Remove not the ancient landmark…

“Remove not the ancient landmark, which thy fathers have set.” (Proverbs 22:28)

The above biblical verse has always been one of my favourites, and since the King James Version was the translation of my childhood, it is the above rendering that is implanted in my mind. I have always taken it as an affirmation of conservative principles, saying broadly that we ought to be wary of changing settled ways and customs. I suppose I understood it that way on the basis of a certain interpretation of the word “landmark”. There are at least three ways one could understand that term, each yielding a slightly different variation on a moral theme, and it is the first that I usually have in mind when I think of this proverb.

1. Landmark as monument. Think of it as a statue or other public work of art. Removing it, even for seemingly justifiable reasons, erases a piece of public memory and of our understanding of who we are as a people, warts and all. We would be culturally confused or lost if we were to lightly go about tearing our monuments down. It is mainly this interpretation that comes to mind when I think of Proverbs 22:28. I would add that, in my mind, “fathers” always means something like “forefathers”, those who went before us, regardless of whether they were genetic or familial ancestors. Think of the Founding Fathers, or (in Canada) the Fathers of Confederation.
2. Landmark as wayfinding device. Here, the landmark could be thought of as a sort of milestone, marking location. A certain stone, purposely placed, tells us that we are five miles from Bethlehem, or are a certain distance along the Appian Way. If the stone were removed, wayfarers might find themselves lost. But again, this could lead us to a figurative reading akin to the one above: “lost” might mean culturally lost or confused.
3. Landmark as boundary. Here we think of the landmark as a pile of stones marking off one farmer’s field from another’s. On this reading, the proverb supports the institution of private property: when we remove the landmark, we can no longer tell where one field ends and another begins. Again, the result is confusion, but also contention and strife.

So textually speaking, which of the above readings has the most warrant? Well, although the first resonates the most with me, as does a figurative reading of the second, it is the third that has the most textual support.

If we turn to the Vulgate (Latin) translation of the bible, the proverb reads “Ne transgrediaris terminos antiquos, quos posuerunt patres tui.” Here, the word which the King James translators rendered as “landmark” is the Latin word terminus, meaning “boundary, limit, end”. And the word for “fathers” is patres. Now, depending on the context this could have the extended sense of “forefathers”, but if that is what was intended, I think the word maiores would be used instead of patres. In other words, “fathers” means “ancestors” in the more narrow genetic or familial sense. Additionally, the Latin for “remove” is transgredior, “to cross, to go, to move, to travel over, to go across.” So, a literal translation of the Latin might be something like “Do not cross the property line which your [genetic/familial] fathers established.”

So far, it seems that the third – narrow – interpretation of “landmark” is the correct one, and that Proverbs 22:28 is intended as supporting private property. But an even narrower sense is also possible. To see this, we must turn to the Hebrew.

I have no Hebrew, so I will rely on Robert Alter’s translation (with fascinating commentary) of the Hebrew bible. Here is his rendering: “Do not shift the age-old boundary stone that your forefathers set up.” Again, it supports the private property interpretation. But in Alter’s view, it supports a specific version of private property. In his footnote, he says “This injunction, which has a close parallel in the Egyptian source-text, reflects the general view that real property should be inalienable” [my italics].

The concept of inalienable property is somewhat… well, alien to the modern mind. But it was common in ancient legal systems, where land had a sort of corporate character, ownership being more akin to a trusteeship, passed on by one’s ancestors and exercised for the benefit of one’s descendants. For more on this, I would direct the reader to Sir Henry Maine’s classic Ancient Law (1861).

In any case, since the above Biblical verse no longer means quite what I wish it did, I need a new one. So far, the one that best seems to capture the sentiment for me is “meddle not with them that are given to change” (Proverbs 24:21). I welcome other suggestions.

Notes & Queries: A Fragment on Mummies

I was recently reading volume three of Sir Thomas Browne’s Works, edited by Geoffrey Keynes (1964 edition). The volume contains mostly miscellaneous pieces and lesser-known works by Browne. It ended with a little piece that I found absolutely charming, “A Fragment on Mummies”. I had never come across the “Fragment” before, and although I enjoyed it immensely, there was something a little odd about it. After finishing it, I referred back to Keynes’ introduction to the volume to see what he had to say about it. He wrote that the fragment

 “was initially supplied to Wilkin by his friend, James Crossley of Manchester, who pretended to have forgotten where he had seen the original manuscript. Wilkin printed the piece in good faith, but afterwards saw that there was reason to doubt its authenticity, and it was omitted from Bohn’s reprint of his edition in 1852. Crossley never publicly admitted having written it himself, and the reader may be left to judge whether Browne would have owned to its verbal extravagances, or would even have gusted so irreverent a pleasantry.”

 The story is that James Crossley (1800-1883) of Manchester had sent the “Fragment on Mummies” to Simon Wilkin, who was preparing his 1835 edition of Browne’s works. Crossley claimed to have gotten it from a manuscript in the British Library, but no one has managed to find any such manuscript. (The documentary history of this story is laid out in Samuel Swett Green’s 1903 paper.)

Keynes’ account, above, is a bit ambiguous, making it sound as if it were still an open question whether or not the “Fragment on Mummies” was written by Browne, and if it was not, what telltale signs within the piece might give it away as a fake. (I believed I had spotted at least one such sign.) So, of course I needed to learn more.

The consensus of course is that it is not genuine, which leads me to the question of Crossley’s intentions. I have seen the “Fragment” described as a “parody”. In a letter to the Manchester Guardian (17 December 1901), C. W. Hutton referred to it as a “hoax” and a “jeu d’esprit”. Since Crossley fessed up to it only much later and only once he was directly accused, and since his confession was not to poor Wilkin, I would prefer to call this a forgery. But it is a very beautiful one, as this passage, once famously quoted by Emerson, demonstrates:

“Of their living habitations they made little account, conceiving of them but as hospitia, or inns, while they adorned the sepulchres of the dead, and planted them on lasting bases, defying the crumbling touches of time and the misty vaporousness of oblivion. Yet all were but Babel vanities. Time sadly overcometh all things, and is now dominant, and sitteth upon a sphinx, and looketh unto Memphis and Thebes, while his sister Oblivion reclineth semisomnous on a pyramid, gloriously triumphing, making puzzles of Titanian erections, and turning old glories into dreams. History sinketh beneath her cloud. The traveller as he paceth amazedly through those deserts asketh of her, who buildeth them? and she mumbleth something, but what it is he heareth not.”

Three days after Hutton’s letter appeared, the editor of the Guardian thanked him for clearing up the mystery: “We should never have guessed that it was not a genuine piece by the author of the ‘Urn Burial,’ and are inclined to place Mr. James Crossley, who wrote it, among the most skilful imitators of other men’s style of whom literary history tells us.” Note again the indulgence granted here to Crossley. He is not a fraudster, he is an imitator.

Anyway, as I said, I guessed it was not genuine, and here is why. As I was reading the piece, I stumbled at one word in the following sentence:

“Shall we eat of Chamnes and Amosis in electuaries and pills, and be cured by cannibal mixtures? Surely such a diet is dismal vampirism…”

Now, the OED’s earliest citation for “vampire” (or “vampyre”) is from The Travels of Three English Gentlemen, from Venice to Hamburgh (1734). And the earliest citation for “vampirism” is from Erasmus Darwin’s Zoonomia (1794-96). This was the rat I smelled.

Now I wish, dear reader, that I was clever enough to have been the first to note this. But it turns out that I was anticipated by at least one other person, Robert Kane, in a 1933 paper. Two further lexical anachronisms in the “Fragment” identified by Kane are worthy of mention, if for no other reason than to give Crossley his due as an innovator. First, Crossley’s 1835 use of “blinkingly” pre-dates the OED’s earliest citation of 1879. Second, the OED’s earliest citation of “semisomnous” is from Henry Rogers’ The Supernatural Origin of the Bible (1873). But in that work Rogers was himself quoting from the “Fragment on Mummies”!

 

Sources

 BROWNE, Sir Thomas. The Works (4 Vols.). Geoffrey Keynes (ed.). London: Faber & Faber, 1964.

 GREEN, Samuel Swett. “Did Sir Thomas Browne Write ‘Fragment on Mummies’?” Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society 15 (1903), 442-447.

 KANE, Robert J. “James Crossley, Sir Thomas Browne, and the Fragment on Mummies,” Review of English Studies 9.35 (1933), 266-274.

The Government of the Tongue

As the Preacher saith, “There is no new thing under the sun” (Eccles. 1:9). It seems that one of these things that is not new is episodes of contention and unbrotherly relations between preachers and congregants. In Spectator No. 468 (16 July 1714), Joseph Addison related the following amusing anecdote:

“I remember an empty pragmatical Fellow in the Country, who upon reading over the whole Duty of Man, had written the Names of several Persons in the Village at the Side of every Sin which is mentioned by that excellent Author; so that he had converted one of the best Books in the World into a Libel against the ‘Squire, Church-wardens, Overseers of the Poor, and all other the most considerable Persons in the Parish. This Book with these extraordinary marginal Notes fell accidentally into the Hands of one who had never seen it before; upon which there arose a current Report that Some body had written a book against the ‘Squire and the whole Parish. The Minister of the Place having at that Time a Controversy with some of his Congregation upon the Account of his Tythes, was under the Suspicion of being the Author…”

It is generally accepted that the “excellent Author” of the anonymously published work that Addison refers to, The Whole Duty of Man (1658), was Richard Allestree (1621/22-1681), a 17^th-century Anglican clergyman. Though it may come as a surprise now, The Whole Duty of Man vied with The Pilgrim’s Progress as the most popular English devotional work of the 17^th and 18^th centuries. It went through countless editions. In my opinion, Whole Duty is much more deserving of that popularity than Bunyan’s tedious work. But it now goes largely unread.

I happen to have in my possession a 1675 edition of another work of Allestree’s entitled The Government of the Tongue. Curiously, the inscription of a former owner on the flyleaf reads as follows: 

Presented to the Pastor

of Zion Tabernacle

Hamilton Ontario, with

a request that he will

read, mark, learn, and

inwardly digest the

contents

                  March 1879

 

Ouch. Indeed, there is no new thing under the sun. Parish politics "hath been already of old time."

 

The Spectacled Avenger's Reading List, 2022

 

Well, here we are, almost a year since I have posted on this blog. As usual, I will apologize. But I will also explain myself. For several years, one things that has been a serious obstacle to keeping up with this blog has been work: the demands of my professional life have made it difficult to find the time or maintain the energy to contribute to this blog up to a standard I like to hold for myself.

But over the past few years another – equally serious – obstacle has emerged: I work in a university. Moreover, I work in what is the most left-wing university in my country. Universities today have become the most intolerant environments one can find in what used to be called the free world. And for me, someone of a conservative disposition, this means that it has become a dangerous place. I am in the ideological closet, by necessity. There is a very real fear that something appearing on this blog, however anodyne by current standards of online political discourse, could make my career untenable.

This has had an effect on the content of the blog. In the old days I explored political ideas and put forth opinions here that I dare not do now. Instead, I find myself to have mainly adopted the persona of the harmless antiquarian. This keeps me out of trouble. But I must admit, blogging is simply not as much fun anymore. It does not give me the kind of release I used to appreciate from blogging.

So I will be re-thinking whether The Spectacled Avenger is still a viable project. I have this post, and about three more lined up, so we’ll see how it goes after that. Now, to the post…

As is the custom, I give below the list of books I read during the previous year, with ones I particularly enjoyed in bold. In terms of patterns, it looks like I read a fair amount of 17^th-century English prose (Bacon, Browne, Cudworth, Donne, Felltham, John Smith). The Scottish Enlightenment was also well-represented (Hutcheson, Kames, Robertson, Adam Smith).

 

*          *          *          *          *

 

ANONYMOUS. The Parliamentary Register; or History of the Proceedings and Debates of the House of Commons (Vol. XVII). London: J. Debrett, 1785. 

ANONYMOUS. Quoniam Attachiamenta. T. D. Fergus (ed. and trans.). Edinburgh: Stair Society, 1996. 

BACON, Sir Francis. The Essayes or Counsels, Civill and Morall. London: John Haviland, 1625 (facsimile, Menston, UK: Scolar Press, 1971). 

BENTHAM, Jeremy. An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation. J. H. Burns and H. L. A. Hart (eds.). London: Athlone Press, 1970. 

BOLINGBROKE, Henry St. John, Viscount. Letters and Correspondence, Public and Private (Vol. IV). Gilbert Parke (ed.). London: G. G. and J. Robinson, 1798. 

BOURINOT, Sir John George. Parliamentary Procedure and Practice in the Dominion of Canada (3^rd edition). Toronto: Canada Law Book Company, 1903. 

BROWNE, Sir Thomas. The Works of Sir Thomas Browne (Vol. II: Pseudodoxia Epidemica). Geoffrey Keynes (ed.). London: Faber and Faber, 1964. 

BUCHANAN, James M. and Gordon TULLOCK. The Calculus of Consent (Selected Works of Gordon Tullock, Vol. 2). Charles K. Rowley (ed.). Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 2004. 

BUCHANAN, James M. and Richard E. WAGNER. Democracy in Deficit: The Political Legacy of Lord Keynes (Collected Works of James M. Buchanan, Vol. 8). Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 2000. 

BURKE, Edmund. Reflections on the Revolution in France. London: J. Dodsley, 1790. 

COUPLAND, Douglas. Player One: What Is to Become of Us (CBC Massey Lectures). Toronto: House of Anansi Press, 2010. 

COUPLAND, Douglas. Life after God. New York: Washington Square Press, 1994. 

CUDWORTH, Ralph. A Treatise of Freewill. John Allen (ed.). London: John W. Parker, 1848. 

DAVIES, Robertson. The Rebel Angels. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin Books, 1983. 

DONNE, John. Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions. Anthony Raspa (ed.). Montreal and London: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1975. 

DRURY, John (ed.). The New Testament: The Authorized or King James Version of 1611. New York: Everyman’s Library, 1998. 

DRYDEN, John. The Works of John Dryden (Vol. V: The Works of Virgil in English, 1697). William Frost and Vinton A. Dearing (eds.). Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1987. 

DRYDEN, John. The Works of John Dryden (Vol. VI: The Works of Virgil in English, 1697). William Frost and Vinton A. Dearing (eds.). Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1987. 

ERSKINE MAY, Thomas. A Treatise upon the Law, Privileges, Proceedings and Usage of Parliament. London: Charles Knight & Co., 1844. 

FELLTHAM, Owen. Resolves: Divine, Morall, Politicall (3^rd edition). London: Henry Seile, 1628 (facsimile, Amsterdam: Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, 1975). 

FIELDING, Henry. A Journey from This World to the Next. London: Everyman’s Library, 1973. 

FRANCIS, Philip. The Letters of Junius. John Cannon (ed.). Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978. 

FRONTO, Marcus Cornelius. Correspondence (Vol. II). C. R. Haines (trans.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1929. 

GALBRAITH, John Kenneth. The Great Crash, 1929. Boston: Mariner Books, 1997. 

GASKELL, Philip. A New Introduction to Bibliography. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972. 

GELLIUS, Aulus. Attic Nights (Vol. III). John C. Rolfe (trans.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993. 

GROSSMAN, Dave. On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1996. 

HAYEK, Friedrich A. The Road to Serfdom (Collected Works of F. A. Hayek, Vol. 2). Bruce Caldwell (ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007. 

HAYEK. Friedrich A. The Constitution of Liberty. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960. 

 HAYEK, Friedrich A. The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism (Collected Works of F. A. Hayek, Vol. 1). Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988. 

HODDER, Edwin. The Life and Work of the Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, K. G. (Vol. I). London: Cassell and Company, 1886. 

HODDER, Edwin. The Life and Work of the Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, K. G. (Vol. II). London: Cassell and Company, 1886. 

HODDER, Edwin. The Life and Work of the Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, K. G. (Vol. III). London: Cassell and Company, 1886. 

HUTCHESON, Francis. A System of Moral Philosophy (Vol. I). Glasgow: R. and A. Foulis, 1755 (facsimile, Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1969). 

JUSTINIAN. The Digest of Justinian (Vol. 1). Alan Watson (ed.). Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998. 

KAMES, Henry Home, Lord. Sketches of the History of Man (Vol. II). James A. Harris (ed.). Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 2007. 

KATZ, Arthur M. Life after Nuclear War: The Economic and Social Impacts of Nuclear Attacks on the United States. Cambridge, MA: Ballinger Publishing Company, 1982. 

LOYSEAU, Charles. A Treatise of Orders and Plain Dignities. Howell A. Lloyd (trans.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. 

LUCIAN. Works (Vol. VII: Dialogues of the Dead, etc.). M. D. Macleod (trans.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1961. 

MANDEVILLE, Barnard. The Fable of the Bees: Or, Private Vices, Publick Benefits (Vol. I). F. B. Kaye (ed.). Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1924. 

MENCKEN, H. L. Prejudices: First, Second, and Third Series. New York: Library of America, 2010. 

MENCKEN, H. L. Prejudices: Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Series. New York: Library of America, 2010. 

MILEVSKY, Moshe Arye. The Day the King Defaulted: Financial Lessons from the Stop of the Exchequer in 1672. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017. 

MISES, Richard von. Probability, Statistics and Truth. New York: Dover Publications, 1981. 

MUSONIUS RUFUS. That One Should Disdain Hardships: The Teachings of a Roman Stoic. Cora E. Lutz (trans.). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2020. 

NARVESON, Jan. The Libertarian Idea. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1988. 

PINCOURT, Charles and James LINDSAY. Counter Wokecraft: A Field Manual for Combatting the Woke in the University and Beyond. Orlando, FL: New Discourses, 2021. 

POPE, Alexander. The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems (Poems of Alexander Pope, Vol. II). Geoffrey Tillotson (ed.). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1962. 

POPE, Alexander. An Essay on Man (Poems of Alexander Pope, Vol. III-i). Maynard Mack (ed.). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1964. 

RAND, Ayn. Atlas Shrugged. New York: Plume, 2005. 

RICARDO, David. On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation. Piero Sraffa (ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1951. 

ROBERTSON, William. The Works of William Robertson, D. D. (Vol. I: History of Scotland). London: Cadell and Davies et al., 1817. 

ROBERTSON, William. The Works of William Robertson, D. D. (Vol. II: History of Scotland). London: Cadell and Davies et al., 1817. 

ROBERTSON, William. The Works of William Robertson, D. D. (Vol. III: History of Scotland). London: Cadell and Davies et al., 1817. 

ROBERTSON, William. The Works of William Robertson, D. D. (Vol. IV: History of the Reign of Charles V). London: Cadell and Davies et al., 1817. 

RUSKIN, John. Præterita and Dilecta. New York: Everyman’s Library, 2005. 

SCHELLING, Thomas C. The Strategy of Conflict. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1980. 

SCHOPENHAUER, Arthur. Essays and Aphorisms. R. J. Hollingdale (trans.). Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin, 2004. 

SHAFTESBURY, Anthony Ashley Cooper, 3^rd Earl of. Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times (Vol. III). Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 2000. 

SHAKESPEARE, William. The Tempest. John Munro (ed.). London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1958. 

SHAKESPEARE, William. Richard the Second. John Munro (ed.). London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1958. 

SHAKESPEARE, William. Titus Andronicus. John Munro (ed.). London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1958. 

SHELLENBERGER, Michael. San Fransicko: Why Progressives Ruin Cities. New York: Harper, 2021. 

SMITH, Adam. Essays on Philosophical Subjects. London: T. Cadell Jun. and W. Davies, 1795 (facsimile, Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1982). 

SMITH, John. Select Discourses. London: W. Morden, 1660. 

SPARTIANUS, Aelius et al. Scriptores Historiae Augustae (Vol. I). David Magie (trans.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991. 

THOMPSON, Sir D’Arcy Wentworth. On Growth and Form (abridged edition). J. T. Bonner (ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1961. 

THORSRUD, Harald. Ancient Scepticism. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009. 

TOCQUEVILLE, Alexis de. Democracy in America (Vol. I). Phillips Bradley (ed.). New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1980. 

TOCQUEVILLE, Alexis de. Democracy in America (Vol. II). Phillips Bradley (ed.). New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1980. 

WILLIAMS, Bernard. Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University press, 1985. 

WITTGENSTEIN, Ludwig. Private Notebooks, 1914-1916. Marjorie Perloff (ed.). New York: Liveright Publishing, 2022. 

WITTGENSTEIN, Ludwig. Zettel. G. E. M. Anscombe and G. H. von Wright (eds.). Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1967. 

WORTLEY MONTAGU, Lady Mary. Letters. New York: Everyman’s Library, 1992.