B A S I L I S C U S. 



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BASILISCUS (basilisk lizard). A genus of 

 Saurian reptiles of very harmless character, though 

 by some means or other inheriting a most formidable 

 name. The application of the fabled names of anti- 

 quity, such as the cockatrice, the dragon, and the 

 basilisk, to the realities of modern natural history is 

 not only absurd, but must in some instances be at- 

 tended with bad consequences. Men read with 

 horror, in their boyish days, of the terrible powers 

 of dragons, and the deadly venom of cockatrices and 

 basilisks, venom so deadly, that it not only killed 

 all else upon which the terrible creatures looked, 

 but if they happened to meet the reflection of their 

 own withering glances from a mirror or a pool of 

 water, they could not escape the death-stroke of 

 their own looks. These terrific qualities make a 

 deep impression upon the youthful mind ; and as 

 the name is the index to all the terrors, the repeti- 

 tion of it naturally suggests them. Thus there must 

 be a most curious conflict between memory and 

 present perception, when the dragon is found to be 

 a creature that can hurt nothing stronger than a fly, 

 or that the basilisk is a harmless and pretty little 

 creature for although peculiar in shape it is pretty 

 that lives upon small vegetable seeds, and neither 

 hurts nor is capable of hurting a single living crea- 

 ture. The reality which addresses itself immediately 

 to the senses must, in the end, get the victory, how 

 hard soever the impression on the memory may 

 plead. Thus the fable is discarded, and takes along 

 with it all which it in any way holds linked by asso- 

 ciation. The school and scholarship, and ail that is 

 connected either with the one or the other, come in 

 for their share of the doubt, disbelief, and derision ; 

 and that which, but for the discovery, would have 

 continued to afford excitement, and therefore plea- 

 sure, becomes the foundation of self-humiliation and 

 reproach. Either, therefore, the fable should be 

 given up, or the name which turns it into a mockery 

 should cease to be used. The fable has its use in 

 attracting the mind, at an age at which it could not 

 be attracted by reality. Boyhood, when the hopes 

 are full of the joys of years unborn, is a time of 

 romance, and all the Utilitarians that ever lectured 

 will never make it otherwise. And it is well for us 

 that they cannot ; for the reality of life is the painful 

 portion of it, and the romance the pleasurable. Not 

 only so, but that which utilitarians call the reality is the 

 sensual, the animal, the material part of life ; and the 

 romance is the mental or intellectual part. If the 

 former is made the sole object of consideration, then 

 the result is misery in the present life and no hope 

 hereafter. There is consequently an immediate and 

 utter extinction of all that is pleasant in life of all 

 that is endearing in society ; because there remains 

 no value but money value ; and " Thy money perish 

 with thee" is the denunciation, which takes effect 

 both here and hereafter. 



We are not pleading for fables, or attempting to 

 recommend that which is not true at the expense of 

 the truth. But in " the youth of life," it is vain to 

 refer to that which in after life is called " utility," as 

 the only or the chief incentive to study. You can- 

 not, at every step of a boy's education, draw his 

 attention to his book, or his other study, by the 

 allurement of " the price that it will bring* him in ;" 

 and if you could, what a mean and soidid creature, 

 nay, what an immoral and dishonest creature you 

 would make of him ! If we labour to impress upon 



NAT. HIST. VOL. I. 



the young mind, the idea that there is no value but 

 in possessions, and no reward but in pecuniary pay- 

 ment, we absolutely, in express terms, teach fraud and 

 theft, destroy all the better feelings of the heart, and 

 make man no better thai: a beast. We take the very- 

 worst view of the worst conduct of human beings as 

 the foundation of character ; and then we need not 

 wonder that our pupil ripens into crime, and as the 

 law is not abolished, the feeling which we thus 

 inculcate, that law and justice are evils, because 

 restraints upon utility, renders him obnoxious to 

 punishment. Little romantic extravagancies appear to 

 be as necessary for young minds as they are for young 

 nations among which they have ever been found ; 

 and though they are only " play" in after life, both 

 with the one and the other, yet the period when they 

 cease altogether is the dotage of senility the sad con- 

 dition from which earthly hope has for ever departed. 



It is, therefore, always to be regretted when the 

 reality spoils a fable which gives pleasure ; and 

 the instructor who preaches truth in this wise, is 

 exactly the counterpart of him who should go about to 

 make a man zealous and enterprising in his business, 

 by disclosing to him at the outset, all the failures, 

 impositions, frauds, and misfortunes, to which he 

 should be subjected in the course of it. 



Applying the fabulous names of the ancients to the 

 real productions of nature, is but one form of this 

 mode of making knowledge the destroyer of happi- 

 ness ; but it is one which brings no good to com- 

 pensate the evil. It destroys the marvel of the boy, 

 but enough of that marvel remains to turn into ridi- 

 cule and contempt the knowledge of the man. The 

 withering power with which the eyes of the fabled 

 basilisk were endowed, gives point to some of the 

 choicest passages in poetry, ana to persons of fine feel- 

 ings these passages give more abundant and exquisite 

 pleasure than they could purchase in the 'market' 

 even if they had the wealth of the Indies to lay out 

 in the purchase of it. Now, if along with these pas- 

 sages there come always the conviction that the said 

 basilisk is equally frail and harmless as a butterfly 

 among the flowers, there remains no more pleasure, 

 derision, contempt, is the natural feeling. It is of no 

 use to plead that it is a different basilisk altogether, 

 for there is identity in the name ; and if the fabled 

 name has been bestowed upon a reality which has 

 not the attributes of the fable, then the bestower of 

 that name has been guilty of a falsehood. 



Any one who wishes to judge how much of poetic 

 enjoyment ma}' and must be destroyed by this mis- 

 appropriation of names that had their meaning before, 

 may turn to the second scene of Richard III., and 

 read on to this line, spoken by Lady Anne : 

 " Would they were basilisks, to strike thee dead ! " 



Substitute the word " butterflies " for " basilisks ; " 

 read the line thus : 



" Would they were butterflies, to strike thee dead ! " 

 and then feel the power of the scene if you can. 



Yet the butterfly of natural history is quite as 

 likely to strike one dead as the natural history 

 basilisk; and thus while the application of the fabled 

 name destroys the force of the fable, the memory of 

 the fable turns the real animal into ridicule. The 

 application of sounding names, where there is no 

 analogy to warrant their use, has dono much mischief 

 in all the departments of natural history, and also iu 

 all the othcrsubjectsfrom which these names are taken, 

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