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with grief. The clouds condensed and the moon was supposed to be lost in utter darkness. A melancholy horror seized the multitude; and melancholy is sure to engender superstition. A religious panic spread through the army. The appearance in the heavens foretold eternal labour to the legions; and all lamented that by their crimes they had called down upon themselves the indignation of the gods."

Other examples of the very prevalent superstition which gave rise to this singular ceremony, will be found among the customs of various nations having but little affinity with each other.

A representation mentioned by De Guignes as exhibited in presence of the Chinese emperor and his ministers, and worthy of Bottom the weaver or any of his company, seems intended to reduce the theory of a lunar eclipse to the level of the meanest capacity:"A number of Chinese, placed at the distance of six feet from one another, now entered, bearing two long dragons of silk or paper, painted blue, with white scales, and stuffed with lighted lamps. These two dragons, after saluting the emperor with due respect, moved up and down with great composure, when the moon suddenly made her appearance, upon which they began to run after her. The

moon, however, fearlessly placed herself between them, and the two dragons, after surveying her for some time, and concluding apparently that she was too large a morsel for them to swallow, judged it prudent to retire, which they did with the same ceremony as they entered. The moon, elated with her triumph, then withdrew with prodigious gravity; a little flushed, however, with the chase which she had sustained."*

In conformity with this astronomical system, the custom in China at no distant period was, that their "learned men and state officers on such occasions turned out with drums and gongs and trumpets, making all-manner of hideous noises to frighten the monster away, and liberate the suffering luminary, in which in due time they always succeeded."†

It appears from Moorcroft's Travels in Little Thibet, that as he and his fellow-travellers "entered Daba, the moon became eclipsed; on which oc

casion they were greeted with the sound of trumpets and the beating of drums and gongs from the temple of Narayan, the ceremony being precisely the same as that which is prac tised in the temples, and even in the palace of the Emperor of China."t

The natives of the Barbary States are represented as exhibiting a similar state of excitement during an eclipse of the sun :

"When the eclipse was at its height, they ran about distracted, in companies, firing volleys of muskets at the sun, to frighten away the monster or dragon, as they called it, by which they supposed it was being devoured. At that moment the Moorish Song of Death and woulliah-woo, or the howl they make for their dead, not only resounded from the mountains of Tripoli, but was undoubtedly re-echoed throughout the continent of Africa. The women brought into the streets all the brass pans, kettles, and iron utensils they

could collect, and striking on them with all their force, and screaming at the same time, occasioned a horrid noise that was heard for miles."S

Once more, we learn in an account of the Nicobar islanders, who appear to have a species of lunar worship, that" during an eclipse they beat all their gongs with the utmost violence, and hurl their spears into the air, to frighten away the demon who is devouring the celestial body. No superstitious notion," adds the writer whom we quote, " seems to be so widely prevalent as this; it is found among the savages of America and Africa as well as in Asia, and wherever it exists the same practice accompanies it."

From these descriptions, as well as from the purpose of the proceedings, the clamour and noise with which the moon's auxiliaries thus attempted to reinforce her, must always have been pre-eminently obstreperous, and they are selected accordingly as a climax of comparison by Juvenal, when de. scribing the loudness of a talkative blue-stocking, in a passage which we ask the forgiveness of our fair readers for here inserting entire, along with Dryden's translation of it, in which, as might be expected, nothing of the spirit of the original is suffered to escape:

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"Illa tamen gravior, quæ, cum discum

bere cœpit,

Laudat Virgilium, perituræ ignoscit Elissæ,

Committit vates et comparat; inde Ma

ronem,

Atque alia in parte trutinâ suspendit Homerum.

Cedunt grammatici, vincuntur rhetores, omnis

Turba tacet: nec causidicus nec præco loquatur,

Altera nec mulier: verborum tanta cadit vis,

Tot pariter pelves, tot tintinnabula, dicas Pulsari. Jam nemo tubas, nemo æra fatiget:

Una laboranti poterit succurrere Luna. Imponit finem sapiens et rebus honestis. Nam quæ docta nimis cupit et facunda videri,

Crure tenus medio tunicas succingere debet,

Cædere Silvano porcum, quadrante

lavari.

Non habeat matrona, tibi quæ juncta recumbit,

Dicendi genus, aut curtum sermone

rotato

Torqueat enthymema; nec historias sciat omnes.

Sed quædam ex libris et non intelligat. Odi

Hanc ego, quæ repetit volvitque Palæ

monis artem,

Servata semper lege et ratione loquendi;
Ignotosque mihi tenet antiquaria versus,
Nec curanda viris opicæ castigat amicæ
Verba: solocismum liceat fecisse ma-
rito."

"But of all plagues the greatest is untold; The book-learned wife in Greek and Latin bold.

The critic dame who at her table sits, Homer and Virgil quotes, and weighs their wits;

And pities Dido's agonizing fits.

She has so far th' ascendant of the board,
The prating pedant puts not in one word:
The man of law is nonplust in his suit;
Nay, every other female tongue is mute.
Hammers and beating anvils, you would
swear,

And Vulcan with his whole militia there.
Tabors and trumpets, cease; for she
alone

Is able to redeem the labouring moon. Ev'n wit's a burden when it talks too long:

But she who has no continence of tongue,
Should walk in breeches, and should
wear a beard,

And mix among the philosophic herd.
O! what a midnight curse has he, whose

side

Is pestered with a mood and figure bride!

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Thro' optic glass the Tuscan artist views,
At evening from the top of Fesolé,
Or in Valdarno, to descry new lands,
Rivers or mountains in her spotty globe."

The existence of a man in the moon, or of more than one, was a popular belief long before Fontenelle wrote Plurality of Worlds, or Bishop Wilkins his discourse to prove the probability of the moon's being inhabited, and the practicability of a passage between that region and the earth. Different nations, however, have adopted different accounts of the history and character of the personages, one or more, who occupy so conspicuous a position; and generally speaking, it has been considered that they have not attained that " bad eminence" on account of any very meritorious transactions. An Icelandic legend, indeed, represents Máni, the Moongod, as having kidnapped two children when engaged in the innocent occupation of drawing water from a river, and they are still seen to follow him in their new abode with a water-cask slung on a pole over their shoulders. But the favourite idea is that the man in the moon is a sort of transported felon, who is paying there the penalty of theft, aggravated by Sabbath-breaking, committed here below. Pagan traditions have in this instance, as in others, engrafted themselves on a scriptural history: the man who, in the book of Numbers, is related to have been stoned to death for gathering

sticks on the Sabbath day, having been first branded by our ancestors with the additional crime of theft, and then translated to the moon to remain as a prominent and perpetual admonition to deter others from committing the like offences in time coming.

The earliest notice of this precise form of the tradition that we have met with, occurs in an old song upon the man in the moon, which is to be found in "Ritson's Ancient

Songs and Ballads," and which must, we suppose, be placed at least as far back as the end of the thirteenth century. It is somewhat disjointed and obscure, and often, we suspect, unintelligible even to better antiquaries than we profess to be; but as a curiosity, we insert the three first verses of it, with an attempt to paraphrase them laxly in more modern language. "Mon, in the mone, stond and streit,

On is bot-forke is burthen he bereth: Hit is muche wonder that he na down slyt, For doute leste he valle he shoddreth ant shereth:

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How could the man so wondrous high aspire, Or hath he in the moon been born and bred?

He leaneth on his fork like a grey friar ; The crooked caitiff seemeth sore in dread:

When the forst freseth muche chele he Long time hath he been here, this aged

byd,

The thornes beth kene is hattren to-tereth;

Nis no wytht in the world that wot wen he syt,

Ne, bote hit bue the hegge, whet wedes

he wereth.

Whider trowe this mon ha the wey take,

He hath set is o fot is other to foren; For non hithte that he hath ne sytht me hym ner shake,

He is the sloweste mon that ever wes yboren.

sire;

But in his errand hath he nothing sped, And now for having cut a load of briar, Some hedge-warden hath ta'en from him

his wed.

Chaucer more than once alludes to this conception. Thus, in Troilus and Cresseide, he speaks of the prover bial fear, "Leste the chorle may fall out of the moone." And, again, in the Testament of Creseide, describing "the seven planets discending fro the

Wher he were o the feld pycchynde spheres" to judge between Creseide

stake,

For hope of ys thornes to dutten is doren,
He mot mydis twy byl other trous make,
Other al is dayes werk ther were yloren.
This ilke mon upon heh whener he were,
Wher he were y the mone bore ant yfed.
He leneth on is forke ase a grey frere,

This crokede caynard sore he is adred:
Hit it is mony day go that he was here,
Ichot of his ernde he nath nout ysped;

He hath hewe sumwher a burthen of brere

Tharefore sum hayward hath taken ys wed."

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and Cupido:

"Next after him come Lady Cynthia

The last of al, and swiftest in her sphere, Of colour blake, busked with hornis twa,

And in the night she listith best t' apere, Hawe as the leed, of colour nothing clere, For al the light she boroweth at her

brother,

Titan, for of herself she hath non other.

"Her gite was grey, and ful of spottis blake;

And on her brest a chorle painted ful

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"Caliban. I have seen thee in her, and I do adore thee. My mistress showed me thee, and thy dog and bush."

The dog is an appurtenance which probably grew out of the rest of the picture, and does not always occur in it. In the Midsummer Night's Dream," it is not at first alluded to as one of the necessary properties for the performance of this " very tragical mirth." Quince says, "One must come in with a bunch of thorns and a lanthorn, and say he comes to disfigure, or to present the person of Moonshine." But when Moonshine makes his ap. pearance, it seems to have been arranged as a matter of course that "his faithful dog shall bear him company."

"Moonshine.-This lantern doth the horned moon present:

Myself the man i' th' moon do seem to be

"Lysander.-Proceed, Moon. "Moonshine.-All that I have to say is to tell you, that the lantern is the moon; I, the man in the moon; this thorn bush, my thorn bush; and this dog my dog.

"Demetrius.-Why, all these should be in the lantern; for they are in the moon.

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are accustomed to think of the sun as essentially masculine, and the moon as feminine; and looking to power as a male attribute, and softness as a female one, the distribution seems natural and appropriate. It is certain, however, that all our Teutonic ancestors originally reversed the rule; whether from regarding the more dazzling beauty of the solar orb, or from the effect of some accidental mythus, it is now difficult to discover. The story of the Edda is, that Mundilfori had two children, a son Mani, the moon, and a daughter Sol, the sun, who for their beauty were set in the sky. This distribution of the sexes, however, is not confined to the Teutonic nations. A trace of it, so far as the moon is concerned, is to be found both in Greek and in Latin. The words unv and μny, which literally agree with our moon, the English long or double o being a correct and frequent exponent of the Greek long or ", have been commonly so distinguished, that the one applies to the period of the moon's revolution, the other to the luminary itself. But a masculine moon seems to have been an idea well-known among the ancients. Selden (De Diis Syris,) refers us to a passage in Strabo, "de fano T8 Mnyos Dei in Asia Minori non infrequenti ;" and in some places a curious opinion was adopted, that those men who considered the moon as feminine, were doomed to be henpecked husbands, while those who took the opposite view were destined to maintain the dignity of the sex which they thus asserted. We extract the article on this subject from Facciolati.

"Lunus, i. m. Deus idem qui Luna. Quamvis enim feminina voce eam appellaret, masculum tamen putabat stulta Gentilitas. Unde masculum Lunam appellat Tertull. in Apolog., c. 15, et Spartian. in Caracall., c. 7, tradit, a Carrenis præcipue, Asiæ populis, ita existimari, ut qui Lunam femineo nomine ac sexu putaverit nuncupandam, is addictus mulieribus semper inserviat: at vero qui marem deum esse crediderit, is dominetur uxori, neque ullas muliebres patiatur insidias. Id, ibid. c. 6. Cum hibernaret Edessæ, atque inde Carras Luni dei gratiâ venisset."

Grimm, Mythol., 411, 412, from which much of our illustrations of these topics has been borrowed.

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Spirits when they please Can either sex assume, or both."

Having detained our readers probably too long in the regions of mythology, we come now to examine some of those impersonations which imagination, unaided by belief, has bestowed upon these magnificent lights of heaven.

It was the lamentation of Schiller that a glory had here departed from the earth, and that the cold correctness of science had chilled the genial current of the heart.

"Wo jetzt nur, wie uns're Weise sagen,

Seelenlos ein Feuerball sich dreht, Lenkte damahls seinen gold'nen Wagen Helios in stiller Majestät."

"Where, as now our wise ones have decided,

Lifeless rolls a fiery-ball on high, Helios once his golden chariot guided Silent and majestic through the sky."

But the poet's complaint is only partially well founded. Men do not, indeed, now suppose either that the sun is a god, or that he drives a chariot ; and most of us are even convinced, though few of us know why, that the Copernican system is the true one. But we have a popular belief, apart from our scientific doctrines, and an imaginative sensibility distinct from both. The power that prompted the visions of superstition is not extinct, but is merely modified in its operations. It remains still, as a smothered flame, not blazing on our hearths or consecrated on our altars, but every where lurking within its dusky embers, and ready to be fanned into a generous glow by the breath of passion or of poetry. It would be strange if an object so familiar as the "common sun" were to be often before us in an imaginative aspect. But, in conditions of the mind favourable to such impulses, we are still as ready to see in the great

orb of day a sensitive, and almost a divine existence, as any Persian or Pagan that ever worshipped him. When we gaze on the glories of sunrise or of sunset, do we remember Copernicus? We hope not: no more, if the thought may be forgiven, than we recur to the investigations of Morgagni when we behold the face of her we love. There is a poetry in the domain of science, as there is in that of fiction: but it is found only in her highest walks, and among her noblest followers: and the God of Creation has, benignantly for humbler minds, enveloped the essential forms of nature in integuments and illusions which serve at once to disguise those dry and death-like anatomies which a halfknowledge reveals, and to supply the place of that ultimate beauty of perfect truth which is reserved for the maturity of our faculties.

Baseless, indeed, would have been the fictions of Greece, if the solar power out of which they fashioned the god of song, could now be regarded by the poet or the lover of poetry without ever inspiring an image or a feeling that was worthy of so noble an object. Let us see whether Helios has been so shamefully cast down from his throne as Schiller would have us believe. We are mistaken if it be not found that his glory is elevated rather than depressed by the change which has occurred, and which has enlarged and established his dominion by placing it on the broad and firm foundations of

moral truth.

As we watch his gradual and glittering advance in the east, does he not readily appear to our dazzled sight as a prince or potentate, surrounded by a cloudy train of followers and dependents, that reflect the lustre his glory has shed upon them? Such, at least, he seemed to Milton, when he desired to walk

"By hedge-row elms, on hillocks green, Right against the eastern gate, Where the great sun begins his state, Robed in flames and amber light, The clouds in thousand liveries dight." Or shall we rather say, with another poet, that the vicegerent of his Maker has less in him of the prince begirt by courtly attendants, than of a divinity himself receiving the adoration of surrounding suppliants? "Morven belongs now wholly to the

morn;

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