274 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2°<» S. VIII. Oct. 1. '59. 



corruption and fearful degradation of the Church 

 in the ages which produced them. 



A very intelligent writer in the Christian Ee- 

 membrancer Avho touches on this subject in a reve- 

 rent way, and is disposed to make the best of it, 

 is obliged to give up much of the Grotesque as 

 hopelessly unmanageable. His words are worth 

 quoting : — 



" What is Eidicule ? In a sense, it has been riglitly 

 deemed the, or rather a, criterion of the holiest essence, 

 even of Truth itself. If Poetrj' be the relief, the natur.al 

 discharge, of the overburthened sense of an oppressive 

 wrong ; or, again, the spontaneous and unsought out- 

 break of the conscience, and sense of the Beautiful and 

 the Good ; why should it not be that Ridicule is, after all, 

 but an expression of the sense of vivid contrast between 

 right and wrong — of pretence and fact ? The Ludicrous 

 is but a phase of the poetic mind : the highest writers of 

 the Ludicrous — and in thus theorizing, we are concerned 

 but with the highest — are themselves often the truest 

 Poets. The great comedian of Greece, and, among our- 

 selves, such an one as Mr. Thomas Hood, are among the 

 very highest Poets. ... 



" There can be no question that the yeXolov in the ab- 

 stract is anything but the unworthy vehicle which 

 sciolists and owls among us would maintain : it is part of 

 the more perfect human constitution ; and the disciples 

 of Bp. Butler, and of experience, ask no more to assign to 

 it an office in the great economy of the mind : nor has it 

 been thought unworthy of classification, though the in- 

 <}uiry is lost, by the greatest of uninspired philosophers. 

 We claim of course to be understood, not as vindicating 

 all the mischievous and profane rubbish which passes 

 current under the name of the ludicrous: to distinguish 

 between irony and bomolochy, between satire and buf- 

 foonery, we ask not Aristotle's aid. We would be the last 

 to admit the legitimacy of Sarcasm in sacred matters ; 

 but we contend for it as a principle of truth little under- 

 stood in philosophy — as, when scientifically analyzed, a 

 development of the Poetic.Faculty — and therefore an in- 

 strument to which a province in investigation must be 

 fairly assigned. . . . May it not be — of course, we only 

 throw out the thought for subsequent investigation — 

 that there was more than is at first sight apparent in 

 certain observances and practices of the Church in other 

 ages and countries, which from our habits we are not dis- 

 posed, and that properly, because of present feelings, edu- 

 cation, and habits, to make the slightest allowance for, but 

 rather at once, and in the gross, to condemn ? We allude 

 to such things as the Boy-Bishop in England, the Abbot 

 ■of Unreason, the Feast of Fools, the 3fardi-Gras, the lu- 

 dicrous Sculpture in wood and stone in Churches, the 

 grotesque representations of certain scenes in illumina- 

 tions, the Mj'stery Plays, Processions as sometimes con- 

 ducted, — all of which form a vast class, in which there 

 must have been some principle involved. These things 

 were not accident ; to say that they have been, or are, 

 absurd, and gave, or give, rise to much profanity and irre- 

 verence, is not an adequate account of the fact of their 

 existence and of their origin. Nay, more ; we are not 

 apologizing for them, still less recommending their revi- 

 val: perhaps they were false and impolitic applications 

 of some partially understood, or altogether misappro- 

 priate, principle; it may be that every one of these 

 things is totally indefensible; but what then? They 

 were not accident ; they must have aimed at something, 

 whether they realised and attained it or not. Ai\d this 

 something we conceive to have been a desire to recog- 

 nize, on the part of the Church, all, however various, the 

 common functions of our Human Constitution, all parts 



and objects of the heaven-gifted Human Mind — and, in 

 some measure, to enlist them into the service of, and in- 

 corporate them with, the only living; truth, the Church: 

 to sanctify them by absorbing them, M'hile marshalling 

 them into her host, to bless and modify them. An in- 

 stance occurs to us, which ma.y possibly make our mean- 

 ing clearer. In the beautiful chapel of St. John the 

 Baptist, forming the north aisle of St. Mary's, Guildford, 

 are some fresco-paintings on the ceiling; they are imme- 

 diately over the spot where the altar stood. Some of them 

 cannot, to our eyes, present other than ludicrous associa- 

 tions. How is this.' The artists of the fourteenth cen- 

 tury were not the men to suggest laughing for laughing's 

 sake, except upon some great principle: we may not 

 enter into it ; we are not called upon to do so ; but we 

 must admit the fact, account for it as we can. Cases of 

 indecent representations we desire not to include in what 

 we have said : they are as unintelligible as indefensible." 

 Christian Rem. Oct. 1844, vol. viii. pp. 457-459. 



There are many, I fear, who will not accept 

 this reasoning, but consider it as merely begging 

 the whole question, — assuming that there must be 

 some great principle, some good principle, at the 

 bottom of the grotesque ; like the Neo-Platonists 

 who attempted to find a method in the madness of 

 Paganism. Such persons will be better satisfied 

 with D'Israeli's account of the matter in his article 

 on " Ancient and Modern Saturnalia," in the Cu- 

 riosities of Literature. He says : — 



"The Saturnalia long generated the most extraordin- 

 ary institutions among the nations of modern Europe ; 

 and, what seems more extraordinary than the unknown 

 origin of the parent absurdity itself, the Saturnalia crept 

 into the Services and Offices of the Christian Church. 

 Strange it is to observe at the altar the Rites of Religion 

 burlesqued, and all its offices performed with the utmost 

 buffoonery. It is only by tracing them to the Roman Sa- 

 turnalia, that we can at all account for these grotesque 

 sports — that extraordinary mixture of libertinism and 

 profaneness so long continued under Christianity. Such 

 were the Feasts of the Ass, the Feast of Fools, &c. , . . 



" The ignorant and the careless clergy then imagined 

 it was the securest means to retain the populace, who 

 were always inclined to these Pagan revelries." — See also 

 D'Israeli's articles on " Mysteries and ^loralities " and 

 on " Religious Nouvellettes." 



There is much wanting a work treating directly 

 on the whole subject. Eibionnach. 



A good deal about these may be seen in Poole's 

 Ecclesiastical Architecture, p. 276., though not 

 enough perhaps to satisfy Querist any more than 

 Mr. Cabbington's explanation. 



Fosbroke, in his Ency. of Aritiquities, says the 

 lolling tongue is a symbol of contempt, and refers 

 to Livy, vii. 9., and Aul. Gellius, Ix. 3. 



We are all apt to look on these grotesques as 

 profane and indecent : but may not that arise from 

 ignorance of their true meaning ? See Symbolism 

 of Churches, p. Ixi. 



In a volume lately published by Mr. Blight, 

 illustrating the ancient crosses and other antiqui- 

 ties in Cornwall, there are some valuable and in- 

 teresting notes by the author of the Echoes of 

 Old Cornwall. The note on two heads in Mor- 



