Pagina-afbeeldingen
PDF
ePub

elements, air is under Jupiter; and water, the moon; but, being mixed, are under Mercury and Venus. In like manner, natural active causes observe the sun; the matter, the moon; the fruitfulness of active causes, Jupiter; the fruitfulness of the matter, Venus; the sudden effecting of any thing, Mars and Mercury; that for his vehemence, this for his dexterity, and manifold virtue: but, the permanent continuation of all things is ascribed to Saturn. Also, amongst vegetables, every thing that bears fruit, is from Jupiter; and every thing that bears flowers, is from Venus ; all seed and bark is from Mercury; and all roots, from Saturn; and all wood, from Mars; and leaves, from the moon. Wherefore, all that bring forth fruit, and not flowers, are of Saturn and Jupiter; but they that bring forth flowers and seed, and not fruit, are of Venus and Mercury. Those which are brought forth of their own accord, without seed, are of the moon and Saturn. All beauty is from Venus; all strength, from Mars; and every planet rules and disposeth that which is like to it. Also in stones, their weight, clamminess,

styptickness, is of Saturn; their use and temperament, of Jupiter; their hardness, from Mars; their life, from the sun; their beauty and fairness, from Venus; their occult virtue, from Mercury; their common use, from the moon.*

ZINGARI, OR GYPSIES.

The wild manners, extravagant opinions, and picturesque costume, of this singular race of people, afforded one of the happiest subjects imaginable, for the exercise of our Author's descriptive powers; and he has done ample justice to it. Nothing, indeed, can be more spirited or consistent than the character, throughout, of Hayraddin Maugrebbin; the well-opposed qualities of his ferocious and unprincipled, but firm and unconquerable, mind; the artful weaving of his intricate and

Three books of Occult Philosophy, &c. by Henry Cornelius Agrippa, book i. c. xxx. p. 61. edit. 1651, London.

mysterious intrigues; and the terrible, but lofty and natural bearing, at the hour of quitting existence, of a being, who had lived in the scorn of all obligations, religious and social, contrasted and relieved by delicate touches of tenderness and pathos, which soften the sense of justice into the melting mood of pity and compassion. The whole representation, too, assumes additional interest from the conviction that the outline is sketched, not only from what has been, but from what now actually is in several parts of Europe. The habits of the Zingari, so well painted by the Novelist, are still occurring to the observation of the foreign traveller; their opinions remain unaltered; and their defiance of the sanctions of religion and law; their voluntary separation from the social body; their life of shifts, and tricks, and roguery; their fantastic garb, peculiar language, and characteristic features, continue to be much the same as they were four centuries ago; and very nearly approach to the vivid colouring of our Author's portraiture of his Bohemian gypsies. It is true, that in England we do not now see them in

.

so striking a distinctive form as heretofore, because much has been effected by the wisdom

of our laws, and the vigilance of their administration, in lessening their numbers, and checking their inordinances; and much success, also, has attended the christian-like endeavours of private philanthropy to humanize their manners, and meliorate their condition: but, in various other parts of the world, less favoured than ourselves, where public ordinances are less comprehensive, salutary, and efficient, and the efforts of individuals for the improvement and good of their kind more rare, the general aspect of the gypsey tribes bears a great resemblance to the account which the traveller; Tom Coryat, gives of their actual state in the heart of France, in the commencement of the seventeenth century. "I never saw," says he, so many roguish Egyptians together in any one place in all my life as in Nevers; where there was a great multitude of men, women, and children of them, that disguise their faces, as our counterfeit western Egyptians in England. For both their hair and their faces looked so black as if they were raked out of

66

hell, and sent into the world by great Beelzebub to terrify and astonish mortal man. Their men are very ruffians, and swash-bucklers, having exceeding long black hair, curled, and swords, or other weapons by their sides. Their women, also, suffer their hair to hang loosely about their shoulders; whereof some I saw dancing in the streets, and singing lascivious vain songs, whereby they draw many flocks of the foolish citizens about them."*

It is somewhat remarkable that the origin and history of so peculiar a race of people as the Gypsies, (or Bohemians, as our author calls them,†) should yet be undetermined: a people,

Coryat's Crudities, v. i. p. 54.

The French gave this name to them. Egyptiaci, (Gallicè, Egyptians, Bohémians,) vagi homines, harioli, et fatidici, qui hac et illac errantes, ex manus inspectione futura præsagire se fingunt, ut de marsupiis incautorum nummos corrogent. Du Fresne Glos. in Voc. Egyptiaci. They obtained their appellation of Zigeuner or Zingari, from their wandering up and down; the signification of the word. Ib. Throughout Italy they are at present called Zingari. Mr. Twiss, in his Travels, gives the following notices of them, as they existed in Spain, during his journey through it."Their language, which is peculiar to

« VorigeDoorgaan »