ANIMAL SYMBOLISM IN ARCHITECTURE. 



195 



tion, published in the Dublin Review for January, 1893, by the 

 Rev. John S. Vaughan, who finds traces of this doctrine " * writ- 

 ten large across the whole face of Nature/ and everywhere sug- 

 gested by ' such familiar things as rocks, mountains, seas, and 

 lakes/ " 



This reminds us of Mr. Gladstone's famous discovery that the 

 trident of Neptune, in some occult manner, symbolized the Chris- 

 tain Trinity ; the trident being, after all, nothing but the most 

 natural form of fish spear, devised in consequence of the fact that, 

 owing to the refracting power of water, a single spear head is not 

 likely to be so useful in catching fish as one with three prongs. 



Into the concluding chapter of the work is brought a bird 

 which greatly exercised the mediseval imagination the peacock. 

 A text is cited from the Physiologus to the effect that "when the 

 peacock wakes suddenly in the night, it cries out as if in distress, 

 because it dreams that it has lost its beauty, thus typifying the 

 soul, which in the night of this sinful world is constantly fearing 

 to lose the good gifts and graces with which God has endowed 

 it.'' Perhaps one of the most curious typical examples of ultra- 

 theological reasoning is seen in the pious argument of the Bes- 

 tiaries that " the tail of the peacock denotes foresight, since the 

 tail, being behind, is that which is to come ; and foresight is the 

 faculty of taking heed to that which is to come." 



Much light is thrown into mediseval ideas, also, by other 

 sculptures, especially those representing Satan. This, indeed, 

 opens a great chapter, and a chapter which was by no means con- 

 cluded at the Reformation. Undoubtedly a considerable part of 

 Luther's theology regarding the devil was drawn from this 

 source. The writer of this article, some years since, staying for 

 a time at Wittenberg, and being frequently in the great church 

 where Luther so often preached, noted directly opposite the pul- 

 pit a sculptured imp emerging from a mass of carving. Nothing 

 could be more natural than that the great Reformer, wearied 

 with other themes, should by this and similar sculptures in other 

 churches be constantly drawn off from his main subject to his 

 well-known denunciations of Satan and satanic influences. 



It should be remembered that in the ages before printing the 

 cathedral sculptures took, for the people at large, the place of the 

 printed book. Robert de Luzarches and Erwin von Steinbach, 

 who built, preceded Faust and Schoeffer, who printed. Victor 

 Hugo recognized this when he pictured his Quasimodo, the 

 Hunchback of Notre Dame, as absorbed in the study of the series 

 of sculptures about the choir of that cathedral. The special 

 value of Prof. Evans's book lies in the fact that, like Prof. 

 Crane's book on the Exempla of Archbishop Jacques de Vitry, 

 it enables the American reader to get really into the thoughts of 



