAEVAL ARTISTS.--SIR MATTHEW GOURNAY AND THE + KING OF PORTUGAL.--DISCREDIT OF THE TABOR AND BAGPIPES.--MERMAIDS. + + +One of the principal classes of the satirists of the middle ages, the +minstrels, or jougleurs, were far from being unamenable to satire +themselves. They belonged generally to a low class of the population, +one that was hardly acknowledged by the law, which merely administered +to the pleasures and amusements of others, and, though sometimes +liberally rewarded, they were objects rather of contempt than of +respect. Of course there were minstrels belonging to a class more +respectable than the others, but these were comparatively few; and the +ordinary minstrel seems to have been simply an unprincipled vagabond, +who hardly possessed any settled resting-place, who wandered about from +place to place, and was not too nice as to the means by which he gained +his living--perhaps fairly represented by the street minstrel, or +mountebank, of the present day. One of his talents was that of mocking +and ridiculing others, and it is not to be wondered at, therefore, if +he sometimes became an object of mockery and ridicule himself. One of +the well-known minstrels of the thirteenth century, Rutebeuf, was, like +many of his fellows, a poet also, and he has left several short pieces +of verse descriptive of himself and of his own mode of life. In one +of these he complains of his poverty, and tells us that the world had +in his time--the reign of St. Louis--become so degenerate, that few +people gave anything to the unfortunate minstrel. According to his own +account, he was without food, and in a fair way towards starvation, +exposed to the cold without sufficient clothing, and with nothing but +straw for his bed. + + _Je touz de froit, de fain baaille, + Dont je suis mors et maubailliz, + Je suis sanz coutes et sans liz; + N'a si povre jusqu'a Senliz. + Sire, si ne sai quel part aille; + Mes costeiz connoit le pailliz, + Et liz de paille n'est pas liz, + Et en mon lit n'a fors la paille._ + --OEuvres de Rutebeuf, vol. i. p. 3. + +In another poem, Rutebeuf laments that he has rendered his condition +still more miserable by marrying, when he had not wherewith to keep +a wife and family. In a third, he complains that in the midst of his +poverty, his wife has brought him a child to increase his domestic +expenses, while his horse, on which he was accustomed to travel to +places where he might exercise his profession, had broken its leg, and +his nurse was dunning him for money. In addition to all these causes of +grief, he had lost the use of one of his eyes. + + _Or a d'enfant geu ma fame; + Mon cheval a brisie la jame + A une lice; + Or veut de l'argent ma norrice, + Qui m'en destraint et me pelice, + For l'enfant pestre._ + +Throughout his complaint, although he laments over the decline of +liberality among his contemporaries, he nevertheless turns his poverty +into a joke. In several other pieces of verse he speaks in the same +way, half joking and half lamenting over his condition, and he does not +conceal that the love of gambling was one of the causes of it. "The +dice," he says, "have stripped me entirely of my robe; the dice watch +and spy me; it is these which kill me; they assault and ruin me, to my +grief." + + _Li de que li detier ont fet, + M'ont de ma robe tout desfet; + Li de m'ocient. + Li de m'aguetent et espient; + Li de m'assaillent et dessient, + Ce poise moi._--Ib., vol. i. p. 27. + +And elsewhere he intimates that what the minstrels sometimes gained +from the lavish generosity of their hearers, soon passed away at the +tavern in dice and drinking. + +One of Rutebeuf's contemporaries in the same profession, Colin Muset, +indulges in similar complaints, and speaks bitterly of the want of +generosity displayed by the great barons of his time. In addressing one +of them who had treated him ungenerously, he says, "Sir Count, I have +fiddled before you in your hostel, and you neither gave me a gift, nor +paid me my wages. It is discreditable behaviour. By the duty I owe to +St. Mary, I cannot continue in your service at this rate. My purse is +ill furnished, and my wallet is empty." + + _Sire quens, j'ai viele + Devant vos en vostre ostel; + Si ne m'avez riens donne, + Ne mes gages acquitez, + C'est vilanie. + Foi que doi sainte Marie, + Ensi ne vos sieurre-je mie. + M'aumosniere est mal garnie, + Et ma male mal farsie._ + +He proceeds to state that when he went home to his wife (for Colin +Muset also was a married minstrel), he was ill received if his purse +and wallet were empty; but it was very different when they were full. +His wife then sprang forward and threw her arms round his neck; she +took his wallet from his horse with alacrity, while his lad conducted +the animal cheerfully to the stable, and his maiden killed a couple of +capons, and prepared them with piquant sauce. His daughter brought a +comb for his hair. "Then," he exclaims, "I am master in my own house." + + _Ma fame va destroser + Ma male sans demorer; + Mon garcon va abuvrer + Men cheval et conreer; + Ma pucele va tuer + Deux chapons por deporter + A la sause aillie. + Ma fille m'aporte un pigne + En sa main par cortoisie. + Lors sui de mon ostel sire._ + +When the minstrels could thus joke upon themselves, we need not be +surprised if they satirised one another. In a poem of the thirteenth +century, entitled "Les deux Troveors Ribauz," two minstrels are +introduced on the stage abusing and insulting one another, and while +indulging in mutual accusations of ignorance in their art, they display +their ignorance at the same time by misquoting the titles of the poems +which they profess to be able to recite. One of them boasts of the +variety of instruments on which he could perform:-- + + _Je suis jugleres de viele, + Si sai de muse et frestele, + Et de harpes et de chifonie, + De la gigue, de l'armonie, + De l'salteire, et en la rote + Sai-ge bien chanter une note._ + +It appears, however, that among all these instruments, the viol, or +fiddle, was the one most generally in use. + + [Illustration: _No. 118. A Charming Fiddler._] + +The mediaeval monuments of art abound with burlesques and satires on the +minstrels, whose instruments of music are placed in the hands sometimes +of monsters, and at others in those of animals of a not very refined +character. Our cut No. 118 is taken from a manuscript in the British +Museum (MS. Cotton, Domitian A. ii.), and represents a female minstrel +playing on the fiddle; she has the upper part of a lady, and the lower +parts of a mare, a combination which appears to have been rather +familiar to the imagination of the mediaeval artists. In our cut No. +119, which is taken from a copy made by Carter of one of the misereres +in Ely Cathedral, it is not quite clear whether the performer on the +fiddle be a monster or merely a cripple; but perhaps the latter was +intended. The instrument, too, assumes a rather singular form. Our cut +No. 120, also taken from Carter, was furnished by a sculpture in the +church of St. John, at Cirencester, and represents a man performing on +an instrument rather closely resembling the modern hurdy-gurdy, which +is evidently played by turning a handle, and the music is produced by +striking wires or strings inside. The face is evidently intended to be +that of a jovial companion. + + [Illustration: _No. 119. A Crippled Minstrel._] + + [Illustration: _No. 120. The Hurdy-Gurdy._] + +Gluttony was an especial characteristic of that class of society to +which the minstrel belonged, and perhaps this was the idea intended to +be conveyed in the next picture, No. 121, taken from one of the stalls +in Winchester Cathedral, in which a pig is performing on the fiddle, +and appears to be accompanied by a juvenile of the same species of +animal. One of the same stalls, copied in our cut No. 122, represents +a sow performing on another sort of musical instrument, which is not +at all uncommon in mediaeval delineations. It is the double pipe or +flute, which was evidently borrowed from the ancients. Minstrelsy was +the usual accompaniment of the mediaeval meal, and perhaps this picture +is intended to be a burlesque on that circumstance, as the mother is +playing to her brood while they are feeding. They all seem to listen +quietly, except one, who is evidently much more affected by the music +than his companions. The same instrument is placed in the hands of a +rather jolly-looking female in one of the sculptures of St. John's +Church in Cirencester, copied in our cut No. 123. + + [Illustration: _No. 121. A Swinish Minstrel._] + + [Illustration: _No. 122. A Musical Mother._] + + [Illustration: _No. 123. The Double Flute._] + +Although this instrument is rather frequently represented in mediaeval +works of art, we have no account of or allusion to it in mediaeval +writers; and perhaps it was not held in very high estimation, and was +used only by a low class of performers. As in many other things, the +employment of particular musical instruments was guided, no doubt, by +fashion, new ones coming in as old ones went out. Such was the case +with the instrument which is named in one of the above extracts, and +in some other mediaeval writers, a _chiffonie_, and which has been +supposed to be the dulcimer, that had fallen into discredit in the +fourteenth century. This instrument is introduced in a story which is +found in Cuvelier's metrical history of the celebrated warrior Bertrand +du Gueselin. In the course of the war for the expulsion of Pedro the +Cruel from the throne of Castile, an English knight, Sir Matthew +Gournay, was sent as a special ambassador to the court of Portugal. The +Portuguese monarch had in his service two minstrels whose performances +he vaunted greatly, and on whom he let great store, and he insisted +on their performing in the presence of the new ambassador. It turned +out that they played on the instrument just mentioned, and Sir Matthew +Gournay could not refrain from laughing at the performance. When the +king pressed him to give his opinion, he said, with more regard for +truth than politeness, "in France and Normandy, the instruments your +minstrels play upon are regarded with contempt, and are only in use +among beggars and blind people, so that they are popularly called +beggar's instruments." The king, we are told, took great offence at the +bluntness of his English guest. + +The fiddle itself appears at this time to have been gradually sinking +in credit, and the poets complained that a degraded taste for more +vulgar musical instruments was introducing itself. Among these we +may mention especially the pipe and tabor. The French antiquary, +M. Jubinal, in a very valuable collection of early popular poetry, +published under the title of "Jongleurs et Trouveres," has printed +a curious poem of the thirteenth or fourteenth century, intended as +a protest against the use of the tabor and the bagpipes, which he +characterises as properly the musical instruments of the peasantry. Yet +people then, he says, were becoming so besotted on such instruments, +that they introduced them in places where better minstrelsy would be +more suitable. The writer thinks that the introduction of so vulgar an +instrument as the tabor into grand festivals could be looked upon in +no other light than as one of the signs which might be expected to be +the precursors of the coming of Antichrist. "If such people are to come +to grand festivals as carry a bushel [_i.e._ a tabor made in the form +of a bushel measure, on the end of which they beat], and make such a +terrible noise, it would seem that Antichrist must now be being born; +people ought to break the head of each of them with a staff." + + _Deussent itiels genz venir a bele feste + Qui portent un boissel, qui mainent tel tempeste, + Il samble que Antecrist doie maintenant nestre; + L'en duroit d'un baston chascun brisier la teste._ + +This satirist adds, as a proof of the contempt in which the Virgin Mary +held such instruments, that she never loved a tabor, or consented to +hear one, and that no tabor was introduced among the minstrelsy at her +espousals. "The gentle mother of God," he says, "loved the sound of the +fiddle," and he goes on to prove her partiality for that instrument by +citing some of her miracles. + + _Onques le mere Dieu, qui est virge honoree, + Et est avoec les angles hautement coronee, + N'ama onques tabour, ne point ne li agree, + N'onques tabour n'i ot quant el fu espousee. + La douce mere Dieu ama son de viele._ + + [Illustration: _No. 124. The Tabor, or Drum._] + + [Illustration: _No. 125. Bruin turned Piper._] + +The artist who carved the curious stalls in Henry VII.'s Chapel at +Westminster, seems to have entered fully into the spirit displayed by +this satirist, for in one of them, represented in our cut No. 124, he +has introduced a masked demon playing on the tabor, with an expression +apparently of derision. This tabor presents much the form of a bushel +measure, or rather, perhaps, of a modern drum. It may be remarked that +the drum is, in fact, the same instrument as the tabor, or, at least, +is derived from it, and they were called by the same names, _tabor_ +or _tambour_. The English name _drum_, which has equivalents in the +later forms of the Teutonic dialects, perhaps means simply something +which makes a noise, and is not, as far as I know, met with before the +sixteenth century. Another carving of the same series of stalls at +Westminster, copied in our cut No. 125, represents a tame bear playing +on the bagpipes. This is perhaps intended to be at the same time a +satire on the instrument itself, and upon the strange exhibitions of +animals domesticated and taught various singular performances, which +were then so popular. + + [Illustration: _No. 126. Royal Minstrelsy._] + +In our cut No. 126 we come to the fiddle again, which long sustained +its place in the highest rank of musical instruments. It is taken +from one of the sculptures on the porch of the principal entrance to +the Cathedral of Lyons in France, and represents a mermaid with her +child, listening to the music of the fiddle. She wears a crown, and +is intended, no doubt, to be one of the queens of the sea, and the +introduction of the fiddle under such circumstances can leave no doubt +how highly it was esteemed. + +The mermaid is a creature of the imagination, which appears to have +been at all times a favourite object of poetry and legend. It holds +an important place in the mediaeval bestiaries, or popular treatises +on natural history, and it has only been expelled from the domains of +science at a comparatively recent date. It still retains its place in +popular legends of our sea-coasts, and more especially in the remoter +parts of our islands. The stories of the merrow, or Irish fairy, hold a +prominent place among my late friend Crofton Croker's "Fairy Legends of +the South of Ireland." The mermaid is also introduced not unfrequently +in mediaeval sculpture and carving. Our cut No. 127, representing a +mermaid and a merman, is copied from one of the stalls of Winchester +Cathedral. The usual attributes of the mermaid are a looking-glass and +comb, by the aid of which she is dressing her hair; but here she holds +the comb alone. Her companion, the male, holds a fish, which he appears +to have just caught, in his hand. + + [Illustration: _No. 127. Mermaids._] + +While, after the fifteenth century the profession of the minstrel +became entirely degraded, and he was looked upon more than ever as a +rogue and vagabond, the fiddle accompanied him, and it long remained, +as it still remains in Ireland, the favourite instrument of the +peasantry. The blind fiddler, even at the present day, is not unknown +in our rural districts. It has always been in England the favourite +instrument of minstrelsy. + + + + + CHAPTER XII. + + THE COURT FOOL.--THE NORMANS AND THEIR GABS.--EARLY HISTORY OF COURT + FOOLS.--THEIR COSTUME.--CARVINGS IN THE CORNISH CHURCHES.--THE + BURLESQUE SOCIETIES OF THE MIDDLE AGES.--THE FEASTS OF ASSES, AND + OF FOOLS.--THEIR LICENCE.--THE LEADEN MONEY OF THE FOOLS.--THE + BISHOP'S BLESSING. + + +From the employment of minstrels attached to the family, probably arose +another and well-known character of later times, the court fool, who +took the place of satirist in the great households. I do not consider +what we understand by the court fool to be a character of any great +antiquity. + +It is somewhat doubtful whether what we call a jest, was really +appreciated in the middle ages. Puns seem to have been considered +as elegant figures of speech in literary composition, and we rarely +meet with anything like a quick and clever repartee. In the earlier +ages, when a party of warriors would be merry, their mirth appears +to have consisted usually in ridiculous boasts, or in rude remarks, +or in sneers at enemies or opponents. These jests were termed by the +French and Normans _gabs_ (_gabae_, in mediaeval Latin), a word supposed +to have been derived from the classical Latin word _cavilla_, a mock +or taunt; and a short poem in Anglo-Norman has been preserved which +furnishes a curious illustration of the meaning attached to it in the +twelfth century. This poem relates how Charlemagne, piqued by the +taunts of his empress on the superiority of Hugh the Great, emperor +of Constantinople, went to Constantinople, accompanied by his _douze +pairs_ and a thousand knights, to verify the truth of his wife's story. +They proceeded first to Jerusalem, where, when Charlemagne and his +twelve peers entered the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, they looked so +handsome and majestic, that they were taken at first for Christ and +his twelve apostles, but the mystery was soon cleared up, and they were +treated by the patriarch with great hospitality during four months. +They then continued their progress till they reached Constantinople, +where they were equally well received by the emperor Hugo. At night +the emperor placed his guests in a chamber furnished with thirteen +splendid beds, one in the middle of the room, and the other twelve +distributed around it, and illuminated by a large carbuncle, which gave +a light as bright as that of day. When Hugh left them in their quarters +for the night, he lent them wine and whatever was necessary to make +them comfortable; and, when alone, they proceeded to amuse themselves +with _gabs_, or jokes, each being expected to say his joke in his +turn. Charlemagne took the lead, and boasted that if the emperor Hugh +would place before him his strongest "bachelor," in full armour, and +mounted on his good steed, he would, with one blow of his sword, cut +him through from the head downwards, and through the saddle and horse, +and that the sword should, after all this, sink into the ground to the +handle. Charlemagne then called upon Roland for his _gab_, who boasted +that his breath was so strong, that if the emperor Hugh would lend him +his horn, he would take it out into the fields and blow it with such +force, that the wind and noise of it would shake down the whole city of +Constantinople. Oliver, whose turn came next, boasted of exploits of +another description if he were left alone with the beautiful princess, +Hugh's daughter. The rest of the peers indulged in similar boasts, and +when the _gabs_ had gone round, they went to sleep. Now the emperor of +Constantinople had very cunningly, and rather treacherously, made a +hole through the wall, by which all that passed inside could be seen +and heard, and he had placed a spy on the outside, who gave a full +account of the conversation of the distinguished guests to his imperial +master. Next morning Hugh called his guests before him, told them what +he had heard by his spy, and declared that each of them should perform +his boast, or, if he failed, be put to death. Charlemagne expostulated, +and represented that it was the custom in France when people retired +for the night to amuse themselves in that manner. "Such is the custom +in France," he said, "at Paris, and at Chartres, when the French are +in bed they amuse themselves and make jokes, and say things both of +wisdom and of folly." + + _Si est tel custume en France, a Paris e a Cartres, + Quand Franceis sunt culchiez, que se giuunt e gabent, + E si dient ambure e saver e folage._ + +But Charlemagne expostulated in vain, and they were only saved from the +consequence of their imprudence by the intervention of so many miracles +from above.[66] + + [66] "Charlemagne, an Anglo-Norman Poem of the Twelfth Century, now + first published, by Francisque Michel," 12mo., 8vo., London, 1836. + +In such trials of skill as this, an individual must continually have +arisen who excelled in some at least of the qualities needful for +raising mirth and making him a good companion, by showing himself more +brilliant in wit, or more biting in sarcasms, or more impudent in his +jokes, and he would thus become the favourite mirth-maker of the court, +the boon companion of the chieftain and his followers in their hours of +relaxation. We find such an individual not unusually introduced in the +early romances and in the mythology of nations, and he sometimes unites +the character of court orator with the other. Such a personage was the +Sir Kay of the cycle of the romances of king Arthur. I have remarked +in a former chapter that Hunferth, in the Anglo-Saxon poem of Beowulf, +is described as holding a somewhat similar position at the court of +king Hrothgar. To go farther back in the mythology of our forefathers, +the Loki of Scandinavian fable appears sometimes to have performed a +similar character in the assembly of his fellow deities; and we know +that, among the Greeks, Homer on one occasion introduces Vulcan acting +the part of joker (+gelotopoios+) to the gods of Olympus. But all these +have no relationship whatever to the court-fool of modern times. + +The German writer Floegel, in his "History of Court Fools,"[67] has +thrown this subject into much confusion by introducing a great mass +of irrelevant matter; and those who have since compiled from Floegel, +have made the confusion still greater. Much of this confusion has +arisen from the misunderstanding and confounding of names and terms. +The mimus, the joculator, the ministrel, or whatever name this class +of society went by, was not in any respects identical with what we +understand by a court fool, nor does any such character as the latter +appear in the feudal household before the fourteenth century, as +far as we are acquainted with the social manners and customs of the +olden time. The vast extent of the early French _romans de geste_, or +Carlovingian romances, which are filled with pictures of courts both of +princes and barons, in which the court fool must have been introduced +had he been known at the time they were composed, that is, in the +twelfth and thirteenth centuries, contains, I believe, no trace of such +personage; and the same may be said of the numerous other romances, +fabliaux, and in fact all the literature of that period, one so rich in +works illustrative of contemporary manners in their most minute detail. +From these facts I conclude that the single brief charter published +by M. Rigollot from a manuscript in the Imperial Library in Paris, +is either misunderstood or it presents a very exceptional case. By +this charter, John, king of England, grants to his _follus_, William +Picol, or Piculph (as he is called at the close of the document), an +estate in Normandy named in the document Fons Ossanae (Menil-Ozenne in +Mortain), with all its appurtenances, "to have and to hold, to him and +to his heirs, by doing there-for to us once a year the service of one +_follus_, as long as he lives; and after his death his heirs shall +hold it of us, by the service of one pair of gilt spurs to be rendered +annually to us."[68] The service (_servitium_) here enjoined means the +annual payment of the obligation of the feudal tenure, and therefore +if _follus_ is to be taken as signifying "a fool," it only means that +Picol was to perform that character on one occasion in the course of +the year. In this case, he may have been some fool whom king John had +taken into his special favour; but it certainly is no proof that the +practice of keeping court fools then existed. It is not improbable +that this practice was first introduced in Germany, for Floegel speaks, +though rather doubtfully, of one who was kept at the court of the +emperor Rudolph I. (of Hapsburg), whose reign lasted from 1273 to 1292. +It is more certain, however, that the kings of France possessed court +fools before the middle of the fourteenth century, and from this time +anecdotes relating to them begin to be common. One of the earliest +and most curious of these anecdotes, if it be true, relates to the +celebrated victory of Sluys gained over the French fleet by our king +Edward III. in the year 1340. It is said that no one dared to announce +this disaster to the French king, Philippe VI., until a court fool +undertook the task. Entering the king's chamber, he continued muttering +to himself, but loud enough to be heard, "Those cowardly English! the +chicken-hearted Britons!" "How so, cousin?" the king inquired. "Why," +replied the fool, "because they have not courage enough to jump into +the sea, like your French soldiers, who went over headlong from their +ships, leaving those to the enemy who showed no inclination to follow +them." Philippe thus became aware of the full extent of his calamity. +The institution of the court fool was carried to its greatest degree of +perfection during the fifteenth century; it only expired in the age of +Louis XIV. + + [67] "Geschichte der Hofnarren, von Karl Friedrich Floegel," 8vo. + Liegnitz und Leipzig, 1789. + + [68] The words of this charter, as given by Rigollot, are:--"Joannes, + D G., etc. Sciatis nos dedisse et praesenti charta confirmasse + Willelmo Picol, follo nostro, Fontem Ossanae, cum omnibus + pertinenciis suis, habendum et tenendum sibi et haeredibus suis, + faciendo inde nobis annuatim servitium unius folli quoad vixerit; + et post ejus decessum haeredes sui eam tenebunt, et per servitium + unius paris calcarium deauratorum nobis annuatim reddendo. + Quare volumus et firmiter praecipimus quod praedictius Piculphus + et haeredes sui habeant et teneant in perpetuum, bene et in + pace, libere et quiete, praedictam terram."--Rigollot, Monnaies + inconnues des Eveques des Innocens, etc., 8vo., Paris, 1837. + +It was apparently with the court fool that the costume was introduced +which has ever since been considered as the characteristic mark of +folly. Some parts of this costume, at least, appear to have been +borrowed from an earlier date. The _gelotopoei_ of the Greeks, and +the _mimi_ and _moriones_ of the Romans, shaved their heads; but the +court fools perhaps adopted this fashion as a satire upon the clergy +and monks. Some writers professed to doubt whether the fools borrowed +from the monks, or the monks from the fools; and Cornelius Agrippa, +in his treatise on the Vanity of Sciences, remarks that the monks had +their heads "all shaven like fools" (_raso toto capite ut fatui_). +The cowl, also, was perhaps adopted in derision of the monks, but +it was distinguished by the addition of a pair of asses' ears, or by +a cock's head and comb, which formed its termination above, or by +both. The court fool was also furnished with a staff or club, which +became eventually his bauble. The bells were another necessary article +in the equipment of a court fool, perhaps also intended as a satire +on the custom of wearing small bells in the dress, which prevailed +largely during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, especially among +people who were fond of childish ostentation. The fool wore also a +party-coloured, or motley, garment, probably with the same aim--that of +satirising one of the ridiculous fashions of the fourteenth century. + + [Illustration: _No. 127a. Court Fools._] + +It is in the fifteenth century that we first meet with the fool in +full costume in the illuminations or manuscripts, and towards the end +of the century this costume appears continually in engravings. It is +also met with at this time among the sculptures of buildings and the +carvings of wood-work. The two very interesting examples given in our +cut No. 127a are taken from carvings of the fifteenth century, in the +church of St. Levan, in Cornwall, near the Land's End. They represent +the court fool in two varieties of costume; in the first, the fool's +cowl, or cap, ends in the cock's head; in the other, it is fitted with +asses' ears. There are variations also in other parts of the dress; +for the second only has bells to his sleeves, and the first carries +a singularly formed staff, which may perhaps be intended for a strap +or belt, with a buckle at the end; while the other has a ladle in +his hand. As one possesses a beard, and presents marks of age in his +countenance, while the other is beardless and youthful, we may consider +the pair as an old fool and a young fool. + + [Illustration: _No. 128. A Fool and a Grimace-maker._] + +The Cornish churches are rather celebrated for their early carved +wood-work, chiefly of the fifteenth century, of which two examples +are given in our cut, No. 128, taken from bench pannels in the church +of St. Mullion, on the Cornish coast, a little to the north of the +Lizard Point. The first has bells hanging to the sleeves, and is no +doubt intended to represent folly in some form; the other appears to be +intended for the head of a woman making grimaces.[69] + + [69] For the drawings of these interesting carvings from the Cornish + churches, I am indebted to the kindness of Mr. J. T. Blight, the + author of an extremely pleasing and useful guide to the beauties + of a well-known district of Cornwall, entitled "A Week at the + Land's End." + +The fool had long been a character among the people before he became a +court fool, for Folly--or, as she was then called, "Mother Folly"--was +one of the favourite objects of popular worship in the middle ages, +and, where that worship sprang up spontaneously among the people, +it grew with more energy, and presented more hearty joyousness and +bolder satire than under the patronage of the great. Our forefathers +in those times were accustomed to form themselves into associations or +societies of a mirthful character, parodies of those of a more serious +description, especially ecclesiastical, and elected as their officers +mock popes, cardinals, archbishops and bishops, kings, &c. They held +periodical festivals, riotous and licentious carnivals, which were +admitted into the churches, and even taken under the especial patronage +of the clergy, under such titles as "the feast of fools," "the feast of +the ass," "the feast of the innocents," and the like. There was hardly +a Continental town of any account which had not its "company of fools," +with its mock ordinances and mock ceremonies. In our own island we +had our abbots of misrule and of unreason. At their public festivals +satirical songs were sung and satirical masks and dresses were worn; +and in many of them, especially at a later date, brief satirical dramas +were acted. These satires assumed much of the functions of modern +caricature; the caricature of the pictorial representations, which were +mostly permanent monuments and destined for future generations, was +naturally general in its character, but in the representations of which +I am speaking, which were temporary, and designed to excite the mirth +of the moment, it became personal, and, often, even political, and it +was constantly directed against the ecclesiastical order. The scandal +of the day furnished it with abundant materials. A fragment of one of +their songs of an early date, sung at one of these "feasts" at Rouen, +has been preserved, and contains the following lines, written in Latin +and French:-- + + _De asino bono nostro, + Meliori et optimo, + Debemus_ faire fete. + En revenant _de Gravinaria_, + Un gros chardon _reperit in via_, + Il lui coupa la tete. + + _Vir monachus in mense Julio + Egressus est e monasterio_, + C'est dom de la Bucaille; + _Egressus est sine licentia_, + Pour aller voir dona Venissia, + Et faire la ripaille. + + TRANSLATION. + + _For our good ass, + The better and the best, + We ought to rejoice. + In returning from Graviniere, + A great thistle he found in the way, + He cut off its head._ + + _A monk in the month of July + Went out of his monastery, + It is dom de la Bucaille; + He went out without license, + To pay a visit to the dame de Venisse, + And make jovial cheer._ + +It appears that De la Bucaille was the prior of the abbey of St. +Taurin, at Rouen, and that the dame de Venisse was prioress of St. +Saviour, and these lines, no doubt, commemorate some great scandal of +the day relating to the private relations between these two individuals. + +These mock religious ceremonies are supposed to have been derived from +the Roman Saturnalia; they were evidently of great antiquity in the +mediaeval church, and were most prevalent in France and Italy. Under the +name of "the feast of the sub-deacons" they are forbidden by the acts +of the council of Toledo, in 633; at a later period, the French punned +on the word _sous-diacres_, and called them _Saouls-diacres_ (Drunken +Deacons), words which had nearly the same sound. The "feast of the +ass" is said to be traced back in France as far as the ninth century. +It was celebrated in most of the great towns in that country, such as +Rouen, Sens, Douai, &c., and the service for the occasion is actually +preserved in some of the old church books. From this it appears that +the ass was led in procession to a place in the middle of the church, +which had been decked out to receive it, and that the procession was +led by two clerks, who sung a Latin song in praise of the animal. This +song commences by telling us how "the ass came from the east, handsome +and very strong, and most fit for carrying burthens":-- + + _Orientis partibus + Adventavit asinus, + Pulcher et fortissimus, + Sarcinis aptissimus._ + +The refrain or burthen of the song is in French, and exhorts the animal +to join in the uproar--"Eh! sir ass, chant now, fair mouth, bray, you +shall have hay enough, and oats in abundance:"-- + + _Hez, sire asnes, car chantez, + Belle bouche, rechignez, + Vous aurez du foin assez, + Et de l'avoine a plantez._ + +In this tone the chant continues through nine similar stanzas, +describing the mode of life and food of the ass. When the procession +reached the altar, the priest began a service in prose. Beleth, one +of the celebrated doctors of the university of Paris, who flourished +in 1182, speaks of the "feast of fools" as in existence in his time; +and the acts of the council of Paris, held in 1212, forbid the +presence of archbishops and bishops, and more especially of monks and +nuns, at the feasts of fools, "in which a staff was carried."[70] We +know the proceedings of this latter festival rather minutely from +the accounts given in the ecclesiastical censures. It was in the +cathedral churches that they elected the archbishop or bishop of +fools, whose election was confirmed, and he was consecrated, with a +multitude of buffooneries. He then entered upon his pontifical duties +wearing the mitre and carrying the crosier before the people, on whom +he bestowed his solemn benediction. In the exempt churches, or those +which depended immediately upon the Holy See, they elected a pope of +fools (_unum papam fatuorum_), who wore similarly the ensigns of the +papacy. These dignitaries were assisted by an equally burlesque and +licentious clergy, who uttered and performed a mixture of follies and +impieties during the church service of the day, which they attended in +disguises and masquerade dresses. Some wore masks, or had their faces +painted, and others were dressed in women's clothing, or in ridiculous +costumes. On entering the choir, they danced and sang licentious songs. +The deacons and sub-deacons ate black puddings and sausages on the +altar while the priest was celebrating; others played at cards or dice +under his eyes; and others threw bits of old leather into the censer +in order to raise a disagreeable smell. After the mass was ended, the +people broke out into all sorts of riotous behaviour in the church, +leaping, dancing, and exhibiting themselves in indecent postures, and +some went as far as to strip themselves naked, and in this condition +they were drawn through the streets with tubs full of ordure and filth, +which they threw about at the mob. Every now and then they halted, +when they exhibited immodest postures and actions, accompanied with +songs and speeches of the same character. Many of the laity took part +in the procession, dressed as monks and nuns. These disorders seem to +have been carried to their greatest degree of extravagance during the +fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.[71] + + [70] "A festis follorum ubi baculus accipitur omnino abstineatur.... + Idem fortius monachis et monialibus prohibemus." + + [71] On the subject of all these burlesques and popular feasts and + ceremonies, the reader may consult Floegel's "Geschichte des + Grotesk-Komischen," of which a new and enlarged edition has + recently been given by Dr. Friedrich W. Ebeling, 8vo., Leipzig, + 1862. Much interesting information on the subject was collected + by Du Tilliot, in his "Memoires pour servir a l'Histoire de la + Fete des Fous," 8vo., Lausanne, 1751. See also Rigollot, in the + work quoted above, and a popular article on the same subject will + be found in my "Archaeological Album." + +Towards the fifteenth century, lay societies, having apparently +no connection with the clergy or the church, but of just the same +burlesque character, arose in France. One of the earliest of these was +formed by the clerks of the Bazoche, or lawyers' clerks of the Palais +de Justice in Paris, whose president was a sort of king of misrule. The +other principal society of this kind in Paris took the rather mirthful +name of _Enfans sans Souci_ (Careless Boys); it consisted of young men +of education, who gave to their president or chieftain the title of +_Prince des Sots_ (the Prince of Fools). Both these societies composed +and performed farces, and other small dramatic pieces. These farces +were satires on contemporary society, and appear to have been often +very personal. + + [Illustration: _No. 129. Money of the Archbishop of the Innocents._] + + [Illustration: _No. 130. Money of the Pope of Fools._] + +Almost the only monuments of the older of these societies consist of +coins, or tokens, struck in lead, and sometimes commemorating the +names of their mock dignitaries. A considerable number of these have +been found in France, and an account of them, with engravings, was +published by Dr. Rigollot some years ago.[72] Our cut No. 129 will +serve as an example. It represents a leaden token of the Archbishop of +the Innocents of the parish of St. Firmin, at Amiens, and is curious +as bearing a date. On one side the archbishop of the Innocents is +represented in the act of giving his blessing to his flock, surrounded +by the inscription, MONETA . ARCHIEPI . SCTI . FIRMINI. On the other +side we have the name of the individual who that year held the office +of archbishop, NICOLAVS . GAVDRAM . ARCHIEPVS . 1520, surrounding a +group consisting of two men, one of whom is dressed as a fool, holding +between them a bird, which has somewhat the appearance of a magpie. +Our cut No. 130 is still more curious; it is a token of the _pope_ of +fools. On one side appears the pope with his tiara and double cross, +and a fool in full costume, who approaches his bauble to the pontifical +cross. It is certainly a bitter caricature on the papacy, whether that +were the intention or not. Two persons behind, dressed apparently in +scholastic costume, seem to be merely spectators. The inscription is, +MONETA . NOVA . ADRIANI . STVLTORV [M]. PAPE (the last E being in the +field of the piece), "new money of Adrian, the pope of fools." The +inscription on the other side of the token is one frequently repeated +on these leaden medals, STVLTORV [M] . INFINITVS . EST . NVMERVS, "the +number of fools is infinite." In the field we see Mother Folly holding +up her bauble, and before her a grotesque figure in a cardinal's hat, +apparently kneeling to her. It is rather surprising that we find so +few allusions to these burlesque societies in the various classes +of pictorial records from which the subject of these chapters has +been illustrated; but we have evidence that they were not altogether +overlooked. Until the latter end of the last century, the misereres of +the church of St. Spire, at Corbeil, near Paris, were remarkable for +the singular carvings with which they were decorated, and which have +since been destroyed, but fortunately they were engraved by Millin. +One of them, copied in our cut No. 131, evidently represents the bishop +of fools conferring his blessing; the fool's bauble occupies the place +of the pastoral staff. + + [72] "Monnaies inconnues des Eveques des Innocens, des Fous," &c., + Paris, 1837. + + [Illustration: _No. 131. The Bishop of Fools._] + + + + + CHAPTER XIII. + + THE DANCE OF DEATH.--THE PAINTINGS IN THE CHURCH OF LA CHAISE + DIEU.--THE REIGN OF FOLLY.--SEBASTIAN BRANDT; THE "SHIP + OF FOOLS."--DISTURBERS OF CHURCH SERVICE.--TROUBLESOME + BEGGARS.--GEILER'S SERMONS.--BADIUS, AND HIS SHIP OF FOOLISH + WOMEN.--THE PLEASURES OF SMELL.--ERASMUS; THE "PRAISE OF FOLLY." + + +There is still one cycle of satire which almost belongs to the middle +ages, though it only became developed at their close, and became most +popular after they were past. There existed, at least as early as the +beginning of the thirteenth century, a legendary story of an interview +between three living and three dead men, which is usually told in +French verse, and appears under the title of "Des trois vifs et des +trois morts." According to some versions of the legend, it was St. +Macarius, the Egyptian recluse, who thus introduced the living to the +dead. The verses are sometimes accompanied with figures, and these have +been found both sculptured and painted on ecclesiastical buildings. At +a later period, apparently early in the fifteenth century, some one +extended this idea to all ranks of society, and pictured a skeleton, +the emblem of death, or even more than one, in communication with an +individual of each class; and this extended scene, from the manner +of the grouping--in which the dead appeared to be wildly dancing off +with the living--became known as the "Dance of Death." As the earlier +legend of the three dead and the three living was, however, still +often introduced at the beginning of it, the whole group was most +generally known--especially during the fifteenth century--as the "Danse +Macabre," or Dance of Macabre, this name being considered as a mere +corruption of Macarius. The temper of the age--in which death in every +form was constantly before the eyes of all, and in which people sought +to regard life as a mere transitory moment of enjoyment--gave to this +grim idea of the fellowship of death and life great popularity, and it +was not only painted on the walls of churches, but it was suspended +in tapestry around people's chambers. Sometimes they even attempted +to represent it in masquerade, and we are told that in the month of +October, 1424, the "Danse Macabre" was publicly danced by living +people in the cemetery of the Innocents, in Paris--a fit place for so +lugubrious a performance--in the presence of the Duke of Bedford and +the Duke of Burgundy, who came to Paris after the battle of Verneuil. +During the rest of the century we find not unfrequently allusions +to the "Danse Macabre." The English poet Lydgate wrote a series of +stanzas to accompany the figures, and it was the subject of some of +the earliest engravings on wood. In the posture and accompaniments +of the figures representing the different classes of society, and in +the greater or less reluctance with which the living accept their not +very attractive partners, satire is usually implied, and it is in +some cases accompanied with drollery. The figure representing death +has almost always a grimly mirthful countenance, and appears to be +dancing with good will. The most remarkable early representation of +the "Danse Macabre" now preserved, is that painted on the wall of the +church of La Chaise Dieu, in Auvergne, a beautiful fac-simile of which +was published a few years ago by the well-known antiquary M. Jubinal. +This remarkable picture begins with the figures of Adam and Eve, who +are introducing death into the world in the form of a serpent with a +death's head. The dance is opened by an ecclesiastic preaching from +a pulpit, towards whom death is leading first in the dance the pope, +for each individual takes his precedence strictly according to his +class--alternately an ecclesiastic and a layman. Thus next after the +pope comes the emperor, and the cardinal is followed by the king. The +baron is followed by the bishop, and the grim partner of the latter +appears to pay more intention to the layman than to his own priest, so +that two dead men appear to have the former in charge. The group thus +represented by the nobleman and the two deaths, is copied in our cut +No. 132, and will serve as an example of the style and grouping of this +remarkable painting. After a few other figures, perhaps less striking, +we come to the merchant, who receives the advances of his partner with +a thoughtful air; while immediately after him another death is trying +to make himself more acceptable to the bashful nun by throwing a cloak +over his nakedness. In another place two deaths armed with bows and +arrows are scattering their shafts rather dangerously. Soon follow +some of the more gay and youthful members of society. Our cut No. 133 +represents the musician, who appears also to attract the attentions +of two of the persecutors. In his dismay he is treading under foot +his own viol. The dance closes with the lower orders of society, and +is concluded by a group which is not so easily understood. Before the +end of the fifteenth century, there had appeared in Paris several +editions of a series of bold engravings on wood, in a small folio +size, representing the same dance, though somewhat differently treated. +France, indeed, appears to have been the native country of the "Danse +Macabre." But in the century following the beautiful set of drawings by +the great artist Hans Holbein, first published at Lyons in 1538, gave +to the Dance of Death a still greater and wider celebrity. From this +time the subjects of this dance were commonly introduced in initial +letters, and in the engraved borders of pages, especially in books of a +religious character. + + [Illustration: _No. 132. The Knight in the Dance of Death._] + + [Illustration: _No. 133. The Musician in Death's Hands._] + +Death may truly be said to have shared with Folly that melancholy +period--the fifteenth century. As society then presented itself to +the eye, people might easily suppose that the world was running mad, +and folly, in one shape or other, seemed to be the principle which +ruled most men's actions. The jocular societies, described in my last +chapter, which multiplied in France during the fifteenth century, +initiated a sort of mock worship of Folly. That sort of inauguration +of death which was performed in the "Danse Macabre," was of French +growth, but the grand crusade against folly appears to have originated +in Germany. Sebastian Brandt was a native of Strasburg, born in 1458. +He studied in that city and in Bale, became a celebrated professor in +both those places, and died at the former in 1520. The "Ship of Fools," +which has immortalised the name of Sebastian Brandt, is believed to +have been first published in the year 1494. The original German text +went through numerous editions within a few years; a Latin translation +was equally popular, and it was afterwards edited and enlarged by +Jodocus Badius Ascensius. A French text was no less successful; an +English translation was printed by Richard Pynson in 1509; a Dutch +version appeared in 1519. During the sixteenth century, Brandt's "Ship +of Fools" was the most popular of books. It consists of a series of +bold woodcuts, which form its characteristic feature, and of metrical +explanations, written by Brandt, and annexed to each cut. Taking his +text from the words of the preacher, "Stultorum numerus est infinitus," +Brandt exposes to the eye, in all its shades and forms, the folly +of his contemporaries, and bares to view its roots and causes. The +cuts are especially interesting as striking pictures of contemporary +manners. The "Ship of Fools" is the great ship of the world, into which +the various descriptions of fatuity are pouring from all quarters +in boat-loads. The first folly is that of men who collected great +quantities of books, not for their utility, but for their rarity, or +beauty of execution, or rich bindings, so that we see that bibliomania +had already taken its place among human vanities. The second class +of fools were interested and partial judges, who sold justice for +money, and are represented under the emblem of two fools throwing a +boar into a caldron, according to the old Latin proverb, _Agere aprum +in lebetem_. Then come the various follies of misers, fops, dotards, +men who are foolishly indulgent to their children, mischief-makers, +and despisers of good advice; of nobles and men in power; of the +profane and the improvident; of foolish lovers; of extravagant +eaters and drinkers, &c., &c. Foolish talking, hypocrisy, frivolous +pursuits, ecclesiastical corruptions, impudicity, and a great number +of other vices as well as follies, are duly passed in review, and are +represented in various forms of satirical caricature, and sometimes +in simpler unadorned pictures. Thus the foolish valuers of things are +represented by a fool holding a balance, one scale of which contains +the sun, moon, and stars, to represent heaven and heavenly things, and +the other a castle and fields, to represent earthly things, the latter +scale overweighing the other; and the procrastinator is pictured by +another fool, with a parrot perched on his head, and a magpie on each +hand, all repeating _cras, cras, cras_ (to-morrow). Our cut No. 134 +represents a group of disturbers of church service. It was a common +practice in former days to take to church hawks (which were constantly +carried about as the outward ensign of the gentleman) and dogs. The +fool has here thrown back his fool's-cap to exhibit more fully the +fashionable "gent" of the day; he carries his hawk on his hand, and +wears not only a fashionable pair of shoes, but very fashionable clogs +also. These gentlemen _a la mode, turgentes genere et natalibus altis_, +we are told, were the persons who disturbed the church service by +the creaking of their shoes and clogs, the noise made by their birds, +the barking and quarrelling of their dogs, by their own whisperings, +and especially with immodest women, whom they met in church as in a +convenient place of assignation. All these forms of the offence are +expressed in the picture. Our second example cut No. 135, which forms +the fifty-ninth title or subject in the "Ship of Fools," represents +a party of the beggars with which, either lay or ecclesiastical, the +country was then overrun. In the explanation, these wicked beggars are +described as indulging in idleness, in eating, drinking, rioting, and +sleep, while they levy contributions on the charitable feelings of the +honest and industrious, and, under cover of begging, commit robbery +wherever they find the opportunity. The beggar, who appears to be only +a deceptive cripple, leads his donkey laden with children, whom he is +bringing up in the same profession, while his wife lingers behind to +indulge in her bibulous propensities. These cuts will give a tolerable +notion of the general character of the whole, which amount in number to +a hundred and twelve, and therefore present a great variety of subjects +relative to almost every class and profession of life. + + [Illustration: _No. 134. Disturbers of Church Service._] + + [Illustration: _No. 135. Mendicants on their Travels._] + +We may remark, however, that after Folly had thus run through all the +stages of society, until it had reached the lowest of all, the ranks +of mendicity, the gods themselves became alarmed, the more so as this +great movement was directed especially against Minerva, the goddess +of wisdom, and they held a conclave to provide against it. The result +is not told, but the course of Folly goes on as vigorously as ever. +Ignorant fools who set up for physicians, fools who cannot understand +jokes, unwise mathematicians, astrologers, of the latter of which the +moraliser says, in his Latin verse-- + + _Siqua voles sortis praenoscere damna futurae, + Et vitare malum, sol tibi signa dabit. + Sed tibi, stulte, tui cur non dedit ille furoris + Signa? aut, si dederit, cur tanta mala subis? + Nondum grammaticae callis primordia, et audes + Vim coeli radio supposuisse tuo._ + +The next cut is a very curious one, and appears to represent a +dissecting-house of this early period. Among other chapters which +afford interesting pictures of that time, and indeed of all times, we +may instance those of litigious fools, who are always going to law, +and who confound blind justice, or rather try to unbind her eyes; +of filthy-tongued fools, who glorify the race of swine; of ignorant +scholars; of gamblers; of bad and thievish cooks; of low men who seek +to be high, and of high who are despisers of poverty; of men who +forget that they will die; of irreligious men and blasphemers; of +the ridiculous indulgence of parents to children, and the ungrateful +return which was made to them for it; and of women's pride. Another +title describes the ruin of Christianity: the pope, emperor, king, +cardinals, &c., are receiving willingly from a suppliant fool the cap +of Folly, while two other fools are looking derisively upon them from +an adjoining wall. It need hardly be said that this was published on +the eve of the Reformation. + +In the midst of the popularity which greeted the appearance of the +work of Sebastian Brandt, it attracted the special attention of a +celebrated preacher of the time named Johann Geiler. Geiler was born +at Schaffhausen, in Switzerland, in 1445, but having lost his father +when only three years of age, he was educated by his grandfather, who +lived at Keysersberg, in Alsace, and hence he was commonly called +Geiler of Keysersberg. He studied in Freiburg and Bale, obtained a +great reputation for learning, was esteemed a profound theologian, and +was finally settled in Strasburg, where he continued to shine as a +preacher until his death in 1510. He was a bold man, too, in the cause +of truth, and declaimed with earnest zeal against the corruptions of +the church, and especially against the monkish orders, for he compared +the black monks to the devil, the white monks to his dam, and the +others he said were their chickens. On another occasion he said that +the qualities of a good monk were an almighty belly, an ass's back, +and a raven's mouth. He told his congregation from the pulpit that a +great reformation was at hand, that he did not expect to live to see +it himself, but that many of those who heard him would live to see +it. As may be supposed, the monks hated him, and spoke of him with +contempt. They said, that in his sermons he took his texts, not from +the Scriptures, but from the "Ship of Fools" of Sebastian Brandt; and, +in fact, during the year 1498, Geiler preached at Strasburg a series of +sermons on the follies of his time, which were evidently founded upon +Brandt's book, for the various follies were taken in the same order. +They were originally compiled in German, but one of Geiler's scholars, +Jacob Other, translated them into Latin, and published them, in 1501, +under the title of "Navicula sive Speculum Fatuorum praestantissimi +sacrarum literarum doctoris Johannis Geiler." Within a few years this +work went through several editions both in Latin and in German, some +of them illustrated by woodcuts. The style of preaching is quaint and +curious, full of satirical wit, which is often coarse, according to the +manner of the time, sometimes very indelicate. Each sermon is headed +by the motto, "Stultorum infinitus est numerus." Geiler takes for his +theme in each sermon one of the titles of Brandt's "Ship of Fools," and +he separates them into subdivisions, or branches, which he calls the +bells (_nolas_) from the fool's-cap. + +The other scholar who did most to spread the knowledge of Brandt's +work, was Jodocus Badius, who assumed the additional name of Ascensius +because he was born at Assen, near Brussels, in 1462. He was a very +distinguished scholar, but is best known for having established a +celebrated printing establishment in Paris, where he died in 1535. I +have already stated that Badius edited the Latin translation of the +"Ship of Fools" of Sebastian Brandt, with additional explanations of +his own, but he was one of the first of Brandt's imitators. He seems to +have thought that Brandt's book was not complete--that the weaker sex +had not received its fair share of importance; and apparently in 1498, +while Geiler was turning the "Stultifera Navis" into sermons, Badius +compiled a sort of supplement to it (_additamentum_), to which he gave +the title of "Stultiferae naviculae, seu Scaphae, Fatuarum Mulierum," the +Boats of Foolish Women. As far as can be traced, the first edition +appears to have been printed in 1502. The first cut represents the +ship carrying Eve alone of the female race, whose folly involved the +whole world. The book is divided into five chapters, according to the +number of the five senses, each sense represented by a boat carrying +its particular class of foolish women to the great ship of foolish +women, which lies off at anchor. The text consists of a dissertation +on the use and abuse of the particular sense which forms the substance +of the chapter, and it ends with Latin verses, which are given as the +boatman's _celeusma_, or boat song. The first of these boats is the +_scapha stultae visionis ad stultiferam navem perveniens_--the boat of +foolish seeing proceeding to the ship of fools. A party of gay ladies +are taking possession of the boat, carrying with them their combs, +looking-glasses, and all other implements necessary for making them +fair to be looked upon. The second boat is the _scapha auditionis +fatuae_, the boat of foolish hearing, in which the ladies are playing +upon musical instruments. The third is the _scapha olfactionis stultae_, +the boat of foolish smell, and the pictorial illustration to it is +partly copied in our cut No. 136. In the original some of the ladies +are gathering sweet-smelling flowers before they enter the boat, while +on board a pedlar is vending his perfume. One _folle femme_, with her +fool's cap on her head, is buying a pomander, or, as we should perhaps +now say, a scent-ball, from the itinerant dealer. Figures of pomanders +are extremely rare, and this is an interesting example; in fact, it +is only recently that our Shakspearian critics really understood the +meaning of the word. A pomander was a small globular vessel, perforated +with holes, and filled with strong perfumes, as it is represented in +our woodcut. The fourth of these boats is that of foolish tasting, +_scapha gustationis fatuae_, and the ladies have their well-furnished +table on board the boat, and are largely indulging in eating and +drinking. In the last of these boats, the _scapha contactionis fatuae_, +or boat of foolish feeling, the women have men on board, and are +proceeding to great liberties with them; one of the gentle damsels, +too, is picking the pocket of her male companion in a very unlady-like +manner. + + [Illustration: _No. 136. The Boat of Pleasant Odours._] + +Two ideas combined in this peculiar field of satiric literature, that +of the ship and that of the fools, now became popular, and gave rise +to a host of imitators. There appeared ships of health, ships of +penitence, ships of all sorts of things, on the one hand; and on the +other, folly was a favourite theme of satire from many quarters. One of +the most remarkable of the personages involved in this latter warfare, +was the great scholar Desiderius Erasmus, of Rotterdam, who was born in +that city in 1467. Like most of these satirists, Erasmus was strongly +imbued with the spirit of the Reformation, and he was the acquaintance +and friend of those to whom the Reformation owed a great part of its +success. In 1497, when the "Ship of Fools" of Sebastian Brandt was in +the first full flush of its popularity, Erasmus came to England, and +was so well received, that from that time forward his literary life +seemed more identified with our island than with any other country. His +name is still a sort of household word in our universities, especially +in that of Cambridge. He made here the friendly acquaintance of the +great Sir Thomas More, himself a lover of mirth, and one of those whose +names are celebrated for having kept a court fool. In the earlier years +of the sixteenth century, Erasmus visited Italy, and passed two or +three years there. He returned thence to England, as appears, early +in the year 1508. It is not easy to decide whether his experience of +society in Italy had convinced him more than ever that folly was the +presiding genius of mankind, or what other feeling influenced him, +but one of the first results of his voyage was the +Morias Enkomion+ +(_Moriae Encomium_), or "Praise of Folly." Erasmus dedicated this +little jocular treatise to Sir Thomas More as a sort of pun upon his +name, although he protests that there was a great contrast between +the two characters. Erasmus takes much the same view of folly as +Brandt, Geiler, Badius, and the others, and under this name he writes +a bold satire on the whole frame of contemporary society. The satire +is placed in the mouth of Folly herself (the Mere Folie of the jocular +clubs), who delivers from her pulpit a declamation in which she sets +forth her qualities and praises. She boasts of the greatness of her +origin, claims as her kindred the sophists, rhetoricians, and many of +the pretentious scholars and wise men, and describes her birth and +education. She claims divine affinity, and boasts of her influence over +the world, and of the beneficent manner in which it was exercised. +All the world, she pretends, was ruled under her auspices, and it was +only in her presence that mankind was really happy. Hence the happiest +ages of man are infancy, before wisdom has come to interfere, and old +age, when it has passed away. Therefore, she says, if men would remain +faithful to her, and avoid wisdom altogether, they would pass a life +of perpetual youth. In this long discourse of the influence of folly, +written by a man of the known sentiments of Erasmus, it would be +strange if the Romish church, with its monks and ignorant priesthood, +its saints, and relics, and miracles, did not find a place. Erasmus +intimates that the superstitious follies had become permanent, because +they were profitable. There are some, he tells us, who cherished the +foolish yet pleasant persuasion, that if they fixed their eyes devoutly +on a figure of St. Christopher, carved in wood or painted on the wall, +they would be safe from death on that day; with many other examples +of equal credulity. Then there are your pardons, your measures of +purgatory, which may be bought off at so much the hour, or the day, +or the month, and a multitude of other absurdities. Ecclesiastics, +scholars, mathematicians, philosophers, all come in for their share of +the refined satire of this book, which, like the "Ship of Fools," has +gone through innumerable editions, and has been translated into many +languages. + + [Illustration: _No. 137. Superstition._] + +In an early French translation, the text of this work of Erasmus +is embellished with some of the woodcuts belonging to Brandt's +"Ship of Fools," which, it need hardly be remarked, are altogether +inappropriate, but the "Praise of Folly" was detained to receive +illustrations from a more distinguished pencil. A copy of the book came +into the hands of Hans Holbein--it may possibly have been presented to +him by the author--and Holbein took so much interest in it, that he +amused himself with drawing illustrative sketches with a pen in the +margins. This book afterwards passed into the library of the University +of Bale, where it was found in the latter part of the seventeenth +century, and these drawings have since been engraved and added to most +of the subsequent editions. Many of these sketches are very slight, and +some have not a very close connection with the text of Erasmus, but +they are all characteristic, and show the spirit--the spirit of the +age--in which Holbein read his author. I give two examples of them, +taken almost haphazard, for it would require a longer analysis of the +book than can be given here to make many of them understood. The first +of these, our cut No. 137, represents the foolish warrior, who has a +sword long enough to trust to it for defence, bowing with trembling +superstition before a painting of St. Christopher crossing the water +with the infant Christ on his shoulder, as a more certain security for +his safety during that day. The other, our cut No. 138, represents +the preacher, Lady Folly, descending from her pulpit, after she has +concluded her sermon. + + [Illustration: _No. 138. Preacher Folly ending her Sermon._] + + + + + CHAPTER XIV. + + POPULAR LITERATURE AND ITS HEROES; BROTHER RUSH, TYLL EULENSPIEGEL, + THE WISE MEN OF GOTHAM.--STORIES AND JEST-BOOKS.--SKELTON, SCOGIN, + TARLTON, PEELE. + + +The people in the middle ages, as well as its superiors, had its +comic literature and legend. Legend was the literature especially of +the peasant, and in it the spirit of burlesque and satire manifested +itself in many ways. Simplicity, combined with vulgar cunning, and the +circumstances arising out of the exercise of these qualities, presented +the greatest stimulants to popular mirth. They produced their popular +heroes, who, at first, were much more than half legendary, such as +the familiar spirit, Robin Goodfellow, whose pranks were a source of +continual amusement rather than of terror to the simple minds which +listened to those who told them. These stories excited with still +greater interest as their spiritual heroes became incarnate, and the +auditors were persuaded that the perpetrators of so many artful acts of +cunning and of so many mischievous practical jokes, were but ordinary +men like themselves. It was but a sign or symbol of the change from +the mythic age to that of practical life. One of the earliest of these +stories of mythic comedy transformed into, or at least presented under +the guise of, humanity, is that of Brother Ruth. Although the earliest +version of this story with which we are acquainted dates only from the +beginning of the sixteenth century,[73] there is no reason for doubt +that the story itself was in existence at a much more remote period. + + [73] This earliest known version is in German verse, and was printed + in 1515. An English version, in prose, was printed in 1620, and + is reprinted in Thoms's "Collection of Early Prose Romances." + +Rush was, in truth, a spirit of darkness, whose mission it was +to wander on the earth tempting and impelling people to do evil. +Perceiving that the internal condition of a certain abbey was well +suited to his purpose, he presented himself at its gates in the +disguise of a youth who wanted employment, and was received as an +assistant in the kitchen, but he pleased the monks best by the skill +with which he furnished them all with fair companions. At length he +quarrelled with the cook, and threw him into the boiling caldron, and +the monks, assuming that his death was accidental, appointed Rush to be +cook in his place. After a service of seven years in the kitchen--which +appears to have been considered a fair apprenticeship for the new +honour which was to be conferred upon him--the abbot and convent +rewarded him by making him a monk. He now followed still more earnestly +his design for the ruin of his brethren, both soul and body, and began +by raising a quarrel about a woman, which led, through his contrivance, +to a fight, in which the monks all suffered grievous bodily injuries, +and in which Brother Rush was especially active. He went on in this +way until at last his true character was accidentally discovered. A +neighbouring farmer, overtaken by night, took shelter in a hollow tree. +It happened to be the night appointed by Lucifer to meet his agents +on earth, and hear from them the report of their several proceedings, +and he had selected this very oak as the place of rendezvous. There +Brother Rush appeared, and the farmer, in his hiding-place, heard his +confession from his own lips, and told it to the abbot, who, being as +it would appear a magician, conjured him into the form of a horse, and +banished him. Rush hurried away to England, where he laid aside his +equine form, and entered the body of the king's daughter, who suffered +great torments from his possession. At length some of the great doctors +from Paris came and obliged the spirit to confess that nobody but the +abbot of the distant monastery had any power over him. The abbot came, +called him out of the maiden, and conjured him more forcibly than ever +into the form of a horse. + +Such is, in mere outline, the story of Brother Rush, which was +gradually enlarged by the addition of new incidents. But the people +wanted a hero who presented more of the character of reality, who, +in fact, might be recognised as one of themselves; and such heroes +appear to have existed at all times. They usually represented a +class in society, and especially that class which consisted of idle +sharpers, who lived by their wits, and which was more numerous and more +familiarly known in the middle ages than at the present day. Folly +and cunning combined presented a never-failing subject of mirth. This +class of adventurers first came into print in Germany, and it is there +that we find its first popular hero, to whom they gave the name of +Eulenspiegel, which means literally "the owl's mirror," and has been +since used in German in the sense of a merry fool. Tyll Eulenspiegel, +and his story, are supposed to have belonged to the fourteenth century, +though we first know them in the printed book of the commencement of +the sixteenth, which is believed to have come from the pen of the +well-known popular writer, Thomas Murner, of whom I shall have to speak +more at length in another chapter. The popularity of this work was very +great, and it was quickly translated into French, English, Latin, and +almost every other language of Western Europe. In the English version +the name also was translated, and appears under the form of Owleglass, +or, as it often occurs with the superfluous aspirate, Howleglass.[74] +According to the story, Tyll Eulenspiegel was the son of a peasant, and +was born at a village called Kneitlingen, in the land of Brunswick. +The story of his birth may be given in the words of the early English +version, as a specimen of its quaint and antiquated language:-- + + "Yn the lande of Sassen, in the vyllage of Ruelnige, there + dwelleth a man that was named Nicholas Howleglas, that had a wife + named Wypeke, that lay a childbed in the same wyllage, and that + chylde was borne to christening; and named Tyell Howleglass. And + than the chyld was brought into a taverne, where the father was + wyth his gosseppes and made good chere. Whan the mydwife had wel + dronke, she toke the childe to bere it home, and in the wai was a + litle bridg over a muddy water. And as the mydwife would have gone + over the lytle brydge, she fel into the mudde with the chylde, + for she had a lytel dronk to much wyne, for had not helpe come + quickly, the had both be drowned in the mudde. And whan she came + home with the childe, the made a kettle of warm water to be made + redi, and therin they washed the child clen of the mudde. And + thus was Howleglas thre tymes in one dai cristened, once at the + churche, once in the mudde, and once in the warm water." + + [74] The title of this English translation is, "Here beginneht a merye + Jest of a man that was called Howleglas, and of many marveylous + thinges and jestes that he dyd in his lyfe, in Eastlande, and in + many other places." It was printed by Coplande, supposed about + 1520. An edition of Eulenspiegel in English, by Mr. Kenneth + Mackenzie, has recently been published by Messrs. Truebner & Co., + of Paternoster Row. + +It will be seen that the English translator was not very correct in his +geography or in his names. The child, having thus escaped destruction, +grew rapidly, and displayed an extraordinary love of mischief, with +various other evil propensities, as well as a cunning beyond his age, +in escaping the risks to which these exposed him. At a very early age, +he displayed a remarkable talent for setting the other children by the +ears, and this was his favourite amusement during life. His mother, +who was now a widow, contemplating the extraordinary cunning of her +child, which, as she thought, must necessarily ensure his advancement +in the world, resolved that he should no longer remain idle, and put +him apprentice to a baker; but his wicked and restless disposition +defeated all the good intentions of his parent, and Eulenspiegel was +obliged to leave his master in consequence of his mal-practices. One +day his mother took him to a church-dedication, and the child drank +so much at the feast on that occasion, that he crept into an empty +beehive and fell asleep, while his mother, thinking he had gone home, +returned without him. In the night-time two thieves came into the +garden to steal the bees, and they agreed to take first the hive which +was heaviest. This, as may be supposed, proved to be the hive in +which Eulenspiegel was hidden, and they fixed it on a pole which they +carried on their shoulders, one before and one behind, the hive hanging +between them. Eulenspiegel, awakened by the movement, soon discovered +the position in which he was placed, and hit upon a plan for escaping. +Gently lifting the lid of the hive, he put out his arm and plucked the +hair of the man before, who turned about and accused his companion of +insulting him. The other asserted that he had not touched him, and the +first, only half satisfied, continued to bear his share of the burthen, +but he had not advanced many steps when a still sharper pull at his +hair excited his great anger, and from wrathful words the two thieves +proceeded to blows. While they were fighting, Eulenspiegel crept out of +the hive and ran away. + +After leaving the baker, Eulenspiegel became a wanderer in the world, +gaining his living by his trickery and deception, and engaging himself +in all sorts of strange and ludicrous adventures. He ended everywhere +by creating discord and strife. He became at different times a +blacksmith, a shoemaker, a tailor, a cook, a drawer of teeth, and +assumed a variety of other characters, but remained in each situation +only long enough to make it too hot for him, and to be obliged to +secure his retreat. He intruded himself into all classes of society, +and invariably came to similar results. Many of his adventures, indeed, +are so droll that we can easily understand the great popularity +they once enjoyed. But they are not merely amusing--they present a +continuous satire upon contemporary society, upon a social condition in +which every pretender, every reckless impostor, every private plunderer +or public depredator, saw the world exposed to him in its folly and +credulity as an easy prey. + +The middle ages possessed another class of these popular satirical +histories, which were attached to places rather than to persons. There +were few countries which did not possess a town or a district, the +inhabitants of which were celebrated for stupidity, or for roguery, +or for some other ridiculous or contemptible quality. We have seen, +in a former chapter, the people of Norfolk enjoying this peculiarity, +and, at a later period, the inhabitants of Pevensey in Sussex, and +more especially those of Gotham in Nottinghamshire, were similarly +distinguished. The inhabitants of many places in Germany bore this +character, but their grand representatives among the Germans were the +Schildburgers, a name which appears to belong entirely to the domain +of fable. Schildburg, we are told, was a town "in Misnopotamia, beyond +Utopia, in the kingdom of Calecut." The Schildburgers were originally +so renowned for their wisdom, that they were continually invited into +foreign countries to give their advice, until at length not a man was +left at home, and their wives were obliged to assume the charge of the +duties of their husbands. This became at length so onerous, that the +wives held a council, and resolved on despatching a solemn message +in writing to call the men home. This had the desired effect; all the +Schildburgers returned to their own town, and were so joyfully received +by their wives that they resolved upon leaving it no more. They +accordingly held a council, and it was decided that, having experienced +the great inconvenience of a reputation of wisdom, they would avoid +it in future by assuming the character of fools. One of the first +evil results of their long neglect of home affairs was the want of a +council-hall, and this want they now resolved to supply without delay. +They accordingly went to the hills and woods, cut down the timber, +dragged it with great labour to the town, and in due time completed +the erection of a handsome and substantial building. But, when they +entered their new council-hall, what was their consternation to find +themselves in perfect darkness! In fact, they had forgotten to make +any windows. Another council was held, and one who had been among the +wisest in the days of their wisdom, gave his opinion very oracularly; +the result of which was that they should experiment on every possible +expedient for introducing light into the hall, and that they should +first try that which seemed most likely to succeed. They had observed +that the light of day was caused by sunshine, and the plan proposed was +to meet at mid-day when the sun was brightest, and fill sacks, hampers, +jugs, and vessels of all kinds, with sunshine and daylight, which they +proposed afterwards to empty into the unfortunate council-hall. Next +day, as the clock struck one, you might see a crowd of Schildburgers +before the council-house door, busily employed, some holding the sacks +open, and others throwing the light into them with shovels and any +other appropriate implements which came to hand. While they were thus +labouring, a stranger came into the town of Schildburg, and, hearing +what they were about, told them they were labouring to no purpose, +and offered to show them how to get the daylight into the hall. It is +unnecessary to say more than that this new plan was to make an opening +in the roof, and that the Schildburgers witnessed the effect with +astonishment, and were loud in their gratitude to their new comer. + +The Schildburgers met with further difficulties before they completed +their council-hall. They sowed a field with salt, and when the +salt-plant grew up next year, after a meeting of the council, at +which it was stiffly disputed whether it ought to be reaped, or mowed, +or gathered in in some other manner, it was finally discovered that +the crop consisted of nothing but nettles. After many accidents of +this kind, the Schildburgers are noticed by the emperor, and obtain a +charter of incorporation and freedom, but they profit little by it. In +trying some experiments to catch mice, they set fire to their houses, +and the whole town is burnt to the ground, upon which, in their sorrow, +they abandon it altogether, and become, like the Jews of old, scattered +over the world, carrying their own folly into every country they visit. + +The earliest known edition of the history of the Schildburgers was +printed in 1597,[75] but the story itself is no doubt older. It will +be seen at once that it involves a satire upon the municipal towns of +the middle ages. A similar series of adventures, only a little more +clerical, bore the title of "Der Pfarrherrn vom Kalenberg," or the +Parson of Kalenberg, and was first, as far as we know, published in the +latter half of the sixteenth century. The first known edition, printed +in 1582, is in prose. Von der Hagen, who reprinted a subsequent edition +in verse, in a volume already quoted, seems to think that in its first +form the story belongs to the fourteenth century. + + [75] It was reprinted by Von der Hagen, in a little volume entitled + "Narrenbuch; herausgegeben durch Friedrich Heinrich von der + Hagen." 12mo., Halle, 1811. + +The Schildburgers of Germany were represented in England by the wise +men of Gotham. Gotham is a village and parish about seven miles to +the south-west of Nottingham, and, curiously enough, a story is told +according to which the folly of the men of Gotham, like that of the +Schildburgers, was at first assumed. It is pretended that one day +king John, on his way to Nottingham, intended to pass through the +village of Gotham, and that the Gothamites, under the influence of +some vague notion that his presence would be injurious to them, raised +difficulties in his way which prevented his visit. The men of Gotham +were now apprehensive of the king's vengeance, and they resolved +to try and evade it by assuming the character of simpletons. When +the king's officers came to Gotham to inquire into the conduct of +the inhabitants, they found them engaged in the most extraordinary +pursuits, some of them seeking to drown an eel in a pond of water, +others making a hedge round a tree to confine a cuckoo which had +settled in it, and others employing themselves in similar futile +pursuits. The commissioners reported the people of Gotham to be no +better than fools, and by this stratagem they escaped any further +persecution, but the character they assumed remained attached to them. + +This explanation is, of course, very late and very apocryphal; but +there can be little doubt that the character of the wise men of Gotham +is one of considerable antiquity. The story is believed to have been +drawn up in its present form by Andrew Borde, an English writer of the +reign of Henry VIII. It was reprinted a great number of times under +the form of those popular books called chap-books, because they were +hawked about the country by itinerant booksellers or chap-men. The +acts of the Gothamites displayed a greater degree of simplicity even +than those of the Schildburgers, but they are less connected. Here +is one anecdote told in the unadorned language of the chap-books, in +explanation of which it is only necessary to state that the men of +Gotham admired greatly the note of the cuckoo. "On a time the men of +Gotham fain would have pinn'd in the cuckow, that she might sing all +the year; and, in the midst of the town, they had a hedge made round in +compass, and got a cuckow and put her into it, and said, 'Sing here, +and you shall lack neither meat nor drink all the year.' The cuckow, +when she perceived herself encompassed with the hedge, flew away. 'A +vengeance on her,' said these wise men, 'we did not make our hedge high +enough.'" On another occasion, having caught a large eel which offended +them by its voracity, they assembled in council to deliberate on an +appropriate punishment, which ended in a resolution that it should be +drowned, and the criminal was ceremoniously thrown into a great pond. +One day twelve men of Gotham went a-fishing, and on their way home they +suddenly discovered that they had lost one of their number, and each +counted in his turn, and could find only eleven. In fact, each forgot +to count himself. In the midst of their distress--for they believed +their companion to be drowned--a stranger approached, and learnt the +cause of their sorrow. Finding they were not to be convinced of their +mistake by mere argument, he offered, on certain conditions, to find +the lost Gothamite, and he proceeded as follows. He took one by one +each of the twelve Gothamites, struck him a hard blow on the shoulder, +which made him scream, and at each cry counted one, two, three, &c. +When it came to twelve, they were all satisfied that the lost Gothamite +had returned, and paid the man for the service he had rendered them. + +As a chap-book, this history of the men of Gotham became so popular, +that it gave rise to a host of other books of similar character, which +were compiled at a later period under such titles--formerly well +known to children--as, "The Merry Frolicks, or the Comical Cheats of +Swalpo;" "The Witty and Entertaining Exploits of George Buchanan, +commonly called the King's Fool;" "Simple Simon's Misfortunes;" and the +like. Nor must it be forgotten that the history of Eulenspiegel was +the prototype of a class of popular histories of larger dimensions, +represented in our own literature by "The English Rogue," the work of +Richard Head and Francis Kirkman, in the reign of Charles II., and +various other "rogues" belonging to different countries, which appeared +about that time, or not long afterwards. The earliest of these books +was "The Spanish Rogue, or Life of Guzman de Alfarache," written in +Spanish by Mateo Aleman in the latter part of the sixteenth century. +Curiously enough, some Englishman, not knowing apparently that the +history of Eulenspiegel had appeared in English under the name of +Owlglass, took it into his head to introduce him among the family of +rogues which had thus come into fashion, and, in 1720, published as +"Made English from the High Dutch," what he called "The German Rogue, +or the Life and Merry Adventures, Cheats, Stratagems, and Contrivances +of Tiel Eulespiegle." + +The fifteenth century was the period during which mediaeval forms +generally were changing into forms adapted to another state of society, +and in which much of the popular literature which has been in vogue +during modern times took its rise. In the fourteenth century, the +fabliaux of the jougleurs were already taking what we may perhaps term +a more literary form, and were reduced into prose narratives. This +took place especially in Italy, where these prose tales were called +_novelle_, implying some novelty in their character, a word which was +transferred into the French language under the form of _nouvelles_, +and was the origin of our modern English _novel_, applied to a work of +fiction. The Italian novelists adopted the Eastern plan of stringing +these stories together on the slight framework of one general plot, +in which are introduced causes for telling them and persons who tell +them. Thus the Decameron of Boccaccio holds towards the fabliaux +exactly the same position as that of the "Arabian Nights" to the older +Arabian tales. The Italian novelists became numerous and celebrated +throughout Europe, from the time of Boccaccio to that of Straparola, +at the commencement of the sixteenth century, and later. The taste for +this class of literature appears to have been introduced into France at +the court of Burgundy, where, under duke Philippe le Bon, a well-known +courtier and man of letters named Antoine de La Sale, who had, during +a sojourn in Italy, become acquainted with one of the most celebrated +of the earlier Italian collections, the "Cento Novello," or the Hundred +Novels, compiled a collection in French in imitation of them, under the +title of "Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles," or the Hundred new Novels, +one of the purest examples of the French language in the fifteenth +century.[76] The later French story-books, such as the Heptameron of +the queen of Navarre, and others, belong chiefly to the sixteenth +century. These collections of stories can hardly be said to have ever +taken root in this island as a part of English literature. + + [76] I am obliged to pass over this part of the subject very rapidly. + For the history of that remarkable book, the "Cent Nouvelles + Nouvelles," I would refer the reader to the preface to my own + edition, "Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles, publiees d'apres le + seul manuscrit connu, avec Introduction et Notes, par M. Thomas + Wright." 2 vols, 12mo., Paris, 1858. + +But there arose partly out of these stories a class of books which +became greatly multiplied, and were, during a long period, extremely +popular. With the household fool, or jester, instead of the old +jougleur, the stories had been shorn of their detail, and sank into +the shape of mere witty anecdotes, and at the same time a taste arose +for what we now class under the general term of jests, clever sayings, +what the French call _bons mots_, and what the English of the sixteenth +century termed "quick answers." The word _jest_ itself arose from the +circumstance that the things designated by it arose out of the older +stories, for it is a mere corruption of gestes, the Latin _gesta_, in +the sense of narratives of acts or deeds, or tales. The Latin writers, +who first began to collect them into books, included them under the +general name of _facetiae_. The earlier of these collections of facetiae +were written in Latin, and of the origin of the first with which we +are acquainted, that by the celebrated scholar Poggio of Florence, +a curious anecdote is told. Some wits of the court of pope Martin +V., elected to the papacy in 1417, among whom were the pope's two +secretaries, Poggio and Antonio Lusco, Cincio of Rome, and Ruzello of +Bologna, appropriated to themselves a private corner in the Vatican, +where they assembled to chat freely among themselves. They called +it their _buggiale_, a word which signifies in Italian, a place of +recreation, where they tell stories, make jests, and amuse themselves +with discussing satirically the doings and characters of everybody. +This was the way in which Poggio and his friends entertained themselves +in their buggiale, and we are assured that in their talk they neither +spared the church nor the pope himself or his government. The facetiae +of Poggio, in fact, which are said to be a selection of the good things +said in these meetings, show neither reverence for the church of Rome +nor respect for decency, but they are mostly stories which had been +told over and over again, long before Poggio came into the world. It +was perhaps this satire upon the church and upon the ecclesiastics +which gave much of their popularity to these facetiae at a time when +a universal agitation of men's minds on religious affairs prevailed, +which was the great harbinger of the Reformation; and the next Latin +books of facetiae came from men such as Henry Bebelius, who were zealous +reformers themselves. + +Many of the jests in these Latin collections are put into the mouths of +jesters, or domestic fools, _fatui_, or _moriones_, as they are called +in the Latin; and in England, where these jest-books in the vernacular +tongue became more popular perhaps than in any other country, many +of them were published under the names of celebrated jesters, as the +"Merie Tales of Skelton," "The Jests of Scogin," "Tarlton's Jests," and +"The Jests of George Peele." + +John Skelton, poet-laureat of his time, appears to have been known in +the courts of Henry VII. and Henry VIII. quite as much in the character +of a jester as in that of a poet. Poet-laureat was then a title or +degree given in the university of Oxford. His "Merye Tales" are all +personal of himself, and we should be inclined to say that his jests +and his poetry are equally bad. The former picture him as holding a +place somewhere between Eulenspiegel and the ordinary court-fool. We +may give as a sample of the best of them the tale No. 1.-- + + "_How Skelton came home late to Oxford from Abington._ + + "Skelton was an Englysheman borne as Skogyn was, and hee was + educated and broughte up in Oxfoorde, and there was he made a + poete lauriat. And on a tyme he had ben at Abbington to make mery, + wher that he had eate salte meates, and hee did com late home to + Oxforde, and he did lye in an ine named the Tabere, whyche is now + the Angell, and hee dyd drynke, and went to bed. About midnight + he was so thyrstie or drye that he was constrained to call to + the tapster for drynke, and the tapster harde him not. Then hee + cryed to hys oste and hys ostes, and to the ostler, for drinke, + and no man would here hym. Alacke, sayd Skelton, I shall peryshe + for lacke of drynke! What reamedye? At the last he dyd crie out + and sayd, Fyer, fyer, fyer! When Skelton hard every man bustle + hymselfe upward, and some of them were naked, and some were halfe + asleepe and amased, and Skelton dyd crye, Fier, fier! styll, that + everye man knewe not whether to resorte. Skelton did go to bed, + and the oste and ostis, and the tapster, with the ostler, dyd + runne to Skeltons chamber with candles lyghted in theyr handes, + saying, Where, where, where is the fyer? Here, here, here, said + Skelton, and poynted hys fynger to hys mouth, saying, Fetch me + some drynke to quenche the fyer and the heate and the drinesse in + my mouthe. And so they dyd." + +Another of these "Merye Tales" of Skelton contains a satire upon +the practice which prevailed in the sixteenth and early part of the +seventeenth centuries of obtaining letters-patent of monopoly from the +crown, and also on the bibulous propensities of Welshmen-- + + "_How the Welshman dyd desyre Skelton to ayde hym in hys sute to + the kynge for a patent to sell drynke._ + + "Skelton, when he was in London, went to the kynges courte, + where there did come to hym a Welshman, saying, Syr, it is so, + that manye dooth come upp of my country to the kynges court, and + some doth get of the kyng by patent a castell, and some a parke, + and some a forest, and some one fee and some another, and they + dooe lyve lyke honest men; and I shoulde lyve as honestly as + the best, if I myght have a patyne for good dryncke, wherefore + I dooe praye yow to write a fewe woords for mee in a lytle byll + to geve the same to the kynges handes, and I wil geve you well + for your laboure. I am contented, sayde Skelton. Syt downe then, + sayde the Welshman, and write. What shall I wryte? sayde Skelton. + The Welshman sayde wryte _dryncke_. Nowe, sayde the Welshman, + write _more dryncke_. What now? sayde Skelton. Wryte nowe, _a + great deale of dryncke_. Nowe, sayd the Welshman, putte to all + thys dryncke _a littell crome of breade_, and _a great deale of + drynke_ to it, and reade once agayne. Skelton dyd reade, _Dryncke, + more dryncke, and a great deale of dryncke, and a lytle crome of + breade, and a great deale of dryncke to it_. Than the Welshman + sayde, Put oute _the litle crome of breade_, and sette in, _all + dryncke and no breade_. And if I myght have thys sygned of the + kynge, sayde the Welshman, I care for no more, as longe as I dooe + lyve. Well then, sayde Skelton, when you have thys signed of the + kyng, then wyll I labour for a patent to have bread, that you wyth + your drynke and I with the bread may fare well, and seeke our + livinge with bagge and staffe." + +These two tales are rather favourable specimens of the collection +published under the name of Skelton, which, as far as we know, was +first printed about the middle of the sixteenth century. The collection +of the jests of Scogan, or, as he was popularly called, Scogin, which +is said to have been compiled by Andrew Borde, was probably given to +the world a few years before, but no copies of the earlier editions are +now known to exist. Scogan, the hero of these jests, is described as +occupying at the court of Henry VII. a position not much different from +that of an ordinary court-fool. Good old Holinshed the chronicler says +of him, perhaps a little too gently, that he was "a learned gentleman +and student for a time in Oxford, of a pleasant wit, and bent to merrie +devices, in respect whereof he was called into the court, where, giving +himselfe to his naturall inclination of mirth and pleasant pastime, +he plaied manie sporting parts, although not in such uncivil manner +as hath beene of him reported." This allusion refers most probably to +the jests, which represent him as leading a life of low and coarse +buffoonery, in the course of which he displayed a considerable +share of the dishonest and mischievous qualities of the less real +Eulenspiegel. He is even represented as personally insulting the king +and queen, and as being consequently banished over the Channel, to +show no more respect to the majesty of the king of France. Scogin's +jests, like Skelton's, consist in a great measure of those practical +jokes which appear in all former ages to have been the delight of the +Teutonic race. Many of them are directed against the ignorance and +worldliness of the clergy. Scogin is described as being at one time +himself a teacher in the university, and on one occasion, we are told, +a husbandman sent his son to school to him that he might be made a +priest. The whole story, which runs through several chapters, is an +excellent caricature on the way in which men vulgarly ignorant were +intruded into the priesthood before the Reformation. At length, after +much blundering, the scholar came to be ordained, and his examination +is reported as follows:-- + + "_How the scholler said Tom Miller of Oseney was Jacob's father._ + + "After this, the said scholler did come to the next orders, and + brought a present to the ordinary from Scogin, but the scholler's + father paid for all. Then said the ordinary to the scholler, I + must needes oppose you, and for master Scogin's sake, I will + oppose you in a light matter. Isaac had two sons, Esau and Jacob. + Who was Jacob's father? The scholler stood still, and could not + tell. Well, said the ordinary, I cannot admit you to be priest + untill the next orders, and then bring me an answer. The scholler + went home with a heavy heart, bearing a letter to master Scogin, + how his scholler could not answer to this question: Isaac had + two sons, Esau and Jacob; who was Jacob's father? Scogin said to + his scholler, Thou foole and asse-head! Dost thou not know Tom + Miller of Oseney? Yes, said the scholler! Then, said Scogin, thou + knowest he had two sonnes, Tom and Jacke; who is Jacke's father? + The scholler said, Tom Miller. Why, said Scogin, thou mightest + have said that Isaac was Jacob's father. Then said Scogin, Thou + shalt arise betime in the morning, and carry a letter to the + ordinary, and I trust he will admit thee before the orders shall + be given. The scholler rose up betime in the morning, and carried + the letter to the ordinary. The ordinary said, For Master Scogin's + sake I will oppose you no farther than I did yesterday. Isaac had + two sons, Esau and Jacob; who was Jacob's father? Marry, said the + scholler, I can tell you now that was Tom Miller of Oseney. Goe, + foole, goe, said the ordinary, and let thy master send thee no + more to me for orders, for it is impossible to make a foole a wise + man." + +Scogin's scholar was, however, made a priest, and some of the stories +which follow describe the ludicrous manner in which he exercised the +priesthood. Two other stories illustrate Scogin's supposed position at +court:-- + + "_How Scogin told those that mocked him that he had a wall-eye._ + + "Scogin went up and down in the king's hall, and his hosen hung + downe, and his coat stood awry, and his hat stood a boonjour, so + every man did mocke Scogin. Some said he was a proper man, and did + wear his rayment cleanly; some said the foole could not put on his + owne rayment; some said one thing, and some said another. At last + Scogin said, Masters, you have praised me wel, but you did not + espy one thing in me. What is that, Tom? said the men. Marry, said + Scogin, I have a wall-eye. What meanest thou by that? said the + men. Marry, said Scogin, I have spyed a sort of knaves that doe + mocke me, and are worse fooles themselves." + + "_How Scogin drew his sonne up and downe the court._ + + "After this Scogin went from the court, and put off his foole's + garments, and came to the court like an honest man, and brought + his son to the court with him, and within the court he drew his + sonne up and downe by the heeles. The boy cried out, and Scogin + drew the boy in every corner. At last every body had pity on the + boy, and said, Sir, what doe you meane, to draw the boy about the + court? Masters, said Scogin, he is my sonne, and I doe it for this + cause. Every man doth say, that man or child which is drawne up in + the court shall be the better as long as hee lives; and therefore + I will every day once draw him up and downe the court, after that + hee may come to preferment in the end." + +The appreciation of a good joke cannot at this time have been very +great or very general, for Scogin's jests were wonderfully popular +during at least a century, from the first half of the sixteenth +century. They passed through many editions, and are frequently +alluded to by the writers of the Elizabethan age. The next individual +whose name appears at the head of a collection of his jests, was the +well-known wit, Richard Tarlton, who may be fairly considered as court +fool to Queen Elizabeth. His jests belong to the same class as those +of Skelton and Scogin, and if possible, they present a still greater +amount of dulness. Tarlton's jests were soon followed by the "merrie +conceited jests" of George Peele, the dramatist, who is described in +the title as "gentleman, sometimes student in Oxford;" and it is added +that in these jests "is shewed the course of his life, how he lived; +a man very well knowne in the city of London and elsewhere." In fact, +Peele's jests are chiefly curious for the striking picture they give +us of the wilder shades of town life under the reigns of Elizabeth and +James I. + +During the period which witnessed the publication in England of these +books, many other jest-books appeared, for they had already become +an important class of English popular literature. Most of them were +published anonymously, and indeed they are mere compilations from the +older collections in Latin and French. All that was at all good, even +in the jests of Skelton, Scogin, Tarlton, and Peele, had been repeated +over and over again by the story-tellers and jesters of former ages. +Two of the earlier English collections have gained a greater celebrity +than the rest, chiefly through adventitious circumstances. One of +these, entitled "A Hundred Merry Tales," has gained distinction among +Shakespearian critics as the one especially alluded to by the great +poet in "Much Ado about Nothing," (Act ii., Sc. 1), where Beatrice +complains that somebody had said "that I had my good wit out of the +Hundred Merry Tales." The other collection alluded to was entitled +"Mery Tales, Wittie Questions, and Quicke Answeres, very pleasant +to be readde," and was printed in 1567. Its modern fame appears to +have arisen chiefly from the circumstance that, until the accidental +discovery of the unique and imperfect copy of the "Hundred Merry +Tales," it was supposed to be the book alluded to by Shakespeare. +Both these collections are mere compilations from the "Cent Nouvelles +Nouvelles," "Poggio," "Straparola," and other foreign works.[77] The +words put into the mouth of Beatrice are correctly descriptive of the +use made of these jest-books. It had become fashionable to learn out +of them jests and stories, in order to introduce them into polite +conversation, and especially at table; and this practice continued +to prevail until a very recent period. The number of such jest-books +published during the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, +was quite extraordinary. Many of these were given anonymously; but many +also were put forth under names which possessed temporary celebrity, +such as Hobson the carrier, Killigrew the jester, the friend of Charles +II., Ben Jonson, Garrick, and a multitude of others. It is, perhaps, +unnecessary to remind the reader that the great modern representative +of this class of literature is the illustrious Joe Miller. + + [77] A neat and useful edition of these two jest-books, with the + other most curious books of the same class, published during the + Elizabethan period, has recently been published in two volumes, + by Mr. W. C. Hazlitt. + + + + + CHAPTER XV. + + THE AGE OF THE REFORMATION.--THOMAS MURNER; HIS GENERAL + SATIRES.--FRUITFULNESS OF FOLLY.--HANS SACHS.--THE TRAP FOR + FOOLS.--ATTACKS ON LUTHER.--THE POPE AS ANTICHRIST.--THE POPE-ASS + AND THE MONK-CALF.--OTHER CARICATURES AGAINST THE POPE.--THE GOOD + AND BAD SHEPHERDS. + + +The reign of Folly did not pass away with the fifteenth century--on the +whole the sixteenth century can hardly be said to have been more sane +than its predecessor, but it was agitated by a long and fierce struggle +to disengage European society from the trammels of the middle ages. We +have entered upon what is technically termed the _renaissance_, and +are approaching the great religious reformation. The period during +which the art of printing began first to spread generally over Western +Europe, was peculiarly favourable to the production of satirical +books and pamphlets, and a considerable number of clever and spirited +satirists and comic writers appeared towards the end of the fifteenth +century, especially in Germany, where circumstances of a political +character had at an early period given to the intellectual agitation +a more permanent strength than it could easily or quickly gain in the +great monarchies. Among the more remarkable of these satirists was +Thomas Murner, who was born at Strasburg, in 1475. The circumstances +even of his childhood are singular, for he was born a cripple, or +became one in his earliest infancy, though he was subsequently healed, +and it was so universally believed that this malady was the effect +of witchcraft, that he himself wrote afterwards a treatise upon this +subject under the title of "De Phitonico Contractu." The school in +which he was taught may at least have encouraged his satirical spirit, +for his master was Jacob Locher, the same who translated into Latin +verse the "Ship of Fools" of Sebastian Brandt. At the end of the +century Murner had become a master of arts in the University of Paris, +and had entered the Franciscan order. His reputation as a German +popular poet was so great, that the emperor Maximilian I., who +died in 1519, conferred upon him the crown of poetry, or, in other +words, made him poet-laureat. He took the degree of doctor in theology +in 1509. Still Murner was known best as the popular writer, and he +published several satirical poems, which were remarkable for the bold +woodcuts that illustrated them, for engraving on wood flourished at +this period. He exposed the corruptions of all classes of society, +and, before the Reformation broke out, he did not even spare the +corruptions of the ecclesiastical state, but soon declared himself a +fierce opponent of the Reformers. When the Lutheran revolt against the +Papacy became strong, our king, Henry VIII., who took a decided part +against Luther, invited Murner to England, and on his return to his +own country, the satiric Franciscan became more bitter against the +Reformation than ever. He advocated the cause of the English monarch in +a pamphlet, now very rare, in which he discussed the question whether +Henry VIII. or Luther was the liar--"Antwort dem Murner uff seine +frag, ob der kuenig von Engllant ein Luegner sey oder Martinus Luther." +Murner appears to have divided the people of his age into rogues and +fools, or perhaps he considered the two titles as identical. His +"Narrenbeschwerung," or Conspiracy of Fools, in which Brandt's idea +was followed up, is supposed to have been published as early as 1506, +but the first printed edition with a date, appeared in 1512. It became +so popular, that it went through several editions during subsequent +years; and that which I have before me was printed at Strasburg in +1518. It is, like Brandt's "Ship of Fools," a general satire against +society, in which the clergy are not spared, for the writer had not yet +come in face of Luther's Reformation. The cuts are superior to those +of Brandt's book, and some of them are remarkable for their design and +execution. In one of the earliest of them, copied in the cut No. 139, +Folly is introduced in the garb of a husbandman, scattering his feed +over the earth, the result of which is a very quick and flourishing +crop, the fool's heads rising above ground, almost instantaneously, +like so many turnips. In a subsequent engraving, represented in our +cut No. 140, Folly holds out, as an object of emulation, the fool's +cap, and people of all classes, the pope himself, and the emperor, and +all the great dignitaries of this world, press forward eagerly to seize +upon it. + + [Illustration: _No. 139. Sowing a Fruitful Crop._] + +The same year (1512) witnessed the appearance of another poetical, +or at least metrical, satire by Murner, entitled "Schelmenzunft," or +the Confraternity of Rogues, similarly illustrated with very spirited +engravings on wood. It is another demonstration of the prevailing +dominion of folly under its worst forms, and the satire is equally +general with the preceding. Murner's satire appears to have been felt +not only generally, but personally; and we are told that he was often +threatened with assassination, and he raised up a number of literary +opponents, who treated him with no little rudeness; in fact, he had +got on the wrong side of politics, or at all events on the unpopular +side, and men who had more talents and greater weight appeared as his +opponents--men like Ulrich von Utten, and Luther himself. + + [Illustration: _No. 140. An Acceptable Offering._] + +Among the satirists who espoused the cause to which Murner was +opposed, we must not overlook a man who represented in its strongest +features, though in a rather debased form, the old spontaneous poetry +of the middle ages. His name was Hans Sachs, at least that was the +name under which he was known, for his real name is said to have +been Loutrdorffer. His spirit was entirely that of the old wandering +minstrel, and it was so powerful in him, that, having been apprenticed +to the craft of a weaver, he was no sooner freed from his indentures, +than he took to a vagabond life, and wandered from town to town, +gaining his living by singing the verses he composed upon every +occasion which presented itself. In 1519, he married and settled in +Nueremberg, and his compositions were then given to the public through +the press. The number of these was quite extraordinary--songs, ballads, +satires, and dramatic pieces, rude in style, in accordance with the +taste of the time, but full of cleverness. Many of them were printed +on broadsides, and illustrated with large engravings on wood. Hans +Sachs joined in the crusade against the empire of Folly, and one of +his broadsides is illustrated with a graceful design, the greater part +of which is copied in our cut No. 141. A party of ladies have set a +bird-trap to catch the fools of the age, who are waiting to be caught. +One fool is taken in the trap, while another is already secured and +pinioned, and others are rushing into the snare. A number of people of +the world, high in their dignities and stations, are looking on at this +remarkable scene. + + [Illustration: _No. 141. Bird-Traps._] + +The evil influence of the female sex was at this time proverbial, and, +in fact, it was an age of extreme licentiousness. Another poet-laureat +of the time, Henricus Bebelius, born in the latter half of the +fifteenth century, and rather well known in the literature of his time, +published, in 1515, a satirical poem in Latin, under the title of +"Triumphus Veneris," which was a sort of exposition of the generally +licentious character of the age in which he lived. It is distributed +into six books, in the third of which the poet attacks the whole +ecclesiastical state, not sparing the pope himself, and we are thereby +perfectly well initiated into the weaknesses of the clergy. Bebelius +had been preceded by another writer on this part of the subject, and we +might say by many, for the incontinence of monks and nuns, and indeed +of all the clergy, had long been a subject of satire. But the writer to +whom I especially allude was named Paulus Olearius, his name in German +being Oelschlaegel. He published, about the year 1500, a satirical +tract, under the title of "De Fide Concubinarum in Sacerdotes." It +was a bitter attack on the licentiousness of the clergy, and was +rendered more effective by the engravings which accompanied it. We +give one of these as a curious picture of contemporary manners; the +individual who comes within the range of the lady's attractions, though +he may be a scholar, has none of the characteristics of a priest. She +presents a nosegay, which we may suppose to represent the influence of +perfume upon the senses; but the love of the ladies for pet animals +is especially typified in the monkey, attached by a chain. A donkey +appears to show by his heels his contempt for the lover. + + [Illustration: _No. 142. Courtship._] + +From an early period, the Roman church had been accustomed to +treat contemptuously, as well as cruelly, all who dissented from +its doctrines, or objected to its government, and this feeling was +continued down to the age of the Reformation, in spite of the tone +of liberalism which was beginning to shine forth in the writings +of some of its greatest ornaments. Some research among the dusty, +because little used, records of national archives and libraries would +no doubt bring to light more than one singular caricature upon the +"heretics" of the middle ages, and my attention has been called to one +which is possessed of peculiar interest. There is, among the imperial +archives of France, in Paris, among records relating to the country of +the Albigeois in the thirteenth century, a copy of the bull of pope +Innocent IV. giving directions for the proceedings against dissenters +from Romanism, on the back of which the scribe, as a mark of his +contempt for these arch-heretics of the south, has drawn a caricature +of a woman bound to a stake over the fire which is to burn her as an +open opponent of the church of Rome. The choice of a woman for the +victim was perhaps intended to show that the proselytism of heresy was +especially successful among the weaker sex, or that it was considered +as having some relation to witchcraft. It is, by a long period, the +earliest known pictorial representation of the punishment of burning +inflicted on a heretic. + + [Illustration: _No. 143. Burning a Heretic._] + +The shafts of satire were early employed against Luther and his new +principles, and men like Murner, already mentioned, Emser, Cochlaeus, +and others, signalised themselves by their zeal in the papal cause. +As already stated, Murner distinguished himself as the literary ally +of our king Henry VIII. The taste for satirical writings had then +become so general, that Murner complains in one of his satires that +the printers would print nothing but abusive or satirical works, and +neglected his more serious writings. + + _Da sindt die trucker schuld daran, + Die trucken als die Gauchereien, + Und lassen mein ernstliche buecher leihen._ + +Some of Murner's writings against Luther, most of which are now very +rare, are extremely violent, and they are generally illustrated with +satirical woodcuts. One of these books, printed without name of place +or date, is entitled, "Of the great Lutheran Fool, how Doctor Murner +has exorcised him" (_Von dem grossen Lutherisschen Narren, wie in +Doctor Murner beschworen hat_). In the woodcuts to this book Murner +himself is introduced, as is usually the case in these satirical +engravings, under the character of a Franciscan friar, with the head of +a cat, while Luther appears as a fat and jolly monk, wearing a fool's +cap, and figuring in various ridiculous circumstances. In one of the +first woodcuts, the cat Franciscan is drawing a rope so tight round the +great Lutheran fool's neck, that he compels him to disgorge a multitude +of smaller fools. In another the great Lutheran fool has his purse, or +pouch, full of little fools suspended at his girdle. This latter figure +is copied in the cut No. 144, as an example of the form under which the +great reformer appears in these satirical representations. + + [Illustration: _No. 144. Folly in Monastic Habit._] + +In a few other caricatures of this period which have been preserved, +the apostle of the Reformation is attacked still more savagely. The +one here given (Fig. 145), taken from a contemporary engraving on +wood, presents a rather fantastic figure of the demon playing on the +bagpipes. The instrument is formed of Luther's head, the pipe through +which the devil blows entering his ear, and that through which the +music is produced forming an elongation of the reformer's nose. It was +a broad intimation that Luther was a mere tool of the evil one, created +for the purpose of bringing mischief into the world. + + [Illustration: _No. 145. The Music of the Demon._] + +The reformers, however, were more than a match for their opponents in +this sort of warfare. Luther himself was full of comic and satiric +humour, and a mass of the talent of that age was ranged on his side, +both literary and artistic. After the reformer's marriage, the papal +party quoted the old legend, that Antichrist was to be born of the +union of a monk and a nun, and it was intimated that if Luther himself +could not be directly identified with Antichrist, he had, at least, a +fair chance of becoming his parent. But the reformers had resolved, on +what appeared to be much more conclusive evidence, that Antichrist was +only emblematical of the papacy, that under this form he had been long +dominant on earth, and that the end of his reign was then approaching. +A remarkable pamphlet, designed to place this idea pictorially before +the public, was produced from the pencil of Luther's friend, the +celebrated painter, Lucas Cranach, and appeared in the year 1521 under +the title of "The Passionale of Christ and Antichrist" (_Passional +Christi und Antichristi_). It is a small quarto, each page of which is +nearly filled by a woodcut, having a few lines of explanation in German +below. The cut to the left represents some incident in the life of +Christ, while that facing it to the right gives a contrasting fact in +the history of papal tyranny. Thus the first cut on the left represents +Jesus in His humility, refusing earthly dignities and power, while on +the adjoining page we see the pope, with his cardinals and bishops, +supported by his hosts of warriors, his cannon, and his fortifications, +in his temporal dominion over secular princes. When we open again we +see on one side Christ crowned with thorns by the insulting soldiery, +and on the other the pope, enthroned in all his worldly glory, exacting +the worship of his courtiers. On another we have Christ washing the +feet of His disciples, and in contrast the pope compelling the emperor +to kiss his toe. And so on, through a number of curious illustrations, +until at last we come to Christ's ascension into heaven, in contrast +with which a troop of demons, of the most varied and singular forms, +have seized upon the papal Antichrist, and are casting him down into +the flames of hell, where some of his own monks wait to receive him. +This last picture is drawn with so much spirit, that I have copied it +in the cut No. 146. + + [Illustration: _No. 146. The Descent of the Pope._] + + [Illustration: _No. 147. The Pope-ass._] + +The monstrous figures of animals which had amused the sculptors and +miniaturists of an earlier period came in time to be looked upon +as realities, and were not only regarded with wonder as physical +deformities, but were objects of superstition, for they were believed +to be sent into the world as warnings of great revolutions and +calamities. During the age preceding the Reformation, the reports +of the births or discoveries of such monsters were very common, and +engravings of them were no doubt profitable articles of merchandise +among the early book-hawkers. Two of these were very celebrated in +the time of the Reformation, the Pope-ass and the Monk-calf, and were +published and republished with an explanation under the names of +Luther and Melancthon, which made them emblematical of the Papacy and +of the abuses of the Romish church, and, of course, prognostications +of their approaching exposure and fall. It was pretended that the +Pope-ass was found dead in the river Tiber, at Rome, in the year +1496. It is represented in our cut No. 147, taken from an engraving +preserved in a very curious volume of broadside Lutheran caricatures, +in the library of the British Museum, all belonging to the year 1545, +though this design had been published many years before. The head of +an ass, we are told, represented the pope himself, with his false and +carnal doctrines. The right hand resembled the foot of an elephant, +signifying the spiritual power of the pope, which was heavy, and +stamped down and crushed people's consciences. The left hand was that +of a man, signifying the worldly power of the pope, which grasped at +universal empire over kings and princes. The right foot was that of +an ox, signifying the spiritual ministers of the papacy, the doctors +of the church, the preachers, confessors, and scholastic theologians, +and especially the monks and nuns, those who aided and supported +the pope in oppressing people's bodies and souls. The left foot was +that of a griffin, an animal which, when it once seizes its prey, +never lets it escape, and signified the canonists, the monsters of +the pope's temporal power, who grasped people's temporal goods, and +never returned them. The breast and belly of this monster were those +of a woman, and signified the papal body, the cardinals, bishops, +priests, monks, &c., who spent their lives in eating, drinking, and +incontinence; and this part of the body was naked, because the popish +clergy were not ashamed to expose their vices to the public. The legs, +arms, and neck, on the contrary, were clothed with fishes' scales; +these signified the temporal princes and lords, who were mostly in +alliance with the papacy. The old man's head behind the monster, meant +that the papacy had become old, and was approaching its end; and +the head of a dragon, vomiting flames, which served for a tail, was +significative of the great threats, the venomous horrible bulls and +blasphemous writings, which the pontiff and his ministers, enraged at +seeing their end approach, were launching into the world against all +who opposed them. These explanations were supported by apt quotations +from the Scriptures, and were so effective, and became so popular, that +the picture was published in various shapes, and was seen adorning the +walls of the humblest cottages. I believe it is still to be met with in +a similar position in some parts of Germany. It was considered at the +time to be a masterly piece of satire. The picture of the Monk-calf, +which is represented in our cut No. 148, was published at the same +time, and usually accompanies it. This monster is said to have been +born at Freyburg, in Misnia, and is simply a rather coarse emblem of +the monachal character. + + [Illustration: _No. 148. The Monk-Calf._] + + [Illustration: _No. 149. The Head of the Papacy._] + +The volume of caricatures just mentioned contains several satires on +the pope, which are all very severe, and many of them clever. One has +a movable leaf, which covers the upper part of the picture; when it is +down, we have a representation of the pope in his ceremonial robes, +and over it the inscription ALEX . VI . PONT . MAX. Pope Alexander VI. +was the infamous Roderic Borgia, a man stained with all the crimes +and vices which strike most horror into men's minds. When the leaf is +raised, another figure joins itself with the lower part of the former, +and represents a papal demon, crowned, the cross being transformed into +an instrument of infernal punishment. This figure is represented in our +cut No. 149. Above it are inscribed the words EGO . SVM . PAPA, "I am +the Pope." Attached to it is a page of explanation in German, in which +the legend of that pope's death is given, a legend that his wicked +life appeared sufficient to sanction. It was said that, distrusting +the success of his intrigues to secure the papacy for himself, he +applied himself to the study of the black art, and sold himself to +the Evil One. He then asked the tempter if it were his destiny to be +pope, and received an answer in the affirmative. He next inquired how +long he should hold the papacy, but Satan returned an equivocal and +deceptive answer, for Borgia understood that he was to be pope fifteen +years, whereas he died at the end of eleven. It is well known that +Pope Alexander VI. died suddenly and unexpectedly through accidentally +drinking the poisoned wine he had prepared with his own hand for the +murder of another man. + + [Illustration: _No. 150. The Pope's Nurse._] + +An Italian theatine wrote a poem against the Reformation, in which +he made Luther the offspring of Megaera, one of the furies, who is +represented as having been sent from hell into Germany to be delivered +of him. This sarcasm was thrown back upon the pope with much greater +effect by the Lutheran caricaturists. One of the plates in the +above-mentioned volume represents the "birth and origin of the pope" +(_ortus et origo papae_), making the pope identical with Antichrist. +In different groups, in this rather elaborate design, the child is +represented as attended by the three furies, Megaera acting as his +wet-nurse, Alecto as nursery-maid, and Tisiphone in another capacity, +&c. The name of Martin Luther is added to this caricature also. + + _Hie wird geborn der Widerchrist. + Megera sein Seugamme ist; + Alecto sein Keindermeidlin, + Tisiphone die gengelt in._--M. Luth., D. 1545. + +One of the groups in this plate, representing the fury Megaera, a +becoming foster-mother, suckling the pope-infant, is given in our cut, +No. 150. + +In another of these caricatures the pope is represented trampling on +the emperor, to show the manner in which he usurped and tyrannised +over the temporal power. Another illustrates "the kingdom of Satan and +the Pope" (_regnum Satanae et Papae_), and the latter is represented +as presiding over hell-mouth in all his state. One, given in our cut +No. 151, represents the pope under the form of an ass playing on the +bagpipes, and is entitled _Papa doctor theologiae et magister fidei_. +Four lines of German verse beneath the engraving state how "the pope +can alone expound Scripture and purge error, just as the ass alone can +pipe and touch the notes correctly." + + [Illustration: _No. 151. The Pope giving the Tune._] + + _Der Bapst kan allein auslegen + Die Schrifft, und irthum ausfegen; + Wie der esel allein pfeiffen + Kan, und die noten recht greiffen._--1545. + +This was the last year of Luther's active labours. At the commencement +of the year following he died at Eissleben, whither he had gone to +attend the council of princes. These caricatures may perhaps be +considered as so many proclamations of satisfaction and exultation in +the final triumph of the great reformer. + +Books, pamphlets, and prints of this kind were multiplied to an +extraordinary degree during the age of the Reformation, but the +majority of them were in the interest of the new movement. Luther's +opponent, Eckius, complained of the infinite number of people who +gained their living by wandering over all parts of Germany, and +selling Lutheran books.[78] Among those who administered largely to +this circulation of polemic books was the poet of farces, comedies, and +ballads, Hans Sachs, already mentioned. Hans Sachs had in one poem, +published in 1535, celebrated Luther under the title of "the Wittemberg +Nightingale:"-- + + _Die Wittembergisch' Nachtigall, + Die man jetzt hoeret ueberall_; + +and described the effects of his song over all the other animals; and +he published, also in verse, what he called a Monument, or Lament, on +his death ("Ein Denkmal oder Klagred' ob der Leiche Doktors Martin +Luther"). Among the numerous broadsides published by Hans Sachs, one +contains the very clever caricature of which we give a copy in our cut +No. 152. It is entitled "Der gut Hirt und boess Hirt," the good shepherd +and bad shepherd, and has for its text the opening verses of the tenth +chapter of the gospel of St. John. The good and bad shepherds are, +as may be supposed, Christ and the pope. The church is here pictured +as a not very stately building; the entrance, especially, is a plain +structure of timber. Jesus said to the Pharisees, "He that entereth not +by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the +same is a thief and a robber. But he that entereth in by the door is +the shepherd of the flock." In the engraving, the pope, as the hireling +shepherd, sits on the roof of the stateliest part of the building, +pointing out to the Christian flock the wrong way, and blessing the +climbers. Under him two men of worldly distinction are making their +way into the church through a window; and on a roof below a friar is +pointing to the people the way up. At another window a monk holds +out his arms to invite people up; and one in spectacles, no doubt +emblematical of the doctors of the church, is looking out from an +opening over the entrance door to watch the proceedings of the Good +Shepherd. To the right, on the papal side of the church, the lords +and great men are bringing the people under their influence, till +they are stopped by the cardinals and bishops, who prevent them from +going forward to the door and point out very energetically the way +up the roof. At the door stands, the Saviour, as the good shepherd, +who has knocked, and the porter has opened it with his key. Christ's +true teachers, the evangelists, show the way to the solitary man of +worth who comes by this road, and who listens with calm attention to +the gospel teachers, while he opens his purse to bestow his charity +on the poor man by the road side. In the original engraving, in the +distance on the left, the Good Shepherd is seen followed by his flock, +who are obedient to his voice; on the right, the bad shepherd, who has +ostentatiously drawn up his sheep round the image of the cross, is +abandoning them, and taking to flight on the approach of the wolf. "He +that entereth in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the +porter openeth; and the sheep hear his voice, and he calleth his own +sheep by name, and leadeth them out. And when he putteth forth his own +sheep he goeth before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his +voice.... But he that is an hireling, and not the shepherd, whose own +the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and +fleeth; and the wolf catcheth them, and scattereth the sheep." (John x. +2-4, 12.) + + [78] "Infinitus jam erat numerus qui victum ex Lutheranis libris + quaeritantes, in speciem bibliopolarum longe lateque per Germaniae + provincias vagabantur."--Eck., p. 58. + + [Illustration: _No. 152. The Two Shepherds._] + + [Illustration: _No. 153. Murner and Luther's Daughter._] + +The triumph of Luther is the subject of a rather large and elaborate +caricature, which is an engraving of great rarity, but a copy of it is +given in Jaime's "Musee de Caricature." Leo X. is represented seated +on his throne upon the edge of the abyss, into which his cardinals are +trying to prevent his falling; but their efforts are rendered vain by +the appearance of Luther on the other side supported by his principal +adherents, and wielding the Bible as his weapon, and the pope is +overthrown, in spite of the support he receives from a vast host of +popish clergy, doctors, &c. + +The popish writers against Luther charged him with vices for which +there was probably no foundation, and invented the most scandalous +stories against him. They accused him, among other things, of +drunkenness and licentiousness. and there may, perhaps, be some +allusion to the latter charge in our cut No. 153, which is taken from +one of the comic illustrations to Murner's book, "Von dem grossen +Lutherischen Narren," which was published in 1522; but, at all events, +it will serve as a specimen of these illustrations, and of Murner's +fancy of representing himself with the head of a cat. In 1525, Luther +married a nun who had turned Protestant and quitted her convent, +named Catherine de Bora, and this became the signal to his opponents +for indulging in abusive songs, and satires, and caricatures, most +of them too coarse and indelicate to be described in these pages. +In many of the caricatures made on this occasion, which are usually +woodcut illustrations to books written against the reformer, Luther is +represented dancing with Catherine de Bora, or sitting at table with a +glass in his hand. An engraving of this kind, which forms one of the +illustrations to a work by Dr. Konrad Wimpina, one of the reformer's +violent opponents, represents Luther's marriage. It is divided into +three compartments; to the left, Luther, whom the Catholics always +represented in the character of a monk, gives the marriage ring to +Catherine de Bora, and above them, in a sort of aureole, is inscribed +the word _Vovete_; on the right appears the nuptial bed, with the +curtains drawn, and the inscription _Reddite_; and in the middle the +monk and nun are dancing joyously together, and over their heads we +read the words-- + + Discedat ab aris + Cui tulit hesterna gaudia nocte Venus. + +While Luther was heroically fighting the great fight of reform in +Germany, the foundation of religious reform was laid in France by +John Calvin, a man equally sincere and zealous in the cause, but of +a totally different temper, and he espoused doctrines and forms of +church government which a Lutheran would not admit. Literary satire +was used with great effect by the French Calvinists against their +popish opponents, but they have left us few caricatures or burlesque +engravings of any kind; at least, very few belonging to the earlier +period of their history. Jaime, in his "Musee de Caricature," has given +a copy of a very rare plate, representing the pope struggling with +Luther and Calvin, as his two assailants. Both are tearing the pope's +hair, but it is Calvin who is here armed with the Bible, with which +he is striking at Luther, who is pulling him by the beard. The pope +has his hands upon their heads. This scene takes place in the choir of +a church, but I give here (cut No. 154) only the group of the three +combatants, intended to represent how the two great opponents to papal +corruptions were hostile at the same time to each other. + + [Illustration: _No. 154. Luther and Calvin._] + + + + + CHAPTER XVI. + + ORIGIN OF MEDIAEVAL FARCE AND MODERN COMEDY.--HROTSVITHA.--MEDIAEVAL + NOTIONS OF TERENCE.--THE EARLY RELIGIOUS PLAYS.--MYSTERIES AND + MIRACLE PLAYS.--THE FARCES.--THE DRAMA IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. + + +There is still another branch of literature which, however it may have +been modified, has descended to us from the middle ages. It has been +remarked more than once in the course of this book, that the theatre +of the Romans perished in the transition from the empire to the middle +ages; but something in the shape of theatrical performances appears +to be inseparable from society even in its most barbarous state, and +we soon trace among the peoples who had settled upon the ruins of the +empire of Rome an approach towards a drama. It is worthy of remark, +too, that the mediaeval drama originated exactly in the same way as that +of ancient Greece, that is, from religious ceremonies. + +Such was the ignorance of the ancient stage in the middle ages, +that the meaning of the word _comoedia_ was not understood. The +Anglo-Saxon glossaries interpret the word by _racu_, a narrative, +especially an epic recital, and this was the sense in which it was +generally taken until late in the fourteenth or the fifteenth century. +It is the sense in which it is used in the title of Dante's great poem, +the "Divina Commedia." When the mediaeval scholars became acquainted in +manuscripts with the comedies of Terence, they considered them only as +fine examples of a particular sort of literary composition, as metrical +narratives in dialogue, and in this feeling they began to imitate them. +One of the first of these mediaeval imitators was a lady. There lived +in the tenth century a maiden of Saxony, named Hrotsvitha--a rather +unfortunate name for one of her sex, for it means simply "a loud noise +of voices," or, as she explains it herself, in her Latin, _clamor +validus_. Hrotsvitha, as was common enough among the ladies of those +days, had received a very learned education, and her Latin is very +respectable. About the middle of the tenth century, she became a nun +in the very aristocratic Benedictine abbey of Gandesheim, in Saxony, +the abbesses of which were all princesses, and which had been founded +only a century before. She wrote in Latin verse a short history of +that religious house, but she is best known by seven pieces, which are +called comedies (_comoediae_), and which consist simply of legends of +saints, told dialogue-wise, some in verse and some in prose. As may +be supposed, there is not much of real comedy in these compositions, +although one of them, the Dulcitius, is treated in a style which +approaches that of farce. It is the story of the martyrdom of the three +virgin saints--Agape, Chione, and Irene--who excite the lust of the +persecutor Dulcitius; and it may be remarked, that in this "comedy," +and in that of Callimachus and one or two of the others, the lady +Hrotsvitha displays a knowledge of love-making and of the language of +love, which was hardly to be expected from a holy nun.[79] + + [79] Several editions of the writings of Hrotsvitha, texts and + translations, have been published of late years both in Germany + and in France, of which I may point out the following as most + useful and complete--"Theatre de Hrotsvitha, Religieuse Allemande + du x^e siecle....par Charles Magnin," 8vo., Paris, 1845; + "Hrotsvithae Gandeshemensis, virginis et monialis Germanicae, gente + Saxonica ortae, Comoedias sex, ad fidem codicis Emmeranensis + typis expressas edidit.... J. Benedixen," 16mo., Lubecae, 1857; + "Die Werke der Hrotsvitha: Herausgegeben von Dr. K. A. Barack," + 8vo., Nuernberg, 1858. + +Hrotsvitha, in her preface, complains that, in spite of the general +love for the reading of the Scriptures, and contempt for everything +derived from ancient paganism, people still too often read the +"fictions" of Terence, and thus, seduced by the beauties of his style, +soiled their minds with the knowledge of the criminal acts which are +described in his writings. A rather early manuscript has preserved a +very curious fragment illustrative of the manner in which the comedies +of the Romans were regarded by one class of people in the middle ages, +and it has also a further meaning. Its form is that of a dialogue in +Latin verse between Terence and a personage called in the original +_delusor_, which was no doubt intended to express a performer of some +kind, and may be probably considered as synonymous with _jougleur_. It +is a contention between the new jouglerie of the middle ages and the +old jouglerie of the schools, somewhat in the same style as the fabliau +of "Les deux Troveors Ribauz," described in a former chapter.[80] We +are to suppose that the name of Terence has been in some way or other +brought forward in laudatory terms, upon which the jougleur steps +forward from among the spectators and expresses himself towards the +Roman writer very contemptuously. Terence then makes his appearance to +speak in his own defence, and the two go on abusing one another in no +very measured language. Terence asks his assailant who he is? to which +the other replies, "If you ask who I am, I reply, I am better than +thee. Thou art old and broken with years; I am a tyro, full of vigour, +and in the force of youth. You are but a barren trunk, while I am a +good and fertile tree. If you hold your tongue, old fellow, it will be +much better for you." + + _Si rogitas quis sum, respondeo: te melior sum. + Tu vetus atque senex; ego tyro, valens, adulescens. + Tu sterilis truncus; ego fertilis arbor, opimus. + Si taceas, o vetule, lucrum tibi quaeris enorme._ + + Terence replies:--"What sense have you left? Are you, think you, + better than me? Let me see you, young as you are, compose what + I, however old and broken, will compose. If you be a good tree, + show us some proofs of your fertility. Although I may be a barren + trunk, I produce abundance of better fruit than thine." + + _Quis tibi sensus inest? numquid melior me es? + Nunc vetus atque senex quae fecero fac adolescens. + Si bonus arbor ades, qua fertilitate redundas? + Cum sim truncus iners, fructu meliore redundo._ + +And so the dispute continues, but unfortunately the latter part has +been lost with a leaf or two of the manuscript. I will only add that I +think the age of this curious piece has been overrated.[81] + + [80] See p. 191 of the present volume. + + [81] This singular composition was published with notes by M. de + Montaiglon, in a Parisian journal entitled, "L'Amateur de + Livres," in 1849, under the title of "Fragment d'un Dialogue + Latin du ix^e siecle entre Terence et un Bouffon." A few separate + copies were printed, of which I possess one. + +Hrotsvitha is the earliest example we have of mediaeval writers in this +particular class of literature. We find no other until the twelfth +century, when two writers flourished named Vital of Blois (_Vitalis +Blesensis_) and Matthew of Vendome (_Matthaeus Vindocinensis_), the +authors of several of the mediaeval poems distinguished by the title of +_comoediae_, which give us a clearer and more distinct idea of what +was meant by the word. They are written in Latin Elegiac verse, a form +of composition which was very popular among the mediaeval scholars, and +consist of stories told in dialogue. Hence Professor Osann, of Giessen, +who edited two of those of Vital of Blois, gives them the title of +eclogues (_eclogae_). The name comedy is, however, given to them in +manuscripts, and it may perhaps admit of the following explanation. +These pieces seem to have been first mere abridgments of the plots of +the Roman comedies, especially those of Plautus, and the authors appear +to have taken the Latin title of the original as applied to the plot, +in the sense of a narrative, and not to its dramatic form. Of the two +"comedies" by Vital of Blois, one is entitled "Geta," and is taken from +the "Amphytrio" of Plautus, and the other, which in the manuscripts +bears the title of "Querulus," represents the "Aulularia" of the +same writer. Independent of the form of composition, the scholastic +writer has given a strangely mediaeval turn to the incidents of the +classic story of Jupiter and Alcmena. Another similar "comedy," that +of Babio, which I first printed from the manuscripts, is still more +mediaeval in character. Its plot, perhaps taken from a fabliau, for the +mediaeval writers rarely invented stories, is as follows, although it +must be confessed that it comes out rather obscurely in the dialogue +itself. Babio, the hero of the piece, is a priest, who, as was still +common at that time (the twelfth century), has a wife, or, as the +strict religionists would then say, a concubine, named Pecula. She has +a daughter named Viola, with whom Babio is in love, and he pursues +his design upon her, of course unknown to his wife. Babio has also a +man-servant named Fodius, who is engaged in a secret intrigue with +his mistress, Pecula, and also seeks to seduce her daughter, Viola. +To crown the whole, the lord of the manor, a knight named Croceus, is +also in love with Viola, though with more honourable designs. Here is +surely intrigue enough and a sufficient absence of morality to satisfy +a modern French novelist of the first water. At the opening of the +piece, amid some by-play between the four individuals who form the +household of Babio, it is suddenly announced that Croceus is on his +way to visit him, and a feast is hastily prepared for his reception. +It ends in the knight carrying away Viola by force. Babio, after a +little vain bluster, consoles himself for the loss of the damsel with +reflections on the virtue of his wife, Pecula, and the faithfulness of +his man, Fodius, when, at this moment, Fame carries to his ear reports +which excite his suspicions against them. He adopts a stratagem very +frequently introduced in the mediaeval stories, surprises the two lovers +under circumstances which leave no room for doubting their guilt, and +then forgives them, enters a monastery, and leaves them to themselves. +In form, these "comedies" are little more than scholastic exercises; +but, at a later period, we shall see the same stories adopted as the +subjects of farces.[82] + + [82] To judge by the number of copies found in manuscripts, + especially of the "Geta," these dramatic poems must have enjoyed + considerable popularity. The "Geta" and the "Querulus" were + published in a volume entitled, "Vitalis Blesensis Amphitryon et + Aulularia Eclogae. Edidit Fridericus Osannus, Professor Gisensis," + 8vo., Darmstadt, 1836. The "Geta" and the "Babio" are included + in my "Early Mysteries, and other Latin Poems of the Twelfth and + Thirteenth Centuries." + +Already, however, by the side of these dramatic poems, a real +drama--the drama of the middle ages--was gradually developing +itself. As stated before, it arose, like the drama of the Greeks, +out of the religious ceremonies. We know nothing of the existence of +anything approaching to dramatic forms which may have existed among +the religious rites of the peoples of the Teutonic race before +their conversion to Christianity, but the Christian clergy felt the +necessity of keeping up festive religious ceremonies in some form or +other, and also of impressing upon people's imagination and memory by +means of rude scenical representations some of the broader facts of +scriptural and ecclesiastical history. These performances at first +consisted probably in mere dumb show, or at the most the performers +may have chanted the scriptural account of the transaction they were +representing. In this manner the choral boys, or the younger clergy, +would, on some special Saint's day, perform some striking act in +the life of the saint commemorated, or, on particular festivals of +the church, those incidents of gospel history to which the festival +especially related. By degrees, a rather more imposing character was +given to these performances by the addition of a continuous dialogue, +which, however, was written in Latin verse, and was no doubt chanted. +This incipient drama in Latin, as far as we know it, belongs to the +twelfth century, and is represented by a tolerably large number of +examples still preserved in mediaeval manuscripts. Some of the earliest +of these have for their author a pupil of the celebrated Abelard, named +Hilarius, who lived in the first half of the twelfth century, and is +understood to have been by birth an Englishman. Hilarius appears before +us as a playful Latin poet, and among a number of short pieces, which +may be almost called lyric, he has left us three of these religious +plays. The subject of the first of these is the raising of Lazarus +from the dead, the chief peculiarity of which consists of the songs of +lamentation placed in the mouths of the two sisters of Lazarus, Mary +and Martha. The second represents one of the miracles attributed to St. +Nicholas; and the third, the history of Daniel. The latter is longer +and more elaborate than the others, and at its conclusion, the stage +direction tells us that, if it were performed at matins, Darius, king +of the Medes and Persians, was to chant _Te Deum Laudamus_, but if it +were at vespers, the great king was to chant _Magnificat anima mea +Dominum_.[83] + + [83] "Hilarii Versus et Ludi," 8vo., Paris, 1835. Edited by M. + Champollion Figeac. + +That this mediaeval drama was not derived from that of the Roman is +evident from the circumstance that entirely new terms were applied +to it. The western people in the middle ages had no words exactly +equivalent with the Latin _comoedia_, _tragoedia_, _theatrum_, &c.; +and even the Latinists, to designate the dramatic pieces performed +at the church festivals, employed the word _ludus_, a play. The +French called them by a word having exactly the same meaning, _jeu_ +(from _jocus_). Similarly in English they were termed _plays_. The +Anglo-Saxon glossaries present as the representative of the Latin +_theatrum_, the compounded words _plege-stow_, or _pleg-stow_, a +play-place, and _pleg-hus_, a play-house. It is curious that we +Englishmen have preferred to the present time the Anglo-Saxon words +in _play_, _player_, and _play-house_. Another Anglo-Saxon word with +exactly the same signification, _lac_, or _gelac_, play, appears to +have been more in use in the dialect of the Northumbrians, and a +Yorkshireman still calls a play a _lake_, and a player a _laker_. So +also the Germans called a dramatic performance a _spil_, _i.e._ a play, +the modern _spiel_, and a theatre, a _spil-hus_. One of the pieces of +Hilarius is thus entitled "Ludus super iconia sancti Nicolai," and the +French _jeu_ and the English _play_ are constantly used in the same +sense. But besides this general term, words gradually came into use to +characterise different sorts of plays. The church plays consisted of +two descriptions of subjects, they either represented the miraculous +acts of certain saints, which had a plain meaning, or some incident +taken from the Holy Scriptures, which was supposed to have a hidden +mysterious signification as well as an apparent one, and hence the +one class of subject was usually spoken of simply as _miraculum_, a +miracle, and the other as _mysterium_, a mystery. _Mysteries_ and +_miracle-plays_ are still the names usually given to the old religious +plays by writers on the history of the stage. + +We have a proof that the Latin religious plays, and the festivities +in which they were employed, had become greatly developed in the +twelfth century, in the notice taken of them in the ecclesiastical +councils of that period, for they were disapproved by the stricter +church disciplinarians. So early as the papacy of Gregory VIII., the +pope urged the clergy to "extirpate" from their churches theatrical +plays, and other festive practices which were not quite in harmony +with the sacred character of these buildings.[84] Such performances are +forbidden by a council held at Treves in 1227.[85] We learn from the +annals of the abbey of Corbei, published by Leibnitz, that the younger +monks at Heresburg performed on one occasion a "sacred comedy" (_sacram +comoediam_) of the selling into captivity and the exaltation of +Joseph, which was disapproved by the other heads of the order.[86] Such +performances are included in a proclamation of the bishop of Worms, in +1316, against the various abuses which had crept into the festivities +observed in his diocese at Easter and St. John's tide.[87] Similar +prohibitions of the acting of such plays in churches are met with at +subsequent periods. + + [84] "Interdum ludi fiunt in ecclesiis theatrales," &c.--_Decret + Gregorii_, lib. iii. tit. i. + + [85] "Item non permittant sacerdotes ludos theatrales fieri in + ecclesia et alios ludos inhonestos." + + [86] "Juniores fratres in Heresburg sacram habuere comoediam de + Josepho vendito et exalto, quod vero reliqui ordinis nostri + praelati male interpretati sunt."--_Leibn., Script. Brunsv._ tom. + ii. p. 311. + + [87] The acts of this synod of Worms are printed in Harzheim, tom. iv. + p. 258. + +While these performances were thus falling under the censure of the +church authorities, they were taken up by the laity, and under their +management both the plays and the machinery for acting them underwent +considerable extension. The municipal guilds contained in their +constitution a considerable amount of religious spirit. They were +great benefactors of the churches in cities and municipal towns, and +had usually some parts of the sacred edifice appropriated to them, +and they may, perhaps, have taken a part in these performances, while +they were still confined to the church. These guilds, and subsequently +the municipal corporations, took them entirely into their own hands. +Certain annual religious festivals, and especially the feast of _Corpus +Christi_, were still the occasions on which the plays were acted, but +they were taken entirely from the churches, and the performances took +place in the open streets. Each guild had its particular play, and +they acted on movable stages, which were dragged along the streets in +the procession of the guild. These stages appear to have been rather +complicated. They were divided into three floors, that in the middle, +which was the principal stage, representing this world, while the upper +division represented heaven, and that at the bottom hell. The mediaeval +writers in Latin called this machinery a _pegma_, from the Greek word ++pegma+, a scaffold; and they also applied to it, for a reason which +is not is easily seen, unless the one word arose out of a corruption +of the other, that of _pagina_, and from a further corruption of these +came into the French and English languages the word _pageant_, which +originally signified one of these movable stages, though it has since +received secondary meanings which have a much wider application. Each +guild in a town had its pageant and its own actors, who performed +in masks and costumes, and each had one of a series of plays, which +were performed at places where they halted in the procession. The +subjects of these plays were taken from Scripture, and they usually +formed a regular series of the principal histories of the Old and New +Testaments. For this reason they were generally termed _mysteries_, a +title already explained; and among the few series of these plays still +preserved, we have the "Coventry Mysteries," which were performed by +the guilds of that town, the "Chester Mysteries," belonging to the +guilds in the city of Chester, and the "Towneley Mysteries," so called +from the name of the possessor of the manuscript, but which probably +belonged to the guilds of Wakefield in Yorkshire. + +During these changes in the method of performance, the plays themselves +had also been considerably modified. The simple Latin phrases, even +when in rhyme, which formed the dialogue of the earlier _ludi_--as in +the four miracles of St. Nicholas, and the six Latin mysteries taken +from the New Testament, printed in my volume of "Early Mysteries and +other Latin Poems"--must have been very uninteresting to the mass of +the spectators, and an attempt was made to enliven them by introducing +among the Latin phrases popular proverbs, or even sometimes a song +in the vulgar tongue. Thus in the play of "Lazarus" by Hilarius, the +Latin of the lamentations of his two sisters is intermixed with French +verses. Such is the case also with the play of "St. Nicholas" by +the same writer, as well as with the curious mystery of the Foolish +Virgins, printed in my "Early Mysteries" just alluded to, in which +latter the Latin is intermingled with Provencal verse. A much greater +advance was made when these performances were transferred to the +guilds. The Latin was then discarded altogether, and the whole play +was written in French, or English, or German, as the case might be, +the plot was made more elaborate, and the dialogue greatly extended. +But now that the whole institution had become secularised, the want +of something to amuse people--to make them laugh, as people liked to +laugh in the middle ages--was felt more than ever, and this want was +supplied by the introduction of droll and ludicrous scenes, which are +often very slightly, if at all, connected with the subject of the play. +In one of the earliest of the French plays, that of "St. Nicholas," by +Jean Bodel, the characters who form the burlesque scene are a party +of gamblers in a tavern. In others, robbers, or peasants, or beggars +form the comic scene, or vulgar women, or any personages who could be +introduced acting vulgarly and using coarse language, for these were +great incitements to mirth among the populace. + +In the English plays now remaining, these scenes are, on the whole, +less frequent, and they are usually more closely connected with +the general subject. The earliest English collection that has been +published is that known as the "Towneley Mysteries," the manuscript of +which belongs to the fifteenth century, and the plays themselves may +have been composed in the latter part of the fourteenth. It contains +thirty-two plays, beginning with the Creation, and ending with the +Ascension and the Day of Judgment, with two supplementary plays, the +"Raising of Lazarus" and the "Hanging of Judas." The play of "Cain and +Abel" is throughout a vulgar drollery, in which Cain, who exhibits +the character of a blustering ruffian, is accompanied by a _garcio_, +or lad, who is the very type of a vulgar and insolent horse-boy, and +the conversation of these two worthies reminds us a little of that +between the clown and his master in the open-air performances of the +old wandering mountebanks. Even the death of Abel by the hand of his +brother is performed in a manner calculated to provoke great laughter. +In the old mirthful spirit, to hear two persons load each other with +vulgar abuse, was as good as seeing them grin through a horse-collar, +if not better. Hence the droll scene in the play of "Noah" is a +domestic quarrel between Noah and his wife, who was proverbially a +shrew, and here gives a tolerable example of abusive language, as it +might then come from a woman's tongue. The quarrel arises out of her +obstinate refusal to go into the ark. In the New Testament series the +play of "The Shepherds" was one of those most susceptible of this sort +of embellishment. There are two plays of the Shepherds in the "Towneley +Mysteries," the first of which is amusing enough, as it represents, +in clever burlesque, the acts and conversation of a party of mediaeval +shepherds guarding their flocks at night; but the second play of the +Shepherds is a much more remarkable example of a comic drama. The +shepherds are introduced at the opening of the piece conversing very +satirically on the corruptions of the time, and complaining how the +people were impoverished by over-taxation, to support the pride and +vanity of the aristocracy. After a good deal of very amusing talk, the +shepherds, who, as usual, are three in number, agree to sing a song, +and it is this song, it appears, which brings to them a fourth, named +Mak, who proves to be a sheep-stealer; and, in fact, no sooner have +the shepherds resigned themselves to sleep for the night, than Mak +chooses one of the best sheep in their flocks, and carries it home +to his hut. Knowing that he will be suspected of the theft, and that +he will soon be pursued, he is anxious to conceal the plunder, and +is only helped out of his difficulty by his wife, who suggests that +the carcase shall be laid at the bottom of her cradle, and that she +shall lie upon it and groan, pretending to be in labour. Meanwhile the +shepherds awake, discover the loss of a sheep, and perceiving that Mak +has disappeared also, they naturally suspect him to be the depredator, +and pursue him. They find everything very cunningly prepared in the +cottage to deceive them, but, after a large amount of roundabout +inquiry and research, and much drollery, they discover that the boy of +which Mak's wife pretends to have been just delivered, is nothing else +but the sheep which had been stolen from their flocks. The wife still +asserts that it is her child, and Mak sets up as his defence that the +baby had been "forspoken," or enchanted, by an elf at midnight, and +that it had thus been changed into the appearance of a sheep; but the +shepherds refuse to be satisfied with this explanation. The whole of +this little comedy is carried out with great skill, and with infinite +drollery. The shepherds, while still wrangling with Mak and his wife, +are seized with drowsiness, and lie down to sleep; but they are aroused +by the voice of the angel, who proclaims the birth of the Saviour. The +next play in which the drollery is introduced, is that of "Herod and +the Slaughter of the Innocents." Herod's bluster and bombast, and the +vulgar abuse which passes between the Hebrew mothers and the soldiers +who are murdering their children, are wonderfully laughable. The plays +which represented the arrest, trial, and execution of Jesus, are all +full of drollery, for the grotesque character which had been given to +the demons in the earlier middle ages, appears to have been transferred +to the executioners, or, as they were called, the "tormentors," and +the language and manner in which they executed their duties, must have +kept the audience in a continual roar of laughter. In the play of +"Doomsday," the fiends retained their old character, and the manner +in which they joke over the distress of the sinful souls, and the +details they give of their sinfulness, are equally mirth-provoking. The +"Coventry Mysteries" are also printed from a manuscript of the middle +of the fifteenth century, and are, perhaps, as old as the "Towneley +Mysteries." They consist of forty-two plays, but they contain, on the +whole, fewer droll scenes than those of the Towneley collection. But +a very remarkable example is furnished in the play of the "Trial of +Joseph and Mary," which is a very grotesque picture of the proceedings +in a mediaeval consistory court. The sompnour, a character so well +known by Chaucer's picture of him, opens the piece by reading from his +book a long list of offenders against chastity. At its conclusion, +two "detractors" make their appearance, who repeat various scandalous +stories against the Virgin Mary and her husband Joseph, which are +overheard by some of the high officers of the court, and Mary and +Joseph are formally accused and placed upon their trial. The trial +itself is a scene of low ribaldry, which can only have afforded +amusement to a very vulgar audience. There is a certain amount of the +same kind of indelicate drollery in the play of "The Woman taken in +Adultery," in this collection. The "Chester Mysteries" are still more +sparing of such scenes, but they are printed from manuscripts written +after the Reformation, which had, perhaps, gone through the process +of expurgation, in which such excrescences had been lopped off. +However, in the play of "Noah's Flood," we have the old quarrel between +Noah and his wife, which is carried so far that the latter actually +beats her husband in the presence of the audience. There is a little +drollery in the play of "The Shepherds," a considerable amount of what +may be called "Billingsgate" language in the play of the "Slaughter +of the Innocents," but less than the usual amount of insolence in the +tormentors and demons.[88] It is probable, however, that these droll +scenes were not always considered an integral part of the play in which +they were introduced, but that they were kept as separate subjects, to +be introduced at will, and not always in the same play, and therefore +that they were not copied with the play in the manuscripts. + + [88] The editions of the three principal collections of English + mysteries are--1. "The Towneley Mysteries," 8vo., London, + 1836, published by the Surtees Society; 2. "Ludus Coventriae: a + Collection of Mysteries, formerly represented at Coventry on the + Feast of Corpus Christi," edited by James Orchard Halliwell, + Esq., 8vo., London, 1841, published by the Shakespeare Society; + 3. "The Chester Plays: a Collection of Mysteries founded upon + Scriptural Subjects, and formerly represented by the Trades of + Chester at Whitsuntide," edited by Thomas Wright, Esq., 2 vols. + 8vo., London, 1843 and 1847, published by the Shakespeare Society. + +In the Coventry play of "Noah's Flood," when Noah has received the +directions from an angel for the building of the ark, he leaves the +stage to proceed to this important work. On his departure, Lamech comes +forward, blind and led by a youth, who directs his hand to shoot at a +beast concealed in a bush. Lamech shoots, and kills Cain, upon which, +in his anger, he beats the youth to death, and laments the misfortune +into which the latter has led him. This was the legendary explanation +of the passage in the fourth chapter of Genesis: "And Lamech said ... +I have slain a man to my wounding, and a young man to my hurt; if Cain +shall be avenged seven-fold, truly Lamech seventy and seven-fold." It +is evident that this is a piece of scriptural story which has nothing +to do with Noah's flood, and accordingly, in the Coventry play, we +are told in the stage directions, that it was introduced in the place +of the "interlude,"[89] as if there were a place in the machinery of +the pageant where the episode, which was not an integral part of the +subject, was performed, and that this part of the performance was +called an interlude, or play introduced in the interval of the action +of the main subject. The word _interlude_ remained long in our language +as applied to such short and simple dramatic pieces as we may suppose +to have formed the drolleries of the mysteries. But they had another +name in France which has had a greater and more lulling celebrity. +In one of the early French miracle-plays, that of "St. Fiacre," an +interlude of this kind is introduced, containing five personages--a +brigand or robber, a peasant, a sergeant, and the wives of the two +latter. The brigand, meeting the peasant on the highway, asks the way +to St. Omer, and receives a clownish answer, which is followed by one +equally rude on a second question. The brigand, in revenge, steals +the peasant's capon, but the sergeant comes up at this moment and, +attempting to arrest the thief, receives a blow from the latter which +is supposed to break his right arm. The brigand thus escapes, and the +peasant and the sergeant quit the scene, which is immediately occupied +by their wives. The sergeant's wife is informed by the other of the +injury sustained by her husband, and she exults over it because it will +deprive him of the power of beating her. They then proceed to a tavern, +call for wine, and make merry, the conversation turning upon the faults +of their respective husbands, who are not spared. In the midst of +their enjoyments, the two husbands return, and show, by beating their +wives, that they are not very greatly disabled. In the manuscript of +the miracle-play of "St. Fiacre," in which this amusing episode is +introduced, a marginal stage direction is expressed in the following +words, "_cy est interpose une farsse_" (here a farce is introduced). +This is one of the earliest instances of the application of the term +_farce_ to these short dramatic facetiae. Different opinions have been +expressed as to the origin of the word, but it seems most probable +that it is derived from an old French verb, _farcer_, to jest, to make +merry, whence the modern word _farceur_ for a joker, and that it thus +means merely a drollery or merriment. + + [89] "Hic transit Noe cum familia sua pro navi, quo exeunte, _locum + interludii subintret_ statim Lameth, conductus ab adolescente, et + dicens," &c. + +I have just suggested as a reason for the absence of these interludes, +or farces, in the mysteries as they are found in the manuscripts, +that they were probably not looked upon as parts of the mysteries +themselves, but as separate pieces which might be used at pleasure. +When we reach a certain period in their history, we find that not only +was this the case, but that these farces were performed separately and +altogether independently of the religious plays. It is in France that +we find information which enables us to trace the gradual revolution +in the mediaeval drama. A society was formed towards the close of the +fourteenth century under the title of _Confreres de la Passion_, who, +in 1398, established a regular theatre at St. Maur-des-Fosses, and +subsequently obtained from Charles VI. a privilege to transport their +theatre into Paris, and to perform in it mysteries and miracle-plays. +They now rented of the monks of Hermieres a hall in the hospital of the +Trinity, outside of the Porte St. Denis, performing there regularly +on Sundays and saints' days, and probably making a good thing of it, +for, during a long period, they enjoyed great popularity. Gradually, +however, this popularity was so much diminished, that the _confreres_ +were obliged to have recourse to expedients for reviving it. Meanwhile +other similar societies had arisen into importance. The clerks of +the Bazoche, or lawyers' clerks of the Palais de Justice, had thus +associated together, it is said, as early as the beginning of the +fourteenth century, and they distinguished themselves by composing +and performing farces, for which they appear to have obtained a +privilege. Towards the close of the fourteenth century, there arose +in Paris another society, which took the name of _Enfans sans souci_, +or Careless Boys, who elected a president or chief with the title +of _Prince des Sots_, or King of the Fools, and who composed a sort +of dramatic satires which they called _Sotties_. Jealousies soon +arose between these two societies, either because the sotties were +made sometimes to resemble too closely the farces, or because each +trespassed too often on the territories of the other. Their differences +were finally arranged by a compromise, whereby the Bazochians yielded +to their rivals the privilege of performing farces, and received in +return the permission to perform sotties. The Bazochians, too, had +invented a new class of dramatic pieces which they called _Moralities_, +and in which allegorical personages were introduced. Thus three +dramatic societies continued to exist in France through the fifteenth +century, and until the middle of the sixteenth. + +These various pieces, under the titles of farces, sotties, moralities, +or whatever other names might be given to them, had become exceedingly +popular at the beginning of the sixteenth century, and a very +considerable number of them were printed, and many of them are still +preserved, but they are books of great rarity, and often unique.[90] +Of these the farces form the most numerous class. They consist simply +of the tales of the older jougleurs or story-tellers represented in a +dramatic form, but they often display great skill in conducting the +plot, and a considerable amount of wit. The story of the sheep-stealer +in the Towneley play of "The Shepherds," is a veritable farce. As +in the fabliaux, the most common subjects of these farces are love +intrigues, carried on in a manner which speaks little for the morality +of the age in which they were written. Family quarrels frequently +form the subject of a farce, and the weaknesses and vices of women. +The priests, as usual, are not spared, but are introduced as the +seducers of wives and daughters. In one the wives have found a means of +re-modelling their husbands and making them young again, which they put +in practice with various ludicrous circumstances. Tricks of servants +are also common subjects for these farces. One is the story of a boy +who does not know his own father, and some of the subjects are of a +still more trivial character, as that of the boy who steals a tart from +the pastrycook's shop. Two hungry boys, prowling about the streets, +come to the shop door just as the pastrycook is giving directions for +sending an eel-pie after him. By an ingenious deception the boys gain +possession of the pie and eat it, and they are both caught and severely +chastised. This is the whole plot of the farce. A dull schoolboy +examined by his master in the presence of his parents, and the mirth +produced by his blunders and their ignorance, formed also a favourite +subject among these farces. One or two examples are preserved, and, +from a companion of them, we might be led to suspect that Shakespeare +took the idea of the opening scene in the fourth act of the "Merry +Wives of Windsor" from one of these old farces. + + [90] The most remarkable collection of these early farces, sotties, + and moralities yet known, was found accidentally in 1845, and + is now in the British Museum. These were all edited in Paris + as the first three volumes of a work in ten, entitled "Ancien + Theatre Francois, ou Collection des Ouvrages dramatiques les plus + remarquable depuis les Mysteres jusqu'a Corneille, publie ... par + M. Viollet le Duc," 12mo., Paris, 1854. It is right to state that + these three volumes were edited, not by M. Viollet le Duc, but + by a scholar better known for his learning in the older French + literature, M. Anatole de Montaiglon. + +The sotties and moralities were more imaginative and extravagant +than the farces, and were filled with allegorical personages. The +characters introduced in the former have generally some relation to +the kingdom of folly. Thus, in one of the sotties, the king of fools +(_le roy des sotz_) is represented as holding his court, and consulting +with his courtiers, whose names are Triboulet, Mitouflet, Sottinet, +Coquibus, and Guippelin. Their conversation, as may be supposed, is +of a satirical character. Another is entitled "The Sottie of the +Deceivers," or cheats. Sottie--another name for mother Folly--opens +the piece with a proclamation or address to fools of all descriptions, +summoning them to her presence. Two, named Teste-Verte and Fine-Mine, +obey the call, and they are questioned as to their own condition, and +their proceedings, but their conversation is interrupted by the sudden +intrusion of another personage named Everyone (_Chascun_), who, on +examination, is found to be as perfect a fool as any of them. They +accordingly fraternise, and join in a song. Finally, another character, +The Time (_le Temps_), joins them, and they agree to submit to his +directions. Accordingly he instructs them in the arts of flattery +and deceiving, and the other similar means by which men of that time +sought to thrive. Another is the Sottie of Foolish Ostentation (_de +folle bobance_). This lady similarly opens the scene with an address +to all the fools who hold allegiance to her, and three of these make +their appearance. The first fool is the gentleman, the second the +merchant, the fourth the peasant, and their conversation is a satire +on contemporary society. The personification of abstract principles is +far bolder. The three characters who compose one of these moralities +are Everything (_tout_), Nothing (_rien_), and Everyone (_chascun_). +How the personification of Nothing was to be represented, we are not +told. The title of another of these moralities will be enough to give +the reader a notion of their general title; it is, "A New Morality of +the Children of Now-a-Days (_Maintenant_), who are the Scholars of +Once-good (_Jabien_), who shows them how to play at Cards and at Dice, +and to entertain Luxury, whereby one comes to Shame (_Honte_), and +from Shame to Despair (_Desespoir_), and from Despair to the gibbet of +Perdition, and then turns himself to Good-doing." The characters in +this play are Now-a-Days, Once-good, Luxury, Shame, Despair, Perdition, +and Good-doing. + +The three dramatic societies which produced all these farces, sotties, +and moralities, continued to flourish in France until the middle of +the sixteenth century, at which period a great revolution in dramatic +literature took place in that country. The performance of the Mysteries +had been forbidden by authority, and the Bazochians themselves were +suppressed. The petty drama represented by the farces and sotties +went rapidly out of fashion, in the great change through which the +mind of society was at this time passing, and in which the taste for +classical literature overcame all others. The old drama in France had +disappeared, and a new one, formed entirely upon an imitation of the +classical drama, was beginning to take its place. This incipient drama +was represented in the sixteenth century by Etienne Jodel, by Jacques +Grevin, by Remy Belleau, and especially by Pierre de Larivey, the most +prolific, and perhaps the most talented, of the earlier French regular +dramatic authors. + +These French dramatic essays, the farces, the sotties, and the +moralities, were imitated, and sometimes translated, in English, and +many of them were printed; for the further our researches are carried +into the early history of printing, the more we are astonished at the +extreme activity of the press, even in its infancy, in multiplying +literature of a popular character. In England, as in France, the +farces had been, at a rather early period, detached from the mysteries +and miracle-plays, but the word _interludes_ had been adopted here +as the general title for them, and continued in use even after the +establishment of the regular drama. Perhaps this name owed its +popularity to the circumstance that it seemed more appropriate to its +object, when it became so fashionable in England to act these plays at +intervals in the great festivals and entertainments given at court, or +in the households of the great nobles. At all events, there can be +no doubt that this fashion had a great influence on the fate of the +English stage. The custom of performing plays in the universities, +great schools, and inns of court, had also the effect of producing a +number of very clever dramatic writers; for when this literature was +so warmly patronised by princes and nobles, people of the highest +qualifications sought to excel in it. Hence we find from books of +household expenses and similar records of the period, that there was, +during the sixteenth century, an immense number of such plays compiled +in England which were never printed, and of which, therefore, very few +are preserved. + +The earliest known plays of this description in the English language +belong to the class which were called in France moralities. They are +three in number, and are preserved in a manuscript in the possession +of Mr. Hudson Gurney, which I have not seen, but which is said to be +of the reign of our king Henry VI. Several words and allusions in them +seem to me to show that they were translated, or adapted, from the +French. They contain exactly the same kind of allegorical personages. +The allegory itself is a simple one, and easily understood. In the +first, which is entitled the "Castle of Perseverance," the hero is +_Humanum Genus_ (Mankynd), for the names of the parts are all given in +Latin. On the birth of this personage, a good and a bad angel offer +themselves as his protectors and guides, and he chooses the latter, who +introduces him to _Mundus_ (the World), and to his friends, _Stultitia_ +(Folly), and _Voluptas_ (Pleasure). These and some other personages +bring him under the influence of the seven deadly sins, and _Humanum +Genus_ takes for his bedfellow a lady named _Luxuria_. At length +_Confessio_ and _Poenitentia_ succeed in reclaiming _Humanum Genus_, +and they conduct him for security to the Castle of Perseverance, where +the seven cardinal virtues attend upon him. He is besieged in this +castle by the seven deadly sins, who are led to the attack by Belial, +but are defeated. _Humanum Genus_ has now become aged, and is exposed +to the attacks of another assailant. This is _Avaritia_, who enters +the Castle stealthily by undermining the wall, and artfully persuades +_Humanum Genus_ to leave it. He thus comes again under the influence +of _Mundus_, until _Mors_ (Death) arrives, and the bad angel carries +off the victim to the domains of Satan. This, however, is not the end +of the piece. God appears, seated on His throne, and Mercy, Peace, +Justice, and Truth appear before Him, the two former pleading for, +and the latter against, _Humanum Genus_, who, after some discussion, +is saved. This allegorical picture of human life was, in one form or +other, a favourite subject of the moralisers. I may quote as examples +the interludes of "Lusty Juventus," reprinted in Hawkins's "Origin +of the English Drama," and the "Disobedient Child," and "Trial of +Treasure," reprinted by the Percy Society. + +The second of the moralities ascribed to the reign of Henry VI., has +for its principal characters Mind, Will, and Understanding. These are +assailed by Lucifer, who succeeds in alluring them to vice, and they +change their modest raiment for the dress of gay gallants. Various +other characters are introduced in a similar strain of allegory, until +they are reclaimed by Wisdom. Mankind is again the principal personage +of the third of these moralities, and some of the other characters in +the play, such as Nought, New-guise, and Now-a-days, remind us of the +similar allegorical personages in the French moralities described above. + +These interludes bring us into acquaintance with a new comic character. +The great part which folly acted in the social destinies of mankind, +had become an acknowledged fact; and as the court and almost every +great household had its professed fool, so it seems to have been +considered that a play also was incomplete without a fool. But, +as the character of the fool was usually given to one of the most +objectionable characters in it, so, for this reason apparently, the +fool in a play was called the _Vice_. Thus, in "Lusty Juventus," the +character of Hypocrisy is called the Vice; in the play of "All for +Money," it is Sin; in that of "Tom Tyler and his Wife," it is Desire; +in the "Trial of Treasure" it is Inclination; and in some instances the +Vice appears to be the demon himself. The Vice seems always to have +been dressed in the usual costume of a court fool, and he perhaps had +other duties besides his mere part in the plot, such as making jests of +his own, and using other means for provoking the mirth of the audience +in the intervals of the action. + +A few of our early English interludes were, in the strict sense of the +word, farces. Such is the "mery play" of "John the Husband, Tyb the +Wife, and Sir John the Priest," written by John Heywood, the plot of +which presents the same simplicity as those of the farces which were so +popular in France. John has a shrew for his wife, and has good causes +for suspecting an undue intimacy between her and the priest; but they +find means to blind his eyes, which is the more easily done, because +he is a great coward, except when he is alone. Tyb, the wife, makes a +pie, and proposes that the priest shall be invited to assist in eating +it. The husband is obliged, very unwillingly, to be the bearer of the +invitation, and is not a little surprised when the priest refuses it. +He gives as his reason, that he was unwilling to intrude himself into +company where he knew he was disliked, and persuaded John that he had +fallen under the wife's displeasure, because, in private interviews +with her, he had laboured to induce her to bridle her temper, and treat +her husband with more gentleness. John, delighted at the discovery +of the priest's honesty, insists on his going home with him to feast +upon the pie. There the guilty couple contrive to put the husband to a +disagreeable penance, while they eat the pie, and treat him otherwise +very ignominiously, in consequence of which the married couple fight. +The priest interferes, and the fight thus becomes general, and is only +ended by the departure of Tyb and the priest, leaving the husband alone. + +The popularity of the moralities in England is, perhaps, to be +explained by peculiarities in the condition of society, and the +greater pre-occupation of men's minds in our country at that time +with the religious and social revolution which was then in progress. +The Reformers soon saw the use which might be made of the stage, and +compiled and caused to be acted interludes in which the old doctrines +and ceremonies were turned to ridicule, and the new ones were held up +in a favourable light. We have excellent examples of the success with +which this plan was carried out in the plays of the celebrated John +Bale. His play of "Kyng Johan," an edition of which was published by +the Camden Society, is not only a remarkable work of a very remarkable +man, but it may be considered as the first rude model of the English +historical drama. The stage became now a political instrument in +England, almost as it had been in ancient Greece, and it thus became +frequently the object of particular as well as general persecution. +In 1543, the vicar of Yoxford, in Suffolk, drew upon himself the +violent hostility of the other clergy in that county by composing and +causing to be performed plays against the pope's counsellors. Six years +afterwards, in 1549, a royal proclamation prohibited for a time the +performance of interludes throughout the kingdom, on the ground that +they contained "matter tendyng to sedicion and contempnyng of sundery +good orders and lawes, whereupon are growen daily, and are likely +to growe, muche disquiet, division, tumultes, and uproares in this +realme." From this time forward we begin to meet with laws for the +regulation of stage performances, and proceedings in cases of supposed +infractions of them, and it became customary to obtain the approval of +a play by the privy council before it was allowed to be acted. Thus +gradually arose the office of a dramatic censor. + +With Bale and with John Heywood, the English plays began to approach +the form of a regular drama, and the two now rather celebrated pieces, +"Ralph Roister Doister," and "Gammer Gurton's Needle," which belong +to the middle of the sixteenth century, may be considered as comedies +rather than as interludes. The former, written by a well-known scholar +of that time, Nicholas Udall, master of Eton, is a satirical picture +of some phases of London life, and relates the ridiculous adventures +of a weak-headed and vain-glorious gallant, who believes that all +the women must be in love with him, and who is led by a needy and +designing parasite named Matthew Merygreeke. Rude as it is as a +dramatic composition, it displays no lack of talent, and it is full +of genuine humour. The humour in "Gammer Gurton's Needle" is none +the less rich because it is of coarser and rather broader cast. The +good dame of the piece, Gammer Gurton, during an interruption in the +process of mending the breeches of her husband, Hodge, has lost her +needle, and much lamentation follows a misfortune so great at a time +when needles appear to have been rare and valuable articles in the +rural household. In the midst of their trouble appears Diccon, who is +described in the _dramatis personae_ as "Diccon the Bedlam," meaning +that he was an idiot, and who appears to hold the position of Vice in +the play. Diccon, however, though weak-minded, is a cunning fellow, and +especially given to making mischief, and he accuses a neighbour, Dame +Chat, of stealing the needle. At the same time, the same mischievous +individual tells Dame Chat that Gammer Gurton's cock had been stolen in +the night from the henroost, and that she, Dame Chat, was accused of +being the thief. Amid the general misunderstanding which results from +Diccon's successful endeavours, they send for the parson of the parish, +Dr. Rat, who appears to unite in himself the three parts of preacher, +physician, and conjurer, in order to have advantage of his experience +in finding the needle. Diccon now contrives a new piece of mischief. +He persuades Dame Chat that Hodge intends to hide himself in a certain +hole in the premises, in order, that night, to creep out and kill all +her hens; and at the same time he informs Dr. Rat, that if he will +hide in the same hole, he will give him ocular demonstration of Dame +Chat's guilt of stealing the needle. The consequence is that Dame Chat +attacks by surprise, and somewhat violently, the supposed depredator +in the hole, and that Dr. Rat gets a broken head. Dame Chat is brought +before "Master Bayly" for the assault, and the proceedings in the trial +bring to light the deceptions which have been played upon them all, +and Diccon stands convicted as the wicked perpetrator. In fact, the +"bedlam" confesses it all, and it is finally decided by "Master Bayly" +that there shall be a general reconciliation, and that Diccon shall +take a solemn oath on Hodge's breech, that he will do his best to find +the lost needle. Diccon has still the spirit of mischief in him, and +instead of laying his hand quietly on Hodge's breech, he gives him a +sharp blow, which is responded to by an unexpected scream. The needle, +indeed, which has never quitted the breeches, is driven rather deep +into the fleshy part of Hodge's body, and the general joy at having +found it again overruling all other considerations, they all agree to +be friends over a jug of "drink." + +We cannot but feel astonished at the short period which it required +to develop rude attempts at dramatic composition like this into the +wonderful creations of a Shakespeare; and it can only be explained +by the fact that it was an age remarkable for producing men of +extraordinary genius in every branch of intellectual development. +Hitherto, the literature of the stage had represented the intelligence +of the mass; it became individualised in Shakespeare, and this fact +marks an entirely new era in the history of the drama. In the writings +of our great bard, nearly all the peculiarities of the older national +drama are preserved, even some which may be perhaps considered as its +defects, but carried to a degree of perfection which they had never +attained before. The drollery, which, as we have seen, could not be +dispensed with even in the religious mysteries and miracle-plays, had +become so necessary, that it could not be dispensed with in tragedy. +Its omission belonged to a later period, when the foreign dramatists +became objects of imitation in England. But in the earlier drama, these +scenes of drollery seem frequently to have no connection whatever with +the general plot, while Shakespeare always interweaves them skilfully +with it, and they seem to form an integral and necessary part of it. + + + + + CHAPTER XVII. + + DIABLERIE IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.--EARLY TYPES OF THE DIABOLICAL + FORMS.--ST. ANTHONY.--ST. GUTHLAC.--REVIVAL OF THE TASTE FOR SUCH + SUBJECTS IN THE BEGINNING OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.--THE FLEMISH + SCHOOL OF BREUGHEL.--THE FRENCH AND ITALIAN SCHOOLS, CALLOT, + SALVATOR ROSA. + + +We have seen how the popular demonology furnished materials for the +earliest exercise of comic art in the middle ages, and how the taste +for this particular class of grotesque lasted until the close of the +mediaeval period. After the "renaissance" of art and literature, this +taste took a still more remarkable form, and the school of grotesque +_diablerie_ which flourished during the sixteenth century, and the +first half of the seventeenth, justly claims a chapter to itself. + +The birthplace of this demonology, as far as it belongs to +Christianity, must probably be sought in the deserts of Egypt. It +spread thence over the east and the west, and when it reached our +part of the world, it grafted itself, as I have remarked in a former +chapter, on the existing popular superstitions of Teutonic paganism. +The playfully burlesque, which held so great a place in these +superstitions, no doubt gave a more comic character to this Christian +demonology than it had possessed before the mixture. Its primitive +representative was the Egyptian monk, St. Anthony, who is said to have +been born at a village called Coma, in Upper Egypt, in the year 251. +His history was written in Greek by St. Athanasius, and was translated +into Latin by the ecclesiastical historian Evagrius. Anthony was +evidently a fanatical visionary, subject to mental illusions, which +were fostered by his education. To escape from the temptations of the +world, he sold all his property, which was considerable, gave it to +the poor, and then retired into the desert of the Thebaid, to live a +life of the strictest asceticism. The evil one persecuted him in his +solitude, and sought to drive him back into the corruptions of worldly +life. He first tried to fill his mind with regretful reminiscences +of his former wealth, position in society, and enjoyments; when this +failed, he disturbed his mind with voluptuous images and desires, which +the saint resisted with equal success. The persecutor now changed his +tactics, and presenting himself to Anthony in the form of a black and +ugly youth, confessed to him, with apparent candour, that he was the +spirit of uncleanness, and acknowledged that he had been vanquished by +the extraordinary merits of Anthony's sanctity. The saint, however, +saw that this was only a stratagem to stir up in him the spirit of +pride and self-confidence, and he met it by subjecting himself to +greater mortifications than ever, which of course made him still more +liable to these delusions. Now he sought greater solitude by taking +up his residence in a ruined Egyptian sepulchre, but the farther he +withdrew from the world, the more he became the object of diabolical +persecution. Satan broke in upon his privacy with a host of attendants, +and during the night beat him to such a degree, that one morning the +attendant who brought him food found him lying senseless in his cell, +and had him carried to the town, where his friends were on the point of +burying him, believing him to be dead, when he suddenly revived, and +insisted on being taken back to his solitary dwelling. The legend tells +us that the demons appeared to him in the forms of the most ferocious +animals, such as lions, bulls, wolves, asps, serpents, scorpions, +panthers, and bears, each attacking him in the manner peculiar to its +species, and with its peculiar voice, thus making together a horrible +din. Anthony left his tomb to retire farther into the desert, where he +made a ruined castle his residence; and here he was again frightfully +persecuted by the demons, and the noise they made was so great and +horrible that it was often heard at a vast distance. According to the +narrative, Anthony reproached the demons in very abusive language, +called them hard names, and even spat in their faces; but his most +effective weapon was always the cross. Thus the saint became bolder, +and sought a still more lonely abode, and finally established himself +on the top of a high mountain in the upper Thebaid. The demons still +continued to persecute him, under a great variety of forms; on one +occasion their chief appeared to him under the form of a man, with the +lower members of an ass. + +The demons which tormented St. Anthony became the general type for +subsequent creations, in which these first pictures were gradually, and +in the sequel, greatly improved upon. St. Anthony's persecutors usually +assumed the shapes of _bona fide_ animals, but those of later stories +took monstrous and grotesque forms, strange mixtures of the parts of +different animals, and of others which never existed. Such were seen +by St. Guthlac, the St. Anthony of the Anglo-Saxons, among the wild +morasses of Croyland. One night, which he was passing at his devotions +in his cell, they poured in upon him in great numbers; "and they filled +all the house with their coming, and they poured in on every side, +from above and from beneath, and everywhere. They were in countenance +horrible, and they had great heads, and a long neck, and lean visage; +they were filthy and squalid in their beards, and they had rough ears, +and distorted face, and fierce eyes, and foul mouths; and their teeth +were like horses' tusks, and their throats were filled with flame, and +they were grating in their voice; they had crooked shanks, and knees +big and great behind, and distorted toes, and shrieked hoarsely with +their voices; and they came with such immoderate noises and immense +horror, that it seemed to him that all between heaven and earth +resounded with their dreadful cries." On another similar occasion, "it +happened one night, when the holy man Guthlac fell to his prayers, he +heard the howling of cattle and various wild beasts. Not long after +he saw the appearance of animals and wild beasts and creeping things +coming in to him. First he saw the visage of a lion that threatened him +with his bloody tusks, also the likeness of a bull, and the visage of +a bear, as when they are enraged. Also he perceived the appearance of +vipers, and a hog's grunting, and the howling of wolves, and croaking +of ravens, and the various whistlings of birds, that they might, with +their fantastic appearance, divert the mind of the holy man." + +Such were the suggestions on which the mediaeval sculptors and +illuminators worked with so much effect, as we have seen repeatedly +in the course of our preceding chapters. After the revival of art +in western Europe in the fifteenth century, this class of legends +became great favourites with painters and engravers, and soon gave +rise to the peculiar school of _diablerie_ mentioned above. At that +time the story of the Temptation of St. Anthony attracted particular +attention, and it is the subject of many remarkable prints belonging +to the earlier ages of the art of engraving. It employed the pencils +of such artists as Martin Schongauer, Israel van Mechen, and Lucas +Cranach. Of the latter we have two different engravings on the same +subject--St. Anthony carried into the air by the demons, who are +represented in a great variety of grotesque and monstrous forms. The +most remarkable of the two bears the date of 1506, and was, therefore, +one of Cranach's earlier works. But the great representative of this +earlier school of _diablerie_ was Peter Breughel, a Flemish painter +who flourished in the middle of the sixteenth century. He was born at +Breughel, near Breda, and lived some time at Antwerp, but afterwards +established himself at Brussels. So celebrated was he for the love of +the grotesque displayed in his pictures, that he was known by the name +of Peter the Droll. Breughel's "Temptation of St. Anthony," like one +or two others of his subjects of the same class, was engraved in a +reduced form by J. T. de Bry. Breughel's demons are figures of the most +fantastic description--creations of a wildly grotesque imagination; +they present incongruous and laughable mixtures of parts of living +things which have no relation whatever to one another. Our cut No. 155 +represents a group of these grotesque demons, from a plate by Breughel, +engraved in 1565, and entitled _Divus Jacobus diabolicis praestigiis +ante magnum sistitur_ (St. James is arrested before the magician by +diabolical delusions). The engraving is full of similarly grotesque +figures. On the right is a spacious chimney, and up it witches, riding +on brooms, are making their escape, while in the air are seen other +witches riding away upon dragons and a goat. A kettle is boiling over +the fire, around which a group of monkeys are seen sitting and warming +themselves. Behind these a cat and a toad are holding a very intimate +conversation. In the background stands and boils the great witches' +caldron. On the right of the picture the _magus_, or magician, is +seated, reading his _grimoire_; with a frame before him supporting the +pot containing his magical ingredients. The saint occupies the middle +of the picture, surrounded by the demons represented in our cut and by +many others; and as he approaches the magician, he is seen raising his +right hand in the attitude of pronouncing a benediction, the apparent +consequence of which is a frightful explosion of the magician's pot, +which strikes the demons with evident consternation. Nothing can be +more _bizarre_ than the horse's head upon human legs in armour, the +parody upon a crawling spider behind it, the skull (apparently of a +horse) supported upon naked human legs, the strangely excited animal +behind the latter, and the figure furnished with pilgrim's hood +and staff, which appears to be mocking the saint. Another print--a +companion to the foregoing--represents the still more complete +discomfiture of the _magus_. The saint here occupies the right-hand +side of the picture, and is raising his hand higher, with apparently +a greater show of authority. The demons have all turned against their +master the magician, whom they are beating and hurling headlong from +his chair. They seem to be proclaiming their joy at his fall by all +sorts of playful attitudes. It is a sort of demon fair. Some of them, +to the left of the picture, are dancing and standing upon their heads +on a tight-rope. Near them another is playing some game like that +which we now call the thimble-rig. The monkeys are dancing to the +tune of a great drum. A variety of their mountebank tricks are going +on in different parts of the scene. Three of these playful actors are +represented in our cut No. 156. + + [Illustration: _No. 156. Strange Demons._] + +Breughel also executed a series of similarly grotesque engravings, +representing in this same fantastic manner the virtues and vices, such +as Pride (_superbia_), Courage (_fortitudo_), Sloth (_desidia_), &c. +These bear the date of 1558. They are crowded with figures equally +grotesque with those just mentioned, but a great part of which it +would be almost impossible to describe. I give two examples from the +engraving of "Sloth," in the accompanying cut (No. 157). + + [Illustration: _No. 155. St. James and his Persecutors._] + + [Illustration: _No. 157. Imps of Sloth._] + + [Illustration: _No. 158. The Folly of Hunting._] + +From making up figures from parts of animals, this early school of +grotesque proceeded to create animated figures out of inanimate +things, such as machines, implements of various kinds, household +utensils, and other such articles. A German artist, of about the same +time as Breughel, has left us a singular series of etchings of this +description, which are intended as an allegorical satire on the follies +of mankind. The allegory is here of such a singular character, that +we can only guess at the meaning of these strange groups through four +lines of German verse which are attached to each of them. In this +manner we learn that the group represented in our cut, No. 158, which +is the second in this series, is intended as a satire upon those who +waste their time in hunting, which, the verses tell us, they will in +the sequel lament bitterly; and they are exhorted to cry loud and +continually to God, and to let that serve them in the place of hound +and hawk. + + _Die zeit die du verleurst mit jagen, + Die wirstu zwar noch schmertzlich klagen; + Ruff laut zu Gott gar oft und vil, + Das sey dein hund und federspil._ + + [Illustration: _No. 159. The Wastefulness of Youth._] + +The next picture in the series, which is equally difficult to describe, +is aimed against those who fail in attaining virtue or honour through +sluggishness. Others follow, but I will only give one more example. It +forms our cut No. 159, and appears, from the verses accompanying it, +to be aimed against those who practice wastefulness in their youth, +and thus become objects of pity and scorn in old age. Whatever may be +the point of the allegory contained in the engraving, it is certainly +far-fetched, and not very apparent. + +This German-Flemish school of grotesque does not appear to have +outlived the sixteenth century, or at least it had ceased to flourish +in the century following. But the taste for the _diablerie_ of the +Temptation scenes passed into France and Italy, in which countries +it assumed a much more refined character, though at the same time +one equally grotesque and imaginative. These artists, too, returned +to the original legend, and gave it forms of their own conception. +Daniel Rabel, a French artist, who lived at the end of the sixteenth +century, published a rather remarkable engraving of the "Temptation of +St. Anthony," in which the saint appears on the right of the picture, +kneeling before a mound on which three demons are dancing. On the +right hand of the saint stands a naked woman, sheltering herself with +a parasol, and tempting the saint with her charms. The rest of the +piece is filled with demons in a great variety of forms and postures. +Another French artist, Nicholas Cochin, has left us two "Temptations of +St. Anthony," in rather spirited etching, of the earlier part of the +seventeenth century. In the first, the saint is represented kneeling +before a crucifix, surrounded by demons. The youthful and charming +temptress is here dressed in the richest garments, and the highest +style of fashion, and displays all her powers of seduction. The body of +the picture is, as usual, occupied by multitudes of diabolical figures, +in grotesque forms. In Cochin's other picture of the Temptation of St. +Anthony, the saint is represented as a hermit engaged in his prayers; +the female figure of voluptuousness (_voluptas_) occupies the middle of +the picture, and behind the saint is seen a witch with her besom. + + [Illustration: _No. 160. The Demon Tilter (Callot)._] + + [Illustration: _No. 161. Uneasy Riding (Callot)._] + +But the artist who excelled in this subject at the period at which we +now arrive, was the celebrated Jacques Callot, who was born at Nancy, +in Brittany, in 1593, and died at Florence on the 24th of March, 1635, +which, according to the old style of calculating, may mean March, +1636. Of Callot we shall have to speak in another chapter. He treated +the subject of the Temptation of St. Anthony in two different plates, +which are considered as ranking among the most remarkable of his +works, and to which, in fact, he appears to have given much thought +and attention. He is known, indeed, to have worked diligently at it. +They resemble those of the older artists in the number of diabolical +figures introduced into the picture, but they display an extraordinary +vivid imagination in the forms, postures, physiognomies, and even +the equipments, of the chimerical figures, all equally droll and +burlesque, but which present an entire contrast to the more coarse and +vulgar conceptions of the German-Flemish school. This difference will +be understood best by an example. One of Callot's demons is represented +in our cut No. 160. Many of them are mounted on nondescript animals, +of the most extraordinary demoniacal character, and such is the case +of the demon in our cut, who is running a tilt at the saint with his +tilting spear in his hand, and, to make more sure, his eyes well +furnished with a pair of spectacles. In our next cut, No. 161, we give +a second example of the figures in Callot's peculiar _diablerie_. +The demon in this case is riding very uneasily, and, in fact, seems +in danger of being thrown. The steeds of both are of an anomalous +character; the first is a sort of dragon-horse; the second a mixture +of a lobster, a spider, and a craw-fish. Mariette, the art-collector +and art-writer of the reign of Louis XV. as well as artist, considers +this grotesque, or, as he calls it, "fantastic and comic character," +as almost necessary to the pictures of the Temptation of St. Anthony, +which he treats as one of Callot's especially _serious_ subjects. +"It was allowable," he says, "to Callot, to give a flight to his +imagination. The more his fictions were of the nature of dreams, +the more they were fitted to what he had to express. For the demon +intending to torment St. Anthony, it is to be supposed that he must +have thought of all the forms most hideous, and most likely to strike +terror." + +Callot's first and larger print of the Temptation of St. Anthony is +rare. It is filled with a vast number of figures. Above is a fantastic +being who vomits thousands of demons. The saint is seen at the entrance +of a cavern, tormented by some of these. Others are scattered about in +different occupations. On one side, a demoniacal party are drinking +together, and pledging each other in their glasses; here, a devil is +playing on the guitar; there, others are occupied in a dance; all +such grotesque figures as our two examples would lead the reader to +expect. In the second of Callot's "Temptations," which is dated in +1635, and must therefore have been one of his latest works, the same +figure vomiting the demons occupies the upper part of the plate, and +the field is covered with a prodigious number of imps, more hideous in +their forms, and more varied in their extraordinary attitudes, than in +the same artist's first design. Below, a host of demons are dragging +the saint to a place where new torments are prepared for him. Callot's +prints of the Temptation of St. Anthony gained so great a reputation, +that imitations of them were subsequently published, some of which so +far approached his style, that they were long supposed to be genuine. + +Callot, though a Frenchman, studied and flourished in Italy, and +his style is founded upon Italian art. The last great artist whose +treatment of the Temptation I shall quote, is Salvator Rosa, an Italian +by birth, who flourished in the middle of the seventeenth century. +His style, according to some opinions, is refined from that of Callot; +at all events, it is bolder in design. Our cut No. 162 represents St. +Anthony protecting himself with the cross against the assaults of the +demon, as represented by Salvator Rosa. With this artist the school of +_diablerie_ of the sixteenth century may be considered to have come to +its end. + + [Illustration: _No. 162. St. Anthony and his Persecutor._] + + + + + CHAPTER XVIII. + + CALLOT AND HIS SCHOOL.--CALLOT'S ROMANTIC HISTORY.--HIS + "CAPRICI," AND OTHER BURLESQUE WORKS.--THE "BALLI" AND THE + BEGGARS.--IMITATORS OF CALLOT; DELLA BELLA.--EXAMPLES OF DELLA + BELLA.--ROMAIN DE HOOGHE. + + +The art of engraving on copper, although it had made rapid advances +during the sixteenth century, was still very far from perfection; but +the close of that century witnessed the birth of a man who was destined +not only to give a new character to this art, but also to bring in a +new style of caricature and burlesque. This was the celebrated Jacques +Callot, a native of Lorraine, and descended from a noble Burgundian +family. His father, Jean Callot, held the office of herald of Lorraine. +Jacques was born in the year 1592,[91] at Nancy, and appears to have +been destined for the church, with a view to which his early education +was regulated. But the early life of Jacques Callot presents a +romantic episode in the history of art aspirations. While yet hardly +more than an infant, he seized every opportunity of neglecting more +serious studies to practise drawing, and he displayed especially a +very precocious taste for satire, for his artistic talent was shown +principally in caricaturing all the people he knew. His father, and +apparently all his relatives, disapproved of his love for drawing, and +did what they could to discourage it; but in vain, for he still found +means of indulging it. Claude Henriet, the painter to the court of +Lorraine, gave him lessons, and his son, Israel Henriet, formed for +him a boy's friendship. He also learnt the elements of the art of +engraving of Demange Crocq, the engraver to the duke of Lorraine. + + [91] This is the date fixed by Meaume, in his excellent work on + Callot, entitled "Recherches sur la Vie et les Ouvrages de + Jacques Callot," 2 tom. 8vo., 1860. + +About this time, the painter Bellange, who had been a pupil of Claude +Henriet, returned from Italy, and gave young Callot an exciting account +of the wonders of art to be seen in that country; and soon afterwards +Claude Henriet dying, his son Israel went to Rome, and his letters +from thence had no less effect on the mind of the young artist at +Nancy, than the conversation of Bellange. Indeed the passion of the boy +for art was so strong, that, finding his parents obstinately opposed +to all his longings in this direction, he left his father's house +secretly, and, in the spring of 1604, when he had only just entered his +thirteenth year, he set out for Italy on foot, without introductions +and almost without money. He was even unacquainted with the road, but +after proceeding a short distance, he fell in with a band of gipsies, +and, as they were going to Florence, he joined their company. His +life among the gipsies, which lasted seven or eight weeks, appears to +have furnished food to his love of burlesque and caricature, and he +has handed down to us his impressions, in a series of four engravings +of scenes in gipsy life, admirably executed at a rather later period +of his life, which are full of comic humour. When they arrived at +Florence, Jacques Callot parted company with the gipsies, and was +fortunate enough to meet with an officer of the grand duke's household, +who listened to his story, and took so much interest in him, that he +obtained him admission to the studio of Remigio Canta Gallina. This +artist gave him instructions in drawing and engraving, and sought to +correct him of his taste for the grotesque by keeping him employed upon +serious subjects. + +After studying for some months under Canta Gallina, Jacques Callot +left Florence, and proceeded to Rome, to seek his old friend Israel +Henriet; but he had hardly arrived, when he was recognised in the +streets by some merchants from Nancy, who took him, and in spite of +his tears and resistance, carried him home to his parents. He was +now kept to his studies more strictly than ever, but nothing could +overcome his passion for art, and, having contrived to lay by some +money, after a short interval he again ran away from home. This time +he took the road to Lyons, and crossed Mont Cenis, and he had reached +Turin when he met in the street of that city his elder brother Jean, +who again carried him home to Nancy. Nothing could now repress young +Callot's ardour, and soon after this second escapade, he engraved a +copy of a portrait of Charles III., duke of Lorraine, to which he put +his name and the date 1607, and which, though it displays little skill +in engraving, excited considerable interest at the time. His parents +were now persuaded that it was useless to thwart any longer his natural +inclinations, and they not only allowed him to follow them, but they +yielded to his wish to return to Italy. The circumstances of the moment +were especially favourable. Charles III., duke of Lorraine, was dead, +and his successor, Henry II., was preparing to send an embassy to Rome +to announce his accession. Jean Callot, by his position of herald, +had sufficient interest to obtain for his son an appointment in the +ambassador's retinue, and Jacques Callot started for Rome on the 1st +of December, 1608, under more favourable auspices than those which had +attended his former visits to Italy. + +Callot reached Rome at the beginning of the year 1609, and now at +length he joined the friend of his childhood, Israel Henriet, and began +to throw all his energy into his art-labours. It is more than probable +that he studied under Tempesta, with Henriet, who was a pupil of that +painter, and another Lorrainer, Claude Dervet. After a time, Callot +began to feel the want of money, and obtained employment of a French +engraver, then residing in Rome, named Philippe Thomassin, with whom he +worked nearly three years, and became perfect in handling the graver. +Towards the end of the year 1611, Callot went to Florence, to place +himself under Julio Parigi, who then flourished there as a painter and +engraver. Tuscany was at this time ruled by its duke Cosmo de' Medicis, +a great lover of the arts, who took Callot under his patronage, giving +him the means to advance himself. Hitherto his occupation had been +principally copying the works of others, but under Parigi he began to +practise more in original design, and his taste for the grotesque came +upon him stronger than ever. Although Parigi blamed it, he could not +help admiring the talent it betrayed. In 1615, the grand duke gave a +great entertainment to the prince of Urbino, and Callot was employed +to make engravings of the festivities; it was his first commencement +in a class of designs by which he afterwards attained great celebrity. +In the year following, his engagement with Parigi ended, and he became +his own master. He now came out unfettered in his own originality. The +first fruits were seen in a new kind of designs, to which he gave the +name of "Caprices," a series of which appeared about the year 1617, +under the title of "Caprici di varie Figure." Callot re-engraved them +at Nancy in later years, and in the new title they were stated to have +been originally engraved in 1616. In a short preface, he speaks of +these as the first of his works on which he set any value. They now +strike us as singular examples of the fanciful creations of a most +grotesque imagination, but they no doubt preserve many traits of the +festivals, ceremonies, and manners of that land of masquerade, which +must have been then familiar to the Florentines; and these engravings +would, doubtless, be received by them with absolute delight. One is +copied in our cut No. 163; it represents a cripple supporting himself +on a short crutch, with his right arm in a sling. Our cut No. 164 is +another example from the same set, and represents a masked clown, with +his left hand on the hilt of his dagger, or perhaps of a wooden sword. +From this time, although he was very industrious and produced much, +Callot engraved only his own designs. + + [Illustration: _No. 163. A Cripple._] + + [Illustration: _No. 164. A Grotesque Masker._] + +While employed for others, Callot had worked chiefly with the graver, +but now that he was his own master, he laid aside that implement, and +devoted himself almost entirely to etching, in which he attained the +highest proficiency. His work is remarkable for the cleanness and ease +of his lines, and for the life and spirit he gave to his figures. +His talent lay especially in the extraordinary skill with which he +grouped together great numbers of diminutive figures, each of which +preserved its proper and full action and effect. The great annual fair +of the Impruneta was held with extraordinary festivities, and attended +by an immense concourse of people of all classes on St. Luke's Day, +the 18th of October, in the outskirts of Florence. Callot engraved +a large picture of this fair, which is absolutely wonderful. The +picture embraces an extensive space of ground, which is covered with +hundreds of figures, all occupied, singly or in groups, in different +manners, conversing, masquerading, buying and selling, playing games, +and performing in various ways; each group or figure is a picture in +itself. This engraving produced quite a sensation, and it was followed +by other pictures of fairs, and, after his final return to Nancy, +Callot engraved it anew. It was this talent for grouping large masses +of persons which caused the artist to be so often employed in drawing +great public ceremonies, sieges, and other warlike operations. + +By the duke of Florence, Cosmo II., Callot was liberally patronised +and loaded with benefits, but on his death the government had to be +placed in the hands of a regency, and art and literature no longer met +with the same encouragement. In this state of things, Callot was found +by Charles of Lorraine, afterwards duke Charles IV., and persuaded to +return to his native country. He arrived at Nancy in 1622, and began to +work there with greater activity even than he had displayed before. It +was not long after this that he produced his sets of grotesques, the +Balli (or dancers), the Gobbi (or hunchbacks), and the Beggars. The +first of these sets, called in the title _Balli_, or _Cucurucu_,[92] +consists of twenty-four small plates, each of them containing two comic +characters in grotesque attitudes, with groups of smaller figures in +the distance. Beneath the two prominent figures are their names, now +unintelligible, but at that time no doubt well known on the comic stage +at Florence. Thus, in the couple given in our cut No. 165, which is +taken from the fourth plate of the series, the personage to the left +is named Smaraolo Cornuto, which means simply Smaraolo the cuckold; +and the one on the right is called Ratsa di Boio. In the original the +background is occupied by a street, full of spectators, looking on at +a dance of pantaloons, round one who is mounted on stilts and playing +on the tabour. The couple in our cut No. 166, represents another of +Callot's "Caprices," from a set differing from the first "Caprices," +or the Balli. The Gobbi, or hunchbacks, form a set of twenty-one +engravings; and the set of the Gipsies, already alluded to, which was +also executed at Nancy, was included in four plates, the subjects of +which were severally--1, the gipsies travelling; 2, the avant-guard; +3, the halt; and 4, the preparations for the feast. Nothing could be +more truthful, and at the same time more comic, than this last set of +subjects. We give, as an example of the set of the Baroni, or beggars, +Callot's figure of one of that particular class--for beggars and rogues +of all kinds were classified in those days--whose part it was to +appeal to charity by wounds and sores artificially represented. In the +English slang of the seventeenth century, these artificial sores were +called _clymes_, and a curious account of the manner in which they were +made will be found in that singular picture of the vicious classes of +society in this country at that period, the "English Rogue," by Head +and Kirkman. The false cripple in our cut is holding up his leg to make +a display of his pretended infirmity. + + [92] Meaume appears to be doubtful of the meaning of this word; a + friend has pointed out to me the correction. It was the title + of a song, so called because the burden was an imitation of the + crowing of a cock, the singer mimicking also the action of the + bird. When Bacchus, in Redi's "Bacco in Toscana," is beginning + to feel the exhilarating effects of his critical investigation + of the Tuscan wines, he calls upon Ariadne to sing to him "sulla + mandola la Cucurucu," "on the mandola the Cucurucu." A note + fully explains the word as we have stated it--"Canzone cosi + detta, perche in esse si replica molte volte la voce del gallo; e + cantandola si fanno atti e moti simili a quegli di esso gallo." + + [Illustration: _No. 165. Smaraolo Cornuto.--Ratsa di Boio._] + + [Illustration: _No. 166. A Caprice._] + + [Illustration: _No. 167. The False Cripple._] + +Callot remained at Nancy, with merely temporary absences, during the +remainder of his life. In 1628, he was employed at Brussels in drawing +and engraving the "Siege of Breda," one of the most finished of his +works, and he there made the personal acquaintance of Vandyck. Early +in 1629, he was called to Paris to execute engravings of the siege of +La Rochelle, and of the defence of the Isle of Rhe, but he returned to +Nancy in 1630. Three years afterwards his native country was invaded +by the armies of Louis XIII., and Nancy surrendered to the French on +the 25th of September, 1633. Callot was required to make engravings +to celebrate the fall of his native town; but, although he is said +to have been threatened with violence, he refused; and afterwards he +commemorated the evils brought upon his country by the French invasion +in those two immortal sets of prints, the lesser and greater "Miseres +de la Guerre." About two years after this, Callot died, in the prime of +life, on the 24th of March, 1635. + +The fame of Callot was great among his contemporaries, and his name +is justly respected as one of the most illustrious in the history of +French art. He had, as might be expected, many imitators, and the +Caprices, the Balli, and the Gobbi, became very favourite subjects. +Among these imitators, the most successful and the most distinguished +was Stephano Della Bella; and, indeed, the only one deserving of +particular notice. Della Bella was born at Florence, on the 18th of +May, 1610;[93] his father, dying two years afterwards, left him an +orphan, and his mother in great poverty. As he grew up, he showed, like +Callot himself, precocious talents in art, and of the same kind. He +eagerly attended all public festivals, games, &c., and on his return +from them made them the subject of grotesque sketches. It was remarked +of him, especially, that he had a curious habit of always beginning +to draw a human figure from the feet, and proceeding upwards to the +head. He was struck at a very early period of his pursuit of art by the +style of Callot, of which, at first, he was a servile imitator, but he +afterwards abandoned some of its peculiarities, and adopted a style +which was more his own, though still founded upon that of Callot. He +almost rivalled Callot in his success in grouping multitudes of figures +together, and hence he also was much employed in producing engravings +of sieges, festive entertainments, and such elaborate subjects. As +Callot's aspirations had been directed towards Italy, those of Della +Bella were turned towards France, and when in the latter days of +the ministry of Cardinal Richelieu, the grand duke of Florence sent +Alexandro del Nero as his resident ambassador in Paris, Della Bella +was permitted to accompany him. Richelieu was occupied in the siege +of Arras, and the engraving of that event was the foundation of Della +Bella's fame in France, where he remained about ten years, frequently +employed on similar subjects. He subsequently visited Flanders and +Holland, and at Amsterdam made the acquaintance of Rembrandt. He +returned to Florence in 1650, and died there on the 23rd of July, 1664. + + [93] The materials for the history of Della Bella and his works, + will be found in a carefully compiled volume, by C. A. Jombert, + entitled, "Essai d'un Catalogue de l'Oeuvre d'Etienne de la + Bella." 8vo., Paris, 1772. + + [Illustration: _No. 168. A Witch Mounted._] + +While still in Florence, Della Bella executed four prints of dwarfs +quite in the grotesque style of Callot. In 1637, on the occasion of +the marriage of the grand duke Ferdinand II., Della Bella published +engravings of the different scenes represented, or performed, on that +occasion. These were effected by very elaborate machinery, and were +represented in six engravings, the fifth of which (_scena quinta_) +represents hell (_d' Inferno_), and is filled with furies, demons, and +witches, which might have found a place in Callot's "Temptation of St. +Anthony." + +A specimen of these is given in our cut No. 168--a naked witch seated +upon a skeleton of an animal that might have been borrowed from some +far distant geological period. In 1642, Della Bella executed a set of +small "Caprices," consisting of thirteen plates, from the eighth of +which we take our cut No. 169. It represents a beggar-woman, carrying +one child on her back, while another is stretched on the ground. In +this class of subjects Della Bella imitated Callot, but the copyist +never succeeded in equalling the original. His best style, as an +original artist of burlesque and caricature, is shown in a set of five +plates of Death carrying away people of different ages, which he +executed in 1648. The fourth of this set is copied in our cut No. 170, +and represents Death carrying off, on his shoulder, a young woman, in +spite of her struggles to escape from him. + + [Illustration: _No. 169. Beggary._] + +With the close of the seventeenth century these "Caprices" and +masquerade scenes began to be no longer in vogue, and caricature and +burlesque assumed new forms; but Callot and Della Bella had many +followers, and their examples had a lasting influence upon art. + +We must not forget that a celebrated artist, in another country, at the +end of the same century, the well-known Romain de Hooghe, was produced +from the school of Callot, in which he had learnt, not the arts of +burlesque and caricature, but that of skilfully grouping multitudes of +figures, especially in subjects representing episodes of war, tumults, +massacres, and public processions. + +Of Romain de Hooghe we shall have to speak again in a subsequent +chapter. In his time the art of engraving had made great advance +on the Continent, and especially in France, where it met with more +encouragement than elsewhere. In England this art had, on the whole, +made much less progress, and was in rather a low condition, one branch +only excepted, that of portraits. Of the two distinguished engravers +in England during the seventeenth century, Hollar was a Bohemian, and +Faithorne, though an Englishman, learnt his art in France. We only +began to have an English school when Dutch and French engravers came in +with King William to lay the groundwork. + + [Illustration: _No. 170. Death carrying off his Prey._] + + + + + CHAPTER XIX. + + THE SATIRICAL LITERATURE OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.--PASQUIL.-- + MACARONIC POETRY.--THE EPISTOLAE OBSURORUM VIRORUM.--RABELAIS.-- + COURT OF THE QUEEN OF NAVARRE, AND ITS LITERARY CIRCLE; + BONAVENTURE DES PERIERS.--HENRI ETIENNE.--THE LIGUE, AND ITS + SATIRE: THE "SATYRE MENIPPEE." + + +The sixteenth century, especially on the Continent, was a period of +that sort of violent agitation which is most favourable to the growth +of satire. Society was breaking up, and going through a course of +decomposition, and it presented to the view on every side spectacles +which provoked the mockery, perhaps more than the indignation, of +lookers-on. Even the clergy had learnt to laugh at themselves, and +almost at their own religion; and people who thought or reflected were +gradually separating into two classes--those who cast all religion +from them, and rushed into a jeering scepticism, and those who entered +seriously and with resolution into the work of reformation. The +latter found most encouragement among the Teutonic nations, while the +sceptical element appears to have had its birth in Italy, and even in +Rome itself, where, among popes and cardinals, religion had degenerated +into empty forms. + +At some period towards the close of the fifteenth century, a mutilated +ancient statue was accidentally dug up in Rome, and it was erected +on a pedestal in a place not far from the Ursini Palace. Opposite +it stood the shop of a shoemaker, named Pasquillo, or Pasquino, the +latter being the form most commonly adopted at a later period. This +Pasquillo was notorious as a facetious fellow, and his shop was usually +crowded by people who went there to tell tales and hear news; and, as +no other name had been invented for the statue, people agreed to give +it the name of the shoemaker, and they called it Pasquillo. It became +a custom, at certain seasons, to write on pieces of paper satirical +epigrams, sonnets, and other short compositions in Latin or Italian, +mostly of a personal character, in which the writer declared whatever +he had seen or heard to the discredit of somebody, and these were +published by depositing them with the statue, whence they were taken +and read. One of the Latin epigrams which pleads against committing +these short personal satires to print, calls the time at which it was +usual to compose them Pasquil's festival:-- + + Jam redit illa dies in qua Romana juventus + Pasquilli festum concelebrabit ovans. + Sed versus impressos obsecro ut edere omittas, + Ne noceant iterum quae nocuere semel. + +The festival was evidently a favourite one, and well celebrated. "The +soldiers of Xerxes," says another epigram, placed in Pasquil's mouth, +"were not so plentiful as the paper bestowed upon me; I shall soon +become a bookseller"-- + + Armigerum Xerxi non copia tanta papyri + Quanta mihi: fiam bibliopola statim. + +The name of Pasquil was soon given to the papers which were deposited +with the statue, and eventually a _pasquil_, or _pasquin_, was only +another name for a lampoon or libel. Not far from this statue stood +another, which was found in the forum of Mars (_Martis forum_), and was +thence popularly called Marforio. Some of these satirical writings were +composed in the form of dialogues between Pasquil and Marforio, or of +messages from one to the other. + +A collection of these pasquils was published in 1544 in two small +volumes.[94] Many of them are extremely clever, and they are sharply +pointed. The popes are frequent objects of bitterest satire. Thus we +are reminded in two lines upon pope Alexander VI. (_sextus_), the +infamous Borgia, that Tarquin had been a Sextus, and Nero also, and now +another Sextus was at the head of the Romans, and told that Rome was +always ruined under a Sextus-- + + De Alexandro VI. Pont. + _Sextus Tarquinius, Sextus Nero, Sextus et iste: + Semper sub Sextis perdita Roma fuit._ + +The following is given for an epitaph on Lucretia Borgia, pope +Alexander's profligate daughter:-- + + _Hoc tumulo dormit Lucretia nomine, sed re + Thais, Alexandri filia, sponsa, nurus._ + +[94] "Pasquillorum Tomi duo." Eleutheropoli, MDXLIIII. + +In another of a rather later date, Rome, addressing herself to Pasquil, +is made to complain of two successive popes, Clement VII. (Julio de +Medicis, 1523-1534) and Paul III. (Alexandro Farnese, 1534-1549), and +also of Leo X. (1513-1521). "I am," Rome says, "sick enough with the +physician (_Medicus_, as a pun on the Medicis), I was also the prey of +the lion (_Leo_), now, Paul, you tear my vitals like a wolf. You, Paul, +are not a god to me, as I thought in my folly, but you are a wolf, +since you tear the food from my mouth"-- + + _Sum Medico satis aegra, fui quoque praeda Leonis, + Nunc mea dilaceras viscera, Paule, lupus. + Non es, Paule, mihi numen, ceu stulta putabam, + Sed lupus es, quoniam subtrahis ore cibum._ + +Another epigram, addressed to Rome herself, involves a pun in Greek +(in the words _Paulos_, Paul, and _Phaulos_, wicked). "Once, Rome," it +says, "lords of lords were thy subjects, now thou in thy wretchedness +art subject to the serfs of serfs; once you listened to the oracles of +St. Paul, but now you perform the abominable commands of the wicked"-- + + _Quondam, Roma, tibi suberant domini dominorum, + Servorum servis nunc miseranda subes; + Audisti quondam divini oracula +Paulou+, + At nunc +ton phaulon+ jussa nefanda facis._ + +The idea, of course, is the contrast of Rome in her Pagan glory, with +Rome in her Christian debasement, very much the same as that which +struck Gibbon, and gave birth to his great history of Rome's "decline +and fall."[95] + + [95] Pasquil and Pasquin became, during the latter part of the + sixteenth and the whole of the seventeenth centuries, a + well-known name in French and English literature. In English + popular literature he was turned into a jester, and a book was + published in 1604 under the title "Pasquil's Jests; with the + Merriments of Mother Bunch. Wittie, pleasant, and delightfull." + +The pasquils formed a body of satire which struck indiscriminately at +everybody within its range, but satirists were now rising who took for +their subjects special cases of the general disorder. Rotten at the +heart, society presented an external glossiness, a mixture of pedantry +and affectation, which offered subjects enough for ridicule in whatever +point of view it was taken. The ecclesiastical body was in a state of +fermentation, out of which new feelings and new doctrines were about to +rise. The old learning and literature of the middle ages remained in +form after their spirit had passed away, and they were now contending +clumsily and unsuccessfully against new learning and literature of a +more refined and healthier character. Feudalism itself had fallen, or +it was struggling vainly against new political principles, yet the +aristocracy clung to feudal forms and feudal assumptions, with an +exaggeration which was meant for an appearance of strength. Among the +literary affectations of this false feudalism, was the fashion for +reading the long, dry, old romances of chivalry; while the churchmen +and schoolmen were corrupting the language in which mediaeval learning +had been expressed, into a form the most barbarous, or introducing +words compounded from the later into the vernacular tongue. These +peculiarities were among the first to provoke literary satire. Italy, +where this class of satire originated, gave it its name also, though it +appears still to be a matter of doubt why it was called _macaronic_, +or in its Italian form _maccharonea_. Some have considered this name +to have been taken from the article of food called _macaroni_, to +which the Italians were, and still are, so much attached; while others +pretend that it was derived from an old Italian word _macarone_, which +meant a lubberly fellow. Be this, however, as it may, what is called +macaronic composition, which consists in giving a Latin form to words +taken from the vulgar tongue, and mixing them with words which are +purely Latin, was introduced in Italy at the close of the fifteenth +century. + +Four Italian writers in macaronic verse are known to have lived before +the year 1500.[96] The first of these was named Fossa, and he tells +us that he composed his poem entitled "Vigonce," on the second day +of May, 1494. It was printed in 1502. Bassano, a native of Mantua, +and the author of a macaronic which bears no title, was dead in 1499; +and another, a Paduan named Fifi degli Odassi, was born about the +year 1450. Giovan Georgio Allione, of Asti, who is believed also to +have written during the last ten years of the fifteenth century, +is a name better known through the edition of his French works, +published by Monsieur J. C. Brunet in 1836. All these present the +same coarseness and vulgarity of sentiment, and the same licence in +language and description, which appear to have been taken as necessary +characteristics of macaronic composition. Odassi appears to give +support to the derivation of the name from macaroni, by making the +principal character of his poem a fabricator of that article in Padua-- + + _Est unus in Padua natus speciale cusinus, + In maccharonea princeps bonus atque magister._ + + [96] The great authority on the history of Macaronic literature is my + excellent friend Monsieur Octave Delepierre, and I will simply + refer the reader to his two valuable publications, "Macaroneana, + ou Melanges de Litterature Macaronique des differents Peuples de + l'Europe," 8vo., Paris, 1852; and "Macaroneana," 4to., 1863; the + latter printed for the Philobiblon Club. + +But the great matter of macaronic poetry was Teofilo Folengo, of whose +life we know just sufficient to give us a notion of the personal +character of these old literary caricaturists. Folengo was descended +from a noble family, which had its seat at the village of Cipada, near +Mantua, where he was born on the 8th of November, 1491, and baptised by +the name of Girolamo. He pursued his studies, first in the university +of Ferrara, under the professor Visago Cocaio, and afterwards in that +of Bologna, under Pietro Pomponiazzo; or rather, he ought to have +pursued them, for his love of poetry, and his gaiety of character, led +him to neglect them, and at length his irregularities became so great, +that he was obliged to make a hasty flight from Bologna. He was ill +received at home, and he left it also, and appears to have subsequently +led a wild life, during part of which he adopted the profession of a +soldier, until at length he took refuge in a Benedictine convent near +Brescia, in 1507, and became a monk. The discipline of this house +had become entirely relaxed, and the monks appear to have lived very +licentiously; and Folengo, who, on his admission to the order, had +exchanged his former baptismal name for Teofilo, readily conformed to +their example. Eventually he abandoned the convent and the habit, ran +away with a lady named Girolama Dedia, and for some years he led a +wandering, and, it would seem, very irregular life. Finally, in 1527, +he returned to his old profession of a monk, and remained in it until +his death, in the December of 1544. He is said to have been extremely +vain of his poetical talents, and a story is told of him which, even if +it were invented, illustrates well the character which was popularly +given to him. It is said that when young, he aspired to excel in +Latin poetry, and that he wrote an epic which he himself believed to +be _superior_ to the AEneid. When, however, he had communicated the +work to his friend the bishop of Mantua, and that prelate, intending +to compliment him, told him that he had equalled Virgil, he was so +mortified, that he threw the manuscript on the fire, and from that time +devoted his talents entirely to the composition of macaronic verse. + +Such was the man who has justly earned the reputation of being the +first of macaronic poets. When he adopted this branch of literature, +while he was in the university of Bologna, he assumed in writing it +the name of Merlinus Cocaius, or Coccaius, probably from the name of +his professor at Ferrara. Folengo's printed poems consist of--1. The +Zanitonella, a pastoral in seven eclogues, describing the love of +Tonellus for Zanina; 2, the macaronic romance of Baldus, Folengo's +principal and most remarkable work; 3, the Moschaea, or dreadful battle +between the flies and the ants; and 4, a book of Epistles and Epigrams. + +The first edition of the Baldus appeared in 1517. It is a sort of +parody on the romances of chivalry, and combines a jovial satire upon +everything, which, as has been remarked, spares neither religion nor +politics, science nor literature, popes, kings, clergy, nobility, or +people. It consists of twenty-five cantos, or, as they are termed in +the original, _phantasiae_, fantasies. In the first we are told of the +origin of Baldus. There was at the court of France a famous knight +named Guy, descended from that memorable paladin Renaud of Montauban. +The king, who showed a particular esteem for Guy, had also a daughter +of surpassing beauty, named Balduine, who had fallen in love with +Guy, and he was equally amorous of the princess. In the sequel of a +grand tournament, at which Guy has distinguished himself greatly, he +carries off Balduine, and the two lovers fly on foot, in the disguise +of beggars, reach the Alps in safety, and cross them into Italy. At +Cipada, in the territory of Brescia, they are hospitably entertained by +a generous peasant named Berte Panade, with whom the princess Balduine, +who approaches her time of confinement, is left; while her lover goes +forth to conquer at least a marquisate for her. After his departure +she gives birth to a fine boy, which is named Baldus. Such, as told +in the second canto, is the origin of Folengo's hero, who is destined +to perform marvellous acts of chivalry. The peasant Berte Panade has +also a son named Zambellus, by a mother who had died in childbirth +of him. Baldus passes for the son of Berte also, so that the two are +supposed to be brothers. Baldus is successively led through a series of +extraordinary adventures, some low and vulgar, others more chivalrous, +and some of them exhibiting a wild fertility of imagination, which are +too long to enable me to take my readers through them, until at length +he is left by the poet in the country of Falsehood and Charlatanism, +which is inhabited by astrologers, necromancers, and poets. Thus +is the hero Baldus dragged through a great number of marvellous +accidents, some of them vulgar, many of them ridiculous, and some, +again, wildly poetical, but all of them presenting, in one form or +other, an opportunity for satire upon some of the follies, or vices, +or corruptions of his age. The hybrid language in which the whole is +written, gives it a singularly grotesque appearance; yet from time to +time we have passages which show that the author was capable of writing +true poetry, although it is mixed with a great amount of coarse and +licentious ideas, expressed no less coarsely and licentiously. What we +may term the filth, indeed, forms a large proportion of the Italian +macaronic poetry. The pastoral of Zanitonella presents, as might be +expected, more poetic beauty than the romance of Balbus. As an example +of the language of the latter, and indeed of that of the Italian +macaronics in general, I give a few lines of a description of a storm +at sea, from the twelfth canto, with a literal translation:-- + + _Jam gridor aeterias hominum concussit abyssos, + Sentiturque ingens cordarum stridor, et ipse + Pontus habet pavidos vultus, mortisque colores. + Nunc Sirochus habit palmam, nunc Borra superchiat; + Irrugit pelagus, tangit quoque fluctibus astra, + Fulgure flammigero creber lampezat Olympus; + Vela forata micant crebris lacerata balottis; + Horrendam mortem nautis ea cuncta minazzant. + Nunc sbalzata ratis celsum tangebat Olympum, + Nunc subit infernam unda sbadacchiante paludem._ + + TRANSLATION + + _Now the clamour of the men shook the ethereal abysses, + And the mighty crashing of the ropes is felt, and the very + Sea has pale looks, and the hue of death. + Now the Sirocco has the palm, now Eurus exults over it; + The sea roars, and touches the stars with its waves, + Olympus continually blazes out with flaming thunder, + The pierced sails glitter torn with frequent thunderbolts; + All these threaten frightful death to the sailors. + Now the ship tossed up touched the top of Olympus, + Now, the wave yawning, it sinks into the infernal lake._ + +Teofilo Folengo was followed by a number of imitators, of whom it +will be sufficient to state that he stands in talent as far above his +followers as above those who preceded him. One of these minor Italian +macaronic writers, named Bartolommeo Bolla, of Bergamo, who flourished +in the latter half of the sixteenth century, had the vanity to call +himself, in the title of one of his books, "the Apollo of poets, and +the Cocaius of this age;" but a modern critic has remarked of him +that he is as far removed from his model Folengo, as his native +town Bergamo is distant from Siberia. An earlier poet, named Guarino +Capella, a native of the town of Sarsina, in the country of Forli, on +the borders of Tuscany, approached far nearer in excellence to the +prince of macaronic writers. His work also is a mock romance, the +history of "Cabrinus, king of Gagamagoga," in six books or cantos, +which was printed at Arimini in 1526, and is now a book of excessive +rarity. + +The taste for macaronics passed rather early, like all other fashions +in that age, from Italy into France, where it first brought into +literary reputation a man who, if he had not the great talent of +Folengo, possessed a very considerable amount of wit and gaiety. +Antoine de la Sable, who Latinised his name into Antonius de Arena, +was born of a highly respectable family at Soliers, in the diocese +of Toulon, about the year 1500, and, being destined from his youth +to follow the profession of the law, studied under the celebrated +jurisconsult Alciatus. He had only arrived at the simple dignity of +_juge_, at St. Remy, in the diocese of Arles, when he died in the year +1544. In fact, he appears to have been no very diligent student, and we +gather from his own confessions that his youth had been rather wild. +The volume containing his macaronics, the second edition of which (as +far as the editions are known) was printed in 1529, bears a title which +will give some notion of the character of its contents,--"_Provencalis +de bragardissima villa de Soleriis, ad suos compagnones qui sunt de +persona friantes, bassas dansas et branlas practicantes novellas, de +guerra Romana, Neapolitana, et Genuensi mandat; una cum epistola ad +falotissimam suam garsam, Janam Rosaeam, pro passando tempora_"--(_i.e._ +a Provencal of the most swaggering town of Soliers, sends this to his +companions, who are dainty of their persons, practising basse dances +and new brawls, concerning the war of Rome, Naples, and Genoa; with an +epistle to his most merry wench, Jeanne Rosee, for pastime). In the +first of these poems Arena traces in his burlesque verse, which is an +imitation of Folengo, his own adventures and sufferings in the war in +Italy which led to the sack of Rome, in 1527, and in the subsequent +expeditions to Naples and Genoa. From the picture of the horrors of +war, he passes very willingly to describe the joyous manners of the +students in Provencal universities, of whom he tells us, that they are +all fine gallants, and always in love with the pretty girls. + + _Gentigalantes sunt omnes instudiantes, + Et bellas garsas semper amare solent._ + +He goes on to describe the scholars as great quarrellers, as well as +lovers of the other sex, and after dwelling on their gaiety and love +of the dance, he proceeds to treat in the same burlesque style on the +subject of dancing; but I pass over this to speak of Arena's principal +piece, the satirical description of the invasion of Provence by the +emperor Charles V. in 1536. This curious poem, which is entitled +"Meygra Enterprisa Catoloqui imperatoris," and which extends to upwards +of two thousand lines, opens with a laudatory address to the king of +France, Francois I., and with a sneer at the pride of the emperor, who, +believing himself to be the master of the whole world, had foolishly +thought to take away France and the cities of Provence from their +rightful monarch. It was Antonio de Leyva, the boaster, who had put +this project into the emperor's head, and they had already pillaged +and ravaged a good part of Provence, and were dividing the plunder, +when, harassed continually by the peasantry, the invaders were brought +to a stand by the difficulty of subsisting in a devastated country, +and by the diseases to which this difficulty gave rise. Nevertheless, +the Spaniards and their allies committed terrible devastation, which +is described by Arena in strong language. He commemorates the valiant +resistance of his native town of Soliers, which, however, was taken +and sacked, and he lost in it his house and property. Arles held the +imperialists at bay, while the French, under the constable Montmorency, +established themselves firmly at Avignon. At length disease gained +possession of Antonio de Leyva himself, and the emperor, who had been +making an unsuccessful demonstration against Marseilles, came to him +in his sickness. The first lines of the description of this interview, +will serve as a specimen of the language of the French macaronics:-- + + _Sed de Marsella bragganti quando retornat, + Fort male contentus, quando repolsat eum, + Antonium Levam trobavit forte maladum, + Cui mors terribilis triste cubile parat. + Ethica torquet eum per costas, et dolor ingens: + Cum male res vadit, vivere fachat eum. + Dixerunt medici, speransa est nulla salutis: + Ethicus in testa vivere pauca potest. + Ante suam mortem voluit parlare per horam + Imperelatori, consiliumque dare. + Scis, Caesar, stricte nostri groppantur amores, + Namque duas animas corpus utrumque tenet, + Heu! fuge Provensam fortem, fuge littus amarum, + Fac tibi non noceat gloria tanta modo._ + + TRANSLATION. + + _But when he returns from boasting Marseilles, + Very ill content, that she had repulsed him, + He found Antonio de Leyva very ill, + For whom terrible death is preparing a sorrowful bed. + Hectic fever tortures him in the ribs, and great pain; + Since things are going ill, he is weary of life. + Before his death he wished to speak an hour + To the emperor, and to give him counsel. + "You know, Caesar, our affections are closely bound together, + For either body holds the two souls, + Alas! fly Provence the strong, fly the bitter shore, + Take care that your great glory prove not an injury to you."_ + +Thus Leyva goes on to persuade the emperor to abandon his enterprise, +and then dies. Arena exults over his death, and over the emperor's +grief for his loss, and then proceeds to describe the disastrous +retreat of the imperial army, and the glory of France in her king. + +Antonius de Arena wrote with vigour and humour, but his verses are +tame in comparison with his model, Folengo. The taste for macaronic +verse never took strong root in France, and the few obscure writers +who attempted to shine in that kind of composition are now forgotten, +except by the laborious bibliographer. One named Jean Germain, wrote +a macaronic history of the invasion of Provence by the imperialists +in rivalry of Arenas. I will not follow the taste for this class of +burlesque composition into Spain or Germany, but merely add that it +was not adopted in England until the beginning of the seventeenth +century, when several authors employed it at about the same time. +The most perfect example of these early English macaronics is the +"Polemo-Middiana," _i.e._ battle of the dunghill, by the talented and +elegant-minded Drummond of Hawthornden. We may take a single example of +the English macaronic from this poem, which will not need an English +translation. One of the female characters in the dunghill war, calls, +among others, to her aid-- + + _Hunc qui dirtiferas tersit cum dishclouty dishras, + Hunc qui gruelias scivit bene lickere plettas, + Et saltpannifumos, et widebricatos fisheros, + Hellaeosque etiam salteros duxit ab antris, + Coalheughos nigri girnantes more divelli; + Lifeguardamque sibi saevas vocat improba lassas, + Maggyam magis doctam milkare covoeas, + Et doctam suepare flouras, et sternere beddas, + Quaeque novit spinnare, et longas ducere threddas; + Nansyam, claves bene quae keepaverat omnes, + Quaeque lanam cardare solet greasy-fingria Betty._ + +Perhaps before this was written, the eccentric Thomas Coryat had +published in the volume of his Crudities, printed in 1611, a short +piece of verse, which is perfect in its macaronic style, but in which +Italian and other foreign words are introduced, as well as English. The +celebrated comedy of "Ignoramus," composed by George Ruggle in 1615, +may also be mentioned as containing many excellent examples of English +macaronics. + +While Italy was giving birth to macaronic verse, the satire upon the +ignorance and bigotry of the clergy was taking another form in Germany, +which arose from some occurrences which it will be necessary to relate. +In the midst of the violent religious agitation at the beginning of +the sixteenth century in Germany, there lived a German Jew named +Pfeffercorn, who embraced Christianity, and to show his zeal for his +new faith, he obtained from the emperor an edict ordering the Talmud +and all the Jewish writings which were contrary to the Christian faith +to be burnt. There lived at the same time a scholar of distinction, +and of more liberal views than most of the scholastics of his time, +named John Reuchlin. He was a relative of Melancthon, and was secretary +to the palsgrave, who was tolerant like himself. The Jews, as might +be expected, were unwilling to give up their books to be burnt, and +Reuchlin wrote in their defence, under the assumed name of Capnion, +which is a Hebrew translation of his own name of Reuchlin, meaning +smoke, and urged that it was better to refute the books in question +than to burn them. The converted Pfeffercorn replied in a book entitled +"Speculum Manuale," in answer to which Reuchlin wrote his "Speculum +Oculare." The controversy had already provoked much bigoted ill-feeling +against Reuchlin. The learned doctors of the university of Cologne +espoused the cause of Pfeffercorn, and the principal of the university, +named in Latin Ortuinus Gratius, supported by the Sorbonne in Paris, +lent himself to be the violent organ of the intolerant party. Hard +pressed by his bigoted opponents, Reuchlin found good allies, but one +of the best of these was a brave baron named Ulric von Hutten, of an +old and noble family, born in 1488 in the castle of Staeckelberg, +in Franconia. He had studied in the schools at Fulda, Cologne, and +Frankfort on the Oder, and distinguished himself so much as a scholar, +that he obtained the degree of Master of Arts before the usual age. +But Ulric possessed an adventurous and chivalrous spirit, which led +him to embrace the profession of a soldier, and he served in the wars +in Italy, where he was distinguished by his bravery. He was at Rome +in 1516, and defended Reuchlin against the Dominicans. The same year +appeared the first edition of that marvellous book, the "Epistolae +Obscurorum Virorum," one of the most remarkable satires that the world +has yet seen. It is believed that this book came entirely from the +pen of Ulric von Hutten; and the notion that Reuchlin himself, or +any others of his friends, had a share in it appears to be without +foundation. Ulric was in the following year made poet-laureat. +Nevertheless, this book greatly incensed the monks against him, and he +was often threatened with assassination. Yet he boldly advocated the +cause and embraced the opinions of Luther, and was one of the staunch +supporters of Lutheranism. After a very turbulent life, Ulric von +Hutten died in the August of the year 1523. + +The "Epistolae Obscurorum Virorum," or letters of obscure men, are +supposed to be addressed to Ortuinus Gratius, mentioned above, by +various individuals, some his scholars, others his friends, but all +belonging to the bigoted party opposed to Reuchlin, and they were +designed to throw ridicule on the ignorance, bigotry, and immorality +of the clergy of the Romish church. The old scholastic learning +had become debased into a heavy and barbarous system of theology, +literary composition consisted in writing a no less barbarous Latin, +and even the few classical writers who were admitted into the schools, +were explained and commented upon in a strange half-theological +fashion. These old scholastics were bitterly opposed to the new +learning, which had taken root in Italy, and was spreading abroad, +and they spoke contemptuously of it as "secular." The letters of the +obscure individuals relate chiefly to the dispute between Reuchlin +and Pfeffercorn, to the rivalry between the old scholarship and the +new, and to the low licentious lives of the theologists; and they +are written in a style of Latin which is intended for a parody on +that of the latter, and which closely resembles that which we call +"dog-Latin."[97] They are full of wit and humour of the most exquisite +description, but they too often descend into details, treated in terms +which can only be excused by the coarse and licentious character of +the age. The literary and scientific questions discussed in these +letters are often very droll. The first in order of the correspondents +of Ortuinus Gratius, who boasts of the rather formidable name, Thomas +Langschneiderius, and addresses master Ortuinus as "poet, orator, +philosopher, and theologist, and more if he would," propounds to him a +difficult question:-- + + "There was here one day an Aristotelian dinner, and doctors, + licenciates, and masters too, were very jovial, and I was + there too, and we drank at the first course three draughts of + Malmsey, ... and then we had six dishes of flesh and chickens + and capons, and one of fish, and as we passed from one dish to + another, we continually drunk wine of Kotzburg and the Rhine, + and ale of Embeck, and Thurgen, and Neuburg. And the masters + were well satisfied, and said that the new masters had acquitted + themselves well and with great honour. Then the masters in their + hilarity began to talk learnedly on great questions, and one + asked whether it were correct to say _magister nostrandus_, or + _noster magistrandus_, for a person fit to be made doctor in + theology.... And immediately Master Warmsemmel, who is a subtle + Scotist, and has been master eighteen years, and was in his time + twice rejected and thrice delayed for the degree of master, + and he went on offering himself, until he was promoted for the + honour of the university, ... spoke, and held that we should say + _noster magistrandus_.... Then Master Andreas Delitsch, who is + very subtle, and half poet, half artist (_i.e._ one who professed + in the faculty of arts), physician, and jurist; and now he + reads ordinarily 'Ovid on the Metamorphoses,' and expounds all + the fables allegorically and literally, and I was his hearer, + because he expounds very fundamentally, and he also reads at home + Quintillian and Juvencus, and he held the opposite to Master + Warmsemmel, and said that we ought to say _magister nostrandus_. + For as there is a difference between _magister noster_ and _noster + magister_, so also there is a difference between _magister + nostrandus_ and _noster magistrandus_; for a doctor in theology + is called _magister noster_, and it is one word, but _noster + magister_ are two words, and it is taken for any master; and he + quoted Horace in support of this. Then the masters much admired + his subtlety, and one drank to him a cup of Neuburg ale. And + he said, 'I will wait, but spare me,' and touched his hat, and + laughed heartily, and drank to Master Warmsemmel, and said, + 'There, master, don't think I am an enemy,' and he drank it off at + one draught, and Master Warmsemmel replied to him with a strong + draught. And the masters were all merry till the bell rang for + Vespers." + + [97] This style differs entirely from the macaronic. It consists + merely in using the words of the Latin language with the forms + and construction of the vulgar tongue, as illustrated by the + directions of the professor who, lecturing in the schools, was + interrupted by the entrance of a dog, and shouted out to the + doorkeeper, _Verte canem ex_, meaning thereby that he should + "turn the dog out." It was perhaps from this, or some similar + occurrence, that this barbarous Latin gained the name of + dog-Latin. The French call it _Latin de cuisine_. + +Master Ortuin is pressed for his judgment on this weighty question. A +similar scene described in another letter ends less peacefully. The +correspondent on this occasion is Magister Bornharddus Plumilegus, who +addresses Ortuinus Gratius as follows:-- + + "Wretched is the mouse which has only one hole for a refuge! So + also I may say of myself, most venerable sir, for I should be poor + if I had only one friend, and when that one should fail me, then + I should not have another to treat me with kindness. As is the + case now with a certain poet here, who is called George Sibutus, + and he is one of the secular poets, and reads publicly in poetry, + and is in other respects a good fellow (_bonus socius_). But as + you know these poets, when they are not theologists like you, will + always reprehend others, and despise the theologists. And once + in a drinking party in his house, when we were drinking Thurgen + ale, and sat until the hour of tierce, and I was moderately drunk, + because that ale rose into my head, then there was one who was not + before friendly with me, and I drank to him half a cup, and he + accepted it. But afterwards he would not return the compliment. + And thrice I cautioned him, and he would not reply, but sat in + silence and said nothing. Then I thought to myself, Behold this + man treats thee with contempt, and is proud, and always wants to + confound you. And I was stirred in my anger, and took the cup, and + threw it at his head. Then that poet was angry at me, and said + that I had caused a disturbance in his house, and said I should go + out of his house in the devil's name. Then I replied, 'What matter + is it if you are my enemy? I have had as bad enemies as you, and + yet I have stood in spite of them. What matters it if you are a + poet? I have other poets who are my friends, and they are quite as + good as you, _ego bene merdarem in vestram poetriam_! Do you think + I am a fool, or that I was born under a tree like apples?' Then he + called me an ass, and said that I never saw a poet. And I said, + 'You are an ass in your skin, I have seen many more poets than + you.' And I spoke of you.... Wherefore I ask you very earnestly to + write me one piece of verse, and then I will show it to this poet + and others, and I will boast that you are my friend, and you are a + much better poet than he." + +The war against the secular poets, or advocates of the new learning, +is kept up with spirit through this ludicrous correspondence. One +correspondent presses Ortuinus Gratius to "write to me whether it be +necessary for eternal salvation that scholars learn grammar from the +secular poets, such as Virgil, Tullius, Pliny, and others; for," he +adds, "it seems to me that this is not a good method of studying." "As +I have often written to you," says another, "I am grieved that this +ribaldry (_ista ribaldria_), namely, the faculty of poetry, becomes +common, and is spread through all provinces and regions. In my time +there was only one poet, who was called Samuel; and now, in this city +alone, there are at least twenty, and they vex us all who hold with the +ancients. Lately I thoroughly defeated one, who said that _scholaris_ +does not signify a person who goes to the school for the purpose of +learning; and I said, 'Ass! will you correct the holy doctor who +expounded this word?'" The new learning was, of course, identified +with the supporters of Reuchlin. "It is said here," continues the same +correspondent, "that all the poets will side with doctor Reuchlin +against the theologians. I wish all the poets were in the place where +pepper grows, that they might let us go in peace!" + +Master William Lamp, "master of arts," sends to Master Ortuinus +Gratius, a narrative of his adventures in a journey from Cologne to +Rome. First he went to Mayence, where his indignation was moved by the +open manner in which people spoke in favour of Reuchlin, and when he +hazarded a contrary opinion, he was only laughed at, but he held his +tongue, because his opponents all carried arms and looked fierce. "One +of them is a count, and is a long man, and has white hair; and they +say that he takes a man in armour in his hand, and throws him to the +ground, and he has a sword as long as a giant; when I saw him, then I +held my tongue." At Worms, he found things no better, for the "doctors" +spoke bitterly against the theologians, and when he attempted to +expostulate, he got foul words as well as threats, a learned doctor in +medicine affirming "_quod merdaret super nos omnes_." On leaving Worms, +Lamp and his companion, another theologist, fell in with plunderers who +made them pay two florins to drink, "and I said _occulte_, Drink what +may the devil bless to you!" Subsequently they fell into low amours +at country inns, which are described coarsely, and then they reached +Insprucken, where they found the emperor, and his court and army, with +whole manners and proceedings Magister Lamp became sorely disgusted. +I pass over other adventures till they reach Mantua, the birthplace +of Virgil, and of a late mediaeval Latin poet, named from it Baptista +Mantuanus. Lamp, in his hostile spirit towards the "secular poets," +proceeds,--"And my companion said, 'Here Virgil was born.' I replied, +'What do I care for that pagan? We will go to the Carmelites, and see +Baptista Mantuanus, who is twice as good as Virgil, as I have heard +full ten times from Ortuinus;' and I told him how you once reprehended +Donatus, when he says, 'Virgil was the most learned of poets, and +the best;' and you said, 'If Donatus were here, I would tell him to +his face that he lies, for Baptista Mantuanus is above Virgil.' And +when we came to the monastery of the Carmelites, we were told that +Baptista Mantuanus was dead; then I said, 'May he rest in peace!'" They +continued their journey by Bologna, where they found the inquisitor +Jacob de Hochstraten, and Florence, to Siena. "After this there are +small towns, and one is called Monte-flascon, where we drunk excellent +wine, such as I never drank in my life. And I asked the host what that +wine is called, and he replied that it is lachryma Christi. Then said +my companion, 'I wish Christ would cry in our country!' And so we drank +a good bout, and two days after we entered Rome." + +In the course of these letters the theologists, the poets especially, +the character of the clergy, and particularly Reuchlin and +Pfeffercorn, afford continual subjects for dispute and pleasantry. +The last mentioned individual, in the opinion of some, had merited +hanging for theft, and it was pretended that the Jews had expelled +him from their society for his wicked courses. One argued that all +Jews stink, and as it was well known that Pfeffercorn continued to +stink like a Jew, it was quite evident that he could not be a good +Christian. Some of Ortuinus's correspondents consult him on difficult +theological questions. Here is an example in a letter from one Henricus +Schaffmulius, another of his scholars who had made the journey to +Rome:-- + + "Since, before I journeyed to the Court, you said to me that I am + to write often to you, and that sometimes I am to send you any + theological questions, which you will solve for me better than + the courtiers of Rome, therefore now I ask your mastership what + you hold as to the case when any one on a Friday, or any other + fast day, eats an egg, and there is a chicken inside. Because + the other day we sat in a tavern in the Campo-flore, and made a + collation, and eat eggs, and I, opening an egg, saw that there was + a young chicken in it, which I showed to my companion, and then he + said, 'Eat it quickly before the host sees it, for if he sees it, + then you will be obliged to give a carlino or a julio for a hen, + because it is the custom here that, when the host places anything + on the table, you must pay for it, for they will not take it back. + And when he sees there is a young hen in the egg, he will say, + Pay me for the hen, because he reckons a small one the same as a + large one.' And I immediately sucked up the egg, and with it the + chicken, and afterwards I bethought me that it was Friday, and I + said to my companion. 'You have caused me to commit a mortal sin, + in eating flesh on Friday.' And he said that it is not a mortal + sin, nor even a venial sin, because that embryo of a chicken is + not reckoned other than an egg till it is born; and he told me + that it is as in cheeses, in which there are sometimes worms, + and in cherries, and fresh peas and beans, yet they are eaten on + Fridays, and also in the vigils of the apostles. But the hosts + are such rogues, that they say that they are flesh, that they may + have more money. Then I went away, and thought about it. And, _per + Deum_! Magister Ortuinus, I am much troubled, and I know not how + I ought to rule myself. If I went to ask advice of a courtier [of + the papal court], I know that they have not good consciences. It + seems to me that these young hens in the eggs are flesh, because + the matter is already formed and figured in members and bodies of + an animal, and it has life; it is otherwise with worms in cheeses + and other things, because worms are reputed for fishes, as I have + heard from a physician, who is a very good naturalist. Therefore I + ask you very earnestly, that you will give me your reply on this + question. Because if you hold that it is a mortal sin, then I will + purchase an absolution here, before I return to Germany. Also you + must know that our master Jacobus de Hochstraten has obtained a + thousand florins from the bank, and I think that with these he + will gain his cause, and the devil confound that John Reuchlin, + and the other poets and jurists, because they will be against + the church of God, that is, against the theologists, in whom is + founded the church, as Christ said: Thou art Peter, and upon this + rock I will build my church. And so I commend you to the Lord God. + Farewell. Given from the city of Rome." + +While in Italy macaronic literature was reaching its greatest +perfection, there arose in the very centre of France a man of great +original genius, who was soon to astonish the world by a new form of +satire, more grotesque and more comprehensive than anything that had +been seen before. Teofilo Folengo may fairly be considered as the +precursor of Rabelais, who appears to have taken the Italian satirist +as his model. What we know of the life of Francois Rabelais is rather +obscure at best, and is in some parts no doubt fabulous. He was born +at Chinon in Touraine, either in 1483 or in 1487, for this seems to +be a disputed point, and some doubt has been thrown on the trade or +profession of his father, but the most generally received opinion is +that he was an apothecary. He is said to have shown from his youth a +disposition more inclined to gaiety than to serious pursuits, yet at +an early age he had made great proficiency in learning, and is said to +have acquired a very sufficient knowledge of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, +two of which, at least, were not popular among the popish clergy, and +not only of the modern languages and literature of Italy, Germany, and +Spain, but even of Arabic. Probably this estimate of his acquirements +in learning is rather exaggerated. It is not quite clear where the +young Rabelais gained all this knowledge, for he is said to have been +educated in convents and among monks, and to have become at a rather +early age a Franciscan friar in the convent of Fontenai-le-Compte, in +Lower Poitou, where he became an object of jealousy and ill-feeling to +the other friars by his superior acquirements. It was a tradition, at +least, that the conduct of Rabelais was not very strictly conventual, +and that he had so far shown his contempt for monastic rule, and for +the bigotry of the Romish church, that he was condemned to the prison +of his monastery, upon a diet of bread and water, which, according to +common report, was very uncongenial with the tastes of this jovial +friar. Out of this difficulty he is said to have been helped by his +friend the bishop of Maillezais, who obtained for him the pope's +licence to change the order of St. Francis for the much more easy and +liberal order of St. Benedict, and he became a member of the bishop's +own chapter in the abbey of Maillezais. His unsteady temper, however, +was not long satisfied with this retreat, which he left, and, laying +aside the regular habit, assumed that of a secular priest. In this +character he wandered for some time, and then settled at Montpellier, +where he took a degree as doctor in medicine, and practised for some +time with credit. There he published in 1532 a translation of some +works of Hippocrates and Galen, which he dedicated to his friend the +bishop of Maillezais. The circumstances under which he left Montpellier +are not known, but he is supposed to have gone to Paris upon some +business of the university, and to have remained there. He found +there a staunch friend in Jean de Bellay, bishop of Paris, who soon +afterwards was raised to the rank of cardinal. When the cardinal de +Bellay went as ambassador to Rome from the court of France, Rabelais +accompanied him, it is said in the character of his private medical +adviser, but during his stay in the metropolis of Christendom, as +Christendom was understood in those days by the Romish church, Rabelais +obtained, on the 17th of January, 1536 the papal absolution for all +his transgressions, and licence to return to Maillezais, and practise +medicine there and elsewhere as an act of charity. Thus he became again +a Benedictine monk. He, however, changed again, and became a secular +canon, and finally settled down as the cure of Meudon, near Paris, with +which he also held a fair number of ecclesiastical benefices. Rabelais +died in 1553, according to some in a very religious manner, but others +have given strange accounts of his last moments, representing that, +even when dying, he conversed in the same spirit of mockery, not only +of Romish forms and ceremonies, but of all religions whatever, which +was ascribed to him during his life, and which are but too openly +manifested in the extraordinary satirical romance which has given so +much celebrity to his name. + +During the greater part of his life, Rabelais was exposed to troubles +and persecutions. He was saved from the intrigues of the monks by +the friendly influence of popes and cardinals; and the favour of two +successive kings, Francois I. and Henri II., protected him against the +still more dangerous hostility of the Sorbonne and the parliament of +Paris. This high protection has been advanced as a reason for rejecting +the anecdotes and accounts which have been commonly received relating +to the personal character of Rabelais, and his irregularities may +possibly have been exaggerated by the hatred which he had drawn upon +himself by his writings. But nobody, I think, who knows the character +of society at that time, who compares what we know of the lives of +the other satirists, and who has read the history of Gargantua and +Pantagruel, will consider such an argument of much weight against the +deliberate statements of those who were his contemporaries, or be +inclined to doubt that the writer of this history was a man of jovial +character, who loved a good bottle and a broad joke, and perhaps other +things that were equally objectionable. His books present a sort +of wild riotous orgy, without much order or plan, except the mere +outline of the story, in which is displayed an extraordinary extent +of reading in all classes of literature, from the most learned to the +most popular, with a wonderful command of language, great imagination, +and some poetry, intermixed with a perhaps larger amount of downright +obscene ribaldry, than can be found in the macaronics of Folengo, +in the "Epistolae Obscurorum Virorum," or in the works of any of the +other satirists who had preceded him, or were his contemporaries. It +is a broad caricature, poor enough in its story, but enriched with +details, which are brilliant with imagery, though generally coarse, +and which are made the occasions for turning to ridicule everything +that existed. The five books of this romance were published separately +and at different periods, apparently without any fixed intention of +continuing them. The earlier editions of the first part were published +without date, but the earliest editions with dates belong to the year +1535, when it was several times reprinted. It appeared as the life of +Gargantua. This hero is supposed to have flourished in the first half +of the fifteenth century, and to have been the son of Grandgousier, +king of Utopia, a country which lay somewhere in the direction of +Chinon, a prince of an ancient dynasty, but a jovial fellow, who loved +good eating and drinking better than anything else. Grandgousier +married Gargamelle, daughter of the king of the Parpaillos, who became +the mother of Gargantua. The first chapters relate rather minutely +how the child was born, and came out at its mother's ear, why it was +called Gargantua, how it was dressed and treated in infancy, what were +its amusements and disposition, and how Gargantua was put to learning +under the sophists, and made no progress. Thereupon Grandgousier sent +his son to Paris, to seek instruction there, and he proceeds thither +mounted on an immense mare, which had been sent as a present by the +king of Numidia--it must be borne in mind that the royal race of Utopia +were all giants. At Paris the populace assembled tumultuously to +gratify their curiosity in looking at this new scholar; but Gargantua, +besides treating them in a very contemptuous manner, carried off the +great bells of Notre Dame to suspend at the neck of his mare. Great +was the indignation caused by this theft. "All the city was risen up +in sedition, they being, as you know, upon any slight occasions, so +ready to uproars and insurrections, that foreign nations wonder at the +patience of the kings of France, who do not by good justice restrain +them from such tumultuous courses." The citizens take counsel, and +resolve on sending one of the great orators of the university, Master +Janotus de Bragmardo, to expostulate with Gargantua, and obtain the +restoration of the bells. The speech which this worthy addresses to +Gargantua, in fulfilment of his mission, is an amusing parody on the +pedantic style of Parisian oratory. The bells, however, are recovered, +and Gargantua, under skilful instructors, pursues his studies with +credit, until he is suddenly called home by a letter from his father. +In fact, Grandgousier was suddenly involved in a war with his neighbour +Picrocole, king of Lerne, caused by a quarrel about cakes between some +cake-makers of Lerne and Grandgousier's shepherds, in consequence of +which Picrocole had invaded the dominions of Grandgousier, and was +plundering and ravaging them. His warlike humour is stirred up by the +counsels of his three lieutenants, who persuade him that he is going +to become a great conqueror, and that they will make him master of the +whole world. It is not difficult to see, in the circumstances of the +time, the general aim of the satire contained in the history of this +war. It ends in the entire defeat and disappearance of king Picrocole. +A sensual and jovial monk named brother Jean des Entommeurs, who has +first distinguished himself by his prowess and strength in defending +his own abbey against the invaders, contributes largely to the victory +gained by Gargantua against his father's enemies, and Gargantua +rewards him by founding for him that pleasant abbey of Theleme, a +grand establishment, stored with everything which could contribute to +terrestrial happiness, from which all hypocrites and bigots were to be +excluded, and the rule of which was comprised in the four simple words, +"Do as you like." + +Such is the history of Gargantua, which was afterwards formed by +Rabelais into the first book of his great comic romance. It was +published anonymously, the author merely describing himself as +"l'abstracteur de quinte essence;" but he afterwards adopted the +pseudonyme of Alcofribas Nasier, which is merely an anagram of his own +name, Francois Rabelais. A very improbable story has been handed down +to us relating to this book. It is pretended that, having published +a book of medical science which had no sale, and the publisher +complaining that he had lost money by it, Rabelais promised to make +amends for his loss, and immediately wrote the history of Gargantua, +by which the same book-seller made his fortune. There can be no doubt +that this remarkable satire had a deeper origin than any casual +accident like this; but it was exactly suited to the taste and temper +of the age. It was quite original in its form and style, and it met +with immediate and great success. Numerous editions followed each +other rapidly, and its author, encouraged by its popularity, very soon +afterwards produced a second romance, in continuation, to which he +gave the title of Pantagruel. The caricature in this second romance +is bolder even than in the first, the humour broader, and the satire +more pungent. Grandgousier has disappeared from the scene, and his son, +Gargantua, is king, and has a son named Pantagruel, whose kingdom is +that of the Dipsodes. The first part of this new romance is occupied +chiefly with Pantagruel's youth and education, and is a satire on +the university and on the lawyers, in which the parodies on their +style of pleading as then practised is admirable. In the latter part, +Pantagruel, like his father Gargantua, is engaged in great wars. It was +perhaps the continued success of this new production of his pen which +led Rabelais to go on with it, and form the design of making these two +books part only of a more extensive romance. During his studies in +Paris, Pantagruel has made the acquaintance of a singular individual +named Panurge, who becomes his attached friend and constant companion, +holding somewhat the position of brother Jean in the first book, but +far more crafty and versatile. The whole subject of the third book +arises out of Pantagreul's desire to marry, and its various amusing +episodes describe the different expedients which, at the suggestion of +Panurge, he adopts to arrive at a solution of the question whether his +marriage would be fortunate or not. + +In publishing his fourth book, Rabelais complains that his writings +had raised him enemies, and that he was accused of having at least +written heresy. In fact, he had bitterly provoked both the monks and +the university and parliament; and, as the increasing reaction of +Romanism in France gave more power of persecution to the two latter, +he was not writing without some degree of danger, yet the satire of +each successive book became bolder and more direct. The fifth, which +was left unfinished at his death, and which was published posthumously, +was the most severe of them all. The character of Gargantua, indeed, +was almost forgotten in that of Pantagruel, and Pantagruelism became +an accepted name for the sort of gay, reckless satire of which he was +looked upon as the model. He described it himself as a _certaine gaiete +d'esprit confite en mepris des choses fortuites_, in fact, neither +Romanism nor Protestantism, but simply a jovial kind of Epicurianism. +All the gay wits of the time aspired to be Pantagruelists, and the +remainder of the sixteenth century abounded in wretched imitations of +the style of Rabelais, which are now consigned as mere rarities to the +shelves of the bibliophilist. + +Among the dangers which began to threaten them in France in the earlier +part of the sixteenth century, liberal opinions found an asylum at the +court of a princess who was equally distinguished by her beauty, by her +talents and noble sentiments, and by her accomplishments. Marguerite +d'Angouleme, queen of Navarre, was the only sister of Francois I., who +was her junior by two years, and was affectionately attached to her. +She was born on the 11th of April, 1492. She had married, first, that +unfortunate duke d'Alencon, whose misconduct at Pavia was the cause of +the disastrous defeat of the French, and the captivity of their king. +The duke died, it was said of grief at his misfortune, in 1525; and +two years afterwards, on the 24th of January, 1527, she married Henri +d'Albret, king of Navarre. Their daughter, Jeanne d'Albret, carried +this petty royalty to the house of Bourbon, and was the mother of Henri +IV. + +Marguerite held her court in true princely manner in the castle of Pau +or at Nerac, and she loved to surround herself with a circle of men +remarkable for their character and talents, and ladies distinguished +by beauty and accomplishments, which made it rival in brilliance +even that of her brother Francois. She placed nearest to her person, +under the character of her _valets-de-chambre_, the principal poets +and _beaux-esprits_ of her time, such as Clement Marot, Bonaventure +des Periers, Claude Gruget, Antoine du Moulin, and Jean de la Haye, +and admitted them to such a tender familiarity of intercourse, as to +excite the jealousy of the king her husband, from whose ill-treatment +she was only protected by her brother's interference. The poets called +her chamber a "veritable Parnassus." Hers was certainly a great +mind, greedy of knowledge, dissatisfied with what was, and eager for +novelties, and therefore she encouraged all who sought for them. It +was in this spirit, combined with her earnest love for letters, that +she threw her protection over both the sceptics and the religious +reformers. At the beginning of the persecutions, as early as 1523, +she openly declared herself the advocate of the Protestants. When +Clement Marot was arrested by order of the Sorbonne and the Inquisitor +on the charge of having eaten bacon in Lent, Marguerite caused him +to be liberated from prison, in defiance of his persecutors. Some of +the purest and ablest of the early French reformers, such as Roussel +and Le Fevre d'Etaples, and Calvin himself, found a safe asylum from +danger in her dominions. As might be supposed, the bigoted party were +bitterly incensed against the queen of Navarre, and were not backward +in taking advantage of an opportunity for showing it. A moral treatise, +entitled "Le Miroir de l'Ame Pecheresse," of which Marguerite was the +author, was condemned by the Sorbonne in 1533, but the king compelled +the university, in the person of its rector, Nicolas Cop, to disavow +publicly the censure. This was followed by a still greater act of +insolence, for, at the instigation of some of the more bigoted papists, +the scholars of the college of Navarre, in concert with their regents, +performed a farce in which Marguerite was transformed into a fury of +hell. Francois I., greatly indignant, sent his archers to arrest the +offenders, who further provoked his anger by resistance, and only +obtained their pardon through the generous intercession of the princess +whom they had so grossly insulted. + +Marguerite was herself a poetess, and she loved above all things +those gay, and seldom very delicate, stories, the telling of which +was at that time one of the favourite amusements of the evening, +and one in which she was known to excel. Her poetical writings were +collected and printed, under her own authority, in 1547, by her then +_valet-de-chambre_, Jean de la Haye, who dedicated the volume to her +daughter. They are all graceful, and some of them worthy of the best +poets of her time. The title of this collection was, punning upon +her name, which means a pearl, "Marguerites de la Marguerite des +princesses, tres illustre reyne de Navarre." Marguerite's stories +(_nouvelles_) were more celebrated than her verses, and are said to +have been committed to writing under her own dictation. All the ladies +of her court possessed copies of them in writing. It is understood to +have been her intention to form them into ten days' tales, of ten in +each day, so as to resemble the "Decameron" of Boccaccio, but only +eight days were finished at the time of her death, and the imperfect +work was published posthumously by her _valet-de-chambre_, Claude +Gruget, under the title of "L'Heptameron, ou Histoire des Amants +Fortunes." It is by far the best collection of stories of the sixteenth +century. They are told charmingly, in language which is a perfect model +of French composition of that age, but they are all tales of gallantry +such as could only be repeated in polite society in an age which was +essentially licentious. Queen Marguerite died on the 21st of December, +1549, and was buried in the cathedral of Pau. Her death was a subject +of regret to all that was good and all that was poetic, not only in +France, but in Europe, which had been accustomed to look upon her as +the tenth Muse and the fourth Grace:-- + + _Musarum decima et Charitum quarta, inclyta regum + Et soror et conjux, Marguaris illa jacet._ + +Before Marguerite's death, her literary circle had been broken up by +the hatred of religious persecutors. Already, in 1536, the imprudent +boldness of Marot had rendered it impossible to protect him any +longer, and he had been obliged to retire to a place of concealment, +from whence he sometimes paid a stealthy visit to her court. His +place of _valet-de-chambre_ was given to a man of talents, even more +remarkable, and who shared equally the personal esteem of the queen of +Navarre, Bonaventure des Periers. Marot's successor paid a graceful +compliment to him in a short poem entitled "L'Apologie de Marot +absent," published in 1537. The earlier part of the year following +witnessed the publication of the most remarkable work of Bonaventure +des Periers, the "Cymbalum Mundi," concerning the real character +of which writers are still divided in opinion. In it Des Periers +introduced a new form of satire, imitated from the dialogues of Lucian. +The book consists of four dialogues, written in language which forms a +model of French composition, the personages introduced in them intended +evidently to represent living characters, whose names are concealed +in anagrams and other devices, among whom was Clement Marot. It was +the boldest declaration of scepticism which had yet issued from the +Epicurean school represented by Rabelais. The author sneers at the +Romish church as an imposture, ridicules the Protestants as seekers +after the philosopher's stone, and shows disrespect to Christianity +itself. Such a book could hardly be published in Paris with impunity, +yet it was printed there, secretly, it is said, by a well-known +bookseller, Jean Morin, in the Rue St. Jacques, and therefore in the +immediate vicinity of the persecuting Sorbonne. Private information +had been given of the character of this work, possibly by the printer +himself or by one of his men, and on the 6th of March, 1538, when it +was on the eve of publication, the whole impression was seized at the +printer's, and Morin himself was arrested and thrown into prison. He +was treated rigorously, and is understood to have escaped only by +disavowing all knowledge of the character of the book, and giving up +the name of the author. The first edition of the "Cymbalum Mundi" was +burnt, and Bonaventure des Periers, alarmed by the personal dangers +in which he was thus involved, retired from the court of the queen of +Navarre, and took refuge in the city of Lyons, where liberal opinions +at that time found a greater degree of tolerance than elsewhere. There +he printed a second edition of the "Cymbalum Mundi," which also was +burnt, and copies of either edition are now excessively rare.[98] +Bonaventure des Periers felt so much the weight of the persecution in +which he had now involved himself, that, in the year 1539, as far as +can be ascertained, he put an end to his own existence. This event cast +a gloom over the court of the queen of Navarre, from which it seems +never to have entirely recovered. The school of scepticism to which Des +Periers belonged had now fallen into equal discredit with Catholics and +Protestants, and the latter looked upon Marguerite herself, who had +latterly conformed outwardly with Romanism, as an apostate from their +cause. Henri Estienne, in his "Apologie pour Herodote," speaks of the +"Cymbalum Mundi" as an infamous book. + + [98] A cheap and convenient edition of the "Cymbalum Mundi," edited + by the Bibliophile Jacob (Paul Lacroix), was published in Paris + in 1841. I may here state that similar editions of the principal + French satirists of the sixteenth century have been printed + during the last twenty-five years. + +Bonaventure des Periers left behind him another work more amusing to us +at the present day, and more characteristic of the literary tastes of +the court of Marguerite of Navarre. This is a collection of facetious +stories, which was published several years after the death of its +author, under the title of "Les Contes, ou Les Nouvelles Recreations et +Joyeux Devis de Bonaventure des Periers." They have some resemblance +in style to the stories of the Heptameron, but are shorter, and rather +more facetious, and are characterised by their bitter spirit of satire +against the monks and popish clergy. Some of these stories remind us, +in their peculiar character and tone, of the "Epistolae Obscurorum +Virorum," as, for an example, the following, which is given as an +anecdote of the cure de Brou:-- + + "This cure had a way of his own to chant the different offices + of the church, and above all he disliked the way of saying the + Passion in the manner it was ordinarily said in churches, and he + chanted it quite differently. For when our Lord said anything to + the Jews, or to Pilate, he made him talk high and loud, so that + everybody could hear him, and when it was the Jews or somebody + else who spoke, he spoke so low that he could hardly be heard + at all. It happened that a lady of rank and importance, on her + way to Chateaudun, to keep there the festival of Easter, passed + through Brou on Good Friday, about ten o'clock in the morning, + and, wishing to hear service, she went to the church where the + cure was officiating. When it came to the Passion, he said it + in his own manner, and made the whole church ring again when + he said _Quem quaeritis_? But when it came to the reply, _Jesum + Nazarenum_, he spoke as low as he possibly could. And in this + manner he continued the Passion. The lady, who was very devout, + and, for a woman, well informed in the holy scriptures, and + attentive to the ecclesiastical ceremonies, felt scandalised + at this mode of chanting, and wished she had never entered the + church. She had a mind to speak to the cure, and tell him what + she thought of it; and for this purpose sent for him to come to + her after the service. When he came, she said to him, 'Monsieur + le Cure, I don't know where you learnt to officiate on a day like + this, when the people ought to be all humility; but to hear you + perform the service, is enough to drive away anybody's devotion.' + 'How so, madame?' said the cure. 'How so?' said she, 'you have + said a Passion contrary to all rules of decency. When our Lord + speaks, you cry as if you were in the town-hall; and when it is a + Caiaphas, or Pilate, or the Jews, you speak softly like a young + bride. Is this becoming in one like you? are you fit to be a cure? + If you had what you deserve, you would be turned out of your + benefice, and then you would be made to know your fault!' When the + cure had very attentively listened to her, he said, 'Is this what + you had to say to me, madame? By my soul! it is very true, what + they say; and the truth is, that there are many people who talk of + things which they do not understand. Madame, I believe that I know + my office as well as another, and I beg all the world to know that + God is as well served in this parish according to its condition, + as in any place within a hundred leagues of it. I know very well + that the other cures chant the Passion quite differently; I could + easily chant it like them if I would; but they do not understand + their business at all. I should like to know if it becomes those + rogues of Jews to speak as loud as our Lord! No, no, madame; rest + assured that in my parish it is my will that God be the master, + and He shall be as long as I live; and let the others do in their + parishes according to their understanding.'" + +Another story, equally worthy of Ulric von Hutten, is satirical enough +on priestly pedantry:-- + + "There was a priest of a village who was as proud as might be, + because he had seen a little more than his Cato; for he had read + _De Syntaxi_, and his _Fauste precor gelida_ [the first eclogue + of Baptista Mantuanus]. And this made him set up his feathers, + and talk very grand, using words that filled his mouth, in order + to make people think him a great doctor. Even at confession, he + made use of terms which astonished the poor people. One day he + was confessing a poor working man, of whom he asked, 'Here, now, + my friend, tell me, art thou ambitious?' The poor man said 'No,' + thinking this was a word which belonged to great lords, and almost + repented of having come to confess to this priest; for he had + already heard that he was such a great clerk, and that he spoke + so grandly, that nobody understood him, which he now knew by this + word _ambitious_; for although he might have heard it somewhere, + yet he did not know at all what it was. The priest went on to + ask 'Art thou not a fornicator?' 'No,' said the labourer, who + understood as little as before. 'Art thou not a gourmand?' said + the priest. 'No.' 'Art thou not superbe [_proud_]?' 'No.' 'Art + thou not iracund?' 'No.' The priest seeing the man answer always + 'No,' was somewhat surprised. 'Art thou not concupiscent?' 'No.' + 'And what art thou, then?' said the priest. 'I am,' said he, 'a + mason; here is my trowel!'" + +At this time "Pantagruelism" had mixed itself more or less largely in +all the satirical literature of France. It is very apparent in the +writings of Bonaventure des Periers, and in a considerable number of +satirical publications which now issued, many of them anonymously, or +under the then fashionable form of anagrams, from the press in France. +Among these writers were a few who, though far inferior to Rabelais, +may be considered as not unequal to Des Periers himself. One of the +most remarkable of these was a gentleman of Britany, Noel du Fail, lord +of La Herissaye, who was, like so many of these satirists, a lawyer, +and who died, apparently at an advanced age, at the end of 1585, or +beginning of 1586. In his publications, according to the fashion of +that age, he concealed his name under an anagram, and called himself +Leon Ladulfil (doubling the _l_ in the name Fail). Noel du Fail has +been called the ape of Rabelais, though the mere imitation is not very +apparent. He published (as far as has been ascertained), in 1548, +his "Discours d'aucuns propos ruftiques facetieux, et de singuliere +recreation." This was followed immediately by a work entitled +"Baliverneries, ou Contes Nouveaux d'Eutrapel;" but his last, and most +celebrated book, the "Contes et Discours d'Eutrapel," was not printed +until 1586, after the death of its author. The writings of Noel du Fail +are full of charming pictures of rural life in the sixteenth century, +and, though sufficiently free, they present less than most similar +books of that period of the coarseness of Rabelais. I cannot say the +same of a book which is much more celebrated than either of these, +and the history of which is still enveloped in obscurity. I mean the +"Moyen de Parvenir." This book, which is full of wit and humour, but +the licentiousness of which is carried to a degree which renders it +unreadable at the present day, is now ascribed by bibliographers, in +its present form, to Beroalde de Verville, a gentleman of a Protestant +family who had embraced Catholicism, and obtained advancements in the +church, and it was not printed until 1610, but it is supposed that in +its present form it is only a revision of an earlier composition, +perhaps even an unacknowledged work of Rabelais himself, which had been +preserved in manuscript in Beroald's family. + +Pantagruelism, or, if you like, Rabelaism, did not, during the +sixteenth century, make much progress beyond the limits of France. +In the Teutonic countries of Europe, and in England, the sceptical +sentiment was small in comparison with the religious feeling, and the +only satirical work at all resembling those we have been describing, +was the "Utopia" of Sir Thomas More, a work comparatively spiritless, +and which produced a very slight sensation. In Spain, the state of +social feeling was still less favourable to the writings of Rabelais, +yet he had there a worthy and true representative in the author of +Don Quixote. It was only in the seventeenth century that the works of +Rabelais were translated into English; but we must not forget that our +satirists of the last century, such as Swift and Sterne, derived their +inspiration chiefly from Rabelais, and from the Pantagruelistic writers +of the latter half of the sixteenth century. These latter were most of +them poor imitators of their original, and, like all poor imitators, +pursued to exaggeration his least worthy characteristics. There is +still some humour in the writings of Tabourot, the sieur des Accords, +especially in his "Bigarrures," but the later productions, which +appeared under such names as Bruscambille and Tabarin, sink into mere +dull ribaldry. + +There had arisen, however, by the side of this satire which smelt +somewhat too much of the tavern, another satire, more serious, +which still contained a little of the style of Rabelais. The French +Protestants at first looked upon Rabelais as one of their towers of +strength, and embraced with gratitude the powerful protection they +received from the graceful queen of Navarre; but their gratitude +failed them, when Marguerite, though she never ceased to give them her +protection, conformed outwardly, from attachment to her brother, to the +forms of the Catholic faith, and they rejected the school of Rabelais +as a mere school of Atheists. Among them arose another school of +satire, a sort of branch from the other, which was represented in its +infancy by the celebrated scholar and printer, Henri Estienne, better +known among us as Henry Stephens. + +The remarkable book called an "Apologie pour Herodote," arose out of +an attack upon its writer by the Romanists. Henri Estienne, who was +known as a staunch Protestant, published, at great expense, an edition +of Herodotus in Greek and Latin, and the zealous Catholics, out of +spite to the editor, decried his author, and spoke of Herodotus as a +mere collector of monstrous and incredible tales. Estienne, in revenge, +published what, under the form of an apology for Herodotus, was really +a violent attack on the Romish church. His argument is that all +historians must relate transactions which appear to many incredible, +and that the events of modern times were much more incredible, if +they were not known to be true, than anything which is recorded by +the historian of antiquity. After an introductory dissertation on the +light in which we ought to regard the fable of the Golden Age, and on +the moral character of the ancient peoples, he goes on to show that +their depravity was much less than that of the middle ages and of his +own time, indeed of all periods during which people were governed by +the Church of Rome. Not only did this dissoluteness of morals pervade +lay society, but the clergy were more vicious even than the people, to +whom they ought to serve as an example. A large part of the book is +filled with anecdotes of the immoral lives of the popish clergy of the +sixteenth century, and of their ignorance and bigotry; and he describes +in detail the methods employed by the Romish church to keep the mass +of the people in ignorance, and to repress all attempts at inquiry. +Out of all this, he says, had risen a school of atheists and scoffers, +represented by Rabelais and Bonaventure des Periers, both of whom he +mentions by name. + +As we approach the end of the sixteenth century, the struggle of +parties became more political than religious, but not less bitter than +before. The literature of the age of that celebrated "Ligue," which +seemed at one time destined to overthrow the ancient royalty of France, +consisted chiefly of libellous and abusive pamphlets, but in the midst +of them there appeared a work far superior to any purely political +satire which had yet been seen, and the fame of which has never passed +away. Its object was to turn to ridicule the meeting of the Estates +of France, convoked by the duke of Mayenne, as leader of the Ligue, +and held at Paris on the 10th of February, 1503. The grand object of +this meeting was to exclude Henri IV. from the throne; and the Spanish +party proposed to abolish the Salic law, and proclaim the infanta of +Spain queen of France. The French ligueurs proposed plans hardly less +unpatriotic, and the duke of Mayenne, indignant at the small account +made of his own personal pretensions, prorogued the meeting, and +persuaded the two parties to hold what proved a fruitless conference at +Suresne. It was the meeting of the Estates in Paris which gave rise to +that celebrated _Satyre Menippee_, of which it was said, that it served +the cause of Henri IV. as much as the battle of Ivry itself. + +This satire originated among a party of friends, of men distinguished +by learning, wit, and talent, though most of their names are obscure, +who used to meet in an evening in the hospitable house of one of +them, Jacques Gillot, on the Quai des Orfevres in Paris, and there +talk satirically over the violence and insolence of the ligueurs. +They all belonged either to the bar or to the university, or to the +church. Gillot himself, a Burgundian, born about the year 1560, had +been a dean in the church of Langres, and afterwards canon of the +Sainte Chapelle in Paris, and was at this time conseiller-clerc to +the parliament of Paris. In 1589 he was committed to the Bastille, +but was soon afterwards liberated. Nicolas Rapin, one of his friends, +was born in 1535, and was said to have been the son of a priest, and +therefore illegitimate. He was a lawyer, a poet, and a soldier, for he +fought bravely in the ranks of Henri IV. at Ivry, and his devotion to +that prince was so well known, that he was banished from Paris by the +ligueurs, but had returned thither before the meeting of the Estates in +1593. Jean Passerat, born in 1534, was also a poet, and a professor in +the College Royal. Florent Chrestien, born at Orleans in 1540, had been +the tutor of Henri IV., and was well known as a man of sound learning. +The most learned of the party was Pierre Pithou, born at Troyes in +1539, who had abjured Calvinism to return to Romanism, and who held +a distinguished position at the French bar. The last of this little +party of men of letters was a canon of Rouen named Pierre le Roy, a +patriotic ecclesiastic, who held the office of almoner to the cardinal +de Bourbon. It was Le Roy who drew up the first sketch of the "Satyre +Menippee," each of the others executed his part in the composition, and +Pithou finally revised it. For several years this remarkable satire +circulated only secretly, and in manuscript, and it was not printed +until Henri IV. was established on the throne. + +The satire opens with an account of the virtues of the "Catholicon," +or nostrum for curing all political diseases, or the _higuiero +d'infierno_, which had been so effective in the hands of the Spaniards, +who invented it. Some of these are extraordinary enough. If, we are +told, the lieutenant of Don Philip "have some of this Catholicon on +his flags, he will enter without a blow into an enemy's country, and +they will meet him with crosses and banners, legates and primates; and +though he ruin, ravage, usurp, massacre, and sack everything, and carry +away, ravish, burn, and reduce everything to a desert, the people of +the country will say, 'These are our friends, they are good Catholics; +they do it for our peace, and for our mother holy church.'" "If an +indolent king amuse himself with refining this drug in his escurial, +let him write a word into Flanders to Father Ignatius, sealed with +the Catholicon, he will find him a man who (_salva conscientia_) will +assassinate his enemy whom he has not been able to conquer by arms in +twenty years." This, of course, is an allusion to the murder of the +prince of Orange. "If this king proposes to assure his estates to his +children after his death, and to invade another's kingdom at little +expense, let him write a word to Mendoza, his ambassador, or to Father +Commelet (one of the most seditious orators of the Ligue), and if he +write with the _higuiero del infierno_, at the bottom of his letter, +the words _Yo el Rey_, they will furnish him with an apostate monk, who +will go under a fair semblance, like a Judas, and assassinate in cold +blood a great king of France, his brother-in-law, in the middle of his +camp, without fear of God or men; they will do more, they will canonise +the murderer, and place this Judas above St. Peter, and baptise this +prodigious and horrible crime with the name of a providential event, +of which the godfathers will be cardinals, legates, and primates." The +allusion here is to the assassination of Henri III. by Jacques Clement. +These are but a few of the marvellous properties of the political drug, +after the enumeration of which the report of the meeting of the Estates +is introduced by a burlesque description of the grand procession +which preceded it. Then we are introduced to the hall of assembly, and +different subjects pictured on the tapestries which cover its walls, +all having reference to the politics of the Ligue, are described fully. +Then we come to the report of the meeting, and to the speeches of the +different speakers, each of which is a model of satire. It is not known +which of the little club of satirists wrote the open speech of the duke +of Mayenne, but that of the Roman legate is known to be the work of +Gillot, and that of the cardinal de Pelve, a masterpiece of Latin in +the style of the "Epistolae Obscurorum Virorum," was written by Florent +Chrestien. Nicolas Rapin composed the "harangue" placed in the mouth +of the archbishop of Lyons, as well as that of Rose, the rector of +the university; and the long speech of Claude d'Aubray was by Pithou. +Passerat composed most of the verses which are scattered through the +book, and it is understood that Pithou finally revised the whole. This +mock report of the meeting of the Estates closes with a description of +a series of political pictures which are arranged on the wall of the +staircase of the hall. + +These pictures, as well as those on the tapestries of the hall of +meeting, are simply so many caricatures, and the same may be said of +another set of pictures, of which a description is given in one of the +satirical pieces which followed the "Satyre Menippee," on the same +side, entitled, "Histoire des Singeries de la Ligue." It was amid +the political turmoil of the sixteenth century in France that modern +political caricature took its rise. + + + + + CHAPTER XX. + + POLITICAL CARICATURE IN ITS INFANCY.--THE REVERS DU JEU DES + SUYSSES.--CARICATURE IN FRANCE.--THE THREE ORDERS.--PERIOD OF THE + LEAGUE; CARICATURES AGAINST HENRI III.--CARICATURES AGAINST THE + LEAGUE.--CARICATURE IN FRANCE IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.--GENERAL + GALAS.--THE QUARREL OF AMBASSADORS.--CARICATURE AGAINST LOUIS + XIV.; WILLIAM OF FUeRSTEMBERG. + + +It has been already remarked that political caricature, in the modern +sense of the word, or even personal caricature, was inconsistent with +the state of things in the middle ages, until the arts of engraving +and printing became sufficiently developed, because it requires the +facility of quick and extensive circulation. The political or satirical +song was carried everywhere by the minstrel, but the satirical picture, +represented only in some solitary sculpture or illumination, could +hardly be finished before it had become useless even in the small +sphere of its influence, and then remained for ages a strange figure, +with no meaning that could be understood. No sooner, however, was +the art of printing introduced, than the importance of political +caricature was understood and turned to account. We have seen what a +powerful agent it became in the Reformation, which in spirit was no +less political than religious; but even before the great religious +movement had begun, this agent had been brought into activity. One +of the earliest engravings which can be called a caricature--perhaps +the oldest of our modern caricatures known--is represented in our +cut No. 171, is no doubt French, and belongs to the year 1499. It is +sufficiently explained by the history of the time. + + [Illustration: _No. 171. The Political Game of Cards._] + +At the date just mentioned, Louis XII. of France, who had been king +less than twelve months, was newly married to Anne of Britany, and +had resolved upon an expedition into Italy, to unite the crown of +Naples with that of France. Such an expedition affected many political +interests and Louis had to employ a certain amount of diplomacy with +his neighbours, several of whom were strongly opposed to his projects +of ambition, and among those who acted most openly were the Swiss, +who were believed to have been secretly supported by England and the +Netherlands. Louis, however, overcame their opposition, and obtained a +renewal of the alliance which had expired with his predecessor Charles +VIII. This temporary difficulty with the Swiss is the subject of our +caricature, the original of which bears the title "Le Revers du Jeu +des Suysses" (the defeat of the game of the Swiss). The princes most +interested are assembled round a card-table, at which are seated the +king of France to the right, opposite him the Swiss, and in front the +doge of Venice, who was in alliance with the French against Milan. At +the moment represented, the king of France is announcing that he has a +flush of cards, the Swiss acknowledges the weakness of his hand, and +the doge lays down his cards--in fact, Louis XII. has won the game. +But the point of the caricature lies principally in the group around. +To the extreme right the king of England, Henry VII., distinguished +by his three armorial lions, and the king of Spain, are engaged in +earnest conversation. Behind the former stands the infanta Margarita, +who is evidently winking at the Swiss to give him information of the +state of the cards of his opponents. At her side stands the duke of +Wirtemberg, and just before him the pope, the infamous Alexander VI. +(Borgia), who, though in alliance with Louis, is not able, with all his +efforts, to read the king's game, and looks on with evident anxiety. +Behind the doge of Venice stands the Italian refugee, Trivulci, an able +warrior, devoted to the interests of France; and at the doge's right +hand, the emperor, holding in his hands another pack of cards, and +apparently exulting in the belief that he has thrown confusion into +the king of France's game. In the background to the left are seen the +count Palatine and the marquis of Montserrat, who also look uncertain +about the result; and below the former appears the duke of Savoy, who +was giving assistance to the French designs. The duke of Lorraine is +serving drink to the gamblers, while the duke of Milan, who was at this +time playing rather a double part, is gathering up the cards which have +fallen to the ground, in order to make a game for himself. Louis XII. +carried his designs into execution; the duke of Milan, Ludovico Sforza, +nick-named the Moor, played his cards badly, lost his duchy, and died +in prison. + + [Illustration: _No. 172. The Three Orders of the State._] + +Such is this earliest of political caricatures--and in this case it +was purely political--but the question of religion soon began not only +to mix itself up with the political question, but almost to absorb it, +as we have seen in the review of the history of caricature under the +Reformation. Before this period, indeed, political caricature was only +an affair between crowned heads, or between kings and their nobles, but +the religious agitation had originated a vast social movement, which +brought into play popular feelings and passions: these gave caricature +a totally new value. Its power was greatest on the middle and lower +classes of society, that is, on the people, the _tiers etat_, which was +now thrown prominently forward. The new social theory is proclaimed +in a print, of which a fac-simile will be found in the "Musee de la +Caricature," by E. J. Jaime, and which, from the style and costume, +appears to be German. The three orders, the church, the lord of the +land, and the people, represented respectively by a bishop, a knight, +and a cultivator, stand upon the globe in an honourable equality, each +receiving direct from heaven the emblems or implements of his duties. +To the bishop is delivered his bible, to the husbandman his mattock, +and to the knight the sword with which he is to protect and defend the +others. This print--see cut No. 172--which bears the title, in Latin, +"Quis te praetulit?" (Who chose thee?) belongs probably to the earlier +half of the sixteenth century. A painting in the Hotel de Ville of +Aix, in Provence, represents the same subject much more satirically, +intending to delineate the three orders as they were, and not as they +ought to be. The divine hand is letting down from heaven an immense +frame in the form of a heart, in which is a picture representing a king +kneeling before the cross, intimating that the civil power was to be +subordinate to the ecclesiastical. The three orders are represented +by a cardinal, a noble, and a peasant, the latter of whom is bending +under the burthen of the heart, the whole of which is thrown upon his +shoulders, while the cardinal and the noble, the latter dressed in +the fashionable attire of the court minions of the day, are placing +one hand to the heart on each side, in a manner which shows that they +support none of the weight. + +Amid the fierce agitation which fell upon France in the sixteenth +century, for a while we find but few traces of the employment of +caricature by either party. The religious reformation there was rather +aristocratic than popular, and the reformers sought less to excite +the feelings of the multitude, which, indeed, went generally in the +contrary direction. There was, moreover, a character of gloom in the +religion of Calvin, which contracted strongly with the joyousness of +that of the followers of Luther; and the factions in France sought to +slaughter, rather than to laugh at, each other. The few caricatures +of this period which are known, are very bitter and coarse. As far as +I am aware, no early Huguenot caricatures are known, but there are a +few directed against the Huguenots. It was, however, with the rise of +the Ligue that the taste for political caricature may be said to have +taken root in France, and in that country it long continued to flourish +more than anywhere else. The first caricatures of the ligueurs were +directed against the person of the king, Henri de Valois, and possess +a brutality almost beyond description. It was now an object to keep up +the bitterness of spirit of the fanatical multitude. In one of these +caricatures a demon is represented waiting on the king to summon him +to a meeting of the "Estates" in hell; and in the distance we see +another demon flying away with him. Another relates to the murder of +the Guises, in 1588, which the ligueurs professed to ascribe to the +councils of M. d'Epernon, one of his favourites, on whom they looked +with great hatred. It is entitled, "Soufflement et Conseil diabolique +de d'Epernon a Henri de Valois pour faccager les Catholiques." In the +middle of the picture stands the king, and beside him D'Epernon, who +is blowing into his ear with a bellows. On the ground before them lie +the headless corpses of the _deux freres Catholiques_, the duke of +Guise, and his brother the cardinal, while the executioner of royal +vengeance is holding up their heads by the hair. In the distance is +seen the castle of Blois, in which this tragedy took place; and on the +left of the picture appear the cardinal de Bourbon, the archbishop of +Blois, and other friends of the Guises, expressing their horror at the +deed. Henri III. was himself murdered in the year following, and the +caricatures against him became still more brutal during the period in +which the ligueurs tried to set up a king of their own in his place. In +one caricature, which has more of an emblematical character than most +of the others, he is pictured as "Henri le Monstrueux;" and in others, +entitled "Les Hermaphrodites," he is exhibited under forms which point +at the infamous vices with which he was charged. + + [Illustration: _No. 173. The Assembly of Apes._] + +The tide of caricature, however, soon turned in the contrary direction, +and the coarse, unprincipled abuse employed by the ligueurs found a +favourable contrast in the powerful wit and talent of the satirists +and caricaturists who now took up pen and pencil in the cause of +Henri IV. The former was, on the whole, the more formidable weapon, +but the latter represented to some eyes more vividly in picture what +had already been done in type. This was the case on both sides; the +caricature last mentioned was founded upon a very libellous satirical +pamphlet against Henri III., entitled "L'Isle des Hermaphrodites." It +is the case also with the first caricatures against the ligueurs, which +I have to mention. The Estates held in Paris by the duke of Mayenne +and the ligueurs for the purpose of electing a new king in opposition +to Henri of Navarre, were made the subject of the celebrated "Satyre +Menippee," in which the proceedings of these Estates were turned to +ridicule in the most admirable manner. Four large editions were sold +in less than as many months. Several caricatures arose out of or +accompanied this remarkable book. One of these is a rather large print, +entitled "La Singerie des Estats de la Ligue, l'an 1593," in which the +members of the Estates and the ligueurs are pictured with the heads +of monkeys. The central part represents the meeting of the Estates, +at which the lieutenant-general of the kingdom, the duke of Mayenne, +seated on the throne, presides. Above him is suspended a large portrait +of the infanta of Spain, _L'Espousee de la Ligue_, as she is called +in the satire, ready to marry any one whom the Estates shall declare +king of France. In chairs, on each side of Mayenne, are the two "ladies +of honour" of the said future spouse. To the left are seated in a row +the celebrated council of sixteen (_les seize_), reduced at this time +to twelve, because the duke of Mayenne, to check their turbulence, +had caused four of them to be hanged. They wear the favours of the +future spouse. Opposite to them are the representatives of the three +orders, all, we are told, devoted to the service of "the said lady." +Before the throne are the two musicians of the Ligue, one described as +Phelipottin, the blind performer on the viel, or hurdy-gurdy, to the +Ligue, and his subordinate, the player on the triangle, "kept at the +expense of the future spouse." These were to entertain the assembly +during the pauses between the orations of the various speakers. All +this is a satire on the efforts of the king of Spain to establish a +monarch of his own choice. On the bench behind the musicians sit the +deputies from Lyons, Poitiers, Orleans, and Rheims, cities where the +influence of the Ligue was strong, discussing the question as to who +should be king. Thus much of this picture is represented in our cut +No. 173. There are other groups of figures in the representation of +the assembly of the Estates; and there are two side compartments--that +on the left representing a forge, on which the fragments of a broken +king are laid to be refounded, and a multitude of apes, with hammers +and an anvil, ready to work him into a new king; the other side of +the picture represents the circumstances of a then well-known act of +tyranny perpetrated by the Estates of the Ligue. Another large and +well-executed engraving, published at Paris in 1594, immediately after +Henri IV. had obtained possession of his capital, also represents the +grand procession of the Ligue as described at the commencement of the +"Satyre Menippee," and was intended to hold up to ridicule the warlike +temper of the French Catholic clergy. It is entitled, "La Procession de +la Ligue." + +Henri's triumph over the Ligue was made the subject of a series of +three caricatures, or perhaps, more correctly, of a caricature in three +divisions. The first is entitled the "Naissance de la Ligue," and +represents it under the form of a monster with three heads, severally +those of a wolf, a fox, and a serpent, issuing from hell-mouth. Under +it are the following lines:-- + + _L'enfer, pour asservir soubs ses loix tout le monde, + Vomit ce monstre hideux, fait d'un loup ravisseur, + D'un renard enveilly, et d'un serpent immonde, + Affuble d'un manteau propre a toute couleur._ + +The second division, the "Declin de la Ligue," representing its +downfall, is copied in our cut No. 174. Henri of Navarre, in the form +of a lion, has pounced fiercely upon it, and not too soon, for it had +already seized the crown and sceptre. In the distance, the sun of +national prosperity is seen rising over the country. The third picture, +the "Effets de la Ligue," represents the destruction of the kingdom and +the slaughter of the people, of which the Ligue had been the cause. + + [Illustration: _No. 174. The Destruction of the Ligue._] + + [Illustration: _No. 175. General Galas._] + +The caricatures in France became more numerous during the seventeenth +century, but they are either so elaborate or so obscure, that each +requires almost a dissertation to explain it, and they often relate to +questions or events which have little interest for us at the present +day. Several rather spirited ones appeared at the time of the disgrace +of the mareschal d'Ancre and his wife; and the inglorious war with +the Netherlands, in 1635, furnished the occasion for others, for +the French, as usual, could make merry in their reverses as well as +in their successes. The imperialist general Galas inflicted serious +defeat on the French armies, and compelled them to a very disastrous +retreat from the countries they had invaded, and they tried to amuse +themselves at the expense of their conqueror. Galas was rather +remarkable for obesity, and the French caricaturists of the day made +this circumstance a subject for their satire. Our cut No. 175 is copied +from a print in which the magnitude of the stomach of General Galas +is certainly somewhat exaggerated. He is represented, not apparently +with any good reason, as puffed up with his own importance, which is +evaporating in smoke; and along with the smoke thus issuing from his +mouth, he is made to proclaim his greatness in the following rather +doggrel verses:-- + + _Je suis ce grand Galas, autrefois dans l'armee + La gloire de l'Espagne et de mes compagnons; + Maintenant je ne suis qu'un corps plein de fumee, + Pour avoir trop mange de raves et d'oignons. + Gargantua jamais n'eut une telle panse, &c._ + + [Illustration: _No. 176. Batteville Humiliated._] + +Caricatures in France began to be tolerably abundant during the middle +of the seventeenth century, but under the crushing tyranny of Louis +XIV., the freedom of the press, in all its forms, ceased to exist, and +caricatures relating to France, unless they came from the court party, +had to be published in other countries, especially in Holland. It will +be sufficient to give two examples from the reign of Louis XIV. In the +year 1661, a dispute arose in London between the ambassador of France, +M. D'Estrades, and the Spanish ambassador, the baron de Batteville, +on the question of precedence, which was carried so far as to give +rise to a tumult in the streets of the English capital. At this very +moment, a new Spanish ambassador, the marquis de Fuentes, was on his +way to Paris, but Louis, indignant at Batteville's behaviour in London, +sent orders to stop Fuentes on the frontier, and forbid his further +advance into his kingdom. The king of Spain disavowed the act of his +ambassador in England, who was recalled, and Fuentes received orders +to make an apology to king Louis. This event was made the subject of +a rather boasting caricature, the greater portion of which is given in +our cut No. 176. It is entitled "Batteville vient adorer le Soliel" +(Batteville comes to worship the sun). In the original the sun is seen +shining in the upper corner of the picture to the right, and presenting +the juvenile face of Louis XIV., but the caricaturist appears to have +substituted Batteville in the place of Fuentes. Beneath the whole are +the following boastful lines:-- + + _On ne va plus a Rome, on vient de Rome en France, + Meriter le pardon de quelque grande offence. + L'Italie tout entiere est soumise a ces loix; + Un Espagnol s'oppose a ce droit de nos rois. + Mais un Francais puissant joua des bastonnades, + Et punit l'insolent de ses rodomontades._ + +From this time there sprung up many caricatures against the Spaniards; +but the most ferocious caricature, or rather book of caricatures, of +the reign of Louis XIV., came from without, and was directed against +the king and his ministers and courtiers. The revocation of the edict +of Nantes took place in October, 1685, and was preceded and followed +by frightful persecutions of the Protestants, which drove away in +thousands the earnest, intelligent, and industrious part of the +population of France. They carried with them a deep hatred to their +oppressors, and sought refuge especially in the countries most hostile +to Louis XIV.--England and Holland. The latter country, where they +then enjoyed the greatest freedom of action, soon sent forth numerous +satirical books and prints against the French king and his ministers, +of which the book just alluded to was one of the most remarkable. It +is entitled "Les Heros de la Ligue, ou la Procession Monacale conduite +par Louis XIV. pour la Conversion des Protestans de son Royaume," and +consists of a series of twenty-four most grotesque faces, intended to +represent the ministers and courtiers of the "grand roi" most odious +to the Calvinists. It must have provoked their wrath exceedingly. I +give one example, and as it is difficult to select, I take the first in +the list, which represents William of Fuerstemberg, one of the German +princes devoted to Louis XIV., who, by his intrigues, had forced him +into the archbishopric of Cologne, by which he became an elector +of the empire. For many reasons William of Fuerstemberg was hated by +the French Protestants, but it is not quite clear why he is here +represented in the character of one of the low merchants of the Halles. +Over the picture, in the original, we read, _Guillaume de Furstemberg, +crie, ite, missa est_, and beneath are the four lines:-- + + _J'ay quitte mon pais pour servir a la France, + Soit par ma trahison, soit par ma lachete; + J'ay trouble les etats par ma mechancete, + Une abbaye est ma recompense._ + + [Illustration: _No. 177. William of Fuerstemberg._] + + + + + CHAPTER XXI. + + EARLY POLITICAL CARICATURE IN ENGLAND.--THE SATIRICAL WRITINGS + AND PICTURES OF THE COMMONWEALTH PERIOD.--SATIRES AGAINST + THE BISHOPS; BISHOP WILLIAMS.--CARICATURES ON THE CAVALIERS; + SIR JOHN SUCKLING.--THE ROARING BOYS; VIOLENCE OF THE + ROYALIST SOLDIERS.--CONTEST BETWEEN THE PRESBYTERIANS AND + INDEPENDENTS.--GRINDING THE KING'S NOSE.--PLAYING-CARDS USED AS + THE MEDIUM FOR CARICATURE; HASELRIGGE AND LAMBERT.--SHROVETIDE. + + +During the sixteenth century caricature can hardly be said to have +existed in England, and it did not come much into fashion, until the +approach of the great struggle which convulsed our country in the +century following. The popular reformers have always been the first to +appreciate the value of pictorial satire as an offensive weapon. Such +was the case with the German reformers in the age of Luther; as it was +again with the English reformers in the days of Charles I., a period +which we may justly consider as that of the birth of English political +caricature. From 1640 to 1661 the press launched forth an absolute +deluge of political pamphlets, many of which were of a satirical +character, scurrilous in form and language, and, on whatever side +they were written, very unscrupulous in regard to the truth of their +statements. Among them appeared a not unfrequent engraving, seldom +well executed, whether on copper or wood, but displaying a coarse and +pungent wit that must have told with great effect on those for whom it +was intended. The first objects of attack in these caricatures were +the Episcopalian party in the church and the profaneness and insolence +of the cavaliers. The Puritans or Presbyterians who took the lead +in, and at first directed, the great political movement, looked upon +Episcopalianism as differing in little from popery, and, at all events, +as leading direct to it. Arminianism was with them only another name +for the same thing, and was equally detested. In a caricature published +in 1641, Arminius is represented supported on one side by Heresy, +wearing the triple crown, while on the other side Truth is turning away +from him, and carrying with her the Bible. It was the indiscreet zeal +of archbishop Laud which led to the triumph of the Puritan party, and +the downfall of the episcopal church government, and Laud became the +butt for attacks of all descriptions, in pamphlets, songs and satirical +prints, the latter usually figuring in the titles of the pamphlets. +Laud was especially obnoxious to the Puritans for the bitterness with +which he had persecuted them. + +In 1640 Laud was committed to the Tower, an event which was hailed +as the first grand step towards the overthrow of the bishops. As an +example of the feeling of exultation displayed on this occasion by his +enemies, we may quote a few lines from a satirical song, published in +1641, and entitled "The Organs Eccho. To the Tune of the Cathedrall +Service." It is a general attack on the prelacy, and opens with a cry +of triumph over the fall of William Laud, of whom the song says-- + + _As he was in his braverie, + And thought to bring us all in slaverie, + The parliament found out his knaverie; + And so fell William. + Alas! poore William!_ + + _His pope-like domineering, + And some other tricks appearing, + Provok'd Sir Edward Deering + To blame the old prelate. + Alas! poore prelate!_ + + _Some say he was in hope + To bring England againe to th' pope; + But now he is in danger of an axe or a rope. + Farewell, old Canterbury. + Alas! poore Canterbury!_ + +Wren, bishop of Ely, was another of the more obnoxious of the prelates, +and there was hardly less joy among the popular party when he was +committed to the Tower in the course of the year 1641. Another song, +in verse similar to the last, contains a general review of the demerits +of the members of the prelacy, under the title of "The Bishops Last +Good-night." At the head of the broadside on which it is printed stand +two satirical woodcuts, but it must be confessed that the words of the +song are better than the engraving. The bishop of Ely, we are told, had +just gone to join his friend Laud in the Tower-- + + _Ely, thou hast alway to thy power + Left the church naked in a storme and showre, + And now for 't thou must to thy old friend i' th' Tower. + To the Tower must Ely; + Come away, Ely._ + +A third obnoxious prelate was bishop Williams. Williams was a Welshman +who had been high in favour with James I., but he had given offence +to the government of Charles I., and been imprisoned in the Tower +during the earlier part of that king's reign. He was released by the +parliament in 1640, and so far regained the favour of king Charles, +that he was raised to the archbishopric of York in the year following. +When the civil war began, he retired into Wales, and garrisoned Conway +for the king. Williams's warlike behaviour was the source of much mirth +among the Roundheads. In 1642 was published a large caricature on the +three classes to whom the parliamentarians were especially hostile--the +royalist judges, the prelates, and the ruffling cavaliers; represented +here, as we are told in writing in the copy among the king's pamphlets, +by judge Mallet, bishop Williams, and colonel Lunsford. These three +figures are placed in as many compartments with doggrel verses under +each. That of bishop Williams is copied in our cut No. 178. The bishop +is armed cap-a-pie, and in the distance behind him are seen on one +side his cathedral church, and on the other his war-horse. The verses +beneath it contain an allusion to this prelate's Welsh extraction in +the orthography of some of the words:-- + + _Oh, sir, I'me ready, did you never heere + How forward I have byn t'is many a yeare, + T'oppose the practice dat is now on foote, + Which plucks my brethren up both pranch and roote? + My posture and my hart toth well agree + To fight; now plud is up: come, follow mee._ + + [Illustration: _No. 178. The Church Militant._] + +The country had now begun to experience the miseries of war, and to +smart under them; and the cavaliers were especially reproached for the +cruelty with which they plundered and ill-treated people whenever they +gained the mastery. Colonel Lunsford was especially notorious for the +barbarities committed by himself and his men--to such a degree that he +was popularly accused of eating children, a charge which is frequently +alluded to in the popular songs of the time. Thus one of these songs +couples him with two other obnoxious royalists:-- + + _From Fielding, and from Vavasour, + Both ill-affected men, + From Lunsford eke deliver us, + Who eateth up children._ + + [Illustration: _No. 179. The Sucklington Faction._] + +In the third compartment of the caricature just mentioned, we see in +the background of the picture, behind colonel Lunsford, his soldiers +occupied in burning towns, and massacring women and children. The model +of the gay cavalier of the earlier period of this great revolution, +before the war had broken out in its intensity, was the courtly Sir +John Suckling, the poet of the drawing-room and tavern, the admired +of "roaring boys," and the hated of rigid Puritans. Sir John outdid +his companions in extravagance in everything which was fashionable, +and the display of his zeal in the cause of royalty was not calculated +to conciliate the reformers. When the king led an army against the +Scottish Covenanters in 1639, Suckling raised a troop of a hundred +horse at his own expense; but they gained more reputation by their +extraordinary dress than by their courage, and the whole affair was +made a subject of ridicule. From this time the name of Suckling became +identified with that gay and profligate class who, disgusted by the +outward show of sanctity which the Puritans affected, rushed into +the other extreme, and became notorious for their profaneness, their +libertinism, and their indulgence in vice, which threw a certain degree +of discredit upon the royalist party. There is a large broadside +among the King's Pamphlets in the British Museum, entitled, "The +Sucklington Faction; or (Sucklings) Roaring Boys." It is one of those +satirical compositions which were then fashionable under the title +of "Characters," and is illustrated by an engraving, from which our +cut No. 179 is copied. This engraving, which from its superior style +is perhaps the work of a foreign artist, represents the interior of +a chamber, in which two of the Roaring Boys are engaged in drinking +and smoking, and forms a curious picture of contemporary manners. +Underneath the engraving we read the following lines:-- + + _Much meate doth gluttony produce, + And makes a man a swine; + But hee's a temperate man indeed + That with a leafe can dine._ + + _Hee needes no napkin for his handes, + His fingers for to wipe; + He hath his kitchin in a box, + His roast meate in a pipe._ + +When the war spread itself over the country, many of these Roaring +Boys became soldiers, and disgraced the profession by rapacity and +cruelty. The pamphlets of the parliamentarians abound with complaints +of the outrages perpetrated by the Cavaliers, and the evil appears to +have been increased by the ill-conduct of the auxiliaries brought over +from Ireland to serve the king, who were especially objects of hatred +to the Puritans. A broadside among the king's pamphlets is adorned +by a satirical picture of "The English Irish Souldier, with his new +discipline, new armes, old stomacke, and new taken pillage; who had +rather eat than fight." It was published in 1642. The English Irish +soldier is, as may be supposed, heavily laden with plunder. In 1646 +appeared another caricature, which is copied in our cut No. 180. It +represents "England's Wolfe with Eagles clawes: the cruell impieties +of bloud-thirsty royalists and blasphemous anti-parliamentarians, +under the command of that inhumane prince Rupert, Digby, and the rest, +wherein the barbarous crueltie of our civill uncivill warres is briefly +discovered." England's wolf, as will be seen, is dressed in the high +fashion of the gay courtiers of the time. + + [Illustration: _No. 180. "England's Wolf."_] + +A few large caricatures, embodying satire of a more comprehensive +description, appeared from time to time, during this troubled age. Such +is a large emblematical picture, published on the 9th of November, +1642, and entitled "Heraclitus' Dream," for the scene is supposed to +be manifested to the philosopher in a vision. In the middle of the +picture the sheep are seen shearing their shepherd; while one cuts his +hair, another treats his beard in the same manner. Under the picture we +read the couplet-- + + _The flocke that was wont to be shorne by the herd, + Now polleth the shepherd in spight of his beard_. + + [Illustration: _No. 181. Folly Uppermost._] + +On the 19th of January, 1647, a caricature appeared under the title +"An Embleme of the Times." On one side War, represented as a giant in +armour, is seen standing upon a heap of dead and mutilated bodies, +while Hypocrisy, in the form of a woman with two faces, is flying +towards a distant city. "Libertines," "anti-sabbatarians," and others, +are hastening in the same direction; and the angel of pestilence, +hovering over the city, is ready to pounce upon it. + +The party of the parliament was now triumphant, and the question of +religion again became the subject of dispute. The Presbyterians had +been establishing a sort of tyranny over men's minds, and sought to +proscribe all other sects, till their intolerance gradually raised up +a strong and general feeling of resistance. Since 1643 a brisk war of +political pamphlets had been carried on between the Presbyterians and +their opponents, when, in 1647, the Independents, whose cause had been +espoused by the army, gained the mastery. "Sir John Presbyter" or to +use the more familiar phrase, "Jack Presbyter," furnished a subject +for frequent satire, and the Presbyterians were not slow in returning +the blow. In the collection in the British Museum we find a caricature +which must have come from the Presbyterian party, entitled "Reall +Persecution, or the Foundation of a general Toleration, displaied +and portrayed by a proper emblem, and adorned with the same flowers +wherewith the scoffers of this last age have strowed their libellous +pamphlets." The group which occupies the middle part of this broadside, +is copied in our cut No. 181. It has its separate title, "The Picture +of an English Persecutor, or a foole-ridden ante-Presbeterian sectary." +(I give the spelling as in the original.) Folly is riding on the +sectarian, whom he holds with a bridle, the sectarian having the ears +of an ass. The following homely rhymes are placed in the mouth of +Folly,-- + + _Behould my habit, like my witt, + Equalls his on whom sitt._ + +Anti-Presbyterian is, as will be seen, dressed in the height of the +fashion, and says-- + + _My cursed speeches against Presbetry + Declares unto the world my foolery._ + +The mortification of the Presbyterians led in Scotland to the +proclamation of Charles II. as king, and to the ill-fated expedition +which ended in the battle of Worcester in 1651, when satirical +pamphlets, ballads, and caricatures against the Scottish Presbyterians +became for a while very popular. One of the best of the latter +is represented in our cut No. 182. Its object is to ridicule the +conditions which the Presbyterians exacted from the young prince +before they offered him the crown. It is printed in the middle of the +broadside, in prose, published on the 14th of July, 1651, with the +general title, "Old Sayings and Predictions verified and fulfilled, +touching the young King of Scotland and his gude subjects." The +picture has its separate title, "The Scots holding their young kinges +nose to the grinstone." followed by the lines-- + + _Come to the grinstone, Charles, 'tis now to late + To recolect, 'tis presbiterian fate, + You covinant pretenders, must I bee + The subject of youer tradgie-comedie?_ + + [Illustration: _No. 182. Conditions of Royalty._] + +In fact, the picture represents Presbyterianism--Jack +Presbyter--holding the young king's nose to the grindstone, which is +turned by the Scots, personified as Jockey. The following lines are put +into the mouths of the three actors in this scene:-- + + _Jockey._--I, Jockey, turne the stone of all your plots, + For none turnes faster than the turne-coat Scots. + + _Presbyter._--We for our ends did make thee king, be sure, + Not to rule us, we will not that endure. + + _King._--You deep dissemblers, I kow what you doe, + And, for revenges sake, I will dissemble too. + +Charles's defeat and flight from Worcester furnished materials for a +much more elaborate caricature than most of the similar productions +of this period, and of a somewhat singular design. It was published +on the 6th of November, 1651, and bears the title "A Mad Designe; or +a Description of the king of Scots marching in his disguise, after +the Rout at Worcester." A long, and not unnecessary, explanation of +the several groups forming this picture, enables us to understand it. +On the left Charles is seated on the globe "in a melancholy posture." +A little to the right, and nearly in front, the bishop of Clogher is +performing mass, at which lords Ormond and Inchquin, in the shapes of +strange animals, hold torches, and the lord Taaf, in the form of a +monkey, holds up the bishop's train. The Scottish army is seen marching +up, consisting, according to the description, of papists, prelatical +malignants, Presbyterians, and old cavaliers; the latter of whom are +represented by the "fooles head upon a pole in the rear." The next +group consists of two monkeys, one with a fiddle, the other carrying +a long staff with a torch at the end, concerning which we learn that +"The two ridiculous anticks, one with a fiddle, and the other with +a torch, set forth the ridiculousness of their condition when they +marched into England, carried up with high thoughts, yet altogether +in the darke, having onely a fooles bawble to be their light to walke +by, mirth of their own whimsies to keep up their spirits, and a +sheathed sword to truste in." Next come a troop of women, children, +and papists, lamenting over their defeat. Two monkeys on foot, and one +on horseback, follow, the latter riding with his face turned to the +horse's tail, and carrying in his hand a spit with provisions on it. +It is explained as "The Scots Kings flight from Worcester, represented +by the foole on horseback, riding backward, turning his face every way +in feares, ushered by duke Hambleton and the lord Wilmot." Lastly, +a crowd of women with flags bring up the rear. It cannot be said +that the wit displayed in this satire is of the very highest order. + +After this period we meet with comparatively few caricatures until the +death of Cromwell, and the eve of the Restoration, when there came +a new and fierce struggle of political parties. The Dutch were the +subject of some satirical prints and pamphlets in 1652; and we find a +small number of caricatures on the social evils, such as drunkenness +and gluttony, and on one or two subjects of minor agitation. With the +close of the Commonwealth a new form of caricature came in. Playing +cards had, during this seventeenth century, been employed for various +purposes which were quite alien to their original character. In France +they were made the means of conveying instruction to children. In +England, at the time of which we are speaking, they were adopted as +the medium for spreading political caricature. The earliest of these +packs of cards known is one which appears to have been published at the +very moment of the restoration of Charles II., and which was, perhaps, +engraved in Holland. It contains a series of caricatures on the +principal acts of the Commonwealth, and on the parliamentary leaders. +Among other cards of a similar character which have been preserved is +a pack relating to the popish plot, another relating to the Rye House +conspiracy, one on the Mississippi scheme, published in Holland, and +one on the South Sea bubble. + + [Illustration: _No. 183. Arthur Haselrigg._] + + [Illustration: _No. 184. General Lambert_.] + +The earliest of these packs of satirical cards, that on the +Commonwealth, belonged a few years ago to a lady of the name of Prest, +and is very fully described in a paper by Mr. Pettigrew, printed in +the "Journal of the British Archaeological Association." Each of the +fifty-two cards presents a picture with a satirical title. Thus the +ace of diamonds represents "The High Court of Justice, or Oliver's +Slaughter House." The eight of diamonds is represented in our cut No. +183; its subject is "Don Haselrigg, Knight of the Codled Braine." It +is hardly necesiary to say that Sir Arthur Haselrigg acted a very +prominent and remarkable part during the whole of the Commonwealth +period, and that his manners were impetuous and authoritative, which +was probably the meaning of the epithet here given to him. The card +of the king of diamonds represents rather unequivocally the subject +indicated by its title, "Sir H. Mildmay solicits a citizen's wife, for +which his owne corrects him." It is an allusion to one of the petty +scandals of the republican period. The eight of hearts is a satire on +major-general Lambert. This able and distinguished man was remarkably +fond of flowers, took great pleasure in cultivating them, and was +skilful in drawing them, which was one of his favourite amusements. +He withdrew to Amsterdam during the Protectorate, and there gave +full indulgence to this love of flowers, and I need hardly say that +it was the age of the great tulip mania in Holland. When, after the +Restoration, he was involved in the fate of the regicides, but had +his sentence commuted for thirty years of imprisonment, he alleviated +the dulness of his long confinement in the isle of Guernsey by the +same amusement. In the card we have engraved, Lambert is represented +in his garden, holding a large tulip in his hand; and it is no doubt +in allusion to this innocent taste that he is here entitled "Lambert, +Knight of the Golden Tulip." + + [Illustration: _No. 185. Shrovetide._] + +The Restoration furnished better songs than prints, and many years +passed before any caricatures worthy of notice appeared in England. +Even burlesque subjects of any merit occur but rarely, and I hardly +know of one which is worth describing here. Among the best of those I +have met with, is a pair of plates, published in 1660, representing +Lent and Shrovetide, and these, I believe, are copied or imitated from +foreign prints. Lent is come as a thin miserable-looking knight-errant, +appropriately armed and mounted, ready to give battle to Shrovetide, +whose good living is pernicious to the whole community, and he abuses +his opponent in good round terms. In the companion print, of which our +cut No. 185 is a copy, Shrovetide appears as a jolly champion, quite +ready to meet his enemy. He is best described in the following lines, +extracted from the verses which accompany the prints:-- + + _Fatt Shrovetyde, mounted on a good fatt oxe, + Supposd that Lent was mad, or caught a foxe,[99] + Armed cap-a-pea from head unto the heel, + A spit his long sword, somewhat worse than steale, + (Sheath'd in a fatt pigge and a peece of porke), + His bottles fild with wine, well stopt with corke; + The two plump capons fluttering at his crupper; + And 's shoulders lac'd with sawsages for supper; + The gridir'n (like a well strung instrument) + Hung at his backe, and for the turnament + His helmet is a brasse pott, and his flagge + A cookes foule apron, which the wind doth wagg, + Fixd to a broome: thus bravely he did ride, + And boldly to his foe he thus replied._ + + [99] _i.e._, was drunk. + + + + + CHAPTER XXII. + + ENGLISH COMEDY.--BEN JONSON.--THE OTHER WRITERS OF HIS + SCHOOL.--INTERRUPTION OF DRAMATIC PERFORMANCES.--COMEDY AFTER + THE RESTORATION.--THE HOWARDS BROTHERS; THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM; + THE REHEARSAL.--WRITERS OF COMEDY IN THE LATTER PART OF + THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.--INDECENCY OF THE STAGE.--COLLEY + CIBBER.--FOOTE. + + +In England, as in Athens of old, perfect comedy arose gradually out +of the personalities of the rude dramatic attempts of an earlier +period. Such productions as Ralph Roister Doister and Gammer Gurton's +Needle were mere imperfect attempts at, we may perhaps rather say +feelers towards, comedy itself--that drama, the object of which was to +caricature, and thus to dissect and apply correctives to, the vices +and weaknesses of contemporary society. The genius of Shakespeare was +far too exquisitely poetical to qualify him for a task like this; it +wanted some one who could use the lancet and scalpel skilfully, but +soberly, and who was not liable to be led astray by too much vigour of +imagination. + +Such a one was Ben Jonson, whom we may rightly consider as the father +of English comedy. "Bartholomew Fair," first performed at the Hope +Theatre, on Bankside, London, on the 31st of October, 1614, is the +most perfect and most remarkable example of the truly English comedy, +remarkable, among many other things, for the extraordinary number of +characters who were brought upon the stage in one piece, and who are +all at the same time grouped and individualised with a skill that +reminds us of the pictorial triumphs of a Callot or a Hogarth. London +life is placed before us in all its more popular forms in one grand +tableau, the one in which it would show itself in its more grotesque +attitudes; the London citizen, his vain or easy wife, sharpers of +every description, and their victims no less varied in character, +the petty city officers, all come in for their share of satire. The +different groups are distributed so naturally, that it is difficult +to say who is the principal character of the piece--and who ever was +the principal character in Bartholomew Fair? Perhaps the character of +Cokes, the young booby squire from Harrow--for in those times even +so near London as Harrow, a young squire was considered to be in all +probability but a young country booby--strikes us most. It is said to +have been at a later period the favourite character of Charles II. +Among the other principal characters of the play are a proctor of +the Arches Court named Littlewit, who imagines himself to be a _bel +esprit_ of the first order; his wife, and her mother, dame Purecraft, +who is a widow; Justice Overdo, a London magistrate, to whose ward, +Grace Wellborn, Cokes is affianced in marriage; a zealous Puritan, +named Zeal-of-the-land Busy, who is a suitor to the widow Purecraft, +herself also a Puritan; Winwife, Busy's rival; and a gamester named +Tom Quarlous, who figures as Winwife's friend and companion. All these +meet in town, on the morning of the fair, Cokes under the care of a +sort of steward or upper servant, named Waspe, who was of a quarrelsome +disposition, and separate in groups among the crowd which filled +Smithfield and its vicinity, each having their separate adventures, but +meeting from time to time, and reassembling at the end. Cokes behaves +as a simpleton from the country, longs for everything, and wonders at +everything, buys up toys and gingerbread, is separated from all his +companions, robbed of his money and even of his outer garments, and in +this condition finally settles down at a puppet-show. Meanwhile the +Puritan Busy, by his zeal against the "heathen abominations" of the +fair on one hand, and Waspe, by his quarrelsome temper on the other, +fall into a series of scrapes, which end in both being carried to the +stocks. They are there joined by another important personage. Justice +Overdo, who is distinguished by an extraordinary zeal for the right +administration of justice and the suppression of social vices of all +kinds, has come into the fair in disguise, in order to make himself +acquainted with its various abuses, and he passes among them unknown; +and his inquisitive intermeddling brings him into a variety of mishaps, +in the course of which he also is seized by the constable, and allows +himself to be taken to the stocks, rather than betray his identity. +Thus all three, Busy, Waspe, and Overdo, are placed in the stocks +at the same time; but Waspe, by a clever trick, escapes, and leaves +the Puritan and the justice confined together, the one looking upon +himself as a martyr for religion's sake, the other rather glorying in +suffering through his disinterested zeal for the common good. They, +too, after a while make their escape through an accidental oversight of +their keepers, and mix again with the mob. The women, likewise, have +been separated from their male companions, have fallen among sharpers +and bullies, been made drunk, and escaped but narrowly from still +worse disasters. They all finally meet before the puppet-show, which +has fixed the attention of Cokes, and there justice Overdo discovers +himself. Such are the materials of Ben Jonson's "Bartholomew Fair," +the busiest and most amusing of plays. It is said, when first acted, +to have given great satisfaction to king James, by the ridicule thrown +upon the Puritans, and it continued to be a favourite comedy when +revived after the Restoration. + +"The Alchemist," by the same author, preceded "Bartholomew Fair," by +four years, and was designed as a satire upon a class of impostors +who, in that age, were among the greatest pests of society, and were +instruments, one way or other, in the greatest crimes of the day. +"The Alchemist" belongs, also, to the pure English comedy, but its +plot is more simple and distinct than that of "Bartholomew Fair." It +involves events which may have occurred frequently, at periods when the +metropolis was from time to time exposed to the vicissitudes of the +plague. On one of these occasions, Lovewit, a London gentleman, obliged +to quit the metropolis in order to avoid the plague, leaves his town +house to the charge of one man-servant, Face, who proves dishonest, +associates himself with a rogue named Subtle, and an immoral woman +named Dol Common, and introduces them into the house, which is made the +basis for their subsequent operations. Subtle assumes the character of +a magician and alchemist, while Dol acts various female parts, and Face +goes about alluring people into their snares. Among their dupes are a +knight who lives upon the town, two English Puritans from Amsterdam, a +lawyer's clerk, a tobacco man, a young country squire, and his sister +dame Pliant, a widow. The various intrigues in which these individuals +are involved, show us the way in which the pretended conjurers and +alchemists contributed to all the vices of the town. At length their +base dealings are on the point of being exposed by the cunning of +one upon whom they had attempted to impose, when Truewit, the master +of the house, returns unexpectedly, and all is discovered, but the +alchemist and his female associate contrive to escape. The object of +their last intrigue had been to entrap dame Pliant, who was rich, into +a marriage with a needy sharper; and Lovewit, finding the lady in the +house, and liking her, marries her himself, and, in consideration of +the satisfaction he has thus procured, forgives his unfaithful servant. +Many have considered the Alchemist to be the best of Jonson's dramas. +"Epicoene, or the Silent Woman," which belongs to the year 1609, is +another satirical picture of London society, in which the same class of +characters appear. Morose, an eccentric gentleman of fortune, who has +a great horror for noise, and even obliges his servants to communicate +with him by signs, has a nephew, a young knight named Sir Dauphine +Eugenie, with whom he is dissatisfied, and he refuses to allow him +money for his support. A plot is laid by his friends, whereby the uncle +is led into a marriage with a supposed silent woman, named Epicoene, +but she only sustains the character until the wedding formalities +are completed, and these are followed by a scene of noise and riot, +which completely horrifies Morose, and leads to a reconciliation with +his nephew, to whom he makes over half his fortune. The earliest of +Ben Jonson's comedies, "Every Man in his Humour," was composed in +its present form in 1598, and is the first of these dramatic satires +on the manners and character of the citizens of London, of whom it +was fashionable at the courts of James I. and Charles I. to speak +contemptuously. Kno'well, an old gentleman of respectability, is +highly displeased with his son Edward, because the latter has taken to +writing poetry, and has formed a friendship with another gentleman of +his own age, who loves poetry and frequents the rather gay society of +the poets and wits of the town. Wellbred has a half-brother, a "plain +squire," named Downright, and a sister married to a rich city merchant +named Kitely. Kitely, the merchant, who is extremely jealous of his +wife, has a great desire to reform Wellbred, and draw him to a steadier +line of life, a sentiment in which Downright heartily joins. Kitely's +jealousy, and the steps taken to reform Wellbred, lead to the most +comic parts of the play, which concludes with the marriage of young +Kno'well to Kitely's daughter, Miss Bridget, and his reconciliation +with his father. Among the other characters in the piece are captain +Bobadil, "a blustering coward," justice Clement, "an old merry +magistrate," his clerk, Roger Formal, and a country gull and a town +gull. + +These comedies of London life became popular, and continued so +during this and the following reign--in fact, the mass of those who +attended the theatres could understand and appreciate them better +than any others, and, what was more, they felt them. Among Jonson's +contemporaries in the literature of this English comedy were Middleton +and Thomas Heywood, both very prolific writers, Chapman, and Marston. +Certain classes of characters are continually repeated in this comedy, +because they belonged especially to the London society of the time, +but the employment and distribution of these characters admitted of +great variations, and they perhaps often had at the time a special +interest, as representing known individuals, or as being combined in a +plot which was built upon real incidents in London life. Among these +were usually a country gentleman of fortune, who was very avaricious, +and had a spendthrift son, or who had a daughter, a rich heiress, who +was the object of the intrigues of spendthrift suitors; young heirs, +who have just come to their estates, and are spending them in London; +young country squires who are easy victims; a needy knight, as poor +in principles as in money, who lived upon the public in every way he +could; designing and unscrupulous women; bullies and sharpers of every +description. In fact, we seem to be always in the smell of the tavern, +and in the midst of dissipation. Then there are fat, sleek, and wealthy +citizens, whole souls are entirely wrapt up in their merchandise, +who are proud, nevertheless, of their position; and easy, credulous +city wives, who are fond of finery and of praise, eager for gaiety +and display, impatient of the rule of husbands, or of the dulness of +home, and very ready to listen to the advances of the gay gallants +from the court end of the town, or from the tavern. The city tradesman +has generally an apprentice or two, sometimes very sober but perhaps +more frequently dissipated, who play their parts in the piece; and +often a daughter, who is either a model of modesty and all the domestic +virtues, and is finally the reward of some hero of good principles, +who has been temporarily led astray, and his character misinterpreted, +or who is gay and intriguing, and comes to disgrace. But the favourite +idea of excellence, or, to use a technical phrase, the _beau ideal_ +of this comedy, appears to have been a wild youth, who goes through +every scene of dissipation, in a gentlemanly manner (as the term was +then understood), and comes out at the end of the play as an honest, +virtuous man, and receives the reward for qualities which he had not +previously displayed. + +Sometimes the writers of this comedy indulged in personal, or even +in political, allusions which brought them into trouble. In the year +1605, Ben Jonson, George Chapman, and John Marston, wrote jointly a +comedy entitled "Eastward Hoe." It is a very excellent and amusing +comedy, and was very popular. Touchstone, an honest goldsmith in the +city, has two apprentices, Golding, a sober and industrious youth, and +Quicksilver, who is an irreclaimable rake. Touchstone has also two +daughters, the eldest of whom, Gertrude, affects the fine lady, and +is ambitious of finding a husband in the fashionable world, while her +younger sister, Mildred, is all virtue and humility. An attachment +arises between Golding and Mildred. Another character in this drama +is a needy, scheming knight, who lives upon the town, and rejoices in +the name of Sir Petronel Flash. Sir Petronel is attracted by the rich +dowry which the young lady, Gertrude, had to expect, pays his court +to her, and easily works upon her vanity; and, her mother encouraging +her, they are hastily married, contrary to the wishes of her father. +The knight is supposed to possess a magnificent castle somewhere to the +east of London, and the young bride and her mother proceed in search of +this, from which the comedy derives its title of "Eastward Hoe," but +they are involved in various disagreeable adventures in the search, +which ends in the conviction that it is all a fable. Another character +in the play is a greedy and unprincipled usurer, who is so jealous of +his young and pretty wife, that he keeps her under lock and key; and +this man is deeply involved in money-lending with Sir Petronel Flash, +and they are engaged in a series of unprincipled transactions, which +lead to the disgrace of them all, and in the course of which the virtue +of the usurer's wife falls a sacrifice. Meanwhile the fortunes of the +two apprentices have been advancing in directly opposite directions. +Quicksilver, the unworthy apprentice, leaves his master, proceeds +from bad to worse, and finally is committed to prison, for a crime +the punishment of which was death. On the other hand, Golding has not +only gained his master's esteem and married his daughter Mildred, and +been adopted as the heir to his wealth, but he has merited the respect +of his fellow-citizens, and has been promoted in municipal rank. It +becomes Golding's duty to preside over the trial of his old fellow +apprentice Quicksilver, but the latter escapes through Golding's +generosity. + +There is some sound morality in the spirit of this comedy, and a +very large amount of immorality in the text. There was, indeed, a +coarse licence in the relations of society at this period, which are +but too faithfully represented in its literature. But there are two +circumstances, accidentally attached to this drama, which give it +a peculiar interest. When brought out upon the stage it contained +reflections upon Scotchmen which provoked the anger of king James I. +to such a degree, that all the authors were seized and thrown into +prison, and narrowly escaped the loss of their ears and noses, but they +obtained their release with some difficulty, and only through powerful +intercession. In the copy which has been brought down to us through +the press, we find no reflections whatever upon Scotchmen, so that it +must have been altered from the original text. When we consider that, +at this time, the English court and capital were crowded with needy +Scottish adventurers, who were looked upon with great jealousy, it is +not improbable that in the original form of the comedy, Sir Petronel +Flash may have been a Scotchman, and intended not only as a satire upon +the Scottish adventurers in general, but to have been designed for some +one in particular who had the means of bringing upon the authors the +extreme displeasure of the court. + +The other circumstance which has given celebrity to this comedy, is one +of still greater interest. After the Restoration, it was new modelled +by Nicholas Tate, and brought again upon the stage under the title of +"Cuckold's Haven." Perhaps through this remodelled edition, Hogarth +took from the comedy of "Eastward Hoe," the idea of his series of +plates of the history of the Idle and Industrious Apprentices. + +When we consider the ridicule which was continually thrown upon them +in this earlier period of the English comedy, we can easily understand +the bitterness with which the Puritans regarded the stage and the +drama. When they obtained power, the stage, as might be expected, was +suppressed, and for some years England was without a theatre. At the +Restoration, however, the theatres were opened again, and with greater +freedom than ever. At first the old comedies of the days of James I. +and Charles I. were revived, and many of them, modified and adapted to +the new circumstances, were again brought upon the stage. The original +comedies which appeared immediately after the Restoration, were often +marked with a political tinge; as the stage saw its natural protectors +in the court, and in the court party, it embraced their politics; and +Puritans, Roundheads, Whigs, all whose principles were supposed to be +contrary to royalty and arbitrary power, fell under its satire. Such +was the character of the comedy of "The Cheats," by a play-writer of +some repute named Wilson, which was brought out in 1662. The object +of this play appears to have been, in the first place, to satirise +the Nonconformists or Puritanical clergy--with whom were classed the +astrologers and conjurers, who had increased in number during the +Commonwealth time, and infested society more than ever--and the city +magistrates, who were not looked upon as being generally over-loyal. +The three cheats who are the heroes of this comedy, are Scruple, the +Nonconformist, Mopus, a pretender to physic and astrology, and alderman +Whitebroth. Direct personal attacks had been introduced into the comedy +of the Restoration, and it is probable that somebody of influence was +satirised under the name of Scruple, for the play was suppressed by +authority, and at a later period, when it was revived, the prologue +announces this fact in the following words:-- + + _Sad news, my masters; and too true, I fear, + For us--Scruple's a silenc'd minister. + Would ye the cause? The brethren snivel, and say, + 'Tis scandalous that any cheat but they._ + +Many of the dramatists of the Restoration were men of good and +aristocratic families, witty and profligate cavaliers, who had returned +from exile with their king. The family of the earl of Berkshire +produced no less than four writers of comedy, all brothers, Edward +Howard, colonel Henry Howard, sir Robert Howard, and James Howard, +while their sister, the lady Elizabeth Howard, was married to the +poet Dryden. Edward Howard's first dramatic piece was a tragi-comedy +entitled "The Usurper," which came out in 1668, and was intended as +a satire upon Cromwell. His best known comedies were "The Man of +Newmarket," and "Woman's Conquest." Colonel Henry Howard composed a +comedy entitled "United Kingdoms," which appears not to have been +printed. To James Howard, the youngest of the brothers, the play-going +public, even then rather a large one, owed "The English Mounsieur," +and "All Mistaken, or the Mad Couple." Sir Robert Howard was the best +writer of the four, and wrote both tragedies and comedies, which were +afterwards published collectively. The best of his comedies is "The +Committee," which was first brought on the stage in 1665, and through +some chance, certainly not by its merit, continued to be an acting play +during the whole of the last century. + +"The Committee" is by far the best of the dramatic writings of the +Howards. Its design was to turn to ridicule the Commonwealth men and +the Puritans. Colonel Blunt and colonel Careless are two royalists, +whose estates are in the hands of the committee of sequestrations, +and who repair to London for the purpose of compounding for them. +The chairman of the committee is a Mr. Day, a worldly-minded and +sufficiently selfish Puritan, but who is ruled by his more crafty and +still less scrupulous wife, a designing and very talkative woman. Both +are of low origin, for Mrs. Day had been a kitchen-woman, and both are +very proud and very tyrannical. Among the other principal characters +are Abel Day, their son, Obadiah, the clerk to the committee, a man in +the interest of the Days, and an Irish servant named Teague, who had +been the servant of Careless's dear friend, a royalist officer killed +in battle, and whom the colonel finds in great distress, and takes into +his own service out of charity. The character of Teague is a very poor +caricature upon an Irishman, and his blunders and bulls are of a very +spiritless description. Here is an example. Teague has overheard the +two colonels state that they should be obliged to take the Covenant, +and express their reluctance to do it, and in his inconsiderate zeal, +he hurries away to try if he cannot take the covenant for them, and +thus save them a disagreeable operation. In the street he meets a +wandering bookseller--a class of pedlars who were then common--and a +scene takes place which is best given in the words of the original:-- + + _Bookseller._--New books, new books! A Desperate Plot and + Engagement of the Bloody Cavaliers! Mr. Saltmarshe's Alarum + to the Nation, after having been three days dead! Mercurius + Britannicus-- + + _Teague._--How's that? They cannot live in Ireland after they are + dead three days! + + _Book._--Mercurius Britannicus, or the Weekly Post, or the Solemn + League and Covenant! + + _Teag._--What is that you say? Is it the Covenant you have? + + _Book._--Yes; what then, sir? + + _Teag._--Which is that Covenant? + + _Book._--Why, this is the Covenant. + + _Teag._--Well, I must take that Covenant. + + _Book._--You take my commodities? + + _Teag._--I must take that Covenant, upon my soul, now. + + _Book._--Stand off, sir, or I'll set you further! + + _Teag._--Well, upon my soul, now, I will take the Covenant for my + master. + + _Book._--Your master must pay me for't, then! + + _Teag._--I must take it first, and my master will pay you + afterwards. + + _Book._--You must pay me now. + + _Teag._--Oh! that I will [_Knocks him down_]. Now you're paid, you + thief of the world. Here's Covenants enough to poison the whole + nation. + + [_Exit._ + + _Book._--What a devil ails this fellow? [_Crying_]. He did not come + to rob me, certainly; for he has not taken above two-pennyworth + of lamentable ware away; but I feel the rascal's fingers. I may + light upon my wild Irishman again, and, if I do, I will fix him + with some catchpole, that shall be worse than his own country + bogs. + + [_Exit._ + +In the sequel, Teague is caught by the constables, and is liberated +at the interference of his master, who pays twopence for the book. +The plot of the comedy is but a simple one, and is neither skilfully +nor naturally carried out. Colonel Blunt comes to London from Reading +in the inside of a stage-coach, having for his travelling companions +Mrs. Day, her supposed daughter Ruth, and Arabella, a young lady whose +father is recently dead, leaving his estates in the hands of the +committee of sequestrations. Ruth is, in truth, a young lady whose +estates the Days have, under similar circumstances, robbed her of, and +it is their design to treat Arabella in the same manner, under disguise +of forcing her to marry their son Abel, a vain silly lad. To effect +this, as the committee itself requires some influencing to engage them +in the selfish plans of their chairman, Day and his wife forge a letter +from the exiled king, complimenting the former on his great power and +influence and talents as a statesman, and offering him great rewards +if he will secretly promote his cause. Day communicates this to the +committee under the pretext that it is his duty to make them acquainted +with all such perfidious designs that might come to his knowledge, and +they, convinced of his honesty and value to them, give up Arabella's +estates to the Days, and she falls entirely under their power. +Meanwhile, on the one hand, Arabella has gained the confidence of +Ruth, who makes her acquainted with the whole plot against her and her +estates, and on the other, Ruth falls in love with colonel Careless, +and colonel Blunt is smitten with the charms of Arabella, and all this +takes place in the committee room. Various incidents follow, which seem +not very much to the purpose, but at last, as the marriage of Arabella +to Abel Day is pressed forward, the two young ladies, although as yet +they have hardly had an interview with the colonels, resolve to make +their escape from the house of the chairman of the committee, and fly +to their lovers for protection. A short absence from the house of Mr. +and Mrs. Day and their son together, presents the desired opportunity, +and Day having accidentally left his keys behind him, the idea suggests +itself to Ruth to open his cabinet, and gain possession of the deeds +and papers of her own estates and those of Arabella. As she had before +this secretly observed the private drawer in which they were placed, +she met with no difficulty in effecting her purpose, and not only found +these documents, but also with them the forged letter from the king, +and some letters addressed to Day by young women whom he was secretly +keeping, and who demanded money for the support of children they had by +him, and alluded to matters of a still more serious character. Ruth +takes possession of all these, and thus laden, the two damsels hurry +away, and reach without interruption the house where they were to meet +the colonels. The Days return home immediately after the departure +of their wards, and at once suspect the real state of affairs, which +is fully confirmed, when Mr. Day finds that his most private drawer +has been opened, and his most important papers carried off. They +immediately proceed in search of the fugitives, having sent orders for +a detachment of soldiers to assist them, and the house in which the +lovers have taken refuge is surrounded before they have had time to +escape. Finding it useless to attempt resistance by force, the besieged +call for a parley, and then Ruth frightens Day by acquainting him with +the contents of the private letters she has become possessed of, and +his wife by the knowledge she has obtained of the forged letter, which +also she has in her possession. The Days are thus overreached, and the +play ends with a general reconciliation. The ladies are left with the +titles of their estates, and with their lovers, and we are left to +suppose that they afterwards married, and were happy. + +The plot of "The Committee," it will be seen, is not a very capital +one, but the manner in which it is worked out is still worse. The +dialogue is extremely tame, and the incidents are badly interwoven. +When I say that the example of wit given above is the best in the play, +and that there are not many attempts at wit in it, it will hardly be +thought that it could be amusing, and we cannot but feel astonished +at the popularity which it once enjoyed. This popularity, indeed, is +only explained by the fashion of ridiculing the Puritans, which then +prevailed so strongly; and it perhaps retained its place on the stage +during the last century chiefly from the circumstance of its wanting +the objectionable qualities which characterised the written plays of +the latter half of the seventeenth century. + +"The Committee" is, after all, one of the very best comedies of the +school of dramatists represented by the brothers Howard. Contemporary +with this school of flat comedies, there was a school of equally +inflated tragedy, and both soon became objects of ridicule to the +satirists of the day. Of these, one of the boldest was George Villiers, +duke of Buckingham, the son of the favourite of king James I., and +equally celebrated for his talents and his profligacy. Buckingham is +said to have planned and begun his satirical comedy of "The Rehearsal" +as early as the year 1663, and to have had it ready for representation +towards the December of 1665, when the breaking out of the great plague +caused the theatres to be closed. After this interruption its author, +who was a desultory writer, appears to have laid it aside for some +time and then, new objects for satire having presented themselves, he +altered and modified it, and it was finally completed in 1671, when it +was brought out at the Theatre Royal in Covent Garden. It is said that +Buckingham was assisted in the composition of this satire, but it is +not stated in what manner, by Butler, and by Martin Clifford, of the +Charter-house. It is understood that, in the first form of his satire, +Buckingham had chosen the Hon. Edward Howard for its hero, and that he +afterwards exchanged him for Sir William Davenant, but he finally fixed +upon Dryden, whose tragedies and comedies are certainly not the best of +his writings--possibly some personal pique may have had an influence +in the selection. Nevertheless, with Dryden, the Howards, Davenant, +and one or two other writers of comedy, come in for their share of +ridicule. Dryden, under the name of Bayes, has composed a new drama, +and a friend named Johnson goes to witness the rehearsal of this play, +taking with him a country friend of the name of Smith. The play itself +is a piece of mockery throughout, made up of parodies, often very +happy, on the different play-writers of the day, and especially upon +Dryden; and it is mixed up with a running conversation between Bayes, +the author, and his two visitors, which is full of satirical humour. +The first part of the prologue explains to us sufficiently the spirit +in which this satire was written. + + _We might well call this short mock-play of ours + A posie made of weeds instead of flowers; + Yet such have been presented to your noses, + And there are such, I fear, who thought 'em roses. + Would some of 'em were here, to see this night + What stuff it is in which they took delight. + Here, brisk, insipid rogues, for wit, let fall + Sometimes dull sense, but oft'ner none at all; + There, strutting heroes, with a grim-fac'd train, + Shalt brave the gods, in king Cambyses vein. + For (changing rules, of late, as if men writ + In spite of reason, nature, art, and wit) + Our poets make us laugh at tragedy, + And with their comedies they make us cry._ + +A short account of this satire will, perhaps, be best understood, if I +explain that the antagonism of two contending kings of Granada having +been a favourite idea of Dryden in his tragedies, Buckingham is said to +have designed to ridicule him in making two, not rival, but associate +kings of Brentford, though others say that these two kings of Brentford +were intended for a sneer upon king Charles II. and the duke of York. +These two kings are the heroes of Bayes's play. The first act of +"The Rehearsal" consists of a discussion between Bayes, Johnson, and +Smith, on the general character of the play, in which Bayes exhibits +a large amount of vanity and self-confidence, said to have been a +characteristic of all these play-writers of the earlier period of the +Restoration, and he informs them that he has "made a prologue and an +epilogue, which may both serve for either; that is, the prologue for +the epilogue, or the epilogue for the prologue, (do you mark!) nay, +they may both serve, too, 'egad, for any other play as well as this." +Smith observes, "That's indeed artificial." Finally Bayes explains, +that as other authors, in their prologues, sought to flatter and +propitiate their audience, in order to gain their favourable opinion of +the plot, he, on the contrary, intended to force their applause out of +them by mere dint of terror, and for that purpose, he had introduced +as speakers of his prologue, no less personages than Thunder and +Lightning. This prologue, disengaged from the remarks of Bayes and his +friends, runs as follows:-- + + _Enter_ THUNDER _and_ LIGHTNING. + + _Thun._--I am the bold Thunder. + + _Light._--The brisk Lightning I. + + _Thun._--I am the bravest Hector of the sky. + + _Light._--And I fair Helen, that made Hector die. + + _Thun._--I strike men down. + + _Light._--I fire the town. + + _Thun_.--Let critics take heed how they grumble, + For then I begin for to rumble. + + _Light_.--Let the ladies allow us their graces, + Or I'll blast all the paint on their faces, + And dry up their peter to soot. + + _Thun_.--Let the critics look to't. + + _Light_.--Let the ladies look to't. + + _Thun_.--For the Thunder will do't. + + _Light_.--For the Lightning will shoot. + + _Thun_.--I'll give you dash for dash. + + _Light_.--I'll give you flash for flash. + Gallants, I'll singe your feather. + + _Thun_.--I'll Thunder you together. + + _Both_.--Look to't, look to't; we'll do't, we'll do't; + look to't; we'll do't. [_Twice or thrice repeated._ + +Bayes calls this "but a slash of a prologue," in reply to which, Smith +observes, "Yes; 'tis short, indeed, but very terrible." It is a parody +on a scene in "The Slighted Maid," a play by Sir Robert Stapleton, +where Thunder and Lightning were introduced, and their conversation +begins in the same words. But the poet has another difficulty on which +he desires the opinion of his visitors. "I have made," he says, "one of +the most delicate, dainty similes in the whole world, 'egad, if I knew +how to apply it. 'Tis," he adds, "an allusion to love." This is the +simile-- + + _So boar and sow, when any storm is nigh + Snuff up, and smell it gathering in the sky; + Boar beckons sow to trot in chesnut groves, + And there consummate their unfinished loves: + Pensive in mud they wallow all alone, + And snore and gruntle to each others moan._ + +It is a rather coarse, but clever parody on a simile in Dryden's +"Conquest of Granada," part ii.:-- + + _So two kind turtles, when a storm is nigh, + Look up, and see it gathering in the sky; + Each calls his mate to shelter in the groves, + Leaving, in murmurs, their unfinished loves; + Perch'd on some dropping branch, they sit alone, + And coo, and hearken to each other's moan._ + +It is decided that the simile should be added to the prologue, for, as +Johnson remarks to Bayes, "Faith, 'tis extraordinary fine, and very +applicable to Thunder and Lightning, methinks, because it speaks of a +storm." In the second act we come to the opening of the play, the first +scene consisting of whispering, in ridicule of a scene in Davenant's +"Play-house to Let," where Drake senior says-- + + _Draw up your men, + And in low whispers give your orders out._ + +In fact, the Gentleman-Usher and the Physician of the two kings of +Brentford appear upon the scene alone, and discuss a plot to dethrone +the two kings of Brentford, which they communicate by whispers into +each other's ears, which are totally inaudible. In Scene ii., "Enter +the two kings, hand in hand," and Bayes remarks to his visitors, +"Oh! these are now the two kings of Brentford; take notice of their +style--'twas never yet upon the stage; but, if you like it, I could +make a shift, perhaps, to show you a whole play, writ all just so." The +kings begin, rather familiarly, because, as Bayes adds, "they are both +persons of the same quality:"-- + + _1st King._--Did you observe their whispers, brother king? + + _2nd King._--I did, and heard, besides, a grave bird sing, + That they intend, sweetheart, to play us pranks. + + _1st King._--If that design appears, + I'll lay them by the ears, + Until I make 'em crack. + + _2nd King._--And so will I, i' fack! + + _1st King._--You must begin, _mon foi_. + + _2nd King._--Sweet sir, _pardonnez moi_. + +Bayes observes that he makes the two kings talk French in order +"to show their breeding." In the third act, Bayes introduces a new +character, prince Prettyman, a parody upon the character of Leonidas, +in Dryden's "Marriage-a-la-Mode." The prince falls asleep, and then +his beloved Cloris comes in, and is surprised, upon which Bayes +remarks, "Now, here she must make a simile." "Where's the necessity of +that, Mr. Bayes?" asks the critical Mr. Smith. "Oh," replies Bayes, +"because she's surprised. That's a general rule. You must ever make +a simile when you are surprised; 'tis a new way of writing." Now +we have another parody upon one of Dryden's similes. In the fourth +scene, the Gentleman-Usher and Physician appear again, discussing the +question whether their whispers had been heard or not, a discussion +which they conclude by seizing on the two thrones, and occupying them +with their drawn swords in their hands. Then they march out to raise +their forces, and a battle to music takes place, four soldiers on each +side, who are all killed. Next we have a scene between prince Prettyman +and his tailor, Tom Thimble, which involves a joke upon the princely +principle of non-payment. A scene or two follows in a similar tone, +without at all advancing the plot; although it appears that another +prince, Volscius, who, we are to suppose, supports the old dynasty of +Brentford, has made his escape to Piccadilly, while the army which he +is to lead has assembled, and is concealed, at Knightsbridge. This +incident produces a discussion between Mr. Bayes and his friends:-- + + _Smith._--But pray, Mr. Bayes, is not this a little difficult, that + you were saying e'en now, to keep an army thus concealed in + Knightsbridge? + + _Bayes._--In Knightsbridge?--stay. + + _Johnson._--No, not if inn-keepers be his friends.[100] + + _Bayes._--His friends? Ay, sir, his intimate acquaintance; or else, + indeed, I grant it could not be. + + _Smith._--Yes, faith, so it might be very easy. + + _Bayes._--Nay, if I don't make all things easy, 'egad, I'll give + 'em leave to hang me. Now you would think that he is going + out of town; but you will see how prettily I have contrived + to stop him, presently. + + [100] Knightsbridge, as the principal entrance to London from the west, + was full of inns. + +Accordingly, prince Volscius yields to the influence of a fair +_demoiselle_, who bears the classical name of Parthenope, and after +various exhibitions of hesitation, he does not leave town. Another +scene or two, with little meaning, but full of clever parodies on the +plays of Dryden, the Howards, and their contemporaries. The first scene +of the fourth act opens with a funeral, a parody upon colonel Henry +Howard's play of the "United Kingdoms." Pallas interferes, brings the +lady who is to be buried to life, gets up a dance, and furnishes a very +extempore feast. The princes Prettyman and Volscius dispute about their +sweethearts. At the commencement of the fifth act the two usurping +kings appear in state, attended by four cardinals, the two princes, +all the lady-loves, heralds, and sergeants-at-arms, &c. In the middle +of all this state, "the two right kings of Brentford descend in the +clouds, singing, in white garments, and three fiddlers sitting before +them in green." "Now," says Bayes to his friends, "because the two +right kings descend from above, I make 'em sing to the tune and style +of our modern spirits." And accordingly they proceeded in a continuous +parody:-- + + _1st King._--Haste, brother king, we are sent from above. + + _2nd King._--Let us move, let us move; + Move, to remove the fate + Of Brentford's long united state. + + _1st King._--Tara, tan, tara!--full east and by south. + + _2nd King._--We sail with thunder in our mouth. + In scorching noon-day, whilst the traveller stays, + Busy, busy, busy, busy, we bustle along, + Mounted upon warm Phoebus's rays, + Through the heavenly throng, + Hasting to those + Who will feast us at night with a pig's pettytoes. + + _1st King._--And we'll fall with our plate + In an olio of hate + + _2nd King._--But, now supper's done, the servitors try, + Like soldiers, to storm a whole half-moon pie. + + _1st King._--They gather, they gather, hot custards in spoons: + But, alas! I must leave these half-moons, + And repair to my trusty dragoons. + + _2nd King._--O stay! for you need not as yet go astray; + The tide, like a friend, has brought ships in our way, + And on their high ropes we will play; + Like maggots in filberts, we'll snug in our shell, + We'll frisk in our shell, + We'll firk in our shell, + And farewell. + + _1st King._--But the ladies have all inclination to dance, + And the green frogs croak out a coranto of France. + +All this is quite Aristophanic. It is interrupted by a discussion +between Bayes and his visitors on the music and the dance, and then the +two kings continue:-- + + _2nd King._--Now mortals, that hear + How we tilt and career, + With wonder, will fear + The event of such things as shall never appear. + + _1st King._--Stay you to fulfil what the gods have decreed. + + _2nd King._--Then call me to help you, if there shall be need. + + _1st King._--So firmly resolved is a true Brentford king, + To save the distressed, and help to 'em bring, + That, ere a full pot of good ale you can swallow, + He's here with a whoop, and gone with a halloo. + +The rather too inquisitive Smith wonders at all this, and complains +that, to him, the sense of this is "not very plain." "Plain!" exclaims +Bayes, "why, did you ever hear any people in the clouds speak plain? +They must be all for flight of fancy, at its full range, without the +least check or control upon it. When once you tie up sprites and people +in clouds to speak plain, you spoil all." The two kings of Brentford +now "light out of the clouds, and step into the throne," continuing the +same _dignified_ conversation:-- + + _1st King._--Come, now to serious council we'll advance. + + _2nd King._--I do agree; but first, let's have a dance. + +This confidence of the two kings of Brentford is suddenly disturbed +by the sound of war. Two heralds announce that the army, that of +Knightsbridge, had come to protect them, and that it had come _in +disguise_, an arrangement which puzzles the author's two visitors:-- + + _1st King._--What saucy groom molests our privacies? + + _1st Herald._--The army's at the door, and, in disguise, + Desires a word with both your majesties. + + _2nd Herald._--Having from Knightsbridge hither march'd by stealth. + + _2nd King._--Bid 'em attend a while, and drink our health. + + _Smith._--How, Mr. Bayes? The army in disguise! + + _Bayes._--Ay, sir, for fear the usurpers might discover them, that + went out but just now. + +War itself follows, and the commanders of the two armies, the general +and the lieutenant-general, appear upon the stage in another parody +upon the opening scenes of Dryden's "Siege of Rhodes:"-- + + _Enter, at several doors, the_ GENERAL _and_ LIEUTENANT-GENERAL, + _armed cap-a-pie, with each a lute in his hand, and his sword + drawn, and hung with a scarlet riband at the wrist_. + + _Lieut.-Gen._--Villain, thou liest. + + _Gen._--Arm, arm, Gonsalvo, arm. What! ho! + The lie no flesh can brook, I trow. + + _Lieut.-Gen._--Advance from Acton with the musqueteers. + + _Gen._--Draw down the Chelsea cuirassiers. + + _Lieut.-Gen._--The band you boast of, Chelsea cuirassiers, + Shall in my Putney pikes now meet their peers. + + _Gen._--Chiswickians, aged, and renowned in fight, + Join with the Hammersmith brigade. + + _Lieut.-Gen._--You'll find my Mortlake boys will do them right, + Unless by Fulham numbers over-laid. + + _Gen._--Let the left wing of Twick'n'am foot advance, + And line that eastern hedge. + + _Lieut.-Gen._--The horse I raised in Petty France + Shall try their chance, + And scour the meadows, overgrown with sedge. + + _Gen._--Stand: give the word. + + _Lieut.-Gen._--Bright sword. + + _Gen._--That may be thine, + But 'tis not mine. + + _Lieut.-Gen._--Give fire, give fire, at once give fire, + And let those recreant troops perceive mine ire. + + _Gen._--Pursue, pursue; they fly, + That first did give the lie! [_Exeunt._ + +Thus the battle is carried on in talk between two individuals. Bayes +alleges, as an excuse for introducing these trivial names of places, +that "the spectators know all these towns, and may easily conceive +them to be within the dominions of the two kings of Brentford." +The battle is finally stopped by an eclipse, and three personages, +representing the sun, moon, and earth, advance upon the stage, and +by dint of singing and manoeuvring, one gets in a line between the +other two, and this, according to the strict rules of astronomy, +constituted the eclipse. The eclipse is followed by another battle +of a more desperate character, to which a stop is put in an equally +extraordinary manner, by the entrance of the furious hero Drawcansir, +who slays all the combatants on both sides. The marriage of prince +Prettyman was to form the subject of the fifth act, but while Bayes, +Johnson, and Smith withdraw temporarily, all the players, in disgust, +run away to their dinners, and thus ends "The Rehearsal" of Mr. Bayes's +play. The epilogue returns to the moral which the play was designed to +inculcate:-- + + _The play is at an end, but where's the plot? + That circumstance the poet Bayes forgot. + And we can boast, though 'tis a plotting age, + No place is freer from it than the stage._ + +Formerly people sought to write so that they might be understood, but +"this new way of wit" was altogether incomprehensible:-- + + _Wherefore, for ours, and for the kingdom's peace, + May this prodigious way of writing cease; + Let's have, at least once in our lives, a time + When we may hear some reason, not all rhyme. + We have this ten years felt its influence; + Pray let this prove a year of prose and sense._ + +English comedy was certainly greatly reformed, in some senses of the +word reform, during the period which followed the publication of "The +Rehearsal," and, in the hands of writers like Wycherley, Shadwell, +Congreve, and D'Urfey, the dulness of the Howards was exchanged for +an extreme degree of vivacity. The plot was as little considered as +ever--it was a mere peg on which to hang scenes brilliant with wit +and _repartee_. The small intrigue is often but a frame for a great +picture of society in its forms then most open to caricature, with +all the petty intrigues inseparable from it. "Epsom Wells," one of +Shadwell's earlier comedies, and perhaps his best, will bear comparison +with Jonson's "Bartholomew Fair." The personages represented in it +are exactly those which then shone in such society--three "men of wit +and pleasure," one of the class of country squires whom the wits of +London loved to laugh at, and who is described as "a country justice, +a public spirited, politick, discontented fop, an immoderate hater of +London, and a lover of the country above measure, a hearty true English +coxcomb." Then we have "two cheating, sharking, cowardly bullies." +The citizens of London are represented by Bisket, "a comfit-maker, a +quiet, humble, civil cuckold, governed by his wife, whom he very much +fears and loves at the same time, and is very proud of," and Fribble, +"a haberdasher, a surly cuckold, very conceited, and proud of his +wife, but pretends to govern and keep her under," and their wives, the +first "an impertinent, imperious strumpet," and the other, "an humble, +submitting wife, who jilts her husband that way, a very ----." One +or two other characters of the same stamp, with "two young ladies of +wit, beauty, and fortune," who behave themselves not much better than +the others, and a full allowance of "parsons, hectors, constables, +watchmen, and fiddlers," complete the _dramatis personae_ of "Epsom +Wells." With such materials anybody will understand the character of +the piece, which was brought out on the stage in 1672. "The Squire of +Alsatia," by the same author, brought upon the stage in the eventful +year 1688, is a vivid picture of one of the wildest phases of London +life in those still rather primitive times. Alsatia, as every reader of +Walter Scott knows, was a cant name for the White Friars, in London, a +locality which, at that time, was beyond the reach of the law and its +officers, a refuge for thieves and rogues, and especially for debtors, +where they could either resist with no great fear of being overcome, +or, when resistance was no longer possible, escape with ease. With such +a scene, and such people for characters, we are not surprised that the +printed edition of this play is prefaced by a vocabulary of the cant +words employed in it. The principal characters in the play are of the +same class with those which form the staple of all these old comedies. +First there is a country father or uncle, who is rich and severe upon +the vices of youth, or arbitrary, or avaricious. He is here represented +by sir William Belfond, "a gentleman of about L3000 per annum, who in +his youth had been a spark of the town; but married and retired into +the country, where he turned to the other extreme--rigid, morose, most +sordidly covetous, clownish, obstinate, positive, and forward." He must +have a London brother, or near relative, endowed with exactly contrary +qualities, here represented by sir Edward Belfond, sir William's +brother, "a merchant, who by lucky hits had gotten a great estate, +lives single with ease and pleasure, reasonably and virtuously, a man +of great humanity and gentleness and compassion towards mankind, well +read in good books, possessed with all gentlemanlike qualities." Sir +William Belfond has two sons. Belfond senior, the eldest, is "bred +after his father's rustic, swinish manner, with great rigour and +severity, upon whom his father's estate is entailed, the confidence +of which makes him break out into open rebellion to his father, and +become lewd, abominably vicious, stubborn, and obstinate." The younger +Belfond, Sir William's second son, had been "adopted by Sir Edward, +and bred from his childhood by him, with all the tenderness and +familiarity, and bounty, and liberty that can be;" he was "instructed +in all the liberal sciences, and in all gentleman-like education; +somewhat given to women, and now and then to good fellowship; but +an ingenious, well-accomplished gentleman; a man of honour, and of +excellent disposition and temper." Then we have some of the leading +heroes of Alsatia, and first Cheatly, who is described as "a rascal, +who by reason of debts, dares not stir out of Whitefryers, but there +inveigles young heirs in tail; and helps 'em to goods and money upon +great disadvantages; is bound for them, and shares with them, till he +undoes them; a lewd, impudent, debauched fellow, very expert in the +cant about the town." Shamwell is "cousin to the Belfonds, an heir, +who, being ruined by Cheatly, is made a decoy-duck for others; not +daring to stay out of Alsatia, where he lives; is bound with Cheatly +for heirs, and lives upon them, a dissolute, debauch'd life." Another +of these characters is captain Hackum, "a block-headed bully of +Alsatia; a cowardly, impudent, blustering fellow; formerly a sergeant +in Flanders, run from his colours, retreating into Whitefryers for a +very small debt; where by the Alsatians he is dubb'd a captain; marries +one that lets lodgings, sells cherry-brandy, and is a bawd." Nor is +Alsatia without a representative of the Puritanical part of society, in +Scrapeall, "a hypocritical, repeating, praying, psalm-singing, precise +fellow, pretending to great piety; a godly knave, who joins with +Cheatly, and supplies young heirs with goods and money." A rather large +number of inferior characters fill up the canvas; and the females, +with two exceptions, belong to the same class. The plot of this play is +very simple. The elder son of sir William Belfond has taken to Alsatia, +but sir William, on his return from abroad, hearing talk of the fame of +a squire Belfond among the Alsatians, imagines that it is his younger +son, and out of this mistake a considerable amount of misunderstanding +arises. At last sir William discovers his error, and finds his eldest +son in Whitefryers, but the youth sets him at defiance. The father, in +great anger, brings tipstaff constables, to take away his son by force; +but the Alsatians rise in force, the officers of the law are beaten, +and sir William himself taken prisoner. He is rescued by the younger +Belfond, and in the conclusion the elder brother becomes penitent, and +is reconciled with his father. There is an underplot, far from moral +in its character, which ends in the marriage of Belfond junior. It is +a busy, noisy play, and was a great favourite on the stage; but it is +now chiefly interesting as a vivid picture of London life in the latter +half of the seventeenth century. "Bury Fair," by Shadwell, is another +comedy of the same description; with little interest in the plot, but +full of life and movement. If "The Squire of Alsatia" was noisy, "The +Scowrers," another comedy by the same author, first brought on the +stage in 1691, was still more so. The wild and riotous gallants who, +in former times of inefficient police regulation, infested the streets +at night, and committed all sorts of outrages, were known at different +periods by a variety of names. In the reign of James I. and Charles +I. they were the "roaring boys;" in the time of Shadwell, they were +called the "scowrers," because they scowered the streets at night, and +rather roughly cleared them of all passengers; a few years later they +took the name of Mohocks, or Mohawks. During the night London lay at +the mercy of these riotous classes, and the streets witnessed scenes of +brutal violence, which, at the present day, we can hardly imagine. This +state of things is pictured in Shadwell's comedy. Sir William Rant, +Wildfire, and Tope, are noted scowrers, well known in the town, whose +fame has excited emulation in men of less distinction in their way, +Whachum, "a city wit and scowrer, imitator of sir William," and "two +scoundrells," his companions, Bluster and Dingboy. Great enmity arises +between the two parties of rival scowrers. The more serious characters +in the play are Mr. Rant, sir William Rant's father, and sir Richard +Maggot, "a foolish Jacobite alderman" (it must be remembered that we +are now in the reign of king William). Sir Richard's wife, lady Maggot, +like the citizen's wives of the comedy of the Restoration generally, +is a lady rather wanting in virtue, ambitious of mixing with the gay +and fashionable world, and somewhat of a tyrant over her husband. She +has two handsome daughters, whom she seeks to keep confined from the +world, lest they should become her rivals. There are low characters +of both sexes, who need not be enumerated. Much of the play is taken +up with street rows, capital satirical pictures of London life. The +play ends with marriages, and with the reconciliation of sir William +Rant with his father, the serious old gentleman of the play. Shadwell +excelled in these busy comedies. One of the nearest approaches to him +is Mountfort's comedy of "Greenwich Park," which is another striking +satire on the looseness of London life at that time. As in the others, +the plot is simply nothing. The play consists of a number of intrigues, +such as may be imagined, at a time when morality was little respected, +in places of fashionable resort like Greenwich Park and Deptford Wells. + +An element of satire was now introduced into English comedy which does +not appear to have belonged to it before--this was mimicry. Although +the principal characters in the play bore conventional names, they +appear often to have been intended to represent individuals then well +known in society, and these individuals were caricatured in their +dress, and mimicked in their language and manners. We are told that +this mimicry contributed greatly to the success of "The Rehearsal," +the duke of Buckingham having taken incredible pains to make Lacy, who +acted the part of Bayes, perfect in imitating the voice and manner +of Dryden, whose dress and gait were minutely copied. This personal +satire was not always performed with impunity. On the 1st of February, +1669, Pepys went to the Theatre Royal to see the performance of "The +Heiress," in which it appears that sir Charles Sedley was personally +caricatured, and the secretary of king Charles's admiralty has left +in his diary the following entry:--"To the king's house, thinking to +have seen the Heyresse, first acted on Saturday, but when we come +thither we find no play there; Kynaston, that did act a part therein +in abuse to sir Charles Sedley, being last night exceedingly beaten +with sticks by two or three that saluted him, so as he is mightily +bruised, and forced to keep his bed." It is said that Dryden's comedy +of "Limberham," brought on the stage in 1678, was prohibited after the +first night, because the character of Limberham was considered to be +too open a satire on the duke of Lauderdale. + +Another peculiarity in the comedies of the age of the Restoration was +their extraordinary indelicacy. The writers seemed to emulate each +other in presenting upon the stage scenes and language which no modest +ear or pure mind could support. In the earlier period coarseness in +conversation was characteristic of an unpolished age--the language put +in the mouths of the actors, as remarked before, smelt of the tavern; +but under Charles II. the tone of fashionable society, as represented +on the stage, is modelled upon that of the brothel. Even the veiled +allusion is no longer resorted to, broad and direct language is +substituted in its place. This open profligacy of the stage reached its +greatest height between the years 1670 and 1680. The staple material +of this comedy may be considered to be the commission of adultery, +which is presented as one of the principal ornaments in the character +of the well-bred gentleman, varied with the seducing of other men's +mistresses, for the keeping of mistresses appears as the rule of +social life. The "Country Wife," one of Wycherley's comedies, which is +supposed to have been brought on the stage perhaps as early as 1672, +is a mass of gross indecency from beginning to end. It involves two +principal plots, that of a voluptuary who feigns himself incapable of +love and insensible to the other sex, in order to pursue his intrigues +with greater liberty; and that of a citizen who takes to his wife a +silly and innocent country girl, whose ignorance he believes will be +a protection to her virtue, but the very means he takes to prevent +her, lead to her fall. The "Parson's Wedding," by Thomas Killigrew, +first acted in 1673, is equally licentious. The same at least may be +said of Dryden's "Limberham, or the Kind Keeper," first performed in +1678, which, according to the author's own statement, was prohibited +on account of its freeness, but more probably because the character +of Limberham was believed to be intended for a personal satire on the +unpopular earl of Lauderdale. Its plot is simple enough; it is the +story of a debauched old gentleman, named Aldo, whose son, after a +rather long absence on the Continent, returns to England, and assumes +the name of Woodall, in order to enjoy freely the pleasures of London +life before he makes himself known to his friends. He takes a lodging +in a house occupied by some loose women, and there meets with his +father, but, as the latter does not recognise his son, they become +friends, and live together licentiously so long, that when the son at +length discovers himself, the old man is obliged to overlook his vices. +Otway's comedy of "Friendship in Fashion," performed the same year, was +not a whit more moral. But all these are far outdone by Ravenscroft's +comedy of "The London Cuckolds," first brought out in 1682, which, +nevertheless, continued to be acted until late in the last century. It +is a clever comedy, full of action, and consisting of a great number +of different incidents, selected from the less moral tales of the old +story-tellers as they appear in the "Decameron" of Boccaccio, among +which that of the ignorant and uneducated young wife, similar to the +plot of Wycherley's "Country Wife," is again introduced. + +The corruption of morals had become so great, that when women took +up the pen, they exceeded in licentiousness even the other sex, as +was the case with Mrs. Behn. Aphra Behn is understood to have been +born at Canterbury, but to have passed some part of her youth in the +colony of Surinam, of which her father was governor. She evidently +possessed a disposition for intrigue, and she was employed by the +English government, a few years after the Restoration, as a political +spy at Antwerp. She subsequently settled in London, and gained a living +by her pen, which was very prolific in novels, poems, and plays. It +would be difficult to point out in any other works such scenes of +open profligacy as those presented in Mrs. Behn's two comedies of +"Sir Patient Fancy" and "The City Heiress, or Sir Timothy Treat-all," +which appeared in 1678 and 1681. Concealment of the slightest kind is +avoided, and even that which cannot be exposed to view, is tolerably +broadly described. + +It appears that the performance of the "London Cuckolds" had been the +cause of some scandal, and there were, even among play-goers, some who +took offence at such outrages on the ordinary feelings of modesty. +The excess of the evil had begun to produce a reaction. Ravenscroft, +the author of that comedy, produced on the stage, in 1684, a comedy, +entitled "Dame Dobson, or the Cunning Woman," which was intended to be +a modest play, but it was unceremoniously "damned" by the audience. +The prologue to this new comedy intimates that the "London Cuckolds" +had pleased the town and diverted the court, but that some "squeamish +females" had taken offence at it, and that he had now written a "dull, +civill" play to make amends. They are addressed, therefore, in such +terms as these:-- + + _In you, chaste ladies, then we hope to-day, + This is the poet's recantation play. + Come often to 't, that he at length may see + 'Tis more than a pretended modesty. + Stick by him now, for if he finds you falter, + He quickly will his way of writing alter; + And every play shall send you blushing home, + For, though you rail, yet then we're sure you'll come._ + +And it is further intimated,-- + + _A naughty play was never counted dull-- + Nor modest comedy e'er pleased you much._ + +"I remember," says Colley Cibber in his "Apology," looking back to +these times, "I remember the ladies were then observed to be decently +afraid of venturing bare-faced to a new comedy, till they had been +assured they might do it without the risk of an insult to their +modesty; or if their curiosity were too strong for their patience, +they took care at least to save appearances, and rarely came upon the +first days of acting but in masks (then daily worn, and admitted in the +pit, the side boxes, and gallery), which custom, however, had so many +ill consequences attending it, that it has been abolished these many +years." According to the _Spectator_, ladies began now to desert the +theatre when comedies were brought out, except those who "never miss +the first day of a new play, lest it should prove too luscious to admit +of their going with any countenance to the second." + +In the midst of this abuse, there suddenly appeared a book which +created at the time a great sensation. The comedies of the latter half +of the seventeenth century were not only indecent, but they were filled +with profane language, and contained scenes in which religion itself +was treated with contempt. At that time there lived a divine of the +Church of England, celebrated for his Jacobitism--for I am now speaking +of the reign of king William--for his talents as a controversial +writer, and for his zeal in any cause which he undertook. This was +Jeremy Collier, the author of several books of some merit, which are +seldom read now, and who suffered for his zeal in the cause of king +James, and for his refusal to take the oath of allegiance to king +William. In the year 1698 Collier published his "Short View of the +Immorality and Profaneness of the English stage," in which he boldly +attacked the licentiousness of the English comedy. Perhaps Collier's +zeal carried him a little too far; but he had offended the wits, and +especially the dramatic poets, on all sides, and he was exposed to +attacks from all quarters, in which Dryden himself took an active part. +Collier showed himself fully capable of dealing with his opponents, and +the controversy had the effect of calling attention to the immoralities +of the stage, and certainly contributed much towards reforming them. +They were become much less frequent and less gross at the opening of +the eighteenth century. + +Towards the end of the reign of king Charles II., the stage was more +largely employed as a political agent, and under his successor, James +II., the Puritans and the Whigs were constantly held up to scorn. After +the Revolution, the tables were turned, and the satire of the stage +was often aimed at Tories and Non-jurors. "The Non-juror," by Colley +Cibber, which appeared in 1717, at a very opportune moment, gained for +its author a pension and the office of poet-laureate. It was founded +upon the "Tartuffe" of Moliere, for the English comedy writers borrowed +much from the foreign stage. A disguised priest, who passes under the +name of Dr. Wolf, and who had been engaged in the rebellion of 1715, +has insinuated himself into the household of a gentleman of fortune, of +not very strong judgment, Sir John Woodvil, whom, under the title of a +Non-juror, he has not only induced to become an abettor of rebels, but +he has persuaded him to disinherit his son, and he labours to seduce +his wife and to deceive his daughter. His baseness is exposed only just +soon enough to defeat his designs. Such a production as this could +not fail to give great offence to all the Jacobite party, of whatever +shade, who were then rather numerous in London, and Cibber assures us +that his reward was a considerable amount of adverse criticism in every +quarter where the Tory influence reached. His comedies were inferior in +brilliance of dialogue to those of the previous age, but the plots were +well imagined and conducted, and they are generally good acting plays. + +To Samuel Foote, born in 1722, we owe the last change in the form and +character of English comedy. A man of infinite wit and humour, and +possessed of extraordinary talent as a mimic, Foote made mimicry the +principal instrument of his success on the stage. His plays are above +all light and amusing; he reduced the old comedy of five acts to three +acts, and his plots were usually simple, the dialogue full of wit and +humour; but their peculiar characteristic was their open boldness of +personal satire. It is entirely a comedy of his own. He sought to +direct his wit against all the vices of society, but this he did by +holding up to ridicule and scorn the individuals who had in some way +or other made themselves notorious by the practice of them. All his +principal characters were real characters, who were more or less known +to the public, and who were so perfectly mimicked on the stage in +their dress, gait, and speech, that it was impossible to mistake them. +Thus, in "The Devil upon Two Sticks," which is a general satire on the +low condition to which the practice of medicine had then fallen, the +personages introduced in it all represented quacks well known about the +town. "The Maid of Bath" dragged upon the stage scandals which were +then the talk of Bath society. The nabob of the comedy which bears +that title, had also his model in real life. "The Bankrupt" may be +considered as a general satire on the baseness of the newspaper press +of that day, which was made the means of propagating private scandals +and libellous accusations in order to extort money, yet the characters +introduced are said to have been all portraits from the life; and the +same statement is made with regard to the comedy of "The Author." + +It is evident that a drama of this inquisitorial character is a +dangerous thing, and that it could hardly be allowed to exist where the +rights of society are properly defined; and we are not surprised if +Foote provoked a host of bitter enemies. But in some cases the author +met with punishment of a heavier and more substantial description. +One of the individuals introduced into "The Maid of Bath," extorted +damages to the amount of L3,000. One of the persons who figured in +"The Author," obtained an order from the lord chamberlain for putting +a stop to the performance after it had had a short run; and the +consequences of "The Trip to Calais," were still more disastrous. +It is well known that the character of lady Kitty Crocodile in that +play was a broad caricature on the notorious duchess of Kingston. +Through the treachery of some of the people employed by Foote, the +duchess obtained information of the nature of this play before it was +ready for representation, and she had sufficient influence to obtain +the lord chamberlain's prohibition for bringing it on the stage. Nor +was this all, for as the play was printed, if not acted,--and it was +subsequently brought out in a modified form, with omission of the part +of lady Kitty Crocodile, though the characters of some of her agents +were still retained,--infamous charges were got up against Foote, in +retaliation, which caused him so much trouble and grief, that they are +said to have shortened his days. + +The drama which Samuel Foote had invented did not outlive him; its +caricature was itself transferred to the caricature of the print-shop. + + + + + CHAPTER XXIII. + + CARICATURE IN HOLLAND.--ROMAIN DE HOOGHE.--THE ENGLISH + REVOLUTION.--CARICATURES ON LOUIS XIV. AND JAMES II.--DR. + SACHEVERELL.--CARICATURE BROUGHT FROM HOLLAND TO ENGLAND.--ORIGIN + OF THE WORD "CARICATURE."--MISSISSIPPI AND THE SOUTH SEA; THE YEAR + OF BUBBLES. + + +Modern political caricature, born, as we have seen, in France, may be +considered to have had its cradle in Holland. The position of that +country, and its greater degree of freedom, made it, in the seventeenth +century, the general place of refuge to the political discontents of +other lands, and especially to the French who fled from the tyranny of +Louis XIV. It possessed at that time some of the most skilful artists +and best engravers in Europe, and it became the central spot from which +were launched a multitude of satirical prints against that monarch's +policy, and against himself and his favourites and ministers. This was +in a great measure the cause of the bitter hatred which Louis always +displayed towards that country. He feared the caricatures of the Dutch +more than their arms, and the pencil and graver of Romain de Hooghe +were among the most effective weapons employed by William of Nassau. + +The marriage of William with Mary, daughter of the duke of York, in +1677, naturally gave the Dutch a greater interest than they could +have felt before in the domestic affairs of Great Britain, and a new +stimulus to their zeal against Louis of France, or, which was the +same thing, against arbitrary power and Popery, both of which had +been rendered odious under his name. The accession of James II. to +the throne of England, and his attempt to re-establish Popery, added +religious as well as political fuel to these feelings, for everybody +understood that James was acting under the protection of the king +of France. The very year of king James's accession, in 1685, the +caricature appeared which we have copied in our cut No. 186, and which, +although the inscription is in English, appears to have been the work +of a foreign artist. It was probably intended to represent Mary of +Modena, the queen of James II., and her rather famous confessor, father +Petre, the latter under the character of the wolf among the sheep. Its +aim is sufficiently evident to need no explanation. At the top, in the +original, are the Latin words, _Converte Angliam_, "convert England," +and beneath, in English, "It is a foolish sheep that makes the wolf her +confessor." + + [Illustration: _No. 186. A Dangerous Confessor._] + +The period during which the Dutch school of caricature flourished, +extended through the reign of Louis XIV., and into the regency in +France, and two great events, the revolution of 1688 in England, and +the wild money speculations of the year 1720, exercised especially the +pencils of its caricaturists. The first of these events belongs almost +entirely to Romain de Hooghe. Very little is known of the personal +history of this remarkable artist, but he is believed to have been born +towards the middle of the seventeenth century, and to have died in +the earlier years of the eighteenth century. The older French writers +on art, who were prejudiced against Romain de Hooghe for his bitter +hostility to Louis XIV., inform us that in his youth he employed his +graver on obscene subjects, and led a life so openly licentious, that +he was banished from his native town of Amsterdam, and went to live +at Haerlem. He gained celebrity by the series of plates, executed in +1672, which represented the horrible atrocities committed in Holland by +the French troops, and which raised against Louis XIV. the indignation +of all Europe. It is said that the prince of Orange (William III. +of England), appreciating the value of his satire as a political +weapon, secured it in his own interests by liberally patronising the +caricaturist; and we owe to Romain de Hooghe a succession of large +prints in which the king of France, his _protege_ James II., and the +adherents of the latter, are covered with ridicule. One, published +in 1688, and entitled "Les Monarches Tombants," commemorates the +flight of the royal family from England. Another, which appeared at +the same date, is entitled, in French, "Arlequin fur l'hypogryphe a +la croisade Loioliste," and in Dutch, "Armee van de Heylige League +voor der Jesuiten Monarchy" (_i.e._ "the army of the holy league for +establishing the monarchy of the Jesuits"). Louis XIV. and James II. +were represented under the characters of Arlequin and Panurge, who are +seated on the animal here called a "hypogryphe," but which is really +a wild ass. The two kings have their heads joined together under one +Jesuit's cap. Other figures, forming part of this army of Jesuitism, +are distributed over the field, the most grotesque of which is that +given in our cut No. 187. Two personages introduced in some ridiculous +position or other, in most of these caricatures, are father Petre, the +Jesuit, and the infant prince of Wales, afterwards the old Pretender. +It was pretended that this infant was in fact the child of a miller, +secretly introduced into the queen's bed concealed in a warming-pan; +and that this ingenious plot was contrived by father Petre. Hence the +boy was popularly called Peterkin, or Perkin, _i.e._ little Peter, +which was the name given afterwards to the Pretender in songs and +satires at the time of his rebellion; and in the prints a windmill +was usually given to the child as a sign of its father's trade. In +the group represented in our cut, father Petre, with the child in his +arms, is seated on a rather singular steed, a lobster. The young prince +here carries the windmill on his head. On the lobster's back, behind +the Jesuit, are carried the papal crown, surmounted by a fleur-de-lis, +with a bundle of relics, indulgences, &c., and it has seized in one +claw the English church service book, and in the other the book of the +laws of England. In the Dutch description of this print, the child is +called "the new born Antichrist." Another of Romain de Hooghe's prints, +entitled "Panurge seconde par Arlequin Deodaat a la croisade d'Irlande, +1689," is a satire on king James's expedition to Ireland, which led to +the memorable battle of the Boyne. James and his friends are proceeding +to the place of embarkation, and, as represented in our cut No. 188, +father Petre marches in front, carrying the infant prince in his arms. + + [Illustration: _No. 187. A Jesuit well Mounted._] + +The drawing of Romain de Hooghe is not always correct, especially in +his larger subjects, which perhaps may be ascribed to his hasty and +careless manner of working; but he displays great skill in grouping +his figures, and great power in investing them with a large amount of +satirical humour. Most of the other caricatures of the time are poor +both in design and execution. Such is the case with a vulgar satirical +print which was published in France in the autumn of 1690, on the +arrival of a false rumour that king William had been killed in Ireland. +In the field of the picture the corpse of the king is followed by a +procession consisting of his queen and the principal supporters of +his cause. The lower corner on the left hand is occupied by a view of +the interior of the infernal regions, and king William introduced in +the place allotted to him among the flames. In different parts of the +picture there are several inscriptions, all breathing a spirit of very +insolent exultation. One of them is the-- + + _Billet d'Enterrement._ + + Vous estes priez d'assister au convoy, service, et enterrement + du tres haut, tres grand, et tres infame Prince infernal, grand + stadouter, des Armes diaboliques de la ligue d'Ausbourg, et + insigne usurpateur des Royaumes d'Angleterre, d'Eccosse, et + d'Irlande, decede dans l'Irlande au mois d'Aoust 1690, qui se + fera le dit mois, dans sa paroisse infernale, ou assisteront Dame + Proserpine, Radamonte, et les Ligueurs. + + Les Dames lui diront s'il leur plaist des injures. + + [Illustration: _No. 188. Off to Ireland._] + +The prints executed in England at this time were, if possible, worse +than those published in France. Almost the only contemporary caricature +on the downfall of the Stuarts that I know, is an ill-executed print, +published immediately after the accession of William III., under the +title, "England's Memorial of its wonderful deliverance from French +Tyranny and Popish Oppression." The middle of the picture is occupied +by "the royal orange tree," which flourishes in spite of all the +attempts to destroy it. At the upper corner, on the left side, is a +representation of the French king's "council," consisting of an equal +number of Jesuits and devils, seated alternately at a round table. + +The circumstance that the titles and inscriptions of nearly all +these caricatures are in Dutch, seems to show that their influence +was intended to be exercised in Holland rather than elsewhere. In +two or three only of them these descriptions were accompanied with +translations in English or French; and after a time, copies of them +began to be made in England, accompanied with English descriptions. A +curious example of this is given in the fourth volume of the "Poems +on State Affairs," printed in 1707. In the preface to this volume the +editor takes occasion to inform the reader--"That having procur'd +from beyond sea a Collection of Satyrical Prints done in Holland and +elsewhere, by Rom. de Hoog, and other the best masters, relating to +the French King and his Adherents, since he unjustly begun this war, +I have persuaded the Bookseller to be at the expense of ingraving +several of them; to each of which I have given the Explanation in +English verse, they being in Dutch, French, or Latin in the originals." +Copies of seven of these caricatures are accordingly given at the end +of the volume, which are certainly inferior in every respect to those +of the best period of Romain de Hooghe. One of them commemorates the +eclipse of the sun on the 12th of May, 1706. The sun, as it might be +conjectured, is Louis XIV., eclipsed by queen Anne, whose face occupies +the place of the moon. In the foreground of the picture, just under the +eclipse, the queen is seated on her throne under a canopy, surrounded +by her counsellors and generals. With her left arm she holds down the +Gallic cock, while with the other hand she clips one of its wings +(see our cut No. 189). In the upper corner on the right, is inserted +a picture of the battle of Ramillies, and in the lower corner on the +left, a sea-fight under admiral Leake, both victories gained in that +year. Another of these copies of foreign prints is given in our cut +No. 190. We are told that "these figures represent a French trumpet and +drum, sent by Louis le Grand to enquire news of several citys lost by +the Mighty Monarch last campaign." The trumpeter holds in his hand a +list of lost towns, and another is pinned to the breast of the drummer; +the former list is headed by the names of "Gaunt, Brussels, Antwerp, +Bruges," the latter by "Barcelona." + + [Illustration: _No. 189. Clipping the Cock's Wings._] + + [Illustration: _No. 190. Trumpet and Drum._] + + [Illustration: _No. 191. The Three False Brethren._] + +The first remarkable outburst of caricatures in England was caused by +the proceedings against the notorious Dr. Sacheverell in 1710. It is +somewhat curious that Sacheverell's partisans speak of caricatures +as things brought recently from Holland, and new in England, and +ascribe the use of them as peculiar to the Whig party. The writer of +a pamphlet, entitled "The Picture of Malice, or a true Account of Dr. +Sacheverell's Enemies, and their behaviour with regard to him," informs +us that "the chief means by which all the lower order of that sort of +men call'd Whigs, shall ever be found to act for the ruin of a potent +adversary, are the following three--by the Print, the Canto or Doggrell +Poem, and by the Libell, grave, calm, and cool, as the author of the +'True Answer' describes it. These are not all employed at the same +time, any more than the ban and arierban of a kingdom is raised, unless +to make sure work, or in cases of great exigency and imminent danger." +"The Print," he goes on to say, "is originally a Dutch talisman +(bequeathed to the ancient Batavians by a certain Chinese necromancer +and painter), with a virtue far exceeding that of the Palladium, not +only of guarding their cities and provinces, but also of annoying their +enemies, and preserving a due balance amongst the neighbouring powers +around." This writer warms up so much in his indignation against this +new weapon of the Whigs, that he breaks out in blank verse to tell +us how even the mysterious power of the magician did not destroy its +victims-- + + _Swifter than heretofore the Print effac'd + The pomp of mightiest monarchs, and dethron'd + The dread idea of royal majesty; + Dwindling the prince below the pigmy size. + Witness the once Great Louis in youthful pride, + And Charles of happy days, who both confess'd + The magic power of mezzotinto[101] shade, + And form grotesque, in manifestoes loud + Denouncing death to boor and burgomaster. + Witness, ye sacred popes with triple crown, + Who likewise victims fell to hideous print, + Spurn'd by the populace who whilome lay + Prostrate, and ev'n adored before your thrones._ + + [101] The method of engraving called mezzotinto was very generally + adopted in England in the earlier part of the last century for + prints and caricatures. It was continued to rather a late period + by the publishing house of Carrington Bowles. + +We are then told that "this, if not the first, has yet been the chief +machine which his enemies have employ'd against the doctor; they have +exposed him in the same piece with the pope and the devil, and who now +could imagine that any simple priest should be able to stand before a +power which had levelled popes and monarchs?" At least one copy of the +caricature here alluded to is preserved, although a great rarity, and +it is represented in our cut No. 191. Two of the party remained long +associated together in the popular outcry, and as the name of the third +fell into contempt and oblivion, the doctor's place in this association +was taken by a new cause of alarm, the Pretender, the child whom we +have just seen so joyously brandishing his windmill. It is evident, +however, that this caricature greatly exasperated Sacheverell and the +party which supported him. + +It will have been noticed that the writer just quoted, in using the +term "print," ignores altogether that of caricature, which, however, +was about this time beginning to come into use, although it is not +found in the dictionaries, I believe, until the appearance of that of +Dr. Johnson, in 1755. _Caricature_ is, of course, an Italian word, +derived from the verb _caricare_, to charge or load; and therefore, +it means a picture which is charged, or exaggerated (the old French +dictionaries say, "_c'est la meme chose que charge en peinture_"). +The word appears not to have come into use in Italy until the latter +half of the seventeenth century, and the earliest instance I know of +its employment by an English writer is that quoted by Johnson from +the "Christian Morals" of Sir Thomas Brown, who died in 1682, but it +was one of his latest writings, and was not printed till long after +his death:--"Expose not thyself by four-footed manners unto monstrous +draughts (_i.e._ drawings) and _caricatura_ representations." This very +quaint writer, who had passed some time in Italy, evidently uses it as +an exotic word. We find it next employed by the writer of the Essay No. +537, of the "Spectator," who, speaking of the way in which different +people were led by feelings of jealousy and prejudice to detract from +the characters of others, goes on to say, "From all these hands we +have such draughts of mankind as are represented in those burlesque +pictures which the Italians call _caricaturas_, where the art consists +in preserving, amidst distorted proportions and aggravated features, +some distinguishing likeness of the person, but in such a manner as to +transform the most agreeable beauty into the most odious monster." The +word was not fully established in our language in its English form of +_caricature_ until late in the last century. + + [Illustration: _No. 192. Atlas._] + +The subject of agitation which produced a greater number of caricatures +than any previous event was the wild financial scheme introduced into +France by the Scottish adventurer, Law, and imitated in England in +the great South Sea Bubble. It would be impossible here, within our +necessary limits, to attempt to trace the history of these bubbles, +which all burst in the course of the year 1720; and, in fact, it is a +history of which few are ignorant. On this, as on former occasions, the +great mass of the caricatures, especially those against the Mississippi +scheme, were executed in Holland, but they are much inferior to the +works of Romain de Hooghe. In fact, so great was the demand for these +caricatures, that the publishers, in their eagerness for gain, not +only deluged the world with plates by artists of no talent, which were +without point or interest, but they took old plates of any subject +in which there was a multitude of figures, put new titles to them, +and published them as satires on the Mississippi scheme; for people +were ready to take anything which represented a crowd as a satire on +the eagerness with which Frenchmen rushed into the share-market. +One or two curious instances of this deception might be pointed out. +Thus, an old picture, evidently intended to represent the meeting +of a king and a nobleman, in the court of a palace, surrounded by +a crowd of courtiers, in the costume probably of the time of Henri +IV., was republished as a picture of people crowding to the grand +scene of stock-jobbing in Paris, the Rue Quinquenpoix; and the old +picture of the battle between Carnival and Lent came out again, a +little re-touched, under the Dutch title, "Stryd tuszen de smullende +Bubbel-Heeren en de aanstaande Armoede," _i.e._, "The battle between +the good-living bubble-lords and approaching poverty." + +Besides being issued singly, a considerable number of these prints +were collected and published in a volume, which is still met with not +unfrequently, under the title "Het groote Tafereel der Dwaasheid," +"The great picture of folly." One of this set of prints represents a +multitude of persons, of all ages and sexes, acting the part of Atlas +in supporting on their backs globes, which, though made only of paper, +had become, through the agitation of the stock exchange, heavier than +gold. Law himself (see our cut No. 192) stands foremost, and requires +the assistance of Hercules to support his enormous burthen. In the +French verses accompanying this print, the writer says-- + + _Ami Atlas, on voit (sans conter vous et moi) + Faire l'Atlas partout des divers personnages, + Riche, pauvre, homme, femme, et sot et quasi-sage, + Valet, et paisan, le gueux s'eleve en roi._ + +Another of these caricatures represents Law in the character of Don +Quixote, riding upon Sancho's donkey. He is hastening to his Dulcinia, +who waits for him in the _actie huis_ (action or share-house), towards +which people are dragging the animal on which he is seated. The +devil (see our cut No. 193), sits behind Law, and holds up the ass's +tail, while a shower of paper, in the form of shares in companies, +is scattered around, and scrambled for by the eager _actionnaires_. +In front, the animal is laden with the money into which this paper +has been turned,--the box bears the inscription, "_Bombarioos +Geldkist_, 1720," "Bombario's (Law's) gold chest;" and the flag bears +the inscription, "_Ik koom, ik koom, Dulcinia_," "I come, I come, +Dulcinia." The best, perhaps, of this lot of caricatures is a large +engraving by the well-known Picart, inserted among the Dutch collection +with explanations in Dutch and French, and which was re-engraved in +London, with English descriptions and applications. It is a general +satire on the madness of the memorable year 1720. Folly appears as +the charioteer of Fortune, whose car is drawn by the representatives +of the numerous companies which had sprung up at this time, most of +which appear to be more or less unsound. Many of these agents have the +tails of foxes, "to show their policy and cunning," as the explanation +informs us. The devil is seen in the clouds above, blowing bubbles of +soap, which mix with the paper which Fortune is distributing to the +crowd. The picture is crowded with figures, scattered in groups, who +are employed in a variety of occupations connected with the great folly +of the day, one of which, as an example, is given in our cut No. 194. +It is a transfer of stock, made through the medium of a Jew broker. + + [Illustration: _No. 193. The Don Quixote of Finance._] + + [Illustration: _No. 194. Transfer of Stock._] + +It was in this bubble agitation that the English school of caricature +began, and a few specimens are preserved, though others which are +advertised in the newspapers of that day, seem to be entirely lost. In +fact, a very considerable portion of the caricature literature of a +period so comparatively recent as the first half of the last century, +appears to have perished; for the interest of these prints was in +general so entirely temporary that few people took any care to preserve +them, and few of them were very attractive as pictures. As yet, indeed, +these English prints are but poor imitations of the works of Picart +and other continental artists. A pair of English prints, entitled +"The Bubbler's Mirrour," represents, one a head joyful at the rise in +the value of stock, the other, a similar head sorrowful at its fall, +surrounded in each case with lists of companies and epigrams upon them. +They are engraved in mezzotinto, a style of art supposed to have been +invented in England--its invention was ascribed to Prince Rupert--and +at this time very popular. In the imprint of these last-mentioned +plates, we are informed that they were "Printed for Carington Bowles, +next y^e Chapter House, in St. Paul's Ch. Yard, London," a well-known +name in former years, and even now one quite familiar to collectors, +of this class of prints, especially. Of Carington Bowles we shall have +more to say in the next chapter. With him begins the long list of +celebrated English printsellers. + + + + + CHAPTER XXIV. + + ENGLISH CARICATURE IN THE AGE OF GEORGE II.--ENGLISH + PRINTSELLERS.--ARTISTS EMPLOYED BY THEM.--SIR ROBERT + WALPOLE'S LONG MINISTRY.--THE WAR WITH FRANCE.--THE NEWCASTLE + ADMINISTRATION.--OPERA INTRIGUES.--ACCESSION OF GEORGE III., AND + LORD BUTE IN POWER. + + +With the accession of George II., the taste for political caricatures +increased greatly, and they had become almost a necessity of social +life. At this time, too, a distinct English school of political +caricature had been established, and the print-sellers became more +numerous, and took a higher position in the commerce of literature +and art. Among the earliest of these printsellers the name of Bowles +stands especially conspicuous. Hogarth's burlesque on the Beggar's +Opera, published in 1728, was "printed for John Bowles, at the Black +Horse, in Cornhill." Some copies of "King Henry the Eighth and Anna +Bullen," engraved by the same great artist in the following year, +bear the imprint of John Bowles; and others were "printed for Robert +Wilkinson, Cornhill, Carington Bowles, in St. Paul's Church Yard, and +R. Sayer, in Fleet Street." Hogarth's "Humours of Southwark Fair" was +also published, in 1733, by Carington and John Bowles. This Carington +Bowles was, perhaps, dead in 1755, for in that year the caricature +entitled "British Resentment" bears the imprint, "Printed for T. +Bowles, in St. Paul's Church Yard, and Jno. Bowles & Son, in Cornhill." +John Bowles appears to have been the brother of the first Carington +Bowles in St. Paul's Churchyard, and a son named Carington succeeded to +that business, which, under him and his son Carington, and then as the +establishment of Bowles and Carver, has continued to exist within the +memory of the present generation. Another very celebrated printshop was +established in Fleet Street by Thomas Overton, probably as far back +as the close of the seventeenth century. On his death his business was +purchased by Robert Sayers, a mezzotinto engraver of merit, whose name +appears as joint publisher of a print by Hogarth in 1729. Overton is +said to have been a personal friend of Hogarth. Sayers was succeeded in +the business by his pupil in mezzotinto engraving, named Laurie, from +whom it descended to his son, Robert H. Laurie, known in city politics, +and it became subsequently the firm of Laurie and Whittle. This +business still exists at 53, Fleet Street, the oldest establishment +in London for the publication of maps and prints. During the reign of +the second George, the number of publishers of caricatures increased +considerably, and among others, we meet with the names of J. Smith, "at +Hogarth's Head, Cheapside," attached to a caricature published August, +1756; Edwards and Darly, "at the Golden Acorn, facing Hungerford, +Strand," who also published caricatures during the years 1756-7; +caricatures and burlesque prints were published by G. Bickham, May's +Buildings, Covent Garden, and one, directed against the employment of +foreign troops, and entitled "A Nurse for the Hessians," is stated to +have been "sold in May's Buildings, Covent Garden, where is 50 more;" +"The Raree Show," published in 1762, was "sold at Sumpter's Political +Print-shop, Fleet Street," and many caricatures on contemporary +costume, especially on the Macaronis, about the year 1772, were +"published by T. Bowen, opposite the Haymarket, Piccadilly." Sledge, +"printseller, Henrietta Street, Covent Garden," is also met with about +the middle of the last century. Among other burlesque prints, Bickham, +of May's Buildings, issued a series of figures representing the various +trades, made up of the different tools, &c., used by each. The house +of Carington Bowles, in St. Paul's Churchyard, produced an immense +number of caricatures, during the last century and the present, and of +the most varied character, but they consisted more of comic scenes of +society than of political subjects, and many of them were engraved in +mezzotinto, and rather highly coloured. Among them were caricatures on +the fashions and foibles of the day, amusing accidents and incidents, +common occurrences of life, characters, &., and they are frequently +aimed at lawyers and priests, and especially at monks and friars, +for the anti-Catholic feeling was strong in the last century. J. +Brotherton, at No. 132, New Bond Street, published many of Bunbury's +caricatures; while the house of Laurie and Whittle gave employment +especially to the Cruikshanks. But perhaps the most extensive publisher +of caricatures of them all was S. W. Fores, who dwelt first at No. 3, +Piccadilly, but afterwards established himself at No. 50, the corner +of Sackville Street, where the name still remains. Fores seems to have +been most fertile in ingenious expedients for the extension of his +business. He formed a sort of library of caricatures and other prints, +and charged for admission to look at them; and he afterwards adopted a +system of lending them out in portfolios for evening parties, at which +these portfolios of caricatures became a very fashionable amusement +in the latter part of the last century. At times, some remarkable +curiosity was employed to add to the attractions of his shop. Thus, on +caricatures published in 1790, we find the statement that, "In Fores' +Caricature Museum is the completest collection in the kingdom. Also +_the head and hand of Count Struenzee_. Admittance, 1_s._" Caricatures +against the French revolutionists, published in 1793, bear imprints +stating that they were "published by S. W. Fores, No. 3, Piccadilly, +where may be seen _a complete Model of the Guillotine_--admittance, one +shilling." In some this model is said to be six feet high. + +Among the artists employed by the print-publishers of the age of +George II., we still find a certain number of foreigners. Coypel, who +caricatured the opera in the days of Farinelli, and pirated Hogarth, +belonged to a distinguished family of French painters. Goupy, who +also caricatured the _artistes_ of the opera (in 1727), and Boitard, +who worked actively for Carington Bowles from 1750 to 1770, were also +Frenchmen. Liotard, another caricaturist of the time of George II., +was a native of Geneva. The names of two others, Vandergucht and +Vanderbank, proclaim them Dutchmen. Among the English caricaturists who +worked for the house of Bowles, were George Bickham, the brother of +the printseller, John Collet, and Robert Dighton, with others of less +repute. R. Attwold, who published caricatures against admiral Byng in +1750, was an imitator of Hogarth. Among the more obscure caricaturists +of the latter part of the half-century, were MacArdell--whose print +of "The Park Shower," representing the confusion raised among the +fashionable company in the Mall in St. James's Park by a sudden fall +of rain, is so well known--and Darley. Paul Sandby, who was patronised +by the duke of Cumberland, executed caricatures upon Hogarth. Many of +these artists of the earlier period of the English school of caricature +appear to have been very ill paid--the first of the family of Bowles is +said to have boasted that he bought many of the plates for little more +than their value as metal. The growing taste for caricature had also +brought forward a number of amateurs, among whom were the countess of +Burlington, and general, afterwards marquis, Townshend. The former, who +was the lady of that earl who built Burlington House, in Piccadilly, +was the leader of one of the factions in the opera disputes at the +close of the reign of George I., and is understood to have designed the +well-known caricature upon Cuzzoni, Farinelli, and Heidegger, which was +etched by Goupy, whom she patronised. It must not be forgotten that +Bunbury himself, as well as Sayers, were amateurs; and among other +amateurs I may name captain Minthull, captain Baillie, and John Nixon. +The first of these published caricatures against the Macaronis (as the +dandies of the earlier part of the reign of George III. were called), +one of which, entitled "The Macaroni Dressing-Room," was especially +popular. + + [Illustration: _No. 195. A Party of Mourners._] + +English political caricature came into its full activity with the +ministry of Sir Robert Walpole, which, beginning in 1721, lasted +through the long period of twenty years. In the previous period +the Whigs were accused of having invented caricature, but now the +Tories certainly took the utmost advantage of the invention, for, +during several years, the greater number of the caricatures which +were published were aimed against the Whig ministry. It is also a +rather remarkable characteristic of society at this period, that the +ladies took so great an interest in politics, that the caricatures +were largely introduced upon fans, as well as upon other objects of +an equally personal character. Moreover, the popular notion of what +constituted a caricature was still so little fixed, that they were +usually called _hieroglyphics_, a term, indeed, which was not ill +applied, for they were so elaborate, and so filled with mystical +allusions, that now it is by no means easy to understand or appreciate +them. Towards the year 1739, there was a marked improvement in the +political caricatures--they were better designed, and displayed more +talent, but still they required rather long descriptions to render them +intelligible. One of the most celebrated was produced by the motion in +the House of Commons, Feb. 13, 1741, against the minister Walpole. It +was entitled "The Motion," and was a Whig satire upon the opposition, +who are represented as driving so hurriedly and inconsiderately to +obtain places, that they are overthrown before they reach their object. +The party of the opposition retaliated by a counter-caricature, +entitled, "The Reason," which was in some respects a parody upon the +other, to which it was inferior in point and spirit. At the same time +appeared another caricature against the ministry, under the title of +"The Motive." These provoked another, entitled, "A Consequence of the +Motion;" which was followed the day after its publication by another +caricature upon the opposition, entitled, "The Political Libertines; +or, Motion upon Motion;" while the opponents of the government also +brought out a caricature, entitled, "The Grounds," a violent and rather +gross attack upon the Whigs. Among other caricatures published on this +occasion, one of the best was entitled, "The Funeral of Faction," +and bears the date of March 26, 1741. Beneath it are the words, +"Funerals performed by Squire S----s," alluding to Sandys, who was the +motion-maker in the House of Commons, and who thus brought on his party +a signal defeat. Among the chief mourners on this occasion are seen the +opposition journals, _The Craftsman_, the creation of Bolingbroke and +Pulteney, the still more scurrilous _Champion_, _The Daily Post_, _The +London and Evening Post_, and _The Common Sense Journal_. This mournful +group is reproduced in our cut No. 195. + + [Illustration: _No. 196. British Resentment._] + + [Illustration: _No. 197. Britannia in a New Dress._] + + [Illustration: _No. 198. Caught by a Bait._] + +From this time there was no falling off in the supply of caricatures, +which, on the contrary, seemed to increase every year, until +the activity of the pictorial satirists was roused anew by the +hostilities with France in 1755, and the ministerial intrigues of +the two following years. The war, accepted by the English government +reluctantly, and ill prepared for, was the subject of much discontent, +although at first hopes were given of great success. One of the +caricatures, published in the middle of these early hopes, at a time +when an English fleet lay before Louisbourg, in Canada, is entitled, +"British Resentment, or the French fairly coop'd at Louisbourg," +and came from the pencil of the French artist Boitard. One of its +groups, representing the courageous English sailor and the despairing +Frenchman, is given in our cut No. 196, and may serve as an example +of Boitard's style of drawing. It became now the fashion to print +political caricatures, in a diminished form, on cards, and seventy-five +of these were formed into a small volume, under the title of "A +Political and Satirical History of the years 1756 and 1757. In a +series of seventy-five humorous and entertaining Prints, containing +all the most remarkable Transactions, Characters, and Caricaturas of +those two memorable years.... London: printed for E. Morris, near St. +Paul's." The imprints of the plates, which bear the dates of their +several publications, inform us that they came from the well-known +shop of "Darly and Edwards, at the Acorn, facing Hungerford, Strand." +These caricatures begin with our foreign relations, and express the +belief that the ministers were sacrificing English interests to French +influence. In one of them (our cut No. 197), entitled, "England made +odious, or the French Dressers," the minister, Newcastle, in the garb +of a woman, and his colleague, Fox, have dressed Britannia in a new +French robe, which does not fit her. She exclaims, "Let me have my own +cloathes. I cannot stir my arms in these; besides, everybody laughs at +me." Newcastle replies, rather imperiously, "Hussy, be quiet, you have +no need to stir your arms--why, sure! what's here to do?" While Fox, in +a more insinuating tone, offers her a fleur-de-lis, and says, "Here, +madam, stick this in your bosom, next your heart." The two pictures +which adorn the walls of the room represent an axe and a halter; and +underneath we read the lines,-- + + _And shall the substitutes of power + Our genius thus bedeck? + Let them remember there's an hour + Of quittance--then, ware neck._ + +In another print of this series, this last idea is illustrated more +fully. It is aimed at the ministers, who were believed to be enriching +themselves at the expense of the nation, and is entitled, "The Devil +turned Bird-catcher." On one side, while Fox is greedily scrambling +for the gold, the fiend has caught him in a halter suspended to the +gallows; on the other side another demon is letting down the fatal +axe on Newcastle, who is similarly employed. The latter (see our cut +No. 198) is described as a "Noddy catching at the bait, while the +bird-catcher lets drop an axe." This implement of execution is a +perfect picture of a guillotine, long before it was so notoriously in +use in France. + + [Illustration: _No. 199. British Idolatry._] + +The third example of these caricatures which I shall quote is entitled +"The Idol," and has for its subject the extravagancies and personal +jealousies connected with the Italian opera. The rivalry between +Mingotti and Vanneschi was now making as much noise there as that of +Cuzzoni and Faustina some years before. The former acted arbitrarily +and capriciously, and could with difficulty be bound to sing a few +times during the season for a high salary: it is said, L2,000 for the +season. In the caricature to which I allude, this lady appears raised +upon a stool, inscribed "L2,000 per annum," and is receiving the +worship of her admirers. Immediately before her an ecclesiastic is seen +on his knees, exclaiming, "Unto thee be praise now and for evermore!" +In the background a lady appears, holding up her pug-dog, then the +fashionable pet, and addressing the opera favourite, "'Tis only pug and +you I love." Other men are on their knees behind the ecclesiastic, all +persons of distinction; and last comes a nobleman and his lady, the +former holding in his hand an order for L2,000, his subscription to the +opera, and remarking, "We shall have but twelve songs for all this +money." The lady replies, with an air of contempt, "Well, and enough +too, for the paltry trifle." The idol, in return for all this homage, +sings rather contemptuously-- + + _Ra, ru, ra, rot ye, + My name is Mingotti, + If you worship me notti, + You shall all go to potti._ + +The closing years of the reign of George II., under the vigorous +administration of the first William Pitt, witnessed a calm in the +domestic politics of the country, which presented a strange contrast +to the agitation of the previous period. Faction seemed to have hidden +its head, and there was comparatively little employment for the +caricaturist. But this calm lasted only a short time after that king's +death, and the new reign was ushered in by indications of approaching +political agitation of the most violent description, in which satirists +who had hitherto contented themselves with other subjects were tempted +to embark in the strife of politics. Among these was Hogarth, whose +discomforts as a political caricaturist we shall have to describe in +our next chapter. + + [Illustration: _No. 200. Fox on Boots._] + +Perhaps no name ever provoked a greater amount of caricature and +satirical abuse than that of Lord Bute, who, through the favour of +the Princess of Wales, ruled supreme at court during the first period +of the reign of George III. Bute had taken into the ministry, as his +confidential colleague, Fox--the Henry Fox who became subsequently +the first Lord Holland, a man who had enriched himself enormously +with the money of the nation, and these two appeared to be aiming at +the establishment of arbitrary power in the place of constitutional +government. Fox was usually represented in the caricatures with the +head and tail of the animal represented by his name rather strongly +developed; while Bute was drawn, as a very bad pun upon his name, in +the garb of a Scotchman, wearing two large boots, or sometimes a single +boot of still greater magnitude. In these caricatures Bute and Fox are +generally coupled together. Thus, a little before the resignation of +the duke of Newcastle in 1762, there appeared a caricature entitled +"The State Nursery," in which the various members of the ministry, as +it was then formed under Lord Bute's influence, are represented as +engaged in childish games. Fox, as the whipper-in of parliamentary +majorities, is riding, armed with his whip, on Bute's shoulders (see +our cut No. 200), while the duke of Newcastle performs the more menial +service of rocking the cradle. In the rhymes which accompany this +caricature, the first of these groups is described as follows (Fox was +commonly spoken of in satire by the title of Volpone)-- + + _First you see old sly Volpone-y, + Riding on the shoulders brawny + Of the muckle favourite Sawny; + Doodle, doodle, doo._ + + [Illustration: _No. 201. Fanaticism in another Shape._] + +The number of caricatures published at this period was very great, and +they were almost all aimed in one direction, against Bute and Fox, +the Princess of Wales, and the government they directed. Caricature, +at this time, ran into the least disguised licence, and the coarsest +allusions were made to the supposed secret intercourse between the +minister and the Princess of Wales, of which perhaps the most harmless +was the addition of a petticoat to the boot, as a symbol of the +influence under which the country was governed. In mock processions +and ceremonies a Scotchman was generally introduced carrying the +standard of the boot and petticoat. Lord Bute, frightened at the amount +of odium which was thus heaped upon him, fought to stem the torrent +by employing satirists to defend the government, and it is hardly +necessary to state that among these mercenary auxiliaries was the great +Hogarth himself, who accepted a pension, and published his caricature +entitled, "The Times, Nov. 1," in the month of September, 1762. Hogarth +did not excel in political caricature, and there was little in this +print to distinguish it above the ordinary publications of a similar +character. It was the moment of negotiations for Lord Bute's unpopular +peace, and Hogarth's satire is directed against the foreign policy of +the great ex-minister Pitt. It represents Europe in a state of general +conflagration, and the flames already communicating to Great Britain. +While Pitt is blowing the fire, Bute, with a party of soldiers and +sailors zealously assisted by his favourite Scotchmen, is labouring +to extinguish it. In this he is impeded by the interference of the +duke of Newcastle, who brings a wheelbarrow full of _Monitors_ and +_North Britons,_ the violent opposition journals, to feed the flames. +The advocacy of Bute's mercenaries, whether literary or artistic, did +little service to the government, for they only provoked increased +activity among its opponents. Hogarth's caricature of "The Times," drew +several answers, one of the best of which was a large print entitled +"The Raree Show: a political contrast to the print of 'The Times,' by +William Hogarth." It is the house of John Bull which is here on fire, +and the Scots are dancing and exulting at it. In the centre of the +picture appears a great actors' barn, from an upper window of which +Fox thrusts out his head and points to the sign, representing AEneas +and Dido entering the cave together, as the performance which was +acting within. It is an allusion to the scandal in general circulation +relating to Bute and the princess, who, of course, were the AEneas and +Dido of the piece, and appear in those characters on the scaffold in +front, with two of Bute's mercenary writers, Smollett, who edited the +_Briton_, and Murphy, who wrote in the _Auditor_, one blowing the +trumpet and the other beating the drum. Among the different groups +which fill the picture, one, behind the actors' barn (see our cut No. +201), is evidently intended for a satire on the spirit of religious +fanaticism which was at this time spreading through the country. +An open-air preacher, mounted on a stool, is addressing a not very +intellectual-looking audience, while his inspiration is conveyed to him +in a rather vulgar manner by the spirit, not of good, but of evil. + +The violence of this political warfare at length drove Lord Bute from +at least ostensible power. He resigned on the 6th of April, 1763. One +of the popular favourites at this time was the duke of Cumberland, the +hero of Culloden, who was regarded as the leader of the opposition +in the House of Lords. People now believed that it was the duke of +Cumberland who had overthrown "the boot," and his popularity increased +on a sudden. The triumph was commemorated in several caricatures. One +of these is entitled, "The Jack-Boot kick'd down, or English Will +triumphant: a Dream." The duke of Cumberland, whip in hand, has kicked +the boot out of the house, exclaiming to a young man in tailor's +garb who follows him, "Let me alone, Ned; I know how to deal with +Scotsmen. Remember Culloden." The youth replies, "Kick hard, uncle, +keep him down. Let me have a kick too." Nearly the same group, using +similar language, is introduced into a caricature of the same date, +entitled, "The Boot and the Blockhead." The youthful personage is no +doubt intended for Cumberland's nephew, Edward, duke of York, who was +a sailor, and was raised to the rank of rear-admiral, and who appears +to have joined his uncle in his opposition to Lord Bute. The "boot," as +seen in our cut No. 202, is encircled with Hogarth's celebrated "line +of beauty," of which I shall have to speak more at length in the next +chapter. + + [Illustration: _No. 202. The Overthrow of the Boot._] + +With the overthrow of Bute's ministry, we may consider the English +school of caricature as completely formed and fully established. From +this time the names of the caricaturists are better known, and we shall +have to consider them in their individual characters. One of these, +William Hogarth, had risen in fame far above the group of the ordinary +men by whom he was surrounded. + + + + + CHAPTER XXV. + + HOGARTH.--HIS EARLY HISTORY.--HIS SETS OF PICTURES.--THE HARLOT'S + PROGRESS.--THE RAKE'S PROGRESS.--THE MARRIAGE A LA MODE.--HIS + OTHER PRINTS.--THE ANALYSIS OF BEAUTY, AND THE PERSECUTION ARISING + OUT OF IT.--HIS PATRONAGE BY LORD BUTE.--CARICATURE OF THE + TIMES.--ATTACKS TO WHICH HE WAS EXPOSED BY IT, AND WHICH HASTENED + HIS DEATH. + + +On the 10th of November, 1697, William Hogarth was born in the city of +London. His father, Richard Hogarth, was a London schoolmaster, who +laboured to increase the income derived from his scholars by compiling +books, but with no great success. From his childhood, as he tells us +in his "Anecdotes" of himself, the young Hogarth displayed a taste for +drawing, and especially for caricature; and, out of school, he appears +to have been seldom without a pencil in his hand. The limited means +of Richard Hogarth compelled him to take the boy from school at an +early age, and bind him apprentice to a steel-plate engraver. But this +occupation proved little to the taste of one whose ambition rose much +higher; and when the term of his apprenticeship had expired, he applied +himself to engraving on copper; and, setting up on his own account, did +considerable amount of work, first in engraving arms and shop-bills, +and afterwards in designing and engraving book illustrations, none +of which displayed any superiority over the ordinary run of such +productions. Towards 1728 Hogarth began to practice as a painter, and +he subsequently attended the academy of sir James Thornhill, in Covent +Garden, where he became acquainted with that painter's only daughter, +Jane. The result was a clandestine marriage in 1730, which met the +disapproval and provoked the anger of the lady's father. Subsequently, +however, sir James became convinced of the genius of his son-in-law, +and a reconciliation was effected through the medium of lady Thornhill. + +At this time Hogarth had already commenced that new style of design +which was destined to raise him soon to a degree of fame as an artist +few men have ever attained. In his "Anecdotes" of himself, the +painter has given us an interesting account of the motives by which +he was guided. "The reasons," he says, "which induced me to adopt +this mode of designing were, that I thought both writers and painters +had, in the historical style, totally overlooked that intermediate +species of subjects which may be placed between the sublime and the +grotesque. I therefore wished to compose pictures on canvas similar +to representations on the stage; and further hope that they will be +tried by the same test, and criticised by the same criterion. Let it +be observed, that I mean to speak only of those scenes where the human +species are actors, and these, I think, have not often been delineated +in a way of which they are worthy and capable. In these compositions, +those subjects that will both entertain and improve the mind bid fair +to be of the greatest public utility, and must therefore be entitled to +rank in the highest class. If the execution is difficult (though that +is but a secondary merit), the author has claim to a higher degree of +praise. If this be admitted, comedy, in painting as well as writing, +ought to be allotted the first place, though _the sublime_, as it is +called, has been opposed to it. Ocular demonstration will carry more +conviction to the mind of a sensible man than all he would find in a +thousand volumes, and this has been attempted in the prints I have +composed. Let the decision be left to every unprejudiced eye; let the +figures in either pictures or prints be considered as players dressed +either for the sublime, for genteel comedy or farce, for high or low +life. I have endeavoured to treat my subjects as a dramatic writer: my +picture is my stage, and men and women my players, who, by means of +certain actions and gestures, are to exhibit _a dumb-show_." + +The great series of pictures, indeed, which form the principal +foundation of Hogarth's fame, are comedies rather than caricatures, +and noble comedies they are. Like comedies, they are arranged, by a +series of successive plates, in acts and scenes; and they represent +contemporary society pictorially, just as it had been and was +represented on the stage in English comedy. It is not by delicacy +or excellence of drawing that Hogarth excels, for he often draws +incorrectly; but it is by his extraordinary and minute delineation of +character, and by his wonderful skill in telling a story thoroughly. In +each of his plates we see a whole act of a play, in which nothing is +lost, nothing glossed over, and, I may add, nothing exaggerated. The +most trifling object introduced into the picture is made to have such +an intimate relationship with the whole, that it seems as if it would +be imperfect without it. The art of producing this effect was that in +which Hogarth excelled. The first of Hogarth's great _suites_ of prints +was "The Harlot's Progress," which was the work of the years 1733 and +1734. It tells a story which was then common in London, and was acted +more openly in the broad face of society than at the present day; and +therefore the effect and consequent success were almost instantaneous. +It had novelty, as well as excellence, to recommend it. This series +of plates was followed, in 1735, by another, under the title of "The +Rake's Progress." In the former, Hogarth depicted the shame and ruin +which attended a life of prostitution; in this, he represented the +similar consequences which a life of profligacy entailed on the other +sex. In many respects it is superior to the "Harlot's Progress," and +its details come more home to the feelings of people in general, +because those of the prostitute's history are more veiled from the +public gaze. The progress of the spendthrift in dissipation and riot, +from the moment he becomes possessed of the fruits of paternal avarice, +until his career ends in prison and madness, forms a marvellous drama, +in which every incident presents itself, and every agent performs his +part, so naturally, that it seems almost beyond the power of acting. +Perhaps no one ever pictured despair with greater perfection than it +is shown in the face and bearing of the unhappy hero of this history, +in the last plate but one of the series, where, thrown into prison +for debt, he receives from the manager of a theatre the announcement +that the play which he had written in the hope of retrieving somewhat +of his position--his last resource--has been refused. The returned +manuscript and the manager's letter lie on the wretched table (cut No. +203); while on the one side his wife reproaches him heartlessly with +the deprivations and sufferings which he has brought upon her, and +on the other the jailer is reminding him of the fact that the fees +exacted for the slight indulgence he has obtained in prison are unpaid, +and even the pot-boy refuses to deliver him his beer without first +receiving his money. It is but a step further to Bedlam, which, in the +next plate, closes his unblessed career. + + [Illustration: _No. 203. Despair._] + +Ten years almost from this time had passed away before Hogarth gave to +the world his next grand series of what he called his "modern moral +subjects." This was "The Marriage _a la mode_," which was published in +six plates in 1745, and which fully sustained the reputation built upon +the "Harlot's Progress" and the "Rake's Progress." Perhaps the best +plate of the "Marriage _a la mode_," is the fourth--the music scene--in +which one principal group of figures especially arrests the attention. +It is represented in our cut No. 204. William Hazlitt has justly +remarked upon it that, "the preposterous, overstrained admiration of +the lady of quality; the sentimental, insipid, patient delight of the +man with his hair in papers, and sipping his tea; the pert, smirking, +conceited, half-distorted approbation of the figure next to him; the +transition to the total insensibility of the round face in profile, and +then to the wonder of the negro boy at the rapture of his mistress, +form a perfect whole." + + [Illustration: _No. 204. Fashionable Society._] + + [Illustration: _No. 205. An Old Maid and her Page._] + + [Illustration: _No. 206. Loss and Gain._] + +In the interval between these three great monuments of his talent, +Hogarth had published various other plates, belonging to much the same +class of subjects, and displaying different degrees of excellence. His +engraving of "Southwark Fair," published in 1733, which immediately +preceded the "Harlot's Progress," may be regarded almost as an attempt +to rival the fairs of Gallot. "The Midnight Modern Conversation" +appeared in the interval between the "Harlot's Progress" and the +"Rake's Progress;" and three years after the series last mentioned, in +1738, the engraving, remarkable equally in design and execution, of +the "Strolling Actresses in a Barn," and the four plates of "Morning," +"Noon," "Evening," and "Night," all full of choicest bits of humour. +Such is the group of the old maid and her footboy in the first of this +series (cut No. 205)--the former stiff and prudish, whose religion +is evidently not that of charity; while the latter crawls after, +shrinking at the same time under the effects of cold and hunger, +which he sustains in consequence of the hard, niggardly temper of his +mistress. Among the humorous events which fill the plate of "Noon," we +may point to the disaster of the boy who has been sent to the baker's +to fetch home the family dinner, and who, as represented in our cut No. +206, has broken his pie-dish, and spilt its contents on the ground; +and it is difficult to say which is expressed with most fidelity to +nature--the terror and shame of the unfortunate lad, or the feeling +of enjoyment in the face of the little girl who is feasting on the +fragments of the scattered meal. In 1741 appeared the plate of "The +Enraged Musician." During this period Hogarth appears to have been +hesitating between two subjects for his third grand pictorial drama. +Some unfinished sketches have been found, from which it would seem +that, after depicting the miseries of a life of dissipation in either +sex, he intended to represent the domestic happiness which resulted +from a prudent and well-assorted marriage; but for some reason or +other he abandoned this design, and gave the picture of wedlock in +a less amiable light, in his "Marriage _a la mode_." The title was +probably taken from that of Dryden's comedy. In 1750 appeared "The +March to Finchley," in many respects one of Hogarth's best works. It +is a striking exposure of the want of discipline, and the low _morale_ +of the English army under George II. Many amusing groups fill this +picture, the scene of which is laid in Tottenham Court Road, along +which the guards are supposed to be marching to encamp at Finchley, in +consequence of rumours of the approach of the Pretender's army in the +Rebellion of '45. The soldiers in front are moving on with some degree +of order, but in the rear we see nothing but confusion, some reeling +about under the effects of liquor, and confounded by the cries of women +and children, camp-followers, ballad-singers, plunderers, and the like. +One of the latter, as represented in our cut No. 207, is assisting a +fallen soldier with an additional dose of liquor, while his pilfering +propensities are betrayed by the hen screaming from his wallet, and by +the chickens following distractedly the cries of their parent. + + [Illustration: _No. 207. A brave Soldier._] + + [Illustration: _No. 208. A Painter's Amusements._] + +Hogarth presents a singular example of a satirist who suffered under +the very punishment which he inflicted on others. He made many personal +enemies in the course of his labours. He had begun his career with a +well-known personal satire, entitled "The Man of Taste," which was +a caricature on Pope, and the poet is said never to have forgiven +it. Although the satire in his more celebrated works appears to us +general, it told upon his contemporaries personally; for the figures +which act their parts in them were so many portraits of individuals +who moved in contemporary society, and who were known to everybody, +and thus he provoked a host of enemies. It was like Foote's mimicry. +He was to an extraordinary degree vain of his own talent, and jealous +of that of others in the same profession; and he spoke in terms of +undisguised contempt of almost all artists, past or present. Thus, the +painter introduced into the print of "Beer Street," is said to be a +caricature upon John Stephen Liotard, one of the artists mentioned in +the last chapter. He thus provoked the hostility of the greatest part +of his contemporaries in his own profession, and in the sequel had +to support the full weight of their anger. When George II., who had +more taste for soldiers than pictures, saw the painting of the "March +to Finchley," instead of admiring it as a work of art, he is said to +have expressed himself with anger at the insult which he believed +was offered to his army; and Hogarth not only revenged himself by +dedicating his print to the king of Prussia, by which it did become +a satire on the British army, but he threw himself into the faction +of the prince of Wales at Leicester House. The first occasion for the +display of all these animosities was given in the year 1753, at the +close of which he published his "Analysis of Beauty." Though far from +being himself a successful painter of beauty, Hogarth undertook in +this work to investigate its principles, which he referred to a waving +or serpentine line, and this he termed the "line of beauty." In 1745 +Hogarth had published his own portrait as the frontispiece to a volume +of his collected works, and in one corner of the plate he introduced a +painter's palette, on which was this waving line, inscribed "The line +of beauty." For several years the meaning of this remained either quite +a mystery, or was only known to a few of Hogarth's acquaintances, until +the appearance of the book just mentioned. Hogarth's manuscript was +revised by his friend, Dr. Morell, the compiler of the "Thesaurus," +whose name became thus associated with the book. This work exposed +its author to a host of violent attacks, and to unbounded ridicule, +especially from the whole tribe of offended artists. A great number of +caricatures upon Hogarth and his line of beauty appeared during the +year 1754, which show the bitterness of the hatred he had provoked; +and to hold still further their terror over his head, most of them +are inscribed with the words, "To be continued." Among the artists +who especially signalised themselves by their zeal against him, was +Paul Sandby, to whom we owe some of the best of these anti-Hogarthian +caricatures. One of these is entitled, "A New Dunciad, done with a view +of [fixing] the fluctuating ideas of taste." In the principal group +(which is given in our cut No. 208), Hogarth is represented playing +with a _pantin_, or figure which was moved into activity by pulling a +string. The string takes somewhat the form of the line of beauty, which +is also drawn upon his palette. This figure is described underneath the +picture as "a painter at the proper exercise of his taste." To his +breast is attached a card (the knave of hearts), which is described +by a very bad pun as "the fool of arts." On one side "his genius" is +represented in the form of a black harlequin; while behind appears a +rather jolly personage (intended, perhaps, for Dr. Morell), who, we +are told, is one of his admirers. On the table are the foundations, or +the remains, of "a house of cards." Near him is Hogarth's favourite +dog, named Trump, which always accompanies him in these caricatures. +Another caricature which appeared at this time represents Hogarth on +the stage as a quack doctor, holding in his hand the line of beauty, +and recommending its extraordinary qualities. This print is entitled +"A Mountebank Painter demonstrating to his admirers and subscribers +that crookedness is y^e most beautifull." Lord Bute, whose patronage at +Leicester House Hogarth now enjoyed, is represented fiddling, and the +black harlequin serves as "his puff." In the front a crowd of deformed +and hump-backed people are pressing forwards (see our cut No. 209), and +the line of beauty fits them all admirably. + + [Illustration: _No. 209. The Line of Beauty exemplified._] + + [Illustration: _No. 210. Piracy Exposed._] + +Much as this famous line of beauty was ridiculed, Hogarth was not +allowed to retain the small honour which seemed to arise from it +undisputed. It was said that he had stolen the idea from an Italian +writer named Lomazzo, Latinised into Lomatius, who had enounced it in +a treatise on the Fine Arts, published in the sixteenth century.[102] +In another caricature by Paul Sandby, with a vulgar title which I will +not repeat, Hogarth is visited, in the midst of his glory, by the ghost +of Lomazzo, carrying in one hand his treatise on the arts, and with his +other holding up to view the line of beauty itself. In the inscriptions +on the plate, the principal figure is described as "An author sinking +under the weight of his saturnine analysis;" and, indeed, Hogarth's +terror is broadly painted, while the volume of his analysis is resting +heavily upon "a strong support bent in the line of beauty by the mighty +load upon it." Beside Hogarth stands "his faithful pug," and behind +him "a friend of the author endeavouring to prevent his sinking to his +natural lowness." On the other side stands Dr. Morell, or, perhaps, +Mr. Townley, the master of Merchant Taylors' School, who continued +his service in preparing the book for the press after Morell's death, +described as "the author's friend and corrector," astonished at the +sight of the ghost. The ugly figure on the left hand of the picture +is described as "Deformity weeping at the condition of her darling +son," while the dog is "a greyhound bemoaning his friend's condition." +This group is represented in our cut No. 210. The other caricatures +which appeared at this time were two numerous to allow us to give a +particular description of them. The artist is usually represented, +under the influence of his line of beauty, painting ugly pictures from +deformed models, or attempting historical pictures in a style bordering +on caricature, or, on one occasion, as locked up in a mad-house, and +allowed only to exercise his skill upon the bare walls. One of these +caricatures is entitled, in allusion to the title of one of his most +popular prints, "The Painter's March through Finchley, dedicated to the +king of the gipsies, as an encourager of arts, &c." Hogarth appears in +full flight through the village, closely pursued by women and children, +and animals in great variety, and defended only by his favourite dog. + + [102] It was translated into English by Richard Haydocke, under the + title of "The Artes of Curious Paintinge, Carvinge, Buildinge," + fol. 1598. This is one of the earliest works on art in the + English language. + +With the "Marriage _a la mode_," Hogarth may be considered as having +reached his highest point of excellence. The set of "Industry and +Idleness" tells a good and useful moral story, but displays inferior +talent in design. "Beer Street" and "Gin Lane" disgust us by their +vulgarity, and the "Four Stages of Cruelty" are equally repulsive +to our feelings by the unveiled horrors of the scenes which are too +coarsely depicted in them. In the four prints of the proceedings at +an election, which are the last of his pictures of this description, +published in 1754, Hogarth rises again, and approaches in some degree +to his former elevation. + +In 1757, on the death of his brother-in-law, John Thornhill, the office +of sergeant-painter of all his Majesty's works became vacant, and it +was bestowed upon Hogarth, who, according to his own account, received +from it an income of about L200 a-year. This appointment caused another +display of hostility towards him, and his enemies called him jeeringly +the king's chief panel painter. It was at this moment that a plan for +the establishment of an academy of the fine arts was agitated, which, +a few years later, came into existence under the title of the Royal +Academy, and Hogarth proclaimed so loud an opposition to this project, +that the old cry was raised anew, that he was jealous and envious of +all his profession, and that he sought to stand alone as superior to +them all. It was the signal for a new onslaught of caricatures upon +himself and his line of beauty. Hitherto his assailants had been found +chiefly among the artists, but the time was now approaching when he +was destined to thrust himself into the midst of a political struggle, +where the attacks of a new class of enemies carried with them a more +bitter sting. + +George II. died on the 17th of October, 1760, and his grandson +succeeded him to the throne as George III. It appears evident that +before this time Hogarth had gained the favour of lord Bute, who, +by his interest with the princess of Wales, was all-powerful in the +household of the young prince. The painter had hitherto kept tolerably +clear of politics in his prints, but now, unluckily for himself, +he suddenly rushed into the arena of political caricature. It was +generally said that Hogarth's object was, by displaying his zeal in the +cause of his patron, lord Bute, to obtain an increase in his pension; +and he acknowledges himself that his object was gain. "This," he says, +"being a period when war abroad and contention at home engrossed every +one's mind, prints were thrown into the background; and the stagnation +rendered it necessary that I should do some _timed thing_ [the italics +are Hogarth's] to recover my lost time, and stop a gap in my income." +Accordingly he determined to attack the great minister, Pitt, who had +then recently been compelled to resign his office, and had gone over to +the opposition. It is said that John Wilkes, who had previously been +Hogarth's friend, having been privately informed of his design, went +to the painter, expostulated with him, and, as he continued obstinate, +threatened him with retaliation. In September, 1762, appeared the print +entitled "The Times, No. I," indicating that it was to be followed by +a second caricature. The principal features of the picture are these: +Europe is represented in flames, which are communicating to Great +Britain, but lord Bute, with soldiers and sailors, and the assistance +of Highlanders, is labouring to extinguish them, while Pitt is blowing +the fire, and the duke of Newcastle brings a barrowful of _Monitors_ +and _North Britons_, the violent journals of the popular party, to +feed it. There is much detail in the print which it is not necessary +to describe. In fulfilment of his threat, Wilkes, in the number of +the _North Briton_ published on the Saturday immediately following +the publication of this print, attacked Hogarth with extraordinary +bitterness, casting cruel reflections upon his domestic as well as his +professional character. Hogarth, stung to the quick, retaliated by +publishing the well-known caricature of Wilkes. Thereupon Churchill, +the poet, Wilkes's friend, and formerly the friend of Hogarth also, +published a bitter invective in verse against the painter, under the +title of an "Epistle to William Hogarth." Hogarth retaliated again: +"Having an old plate by me," he tells us, "with some parts ready, +such as a background and a dog, I began to consider how I could turn +so much work laid aside to some account, so patched up a print of +Master Churchill in the character of a bear." The unfinished picture +was intended to be a portrait of Hogarth himself; the canonical bear, +which represented Churchill, held a pot of porter in one hand, and +in the other a knotted club, each knot labelled "lie 1," "lie 2," &c. +The painter, in his "Anecdotes," exults over the pecuniary profit he +derived from the extensive sale of these two prints. + + [Illustration: _No. 211. An Independent Draughtsman._] + +The virulence of the caricaturists against Hogarth became on this +occasion greater than ever. Parodies on his own works, sneers at his +personal appearance and manners, reflections upon his character, were +all embodied in prints which bore such names as Hogg-ass, Hoggart, +O'Garth, &c. Our cut No. 211 represents one of the caricature portraits +of the artist. It is entitled "Wm. Hogarth, Esq., drawn from the Life." +Hogarth wears the thistle on his hat, as the sign of his dependence on +lord Bute. At his breast hangs his palette, with the line of beauty +inscribed upon it. He holds behind his back a roll of paper inscribed +"Burlesque on L--d B--t." In his right hand he presents to view two +pictures, "The Times," and the "Portrait of Wilkes." At the upper +corner to the left is the figure of Bute, offering him in a bag a +pension of "L300 per ann." Some of the allusions in this picture are +now obscure, but they no doubt relate to anecdotes well known at the +time. They receive some light from the following mock letters which are +written at the foot of the plate:-- + + "_Copy of a Letter from Mr. Hog-garth to Lord Mucklemon, w^{th} + his Lordship's Answer._ + + "My Lord,--The enclosed is a design I intend to publish; you are + sensible it will not redound to your honour, as it will expose you + to all the world in your proper colours. You likewise know what + induced me to do this; but it is in y^r power to prevent it from + appearing in publick, which I would have you do immediately. + + "WILL^M HOG-GARTH. + + "Mais^r Hog-garth,--By my saul, mon, I am sare troobled for what + I have done; I did na ken y^r muckle merit till noow; say na mair + aboot it; I'll mak au things easy to you, & gie you bock your + Pension. + + "SAWNEY MUCKLEMON." + +In an etching without a title, published at this time, and copied in +our cut No. 212, the Hogarthian dog is represented barking from a +cautious distance at the canonical bear, who appears to be meditating +further mischief. Pugg stands upon his master's palette and the line of +beauty, while Bruin rests upon the "Epistle to Wm. Hogarth," with the +pen and ink by its side. On the left, behind the dog, is a large frame, +with the words "Pannel Painting" inscribed upon it. + + [Illustration: _No. 212. Beauty and the Bear._] + +The article by Wilkes in the _North Briton_, and Churchill's metrical +epistle, irritated Hogarth more than all the hostile caricatures, and +were generally believed to have broken his heart. He died on the 26th +of October, 1764, little more than a year after the appearance of the +attack by Wilkes, and with the taunts of his political as well as his +professional enemies still ringing in his ears. + + + + + CHAPTER XXVI. + + THE LESSER CARICATURISTS OF THE REIGN OF GEORGE III.--PAUL + SANDBY.--COLLET; THE DISASTER, AND FATHER PAUL IN HIS + CUPS.--JAMES SAYER; HIS CARICATURES IN SUPPORT OF PITT, AND + HIS REWARD.--CARLO KHAN'S TRIUMPH.--BUNBURY; HIS CARICATURES + ON HORSEMANSHIP.--WOODWARD; GENERAL COMPLAINT.--ROWLANDSON'S + INFLUENCE ON THE STYLE OF THOSE WHOSE DESIGNS HE ETCHED.--JOHN KAY + OF EDINBURGH: LOOKING A ROCK IN THE FACE. + + +The school of caricature which had grown amid the political agitation +of the reigns of the two first Georges, gave birth to a number of men +of greater talent in the same branch of art, who carried it to its +highest degree of perfection during that of George III. Among them are +the three great names of Gillray, Rowlandson, and Cruikshank, and a +few who, though second in rank to these, are still well remembered for +the talent displayed in their works, or with the effect they produced +on contemporaries. Among these the principal were Paul Sandby, John +Collet, Sayer, Bunbury, and Woodward. + +Sandby has been spoken of in the last chapter. He was not by profession +a caricaturist, but he was one of those rising artists who were +offended by the sneering terms in which Hogarth spoke of all artists +but himself, and he was foremost among those who turned their satire +against him. Examples of his caricatures upon Hogarth have already been +given, sufficient to show that they display skill in composition as +well as a large amount of wit and humour. After his death, they were +republished collectively, under the title, "Retrospective Art, from the +Collection of the late Paul Sandby, Esq., R.A." Sandby was, indeed, one +of the original members of the Royal Academy. He was an artist much +admired in his time, but is now chiefly remembered as a topographical +draughtsman. He was a native of Nottingham, where he was born in +1725,[103] and he died on the 7th of November, 1809.[104] + + [103] His death is usually placed, but erroneously, in 1732. + + [104] Sandby etched landscapes on steel, and in aquatinta, the latter + by a method peculiarly his own, besides painting in oil and + opaque colours. But his fame rests _mainly_ on being the founder + of the English school of _water-colour painting_, since he was + the first to show the capability of that material to produce + finished pictures, and to lead the way to the perfection in + effect and colour to which that branch of art has since attained. + + [Illustration: _No. 213. A Disaster._] + +John Collet, who also has been mentioned in a previous chapter, was +born in London in 1725, and died there in 1780. Collet is said to have +been a pupil of Hogarth, and there is a large amount of Hogarthian +character in all his designs. Few artists have been more industrious +and produced a greater number of engravings. He worked chiefly for +Carrington Bowles, in St. Paul's Churchyard, and for Robert Sayers, +at 53, Fleet Street. His prints published by Bowles were engraved +generally in mezzotinto, and highly coloured for sale; while those +published by Sayers were usually line engravings, and sometimes +remarkably well executed. Collet chose for his field of labour that +to which Hogarth had given the title of comedy in art, but he did not +possess Hogarth's power of delineating whole acts and scenes in one +picture, and he contented himself with bits of detail and groups of +characters only. His caricatures are rarely political--they are aimed +at social manners and social vanities and weaknesses, and altogether +they form a singularly curious picture of society during an important +period of the last century. The first example I give (No. 213) is taken +from a line engraving, published by Sayers in 1776. At this time the +natural adornments of the person in both sexes had so far yielded to +artificial ornament, that even women cut off their own hair in order to +replace it by an ornamental _peruque_, supporting a head-dress, which +varied from time to time in form and in extravagance. Collet has here +introduced to us a lady who, encountering a sudden and violent wind, +has lost all her upper coverings, and wig, cap, and hat are caught by +her footman behind. The lady is evidently suffering under the feeling +of shame; and hard by, a cottager and his wife, at their door, are +laughing at her discomfiture. A bill fixed against a neighbouring wall +announces "A Lecture upon Heads." + +At this time the "no-popery" feeling ran very high. Four years +afterwards it broke out violently in the celebrated lord Gordon riots. +It was this feeling which contributed greatly to the success of +Sheridan's comedy of "The Duenna," brought out in 1775. Collet drew +several pictures founded upon scenes in this play, one of which is +given in our cut No. 214. It forms one of Carington Bowles's rather +numerous series of prints from designs by Collet, and represents the +well-known drinking scene in the convent, in the fifth scene of the +third act of "The Duenna." The scene, it will be remembered, is "a room +in the priory," and the excited monks are toasting, among other objects +of devotion, the abbess of St. Ursuline and the blue-eyed nun of St. +Catherine's. The "blue-eyed nun" is, perhaps, the lady seen through the +window, and the patron saint of her convent is represented in one of +the pictures on the wall. There is great spirit in this picture, which +is entitled "Father Paul in his Cups, or the Private Devotions of a +Convent." It is accompanied with the following lines:-- + + _See with these friars how religion thrives, + Who love good living better than good lives; + Paul, the superior father, rules the roast, + His god's the glass, the blue-eyed nun his toast. + Thus priests consume what fearful fools bestow, + And saints' donations make the bumpers flow. + The butler sleeps--the cellar door is free-- + This is a modern cloister's piety._ + + [Illustration: _No. 214. Father Paul in his Cups._] + +From Collet to Sayer we rush into the heat--I may say into the +bitterness--of politics, for James Sayer is known, with very trifling +exceptions, as a political caricaturist. He was the son of a captain +of a merchant ship at Great Yarmouth, but was himself put to the +profession of an attorney. As, however, he was possessed of a moderate +independence, and appears to have had no great taste for the law, he +neglected his business, and, with considerable talent for satire and +caricature, he threw himself into the political strife of the day. +Sayer was a bad draughtsman, and his pictures are produced more by +labour than by skill in drawing, but they possess a considerable +amount of humour, and were sufficiently severe to obtain popularity +at a time when this latter character excused worse drawing even than +that of Sayer. He made the acquaintance and gained the favour of the +younger William Pitt, when that statesman was aspiring to power, and +he began his career as a caricaturist by attacking the Rockingham +ministry in 1782--of course in the interest of Pitt. Sayer's earliest +productions which are now known, are a series of caricature portraits +of the Rockingham administration, that appear to have been given to +the public in instalments, at the several dates of April 6, May 14, +June 17, and July 3, 1782, and bear the name of C. Bretherton as +publisher. He published his first veritable caricature on the occasion +of the ministerial changes which followed the death of lord Rockingham, +when lord Shelburne was placed at the head of the cabinet, and Fox +and Burke retired, while Pitt became chancellor of the exchequer. +This caricature, which bears the title of "Paradise Lost," and is, in +fact, a parody upon Milton, represents the once happy pair, Fox and +Burke, turned out of their paradise, the Treasury, the arch of the +gate of which is ornamented with the heads of Shelburne, the prime +minister, and Dunning and Barre, two of his staunch supporters, who +were considered to be especially obnoxious to Fox and Burke. Between +these three heads appear the faces of two mocking fiends, and groups +of pistols, daggers, and swords. Beneath are inscribed the well-known +lines of Milton-- + + _To the eastern side + Of Paradise, so late their happy seat, + Waved over by that flaming brand; the gate + With dreadful faces thronged and fiery arms! + Some natural tears they dropt, but wiped them soon. + The world was all before them, where to choose + Their place of rest, and providence their guide. + They, arm in arm, with wand'ring steps, and slow, + Thro' Eden took their solitary way._ + +Nothing can be more lugubrious than the air of the two friends, +Fox and Burke, as they walk away, arm in arm, from the gate of the +ministerial paradise. From this time Sayer, who adopted all Pitt's +virulence towards Fox, made the latter a continual subject of his +satire. Nor did this zeal pass unrewarded, for Pitt, in power, gave the +caricaturist the not unlucrative offices of marshal of the court of +exchequer, receiver of the sixpenny duties, and cursitor. Sayer was, +in fact, Pitt's caricaturist, and was employed by him in attacking +successively the coalition under Fox and North, Fox's India Bill, and +even, at a later period, Warren Hastings on his trial. + + [Illustration: _No. 215. A Contrast._] + +I have already remarked that Sayer was almost exclusively a political +caricaturist. The exceptions are a few prints on theatrical subjects, +in which contemporary actors and actresses are caricatured, and a +single subject from fashionable life. A copy of the latter forms our +cut No. 215. It has no title in the original, but in a copy in my +possession a contemporary has written on the margin in pencil that +the lady is Miss Snow and the gentleman Mr. Bird, no doubt well-known +personages in contemporary society. It was published on the 19th of +July, 1783. + +One of Sayer's most successful caricatures, in regard to the effect +it produced on the public, was that on Fox's India Bill, published on +the 5th of September, 1783. It was entitled "Carlo Khan's Triumphal +Entry into Leadenhall Street," Carlo Khan being personified by Fox, +who is carried in triumph to the door of the India House on the back +of an elephant, which presents the face of lord North. Burke, who had +been the principal supporter of the bill in debate, appears in the +character of the imperial trumpeter, and leads the elephant on its way. +On a banner behind Carlo, the old inscription, "The Man of the People," +the title popularly given to Fox, is erased, and the two Greek words, ++BASILEUS BASILEON+ "king of kings," substituted in its place. From +a chimney above, the bird of ill omen croaks forth the doom of the +ambitious minister, who, it was pretended, aimed at making himself more +powerful than the king himself; and on the side of the house just below +we read the words-- + + _The night-crow cried foreboding luckless time._--Shakespeare. + +Henry William Bunbury belonged to a more aristocratic class in society +than any of the preceding. He was the second son of sir William +Bunbury, Bart., of Mildenhall, in the county of Suffolk, and was +born in 1750. How he first took so zealously to caricature we have +no information, but he began to publish before he was twenty-one +years of age. Bunbury's drawing was bold and often good, but he had +little skill in etching, for some of his earlier prints, published +in 1771, which he etched himself, are coarsely executed. His designs +were afterwards engraved by various persons, and his own style was +sometimes modified in this process. His earlier prints were etched and +sold by James Bretherton, who has been already mentioned as publishing +the works of James Sayer. This Bretherton was in some esteem as an +engraver, and he also had a print-shop at 132, New Bond Street, where +his engravings were published. James had a son named Charles, who +displayed great talent at an early age, but he died young. As early as +1772, when the macaronis (the dandies of the eighteenth century) came +into fashion, James Bretherton's name appears on prints by Bunbury as +the engraver and publisher, and it occurs again as the engraver of +his print of "Strephon and Chloe" in 1801, which was published by +Fores. At this and a later period some of his designs were engraved +by Rowlandson, who always transferred his own style to the drawings +he copied. A remarkable instance of this is furnished by a print of a +party of anglers of both sexes in a punt, entitled "Anglers of 1811" +(the year of Bunbury's death). But for the name, "H. Bunbury, del.," +very distinctly inscribed upon it, we should take this to be a genuine +design by Rowlandson; and in 1803 Rowlandson engraved some copies of +Bunbury's prints on horsemanship for Ackermann, of the Strand, in which +all traces of Bunbury's style are lost. Bunbury's style is rather +broadly burlesque. + + [Illustration: _No. 216. How to Travel on Two Legs in a Frost._] + +Bunbury had evidently little taste for political caricature, and he +seldom meddled with it. Like Collet, he preferred scenes of social +life, and humorous incidents of contemporary manners, fashionable +or popular. He had a great taste for caricaturing bad or awkward +horsemanship or unmanageable horses, and his prints of such subjects +were numerous and greatly admired. This taste for equestrian pieces +was shown in prints published in 1772, and several droll series of +such subjects appeared at different times, between 1781 and 1791, +one of which was long famous under the title of "Geoffrey Gambado's +Horsemanship." An example of these incidents of horsemanship is copied +in our cut No. 216, where a not very skilful rider, with a troublesome +horse, is taking advantage of the state of the ground for accelerating +locomotion. It is entitled, "How to travel on Two Legs in a Frost," and +is accompanied with the motto, in Latin, "_Ostendunt terris hunc tantum +fata, neque ultra esse sinent_." + + [Illustration: _No. 217. Strephon and Chloe._] + +Occasionally Bunbury drew in a broader style of caricature, especially +in some of his later works. Of our examples of this broader style, the +first cut, No. 217, entitled "Strephon and Chloe," is dated the 1st of +July, 1801. It is the very acme of sentimental courtship, expressed +in a spirit of drollery which could not easily be excelled. The next +group (cut No. 218), from a similar print published on the 21st of +July in the same year, is a no less admirable picture of overstrained +politeness. It is entitled in the original, "The Salutation Tavern," +probably with a temporary allusion beyond the more apparent design of +the picture. Bunbury, as before stated, died in 1811. It is enough to +say that sir Joshua Reynolds used to express a high opinion of him as +an artist. + + [Illustration: _No. 218. A Fashionable Salutation._] + +Bunbury's prints rarely appeared without his name, and, except when +they had passed through the engraving of Rowlandson, are easily +recognised. No doubt his was considered a popular name, which was +almost of as much importance as the print itself. But a large +mass of the caricatures published at the latter end of the last +century and the beginning of the present, appeared anonymously, or +with imaginary names. Thus a political print, entitled "The Modern +Atlas," bears the inscription "Mas^r Hook fecit;" another entitled +"Farmer George delivered," has that of "Poll Pitt del." "Everybody +delin^{it}," is inscribed on a caricature entitled "The Lover's Leap;" +and one which appeared under the title of "Veterinary Operations," +is inscribed "Giles Grinagain fect." Some of these were probably +the works of amateurs, for there appear to have been many amateur +caricaturists in England at that time. In a caricature entitled +"The Scotch Arms," published by Fores on the 3rd of January, 1787, +we find the announcement, "Gentlemen's designs executed gratis," +which means, of course, that Fores would publish the caricatures of +amateurs, if he approved them, without making the said amateurs pay +for the engraving. But also some of the best caricaturists of the +day published much anonymously, and we know that this was the case +to a very great extent with such artists as Cruikshank, Woodward, +&c., at all events until such time as their names became sufficiently +popular to be a recommendation to the print. It is certain that many +of Woodward's designs were published without his name. Such was the +case with the print of which we give a copy in our cut No. 219, which +was published on the 5th of May, 1796, and which bears strongly the +marks of Woodward's style. The spring of this year, 1796, witnessed a +general disappointment at the failure of the negociations for peace, +and therefore the necessity of new sacrifices for carrying on the war, +and of increased taxation. Many clever caricatures appeared on this +occasion, of which this by Woodward was one. Of course, when war was +inevitable, the question of generals was a very important one, and +the caricaturist pretends that the greatest general of the age was +"General Complaint." The general appears here with an empty purse in +his right hand, and in his left a handful of papers containing a list +of bankrupts, the statement of the budget, &c. Four lines beneath, in +rather doggrel verse, explain the situation as follows:-- + + _Don't tell me of generals raised from mere boys, + Though, believe me, I mean not their laurel to taint; + But the general, I'm sure, that will make the most noise, + If the war still goes on, will be General Complaint._ + + [Illustration: _No. 219. General Complaint._] + + [Illustration: _No. 220. Desire._] + +There was much of Bunbury's style in that of Woodward, who had a taste +for the same broad caricatures upon society, which he executed in a +similar spirit. Some of the _suites_ of subjects of this description +that he published, such as the series of the "Symptoms of the Shop," +those of "Everybody out of town" and "Everybody in Town," and the +"Specimens of Domestic Phrensy," are extremely clever and amusing. +Woodward's designs were also not unfrequently engraved by Rowlandson, +who, as usual, imprinted his own style upon them. A very good example +of this practice is seen in the print of which we give a copy in our +cut No. 220. Its title, in the original, is "Desire," and the passion +is exemplified in the case of a hungry schoolboy watching through a +window a jolly cook carrying by a tempting plum-pudding. We are told in +an inscription underneath: "Various are the ways this passion might be +depicted; in this delineation the subjects chosen are simple--a hungry +boy and a plum-pudding." The design of this print is stated to be +Woodward's; but the style is altogether that of Rowlandson, whose name +appears on it as the etcher. It was published by R. Ackermann, on the +20th of January, 1800. Woodward is well known by his prolific pencil, +but we are so little acquainted with the man himself, that I cannot +state the date either of his birth or of his death. + + [Illustration: _No. 221. Looking a Rock in the Face._] + +There lived at this time in Edinburgh an engraver of some eminence in +his way, but whose name is now nearly forgotten, and, in fact, it does +not occur in the last edition of Bryan's "Dictionary of Engravers." +This name was John Kay, which is found attached to prints, of which +about four hundred are known, with dates extending from 1784 to 1817. +As an engraver, Kay possessed no great talent, but he had considerable +humour, and he excelled in catching and delineating the striking +points in the features and gait of the individuals who then moved in +Edinburgh Society. In fact, a large proportion of his prints consist of +caricature portraits, often several figures on the same plate, which is +usually of small dimensions. Among them are many of the professors and +other distinguished members of the university of Edinburgh. Thus one, +copied in our cut No. 221, represents the eminent old geologist, Dr. +James Hutton, rather astonished at the shapes which his favourite rocks +have suddenly taken. The original print is dated in 1787, ten years +before Dr. Hutton's death. The idea of giving faces to rocks was not +new in the time of John Kay, and it has been frequently repeated. Some +of these caricature portraits are clever and amusing, and they are at +times very satirical. Kay appears to have rarely ventured on caricature +of any other description, but there is one rare plate by him, entitled +"The Craft in Danger," which is stated in a few words pencilled on the +copy I have before me, to have been aimed at a cabal for proposing Dr. +Barclay for a professorship in the university of Edinburgh. It displays +no great talent, and is, in fact, now not very intelligible. The +figures introduced in it are evidently intended for rather caricatured +portraits of members of the university engaged in the cabal, and are in +the style of Kay's other portraits.[105] + + [105] In the library of the British Museum there is a collection of + John Kay's works bound in two volumes quarto, with a title and + table of contents in manuscript, but whether it is one of a few + copies intended for publication, or whether it is merely the + collection of some individual, I am not prepared to say. It + contains 343 plates, which are stated to be all Kay's works down + to the year 1813, when this collection was made. "The Craft in + Danger" is not among them. I have before me a smaller, but a very + choice selection, of Kay's caricatures, the loan of which I owe + to the kindness of Mr. John Camden Hotten, of Piccadilly. I am + indebted to Mr. Hotten for many courtesies of this description, + and especially for the use of a very valuable collection of + caricatures of the latter part of the eighteenth century and + earlier part of the present, mounted in four large folio volumes, + which has been of much use to me. + + + + + CHAPTER XXVII. + + GILLRAY.--HIS FIRST ATTEMPTS.--HIS CARICATURES BEGIN WITH THE + SHELBURNE MINISTRY.--IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS.--CARICATURES + ON THE KING; "NEW WAY TO PAY THE NATIONAL DEBT."--ALLEGED + REASON FOR GILLRAY'S HOSTILITY TO THE KING.--THE KING AND THE + APPLE-DUMPLINGS.--GILLRAY'S LATER LABOURS.--HIS IDIOTCY AND DEATH. + + +In the year 1757 was born the greatest of English caricaturists, +and perhaps of all caricaturists of modern times whose works are +known--James Gillray. His father, who was named like himself, James, +was a Scotchman, a native of Lanark, and a soldier, and, having +lost one arm at the battle of Fontenoy, became an out-pensioner of +Chelsea Hospital. He obtained also the appointment of sexton at the +Moravian burial-ground at Chelsea, which he held forty years, and it +was at Chelsea that James Gillray the younger was born. The latter, +having no doubt shown signs of artistic talent, was put apprentice +to letter-engraving; but after a time, becoming disgusted with this +employment, he ran away, and joined a party of strolling players, +and in their company passed through many adventures, and underwent +many hardships. He returned, however to London, and received some +encouragement as a promising artist, and obtained admission as a +student in the Royal Academy--the then young institution to which +Hogarth had been opposed. Gillray soon became known as a designer and +engraver, and worked in these capacities for the publishers. Among +his earlier productions, two illustrations of Goldsmith's "Deserted +Village" are spoken of with praise, as displaying a remarkable freedom +of effect. For a long time after Gillray became known as a caricaturist +he continued to engrave the designs of other artists. The earliest +known caricature which can be ascribed to him with any certainty, is +the plate entitled "Paddy on Horseback," and dated in 1779, when he +was twenty-two years of age. The "horse" on which Paddy rides is a +bull; he is seated with his face turned to the tail. The subject of +satire is supposed to be the character then enjoyed by the Irish as +fortune-hunters. The point, however, is not very apparent, and indeed +Gillray's earliest caricatures are tame, although it is remarkable +how rapidly he improved, and how soon he arrived at excellence. Two +caricatures, published in June and July, 1782, on the occasion of +admiral Rodney's victory, are looked upon as marking his first decided +appearance in politics. + +A distinguishing characteristic of Gillray's style is, the wonderful +tact with which he seizes upon the points in his subject open to +ridicule, and the force with which he brings those points out. In the +fineness of his design, and in his grouping and drawing, he excels all +the other caricaturists. He was, indeed, born with all the talents of +a great historical painter, and, but for circumstances, he probably +would have shone in that branch of art. This excellence will be the +more appreciated when it is understood that he drew his picture with +the needle on the plate, without having made any previous sketch of +it, except sometimes a few hasty outlines of individual portraits or +characters scrawled on cards or scraps of paper as they struck him. + +Soon after the two caricatures on Rodney's naval victory, the +Rockingham administration was broken up by the death of its chief, and +another was formed under the direction of Lord Shelburne, from which +Fox and Burke retired, leaving in it their old colleague, Pitt, who +now deserted the Whig party in parliament. Fox and Burke became from +this moment the butt of all sorts of abuse and scornful satire from the +caricaturists, such as Sayer, and newspaper writers in the pay of their +opponents; and Gillray, perhaps because it offered at that moment the +best chance of popularity and success, joined in the crusade against +the two ex-ministers and their friends. In one of his caricatures, +which is a parody upon Milton, Fox is represented in the character of +Satan, turning his back upon the ministerial Paradise, but looking +enviously over his shoulder at the happy pair (Shelburne and Pitt) who +are counting their money on the treasury table:-- + + _Aside he turned + For envy, yet with jealous leer malign + Eyed them askance._ + +Another, also by Gillray, is entitled "Guy Faux and Judas Iscariot," +the former represented by Fox, who discovers the desertion of his +late colleague, lord Shelburne, by the light of his lantern, and +recriminates angrily, "Ah! what, I've found you out, have I? Who arm'd +the high priests and the people? Who betray'd his mas--?" At this +point he is interrupted by a sneering retort from Shelburne, who is +carrying away the treasury bag with a look of great self-complacency, +"Ha, ha! poor Gunpowder's vexed! He, he, he!--Shan't have the bag, I +tell you, old Goosetooth!" Burke was usually caricatured as a Jesuit; +and in another of Gillray's prints of this time (published Aug. 23, +1782), entitled "Cincinnatus in Retirement," Burke is represented as +driven into the retirement of his Irish cabin, where he is surrounded +by Popish relics and emblems of superstition, and by the materials +for drinking whisky. A vessel, inscribed "Relick No. 1., used by St. +Peter," is filled with boiled potatoes, which Jesuit Burke is paring. +Three imps are seen dancing under the table. + + [Illustration: _No. 222. A Strong Dose._] + +In 1783 the Shelburne ministry itself was dissolved, and succeeded +by the Portland ministry, in which Fox was secretary of state for +foreign affairs, and Burke, paymaster of the forces, and Lord North, +who had joined the Whigs against lord Shelburne, now obtained office +as secretary for the home department. Gillray joined warmly in the +attacks on this coalition of parties, and from this time his great +activity as a caricaturist begins. Fox, especially, and Burke, still +under the character of a Jesuit, were incessantly held up to ridicule +in his prints. In another year this ministry also was overthrown, and +young William Pitt became established in power, while the ex-ministers, +now the opposition, had become unpopular throughout the country. The +caricature of Gillray followed them, and Fox and Burke constantly +appeared under his hands in some ridiculous situation or other. But +Gillray was not a hired libeller, like Sayer and some of the lower +caricaturists of that time; he evidently chose his subjects, in some +degree independently, as those which offered him the best mark for +ridicule; and he had so little respect for the ministers or the court, +that they all felt his satire in turn. Thus, when the plan of national +fortifications--brought forward by the duke of Richmond, who had +deserted the Whigs to be made a Tory minister, as master-general of +the ordnance--was defeated in the House of Commons in 1787, the best +caricature it provoked was one by Gillray, entitled "Honi soit qui +mal y pense," which represents the horror of the duke of Richmond at +being so unceremoniously compelled to swallow his own fortifications +(cut No. 222). It is lord Shelburne, who had now become marquis of +Lansdowne, who is represented as administering the bitter dose. Some +months afterwards, in the famous impeachment against Warren Hastings, +Gillray sided warmly against the impeachers, perhaps partly because +these were Burke and his friends; yet several of his caricatures on +this affair are aimed at the ministers, and even at the king himself. +Lord Thurlow, who was a favourite with the king, and who supported the +cause of Warren Hastings with firmness, after he had been deserted by +Pitt and the other ministers, was especially an object of Gillray's +satire. Thurlow, it will be remembered, was rather celebrated for +profane swearing, and was sometimes spoken of as the thunderer. One +of the finest of Gillray's caricatures at this period, published on +the 1st of March, 1788, is entitled "Blood on Thunder fording the Red +Sea," and represents Warren Hastings carried on chancellor Thurlow's +shoulders through a sea of blood, strewed with the mangled corpses +of Hindoos. As will be seen in our copy of the most important part of +this print (cut No. 223), the "saviour of India," as he was called by +his friends, has taken care to secure his gains. A remarkably bold +caricature by Gillray against the government appeared on the 2nd of May +in this year. It is entitled "Market-Day--every man has his price," and +represents a scene in Smithfield, where the horned cattle exposed for +sale are the supporters of the king's ministry. Lord Thurlow, with his +characteristic frown, appears as the principal purchaser. Pitt, and +his friend and colleague Dundas, are represented drinking and smoking +jovially at the window of a public-house. On one side Warren Hastings +is riding off with the king in the form of a calf, which he has just +purchased, for Hastings was popularly believed to have worked upon king +George's avarice by rich presents of diamonds. On another side, the +overwhelming rush of the cattle is throwing over the van in which Fox, +Burke, and Sheridan are driving. This plate deserves to be placed among +Gillray's finest works. + + [Illustration: _No. 223. Blood on Thunder._] + +Gillray caricatured the heir to the throne with bitterness, perhaps +because his dissipation and extravagance rendered him a fair subject +of ridicule, and because he associated himself with Fox's party in +politics; but his hostility to the king is ascribed in part to personal +feelings. A large and very remarkable print by our artist, though his +name was not attached to it, and one which displays in a special manner +the great characteristics of Gillray's style, appeared on the 21st of +April, 1786, just after an application had been made to the House of +Commons for a large sum of money to pay off the king's debts, which +were very great, in spite of the enormous income then attached to the +crown. George was known as a careful and even a parsimonious man, and +the queen was looked upon generally as a mean and very avaricious +woman, and people were at a loss to account for this extraordinary +expenditure, and they tried to explain it in various ways which were +not to the credit of the royal pair. It was said that immense sums were +spent in secret corruption to pave the way to the establishment of +arbitrary power; that the king was making large savings, and hoarding +up treasures at Hanover; and that, instead of spending money on his +family, he allowed his eldest son to run into serious difficulties +through the smallness of his allowance, and thus to become an object of +pity to his French friend, the wealthy duc d'Orleans, who had offered +him relief. The caricature just mentioned, which is extremely severe, +is entitled "A new way to pay the National Debt." It represents the +entrance to the treasury, from which king George and his queen, with +their band of pensioners, are issuing, their pockets, and the queen's +apron, so full of money, that the coins are rolling out and scattering +about the ground. Nevertheless, Pitt, whose pockets also are full, +adds to the royal treasures large bags of the national revenue, which +are received with smiles of satisfaction. To the left, a crippled +soldier sits on the ground, and asks in vain for relief; while the +wall above is covered with torn placards, on some of which may be +read, "God save the King;" "Charity, a romance;" "From Germany, just +arrived a large and royal assortment...;" and "Last dying speech of +fifty-four malefactors executed for robbing a hen-roost." The latter +is a satirical allusion to the notorious severity with which the most +trifling depredators on the king's private farm were prosecuted. In the +background, on the right hand side of the picture, the prince appears +in ragged garments, and in want of charity no less than the cripple, +and near him is the duke of Orleans, who offers him a draft for +L200,000. On the placards on the walls here we read such announcements +as "Economy, an old song;" "British property, a farce;" and "Just +published, for the benefit of posterity, the dying groans of Liberty;" +and one, immediately over the prince's head, bears the prince's +feathers, with the motto, "Ich starve." Altogether this is one of the +most remarkable of Gillray's caricatures. + + [Illustration: _No. 224. Farmer George and his Wife._] + +The parsimoniousness of the king and queen was the subject of +caricatures and songs in abundance, in which these illustrious +personages appeared haggling with their tradesmen, and making bargains +in person, rejoicing in having thus saved a small sum of money. It +was said that George kept a farm at Windsor, not for his amusement, +but to draw a small profit from it. By Peter Pindar he is described +as rejoicing over the skill he has shown in purchasing his live stock +as bargains. Gillray seized greedily all these points of ridicule, +and, as early as 1786, he published a print of "Farmer George and his +Wife" (see our cut No. 224), in which the two royal personages are +represented in the very familiar manner in which they were accustomed +to walk about Windsor and its neighbourhood. This picture appears to +have been very popular; and years afterwards, in a caricature on a +scene in "The School for Scandal," where, in the sale of the young +profligate's effects, the auctioneer puts up a family portrait, for +which a broker offers five shillings, and Careless, the auctioneer, +says, "Going for no more than one crown," the family piece is the +well-known picture of "Farmer George and his Wife," and the ruined +prodigal is the prince of Wales, who exclaims, "Careless, knock down +the farmer." + +Many caricatures against the undignified meanness of the royal +household appeared during the years 1791 and 1792, when the king +passed much of his time at his favourite watering-place, Weymouth; +and there his domestic habits had become more and more an object of +remark. It was said that, under the pretence of Weymouth being an +expensive place, and taking advantage of the obligations of the royal +mail to carry parcels for the king free, he had his provisions brought +to him by that conveyance from his farm at Windsor. On the 28th of +November, 1791, Gillray published a caricature on the homeliness of +the royal household, in two compartments, in one of which the king +is represented, in a dress which is anything but that of royalty, +toasting his muffins for breakfast; and in the other, queen Charlotte, +in no less homely dress, though her pocket is overflowing with money, +toasting sprats for supper. In another of Gillray's prints, entitled +"Anti-saccharites," the king and queen are teaching their daughters +economy in taking their tea without sugar; as the young princesses show +some dislike to the experiment, the queen admonishes them, concluding +with the remark, "Above all, remember how much expense it will save +your poor papa!" + + [Illustration: _No. 225. A Flemish Proclamation._] + +According to a story which seems to be authentic, Gillray's dislike +of the king was embittered at this time by an incident somewhat +similar to that by which George II. had provoked the anger of Hogarth. +Gillray had visited France, Flanders, and Holland, and he had made +sketches, a few of which he engraved. Our cut No. 225 represents +a group from one of these sketches, which explains itself, and is +a fair example of Gillray's manner of drawing such subjects. He +accompanied the painter Loutherbourg, who had left his native city +of Strasburg to settle in England, and become the king's favourite +artist, to assist him in making sketches for his great painting of +"The Siege of Valenciennes," Gillray sketching groups of figures +while Loutherbourg drew the landscape and buildings. After their +return, the king expressed a desire to see their sketches, and they +were placed before him. Loutherbourg's landscapes and buildings +were plain drawings, and easy to understand, and the king expressed +himself greatly pleased with them. But the king's mind was already +prejudiced against Gillray for his satirical prints, and when he +saw his hasty and rough, though spirited sketches, of the French +soldiers, he threw them aside contemptuously, with the remark, "I +don't understand these caricatures." Perhaps the very word he used was +intended as a sneer upon Gillray, who, we are told, felt the affront +deeply, and he proceeded to retort by a caricature, which struck at +once at one of the king's vanities, and at his political prejudices. +George III. imagined himself a great connoisseur in the fine arts, and +the caricature was entitled "A Connoisseur examining a Cooper." It +represented the king looking at the celebrated miniature of Oliver +Cromwell, by the English painter, Samuel Cooper. When Gillray had +completed this print, he is said to have exclaimed, "I wonder if the +royal connoisseur will understand this!" It was published on the 18th +of June, 1792, and cannot have failed to produce a sensation at that +period of revolutions. The king is made to exhibit a strange mixture +of alarm with astonishment in contemplating the features of this +great overthrower of kingly power, at a moment when all kingly power +was threatened. It will be remarked, too, that the satirist has not +overlooked the royal character for domestic economy, for, as will be +seen in our cut No. 226, the king is looking at the picture by the +light of a candle-end stuck on a "save-all." + + [Illustration: _No. 226. A Connoisseur in Art._] + +From this time Gillray rarely let pass an opportunity of caricaturing +the king. Sometimes he pictured his awkward and undignified gait, as he +was accustomed to shuffle along the esplanade at Weymouth; sometimes +in the familiar manner in which, in the course of his walks in the +neighbourhood of his Windsor farm, he accosted the commonest labourers +and cottagers, and overwhelmed them with a long repetition of trivial +questions--for king George had a characteristic manner of repeating his +questions, and of frequently giving the reply to them himself. + + [Illustration: _No. 227. Royal Affability._] + + [Illustration: _No. 228. A Lesson in Apple Dumplings._] + + _Then asks the farmer's wife, or farmer's maid, + How many eggs the fowls have laid; + What's in the oven, in the pot, the crock; + Whether 'twill rain or no, and what's o'clock; + Thus from poor hovels gleaning information, + To serve as future treasure for the nation._ + +So said Peter Pindar; and in this _role_ king George was represented +not unfrequently in satirical prints. On the 10th of February Gillray +illustrated the quality of "Affability" in a picture of one of these +rustic encounters. The king and queen, taking their walk, have arrived +at a cottage, where a very coarse example of English peasantry is +feeding his pigs with wash. The scene is represented in our cut No. +227. The vacant stare of the countryman betrays his confusion at the +rapid succession of questions--"Well, friend, where a' you going, +hay?--What's your name, hay?--Where do you live, hay?--hay?" In other +prints the king is represented running into ludicrous adventures while +hunting, an amusement to which he was extremely attached. One of the +best known of these has been celebrated equally by the pen of Peter +Pindar and by the needle of Gillray. It was said that one day while +king George was following the chase, he came to a poor cottage, where +his usual curiosity was rewarded by the discovery of an old woman +making apple dumplings. When informed what they were, he could not +conceal his astonishment how the apples could have been introduced +without leaving a seam in their covering. In the caricature by Gillray, +from which we take our cut No. 228, the king is represented looking +at the process of dumpling making through the window, inquiring +in astonishment, "Hay? hay? apple dumplings?--how get the apples +in?--how? Are they made without seams?" The story is told more fully +in the following verses of Peter Pindar, which will serve as the best +commentary on the engraving:-- + + _THE KING AND THE APPLE DUMPLING._ + + _Once on a time a monarch, tired with whooping, + Whipping and spurring, + Happy in worrying + A poor, defenceless, harmless buck + (The horse and rider wet as muck), + From his high consequence and wisdom stooping, + Enter'd through curiosity a cot, + Where sat a poor old woman and her pot._ + _The wrinkled, blear-eyed, good old granny, + In this same cot, illum'd by many a cranny. + Had finish'd apple dumplings for her pot. + In tempting row the naked dumplings lay, + When lo! the monarch in his usual way + Like lightning spoke, "What this? what this? what? what?" + Then taking up a dumpling in his hand, + His eyes with admiration did expand, + And oft did majesty the dumpling grapple. + "'Tis monstrous, monstrous hard, indeed?" he cried; + "What makes it, pray, so hard?"--The dame replied, + Low curtseying, "Please your majesty, the apple." + "Very astonishing, indeed! strange thing!" + Turning the dumpling round, rejoined the king; + "'Tis most extraordinary then, all this is-- + It beats Pinetti's conjuring all to pieces-- + Strange I should never of a dumpling dream! + But, Goody, tell me where, where, where's the seam?" + "Sir, there's no seam," quoth she, "I never knew + That folks did apple dumplings sew." + "No!" cried the staring monarch with a grin, + "How, how the devil got the apple in?" + On which the dame the curious scheme reveal'd + By which the apple lay so sly conceal'd, + Which made the Solomon of Britain start; + Who to the palace with full speed repair'd + And queen, and princesses so beauteous, scared, + All with the wonders of the dumpling art. + There did he labour one whole week, to show + The wisdom of an apple dumpling maker; + And lo! so deep was majesty in dough, + The palace seem'd the lodging of a baker!_ + +Gillray was not the only caricaturist who turned the king's weaknesses +to ridicule, but none caricatured them with so little gentleness, or +evidently with so good a will. On the 7th of March, 1796, the princess +of Wales gave birth to a daughter, so well known since as the princess +Charlotte. The king is said to have been charmed with his grandchild, +and this sentiment appears to have been anticipated by the public, for +on the 13th of February, when the princess's accouchment was looked +forward to with general interest, a print appeared under the title of +"Grandpapa in his Glory." In this caricature, which is given in our +cut No. 229, king George, seated, is represented nursing and feeding +the royal infant in an extraordinary degree of homeliness. He is +singing the nursery rhyme-- + + _There was a laugh and a craw, + There was a giggling honey, + Goody good girl shall be fed, + But naughty girl shall have noney._ + +This print bears no name, but it is known to be by Woodward, though it +betrays an attempt to imitate the style of Gillray. Gillray was often +imitated in this manner, and his prints were not unfrequently copied +and pirated. He even at times copied himself, and disguised his own +style, for the sake of gaining money. + + [Illustration: _No. 229. Grandfather George._] + +At the period of the regency bill in 1789, Gillray attacked Pitt's +policy in that affair with great severity. In a caricature published +on the 3rd of January, he drew the premier in the character of an +over-gorged vulture, with one claw fixed firmly on the crown and +sceptre, and with the other seizing upon the prince's coronet, from +which he is plucking the feathers. Among other good caricatures on this +occasion, perhaps the finest is a parody on Fuseli's picture of "The +Weird Sisters," in which Dundas, Pitt, and Thurlow, as the sisters, +are contemplating the moon, the bright side of whose disc represents +the face of the queen, and the other that of the king, overcast with +mental darkness. Gillray took a strongly hostile view of the French +revolution, and produced an immense number of caricatures against the +French and their rulers, and their friends, or supposed friends, in +this country, during the period extending from 1790 to the earlier +years of the present century. Through all the changes of ministry or +policy, he seems to have fixed himself strongly on individuals, and +he seldom ceased to caricature the person who had once provoked his +attacks. So it was with the lord chancellor Thurlow, who became the +butt of savage satire in some of his prints which appeared in 1792, +at the time when Pitt forced him to resign the chancellorship. Among +these is one of the boldest caricatures which he ever executed. It is a +parody, fine almost to sublimity, on a well-known scene in Milton, and +is entitled, "Sin, Death, and the Devil." The queen, as Sin, rushes to +separate the two combatants, Death (in the semblance of Pitt) and Satan +(in that of Thurlow). During the latter part of the century Gillray +caricatured all parties in turn, whether ministerial or opposition, +with indiscriminate vigour; but his hostility towards the party of +Fox, whom he persisted in regarding, or at least in representing, +as unpatriotic revolutionists, was certainly greatest. In 1803 he +worked energetically against the Addington ministry; and in 1806 he +caricatured that which was known by the title of "All the Talents;" but +during this later period of his life his labours were more especially +aimed at keeping up the spirit of his countrymen against the threats +and designs of our foreign enemies. It was, in fact, the caricature +which at that time met with the greatest encouragement. + +In his own person, Gillray had lived a life of great irregularity, and +as he grew older, his habits of dissipation and intemperance increased, +and gradually broke down his intellect. Towards the year 1811 he +ceased producing any original works; the last plate he executed was a +drawing of Bunbury's, entitled "A Barber's Shop in Assize Time," which +is supposed to have been finished in the January of that year. Soon +afterwards his mind sank into idiotcy, from which it never recovered. +James Gillray died in 1815, and was buried in St. James's churchyard, +Piccadilly, near the rectory house. + + + + + CHAPTER XXVIII. + + GILLRAY'S CARICATURES ON SOCIAL LIFE.--THOMAS ROWLANDSON.--HIS EARLY + LIFE.--HE BECOMES A CARICATURIST.--HIS STYLE AND WORKS.--HIS + DRAWINGS.--THE CRUIKSHANKS. + + +Gillray was, beyond all others, the great political caricaturist of +his age. His works form a complete history of the greater and more +important portion of the reign of George III. He appears to have had +less taste for general caricature, and his caricatures on social life +are less numerous, and with a few exceptions less important, than +those which were called forth by political events. The exceptions are +chiefly satires on individual characters, which are marked by the same +bold style which is displayed in his political attacks. Some of his +caricatures on the extravagant costume of the time, and on its more +prominent vices, such as the rage for gambling, are also fine, but his +social sketches generally are much inferior to his other works. + +This, however, was not the case with his contemporary, Thomas +Rowlandson, who doubtlessly stands second to Gillray, and may, in some +respects, be considered his equal. Rowlandson was born in the Old +Jewry in London, the year before that of the birth of Gillray, in the +July of 1756. His father was a city merchant, who had the means to +give him a good education, but embarking rashly in some unsuccessful +speculations, he fell into reduced circumstances, and the son had to +depend upon the liberality of a relative. His uncle, Thomas Rowlandson, +after whom probably he was named, had married a French lady, a +Mademoiselle Chatelier, who was now a widow, residing in Paris, with +what would be considered in that capital a handsome fortune, and she +appears to have been attached to her English nephew, and supplied him +rather freely with money. Young Rowlandson had shown at an early age +great talent for drawing, with an especial turn for satire. As a +schoolboy, he covered the margins of his books with caricatures upon +his master and upon his fellow-scholars, and at the age of sixteen he +was admitted a student in the Royal Academy in London, then in its +infancy. But he did not profit immediately by this admission, for his +aunt invited him to Paris, where he began and followed his studies in +art with great success, and was remarked for the skill with which he +drew the human body. His studies from nature, while in Paris, are said +to have been remarkably fine. Nor did his taste for satirical design +fail him, for it was one of his greatest amusements to caricature the +numerous individuals, and groups of individuals, who must in that age +have presented objects of ridicule to a lively Englishman. During +this time his aunt died, leaving him all her property, consisting of +about L7,000 in money, and a considerable amount in plate and other +objects. The sudden possession of so much money proved a misfortune to +young Rowlandson. He appears to have had an early love for gaiety, and +he now yielded to all the temptations to vice held out by the French +metropolis, and especially to an uncontrollable passion for gambling, +through which he soon dissipated his fortune. + +Before this, however, had been effected, Rowlandson, after having +resided in Paris about two years, returned to London, and continued +his studies in the Royal Academy. But he appears for some years +to have given himself up entirely to his dissipated habits, and +to have worked only at intervals, when he was driven to it by the +want of money. We are told by one who was intimate with him, that, +when reduced to this condition, he used to exclaim, holding up his +pencil, "I have been playing the fool, but here is my resource!" +and he would then produce--with extraordinary rapidity--caricatures +enough to supply his momentary wants. Most of Rowlandson's earlier +productions were published anonymously, but here and there, among +large collections, we meet with a print, which, by companion of the +style with that of his earliest known works, we can hardly hesitate +in ascribing to him; and from these it would appear that he had begun +with political caricature, because, perhaps, at that period of great +agitation, it was most called for, and, therefore, most profitable. +Three of the earliest of the political caricatures thus ascribed to +Rowlandson belong to the year 1784, when he was twenty-eight years +of age, and relate to the dissolution of parliament in that year, +the result of which was the establishment of William Pitt in power. +The first, published on the 11th of March, is entitled "The Champion +of the People." Fox is represented under this title, armed with the +sword of Justice and the shield of Truth, combating the many-headed +hydra, its mouths respectively breathing forth "Tyranny," "Assumed +Prerogative," "Despotism," "Oppression," "Secret Influence," "Scotch +Politics," "Duplicity," and "Corruption." Some of these heads are +already cut off. The Dutchman, Frenchman, and other foreign enemies +are seen in the background, dancing round the standard of "Sedition." +Fox is supported by numerous bodies of English and Irishmen, the +English shouting, "While he protects us, we will support him." The +Irish, "He gave us a free trade and all we asked; he shall have our +firm support." Natives of India, in allusion to his unsuccessful India +Bill, kneel by his side and pray for his success. The second of these +caricatures was published on the 26th of March, and is entitled "The +State Auction." Pitt is the auctioneer, and is represented as knocking +down with the hammer of "prerogative" all the valuable articles of +the constitution. The clerk is his colleague, Henry Dundas, who holds +up a weighty lot, entitled, "Lot 1. The Rights of the People." Pitt +calls to him, "Show the lot this way, Harry--a'going, a'going--speak +quick, or it's gone--hold up the lot, ye Dund-ass!" The clerk replies +in his Scottish accent, "I can hould it na higher, sir." The Whig +members, under the title of the "chosen representers," are leaving +the auction room in discouragement, with reflections in their mouths, +such as, "Adieu to Liberty!" "Despair not!" "Now or never!" While Fox +stands firm in the cause, and exclaims--"I am determined to bid with +spirit for Lot 1; he shall pay dear for it that outbids me!" Pitt's +Tory supporters are ranged under the auctioneer, and are called the +"hereditary virtuosis;" and their leader, who appears to be the lord +chancellor, addresses them in the words, "Mind not the nonsensical +biddings of those common fellows." Dundas remarks, "We shall get the +supplies by this sale." The third of these caricatures is dated on the +31st of March, when the elections had commenced, and is entitled, +"The Hanoverian Horse and British Lion--a Scene in a new Play, lately +acted in Westminster, with distinguished applause. Act 2nd, Scene +last." At the back of the picture stands the vacant throne, with the +intimation, "We shall resume our situation here at pleasure, _Leo +Rex_." In front, the Hanoverian horse, unbridled, and without saddle, +neighs "pre-ro-ro-ro-ro-rogative," and is trampling on the safeguard of +the constitution, while it kicks out violently the "faithful commons" +(alluding to the recent dissolution of parliament). Pitt, on the back +of the horse, cries, "Bravo!--go it again!--I love to ride a mettled +steed; send the vagabonds packing!" Fox appears on the other side of +the picture, mounted on the British lion, and holding a whip and bridle +in his hand. He says to Pitt, "Prithee, Billy, dismount before ye get a +fall, and let some abler jockey take your seat;" and the lion observes, +indignantly, but with gravity, "If this horse is not tamed, he will +soon be absolute king of our forest." + + [Illustration: _No. 230. Opera Beauties._] + +If these prints are correctly ascribed to Rowlandson, we see him here +fairly entered in the lists of political caricature, and siding with +Fox and the Whig party. He displays the same boldness in attacking +the king and his ministers which was displayed by Gillray--a boldness +that probably did much towards preserving the liberties of the country +from what was no doubt a resolute attempt to trample upon them, at a +time when caricature formed a very powerful weapon. Before this time, +however, Rowlandson's pencil had become practised in those burlesque +pictures of social life for which he became afterwards so celebrated. +At first he seems to have published his designs under fictitious names, +and one now before me, entitled "The Tythe Pig," bears the early date +of 1786, with the name of "Wigstead," no doubt an assumed one, which +is found on some others of his early prints. It represents the country +parson, in his own parlour, receiving the tribute of the tithe pig +from an interesting looking farmer's wife. The name of Rowlandson, +with the date 1792, is attached to a very clever and humorous etching +which is now also before me, entitled "Cold Broth and Calamity," and +representing a party of skaters, who have fallen in a heap upon the +ice, which is breaking under their weight. It bears the name of Fores +as publisher. From this time, and especially toward the close of the +century, Rowlandson's caricatures on social life became very numerous, +and they are so well known that it becomes unnecessary, nor indeed +would it be easy, to select a few examples which would illustrate all +his characteristic excellencies. In prints published by Fores at the +beginning of 1794, the address of the publisher is followed by the +words, "where may be had all Rowlandson's works," which shows how +great was his reputation as a caricaturist at that time. It may be +stated briefly that he was distinguished by a remarkable versatility of +talent, by a great fecundity of imagination, and by a skill in grouping +quite equal to that of Gillray, and with a singular ease in forming his +groups of a great number of figures. Among those of his contemporaries +who spoke of him with the highest praise were sir Joshua Reynolds and +Benjamin West. It has been remarked, too, that no artist ever possessed +the power of Rowlandson of expressing so much with so little effort. We +trace a great difference in style between Rowlandson's earlier and his +later works; although there is a general identity of character which +cannot be mistaken. The figures in the former show a taste for grace +and elegance that is rare in his later works, and we find a delicacy +of beauty in his females which he appears afterwards to have entirely +laid aside. An example of his earlier style in depicting female faces +is furnished by the pretty farmer's wife, in the print of "The Tythe +Pig," just alluded to; and I may quote as another example, an etching +published on the 1st of January, 1794, under the title of "English +Curiosity; or, the foreigner stared out of countenance." An individual, +in a foreign costume, is seated in the front row of the boxes of a +theatre, probably intended for the opera, where he has become the +object of curiosity of the whole audience, and all eyes are eagerly +directed upon him. The faces of the men are rather coarsely grotesque, +but those of the ladies, two of which are given in our cut No. 230, +possess a considerable degree of refinement. He appears, however, +to have been naturally a man of no real refinement, who easily gave +himself up to low and vulgar tastes, and, as his caricature became more +exaggerated and coarse, his females became less and less graceful, +until his model of female beauty appears to have been represented +by something like a fat oyster-woman. Our cut No. 231, taken from a +print in the possession of Mr. Fairholt, entitled, "The Trumpet and +Bassoon," presents a good example of Rowlandson's broad humour, and of +his favourite models of the human face. We can almost fancy we hear the +different tones of this brace of snorers. + + [Illustration: _No. 231. The Trumpet and Bassoon._] + +A good example of Rowlandson's grotesques of the human figure is given +in our cut No. 232, taken from a print published on the 1st of January, +1796, under the title of "Anything will do for an Officer." People +complained of the mean appearance of the officers in our armies, who +obtained their rank, it was pretended, by favour and purchase rather +than by merit; and this caricature is explained by an inscription +beneath, which informs us how "Some school-boys, who were playing at +soldiers, found one of their number so ill-made, and so much under +size, that he would have disfigured the whole body if put into the +ranks. 'What shall we do with him?' asked one. 'Do with him?' says +another, 'why make an officer of him.'" This plate is inscribed with +his name, "Rowlandson fecit." + + [Illustration: _No. 232. A Model Officer._] + + [Illustration: _No. 233. Antiquaries at Work._] + +At this time Rowlandson still continued to work for Fores, but +before the end of the century we find him working for Ackermann, of +the Strand, who continued to be his friend and employer during the +rest of his life, and is said to have helped him generously in many +difficulties. In these, indeed, he was continually involved by his +dissipation and thoughtlessness. Ackermann not only employed him in +etching the drawings of other caricaturists, especially of Bunbury, +but in furnishing illustrations to books, such as the several series +of Dr. Syntax, the "New Dance of Death," and others. Rowlandson's +illustrations to editions of the older standard novels, such as "Tom +Jones," are remarkably clever. In transferring the works of other +caricaturists to the copper, Rowlandson was in the habit of giving his +own style to them to such a degree, that nobody would suspect that +they were not his own, if the name of the designer were not attached +to them. I have given one example of this in a former chapter, and +another very curious one is furnished by a print now before me, +entitled "Anglers of 1811," which bears only the name "H. Bunbury +del.," but which is in every particular a perfect example of the style +of Rowlandson. During the latter part of his life Rowlandson amused +himself with making an immense number of drawings which were never +engraved, but many of which have been preserved and are still found +scattered through the portfolios of collectors. These are generally +better finished than his etchings, and are all more or less burlesque. +Our cut No. 233 is taken from one of these drawings, in the possession +of Mr. Fairholt; it represents a party of antiquaries engaged +in important excavations. No doubt the figures were intended for +well-known archaeologists of the day. + +Thomas Rowlandson died in poverty, in lodgings in the Adelphi, on the +22nd of April, 1827. + +Among the most active caricaturists of the beginning of the present +century we must not overlook Isaac Cruikshank, even if it were only +because the name has become so celebrated in that of his more talented +son. Isaac's caricatures, too, were equal to those of any of his +contemporaries, after Gillray and Rowlandson. One of the earliest +examples which I have seen bearing the well-known initials, I. C., +was published on the 10th of March, 1794, the year in which George +Cruikshank was born, and probably, therefore, when Isaac was quite +a young man. It is entitled "A Republican Belle," and is an evident +imitation of Gillray. In another, dated the 1st of November, 1795, Pitt +is represented as "The Royal Extinguisher," putting out the flame of +"Sedition." Isaac Cruikshank published many prints anonymously, and +among the numerous caricatures of the latter end of the last century we +meet with many which have no name attached to them, but which resemble +so exactly his known style, that we can hardly hesitate in ascribing +them to him. It will be remarked that in his acknowledged works he +caricatures the opposition; but perhaps, like other caricaturists of +his time, he worked privately for anybody who would pay him, and was +as willing to work against the government as for it, for most of the +prints which betray their author only by their style are caricatures +on Pitt and his measures. Such is the group given in our cut No. 234, +which was published on the 15th of August, 1797, at a time when there +were loud complaints against the burthen of taxation. It is entitled +"Billy's Raree-Show; or, John Bull En-lighten'd," and represents Pitt, +in the character of a showman, exhibiting to John Bull, and picking +his pocket while his attention is occupied with the show. Pitt, in +a true showman's style, says to his victim, "Now, pray lend your +attention to the enchanting prospect before you,--this is the prospect +of peace--only observe what a busy scene presents itself--the ports are +filled with shipping, the quays loaded with merchandise, riches are +flowing in from every quarter--this prospect alone is worth all the +money you have got about you." Accordingly, the showman abstracts the +same money from his pocket, while John Bull, unconscious of the theft +exclaims with surprise, "Mayhap it may, master showman, but I canna zee +ony thing like what you mentions,--I zees nothing but a woide plain, +with some mountains and molehills upon't--as sure as a gun, it must be +all behoind one of those!" The flag of the show is inscribed, "Licensed +by authority, Billy Hum's grand exhibition of moving mechanism; or, +deception of the senses." + + [Illustration: _No. 234. The Raree-Show._] + + [Illustration: _No. 235. Flight across the Herring Pond._] + +In a caricature with the initials of I. C., and published on the 20th +of June, 1797, Fox is represented as "The Watchman of the State," +ironically, of course, for he is betraying the truth which he had +ostentatiously assumed, and absenting himself at the moment when his +agents are putting the match to the train they have laid to blow up +the constitution. Yet Cruikshank's caricatures on the Irish union +were rather opposed to ministers. One of these, published on the 20th +of June, 1800, is full of humour. It is entitled "A Flight across the +Herring Pond." England and Ireland are separated by a rough sea, over +which a crowd of Irish "patriots" are flying, allured by the prospect +of honours and rewards. On the Irish shore, a few wretched natives, +with a baby and a dog, are in an attitude of prayer, expostulating +with the fugitives,--"Och, och! do not leave us--consider your old +house, it will look like a big wallnut-shell without a kernel." On the +English shore, Pitt is holding open the "Imperial Pouch," and welcoming +them,--"Come on, my little fellows, there's plenty of room for you +all--the budget is not half full." Inside the "pouch" appears a host +of men covered with honours and dignities, one of whom says to the +foremost of the Irish candidates for favour, "Very snug and convenient, +brother, I allure you." Behind Pitt, Dundas, seated on a pile of public +offices united in his person, calls out to the immigrants, "If you've +ony consciences at a', here's enugh to satisfy ye a'." A portion of +this clever caricature is represented in our cut No. 235. + + [Illustration: _No. 236. A Case of Abduction._] + +There is a rare caricature on the subject of the Irish union, which +exhibits a little of the style of Isaac Cruikshank, and a copy of which +is in the possession of Mr. Fairholt. From this I have taken merely +the group which forms our cut No. 236. It is a long print, dated on +the 1st of January, 1800, and is entitled "The Triumphal entry of the +Union into London." Pitt, with a paper entitled "Irish Freedom" in his +pocket, is carrying off the young lady (Ireland) by force, with her +natural accompaniment, a keg of whisky. The lord chancellor of Ireland +(lord Clare) sits on the horse and performs the part of fiddler. +In advance of this group are a long rabble of radicals, Irishman, +&c., while close behind comes Grattan, carried in a sedan-chair, and +earnestly appealing to the lady, "Ierne, Ierne! my sweet maid, listen +not to him--he's a false, flattering, gay deceiver." Still farther in +the rear follows St. Patrick, riding on a bull, with a sack of potatoes +for his saddle, and playing on the Irish harp. An Irishman expostulates +in the following words--"Ah, long life to your holy reverence's memory, +why will you lave your own nate little kingdom, and go to another +where they will tink no more of you then they would of an old brogue? +Shure, of all the saints in the red-letter calendar, we give you the +preference! och hone! och hone!" Another Irishman pulls the bull by +the tail, with the lament, "Ah, masther, honey, why will you be after +leaving us? What will become of poor Shelagh and all of us, when you +are gone?" It is a regular Irish case of abduction. + + [Illustration: _No. 237. The Farthing Rushlight._] + +The last example I shall give of the caricatures of Isaac Cruikshank is +the copy of one entitled "The Farthing Rushlight," which, I need hardly +say, is a parody on the subject of a well-known song. The rushlight +is the poor old king, George, whom the prince of Wales and his Whig +associates, Fox, Sheridan, and others, are labouring in vain to blow +out. The latest caricature I possess, bearing the initials of Isaac +Cruikshank, was published by Fores, on the 19th of April, 1810, and +is entitled, "The Last Grand Ministerial Expedition (on the Street, +Piccadilly)." The subject is the riot on the arrest of sir Francis +Burdett, and it shows that Cruikshank was at this time caricaturing on +the radical side in politics. + +Isaac Cruikshank left two sons who became distinguished as +caricaturists, George, already mentioned, and Robert. George +Cruikshank, who is still amongst us, has raised caricature in art to +perhaps the highest degree of excellence it has yet reached. He began +as a political caricaturist, in imitation of his father Isaac--in +fact the two brothers are understood to have worked jointly with +their father before they engraved on their own account. I have in my +own possession two of his earliest works of this class, published by +Fores, of Piccadilly, and dated respectively the 3rd and the 19th of +March, 1815. George was then under twenty-one years of age. The first +of these prints is a caricature on the restrictions laid upon the trade +in corn, and is entitled "The Blessings of Peace, or, the Curse of +the Corn Bill." A foreign boat has arrived, laden with corn at a low +price--one of the foreign traders holds out a sample and says, "Here +is de best for 50s." A group of bloated aristocrats and landholders +stand on the shore, with a closed storehouse, filled with corn behind +them; the foremost, warning the boat away with his hand, replies to +the merchant, "We won't have it at any price--we are determined to +keep up our own to 80s., and if the poor can't buy at that price, why +they must starve. We love money too well to lower our rents again; the +income tax is taken off." One of his companions exclaims, "No, no, we +won't have it at all." A third adds, "Ay, ay, let 'em starve, and be +d-- to 'em." Upon this another of the foreign merchants cries, "By +gar, if they will not have it at all, we must throw it overboard!" and +a sailor is carrying this alternative into execution by emptying a +sack into the sea. Another group stands near the closed storehouse--it +consists of a poor Englishman, his wife with an infant in the arms, +and two ragged children, a boy and a girl. The father is made to say, +"No, no, masters, I'll not starve; but quit my native country, where +the poor are crushed by those they labour to support, and retire to one +more hospitable, and where the arts of the rich do not interpose to +defeat the providence of God." The corn bill was passed in the spring +of 1815, and was the cause of much popular agitation and rioting. The +second of these caricatures, on the same subject, is entitled, "The +Scale of Justice reversed," and represents the rich exulting over the +disappearance of the tax on property, while the poor are crushed under +the weight of taxes which bore only upon them. These two caricatures +present unmistakable traces of the peculiarities of style of George +Cruikshank, but not as yet fully developed. + +George Cruikshank rose into great celebrity and popularity as a +political caricaturist by his illustrations to the pamphlets of William +Houe, such as "The Political House that Jack built," "The Political +Showman at Home," and others upon the trial of queen Caroline; but this +sort of work suited the taste of the public at that time, and not that +of the artist, which lay in another direction. The ambition of George +Cruikshank was to draw what Hogarth called moral comedies, pictures of +society carried through a series of acts and scenes, always pointed +with some great moral; and it must be confessed that he has, through a +long career, succeeded admirably. He possesses more of the true spirit +of Hogarth than any other artist since Hogarth's time, with greater +skill in drawing. He possesses, even to a greater degree than Hogarth +himself, that admirable talent of filling a picture with an immense +number of figures, every one telling a part of the story, without +which, however minute, the whole picture would seem to us incomplete. +The picture of the "Camp at Vinegar Hill," and one or two other +illustrations to Maxwell's "History of the Irish Rebellion in 1798," +are equal, if not superior, to anything ever produced by Hogarth or by +Callot. + +The name of George Cruikshank forms a worthy conclusion to the "History +of Caricature and Grotesque." He is the last representative of the +great school of caricaturists formed during the reign of George III. +Though there can hardly be said to be a school at the present day, yet +our modern artists in this field have been all formed more or less +under his influence; and it must not be forgotten that we owe to that +influence, and to his example, to a great degree, the cleansing of this +branch of art from the objectionable characteristics of which I have on +more than one occasion been obliged to speak. May he still live long +among the friends who not only admire him for his talents, but love him +for his kindly and genial spirit; and none among them love and admire +him more sincerely than the author of the present volume. + + FINIS. + + + + +[_Post Office Orders payable [DECEMBER, 1874. +at Piccadilly Circus._ + + + [Illustration] + + A List of Books + + PUBLISHED BY + + CHATTO & WINDUS + + 74 & 75, _PICCADILLY, LONDON, W._ + + * * * * * + + THE + TURNER GALLERY: + + A Series of Sixty Engravings + + From the Principal Works of JOSEPH MALLORD WILLIAM TURNER. + + _With a Memoir and Illustrative Text_ + + BY RALPH NICHOLSON WORNUM, + + KEEPER AND SECRETARY, NATIONAL GALLERY. + + Handsomely half-bound, India Proofs, Royal folio, L10; LARGE + PAPER copies, Artists' India Proofs, Elephant folio, L20. + + _A Descriptive Pamphlet will be sent upon application._ + + * * * * * + + NEW COPYRIGHT AMERICAN WORK. + + LOTOS LEAVES: + + Comprising Original Stories, Essays, and Poems by <sc>Wilkie + Collins</sc>, MARK TWAIN, WHITELAW REED, JOHN HAY, NOAH BROOKS, + JOHN BROUGHAM, EDMUND YATES, P. V. NASBY, ISAAC BROMLEY, and + others. Profusely illustrated by ALFRED FREDERICKS, ARTHUR + LUMLEY, JOHN LA FARGE, GILBERT BERLING, GEORGE WHITE, and others. + Small quarto, handsomely bound, cloth extra, gilt, and gilt + edges. 21s. + + * * * * * + + THE NATIONAL GALLERY: + + A Selection from its Pictures, + + By CLAUDE, REMBRANDT, CUYP, Sir DAVID WILKIE, CORREGGIO, + GAINSBOROUGH, CANALETTI, VANDYCK, PAUL VERONESE, + CARACCI, RUBENS, N. and G. POUSSIN, + and other great Masters. + + Engraved by GEORGE DOO, JOHN BURNET, WILLIAM FINDEN, JOHN and + HENRY LE KEUX, JOHN PYE, </sc>Walter Bromley</sc>, and others. + With descriptive Text. 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A Reprint of the Original Edition, newly revised, + complete in a thick volume of 1060pp., with Twelve full-page Plates. + Crown 8vo, cloth extra, gilt, 7_s._ 6_d._ + + "We have read this book with the greatest pleasure. Considered + merely as a composition, it deserves to be classed among the + best specimens of English prose which our age has produced. It + contains, indeed, no single passage equal to two or three which + we could select from the Life of Sheridan; but, as a whole, it + is immeasurably superior to that work. The style is agreeable, + clear, and manly, and, when it rises into eloquence, rises + without effort or ostentation. Nor is the matter inferior to the + manner. It would be difficult to name a book which exhibits more + kindness, fairness, and modesty. It has evidently been written, + not for the purpose of showing--what, however, it often shows--how + well its author can write, but for the purpose of vindicating, + as far as truth will permit, the memory of a celebrated man who + can no longer vindicate himself. Mr. Moore never thrusts himself + between Lord Byron and the public. With the strongest temptations + to egotism, he has said no more about himself than the subject + absolutely required. A great part, indeed the greater part, of + these volumes consists of extracts from the Letters and Journals + of Lord Byron; and it is difficult to speak too highly of the + skill which has been shown in the selection and arrangement.... + It is impossible, on a general survey, to deny that the task has + been executed with great judgment and great humanity. When we + consider the life which Lord Byron had led, his petulance, his + irritability, and his communicativeness, we cannot but admire the + dexterity with which Mr. Moore has contrived to exhibit so much + of the character and opinions of his friend, with so little pain + to the feelings of the living."--LORD MACAULAY, in the _Edinburgh + Review_. + + * * * * * + + Carols of Cockayne: Vers de Societe descriptive of London Life. By + HENRY S. LEIGH. Third Edition. With numerous Illustrations by ALFRED + CONCANEN. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, gilt, 5_s._ + + * * * * * + + Carlyle (T.) on the Choice of Books. With New Life and Anecdotes. + Brown cloth, UNIFORM WITH THE 2_s._ EDITIONS OF HIS WORKS, 1_s._ 6_d._ + + Celebrated Claimants, Ancient and Modern. Being the Histories of all + the most celebrated Pretenders and Claimants from PERKINS WARBECK to + ARTHUR ORTON. Fcap. 8vo, 350 pages, illustrated boards, price 2_s._ + + * * * * * + + MR. WILKIE COLLINS'S NEW NOVEL. + + =The Law and the Lady=: A Novel. By WILKIE COLLINS, Author of "The + Woman in White." 3 vols., crown 8vo, 31_s._ 6_d._ [_Shortly._ + + * * * * * + + =Christmas Carols and Ballads.= Selected and Edited by JOSHUA + SYLVESTER. A New Edition, beautifully printed and bound in cloth, + extra gilt, gilt edges, 3_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + =Cruikshank's Comic Almanack.= + + Complete in TWO SERIES: the FIRST from 1835 to 1843; the SECOND + from 1844 to 1853. A Gathering of the BEST HUMOUR of THACKERAY, + HOOD, MAYHEW, ALBERT SMITH, A'BECKETT, ROBERT BROUGH, &c. With + 2,000 Woodcuts and Steel Engravings by CRUIKSHANK, HINE, LANDELLS, + &c. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, two very thick volumes, 15_s._; or, + separately, 7_s._ 6_d._ per volume. + + *** _The "Comic Almanacks" of George Cruikshank have long been + regarded by admirers of this inimitable artist as among his + finest, most characteristic productions. Extending over a period + of nineteen years, from 1835 to 1853, inclusive, they embrace + the best period of his artistic career, and show the varied + excellences of his marvellous power. The late Mr. Tilt, of Fleet + Street, first conceived the idea of the "Comic Almanack," and + at various times there were engaged upon it such writers as_ + THACKERAY, ALBERT SMITH, _the Brothers_ MAYHEW, _the late_ ROBERT + BROUGH, GILBERT A'BECKETT, _and, it has been asserted,_ TOM HOOD + _the elder._ THACKERAY'S _stories of "Stubbs' Calendar; or, The + Fatal Boots," which subsequently appeared as "Stubbs' Diary;" and + "Barber Cox; or, The Cutting of his Comb," formed the leading + attractions in the numbers for 1839 and 1840._ + + * * * * * + + THE BEST GUIDE TO HERALDRY. + + =Cussans' Handbook of Heraldry=; with Instructions for Tracing + Pedigrees and Deciphering Ancient MSS.; also, Rules for the + Appointment of Liveries, &c., &c. By JOHN E. CUSSANS. Illustrated + with 360 Plates and Woodcuts. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, gilt and + emblazoned, 7_s._ 6_d._ + + [Illustration] + + *** _This volume, beautifully printed on toned paper, contains + not only the ordinary matter to be found in the best books on the + science of Armory, but several other subjects hitherto unnoticed. + Amongst these may be mentioned:_--1. DIRECTIONS FOR TRACING + PEDIGREES. 2. DECIPHERING ANCIENT MSS., ILLUSTRATED BY ALPHABETS + AND FACSIMILES. 3. THE APPOINTMENT OF LIVERIES. 4. CONTINENTAL AND + AMERICAN HERALDRY, &c. + + * * * * * + + NEW AND IMPORTANT WORK. + + =Cyclopaedia of Costume=; or, A Dictionary of Dress, Regal, + Ecclesiastical, Civil, and Military, from the Earliest Period in + England to the reign of George the Third. Including Notices of + Contemporaneous Fashions on the Continent, and preceded by a General + History of the Costume of the Principal Countries of Europe. By J. R. + PLANCHE, F.S.A., Somerset Herald. + + _This work will be published in Twenty-four Monthly Parts, quarto, + at Five Shillings, profusely illustrated by Plates and Wood + Engravings; with each Part will also be issued a splendid Coloured + Plate, from an original Painting or Illumination, of Royal and + Noble Personages, and National Costume, both foreign and domestic. + The First Part will be ready on Jan. 1, 1875._ + + [Illustration] + + In collecting materials for a History of Costume of more + importance than the little handbook which has met with so much + favour as an elementary work, I was not only made aware of my + own deficiencies, but surprised to find how much more vague are + the explanations, and contradictory the statements, of our best + authorities, than they appeared to me, when, in the plenitude of + my ignorance, I rushed upon almost untrodden ground, and felt + bewildered by the mass of unsifted evidence and unhesitating + assertion which met my eyes at every turn. + + During the forty years which have elapsed since the publication + of the first edition of my "History of British Costume" in the + "Library of Entertaining Knowledge," archaeological investigation + has received such an impetus by the establishment of metropolitan + and provincial peripatetic antiquarian societies, that a flood + of light has been poured upon us, by which we are enabled to + re-examine our opinions and discover reasons to doubt, if we + cannot find facts to authenticate. + + That the former greatly preponderate is a grievous acknowledgment + to make after assiduously devoting the leisure of half my life + to the pursuit of information on this, to me, most fascinating + subject. It is some consolation, however, to feel that where I + cannot instruct, I shall certainly not mislead, and that the + reader will find, under each head, all that is known to, or + suggested by, the most competent writers I am acquainted with, + either here or on the Continent. + + That this work appears in a glossarial form arises from the + desire of many artists, who have expressed to me the difficulty + they constantly meet with in their endeavours to ascertain the + complete form of a garment, or the exact mode of fastening a + piece of armour, or buckling of a belt, from their study of a + sepulchral effigy or a figure in an illumination; the attitude of + the personages represented, or the disposition of other portions + of their attire, effectually preventing the requisite examination. + + The books supplying any such information are very few, and the + best confined to armour or ecclesiastical costume. The only + English publication of the kind required, that I am aware of, + is the late Mr. Fairholt's "Costume in England" (8vo, London, + 1846), the last two hundred pages of which contain a glossary, + the most valuable portion whereof are the quotations from old + plays, mediaeval romances, and satirical ballads, containing + allusions to various articles of attire in fashion at the time + of their composition. Twenty-eight years have expired since that + book appeared, and it has been thought that a more comprehensive + work on the subject than has yet issued from the English press, + combining the pith of the information of many costly foreign + publications, and, in its illustrations, keeping in view the + special requirement of the artist, to which I have alluded, would + be, in these days of educational progress and critical inquiry, a + welcome addition to the library of an English gentleman. + + J. R. PLANCHE. + + * * * * * + + =Cussans' History of Hertfordshire.= + + A County History, got up in a very superior manner, and ranging + with the finest works of its class. By JOHN E. CUSSANS. Illustrated + with full-page Plates on Copper and Stone, and a profusion of small + Woodcuts. Parts I. to VIII. are now ready, price 21_s._ each. + + *** _An entirely new History of this important County, great + attention being given to all matters pertaining to Family History._ + + * * * * * + + =Dickens' Life and Speeches.= By THEODORE TAYLOR. Complete in One + Volume, square 16mo, cloth extra, 2_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + "DON QUIXOTE" IN THE ORIGINAL SPANISH. */ + + =El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha.= Nueva Edicion, + corregida y revisada. Por MIGUEL DE CERVANTES SAAVEDRA. Complete in + one volume, post 8vo, nearly 700 pages, cloth extra, price 4_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + GIL BLAS IN SPANISH. + + =Historia de Gil Blas de Santillana.= + + Por LE SAGE. Traducida al Castellano por el PADRE ISLA. Nueva + Edicion, corregida y revisada. Complete in One Volume. Post 8vo, + cloth extra, nearly 600 pages, price 4_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + =Earthward Pilgrimage=, from the Next World to that which now is. By + MONCURE D. CONWAY. Crown 8vo, beautifully printed and bound, 7_s._ + 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + =Ellis's (Mrs.) Mothers of Great Men.= A New Edition, with + Illustrations by VALENTINE W. BROMLEY. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, over + 500 pages, 6_s._ + + "Mrs. Ellis believes, as most of us do, that the character of the + mother goes a long way; and, in illustration of this doctrine, she + has given us several lives written in her charming, yet earnest, + style. We especially commend the life of Byron's and Napoleon's + mothers.... The volume has some solid merits."--_Echo._ + + "This is a book which ought to be in the libraries of all who + interest themselves in the education of women."--_Victoria Magazine._ + + "An extremely agreeable and readable book, ... and its value is not + a little enhanced by Mr. Bromley's illustrations."--_Illustrated + Dramatic News._ + + * * * * * + + =Emanuel on Diamonds and Precious Stones=; Their History, Value, + and Properties; with Simple Tests for ascertaining their Reality. + By HARRY EMANUEL, F.R.G.S. With numerous Illustrations, Tinted and + Plain. A New Edition, Crown 8vo, cloth extra, gilt, 6_s._ + + * * * * * + + [Illustration: POE'S COTTAGE AT FORDHAM.] + + =Edgar Allan Poe's Prose and Poetical Works=; including Additional + Tales and his fine Critical Essays. With a Translation of CHARLES + BAUDELAIRE'S "Essay." 750 pages, crown 8vo, fine Portrait and + Illustrations, cloth extra, 7_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + =English Surnames=: Their Sources and Significations. 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The book is a mine of + information."--_Westminster Review._ + + "We welcome this book as an important addition to our knowledge of + an important and interesting subject."--_Athenaeum._ + + * * * * * + + =Englishman's House= (The): A Practical Guide to all interested + in Selecting or Building a House, with full Estimates of Cost, + Quantities, &c. By C. J. RICHARDSON, Architect, Author of "Old + English Mansions," &c. Third Edition. With nearly 600 Illustrations. + Crown 8vo, cloth extra, 7_s._ 6_d._ + + [Illustration] + + *** _This Work might not inappropriately be termed "A Book of + Houses." It gives every variety of house, from a workman's cottage to + a nobleman's palace. The book is intended to supply a want long felt, + viz., a plain, non-technical account of every style of house, with + the cost and manner of building._ + + * * * * * + + =Faraday's Chemical History of a Candle.= Lectures delivered to a + Juvenile Audience. A New Edition, edited by W. CROOKES, Esq., F.C.S., + &c. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, with all the Original Illustrations, + 4_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + =Faraday's Various Forces of Nature.= A New Edition, edited by W. + CROOKES, Esq., F.C.S., &c. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, with all the + Original Illustrations, 4_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + FATHER PROUT'S REMAINS. + + =Final Reliques of Father Prout.= Collected and Edited, from MSS. + supplied by the Family of the Rev. FRANCIS MAHONEY, by BLANCHARD + JERROLD. [_In preparation._ + + =Finish to Life in and out of London=; or, The Final Adventures of + Tom, Jerry, and Logic. By PIERCE EGAN. Royal 8vo, cloth extra, with + Spirited Coloured Illustrations by CRUIKSHANK, 21_s._ + + =Flagellation and the Flagellants.=--A History of the Rod in all + Countries, from the Earliest Period to the Present Time. By the Rev. + W. COOPER, B.A. Third Edition, revised and corrected, with numerous + Illustrations. Thick crown 8vo, cloth extra, gilt, 12_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + =Fools' Paradise=; with the Many Wonderful Adventures there, as seen + in the strange, surprising Peep-Show of Professor Wolley Cobble. + Crown 4to, with nearly 350 very funny Coloured Pictures, cloth extra, + gilt, 7_s._ 6_d._ + + [Illustration: THE PROFESSOR'S LEETLE MUSIC LESSON.] + + * * * * * + + RUSKIN AND CRUIKSHANK. + + =German Popular Stories.= Collected by the Brothers GRIMM, and + Translated by EDGAR TAYLOR. Edited, with an Introduction, by JOHN + RUSKIN. With 22 Illustrations after the inimitable designs of GEORGE + CRUIKSHANK. Both Series complete. Square crown 8vo, 6_s._ 6_d._; gilt + leaves, 7_s._ 6_d._ + + "The illustrations of this volume ... are of quite sterling and + admirable art, in a class precisely parallel in elevation to the + character of the tales which they illustrate; and the original + etchings, as I have before said in the Appendix to my 'Elements + of Drawing,' were unrivalled in masterfulness of touch since + Rembrandt (in some qualities of delineation, unrivalled even by + him).... To make somewhat enlarged copies of them, looking at them + through a magnifying glass, and never putting two lines where + Cruikshank has put only one, would be an exercise in decision and + severe drawing which would leave afterwards little to be learnt in + schools."--_Extract from Introduction by_ JOHN RUSKIN. + + * * * * * + + =Golden Treasury of Thought.= The Best Encyclopaedia of Quotations + and Elegant Extracts, from Writers of all Times and all Countries, + ever formed. Selected and Edited by THEODORE TAYLOR. Crown 8vo, very + handsomely bound, cloth gilt, and gilt edges, 7_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + =Genial Showman=; or, Show Life in the New World. Adventures with + Artemus Ward, and the Story of his Life. By E. P. HINGSTON. Third + Edition. Crown 8vo, Illustrated by W. BRUNTON, cloth extra, 7_s._ + 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + THE GOLDEN LIBRARY. + + Square 16mo (Tauchnitz size), cloth, extra gilt, price 2_s._ per vol. + + =Clerical Anecdotes=: The Humours and Eccentricities of "the Cloth." + + * * * + + =Holmes's Autocrat of the Breakfast Table.= With an Introduction by + GEORGE AUGUSTUS SALA. + + * * * + + =Holmes's Professor at the Breakfast Table.= With the STORY OF IRIS. + + * * * + + =Hood's Whims and Oddities.= Both Series complete in One Volume, with + all the original Illustrations. + + * * * + + =Lamb's Essays of Elia.= Both Series complete in One Volume. + + * * * + + =Leigh Hunt's Essays=: A Tale for a Chimney Corner, and other Pieces. + With Portrait, and Introduction by EDMUND OLLIER. + + * * * + + =Shelley's Early Poems=: Queen Mab, &c. Reprinted from the Author's + Original Editions. With Essay by LEIGH HUNT. (First Series of his + Works.) + + * * * + + =Shelley's Later Poems=: Laon and Cythna, the Cenci, and other + Pieces. Reprinted from the Author's Original Editions. With an + Introductory Essay. (Second Series of his Works.) + + * * * + + =Shelley's Miscellaneous Poems and Prose Works.= The Third and + Fourth Series. These Two Volumes will include the Posthumous Poems, + published by Mrs. SHELLEY in 1824; the Shelley Papers, published in + 1833; the Six Weeks' Tour (1816); the Notes to "Queen Mab," &c.; the + Marlow and Dublin Pamphlets; "The Wandering Jew," a Poem; and the + two Novels, "Zastrozzi" and "St. Irvyne." The three last now first + included in any edition of Shelley. + + * * * * * + + =Great Conde (The), and the Period of the Fronde=: An Historical + Sketch. By WALTER FITZPATRICK. Second Edition, in 2 vols. 8vo, cloth + extra, 15_s._ + + * * * * * + + =Greenwood's (James) Wilds of London=: Being Descriptive Sketches, + from the Personal Observations and Experiences of the Writer, of + Remarkable Scenes, People, and Places in London. By JAMES GREENWOOD, + the "Lambeth Casual." With Twelve full-page tinted Illustrations by + ALFRED CONCANEN. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, gilt, 7_s._ 6_d._ + + "Mr. James Greenwood presents himself once more in the character + of 'one whose delight it is to do his humble endeavour towards + exposing and extirpating social abuses and those hole-and-corner + evils which afflict society.'"--_Saturday Review._ + + * * * * * + + =Hall's (Mrs. S. C.) Sketches of Irish Character=. "WOOING AND + WEDDING," "JACK THE SHRIMP," "PETER THE PROPHET," "GOOD AND + BAD SPIRITS," "MABEL O'NEIL'S CURSE," &c., &c. With numerous + Illustrations on Steel and Wood, by DANIEL MACLISE, R.A., Sir JOHN + GILBERT, W. HARVEY, and G. CRUIKSHANK. 8vo, pp. 450, cloth extra, + 7_s._ 6_d._ + + [Illustration] + + "The Irish sketches of this lady resemble Miss Mitford's beautiful + English Sketches in 'Our Village,' but they are far more vigorous + and picturesque and bright."--_Blackwood's Magazine._ + + * * * * * + + THE MOST COMPLETE HOGARTH EVER PUBLISHED. + + =Hogarth's Works=: with Life and Anecdotal Descriptions of the + Pictures, by JOHN IRELAND and JOHN NICHOLS. The Work includes 160 + Engravings, reduced in exact facsimile of the Original Plates, + specimens of which have now become very scarce. The whole in Three + Series, 8vo, cloth, gilt, 22_s._ 6_d._; or, separately, 7_s._ 6_d._ + per volume. Each Series is Complete in itself. + + [Illustration: THE TALKING HAND.] + + "Will be a great boon to authors and artists as well as + amateurs.... Very cheap and very complete."--_Standard._ + + "For all practical purposes the three handsome volumes comprising + this edition are equal to a collection of Hogarthian prints. We + are quite sure that any one who adds this work to his library + will be amply repaid by the inexhaustible charms of its facsimile + prints."--_Birmingham Daily Mail._ + + "The plates are reduced in size, but yet truthfully reproduced. + The best and cheapest edition of Hogarth's complete works yet + brought forward."--_Building News._ + + "Three very interesting volumes, important and valuable additions + to the library. The edition is thoroughly well brought out, and + carefully printed on fine paper."--_Art Journal._ + + * * * * * + + =Hogarth's Five Days' Frolic=; or, Peregrinations by Land and Water. + Illustrated with Tinted Drawings, made by HOGARTH and SCOTT during + the Journey. 4to, beautifully printed, cloth, extra gilt, 10_s._ 6_d._ + + *** _A graphic and most extraordinary picture of the hearty + English times in which these merry artists lived._ + + * * * * * + + =Hogg's Jacobite Relics of Scotland=: Being the Songs, Airs, and + Legends of the Adherents to the House of Stuart. Collected and + Illustrated by JAMES HOGG. In 2 vols. Vol. I., a Facsimile of the + original Edition; Vol. II., the _original_ Edition. 8vo, cloth, 28_s._ + + * * * * * + + =Haunted=; or, Tales of the Weird and Wonderful. A new and entirely + original series of GHOST STORIES, by FRANCIS E. STAINFORTH. Post 8vo, + illust. bds., 2_s._ [_Nearly ready_. + + * * * * * + + =Hawthorne's English and American Note Books=. Edited, with an + Introduction, by MONCURE D. CONWAY. Royal 16mo, paper cover, 1_s._; + in cloth, 1_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + =Hone's Scrap-Books=: The Miscellaneous Writings of WILLIAM HONE, + Author of "The Table-Book," "Every-Day Book," and the "Year Book:" + being a Supplementary Volume to those works. Now first collected. + With Notes, Portraits, and numerous Illustrations of curious and + eccentric objects. Crown 8vo, cloth extra. [_Preparing_. + + * * * * * + + MR. HORNE'S EPIC. + + =Orion.= An Epic Poem, in Three Books. By RICHARD HENGIST HORNE. With + Photographic Portrait-Frontispiece. TENTH EDITION. Crown 8vo, cloth + extra, 7_s._ + + "Orion will be admitted, by every man of genius, to be one of the + noblest, if not the very noblest poetical work of the age. Its + defects are trivial and conventional, its beauties intrinsic and + supreme."--EDGAR ALLAN POE. + + * * * * * + + =Hunt's (Robert) Drolls of Old Cornwall=; or, POPULAR ROMANCES OF THE + WEST OF ENGLAND. With Illustrations by GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. Crown 8vo, + cloth extra, gilt, 7_s._ 6_d._ + + [Illustration] + + *** "Mr. Hunt's charming book of the Drolls and Stories of the West of + England."--_Saturday Review._ + + * * * * * + + =Irish Guide.--How to Spend a Month in Ireland.= Being a complete + Guide to the Country, with an Appendix containing information as + to the Fares between the Principal Towns in England and Ireland, + and as to Tourist Arrangements for the Season. With a Map and 80 + Illustrations. By Sir CUSACK P. RONEY. A New Edition, Edited by Mrs. + J. H. RIDDELL. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, price 1_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + [Illustration] + + =Jennings' (Hargrave) One of the Thirty.= With curious Illustrations. + Crown 8vo, cloth extra, 10_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * + + =Jennings' (Hargrave) The Rosicrucians: Their Rites and Mysteries.= + With Chapters on the Ancient Fire and Serpent Worshippers and + Explanations of Mystic Symbols in Monuments and Talismans of Primeval + Philosophers. Crown 8vo, 300 Illustrations, 10_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + =Jerrold's (Blanchard) Cent. per Cent.= A Story Written on a Bill + Stamp. A New Edition. Fcap. 8vo, illustrated boards, 2_s._ + + * * * * * + + NEW WORK BY DOUGLAS JERROLD. + + =Jerrold's (Douglas) The Barber's Chair, and The Hedgehog Letters.= + Now first collected. Edited, with an Introduction, by his Son, + BLANCHARD JERROLD. Crown 8vo, with Steel Plate Portrait from his + Bust, engraved by W. H. MOTE, cloth extra, 7_s._ 6_d._ + + "No library is complete without Douglas Jerrold's Works; _ergo_, + no library is complete without the 'Barber's Chair.' A delightful + volume; the papers are most amusing; they abound with sly touches + of sarcasm; they are full of playful wit and fancy."--_Pictorial + World._ + + "An amusing volume, full of Douglas Jerrold's well-known sharpness + and repartee."--_Daily News._ + + "Better fitted than any other of his productions to give an idea + of Douglas Jerrold's amazing wit; the 'Barber's Chair' may be + presumed to give as near an approach as is possible in print to + the wit of Jerrold's conversation."--_Examiner._ + + * * * + =Jerrold's (Douglas) Brownrigg Papers=: The Actress at the Duke's; + Baron von Boots; Christopher Snubb; The Tutor Fiend and his Three + Pupils; Papers of a Gentleman at Arms, &c. By DOUGLAS JERROLD. Edited + by his Son, BLANCHARD JERROLD. Post 8vo, illustrated boards, 2_s._ + + * * * * * + + =Kalendars of Gwynedd.= Compiled by EDWARD BREESE, F.S.A. With Notes + by WILLIAM WATKIN EDWARD WYNNE, Esq., F.S.A. Demy 4to, cloth extra, + 28_s._ + + * * * * * + + =Lamb's (Charles) Complete Works=, in Prose and Verse, reprinted from + the Original Editions, with many pieces now first included in any + Edition. Edited, with Notes and Introduction, by R. H. SHEPHERD. With + Two Portraits and facsimile of a page of the "Essay on Roast Pig." + Crown 8vo, cloth extra, gilt, 7_s._ 6_d._ + + "Is it not time for a new and final edition of Lamb's Works--a + finer tribute to his memory than any monument in Edmonton + churchyard? Lamb's writings, and more especially his fugitive + productions, have scarcely yet escaped from a state of + chaos."--_Westminster Review_, October, 1874. + + ABSTRACT OF CONTENTS. + + ESSAYS OF ELIA, as originally published in _The London Magazine_, + _The Examiner_, _The Indicator_, _The Reflector_, _The New + Monthly_, _The Englishman's Magazine_, _The Athenaeum_, &c. + + PAPERS contributed to "Hone's Table Book," "Year Book," and "Every + Day Book," and to Walter Wilson's "Life of Defoe." + + NOTES ON THE ENGLISH DRAMATISTS, 1808-1827. + + REVIEW OF WORDSWORTH'S "EXCURSION" (from the _Quarterly Review_). + + ROSAMOND GRAY (from the Edition of 1798). + + TALES FROM SHAKESPEARE and from MRS. LEICESTER'S SCHOOL. + + THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES. + + DRAMATIC PIECES: + + John Woodvil: a Tragedy (from the Edition of 1802). + + Mr. H----, a Farce. + + The Wife's Trial; or, The Intruding Widow. + + The Pawnbroker's Daughter. + + POEMS: + + Sonnets and other Poems printed with those of Coleridge in 1796-7, + 1800, and 1813. + + Blank Verse (from the Edition of 1798). + + Poetry for Children, 1809. + + Album Verses, 1830. + + Satan in Search of a Wife, 1831, &c. + + * * * * * + + =Lamb (Mary & Charles): Their Poems, Letters, and Remains.= Now first + collected, with Reminiscences and Notes, by W. CAREW HAZLITT. With + HANCOCK'S Portrait of the Essayist, Facsimiles of the Title-pages of + the rare First Editions of Lamb's and Coleridge's Works, Facsimile of + a Page of the Original MS. of the "Essay on Roast Pig," and numerous + Illustrations of Lamb's Favourite Haunts. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, + 10_s._ 6_d._; LARGE-PAPER COPIES 21_s._ + + "Mr. W.C. Hazlitt has published a very pretty and interesting + little volume. It has many pictorial illustrations, which were + supplied by Mr. Camden Hotten; and, above all, it contains a + facsimile of the first page of Elia on 'Roast Pig.' It is well + got up, and has a good portrait of Elia. There are also some + letters and poems of Mary Lamb which are not easily accessible + elsewhere."--_Westminster Review._ + + "Must be consulted by all future biographers of the + Lambs."--_Daily News._ + + "Tells us a good deal that is interesting and something that is + fairly new."--_Graphic._ + + "Very many passages will delight those fond of literary trifles; + hardly any portion will fail to have its interest for lovers of + Charles Lamb and his sister."--_Standard._ + + "Mr. Hazlitt's work is very important and valuable, and all lovers + of Elia will thank him for what he has done."--_Sunday Times._ + + "Will be joyfully received by all Lambites."--_Globe._ + + * * * * * + + =Lee (General Edward): His Life and Campaigns.= By his Nephew, + EDWARD LEE CHILDE. With Portrait and Plans. 1 vol. Crown 8vo. [_In + preparation._ + + * * * * * + + =Life in London=; or, The Day and Night Scenes of Jerry Hawthorn + and Corinthian Tom. WITH THE WHOLE OF CRUIKSHANK'S VERY DROLL + ILLUSTRATIONS, in Colours, after the Originals. Crown 8vo, cloth + extra, 7_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + =Literary Scraps.= A Folio Scrap-Book of 340 columns, with guards, + for the reception of Cuttings from Newspapers, Extracts, Miscellanea, + &c. In folio, half-roan, 7_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + =Little London Directory of 1677.= The Oldest Printed List of the + Merchants and Bankers of London. Reprinted from the Rare Original, + with an Introduction by JOHN CAMDEN HOTTEN. 16mo, binding after the + original, 6_s._ 6_d._ + + [Illustration] + + =Longfellow's Prose Works=, complete, including "Outre-Mer," + "Hyperion," "Kavanagh," "Driftwood," "On the Poets and Poetry of + Europe." With Portrait and Illustrations by BROMLEY. 800 pages, crown + 8vo, cloth gilt, 7_s._ 6_d._ + + *** _The reader will find the present edition of Longfellow's + Prose Writings by far the most complete ever issued in this + country. "Outre-Mer" contains two additional chapters, restored + from the first edition; while "The Poets and Poetry of Europe," + and the little collection of Sketches entitled "Driftwood," are + now first introduced to the English public._ + + * * * * * + + =Lost Beauties of the English Language.= An Appeal to Authors, Poets, + Clergymen, and Public Speakers. By CHARLES MACKAY, LL.D. Crown 8vo, + cloth extra, 6_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + =Linton's (Mrs. E. Lynn) True History of Joshua Davidson, Christian + and Communist.= SIXTH EDITION, with a New Preface. Small crown 8vo, + cloth extra, 4_s._ 6_d._ + + "In a short and vigorous preface, Mrs. Linton defends, in certain + points, her notion of the logical outcome of Christianity as + embodied in this attempt to conceive how Christ would have + acted, with whom He would have fraternised, and who would + have declined to receive Him, had He appeared in the present + generation."--_Examiner._ + + * * * * * + + MRS. LYNN LINTON'S NEW NOVEL. + + =Patricia Kemball=: A Novel, by E. LYNN LINTON, Author of "Joshua + Davidson," &c., in Three Vols. crown 8vo, is now ready at all the + Libraries and at the Booksellers'. + + "Perhaps the ablest novel published in London this year.... We + know of nothing in the novels we have lately read equal to the + scene in which Mr. Hamley proposes to Dora.... We advise our + readers to send to the library for the story."--_Athenaeum._ + + "This novel is distinguished by qualities which entitle it to a + place apart from the ordinary fiction of the day; ... displays + genuine humour, as well as keen social observation.... Enough + graphic portraiture and witty observation to furnish materials for + half a dozen novels of the ordinary kind."--_Saturday Review._ + + * * * * * + + =Madre Natura= _versus_ The Moloch of Fashion.= A Social Essay. By + LUKE LIMNER. With 32 Illustrations by the Author. FOURTH EDITION, + revised, corrected, and enlarged. Crown 8vo, cloth extra gilt, red + edges, price 2_s._ 6_d._ + + [Illustration] + + "Bravo, Luke Limner! In this treatise, aptly and ably illustrated, + the well-known artist scathingly exposes the evils of the present + fashions--more especially of tight-lacing. Girls should be made to + learn it by heart, and act on its precepts."--_Fun._ + + "Agreeably written and amusingly illustrated. Common sense and + erudition are brought to bear on the subjects discussed in + it."--_Lancet._ + + * * * * * + + =Magna Charta.= An exact Facsimile of the Original Document in the + British Museum, carefully drawn, and printed on fine plate paper, + nearly 3 feet long by 2 feet wide, with the Arms and Seals of the + Barons emblazoned in Gold and Colours. Price 5_s._ + + A full Translation, with Notes, printed on a large sheet, price 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + AUTHOR'S CORRECTED EDITION. + + =Mark Twain's Choice Works.= Revised and Corrected throughout by the + Author. With Life, Portrait, and numerous Illustrations. 700 pages, + cloth extra gilt, 7_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * + + =Mark Twain's Pleasure Trip on the Continent of Europe.= With + Frontispiece. 500 pages, illustrated boards, 2_s._; or cloth extra, + 2_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + =Marston's (Dr. Westland) Poetical and Dramatic Works.= A New and + Collected Library Edition, in Two Vols. crown 8vo, is now in the + press, and will be ready very shortly. + + * * * * * + + MR. PHILIP MARSTON'S POEMS. + + =Song Tide=, and other Poems. By PHILIP BOURKE MARSTON. SECOND + EDITION. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, 8_s._ + + "This is a first work of extraordinary performance and of still + more extraordinary promise. The youngest school of English poetry + has received an important accession to its ranks in Philip Bourke + Marston."--_Examiner._ + + "Mr. Marston has fairly established his claim to be heard as a + poet.... His present volume is well worthy of careful perusal, as + the utterance of a poetic, cultivated mind."--_Standard._ + + "We have spoken plainly of some defects in the poetry before + us, but we have read much of it with interest, and even + admiration."--_Pall Mall Gazette._ + + * * * + + =All in All=: Poems and Sonnets. By PHILIP BOURKE MARSTON. Crown 8vo, + cloth extra, 8_s._ + + * * * * * + + =Mayhew's London Characters=: Illustrations of the Humour, Pathos, + and Peculiarities of London Life. By HENRY MAYHEW, Author of "London + Labour and the London Poor," and other Writers. With nearly 100 + graphic Illustrations by W. S. GILBERT, and others. Crown 8vo, cloth + extra, 6_s._ + + "Well fulfils the promise of its title.... The book is an + eminently interesting one, and will probably attract many + readers."--_Court Circular._ + + * * * * * + + =Memorials of Manchester Streets.= By RICHARD WRIGHT PROCTER. With + an Appendix, containing "The Chetham Library," by JAMES CROSSLEY, + F.S.A.; and "Old Manchester and its Worthies," by JAMES CROSTON, + F.S.A. Demy 8vo, cloth extra, with Photographic Frontispiece and + numerous Illustrations, 15_s._ + + * * * * * + + =Monumental Inscriptions of the West Indies=, from the Earliest + Date, with Genealogical and Historical Annotations, &c., from + Original, Local, and other Sources. Illustrative of the Histories + and Genealogies of the Seventeenth Century, the Calendars of State + Papers, Peerages, and Baronetages. With Engravings of the Arms of + the principal Families. Chiefly collected on the spot by the Author, + Capt. J. H. LAWRENCE-ARCHER. Demy 4to, cloth extra, 42_s._ [_Nearly + ready._ + + * * * * * + + =Muses of Mayfair=: Vers de Societe of the Nineteenth Century, + including selections from TENNYSON, BROWNING, SWINBURNE, + ROSSETTI, JEAN INGELOW, LOCKER, INGOLDSBY, HOOD, LYTTON, C. S. + C., LANDOR, HENRY S. LEIGH, and very many others. Edited by H. + CHOLMONDELEY-PENNELL, Author of "Puck on Pegasus." Beautifully + printed, cloth extra gilt, gilt edges, uniform with "The Golden + Treasury of Thought," 7_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + MR. O'SHAUGHNESSY'S POEMS. + + =Music and Moonlight=: Poems and Songs. By ARTHUR O'SHAUGHNESSY, + Author of "An Epic of Women." Fcap. 8vo, cloth extra, 7_s._ 6_d._ + + "It is difficult to say which is more exquisite, the technical + perfection of structure and melody, or the delicate pathos of + thought. Mr. O'Shaughnessy will enrich our literature with some of + the very best songs written in our generation."--_Academy._ + + * * * * * + + =An Epic of Women=, and other Poems. SECOND EDITION. Fcap. 8vo, cloth + extra, 6_s._ + + "Of the formal art of poetry he is in many senses quite a master; + his metres are not only good,--they are his own, and often of an + invention most felicitous as well as careful."--_Academy._ + + * * * * * + + =Lays of France.= (Founded on the "Lays of Marie.") SECOND EDITION. + Crown 8vo, cloth extra, 10_s._ 6_d._ + + "As we have before remarked in noticing an earlier volume of + his, this modern votary of Marie has, in imaginative power, keen + intuition, and ear, a genuine claim to be writing poetry, as + things go now.... And Mr. O'S. is also an accomplished master in + those peculiar turns of rhythm which are designed to reproduce the + manner of the mediaeval originals."--_Saturday Review._ + + * * * * * + + =Mystery of the Good Old Cause=: Sarcastic Notices of those Members + of the Long Parliament that held Places, both Civil and Military, + contrary to the Self-denying Ordinance of April 3, 1645; with the + Sums of Money and Lands they divided among themselves. Small 4to, + half-morocco, 7_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + =Napoleon III., the Man of His Time=; from Caricatures. PART I. THE + STORY OF THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON III., as told by J. M. HASWELL. PART + II. THE SAME STORY, as told by the POPULAR CARICATURES of the past + Thirty-five Years. Crown 8vo, with Coloured Frontispiece and over 100 + Caricatures, 7_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + =Original Lists of Persons of Quality=; Emigrants; Religious Exiles; + Political Rebels; Serving Men Sold for a Term of Years; Apprentices; + Children Stolen; Maidens Pressed; and others who went from Great + Britain to the American Plantations, 1600-1700. With their Ages, the + Localities where they formerly Lived in the Mother Country, Names of + the Ships in which they embarked, and other interesting particulars. + From MSS. preserved in the State Paper Department of Her Majesty's + Public Record Office, England. Edited by JOHN CAMDEN HOTTEN. A very + handsome volume, crown 4to, cloth gilt, 700 pages, 38_s._ A few Large + Paper copies have been printed, price 60_s._ + + "This volume is an English Family Record, and as such may be + commended to English families, and the descendants of English + families, wherever they exist."--_Academy._ + + * * * * * + + THE OLD DRAMATISTS. + + MR. SWINBURNE'S NEW ESSAY. + +=George Chapman's Poems and Minor +Translations.= Complete, including some Pieces now first printed. +With an Essay on the Dramatic and Poetical Works of GEORGE +CHAPMAN, by ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE. Crown 8vo, with Frontispiece, +cloth extra, 6_s._ + + * * * + +=George Chapman's Translations of +Homer's Iliad and Odyssey.= Edited by RICHARD HERNE +SHEPHERD. In one volume, crown 8vo, cloth extra, 6_s._ + + * * * + +=George Chapman's Plays=, Complete, from +the Original Quartos, including the doubtful Plays. Edited by +R. H. SHEPHERD. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, with Frontispiece, 6_s._ + + * * * + +=Ben Jonson's Works.= With Notes, Critical +and Explanatory, and a Biographical Memoir by WILLIAM +GIFFORD. Edited by Lieut.-Col. FRANCIS CUNNINGHAM. Complete +in 3 vols., crown 8vo, cloth extra, gilt, Portrait, 6_s._ each. + + * * * + +=Christopher Marlowe's Works=; Including +his Translations. Edited, with Notes and Introduction, by +Lt.-Col. F. CUNNINGHAM. Cr. 8vo, cloth extra, gilt, Portrait, 6_s._ + + * * * + +=Philip Massinger's Plays.= From the +Text of WM. GIFFORD. With the addition of the Tragedy of +"Believe as You List." Edited by Lieut.-Col. FRANCIS CUNNINGHAM. +Crown 8vo, cloth extra gilt, with Portrait, price 6_s._ + + * * * * * + + OLD BOOKS--FACSIMILE REPRINTS. + + =Musarum Deliciae=; or, The Muses' Recreation, 1656; Wit Restor'd, + 1658; and Wit's Recreations, 1640. The whole compared with the + originals; with all the Wood Engravings, Plates, Memoirs, and Notes. + A New Edition, in 2 vols., post 8vo, printed on antique laid paper, + and bound in antique boards, 21_s._ + + * * * + + =Rump (The)=; or, An Exact Collection of the choicest POEMS and SONGS + relating to the late Times, and continued by the most eminent Wits; + from Anno 1639 to 1661. A Facsimile Reprint of the rare Original + Edition (London, 1662), with Frontispiece and Engraved Title-page. In + 2 vols., large fcap. 8vo, printed on antique laid paper, and bound in + antique boards, 17_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * + + =D'Urfey's ("Tom") Wit and Mirth=; or, PILLS TO PURGE MELANCHOLY: + Being a Collection of the best Merry Ballads and Songs, Old and New. + Fitted to all Humours, having each their proper Tune for either Voice + or Instrument: most of the Songs being new set. London: Printed by W. + Pearson, for J. Tonson, at Shakespeare's Head, over-against Catherine + Street in the Strand, 1719. An exact reprint. In 6 vols., large fcap. + 8vo, printed on antique laid paper, antique boards, L3 3_s._ + + * * * + + =English Rogue (The)=, described in the Life of MERITON LATROON, and + other Extravagants, comprehending the most Eminent Cheats of both + Sexes. By RICHARD HEAD and FRANCIS KIRKMAN. A Facsimile Reprint of + the rare Original Edition (1665-1672), with Frontispiece, Facsimiles + of the 12 copper plates, and Portraits of the Authors. In 4 vols., + large fcap. 8vo, printed on antique laid paper, and bound in antique + boards, 36_s._ + + * * * + + =Westminster Drolleries=: Being a choice Collection of Songs + and Poems sung at Court and Theatres. With Additions made by a + Person of Quality. Now first reprinted in exact facsimile from the + Original Editions of 1671 and 1672. Edited, with an Introduction + on the Literature of the Drolleries, a copious Appendix of Notes, + Illustrations, and Emendations of Text, Table of Contents, and Index + of First Lines, by J. WOODFALL EBSWORTH, M.A. Cantab. Large fcap. + 8vo, printed on antique paper, and bound in antique boards, 10_s._ + 6_d._; large paper copies, 21_s._ + + * * * + + =Ireland Forgeries.--Confessions of= WILLIAM-HENRY IRELAND. + Containing the Particulars of his Fabrication of the Shakspeare + Manuscripts; together with Anecdotes and Opinions (hitherto + unpublished) of many Distinguished Persons in the Literary, + Political, and Theatrical World. A Facsimile Reprint from the + Original Edition, with several additional Facsimiles. Fcap. 8vo, + printed on antique laid paper, and bound in antique boards, 10_s._ + 6_d._; a few Large Paper copies, at 21_s._ + + * * * + + =Grose's Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue.= 1785. An unmutilated + Reprint of the First Edition. Quarto, bound in half-Roxburghe, gilt + top, price 8_s._ + + * * * + + =Joe Miller's Jests=: the politest Repartees, most elegant Bon-Mots, + and most pleasing short Stories in the English Language. London: + printed by T. Read. 1739. A Facsimile of the Original Edition. 8vo, + half-morocco, 9_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * + + =Old Prose Stories (The)= whence TENNYSON'S "Idylls of the King" were + taken. By B. M. RANKING. Royal 16mo, paper cover, 1_s._; cloth extra, + 1_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + OLD SHEKARRY'S WORKS. + + =Forest and Field=: Life and Adventure in Wild Africa. By the OLD + SHEKARRY. With Eight Illustrations. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, gilt, + 6_s._ + + * * * + + =Wrinkles=; or, Hints to Sportsmen and Travellers upon Dress, + Equipment, Armament, and Camp Life. By the OLD SHEKARRY. A New + Edition, with Illustrations. Small crown 8vo, cloth extra, gilt, 6_s._ + + * * * * * + + OUIDA'S NOVELS. + + Uniform Edition, each Complete in One Volume, crown 8vo, red + cloth extra, price 5_s._ each. + + =Folle Farine.= + + =Idalia=: A Romance. + + =Chandos=: A Novel. + + =Under Two Flags.= + + =Cecil Castlemaine's Gage.= + + =Tricotrin=: The Story of a Waif and Stray. + + =Pascarel=: Only a Story. + + =Held In Bondage=; or, Granville de Vigne. + + =Puck=: His Vicissitudes, Adventures, &c. + + =A Dog of Flanders=, and other Stories. + + =Strathmore=; or, Wrought by his Own Hand. + + =Two Little Wooden Shoes.= + + * * * * * + + =Parochial History of the County of Cornwall.= Compiled from the best + Authorities, and corrected and improved from actual Survey. 4 vols. + 4to, cloth extra, L3 3_s._ the set; or, separately, the first three + volumes, 16_s._ each; the fourth volume, 18_s._ + + * * * * * + + =Plain English.= By JOHN HOLLINGSHEAD. One vol., crown 8vo. + [_Preparing._ + + * * * * * + + =Private Book of Useful Alloys and Memoranda for Goldsmiths and + Jewellers.= By JAMES E. COLLINS, C.E. Royal 16mo, 3_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + SEVENTH EDITION OF + =Puck on Pegasus.= By H. CHOLMONDELEY-PENNELL. + + Profusely illustrated by the late JOHN LEECH, H. K. BROWNE, Sir NOEL + PATON, JOHN MILLAIS, JOHN TENNIEL, RICHARD DOYLE, Miss ELLEN EDWARDS, + and other artists. A New Edition (the SEVENTH), crown 8vo, cloth + extra, gilt, price 5_s._; or gilt edges, 6_s._ + + "The book is clever and amusing, vigorous and healthy."--_Saturday + Review._ + + "The epigrammatic drollery of Mr. Cholmondeley-Pennell's 'Puck + on Pegasus' is well known to many of our readers.... The present + (_the sixth_) is a superb and handsomely printed and illustrated + edition of the book."--_Times._ + + "Specially fit for reading in the family circle."--_Observer._ + + * * * * * + + "AN AWFULLY JOLLY BOOK FOR PARTIES." + + =Puniana=: Thoughts Wise and Otherwise. By the Hon. HUGH ROWLEY. Best + Book of Riddles and Puns ever formed. With nearly 100 exquisitely + Fanciful Drawings. Contains nearly 3000 of the best Riddles, and + 10,000 most outrageous Puns, and is one of the most Popular Books + ever issued. New Edition, small quarto, green and gold, gilt edges, + price 6_s._ + + "Enormous burlesque--unapproachable and pre-eminent. We think this + very queer volume will be a favourite. We should suggest that, + to a dull person desirous to get credit with the young holiday + people, it would be good policy to invest in the book, and dole it + out by instalments."--_Saturday Review._ + + Also, + + =More Puniana.= + + By the Hon. HUGH ROWLEY. Containing nearly 100 beautifully + executed Drawings, and a splendid Collection of Riddles and Puns, + rivalling those in the First Volume. Small 4to, green and gold, + gilt edges, uniform with the First Series, 6_s._ + + + [Illustration: _When are persons entitled to speak like a + book? Only when they are a tome on the subject._] + + * * * * * + + [Illustration] + + =Pursuivant of Arms (The)=; or, Heraldry founded upon Facts. A + Popular Guide to the Science of Heraldry. By J. R. PLANCHE, Esq., + F.S.A., Somerset Herald. To which are added, Essays on the BADGES OF + THE HOUSES OF LANCASTER AND YORK. A New Edition, enlarged and revised + by the Author, illustrated with Coloured Frontispiece, Five full-page + Plates, and about 200 Illustrations. Crown 8vo, bound in cloth extra, + gilt, 7_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + =Practical Assayer=: A Guide to Miners and Explorers. By OLIVER + NORTH. With Tables and Illustrative Woodcuts. Crown 8vo, 7_s._ 6_d._ + + *** _This book gives directions, in the simplest form, for + assaying bullion and the baser metals by the cheapest, quickest, + and best methods. Those interested in mining property will be + enabled, by following its instructions, to form a tolerably + correct idea of the value of ores, without previous knowledge of + assaying; while to the young man seeking his fortune in mining + countries it is indispensable._ + + "Likely to prove extremely useful. The instructions are clear and + precise."--_Chemist and Druggist._ + + "An admirable little volume."--_Mining Journal._ + + "We cordially recommend this compact little volume to all engaged + in mining enterprize, and especially to explorers."--_Monetary and + Mining Review._ + + * * * * * + + GUSTAVE DORE'S DESIGNS. + + =Rabelais' Works.= Faithfully translated from the French, with + variorum Notes, and numerous characteristic Illustrations by GUSTAVE + DORE. Cr. 8vo, cl. extra, 700 pp. 7_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + UNIFORM WITH "WONDERFUL CHARACTERS." + + =Remarkable Trials and Notorious Characters.= From "Half-Hanged + Smith," 1700, to Oxford, who shot at the Queen, 1840. By Captain L. + BENSON. With spirited full-page Engravings by PHIZ. 8vo, 550 pages, + 7_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + =Rochefoucauld's Reflections and Moral Maxims.= With Introductory + Essay by SAINTE-BEUVE, and Explanatory Notes. Cloth extra, 1_s._ + 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + =Reminiscences of the late Thomas Assheton Smith, Esq.=; or, The + Pursuits of an English Country Gentleman. By Sir J. E. EARDLEY + WILMOT, Bart. A New and Revised Edition, with Steel-plate Portrait, + and plain and coloured Illustrations. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, 7_s._ + 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + =Roll of Battle Abbey=; or, A List of the Principal Warriors who came + over from Normandy with William the Conqueror, and Settled in this + Country, A.D. 1066-7. Carefully drawn, and printed on fine plate + paper, nearly three feet by two feet, with the Arms of the principal + Barons elaborately emblazoned in Gold and Colours. Price 5_s._; or, + handsomely framed in carved oak of an antique pattern, 22_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + =Roll of Caerlaverock=, the Oldest Heraldic Roll; including the + Original Anglo-Norman Poem, and an English Translation of the MS. in + the British Museum. By THOMAS WRIGHT, M.A. The Arms emblazoned in + Gold and Colours. In 4to, very handsomely printed, extra gold cloth, + 12_s._ + + * * * * * + + =Roman Catholics in the County of York in 1604.= Transcribed from the + Original MS. in the Bodleian Library, and Edited, with Genealogical + Notes, by EDWARD PEACOCK, F.S.A., Editor of "Army Lists of the + Roundheads and Cavaliers, 1642." Small 4to, handsomely printed and + bound, 15_s._ + + *** _Genealogists and Antiquaries will find much new and curious + matter in this work. An elaborate Index refers to every name in + the volume, among which will be found many of the highest local + interest._ + + * * * * * + + =Ross's (Chas. H.) Story of a Honeymoon.= A New Edition of this + charmingly humorous book, with numerous Illustrations by the Author. + Fcap. 8vo, illustrated boards, 2_s._ + + * * * * * + + =School Life at Winchester College=; or, The Reminiscences of a + Winchester Junior. By the Author of "The Log of the Water Lily;" and + "The Water Lily on the Danube." Second Edition, Revised, COLOURED + PLATES, 7_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + =Schopenhauer's The World Considered as Will and Imagination.= + Translated by Dr. FRANZ HUEFFER, Author of "Richard Wagner and the + Music of the Future." [_In preparation._ + + * * * * * + + THE "SECRET OUT" SERIES. + + Crown 8vo, cloth extra, profusely Illustrated, price 4_s._ 6_d._ each. + + =Art of Amusing.= A Collection of Graceful Arts, Games, Tricks, + Puzzles, and Charades, intended to Amuse Everybody. By FRANK BELLEW. + With nearly 300 Illustrations. + + * * * + + =Hanky-Panky.= A Wonderful Book of Very Easy Tricks, Very Difficult + Tricks, White Magic, Sleight of Hand; in fact, all those startling + Deceptions which the Great Wizards call "Hanky-Panky." Edited by W. + H. CREMER. With nearly 200 Illustrations. + + * * * + + =Magician's Own Book.= Ample Instruction for Performances with Cups + and Balls, Eggs, Hats, Handkerchiefs, &c. All from Actual Experience. + Edited by W. H. CREMER. With 200 Illustrations. + + * * * + + =Magic No Mystery.= A Splendid Collection of Tricks with Cards, Dice, + Balls, &c., with fully descriptive working Directions. With very + numerous Illustrations. [_Nearly ready._ + + * * * + + =Merry Circle (The)=, and How the Visitors were entertained during + Twelve Pleasant Evenings. A Book of New Intellectual Games and + Amusements. Edited by Mrs. CLARA BELLEW. With numerous Illustrations. + + * * * + + =Secret Out=; or, One Thousand Tricks with Cards, and other + Recreations; with Entertaining Experiments in Drawing Room or "White + Magic." Edited by W. H. CREMER. With 300 Engravings. + + * * * + + =Shelley's Early Life.= From Original Sources. With Curious + Incidents, Letters, and Writings, now First Published or Collected. + By DENIS FLORENCE MAC-CARTHY. Crown 8vo, with Illustrations, 440 + pages, 7_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * + + =Sheridan's Complete Works=, with Life and Anecdotes. Including his + Dramatic Writings, printed from the Original Editions, his Works + in Prose and Poetry, Translations, Speeches, Jokes, Puns, &c.; + with a Collection of Sheridaniana. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, with 10 + beautifully executed Portraits and Scenes from his Plays, 7_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + =Signboards=: Their History. With Anecdotes of Famous Taverns and + Remarkable Characters. By JACOB LARWOOD and JOHN CAMDEN HOTTEN. + SEVENTH EDITION. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, 7_s._ 6_d._ + + "It is not fair on the part of a reviewer to pick out the plums of + an author's book, thus filching away his cream, and leaving little + but skim-milk remaining; but, even if we were ever so maliciously + inclined, we could not in the present instance pick out all + Messrs. Larwood and Hotten's plums, because the good things are so + numerous as to defy the most wholesale depredation."--_The Times._ + +[Illustration: HELP ME THROUGH THIS WORLD!] + + *** _Nearly 100 most curious illustrations on wood are given, + showing the signs which were formerly hung from taverns, &c._ + +HANDBOOK OF COLLOQUIALISMS. + + * * * * * + + [Illustration: THE WEDGE AND THE WOODEN SPOON.] + + =The Slang Dictionary=: Etymological, Historical, and Anecdotal. An + ENTIRELY NEW EDITION, revised throughout, and considerably Enlarged, + containing upwards of a thousand more words than the last edition. + Crown 8vo, with Curious Illustrations, cloth extra, 6_s._ 6_d._ + + "Peculiarly a book which 'no gentleman's library should be + without,' while to costermongers and thieves it is absolutely + indispensable."--_Dispatch._ + + "Interesting and curious. Contains as many as it was possible to + collect of all the words and phrases of modern slang in use at the + present time."--_Public Opinion._ + + "In every way a great improvement on the edition of 1864. Its uses + as a dictionary of the very vulgar tongue do not require to be + explained."--_Notes and Queries._ + + "Compiled with most exacting care, and based on the best + authorities."--_Standard._ + + "In 'The Slang Dictionary' we have not only a book that reflects + credit upon the philologist; it is also a volume that will repay, + at any time, a dip into its humorous pages."--_Figaro._ + + * * * * * + + WEST-END LIFE AND DOINGS. + + =Story of the London Parks.= By JACOB LARWOOD. With numerous + Illustrations, Coloured and Plain. In One thick Volume, crown 8vo, + cloth extra, gilt, 7_s._ 6_d._ + + *** _A most interesting work, giving a complete History of these + favourite out-of-door resorts, from the earliest period to the + present time._ + + * * * * * + + A KEEPSAKE FOR SMOKERS. + + =Smoker's Text-Book.= By J. HAMER, F.R.S.L. Exquisitely printed from + "silver-faced" type, cloth, very neat, gilt edges, 2_s._ 6_d._, post + free. + + * * * * * + + CHARMING NEW TRAVEL-BOOK. + + [Illustration: "It may be we shall touch the happy isles."] + + =Summer Cruising in the South Seas.= By CHARLES WARREN STODDARD. With + Twenty-five Engravings on Wood, drawn by WALLIS MACKAY. Crown 8vo, + cloth, extra gilt, 7_s._ 6_d._ + + "This is a very amusing book, and full of that quiet humour for + which the Americans are so famous. We have not space to enumerate + all the picturesque descriptions, the poetical thoughts, which + have so charmed us in this volume; but we recommend our readers to + go to the South Seas with Mr. Stoddard in his prettily illustrated + and amusingly written little book."--_Vanity Fair._ + + "Mr. Stoddard's book is delightful reading, and in Mr. + Wallis Mackay he has found a most congenial and poetical + illustrator."--_Bookseller._ + + "A remarkable book, which has a certain wild + picturesqueness."--_Standard._ + + "The author's experiences are very amusingly related, and, in + parts, with much freshness and originality."--_Judy._ + + "Mr. Stoddard is a humourist; 'Summer Cruising' has a good deal of + undeniable amusement."--_Nation._ + + * * * * * + + =Syntax's (Dr.) Three Tours.= With the whole of ROWLANDSON'S very + droll full-page Illustrations, in Colours, after the Original + Drawings. Comprising the well-known TOURS--1. IN SEARCH OF THE + PICTURESQUE. 2. IN SEARCH OF CONSOLATION. 3. IN SEARCH OF A WIFE. + The Three Series Complete, with a Life of the Author by JOHN CAMDEN + HOTTEN. Medium 8vo, cloth extra, gilt, price 7_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + =Theseus: A Greek Fairy Legend.= Illustrated, in a series of Designs + in Gold and Sepia, by JOHN MOYR SMITH. With descriptive text. Oblong + folio, price 7_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + [Illustration: THEODORE HOOK'S HOUSE, NEAR PUTNEY.] + + =Theodore Hook's Choice Humorous Works=, with his Ludicrous + Adventures, Bons-mots, Puns, and Hoaxes. With a new Life of the + Author, PORTRAITS, FACSIMILES, and ILLUSTRATIONS. Crown 8vo, 600 + pages, cloth extra, 7_s._ 6_d._ + + + *** "As a wit and humourist of the highest order his name will + be preserved. His political songs and _jeux d'esprit_, when the + hour comes for collecting them, _will form a volume of sterling + and lasting attraction_!"--J. G. LOCKHART. + + * * * * * + + MR. SWINBURNE'S WORKS. + + SECOND EDITION NOW READY OF + + =Bothwell=: A Tragedy. By ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE. Crown 8vo, + cloth extra, pp. 540, 12_s._ 6_d._ + + "Mr. Swinburne's most prejudiced critic cannot, we think, deny + that 'Bothwell' is a poem of a very high character. Every line + bears traces of power, individuality, and vivid imagination. The + versification, while characteristically supple and melodious, also + attains, in spite of some affectations, to a sustained strength + and dignity of a remarkable kind. Mr. Swinburne is not only a + master of the music of language, but he has that indescribable + touch which discloses the true poet--the touch that lifts from off + the ground."--_Saturday Review._ + + "It is not too much to say that, should he never write anything + more, the poet has by this work firmly established his position, + and given us a poem upon which his fame may safely rest. He no + longer indulges in that frequent alliteration, or that oppressive + wealth of imagery and colour, which gave rhythm and splendour to + some of his works, but would have been out of place in a grand + historical poem; we have now a fair opportunity of judging what + the poet can do when deprived of such adventitious aid,--and the + verdict is, that he must henceforth rank amongst the first of + British authors."--_Graphic._ + + "The whole drama flames and rings with high passions and + great deeds. The imagination is splendid; the style large and + imperial; the insight into character keen; the blank verse + varied, sensitive, flexible, alive. Mr. Swinburne has once more + proved his right to occupy a seat among the lofty singers of our + land."--_Daily News._ + + "A really grand, statuesque dramatic work.... The reader will + here find Mr. Swinburne at his very best; if manliness, dignity, + and fulness of style are superior to mere pleasant singing and + alliterative lyrics."--_Standard._ + + "Splendid pictures, subtle analyses of passion, and wonderful + studies of character will repay him who attains the end.... In + this huge volume are many fine and some unsurpassable things. + Subtlest traits of character abound, and descriptive passages of + singular delicacy."--_Athenaeum._ + + "There can be no doubt of the dramatic force of the poem. It + is severely simple in its diction, and never dull; there are + innumerable fine touches on almost every page."--_Scotsman._ + + "'Bothwell' shows us Mr. Swinburne at a point immeasurably + superior to any that he has yet achieved. It will confirm and + increase the reputation which his daring genius has already won. + He has handled a difficult subject with a mastery of art which is + a true intellectual triumph."--_Hour._ + + * * * + + =Chastelard=: A Tragedy. Foolscap 8vo, 7_s._ + + * * * + + =Poems and Ballads.= Foolscap 8vo, 9_s._ + + * * * + + =Notes on "Poems and Ballads,"= and on the Reviews of them. Demy 8vo, + 1_s._ + + * * * + + =Songs before Sunrise.= Post 8vo, 10_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * + + =Atalanta in Calydon.= Fcap. 8vo, 6_s._ + + * * * + + =The Queen Mother and Rosamond.= Foolscap 8vo, 5_s._ + + * * * + + =A Song of Italy.= Foolscap 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * + + =Ode on the Proclamation of the French Republic.= Demy 8vo, 1_s._ + + * * * + + =Under the Microscope.= Post 8vo, 2_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * + + =William Blake=: A Critical Essay. With facsimile Paintings, Coloured + by Hand, after the Drawings by Blake and his Wife. Demy 8vo, 16_s._ + + * * * * * + + THE THACKERAY SKETCH-BOOK. + + [Illustration] + + =THACKERAYANA=: Notes and Anecdotes, Illustrated by about Six Hundred + Sketches by WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY, depicting Humorous Incidents + in his School-life, and Favourite Scenes and Characters in the books + of his every-day reading, NOW FOR THE FIRST TIME PUBLISHED, from the + Original Drawings made on the margins of his books, &c. Large post + 8vo, clth. extra gilt, gilt top, price 12_s._ 6_d._ + + [Illustration] + + "It is Thackeray's aim to represent life as it is actually and + historically--men and women as they are, in those situations in + which they are usually placed, with that mixture of good and + evil, of strength and foible, which is to be found in their + characters, and liable only to those incidents which are of + ordinary occurrence. He will have no faultless characters, no + demi-gods,--nothing but men and brethren."--DAVID MASSON. + + * * * * * + + =Timbs' English Eccentrics and Eccentricities.= Stories of Wealth + and Fashion, Delusions, Impostures and Fanatic Missions, Strange + Sights and Sporting Scenes, Eccentric Artists, Theatrical Folks, Men + of Letters, &c. By JOHN TIMES, F.S.A. An entirely New Edition, with + about 50 Illustrations. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, 600 pages, 7_s._ 6_d._ + + [Illustration: _Sir Lumley Skeffington at the Birthday Ball._] + + =Timbs' Clubs and Club Life in London.= With ANECDOTES of its FAMOUS + COFFEE HOUSES, HOSTELRIES, and TAVERNS. By JOHN TIMBS, F.S.A. New + Edition, with NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS drawn expressly. Crown 8vo, + cloth extra, 600 pages, 7_s._ 6_d._ + + *** _A Companion to "The History of Sign-Boards."_ _It abounds in + quaint stories of the_ Blue Stocking, Kit-Kat, Beef Steak, Robin + Hood, Mohocks, Scriblerus, One o'Clock, the Civil, _and hundreds + of other Clubs; together with_ Tom's, Dick's, Button's, Ned's, + Will's, _and the famous Coffee Houses of the last century_. + + "The book supplies a much-felt want. The club is the avenue to + general society at the present day, and Mr. Timbs gives the + _entree_ to the club. The scholar and antiquary will also find + the work a repertory of information on many disputed points of + literary interest, and especially respecting various well-known + anecdotes, the value of which only increases with the lapse of + time."--_Morning Post._ + + =Blake's Works.= Messrs. CHATTO & WINDUS have in preparation a + series of Reproductions in Facsimile of the Works of WILLIAM + BLAKE, including the "Songs of Innocence and Experience," "The + Book of Thel," "America," "The Vision of the Daughters of + Albion," "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell," "Europe, a Prophecy," + "Jerusalem," "Milton," "Urizen," "The Song of Los," &c. These + Works will be issued both coloured and plain. + + * * * * * + + =Taylor's History of Playing Cards.= With Sixty curious + Illustrations. 550 pp., crown 8vo, cloth, extra gilt, price 7_s._ + 6_d._ + + *** _Ancient and Modern Games, Conjuring, Fortune-Telling, + and Card Sharping, Gambling and Calculation, Cartomancy, Old + Gaming-Houses, Card Revels and Blind Hookey, Picquet and + Vingt-et-un, Whist and Cribbage, Tricks, &c._ + + * * * * * + + =Vagabondiana=; or, Anecdotes of Mendicant Wanderers through the + Streets of London; with Portraits of the most remarkable, drawn from + the Life by JOHN THOMAS SMITH, late Keeper of the Prints in the + British Museum. With Introduction by FRANCIS DOUCE, and descriptive + text. Reprinted from the original, with the Woodcuts, and the 32 + Plates, from the original Coppers, in crown 4to, half Roxburghe, + price 12_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + "LES MISERABLES." Complete in Three Parts. + + =Victor Hugo's Fantine.= Now first published in an English + Translation, complete and unabridged, with the exception of a few + advisable omissions. Post 8vo, illustrated boards, 2_s._ + + "This work has something more than the beauties of an exquisite + style or the word-compelling power of a literary Zeus to recommend + it to the tender care of a distant posterity: in dealing with all + the emotions, passions, doubts, fears, which go to make up our + common humanity, M. Victor Hugo has stamped upon every page the + Hall-mark of genius and the loving patience and conscientious + labour of a true artist. But the merits of 'Les Miserables' do not + merely consist in the conception of it as a whole; it abounds, + page after page, with details of unequalled beauty."--_Quarterly + Review._ + * * * + =Victor Hugo's Cosette and Marius.= Translated into English, + complete, uniform with "Fantine." Post 8vo, illustrated boards, 2_s._ + + * * * + + =Victor Hugo's Saint Denis and Jean Valjean.= Translated into + English, complete, uniform with the above. Post 8vo, illustrated + boards, 2_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + =Vyner's Notitia Venatica=: A Treatise on Fox-Hunting, the General + Management of Hounds, and the Diseases of Dogs; Distemper and Rabies; + Kennel Lameness, &c. Sixth Edition, Enlarged. By ROBERT C. VYNER. + WITH SPIRITED ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOURS, BY ALKEN, OF MEMORABLE + FOX-HUNTING SCENES. Royal 8vo, cloth extra, 21_s._ + + *** _An entirely new edition of the best work on Fox-Hunting._ + + * * * * * + + =Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass.= The Complete Work, precisely as + issued by the Author in Washington. A thick volume, 8vo, green cloth, + price 9_s._ + + * * * * * + + [Illustration] + + =Walton and Cotton, Illustrated.=--=The Complete Angler=; or, + the Contemplative Man's Recreation; being a Discourse of Rivers, + Fish-ponds, Fish and Fishing, written by IZAAK WALTON; and + Instructions how to Angle for a Trout or Grayling in a clear Stream, + by CHARLES COTTON. With Original Memoirs and Notes by Sir HARRIS + NICOLAS, K.C.M.G. With the whole 61 Illustrations, precisely as in + the royal 8vo two-volume Edition issued by Pickering. A New Edition, + complete in One Volume, large crown 8vo, with the Illustrations from + the original plates, printed on full pages, separately from the text, + 7_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + =Warrant to Execute Charles I.= An exact Facsimile of this important + Document, with the Fifty-nine Signatures of the Regicides, and + corresponding Seals, admirably executed on paper made to imitate + the original document, 22 in. by 14 in. Price 2_s._; or, handsomely + framed and glazed in carved oak of antique pattern, 14_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + =Warrant to Execute Mary Queen of Scots.= The Exact Facsimile of this + important Document, including the Signature of Queen Elizabeth and + Facsimile of the Great Seal, on tinted paper, to imitate the Original + MS. Price 2_s._; or, handsomely framed and glazed in carved oak, + antique pattern, 14_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + =Waterford Roll (The).=--Illuminated Charter-Roll of Waterford, Temp. + Richard II. + + *** _Amongst the Corporation Muniments of the City of Waterford + is preserved an ancient Illuminated Roll, of great interest + and beauty, comprising all the early Charters and Grants to + the City of Waterford, from the time of Henry II. to Richard + II. A full-length Portrait of each King, whose Charter is + given--including Edward III., when young, and again at an advanced + age--adorns the margin. These Portraits, with the exception of + four which are smaller, and on one sheet of vellum, vary from + eight to nine inches in length--some in armour, and some in robes + of state. In addition to these are Portraits of an Archbishop + in full canonicals, of a Chancellor, and of many of the chief + Burgesses of the City of Waterford, as well as singularly curious + Portraits of the Mayors of Dublin, Waterford, Limerick, and + Cork, figured for the most part in the quaint bipartite costume + of the Second Richard's reign, though partaking of many of the + peculiarities of that of Edward III. Altogether this ancient + work of art is unique of its kind in Ireland, and deserves to + be rescued from oblivion, by the publication of the unedited + Charters, and of fac-similes of all the Illuminations. The + production of such a work would throw much light on the question + of the art and social habits of the Anglo-Norman settlers in + Ireland at the close of the fourteenth century. The Charters are, + many of them, highly important from an historic point of view._ + + _The Illuminations have been accurately traced and coloured for + the work from a copy carefully made, by permission of the Mayor + and Corporation of Waterford, by the late George V. Du Noyer, + Esq., M.R.I.A.; and those Charters which have not already appeared + in print will be edited by the Rev. James Graves, A.B., M.R.I.A., + Hon. Secretary Kilkenny and South-East of Ireland Archaeological + Society._ + + _The Work will be brought out in the best manner, with embossed + cover and characteristic title-page; and it will be put to press + as soon as 250 subscribers are obtained. The price, in imperial + 4to, is 20s. to subscribers, or 30s. to non-subscribers._ + + * * * * * + + =Wonderful Characters=: Memoirs and Anecdotes of Remarkable and + Eccentric Persons of Every Age and Nation. From the text of HENRY + WILSON and JAMES CAULFIELD. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, with Sixty-one + full-page Engravings of Extraordinary Persons, 7_s._ 6_d._ + + *** _There are so many curious matters discussed in this volume, + that any person who takes it up will not readily lay it down + until he has read it through. The Introduction is almost entirety + devoted to a consideration of Pig-Faced Ladies, and the various + stories concerning them._ + + * * * * * + + =Wright's (Andrew) Court-Hand Restored=; or, Student's Assistant + in Reading Old Deeds, Charters, Records, &c. Half Morocco, a New + Edition, 10_s._ 6_d._ + + *** _The best guide to the reading of old Records, &c._ + + * * * * * + + =Wright's Caricature History of the Georges= (House of Hanover). With + 400 Pictures, Caricatures, Squibs, Broadsides, Window Pictures, &c. + By THOMAS WRIGHT, Esq., M.A., F.S.A. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, 7_s._ + 6_d._ + + [Illustration] + + "A set of caricatures such as we have in Mr. Wright's volume + brings the surface of the age before us with a vividness that no + prose writer, even of the highest power, could emulate. Macaulay's + most brilliant sentence is weak by the side of the little woodcut + from Gillray, which gives us Burke and Fox."--_Saturday Review._ + + "A more amusing work of its kind was never issued."--_Art Journal._ + + "It is emphatically one of the liveliest of books, as also one of + the most interesting. It has the twofold merit of being at once + amusing and edifying."--_Morning Post._ + + * * * * * + + =Yankee Drolleries=, Edited by G. A. SALA. Containing ARTEMUS WARD'S + BOOK; BIGLOW PAPERS; ORPHEUS C. KERR; JACK DOWNING; and NASBY PAPERS. + 700 pp., 3_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + =More Yankee Drolleries.= Containing ARTEMUS WARD'S TRAVELS; HANS + BREITMANN; PROFESSOR AT BREAKFAST TABLE; BIGLOW PAPERS, Part II.; and + JOSH BILLINGS; with Introduction by G. A. SALA. 700 pp., cloth, 3_s._ + 6_d._ + + * * * * * + + =A Third Supply of Yankee Drolleries.= Containing ARTEMUS WARD'S + FENIANS; AUTOCRAT OF BREAKFAST TABLE; BRET HARTE'S STORIES; INNOCENTS + ABROAD; and NEW PILGRIM'S PROGRESS; with an Introduction by G. A. + SALA. 700 pp., cloth, 3_s._ 6_d._ + + + + + Transcriber's Notes + +In general, spelling is retained as printed. On occasion, apparent +printer's errors, however, are corrected, where the author uses a more +standard spelling elsewhere (e.g., 'acknowleges' on p. 283). Where the +printer simply missed a word (e.g.,'hand' on p. 151), it is added. + +Incidental punctuation, especially of abbreviated words and in captions, +which is missing from the printed original, has been silently restored. + +In the advertisement section at the end of the text, an asterism (three +asterisks arranged in an inverted triangle) are used as a 'bullet'. +In this text, these will be retained as "***". + +This table summarizes the various issues detected, and their resolution. + + p. xii LE MONDE BESTORN[E/E] Corrected. + p. 6 as 1185[,] B.C. Removed. + p. 57 and trepidation[.] Added. + p. 76 fat flesh and their platter;["] Probable + placement + p. 107 i[t] is evident from many allusions Added. + p. 151 luxury went hand in [hand] Added. + p. 153 a playful character[./,] or sometimes Added. + p. 155 N[u/ue]remberg Corrected. + p. 160 and [meats] with a courteous reception _sic._ + p. 162 ["]should not be jougleurs, goliards, Probable + or buffoons;" placement. + p. 163 de [famila] Goliae _sic._ + p. 173 ["/']Adam, Adam ... Corrected. + p. 201 received by the [the ]emperor Hugo Removed. + p. 230 Here [beginneht] a merye jest _sic._ + n. 74 + p. 243 "Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles," ["]Poggio," + "Straparola," Added. + seventee[n]th Added. + p. 254 the early book-hawkers[,/.] Corrected. + p. 289 acknowle[d]ged Added. + p. 335 aspired to be P[l]antagruelists Removed. + p. 344 Florent Chr[e]stien Added. + p. 396 who jilts her husband that way, a very ----[.]" Added. + p. 445 were [two/too] numerous Corrected. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A History of Caricature and Grotesque, by +Thomas Wright + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORY OF CARICATURE *** + +***** This file should be named 44566.txt or 44566.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/4/4/5/6/44566/ + +Produced by KD Weeks, Chris Curnow and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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