‘Then, after some devout prayer, with a smiling countenance he desired the executioner to proceed. Tears gushed from the eyes of Herbert when he beheld him so willing to die, and saw that no ingenuity could wrest his secret from him. He gave orders for his release. His imprisonment and threatened execution were contrived without the King’s knowledge to intimidate him into compliance. The iniquitous devices having failed, Herbert did not dare to take away his life. Dalton rose from the block with a heavy countenance, and returned to his abbey, much grieved at the further prolongation of his earthly sojourn. Herbert died shortly after this atrocious act of tyranny, and Debois also came to an untimely end. His father, Sir John Debois, was slain at the battle of Tewkesbury, May 4, 1471; and two days after, as recorded in Stow’s “Annales,” he himself (James Debois) was taken, with several others of the Lancastrian party, from a church where they had fled for sanctuary, and was beheaded on the spot.’
FOOTNOTES
[6] That is, costard, or apple, mongers.
[7] See Appendix to the present chapter, p. 58.
[8] The pentageron, or pentagramma, is a mystic figure produced by prolonging the sides of a regular pentagon till they intersect one another. It can be drawn without a break in the drawing, and, viewed from five sides, exhibits the form of the letter A (pent-alpha), or the figure of the fifth proposition in Euclid’s First Book.
[9] From the Greek φόβος, fear; φόβητρα, bugbears.
[10] Bad puns were evidently common on the stage before the days of Victorian burlesque.
[11] So Shakespeare, ‘1 Hen. IV.,’ iii. Falstaff says: ‘I make as good use of it as many a man doth of a death’s head, or a memento house.’
[12] So in the ‘Passionate Pilgrim’:
‘Save the nightingale alone:
She, poor bird, as all forlorn,
Leaned her breast uptill a thorn.’
[13] A peripatetic, or walking philosopher. Observe the facetiousness in ‘Aristotle’s stamp.’ Aristotle was the founder of the Peripatetics.
[14] Fabius Cunctator, or the Delayer, so called from the policy of delay which he opposed to the vigorous movements of Hannibal. One would suppose that the humour here, such as it is, would hardly be perceptible to a theatrical audience.
[15] In the old German ‘Faustbuch,’ the title of ‘Prince of the North’ is given to Beelzebub.
[16] Demogorgon, or Demiourgos—the creative principle of evil—figures largely in literature. He is first mentioned by Lactantius, in the fourth century; then by Boccaccio, Boiardo, Tasso (‘Gierusalemme Liberata’), and Ariosto (‘Orlando Furioso’). Marlowe speaks, in ‘Tamburlaine,’ of ‘Gorgon, prince of Hell.’ Spenser, in ‘The Faery Queen,’ refers to—
‘Great Gorgon, prince of darkness and dead night,
At which Cocytus quakes, and Styx is put to flight.’
Milton, in ‘Paradise Lost,’ alludes to ‘the dreaded name of Demogorgon.’ Dryden says: ‘When the moon arises, and Demogorgon walks his round.’ And he is one of the dramatis personæ of Shelley’s ‘Prometheus Unbound’: ‘Demogorgon, a tremendous gloom. … A mighty Darkness, filling the seat of power.’
[17] Boasts. So in Peele’s ‘Edward I’: ‘As thou to England brought’st thy Scottish braves.’
[18] This reiteration of the same final word, for the sake of emphasis, is found in Shakespeare.
[19] A corner or college cap.
[20] An allusion to the old legend that Brut, or Brutus, great-grandson of Æneas, founded New Troy (Troynovant), or London.
[21] Probably the reference is to the sunflower.
[22] The classic writers usually identify the hyacinth with Apollo.
[23] The rose, that is, of the Virgin Queen—an English Diana—Elizabeth. In Shakespeare’s ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream’ (Act iv., scene 1) we read of ‘Diana’s bud.’
APPENDIX TO CHAPTER I.
The ancient magic included various kinds of divination, of which the principal may here be catalogued:
Aeromancy, or divination from the air. If the wind blew from the east, it signified good fortune (which is certainly not the general opinion!); from the west, evil; from the south, calamity; from the north, disclosure of what was secret; from all quarters simultaneously (!), hail and rain.
Axinomancy, practised by the Greeks, more particularly for the purpose of discovering criminals. An axe poised upon a stake, or an agate on a red-hot axe, was supposed by its movement to indicate the offender. Or the names of suspected persons were called out, and the movement of the axe at a particular name was understood to certify guilt.
Belomancy, in use among the Arabs, was practised by means of arrows, which were shot off, with written labels attached to them; and the inscription on the arrow first picked up was accepted as prophetic.
Bibliomancy, divining by means of the Bible, survived to a comparatively recent period. The passage which first caught the eye, on a Bible being opened haphazard, was supposed to indicate the future. This was identical with the Sortes Virgilianæ, the only difference being that in the latter, Virgil took the place of the Bible. Everybody