Thalaba the Destroyer Part 46

"Sephie-Mirza was born in the year of the _Egire_ 1057. For the superst.i.tion of the Persians will not let us know the month or the day.

Their addiction to Astrology is such that they carefully conceal the moments of their Princes birth, to prevent the casting their nativities, where they might meet perhaps with something which they should be unwilling to know."

At the coronation of this Prince two Astrologers were to be present, with an Astrolabe in their hands, to take the fortunate hour, as they term it, and observe the lucky moments that a happy constellation should point out for proceedings of that importance.

Sephie-Mirza having by debauchery materially injured his health, the Chief Physician was greatly alarmed, "in regard his life depended upon the King's, or if his life were spared yet he was sure to lose his estate and his liberty, as happens to all those who attend the Asiatic Sovereigns, when they die under their care. The Queen Mother too accused him of treason or ignorance, believing that since he was her Son's Physician he was obliged to cure him. This made the Physician at his wits end, so that all his receipts failing him, he bethought himself of one that was peculiarly his own invention, and which few physicians would ever have found out, as not being to be met with neither in Galen nor Hippocrates. What does he then do, but out of an extraordinary fetch of his wit, he begins to lay the fault upon the stars and the King's Astrologers, crying out that they were altogether in the wrong, that if the King lay in a languishing condition and could not recover his health it was because they had failed to observe the happy hour, or the Aspect of a fortunate constellation at the time of his coronation." The stratagem succeeded, the King was recrowned and by the new name of Solyman!

_Chardin._

[168] We have now to refute their errour who are persuaded that Brazen Heads made under certain constellations may give answers, and be as it were guides and counsellors, upon all occasions, to those that had them in their possession. Among these is one Yepes who affirms that Henry de Villeine made such a one at Madrid, broken to pieces afterwards by order of John 2. King of Castile. The same thing is affirmed by Bartholomew Sibillus, and the Author of the _Image of the World_, of Virgil; by William of Malmsbury of Sylvester; by John Gower of Robert of Lincoln; by the common people of England of Roger Bacon; and by Tostatus Bishop of Avilla, George of Venice, Delrio, Sibillus, Raguseus, Delancre and others, too many to mention, of Albertus Magnus; who as the most expert, had made an entire man of the same metal, and had spent thirty years without any interruption in forming him under several aspects and constellations. For example, he formed the eyes, according to the said Tostatus in his commentaries upon Exodus, when the Sun was in a sign of the Zodiac correspondent to that part, casting them out of divers metals mixt together and mark'd with the characters of the same signs and planets, and their several and necessary aspects. The same method he observed in the head, neck, shoulders, thighs, and legs, all which were fashioned at several times, and being put and fastened together in the form of a man, had the faculty to reveal to the said Albertus the solutions of all his princ.i.p.al difficulties. To which they add (that nothing be lost of the story of the statue) that it was battered to pieces by St. Thomas, meerely because he could not endure its excesse of prating.

But to give a more rational account of this Androides of Albertus, as also of all these miraculous heads, I conceive the original of this fable may well be deduced from the Teraph of the Hebrews, by which as Mr. Selden affirms, many are of opinion, that we must understand what is said in Genesis concerning Laban's G.o.ds, and in the first book of Kings concerning the image which Michol put into the bed in David's place. For R. Eleazar holds that it was made of the head of a male child, the first born and that dead-born, under whose tongue they applyed a lamen of Gold, whereon were engraved the characters and inscriptions of certain planets, which the Jews superst.i.tiously wandered up and down with, instead of the Urim and Thummim, or the Ephod of the High Priest. And that this original is true and well deduced, there is a manifest indicium, in that Henry D'a.s.sia, and Bartholomaeus Sibillus affirm, that the Androides of Albertus, and the Head made by Virgil, were composed of flesh and bone, yet not by nature, but by art. But this being judged impossible by modern Authors, and the vertue of Images, Annulets, and planetary Sigills being in great reputation, men have thought ever since (taking their opinion from Trismegistus affirming in his Asclepion, that of the G.o.ds, some were made by the Sovereign G.o.d, and others by men, who, by some art, had the power to unite the invisible Spirits to things visible and corporeal, as is explained at large by St. Augustine) that such figures were made of copper or some other metal, whereon men had wrought under some favourable Aspects of Heaven and the planets.

My design is not absolutely to deny that he might compose some head or statue of man, like that of Memnon, from which proceeded a small sound and pleasant noise, when the rising Sun came by his heat to rarify and force out, by certain small conduits, the air which in the cold of the night was condensed within it. Or haply they might be like those statues of Boetius, whereof Ca.s.siodorus speaking said, _Metalla mugiunt_, _Diomedis in aere grues buccinant, aenus anguis insibilat, aves simulatae fritinniunt, et quae propriam vocem nesciunt, ab aere dulcedinem probantur emittere cantilenae_; for such I doubt not but may be made by the help of that part of Natural Magic which depends on the Mathematics.

_History of Magic._

The t.i.tle page to this book is wanting;, but the Epistle Dedicatory is signed J. Davies. By the stile, spelling, and _extensive reading of the author_, it appears to be a work of the last century.

[169] This Table is suspended in the Seventh Heaven, and guarded from the Demons, lest they should change or corrupt any thing thereon. Its length is so great as is the s.p.a.ce between Heaven and Earth, its breadth equal to the distance from the East to the West, and it is made of one pearl. The divine Pen was created by the finger of G.o.d: that also is of pearls, and of such length and breadth that a swift horse could scarcely gallop round it in five hundred years. It is so endowed, that self-moved it writes all things, past, present, and to come. Light, is its ink, and the language which it uses, only the Angel Seraphael understands.

_Maracci._

[170] They celebrate the night Leleth-ul-beraeth on the 15th of the month of Schabann, with great apprehension and terror, because they consider it as the tremendous night on which the angels Kiramenn-keatibinn, placed on each side of mankind to write down their good and bad actions, deliver up their books and receive fresh ones for the continuance of the same employment. It is believed also, that on that night the archangel Azrail, the angel of death, gives up also his records and receives another book in which are written the names of all those destined to die in the following year.

_D'Ohsson._

[171] The Balance of the Dead is an article in almost every creed.

Mohammed borrowed it from the Persians. I know not from whence the Monks introduced it; probably they were ignorant enough to have invented the obvious fiction.

In the Vision of Thurcillus the ceremony is accurately described. "At the end of the north wall, within the church, sate St. Paul, and opposite him, without, was the Devil and his Angels. At the feet of the Devil a burning pit flamed up, which was the mouth of the Pit of h.e.l.l. A Balance equally poised, was fixed upon the wall between the Devil and the Apostle, one scale hanging before each. The Apostle had two weights, a greater and a less, all shining and like gold, and the Devil also had two smoky and black ones. Therefore the Souls that were all black came one after another, with great fear and trembling, to behold the weighing of their good and evil works: for these weights weighed the works of all the souls, according to the good or evil which they had done. When the scale inclined to the Apostle, he took the Soul, and introduced it thro'

the Eastern gate, into the fire of Purgatory, that there it might expiate its crimes. But when the scale inclined and sunk towards the Devil, then he and his Angels s.n.a.t.c.hed the soul miserably howling and cursing the father and mother that begot it to eternal torments, and cast it with laughter and grinning into the deep and fiery pit which was at the feet of the Devil. Of this Balance of good and evil much may be found in the writings of the holy Fathers."

_Matthew Paris._

"Concerning the salvation of Charlemagne, Archbishop Turpin, a man of holy life, wrote thus. "I, Turpin, Archbishop of Rheims, being in my chamber, in the city of Vienna, saying my prayers, saw a legion of Devils in the air, who were making a great noise. I adjured one of them to tell me from whence they came, and wherefore they made so great an uproar. And he replied that they came from Aix la Chapelle, where a great Lord had died, and that they were returning in anger because they had not been able to carry away his soul. I asked him who the great Lord was, and why they had not been able to carry away his soul. He replied that it was Charlemagne, and that Saint Jago had been greatly against them. And I asked him how St. Jago had been against them; and he replied, we were weighing the good and the evil which he had done in this world, and Saint Jago brought so much timber and so many stones from the churches which he had founded in his name, that they greatly over-balanced all his evil works; and so we had no power over his soul.

And having said this the Devil disappeared."

We must understand from this vision of Archbishop Turpin, that they who build or repair churches in this world, erect resting places and inns for their salvation.

_Historia do Imperador Carlos Magno, & dos Doze Pares de Franca._

Two other corollaries follow from the vision. The Devil's way home from Aix la Chapelle lay thro' Vienna;--and as churches go by weight, an architect of Sir John Vanbrugh's school should always be employed."

This Balance of the Dead was an easy and apt metaphor, but clumsily imagined as an actual mode of trial.

"For take thy Ballaunce, if thou be so wise, "And weigh the winde that under heaven doth blow; "Or weigh the light that in the East doth rise: "Or weigh the thought that from man's mind doth flow "But if the weight of these thou canst not show, "Weigh but one word which from thy lips doth fall."

_Spenser._

[172] This double meaning is in the spirit of oracular prediction. The cla.s.sical reader will remember the equivocations of Apollo, the fable of the young man and the Lion in the tapestry will be more generally recollected: we have many buildings in England to which this story has been applied,--Cook's Folly near Bristol derives its name from a similar tradition.

The History of the Buccaneers affords a remarkable instance of prophecy occasioning its own accomplishment.

"Before my first going over into the _South-Seas_ with Captain _Sharp_ (and indeed before any Privateers, at least since _Drake_ and _Oxengham_) had gone that way which we afterwards went, except _La Sound_, a _French_ Captain, who by Capt. _Wright's_ instructions had ventured as far as _Cheapo_ town with a body of men, but was driven back again, I being then on board Capt. _c.o.xon_, in company with three or four more Privateers, about four leagues to the East of _Portobel_, we took the packets bound thither from _Carthagena_. We opened a great quant.i.ty of the Merchant's letters, and found the contents of many of them to be very surprizing, the Merchants of several parts of _Old-Spain_ thereby informing their correspondents of _Panama_, and elsewhere, of a certain prophecy that went about _Spain_ that year, the tenor of which was, _that there would be_ English _privateers that year in the_ West-Indies, _who would make such great discoveries, as to open a door into the_ South-Seas; which they supposed was fastest shut: and the letters were accordingly full of cautions to their friends to be very watchful and careful of their coasts.

This door they spake of we all concluded must be the pa.s.sage over land through the country of the _Indians_ of _Darien_, who were a little before this become our friends, and had lately fallen out with the _Spaniards_, breaking off the intercourse which for some time they had with them: And upon calling also to mind the frequent invitations we had from those _Indians_ a little before this time, to pa.s.s through their Country, and fall upon the _Spaniards_ in the _South-Seas_, we from henceforward began to entertain such thoughts in earnest, and soon came to a resolution to make those attempts which we afterwards did with Capt. _Sharp, c.o.xon, &c._ So that the taking these letters gave the first life to those bold undertakings: And we took the advantage of the fears the _Spaniards_ were in from that prophecy, or probable conjecture, or whatever it were; for we sealed up most of the letters again, and sent them ash.o.r.e to _Portobel_.

_Dampier._

[173] The Souls of the Blessed are supposed by some of the Mohammedans to animate green Birds in the Groves of Paradise. Was this opinion invented to conciliate the Pagan Arabs, who believed, that of the Blood near the dead person's brain was formed a Bird named Hamah, which once in a hundred years visited the sepulchre?

To this there is an allusion in the Moallakat. "Then I knew with certainty, that, in so fierce a contest with them, many a heavy blow would make the Perched Birds of the Brain fly quickly from every Skull."

_Poem of Antara._

In the Bahar-Da.n.u.sh, Parrots are called the green-vested resemblers of Heaven's dwellers. The following pa.s.sages in the same work may perhaps allude to the same superst.i.tion, or perhaps are merely metaphorical, in the usual stile of its true Oriental bombast. "The Bird of Understanding fled from the nest of my brain." "My joints and members seemed as if they would separate from each other, and the Bird of Life would quit the nest of my Body." "The Bird of my Soul became a captive in the net of her glossy ringlets."

I remember in a European Magazine two similar lines by the Author of the Lives of the Admirals.

_My beating Bosom is a well-wrought cage, Whence that sweet Gold-finch Hope shall ne'er elope!_

The Grave of Francisco Jorge, the Maronite Martyr, was visited by two strange Birds of unusual size. No one knew whence they came. They emblemed, says Vasconcellos, the purity and the indefatigable activity of his soul.

The inhabitants of Otaheite have a.s.signed a less respectable part of the Body, as the Seat of the Soul.

The disembowelling of the body there, is always performed in great secrecy, and with much religious superst.i.tion. The bowels are, by these people, considered as the immediate organs of sensation, where the first impressions are received, and by which all the operations of the mind are carried on: it is therefore natural to conclude, that they may esteem, and venerate the intestines, as bearing the greatest affinity to the immortal part. I have frequently held conversations on this subject, with a view to convince them, that all intellectual operations were carried on in the head; at which they would generally smile, and intimate, that they had frequently seen men recover whose skulls had been fractured, and whose heads had otherways been much injured; but that, in all cases in which the intestines had been wounded, the persons on a certainty died. Other arguments they would also advance in favour of their belief; such as the effect of fear, and other pa.s.sions, which caused great agitation and uneasiness, and would sometimes produce sickness at the stomach, which they attributed intirely to the action of the bowels.

_Vancouver._

[174] When Hosein the son of Ali was sick of a grievous disorder, he longed for a pomegranate, tho' that fruit was not then in season. Ali went out, and diligently enquiring found a single one in the possession of a Jew. As he returned with it, a sick man met him and begged half the pomegranate, saying it would restore his health. Ali gave him half, and when he had eaten it, the man requested he would give him the other half, the sooner to complete his recovery. Ali benignantly complied, returned to his son and told him what had happened, and Hosein approved what his father had done.

Immediately behold a miracle! as they were talking together the door was gently knocked at. He ordered the woman servant to go there, and she found a man, of all men the most beautiful, who had a plate in his hand covered with green silk, in which were ten pomegranates. The woman was astonished at the beauty of the man and of the pomegranates, and she took one of them and hid it, and carried the other nine to Aly, who kissed the present. When he had counted them he found that one was wanting, and said so to the servant, she confessed that she had taken it on account of its excellence, and Ali gave her her liberty. The Pomegranates were from Paradise, Hosein was cured of his disease only by their odour, and rose up immediately, recovered, and in full strength.

_Maracci._

I suspect, says Maracci, that this is a true miracle wrought by some Christian Saint, and falsely attributed to Ali. However this may be, it does not appear absurd that G.o.d should by some especial favour reward an act of remarkable charity even in an Infidel, as he has sometimes by a striking chastis.e.m.e.nt punished enormous crimes. But the a.s.sertion that the Pomegranates were sent from Paradise, exposes the fable.

Maracci after detailing and ridiculing the Mohammedan miracles, contrasts with them in an appendix a few of the real and permanent miracles of Christianity which are proved by the testimony of the whole world. He selects five as examples. 1. The Chapel of Loretto, brought by angels from Nazareth to Illyric.u.m, and from Illyric.u.m to Italy; faithful messengers having been sent to both places, and finding in both its old foundations, in dimensions and materials, exactly corresponding.

2. The cross of St. Thomas in Urbe Malipuritana (Masulipatan) in the E.

Indies. A Bramin, as the Saint was extended upon his cross in prayer, slew him. On the anniversary of his martyrdom, during the celebration of Ma.s.s, the cross gradually becomes luminous, till it shines one white glory. At elevating the host it resumes its natural colour, and sweats blood profusely, in which the faithful dip their clothes, by which many miracles are wrought.