[426]. I have noticed that the eunuch in Sind was as meanly paid and have given the reason.
[427]. Centuria Librorum Absconditorum (by Pisanus Fraxi) 4to, p. lx. and 593. London. Privately printed, mdccclxxix.
[428]. A friend learned in these matters supplies me with the following list of famous pederasts. Those who marvel at the wide diffusion of such erotic perversion, and its being affected by so many celebrities, will bear in mind that the greatest men have been some of the worst: Alexander of Macedon, Julius Cæsar and Napoleon Buonaparte held themselves high above the moral law which obliges common-place humanity. All three are charged with the Vice. Of Kings we have Henri iii., Louis xiii. and xviii., Frederick ii. of Prussia, Peter the Great, William ii. of Holland and Charles ii. and iii. of Parma. We find also Shakespeare (i., xv., Edit. Francois. Hugo) and Molière, Theodorus Beza, Lully (the Composer), D’Assoucy, Count Zintzendorff, the Grand Condé, Marquis de Villette, Pierre Louis Farnèse, Duc de la Vallière, De Soleinne, Count D’Avaray, Saint Mégrin, D’Epernon, Admiral de la Susse, La Roche-Pouchin Rochfort. S. Louis, Henne (the Spiritualist), Comte Horace de Viel Castel, Lerminin, Fievée, Théodore Leclerc, Archi-Chancellier Cambacèrés, Marquis de Custine, Sainte-Beuve and Count D’Orsay. For others refer to the three Volumes of Pisanus Fraxi; Index Librorum Prohibitorum (London, 1877), Centuria Librorum Absconditorum (before alluded to) and Catena Librorum Tacendorum, London, 1885. The indices will supply the names.
[429]. Of this peculiar character Ibn Khallikan remarks (ii. 43), “There were four poets whose works clearly contraried their character. Abu al-Atahíyah wrote pious poems himself being an atheist; Abú Hukayma’s verses proved his impotence, yet he was more salacious than a he-goat; Mohammed ibn Házim praised contentment, yet he was greedier than a dog; and Abú Nowás hymned the joys of sodomy, yet he was more passionate for women than a baboon.”
[430]. A virulently and unjustly abusive critique never yet injured its object: in fact it is generally the greatest favour an author’s unfriends can bestow upon him. But to notice in a popular Review books which have been printed and not published is hardly in accordance with the established courtesies of literature. At the end of my work I propose to write a paper “The Reviewer Reviewed” which will, amongst other things, explain the motif of the writer of the critique and the editor of the Edinburgh.
[431]. For detailed examples and specimens see p. 10 of Gladwin’s “Dissertations on Rhetoric,” etc., Calcutta, 1801.
[432]. For instance: I, M. | take thee N. | to my wedded wife, | to have and to hold | from this day forward, | for better for worse, | for richer for poorer, | in sickness and in health, | to love and to cherish, | till death do us part, etc. Here it becomes mere blank verse which is, of course, a defect in prose style. In that delightful old French the Saj’a frequently appeared when attention was solicited for the titles of books: e.g. Le Romant de la Rose, ou tout lart damours est enclose.
[433]. See Gladwin loc. cit. p. 8: it also is = alliteration (Ibn Khall. ii., 316).
[434]. He called himself “Nabiyun ummí” = illiterate prophet; but only his most ignorant followers believe that he was unable to read and write. His last words, accepted by all traditionists, were “Aatíní dawáta wa kalam” (bring me ink-case and pen); upon which the Shi’ah or Persian sectaries base, not without probability, a theory that Mohammed intended to write down the name of Ali as his Caliph or successor when Omar, suspecting the intention, exclaimed, “The Prophet is delirious; have we not the Koran?” thus impiously preventing the precaution. However that may be, the legend proves that Mohammed could read and write even when not “under inspiration.” The vulgar idea would arise from a pious intent to add miracle to the miraculous style of the Koran.
[435]. I cannot but vehemently suspect that this legend was taken from much older traditions. We have Jubal the semi-mythical who, “by the different falls of his hammer on the anvil, discovered by the ear the first rude music that pleased the antediluvian fathers.” Then came Pythagoras, of whom Macrobius (lib. ii.) relates how this Græco-Egyptian philosopher, passing by a smithy, observed that the sounds were grave or acute according to the weights of the hammers; and he ascertained by experiment that such was the case when different weights were hung by strings of the same size. The next discovery was that two strings of the same substance and tension, the one being double the length of the other, gave the diapason-interval or an eighth; and the same was effected from two strings of similar length and size, the one having four times the tension of the other. Belonging to the same cycle of invention-anecdotes are Galileo’s discovery of the pendulum by the lustre of the Pisan Duomo; and the kettle-lid, the falling apple and the copper hook which inspired Watt, Newton and Galvani.