fession, from which it might appear that he was not circumcised; that he condemned with his whole heart the heresy of Mahomet, and every other heresy of the like kind-as, for example, Calvinism and Jansenism; and that in every point he thought like him, the said Biscayan bishop. the subject of the forgery was a matter of faith, the crime clearly rendered both the priest and the witnesses liable to the galleys in this world, and to hell in the other. Our lord of the manor, however, who loved a joke, but had no gall or malice in his heart, took compassion both upon Bills of confession were at that time the bodies and souls of these conspiramuch in fashion. The sick man sent for tors. He declined delivering them over his parish priest, who was a simple and to human justice, and contented himself sottish man, and threatened to have him with giving them up to ridicule. But hanged by the parliament of Bordeaux he declared that after the death of the if he did not instantly administer the via- Biscayan he would, if he survived, have ticum to him. The priest was alarmed, the pleasure of printing an account of all and accordingly celebrated the sacred or- his proceedings and manœuvres on this dinance, as desired by the patient; who, business, together with the documents after the ceremony, declared aloud, be- and evidences, just to amuse the small fore witnesses, that the Biscayan pastor number of readers who might like anechad falsely accused him before the king dotes of that description; and not, as is of being tainted with the Mussulman re- often pompously announced, with a view ligion; that he was a sincere Christian, to the instruction of the universe. There and that the Biscayan was a calumniator. are so many authors who address themHe signed this, after it had been written selves to the universe, who really imagine down, in presence of a notary, and every they attract, and perhaps absorb, the atform required by law was complied with.tention of the universe, that he conceived He soon after became better, and rest and a good conscience speedily completed his recovery. The Biscayan, quite exasperated that the old patient should have thus exposed and disappointed him, resolved to have his revenge, and thus he set about it. He procured, fifteen days after the event just mentioned, the fabrication, his own language or patois, of a profession of faith which the priest pretended to have heard and received. It was signed by the priest and three or four peasants, who had not been present at the ceremony; and the forged instrument was then passed through the necessary and solemn form of verification and registry, as if this form could give it authenticity. he might not have a dozen readers out of the whole who would attend for a moment to himself.--But let us return to fanaticism. It is this rage for making proselytes, this intensely mad desire which men feel to bring others over to partake of their own peculiar cup or communion, that ininduced the Jesuit Castel and the Jesuit Routh to rush with eagerness to the deathbed of the celebrated Montesquieu. These two devoted zealots desired nothing better than to have to boast that they had persuaded him of the merits of attrition and of sufficing grace. We wrought his conversion, they said. He was, in the main, a worthy soul: he was much attached to the society of Jesus. We had some little difficulty in inducing him to admit certain fundamental truths; but as in these circumstances, in the crisis of life and death, the mind is always most clear and acute, we soon convinced him. An instrument not signed by the party alone interested, signed by persons unknown, fifteen days after the event,-an instrument disavowed by the real and credible witnesses of that event, involved evidently the crime of forgery; and, as This fanatical eagerness for converting men is so ardent, that the most debauched monk in his convent would even quit his mistress, and walk to the very extremity of the city, for the sake of making a single convert. We have all seen father Poisson, a cordelier of Paris, who impoverished his convent to pay his mistresses, and who was imprisoned in consequence of the depravity of his manners. He was one of the most popular preachers at Paris, and one of the most determined and zealous of converters. Such also was the celebrated preacher Fantin, at Versailles. The list might be easily enlarged; but it is unnecessary, if not also dangerous, to expose the freaks and freedoms of constituted authorities. You know what happened to Ham for having revealed his father's shame. He became as black as a coal. Let us merely pray to God, whether rising or laying down, that he would deliver us from fanatics, as the pilgrims of Mecca pray that they may meet with no sour faces on the road. SECTION IV. He was as good as his word; he composed his regiment of red-coated brothers, of gloomy religionists, whom he made obedient tigers. Mahomet himself was never better served by soldiers. But in order to inspire this fanaticism, you must be seconded and supported by the spirit of the times. A French parliament at the present day would attempt in vain to raise a regiment of such porters as we have mentioned; it could, {with all its efforts, merely rouse into frenzy a few women of the fish-market. The ablest men only have the power both to make and to guide fanatics. It is not, however, sufficient to possess the profoundest dissimulation and the most determined intrepidity; everything depends, after these previous requisites are secured, on coming into the world at a proper time. SECTION V. Geometry then, it seems, is not always connected with clearness and correctness of understanding. Over what precipices do not men fall, notwithstanding their boasted leading-strings of reason! A celebrated Protestant, who was esteemed and who followed in the train of the Newtons, the Leibnitzes, and Bernouillis, at the beginning of the present century, struck out some very singular corollaries. It is said, that with a grain of faith a man may remove mountains; and this man of science, followed up the method of pure geometrical analysis, reasoned thus with himself:-I have many grains of faith, and can, therefore, remove many mountains. This was the man who made his appearance at London in 1707; and, associating himself with certain men of learning and science, some of whom, Ludlow, who was rather an enthusiast for liberty than a fanatic in religion-one of the first mathematicians of the age, that brave man, who hated Cromwell more than he did Charles I., relates that the parliamentary forces were always defeated by the royal army in the beginning of the civil war; just as the regiment of porters (portes-cochères) were unable to stand the shock of conflict, in the time of the Fronde against the great Condé. Cromwell said to General Fairfax,How can you possibly expect a rabble of London porters and apprentices to resist a nobility urged on by the principle, or rather the phantom, of honour? Let us actuate them by a more powerful phan- { tom-fanaticism! Our enemies are fight-moreover, were not deficient in sagacity, ing only for their king; let us persuade our troops they are fighting for their God. Give me a commission, and I will raise a regiment of brother murderers, whom I will pledge myself soon to make invincible fanatics! they publicly announced that they would raise to life a dead person in any cemetery that might be fixed upon. Their reasoning was uniformly synthetica.. {They said, genuine disciples must have the power of performing miracles; we are genuine disciples, we therefore shall be able to perform as many as we please. The mere unscientific saints of the Romish church have resuscitated many worthy persons; therefore, a fortiori, we, the reformers of the reformed themselves, shall resuscitate as many as we may desire. These arguments are irrefragable, being constructed according to the most correct form possible. Here we have at a glance the explanation why all antiquity was inundated with prodigies; why the temples of Esculapius at Epidaurus, and in other cities, were completely filled with ex votos; the roofs adorned with thighs straightened, arms restored, and silver infants: all was miracle. ? party was at the time under the stain of a venial sin, for which the dead person suffered, and but for which the resurrection would have been infallible. Were it allowable for us to reveal the disgrace of those to whom we owe the sincerest respect, I should observe here, that Newton, the great Newton himself, discovered in the Apocalypse that the pope was antichrist, and made many other similar discoveries. I should also observe, that he was a decided Arian. I am aware that this deviation of Newton, compared to that of the other geometrician, is as unity to infinity. But if the exalted Newton imagined that he found the modern history of Europe in the Apocalypse, we may say,- Alas, It seems as if superstition were an epidemical disease, from which the strongest minds are not always exempt. There are in Turkey persons of great and strong sense, who would undergo impalement for the sake of certain opinions of Abube and subtle argument. They all draw plausible consequences, but they never dare to examine principles. In short, the famous Protestant geome-poor human beings! trician whom I speak of, appeared so perfectly sincere, he asserted so confidently that he would raise the dead, and his proposition was put forward with so much plausibility and strenuousness, that the people entertained a very strong impression on the subject, and Queen Anneker. These principles being once adwas advised to appoint a day, an hour, mitted, they reason with great consistency; and a cemetery, such as he should him- and the Navaricians, the Radarists, and self select, in which he might have the the Jabarists, mutually consign each other opportunity of performing his miracle le-to damnation in conformity to very shrewd gally, and under the inspection of justice. The holy geometrician chose St. Paul's cathedral for the scene of his exertion: the people ranged themselves in two rows; soldiers were stationed to preserve order both among the living and the dead; the magistrates took their seats; the register prepared his record; it was impossible that the new miracles could be verified too completely. A dead body was disinterred agreeably to the holy man's choice and direction; he then prayed, he fell upon his knees, and made the most pious and devout contortions possible; his companions imitated him; the dead body exhibited no sign of animation; it was again deposited in its grave, and the professed resuscitator and his adherents were slightly punished. I afterwards saw one of these misled creatures; he declared to me that one of the A report is publicly spread abroad by some person, that there exists a giant seventy feet high; the learned soon after begin to discuss and dispute about the colour of his hair, the thickness of his thumb, the measurement of his nails; they exclaim, cabal, and even fight upon the subject. Those who maintain that the little finger of the giant is only fifteen lines in diameter, burn those who assert that it is a foot thick.-But, gentlemen, { modestly observes a stranger passing by, does the giant you are disputing about really exist? What a horrible doubt! all the disputants cry out together. What blasphemy! What absurdity!-A short truce is then brought about to give time for stoning the poor stranger; and, after having duly performed that murderous ceremony, they resume fighting upon the everlasting subject of the nails and little finger. FANCY. FANCY formerly signified imagination, and the term was used simply to express that faculty of the soul which receives sensible objects. venture to condemn;" on the contrary, that expression is used for the very object and purpose of condemning them; and musquée, in this connection, is an expletive adding force to the term fancies, as we say, Sottise pommee, folie fieffee, to express nonsense and foily. FASTI. Of the different Significations of this Word. THE Latin word fasti signifies festi Descartes and Gassendi, and all the philosophers of their day, say that "the form or images of things are painted in the fancy." But the greater part of ab-vals, and it is in this sense that Ovid stract terms are, in the course of time, treats of it in his poem entitled the received in a sense different from their Fasti. original one, like tools which industry applies to new purposes. Fancy, at present, means "a particular desire, a transient taste:" he has a fancy for going to China; his fancy for gaming and dancing has passed away. An artist paints a fancy portrait, a portrait not taken from any model. To have fancies is to have extraordinary tastes, but of brief duration. Fancy, in this sense, falls a little short of oddity (bizarrerie, and caprice. Caprice may express "a sudden and unreasonable disgust." He had a fancy for music, and capriciously became disgusted with it. Whimsicality gives an idea of inconsistency and bad taste, which fancy does not; he had a fancy for building, but he constructed his house in a whimsical taste. There are shades of distinction between having fancies and being fantastic; the fantastic is much nearer to the capricious and the whimsical. The word fantastic expresses a character unequal and abrupt. The idea of charming or pleasant is excluded from it; whereas there are agreeable fancies. We sometimes hear used in conversation "odd fancies," (des fantasies musquées); but the expression was never understood to mean what the Dictionary of Trevoux supposes-"The whims of men of superior rank which one must not Godeau has composed the Fasti of the Church on this model, but with less success. The religion of the Roman Pagans was more calculated for poetry than tha of the Christians; to which it may be added, that Ovid was a better poet than Godeau. The consular fasti were only the list of consuls. The fasti of the magistrates were the days in which they were permitted to plead; and those on which they did not plead were called nefasti, because then they could not plead for justice. The word nefastus in this sense does not signify unfortunate; on the contrary, nefastus and nefandus were the attributes of unfortunate days in another seuse, signifying days in which people must not plead; days worthy only to be forgotten; "ille nefasto te posuit die." Besides other fasti, the Romans had their fusti urbis, fasti rustici, which were calendars of the particular usages and ceremonies of the city and the country. On these days of solemnity, every one sought to astonish by the grandeur of bis dress, his equipage, or his banquet. This pomp, invisible on other days, was called fastus. It expresses magnificence in these who by their station can afford it, but vanity in others. Though the word fastus may not be always injurious, the word pompous is invariably so. A devotee who makes a parade of his virtue, renders humility it- a jot about me; and gave me no educaself pompous. FATHERS-MOTHERS-CHIL tion but that of beating me every day when he came home intoxicated. My mother was a coquette, whose only occupation was love-making. But for my nurse, who had taken a liking to me, and who, after the death of her son, received me into her house for charity, I should have died of want." DREN-(THEIR DUTIES.) THE Encyclopædia has been much exclaimed against in France; because it was produced in France, and has done France honour. In other countries, people have not cried out; on the contrary, they have eagerly set about pirating or spoil-bow to thy father and thy mother when ing it, because money was to be gained thou meetest them. It is said in the thereby. Vulgate, Honora patram tuum et ma "Well, then, honour thy nurse; and 66 Very well, sir, 1 shall love my father and my mother, if they do me good; I shall honour them, if they do me ill. I have thought so ever since I began to think, and you confirm me in my maxims." "Fare thee well, my child, I see thou wilt prosper, for thou hast a grain of philosophy in thy composition.' But we, who do not, like the Ency-trem tuum,'-not dilige." clopædists of Paris, labour for glory; we, who are not, like them, exposed to envy; we, whose little society lies unnoticed in Hesse, in Wirtemberg, in Switzerland, among the Grisons, or at Mount Krapak; and have, therefore, no apprehension of having to dispute with the doctor of the Comédie Italienne, or with a doctor of the Sorbonne; we, who sell not our sheets to a bookseller, but are free beings, and lay not black on white until we have examined, to the utmost of our ability, whether the said black may be of service to mankind; we, in short, who love virtue-gots to the top of that hill, to burn thee shall boldly declare what we think. "Honour thy father, and thy mother, that thy days may be long-" I would venture to say, "Honour thy father and thy mother, though this day should be thy last." Tenderly love and joyfully serve the mother who bore thee in her womb, fed thee at her breast, and patiently endured all that was disgusting in thy infancy. Discharge the same duties to thy father, who brought thee up. "One word more, sir. If my father were to call himself Abraham and me Isaac, and were to say to me, 'My son, thou art tall and strong; carry these fag with after I have cut off thy head; for God ordered me to do so when he came to see me this morning,'-what would you advise me to do in such critical circumstances?" "Critical, indeed! But what wouldst thou do of thyself? for thou seemest to be no blockhead." "I own, sir, that I should ask him to produce a written order, and that, from regard for himself, I should say to him— 'Father, you are among strangers, who do not allow a man to assassinate his son without an express condition from God, duly signed, sealed, and delivered. See what happened to poor Calas, in the half French, half Spanish town of Toulouse. He was broken on the wheel; and the procureur-général Riquet decided on having Madame Calas the mother burned, "But, sir, I must tell you in confi--all on the bare and very ill-conceived dence, that my father is a drunkard, who suspicion, that they had hung up their begot me one day by chance, not caring son, Mark Antoine Calas, for the love of What will future ages say of a Frank, named Louis the Thirteenth, who, at the age of sixteen, began the exercise of his authority with having the door of his mother's apartment walled up, and sending her into exile, without giving the smallest reason for so doing, and solely because it was his favourite's wish! |