48

ARMORIAL BEARINGS IN SATAN'S KINGDOM.

in the degree in which they were caricatures of everything human and bestial, and that the more, because was it not well known that devils possessed the power of indefinite selftransfiguration, and had an invincible propensity for ugliness and monstrosity? "When (says Dr. Hibbert), in the middle ages, conjuration was regularly practised in Europe, devils of rank were supposed to appear under decided forms, by which they were as well recognized as the head of any ancient family would be by his crest and armorial bearings. Along with their names and characters were registered such shapes as they were accustomed to adopt. A devil would appear either like an angel seated in a fiery chariot; or riding on an infernal dragon and carrying in his right hand a viper; or assuming a lion's head, the feet of a goose, and a hare's tail; or putting on a raven's head, and mounted on a strong wolf. Other forms made use of by demons were those of a fierce warrior, or of an old man riding on a crocodile with a hawk in his hand. A human figure would arise having the wings of a griffin; or sporting three heads, two of them being like those of a toad and of a cat; or defended with huge teeth and horns, and armed with a sword; or displaying a dog's teeth and a large raven's head; or mounted upon a pale horse, and exhibiting a serpent's tail; or gloriously crowned and riding upon a dromedary; or presenting the face of a lion; or bestriding a bear and grasping a viper. A demoniacal king would ride upon a pale horse, or would assume a leopard's face and griffin's wings, or put on the three heads of (1) a bull, (2) a man, and (3) a ram; taking also a serpent's tail and the feet of a goose; and in this attire sit on a dragon and bear in his hand a lance and a flag; or, instead, goad the flanks of a furious bear and carry in his fist a hawk. Other forms were those of a goodly knight; or of one who bore lance, ensigns, and even sceptre; or of a soldier, either riding a black horse and surrounded with a flame of fire; or wearing a duke's crown and mounted on a crocodile; or assuming a lion's face, and, with fiery eyes, spurring on a gigantic charger; or, with

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DIABOLICAL MONSTROSITIES.

49

the same frightful aspect, appearing in all the pomp of family distinction on a pale horse; or clad from head to foot in crimson raiment, wearing on his bold front a crown and sallying forth on a red steed. Some infernal duke would appear in his proper character quietly seated on a griffin; another spirit of a similar rank would display the three heads of a serpent, a man, and a cat; he would also bestride a viper, and carry in his hand a firebrand; another, of the same stamp, would appear like a duchess, encircled with a fiery zone and mounted on a camel; a fourth would wear the aspect of a boy and amuse himself on the back of a twoheaded dragon. A few spirits, however, would be content with the simple garb of a horse, a leopard, a lion, a unicorn, a night raven, a stork, a peacock, or a dromedary; the latter animal speaking fluently the Egyptian language. Others would assume the more complex forms of a lion or a dog, with a griffin's wings attached to each of their shoulders; or of a bull equally well gifted; or of the same animal distinguished by the singular appendage of a man's face; or of a crow clothed with human flesh; or of a hart with a fiery tail. To certain other noble devils were assigned such shapes as those of a dragon with three heads, one of those being human; of a wolf with a serpent's tail, breathing forth flames of fire; of a she-wolf, exhibiting the same caudal appendage, together with a griffin's wings, and ejecting from her mouth hideous matter. A lion would appear either with the head of a branded thief, or astride upon a black horse, and playing with a viper, or adorned with the tail of a snake, and grasping in his paws two hissing serpents. These were the varied shapes assumed by devils of rank. In an ancient Latin poem, describing the lamentable vision of a devoted hermit and supposed to have been written by St. Bernard in the year 1238, vulgar devils appear whose business on earth was merely to carry away condemned souls. These are described as blacker than pitch; having teeth like lions, nails on their fingers like those of a wild boar, on their foreheads horns, through the

E

extremities of which poison was emitted; having wide ears flowing with corruption, and discharging serpents with their nostrils. The devout writer of these verses has even accompanied them with drawings, in which the addition of the cloven foot is not omitted. But this appendage, as Sir Thomas Brown has learnedly proved, is a mistake, which has arisen from the devil frequently appearing to the Jews in the shape of a rough and hairy goat, this animal being the emblem of sin-offerings. It is worthy of further remark, that the form of the demons described by St. Bernard differs little from that which is no less carefully portrayed by Reginald Scot 350 years later, and perhaps by the demonologists of the present day. "In our childhood," says he, our mothers' maids have so terrified us with an ouglie devil having hornes on his head, fire in his mouth, and a taile in his breech, eyes like a basin, fangs like a dog, clawes like a beare, a skin like a niger, and a voice roaring like a lion,—whereby we start and are afraid when we hear one cry Dough (Bogie, ‘Old Bogie")".*

* Hibbert's Philosophy of Apparitions, p. 122, seq.

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THE ORIGIN OF MAN AND THAT OF SATAN THE SAME. 51

BOOK II.

PERIOD OF COMPOSITION.

CHAPTER I.

MY ORIGIN AND PROGRESS.

SECTION I.

MY EMBRYONIC CONDITION.

I was born in a sweltering vale of Upper Egypt. The date I cannot give, as my chronology goes so much farther back than that of Archbishop Usher, that I have no milestones to take for my measures.. Nor can I determine whether my parents belonged to the present geological period, or to one of an earlier date. If now they appear only in a fossil state, they had, at the time I came into existence, much the same qualities as characterize human beings at the present day. Only that those qualities were of a rougher and sterner kind than those that belong to these civilized ages. Indeed, evolution and progress have marked as man's so my steps out of that darkness into this light. The first link of that advancing series I venture not to define. It may have been, as the Scripture says, "the ground" or "the dust of the earth" (Gen. ii. 19, iii. 17); it may have been some anthropomorphic organism, which grew into an ape before it became a man. The second source is the more elevated, and as such presupposes the Divine hand more markedly. But as the lower can never produce the higher; since no being can give what he does not possess; so only from the One Perfect and Infinite Will

52

SATAN BORN OF A CONFLAGRATION.

can the human race have sprung, whether in its infancy or in its manhood. Hence as the child of human nature, my origin is divine. Equally certain is it that the moral discipline which I represent has an aim and a tendency no less effectual than benevolent.

It was autumn. The weather had been intensely sultry. The river had inundated the neighbouring plains. The thinly scattered human population were driven into a neighbouring forest. A thunder-storm broke forth, driving husbands, wives and children into the heart of the woods. Then, of a sudden, a flash of lightning set the trees on fire. They blazed up on all sides, and were soon nothing but a mass of burning ashes.

Only one man escaped. It was the chief of the small tribe. He had paid a visit to a neighbour's hunting-ground, and now he slowly made his way back to his covert, in a grove or outpost of the perishing forest. Warned by the intense heat and dazzling glow, he stopped on his approach at a short distance, and watched the rushing flames, stupefied with terror, alarm and grief. Where was his young wife? where his two lovely children? where his little all? and where would the conflagration stop?

He knelt down instinctively in awe and dread before this fell destroyer. He knelt down; his heart was big with a 0; choking emotion ;—he knelt down ; it was all he could do ; but the act was a silent supplication.

In that supplicating act I received life. I was the thunderer, the dark and all but impersonal cause of that wide-spread ruin and woe. I repeat, all but impersonal cause, for that barbarian was hardly self-conscious. As yet he was a constituent part of the outer universe. He went up and down the land and the water; he passed the trees or sat beneath their shadow; he played with the fawn and revelled among the fish; he looked at the stars, and gazed on sun and moon, almost as if he and they were each and all members of the same strange world in and around him. Indeed, the chief