In paint and wood and words and stone Man has for centuries made pictures and images for symbols of angelic might and beauty. But what does he know of these Beings in themselves?—"That there are distinct orders of Angels, assuredly I believe, but what they are I cannot tell.... They are creatures that have not so much of a body as flesh is, as froth is, as a vapour is, as a sigh is; and yet with a touch they shall moulder a rock into less atoms than the sand that it stands upon, and a millstone into smaller flour than it grinds. They are creatures made, and yet not a minute older than when they were first made, if they were made before all measures of time begun; nor, if they were made in the beginning of time, and be now six thousand years old, have they one wrinkle of age in their face, one sob of weariness in their lungs. They are primogeniti Dei, God's eldest sons...."
John Donne
[459].
This is the Song sung by his guardian Angel to a young sleeping Prince who has been cheated of his inheritance. It was printed by Charles Lamb in his English Dramatic Poets, from a Tragedy entitled The Conspiracy, written by Henry Killigrew when he was seventeen.
[460]. The Legend of St. Mark.
The relics of this Saint, who for his miracles was thought to be a sorcerer, and was murdered by a mob, were interred in Alexandria. Hundreds of years afterwards these relics were coveted by the Venetians by reason of the story that the Saint had once visited their city and had heard speak to him an angel: Pax tibi, Marce. Hic requiescet corpus tuum. At length two Venetian merchants, having persuaded the Alexandrians that the sacred bones lay in danger of the raiding Saracens, travelled back with them to their own city, where they were reinterred with solemn ceremony in St. Mark's. This church was afterwards burned to the ground, and the relics were lost. A century passed; a wondrously beautiful church had arisen from the ashes of the old, and during the ceremony held in the faith that it would be revealed where they lay hid, suddenly a light shone forth from one of the great piers, there was a sound of falling masonry, and, lo, the body of the Saint, with arm outstretched, as if at finger's touch he had revealed his secret resting-place.
"Doves of Siam, Lima mice,
And legless birds of Paradise." (p. 470.)
What particular kinds of doves and mice Keats had in mind here I cannot yet discover. But, according to Topsell, mice are of these kinds: the short, small, fearful, peaceable, ridiculous, rustik, or country mouse, the urbane or citty mouse, the greedy, wary, unhappy, harmefull, black, obscene, little, whiner, biter, and earthly mouse. Mice, too, he says, are "sometimes blackish, sometimes white, sometimes yellow, sometimes broune and sometimes ashe colour. There are white mice amonge the people of Savoy, and Dolphin in France, called alaubroges, which the inhabitants of the country do beleev that they feede upon snow." Then, again, "the field mouse, the farie, with a long snout; and the sleeper, that is of a dun colour and will run on the edge of a sword and sleep on the point."
What Topsell meant by "whiner" I am uncertain, but it may be he refers to the mouse that sings. That is a habit quite distinct from the common squeaking, shrilling and shrieking. It resembles the slow low trill of a very distant and sleepy canary, but sweeter and more domestic, and is as pleasant a thing to hear behind a wainscot, as it is to watch the creatures gambolling. Why women are apt to fear these tiny beasts is a mystery. But whatever mischief their ravagings may cause, may I never live under a roof wherein (Cat or no Cat) there is no inch of house-room for Mistress Mouse!
The fable that the Bird of Paradise is "legless" was set abroad by travellers who had seen in old days its exquisite dismembered carcase prepared for merchandise. It is hard to explain that Man, capable of imagining a bird "whose fixed abode is the region of the air," sustaining itself "solely on dew," can also slaughter it and tie it up in bundles for feminine finery. But so it is.