444 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



In the cathedrals, too, we still see this idea fossilized. Devils 

 and imps, struck into stone, clamber upon towers, prowl under 

 cornices, peer out from bosses of foliage, perch upon capitals, 

 nestle under benches, flame in windows. Above the great main 

 entrance, the most common of all representations still shows Satan 

 and his imps scowling, jeering, grinning, while taking possession 

 of the souls of men and scourging them with serpents, or driving 

 them with tridents, or dragging them with" chains, into the flaming 

 mouth of hell. Even in the most hidden and sacred places of the 

 mediaeval cathedral we still find representations of Satanic power 

 in which profanity and obscenity run riot. In these representa- 

 tions the painter and glass-stainer vied with the sculptor. Among 

 the early paintings on canvas a well-known example represents 

 the devil in the shape of a dragon, perched near the head of a 

 dying man, eager to seize his soul as it issues from his mouth, 

 and only kept off by the efforts of the attendant priest. Typical 

 are the colossal portrait of Satan, and a vivid picture of the devils 

 cast out of the possessed and entering into the swine, as shown in 

 the cathedral-windows of Strasburg. So, too, in the windows of 

 Chartres Cathedral we see a saint healing a lunatic — the saint, 

 with a long devil - scaring formula in Latin issuing from his 

 mouth ; and the lunatic, with a little detestable hobgoblin, horned, 

 hoofed, and tailed, issuing from liis mouth. These examples are but 

 typical of myriads in cathedrals and abbeys and parish churches 

 throughout Europe ; and all served to impress upon the popular 

 mind a horror of everything called diabolic, and a hatred of those 

 charged with it. These sermons in stones preceded the printed 

 book ; they were a sculptured edition of the Bible, which preceded 

 the pictorial editions of Luther's printed Bible.* 



Satan and his imps were among the principal personages in 

 every popular drama, and " Hell's Mouth " was a piece of stage 

 scenery constantly brought into requisition. A miracle-play, with- 

 out a full display of the diabolic element in it, would have stood 

 a fair chance of being pelted from the stage, f 



* I cite these instances out of a vast number which I have personally noted in visits to 

 various cathedrals. For striking examples of mediaeval grotesques, see Wright's " History 

 of Caricature and the Grotesque," London, 18'75 ; Langlais's "Stalles de la Cathedrale de 

 Eouen," 1838; Champfleury's "Les Sculptures Grotesques et Symboliques," Rouen, 18V9; 

 Viollet le Due, " Dictionnaire de 1' Architecture " ; Gailhabaud, " Sur 1' Architecture," etc. 



t See Wright, " History of Caricature and the Grotesque " ; F. J. Moue, " Schauspiele 

 des Mittelalters," Carlsruhe, 1846; Dr. Karl Hase, "Miracle Plays and Sacred Dramas," 

 Boston, 1880 (translation from the German). Examples of the miracle-plays may be found in 

 Mone ; in Mariott's " Collection of English Miracle-Plays," Basil, 1838 ; in Hone's " Ancient 

 Mysteries " ; in T. Sharp's " Dissertation on the Pageants . . . anciently performed at Cov- 

 entry," Coventry, 1828 ; in the publications of the Shakespearean and other societies. See 

 especially the *' Harrowing of Hell," a miracle-play, edited from the original now in the 

 British Museum, by T. 0. Halliwell, London, 1840. One of the items still preserved is a 



