Eve, they will return with her into Adam's rib, so that at the last day women will cease to be!1 Jean Nevizan, a lawyer of Turin, who died in 1540, was equally distinguished as a misogynist. His Sylvae Nuptialis libri sex appeared at Paris in 1521, and was reprinted at Lyons in 1526 and 1572. "The Deity," he says, " having made man, deferred the creation of woman until he had accomplished that of the brutes. When this was done he fashioned her bosom and her limbs, but losing patience he broke off, leaving the devil to make her head." He maintains that in the war of the angels there were certain who stood neuter, and that these were not cast into hell with Satan and his companions, but were condemned to inhabit the bodies of women for the torment of man. The work was suppressed by the Inquisition, from whose fangs the author himself narrowly escaped. His townswomen, the dames of Turin, were less placable than the Fathers of the Holy Office. They pelted him 1 Menagiana, t. iv. p. 319. 2 Drummond of Hawthornden has preserved another form of the same thought in his Democritie :-" It is told that the devil and the first woman made once such a terrible bickering, that they cut off other's heads, which Saint Michael seeing presently took up and put them on in haste, but he set the devil's head on the woman and the woman's head on the devil." with stones, and would have chased him from the city, if he had not consented humbly to beseech their pardon on his knees with a paper label on his breast inscribed with these lines: Rusticus est verè qui turpia dicit de muliere, Nam scimus verè quòd omnes sumus de muliere. Even after this humiliating recantation, De Billon affirms that when an old crone who kept his house died, he could find no woman to supply her stead. But Pancirolle reports that he married a mistress whom he had long kept, and had by her a son who endured so great miseries that he went mad. Nevizan himself died in poverty.1 An author who wrote against him met scarcely a happier fate. François de Billon published at Paris in 1555 a quarto volume which he entitled, "Fort inexpugnable de l'honneur du sexe féminin." It was dedicated to the Princesses of France; and was reissued in 1564 under the title of La Défense et Forteresse invincible de l'honneur et vertu des Dames. It was immediately attacked on the ground of blasphemy. De Billon, it is said, compared les prophètes, secrétaires de Dieu, dépendants de J.-C., son chancelier, aux secrétaires des rois de France établis sous la dépendance du chancelier.2 1 Biog. Univ. t. xxxi. p. 110. XXXIII. THE LAIRD OF MATHERS' TESTAMENT. OUR forefathers, who lived before the discovery of the art of printing, showed much sedulousness and ingenuity in keeping wisdom ever before their eyes. Moral fables were embroidered on their tapestries and curtains; their hangings were fringed with adages; pious mottoes were carved on their chairs and tables; pithy verses in commendation of virtue were engraved over their doors, their hearths, and their windows; their roofs bristled with choice texts of Scripture; and they could not tread but on some ancient saw, for their floors were paved with proverbs stimulating them to do good deeds.1 No 1 Some of these legends have considerable merit. On Forglen Castle, in Banffshire, are these quaint lines: DO VEIL AND DOUPT NOCHT ALTHOCH THOV BE SPYIT HE IS LYTIL GVID VORTH THAT IS NOCHT ENVYIT TAK THOV NO TENT QVHAT EVERIE MAN TELS GYVE THOV VALD LEIVE ONDEMIT GANG OVHAIR NA MAN DVELLS., (New Statistical Acc. of Scot. No. xi. pp. 87, 88.) Occasionally the inscription was something more than a moral reflection above the gate of Craigievar Castle is the significant warning— DOE NOT VAIKEN SLEIPING DOGS. means were omitted by which wise counsels could be spread abroad and kept in remembrance. That the qualities of prudence in action, or skill in war, might not die with a man whom they had eminently distinguished, the maxims by which he was guided were woven into verse, that they might be handed down as a legacy to his successors. Of these Testaments, as they were called, perhaps the best known is that of the good King Robert, which, as Sir Walter Scott has remarked, "would have saved his countrymen the loss of many a bloody day had they known how to avail themselves of the military art contained in it." A baron of the Mearns, who was "reputed a scholar and something of a poet," left as "advice to his son and successors the following lines: Giff thou desire thy house lang stand, The sculptor was at times called to hew the Sciences, the Pagan Gods, or the Cardinal Virtues, into stone, often with indifferent success. On a castle in Forfarshire, Saturn is represented with a wooden leg.-Hutchison's Views of Edzell Castle, p. 9, plate vii. Edinb. 1838. 1 History of Scotland, vol. i. p. 166. H See that thou pass not thy estate; Hate lechery and all vices flee; And God shall cause thy house stand lang.1 Such was the moral code of the Laird of Mathers, the progenitor of the renowned Captain Barclay of Ury. XXXIV. A GERMAN D'ISRAELI. ANDREAS FELIX EVELIUS was born at Munich in 1706, and died there in 1780. He held the office 1 Nisbet's Heraldry, vol. ii.; append. p. 239. |