Let us, then, dip here and there into it and see what "the best authorities " could teach our grandfathers when their youthful minds would know something of the wonders of creation. The lion, as the king of beasts, heads the list. " He is generally of a dun colour, but not without some exceptions, as black, white, and 'red, in Ethiopia and some other parts of Africa." The red lion, then, it would appear, is no mere creation of the licensed victualler or Garter King-at-Arms, no mere fancy to deck a sign-board withal or emblazon on a shield of honour, but a living verity ; and we may pause to remark that almost all the most wonderful things in the book have their home in Africa, not as now the playground of the Royal Geographical Society, but an unknown land full of wonder and mystery, of which nothing is too marvellous to be impossible. We are told, too, that the lion sleeps with his eyes open, and many other curious details follow. On the next page the unicorn is in all sober seriousness described. " His head resembles a hart's, his feet an elephant's, his tail a boar's, and the rest of his body a horse's. The horn is about a foot and a half in length, his voice is like the lowing of an ox, his horn
is as hard as iron and as rough as any file." Burton in his "Miracles of Art and Nature," published in 1678, says that in Ethiopia " some Kine there are which have Horns like Stags ; other but one Horn only, and that in the Forehead, about a foot and a half long, but bending backward." It will be seen that Burton does not identify these with the so-called unicorn, but the passage is in some degree suggestive. Any one who has noticed the fine series of antelopes in the collection of the Zoo-logical Society of London will scarcely have failed to observe the length and straightness of the horns of some of the species, while they are often so close together and so nearly parallel in direction, that any one seeing the animals at a little distance away, and so standing that one of their horns covers the other, might well be excused for starting the idea of single-horned animals. Great virtues are attributed to the horn of the unicorn, as the expelling of poison and the curing of many diseases. The unicorn is very familiar to us as one of the supporters of the royal arms, but the form we know so well does not altogether agree with that described. The heraldic unicorn is in all respects a horse save and except the horn, while our old author tells us of the head of a stag and the feet of an elephant. The creature is sometimes referred tc in our English version of the Bible, and has thus become one of the animals introduced in symbolic and religious art. In some of the passages it would clearly seem to indicate that in the very early days dealt with in some of the books of the Bible there was a general belief in some such creature, while in others probably the word is rather introduced in error by our translators-an error that may very well be pardoned when we find the animal gravely described in the much more recent book before us. In
the book of Job, the earliest in point of time in the whole Bible, the belief in some such animal seems very distinctly indicated in the words,, "Will the unicorn be willing to serve thee or abide by ,thy crib ? Canst thou bind the unicorn with his band in the furrow, or will he harrow the valleys after thee?" In the 92d Psalm the peculiar feature that gives the creature its name is especially referred to in the words, " My horn shalt thou exalt like the horn of a unicorn." The reference is always to some wild and powerful animal ; thus in Exodus we
read, "His horns are like the horns of unicorns;" and again in one of the psalms we find David crying, Save me from the lion's mouth, for Thou hast heard me from the horns of the unicorns." Other passages might be quoted, but these will amply suffice to indicate the very early belief in some such creature. The form is frequently seen in the earliest Christian art, as in the catacombs of Rome, the havens of refuge for the living and the resting-places of the dead followers of the new
faith. Our illustration is a facsimile of that in the " Description of 300 Animals."
For some reason that we cannot now discover, the unicorn was an especial favourite with the Scotch heralds, and it is from them that we derive it in our royal arms. Before the union of the two monarchies the supporters of the arms of the English monarchs had been very various, though in almost every case a lion had been one of the two employed,* while in Scotland for several reigns before the amalgamation of the two countries the sup-porters had been two unicorns. It was very naturally arranged, therefore, when the two kingdoms were fused together on the death of Elizabeth, that the joint shield should be supported by the lion of England and the unicorn of Scotland. The creature freely occurs as a device on the Scottish coinage ; one piece especially is by collectors called the unicorn, from the conspicuous introduction of the national device.
We have already indicated that potent virtues were believed to reside in the horn of the unicorn. In the Comptes Royaux of France in 1391 we find a golden cup with a slice of this horn in it for testing the food of the Dauphin, and again in the inventory of Charles V.-" Une touche de licorne, garnie d'or, pour faire essay." Decker, again, in 1609 speaks of "the unicorn, whose horn is worth a city." In Mrs. Bury Palliser's most interesting work of " Historic Badges and Devices " we find an illustration of the standard of Bartolomeo d'Alviano. He was a great champion of the Orsini family, and took a leading part in all the feuds that devastated Central
Europe during his lifetime. His standard bears the unicorn, surrounded by snakes, toads, and other reptiles then rightly or wrongly held poisonous ; these he is moving aside with his horn, and above is the motto, " I expel poisons"-he, d'Alviano, of coua{se, being the lordly and potent unicorn, his foes the creeping things to be driven from his face.*
In the " Display of Heraldry " published by John Guillim in the year 1679 we read-" It hath been much questioned amongst naturalists, which it is that is properly called the Unicorn ; and some have made doubt whether there be any such Beast as this or no. But the great esteem of his horn (in many places to be seen) may take away that needless scruple." Having thus satisfactorily established the existence of such a creature he naturally feels at full liberty to group around the
central fact divers details, as, for instance, that "the wild Beasts of the wilderness use not to drink of the Pools, for fear of venomous Serpents there breeding, before the Unicorn hath stirred it with its horn."
It seems to have been a debateable point whether the unicorn had ever been taken alive, but Guillim decisively negatives the idea, and naturally avails himself of it for the greater glorification of the creature and of its service in his beloved science of heraldry. He lays down the broad fact that the unicorn is never taken alive, and here surely we can thoroughly go with him ; but " the reason being demanded, it is answered that the greatness of his mind is such that he chuseth rather to die, wherein the unicorn and the valiant-minded soldier are alike, which both contemn death, and rather than they will be compelled to undergo any base servitude and bondage they will lose their lives."
Philip de Thaun, on the other hand, not only admits the idea that the unicorn may be captured alive, but gives the full receipt for doing so. It would appear that, like Una's lion, the animal is of a particularly impressionable nature, and is always prepared to do homage to maiden beauty and innocence, and this amiable trait in its character is basely taken advantage of. " When a man intends to hunt and take and ensnare it he goes to the forest where is its repair, and there places a virgin. Then it comes to the virgin, falls asleep on her lap, and so comes to its death. The man arrives immediately and kills it in its sleep, or takes it alive and does as he will with it." The young ladies of that very indefinite date must have possessed considerably more courage and nerve than some of their sisters of the present day, who show symptoms of hysteria if they find themselves in the same room with a spider-a considerably less severe test than
an interview in the dark shades of the forest with an amorous unicorn. One cannot, however, help feeling that the victim of misplaced confidence comes out of the transaction most creditably, and that both man and maiden must have felt what schoolboys call " sneaks."
The unicorn, alive or dead, seems to have eluded observation in a wonderful way, and the men of science were left to extract their facts from the slightest hints, in the same way that distinguished anatomists and geologists of these later days are enabled to build up an entire animal from one or two isolated bones. The process, however, does not seelp, in the case of the earlier men, to have been a very successful one, and there is consequently a great clashing amongst the authorities, and one of the mediaeval writers, feeling the difficulty of drawing any very definite result from the chaos before him, adopts the plan, in which we humbly follow him, of simply putting it all down just as it comes to hand, and leaving his readers to make the best they can of it. He writes as follows :
" Pliny affirmeth it is a fierce and terrible creature, Vartomannus a tame animal : those which Garcias ab Horto described about the Cape of Good Hope were beheld with heads like horses, those which Vartomannus beheld he described with the head of a Deere : Pliny, iElian, Solimus, and Paulus Venetus affirm the feet of the Unicorn are undivided and like the Elephant's, but those two which Vartomannus beheld at Mecha were, as he described, footed like a Goate. As 1Elian describeth it, it is in the bignesse of an Horse, that which Thevet speaketh of was not so big as an Heifer, but Paulus Venetus affirmeth that they are but little lesse than Elephants."
. On turning to the records of a distinguished French
Society established in 1633 we come across many strange items. These records are entitled " A general collection of the Discourses of the Virtuosi of France, upon questions of all sorts of philosophy and other natural know-ledge, made in the Assembly of the Beaux Esprits at Paris by the most ingenious persons of that nation." Their meetings were termed conferences, and there are notes of two hundred and forty of these. The subjects discussed covered a very wide field, the following being some few amongst them-Of the end of all things, of perpetual motion, of the echo, of how long a man may continue without eating, whether is to be preferred a great stature or a small, of the loadstone, of the origin of mountains, and who are the most happy in this world, wise men or fools. Some of these subjects are now definitely settled, while others are as open to discussion as ever, as, for example, the questions whether it be expedient for women to be learned, and whether it be better to bury or to burn the bodies of the dead. In this great accumulation of the notions of the seventeenth century we find, amongst other items that more especially concern our present purpose, discussions on genii, on the phoenix, and on the unicorn.
In the early days of a similar institution, our own Royal Society-a body which is now so staid, and which focuses all the most i1n ortant scientific results of the day to itself-many point were discussed in perfect good faith that are now consig ed to oblivion-the trees that grow diamonds, the rivers that run precious gems, and the seeds that fell from heav n being amongst these ; while at another meeting we find the Duke of Buckingham presenting the Society with a piece of the horn of the unicorn.
The old writers had no very definite system, and though
the author of the "Book of the 300 Animals" may seem to have exercised a certain fitness in discussing the unicorn directly after the lion, the conjunction is probably wholly accidental, as the creatures dwelt on succeed each other in all such books in the most arbitrary way.
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