SECTION III.. Ye Sages Who Are Scattered Over the World--for Some Sages There

Ye sages who are scattered over the world--for some sages there are--join the philosophic Beccaria, and proclaim with all your strength that punishments ought to be proportioned to crimes:

That after shooting through the head a young man of the age of twenty, who has spent six months with his father and mother or his mistress, instead of rejoining his regiment, he can no longer be of any service to his country:

That if you hang on the public gallows the servant girl who stole a dozen napkins from her mistress, she will be unable to add to the number of your citizens a dozen children, whom you may be considered as strangling in embryo with their parent; that there is no proportion between a dozen napkins and human life; and, finally, that you really encourage domestic theft, because no master will be so cruel as to get his coachman hanged for stealing a few of his oats; but every master would prosecute to obtain the infliction of a punishment which should be simply proportioned to the offence:

That all judges and legislators are guilty of the death of all the children which unfortunate, seduced women desert, expose, or even strangle, from a similar weakness to that which gave them birth.

On this subject I shall without scruple relate what has just occurred in the capital of a wise and powerful republic, which however, with all its wisdom, has unhappily retained some barbarous laws from those old, unsocial, and inhuman ages, called by some the ages of purity of manners. Near this capital a new-born infant was found dead; a girl was apprehended on suspicion of being the mother; she was shut up in a dungeon; she was strictly interrogated; she replied that she could not have been the mother of that child, as she was at the present time pregnant. She was ordered to be visited by a certain number of what are called (perfectly malapropos in the present instance) wise women--by a commission of matrons. These poor imbecile creatures declared her not to be with child, and that the appearance of pregnancy was occasioned by improper retention. The unfortunate woman was threatened with the torture; her mind became alarmed and terrified; she confessed that she had killed her supposed child; she was capitally convicted; and during the actual passing of her sentence was seized with the pains of childbirth. Her judges were taught by this most impressive case not lightly to pass sentences of death.

With respect to the numberless executions which weak fanatics have inflicted upon other fanatics equally weak, I will say nothing more about them; although it is impossible to say too much.

There are scarcely any highway robberies committed in Italy without assassinations, because the punishment of death is equally awarded to both crimes.

It cannot be doubted that M. de Beccaria, in his "Treatise on Crimes and Punishments" has noticed this very important fact.

EXECUTIONER.

It may be thought that this word should not be permitted to degrade a dictionary of arts and sciences; it has a connection however with jurisprudence and history. Our great poets have not disdained frequently to avail themselves of this word in tragedy: Clytemnestra, in Iphigenia, calls Agamemnon the executioner of his daughter.

In comedy it is used with great gayety; Mercury in the "Amphitryon" (act i. scene 2), says: "Comment, bourreau! tu fais des cris!"--"How, hangman! thou bellowest!"

And even the Romans permitted themselves to say: "Quorsum vadis, carnifex?"--"Whither goest thou, hangman?"

The Encyclopædia, under the word "Executioner," details all the privileges of the Parisian executioner; but a recent author has gone farther. In a romance on education, not altogether equal to Xenophon's "Cyropædia" or Fénelon's "Telemachus," he pretends that the monarch of a country ought, without hesitation, to bestow the daughter of an executioner in marriage on the heir apparent of the crown, if she has been well educated, and if she is of a sufficiently congruous disposition with the young prince. It is a pity that he has not mentioned the precise sum she should carry with her as a dower, and the honors that should be conferred upon her father on the day of marriage.

It is scarcely possible, with due congruity, to carry further the profound morality, the novel rules of decorum, the exquisite paradoxes, and divine maxims with which the author I speak of has favored and regaled the present age. He would undoubtedly feel the perfect congruity of officiating as bridesman at the wedding. He would compose the princess's epithalamium, and not fail to celebrate the grand exploits of her father. The bride may then possibly impart some acrid kisses; for be it known that this same writer, in another romance called "Héloise," introduces a young Swiss, who had caught a particular disorder in Paris, saying to his mistress, "Keep your kisses to yourself; they are too acrid."

A time will come when it will scarcely be conceived possible that such works should have obtained a sort of celebrity; had the celebrity continued, it would have done no honor to the age. Fathers of families soon made up their minds that it was not exactly decorous to marry their eldest sons to the daughters of executioners, whatever congruity might appear to exist between the lover and the lady. There is a rule in all things, and certain limits which cannot be rationally passed.

Est modus in rebus, sunt certi denique fines, Quos ultra citraque nequit consistere rectum.

EXPIATION.

Dieu fit du repentir la vertu des mortels.

The repentance of man is accepted by God as virtue, and perhaps the finest institution of antiquity was that solemn ceremony which repressed crimes by announcing that they would be punished, and at the same time soothed the despair of the guilty by permitting them to redeem their transgressions by appointed modes of penance. Remorse, it is to be remembered, must necessarily have preceded expiation, for diseases are older than medicine, and necessities than relief.

There was, then, previously to all public and legal forms of worship, a natural and instinctive religion which inflicted grief upon the heart of any one who, through ignorance or passion, had committed an inhuman action. A man in a quarrel has killed his friend, or his brother, or a jealous and frantic lover has taken the life of her without whom he felt as if it were impossible to live. The chief of a nation has condemned to death a virtuous man and useful citizen. Such men, if they retain their senses and sensibility, become overwhelmed by despair. Their consciences pursue and haunt them; two courses only are open to them, reparation or to become hardened in guilt. All who have the slightest feeling remaining choose the former; monsters adopt the latter.

As soon as religion was established, expiations were admitted. The ceremonies attending them were, unquestionably, ridiculous; for what connection is there between the water of the Ganges and a murder? How could a man repair homicide by bathing? We have already commented on the excess of absurdity and insanity which can imagine that what washes the body, washes the soul also, and expunges from it the stain of evil actions.

The water of the Nile had afterwards the same virtue as that of the Ganges; other ceremonies were added to these ablutions. The Egyptians took two he-goats and drew lots which of the two should be cast out loaded with the sins of the guilty. This goat was called Hazazel, the expiator. What connection is there, pray, between a goat and the crime of a human being?

It is certainly true that in after times this ceremony was sanctified among our fathers the Jews, who adopted many of the Egyptian rites; but the souls of the Jews were undoubtedly purified, not by the goat but by repentance.

Jason, having killed Absyrtus, his brother-in-law, went, we are told, with Medea, who was more guilty than himself, to be absolved by Circe, the queen and priestess of Æa, who passed in those days for a most powerful sorceress. Circe absolved them with a sucking pig and salt cakes. This might possibly be a very good dish, but it could neither compensate for the blood of Absyrtus, nor make Jason and Medea more worthy people, unless while eating their pig they also manifested the sincerity of their repentance.

The expiation of Orestes, who had avenged his father by the murder of his mother, consisted in going and stealing a statue from the Tartars of the Crimea. The statue was probably extremely ill executed, and there appeared nothing to be gained by such an enterprise. In later times these things were contrived better: mysteries were invented, and the offenders might obtain absolution at these mysteries by submitting to certain painful trials, and swearing to lead a new life. It is from this oath that the persons taking it had attached to them, among all nations, a name corresponding to that of initiated "qui ineunt vitam novam,"--who begin a new career, who enter upon the path of virtue.

We have seen under the article on "Baptism" that the Christian catechumens were not called initiated till after they had been baptized.

It is indisputable, that persons had not their sins washed away in these mysteries, but by virtue of their oath to become virtuous: the hierophant in all the Grecian mysteries, when dismissing the assembly, pronounced the two Egyptian words, "Koth, ompheth," "watch, be pure"; which at once proves that the mysteries came originally from Egypt, and that they were invented solely for the purpose of making mankind better.

Wise men, we thus see, have, in every age, done all in their power to inspire the love of virtue, and to prevent the weakness of man from sinking under despair; but, at the same time there have existed crimes of such magnitude and horror that no mystery could admit of their expiation. Nero, although an emperor, could not obtain initiation into the mysteries of Ceres. Constantine, according to the narrative of Zosimus, was unable to procure the pardon of his crimes: he was polluted with the blood of his wife, his son, and all his relations. It was necessary, for the protection of the human race, that crimes so flagitious should be deemed incapable of expiation, that the prospect of absolution might not invite to their committal, and that hideous atrocity might be checked by universal horror.

The Roman Catholics have expiations which they call penances. We have seen, under the article on "Austerities," how grossly so salutary an institution has been abused.

According to the laws of the barbarians who subverted the Roman Empire, crimes were expiated by money. This was called compounding: "Let the offender compound by paying ten, twenty, thirty shillings." Two hundred sous constituted the composition price for killing a priest, and four hundred for killing a bishop; so that a bishop was worth exactly two priests.

After having thus compounded with men, God Himself was compounded with, when the practice of confession became generally established. At length Pope John XXII. established a tariff of sins.

The absolution of incest, committed by a layman, cost four livres tournois: "Ab incestu pro laico in foro conscienticæ turonenses quatuor." For a man and woman who have committed incest, eighteen livres tournois, four ducats, and nine carlines. This is certainly unjust; if one person pays only four livres tournois, two persons ought not to pay more than eight.

Even crimes against nature have actually their affixed rates, amounting to ninety livres tournois, twelve ducats, and six carlines: "Cum inhibitione turonenses 90, ducatos 12, carlinos 90," etc.

It is scarcely credible that Leo X. should have been so imprudent as to print this book of rates or indulgences in 1514, which, however, we are assured he did; at the same time it must be considered that no spark had then appeared of that conflagration, kindled afterwards by the reformers; and that the court of Rome reposed implicitly upon the credulity of the people, and neglected to throw even the slightest veil over its impositions. The public sale of indulgences, which soon followed, shows that that court took no precaution whatever to conceal its gross abominations from the various nations which had been so long accustomed to them. When the complaints against the abuses of the Romish church burst forth, it did all in its power to suppress this publication, but all was in vain.

If I may give my opinion upon this book of rates, I must say that I do not believe the editions of it are genuine; the rates are not in any kind of proportion and do not at all coincide with those stated by d'Aubigné, the grandfather of Madame de Maintenon, in the confession of de Sancy. Depriving a woman of her virginity is estimated at six gros, and committing incest with a mother or a sister, at five gros. This is evidently ridiculous. I think that there really was a system of rates or taxes established for those who went to Rome to obtain absolution or purchase dispensations, but that the enemies of the Holy See added largely, in order to increase the odium against it. Consult Bayle, under the articles on "Bank," "Dupinet," "Drelincourt."

It is at least positively certain that these rates were never authorized by any council; that they constituted an enormous abuse, invented by avarice, and respected by those who were interested in its not being abolished. The sellers and the purchasers equally found their account in it; and accordingly none opposed it before the breaking out of the disturbances attending the Reformation. It must be acknowledged that an exact list of all these rates or taxes would be eminently useful in the formation of a history of the human mind.

EXTREME.

We will here attempt to draw from the word "extreme" an idea that may be attended with some utility.

It is every day disputed whether in war success is ascribable to conduct or to fortune.

Whether in diseases, nature or medicine is most operative in healing or destroying.

Whether in law it is not judicious for a man to compromise, although he is in the right, and to defend a cause although he is in the wrong.

Whether the fine arts contribute to the glory or to the decline of a state.

Whether it is wise or injudicious to encourage superstition in a people.

Whether there is any truth in metaphysics, history, or morals.

Whether taste is arbitrary, and whether there is in reality a good and a bad taste.

In order to decide at once all these questions, take an advantage of the extreme cases under each, compare these two extremes, and you will immediately discover the truth.

You wish to know whether success in war can be infallibly decided by conduct; consider the most extreme case, the most opposed situations in which conduct alone will infallibly triumph. The hostile army must necessarily pass through a deep mountain gorge; your commander knows this circumstance; he makes a forced march, gets possession of the heights, and completely encloses the enemy in the defile; there they must either perish or surrender. In this extreme case fortune can have no share in the victory. It is demonstrable, therefore, that skill may decide the success of a campaign, and it hence necessarily follows that war is an art.

Afterwards imagine an advantageous but not a decisive position; success is not certain, but it is exceedingly probable. And thus, from one gradation to another, you arrive at what may be considered a perfect equality between the two armies. Who shall then decide? Fortune; that is, some unexpected circumstance or event; the death of a general officer going to execute some important order; the derangement of a division in consequence of a false report, the operation of sudden panic, or various other causes for which prudence can find no remedy; yet it is still always certain that there is an art, that there is a science in war.

The same must be observed concerning medicine; the art of operating with the head or hand to preserve the life which appears likely to be lost.

The first who applied bleeding as speedily as possible to a patient under apoplexy; the first who conceived the idea of plunging a bistoury into the bladder to extract the stone from it, and of closing up the wound; the first who found out the method of stopping gangrene in any part of the human frame, were undoubtedly men, almost divine, and totally unlike the physicians of Molière.

Descend from this strong and decisive example to cases less striking and more equivocal; you perceive fevers and various other maladies cured without its being possible to ascertain whether this is done by the physician or by nature; you perceive diseases, the issue of which cannot be judged; various physicians are mistaken in their opinions of the seat or nature of them; he who has the acutest genius, the keenest eye, develops the character of the complaint. There is then an art in medicine, and the man of superior mind is acquainted with its niceties. Thus it was that La Peyronie discovered that one of the courtiers had swallowed a sharp bone, which had occasioned an ulcer and endangered his life; and thus also did Boerhaave discover the complaint, as unknown as it was dreadful, of a countess of Wassenaer. There is, therefore, it cannot be doubted, an art in medicine, but in every art there are Virgils and Mæviuses.

In jurisprudence, take a case that is clear, in which the law pronounces decisively; a bill of exchange correctly drawn and regularly accepted; the acceptor is bound to pay it in every country in the world. There is, therefore, a useful jurisprudence, although in innumerable cases sentences are arbitrary, because, to the misery of mankind, the laws are ill-framed.

Would you wish to know whether the fine arts are beneficial to a nation? Compare the two extremes: Cicero and a perfect ignoramus. Decide whether the fall of Rome was owing to Pliny or to Attila.

It is asked whether we should encourage superstition in the people. Consider for a moment what is the greatest extreme on this baleful subject, the massacre of St. Bartholomew, the massacres of Ireland, or the Crusades; and the question is decided.

Is there any truth in metaphysics? Advert to those points which are most striking and true. Something exists; something, therefore, has existed from all eternity. An eternal being exists of himself; this being cannot be either wicked or inconsistent. To these truths we must yield; almost all the rest is open to disputation, and the clearest understanding discovers the truth.

It is in everything else as it is in colors; bad eyes can distinguish between black and white; better eyes, and eyes much exercised, can distinguish every nicer gradation: "Usque adeo quod tangit idem est, tamen ultima distant."

EZEKIEL.

Of Some Singular Passages in This Prophet, and of Certain Ancient Usages.

It is well known that we ought not to judge of ancient usages by modern ones; he that would reform the court of Alcinous in the "Odyssey," upon the model of the Grand Turk, or Louis XIV., would not meet with a very gentle reception from the learned; he who is disposed to reprehend Virgil for having described King Evander covered with a bear's skin and accompanied by two dogs at the introduction of ambassadors, is a contemptible critic.

The manners of the ancient Egyptians and Jews are still more different from ours than those of King Alcinous, his daughter Nausicáa, and the worthy Evander. Ezekiel, when in slavery among the Chaldæans, had a vision near the small river Chobar, which falls into the Euphrates.

We ought not to be in the least astonished at his having seen animals with four faces, four wings, and with calves' feet; or wheels revolving without aid and "instinct with life"; these images are pleasing to the imagination; but many critics have been shocked at the order given him by the Lord to eat, for a period of three hundred and ninety days, bread made of barley, wheat, or millet, covered with human ordure.

The prophet exclaimed in strong disgust, "My soul has not hitherto been polluted"; and the Lord replied, "Well, I will allow you instead of man's ordure to use that of the cow, and with the latter you shall knead your bread."

As it is now unusual to eat a preparation of bread of this description, the greater number of men regard the order in question as unworthy of the Divine Majesty. Yet it must be admitted that cow-dung and all the diamonds of the great Mogul are perfectly equal, not only in the eyes of a Divine Being, but in those of a true philosopher; and, with regard to the reasons which God might have for ordering the prophet this repast, we have no right to inquire into them. It is enough for us to see that commands which appear to us very strange, did not appear so to the Jews.

It must be admitted that the synagogue, in the time of St. Jerome, did not suffer "Ezekiel" to be read before the age of thirty; but this was because, in the eighteenth chapter, he says that the son shall not bear the iniquity of his father, and it shall not be any longer said the fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge.

This expression was considered in direct contradiction to Moses, who, in the twenty-eighth chapter of "Numbers," declares that the children bear the iniquity of the fathers, even to the third and fourth generation.

Ezekiel, again, in the twentieth chapter, makes the Lord say that He has given to the Jews precepts which are not good. Such are the reasons for which the synagogue forbade young people reading an author likely to raise doubts on the irrefragability of the laws of Moses.

The censorious critics of the present day are still more astonished with the sixteenth chapter of Ezekiel. In that chapter he thus takes it upon him to expose the crimes of the city of Jerusalem. He introduces the Lord speaking to a young woman; and the Lord said to her, "When thou wast born, thy navel string was not cut, thou wast not salted, thou wast quite naked, I had pity on thee; thou didst increase in stature, thy breasts were fashioned, thy hair was grown, I passed by thee, I observed thee, I knew that the time of lovers was come, I covered thy shame, I spread my skirt over thee; thou becamest mine; I washed and perfumed thee, and dressed and shod thee well; I gave thee a scarf of linen, and bracelets, and a chain for thy neck; I placed a jewel in thy nose, pendants in thy ears, and a crown upon thy head."

"Then, confiding in thy beauty, thou didst in the height of thy renown, play the harlot with every passer-by.... And thou hast built a high place of profanation ... and thou hast prostituted thyself in public places, and opened thy feet to every one that passed ... and thou hast committed fornication with the Egyptians ... and finally thou hast paid thy lovers and made them presents, that they might lie with thee ... and by hiring them, instead of being hired, thou hast done differently from other harlots.... The proverb is, as is the mother, so is the daughter, and that proverb is used of thee," etc.

Still more are they exasperated on the subject of the twenty-third chapter. A mother had two daughters, who early lost their virginity. The elder was called Ahola, and the younger Aholibah.... "Aholah committed fornication with young lords and captains, and lay with the Egyptians from her early youth.... Aholibah, her sister, committed still greater fornication with officers and rulers and well-made cavaliers; she discovered her shame, she multiplied her fornications, she sought eagerly for the embraces of those whose flesh was as that of asses, and whose issue was as that of horses."

These descriptions, which so madden weak minds, signify, in fact, no more than the iniquities of Jerusalem and Samaria; these expressions, which appear to us licentious, were not so then. The same vivacity is displayed in many other parts of Scripture without the slightest apprehension. Opening the womb is very frequently mentioned. The terms made use of to express the union of Boaz with Ruth, and of Judah with his daughter-in-law, are not indelicate in the Hebrew language, but would be so in our own.

People who are not ashamed of nakedness, never cover it with a veil. In the times under consideration, no blush could have been raised by the mention of particular parts of the frame of man, as they were actually touched by the person who bound himself by any promise to another; it was a mark of respect, a symbol of fidelity, as formerly among ourselves, feudal lords put their hands between those of their sovereign.

We have translated the term adverted to by the word "thigh." Eliezer puts his hand under Abraham's thigh. Joseph puts his hand under the thigh of Jacob. This custom was very ancient in Egypt. The Egyptians were so far from attaching any disgrace to what we are desirous as much as possible to conceal and avoid the mention of, that they bore in procession a large and characteristic image, called Phallus, in order to thank the gods for making the human frame so instrumental in the perpetuation of the human species.

All this affords sufficient proof that our sense of decorum and propriety is different from that of other nations. When do the Romans appear to have been more polished than in the time of Augustus? Yet Horace scruples not to say, in one of his moral pieces: "Nec metuo, ne dum futuo vir rure recurrat" (Satire II., book i., v. 127.) Augustus uses the same expression in an epigram on Fulvia.

The man who should among us pronounce the expression in our language corresponding to it, would be regarded as a drunken porter; that word, as well as various others used by Horace and other authors, appears to us even more indecent than the expressions of Ezekiel. Let us then do away with our prejudices when we read ancient authors, or travel among distant nations. Nature is the same everywhere, and usages are everywhere different.

I once met at Amsterdam a rabbi quite brimful of this chapter. "Ah! my friend," says he, "how very much we are obliged to you. You have displayed all the sublimity of the Mosaic law, Ezekiel's breakfast; his delightful left-sided attitudes; Aholah and Aholibah are admirable things; they are types, my brother--types which show that one day the Jewish people will be masters of the whole world; but why did you admit so many others which are nearly of equal strength? Why did not you represent the Lord saying to the sage Hosea, in the second verse of the first chapter, 'Hosea, take to thyself a harlot, and make to her the children of a harlot?' Such are the very words. Hosea takes the young woman and has a son by her, and afterwards a daughter, and then again a son; and it was a type, and that type lasted three years. That is not all; the Lord says in the third chapter, 'Go and take to thyself a woman who is not merely a harlot, but an adulteress.' Hosea obeyed, but it cost him fifteen crowns and eighteen bushels of barley; for, you know, there was very little wheat in the land of promise--but are you aware of the meaning of all this?" "No," said I to him. "Nor I neither," said the rabbi.

A grave person then advanced towards us and said they were ingenious fictions and abounding in exquisite beauty. "Ah, sir," remarked a young man, "if you are inclined for fictions, give the preference to those of Homer, Virgil, and Ovid." He who prefers the prophecies of Ezekiel deserves to breakfast with him.

FABLE.

It is very likely that the more ancient fables, in the style of those attributed to Æsop, were invented by the first subjugated people. Free men would not have had occasion to disguise the truth; a tyrant can scarcely be spoken to except in parables; and at present, even this is a dangerous liberty.

It might also very well happen that men naturally liking images and tales, ingenious persons amused themselves with composing them, without any other motive. However that may be, fable is more ancient than history.

Among the Jews, who are quite a modern people in comparison with the Chaldæans and Tyrians, their neighbors, but very ancient by their own accounts, fables similar to those of Æsop existed in the time of the Judges, 1233 years before our era, if we may depend upon received computations.

It is said in the Book of Judges that Gideon had seventy sons born of his many wives; and that, by a concubine, he had another son named Abimelech.

Now, this Abimelech slew sixty-nine of his brethren upon one stone, according to Jewish custom, and in consequence the Jews, full of respect and admiration, went to crown him king, under an oak near Millo, a city which is but little known in history.

Jotham alone, the youngest of the brothers, escaped the carnage--as it always happens in ancient histories--and harangued the Israelites, telling them that the trees went one day to choose a king; we do not well see how they could march, but if they were able to speak, they might just as well be able to walk. They first addressed themselves to the olive, saying, "Reign thou over us." The olive replied, "I will not quit the care of my oil to be promoted over you." The fig-tree said that he liked his figs better than the trouble of the supreme power. The vine gave the preference to its grapes. At last the trees addressed themselves to the bramble, which answered: "If in truth ye anoint one king over you, then come and put your trust in my shadow; and if not, let fire come out of the bramble and devour the cedars of Lebanon."

It is true that this fable falsifies throughout, because fire cannot come from a bramble, but it shows the antiquity of the use of fables.

That of the belly and the members, which calmed a tumult in Rome about two thousand three hundred years ago, is ingenious and without fault. The more ancient the fables the more allegorical they were.

Is not the ancient fable of Venus, as related by Hesiod, entirely a fable of nature? This Venus is the goddess of beauty. Beauty ceases to be lovely if unaccompanied by the graces. Beauty produces love. Love has features which pierce all hearts; he wears a bandage, which conceals the faults of those beloved. He has wings; he comes quickly and flies away the same.

Wisdom is conceived in the brain of the chief of the gods, under the name of Minerva. The soul of man is a divine fire, which Minerva shows to Prometheus, who makes use of this divine fire to animate mankind.

It is impossible, in these fables, not to recognize a lively picture of pure nature. Most other fables are either corruptions of ancient histories or the caprices of the imagination. It is with ancient fables as with our modern tales; some convey charming morals, and others very insipid ones.

The ingenious fables of the ancients have been grossly imitated by an unenlightened race--witness those of Bacchus, Hercules, Prometheus, Pandora, and many others, which were the amusement of the ancient world. The barbarians, who confusedly heard them spoken of, adopted them into their own savage mythology, and afterwards it is pretended that they invented them. Alas! poor unknown and ignorant people, who knew no art either useful or agreeable--to whom even the name of geometry was unknown--dare you say that you have invented anything? You have not known either how to discover truth, or to lie adroitly.

The most elegant Greek fable was that of Psyche; the most pleasant, that of the Ephesian matron. The prettiest among the moderns is that of Folly, who, having put out Love's eyes, is condemned to be his guide.

The fables attributed to Æsop are all emblems; instructions to the weak, to guard them as much as possible against the snares of the strong. All nations, possessing a little wisdom, have adopted them. La Fontaine has treated them with the most elegance. About eighty of them are masterpieces of simplicity, grace, finesse, and sometimes even of poetry. It is one of the advantages of the age of Louis XIV. to have produced a La Fontaine. He has so well discovered, almost without seeking it, the art of making one read, that he has had a greater reputation in France than genius itself.

Boileau has never reckoned him among those who did honor to the great age of Louis XIV.; his reason or his pretext was that he had never invented anything. What will better bear out Boileau is the great number of errors in language and the incorrectness of style; faults which La Fontaine might have avoided, and which this severe critic could not pardon. His grasshopper, for instance, having sung all the summer, went to beg from the ant, her neighbor, in the winter, telling her, on the word of an animal, that she would pay her principal and interest before midsummer. The ant replies: "You sang, did you? I am glad of it; then now dance."

His astrologer, again, who falling into a ditch while gazing at the stars, was asked: "Poor wretch! do you expect to be able to read things so much above you?" Yet Copernicus, Galileo, Cassini, and Halley have read the heavens very well; and the best astronomer that ever existed might fall into a ditch without being a poor wretch.

Judicial astrology is indeed ridiculous charlatanism, but the ridiculousness does not consist in regarding the heavens; it consists in believing, or in making believe, that you read what is not there. Several of these fables, either ill chosen or badly written, certainly merit the censure of Boileau.

Nothing is more insipid than the fable of the drowned woman, whose corpse was sought contrary to the course of the river, because in her lifetime she had always been contrary.

The tribute sent by the animals to King Alexander is a fable, which is not the better for being ancient. The animals sent no money, neither did the lion advise them to steal it.

The satyr who received a peasant into his hut should not have turned him out on seeing that he blew his fingers because he was cold; and afterwards, on taking the dish between his teeth, that he blew his pottage because it was hot. The man was quite right, and the satyr was a fool. Besides, we do not take hold of dishes with our teeth.

The crab-mother, who reproached her daughter with not walking straight; and the daughter, who answered that her mother walked crooked, is not an agreeable fable.

The bush and the duck, in commercial partnership with the bat, having counters, factors, agents, paying principal and interest, etc., has neither truth, nature, nor any kind of merit.

A bush which goes with a bat into foreign countries to trade is one of those cold and unnatural inventions which La Fontaine should not have adopted. A house full of dogs and cats, living together like cousins and quarrelling for a dish of pottage, seems also very unworthy of a man of taste.

The chattering magpie is still worse. The eagle tells her that he declines her company because she talks too much. On which La Fontaine remarks that it is necessary at court to wear two faces.

Where is the merit of the fable of the kite presented by a bird-catcher to a king, whose nose he had seized with his claws? The ape who married a Parisian girl and beat her is an unfortunate story presented to La Fontaine, and which he has been so unfortunate as to put into verse.

Such fables as these; and some others, may doubtless justify Boileau; it might even happen that La Fontaine could not distinguish the bad fables from the good.

Madame de la Sablière called La Fontaine a fabulist, who bore fables as naturally as a plum-tree bears plums. It is true that he had only one style, and that he wrote an opera in the style of his fables.

Notwithstanding all this, Boileau should have rendered justice to the singular merit of the good man, as he calls him, and to the public, who are right in being enchanted with the style of many of his fables.

La Fontaine was not an original or a sublime writer, a man of established taste, or one of the first geniuses of a brilliant era; and it is a very remarkable fault in him that he speaks not his own language correctly. He is in this respect very inferior to Phaedrus, but he was a man unique in the excellent pieces that he has left us. They are very numerous, and are in the mouths of all those who have been respectably brought up; they contribute even to their education. They will descend to posterity; they are adapted for all men and for all times, while those of Boileau suit only men of letters.

Of Those Fanatics Who Would Suppress the Ancient Fables.

There is among those whom we call Jansenists a little sect of hard and empty heads, who would suppress the beautiful fables of antiquity, to substitute St. Prosper in the place of Ovid, and Santeuil in that of Horace. If they were attended to, our pictures would no longer represent Iris on the rainbow, or Minerva with her aegis; but instead of them, we should have Nicholas and Arnauld fighting against the Jesuits and Protestants; Mademoiselle Perrier cured of sore eyes by a thorn from the crown of Jesus Christ, brought from Jerusalem to Port Royal; Counsellor Carré de Montgeron presenting the account of St. Médard to Louis XV.; and St. Ovid resuscitating little boys.

In the eyes of these austere sages, Fénelon was only an idolater, who, following the example of the impious poem of the "Æneid," introduced the child Cupid with the nymph Eucharis.

Pluche, at the end of his fable of the Heavens, entitled "Their History," writes a long dissertation to prove that it is shameful to have tapestry worked in figures taken from Ovid's "Metamorphoses"; and that Zephyrus and Flora, Vertumnus and Pomona, should be banished from the gardens of Versailles. He exhorts the school of belles-lettres to oppose itself to this bad taste; which reform alone, he says, is capable of re-establishing the belles-lettres.

Other puritans, more severe than sage a little time ago, would have proscribed the ancient mythology as a collection of puerile tales, unworthy the acknowledged gravity of our manners. It would, however, be a pity to burn Ovid, Horace, Hesiod, our fine tapestry pictures and our opera. If we were spared the familiar stories of Æsop, why lay hands on those sublime fables, which have been respected by mankind, whom they have instructed? They are mingled with many insipidities, no doubt, but what good is without an alloy? All ages will adopt Pandora's box, at the bottom of which was found man's only consolation--hope; Jupiter's two vessels, which unceasingly poured forth good and evil; the cloud embraced by Ixion, which is the emblem and punishment of an ambitious man; and the death of Narcissus, which is the punishment of self-love. What is more sublime than the image of Minerva, the goddess of wisdom, formed in the head of the master of the gods? What is more true and agreeable than the goddess of beauty, always accompanied by the graces? The goddesses of the arts, all daughters of memory--do they not teach us, as well as Locke, that without memory we cannot possess either judgment or wit? The arrows of Love, his fillet, and his childhood; Flora, caressed by Zephyrus, etc.--are they not all sensible personifications of pure nature? These fables have survived the religions which consecrated them. The temples of the gods of Egypt, Greece, and Rome are no more, but Ovid still exists. Objects of credulity may be destroyed, but not those of pleasure; we shall forever love these true and lively images. Lucretius did not believe in these fabulous gods, but he celebrated nature under the name of Venus.

Alma Venus cœli subter labentia signa Quæ mare navigerum, quæ terras frugiferentes Concelebras, per te quoniam genus omne animantum Concipitur, visitque exortum lumina solis, etc.

Kind Venus, glory of the blest abodes, Parent of Rome, and joy of men and gods; Delight of all, comfort of sea and earth, To whose kind power all creatures owe their birth, etc. --CREECH.

If antiquity in its obscurity was led to acknowledge divinity in its images, how is it to be blamed? The productive soul of the world was adored by the sages; it governed the sea under the name of Neptune, the air under the image of Juno, and the country under that of Pan. It was the divinity of armies under the name of Mars; all these attributes were animated personifications. Jupiter was the only god. The golden chain with which he bound the inferior gods and men was a striking image of the unity of a sovereign being. The people were deceived, but what are the people to us?

It is continually asked why the Greek and Roman magistrates permitted the divinities whom they adored in their temples to be ridiculed on their stage? This is a false supposition. The gods were not mocked in their theatres, but the follies attributed to these gods by those who had corrupted the ancient mythology. The consuls and prætors found it good to treat the adventure of the two Sosias wittily, but they would not have suffered the worship of Jupiter and Mercury to be attacked before the people. It is thus that a thousand things which appear contradictory are not so in reality. I have seen, in the theatre of a learned and witty nation, pieces taken from the Golden Legend; will it, on that account, be said that this nation permits its objects of religion to be insulted? It need not be feared we shall become Pagans for having heard the opera of Proserpine at Paris, or for having seen the nuptials of Psyche, painted by Raphael, in the pope's palace at Rome. Fable forms the taste, but renders no person idolatrous.

The beautiful fables of antiquity have also this great advantage over history: they are lessons of virtue, while almost all history narrates the success of vice. Jupiter in the fable descends upon earth to punish Tantalus and Lycaon; but in history our Tantaluses and Lycaons are the gods of the earth. Baucis and Philemon had their cabin changed into a temple; our Baucises and Philemons are obliged to sell, for the collector of the taxes, those kettles which, in Ovid, the gods changed into vases of gold.

I know how much history can instruct us and how necessary it is to know it; but it requires much ingenuity to be able to draw from it any rules for individual conduct. Those who know politics only through books will be often reminded of those lines of Corneille, which observe that examples will seldom suffice for our guidance, as it often happens that one person perishes by the very expedient which has proved the salvation of another.

Les exemples recens suffiraient pour m'instruire Si par l'exemple seul on devait se conduire; Mais souvent l'un se perd où l'autre s'est sauvé, Et par où l'un périt, un autre est conservé.

Henry VIII., the tyrant of his parliament, his ministers and his wives, of consciences and purses, lived and died peaceably. Charles I. perished on the scaffold. Margaret of Anjou in vain waged war in person a dozen times with the English, the subjects of her husband, while William III. drove James II. from England without a battle. In our days we have seen the royal family of Persia murdered, and strangers upon the throne.

To look at events only, history seems to accuse Providence, and fine moral fables justify it. It is clear that both the useful and agreeable may be discovered in them, however exclaimed against by those who are neither the one nor the other. Let them talk on, and let us read Homer and Ovid, as well as Titus Livius and Rapin de Thoyras. Taste induces preferences and fanaticism exclusions. The arts are united, and those who would separate them know nothing about them. History teaches us what we are--fable what we ought to be.

Tous les arts sont amis, ainsi qu ils sont divins; Qui veut les séparer est loin de les connaître. L'histoire nous apprend ce que sont les humains, La fable ce qu ils doivent être.

FACTION.

On the Meaning of the Word.

The word "faction" comes from the Latin "facere"; it is employed to signify the state of a soldier at his post, on duty (en faction), squadrons or troops of combatants in the circus; green, blue, red, and white factions.

The acceptation in which the term is generally used is that of a seditious party in the state. The term "party" in itself implies nothing that is odious, that of faction is always odious.

A great man, and even a man possessing only mediocrity of talent, may easily have a party at court, in the army, in the city, or in literature. A man may have a party in consequence of his merit, in consequence of the zeal and number of his friends, without being the head of a party. Marshal Catinat, although little regarded at court, had a large party in the army without making any effort to obtain it.

A head of a party is always a head of a faction; such were Cardinal Retz, Henry, duke of Guise, and various others. A seditious party, while it is yet weak and has no influence in the government, is only a faction.

Cæsar's faction speedily became a dominant party, which swallowed up the republic. When the emperor Charles VI. disputed the throne of Spain with Philip V. he had a party in that kingdom, and at length he had no more than a faction in it. Yet we may always be allowed to talk of the "party" of Charles VI.

It is different with respect to private persons. Descartes for a long time had a party in France; it would be incorrect to say he had a faction. Thus we perceive that words in many cases synonymous cease to be so in others.

FACULTY.

All the powers of matter and mind are faculties; and, what is still worse, faculties of which we know nothing, perfectly occult qualities; to begin with motion, of which no one has discovered the origin.

When the president of the faculty of medicine in the "Malade Imaginaire," asks Thomas Diafoirus: "Quare opium facit dormire?"--Why does opium cause sleep? Thomas very pertinently replies, "Quia est in eo virtus dormitiva quæ facit sopire."--Because it possesses a dormitive power producing sleep. The greatest philosophers cannot speak more to the purpose.

The honest chevalier de Jaucourt acknowledges, under the article on "Sleep," that it is impossible to go beyond conjecture with respect to the cause of it. Another Thomas, and in much higher reverence than his bachelor namesake in the comedy, has, in fact, made no other reply to all the questions which are started throughout his immense volumes.

It is said, under the article on "Faculty," in the grand "Encyclopædia," "that the vital faculty once established in the intelligent principle by which we are animated, it may be easily conceived that the faculty, stimulated by the expressions which the vital sensorium transmits to part of the common sensorium, determines the alternate influx of the nervous fluid into the fibres which move the vital organs in order to produce the alternate contradiction of those organs."

This amounts precisely to the answer of the young physician Thomas: "Quia est in eo virtus alterniva quæ facit alternare." And Thomas Diafoirus has at least the merit of being shortest.

The faculty of moving the foot when we wish to do so, of recalling to mind past events, or of exercising our five senses; in short, any and all of our faculties will admit of no further or better explanation than that of Diafoirus.

But consider thought! say those who understand the whole secret. Thought, which distinguishes man from all animals besides: "Sanctius his animal, mentisque capacius altæ." (Ovid's Metamorph. i. 76.)--More holy man, of more exalted mind!

As holy as you like; it is on this subject, that of thought or mind, that Diafoirus is more triumphant than ever. All would reply in accordance with him: "Quia est in eo virtus pensativa quæ facit pensare." No one will ever develop the mysterious process by which he thinks.

The case we are considering then might be extended to everything in nature. I know not whether there may not be found in this profound and unfathomable gulf of mystery an evidence of the existence of a Supreme Being. There is a secret in the originating or conservatory principles of all beings, from a pebble on the seashore to Saturn's Ring and the Milky Way. But how can there be a secret which no one knows? It would seem that some being must exist who can develop all.

Some learned men, with a view to enlighten our ignorance, tell us that we must form systems; that we shall at last find the secret out. But we have so long sought without obtaining any explanation that disgust against further search has very naturally succeeded. That, say they, is the mere indolence of philosophy; no, it is the rational repose of men who have exerted themselves and run an active race in vain. And after all, it must be admitted that indolent philosophy is far preferable to turbulent divinity and metaphysical delusion.

FAITH.