The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1866-09-25
LITERARY NOTES.

From the Round Table.

From the Round Table
IL ia related that the secretary OF an Engllsn
AGRICULTURAL society received orders from lts
committee to procure several copies OF MT. VI anu anu
Miss Edgeworth's Essay on Irish BUS, Tor the
nse of members in their labors Tor the improve
ment of the breed of cattle. Let no one reading
the title of this article fall into similar error
regarding our intention. Neither snail we con-
slider the bulls of the popes, unless 1t be that
one perpetrated by Pope Sextus, who printed a
Bible in the preface of which he eXcommunl.
Gated all printers who should alter the text, and
vet was himself obliged, on account Of its nu-
merous Olunders, to cause emendated scraps to
be printed and pasted over erroneous passages.
Chambers Journal has recently published an
article in which 1t is assumed, as is almost
always the case, that the bull is necessarily ndi
genous 10 Irish soil. We propose to Submit
factsn in correction of this common error.
Nearly three thousand years ago in Greece,
HeroCles noIed doWn in the ASteLd many of the
bulls which go the rounds of the newspapers
nowadays attributed TO 1rshmen. He tells,
among others, OF the person who sat before
glass with closed eyes to see how he looked
when asleep; of the one who, having to cross q
river, entered the boat on horseback, giving his
reason for riding that he was in great hurry;
of the one who declared, after q narrow escape
from drowning, that he would never enter the
water again till he had learned to swim of the
man who, hearing that a raven would
live two hundred years, bought one to
try whether it was true; of the one
who, finding that half OF a cask of wine was
gone, looked over the top to find an opening
and, being advised to look for hole in the
bottom, replied "Blockhead, do you not see that
the deficiency is at the top, and not at the bot
tom ?" of the one who, meeting an acquaintance,
said, 81 heard you were dead, and, receiving
the reply, But you see me alive,n answered,
81 don't know how that may be; you are a noto-
rious liar, and my intormer was person Of
credit;n and of the one who, neglecting to pur-
chase books as friend had requested IN a letter,
and fearing that he might be offended, said to
him when they next met, my dear friend,
never got the letter you wrote me about the
books.n
The philosophers have not been free from
bulls. Pythagoras taught the doctrine of me-
tempsychosis, and yet stated that he had seen
the souls OF Homer, Hesiod, and others tor
mented. Suetonius tells of Brahmin philoso
pher whose life had been emnently prosperous,
and who burned himself at Athens to prevent
reverse of fortune. Amid great concourse of
people he entered the fire naked, anointed, and
laughing. He desired that the following epitaph
might be inscribed on his tomb:-"Here rests
Zarman-O Ochagas, the Indian of Bargosa, who,
according to the custom of his country, made
himself immortal" Mr.. Holwell, who wrote
learned account of the doctrines of the Gentoos,
Is at great pans to solve the reason why the
fishes we're not drowned in the deluge. Curious
stories are told, too, of the priests. The monks
of monastery at Messina it is related, pro-
claimed, once upon time that they had
in their possession a letter written by the
Virgin Mary. But the impostors had been so
foolish as to write it on paper made of
rags, instead OF on the ancient papyrus,
as they easily might have done and person
who came to see it observed that the letter, be-
sides being curious, also involved a miracle, for
the paper on which it was written was not in
existence till several hundred years after the
mother of our Lord ascended into heaven.
Peter Damian, describing the fate of the anti
pope, John, at the close of the tenth century,
says he "had his eyes bored out, his ears cut Off
his tongue cut out and being then put on an ass
with his face to the tail, which he held in his
hand, was paraded about Rome and obliged to
C hp Vrr, 1, Ao
him who endeavors to eXpel the Pope OF Rome
from his seat.'"
The poets have ralso been found guilty. A
critical writer quoting from Paradise Lost,
''Ihus incorporeal spirits to smallest forms
Reduced their shapes immense and were at large
asks, "If they we're iucorporeal, what occasion
had they to reduce their shapes 2" In Addison
'Caton occurs the following line:-
"SO the pure limpid stream when foul with stains.
Some one has noticed this couplet iron
Blackmore's "Arthur:"-
"a painted rest Prince Vortigern had on,
Which from naked Pict his grandsre won"
Phillips, in hispastorals, makes shepherdesse
tear their hair and beat their breasts at thei
own deaths:-
With looks cast down and with disheVeled hail
In bitter anguish beat your breasts and mean
Her death untlmely, as it were your own"
Lucian makes Prometheus cite verse out @
shipwreck on the coast of Bohemia.
There have been bulls too, on canvas as we
as on the printed page. Burgoanne, in hi
Travels in Spain,n notices painting wher
Abraham is preparing to shoot Isaac with
pistol; and in country church in Germany
the painter, representing the sacrifice of Isaac
places blunderbuss in Abraham's hand, an
paints an angel coming down TO pour water o
the pan. In owens travels is mentioned pic
ture in the Church of St. Zacharia, at Venice
where an angel is entertaining the Virgin Mar
and the infant Jesus with an air on the yioliI
So in the college library of Aberdeen there an
elegant paintings on the margin of q Dutc
missal representing the angels appearing TO th
shepherds, one of the latter of whom is playin
bagpipe. Lewis Cigoh painted a picture ,
the circumcision of Jesus, and drew the hig
priest Simeon with spectacles on his nose, pr
badly out of respect to his great age.
Spectacles were not known for fourteen ceI
turies afterwards. N. Poussin's picture, at TIL
French Museum, of Rebecca at the Well, has I'll
whole background decorated with Greca
architecture. Another at the French Museum
representing the reconciliation of Jacob an
Laban, has a steeple or bellry rising over II
trees belfry in the mountains of Mesop
ta1nia in the time of Jacob In picture paintC
by F. Chello della Puera, the blessed Virgin
placed on velvet sofa playing with cat and
paroquet and about to help herself 10 coff
from an engraved cotfee-pot. Sir Thom
Browne in his "Vulgar Errors, ," has written mo
than page to disprOve the possibility of Ada
and Eve having navels, objection having be-
made to paintings by Raphael and Mlcha
Angelo and to the painting OF Adam and Ey
by Mabuse, in st. james, Palace, in which thu
.Aa1- III.