But let us not discuss it, and pass on, just mentioning that since I wrote the above I found another legend of an Abbot Daniel, of whom Gregory of Tours and Sophronius relate that he, having prayed that a certain lady might become a mother, and the request being complied with, some of Daniel’s enemies suggested that other means as well as prayer, and much more efficacious, had been resorted to by the saint to obtain the desired result. But Daniel, inquiring of the babe when it was twenty-five days of age, was, coram omnibus, fully acquitted, the bambino pointing to his true father, and saying, with a nod, “Verbis et mitibus”—That’s the man! And the same happened to a Bishop Britius. But Saint Augustine beats the record by declaring that, “It hath sometimes happened that infants as yet unborn have cried out ex utero matris—which is indeed a marvellous thing!” (“De Civitate Dei,” III., c. 31).
And yet it seems to me that Justinus, Procopius, and several others, have done as well, if not better; for it is related by them that a number of orthodox believers who had their tongues cut out by Socinians, or Unitarians (whom the zealous Dean Hole declares are all so many little ungodly antichrists, or words to that effect), went on praying and preaching more volubly than ever. The same is told by Evagrius of some pious women, but I do not offer this as a miracle, there being in it nothing improbable or remarkable.
That the Arians, or Unitarians, or Socinians have set tongues to wagging—especially the tongues of flame which play round the pyres of martyrdom—is matter of history—and breviary. But that they have been the cause of making dead and tongueless Trinitarians talk, seems doubtful. However, as the Canadian said of the ox: “There is no knowing what the subtlest form of Antichrist may do.” Passons!
VIRGIL AND THE PEASANT OF AREZZO.
“Optuma tornæ
Forma bovis, cui turpe caput, cui plurima cervix,
Et crurum tenus a mento palearia pendent;
Tum longo nullus lateri modus; omnia magna,
Pes etiam, et camuris hirtæ sub cornibus aures.
Nec mihi displiceat maculis insignis, et albo,
Aut juga detrectans, interdumque aspera cornu,
Et faciem taurs propior, quæque ardua tota,
Et gradiens ima verrit vestigia cauda.”Virgilius: Georgics, lib. iii.
“Annescis, pinguem carnibus esse bovem?”
Epigrams by Fried. Hofmann (1633).
“Pallium non facit philosophum nec
Cucullus monachum—”“Dress if you will
A knave in silk, he will be shabby still.”
This legend, with several others, was gathered in or near Arezzo.
In the old times people suffered in many things far more than they now do, firstly from the signori, who treated them worse than brutes, and as if this were not enough, they were tormented by witches and wizards and wicked people who went to the devil or his angels to revenge them on their enemies. However, there were good and wise men who had the power to conquer these evil ones, and who did all they could to untie their knots and turn back their spells and curses on themselves, and the greatest of these was named Virgilio, who passed all his life in doing good.
Now, it is an old custom in Arezzo that when men take cattle to a fair, be it oxen or cows or calves, the animals are tricked out or ornamented as much as possible, and there is great competition as to this among the peasants, for it is a great triumph for a contadino when all the people say that his beasts made the finest show of any in the place; so that it is said a man of Arezzo will spend more to bedeck his cattle for a fair than he will to dress his daughters for a dance.
Now, there was a very worthy, honest man named Gianni, who was the head or manager under the proprietor of a very fine estate near Arezzo, and one day he went to the fair to buy a yoke of oxen. And what he cared for was to get the best, for his master was rich and generous, and did not much heed the price so that he really got his money’s worth.
But good as Gianni was, he had to suffer the affliction which none can escape of being envied and hated. For wicked and spiteful souls find something to hate in people who have not done them any wrong, and whom they have not the least motive to harm—nessunissimo motive.