History of Civilization in England, Vol. 1 of 3

424

The whole subject of the usury laws has been treated by Bentham in so complete and exhaustive a manner, that I cannot do better than refer the reader to his admirable ‘Letters.’ A part only of the question is discussed, and that very imperfectly, in Rey's Science Sociale, vol. iii. pp. 64, 65. On the necessity of usury to mitigate the effects of a commercial panic, see Mill's Principles of Political Economy, vol. ii. p. 185.

425

For an account of the ancient bards of Gaul, see the Benedictine Hist. Lit. de la France, vol. i. part i. pp. 25–28. Those of Scotland are noticed in Barry's Hist. of the Orkney Islands, p. 89; and for a modern instance in the island of Col, near Mull, see Otter's Life of Clarke, vol. i. p. 307. As to the Irish bards in the seventh century, see Sharon Turner's Hist. of England, vol. iii. p. 571. Spenser's account of them in the sixteenth century (Somers Tracts, vol. i. pp. 590, 591) shows that the order was then falling into contempt; and in the seventeenth century this is confirmed by Sir William Temple; Essay on Poetry, in Temple's Works, vol. iii. pp. 431, 432. But it was not till the eighteenth century that they became extinct; for Mr. Prior (Life of Goldsmith, vol. i. pp. 36, 37) says, that Carolan, ‘the last of the ancient Irish bards,’ died in 1738. Without them the memory of many events would have been entirely lost; since, even at the end of the seventeenth century, there being no registers in Ireland, the ordinary means of recording facts were so little known, that parents often took the precaution of having the names and ages of children marked on their arms with gunpowder. See Kirkman's Memoirs of Charles Macklin, 8vo. 1799, vol. i. pp. 144, 145, a curious book. Compare, respecting Carolan, Nichols's Illustrations of the Eighteenth Century, vol. vii. pp. 688–694.

426

On these Toolholos, as they are called, see Huc's Travels in Tartary, Thibet, and China, vol. i. pp. 65–67. Huc says, p. 67, ‘These poet-singers, who remind us of the minstrels and rhapsodists of Greece, are also very numerous in China; but they are, probably, no where so numerous or so popular as in Thibet.’

427

On the bards of the Deccan, see Wilks's History of the South of India, 4to. 1810, vol. i. pp. 20, 21, and Transac. of the Bombay Soc. vol. i. p. 162. For those of other parts of India, see Heber's Journey, vol. ii. pp. 452–455; Burnes on the North-west Frontier of India, in Journal of Geog. Soc. vol. iv. pp. 110, 111; Prinsep, in Journal of Asiat. Soc. vol. viii. p. 395; Forbes's Oriental Memoirs, vol. i. pp. 376, 377, 543; and Asiatic Researches, vol. ix. p. 78. They are mentioned in the oldest Veda, which is also the oldest of all the Indian books. See Rig Veda Sanhita, vol. i. p. 158.

428

See Burton's Sindh, p. 56, 8vo. 1851.

429

Burton's Sindh, p. 59.

430

Burnes's Travels into Bokhara, 8vo. 1834, vol. ii. pp. 107, 115, 116.

431

Clarke's Travels, 8vo. 1816, vol. ii. p. 101.

432

Compare Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians, vol. ii. p. 304, with Bunsen's Egypt, vol i. p. 96, vol. ii. p. 92.

433

I have mislaid my note on the bards of Western Africa, and can only refer to a hasty notice in Mungo Park's Travels, vol. i. p. 70. 8vo. 1817.

434

Buchanan's Sketches of the North-American Indians, p. 337.

435

Prescott's History of Peru, vol. i. pp. 31, 32, 117.

436

Ellis, Polynesian Researches, vol. i. pp. 85, 199, 411; Ellis, Tour through Hawaii, p. 91. Compare Cook's Voyages, vol. v. p. 237, with Beechey's Voyage to the Pacific, vol. ii. p. 106. Some of these ballads have been collected, but, I believe, not published. See Cheever's Sandwich Islands, 8vo. 1851, p. 181.

437

It is a singular proof of the carelessness with which the history of barbarous nations has been studied, that authors constantly assert rhyme to be a comparatively recent contrivance; and even Pinkerton, writing to Laing in 1799, says, ‘Rhyme was not known in Europe till about the ninth century.’ Pinkerton's Literary Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 92. The truth is, that rhyme was not only known to the ancient Greeks and Romans, but was used, long before the date Pinkerton mentions, by the Anglo-Saxons, by the Irish, by the Welsh, and, I believe, by the Brétons. See Mure's Hist. of the Literature of Greece, vol. ii. p. 113; Hallam's Lit. of Europe, vol. i. p. 31; Villemarqué, Chants Populaires de la Bretagne, vol. i. pp. lviii. lix. compared with Souvestre, les Derniers Bretons, p. 143; Turner's Hist. of England, vol. iii. pp. 383, 643, vol. vii. pp. 324, 328, 330. Rhyme is also used by the Fantees (Bowdich, Mission to Ashantee, p. 358); by the Persians (Transac. of Bombay Soc. vol. ii. p. 82); by the Chinese (Transac. of Asiatic Soc. vol. ii. pp. 407, 409, and Davis's Chinese, vol. ii. p. 269); by the Malays (Asiatic Researches, vol. x. pp. 176, 196); by the Javanese (Crawfurd's Hist. of the Indian Archipelago, vol. ii. pp. 19, 20); and by the Siamese (Transac. of Asiatic Soc. vol. iii. p. 299).

438

The habit thus acquired, long survives the circumstances which made it necessary. During many centuries, the love of versification was so widely diffused, that works in rhyme were composed on nearly all subjects, even in Europe; and this practice, which marks the ascendency of the imagination, is, as I have shown, a characteristic of the great Indian civilization, where the understanding was always in abeyance. On early French historians who wrote in rhyme, see Monteil, Hist. des divers Etats, vol. vi. p. 147. Montucla (Hist. des Mathémat. vol. i. p. 506) mentions a mathematical treatise, written in the thirteenth century, ‘en vers techniques.’ Compare the remarks of Matter (Hist. de l'Ecole d'Alexandrie, vol. ii. pp. 179–183) on the scientific poetry of Aratus; and on that of Hygin, p. 250. Thus, too, we find an Anglo-Norman writing ‘the Institutes of Justinian in verse;’ Turner's Hist. of England, vol. vii. p. 307: and a Polish historian composing ‘his numerous works on genealogy and heraldry mostly in rhyme.’ Talvi's Language and Literature of the Slavic Nations, 8vo. 1850, p. 246. Compare Origines du Droit Français, in Œuvres de Michelet, vol. ii. p. 310.

439

Mr. Ellis, a missionary in the South-Sea Islands, says of the inhabitants, ‘Their traditionary ballads were a kind of standard, or classical authority, to which they referred for the purpose of determining any disputed fact in their history.’ And when doubts arose, ‘as they had no records to which they could at such times refer, they could only oppose one oral tradition to another; which unavoidably involved the parties in protracted, and often obstinate debates.’ Ellis, Polynesian Researches, vol. i. pp. 202, 203. Compare Elphinstone's Hist. of India, p. 66; Laing's Heimskringla, 8vo. 1844, vol. i. pp. 50, 51; Twell's Life of Pocock, edit. 1816, p. 143.

440

The inspiration of poetry is sometimes explained by its spontaneousness (Cousin, Hist. de la Philosophie, IIe série, vol. i. pp. 135, 136); and there can be no doubt that one cause of the reverence felt for great poets, is the necessity they seem to experience of pouring out their thoughts without reference to their own wishes. Still, it will, I believe, be found, that the notion of poetry being a divine art is most rife in those states of society in which knowledge is monopolised by the bards, and in which the bards are both priests and historians. On this combination of pursuits, compare a note in Malcolm's Hist. of Persia, vol. i. p. 90, with Mure's Hist. of the Lit. of Greece, vol. i. p. 148, vol. ii. p. 228, and Petrie's learned work, Ecclesiastical Architecture of Ireland, Dublin, 1845, p. 354. For evidence of the great respect paid to bards, see Mallet's Northern Antiquities, pp. 234–236; Wheaton's Hist. of the Northmen, pp. 50, 51; Wright's Biog. Brit. Lit. vol. i. p. 3; Warton's Hist. of English Poetry, 1840, vol. i. pp. xxvi. xl.; Grote's Hist. of Greece, vol. ii. p. 182, 1st edit.; and on their important duties, see the laws of Mœlmund, Villemarqué, Chants Populaires de la Bretagne, 1846, vol. i. pp. v. and vi.; Thirlwall's Hist. of Greece, vol. i. p. 229; and Origines du Droit, in Œuvres de Michelet, vol. ii. p. 372.

441

Villemarqué, Chants Populaires, vol. i. p. lv.

442

As to the general accuracy of the early ballads, which has been rashly attacked by several writers, and among others by Sir Walter Scott, see Villemarqué, Chants Populaires, vol. i. pp. xxv.–xxxi., and Talvi's Slavic Nations, p. 150. On the tenacity of oral tradition, compare Niebuhr's History of Rome, 1847, vol. i. p. 230, with Laing's Denmark, pp. 197, 198, 350; Wheaton's Hist. of the Northmen, pp. 38, 39, 57–59. Another curious illustration of this is, that several barbarous nations continue to repeat the old traditions in the old words, for so many generations, that at length the very language becomes unintelligible to the majority of those who recite them. See Mariner's Account of the Tonga Islands, vol. i. p. 156, vol. ii. p. 217, and Catlin's North-American Indians, vol. i. p. 126.

443

That the invention of letters would at first weaken the memory, is noticed in Plato's Phædrus, chap. 135 (Platonis Opera, vol. i. p. 187, edit. Bekker, Lond. 1826); where, however, the argument is pushed rather too far.

444

This inevitable decline in the ability of the bards is noticed, though, as it appears to me, from a wrong point of view, in Mure's Literat. of Greece, vol. ii. p. 230.

445

Varro mentions forty-four of these vagabonds, who were all called Hercules. See a learned article in Smith's Biog. and Mythology, vol. ii. p. 401, 8vo. 1846. See also Mackay's Religious Development of the Greeks and Hebrews, vol. ii. pp. 71–79. On the relation between Hercules and Melcarth, compare Matter, Hist. du Gnosticisme, vol. i. p. 257, with Heeren's Asiatic Nations, vol. i. p. 295, 8vo. 1846. And as to the Hercules of Egypt, Prichard's Analysis of Egyptian Mythology, 1838, pp. 109, 115–119. As to the confusion of the different Hercules by the Dorians, see Thirlwall's Hist. of Greece, vol. i. p. 257; and compare p. 130.

446

This appears to be the opinion of Frederick Schlegel; Schlegel's Lectures on the History of Literature, Edinb. 1818, vol. i. p. 260.

447

The habit of generalizing names precedes that more advanced state of society in which men generalize phenomena. If this proposition is universally true, which I take it to be, it will throw some light on the history of disputes between the nominalists and the realists.

448

We may form an idea of the fertility of this source of error from the fact, that in Egypt there were fifty-three cities bearing the same name: ‘L'auteur du Kamous nous apprend qu'il y a en Egypte cinquante-trois villes du nom de Schobra: en effet, j'ai retrouvé tous ces noms dans les deux dénombremens déjà cités.’ Quatremère, Recherches sur la Langue et la Littérature de l'Egypte, p. 199.

449

On this confusion respecting Ragnar Lodbrok, see Geijer's History of Sweden, part i. pp. 13, 14; Lappenberg's Anglo-Saxon Kings, vol. ii. p. 31; Wheaton's Hist. of the Northmen, p. 150; Mallet's Northern Antiquities, p. 383; Crichton's Scandinavia, vol. i. p. 116. A comparison of these passages will justify the sarcastic remark of Koch on the history of Swedish and Danish heroes; Koch, Tableau des Révolutions, vol. i. p. 57 note.

450

Prichard's Physical Hist. of Mankind, vol. iii. p. 273. The Norwegians still give to the Finlanders the name of Quæner. See Dillon's Lapland and Iceland, 8vo. 1840, vol. ii. p. 221. Compare Laing's Sweden, pp. 45, 47. The Amazon river in South America owes its name to a similar fable. Henderson's Hist. of Brazil, p. 453; Southey's Hist. of Brazil, vol. i. p. 112; M'Culloh's Researches concerning America, pp. 407, 408; and Journal of Geog. Soc. vol. xv. p. 65, for an account of the wide diffusion of this error.

451

Sharon Turner (Hist. of England, vol. iv. p. 30) calls him ‘the Strabo of the Baltic;’ and it was from him that most of the geographers in the Middle Ages derived their knowledge of the North.

452

‘It was called in Finnish Turku, from the Swedish word torg, which signifies a market-place. The sound of this name misled Adam of Bremen into the belief that there were Turks in Finland.’ Cooley's Hist. of Maritime and Inland Discovery, London, 1830, vol. i. p. 211.

453

The chronicler of his crusade says, that he was called Lion on account of his never pardoning an offence: ‘Nihil injuriarum reliquit inultum: unde et unus (i. e. the King of France) dictus est Agnus a Griffonibus, alter Leonis nomen accepit.’ Chronicon Ricardi Divisiensis de Rebus gestis Ricardi Primi, edit. Stevenson, Lond. 1838, p. 18. Some of the Egyptian kings received the name of Lion ‘from their heroic exploits.’ Vyse on the Pyramids, vol. iii. p. 116.

454

See Price's learned Preface to Warton's History of English Poetry, vol. i. p. 21; and on the similar story of Henry the Lion, see Maury, Légendes du Moyen Age, p. 160. Compare the account of Duke Godfrey's conflict with a bear, in Matthæi Paris Historia Major, p. 29, Lond. 1684, folio. I should not be surprised if the story of Alexander and the Lion (Thirlwall's History of Greece, vol. vi. p. 305) were equally fabulous.

455

The first missionary was Ebbo, about the year 822. He was followed by Anschar, who afterwards pushed his enterprise as far as Sweden. The progress was, however, slow; and it was not till the latter half of the 11th century that Christianity was established firmly in the North. See Neander's Hist. of the Church, vol. v. pp. 373, 374, 379, 380, 400–402; Mosheim's Eccles. Hist. vol. i. pp. 188, 215, 216; Barry's Hist. of the Orkney Islands, p. 125. It is often supposed that some of the Danes in Ireland were Christians as early as the reign of Ivar I.; but this is a mistake, into which Ledwich fell by relying on a coin, which in reality refers to Ivar II. Petrie's Ecclesiastical Architecture of Ireland, p. 225; and Ledwich's Antiquities of Ireland, p. 159.

456

Mr. Wheaton (History of Northmen, p. 60) says, that Sæmund ‘merely added one song of his own composition, of a moral and Christian religious tendency; so as thereby to consecrate and leaven, as it were, the whole mass of Paganism.’

457

Wheaton's Hist. of the Northmen, pp. 89, 90; Mallet's Northern Antiquities, pp. 377, 378, 485; Schlegel's Lectures on the History of Literature, vol. i. p. 265. Indeed, these interpolations are so numerous, that the earlier German antiquaries believed the Edda to be a forgery by the northern monks, – a paradox which Müller refuted more than forty years ago. Note in Wheaton, p. 61. Compare Palgrave's English Commonwealth, Anglo-Saxon Period, vol. i. p. 135.

458

As is evident from the conflicting statements made by the best orientalists, each of whom has some favourite hypothesis of his own respecting its origin. It is enough to say, that we have no account of India existing without Brahmanism; and as to its real history, nothing can be understood, until more steps have been taken towards generalizing the laws which regulate the growth of religious opinions.

459

Dr. Prichard (Physical Hist. of Mankind, vol. iv. pp. 101–105) thinks that the Hindus have a history beginning B.C. 1391. Compare Works of Sir W. Jones, vol. i. pp. 311, 312. Mr. Wilson says, that even the genealogies in the Puranas are, ‘in all probability, much more authentic than has been sometimes supposed.’ Wilson's note in Mill's Hist. of India, vol. i. pp. 161, 162. See also his preface to the Vishnu Purana, p. lxv.; and Asiatic Researches, vol. v. p. 244.

460

Journal of Asiatic Soc. vol. vi. p. 251; Herder, Ideen zur Geschichte, vol. iv. p. 70; Works of Sir W. Jones, vol. i. p. 104. I learn from a note in Erman's Siberia, vol. ii. p. 306, that one of the missionaries gravely suggests that ‘Buddhism originated in the errors of the Manichæans, and is therefore but an imitation of Christianity.’

461

M. Bunsen says, that the Chinese have ‘a regular chronology, extending back 3,000 years b. c.’ Bunsen's Egypt, vol. i. p. 240. See also Humboldt's Cosmos, vol. ii. p. 475, vol. iv. p. 455; Renouard, Hist. de la Médecine, vol. i. pp. 47, 48; and the statements of Klaproth and Rémusat, in Prichard's Physical Hist. vol. iv. pp. 476, 477. The superior exactness of the Chinese annals is sometimes ascribed to their early knowledge of printing, with which they claim to have been acquainted in B.C. 1100. Meidinger's Essay, in Journal of Statistical Society, vol. iii. p. 163. But the fact is, that printing was unknown in China till the ninth or tenth century after Christ, and moveable types were not invented before 1041. Humboldt's Cosmos, vol. ii. p. 623; Transac. of Asiatic Society, vol. i. p. 7; Journal Asiatique, vol. i. p. 137, Paris, 1822; Davis's Chinese, vol. i. pp. 174, 178, vol. iii. p. 1. There are some interesting papers on the early history of China in Journal of Asiat. Soc. vol. i. pp. 57–86, 213–222, vol. ii. pp. 166–171, 276–287.

462

‘From the death of Alexander (323 b. c.) to the reign of Ardeshir Babegan (Artaxerxes), the founder of the Sassanian dynasty (200 a. d.), a period of more than five centuries, is almost a blank in the Persian history.’ Troyer's Preliminary Discourse to the Dabistan, 8vo. 1843, vol. i. pp. lv. lvi. See to the same effect Erskine on the Zend-Avesta, in Transac. of Soc. of Bombay, vol. ii. pp. 303–305; and Malcolm's Hist. of Persia, vol. i. p. 68. The ancient Persian traditions are said to have been Pehlvi; Malcolm, vol. i. pp. 501–505; but if so, they have all perished, p. 555: compare Rawlinson's note in Journal of Geog. Soc. vol. x. p. 82.

463

On the antagonism between Mohammedanism and the old Persian history, see a note in Grote's Hist. of Greece, vol. i. p. 623. Even at present, or, at all events, during this century, the best education in Persia consisted in learning the elements of Arabic grammar, ‘logic, jurisprudence, the traditions of their prophet, and the commentaries on the Koran.’ Vans Kennedy on Persian Literature, in Transac. of Bombay Society, vol. ii. p. 62. In the same way the Mohammedans neglected the old history of India, and would, no doubt, have destroyed or corrupted it; but they never had anything like the hold of India that they had of Persia, and, above all, they were unable to displace the native religion. However, their influence, so far as it went, was unfavourable; and Mr. Elphinstone (Hist. of India, p. 468) says, that till the sixteenth century there was no instance of a Mussulman carefully studying Hindu literature.

464

On the Shah Nameh, see Works of Sir W. Jones, vol. iv. pp. 544, 545, vol. v. p. 594; Mill's Hist. of India, vol. ii. pp. 64, 65; Journal of Asiatic Society, vol. iv. p. 225. It is supposed by a very high authority that the Persian cuneiform inscriptions ‘will enable us, in the end, to introduce something like chronological accuracy and order into the myths and traditions embodied in the Shah Nameh.’ Rawlinson on the Inscriptions of Assyria and Babylonia, in Journal of Asiat. Soc. vol. xii. p. 446.

465

On the ignorance of the Greeks respecting Persian history, see Vans Kennedy, in Transac. of Soc. of Bombay, vol. ii. pp. 119, 127–129, 136. Indeed, this learned writer says (p. 138) he is ‘inclined to suspect that no Greek author ever derived his information from any native of Persia Proper, that is, of the country to the east of the Euphrates.’ See also on the perplexities in Persian chronology, Grote's Hist. of Greece, vol. vi. p. 496, vol. ix. p. 3, vol. x. p. 405; and Donaldson's New Cratylus, 1839, p. 87 note. As to the foolish stories which the Greeks relate respecting Achæmenes, compare Malcolm's Hist. of Persia, vol. i. p. 18, with Heeren's Asiatic Nations, vol. i. p. 243. Even Herodotus, who is invaluable in regard to Egypt, is not to be relied upon for Persia; as was noticed long ago by Sir W. Jones, in the preface to his Nader Shah (Jones's Works, vol. v. p. 540), and is partly admitted by Mr. Mure (History of the Literature of Ancient Greece, vol. iv. p. 338, 8vo. 1853).

466

That is, to Easter Island, which appears to be its furthest boundary (Prichard's Phys. Hist. vol. v. p. 6); and of which there is a good account in Beechey's Voyage to the Pacific, vol. i. pp. 43–58, and a notice in Jour. of Geog. Society, vol. i. p. 195. The language of Easter Island has been long known to be Malayo-Polynesian; for it was understood by a native of the Society Islands, who accompanied Cook (Cook's Voyages, vol. iii. pp. 294, 308; and Prichard, vol. v. p. 147: compare Marsden's History of Sumatra, p. 164). Ethnologists have not usually paid sufficient honour to this great navigator, who was the first to remark the similarity between the different languages in Polynesia proper. Cook's Voyages, vol. ii. pp. 60, 61, vol. iii. pp. 230, 280, 290, vol. iv. p. 305, vol. vi. p. 230, vol. vii. p. 115. As to Madagascar being the western limit of this vast race of people, see Asiatic Researches, vol. iv. p. 222; Reports on Ethnology by Brit. Assoc. for 1847, pp. 154, 216, 250; and Ellis's Hist. of Madagascar, vol. i. p. 133.

467

Also the seat of the Tagala language; which, according to William Humboldt, is the most perfect of all the forms of the Malayo-Polynesian. Prichard's Physical Hist. vol. v. pp. 36, 51, 52.

468

Marsden's History of Sumatra, p. 281. De Thou (Hist. Univ. vol. xiii. p. 59) supposes that the Javanese did not become Mohammedans till late in the sixteenth century; but it is now known that their conversion took place at least a hundred years earlier, the old religion being finally abolished in 1478. See Crawfurd's Hist. of the Indian Archipelago, vol. ii. p. 312; Low's Sarawak, p. 96; and Raffles' Hist. of Java, vol. i. pp. 309, 349, vol. ii. pp. 1, 66, 254. The doctrines of Mohammed spread quickly; and the Malay pilgrims enjoy the reputation, in modern times, of being among the most scrupulously religious of those who go to the Hadj. Burckhardt's Arabia, vol. ii. pp. 96, 97.