Part 10 (1/2)

CHAP. IX.

CURIOSITIES RESPECTING MAN.--(_Continued._)

_Nicholas Pesce--Paul Scarron--Maria Gaetana Agnesi--Anna Maria Schurman--Samuel Bisset, the noted Animal Instructor--John Philip Baratier--Buonaparte._

BIOGRAPHICAL.

NICHOLAS PESCE, the first extraordinary character we shall introduce, was a famous diver, of whom F. Kircher gives the following account. ”In the time of Frederick king of Sicily, (says Kircher,) lived Nicholas, who, from his amazing skill in swimming, and his perseverance under water, was surnamed the _Fish_. This man had from his infancy been used to the sea; and earned his scanty subsistence by diving for coral and oysters, which he sold to villagers on sh.o.r.e. His long acquaintance with the sea, at last brought it to be almost his natural element. He was frequently known to spend five days in the midst of the waves, without any other provisions than the fish which he caught there, and ate raw. He often swam over from Sicily to Calabria, a tempestuous and dangerous pa.s.sage, carrying letters from the king. He was frequently known to swim among the gulfs of the Lipari islands, no way apprehensive of danger. Some mariners out at sea, one day observed something at some distance from them, which they regarded as a sea-monster; but, upon its approach, it was known to be Nicholas, whom they took into their s.h.i.+p. When they asked him whither he was going in so strong and rough a sea, and at such a distance from land; he shewed them a packet of letters, which he was carrying to one of the towns of Italy, exactly done up in a leather bag, in such a manner that they could not be wetted by the sea. He kept them thus company for some time in their voyage, conversing and asking questions; and after eating a hearty meal with them, he took his leave, and, jumping into the sea, pursued his voyage alone.

”In order to aid his powers of enduring in the deep, nature seemed to have a.s.sisted him in a very extraordinary manner: for the s.p.a.ces between his fingers and toes were webbed, as in a goose; and his chest became so very capacious, that he could take in at one inspiration as much breath as would serve him for several hours. The account of so extraordinary a person did not fail to reach the king himself; who commanded Nicholas to be brought before him. It was no easy matter to find Nicholas, who generally spent his time in the solitudes of the deep; but, at last, after much searching, he was found, and brought before his majesty. The curiosity of this monarch had been long excited by the accounts he had heard of the bottom of the gulf of Charybdis. He now, therefore, conceived that it would be a proper opportunity to have more certain information.

Accordingly, he commanded our poor diver to examine the bottom of this dreadful whirlpool; and as an incitement to his obedience, he ordered a golden cup to be flung into it. Nicholas was not insensible of the danger to which he was exposed: dangers best known only to himself; and therefore he presumed to remonstrate; but the hopes of the reward, the desire of pleasing the king, and the pleasure of shewing his skill, at last prevailed. He instantly jumped into the gulf, and was as instantly swallowed up in its bosom. He continued for three-quarters of an hour below, during which time the king and his attendants remained on sh.o.r.e, anxious for his fate; but he at last appeared, holding the cup in triumph in one hand, and making his way good among the waves with the other. It may be supposed he was received with applause when he came on sh.o.r.e; the cup was made the reward of his adventure; the king ordered him to be taken proper care of; and, as he was somewhat fatigued and debilitated by his labour, after a hearty meal, he was put to bed, and permitted to refresh himself by sleeping. When his spirits were thus restored, he was again brought, to satisfy the king's curiosity with a narrative of the wonders he had seen, and his account was to the following effect.

”He would never, he said, have obeyed the king's commands, had he been apprised of half the dangers that were before him. These were four things, he said, which rendered the gulf dreadful, not only to men, but to fishes themselves: 1. The great force of the water bursting up from the bottom, which required great strength to resist. 2. The abruptness of the rocks, that on every side threatened destruction. 3. The force of the whirlpool das.h.i.+ng against those rocks. And, 4. The number and magnitude of the polypous fish, some of which appeared as large as a man; and which, every where sticking against the rocks, projected their long and fibrous arms to entangle him. Being asked how he was able so readily to find the cup that had been thrown in, he replied, that it happened to be flung by the waves into the cavity of a rock, against which he himself was urged in his descent.

”This account, however, did not satisfy the king's curiosity. Being requested to venture once more into the gulf for further discoveries, he at first refused; but the king, desirous of having the most exact information possible of all things to be found in the gulf, repeated his solicitations; and, to give them still greater weight, produced a larger cup than the former, and added also a purse of gold. Upon these considerations, the unfortunate diver once again plunged into the whirlpool, and was never heard of more.”

PAUL SCARRON.--This famous French burlesque writer, was the son of a counsellor in parliament, and was born at Paris, about the end of 1610, or beginning of 1611. His father marrying a second wife, he was compelled to a.s.sume the ecclesiastical profession. At the age of 24, he visited Italy, and freely indulged in licentious pleasures. After his return to Paris, he persisted in a life of dissipation, till a long and painful disease convinced him that his const.i.tution was almost worn out. At length, when engaged in a party of pleasure, at the age of 27, he lost the use of those legs which had danced so gracefully, and of those hands which once could paint, and play on the lute, with so much elegance.

This happened in the following manner: In 1638 he was attending the carnival at Mentz, of which he was canon. Having dressed himself one day as a savage, his singular appearance excited the curiosity of the children of the town. They followed him in mult.i.tudes, and he was obliged to take shelter in a marsh. This wet and cold situation produced a numbness which totally deprived him of the use of his limbs; yet he continued gay and cheerful. He took up his residence in Paris, and by his pleasant humour soon attracted to his house all the men of wit about the city. The loss of his health was followed by the loss of his fortune. On the death of his father he entered into a process with his step-mother; and pleaded his own cause in a ludicrous manner, though his whole fortune depended on the decision. He was unsuccessful, and was ruined. Mademoiselle de Hautefort, compa.s.sionating his misfortunes, procured for him an audience of the queen. The poet requested to have the t.i.tle of Valetudinarian to her majesty: the queen smiled, and Scarron considered the smile as a commission to his new office. Cardinal Mazarine gave him a pension of 500 crowns; but that minister having received disdainfully the dedication of his Typhon, the poet immediately wrote a Mazarinade, and the pension was withdrawn. He then attached himself to the prince of Conde, and celebrated his victories. He at length formed the extraordinary resolution of marrying, and was accordingly, in 1651, married to Madame d'Aubigne, afterwards celebrated by the name of Maintenon.

At this time (says Voltaire) it was considered as a great acquisition for her to gain for a husband, a man who was disfigured by nature, impotent, and very little enriched by fortune. She restrained by her modesty his indecent buffooneries; and the good company which had formerly resorted to his house again frequented it. Scarron now became more decent in his manners and conversation; and his gaiety was thus more agreeable. But he lived with so little economy, that his income was soon reduced to a small annuity, and his marquisate of Quinet, _i. e._ the profits of his publications, which were printed by one Quinet. He was accustomed to talk to his superiors with great freedom in his jocular style, as appears from the dedication of his _Don j.a.phet d'Armenie_ to the king. Though Scarron wrote comedies, he had not patience to study the rules of dramatic poetry.

Aristotle and Horace, Plautus and Terence, would have frightened him. He saw an open path before him, and he followed it. It was the fas.h.i.+on of the times to pillage the Spanish writers. Scarron was acquainted with that language, and he found it easier to use materials already prepared, than to rack his brain by inventing subjects. As he borrowed liberally from them, a dramatic piece cost him little labour. The great success of his _Jodelet Maitre_ was a vast allurement to him. The comedians who acted it, requested more of his productions. They were written with little toil, and they procured him large sums. They also served to amuse him. He dedicated his books to his sister's greyhound b.i.t.c.h. Fouquet gave him a pension of 1600 livres. Christiana, queen of Sweden, having come to Paris, was anxious to see Scarron, ”I permit you (said she to Scarron) to fall in love with me. The queen of France has made you her Valetudinarian, and I create you my Roland.” Scarron did not long enjoy that t.i.tle; he was seized with a violent hiccough. He retained his gaiety to his last moment.

He died on the 14th of October, 1660, aged 51. His works have been collected, and published by Bruzen de la Martiniere, in 10 vols. 12mo.

1737. His Comic Romance, in prose, merits attention. It is written with much humour and purity of style, and contributed to the improvement of the French language. It had a prodigious run; it was the only one of his works that Boileau could submit to read. Scarron can raise a laugh on the most serious subjects; but his sallies are rather those of a buffoon, than the effusions of ingenuity and taste. He is continually falling into the mean and the obscene. Sterne seems to have imitated Scarron in his Tristram Shandy.

We shall now introduce two female characters of note. The first is MARIA GAETANA AGNESI, a lady of extraordinary genius, and most extensive acquirements, who was born at Milan, on the 16th of May, 1718. Her father, Pietro Agnesi, of Milan, was royal feudatory of Monteveglia, and its dependencies; and being a man of some rank and consequence, he was disposed, from paternal affection, to provide suitably for the education of his infant daughter, who gave the most striking indications of talent.

From her tenderest years, she discovered a wonderful aptness, and a vehement desire, for acquiring languages. Under the direction of proper masters, she studied at the very same time the Latin and Greek, the French and German; and while the rapidity of her progress excited astonishment, such were the prodigious powers of her memory, that she could easily pursue those diversified objects without feeling the smallest degree of confusion. When yet scarcely nine years old, this surprising child delivered a Latin oration, to prove that the cultivation of letters is not inconsistent with the female character,--before an a.s.sembly of learned persons, invited to her father's house.

At the age of eleven, the young Agnesi could not only read Greek, and translate it instantly into Latin, but could even speak that refined language with the same apparent ease and fluency as if it had been her native tongue. Nor did these acquisitions absorb her whole attention; a n.o.bler field was opened to the exercise of her mental faculties. She now began to read Euclid's Elements, and proceeded in algebra as far as quadratic equations. Thus prepared, she advanced with ardour to the study of natural philosophy; but not content with the sober proofs there unfolded, she soared to the height of metaphysics, and engaged in the most abtruse and intricate disquisitions of that contentious science. After this young lady had attained the age of 14, her father, anxious to forward her ardour for improvement, and willing to gratify her ambition for literary distinction, invited occasionally to his house a number of persons, the most respectable in Milan for their rank and learning. In the midst of this grave auditory, Donna Agnesi made her appearance; and, without resigning the native delicacy of her s.e.x, she maintained a succession of new theses on various difficult parts of philosophy, and handled the arguments with such dexterity and commanding eloquence, as singly to vanquish every opponent that entered the field of controversy.

These disputations were all of them carried on in the Latin language, which she spoke with the utmost ease, purity, and copious elegance. Every thing conspired to heighten the impression produced on the admiring spectators. In the full bloom of youth, her person agreeable, her manner graceful, an air of gentleness and modesty gave irresistible charms to her whole demeanour. Such, for several years, was the great theatre of her glory. But having nearly completed the circle of philosophy, and exhausted the chief topics of discussion, she resolved at length to close that career with a solemnity suitable to the occasion.

In the year 1738, Agnesi made her last brilliant display, before an august a.s.sembly, composed of the most learned and ill.u.s.trious of the Milanese n.o.bility, the senators, and foreign ministers, with the most distinguished professors in all the branches of science and literature.

The substance of these philosophical conferences was afterwards published in a quarto volume, ent.i.tled, ”_Propositiones Philosophicae, quas, crebris Disputationibus domi habitis, coram clarissimis viris, explicabat extempore, et ab objectis vindicabat Maria Cajetana de Agnesi Mediolanensis_.” Agnesi now bent her whole attention to the culture of mathematics; and, without guide or a.s.sistance, she composed a very useful commentary on L'Hospital's Conic Sections, which is said to exist still in ma.n.u.script. In the sublimer departments of that science, her studies were directed by the matured experience of Rampinelli, professor of mathematics in the university of Pisa; but she soon gave proofs of her amazing proficiency, in digesting a complete body of the modern calculus. This excellent work, ent.i.tled, ”a.n.a.lytical Inst.i.tutions, for the Use of the Italian Youth,” appeared in 1748, in two volumes quarto, and was highly esteemed by the best judges, and justly regarded as exhibiting the fullest and clearest view of the state of the science at that period. She was, in consequence, elected by acclamation a member of the Inst.i.tute of Sciences of Bologna; and the pope farther conferred on her the t.i.tle of Professor of Mathematics in the university of that city.

But Agnesi was already sated with literary fame. That sun, which in its ascent had shone forth with such dazzling radiance, was, through the rest of its course, shrouded in clouds and darkness. The fever of genius had preyed on her mind, and the high fit of excitement was quickly succeeded by a hopeless depression of spirits. She repelled the seductions of human learning, and abandoned for ever her favourite mathematical pursuits.

Renouncing the vanities of this world, she withdrew from society, embraced a life of religious seclusion, and sunk by degrees into the languor of religious melancholy. She studied nothing but Hebrew, and the rhapsodies of the Greek fathers of the church. For upwards of twenty years she denied all access to strangers. The famous Lalande complains, in his ”Travels through Italy,” that he was not allowed the honour of visiting that prodigy; and Father Boscovick himself, whose religious principles must have been unexceptionable, experienced, notwithstanding his repeated importunities, a similar refusal. Indulging that gloomy temper, she retired into a convent, and a.s.sumed the habit of a Blue Nun. She sought to forget the world, and was herself forgotten. She died about the year 1770.

The _Inshhizioni a.n.a.lytiche_ of Agnesi were translated into English, many years ago, by Mr. Colson, Lucasian professor of mathematics at Cambridge.

The translation was discovered among the papers of that ingenious mathematician, by the learned Baron Maseres, who put the ma.n.u.script into the hands of Mr. h.e.l.lins, as editor, and generously defrayed the expenses attending the publication.

ANNA MARIA SCHURMAN, the other distinguished female character, was born at Cologne, 1607, of parents sprung from n.o.ble Protestant families. From her infancy she discovered an uncommon dexterity of hand; for, at six years of age, she cut with her scissors all sorts of figures upon paper, without any pattern or model. At eight, she learned in a few days to design flowers in a very agreeable manner; and two years after, took no more than three hours in learning to embroider. She was afterwards instructed in music, painting, sculpture, and engraving; and succeeded to admiration in all these arts. Her hand-writing in all languages was inimitable; and some curious persons have preserved specimens of it in their cabinets. Mr.

Joby, in his journey to Munster, relates, that he had a view of the beauty of her writing in French, Greek, Hebrew, Syriac, and Arabic; and was an eye-witness of her skill in drawing in miniature, and making portraits upon gla.s.s with the point of a diamond. She painted her own picture; and made artificial pearls, so nearly resembling natural ones, that they could not be distinguished, except by p.r.i.c.king them with a needle.

The powers of her understanding were equally capacious; for, at eleven years of age, when her brothers were examined in their Latin exercises, she frequently whispered them what to answer, though she had only heard them say their lessons _en pa.s.sant_, which her father observing, and perceiving she had a genius for literature, determined to cultivate those talents he saw she was possessed of, and accordingly a.s.sisted her in gaining that n.o.ble stock of learning, for which she was afterwards so eminent. The Latin, Greek, and Hebrew languages were so familiar to her, that she not only wrote, but spoke them fluently, to the surprise of the most learned men. She made a great progress also in the Oriental languages which had an affinity with the Hebrew, as the Syriac, Chaldee, Arabic, and Ethiopic; understood the living languages perfectly well, and could converse readily in French, English, and Italian. She was likewise competently versed in geography, astronomy, philosophy, and the sciences; but as her mind was naturally of a religious cast, these learned amus.e.m.e.nts gave her but little satisfaction; and at length she applied herself to divinity, and the study of the holy scriptures.

While she was an infant, her father had settled at Utrecht, but afterwards, for the more convenient education of his children, removed to Praneker, where he died 1623. Upon which his widow returned to Utrecht, where Anna Maria continued her studies very intensely; which undoubtedly kept her from marrying, as she might advantageously have done with Mr.

Cotts, pensionary of Holland, and a celebrated poet, who wrote verses in her praise, when she was no more than fourteen years of age.