Born: Isaac Maddox,
bishop of Worcester (Vindication of Government, &c.,
of Church of England), 1697, London; Thomas Campbell,
poet (Pleasures of Hope), 1777, Glasgow; George Biddell Airy,
astronomer-royal of England, 1801,
Alnwick.
Died: James I, king of
Aragon, 1276, Xativa; Henri, Mar�chal de Turenne,
killed near Saltzbach in Alsace, 1675; Pierre Louis de
Maupertuis, natural philosopher, 1749, Basel; Samuel
Gottlieb Gmelin, naturalist, 1774, Achmetkent, in the
Caucasus; George Burnet, Scottish painter, 1816; Dr.
John Dalton, eminent chemist, 1844, Manchester.
Feast Day: Saints
Maximian, Malthus, Martinian, Dionysius, John Serapion,
and Constantine, martyrs, commonly called 'The Seven
Sleepers,' 250. St. Pantaleon, martyr, 303. St.
Congall, abbot of Iabhnallivin, Ireland. St. Luican,
confessor, of Ireland.
LEGEND OF THE
SEVEN SLEEPERS
The festival of the Seven
Sleepers, commemorated on the 27th of July, was
introduced into the Christian church at a very early
period. The legend on which it is founded, relates
that the Emperor Decius, having set up a statue in the
city of Ephesus, commanded all the inhabitants to
worship it. Seven young men, disobeying this mandate,
and being unambitious of the honour of martyrdom, fled
to Mount Caelius, where they concealed themselves in a
cavern (anno 250). Decius, enraged, caused all the
various caverns on the mount to be closed up, and
nothing was heard of the fugitives till the year 479,
when a person, digging foundations for a stable, broke
into the cavern, and discovered them.
Disturbed by the
unwonted noise, the young men, who had been asleep all
the time, awakened; feeling very hungry, and thinking
they had slept but one night, they despatched one of
their number into Ephesus to learn the news, and
purchase some provisions. The antiquity of the coin
proffered by the messenger at a baker's shop attracted
suspicion, and the notice of the authorities. After an
investigation, the whole affair was declared to be a
miracle, and in its commemoration the festival was
instituted.
This legend, which is merely
an adaptation of a more ancient one, has found a place
in the Koran. According to the Mohammedan account, the
sleepers were accompanied by a dog, named Kratim. This
animal, after its long sleep, becoming a great prophet
and philosopher, has been admitted into the
Mussulman's paradise, where it sits beside the ass of
Balaam. The other eight animals that enjoy this high
privilege, are the ant of Solomon, the whale of Jonah,
the ram of Isaac, the calf of Abraham, the camel of
Saleh, the cuckoo of Belkis, the ox of Moses, and the
mare of Mohammed.
Alban Butler gives a rational
cast to the legend of the Seven Sleepers. He conceives
that the young men were put to death, by being walled
up in a cave, and that only their relics were
discovered in 479. These relics he states to be
preserved in a large stone coffin, in the church of
St. Victor, at Marseilles. He further cites from Spon's Travels,that the cave of
the Seven Sleepers
continued in modern times to be the object of devout
pilgrimages.
DR.
DALTON
At one of the early meetings
of the British Association for the Advancement of
Science, it drew out into prominence, and directed
great reverence to, an old man from Manchester, who
had been, up to that time, but little known to his
fellow-citizens. For a long course of years, he had
been an obscure teacher of mathematics�he was a
Quaker�he was an unobtrusive and, to all outward
appearance, an insignificant person. It was now
learned, for the first time, by many of the Manchester
people, that this quiet little old man enjoyed high
esteem in the scientific world, as the originator of a
theory of the utmost importance in chemistry, and was
indeed one of the great men of his age, living there,
as it were, in a disguise framed of his own
superabundant modesty.
John Dalton, the son of a
Cumberland yeoman, was born at Eaglesfield, near
Cockermouth, on the 5th of September 1766. At the age
of thirteen, he began to earn his living by teaching,
and at twenty-seven he went to Manchester as a
lecturer on mathematics. Until pensioned by government
in 1833, he gave lessons at eighteenpence an hour in
mathematics. He declined several offers to provide him
with a competency, so that he might give his undivided
attention to chemistry; asserting ' that teaching was
a kind of recreation, and that if richer, he would not
probably spend more time in investigation than he was
accustomed to do.' He was of course frugal and
provident.
The apparatus of his laboratory was of the
simplest, and indeed rudest kind; scarcely superior to
that of Wollaston, who, on a foreign chemist
expressing an anxious desire to see his laboratory,
produced a small tray containing some glass tubes, a
blow-pipe, two or three watch-glasses, a slip of
platina, and a few test-tubes. Dalton was a bachelor,
altogether of most quiet and regular habits. Twice
each Sunday he took his seat in the Friends'
meeting-house, and for forty years he ate his
Sunday-dinner at one friend's table. The afternoon of
every Thursday he spent in a bowlines green, assigning
as a reason that he liked to take his Saturday in the
middle of the week. He was fond of exercise in the
open air, and made an annual excursion among the
mountains of Cumberland and Westmoreland. He did not
read many books, and was singularly indifferent to all
that was written concerning himself. His words were
few and truthful. A student who had missed one lecture
of a course, applied to him for a certificate of full
attendance. He declined to give it, and then
relenting, said: 'If thou wilt come tomorrow, I will
go over the lecture thou hast missed.'
Dalton enjoyed robust health; he was middle-sized, and
of a figure more sturdy than elegant. His head and
face bore a striking resemblance to the portraits of
Sir Isaac Newton. Like Newton, he referred his
success, not to genius, but to patience and industry.
'These, in my opinion, make one man succeed better
than another.'
It is in connection with the
Atomic Theory that the name of Dalton promises to go
down to posterity. The constitution of matter with
respect to divisibility, has been debated from very
ancient times. Some hold that its divisibility is
infinite, and others, that its reduction is only
possible to the extent of atoms. Newton expressed the
latter opinion in these words: All things considered,
it seems probable that God, in the beginning, formed
matter in solid, massy, hard, impenetrable, movable
particles, of such sizes, figures, and with such other
properties, and in such proportion to space, as most
conduced to the end for which he formed them; and that
these primitive particles, being solids, are
incomparably harder than any porous bodies compounded
of them; even so very hard as never to wear or break
to pieces, no ordinary power being able to divide what
God made one in the first creation.'
At this point Dalton took up
the question. He began by assuming that matter,
although it may in essence be infinitely divisible, is
in fact only finitely divided, so that each element
consists of particles or molecules of a definite and
unchangeable weight, size, and shape. He had observed
that in certain chemical compounds the elements united
in a constant proportion; for example, water, when
decomposed, yields one part by weight of hydrogen, and
eight parts by weight of oxygen; and it would be
useless to try to combine eleven parts of oxygen with
one part of hydrogen; water would be formed, but three
parts of oxygen would be left free as overplus. What
is the reason for the maintenance of this combining
proportion? asked Dalton. In his answer, we have the
atomic theory, or rather hypothesis.
Taking for granted the
existence of atoms, he went on to conceive that in the
several elements they vary in weight; atoms of gold
from atoms of silver, atoms of iodine from atoms of
chlorine; but, on the other hand, that all atoms of
the same element are of uniform weight; thus, that any
atom of iron is equal to any other atom of iron the
world over. We have observed that water is compounded
of eight parts by weight of oxygen to one part by
weight of hydrogen, and an explanation of the
combination is offered in the supposition, that each
atom of oxygen is eight times as heavy as one of
hydrogen. Further, it is presumed, that in the union
of oxygen with hydrogen, the atoms of each are not
interfused, but lie side by side, complete in their
individuality. If, therefore, the weight of an atom of
hydrogen be 1, and an atom of oxygen be 8, it is
impossible that their smallest combining proportion,
by weight, can be other than 1 and 8. The smallest
quantity of water, in this view, must then consist of
one atom of hydrogen and one atom of oxygen, bound
together in that mystic tie which we term chemical
affinity.
The example we have chosen
from the constitution of water is a simple
illustration of the constant proportion which exists
throughout chemical compounds with infinite, complex,
and multiple variations. It was in 1803 that the great
cosmic idea entered Dalton's mind. In 1804, he
explained it in conversation to Dr.
Thomas Thomson of
Glasgow, who, in 1807, gave a short sketch of the
hypothesis in the third edition of his System of
Chemistry. The asserted law of combination in constant
proportions was quickly tested in a multitude of
experiments, and the facts clustered to its
confirmation.
It was discovered that there was as
little chance or haphazard in the concourse of atoms
as in the motions of planets. The hypo-thesis gave a
prodigious impulse to the science of chemistry; it
shot light through all its realms, and reduced a chaos
of observations to purpose and system. Before Dalton's
happy conception there was not a single analysis which
could be trusted as correct, or a single gas whose
specific gravity was known with accuracy. In the arts,
his service was beyond value. He gave the
manufacturing chemist a rule whereby he could preclude
waste, teaching him how to effect combinations without
the loss of an ounce of material. Even supposing that
in the future Dalton's notion of the coacervation of
infinitesimal atoms should prove erroneous, his merit
will remain untouched; for that properly consists in
the discovery and promulgation of the law of constant
proportion in chemical unions, where before law was
unknown, or at any rate only dimly surmised. The theory
of atoms was merely an attempt to reveal the mystery
of the law, which will abide, whatever may be the fate
of the theory.
Dalton was almost insensible
to differences in colours. Whereas most persons see
seven colours in the rainbow, he saw only two�yellow
and blue; or at most, three�yellow, blue, and purple.
He saw no difference between red and green, so that he
thought `the face of a laurel-leaf a good match to a
stick of red sealing-wax; and the back of the leaf to
the lighter red of wafers.' When, at Oxford, Dr.
Whewell asked him what he would compare his scarlet
doctor's gown to, he pointed to the leaves of the
trees around them.
When a young man, 31st October
1794, he read a paper before the Manchester Literary
and Philosophical Society, entitled Extraordinary
Facts Relating to the Vision, of Colours, drawing
attention to his own deficiency, which thenceforth
became known under the name of Daltonism. Colour-blindness
is by no means an uncommon affection. Dalton was
acquainted with nearly twenty people in his own case.
Dugald Stewart, the metaphysician, was one of them: he
could not distinguish the crimson fruit of the
Siberian crab from the leaves of the tree on which it
grew otherwise than by the difference in form. Dalton
tried to account for his peculiarity by supposing that
it arose from the vitreous humour of his eyes having a
blue tint instead of being colourless like water, as
in the majority of man-kind.
After his death, in
obedience to his instructions, his eyes were
dissected; but no peculiarity could be detected. The
true explanation of colour-blindness is, we apprehend,
a phrenological one�namely, that in persons insensible
to colours there is a deficiency or mal-organisation
in that portion of the brain which receives
impressions of colour; just as there are some
similarly deficient in the sense of tune, and who
cannot distinguish between one piece of music and
another. In one
thus insensible to melody, we do not assume any defect
in his ears, but a deficiency in that part of his
brain assigned to the organ of tune.
THOMAS CAMPBELL
The author of The Pleasures of Hope died at Boulogne, June
15th, 1844, at the age of
sixty-seven,
and was interred in Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey.
He had held for forty-five years a place in the first
rank of living poets. He was born at Glasgow, of West
Highland parentage; but the most remarkable
circumstance connected with his entrance into the
world was the fact that his father, at the time of his
birth, numbered as many years as he himself was
destined to attain. The poet was a man of small
stature, of handsome face and figure, animated in
conversation, liberal in his political and religious
ideas, fond of old friends, could sing a droll song
and tell a pleasant story at table, had a very good
power of formal public address, and was altogether an
amiable and respect-able man through life.
Of his pleasant table-anecdotes we remember one
regarding himself. He tarried at a London book-stall
one day, and after some conversation with the
bookseller, purchased a book, which he requested to be
sent home. The bookseller, who had previously appeared
interested in his conversation, no sooner saw his name
on the card he handed, than he seemed to become
additionally excited, and finally he blundered out:
'May I inquire, sir?�but�are you, sir�are you the
great Mr. Campbell?' The poet had the caution to ask
who it was he considered as the great Mr. Campbell,
but not without a tolerably safe conclusion in his own
mind that the author of the Pleasures of Hope was the
man in question. The answer was: 'Oh! Mr. Campbell,
the missionary and author of Travels in South Africa,
to be sure!'
For a few years previous to 1824, a Danish
litterateur, named Feldborg, resided in
Britain�chiefly in Scotland, where he brought out a
book of considerable merit, entitled Denmark
Delineated. He was good-natured, clever, and
entertaining, and much a favourite with Wilson,
Lockhart, and other illuminate of the north. It
appears that he had also made the acquaintance of
Campbell, who, on giving him a copy of his poems
containing the ode on the Battle of the Baltic,
thought proper to address him in the following lines
(heretofore, as we believe, inedited):
Think me not, Danish stranger, a hard-hearted
pagan,
If you find, mid'st my war-songs, one called "
Copenhagen,"
For I thought when your state join'd the Emperor
Paul,
We'd a right to play with you the devil and all;
But the next time our fleet went your city to
batter,
That attack, I allow, was a scandalous matter,
And I gave it my curse�and I wrote on 't a satire.
To bepraise such an action of sin, shame, and
sorrow,
I'll be � if I would be the laureate to-morrow.
There is not (take my word) a true Englishman
glories
In that deed�'twas a deed of our merciless Tories,
Whom we hate though they rule us, and I can assure
ye,
They had swung for 't if England had sat as their
jury.
But a truce to remembrances blackened with pain,
Here 's a health to yourself, and your country,
dear Dane.
As our nations are kindred in language and kind,
May the ties of our blood be the ties of our mind,
And perdition on him who our peace would unbind!
May we struggle not who shall in fight be the
foremost,
But the boldest in sense�in humanity warmest;
May you leave us with something like love for our
nation;
Though we 're still curs'd by Castlereagh's
administration,
But whatever you think, or wherever you ramble,
Think there 's one who has loved you in England'
Tom CAMPBELL
LONDON, 30 FOLEY PLACE,
GREAT PORTLAND STREET,
July 11, 1822.
At a public dinner, in those days when England and
France were at mortal enmity, Campbell proposed the
health of
Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of the French.
The company was astounded, and on the poet being asked
why he could give such a toast, he replied: 'Because
he once shot a book-seller!' Campbell sadly forgot, on
this occasion, the handsome and even generous
treatment he had experienced from the first
booksellers with whom he had any important
transaction.
His poem, The Pleasures of Hope, was written before
he had attained his twenty-second year, and while
earning his living as a tutor in Edinburgh. In long
walks about Arthur's Seat, he conned over its lines
until they satisfied his fastidious ear. When the poem
was finished, the question arose, how to get it
printed without expense or risk of loss? The title had
nothing to commend it in the way of originality. Akenside's
Pleasures of Imagination had long been
published, and Rogers's Pleasures of Memory had been
familiar to the world for six years. He had some
acquaintance with the firm of Mundell & Son, for whom
he had abridged Bryan Edwards's West Indies for �20,
and to them he offered his manuscript.
Pleased with the poem, yet with slight expectation
of pecuniary advantage, they agreed to publish it on
condition that Campbell should assign to them the
copyright, in return for which they would give him two
hundred copies of his book in quires�that is, unbound.
Judged by the event, this may seem to have been a
niggard bargain; but a better it would be very
difficult to make with a manuscript poem, of whatever
merit, by an unknown author, though the salesman
should trot from east to west of London, and try
Edinburgh and Dublin to boot. The Pleasures of Hope
made its appearance in May 1799. A few copies spread
from hand to hand, and were read in Edinburgh with
delight and astonishment. Quickly the news flashed
through the world of letters, that a poet had appeared
whose prime, should it realize the promise of his
youth, would register his name among the immortals.
Edition after edition of the poem was bought up,
and Mundell & Son shared the profits of their
speculation with the author, giving him �25 on every
thousand printed, or a royalty of sixpence a copy.
Further, in 1802, they allowed him to print, in
quarto, for his own benefit, a seventh edition,
containing The Battle of Hohenlinden, Ye Mariners of
England, The Exile of Erin, and Lochiel's Warning. By
this venture, it is said, he cleared �600. Mundell &
Son only ceased to pay their voluntary tribute after a
quarrel with the poet. It is estimated that from The
Pleasures of Hope he derived at least �900, which, as
the poem contains 1100 lines, is at the rate of 15s. a
line�not poor pay, certainly.
Campbell wrote little
and at long intervals, and nothing in marked excess of
his early efforts. His powers appear to have been paralysed with a dread that he
should produce anything
beneath the standard of his youth. But the fame of The
Pleasures of Hope was a source of easy income to him
through life. For his name as editor of books and
magazines, publishers paid him large sums; and in
1806, before he was thirty, the
Fox ministry endowed
him with a pension of �200 a year. Poetry, if it was a
hard mistress to Burns, was a most bountiful one to
Campbell.
Reverting to Campbell's feeling about book-sellers,
it is to be admitted that he shared it with many
authors. For what cause we know not, it is an opinion
commonly entertained that a publisher is unjust if he
on any occasion profits more than the author. If he
buys a doubtful manuscript on speculation, and its
publication proves remunerative, the author goes about
proclaiming that he has been outwitted or defrauded.
If, on the other hand, the publication had proved a
dead loss, it would never enter the author's head to
refund the cash he had received, or to divide the
deficit with the publisher. It must be obvious, that
such conduct is childish in the extreme. In no trade,
except literature, would such an outcry be heard with
the least tolerance.
No commercial men, except publishers, are ever
found sharing the gains of a speculation with those
from whom they made their purchase. If Mundell & Son
had bought a piece of land from Campbell, and in their
hands its rental had multiplied however prodigiously,
they would never have dreamed of sharing the increase
with Campbell, nor would Campbell have ventured to
expect a dividend. It is eminently unreasonable that
publishers should incur odium for conducting their
business on ordinary commercial principles. Happy is
that author by whom a publisher is able to make a
successful speculation! If The Pleasures of Hope had
not been remunerative, Campbell would never have
received great sums for editing magazines, nor a
pension of �200 a year from government whilst quite a
young man.
STORY OF JANE M'REA
On the 27th of July 1777, an
incident occurred on
the Hudson River, which temporarily threw a sad
discredit on the British arms, then engaged in the
hopeless attempt to preserve America to the British
crown. An American army under Schuyler, was posted on
the Hudson, with a rear-guard occupying Fort Edward on
that river. The British army of General Burgoyne was
in possession of the chain of lakes extending towards
Canada. At this crisis, there resided with a widow
close to Fort Edwards, a young lady of New York, named
Jane M'Rea, who had a lover named Jones, a native
loyalist, serving under Burgoyne. Her brother wished
her to come to him in a safer part of the country; but
it is supposed that she lingered at her friend Mrs.
M'Neil's house at Fort Edward, in a dreamy hope of
meeting her loyalist lover. She was a lovely girl of
twenty, extremely intelligent, and of charming
manners.
The British army had a number of red Indians in its
employment, to assist in harassing the unfortunate
colonists. They were strictly enjoined only to make
captures, and not to commit murder; but it was
impossible, by an injunction, to control such wild
natures. The fact is, that they shed blood in many
instances, and so left an indelible disgrace on the
British name in that country. On the day above stated,
a party of them assailed Mrs. M'Neil's house, and bore
off herself and her guest Miss M'Rea, as prisoners,
designing apparently to carry them both to the British
camp. They were, however, pursued by some American
soldiery, who fired upon them. Mrs. M'Neil was brought
into camp, but of Jane M'Rea only the scalp, with her
long flowing hair, was forthcoming. The poor girl had
been shot by her own countrymen, and the Indians,
seeing her dead, had brought away the bloody trophy,
which they are accustomed to tear from the bodies of
their enemies.
This tale of woe made a deep impression on the
minds of the American people. It was universally
believed, that the Indians had murdered Miss M'Rea,
notwithstanding the palpably contradictory fact, that
they had preserved the elder lady. The love affair
added romance to the tragic story. It was held as a
terrible example of the wickedness of employing the
Indians in a civilised warfare. Poor Jones withdrew in
extreme grief to Canada, where he lived to grow old,
but was always sad, and never married. Jane lies
buried in the small village cemetery, near Fort
Edward, beside the grave of her friend Mrs. M'Neil.
LEGENDARY ACCOUNT OF GERBERT, MAGICIAN AND POPE
It was a peculiar feature of the middle ages, that,
amid the general mass of ignorance, individuals arose
possessed of such enormous mental powers, and so far
in advance of their age, that, while the real effects
of their great understanding were lost, their names
became enveloped in a mist of superstitious wonder
which gave them the repute of supernatural giants. A
very remarkable example was furnished by the latter
part of the tenth century, a period in the history of
Western Europe which was not remarkable for its
intellectual development. It was France which then
produced a youth named Gerbert, of whom the old
chroniclers tell us that the highest science then
known seemed to be beneath his notice, while his
mechanical inventions were the world's wonder. From
the account which William of Malmesbury gives of his
organ worked by hot water, we might be led to believe
that he was not unacquainted with the power of steam.
We cannot be surprised if such a man became the
subject of innumerable legends, even in his own time,
and the historian just quoted, who lived in the middle
of the twelfth century, has collected some of them,
which are not only curious in themselves, but place in
an interesting light the manner in which science was
then generally regarded.
According to these legends, Gerbert made his debut
in the world as a monk of Fleury; but, dissatisfied
with the unintellectual life which he led there, he
fled from his monastery by night, and went to Spain,
to study, among other things, the occult sciences at
Toledo. This place was the great seat of learning
among the Arabs of Spain; and, among the Christians of
the middle ages, Arabian science was equivalent with
magic and sorcery. Gerbert, according to the legend,
lodged at Toledo with a Saracenic 'philosopher,' whose
friendship he gained by his liberality (for he seems
to have been possessed of wealth) and by the prospect
of advancement in the world, and whose fair daughter
became attached to the young student by more tender
feelings. The philosopher instructed Gerbert in all
hidden knowledge, and communicated to him freely all
his books, with the exception of one volume,
containing 'the knowledge of his whole art,' which
nothing could induce him to impart to his pupil, while
the latter became more eager to obtain what was so
strictly forbidden.
At length, with the assistance of the young lady,
Gerbert treacherously plied the Saracen with wine,
and, while he was asleep in his bed, took the book
from under his pillow, where it was concealed, and
fled. The Saracen awoke, perceived his loss, and
having discovered, by his knowledge of the stars, the
robber and the road he had taken, pursued him without
delay. Gerbert also had become acquainted with the
stars, and through them he was made aware of the
nearness of his pursuer, and of the danger which
threatened him, and he adopted an ingenious stratagem.
Coming to a wooden bridge, he took shelter under it,
and suspended himself to the woodwork, so as to touch
neither earth nor water. Then the Saracen, whose
knowledge of Gerbert's movements reached only to those
two elements, found himself suddenly at fault,
and returned home to make further experiments in his
art. He soon obtained the further knowledge he
required, and again went in pursuit of Gerbert, who
meanwhile had arrived on the sea-coast, and there, by
means apparently of his stolen book, called up the
Evil One, to whom he sold himself, on the condition
that the latter should protect him from the Saracen,
and convey him safely over the sea to France.
William of Malmesbury here interrupts his narrative
to state his reasons for believing that Gerbert had
really entered into a league with the devil; and then
goes on to state that, on his arrival in France, he
opened a school at Orleans, where he was respected by
all the great scholars of the age, and had among his
pupils the sons of Hugh Capet and the Emperor Otho,
and other remarkable persons. When Robert, the son of
the former, became king of France (A.D. 997), he made
his old instructor, Gerbert, archbishop of Rheims. His
other pupil, Otho, who had succeeded his father, Otho,
as Emperor of Germany, afterwards raised Gerbert to
the archbishopric of Ravenna, and, through that
emperor's influence, he was subsequently (in 999)
elected pope. 'Thus,' says William of Malmesbury, 'he
followed up his fortune so successfully, with the aid
of the devil, that he left nothing unexecuted which he
had once conceived.'
The same old historian gives another story of
Gerbert's shrewdness. There stood in the Campus
Martins at Rome, a statue, having the forefinger of
the right hand extended, and inscribed on the head the
words, 'Strike here!' Many had believed that by
obeying this injunction, they would discover a
treasure, and the statue had thus been much mutilated
by ignorant people; but Gerbert saw at once its
meaning. Marking where the shadow of the finger fell
at noonday, when the sun was on the meridian, he
placed a mark on the spot, and returning thither at
night, accompanied only by a trusty servant carrying a
lantern, he caused the earth to open by his accustomed
arts, and a spacious entrance was displayed.
Advancing, they saw before them a vast palace, with
walls of gold, golden roofs�in fact, everything of
gold; golden soldiers playing with golden dice; a king
of the same metal at table with his queen; delicacies
set before them, and servants waiting; vessels of
great weight and value, the sculpture of which
surpassed nature herself.
In the innermost part of the mansion, a carbuncle
of the first quality, though small in appearance,
dispelled the darkness of night. In the opposite
corner stood a boy, with a bow bent, and the arrow
drawn to the head. When, however, the visitors
attempted to touch any of these objects, all the
figures appeared to rush forward to repel their
presumption. Gerbert took warning, and controlled his
desires; but his man, possessing less self-control,
attempted to purloin a knife from the table, and
instantly the figures all started up with loud clamour,
the boy let fly his arrow at the carbuncle, and in a
moment all was darkness. Gerbert compelled his servant
to restore the knife, and then, with the aid of the
lantern, succeeded in making their escape. It is
hardly necessary to add that the entrance, then closed
up, has never since been found.
This, as well as the next story, has been repeated
in different forms, and in relation to different
persons. Before Gerbert's great advancement in the
world, he cast the head of a statue, which, by means
of astrology, he endowed with the property that, if
questioned, it would return an answer, and, moreover,
would speak nothing but the truth. The first question
put by Gerbert was: 'Shall I be pope?' to which the
head replied, 'Yes!' He then asked when he should
die, and was told that he would not die until he had
sung mass in Jerusalem. Gerbert believed he had thus,
in his own hands, the power of prolonging his life
indefinitely, simply by not going to Jerusalem. He
became pope in due time; but he was ignorant of the
fact that there was a church in Rome which was
popularly called Jerusalem. One day, while in the
height of his prosperity, he performed mass in that
church, and was at the same time suddenly seized with
sickness. On inquiry, he learned the name of the
church, and then, remembering the prophecy, he
perceived it was fulfilled, and pre-pared for his
death, which soon followed.
The same story is told in a more romantic form by
another early writer, Walter Mapes. Mapes's version
introduces a fairy-like being, named Meridiana, as
greatly affecting the destiny of Gerbert. It also
states that Gerbert, when pope, 'out of fear or
reverence,' always avoided partaking of the Eucharist,
using sleight-of-hand to keep up appearances before
the people. It concludes as follows: Gerbert, when
assured he was soon to die, called together, in a
great meeting, the cardinals, the clergy, and the
populace, and there publicly made a full confession of
his life. He afterwards made an order that, in future,
when the pope in person consecrated the bread and
wine, instead of taking it himself with his back
turned to the congregation, he should turn round and
do it in the view of everybody. The few days which
remained to him he passed in sincere penitence, and he
made at last a very religious death. He was buried in
the church of St. John Lateran, and it was said that
his marble tomb in that church sweated, or exuded
water before the death of people of note; the water
becoming a perfect stream when it prognosticated the
death of the pope, and at other times varying in
quantity according to the rank of the individual whose
death was thus announced.
Most of our readers will remember how this story of
the equivocation of dying in Jerusalem was, at a much
later period, transferred to our King Henry IV.