The Southern Literary Messenger, Vol. II., No. 6, May, 1836

But of the Pyrrhic dance, more particularly: the learned Scaliger--that terror and delight of the critical world--assures us, in his _Poetica_, (book i, ch. 9) that he himself, at the command of his uncle Boniface, was wont often and long to dance it, before the Emperor Maximilian, while all Germany looked on with amazement. "Hanc saltationem Pyrrhicam, nos sæpe et diu, jussu Bonifacii patrui, coram divo Maximiliano, non sine stupore totius Germaniæ, representavimus."

_Ariosto_.--Has not the following curious testimony in regard to him escaped all his biographers? Montaigne, in his Essays, (vol. iii, p. 117, Johanneau's edition, in 8vo.) says, "J'eus plus de despit encores, que de compassion, de le veoir à Ferrare en si piteux estat, survivant à soy mesme, mecognoissant et soy et ses ouvrages; lesquels, sans son sςeu, et toutesfois en sa veue, on a mis en lumiere incorrigez et informes."

"I was touched even more with vexation than with compassion, to see him, at Ferrara, in a state so piteous, outliving himself, and incapable of recognizing either himself or his works; which last, without his knowledge, though yet before his sight, were given to the world uncorrected and unfinished."

_Thin Clothing_.--It would be difficult more skilfully to turn a reproach into a praise, than Byron has done, as to drapery too transparent, in his voluptuous description of a Venitian revel.

--------"The thin robes, Floating like light clouds 'twixt our gaze and heaven,"

form the very climax of many intoxicating particulars.

The Greeks seem not to have practised a very rigorous reserve, as to the concealment of the person. The Lacedemonians, indeed, studiously suppressed, by their institutions, whatever of sexual modesty was not absolutely necessary to virtue. Among the Romans, however, the national austerity of manners made every violation of delicacy in this matter a great offence. Their Satyrists (as Seneca, Juvenal, and others) abound in allusions to the license of dress, which grew up, along with the other corruptions of their original usages. The words of Seneca, indeed, might almost be taken for a picture of a modern belle, in her ball-room attire. He says, in his _De Beneficiis_, "Video Sericas vestes, si vestes vocandæ sint, in quibus nihil est, quo defendi aut corpus, aut denique pudor, possit: quibus sumtis, mulier parum liquido, nudam se non esse, jurabit. Hæc, ingenti summa, ab ignotis etiam ad commercium gentibus, accersuntur, ut matronæ nostræ ne adulteris quidem plus suis in cubiculo, quam in publico, ostendant." "I see, too, silken clothing--if clothing that can be called, which does not protect, nor even conceal the body--apparelled in which, a woman cannot very truly swear, that she is not naked. Such tissues are brought to us at enormous cost, from nations so remote that not even their names can reach us; and by the help of this vast expense, our matrons are able to exhibit, to their lovers and in their couches, nothing at which the whole public has not equally gazed."

_Mythology_.--Bryant and others have puzzled themselves not a little to give a rational explanation to the story of Ariadne; who, it will be remembered, was abandoned upon the isle of Naxos by her seducer, Theseus: but Bacchus chancing to come that way, fell upon the forlorn damsel, and presently made her his bride. All this may well puzzle a commentator, for the single reason, that it is perfectly plain and simple. The whole tale is nothing but a delicate and poetic way of stating the fact, that Mrs. Ariadne, being deserted by her lover, sought and found a very common consolation--that is to say, she took to drink.

_Naples_.--Its population of Lazzaroni appears, after all, to be but the legitimate inheritors of ancestral laziness. They were equally idle in Ovid's time: for he expressly calls that seat of indolence

------"in otia natam Parthenopen."

_Exhibition of Grief_.--There is a curious instance of the unbending austerity of Roman manners, in the trait by which Tacitus endeavors to paint the disorder with which the high-souled Agrippina received the news of the death of Germanicus. She was, at the moment, sewing in the midst of her maids; and so totally (says Tacitus) did the intelligence overthrow her self-command, _that she broke off her work_.

_Snoring_.--The following story of a death caused by it is entirely authentic. Erythræus relates that when Cardinal Bentivoglio--a scholar equally elegant and laborious--was called to sit in the Conclave, for the election of a successor to Urban VIII, the summons found him much exhausted by the literary vigils to which he was addicted. Immured in the sacred palace, (such is the custom while the Pope is not yet chosen,) his lodging was assigned him along side of a Cardinal, whose snoring was so incessant and so terrible, that poor Bentivoglio ceased to be able to obtain even the {356} little sleep which his studies and his cares usually permitted him. After eleven nights of insomnolence thus produced, he was thrown into a violent fever. They removed him, and he slept--but waked no more.

_Human Usefulness_.--Wilkes has said, that of all the uses to which a man can be put, there is none so poor as hanging him. I hope that I may, without offence to any body's taste, add, that of all the purposes to which a _soul_ can be put, I know of none less useful than _damning it_.

_Sneezing_.--It is the Catholics (see father Feyjoo for the fact) who trace the practice of bidding God bless a man when he sneezes, to a plague in the time of St. Gregory. He, they say, instituted the observance, in order to ward off the death of which this spasm had, till then, been the regular precursor, in the disease. If the story be true, such a plague had already happened, long before the day of St. Gregory. In the _Odyssey_, Penelope takes the sneezing of Telemachus for a good omen; and the army of Xenophon drew a favorable presage, as to one of his propositions, from a like accident: Aristotle speaks of the salutation of one sneezing as the common usage of his time. In Catullus's _Acme and Sempronius_, Cupid ratifies, by an approving sneeze, the mutual vows of the lovers. Pliny alludes to the practice, and Petronius in his _Gyton_. In Apuleius's _Golden Ass_, a husband hears the concealed gallant of his wife sneeze, and blesses her, taking the sternutation to be her own.

If there be a marvel or an absurdity, the Rabbins rarely fail to adorn the fiction or the folly with some trait of their own. Their account of the matter is, that in patriarchal days, men never died except by sneezing, which was then the only disease, and always mortal. Apparently then, the antiquity of the Scotch nation and of rappee cannot be carried back to the time of Jacob. Be this point of chronology as it may, however, it is certain that the same sort of observance, as to sneezing, was found in America at the first discovery.

Aristotle is politely of opinion that the salutation was meant as an acknowledgment to the wind, for choosing an inoffensive mode of escape. But a stronger consideration is necessary to account for the joy with which the people of Monopotama celebrate the fact, when their monarch sneezes. The salutation is spread by loud acclamations, over the whole city. So, too, when he of Sennaar sneezes, his courtiers all turn their backs, and slap loudly their right thighs.

_Honor_.--The source of the following passage in Garth's _Dispensary_, is so obvious, that it is singular that no one has made the remark.

In the debate among the Doctors, when war is proposed, one of the Council speaks as follows.

Thus he: "'Tis true, when privilege and right Are once invaded, Honor bids us fight: But ere we yet engage in Honor's cause, First know what honor is, and whence its laws. Scorned by the base, 'tis courted by the brave; The hero's tyrant, yet the coward's slave: Born in the noisy camp, it feeds on air, And both exists by hope and by despair; Angry whene'er a moment's ease we gain, And reconciled at our returns of pain. It lives when in death's arms the hero lies; But when his safety he consults, it dies. Bigotted to this idol, we disclaim Rest, health and ease, for nothing but a name."

_Implicit Faith_.--I am delighted with the following excellent contrast of ignorant Orthodoxy with cultivated Doubt. It is from the learned and pious Le Clerc's Preface to his _Bibliothèque Choisie_, vol. vii, pp. 5, 6.

"Il n'y a, comme je crois, personne, qui ne préferât l'état d'une nation, où il y auroit beaucoup de lumières quoiqu'il y eût quelques libertins, à celui d'une nation ignorante et qui croiroit tout ce qu'on lui enseigneroit, ou qui au moins ne donneroit aucunes marques de douter des sentimens reçus. Les lumières produisent infailliblement beaucoup de vertu dans l'esprit d'une bonne part de ceux qui les reçoivent; quoiqu'il y ait des gens qui en abusent. Mais l'Ignorance ne produit que de la barbarie et des vices dans tous ceux qui vivent tranquillement dans leurs ténèbres. Il faudroit étre fou, par exemple, pour préferer ou pour égaler l'état auquel sont les Moscovites et d'autres nations, à l'égard de la Religion et de la vertu, à celni auquel sont les Anglois et les Hollandois, sous prétexte qu'il y a quelques libertins parmi ces deux peuples, et que les Moscovites et ceux qui leur ressemblent ne doubtent de rien."

"There is, I think, no one who would prefer the state of a nation, in which there was much intelligence, but some free thinkers, to that of a nation ignorant and ready to believe whatever might be taught it, or which, at least, would show no sign of doubting any of the received opinions. For knowledge never fails to produce much of virtue, in the minds of a large part of those who receive it, even though there be some who make an ill use of it. But Ignorance is never seen to give birth to any thing but barbarism and vice, in all such as dwell contentedly under her darkness. It would, for example, be nothing less than madness, to prefer or to compare the condition in which the Muscovites and some other nations are, as respects Religion and Virtue, to that of the English or Hollanders; under the pretext that there are, among the two latter nations, some free thinkers, and that the Muscovites and those who resemble them doubt of nothing."

The whole of this piece, indeed, is excellent, and full of candor, charity and sense, as to the temper and the principles of those who are forever striving to send into banishment, or shut up in prisons, or compel into eternal hypocrisy, all such opinions as have the misfortune to differ with their own.

_Friendships_.--There are people whose friendship is very like the Santee Canal in South Carolina: that is to say, its repairs cost more than the fee simple is worth.

_Benefits_.--There are many which must ever be their own reward, great or small. Others are positively dangerous. That subtle courtier, Philip de Comines, declares, that it is exceedingly imprudent to do your prince services for which a fit recompense is not easily found:[1] and Tacitus avers that obligations too deep are sure to turn to hatred.[2] Seneca pursues the matter yet further, and insists that he, whom your excessive services have thus driven to ingratitude, presently begins to desire to escape the shame of such favors, by {357} putting out of the world their author.[3] Cicero, too, is clearly of opinion, that enmity is the sure consequence of kindness carried to the extreme.[4]

[Footnote 1: "Il se fault bien garder de faire tant de services à son maistre, qu'on l'empesche d'en trouver la juste recompense."--_Memoires_.]

[Footnote 2: "Beneficia eo usque læta sunt, dum videntur exsolvi posse: ubi multum antivenere, pro gratiâ odium redditur."]

[Footnote 3: "Nam qui putat esse turpe non reddere, non vult esse cui reddat."]

[Footnote 4: "Qui si non putat satisfacere, amicus esse nullo modo potest."]

_Heroes_.--Marshal de Saxe is accustomed to get the credit of a very clever saying, "that no man seems a hero to his own valet de chambre." Now, not to speak of the scriptural apothegm, "that a prophet has no honor in his own country," the following passage from Montaigne will be found to contain precisely the Marshal's idea.

"Tel a esté miraculeux au monde, auquel sa femme et son valet n'ont rien veu seulement de remarquable. Peu d'hommes ont esté admirez par leurs domestiques: nul n'a esté prophète, non seulement en sa maison, mais en son pais, diet l'expérience des histoires."--_Essais_, vol. v, p. 198.

"Such an one has seemed miraculous to the world, in whom his wife and his valet could not even perceive any thing remarkable. Few men have ever been admired by their own servants; none was ever a prophet in his own country, still less in his own household."

ODDS AND ENDS.

MR. EDITOR,--Many months having passed away since I last addressed you, I have flattered myself, as most old men are apt to do on such occasions, that you might very possibly begin to feel some little inclination to hear from me once more. Know then, my good sir, that I am still in the land of the living, and have collected several "odds and ends" of matters and things in general, which you may use or not, for your "Messenger," as the fancy strikes you.

Among the rest, I will proceed to give you a new classification of the Animal Kingdom--at least so far as our own race is concerned; a classification formed upon principles materially different from those adopted by the great father of Natural History--Linnæus, who you know, classed us with whales and bats, under the general term, Mammalia! Now, I have always thought this too bad--too degrading for the lords and masters (as we think ourselves) of all other animals on the face of the earth; and who deserve a distinct class to themselves, divided too into more orders than any other--nay, into separate orders for the two sexes. With much study, therefore, and not less labor, I have digested a system which assumes mental--instead of bodily distinctions, as much more certain and suitable guides in our researches. This may be applied without either stripping or partially exposing the person, as father Linnæus' plan would compel us to do, whenever we were at a loss to ascertain (no unfrequent occurrence by the way, in these days) whether the object before us was really one of the Mammalia class or not: for such are the marvellous, ever-varying metamorphoses wrought by modern fashions in the exteriors of our race, that the nicest observers among us would be entirely "at fault" on many occasions, to tell whether it was fish, flesh, or fowl that they saw. My plan, therefore, has at least one material advantage over the other; and it is quite sufficient, I hope, very soon to carry all votes in its favor.

With whales and bats we shall no longer be classed!--if your old friend can possibly help it; and he is not a little confident of his powers to do so; for he believes he can demonstrate that there is not a greater difference between the form, size and habits of the bats and whales themselves, than he can point out between the manners, customs, pursuits, and bodily and mental endowments of the different orders of mankind; and, therefore, _ex necessitate rei_, there should be a classification different from any yet made. The honor of this discovery, I here beg you to witness, that I claim for myself.

Before I proceed farther, I will respectfully suggest a new definition of man himself; as all heretofore attempted have been found defective. The Greeks, for example, called him "Anthropos"--an animal that turns his eyes upwards; forgetting (as it would seem) that all domestic fowls, especially turkeys, ducks and geese, frequently do the same thing; although it must be admitted, that the act in them is always accompanied by a certain twist of the head, such as man himself generally practices when he means to look particularly astute. One of their greatest philosophers--the illustrious Plato--perceiving the incorrectness of this definition, attempted another, and defined man to be "a two legged animal without feathers:" but this very inadequate description was soon "blown sky high" by the old cynic Diogenes, who, having picked a cock quite clean of his plumage, threw him into Plato's school, crying out at the same time, "Behold Plato's man!" True, this is an old story; but none the worse for that. This was such "a settler,"--to borrow a pugilistic term--as completely to discourage, for a long time, all farther attempts to succeed in this very difficult task; nor indeed, do I recollect, from that day to the present, any now worth mentioning. "_The grand march of mind_," however, has become of late years, so astoundingly rapid, and so many things heretofore pronounced to be _unknowable_, have been made as plain as the nose on our faces, that Man himself--the great discoverer of all these wonders, should no longer be suffered (if his own powers can prevent it) to be consorted, as he has so long been, with a class of living beings so vastly inferior to himself. To rescue him therefore from _this_ degradation, shall be my humble task, since it is one of those attempts wherein--even to fail--must acquire some small share of glory.

I will define him then, to be _A self-loving, self-destroying animal_, and will maintain the correctness and perfectly exclusive character of the definition, against all impugners or objectors, until some one of them can point out to me among all the living beings on the face of the earth, either any beast, bird, fish, reptile, insect, or animalcula, that is distinguished by these very opposite and directly contradictory qualities. Man alone possesses--man alone displays them both; and is consequently distinguished from all the rest of animated nature in a way that gives him an indisputable right to a class of his own.

I will next proceed to enumerate the different orders into which this most wonderful class is divided. The females, God bless them, being entitled, by immemorial usage, to the first rank, shall receive the first notice; {358} and I will rank in the first order all those who have unquestionable claims to pre-eminence.

_Order 1st._ The _Loveables_.--This order is very numerous, and forms by far the most important body in every community, being distinguished by all the qualities and endowments--both physical and intellectual--which can render our present state of existence most desirable--most happy. Their beauties charm--their virtues adorn every walk of life. All that is endearing in love and affection--either filial, conjugal, or parental: all that is soothing and consolatory in affliction; all that can best alleviate distress, cheer poverty, or mitigate anguish: every thing most disinterested, most enduring, most self-sacrificing in friendship--most exemplary in the performance of duty: all which is most delightful in mental intercourse, most attractive and permanently engaging in domestic life: in short, every thing that can best contribute to human happiness in this world, must be ascribed, either directly or indirectly, much more to their influence than to all other temporal causes put together; and would the rest of their sex only follow their admirable example, this wretched world of ours would soon become a secondary heaven.

_Order 2d._ The _Conclamantes_, which, for the benefit of your more English readers, I will remark, is a Latin word, meaning--_those who clamor together_. They possess two qualities or traits in common with certain birds, such as rooks, crows and blackbirds, that is, they are _gregarious_ and marvellously _noisy_; for whenever they collect together, there is such a simultaneous and apparently causeless chattering in the highest key of their voices, as none could believe but those who have had the good or ill fortune (I will not say which) to hear it. But there is this marked characteristic difference. The latter utter sounds significant of sense, and perfectly intelligible, often very sprightly and agreeable too, when you can meet them one at a time; nor is juxta-position at all necessary to their being heard; for you will always be in ear-shot of them, although separated by the entire length or breadth of the largest entertaining-room any where to be found. Their proper element--the one wherein they shine, or rather sound most--is the atmosphere of a "_sware-ree_" party, or a squeeze: but as to the particular purpose for which Nature designed them, I must e'en plead _ignorance_; not, my good sir, that I would have you for one moment to suppose, that I mean any invidious insinuation by this excuse.