CHAPTER CXLIX.
A PARLOUS QUESTION ARISING OUT OF THE FOREGOING CHAPTER. MR. IRVING AND THE UNKNOWN TONGUES. TAYLOR THE WATER POET. POSSIBLE SCHEME OF INTERPRETATION PROPOSED. OPINIONS CONCERNING THE GIFT OF TONGUES AS EXHIBITED IN MADMEN.
Speak what terrible language you will, though you understand it not yourselves, no matter! Chough's language, gabble enough and good enough.
SHAKESPEARE.
But here, gentle reader, occurs what Bishop Latimer would call a parlous question, if he had lived in these portentous times. There is no apparent meaning in Lilli burlero bullen a-la, nor in Raderer too, tandaro tee, nor in Dan dan dan derridan, any more than there is in Farra diddle dyno,—Hayley gayly gamborayly, higgledy piggledy, galloping draggle-tail dreary dun, and other burthens of a similar kind, which are to be found in the dramas of poor old blind O'Keeffe, and in Tom D'Urfey's songs. There is I say no apparent meaning in them; but we must not too confidently apply the legal maxim in this case, and conclude that de non apparente et non existente eadem est ratio; for although these choruses are not in any known tongue, they may by possibility be in an unknown one: and if Mr. Irving has not a cast in his intellect as well as in his eye, there is mystery in an unknown tongue; and they who speak it, and consequently they who write it, may be inspired for the nonce—though they may be as little conscious of their inspiration as they are of their meaning. There may be an unknown inspiration as well as an unknown tongue. If so what mighty revelations may lie unrevealed in the gibberish of Taylor the Water Poet! Now if Mr. Irving would but read one of the wine-drinking Water Poet's effusions of this kind, in his chapel, on a day appointed for that purpose, some of his inspired speakers male or female might peradventure be moved to expound it in their kindred language; and as two negatives make an affirmative, it might be found that two unintelligibles make a meaning, and the whole affair would thus become intelligible to every one.
Two specimens therefore of the Taylorian tongues I shall here set before the public, in the hope that this important experiment may be tried with them. They were both intended as epitaphs for Thomas Coriat the famous Odcombian traveller; the first was supposed by the inspired Water Poet to be in the Bermuda tongue.
Hough gruntough wough Thomough Coriatough, Adcough robunquogh
Warawogh bogh Comitogh sogh wogh termonatogrogh,
Callimogh gogh whobogh Ragamogh demagorgogh palemogh,
Lomerogh nogh Tottertogh illemortogh eagh Allaquemquogh
Toracominogh Jagogh Jamerogh mogh Carnogh pelepsogh,
Animogh trogh deradrogh maramogh hogh Flondrogh calepsogh.
This, Taylor says, must be pronounced with the accent of the grunting of a hog. He gives no directions for pronouncing the second specimen, which is in the Utopian tongue.
Nortumblum callimumquash omystoliton quashte burashte
Scribuke woshtay solusbay perambulatushte;
Grekay sous Turkay Paphay zums Jerusalushte.
Neptus esht Ealors Interrimoy diz dolorushte,
Confabuloy Odcumbay Prozeugmolliton tymorumynoy,
Omulus oratushte paralescus tolliton umbroy.
The Water Poet gave notice as Professor of these tongues that he was willing to instruct any gentlemen or others who might be desirous of learning them.
But with regard to a gift of tongues either known or unknown there are more things than are dreamt of in the Irvingite philosophy or in the Lerry-cum-twang school. It was a received opinion in the seventeenth century that maniacs, and other persons afflicted with morbid melancholy, spoke in strange languages, and foretold things that were to come, by virtue,—that is to say—in consequence of their mental malady. But some philosophers who in the march of intellect were in advance of their age, denied the fact, and accounted for the persuasion by supposing that such patients, when in a state of great agitation, uttered unmeaning words or sounds which ignorant people took to be Greek, Latin or Hebrew, merely because they could not understand them. Two questions therefore arose; whether the received opinion were true? and if it were true, how was the fact to be accounted for?
The first of these questions was easily disposed of by Sennertus, one of the most eminent Professors and practitioners of the medical science in that age. Facts he said, which were attested by trust-worthy authors, were not to be disputed. Many were the impudent falsehoods which this great and in other respects wise man, received implicitly as facts conformably to the maxim which he thus laid down; and many were the perilous consequences which he deduced in good faith, and on fair reasoning from such premises. Upon this occasion he instanced the case of a countryman, who at certain periods of the moon used to compose Latin verses, though he knew not a word of Latin at any other time. And of a man who spoke languages which he had never learnt, and became unable to speak any one of them as soon as he was restored to health by the effect of some powerful worm-medicines. And of a sailor's son, who being wounded in the head and becoming delirious in consequence, made perfect syllogisms in German, but as soon as his wound was healed, lost all the logic which had been beaten into his head in so extraordinary a way.
Antonius Guainerius, who vouched for one of these cases as having witnessed the fact and all its circumstances, accounted for it by a brave hypothesis. The soul, he said, before its infusion into the body, possesses a knowledge of all things, and that knowledge is, in a certain manner, obliterated, or offuscated by its union with the body; but it is restored either by the ordinary means of instruction or by the influence of the star which presided at the time of its union. The body, and the bodily senses resist this influence, but when these are as it were bound, or suspended, quod fiat in melancholia, the stars can then impart their influences to the soul without obstruction, and the soul may thus be endowed with the power of effecting what the stars themselves effect, and thus an illiterate person may become learned, and may also predict events that are to come. Sennertus is far from assenting to this theory. He says “Magna petita sunt quæ præsupponit et sibi concedi postulat Guainerius.”
A theory quite as extraordinary was advanced by Juan Huarte in his Examen de Ingenios, a book which obtained at one time far more reputation than it deserved. Take the passage, curious Reader, from the English version, entitled “The Examination of Men's Wits,” in which by discovering the variety of natures is shewed for what profession each one is apt, and how far he shall profit therein. Translated out of the Spanish tongue by M. Camillo Camilli. Englished out of his Italian by R. C. Esquire, 1594. “The frantic persons speaking of Latin, without that he ever learned the same in his health-time, shews the consonance which the Latin tongue holds with the reasonable soul; and (as we will prove hereafter,) there is to be found a particular wit applicable to the invention of languages, and Latin words; and the phrases of speech in that tongue are so fitting with the ear, that the reasonable soul, possessing the necessary temperature for the invention of some delicate language, suddenly encounters with this. And that two devisers of languages may shape the like words, (having the like wit and hability) it is very manifest; pre-supposing, that when God created Adam, and set all things before him, to the end he might bestow on each its several name whereby it should be called, he had likewise at that instant molded another man with the same perfection and supernatural grace; now I demand if God had placed the same things before this other man, that he might also set them names whereby they should be called, of what manner those names should have been? For mine own part I make no doubt but he would have given these things those very names which Adam did: and the reason is very apparent, for both carried one self-same eye to the nature of each thing, which of itself was no more but one. After this manner might the frantic person light upon the Latin tongue; and speak the same without ever having learned it in his health; for the natural temperature of his brain conceiving alteration through the infirmity, it might for a space become like his who first invented the Latin tongue, and feign the like words, but yet not with that concert and continued fineness, for this would give token that the Devil moved that tongue, as the Church teacheth her Exorcists.”
This theory found as little favour with Sennertus as that of Guainerius, because he says, Huarte assumes more than can be granted; and moreover because he supposes that the Latin language has a peculiar consonance with the rational soul, and that there are certain natures which are peculiarly constituted for inventing languages. And therefore if by disease that temperament be excited in the brain which is necessary for the invention of any most elegant language the patient would fall into the Latin tongue; and Latin words would occur to him, without any deliberation, or act of will on his part. This opinion Sennertus argued cannot be maintained as probable, being indeed disproved by the very cases upon which the question had been raised, for Greek and Hebrew had been spoken by some of the patients, as well as Latin. The facts he admits as not to be doubted, because they are related by veracious authors; and his way of accounting for them is by the agency of evil spirits, who take advantage of bodily diseases and act upon them, especially such as arise from melancholy; for that humour or passion has such attractions for evil spirits that it has been called Balneum Diaboli, the Devil's Bath. When therefore a patient speaks in tongues which he has never learnt, eo ipso Dæmon se manifeste prodit.
This opinion than which one of greater weight could not have been produced in the 17th century, is recommended to the serious consideration of the Irvingites.
The Doctor would have sung Fa-la-la-lerridan to all this reasoning, and I say Aballiboo!
