upon indigitation; both as an art of computing by the fingers, and of conversing by them:

The former art must have arisen as soon as men had any occasion to make use of numbers. That it was in use among the Persians we learn from Plutarch; and one reason why Janus was supposed to represent the Sun, was, that his image was formed as making with his fingers the number of the days in the year. But the mention of the latter by Bede, shows that Calmet was misled by his authorities when he said that it arose in the Cluniac and Cistercian convents, where it was invented as a device for conversing, without breaking silence. The passage in Calmet's Commentary, however, contains some curious information, respecting the fooleries and practices of monkery, and therefore I give it at length :

"Pour marquer le respect qu'on avoit pour le silence, on inventa dans l'Ordre de Cluny, dans celui de Citeaux,† et dans d'autres monastères, des signes de la main et des doigts, pour se faire entendre sans parler; pratique qui s'est renouvellée de nos jours dans quelques Abbayes réformées de Citeaux comme à Orval, à la Trappe, et à Beaupré. Nous avons d'anciens Recueils de ces signes imprimez en divers endroits, et l'on a prétendu que par ce moyen on éxitoit les grands inconvéniens, qui naissent du violement du silence, et de l'usage de la parole, étant impossible, quelque versé qu'on soit dans l'usage de ces signes arbitraires, de lier une conversation suivie, et de s'entretenir, par exemple, de nouvelles, avec leurs circonstances, qui font le sujet ordinaire de nos discours.

"Le Concile de Château-Gonthier can. 24. exhorte les Religieux à garder le silence, et il recommande aux Abbez de leur faire apprendre l'usage des signes: Abbates provideant quod monachi

+ Vide Bernardi Cluniac. Ordo Cluniac. 1. i. c. 17. et Sancti Vuillelmi Constitutiones Hirsaug. c. 6. 7. 8. &c. apud R. P. Marquard. Relig. Bened. Sancti Blasii in Sylva Nigrâ.

upon chronology, dialling, the astrolabe, the poles, and the circles of the sphere, music

sibi subditi sciant signa facere. Abaëlard* recommande aussi les signes, et veut que l'on s'en serve au lieu des paroles, dans les lieux principalement consacrez au silence, comme sont l'Oratoire, le Dortoir, le Cloitre, le Réfectoire. La Règle des Templiers leur permet de demander à voix basse dans le Réfectoire, ce qui leur est nécessaire, parce que parmi cux l'usage des signes n'étoit pas établi. Tout cela prouve le cas que l'on faisoit dans les Cloîtres de cette pratique.

“Il est vrai que par le moyen de ces signes, on peut se parler de loin et tromper la vigilance des Supérieurs, qui croyent que l'on demeure dans un profond silence, pendant que réellement on se parle par signes, et qu'on se communique ses pensées, ses passions, et ses mouvemens, et cela bien souvent avec plus de facilité et de danger qu'on ne feroit par paroles, qui ne peuvent si aisément se faire entendre de loin, ni se dérober si facilement à l'attention des Supérieurs et des autres Religieux, dont la crainte et le respect contiennent ceux qui coudroient s'émanciper à parler en des tems et dans des lieux où il n'est pas permis de le faire; au lieu que deux personnes de cent pas se peuvent parler par signes sans étre apperçues.

les

"Le Vénérable Guigue dans les †Statuts qu'il a dressez pour Chartreux ne paroît pas fort prévenu en faveur de ces signes; c'est bien assez, dit il, d'employer la langue à se faire entendre, sans faire servir d'autres membres: sufficere putantes linguam solam, non etiam cæteros artus implicare loquendo."—Calmet, Commentaire sur la Règle de S. Benoist, t. i. p. 224.

It is quite certain that Bede never dreamt of introducing finger-speech as a monastic practice. His words are," potest autem et de ipso quem prænotavi computo, quædam manualis lo* Abaëlard, Ep. 8. p. 130, 135. Guig. Stat. c. 3. 1.

theoretical and practical, nativities, venesection, the elements, the planets, and the constellations. He had attained some knowledge of Greek, a little of Hebrew. It was said of him, that though living in the remotest corner of the earth, he had compassed the whole in the range of his acquirements; in fact, he had acquired, whatever in those days and in his situation could be learnt; and Bede may more truly be said to have been master of the whole circle of human knowledge, than Alexander has been called conqueror of the world.

One of his treatises is upon the signification of thunder, in different months and upon the different days of the week. This he translated from the common tongue into Latin, at the desire of Herenfrid. The treatise itself is curious, as an authentic register of the popular, or rather learned superstitions on this subject, which

quela, tam ingenii exercendi, quam ludi agendi gratiá figurari; quá literis quis singillatim expressis verba, quæ iisdem literis contineantur, alteri qui hanc quoque noverit industriam, tametsi procul posito, legenda atque intelligenda contradat; vel necessaria quoque per hæc occultius innuendo significans, vel imperitos quousque quasi divinando deludens.-t. i. 137.

The example which he gives may perhaps indicate the insecurity of the times in which he lived: it is a warning to be conveyed to a friend when he is inter insidiatores; "cautè age."

then prevailed. The epistle to Herenfrid, which accompanies it, is more so; for Bede speaks of the task which this father had imposed upon him as a dangerous one, and entreats his protection against those who would malign him as a proficient in the black art for meddling with such prognostications. From the manner in which he* expresses himself, it appears, that he was as obnoxious to acrimonious and malignant criticism as if he had lived in the nineteenth century.

The greater portion of his works consists of commentaries upon the scriptures, partly original, but for the most part drawn from those fathers with whose writings Benedict Biscop had provided the united monasteries. Those upon the Epistles of St. Paul were collected from St. Augustine's works, and digested into this order, an undertaking which required

Verumtamen subnixis precibus flagito, ut contra invidos, qui vel canino dente hoc opusculum corrodere aut subsannare conaturi sunt, vel quasi latrantes canes adversùm me rabido ore desævient, quique in co se doctos esse arbitrantur si aliis detrahant, orationum vestrarum clipeos opponatis, et anchora sancti sermonis vestri, fideliumque vestrorum, hoc opusculum, ex sermone à fideli vestro in Latinum translatum, omnimodis ab invidorum inimicorumve detractionibus, stabilitum atque illæsum permanere faciatis. t. i. 379

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great diligence and labour.

Bede himself was fond of extracting an allegorical meaning wherever it could be found or fancied; a mode of interpretation which tempts an active and excursive mind; and without which, he thought there were many parts of the Old Testament which would not tend to *edification. In venturing, however, upon this task, he placed no reliance, he said, upon his own ability, but confided in assistance from above, and in the †prayers of his friend Acca, Bishop of Hagulstad, at whose request most of these commentaries were undertaken. If according to his desire,

*Nam si vetera tantummodo de thesauro Scripturarum proferre, hoc est, solas literæ figuras sequi Judaico more curamus, quid inter quotidiana peccata correptionis, inter crebrescentes ærumnas seculi consolationis, inter innumeros vitæ hujus errores spiritalis doctrinæ legentes, vel audientes, acquirimus, dum aperto libro, verbi gratiâ, beati Samuelis, Elcanam virum unum duas uxores habuisse reperimus? nos maximè, quibus ecclesiasticæ vitæ consuetudine longè fieri ab uxoris complexu, et cælibes manere propositum est: si non etiam de his et hujusmodi dictis allegoricum noverimus exsculpere sensum, qui vivaciter interius castigando, erudiendo, consolando reficit? Unde tuo crebro, dilectissime et desiderantissime omnium qui in terris morantur antistitum, Acca, provocatus hortatu, tuis fretus orationibus, memorati Prophetæ, qui tunc vocabatur Videns, scripta perlustrans, si quid donante illo qui ei multa spiritalia dedit videre, spiritale ac mysticum poteram contueri, literis mandare curabo.—In Sam. Proph. t. iv. 168. tt. iv. 246.