1816.] Dr. Pegge on the Custom of making April Fools. subscribed towards its funds. The pro- MR. EDITOR, C. BUTTIGER. YOUR correspondent NED RETLAS wishes to know the origin of the practice of making April-fools. In the first volume of A Selection of Curious Articles from the Gentleman's Magazine, at page 251, I find the following letter upon the subject, which, as it bears the signature of an eminent correspondent, you may perhaps be induced to insert in your valuable miscellany. Port Glasgow. MR. URBAN, PENTELICON. It is a matter of some difficulty to account for the expression an April fool, and the strange custom so universally prevalent throughout this kingdom of people making fools of one another on the 1st of April, by trying to impose upon each other, and sending one another upon that day upon frivolous, ridiculous, and absurd errands. However, something I have to offer on the subject, and I shall here throw it out, if it were only to induce others to give us their sentiments. The custom had no doubt an original, and one of a very general nature; and one may, therefore, reasonably hope that, though one person may not be so happy as to investigate the meaning and occasion of it, yet another possibly may. But I am the more ready to attempt a solution of this difficulty, because I find Mr. Bourne, in his Antiquitates Vul gares, has totally omitted it, though it fell so plainly within the compass of his design. I observe first, Mr. Urban, that this custom and expression has no connexion at all with the Festum Hypodiaconorum, Festum Stultorum, Festum Fatuorum, Festum Innocentium, &c. mentioned in Du F.esne; for those jocular festivals were kept at a different time of the year. very Secondly, that I have found no traces either of the name or of the custom in other countries, insomuch that it appears to me to be an indigenal custom of our own. I speak only as to myself in this; for others perhaps may have discovered it in other parts, though I have not. Now, thirdly, to account for it. The name undoubtedly arose from the custom, and this I think arose from hence: our year 507 formerly began as to some purposes and in some respects on the 25th of March, which was supposed to be the Incarnation of our Lord; and it is certain that the commencement of the new year, at whatever time that was supposed to be, was always esteemed a high festival, and that both amongst the ancient Romans and with us. Now, Sir, great festivals were usually attended with an for eight days, whereof the first and the last octave - that is, they were wont to continue were the principal; and you will find that the 1st of April is the octave of the 25th of March, and the close or ending consequently' of that feast which was both the festival of the Annunciation and of the commencement who are apt to pervert and to make a bad use Renascentur quæ jam cecidere. MR. EDITOR, T.Row.* HOR. THE tone of gentleness, of moderation, and of good-breeding, that pervades the expostulation of your correspondent bound, in the exercise of a sincere and N. N. on the censures that I felt myself dispassionate judgment, to pass upon Mr. Kidd's volume, demands a respectful acknowledgment at my hands; and I should think it no humiliation, in the face of so fair an antagonist, to eat my own words, and sing aloud my palinodia, if I did not discern that a misconception runs through the whole of his eloquent letter; and that his red-hot enthusiasm both for Porson and for the foppish gleaner in the stubble-field of his genius, Mr. Kidd, has overmastered reasoning faculties. and pushed aside the discreet use of his In reality, N. N. appears entirely to forget that my cenfame of Porson as a scholar and a man sure was pointed not against the general of genius (for those claims are founded and built high upon a rock of inexpug nable strength,) but against the frivolities, the meagre morsels, the orts and the rags of the particular volume in question; and more especially against the paltry garnish, the hash of affectation, of pedantry, and of conceit, with which it is beset, or rather buried, by the editor. Jumping, however, over this *The papers with this signature, as well as with that of PAUL GEMSEGE, were written by the Rev. Dr. SAMUEL PEGGE. (See Selections from the Gentleman's Magazine, vol. i, p. 127, note.) 508 Strictures on Prof. Porson & Mr.Kidd re-asserted & vindicated. [July1, distinction, N. N. weakly imagines that I wielded a broad-sword of extermination against the intellectual eminence of Porson; and by way of repelling this supposed hostility, he clubs his battalion of authorities, and brings forward a whole armoury of accredited names, in defence of his hero.* I can assure him that these testimonia auctorum were perfectly familiar to me, and I could have enlarged the catalogue by many other laudatory tributes, not only from the pen of his own countrymen, but also of foreign scholars-from the veteran Wyttenbach down to Schaffer, the last editor of Euripides on the Continent, and whose work runs on all-fours in the Forsonian track. But it is curious to observe (and here, Mr. Editor, I must beg you very particularly to notice how adroit are the polemical tactics of my opponent) that while he dazzles us with this gorgeous array of names in behalf of the consummate powers of Porson as a Grecian, the keenness of his penetration, the exquisite refinement of his Inter alia I observe that N. N. quotes part of a letter, addressed by Dr. Butler to Mr. Blomfield: there is another passage of that same letter which I am surprised he did not bring forward, and print in capital letters, as I shall do, for its happy and pertinent application to Mr. Porson: "A schoLAR OUGHT TO BE A GENTLEMAN; he ought to have his manners and his disposition humanized by the studies in which he is engaged," &c. (page 55.) +Particularly Mr. R. P. Knight and the learned and accurate Professor Gaisford, in his edition of Hephaestio; but in this race of flattery Dr. Parr outstrips all competition, and, as Shakspeare says, "crooks the pregnant hinges of the knee" with more obsequious humility than any of the turbæ adulatorum. In that ocean of notes, "vast and deep," which flows at the back of his Spital Sermon, the doctor (for the purpose, I imagine, of twitting those who, like my self, have not been blest with an university education) introduces a countless catalogue of academical worthies, and annexes to the names of a chosen few some complimentary words either in Greek or Latin. The decorative adjunct of Porson is, Te Tavu davμaçe. Well done! thou Boreas of puffers! Cold was the hint of ancient wisdom in the ne quid nimis! Truly nothing can be more shining in absurdity than such dropsical encomia. Doubtless Porson was a very extraordinary personage, but his merits have their boundary; nor is he to be admitted into the same temple of glory with the kings and emperors of HUMAN NATURE, nor to sit on the same throne with SHAKSPEARE, MILTON, PASCAL, NEWTON, and Locks. taste, and the punctilious and almost oracular accuracy of his judgment, combined with a memory that might have vied with that of Hill or Magliabecchiwhilst he records these qualifications which I never disputed, and countersigns his own opinions with the testimony of several giants in literature he is quite unable to produce any one attestation, either publicly or privately given, in support of that "furrago libelli" which, and which alone, was the target whither my critical arrows were directed! In fact, the publication of the volume, and the intrepid effrontery of the editor, whose obvious purpose was to seize and wrest the admiration of the world by climbing the back of this lordly Colossus,t are quite indefensible, or the zeal and eloquence of N. N. would unquestionably have attempted their vindication: Si Pergama dextrâ Defendi possent, etiam hae defensa fuissent! Eneid, lib. ii. 291. But since the expression of my opinion has given offence to so amiable a writer upon this "rudis indigestaque moles" as my antagonist appears to be, I will not venture, though the provocation so to trespass is very strong, to add another syllable on the subject; yet let N. N. be assured, that the judgment passed Nothing can be more happy and judicious than the terms, or more elegant than the latinity, in which the late Professor Dalzel has conveyed his opinion upon the characteristic merits of our "abnormis sapiens :" in regard to the "subactum judicium,” he places him higher than Bentley. (See the Preface to the 2d volume of the Analecta, p. viii.)-Some few years ago, when I visited the Academiæ Carolinæ Gothorum, at Lund in Sweden, I met with a critical tract by M. Norberg, in which Porson was described as "simplicis animi candore inbutum, et consummatissimà modestia." I laughed so loud, that in a fair wind N. N. might have heard me in England. In him intellectual pride towered to the most scornful height; but the learned Swede, no doubt, had swallowed as a literal truth that addled egg of false modesty which the professor had laid at the door of his Euripides: "Nihil hic reconditi aut exquisiti expectandum est; tyrouum usibus hæc editio potissimùm accom modata est." (See Præf. ad Hecubam, p. i.) In feeble emulation of Bentley, who says: "The wit and genius of the Heathen writers beguiled me; and as I despaired of raising myself to their standard on fair ground, the only chance I had of looking over their heads was by getting on their shoulders." (Cumberland's Memoirs, vol. i. p. 20.) 1816.] Strictures on Prof. Porson & Mr.Kidd re-asserted & vindicated. 509 upon it by me is pretty generally adopted in the circles of literary men, and that his own cunning method of waving its particular defence, and, in lieu of that his especial duty, busying himself in a loose common-place declamation on the merits of Porson, can neither have power to overthrow my decision as applied exclusively to that particular work, nor to persuade any reader of sound intellect that he has accomplished the purpose for which his letter was written.* Having thus gently demolished my opponent in so far as this Kiddio-Porsoniana Congeries is concerned, I shall briefly touch on one or two topics suggested by his performance. In the sarcasm which he has been pleased to pass on my profession, (though he has not quite ventured to call me an Oebilius,) and in the unhandsome assertion that I am "one of those men who measure the merit of an author by the bulk of his works," I see something like a departure from the ordinary tone of his gentleness and urbanity. I must assure N. N. that this imputation is wholly unmerited; and though perhaps my feelings do not quite accord with that hot latitude of idolatry which induced Scaliger to declare he would rather have written an ode in Horace than be King of Arragon, yet I can duly appreciate the massy ingots of Porson's intellectual wealth, though they lie in a narrow compass; and am perfectly well aware that a very small portion of that well-compacted treasure would have been hammered out by the head of an ordinary editor or commentator into a superficies of immeasurable extent and comparative worthlessness. Believe me, Sir, I had rather be the author of any one of the critical articles in Porson's "Adversaria," than bear both the chris N. N., propped up by his little band of "Silenum PUERI Somno videre jacentem, But I wish to know ex cathedra whether he con amore: When port and claret are gone and spent, NEW MONTHLY MAG.-No. 30. tian and sir names of that Dutch com- N. N. follows up this gratuitous and દ And lull'd him in the down of his desires." BEAUMONT and FLETCHER. Nothing, however, in my judgment, can be more mistaken, and, generally speaking, more mischievous, than to employ the coarse white-washing brush of panegyric, instead of the discriminating pencil of truth, in the portraiture of any characters of high renown, and of influence as exemplars for the formation of rising minds. The faults of such men should be distinctly marked, and an emphatic seal of reprobation set upon them. Above all, it should be shown that their vices have no sort of necessary connexion with their merits, and that they are For the morbid excrescences, and not the genuine and healthy fruits of the tree. want of this moral discernment many a scatter-brained nincompoop has fancied himself more than half a Charles Fox, because he has been able to imitate his prototype in his gambling and other irregularities. The 3 U VOL. V. 510 Cruelty of Experiments on Animals. should be closed whenever we are able to do it; and pressed on either hand by these conflicting sensations, I shall content myself with observing, that N. N. will instantly discover how complete and radical has been his mistake, in investing his hero's character with the apostolical attributes of meekness, placability, forbearance, and undeviating gentleness, when he shall have learned (as he may in almost every circle) the uniform cast of his language when speaking upon the compositions and the characters of Herman, Gilbert Wakefield, Taylor, Travis, Horne Tooke, Parr, &c. I will now, Sir, conclude as I commenced with making a bow of respect to my antagonist, whose simplicity of mind is so apparent, that I feel assured his errors are those of the understanding, and not of the heart. He will, therefore, take in good part the advice that I have given him; and I cherish, too, an eager hope, that he will not only retract his erroneous impressions, but also possess magnanimity enough to thank me for the delicate forbearance with which I have ministered to the correction of them: Mr. Wakefield, in a most accurate delineation of Porson's character, says of him: "he is a most extraordinary person, but in all respects unamaible," &c. (See his Correspondence with Mr. Fox.) I differ from this "Septembrizing Gronovius," as he has been well called, in regard to almost every principle advanced by him in his triple character of critic, politician, and divine: nothing, however, was at any time more truly coloured from the life than the portrait of Porson in the letter from which I have borrowed this extract; but N. N. I am aware, will not admit the resemblance into the articles of his faith; for rash, enthusiastic admiration is more than purblind, and her hoodwinked eye holds no communion with the light of truth. A +Mr. Kidd tells us, and N. N. quotes the passage with rapture, that Porson "possessed a heart filled with sensibility." Will either of these gentlemen tell us in what chapter of his treatment of Mr. Wakefield that sensibility was displayed? It is notorious that he uniformly thought and spoke of him with cynical asperity and the most bitter derision: and his conduct was the more cruel, because, as he well knew, Wakefield felt the agony of it at his heart's core. [July 1, MEIVOÇ UNET" 8,' avg Αβαλος εδ' ανολβος, όςις ες κακον Sop. Antig. v. 1138. I am, Mr. Editor, very respectfully yours, P. S. As N. N. is a worshipper of Porson's sacred attachment to truth, he himself ought to keep a guardian eye over its interests: but he tells me, that "it has been truly said of Porsonpauca quidem ingenii sui pignora reliquit, sed egregia, sed admiranda." Now it happens that these words form a part, not of Porson's but of Roger Cotes's epitaph, written by the famous Bentley, and to be seen on a tablet in Trinity College Chapel, Cambridge. "Fallit te incautum, pietas tua!" (En. lib. x. 812.) "If a few inferior joy MR. EDITOR, AS a friend to humanity, I have been an attentive observer of the discussions that have been inserted in your pages on the cruelty of making experiments on living animals; and I must freely own, that nothing which has been argued affords to my mind the slightest justification of even the policy of a practice so abhorrent from every principle of humanized feeling. What possible good let me ask, can at all events be pleaded for the repetition of any experiments, where the fact they have to illustrate had been once clearly ascertained? For after all, it is but for the proof of some required fact that the policy of the practice, even in a physical view, is in any shape attempted to be justified; in a moral view not a word can be alleged in its behalf. To argue in the words of a feeling reviewer of the writings of that disgusting experimentalist, Spallanzani-" when an investigation cannot be pursued without inflicting torments on sensitive beings, and where there is no apparent likelihood of producing benefit either to ourselves or to them by the proceeding, that Christian benevolence, which ought to extend to all the creatures of God, will surely restrain our hands, and direct us to studies more consonant with its benign spirit." Let men of science, then, rest satisfied with the facts which have been already established-let them be content with 1816.] Rev. T. Cormouls on Gravity. the known results which the discoveries of the heartless and cold-blooded experimentalists that have gone before them in the path of philosophical inquiry have in hundred-fold repetition drawn, without wishing to ascertain what has been abundantly proved, or to repeat the useless trial of their cruel and heartrecoiling operations-leaving to the unoffending victims of their tortures the "little all" of enjoyment which their humble link in the scale of creation SCRUTATOR. affords them. Berkshire, June 5th. P.S. That in the terms I have used in this letter, in speaking of the cruel practice which it deprecates, I am not applying too harsh designations, I need only appeal to the revolting statements by Spallanzani, Pistorini, Bonnet, and other foreign physiologists, of their own abominable experiments; sincerely wishing at the same time such a charge implicated foreigners only! The circumstance, however, recorded (in your Magazine of May, p. 307) so much to the honour of the Royal Society, will, it is to be devoutly hoped, tend to the effectual disCouragement of animal experiments in future in England. ON GRAVITY. By the Rev. T.CORMOULS. A CERTAIN natural effect that has been very common in the volcanic countries, and not without instance in England, supplies a collateral proof of the existence of a lifting fluid as its cause, and perhaps that in air, but it may be from earth, to which large portions of land will attach and forsake their very bases when disorder or excitement in a portion reverses the order of attraction. If the portion rise to the fluid in air, it may be called the lift or transfer of it. Thus sheets of soil have been repeatedly lifted from the sides of the Appenines and Etna, and it may be Vesuvius, carried off and laid one upon another at great distances, which is a natural cause of many of the amazing repetitions of soils and lavas. Such an instance of a sheet of soil, some feet thick and an acre ex panse, being lifted and transferred 400 or 500 yards, occurred near Richmond, in Yorkshire, about 60 years ago. This was not done by any of the known gases: some would have by explosion blown the sheet to pieces; others transuded through it; therefore, there being no lifting fluid of requisite qualities and powers for the effect but the neutral, that it must be ascribed to; but the same effect being possible by an overcharge or efflux This and former effects give an insight Solution of Gravity. All the spontaneous motion of matter, of which common or statistic gravity is only one case or variety, arises from the mutual affections of all matter with a certain fluid which is determinable to be the neutral or mother electric. There is a general attractive effect of solar light, indeed, besides, and a particular one of magnetic fluid. But these will appear to be related fluids. Light, a part of the origin of the neutral magnetic, the returning exhausted state of the same, need not be considered in statistic gravity, by which, with the neutral fluid motor, all the phenomena, direct and reversed near the earth, are of easy solution. The reversed have been explained in projected bodies and birds' powers. The direct are equally plain on analogies which present electric knowledge supplies, as Firstly a very little difference of circumstance, and disposal of particle, makes substances prefer and attract the rarer vitreous electric; or refuse it, and attract the denser resinous. Thus smooth glass attracts the rarer vitreous electric, and rough glass the denser resinous. Or the two common electrics neutralized by caloric. |