Posted on Wednesday 27 April 2005

I've long been a fan of MisterAitch and his blog, Giornale Nuovo. If, like me, you have an interest in history, the visual arts and the generally esoteric, then I suggest you hightail it over there immediately (well, after reading this at least). I've lost count of the number of times I've had to pick my jaw off my desk from astonishment at some post or other.

Anyway, this is all by way of an introduction to a new favourite of mine — also courtesy of MisterAitch — Curiosities of Literature, a remarkable compendium of literary and historical anecdotes by Isaac D'Israeli (father of British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli) who originally published it in six volumes between 1791 and 1834. MisterAitch has taken to serializing this work as a blog with self-contained portions being posted every second day.

Now to be frank, I've never been terribly enthused by these kinds of blogified books in the past. I just haven't had patience to keep up with the interminable to-ings and fro-ings of Samuel Pepys or, for that matter, the elusive elucidation in Leonardo's notebooks which have been more slog than pleasure (especially seeing that the images referred to are nowhere to be seen). But so far Curiosities really seems a different and altogether much more promising exploration of the format — each post is a self-contained capsule — most of modest length — which may be read in any order or skipped altogether.

Trawling the archive (which has only been running since January) is the best way to get a feel for it and there's more than a few belly laughs in there as well. I'm just going to include two snippets. The first is innocuously entitled Literary Controversy :

Martin Luther was not destitute of genius, of learning, or of eloquence; but his violence disfigured his works with invectives, and singularities of abuse. The great reformer of superstition had himself all the vulgar ones of his day: he believed that flies were devils; and that he had had a buffeting with Satan, when his left ear felt the prodigious beating. Hear him express himself on the Catholic divines: “The Papists are all asses, and will always remain asses. Put them in whatever sauce you choose, boiled, roasted, baked, fried, skinned, beat, hashed they are always the same asses.”

Gentle and moderate, compared with a salute to his Holiness.—“The Pope was born out of the Devil’s posteriors. He is full of devils, lies, blasphemies, and idolatries; he is anti-Christ; the robber of churches; the ravisher of virgins; the greatest of pimps; the governor of Sodom, &c. If the Turks lay hold of us, then we shall he in the hands of the Devil; but if we remain with the Pope, we shall be in hell.—What a pleasing sight would it be to see the Pope and the Cardinals hanging on one gallows, in exact order, like the seals which dangle from the bulls of the Pope! What an excellent council would they hold under the gallows!”

Sometimes, desirous of catching the attention of the vulgar, Luther attempts to enliven his style by the grossest buffooneries: “Take care, my little Popa! my little ass! go on slowly: the times are slippery: this year is dangerous: if thou fallest, they wilt exclaim, See ! how our little Pope is spoilt!” It was fortunate for the cause of the Reformation that the violence of Luther was softened in a considerable degree at times by the meek Melancthon: he often poured honey on the sting inflicted by the angry bee. Luther was no respecter of kings; he was so fortunate, indeed, as to find among his antagonists a crowned head; a great good fortune for an obscure controversialist, and the very punctum saliens of controversy. Our Henry VIII. wrote his book against the new doctrine: then warm from scholastic studies, Henry presented Leo X. with a work highly creditable to his abilities, and no inferior performance according to the genius of the age. Collier, in his Ecclesiastical History, has analysed the book, and does not ill describe its spirit: “Henry seems superior to his adversary in the vigour and propriety of his style, in the force of his reasoning, and the learning of his citations. It is true he leans too much upon his character, argues in his garter-robes , and writes as ’twere with his scepter.”But Luther in reply abandons his pen to all kinds of railing and abuse. He addresses Henry VIII. in the following style: “It is hard to say if folly can be more foolish, or stupidity more stupid, thin is the head of Henry. He has not attacked me with the heart of a king, but with the impudence of a knave. This rotten worm of the earth having blasphemed the majesty of my king, I have a just right to bespatter his English majesty with his own dirt and ordure. This Henry has lied.” Some of his original expressions to our Henry VIII. are these: “Stulta, ridicula, et verissimè Henriciana, et Thomistica sunt hæc—Regem Angliæ Henricum istum plane mentiri, &c.—Hoc agit inquietus Satan, ut nos a Scripturis avocet per sceleratos Henricos, &c.” —He was repaid with capital and interest by an anonymous reply, said to have been written by Sir Thomas More, who concludes his arguments by leaving Luther in language not necessary to translate: “cum suis furiis et furoribus, cum suis merdis et stercoribus cacantem cacatumque.” Such were the vigorous elegancies of a controversy on the Seven Sacraments! Long after, the court of Rome had not lost the taste of these “bitter herbs;” for in the bull of the canonization of Ignatius Loyola in August, 1623, Luther is called monstrum teterrimum et detestabilis pestis.

Calvin was less tolerable...

The second is about the difficulties of the Chinese Language according to an 18th century Jesuit missionary who tried his best to proselytise in it :

P. Bourgeois, one of the missionaries, attempted, after ten months’ residence at Pekin, to preach in the Chinese language. These are the words of the good father. “God knows how much this first Chinese sermon cost me! I can assure you this language resembles no other. The same word has never but one termination; and then adieu to all that in our declensions distinguishes the gender, and the number of things we would speak: adieu, in the verbs, to all which might explain the active person, how and in what time it acts, if it acts alone or with others: in a word, with the Chinese the same word is substantive, adjective, verb, singular, plural, masculine, feminine, &c. It is the person who hears who must arrange the circumstances, and guess them. Add to all this, that all the words of this language are reduced to three hundred and a few more; that they are pronounced in so many different ways, that they signify eighty thousand different things, which are expressed by as many different characters. This is not all: the arrangement of all these monosyllables appears to be under no general rule; so that to know the language after having learnt the words, we must learn every particular phrase: the least inversion would make you unintelligible to three parts of the Chinese.

“I will give you an example of their words. They told me chou signifies a book: so that I thought whenever the word chou was pronounced, a book was the subject. Not at all! Chou, the next time I heard it, I found signified a tree. Now I was to recollect, chou was a book, or a tree. But this amounted to nothing; chou, I found, expressed also great heats; chou is to relate; chou is the Aurora; chou means to be accustomed; chou expresses the loss of a wager, &c. I should not finish, were I to attempt to give you all its significations.

“Notwithstanding these singular difficulties, could one but find a help in the perusal of their books, I should not complain. But this is impossible! Their language is quite different from that of simple conversation. What will ever be an insurmountable difficulty to every European, is the pronunciation: every word may be pronounced in five different tones; yet every tone is not so distinct that an unpractised ear can easily distinguish it. These monosyllables fly with amazing rapidity; then they are continually disguised by elisions, which sometimes hardly leave anything of two monosyllables. From an aspirated tone you must pass immediately to an even one; from a whistling note to an inward one; sometimes your voice must proceed from the palate; sometimes it must be guttural, and almost always nasal. I recited my sermon at least fifty times to my servant, before I spoke it in public; and yet I am told, though he continually corrected me, that, of the ten parts of the sermon (as the Chinese express themselves), they hardly understood three. Fortunately, the Chinese are wonderfully patient; and they are astonished that any ignorant stranger should be able to learn two words of their language.”