quiries; for in tracing a story to its original source, we shall find that fictions have been sometimes grafted on truths or hearsays, and to separate them as they appeared in their first stage, is the pride and glory of learned criticism.

EXPRESSION OF SUPPRESSED OPINION.

A PEOPLE denied the freedom of speech or of writing, have usually left some memorials of their feelings in that silent language which addresses itself to the eye. Many ingenious inventions have been contrived, to give vent to their suppressed indignation. The voluminous grievance which they could not trust to the voice or the pen, they have carved in wood, or sculptured on stone; and have sometimes even facetiously concealed their satire among the playful ornaments, designed to amuse those of whom they so fruitlessly complained! Such monuments of the suppressed feelings of the multitude are not often inspected by the historian their minuteness escapes all eyes but those of the philosophical antiquary; nor are these satirical appearances always considered as grave authorities, which unquestionably they will be found to be by a close observer of human nature. An entertaining history of the modes of thinking, or the discontents, of a people, drawn from such dispersed efforts in every æra, would cast a new light of secret history over many dark intervals.

Did we possess a secret history of the Saturnalia, it would doubtless have afforded some materials for the present article. In those revels of venerable radicalism, when the senate was closed, and the Pileus, or cap of liberty, was triumphantly worn, all things assumed an appearance contrary to what they were;

and human nature, as well as human laws, might be said to have been parodied. Among so many whimsical regulations in favour of the licentious rabble, there was one which forbad the circulation of money; if any one offered the coin of the state, it was to be condemned as an act of madness, and the man was brought to his senses by a penitential fast for that day. An ingenious French antiquary seems to have discovered a class of wretched medals, cast in lead or copper, which formed the circulating medium of these mob Lords, who, to ridicule the idea of money, used the basest metals, stamping them with grotesque figures, or odd devices, . such as a sow; a chimerical bird; an imperator in his car, with a monkey behind him; or an old woman's head, Acca Laurentia, either the traditional old nurse of Romulus, or an old courtesan of the same name, who bequeathed the fruits of her labours to the Roman people! As all things were done in mockery, this base metal is stamped with s. c., to ridicule the senatûs consulto, which our antiquary happily explains,* in the true spirit of this government of mockery, Saturnalium consulto, agreeing with the legend of the reverse, inscribed in the midst of four tali, or bones, which they used as dice, Qui ludit arram det, quod satis sit-Let them who

* Baudelot de Dairval de l'Utilité des Voyages, II, 645. There is a work, by Ficoroni, on these lead coins or Tickets. They are found in the cabinets of the curious medallist. Pinkerton, referring to this entertaining work, regrets that 'Such curious remains have almost escaped the notice of medallists, and have not yet been arranged in one class, or named. A special work on them would be highly acceptable.' The time has perhaps arrived when antiquaries may begin to be philosophers, and philosophers antiquaries! The unhappy separation of erudition from philosophy, and of philosophy from erudition, has hitherto thrown impediments in the progress of the human mind, and the history

of man.

play give a pledge, which will be sufficient.' This mock money served not only as an expression of the native irony of the radical gentry of Rome during their festival, but had they spoken their mind out, meant a ridicule of money itself; for these citizens of equality have always imagined that society might proceed without this contrivance of a medium which served to represent property, in which they themselves must so little participate.

A period so glorious for exhibiting the suppressed sentiments of the populace, as were these Saturnalia, had been nearly lost for us, had not some notions been preserved by Lucian; for we glean but sparingly from the solemn pages of the historian, except in the remarkable instance which Suetonius has preserved of the arch-mime who followed the body of the Emperor Vespasian at his funeral. This officer, as well as a similar one who accompanied the general to whom they granted a triumph, and who was allowed the unrestrained licentiousness of his tongue, were both the organs of popular feeling, and studied to gratify the rabble, who were their real masters. On this occasion the arch-mime, representing both the exterior personage and the character of Vespasian, according to custom, inquired the expense of the funeral? He was answered, 'ten millions of sesterces!' In allusion to the love of money which characterized the emperor, his mock representative exclaimed, 'Give me the money, and, if you will, throw my body into the Tiber!'

All these mock offices and festivals among the ancients, I consider as organs of the suppressed opinions and feelings of the populace, who were allowed no other, and had not the means of the printing ages to leave any permanent records. At a later period, before the discovery of the art, which multiplies, with VOL. I. (New Series.)

36

such facility, libels or panegyrics; when the people could not speak freely against those rapacious clergy, who sheared the fleece and cared not for the sheep, many a secret of popular indignation was confided not to books, (for they could not read) but to pictures and sculptures, which are books which the people can always read. The sculptors and illuminators of those times, no doubt shared in common the popular feelings, and boldly trusted to the paintings or the carvings which met the eyes of their luxurious and indolent masters their satirical inventions. As far back as in 1300, we find in Wolfius* the description of a picture of this kind, in a MS. of Æsop's Fables, found in the Abbey of Fulda, among other emblems of the corrupt lives of the churchmen. The present was a wolf, large as life, wearing a monkish cowl, with a shaven crown, preaching to a flock of sheep, with these words of the apostle in a label from his mouth, God is my witness how I long for you all in my bowels!' And underneath was inscribed, This hooded wolf is the hypocrite of whom is said in the Gospel, "Beware of false prophets !"" Such exhibitions were often introduced into articles of furniture. A cushion was found in an old abbey, in which was worked a fox preaching to geese, each goose holding in his bill his praying beads! In the stone wall, and on the columns of the great church at Strasburg was once viewed a number of wolves, bears, foxes, and other mischievous animals carrying holy water, crucifixes, and tapers; and others more indelicate. These, probably as old as the year 1300, were engraven in 1617, by a protestant; and were not destroyed till 1685, by the pious rage of the catholics, who seemed at length to have rightly construed these silent lampoons; and in their

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*Lect. Mem. I, ad. an. 1300.

turn broke to pieces the protestant images as the others had done the papistical dolls. The carved seats and stalls in our own cathedrals exhibit subjects, not only strange and satirical, but even indecent. At the time they built churches they satirized the ministers; a curious instance how the feelings of the people struggle to find a vent. It is conjectured that rival orders satirized each other, and that some of the carvings are caricatures of certain monks. The margins of illuminated manuscripts frequently contain ingenious caricatures, or satirical allegories. In a magnificent chronicle of Froissart I observed several. A wolf, as usual, in a monk's frock and cowl, stretching his paw to bless a cock, bending its head submissively to the wolf; or a fox with a crosier, dropping beads, which a cock is picking up; to satirize the blind devotion of the bigots; perhaps the figure of the cock alluded to our Gallic neighbours. A cat in the habit of a nun, holding a platter in its paws to a mouse approaching to lick it; alluding to the allurements of the abbesses to draw young women into their convents; while sometimes I have seen a sow in an abbess's veil, mounted on stilts; the sex marked by the sow's dugs. A pope sometimes appears to be thrust by devils into a caldron; and cardinals are seen roasting on spits! These ornaments must have been generally executed by monks themselves; but these more ingenious members of the ecclesiastical order appear to have sympathized with the people, like the curates in our church, and envied the pampered abbot and the purple bishop. Churchmen were the usual objects of the suppressed indignation of the people in those days; but the knights and feudal lords have not always escaped from the 'curses not loud, but deep,' of their satirical pencils.

As the Reformation, or rather the Revolution, was hastening, this custom became so general, that in one