Curiosities of Literature Volume Iii Part 20

But it may be doubtful whether the _thoughts of death are useful_, whenever they put a man out of the possession of his faculties. Young pursued the scheme of Quarles: he raised about him an artificial emotion of death: he darkened his sepulchral study, placing a skull on his table by lamp-light; as Dr. Donne had his portrait taken, first winding a sheet over his head and closing his eyes; keeping this melancholy picture by his bed-side as long as he lived, to remind him of his mortality[133]. Young, even in his garden, had his conceits of death: at the end of an avenue was viewed a seat of an admirable chiaro-oscuro, which, when approached, presented only a painted surface, with an inscription, alluding to the deception of the things of this world. To be looking at "the mirror which flatters not;" to discover ourselves only as a skeleton with the horrid life of corruption about us, has been among those penitential inventions, which have often ended in shaking the innocent by the pangs which are only natural to the d.a.m.ned.[134]

Without adverting to those numerous testimonies, the diaries of fanatics, I shall offer a picture of an accomplished and innocent lady, in a curious and unaffected transcript she has left of a mind of great sensibility, where the preternatural terror of death might perhaps have hastened the premature one she suffered.

From the "Reliquiae Gethinianae,"[135] I quote some of Lady Gethin's ideas on "Death."--"The very thoughts of death disturb one's reason; and though a man may have many excellent qualities, yet he may have the weakness of not commanding his sentiments. Nothing is worse for one's health than to be in fear of death. There are some so wise as neither to hate nor fear it; but for my part I have an aversion for it; and with reason; for it is a rash inconsiderate thing, that always comes before it is looked for; always comes unseasonably, parts friends, ruins beauty, laughs at youth, and draws a dark veil over all the pleasures of life.--This dreadful evil is but the evil of a moment, and what we cannot by any means avoid; and it is that which makes it so terrible to me; for were it uncertain, hope might diminish some part of the fear; but when I think I must die, and that I may die every moment, and that too a thousand several ways, I am in such a fright as you cannot imagine. I see dangers where, perhaps, there never were any. I am persuaded 'tis happy to be somewhat dull of apprehension in this case; and yet the best way to cure the pensiveness of the thoughts of death is to think of it as little as possible." She proceeds by enumerating the terrors of the fearful, who "cannot enjoy themselves in the pleasantest places, and although they are neither on sea, river, or creek, but in good health in their chamber, yet are they so well instructed with the _fear of dying_, that they do not measure it only by the _present_ dangers that wait on us.--Then is it not best to submit to G.o.d? But some people cannot do it as they would; and though they are not dest.i.tute of reason, but perceive they are to blame, yet at the same time that their reason condemns them their imagination makes their hearts feel what it pleases."

Such is the picture of an ingenious and a religious mind, drawn by an amiable woman, who, it is evident, lived always in the fear of death.

The Gothic skeleton was ever haunting her imagination. In Dr. Johnson the same horror was suggested by the thoughts of death. When Boswell once in conversation persecuted Johnson on this subject, whether we might not fortify our minds for the approach of death; he answered in a pa.s.sion, "No, sir! let it alone! It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives! The art of dying is not of importance, it lasts so short a time!" But when Boswell persisted in the conversation, Johnson was thrown into such a state of agitation, that he thundered out "Give us no more of this!" and, further, sternly told the trembling and too curious philosopher, "Don't let us meet to-morrow!"

It may be a question whether those who by their preparatory conduct have appeared to show the greatest indifference for death, have not rather betrayed the most curious art to disguise its terrors. Some have invented a mode of escaping from life in the midst of convivial enjoyment. A mortuary preparation of this kind has been recorded of an amiable man, Moncriff, the author of "Histoire des Chats" and "L'Art de Plaire," by his literary friend La Place, who was an actor in, as well as the historian of, the singular narrative. One morning La Place received a note from Moncriff, requesting that "he would immediately select for him a dozen volumes most likely to amuse, and of a nature to withdraw the reader from being occupied by melancholy thoughts." La Place was startled at the unusual request, and flew to his old friend, whom he found deeply engaged in being measured for a new peruke, and a taffety robe-de-chambre, earnestly enjoining the utmost expedition.

"Shut the door!" said Moncriff, observing the surprise of his friend.

"And now that we are alone, I confide my secret: on rising this morning, my valet in dressing me showed me on this leg this dark spot--from that moment I knew I was 'condemned to death;' but I had presence of mind enough not to betray myself." "Can a head so well organised as yours imagine that such a trifle is a sentence of death?"--"Don't speak so loud, my friend! or rather deign to listen a moment. At my age it is fatal! The system from which I have derived the felicity of a long life has been, that whenever any evil, moral or physical, happens to us, if there is a remedy, all must be sacrificed to deliver us from it--but in a contrary case, I do not choose to wrestle with destiny and to begin complaints, endless as useless! All that I request of you, my friend, is to a.s.sist me to pa.s.s away the few days which remain for me, free from all cares, of which otherwise they might be too susceptible. But do not think," he added with warmth, "that I mean to elude the religious duties of a citizen, which so many of late affect to contemn. The good and virtuous curate of my parish is coming here under the pretext of an annual contribution, and I have even ordered my physician, on whose confidence I can rely. Here is a list of ten or twelve persons, friends beloved! who are mostly known to you. I shall write to them this evening, to tell them of my condemnation; but if they wish me to live, they will do me the favour to a.s.semble here at five in the evening, where they may be certain of finding all those objects of amus.e.m.e.nt, which I shall study to discover suitable to their tastes. And you, my old friend, with my doctor, are two on whom I most depend."

La Place was strongly affected by this appeal--neither Socrates, nor Cato, nor Seneca looked more serenely on the approach of death.

"Familiarise yourself early with death!" said the good old man with a smile--"It is only dreadful for those who dread it!"

During ten days after this singular conversation, the whole of Moncriff's remaining life, his apartment was open to his friends, of whom several were ladies; all kinds of games were played till nine o'clock; and that the sorrows of the host might not disturb his guests, he played the _chouette_ at his favourite game of _picquet_; a supper, seasoned by the wit of the master, concluded at eleven. On the tenth night, in taking leave of his friend, Moncriff whispered to him, "Adieu, my friend! to-morrow morning I shall return your books!" He died, as he foresaw, the following day.

I have sometimes thought that we might form a history of this _fear of death_, by tracing the first appearances of the SKELETON which haunts our funereal imagination. In the modern history of mankind we might discover some very strong contrasts in the notion of death entertained by men at various epochs. The following article will supply a sketch of this kind.

FOOTNOTES:

[131] To these may be added Queen Anne Boleyn. Kingston, the Lieutenant of the Tower, in a letter to Cromwell, records that she remarked of her own execution, "'I heard say the executioner was very good, and I have a little neck;' and she put her hands about it, laughing heartily. Truly, this lady has much joy and pleasure in death."

[132] _Blacks_ was the term for mourning in James the First and Charles the First's time.

[133] It was from this picture his stone effigy was constructed for his tomb in old St. Paul's. This mutilated figure, which withstood the great fire of London, is still preserved in the crypt of the present cathedral.

[134] A still more curious _fas.h.i.+on_ in this taste for mortuary memorials originated at the court of Henry II. of France; whose mistress, Diana of Poitiers, being a widow; mourning colours of black and white became the fas.h.i.+on at court. Watches in the form of skulls were worn; jewels and pendants in the shape of coffins; and rings decorated with skulls and skeletons.

[135] My discovery of the nature of this rare volume, of what is original and what collected, will be found in volume ii. of this work.

HISTORY OF THE SKELETON OF DEATH.

_Euthanasia! Euthanasia_! an easy death! was the exclamation of Augustus; it was what Antoninus Pius enjoyed; and it is that for which every wise man will pray, said Lord Orrery, when perhaps he was contemplating the close of Swift's life.

The ancients contemplated DEATH without terror, and met it with indifference. It was the only divinity to which they never sacrificed, convinced that no human being could turn aside its stroke. They raised altars to Fever, to Misfortune, to all the evils of life; for these might change! But though they did not court the presence of death in any shape, they acknowledged its tranquillity; and in the beautiful fables of their allegorical religion, Death was the daughter of Night, and the sister of Sleep; and ever the friend of the unhappy! To the eternal sleep of death they dedicated their sepulchral monuments--_aeternali somno!_[136] If the full light of revelation had not yet broken on them, it can hardly be denied that they had some glimpses and a dawn of the life to come, from the many allegorical inventions which describe the transmigration of the soul. A b.u.t.terfly on the extremity of an extinguished lamp, held up by the messenger of the G.o.ds intently gazing above, implied a dedication of that soul; Love, with a melancholy air, his legs crossed, leaning on an inverted torch, the flame thus naturally extinguis.h.i.+ng itself, elegantly denoted the cessation of human life; a rose sculptured on a sarcophagus, or the emblems of epicurean life traced on it, in a skull wreathed by a chaplet of flowers, such as they wore at their convivial meetings, a flask of wine, a patera, and the small bones used as dice: all these symbols were indirect allusions to death, veiling its painful recollections. They did not pollute their imagination with the contents of a charnel-house. The sarcophagi of the ancients rather recall to us the remembrance of the activity of life; for they are sculptured with battles or games, in ba.s.so relievo; a sort of tender homage paid to the dead, observes Mad. de Stael, with her peculiar refinement of thinking.

It would seem that the Romans had even an aversion to mention death in express terms, for they disguised its very name by some periphrasis, such as _discessit e vita_, "he has departed from life;" and they did not say that their friend had _died_, but that he had _lived_; _vixit_!

In the old Latin chronicles, and even in the _Foedera_ and other doc.u.ments of the middle ages, we find the same delicacy about using the fatal word _Death_, especially when applied to kings and great people.

"_Transire a Saeculo--Vitam suam mutare--Si quid de eo humanitus contigerit, &c._" I am indebted to Mr. Merivale for this remark. Even among a people less refined, the obtrusive idea of death has been studiously avoided: we are told that when the Emperor of Morocco inquires after any one who has recently died, it is against etiquette to mention the word "death;" the answer is "his destiny is closed!" But this tenderness is only reserved for "the elect" of the Mussulmen. A Jew's death is at once plainly expressed: "He is dead, sir! asking your pardon for mentioning such a contemptible wretch!" _i.e._ a Jew! A Christian's is described by "The infidel is dead!" or, "The cuckold is dead."

The ancient artists have so rarely attempted to personify Death, that we have not discovered a single revolting image of this nature in all the works of antiquity.[137]--To conceal its deformity to the eye, as well as to elude its suggestion to the mind, seems to have been an universal feeling, and it accorded with a fundamental principle of ancient art; that of never permitting violent pa.s.sion to produce in its representation distortion of form. This may be observed in the Laoc.o.o.n, where the mouth only opens sufficiently to indicate the suppressed agony of superior humanity, without expressing the loud cry of vulgar suffering. Pausanias considered as a personification of death a female figure, whose teeth and nails, long and crooked, were engraven on a coffin of cedar, which enclosed the body of Cypselus; this female was unquestionably only one of the _Parcae_, or the Fates, "watchful to cut the thread of life." Hesiod describes Atropos indeed as having sharp teeth and long nails, waiting to tear and devour the dead; but this image was of a barbarous era. Catullus ventured to personify the Sister Destinies as three Crones; "but in general," Winkelmann observes, "they are portrayed as beautiful virgins, with winged heads, one of whom is always in the att.i.tude of writing on a scroll." Death was a nonent.i.ty to the ancient artist. Could he exhibit what represents nothing? Could he animate into action what lies in a state of eternal tranquillity?

Elegant images of repose and tender sorrow were all he could invent to indicate the state of death. Even the terms which different nations have bestowed on a burial-place are not a.s.sociated with emotions of horror.

The Greeks called a burying-ground by the soothing term of _Coemeterion_, or "the sleeping-place;" the Jews, who had no horrors of the grave, by _Beth-haim_, or, "the house of the living;" the Germans, with religious simplicity, "G.o.d's-field." The Scriptures had only noticed that celestial being "the Angel of Death,"--graceful, solemn, and sacred!

Whence, then, originated that stalking skeleton, suggesting so many false and sepulchral ideas, and which for us has so long served as the image of death?

When the Christian religion spread over Europe, the world changed! the certainty of a future state of existence, by the artifices of wicked worldly men, terrified instead of consoling human nature; and in the resurrection the ignorant mult.i.tude seemed rather to have dreaded retribution, than to have hoped for remuneration. The Founder of Christianity everywhere breathes the blessedness of social feelings. It is "Our Father!" whom he addresses. The horrors with which Christianity was afterwards disguised arose in the corruptions of Christianity among those insane ascetics who, misinterpreting "the Word of Life," trampled on nature; and imagined that to secure an existence in the other world it was necessary not to exist in the one in which G.o.d had placed them.

The dominion of mankind fell into the usurping hands of those imperious monks whose artifices trafficed with the terrors of ignorant and hypochondriac "Kaisers and kings." The scene was darkened by penances and by pilgrimages, by midnight vigils, by miraculous shrines, and b.l.o.o.d.y flagellations; spectres started up amidst their _tenebres_; millions of ma.s.ses increased their supernatural influence. Amidst this general gloom of Europe, their troubled imaginations were frequently predicting the end of the world. It was at this period that they first beheld the grave yawn, and Death, in the Gothic form of a gaunt anatomy, parading through the universe! The people were frightened as they viewed, everywhere hung before their eyes, in the twilight of their cathedrals, and their "pale cloisters," the most revolting emblems of death. They startled the traveller on the bridge; they stared on the sinner in the carvings of his table and chair; the spectre moved in the hangings of the apartment; it stood in the niche, and was the picture of their sitting-room; it was worn in their rings, while the illuminator shaded the bony phantom in the margins of their "Horae," their primers, and their breviaries. Their barbarous taste perceived no absurdity in giving action to a heap of dry bones, which could only keep together in a state of immovability and repose; nor that it was burlesquing the awful idea of the resurrection, by exhibiting the incorruptible spirit under the unnatural and ludicrous figure of mortality drawn out of the corruption of the grave.

An anecdote of these monkish times has been preserved by old Gerard Leigh; and as old stories are best set off by old words, Gerard speaketh! "The great Maximilian the emperor came to a monastery in High Almaine (Germany), the monks whereof had caused to be curiously painted the charnel of a man, which they termed--Death! When that well-learned emperor had beholden it awhile, he called unto him his painter, commanding to blot the skeleton out, and to paint therein the image of--a fool. Wherewith the abbot, humbly beseeching him to the contrary, said 'It was a good remembrance!'--'Nay,' quoth the emperor, 'as vermin that annoyeth man's body cometh unlooked for, so doth death, which here is but a fained image, and life is a certain thing, if we know to deserve it.'"[138] The original mind of Maximilian the Great is characterized by this curious story of converting our emblem of death into a parti-coloured fool; and such satirical allusions to the folly of those who persisted in their notion of the skeleton were not unusual with the artists of those times; we find the figure of a fool sitting with some drollery between the legs of one of these skeletons.[139]

This story is a.s.sociated with an important fact. After they had successfully terrified the people with their charnel-house figure, a reaction in the public feelings occurred, for the skeleton was now employed as a medium to convey the most facetious, satirical, and burlesque notions of human life. Death, which had so long hara.s.sed their imaginations, suddenly changed into a theme fertile in coa.r.s.e humour.

The Italians were too long accustomed to the study of the beautiful to allow their pencil to sport with deformity; but the Gothic taste of the German artists, who could only copy their own homely nature, delighted to give human pa.s.sions to the hideous physiognomy of a noseless skull; to put an eye of mockery or malignity into its hollow socket, and to stretch out the gaunt anatomy into the postures of a Hogarth; and that the ludicrous might be carried to its extreme, this imaginary being, taken from the bone-house, was viewed in the action of _dancing_! This blending of the grotesque with the most disgusting image of mortality, is the more singular part of this history of the skeleton, and indeed of human nature itself!

"The Dance of Death," erroneously considered as Holbein's, with other similar Dances, however differently treated, have one common subject which was painted in the arcades of burying-grounds, or on town-halls, and in market-places. The subject is usually "The Skeleton" in the act of leading all ranks and conditions to the grave, personated after nature, and in the strict costume of the times. This invention opened a new field for genius; and when we can for a moment forget their luckless choice of their bony and bloodless hero, who to amuse us by a variety of action becomes a sort of horrid Harlequin in these pantomimical scenes, we may be delighted by the numerous human characters, which are so vividly presented to us. The origin of this extraordinary invention is supposed to be a favourite pageant, or religious mummery, invented by the clergy, who in these ages of barbarous Christianity always found it necessary to amuse, as well as to frighten the populace; a circ.u.mstance well known to have occurred in so many other grotesque and licentious festivals they allowed the people. The practice of dancing in churches and church-yards was interdicted by several councils; but it was found convenient in those rude times. It seems probable that the clergy contrived the present dance, as more decorous and not without moral and religious emotions. This pageant was performed in churches, in which the chief characters in society were supported in a sort of masquerade, mixing together in a general dance, in the course of which every one in his turn vanished from the scene, to show how one after the other died off. The subject was at once poetical and ethical; and the poets and painters of Germany adopting the skeleton, sent forth this chimerical Ulysses of another world to roam among the men and manners of their own.

A popular poem was composed, said to be by one Macaber, which name seems to be a corruption of St. Macaire; the old Gaulish version, reformed, is still printed at Troyes, in France, with the ancient blocks of woodcuts, under the t.i.tle of "La Grande Danse Macabre des Hommes et des Femmes." Merian's "Todten Tanz," or the "Dance of the Dead," is a curious set of prints of a Dance of Death from an ancient painting, I think not entirely defaced, in a cemetery at Basle, in Switzerland. It was ordered to be painted by a council held there during many years, to commemorate the mortality occasioned by a plague in 1439. The prevailing character of all these works is unquestionably grotesque and ludicrous; not, however, that genius, however barbarous, could refrain in this large subject of human life from inventing scenes often imagined with great delicacy of conception, and even great pathos. Such is the new-married couple, whom Death is leading, beating a drum; and in the rapture of the hour, the bride seems, with a melancholy look, not insensible of his presence; or Death is seen issuing from the cottage of the poor widow with her youngest child, who waves his hand sorrowfully, while the mother and the sister vainly answer; or the old man, to whom Death is playing on a psaltery, seems anxious that his withered fingers should once more touch the strings, while he is carried off in calm tranquillity. The greater part of these subjects of death are, however, ludicrous; and it may be a question, whether the spectators of these Dances of Death did not find their mirth more excited than their religious emotions. Ignorant and terrified as the people were at the view of the skeleton, even the grossest simplicity could not fail to laugh at some of those domestic scenes and familiar persons drawn from among themselves. The skeleton, skeleton as it is, in the creation of genius, gesticulates and mimics, while even its hideous skull is made to express every diversified character, and the result is hard to describe; for we are at once amused and disgusted with so much genius founded on so much barbarism.[140]

When the artist succeeded in conveying to the eye the most ludicrous notions of death, the poets also discovered in it a fertile source of the burlesque. The curious collector is acquainted with many volumes where the most extraordinary topics have been combined with this subject. They made the body and the soul debate together, and ridicule the complaints of a d.a.m.ned soul! The greater part of the poets of the time were always composing on the subject of Death in their humorous pieces.[141] Such historical records of the public mind, historians, intent on political events, have rarely noticed.

Of a work of this nature, a popular favourite was long the one ent.i.tled "_Le faut mourir, et les Excuses Inutiles qu'on apporte a cette Necessite; Le tout en vers burlesques, 1658_." Jacques Jacques, a canon of Ambrun, was the writer, who humorously says of himself that he gives his thoughts just as they lie on his heart, without dissimulation--"For I have nothing double about me except my name! I tell thee some of the most important truths in laughing; it is for thee _d'y penser tout a bon_." This little volume was procured for me with some difficulty in France; and it is considered as one of the happiest of this cla.s.s of death-poems, of which I know not of any in our literature.

Our canon of Ambrun, in facetious rhymes, and with the _navete_ of expression which belongs to his age, and an idiomatic turn fatal to a translator, excels in pleasantry; his haughty hero condescends to hold very amusing dialogues with all cla.s.ses of society, and delights to confound their "excuses inutiles." The most miserable of men, the galley-slave, the mendicant, alike would escape when he appears to them.

"Were I not absolute over them," Death exclaims, "they would confound me with their long speeches; but I have business, and must gallop on!" His geographical rhymes are droll.

Ce que j'ai fait dans l'Afrique Je le fais bien dans l'Amerique; On l'appelle monde nouveau Mais ce sont des brides a veau; Nulle terre a moy n'est nouvelle Je vay partout sans qu'on m'appelle; Mon bras de tout temps commanda Dans le pays du Canada; J'ai tenu de tout temps en bride La Virginie et la Floride, Et j'ai bien donne sur le bec Aux Francais du fort de Kebec.

Lorsque je veux je fais la nique Aux Incas, aux rois de Mexique; Et montre aux Nouveaux Grenadins Qu'ils sont des foux et des badins.

Chacun sait bien comme je matte Ceux du Bresil et de la Plate, Ainsi que les Taupinembous-- En un mot, je fais voir a tout Que ce que nait dans la nature, Doit prendre de moy tablature![142]

The perpetual employments of Death display copious invention with a facility of humour.

Egalement je vay rangeant, Le conseiller et le serjent, Le gentilhomme et le berger, Le bourgeois et le boulanger, Et la maistresse et la servante Et la niece comme la tante; Monsieur l'abbe, monsieur son moine, Le pet.i.t clerc et le chanoine; Sans choix je mets dans mon butin Maistre Claude, maistre Martin, Dame Luce, dame Perrete, &c.

J'en prends un dans le temps qu'il pleure A quelque autre, au contraire a l'heure Qui demesurement il rit; Je donne le coup qui le frit.

J'en prends un, pendant qu'il se leve; En se couchant l'autre j'enleve.

Je prends le malade et le sain L'un aujourd'hui, l'autre le demain.

J'en surprends un dedans son lit, L'autre a l'estude quand il lit.

J'en surprends un le ventre plein Je mene l'autre par la faim.

J'attrape l'un pendant qu'il prie, Et l'autre pendant qu'il renie; J'en saisis un au cabaret Entre le blanc et le clairet, L'autre qui dans son oratoire A son Dieu rend honneur et gloire: J'en surprends un lorsqu'il se psame Le jour qu'il epouse sa femme, L'autre le jour que plein de deuil La sieune il voit dans le cercueil; Un a pied et l'autre a cheval, Dans le jeu l'un, et l'autre au bal; Un qui mange et l'autre qui boit, Un qui paye et l'autre qui doit, L'un en ete lorsqu'il moissonne, L'autre eu vendanges dans l'automne, L'un criant almanachs nouveaux-- Un qui demande son aumosne L'autre dans le temps qu'il la donne, Je prends le bon maistre Clement, Au temps qu'il prend un lavement, Et prends la dame Catherine Le jour qu'elle prend medecine.

This veil of gaiety in the old canon of Ambrun covers deeper and more philosophical thoughts than the singular mode of treating so solemn a theme. He has introduced many scenes of human life which still interest, and he addresses the "teste a triple couronne," as well as the "forcat de galere," who exclaims, "Laissez-moi vivre dans mes fers," "le gueux,"

the "bourgeois," the "chanoine," the "pauvre soldat," the "medecin;" in a word, all ranks in life are exhibited, as in all the "Dances of Death." But our object in noticing these burlesque paintings and poems is to show that after the monkish Goths had opened one general scene of melancholy and tribulation over Europe, and given birth to that dismal _skeleton of death_, which still terrifies the imagination of many, a reaction of feeling was experienced by the populace, who at length came to laugh at the gloomy spectre which had so long terrified them!

FOOTNOTES:

[136] Montfaucon, "L'Antiquite Expliquee," i. 362.

[137] A representation of Death by a skeleton appears among the Egyptians: a custom more singular than barbarous prevailed, of enclosing a skeleton of beautiful workmans.h.i.+p in a small coffin, which the bearer carried round at their entertainments; observing, "After death you will resemble this figure: drink, then! and be happy." A symbol of Death in a convivial party was not designed to excite terrific or gloomy ideas, but a recollection of the brevity of human life.

[138] "The Accidence of Armorie," p. 199.

[139] A woodcut preserved in Mr. Dibdin's Bibliographical Decameron, i. 35.