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embraced the simple notion of Seneca and the Chaldæans, that they are only planets of a longer period and more eccentric motion.1 115 Time and science have justified the conjectures and predictions of the Roman sage; the telescope has opened new worlds to the eyes of astronomers; 116 and, in the narrow space of history and fable, one and the same comet is already found to have revisited the earth in seven equal revolutions of five hundred and seventy-five years. The first,117 which ascends beyond the Christian era one thousand seven hundred and sixty-seven years, is coeval with Ogyges the father of Grecian antiquity. And this appearance explains the tradition which Varro has preserved, that under his reign the planet Venus changed her colour, size, figure, and course: a prodigy without example either in past or succeeding ages.118 The second visit, in the year eleven hundred and ninety-three, is darkly implied in the fable of Electra the seventh of the Pleiads, who have been reduced to six since the time of the Trojan war. That nymph, the wife of Dardanus, was unable to support the ruin of her country; she abandoned the dances of her sister orbs, fled from the zodiac to the north pole, and obtained, from her dishevelled locks, the name of the comet. The third period expires in the year six hundred and eighteen, a date that exactly agrees with the tremendous comet of the Sibyll, and perhaps of Pliny, which arose in the west two generations before the reign of Cyrus. The fourth apparition, forty-four years before the birth of Christ, is of all others the most splendid and important. After the death of Cæsar, a long-haired star was conspicuous to Rome and to the nations, during the games which were exhibited by young Octavian in honour of Venus and his uncle. The vulgar opinion, that it conveyed to heaven the divine soul of the dictator, was cherished and consecrated

115 Seneca's viith book of Natural Questions displays, in the theory of comets, a philosophic mind. Yet should we not too candidly confound a vague prediction, a veniet tempus, &c. with the merit of real discoveries.

116 Astronomers may study Newton and Halley. I draw my humble science from the article COMETE, in the French Encyclopédie, by M. d'Alembert. [See App. 20.] 117 Whiston, the honest, pious, visionary Whiston, had fancied, for the æra of Noah's flood (2242 years before Christ), a prior apparition of the same comet which drowned the earth with its tail.

118 A Dissertation of Fréret (Mémoires de l'Académie des Inscriptions, tom. x. p. 357-377) affords an happy union of philosophy and erudition. The phænomenon in the time of Ogyges was preserved by Varro (apud Augustin. de Civitate Dei, xxi. 8), who quotes Castor, Dion of Naples, and Adrastus of Cyzicus-nobiles mathematici. The two subsequent periods are preserved by the Greek mythologists and the spurious books of Sibylline verses.

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by the piety of a statesman; while his secret superstition referred the comet to the glory of his own times.119 The fifth visit has been already ascribed to the fifth year of Justinian, which coincides with the five hundred and thirty-first of the Christian æra. And it may deserve notice that in this, as in the preceding, instance the comet was followed, though at a longer interval, by a remarkable paleness of the sun. The sixth return, in the year eleven hundred and six, is recorded by the chronicles of Europe and China; and in the first fervour of the Crusades, the Christians and the Mahometans might surmise, with equal reason, that it portended the destruction of the Infidels. The seventh phænomenon of one thousand six hundred and eighty was presented to the eyes of an enlightened age.120 The philosophy of Bayle dispelled a prejudice which Milton's muse had so recently adorned, that the comet "from its horrid hair shakes pestilence and war" 121 Its road in the heavens [Flamsteed] was observed with exquisite skill by Flamstead and Cassini; and the mathematical science of Bernoulli, Newton, and Halley, investigated the laws of its revolutions. At the eighth period, in the year two thousand two hundred and fifty-five, their calculations may perhaps be verified by the astronomers of some future capital in the Siberian or American wilderness.

Earthquakes

II. The near approach of a comet may injure or destroy the globe which we inhabit; but the changes on its surface have been hitherto produced by the action of volcanoes and earthquakes.122 The nature of the soil may indicate the countries most exposed to these formidable concussions, since they are caused by subterraneous fires, and such fires are kindled by the

119 Pliny (Hist. Nat. ii. 23) has transcribed the original memorial of Augustus. Mairan, in his most ingenious letters to the P. Parennin, missionary in China, removes the games and the comet of September, from the year 44 to the year 43. before the Christian æra; but I am not totally subdued by the criticism of the astronomer (Opuscules, p. 275-351).

120 This last comet was visible in the month of December, 1680. Bayle, who began his Pensées sur le Comète in January 1681 (Oeuvres, tom. iii.), was forced to argue that a supernatural comet would have confirmed the ancients in their idolatry. Bernoulli (see his Eloge, in Fontenelle, tom. v. p. 99) was forced to allow that the tail, though not the head, was a sign of the wrath of God.

121 Paradise Lost was published in the year 1667; and the famous lines (1. ii. 708, &c.), which startled the licenser, may allude to the recent comet of 1664, observed by Cassini at Rome in the presence of queen Christina (Fontenelle in his Eloge, tom. v. p. 338). Had Charles II. betrayed any symptoms of curiosity or fear?

122 For the cause of earthquakes, see Buffon (tom. i. p. 502-536. Supplément à l'Hist. Naturelle, tom. v. p. 382-390, edition in 4to), Valmont de Bomare (Dictionnaire d'Histoire Naturelle, Tremblemens de Terre, Pyrites), Watson (Chemical Essays, tom. i. p. 181-209). [R. Mallet, The First Principles of Observational Seismology, 1862.]

union and fermentation of iron and sulphur. But their times and effects appear to lie beyond the reach of human curiosity, and the philosopher will discreetly abstain from the prediction of earthquakes, till he has counted the drops of water that silently filtrate on the inflammable mineral, and measured the caverns which increase by resistance the explosion of the imprisoned air. Without assigning the cause, history will distinguish the periods in which these calamitous events have been rare or frequent, and will observe that this fever of the earth raged with uncommon violence during the reign of Justinian.128 Each year is marked by the repetition of earthquakes, of such duration that Constantinople has been shaken above forty days; of such extent that the shock has been communicated to the whole surface of the globe, or at least of the Roman empire. An impulsive or vibratory motion was felt, enormous chasms were opened, huge and heavy bodies were discharged into the air, the sea alternately advanced and retreated beyond its ordinary bounds, and a mountain was torn from Libanus,124 and cast into the waves, where it protected, as a mole, the new harbour of Botrys 125 in Phoenicia. The stroke that agitates an ant-hill may crush the insect myriads in the dust; yet truth must extort a confession that man has industriously laboured for his own destruction. The institution of great cities, which include a nation within the limits of a wall, almost realizes the wish of Caligula that the Roman people had but one neck. Two hundred and fifty thousand persons are said to have perished in the earthquake of Antioch, whose domestic multitudes were swelled by the conflux of strangers to the festival of the Ascension. The loss of Berytus 126 was of smaller account, July 9

123 The earthquakes that shook the Roman world in the reign of Justinian are described or mentioned by Procopius (Goth. 1. iv. c. 25, Anecdot. c. 18), Agathias (1. ii. p. 52, 53, 54 [c. 15, 16]; 1. v. p. 145-152 [c. 3 sqq.]), John Malala (Chron. tom. ii. p. 140-146, 176, 177, 183, 193, 220, 229, 231, 233, 234 [417 $99., 442-3, 448, 456, 478, 485, 487, 488-9]), and Theophanes (p. 151, 183, 189, 191-196 [A. M. 6021, 6028, 6036, 6040, 6043, 6046, 6047, 6050]).

124 An abrupt height, a perpendicular cape between Aradus and Botrys, named by the Greeks θεών [θεοῦ] πρόσωπον and εὐπρόσωπον oι λιθοπρόσωπον by the scrupulous Christians (Polyb. 1. v. p. 411 [c. 68]; Pompon. Mela, l. i. c. 12, p. 87, cum Isaac. Voss. Observat.; Maundrell, Journey, p. 32, 33; Pocock's Description, vol. ii. p. 99).

125 Botrys was founded (ann. ante Christ. 935-903) by Ithobal, king of Tyre (Marsham, Canon, Chron. p. 387, 388). Its poor representative, the village of Patrone, is now destitute of an harbour.

126 The university, splendour, and ruin of Berytus are celebrated by Heineccius (p. 351-356) as an essential part of the history of the Roman law. It was overthrown in the xxvth year of Justinian, A. D. 551, July 9 (Theophanes, p. 192 [A. M. 6043]); but Agathias (1. ii. p. 51, 52 [c. 15]) suspends the earthquake till he has achieved the Italian war.

A.D. 526,

May 20

A.D. 551,

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Plague-its origin and

but of much greater value. That city, on the coast of Phoenicia, was illustrated by the study of the civil law, which opened the surest road to wealth and dignity; the schools of Berytus were filled with the rising spirits of the age; and many a youth was lost in the earthquake, who might have lived to be the scourge or the guardian of his country. In these disasters, the architect becomes the enemy of mankind. The hut of a savage or the tent of an Arab may be thrown down without injury to the inhabitant; and the Peruvians had reason to deride the folly of their Spanish conquerors, who with so much cost and labour erected their own sepulchres. The rich marbles of a patrician are dashed on his own head; a whole people is buried under the ruins of public and private edifices; and the conflagration is kindled and propagated by the innumerable fires which are necessary for the subsistence and manufactures of a great city. Instead of the mutual sympathy which might comfort and assist the distressed, they dreadfully experience the vices and passions which are released from the fear of punishment: the tottering houses are pillaged by intrepid avarice; revenge embraces the moment, and selects the victim; and the earth often swallows the assassin, or the ravisher, in the consummation of their crimes. Superstition involves the present danger with invisible terrors; and, if the image of death may sometimes be subservient to the virtue or repentance of individuals, an affrighted people is more forcibly moved to expect the end of the world or to deprecate with servile homage the wrath of an avenging Deity.

III. Æthiopia and Egypt have been stigmatized in every age nature. A.D. as the original source and seminary of the plague.1

542

127

In a

damp, hot, stagnating air, this African fever is generated from
the putrefaction of animal substances, and especially from the
swarms of locusts, not less destructive to mankind in their
death than in their lives. The fatal disease which depopulated
the earth in the time of Justinian and his successors
128 first

127 I have read with pleasure Mead's short but elegant treatise, concerning Pestilential Disorders, the viiith edition, London, 1722.

128 The great plague which raged in 542 and the following years (Pagi, Critica, tom. ii. p. 518), must be traced in Procopius (Persic. l. ii. c. 22, 23), Agathias (1. v. p. 153, 154 [c. 10]), Evagrius (1. iv. c. 29), Paul Diaconus (l. ii. c. 4, p. 776, 777), Gregory of Tours (tom. ii. l. iv. c. 5, p. 205) who styles it Lues Inguinaria, and the Chronicles of Victor Tunnunensis (p. 9 in Thesaur. Temporum), of Marcellinus (p. 54), and of Theophanes (p. 153 [leg. 188; A. M. 6034]). [The plague seems to have appeared in Egypt in A.D. 541, for we must obviously read "the 15th year of Justinian " instead of the 5th" ( for é) in Agathias, v. 10. Before the end of the year, the infection'

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appeared in the neighbourhood of Pelusium, between the Serbonian bog and the eastern channel of the Nile. From thence, tracing as it were a double path, it spread to the East, over Syria, Persia, and the Indies, and penetrated to the West, along the coast of Africa, and over the continent of Europe. the spring of the second year, Constantinople, during three or four months, was visited by the pestilence; and Procopius, who observed its progress and symptoms with the eyes of a physician,129 has emulated the skill and diligence of Thucydides in the description of the plague of Athens.130 The infection was sometimes announced by the visions of a distempered fancy, and the victim despaired as soon as he had heard the menace and felt the stroke of an invisible spectre. But the greater number, in their beds, in the streets, in their usual occupation, were surprised by a slight fever; so slight, indeed, that neither the pulse nor the colour of the patient gave any signs of the approaching danger. The same, the next, or the succeeding day, it was declared by the swelling of the glands, particularly those of the groin, of the arm-pits, and under the ear; and, when these buboes or tumours were opened, they were found to contain a coal, or black substance, of the size of a lentil. If they came to a just swelling and suppuration, the patient was saved by this kind and natural discharge of the morbid humour. But, if they continued hard and dry, a morti

was probably carried to Constantinople, for Theophanes says that it broke out in October, A. D. 541. But it did not begin to rage until the following year, A.D. 542-the year of the 3rd invasion of Chosroes, Procop. B. P. 2, 20; Evagrius, 4, 29; Victor Tonn. ad ann. John Malal. (ed. Bonn, p. 482) seems to put it in the 5th Indict. =A.D. 541-2, his notice comes between a mention of the 5th Ind. and a mention of the 7th, he does not mention the 6th. See V. Seibel, Die grosse Pest zur Zeit Justinians, 1857. The statement in the text that it penetrated into the west "along the coast of Africa" can hardly be correct. It must have reached Africa from Constantinople. The desert west of the Cyrenaica was an effectual barrier against the affection, and Corippus expressly states that the Moors escaped (Joh., 2, 388, gentes non laesit amaras Martis amica lues). The malady

spread in Africa in A.D. 543. See Partsch, Prooem. ad Corippum, p. xvi. xvii.]

129 Dr. Freind (Hist. Medicin. in Opp. p. 416-420, Lond. 1733) is satisfied that Procopius must have studied physic, from his knowledge and use of the technical words. Yet many words that are now scientific were common and popular in the Greek idiom.

130 See Thucydides, l. ii. c. 47-54, p. 127-133, edit. Duker, and the poetical description of the same plague by Lucretius (1. vi. 1136-1284). I was indebted to Dr. Hunter for an elaborate commentary on this part of Thucydides, a quarto of 600 pages (Venet. 1603, apud Juntas), which was pronounced in St. Mark's library, by Fabius Paullinus Utinensis, a physician and philosopher. [Cp. the Appendix to Jowett's Notes on Thucydides, Bk. ii. (vol. ii. p. 141 sqq.), where this account of Gibbon and Boccaccio's narrative of the plague in 1348 are set beside the description of Thucydides.]

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