FOOTNOTES:
[99] ... “In ligno pedes ejus fortiter strinxit, gravibus eum vinculis alligavit, verberibus duris afflixit, & tamdiù corpus ejus piâ severitate perdomuit, donec ejus mentem ad salutis statum Deo medente reduxit.”
[100] ... “Eam ad musæum suum excivit, ibique spoliatam virgis cæcidit, ac nudatum corpus vibicibus conscribillavit.”
[101] Here an opportunity occurs of giving a second specimen of the Latin of the Abbé Boileau; the first was produced in [p. 232].
... Eandem flagello nodis asperato, ex funibus Ibericis compacto, tamdiù diverberavit, totque vibicibus sulcos sanguinolentos in femoribus, clunibus, ac scapulis diduxit, ut non solùm suffuso vi pudoris, verum etiam effuso vi doloris, sanguine, fugaverit.
[102] ... Eâ causâ impensiùs mulier amavit sanctum virum, itemque maritus cjus, ubi comperit rem ab es gestam.
The accounts of the advances Ladies have made to the above holy personages, must certainly give pleasure to the judicious and sensible Reader. Considering the opinion entertained by a number of persons, that Rakes, Coxcombs, and in general the most worthless part of the male sex, are commonly the most welcome to the favours of the Ladies, I think it reflects much honour upon them all, that several have gone the greatest lengths in favour of Saints, and have set aside, out of love for them, those rules of reserve and decency which Ladies are otherwise so naturally inclined to respect.
In regard to the manner in which the Saints themselves used the Ladies, it is certainly somewhat singular: however, I must postpone giving my opinion about it, till a few remarks are made, on what more precisely constitutes the subject of the foregoing Chapters, which is the great merit and dignity of flagellations. In fact, we find that Great Men, Conquerors, and Kings, have publicly submitted to receiving them; and they have moreover occasionally inflicted them with their own hands. The Reader may remember the method mentioned at pag. 54 of this Work, which was adopted by the Grecian Heroes, for conveying to their vanquished Opponents, a proper sense of their superiority and indignation. And the same magnanimous kind of admonition was also commonly made use of by the Romans, in regard to those Kings or Generals whom they had taken in war.
Caligula, a Roman Emperor, did not disdain, as we read in Suetonius, to use the same kind of correction, for silencing those who happened to make a noise near him in the Theatre, and thereby prevented him from attending to the play, and especially to his favourite Actor: the culprit was instantly stripped; and the Emperor himself did the rest[103].
Another Emperor we may name here, viz. Peter the First, of Russia. He frequently condescended to bestow, with his own imperial hands, that kind of Russian flagellation, the Knout: at other times, when he could not attend to the business, he trusted the care of it to his Buffoon Witaski; who was moreover invested with an unlimited power of cudgelling those who came to pay their court to his Czarian Majesty.
The instances of flagellations above produced, have however been confined to actions of Kings, Conquerors, Emperors, and Saints, or to cases of great emergency, in which whole Nations were concerned, such as the confutations of heresies, and the acquisition of Sovereignties and Kingdoms; but if we descend into the different spheres of private life, we shall find their advantages to have also been very extensive.
Thus, flagellations have been useful to several persons, to make their fortunes. Not to mention here the common story about those who have been flagellated, when Boys, in the room of the Heir to the Crown, we find that the two abovementioned Gentlemen, Messrs. D’Ossat and Du Perron, who had had the honour to be disciplined at Rome, on the account of their Royal Master, were afterwards, through his interest, promoted to the high dignity of Cardinals, besides obtaining considerable emoluments.
Others, though they have not gained such substantial advantages as places and pensions, have acquired, which in the opinion of many judicious persons is not less valuable, extensive reputations. Some have acquired such reputations, by the flagellations they have inflicted,—among these are to be ranked Cornelius Adriansen, Zachary Crofton, and the Lady mentioned by Brantôme; and others, by the flagellations they have undergone; such was Titus Oates, so well known in the History of this Country; Bishop Burnet expressly observing, that this treatment did rather raise Oates’s reputation, than sink it. (A. 1685.)
In the intercourse of private life, though among persons distinguished from the vulgar, flagellations, being employed as corrections, have also proved of very great service.
Thus bon-mots, at the expence of other persons, satires, lampoons, have, on numberless occasions, been confuted by flagellations. The Reader surely has not forgotten the case of Miss de Limeuil, which has been recited in a former place; nor that of the Court Buffoon which is introduced in the same Chapter: and to these instances might be added that of the Poet Clopinel, the Continuator of that old and celebrated Romance, the Roman de la Rose, who was once very near being flagellated by the Ladies of the Court of France, for his having tried his wit at the expence of the Sex in general, as will be related in another place.
Indeed, to discuss the subject of the usefulness of flagellations in a manner adequate to its importance and extensiveness, would lead us into narratives without end: I will therefore, for the sake of shortness, content myself with adding a few facts to those before recited; as, besides supplying interesting consequences, they are sufficiently authenticated.
The first, which is very useful to prove that the secrets of Ladies ought never to be betrayed, is that of the flagellation which was inflicted on a certain Surgeon, who gave a loose to his tongue, at the expence of a great Lady to whom his assistance had been useful. The Lady I mean, was Wife to the Prince who became afterwards King of France, under the name of Henry IV: she was herself much more nearly allied to the Crown than the Prince her Husband, and would have mounted the Throne in her own right, if it had not been for the Salic Law. The Princess in question was learned, witty, handsome; and she had, in particular, such a fine arm, that it was commonly reported that the Marquis of Canillac, under whose guard she lived for a while as state prisoner, fell in love with her on the sight of it. With these qualifications she united gay, amorous dispositions, having even been suspected to love the great Duke of Guise, who afterwards nearly possessed himself of the Crown; and she had besides a turn for political intrigues. During the celebrated civil wars of the League, being in the City of Agen, she attempted to make herself mistress of the place; but the opposite party having found means to raise an insurrection against her, she was obliged to fly, accompanied by a body of about 80 Gentlemen and 40 soldiers: her flight was even so precipitate, that she was obliged to get on horseback without having time to procure a pillion, and in that situation she rode a great number of miles, behind a gentleman, being continually exposed to the greatest danger, for she passed through a body of a thousand Harquebusiers, who killed several of her followers: having at last reached a place of safety, she borrowed a dry shift from a servant maid, and thence pursued her journey to the next Town, named Usson, in Auvergne, where she recovered from her fears. However, the great fatigue she had undergone, threw her into a fever that lasted several days; and moreover, the want of that comfortable accommodation which has been just mentioned, a pillion, during her long precipitate flight, had caused that part of her body on which she sat, to be in a sad condition. A Surgeon was therefore applied to, to procure her relief; and such was the epulotick, sarcotick, cicatrizive, incarnative, healing, consolidant, sanative, nature of the salves he employed, that she was cured in a short time; and thus far the Surgeon certainly deserved her thanks: but as he afterwards indulged himself in idle stories concerning the cure he had performed, the Princess, who heard of it, grew much incensed against him, and caused him to be served with that kind of correction which is the subject of the present dissertation; that is to say, she caused him, as Scaliger assures, to be served with a flagellation (elle-lui fit donner les étrivieres.)
Nobody certainly will think that the revenge taken by the above Princess was improper; on the contrary, all persons will agree that it was a very becoming satisfaction, and which she owed to herself. It is true, every body looks with detestation upon the action of the Princess of Gonzaga, commonly called the fair Juliet, who caused a Gentleman to be assassinated, who had assisted her in making her escape from the Town of Fondi, which the celebrated Corsair Barbarossa had surprised during the night, with a view, as it is said, to seize upon her person, in order to make a present of her to the Grand-Signior,—being incensed at the remembrance of the Gentleman having seen her run in her shift, across the fields, by moon-light. But without making any remark on the difference of the treatment the above Ladies had recourse to, it will suffice to observe that no comparison can be made between the case of the above Gentleman, and that of the Surgeon: the latter had been guilty of an indiscretion of the blackest kind, and which none but a talkative Frenchman could have committed; a thing with which we are not told the Gentleman in question had been charged;—and when we reflect on the enormity of his fault, instead of judging that he was too severely used, we find he was treated with excessive mildness.
Indeed, the more we consider the circumstances of the whole affair, the more we are affected by the treacherous conduct of that miserable Surgeon. A wretch whom the Princess had distinguished in so flattering a manner from all the other persons of the same profession to whom she might have equally applied,—a scoundrel, a rascal, a fellow, whom she had with so much affability acquainted with the disagreeable situation in which she found herself, and to whom she had, no doubt, afterwards given such a bountiful and magnificent reward, for such a man to betray the secret of the Princess, and give a loose to his prating tongue at her expence! He certainly richly deserved the flagellation that was bestowed upon him, and, I hope those whose duty it was to serve him with it, were animated with the same sense of his guilt with which this article is written. To this I shall add nothing, except that it is very likely that, conformably to what has been observed in a former Chapter, the flagellation inflicted on the above Surgeon, or Barber, was inflicted in the Kitchen.
Flagellations have also been of service for punishing iniquitous Judges. I could wish to have many instances of that kind to relate: however, I will produce the following one. The story made its appearance in a news-paper, some years ago, at the time of the great paper-war that was waged about the American affairs, before the beginning of actual hostilities. The Writer who sent it to the Gazetteer, had adopted the signature of A Boston Saint; and as it made the whole of his first Essay, he had meant it, it seems, as a sort of specimen to introduce himself by, to the notice of the Public: he continued to write under that signature; and proved equal, at least, to any of those who drew their pens on the occasion, and even was decisively superior in point of local knowledge of the Colonies. The Story, which will be inserted in that Writer’s own words, gives a curious insight into the puritanical manners that prevailed in the New-England Provinces. Now, that they have the seat of their Government among them, these manners will undergo an alteration: they cannot be much longer the leading fashion of the Country.
“About forty years ago, many of the Chief Saints, at Boston, met with a sad mortification: yea, a mortification in the flesh.
“Captain St. Loe, Commander of a ship of War, then in Boston Harbour, being ashore, on a Sunday, was apprehended by the Constables, for walking on the Lord’s day. On Monday he was carried before a Justice of the peace: he was fined; refused to pay it; and for his contumacy and contempt of authority, was sentenced to sit in the Stocks, one hour, during the time of Change. This sentence was put in execution, without the least mitigation.
“While the Captain sat in durance, grave Magistrates admonished him to respect in future the wholesome laws of the Province; and Reverend Divines exhorted him ever after to reverence and keep holy the Sabbath-day. At length the hour expired; and the Captain’s legs were set at liberty.
“As soon as he was freed, he, with great seeming earnestness, thanked the Magistrates for their correction, and the Clergy for their spiritual advice and consolation; declaring that he was ashamed of his past life; that he was resolved to put off the old Man of Sin, and to put on the new Man of Righteousness; that he should ever pray for them as instruments in the hands of God, of saving his sinful soul.
“This sudden conversion rejoiced the Saints. After clasping their hands, and casting up their eyes to heaven, they embraced their new Convert, and returned thanks for being made the humble means of snatching a soul from perdition. Proud of their success, they fell to exhorting him afresh; and the most zealous invited him to dinner, that they might have full time to complete their work.
“The Captain sucked in the milk of exhortation, as a new-born babe does the milk of the breast. He was as ready to listen as they were to exhort. Never was a Convert more assiduous, while his station in Boston Harbour lasted: he attended every Sabbath-day their most sanctified Meeting-house; never missed a weekly lecture; at every private Conventicle, he was most fervent and loudest in prayer. He flattered, and made presents to the Wives and Daughters of the Godly. In short, all the time he could spare from the duties of his station, was spent in entertaining them on board his Ship, or in visiting and praying at their houses.
“The Saints were delighted with him beyond measure. They compared their wooden Stocks to the voice of Heaven, and their Sea-convert to St. Paul; who, from their enemy, was become their Doctor.
“Amidst their mutual happiness, the mournful time of parting arrived. The Captain received his recall. On this he went round among the Godly, and wept and prayed, assuring them he would return, and end his days among his friends in the Lord.
“Till the day of his departure, the time was spent in regrets, professions, entertainments, and prayer. On that day, about a dozen of the principal Magistrates, including the Select-men, accompanied the Captain to Nantasket Road, where the Ship lay, with every thing ready for sailing.
“An elegant dinner was provided for them on board; after which many bowls and bottles were drained. As the blood of the Saints waxed warm, the crust of their hypocrisy melted away: their moral see-saws; and Scripture-texts, gave place to double-entendres, and wanton songs: the Captain encouraged their gaiety; and the whole Ship resounded with the roar of their merriment.
“Just at that time, into the Cabin burst a body of Sailors, who, to the inexpressible horror and amazement of the Saints, pinioned them fast. Heedless of cries and intreaties, they dragged them upon deck, where they were tied up, stripped to the buff, and their breeches let down; and the Boatswain with his Assistants, armed with dreadful cat-o’-nine-tails provided for the occasion, administered unto them the law of Moses in the most energetic manner. Vain were all their prayers, roarings, stampings, and curses: the Captain in the mean time assuring them, that it was consonant to their own doctrine and to Scripture, that the mortification of the flesh tended towards the saving of the Soul, and therefore it would be criminal in him to abate them a single lash.
“When they had suffered the whole of their discipline, which had flayed them from the nape of the neck to the hams, the Captain took a polite leave, earnestly begging them to remember him in their prayers. They were then let down into the boat that was waiting for them: the Crew saluted them with three cheers; and Captain St. Loe made sail. The Boston Select-men, to this day, when they hear of the above, grin like infernal Dæmons, out of sympathy to their predecessors[104].”
Another use that has been made of flagellations among polite people, and distinguished from the vulgar, has been to repress the aspiring views of rivals who pretended (unjustly, as the others thought) to an equality in point of birth, wit, beauty, or other accomplishments. On this occasion we might relate the treatment that was inflicted by two Ladies of noble family, near the Town of Saumur, in France, on the daughter of a wealthy Farmer, whose beauty had caused her to be invited to an entertainment that was given in a neighbouring Castle, or Manor: an affair which attracted the notice of the Public, at the time (A. 1730) as we may judge from the account of it being contained in the collection of Celebrated Causes decided in the French Courts of Law. But our attention is called off by another much more interesting instance of the same kind, which happened in the reign of Lewis the Fourteenth, and made a very great noise. I mean to speak of the flagellation that was served by the Marchioness of Tresnel, on the Dame, or Lady, of Liancourt: a fact which by all means deserves a place in this Chapter, as being in itself an extremely illustrious instance of flagellation. Indeed, one advantage the Author is proud of, which is, that he has inserted nothing vulgar in this Book, nothing but what is worthy the attention of persons of taste and sentiment.
The Story is as follows. The Lady of Liancourt was originally born of Parents in middling circumstances. Having had the good luck to marry a rich Merchant, she had address enough to prevail upon him to leave her, at his death, which happened a few years after their marriage, the bulk of his fortune; and, being now a rich, handsome Widow, she married the Sieur, or Lord, of Liancourt; a man of birth, whose fortune was somewhat impaired by his former expensive way of living. The Lady of Liancourt used to reside, during the summer, at the Castle, or Estate, of her Husband, near the town of Chaumont: and in the same neighbourhood was situated the Estate of the Marquis of Tresnel. The manner of living of the Lady of Liancourt, together with the reputation of her wit and beauty, excited the jealousy of the Marchioness of Tresnel, who, on account of her birth, considered herself as being greatly superior to the other: and a strong competition soon took place between the two Ladies, which became manifested in several places in a remarkable manner, especially at Church, where the Marchioness went once so far as violently to push the other Lady from her seat: the Lady of Liancourt, on the other hand, was said to have written a copy of verses against the Marchioness; and in short, matters were carried to such lengths between them, that the Marchioness resolved to damp at once the pretensions of her rival, and for that purpose applied to that effectual mode of correction which, as hath been seen in the course of this Book, so many great and celebrated personages have undergone, namely, a flagellation. Having well laid her scheme in that respect, and resolved that her rival should undergo the correction, not by proxy, like King Henry the Fourth, but in her own person, the Marchioness, one day she knew the Lady of Liancourt was to visit at a Castle a few miles distant from her own, got into her coach and six, accompanied by four Men behind, and three armed Servants on horseback; and care had been previously taken to lay in a stock of good disciplines, which were placed in the coach-box. Having arrived too late at the place on the highway at which she proposed to meet her antagonist, the Marchioness alighted at the house of the Curate of the Parish, in order to wait for her return, and staid there, under some pretence, several hours, till at last a Servant who had been left on the watch, came in haste, and brought tidings that the Lady Liancourt’s coach was in sight: the Marchioness thereupon got into her coach with the utmost speed, and arrived just in time to throw herself across the way, and stop the other Lady; when the Servants, who had been properly directed beforehand, without loss of time took the latter out of her coach, immediately proceeding to execute the orders they had received: and, from the complaint afterwards preferred by the suffering Lady, it really seems that they endeavoured to discharge their duty in such a manner as might convince their Mistress of their zeal in serving her.
The affair soon made a great noise, and the King, who heard of it, immediately sent express orders to the Husbands of the Ladies to take no share in the quarrel. The Lady of Liancourt applied to the ordinary course of law, and brought a criminal action against the Marchioness, before the Parliament of Paris; the consequence of which was, that the latter was condemned to ask her pardon in open Court upon her knees, and to pay her about two thousand pounds damages, besides being banished from the whole extent of the jurisdiction of the Parliament. The Servants, who are generally very severely dealt with in France, when they suffer themselves to become the instruments of the violence of their Masters, were sent to the Gallies. And Miss De Villemartin, who had been co-spectatress of the flagellation, in the same coach with the Marchioness, and had shared her triumph, was summoned to appear personally in Court, there to be admonished, and condemned to pay a fine of twenty livres, ‘for the bread of the prisoners[105].’
That part of the bodies of their enemies, to which Captain St. Loe, and the above-named Marchioness, directed the corrections and insults by which they proposed to humble them, naturally leads us to remark the opposite lights in which that part has been considered by Mankind, and to notice the fantastical and contradictory disposition of the human mind.
The part we mention, which, to follow the common definition that is given of it, is that part on which Man sits, is, of itself, extremely deserving of our esteem. It is, in the first place, a characteristic part and appendage of Mankind: it is formed by the expansion of muscles which, as Anatomists inform us, exist in no other animal, and are intirely proper to the human species.
Nor does that part confer upon Man a distinction from animals, that is of an honorific kind merely, like the faculty of walking in an erect situation, which, as Ovid remarks, enables him to behold the Sun or the Stars, as he goes forward: but, by allowing him to sit, it enables him to calculate the motions, whether real or apparent, of those same Stars, to ascertain their revolutions, and foreknow their periodical returns. It puts him in a condition to promote the liberal Arts and Sciences, Music, Painting, Algebra, Geometry, &c. not to mention the whole tribe of mechanic Arts and manufactures. It even is, by that power of assiduity (or of being seated) it confers upon Man, so useful to the study of the Law, that it has been looked upon as being no less conducive to it than the head itself, with which it has, in that respect, been expressly put upon a par; and it is a common saying in the Universities abroad, that, in order to succeed in that study, a Man must have an iron head, and leaden posteriors; to which they add, a golden purse, to buy books with:—caput ferreum, aurea crumena, nates plumbeæ.
Nor does the part of the human body we mention, only serve to make Man a learned and industrious animal; but it moreover contributes much to the beauty of the species, being itself capable of a great degree of beauty.
Without mentioning the opinion of different savage Nations on that account, who take great pains to paint and adorn that part, we see that the Greeks, who certainly were a well-cultivated and polite People, entertained high notions of its beautifulness. They even seem to have thought that it had the advantage, in that respect, of all the other parts of the human body; for, though we do not find that they ever erected altars to fine arms, fine legs, fine eyes, or even to a handsome face, yet, they had done that honour to the part we mention, and had expressly erected a Temple to Venus, under the appellation of Venus with fair posteriors (Ἀφροδίτη Καλλίπυγη): the above Temple was built, as some say, on occasion of a quarrel that arose between two Sisters, who contended which of the two was most elegantly shaped in the part we mention; a quarrel that happened to make a great noise. To this we may add, by the by, that so little did the Greeks in general think that the part we allude to, was undeserving of attention, that they sometimes drew from it indications of the different tempers of people; and they, for instance, gave the appellation of a Man with white posteriors (Πύγαργος) to a Man whom they meant to charge with having too much softness and nicety.
The Latins entertained the same notions with the Greeks, as to the beauty of that part, or those parts, on which Man sits. Horace more than once bestows upon them the appellation of fair (pulchræ): he even in one place expressly declares it as his opinion, that, for a Mistress to be defective in those parts (depygis) is one of the greatest blemishes she can have,—is a defect equal to that of being with a flat nose (nasuta) or a long foot, and is in short capable of spoiling, where it exists, all other bodily accomplishments. (Hor. Sat. 2. Lib. I.)
Among the Moderns, notions of the same kind have prevailed. Rabelais, a well-known Writer, places one of his best stories to the account of a certain Nun, whom he calls Sister, or Sœur Fessue; which he would not certainly have done, if he had not been of opinion that the size and exact shape of those parts of the Nun’s body from which he denominated her, were in the number of her greatest perfections.
In times posterior to Rabelais, other Writers among the French, have expressed opinions exactly alike. La Fontaine, if I mistake not, speaking in one of his Tales, of a certain Beauty whose charms he means to extoll, exclaims, ‘Breasts, Heaven knows, and a rump fit for a Canon!’
Tetins, Dieu fait, & croupe de Chanoine!
And the celebrated Poet Rousseau, happening, in one of his Epigrams, to speak of the abovementioned Temple which the Greeks had erected to Venus, declares that it would have been that Temple of Greece which he would have frequented with the greatest devotion.
Nay, other persons have thought, that, besides the above advantages, the part we mention was moreover capable of dignity, and partaking of the importance of its owners. This is an opinion which the Poet Scarron (to continue to draw our examples from French Authors) clearly expressed, in a copy of verses he wrote to a certain Lady, whose Husband having lately been made a Duke, she had thereby acquired a right to be seated in the Queen’s Assembly, or, as they express it, had been given the Tabouret (a stool.) ‘To the no small pleasure of all (said Scarron, who, we may observe, had assumed a right to say every thing he pleased) and of your own legs, your Backside, which is without doubt one of the handsomest Backsides in France, like a Backside of importance, has at last, at the Queen’s, received the Tabouret.’
Au grand plaisir de tous & de vôtre jarret,
Vôtre cû, qui doit être un des beaux cûs de France,
Comme un cû d’importance,
A recu chez la Reine enfin le tabouret.
Favourable sentiments of the kind just mentioned, seem also to have been entertained by the celebrated Lord Bolingbroke, whose distinguished character as a Statesman, a Politician, and a Philosopher, render him extremely fit to be quoted in this place: it was on that part of his Mistress’s body we are alluding to, his Lordship, then a Secretary of State, chose to write, and to sign, one of the most important dispatches of his Ministry, and on which the repose of Europe depended at that time[106].
In fine, others have carried their notions still farther, and have thought that the part in question was capable, not only of beauty and dignity, but even of splendor. Thus, Mons. Pavillon, a French Bel Esprit under the reign of Lewis XIV. who filled the office of King’s General Advocate at Metz, who was one of the forty Members of the French Academy, and Nephew to a Bishop, wrote a copy of verses that is inserted in the Collection of his Works, which he intitled, Métamorphose du Cû d’Iris en Astre. ‘The Metamorphose of Iris’s Bum, into a Star.’ By a Star of that kind, the Duke of York, afterwards King James II., was dazzled, when he became enamoured with Miss Arabella Churchill, a Maid of Honour to the Duchess, at the time that Lady had a fall from her horse, in a party of hunting: and to his Royal Highness being so dazzled, the first advancement of the great Duke of Marlborough, then Mr. Churchill, the Lady’s Brother, became owing; together with the capital advantages that accrued to this Nation, from his getting afterwards into great employments.
Yet, on the other hand, we find that that same part, which has been thought by some to possess so many accomplishments, and has accordingly become the subject of their respect and their admiration, has been made by others, the object of their scoffs, and expressly chosen as a mark to direct their insults to.
The facts that have been recited a few pages before this, might be produced as confirmations of this remark. The prevailing vulgar practice, in cases of provocation, of threatening, or even serving, the part in question with kicks, might also be mentioned on this occasion. But it will be better to observe in general, that, among all Nations, the part we are speaking of, has been deemed a most proper place for beatings, lashings, and slappings.
That this notion prevailed among the Romans, we are informed by the passages of Plautus, and of St. Jerom, that are recited in the sixth Chapter of this Book ([p. 94, 95].) The same practice was also adopted by the Greeks, as may be proved by the instance of the Philosopher Peregrinus, which has been mentioned in the same Chapter. And under the reign of the Emperors, when the two Nations (the Greek and Roman) had, as it were, coalesced into one, the same notions concerning the fitness of the same part, to bear verberations and insults, continued to prevail. Of this we have a singular instance in the manner in which the statue of the Emperor Constantine was treated, at the time of the revolt of the Town of Edessa: the inhabitants, not satisfied with pulling that statue down, in order to aggravate the insult flagellated it on the part we mention. Libanius the Rhetor informs, us of this fact, in the Harangue he addressed to the Emperor Theodosius, after the great revolt of the City of Antioch; in which he mentions the pardon granted by Constantine for the above indignity, as an argument to induce the Emperor to forgive the inhabitants of the last-mentioned City: a request, however, which Libanius was not so happy as to obtain.
Among the French, notions of the same kind likewise prevail. Of this, not to confine ourselves to particular facts, we may derive proofs from their language itself; in which the verb that is derived from the word by which the part here alluded to, is expressed, signifies of itself, and without the addition of any other word, to beat or verberate it: thus, Mons. de Voltaire supposes his Princess Cunegonde to say to Candide,—Tandis qu’on vous fessoit, mon cher Candid; by which, however, that Author does not mean expressly to say that Candide was flagellated upon the part we speak of, by order of the Inquisition; he only uses the above word to render his story more jocular. From the above French word fesser, has been again derived the noun fessade, signifying a verberation on the same part; the same as the word claque (or clack, as they pronounce it) which originally meant a flap in general, but, by a kind of antonomatia (a particular figure of speech) is now come expressly to signify a slap on the part in question. Among the Italians, the practice of verberating the same part, also obtains, if we are to trust to proofs likewise derived from their language; and from the word chiappa, they have made that of chiappata, the meaning of which is the same with that of the French word claque.
If we turn our eyes to remote Nations, we find they entertain notions of the same sort. Among the Turks, a verberation on the part we speak of, is the common punishment that is inflicted either on the Janissaries, or Spahis; I do not remember which of the two. Among the Persians, punishments of the same kind are also established; and we find in Chardin, an instance of a Captain of the outward gate of the King’s Seraglio, who was served with it, for having suffered a stranger to stop before that gate, and look through it. And the Chinese also use a like method of chastisement, and inflict it, as Travellers inform us, with a wooden instrument, shaped like a large solid rounded spoon.
Among the Arabians, the part here alluded to, is likewise considered as a fit mark for blows and slaps. We find an instance of this, in one of the Arabian Tales, called The one thousand and one Nights: an original Book, and which contains true pictures of the manners of that Nation. The story I mean, which is well worth reminding the reader of, is that of a certain Cobler, whose name, if I mistake not, was Shak-Abak. This Cobler having fallen in love with a beautiful Lady belonging to some wealthy Man, or Man of power, of whom he had had a glance through the window of her house, would afterwards keep for whole hours every day, staring at that window. The Lady, who proposed to make game of him, one day sent one of her female slaves to introduce him to her, and then gave him to understand, that if he could overtake her, by running after her through the apartments of her house, he would have the enjoyment of her favours: he was besides told, that in order to run more nimbly, he must strip to his shirt. To all this Shak-Abak agreed; and after a number of turns, up and down the house, he was at last enticed into a long, dark, and narrow passage, at the farthest extremity of which an open door was to be perceived; he made to it as fast as he could, and when he had reached it, rushed headlong through it; when, to his no small astonishment, the door instantly shut upon him, and he found himself in the middle of a public street of Bagdat, which was chiefly inhabited by shoemakers. A number of these latter, struck at the sudden and strange appearance of the unfortunate Shak-Abak, who, besides stripping to his shirt, had suffered his eye-brows to be shaved, laid hold of him, and, as the Arabian Author relates, soundly lashed his posteriors with their straps.
If we turn again to European Nations, we shall meet with farther instances of the same kind of correction. It was certainly adopted in Denmark, and even in the Court of that Country, towards the latter end of the last Century, as we are informed by Lord Molesworth, in his Account of Denmark. It was the custom, his Lordship says, at the end of every hunting-match at Court, that, in order to conclude the entertainment with as much festivity as it had begun, a proclamation was made,—if any could inform against any person who had infringed the known laws of hunting, let him stand forth and accuse. As soon as the contravention was ascertained, the culprit was made to kneel down between the horns of the stag that had been hunted; two of the Gentlemen removed the skirts of his coat; when the King, taking a small long wand in his hand, laid a certain number of blows, which was proportioned to the greatness of the offence, on the culprit’s breech; whilst, in the mean time (the Noble Author adds) the Huntsmen with their brass horns, and the dogs with their loud openings, proclaimed the King’s Justice, and the Criminal’s punishment: the scene affording diversion to the Queen, and the whole Court, who stood in a circle about the place of execution[107].
Among the Dutch, verberations on the posteriors are equally in use; and a serious flagellation on that part, is the punishment which is established at the Cape of Good Hope, one of their Colonies, as Kolben informs us in his Description of it, for those who are found smoaking tobacco in the streets: a practice which has frequently been there the cause of houses being set in fire.
In Poland, a lower discipline is the penance constantly inflicted upon fornicators, in Convents, previously to tying them together by the bond of matrimony; or sometimes afterwards.
In England, castigations of the same kind, not to quote other instances, are adopted among that respectable part of the Nation, the Seamen, as we find in Falconer’s Marine Dictionary; and a Cobbing-board is looked upon as a necessary part of the rigging of his Majesty’s ships.
Among the Spaniards, they so generally consider the part of the human body of which we are treating here, as the properest to bear ill usage and mortification, that in every place there is commonly some good Friar who makes his posteriors answerable for the sins of the whole Parish; and who, according as he has been fee’d for that purpose, flogs himself, or at least tells his Customers he has done so: hence the common Spanish saying, which is mentioned in the History of Friar Gerundio de Campazas, Yo soi el culo del Frayle;—‘I am as badly off as the Friar’s backside;’ which is said by persons who think that they are made to pay, or suffer, for advantages they are not admitted to share.
Nor is the above method of self-correction confined to Spanish friars only: it is likewise adopted by a number of religious Orders of Men, established in the other Countries of Europe. It is also by correlations directed to the same part, that is to say, by Cornelian disciplines, that numbers of pious Confessors, zealous for the purity of the morals of their female penitents, endeavour to procure their improvement. Nay, it is upon the same part we speak of, upon that part to which the Greeks had erected a Temple, that the whole tribe of Nuns and female Devotees constantly choose to practice those mortifications and lower disciplines by which they seek to atone for their sins; and several among them really treat that part, by which they perhaps have the best chance to create themselves admirers, with wonderful severity.
The above Dissertation, which, before I engaged in it, I did not think would prove so long, or so interesting, has till now kept me from delivering my opinion concerning those flagellations with which certain holy Men have served those Ladies who ventured to make amorous applications to them: a satisfaction which, before I conclude, I must give the Reader, as having pledged my word for it. Now, to fulfill my engagement in that respect, I declare that I totally disapprove such flagellations; and I am firmly of opinion that this kind of treatment ought to be ranked among those actions of Saints, which, as hath been observed in a former place, are not fit for all persons to imitate.
In fact, we find that several Authors, among those who best knew the world, and were excellent Judges of propriety, who had occasion to describe situations like those in which the above Saints were placed, have made their personages act in quite a different manner from that in which the Saints behaved; and on this occasion we may mention the conduct of Parson Adams, one of the Heroes of Fielding, in that celebrated night he spent at Lady Booby’s. If, in the first instance, he, as must be confessed, gave Mrs. Slipslop that remembrance in her guts mentioned by the Author, it was not till she had herself given him a dreadful cuff on his chops; besides that he did not know yet her sex, nor what she meant. But when he afterwards found himself in the same bed with Fanny, which, as he thought, was his own bed, he shrunk, as it were, and retired to the farthest extremity of it, where he lay quiet, and above all manifested no thought whatever of flagellating her; which if he had done, Joseph would not certainly have thanked him for it.
Don Quixote, in Cervantes, when the lovely Maritornes came during the night to his bed, and threw herself into his arms, had no thought of employing either whips or straps for dismissing the amorous Fair-one; and certainly if he had applied to an expedient of this kind, he would have had no right to complain of the boxes and kicks with which the Muleteer presently after belaboured him in the dark. But, like a gallant and exceedingly well-bred Knight, he excused himself from the nature of the anterior engagements he was under, and above all did not forget to pay proper compliments to the Lady’s beauty and great perfections. Indeed, the speech which the Knight addressed to the fair Maritornes, may be proposed as a pattern of compliment for occasions of the kind. ‘Oh! thou most lovely temptation! Oh that I now might but pay a warm acknowledgment for the mighty blessing which your great goodness would lavish on me! Yes, most beautiful Charmer, I would give an empire to purchase your more desirable embraces; but Fate has put to it an invincible obstacle; I mean my plighted faith to Dulcinea del Toboso, the sole mistress of my wishes, and absolute sovereign of my heart. Oh! did not this oppose my present happiness, I could never be so insensible a Knight as to lose the benefit of this extraordinary favour you now condescend to offer me.’
Nor ought the Gentleman, after delivering the above speech, or some other equally respectful, to stop there; it would be moreover extremely proper for him to desire the Lady to do him the honour to sit upon his bed, and then enter into a fuller explanation of his conduct, and of the nature of those prior engagements by which he is so fatally tied.
This done, and the Lady being perfectly convinced of the propriety of his conduct, he should rise from his bed, and offer to attend her, I do not say to the bottom of the stairs, and so far as the street door, for that might be the means of discovering the secret of the affair to other persons and endangering the Lady’s reputation, but to the remotest door of his own apartment. I would moreover have him, in his passage to that door, keep the Lady’s hand tenderly squeezed in his own, and all the while manifest, by the nature of his gestures and exclamations, the grief under which he labours. And lastly, when he had reached the furthest place to which he may safely conduct her, he ought to take leave of her by a low and most respectful bow, in order completely to convince her, that the kindness she had ventured to shew him, has not, in the least, lowered her in his esteem.
Such, dear Reader, is the manner in which, for my own part, I have always acted on those delicate occasions we are speaking of. However, I do not pretend to dictate to others the manner in which they ought to behave, nor insist upon any of the above circumstances in particular. All I intreat of you, is, by all means to forbear to use those sudden and harsh flagellations that were recurred to, by St. Edmund, St. Bernardin of Sienna, and Brother Mathew. Such a treatment savours too much of ingratitude: nay, to have recourse to it, is cruel in the extreme; it is heaping distress upon the distressed. Nor are you to expect that the Lady will love you the better for it afterwards, as was the case with St. Bernardin of Sienna; on the contrary, such a proceeding on your part, if it were once known, would irreparably destroy your reputation with the whole Sex, and you may depend, no proposal or application of the like kind would be made to you ever after. Now, though you may be ever so firmly determined to reject all proposals like these; yet, as every Lady will tell you, it is no unpleasing thing to have them made to you: besides that you do not know but you may afterwards alter your resolution.
[103] He punished differently, on a certain occasion, a Roman Knight who had been guilty of the abovementioned fault. He sent him, without delay, to carry a letter to Africa; without allowing the time to call at his house, and take leave of his family.
[104] Gazetteer—Tuesday, Dec. 20, 1774. The main circumstances of the same fact are also to be found in Dr. Burnaby’s Travels through the middle Settlements of North America, published in the year 1775.
[105] Causes célèbres, Vol. IV.
[106] Miss Gumley.—She became a few years afterwards, Countess of Bath. His Lordship, no doubt, boasted of the fact, as it seems to have made some noise at the time.
[107] See Lord Molesworth’s Account of Denmark, IVth Edit. p. 108, 109.