In the fifth part, Apollo, the advocate for Venus, in a long pleading demands justice against Folly. The Gods, seduced by his eloquence, show by their indignation that they would condemn Folly without hearing her advocate Mercury. But Jupiter commands silence, and Mercury replies. His pleading is as long as the adverse party's, and his arguments in favour of Folly are so plausible, that, when he concludes his address, the gods are divided in opinion; some espouse the cause of Love, and some, that of Folly. Jupiter, after trying in vain to make them agree together, pronounces this award:——
"On account of the difficulty and importance of your disputes and the diversity of your opinions, we have suspended your contest from this day to three times seven times nine centuries. In the mean time we command you to live amicably together without injuring one another. Folly shall lead Love, and take him whithersoever he pleases, and when restored to his sight, the Fates may pronounce sentence."
Many beautiful conceptions are scattered in this elegant Morality. It has given birth to subsequent imitations; it was too original and playful an idea not to be appropriated by the poets. To this Morality we perhaps owe the panegyric of Folly by Erasmus, and the Love and Folly of La Fontaine.
RELIGIOUS NOUVELLETTES.
I shall notice a class of very singular works, in which the spirit of romance has been called in to render religion more attractive to certain heated imaginations.
In the fifteenth century was published a little book of prayers, accompanied by figures, both of a very uncommon nature for a religious publication. It is entitled Hortulus Animæ, cum Oratiunculis aliquibus superadditis quæ in prioribus Libris non habentur.
It is a small octavo en lettres gothiques, printed by John Grunninger, 1500. "A garden," says the author, "which abounds with flowers for the pleasure of the soul;" but they are full of poison. In spite of his fine promises, the chief part of these meditations are as puerile as they are superstitious. This we might excuse, because the ignorance and superstition of the times allowed such things: but the figures which accompany this work are to be condemned in all ages; one represents Saint Ursula and some of her eleven thousand virgins, with all the licentious inventions of an Aretine. What strikes the ear does not so much irritate the senses, observes the sage Horace, as what is presented in all its nudity to the eye. One of these designs is only ridiculous: David is represented as examining Bathsheba bathing, while Cupid hovering throws his dart, and with a malicious smile triumphs in his success. We have had many gross anachronisms in similar designs. There is a laughable picture in a village in Holland, in which Abraham appears ready to sacrifice his son Isaac by a loaded blunderbuss; but his pious intention is entirely frustrated by an angel urining in the pan. In another painting, the Virgin receives the annunciation of the angel Gabriel with a huge chaplet of beads tied round her waist, reading her own offices, and kneeling before a crucifix; another happy invention, to be seen on an altar-piece at Worms, is that in which the Virgin throws Jesus into the hopper of a mill, while from the other side he issues changed into little morsels of bread, with which the priests feast the people. Matthison, a modern traveller, describes a picture in a church at Constance, called the Conception of the Holy Virgin. An old man lies on a cloud, whence he darts out a vast beam, which passes through a dove hovering just below; at the end of a beam appears a large transparent egg, in which egg is seen a child in swaddling clothes with a glory round it. Mary sits leaning in an arm chair, and opens her mouth to receive the egg.
I must not pass unnoticed in this article a production as extravagant in its design, in which the author prided himself in discussing three thousand questions concerning the Virgin Mary.
The publication now adverted to was not presented to the world in a barbarous age and in a barbarous country, but printed at Paris in 1668. It bears for title, Dévote Salutation des Membres sacres du Corps de la Glorieuse Vièrge, Mère de Dieu. That is, "A Devout Salutation of the Holy Members of the Body of the glorious Virgin, Mother of God." It was printed and published with an approbation and privilege, which is more strange than the work itself. Valois reprobates it in these just terms: "What would Innocent XI. have done, after having abolished the shameful Office of the Conception, Indulgences, &c. if he had seen a volume in which the impertinent devotion of that visionary monk caused to be printed, with permission of his superiors, Meditations on all the Parts of the Body of the Holy Virgin? Religion, decency, and good sense, are equally struck at by such an extravagance." I give a specimen of the most decent of these salutations.