A Rabbin once told me an ingenious invention, which in the Talmud is attributed to Solomon.
The power of the monarch had spread his wisdom to the remotest parts of the known world. Queen Sheba, attracted by the splendour of his reputation, visited this poetical king at his own court; there, one day to exercise the sagacity of the monarch, Sheba presented herself at the foot of the throne: in each hand she held a wreath; the one was composed of natural, and the other of artificial, flowers. Art, in the labour of the mimetic wreath, had exquisitely emulated the lively hues of nature; so that, at the distance it was held by the queen for the inspection of the king, it was deemed impossible for him to decide, as her question imported, which wreath was the production of nature, and which the work of art. The sagacious Solomon seemed perplexed; yet to be vanquished, though in a trifle, by a trifling woman, irritated his pride. The son of David, he who had written treatises on the vegetable productions "from the cedar to the hyssop," to acknowledge himself outwitted by a woman, with shreds of paper and glazed paintings! The honour of the monarch's reputation for divine sagacity seemed diminished, and the whole Jewish court looked solemn and melancholy. At length an expedient presented itself to the king; and one it must be confessed worthy of the naturalist. Observing a cluster of bees hovering about a window, he commanded that it should be opened: it was opened; the bees rushed into the court, and alighted immediately on one of the wreaths, while not a single one fixed on the other. The baffled Sheba had one more reason to be astonished at the wisdom of Solomon.
This would make a pretty poetical tale. It would yield an elegant description, and a pleasing moral; that the bee only rests on the natural beauties, and never fixes on the painted flowers, however inimitably the colours may be laid on. Applied to the ladies, this would give it pungency. In the "Practical Education" of the Edgeworths, the reader will find a very ingenious conversation founded on this story.
HELL.
Oldham, in his "Satires upon the Jesuits," a work which would admit of a curious commentary, alludes to their "lying legends," and the innumerable impositions they practised on the credulous. I quote a few lines in which he has collected some of those legendary miracles, which I have noticed in the article Legends, and the amours of the Virgin Mary are detailed in that on Religious Nouvellettes.
Tell, how blessed Virgin to come down was seen,
Like play-house punk descending in machine,
How she writ billet-doux and love-discourse,
Made assignations, visits, and amours;
How hosts distrest, her smock for banner wore,
Which vanquished foes!
—— how fish in conventicles met,
And mackerel were with bait of doctrine caught:
How cattle have judicious hearers been!—
How consecrated hives with bells were hung,
And bees kept mass, and holy anthems sung!
How pigs to th' rosary kneel'd, and sheep were taught
To bleat Te Deum and Magnificat;
How fly-flap, of church-censure houses rid
Of insects, which at curse of fryar died.
How ferrying cowls religious pilgrims bore
O'er waves, without the help of sail or oar;
How zealous crab the sacred image bore,
And swam a catholic to the distant shore.
With shams like these the giddy rout mislead,
Their folly and their superstition feed.
All these are allusions to the extravagant fictions in the "Golden Legend." Among other gross impositions to deceive the mob, Oldham likewise attacks them for certain publications on topics not less singular. The tales he has recounted, Oldham says, are only baits for children, like toys at a fair; but they have their profounder and higher matters for the learned and inquisitive. He goes on:—
One undertakes by scales of miles to tell
The bounds, dimensions, and extent of HELL;
How many German leagues that realm contains!
How many chaldrons Hell each year expends
In coals for roasting Hugonots and friends!
Another frights the rout with useful stories
Of wild chimeras, limbos—PURGATORIES—
Where bloated souls in smoky durance hung,
Like a Westphalia gammon or neat's tongue,
To be redeem'd with masses and a song.—Satire IV.
The readers of Oldham, for Oldham must ever have readers among the curious in our poetry, have been greatly disappointed in the pompous edition of a Captain Thompson, which illustrates none of his allusions. In the above lines Oldham alludes to some singular works.