Endmatter

Notes

¹ The reader will doubtless be led by this incident to recollect the conduct of Gibbon, no very dissimilar character. It is unnecessary to observe, that young men of great but undisciplined scholastic acquirements, and solitary reading, are more likely to be caught in the toils of practised controversionalists, than any other description of persons, furnishing as they usually do the moat effective arms against themselves.—Ed.

² Somewhat waggishly, it might be presumed, if the manner in which the fathers, and their successors, the doctors of the middle ages, frequently defend or palliate the conduct of scriptural characters, when opposed to the moral sense of mankind, was not often quite a* ridiculous. See, in articleAbraham, a defence of his dissimulation to Abimelech and Pharaoh, by St Chrysostom.—Ed.

³ Muretus.

⁴ The history and amours of Abelard and Heloisa are so well known, that the details of Bayle in that respect would possess little novelty. This article therefore only supplies a few of his remarks or explanations which have been deemed incidentally illustrative or amusing.

⁵ Abelard's Works, page 20. Bernard's Epist. p 190

⁶ Abelard’s Works, p. 10.

⁷ Eccles, i. 9.

⁸ It will be seen by the accompanying Summary of the life of Bayle, how feelingly he must have made this observation, the truth of which is as obvious as even—Ed.

⁹ But some difficulty; for whatever the palpable nature of the frauds by which much of the property in question has been obtained, or however misused, in violation of the intention of those who have bestowed it, the least symptom of nationally dealing with it uniformly produces an uproar. On these occasions, even Protestant divines and Anti-Catholics can feel for monks and Jesuits. Property of this kind should be transferred to thetrue church, not be restored to the people.—Ed.

¹⁰ So much for the mainspring of infallible decision.—Ed.

¹¹ The observations of Bayle have been fully borne out by the fate of an attempt to form a society upon similiar principles in the United States, which has necessarily failed.—Ed.

¹² The French editor of the “ Analyse Raisonnée” of Bayle thus observes on these accusations:—“Suppose all the alleged facts are true, to what do they amount? That John XXII, Benedict XII, Alexander VI, and others, sought to make money of every thing ,5 that they trafficked in benefices, indulgences, and dispensations; that they even sold absolutions. Of what consequence to us are these reproaches? One word will suffice in reply; which is, that the memory and abominable practices of these popes are as sincerely abhorred by Roman Catholics as by the most zealous Protestant ministers.” This is no doubt true; but what becomes of the infallibility of such pontiffs, and of theauthority of the proceedings which men like them influence? Regarded merely as wicked priests, the French editor argues soundly; but alas ! these men, with the mob of Catholics, are also God’s vicegerents on earth, and spiritually incapable of error. “ Hinc illæ lachrymæ.”—Ed.

¹³ As one of the objects in these selections is to afford a specimen of whatever the industrious learning of Bayle may supply in illustration of the eccentricities of human opinion, we here give an example of the vagaries of imagination in respect to Adam. We shall not however fatigue our readers much in this way, satisfied that while such lore ma interest in regard to a few leading traditional characters it cannot be materially extended with profit to any party.—Ed.

¹⁴ Bayle supplies the whole of this pious vision. It will not be necessary here to be quite so profuse; but a part may be safely given, to show, in the language of our author, to what extravagances the human mind is liable. “ God represented to her in a vision, without the assistance of corporeal eyes, which could not have endured such brightness, the beauty of the first world, and the manner how he formed it out of the original chaos. All was bright, transparent, and radiant, with an ineffable light and glory. In the same spiritual manner he made the first man Adam appear to her, whose body was more pure and transparent than crystal, all light and volatile in appearance; in and through which were seen vessels and streams of light, penetrating from the inside to the outside, through all his pores; vessels which contained most lively and diaphanous liquors of all sorts and colours, not only of water, and milk, but also of fire, air,&c. His motions were wonderfully harmonious; every thing obeyed him; nothing resisted or could annoy him. He was of a larger stature than men are at present; his hair short and curled, inclining to black; his upper lip covered with small hair?”

⁎ ⁎ ⁎ ⁎ ⁎ ⁎ ⁎ ⁎ ⁎ ⁎ ⁎ ⁎ ⁎ ⁎ ⁎

“The first man whom Adam produced by himself in this glorified state, was chosen by God to be the theme of the divinity, the origin and instrument by which God would communicate himself eternally with mankind: that is, Jesus Christ united to the human nature both God and man.”— So much for the mysticism of Antoinette Bourignon, whose Opinions at one time obtained so much root in Scotland, that a declaration against Bouriguonism was required in the examination of a minister. Some remnants of her sect were even discoverable until very lately.—Ed.

¹⁵ The English action for damages, so much laughed at by foreigners, is after all, possibly as effective a mode of checking this offence as any that could be devised with due chance of execution. The notion of money, as a compensation for dishonour, doubtless appears inconsistent; but in point of fact, this form of the case amounts to little more than a legal fiction, that favourite road through which English law reaches justice in almost all cases,—the shortest line between two points being any thing but aright line in the eyes of a lawyer. The only operative benefit of an action for damages, as regards society and morals, is punishment, not recompense; and damages paid as a fine would no longer appear incongruous. It must be confessed, however, that in this case the discrepancy between form and fact is of no great moment.—Ed.

¹⁶ Socrates, Hist. Eccles, lib. v. cap. xviii.

¹⁷ Antony Panormita was a learned and distinguished Sicilian writer of the 15th century.

¹⁸ Cicero: Oratio pro Cluentio.

¹⁹ Oratio pro Cluentio.

²⁰ They do indeed, and without entering into the merits of the theory, it may be thought reasonable that these robed mental posture-masters should advert with due consciousness and humility to the occasional versatility of journalists and others who may offend in the same way. It is admirable to hear “robustious perriwig-pated fellows,” who avowedly as Lucio says, speak “ according to the trick,” for a certain number of guineas, dilate with affected horror on the political or other scribbler, who opines for so much a sheet. However ancient and conventional this legal and oratorical license, its ultimate operation upon his own mind forms a critical piece of moral consideration for the barrister. It evidently makes a sad piece of work with mediocre men.—Ed.

²¹ That is to say, that it has neither beginning nor end.

²² In this article Bayle supplies a pleasant specimen of what the Sorbonne found itdifficult to condemn, and what a fanatical party in France is doing much to restore. Nor was this trashever censured in Spain, or, it is believed, out of France. In fact the gods of vulgar apprehension are uniformly, deified mortality. The imagination wants flesh and blood to rest upon: the truth of this assertion, in respect to Paganism, it is unnecessary to mention, and dropping the Virgin Mary, Christianity has much indulged in it.—Ed.

²³ Voltaire, in his Philosophical Dictionary, has borrowed this argument of the Dutch ministers, and illustrated it in a pleasant dialogue, with his usual wit and humour.—Ed.

²⁴ The wild conduct of certain fanatical sects, still furnishes the Catholics with their strongest offensive arms against Protestantism. This is the usual practice of religious controversialists: the folly,and fanaticism, and cruelty exercised by the Church of Rome, in its turn, is left quite out of observance. Each side tells much truth respecting the other.—Ed.

²⁵ A striking picture of active and passive fanaticism.

²⁶ It is not intended to select from all the notices of the Grecian philosophers found in Bayle, but from those only that contain valuable observations or illustrations of his own, which is the case with the article Anaxagoras, and a few others. Setting aside this motive to selection, it is scarcely necessary to observe, that in regard to the history and opinions of these ancient luminaties, more formal sources of information are available.—Ed.

²⁷ Plutarch in vita Periclis.

²⁸ Bayle does not however act as if he thought so, for with the exception of quoting the well-known objections of Lucretius, he proceeds most scholastically to overthrow the doctrine by arms of his own. In the present stage of physical science, there is little necessity to dilate on the doctrine of the Homœomeriæ.—Ed.

²⁹ Vide Plutarch in the Life of Lysander.

³⁰ This exposition of the objections of Socrates to the lucubrations of Anaxagoras, forms an admirable reproof of a species of theological jealousy, in respect to the pursuit and diffusion of practical science, which has been observable in all ages of the world, but especially on the dawn of the light which followed the darkness of the middle ages. It also shrewdly hints at the danger of cultivating science on the principle of a detection of tinal causes, a most illusive species of research, as may be proved by Derham’s Physico-Theology, and other books of that class, whose assignment of the creation of this thing for one purpose, and that for another, the further discoveries of science have proved to be in the highest degree imaginary. In fact, Socrates requires what no research can furnish, and on that account will not receive what it really may supply; being the opposite defect to that of the common sense philosophy, which inculcates the propriety of inquiry within a circle, but is somewhat too much inclined to bound it. Socrates may however be pardoned; visionary and purely intellectual hypotheses in regard to the origin and principles of things, occupied attention in his days as fruitlessly as the quibbles of the schoolmen at a later date, and impressed with their futility, he carried his objections too far—a common case.—Ed.

³¹ Voltaire, indignant at the superstitious accusations against him, sides with the comparative innocence of the marshal d’Ancre. Bayle gives some strong reasons for a different decision, and makes some judicious reflections on the baleful influence of queen-regents in France; as also on the baseness of the nobility and people, for suffering their king for many years to be enslaved by a foreigner. In fact the French aristocracy have during the whole course of their history since the reign of Louis XI, exhibited the extremes of insolence and servility. With respect to the figure presented by Louis XIII in this curious sketch, it may be once for all observed, that there is not such a very slave in the world, as a weak-minded despot.—Ed.

³² It is chiefly as a forcible illustration of the truth of this remark that the article is retained.—Ed.

³³ Lamprid. in Alexandro Severo, c. 29.

³⁴ August. Epist. iv. p. 23.

³⁵ Amm. Marcell. lib. xxiii. cap. 6, p. 370.

³⁶ Euseb. in Hierocl. page 514.

³⁷ Sidon. ApoIlin. Epist. iii. lib. 8, page 486.

³⁸ Vita Hobb. page 106.

³⁹ It will be seen, that the philosophical reasoning of Bayle in regard to apparitions, in substance agrees with the physiological essays of Dr Ferriar, and others, in reference to these joint delusions of the senses and the imagination.—Ed.

⁴⁰ He despised the tempter, bade defiance to his cunning, and persevered in his female charge—imitating therein St Jerome, who was reviled by certain dealers in defamation for writing to the women, and preferring them to the men, whose cavils he refuted in a beautiful and copious encomium upon the fair sex.”—Main ferme,Clypei, vol. i.

⁴¹ Father de la Mainferme with great safety denied the existence of the epistle of Geoffry of Vendome, since according to the testimony of Menage, it had been abstracted from the collection at the instance of Joan Baptiste de Bourbon, a legitimate daughter of Frances, abbess of Fontevraud, after its publication by father Sirmond. Menage’s quotation from the letters of Marbodus mentions in addition to the passage in the text, that “Robert was reproached with taking a great many women with him in his travels, and dispersing great numbers of them in divers provinces, in the inns and hospitals promiscuously with the men, under the pretence of serving the poor and strangers.” It is added, that this fine arrangement produced a sufficient number of children to prove beyond all doubt that Robert exposed his female followers to very great dangers.—Ed.

⁴² Xenophon’s Memorabilia.

⁴³ The learning displayed by Bayle on this curious subject, is evidently made a vehicle for the poignant irony of his conclusion. It may be suspected that a literal attention to the advice of St Jerome, on the part of the priesthood of any religion would materially check its propagation.—Ed.

⁴⁴ In the year 1624, the Parliament of Paris banished out of its jurisdiction persons who attempted to maintain theses publicly against the doctrine of Aristotle, and forbade all persons to publish, sell or vend the propositions contained in these theses, on pain of corporal punishment; or to teach any maxims contrary to the ancient approved authors, on pain of death.—Mercure Fronçait, t. 10, p. 504.

⁴⁵ This is a smart exposition of the difficulties attendant on the subject, which in fact involves the great question of the origin of evil, and the doctrine of philosophical necessity, a ground which cannot be taken from under the Calvinistic predestination, in itself so startling.—Ed.

⁴⁶ Bayle with his usual caution, ostensibly refers to Paganism only, but his reasoning applies to every species of superstition or doctrine which, whatever its profession, dishonours the Supreme Being, excites baleful passions, and does nothing to advance social well-being on this side the grave. The general application was felt in his own days, and hence no small degree of rancour and contumely from theologists of very opposite sentiments.—Ed.

⁴⁷ Hume justly remarks, that however lofty the attributes which the multitude bestow upon the Divinity, their real idea of him, notwithstanding their pompous language is inconceivably mean and frivolous. The following passage pleasantly supports the illustration of Bayle’s Charioteer:“That original Intelligence, say the Magians, who is the first principle of all things, discovers himselfimmediatelyto the mind and understanding alone; but has placed the sun as his image in the visible universe; and when that bright luminary diffuses its beams over the earth and the firmament, it is a faint copy of the glory which resides in the higher heavens. If you would escape the displeasure of this divine Being, you must be careful never to set your bare foot upon the ground, nor spit into a fire, nor throw any water upon it, even though it were consuming a whole city.—Who can express the perfections of the Almighty? say the Mahometans. Even the noblest works, if compared with him, are but dust and rubbish. How much more must human conception fall short of his infinite perfections ! His smile and favour render men for ever happy; and to obtain it for your children, the best method is to cut off from them, while infants, a little bit of skin, about half the breadth of a farthing. —Take two bits of cloth, say the Roman Catholics, about an inch, or an inch and a half square; join them by the corners with two strings or pieces of tape about sixteen inches long; throw this over your head, and make one of the pieces of cloth lie on your breast, and the other upon your back, keeping them next your skin(the scapulary). There is not a better secret for recommending yourself to that infinite Being, who exists from eternity to eternity ”—Dissertation on the Natural History of Religion.—Ed.

⁴⁸ Bayle relates a number of instances of an entire reliance upon, and fervent devotion towards the Virgin on the part of many other persons engaged in criminal pursuits, all tending to prove his main position—the more injurious tendency of superstition or false religion, than of Atheism.—Ed.

⁴⁹ It is easy to perceive how Bayle might have strengthened his argument, by the massacre of St Bartholomew, and other instances, which, however instigated by the ambition and intrigue of leaders, were clearly the result of bigotry and superstition in the mass of the perpetrators. This indeed he has done, in the course of the inquiry, but not in such a wav as to render it necessary to lengthen an article which may be more briefly rendered conclusive.—Ed.

⁵⁰ This article is a mere abstract, in his own language, of the parallel between Atheism and Idolatry, in our author’s “Pensées sur les Comètes.” It was unnecessary to dwell so much on the vices of Paganism, at this time of day; as the value of the argument consists, at present, in its application to all impure and debasing systems of religion, and in abatement of the jargon on the tendency of the speculative opinions of men, which is often as false in fact, as erroneous in reasoning.—Ed.

⁵¹ There is a great difference, as Bayle observes elsewhere, between the fact of men being wicked because they are Atheists, or Atheists because they are wicked. The necessary immorality of the former speculative class is alone denied, and with respect to the latter, they are generally cured by the first fit of sickness, and, moreover, would have been immoral, whether believers or not.—Ed.

⁵² The 13th article of a certain church says, that these works “ discover not the grace of congruity; yea rather as they are not done as God has willed and commanded them to be done, we doubt not but that they have the nature of sin?”

⁵³ Bayle has been accused of a disposition for grave irony; every one who studies the three last paragraphs must perceive how underservedly.—Ed.

⁵⁴ This division in the Catholic church is not much unlike that of High and Low Church in England, now usually denominated the High Church and the Evangelicals. The seventeenth article of the Church of England includes the identical dilemma of St Augustin.—Ed.

⁵⁵ A famous civilian of the sixteenth century.

⁵⁶ The present article is selected from a mass of argument and erudition, on this subject, in the articles Pereira and Rorarius in the original. The investigation of the opinions of the ancients, upon the mental faculties of brutes, being chiefly for the purpose of proving a negation; viz. that none before Pereira and Descartes regarded them as automata, or mere machines, is omitted. The various conjectures of the moderns, previously to Descartes, are equally unimportant, centred, as they all very nearly were, in the greatly modified Aristotelian notion of a sensitive and mortal soul in brutes; the most orthodox opinion, it is presumed, of the present day. The difficulties attendant upon both theories are smartly canvassed in these extracts, which exhibit the boundaries of purely intellectual discovery on this subject, pretty clearly. Whether the existing predilection for physiological research will carry conclusions further, it is not the province of a note to determine.—Ed.

⁵⁷ The doctrine of philosophical necessity combined with that of preponderating motive, makes all these odds even, and applies equally to man and beast. The argument in relation to malefactors remains a favourite one with the advocates of free-will, to this day; but even in this short passage, Bayle proves the futility of the reference. There is more philosophy in this reported reply of the judge to the horse-stealers than is generally imagined.—“You are not hanged for stealing a horse, but that horses may not be stolen.” In other words, a stronger motive to leave horses unstolen, is furnished to men of your habits and character, one that has a greater chance of being more weighty than the temptation; and which, if so, willnecessarily prevail. Hawks and Kites are nailed to barn doors, on exactly the same principle, and what is more to the purpose, the mental, if not the moral operations are the same.—Ed.

⁵⁸ It is pleasant in reference to the “Treatise on the Human Understanding,” then a new book, to read the following marginal testimony of Bayle: “ It is an excellent work, which deserved to be translated into French by M. Coste.”—Ed.

⁵⁹ Grot. de Jure Belli et Pacis, Proleg. Num. 7.

⁶⁰ Mélanges d’Histoire et d'Litterature, Tom. i.

⁶¹ Some very bold performances of a similar nature, having been very recently published, in reference to this queen, we think a specimen of the unblushing inventions occasionally produced by theodium theologicum, may not be wholly unamusing.—Ed.

⁶² The resemblance of the career and final fate of this impostor, to that of the celebrated Cagliostro, is very remark-able.—Ed.

⁶³ Ibid. par. 330, and following.

⁶⁴ More modern advocates can manage to be tedious and long winded without classical quotation; and in respect to time, the pedant of the sixteenth century could scarcely prove more merciless than his counterpart of the nineteenth. In certain equity practice it is well known that half the oratory is utterly useless, and neither has, nor on the part of the advocate is expected to have, any effect on the bench. “ The court awards it, and the law allows it,” for the benefit of the professors.—Ed.

⁶⁵ It is unnecessary to state the manner in which, according to the rank imagination of Antoinette, this incarnation will he effected. Nothing is possibly more disgusting than the spirituality of devotees of the class, Antoinette Bourignon being more especially “ of the earth, earthy.”—Ed.

⁶⁶ We here behold the origin of our old proverb of “ the ass between two bundles of hay.” Half the acuteness of the scholars was in this manner thrown away upon the canvas of positions, possible only by hypothesis.—Ed.

⁶⁷ Dio. lib. 42, pag. 255.

⁶⁸ Bayle’s serious examination of this curious piece of personal history, is truly characteristic.—Ed.

⁶⁹ The reason given by Rachel, will be found in Genesis, xxxi. 35.

⁷⁰ Astrologus Egyptins ad M. Antonium, apud Plutarch, in Antonio, pag. 930.

⁷¹ Aristotle.

⁷² See Lucretius’s Invocation to Venus, at the beginning of his poem.

⁷³ It is obvious, from the whole tenor of the controversial history of Christianity, that, as Bayle evidently suspects, the imputations against the Cainites were grossly slanderous. Upon their doctrine in regard to tutelary genii, as here described, our author is exceedingly ingenious; and his reasoning supplies another step towards that generalization of the religious sentiment, which traces the primary associations of“ the saint, the savage, and the sage,” on the subject of divinity, to our grand original. What does it signify, whether we talk of Jehovah and of Satan, of Oromazes and Ahrimanes, of Allah and of Eblis, of inherent genii, or of plastic natures and substantial forms, of the strength of the said genii, or of grace bestowed and withheld. As Bayle observes, “ Words alter nothing the secret source is the same. It is in its progress merely, that the grand current of religious idea diversifies and wanders: trace each meandering to its fountain, and it is the. fountain of the whole. A new sect of French philosophers are striving hard to build a system of practical philosophy on this basis, we suspect with no very immediate chance of success, although undoubtedly a step backward from the dryness and negation of mere scepticism.—Ed.

⁷⁴ Boursault, Lettres Nouvelles, p. 397, 398. Edit. of Holl. 1698.

⁷⁵ So much absurd credulity might be deemed impossible, did we not witness a French king, and a train consisting of his family and some favourite courtiers, traversing the streets of Paris in three muddy processions in the 19th century;—and for what? To obtain the benefit of the plenary indulgence from an old man at Rome, which is to be obtained on those express conditions. A silver image of the Virgin is also making as large as life. Existing fatuity in fact might fully justify a belief in the above alleged or any other similar absurdity, even were the direct testimonies themselves less undeniable.—Ed.

⁷⁶ Learned prelates will sometimes libel their own religion, by stating that its spirit is not inconsistent with slavery. How comes it then that, wherever embraced, it has gradually superseded the systematic slavery of the ancient world? In fact, in its essence, to say nothing of its practice, being a religion of the purest equality, how can it be otherwise?—Ed.

⁷⁷ Naudæus quotes four authors, who loug before Cardan had calculated Christ’s nativity. The most modern was Tiberius Russilianus Sextus of Calabria, who lived under the pontificate of Leo the Tenth. He undertook publicly to maintain 400 pro-positious at Bologna, Florence, and Padua. The monks condemned twelve of them as favouring of heresy, of which this was one of the principal: Christum quoad corporis compagi-nem elementariam astris suppositum, ejusque genituram, & prophetam magnum, et ea quæ circa corpus evenerunt, præsertim violentum ejus mortis genus, nuntiasse non inconvenit. That Christ, as to the elementary composition of his body, was subject to the stars; and that there is no inconvenience in calculating his nativity, and shewing the necessity of his being a great prophet, and of all those things which happened to his body, particularly his violent death. Before this time, Peter d’Ailli, cardinal, and bishop of Cambray, was not content to maintain that judgment was to be made of Christ’s birth by astrological observation, but proposed the very scheme of his nativity. Albertus Magnus, more ancient than Peter d’Ailli, had before him maintained, that the rules of astrology took place even in the nativity of our Saviour. Albumasar, before Albertus, made an observation upon several things relating to Jesus Christ, according to the principles of astrology. These four authors are produced by Naudæus, some of which were quoted before him by Roger Bacon, Picus Mirandulanus, and Holkot; whence he concludes that Mr de Thou and Scaliger were in the wrong for imagining Cardan the original author of this foolish attempt.

⁷⁸ Cardan’s life of himself supplies a curious account of a gifted, and half enthusiastic, half knavish quack of the period in which he flourished. What might Rousseau have proved in the days of Cardan? The “Confessions” of the one, and the “Life” of the other, are not altogether dissimilar.—Ed.

⁷⁹ It will be seen that there is little new under the sun; for in addition to the subject of free-will discussed by Carneades, the scepticism of Hume, and his doctrine of causation, have produced very little more than a repetition of the ancient objection, in regard to morals and religion, to the doctrines of the first two academies. Cicero however, more moderate than the assailants of the modern sceptic, speaks strongly of the difficulties to be overcome; while every one knows that Hume has been overthrown a thousand times, by writers who have, or ought to have, a thousand times less pretension than the Roman orator.—Ed.

⁸⁰ Brantome, Dames Galantes, tom. 2, p. m. 352.

⁸¹ Jurieu’s Rights of Two Sovereigns, page 280.

⁸² Thomassin,Of the Unity of the Church, tom. i, part ii, chap. ix, page 374.

⁸³ Jurieu.

⁸⁴ Lib. i. ver. 5.

⁸⁵ lb. ver. 21.

⁸⁶ Sir Isaac Newton.

⁸⁷ Voltaire in the article Ovid in his Philosophical Dictionary, makes the poet thus reply:—“ You are wrong in supposing that my elements originally possessed all the qualities which they do at present. They had no qualities; matter existed naked, unformed and powerless, and when I say that in my Chaos, heat was mingled with cold, and dryness with humidity, I only employ these expressions to signify that there was neither cold nor heat, nor wet nor dry, which are qualities that God has placed in our sensations, and not in matter. I have not made that mistake of which you accuse me. Your Cartesians and your Gassendists commit oversights, with their atoms and their cubic particles, and their imaginations deal as little in truth as my metamorphoses. I prefer Daphne changed into a laurel, and Narcissus into a flower, to subtle matter changed into suns, and dense matter transformed into earth and water. I have given you fables for fables, and your philosophers have given you fables for truth.”

⁸⁸ Cayet. Chron. Noven. ad ann. 1594.

⁸⁹ Apology for John Chastel. Part 1, chap. vii. page 21.

⁹⁰ The manner in which the first reigning Bourbon fell a victim to this detestable fanaticism, and the still more detestable priestcraft which directed it, makes the anxiety of the last of them to restore that “ wise order,” as the present laureat calls the Jesuits, still more remarkable.—Ed.

⁹¹ Such is also the sorrowfully declared opinion of the renowned Tristram Shandy.—Ed.

⁹² Theoph. Raynaud. page 232.

⁹³ St. Francis of Assisi being brought by his father to the bishop to renounce his patrimony, and give up every thing he had, he delivered to him his very clothes, and stripped himself stark naked before the company. The bishop rose from his seat, and covered him with his cloak. Bonaventure’s Life of St Francis.

⁹⁴ 2 Sam. ch. xii, ver. 31.

⁹⁵ 2 Sam. chap. viii, ver. 2.

⁹⁶ 1 Kings, chap. xi, ver. 15.

⁹⁷ 1 Kings, chap. ii, ver. 6.

⁹⁸ 1 Sam. chap, xxii, ver. 2.

⁹⁹ The words of Shimei, according to the scripture, arc these: come out, come out, thou bloody man, and thou man of Belial: the Lord hath returned upon thee all the blood of Saul, in whose stead thou hast reigned, and the Lord hath delivered the kingdom into the the hands of Absalom thy son, and behold thou art taken in thy mischief, because thou art a bloody man. 2 Sam. chap. xvi, ver. 7, 8.

¹⁰⁰ Antiq. lib. 7, chap. 8, page 230.

¹⁰¹ See 2 Sam. chap. viii.

¹⁰² La Bruyère.

¹⁰³ Apply here what Tacitus says, “ Arcebantur aspectu quo venerationis plus inesset. They were removed from the sight to enhance their devotion.” Hist. lib. 4, cap. 45.

¹⁰⁴ Lucan. Pharsal. lib. 3, ver. 412.