Caricature and Other Comic Art Part 4

A very frequent object of caricature during the ages when terror ruled the minds of men was human life itself--its brevity, its uncertainty, and the absurd, ill-timed suddenness with which inexorable death sometimes cuts it short. Herodotus records that at the banquets of the Egyptians it was customary for a person to carry about the table the figure of a corpse lying upon a coffin, and to cry out, "Behold this image of what yourselves shall be; therefore eat, drink, and be merry."

There are traces of a similar custom in the records of other ancient nations, among whom it was regarded as a self-evident truth that the shortness of life was a reason for making the most of it while it lasted. And their notion of making the most of it was to get from it the greatest amount of pleasure. This vulgar scheme of existence vanished at the promulgation of the doctrine that the condition of every soul was fixed unalterably at the moment of its severance from the body, or, at best, after a short period of purgation, and that the only way to avoid unending anguish was to do what the Church commanded and to avoid what the Church forbade. Terror from that time ruled Christendom. Terror covered the earth with ecclesiastical structures, gave the Church a tenth of all revenues and two-fifths of all property. By every possible device death was clothed with new and vivid terrors, and in every possible way the truth was brought home to the mind that the coming of death could be as unexpected as it was inevitable and unwelcome. The tolling of the church-bell spread the gloom of the death-chamber over the whole town; and the death-crier, with bell and lantern, wearing a garment made terrible by a skull and cross-bones, went his rounds, by day or night, crying to all good people to pray for the soul just departed.[6]

[Footnote 6: "Essai sur les Dances des Morts," vol. i., p. 151, par E.

H. Langlois, Paris, 1852.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: French Death-crier--"Pray for the Soul just departed."]

These criers did not cease to perambulate the streets of Paris until about the year 1690, and M. Langlois informs us that in remote provinces of France their doleful cry was heard as recently as 1850.

Blessed gift of humor! Against the most complicated and effective apparatus of terror ever contrived, worked by the most powerful organization that ever existed, the sense of the ludicrous a.s.serted itself, and saved the human mind from being crushed down into abject and hopeless idiocy. The readers of "Don Quixote" can not have forgotten the colloquy in the highway between the Knight of the Sorrowful Countenance and the head of the company of strollers.

"'Sir,' replied the Devil, politely, stopping his cart, 'we are the actors of the company of the Evil Spirit. This morning, which is the octave of Corpus Christi, we have represented the play of the Empire of Death. This young man played Death, and this one an Angel. This woman, who is the wife of the author of the comedy, is the Queen. Over there is one who played the part of an Emperor, and the other man that of a Soldier. As to myself, I am the Devil, at your service, and one of the princ.i.p.al actors.'"

[Ill.u.s.tration: Death and the Cripple.]

For centuries the comedy of Death was a standard play at high festivals, the main interest being the rude, sudden interruption of human lives and joys and schemes by the grim messenger. Art adopted the theme, and the Dance of Death began to figure among the decorations of ecclesiastical structures and on the vellum of illuminated prayer-books. No sculptor but executed his Dance of Death; no painter but tried his skill upon it; and by whomsoever the subject was treated, the element of humor was seldom wanting.

So numerous are the pictures and series of pictures usually styled Dances of Death, that a descriptive catalogue of them would fill the s.p.a.ce a.s.signed to this chapter; and the literature to which they have given rise forms an important cla.s.s of the works relating to the Middle Ages. Two phases of the subject were especially attractive to artists.

One was the impartiality of Death, noted by Horace in the familiar pa.s.sage; and the other the incongruity between the summons to depart and the condition of the person summoned. When these two aspects of the subject had become hackneyed, artists pleased themselves sometimes with a treatment precisely the opposite, and represented Death dancing gayly away with the most battered, ancient, and forlorn of human kind, who had least reason to love life, but did not the less shrink from the skeleton's icy touch. Every one feels the comic absurdity of gay and sprightly Death hurrying off to the tomb a cripple as dilapidated as the one in the picture above. In another engraving we see Death, with exaggerated courtesy, handing to an open tomb an extremely old man just able to totter.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Death and the Old Man.]

Another subject in the same series is Death dragging at the garment of a peddler, who is so heavily laden as he trudges along the highway that one would imagine even the rest of the grave welcome. But the peddler, too, makes a very wry face when he recognizes who it is that has interrupted his weary tramp. The triumphant gayety of Death in this picture is in humorous contrast with the lugubrious expression on the countenance of his victim.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Death and the Peddler.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Death and the Knight.]

In other series we have Death dressed as a beau seizing a young maiden, Death taking from a house-maid her broom, Death laying hold of a washer-woman, Death taking apples from an apple-stand, Death beckoning away a bar-maid, Death summoning a female mourner at a funeral, and Death plundering a tinker's basket. Death, standing in a grave, pulls the grave-digger in by the leg; seated on a plow, he seizes the farmer; with an ale-pot at his back, he throttles an inn-keeper who is adulterating his liquors; he strikes with a bone the irksome chain of matrimony, and thus sets free a couple bound by it; he mows down a philosopher holding a clock; upon a miser who has thrust his body deep down into a ma.s.sive chest he shuts the heavy lid; he shows himself in the mirror in which a young beauty is looking; to a philosopher seated in his study he enters and presents an hour-gla.s.s. A pope on his throne is crowning an emperor kneeling at his feet, with princes, cardinals, and bishops in attendance, when a Death appears at his side, and another in his retinue dressed as a cardinal. Death lays his hand upon an emperor's crown at the moment when he is doing justice to a poor man against a rich; but in another picture of the same series, Death seizes a duke while he is disdainfully turning from a poor woman with her child who has asked alms of him. The dignitaries of the Church were not spared. Fat abbots, gorgeous cardinals, and vehement preachers all figure in these series in circ.u.mstances of honor and of dishonor. In most of them the person summoned yields to King Death without a struggle; but in one a knight makes a furious resistance, laying about him with a broadsword most energetically. It is of no avail. Death runs him through the body with his own lance, though in the other picture the weapon in Death's hand was only a long thigh-bone.

Mr. Longfellow, in his "Golden Legend," has availed himself of the Dance of Death painted on the walls of the covered bridge at Lucerne to give naturalness and charm to the conversation of Elsie and Prince Henry while they are crossing the river. The strange pictures excite the curiosity of Elsie, and the Prince explains them to her as they walk:

"_Elsie._ What is this picture?

"_Prince._ It is a young man singing to a nun, Who kneels at her devotions, but in kneeling Turns round to look at him; and Death meanwhile Is putting out the candles on the altar!

"_Elsie._ Ah, what a pity 'tis that she should listen Unto such songs, when in her orisons She might have heard in heaven the angels singing!

"_Prince._ Here he has stolen a jester's cap and bells, And dances with the queen.

"_Elsie._ A foolish jest!

"_Prince._ And here the heart of the new-wedded wife, Coming from church with her beloved lord, He startles with the rattle of his drum.

"_Elsie._ Ah, that is sad! And yet perhaps 'tis best That she should die with all the sunshine on her And all the benedictions of the morning, Before this affluence of golden light Shall fade into a cold and clouded gray, Then into darkness!

"_Prince._ Under it is written, 'Nothing but death shall separate thee and me!'

"_Elsie._ And what is this that follows close upon it?

"_Prince._ Death playing on a dulcimer."

And so the lovers converse on the bridge, all covered from end to end with these caricatures of human existence, until the girl hurries with affright from what she calls "this great picture-gallery of death."

Tournaments were among the usual subjects of caricature during the century or two preceding the Reformation. Some specimens have already been given from the illuminated prayer-books (pp. 44, 46). The device, however, seldom rises above the ancient one of investing animals with the gifts and qualities of men. Monkeys mounted upon the backs of dogs tilt at one another with long lances, or monsters utterly nondescript charge upon other monsters more ridiculous than themselves.

All the ordinary foibles of human nature received attention. These never change. There are always gluttons, misers, and spendthrifts. There are always weak men and vain women. There are always husbands whose wives deceive and worry them, as there are always wives whom husbands worry and deceive; and the artists of the Middle Ages, in their own direct rude fashion, turned both into caricature. The mere list of subjects treated in Brandt's "Ship of Fools," written when Luther was a school-boy, shows us that men were men and women were women in 1490.

That quaint reformer of manners dealt mild rebuke to men who gathered great store of books and put them to no good use; to women who were ever changing the fashion of their dress; to men who began to build without counting the cost; to "great borrowers and slack payers;" to fools "who will serve two lords both together;" to them who correct others while themselves are "culpable in the same fault;" to "fools who can not keep secret their own counsel;" to people who believe in "predestinacyon;" to men who attend closely to other people's business, leaving their own undone; to "old folks that give example of vice to youth;" and so on through the long catalogue of human follies. His homely and wise ditties are ill.u.s.trated by pictures of curious simplicity. Observe the one subjoined, in which "a foule" is weighing the transitory things of this world against things everlasting, one being represented by a scale full of castles and towers, and the other by a scale full of stars--the earthly castles outweighing the heavenly bodies in the balance of this "foule."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Heaven and Earth weighed in the Balance. (From "The Ship of Fools.")]

One of the quaint poems of the gentle priest descants upon the bad behavior of people at church. This poem has an historical interest, for it throws light upon the manners of the time, over which poetry, tradition, and romance have thrown a very delusive charm. We learn from it that while the Christian people of Europe were on their knees praying in church they were liable to be disturbed by the "mad noise and shout"

of a loitering crowd; by knights coming in from the field, falcon upon wrist, with their dogs yelping at their heels; by men chaffering and bargaining as they walked up and down; by the wanton laughter of girls ogled by young men; by lawyers conferring with clients; and by all the usual noises of a crowd at a fair. The author wonders

"That the false paynyms within theyr Temples be To theyr ydols moche more devout than we."

The worthy Brandt was not the only satirist of Church manners. The "Usurer's Paternoster," given by M. Champfleury, is more incisive than Brandt's amiable remonstrance. The usurer, hurrying away to church, tells his wife that if any one comes to borrow money while he is gone, some one must be sent in all haste for him. On his way he says his paternoster thus:

"_Our Father._ Blessed Lord G.o.d [Beau Sire Dieu], be favorable to me, and give me grace to prosper exceedingly. Let me become the richest money-lender in the world. _Who art in heaven._ I am sorry I wasn't at home the day that woman came to borrow. Really I am a fool to go to church, where I can gain nothing. _Hallowed be thy name._ It's too bad I have a servant so expert in pilfering my money. _Thy kingdom come._ I have a mind to go home to see what my wife is about. I'll bet she sells a chicken while I am away, and keeps the money. _Thy will be done._ It pops into my mind that the chevalier who owed me fifty francs paid me only half. _In heaven._ Those d.a.m.ned Jews do a rushing business in lending to every one. I should like very much to do as they do. _As on earth._ The king plagues me to death in raising taxes so often."

Arrived at church, the money-lender goes through part of the service as best he may; but as soon as sermon time comes, off he goes, saying to himself, "I must get away home: the priest is going to preach a sermon to draw money out of our purses." Doubtless the priest in those times of ignorance had to deal with many most profane and unspiritual people, who could only be restrained by fear, and to whose "puerility" much had to be conceded. In touching upon the Church manners of the Middle Ages, M.

Champfleury makes a remark that startles a Protestant mind accustomed only to the most exact decorum in churches. "Old men _of to-day_"

(1850), he says, speaking of France, "will recall to mind the _gayety_ of the midnight ma.s.ses, when buffoons from the country waited impatiently to send down showers of small torpedoes upon the pavement of the nave, to barricade the alcoves with mountains of chairs, to fill with ink the holy-water basins, and to steal kisses in out-of-the-way corners from girls who would not give them." These proceedings, which M.

Champfleury styles "the pleasantries of our fathers," were among the concessions made by a worldly-wise old Church to the "puerility" of the people, or rather to the absolute necessity of occasional hilarious fun to healthy existence.

Amusing and even valuable caricatures six and seven centuries old have been discovered upon parchment doc.u.ments in the English record offices, executed apparently by idle clerks for their amus.e.m.e.nt when they had nothing else to do. One of these, copied by Mr. Wright, gives us the popular English conception of an Irish warrior of the thirteenth century.

[Ill.u.s.tration: English Caricature of an Irishman, A.D. 1280.]

The broad-axes of the Irish were held in great terror by the English. An historian of Edward I.'s time, while discoursing on that supreme perplexity of British kings and ministers, how Ireland should be governed _after_ being quite reduced to subjection, expresses the opinion that the Irish ought not to be allowed in time of peace to use "that detestable instrument of destruction which by an ancient but accursed custom they constantly carry in their hands instead of a staff." The modern Irish shillalah, then, is only the residuum of the ancient Irish broad-axe--the broad-axe with its head taken off. The humanized Irishman of to-day is content with the handle of "the detestable instrument." Other pen-and-ink sketches of England's dreaded foes, the Irish and the Welsh, have been found upon ancient vellum rolls, but none better than the specimen given has yet been copied.

The last object of caricature which can be mentioned in the present chapter is the Jew--the odious Jew--accursed by the clergy _as_ a Jew, despised by good citizens as a usurer, and dreaded by many a profligate Christian as the holder of mortgages upon his estate. When the ruling cla.s.s of a country loses its hold upon virtue, becomes profuse in expenditure, ceases to comply with natural law, comes to regard licentious living as something to be expected of young blood, and makes a jest of a decorous and moral conversation, then there is usually in that country a less refined, stronger cla.s.s, who _do_ comply with natural law, who _do_ live in that virtuous, frugal, and orderly manner by which alone families can be perpetuated and states established. In several communities during the centuries preceding the Reformation, when the n.o.bles and great merchants wasted their substance in riotous living or in insensate pilgrimages and crusades, the Jew was the virtuous, sensible, and solvent man. He did not escape the evil influence wrought into the texture of the character by living in an atmosphere of hatred and contempt, nor the narrowness of mind caused by his being excluded from all the more generous and high avocations. But he remained through all those dismal ages temperate, chaste, industrious, and saving, as well as heroically faithful to the best light on high things that he had. Hence he always had money to lend, and he could only lend it to men who were too glad to think he had no rights which they were bound to respect.

The caricature on the next page was also discovered upon a vellum roll in the Public Record Office in London, the work of some idle clerk 642 years ago, and recently transferred to an English work[7] of much interest, in which it serves as a frontispiece.

[Footnote 7: "History of Crime in England," vol. i., by Luke Owen Pike, London, 1873.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Caricature of the Jews in England, A.D. 1233.]

The ridicule is aimed at the famous Jew, Isaac of Norwich, a rich money-lender and merchant, to whom abbots, bishops, and wealthy vicars were heavily indebted. At Norwich he had a wharf at which his vessels could receive and discharge their freights, and whole districts were mortgaged to him at once. He lent money to the king's exchequer. He was the Rothschild of his day. In the picture, which represents the outside of a castle--his own castle, wrested from some lavish Christian by a money-lender's wiles--the Jew Isaac stands above all the other figures, and is blessed with four faces and a crown, which imply, as Mr. Pike conjectures, that, let him look whichever way he will, he beholds possessions over which he holds kingly sway. Lower down, and nearer the centre, are Mosse Mokke, another Jewish money-lender of Norwich, and Madame Avegay, one of many Jewesses who lent money, between whom is a horned devil pointing to their noses. The Jewish nose was a peculiarly offensive feature to Christians, and was usually exaggerated by caricaturists. The figure holding up scales heaped with coin is, so far as we can guess, merely a taunt; and the seating of Dagon, the G.o.d of the Philistines, upon the turret seems to be an intimation that the Jews, in their dispersion, had abandoned the G.o.d of their fathers, and taken up with the deity of his inveterate foes.

So far as the records of those ages disclose, there was no one enlightened enough to judge the long-suffering Jews with just allowance.

Luther's aversion to them was morbid and violent. He confesses, in his Table-talk, that if it had fallen to his lot to have much to do with Jews, his patience would have given way; and when, one day, Dr. Menius asked him how a Jew ought to be baptized, he replied, "You must fill a large tub with water, and, having divested a Jew of his clothes, cover him with a white garment. He must then sit down in the tub, and you must baptize him quite under the water." He said further to Dr. Menius that if a Jew, not converted at heart, were to ask baptism at his hands, he would take him to the bridge, tie a stone round his neck, and hurl him into the river, such an obstinate and scoffing race were they. If Luther felt thus toward them, we can not wonder that the luxurious dignitaries of the Church, two centuries before his time, should have had qualms of conscience with regard to paying Isaac of Norwich interest upon money borrowed.

CHAPTER VII.