Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions (eBook)

Charles Mackay (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2018
1320 Seiten
Seltzer Books (Verlag)
978-1-4554-2095-7 (ISBN)

Infos

First published in 1841.All three volumes in a single file.This work covers such topics as the Crusades, the witch mania, haunted houses, alchemy, and fortune telling. According to Wikipedia: 'Charles Mackay (27 March 1814 - 24 December 1889) was a Scottish poet, journalist, and song writer.'

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First published in 1841. All three volumes in a single file. This work covers such topics as the Crusades, the witch mania, haunted houses, alchemy, and fortune telling. According to Wikipedia: "e;Charles Mackay (27 March 1814 - 24 December 1889) was a Scottish poet, journalist, and song writer."e;

Textauszug

THE TULIPOMANIA.

 

Quis furor o cives! -- Lucan.

 

    The tulip,--so named, it is said, from a Turkish word, signifying  a turban,-- was introduced into western Europe about the middle of the  sixteenth century. Conrad Gesner, who claims the merit of having  brought it into repute,--little dreaming of the extraordinary  commotion it was to make in the world,--says that he first saw it in  the year 1559, in a garden at Augsburg, belonging to the learned  Counsellor Herwart, a man very famous in his day for his collection of  rare exotics. The bulbs were sent to this gentleman by a friend at  Constantinople, where the flower had long been a favourite. In the  course of ten or eleven years after this period, tulips were much  sought after by the wealthy, especially in Holland and Germany. Rich  people at Amsterdam sent for the bulbs direct to Constantinople, and  paid the most extravagant prices for them. The first roots planted in  England were brought from Vienna in 1600. Until the year 1634 the  tulip annually increased in reputation, until it was deemed a proof of  bad taste in any man of fortune to be without a collection of them.  Many learned men, including Pompeius de Angelis and the celebrated  Lipsius of Leyden, the author of the treatise "De Constantia," were  passionately fond of tulips. The rage for possessing them soon caught  the middle classes of society, and merchants and shopkeepers, even of  moderate means, began to vie with each other in the rarity of these  flowers and the preposterous prices .they paid for them. A trader at  Harlaem was known to pay one-half of his fortune for a single  root--not with the design of selling it again at a profit, but to keep  in his own conservatory for the admiration of his acquaintance.

 

    One would suppose that there must have been some great virtue in  this flower to have made it so valuable in the eyes of so prudent a  people as the Dutch; but it has neither the beauty nor the perfume of  the rose--hardly the beauty of the "sweet, sweet-pea;" neither is it  as enduring as either. Cowley, it is true, is loud in its praise. He  says--

 

"The tulip next appeared, all over gay,  But wanton, full of pride, and full of play;  The world can't show a dye but here has place;  Nay, by new mixtures, she can change her face;  Purple and gold are both beneath her care-  The richest needlework she loves to wear;  Her only study is to please the eye,  And to outshine the rest in finery."

 

This, though not very poetical, is the description of a poet.  Beckmann, in his History of Inventions, paints it with more fidelity,  and in prose more pleasing than Cowley's poetry. He says, "There are  few plants which acquire, through accident, weakness, or disease, so  many variegations as the tulip. When uncultivated, and in its natural  state, it is almost of one colour, has large leaves, and an  extraordinarily long stem. When it has been weakened by cultivation,  it becomes more agreeable in the eyes of the florist. The petals are  then paler, smaller, and more diversified in hue; and the leaves  acquire a softer green colour. Thus this masterpiece of culture, the  more beautiful it turns, grows so much the weaker, so that, with the  greatest skill and most careful attention, it can scarcely be  transplanted, or even kept alive."

 

    Many persons grow insensibly attached to that which gives them a  great deal of trouble, as a mother often loves her sick and  ever-ailing child better than her more healthy offspring. Upon the  same principle we must account for the unmerited encomia lavished upon  these fragile blossoms. In 1634, the rage among the Dutch to possess  them was so great that the ordinary industry of the country was  neglected, and the population, even to its lowest dregs, embarked in  the tulip trade. As the mania increased, prices augmented, until, in  the year 1635, many persons were known to invest a fortune of 100,000  florins in the purchase of forty roots. It then became necessary to  sell them by their weight in perits, a small weight less than a grain.  A tulip of the species called Admiral Liefken, weighing 400 perits,  was worth 4400 florins; an Admiral Von der Eyk, weighing 446 perits,  was worth 1260 florins; a shilder of 106 perits was worth 1615  florins; a viceroy of 400 perits, 3000 florins, and, most precious of  all, a Semper Augustus, weighing 200 perits, was thought to be very  cheap at 5500 florins. The latter was much sought after, and even an  inferior bulb might command a price of 2000 florins. It is related  that, at one time, early in 1636, there were only two roots of this  description to be had in all Holland, and those not of the best. One  was in the possession of a dealer in Amsterdam, and the other in  Harlaem. So anxious were the speculators to obtain them that one  person offered the fee-simple of twelve acres of building ground for  the Harlaem tulip. That of Amsterdam was bought for 4600 florins, a  new carriage, two grey horses, and a complete suit of harness.  Munting, an industrious author of that day, who wrote a folio volume  of one thousand pages upon the tulipomania, has preserved the  following list of the various articles, and their value, which were  delivered for one single root of the rare species called the viceroy  :--                                    florins.  Two lasts of wheat..............  448  Four lasts of rye...............  558  Four fat oxen...................  480  Eight fat swine.................  240  Twelve fat sheep................  120  Two hogsheads of wine...........   70  Four tuns of beer...............   32  Two tons of butter..............  192  One thousand lbs. of cheese.....  120  A complete bed..................  100  A suit of clothes...............   8O  A silver drinking cup...........   6O                                  -----                                   2500                                  -----

 

    People who had been absent from Holland, and whose chance it was  to return when this folly was at its maximum, were sometimes led into  awkward dilemmas by their ignorance. There is an amusing instance of  the kind related in Blainville's Travels. A wealthy merchant, who  prided himself not a little on his rare tulips, received upon one  occasion a very valuable consignment of merchandise from the Levant.  Intelligence of its arrival was brought him by a sailor, who presented  himself for that purpose at the counting-house, among bales of goods  of every description. The merchant, to reward him for his news,  munificently made him a present of a fine red herring for his  breakfast. The sailor had, it appears, a great partiality for onions,  and seeing a bulb very like an onion lying upon the counter of this  liberal trader, and thinking it, no doubt, very much out of its place  among silks and velvets, he slily seized an opportunity and slipped it  into his pocket, as a relish for his herring. He got clear off with  his prize, and proceeded to the quay to eat his breakfast. Hardly was  his back turned when the merchant missed his valuable Semper Augustus,  worth three thousand florins, or about 280 pounds sterling. The whole  establishment was instantly in an uproar; search was everywhere made  for the precious root, but it was not to be found. Great was the  merchant's distress of mind. The search was renewed, but again without  success. At last some one thought of the sailor.

 

    The unhappy merchant sprang into the street at the bare suggestion.  His alarmed household followed him. The sailor, simple soul! had not  thought of concealment. He was found quietly sitting on a coil of  ropes, masticating the last morsel of his "onion." Little did he dream  that he had been eating a breakfast whose cost might have regaled a  whole ship's crew for a twelvemonth; or, as the plundered merchant  himself expressed it, "might have sumptuously feasted the Prince of  Orange and the whole court of the Stadtholder." Anthony caused pearls  to be dissolved in wine to drink the health of Cleopatra; Sir Richard  Whittington was as foolishly magnificent in an entertainment to King  Henry V; and Sir Thomas Gresham drank a diamond, dissolved in wine, to  the health of Queen Elizabeth, when she opened the Royal Exchange:...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 1.3.2018
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Psychologie ► Allgemeine Psychologie
• ISBN-10: 1-4554-2095-6 / 1455420956
• ISBN-13: 978-1-4554-2095-7 / 9781455420957