Page:Textile fabrics; a descriptive catalogue of the collection of church-vestments, dresses, silk stuffs, needle-work and tapestries, forming that section of the Museum (IA textilefabricsde00soutrich).pdf/538



Capuanus as quoted by Dom (now Cardinal) Pitra in his valuable "Spicilegium Solesmense," t. ii. 66. But for an English mediæval authority on the point, we may cite our own Alexander Neckam, born 1157 at St. Albans, and who had as a foster-brother King Richard of the Lion-Heart. In his curious work, "De Naturis Rerum," not long since printed for the first time, and published by the authority of Her Majesty's treasury, under the direction of the Master of the Rolls, Neckam thus writes:—"Per solem item Christus, verus sol justiciæ plerumque intelligitur; per lunam autem ecclesia, vel quæcunque fidelis anima. Sicut autem luna beneficium lucis a sole mendicat, ita et fidelis anima a Christo qui est lux vera. P. 53.

Not always was the peacock taken to be the unmitigated emblem of pride and foolish vanity. Osmont the cleric, in his "Volucraire, or Book of Birds," after noticing its scream instead of song, its serpent-like shape of head that it carries so haughtily, but lowers quite abashed as it catches a glimpse at its ugly feet, and its garish plumage with the many bright-eyed freckles on its fan-like tail which it loves to unfold for admiration, draws these comparisons. As the peacock affrights us by its cry, so does the preacher, when he thunders against sin startle us into a hatred of it; if the step of the bird be so full of majesty, with what steadiness ought a true Christian fearlessly tread his narrow path. A man may perhaps find a happiness, nay, show a pride in the conviction of having done a good deed, perhaps may sometimes therefore carry his head a trifle high, and, strutting like the peacock, parade his pious works to catch the world's applause; as soon as he looks into Holy Writ and there learns the weakness, lowliness, of his own origin, he too droops his head in all humility. Those eye-speckled feathers in its plumage warn him that never too often can he have his eyes wide open, and gaze inwardly upon his own heart and know its secret workings. Thus spoke an Anglo-Norman writer.

About the swan an Englishman, our Alexander Neckam, says:—"Quid quod cygnus in ætate tenella fusco colore vestitus esse videtur, qui postmodum in intentissimum candorem mutatur? Sic nonnulli caligine peccatorum prius obfuscati, postea candoris innocentiæ veste spirituali decorantur."—De Naturis Rerum, p. 101. Here our countryman hands us the key to the symbolic appearance of the swan upon this liturgical garment; for, as while a cygnet, its feathers are always of a dusky hue, but when the bird has grown up its plumage changes into the most intensely white, just so, some people who are at first darkened with the blackness of sin, in after days become adorned with the garb of white innocence.