ALL science is a gradual growth. Travellers as they toil up a long ascent turn round from time to time, and mark with satisfaction the ever-lengthening way that stretches between them and their distant starting-place, and derive a further encouragement from the sight to press onward to the yet unknown. So may we in this our day compare ourselves, in no offensive and vainglorious way, with the men of the past, and gain renewed courage in the future as we leave their ancient landmarks far behind us. Shame, indeed, would it be to us had we not thus advanced, for our opportunities of gaining knowledge are immeasurably greater than those of any preceding generation.
The old herbals and books of travels abound in curious examples of the quaint beliefs of our forefathers, while their treatises on natural history are a still richer storehouse. Many of the old tomes, again, on the science of heraldry give other curious notions respecting the different animals introduced. Some of these animals, as the dragon or the griffin, are undoubtedly of the most mythical nature, yet we find them described in the most perfect good faith, and without the slightest suspicion as to their real existence. We shall have occasion to refer to several of the works of these old writers, and we will, without further preface, take down from our book-shelf a little book entitled “A Description of 300 Animals.”[1]
[1] The name of Thomas Bewick is to all book-collectors “familiar in their mouths as household words,” and we rarely read the account of the dispersal of any large library or the choice collection of some bibliophile without finding that it contained a choice edition of Bewick’s “quadrupeds” or “birds”—a “lot” that always calls for a keen competition. It is interesting to know that the book we have named above considerably influenced him, and in no slight degree led to the production of the works that will always remain his monument, for we find him writing to a friend of his—“From my first reading, when a boy at school, a sixpenny history of birds and beasts, and then a wretched composition called the ‘History of Three Hundred Animals,’ to the time I became acquainted with works of natural history written for the perusal of men, I was never without the design of attempting something of this kind myself.” [Back]
No one person appears on the title-page as author, but it is stated that it is extracted from the best authorities and adapted to the use of all capacities. It is also illustrated with copper-plates “whereon is curiously engraven every beast, bird, fish, serpent, and insect, described in the whole book.” The word “curiously” is very happily chosen, and most happily describes the extraordinary nature of the illustrations. The preface shows us that the primary intention of the book was the instruction and entertainment of the young, and after wading painfully through the cumbrous Roman figures, the long array of C’s, X’s, and the like, we find that the date of the treatise was 1786, or just a hundred years ago. Let us, then, dip here and there into it and see what “the best authorities” could teach our grandfathers when their youthful minds would know something of the wonders of creation. The lion, as the king of beasts, heads the list. “He is generally of a dun colour, but not without some exceptions, as black, white, and red, in Ethiopia and some other parts of Africa.” The red lion, then, it would appear, is no mere creation of the licensed victualler or Garter King-at-Arms, no mere fancy to deck a signboard withal or emblazon on a shield of honour, but a living verity; and we may pause to remark that almost all the most wonderful things in the book have their home in Africa, not as now the playground of the Royal Geographical Society, but an unknown land full of wonder and mystery, of which nothing is too marvellous to be impossible. We are told, too, that the lion sleeps with his eyes open, and many other curious details follow. On the next page the unicorn is in all sober seriousness described. “His head resembles a hart’s, his feet an elephant’s, his tail a boar’s, and the rest of his body a horse’s. The horn is about a foot and a half in length, his voice is like the lowing of an ox, his horn is as hard as iron and as rough as any file.” Burton in his “Miracles of Art and Nature,” published in 1678, says that in Ethiopia “some Kine there are which have Horns like Stags; other but one Horn only, and that in the Forehead, about a foot and a half long, but bending backward.” It will be seen that Burton does not identify these with the so-called unicorn, but the passage is in some degree suggestive. Any one who has noticed the fine series of antelopes in the collection of the Zoological Society of London will scarcely have failed to observe the length and straightness of the horns of some of the species, while they are often so close together and so nearly parallel in direction, that any one seeing the animals at a little distance away, and so standing that one of their horns covers the other, might well be excused for starting the idea of single-horned animals. Great virtues are attributed to the horn of the unicorn, as the expelling of poison and the curing of many diseases. The unicorn is very familiar to us as one of the supporters of the royal arms, but the form we know so well does not altogether agree with that described. The heraldic unicorn is in all respects a horse save and except the horn, while our old author tells us of the head of a stag and the feet of an elephant. The creature is sometimes referred to in our English version of the Bible, and has thus become one of the animals introduced in symbolic and religious art. In some of the passages it would clearly seem to indicate that in the very early days dealt with in some of the books of the Bible there was a general belief in some such creature, while in others probably the word is rather introduced in error by our translators—an error that may very well be pardoned when we find the animal gravely described in the much more recent book before us. In the book of Job, the earliest in point of time in the whole Bible, the belief in some such animal seems very distinctly indicated in the words, “Will the unicorn be willing to serve thee or abide by thy crib? Canst thou bind the unicorn with his band in the furrow, or will he harrow the valleys after thee?” In the 92d Psalm the peculiar feature that gives the creature its name is especially referred to in the words, “My horn shalt thou exalt like the horn of a unicorn.” The reference is always to some wild and powerful animal; thus in Exodus we read, “His horns are like the horns of unicorns;” and again in one of the psalms we find David crying, “Save me from the lion’s mouth, for Thou hast heard me from the horns of the unicorns.” Other passages might be quoted, but these will amply suffice to indicate the very early belief in some such creature. The form is frequently seen in the earliest Christian art, as in the catacombs of Rome, the havens of refuge for the living and the resting-places of the dead followers of the new faith. Our illustration is a facsimile of that in the “Description of 300 Animals.”
For some reason that we cannot now discover, the unicorn was an especial favourite with the Scotch heralds, and it is from them that we derive it in our royal arms. Before the union of the two monarchies the supporters of the arms of the English monarchs had been very various, though in almost every case a lion had been one of the two employed,[2] while in Scotland for several reigns before the amalgamation of the two countries the supporters had been two unicorns. It was very naturally arranged, therefore, when the two kingdoms were fused together on the death of Elizabeth, that the joint shield should be supported by the lion of England and the unicorn of Scotland. The creature freely occurs as a device on the Scottish coinage; one piece especially is by collectors called the unicorn, from the conspicuous introduction of the national device.
[2] As for example:—Henry VI., Lion and Antelope; Edward IV., Lion and Bull; Edward V., Two Lions; Richard III., Lion and Boar; Henry VII., Lion and Dragon; Henry VIII., Lion and Dragon; Mary, Lion and Greyhound; Elizabeth, Lion and Greyhound. [Back]
We have already indicated that potent virtues were believed to reside in the horn of the unicorn. In the Comptes Royaux of France in 1391 we find a golden cup with a slice of this horn in it for testing the food of the Dauphin, and again in the inventory of Charles V.—“Une touche de licorne, garnie d’or, pour faire essay.” Decker, again, in 1609 speaks of “the unicorn, whose horn is worth a city.” In Mrs. Bury Palliser’s most interesting work of “Historic Badges and Devices” we find an illustration of the standard of Bartolomeo d’Alviano. He was a great champion of the Orsini family, and took a leading part in all the feuds that devastated Central Europe during his lifetime. His standard bears the unicorn, surrounded by snakes, toads, and other reptiles then rightly or wrongly held poisonous; these he is moving aside with his horn, and above is the motto, “I expel poisons”—he, d’Alviano, of course, being the lordly and potent unicorn, his foes the creeping things to be driven from his face.[3]
[3] The English Cyclopædia of Natural History gives a description by Ctesias of the Indian ass. He says that these animals are as large as horses, and larger, having a horn on the forehead, one cubit long, which for the extent of two palms from the forehead is entirely white; above, it is pointed and red, being black in the middle. Of this horn drinking-cups are formed, and those who use them are said not to be subject to spasm or epilepsy, nor to the effects of poison, provided, either before or after taking the poison, they drink out of the cup wine, water, or any other liquid.