the horse, very well representing the situation of a man holding the horse. I could gather nothing of its origin beyond the silly tradition of the place." I have mislaid a reference to the volume in which the footprint is described of a god worshipped in one of the islands of the PACIFIC OCEAN; but two instances may be cited of the existence of the superstition in the NEW WORLD. Dr Benjamin Smith Barton, in a tract on American antiquities published about 1783, quotes the work of Mr Kalm, a traveller in Canada, who saw, "in two or three places, at a considerable distance from each other, impressions of the feet of grown people and children in a rock."2 And Mr Jefferson, in his Notes on Virginia, written in 1781, recites an Indian "tradition handed down from their fathers, that in ancient times a herd of Mammoths came to the Big-bone-licks on the river Ohio, and began an universal destruction of the bear, deer, elk, buffalo, and other animals which had been created for the use of the Indians that the Great Man above (so they 1 Cochrane's Pedestrian Journey through Russia and Siberian Tartary, vol. i. p. 131. Constable's Miscellany, vol. xxxvi. 2 "Observations on some parts of Natural History, to which is prefixed an account of several remarkable vestiges which have been discovered in different parts of North America. Part I. London: Printed for the Author." n. d. call their chief Deity) looking down and seeing this, was so enraged that he seized his lightning, descended on the earth, seated himself on a neighbouring mountain on a rock, on which his seat and the prints of his feet are still to be seen, and hurled his bolts among them till the whole were slaughtered except the big bull, who, presenting his forehead to the shafts, shook them off as they fell, but missing one at length, it wounded him in the side, whereon springing round he bounded over the Ohio, over the Wabash, the Illinois, and finally over the great lakes, where he is living at this day." XXXII. LIBELS ON THE FAIR SEX. MENAGE makes mention of one Gratian du Pont, Sieur de Drusac, nicknamed Gabriel par la Croix du Maine, who published at Lyons, in 1537, a poem with the title, Les Controverses des Sexes masculin et feminin. He maintains, that at the resurrection every male soul will be restored to a perfect body; that as Adam will resume the rib whence Eve was made, Eve must become a rib, and so cease to be a woman; that as all men came from Adam, they will return into him, and as all women came from 1 Jefferson's Notes on Virginia, quoted by Mr Campbell in the notes to Gertrude of Wyoming. Eve, they will return with her into Adam's rib, so that at the last day women will cease to be!1 Jean Nevizan, a lawyer of Turin, who died in 1540, was equally distinguished as a misogynist. His Sylvae Nuptialis libri sex appeared at Paris in 1521, and was reprinted at Lyons in 1526 and 1572. "The Deity," he says, "having made man, deferred the creation of woman until he had accomplished that of the brutes. When this was done he fashioned her bosom and her limbs, but losing patience he broke off, leaving the devil to make her head." He maintains that in the war of the angels there were certain who stood neuter, and that these were not cast into hell with Satan and his companions, but were condemned to inhabit the bodies of women for the torment of man. The work was suppressed by the Inquisition, from whose fangs the author himself narrowly escaped. His townswomen, the dames of Turin, were less placable than the Fathers of the Holy Office. They pelted him 1 Menagiana, t. iv. p. 319. 2 Drummond of Hawthornden has preserved another form of the same thought in his Democritie :-" It is told that the devil and the first woman made once such a terrible bickering, that they cut off other's heads, which Saint Michael seeing presently took up and put them on in haste, but he set the devil's head on the woman and the woman's head on the devil," with stones, and would have chased him from the city, if he had not consented humbly to beseech their pardon on his knees with a paper label on his breast inscribed with these lines: Rusticus est verè qui turpia dicit de muliere, Nam scimus verè quòd omnes sumus de muliere. Even after this humiliating recantation, De Billon affirms that when an old crone who kept his house died, he could find no woman to supply her stead. But Pancirolle reports that he married a mistress whom he had long kept, and had by her a son who endured so great miseries that he went mad. Nevizan himself died in poverty.1 An author who wrote against him met scarcely a happier fate. François de Billon published at Paris in 1555 a quarto volume which he entitled, "Fort inexpugnable de l'honneur du sexe féminin." It was dedicated to the Princesses of France; and was reissued in 1564 under the title of La Défense et Forteresse invincible de l'honneur et vertu des Dames. It was immediately attacked on the ground of blasphemy. De Billon, it is said, compared les prophètes, secrétaires de Dieu, dépendants de J.-C., son chancelier, aux secrétaires des rois de France établis sous la dépendance du chancelier.2 1 Biog. Univ. t. xxxi. p. 110. XXXIII. THE LAIRD OF MATHERS' TESTAMENT. OUR forefathers, who lived before the discovery of the art of printing, showed much sedulousness and ingenuity in keeping wisdom ever before their eyes. Moral fables were embroidered on their tapestries and curtains; their hangings were fringed with adages; pious mottoes were carved on their chairs and tables; pithy verses in commendation of virtue were engraved over their doors, their hearths, and their windows; their roofs bristled with choice texts of Scripture; and they could not tread but on some ancient saw, for their floors were paved with proverbs stimulating them to do good deeds.1 No 1 Some of these legends have considerable merit. On Forglen Castle, in Banffshire, are these quaint lines: DO VEIL AND DOUPT NOCHT ALTHOCH THOV BE SPYIT HE IS LYTIL GVID VORTH THAT IS NOCHT ENVYIT TAK THOV NO TENT QVHAT EVERIE MAN TELS GYVE THOV VALD LEIVE ONDEMIT GANG QVHAIR NA MAN DVELLS., (New Statistical Acc. of Scot. No. xi. pp. 87, 88.) Occasionally the inscription was something more than a moral reflection above the gate of Craigievar Castle is the significant warning DOE NOT VAIKEN SLEIPING DOGS. |