Obrázky stránek
PDF
ePub

are ludicrously similar in their confidence and their reasonableness to those which we find advanced in support of modern theories. The point to be established is, that the nose does denote, or is considered to denote, peculiar wisdom or fitness for government; 66 so," says the learned man of Bologna, "the Persians admire an aquiline nose in their King; so in the Old Testament, those who had too small, or too large, or a distorted nose, were excluded from the priesthood and the sacrifices." He afterwards proceeds to a greater height still, and displays such a degree of theorising eloquence as even a political economist might envy. "Nasus ergo," says he, "tantæ est estimationis, ut ex ejus decore, ornatuque, summa sacerdotia, amplissima imperia, et regna latissima pendere videantur." Of such estimation, therefore, is the nose, that upon the beauty and elegance thereof, depend the highest offices of the priesthood, the most extensive governments, and the largest kingdoms !

This glowing eulogy is only to be equalled in modern times by the panegyrists of free trade in timber and in theology. But as these earnest laudations resemble one another in their eloquence, so do they in their reasonableness, and also in the estimation with which they were, and are, regarded. The pedants of James the First's time were as much enamoured of the reasonings and eulogies of Doctor Taliacotius and the like,

as the more active and loquacious pedants of the present day are of dissertations on the "principles" of this, that, and the other thing, which to simple people, seem to depend on the accidents, caprices, and fashions of human life.

Taliacotius was so very great upon his favourite theme that I suppose his bones must have rattled in his grave when our modern philosopher Coleridge propounded the doctrine that the "final cause" of the human nose was snuff-an extreme on the side of mere familiarity, which may perhaps be equally questionable with the more abstruse theories developed by the philosophers both of heathen antiquity and the middle ages. Those very clever persons, the Pythagoreans, as the Italian professor informs us, were of opinion that nature has expressed in the formation of the nose, the monade and the dyade in connecting the two nostrils by a common bridge; an observation from which they drew some exceedingly sage and profound conclusions touching the power of certain numbers. A commentator, who published some time in the beginning of the present century, thinks proper, in allusion to this matter, to call these Pythagoreans "pompous triflers," and describes their learned conclusions as "fantastical notions." I love equal and impartial justice too well to administer such censure. If our modern theorists are to be received with honour and applause, when laying down the

law about the most important practical concerns, I know not why we should accuse the poor Pythagoreans of " pompous trifling." I think that they are "all in the same boat."

Talking of" final causes," it would be a pity to omit the theory of an Irish bully and philosopher, touching that part of the human frame which is chiefly used in the operation of sitting. He did not call it the seat of honour, but the sounding-board of honour, and declared that its final cause was "kicking." Unfortunately this worthy got shot through the head before he had completed the entire circuit of his reasoning. A much greater philosopher, however, than this Irishman, was solemnly of opinion that this part of the frame was intimately connected with the finer operations of the soul. Hence the sitting posture is so favourable to meditation and philosophising. Upon the "final cause" of the sedentary posture, he says, "Homo enim ad sedendi commoditatem, solus nates habet, ut commodé sedere possit ad meditandum et philosophandum. Sedens enim, anima prudentior est." For this last assertion, upon the superior sagacity of man in a sitting posture, Riolanus quotes Aristotle as his authority. I regret that I cannot recollect the exact words of the Stagyrite which are referred to. This conclusion, if well authenticated, would be a great consolation to tailors and shoemakers, and very fully account for the superiority of soul, and astute

ness of perception, for which these worthy handicraftsmen are so celebrated. Some one* has written an essay on the melancholy of tailors. Probably the subject matter of that dissertation is a mistake. The serious cast of thought and expression arising from that posture which is so convenient ad meditandum et philosophandum is a very different thing from tristitia, or melancholy. But this question is too deep to be pursued further in this place.

PERSONAL PECULIARITIES.

FROM the philosophy of the sitting posture it is but natural and proper to turn to the subject of tails. Nothing political, however, is intended,. and certainly no scandal upon the House of Commons. The rich subject of tails is worthy of notice, because I may show that not only were there in former times adventurous theorists of nearly equivalent modesty to those who flourish in our own time, but historians also (Steele tells us of certain persons who could not help telling lies, but thought it more polite to be called “historians" than "liars"), who might come into competition with some modern compilers of "illustrative facts." This word "illustrative" is now a very great favourite; for the

*Charles Lamb.

theory or "principle" being assumed in the first instance, it is highly convenient to have an ingenious illustrator, with a somewhat daring turn for the collection of corroborative circumstances.

There is a writer of the name of Bulwer-not the author of " Pelham," nor, as far as I know, an ancestor of that distinguished individual, though the thing is possible-who was very learned upon the history of the homines caudati of curious naturalists. He was not quite so celebrated as Lord Monboddo; but no matter. Well, this Bulwer quotes from historians more ancient still, especially Johannes Neirembergensis, a story of certain people in Kent, or some other county in the south, who all had tails, as a punishment for some indignity shown by their progenitors to Saint Augustine. In Bulwer's own time (as he was informed) there was a family in Kent having tails, “insomuch,” says he, "that you may know any one to be rightly descended of that family by having a tail." About this he seems not to be quite sure; but he has very little doubt that the inhabitants of Stroud, near Rochester, incurred the curse of tails by cutting off the tail of St. Thomas à Becket's horse. "You may know," says he,

66

a man of Stroud by his long tail. And to make it a little more credible that the rumpbone among brutish and strong-docked nations doth often sprout out with such an excrescence

« PředchozíPokračovat »