Figures 125, 126, 127, are various contrivances for indicating decently that which it was generally thought religious to conceal, la bequile, au les instrumens.
Figure 128 represents the same subject; the cuts are grouped iso as to show how the knobbed stick, le bâton, becomes converted either into a bent rod, la verge, or a priestly crook, le bâton pastoral. There is no doubt that the episcopal crozier is a presentable effigy of a very private and once highly venerated portion of the human frame, which was used in long by-gone days by Etruscan augurs, when they mapped out the sky, prior to noticing the flight of birds. Perhaps we ought to be grateful to Popery for having consecrated to Christ what was so long used in that which divines call the service of the devil.
Figures 129, 130, 131, are, like the preceding four, copied from various antique gems; Fig. 129 represents a steering oar, le timon, and is usually held in the hand of good fortune, or as moderns would say "Saint Luck," or bonnes fortunes; Fig. 180 is emblematic of Cupid, or Saint Desire; it is synonymous with le dard, or la pique; Fig. 131 is a form less common in gems; it represents the hammer, le marteau qui frappe l'enclume et forge les enfans. The ancients had as many pictorial euphemisms as ourselves, and when these are understood they enable us to comprehend many a legend otherwise dim; e. g., when Fortuna, or luck, always depicted as a woman, has for her characteristic le timon, and for her motto the proverb, "Fortune favours the bold." we readily understand the double entente. The steering oar indicates power, knowledge, skill, and bravery in him who wields it; without such a guide, few boats would attain a prosperous haven.
Figure 132 is copied from plate xxix. of Pugin's Glossary of Ecclesiastical Ornament (Lond., 1868). The plate represents "a pattern for diapering," and is, I presume, thoroughly orthodox. It consists of the double triangle, see Figures 20, 80, 81, 82, pp. 82, 88, the emblems of Siva and Parvati, the male and female; of Rimmon the pomegranate, the emblem of the womb, which is seen to be full of seed through the "vesica piscis," la fente, or la porte de la vie. There are also two new moons, emblems of Venus, or la nature, introduced. The crown above the pomegranate represents the triad, and the number four; whilst in the original the group which we copy is surrounded by various forms of the triad, all of which are as characteristic of man as Rimmon is of woman. There are also circles enclosing the triad, analogous to other symbols common in Hindostan.
