The Biggest Curiosities of Literature. Disraeli Isaac

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СКАЧАТЬ it, he had procured a similar one, which he had filled with the small bones of dogs and cats, and other trifles similar to what were lost. He hoped he might be forgiven for smiling, when he found that such a collection of rubbish was idolized with such pomp, and had even the virtue of expelling demons. It was by the assistance of this box that the prince discovered the gross impositions of the monks and the demoniacs, and Radzivil afterwards became a zealous Lutheran.

      The elector Frederic, surnamed the Wise, was an indefatigable collector of relics. After his death, one of the monks employed by him solicited payment for several parcels he had purchased for our wise elector; but the times had changed! He was advised to give over this business; the relics for which he desired payment they were willing to return; that the price had fallen considerably since the reformation of Luther; and that they would find a better market in Italy than in Germany!

      Our Henry III., who was deeply tainted with the superstition of the age, summoned all the great in the kingdom to meet in London. This summons excited the most general curiosity, and multitudes appeared. The king then acquainted them that the great master of the Knights Templars had sent him a phial containing a small portion of the precious blood of Christ which he had shed upon the cross; and attested to be genuine by the seals of the patriarch of Jerusalem and others! He commanded a procession the following day; and the historian adds, that though the road between St. Paul's and Westminster Abbey was very deep and miry, the king kept his eyes constantly fixed on the phial. Two monks received it, and deposited the phial in the abbey, "which made all England shine with glory, dedicating it to God and St. Edward."

      Lord Herbert, in his Life of Henry VIII., notices the great fall of the price of relics at the dissolution of the monasteries. "The respect given to relics, and some pretended miracles, fell; insomuch, as I find by our records, that a piece of St. Andrew's finger (covered only with an ounce of silver), being laid to pledge by a monastery for forty pounds, was left unredeemed at the dissolution of the house; the king's commissioners, who upon surrender of any foundation undertook to pay the debts, refusing to return the price again." That is, they did not choose to repay the forty pounds, to receive apiece of the finger of St. Andrew.

      About this time the property of relics suddenly sunk to a South-sea bubble; for shortly after the artifice of the Rood of Grace, at Boxley, in Kent, was fully opened to the eye of the populace; and a far-famed relic at Hales, in Gloucestershire, of the blood of Christ, was at the same time exhibited. It was shown in a phial, and it was believed that none could see it who were in mortal sin; and after many trials usually repeated to the same person, the deluded pilgrims at length went away fully satisfied. This relic was the blood of a duck, renewed every week, and put in a phial; one side was opaque, and the other transparent; the monk turned either side to the pilgrim, as he thought proper. The success of the pilgrim depended on the oblations he made; those who were scanty in their offerings were the longest to get a sight of the blood: when a man was in despair, he usually became generous!

      PERPETUAL LAMPS OF THE ANCIENTS.

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      No. 379 of the Spectator relates an anecdote of a person who had opened the sepulchre of the famous Rosicrucius. He discovered a lamp burning, which a statue of clock-work struck into pieces. Hence, the disciples of this visionary said that he made use of this method to show "that he had re-invented the ever-burning lamps of the ancients."

      Many writers have made mention of these wonderful lamps.

      It has happened frequently that inquisitive men examining with a flambeau ancient sepulchres which had been just opened, the fat and gross vapours kindled as the flambeau approached them, to the great astonishment of the spectators, who frequently cried out "a miracle!" This sudden inflammation, although very natural, has given room to believe that these flames proceeded from perpetual lamps, which some have thought were placed in the tombs of the ancients, and which, they said, were extinguished at the moment that these tombs opened, and were penetrated by the exterior air.

      The accounts of the perpetual lamps which ancient writers give have occasioned several ingenious men to search after their composition. Licetus, who possessed more erudition than love of truth, has given two receipts for making this eternal fire by a preparation of certain minerals. More credible writers maintain that it is possible to make lamps perpetually burning, and an oil at once inflammable and inconsumable; but Boyle, assisted by several experiments made on the air-pump, found that these lights, which have been viewed in opening tombs, proceeded from the collision of fresh air. This reasonable observation conciliates all, and does not compel us to deny the accounts.

      The story of the lamp of Rosicrucius, even if it ever had the slightest foundation, only owes its origin to the spirit of party, which at the time would have persuaded the world that Rosicrucius had at least discovered something.

      It was reserved for modern discoveries in chemistry to prove that air was not only necessary for a medium to the existence of the flame, which indeed the air-pump had already shown; but also as a constituent part of the inflammation, and without which a body, otherwise very inflammable in all its parts, cannot, however, burn but in its superficies, which alone is in contact with the ambient air.

      NATURAL PRODUCTIONS RESEMBLING ARTIFICIAL COMPOSITIONS.

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      Some stones are preserved by the curious, for representing distinctly figures traced by nature alone, and without the aid of art.

      Pliny mentions an agate, in which appeared, formed by the hand of nature, Apollo amidst the Nine Muses holding a harp. At Venice another may be seen, in which is naturally formed the perfect figure of a man. At Pisa, in the church of St. John, there is a similar natural production, which represents an old hermit in a desert, seated by the side of a stream, and who holds in his hands a small bell, as St. Anthony is commonly painted. In the temple of St. Sophia, at Constantinople, there was formerly on a white marble the image of St. John the Baptist covered with the skin of a camel; with this only imperfection, that nature had given but one leg. At Ravenna, in the church of St. Vital, a cordelier is seen on a dusky stone. They found in Italy a marble, in which a crucifix was so elaborately finished, that there appeared the nails, the drops of blood, and the wounds, as perfectly as the most excellent painter could have performed. At Sneilberg, in Germany, they found in a mine a certain rough metal, on which was seen the figure of a man, who carried a child on his back. In Provence they found in a mine a quantity of natural figures of birds, trees, rats, and serpents; and in some places of the western parts of Tartary, are seen on divers rocks the figures of camels, horses, and sheep. Pancirollus, in his Lost Antiquities, attests, that in a church at Rome, a marble perfectly represented a priest celebrating mass, and raising the host. Paul III. conceiving that art had been used, scraped the marble to discover whether any painting had been employed: but nothing of the kind was discovered. "I have seen," writes a friend, "many of these curiosities. They are always helped out by art. In my father's house was a gray marble chimney-piece, which abounded in portraits, landscapes, &c., the greatest part of which was made by myself." I have myself seen a large collection, many certainly untouched by art. One stone appears like a perfect cameo of a Minerva's head; another shows an old man's head, beautiful as if the hand of Raffaelle had designed it. Both these stones are transparent. Some exhibit portraits.

      There is preserved in the British Museum a black stone, on which nature has sketched a resemblance of the portrait of Chaucer.72 Stones of this kind, possessing a sufficient degree of resemblance, are rare; but art appears not to have been used. Even in СКАЧАТЬ