After a short period of peace at Clairvaux, he had to hurry off again to Italy on account of the defection of the influential monastery of Monte Casino to Anacletus.

Not long after his last return from Italy, Bernard met Pierre Abelard. This brilliant and unfortunate man had incurred the charge of heresy, and at some time in the year 1139 Bernard was induced to meet and confer with him. Nothing seems to have resulted from the conference, for Abelard went in 1140 to the Bishop of Sens and demanded an opportunity of being confronted with Bernard at an approaching synod. The abbot of Clairvaux, although unwilling, was at last persuaded to accept the challenge. Louis VII., King of France, Count Theobald of Champagne, and the nobles of the realm assembled to witness the notable contest. Abelard came with a brilliant following; but on the second day of the synod, to the surprise of everybody, he abruptly closed the proceeding by appealing to Rome. The works of Abelard were condemned, but his appeal and person were respected, and Bernard prepared a strong condemnatory letter to be sent to the Pope. As the great scholar was on his way to Rome to follow his appeal, he stayed to rest at Cluny with Peter the Venerable, who persuaded him to go to Bernard. When the two great hearts met in the quiet of Clairvaux, all animosities were resolved in peace; and Abelard, returning to Cluny, abandoned his appeal and observed the rule of the house until his death, which he endured, as Peter the Venerable wrote to Heloise, fully prepared and comforted, at Chalons in 1142.

The infidels of the East having taken Edessa in 1146, the power of the Christians in the Holy Land was broken; and Eugenius III., who had been a monk of Clairvaux, appointed Bernard to preach a new crusade. He set on foot a vast host under the personal leadership of Louis VII. and Conrad the Emperor, accompanied by Queen Eleanor and many noble ladies of both realms. The ill fortunes which attended this war brought to Bernard the greatest bitterness of his life. So signal was the failure of the Second Crusade, that but a pitiful remnant of the brilliant army which had crossed the Bosphorus returned to Europe, and Bernard was assailed with execration from hut and castle throughout the length of Europe. His only answer was as gentle as his life: "Better that I be blamed than God." He did not neglect, however, to point out that the evil lives and excesses of those who attempted the Crusade were the real causes of the failure of the Christian arms.

In Languedoc in 1147 he quelled a dangerous heresy, and silenced Gilbert, bishop of Poitiers, at the Council of Rheims.

In 1148 Malachy, Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of Ireland, who nine years before had visited Clairvaux and formed a lasting friendship for Bernard, came there again to die in the arms of his friend. It is related that the two saints had exchanged habits upon the first visit, and that Malachy wore that of Bernard on his death-bed. The funeral sermon preached by Bernard upon the life and virtue of his Irish comrade is reputed to be one of the finest extant. It seemed as if the Gael had come to show the Goth the way of death. Bernard's health, early broken by self-imposed austerity and penances, had never been robust, and it had often seemed that nothing but the vigor of his will had kept him from the grave. In the year 1153 he was stricken with a fatal illness. Yet when the archbishop of Treves came to his bedside, imploring his aid to put an end to an armed quarrel between the nobles and the people of Metz, he went cheerfully but feebly to the field between the contending parties, and by words which came with pain and in the merest whispers, he persuaded the men who were already at each other's throats to forget their enmities.

He died at Clairvaux on January 12th, 1153, and was buried, as he wished, in the habit of Saint Malachy. In 1174 he was sainted, and his life is honored in the liturgy of the church on the 20th of August.

The marks of Saint Bernard's character were sweetness and gentle tolerance in the presence of honest opposition, and implacable vigor against shams and evil-doing. His was the perfect type of well-regulated individual judgment. His humility and love of poverty were true and unalterable. In Italy he refused the mitres of Genoa and Milan in turn, and in France successively declined the sees of Chalons, Langres, and Rheims. He wrote and spoke with simplicity and directness, and with an energy and force of conviction which came from absolute command of his subject. He did not disdain to use a good-tempered jest as occasion required, and his words afford some pleasant examples of naive puns. He was a tireless letter-writer, and some of his best writings are in that form. He devoted much labor to his sermons on the Canticle of Canticles, the work remaining unfinished at his death. He wrote a long poem on the Passion, one beautiful hymn of which is included in the Roman Breviary.

SAINT BERNARD'S HYMN

Jesu! the very thought of thee With sweetness fills my breast, But sweeter far thy face to see And in thy presence rest.

Nor voice can sing nor heart can frame, Nor can the memory find, A sweeter sound than thy blest name, O Savior of mankind!

O hope of every contrite heart! O joy of all the meek! To those who fall, how kind thou art, How good to those who seek!

But what to those who find? Ah, this Nor tongue nor pen can show. The love of Jesus, what it is None but his loved ones know.

Jesu! our only joy be thou, As thou our prize wilt be! Jesu! be thou our glory now And through eternity!

MONASTIC LUXURY

From the Apology to the Abbot William of St. Thierry

There is no conversation concerning the Scriptures, none concerning the salvation of souls; but small-talk, laughter, and idle words fill the air. At dinner the palate and ears are equally tickled—the one with dainties, the other with gossip and news, which together quite prevent all moderation in feeding. In the mean time dish after dish is set on the table; and to make up for the small privation of meat, a double supply is provided of well-grown fish. When you have eaten enough of the first, if you taste the second course, you will seem to yourself hardly to have touched the former: such is the art of the cooks, that after four or five dishes have been devoured, the first does not seem to be in the way of the last, nor does satiety invade the appetite.... Who could say, to speak of nothing else, in how many forms eggs are cooked and worked up? with what care they are turned in and out, made hard or soft, or chopped fine; now fried, now roasted, now stuffed; now they are served mixed with other things, now by themselves. Even the external appearance of the dishes is such that the eye, as well as the taste, is charmed....

Not only have we lost the spirit of the old monasteries, but even its outward appearance. For this habit of ours, which of old was the sign of humility, by the monks of our day is turned into a source of pride. We can hardly find in a whole province wherewithal we condescend to be clothed. The monk and the knight cut their garments, the one his cowl, the other his cloak, from the same piece. No secular person, however great, whether king or emperor, would be disgusted at our vestments if they were only cut and fitted to his requirements. But, say you, religion is in the heart, not in the garments? True; but you, when you are about to buy a cowl, rush over the towns, visit the markets, examine the fairs, dive into the houses of the merchants, turn over all their goods, undo their bundles of cloth, feel it with your fingers, hold it to your eyes or to the rays of the sun, and if anything coarse or faded appears, you reject it. But if you are pleased with any object of unusual beauty or brightness, you at once buy it, whatever the price. I ask you, Does this come from the heart, or your simplicity?

I wonder that our abbots allow these things, unless it arises from the fact that no one is apt to blame any error with confidence if he cannot trust in his own freedom from the same; and it is a right human quality to forgive without much anger those self-indulgences in others for which we ourselves have the strongest inclination. How is the light of the world overshadowed! Those whose lives should have been the way of life to us, by the example they give of pride, become blind leaders of the blind. What a specimen of humility is that, to march with such pomp and retinue, to be surrounded with such an escort of hairy men, so that one abbot has about him people enough for two bishops. I lie not when I say, I have seen an abbot with sixty horses after him, and even more. Would you not think, as you see them pass, that they were not fathers of monasteries, but lords of castles—not shepherds of souls, but princes of provinces? Then there is the baggage, containing table-cloths, and cups and basins, and candlesticks, and well-filled wallets—not with the coverlets, but the ornaments of the beds. My lord abbot can never go more than four leagues from his home without taking all his furniture with him, as if he were going to the wars, or about to cross a desert where necessaries cannot be had. Is it quite impossible to wash one's hands in, and drink from, the same vessel? Will not your candle burn anywhere but in that gold or silver candlestick of yours, which you carry with you? Is sleep impossible except upon a variegated mattress, or under a foreign coverlet? Could not one servant harness the mule, wait at dinner, and make the bed? If such a multitude of men and horses is indispensable, why not at least carry with us our necessaries, and thus avoid the severe burden we are to our hosts?...



By the sight of wonderful and costly vanities men are prompted to give, rather than to pray. Some beautiful picture of a saint is exhibited—and the brighter the colors the greater the holiness attributed to it: men run, eager to kiss; they are invited to give, and the beautiful is more admired than the sacred is revered. In the churches are suspended, not coronae, but wheels studded with gems and surrounded by lights, which are scarcely brighter than the precious stones which are near them. Instead of candlesticks, we behold great trees of brass fashioned with wonderful skill, and glittering as much through their jewels as their lights. What do you suppose is the object of all this? The repentance of the contrite, or the admiration of the gazers? O vanity of vanities! but not more vain than foolish. The church's walls are resplendent, but the poor are not there.... The curious find wherewith to amuse themselves; the wretched find no stay for them in their misery. Why at least do we not reverence the images of the saints, with which the very pavement we walk on is covered? Often an angel's mouth is spit into, and the face of some saint trodden on by passers-by.... But if we cannot do without the images, why can we not spare the brilliant colors? What has all this to do with monks, with professors of poverty, with men of spiritual minds?

Again, in the cloisters, what is the meaning of those ridiculous monsters, of that deformed beauty, that beautiful deformity, before the very eyes of the brethren when reading? What are disgusting monkeys there for, or satyrs, or ferocious lions, or monstrous centaurs, or spotted tigers, or fighting soldiers, or huntsmen sounding the bugle? You may see there one head with many bodies, or one body with numerous heads. Here is a quadruped with a serpent's tail; there is a fish with a beast's head; there a creature, in front a horse, behind a goat; another has horns at one end, and a horse's tail at the other. In fact, such an endless variety of forms appears everywhere, that it is more pleasant to read in the stonework than in books, and to spend the day in admiring these oddities than in meditating on the law of God. Good God! if we are not ashamed of these absurdities, why do we not grieve at the cost of them?

FROM HIS SERMON ON THE DEATH OF GERARD

"As the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon."—Sol. Song i. 5

Perhaps both members of the comparison—viz., "As the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon"—refer only to the first words, "I am black." It may be, however, that the simile is extended to both clauses, and each is compared with each. The former sense is the more simple, the latter the more obscure. Let us try both, beginning with the latter, which seems the more difficult. There is no difficulty, however, in the first comparison, "I am black as the tents of Kedar," but only in the last. For Kedar, which is interpreted to mean "darkness" or "gloom," may be compared with blackness justly enough; but the curtains of Solomon are not so easily likened to beauty. Moreover, who does not see that "tents" fit harmoniously with the comparison? For what is the meaning of "tents" except our bodies, in which we sojourn for a time? Nor have we an abiding city, but we seek one to come. In our bodies, as under tents, we carry on warfare. Truly, we are violent to take the kingdom. Indeed, the life of man here on earth is a warfare; and as long as we do battle in this body, we are absent from the Lord,—i.e., from the light. For the Lord is light; and so far as any one is not in Him, so far he is in darkness, i.e., in Kedar. Let each one then acknowledge the sorrowful exclamation as his own:—"Woe is me that my sojourn is prolonged! I have dwelt with those who dwell in Kedar. My soul hath long sojourned in a strange land." Therefore this habitation of the body is not the mansion of the citizen, nor the house of the native, but either the soldier's tent or the traveler's inn. This body, I say, is a tent, and a tent of Kedar, because, by its interference, it prevents the soul from beholding the infinite light, nor does it allow her to see the light at all, except through a glass darkly, and not face to face.

Do you not see whence blackness comes to the Church—whence a certain rust cleaves to even the fairest souls? Doubtless it comes from the tents of Kedar, from the practice of laborious warfare, from the long continuance of a painful sojourn, from the straits of our grievous exile, from our feeble, cumbersome bodies; for the corruptible body presseth down the soul, and the earthly tabernacle weigheth down the mind that museth upon many things. Therefore the souls' desire to be loosed, that being freed from the body they may fly into the embraces of Christ. Wherefore one of the miserable ones said, groaning, "O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death!" For a soul of this kind knoweth that, while in the tents of Kedar, she cannot be entirely free from spot or wrinkle, nor from stains of blackness, and wishes to go forth and to put them off. And here we have the reason why the spouse calls herself black as the tents of Kedar. But now, how is she beautiful as the curtains of Solomon? Behind these curtains I feel that an indescribable holiness and sublimity are veiled, which I dare not presume to touch, save at the command of Him who shrouded and sealed the mystery. For I have read, He that is a searcher of Majesty shall be overwhelmed with the glory. I pass on therefore. It will devolve on you, meanwhile, to obtain grace by your prayers, that we may the more readily, because more confidently, recur to a subject which needs attentive minds; and it may be that the pious knocker at the door will discover what the bold explorer seeks in vain.



BERNARD OF CLUNY

Twelfth Century

BY WILLIAM C. PRIME

Little is known concerning the monk Bernard, sometimes called Bernard of Morlay and sometimes Bernard of Cluny. The former name is probably derived from the place of his origin, the latter from the fact that in the introduction to his poem 'De Contemptu Mundi' he describes himself as a brother of the monks of Cluny. He lived in the twelfth century, a period of much learning in the church; and that he was himself a man of broad scholarship and brilliant abilities, the Latin poem, his only surviving work, abundantly testifies.

This poem, divided into three books, consists in all of about three thousand lines. It is introduced by a short address in prose to Father Peter, the abbot of the monastery, in which the author describes the peculiar operations of his mind in undertaking and accomplishing his marvelous poem. He believes and asserts, "not arrogantly, but in all humility and therefore boldly," that he had divine aid. "Unless the spirit of wisdom and understanding had been with me and filled me, I had never been able to construct so long a work in such a difficult metre."

This metre is peculiar. In technical terms each line consists of three parts: the first part including two dactyls, the second part two dactyls, the third part one dactyl and one trochee. The final trochee, a long and a short syllable, rhymes with the following or preceding line. There is also a rhyme, in each line, of the second dactyl with the fourth. This will be made plain to the ordinary reader by quoting the first two lines of the poem, divided into feet:—

Hora no vissima tempora pessima sunt, vigi lemus; Ecce mi naciter imminet arbiter ille su premus.

The adoption of such a metre would seem to be a clog on flexibility and force of expression. But in this poem it is not so. The author rejoices in absolute freedom of diction. The rhythm and rhyme alike lend themselves to the uses, now of bitter satire and revilings, now of overpowering hope and exultant joy.

The title scarcely gives an idea of the subject-matter of the poem. The old Benedictine, living for the time in his cell, had nevertheless known the world of his day, had lived in it and been of it. To him it seemed an evil world, full of crimes, of moils, of deceits, of abominations; the Church seemed corrupt, venal, shameless, and Rome the centre and the soul of this accursed world. Pondering on these conditions, the monk turned his weary gaze toward the celestial country, the country of purity and peace, and to the King on his throne, the centre and source of eternal beatitude. The contrast, on which he dwelt for a long time, filled him on the one hand with burning indignation, on the other with entrancing visions and longings.

At last he broke out into magnificent poetry. It is not possible to translate him into any other language than the Latin in which he wrote, and preserve any of the grandeur and beauty which result from the union of ardent thought with almost miraculous music of language. Dr. Neale aptly speaks of the majestic sweetness which invests Bernard's poem. The expression applies specially to those passages, abounding in all parts of the poem, in which he describes the glory and the peace of the better country. Many of these have been translated or closely imitated by Dr. Neale, with such excellent effect that several hymns which are very popular in churches of various denominations have been constructed from Dr. Neale's translations. Other portions of the poem, especially those in which the vices and crimes of the Rome of that time are denounced and lashed with unsparing severity, have never been translated, and are not likely ever to be, because of the impossibility of preserving in English the peculiar force of the metre; and translation without this would be of small value. The fire of the descriptions of heaven is increased by the contrast in which they stand with descriptions of Rome in the twelfth century. Here, for example, is a passage addressed to Rome:—

"Fas mihi dicere, fas mihi scribere 'Roma fuisti,' Obruta moenibus, obruta moribus, occubuisti. Urbs ruis inclita, tam modo subdita, quam prius alta: Quo prius altior, tam modo pressior, et labefacta. Fas mihi scribere, fas mihi dicere 'Roma, peristi.' Sunt tua moenia vociferantia 'Roma ruisti.'"

And here is one addressed to the City of God:—

"O sine luxibus, O sine luctibus, O sine lite, Splendida curia, florida patria, patria vitae. Urbs Syon inclita, patria condita littore tuto, Te peto, te colo, te flagro, te volo, canto, saluto."

While no translation exists of this remarkable work, nor indeed can be made to reproduce the power and melody of the original, yet a very good idea of its spirit may be had from the work of Dr. J. Mason Neale, who made from selected portions this English poem, which is very much more than what he modestly called it, "a close imitation." Dr. Neale has made no attempt to reproduce the metre of the original.



BRIEF LIFE IS HERE OUR PORTION

Brief life is here our portion, Brief sorrow, short-lived care: The Life that knows no ending, The tearless Life, is there: O happy retribution, Short toil, eternal rest! For mortals and for sinners A mansion with the Blest! That we should look, poor wanderers, To have our home on high! That worms should seek for dwellings Beyond the starry sky! And now we fight the battle, And then we wear the Crown Of full and everlasting And passionless renown: Then glory, yet unheard of, Shall shed abroad its ray; Resolving all enigmas, An endless Sabbath-day. Then, then, from his oppressors The Hebrew shall go free, And celebrate in triumph The year of Jubilee: And the sun-lit land that recks not Of tempest or of fight Shall fold within its bosom Each happy Israelite. 'Midst power that knows no limit, And wisdom free from bound, The Beatific Vision Shall glad the Saints around; And peace, for war is needless, And rest, for storm is past, And goal from finished labor, And anchorage at last. There God, my King and Portion, In fullness of His Grace, Shall we behold forever, And worship face to face; There Jacob into Israel, From earthlier self estranged, And Leah into Rachel Forever shall be changed; There all the halls of Syon For aye shall be complete: And in the land of Beauty All things of beauty meet. To thee, O dear, dear country! Mine eyes their vigils keep; For very love, beholding Thy happy name, they weep: The mention of Thy glory Is unction to the breast, And medicine in sickness, And love, and life, and rest. O one, O onely mansion! O Paradise of joy! Where tears are ever banished, And smiles have no alloy: Beside thy living waters All plants are, great and small; The cedar of the forest, The hyssop of the wall; With jaspers glow thy bulwarks, Thy streets with emeralds blaze; The sardius and the topaz Unite in thee their rays; Thine ageless walls are bonded With amethyst unpriced; Thy saints build up its fabric, And the Corner-stone is CHRIST. Thou hast no shore, fair Ocean! Thou hast no time, bright Day! Dear fountain of refreshment To pilgrims far away! Upon the Rock of Ages They raise thy holy Tower. Thine is the Victor's laurel, And thine the golden dower. Thou feel'st in mystic rapture, O Bride that know'st no guile, The Prince's sweetest kisses, The Prince's loveliest smile. Unfading lilies, bracelets Of living pearl, thine own; The Lamb is ever near thee, The Bridegroom thine alone; And all thine endless leisure In sweetest accents sings The ills that were thy merit, The joys that are thy King's. Jerusalem the golden! With milk and honey blest, Beneath thy contemplation Sink heart and voice opprest; I know not, oh, I know not What social joys are there, What radiancy of glory, What light beyond compare; And when I fain would sing them, My spirit fails and faints, And vainly would it image The assembly of the Saints. They stand, those halls of Syon, All jubilant with song, And bright with many an Angel, And many a Martyr throng; The Prince is ever in them, The light is aye serene; The Pastures of the Blessed Are decked in glorious sheen; There is the Throne of David, And there, from toil released, The shout of them that triumph, The song of them that feast; And they, beneath their Leader, Who conquered in the fight, For ever and for ever Are clad in robes of white. Jerusalem the glorious! The glory of the elect, O dear and future vision That eager hearts expect: Ev'n now by faith I see thee, Ev'n here thy walls discern; To thee my thoughts are kindled And strive and pant and yearn: Jerusalem the onely, That look'st from Heav'n below, In thee is all my glory, In me is all my woe: And though my body may not, My spirit seeks thee fain; Till flesh and earth return me To earth and flesh again. O Land that seest no sorrow! O State that fear'st no strife! O princely bowers! O Land of flowers! O realm and Home of Life!



JULIANA BERNERS

(Fifteenth Century)

About the year 1475 one William Caxton, a prosperous English wool merchant of good standing and repute, began printing books. The art which he introduced into his native country was quickly taken up by others; first, it seems, by certain monks at St. Albans, and shortly afterward by Wynkyn de Worde, who had been an apprentice to Caxton. In 1486 the press at St. Albans issued two books printed in English, of which one was entitled 'The Boke of St. Albans.' Of this volume only three perfect copies are known to exist. It is a compilation of treatises on hawking, on hunting, and on heraldry, and contained but little evidence as to their authorship. Ten years later Wynkyn de Worde reprinted the work with additions, under the following elaborate title, in the fashion of the time:—'Treatyse perteynynge to Hawkynge, Huntynge, and Fysshynge with an Angle; also a right noble Treatyse on the Lynage of Coote Armeris; ending with a Treatyse which specyfyeth of Blasyng of Armys.'



The authorship of this volume, one of the earliest books printed in the English language, has generally been ascribed to a certain (or uncertain) Juliana Berners, Bernes, or Barnes, who lived in the early part of the fifteenth century, and who is reputed to have been prioress of the Nunnery of Sopwell,—long since in ruins,—near St. Albans, and close to the little river Ver, which still conceals in its quiet pools the speckled trout. If this attribution be correct, Dame Berners was the first woman to write a book in English. Although the question of the authorship is by no means settled, yet it is clear that the printer believed the treatise on hunting to have been written by this lady, and the critics now generally assign a portion at least of the volume to her. In the sixteenth century the book became very popular, and was reprinted many times.

Of the several treatises it contains, that on fishing has the greatest interest, an interest increased by the fact that it probably suggested 'The Compleat Angler' of Izaak Walton, which appeared one hundred and sixty years later.

HERE BEGYNNYTH

THE TREATYSE OF FYSSHYNGE WYTH AN ANGLE

Salomon in his parablys sayth that a glad spyryte makyth a flourynge aege, that is a fayre aege and a longe. And syth it is soo: I aske this questyon, whiche ben the meanes and the causes that enduce a man in to a mery spyryte: Truly to my beste dyscrecon it seemeth good dysportes and honest gamys in whom a man Joyeth without any repentaunce after.

Thenne folowyth it yt gode dysportes and honest games ben cause of mannys fayr aege and longe life. And therefore now woll I chose of foure good disportes and honest gamys, that is to wyte: of huntynge: hawkynge: fysshynge: and foulynge. The best to my symple dyscrecon whyche is fysshynge: called Anglynge wyth a rodde: and a lyne and an hoke. And thereof to treate as my symple wytte may suffyce: both for the said reason of Salomon and also for the reason that phisyk makyth in this wyse. Si tibi deficiant medici tibi fiant: hec tria mens leta labor et moderata dieta. Ye shall vnderstonde that this is for to saye, Yf a man lacke leche or medicyne he shall make thre thynges his leche and medicyne: and he shall nede neuer no moo. The fyrste of theym is a mery thought. The seconde is labour not outrageo. The thyrd is dyete mesurable....

Here folowyth the order made to all those whiche shall haue the vnderstondynge of this forsayd treatyse & vse it for theyr pleasures.

Ye that can angle & take fysshe to your pleasures as this forsayd treatyse techyth & shewyth you: I charge & requyre you in the name of alle noble men that ye fysshe not in noo poore mannes seuerall water: as his ponde: stewe: or other necessary thynges to kepe fysshe in wythout his lycence & good wyll. Nor that ye vse not to breke noo mannys gynnys lyenge in theyr weares & in other places dve vuto theym. Ne to take the fysshe awaye that is taken in theym. For after a fysshe is taken in a mannys gynne yf the gynne be layed in the comyn waters: or elles in suche waters as he hireth, it is his owne propre goodes. And yf ye take it awaye ye robbe hym: whyche is a ryght shamfull dede to ony noble man to do yt that theuys & brybours done: whyche are punysshed for theyr evyll dedes by the necke & other wyse whan they maye be aspyed & taken. And also yf ye do in lyke manere as this treatise shewyth you: ye shal haue no nede to take of other menys: whiles ye shal haue ynough of your owne takyng yf ye lyste to labour therfore. Whyche shall be to you a very pleasure to se the fayr bryght shynynge scalyd fysshes dysceyved by your crafty meanes & drawen vpon londe. Also that ye breke noo mannys heggys in goynge abowte your dysportes: ne opyn noo mannes gates but that ye shytte theym agayn. Also ye shall not vse this forsayd crafty dysporte for no covety senes to thencreasynge & sparynge of your money oonly, but pryncypally for your solace & to cause the helthe of your body, and specyally of your soule. For whanne ye purpoos to goo on your disportes in fysshyng ye woll not desyre gretly many persones wyth you, whiche myghte lette you of your game. And thenne ye maye serue God deuowtly in sayenge affectuously youre custumable prayer. And thus doynge ye shall eschewe & voyde many vices, as ydylnes whyche is pryncypall cause to enduce man to many other vyces, as it is ryght well knowen.

Also ye shall not be to rauenous in takyng of your sayd game as to moche at one tyme: whyche ye maye lyghtly doo, yf ye doo in euery poynt as this present treatyse shewyth you in euery poynt, whyche lyghtly be occasyon to dystroye your owne dysportes & other mennys also. As whan ye haue a suffycyent mese ye sholde coveyte nomore as at that tyme. Also ye shall besye yourselfe to nouryssh the game in all that ye maye: & to dystroye all such thynges as ben devourers of it. And all those that done after this rule shall haue the blessynge of god & saynt Petyr, whyche be theym graunte that wyth his precyous blood vs boughte.

And for by cause that this present treatyse sholde not come to the hondys of eche ydle persone whyche wolde desire it yf it were enpryntyd allone by itself & put in a lytyll plaunflet therfore I have compylyd it in a greter volume of dyverse bokys concernynge to gentyll & noble men to the entent that the forsayd ydle persones whyche sholde have but lytyll mesure in the sayd dysporte of fyshyng sholde not by this meane utterly dystroye it.

EMPRYNTED AT WESTMESTRE BY WYNKYN THE WORDE THE YERE THYN-CARNACON OF OUR LORD M.CCCC.LXXXXVI.

Reprinted by Thomas White, Crane Court

MDCCCXXVII.



WALTER BESANT

(1838-)

Walter Besant, born in Portsmouth, England, in 1838, did not begin his career as a novelist till he was thirty years old. His preparation for the works that possess so certain a maturity of execution, with as certain an ideal of performance, was made at King's College, London, and afterwards at Christ's College, Cambridge, where he took mathematical honors. Abandoning his idea of entering the Church, he taught for seven years in the Royal College of Mauritius. Ill health compelled his return to England, and he then took up literature as a profession. His first novel he had the courage to burn when the first publisher to whom he showed it refused it.

But the succeeding years brought forth 'Studies in Early French Poetry,' a delicate and scholarly series of essays; an edition of Rabelais, of whom he is the biographer and disciple, and, with Professor Palmer, a 'History of Jerusalem,' a work for which he had equipped himself when secretary of the Palestine Exploration Fund.



Mr. Besant was also a student in another special field. He knew his Dickens as no other undergraduate in the University knew that branch of polite literature, and passed an examination on the 'Pickwick Papers' which the author declared that he himself would have failed in. By these processes Mr. Besant fitted himself mentally and socially for the task of story-telling. The relations of a man of letters to the rest of the world are comprehensively revealed in the long list of his novels.

From the beginning he was one who comes with a tale "which holdeth children from play and old men from the chimney corner"; nor is the charm lessened by the sense of a living and kindly voice addressing the hearer. His novels are easy reading, and do not contain an obscure sentence. As art is an expression of the artist's mind, and not a rigid ecclesiastical canon, it may be expressed in as many formulas as there are artists. Therefore, while to few readers life casts the rosy reflection that we have learned to call Besantine, one would not wish it to disappear nor to be discredited.

It was in the year 1869 that Walter Besant, by a happy chance, made the acquaintance of James Rice, the editor of Once a Week, and became a contributor to that magazine. In 1871 that literary partnership between them began, which is interesting in the history of collaboration. Mr. Rice had been a barrister, and added legal lore to Mr. Besant's varied and accurate literary equipment. The brilliant series of novels that followed includes 'Ready-Money Morti-boy,' 'My Little Girl,' 'With Harp and Crown,' 'The Golden Butterfly,' 'The Seamy Side,' and 'The Chaplain of the Fleet.' The latter story, that of an innocent young country girl left to the guardianship of her uncle, chaplain of the Fleet prison, by the death of her father, is delicately and surprisingly original. The influence of Dickens is felt in the structure of the story, and the faithful, almost photographic fidelity to locality betrays in whose footsteps the authors have followed; but the chaplain, though he belongs to a family whose features are familiar to the readers of 'Little Dorrit' and 'Great Expectations,' has not existed until he appears in these pages,—pompous, clever, and without principle, but not lacking in natural affection. The young girl whose guileless belief in everybody forces the worst people to assume the characters her purity and innocence endows them with, is to the foul prison what Picciola was to Charney. Nor will the moralist find fault with the author whose kind heart teaches him to include misfortune in his catalogue of virtues.

Mr. Rice died in 1882, and 'All Sorts and Conditions of Men,' Mr. Besant's first independent novel, appeared the same year. It is a novel with a purpose, and accomplished its purpose because an artist's hand was necessary to paint the picture of East London that met with such a response as the People's Palace. The appeal to philanthropy was a new one. It was a plea for a little more of the pleasures and graces of life for the two million of people who inhabit the east end of the great city. It is not a picture of life in the lowest phases, where the scenes are as dramatic as in the highest social world, but a story of human life; the nobility, the meanness, the pathos of it in hopelessly commonplace surroundings, where the fight is not a hand-to-hand struggle with bitter poverty or crime, but with dullness and monotony. The characters in 'All Sorts and Conditions of Men' are possibly more typical than real, but one hesitates to question either characters or situation. The "impossible story" has become true, and the vision that the enthusiastic young hero and heroine dream has materialized into a lovely reality.

'The Children of Gibeon' (1884) and 'The World Went Very Well Then' (1885) are written with the same philanthropic purpose; but if Sir Walter Besant were not first of all a story-teller, the possessor of a living voice that holds one spellbound till he has finished his tale, the reader would be more sensible of the wide knowledge of the novelist, and his familiarity with life in its varied forms.

Here are about thirty novels, displaying an intimate knowledge of many crafts, trades, and professions, the ways of landsman and voyager, of country and town, of the new world and the old, of modern charlatanism as shown in 'Herr Paulus,' of the "woman question" among London Jews as in the 'Rebel Queen,' and the suggestion of the repose and sufficiency of life's simple needs as told in 'Call Her Mine' and 'Celia's Arbor.'

In the 'Ivory Gate' the hero is the victim of a remarkable hallucination; in the story of 'The Inner House' the plummet of suggestion plunges into depths not sounded before, and the soul's regeneration is unfolded in the loveliest of parables.

The range of Sir Walter Besant reaches from the somewhat conventionalized 'Dorothy Forster' to 'St. Katharine's Tower,' where deep tragedy approaches the melodramatic, or from the fascination of 'The Master Craftsman' to the 'Wapping Idyll' of the heaps of miser's treasure. There is largeness of stroke in this list, and a wide prospect. His humor is of the cheerful outdoor kind, and the laugh is at foibles rather than weakness. He pays little attention to fashion in literature, except to give a good-natured nod to a passing fad.

It would be difficult to classify him under any school. His stories are not analytical, nor is one conscious of that painstaking fidelity to art which is no longer classed among the minor virtues. When he fights, it is with wrong and oppression and the cheerless monotony of the lives of the poor; but he fights classes rather than individuals, although certain characters like Fielding the plagiarist, in 'Armorel of Lyonesse,' are studied from life. The village of bankrupts in 'All in a Garden Fair' is a whimsical conceit, like the disguise of Angela in 'All Sorts and Conditions of Men,' and the double identity of Edmund Gray in 'The Ivory Gate.' In reading Besant we are constantly reminded that humanity is wider than the world; and though its simplest facts are its greatest, there is both interest and edification in eccentricities.

In 1895 he was made a baronet, and is president of the Society of Authors, of whom he has been a gallant champion against the publishers.

OLD-TIME LONDON

From Sir Walter Besant's 'London': Harper and Brothers

The London house, either in Saxon or Norman time, presented no kind of resemblance to the Roman villa. It had no cloisters, no hypocaust, no suite or sequence of rooms. This unlikeness is another proof, if any were wanting, that the continuity of tenure had been wholly broken. If the Saxons went into London, as has been suggested, peaceably, and left the people to carry on their old life and their trade in their own way, the Roman and British architecture—no new thing, but a style grown up in course of years and found fitted to the climate—would certainly have remained. That, however, was not the case. The Englishman developed his house from the patriarchal idea.

First, there was the common hall; in this the household lived, fed, transacted business, and made their cheer in the evenings. It was built of timber, and to keep out the cold draughts it was afterwards lined with tapestry. At first they used simple cloths, which in great houses were embroidered and painted; perches of various kinds were affixed to the walls, whereon the weapons, the musical instruments, the cloaks, etc., were hung up. The lord and lady sat on a high seat; not, I am inclined to think, on a dais at the end of the hall, which would have been cold for them, but on a great chair near the fire, which was burning in the middle of the hall. This fashion long continued. I have myself seen a college hall warmed by a fire in a brazier burning under the lantern of the hall. The furniture consisted of benches; the table was laid on trestles, spread with a white cloth, and removed after dinner; the hall was open to all who came, on condition that the guest should leave his weapons at the door.

The floor was covered with reeds, which made a clean, soft, and warm carpet, on which the company could, if they pleased, lie round the fire. They had carpets or rugs also, but reeds were commonly used. The traveler who chances to find himself at the ancient and most interesting town of Kingston-on-Hull, which very few English people, and still fewer Americans, have the curiosity to explore, should visit the Trinity House. There, among many interesting things, he will find a hall where reeds are still spread, but no longer so thickly as to form a complete carpet. I believe this to be the last survival of the reed carpet.

The times of meals were: the breakfast at about nine; the "noon-meat," or dinner, at twelve; and the "even-meat," or supper, probably at a movable time, depending on the length of the day. When lighting was costly and candles were scarce, the hours of sleep would be naturally longer in winter than in the summer.

In their manner of living the Saxons were fond of vegetables, especially of the leek, onion, and garlic. Beans they also had (these were introduced probably at the time when they commenced intercourse with the outer world), pease, radishes, turnips, parsley, mint, sage, cress, rue, and other herbs. They had nearly all our modern fruits, though many show by their names, which are Latin or Norman, a later introduction. They made use of butter, honey, and cheese. They drank ale and mead. The latter is still made, but in small quantities, in Somerset and Hereford shires. The Normans brought over the custom of drinking wine.

In the earliest times the whole family slept in the common hall. The first improvement was the erection of the solar, or upper chamber. This was above the hall, or a portion of it, or over the kitchen and buttery attached to the hall. The arrangement may be still observed in many of the old colleges of Oxford or Cambridge. The solar was first the sleeping-room of the lord and lady; though afterward it served not only this purpose, but also for an ante-chamber to the dormitory of the daughters and the maid-servants. The men of the household still slept in the hall below. Later on, bed recesses were contrived in the wall, as one may find in Northumberland at the present day. The bed was commonly, but not for the ladies of the house, merely a big bag stuffed with straw. A sheet wrapped round the body formed the only night-dress. But there were also pillows, blankets, and coverlets. The early English bed was quite as luxurious as any that followed after, until the invention of the spring mattress gave a new and hitherto unhoped-for joy to the hours of night.

The second step in advance was the ladies' bower, a room or suite of rooms set apart for the ladies of the house and their women. For the first time, as soon as this room was added, the women could follow their own vocations of embroidery, spinning, and needlework of all kinds, apart from the rough and noisy talk of the men.

The main features, therefore, of every great house, whether in town or country, from the seventh to the twelfth century, were the hall, the solar built over the kitchen and buttery, and the ladies' bower.

There was also the garden. In all times the English have been fond of gardens. Bacon thought it not beneath his dignity to order the arrangement of a garden. Long before Bacon, a writer of the twelfth century describes a garden as it should be. "It should be adorned on this side with roses, lilies, and the marigold; on that side with parsley, cost, fennel, southernwood, coriander, sage, savery, hyssop, mint, vine, dettany, pellitory, lettuce, cresses, and the peony. Let there be beds enriched with onions, leeks, garlic, melons, and scallions. The garden is also enriched by the cucumber, the soporiferous poppy, and the daffodil, and the acanthus. Nor let pot herbs be wanting, as beet-root, sorrel, and mallow. It is useful also to the gardener to have anise, mustard, and wormwood.... A noble garden will give you medlars, quinces, the pear main, peaches, pears of St. Regle, pomegranates, citrons, oranges, almonds, dates, and figs." The latter fruits were perhaps attempted, but one doubts their arriving at ripeness. Perhaps the writer sets down what he hoped would be some day achieved.

The indoor amusements of the time were very much like our own. We have a little music in the evening; so did our forefathers. We sometimes have a little dancing; so did they, but the dancing was done for them. We go to the theatres to see the mime; in their days the mime made his theatre in the great man's hall. He played the fiddle and the harp; he sang songs, he brought his daughter, who walked on her hands and executed astonishing capers; the gleeman, minstrel, or jongleur was already as disreputable as when we find him later on with his ribauderie. Again, we play chess; so did our ancestors. We gamble with dice; so did they. We feast and drink together; so did they. We pass the time in talk; so did they. In a word, as Alphonse Karr put it, the more we change, the more we remain the same.

Out-of-doors, as Fitz-Stephen shows, the young men skated, wrestled, played ball, practiced archery, held water tournaments, baited bull and bear, fought cocks, and rode races. They were also mustered sometimes for service in the field, and went forth cheerfully, being specially upheld by the reassuring consciousness that London was always on the winning side.

The growth of the city government belongs to the history of London. Suffice it here to say that the people in all times enjoyed a freedom far above that possessed by any other city of Europe. The history of municipal London is a history of continual struggle to maintain this freedom against all attacks, and to extend it and to make it impregnable. Already the people are proud, turbulent, and confident in their own strength. They refuse to own any other lord but the king himself; there is no Earl of London. They freely hold their free and open meetings, their folk-motes,—in the open space outside the northwest corner of St. Paul's Churchyard. That they lived roughly, enduring cold, sleeping in small houses in narrow courts; that they suffered much from the long darkness of winter; that they were always in danger of fevers, agues, "putrid" throats, plagues, fires by night, and civil wars; that they were ignorant of letters,—three schools only for the whole of London,—all this may very well be understood. But these things do not make men and women wretched. They were not always suffering from preventable disease; they were not always hauling their goods out of the flames; they were not always fighting. The first and most simple elements of human happiness are three; to wit, that a man should be in bodily health, that he should be free, that he should enjoy the produce of his own labor. All these things the Londoner possessed under the Norman kings nearly as much as in these days they can be possessed. His city has always been one of the healthiest in the world; whatever freedom could be attained he enjoyed; and in that rich trading town all men who worked lived in plenty.

The households, the way of living, the occupations of the women, can be clearly made out in every detail from the Anglo-Saxon literature. The women in the country made the garments, carded the wool, sheared the sheep, washed the things, beat the flax, ground the corn, sat at the spinning-wheel, and prepared the food. In the towns they had no shearing to do, but all the rest of their duty fell to their province. The English women excelled in embroidery. "English" work meant the best kind of work. They worked church vestments with gold and pearls and precious stones. "Orfrey," or embroidery in gold, was a special art. Of course they are accused by the ecclesiastics of an overweening desire to wear finery; they certainly curled their hair, and, one is sorry to read, they painted, and thereby spoiled their pretty cheeks. If the man was the hlaf-ord [lord],—the owner or winner of the loaf,—the wife was the hlaf-dig [lady], its distributor; the servants and the retainers were hlaf-oetas, or eaters of it. When nunneries began to be founded, the Saxon ladies in great numbers forsook the world for the cloister. And here they began to learn Latin, and became able at least to carry on correspondence—specimens of which still exist—in that language. Every nunnery possessed a school for girls. They were taught to read and to write their own language and Latin, perhaps also rhetoric and embroidery. As the pious Sisters were fond of putting on violet chemises, tunics, and vests of delicate tissue, embroidered with silver and gold, and scarlet shoes, there was probably not much mortification of the flesh in the nunneries of the later Saxon times.

This for the better class. We cannot suppose that the daughters of the craftsmen became scholars of the nunnery. Theirs were the lower walks—to spin the linen and to make the bread and carry on the housework.

THE SYNAGOGUE

From 'The Rebel Queen': Harper and Brothers

"D'un jour interieur je me sens eclaire, Et j'entends une voix qui me dit d'esperer."—LAMARTINE.

"Are you ready, Francesca?"

Nelly ran lightly down the narrow stairs, dressed for Sabbath and Synagogue. She was dainty and pretty at all times in the matter of dress, but especially on a summer day, which affords opportunity for bright color and bright drapery and an ethereal appearance. This morning she was full of color and light. When, however, she found herself confronted with Francesca's simple gray dress, so closely fitting, so faultless, and her black-lace hat with its single rose for color, Nelly's artistic sense caused her heart to sink like lead. It is not for nothing that one learns and teaches the banjo; one Art leads to another; she who knows music can feel for dress. "Oh!" she cried, clasping her hands. "That's what we can never do!"

"What?"

"That fit! Look at me! Yet they call me clever. Clara gives me the new fashions and I copy them, and the girls in our street copy me—poor things!—and the dressmaker comes to talk things over and to learn from me. I make everything for myself. And they call me clever! But I can't get near it; and if I can't nobody can."...

A large detached structure of red brick stood east and west, with a flat facade and round windows that bore out the truth of the date—1700—carved upon the front. A word or two in that square character—that tongue which presents so few attractions to most of us compared with other tongues—probably corroborated the internal evidence of the facade and the windows.

"This is the synagogue," said Nelly. She entered, and turning to the right, led the way up-stairs to a gallery running along the whole side of the building. On the other side was another gallery. In front of both was a tolerably wide grill, through which the congregation below could be seen perfectly.

"This is the women's gallery," whispered Nell—there were not many women present. "We'll sit in the front. Presently they will sing. They sing beautifully. Now they're reading prayers and the Law. They've got to read the whole Law through once a week, you know." Francesca looked curiously through the grill. When one is in a perfectly strange place, the first observations made are of small and unimportant things. She observed that there was a circular inclosure at the east end, as if for an altar; but there was no altar: two doors indicated a cupboard in the wall. There were six tall wax-lights burning round the inclosure, although the morning was fine and bright. At the west end a high screen kept the congregation from the disturbance of those who entered or went out. Within the screen was a company of men and boys, all with their hats and caps on their heads; they looked like the choir. In front of the choir was a platform railed round. Three chairs were placed at the back of the platform. There was a table covered with red velvet, on which lay the book of the Law, a ponderous roll of parchment provided with silver staves or handles. Before this desk or table stood the Reader. He was a tall and handsome man, with black hair and full black beard, about forty years of age. He wore a gown and large Geneva bands, like a Presbyterian minister; on his head he had a kind of biretta. Four tall wax candles were placed round the front of the platform. The chairs were occupied by two or three elders. A younger man stood at the desk beside the Reader. The service was already begun—it was, in fact, half over.

Francesca observed next that all the men wore a kind of broad scarf, made of some white stuff about eight feet long and four feet broad. Bands of black or blue were worked in the ends, which were also provided with fringes. "It is the Talleth," Nelly whispered. Even the boys wore this white robe, the effect of which would have been very good but for the modern hat, tall or pot, which spoiled all. Such a robe wants a turban above it, not an English hat. The seats were ranged along the synagogue east and west. The place was not full, but there were a good many worshipers. The service was chanted by the Reader. It was a kind of chant quite new and strange to Francesca. Like many young persons brought up with no other religion than they can pick up for themselves, she was curious and somewhat learned in the matter of ecclesiastical music and ritual, which she approached, owing to her education, with unbiased mind. She knew masses and anthems and hymns and chants of all kinds; never had she heard anything of this kind before. It was not congregational, or Gregorian; nor was it repeated by the choir from side to side; nor was it a monotone with a drop at the end; nor was it a florid, tuneful chant such as one may hear in some Anglican services. This Reader, with a rich, strong voice, a baritone of great power, took nearly the whole of the service—it must have been extremely fatiguing—upon himself, chanting it from beginning to end. No doubt, as he rendered the reading and the prayers, so they had been given by his ancestors in Spain and Portugal generation after generation, back into the times when they came over in Phoenician ships to the Carthaginian colonies, even before the dispersion of the Ten Tribes. It was a traditional chant of antiquity beyond record—not a monotonous chant. Francesca knew nothing of the words; she grew tired of trying to make out whereabouts on the page the Reader might be in the book lent her, which had Hebrew on one side and English on the other. Besides, the man attracted her—by his voice, by his energy, by his appearance. She closed her book and surrendered herself to the influence of the voice and the emotions which it expressed.

There was no music to help him. From time to time the men in the congregation lifted up their voices—not seemingly in response, but as if moved to sudden passion and crying out with one accord. This helped him a little, otherwise he was without any assistance.

A great Voice. The man sometimes leaned over the Roll of the Law, sometimes he stood upright, always his great Voice went up and down and rolled along the roof and echoed along the benches of the women's gallery. Now the Voice sounded a note of rejoicing; now, but less often, a note of sadness; now it was a sharp and sudden cry of triumph. Then the people shouted with him—it was as if they clashed sword on shield and yelled for victory; now it was a note of defiance, as when men go forth to fight an enemy; now it sank to a murmur, as of one who consoles and soothes and promises things to come; now it was a note of rapture, as if the Promised Land was already recovered.

Was all that in the Voice? Did the congregation, all sitting wrapped in their white robes, feel these emotions as the Voice thundered and rolled? I know not. Such was the effect produced upon one who heard this Voice for the first time. At first it seemed loud, even barbaric; there was lacking something which the listener and stranger had learned to associate with worship. What was it? Reverence? But she presently found reverence In plenty, only of a kind that differed from that of Christian worship. Then the listener made another discovery. In this ancient service she missed the note of humiliation. There was no Litany at a Faldstool. There was no kneeling in abasement; there was no appearance of penitence, sorrow, or the confession of sins. The Voice was as the Voice of a Captain exhorting his soldiers to fight. The service was warlike, the service of a people whose trust in their God is so great that they do not need to call perpetually upon Him for the help and forgiveness of which they are assured. Yes, yes—she thought—this is the service of a race of warriors; they are fighting men: the Lord is their God; He is leading them to battle: as for little sins, and backslidings, and penitences, they belong to the Day of Atonement—which comes once a year. For all the other days in the year, battle and victory occupy all the mind. The service of a great fighting people; a service full of joy, full of faith, full of assurance, full of hope and confidence—such assurance as few Christians can understand, and of faith to which few Christians can attain. Perhaps Francesca was wrong; but these were her first impressions, and these are mostly true.

In the body of the synagogue men came late. Under one gallery was a school of boys, in the charge of a graybeard, who, book in hand, followed the service with one eye, while he admonished perpetually the boys to keep still and to listen. The boys grew restless; it was tedious to them—the Voice which expressed so much to the stranger who knew no Hebrew at all was tedious to the children; they were allowed to get up and run into the court outside and then to come back again; nobody heeded their going in and out. One little boy of three, wrapped, like the rest, in a white Talleth, ran up and down the side aisle without being heeded—even by the splendid Beadle with the gold-laced hat, which looked so truly wonderful above the Oriental Talleth. The boys in the choir got up and went in and out just as they pleased. Nobody minded. The congregation, mostly well-to-do men with silk hats, sat in their places, book in hand, and paid no attention.

Under the opposite gallery sat two or three rows of worshipers, who reminded Francesca of Browning's poem of St. John's Day at Rome. For they nudged and jostled each other; they whispered things; they even laughed over the things they whispered. But they were clad like those in the open part in the Talleth, and they sat book in hand, and from time to time they raised their voices with the congregation. They showed no reverence except that they did not talk or laugh loudly. They were like the children, their neighbors,—just as restless, just as uninterested, just as perfunctory. Well, they were clearly the poorer and the more ignorant part of the community. They came here and sat through the service because they were ordered so to do; because, like Passover, and the Feast of Tabernacles, and the Fast of Atonement, it was the Law of their People.

The women in the gallery sat or stood. They neither knelt nor sang aloud; they only sat when it was proper to sit, or stood when it was proper to stand. They were like the women, the village women, in a Spanish or Italian church, for whom everything is done. Francesca, for the moment, felt humiliated that she should be compelled to sit apart from the congregation, railed off in the women's gallery, to have her religion done for her, without a voice of her own in it at all. So, I have heard, indignation sometimes fills the bosom of certain ladies when they reflect upon the fact that they are excluded from the choir, and forbidden even to play the organ in their own parish church.

The chanting ceased; the Reader sat down. Then the Choir began. They sang a hymn—a Hebrew hymn—the rhythm and metre were not English; the music was like nothing that can be heard in a Christian Church. "It is the music," said Nelly, "to which the Israelites crossed the Red Sea:" a bold statement, but—why not? If the music is not of Western origin and character, who can disprove such an assertion? After the hymn the prayers and reading went on again.

There came at last—it is a long service, such as we poor weak-kneed Anglicans could not endure—the end. There was a great bustle and ceremony on the platform; they rolled up the Roll of the Law; they wrapped it in a purple velvet cloth; they hung over it a silver breastplate set with twelve jewels for the Twelve Tribes—in memory of the Urim and Thummim. Francesca saw that the upper ends of the staves were adorned with silver pomegranates and with silver bells, and they placed it in the arms of one of those who had been reading the law; then a procession was formed, and they walked, while the Choir sang one of the Psalms of David—but not in the least like the same Psalm sung in an English Cathedral—bearing the Roll of the Law to the Ark, that is to say, to the cupboard, behind the railing and inclosure at the east end.

The Reader came back. Then with another chanted Prayer—it sounded like a prolonged shout of continued Triumph—he ended his part of the service.

And then the choir sang the last hymn—a lovely hymn, not in the least like a Christian, or at least an English hymn—a psalm that breathed a tranquil hope and a perfect faith. One needed no words to understand the full meaning and beauty and depth of that hymn.

The service was finished. The men took off their white scarfs and folded them up. They stood and talked in groups for a few minutes, gradually melting away. As for the men under the gallery, who had been whispering and laughing, they trooped out of the synagogue all together. Evidently, to them the service was only a form. What is it, in any religion, but a form, to the baser sort?

The Beadle put out the lights. Nelly led the way down the stairs. Thinking of what the service had suggested to herself—- all those wonderful things above enumerated—Francesca wondered what it meant to a girl who heard it every Sabbath morning. But she refrained from asking. Custom too often takes the symbolism out of the symbols and the poetry out of the verse. Then the people begin to worship the symbols and make a fetich of the words. We have seen this elsewhere—in other forms of faith. Outside they found Emanuel. They had not seen him in the congregation, probably because it is difficult to recognize a man merely by the top of his hat.

"Come," he said, "let us look around the place. Afterwards, perhaps, we will talk of our Service. This synagogue is built on the site of the one erected by Manasseh and his friends when Oliver Cromwell permitted them to return to London after four hundred years of exile. They were forced to wear yellow hats at first, but that ordinance soon fell into disuse, like many other abominable laws. When you read about mediaeval laws, Francesca, remember that when they were cruel or stupid they were seldom carried into effect, because the arm of the executive was weak. Who was there to oblige the Jews to wear the yellow hat? The police? There were no police. The people? What did the people care about the yellow hat? When the Fire burned down London, sparing not even the great Cathedral, to say nothing of the Synagogue, this second Temple arose, equal in splendor to the first. At that time all the Jews in London were Sephardim of Spain and Portugal and Italy. Even now there are many of the people here who speak nothing among themselves but Spanish, just as there are Askenazim who speak nothing among themselves but Yiddish. Come with me; I will show you something that will please you."

He led the way into another flagged court, larger than the first. There were stone staircases, mysterious doorways, paved passages, a suggestion of a cloister, an open space or square, and buildings on all sides with windows opening upon the court.

"It doesn't look English at all," said Francesca. "I have seen something like it in a Spanish convent. With balconies and a few bright hangings and a black-haired woman at the open windows, and perhaps a coat of arms carved upon the wall, it would do for part of a Spanish street. It is a strange place to find in the heart of London."

"You see the memory of the Peninsula. What were we saying yesterday? Spain places her own seal upon everything that belongs to her—people, buildings, all. What you see here is the central Institute of our People, the Sephardim—the Spanish part of our People. Here is our synagogue, here are schools, alms-houses, residence of the Rabbi, and all sorts of things. You can come here sometimes and think of Spain, where your ancestors lived. Many generations in Spain have made you—as they have made me—a Spaniard."

They went back to the first court. On their way out, as they passed the synagogue, there came running across the court a girl of fifteen or so. She was bareheaded; a mass of thick black hair was curled round her shapely head; her figure was that of an English girl of twenty; her eyes showed black and large and bright as she glanced at the group standing in the court; her skin was dark; she was oddly and picturesquely dressed in a grayish-blue skirt, with a bright crimson open jacket. The color seemed literally to strike the eye. The girl disappeared under a doorway, leaving a picture of herself in Francesca's mind—a picture to be remembered.

"A Spanish Jewess," said Emanuel. "An Oriental. She chooses by instinct the colors that her great-grandmother might have worn to grace the triumph of David the King."



BESTIARIES AND LAPIDARIES

BY L. OSCAR KUHNS

One of the marked features of literary investigation during the present century is the interest which it has manifested in the Middle Ages. Not only have specialists devoted themselves to the detailed study of the Sagas of the North and the great cycles of Romance in France and England, but the stories of the Edda, of the Nibelungen, and of Charlemagne and King Arthur have become popularized, so that to-day they are familiar to the general reader. There is one class of literature, however, which was widespread and popular during the Middle Ages, but which is to-day known only to the student,—that is, the so-called Bestiaries and Lapidaries, or collections of stories and superstitions concerning the marvelous attributes of animals and of precious stones.

The basis of all Bestiaries is the Greek Physiologus, the origin of which can be traced back to the second century before Christ. It was undoubtedly largely influenced by the zooelogy of the Bible; and in the references to the Ibex, the Phoenix, and the tree Paradixion, traces of Oriental and old Greek superstitions can be seen. It was from the Latin versions of the Greek original that translations were made into nearly all European languages. There are extant to-day, whole or in fragments, Bestiaries in German, Old English, Old French, Provencal, Icelandic, Italian, Bohemian, and even Armenian, Ethiopic, and Syriac. These various versions differ more or less in the arrangement and number of the animals described, but all point back to the same ultimate source.

The main object of the Bestiaries was not so much to impart scientific knowledge, as by means of symbols and allegories to teach the doctrines and mysteries of the Church: At first this symbolical application was short and concise, but later became more and more expanded, until it often occupied more space than the description of the animal which served as a text.

Some of these animals are entirely fabulous, such as the siren, the phoenix, the unicorn; others are well known, but possess certain fabulous attributes. The descriptions of them are not the result of personal observation, but are derived from stories told by travelers or read in books, or are merely due to the imagination of the author; these stories, passing down from hand to hand, gradually became accepted facts.

These books were enormously popular during the Middle Ages, a fact which is proved by the large number of manuscripts still extant. Their influence on literature was likewise very great. To say nothing of the encyclopaedic works,—such as 'Li Tresors' of Brunetto Latini, the 'Image du Monde,' the 'Roman de la Rose,'—which contain extracts from the Bestiaries,—there are many references to them in the great writers, even down to the present day. There are certain passages in Dante, Chaucer, and Shakespeare, that would be unintelligible without some knowledge of these mediaeval books of zooelogy.

Hence, besides the interest inherent in these quaint and childish stories, besides their value in revealing the scientific spirit and attainments of the times, some knowledge of the Bestiaries is of undoubted value and interest to the student of literature.

Closely allied to the Bestiaries (and indeed often contained in the same manuscript) are the Lapidaries, in which are discussed the various kinds of precious stones, with their physical characteristics,—shape, size, color, their use in medicine, and their marvelous talismanic properties. In spite of the fact that they contain the most absurd fables and superstitions, they were actually used as text-books in the schools, and published in medical treatises. The most famous of them was written in Latin by Marbode, Bishop of Rennes (died in 1123), and translated many times into Old French and other languages.

The following extracts from the Bestiaries are translated from 'Le Bestiaire' of Guillaume Le Clerc, composed in the year 1210 (edited by Dr. Robert Reinsch, Leipzig, 1890). While endeavoring to retain somewhat of the quaintness and naivete of the original, I have omitted those repetitions and tautological expressions which are so characteristic of mediaeval literature. The religious application of the various animals is usually very long, and often is the mere repetition of the same idea. The symbolical meaning of the lion here given may be taken as a type of all the rest.



THE LION

It is proper that we should first speak of the nature of the lion, which is a fierce and proud beast and very bold. It has three especially peculiar characteristics. In the first place it always dwells upon a high mountain. From afar off it can scent the hunter who is pursuing it. And in order that the latter may not follow it to its lair it covers over its tracks by means of its tail. Another wonderful peculiarity of the lion is that when it sleeps its eyes are wide open, and clear and bright. The third characteristic is likewise very strange. For when the lioness brings forth her young, it falls to the ground, and gives no sign of life until the third day, when the lion breathes upon it and in this way brings it back to life again.

The meaning of all this is very clear. When God, our Sovereign father, who is the Spiritual lion, came for our salvation here upon earth, so skillfully did he cover his tracks that never did the hunter know that this was our Savior, and nature marveled how he came among us. By the hunter you must understand him who made man to go astray and seeks after him to devour him. This is the Devil, who desires only evil.

When this lion was laid upon the Cross by the Jews, his enemies, who judged him wrongfully, his human nature suffered death. When he gave up the spirit from his body, he fell asleep upon the holy cross. Then his divine nature awoke. This must you believe if you wish to live again.

When God was placed in the tomb, he was there only three days, and on the third day the Father breathed upon him and brought him to life again, just as the lion did to its young.

THE PELICAN

The pelican is a wonderful bird which dwells in the region about the river Nile. The written history[4] tells us that there are two kinds,—those which dwell in the river and eat nothing but fish, and those which dwell in the desert and eat only insects and worms. There is a wonderful thing about the pelican, for never did mother-sheep love her lamb as the pelican loves its young. When the young are born, the parent bird devotes all his care and thought to nourishing them. But the young birds are ungrateful, and when they have grown strong and self-reliant they peck at their father's face, and he, enraged at their wickedness, kills them all.

[Footnote 4: The reference here is probably to the 'Liber de Bestiis et Aliis Rebus' of Hugo de St. Victor.]

On the third day the father comes to them, deeply moved with pity and sorrow. With his beak he pierces his own side, until the blood flows forth. With the blood he brings back life into the body of his young[5].

[Footnote 5: There are many allusions in literature to this story. Cf. Shakespeare,—

"Like the kind life-rendering pelican, Repast them with my blood."—'Hamlet,' iv. 5.

"Those pelican daughters."—Lear, iii. 4. Cf. also the beautiful metaphor of Alfred de Musset, in his 'Nuit de Mai.']

THE EAGLE

The eagle is the king of birds. When it is old it becomes young again in a very strange manner. When its eyes are darkened and its wings are heavy with age, it seeks out a fountain clear and pure, where the water bubbles up and shines in the clear sunlight. Above this fountain it rises high up into the air, and fixes its eyes upon the light of the sun and gazes upon it until the heat thereof sets on fire its eyes and wings. Then it descends down into the fountain where the water is clearest and brightest, and plunges and bathes three times, until it is fresh and renewed and healed of its old age[6].

[Footnote 6: "Bated like eagles having lately bathed."—'I Henry IV.,' iv. I.]

The eagle has such keen vision, that if it is high up among the clouds, soaring through the air, it sees the fish swimming beneath it, in river or sea; then down it shoots upon the fish and seizes and drags it to the shore. Again, if unknown to the eagle its eggs should be changed and others put into its nest,—when the young are grown, before they fly away, it carries them up into the air when the sun is shining its brightest. Those which can look at the rays of the sun, without blinking, it loves and holds dear; those which cannot stand to look at the light, it abandons, as base-born, nor troubles itself henceforth concerning them[7].

[Footnote 7: "Nay, if thou be that princely eagle's bird, Show thy descent by gazing 'gainst the sun."—'3 Henry VI.,' ii. I.]

THE PHOENIX

There is a bird named the phoenix, which dwells in India and is never found elsewhere. This bird is always alone and without companion, for its like cannot be found, and there is no other bird which resembles it in habits or appearance[8]. At the end of five hundred years it feels that it has grown old, and loads itself with many rare and precious spices, and flies from the desert away to the city of Leopolis. There, by some sign or other, the coming of the bird is announced to a priest of that city, who causes fagots to be gathered and placed upon a beautiful altar, erected for the bird. And so, as I have said, the bird, laden with spices, comes to the altar, and smiting upon the hard stone with its beak, it causes the flame to leap forth and set fire to the wood and the spices. When the fire is burning brightly, the phoenix lays itself upon the altar and is burned to dust and ashes.

[Footnote 8: "Were man as rare as phoenix."—'As You Like It,' iv. 3.]

Then comes the priest and finds the ashes piled up, and separating them softly he finds within a little worm, which gives forth an odor sweeter than that of roses or of any other flower. The next day and the next the priest comes again, and on the third day he finds that the worm has become a full-grown and full-fledged bird, which bows low before him and flies away, glad and joyous, nor returns again before five hundred years[9].

[Footnote 9: "But as when The Bird of Wonder dies, the maiden phoenix, Her ashes new create another heir."—'Henry VIII.,' v. 5.]

THE ANT

There is another kind of ant up in Ethiopia, which is of the shape and size of dogs. They have strange habits, for they scratch into the ground and extract therefrom great quantities of fine gold. If any one wishes to take this gold from them, he soon repents of his undertaking; for the ants run upon him, and if they catch him they devour him instantly. The people who live near them know that they are fierce and savage, and that they possess a great quantity of gold, and so they have invented a cunning trick. They take mares which have unweaned foals, and give them no food for three days. On the fourth the mares are saddled, and to the saddles are fastened boxes that shine like gold. Between these people and the ants flows a very swift river. The famished mares are driven across this river, while the foals are kept on the hither side. On the other side of the river the grass is rich and thick. Here the mares graze, and the ants seeing the shining boxes think they have found a good place to hide their gold, and so all day long they fill and load the boxes with their precious gold, till night comes on and the mares have eaten their fill. When they hear the neighing of their foals they hasten to return to the other side of the river. There their masters take the gold from the boxes and become rich and powerful, but the ants grieve over their loss.

THE SIREN

The siren is a monster of strange fashion, for from the waist up it is the most beautiful thing in the world, formed in the shape of a woman. The rest of the body is like a fish or a bird. So sweetly and beautifully does she sing that they who go sailing over the sea, as soon as they hear the song, cannot keep from going towards her. Entranced by the music, they fall asleep in their boat, and are killed by the siren before they can utter a cry[10].

[Footnote 10: References to the siren are innumerable; the most famous perhaps is Heine's 'Lorelei.' Cf. also Dante, 'Purgatorio,' xix. 19-20.]

THE WHALE

In the sea, which is mighty and vast, are many kinds of fish, such as the turbot, the sturgeon, and the porpoise. But there is one monster, very treacherous and dangerous. In Latin its name is Cetus. It is a bad neighbor for sailors. The upper part of its back looks like sand, and when it rises from the sea, the mariners think it is an island. Deceived by its size they sail toward it for refuge, when the storm comes upon them. They cast anchor, disembark upon the back of the whale, cook their food, build a fire, and in order to fasten their boat they drive great stakes into what seems to them to be sand. When the monster feels the heat of the fire which burns upon its back, it plunges down into the depths of the sea, and drags the ship and all the people after it.

When the fish is hungry it opens its mouth very wide, and breathes forth an exceedingly sweet odor. Then all the little fish stream thither, and, allured by the sweet smell, crowd into its throat. Then the whale closes its jaws and swallows them into its stomach, which is as wide as a valley[11].

[Footnote 11: "Who is a whale to virginity and devours up all the fry it finds."—'All's Well that Ends Well,' iv. 3.]

THE CROCODILE

The crocodile is a fierce beast that lives always beside the river Nile. In shape it is somewhat like an ox; it is full twenty ells long, and as big around as the trunk of a tree. It has four feet, large claws, and very sharp teeth; by means of these it is well armed. So hard and tough is its skin, that it minds not in the least hard blows made by sharp stones. Never was seen another such a beast, for it lives on land and in water. At night it is submerged in water, and during the day it reposes upon the land. If it meets and overcomes a man, it swallows him entire, so that nothing remains. But ever after it laments him as long as it lives[12]. The upper jaw of this beast is immovable when it eats, and the lower one alone moves. No other living creature has this peculiarity. The other beast of which I have told you (the water-serpent), which always lives in the water, hates the crocodile with a mortal hatred. When it sees the crocodile sleeping on the ground with its mouth wide open, it rolls itself in the slime and mud in order to become more slippery. Then it leaps into the throat of the crocodile and is swallowed down into its stomach. Here it bites and tears its way out again, but the crocodile dies on account of its wounds.

[Footnote 12: "Crocodile tears" are proverbial. Cf: "As the mournful crocodile With sorrow snares relenting passengers."—'2 Henry VI.,' iii. 1. "Each drop she falls would prove a crocodile."—'Othello' iv. 1.]

THE TURTLE-DOVE

Now I must tell you of another bird which is courteous and beautiful, and which loves much and is much loved. This is the turtle-dove. The male and the female are always together in mountain or in desert, and if perchance the female loses her companion never more will she cease to mourn for him, never more will she sit upon green branch or leaf. Nothing in the world can induce her to take another mate, but she ever remains loyal to her husband. When I consider the faithfulness of this bird, I wonder at the fickleness of man and woman. Many husbands and wives there are who do not love as the turtle-dove; but if the man bury his wife, before he has eaten two meals he desires to have another woman in his arms. The turtle-dove does not so, but remains patient and faithful to her companion, waiting if haply he might return[13].

[Footnote 13: "Like to a pair of loving turtle-doves, That could not live asunder day or night."—'I Henry VI.,' ii. 2.]

THE MANDRAGORA

The mandragora is a wild plant, the like of which does not exist. Many kinds of medicine can be made of its root; this root, if you look at it closely, will be seen to have the form of a man. The bark is very useful; when well boiled in water it helps many diseases. The skillful physicians gather this plant when it is old, and they say that when it is plucked it weeps and cries, and if any one hears the cry he will die[14]. But those who gather it do this so carefully that they receive no evil from it. If a man has a pain in his head or in his body, or in his hand or foot, it can be cured by this herb. If you take this plant and beat it and let the man drink of it, he will fall asleep very softly, and no more will he feel pain[15]. There are two kinds of this plant,—male and female. The leaves of both are beautiful. The leaf of the female is thick like that of the wild lettuce.

[Footnote 14: "Would curses kill as doth the mandrake's groan."—'2 Henry VI.,' iii. 2. ]

[Footnote 15: "Not poppy, nor mandragora, Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world."—'Othello,' iii. 3.]

SAPPHIRE

The following two extracts are translated from 'Les Lapidaires Francais du Moyen Age,' by Leopold Pannier, Paris, 1882.

The sapphire is beautiful, and worthy to shine on the fingers of a king. In color it resembles the sky when it is pure and free from clouds[16]. No precious stone has greater virtue or beauty. One kind of sapphire is found among the pebbles in the country of Libya; but that which comes from the land of the Turk is more precious. It is called the gem of gems, and is of great value to men and women. It gives comfort to the heart and renders the limbs strong and sound. It takes away envy and perfidy and can set the prisoner at liberty. He who carries it about him will never have fear. It pacifies those who are angry, and by means of it one can see into the unknown.

[Footnote 16: Cf. the exquisite line of Dante, 'Purgatorio,' i. 13:— 'Dolce color d'oriental zaffiro.']

It is very valuable in medicine. It cools those who are feverish and who on account of pain are covered with perspiration. When powdered and dissolved in milk it is good for ulcers. It cures headache and diseases of the eyes and tongue. He who wears it must live chastely and honorably; so shall he never feel the distress of poverty.

CORAL

Coral grows like a tree in the sea, and at first its color is green. When it reaches the air it becomes hard and red. It is half a foot in length. He who carries it will never be afraid of lightning or tempest. The field in which it is placed will be very fertile, and rendered safe from hail or any other kind of storm. It drives away evil spirits, and gives a good beginning to all undertakings and brings them to a good end.