Note 625 — Chapter VII

In Europe, in the tenth century, an entire army fled before one of those appearances, which would now scarcely terrify a child: ‘Toute l'armée d'Othon se dispersa subitement à l'apparition d'une éclipse de soleil, qui la remplit de terreur, et qui fut regardée comme l'annonce du malheur qu'on attendait depuis longtemps.’ Sprengel, Hist. de la Médecine, vol. ii. p. 368. The terror inspired by eclipses was not finally destroyed before the eighteenth century; and in the latter half of the seventeenth century they still caused great fear both in France and in England. See Evelyn's Diary, vol. ii. p. 52, vol. iii. p. 372; Carlyle's Cromwell, vol. ii. p. 366; Lettres de Patin, vol. iii. p. 36. Compare Voyages de Monconys, vol. v. p. 104, with Hare's Guesses at Truth, 2nd series, pp. 194, 195. There probably never has been an ignorant nation whose superstition has not been excited by eclipses. For evidence of the universality of this feeling, see Symes's Embassy to Ava, vol. ii. p. 296; Raffles' Hist. of Java, vol. i. p. 530; Southey's Hist. of Brazil, vol. i. p. 354, vol. ii. p. 371; Marsden's Hist. of Sumatra, p. 159; Niebuhr, Description de l'Arabie, p. 105; Moffat's Southern Africa, p. 337; Mungo Park's Travels, vol. i. p. 414; Moorcroft's Travels in the Himalayan Provinces, vol. ii. p. 4; Crawfurd's Hist. of the Indian Archipelago, vol. i. p. 305; Ellis's Polynesian Researches, vol. i. p. 331; Mackay's Religious Development, vol. i. p. 425; Works of Sir W. Jones, vol. iii. p. 176, vol. vi. p. 16; Wilson's Note in the Vishnu Purana, p. 140; Wilson's Theatre of the Hindus, vol. i. part ii. p. 90; Montucla, Hist. des Mathématiques, vol. i. p. 444; Asiatic Researches, vol. xii. p. 484; Ward's View of the Hindoos, vol. i. p. 101; Prescott's Hist. of Peru, vol. i. p. 123; Kohl's Russia, p. 374; Thirlwall's Hist. of Greece, vol. iii. p. 440, vol. vi. p. 216; Murray's Life of Bruce, p. 103; Turner's Embassy to Tibet, p. 289; Grote's Hist. of Greece, vol. vii. p. 432, vol. xii. pp. 205, 557; Journal Asiatique, Ie série, vol. iii. p. 202, Paris, 1823; Clot-Bey, de la Peste, Paris, 1840, p. 224.

In regard to the feelings inspired by comets, and the influence of Bayle in removing those superstitions late in the seventeenth century, compare Tennemann, Gesch. der Philosoph., vol. xi. p. 252; Le Vassor, Hist. de Louis XIII, vol. iii. p. 415; Lettres de Sevigné, vol. iv. p. 336; Autobiography of Sir S. D'Ewes, edit. Halliwell, vol. i. pp. 122, 123, 136.