'is f I ;i G L E A H,r^?g,g.^3, FOR THE CURIOUS FROM THE Harvest-Fields of Literahtre. A MELANGE OF EXCERPTA, COLLATED BY C. C. |BOMBAUGH, A.M., M.D. " So she gleaned in the field until even, and beat out that she had gleaned : and it was about an epliaU of barley." — Ruth 2 :17. " I liave here made a nosegay of culled flowers, and have brought nothing of my own but the string that ties them." — Montaiqnh. PHILADELPHIA: J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY. Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by A. 1). WORTHINGTON & CO. iu the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Wasliington. ?Prcfator|). i am not ignorant, nc unsure, tt)at mang tl)cre are, tcforc luljosc stgljt tijis 13ook sfjall fm'Hc small grace, ant Ifsse fabour. *o ijarti a tfjing It (0 to lurite or intitte ang matter, totatsocbcr it fie, tijat stjoulti fie able to sustatne anti aittie tijc bartalile jutigement, anti to ofitaine or Intnne ti)e constant lobe anti allob)ance of eberj) man, especially) if it containe in it ang nobeltg or untoontet) strangenesse. — Raynald's WoxMan's Book. .^^^1 fl'J Bid him welcome. This is the motley-minded gentleman. As You Like It. A fountain set round with a rim of old, mossy stones, and paved in its bed with a sort of mosaic work of variously-colored P®^^^^^- House of Seven Gables. A gatherer and a disposer of other men's stuff. WOTTON. A running banquet that hath much variety, but little of a sort. Butler. They have been at a great feast of languages, and stolen the *°^^P^- Love's Labor Lost. There's no want of meat, sir ; portly and curious viands are prepared to please all kinds of appetites. Massixger. A dinner of fragments is said often to be the best dinner. So are there few minds but might fui-nish some instruction and en- tertainment out of their scraps, their odds and ends of thought. They who cannot weave a uniform web may at least produce a piece of patchwork ; which may be useful and not without a charm °^ "s O'^^- Guesses at Truth. It is a regular omnibus ; there is something in it to every- body's taste. Those who like fat can have it ; so can they who like lean; as well as those who prefer sugar, and those who choose pepper. Mysteries of Paris. Read, and fear not thine own understanding: this book will create a clear one in thee ; and when thou hast considered thy purchase, thou wilt call the price of it a charity to thyself. Shirley. In winter you may reade them ad ignem, by the fireside, and in summer ad umbram, under some shadie tree ; and therewith passe away the tedious howres. ^^altonstall INTRODUCTION, An earlier edition of Gleanings having attracted tlie hearty api)ro- val of a Hmited circle of that class of readers who prefer " a running banquet that hath much variety, but little of a sort," the present pub- lisher requested the preparation of an enlargement of the work. In the augmented form in which it is now offered to the public, the con- tents will be found so mTich more comprehensive and omnifarious that, while it has been nearly doubled in size, it has been more than doubled in literary value. Miscellanea of the omnium-gatherum sort appear to be as accep- table to-day as they undoubtedly were in the youthful period of our literature, though for an opposite reason. When books were scarce, and costly, and inaccessible, anxious readers found in "scripscrap- ologia" multifarious sources of instruction ; now that books are like the stars for multitude, the reader who is appalled by their endless succession and variety is fain to receive with thankfulness the cream that is skimmed and the grain that is sifted by patient hands for his use. Our ancestors were regaled with such oUa-podrida as " The Galimaufry : a Kickshaw [Fr. quclque chose] Treat which comprehends odd bits and scraps, and odds and ends ;" or " The Wit's Miscellany : odd and uncommon epigrams, facetious drolleries, whimsical mottoes, merry tales, and fables, for the entertainment and diversion of good company." To the present generation is accorded a wider field for excursion, from the Curiosities of Disraeli, and the Commonplaces of Southey, to the less ambitioiis collections of less learned collaborators. "Into a hotch-potch," says Sir Edward Coke, " is commonly put not one thing alone, but one thing with other things together." The present volume is an expedient for grouping together a variety which will be found in no other compilation. From the nonsense of literary trifling to the highest expression of intellectual force; from the anachronisms of art to the grandest revelations of science; from selections for the child to extracts for the philosopher, it will accom- modate the widest diversity of taste, and furnish entertainment for all ages, sexes, and conditions. As a pastime for the leisure half-hour, at 1» V Tl INTRODUCTION. home or abroad ; as a companion by the fireside, or the seaside, amid the hum of the city, or in the solitude of rural life; as a means of re- laxation for the mind jaded by business activities, it may be safely commended to acceptance. The aim of this collation is not to be exhaustive, but simply to be well compacted. The restrictive limits of an octavo require the winnowings of selection in place of the bulk of expansion, Gar- gantua, we are told by Eabelais, wrote to his son Pantagruel, commanding him to learn Greek, Latin, Chaldaic, and Arabic; all history, geometry, arithmetic, music, astronomy, natural philosophy, etc., "so that there be not a river in the world thou dost not know the name and nature of all its fishes ; all the fowls of the air ; all the several kinds of shrubs and herbs ; all the metals hid in the bowels of the earth, all gems and precious stones. I would furthermore have thee study the Talraudists and Cabalists, and get a perfect knowledge of man. In brief, I would have thee a bottomless pit of all knowl- edge." While this book does not aspire to such Gargantuan compre- hewsiveness, it seeks a higher grade of merit than that which attaches to those who "chronicle small beer," or to him who is merely "a snapper-up of unconsidered trifles." Quaint old Burton, in describing the travels of Paulus Emilius, says, "He took great content, exceeding dehght in that his voyage, as who doth not that shall attempt the like ? For peregrination charms our senses with such unspeakable and sweet variety, that some count him unhappy that never traveled, a kind of prisoner, and pity his case that from his cradle to his old age beholds the same still ; still, still, the same, the same." It is the purpose of these Gleanings to compass such " sweet variety" by conducting the reader here, through the green lanes of freshened thought, and there, through by-paths neglected and gray with the moss of ages; now, amid cultivated fields, and then, adown untrodden ways; at one time, to rescue from oblivion fugitive thoughts which the world should not "willingly let die," at another, to restore to sunlight gems which have been too long " underkept and down supprest." The compiler asks the tourist to accompany him, because with him, as with Montaigne and Hans Andersen, there is no pleasure without communication, and though all men may find in these Collectanea some things which they will recognize as old acquaintances, yet will they find many more with which they are unfamiliar, and to which their attention has never been awakened. (Slonicni^. The Freaks and Follies of Literatui^e— Account of certain Singular Books— What are Pangrammata ?—The Banished Letters— Eve's Legend— Alpha- betical Advei'tisement—The Three Initials— A Jacobite Toast—" The Begin- ning of Ete^-nity^'-T he Poor Letter II— The Letters of the World— Tra2^ for the Cockneys— Ingenious Verses on the Vowels— Alliterative Verses— "A Bevy of Belles'''' —Antithetical Sermon— Acrostics— Double^ Tri2)le,and Pe- xersed Acrostics— Beautifid and Singvlar Instances— The Poets in Verse- On Benedict Arnold— Curious Pasquinade— Monastic Verses— The Figure of the Fish— Acrostic on Xapoleon—Madame Pachael— Masonic Memento— " Rempe '"'—'■'■ Brevity of Human Life''''— Acrostic Valentine- Anagrams- German, Latin, and English Instances— Chronograms 25 ^alinbromcs. Beading in every Style— What is a Palindrome ?—Wiat St. Martin said to the Dexll—The Lawyer's Motto— Wliat Adam said toEve—The Poor Young Man in Love— What Bean Swift wrote to Br. Sheridan— "■ The 'Witch's Prayer''— Tlie Device ofaLady—Uuguenot and Eoman'ist; Double Dealing. 59 €qmboqn£. A Very Deceitful Epistle— A Wicked Love Letter— Wliat a Young Wife wrote to her Friend— The Jesuit's Creed— Revolutionary Verses— Double Deal- ings—A Fatal Name— The Tnple Platform— A Bishop's Evasion— The " Toast"" givenbya Smart Young Mati—"-T lie Ilaruhvriting on the Wall"— French Actresses— How Mdlle. Mars told her Age— A Lenient Judge— What Mdlle. Cico ivhixiKred to " the Bench." 64 CONTENTS. 'A Cloak of Patc7ies"—ndw Centos are made— Mosaic Poetry— The Poets in a Mixed State-New Version of Old Lines— Cento on Life— A Cento from thirty-eight Authors— Cento from Pope—Biblical Sentiments— The Beturn of Israel— Religious Centos 73 IJlacaronk ^cx$t. 'A Treatise on Wine'^— Monkish 02)inions—n7iich Tree is Pest?— A Lover with Nine Tongues— Horace in a Neio Dress— What loas Written on a Fly-Leaf— ^"^ The Cat and tJie Rats"'— An Advertisement in Five Lan- guages— Parting Address to a Friend—'- Oh, the Rhine! "—The Death of the Sea Sei-pent T8 Lasphrise's Novelties— Singular Ode to Death— On "■The Truth"— '■'■ Long I looked into the Sky"— A Ringing Song— A Gem of Three Centuries Old 85 The Skeletons of Poetry— IIoiv the Poet Dvlot lost all his Ideas— The Flight of three hundred Sonnets— The '■'■Nettle" Rhymes— How a Yming Lady teased her Beaii— Assisting a Poet— Miss Lydia's Acrostic— Alfred De MusseCs Lines— What the Due de Malakoff wrote— Reversed Rhymes— Hozv to make "Rhopalic" verses!— What they are 88 (Embkmaiic ^oftrir. Poetry in Visible Shape— The Boiv and Arrmv of Lore— The Deceitful Glass- Prudent Advice— A Vei^j Singular Dirge— Poetr^y among the Monks— Sacred Symbols — A Hymn in CrucifoiTn Shajje — Ancient Devices — Verses wifhiii the Cross— Cypher— '' U Q a 0, but I U"— Perplexing Printer's Puzzle— An Oxford Joke— The Puzzle of " The Precepts Ten"— A Mysterious Letter to toMissK. T.J 93 CONTENTS, Ponosnlhibks. The Power of Lillle Words— llow Pope Bidiculed tlmtv—TM '■^Universal Prayer^''— Examiik of Dr. Watts— Weslet/s Hymns— Writings of Shake- sjTeare and Mil/on— '' Address to the Daffodils''— Geo. HeiberCs Poems- Testimony of Keble, Young, Lando?', and Fletcher— Examples frmn Bailey's '■'■ Festus"—The Short Words of Scripture— Big and Little Words Com- jnred 08 %\2t fibk. Who ivrote the Scnptures—WIiy—And When— Accuracy of the Bible— The Testimony of Modern Discoveries— Scope and Depth of Scripture Teaching— Wliat Learned Men have ivritten of tJie Bible— Testimony of Rmisseau, Wil- herforce, Bolingbroke, Sir Wm. Jones, Webster, John Quincy Adams, Addi- son, Byron, (&c.—Who Translated the Bible— m.cklif's Version— Tyndale's Translation— Matthew's Bible— Cranmer's Edition— The Geneva Bible— The Breeches Bible— The Bishop's BiUe— Parker's Bible— The Douay Bible- King James's Bible— The Number of Books, Chapters, Verses, Words, and Letters in the Old and New Testaments— The Bible Dissected— An Extra- ordinary Calcidation— Distinctions between the Gospels— The Lost Books— What the ivord "■ Selah" means— The Poetry of the Bible— S?iakespeare's Knmvledge of Scripaa'C-The " True Gentleman" of the Bible— Misqvota- tions from Sctipture-A Scriptural "■ Bull"— Wit and Humor in the Bible— Sortes Sacroi- Casting Lots with the Bible 103 £Ik |J'am£ of 6oi). Hoio God is known— His Name in all the tongues of Earth— Andent Saxon Ideas of Deity— '■' Elohim'"' and "■Jehovah "—The " Lord" of the Ancient Jews-'''' God in Shakespea7-e"—The Fatherhood of God— The Parsee, Jew, and Christian 127 The Name of Jesus— What does I. H S. Mean.^-De Nomine Jcsu— What St. Bemardine did—'' The Flower of Jesse"— Story of the Infant Jesus— Ancient Legends of Chiist— Persian Sto7^ ; The Dead Dog—Descrij->tionof CliHst's Person— The Death Warrant of Christ— The Sign of the Cross in Ancient A7neiica 130 CONTENTS. Thy and Us— The '■'■ SjArif" of the Lord's Prayer— Gothic Version of the Fourth Centui'y—Metncal Versions— Set to Mmic—TJie Pixtyer Illustrated— Acrostical Paraphrase— What the Bible C'o?nmentalo7's Said— The Prayer Echoed— A Singidar Aavstic 13fi (gcclcsiasfica. Anecdotes of Clergy— Excessive Ciiility—A Very Polite Preacher— Dean Swift's shm't Sermon— '■'■ Down with the Dust"— An Abbreviated Sermion-Dr. Dodo's Sermon on 3Mt— Bombastic Style of Bascom—The Preachers of CromweWs time— When a man ought to Cough!— Origin of Texts— How the Ancient Prophets PreacJied— Clerical Blunders— Proving an Alibi— Whitefleld and the Sailoi's-Pj-otestant Excommunication— The Tender Mercies of John Knox 143 ^luritau ^ctuliaritus. The Puritan Maiden " Tiibby'^-A Jury-List of 1658— ^?i Extraordinary List of Names— Singidar Similes— Early Punishments in Massachusetts— Vir- ginia Penalties in tlie Olden Time^Primitive Fines for Curious Crimes- Staying away from Church— The ''Blue Laivs" of Connecticut— Hard Punishments for Little Faults 150 |)uronomas::i. The Art of Pun-making— What is Wit?— Puns Among the Hebreios—A Pun- gent Chapter— Punning Examples— The Short Pood to Wealth— A "-Man of Greece" — Witty Impromptus of Sydney Smith— Startling toast of Hairy Erskine—'-' Top and Bottom"— The Imp of Darkness and the Imp o' Light— A Pnnter's Epitaph— The ''whacks" and the " s/icA "— " Wo-man " and. " Whim-m£n"—Faithless Sally Brown— W hiskers versus Eazors— Pleasure and Payne— Plaint of tlie old PaujJer- To my Nose— Bad "^acconntants'" but excellent "book-keepers"- T7ie Vegetable Girl— On an Old Horse- Grand Scheme of Education-" The Perilous Practice of Punning"— "Tn PBrtu Salus"— Oa a Youth who was killed by Fruit— The Appeal of Widow-Hood— Swiff s Latin Puns— Puns in Macbeth— Classical Puns and Mottoes— Mottoes of the English Peerage— J enx-de-'Jilots—Hotv Schott Will- ing—A Catalectic Monody— Bees of the Bible— Franklin'' s " Iie''s"—Fminy " Miss-jVot>iers "— Crooked Coincidences— A Court Fool's Pun 155 CONTENTS. Xi ©irglislj ©lorbs anb J'orms of dB-^prcssioit. Dictionary English— Number of words in the English Language— Language of of the Bible— Sources of tlie Language— Helping a Fo7-eigner— Difficulties of the Language— Disraelian English— Why use " Ye^'' ?—Ils, His, and Her— How often " That " may be used— How many sounds are given to " cugh "— A Literary Squabble— Concerning certain Words— Excise, Pontiff, Sough— Dr. Johnson in T/vuble— Americanisms— " No Love Lost"— The Forlorn Hope— Quiz— Tennyson's English— Eccentric Etymologies— Words which have changed their Meaning— Strange Derivations— Influence of Names- Big Words and Long Naiiies 183 The Domicile erected by John— New Version of an Old Story— Curiosities of Advertising— Mr. Connors and his big Words— Cmiosities of the Post Office— Singular Play Bill— Andrew Borde, his Book— The Mad Poet— Footers Funny Farrago— Burlesque of Dr. Johnson— Newspaper Eulogy— "Clear as Mud''— An Indignant Letter— A Chemical Valentine— The Surgeon to his Lady-love— The Lawyers Ode to Spring— Proverbs fcv Pre- cocious Pupils 212 P^drk ^iro££. Unconscious Poetizing— Cowpers Ehyming Letter to Neivton— Poetic Prose in Irvitig's Knickerbocker— Example fro?n Disraeli's " Abay"— Unintentional Rhythm in Charles Dickens' works— Old Curiosity Shop and Nicholas NicUeby— American Notes— Versification in Scriptwe—Phym£s fi'om Cele- brated Prosers — Curious Instance of Abraham Lincoln — Opimon of Dr. Johnson— Examples from Kemble and Siddons 223 STbe llumors cf Otrslficalicir. Th£ Story of the Lovers— Mingled Moods and Tenses— The Stammering Wife— A Song with Variations— "■ While She Bocks the Cradle"— A Serio- Comic Elegy— Eemlnlscence of Troy— Concerning Vegetaiianism—W. C. Bryant as a Humorist— Address " To a Mosquito"— The '■'•Poet" of the "■Atlantic" —Bryant's Travesty— A Pare Pipe— The Human Ear— A Lesson in Acous- tics—Amusing Burlesque of Tennyson— Sir Tray; an Arthurian Idyl- All About the " Olofies" — The Variation Humbug — Buggvis and the Busy Bee— Comical Singing in Church— The Curse of O' Kelly 230 C O N T E N T I |)ikrniana. Insh Bulls and Blunders— Miss Edgeworth on the '■'■ Bull ''"'— Comical Letter of an Irish " Jf. P^— Bulls in Missisdppi— American Bulls— The Neiv Jail— A Frenchmaii's Blundei'-The '■'■ Puir Silly Body'''' who wrote a Book— The ''bulls" of Classical Writers— Bulls from every Quarter and of all kinds. '§lxn\btxs. Slips of the Press— The Bishop Acaised of Swearinrj—The Damp Old Church— From, a French Newspaper— T lie Pig-killing Machine and the Doctor- Slips of the Telegraph— Simmons and the Cranberries— Finishing his Education— The Poets in a Quandary— Blunders of Translators— Rather Gigantic Grasshoppers— '' Love's last Shift "—Amusing Blunder of Voltaire — "yl Fortune Cutting Meat"— A New '■'■Translation" of Hamlet— The Frenchman and the Welsh Rabb'it 259 Pisqnolations. Curious Misquotations of Well-known Authors— Exa9nple of Collins— Sir Walter Scott in E)TOr— Blunder of Sir Archibald Al'ison—Cruikshank as the Beat '"Si77wnPure"—JudgeBesVs'' Great Mind"— Byron's Little Mistake. 206 ^nhxicni'xans. The Description of Christ's Person a Fabrication—''- Detector's " Charge against Scott—The "Ministering Angel" not a Fabrication^ The Moon Hoax— A Literary "Sell"—Ca7iyle's Worshippers Oidicitted-Mrs. Ilemans' Forg- er— Shooting Ducks with a Gun in tlie Garden of Eden— Wonderful Sjxcimens of Minute ATec'ianism-Homer in a Nutsliell—The Bible in a Walnut— Squaring tlie Circle— Mathematical Prodigies-Story of a Wonder- ful Boy-Babbage's Calculating Machine— Extraordinary Feats of Memory— A Bishop's Heroism— Silent Compliment 406 Khz (fancies of ^dfact.-coNTiNUED. The Exact Dhnmsions of Heaven— The cost of Solow.oiCs Temple— The Mytic Numbers '■ Seven " and " Tliree "—Curious power of Number Nine— Size of Noah's Ark and the Great EtisteTQ— About Colors: Uieir Immense Variety- Vast Aerolites, and what tliey are-FateofAmeiica's Discoverers —Facts about the Presidents— Value of Queen Victmid's Jeivels—An Anny of Women— The Star in the East— Benjamin Franklin's Court Dress— Extraor- dinary instances of Longevity— Do Americans live long?— A man ivho lived more than 200 years— '■^ Quack-quack" and "■ Botu-ivoiv " —A Maniage Voio of the Olden Time—'-'' Burum in Bedde and at Uie Borde "— What came in a dream to Ilerschel — Singular Factsabovt Sleej)— Curious Cliinese Torture— Do Fishes ever Sleep? -How a Bird Grafts his Perch ivhen Asleep— How to gain Seven Years and a half of Life— Effects of Opium and Indian Hemp— Confes- sion of an EnglishOpiuni-Eater— Strange Effects of Fear —T lie Tliiefandthe Feathers— The Poisoned Coachman— How a Man Died of Notldng— What Chas. Bell did to the Monkeij—A Man iviOi Two Faces— Thrilling Story of a '■'■Broken heart "—No Comfort in being Beheaded— A Man zvho Spoke after his Head wascut off— A Man who Lived after Sensation was Destroyed— Comical Antipathies— Afraid of Boiled Lobsters— A Fi-ih and a Fever— Why Joseph Scaliger couldn't Drink Milk— T tie Man tvho Pan away from a Cat- About the Cock that Frightened Cmar—Tlie Two Brothers ivith One Set of feelings— How Dennis Hendrick won his Strange Bet— Walking Blind-folded —How to Tell the Time by Cats' Eyes— How a Young Woman was Cured by a Ping— The Story told by a Skull— A Pomantic Highway Bobber. . 4:35 CONTENT! s; iitgular Customs. The Coffin on the Table— Queer Mode of Enjoying Oneself— A Beautiful Indian Custom— Why the People of Carazan Murder their Guests— Danger of Being Handsome— How an Evil Spirit ivas Frightened Aivay— Beefsteaks from a Live Cow— Compliments Paid to a Bear—Hoio Noses are Made— How Lions are Caught by the Tail— A Picture of High Life Four Centuries Ago— Why Hairs were put in Ancient Seals— Fining People for not Getting Married— A Cuiious Mat)imo?iial Advertisement 47T dacttta. Odd Titles for a Sham Library— Puns of Tom Hood — The Jests of Hierocles— Curious Letter of Eothschild's-Smne Singularly Shwt Letters— A Bisappoint- ed Lover—''' The Hapinest Bog Alive "—What Happened Between Abernethy and the Lady— Witty Sayings of Talleyrand— Why Rochester's Poem was Best— How the Emperor Nicholas was ''■ SoW'— Difference Between " Old Harry'''' and " Old Nick'"— Comical Stm-yofa very Mean Man— Instances of Audacious Boasting— Chas. Matheios and the Silver Spoon— How a King Upset his Inside— Curious Story of Some Edics—What " Topsy's'''' Other Natne Was— Minding their P's and Q' s— Practical Jokesofa Russian Jester. 4S2 JIasljcs of ^xigartjcc. Curran and Sir Boyle Roche— Witty Reply of a Fishwmnan—Cobden and the American Lady— Witty Suggestion of Naiwleon-Making ''Game"" of a Lady— The Road that no Peddler ever Traveled — "^ Pupjyy in his Boots/'''— A Quaker's Queer Suggestion— What the Girl said to Curran— A Man who had "never been Weaned''''— Ready Wit of Theodore Hook— "■Cliaff''' betiveen Barrow and Rochester— A Windy M. P.— A Clergyman knoicn by his " Walk"— A Man ivho '■"had a Right to Speak'"— The " Wecck Brother'''' and Tobacco Pipes— Beecher Lecturing for F-A-M-E— Admiral Keppel and the He-Goat— Thackeray and the Beggar-Woman—What Paddy said about " Ayther and Nayther "—Scribe and the French Millionaire- Voltaire and Haller— Why Paddy '■'■Loved her SHU"— Bacon and Hogg— '■'■A Most Excellent Judge"— Thackeray Snubbed— Christian Cannibalism- How a Barristers Eloquence was Silenced 493 (lb ^£«S. Masculine and Feminine Virtues and Vices— Character of the Happnj Woman— WMt Mrs. Jameson said about Women— Old Ballad in Praise of Women — XVIU CONTENTS. The Two Sexes Compared— What John Randolph said in Praise of Matri- mony— Wife; Mistress; or Lady?— St. Leon's Toast to his Mother.... 501 The Caliph of Bagdad— Shrewd Decision of a Moslem Judge— A Question of Dinner— How tJie Money was Divided— The Wisdom of Ali—The Prophet's Judgment: Wisdom and Wealth— Mohammedan Logic— The Foolish Young Man who Fell in Love- Queer Case of Comequential Damages— Sad Blunder of Omar— A Perplexing Turkisfi Will— The Dertisers Device 508 €*xcrpta from ^Ursiait '^adw. Earth an Illusion— Heaven an Echo of Earth— A Moral Atmosphere— Fortune and Worth— Broken Hearts— To a Generous Man— Beauty's Prerogative- Proud Humility— FMy for Oneself— An Impossibility— Sober D')iinken- ness—A Wine Drinker's Metaphors— T lie Verses of Mirtsa Sdiaffy-The Unappreciative World— The Caliph and Satan— Curious Dodge of the Devil 511 Epigrams. An Epigram on Epigrams— Midas and Modem Statesmen— '■'• Come Gentle Sleep'''— A Man who Wrote Long Epitaphs— The Fool and the Poet— "Dnm Vivimus Vivamus "— Z/r. Johnson and Molly Ashton—A Know- Nothing— Epigram on " Our Bed''"'— On a Late Repentance— A Pale Lady with a Red-Nosed Husband— Snowjlakes on a Lady's Breast— To John MUton— Wesley on Butler— Ridiculous Compliment to Pope—Athol Brose— What is Eternity— Stolen Sermons— Comical Advice to an Author— A Frugal Queen— Man With a Thick SkuU—Miss Prue and the Kiss— A Ready- Made Angel— The Lover and the Looking- Glass- A Cajn-icioxis Friend— A Man who Told "Fibs "—Unlucky End of a Scorpion— The Lawyer and the Novel— A Woman's Will— Wellington' s Big Nose— The Miser and his Money— On Bad Singing— Old Nick and the Fiddle— Foot-man versus Toe- man-'^'Hot Corn'"'— Bonnets of Straw— An '■^Original Sin" Man— On Writing Verses— Prudent Simplicity— A Friend in Distress— Hog v. Bacortr— A Warm Reception— Taking Medical Advice— Definition of a Dentist— Dr. Goodenough's Sermon— What Might Have Been— A Reflection- The Woman in the Case-Hoio Lawyers are "■ Keen"— Dux and Drakes— The Hirson's Eyes— "-He Didn't Mean Her"— Affinity Between Gold and Lore—The Crier who Coidd not Cry— The Parson and the Butcher— A Hard Case of Strikes- Coats of Male— r^e Beaux upon the Quiver— On Burning V.ldows— CONTENTS. XIX Learning Speeches by Ueart—A Golden Webb — The Jawbone of an Ass- Walking on hei' Head— Marriage h la mode— Qtiid Pro Quo— Woman, jno andcon— Abundance of Fools— The Wo7-ld—'' Tenniner Sans Oyer"— Seeing Double -13 |mprom|jtus. P?'. Young and his Eie—IIow Ben Jonson Paid Ids Pill— What Melville said to Queen Elizabeth- The ''Angel" in the Pew— How Andrew Horner was Cut up— What Hastings Wrote of Burke— Imprmnptu of Dr. Jolinson— Burlesque of Old Bcdlads—What was " Running in a Lady''s Head"— Im- provised Rhyiyies— Like vnto Judas— How tlie Devil got his Due— The Writ- ing on tlie Window— "'■ I Thought so Yeste7'day"—What is Wntten on tlie Gates of Hell— Burns' " Grace before Meat''' 528 Julianna and the Lozenges— Brougham'' s Rhyme for Mm'ris—The French Speculator's EpUaph— What is a Monosomphc— Rhy?nes fw Month, Chim- ney, Liquid, Carpet, Window, Garden, Porringer, Orange, Lemon, Pilgrim, Widow, Tindi'ictoo, Niagara, Maclwnoclde— Rhyme to Gottingen—T he Ingoldsby Legends— PuncK s Funny Rhymes— Chapin's Rhyme to Bnmble- comA—Butlefs Rhyme to Philosopher— A Rliyme to Germany— Hood's Nocturnal Sketch 534 Ihilcntinrs. A Strategic Love-Letter— Love-Letter in Divisible Ink— Secret Livitation Con- cealed in a Love-Lettej'-Macaulay's Essay to Jfary C. Stanhope— Love- Verses of Robert Burns— Teutonic Alliteration— Singular Letter in Tliree Columns— Love- Letter Written in Blood— A Valentine in Many Languages- Practical Joke on a Colored Man— Unpublished Verses of Tho?nas- Mome— An Egyptian Serenade— Petition of Sixteen Maids against the Widows of Sout'i Carol'ma— Unlucky Petition to Madame de Maintenon 544 Sonnets. How the Fourteen Lines icere Written —Sonnet on a Fashionable Church— Onthe Proxy Saiid— About a Nose— On Dyspejisia-Humility-Ave Maria.'... 551 Conformitn of Stnsc lo Sounb. Articulate Imitation of Inarticulate Sounds— Example from Pope— Milton's ^* Lyddas" —From Dyer's '■'■Ruins of Rome"— Imitations of Time and XX CONTENTS. Motion— '■'■ V Allegro''— Pope's '■'■ Homer'"— Dry den's '■'■ Lucretius"— Miltm^'s '■'■ 11 Fenseroso"—Fine Examples from Yirgil— Imitations of Difficulty and Ease 554 (^familiar Quotations from (Unfamiliar Souras. " No Cross, no Crown"—'' Corporations have no Souls"—" Children of a Larger Growth"—"' Consistency a Jewel"— '' Cleanliness next to Godliness"— ''lie's a Brick"—" When at Rome, do as the Romans"—'' Taking Time by the Forelock"—" What loill ih-s. Grundy Say?"—" Though Lost to Sight, to Memoi-y Dear"—" Conspicuous by its Absence"— " Do as I Saij, not «>■ 2 Do"— " Honesty the Best Policy"— " Facts are Stubborn Things"— " Cam- ])arisonsare Odious"—" Dark as Pitch"—" Every Ti/bon its own Bottom" — Two Pages of Exainples, Intcresling, Amusing, and Instructive 550 Cljurtljiiarb ITitcrature. Epitaphs of Eminent Men— Appropriate and Rare Inscnpt'wns— Franklin's Epitaph on Himself— Touching Memorials of Children— Historical and Biographical Epitaphs— Self-Written Inscriptions— Advertising Notices- Unigue and Ludicrous Epitaphs— Puns in the Churchyard— Puzzling In- scriptions—Parallels Without a Parallel— Bathos— Transcendental Epitaph— Acrostical Inscnptions— Indian, African, Hibernian, Greek Epitaphs- Patchwork Character on a Tombslone—7'he Printer's Epitaph— Specimens of Exceedingly Brief Epitaphs— Highly Laudatory Inscriptions— A Chemical Epitaph— On an Arctdtect- On an Oiator-On a Watchmaker— On a Miser!// Money Lender— On a Tailor— On a Dancing Master— On an Infldd—On Voltaire— On Hume— On Tom Paine— " Earth to Earth" — Byron' s In- soript'ion on his Dog 5G4 Inscriptions. Old EngUih Tavern Sign-Boards— Curious Origin of Absurd Signs—" The Magpie and Crown"—" The Hen and the Razor"-" The Swan-ic'ilhtwo- Necks"— Singular Statement of Sir Joseph Banks—" The Goat and Com- passes"— The "Signs" of Puritan Times- A Cunous " Ref07mation" - "The Cat and the Fiddle"-" Satan and the Bag of Nails"— Ancient Signs m Pompeii— The Four Awls and the Grave Morris— The " Queer Door," and the" Pig and WhisUe'' -Heraldic Signs of the Middle Ages— " Ihavea Cunen Fox, <&c.'— Versified Inscriptions— Coojier and his"Zwei Glasses "- How a Sign Cose a Man his Life— An Inscription m Four Columns— Betr-Jug Inscriptions— Insoijifions on mndow-Panes— Quaint Description of an Inn in Hie Olden, Time— Curious Inscriptions on Bells— CONTENTS. XXI Baptising and Anointing Bells— The Great Torn of Oxfm'd— Amusing Old Fly-Leaf Insaiplions—Sun-Dial Insa-iptions— Memorial Verses— Francke's Singular Discovery— Golden Mottoes— '' Posies'' from Wedding Rings.. 615 laralkl fassagcs. Imitations and Plagiarisms of Authors— Cwious Coincidences— Examples from Young, Congreve, Blair, and Shakespeare— Imitations of Olway, Gray, Milton, and Eogers— The Blindness of Uomer and Milton— What Hume said of the Clergy— How Praise Becomes Satire— Parallel Passages from the English Poets— Singidar Examples from Shakespeare— Shakespeare's Ac- quaintance with the Latin, Poets— T houghts Repeated from Age to Age-^ Which was the True Oiiginal.^— Historical Similitudes— What Eadbod said with Ids Legs in the Water— Why Wnlf the Goth, wouldn't be Baptised— Why an Indian Refused to go to Heaven— Curious Choice of a Woman- Last Words of Cardinal Wolseij— Death of Sir James Hamilton— Solomon's Judgment Repeated— Why two Women PuUed a Child's Legs— How Na- poleon Decided Beticeen two Ladies— The Hindoo Legend of the Weasel a'^d the Babe— The Faithful Dog: a Welsh Ballad— Singidar Murder of a Clever Apprentice— Ballads and Legends— Tenible Story of an old Mid- wife—What a Clergyman did at, Midnight— How Genevra was Buried Alive— The Glwst which Apjteai'ed to Antonio— Strange Story of a Ring^ Death Prophecies— What was done before three Battles— How an Army of Mice Devoured Bishop Hatto 040 ^rototpjjcs. The Oldest Proverb on Record— Carious Wish of an Old Lady— Cinderella's Slipper— How an Eagle Stole a Shoe, and a King Chose a Wife— Mrs. Caudle's Curtain Lectures— "■ The Charge of the Light Brigade"— Dr. Faustus and the Devil—''' Blmvn vp" Cushions— What the " Poor Cat i' the Adage" Did— The Lady with Two Cork Legs— The Pope's Bull against the Comet— Lincoln "■ Swapjnng Horses"— Wooden Nutmegs— Trade Unions Two Centuries Ago— Consequential Damages— The Babies that Never were Born— The Original Shylock^Dmidical Excommunication— Fall of Na- poleon I. — Lanark and Lodore — Tlie Song of the Bell — Turgot's Eulogistic Epigraph on Franklin— Origin of the Declaration of Independmce—The Know-NoiMngs— The first Conception of the Pilgrim's Progress— Did Defoe Write Robinson Crusoe?— Talleyrand's Famous Sai/ing- Whence?— Mistake about Blinking out of Skulls— Great Literary Plagiarism— Ongin of Old Ballads— The S/ory of the Wandering Jew fi!)'.) C N T E N T 1 Curious ^oohs. Md Boolcs tvith Odd Titles—'' Shot Aimed at the DeviVs Ileadquariers "— " Civnibs of Comfm-t for Vie Chickens of the Covenant "— " Eggs of Cluinty Layed by Vie Chickens of the Covenant, and Boiled with Vie Water of Divine Lave"— '' High-heeled Shoes for Dwarfs in Holiness"— '■'■ Hooks and Eyes for Believers'' Breeches"— '' SLrpennyioorth of Divine Spirit"— '' Spintual Mustard Pot"— '' Tobacco Battered and Piims Shattei-ed"—''- News from Heaven"— The Most Curious Book in the World— A Book that ivus never Written or Printed, but which can be Read— The Silver Book at Uimil— What is a Bibliognosie?—What a Bibliographe ?—What a Bibliomane ?— What a Bibliophile and a Bibliotaphe ? 720 ITUErariaita. The Mystery of the '^ Letters of Junius"— Who Wrote Them?— What Canning and Macavlay Thought— A Well-kept Secret— Original MS. of Gray's Elegy— The Omitted Stanzas— Imitations— How Po])e Corrected his Manu- sa-ipt-Impcyrtance of Punctuation ; Comical Errors—'-' A Pigeon Making Bread"— How many Nails on a Lady's Hand— A Comical Petition in Church— The Soldier tvho Died for ivant of a Stop— Indian Heraldry- Anachronisms of S hakespeare—King Lear's SjKctacles—The Heroines of Shakespeare— Shakespeare's Life and Sonnets Compared— Was He Lame ?— The Age of Hamlet— Was lie Really Mad ?— Additional, Verses to "-Home, Sweet Home "— The Falsities of History— Two Views of Napoleon— Clarence and the Butt of Malmsey— True Character of Richard III— The Name '■'America" a Fraud— Lexington and Vie "First Blood Shed"— Eye- witnesses in Error- Curious Stonj of Sir Walter Raleigh— The Difference betioeen Wit and Humor— A Rhyming Newspaper— Ruskin's Defence of Book-Lovei s— Letters and their Endings— Shrewd Words of Lord Bacon. 723 fitcnUi. Account of some Famous Linguists— A Man who Knew One Hundred and Eleven Languages— A Cardinal of Many Tongues— Elihu Bur?it, the Learned Blacksmith— Literary Oddities— Curious Habits of Celebrated Anthors—How they have Written their Books— Racine's Adventure icith Vie Workmen- Luther in his Study— Calvin Saibbling in Bed— Rousseau, Le Sage, and Byron at Work— Fontaine, Pascal, Feuelon,- and De Qiiincey— Whence Bacon Sought Inspiration— Culture and Saaifice— T he Soirows and Trials of Great Men—Sharvn Turner and the Printers— A Stingy Old Scribbler— CONTENTS. XXIU Dryden and His Publisher— Jacob Tonfon's Eascalilij ; how He Tried to Cheat the Poet 75G Anecdote of George Washington— What Lafayette said to the King of France- Peculiarities of the Name Napoleon— How Napoleon Eemembtred Milton at the Dreadful Battle of Austerlitz—The Empei-m"s Personal Ajiiiearance— His Opinion of Suicide— Benjai7iin Franklin's Frugal Wife—JIcgor Andre and the " Coiv- Chase "—An English View of Andre and Arnold— How the Astivnomer Royal Found an Old Woman's Clothes— The Boy who set Fire to an Empty Bottle— Cuiious Views of Martin Luther— The Hero of the Reformation— Carlyle's Translation of Luther's Hymn—Curio:i$ Account of Queen Elizabeth— What She Said to the Troublesome Priest— What was the Real Color of Her Hair?— Was Shakespeare a Christian?— Personal De- scription of Oliver Cromwell— How Pope's Skull tvas Stolen— What Became of Wickliffe's Ashes— The Folly of Two Astrologers— Anecdotes of Talley- rand— Porson' s Puzzles teS pistorital plemoranba. The First Blood of the Revolution— The " Tea-Party" at Boston— Tea-Burning at Annapdis—The First Amencan Shijjsof War—Hoiv Qninn Borrowed Twenty Pounds of Shakespeare- Diabolical Proposition of Cotton Mather— A Rod in Pickle for William Penn—How he Escaped— An American Monarchy— Origin of the '^ Star-Spangled Banner"— Origin of the French Tri- Color— Ho2V the Newspapers Changed their Time— Story of Eugenie's Flight from France— Rise and Fall of Napoleon III—'''' L'Empire c'est la YSiix"— Jefferson's Idea of Marie Antoinette— Blucher's Insanity— The Secret of Queen Isabella's Daughter— Was Manj Magdalene a Sinner?— The Husband of Motlier Goose, and ivhat He Did— History and Fiction: which true?— Verdicts which Posterity have Reversed— Great Events from Little Causes— Why Queen Eleanor Quarreled ivith her Husband— Story of Queen Anne's Gloves— How the Flies Helped Forward the Declaration of Inde- pendence—The Discovery of Amenca— Story of Annie Laurie— Who was Robin Adair?— Was Joan of Arc Really Burnt?— The Mystery of Amy Robsart's Death— Anecdotes of William Tell— Who Was He?— '■^ Society" in the Time of Louis XIV— Hoio Cromwell Tricked his Chaplain— The Liist Night of the Girondists— Elizabeth, Essex, and the Ring 783 CONTENTS Pultum in ^arbo. Much Meaning in Little Spaa— Coleridge and the Beasts— '■'■ Boxes'''' thai Govern the World— "I Cannot Fiddle""— "^ Like a Potato''— The Vowels in Order— Balzac's Instance of Self -Bespect—W horn do Mankind Pay Bestf- Comical Instance of Wfvng Emphasis— '" Vive la Mort ! "—Motto for all s— Curious Grace before Meat 823 fife anb §tntl^. What is Death?— Bishop Ileber's " Voyage of Life"— Curious Poem of Br. Home—'' The Bound of Life''— Hugh Peters' Legacy to his Daughter- Franklin's Moral Code— How to Divide Time— Living Life over Again- Rhyming Definitions— What is Earth?— Curious Bej^lies—Bhyming Char- ter of William the Conquerer— Puzzling Question for the Lawyers— What Rabbi Joshua Told the Emperor— Dying Words of Distinguished Persons- Last Prayer of Mary, Queen of Scots— Extraordinary Case of Trance- Curious Question about Lazarus— P?-eservation of Dead Bodies— Corjm of a Lady Preserved for Eighty Tears— Bodies of English Kings Undecayed for many Centuries— Three Rmnan Soldiers Preserved ''Plump and Fresh" for Fifteen Hundred Years— Bodies Converted into Fat— About Mummies- Wonderful Discovei-y in an Etruscan Tomb— The Reign of Terror— What Became of the Bodies of the French Kings— Jewish Tombs in the Valley of Hinnom—A Whimsical Will—The Tripod ofLife-Hoio Many Kinds of Death there Are— Curious Msh Ejntaph— Significance of the Fleur c\e lis— Death of the First Born— Jean Ingeloiu's " Story of Long Ago "—" This is not Your Rest"— Causes of III Success in Life— Futurity— Longfellow on " The Heart"— An Evening Prayer— Beautiful Thought— Life's Parting- Destiny- SijvipathT/-" After ;" Death's Final Conquest— " There is no Death "—Euthanasia 826 aipJjalictiral 31l!jims. LIPOGRAMMATA AND PANGllAMMATA. ■^^"r^'-'^^^^y^i^N No. 59 of the Spectator, Addison, m PsA . "i;* ^i\sv, descanting on the different species of ilse wit, observes, " The first I shall pro- f ^ "^s' ,^W^ duce arc the Lipogrammatists, or letter 'roppers of antiquity, that would take an exception, without any reason, against some particular letter in the alphabet, so as not to admit it once in a whole poem. One Try- phiodorus was a great master in this kind of r*^ r/ writing. He composed an Odyssey, or Epic :^^ , Poem, on the adventures of Ulysses, con- ^■^ ting of four-and-twenty-books, having en- '^i ^ iioly banished the letter A from his first y^ . ' book, which was called Alpha, (as bicus a noii lucendo,) because there was not an alpha in it. His second book was inscribed Beta, for the same reason. In short, the poet excluded the whole four-and-twenty letters in their turns, and showed them that he could do his business without them. It must have been very pleasant to have seen this Poet avoiding the reprobate letter as much as another would a false quantity, and making his escape from it, through the difi"erent Greek dialects, when he was presented with it iu any particular syllable; for the most apt and elegant word iu "2^ . ; ' ' ; .''/':; ai+x?iiai>etical wuims. the whole language was rejected, like a diamond with a flaw in it, it" it appeared blemished with the wrong letter." In Nj. 63, Addison has again introduced Tryphiodorus, in his Vision of the llegion of False Wit, where he sees the phan- tom of this poet pursued through the intricacies of a dance by four-and-twenty persons, (representatives of the alphabet,) who are unable to overtake him. Addison should, however, have mentioned that Tryphiodorus is kept in countenance by no less an authority than Pindar, who, according to Athenjeus, wrote an ode from which the letter sujma was carefully excluded. This caprice of Tryphiodorus has not been without its imi- tators. Peter de Riga, a canon of llheims, wrote a summary of the Bible in twenty-three sections, and throughout each sec- tion omitted, successively, some particular letter. Gordianus Fulgentius, who wrote •' De jEtatibus Mundi el Hominis," has styled his book a wonderful work, chiefly, il may be presumed, from a similar reason; as from the chaptei on Adam he has excluded the letter A; from that on Abel the \l; from that on Cain, the C; and so on through twenty- three chapters. Gregorio Letti presented a discourse to the Academj^ of Hu- morists at Rome, throughout which he had purposely omitted the letter R, and he entitled it the exiled R. A friend having requested a copy as a literary curiosity, (for so he considered this idle performance,) Letti,' to show it was not so difficult a matter, replied by a copious answer of seven pages, in which he observed the same severe ostracism against the letter R. Du Chat, in the "Ducatiana," saj-s " there are five novels in prose, of Lope de Vega, similarly avoiding the vowels; the first without A, the second without E, the third without I, the fourth without 0, and the fifth without U." The Orientalists are not without this literary folly. A Per- sian poet read to the celebrated Jami a ghazel of his own com- position, which Jami did not like; but the writer replied it was, notwithstanding, a very curious sonnet, for the letter Aliff was H ALniABETICAL WHIMS. 27 not to be found in any of the words ! Jarai sarcastically an- Bwered, " You can do a better thing yet ; take away all the letters from every word you have written." This alphabetical whim has assumed other shapes, sometimes taking the form of a fondness for a particular letter. In the Ecloga de Calvis of Hugbald the Monk, all the words begin with a C. In the Nuga3 Venalcs there is a Poem by Petrus Placentius, entitled Pugna Porcorum, in which every word be- gins with a P. In another performance in the same work, en- titled Canum cum cattis cerfamen, in which "apt alliteration's artful aid" is similarly summoned, every word begins with a C. Lord North, one of the finest gentlemen in the Court of James I., has written a set of sonnets, each of which begins with a successive letter of the alphabet. The Earl of Rivers, in the reign of Edward IV., translated the Moral Proverbs of Christiana of Pisa, a poem of about two hundred lines, almost all the words of which he contrived to conclude with the letter E. The Pangrammatists contrive to crowd all the letters of the alphabet ipto every single verse. The prophet Ezra may bo regarded as the fiither of them, as may be seen by reference to ch. vii., v. 21, of his Book of Prophecies. Ausonius, a Ro- man poet of the fourth century, whoso verses arc characterized by great mechanical ingenuity, is fullest of these fancies. The following sentence of only 48 letters, contains every letter of the alphabet: — John F. Brady ^ give me a hlack wal- nut box of quite a small size. The stanza subjoined is a specimen of both lipogrammatio and pangrammatic ingenuity, containing every letter of the alphabet except e. Those who remember that e is the most indispensable letter, being much more frequently used than any other,* will perceive the difficulty of such composition. * The relative proportions of the letters, in the formation of words, have been pretty accurately determined, as follows : — A 85 E 120 I 80 M 30 Q 5 U .34 Y 20 B 16 P 25 J 4 N 80 R 62 V 12 Z 2 C .30 G 17 KB 80 S 80 AV 20 D 44 II 64 L 40 P 17 T 90 X * 28 ALPHABETICAL WHIMS. A jovial swain may rack his brain, And tax his fancy's might, To quiz in vain, for 'tis most plain, That what I say is right. The Fate 0/ Nassan aifords another example, each stanza coutaiuing the entire alphabet except e, and composed, as the writer sap, with ease without e's. Bold Nassan quits his caravan, ^ A hazy mountain-grot to scan ; Climbs jaggy rocks to spy his way, Doth tax his sight, but far doth stray. Not work of man, nor sport of child, Finds Nassan in that mazy wild; Lax grow his joints, limbs toil in vain — Poor wight! why didst thou quit that plain? Vainly for succor Nassan calls. Know, Zillah, that thy Nassan falls: But prowling wolf and fox may joy To quarry on thy Arab boy. Lord Holland, after reading the five Spanish novels already alluded to, in 1824, composed the following curious example, in which all the vowels except E are omitted : — eve's legend. Men were never perfect ; yet the three brethren Veres were ever esteemed, respected, revered, even when the rest, whether the select few, whether the mere herd, were left neglected. The eldest's vessels seek the deep, stem the element, get pence ; the keen Peter, when free, wedded Hester Green, — the slender, stern, severe, erect Hester Green. The next, clever Ned, less dependent, wedded sweet Ellen Hebcr. Stephen, ere ho met the gentle Eve, never felt tenderness : he kept kennels, bred steeds, rested where the deer fed, went where green trees, where fresh breezes, greeted sleep. There he met the meek, the gentle Eve: she tended her sheep, she ever neglected self: she never heeded pelf, yet she heeded the shepherds oven less. Nevertheless, her cheek reddened when she met Stephen ; yet decent reserve, meek respect, tempered her speech, even wLcn she shewed tenderness. Stephen felt the sweet effect: ho felt ho erred when he fled the sex, yet felt he defenceless when Eve seemed tender. She, he reflects, never deserved neglect; she never vented spleen ; he esteems her gentleness, her endless deserts; he reverences her steps; ho greets her : — ALPHABETICAL WHIMS. 29 "Tell me whence these meek, these gentle sheep, — whence the yet meeker, the gentler shepherdess?" *■ Well bred, we were eke better fed, ere we went where reckless men seek fleeces. There we were fleeced. Need then rendered me shepherdess, need renders me sempstress. See me tend the sheep; see me sew the wretched shreds. Eve's need preserves the steers, preserves the sheep ; Kvc's needle mends her dresses, hems her sheets; Eve feeds the geese; Kvc jircserves the cheese." Her speech melted Stephen, yet he nevertheless esteems, reveres her. He litnt the knee where her feet pressed the green; he blessed, he begged, he pressed her. "Sweet, sweet Eve, let me wed thee; be led where Hester Green, where Ellen Hober, where the brethren Vere dwell. Free cheer greets thee there; Ellen's glees sweeten the refreshment; there severer Hester's decent reserve checks heedless jests. Be led there, sweet Eve \" " Never ! wo well remember the Seer. We went where he dwells — wo entered the cell — we begged the decree, — ' Where, whenever, when, 'twere well Eve be wedded ? Eld Seer, tell.' " He rendered the decree ; see here the sentence decreed !" Then she presented Stephen the Seer's decree. The verses were these : — "Ere the green reed be red, Sweet Ece, be never iced ; Ere be green the red cheek, Never wed thee. Eve meek." The terms perplexed Stephen, yet he jeered the terms ; he resented the senseless credence, " Seers never err." Then he repented, knelt, wheedled, wept. Eve sees Stephen kneel ; she relents, yet frets when she remembers the Seer's decree. Her dress redeems her. These were the events : — Her well-kempt tresses fell ; sedges, reeds, bedecked them. The reeds fell, the edges met her cheeks ; her cheeks bled. She presses the green sedge where her cheek bleeds. Red then bedewed the green reed, the green reed then speckled her red cheek. The red cheek seems green, the green reed seems red. These were e'en the terms the Eld Seer decreed Stephen Vere. Here endeth the Legend. ALPHABETICAL ADVERTISEMENT. TO WIDOWERS AND SINGLE GENTLEMEN.— WANTED by a lady, a SITUATION to superintend the household and preside at table. She is Agreeable, Becominsr, Careful, Desirable, English, Facetious, Generous, Honest, la- 3« 30 ALrnABETICAL WHIMS. dustrious, Judicious, Keen, Lively, Merry, Natty, Obedient, rhilosophic, Quiet, llegular, Sociable, Tasteful, Useful, Viva- cious, Womanish, Xantippish, Youthful, Zealous, &c. Address X. Y. Z., Simmond's Library, Edgeware-road. — London Times, 1842. JACOBITE TOAST. The following remarkable toast is ascribed to Lord Duff, and was presented on some public occasion in the year 1745. A. B. C. . . . A Blessed Change. D. E. F. . . . Down Every Foreigner. G. H. J. . . . God Help James. K. L. M. . . . Keep Lord Marr. N. 0. P. . . . Noble Ormond Preserve. Q. R. S. . . . Quickly Resolve Stewart. T. U. V. W. . . Truss Up Vile Whigs. ^ X. Y. Z. . . . 'Xert Your Zeal. THE THREE INITIALS. The following couplet, in which initials are so aptly used, was written on the alleged intended marriage of the Duke of Wellington, at a very advanced age, with Miss Angelina Bur- dett Coutts, the rich heiress : — The Duke must in his second childhood be, Since in his doting age he turns to A. B. C. ENIGMAS. The letter E is thus enigmatically described : — The beginning of eternity, The end of time and space, The beginning of every end, The end of every place. The letter M is concealed in the following Latin enigma by iin unknown author of very ancient date : Ego sum principium niundi et finis seculorum: Ego sum trinus et unus, et tamcn non sum Deuii. ALPTTABETTCAL WTIIMS. 3| THE LETTER H. The celebrated enigma on the letter II, commonly attributed to Lord Bjron,*iswell known. The following amusing petition is addressed by this letter to the inhabitants of Kidderminster, England — Prutestiny : Whereas by j-on I have liecn ilriven From 'ouse, from 'omc, iVoin 'ope, from 'caven, And placed by your most learned society In Hoxilo, Ilanfruish, and llanxiety; Nay, charged without one just pretence. With Ilarroganco and llimpudeuce — I here demand full restitution, And beg you'll mend your Ilelocution. Rowland Hill, when at college, was remarkable for the fre- quent wittiness of his observations. In a conversation on the powers of the letter II, in which it was contended that it was no letter, but a simple aspiration or breathing, Rowland took the opposite side of the question, and insisted on its being, to all intents and purposes, a letter; and concluded by observing that, if it were not, it was a very serious affair to him, as it would occasion his being ill all the days of his life. When Kohl, the traveller, visited the Church of St. Alex- ander Nevskoi, at St. Peter.sburg, his guide, pointing to a cor ner of the building, said, " There lies a Cannibal." Attracted to the tomb by this strange announcement, Kohl found from the inscription that it was the Russian general Hannibal ; but •as the Russians have no II,"j" they change the letter into K; and hence the strange misnomer given to the deceased warrior. * Now known to have been written by Miss Catherine Fanshawe. t The Sandwich Island alphabet has twelve letters ; the Burmese, nineteen ; the Italian, twenty ; the Bengalese, twenty-one ; the Hebrew, Syriac, Chaldee, and Samaritan, twenty-two each; the French, twenty-three; the Greek, twenty-four; the Latin, twenty-tive; the German, Dutch, and English, twenty- six each; the Spanish and Sclavonic, twenty-seven each; the Arabic, twenty -eight; the Persian and Coptic, thirty-two; the Georgian, thirty-five; the Armenian, thirty-eight; the Russian, forty-one; the Muscovite, forty- three ; the Sanscrit and Japanese, fifty; the Ethiopio and Tartarian, two hun- dred and two each. 32 ALPHABETICAL WinMS. A city knight, who was unable to aspirate the II, on being deputed to give King "William III. an address of welcome, ut- tered the following equivocal compliment : — *' Future ages, recording your Majesty's exploits, will pro- nounce you to have been a Nero !" Mrs. Crawford says she wrote one line in her song, Kathleen Mnvotirneen , for the express purpose of confounding tbe cock- ney warblers, who sing it thus : — The 'orn of the 'nnter is 'eard on the 'ill. Moore has laid the same trap in the Woodpecker : — A 'eart that is 'umble mi^ht 'ope for it 'ere. And the elephant confounds them the other way : — A helephant heasily heats at his hease, Iluniler humbrageous humbrella trees. ON THE MARRIAGE OF A LADY TO A GENTLEMAN NAMED GEB Sure, madam, by your choice a taste we see : What's good or great or grand without a G ? A godly glow must sure on G depend, Or oddly low our righteous thoughts must end: The want of G all gratitude effaces ; And without G, the Graces would run races. OX SENDING A PAIR OF GLOVES. From this small token take the letter G, And then 'tis love, and that I send to thee. UNIVOCALIC VERSES. A. — THE RUSSO-TURKISH WAR. Wars harm all ranks, all arts, all crafts appall : At Mars' harsh blast, arch, rampart, altar, fall ! Ah ! hard as adamant, a braggart Czar Arms vassal swarms, and fans a fatal war! Rampant at that bad call, a Vandal band Harass, and harm, and ransack Wallach-land. A Tartar phalanx Balkan's scarp hath past, And Allah's standard falls, alas ! at last. ALPHABETICAL WHIMS. E. — THE FALL OP EVE. Eve, Eden's Empress, needs defended be ; The Serpent greets her when she seeks the tree. Serene, she sees the speckled tempter creep ; Gentle he seems, — perversost schemer deep, — Yet endless pretexts ever fresh prefers, Perverts her senses, revels when she errs, Sneers when she weeps, regrets, repents she fell ; Then, deep revenged, reseeks the nether hell J I. — THE APPROACH OF EVENING. Idling, I sit in this mild twilight dim, Whilst birds, in wild, swift vigils, circling skim. Light winds in sighing sink, till, rising bright, Night's Virgin Pilgrim swims in vivid light ! O. — INCONTROVERTIBLE FACTS. No monk too good to rob, or cog, or plot. No fool so gross to bolt Scotch coUops hot. From Donjon tops no Oronoko rolls. Logwood, not Lotos, floods Oporto's bowls. Troops of old tosspots oft, to sot, consort. Box tops, not bottoms, school-boj's flog for sport. No cool monsoons blow soft on Oxford dons, Orthodox, jog-trot, book-worm Solomons ! Bold Ostrogoths, of ghosts no horror show. On ifondon shop-fronts no hop-blossoms grow. To crocl« of gold no dodo looks for food. On soft cloth footstools no old fox doth brood. Long storm-tost sloops forlorn, work on to port. Rooks do not roost on spoons, nor woodcocks snort. Nor dog on snow-drop or on coltsfoot rolls, Nor common frogs concoct long protocols. U. — THE SAME SUBJECT, CONTINUED. Dull humdrum murmurs lull, but hubbub Etuns. LucuUus snuffs no musk, mundungus shuns. Puss purrs, buds burst, bucks butt, luck turns up trumps ; But full cups, hurtful, spur up unjust thumps. 33 A young English lady, on observing a gentleman's lane newly planted with lilacs, made this neat impromptu : — Let lovely lilacs line Lee's lonely lane. 34 ALPUAUKTICAL WHIMS. ALPUABETICAL ALLITERATION. THE SIEGE OF BELGRADE. An Austrian army, awfully arrayed, Boldly, by battery, besieged Belgrade ; Cossack commanders cannonading come — Dealing destruction's devastating doom ; Every endeavor, engineers essay. For fame, for fortune — fighting furious fray : — Generals 'gainst generals grapple — gracious God ! How honors Heaven, heroic hardihood ! Infuriate, — indiscriminate in ill. Kindred kill kinsmen, — kinsmen kindred kill ! Labor low levels loftiest longest lines — Men march 'mid mounds, 'mid moles, 'mid murderous mines: Now noisy, noxious, noticed nought Of outward obstacles opposing ought : Poor patriots, partly purchased, partly pressed : Quite quaking, quickly quarter, quarter quest, Reason returns, religious right redounds, Suwarrow stops such sanguinary sounds. Truce to thee, Turkey — triumph to thy train ! Unjust, unwise, unmerciful Ukraine! Vanish vain victory, vanish victory vain ! Why wish ye warfare ? Wherefore welcome were Xerxes, Ximenes, Xanthus, Xaviere ? Yield ! ye youths ! ye yeomen, yield your yell ! Zeno's, Zapater's, Zoroaster's zeal. And all attracting — arms against acts appeal. THE BUNKER HILL MOMIIIENT CELEBRATION. Americans arrayed and armed attend; Beside battalions bold, bright beauties blend. Chiefs, clergy, citizens conglomerate, — Detesting despots, — daring deeds debate ; Each eye emblazoned ensigns entertain, — Flourishing from far, — fan freedom's flame. Guards greeting guards grown grey, — guest greeting guest. High-minded heroes, hither, homeward, haste. Ingenuous juniors join in jubileej Kith kenning kin, — kind knowing kindred key. Lo, lengthened lines lend Liberty liege love, Mixed masses, marshaled, McmumeiUioanl move. AIJ'IIABETICAL WHIMS. 35 Note noble navios iionr, — no novel notion, — Oft our oppressors overawed old Ocean ; Presumptuous princes, pristine patriots paled, Queens' quarrel questing quotas, quondam quailed. Rebellion roused, revolting ramparts rose. Stout spirits, smiting servile soldiers, strove. These thrilling themes, to thousands truly told, Usurpers' unjust usages unfold. Victorious vassals, vauntings vainly veiled, Where, whilesince, Webster, warlike Warren wailed. 'Xcuso 'xpletives 'xtra-quecr 'xpressed, Yielding Yankee yeomen zest. PRINCE CHARLES PROTECTED BY FLORA MACDONALD. All ardent acts affright an Age abased By brutal broils, by braggart bravery braced. Craft's cankered courage changed Culloden's cry ; " Deal deep"- deposed " deal death" — " decoy," " defy :" Enough. Ere envy enters England's eyes. Fancy's false future fades, for Fortune flies. Gaunt, gloomy, guar led, grappling giant griefs. Here, hunted hard, his harassed heart ho heaves; In impious ire incessant ills invests. Judging Jove's jealous judgments, jaundiced jests ! Kneel, kirtled knight! keep keener kingcraft known, Let larger lore life's levelling lessons loan : Marauders must meet malefactors' meeds; No nation noisy non-conformists needs. oracles of old ! our orb ordain Peace's possession — Plenty's palmy plain ! Quiet Quixotic quests ; quell quarrelling ; Rebuke red riot's resonant rifle ring. Slumber seems strangely sweet since silence smote The threatening thunders throbbing through their throat Usurper ! under uniform unwont Vail valor's vaguest venture, vainest vaunt. Well wot we which were wise. War's wildfire won Ximenes, Xerxes, Xavier, Xenophon : Y'^et you, ye yearning youth, your young years yield Zuinglius' zealot zest — Zinzendorf zion-zealed. CACOPHONOUS COUPLET ON CARDINAL WOLSKT, Begot by butchers, but by bishops bred, How high his honor holds his haughty head! 36 ALPHABETICAL WHIMS. ADDRESS TO THE AURORA, WRITTEN IN MID-OCEAN. Awake Aurora ! and across all airs By brilliant blazon banish boreal bears. Crossing cold Canope's celestial crown, Deep darts descending dive delusive down. Entranced each eve Europa's every eye Firm fixed forever fastens faithfully, Greets golden gueidon gloriously grand ; How Holy Heaven holds high his hollow hand ! Ignoble ignorance, inapt indeed — Jeers jestingly just Jupiter's jereed : Knavish Kamschatkans, knightly Kurdsmcn know. Long Labrador's light lustre looming low; Midst myriad multitudes majestic might No nature nobler numbers Neptune's night. Opal of Oxus or old Ophir's ores Pale pyrrhic pyres prismatic purple pours, — Quiescent quivering, quickly, quaintly queer, Rich, rosy, regal rays resplendent rear ; Strange shooting streamers streaking starry skies Trail their triumphant tresses — trembling ties. Unseen, unhonored Ursa, — underneath Veiled, vanquished — vainly vying — vanisheth : Wild Woden, warning, watchful — whispers wan Xanthitic Xeres, Xerxes, Xenophon, Yet yielding yesternight yule's yell yawns Zenith's zebraic zigzag, zodiac zones. Pulci, in his Morgantc Maggiore, xxiii. 47, gives the following remarkable double alliterations, two of them in every line : — La caaa com parea hretta e hrutta, Vinta dal vento, e la nntta e la notte, Stilla le stelle, ch'a tetto era tutta, Del pane a.Y>pena ne dette ta' dotte ; Fere avea^jwre e qualche/ra»a/)'((«a, E svina e svena di lotto una hotte ; Poscia YicT pesci lasche prese aU'esca, Ma il letto aUotta alia /yasca iafresca. In the imitation of Laura Matilda, in the Rejected Addresses occurs this stanza : — Pan beheld Patroclus dying, Nox to Niobc was turned ; From Busiris Bacchus flying, Saw bis Semele inurned. ALPHABETICAL WHIMS. 37 TITLE-PAGE FOR A BOOK OF EXTRACTS FROAI MANY AUTHORS. Astonishing Anthology from Attractive A>-thors. Broken Bits from Bulky Brair'" Choice Chunks from Chaucer to CL-^ining. Dainty Devices from Diverse Directions. Echoes of Eloquence from Eminent Essayists. Fragrant Flowers from Fields of Fancy. Gems of Genius Gloriously Garnished. Handy Helps from Head and Heart. Illustrious Intellects Intelligently Interpreted. Jewels of Judgment and Jets of Jocularity. Kindlings to Keep from the King to the Kitchen. Loosened Leaves from Literary Laurels. Magnificent Morsels from Mighty Minds. Numerous Nuggets from Notable Noodles. Oracular Opinions OfiBciously Offered. Prodigious Points from Powerful Pens. Quirks and Quibbles from Queer Quarters. Rare Remarks Ridiculously Repeated. Suggestive Squibs from Sundry Sources. Tremendous Thoughts on Thundering Topics. Utterances from Uppermost for Use and Unction. Valuable Views in Various Voices. "Wisps of Wit in a Wilderness of Afords. Xeellent Xtracts Xactly Xpressed. Yawnings and Yearnings for Youthful Yankees. Zeal and Zest from Zoroaster to Zimmennan. COMPLrMENTARY CONSIDERATIONS CONCERNING CHESS. Cherished chess ! The charms of thy checkered chambers chain me changelcssly. Chaplains have chanted thy charming choiceness; chief- tains have changed the chariot and the chase for the chaster chivalry of the chess-board, and the cheerier charge of the chess-knights. Chaste-eyed Caissa ! For thee are the chaplets of chainless charity and the chalice of childlike cheerfulness. No chilling churl, no cheating chaffcrer, no chatter- ing changeling, no chanting charlatan can be thy champion ; the chival- rous, the charitable, and the cheerful arc the chosen ones thou chcrishest. Chance cannot change thee: from the cradle of childhood to the charnel- house, from our first childish chirpings to the chills of the church-yard, thou art our cheery, changeless chieftainess. Chastcner of the churlish, chider of the changeable, cherisher of the chagrined, the chapter of thy chiliad of charms should be chanted in cherubic chimes by choicest choria tera, and "hiselled on chalcedon in cherubic chirography. 4 38 ALPHABETICAL WHIMS. Hood, in describing the sensations of a dramatist awaiting his debut, thus uses the letter F in his Ode to Perry : — All Fume and Fret, Fuss, Fidget, Fancy, Fever, Funking, Fright, Ferment, Fault-fearing, Faintness — more F's yet : Flushed, Frigid, Flurried, Flinching, Fitful, Flat, Add Famished, Fuddled, and Fatigued to that; Funeral, Fato-Foreboding. The repetition of the same letter in the following is very in- genious : — FELICITOUS FLIGHT OF FANCY. "A famous fish-factor found himself father of five flirting females — Fanny, Florence, Fernanda, Francesca, and Fenclla. The first four were flat-featured, ill-favored, forbidding-faced, freckled frumps, fretful, flippant, foolish, and flaunting. Fenella was a fine-featured, fresh, fleet-footed fairy, frank, free, and full of fun. The fisher failed, and was forced by fickle fortune to forego his footman, forfeit his forefathers' fine fields, and find a forlorn farm-house in a forsaken forest. The four fretful females, fond of figuring at feasts in feathers and fashionable finery, fumed at their fugitive father. Forsaken by fursome, flattering fortune-hunters, who followed them when first they flourished, Fenella fondled her father, flavored their food, forgot her flattering followers, and frolicked in a frieze without flounces. The father, finding himself forced to forage in foreign parts for a fortune, found he could afl'ord a faring to his five fondlings. The first four were fain to foster their frivolity with fine frills and fans, fit to finish their father's finances; Fenella, fearful of flooring him, formed a fancy for a full fresh flower. Fate favored the fish-factor for a few days, when ho fell in with a fog; hk faithful Filley's footsteps faltered, and food failed. Ho found him- self in front of a fortified fortress. Finding it forsaken, and feeling himself feeble, and forlorn with fasting, he fed on the fish, flesh, and fowl he found, fricasseed, and when full fell flat on the floor. Fresh in the forenoon, he forthwith flew to the fruitful fields, and not forgetting Fenella, he filched a fair flower; when a foul, frightful, fiendish figure flashed forth: 'Felonious fellow, fingering my flowers, I'll finish you! Fly; say farewell to your fine felicitous family, and face me in a fortnight!' The faint-hearted fisher fumed and faltered, and fast and far was his flight. His five daughters flew to fall at his feet and fervently felicitate him. Frantically and fluently he unfolded his fate. Fenella, forthwith fortified by filial fondness, followed her father's footsteps, and flung her faultless form at the foot of the fright- ful figure, who forgave the father, and fell flat on his face, for ho had fervently fallen in a fiery fit of love for the fair Fenella. He feasted her till, fascinated by his faithfulness, she forgot the ferocity of his face, form, ALPHABETICAL WHIMS. 39 and features, and frankly and fondly fixed Friday, fifth of February, for the affair to come off. There was festivity, fragrance, finery, fireworks, fricasseed frogs, fritters, fish, liesh, fowl, and frumentr}-, frontignac, Hip, and fare fit for tiie fastidious ; fruit, fuss, flambeaux, four fat fiddlers and fifers; and the frightful form of the fortunate and frumpish fiend fell from him, and he fell at Fenella's feet a fair-favored, fine, frank, freeman of tbo forest. Behold the fruits of filial affection. A BEVY OP BELLES. The follo\riug lines are said to have been admirably de- scriptive of the five daughters of an English gentleman, formerly of Liverpool : — ■ Minerva-Iike majestic Mary moves. Law, Latin, Liberty, learned Lucy loves. Eliza's elegance each eye espies. Serenely silent Susan's smiles surprise. From fops, fools, flattery, fairest Fanny flies. MOTIVES TO GRATITUDE. A remarkable example of the old fondness for antithesis and alliteration in composition, is presented in the following extract from one of Watts' sermons : — The last great help to thankfulness is to compare various circumstances and things together. Compare, then, your sorrows with you sins; com- pare your mercies with your merits ; compare your comforts with your calamities ; compare your own troubles with the troubles of others; com pare your sufferings with the sufferings of Christ Jesus, your Lord; com- pare the pain of your afBictions with the profit of them ; compare your chastisements on earth with condemnation in hell ; compare the present hardships you bear with the happiness you expect hereafter, apd try whether all these will not awaken thankfulness. ACKOSTICS. The acrostic, though an old and favorite form of verse, in our own language has been almost wholly an exercise of inge- nuity, and has been considered fit only for trivial subjects, to be classed among nugx literarise. The word in its derivation includes various artificial aiTangements of lines, and many fan- tastic conceits have been indulged in. Generally the acrostic has been formed of the first letters of each line ; sometimes of the lust ; sometimes of both ; sometimes it is to be read down- 40 ALPHABETICAL WHIMS. ward, sometimes upward. An ingenious variety called the Telestich, is that in which the lettei-s beginning the lines spell a word, whUe the letters ending the lines, when taken together, form a word of an opposite meaning, as in this instance : — U nite and untie are the same — so say yo TJ. N ot in wedlock, I ween, has this unity bee N. I nthedramaof marriage each wanderingjroii T T a new face would fly — all except you and I — E ach seeking to alter the spdl in their seen E. In these lines, on the death of Lord Hatherton, (18G3), the initial and final letters are doubled : — H ard was his final fight with ghastly Deat h, H 8 bravely yielded his expiring breat A. A s in the Senate fighting freedom's pie a, A nd boundless in his wisdom as the se a. T he public welfare seeking to direc t, T he weak and undefended to protec t. H is steady course in noble life from birt h, H as shown his public and his private wort h. E vincing mind both lofty and sedat e, E ndowments great and fitted for the Stat e, R eceiving high and low with open doo r, R ich in his bounty to the rude and poo r. T he crown reposed in him the highest trus t, T o show the world that he was wise and jus t. On his ancestral banners long ag o, urs willingly relied, and will do s o. Nor yet extinct is noble Hatherto»f, N ow still he lives in gracious Littleto n. Although the fanciful and trifling tricks of poetasters have been earned to excess, and acrostics have come in for their share of satire, the origin of such artificial poetry was of a higher dignity. When written documents, were yet rare, every artifice was employed to enforce on the attention or fix on the memory the verses sung by bards or teachers. Alphabetic associations formed obvious and convenient aids for this pur- pose. In the Hebrew Psalms of David, and in other parts of Scripture, striking specimens occur. The peculiarity is not retained in the translations, but is indicated in the common ALrnABETICAL WHIMS. 41 version of the 119th Psalm by the initial letters prefixed to its divisions. The Greek Anthology also presents examples of acrostics, and they were often used in the old Latin language. Cicero, in his treatise " De Divinatione," has this remarkable passage : — "The verses of the Sybils (said he) are distinguished by that arrangement which the Greeks call Acrostic; where, from the first letters of each verse in order, words are formed which express some particular meaning; as is the case with some of Ennius's verses, the initial letters of which make ' which Ennius wrote !' " Among the modern examples of acrostic writing, the most remarkable may be found in the works of Boccaccio. It is a poem of fifty cantos, of which Guinguene has preserved a speci- men in his Literary History of Italy. A successful attempt has recently been made to use this form of verse for conveying useful information and expressing agree- able reflections, in a volume containing a series of acrostics on eminent names, commencing with Homer, and descending chronologically to our own time. The alphabetic necessity of the choice of words and epithets has not hindered the writer from giving distinct and generally correct character to the bio- graphical subjects, as may be seen in the following selections, which are as remarkable for the truth and discrimination of the descriptions as for the ingenuity of the di/ction : dfi"BGK HERBERT. G oorl Country Parson, cheerful, quaint, E ver in thy life a saint, 'er thy memory sweetly rise R are old Izaak's eulogies, G iving us, in life-drawn hue, E ach loved feature to our view. n oly Herbert, humble, mild, E 'en as simple as a child, R eady thy bounty to dispense, B eaming with benevolence, E ver blessing, ever blest, R escuing the most distrest ; T by "Temple" now is Heaven's bright rest. 4* 42 ALPnABETICAL WHIMS. nRYDEN. D ecp rolls on deep in thy majestic line. R ich music and the stateliest march combine; y et, who that hears its high harmonious strain D eems not thy genius thou didst half profane? E xhausting thy great power of song on themes N ot worthy of its strong, effulgent beams. REYNOLDS. R are Painter! whoso unequall'd skill could trace E ach light and shadow of the changeful face; Y oung " Sauiuers," now, beaming with piety, N ow tho proud " Banished Lord's" dark misery, r "Ugolino's" ghastly visage, wild, L ooking stern horror on each starving child; D elights not less of social sort were thine, S uch as with Burke, or e'en with Johnson shine. BURKE. B rilliant thy genius 'mongst a brilliant throng; U niquo thy eloquence of pen and tongue ; R ome's Tully loftier flights could scarce command, K indling thy soul to thoughts that matchless stand E ver sublime and beautiful and grand. HUBER. II ow keen thy vision, e'en though reft of sight! U sing with double power the mind's clear light: B ees, and their hives, thy curious ken has scanned. E ach cell, with geometric wisdom planned, R ich stores of honej-ed knowledge thus at thy command. n opyist of Nature — simply, sternly true, — ^ eal the scenes that in thy page we view. ' k mid the huts where poor men lie" unknown, 8 right humor or deep pathos thou hast thrown. 3 ard of the "Borough" and the "Village," see — E 'en haughty Byron owns he's charm'd by thee. WALTER SCOTT. W ondrous Wizard of the North, A rmed with spells of potent worth ! L ike to that greatest Bard of ours T he mighty magic of thy powers : fi 'en thy bright fancy's offspring find R esemblance to his myriad mind. ALrnABETICAL WHIMS. 43 S uch the creations that wc see — C haractor, manners, life in thee — f Scotia's deeds, a proud display, T ho glories of a bygone day; T by genius foremost stands in all her long array. WORDSWOUTH. W andering, through many a year, 'mongst Cumbria's hills, 'or her wild fells, sweet vales, and sunny lakes, R ich stores of thought thy musing mind distils, D ay-dreams of poesy thy soul awakes: — S uch was thy life — a poet's life, I ween ; W orshipper thou of Nature ! every scene f beauty stirred thy fancy's deeper mood, R efleetion calmed the current of thy blood : T hus in the wide " Excursion" of thy mind, II igh thoughts in icords of worth we still may find. IRTING. 1 n easy, natural, graceful charm of style, R esembling Goldy's " Vicar,"— free from guile: V ein of rich humor through thy " Sketch-Book" flows. ■ I magination her bright colors shows. N o equal hast thou 'mongst thy brother band, Q enial thy soul, worthy our own loved land. SIACREADY. M aster Tragedian ! worthy all our praise. A ction and utterance such as bygone days C ould oftener boasi,, were thine. Need we but name R oman Virginius? while our Shakspeare's fame E vcr 'twas thy chief joy and pride to uprear, A nd give us back Macbeth, Othello, Lear. D elight to thousands oft thou gav'st, and now Y ears of calm lettered ease 'tis thiae to know. LONGFELLOW. L ays like thine have many a charm ; ft thy themes the heart must warm. N ow o'er Slavery's guilt and woes, G rief and shame's deep hues it throws; F ar up Alpine heights is heard "E xeelsior," now the stirring word; " L ife's Psalm," now, onward is inviting, L ongings for nobler deeds exciting ; 'er Britain now resounds thy name, W hile States unborn shall swell thy fame. 44 AIJ>nABETICAL WHIMS. SOUTHEY. S erenely bright thy life's pure stream did glide, n sweet romantic Derwentwater's side. U nder great SkiJdaw — there, in Epic lays, T hou dream'dst a poet's dreams of olden days, II ow Madoc wandered o'er the Atlantic wave, E astern Kchama, Iloderic the brave, Y oars cannot from our fondest memory lave. MACAULAT. M astcrly critic! in whose brilliant style A nd rich historic coloring breathes again — C lothed in most picturesque costume the while — A 11 the dim past, with all its bustling train. U nder this vivid, eloquent painting, see L ife given anew to our old history's page; A nd in thy stirring ballad poetry, Y oufh's dreams of ancient Rome once more our minds engage. OLIVER'S IMrROMPTU. Oliver, a sailor and patriot, with a merited reputation for extempore rhyming, while on a visit to his cousin Benedict Arnold, after the war, was asked by the latter to amuse a party of English officers with some extemporaneous effusion, whereupon he stood up and repeated the following Ernulphua curse, which would have satisfied Dr. Slop* himself: — B orn for a curse to virtue and mankind, E arth's broa" and w) the letters of the alphabet may be arranged so as to form the words back, frown' d, jMejm, quiz, and Styx. Roma may be transposed into amor, armo, Muro, mora, oram, or ramo. The following epigram occurs in a book printed in 16G0 : Hate anil debate Rome through the world has spread; Yet Roma amur is, if backward read : Then is it strange Rome hate should foster? No; For out of backward love all hate doth grow. It is said that the cabalists among the Jews were professed anagrammatists, the third part of their art called thcmvrn (changing) being nothing more than finding the hidden and mystical meaning in names, by transposing and differently combining the letters of those names. Thus, of the letters of Noah's name in Hebrew, they made rjrace ; and of the Messiah they made he shall rejoice. Lycophron, a Greek writer who lived three centuries before the Christian era, recoras two anagrams in his poem on the siege of Troy entitled Cassandra. One is on the name of Ptolemy Philadelphus, in whose reign Lycophron lived : — HTOAEMAIS. Ano MEAIT02— Made of honey. The otliei is on Ptolemy's queen, Arsinoii: — AP2INOE. EPA2 ION— Juno'e violet. ALPUABETICAL WHIMS. 51 Eustachius informs us that this practice was common among the Greeks, and gives numerous examples ; such, for instance, as the transposition of tlie word Apsn^, virtue, into i^'^anj, lovely. Owen, the Welsh epigrammatist, sometimes called the British ]\Iartial, lived in the golden age of anagrammatism. The following are fair specimens of his ingenuity : — Galends — Angelus. Angehis cs bonus anne malus ; Galene ! salutia Humana custos, angelus ergo bonus, Dp, Fide — Anaguamma quincuplex. Recta fides, certa est, arcet mala schismata, non est, Sicut Oreta, fides fictilis, arte caret. Brevitas — Anagramma triplex. Perspicua brevitato nibil magis afRcit auros In verbis, uhi res postulat, esto hrevis. In a New Help to Discourse, 12mo, London, 1684, occurs an anagram with a very quaint epigrammatic "exposition:" — TOAST — A SOTT. A toast is like a sot; or, what is most Comparative, a sot is like a toast; For when their substances in liquor sink, Both properly are said to be in drink. Cotton Mather was once described as distinguished for — "Caro to guide his flook and feed his lambs By words, works, prayers, psalms, alms, and anagrams." Sylvester, in dedicating to his sovereign his translation ot Du Bartas, rings the following loyal change on the name of his liege : — James Stuart — A just master. Of the poet Waller, the old anagrammatist said : — Ills brows need not with Latcrel to bo bound. Since in his name with Lawrel ho is crowned. The author of an extraordinary work on heraldry was thus expressively complimented : — Randlo Holmes. Lo, Men's Herald ! 52 ALrUABETICAL WHIMS. The following on the name of the mistress of Charles IX. of France is historically true : — Marie Touchet, Je charme tout. In the assassin of Henry III., Frere Jacques Clement, they discovered C'est I'enfer qui m'a cr6e. The French appear to have practised this art with peculiar facility. A French poet, deeply in love, in one day sent his mistress, whose name was Mtvjdclaine, three dozen of ana- grams on her single name. The father Pierre de St. Louis became a Carmelite monk on discovering that his lay name — Ludovicus Bartelemi— yielded the anagram — Carmelo se dovovet. Of all the extravagances occasioned by the anagrammatio fever when at its height, none equals what is recorded of an infatuated Frenchman in the seventeenth century, named Andr6 Pujom, who, finding in his name the anagram Fendu d, Riom, (the seat of criminal justice in the province of Auvergne,) felt impelled to fulfill his destiny, committed a capital oifence in Auvergne, and was actually hung in the place to which the omen pointed. The anagram on General Monk, afterwards Duke of Albe- marle, on the restoration of Charles II., is also a chronogram, including the date of that important event : — Georgius Mouke, Dux de Aumaric, Ego Regem reduxi Ano. Sa. MDCLVV. The mildness of the government of Elizabeth, contrasted with her intrepidity against the Iberians, is thus picked out of her title : she is made the English lamb and the Spanish lioness. Eli/.abelha Rcgina Anglia3, Angli.-' Agna, lliberia,' Lea. ALPHABETICAL WHIMS. 53 The unhappy history of Mary Queen of Scots, the depriva- tion of her kingdom, and her violent death, are expressed in the following Latin anagram : — Maria Steuarda Scotorum Kegina. Trusa vi Regnis, morte amara cado. In Taylor's Suddaiiie Turne of Fortune^ s Wheele, occurs the following very singular example : — But, hoHe father, I am ccrtifyed That they your power and policye deride; And how of you they make an anagram, The best and bitterest that the wits could frame. As thus : Siipremus Pontifex Romanus. Annagramma : non sum super pctram Jixus. The anagram on the well-known bibliographer, William Oldys, may claim a place among the first productions of this class. It was by Oldys himself, and was found by his execu- tors among his MSS. In word and will i am a friend to you ; And one friend old is worth a hundred new. The follov\ii]g anagram, preserved in the files of the First Church in lloxbury, was sent to Thomas Dudley, a governor and major-general of the colony of Massachusetts, in 1645. lie died in 1653, aged 77. THOMAS DUDLEY. Ah ! old must dye. A death's head on your hand you neede not weare, A dying head you on your shoulders bcare. You need not one to mind you, you mustdyo, You in your name may spell mortalitye. Younge men may dye, but old men, these dye must ; 'Twill not be long before you turne to dust. Before you turne to dust! ah! must ! old ! dye ! What shall younge doo when old in dust doe lye? When old in dust lye, what N. England doo ? When old in dust doe lye, it's best dye too. 5« 54 ALPUABETICAL WHIMS. In an Elegy written by Rev. John Cotton on the death of John Alden, a magistrate of the old Plymouth Colony, who died in 1687, the following phonetic anagram occurs : — John Alden — End al on hi. The Calvinistic opponents of Arminius made of his name a not very creditable Latin anagram: — Jacobus Arminius, Vani orbis amicus ; (The friend of a false world.) while his friends, taking advantage of the Dutch mode of writ- ing it, 7/arminius, hurled back the conclusive argument, Ilabui curam Sionis. (I have had charge of Zion.) Perhaps the most extraordinary anagram to be met with, is that on the Latin of Pilate's question to the Saviour, *' What is truth ?" — St. John, xviii. 38. Quid est Veritas 7 Est vir qui adest. (It is the man who is before you,) Live, vile, and evil, have the self-same letters ; lie lives but vile, whom evil holds in fetters. If you transpose what ladies wear — Veil, 'Twill plainly show what bad folks are — Vile. Again if you transpose the same, You'll see an ancient Hebrew name — Levi. Change it again, and it will show What all on earth desire to do — Live. Transpose the letters yet once more. What bad men do you'll then explore — Eviu PERSIST. A lady, being asked by a gentleman to join in the bonds of matrimony with him, wrote the word " Stripes," stating at the time that the letters making up the word stripes could be changed so as to make an answer to his question. The result proved satisfactory. ALI'IIATJKTICAL WHIMS. 55 When I crij that I siii is transposed, it is clear. My resource Chriitumity soon will appear. The two whicli follow are peculiarly appropriate : — Florence Nightingale, John Abernethy, Flit on, charming angel. Johnny the bear. T I M E I T E M M K T I E M I T This word, Time, is the ouly word in the English language which can be thus arranged, and the different transpositions thereof are all at the same time Latiu words. These words, in English as well as in Latin, may be read either upward or downward. Their signification as Latin words is as follows : — Time — fear thou; Item — likewise; Meti — to be measured; Emit — he buys. Some striking German and Latin anagrams have been made of Luther's name, of which the following are specimens. Doctor Martinus Lutherus transposed, gives Rom, Luther ist tier scliican. In D. Martinus Lutherus may be found ut turn's iJas lumen (like a tower you give light). In Martinus Lutherus we have vir mtilfa ), c> t\cc Sec Xfw o; snj pijTOjf. The following line is expressive of the sentiments of a Roman Catholic ; read backwards, of those of a Huguenot : — I'atruin dieta probo, nee sacris belligeraho. Belligorabo sacris, noc probo dicta patruia. PALINDROMES. 63 These lines, written to please a group of youthful folk, serve to show that our English tongue is as capable of being twisted into uncouth shapes as is the Latin, if any one will take the trouble : — One winter's eve, around the fire, a cozy group we sat, Engaged, as was our custom old, in after-dinner chat; Small-talk it was, no doubt, because the smaller folk were there, And they, the young monpolists ! absorbed the lion's share. Conundrums, riddles, rebuses, cross-questions, puns atrocious, Taxed all their ingenuit}^ till Peter the precocious — Old head on shoulders juvenile — cried, "Now for a new task-. Let's try our hand at Palindromes !" "Agreed! But first," we ask, "Pray, Peter, what are Palindromes?" The forward imp replied, " A Palindrome 's a string of words of sense or meaning void. Which reads both ways the same : and here, with your permission, I'll cite some half a score of samples, lacking all precision (But held together by loose rhymes, to test my definition): — "A milksop, jilted by his lass, or wandering in his wits. Might murmur, 'Stiff, dairy -man, in a myriad of Jits!' "A limner by photography dead-beat in competition, Thus grumbled, 'No, it is opposed ; art sees trade's opposition 1' "A nonsense-loving nephew might his soldier-uncle dun With ' Now stop, major-general, are negro Jam-pots won?' "A supercilious grocer, if inclined that way, might snub A child with 'But regusa store, babe, rots a sugar-tub.' " Thy spectre, Alexander, is a fortress, cried Hephaestion. Great A. said, 'No, it's a bar of gold, a bad log for a bastion !' " A timid creature, fearing rodents — mice and such small fry — 'Stop, Syrian, I start at rats in airy spots,' might cry. " A simple soul, whose wants are few, might say, with hearty zest, ' Desserts I desire not, so long no lost one rise distressed.' "A stern Canadian parent might in earnest, not in fun. Exclaim, 'No sot nor OUnwa law at Toronto, son !' " A crazy dentist might declare, as something strange or new. That 'Paget saw an Irish tooth, sir, in a waste gap!' True! " A surly student, hating sweets, might answer with elan, 'Name tarts? no, medieval slave, I demonstrate man!' " He who in Nature's bitters findeth sweet food every day, 'Eureka ! till I pull np ill I take rue,' well might say." 04 EQUIVOQUE. COPY OF A LETTER AVRITTEX BY CARDINAL RICHELIEC TO THE FRENCH AMBASSADOR AT ROME. ..«?2-3^-^*'o^go^g^c&' H-^* eg ^ o ^5"" -3^5 §^2 g. K-cS^i-'opg &. o2ft>? pC^-^ ^S o ^2*-^!^ I- e-"^ i: ° ° 3 ^ I '- 1^ ^ g. ^ g 1 o 2. s ^ -^ s. g |-p="g§ fsg-i-g!*!!!!!^^-^^ §- D i" S C . CO ai -"^ - C -. J-' ,. tti -^ O -^ CD P rt- s p^ ^, S |=i:p?s'=p^o^o§='^S'^^^-'*"'^ S B^po" 5>^-2. 5p ? ^^. 2. =^S-^'-^5' 2 ° - ;!!. !. 2 .- g^ ^ e a ^ g '^ -. -- ^ § 5 • ;: 5 ? o p i^. o ol- 1^ m S s:^ . 1 I ?^ „ I P' "^ ? p 5: ?«V g^ §• §-. h: ^ 2. ^ s g .^ 1 5- 1 & 2£gS. 5^5 5-S-S.<5§^^^S3S^p§H- EQUIVOQUE. 65 A LOVE-LETTER. The reader, after perusing it, will please read it again, com- mencing on the first line, then the third and fifth, and so on. reading each alternate line to the end. To Miss M . — The great love I have hitherto expressed for you is false and I find my indifference towards you — increases daily. The more I see of you, the more you appear in my eyes an object of contempt. — I feel myself every way disposed and determined to hate you. Believe mo, I never had an intention — to offer you my hand. Our last conversation has left a tedious insipidity, which has by no means — given me the most exalted idea of your character. Your temper would make me extremely unhappy —and were we united, I should experience nothing but the hatred of my parents added to the anything but •^pleasure in living with you. I have indeed a heart to bestow, but I do not wish you to imagine it — at your service. I could not give it to any one more inconsistent and capricious than yourself, and less — capable to do honor to my choice and to my family. Yes, Miss, I hope you will be persuaded that — I speak sincerely, and you will do me a favor to avoid me. I shall excuse you taking the trouble — to answer this. Your letters are always full of impertinence, and you have not a shadow of — wit and good sense. Adieu ! adieu ! believe me so averse to you, that it is impossible for me even — to be your most affectionate friend and humble servant L . INGENIOUS SUBTERFUGE. A young lady newly married, being obliged to show to her husband all the letters she wrote, sent the following to an inti- mate friend. The key is, to read the first and then every alternate line only. — I cannot be satisfied, my dearest friend ! blest as I am in the matrimonial state, — unless I pour into your friendly bosom, which has ever been in unison with mine, — the various sensations which swell E d» GG EQUIVOQUE, with the liveliest emotion of pleasure, — my almost bursting heart, I tell you my dear husband is tho most amiable of men, —I have now been married seven weeks, and never have found the least reason to — repent tiie day that joined us. My husband is both in person and manners far from resembling — ugly, cross, old, disagreeable, and jealous monsters, who think by confining to secure — — a wife, it is his maxim to treat as a bosom frieml an not, Lord, wit at I by my S his wound orns, my dea my bleg ^ unts, with ^ my h ^ forgi 4 g fount, the li 'y thee T er helps a '^ cross my ^^ en then, wh ^ and death sin <% od! my way 'h eath defe # h ^ any o a W viour s T my balm, his st t fh be lo t ^ Redeemer, h Zold thy o ^ pes on the V # e, aa well as pay f ^ e, the wa o * whither r Te vain, giv s j^ aving hea a <4 1 I with k me forev e <#> 8 direct n ^>d,tliatfromtheeI "" A ^ ^® raise e. f! Sweet Jes r merit rist inherit : pes my bliss, in his, viour Godl engeful rod; are set, e debt. I know; ^ hould I go? T thine to me; X th must be. 4, aith imploits ^ nd keep, 4* e'er slip; then, say, AmenI EXPLANATION. The middle cross represents our Saviour; those on either side, the two thieves. On the top and down the middle cross are our Saviour's expression, "My God! My God! why hast thou forsaken me?" and on the top of the cross is the Latin inscription, "INRI" — Jesus Nazarenus Rex Judseorum, i.e. Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews. Upon the cross on the right hand •s the prayer of one of the thieves : — " Lord ! remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom." On the left-hand cross is the saying, or reproach, of the other: — "If thou beest the Christ, save thyself and us." The whole, comprised together, makes a piece of excellent poetry, which is to be read across all the columns, and makes as many lines as there arc letters in the alphabet. It ia nerhaps one of the most curious pieces of composition to be found on record. 96 EMBLEMATIC COMPOSITION. INGENIOUS CYPHER The following was written by Prof. Whewell at the request of a young lady : — U a but I U, no but me; let not my a go, But give I U so. Thus de-cyphered : (You sigh for a cypher, but I sigh for you; sitjh for no cypher, but sigh for me : lot not my sigh for a cypher go, But give sigh for sigh, for I sigh for you 80.) TYPOORAPHICAL. We once saw a young man gazing at the *ry heavens, with a t in 1 fi@°" and a , — ■ — > of pistols in the other. We endeavored to attract his attention by .ing to a ^ in a paper we held in our JB@°', relating 2 a young man in that § of the country, who had left home in a state of mental derangement. He dropped the f and pistols from his J5@°"°^a with the ! " It is I of whom U read. I left home be4 my friends knew of my design. I had sO the JB@" of a girl who refused 2 lislO 2 me, but smiled bOnly on another. I ed madly from the bouse, uttering a wild ' 2 the god of love, and without replying 2 the ??? of my friends, came here with this f & , — ^— n of pis- tols, 2 put a . 2 my existence. My case has no |1 in this §." OXFORD JOKE. A gentleman entered the room of Dr. Barton, Warden of Merton College, and told him that Dr. Vowel was dead. \ "What!" said he, "Dr. Vowel dead! well, thank heaven it was neither U nor I." In an old church in Westchester county, N. Y., the following consonants are written beside the altar, under the Ten Com- mandments. What vowel is to be placed between them, to make sense and rhyme of the couplet? P. K. S. V. R. Y. P. 11. F. C. T. M. N. V. R. K. P. T. U. S. P. R. C. P. T. S. T. N. EMBLEJIATIC I'OETRY. ^7 BSSAY TO MISS CATHARINE JAY. An S A now I mean 2 write 2 U sweet K T J, The girl without a ||, The belle of U T K. I 1 der if U got that 1 I wrote 2 U B 4 I sailed in the R K D A, And sent by L N Moore. My M T head will scarce contain A calm IDA bright But A T miles from U I must M^- this chance 2 write. ^nd 1st, should N E N V U, B E Z, mind it not, Should N E friendship show, B true; They should not B forgot From virt U nev R D V 8 ; Her influence B 9 A like induces 10 dern S, Or 40 tude D vine. And if U cannot cut a Or cut an ! I hope U'll put a . 2 1?. R U for an X ation 2, My cous N ? — heart and ^^a^ He off R's in a ^ A g 2 of land. He says he loves U 2 X S, U R virtuous and Y's, InXLNCUXL All others in his i's. This S A, until U I C, I pray U 2 X Q's, And do not burn in F E G My young and wayward muso. Now fare U well, dear K T J, I trust that U R true- When this U C, then you can say, An S A I U. y 98 MONOSYLLABLES. "And ten low words oft creep in one dull line." Some of our best writers have very properly taken exception to the above line in Pope's Essay on Criticism, and have shown, by reference to abundant examples, that many of the finest pass- ages in our language are nearly, if not altogether, monosyllabic. Indeed, it could not well be otherwise, if it be true that, as Dean Swift has remarked, the English language is " over- ptocked with monosyllables." It contains more than five hundred formed by the vowel a alone; four hundred and fifty by the vowel e; nearly four hundred by the vowel i ; more than four hundred by the vowel o; and two hundred and sixty by the vowel u ; besides a large number formed by diphthongs. Floy has written a leugthy and very ingenious article, entirely in monosyllables, in which he undertakes, as he says, to "prove that short words, in spite of the sneer in the text, need not creep, nor be dull, but that they give strength, and life, and fire to the verse of those who know how to use them." Pope himself, however, has confuted his own words by his admirable writings more effectively than could be done by labored argument. Many of the best lines in the Essay above referred to, as well as in the Essay on Man, — and there are few "dull" or "creeping" verses to be found in either, — are made up entirely of monosyllables, or contain but one word of greater length, or a contracted word pronounced as one syllable. The Universal Prayer — one of the most beautiful and elaborate pieces, both in sentiment and versification, ever produced in any language — contains three hundred and four words, of which there are two hundred and forty-nine monosyllables to fifty-five polysyllables, thus averaging but one of the latter to every line. A. single stanza is appended as a specimen : — If I iim r\g\\l, thy grace impart Still in the right to stay; If I am wrong, oh, teach iny heart To find that better way 1 MONOSYLLABLES. 99 Rogers, conversing on this subject, cited two lines from Eloisa to Abclard, which he declared could not possibly be improved : — Pant on thy lip, and to thy heart be press'd ; Give all thou canst — and let me dream the rest. Among the illustrations employed by Floy, are numerous selections from the hymnology in common congregational use, Buch as the following : — Sweet is the work, my God, my King, To praise thy name, give thanks, and sing; To show thy love by morning light, And talk of all thy truth at night. — Watts. Are there no foes for me to face ? Must I not stem the flood ? Is this vile world a friend to grace To help me on to God ? — Watts. Save me from death ; from hell set free ; Death, hell, are but the want of thee : My life, my only heav'n thou art, — might I feel thee in my heart ! — C. Wesley. The same writer, to show Shakspeare's fondness for small words, and their frequent subservience to some of his most masterly eflForts, enters upon a monosyllabic analysis of King Lear, quoting from it freely throughout. Those who read the play with reference to this point will be struck with the re- markable number of forcible passages made up of words of one syllable : — Thou know'st the first time that we smell the air. We wawl and cry : I will preach to thee ; mark me. When we are born, we cry that we are come To this great stage of fools.— This a good block?— Act IV. Sc. 6. The following occurs in the play of King John, where the King is pausing in his wish to incite Hubert to murder Arthur : — Good friend, thou hast no cause to say so yet ; But thou shalt have ; and creep time ne'er so slow. Yet it shall come, for me to do thee good. I had a thing to say.— But lot it go.— Act HI. Sc. Z. 100 MONOSYLLABLES. But who I was, or where, or from what cause, Knew not ; to speak I tried, and forthwith spake Thou Bun, said I, fair light. And thou enlightened earth, so fresh and gay, Ye hills, and dales, ye rivers, woods, and plains. And ye that live and move, fair creatures, tell, Tell, if yo saw how I came thus, how here? — Tell me, how may I know Him, how adore, From whom I have that thus I move and live ? — Paradise Lost, B. Till. Uerrick says, in his address to the daffodils : — We have short time to stay as you, We have as short a spring; As quick a growth to meet decay As you or any thing. We die As your hour= dn, and dry Like to the rain, Or as the pearls of dew. Now I am here, what thou wilt do for me, None of my books will show ; I read, and sigh, and wish I were a tree. For sure I then should grow To fruit or shade : at least some bird might trust Her household to me, and I should be just— George IIerbert. Thou who hast given me eyes to see And love this sight so fair. Give me a heart to find out Thee, And read Thee everywhere. — Keble. The bell strikes one. We take no note of time Save by its loss ; to give it then a tongue Were wise in man. — Young. Ah, yes ! the hour is come When thou must haste thee home, Pure soul ! to Ilim who calls. The God who gave thee breath Walks by the side of death. And naught that step appalls. — Landor. New light new love, new love new life hath bred ; A life that lives by love, and loves by light; A love to ilim to whom all loves are wed; A light to whom the sun is darkest night: MONOSYLLABI £S , ' ,' JVIOI.' Eye's light, heart's love, soul's only life, lie f ; Life, soul, love, heart, light, eyes, and all are His ; He eye, light, heart, love, soul ; He all my joy and bliss. — Fletcher's Purple Island, Bailey's Festus, that extraordinary poem the perusal of which makes the reader feel as if he had "eaten of the insane root that takes the reason prisoner," abounds with examples : — Night brings out stars as sorrow shows us truths : Though many, yet they help not ; bright, they light not. They are too late to serve us ; and sad things Are aye too true. We never see the stars Till we can see naught but them. So with truth. And yet if one would look down a deep well, Even at noon, we might see those same stars Life's more than breath, and the quick round of blood — We live in deeds, not years ; in thoughts, pot breaths — AVe should count time by heart-throbs. He most lives Who thinks most — feels the noblest — acts the best Life's but a means unto an end — Helen {sings.) Oh! love is like the rose, And a month it may not see, Ere it withers where it grows — Rosalie ! I loved thee from afar; Oh ! my heart was lift to thee Like a glass up to a star — Rosalie ! Thine eye was glassed in mine As the moon is in the sea, And its shine is on the brine — Rosalie ! The rose hath lost its red. And the star is in the sea, And the briny tear is shed- Rosalie! Festds. What the stars are to the night, my leva, What its pearls are to the sea, AVhat the dew is to the day, my love, Thy beauty is to me. We may say that the sun is dead, and gone Forever; and may swear he will rise no more ; 9» ''102/' ','' , ,,; ,*M1f)N©SYLLABLES. The skies may put on mourning for their Qod, And earth heap ashes on her head ; but who Shall keep the sun back when he thinks to rise ? Where is the chain shall bind him ? Where the cell Shall hold him ? Hell he would burn down to embers, And would lift up the world with a lever of light Out of his way : yet, know ye, 'twere thrice less To do thrice this, than keep the soul from Qod. Many of the most expressive sentences in the Bible are mono- syllabic. A few are subjoined, selected at random : — And Qod said. Let there be light: and there was light. And Qod saw the light, that it was good. — Gen. I. At her feet ho bowed, he fell, he lay down : at her feet he bowed, he fell : where he bowed, there he fell down dead. — Judges V. Lord my Qod, I cried unto thee, and thou hast healed me. Lord, thou hast brought up my soul from the grave : thou hast kept me alive, that I should not go down to the pit. Sing unto the Lord, ye sainta of his, and give thanks. — Pmlm XXX. And he said unto me, Son of man, can these bones live ? — Ezek. XXXVII. Prove all chings ; hold fast that which is good. — 1 Thess. V. For if we be dead with him, we shall also live with him. — 2 Tim. II. For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand? ^Il,v. VI. And the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day ; for there shall be no night there. — Itev. XXI. THE POWER OP SHORT WORDS. Think not that strength lies in the big round word. Or that the brief and plain must needs be weak. To whom can this be true who once has heard The cry for help, the tongue that all men speak. When want or woe or fear is in the throat, So that each word gasped out is like a shriek Pressed from the sore heart, or a strange wild note. Sung by some fay or fiend? There is a strength Which dies if stretched too far or spun too fine. Which has more height than breadth, more depth than lengtli. Let but this force of thought and speech be mine. And he that will may take the sleek fat phrase Which glows and burns not, though it gleam and shine — Light, but no heat — a flash, but not a blaze ! TTTE BIBTiK. 103 Nor is it mere strength that the short word boasts : It serves of more than fight or storm to tell, The roar of waves that clash on rock-bound coast?, The crash of tall trees when the wild winds swell, The roar of guns, the groans of men that die On blood-stained fields. It has a voice as well For them that far off on their sick-beds lie ; For them that weep, for them that mourn the dead ; For them that laugh and dance and clap the hand ; To joy's quick step, as well as grief's slow tread, The sweet, plain words we learnt at first keep time, And though the theme be sad, or gay, or grand, With each, with all, these may be made to chime. In thought, or speech, or song, in prose or rhyme. Dk. Alexandeu, Princeton MagatiiM. m)z Bitle. God's cabinet of revealed counsel 'tis, Where weal and woe are ordered so That every man may know which shall be his; Unless his own mistake false application make. It is the index to eternity. He cannot miss of endless bliss, That takes this chart to steer by. Nor can he be mistook, that speaketb by this book. It is the book of God. What if I should Say, God of books, let him that looks Angry at that expression, as too bold, Ills thoughts in silence smother, till he find such another. ACCURACY OP THE BIBLE. One of the most remarkable results of modern research is the confirmation of the accuracy of the historical books of the Old Testament. The ruins of Babylon and Nineveh shed a light on those books which no skepticism can invalidate. What surprises us most is their marvellous accuracy in minute details, which are now substantiated by recent discoveries. The fact seems to be that when writing was laboriously performed on 104 THE BIBLE stone, men had an almost superstitious conscientiousness in making their records true, and had not learned the modern in- difference to truth which our facile modes of communicating thought have encouraged. A statement to be chiselled on rock must be correct; a statement which can be written in five minutes is likely to embody only first impressions, which may be amended in five minutes thereafter. Hence it comes to pass that we know more exactly many things which took place in the wars between Sennacherib and Hezekiah, than we know what is the precise truth with regard to some of the occur- rences in the battle of Bunker's Hill. Sir Henry Rawlinson, speaking of his researches in Babylon, states that the name and situation of every town of note in ancient Assyria, men- tioned in the Bible, can be substantiated by the ruins of that city. The visit of the Queen of Sbeba to Solomon is perfectly verified. The prosecution of the researches will be regarded with great interest as corroborating the truth of Scripture. An astonishing feature of the word of God is, notwithstand- ing the time at which its compositions were written, and the multitude of the topics to which it alludes, there is not one physical error, — not one assertion or allusion disproved by the progress of modern science. None of those mistakes which the science of each succeeding age discovered in the books pre- ceding ; above all, none of those absurdities which modern astronomy indicates in such great numbers in the writings of the ancients, — in their sacred codes, in their philosophy, and even in the finest pages of the fathers of the Church, — not one of these errors is to be found in any of our sacred books. Nothing there will ever contradict that which, after so many ages, the investigations of the learned world have been able to reveal to us on the state of our globe, or on that of the heavens. Peruse with care the Scriptures from one end to the other, to find such blemishes, and, whilst you apply yourselves to this examina- tion, remember that it is a book which speaks of every thing, which describes nature, which recites its creation, which tells us of the water, of the atmosphere, of the mountains, of the THE BIBLE. 105 animals, and of the plants. It is a book which teaches us the first revolutions of the world, and which also foretells its last. It recounts them in the circumstantial language of history, it extols them in the sublimest strains of poetry, and it chants them in the charms of glowing song. It is a book which is full of Oriental rapture, elevation, variety, and boldness. It is a book which speaks of the heavenly and invisible world, whilst it also speaks of the earth and things visible. It is a book which nearly fifty writers, of every degree of cultivation, of every state, of every condition, and living through the course of fifteen hundred years, have concurred to make. It is a book which was written in the centre of Asia, in the sands of Arabia, in the deserts of Judea, in the court of the Temple of the Jews, in the music-schools of the prophets of Bethel and Jericho, in the sumptuous palaces of Babylon, and on the idolatrous banks of Chebar; and finally, in the centre of Western civilization, in the midst of the Jews and of their ignorance, in the midst of polytheism and its sad philosophy. It is a book whose first writer had been forty years a pupil of the magicians of Egypt, in whose opinion the sun, the stars, and elements were en- dowed with intelligence, reacted on the elements, and governed the world by a perpetual illuvium. It is a book whose first writer preceded, by more than nine hundred years, the most ancient philosophers of ancient Greece and Asia, — the Thaleses, and the Pythagorascs, the Zaleucuses, the Xenophons, and the Confuciuses. It is a book which carries its narrations even to the hierarchies of angels — even to the most distant epochs of the future, and the glorious scenes of the last day. Well : search among its fifty authors, search among its sixty-six books, its eleven hundred and eighty-nine chapters, and its thirty-one thousand one hundred and seventy-three verses; search for only one of those thousand errors which the ancients and moderns have committed in speaking of the heavens or of the earth — of their revolutions, of their elements ; search — but you will find none. 106 TUE BIBLE. THE TESTIMONY OF LEARNED MEN. Sir William Jones' opinion of the Bible was •written on the last leaf of one belonging to him, in these terms : — " I have regularly and attentively read these Holy Scriptures, and am of opinion that this volume, independently of its Divine ori- gin, contains more sublimity and beauty, more pure morality, more important history and finer strains of poetry and elo- quence, than can be collected from all other books, in whatever age or language they may have been composed." Rousseau says, "This Divine Book, the only one which is indispensable to the Christian, need only be read with reflec- tion to inspire love for its author, and the most ardent desire to obey its precepts. Never did virtue speak so sweet a lan- guage ; never was the most profound wisdom expressed with so much energy and simplicity. No one can arise from its perusal without feeling himself better than he was before." WiLBERFORCE, in his dying hour, said to a friend, "Read the Bible. Let no religious book take its place. Through all my perplexities and distresses, I never read any other book, and I never knew the want of any other. It has been my hourly study; and all my knowledge of the doctrines, and all my acquaintance with the experience and realities, of religion, have been derived from the Bible only. I think religious peo- ple do not read the Bible enough. Books about religion may be useful enough, but they will not do instead of the simple truth of the Bible." Lord Bolingbroke declared that "the Gospel is, in all cases, one continued lesson of the strictest morality, of justice, of benevolence, and of universal charity." Similar testimony has been accorded in the strongest terms by Locke, Newton, Boyle, Selden, Salmasius, Sir Wal- ter Scott, and numberless others. Daniel Webster, having been commended for his eloquence on a memorable occasion, replied, "If any thing I have ever said or written deserves the feeblest encomiums of my fellow- THE BIBLE. 107 countrymen, I have no hesitation in declaring that for their partiality I am indebted, solely indebted, to the daily and at- tentive perusal of the Holy Scriptures, the source of all true poetry and eloquence, as well as of all good and ail comfort." John Quincy Adams, in a letter to his son in 1811, says, "I have for many years made it a practice to read through the Bible once every year. My custom is to read four or five chap- ters every morning, immediately after rising from my bed. It employs about an hour of my time, and seems to me the most suitable manner of beginning the day. In whatsoever light we regard the Bible, whether with reference to revelation, to history, or to morality, it is an invaluable and inexhaustible mine of knowledge and virtue." Addison says, in relation to the poetry of the Bible, "After perusing the Book of Psalms, let a judge of the beau- ties of poetry read a literal translation of Horace or Pindar, and he will find in these two last such an absurdity and con- fusion of style, with such a comparative poverty of imagination, as will make him sensible of the vast superiority of Scripture style." Lord Byron, in a letter to Mrs. Sheppard, said, in refer- ence to the truth of Christianity, " Indisputably, the firm believers in the Gospel have a great advantage over all others, for this simple reason : — that, if true, they will have their re- ward hereafter ; and if there be no hereafter, they can be but with the infidel in his eternal sleep, having had the assistance of an exalted hope through life, without subsequent disappoint- ment, since (at the worst, for them) out of nothing nothing can arise, — not even sorrow." The following lines of Walter Scott are said to have been copied in his Bible : — Within this awful volume lies The mystery of mysteries. Oh ! happiest they of human race, To whom our God has given grace To hear, to read, to fear, to pray, To lift the latch, and force the way; But better had they ne'er been bom, Who read to doubt, or read to scorn. — 3fouaeteri/. 108 THE BIBLE. ENGLISH BIBLE TRANSLATIONS. Our version of the Bible is to be loved and prized for this, as for a thon- Band other things,— that it has preserved a purity of meaning to many terms of natural objects. Without this holdfast, our vitiatfid imaginations would refine .away language to mere abstractions. Hence the French have lost theii poetical language ; and Blanco White says the same thing has happened to the Spanish. — Coleridge. Wkkliffe's Bihle. — This was the first translation made into the language. It was translated by John Wicklifi'e, about the year 1384, but never printed, though there are manuscript copies of it in several public libraries. Ti/ndale's Bihle. — The translation of William Tyndale, as- sisted by Miles Coverdale, was the first printed Bible in the p]nglish language. The New Testament was published in 1526. It was revised and republished in 1530. In 1532, Tyn- dale and his associates finished the whole Bible, except the Apocrypha, and printed it abroad. Matthews' Bihle. — While Tyndale was preparing a second edition of the Bible, he was taken up and burned for heresy in Flanders. On his death, Coverdale and John Rogers revised it, and added a translation of the Apocrypha. It was dedicated to Henry VIII., in 1537, and was printed at Hamburg, under the borrowed name of Thomas Matthews, whence it was called Matthews' Bible. Cranmer's Bihle. — This was the first Bible printed by author- ity in England, and publicly set up in the churches. It was Tyndale's version, revised by Coverdale, and examined by Cran- mer, who added a prefiice to it, whence it was called Cranmer's Bible. It was printed by Grafton, in large folio, in 1539. After being adopted, suppressed, and restored under successive reigns, a new edition was brought out in 1562. The Geneva Bihle. — In 1557, the whole Bible in quarto was printed at Geneva by Rowland Harte, some of the English refugees continuing in that city solely for that purpose. The TUE BIBLE 109 translators were Bishop Covcrdalc, Anthony Gilby, William Whittingham, Christopher "Woodman, Thomas Sampson, and Thomas Cole — to whom some add John Knox, John Bodleigh, and John Pullain, all zealous Calvinists, both in doctrine and discipline. But the chief and most learned of them were the first three. Of this translation there were about thirty editions, mostly printed by the King's and Queen's printers, from 1560 to 161G. In this version, the first distinction in verses was made. The following is a copy of the title-page of the edition of 1559, omitting two quotations from the Scrip- tures : — THE BIBLE. THAT IS. THE HO- LY SCRIPTURES CONTEI- NED IN THE OLDE AND NEWE TESTAMENT. Translated According to the Ebrew and Greeke, and conferred with the best translations in divers languages. With most profitable Annotations vpon all the hard places, and other things of Great importance. IMPRINTED AT LONDON by the Deputies of Christopher Barker, Printer to the Queencs most excellent Maiestie, 1599. Cum priuilegio. To some editions of the Geneva Bible, one of which is this of 1599, is subjoined Bcza's translation of the new text into English by L. Tomson, who was under-secretary to Sir Francis Walsingham. But, though he pretends to translate from Beza, he has seldom varied a word from the Geneva translation. Dr. Geddes gives honorable testimony to the last Geneva version, as he does not hesitate to declare that he thinks it in general better than that of the King James translators. Our readers will hardly agree with him when they read some extracts from »t appended in a succeeding paragraph. 10 110 THE BIBLK. The typographical appearance of this work is quite a curi- osity. Like most of the old books, it is well printed, and ia ornamented with the pen. The head and foot rules, as well aa the division of the columns, are made with the pen in red ink. The title-page is quite profusely ornamented with red lines. This translation of the Bible is known as " the breeches Bible," from the following rendering of Genesis iii. 7 : — Then the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig tree leaves together, and made themselves breeches. A peculiarity in this Bible is the substitution of the letter v for u, and, vice versa, u for v. The name of Eve is printed Heuah (Hevah); Cain is printed Kain; Abel, Habcl ; Enoch, Henock; Isaac, Ishak; Hebrew, Ebrew, &c. The translations of many of the passages differ materially from our received version. The following will serve as illustrations : — Thus he east out man ; and at the East side of the garden of Eden ne Bet the cherubims, and the blade of a sword shaken, to keep the way of the tree of life. — Genesis iii. 24:. Then it repented the Lorde that he had made man in the earth, and he was sorie in his heart. — Gen. vi. 6. Make thee an Arkee of pine trees; thou shalt make cabins in the Arkee, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch. Thou shalt make it with the lower, second and third roome. — Gen. vi. 14, 16. And he said, Ilagar, Sarais maido, whence comest thou ? & whether wilt thou go? and she said, I flee from my dame Sarai. — Gen. xvi. 8. When Abram was ninetie years old & nine, the Lord appeared to Abram, and said unto him, I am God all sufficient, walke before me, and be thou up- right — Gen. xvii. 1. Then Abraham rose vp from the sight of his corps, and talked with the Hittites, saying, I am a stranger and a forreiner among yon, Ac. — Gen. xxiii. 3, 4. Then Abraham yielded the spirit and died in a good age, an olde man, and of great yeeres, and was gathered to his people. — Gen. xxv. 8. As many were astonied at thee (his visage was so deformed of men, and his forme of the sonncs of men) sn shall bee spunckle many nations. — Isa. Hi. 14. This chapter has but fourteen verses in it. THE RTm-E. Ill Can the blacko Mooro change his skinno? or tho leopard hia spot) ?— Jer. xiii. 2:^. And after those days wo trussed up our fardles, and went up to Jera- ealem. — Acts xxi. 15. But Jesus sayde vnto her, Let the children first hec fed ; for it is not good to take tho childrens bread, and to cast it unto whelps. Then sheo answered, and said unto him, Truthe, Lorde ; yet in deedo the whelps oato under the table of the childrens crumiues. — JIark vii. 27, 28. And she broght forth her fyrst begotten sonno, and wrapped him in swad- lyng clothes, and layd him in a cretche, because there was no rowme for them with in the ynne. — Luke ii. 7. Tlie Bishops' Biltle. — Archbishop Parker engaired bishops and other learned men to bring out a new translation. They did so in 1568, in large folio. It made what was afterwards called the great English Bible, and commonly the Bishops' Bible. In 1589 it was published in octavo, in small, but fine black letter. In it the chapters were divided into verses, but without any breaks for them. Matthew Parker s Bible. — The Bishops' Bible underwent some corrections, and was printed in large folio in 1572, and called Matthew Parker's Bible. The version was used in the churches for forty years. The Douay Bible. — The New Testament was brought out by the Roman Catholics in 1582, and called the Rhemish New Testament. It was condemned by the Queen of England, and copies were seized by her authority aud destroyed. In 1609 and 1610, the Old Testament was added, and the whole pub- lished at Douay, hence called the Douay Bible. King James's Bible. — The version now in use was brought out by King James's authority in 1611. Fifty-four learned men were employed to accomplish tlie work of revising it. From death or other cause, seven of them failed to enter upon it. The remaining forty-seven were ranged under six divisions, and had different portions of the Bible assigned to those divisions. They commenced their task in 1607. After some three or four years of diligent labor, the whole was completed. This ver- sion was generally adopted, and the other translations fell info disuse. It has continued in use until the present time. 112 THE BIBLE DISSECTION OP THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS. Books in the Old Testament / '" Chapters 929 Verses 23,214 Words 592.4H9 Letters 2,728,100 27 260 7,959 .181,253 .838,380 66 1,189 31,173 ...773,692 .3,566,480 APOCKVPHA. Chapters 183 i Verses 6,081 | Words 152,185 The middle chapter and the least in the Bible is Psalm cxvii. The middle verse is the eighth of Psalm cxviii. The middle line is in 2d Chronicles, 4th chapter, ICth verse. The word and occurs in the Old Testament 35,543 times. The same in the New Testament, 10,684. The word Jelwvah occurs 6,855 times. OLD TESTAMENT. The middle book is Proverbs. The middle chapter is Job xxix. The middle verse is in 2d Chronicles, 20th chapter, between the ITth and 18th verses. The least verse is in 1st Chronicles, 1st chapter, and 25th verse. NEW TESTAMENT. The middle book is the 2d epistle to Thessalonians. The middle chapter is between the 13th and 14th of Romans. The middle verse is the 17th chapter of Acts, and 17th verse. The least verse is the 11th chapter of John, verse 35. The 21st verse of the 7th chapter of Ezra has all the letters of the alphabet in it. The 19th chapter of the 2d book of Kings, and the 37th of Isaiah, are alike. N.B. — Three years are said to have been spent in this curi- ous but idle calculation. THE BIBLE. 113 DISTINCTIONS IN THE GOSPELS. 1. In regard to their external features and cliaracteristics : The point of view of the first gOvSpel is mainly Israelitic; of the second, Gentile ; of the third, universal ; of the fourth, Christian. The general aspect, and so to speak, physiognomy of the first, mainly, is oriental; of the second, Roman; of the third, Greek; of the fourth, spiritual. The style of the first is stately and rhythmical; of the second, terse and precise; of the third, calm and copious; of the fourth, artless and colloquial. The striking characteristic of the first is symmetry ; of the second compression ; of the third, order ; of the fourth, system. The thought and language of the first are both Hebraistic; of the third, both Hellenistic ; while in the second, thought is often accidental though the language is Hebraistic; and in the fourth, the language is Hellenistic, but the thought Hebraistic. 2. In respect to their subject-matter and contents: In the first gospel, narrative; in the second, memoirs; in the third, history; in the fourth, dramatic portraiture. In the first we often have the record of events in their ac- complishment; in the second, events in detail; in the third, events in their connection; in the fourth, events in relation to the teaching springing from them. Thus in the first we often meet with the notice of impres- sions; in the second, of facts; in the third, of motives; in the fourth, of words spoken. And, lastly, the record of the first is mainly collective, and often antithetical; of the second, graphic and circumstantial; of the third, didactic and reflective ; of the fourth, selective and supplemental. 3. In respect to their portraiture of our Lord: The first presents him to us mainly as the Messiah ; the second, mainly as the God-man; the third, as the Redeemer; the fourth, as the only begotten Son of God. 114 THE BIBLE. BOOKS MENTIONED IN THE BIBLE NOW LOST OR UNKNOWN. 1. The Prophecy of Enoch. See Epistle to Jude, 14. 2. The Book of the Wars of the Lord. See Numb. xxi. 14. 3. The Prophetical Gospel of Eve, which relates to the Amours of the Sons of God with the Daughters of Men. See Origen cont. Celsum, Tertul. &c. 4. The Book of Jasher. See Joshua x. 13 ; and 2 Samuel i. 18. 5. The Book of Iddo the Seer. See 2 Chronicles ix. 29, and xii. 15. 6. The Book of Nathan the Prophet. See as above. 7. The Prophecies of Ahijah, the Shilonite. See as above. 8. The acts of Rehoboam, in Book of Shemaiah. See 2 Chronicles xii. 15. 9. The Book of Jehu the Son of Hanani. See 2 Chronicles XX. 34. 10. The Five Books of Solomon, treating on the nature of trees, beasts, fowl, serpents, and fishes. See 1 Kings iv. 33. 11. The 151st Psalm. THE WORD "SELAH." The translators of the Bible have left the Hebrew word Selah, which occurs so often in the Psalms, as they found it, and of course the English reader often asks his minister, or some learned friend, what it means. And the minister or learned friend has most often been obliged to confess ignorance, because it is a matter in regard to which the most learned have by no means been of one mind. The Targums, and most of the Jewish commentators, give to the word the meaning of eter- nally forever. Rabbi Kimchi regards it as a sign to elevate the voice. The authors of the Septuagint translation appear to have considered it a musical or rhythmical note. Herder inclines to the opinion that it indicates a change of tone, which is expressed either by increase of force, or by a transition into another time and mode. Matheson thinks it is a musical note, equivalent, perhaps, to the word repeat. According to Luther and others, THE BIBLK. 115 it means silence. Gescnius explains it to mean, " Let the in- struments play and the singers stop." Woclier regards it as equivalent to sursuyn corda, — up, my soul ! Sommer, after ex- amining all the seventy-four passages in which the word occurs, recognizes in every case "an actual appeal or summons to Je- hovah." They are calls for aid, and prayers to be heard, ex- pressed either with entire directness, or if not in the impera- tive. Hear, Jehovah ! or Awake, Jehovah, and the like, still, earnest addresses to God that he would remember and hear, &c. The word itself he considers indicative of a blast of trum- pets by the priests, Selah being an abridged expression for Higgaion Selah, — Higgaion indicating the sound of the stringed instruments, and Selah a vigorous blast of trumpets. HEXAMETERS IN THE BIBLE. Ill the Psabiw. God came | up with a | shout: our [ Lord with the | sound 5f a | trumpet.|| There is a [ river the | flowing where- | of shall | gladdSn thg | city.|| Halle- I lujah the | city of | God ! Je- | hovah hath | blest her.^ In the New Testament. Art thou he | that should j come, or | do we | look for a- | n5ther?|| Uusbands, | love your | wives, and | be n5t | bitter a- | gainst them.|| Bless'd are the | poor in | spirit, for | theirs is the | kingdSm of | heaven.|| Mr. Coleridge, whose enthusiastic and reverential admiration of the rhetorical beauty and poetic grandeur with which the Bible abounds, — all the more beautiful and the more sublime because casual and unsought by the sacred writers, — took great delight in pointing out the hexametrical rliytlim of numerous passages, particularly in the book of Isaiah : — Hear, heavens, and give ear, | earth : for the Lord hath spoken. I have nourished and brought up children, | and they have rebelled against me. The ox knoweth his owner, | and the ass his master's crib : But Israel doth not know, | my people doth not consider. 116 THE BIBLE. Winer points out the following hexameters in the original Greek version of the New Testament: — Kpnrts a I el i/'fC | arat, KaKa \ ^rjpia | yaaTife^ | ti/jyai'.— Titus i. 12. nSffO 66 I (Tif dya | Si) Kai | ttSv 6-^ \ prt/ia ri | Xtiov, — James i. 17. Kal Tfoxi I oj dp I Suf TTOi I r\oaTe | roi^ -ikj'lv | Vfiijn, — Heb. xii. 13. PARALLELISM OF THE HEBREW POETRY. The prominent characteristic of the Hebrew poetry is what Bishop Lowth entitles Parallelism, that is, a certain equality, resemblance, or relationship, between the members of each period ; so that in two lines, or members of the same period, things shall answer to things, and words to words, as if fitted to each other by a kind of rule or measure. The Psalms, Pro- verbs, Solomon's Song, Job, and all the Prophets, except Daniel and Jonah, abound with instances. It is in a great measure owing to this form of composition that our admirable authorized version, though executed ia prose, retains so much of a poetical cast; for, being strictly word for word after the original, the form and order of the ori- ginal sentences are preserved ; which, by this artificial struc- ture, this regular alternation and correspondence of parts, makes the ear sensible of a departure from the common style and tone of prose. The different kinds of parallels are illustrated in the follow- ing examples : — Parallels Antithetic. — Pror. x. 1, 7. A wise son maketh a glad father ; But a foolish son is the heaviness of his mother. The memory of the just is blessed; But the name of the wicked shall rot. Parallels Synthetic.— Tiov. vi. 16-19. These six things doth the Lord hate; Yea, seven are an abomination unto him: A proud look, a lying tongue, And hands that shed innocent blood, A heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, Feet that be swift in running to mischief, A false witness that speaketh lies, And he that soweth discord among brethren. THE BIBLE. 117 Constriicllvc. — Psalm sis. 7-9. The law of tho Lord is perfect, converting the soul ; The teftimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple; The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes; The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever; The judgments of the Lord are true, and righteous altogether. Paralleh Synonymous. — Psalm XX. 1-4. The Lord hear thee in the day of trouble ; The name of the God of Jacob defend thee; Send thee help from the sanctuary, And strengthen thee out of Zion ; Remember all thine offerings. And accept thy burnt sacrifice ; Grant thee according to thine own heart, And fulfil all thy counsel. Gradational. — Psalm i. 1. Blessed is the man That walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, Nor standeth in the way of sinners. Nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. Paralleh Introverted. — Prov. xxiii. 15, 16. My son, if thy heart be wise. My heart shall rejoice, even mine; Tea, my reins shall rejoice WTien thy lips speak right things. It may be objected to Hebrew poetry, says Gilfillan, that it has no regular rhythm except a rude parallelism. What then? Must it be, therefore, altogether destitute of music ? Has not the rain a rhythm of its own, as it patters on the pane, or sinks on the bosom of its kindred pool ? Has not the wind a har- mony, as it bows the groaning woods, or howls over the man eions of the dead ? Have not the waves of ocean their wild bass ? Has not the thunder its own deep and dreadful organ- pipe? Do they speak. in rhyme? Do they murmur in blank verse? "Who taught them to begin in Iambics, or to close in Alexandrines ? And shall not God's own speech have a pecu- liar note, no more barbarous than is the voice of the old woods or the older cataracts ? 118 THE BIBLE. Besides, to call parallelism a coarse or uncouth rhythm, be- trays an ignorance of its nature. Without entering at large on the subject of Hebrew versification, we may ask any one who has paid even a slight attention to .he subject, if the effect of parallels such as the foregoing examples, perpetually intermingled as they are, be not to enliven the composition, often to give distinctness and precision to the train of thought, to impress the sentiments upon the memory, and to give out a harmony which, if inferior to rhyme in the compression pro- duced by the difficulty (surmounted) of uniting varied sense with recurring sound, and in the pleasure of surprise; and to blank verse, in freedom, in the effects produced by the va- riety of pause, and in the force of long and linked passages, as well as of insulated lines, is less slavish than the one, and less arbitrary than the other ? Unlike rhyme, its point is more that of thought than of language ; unlike blank verse, it never can, however managed, degenerate into heavy prose. Such is parallelism, which generally forms the differential quality of the poetry of Scripture, although there are many passages in it destitute of this aid, and which yet, in the spirit they breathe, and the metaphors by which they are garnished, are genuine and high poetry. And there can be little question that in the parallelism of the Hebrew tongue we can trace many of the peculiarities of modern writing, and in it find the fountain of the rhythm, the pomp and antithesis, which lend often such grace, and always such energy, to the style of Johnson, of Ju- nius, of Burke, of Ilall, of Chalmers, — indeed, of most writers who rise to the grand swells of prose-poetry. SIMILARITY OF SOUND. There is a remarkable similarity of sound in a passage in the Second Book of Kings, ch. iii. v. 4, to the metrical rhythm of Campbell's Battle of tlie Baltic: — A hundred thousand lambs, And a hundred thousand rams, With the wool. THE BIBLE. 119 By each gun the lighted brand, In a bold determined hand, And the Prince of all the land Led them on. PARALLEL PASSAGES BETWEEN SHAKSPEARE AND THE BIBLE. An English minister, Rev. T. R. Eaton, has written a work entitled Shakspeare and the Btble, for the purpose of showing how much Shakspeare was indebted to the Bible for many of his illustrations, rhythms, and even modes of feeling. The author affirms that, in storing his miud, the immortal bard went first to the word, and then to the works, of God. In shaping the truths derived from these sources, he obeyed the instinct implanted by Him who had formed him Shakspeare. Hence his power of inspiring us with sublime affection for that which is properly good, and of chilling us with horror by his fearful delineations of evil. Shakspeare perpetually reminds us of the Bible, not by direct quotations, indirect allusion, bor- rowed idioms, or palpable imitation of phrase or style, but by an elevation of thought and simplicity of diction which are not to be found elsewhere. A passage, for instance, rises in our thoughts, unaccompanied by a clear recollection of its origin. Our first impression is that it must belong either to the Bible or Shakspeare. No other author excites the same feeling in an equal degree. In Shakspeare's plays religion is a vital and active principle, sustaining the good, tormenting the wicked, and influencing the hearts and lives of all. Although the writer carries his leading idea too far, by strain- ing passages to multiply the instances in which Shakspeare has imitated scriptural sentences in thought and construction, and by leading his readers to infer that it was from the Bible Shak- speare drew not only his best thoughts, but in fact his whole power of inspiring us with affection for good and horror for evil, it is certainly true that some hundreds of Biblical allu- sions, however brief and simple, show Shakspeare's conversance with the Bible, his fondness fur it, and the almost unconscioua 120 THE BIBLE. recurrence of it in his mind. The following examples of his parallelisms will be found interesting: — Othello. — Rude am I in my speech. — i. 3. But though I be rude in speech. — 2 Cor. xi. 6. Witches. — Show his eyes and grieve his heart. — Macbeth, iv. 1. Consume thine eyes and grieve thine heart. — 1 Sam, 11. 33. Macbeth. — Lighted fools the way to dusty death. — v. 5. Thou hast brought me into the dust of death. — Ps, xxll. 15. Dusty" death alludes to the sentence pronounced against Adam : — Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. — Gen. ill, 19, Macbeth. — Life's but a walking shadow. — v. 5. Man walketh in a vain show. — Ps. xxxix. 6. Prince of Morocco. — Mislike me not for my complexion, The shadow'd livery of the burnished sun. — Merch.Vcn. ii. ]. Look not upon me, because I am black, because the sun hath looked upon me. — Sol. Song, i. 6. Othello. — I took by the throat, the circumcised dog, and smote him. — v. 2. I smote him, I caught him by his beard and smote him, and slew him.— 1 Sam. xvii. 35. Macbeth. — Let this pernicious hour stand aye accursed in the calendar. — iv. 1. Opened Job his mouth and cursed his day ; let it not be joined unto the days of the year, let it not come into the number of the months. — Job iii. 1, 6. Hamlet. — What a piece of work is man ! How noble in reason, how infinite in faculties ! In form and moving, how express and admirable ! In ac- tion, how like an angel ! In apprehension, how like a God ! The beauty of the world, the paragon of animals ! — ii. 2. What is man, that thou art mindful of him? For thou hast made him ■ little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honor. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands.— Ps. viii. 4, 5, 6. Macbeth. — We will die with harness on our back. — v. 5. Nicanor lay dead in his harness. — 2 Maccabees sv. 28, liauqno. — Woe to the land that's governed by a child. Woe to thee, land, when thy king is a child. — Eccles. x. 16. Banquo. — In the great hand of God I stand. — Macbeth ii. 3. Thy right hand hath holden me up. — Ps. xviii. 35. Man the image of his Maker. — Henry VIII., iii. 2. — Gen, I. 27. Blessed are the peacemakers. — 2 Henry VI., ii. 1, — Matt. V. 29. THE BIBLE. 121 And when he falls he falls like Lucifer. — Henry VIII., iii. 2. How art thou fallen from heaven, Lucifer, eon of the morning ! Isaiah xiv. 12. No, Bolinghroke, if ever I were traitor. My name bo blotted from the book of life. — Richard II., i. 3, Whose names wore not written in the book of life. — Rev. xx., xxi. Swear by thy gracious self. — Romeo and Juliet, ii. 2. Ho could swear by no greater, he sware by himself. — Ilcb. vi. 13. My stay, my guide, and lantern to my feet. — 2 Henri/ VI., ii. 3. Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path. — Ps. cxix. 105. Who can call him his friend that dips in the same dish? — Timon of Athenn, iii. 2. He that dippeth his hand with me in the dish, the same shall betray mo. — Matt. xxvi. 23. You shall see him a palm in Athens again, and flourish with the highest. — Timon of Athena, v. 1. The righteous shall flourish like the pafm-tree. — Ps. xcii. 12. It is written, they appear to men like angels of light. — Com. of Errors, iv. 3 Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. — 2 Cor. xi. 14. And lose my way Among the thorns and dangers of this world. — King John, iv. 3. Thorns and snares are in the way of the fro ward. — Prov. xxii. 5. When we first put this dangerous stone a rolling, 'Twould fall upon ourselves. — Henry VIII., v. 2. He that rolleth a stone, it will return upon him. — Prov. xxvi. 27. The speech of Ulysses, in " Troilus and Cressida," i. 3, ia almost a paraphrase of St. Luke xxi. 25, 26 : — But when the planets In evil mixture to disorder wander. What plagues, and what portents ! What mutiny ! What raging of the sea ! Shaking of earth ! Commotion in the winds ! frights, changes, horrors. Divert and crack, rend and deracinate The unity and married calm of states Quite from their fixture. And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth ; for the powers of heaven shall be shaken. 11 122 THE BIBLE. ITerrma and Lear both use an expression derived from the same source : — Jlermia. — An adder did it; for with doubler tongue Than thine, thou serpent, never adder stung. — Jfid. N. Dream, iii. 2. Lear. — Struck me with her tongue, Most serpent-likfe, upon the very heart. — ii. 4. They have sharpened their tongues like a serpent; adders' poison is under their lips.— Ps. cxl. 3. L,ear. — All the stored vengeances of heaven fall on her ingrateful top. — ii. 4. As for the head of those that compass me about, let the mischief of their own lips cover them. — Ps. exl. 9. Fool to King Lear. — We'll set thee to school to an ant, to teach thee there's no laboring in the winter. — ii. 4. The ants are a people not strong, yet they prepare their meat in the sum- mer. — Prov. XXX. 25. See also Prov. vi. 6. WHO IS THE TRUE GENTLEMAN? The answer to this question will afford one of numberless Instances that can be adduced to show the superiority of in- spired composition. Compare Bishop Doane's admired defini- tion with that of the Psalmist: — A gentleman is but a gentle man — no more, no less ; a diamond polished that was a diamond in the rough: a gentleman is gentle; a gentleman ia modest; a gentleman is courteous; a gentleman is generous; a gentleman is slow to take offence, as being one that never gives it ; a gentleman is slow to surmise evil, as being one that never thinks it; a gentleman goes armed only in consciousness of right; a gentleman subjects his appetites; a gentle man refines his tastes ; a gentleman subdues his feelings; a gentleman con- trols his speech; and finally, a gentleman deems every other better than himself. In the paraphrase of Psalm xv. it is thus answered : — 'Tis he whose every thought and deed By rules of virtue moves; Whose generous tongue disdains to speak The thing his heart disproves. Who never did a slander forge, Ilis neighbor's fame to wound. Nor hearken to a false report. By malice whispered round. Who vice, in all its pomp and power. Can treat with just neglect, THE BIBLE. 123 And piety, though clothed in ragg, Religiously respect. Who to his plighted vows and trust lias ever firmly stood ; And though he promise to his loss, He makes his promise good. Whose soul in usury disdains His treasure to employ; Whom no rewards can ever bribe The guiltless to destroy. MISQUOTATIONS FROM SCRIPTURE. "God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb."* From Sterne's Sentimental Journey to Italy. Compare Isaiah xxvii. 8. " In the midst of life we are in death." From the Burial Service ; and this, originally, from a hymn of Luther. " Bread and wine which the Lord hath commanded to bo received." From the English Catechism. " Not to be wise above what is written." Not in Scripture. " That the Spirit would go from heart to heart as oil from vessel to vessel.'' Not in Scripture. "The merciful man is merciful to his beast." The scriptural form is, "A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast." — Prov. xii. 10. "A nation shall be born in a day." In Isaiah it reads, "Shall a nation be born at once?" — Ixvi. 8. "As iron sharpeneth iron, so doth a man the countenance of his friend." " Iron sharpeneth iron ; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend." Prov. xxvii. 17. " That he who runs may read." " That he may run that readeth." — Ilab. ii. 2. "Owe no man any thing but love." "Owe no man any thing, but to love one another." — Rom. xiii. 8. " Prone to sin as the sparks fly upward." " Born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward." — Job v. 7. " Exalted to heaven in point of privilege." Not in the Bible. Eve was not Adam's helpmate, but merely a help meet for him ; nor wa.! Absalom's long hair, of which he was so proud, the instrument of his destruc- tion ;f his head, and not the hair upon it, having been caught in the boughs of the tree. (2 Samuel xviii. 9.) * In a collection of proverbs published in 1594, we find, " Bi'en mesure le vent d, la brebis tondne," and Herbert has in his Jacula Prudentum, "To a close shorn sheep God gives wind by measure." f A London periwig-maker once had a sign upon which was painted Absa- lom suspended from the branches of the oak by his hair, and underneath the following couplet : — If Absalom hadn't worn his own hair. He'd no'cr been found a hanging there. 124 TUB BIBLE. "Money is the root of evil." Paul said, I, Timothy, vi. 10, "The love of money is the root of all evil." "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread," Gen. iii. 19. Commonly quoted " brow." " Cleanliness akin to godliness." Not in the Bible. Our Lord's hearing the doctors in the Temple, and asking them questions, is frequently called his disputing with the doctors. A SCRIPTURAL BULL. In the book of Isaiali. chapter xxxvii. verse 36, is the follow- ing confusion of ideas :- Then the angel of the Lord went forth, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians a hundred and fourscore and five thousand: and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they loere all dead corpses. WIT AND nUMOR IN THE BIBLE. "Shocking!" many a good old saint will cry, at the very thought of it. " The Bible a jest-book ! What godless folly shall we have up next?" No, the Bible is not a jest-book. But there is wit in it of the first quality; and a good reason why it should be there. Take a few specimens. Job, in his thirtieth chapter, is telling how he scorned the low-lived fellows, who pretend to look down on him in his adversities. They are fools. They belong to the long-eared fraternity. Anybody, with less wit, might come out bluntly and call them asses. But Job puts it more deftly (xxx. 7) : "Among the bushes they hraycd; under i\iQ nettles they were gathered together." If that is not wit, there is no such thing as wit. And yet the commentators don't see it, or won't see it. They are perfectly wooden when they come to any such gleam of humor. Take another instance — Elijah's ridicule of the prophets of Baal. They are clamoring to their god, to help them out of a very awkward predicament. And, while they are at it, the prophet shows them up in a way that must have made the THE BIBLE. 125 people roar with laughter. The stiff, antiquated style of our English Bible tames down his sallies. Take them in modern phrase. These quack prophets have worked themselves into a perfect desperation, and are capering about on the altar as if they had the St. Vitus's dance. The scene (I. Kings xviii. 26, 27) wakes up all Elijah's sense of the ridiculous. " Shout louder! He is a god, you know. Make him hear! Perhaps he is chatting with somebody, or he is off on a hunt, or gone traveling. Or maybe he is taking a nap. Shout away! AVake him up!" Imagine the priests going through their antics on the altar, while Elijah bombards them in this style, at his \eisure. Paul shows a dry humor more than once, as in II. Cor. xii. 13: "Why haven't you fared as well as the other churches? Ah ! there is one grievance — that you haven't had me to sup- port. Pray do not lay it up against me !" These instances might be multiplied from the Old and New Testaments both. What do they show? That the Bible is, on the whole, a humorous book ? Far from it. That religion is a humorous subject — that we are to throw all the wit we can into the treatment of it? No. But they show that the sense of the ludicrous is put into a man by his Maker; that it has its uses, and that we are not to be ashamed of it, or to roll up our eyes in a holy horror of it. THE OLD AND THE NEW TESTAMENT. The name Old Testament was applied to the books of Moses by St. Paul (II. Cor. iii. 14), inasmuch as the former covenant comprised the whole scheme of the Mosaic revelation, and the history of this is contained in them. The phrase " book of the covenant," taken from Exod. xxiv. 7, was transferred in the course of time by metonymy to signify the writings them- selves. The term New Testament has been in common use since the third century, and was employed by Eusebius in the sense in which it is now applied. 126 THE BIBLE. A SCRIPTURAL SUM. Add to your faith, virtue ; And to virtue, knowledge ; And to knowledge, temperance; And to temperance, patience; And to patience, godliness; And to godliness, brotherly kindness; And to brotherly kindness, charity. The Answer : — For if these things be in you and abound, they make you that ye shall neither bo barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ— 2 Peter i. 5, 8. BIBLIOMANCY. Bibliomancy, or divination by the Bible, had become so com mon in the fifth century, that several councils were obliged ex- pressly to forbid it, as injurious to religion, and savoring of idolatry. This kind of divination was named Sortes Sanctorum, or Sor- tes Sacrse, Lots of the Saints, or Sacred Lots, and consisted in suddenly opening, or dipping into, the Bible, and regarding the passage that first presented itself to the eye as predicting the future lot of the inquirer. The Sortes Sanctorum had suc- ceeded the Sortes Homericse, and Sortes Virgilianse, of the Pagans ; among whom it was customary to take the work of some famous poet, as Homer or Virgil, and write out different verses on separate scrolls, and afterwards draw one of them, or else, open- ing the book suddenly, consider the first verse that presented itself as a prognostication of future events. Even the vagrant fortune-tellers, like some of the gypsies of our own times, adopted this method of imposing upon the credulity of the ignorant. The nations of the East retain the practice to the present day. The famous usurper. Nadir Shah, twice decided upon besieging cities, by opening at random upon verses of the celebrated poet Ilafiz. This abuse, which was first introduced into the church about the third century, by the superstition of the people, afterwards gained ground through the ignorance of some of the clergy, who permitted prayers to be read in the churches for this very pur- THE NAME OP GOD. 127 pose. It was therefore found necessary to ordain in the Coun- cil of Vannes, held A.D. 465, '' That whoever of the clergy or laity should be detected in the practice of this art should be cast out of the communion of the church." In 506, the Council of Agde renewed the decree ; and in 578, the Council of Auxcrre, amongst other kinds of divination, forbade the Lots of the Saints, as they were called, adding, '' Let all things be done in the name of the Lord ;" but these ordinances did not effectually suppress them, for we find them again noticed and condemned in a capitulary or edict of Charlemagne, in 793. Indeed, all endeavors to banish them from the Christian church appear to have been in vain for ages. ^ije Kame of (Soti. Tell them I AM, Jehovah said To Moses, while earth heard in dread ; And, smitten to the heart. At once, above, beneath, around, All nature, without voice or sound, Replied, Lord! THOU ART! Christopher Smart, an English Lunatic. It is singular that the name of God should be spelled with four letters in almost every known language. It is in Latin, Deus; Greek, Zeus; Hebrew, Aden ; Syrian, Adad; Arabian, Alia ; Persian, Syra ; Tartarian, Idga ; Egyptian, Aumn, or Zeut; East Indian, Esgi, or Zenl ; Japanese, Zain; Turkish, Addi ; Scandinavian, Odin ; Wallachian, Zenc ; Croatian, Doga ; Dalmatian, Rogt ; Tyrrhenian, Eher ; Etrurian, Chur; Margarian, Oese; Swedish, Codd; Irish, Dich; German, Gott; French, Dieu ; Spanish, Dios; Peruvian, Lian. The name God in the Anglo-Saxon language means good, and this signification affords singular testimony of the Angio- Saxon conception of the essence of the Divine Being. He is 128 THE NAME OF GOD. goodness itself, and the Author of all goodness. Yet the idea of denoting the Deity by a term equivalent to abstract and ab- solute perfection, striking as it may appear, is perhaps less re- markable than the fact that the word Man, used to designate a human beuig, formerly signified wickedness ; showing how well aware were its originators that our fallen nature had become indentified with sin. JEHOVAH. The word Elohim, as an appellation of Deity, appears to have been in use before the Hebrews had attained a national ex- istence. That Jehovah is specifically the Grod of the Hebrews is clear, from the fact that the heathen deities never receive this name ; they are always spoken of as Elohim. Both the pronun- ciation and the etymological derivation of the word Jehovah are matters of critical controversy. The Jews of later periods from religious awe abstained from pronouncing it, and whenever it occurred in reading, substituted the word Adonai (my Lord) ; and it is now generally believed that the sublinear vowel signs attached to the Hebrew tetragrammaton Jhvh belong to the substituted word. Many believe Jahveh to be the original pro- nunciation. The Hebrew root of the word is believed to be the verb havah or hayah, to be ; hence its meaning through- out the Scriptures, "the Being," or "the Everlasting." GOD IN SHAKSPEARE. Michelet {Jeanne d'Arc,) speaking of English literature, says that it is " JSceptique, judaique, satanique. " In a note he says, " I do not recollect to have seen the word God in Shakspeare. If it is there at all, it is there very rarely, by chance, and with, out a shadow of religious sentiment." Mrs. Cowden Clarke, by means of her admirable Concordance to ShaJcspeare, enables us to weigh the truth of this eminent French writer's remark. The word God occurs in Shakspeare upwards of one tlwusand times, and the word heaven, which is so frequently substituted for the word God — more especially in the historical plays — occurs about eight hundred times. In the Holy Scriptures, according THE NAME OP GOD. 129 to Cruden, it occurs about eight hundred times. It is true that the word often occurs in Shakspeare without a reverential senti- ment ; but M. Michelet says it never occurs with a religious feeling (^loi sentiment religienx.) This statement is almost as erroneous as that regarding the absence of the word. It would be easy for an English scholar to produce from Shakspeare more passages indicative of deep religious feeling than are to be found in any French writer whatever. THE PARSEE, JEW, AND CHRISTIAN. A Jew entered a Parsee temple, and beheld the sacred fire. "What!" said he to the priest, "do you worship the fire ?" "Not the fire," answered the priest : "it is to us an emblem of the sun, and of his genial heat." " Do you then worship the sun as your god ?" asked the Jew. " Know ye not that this luminary also is but a work of that Almighty Creator?" "We know it," replied the priest: "but the uncultivated man requires a sensible sign, in order to form a conception of the Most High. And is not the sun the incomprehensible source of light, an image of that invisible being who blesses and preserves all things ?" "Do your people, then," rejoined the Israelite, "distinguish the type from the original ? They call the sun their god, and, descending even from this to a baser object, they kneel before an earthly flame ! Ye amuse the outward but blind the inward eye ; and while ye hold to them the earthly, ye draw from them the heavenly light ! ' Thou shalt not make unto thyself any image or any likeness.' " "How do you name the Supreme Being?" asked the Parsee. " We call him Jehovah Adonai, that is, the Lord who is, who was, and who will be," answered the Jew. " Your appellation is grand and sublime," said the Parsee j "but it is awful too." A Christian then drew nigh, and said, — "We call him Father." 130 I- H. 8. The Pagan and the Jew looked at each other, and said, — " Here is at once an image and a reality : it is a word of the heart.*' Therefore they all raised their eyes to heaven, and said, with reverence and love, " Our Father !" and they took eacL by the hand, and all three called one another brothers! m, DE NOMINE JESD. I n rebus tan lis trina conjunctio mund I E rigit humanum sensum, laudare venust E S ola salus nobis, et mundi summa, potesta S V enit peccati nodum dissolvere fruct V S umma salus cunctas nituit per secula terra S,* The letters I. H. S. so conspicuously appended to different portions of Catholic churches, are said to have been designed by St. Bernardine of Sienna, to denote the name and mission of the Saviour. They are to be found in a circle above the principal door of the Franciscan Church of the Holy Cross, (^Santa Croce,) in Florence, and are said to have been put there by the saint on the termination of the plague of 1347, after which they were commonly introduced into churches. The letters have assigned to them the following signification : — Jesns bominum Salvator — Jesus, the Saviour of men. In hoc salus — In him is salvation. I n times momentous appeared the world's triple conjunction, E ncouraging human hearts to shout melodious praises. S ole salvation for us, that power exalted 'bove measure, U nloosed the bonds of sin through the precious atonement S alvation illumines all earth through ages unceasing. I. n. s. 131 A maker of playing-cards, which, like missels, were illumi- nated in those times, was one day remonstrated with by St. Ber- nardine, upon the sinfulness of his business. The card-maker pleaded the needs of his family. "Well, I will help you," said the saint, and wrote the letters I. H. S., which he advised the card-maker to paint and gild. The new card "took," and the saint himself travelled about the country as a poster of these little sacred handbills of the Church. THE FLOWER OF JESSE. 1520. There is a flower sprung of a tree, The root of it is called Jesse, A flower of price, — There is none such in Paradise. Of Lily white and Rose of Ryso, Of Primrose and of Flower-do-Lyse, Of all flowers in my devyee, The flower of Jesse beareth the prize, For most of all To help our souls both great and small, " I praise the flower of good Jesse, Of all the flowers that ever shall be. Uphold the flower of good Jesse, And worship it fur aye beautee; For best of all That ever was or ever be shall. BEAUTIFUL LEGEND. One day Rabbi Judah and his brethren, the seven pillars of Wisdom, sat in the Court of the Temple, on feast-day, disputing about REST. One said that it was to have attained sufficient wealth, yet without sin. The second, that it was fame and praise of all men. The third, that it was the possession of power to rule the State. The fourth, that it consisted only in a happy home. The fifth, that it must be in the old age of one who is rich, powerful, famous, surrounded by children and children's children. The sixth said that all that were vain, unless a man keep all the ritual law of Moses. And Rabbi 132 I. H. 8. Judah, the venerable, the tallest of the brothers, said, " Ye have spoken wisely; but one thing more is necessary. He only can find rest, who to all things addeth this, that he keepeth the tradition of the elders." There sat in the Court a fair-haired boy, playing with some lilies in his lap, and, hearing the talk, he dropped them with asto- nishment from his hands, and looked up — that boy of twelve — and said, *' Nay, nay, fathers : he only findeth rest, who lovcth his brother as himself, and God with his whole heart and soul. He is greater than fame, and wealth, and power, happier than a happy home, happy without it, better than honored age ; he is a law to himself, and above all tradition." The doctors were astonished. They said, "When Christ cometh, shall He tell us greater things ?" And they thanked God, for they said, " The old men are not always wise, yet God be praised, that out of the mouth of this young suckling has His praise be- come perfect." PERSIAN APOLOGUE. In Sir William Jones's Persian Grammar may be found the following beautiful story from NlSAMi. Mr. Alger gives a me- trical translation in his Poetry of the East. One evening Jesus arrived at the gates of a certain city, and sent his disciples forward to prepare supper, while he himself, intent on doing good, walked through the streets into the mar- ket-place. And he saw at the corner of the market some people gathered together, looking at an object on the ground ; and he drew near to see what it might be. It was a dead dog, with a halter around his neck, by which he appeared to have been dragged through the dirt; and a viler, a nore abject, a more unclean thing never met the eyes of man. And those who stood by looked on with abhorrence. " Faugh !" said one, stopping his nose : " it pollutes the air." " How long," said another, " shall this foul beast offend our sight?" " Look at his torn hide," said a third : "onecoulcj I. II. s. 133 not even cut a shoe out of it." " And his ears," said a fourth, " all draggled and bleeding." ''No doubt," said a fifth, "he has been hanged for thieving." And Jesus heard them, and looking down compassionately on the dead creature, he said, " Pearls are not equal to the whiteness of his teeth !" Then the people turned towards him with amazement, and said among themselves, "Who is this? It must be Jesus of Nazareth, for only HE could find something to pity and approve even in a dead dog." And being ashamed, they bowed their heads before him and went each on his way. DESCRIPTION OF THE PERSON OF JESUS CHRIST. The following description is alleged to be derived from an ancient manuscript sent by Publius Lentulus, President of Judea, to the Senate of Rome : — " There lives at this time in Judca, a man of singular cha- racter, whose name is Jesus Christ. The barbarians esteem him as their prophet j but his followers adore him as the immediate offspring of the immortal God. He is endowed with such un- paralleled virtue as to call back the dead from their graves and to heal every kind of disease with a word or a touch. His person is tall and elegantly shaped ; his aspect, amiable and reverend ; his hair flows in those beauteous shades which no united colors can match, falling in graceful curls below his ears, agreeably couching on his shoulders, and parting on the crown of his head ; his dress, that of the sect of Nazarites ; his forehead is smooth and large ; his cheeks without blemish, and of roseate hue ; his nose and mouth are formed with ex- quisite symmetry ; his beard is thick and suitable to the hair of his head, reaching a little below his chin, and parting in the middle below ; his eyes are clear, bright, and serene. " He rebukes with mildness, and invokes with the most ten- der and persuasive language, — his whole address, whether in word or deed, being elegantly grave, and strictly characteristic of so exalted a being. No man has seen him laugh, but the 12 134 r. n. s. whole world beholds him weep frequently, and so persuasive are his tears that the whole multitude cannot withhold their tears from joining in sympathy with him. He is moderate, temperate, and wise : in short, whatever the phenomenon may turn out in the end, he seems at present to be a man of excel- lent beauty and divine perfection, every way surpassing man." DEATH-WARRANT OF JESUS CHRIST. Of the many interesting relics and fragments brought to light by the persevering researches of antiquarians, none could be more interesting to the philanthropist and believer than the fol- lowing, — to Christians, the most imposing judicial document ever recorded in human annals. It has been thus faithfully transcribed : — Sentence rendered by Pontius Pilate, acting Governor of Lower Galilee, stating that Jesus of Nazareth shall suffer death on the cross. In the year seventeen of the Emperor Tiberius Ccesar, and the 27th day of March, the city of the holy Jerusalem — Annas and Caiaphas being priests, sacrificators of the people of God — Pontius Pilate, Governor of Lower Galilee, sitting in the presi- dential chair of the praetory, condemns Jesus of Nazareth to die on the cross between two thieves, the great and notorious evidence of the people saying : 1. Jesus is a seducer. 2. He is seditious. 3. He is the enemy of the law. 4. He calls himself falsely the Son of God. 5. He calls himself falsely the King of Israel. 6. He entered into the temple followed by a multitude bear- ing palm branches in their hands. Orders the first centurion, Quilius Cornelius, to lead him to the place of execution. Forbids any person whomsoever, either poor or rich, to op- pose the death of Jesus Christ. The witnesses who signed the condemnation of Jesus are — 1. Daniel Robani, a Pharisee. 2. Joannus Robani. I. II. s. 135 3. Raphael Robani. 4. Capet, a citizen. Jesus shall go out of the city of Jerusalem by the gate of Strueiius. The foregoing is engraved on a copper plate, on the reverse of which is written, " A similar plate is sent to each tribe." It was found in an antique marble vase, while excavating in the ancient city of Aquilla, in the kingdom of Naples, in the year 1810, and was discovered by the Commissioners of Arts of the French army. At the expedition of Naples, it was en- closed in a box of ebony and preserved in the sacristy of the Carthusians. The French translation was made by the Commis- sioners of Arts. The original is in the Hebrew language. DOUBLE HEXAMETER. discis ; nesc ANTICIPATORY USE OF THE CROSS. Madame Calderon de la Barca, in her Life in 3fexico (|j«&. 184-3), says that the symbol of the Cross was known to the Indians before the arrival of Cortez. In the island of Cozumel, near Yucatan, there were several ; and in Yucatan * itself there was a stone cross. And there an Indian, considered a prophet among his countrymen, had declared that a nation bearing the same as a symbol should arrive from a distant country. More extraordinary still was a temple dedicated to the Holy Cross by the Toltec nation in the city of Cholula. Near Tulansingo there is also a cross engraved on a rock with various characters. In Oajaca there was a cross which the Indians from time immemo- rial had been accustomed to consider as a divine symbol. By order of Bishop Cervantes it was placed in a chapel in the cathedral. Information concerning its discovery, together with a small cup, cut out of its wood, was sent to Rome to Paul V., who received it on his knees, singing the hymn Vcxilla regis, etc. Seo also Prescott's Conquest of Mexico, Vol. I. Bk. II. Chap. 4; and Stephens' Incidents of Travel in Yucatan, Vol. II. Chap. 20. 136 THE lord's prayer. E\)t Eorb's ^xantx. The Lord's Prayer alone is an evidence of the truth of Christianity, — so ad' inirably is that prayer accommodated to all our wants. — LoRD Wellington, THY AND US. The two divisions of the Lord's Prayer — the former relating to the glory of God, the latter to the wants of man — appear very evident on a shght transposition of the personal pronouns :— Thy name be hallowed. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, Ac. Us give this day our daily bread. Us forgive our debts, &o. Us lead not into temptation. Us deliver from evil. SPIRIT OF THE lord's PRAYER. The spirit of the Lord's Prayer is beautiful. This form of petition breathes: — A Jilial spirit — Father. A catholic spirit — Our Father. A reverential spirit — Hallowed bo Thy name. A missionary spirit — Thy kingdom come. An obedient spirit — Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. A dependent spirit — Give us this day our daily bread. A forgiving spirit— And forgive our debts as we forgive our debtors. A cautious spirit — And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. A confidential and adoring spirit — For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen. GOTHIC VERSION. Ulpliilas, who lived between the years 310 and 388, was bishop of the Western Goths, and translated the greater part of the Scriptures into the Gothic language. The following is his rendering of the Lord's Prayer : — THE lord's prayer 137 Atta unsar thu in himinam. Weihnai namo thein. Quimai thiudinassus sijaima, swaswo jah weis afletam thaim skulam unsaraim. Jah ni briggais uns in fraistubujai. Ak lausei uns af thamma ubilin, unte thcina ist thiu- dangarJi, jah maths, jah wulthus in aiwins. Amen. METRICAL VERSIONS. Father in heaven, hallowed be thy name; Thy kingdom come : thy will be done the same In earth and heaven. Give us daily bread; Forgive our sins as others we forgive. Into temptation let us not be led; Deliver us from evil while we live. For kingdom, power, and glory must remain For ever and tor ever thine : Amen. Here the sixty-six words of the original, according to the authorized translation of St. Matthew's version, are reduced to fifty-nine, though the latter is fully implied in all points except two. "This day" is omitted; but, if anything, the Greek is slightly approached, for i-^rcoufrtov refers rather to to-morrow than to to-day. The antithesis in ^'■But deliver us" does not appear: if the word deliver be sacrificed, we may read, "But keep us safe." The subjoined metrical version of the Prayer is at least two and a half centuries old, and was written for adaptation to music in public worship : — Our Father which in heaven art. All hallowed be thy name; Thy kingdom come. On earth thy will be done. Even as the same in heaven is. Give us, Lord, our daily bread this day: As we forgive our debtors. So forgive our debts, we pray. Into temptation lead us not. From evil make us free : The kingdom, power, and glory thine, Both now and ever be. The Prayer is commended for its authorship, its efficacy, its perfection, the order of its parts, its brevity, and its necessity. 138 THE lord's prayer. The following paraphrase, which has beeu set to music as a duett, ia of more receut origin : — Our Heavenly Father, hear our prayer : Thy name be hallowed everywhere; Thy kingdom come ; on earth, thy will, E'en as in heaven, let all fulfill ; Give this day's bread, that we may live; Forgive our sins as we forgive ; Help us temptation to withstand ; From evil shield us by Thy hand; Now and forever, unto Thee, The kingdom, power, and glory bo. Amen. THE PRAYER ILLUSTRATED. Our Father. — Isaiah Ixiii. 16. 1. By right of creation. Malachi ii. 10. 2. By bountiful provision. Psalm cxlv. 16. 3. By gracious adoption. Ephesians L 5. Who art in Heaven. — 1 Kings viii. 43. 1. The throne of thy glory. Isaiah Ixvi. 1. 2. The portion of thy children 1 Peter i. 4. 3. The temple of thy angels. Isaiah vi. 1. Hallowed be thy Name. — Psalm cxv. 1. 1. By the thoughts of our hearts. Psalm Ixxxvi. 11. 2. By the words of our lips. Psalm li. 15. 3. By the works of our hands. 1 Corinthians x. 31. Thy Kingdom come. — Psalm ex. 2. 1. Of Providence to defend us. Psalm xvii. 8. 2. Of grace to refine us. 1 Thessalonians v. 23. 3. Of glory to crown us. Colossians iii. 4. Thy will he done on Earth as it is in Heaven. — Acts xxxi. 14. 1. Towards us, without resistance. 1 Samuel iii. 18. 2. By us, without compulsion. Psalm cxix. 36. 3. Universally, without exception. Luke L 6. 4. Eternally, without declension. Psalm cxix. 93. Give us this day our daily bread. 1. Of necessity, for our bodies. Proverbs xxx. 8. 2. Of eternal life, for our souls. John vi. 34. And forgive us our trespasses. — Psalm xxv. 11. 1. Against the commands of thy law. 1 John iii. 4. 2. Against the grace of thy gospel. 1 Timothy L 13. THE lord's prayer. 139 A» we forgive them that trespasg against us. — Matthew vi. 15. 1. By defaming our characters. Matthew v. 11. 2. By embezzling our property. Philemon 18. 3. By abusing our persons. Acts vii. 60. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. — Matthew xxvi. 41. 1. Of overwhelming afflictions. Psalm cxxx. 1. 2. Of worldly enticements. 1 John ii. 16. 3. Of Satan's devices. 1 Timothy iii. 7. 4. Of error's seduction. 1 Timothy vi. 10. 5. Of sinful affections. Romans i. 26. for thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. — Judo 25. 1. Thy kingdom governs all. Psalm ciii. 19. 2. Thy power subdues all. Philippians iii. 20, 21. 3. Thy glory is above all. Psalm cxlviiL 13. Amen. — Ephesians i. 11. 1. As it is in thy purposes. Isaiah xiv. 27. 2. So is it in thy promises. 2 Corinthians i. 20. 3. So be it in our prayers. Keveiation xxii. 20. t. So shall it be to thy praise. Revelation xix. 4. ACROSTICAL PARAPHRASE. Odr Lord and King, Who reign'st enthroned on high, Father of Light! mysterious Deity! Who art the great I AM, the last, the first. Art righteous, holy, merciful, and just. In realms of glory, scenes where angels sing. Heaven is the dwelling-place of God our King. IIallowed Thy name, which doth all names transcend, Be Thou adored, our great Almighty Friend; Thy glory shines beyond creation's bound ; Name us 'mong those Thy choicest gifts surround. Thy kingdom towers beyond Thy starry skies ; Kingdom Satanic falls, but Thine shall rise. Come let Thine empire, Thou Holy One, Thy great and everlasting will be done. Will Ood make known his will, his power display? Be it the work of mortals to obey. Done is the great, the wondrous work of lovej On Calvary's cross ho died, but reigns above ; Earth bears the record in Thy holy word. As heaven adores Thy love, let earth, Lord ; It shines transcendent in the eternal skies, Is praised in heaven — for man, the Saviour dies. 140 THE lord's prayer. In songs immortal, angels laud his name ; Heaven shouts with joy, and saints his love proclaim Give us, Lord, our food, nor cease to give Us needful food on which our souls may live! This bo our boon to-day and days to come, Day without end in our eternal home. Ouu needy souls supply from day to day; Daily assist and aid us when wo pray ; Bread though wo ask, yet, Lord, Thy blessings lend. And make us grateful when Thy gifts descend. Forgive our sins, which in destruction place Us, the vile rebels of a rebel race ; Our follies, faults, and trespasses forgive, Debts which we ne'er can pay, nor Thou receive. As we, Lord, our neighbor's faults o'erlook. We beg Thou 'd'st blot ours from Thy memory's book. Forgive our enemies, extend Thy grace OoR souls to save, e'en Adam's guilty race. Debtors to Thee in gratitude and love, And in that duty paid by saints above. Lead us from sin, and in thy mercy raise Us from the tempter and his hellish ways. Not in our own, but in Ilis name who bled. Into Thine ear we pour our every need. Temptation's fatal charm help us to shun, But may wo conquer through Thy conquering Son ; Deliver us from all that can annoy Us in this world, and may our souls destroy. From all calamities that man betide. Evil and death, turn our feet aside, — For wa are mortal worms, and cleave to clay,— TniNE 'tis to rule, and mortals to obey. Is not thy mercy. Lord, forever free ? The whole creation knows no God but Thee. Kingdom and empire in Thy presence fall; The King eternal reigns the King of all. Power is Thine — to Thee be glory given, And be thy name adored by earth and heaven. The praise of saints and angels is Thy own; Glory to Thee, the Everlasting One. Forever be Thy holy name adored, AMEN ! Ilosannah ! blessed be the Lord trifling op bible commentators. Dr. Gill, in hia Expository, seriously tells us that the word ABBA reaa backwards or forwards being the same, may teach us that God is the father of his people in adversity as well as in prosperity. THE lord's prayer. 141 THE PRAYER ECHOED. Ip any be distressed, and fain would gather Some comfort, let him liMsto unto Our Father. For we of hope and help are quite boreaven Except Thou sueeor us "Who art in heaven. Thou showest mercy, therefore for the same "We praise Thee, singing, Ilallowed be Thy name. Of all our miseries cast up the sum ; Show us thy joys, and let Thy kingdom come. "Wo mortal are, and alter from our birth ; Thou constant art ; Thy will be done on earth. Thou madest the earth, as well as planets seven, Thy name be blessed here As 'tis in heaven. Nothing we have to use, or debts to pay, Except Thou give it us. Give us this day Wherewith to clothe us, wherewith to be fed. For without Thee we want Our daily bread. We want, but want no faults, for no day passes But we do sin . , Forgive us our trespasses. No man from sinning ever free did live Forgive us, Lord, our sins. As we forgive. If we repent our faults. Thou ne'er disdain'st us j "We pardon them That trespass against us; Forgive ua that is past, a new path tread us ; Direct us always in Thy faith. And lead us — Us, Thine own people and Thy chosen nation. Into all truth, but Not into temptation. Thou that of all good graces art the Giver, Suffer us not to wander, But deliver Us from the fierce assaults of world and devil And flesh; so shalt Thou free us From all evil. To these petitions let both church and laymen "With one consent of heart and voice, say. Amen. 142 THE LORD S PRAYER. THE PRAYER IN AN ACROSTIC. In the following curious composition the initial capitals spell, " My boast is in the glorious Cross of Christ." The words in italics, when read from top to bottom and bottom to top, form the Lord's Prayer complete: — Make known the Gospel truths, Our Father King; Yield up thy grace, dear Father from above; Bless us with hearts icJiich feelingly can sing, " Our life thou art for ever, God of Love !" Assuage our grief in love for Christ, we pray, Since the bright prince of Heaven and glory died. Took all our sins and hallowed the display. Infinite 6e-ing — first man, and then the crucified. Stupendous God! thy grace and poicer make known; In Jesus' name let all the world rejoice. Now all the world thy heavenly kingdom own, The blessed kingdom for thy saints the choice. How vile to come to thee is all our cry, Enemies to thy self and all that's thine, Graceless our will, we live for vanity, Lending to sin our 6e-ing, evil in our design. God, thy will be done from earth to Heaven; Reclining on the Gospel let us live, In earth from sin deliver-ed and forgiven, Oh ! as thyself but teach us to forgive. Unless it's power temptation doth destroy, Sure IS our fall into the depths of woe. Carnal in mind, we've 7iot a glimpse of joy Raised against Heaven; in us no hope can flow. ^('i-e us grace and lead us on thy way ; Shine on ue with thy love and give tis peace; Self and this sin that rise against us slay ; Oh ! grant each day our trespass-es may cease. Forgive our evil deeds that oft we do ; Convince us daily of them to our shame; Help us with heavenly bread, forgive us, too, Recurrent lusts, and we'll adore thy name. In tby forgive-ness we as saints can die, Since for us and our trespasses so high, Thy son, our Saviour, bled on Calvary. ECCLESIASTICiE. 143 EXCESSIVE CIVILITY. Tom Brown, in his Laconics, says that in the reign of Charles II. a certain worthy divine at Whitehall thus ad- dressed himself to the auditory at the conclusion of his sermon : " In short, if you don't live up to the precepts of the gospel, but abandon yourselves to your irregular appetites, you must expect to receive your reward in a certain place, which 'tis not good manners to mention here." This suggested to Pope the couplet, " To rest, the cushion and soft dean invite, Who never mentions hell to ears polite." SHORT SERMONS. Dean Swift, having been solicited to preach a charity ser- mon, mounted the pulpit, and after announcing his text, "He that giveth to the poor lendeth to the Lord," simply said, "Now, my brethren, if you are satisfied with the security, down with the dust." He then took his seat, and there was an unusually large collection. The following abridgment contains the pith and marrow, sum and substance, of a sermon which occupied an hour in delivery : — " Man is born to trouble." This subject, my hearers, is naturally divisible into four heads >— 1. Man's entrance into the world ; 2. His progress through the world ; 3. His exit from the world; and 4. Practical reflections from what may be said. First, then : — 1. Man's ingress in life is naked and bare, 2. His progress through life is trouble and care, 3. Ilis egress from it, none can tell where. 4. But doing well here, he will be well there. Now, on this subject, my brethren dear, I could not tell more by preaching a year. 144 ECCLESIASTICS. A SERMON ON MALT. The Rev. Dr. Dodd lived within a few miles of Cambridge, (England,) and had offended several students by preaching a Bermon on temperance. One day some of them met him. They said one to another, — "Here's Father Dodd : he shall preach us a sermon." Ac- costing him with, — " Your servants." " Sirs ! yours, gentlemen I" replied the Doctor. They said, "We have a favor to ask of you, which must be granted." The divine asked what it was. " To preach a sermon," was the reply. "Well," said he, "appoint the time and place, and I will." " The time, the present; the place, that hollow tree," (point- ing to it,) said the students. " 'Tis an imposition!" said the Doctor: "there ought to be consideration before preaching." " If you refuse," responded they, " we will put you into the tree !" Whereupon the Doctor acquiesced, and asked them for a text. " Malt !" said they. The reverend gentleman commenced : — " Let me crave your attention, my beloved ! "I am a little man, come at a short warning, to preach a short sermon, upon a short subject, to a thin congregation, in an unworthy pulpit. Beloved ! my text is * Malt.' I can- not divide it into syllables, it being but a monosyllable.: there- fore I must divide it into letters, which I find in my text to be four : — M-A-L-T. M, my beloved, is moral — A, is allegorical — L, is literal — T, is theological. " 1st. The moral teaches such as you drunkards good man- ners ; therefore M, my masters — A, all of you — L, leave off — T, tippling. " 2d. The allegorical is, when one thing is spoken and an- other meant ; the thing here spoken is Malt, the thing meant ECCLESIASTIC^E. 145 the oil of malt, wliich you rustics make M, your masters — A, your apparel — L, your liberty — T, your trusts. "3d. The theological is according to the effects it works, which are of two kinds — the first in this world, the second in the world to come. The effects it works in this world are, in so7ne, JI, murder — in others, A, adultery — in all, L, looseness of life — and particularli/ in some, T, treason. In the world to come, the effects of it are, M, misery— A, anguish — L, lamentation — T, torment — and thus much for my text, ' Malt.' " Infer 1st : As words of exhortation : M, my masters — A, all of you — L, leave off — T, tippling. " 2d. A word for conviction : M, my masters — A, all of you --L, look for — T, torment. " 3d. A word for caution, take this : A drunkard is the an- noyance of modesty — the spoiler of civility — the destroyer of reason — the brewer's agent — the alewife's benefactor — his wife's sorrow — his children's trouble — his neighbor's scoff — a walking swill-tub — a picture of a beast — a monster of a man." The youngsters found the truth so unpalatable, that they soon deserted their preacher, glad to get beyond the reach of bis voice. ELOQUENCE OF BASCOM. The following passages will serve to illustrate the peculiar oratorical style of Rev. Henry B. Bascota, the distinguished Kentucky preacher : — " Chemistry, with its fire-tongs of the galvanic battery, teaches that the starry diamond in the crown of kings, and the black carbon which the peasant treads beneath his feet, are both composed of the same identical elements ; analysis also proves that a chief ingredient in limestone is carbon. Then let the burning breath of God pass over all the limestone of the earth, and bid its old mossy layers crystalize into new beauty; and lo! at the Almighty yia^ the mountain ranges flash into living gems with a lustre that renders midnight noon, and eclipses all the stars !" K 13 146 ECCLESIASTICuE. Ho urged the same view by another example, still better adapted to popular apprehension : — "Look yonder," said the impassioned orator, pointing a motionless finger towards the lofty ceiling, as if it were the sky. " See that wrathful thunder-cloud — the fiery bed of the lightnings and hissing hail — the cradle of tempests and floods ! — What can be more dark, more dreary, more dreadful? Say, scoffing skeptic, is it capable of any beauty ? You pronounce, 'no.' Well, very well; but behold, while the sneering denial curls your proud lips, the sun with its sword of light shears through the sea of vapors in the west, and laughs in your in- credulous face with his fine golden eye. Now, look again at the thunder-cloud ! See ! where it was blackest and fullest of gloom, the sunbeania have kissed its hideous cheek ; and where the kiss fell there is now a blush, brighter than ever mantled on the brow of mortal maiden — the rich blush of crimson and gold, of purple and vermilion — a pictured blush, fit for the gaze of angels — the fluwer-work of pencils of fire and light, wrought at a dash by one stroke of the right hand of God ! Ay, the ugly cloud hath given birth to the rainbow, that per- fection and symbol of unspeakable beauty I" THE LORD BISHOP. The following incident is said to have occurred in the j)arish church of Bradford, England, during a special service, on the occasion of a visit from the bishop of the diocese : — The clerk, before the sermon, gave out the psalm in broad Wiltshire dialect, namely : — " Let us zing to the praayze an' glawry o' God, three varsses o* the hundred and vourteen zaam — a varsion 'specially 'dapted to the 'caasion, — by meself :" — Why hop ye zo, ye little hills, An' what var de'e skip? Is it 'cas you'm proud to see His grace the Lard Bishipf Why skip ye zo, ye little hills, An' what var do'e hop? ECCLESIASTICS. 147 Is it 'cas to preach to we Is com'd the Lard Bishop? Eese ; — he is com'd to preach to we : Then let us aiil strick up, An' zing a glawrious zong of praayze, An' bless the Lard Bishi/jj.' TUE PREACHERS OF CROMWELL's TIME. Dr. Echard says of the preachers who lived in the time of Cromwell, — "Coiners of new phrases, drawers-out of long godly words, thick pourers-out of texts of Scripture, mimical squeak- ers and bellowers, vain-glorious admirers only of themselves, and those of their own fashioned face and gesture ; such as these shall be followed, shall have their bushels of China oranges, shall be solaced with all manner of cordial essences, and shall be rubbed down with Holland of ten shillings an ell." One of the singular fashions that prevailed among the preachers of those days was that of coughing or hemming in the middle of a sentence, as an ornament of speech ; and when their sermons were printed, the place where the preacher coughed or hemmed was always noted in the margin. This practice was not confined to England, for Olivier Maillard, a Cordelier, and famous preacher, printed a sermon at Bi-ussels in the year 1500, and marked in the margin where the preacher hemmed once or twice, or coughed. ORIGIN OP TEXTS. The custom of taking a text as the basis of a sermon origin- ated with Ezra, who, we are told, accompanied by several Levites in a public congregation of men and women, ascended a pulpit, opened the book of the law, and after addressing a prayer to the Deity, to which the people said Amen, "read iu the book in the law of God distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading." (Nehemiah viii. 8.) Previous to the time of Ezra, the Patriarchs delivered, in public assemblies, either prophecies or moral instructions foi the edification of the people; and it was not until the return 148 ECCLESIASTICS. of the Jews from the Babylonish captivity, during which time they had almost lost the language in which the Pentateuch was written, that it became necessary to explain, as well as to read, the Scriptures to them. In later times, the book of Moses was thus read in the synagogues every Sabbath day. (Acts xv. 21.) To this custom our Saviour conformed: in the synagogue at Na- zareth he read a passage from the prophet Isaiah, then closing the book, returned it to the priest, and preached from the text. CLERICAL BLUNDERS. In an old book of Sermons by a divine named Milsom, we are told that it is one among many proofs of the wisdom and benevolence of Providence that the world was not created in the midst of winter, when Adam and Eve could have found nothing to eat, but in harvest-time, when there was fruit on every tree and shrub to tempt the willing hand. Another commentator praises Divine Goodness for always making the largest rivers flow close by the most populous towns. St. Austin undertook to prove that the ten plagues of Egypt were punishments adapted to the breach of the ten command- ments, — forgetting that the law was given to the Jews, and that the plagues were inflicted on the Egyptians, and also that the law was not given in the form of commandments until nearly three months after the plagues had been sent. PROVING AN ALIBI. A clergyman at Cambridge preached a sermon which one of his auditors commended. "Yes," said a gentleman to whom it was mentioned, "it was a good sermon, but he stole it." This was told to the pi'eacher. He resented it, and called on the gentleman to retract what he had said. "I am not," replied the aggressor, " very apt to retract my words, but in this instance I will. I said, you had stolen the sermon; I find I was wrong; for on returning home, and referring to the book whence I thouu;ht it was taken, I found it there." ECCLESIASTICS. 149 WniTEFIELD AND THE SAILORS. Mr. Wliitefield, whose gestures and play of features were so full of dramatic power, once preached before the seamen at New York, and, in the course of his sermon, introduced the following bold apostrophe: — "Well, my boys, we have a clear sky, and are making fine headway over a smooth sea before a light breeze, and we shall soon lose sight of land. But what means this sudden lowering of the heavens, and that dark cloud arising from the western horizon? Hark! Don't you hear the distant thunder? Don't you see those flashes of lightning ? There is a storm gathering ! Every man to his duty. How the waves rise and dash against the ship ! The air is dark ! The tempest rages ! Our masts are gone. The ship is on her beam ends ! What next?" The unsuspecting tars, reminded of former perils on the deep, as if struck by the power of magic, arose and exclaimed, " Take to the long boat." PROTESTANT EXCOMMUNICATION. John Knox, in his Liturgy for Scotch Presbyterians, sets forth the following form for the exercise of such an attribute of ecclesiastical authority in Protestant communities as excom- munication : — " Lord Jesus Christ, thy expressed word is our assurance, and therefore, in boldness of the same, here in thy name, and at the commandment of this thy present congregation, we cut off", seclude, and .excommunicate from thy body, and from our society, N. as a pround contemner, and slanderous person, and a member for the present altogether corrupted, and pernicious to the body. And this his sin (albeit with sorrow of our hearts) by virtue of our ministry, we bind and pronounce the same to be bound in heaven and earth. We further give over, into the hands and power of the devil, the said N. to the destruction of his flesh; straitly charging all that profess the Lord Jesus, to whose knowledge this our sentence shall come, to repute and 150 PURITAN PECULIARITIES. hold the said N. accursed and unworthy of the familiar society of Christians; declaring unto all men that such as hereafter (before his repentance) shall haunt, or familiarly accompany him, are partakers of his iuipiety, and subject to the like con- demnation. "This our sentence, Lord Jesus, pronounced in thy name, and at thy commandment, we humbly beseech thee to ratify even according to thy promise." ^^uritan IJcculiarities, BAPTISMAL NAMES. A Puritan maiden, who was asked for her baptismal name, replied, " ' Through-much-tribulation-we-enter-the-kingdom-of- \ Heaven,' but for short they call me ' Tribby.' " The following names will be found in Lmcer's English Sir- names, and in the Lansdoione Collection. Most of them are taken from a jury-list of Sussex County, 1658. The favorite female baptismal names among the Puritans were Mercy, Faith, Fortune, Honor, Virtue ; but there were among them those who preferred such high-flown names as Alethe, Prothesa, Euphro- syne, Kezia, Keturah, INIalvina, Melinda, Sabrina, Alpina, Oriana. The-gift-of-God Stringer, The-work-of-God Farmer, Repentant Hazel, More-tiyal Goodwin, Zealous King, Faithful Long, Be-thankful Playnard, Joy-from-above Brown, Live-in-peace Hillary, Be-of-good-comfort Small, Obediencia Cruttenden, Godward Freeman, Goodgift Noake, Thunder Goldsmith. rURlTAN rECULTARITIES. 151 Faint-not Hcwctt, Accepted Trevor, Redeemed Compton, Make-peace Ileaton, God-reward Smart, Stand-fast-on-high Stringer, Earth Adams, Called Lower, Meek Brewer, Be-courteous Cole, Repentance Avis, Search-the-scriptures Moreton. Kill-sin Pimple, Return Spelman, Be-faitbful Joiner, Fly-debate Roberts, , More-fruit Flower, Hope-for Bending, Grace-ful Harding, Weep-not Billing, Seek-wisdom Wood, Elected Mitchell, Fight-the-good-fight-of-faith White, The-peace-of-God Knight. SIMILES. Prayer is Faith's pump, where 't works till the water come; If t comes not free at first, Faith puts in some. Prayer is the sacred bellows ; when these blow, How doth that live-coal from God's altar glow ! Faithful Teate's Ter. Tna., 1658. Walking in the streets, I met a cart that came near the wall; BO I stepped aside, to avoid it, into a place where I was secure enough. Reflection : Lord, sin is that great evil of which thou complainest that thou art pressed as a cart is pressed : how can it then but bruise me to powder i* — Caleb Trenclifield's f^iris. Chi/viestree. EARLY PUNISHMENTS IN MASSACHUSETTS. From the early records of Massachusetts we learn that the following singular punishments were inflicted in that colony two hundred years ago : — Sir Richard Salstonstall, fined four bushels of malt for his absence from the court. Josias Plaistowe, for stealing four baskets of corn from the Indians, to return them eight baskets again, to be fined £5, and hereafter to be called Josias, not Mr. as he used to be. Thomas Peter, for suspicions of slander, idleness, and stub- bornness, is to be severely whipped and kept in hold. 152 PURITAN PECULIARITIES. Capt. Stone, for abusing Mr. Ludlow by calling him j'zistass, fined £100, and prohibited coming within the patent. Joyce Dradwick to give unto Alexander Becks 20s., for promising him marriage without her friends' consent, and now refusing to perform the same. Richard Turner, for being notoriously drunk, fined <£2. Edward Palmer, for his extortion in taking S2s. Id. for the plank and work of Boston stocks, fined £5, and sentenced to sit one hour in the stocks. John White bound in £10 to good behavior, and not come into the company of his neighbor Thomas Bell's wife alone. VIRGINIA PENALTIES IN THE OLDEN TIME. From the old records in the Court House of Warwick County, Virginia, we extract some entries of decisions by the court under date of October 21, 1663. It may be worth while to remark that at that early period tobacco was not only a staple commodity but a substitute for currency. " Mr. John Harlow, and Ahee his wife, being by the grand inquest presented for absenting themselves from church, are, according to the act, fined each of them fifty pounds of tobacco; and the said Mr. John Plarlow ordered forthwith to pay one hundred pounds of tobacco to the sheriif, otherwise the said sheriff to le\7- by way of distress." " Jane Harde, the wife of Henry Harde, being presented for not 'tending church, is, according to act, fined fifty pounds of tobacco ', and the sherifi" is ordered to collect the same from her, and, in case of non-payment, to distress." "John Lewis, his wife this day refusing to take the oath of allegiance, being ordered her, is committed into the sheriif's custody, to remain until she take the said oath, or until further ordered to the contrary." "John Lewis, his wife for absenting herself from church, is fined fifty pounds of tobacco, to be collected by the sheriff from her husband; and upon non-payment, the said sheriff to distress." PURITAN TECULIARITIES. 153 " George Harwood, being prosecuted for his absenting him- self from church, is fined fifty pounds of tobacco, to be levied by way of distress by the sheriflF upon his non-payment thereof." " Peter White and his wife, being presented for common swearing, are fined fifty pounds of tobacco, both of them ; to be collected by the sheriff from the said White, and, upon non- payment of the same, to distress." " Eichard King, being presented as a common swearer, is fined fifty pounds of tobacco, to be levied by the sherifi", by way of distress, upon his non-payment." EXTRACTS FROM THE CONNECTICUT BLUE LAWS. When these free states were colonies Unto the mother nation, And in Connecticut the good Old Blue Laws were in fashion. The following extracts from the laws ordained by the people of New Haven, previous to their incorporation with the Say- brook and Hartford colonies, afibrd an idea of the strange cha- racter of their prohibitions. As the substance only is given in the transcription, the language is necessarily modernized : — No quaker or dissenter from the established worship of the dominion shall be allowed to give a vote for the election of magistrates, or any officer. No food or lodging shall be afibrded to a quaker, adamite, or other heretic. If any person turns quaker, he shall be banished, and not suffered to return, but upon pain of death. No priest shall abide in the dominion : he shall be banished, and suffer death on his return. Priests may be seized by any one without a warrant. No man to cross a river but with an authorized fenyman. No one shall run on the sabbath-day, or walk in his garden, or elsewhere, except reverently to and from meeting. No one shall travel, cook victuals, make beds, sweep house, cut hair or shave, on the sabbath-day. 154 PURITAN PECULIARITIES. No woman shall kiss her child on the sabbath or flisting-day. The sabbath shall begin at sunset on Saturday. To pick an ear of corn growing in a neighbor's garden shall be deemed theft. A person accused of trespass in the night shall be judged guilty, unless he clear himself by oath. When it appears that an accused has confederates, and he refuses to discover them, he may be racked. No one shall buy or sell lands without permission of the selectmen. A drunkard shall have a master appointed by the selectmen, who are to debar him the liberty of buying and selling. ^Yhoever publishes a lie to the prejudice of his neighbor, shall sit in the stocks or be whipped fifteen stripes. No minister shall keep a school. Men-stealers shall suffer death. Whoever wears clothes trimmed with gold, silver, or bone lace, above two shillings by the yard, shall be presented by the grand jurors, and the selectmen shall tax the offender at £300 estate. A debtor in prison, swearing he has no estate, shall be let out, and sold to make satisfaction. Whoever sets a fire in the woods, and it burns a house, shall suffer death; and persons suspected of this crime shall be im- prisoned without benefit of bail. Whoever brings cards or dice into this dominion shall pay a fine of £6. No one shall read common-prayer, keep Christmas or saint- days, make minced pies, dance, play cards, or play on any in- strument of music, except the drum, trumpet, and Jews-harp. No gospel minister shall join people in marriage; the magis- trates only shall join in marriage, as they may do it with less scandal to Christ's church. When parents refuse their children convenient marriages, the magistrate shall determine the point. The selectmen, on finding children ignorant, may take them TARONUMASIA. 155 away from their parents, and put them into better hands, at the expense of their parents. A man that strikes his wife shall pay a fine of £10 ; a woman that strikes her husband shall be punished as the court directs. A wife shall be deemed good evidence against her husband. Married persons must live together, or be imprisoned. No man shall court a maid in person, or by letter, without first obtaining consent of her parents : £5 penalty for the first ofi"ence ; £10 for the second ; and for the third, imprisonment during the pleasure of the court. Every male shall have his hair cut round according to a cap. ^paronomasia. Hard is the job to launch the desperate pun ; A pitn-juh dangerous as the Indian one. — Holmes. Life and language are alike sacred. Homicide and veihicide — that is, vio- lent treatment of a word with fatal results to its legitimate meaning, which is its life — are alike forbidden. Manslaughter, which is the meaning of the one, is the same as mart's laughter, which is the end of the other. — Ibid. The quaint Cardan thus dcfineth : — " Punning is an art of harmonious jingling upon words, which, passing in at the ears and falling upon the diaphragma, excites a titillary motion in those parts; and this, being conveyed by the animal spirits into the muscles of the face, raises the cockles of the heart." " He who would make a pun would pick a pocket," is the stereotyped dogma fulminated by laugh-lynchers from time im- memorial ; or, as the Autocrat hath it, " To trifle with the vocabulary which is the vehicle of social intercourse is to tam- per with the currency of human intelligence. He who would violate the sanctities of his mother tongue would invade the re- cesses of the paternal till without remorse, and repeat the ban- quet of Saturn without an indigestion." The "inanities of thia 156 PARONOMASIA. Working-day world" cannot perceive any wittiness or grace in punning; and yet, according to the comprehensive definition of wit by Dr. Barrow, the eminent divine, it occupies a very con- siderable portion of the reahu of wit. He says, " Wit is a thing so versatile and multiform, appearing in so many shapes, so many postures, so many garbs, so variously apprehended by several eyes and judgments, that it seemeth no less hard to settle a clear and certain notion thereof, than to make a por- trait of Proteus, or to define the figure of the fleeting air. Sometimes it lieth in jiat allusions to a known story, or in seasonable application of a trivial sai/ing, or in feigning au apposite tale ; sometimes it playeth in words and phrases, taking advantage of the amhiguiii/ of their sense, or the affiniti/ of their sound; sometimes it is wrapped in a dress of humorous expression, sometimes it lurketh under an odd similitude; sometimes it is lodged in a sly question, in a smart answer, in a quirkish reason, in a shrewd intimation, in cunningly, divertingly, or cleverly retorting an objection ; sometimes it ia couched in a bold scheme of speech, in a tart irony, in a lusty hyperbole, in a startling metaphor, in a plausible reconciling of contradictions, or in acute nonsense; sometimes a scenic re- presentation of persons or things, a counterfeit speech, a mimic look or gesture, passeth for it. Sometimes an affected simpli- city, sometimes a presumptuous bluntness, giveth it being. Sometimes it riseth only from a lucky hitting upon what is strange; sometimes from a crafty wresting of obvious matter to the pxirpose. Often it consisteth of one knows not what, and springeth up one can hardly tell how. Its ways are unac- countable and inexplicable, being answerable to the numberless rovings of fancy and windings of language." If this definition be true, there is truth as well as wit in the punster's reply to the taunt of the rhetorician that "punning is the lowest sjiecies of wit." "Yes," said he, "for it is the foundation of all wit." But, whatever may be said of the practice by those who afi'ect to despise it, it has been much in vogue in all ages. Home, in his Introduction to the Critical PARONOMASIA. 157 Stndi/ of the Hohj Scrijiturcs, tells us that it was a very favorite figure of rhetoric among the Hebrews, and is yet common among most of the Oriental nations. Professor Stuart, in his Hebrew grammar, gives numerous examples of it in the Old Testament, and Winer and Home point out others in the New Testament, especially in the writings of St. Paul, These can- not, of course, be equivalently expressed in English. Many of the Greek authors exhibit a fondness for this rheto- rical figure, and some of the most excellent puns extant are to be found in the Greek Anthologies. As a specimen, the follow- ing is given from Wesseling's Diodorus Siculus : — Dioscurus, an Egyptian bishop, before he began the service, had the common custom of saying sip-qvrj naffcv, (irene pasin,) peace be to all. It was notorious that the pious churchman had at home a favorite mistress, whose name was Irene, which incident produced the following smart epigram :— Eiprjvri TtavTcaaiv anoKono^ emcv tTeX^uv Ilcjj dvvarai iraaiv, fii/ fiovos cvSov Ct^' J (The good bishop wishes peace — Irene — to all; But how can he give that to all, which he keeps to himself at home?) A PUN-GENT CHAPTER. At one time there was a general strike among the working- men of Paris, and Theodore Hook gave the following amusing account of the affair : — " The bakers, being ambitious to extend their r/o-mains, declared that a revolution was needed, and, though not exactly Ircd up to arms, soon reduced their crusfi/ masters to terms. The tailors called a council of the hoard to see what measures should be taken, and, looking upon the bakers as ih.e flower of chivalry, decided to follow suit; the con- sequence of which was, that a cereous insurrection was lighted up among the candle-makers, which, however wiek-edi it might appear in the eyes of some persons, developed traits of charac- ter not unworthy of ancient Greece." 14 158 PARONOMASIA. Why should no man starve on the deserts of Arabia ? Because of the sand ichich is there. How canae the sandwiches there ? The tribe of Ilcnn was bred there, and mustered. A clergyman who had united in marriage a couple whose Christian names were Benjamin and Annie, on being asked by a mutual friend how they appeared during the ceremony, re- plied that they appeared both aiiuie-vanted and ie«e-fitted. Mr. Manners, who had but lately been created Earl of Rut- land, said to Sir Thomas More, just made Lord Chancellor, — " You are so much elated with your preferment that you verify the old proverb, — HoiioriiS viutaiU MoRES. " " No, my lord," said Sir Thomas : " the pun will do much better in English : — Honors chaiKje MANNERS." An old writer said that when cannons were introduced as negotiators, the canons of the church were useless; that the world was governed first by mitruin, and then by 7utrum, — first by St. Peter, and then by saltpetre. Colman, the dramatist, on being asked whether he knew Theodore Hook, replied, "Oh, yes: Ilouk and £^e are old associates." Punch says, " the milk of human kindness is not to be found in the pail of society." If so, we think it is time for all hands to " kick the bucket." Judge Peters, formerly of the Philadelphia Bench, observed to a friend, during a trial that was going on, that one of the witnesses had a vegetable head. " How so ?" was the inquiry. "He has carro^^ hair, redd ish cheeks, a turnup nose, and a sa(je look." Tom Hood, seeing over the shop-door of a beer-vendor, — Bear Sold Here, said it was spelled right, because it was his own Bruin. PARONOMASIA. 159 Charles IMathcws, the comedian, was served by a green-gro- cer, named Berry, and generally settled his bill once a quarter. At one time the account was sent in before it was due, and Mathews, laboring under an idea that his credit was doubted, said, " Here's a pretty mull, Berry. You have sent in your hill, Berry, before it is due, Berry. Your father, the elder Berry, would not have been such a goose. Berry; but you need not look so Hack, Berry, for I don't care a straw, Berry, and sha'n't pay you till Cliristmas, Berry." Sheridan, being dunned by a tailor to pay at least the interest on his bill, answered that it was not his interest to pay the principal, nor his principle to pay the interest. In the "Old India House" may still be seen a quarto volume of Interest Tables, on the fly-leaf of which is written, in Charles Lamb's round, clerkly hand, — "A book of much interest." — Edinhurgh Jicview. "A work in which Iho interest never flags." — Quarterly Review. " AVe may say of this volume, that the interest increases from the begin- ning to the end." — Monllily Jieview. Turner, the painter, was at a dinner where several artists, amateurs, and literary men were convened. A poet, by way of being focetious, proposed as a toast, " The Painters and Glaziers of England." The toast was drunk; and Turner, after returning thanks for it, proposed ^'Success to the Paper- Staijiers," and called on the poet to respond. SHORT ROAD TO WEALTU. I'll toll you a plan for gaining wealth, Better than banking, trade, or leases; Take a bank-note and fold it across, And then you will find your money in-creases ! This wonderful plan, without danger or loss. Keeps your cash in your hands, and with nothing to trouble it ; And every time that you fold it across, 'Tis plain as the light of the day that you doublb itI "I cannot move," the plaintive invalid cries, "Nor sit, nor stand." — If he says true, be liet. 160 PARONOMASIA. Dr. Johnson having freely expressed his aversion to punning, Boswell hinted that his illustrious friend's dislike to this species of small wit might arise from his inability to play upon words. "Sir", roared Johnson, "if I were punish-ed for every pun I shed, there would not be left a puny shed of my punnish head." Once, by accident, he made a singular pun. A person who aifected to live after the Grreek manner, and to anoint himself with oil, was one day mentioned to him. Johnson, in the course of conversation on the singularity of his practice, give him the denomination of this man of Grease. Sydney Smith — so Lord Houghton in his Monographs tells us — has written depreciatingly of all playing upon words; but his rapid apprehension could not altogether exclude a kind of wit which, in its best forms, takes fast hold of the memory, besides the momentary amusement it excites. His objection to the superiority of a city feast: "I cannot wholly value a dinner by the test you do (testudo');" — his proposal to settle the question of the wood pavement around St. Paul's: "Let the Canons once lay their heads together and the thing will be done ;" — his pretty compliment to his friends, Mrs. Tighe and Mrs. Cuffe : "Ah ! there you are : the cuff that every one would wear, the tie that no one would loose" — may be cited as perfect in their way. Admiral Duncan's address to the officers who came on board his ship for instructions, previous to the engagement with Ad- miral de Winter, was laconic and humorous : " Gentlemen, you see a severe Winter approaching ; I have only to advise you to keep up a good fire." Theodore Hook plays thus on the same name : — Here comes Mr. AVinter, inspector of taxes; I advise you to give him whatever he axes; "" I advise you to give him without any flummery, For though his name's Winter his actions are summnrT/, Henry Erskine's toast to the mine-owners of Lancashire : — Sink your pits, blast your mines, dnm your rivers, consume your manu- factures, disperse your commerce, and may your labors bo in vein. PARONOMASIA. 161 TOM MOORE. When Limerick, in idle whiin, Moore as her member lately courted, 'The boys.' for form's sake, jisked of him To state what party he supported. When thus his answer promptly ran, (Now give the wit his meed of glory:) "I'm of no party as a man, "^ But as a poet am-a-tory." TOP AND BOTTOM. The following playful colloquy in verse took place at a diU' ner-tablc, between Sir George Kose and James Smith, in allu- eion to Craven street, Strand, where the latter resided : — J. S. — At the top of my street the attorneys abound, And down at the bottom the barges are found : Fly, honesty, fly to some safer retreat, For there's craft in the river, and craft in the street Sir G. R. — Why should honesty fly to some safer retreat, From attorneys, and barges, od-rot 'em? For the lawyers are just at the top of the street. And the barges are just at the bottom. OLD JOKE VERSIFIED. Says Tom to Bill, pray tell me, sir, Why is it that the devil. In spite of all his naughty ways. Can never be uncivil? Says Bill to Tom, the answer's plain To any mind that's bright : Because the imp of darkness, sir. Can ne'er bo imp o' light. A printer's epitaph. Here lies a form — place no imposing stone To mark the head, where weary it is lain ; 'Tis matter dead ! — its mission being done, To be distributed to dust again. The bodi/'s but the tijpe, at best, of man, Whose impress is the spirit's deathless page f Worn out, the type is thrown to pi again, The impression lives through an eternal age. L 14« 162 PARONOMASIA. STICKY. I want to seal a letter, Dick, Some wax pray give to me. — I have not got a single gtick, Or whacks I'd give to thee. WOMEN. When Eve brought woe to all mankind. Old Adam called her wo-man ; But when sho wno'il with love so kind, lie then pronounced her woo-man. But now with folly and with pride. Their husbands' pockets trimiE.i.:g, The ladies are so full of whims, The people call them whim-men. BEN, THE SAILOR. His death, which happened in his berth. At forty odd befell : They went and told the sexton, and The sexton tolled the bell. — Hood's Faithless Salti/ Brown. WHISKERS VERSUS RAZOR. With whiskers thick upon my face I went my fair to see ; Sho told mo she could never love A bear-faced chap like me. I shaved then clean, and called again, And thought my troubles o'er; She laughed outright, and said I was More bare-faced than before ! COMPLIMENT OF SHERIDAN TO MISS PAYNE. 'Tis true I am ill ; but I cannot complain, For he never knew pleasure who never knew Payne. FROM BR. holmes' " MODEST REQUEST." Thus great Achilles, who had shown his zeal In HEALING WOUNDS, died of a wounded heel; Unhappy chief, who, when in childhood doused. Had saved his bacon had his feet been soused ! Accursed heel, that killed a hero stout ! Oh, had your mother known that you were out, PARONOMASIA. 163 Death had not entered at the trifling part That still defies the small chirurgeon's art With corn and bunions, — not the glorious JcnN Who wrote the book we all have pondered on, — But other bunions, bound in fleecy hose. To "Pilgrim's Progress" unrelenting foes! PLAINT OP THE OLD PAUPER. Some boast of their FORE-fathers — I — I have not one ! I am, I think, like Joshua, The son of none ! Heedless in youth, we little note How quick time passes, For then flows ruby wine, not sand. In OUR glasses ! Rich friends (most pure in honor) all have flea Sooner or later; Pshaw ! had they India's spices, they'd not be A nutmeg-GRATER ! I've neither chick nor child ; as I have nothing, AVhy, 'tis lucky rather ; Yet who that hears a squalling baby wishes Not to be FATHER? Some few years back my spirits and my youth Were quite amazin'; Brisk as a pony, or a lawyer's clerk, Just fresh from Gray's Inn! What am I now? weak, old, and poor, and by The parish found ; Their tknce keeps me, while many an ass Enjoys the parish pound ! TO MY NOSE. Knows he that never took a pinch. Nosey! the pleasure thence which flows? Knows he the titillating joy Which my nose knows ? Oh, nose ! I am as fond of thee As any mountain of its snows ! I gaze on thee, and feel that pride A Roman knows I 164 PARONOMASIA. BOOK-LAKCEXY. Sir Walter Scott said that some of his frieiids were bad accountants, but excellent hook-keepers. Uow hard, when those who do not wish To lend — that's lose — their books, Are snared by anglers — folks that fish With literary hooks ; VTho call and take some farorite tome, But never read it through ; They thus complete their sett at home, By making one of you. I, of my Spenser quite bereft. Last winter sore was shaken ; Of Lamb I've but a quarter left, Xor could I save my Bacon. They picked my Locke, to me far more Than Bramah's patent worth; And now my losses I deplore. Without a Home on earth. Even Glover's works I cannot put My frozen hands upon ; Though ever since I lost my Foote, My Bunyan has been gone. My life is wasting fast away ; I suffer from these shocks ; And though I've fixed a luck on Gray, There's gray upon my locks. They still have made me slight returns. And thus my grief divide ; For oh ! they've cured me of my Burns, And eased my Akenside. But all I think I shall not say, Nor let my anger burn ; For as they have not found me Gay, They have not lefl me Sterne. THE VEGETABLE GIRL. Behind a market stall installed, I mark it every day, Stands at her stand the fairest girl I've met with in the bay ; PARONOMASIA. 165 Her two lips are of cherry red, Her bauds a pretty pair, With such a pretty turn-up iiose, And lovely reddish hair. *Tis there she stands from morn till uight llcr customers to please, And to appease their appetite She sells them beans and peas. Attracted by the glances from The apple of her eye, And by her Chili apples, too. Each passer-by will buy. She stands upon her little feet. Throughout the livelong day. And sells her celery and things, — A big feat, by the way. She changes off her stock for change, Attending to each call ; And when she has but one beet left. She says, " Now that beats all." EPITAPH ON AN OLD HORSE. Here lies a faithful steed, A stanch, uncompromising " silver gray;" Who ran the race of life with sprightly speed, Yet never ran — away. Wild oats he never sowed, Yet masticated tame ones with much zest : Cheerful he bore each light allotted load. As cheerfully took rest. Bright were his eyes, yet soft, And in the main his tail was white and flowing; And though ho never sketched a single draught, He showed great taste for drawing. Lithe were his limbs, and clean, Fitted alike for buggy or for dray. And like Napoleon the Great, I ween, He had a martial neigh. Oft have I watched him grace His favorite stall, well littered, warm, and fair. With such contentment shining from his face, And such a stable air! 166 PARONOMASIA. With here and there a speck Of roan diversifying his broad back, And, martyr-like, a halter round his neck, Which bound him to the raek. Mors omnibus ! at length The hay-day of his life was damped by death; So, summoning all his late remaining strength, He drew his — final breath. GRAND SCHEME OF EMIGRATION. The Brewers should to JIalt-a go, The Loggerheads to Scil/i/, The Quakers to the Fritndly Islca, The Furriers all to Chili. The little squalling, brawling brats. That break our nightly rest, Should be packed ofl" to Bahij-lon, To Lap-land, or to Brest. From Spit-head Cooks go o'er to Greece; And while the Miser waits llis passage to the Guinea coast, Spendthrifts are in the Straits. Spinsters should to the Needles go, Wine-bibbers to Bunjundy ; Gourmands should lunch at Sandwich Isles, Wags in the Bay of Fun-dy. Musicians hasten to the Sound, The surpliced Priest to Home; While still the race of Hypocrites At Cant-on are at home. Lovers should hasten to Good Hope ; To some Gape Horn is pain ; Debtors should go to Oh-i-o, And Sailors to the Main-e. Hie, Bachelors, to the United States! Maids, to the Isle of Man ; Let Gardeners go to Botany Bay, And Shoeblacks to Japan. Thus, emigrants and misplaced men Will then no longer vex us; And all that a'n't provided for Had better go to Texas. PARONOMASIA. 167 THE PERILOUS PRACTICE OP PUNNINO, Theodore Hook thus cautions young people to resist provo- cation to the habit of punning : — My little dears, who learn to read, pray early learn to shun That very silly thing indeed which people call a pun. Read Entick's rules, and 'twill be found how simple an offence It is to make the self-same sound afl'ord a double sense. For instance, ale may make you ail, your aunt an ant may kill, You in a vale may buy a vail, and Hill may pay the bill, Or if to France your bark you steer, at Dover it may be, A peer aj^pcars upon the ^jie;-, who, blind, still goes to sea. Thus one might say when to a treat good friends accept our greeting, 'Tis meet that men who meet to eat, should eat their 7neat when meeting. Brawn on the board 's no bore indeed, although from boar prepared; Nor can the foiol on which we ieedfoul feeding be declared. Thus one ripe fruit may be a, pear, and yet ho pared again, And still be one, which scemeth rare, until we do explain. It therefore should be all your aim to speak with ample care; For who, however fond of game, would choose to swallow hair? A fat mvLu'sijait may make us smile, who has no gate to close; The farmer sitting on his stile no sti/lish person knows; Perfumers men of scents must be; some Scilly men are bright; A broion man oft deep read we see — a black a wicked toi'jht. Most wealthy men good manners have, however vulgar they, And actors still the harder slave the oftener they^jZa^// So poets can't the baize obtain unless their tailors choose. While grooms and coachmen not in vain each evening seek the meioa. The d;/er who by dying lives, a dire life maintains ; The glazier, it is known, receives his profits from his panes ; By gardeners thyme is tied, 'tis true, when Spring is in its prime, But time or tide won't wait for you, if you are tied for time. There now you see, my little dears, the way to make a pun ; A trick which you, through coming years, should sedulously shun. The fault admits of no defense, for wheresoe'er 'tis found, You sacrifice the sound for sense, the sense is never sound. So let your words and actions too, one single meaning prove. And, just in all you say or do, you'll gain esteem and love : In mirth and play no harm you'll know, when duty's task is done; But parents ne'er should let you go unpunished for a pun. The motto of the Pilotage Commission of the river Tyne : — ■ In portu salus. In port you sail us. 168 PARONOMASIA. SONNET On a youth who died from a surfeit of fruit. Currants have checked the current of my blood, And berries brought me to be buried here ; Pears have pared off my body's hardihood, And plums and plumbers spare not one so spare : Fain would I feign my fall ; so fair a fare Lessens not fate, but 'tis a lesson good : Gilt will not long hide guilt ; such thin-washed ware Wears quickly, and its rude touch soon is rued. Grave on my grave some sentence grave and terse. That lies not, as it lies upon my clay ; But, in a gentle strain of unstrained verse, Prays all to pity a poor patty's prey ; Rehearses I was fruit-full to my hearse, Tells that my days arc told, and soon I'm toll'd away ! Previous to the battle of CuUoden, when Marshal Wade and Generals Cope and Hawley were prevented by the severity of the ■weather from advancing as far into Scotland as they intended, the following lines were circulated among their opposers: — Cope could not cope, nor Wade wade through the snow. Nor Hawley haul his cannon to the foe. When Mrs. Noi'ton was called on to subscribe to a fund for the relief of Thomas Hood's widow, which had been headed by Sir Robert Peel, she sent a liberal donation with these lines : — To cheer the widow's heart in her distress, To make provision for the fatherless. Is but a Christian's duty, and none should Resist the heart-appeal of widoio-Hood. M. Mario's visit to this country recalls to mind the sharpest witticism of Madame Grisi, at the time his wife, and one of the best bits of repartee on record. Louis Phillippe, passing through a room where Grisi stood, holding two of her young children by the hand, said gaily : "Ah ! Madame, are those, then, some of your little Grisettes?" "No, Sire," was the quick reply, perfect in every requirement of the pun, '' No, Sire, these are my little Marionettes." PARONOMASIA. 169 A learned judge, of facetious memory, is reported to have said, in an argument in arrest of the judgment of death, "I think we had better let the subject drop." swift's latin puns. Among the nugse of Dean Swift are his celebrated Latin puns, some of which are well known, having been frequently copied, and having never been excelled. The following selec- tions will serve as specimens. They consist entirely of Latin words; but, by allowing for false spelling, and running the words into each other, the sentences make good sense in English : — _^ Mollis abuti, (Moll is a beauty, Has an acuti, Has an acute eye, No lasso finis, No lass so fine is, Molli divinis. Molly divine is. Omi de armis tres, my dear mistress, Imi na dis tres, I'm in a distress, Cantu disco ver Can't you discover Mcas alo ver ? Me as a lover ?) In a subsequent epistolary allusion to this, he says : — I ritu a verse o na molli o mi ne, Asta lassa me pole, a Itedis o fine ; I ne ver neu a niso ne at in mi ni is ; A manat a glans ora sito fer diis. De armo lis abuti hos face an hos nos is, As fer a sal illi, as reddas aro sis ; Ac is o mi molli is almi de lite; Illo verbi de, an illo verbi nite. (I writ you a verse on a Molly o" mine, As tall as a may-pole, a lady so fine ; I never knew any so neat in mine eyes ; A man, at a glance or a sight of her, dies. Dear Molly 's a beauty, whose face and whose nose is As fair as a lily, as red as a rose is ; A kiss o' my Molly is all my delight; I love her by day, and I love her by night.) Extract from the consultation of four physicians on a lord that loas dying. \st Doctor Is his honor sic? Prae laetus felis pulse. It do cs beat veris loto de. 15 170 PARONOMASIA. 2d Doctor. No notis as qui cassi e vcr fel tu metri it, Inde edit is as fastas au alarum, ora tire bellat nite. 3(^ Doctor. It is veri hei! ^th Doctor. Noto contra dictu in my juge mentitis veri loto de. It is as orto maladi, sum callet. [Here e ver id octo reti resto a par lori na mel an coli post ure.] 1st D. It is a me gri mas I opi ne. 2.d D. No docto rite quit fora quin si. Heris a plane sim tomo fit. Sorites Paracelsus. Pra3 re adit. \st D. Nouo, Doctor, I ne ver quo te aqua casu do. Id D. Sum arso; mi autoris no ne. ^d D. No quare lingat prae senti de si re. His honor is sic offa colli casure as I sit here. 4^/i D. It is aether an atro phi ora colli casu sed : Ire niem- bri re ad it in Doctor me ades esse, here it is. ?>d D. I ne ver re ad apage in it, no re ver in tendit. %1 D. Fer ne is ofFa qui te di ferent noti o nas i here. l.s^ D. It me bea pluri si; avo metis veri pro perfor a man at his age. \st B. Is his honor sick? Pray let us feel his pulse. It docs beat very slow to-day. Id D. No, no, 'tis as quick as ever I felt ; you may try it. Indeed, it is as fast as an alarum, or a fire-bell at night. 2>d D. It is very high. 4tth 1). Not to contradict you, in my judgment it is very slow to day. It is a sort of malady, some call it. (Here every doctor retires to a parlor in a melancholy posture.) 1«« B. It is a megrim, as I opine. 2d B. No, doctor, I take it for a quinsy. Here is a plain symptom of it. So writes Paracelsus. Pray read it. 1st B. No, no, doctor, I never quote a quack as you do. 2d B. Some are so ; my author is none. Zd B. No quarrelling at present, I desire. His honor is sick of a colic as sure as I sit here. Ath B. It is either an atrophy, or a colic, as you said. I remember I read it in Dr. Mead's Essay: here it is. Zd D. I never read a page in it, nor ever intend it. 2d B. Feme is of a quite diflercut notion, as I hoar. lut B. It may be a pleurisy; a vomit is very proper for a man at his age. PARONOMASIA. 171 2d D. Urc par douat prajsanti des ire; His dis cas is a cata ride clare it. 3(Z D. Atlas tume findit as tone in liis quid ni es. 4f/t D. Itis ale pro si fora uti se. Ab lis tor me bene cessa risum de cans. Itis as ure medi in manicas es. 3tZ D. I findit isto late tot liinc ofi^a reme di; fori here his honor is de ad. 2d D. His (i nieis cum. \st D. Is it trudo ut hinc? 4:th D. It is veri certa in. His Paris his belli sto ringo ut foris de partu re. Sf? D. Nee i fis ecce lens is de ad Igetus en dum apri csto prje foris sole. 2d D. Yuur pardon at present I desire. His disease is a catarrh, I declare it. Srf D. At last you may find it a stone in his kidneys. Ath D. It is a leprosy for aught I see. A blister may be necessary some days hence. It is a sure remedy in many cases. 'M D. Ifinditis too late to think of a remedy; fori hear his honor is dead. 2d D. His time is come. l«f D. Is it true, do you think ? Ath I). It is very certain. His parish bell is to ring out for his departure. ?>d D. Nay, if his excellency's dead, let us send 'em a priest to pray for his soul. UNCONSCIOUS OR UNINTENTIONAL PUNS. Elizabeth's sylvan dress was therefore well suited at once to her height and to the dignity of her mein, which her conscious rank and lony habits of authority had rendered in some degree too masculine to be seen to the best advantage in ordinary /orentZe weeds.— Ken ilivorth, iii. 9. I'll gild the faces of the grooms withal That it may seem their f/uilt. — Macbeth. While underneath the eaves The brooding swallows cling, As if to show their sunny backs And tioit me with the spring. — Song of the Shirt. RUSSIAN DOUBLE ENTENDRE. The following message was sent to the Emperor Nicholas by one of his generals: — Yolia Yaseha, a Varschavoo vsi'at nemogoo. [iourwiin" all-powerful. } ^"^ ^^'^'"^'^^ ^ '^^•^""t ^^^^- 172 PARONOMASIA. CLASSICAL PUNS AND MOTTOES. Sydney Smith proposed as a motto for Bishop Burgess, bro- ther to the well-known fish-sauce purveyor, the following Vir- gilian pun (JEn. iv. 1), — Gravi jamdudum saucia cura. A London tobacconist, who had become wealthy, and deter- mined to set up his carriage, applied to a learned gentleman for !Vv a motto. The scholar gave him the Horatian question, — QUID RIDES ? (Why do you laugh?— i'ar. /. 69)— which was accordingly adopted, and painted on the panel. A pedantic bachelor had the following inscription on his tea- caddy : — TU DOCES. (Thou Tea-chest.) \ Epitaph on a Cat, ascribed to Dr. Johnson (Hor. lib. i., c. 12): — MI-CAT INTER OMNES. Two gentlemen about to enter an unoccupied pew in a church, the foremost found it locked. His companion, not perceiving it at the moment, inquired why he retreated. *'Pm- doi- vetat," said he. (Modesty forbids.) A gentleman at dinner requested a friend to help him to a potato, which he did, saying, "I think you will find that a good \ mealy one." "Thank you," quoth the other: "it could not be melior" (better). A student of Latin, being confined to his room by illness, was called upon by a friend. "What, John," said the visitor, "sick, eh?" "Yes," replied John, '■'■sic sum" (so I am). In King's College were two delinquents named respectively Payne and Culpepper. Payne was expelled, but Culpepper escaped punishment. Upon this, a wit wrote the following apt line •— Pivna, perire potest; Culpa pf rcania c°.'.. PARONOMASIA. 173 Andrew Borde, author of the Breviari/ uj JTcallTi, called himself in Latin Andreas Perforatus. This translation of a proper name was according to the fashion of the time, but in this instance includes a pun, — perforatus, bored or pierced. Joseph II., Emperor of Germany, during a visit to Rome, went to see the princess Santacroce, a young lady of singular beauty, who had an evening conversazione. Next morning appeared the following pasquinade. " Pasquin asks, ' What is the Emperor Joseph come to Rome for ?' Marforio answers, 'Abaciar la Santa Croce' " — to kiss the Holy Cross. On the trial of Garnett, the Superior of the Jesuits, for his participation in the Gunpowder Plot, Coke, then Attorney- General, concluded his speech thus: — Qui cion Jesu itis, nan it is cum Jesuitis. A few years ago, several Jesuits came into the lecture-room of an Italian professor in the University of Pisa, believing he was about to assail a favorite dogma of theirs. He commenced his lecture with the following words, — " Quanti Gesuiti sono all' inferno !" (IIow many Jesuits there are in hell I) When remonstrated with, he said that his words were — " Quanti — Gesu ! — iti sono all' inferno !" (How many jjeople, Jesus! there are in hell !) D'Israeli says that Bossuet would not join his young com- panions, and flew to his solitary tasks, while the classical boys avenged themselves by a schoolboy's pun ; applying to Bossuet Virgil's bos suet-us aratro — the ox daily toiling in the plough. John Randolph of Virginia, and Mr. Dana of Connecticut, while fellow-members of Congress, belonged to different po- litical parties. On one occasion Mr. Dana paid some hand- some compliments to Mr. Randolph. When the latter spoke in reply, he quoted from Virgil (^n. ii.) : — TLmeo Dannos et dona ferentes. 15» 174 PARONOMASIA. A lady having accidentally thrown down a Cremona fiddle with her mantua, Dean Swift instantly remarked, — "Mantua vte misersB nimiuin vicina Cremunx." Ah, Mantua, too near the wretched Cremona. (Vii'g. Eel. ix. 28.) To an old gentleman who had lost his spectacles one rainy evening, the Dean said, "If this rain continues all night, you will certainly recover them in the morning betimes : " Nocte pluit tota — redeunt spectacula mane." (Virgil.) Quid facies facies veneris si veneris ante? Ne pereas pereas, ne sedeas, sedeas. (What tvill you do if you shall come before the face of Venus ? Lest you should perish through them, do not sit down, but go away.) Sir William Dawes, Archbishop of York, was very fond of a pun. His clergy dining with him for the first time after he had lost his wife, he told them he feared they did not find things in so good order as they used to be in the time of poor Mary; and, looking extremely sorrowful, added with a deep sigh, "she was indeed mare pacificum.'' A curate who knew pretty well what her temper had been, said, " Yes, my lord, but she was mare mortmmi first." That Homer should a bankrupt be, Is not so very odd d'ye see, If it be true as I'm instructed, So ILL HE HAD his books conducted. PUNNING MOTTOES OF THE ENGLISH PEERAGE. Ne vile Fano — Disgrace not the altar. Motto of the Fanes. Ne vile velis — Form no mean wish. The Nevilles. Cavendo tutus — Secure by caution. The Cavendishes. Forte scu/»7?i, salus ducum — A strong shield the safety of leaders. Lord Fortescue. Ver non semper viret — The spring is not always green. Lord Vernon. Vero vili'd verms — Nothing truer than truth. Lord Vere. Templa (2ua7n dclecta — Temples how beloved. Lord Tem- ple. PARONOMASIA. 1^0 JEUX-DE-MOTS. SPIRITUAL. A wag decides — That whiskey is the key by which many gain an entrance into our prisons and almshouses. That brandy brands the noses of all who cannot govern their appetites. That wine causes many a man to take a winding way home. That punch is the cause of many unfriendly punches. That ale causes many ailings, while beer brings many to the bier. That champagne is the source of many a real pain. That gin-slings have "slewed" more than the slings of old. That the reputation of being fond of cock-tails is not a feather in any man's cap. That the money spent for port that is supplied by portly gents would support many a poor family. That porter is a weak supporter for those who are weak in body. ANAGRAMMATIC. The following sentence is said to be taken from a volume of sermons published during the reign of James I. : — This dial shows that we must die all ; yet notwithstanding, all houses are turned into ale houses; our cares into cafes; our paradise into a pair o' dice; matrimoni/ into a matter of •nioneij, and marriaye into a merry age; our divines have be- come drj/ vines: it was not so in the days of Noah, — ah! no ITERATIVE. A clerical gentleman of Hartford, who once attended the House of Representatives to read prayers, being politely re- quested to remain seated near the speaker during the debate, found himself the spectator of an unmarri/ing process, so alien to his own vocation, and so characteristic of the readiness of 176 PARONOMASIA. the Legislature of Connecticut to grant divorces, that the result was the following impromptu : — For cxii-img all connect-ions famed, Cortnect-i-cut is fairly named ; T twain connect in one, but you Ctrt those whom / connect in two. Each legislator seems to say, What you Connect I cut away. Finn, the comedian, issued the following morceau upon the announcement of his benefit at the Tremont Theatre, Boston : — Like a grate full of coals I burn, A great, full house to see ; And if I should not grateful prove, A great fool I should be. A FAIR LETTER. The following letter was received by a young lady at the post-office of a Fair held for the benefit of a church : — Fairest of the Fair. "When such /a «> beings as you have the /rt/r-ness to honor our Fair with your fair presence, it is perfectly y«/r that you should receive good fare from the fair conductors of this Fair, and indeed it would be very un-fair if you should not fare well, since it is the endeavor of those whose wel-yl/re depends upon the success of this Fair, to treat all who come fair-\y, but to treat with especial /a?>-nes3 those who are as fair as yourself. We are engaged in a fair cause, a sacred war-/are; that is, to speak without Mn-fair-uess, a vrar-fare, not against the fair sex, but against the pocketa of their beaux. "We therefore hope, gentle reader, " still fair- est found where all is fair," that you will use all fair exer- tions in behalf of the praiseworthy af-fair which we havey*aiV-ly undertaken. If you take sufficient interest in our -wel-fare to lend your fair aid, you will appear fair-er than ever in our sight; we will never treat you un-/ai>-ly, and when you with- draw the light of your fair countenance from our Fair, we will bid you a kind i^ure-well. PARONOMASIA. 177 The following was written on the occasion of a duel in Phila- delphia, several years ago : — Schott and Willing did engage In duel fioroo and hot; Schott shot Willing willingly, And Willing ho shot Schott. The shot Schott shot made Willing quite A spectacle to see ; While Willing's willing shot went right Through Schott's anatomy. WRITE WRITTEN RIO TIT. Wnte we know is written right, When we see it written write; But when we see it written wright. We know it is not written right-: For write, to have it written right, Must not be written right or wright, Nor yet should it bo written rite; But write, for so 'tis written right. TURN TO TUB LEFT AS THE (ENGLISH) LAW DIRECTS. The laws of the Road are a paradox quite ; For when you are travelling along, If you keep to the left you're sure to bo right, If you keep to the right you'll bo wrong. I cannot bear to see a bear, bear down upon a hare, When bare of hair ho strips the hare, for hare I cry, "forbear!" ON THE DEATH OP THE EARL OF KILDARE. Who kiUed Kildare ? Who dared Kildare to kill ? Death answers, — I killed Kildare, and dare kill whom I will. A Ca^ALECTIC MONODY. A cat I sing of famous memory. Though ca/achrestical my song may be : In a small garden catacomb she lies. And cataclysms fill her comrades' eyes ; Borne on the air, the ca^acoustic song Swells with her virtues' co^alogue along; No cataplasm could lengthen out her years. Though mourning friends shed cataracts of tears. 178 PARONOMASIA. Onco loud and strong her cn?echist-likc voice, It dwindled to a catcall's squeaking noise ; Most coiegorical her virtues shone, By catenation joined each one to one ; — But a vile catchpoll dog, with cruel bite, Like coding's cut, her strength disabled quite; Her ca/erwauling pierced the heavy air. As ca" EXaLISn WORDS AND FORMS OF EXPRESSION. 207 The word hrat is not considered very elegant now, but a few years ago it had a different signification from its present one. An old hymn or De prn/iau/it;, by Gascoine, contains the lines, — " Israel, household of tho Lord, Abraham's brats, brood of blessed seed, chosen shoep that loved the Lord indeed." It is a somewhat noticeable fact, that the changes in the signification of words have generally been to their deteriora- tion ; that is, words that heretofore had no sinister meaning have acquired it. The word cunning, for example, formerly meant nothing sinister or underhanded; and in Thrope's con- fession in Fox's "Book of Martyrs" is the sentence, " I believe that all these three persons [in the Godhead] are even in power, and in cunning, and in might, full of grace and of all goodness." Demure is another of this class. It was used by earlier writers without the insinuation which is now almost latent in it, that the external shows of modesty and sobriety rest on no corresponding realities. Explode formerly meant to drive off the stage with loud clappings of the hands, but gradually became exaggerated into its present signification. Facetious, too, originally meant urbane, but now has so degene- rated as to have acquired the sense of buffoonery; and Mr. Trench sees indications that it will ere long acquire the sense of indecent buffoonery. Frippery now means trumpery and odds and ends of cheap finery; but once it meant old clothes of value, and not worth- less, as the term at present implies. The word Gossip for- merly meant only a sponsor in baptism. Sponsors were sup- posed to become acquainted at the baptismal font, and by their sponsorial act to establish an indefinite affinity towards each other and the child. Thus the word was applied to all who were familiar and intimate, and finally obtained the meaning which is now predominant in it. Homely once meant secret and familiar, though in the time of Milton it had acquired the same sense as at present. Idioi^ 208 ENGLISH WORDS AND FORMS OF EXPRESSION. from the Greek, originally signified only a private man as dis- tinguished from one in public office, and from that it has de- generated till it has come to designate a person of defective mental powers. Incense once meant to kindle not only anger, but good passions as well; Fuller uses it in the sense of "to incite." Indolence originally signified a freedom from passion or pain, but now implies a condition of languid non-exertion. Insolent was once only " unusual." The derivation of lumber is peculiar. As the Lombards were the bankers, so they were also the pawnbrokers, of the Middle Ages. The " lumber-room" was then the place where the Lombard banker and broker stored his pledges, and lumber gradually came to mean the pledges themselves. As these naturally accumulated till they got out of date or became un- serviceable, it is easy to trace the steps by which the word descended to its present meaning. Obsequious implies an unmanly readiness to fall in with the will of another; but in the original obsequium, or in the English word as employed two centuries ago, there was nothing of this : it rather meant obedience and mildness. Shakspeare, speaking of a deceased person, says, — " IIow many a holy and obsequious tear Ilath dear religious love stolen from mine eye, As interest of the dead." Property and propriety were once synonymous, both refer- ring to material things, as the French word jyropridtS does now. Foreigners do not often catch the distinction at present made in English between the two words ; and we know a French gentleman who, recently meeting with some pecuniary reverses, astonished his friends by telling them that he had lost all hia " propriety." A poet is a person who writes poetry, and, according to the good old customs, a proser was a person who wrote prose, and simply the antithesis of poet. The word has now a sadly difier- ent signification; and it would not be considered very respect- able to term Addison, Irving, Bancroft, or Everett " prosers." ENGLISH WORDS AND FORMS OF EXPRESSION. 209 INFLUENCE OF NAMES. Tho llomans, from the time they expelled their kings, could never endure the idea of being governed by a king. But they submitted to the most abject slavery under an emperor. And Oliver Cromwell did not venture to risk disgusting the repub- licans by calling himself king, though under the title of Pr^^ tcctor he exercised regal functions. The American colonies submitted to have their commerce and their manufactures crippled by restrictions avowedly for the benefit of the mother-country, and were thus virtually taxed to the amount of all that they in any instance lost by paying more for some article than it would cost to make it themselves, or to buy it of foreigners. But as soon as a tax was imposed under that name, they broke out into rebellion. It is a marvel to many, and seems to them nearly incredible, that the Israelites should have gone after other gods ; and yet the vulgar in most parts of Christendom are actually serving the gods of their heathen ancestors. But then they do not call them gods, but fairies or bogles, etc., and they do not apply the word uoi'ship to their veneration of them, nor sacri- jice to their offerings. And this slight change of name keeps most people in ignorance of a fact that is before their eyes. Others, professed Christians, are believed, both by others and by themselves, to be worshippers of the true God, though they invest him with the attrihuten of one of the evil demons worshipped by the heathen. There is hardly any professed Christian who would not be shocked at the application of the word caprice to the acts of the Most High. And yet his choosing to inflict suffering on his creatures "_/or no cause" (as some theologians maintain) " except that such is his icill," is the very definition of caprice. But when Lord Byron published his poem of " Cain," which contains substantially the t-ery same doctrine, there was a great outcry among pious people, including, no doubt, many who were of the theological school which teaches the same; under other nam.es. IS* 210 ENGLISH WORDS AND FORJIS OF EXPRESSION. Why and how any evil comes to exist in the universe, reason cannot explain, and revelation does not tell us. But it does show us what is not the cause. That it cannot be from ill icill or indifference, is proved by the suifcrings undergone by the leloveJ Son. JMany probably would have hesitated if it had been proposed to them to join a new Church under that name, who yet eagerly enrolled themselves in the Evangelical Alliance, — which is in fact a church, with meetings for worship, and sermons under the name of speeches, and a creed consisting of sundry Articles of Faith to be subscribed ; only not called by those names. Mrs. 13. expressed to a friend her great dread of such a medicine as tartar-emetic. She always, she said, gave her children antimonial wine. He explained to her that this is tartar-emetic dissolved in wine ; but she remained unchanged. Mrs. H. did not like that her daughters should be novel- readers ; and all nouels in 2^'>'ose were indiscriminately prohi- bited ; but am/ thing in verse was as indiscriminately allowed. Probably a Quaker would be startled at any one's using the very words of the prophets, " Thus saith the Lord :" yet he says the same things in the words, " The Spirit nioveth me to say so and so." And some, again, who would be shocked at this, speak of a person, — adult or child, — who addresses a con- gregation in extempore prayers and discourses, as being under the infuence of the llulij Spirit ; though in neither case is there any miraculous proof given. And they abhor a claim to infallibility ; only they are quite certain of being under the guidance of the Spirit in whatever they say or do. Quakers, again, and some other dissenters, object to a hired ministry, (in reality, an i^whircd;) but their preachers are to be supplied with all they need ; like the father of Moli5re's Bourgeois, who was no shopkeeper, but kindly chose goods for his friends, which he let them have for money. ENGLISH WORDS AND FORMS OF EXPRESSION. 211 COMPOUND EPITHETS. The custom of using hard compounds furnished Ben Jonson opportunities of showing his learning as well as his satire. lie used to call them "words un-in-one-breath-utterable." Redi mentions an epigram against the sophists, made up of com- pounds "a mile long." Joseph Scaliger left a curious exam- ple in Latin, part of which may be thus rendered into Eng- lish:— Loftybrowflourishers, NoseinbearJwallowers, Brigandheardnoiirishers, Dishandallswallowers, Olilcloakinvestitors, Barefuotlookfashioners, Nightprivatcf'easteators, Crat'tlucubrationers ; Touthcheatcrs, Wordcatchers, Vaingloryosophers, Such are your seekersofvirtue philosophers. The old naturalist Lovell published a book at Oxford, in 1661, entitled Panzoolojicomincralogia. Rabelais proposed the following title for a book : — Antt^jcricatametaparhengcdam- jihicribrutivncs. The reader of Shakspeare will remember Cos- tard's honor ijicahilitudiuitutibus, in Love's Labor Lost, v. 1. There was recently in the British army a major named Tet/o- niitliokarawcn. In the island of Mull, Scotland, is a locality uamed DrimtaidhorickhiUuhattan. The original Mexican for country curates is Kotlazomuhnilzteopixcatatzins. The longest Nipmuck word in Eliot's Indian Bible is in St. Mark i. 40, Wattqypesittukqussunnooicddunkquoh, and signifies ''kneeling down to him." OUR VERNACULAR IN CHAUCER's TIME. But rede that boweth down for every blaste Ful lyghtly cesse wynde, it wol arj'so But so nyle not an oke, when it is casto It nedeth mo nought longe the forvyso Men shall reioysen of a great emprise Atchewed wel and stant withouten dout Al haue men ben the longer there about. — Troylus, ii. 212 TALL WRITINQ. STall ^ISlritinij. DEFINITION OF TRANSCENDENTALISM. The spiritual cognoscencc of psychological irrefragibility connected with concutient ademption of inculumnient spiritual- ity and etherialized contention of subsultory concretion. Translated by a New York lawyer, it stands thus : — Transcendentalism is two holes in a sand-bank : a storm washes away the sand-bank without disturbing the holes. THE DOMICILE ERECTED BY JOHN. Tiunduted from the Vulgate. Behold the Mansion reared by dajdal Jack. See the malt stored in many a plethoric sack, In the proud cirque of Ivan's bivouac. Mark how the Rat's felonious fangs invade The golden stores in John's pavilion laid. Anon, with velvet foot and Tarquin strides. Subtle Grimalkin to his quarry glides, — Grimalkin grim, that slew the fierce rodent AVhose tooth insidious Johann's sackcloth rent. Lo ! now the deep-mouthed canine foe's assault. That vexed the avenger of the stolen malt, Stored in the hallowed precincts of that hall That rose complete at Jack's creative call. Here stalks the impetuous Cow with crumpled horn, "Whereon the exacerbating hound was torn, Who bayed the feline slaughter-beast that slew The Rat predacious, whose keen fangs ran through The textile fibers that involved the grain Which lay in Hans' inviolate domain. Here walks forlorn the Damsel crowned with rue, Lactiferous spoils from vaccine dugs, who drew, Of that corniculato beast whose tortuous horn Tossed to the clouds, in fierce vindictive scorn, The harrowing hound, whoso braggart bark and stir Arched the lithe spine and reared the indignant fur TALL WRITING. 213 Of Puss, that with verminicidal claw Struck the weird rat in whose insatiate maw Lay reeking malt that erst in Juan's courts we saw, Robed in senescent garb that seems in sooth Too long a prey to Chronos' iron tooth. Behold the man whose amorous lips incline, Full with young Eros' osculative sign, To the lorn maiden whose lact-albic hands Drew albu-lactic wealth from lacteal glands Of that immortal bovine, by whoso horn Distort, to realm ethereal was borne The beast catulean, vexer of that sly Ulysses quadrupedal, who made die The old mordacious Rat that dared devour Antecedaneous Ale in John's domestic bower. Lo, here, with hirsute honors doffed, succinct Of saponaceous locks, the Priest who linked In Hymen's golden bands the torn unthrift, Whose means exiguous stared from many a rift, Even as he kissed the virgin all forlorn, Who milked the cow with implicated horn, Who in fine wrath the canine torturer skied, That dared to vex the insidious muricide, Who let auroral effluence through the pelt Of the sly Rat that robbed the palace Jack had built. The loud cantankerous Shanghae comes at last, Whoso shouts arouse the shorn ecclcsiast, Who sealed the vows of Hymen's sacrament, To him who, robed in garments indigent, Exosculates the damsel lachrymose. The emulgator of that horned brute morose, That tossed the dog, that worried the cat, that kilt The rat, that ate the malt, that lay in the house that Jack built FROM THE CURIOSITIES OF ADVERTISINO. to" be let, Tt. AW Oppidan, a Ruricolist, or a Cosmopolitan, and may be entered upon immediately : The House in Stone Row, lately possessed by Capt. Siree, To avoid Verbosity, the Proprietor with Compendiosity will p;ive a Perfunctory description of the Premises, in the Compa- gination of which he, has Sedulously studied the couvenieuoe of 214 TALL WRITING. the Occupant. It is free from Opacity, Tenebrosity, Fumidity, and Injucundity, and no buildinj^ can have greater Pellucidity or Translucency — in short, its Diaphaneity even in the Cre- puscle makes it like a Pharos, and without laud, for its Agglu- tination and Amenity, it is a most Delectable Commorancej and whoever lives in it will find that the Neighbors have none of the Truculence, the Immanity, the Torvity, the Spinosity, the Putidness, the Pugnacity, nor the Fugacity observable in other parts of the town, but their Propinquity and Consanguinity occasion Jocundity and Pudicity — from which, and the Redo- lence of the place (even in the dog-days), they are remarkable for Longevity. For terras and particulars apply to James Hutchinson, opposite the Market-House. — Dub. News. FROM THE CURIOSITIES OP THE POST-OFFICE. The following is a genuine epistle, sent by an emigrant coun- try schoolmaster to a friend at home : — Mr M Connors With congruous gratitude and decorum I accost to you this debonnaire communication. And announce to you with ami- cable Complacency that we continually enjoy competent lauda- ble good health, thanks to our omnipotent Father for it. We are endowed with the momentous prerogatives of respectable operations of a supplement concuity of having a fine brave and gallant youthful daughter the pendicity ladies age is four months at this date, we denominated her Margaret Connolly. I have to respond to the Communication and accost and re- mit a Convoy revealing with your identity candor and sincerity. If your brother who had been pristinely located and stationed in England whether he has induced himself with ecstasy to be in preparation to progress with you. I am paid by the re- spectable potent loyal nobleman that I work for one dollar per day. Announce to us in what Concuity the crops and the products of husbandry dignify, also predict how is John Carroll and his wife and family. My brother and Myself are contiuu- TALL WIUTINQ. 215 ally employed and occupied in similar work. Living and doing good. Dictate how John Mahony wife and family is Don't you permit oblivion to obstruct you from inserting this. Prognosticate how Mrs Harrington is and if she accept my in- telligence or any convoy from either of Her 2 progenies since their embarkation for this nation. If she has please specify with congruous and elysian gratitude with validity and veracity to my magnanimous self. I remit my respects to my former friends and acquaintances. I remain D. Connolly P. S. Direct your Epistle to Pembroke, State of Maine. Dear brother-in-law I am determined and candidly arrive at Corolary, as I am fully resolved to ti'ansfer a sufficient portion of money to you to recompense your liabilities from thence to hence. I hope your similar operations will not impede any occurrence that might obstruct your progression on or at the specified time the 17 of March next. SPANISH play-bill, Exhibited at Seville, 1762. To the Sovereign of Heaven — to the Mother of the Eternal World — to the Polar Star of Spain — to the Comforter of all Spain — to the faithful Protectress of the Spanish nation — to the Honor and Glory of the Most Holy Virgin Mary — for her benefit and for the Propagation of her Worship — the Company of Comedians will this day give a representation of the Comio Piece called— N A N I N E. The celebrated Italian will also dance the Fandango, and the Theatre will be respectably illuminated. In a medical work entitled The Breviarie of Ilealtli, pub- lished in 1547, by Andrew Borde, a physician of that period, is a prologue addressed to physicians, beginning thus: — Egregious doctors and masters of the eximious and arcane science of physic, of your urbanity exasperate not yourselves against me for makin"; this little volume. 216 TALL WRITING. THE MAD POET. McDonald Clarke, commonly called the mad j^oet, died a few years ago in the Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell's Island, New York. He wrote those oft-quoted lines, — Now twilight lets her curtain down, And pins it with a star. In his wilder moments he set all rules at defiance, and min- gled the startlingly sublime and the laughably ridiculous in the oddest confusion. He talks thus madly of Washington : — Eternity — give him elbow room; A spirit like his is large; Earth, fence with artillery his tomb, And fire a double charge To the memory of America's greatest man : Match him, posterity, if you can. In the following lines, he sketches, with a few bold touches, a well-known place, sometimes called a rum-hole : — Ila ! SCO whore the wild-blazing grogshop appears, As the rod waves of wretchedness swell ; IIow it burns on the edge of tempestuous years, The horrible light-house of hell ! FOOTE S FARRAGO. The following droll nonsense was written by Foote, the dra- matist, for the purpose of trying the memory of Macklin, who boasted that he could learn any thing by heart on hearing it once: — So she went into the garden to cut a cabbage-leaf to make an apple-pie j and, at the same time, a great she-bear coming up the street pops its head into the shop — What ! no soap? So he died; and she very imprudently married the barber: and there were present the Picninnies, aud the Joblilies, and the Garyu- lies, and the great Panjandrum himself, with the little round button at top. And they all fell to playing the game of "catch as catch can," till the gunpowder ran out of the heels of their boots ! TALL WRITING. 217 BURLESQUE OP THE STYLE OF DR. JOHNSON. While I was admiring the fantastical ramifications of some umbelliferous plants that hung over the margin of the Liffey, the fallacious bank, imperceptibly corroded by the moist tooth of the fluid, gave way beneath my feet, and I was suddenly submerged to some fathoms of profundity. Presence of mind, in constitutions not naturally timid, is generally in proportion to the imminence of the peril. Having never learned to move through the water in horizontal progression, had I desponded, 1 had perished ; but, being for a moment raised above the ele- ment by my struggles, or by some felicitous casualty, I was sensible of the danger, and immediately embraced the means of extrication. A cow, at the moment of my lapse, had en- tered the stream, within the distance of a protruded arm ; and being in the act of transverse navigation to seek the pasture of the opposite bank, I laid hold on that part of the animal which is loosely pendent behind, and is formed by the continuation of the vertebrae. In this manner I was safely conveyed to a ford- able passage, not without some delectation from the sense of the progress without effort on my part, and the exhilarating approximation of more than problematical deliverance. Though in some respects I resembled the pilot of Gyas, Jam aenior madidaque Jiucns in veste, yet my companions, unlike the bar- barous Phrygian spectators, forbore to acerbitate the uncouth- ness of embarrassment by the insults of derision. Shrieks of complorance testified sorrow for my submersion, and safety was rendered more pleasant by the felicitations of sympathy. Aa the danger was over, I took no umbrage at a little risibility ex- cited by the feculence of my visage, upon which the cow had discharged her gramineous digestion in a very ludicrous abun- dance. About this time the bell summoned us to dinner; and, as the cutaneous contact of irrigated garments is neither plea- sant nor salubrious, I was easily persuaded by the ladies to divest myself of mine. Colonel Manly obligingly acconnno- dated me with a covering of camlet. I found it commodious, 218 TALL WRITING. and more agreeable than the many compressive ligaments of modern drapery. That there might be no violation of decorum, I took care to have the loose robe fastened before with small cylindrical wires, which the dainty lingers of the ladies easily removed from their dresses and inserted into mine, at such proper intervals as to leave no aperture that could awaken the susceptibility of temperament, or provoke the cachinnations of levity * NEWSPAPER EULOGY. The following alliterative eulogy on a young lady appeared, many years ago, in a newspaper : — If boundless Z^enevolence ha the iasis of Z*eatitude, and /(arm- less /mmanity a /tarbinger of fallowed Aeart, these Christian roncomitants composed her charncteristics, and conciliated the esteem of her cotemporary ac<^uaintances, who vjzean to wodel their manners in the 7nould of their ??jeritoriou3 monitor. CLEAR AS MUD. In a series of Fhilowphical Essat/s published many years ago, the author"}" gives some definitions of human knowledge, the following of which he considers " least obnoxious to com- prehension :" — A coincidence between the a.ssociation of ideas, and the order or succession of events or phenomena, according to the relation of cause and effect, and in whatever is subsidiary, or necessary to realize, approximate and extend such coincidence; understanding, by the relation of cause and effect, that order or * The peculiar stateliness and dignity of Johnston's stj-le, when applied to the smaller cuucerns of life, inakc.--, as will be seen from the above caricature, a very ludicrous appearance. A judicious imitation of his phraseology on tri- fling subjects was a favorite manner of attack among the critics. Erskine's account of the IJuxton baihs is one of the most amusing. When several ex- amples of this sort were shown to Johnson, at Edinburgh, he pronounced that of Lord Drcghorn the best : " but," said he, '• I could caricature my own style much better myself." t Ogilvic. TALL WUlTlNd. 210 succession, tlie discovery or development of wliicli empowei-a an intelligent being, by means of one event or phenomenon, or by a series of given events or phenomena, to anticipate the re- currence of another event or phenomenon, or of a required series of events or phenomena, and to summon them into exist- ence, and employ their instrumentality in the gratification of his wishes, or in the accomplishment of his purposes. INDIGNANT LETTER. Addressed to a Louisiana clergyman by a Virginia corre- spondent. Sir : — You have behaved like an impetiginous acroyli — like those inquinate oro.s.scrolest who envious of my moral celsitude carry their mugacity to the height of creating symposically the fecund words which my polymathic genius uses with uberity to abligate the tongues of the weightless. Sir, you have corassly parodied my own pet words, as though they were taugrams. I will not conceroate reproaches. I would obduce a veil over the atramental ingratitude which has chamiered eyen my undi.scep tible heart. I am silent on the foscillation which my coadful fancy must have given you when I offered to become your fan- ton and adminicle. I will not speak of the liptitude, the ab- lepsy you have shown in exacerbating me ; one whose genius you should have approached with mental discalceation. So, 1 tell you. Sir, syncophically and without supervacaneous words, nothing will render ignoscible your conduct to me. I warn you that I will vellicate your nose if I thought your moral dia- thesis could be thereby performed. If I thought that I should not impigorate my reputation by such a degladiation. Go tagygraphic; your oness inquinate draws oblectation from the greatest poet since Milton, and draws upon your head this letter, which will drive you to Webster, and send you to sleep over it. "Knowledge is power," and power is mercy; so I wish you 50 rovose that it may prove an external hypnotic. 920 TALL WRITING. INTRAMURAL ESTIVATION. In candent ire the solar splendor flames ; Tbe foles, languescent, pend from arid rames ; His humid front the cive, anheling, wipes, And dreams of erring on yentiferous ripes. How dulce to vive occult to mortal eyes, Dorm on the herb with none to supervise, Carp the suave berries from the crescent vine, And bibe the flow from longicaudate kine ! To me, alas ! no verdurous visions come, Save yon exiguous pool's conferva-scum ; No concave vast repeats the tender hue That laves my milk-jug with celestial blue ! Me wretched ! Let me curr to quercine shades ! Effund your albid hausts, lactiferous maids I Oh, might I vole to some umbrageous clump, — Depart, — be off, — excede, — evade, — erump ! Autocrat of the Breal.-fasl- Table A CHEMICAL VALENTINE. I love thee, Mary, and thou lovest me. Our mutual flame is like the afiinity That doth exist between two simple bodies. I am Potassium to thy Oxj'gen; 'Tis little that the holy marriage vow Shall shortly make us one. That unity Is, after all, but metaphysical. Oh ! would that I, my Mary, were an Acid — A living Acid; thou an Alkali Endowed with human sense ; that, brought together, We both might coalesce into one Salt, One homogeneous crystal. Oh that thou Wert Carbon, and myself were Hydrogen ! We would unite to form olcfiant gas. Or common coal, or naphtha. Would to heaven That I were Phosphorus, and thou wert Lime, And we of Lime composed a Phosphuret I I'd be content to be Sulphuric Acid, ( So that thou mightst be Soda. In that case, 1 We shnuld be Glauber's Salt. Wert thou Magnesia Instead, we'd form the salt that's named from Epsom. Couldst thou Potassa be, I Aquafortis, Our hai'py union should that compound furui, TALL WRTTTNO. Nitrate of Potash— otherwise Saltpetre. And thus, our several natures sweetly blent We'd live and love together, until death Should decompose this fleshly Tertium Quid, Leaving our souls to all eternity Amalgamated ! Sweet, thy name is Briggs, And mine is Johnson. Wherefore should not wo Agree to form a Johnsonato of Briggs ? We will ! the day, the happy day is nigh. When Johnson shall with beauteous Briggs combine. THE ANATOMIST TO HIS DULCINEA. I list as thy heart and ascending aorta Their volumes of valvular harmony pour; And my soul from that muscular music has caught a New life 'mid its dry anatomical lore. Oh, rare is the sound when thy ventricles throb In a systolic symphony measured and slow, AVhen the auricles answer with rhythmical sob, As they murmur a melody wondrously low ! Oh, thy cornea, love, has the radiant light Of the sparkle that laughs in the icicle's sheen ; And thy crystalline Ions, like a diamond bright. Through the quivering frame of thine iris is seen ! And thy retina, spreading its lustre of pearl, Like the far-away nebula, distantly gleams From a vault of black cellular mirrors that hurl From their hexagon angles the silvery beams. Ah ! the flash of those orbs is enslaving me still. As they roll 'neath the palpebraB, dimly translucent. Obeying in silence the magical will Of the oculo-motor — pathetic — abducent. Oh, sweet is thy voice, as it sighingly swells From the daintily quivering chordse vocales, Or rings in clear tones through the echoing colls Of the antrum, the ethmoid, and sinus frontales! ODE TO SPRING. WRITTEN IN A LAWYER'S OFFICE. Whereas on sundry boughs and sprays Now divers birds are heard to sing, And sundry flowers their heads upraise — Ilail to the coming on of Spring! 221 TALL WRITING. The birds aforesaid, happy pairs ! Love midst the aforesaid boughs enshrines In household nests, themselves, their heirs, Administrators, and assigns. The songs of the said birds arouse The memory of our youthful hours. As young and green as the said boughs, As fresh and fair as the said flowers. busiest term of Cupid's court! When tender plaintiffs actions bring; Season of frolic and of sport, Hail, as aforesaid, coming Spring! PRISTINE PROVERBS PREPARED FOR PRECOCIOUS PUPILS. Observe yon plumed biped fine! To effect his captivation. Deposit particles saline Upon his termination. Cryptogamous concretion never grows On mineral fragments that decline repose. Whilst self-inspection it neglects. Nor its own foul condition sees. The kettle to the pot objects Its sordid superficies. Decortications of the golden grain Are set to allure the aged fowl, in vain. Teach not a parent's mother to extract The embryo juices of an egg by suction : That good old lady can the feat enact. Quite irrespective of your kind instruction. Pecuniary agencies have force To stimulate to speed the female horse. Bear not to yon famed city upon Tyne The carbonaceous product of the mine. The mendicant, once from his indigence freed, And mounted aloft on the generous steed, Down the precipice soon will infallibly go. And conclude his career in the regions below. It is permitted to the feline race To contemplate even a regal face. METRIC PROSE. 223 Mttxit IJrose. Quid tentaham scriberc verDiiK crat. — OviD. COWPER's letter to NEWTON. The following letter was written to Rev. John Newton, by William Cowper, in reference to a poem On Cliarifij, by the latter:— My very dear friend, I am going to send, what when you have read, you may scratch your head, and say I suppose, there's nobody knows, whether what I have got, be verse or not ; — by the tune and the time, it ought to be rhyme ; but if it be, did ever you see, of late or of yore, such a ditty before? I have writ " Charity," not for popularity, but as well as I could, in hopes to do good; and if the "Reviewer" should say to be sure, the gentleman's muse wears Methodist shoes, you may know by her pace, and talk about grace, that she and her bard have little regard for the tastes and fashions, and ruling passions, and hoydening play, of the modern day ; and though she assume a borrowed plume, and now and then wear a titter- ing air, 'tis only her plan, to catch if she can, the giddy and gay, as they go that way, by a production of a new construc- tion ; she has baited her trap, in the hope to snap all that may come, with a sugar-plum. His opinion in this will not be amiss; 'tis what I intend, my principal end; and if I succeed, and folks should read, till a few are brought to a serious thought, I shall think I am paid for all I have said, and all I have done, although I have run, many a time, after a rhyme, as far as from hence to the end of my sense, and by hook or by crook, write another book, if I live and am here another year. I have heard before of a room with a fioor, laid upon springs, and such-like things, with so much art in every part, that when you went in, you were forced to begin a minuet pace, with an air and a grace, swimming about, now in and now out, with a 224 METRIC PROSE. deal of a state, in a figure of eight, without pipe or string, or any such thing; and now I have writ, in a rhyming fit, what will make you dance, and, as you advance, will keep you still, though against your will, dancing away, alert and gay, till you come to an end of what I have penned, which that you may do, ere madam and you are quite worn out with jigging about, I take my leave, and here you receive a bow profound, down to the ground, from you humble me — W. C. EXAMPLE IN IRVING's NEW YORK. The following remarkable instance of involuntary poetic prose occurs in Knickerbocker's humorous history of New York, near the commencement of the Sixth Bc^k : — The gallant warrior starts from soft repose, from golden visions and voluptuous ease; where, in the dulcet "piping time of peace," he sought sweet solace afte*- all his toils. No more in beauty's siren lap reclined, he wenves fair garlands for his lady's brows ; no more entwines with f owers his shining sword, nor through the livelong summer's day chants forth liis love-sick soul in madrigals. To manhood ronsed, he spurns the amorous flute, doffs from his brawny back th'" robe of peace, and clothes his pampered limbs in panoply of st^el. O'er his dark brow, where late the myrtle waved, where T^anton roses breathed enervate love, he rears the beaming casqu'^ and nod- ding plume ; grasps the bright shield and ponderou," lance, or mounts with eager pride his fiery steed, and burns for deeds of glorious chivalry. In D'Israeli's Wo7idrous Tale of Ahoy, are remaa-kable specimens of prose poetry. For example : — Why am There? are you not here? and need I urge a strongei plea? Oh, brother dear, I pray you come and mingle in our festival ! Our wnlls arc hung with flowers you love; I culled them by the fountain's side; the holy lamps are trimmed and set, and you must raise their earliest flame. Without the gate my maidens wait to ofiFer you a robe of state. Then, brother dear, I pray you come and mingle in our festival. '.lETRIC PROSE. 225 nelly's funeral. In Home's New Spirit of the Age, — a series of criticisms on eminent living authors, — we find an admirable example of prose poetry thus noticed : — A curious circumstance is observable in a great portion of the scenes of tragic power, pathos, and tenderness contained in various parts of Mr. Dickens's works, which it is possible may have been the result of harmonious accident, and the author not even subsequently conscious of it. It is that they are written in blank verse, of irregular metre and rhythms, which Southey, and Shelley, and some other poets, have occa- sionally adopted. Witness the following description from The Old Curioaity Shop. And now the bell — the bell She had so often heard by night and day And listened to with solid pleasure, E'en as a living voice — Rung its remorseless toll for her, So young, so beautiful, so good. Decrepit age, and vigorous life, And blooming youth, and helpless infancy, Poured forth — on crutches, in the pride of strength And health, in the full blush Of promise — the mere dawn of life — To gather round her tomb. Old men were there AVhose eyes were dim And senses failing — Granddames, who might have died ten years ago, And still been old — the deaf, the blind, the lame, The palsied, The living dead in many shapes and forms, To see the closing of this early grave ! What was the death it would shut in, To that which still would crawl and creep above it t Along the crowded path they bore her now; Pale as the new-fallen snow That covered it ; whose day on earth Had been so fleeting. P 226 METRIC PROSE. Under that porch where she had sat when Heaven In mercy brought her to that peaceful spot, She passed again, and the old church Received her in its quiet shade. Througliout the whole of the above, only two uniiuportant words have been omitted — in and its ; " granddames" ha.s been substituted for "grandmothers," aud "e'en" for "almost." All that remains is exactly as in the original, not a single word transposed, and the punctuation the same to a comma. The brief homily that concludes the funeral is profoundly beautiful. Oh ! it is hard to take The lesson that such deaths will teach. But let no man reject it, For it is one that all must learn And is a mighty universal Truth. AVhen Death strikes down the innocent and young. For every fragile form from which he lets The parting spirit free, A hundred virtues rise. In shapes of mercy, charity, and love, To walk the world and bless it. Of every tear That sorrowing mortals shed on such green graves, Some good is born, some gentler nature comes. Not a word of the original is changed in the above quo- tation, which is worthy of the best passages in Wordsworth, and thus, meeting on the common ground of a deeply truthful sentiment, the two most unlike men in the literature of the country are brought into close proximation. The following similar passage is from the concluding para- graph of Nicholas Nicklehi/ : — The grass was green above the dead boy's grave. Trodden by feet so small and light, That not a daisy drooped its head Beneath their pressure. Through all the spring and summer time Garlands of fresh flowers, wreathed by infant hands, Rested upon the stone. METRIC TROSE, 227 The same rhythmic cadence is observable in the following passage, copied verbatim from the American JVutes : — I think in every quiet season now, Still do those waters roll, and leap, and roar, And tumble all day long; Still are the rainbows spanning them A hundred feet below. Still when the sun is on them, do they shine And glow like molten gold. Still when the day is gloomy do they fall Like snow, or seem to crumble away, Like the front of a great chalk clifl", Or roll adown the rock like dense white smoke. But always does this mighty stream appear To die as it comes down. And always from the unfathomable grave Arises that tremendous ghost of spray And mist which is never laid: Which has haunted this place With the same dread solemnity, Since darknc'^s brooded on the deep And that first flood before the Deluge — Light Came rushing on Creation at the word of God. To any one who reads this we need not say that but three lines in it vary at all from the closest requisitions of an iambic movement. The measure is precisely of the kind which Mr. Southey so often used. For the reader's convenience, we copy from Thalaha his well remembered lines on Night, as an in- stance : — How beautiful is Ts^ight ! A dewy freshness fills the silent air. No mist obscures, nor cloud, nor speck, nor stain Breaks the serene of heaven. In full orbed glory yonder Moon divine Rolls through the dark blue depths. Beneath her steady ray The desert circle spreads. Like the round ocean, girdled with the sky. How beautiful is Night! 228 METRIC PROSE. INVOLUNTARY VERSIFICATION IN THE SCRIPTURES. The hexametric cadence in the authorized translation of the Bible has been pointed out in another portion of this volume. It is very noticeable in such passages as these, for example, from the Second Psalm: — Why do the heathen rago and the people imagine a vain thing ? Kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together. The anapaestic cadence prevalent in the Psalms is also very remarkable : — That will bring forth his fruit in due season. — v. 6 Whatsoever ho doth it shall prosper. — v. 4. Away from the face of the earth. — v. 5. Be able to stand in the judgment. — v. 6. The way of th' ungodly shall perish. — v. 7. Couplets may be drawn from the same inspired source, as follows : — Great peace have they that love thy law : And nothing shall offend them. — Psalm, cxix. 165. Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace Whose mind is stayed on thee. — Isaiah, xxvi. 3. When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, Ye know that the summer is nigh. — Matthew, xxiv. 32. UNINTENTIONAL RHYMES OF PROBERS. The delicate ear of Addison, who would stop the press to add a conjunction, or erase a comma, allowed this inelegant jingle to escape his detection: — What I am going to mention, will perhaps deserve your attention. Dr. Whewell, when Master of Trinity College, fell into a similar trap, to the great amusement of his readers. In his work on Mechanics, he happened to write literatim and verbatim, though not lineatim, the following tetrastich : — There is no force, however great. Can stretch a cord, however fine, Into a horizontal line, Which is accurately straight. METRIC PROSE. 229 A curious instance of involuntary rhythm occurs in President Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address : — Fondly do we hope. Fervently do we pray, That this mighty scourge of war May speedily pass away : Yet if be God's will That it continue until — " but here the strain abruptly ceases, and the President relapses into prose. In the course of a discussion upon the involuntary metre into which Shakspeare so fi-equently fell, when he intended his minor characters to speak prose, Dr. Johnson observed ; " Such verse we make when we are writing prose ; We make such verse in common conversation." Kemble and Mrs. Siddons, from their habit of committing to memory and reciting dramatic blank verse, unconsciously made their most ordinary obscn-ations in that measure. Kemble, for instance, on giving a shilling to a beggar, thus answered the surprised look of his companion : — " It is not often that I do these things, But wAeii I do, I do them handsomely." And once when, in a walk with Walter Scott on the banks of the Tweed, a dangerous looking bull made his appearance, Scott took the water, Kemble exclaimed : — " Sheriff, I'll get me up in yonder tree." The presence of danger usually makes a man speak naturally, if anything will. If a reciter of blank verse, then, fall uncon- sciously into the rhythm of it when intending to speak prose, much more may an habitual writer of it be expected to do no. Instances of the kind from the table-talk of both Kemble and his sister might be multiplied. This of Mrs. Siddons, — "I asked for water, boy; you've brought me beer, " is one of the best known. 20 230 THE HUMOUS OF VERSIFICATION. Sijc l^umorg of Uetsification. THE LOVERS. IN DIFFERENT MOODS AND TENSES. Sally Salter, she was a young teacher who taught, And her friend, Charley Church, was a preacher, who praught! Though his enemies called him a screecher, who scraught. His heart, when he saw her, kept sinking, and sunk; And his eye, meeting hers, began winking, and wunk; While she, in her turn, fell to thinking, and thunk. He hastened to woo her, and sweetly he wooed. For his love grew until to a mountain it grewed, And what he was longing to do, then he doed. In secret he wanted to speak, and he spoke, To seek with his lips what his heart long had soke; So he managed to let the truth leak, and it loke. He asked her to ride to the church, and they rode , They so sweetly did glide, that they both thought they glode, And they came to the place to be tied, and were tode. Then homeward he said let us drive, and they drove, And soon as they wished to arrive, they arrove; For whatever he couldn't contrive, she controve. The kiss he was dying to steal, then he stole ; At the feet where he wanted to kneel, then he knole; And he said, " I feel better than ever I fole." So they to each other kept clinging, and clung. While Time his swift circuit was winging, and wung; And this was the thing he was bringing and brung : The man Sally wanted to catch, and had caught — That she wanted from others to snatch, and had snaught — Was the one she now liked to scratch, and she scraught. And Charley's warm love began freezing and froze, While he took to teasing, and cruelly toze The girl he had wished to be squeezing, and squoze. " AV retch I" he cried, when she threatened to leave him, and left, " How could you deceive, as you have deceft ?" And she answered, " I promised to cleave, and I've cleft." THE HUMORS OF VERSIFICATION- 2.31 A STAMMERING WIFE. When deeply in love with Miss Emily Pryne, 1 vowed if the lady would only be mine, I would always be ready to please her; She blushed her consent, though the stuttering lass Said never a word except "You're an ass — An ass — an ass — iduous teazer !" But when we were married, I found to my ruth The stammering lady had spoken the truth ; For often, in obvious dudgeon, She'd say — if I ventured to give her a jog In the way of reproof — " You're a dog — dog — dog— A dog — a dog — matic curmudgeon !" And once, when I said, "We can hardly afford This immoderate style with our moderate board," And hinted we ought to be wiser. She looked, I assure you, exceedingly blue, And fretfully cried, " You're a Jew — Jew — Jew — A very ju-dicious adviser!" Again, when it happened that, wishing to shirk Some rather unpleasant and arduous work, I begged her to go to a neighbor. She wanted to know why I made such a fuss. And saucily said, " You're a cuss — cuss — cuss — You were always ac — cus — tomed to labor !" Out of temper at last with the insolent dame, And feeling the woman was greatly to blame. To scold me instead of caressing, I mimicked her speech, like a churl as I am. And angrily said, " You're a dam — dam — dam — A dam-age instead of a blessing." A SONG WITH VARIATIONS. [Scene. — Wife at the piano ; brute of a husband, who has no more soul for music than his boot, in an adjoining apartment, making his toilet.] Oh ! do not chide me if I weep ! — Come, wife, and sew this button on. Such pain as mine can never sleep ! — Zounds! as I live, another's gone! For unrequited love brings grief, — A needle, wife, and bring your scissors. 232 THE HUMORS OF VERSIFICATION. And Pity's voice gives no relief — The child ! good Lord! he's at my razors! No balm to ease the troubled heart, — Who starched this bosom ? I declare That writhes from hate's envenomed dart! — It's enough to make a parson swear! When faith in man is given up — How plaguey shiftless are some women! Then sorrow fills her bitter cup — I'll have to get my other linen. And to its lees the white lips quaff — Smith says he's coming in to-night, While Malice yields her mocking laugh! — With Mrs. S., and Jones and Wright. Oh ! could I stifle in my breast — And Jones will bring some prime old sherry. This aching heart, and give it rest, — We'll want some eggs for Tom-and-Jerry Could Lethe's waters o'er me roll, — These stockings would look better mended ! And bring oblivion to my soul, — When-will-you-have-that-ditty-ended? Then haply I, in other skies, — We'd better have the oysters fried. Might find the love that earth denies ! There ! now at last my dickey's tied ! THOUGHTS WHILE SHE ROCKS THE CRADLE. AVhat is the little one thinking about? Very wonderful thing, no doubt, Unwritten history ! Unfathomable mystery ! But he laughs and cries, and eats and drinks, And chuckles and crows, and nods and winks, As if his head were as full of kinks, And curious riddles, as any sphinx ! Warped by colic and wet by tears. Punctured by pins, and tortured by fears. Our little nephew will lose two years; And he'll never know Where the summers go : He need not laugh, for he'll find it so ! Who can tell what the baby thinks ? Who can follow the gossamer links THE HUMORS OF VERSIFICATION. 233 By which the manikin feels his way Out from the shores of the great unlinown. Blind, and wailing, and alone. Into the light of day ? Out from the shores of the unknown sea. Tossing in pitiful agony ! Of the unknown sea that reels and rolls, Specked with the barks of little souls — Barks that were launched on the other side. And slipped from heaven on an ebbing tide' And what docs he think of his mother's eyes ? What does he think of his mother's hair ? What of the cradle roof tliat flies Forward and backward through the air? What does he think of his mother's breast^ Bare and beautiful, smooth and white. Seeking it ever with fresh delight — Cup of his joy and couch of his rest ? What does he think when her quick embrace Presses his hand and buries his face Deep where the heart-throbs sink and swell With a tenderness she can never tell. Though she murmur the words Of all the birds- Words she has learned to murmur well ? Now he thinks he'll go to sleep ! I can see the shadow creep Over his eyes, in soft eclipse. Over his brow, and over his lips, Out to his little finger tips, Softly sinking, down he goes ! Down he goes ! down he goes ! [Risinc/ and carefull.Tj retreating to her seat.'\ See ! he is hushed in sweet repose ! A SERIO-COMIC ELEGY. WHATELY ON BDCKLAND. In his " Common-Place Book," the late Archbishop Whately records the following Elegy on the late geologist, Dr.Buckland: Where shall we our great professor inter, That in peace may rest his bones ? If we hew him a rocky sepulchre He'll rise and break the stones. And examine each stratum which lies around, For he's quite in his element underground. 234 THE HUMORS OF VERSIFICATION. If with mattock and spado his body we lay In the common alluvial soil, He'll start up and snatch these tools away Of his own geological toil; In a stratum so young the professor disdains That embedded should lie his organic remains. Then exposed to the drip of some case-hardening spring, His carcase let stalactite cover, And to Oxford the petrified sage let us bring, When he is encrusted all over; There, 'mid mammoths and crocodiles, high on a shelf. Let him stand as a monument raised to himself. A REMINISCENCE OF TROY. FROM THE SCHOLIAST. It was the ninth year of the Trojan war — A tedious pull at best : A lot of us were sitting by the shore — Tydidcs, Phocas, Castor, and the rest — Some whittling shingles and some stringing bows. And cutting up our friends, and cutting up our foes. Down from the tents above there came a man, Who took a camp-stool by Tydides' side. Ho joined our talk, and, pointing to the pan Upon the embers where our pork was fried, Said he would eat the onions and the leeks. But that fried pork was food not fit for Greeks. "Look at the men of Thebes," he said, "and then Look at those cowards in the plains below: You see how ox-like are the ox-fed men; You see how sheepish mutton-eaters grow. Stick to this vegetable food of mine: Men who eat pork grunt, root and sleep like swine." Some laughed, and some grew mad, and some grew red: The pork was hissing ; but his point was clear. Still no one answered him, till Nestor said, "One inference that I would draw is here: You vegetarians, who thus educate us, Thus far have turned out very small potatoes." THE HUMORS OF VERSIFICATION. 235 TUE POET BRYANT AS A HUMORIST. Those who are familiar with Mr. Lowell's Fable for Critics, will remember the lines : — There is Bryant, as quiet, as cool, and as dignified, As a smootii, silent iceberg, that never is ignified, Pave when bj' reflection 'tis kindled 'o nights AVit'a a semblance of flame by the chill Northern Lights. He may rank (Griswold says so) first bard of your nation; (There's no doubt he stands in supreme ice-olation,) Your topmost Parnassus he may set his heel on, But no warm applauses cnme, peal following peal on — He's too smooth and too polished to hang any zeal on; Unqualified merits, I'll grant, if you choose, he has 'em. But he lacks the one merit of kindling enthusiasm; If he stir you at all, it is just, on my soul. Like being stirred up by the very North Pole. The Cambridge wit has either misjudged the character of Bryant's genius, or he has sacrificed a man to an epigram, and subordinated fact to Sujeu d^ esprit. Though "quiet and digni- fied," Mr. Bryant possesses a rare vein of humor, but its bubbling fancies are not generally known or suspected for the reason that he unbends anonymously. Only one of the diversions of his muse appears in his published works — and that is his invocation "To a Mosquito," which begins thus: — Fair insect! that with thread-like legs spread out, And blood-extracting bill and filmy wing. Dost murmur, as thou slowly snil'st about. In pitiless ears full many a plaintive thing, And tell how little our large veins would bleed, Would we but yield them to thy bitter need. One day, when Mr. Bryant discovered in a fresh number of the Atlantic Monthly a so-called poem, which struck him as uncommonly absurd, he sat down and produced a travesty of it, which was much more efiective in its ridicule than any sharper criticism could have been made. Here are the two in conjunction : — 236 THE HUMORS OF VERSIFICATION. THE "ATLANTIC POEM. Bellying earth no anchor throws Stouter than the breath that blows; Night and sorrow cling in vain; It must toss in day again. Hospital and battle-field, Myriad spots where fate is sealed, Brinks that crumble, sins that urge, Plunge again into the surge. How the purple breakers throw Round me their insatiate glow. Sweep my deck of hideous freight. Pour through fastening and grate. Bryant's travesty. Squint-eyed bacchanals at play, Keep a Lybian holiday, Leading trains of solemn apes. Tipsy with the blood of grapes. Forty furies — thirty more Than old Milton had before — Scattering sparkles from their hair, Swing their censers in the air. Toss the flaming goblet off, Heed not ocean's windy scoff; Let him dash against the shore, Gape and grin, and sweat and roar. Since wliich time nothing has been heard of the Atlantic poet! Only those who were "behind the scenes," in the office of the Evening Post, in the year 1863, knew the author- ship of the burlesque — and the burlesque itself will never appear in the poet's "collected works." ON RECEIPT OF A RARE PIPE. I lifted off the lid with anxious care, Removed the wrappages, stripe after stripe. And when the hidden contents were laid bare. My first remark was : "Mercy, what a pipe!" THE UUMOUS Oi' VERSIFICATION. 237 A pipe of symmetry that matched its size, Mounted with metal bright — a sight to sec — With the rich umber hue that smokers prize, Attesting both its age and pedigree. A pipe to make the Royal Friedrich jealous, Or the great TeufelsdriJck with envy gripe ! A man should hold some rank above his fellows To justify his smoking such a Pipe! What country gave it birth? What blest of cities Saw it first kindle at the glowing coal? What happy artist murmured, "Jfunc dimitlis," When he had fashioned this transcendent bowl? Has it been hoarded in a monarch's treasures? Was it a gift of peace, or prize of war? Did the great Khalrf in his "House of Pleasures" Wager, and lose it to the good Zaafar ? It may have soothed mild Spenser's melancholy. While musing o'er traditions of the past, Or graced the lips of brave Sir Walter llaleigh Ere sage King Jamie blew his Counterblast. Did it, safe hidden in some secret cavern. Escape that monarch's pipoclastic ken ? Has Shakespeare smoked it at the Mermaid Tavern, Quaffing a cup of sack with rare old Ben? Ay, Shakespeare might have watched his vast creations Loom through its smoke — the spectre-haunted Thane, The Sisters at their ghastly invocations, The jealous Moor and melancholy Dane. 'Round its orbed haze and through its mazy ringlets Titania m.ay have led her elfin rout, Or Ariel fanned it with his gauzy winglets. Or Puck danced in the bowl to put it out. Vain are all fancies — questions bring no answer; The smokers vanish, but the pipe remains; He were indeed a subtle necromancer Could read their records in its cloudy stains. Nor this alone: its destiny may doom it To outlive c'cn its use and history — Some plowman of the future m;iy exhume it From soil now deep beneath the Eastern sea — 238 THE UUMORS OP VERSIFICATION. And, treasured by some antiquarian Stultus, It may to fjaping visitors be shown, Labeled, "The symbol of some ancient Cultus, Conjecturally Phallic, but uukown." Why do I thus recall the ancient quarrel 'Twixt Man and Time, that marks all earthly things? Why labor to re-word the hackneyed moral, 'iij (j)i\\o>:/ ycuii), as Homer sings ? For this: Some links we forge are never broken ; Some feelings claim exemption from decay; And Love, of which this pipe was but the token, Shall last, though pipes and smokers pass away. THE HUMAN EAR. A sound came booming through the air- "What is that sound?" quoth I. My blue-eyed pet, with golden hair, Made answer presently, " Papa, you know it very well — That sound — it was Saint Pancras Bell.' My own Louise, put down the cat, And come and stand by me; I'm sad to hear you talk like that, Where's your philosophy? That sound — attend to what I tell — That sound was not Saint Pancras Bell. "Sound is the name the sage selects For the concluding term Of a long series of effects. Of which that blow's the germ. The following brief analysis Shows the interpolations, Miss. " The blow which, when the clapper slips. Falls on your friend the Bell, Changes its circle to ellipse, (A word you'd better spell). And then comes elasticity, Restoring what it used to be. "Nay, making it a little more, The circle shifts about. THE HUMORS OF VERSIFICATION. 239 As much as it shrunk in before The Boll, you see, swells out; And so a new ellipse is made, (You're not attending, I'm afraid). "This change of form disturbs the air. Which in its turn behaves In like elastic fashion there. Creating waves on waves; Which press each other onward, dear. Until the outmost finds your car. '•Within that ear the surgeons find A tympanum, or drum. Which has a little bone behind, — Malleus, it's called by some; But those not proud of Latin Grammar Humbly translate it as the hammer. "The wave's vibrations this transmits On to the ixcim bone, {Incus means anvil, which it hits), And this transfers the tone To the small vs ovbiculare, The tiniest bone that people carry. " The strijjes next — the name recalls A stirrup's form, my daughter — Joins three half-circular canals. Each filled with limpid water; Their curious lining, you'll observe. Made of the auditory nerve. " This vibrates next — and then we find The mystic work is crowned ; For then my daughter's gentle Mind First recognizes sound. See what a host of causes swell To make up what you call 'the Bell."' Awhile she paused, my bright Louise, And pondered on the case; Then, settling that he meant to teaze, She slapped her father's face. "You bad old man, to sit and tell Such gibberygosh about a Bell!" 240 THE HUMOUS OF VERSIFICATION. SIR tray: an ARTHURIAN IDYL. The widowed Dame of Hubbard's ancient line Turned to her cupboard, cornered anglewise Betwixt this wall and that, in quest of aught To satisfy the craving of Sir Tray, Prick-eared companion of her solitude, Red-spotted, dirty white, and bare of rib. Who followed at her high and pattering heels, Prayer in' his eye^ prayer in his slinking gait, Prayer in his pendulous pulsating tail. Wide on its creaking jaws revolved the door, The cupboard yawned, deep-throated, thinly set For teeth, with bottles, ancient canisters. And plates of various pattern, blue or white; Deep in the void she thrust her hooked nose Peering near-sighted for the wished-for bone, Whiles her short robe of samite, tilted high, The thrifty darnings of her hose revealed; — The pointed feature travelled o'er the delf Greasing its tip, but bone or bread found none Wherefore Sir Tray abode still dinnerless, Licking his paws beneath the spinniug-whcel, And meditating much on savoury meats. Meanwhile the Dame in high-backed chair reposed Revolving many memories, for she gazed Down from her lattice on the self-same path Whereby Sir Lancelot 'mid the reapers rode When Arthur held his court in Camelot, And she was called the Lady of Shalott And, later, where Sir Hubbard, meekest knight Of all the Table Round, was wont to pass. And to her casement glint the glance of love. (For all the tale of how she floated dead Between the city walls, and how the Court Gazed on her corpse, was of illusion framed, And shadows raised by Merlin's magic art. Ere Vivien shut him up within the oak.) There stood the wheel whereat she spun her thread; But of the magic mirror nought remained Save one small fragment on the mantelpiece, Reflecting her changed features night and morn. But now the inward yearnings of Sir Tray Grew pressing, and in hollow rumblings spake. THE HUMORS OF VERSIFICATION. 241 As in tempestuous nigbts the Northern seas Within their cavern clitis reverberate. This touched her: "I have marked of yore," she said, "When on my palfry I have paced along The streets of Camelot, while many a knight ■Ranged at my rein and thronged upon my steps. Wending in pride towards the tournament, A wight who many kinds of bread purveyed — Muffins, and crumpets, matutinal rolls, And buns which buttered, soothe at evensong; To him I'll hie me ere my purpose cool. And swift returning, bear a loaf with me, And (for my teeth be tender grown, and like Celestial visits, few and far between) The crust shall be for Tray, the crumb for me." This spake she; from their peg reached straightway down Her cloak of sanguine hue, and pointed hat From the flat brim upreared like pj-ramid On sands Egyptian where the Pharaohs sleep, Her ebon-handled staff (sole palfry now) Grasped firmly, and so issued swiftlj' forth; Yet ere she closed the latch her cat Elaine, The lily kitten reared at Astolat, Slipped through and mewing passed to greet Sir Tray. Returning ere the shadows eastward fell. She placed a porringer upon the board. And shred the crackling crusts with liberal hand, Nor noted how Elaine did seem to wail. Rubbing against her hose, and mourning round Sir Tray, who lay all prone upon the hearth. Then on the bread she poured the mellow milk — "Slcep'stthou?" she said, and touched him with her staff; " What, ho ! thy dinner waits thee !" But Sir Tray Stirred not nor breathed : thereat, alarmed, she seized And drew the hinder leg : the carcase moved All over wooden like a piece of wood — "Dead?" said the Dame, while louder wailed Elaine; "I see," she said, "thy fasts were all too long. Thy commons all too short, which shortened thus Thy days, tho' thou mightst still have cheered mine age Had I but timelier to the city wonaed. Thither I must again, and that right soon, For now 'tis meet we lap thee in a shroud, 21 242 THE UUMORS OF VERSIFICATION. And lay thee in the vault by Astolat, Where faithful Tray shall by Sir Hubbard lie." Up a by-lane the Undertaker dwelt ; There day by day he plied his merry trade, And all his undertakings undertook : Erst knight of Arthur's Court, Sir AValdgrave hight, A gruesome carle who hid his jests in gloom. And schooled his lid to counterfeit a tear. With cheerful hammer he a coffin tapt. While hollow, hollow, hollow, rang the wood. And, as he sawed and hammered, thus he sang : — Wood, hammer, nails, ye build a house for him. Nails, hammer, wood, ye build a house for me. Paying the rent, the taxes, and the rates. I plant a human acorn in the ground. And therefrom straightway springs a goodly tree. Budding for me in bread and beer and beef. Life, dost thou bring Death or Death bring thee? Which of the twain is bringer, which the brought? Since men must die that other men may live. Death, for me thou plump'st thine hollow cheeks, Mak'st of thine antic grin a pleasant smile. And prank'st full gaily in thy winding sheet. This ditty sang he to a doleful tune To outer ears it sounded like a dirge. Or wind that wails across the fields of death, 'Ware of a visitor, he ceased his strain. But still did ply his saw industrious. With withered hand on ear, Dame Hubbard stood; " Vex not mine cars," she grated, " with thine old And creaking saw !" " I deemed," he said, and sighed, " Old saws might please thee, as they shoiild the wise." "Know," said the Dame, "Sir Tray that with me dwelt Lies on my lonely hearthstone stark and stiif ; Wagless the tail that waved to welcome me." — Here Waldgrave interposed sepulchral tones, "Oft have I noted, when the jest went round. Sad 'twas to see the wag forget his tale — Sadder to see the tail forget its wag." "Wherefore," resumed she, "take of fitting stuff, And make therewith a narrow house for him." Quoth he, " From yonder deal I'll plane the bark. THE HUMORS OF VERSIFICATION. 243 So 'twill of Tray be emblematical; For thou, 'tis plain, must lose a deal of bark. Since he nor bark nor bite shall practice more." "And take thou, too," she said, "a coffin-plate, And be his birth and years inscribed thereon M'ith letters twain ' S. T.' to mark Sir Tray, So shall the tomb be known in after time." " This, too," quoth Waldgrave, " shall be deftly done ; Oft hath the plate been freighted with his bones. But now his bones must lie beneath the plate." " Jest'st thou?" Dame Hubbard said, and clutched her crutch. For ill she brooked light parlance of the dead; But when she saw Sir Waldgrave, how his face Was all drawn downward, till the curving mouth Seemed a horseshoe, while o'er the furrowed check A wandering tear stole on, like rivulet In dry ravine down mother Ida's side, She changed her purpose, smote not, lowered the staff; — So parted, faring homeward with her grief. Nearing her bower, it seemed a sepulchre Sacred to memory, and almost she thought A dolorous cry arose, as if Elaine Did sound a caterwauling requiem. With hesitating hand she raised the latch, And on the threshold with reluctant foot Lingered, as loath to face the scene of woe. When lo ! the body lay not on the hearth. For there Elaine her flying tail pursued, — In the Dame's chair Sir Tray alive did sit, A world of merry meaning in his eye, And all his face agrin from ear to ear. Like one who late hath lost his dearest friend, And in his sleep doth see that friend again, And marvels scarce to see him, putting forth A clasping hand, and feels him warm with life. And so takes up his friendship's broken thread — Thus stood the Dame, thus ran she, pattering o'er The sanded tiles, and clasjjed she thus Sir Tray, Unheeding of the grief his jest had wrought For joy he was not numbered with the dead. Anon the Dame, her primal transports o'er, Bctliought her of the wisdom of Sir Tray, And his fine wit, and then it shameful seemed That he bareheaded 'ncath the sky should go 244 THE HUMORS OF VERSIFICATION. While empty skulls of fools went thatched and roofed; "A hat," she cried, "would better fit those brows Than many a courtier's that I've wotted of; And thou shalt have one, an' my tender toes On which the corns do shoot, and these my knees Wherethro' rheumatic twinges swiftly dart, AVill bear me to the city yet again, And thou shalt wear the bat as Arthur wore The Dragon of the great Pcndragonship." Whereat Sir Tray did seem to smile, and smote Upon the chair-back with approving tail. Then up she rose, and to the Hatter's went, — "Hat me," quoth she, "your very newest hat;" And so they hatted her, and she returned Home through the darksome wold, and raised the latch, And marked, full lighted by the ingle-glow. Sir Tray, with spoon in hand, and cat on knee. Spattering the mess about the chaps of Puss. THE OLOGIES. We'i'e going to begin with an ample Apology ; You'll end, we are sure, by a hearty Doxology, If, all undeterred by our strange Phraseology, You chose to sit down to a dish of Tautology. One's pestered in these days by so many 'ologics, We thought we would fain see the tale of our foe! A niche of your own in the new Martyrologies You'd earn if you'd only go halves in our woes. We'v counted some forty ! but how many more there are, We're even now wholly unable to say; We fear that at least the same number in store there are, You'll say we have found quite enough for one day. 'So now for our Catalogue : first comes Anthology — A bouquet of flowers, a budget of rhymes; That's pleasant — not so the next, called Anthropology, The science of man in all ages and climes. THE HUMORS OF VERSIFICATION. 245 "Then comes a most useful pursuit, Arachnology; They're biiieils, the spiders who weave the worst webs; But when one is asked to go in for Astrology, And Zadkiel ! one's courage most rapidly ebbs. "The next on our roster is old Archoeology, A science that's lately been much in repute; One can't say as much for Electro-biology, Which now-o'-days no one seems ever to bruit. "But none can afford to make light of Chronology, Tho' ladies are apt to be dark upon dates; We most of us make rather light of Conchology Except when the oyster-shell gapes on our plates. " The Devil's deposed they say, and Demonology Would certainly seem to have gone to the De'il; Some savants, like Hooker, still swallow Dendrology, But tree-names are somewhat too tough for my meal. " The parsons are great upon Ecclesiology, And prate about proper pyramidal piles; Few travelers care to neglect Entomology, Their wakefulness often its study beguiles. "'Twould take you a life-time to learn Etymology, And dabblers get into most marvellous scrapes; And Huxley would tell you as much of Ethnology, — Who really believes we are cousins of apes? "Dean Buckland it was who first started Geology, And traced the rock pedigrees, fixing their ranks; And Frank has of late taken up Ichthyology, The salmon already have voted him thanks. "Von Humboldt had fairly exhausted Kosmology, But Nature 's a quite inexhaustible mine; Napoleon has fulfilled a new Martyrology, Imbrued with tho purest blue-blood of the Rhine. "We all of us thought we were deep in Mythology, Till Cox and Max Muller both deepened its well; Our sons may learn somt thing of Meteorology — The weather our prophets all fail to foretell. "The study of life is bound up with Necrology, And we shall have one day to enter its lists, — And furnish some specimens for Osteology, The science of bones, on which Owen exists. 21* 246 THE HUMORS OF VERSIFICATION. "At breakfast we're seldom averse to Oology, Or lunch, when the plovers are pleased to lay eggs ; But then one would bar embryonic Ontology, Preferring fowls full-grown with breast, wings, and legs ! "For oh! we decidedly like Ornithology And chiefly the study of grouse on the wing; We'd leave it to doctors to study Pathology; The study of pain is a troublesome thing. "We all of us need a small dose of Philology, If caring to make the best use of our tongues; A careful attention to strict Phraseology Involves a most notable saving of lungs. " The study of heads has been christened Phrenology, Professors would call it the study of brain ; But take my advice, and avoid Pneumatology, For spirits are apt to treat brains with disdain. " For much the same reason, we'd banish Psychology, — What savant can give an account of his soul? And if we could only abolish Theology, The parsons alone would be hard to console! "If ever you happened to study Splanchnology, You'd know what it is theologians lack, — Inquisitors never complain of Tautology, So long as rank heretics roar on the rack. "And now is the time to strike up your Doxology, For we would no longer detain you, my friend; — On Sunday we all have a turn for Zoology, So here is our Catalogue come to an end." THE VARIATION HUMBUG. The London Charivari thinks that there is more humbug talked, printed, and practiced in reference to music than to anything else in the world, except polities. And of all the musical humbugs extant it occurs to Mr. Punch that the variation humbug is the greatest. This party has not even the sense to invent a tune for himself, but takes else's, and starting therefrom, as an acrobat leaps from a spring-board, THE I1U:\I0RS OF VERSIFICATION. £47 jumps himself into a musical reputation on the strength of the other party's ideas. Mr. Punch wonders what would be thought of a poet who should try to make himself renown by this kind of thing — taking a well-known poem of a prede- cessor and doing variations on it after this fashion : — BUGGINS' VARIATIONS ON THE BUSY BEE. How doth the Little Busy Bee Improve each shining hour, And gather honey all the day From every opening flower, From every opening flower, flower, flower, That sparkles in a breezy bower, And gives its sweetness to the shower, E.xhaling scent of gentle power, That lasts on kerchief many an hour, And is a lady's graceful dower, Endeared alike to cot and tower, Round which the Little Busy Bee Improves each shining hour. And gathers honey all the day From every opening flower. From every opening flower, flower, flower. From every opening flower. How skillfully she builds her cell, How neat she spreads her wax. And labors hard to store it well, AVith the sweet food she makes, With the sweet food she makes. With the sweet food she makes, makes, makes. When rising just as morning breaks. The dewdrop from the leaf she shakes. And oft the sleeping moth she wakes, And diving through the flower she takes, The honey with her fairy rakes, And in her cell the same she cakes. Or sports across the silver lakes. Beside her children, for whose sakes How skillfully she builds her cell. How neat she spreads her wax, And labors hard to store it well. With the sweet food she makes. 248 THE HUaiORS OF VERSIFICATION. In works of labor or of skill, I would be busy too, For Satan finds some mischief still For idle hands to do, For idle bauds to do, For idle hands to do, do, do. Things which thereafter they will rue. When Justice fiercely doth pursue. Or conscience raises cry and hue. And evil-doers look quite blue, When Peelers run with loud halloo. And magistrates put on the screw. And then the wretch exclaims, Boo-hoo, In works of labor or of skill I wish I'd busied too. For Satan's found much mischief still, For my two hands to do. There ! Would a poet get much reputation for these variations, which are much better in their way than most of those built upon tunes ? Would the poetical critics come out, as the musical critics do, with " Upon Watts' marble foundation Buggins has raised a sparkling alabaster palace;" or, " The old-fashioned Watts has been brought into new honor by the etin- cellnnt Buggins;" or "We love the old tune, but we have room in our hearts for the fairy-like fountains of bird-song which Buggins has bid start from it ? " Mr. Punch has an idea that Buggins would have no such luck ; the moral to be deduced from which fact is, that a musical prig is luckier than a poetical prig. REITERATIVE VOCAL MUSIC. A well-known reviewer, in an article on Hymnology, says : — Who could endure to hear and sing hymns, the meaning and force of which he really felt — set, as they frequently have been, to melodies from the Opera, and even worse, or massa- cred by the repetition of the end of each stanza, no matter whether or not the grammar and sense were consistent with it. Take such memorable cases of incongruity as : — "My poor pol — My pool pol — My poor polluted heart." THE HUMORS OF VERSIFICATION. 249 To wliich he might have added from Dr. Watts : — " And see Sal — see Sal — see Salvation nigh." Or this to the same common metre tunc, " Miles's Lane",- — " Where my Sal — my Sal — my Salvation stands." Or this when sung to "Job": — "And love thee Bet — And love thee better than before." Or— " Stir up this stu — Stir up this stupid heart to pray." Or this crowning absurdity: — "And more etjga — more eggs — more exalts our joys." This to the tune of "Aaron" 7's: — " With thy Benny— With thy benediction seal." This has recently been added in a fashionable metropolitan church : — " And take thy pil — And take thy pilgrim home." And further havoc is made with language and sense thus: — " Before his throne we bow — wow — wow — ow — wow." And— " I love to steal I love to steal— awhile away." And— "0, for a man — 0, for a mansion in the skies." To which we may add : — " And we'll catch the flea — And we'll catch the flee — ee — eeting hour." Two trebles sing, "And learn to kiss"; two trebles and alto, "And learn to kiss"; two trebles, alto, and tenor, "And learn to kiss"; the bass, solus, "the rod." This is sung to a tune called " Boyce": — " Thou art my bull — Thou art my bulwark and defence." 250 THE HUMORS OF VERSIFICATION. THE CURSE OP o'kELLY. Carmac O'Kelly, the celebrated Irish harper, went to Doneraile, ia the county of Cork, where his watch was pilfered from his fob. This so roused his ire that he cele- brated the people in the following unexampled " string of curses : " — Alas! how dismal is my tale, I lost my watch in Doneraile, My Dublin watch, my chain and seal. Pilfered at once in Doneraile. May fire and brimstone never fail To fall in showers on Doneraile; May all the leading fiends assail The thieving town of Doneraile. As lightnings flash across the vale. So down to hell with Doneraile; The fate of Pompey at Pharsale, Be that the curse of Doneraile. May beef or mutton, lamb or veal, Be never found in Doneraile, But garlic soup and scurvy kale, Be still the food for Doneraile, And forward as the creeping snail, Industry be at Doneraile. May Heaven a chosen curse entail, On ragged, rotten Doneraile. May sun and moon forever fail To beam their lights on Doneraile; May every pestilential gale Blast that cursed spot called Doneraile; May no sweet cuckoo, thrush or quail Be ever heard in Doneraile ; May patriots, kings, and commonweal Despise and harass Doneraile ; May every post, gazette and mail. Sad tidings bring of Doneraile; May vengeance fall on head and tail. From north to south of Doneraile May profit small, and tardy sale. Still damp the trade of Doneraile : May fame resound a dismal tale. Whene'er she lights on Doneraile; THE HUMORS OF VERSIFICATION. 2'oi May Egypt's plagues at once prevail, To thin the knaves at Donerailc ; May frost and snow, and sleet and hail, Benumb each joint in Doneraile; May wolves and bloodhounds race and trail The cursed crew of Doneraile; May Oscar with his fiery flail To atoms thrash all Doneraile; May every mischief, fresh and stale. May all from Belfast to Kinsale, ScoiF, curse and damn you, Doneraile. May neither flour nor oatmeal, Be found or known in Doneraile ; May want and woe each joy curtail. That e'er was known in Doneraile; May no one coffin want a nail, That wraps a rogue in Doneraile ; May all the thieves who rob and steal. The gallows meet in Doneraile ; May all the sons of Gramaweal, Blush at the thieves of Doneraile ; May mischief big as Norway whale, O'erwhelm the knaves of Doneraile; May curses whole and by retail. Pour with full force on Doneraile ; May every transport wont to sail, A convict bring from Doneraile; May every churn and uiilking-pail Fall dry to staves in Doneraile ; May cold and hunger still congeal. The stagnant blood of Doneraile; May every hour new woes reveal. That hell reserves for Doneraile; May every chosen ill prevail O'er all the imps of Doneraile; May th' inquisition straight impale. The Rapparees of Doneraile; May curse of Sodom now prevail. And sink to ashes Doneraile; May Charon's boat triumphant sail. Completely manned from Doneraile; Oh ! may my couplet never fail To find new curse for Doneraile ; And may grim Pluto's inner jail Forever groan with Doneraile. 202 HIBERNIANA. HMtrrniana. Maria Edgewortii, in her Eamy on Irish Bulls, remarka that "the difficulty of selecting from the vulgar herd a bull that shall be entitled to the prize, from the united merits of pre-eminent absurdity and indisputable originality, is greater than hasty judges may imagine." Very true ; but if the prize were offered for a hatch of Irish diamonds, we think the following copy of a letter written dur- ing the Rebellion, by S , an Irish member of Parliament, to his friend in London, would present the strongest claim : — " My dear Sir : — Having now a little peace and quietness, I sit down to inform you of the dreadful bustle and confusion we are in from these blood-thirsty rebels, most of whom are (thank God !) killed and dispersed. We are in a pretty mess; can get nothing to eat, nor wine to drink, except whiskey; and when we sit down to dinner, we are obliged to keep both hands armed. Whilst I write this, I hold a pistol in each hand and a sword in the other. I concluded in the beginning that this would be the end of it; and I see I was right, for it is not half over yet. At present there are such goings on, that every thing is at a stand still. I should have answered your letter a fortnight ago, but I did not receive it till this morning. Indeed, hardly a mail arrives safe without being robbed. No longer ago than yesterday the coach with the mails from Dublin was robbed near this town : the bags had been judiciously left be- hind for fear of accident, and by good luck there was nobody in it but two outside passengers who had nothing for thieves to take. Last Thursday notice was given that a gang of rebels were advancing here under the French standard; but they had no colors, nor any drums except bagpipes. Immediately every man in the place, including women and children, ran out to meet them. We soon found our force much too little ; and we were far too near to think of retreating. Death was in every IIIBERNIANA. Zi)o face ; but to it we went, and by the time half our little party were killed we began to be all alive again. Fortunately, the rebels had no guns, except pistols, cutlasses, and pikes; and aa we had plenty of guns and ammunition, we put thera all to the sword. Not a soul of them escaped, except some that were drowned in an adjacent bog; and in a very short time nothing was to be heard but silence. Their uniforms were all different colors, but mostly green. After the action, we went to rum- mage a sort of camp which they had left behind them. All we found was a few pikes without heads, a parcel of empty bottles full of water, and a bundle of French commissions filled up with Irish names. Troops are now stationed all around the country, which exactly squares with my ideas. I have only time to add that I am in great haste. "Yours truly, . '* P. S. — If you do not receive this, of course i^, must have miscarried : therefore I beg you will write and let me know." Miss Edgeworth says, further, that " many bulls, reputed to be bred and born in Ireland, are of foreign extraction ; and many more, supposed to be unrivalled in their kind, may be matched in all their capital points." To prove this, she cites numerous examples of well-known bulls, with their foreign pro- totypes, not only English and Continental, but even Oriental and ancient. Among the parallels of familiar bulls to be found nearer our American home since the skillful defender of Erin's naivete wrote her Essay, one of the best is an economical method of erecting a new jail : — The following resolutions were passed by the Board of Coun cilmen in Canton, Mississippi : — 1. Resolved, by this Council, that we build a new Jail. 2. Resolved, that the new Jail be built out of the materials of the old Jail. 3. Resolved, that the old Jail be used until the new Jail is finished. 22 254 IIIBERNIANA. It was a Frenchman who, in making a classified catalogue of books, placed Miss Edgeworth's Essay in the list of works on Natural History ; and it was a Scotchman who, having purchased a copy of it, pronounced her "a puir silly body, to write a book on bulls, and no ane woi'd o' horned cattle in it a', forbye the bit beastie [the vignette] at the beginning." Exam- ples from the common walks of life and from periodical litera- ture may readily be multiplied to show that these phraseologi- cal peculiarities are not to be exclusively attributed to Ireland. ]Jut if we adopt Coleridge's definition, which is, that " a bull consists in a mental juxtaposition of incongruous ideas, with the sensation, but without the sense, of connection," we shall find frequent instances of its occurrence among standard au- thors. Take the following blunders, for examples : — Adam, the goodliest man of men since horn Hin sunn — the fairest of her daiiyhiers, Eve. Milton's Paradise Lost. The loveliest.pair That ever since in love's embraces met. — lb. B. iv. 8wift, being an Irishman, of course abounds in blunders, some of them of the most ludicrous character; but we should hardly expect to find in the elegant Addison, the model of classical English, such a singular inaccuracy as the following: — So the pare limpid stream, when fold with stains Of rushing torrents and descending rains. — Cato. He must have seen in a blaze of hUndiruj light (this is "ip- sis Hibernis Hibernior") the vanity and evil, the folly and madness, of the worldly or selfish, and the grandeur and truth of the disinterested and Christian life. — Giljillan's Bards of the Bible. The real and peculiar magnificence of St. Petersburgh con- sists in thus sailing a2yparentli/ ujyon the bosom of the ocean^ into a city of palaces. — Sedgwick's Letters from the Baltic. The astonished Yahoo, smoking, as well as he could, a cigar, with which he had filled all his pockets. — Warrei 's Ten Thou- sand a Year. IIir.EUN'IANA. 255 The following specimens avo from the works of Dr. John- son : — Every monumental inscription should be in Latin; for that being a dead language, it will always live. Nor yet perceived the vital spirit fled, But still fought on, nor knew that he teas dead. Shakspeare has not only shoicn human nature as it is, but as it would be found in situations to lohich it cannot he exposed. Turn from the glittering bribe your scornful eye, Nor sell for gold lohat (/old can never btii/. These observations were made bj/ favor of a contrary wind The next two are from Pope : — Eight callow infants filled the mossy nest, Herself the ninth. When first young Marc, in his noble mind, A work (' outlast immortal Home designed. Shakspeare says, — I will strive with things impossible, Yea, yet the better of them. — Julias Cxsar, ii. 1. A horrid silence first invades the ear. — Dryden. Beneath a mountain's brow, the most remote And inaccessible by shepherds trod. — IIoiiE : Douglass. In the Irish Bank-bill passed by Parliament in June, 1808, is a clause providing that the profits shall be equallj divided and the residue ] they auswered, doubtfully: "Pretty well." "But," asked his Majesty, "what fault do you find with him?" "To say the truth," they replied, "we should have preferred a Bishop who had finished his education; for, whenever we wait upon him, we are told that he is at his studies." There lived in the west of Eiigland, a few years since, an enthusiastic geologist, who was presiding judge of the Quarter Sessions. A farmer, who had seen him presiding on the bench, overtook him shortly afterwards, while seated by the roadside on a heap of stones, which he was busily breaking in search cf fossils. The farmer reined up his horse, gazed at him for a minute, shook his head in commiseration of the mutability of human things, then exclaimed, in mingled tones of pity and surprise: "^\'Tiat, your Honor I be you come to this a' ready?" Cottle, in his Life of Coleridge, relates an essay at grooming on the part of that poet and Wordsworth. The servants being absent, the poets had attempted to stable their horse, and were almost successful. With the collar, however, a difficulty arose. After Wordsworth had i-elinquished as impracticable the effort to get it over the animal's head, Coleridge tried his hand, but showed no more grooming skill than his predecessor; for, after twisting the poor horse's neck almost to strangulation, and to the great danger of his eyes, he gave up the useless task, pro- nouncing that the horse's head must have grown (gout or dropsy) since the collar was put on, for he said it was downright impossibility for such a huge os frontis to pass through so narrow a collar I Just at this moment a servant girl came up, and turning the collar upside down, slipped it off without trouble, to the great humility and wonderment of the poets, who were each satisfied afresh that there were heights of knowledge to which they had not attained. BLUNDERS OF TRANSLATORS. A most entertaining volume might be made from the amusing and often absurd blunders perpetrated by translators. For 264 BLUNDERS. instance, IMiss Cooper tells us that the person who first rendered her father's novel, "The Spy," into the French tongue, among other mistakes, made the following: — Readers of the Revolu- tionary romance will remember that the residence of the "VMiar- ton family was called "The Locusts." The translator referred to his dictionary, and found the rendering of the word to be Les Sauterelks, "The Gra.sshoppei-s." But when he found one of the di-agoons represented as tying his horse to one of the locusts on the lawn, it would appear as if he might have been at fault. Nothing daunted, however, but taking it for granted that American grasshoppers must be of gigantic dimen- sions, he gravely informs his readers that the cavalryman secured his charger by fastening the bridle to one of the gi-ass- hoppers before the door, apparently standing there for that purpose. Much laughter has deservedly been raised at French littera- teurs who professed to be "doctus utriusque linguse." Gibber's play of "Love's Last Shift" was translated by a Frenchman who spoke "Inglees" as "iye Dcrniere Chemise de F Amour;" Congreve's "Mourning Bride," by another, as '■'^VEpouse du Matin;" and a French scholar recently included among his catalogue of works on natural history the essay on " Irish Bulls," by the Edgeworths. Jules Janin, the great critic, in his trans- lation of "jMacbeth," renders "Out, out, brief candle I" as '•Sortez, chandette." And another, who traduced Shakspeare, commits an equally amusing blunder in rendering Northumber- land's famous speech in "Heniy IV." In the passage A " Even such a man, so faint, so spiritless, — JLv And spiders from their cobwebs creep ; j Last night the sun went pale to bed, ] The moon in halos hid her head; i The boding shepherd heaves a sigh, ; For see, a rainbow spans the sky ; The walls are damp, the ditches smell, Closed is the pink-eyed pimpernel ; The squalid toads at dusk were seen Slowly crawling o'er the green ; i Loud quack the ducks, the peacocks cry. The distant hills are looking nigh ; • j Hark, how the chairs and tables crack ! j Old Betty's joints are on the rack ; And see yon rooks, how odd their flight, '■ They imitate the gliding kite, Or seem precipitate to fall As if they felt the piercing ball ; How restless are the snorting swine! The busy flies disturb the kine ; i * Versified by Darwin. "WEATHER- WISDCM 321 Low o'or the grass the swallow wings ; The cricket too, how loud she sings ! Puss on the hearth, with velvet paws. Sits wiping o'er her whiskered jaws : — 'Twill surely rain, I see, with sorrow : Our jaunt must be put off to-morrow. The following is taken from TJie Shepherd's Calendar, 1683 : Signs of Rain, from Birds. — Sea and fresh- water fowls, such as cormorants, sea-gulls, moor-hens, &c. flying from sea or the fresh waters to land, show bad weather at hand ; land fowls flying to waters, and those shaking, washing, and noisy, especi- ally in the evening, denote the same ; geese, ducks, coots, &c. picking, shaking, washing, and noisy; rooks and crows in flocks and suddenly disappearing; pyes and jays in flocks and very noisy ; the raven or hooded-crow crying in the morning, with an interruption in its notes, or crows being very clamor- ous at evening ; the heron, bittern, and swallow flying low ; birds forsaking their food and flying to their nests; poultry going to rest or pigeons to their dove-house ; tame fowls grub- bing in the dust and clapping their wings ; small birds seem- ing to duck and wash in the sand ; the late and early crowing of the cock, and clapping his wings; the early singing of wood- larks ; the early chirping of sparrows ; the early note of the chaffinch near bouses ; the dull appearance of robin-redbreast near houses; peacocks and owls unusually clamorous. Of Wind, from Birds. — Sea and fresh-water fowls gathering in flocks to the banks, and there sporting, especially in the morning ; wild geese flying high and in flocks, and directing their course eastward ; coots restless and clamorous ; the hoo- poe loud in his note ; the king's fisher taking to land ; rooks darting or shooting in the air, or sporting on the banks of fresh waters ; and lastly, the appearance of the malefigie at sea, is a certain forerunner of violent winds, and (early in the morning) denotes horrible tempests at hand. Of Fair Weather, from Birds. — Halcyons, sea-ducks, &c. leaving the land, and flocking to the sea; kites, herons, bitterns, and swallows flying high, and loud in their notes; lapwingf 322 WEATHER- WISDOM. restless and clamorous ; sparrows after sunrise restless and noisy; ravens, hawks, and kestrils (in the morning) loud in their notes; robin-redbreast mounted high, and loud in his song; larks soaring high, and loud in their songs; owls hoot- ing with an easy and clear note; bats appearing early in the evening. Of Rain, from Beasts. — Asses braying more frequently than usual; hogs playing, scattering their food, or carrjing straw in their mouths; oxen snuffing the air, looking to the south, while lying on their right sides, or licking their hoofs ; cattle gasping for air at noon ; calves running violently and gambol- ing ; deer, sheep, or goats leaping, fighting, or pushing ; cats washing their face and ears; dogs eagerly scraping up earth; foxes barking ; rats and mice more restless than usual ; a grumbling noise in the belly of hounds. Of Rain, from Insects. — Worms crawling out of the earth in great abundance ; spiders falling from their webs ; flies dull and restless; ants hastening to their nests; bees hastening home, and keeping close in their hives ; frogs drawing nigh to houses, and croaking from ditches; gnats singing more than usual; but if gnats play in the open air, or if hornets, wasps, and glow-worms appear plentifully in the evening, or if spiders' webs are seen in the air or on the grass, these do all denote fair and warm weather at hand. Of Rain, from the Sun. — Sun rising dim or waterish ; rising red with blackish beams mixed along with his rays; rising in a musty or muddy color; rising red and turning blackish ; setting under a thick cloud ; setting with a red sky in the east. Sudden rains never last long ; but when the air grows thick by degrees, and the sun, moon, and stars shine dimmer and dimmer, then it is like to rain six hours usually. Of \Yincl, from the Sun. — Sun rising pale and setting red, with an iris ; rising large in surface ; rising with a red sky in the north ; setting of a blood color ; setting pale, with one or more dark circles, or accompanied with red streaks, seeming WEATIIER-WISnOM 323 «i>,.cave or hollow; seeming divided, great storms; parhelia, or uiuck suns, never appear but are followed by tempest. Of Fair Weather, from the Sun. — Sun rising clear, having set clear the night before ; rising while the clouds about him are driving to the west ; rising with an iris around him, and that iris wearing away equally on all sides, then expect fair and settled weather; rising clear and not hot; setting in red clouds, according to the old observation, — The evening red .and morning gray, Is the sure sign of a fair day. To the above may be added the following from a more recent source : — As a rule, a circle around the moon indicates rain and wind. When seen with a north or northeast wind, we may look for stormy weather, especially if the circle be large ; with the wind in any other quarter, we may expect rain ; so also when tho ring is small and the moon seems covered with mist. If, how- ever, the moon rise after sunset, and a circle be soon after formed around it, no rain is foreboded. In the Netherlands they have this proverb : — Een kring oiu de muan (A ring round the nioun Die kan vcrgaan ; May pass away so(jn ; Maar cen kring om do zon But a ring round the sun Geeft water in de ton. Gives water in the tun.) An old astrologer, referring to St. Paul's day, Jan. 25, says : — • If St. Paul be fair and clear, It promises then a happy year; But if it chance to snow or rain, Then will be dear all sorts of grain ; Or if the wind do blow aloft, Great stirs will ve.'s the world full oft; And if dark clouds do muff the sky, Then fowl and cattle oft will die. Another, alluding to the Ember-day in December, says : — When Ember-day is cold and clear There 'II be two winters in that year. The following is from a manuscript in the British Museum :— 324 WEATHER-WISDOM. If Christmas day on Thursday be, A windy winter you shall see ; Windy weather in each week, And hard tempests, strong and thick; The summer shall be good and dry, Corn and beasts shall multiply; That year is good for lands to till ; Kings and princes shall die by skill ; If a child bom that day shall be. It shall happen right well for thee : Of deeds he shall be good and stable, Wise of speech, and reasonable. Whoso that day goes thieving about. He shall be punished, without doubt; And if sickness that day betide. It shall quickly from thee glide. UNLUCKY DAYS. The following list of the '' evil days in each month" ia translated from the original Latin verses in the old Sarum Missal : — January. Of this first month, the opening day And seventh like a sword will slay. February. The fourth day bringeth down to death ; The third will stop a strong man's breath. March. The first the greedy glutton slays; The fourth cuts short the drunkard's days. April. The tenth and the eleventh, too, Are ready death's fell work to do. May, The third to slay poor man hath power; The seventh destroj-eth in an hour. June. The tenth a pallid visage shows; No faith nor truth the fifteenth knows. July. The thirteenth is a fatal day ; The tenth alike will mortals slay. August. The first kills strong ones at a blow; The second lays a cohort low. September. The third day of the month September, And tenth, bring evil to each member. October. The third and tenth, with poisoned breath, To man are foes" as foul as death. November. The fifth bears scorpion-sting of deadly pain ; The third is tinctured with destruction's train. December, The seventh's a fatal day to human life ; The tenth is with a serpent's venom rife. 8. AND N. S. 325 ©. S>* ant) ill. S. THE GREGORIAN CALENDAR. The Julian calendar was framed about 46 years before Christ. Caesar made the year consist of 365 days; and the annual excess of sis hours, which amounted to one day in four years, was taken into account by making every fourth year (leap- year) consist of 366 days. But Caesar's correction of the calendar was imperfect, being founded on the supposition that the solar year consisted of 365 days, 6 hours, whereas the true solar year consists of 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, 45 J seconds. Thus the Julian year exceeded the solar 11 minutes 14^ seconds, — which amounted to a whole day in 130 years. In consequence of this inaccuracy, the vernal equinox, which happened on the 25th of March in the time of Julius Cassar, had receded to the 21st of March in the year 325, and was fixed to that day by the Council of Nice. Attempts were afterwards made to effect some change in the calendar ; but a complete reformation was not made until 1582. Pope Gregory XIII. invited to Rome the most learned astronomers of the age; and, after the subject had been discussed ten years, it was decreed that the vernal equinox, which had receded ten days since the Council of Nice, and consequently happened on the 11th of March, should be brought back to the 21st of March, and that for this purpose ten days should be taken from the month of October, 1582. To avoid future deviation, it was determined that instead of every 100th year being leap-year, every 400th year only should be leap-year. By this plan — a diminution of three days in 400 years — the error in the present calendar will not exceed a day and a half in five thousand years. The calendar thus reformed by Pope Gregory was imme- diately introduced into Catholic countries, but was not finallv 326 O. S. AND N. S. adopted in Great Britain until 1752, when, by act of Parlia- ment, eleven days were struck out of the calendar, the 3d of September being reckoned the 14th. The Greek Church still obstinately adheres to the old style. RESULTS OF THE CHANGE IN THE STYLE. The following happily-conceived address to the patron? of "Poor Job's Almanac" was occasioned by the change of the style in 1752. The number of that year bears the title — Poor Joh, 1752. By Joh Shejiherd, pJiilom. Neicjiort Printed hy James Franklin* at the Printing-office under the Town School-house. In this almanac the month of September has. in the margin, the figures of the successive days, com- mencing 1, 2; and, after leaving blank a space for eleven days, recommencing with 14, and continuing to the 30th. Kind Reader : — You have now such a year as you never saw before, nor will see hereafter, the King and Parliament of Great Britain having thought proper to enact that the month of September, 1752, shall contain but nineteen days, which will shorten this year eleven days, and have extended the same throughout the British dominions ; so that we are not to have two beginnings to our years, but the first of January is to be the first day and the first month of the year 1752; eleven days are taken from September, and begin 1, 2, 14, 15, &c. Be not astonished, nor look with concern, dear reader, at such a deduction of days, nor regret as for the loss of so much time; but take this for your consolation, that your expenses will per- haps appear lighter, and your mind be more at ease. And what an indulgence is here for those who love their pillows, to lie down in peace on the second of this month, and not perhaps awake or be disturbed till the fourteenth, in the morning ! And, reader, this is not to hasten the payment of debts, free- dom of apprentices or servants, or the coming to age of minors; but the number of natural days in all agreements are to be ful- » Brother of Dr. Franklin MEMORTA TF.CnNTCA. 327 filled. All Churcli holidays and Courts are to be on the same nominal days they were before ; but fairs, after the second of September, alter the nominal days, and so seemed to be held eleven days Inter. Now, reader, since 'tis likely you may never have such another year nor such another almanac, I would ad- vise you to improve the one for your own sake, and I recom- mend the other for the sake of your friend, Poor Job. iEemoria ^rdjnira. NAMES AND ORDER OF THE BOOKS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. The Great Jehovah speaks to us In Genesis and Exodus ; Leviticus and Numbers see Followed by Deuteronomy. Joshua and Judges sway the land, Ruth gleans a sheaf with trembling hand; Samuel and numerous Kings appear Whose Chronicles we wondering hear. Ezra and Nehemiah, now, Esther the beauteous mourner show. Job speaks in sighs, David in Psalms, The Proverbs teach to scatter alms ; Ecclesiastes then comes on, And the sweet Song of Solomon. Isaiah, Jeremiah then With Lamentations takes his pen, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea's lyres Swell Joel, A::ios, Obadiah's. Nest Jonas, Micah, Nahum come. And lofty Habakkuk finds room — While Zephaniah, Haggai calls. Wrapt Zachariah builds his walls ; And Malachi, with garments rent, Concludes the ancient Testament. NAMES AND ORDER OP THE BOOKS OP THE NEW TESTAMENT. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, wrote the life of their Lord ; The Acts, what Apostles accomplished, record; Rome, Corinth, Galatus, Ephesus, hear What Philippians, Colossians, Thessalonians revere : 328 MEMORIA TECHNICA. Timothen?, Titus, Philemon, precede The Epistle which Hebrews most gratefully read; James, Peter, and John, with the short letter Jude, The rounds of Divine Revelation conclude. NAMES OP SHAKSPEARE'S PLAYS. Oinittinseudon7/me of Sappho. This strange billet-doux has happened, from the celebrity of the par- ties, to be preserved, and it is still extant, — one of the oldest, it is presumed, of penny-post letters, and a curious example of a prepaying envelope, a new proof of the adage that " there is nothing new under the sun." OLD HUNDRED. The history of this old psalm-tune, which almost every one has been accustomed to hear ever since he can remember, is the subject of a work recently written by an English clergy- man Luther has generally been considered the author of 350 ORIGIN OF THINGS FAMILIAR. '' Old Hundred," but it has been pretty satisfactorily ascertained that it was composed in the sixteenth century, and certainly previous to 1546, by William Franc, a German. In the course of time its arrangement has undergone repeated alterations; and it is said that, as it originally appeared, it was of a more lively character than at present. Many of these alterations have been carefully preserved and may be seen by reference to Moore's Encyclopsedia of Music. The oldest copy of it that has been preserved was published in France, in Marot and Beza's Psalms, 1550. Subjoined is a faithful transcript of its original adaptation to the 134th Psalm. It contrasts as broadly with the present style of musical notation as does the English of Chaucer with that of Noah Webster. Tuf^" F ^jjj^'^^rrr ^ ■t Or sus serviteurs du Suigneur, Vous qui de nuit en son honneur '/r> -^ rj ^. -S5- -^- - rA' -'^ =t= ^t-f- s>- _iiL -^[rJ- H T)e-dans sa maison le servez, Louez-lo, et son Nom elevez. LA MARSEILLAISE. Rouget de Lisle was a young officer of engineers at Stras- bourg. He was born at Lojis-le- Saulnier, in the Jura a country of reverie and energy, as mountains commonly are. He re- lieved the tediousness of a garrison-life by writing verses and indulging a love of music. He was a frequent visitor at the house of the Baron de Diedrich, a noble Alsacian of the consti- tutional party, the Mayor of Strasbourg. The family loved the young officer, and gave new inspiration to his heart in its at- tachment to music and poetry, and the ladies were in the habit of assisting, by their performances, the early conceptions of hia genius. A famine prevailed at Strasbourg in the winter of 1792. The house of Diedrich was rich at the beginning of the ORIGIN OF THINGS FAMILIAR. 351 revolution, but had now become poor under the calamiticg and Bacrifices of the time. Its frugal table had always a hospitable place for Rouget de Lisle. He was there morning and even- ing as a son and brother. One day, when only some slices of ham smoked upon the table, with a supply of camp-bread, Die- drich said to De Lisle, in sad serenity, *' Plenty is not found at our meals. But no matter : enthusiasm is not wanting at our civic festivals, and our soldiers' hearts are full of courage. We have one more bottle of Rhine wine in the cellar. Let us have it, and we'll drink to liberty and the country. Strasbourg will soon have a patriotic /e^e, and De Lisle must draw from these last drops one of his hymns that will carry his own ardent feelings to the soul of the people." The young ladies applauded the proposal. They brought the wine, and continued to fill the glasses of Diedrich and the young officer until the bottle was empty. The night was cold. De Lisle's head and heart were warm. He found his way to his lodgings, entered his solitary chamber, and sought for inspiration at one moment in the pal- pitations of his citizen's heart, and at another by touching, as an artist, the keys of his instrument, and striking out alter- nately portions of an air and giving utterance to poetic thoughts. He did not himself know which came first; it was impossible for him to separate the poetry from the music, or the sentiment from the words in which it was clothed. He sang altogether, and wrote nothing. In this state of lofty inspira- tion, he went to sleep with his head upon the instrument. The chants of the night came upon him in the morning like the faint impressions of a dream. He wrote down the words, made the notes of the music, and ran to Diedrich's. He found him in the garden digging winter lettuces. The wife of the patriot mayor was not yet up. Diedrich awoke her. They called to- gether some friends, who were, like themselves, passionately fond of music, and able to execute the compositions of De Lisle One of the young ladies played, and Rouget sang. At the first Btanza, the countenances of the company grew pale; at the second, tears flowed abundantly; at the last, a delirium of en- 352 ORIGIN OF THINGS FAMILIAR. thusiasm broke forth. Diedrich, his wife, and the young offi- cer cast themselves into each others' arms. The hymn of the nation was found. Alas ! it was destined to become a hymn of terror. The unhappy Diedrich a few months afterwards marched to the scaifold at the sound of the notes first uttered at his hearth, from' the heart of his friend and the voice of his wife. The new song, executed some days afterwards publicly at Strasbourg, flew from town to town through all the orchestras. Marseilles adopted it to be sung at the opening and adjourn- ment of the clubs. Hence it took the name of the Marseillaise Hymn. The old mother of De Lisle, a loyalist and a religious person, alarmed at the reverberation of her son's name, wrote to him, "What is the meaning of this revolutionary hymn, sung by hordes of robbers who pass all over France, with which our name is mixed up?" De Lisle himself, proscribed as a Federalist, heard its re-echo upon his ears as a threat of death as he fled among the paths of Jura. "What is this song called?" he inquired of his guide. "The J/arseiY/afse," re- plied the peasant. It was with difiiculty that he escaped. The " Marseillaise" was the liquid fire of the revolution. It distilled into the senses and the soul of the people the frenzy of battle. Its notes floated like an ensign, dipped in warm blood over a field of combat. Glory and crime, victory and death, seemed interwoven in its strains. It was the song of patriotism ; but it was the signal of fury. It accompanied war- riors to the field and victims to the scafi'old ! There is no national air that will compare with the Marseil- laise in sublimity and power : it embraces the soft cadences full of the peasant's home, and the stormy clangor of silver and steel when an empire is overthrown j it endears the memory of the vine-dresser's cottage, and makes the Frenchman, in his exile, cry, " La belle France !" forgetful of the sword, and torch, and guillotine, which have made his country a spectre of blood in the eyes of nations. Nor can the foreigner listen to it, sung by a company of exiles, or executed by a band of musicians, without feeling that it is the pibroch of battle and war. ORIGIN OF THINGS FAMILIAR. 353 YANKEE DOODLE. The good tho Rhino-song docs to German hearts, Or thine, Marseilles! to Franco's fiery blood; The good thy anthemed harmony imparts, " God save the Queen I" to England's field and flood, A home-born blessing, Nature's boon, not Art's, The same heart-cheering, spirit-warming good. To us and ours, where'er we war or woo, Thy words and music, Yankee Doodle I — do. — IIalleck. The origin of Yankee Doodle is by no means so clear aa American antiquaries desire. The statement that the air wa3 composed by Dr. Shackburg, in 1755, when the colonial troops united with the British regulars near Albany, preparatory to the attack on the French posts of Niagara and Frontonac, and that it was produced in derision of the old-fashioned equipments of the provincial soldiers as contrasted with the neat and or- derly appointments of the regulars, was published some years ago in a musical magazine printed in Boston. The account there given as to the origin of the song is this : — During the attacks upon the French outposts in 1755, in America, Governor Shirley and Grencral Jackson led the force directed against the enemy lying at Niagara and Frontenac. In the early part of June, whilst these troops were stationed on the banks of the Hudson, near Albany, the descendants of the " Pilgrim fathers" flocked in from the Eastern provinces. Never was seen such a motley regiment as took up its position on the left wing of the ]>ritish army. The band played music as antiquated and outre, as their uniforms; officers and privates had adopted regi- mentals each man after his own fashion ; one wore a flowing wig, while his neighbor rejoiced in hair cropped closely to the head ; this one had a coat with wonderful long skirts, his fel- low marched without his upper garment; various as the colors of the rainbow were the clothes worn by the gallant band. It 80 happened that there was a certain Dr. Shackburg, wit, musi- cian, and surgeon, and one evening after mess he produced a tune, which he earnestly commended, as a well-known piece of military music, to the officers of the militia. The joke suc- X 30* 354 ORIGIN OF THINGS FAMILIAR. i ceeded, and Yankee Doodle was bailed by acclamation "tbeir ; own march." Tbis account is somewbat apocryphal, as there is no song : the tune in the United States is a march; there are no words ', to it of a national character. The only words ever affixed to I the air in this country is the following doggerel quatrain : — ' Yankee Doodle came to town ] Upon a little pony; He stuck a feather in his hat { And called it macaroni. ; It has been asserted by English writers that the air and words , of these lines are as old as Cromwell's time. The only altera- | tion is in making Yankee Doodle of what was Ncnikee Doodle. ! It is asserted that the tune will be found in the Musical Anti- j quities of England, and that Nankee Doodle was intended to ! apply to Cromwell, and the other lines were designed to "allude j to his going into Oxford with a single plume, fastened in a knot called a macaroni." The tune was known in New England be- fore the Revolution as Lijdla Fisher's Jig, a name derived from a famous lady of easy virtue in the reign of Charles II., and which has been perpetuated in the following nursery- rhyme : — Lucy Locket lost her pocket, Kitty Fisher found it ; Not a bit of money in it, Only binding round it. The regulars in Boston in 1775 and 1776 are said to have sung verses to the same air : — Yankee Doodle came to town. For to buy a firelock; We will tar and feather him, And so we will John Hancock, Ac. The manner in which the tune came to be adopted by the Americans, is shown in the following letter of the Rev. W. Gor- don. Describing the battles of Lexington and Concord, before alluded to, he says : — The brigade under Lord Percy marched out (of Boston! ORIGIN OF TIIINOS FAMILIAR. 855 playingj by way of contempt, Tanhec Doodle : they were after- wards told that they had been made to dance to it. It is most likely that Yankee Doodle was originally derived from Holland. A song with the following burden has long been in use among the laborers who, in the time, of harvest, migrate from Germany to the Low Countries, where they re- ceive for their work as much buttermilk as they can drink, and a tenth of the grain secured by their exertions : — Yanker didel, doodel down, Didel, dudel lauter, Yanke viver, voover vown, Botermilk und Tanther. That is, buttermilk and a tenth. THE AMERICAN FLAG. A resolution was introduced in the American Congress, June 13, 1777, "That the flag of the thirteen United States be thirteen stripes, alternately red and white ; that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constel- lation." There is a striking coincidence between the design of our flag and the arms of General Washington, which con- sisted of three stars in the upper portion, and three bars run- ning across the escutcheon. It is thought by some that the flag was derived from this heraldic design. History informs us that several flags were used by the Yankees before the present national one was adopted. In March, 1775, a Union flag with a red field was hoisted in New York, bearing the inscription on one side of " George Rex and the liberties of America," and upon the reverse, "No Popery." General Israel Putnam raised on Prospect Hill, July 18, 1775, a flag bearing on one side the motto of the commonwealth of Massachusetts, ^'■Qui trans- tulit sustinet," on the other, "An appeal to Heaven," — an ap- peal well taken and amply sustained. In October, 1775, the floating batteries of Boston bore a flag with the latter motto, and a pine-tree upon a white field, with the Massachusett3 emblem. Some of the colonics used in 1775 a flag with a 356 ORIGIN OF TniNGS FAMILIAR. rattlesnake coiled as if about to strike, aud the motto " Don't tread on me." On January 18, 1776, the grand Union flag of the stars and stripes was raised on the heights near Boston; and it is said that some of the regulars made the great mistake of supposing it was a token of submission to the king, whose speech had just been sent to the Americans. The British Re- (/ister of 1776 says, " They [the rebels] burnt the king's speech, and changed their colors from a plain red ground to a flag with thirteen stripes, as a symbol of the number and union of the colonies." A letter from Boston, published in the Penn- sylvania Gazette, in 1776, says, "The Union flag was raised on the 2d, a compliment to the United Colonies." These vari- ous flags, the Piue-Tree, the Rattlesnake, and the Stripes, were used, according to the tastes of the patriots, until July, 1777, when the blue union of the stars was added to the stripes, and the flag established by law. At first a stripe was added for each new State ; but the flag became too large, and Congress reduced the stripes to the original thirteen, and now the stars are made to correspond in number with the States. No one, who lives under the protection of the Stars and Stripes, will deny that "the American flag is one of the most beautiful that floats upon any land or sea." Its proportions are per- fect when it is properly made, — one-half as broad as it is long. The first stripe at the top is red, the nest white, and these colors alternate, making the last stripe red. The blue field for the stars is the width and square of the first seven stripes, viz., four red and three white. The colors of the American flag are in beautiful relief, and it is altogether a splendid national em- blem. Long may it wave untarnished ! BROTHER JONATHAN. The origin of this term, as applied to the United States, is as follows. When General Washington, after being appointed commander of the army of the Revolutionary War, went to Massachusetts to organize it, he found a great want of ammu- nition and other means of defence ; and on one occasion it ORIGIN OF THINGS FAMILIAR. 357 seemed that no means could be devised for the necessary safety. Jonathan Trumbull, the elder, was then Governor of the State of Connecticut; and the general, placing the greatest reliance on his excellency's judgment, remarked, "We must consult Brother Jonathan on the subject." The general did so, and the governor was successful in supplying many of the wants of the army; and thenceforward, when difficulties arose, and the army was spread over the country, it became a by-phrase, "We must consult Brother Jonathan :" and the name has now become a designation for the whole country, as John Bull has for England. UNCLE SAM. Immediately after the declaration of war with England, in 1812, Elbert Anderson, of New York, then a contractor, visited Troy, where he purchased a large quantity of provisions. The in- spectors of the articles at that place were Ebenezer and Samuel Wilson. The latter gentleman (universally known as "Uncle Sam") generally superintended in person a large number of workmen, who, on this occasion, were employed in overhauling the provisions purchased by the contractor. The casks were marked "E. A. — U. S." Their inspection fell to the lot of a facetious fellow, who, on being asked the meaning of the mark, said he did not know, unless it meant Elbert Anderson and Uncle Sam, alluding to Uncle Sam Wilson. The joke took among the workmen, and passed currently; and "Uncle Sam,*' when present, was often rallied by them on the increasing ex- tent of his possessions. THE DOLLAR MARK, %. Writers are not agreed as to the derivation of this sign to represent dollars. Some say that it comes from the letters U. S., which, after the adoption of the Federal Constitution, were prefixed to the Federal currency, and which afterwards, in the hurry of writing, were run into one another, the U being made first and the S over it. Others say that it is derived from the contraction of the Spanish word pesos, dollars ; others, from tlie 358 ORIGIN OF THINGS FAMILIAR. Spanish fuerfes, hard, — to distinguish silver from paper money The more plausible explanation is, that it is a modification of the figure 8, and denotes a piece of eight reals, or, as the dol- lar was formerly called, a piece of eight. It was then desig- nated by the figures |. ORIGIN OP VARIOUS INVENTIONS AND CUSTOMS. ! The Saxons first introduced archery in the time of Vortigern It was dropped immediately after the conquest, but was revived by the Crusaders, they having felt the effects of it in their com- '• bats with the Saracens, who probably derived it from the Par- thians. The Normans brought with them the cross-bow, but after the time of Edward II. its use was supplanted by that of the long-bow, which became the favorite national weapon. Bows i and arrows, as weapons of war, were in use with stone cannon- ' balls as late as 1640. All the statutes for the encouragement ! of archery were framed after the invention of gunpowder and j firearms, the object being to prevent this ancient weapon be- j coming obsolete. Yew-trees were encouraged in churchyards, { for the making of bows, in 1642. Hence their generality in j churchyards in England. ] Coats of arms, or armorial bearings, came into vogue in the i reign of Richard I. of England, and became hereditary in ' families about the year 1192. They took their rise from the knights painting their banners with different figures to dis- tinguish them in the Crusades. • The first standing army of modern times was established by i Charles VII. of France, in 1445. Previous to that time the j king had depended upon his nobles for contingents in time of j war. A standing army was first established in England in • 1638, by Charles I., but it was declared illegal, as well as the j organization of the royal guards, in 1769. The first permanent j military band instituted in England was the yeomen of the j guards, established in 1486. Guns were invented by Swartz. a Grerman, about 1378, and brought into use by the Venetians, in 1382. Cannon wore in- . ORIGIN OF THINGS FAMILIAR 3oU vented at au anterior date : at Aniberg may still be seen a piece of ordnance inscribed 1303. They were first used at the battle of Cressy in 1346. In England, they were first used at the siege of Berwick, in 1405. It was not until 1544, however, that they were cast in England. They were employed on ship- board by the Venetians in 1539, and were in use among the Turks about the same time. An artillery company was insti- tuted in England for weekly military exercises in 1610. Dating from the Christian Era was commenced in Italy in 525, and in England in 816. Pliny gives the origin of glass-making thus. As some mer- chants were carrying nitre, they stopped near a river issuing from Mount Carmel. Not readily finding stones to rest their kettles on, they used some pieces of nitre for that purpose : the fire gradually dissolving the nitre, it mixed with the sand, and a transparent matter flowed, which, in fact, was glass. Insurance of ships was first practised in the reign of Ca3sar, in 45. It was a general custom in Europe in 1494. Insurance- oflBces were first established in London in 1G67. Astronomy was first studied by the Moors, and was intro- duced by them into Europe in 1201. The rapid progress of modern astronomy dates from the time of Copernicus. Books of astronomy and geometry were destroyed, as infected with magic, in England, under the reign of Edward VI., in 1552. Banks were first established by the Lombard Jews, in Italy. The name is derived from banco, a term applied to the benches erected in the market-places for the exchanges of money, &c. The first public bank was at Venice, in 1550. The Bank of England was established in 1693. In 1696 its notes were at twenty per cent, discount. The invention of bells is attributed to Paulinus, Bishop of Nola, in Campania, about the year 400. They were originally in- troduced into churches as a defence against thunder and light- ning. They were first hung up in England, at Croylund Abbey, Lincolnshire, in 945. In tlie eleventh century and later, it was the custom to baptize them in churches before they were 360 ORIGIN OF TUINGS FAMILIAR. used. The curfew-bell was established in 1068. It was rung at eight o'clock in the evening, when people were obliged to put out their fire and candle. The custom was abolished in 1100. Chimes, or musical bells, were invented at Alost, in Belgium, 1487. Bellmen were appointed in London, in 1556, to ring the bells at night, and cry, "Take care of your fire and candle, be charitable to the poor, and pray for the dead." How many are aware of the origin of the word " boo !" used to frighten children ? It is a corruption of Boh, the name of a fierce Gothic general, the son of Odin, the mention of whose name spread a panic among his enemies. Book-keeping was first introduced into England from Italy by Peele, in 1569. It was derived from a system of algebra published by Burgo, at Venice. Notaries public were first appointed by the Fathers of the Christian Church to make a collection of the acts or memoirs of martyrs in the first century. The administration of the oath in civil cases is of high anti- quity. See Exodus xxii. 11. Swearing on the Gospels was first used in 528. The oath was first administered in judicial proceedings in England by the Saxons, in 600. The words " So help me God, and all saints," concluded an oath, till 1550. Signals to be used at sea were first contrived by James II., when he was Duke of York, in 1665. They were afterwards improved by the French commander Tourville, and by Admiral Balchen. Haw silk is said to have first been made by a people of China called Ceres, 150 B. c. It was first brought from India, in 274, and a pound of it at that time was worth a pound of gold. The manufacture of raw silk was introduced into Europe from India by some monks in 550. Silk dresses were first worn in 1455. The eggs of the silk-worm were first brought into Europe in 527. Paulus Jovius was the first person who introduced mottoes ; Dorat, the first who brought anagrams into fushiuu. Rabelais OUIGIN OF TlllNCiS FAMILIAR. 3G1 was the first who wrote satires in French prose; Eticunc JoJellc, the first who introduced tragedies into France. The Cardinal of Ferrara, Archbishop of Lyons, was tlie first who had a tragi- comedy performed on the stage of Italian comedians. The first sonnet that appeared in French is attributed to JodcUo. Guido xVretino, a Benedictine monk of Arezzo, Tuscany, in 1204 designated the notes used in the musical scale by syllables derived from the following verses of a Latin hymn dedicated to St. John :— UT queant laxis REsonare fibris, MIra gestorum FAinuli tuoruin, SOLve pollutis LAbii reatum. Pater Abne. 13y this means he converted the old tetrachord into hesachords. He also invented lines and spaces in musical notation. The invention of clocks is by some ascribed to Pacificus, Archdeacon of Verona, in the ninth century ; and by others, to lioethius, in the early part of the sixth. The Saracens are sup- posed to have had clocks which were moved by weights, aa early as the eleventh century ; and, as the term is applied by Dante to a machine which struck the hours, clocks must have been known in Italy about the end of the thirteenth or begin- ning of the fourteenth century. The most ancient clock of which we have any certain account was erected in a tower of the palace of Charles V., King of France, in 1364, by Henry de Wyck or de Vick, a German artist. A clock was erected at Strasbourg in 1370, at Courtray about the same period, and at Speyer in 1395. Watches are said to have been made at Nuremberg as early as 1477 ; but it is uncertain how far the watches then con- structed resembled those now in use. Some of the early oncu were very small, in the shape of a pear, and sometimes fitted into the top of a walking-stick. As time-keepers, watches could have had very little value before the application of the epiral spring as a regulator to the balance. This was inventctl by lluukc, in IGOS. 362 OIIIGIN OF THINGS FAiMILIAK. The use of the pendulum was suggested by a circumstancft similar to that which started iu Newton's mind the train of thought that led to the theory of gravitation. Galileo, whea under twenty years of age, standing one day in the metro- politan church of Pisa, observed a lamp, which was sus- pended from the ceiling, and which had been disturbed by accident, swing backwards and forwards. This was a thing so common that thousands, no doubt, had observed it before ; but Galileo, struck with the regularity with which it moved backwards and forwards, reflected upon it, and perfected the method now in use of measuring time by means of a pendulum. A monk named Ilivalto mentions, in a surmon preached in Florence in 1305, that spectacles had then been known about twenty years. This would place the invention about the year 1285. Qaills are supposed to have been used for writing-pens in the fifth century, though the conjecture rests mainly on an anecdote of Theodoric, King of the Ostrogoths, who, being so illiterate that he could not write even the initials of his own name, was provided with a plate of gold through which the letters were cut, and, this being placed on the paper when his signature was required, he traced the letters with a quill. The date of the earliest certain account of the modern writing-pen is 63(3. The next notice occurs in the latter part of the same century, in a Latin sonnet to a pen by Aldhelm, a Saxon author. The reeds formerly employed are still used in some Eastern nations. Steel pens were first made by Wise, in England, in 1803. The first known treatise on stenography is the curious and scarce little work entitled " Arte of Shorte, Swifte, and Secrete Writing by Character, invented by Timothe Bright, Doctor of Phisike." The art of printing, according to Du Ilalde and the mission- aries, was practised in China nearly fifty years before the Chris- tian Era. In the time of Confucius, B.C. 500, books were formed of slips of bamboo; and about 150 years after Christ, paper was first made; A.D. 745, books were bound into leaves,- ORIGIN OF THINGS FAMILIAR. 303 A.D. 900, printinp; was in general use. The process of printing is simple. The materials consist of a graver, blocks of wood, and a brush, which the printers carry with them from place to place. Without wheel, or wedge, or screw, a printer will throw off more than two thousand five hundred impressions in one day. The paper (thin) can be bought for one-fourth the price in China that it can in any other country. The works of Confucius, six volumes, four hundred leaves, octavo, can be bought for twelve cents. Stamps for marking wares, packages, &c. were in use among the Roman tradesmen ; and it is highly probable that had the modern art of making paper been known to the ancients, they would have diffused among themselves, and transmitted to pos- terity, printed books. From the early commercial intercourse of the Venetians with China, there is reason to believe that the knowledge of the art and of its application to the multiplying of books was derived from thence ; for Venice is the first place in Europe, of which we have any account, in which it was practised, a Government decree respecting it having been issued October 11, 14-11. Pro- vious to the year 1450, all printing had been executed by means of engraved blocks of wood ; but about this period, the great and accumulating expense of engraving blocks for each separate work led to the substitution of movable metal types. The credit of this great improvement is given to Peter Schoeffer, the assistant and son-in-law of John Faust, of Mentz, (commonly called Dr. Faustus.) The first book printed with the cast metal types was the " Mentz Bible," which was executed by Faust and Guttemberg, between the years 1450 and 1455. The Dutch claim to have originated stereotyping. They have, as they say, a prayer-book stereotyped in 1701. The first attempt at stureotyping in America was made in 1775, by Benja- min Mecom, a printer of Philadelphia. He cast plates for a num- ber of pages of the New Testament, but never completed them. The first printing-press in America was established at Cam bridge, Ma.-.s., in 1(J30. 364: ORIGIN OF THINGS FAMILIAR. COCK-FIGHTING. Themistocles, marcliiug against the Persians, belield two game- cocks in the heat of battle, and thereupon pointed out to his Athenian soldiery their indomitable courage. The Athenians were victorious; and Themistocles gave order that an annual cock-fight should be held in commemoration of the encounter they had witnessed. No record of this sport occurs in England before the year 1191. TURNCOAT. The opprobious epithet, turncoat, took its rise from one of the first dukes of Savoy, whose dominions lying open to the incursions of the two contending houses of Spain and France, i he was obliged to temporize and fall in with that power that ' was most likely to distress him, according to the success of their arms against one another. So being frequently obliged to ; change sides, he humorously got a coat made that was hlue on one ! side, and lohite on the other, and might be indiiferently worn | either side out. While in the Spanish interest, he wore the j hlue side out, and the ichite side was the badge for the French. j Hence he was called Emmanuel, surnamed the Turncoat^ by ! way of distinguishing him from other princes of the same ' name of that house. INDIA-RUBBER. j Caoutchouc was long known before its most valuable qualities ' were appreciated. One of the earliest notices of its practical use occurs in Dr. Pricstly's Theory and Practice of Pcrsjjcctive, ; printed in 1770. "I have seen" says he, "a substance excel- I lently adapted to the purpose of wiping from paper the marks L of a black lead-pencil. It must, therefore, be of singular use to those who practice drawing. It is sold by Mr. Nairne, mathematical instrument-maker, opposite the Royal Exchange, lie sells a cubical piece, of about half an inch, for three shillings; and, he says, it wUl last several yeais." ' ORIGIN OF THINGS FAMILIAR. 365 FRICTION MATCUES. In 1S3G the subject of friction matches attracted the arttcn- tion of Mr. L. C. Allin, of Springfield, Massachusetts. At that time a clumsy phosphoric match, imported from France, had come into limited use in the United States. It was made by dipping the match-stick first into sulphur, and then into a paste composed of chloride of potash, red lead, and loaf sugar. Each box of matches was accompanied by a bottle of sulphur- ic acid, into which every match had to be dipped in order to light it. To abolish this inconvenience, and make a match which would light from the friction caused by any rough sur- face, was the task to which young Allin applied himself. He succeeded, but took out no patent. On being urged to do so, he found that a patent had already been obtained by one Phil- lips of Chicopee, a peddler, who had probably picked up through a third party the result of JMr. Allin's study. Mr. Allin's legal adviser thought that he (Allin) would do better to have the right to manufacture under Phillips' patent (which Phillips gave him without charge, in consideration of the waiving of his claim,) than to bear the expense of the litigation which was feared to be necessary to establish his claim. So the inventor of friction matches became simply a manufacturer under another man's patent. THE FLAG OP ENGLAND. On the 12th of April, 1606, the Union Jack— that flimous ensign — first made its appearance. From Rymer's Foedera^ and the Scottish Annals of Sir James Balfour, we learn that some differences having arisen between ships of the two countries at sea, the king ordained that a new flag be adopted with the crosses of St. Andrew and St. George interlaced, by placing the latter fimbriated on the blue flag of Scotland as the ground thereof This flag all ships were to carry at their main top ; but English ships were to display St. George's red cross at their stern, and the Scottish the white saltu'c of St. Andrew. 31* 366 ORIGIN OF THINGS FAMILIAR. BLUE-STOCKING. It was the fashion in London, in 1781, for ladies to have evening assemblies, where they might participate in conversa- tion with literary men. These societies acquired the name of Blue- Stocking Clubs, — an appellation which has been applied to pedantic females ever since. It arose from the custom of ]Mr. Stillingfleet, one of the most eminent members, wearing blue stockings. Such was the excellence of his conversation, and his absence was so great a loss, that it used to be said, " We can do nothing without the Blue Stockings;" and thus the title was gradually established. In Hannah More's poem, Bas bleu, many of the most conspicuous members are mentioned. SKEDADDLE. This word may be easily traced to a Greek origin. The verb ffxs3avvu;it, of which the root is axada, is used freely by Thucy- dides, Herodotus, and other Greek writers, in describing the dispersion of a routed army. From the root ff/.stJa the word skedaddle is formed by simply adding the euphonious termina- tion die and doubling the d, as required by the analogy of our language in such words. In many words of undoubted Greek extraction much greater changes are made. The Swedes have a similar word, skuddadahl, and the Danes another, shi/ededehl, both of which have the same signification. An old version of the Irish New Testament contains the passage, " For it is wi-itten, I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be sgcdad ol." This compound Irish word sgedad ol (all scattered or utterly routed) was probably used by some Irishman at Bull Run, and, being regarded as felicitous, was at once adopted. FOOLSCAP PAPER. The term of " foolscap," to designate a certain size of paper, no doubt has puzzled many an anxious inquirer. It appears that Charles I., of England, granted numerous monopolies for the support of the Government, among others the manu- facture of paper. The water-mark of the finest sort was the ORIGIN OF THINGS FAMILIAR. 3G7 royal anus of England. The consumption of tins article was great, and large fortunes were made by those who purchased the exclusive right to vend it. This, among other monopolies, was set aside by the Parliament that brought Charles I. to the scaffold ; and, by way of showing contempt for the King, they ordered the royal arms to be taken from the paper, and a fool with his cap and bells to be substituted. It is now over two hundred years since the fool's cap was taken from the paper, but still the paper of the size which the Rump Parliament ordered for their journals bears the name of the water-mark placed there as an indignity to King Charles. THE FIRST FORGED BANK-NOTE. Sixty-four years after the establishment of the Bank of England, the first forged note was presented for payment, and to Richard William Vaughn, a Stafford linen-draper, belongs the melancholy celebrity of having led the van in this new phase of crime, in the year 1758. The records of his life do not show want, beggary or starvation urging him, but a simple desire to seem greater than he was. By one of the artists employed (and there were several engaged on different parts of the notes) the discovery was made. The criminal had filled up to the number of twenty and deposited them in the hands of a young lady to whom he was attached, as a proof of his wealth. There is no calculating how much longer bank-notes might have been free from imitation had this man not shown with what ease they could be counterfeited. From this period forged notes became common. His execution did not deter others from the offence, and many a neck was forfeited to the halter before the late abolition of capital punishment for that crime. THE FIRST PIANO-FORTE. A play-bill of the Covent Garden Theatre, dated May IG, 1767, after setting forth the performance of The Beggar s Oprra, contains the following notification: — "End of Act First, Miss Bricklcr will sing a favorite song from Judith, accompanied by Mr. Dibdiu on a new instrument called Piano- SG8 ORIGIN OF THINGS FAMILIAR. Forte." The first manufacturer is believed to be a German named Backers, as there is still in existence the name-board of a piano inscribed "Americus Backer.s, Factor ct Inventor, Jermyn Street, London, 1776." THE FIRST DOCTORS. The title of Doctor was invented in the twelfth century, at the first establishment of the universities. The first person upon whom it was conferred was Irnerius, a learned Professor of Law, at the University of Bologna. He induced the Emperor Lothaire II., whose Chancellor he was, to create the title; and he himself was the first recipient of it. He was made Doctor of Laws by that university. Subsequently the title was borrowed by the faculty of Theology, and first con- ferred by the University of Paris on Peter Lombard, the celebrated scholastic theologian. "William Gordenio was the first person upon whom the title of Doctor of Medicine was bestowed. He received it from the college at Asti, in 1329. THE FIRST thanksgiving PROCLAMATION. The first proclamation of Thanksgiving Day that is to be found in a printed form is the one issued by his Excellency Francis Bernard, Captain-General and Governor-in-Chief in and over His Majesty's province of the Massachusetts Bay, in New England, and Vice-Admiral of the same, in 1767. It is as follows : — A Proclamation for a Public Thanksgiving. As the Business of the Year is now drawing towards a Con- clusion, we are reminded, according to the laudable Usage of this Province, to join together in a grateful Acknowledgement of the manifold Mercies of the Divine Providence conferred upon Us in the passing Year : Wherefore, I have thought fit to appoint, and I do with the advice of His Majesty's Council appoint, Thursday, the Third Day of December next, to be a day of public Thanksgiving, that we may thereupon with one Beart and Voice return our most humble Thanks to Almighty ORIGIN OF THINGS fa:\iiliar. 369 God for the gracious Dispensations of His Providence since the hist religious Anniversary of this kind : and especially for — that he has been pleased to preserve and maintain our most gracious Sovereign King George in Health and Wealth, in Peace and Honour ; and to extend the Blessings of his Govern- ment to the remotest Part of his Dominions ; — that He hath been pleased to bless and preserve our gracious Queen Char- lotte, their Royal Highnesses the Prince of Wales, the Princess Dowager of Wales, and all the Royal family, and by the frequent En crease of the Royal Issue to assure to us the Continuation of the Blessings which we derive from that illus- trious House ; — that He hath been pleased to prosper the whole British Empire by the Preservation of Peace, the Encrease of Trade, and the opening of new Sources of National Wealth ; — and now particularly that he hath been pleased to favor the people of this province with healthy and kindly Seasons, and to bless the Labour of their Hands with a Suihciency of the Produce of the Earth and of the Sea. And I do exhort all Ministers of the Gospel, with their several Congregations, within this Province, that they assemble on the said Day in a Solemn manner to return their most humble thanks to Almighty GoD for these and all other His Mercies vouchsafed unto us, and to beseech Him, notwith- standing our Unworthiness, to continue his gracious Provi- dence over us. And I command and enjoin all 3Iagistrate3 and Civil Officers to see that the said Day be observed as a Day set apart for religious worship, and that no servile Labour be permitted thereon. Given at the Council Chamber in Boston, the Fourth Day of November, 1767, in the Eighth Year of the Reign of our Sovereign Lord George the Third, by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, France and Ireland. King, Defender of the Faith, &c. Fra Bernard. By his Excellency's Command, A. Oliver, Sec'ry God save the King. o/U ORIGIN OF THINGS FAMILIAR. THE FIRST PRAYER IN CONGRESS. In Thatclier's Military Journal^ under date of December, 1777, is a note containing the first prayer in Congress, made by the Rev. Jacob Duche, rector of Christ Church, a gentle- man of learning and eloquence, who subsequently proved traitorous to the cause of Independence : — Lord our heavenly Father, high and mighty King of kings and Lord of lords, who dost from thy throne behold all the dwellers on earth, and reignest with power supreme and uncontrolled over all the kingdoms, empires, and governments; look down in mercy, we beseech thee, on these American states, who have fled to thee from the rod of the oppressor, and thrown themselves on thy gracious protection, desiring to be henceforth dependent only on thee ; to thee they have appealed for the righteousness of their cause ; to thee do they now look up for that countenance and support which thou alone canst give; take them, therefore, heavenly Father, under thy nurturing care ; give them wisdom in council, and valor in the field; defeat the malicious designs of our cruel adversaries ; convince thevi of the unrighteousness of their cause ; and if they still persist in their sanguinary purposes, let the voice of thine own unerring justice, sounding in their hearts, constrain them to drop the weapons of war from their unnerved hands in the day of battle. Be thou present, Grod of Wisdom, and direct the counsels of this honorable assembly ; enable them to settle things on the best and surest foundation, that the scene of blood may be speedily closed, that order, harmony, and peace may be efiectually restored, and truth and justice, religion and piety, prevail and flourish amongst thy people. Preserve the health of their bodies and the vigor of their minds ; shower down on them and the mil- lions they here represent, such temporal blessings as thou seest expedient for them in this world, and crown them with everlasting glory in the world to come. All this we ask in the name and through the merits of Jesus Christ, thy Son, our Saviour. Amen ! ORIGIN OF THINGS FAMILIAR. 371 THE FIRST RErORTERS. In Sylvester O'llalioran's Ilistorij and Antiqjnties of Ireland, published in Dublin in 1772, is the curious entry subjoined. Bille, a Milesian king of a portion of Spain, had a son named Gollamh, who " solicited his father's permission to assist their Phoenician ancestors, then greatly distressed by continual wars," and having g"ined his consent, the passage describing the result proceeds thus : — "With a well-appointed fleet of thirty ships and a select num- ber of intrepid warriors, he weighed anchor from the harbor of Corunna for Syria. It appears that war was not the sole busi- ness of this equipment ; for in this fleet were embarked twelve youths of uncommon learning and abilities, who were directed to make remarks on whatever they found new, either in as- tronomy, navigation, arts, sciences, or manufactures. They were to communicate their remarks and discoveries to each other, and keep an exact account of whatever was worthy of notice. This took place in the year of the world, 2G50. These twelve youths were reporters, and if this story be true, the profession constituting " the fourth estate" may boast of an ancient lineage. THE FIRST EPIGRAM. Among " first things," the following is worth preserving, as it is believed to be the first epigram extant in the English lan- guage. It was written by Sir Thomas Wyat, who in some of his sonnets did not hesitate to intimate his secret passion for Anne Boleyn. Of aneio married student that plaid fast or lose. A studient at his bok so plast, That wealth he might have wonne, From bok to wife did llcto in hast. From welth to wo to runnc. Now who hath plaid a feater cast, Since jugling first bcgonne? In knittinrj of himself so /as*. Himself he hath undone. 372 ORIGIN OF THINGS FAMILIAR. NEWS. The word news is commonly supposed to be derived from the adjective new. It is asserted, however, that its origin is trace- able to a custom in former times of placing on the newspapers of the day the initial letters of the cardinal points of the com- pass, thus : — 3sr -^77-- S These letters were intended to indicate that the paper contained intelligence from the four quarters of the globe, but they finally came to assume the form of the word news, from which the term newspaper is derived. THE EARLIEST NEWSPAPERS. The Englishe Mercuric, now in MS. in the British Museum, has been proved to be a forgery. The oldest regular newspaper published in England was established by Nathaniel Butter, in 1662. The oldest paper in France was commenced by Theophrastua Renaudot, in 1632, during the reign of Louis XIII. It was called the Gazette de France. The first Dutch newspaper, which is still continued under the name of the Haarlem Courant, is dated January 8, 1656. It was then called De WeeckelycJce Courante van Europa, and contained two small folio pages of news. The first Russian newspaper was published in 1703. Peter the Great not only took part personally in its editorial compo- sition, but in correcting proofs, as appears from sheets still in existence in which are marks and alterations in his own hand. There are two complete copies of the first year's edition of this paper in the Imperial Library at St. Petersburg. The first newspaper established in North America was the Boston News-Letter, commenced April 24, 1704. It was half ORIGIN 0? THINGS fa:\iiltar. 373 a shoct of paper, twelve inches by eight, two columns on a page. B. Green was the printer. It survived till 1776, — seventy-two years. It advocated the policy of the British Government at the commencement of the Bevolution. From a copy of this paper printed in 17G9 is obtained the following announcement : — " The bell-cart will go through Boston, before the end of next month, to collect rags for the paper-mill at Milton, when all people that will encourage the paper-manufactory may dispose of their rags : Rags ara as beauties, which concealed lie, But when in paper, how it charms the eye ! Pray save your rags, new beauties it discover; For paper truly, every one's a lover : By the pen and press such knowledge is displayed As wouldn't exist if paper was not made. AVisdom of things m3'sterious, divine, Illustriously doth on paper shine." TUB FIRST PRINTING BY STEAM. The first printing by steam was executed in the year 1817, by Bensley & Son, London. The first book thus printed waa Dr. Elliotson's second edition of Blumenbach's Physiology. THE FIRST TELEGRAPHIC MESSAGE. Professor Morse, having returned to his native land from Europe, proceeded immediately to Washington, where he re- newed his endeavors to procure the passage of the bill grant- ing the appropriation of thirty thousand dollars. Towards the close of the session of 1844, the House of Representatives took it up and passed it by a large majority, and it only remained for the action of the Senate. Its progress through this house, as might be supposed, was watched with the most intense anxi- ety by Professor Morse. There were only two days before the close of the session, and it was found, on examination of the calendar, that no less than one hundred and forty-three bills had precedence to it. Professor Morse had nearly reached the bottom of his purse ; his hard-earned savings were almost spent; 37-1 ORIGIN OF THINGS FAMILIAR. and, although he had struggled on with undying hope for many years, it is hardly to be wondered at that he felt disheartened now. On the last night of the session he remained till nine o'clock, and then left without the slightest hope that the bill would be passed. He returned to his hotel, counted his money, and found that after paying his expenses to New York he would have seventy-five cents left. That night he went to bed sad, but not without hope for the future ; for, through all his difficulties and trials, that never forsook him. The next morn- ing, as he was going to breakfast, one of the waiters informed him that a young lady was in the parlor waiting to see him. He went in immediately, and found that the young lady was Miss Ellsworth, daughter of the Commissioner of Patents, who had been his most steadfast friend while in Washington. "I come," said she, '• to congratulate you." " For what ?" said Professor Morse. "On the passage of your bill," she replied. " Oh, no : you must be mistaken," said he. " I remained in the Senate till a late hour last night, and there was no prospect of its being reached." <'Am I the first, then," she exclaimed, joyfully, " to tell you?" " Yes, if it is really so." "Well," she continued, "father remained till the adjourn- ment, and heard it passed; and I asked him if I might not run over and tell you." " Annie," said the Professor, his emotion almost choking his utterance, " the first message that is sent from Washington to Baltimore shall be sent from you." "Well," she replied, "I will keep you to your word." While the line was in process of completion, Prof. Morse was in New York, and upon receiving intelligence that it was in work- ing order, he wrote to those in charge, telling them not to transmit any messages over it till his arrival. He then set out immediately for Washington, and on reaching that city s^nt a rote to Miss Ellsworth, informing her that he was now ready NOTHING NEW UXDKR THE SUN. 375 to fulfill his promise, and asking her what message he should sonil. To this he received the following reply : — What hath God wrought! Words that ought to be written in characters of living light. The message was twice repeated, and each time with the great- est success. As soon as the result of the experiment was made known, Governor Seymour, of Connecticut, afterwards United States minister at St. Petersburg, called upon Professor 3Iorse and claimed the first message for his State, on the ground that Miss Ellsworth was a native of Hartford. We need scarcely add that his claim was admitted; and now, engraved in letters of gold, it is displayed conspicuously in the archives of the Historical Society of Connecticut. TSTotijiug; Neb) Slnticr tlje Sun. FORESHADOWINGS OF THE MAGNETIC TELEGRAPH. utinam haec ratio scribendi prodcat usu, Cautior et citior propcraret epistola, nuUas Latronum verita insidias fluviosvo niorantcs : Ipse suis Princeps manibus sibi confiocret rem! No8 sobolcs scribariini, emersi ex xqnore nitjro, CoiMecraremim calamxim Maguetis ad araa ! The Prolusiones Academkae of Famianus Sfrada, first printed in 1617, consist of a series of essays upon Oratory, Philosophy, and Poetry, with some admirable imitations of sundry Roman authors, in the style of Father Frortt's RcUques. In the imitation of Lucretius, ii. 6, is a descrip- tion of the loadstone and its power of communicating intelli- gence, remarkable as foreshadowing the modern method of telegraphic communication. The following is a literal traosla- tion of the curious passage : — 376 NOTHTNO NEW UNDER THE SUN. The Loadstone is a wonderful sort of mineral. Any articles made of iron, like needles, if touched by it, derive by contact not only peculiar power, but a certain property of motion by which they turn ever towards the Constellation of the Bear, near the North Pole. By some peculiar correspondency of im- pulse, any number of needles, which may have touched the loadstone, preserve at all times a precisely corresponding posi- tion and motion. Thus it happens that if one needle be moved at Rome, any other, however far apart, is bound by some secret natural condition to follow the same motion. If you desire, therefore, to communicate intelligence to a distant friend, who cannot be reached by letter, take a plain, round, flat disc, and upon its outer rim mark down the letters of the alphabet, A, B, C, &c., and, traversing upon the middle of your disc, have a needle (which has touched loadstone) so arranged that it may be made to touch upon any particular let- ter ad libitum. Make a similar disc, the exact duplicate of this first one, with corresponding letters on its margin, and with a revolving magnetized needle. Let the friend you pro- pose corresponding with take, at his departure, one disc along with him, and let him agree with you beforehand on what particular days and at what particular hours he will take obser- vation of the needle, to see if it be vibrating and to learn what it marks on the index. With this arrangement understood be- tween you both, if you wish to hold a private conversation with this friend, whom the shores of some distant land have separated from you, turn your finger to the disc and touch the easy-moving needle. Before you lie, marked upon the outer edge, all the various letters : direct the needle to such letters as are necessary to form the words you want, touching a little letter here and there with the needle's point, as it goes travers- ing round and round the board, until you throw together, one by one, your various ideas. Lo ! the wonderful fidelity of cor- respondence ! Your distant friend notes the revolving needle vibrate without apparent impulse and fly hither and thither round the rim. He notes its movements, and reading, as he NOTIIINO NEW UNDER THE SUN. 377 follows its motion, the various letters which make up the words, he perceives all that is necf^sary, and learns your meaning from the interpreting needle. When he sees the needle pause, he, in turn, in like manner touches the various letters, and sends back his answer to his friend. Oh that this style of writing were brought into use, that a friendly message might travel quicker and safer, defying snares of robbers or delaying rivers! Would that the prince himself would finish the great work with his own hands ! Then we race of scribblers, emer- ging from our sea of iuk, would lay the quill an offering on the altars of the loadstone. This idea of Strada is based upon the erroneous impression entertained generally at the time when he wrote, that magnetic power, when imparted by the loadstone to metallic articles like needles, communicated to them a kind of homogeneous impulse, which of necessity caused between them a sympathetic corro- spoudence of motion. The curious reader will be further interested to learn from the following passage, extracted from the " Tour" of Arthur Young, the distinguished agriculturist, who travelled through Ireland in 1775-78, that the theory of electrical correspondence by means of a wire was jyracticaUi/ illustrated before Mr. Morse was born : — In electricity, Mons. Losmond has made a remarkable dis- covery. You write two or three words on a paper; he takes it with him into a room, and turns a machine enclosed in a cylin- drical case, at the top of which is an electrometer, in the shape of a small fine pith ball. A wire connects with a similar cylinder and electrometer in a distant apartment, and his wife, by remark- ing the corresponding motions of the ball, writes down the words they indicate, from which it appears that he has formed an alphabet of motions. As the length of wire makes no difference in the effect, a correspondence might he carried on at any dis- tance, within and without a besieged town, for instance, or for a purpose much more worthy and a thousand times more 32* 378 NOTHING NEW UNDER THE SUN. harmless, between two lovers, prohibited or prevented from any better epistolary intercourse. A second edition of Mr. Young's Tour was published in quarto in 1794, and the above extract may be found on page 79, volume i. THE FIRST DISCOVERIES OF STEAM-POWER. The following extracts from an address by Edward Everett, at an agricultural fair, embody facts the more interesting from their limited notoriety : — I never contemplate the history of navigation of the ocean by steam, but it seems to illustrate to me in the most striking manner the slow steps by which a great movement advances for generations, for ages, from the first germ, — then, when the hour is come, the rapidity with which it rushes to a final consummation. Providence offered this great problem of navi- gating the ocean by steam to every civilized nation almost on the globe. As long ago as the year 1543, there was a captain in Spain, who constructed a vessel of two hundred tons, and propelled it, at Barcelona, in the presence of the Emperor Charles V. and his court, by an engine, the construction of which he kept a secret. But old documents tell us it was a monster caldron boiler of water, and that there were two mo- vable wheels on the outside of the vessel. The Emperor was satisfied with its operation, but the treasurer of the kingdom in- terposed objections to its introduction. The engine itself seems to have sprung to a point of perfection hardly surpassed at the present day, but no encouragement was given to the enter- prise. Spain was not ripe for it ; the age was not ripe for it ; and the poor inventor, whose name was Blasco de Guerere, wearied and disgusted at the want of patronage, took the en- gine out of the vessel and allowed the ship to rot in the arsenal, and the secret of his machine was buried in his grave. This was in 1543. A century passed away, and Providence ofi"ered the same problem to be solved by France. In reference to this, we have an extraordinary account, and from a source NOTIITNG NEW UNDER THE SUN. 379 equally extraordinary, — from the writings of a celebrated female, in the middle of that century, equally renowned for her beauty, for her immoralities, and for her longevity, — for she lived to be one hundred and thirty- four years of age, — the famous Marian do rOrme. There is a letter from this lady, written to one of her admirers in 1641, containing an account of a visit she made to a mad-house in Paris in company with the IMarquis of Worcester. She goes on to relate, that in company with the marquis, while crossing the courtyard of that dismal establishment, almost petri- fied with terror, and clinging to her companion, she saw a frightful face through the bars of the building, and heard this voice : — " I am not mad — I am not mad : I have made a disco- very which will enrich the kingdom that shall adopt it." She asked the guide what it meant : he shrugged his shoulders and said, laughingly, "Not much; something about the powers of steam." Upon this, the lady laughed also, to thiuk that a man should go mad on such a frivolous subject. The guide went on to say that the man's name was Solomon deCoste; that he came from Normandy four years before, and exhibited to the king an invention by which, by the power of steam, you could move a carriage, navigate the ocean : " in short, if 5'ou believed him," said the guide, " there was nothing you could not do by the power of steam." Cardinal llichelieu, who at that time was France itself, and who wielded the whole power of government, — and, in truth, an enlightened man, as worldly wisdom goes, — was appealed to by Solomon do Coste. De Coste was a persevering man, and he followed Cardinal Richelieu from place to place, exhibiting his invention, until the cardinal, getting tired of his importunities, sent him to tho mad-house. The guide stated further that he had written a book entitled Motive Power, and handed the visitors a copy of it. The Marquis of Worcester, who was an inventor, was much interested in the book, and incorporated a considerable portion of it in his well-known work called Tlie Centurij of Invenlion It will be seen from this anecdote how France proved in IGll, as Spain had proved in 154o, that she was unable to take 380 NOTHTNa NEW UNDER THE SUN j up and wield this mortal thunderbolt. And so the problem of navigating the ocean by steam was reserved for the Anglo-Saxon race. Soon after this period, the best mechanical skill of Eng- land was directed towards this invention. Experiments were often made, with no success, and sometimes with only partial success, until the middle of the last century, when the seeds implanted in the minds of ingenious men for two hundred years germinated, and the steam-engine — that scarcely inani- mate Titan, that living, burning mechanism — was brought ; nearly to a state of perfection by James Watt, who took out a 1 patent in 1769, — the great year in which Wellington and Na- j poleon were born ; and ages after the names of Austerlitz and ] Waterloo shall perish from the memory of man, the myriad i hosts of intelligent labor, marshalled by the iiery champions that James Watt has placed in the field, shall gain their blood- '. less triumph, not for the destruction but for the service of man- | kind. All hail, then, to the mute, indefatigable giant, in the ; depths of the darksome mines, along the pathway of travel and i trade, and on the mountain wave, that is destined to drag, urge, i heave, haul, for the service of man ! No fatigue shall palsy its j herculean arm, no trampled hosts shall writhe beneath its iron ' feet, no widow's heart shall bleed at its beneficent victories. j England invented the steam-engine; but it seems as if by the I will of Providence she could not go farther. Queen of the eeas, as she deemed herself, she could not apply the invention she had brought almost to perfection, and that part of the great problem, the navigation of the ocean by steam, was reserved for the other branch of the Anglo-Saxon race, — the branch situated in a region in this Western hemisphere whose territory is tra- versed by some of the noblest rivers that belt the surface of the globe, and separated by the world-wide ocean from the Eastern | hemisphere. It is amazing to consider how, with the dawn of the Revolution, the thoughts of men turned to the application of steam-navigation. Rumsey, Fitch, and Evans made experi- ments, and those experiments attracted the notice of one whom nothing escaped pertaining to the welfare of his country : I NOTHING NEW UNDER THE SUN. 381 nioun Washington. And we have a certificate from liini, ex- pressing the satisfaction with which he had witne.sscd the ex- periment of Kumsey. The attempt proved rather unsuccessful. I think it a providential appointment that the ocean was not navigated by steam in the llevolutionary age. The enormous preponderance of British capital and skill, if the ocean had been navigated by steam, would have put in her possession ftici- lities for blockading our ports and transporting armies to our coasts, which might have had a disastrous effect on the result of the whole contest. But the Revolution passed and inde- pendence was established : the hour had come, and the man was there. In the year 1799 this system of steam-navigation became matured in the mind of Fulton, who found a liberal and active coadjutor in Chancellor Livingston, who, in the same year, applied to the Legislature of New York for an act of incorpora- tion. I am sorry to say that America at that moment could not boast of much keener perception of the nature of this discovery than France or Spain had done before. Chancellor Livingston at last had a petition drawn up of the act he desired passed. It was drafted by the young men of the Legislature, who, when tired of the graver matters of law, used to call up the "sfeam bill" that they might have a little fun. Young America, on that occasion, did not show himself much wiser than his senior. Nothing daunted at the coldness he received, nothing discour- aged by the partial success of the first experiment, Chan- cellor Livingston persevered. Twenty years elapsed before steamers were found upon our lakes and rivers, and at that timo such a system of steam-navigation was wholly unknown, except by hearsay, in Europe. This application of steam soon became a pressing necessity in this country, but twenty years more passed away before it was adopted in England. I could not but think, when the news of the Atlantic Telegraph came, what must have been the emotions of Fulton and Franklin could they have stood upon the quarter-deck of the Niagara and witnessed the successful termination of that electric com- munication which is the result of their united discoveries 1 382 NOTUING NEW UNDER TUE SUN. ^RIAL NAVIGATION. When air-balloons were first discovered, some one flippantly asked Dr. Franklin what was the use of it. The philosopher ^ answered the question by asking another : — '' What is the use of a new-born infant ? It may become a man." The first balloon-ascension was made by Pilatre de Rozier and the Marquis d'x\rlandes, November 21, 1783, in a mont- golfifere. A century and a half before this, John Gregorie wrote, " The air itself is not so unlike to water, but that it may be demonstrated to be navigable, and that a ship may sail upon the convexity thereof by the same reasons that it is carried upon the ocean." In the first number of the Philosophical Collections, 1679, is "a demonstration how it is practically possible to make a ship, which shall be sustained by the air, and may be moved either by sails or oars," from a work entitled Prodroma, published in Italian by P. Francesco Lana. The scheme was that of making a brazen vessel which should weigh less than the air it con- tained, and consequently float in the air when that which was within it was pumped out. He calculated every thing — except the pressure of the atmosphere, in consequence of which sligJit oversight he realized no practical result. THE CIRCULATION OF THE BLOOD. Harvey discovered the circulation of the blood in 1619 ; but we learn from a passage in Longinus (ch. xxii.) that the fact was known two thousand years before. The father of critics, to exemplify and illustrate the use and value of trope in writing, has garbled from the Thnseus of Plato a number of sentences descriptive of the anatomy of the human body, where the circu- lation of the blood is pointed at in terms singularly graphic. The exact extent of professional knowledge attained in the time of the great philosopher is by no means clearly defined. He speaks of the fact, however, not with a view to prove what was contested or chimerical, but avails himself of it to figure X NOTHING NEW UNDER THE SUN. 383 the surpassing wisdom of the gods in constructing the hu- man frame. ANESTHESIA. The use of the vapor of sulphuric ether for the purpose of inducing insensibility to surgical operations was first practically adopted by Dr. Morton, of Boston, in 1846; -that of chloro- form, by Dr. Simpson, of Edinburgh, in 1847. To this period we must assign the most important epoch in the annals of sur- gery, and the date of one of the grandest discoveries of science and one of the greatest blessings ever conferred upon humanity. The idea, however, of saving the human body, by artificial means, from the pains and tortures inflicted by the knife of the surgeon, has been by no means either first broached or first acted upon in recent times. Intense pain is regarded by mankind generally as so serious an evil that it would have been strange indeed if eiforts had not been early made to diminish this species of suffering. The use of the juice of the poppy, hen- bane, mandragora, and other narcotic preparations, to efi"ect this object by their deadening influence, may be traced back till it disappears in the darkness of a remote antiquity. Intoxicating vapors were also employed, by way of inhalation, to produce the same effects as drugs of this nature introduced into the stomach. This appears from the account given by Herodotus of the practice of the Scythians, several centuries before Christ, of using the vapor of hemp-seed as a means of drunkenness. The known means of stupefaction were very early resorted to in order to counteract pain produced by arti- ficial causes. In executions under the horrible form of cruci fixion, .soporific mixtures were administered to alleviate the pangs of the victim. The draught of vinegar and gall, or myrrh, ofi"ered to the Saviour in his agony, was the ordinary tribute of human sympathy extorted from the bystander by the spectacle of intolerable anguish. That some luthean anodyne might be fuuud to assuage tho loruieut uf surgicul operutiuii.s as they were anciently performed, 384 NOTniNG NEW UNDER THE SUN. [cauterizing the cut surfaces, instead of tying the arteries,] was not only a favorite notion, but it had been in some degree, how- ever imperfect, reduced to practice. Pliny the Naturalist, who pei-ished in the eruption of Vesuvius which entombed the city of Herculaneum in the year 79, bears distinct and decided testimony to this fact. In his description of the plant known as the mandragora or circeius, he says, "It has a soporific power on the faculties of those who drink it. The ordinary potion is half a cup. It ia drunk against serpents, and before cuttings and puncturings, lest they should be felt." (Bibitur et contra serpentes, et ante sectiones, piinctionesque, ne sentiantur .') When he- comes to speak of the plant eruca, called by us the rocket, he informs us that its seeds, when drunk, infused in wine, by criminals about to undergo the lash, produce a certain callousness or induration of feeling (duaitiam, quandam con- tra sensum induere^. Pliny also asserts that the stone Memiilntis, powdered and applied in a liniment with vinegar, will stupefy parts to be cut or cauterized, " for it so paralyzes the part that it feels no pain" {iiec sentii cruciatuni). Dioscorides, a Greek physician of Cilicia, in Asia, who was born about the time of Pliny's death, and who wrote an exten- sive work on the materia medica, observes, in his chapter on mandragora, — 1. " Some boil down the roots in wine to a third part, and preserve the juice thus procured, and give one cyathus of it in sleeplessness and severe pains, of whatever part; also to cause the insensibility — to produce the ansesthesia [ tzouiv avaiafh^fftav] — of tliose icho are to be cut or cauterized." 2. "There is prepared, also, besides the decoction, a wine from the bark of the root, three minse being thrown into a cask of sweet wine, and of this three cyathi are given to tliose icho are to be cut or cauterized, as aforesaid ; for, being thrown into a deep sleep, they do not perceive pain." 3. Speakiug of another variety of mandragora, called morion, NOTHING NEW UNDER THE SUN. 085 he observes, " 3Iedic;il men use it also fur those who arc to be cut or cauterized." Dioscoi'ides also describes the stone Memphitis, mentioned by Pliny, and says that when it is powdered and applied to parts to be cut or cauterized, they are rendered, loithout the sll(jhtest danger, wholly insensible to pain. Matthiolus, the commen- tator on Dioscorides, confirms his statement of the virtues of maudragora, which is repeated by Dodoneus. "Wine in which the roots of maudragora have been steeped," says this latter writer, "brings on sleep, and appeases all pains, so that it ia given to those who are to be cut, sawed, or burned in any parts of their body, that they may not perceive pain." The expressions used by Apuleius of Madaura, who flour- ished about a century after Pliny, are still more remarkable than those already quoted from the older authors. He says, when treating of mandragora, " If any one is to have a mem- ber mutilated, burned, or sawed, \_mutllandum, comburcndum, vcl scrranduni,'] let him drink half an ounce with wine, and let him sleep till the member is cut axoay icithout any pain or sensation \et tantwm dormiet, quosque ahscindatur memhrum aliquo sine dolore et sensii]." It was not in Europe and in ^Yestern Asia alone that these early eflforts to discover some letheau were made, and attended with partial success. On the opposite side of the continent, the Chinese — who have anticipated the Europeans in so many important inventions, as in gunpowder, the mariner's compass, printing, lithography, paper money, and the use of coal — seem to have been quite as far in advance of the Occidental world in medical science. They understood, ages before they were in- troduced into Christendom, the use of substances containing iodine for the cure of the goitre, and employed spurred rye (ergot) to shorten dangerously-prolonged labor in difficult ac- couchements. Among the therapeutic methods confirmed by the experience of thousands of years, the records of which they have preserved with religious veneration, the employment of an auuisthetic agent to paralyze the nervous sensibility before yw- 386 NOTHING NEW UNDER THE SUN. forming surgical operations, is distinctly set forth. Among a considerable number of Chinese works on the pharmacopoeia, medicine, and surgery, in the National Library at Paris, is one \ entitled Kou-kin-i-tong, or general collection of ancient and modern medicine, in fifty volumes quarto. Several hundred biographical notices of the most distinguished physicians in China are prefixed to this work. The following curious pass- ages occur in the sketches of the biography of Hoa-thn, who flourished under the dynasty of Wei, between tbe years 220 and 230 of our era. "When lie determined that it was neces- sary to employ acupuncture, he employed it in two or three places; and so with the vioxa if that was indicated by the nature of the afi'ection to be treated. But if the disease re- j sided in parts upon which the needle, moxa, or liquid medica- ! ments could not operate, — for exj.n--^9 in the bones, or the mar- i row of the bones, in the stomach or the intestines, — he gave the .; \ patient a preparation of hemp, (in the Chinese language mujjo,^ i and after a few moments he became as insensible as if he had ' been drunk or dead. Then, as the case required, he performed j operations, incisions, or amputations, and removed the cause of j the malady ; then he brought together and secured the tissues, j and applied liniments. After a certain number of days, the j patient recovered, ivithout havivg experienced the slightest pain during the operation." Almost a thousand years after the date of the unmistakable phrases quoted from Apuleius, according to the testimony of j William of Tyre, and other chroniclers of the wars for the rescue of the holy sepulchre, and the fascinating narrative of Marco Polo, a state of anaesthesia was induced for very different purposes. It became an instrument in the hands of bold and crafty impostors to perpetuate and extend the most terrible fanaticism that the world has ever seen. The employment of anaesthetic agents in surgical operations was not forgotten or abandoned during the period when they were pressed into the appalling service just described. In the thirteenth century, ani^jsthusia was produced by inhalation of NOTHING NEW UNDER THE SUN. 387 an anodyne vapor, in a mode oddly forestalling the practices of the present day, which is described as follows in the surgical treatise of Thcodoric, who died in 1298. It is the receipt for the " spongia somnifera," as it is called in the rubric : — " The preparation of a scent for performing surgical opera- tions, according to Master Hugo. It is made thus : — Take of opium and the juice of unripe mulberry, of hyoscyamus, of the juice of the hemlock, of the juice of the leaves of the mandra- gora, of the juice of the woody ivy, of the juice of the forest mulberry, of the seeds of lettuce, of the seed of the burdock, which has large and round apples, and of the water-hemlock, each one ounce ; mix the whole of these together in a brazen vessel, and then place a new sponge in it, and let the whole boil, and as long as the sun on the dog-days, till it (the sponge) consumes it all, and let it be boiled away in it. As often as there is need of it, place this same sponge in warm water for one hour, and let it be applied to the nostrils till he who is to be operated on {qui incidentus est) has fallen asleep ; and in this state let the operation be performed (ei sic fat cMrurgia). When this is finished, in order to rouse him, place another, dipped in vinegar, frequently to his nose, or let the juice of the roots of fenigreek be squirted into his nostrils. Presently he awakens." Subsequent to Theodoric's time, we find many interesting and suggestive observations in the writings of Baptista Porta, Chamappe, Meissner, Dauriol, Haller, and Blandin. About half a century ago. Sir Humphry Davy thus hinted at the possibility that a pain subduing gas might be inhaled : — " As nitrous oxide, in its extensive operation, appears capable of destroying physical pain, it may probably be used with advan- tage during surgical operations in which no great effusion of blood takes place." Baron Larrcy, Napoleon's surgeon, after the battle of Eylau, found a remarkable insensibility in the wounded who suffered amputations, owing to the intense cold. This fact afterwards led to the application of ice as a local an- josthetic. 388 NOTHING NEW UNDER THE SUN. The former general belief tliat a degree of anaesthetic and prolonged sleep could be induced artificially by certain medi- cated potions and preparations is also shown by the frequency with which the idea is alluded to by the older poets and story- tellers, and made part of the machinery in the popular romance and drama. In the history of Taliesin, (one of the antique Welsh tales contained in the Mabinogion,) Rhun is described as having put the maid of the wife of Elphin into a deep sleep with a powder put into her drink, and as having cut oiF one of her fingers when she was in this case of artificial autiesthesia. Shakspeare, besides alluding more than once to the soporific pro- perty of mandragora, describes with graphic power in Romeo and Juliet, and in Cymbeline, the imagined effects of subtle distilled potions supposed capable of inducing, without danger, a prolonged state of death-like sleep or lethargy. And Thomas Middleton, in his tragedy of Women beware Women, published in 1657, pointedly and directly alludes in the following lines, to the practice of anaesthesia in ancient surgery : — Hippolito. Yes, my lord, I make no doubt, as I shall take the course, Which she shall never know till it bo acted ; And when she wakes to honor, then she'll thank me for't. I'll imitate the pities of old surgeons To this lost limb; loho, ere they show their aft, Cast one asleep, then cut the diseased part; So out of love to her I pity most. She shall not feel him going till he's lost ; Then she'll commend the cure. — Act iv. Sc. 1. The following curious lines from Du Bartas, translated by Joshua Sylvester (?) are also well worth transcribing in this connection. Du Bartas died about the year 1590: — Even as a Surgeon minding off-to-cut Som cureless limb ; before in use he put His violent Engins on the vicious member, Bringeth his Patient in a senseless slumber: And griefless then (guided by Use and Art) To save the whole saws off th' infested part. NOTHINQ NEW UNDER THE SUN. 389 So God empal'd our Grandsire's (Adam) lively look, Through all his boues a deadly chilness strook, Siel'd-up his sparkling eyes with Iron bands, Led down his feet (almost) to Lethe's sands; In briefe, so numm'd his Soule's and Bodic's sense. That (without pain) opening his side, from thenco He took a rib, which rarely He refia'd, And thereof made the Mother of Mankind. The history of ansestlietics is a remarkable illustration of the acknowledged fact that science has sometimes, for a long season, altogether lost sight of great practical thoughts, from being unprovided with proper means and instruments for carrying out those thoughts into practical execution ; and hence it ever and anon occurs that a supposed modern discovery is only the re- discovery of a principle already sufficiently known to other ages, or to remote nations. THE BOOMERANG. The following paragraph in Pliny's Natural History ^ xxiv. 72, apparently refers to the Boomerang, with which, according to recent discoveries, the early people of the East were acquainted. See Bonomi's Nineveh, p. 136. Pliny, speaking of the account given by Pythagoras of the Aqin/olia, either the holm-oak or the holly, says : — Baculum ex ea factum, in quodvis animal emissum, etiamsi citra ceciderit defectu mittentis, ipsum per sese cubitu proprius adiabi; tarn prsDcipuam naturam inesse arbori. (If a staff made of this wood, when thrown at any animal, from want of strength in the party throwing it, happens to fall short of the ni.ark, it will fall back again towards the thrower of its own accord— so remarkable are the properties of this tree.) The readings of the passage vary, aihitu being given in some ]\ISS. for recuhitu. Pythagoras probably heard of the haculum during his travels eastward, and being unable to understand how its formation could endow it with the singular property referred to, was induced to believe that this peculiarity was owing to the nature of the tree. 590 NOXniNQ NEW UNDER THE SUN. THE ATTRACTION OF GRAVITATION. Both Dante and Shakspeare preceded Newton in knowledge of the principle, if not the law, of gravitation. In their an- ticipation of its discovery, the poets may not have deemed it other than a philosophic or poetic speculation. But the follow- ing passages attest earlier observations of a physical law than those of Pascal or Newton. Shakspeare says in Troilus and Cressida: — But tho strong base and building of my love Is as the very centre of the earth Drawing all things to it. — iv. 2. and True as earth to its centre. — iii. 2. Three centuries before Shakspeare, Dante said in the Infer- no : — Thou dost imagine we are still On the other side the central point, where I Clasped the earth-piercing worm, fell cause of ill. So far as I continued to descend, That side we kept; but when I turned, then we Sad passed the point to which all bodies tend. Canto xxsiv. 106-111. EARLY INVENTION OP RIFLING. In Sir Hugh Plat's Jeicd- House of Art and Nature^ 1653, (1st edition 1594) the 17th article runs thus: — Hoio to mahe a Pistol^ whose Barrel is 2 Foot in Length, to deliver a Bidlet point blank at Eightscore. A pistol of the aforesaid length, and being of the petronel bore, or a bore higher, having eight gutters somewhat deep in the inside of the barrel, and the bullet a thought bigger than the bore, and so rammed in at the first three or four inches at the least, and after driven down with the scouring stick, will deliver his bullet at such distance. This I had of an English gentleman of good note for an approved experiment. NOTniNO NKW UNDER THE SUN. 391 TABLE-MOVING AND ALPIIABET-RAPPINa IN THE FOURTH CENTURY. The following remarkable narration is the confession of a couspirator named Hilarius, who was accused of resorting to unlawful arts for the purpose of discovering who should be the successor to the Roman Emperor Valens, who died A.D. 878. We are told by Ammianus Marcellinus, a contemporary histo- rian, that, while under torture, he thus addressed his judges: — With direful rites, august judges, we prepared this un- fortunate little table, which you see, of laurel branches, in imi- tation of the Delphic cortina, (or tripod,) and when it had been duly consecrated by imprecation of secret charms and many long and choric ceremonies, we at length moved it. The method of moving it, when it was consulted on secret matters, was as follows : It was placed in the midst of a house purified with Arabian odors ; upon it was placed a round dish, made of various metallic substances, which had the twenty-four letters of the alphabet curiously engraved round the rim, at accurately- measured distances from each other. One clothed with linen garments, carrying branches of a sacred tree, and having, by charms framed for the purpose, propitiated the deity who is the giver of prescience, places other lesser cortinae on this larger one, with ceremonial skill. He holds over them a ring which has been subjected to some mysterious preparation, and which is suspended by a very fine Carpathian thread. This ring, passing over the intervals, and falling on one letter after the other, spells out heroic verses pertinent to the questions asked. We then thus inquired who should succeed to the government of the empire. The leaping ring had indicated two syllables, (TiiE-OD ;) and on the addition of the last letter one of the per- sons present cried out, " Theodorus." Theodorus, and many others, were executed for their share in this dark tran.saction, (see Gibbon;) but Theodosius the Great finally succeeded to the empire, and was, of course, sup- posed to be the person indicated by the magic rites. The above literal translation is given by the learned Dr. Maitland 392 NOTHING NEW UNDER THE SUN. in a little book, lately published, Essay on False Worship, London, 1856. The original was hardly intelligible, till light had been thrown on it by recent practices, of which we have all heard so much. The coincidence is, to say the least, extraordi- nary, and opens views which are briefly considered in the above-mentioned work. AUSCULTATION AND PERCUSSION. Laennec invented the stethoscope and perfected his dis- coveries in the physical diagnosis of the diseases of the heart and lungs, in 1816. Avenbrugger published his work on Percussion in 1761. One hundred and fifty years before Laennec's suddenly con- ceived act of applying a roll of paper to the breast of a female patient gave birth to thoracic acoustics, that ingenious and philosophic man, Robert Hooke, said in his writings : — " There may be a possibility of discovering the internal motions and actions of bodies by the sound they make. Who knows, but that as in a watch we may hear the beating of the balance, and the running of the wheels, and the striking of the hammers, and the grating of the teeth, and a multitude of other noises, — who knows, I say, but that it may be possible to discover the motions of internal parts of bodies, whether ani- mal, vegetable, or mineral, by the sounds they make ? — that one may discover the works performed in the several offices and shops of a man's body, and thereby discover what engine is out of order, what works are going on at several times and lie still at others, and the like? I have this encouragement not to think all these things impossible, though never so much de- rided by the generality of men, and never so seemingly mad, foolish, and fantastic, that as the thinking them impossible cannot much improve my knowledge, so the believing them possible may perhaps be an occasion for taking notice of such things as another would pass by without regard as useless, and somewhat more of encouragement I have from experience that I have been able to hear very plainly the beating of a man's NOTHING NEW UNDER THE SUN. 393 heart; and it is common to hear the motion of the wind to and fro in the intestines ; the stopping of the lungs is easily dis- covered by the wheezing. As to the motion of the parts one among the other, to their becoming sensible they require either that their motions be increased or that the organ (the ear) be made more nice and powerful, to sensatc and distin- guish them as they are ; for the doing of both which I think it is not impossible but that in many cases there may be iiklps found." THE STEREOSCOPE. Sir David Brewster, inquiring into the history of the ste- reoscope, finds that its fundamental principle was well known even to Euclid ; that it was distinctly described by Galen fifteen hundred years ago ; and that Giambattista I^orta had, in 1599, given such a complete drawing of the two separate pictures as seen by each eye, and of the combined picture placed between them, that we recognize in it not only the principle, but the construction, of the stereoscope. PREDICTIONS OP THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. Seneca, in his Medea, Act ii, thus shadowed forth this event fifteen centuries before its occurrence : — Venient annis Sfecula seris, Quibus Oceanus vincula rerum Laxet, et ingens pateat Tellus, Tiphysque novos detegat orbes ; Nee sit terris Ultima Thulc. (After the lapse of years, ages will come in which Ocean shall relax hia chains around the world, and a vast continent shall appear, and Tiphys — the pilot — shall explore new regions, and Thule shall be no longer the utmost verge of the earth.) ''A prediction," says the commentator, "of the Spanish discovery of America." Before Seneca's lines were written, Plato had narrated the Egyptian legend that, engulfed in the ocean, but sometimes visible, was the island of Atalanfis, supposed to m-^an the Western world. 394 NOTHING NEW UNDER THE SUN. Pulci, the friend of Lorenzo de Medici, in his Morgante Maggiore, written before the voyage of Columbus and before the physical discoveries of Galileo and Copernicus, introduces this remarkable prophecy ; (alluding to the vulgar belief that the Columns of Hercules were the limits of the earth.) Know tlirrns or ingenuity. Yes, yes, father abbot, your fault it is highe, And now for the same thou neeJest must dye; For except thou canst answer me questions three. Thy head shall be smitten from thy bodie. And first, quo' the king, when I'm in this stead, With my erowne of golde so faire on my head, Among all my liege-meu so noble of birthe, Thou must tell me to one penny what I am worthe. Secondlye, tell me, without any doubt, How soone I may ride the whole world about; And at the third question thou must not shrink. But tell me here truly what I do think. 0, these are hard questions for my shallow witt, Nor I cannot answer your grace as yet; But if you will give me but three weeks space, lie do my endeavour to answer your grace. Now three weeks space to thee will I give, And that is the longest time thou hast to live ; For if thou dost not answer my questions three, Thy lands and thy livings are forfeit to mee. Away rode the abbot, all sad at that word. And he rode to Cambridge and Oxenford ; But never a doctor there was so wise That could with his learning an answer devise. Then home rode the abbot, of comfort so cold, And he mett his shepheard agoing to fold : How now, my lord abbot, you are welcome home : What newes do you bring us from good King John ? Sad newes, sad newes, shepheard, I must give : That I have but three days more to live; For if I do not answer him questions three, My head will be smitten from my bodie. The first is to tell him there in that stead, AVith his erowne of golde so fair on his head. Among all bis liege-men so noble of birthe, To within one penny of what he is worthe. The second, to tell him, without any doubt. How soone he may ride this whole world about; And at the third question I must not shrinke, But tell him there truly what he does thinke. TRIUMPHS OF INGENUITY. 405 Now cbcare up, sire abbot: did you never bear yet, That a fool he may loarno a wise man witt? Lend me horse, and serving-men, and your apparel. And lie ride to London to answere your quarrel. Nay, frowne not, if it hath bin told unto mee, I am like your lordship, as over may bee; And if you will but lend me your gowne, There is none shall knowo us in fair London towne. Now horses and serving-men thou shalt have, With sumptuous array most gallant and bravo; With crozier, and mitre, and rochet, and cope, Fit to appears 'fore our fader the Pope. Now welcome, sire abbot, the king he did say, 'Tis well thou'rt come back to keepe thy day ; For and if thou canst answer my questions three. Thy life and thy living both saved shall bee. And first, when thou seest me here in this stead, With my crowne of golde so fair on my head, Among all my liege-men so noble of birthe, Tell me to one penny what I am worthe. For thirty pence our Saviour was sold Among the false Jewes, as I have bin told; And twenty-nine is the worth of thee. For I think thou art one penny worser than hee. The king he laughed, and swore by St. Bittel, I did not think I had been worth so litt«l ! Now secondly, tell me, without any doubt, How soone I may ride this whole world about. You must rise with the sun, and ride with the same, Until the next morning he riseth againe ; And then your grace need not make any doubt But in twenty-four hours you'll ride it about. The king he laughed, and swore by St. Jone, I did not think it could be gone so soone ! Now, from the third question thou must not shrinko. But tell me here truly what I do thinke. Yea, that shall I do, and make your grace merry; You thinke I'm the abbot of Canterbury ; But I'm his poor shepheard, as plain you may see. That am come to beg pardon fur him and for mow 406 THE FANCIES OP FACT. The king he laughed, and swore by the masse, lie make thee lord abbot this day in his place ! Naye naye, my liege, be not in such speede, For alacke, I can neither write nor reade. Four nobles a week, then, I will give thee. For this merry jest thou hast showne unto mee; And tell the old abbot, when thou comest home. Thou hast brought him a pardon from good King John. THE WOUNDS OF JULIUS C^SAR. "Look ! in this place ran Cassius' dagger through: See what a rent the envious Casca made : Through this the well-beloved Brutus stabbed." At a meeting of the French Academy of Medicine, a few years ago, a curious paper was read, on behalf of M. Dubois, of Amiens, entitled "Investigations into the death of Julius Caesar." M. Dubois having looked up the various passages re- ferring to this famous historic incident to be found in Dion Cassius, Plutarch, Suetonius, Appian, &c., and compared them with one another, has fixed the spots where the four first wounds were inflicted, and the names of the conspirators who inflicted them. The first blow, struck by one of the brothers Casca, produced a slight wound underneath the left clavicle; the second, struck by the other Casca, penetrated the walls of the thorax toward the right; Cassius inflicted the third wound in the face. Dccimus Brutus gave the fourth stab in the region of the groin. Contrary to the general opinion, Marcus Brutus, though one of the conspirators, did not strike the dictator. After the first blows Caesar fainted, and then all the conspirators hacked his body. He was carried by three slaves in a litter to his house. Austistius, the physician, was THE FANCIES OF FACT. -107 called in aud found thirty-five wounds, only one of which was in his opinion iatal, that of the second Casca, BILLS FOB, STRANGE SERVICES. The bill of the Cirencester painter, mentioned by Bishop Home, {Essays and Thoughts,') is as follows: — Mr. Charles Terrcbee To Joseph Cook, Dr. To mending the Couimandmcnts, altering the Belief, and making a new Lord's Prayer £1 — 1 — Here is a Carpenter's bill of the Fifteenth Century, copied from the records of an old London Church: — Item. To scrcwynge a home on y s. d. Divil, and glueinge a bitt on hys tayle vij Item. To repayring y VjTginne Maryc before and behynde, & makynge a new Chylde . . . . ij . viij LAW LOGIC. Judge Blackstone says, in his Commentaries (Vol. i. ch. xviii.), that every Bishop, Parson or Vicar is a Coiy oration. Lord Coke asserts, in his Reports (10. Kep. 32,) that "a Cor- foration has no soul.'" Upon these premises, the logical in- ference would be that neither Bishops, Parsons nor Vicars have souls. RECIPROCAL CONVERSION. A curious case of mixed process of conversation was that of the two brothers, Dr. John Beynold's, King's Professor at Ox- ford, in 1630, a zealous Roman Catholic, and Dr. Wm. Reynolds, an eminent Protestant. They were both learned men, and as brothers held such affectionate relations, that the deadly here- sies of which each regarded the other as the victim were matters of earnest and pleading remonstrance between them by discus- sion and correspondence. The pains and zeal of each were 408 THE FANCIES OF FACT. equally rewarded. The Roman Cattolic brother became an ardent Protestant, and tlie Protestant brotlier became a Roman Catholic. PITHY PRAYER. We are indebted to Hume for the preservation of a short prayer, which he says was that of Lord Astley, before he charged ^ at Edge-hill. It ran thus: "O Lord, thou knowest how busy I must be this day; if I forget thee, do not thou forget me." And Hume adds, " There were certainly much longer prayers in the Parliamentary army, but I doubt if there was as good a one." MELROSE BY SUNLIGHT. The beautiful description of the appearance of the ruins of Melrose Abbey by moonlight, in the Lay of the Last Minstrel, has led thousands to visit the scene " when silver edges the imagexy," yet it is worth noting that the author never saw the ruined pile by "the pale moonlight." Bernard Barton once v/rote to Scott to request him to favor a young lady with a copy of the lines in his own handwriting. Su- Walter complied, but substituted for the concluding lines of the original the following : — " Then go — and muse with deepest awe On what the writer never saw ; Who would not wander 'neath the moon To see what he could see at noon." BACK ACTION. Alphonse Karr, in his Gnepcs, speaking of the dexterities of the legal profession, relates a pleasant anecdote of the dis- tinguished lawyer, afterward deputy, M. Chaix d'Est-Ange. He was employed in a case where both the parties were old men. lleferring to his client, he said : " He has attained that age, when the mind, freed from the passions, and tyranny of the body, takes a higher flight, and soars in a purer and serener air." Later in his speech, he found occasion to allude to the THE FANCIES OP FACT. 409 opposite party, of whom he remarked: "I do not deny his natural intellii:encc ; but lie has reached an age in which the mind participates in the enfeeblemcnt, the decrepitude, and the degradation of the body." THE AUDITORIUMS OF THE LAST CENTURY. When we read of Patrick Henry's wonderful displays of eloquence, we naturally figure to ourselves a spacious interior and a great crowd of rapt listeners. But, in truth, those of his orations which quickened or changed the march of events, and the thrill of which has been felt in the nerves of four generations, were all delivered in small rooms and to few hearers, never more than one hundred and fifty. The first thought of the visitor to St. John's Church in Richmond, is : Could it have been here, in this oaken chapel of fifty or sixty pews, that Patrick Henry delivered the greatest and best known of all his speeches? Was it here that he uttered those words of doom, so unexpected, so unwelcome, "We must fight"? Even here. And the words were spoken in a tone and manner worthy of the men to whom they were addressed — with quiet and profound solemnity. TRUE FORM OF THE CROSS. The ancient and ignominious punishment of crucifixion was abolished by the Roman Emperor Constantino the Great, who thought it indecent and irreligious that the Cross should be used for the putting to death of the vilest offenders, while ho himself erected it as a trophy, and esteemed it the noblest ornament of his diadem and military standards. In conse- quence of his decree, crucifixion has scarcely been witnessed in Europe for the last 1500 years. Those painters, sculptors, poets and writers who have attempted to describe it have, therefore, followed their own imagination or vague tradition rather than the evidence of history. But they could hardly do otherwise, because the writings of the early fathers of the Church and of pagan historians were not generally accessible 410 THE FANCIES OF FACT. to them until after the revival of learning in the Fifteenth Century, and because the example of depicting the cross once given had been religiously followed by the earliest painters and sculptors, and universally accepted without question; and to object to the generally received form would have been deemed sacrilegious. These two reasons may have been sufficient to deter the great artists of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries from making any change; there may, however, have been a third, quite as potent (if not more so), and that is that the introduction of the lower projecting beam, astride of which the crucified person was seated, would have been both inartistic and indecent, yet this third piece was invariably used when the punishment was inflicted, except in the case where the sufterer was crucified with the head downward. The researches of two eminent scholars of the Seventeenth Century — Salmasius and Lipsius — have put it beyond a doubt that the cross consisted of a strong upright post, not much taller than a man of lofty stature, which was sharpened at the lower end, by which it wils fixed into the ground, having a short bar or stake pro- jecting from its middle, and a longer transverse beam firmly joined to the upright post near the top. The condemned per- son was made to carry his cross to the place of execution, after having been first whipped; he was then stripped of his clothing, and ofiiered a cup of medicated wine, to impart firm- ness or alleviate pain. He was then made to sit astride the middle bar, and his limbs, having been bound with cords, the legs to the upright beam, the arms to the transverse, were finally secured by driving large iron spikes through the hands and feet. The cross was then fixed in its proper position, and the sufiierer was left to die, not so much from pain (as is generally supposed) as from exhaustion, or heat, or cold, or hunger, or wild beasts, unless (as was usually the case) his sufferings were put an end to by burning, stoning, suffocation, breaking the bones, or piercing the vital organs. If left alone he generally survived two days or three, and there are cases THE FANCIES OF FACT. 411 recorded where tlie sufferer lingered till the fifth day before dying. Referring to the earliest Christian -writers, who witnessed the crucifixion of hundreds of their martyred brethren, it will be seen that the foregoing statement of Salmasius respecting the true form of the cross is well founded. Iren^eus, Bishop of Lyons, in the second century, says: "The structure of the cross has five ends or summits, two in length, two in breadth, and one in the middle, on which the crucified person rests." Justin, another Christian writer of the same period, who acquired the surname of Martyr from the cruel death he suifered for his faith, also speaks of "that end projecting from the middle of the upright post like a horn, on which crucified persons are seated." TertuUian, another Christian writer, who lived a little later, says: "A part, and, indeed, a principal part, of the cross is any post which is fixed in an upright position ; but to us the entire cross is imputed, including its transverse beam, and the projecting bar which serves as a seat." This fact (of the sufierer being seated) will account for the long duration of the punishment; the wounds in the hands and feet did not lacerate any large vessel, and were nearly closed by the nails which produced them. The Rev. Alban Butler, in his Lives of the Saints, gives numerous instances of the linger- ing nature of this mode of execution, and of the wonderful heroism displayed by the Christians who underwent it. The Pagan historians also narrate instances of similar heroism on the part of political ofi"enders, who were put to death on the Cross. Bomilcar, the commander of the Carthaginian army in Sicily, having shown a disposition to desert to the enemy, was nailed to a gibbet in the middle of the forum; but "from the height of the Cross, as from a tribunal, he declaimed against the crimes of the citizens; and having spoken thus with a loud voice amid an immense concourse of the people, he expired." Crucifixion has been practised from the remotest ages in the East, and is still occasionally resorted to in Turkey, 412 THE FANCIES OF FACT. Madagascar, and Northern Africa, The Jewish historian, Jose- phus, states that the chief baker of Pharaoh, whose dream had been interpreted by Joseph, was crucified^ though Scripture says he was hanged; but this may mean hanged on a cross, for the expression seems to be almost equivalent to crucified, as appears from Gralatians, chap. III. v, 13. " Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us; for it is written, ' Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree.' " As regards art, it is not now to be expected that the example set by the great masters will be discarded. In this, as in other matters, custom is law, whose arbitrary sway will be exercised in spite of facts. SINGULAR COINCIDENCES. A. was walking with a friend near Oxford, when a snipe rose within shot. They both "presented" their walking-sticks at the bird, remarking what a "pretty shot" it would have been for a gun. The snipe flew on a short distance, then towered, and fell dead. When examined, the bird was found to be apparently uninjured; but a close examination discovered the trace of a former injury, which had led to the rupture of a blood-vessel. If, instead of a walking-stick a gun had been presented and discharged at the bu-d, no one would have ventured to doubt that the death of the bird was due to the gun. A young officer in the army of the famous Wolfe was apparently dying of an abscess in the lungs. He was absent from his regiment on sick-leave; but resolved to rejoin it, when a battle was expected. "For," said he, "since I am given over, I had better be doing my duty; and my life's being- shortened a few days, matters not." He received a shot which pierced the ahacess, and made an opening for the discharge. He recovered, and lived to the age of eighty. In the United Service Museum, (Whitehall Yard, Loudon,) THE FANCIES OP FACT. 413 are exhibited the "jaws of a shark," wide open, and enclosing a tin box. The history of this strange exhibition is as Ibllows : — A ship, on her way to the West Indies, "full in with" and chased a suspicious-looking craft, which had all the appearance of a slaver. During the pursuit, the chase threw something overboard. She was subsequently captured, and taken into Port Royal to be tried as a slaver. In absence of the ship's papers and other proofs, the slaver was not only in a fair way to escape condemnation, but her captain was anticipating the recovery of pecuniary damages against his captor for illegal detention. While the subject was under discussion, a vessel came into port, which had followed closely in the track of the chase above described. She had caught a shark; and in its stomach was found a tin box, which contained the slaver's papers. Upon the strength of this evidence the slaver was condemned. The written account is attached to the box. A. B. was present while some "tricks in cards" were being exhibited by a professional juggler. He took a fresh pack of cards, and directed the company to take out a card from the pack, to replace it, and shuffle the pack. This being done, A. B. took the pack in his hand and carelessly tossed on the table a card, which proved to be the correct one. The pro- fessor, in the utmost surprise and admiration, offered to give A. B. three of his best tricks if he would give him the secret of the trick which he had just exhibited. A. B. coolly declined the offer, and concealed the fact th:it it was all chance, in the purest sense of the word, that led to the selection of the proper card from the pack. Upon the death of a seaman, some money became payable to his widow, Elizabeth Smith, No. 20 (of a certain, say "King") Street, Wapping. The government agent called at No. 20 King Street, and finding that Elizabeth Smith lived there, paid the money without further inquiry. Subsequently the true widow, Elizabeth Smith, turned up; and it was then 35* 414 THE FANCIES OF FACT. discovered that, at the very time the money was paid, the street was being re-numbered^ and there were two houses numbered 20; and what was most remarkable, there was an Ehzabeth Smith living in each of them. Some time in the last century, a Mrs. Stephens professed to have received from her husband a medicine for dissolving "the stone in the bladder," and offered to seh it to government. In order to test the virtue of this medicine, a patient was selected who had undeniably the complaint in question. He took the medicine, and was soon quite well. The doctors watched him anxiously, and when he died, many years after, he was seized by them, and the body examined. It was then discovered that the stone had made for itself a little sac in the bladder, and was so tightly secured that it had never caused any inconvenience. Government, however, (somewhat prematurely,) rewarded Mrs. Stephens with a sum of £10,000. The cure appeared to have been purely accidental, as the remedy was nothing but potash, which has little or no virtue in such cases. A gentleman of fortune, named Angerstein, lost a large quantity of valuable plate. His butler was soon on the track of the thieves, (who had brought a coach to carry the plate), and enquired at the first turnpike gate whether any vehicle had lately passed. The gate-keeper stated that a hackney- coach had shortly before gone through; and though he was surprised at its passing by so early in the morning, he had not noticed the "number" on the coach. A servant girl, hearing the conversation, volunteered her statement, that she saw the coach pass by, and its number was "45." As the girl could not read, ihay vfeve surprised at her knowing the "number." She stated that she knew it well, as being the same number she had long seen about the walls everywhere, which she knew was "45," as every one was speaking of it. This allusion of the girl's was in reference to the " Wilkes" disturbances, when THE FANCIES OF FACT. 415 the 45tli number of the True Briton, was prosecuted, and caused a great deal of public excitement. Mr. Angcrstcin's butler went at once to London and found out the driver of tlie hackney-coach No. 45, who at once drove him to the place where the plate was deposited, and it was all recovered. Some years since, in the ''Temple," was a vertical sun-dial, with the motto, "Be gone about your business." It is stated that this very appropriate motto was the result of the following blunder: — When the dial was erected, the benchers were applied to for a motto. They desired the "builder's man" to call at the library at a certain hour on a certain day, when he should receive instructions. But they forgot the whole matter. On the appointed day and hour the "builder's man" called at the library, and found only a lawyer in close study over a law book. The man stated the cause of his intrusion, which suited so badly the lawyer's time and leisure that he bid the man sharply "Be gone about your business." The lawyer's testy reply was duly painted in big letters upon the dial, and was considered so apposite that it was not only allowed to remain, but was con- sidered to be as appropriate a motto as could be chosen. Two men in France took shelter in a barn for the night. In the morning one of them was found dead, with severe injury to the head. The comrade was at once arrested, and told some "cock-and-bull" story about the terrible storm of the night in question, and attributed his companion's death to the effect of a thunder-bolt. He was not credited: and was in a fair way to be executed for the supposed crime. A scientific gentleman, hearing of the circumstance, examined the place, and found a hole in the roof of the barn, and an aerolite close to the spot where the deceased had slept on the night in question. The innocence of the accused was at once considered as established, and he was released. Now, even in these cases, there is nothing suiw.rnatural, or even zntnatural ; i. e., there is nothing to prevent the occurrence. 416 THE FANCIES OF FACT. The improbability is only from the enormous number of chances against each. But when any German theologian, or other, pre- tends to explain a series of alleged miracles as mere accidents, he should be reminded that the chances are multiplied against each repeated occurrence. If, e. g., the chances against a person's bagging a snipe, which died accidentally just as he pointed a stick or a gun at it, be only jq^oD'' t^hen, against his thus ob- taining two, the chances would be too^ooo> ^^^ ^'^ ^^- -^^ one familiar with what is sometimes called the Doctrine of Chances but more correctly called the Tlieorij of Prohabilities, would believe that a sportsman could bring home a bag full of game, every bird having died accidentally just when shot at. CHICK IN THE EGG. The hen has scarcely sat on the egg twelve hours, when we begin already to discover in it some lineaments of the head and body of the chicken that is to be born. The heart appears to beat at the end of the day; at the end of forty-eight hours, two vesicles of blood can be distinguished, the pulsation of which is very visible. At the fiftieth hour, an auricle of the heart appears, and resembles a lace, or noose folded down upon itself. At the end of seventy hours, we distinguish wings, and on the head two bubbles for the brain; one for the bill, and two others for the forepart and hindpart of the head; the liver appears towards the fifth day. At the end of one hundred and thirty-one hours, the first voluntary motion is observed. At the end of one hundred and thirty- eight hours the lungs and stomach become visible ; at the end of one hundred and forty-two, the intestines, the loins, and the upper jaw. The seventh day, the brain, which was slimy, begins to have some consistence. At the 19()th hour of incubation, the bill opens, and the flesh appears in the breast. At the 194th, the sternum is seen, that is to ' say, the breastbone. At the 210th, the ribs come out of the back, the bill is very visible, as well as the gall-bladder, THE FANCIES OF FACT. 417 The bill becomes green at the end of two hundred and thirty six hours ; and if the chick is taken out of its covering, it evi- dently moves itself. The feathers begin to shoot out towards the 240th hour, and the skull becomes gristly. At the 264th^ the eyes appear. At the 288th, the ribs are perfect. At the 831st, the spleen draws near to the stomach, and the lungs to the chest. At the end of three hundred and fifty-five hours, the bill frequently opens and shuts; and at the end of four hundred and fifty-one hours, or the eighteenth day, the first cry of the chick is already heard : it afterwards gets more strength, and grows continually, till at last it sets itself at liberty, by opening the prison in which it was shut up. Thus is it by so many- different degrees that these creatures are brought into life. All these progressions are made by rule, and there is not one of them without sufficient reason. No part of its body could appear sooner or later without the whole embryo sufi"ering; and each of its limbs appears at the proper moment. How mani- festly is this ordination — so wise, and so invariable in the pro- duction of the animal — the work of a Supreme Being ! INNATE APPETITE. McKenzie, in his Pltrenological Essat/s, mentions the follow- ing curious fact, witnessed by Sir James Hall. He had been engaged in making some experiments on hatching eggs by arti- ficial heat, and on one occasion observed in one of his boxes a chicken in the act of breaking from its confinement. It hap- pened that just as the creature was getting out of the shell, a spider began to run along the box. when the chicken darted forward, seized and swallowed it. THE INDIAN AND HIS TAMED SNAKE. An Indian had tamed a blacksnake, which he kept about him during the summer months. In autumn he let the crea- ture go whither it chose to crawl, but told it to come to him again upon a certain day, which he named, in the spring. A white man who was present, and saw what was done, and heard 2B 418 THE FANCIES OF FACT. the Indian affirm that the serpent would return to him the very day he had appointed, had no faith in the truth of his predic- tion. The next spring, however, retaining the day in his me- mory, curiosity led him to the place, where he found the Indian in waiting; and, after remaining with him about two hours, the serpent came crawling back, and put himself under the care of his old master. In this case, the Indian had probably observed that black- snakes usually return to their old haunts at the same vernal season ; and as he had tamed, fed, and kept this snake in a par- ticular place, experience taught him that it would return on a certain day. ALLIGATORS SWALLOWING STONES. The Indians on the banks of the Oronoko assert that pre- viously to an alligator going in search of prey it always swallows a large stone, that it may acquire additional weight to aid it in diving and dragging its victims under water. A traveller being somewhat incredulous on this point, Bolivar, to convince him, shot several with his rifle, and in all of them were found stones varying in weight according to the size of the animal. The largest killed was about seventeen feet in length, and had within him a stone weighing about sixty or seventy pounds. HABITS OF SHEEP. Never jumps a sheep that's frightened Over any fence whatever, Over wall, or fence, or timber, But a second follows after, And a third upon the second. And a fourth, and fifth, and so on, When they see the tail uplifted, — First a sheep, and then a dozen. Till they all, in quick succession, One by one, have got clear over. Dr. Anderson, of Liverpool, relates the following amusing illustration of the singularly persevering disposition of sheep to follow their leader wherever he goes : — THE FANCIES OF FACT. 419 A butcher's boy was driving about twenty fat wethers through the town, but they ran down a street where he did not want them to go. He observed a scavenger at work, and called out loudly for him to stop the sheep. The man accordingly did what he could to turn them back, running from side to side, always opposing himself to their passage, and brandishing hi3 broom with great dexterity ; but the sheep, much agitated, pressed forward, and at last one of them came right up to the man, who, fearing it was going to jump over his head, whilst he was stooping, grasped the broom with both hands and held it over his head. He stood for a few seconds in this position, when the sheep made a spring and jumped fairly over him, without touching the broom. The first had no sooner cleared tliis impediment than another followed, and another, in quick succession, so that the man, perfectly confounded, seemed to lose all recollection, and stood in the same attitude till the whole of them had jumped over him, and not one attempted to pass on either side, although the street was quite clear. REMARKABLE EQUESTRIAN EXPEDITIONS. Mr. Cooper Thornhill, an innkeeper at Stilton, in Hunting- donshire, rode from that place to London and back again, and also a second time to London, in one day, — which made a jour- ney in all of two hundred and thirteen miles. He undertook to ride this journey with several horses in fifteen hours, but performed it in twelve hours and a quarter. This remarkable feat gave rise to a poem called the Stilton Hero, which was published in the year 1745. Some years ago. Lord James Cavendish rode from Hyde Park Corner to Windsor Lodge, which is upwards of twenty miles, in less than an hour. Sir Robert Cary rode nearly three hundred miles in less than three days, when he went from London to Edinburgh to inform King James of the death of Queen Elizabeth. He had several falls and sore bruises on the road, which occasioned his going battered and bloody into the royal presence. 420 THE FANCIES OF FACT. On the 29th of August, 1750, was decided at Newmarket a remarkable wager for one thousand guineas, laid by Theobald Taaf, Esq., against the Earl of March and Lord Eglinton, who were to provide a four-wheel carriage with a man in it, to be drawn by four horses nineteen miles in an hour. The match was performed in fifty-three minutes and twenty-four seconds. An engraved model of the carriage was formerly sold in the print-shops. The Marquis de la Fayette rode in August, 1778, from Rhode Island to Boston, nearly seventy miles distant, in seven hours, and returned in six and a half. Mr. Fozard, of Park Lane, London, for a wager of one hun- dred and fifty pounds against one hundred pounds, undertook to ride forty miles in two hours, over Epsom course. He rode two miles more than had been agreed on, and performed it in five minutes under time, in October, 1789. Mr. Wilde, an Irish gentleman, lately rode one hundred and twenty-seven miles on the course of Kildare, in Ireland, in six hours and twenty minutes, for a wager of one thousand guineas. The famous Count de Montgomery escaped from the massa- cre of Paris in 1572, through the swiftness of his horse, which, according to a manuscript of that time, carried him ninety miles without halting. WONDERFUL HORSE. In the year 1609, an Englishman named Banks had a horse which he had trained to follow him wherever he went, even over fences and to the roofs of buildings. He and his horse went to the top of that immensely high structure, St. Paul's Church. After many extraordinary performances at home, the horse and his master went to Rome, where they performed feats equally astonishing. But the result was that both Banks and his horse were burned, by order of the Pope, as enchanters. Sir "Walter Raleigh observes, that had Banks lived in olden times, he would have shamed all the enchanters of the world, for no beast ever performed such wonders as his. fHE FANCIES OP FACT. 421 Fortunately for men like Thorne, and Rice, and Franconi, who have been so successful in training the noblest animal in creation for the stage-representations of Mazeppa, Putnam's Leap, &c., and for the various and fantastic tricks which have won so much admiration and applause, the present age is not disgraced by such besotted ignorance and superstition. WONDERFUL LOCK. Among the wonderful products of art in the French Crystal Palace was shown a lock which admits of 3, 674, 385 combina- tions. Heuret passed a hundred and twenty nights in locking it, and Fichet was four months in unlocking it; now they can neither shut nor open it. CELERITY OF CLOTH-MANUFACTURE. Many accounts have been published of the celerity with which manufacturers of cloth, both English and American, have completed the various parts of the process, from the fleece to the garment. In England the fleece was taken from the sheep, manufactured into cloth, and the cloth made into a coat, in the short space of thirteen hours and twenty minutes. Messrs. Buck, Brewster & Co., proprietors of the Ontario manu- factory at Manchester, Vermont, on perusing an account of this English achievement, conceived, from the perfection of their machinery and the dexterity of their workmen, that the same operations might be accomplished even in a shorter time. A wager of five hundred dollars was off'ered, and accepted, that they would perform the same operations in twelve hours. The wool was taken from the sack in its natural state, and in nine hours and fifteen minutes precisely, the coat was completed, and worn in triumph by one of the party concerned. The wool was picked, greased, carded, roped, and spun, — the yarn was worked, put into the loom and woven, — the cloth was fulled, colored, and four times shorn, pressed, and carried to the tailor's, and the coat completed, — all within the time above stated. The cloth was not of the finest texture, but was very hand 4^2 THE FANCIES OP FACT. fiomely dressed, and fitted the person who wore it reraarkably well. The only difference between this and the English experi- ment was the time occupied in shearing the fleece ; and any wool-grower knows that this part of the operation may be per- formed in ten minutes. CRUDE VALUE versuS INDUSTRIAL VALUE. Algarotti, in his Opuscula, gives the following example to ehow the pi'odigious addition of value that may be given to an object by skill and industry. A pound weight of pig-iron costs the operative manufacturer about five cents. This is worked up into steel, of which is made the little spiral spring that moves the balance-wheel of a watch. Each of these springs weighs but the tenth part of a grain, and, when completed, may be sold as high as $3.00, so that out of a pound of iron, allow- ing something for the loss of metal, eighty thousand of these springs may be made, and a substance worth but five cents be wrought into a value of ^240,000, An American gentleman says, that during a recent visit to Manchester, England, a pound of cotton, which in its crude state may have been worth eight cents, was pointed out to him as worth a pound of gold. It had been spun into a thread that would go round the globe at the equator and tie in a good large knot of many hundred miles in length. QUANTITY AND VALUE. For what is worth in any thing But so much money as 'twill bring? — Butler. When emeralds were first discovered in America, a Spaniard carried one to a lapidary in Italy, and asked him what it was worth ; he was told a hundred escudos. He produced a second, which was larger; and that was valued at three hundred. Over- joyed at this, he took the lapidary to his lodging and showed him a chest full ; but the Italian, seeing so many, damped his joy by saying, " Ah ha, Senor ! so many ! — these are worth one escudo." THE FANCIES OF FACT. 42o Montenegro presented to the elder Almagro the first cat which was brought to South America, and was rewarded for it with six hundred jjesos. The first couple of cats which were carried to Cuyaba sold for a pound of gold. There was a plague of rats in the settlement, and they were purchased as a speculation, which proved an excellent one. Their first kittens produced thirty oitavas each ; the next generation were worth twenty ; and the price gradually fell as the inhabitants were stocked with these beautiful and useful creatures. Could every hailstone to a pearl bo turned, Pearls in the mart like oyster-shells were spurned ! AMOUNT OF GOLD IN THE WORLD. Estimate the yard of gold at £2,000,000, (which it is in round numbers,) and all the gold in the world might, if melted into V ingots, be contained in a cellar twenty-four feet square and six- teen feet high. All the boasted wealth already obtained from California and Australia would go into a safe nine feet square and nine feet high ; so small is the cube of yellow metal that has set populations on the march and occasioned such wondroua revolutions in the afi"airs of the world. The contributions of the people, in the time of David, for the sanctuary, exceeded £6,800,000. The immense treasure David is said to have collected for the sanctuary amounted to £889,000,000 sterling, (Crito says £798,000,000,)— a sum greater than the British national debt. The gold with which Solomon overlaid the '' most holy place," a room only thir- teen feet square, amounted to more than thirty-eight millions sterling. The products of the California mines from 1853 to 1858 are put down at ^443,091,000; those of Australia, since their dis- covery, at §296,813,000; or $739,904,000 in all,— an increase of about one-third, according to the best statistical writers, on the value of this precious metal known in 1850. The total value of gold in the world at the present time, then, is but little more than 83,000,000,000. 424 THE FANCIES OF FACT. IMMENSE WEALTH OP THE ROMANS. Crassus* landed estate was valued at - - $8,333,330 His house was valued at 400,000 Caecilius Isidorus, after having lost much, left - 5,235,800 Demetrius, a freedman of Pompey, was worth - 3,875,000 Lentulus, the augur, no less than - - - 16,666,666 Ulodius, who was slain by Milo, paid for his house 616,66b He once swallowed a pearl worth . - . 40,000 Apicius was worth more than ... 4,583,350 And after he had spent in his kitchen, and other- wise squandered, immense sums, to the amount of 4,166,666 He poisoned himself, leaving .... 416,666 The establishment belonging to M. Scarus, and burned at Tusculum, was valued at - - 4,150,000 Gifts and bribes may be considered signs of great riches : Caesar presented Servilia, the mother of Brutus, with a pearl worth .... 200,000 Paulus, the consul, was bribed by Caesar with the sum of 292,000 Curio contracted debts to the amount of - - 2,500,000 Milo contracted a debt of - - - - 2,915,666 Antony owed at the Ides of March, which he paid before the Calends of April - - - - 1,666,666 He had squandered altogether - - - 735,000,000 Seneca had a fortune of 17,500,000 Tiberius left at his death, and Caligula spent in less than twelve months, - - - 118,120,000 Caligula spent for one supper ... 150,000 Heliogabalus in the same manner - - 100,000 The suppers of Lueullus at the Apollo cost - 8,330 Horace says that Pegellus, a singer, could in five days spend 10.000 Herrius' fish-ponds sold for ... 166,000 Calvinus Labinus purchased many learned slaves, none of them at a price less than - - - 4,165 Stage-players sold much higher. THE FANCIES OP FACT. 425 WINE AT TWO MILLIONS A BOTTLE. Wine at two millions of dollars a bottle is a drink tliat in expense would rival the luxurious taste of barbaric splendor, when priceless pearls were thrown into the wine-cup to give a rich flavor to its contents ; yet that there is such a costly beverage, is a fixed fact. In the Rose apartment (so called from a bronze bas-relief) of the ancient cellar under the Hotel de Ville in the city of Bremen is the famous Rosenwein, deposited there nearly two centuries and a half ago. There were twelve large cases, each bearing the name of one of the apostles; and the wine of Judas, despite the reprobation attached to his name, is to this day more highly esteemed than the others. One case of the wine, containing five oxhoft of two hundred and four bottles, cost five hundred rix-dollars in 1624. Including the expenses of keeping up the cellar, and of the contributions, interests of the amounts, and in- terests upon interests, an oxhoft costs at the present time 555,657,640 rix-dollars, and consequently a bottle is worth 2,723,812 rix-dollars; a glass, or the eighth part of a bottle, is worth 340,476 rix-dollars, or §272,380 ; or at the rate of 540 rix-dollars, or $272, per drop. A burgomaster of Bremen ia privileged to have one bottle whenever he entertains a distin- guished guest who enjoys a German or European reputation. The fact illustrates the operation of interest, if it does not show the cost of luxury. CAPACIOUS BEER-CASKS. ' A few years before Mr. Thrale's death, which happened in 1781, an emulation arose among the brewers to exceed each other in the size of their casks for keeping beer to a certain age, — probably, says Sir John Hawkins, taking the hint from the tun at Heidelberg, of which the following is a description : At Heidelberg, on the river Neckar, near its junction with the Rhine, in Germany, there was a tun or wine-vessel con- structed in 1343, which contained twenty-one pipes. Another 3G» 426 THE FANCIES OF FACT. was made, or the one now mentioned rebuilt, iu 1664, which held six hundred hogsheads, English measure. This was emp- tied, and knocked to pieces by the French, in 1688. But a new and larger one was afterwards fabricated, which held eight hun- dred hogsheads. It was formerly kept full of the best Rhenish wine, and the Electors have given many entertainments on its platform ; but this convivial monument of ancient hospitality ia now, says Mr. Walker, but a melancholy, unsocial, solitary in- stance of the extinction of hospitality : it moulders in a damp vault, quite empty. The celebrated tun at Konigstein is said to be the most ca- pacious cask in the world, — holding 1,869,2.36 pints. The top is railed in, and it affords room for twenty people to regale themselves. There are also several kinds of welcome-cups, which are offered to strangers, who are invited by a Latin in- scription to drink to the prosperity of the whole universe This enormous tun was built in 1725, by Frederick Augustus, King of Poland and Elector of Saxony, who, in the inscrip- tion just mentioned, is styled '' the father of his country, the Titus of his age, and the delight of mankind." Dr. Johnson once mentioned that his friend Thrale had four casks so large that each of them held one thousand hogsheads. But Mr. Meux, of Liquorpond Street, Gray's Inn Lane, could, according to Mr. Pennant, show twenty-four vessels containing in all thirty-five thousand barrels : one alone held four thou- sand five hundred barrels; and in the year 1790 this enterpris- ing brewer built another, containing nearly twelve thousand barrels, valued at about £20,000. A dinner was given to two hundred people at the bottom of it, and two hundred more joined the company to drink success to this unrivalled vat. DIFFERENCE BETWEEN TEE ENGLISH POETS. Chaucer describes men and things as they are ; Shakspearc, as they would he under the circumstances supposed ; Spenser, as we would whli them to be; Milton, as they ought to be; Byron, as they ought not to be; and Shelley, as they never can be. THE FANCIES OF FACT. 427 PERILS OF PRECOCITY. Baillet mentions one hundred and sixtj'-tliree children endowed with extraordinary talents, among whom few arrived at an advanced age. The two sons of Quintiliau so vaunted by their father did not reach their tenth year. Hermogenes, who at the age of fifteen taught rhetoric to Marcus Aurelius, who triumphed over the most celebrated rhetoricians of Greece, did not die at an early age, but at twenty-four lost his faculties and forgot all he had previously acquired. Pico di 31irandola died at thirty-two; Johannus Secundus at twenty-five, having at the age of fifteen composed admirable Greek and Latin verses and become profoundly versed in jurisprudence and letters. Pascal, whose genius developed itself when ten years old, did not attain the third of a century. In 1791, a child was born at Lubeck, named Henri Heinneken, whose precocity was miraculous. At ten months of age he spoke distinctly, at twelve learned the Pentateuch by rote, and at fourteen months was perfectly acquainted with the Old and New Testament At two years he was as familiar with geography and ancient history as the most erudite authors of antiquity. In the ancient and modern languages he was a proficient. This won- derful child was unfortunately carried ofi" in his fourth year. THE BLACK HOLE AT CALCUTTA. This celebrated place of confinement was only eighteen feet by eighteen, containing, therefore, three hundred and twenty-four square feet. When Fort William was taken, in 1756, by Sura- jah Dowla, Nabob of Bengal, one hundred and forty-six persona were shut up in the Black Hole. The room allowed to each person a space of twenty-six and a half inches by twelve inches, which was just sufiicient to hold them without their pressing violently on each other. To this dungeon there was but one small grated window, and, the weather being very sultry, tlie air within could neither circulate nor be changed. In less than an hour, many of the prisoners were attacked with extreme diili- culty of breathing; several were delirious; and the place wa.n i28 THE FANCIES OF FACT. filled with incoherent ravings, in which the cry for water was predominant. This was handed them by the sentinels, but without the eiFect of allaying their thirst. In less than four hours, many were suffocated, or died in violent delirium. In five houi-s, the survivors, except those at the grate, were frantic and outrageous. At length most of them became insensible. Eleven hours after they were imprisoned, twenty-three only, of the one hundred and forty-six, came out alive, and those were in a highly-putrid fever, from which, however, by fresh air and proper attention, they gradually recovered. STONE BAROMETER. A Finland newspaper mentions a stone in the northern part of Finland, which serves the inhabitants instead of a barometer. This stone, which they call llmakiur, turns black, or blackish gray, when it is going to rain, but on the approach of fine wea- ther it is covered with white spots. Probably it is a fossil mixed with clay, and containing rock-salt, nitre, or ammonia, which, according to the greater or less degree of dampness of the atmosphere, attracts it, or otherwise. In the latter case the salt appears, forming the white spots. BITTERNESS OF STRYCHNIA. Strychnia, the active principle of the Nux Vomica bean, which has become so famous in the annals of criminal poison- ing, is so intensely bitter that it will impart a sensibly bitter taste to six hundred thousand times its weight of water. SALT, AS A LUXURY. Mungo Park describes salt as " the greatest of all luxuries in Central Africa." Says he, "It would appear strange to a European to see a child suck a piece of rock-salt, as if it were Bugar. This, however, I have frequently seen ; although iu the inland parts the poorer class of inhabitants are so very rarely indulged with this precious article, that to say a man eats salt with his victuals is the same as saying that he is a THE FANCIES OF FACT. 429 rict man. I have myself suffered great inconvenience from the scarcity of this article. The loiig-coutiiiued use of vege- table food creates so painful a longiug for salt, that no words can sufficiently describe it." SINGULAR CHANGE OF TASTE. The sense by which we appreciate the sweetness of bodies is liable to singular modifications. Thus, the leaves of the Gijm- jiema si/ivestre, — a plant of Northern India, — when chewed, take away the power of tasting sugar for twenty-four hours, without otherwise injuring the general sense of taste. BLUNDERS OF PAINTERS. Tintoret, an Italian painter, in a picture of the Children of Israel gathering manna, has taken the precaution to arm them with the modern invention of guns. Cigoli painted the aged Simeon at the circumcision of the infant Saviour; and as aged men in these days wear spectacles, the artist has shown his sagacity by placing theiu on Simeon's nose. In a picture by Verrio of Christ healing the sick, the lookers-on are represented as standing with periwigs on their heads. To match, or rather to exceed, this ludicrous representation, Durer has painted the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden by an angel in a dress fashionably trimmed with flounces. The same painter, in his scene of Peter denying Christ, represents a Ptoman soldier very comfortably smoking a pipe of tobacco. A Dutch painter, in a picture of the Wise Men worshipping the Holy Child, has drawn one of them in a large white surplice, and in boots and spurs, and he is in the act of presenting to the child a model of a Dutch man-of-war. In a Dutch picture of Abraham offering up his son, instead of the patriarch's " stretching forth his hand and taking the knife," as the Scrip- tures inform us, he is represented as using a more effectual and modern instrument : he is holding to Isaac's head a hlunder- hmii. Berlin represents in a picture the Virgin and Child lis- toning to a violin ; and in another picture he has drawn King 430 THE FANCIES OF FACT. David playing the harp at the marriage of Christ with St. Catherine. A French artist has drawn, with true French taste, the Lord's Supper, with the table ornamented with tum- blers filled with cigar-lighters ; and, as if to crown the list of these absurd and ludicrous anachronisms, the garden of Eden has been drawn with Adam and Eve in all their primeval sim- plicity and virtue, while near thera, ia full costume, is seen a hunter with a gun, shooting ducks. MINUTE MECHANISM. There is a cherry-stone at the Salem (Mass.) Museum, which contains one dozen silver spoons. The stone itself is of the ordinary size ; but the spoons are so small that their shape and finish can only be well distinguished by the microscope. Here is the result of immense labor for no decidedly useful purpose; and there are thousands of other objects in the world fashioned by ingenuity, the value of which, in a utilitarian sense, may be said to be quite as indifierent. Dr. Oliver gives an accouut of a cherry-stone on which were carved one hundred and tweuty- four heads, so distinctly that the naked eye could distinguish those belonging to popes and kiugs by their mitres and crowns. It was bought in Prussia for fifteen thousand dollars, and thence conveyed to England, where it was considered an object of so much value that its possession was disputed, and it became the object of a suit in chancery. One of the Nuremberg toy- makers enclosed in a cherry-stone, which was exhibited at the French Crystal Palace, a plan of Sevastopol, a railway-station, and the " 3Iessiah" of Klopstock. In more remote times, an account is given of an ivory chariot, constructed by Merme- cides, which was so small that a fly could cover it with his wing ; also a ship of the same material, which could be hidden under the wing of a bee! Pliny, too, tells us that Homer's Iliad, with its fifteen thousand verses, was written in so small a space as to be contained in a nutshell; while Elian mentions an artist who wrote a distich in letters of gold, which he en- closed in the rind of a kernel of corn. But the Harlcian MS THE FANCIES OF FACT. 4^1 mentions a greater curiosity than any of the above, it being no- thing more nor less than the. Bible, written by one Peter IJales, a chancery clerk, in so small a book that it could be enclosed within the shell of an English walnut. Disraeli gives an ac- count of many other exploits similar to the one of Bales. There is a drawing of the head of Charles II. in the library of St. John's College, Oxford, wholly composed of minute written characters, which at a small distance resemble the lines of an engraving. The head and the ruff are said to contain the book of Psalms, in Greek, and the Lord's Prayer. In the British Museum is a portrait of Queen Anne, not much larger than the hand. On this drawing are a number of lines and scratches, which, it is asserted, comprise the entire contents of a thin folio. The modern art of Photography is capable of effecting wonders in this way. We have before us the Declaration of Independence, containing seven thousand eight hundred letters, on a space not larger than the head of a pin, which, when viewed through a microscope, may be read distinctly. THE RATIO OF THE DIAMETER TO THE CIRCUMFERENCE. The proportion of the diameter of a circle to its circumfei ence has never yet been exactly ascertained. Nor can a square or any other right-lined figure be found that shall be equal to a given circle. This is the celebrated problem called the squar- ing of the circle, which has exeicised the abilities of the great- est mathematicians for ages and been the occasion of so many disputes. Several persons of considerable eminence have, at different times, pretended that they had discovered the exact quadrature ; but their errors have readily been detected ; and it is now generally looked upon as a thing impossible to be done. But though the relation between the diameter and circum- ference cannot be accurately expressed in known numbers, it may yet be approximated to any assigned degree of exactness. And in this manner was the problem solved, about two thou- sand years ago, by the great Archimedes, who discovered the proportion to be nearly as seven to twenty-two. The proccsa 432 THE FANCIES OF FACT. by wliich he effected this may be seen in his book De Dimen- sione Circuli. The same proportion was also discovered by Philo Gadarensis and ApoUonius Pergeus at a still earlier period, as we are informed by Eutocius. The proportion of Yieta and Metius is that of one hundred and thirteen to three hundred and fifty-five, which is a little more exact than the former. It was derived from the pre- tended quadrature of a M. Van Eick, which first gave rise to the discovery. But the first who ascertained this ratio to any great degree of exactness was Van Ceulen, a Dutchman, in his book De Circulo et Adscriptis. He found that if the diameter of a circle was 1, the circumference would be 3*14159265358979- 3238462643383279502884 nearly; which is exactly true to thirty-six places of decimals, and was effected by the continual bisection of an arc of a circle, a method so extremely trouble- some and laborious that it must have cost him incredible pains. It is said to have been thought so curious a performance that the numbers were cut on his tombstone in St. Peter's church- yard, at Leyden. But since the invention of fluxions, and the summation of infinite series, several methods have been discovered for doing the same thing with much more ease and expedition. Euler and other eminent mathematicians have by these means given a quadrature of the circle which is true to more than one hun- dred places of decimals, — a proportion so extremely near the truth that, unless the ratio could be completely obtained, we need not wish for a greater degree of accuracy. MATHEMATICAL PRODIGIES. They with the pen or pencil problems solved ; He, with no aid but wondrous memory. Prominent among the precocious mathematicians of the pre- sent day is a colored boy in Kentucky, named William Marcy, whose feats in mental arithmetic are truly wonderful. Hia powers of computation appear to be fully equal to those of Bid- THE FANCIES OP FACT. 433 der, Buxton, Grandimange, Colburn, or Safford. lie can mul- tiply or divide millions by thousands in a few minutes from the time the figures are given to him, and always with the utmost exactness. Recently, in the presence of a party of gentlemen, he added a column of figures, eight in a line, and one humlral and eighti/ lines, making the sum total of several millions, within six minutes. The feat was so astounding, and appa- rently incredible, that several of the party took off their coats, and, dividing the sum, went to work, and in two hours after they commenced produced identically the same answers. The boy is not quite seventeen years of age; he cannot read nor write, and in every other branch of an English education is entirely deficient. It is worthy of remark that mathematics is the only department of science in which such feats of im- becile minds can be achieved. The supposition would not, a j;>norj*, be admissible ; but frequent facts prove it. A negro, a real idiot, was not long since reported in Alabama, who could beat this Kentuckian in figures, but could scarcely do any thing else worthy of a human intellect. Precocious mathematicians, not imbecile, have usually turned out poorly; few of them, like Pascal, have shown any general capacity. These facts suggest inferences unfortunate for mathematical genius, if not for mathematical studies. They have sublime relations, in their "mixed" form, with our knowledge of the universe; but their relations to genius — to human sentiments and sensibilities — to the moral and ideal in humanity, — are, to say the least, quite equivocal. The calculating power alone would seem to be the least of human qualities, and to have the smallest amount of reason in it ; since a machine like Babbage's can be made to do the work of three or four calculators, and better than any of them. EXTRAORDINARY MEMORY. Lipsius made this offer to a German prince : — Sit here with a poniard, and if in repeating Tacitus from beginning to end I miss a single word, stab me. I will freely bare my breast for you to strike. 2C 37 434 THE FANCIES OF FACT. Muretus tells us of a young Corsican, a law-student at Padua, wlio could, without hesitation, repeat thu-ty-six thousand Latin, Greek, or bai'barous words, siguiticant or inaignihcaut, upon once hearing them. Muretus himself tested his wonderful memory, and avers all alleged respecting it to be strictly true. Mr. Carruthers, iu the course of a lectui-e on Scottish history mentioned an instance of Sir Walter Scott's wonderful mem- ory : " I have heard Campbell relate how strongly Scott was im- pressed with his (Campbell's) poem of LochieVs Warning. 'I read it to him in manuscript,' he said ; ' he then asked to read it over himself, which he did slowly and distinctly, after which he handed to me the manuscript, saying, ' Take care of your copyright, for I have got your poem by heart,' and with only these two readings he repeated the poem with scarcely a mistake.' Certainly an extraordinary instance of memory, for the piece con- tains eighty-eight lines. The subject, however, was one which could not foil powerfully to arrest Scott's attention, and vei-sifica- tion and diction are such as are easily caught up and remembered." SILENT COMPLIMENT. While an eloquent clergyman was addressing a religious society, he intimated, more than once, that he was admonished to conclude by the lateness of the hour. His discourse, however, was so attractive that some ladies in the gallery covered the clock with their shawls. SELF-IMMOLATION. Comyn, Bishop of Durham, having quarrelled with his cler- gy? they mixed poison with the wine of the Eucharist, and gave it to him. He perceived the poison, but yet, with mis- guided devotion, he drank it and died. THE NEED OF PROVIDENCE. Cecil says in his Remains : — "We require the same hand to pro- tects us in apparent safety as in the most imminent and palpoble danger. One of the most wicked men in my neighborhood was riding near a precipice and fell over: his horse was killed, but he escaped without injury. Instead of thanking God for his THE FANCIES OF FACT. Ao5 deliverance, lie refiiscd to acknowledge the hand of God in it but attributed his escape to chance. The same man \va.s utter- wai-ds riding on a very smooth road: his horse suddenly fell and thi-ew his rider over his head, and killed him on the spot, while the horse escaped unhurt. DIMENSIONS OF UEAVEN, And he measured the city with the reed, twelve thousand furlongs. The length, and the breadth, and the height of it are equal. — Rev. x.xi. 16. Twelve thousand furlongs, 7,920,000 feet, which being cubed, 496,793,088,000,000,000,000 cubic feet. Half of this we will reserve for the Throne of God and the Court of Heaven, and half the balance for streets, leaving a remainder of 124,- 198,272,000,000,000,000 cubic feet. ^Divide this by 4,096, the cubical feet in a room sixteen feet square, and there will be 30,321,843,750,000,000 rooms. We will now suppose the world always did and always will contain 990,000,000 inhabitants, and that a generation lasts for 33^ years, making in all 2,970,000,000 every century, and that the world will stand 100,000 years, or 1,000 centuries, making in all 2,970,000,000,000 inhabitants. Then suppose there were one hundred worlds equal to this in number of inhabitants and duration of years, making a total of 297,000,000,000,000 per- sons, and there would be more than a hundred rooms sixteen feet square for each person. THE COST OF SOLOMON'S TEMPLE. According to the computation of Villalpandus, the talents of gold, silver, and brass, used in the construction of the Temple, amounted to £6,879,822,500. The jewels arc reckoned to have exceeded this sum ; but, for the sake of an estimate, let their value be set down at the same amount. The vessels of gold (vasa aurea) consecrated to the use of the Temple are reckoned by Jose- phus at 140,000 talents, which, according to Capel's reduction, are equal to £545,296,203. The vessels of silver (vam arf/mtea) are computed at 1,340,000 talents, or £489,344,000. The silk vestments of the priests cost £10,000; the purple vestments 436 THE FANCIES OF FACT. of the singers, £2,000,000. The trumpets amounted to £200,000 ; other musical instruments to £40,000. To these expenses must be added those of the other materials, the tim- ber and stone, and of the labor employed upon them, the labor being divided thus : there were 10,000 men engaged at Leba- non in hewing timber (silvicidse); there were 70,000 bearers of burdens {vectoi-es) ; 20,000 hewers of stone {lopicidinse) ; and 3,300 overseers (cpiscopi) ; all of whom were employed for seven years, and upon whom, besides their wages and diet, Solomon bestowed £6,733,977 (dunum Soloiriom's). If the daily food and wages of each man be estimated at 4s. Qd., the sum total will be £93,877,088. The costly stone and the tim- ber in the rough may be set down as at least equal to one-third of the gold, or about £2,545,296,000. The several estimates will then amount to £17,442,442,268, or $77,521,965,636. THE NUMBER SEVEN. In the year 1502 there was printed at Leipsic a work en- titled Heptalogiiim Virgilii Salshunjensis, in honor of the number seven. It consists of seven parts, each consisting of seven divisions. In 1624 appeared in London a curious work on the subject of numbers, bearing the following title : The Secrets of Numbers, according to llieological, Arithmetical, Geometrical, and Harmonical Computation; drawn, for the letter part, out of those Ancients, as well as Neoteriques. Pleasing to read, profitable to understand, opening themselves to the capacities of both learned and unlearned ; being no other than a key to lead men to any doctrinal knowledge tohat- soever. In the ninth chapter the author has given many nota- ble opinions from learned men, to prove the excellency of the number seven. " First, it neither begets nor is begotten, accord- ing to the saying of Philo. Some numbers, indeed, within the compass of ten, beget, but are not begotten ; and that is the unarie. Others are begotten, but beget not; as the octonarie. Only the septenarie, having a prerogative above them all, nei- ther begetteth nor is begotten. This is its first divinity oi THE FANCIES OF FACT. 437 perfection. Secondly, this is a harmonieal number, and tlio well and fountain of that fair and lovely Digamma, because it iucludeth within itself all manner of harmony. Thirdly, it i.s a theological number, consisting of perfection. Fourthly, be cause of its compositure; for it is compounded of the first two perfect numbers equal and unequal, — three and four; for the number two, consisting of repeated unity, which is no number, is not perfect. Now, every one of these being excellent of themselves, (as hath been demonstrated,) how can this number be but far more excellent, consisting of them all, and partici- pating, as it were, of all their excellent virtues ?" Hippocrates says that the septenary number by its occult virtue tends to the accomplishment of all things, is the dis- penser of life and fountain of all its changes ; and, like Shak- speare, he divides the life of man into seven ages. In seven months a child may be born and live, and not before. An- ciently a child was not named before seven days, not being ac- counted fully to have life before that periodical day. The teeth spring out in the seventh month, and are renewed in the seventli year, when infancy is changed into childhood. At thrice seven years the faculties are developed, manhood com- mences, and we become legally competent to all civil acts; at four times seven man is in the full possession of his strength ; at five times seven he is fit for the business of the world ; at six times seven he becomes grave and wise, or never; at seven times seven he is in his apogee, and from that time he decays. At eight times seven he is in his first climacteric; at nine times seven, or sixty-three, he is in his grand climacteric, or year of danger; and ten times seven, or threescore years and ten, has, by the Royal Prophet, been pronounced the natural period of human life. In six days creation was perfected, and the seventh was con- secrated to rest. On the seventh of the seventh mouth a holy observance was ordained to the children of Israel, who feasted eeven days and remained seven days in rest; the seventh year was directed to be a sabbath of rest for all things ; and at the 438 THE FANCIES OF FACT. end of seven times seven years commenced the grand Jubiloe; every seventh year the land lay fallow; every seventh year there was a general release from all debts, and all bondsmen were set free. From this law may have originated the custom of binding young men to seven years' apprenticeship, and of punishing incorrigible offenders by transportation for seven, twice seven, or three times seven years. Every seventh year the law was directed to be read to the people ; Jacob served seven years for the possession of liachel, and also another seven years. Noah had seven days' warning of the flood, and w twenty days, when death comes to his relief. 3U 458 THE FANCIES OF FACT. The influeneo of habit in promoting or preventing sleep is remarkable. Those accustomed to the tranquillity of rural dis- tricts are excessively annoyed by the din of the carriages on the paved thoroughfares of a large city. It is said, on the other hand, that those who live near the cataracts of the Nile cannot sleep at a distance from them, owing to their having become accustomed to the noise, the stimulus of which upon the ear they lack. Some persons can only sleep in the dark ; we knew a woman who slept habitually with a candle burning in her bedroom, and who invariably awoke if the light went out. Some of the soldiers of Bonaparte's army would sleep, after extreme fatigue and exhaustion, on the ground by the bide of a twenty-four pounder which was constantly firing. Some boys slept from fatigue on board of Nelson's ship, at the battle of the Nile. We have heard of a boiler-maker who could go to sleep in a boiler while the workmen were constantly hammering the rivets. Sleep can persist with the exercise of certain muscles. Cou- riers on long journeys nap on horseback; and coachmen, on their boxes. Among the impressive incidents of Sir John Moore's disastrous retreat to Corunna, in Spain, not the least striking is the recorded fact that many of his soldiers steadily pursued their march while fast asleep. Burdaeh, however, affirms that this is not uncommon among soldiers. Franklin slept nearly an hour swimming on his back. An acquaintance of Dr. D., travelling with a party in North Carolina, being greatly fatigued, was observed to be sound asleep in his saddle. His horse, being a better walker, went far in advance of the rest. On crossing a hill, they found him on the ground, snoring gently. His horse had fallen, as was evident from liis bruised knees, and had thrown his rider on his head on a hard surface, without waking him. Animals of the lower orders obey peculiar laws in regard to sleep. Fish are said to sleep soundly ; and we are told by Aristotle that the tench may be taken in this state, if ap- proached cautiously. Many birds and beasts of prey take their repose in the daytime. When kept in captivity, this habit ua- TUE FANCIES OF FACT. 4r>0 dergoGs a change, — which makes us doubt whether it was not the result of necessity, which demanded that they should take advantage of the darkness, silence, and the unguarded state of their victims. In the nieuagerie at Paris, even the hyena sleeps at night, and is awake by day. They all, however, seek, as favoring the purpose, a certain degree of seclusion and shade, with the exception of the lion, who, Burdach informs us, sleeps at noonday, in the open plain j and the eagle and condor will poise themselves on the most elevated pinnacle of rock, in the clear blue atmosphere and dazzling sunlight. Birds, however, are furnished with a winking membrane, generally, to shelter the eye from light. Fish prefer to retire to sleep under the shadow of a rock or a woody bank. Of domestic animals, the horse seems to require least sleep ; and that he usually takes in the erect posture. Birds that roost in a sitting posture are furnished with a well-adapted mechanism, which keeps them firnly supported without voluntary or conscious action. The tendon of the claws is so arranged as to be tightened by their weight when the thighs are bent, thus contracting closely and grasping the bough or perch. In certain other animals which sleep erect, the articu- lations of the foot and knee are described by Dumeril as resem- bling the spring of a pocket-knife, which opens the instrument and serves to keep the blade in a line with the handle. The following calculation is interesting. Suppose one boy aged ten years determines to rise at five o'clock all the year round. Another of the same age, indolent and fond of ease, rises a:t eight, or an average of eight, every morning. If they both live to be seventy years old, the one will have gained over the other, during the intervening period of sixty years, sixty- five thousand seven hundred and forty-five hours, which is equal to two thousand seven hundred and thirty-nine und a third days, or just seven and a half years. If a similar calculation were applied to the whole country, how many millions of years of individual usefulness would it prove to be lost to society ! " God bless the man who first iiiveuteJ sleep!" So Suiiebo Pauza suiii, uud so say I ! And bless biiu, also, tiiat lie diiln't keep llis great discovery lo biuisell, or try 460 THE FANCIES OF FACT. To make it — as the lucky fellow might — A close monopoly by " patent right !" Yes — bless the man who first invented sleep, (I really can't avoid the iteration;) But blast the man, with curses loud and deep, Whate'er the rastal's name, or age, or statioBi Who first invented, and went round advising. That artificial cut-ofi", — early rising ! " Rise with the lark, and with the lark to bed," Observes some solemn, sentimental owl: Maxims like these are very cheaply said ; But ere you make yourself a fool or fowl. Pray just inquire about their rise — and fall. And whether larks have any beds at all ! The " time for honest folks to be abed" Is in the mornin;^, if I reason right : And he who cannot keep his precious head Upon his pillow till it's fairly light. And so enjoj' his forty morning winks, Is up — to knavery ; or else — he drinks ! Thomson, who sung about the " Seasons," said It was a glorious thing to rine in season ; But then he said it — lying — in his bed At ten o'clock A. M., — the very reason He wrote so charmingly. The simple fact is, His preaching wasn't sanctioned by his practice. 'Tis, doubtless, well to be sometimes awake, — Awake to duty and awake to truth ; But when, alas ! a nice review we take Of our best deeds and days, we find, in sooth. The hours that leave the slightest cause to weep Are those we passed in childhood, or — asleep ! 'Tis beautiful to leave the world a while For the soft visions of the gentle night, And free, at last, from mortal care or guile, To live, as only in the angels' sight. In sleep's sweet realms so cosily shut in, Where, at the worst, we only dream of sin ! So let us sleep, and give the JIakcr praise. I like the lad who, when his father thought To clip his morning nap by hackneyed phrase Of vagrant worm by early songster caught, Cried, '• Served him right ! — it's not at all surnrising: The worm was punished, sir, for early rising '" THE FANCIES OF FACT. 461 OPIUM AND EAST INDIAN HEMP. Children of Night! from Lethe's bourn, Ye come to weave the oblivious veil. And on the wretched and forlorn To bid your sweet illusions steal. — Frar.astoro- There is nothing in nature more curious and inexplicable tlian the influence on the circulating fluids, and through these on the brain and its functions, of various narcotic drugs. Among these, opium, and Cannabis Indica, or East Indian hemp, occupy the most prominent place. No reflective person can look into the writings of Coleridge, De Quincey, or Bayard Taylor, each of whom has experienced the eff"ects of these drugs in his own person, and graphically described his sensa- tions, thoughts, feelings, and dreams while under their influ- ence, without being struck with awe and astonishment at the modifying and disturbing influences which these substances exert upon that mysterious connection which exists between the mind and the material medium through which it manifests itself. Take the following, for example, from the Confessions of an English Opixim-Eater, which, not only for grandeur of description, but for psychological interest, is unsurpassed by any thing in the English language. " The dream commenced with a music which now I often heard in dreams, — a music of preparation and of awakening suspense ; a music like the opening of the Coronation Anthem, and which, like tliat.1 gave the feeling of a vast march — of infinite caval- cades filing ofi", and the tread of innumerable armies. Tho morning was come of a mighty day — a day of crisis and of final hope for human nature, then sufi"ering some mysterious eclipse and laboring in some dread extremity. Somewhere, I knew not where — somehow, I knew not how — by some beings, I knew not whom — a battle, a strife, an agony, was conducting, — was evolving like a great drama, or piece of music; with which my sympathy was the more insupportable from my con- fusion as to its place, its cause, its nature, and its possible issue. I, as is usual in dreams, (where, of necessity, we mako 462 THE FANCIES OF FACT. ourselves central to every movement,) laad the power, and yet had not the power, to decide it. I had the power, if I could raise myself, to will it; and yet again had not the power, for the weight of twenty Atlantics was upon me, or the oppression of inexpiable guilt. " 'Deeper than ever plummet sounded,' I lay inactive. Then, like a chorus, the passion deepened. Some greater interest was at stake, — some mightier cause than ever yet the sword had pleaded or trumpet had proclaimed. Then came sudden alarms; hurryings to and fro; trepidations of innumerable fugitives — I knew not whether from the good cause or the bad ; darkness and lights; tempest and human faces ; and, at last, with the sense that all was lost, female forms, and the features that were worth all the world to me, and but a moment allowed — and clasped hands, and heart-breaking partings, and then everlasting farewells ! and, with a sigh such as the caves of hell sighed when the incestuous mother uttered the abhorred name of death, the sound was reverberated, — everlasting farewells ! and again, and yet again, reverberated, — everlasting farewells ! And I awoke in struggles, and cried aloud, '■ I will sleep no more De Quincey took laudanum for the first time to dispel pain, and he thus describes the effect it had upon him : — " But I took it, and in an hour, oh, heavens ! what a revulsion ! what an upheaving, from its lowest depths, of the inner spirit ! what an apocalypse of the world within me! That my pains had vanished was now a trifle in my eyes. This negative effect was swallowed up in the immensity of those positive effects which had opened before me, — in the abyss of divine enjoyment thus suddenly revealed. Here was a panacea, — a fapiia/.ov veKsvOei; for all human woes. Here was the secret of happiness, about which philosophers had disputed for so many ages, at once dis- covered! Happiness might now be bought for a penny and carried in the waistcoat-pocket; portable ecstasies might be had corked up in a pint bottle ; and peace of mind could be sent down in gallons by the mail-coach." TIIK FANCIKS Ol' FACT. AC)'.] Pr. 3Iad(.loii d(.'scribi.'s iiioro soberly his si'iisatioiis wlioii uti dor the influence of the drug in one of the cofl'ec-houscs at Cou- staiitinople. "I conniioiiood with one nrt was related by a late distinguished medical professor of Philadel- phia, to his class, while lecturing upon the diseases of the heart. It will be seen, on perusing it, that the expression ** broken-hearted" is not merely figurative. In the early part of his career, Dr. Mitchell accompanieil, as surgeon, a packet that sailed between Liverpool and one of our Southern ports. On the return-voyage, soon after leaving Liverpool, while the doctor and the captain of the vessel, a weather-beaten son of Neptune, but possessed of uncommonly fine feelings and strong impulses, were conversing in the tatter's state-room, the captain opened a large chest, and care- fully took out a number of articles of various descriptions, which he arranged u|)on a table. Dr. JL, surprised at the dis- play of costly jewels, ornaments, dres.ses, and all the varied paraphernalia of which ladies arc naturally fond, inquired of 468 THE FANCIES OP FACT. the captain his object in having made so many valuable pur- chases. The sailor, in reply, said, that for seven or eight years he had been devotedly attached to a lady, to whom he had several times made proposals of marriage, but was as often re- jected; that her refusal to wed him, however, had only stimu- lated his love to greater exertion ; and that finally, upon re- newing his oifer, declaring in the ardency of his passion that, without her society, life was not worth living for, she consented to become his bride upon his return from his next voyage. *He was so overjoyed at the prospect of a marriage from which, in the warmth of his feelings, he probably anticipated more happi- ness than is usually allotted to mortals, that he spent all his ready money, while in London, for bridal gifts. After gazing at them fondly for some time, and remarking on them in turn, "I think this will please Annie," and "I am sure she will like that," he replaced them with the utmost care. This ceremony he repeated every day during the voyage; and the doctor often observed a tear glisten in his eye as he spoke of the pleasure he would have in presenting them to his affianced bride. On reaching his destination, the captain arrayed himself with more than his usual precision, and disembarked as soon as possible, to hasten to his love. As he was about to step into the car- riage awaiting him, he was called aside by two gentlemen who desired to make a communication, the purport of which was that the lady had proved unfaithful to the trust reposed in her, and had married another, with whom she had decamped shortly before. Instantly the captain was observed to clap his hand to his breast and fall heavily to the ground. He was taken up, and conveyed to his room on the Vessel. Dr. M. was immediately summoned ; but, before he reached the poor cap- tain, he was dead. A post-mortem examination revealed the cause of his unfortunate decease. His heart was found literally torn in twain 1 The tremendous propulsion of the blood, con- sequent upon such a violent nervous shock, forced the powerful muscular tissues asunder, and life was at an end. The heart was broken. THE r.VNriES OF FACT. -Ki!) SENSATION AND INTELLIOENCE AFTER DECAPITATION. While some pliysinlogists are of opinion that death by bo- heading is attended with less actual pain than any other man- ner of death, and is, therefore, the most hitmdite mode of dis- embarrassing society of a villain, others contend, and aiKluce an equally formidable array of facts to show, that intense agony is experienced, after decollation, in both the head and the body, and that death by the guillotine, so far from being easier than hanging, is one of the most painful known. Whatever may really be the sensations attendant upon the separation of the head from the body, we have, at least, some curious facts, which throw a little light on the subject. It is related that a professor of physiology at Genoa, who has made this interesting subject his particular study, states that, having exposed two heads, a quarter of an hour after de- collation, to a strong light, the eyelids closed suddenly. The tongue, which protruded from the lips, being pricked with a needle, was drawn back into the mouth, aud the countenance expressed sudden pain. The head of a criminal named Tillier being submitted to examination after the guillotine, the eyea turned in every direction from whence he was called by name. Fontenelle declares that he has frequently seen the heads of guillotined persons move their lips, as if they were uttering remonstrances against their cruel treatment. If this be so, there is nothing very incredible in the report, sometimes treated as fabulous, that when the executioner gave a blow on the face of Charlotte Corday after the head was severed from the body, the countenance expressed violent indignation. It is stated on credible authority that some galvanic experi- ments were once tried on the body of a habitual snuff-taker, after he had undergone the operation of being guillotined. On receiving the first shock, the headless trunk joined its thumb and fore-finger, and deliberately raised its right arm, as if in the act of taking its customary pinch, and seemed much asto- nished and perplexed at finding no nose to receive its wonted tribute ' 470 THE FANCIES OF FACT. But the most marvellous tale is told of Sir Everard Digby_ who was beheaded in 1606 for being concerned in the famous Gunpowder Plot. After the head was struck oiF, the execu- tioner proceeded, according to the barbarous usages of the day, to pluck the heart from his body; and when he had done so, he held it up in full view of the numerous assemblage gathered round the scaiFold to witness the exhibition, and shouted, with a loud voice, This is the heart of a traitor! Upon which, the head, which was quietly resting on the scaffold, at the distance of a few feet, showed sundry signs of indignation, and, opening its mouth, audibly exclaimed, ^^ That is a lie!" The reader will be reminded, by this case of the English knight, of the conjurer in the Arabian Nights, who, in conse- quence of a failure in his necromancy, was decapitated by the order and in the presence of the Sultan. The head of the sor- cerer, after separation from his body, sat erect upon the floor, and, with a mysterious expression of countenance, informed his highness that as he rather thought he should have no further occasion for his books of magic, he would make a present of them to him ; and since he could not very well go to fetch them himself, if his highness would take the trouble to send for them, he would instruct him in their use. On being brought, he told the Sultan it was first necessary for him to turn over every leal in the books from the beginning to the end. But he found it was impossible to do this, as they stuck together, without, often wetting his fingers at his mouth. This infused into the monarch's veins a subtle and virulent venom, as the books were poisoned, in consequence of which he died very soon in torture, overwhelmed with the taunts and curses of the decapitated head. A case occurred some years ago at Ticonderoga, N. Y., which settles the question of pain, so far as the body is concerned, and proves that no sensations whatever can exist in the bodi/ after its connection with the brain is dissolved. It was re- ported at the time in the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal as follows : — THE FANCIES OF FACT. 471 E. J)., aged fifty, a man of hale constitution and robust, in making an effort to scale a bonrd fence, was suddenly precipi- tated backwards to the ground, striking first upon the supe- rior and anterior portion of the head, which luxated the dentatus anteriorly on the third cervical vertebra. He was at length discovered, and taken in (as the patient said) after he had lain nearly an hour, in a condition perfectly bereft of volun- tary motion ; but, being present, I did not suspect th:it the power of sensation was also gone, until the patient (whose speech remained almost, or quite, perfect, and who was uncom- monly loquacious at that time) said, did he not know to the contrary, he should think that he had no body. His flesh was then punctured, and sometimes deeply, even from the feet to the neck; but the patient gave no evidence of feeling, and, when interrogated, answered that he felt nothing; and, added he, " I never was more perfectly free from pain in my life;" but he remarked that he could not live, and accordingly sent for his family, twelve miles distant, and arranged all his various concerns in a perfectly sane manner. The head was thrown back in such a position as to prevent his seeing his body. The pulse was much more sluggish than natural. Respiration and speech, but slightly affected, were gradually failing; but he could articulate distinctly until within a few minutes of his death. All the senses of the head remained quite perfect to the last. He died forty-eight hours after the fall. Repeated attempts were made to reduce the dislocation, but the transverse processes had become so interlocked that every effort proved abortive. There was undoubtedly in this case a perfect compression of the spinal marrow, which prevented the eo'ress of nervous influence from the brain, while the pneumo- gastric nerve remained unembarrassed. ANTIPATHIES. Antipathies are as various as they arc unaccountable, and often in appearance ridiculous. Yet who can control them, or 472 THE FANCIES OF FACT. reason himself into a conviction that they are absurd ? Thoy are, in truth, natural infirmities or peculiarities, and not fantas- tical imaginings. In the French "Ana" we find mention of a lady who would faint on seeing boiled lobsters ; and several persons are mentioned, among them Mary de Medicis, who experienced the same inconvenience from the smell of roses, though particularly partial to the odor of jonquils and hya- cinths. Another is recorded who invariably fell into convul- eions at the sight of a carp. Erasmus, although a native of Rotterdam, had such an aversion to fish of any kind that the smell alone threw him into a fever. Ambrose Pare mentions a patient of his who could never look at an eel without falling into a fit. Joseph Scaliger and Peter Abono could neither of them drink milk. Cardan was particularly disgusted at the sight of egss. Ladislaus, King of Poland, fell sick if he saw an apple ; and if that fruit was exliibited to Chesne, secretary to Francis I., a prodigious quantity of blood would issue from his nose. Henry III. of France could not endure to sit in a room with a cat, and the Duke of Schomberg ran out of any chamber into which one entered. A gentleman in the court of the Emperor Fer- dinand would bleed at the nose even if he heard the mewing of the obnoxious animal, no matter at how great a distance. M. de I'Ancre, in his Tableau de V Inconstance de Tuutes Glioses, gives an account of a very sensible man, who was so terrified on seeing a hedgehog that for two years he imagined his bowels were gnawed by such an animal. In the same book we find an account of an ofiicer of distinguished bravery who never dared to face a mouse, it would so terrify him, unless he had his sword in his hand M. de I'Ancre says he knew the individual perfectly well. There are some persons who cannot bear to see spiders, and others who eat them as a luxury, as they do snails and frogs. jM. Vangheim, a celebrated hunts- man in Hanover, would faint outright, or, if he had sufficient time, would run away, at the sight of a roast pig. The philo- sopher Chrysippus had such an aversion to external reverence, that, if any one saluted him, he would involuntarily fall down TIIR r.WriF.S OF FACT. 473 Valerius Maxinuis says that this Chrysippus died of laughing at seeing an ass eat figs out of a silver plate. John Kul, a gen- tleman of Alcantara, would swoon on hearing the word lana (wool) pronounced, although his cloak was made of wool. Lord Bacon fainted at every eclipse of the moon. Tyclio IJraho shuddered at the sight of a fox ; Ariosto, at the sight of a bath j and Cicsar trembled at the crowing of a cock. STRANGE INSTANCE OP SYiMrATIlY. The Duke de Saint Simon mentions in his Mimoires a singu- lar instance of constitutional sympathy existing between two brothers. These were twins, — the President de Banqucmore, and the Governor de Bergues, who were surprisingly alike, not only in their persons, but in their feelings. One morning, he tells us, when the President was at the royal audience he was suddenly attacked by an intense pain in the thigh : at the same instant, as it was discovered afterwards, his brother, who was with the army, received a severe wound from a sword on the same leg, and precisely the same part of the leg ! WALKING BLINDFOLDED. The diflSculty of walking to any given point blindfolded can only be conceived by those who have made the experiment. After wandering about in every possible direction, now east, now west, at one time forward, at another time backward, working for a while at the zigzag, then shooting out like an arrow from a bow, and not unfrequently describing a complete circle like a miller's horse, the party is generally a thousand times more likely to end his travels at the spot from which he set out, than at the spot to which he wished to go. The follow- ing achievement presents as extraordinary an exception to the general experience on this head, as perhaps ever occurred : — Dennis Ilendrick, a stone-mason, for a wager of ten guineas, walked from the Exchange in Liverpool, along Deal Street, to the corner of liyrom Street, — being a distance of three-quarters of a mile, — bliudfoldud, and rolling a coach-wheel. On starting^ ■\(\-- 474 THE FANCIES OP FACT. there were two plasters of Burgundy pitch put on his eyes, and a handkerchief tied over them, to prevent all possibility of his seeing. He started precisely at half-past seven in the morn- ing, and completed his undertaking at twenty minutes past eight, being in fifty minutes. FELINE CLOCKS. M. Hue, in his recent vrork on the Chinese Empire, tells us that " one day, when we went to pay a visit to some families of Chinese Christian peasants, we met, near a farm, a young lad, who was taking a buffalo to graze along our path. We asked him carelessly, as we passed, whether it was yet noon. The child raised his head to look at the sun ; but it was hidden behind thick clouds, and he could read no answer there. 'The sky is so cloudy,' said he; ' but wait a moment;' and with these words he ran towards the farm, and came back a few mo- ments afterward with a cat in his arms. 'Look here,' said he, 'it is not noon yet;' and he showed us the cat's eyes, by pushing up the lids with his hands. We looked at the child with surprise, but he was evidently in earnest; and the cat, though astonished, and not much pleased at the experiment made on her eyes, behaved with the most exemplary complai- sance. 'Very well,' said we : 'thank you;' and he then let go the cat, who made her escape pretty quickly, and we con- tinued our route. To say the truth, we had not at all under- stood the proceeding; but we did not wish to question the little pagan, lest he should find out that we were Europeans by our ignorance. As soon as we reached the farm, however, we made haste to ask our Christians whether they could tell the clock by looking into a cat's eyes. They seemed surprised at the ques- tion ; but, as there was no danger in confessing to them our ignorance of the properties of the cat's eyes, we related what had just taken place. That was all that was necessary. Our complaisant neophytes Immediately gave chase to all the cats in the neighborhood. They brought us three or four, and ex- plained in what manner they might be made use of for watches. THE FANTIK8 OV FACT. 475 They poiuted out that the pupil of their eyes went on constantly growintr narrower until twelve o'clock, when they became like N^ a fine line, as thin as a hair, drawn perpendicularly across tho eye, and that alter twelve the dilatation reconiiuenced. When we had attentively examined the eyes of all the cats at our dis- posal, we came to the conclusion that it was past noon, as all the eyes perfectly agreed upon tho point." DEVONSIIIIIE SUPERSTITION. The following case of gross superstition, which occurred lately in one of the largest market-towns in the north of Devon, is related by an eye-witness : — A young woman living in the neighborhood of Holsworthy, having for some time past been subject to periodical fits of ill- ness, endeavored to efi'ect a cure by attending at the afternoon service at the parish church, accompanied by thirty young men, her near neighbors. Service over, she sat in the porch of the church, and each of the young men, as they passed out in suc- cession, dropped a penny into her lap ; but the last, instead of a penny, gave her half a crown, taking from her the twenty- nine pennies which she had already received. With this half- crown in her hand, she walked three times round the com- munion-table, and afterwards had it made into a ring, by the wearing of which she believes she will recover her health A SKULL THAT HAD A TONGUE. When Dr. John Donne, the famous poet and divine of the reign of James I., attained possession of his first living, he took a walk into the churchyard, where the sexton was at the time digging a grave, and in the course of his labor threw up a skull. This skull the doctor took in his hands, and found a rusty headless nail sticking in the temple of it, which he drew out secretly and wrapped in tho corner of his handkerchief He then demanded of the grave-digger whether he knew whose skull that was. He .said it was a man's who kept a brandy- shop, — an honest, drunken fellow, who one night, having taken 476 THE FANCIES OF FACT. two quarts, was found dead in his bed next morning. " Had he a wife ?" " Yes." "What character does she bear?" ''A very good one : only the neighbors reflect on her because she married the day after her husband was buried." This was enough for the doctor, who, under the pretence of visiting his parishioners, called on the woman : he asked her several ques- tions, and, among others, what sickness her husband died of. She gave him the same account he had before received, where- upon he suddenly opened the handkerchief, and cried, in an au- thoritative voice, " Woman, do you know this nail ?" She was struck with horror at the unexpected demand, instantly owned the fact, and was brought to trial and executed. Truly might one say, with even more point than Hamlet, that the skull had .a tongue in it. ROMANTIC HIGHWAYMAN. In a letter to Mr. Mead, preserved among that gentleman's papers in the British Museum, and dated February 3, 1625, is the following account of a singular highwayman : — Mr. Clavell, a gentleman, a knight's eldest son, a great mail and highway robber, was, together with a soldier, his com- panion, arraigned and condemned on Monday last, at the King's Bench bar : he pleaded for himself that he never had struck or wounded any man, never taken any thing from their bodies, as rings, &c., never cut their girths or saddles, or done them, when he robbed, any corporeal violence. He was, with his companion, reprieved; he sent the following verses to the king for mercy, and hath obtained it : — I that have robhed so oft am now bid stand ; Death and the law assault me, and demand My life and means : I never used men so, But, having ta'en their money, let them go. Yet, must I die ? and is there no relief? The King of kings had mercy on a thief! So may our gracious king, too, if he please, Without his council grant me a release; God is his precedent, and men shall see His mercy go beyond severity. SINGULAR CUSTOMS. 477 Si»OuKir . AM) Q. When it was fully expected that Mr. W , whose unmanage- able voice had obtained for him the title of "Bubble and 492 FACETI^. Squeak," would be elected Speaker of the House of Commons, and Mr. Canning was so informed, lie observed that if the report were true, the members must mind their P's and Q's; or else, instead of saying '' Mr. Speaker," they would say " Mr. Squeaker I" "JACK ROBINSON." Lord Eldon relates that during the parliamentary debates on the India Bill, when Mr. John Robinson was Secretary to the Treasuiy, Sheridan, on one evening when Fox's majorities were decreasing, said, " Mr. Speaker, this is not at all to be wondered at, when a member is employed to corrupt everybody in order to obtain votes." Upon this there was a great outcry by almost everybody in the house. "Who is it?" "Xame him! Name him I" "Sir," said Sheridan to the Speaker, "I shall not name the person. It is an unpleasant and invidious thing to do so ; and, therefore, I shall not name him. But don't suppose. Sir, that I abstain because there is any difficulty in naming him; I could do that, Sir, as soon as you could say 'Jack Robinson.' " A RUSSIAN JESTER AND HIS JOKES. Popular traditions in Russia unite in representing the jester Balakireff as the constant attendant of Peter the Great, who figures largely in all the stories attached to the name of his buffiDon. On one occasion Balakireff begged permission of his imperial master to attach himself to the guard stationed at the palace, and Peter, for the sake of the joke, consented — warning him at the same time that any officer of the guard who happened to- lose his sword, or to be absent from his post when summoned, was punished with death. The newly-made officer promised to do his best ; but the temptation of some good wine sent to his quarters that evening by the Czar, "to moisten his commission," proved too strong for him; and he partook so freely as to become completely "screwed." While he was sleeping off his PACETIiE. 4 or? debauch, Peter stole softly into tlic room, and carried oflF his sword. Balakireif missing it on awakening, and frightened out of his wits at the probable consecjuencos, could devise no better remedy than to replace the weapou with his own profes- sional sword of lath, — the hilt and trapj)ings of which were exactly similar to those of the guardsmen. Thus equipped, he appeared on parade the next morning, confident in the assurance of remaining undetected, if not forced to draw his weapon. But Peter, who had doubtless foreseen this contingency, instantly began storming at one of the men for his untidy appearance, and at length faced round upon Ixdakireif with the stern order, " Captain BalakirefF, draw your sword and cut that sloven down!" The poor jester, thus brought fairly to bay, laid his hand on his hilt as if to obey, but at the same time exclaimed fervently, "Merciful Heaven I let my sword be turned into woodl" And drawing the weapon, he exhibited in very deed a harm- less lath. Even the presence of the Emperor was powerless to check the roar of laughter which followed, and Balakireff was allowed to escape. The jester's ingenuity occasionally served him in extricating others from trouble as well as himself. A cousin of his, having fallen under the displeasure of the Czar, was about to be exe- cuted; and Balakii-efF presented himself at Court to petition fur a reprieve. Peter, seeing him enter, and at once divining his errand, shouted to him: "It's no use your coming here; I swear that I will not grant what you arc going to ask I" Quick as thought, Balakireff dropped on his knees, and ex- claimed, " Peter Alexejevitch, I beseech you put that scamp of a cousin of mine to death !" Peter, thus caught in his own trap, had no choice but to laugh, and send a pardon to the offender. During one of the Czar's Livonian campaigns, a thick fog greatly obstructed the movements of the army. At length a pale watery gleam began to show itself through the mist, and 42 494 FACETI^. two of tlie Russian officers fell to disputing whether this were the sun or not. Balakireif, happening to pass by at that moment, they appealed to him to decide. " Is that light yonder the sun, brother?" "How should I know," answered the jester; "I've never been here before!" At the end of the same campaign, several of the officers were relating their exploits, when Balakireff stepped in among them. "I've got a story to tell, too," cried he, boastfully; "a better one than any of yours !" " Let us hear it, then," answered the officers ; and Balakireff began, — " I never liked this way of fighting, all in a crowd together, which they have nowadays ; it seems to me more manly for each to stand by himself; and therefore I always went out alone. Now it chanced that one day, while reconnoitering close to the enemy's outposts, I suddenly espied a Swedish soldier lying on the ground, just in front of me. There was not a moment to lose ; he might start up and give the alarm. I drew my sword, rushed upon him, and at one blow cut off his right foot !" "You fool !" cried one of the listeners, "you should rather have cut off his head !" " So I would," answered Balakireff, with a grin, " but some- body else had done that already !" At times Balakireff pushed his waggeries too far, and gave serious offense to his formidable patron. On one of these occasions the enraged Emperor summarily banished him from the Court, bidding him "never appear on Russian soil again." The jester disappeared accordingly; but a week had hardly elapsed when Peter, standing at his window, espied his dis- graced favorite coolly driving a cart past the very gates of the palace. Foreseeing some new jest, he hastened down, and asked with pretended roughness, " How dare you disobey me, when I forbade you to show yourself on Russian ground ?" THE FLASHES OF REPARTEE. 495 " 1 haven't disobeyed you," answered Balakircff, coolly ; " I'm not on Russian ground now !" " Not on Russian ground ?" " No ; this cart-load of earth that I'm sitting on is Swedish soil. I dug it up in Finland only the other day !" Peter, who had doubtless begun already to regret the loss of his jester, laughed at the evasion, and restored him to favor. Some Russian writers embellished this story (a German version of which figures in the adventures of Tyll Eulcnspiegcl) with the addition that Peter, on hearing the excuse, answered, "If Finland be Swedish soil now, it shall be Russian before long" — a threat which he was not slow to fulfill. ^1)c jFlasijcs of IRcpartce. CuRRAN, being angry in a debate one day, put his hand on his heart, saying : " I am the trusty guardian of my own honor." "Then," replied Sir Boyle Roche, "I congratulate my honor- able friend on the snug sinecure to which he has appointed himself" On one occasion as the Rev. 3Iatthew Wilkes, a celebrated London preacher, was on his way to a meeting of ministers, he got caught in a shower in the place called Billingsgate, where there were a large number of women dealing in fish, who were using most profane and vulgar language. As he stopped under a shed in the midst of them, he felt called upon to give at least his testimony against their wickedness. "Don't you think," said he, speaking with the greatest deliberation and solemnity, " I shall appear as a swift witness against you in the day of judgment?" "I presume so," said one, "for the biggest rogue always turns State's evidence." 496 THE FLASHES OP REPARTEE. Matthew, when he got to the meeting, related the incident. "And what did you say in reply, Mr. Wilkes?" said one of the ministers present. " What could I ?" was the characteristic reply. The late Mr. Cobden used to tell the following anecdote : — " When in America," said he, " I asked an enthusiastic American lady why her country could not rest satisfied with the immense unoccupied territories it already possessed, but must ever be hankering after the lands of its neighbors, when her somewhat remarkable reply was, " Oh, the propensity is a very bad one, I admit; but we came honestly by it, for we inherited it from England." When Napoleon was only an officer of artillery, a Prussian officer said in his presence with much pride, " My countrymen fight only for glory, but Fi'cnchmen for money." " You are right," replied Napoleon ; '' each of them fight for what they axe most in want of." A gentleman complimented a lady on her improved appear- ance. "You are guilty of flattery," said the lady. " Not so," replied he, " for I vow you are as plump as a partridge." "At first," responded she, " I thought you guilty of flattery only, but you are now actually making game of me." A pedlar asked an old lady, to whom he was trying to sell some articles, if she could tell him of any road that no pedlar had ever travelled. " I know of but one," said she, " and that is the road to Heaven." "What is that dog barking at?" asked a fop, whose boots were more polished than his ideas. " Why," said the bystander, "he sees another puppy in your boots." A Quaker gentleman, riding in a carriage with a fashionable lady decked with a profusion of jewelry, heard her complaining of the cold. Shivering in her lace bonnet and shawl, as light THE FLASHES OP REPARTEE. 497 as a cobweb, she exclaimed : " What shall I do to get warm ?" "I really don't know," replied the Quaker solemnly, "unless thee puts on another breastpin." I dined once with Curran, said one of his friends, in the public room of the chief inn at Greenwich, when he talked a great deal, and, as usual, with considerable exaggeration. Speak- ing of something which he would not do on any induceuicnt, he exclaimed : " I had rather be hanged upon twenty gibbets." " Don't you think, sir, that one would be enough for you r"' said a girl, a stranger, who was sitting at the table next to us. You ought to have seen Curran's face just then. A tourist being exceedingly thirsty, stopped at a house by the roadside, and asked for a drink of milk. He emptied several cups, and asked for more. The woman of the house at length brought out a large bowl filled with milk, and setting it down on the table, remarked, " A person would think, sir, that you had never been weaned." Theodore Hook was walking, in the days of Warren's black- ing, where one of the emissaries of that shining character had written on the wall, " Try Warren's B ," but had been frightened by the approach of the owner of the property, and had fled. " The rest is lacking," said the wit. The famous Rochester one day met Dr. Barrow in the Park, and being determined, as he said, to put down the rusty piece of divinity, accosted him by taking olF his hat, and with a profound bow, exclaimed: "Doctor, I am yours to my shoe- tie." The Doctor, perceiving his aim, returned the salute with equal ceremony: " My Lord, I am yours to the ground." His lordship then made a deeper salara, and said: "Doctor, I am yours to the centre." Barrow replied, "My Lord, I am yours to the antipodes," on which Rochester made another attempt by exclaiming. "I am yours to the lowest pit." "There, my Lord, I leave you," replied Ban-ow. 2G 42» 498 THE FLASHES OF REPARTEE. A windy M. P., in the midst of a tedious speech, stopped to imbibe a glass of water. "I rise," said Sheridan, "to a point of order." Everybody started, wondering wliat the point of order was. "What is it?" said the speaker. "I think, sir," said Sheridan, " it is out of order for a wind- mill to go by water." At Oxford, some twenty years ago, a tutor in one of the colleges limped in liis walk. Stopping one day last summer at a railroad station, he was accosted by a well-known politician, who recognized him, and asked him if he was not the chaplain at the college at such a time, naming the year. The doctor replied that he was. "I was there," said the interrogator, "and I know you by your limp." "Well," said the doctor, "it seems that my limping made a deeper impression on you than my preaching." "Ah, doctor," was the ready reply, "it is the highest compliment we can pay a minister to say that he is known by his walk, rather than by his conversation." When Onslow was speaker of the British House of Com- mons, a member, who was very fond of hearing himself speak — though nobody would listen to him — on one occasion made a direct appeal to the chair, in consequence of the accustomed noise that was going on : " Mr. Speaker, I desire to know if I have not a right to be heard ? " The speaker hoped, at first, to escape the necessity of a reply, by calling "Order! Order!" but this proving, as usual, of no avail, the honorable member in- quired, in a louder tone than before, " Sir, have not I a right to be heard?" "Sir," replied Onslow, "you have a right to speak." Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania, abhorred smoking. His Quaker Council one day observing him approach, laid down their pipes. "I am glad to see," said Penn, "that you are ashamed of that vile habit." "Not at all," said a principal Friend, "we only lay down our pipes lest we should offend a weak brother." THE PLASHES OF RErARTEE. 499 A saloon-keeper having started business in a buildinp: where trunks had been made, asked a friend what he had better do with the old sign, "Trunk Factory." "0," said the friend, "just change the T to D, and it will suit you exactly." Years ago, when Henry Ward Beecher's reputation was not world-wide, a Western Young Men's Christian Association tried to persuade the divine to go out and lecture to them with- out charge, saying it would increase his fame. He telegraphed in reply : " I will lecture for F. A. M. E. — fifty and my expenses." Admiral Keppel was sent to the Dey of Algiers to negotiate the restoration of some English vessels which had been captured by Algerine pirates. He advocated the cause entrusted to him with a warmth and spirit which completely confounded the Dey's ideas of what was due to absolute power. "I wonder," said the offended dignitary, "at the King of England's insolence in sending me such a foolish, beardless boy." " Had my master," retorted Keppel, " considered that wisdom was to be measured by the length of the beard, he would have sent you a he-goat." Thackeray tells us of a woman begging alms from him, who, when she saw him put his hand in his pocket, cried out: " May the blessing of God follow you all your life !" But, when he only pulled out his snuff-box, she immediately added : " And never overtake ye." Dr. Beid, the celebrated medical writer, was requested by a lady of literary eminence to call at her house. " Be sure you recollect the address," she said as she quitted the room — "No. 1 Chesterfield street." "Madam," said the doctor, "I am too great an admirer of politeness not to remember Chesterfield, and, I fear, too selfish ever to forget Number One." Two men disputing about the pronunciation of the word "either" — one saying it was ee-ther, the other i-t\\cr — agreed to refer it to the first person they met, who happened to be an Irishman, who confounded both by declaring, "it's nayther, for it's ayther." 500 THE FLASHES OP REPARTEE. A Parisian millionaire once wrote to the celebrated comic au- thor, Scribe: — "Honored Sir — I wish very much to ally my name with yours in the creation of a dramatic work. WUl you be so kind as to write a comedy of which I shall compose one or two lines, so that I may be mentioned in the title; I wUl bear the entire pecuniary expense, so that I may divide the glory." Scribe, who was vain even to conceit, replied: — "Sir — I regret that I cannot comply with your modest request. It is not in accordance with my ideas of religion or propriety that a horse and an ass should be yoked together." To which the million- aire quickly responded : — " Sir — I have received your imperti- nent letter. How dare you call me a horse ! " Voltaire was warmly panegyrizing Haller one day, when a person present remarked that his eulogy was very disinterested, for Haller did not speak well of him. "Ah, well, " said Vol- taire, "perhaps we are both of us mistaken." An Irishman, abusing Erin, declared that it contained noth- ing good but the whiskey. Whereupon a wag observed, "You mean to say, then, that with all her faults you love her stUl." Bacon relates that a fellow named Hogg importuned Sir Nicholas to save his life on account of the kindred between Hog and Bacon. "Aye," replied the judge, "but you and I cannot be kindred except you be hanged, for Hog is not Bacon until it be well hanged." Lord Eldon, struck by the appearance of a beautiful woman passing Westminster Hall, expressed his admiration freely. The lady overhearing, returned the compliment by pronouncing him to a friend near by a most excellent judge. Thackeray, while in Charleston, S. C, was introduced to Mrs. C, one of the leaders of its society. In his pert way he said, "I am happy to meet you, madam; I have heard that you are a fast woman." "Oh, Mr. Thackeray," she replied with a fas- cinating smile, "we must not believe all we heai"; I had heard, sir, that you were a gentleman." THE SEXES. 501 Mr. Spurgcon rebuked certaia of liis followers who refused to interfere in politics on the ground that they were "not of this world." This, he argued, was mere metaphor. "You might as well," said he, "being sheep of the Lord, decline to eat mutton- chop on the plea that it would be cannibalism." A young barrister, intending to be very eloquent, observed, "such principles as these, my Lord, are written in the Book of Nature." "What page, sir?" said Lord Chief Justice Ellen- borough ; and the orator was silenced for life. As unto the bow the cord is, So unto the man is woman : Though she bends him, she obeys him; Though she draws him, yet she follows; Useless each without the other. — Hiawathoh Mrs. Jameson, speaking of the mistaken belief that there are essential masculine and feminine virtues and vices, says it is not the quality itself, but the modification of the quality, which is masculine or feminine; and on the manner or degree in which these are balanced or combined in the individual, de- pends the perfection of that individual character. As the in- fluences of religion are extended and as civilization advances, those qualities which are now admired as essentially feminine will be considered as essentially himan, — such as gentleness, purity, the more unselfish and spiritual sense of duty, and the dominance of the affections over the passions. This is, perhaps, what BuflFon, speaking as a naturalist, meant when he said that with the progress of humanity Les races se femitment. The axiom of the Greek philosopher Antisthenes, the disciple of Socrates, The virtue of the man and the ico?nan is the same. 502 THE SEXES. shows a perception of this moral truth, a sort of anticipation of the Christian doctrine, even in the pagan times. Every reader of Wordsworth will recollect the poem entitled Tlie Happy Warrior. It has been quoted as an epitome of every manly, soldierly, and elevated quality. Those who make the experiment of merely substituting the word WOMAN for the word WARRIOR, and changing the feminine for the masculine pronoun, will find that it reads equally well, and from begin- ning to end is literally as applicable to the one sex as to the other. As thus : — CHARACTER OF THE HAPPY WOMAN. Who is the happy woman ? Who is nhe That every woman born should wish to be ? It is the generous spirit who, when brought Among the tasks of real life, hath wrought Upon the plan that pleased her childish thought ; AVhose high endejivors are an inward light, That makes the path before her always bright; AVho, with a natural instinct to discern What knowledge can perform, is diligent to learn; Abides by this resolve, and stops not there, But makes her moral being her prime care ; AVho, doomed to go in company with pain, And fear, and sorrow, miserable train ! Turns that necessity to glorious gain; In face of these doth exercise a power Which is our human nature's highest dower; Controls them and subdues, transmutes, bereaves Of their bad influence, and their good receives; By objects, which might force the soul to abate Her feeling, rendered more compassionate; Is placable, — because occasions rise So often that demand such sacrifice; More skilful in self-knowledge, even more pure As tempted more ; more able to endure As more exposed to suffering and distress ; Theuce, also, more alive to tenderness. 'Tis she whose law is reason ; who depends Upon that law as on the best of friends ; Whence, in a state where men are tempted still To evil for a guard against worse ill, And what in quality or act is best Doth seldom on a right foundation rest, THE SEXES. 503 She fixes good on good alone, and owes To virtuo every triuiuph that she knows; Who, if she rise to station or command, Rises by open means, and tUoro will stand On honorable terms, or else retire — * * * m » Who comprehends her trust, and to the same Keeps faithful with a singleness of aim ; And therefore docs not stoop, nor lie in wait For wealth, or honors, or for worldly state; Whom they must follow; on whoso head must fall Like showers of manna, if they come at all; Whose power shed round her, in the common strife Or mild concerns of ordinary life, A constant influence, a peculiar grace ; But who, if she be called upon to faco Some awful moment to which Heaven has joined Great issues, good or bad for human kind. Is happy as a lover ; and, attired With sudden brightness, like to one inspired ; And through the heat of conflict keeps the law In calmness made, and sees what she foresaw ; Or if an unexpected call succeed. Come when it will, is equal to the need ! Mrs. Jamesoa adds that in all these fiftj'-six lines there ia only one line which cannot be feminized in its signiflcance, — that filled up with asterisks, and which is totally at variance with the ideal of a ha2>py woman. It is the line — And in himself possess his own desire. No woman could exist happily or virtuously in such complete independence of all external affections as these words express. " Her desire is to her husband :" this is the sort of subjection prophesied for the daughters of Eve. A woman doomed to exist without this earthly rest for her affections does not " in herself possess her own desire ;" she turns towards God ; and, if she does not make her life a life of worship, she makes it a life of charity, or she dies a spiritual and a moral death. Is it much better with the man who concentrates his aspirations in himself? 50-4 THE SEXES. THE PRAISE OF WOMEN, All Old English Ballad. Both sexes, give ear to my fancy, While the praise of a Tcoman I sing Confined not to Polly nor Nancy, But alike from the beggar to king. When Adam at first was created, And lord of the universe crowned, His happiness was not completed, Because a help-meet was not found. He had all things that were wanting. Which yield us contentment in life ; Both horses and foxes for hunting, Which many love more than a. wife. A garden, so planted by nature, Man could not produce in his life; And yet the all-wise Creator Saw that he wanted a wife. Old Adam was cast into slumber, A rib taken out of his side; And when he awoke in a wonder, He beheld his most beautiful bride. With transport he gazed upon her, — His happiness now was complete: He praised the all-bountiful Donor, Who thus had provided a mate. She was not taken out of his head, To rule .and triumph over man ; Nor was she taken out of his heel. To be ruled and trampled upon. But she was taken out of his side, His equal companion to be ; And thus they both were united. And man is the top of the tree. Then let not the fair be despised By man, for she's part of himself; Since woman by Adam was prized More than the whole world full of wealth. For man without woman's a beggar, Although the whole world he possessed ; And the beggar who has a good wife, With more tliau this world he is blest. TUE SEXKS. 505 PARALLEL OF THE SEXES. There is an admirable partition of qualities between the sexes, which the great Author of being has distributed to each with a wisdom which calls for our admiration. Man is strong, — woman is beautiful. Man is daring and confident, — woman is diflSdent and unassuming. Man is great in action, — woman, in suffering. Man shines abroad, — woman, at home. Man talks to convince, — woman, to persuade and please. Man has a rugged heart, — woman, a soft and tender one. Man prevents misery, — woman relieves it. Man has science, — woman, taste. Man has judgment, — woman, sensibility. Man is a being of justice, — woman, of mercy. FEMALE SOCIETY. The following remarks come with peculiar force from one of such querulous and unconnubial habits as John Randolph : — You know my opinion of female society : without it we should degenerate into brutes. This observation applies with tenfold force to young men, and those who are in the prime of man- hood. For, after a certain time of life, the literary man makes a shift (a poor one, I grant) to do without the society of ladies. To a young man nothing is so important as a spirit of devotion (next to his Creator) to some amiable woman, whose imago may occupy his heart and guard it from the pollution that be- sets it on all sides. A man ought to choose his wife as Mrs Primrose did her wedding-gown, — for qualities that will "wear well." One thing at least is true, that, if matrimony has its cares, celibacy has no pleasures. A Newton, or a mere scholar, may find enjoyment in study; a man of literary taste can re- ceive in books a powerful auxiliary ; but a man must have a bosom friend, and children around him, to cherish and support the dreariness of old age. WIFE MISTRESS LADY. Who marries for love takes a wife; who marries for conve- nience takes a mistress; who marries from consideration takes a lady. You are loved by your wife, regarded by your mis- 506 THE SEXES. tress, tolerated by your lady. You have a wife for yourself, a mistress for your house and its friends, a lady for the world. Your wife will agree with you, your mistress will accommodate you, your lady will manage you. Your wife will take care of your household, your mistress of your house, your lady of ap- pearances. If you are sick, your wife will nurse you, your mistress will visit you, your lady will inquire after your health. You take a walk with your wife, a ride with your mistress, and join parties with your lady. Your wife will share your grief, your mistress your money, and your lady your debts. If you are dead, your wife will shed tears, your mistress lament, and your lady wear mourning. — From the German. MY MOTHER. That was a thrilling scene in the old chivalric time — the wine circling around the board, and the banquet-hall ringing with sentiment and song — when, the lady of each knightly heart having been pledged by name, St. Leon aiose in Kia turn, and, lifting the sparkling cup on high, said, — " I drink to one Whose image never may depart, Deep graven on this grateful heart, TLll memory is dead; To one whose love for me shall last When lighter passions long have passed. So holy 'tis, and true; To one whose love hath longer dwelt, More deeply fixed, more keenly felt, Than any pledge to you." Each guest upstarted at the word, And laid his hand upon his sword, With fury-flashing eye ; And Stanley said, " We crave the name, Proud knight, of this most peerless dame, Whose love you count so high." St. Leon paused, as if he would Not breathe her name in careless mood Thus lightly to another, — Then bent his noble head, as though To give that word the reverence due. And gently said, "My Mother!" THE SEXES 507 LETTER TO A BRIDE. The following letter was written by an old friend to a young hilly on the eve of her wedding day : — 1 have sent you a few flowers to adorn the dying momcntg of your single life. They are the gentlest types of delicate and durable friendship. They spring up by our side when others have deserted it; and they will be found watching over our graves when those who should cherish have forgotten us. It seems that a past, so calm and pure as yours, should expire with a kindred sweetness about it, — that flowers and music, kind friends and earnest words, should consecrate the hour when a sentiment is passing into a sacrament. The three great stages of our being are the birth, the bridal, and the burial. To the first we bring only weakness — for the last we have nothing but dust ! But here at the altar, when life joins life, the pair come throbbing up to the holy man, whispering the deep promise that arms each other's heart, to help on in the life-struggle of care and duty. The beautiful will be there, borrowing new beauty from the scene. The gay and thoughtless, with their flounces and frivolities, will look solemn for once. Youth will come to gaze upon the object of its secret yearnings; and age will totter up to Lear the words repeated that to their own lives had given the charm. Some will weep over it as if it were a tomb, and some laugh over it as if it were a joke; but two must stand by it, for it is fate, not fun, this everlasting locking of their lives. And now, can you, who have queened it over so many bend- ing forms, can you come down at last to the frugal diet of a single heart? Hitherto you have been a clock, giving your time to all the world. Now you are a watch, buried in one particular bosom, warming only his breast, marking only his hours, and ticking only to the beat of his heart — where time and feeling shall be in unison, until those lower ties are lost in that higher wedlock, where all hearts are united. Hoping that calm and sunshine may hallow your clasped hands, 1 sink silently into a signature. * '" * 508 MOSLEM WISDOM. SHREWD DECISION OF ALI, CALIPH OP BAGDAD. In the Preliminary Dissertation to Dr. Richardson's Arabic Dictionary the following curious anecdote is recorded : — Two Arabians sat down to dinner : one had five loaves, the other three. A stranger passing by desired permission to eat with them, which they agreed to. The stranger dined, laid down eight pieces of money, and departed. The proprietor of the five loaves took up five pieces and left three for the other, who objected, and insisted on having one-half. The cause came before Ali, who gave the following judgment : — "■ Let the owner of the five loaves have seven pieces of money, and the owner of the three loaves one ; for, if we divide the eight loaves by three, they make twenty-four parts ; of which he who laid down the five loaves had fifteen, while he who laid down three had only nine. As all fared alike, and eight shares was each man's pro- portion, the stranger ate seven parts of the first man's property, and only one belonging to the othei. The money, in justice. must be divided accordiugly." THE WISDOM OF ALI. The Prophet once, sitting in calm debate. Said, " I am Wisdom's fortress ; but the gate Thereof is Ali." Wherefore, some who heard, With unbelieving jealousy were stirred ; And, that they might on him confusion bring, Ten of the boldest joined to prove the thing. " Let us in turn to Ali go," they said, " And ask if Wisdom should be sought instead Of earthly riches ; then, if he reply To each of us, in thought, accordantly, And yet to none in speech or phrase the same, His shall the honor be, and ours the shame." Now, when the first his bold demand did make. These were the words which Ali straightway spake: — MOSLEM WISDOM. 509 "Wisdom is the inheritaneo of those Whom AUah favors; riches, of his foes." Unto the second he said : — " Thyself must be Guard to thy riches; but Wisdom guardeth thee." Unto the third: — "By Wisdom wealth is won; But riclics purchased Wisdom yet for none." Unto the fourth : — " Thy goods the thief may take ; But into Wisdom's house he cannot break." Unto the fifth : — " Thy goods decrease the more Thou givust; but woe enlarges Wisdom's store.*' Unto the sixth: — "Wealth tempts to evil ways; But the desire of Wisdom is God's praise." Unto the seventh : — " Divide thy wealth, each part Becomes a pittance. Give with open heart Thy wisdom, and each separate gift shall be All that thou hast, yet not impoverish thee." Unto the eighth: — "AVealth cannot keep itself; But Wisdom is the steward even of pelf." Unto the ninth : — " The camels slowly bring Thy goods ; but Wisdom has the swallow's wing." And lastly, when the tenth did question make. These were the ready words which Ali spake: — "Wealth is a darkness which the soul should fear; But Wisdom is the lamp that makes it clear." Crimson with shame, the questioners withdrew. And they declared, "The Prophet's words were true: The mouth of Ali is the golden door Of Wisdom." AVhcn his friends to Ali bore These words, he smiled, and said, "And should they ask The same until my dying day, the task Were easy ; for the stream from Wisdom's well, Which God supplies, is inexhaustible." MOHAMMEDAN LOGIC. The laws of Cos discountenance in a very singular manner any cruelty on the part of females towards their admirers. An instance occurred while Dr. Clarke and his companions were on the island, in which the unhappy termination of a love-affair occasioned a trial for what the Mohammedan lawyers casuisti- cally describe as " homicide by an intermediate cause." The following was the case : a young man desperately in love with a girl of Stanchis eagerly sought to marry her, but his propo- 510 MOSLEM WISDOM. Bals were rejected. In consequence, he destroyed himself by poison. The Turkish police arrested the father of the obdu- rate fair, and tried him for culpable homicide. "If the ac- cused," argued they, with much gravity, "had not had a daughter, the deceased would not have fallen in love; conse- quently he would not have been disappointed; consequently he would not have swallowed poison ; consequently he would not have died ; — but the accused had a daughter, the deceased had fallen in love," &c. Upon all these counts he was called upon to pay the price of the young man's life ; and this, being fixed at the sum of eighty piastres, was accordingly exacted. THE ALEXANDRIAN LIBRARY. Said Omar, " Either these books are in conformity with the Koran, or they are not. If they are, they are useless, and if not, they are evil : in either event, therefore, let them be destroyed." Such was the logic that led to the destruction of seven hun- dred thousand manuscript volumes. TURKISH EXPEDIENTS. A Turkish testator left to his eldest son one-half of his seventeen horses, to his second son one-third, to his third son one-ninth of his horses. The executor did not know what to do, as seventeen will neither divide by two, nor by three, nor by nine. A dervise came up on horseback, and the executor consulted him. The dervise said, " Take my horse, and add him to the others." There were then eighteen horses. The executor then gave to the eldest son one-half, — nine ; to the second sou one-third, — six; to the third son one-ninth, — two : total, seventeen. The dervise then said, " You don't want my horse now ; I will take him back again." EXOERPTA FROM PERSIAN POKTRV 511 iBxcerpta from ^Jcrsian ^Soctru. EARTH AN ILLUSION. From the mists of tho Ocean of Truth in the skies A Mirage in delmling reflections doth rise, There is naught but reality there to bo seen ; We have here but tho lie of its vapory sheen.— IIafiz. HEAVEN AN ECHO OF EARTH. 'Tis but a shadow of the earth's familiar bliss, Bright mirrored on the sky's ethereal fonts, That fills our breasts with longings nothing can disinisB, In tremulous and glimmering response. A MORAL ATMOSPHERE. It is as hard for one whom sinners still prevent From prayer, to ketp his virtue, yet with them to dwell, As it would be for a lotus of sweetest scent To blossom forth in beauty 'mid the flames of hell. FORTUNE AND WORTH. That haughty rich man see, a merely gilded clod ; This poor man see, pure gold with common dust besmeared. Start not: in needy garb was Moses girt and shod, When waved and shone before him Pharaoh's golden beard! BROKEN HEARTS. When other things are broken they are nothing worth, Unless it be to some old Jew or some repairer ; But hearts, the more they 're bruised and broken hero on earth. In heaven are so much tho costlier and the fairer. TO A GENEROUS MAN. To cloud of rain refreshing all the land, It is not fit to liken thy free hand ; For as that gives it weeps meanwhile. But thou still givest with a smile. beauty's PREROGATIVE. Thy beauty pales all sublunary things. And man to vassalage eternal dooms: The road before thee shouM be swept with brooms Made of tho eye-lashes of peerlosii king.s. 512 EXCERPTA FR0?4 PERSIAN POETRf. PROUD HUMILITY. In proud humility a pious man went through the field ; The ears of corn were bowing in the wind, as if they kneeled; lie struck them on the head, and modestly began to say, " Unto the Lord, not unto me, such honors should you pay." FOLLY FOR ONE's SELF. He who is only for his neighbors wise, While his own soul in sad confusion lies. Is like those men who builded Noah's ark, But sank, themselves, beneath the waters dark. THE IMPOSSIBILITY. When I shall see, though clad in gold or silk, In peace and joy a wicked man or maid, I then shall drink a bowl of pigeon's milk, And eat the yellow eggs the ox has laid. THE SOBER DRUNKENNESS. Beware the deadly fumes of that insane elation Which rises from the cup of mad impiety. And go get drunk with that divine intoxication Which is more sober far than all sobriety. A wine-drinker's METAPHORS. As the nightingale oft from a rose's dew sips. So I wet with fresh wine my belanguishing lips. As the soul of perfume through a flower's petals slips, So pure wine passes through the rose-door of my lips. As to port from afar float the full-loaded ships. So this wine-beaker drifts to the strand of my lips. As the white-driven sea o'er a cliflF's edges drips. So the red-tinted wine breaks in foam on my lips. FROM MIRTSA SCHAFFY. Better stars without shine, Than the shine without stars. Better wine without jars. Than the jars without wine. Better honey without bees, Than the bees without honey. Better please without money. Than have money but not please. EXCERPTA FROM PERSIAN POETRY. 513 THE DOUBLE PLOT. Three hungry travellers found a bag of gold ; One ran into the town where bread was sold. He thought, I will poison the bread I buy, And seize the treasure when my comrades die. But they too thought, When back his feet have hied, We will destroy him and the gold divide. They killed him ; and, partaking of the bread. In a few moments all were lying dead. world ! behold what ill thy goods have done ; Thy gold thus poisoned two, and murdered one. THE world's UNAPPRECIATION. The lyrical poems of the East called Ghazcls, of which the following, from Trench, is a brief specimen, have this pecu- liarity, — that the first two lines rhyme, and for this rhyme re- curs a new one in the second line of each succeeding couplet, the alternate lines being free : — What is the good man and the wise ? Ofttimes a pearl which none doth prize; Or jewel rare, which men account A common pebble, and despise. Set forth upon the world's bazaar, It mildly gleams, but no one buys. Till it in anger Heaven withdraws From the world's undiscerning eyes, And in its shell the pearl again. And in its mine the jewel, lies. THE CALIPH AND SATAN. In heavy sleep the Caliph lay, When some one called, " Arise and pray I" The angry Caliph cried, "Who dare Rebuke his king for slighted prayer?" Then, from the corner of the room, A voice cut sharply through the gloom : — "My name is Satan. Rise! obey Mohammed's law : Awake and pray." "Thy tDorda are good," the Caliph aaid, "But their intent I somewhat dread; 2n 514 EXCERMA FROM PERSIAN POETRY. For matters cannot well be worse Than when the thief says, ' Guard your purse. I cannot trust your counsel, friend : It surely hides some wicked end." Said Satan, " Near the throne of God, In ages past, we devils trod; Angels of light, to us 'twas given To guide each wandering foot to Heaven; Not wholly lost is that first love, Nor those pure tastes we knew above. Roaming across a continent. The Tartar moves his shifting tent, But never quite forgets the day When in his father's arms he lay; So we, once bathed in love divine. Recall the taste of that rich wine. God's finger rested on my brow, — That magic touch, I feel it now! I fell, 'tis true, — Oh, ask not why ! For still to God I turn my eye ; It was a chance by which I fell : Another takes me back to hell. 'Twas but my envy of mankind, The envy of a loving mind. Jealous of men, I could not bear God's love with this new race to share. But yet God's tables open stand. His guests flock in from every land. Some kind act toward the race of men May toss us into heaven again. A game of chess is all we see, — And God the player, pieces we. White, black, — queen, pawn, — 'tis all the same; For on both sides he plays the game. Moved to and fro, from good to ill, We rise and fall as suits his will." The Caliph said, " If this be so I know not; but thy guile I know; For how can I thy words believe, When even God thou didst deceive ? EPIGRAMS. 515 A sea of lies art thou,— our sin, Only a drop that sea within." " Not so," said Satan : " I serve God, His angel now, and now his rod. In tempting, I both bless and curse, Make good men better, bad men worse. Good coin is mixed with bad, my brother, I but distinguish one from th' other." "Granted," the Caliph said; "but still You never tempt to good, but ill. Tell, then, the truth ; for well I know You come as my most deadly foe." Loud laughed the fiend. " You know me well; Therefore my purpose will I tell : If you had missed your prayer, I knew A swift repentance would ensue; And such repentance would have been A good, outweighing far the sin. I chose this humbleness divine, Born out of fault, should not be thine ; Preferring prayers elate with pride, To sin with penitence allied." 35pigrams. MARTIAL S EPIGRAM ON EPIGRAMS. Omnis epigramma, sit instar apis; sit aculeus illi, Sint sua mella, sit et corporis exigui. [Three things must epigrams, like bees, have all, — A sting, and honey, and a body small.] MIDAS AND MODERN STATESMEN. Midas, they say, possessed the art, of old. Of turning whatsoe'er he touched to gold. This, modern statesmen can reverse with ease; Touch them with gold, they'll turn to what you plea»«. 516 EPIGRAMS. INSCRIBED ON A STATUE TO SLEEP. Somne levis, quanquam certissima mortis imago, Consortem cupio te tamen esse tori, Alma quies, optata, veni, nam sic sine vita Vivere quam suave est, sic sine morte mori. — Warton. [Light sleep, though death's strong image, prythee give Thy fellowship while in my couch I lie; gentle, wished-for rest, how sweet to live Thus without life, and without death to die .']* TO DR. ROBERT FREIND, WHO WROTE LONG EPITAPH& Freind, for your epitaphs I'm grieved, Where still so much is said : One half will never be believed, The other never read. — Pope. THE FOOL AND THE POET. Sir, I admit your general rule. That every poet is a fool ; But you yourself may serve to show it That every fool is not a poet. — Pope. DUM VIVIiMUS VIVAMUS. Live whDe you live, the epicure would say. And seize the pleasures of the present day. Live while you live, the sacred preacher cries. And give to God each moment as it flies. Lord, in my view let both united be ; I live in pleasure while I live to thee. — Doddridge. TO "MOLLY ASTON," A celebrated " beauty, scholar, and wit," who spoke it praise of liberty. Liber ut esse velim, suasisti, pulchra Maria : Ut maneam liber, pulchra Maria, vale ! — Dr. Johnson. [ Freedom you teach, fair Mary. To be free. Farewell, lest I should be enslaved by thee !] ON ONE IGNORANT AND ARROGANT. Thou mayst of double ignorance boast. Who knowst not that thou nothing knowst. — Owen, Trans, by Cotcper. * Come, gentle sleep ! attend thy votary's prayer. And, though death's image, to my couch repair; How sweet, though lifeless, yet with life to lie, And, without dying, oh, how sweet to die ! — Wolcofs Trans. 517 TO OUR BED. In bed we laugh, in bed we cry ; And born in bed, in bed we die: The near approach the bed may show Of human bliss to human woe. — Benseradb. LATE REPENTANCE. Pravus, that aged debauchee, Proclaimed a vow his sins to quit; But is ho yet from any free, Except what now he can't commit? ON A PALE LADY WITH A RED-NOSED HUSBAND. Whence comes it that in Clara's face The lily only has its place? Is it because the absent rose Has gone to paint her husband's nose ? ON SOME SNOW THAT MELTED ON A LADY's BREAST. Those envious flakes came down in haste, To prove her breast less fair, But, grieved to find themselves surpassed,* Dissolved into a tear. SELVAGGI'S DISTICH ADDRESSED TO JOHN MILTON. While at Rome. Graecia Moeonidem, jactet sibi Roma Maronem, Anglia Miltonum jactat utrique parem. dryden's amplification. Three poets in three distant ages born, Greece, Italy, and England did adorn. The first in loftiness of thought surpassed ; The next, in majesty ; in both, the last. The force of nature could no further go : To make a third, she joined the former two. * The following madrigal was addressed to a Lancastrian lady, and accom- panied with a white rose, during the opposition of the "White Rose" and " Red Rose" adherents of the houses of York and Lancaster :— If this fair rose offend thy sight. It in thy bosom wear ; 'Twill blush to find itself less white. And turn Lancastrian there. 44 518 EPIGRAMS. ON butler's monument. While Butler, needy wretch, was yet alive, No generous patron would a dinner give. See him, when starved to death and turned to dudt, Presented with a monumental bust. The poet s fate is here in emblem shown : He asked for bread, and he received a stone. — S. Wesley. OVERDRAWN COMPLIMENT. So much, dear Pope, thy English Homer charms, As pity melts us, or as passion warms, That aft«r-age3 will with wonder seek Who 'twas translated Ilomer into Greek. SUGGESTED BY A GERMAN TOURIST. Who accompanied Prince Albert into Scotland. Charmed with the drink which Highlanders compose, A German traveller exclaimed, with glee, "Potztausend ! sare, if this be Athol Brone,* How good the Athol Boetry must be !" — Tom Hood. ETERNITY. Reason does but one quaint solution lend To nature's deepest yet divinest riddle; Time is a beginning and an end, Eternity is nothing but a middle. OCCASIONED BY THE LOSS OP A CLERGYMAN'S PORTMANTEAU, Containing his Sermons. I've lost my portmanteau. "I pity your grief." It contained all my sermons. "I pity the thief!" TO A LIVING AUTHOR. Your comedy I've read, my friend, And like the half you pilfered, best; But sure the piece you yet may mend : Take courage, man ! and steal the rest. * Athol brose is a favorite Highland drink, composed of honey, whiskey, and water, although the proportion of the latter is usually so hoinoeopathi- oally minute as to be difficult of detection except by chemical or microscopical analysis. Possibly the Scotch aversion to injuring the flavor of their whiskey by dilution arises from a fact noted by N. P. Willis, that the water bas tasted so strongly of sinners ever since the Flood. I EriGRAMS. 519 THE FRUGAL QUEEN. One Queen Artemisia, as old stories tell, When deprived of her husband she lov6d so well, In respect for the love and affection he showed her, She reduced him to dust, and she drank off the powder. But Queen Netherplace, of a different complexion, When called on to order the funeral direction, Would have ate her dead lord, on a slender pretence, Not to show her respect, but — to save the expense ! — Buuns. ON COMMISSARY GOLDIE's BRAINS. Lord, to account who dares thee call, Or e'er dispute thy pleasure ? Else why within so thick a wall Enclose so poor a treasure? — Burns. GIVING AND TAKING. " I never give a kiss," says Prue, " To naughty man, for I abhor it." She will not give a kiss, 'tis true : She'll take one, though, and thank you for it — Moore. TO . " Moria pur quando vuol non e bisogna mutar ni faccia ni voce per esser un Angelo." Die when you will, you need not wear At Heaven's court a form more fair Than beauty here on earth has given; Keep but the lovely looks we see, — The voice we hear, — and you will be An angel ready-made for heaven ! — MoORE. THE LOVER TO HIS MISTRESS, WITH A PRESENT OF A MIRROR. This mirror my object of love will unfold Whensoe'er your regard it allures : Oh, would, when I'm gazing, that I might behold On its surface the object of yours ! TO A CAPRICIOUS FRIEND. Difficilis, facilis, jucundus, acerbus es Idem, Nee tecum possum vivere, nee sine to. — Martial. [ In all thy humors, whether grave or mellow, Thou'rt such a touchy, testy, pleasant fellow. Hast so much wit, and mirth, and spleen about thee, There is no living with thee, nor without thee. — Addison.] 520 MENDAX. See ! yonder goes old Mendax, telling lies To that good, easy man with whom he's walking. How know I that? you ask, with some surprise; Why, don't you see, my friend, the fellow's talking ! — Lessino While Fell was reposing himself on the hay, A reptile, concealed, bit his leg as he lay; But, all venom himself, of the wound he made light. And got well, while the scorpion died of the bite. — Lessing. ON AN ILL-READ LAWYER. An idle attorney besought a brother For " something to read, — some novel or other, That was really fresh and new." " Take Chitty !" replies his legal friend : " There isn't a book that I could lend. That would prove more 'novel' to you !" — Saxb. Si .1 woman's WILL. f Men dying make their wills ; but wives ,'| Escape a work so sad : jt. Why should they make what all their lives ,4 The gentle dames have had ? — Saxe. i Wellington's nose. " Pray, why does the great Captain's nose Resemble Venice ?" Duncomb cries. " Why," quoth Sam Rogers, " I suppose m Because it has a bridge of size (sighs)." U ONE GOOD TURN DESERVES ANOTHEtt. « A poor man went to hang himself, F But treasure chanced to find : h He pocketed the miser's pelf, *" And left the rope behind. f. His money gone, the miser hung Himself in sheer despair : Thus each the other's wants supplied, And that was surely fair. BAD SONGSTERS. Swans sing before they die : 'twere no bad thing Did certain persons die before they sing. — Coleridge. EPIGRAMS. 521 ON A BAD FIDDLER. Old Orpheus played so well, he moved Old Nick ; But thou iiiov'st nothing but thy fiddle-stick. ON A CERTAIN D.D. Whc, /'■oni a peculiarity in his icalk, had acquired the sohriqnet of Dr. Toe, beiug jilted by JIfisi H., who eloped with her father's footman. 'Twixt footman Sam and Doctor Toe A controversy fell, Which should prevail against his foo. And bear away the belle. The lady chose the footman's heart. Say, who can wonder? no man : The whole prevailed above the part : 'Twas Foot-m.a,u versus Jbe-man. ON AN OLD LADY WHO MARRIED HER FOOTMAN. Old Lady Lovejoy, aged just threescore. Whose lusty footboy rode behind, before. Is, in a fit of fondness, grown so kind, He rides within, who rode before, behind. "HOT CORN." "How much corn may a gentleman eat?" whispered P, While the cobs on his plate lay in tiers. "As to that," answered Q, as he glanced at the heap, "'Twill depend on the length of his ears." BONNETS. In 1817, when straw bonnets first came into general use, it was common to trim them with artificial wheat or barley, in ears ; whence the following : — Who now of threatening famine dare complain, AVhen every female forehead teems with grain ? See how the wheat-sheaves nod amid the plumes: Our barns are now transferred to drawing-rooms. And husbands who indulge in active lives, To fill their granaries, may thresh their wives ! Campbell, the poet, was asked by a lady to write something original in her album. He wrote, — An original something, dear maid, you would win mo To write ; but how shall I begin ? For I'm sure I have nothing original in me. Excepting original sin. 44* 522 EPIGRAMS. " IIow very easy 'tis," criea Tom, " to write ! I find 't DO hardship verses to indite." "To credit that," quoth Dick, "no oaths we need; The hardship is for thane who have to read." Thy verses are eternal, my friend ! For he who reads them, reads them to no end. Unfortunate lady, how sad is your lot! Your ringlets are red, and your poems are not. PRUDENT SIMPLICITY. That thou mayst injure no man, dove-like be; And serpent-like, that none may injure thee ! — Cowper. TO A FRIEND IN DISTRESS. I wish thy lot, now bad, still worse, my friend ; For when at worst, they say, things always mend. — Cowpee. HOG VS. BACON. Judge Bacon once trying a man, Hog by name, Who made with his lordship of kindred a claim; "Hold," said the judge, — "you're a little mistaken Hog must be hun(/ first before 'tis good Bacon." A WARM RECEPTION. Rusticus wrote a letter to his love. And filled it full of warm and keen desire; He hoped to raise a flame, and so he did : The lady put his nonsense in the fire. MEDICAL ADVICE. "I'm very ill," said Skinflint, once essaying To get a doctor's counsel without paying. " I see it," quoth the wily old physician ; "You're in a most deplorable condition." "But tell me," cried the miser, "for God's sake, Tell me, dear doctor, what I ought to take." " Take ! as to that — why, take, at any price," Replied the leech, " take medical advice .'" DEFINITION OP A DENTIST. A dentist fashions teeth of bone For those whum fate has left without, And finds provision for his own By pulling other people's out. EPIGRAMS. 523 Dr. Samuel Goodenougli, Bishop of Carlisle, preached on one occasion before the House of Commons. The event gave rise to the following : — 'Tis well-enough that Goodenough Before the House should preach; For sure-enough full bad-enough Are those he has to teach. WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN. As two divines their ambling steeds bestriding, In merry mood o'er Boston Neck were riding, Sudden a simple structure mot their sight, From which the convict takes his hempen flight; When sailor-like he bids adieu to hope, His all depending on a single rope. "Say, brother," cried the one, "pray where were you Had yonder gallows been allowed its due ?" "Where?" cried the other, in sarcastic tone, "Why, where but riding into town alone." A REFLECTION. Says the Earth to the Moon "You're a pilfering jade; What you steal from the Sun is beyond all belief." Fair Cynthia replies, "Madam Earth, hold your prate; The receiver is always as bad as the thief." •THE WOMAN GAVE ME OF THE TREE. When Eve upon the first of men The apple pressed with specious cant, Oh, what a thousand pities, then. That Adam was not Adamant. THE BLADES OP THE SHEARS. Two lawyers when a knotty case was o'er. Shook hands, and were as friendly as before; " Zounds I" said the client, " I would fain know how You can be friends, who were such foes just now ?" "Thou fool!" said one, "We lawyers, though so keen, Like shears, ne'er cut ourselves, but what's between." 524 EPIGRAMS. The following was written by Soutliey on Queen Elizabeth's dining on board Sir Francis Drake's ship, on his return from circumnavigating the globe : — Oh, Nature ! to old England still Continue these mistakes; Give us for all our Kimjs such Queens, And for our Dux such Drakes. INVISIBLE. I cannot praise your parson's eyes ; I never see his eyes divine, For when he prays he shuts hi.i eyes, And when he preaches he shuts mine. IMPERSONAL. Quoth Madam Bas Bleu, " I hear you have said, Intellectual women are always your dread ; Now tell me, dear sir, is it true ?" " Why, yes," said the wag, " Very likely I may Have made the remark in a jocular way; But then, on my honor, I didn't mean you." AFFINITIES. " A lady, once, whose love was sold, Asked if a reason could be told, Why weilding rings were made of gold: I ventured thus to instruct her: — Love and lightning are the same; On earth they glance, from Heaven they came : Love is the soul's electric flame — And gold its best conductor." THE CRIER WHO COULD NOT CRY. I heard a judge his tipstaff call And say, " Sir, I desire You go forthwith and search the Hall, And send to me the crier." " And search, my Lord, in vain, I may"— The tipstaff gravely said — "The Crier cannot cry to-day. Because his wife is dead." 525 THE PARSON AND BUTCULR. A parson and a butcher chanced, they say, To meet and moralize one Sabbath day. " Ah !" cries the parson, " all things good and fair, All that is virtuous, wise, belov6d, rare. Is sure the tirst to feel the stroke of fate; While vice and folly have a longer date." " True," cries the butcher, " for it is decreed, The fattest pig, alas ! must soonest bleed." THE CLOCK. A mechanic his labor will often discard, If the rate of his pay he dislikes ; But a clock — and its case is uncommonly hard — Will continue to work though it strikes. — Hood. MASCULINE. "What pity 'tis," said John, the sage, " That women should, for hire. Expose themselves upon the stage. By wearing men's attire !" " Ejepose!" cries Ned, who loves a jeer; " In sense you surely fail : What do the darlings have to fear When clad in coats-of-ma^e /" IN RETURN FOR A LADY'S SKETCH OF THE APOLLO. If fair Apollo drew his bow As well as you have drawn it here. No wonder that he carries woo To many a maiden far and near. One difference, though, I understand. Between this picture and the giver : Apollo keeps his bow in hand — You keep your beaux upon the quiver. WIDOWS. As in India, one day, an Englishman sat With a smart native lass at the window, "Do your widows burn themselves? pray tell mo that?' Said the pretty, inquisitive Hindoo. "Do they burn? ah, yes," the gentleman said, "With a flame not so easy to smother : Our widows, the moment one husband is dead, Immediately burn for another !" — Casniso 526 EPIGRAMS. The following epigram by Samuel Rogers, on Lord Dudley's studied speeches in Parliament, was pronounced by Byron, in conversation with Lady Blessiugton, " one of the best in the English language, with the true Greek talent of expressing, by implication, what is wished to be conveyed :" — Ward has no heart, they say, but I deny it : He has a heart, and gets his speeches by it. On the marriage of Dr. Webb with Miss Gould, a classical friend sent him the following : — Tela fuit simplex statucns decus addere telae, Fecit hymen geminam puroque intexuit auro. [Single no more, a double Webb behold; Hymen embroidered it with virgin Gould.] AFTER GOING TO LAW. This law, they sny, great nature's chain connects, That causes ever must produce effects. /. lu me behold reversed great nature's laws, — \ All my effects lost by a single cause. [ SAME JAWBONE. ^ Jack eating rotten cheese did say, • " Like Samson I my thousands slay." " I vow," says Roger, " so you do, And with the selfsame weapon too." A FUNNY DETERMINATION. Queenly Miss Quaint, the aim of whose life Is to die an old maid or a minister's wife, , Grotesquely averred, after hearing young Spread, i " I'U hear him all day, If I walk on my head .'" " Good !" said old Ilunx, with a comical smile; " But please, if you're late, don't come up the broad aisle I" MARRIAGE A LA MODE. " Tom, you should take a wife." "Nay, God forbid I" " I found you one last night." " The deuce you did !" "Softly ! perhaps she'll please you." " Oh, of course !" " Eighteen." " Alarming !" " AVitty." " Nay, that's worse !" " Discreet." " All show !" " Handsome." " To lure the fellows !" "High-born." " Ay, haughty !" "Tender-hearted." "Jealous!" "Talents o'erfl owing." "Ay, enough to sluice me!" " And then, Tom, such a fortuue !" " Introduce me !" 527 QUID PRO QUO. "Marriage, not mirage, Jane, here in your letter: With your education, you surely know better." Quickly spoke my young wife, while I sat in confusion, '* 'Tis quite correct, Thomas : they're each an illusion." WOMAN — CONTRA. When Adam, waking, first his lids unfolds In Eden's groves, beside him he beholds Bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh, and knows His earliest sleep has proved his last repose. WOMAN — PRO. Not she with traitorous kiss her Saviour stung, Not she denied him with unholy tongue : She, when apostles shrunk, could danger brave ; Last at the cross, and earliest at the grave. — Barrett. ABUNDANCE OF FOOLS. The world of fools has such a store, That he who would not see an ass Must bide at home, and bolt his door. And break his looking-glass. — La Monnoye. THE WORLD. 'Tis an excellent world that we live iu To lend, to spend, or to give in ; But to borrow, or beg, or get a man's own, 'Tis just the worst world that ever was known. TERMINER SANS OYER. " Call silence !" the judge to the ofiicer cries ; "This hubbub and talk, will it never be done? Those people this morning have made such a noise, We've decided ten causes without hearing one." DOUBLE VISION UTILIZED. An incipient toper was checked t'other day, In his downward career, in a very strange way. The effect of indulgence, he found to his trouble, Was that after two bottles ho came to see double ; When with staggering steps to his home he betook htm. He saw always two wives, sitting up to rebuke him. One wife in her wrath makes a pretty strong case; But a couple thus scolding, what courage could face? iwi'iioMrrus. impromptus. One day, as Dr. Young was walking in his garden at Welwjn in company with two ladies, (one of whom he afterwards mar- ried,) the servant came to acquaint him that a gentleman wished to speak with him. " Tell him," said the doctor, " I am too happily engaged to change my situation." The ladies in- sisted that he should go, as his visitor was a man of rank, his patron, and his friend. But, as persuasion had no effect, one took him by the right arm, the other by the left, and led him to the garden-gate ; when, finding resistance in vain, he bowed, laid his hand upon his heart, and, in that expressive manner for which he was so remarkable, spoke the following lines : — Thus Adam looked when from the garden driven, And thus disputed orders sent from heaven. Like him I go, but yet to go I'm loath ; Like him I go, for angels drove us both. Hard was his fate, but mine still more unkind : His Eve went with him, but mine stays behind. Ben Jonson having been invited to dine at the Falcon Tavern, where he was already deeply in debt, the landlord pro- mised to wipe out the score if he would tell him what God, and the devil, and the world, and the landlord himself, would be best pleased with. To which the ready poet promptly re- plied : — God is best pleased when men forsake their sin ; The devil is best pleased when they persist therein ; The world's best pleased when thou dost sell good wine ; And you're best pleased when I do pay for mine. A well-known instance of self-extrication from a dilemma is thus rendered in rhyme : — When Queen Elizabeth desired That Melville would acknowledge fairly Whether herself he most admired. Or his own sovereign. Lady Mary? The puzzled knight his answer thus expressed: — " In her own country each is haudsomest." IMl'ROMPTUS. 529 Burns, going into churcli one Sunday and finding it difficult to procure a seat, was kindly invited by a young lady into her pew. The sermon being upon the terrors of the law, and the preacher being particularly severe in his denunciation of sin- ners, the lady, who was very attentive, became much agitated. Burns, on perceiving it, wrote with his pencil, on a blank leaf of her Bible, the following : — Fair maid, you need not take the hint, Nor idle texts pursue : 'Twas only sinners that he meant. Not angels such as you. One evening at the King's Arms, Dumfries, Burns was called from a party of friends to see an impertinent coxcomb in the form of an English commercial traveller, who patronizingly in- vited the Ai/rshire Pioughina7i to a glass of wine at his table. Entering into conversation with the condescend in : Essay on Mau. Looks through nature \\\) to nature's (lod. — Inin : E-sayon .Wan. Pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw. — Ibiu : Essay on Man, Who never mentions hell to ears polite. — Idid : Tlie Epistles, From seeniing evil still educing good. — Thomson: Hymn. To teach the young idea how to shoot: Ibid: The Seasont, Spring. 'Tis distance lends enchantment to the view. Campbell: Pleas\tre» of Hup*, And man the hermit sighed till woman smiled. — Ibid. Where ignorance is bliss 'Tis folly to be wise.— Guav: Ode on Eton College. Thoughts that breathe and words that burn.— Ib. : The Progress of Poesy. Nqrsing her wrath to keej) it warm. — Burns : Tain O'Shantcr. As clear as a whistle. — Uvko.m : The Asirotoijer. She walks the waters like a thing of life.— B Vitus : The /stand. The cups that cheer but not inebriate. — Cowi-eu : Task. Not much the worse for wear. — liiin. Masterly inactivity. — Mackintosh: 1791. The Almighty Dollar.— WA.snisnToN liiviso: Creole Village. Entangling alliances. — George Washington. Where liberty dwells, there is my country. — Benjamin Franklis. The post of honor is the private Btiition.— Tiios. Jefferson. Straws show which way the wind blows.— James CnKATBAM. K good time coming — Walter Scott: Hub Hoy. Face the music— J. Fenimop.k Coopek. 564 CHURCHYARD LITERATURE. ari)urc1)2arti literature. HIC JACET SACRUM MEMORI^. Earth's highest station ends in here he lies ! And DOST TO DUST concludes her noblest song. EsfiGRAViT is the inscription on the tombstone where he liest Dead he is not, but departed, for the Christian never dies. A hieroglyph formed by the two first letters of the Greek word Christos, iji- tersecting the Chi longitudinally by the Rlio, — a palm-leaf, or a wreath of palm-leaves, indicating victory, — a crown, which speaks of the reward of the saints, — an immortelle, or a vessel supporting a column of flame, indicating continued life, — an anchor, which indicates hope, — a ship under sail, which says, "Heavenward bound," — the letters Alpha and Omega, the Apocalyptic title of Christ, — the dove, the emblem of innocence and holiness, — the winged insect escaping from the chrysalis, typical of the resurrection, — the cross, the Christian's true and only glory in life and death, by which he is crucified to the world, and the world to him, — these are the emblems that speak to the Christian's heart of faith, and hope, and love, and humility. EPITAPHS OF EMINENT MEN. Christopher Columbus died at Valladolid, May 20, 1506, aet. 70. In 1513 his body was taken to Seville, on the Gua- dalquivir, and there deposited in the family vault of the Dukea of Alcala, in the Cathedral. Upon a tablet was inscribed, in Castilian, this meagre couplet, which is still legible : — A Castilla y Arragon Otro mondo dio Colon.* [To Castile and Aragon Columbus gave another world.] In 1536, the remains of the great navigator were conveyed to St. Domingo and deposited in the Cathedral, where they continued until a recent period, when they were finally disin- terred, and removed to Havana. The inscription on the tablet in the Cathedral of St. Domingo, now obliterated, was as fol- lows : — * Irving gives the inscription thus : — For Castilla y por Leon Nuevo mundo hallo Colon. CHURCHYARD LITERATURE. 5G5 Hie locus absconJit praeclari membra Cohmbi Cujus nomcn ad astra vulat. Nuu satis unus erat sibi mundus notus, at urbcm Ignotum priseis umuibus ipso dudit; Divitias summas terras dispcrsit in omncs, Atque auimas coelo tradidit innumeras; Invenit campos divinis legibus aptos, liegibus et nostris prospcra regDa dediL* William Shakspeare died April 23, 1G16, ret. 52, and was buried in the clianeel of the church of Stratford. The monument erected to his memory represents the poet with a thoughtful countenance, resting on a cushion and in the act of writing. Immediately below the cushion is the following dis- tich : — Judicio Pylium; gefiio Soeratcm ; arte Maroncm : Terra tegit; populus moeret j Olympus liabet.f ( )n a tablet underneath are inscribed these lines : — Stay, passenger : why dost thou go so fast ? Read, if thou canst, whom envious death hath placed Within this monument, — Shakspearej with whom Quick Nature died; whose name doth deck the tomb Far more than cost; since all that ho hath writ Leaves living Art but page to servo his wit : and on the flat stone covering the grave is inscribed, in very irregular characters, the following quaint supplication, bless- ing, and menace : — Good Friend, for Jesvs sake forbeare To digg T-E dvst EncloAsed HERE ; Blest be t-e Man ~ spares T-bs stones, And cvrst bo Ho — - moves my bones. * This spot conceals the body of the renowned Columbus, whoso name towers to the stars. Not satisfied with tho known globe, ho added to all tho old an unknown world. Throughout all countries he distributed untold wealth, and gave to heaven unnumbered souls. lie found an extended field for gospel missions, and conferred prosperity upon the reign of our monarchs. ■f A Nestor in discrimination, a Socrates in talent, a Virgil in poetic art* the earth covers him, the people mourn for him, Heaven possesses him. 48 566 CnURCHYARD LITERATURE. SIR ISAAC NEWTON, OB. 1727, JET. 85. Hure lies interred Isaac Newton, knight, who, with an energy of mind al most divine, guided by the light of mathematics purely his own, first demon strated the motions and figures of the planets, the paths of comets, and the causes of the tides; who discovered, what before his time no one had ever suspected, that the rays of light are differently refrangible, and that this ia the cause of colors ; and who was a diligent-, penetrating, and faithful inter- preter of nature, antiquity, and the sacred writings. In his philosophy, he maintained the majesty of the Supreme Being; in his manners, he expressed the simplicity of the Gospel. Let mortals congratulate themselves that the world has seen so great and excellent a man, the glory of human nature. Pope's inscription is as follows : — Isaacus Newtonus : Quem Immortalem Testantur Tempus, Natura, Caelum: Mortalem Hoc marmor fatetur. Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night : God said, Let Newton be ! and all was light. Johnson's epitaph on goldsmith.* Thou seest the tomb of Oliver; retire, Unholy feet, nor o'er his ashes tread, i'e whom the deeds of old, verse, nature, fire, Mourn nature's priest, the bard, historian, dead. COWPER's epitaph on dr. JOHNSON. Here Johnson lies, — a sage by all allowed, "Whom to have bred may well make England proud; Whose prose was eloquence, by wisdom taught. The graceful vehicle of virtuous thought; Whose verse may claim — grave, masculine and strong- Superior praise to the mere poet's song ; Who many a noble gift from heaven possessed, And faith at last, alone worth all the rest. man immortal by a double prize, By fame on earth, — by glory in the skies ! * The original is in Greek, as follows : — Tov Ta'pov CKTopaa^ rov GKijSapioio, Kontriv ' A• Franklin. DEBOKAn j 17'JO. The following is a copy of the epitaph written by Franklin upon himself, at the aL'C of twcnty-throc, wIiIIl- a juurnoyinan pri.iter : — 568 CHURCHYARD LITERATURE. The Body of Benjamin Franklin, Printer, (Like the cover of an old book, Its contents torn out, And stript of its lettering and gilding,) Lies food for worm? : Yet the work itself shall not be lost, For it wUl [as he believed] appear once more, In a new And more beautiful edition. Corrected and amended by The Author. That tliis well-known typographical inscription was plagia- rized from Mather's Magnalia Christi Americana, is evident from Franklin's own admission of his familiarity with the works of "the great Cotton." To the perusal in early life of Mather's excellent volume, Essays to Jo Good, published in 1710, Franklin ascribed all his *' usefulness in the world." The lines alluded to in the famous Ecclesiastical History are by Benjamin Woodbridge, a member of the first graduating class of Harvard University, 1642 : — A living, breathing Bible; tables where Both Covenants at large engraven were. Gospel and law, in 's heart, had each its column ; His head an index to the sacred volume; His very name a title-page ; and, next. His life a commentary on the text. what a monument of glorious worth, When, in a new edition, he comes forth ! Without errata may we think he'll be, In leaves and covers of eternity ! Old Joseph Capen, minister of Topsfield, had also, in 1681, given John Foster, who set up the first printing-press in Bos- ton, the benefit of the idea, in memoriam : — Thy body, which no activeness did lack, Now's laid aside like an old almanac, But for the present only's out of date ; 'Twill have at length a far more active state. Yea, though with dust thy body soiled be, Yet at the resurrection we shall see ;^iIURCnYARD LITERATURE. 5G9 A fair edition, and of matchless worth, Free from errata, new in Heaven set forth; Tis but a word from God, the great Creator — It shall bo done when ho saiih Imprimatur. Davis, in his Travels rw ^Imertca, finds another Kourcc in a Latin epitaph on the London bookseller Jacob Tonson, pub- lished with an English translation in the Gentleman's Maijazinf for Feb., 17oG. This is its conclusion : — When Heaven reviewed th' ori03 Proposed by Jerrold for Charles Kuight, the Shakspcariun critic : — Good Kui{;ht. On a well-known Shakspearian actor : — Exit Burbage. On the tomb of an auctioneer at Greenwood : — Going, — going, — gone ! Miss Long was a beautiful actress of the last century, so short in stature that she was called the Pocket Venus. ILer epitaph concludes, — Though Long, yet short ; Though short, yet Pretty Long. On the eminent barrister, Sir John Strange : — Here lies an honest lawyer — that is Strange. On William Button, in a churchyard near Salisbury : — sun, moon, stars, and yo celestial poles ! Are graves, then, dwindled into Button-holes? On Foote, the comedian : — Footo from his earthly stage, alas! is hurled; Death took him off, who took ofif all the world. In the chancel of the church of Barrow-on-Soar, Leicester- shire, is the following on Thcophilus Cave : — Here in this Grave there lies a Cave. We call a Grave a Cave ; If Cavo bo Grave, and Grave bo Cave, Then, reader, judge, I crave, Whether doth Cave here lye in Grave, Or Grave hero lye in Cavo : If Grave in Cave here bury'd lye, Then Grave, where is thy victory ? Goe, reader, and report hero lyes a Cave, Who conquers Death and buries his own Grave. The following, in Harrow Churchyard, is ascribed to Lord Byron : — Beneath these green trees rising to the skies, The planter of them, Isaac Greentreo, lies ; A time shall come when these green trees shall fall. And Isaac Grecntree rise above them all. 2N 50* 594 CHURCHYARD LITERATURE. ON THOMAS GREENHILL, OXFORDSHIRE, 1624. He once a Hill was fresh and Green, Now withered is not to be seen; Earth in earth shovelled up is shut, A Hill into a Hole is put ; But darksome earth by Power Divine, Bright at last as the sun may shine. ON A CORONER WHO HANGED HIMSELF. lie lived and died By suicide. ON A CELEBRATED COOK. Peace to his hashes. ON MR. FISH. Worms bait for fish ; but here's a sudden change • Fish is bait for worms — is not that passing strange ? ON TWO CHILDREN. To the memory of Emma and Maria Littleboy, the twin-children of George and Emma Littleboy of Hornsey, who died July 16, 1783. Two little boys lie here. Yet strange to say. These little boys are girls. ON MISS NOTT. Nottborn, Nott dead, Nott christened, Nott begot; So here she lies that was and that was Nott. Reader behold a wonder rarely wrought. Which while thou seem'st to read thou readest Nott. ON MARY ANGEL, STEPNEY, 1693. To say an angel here interred doth lie, May be thought strange,for angels never die; Indeed some fell from heaven to hell. Are lost to rise no more ; This only fell from death to earth. Not lost but gone before ; Her dust lodged here, her soul perfect in grace, Among saints and angels now hath took its place. CIlURCaVARD LITERATURE. 595 Beloe, in his Anecdotes, gives the following on William Lawes, tbe musical composer, who was killed by the Kouudhcuds : — Concord is conquered ! In his turn there lies The master of great Music's mysteries; And in it is a riddle, like the cause, Will Lawes was slaiu by men whose Wilh were Laws. ON MR. JOSEPH KING. Here lies a man than whom no better's ical-klnif, Who was when sleeping even always tal-kiiiy ; A king by birth was he, and yet was no king, In life was thiti-king, and in death was Jo-King. On John Adams, of Southwell, a carrier, toho died of drnnkennege. — BvRON. John Adams lies here, of the parish of Southwell, A carrier who carried the can to his mouth well; He carried so much, and he carried so fast. He could carry no more, — so was carried at last ; For the liquor he drank being too much for one, He could not carry off, so he's now carri-on. ON A LINEN-DKAPEB. Cottons and cambrics, all adieu. And muslins too, farewell, Plain, striped, and figured, old and new. Three quarters, yard, or ell; By nail and yard I've measured ye. As customers inclined, The churchyard now has measured me. And nails my coffin bind. ON A WOMAN Wno HAD AN ISSUE IN HER LEG. Hero licth Margaret, otherwise Meg, Who died without issue, save one in her leg. Strange woman was she, and exceedingly cunning. For while one leg stood BtiU, the other kept running. FROM LLANFLANTWVTHVL CHURCHYARD, WALB3. Under this stone lies Meredith Morgan, Who blew the bellows of our church-organ ; Tobacco he hated, to smoke most unwilling. Yet never so pleased as when pipes ho was filling; No reflection on him for rude speech could bo cast, Though he made our old organ give many a blast. No puffer was he, though a capital blower. He could fill double U, and now lies a note lower. 596 cnuRcnYARD literature. ON A LAST-SIAKER. Stop, stranger, stop, and wipe a tear, Por the last man at Icut lies here. Though ever-Za«<-ing he has been, lie has at last passed life's last scene. Famed for good works, much time he passed In doing good, — he has done his last. FROM ST. ANNE'S CHURCHYARD, ISLE OP MAN. Daniel Tear, ob. Dec. 7, 1787, £et. 110 years. Here, friend, is little Daniel's tomb ; To Joseph's age he did arrive, Sloth killing thousands in their bloom, While labor kept poor Dan alive. Though strange, yet true, full seventy years His wife was happy in her Tears. In the Greek Anthology is a punning epitaph on a physician, by Empedocles, who lived in the fifth century before Christ. The pun consists in the derivation of the name Pausanias, — causing a cessation of pain or afiliction, — and therefore only a portion of the double meaning can be preserved in a transla- tion : — Pa!(«anias, — not so named without a cause, As one who oft has given to pain a pause, — Blest son of Esculapius, good and wise. Here in his native Gcla buried lies; Who many a wretch once rescued by his charms From dark Persephone's constraining arms, CURIOUS AND PUZZLING EPITAPHS. On the monument of Sardanapalus was inscribed, in Assyrian characters, — EieiE, niNE, nAIZE. ^I T'AAAA TOTTOr OYK ASIA. EAT, DRINK, BE MERRY. THE REST IS NOT WORTH THAT ! meaning a snap of the fingers, which is represented by a hand engraved on the stone, with the thumb and middle finger meet- ing at the top. Casaubon translates -Kai^eiv, to love (jtac^ccv nihil aliud significat nisi spav). Solomon said, all is vanity^ but not till he had eaten^ drank, and loved to a surfeit; and Swift left the well-known lines, — cnURCHYARD LITERATURE. 597 Life's a farco, and all things show it, I thought so once, but now I know it, — but this information was for the tomb, when the capacity to cat, drink, and love was gone. At the entrance of the church of San Salvador, in the citv of Oviedo, in Spain, is a remarkable tomb, erected by a prince named Silo, with a very curious Latin inscription, which may be read two hundred and seventy ways, by beginning with the capital S in the centre : — Silo Prixceps Fecit, ticepspecncepsfecit icefspecnincepsfeci cefspecnirincepcfec efspecnirprincepsfe fspecnirpoprincepsf specnirpoloprinceps pecnirpoliloprincep ecnirpoli siloprince pecnirpol iloprincep specnirpoloprinceps pspecnirpoprincepsp efspecnirprincepsfe cefspecnirincbpsfec icefspecnincepsfeci t icepspecncepsfec i t On the tomb are inscribed these letters : — H. S. E. S. S. T. T. L. Which are the initials of the following Latin words : — Hie situs est Silo, sit tibi terra levis. {Here lies Silo. May the earth lie lightly upon him.] FROM ST. AGNES', LONDO.V. Qu an tris di c vul etra 03 guis ti ro urn ncro vit. H san cbris mi t mu la The middle line furnishes the terminal letters or syllables of the words in the upper and lower lines, and when added they read thus : — Quos anguis tristi diro cum vulnere stravit Hos sanguis Christi miro turn uiunere lavit. [Those who have felt the serpent's venouied wound In Christ's miraculous blood have healing found.] 598 CHURCHYARD LITERATURE. CHORCHYARD IN GERMANY. quid tua te bo bis bia abit et 1 ram ram Mox eris quod ego nunc. Taking the position of the words in the first line, which are placed above or over (super) those in the second, and noting the repetition of the syllables ra and ram thrice (ter), and the letter i twice (bis), the reading is easy. O super\)Q quid superhis ? tua s?S, In the 51 til year of his age. William Bond, brother to the deceased, Erected this stone as a Weekly monitor to the wives of this parish, That they may avoid the infamy of having Their memories handed down to posterity With a patchwork character. THE I'KINTER's EPITAPn. Here lies his /orm in pt, Beneath this bunk with briers overgrown; IIow many cascii far unworthier lie 'Neath some imponiiKj atone ! No column points our loss, No sculptured capi his history declare; Although he lived a follower of the cro««. And member of tho bur. The golden rule he prized. And left it as a tolceu of his love; And all his deeds, corrected and rcvUed, Are retjixtered above. The copy of his wrongs, The pruofn of all his pi-cty are there, And tho fair title, which to truth belong Will prove his title fair. Though now, in death's em-bmce, A nioii/iZ-ering heup our luckiest brother lies, He'll re-appear on Gabriel's roi/nl-ch\7 The cat and fiddle is a a corruption of Caton fidclc. The baff of nails, at Chelsea, is claimed by the smiths and carpenters of the neighborhood as a house designed for their peculiar accommodation ; but, had it not been for the cor- ruption of the times, it would still have belonged to the bac- chanals, who, in the time of Ben Jonson, used to take a holiday stroll to this delightful village. But the old inscrip- tion safi/r and bacchanals is now converted into Satan and bag o'nails. The origin of the chequers, which is so common an emblem of public houses, has been the subject of much learned conjec- ture. One writer supposes that they were meant to represent that the game of draughts might be played there ; another has been credibly informed that in the reign of Philip and Mary the then Earl of Arundel had a grant to license public-houses, and, part of the armorial bearings of that noble family being a chequer-board, the publican, to show that he had a license, put out that mark as part of his sign. But, unfortunately for both solutions, unfortunately for the honors of Arundel, Sir W. Hamilton presented, some time ago, to the Society of Anti- quaries, a view of a street in Pompeii, in which we find that shops with the sign of the chequers were common among the Romans ! The real origin of this emblem is still involved in obscurity. The wittiest, though certainly not the most genu- ine, explanation of it was that of the late George Selwyn, who used to wonder that antiquaries should be at any loss to dis- cover why draughts were an appropriate emblem for drinking- houses. An annotator on Beloe's Anecdotes of Literature says, "I remember, many years ago, passing through a court in Rose- mary Lane, where I observed an ancient sign over the door of an ale-house, which was called The Four Alls. There was the figure of a king, and on a label, ' I rule all ;' the figure of a priest, motto, 'I pray for all;' a soldier, 'I fight for all;' and a yeoman, ' I pay all.' About two years ago I passed through the same thoroughfare, and, looking up for my curious 618 INSCRIPTIONS. sign, I was amazed to see a painted board occupy its place, with these words inscribed : — ' The Four Awls.' In White- chapel Road is a public house which has a written sign, ' The Grave Morris.' A painter was commissioned to embody the inscription ; but this painter had not a poet's eye ; he could not body forth the form of things unknown. In his distress be applied to a friend, who presently relieved him, and the painter delineated, as well as he could, ' The Graafc Maurice,' often mentioned in the ' Epistolce Hoelinse.' " The Queer Door is corrupted from Coeur Dor6 (Golden Heart); the Pig and Whistle, from Peg and Wassail-Bowl ; the Goat in the Golden Boots, from the Dutch Goed in der Goodeu Boote (the god — Mercury — in the golden boots). Many signs are heraldic and represent armorial bearings. The White Heart was peculiar to Richard II. ; the White Swan to Henry IV. and Edward III. ; the Blue Boar to Rich- ard III.; the Red Dragon to the Tudors; the Bull, the Falcon, and the Plume of Feathers to Edward IV. ; the Swan and Antelope to Henry V. ; the Greyhound and Green Dragon to Henry VII. ; the Castle, the Spread Eagle, and the G-lobe were probably adopted from the arms of Spain, Germany, and Portugal, by inns which were the resort of merchants from those countries. Many commemorate historical events ; others derive their names from some eminent and popular man. The Coach and Horses indicated post-houses ; the Fox and G-oose denoted the games played within ; the Hare and Hounds, the vicinity of hunting-grounds. In the Middle Ages, a bush was always suspended in front of the door of a wine-shop, — whence the saying, " Good wine needs no bush." Some of the mediaeval signs are still retained, as the Pilgrim, Cross- Keys, Seven Stars, &c. The following is a literal copy of the sign of a small public house in the village of Folkesworth, near Stilton, Hants. It contains as much poetry as perhaps the rustic Folkesworth folk? are worth ; and doubtless they think it (in the Stilton vernacu lar) " quite the cheese." INSCRIPTIONS. G19 [A rudo figure of a Fox.] I . HAM . A . CUNEN . POX You . see . ther . his No . barme . atched To . me . it . is . my . Mrs. Wish . to . place . mo here . to . let . you . no he . sels . good . beere. Tlie Rawlinson of the district has deciphered this inscrip. tion, and conjectures its meaning to be as follows : — I am a cunning fox, you see; There is no harm attached to me: It is my master's wish to place me hero, To let you know he sells good beer. In King wStreet, Norwich, at the sign of " The Waterman," kept by a man who is a barber and over whose door is the pole, are these lines : — Roam not from pole to pole. But step in here ; Where nought exceeds the shaving. But — the beer. This was originally an impromptu of Dean Swift, written at the request of his favorite barber. Over the door of a tippling-house in Frankford, Pa., is this :— In this Hive we're all alive ; Good liquor makes us funny ; If you're dry, step in and try The flavor of our honey. ON A TAVERN-SIGN NEAR CAMBRIDGE, ENGLAND Rest, traveller, rest ; lo ! Cooper's ready hand Obedient brings " zwei glass" at thy command. Rest, traveller, rest, and banish thoughts of care. Drink to thy friends, and recommend them here. PUNISHMENT FOR TREASON. Tell them how Edward put to death a citizen, Only for saying he would make his soji Heir to the Crown ; meaning indeed his house, Which, by the sign thereof, was termed so. — liich. III., Aot iii. so. f . 620 INSCRIPTIONS. On the sign of " The Baker and the Brewer," in Birmingham,, is the following quatrain : — The Baker says, " I've the staflf of life, And you're a silly elf." The Brewer replied, with artful pride, " Why this is life itself." At the King's Head Inn, Stutton, near Ipswich, is tliis ad- dress to wayworn travelers : — ■ Good people, stop, and pray walk in ; Here's wine and brandy, rum and gin; And what is more, good purl and ale Are both sold here by old Nat Dale. This tap-room inscription is in a wayside tavern in Northum- berland, England : — Here stop and spend a social hour In harmless mirth and fun; Let friendship reign, be just and kind. And evil speak of none. At the Red Lion Inn, Hollius Grreen, an English village, is this : — Call freely, Drink merrily, Pay honestly. Part quietly. These rules, my friends, will bring no sorrow; You pay to-daj', I'll trust to-morrow. In the county of Norfolk, Eng., is this singular inscription:— clerk his sent has brewer my* On the sign-board of the Bull Inn at Buckland, near Dover : — The bull is tame, so fear him not, All the while you pay your shot ; When money's gone, and credit's bad, It's that which makes the bull run mad. * Beud from tho bottom of the columns upward, commencing with the right. More beer score For my my Do trust pay I I must Shall if I What and and INSCRIPTIONS. 621 At Swainstliorpe, near Norwich, England, is a public-house known as the Dun Cow. Under the portrait of the cow is this couplet : — Walk in, gentlemen ; I trust you'll find The dun cow's milk is to your mind. On the Basingstoke road, near Reading, England: — This is the Whitley Grenadier, A noted house for famous beer. My friend, if you should chance to call, Beware and get not drunk withal ; Let moderation be your guide, It answers well whene'er 'tis tried. Then use but not abuse strong beer, And don't forget the Grenadier. The author of Tavern Anecdotes records the following : — Rhyming Host at Stratford. At the Swan Tavern, kept by Lound The best accommodation's found — Wine, spirits, porter, bottled beer, You'll find in high perfection here. If, in the garden with your lass, You feel inclined to take a glass, There tea and coffee, of the best. Provided is for every guest ; Or, if disposed a pipe to smoke. To sing a song, or crack a joke. You may repair across the green, Where nought is heard, though much is seen; Then laugh, and drink, and smoke away, And but a moderate reckoning pay. BEER-JUG INSCRIPTION. Come, my old friend, and take a pot. But mark me what I say: Whilst thou drink'st thy neighbor's health, Drink not thy own away. For it too often is the case. Whilst we sit o'er a pot, And while we drink our neighbor's health, Our own is c^uite forgot. 622 INSCRIPTIONS. INSCRirTIONS ON INN WINDOW-PANES. SHENSTONe's, at HENLEY. Whoe'er has travelled life's dull round, Where'er his journeys may have been, May sigh to think he still has found His warmest welcome at an inn. A gentleman who stopped at an inn at Stockport, in 1634, left this record of his bad reception on a window of the inn: — • If, traveller, good treatment be thy care, A comfortable bed, and wholesome fare, A modest bill, and a diverting host, Neat maid, and ready waiter, — quit this coast. If dirty doings please, at Stockport lie: The girls, frowsy frights, here with their mistress vie. Yet Fynes Moryson, in his Itinerary, thus speaks of English inns in the olden time : — As soon as a passenger comes to an inne, the servants run to him, and one takes his horse and walkes him about till he be cool, then rubs him down, and gives him meat; another servant gives the passenger his pri- vate chamber and kindles his fire; the third pulls off his bootes and makes them cleane ; then the host and hostess visit him, and if he will eate with the hoste or at a common table with the others, his meale will cost him sixpence, or in some places fourpence ; but if he will eate in his chamber, he commands what meat he will, according to his appetite; yea, the kitchen is open to him to order the meat to be dressed as he likes beste. After having eaten what he pleases, he may with credit set by a part for next day's breakfast. His bill will then be written for him, and should ha object to any charge, the hont is ready to alter it. " Tempera mutantur, et nos mutamur in illis !" ON A WINDOW-PANE OP THE HOTEL SANS SOUCI, BADEN-BAPEH. Venez ici, sans souci. Vous Partirez d'ici sans six sous. THREE TRANSLATIONS WHICH FOLLOW. You come to this city plumed with felicity. You'll flutter from this city plucked to mendicity. With plenty of tin, purse-proud you come in. You'll go a sad nijikum from outgo of income ! Not a bit pensive, you come here expensive. Soon you'll go hence with u curse the cjpense. INSCRIPTIONS. (523 INSCRIPTIONS ON BELLS. Vivos roco — Mortuos plango — Fulgura frango. I call the living — I mourn the dead — I break the lightning. This brief and impressive announcement — the motto of Schiller's ever-memorable Song of the Bell — was common to the church-bells of the Middle Ages, and may still be found on the bell of the great Minster of Schaff hausen, and on that of the church near Lucerne. Another and a usual one, which is, in fact, but an amplification of the first, is this : — Funora plango — Fulgura frango — Sabbato pango. Exoito lentos — Dissipo ventos — Paco cruentos. I mourn at funerals — I break the lightning — I proclaim the Sabbath. I urge the tardy — I disperse the winds — I calm the turbulent. The following motto may still be seen on some of the bells that have swung in their steeples for centuries. It will be ob- served to entitle them to a sixfold efficacy. Men's death I tell by doleful knell, Lightning and thunder I break asunder, On Sabbath all to church I call, The sleepy head I raise from bed, The winds so tierce I do disperse, Men'B cruel rage I do assuage. On the famous alarm-bell called Roland, in the belfry-tower of the once powerful city of Ghent, is engraved the subjoined inscription, in the old Walloon or Flemish dialect : — Wyuen uaem is Roland; als ik klep is er brand, and als ik luy is er victorie in bet land. Anglici. My name is Roland; when I toll there is firo, and when I ring there is victory in the land. On others may be found these inscriptions : — Deum verum laudo, plebem voce, clerum congrego, Defuncto ploro, pestum fugo, festa decoro. I praise the true God, call the people, convene the clergy, I mourn for the dead, drive away pestilence, and grace festivals. Gaudemus gaudcntibus, Dolemus dolcntibus. Let us rejoice with the joyful, and grieve with the sorrowful. C24 INSCRIPTIONS. INSCRIPTIONS ON THE BELLS OF ST. MICHAEL S, COVENTRY, CAST IN 1774. Although I am both light and small, I will be heard above you all. II. If you have a judicious ear, You'll own my voice is sweet and clear. III. Such wondrous power to music's given, It elevates the soul to heaven. IV. While thus we join in cheerful sound. May love and loyalty abound. V. To honour both of God and king, Our voices shall in concert sing. VI. Music is a medicine to the mind. VII. Ye ringers all, that prize your health and happiness, Be sober, merry, wise, and you'll the same possess. VIII. Ye people all that hear me ring, Be faithful to your God and king. IX. In wedlock's bands all ye who join, AVith hands your hearts unite; So shall our tuneful tongues combine To laud the nuptial rite. X. I am and have been called the common bell, To ring, when fire breaks out, to tell. There is in the abbey church at Sherborne, in Dorsetshire, a fire-bell confined exclusively to alarms in case of conflagrations. The motto around the rim or carrel runs thus : — 1652. Lord, quench this furious flame; Arise, run, help, put out the same. INSCllIl'TlONS. G25 The books of the Roman Catholic faith contain a ritual for the baptism of bells, which decrees that they be named and anointed, — a ceremonial which was supposed to insure them against the machinations of evil spirits. On the largest of three bells placed by Edward III. in the liittle Sanctuary, Westminster, are these words : — King Edward made me thirtie thousand weight and three ; Take me down and wey mo, and more you shall find me. The Great Tom of Oxford was cast after two failures, April 8, 1680, from the metal of an old bell, on which was the fol- lowing curious inscription, whence its name : — In Thomifi laude resono bim bom sine fraude. On a bell in Durham Cathedral is inscribed, — To call the folk to church in time, I chime. When mirth and pleasure's on the wing, I ring. And when the body leaves the soul, I toll. On a bell at Lapley, in Staffordshire : — I will sound and resound to thee, Lord, To call thy people to thy word. On a bell in Meivod Church, Montgomeryshire : — I to the church the living call, And to the grave do summon all. On Independence bell, Philadelphia, from Lev. xxv. lu • — Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof. In St. Helen's Church, "Worcester, England, is a chime of bells cast in the time of Queen Anne, with names and inscrip- tions commemorative of victories gained during her reign : — 1. Blenheim. First is my note, and Blenheim is my name; For Blenheim's story will be first in fame. 2. Barcelona. Let mo relate how Louis did bemoan His grandson Philip's flight from Barcclon. 2P 53 626 INSCRIPTIONS. 3. Ramillies. Deluged in blood, I, Ramillies, advance Britannia's glory on the fall of France. 4. Menin. Let Menin on my sides engraven be ; And Flanders freed from Gallic slavery. 5. Turin. When in harmonious peal I roundly go, Think on Turin, and triumphs on the Po. 6. Eugene. With joy I hear illustrious Eugene's name; Fav'rite of fortune and the boast of fame. 7. Marlborough. But I, for pride, the greater Marlborough bearj Terror of tyrants, and the soul of war. 8. Queen Anne. Th' immortal-praises of Queen Anne I sound, With union blest, and all these glories crowned. The inscriptions are all dated 170G, except tliat on the Beventh, which is dated 1712. On one of eight bells in the church tower of Pilton, Devon, is a modern achievement in this kind of literature : — Recast by John Taylor and Son, Who the best prize for church bells won At the Great Ex-hi-bi-ti-on In London, 1 — 8 — 5 and 1. In St. John's Cathedral, Hong Kong : — I will send thee far hence unto the Gentiles. (Acts xxii. 21.) At Fotheringay, Northamptonshire: — Domini laudem, non verbo sed voce resonabo. At Hornby : — When I do ring, God's praises sing; AVhen I do toll, Pray heart and soul. INSCRIPTIONS. 627 At Nottingham : — I toll the funeral knell ; I hail the festal day ; The fleeting hour I tell; I summon all to pray. At Bolton : — My roaring sound doth warning give That men cannot here always live. Distich inscribed on a bell at Bergamoz, by Cardinal Or- siui, Benedict XIII. : — Convoco, signo, noto, compello, concino, ploro, I I I I II Arma, Dies, Horas, Fulgura, Fcsta, Rogos. Similar in form is an inscription on Lindsey Court-house : — Ilaeo domus Odit amat punit conservat honorat I I I I I Nequitiam, pacem, crimina, jura, bonos. On the clock of the town hall of Bala, North Wales, is the following inscription : — Here I stand both day and night. To tell the hours with all my might; Do thou example take by me. And serve thy God as I serve thee. FLY-LEAF INSCRIPTIONS IN BOOKS. The following lines, formerly popular among youthful scholars, may still be found in school-books : — This book is mine By right divine ; And if it go astray, I'll call you kind My desk to find And put it safe away. This book is mine, — that you may know, by letters two I will you show : The first is J, a letter bright ; The next is S in all men's sight. But if you still my name should miss, Look underneath, and here it is: — John Smith. 628 INSCRIPTIONS. Whoe'er this book, if lost, doth find, I hope will have a generous mind, And bring it to the owner, — me, Whose name they'll see page fifty-three. Tlie curious warning subjoined — paradoxical in view of the improbability of any honest friend pilfering— has descended to our times from the days of black-letter printing : — Steal not this book, my honest friend, For fear the gallows be your end ; For if you do, the Lord will say. Where is that book you stole away ? Another often met with is this : — Hie liber est meus, Testis ct est Deus ; Si tiuis mo quaerit. Hie nomen erit. The two following admonitions are full of salutary advice tc book-borrowers : — Neither blemish this book, or the leaves double down. Nor lend it to each idle friend in the town ; Return it when read; or, if lost, please supply Another as good to the mind and the eye. With right and with reason you need but be friends, And each book in my study your pleasure attends. If thou art borrowed by a friend, Right welcome shall he be, To read, to study, not to lend. But to return to me. Not that imparted knowledge doth Diminish learning's store ; But books, I find, if often lent, Return to me no more. ^^^~Read slowly, pause frequently, think seriously, keep clean, RETUllN DULY, with the corners of the leaves not turned down. Of the warning and menacing kind are the following : — This book is one thing, My fist is another; Touch this one thing, You'll sure feci the other. 1 1 INSCRIPTIONS. G29 Si quisquis fiiretar This little libellum, Per Uacchum per Jovem ! I'll kill him, I'll fell him. In veittum illius I'll stick my scalpellitm. And teach him to steal My little Ubdhm. Nc me prend pas ; On te pcndra. Gideon Snooks, Ejus liber. 8i quis furetur ; Per collum pcnJctur, Similis huic pauperi animali. Here follows a figure of an unfortunate individual suspended " in malam crucem." Small is the wren. Black is the rook; Great is the sinner That steals this book. This is Thomas Jones's book — You may just within it look ; But you'd better not do more, For the Devil's at the door. And will snatch at fingering hands ; Look behind you — there he stands ! The following macaronic is taken from a copy of the Com- panion to the Festivals and Fasts, 1717 : — To the Borrower of this Book, Hie Liber est meus, Deny it who can, Samuel Showell, Jr., An honest man. In vico corvino [locale appended] I am to be found, Si non mortuus sum. And laid in the ground. At si non vivcns, You will find an heir Qui librum recipiet ; You need not to fear. 63* 630 INSCRIPTIONS. Ergo cum lectus est Restore it, and then Ut quando mutuaris I may lend again. At si detineas, So let it be lost, Expectabo Argentum, As much as it cost (viz.: 5s.) To the Finder. If I this lose, and you it find, Restore it me, be not unkind ; For if not so, you're much to blame, AVhile as below you see my name. — [Name appended.] Taken from an old copy-book : AH you, my friends, who now expect to see A piece of writing, here performed by me, Cast but a smile on this my mean endeavor, I'll strive to mend, and be obedient ever. On the fly-leaf of a Bible may sometimes be seen : Could we with ink the ocean fill, Were every stalk on earth a quill. And were the skies of parchment made, And every man a scribe by trade. To tell the love of God alone Would drain the ocean dry ; Nor could the scroll contain the whole, Though stretched from sky to sky. The two following are very common in village schools : — This is Giles Wilkinson, his book; God give him grace therein to look; Nor yet to look, but understand That learning's better than house and land; For when both house and land are spent. Then learning is most excellent. John Smith is my name, England is my nation, London is my dwelling-place, And Christ is my salvation. nd when I'm dead and in the grave, And all my bones are rotten. When this you see, remember me, Though I am long forgotten. INSCRirTTONS. Q^l This pretty prcsentation-versc is sometimes met with : — Take it,— 'tis a gift of love That seeks thy good alone; Koep it for the giver's sake, And read it for thy own. The early conductors of the press were in the habit of affix- ing to the end of the volumes they printed some device or couplet concerning the book, with the names of the printer and proof-reader added. The following example is from Andrew Bocard's edition of TJie Pragmatic Sanction, Paris, 1507 : — Stet liber, hie donee fluetus formica marinos Ebibat ; et totuin testudo perambulet orbein (May this volume continue in motion, And its pages each daj bo unfurled ; Till an ant to the dregs drink the ocean. Or a tortoise has crawled round the world.) On the title-page of a book called Gentlemen, Look about Tou, is the following curious request : — Read this over if you're wise. If you're not, then read it twice : If a fool, and in the gall Of bitterness, read not at all. MOTTO ON A CLOCK. Quas lenta accedit, quam velox prsetcrit horal Ut capias, patiens esto, sed esto vigil ! Slow comes the hour : its passing speed how great : Waiting to seize it, — vigilantly wait! WATCn-PAPER INSCRIPTION. Onward perpetually moving, These faithful hands are ever proving How quick the hours fly by ; This monitory, pulse-like beating Seems constantly, metbiiiks, repeating, Swift! swift ! tho moments fly. Reader, be ready, — for perhaps before These hands have made one revolution more. Life's spring is snapt, — you die 1 632 INSCRIPTIONS. Here, reader, see in youth, in age, or prime, The stealing steps of never-standing Time: With wisdom mark the moment as it flies ; Think what a moment is to him who dies. Little monitor, impart Some instruction to the heart; Show the busy and the gay Life is hasting swift away. Follies cannot long endure, Life is short and death is sure. Happy those who wisely learn Truth from error to discern. Could but our tempers more like this machino, Not urged by passion, nor delayed by spleen. And true to Nature's regulating power, By virtuous acts distinguish every hour; Then health and joy would follow as they ought The laws of motion, and the laws of thought ; Sweet health to pass the present moment o'er, And everlasting joy when time shall be no more. SUN-DIAL INSCRIPTIONS. Sine sole sileo. (Without sunlight I give no information.) Scis horas ; nescis horam. (You know the hours; you know not the hour [of death].) AfUictis lenta;, ceieres gaudentibus horco. (The hours pass slowly for the afflicted, rapidly for the joyous.) Vado e vegno giorno ; Ma tu andrai senza ritomo. (I go and come every day; But thou shalt go without return.) May the dread book at our last trial, When open spread, be like this dial; May Heaven forbear to mark therein The hours made dark by deeds of sin; Those only in that record write Which virtue like the sun makes bright. ! If o'er the dial glides a shade, redeem The time, for lo ! it passes like a dream ; But if 'tis all a blank, then mark the loss Of hours unblest by shadows from the cross. INSCRIPTIONS. 6c3 INSCRIPTION OVER A SPRINO. Whoe'er thou art that stays'st to quaff The streams that here from waters dim Arise to fill thy cup and laugh In sparkling beads about the brim. In all thy thoughts and words as pure As these sweet waters mayst thou be; To all thy friends as firm and sure. As prompt in all thy charity. INSCRIPTIONS ON AN ^OLIAN HARP. AT THE ENDS. Fingent Jjlolio carmine nobilem. (Ilor. iv. 3.) Partem aliquam, oh venti, divum referatis ad aures, (Virg. Buc. 3.) ON THE SIDE. Hail, heavenly harp, where Memnon's skill is shown. That charm'st the ear with music all thy own ! Which, though untouched, canst rapturous strains impart; Oh, rich of genuine nature, free from art! Such the wild warblings of the chirping throng, So simply sweet the untaught virgin's song. Mr. Longfellow's admirers will remember his beautiful lit- tle poem commencing : — I like that ancient Saxon phrase which calls The burial-ground God's acre. Tliis "Saxon phrase" is not obsolete. It may be seen, for instance, inscribed over the entrance to a modern cemetery at Basle— ©ottcg 5(cfcr. Over a gateway near the church of San Eusebio, Rome : — Tria sunt mirabilia; Triiius et unus, Deus et homo, Virgo et mater. Over the door of the house in which Selden was born, Sal- vington, Sussex: — Gratus, honesti, mihi; non claudar, inito sedeq'. Fur, abeas; non su' facta soluta tibL Thus paraphrased : — Thou'rt welcome, honest friend; walk in, mnkc free ; Thief, get thee gone ; my doors arc closed to thoo. C34 INSCRIPTIONS. HOUSE INSCRIPTIONS. Oa the Town-house Wittenberg: — Ist's Gottes Werk, so wird's bestehen ; Ist's Aleuschens, so wird's untergehen. (If God's work, it will aye endure; If man's, 'tis not a moment sure.) Over the gate of a Casino, near Maddaloni: — AMICIS — Et ne paucis pateat, Etiam fictis. (My gate stands open for my friends ; But lest of these too few appear, Let him who to the name pretends Approach and find a welcome here.) On a -west-of-England mansion : — Welcome to all through this wide-opening gate; None come too early, none depart too late. Fuller {Holy and Profane State) and Walton {Life of George Herbert) notice a verse engraved upon a mantel-piece in the Parsonage House built by George Herbert at his own expense. The faithful minister thus counsels his successor : — If thou dost find A house built to thy mind. Without thy cost. Serve thou the more God and the poor : My labor is not lost. The following is emblazoned around the banqueting hall of Bulwer's ancestral home, Knebworth : — Read the Rede of the Old Roof Tree. Here be trust fast. Opinion free. Knightly Right Hand. Christian knee. Worth in all. Wit in some. Laughter open. Slander dumb. Hearth where rooted Friendships grow. Safe as Altar even to Foe. And the sparks that upwards go When the hearth flame dies below. If thy sap in them may be, Fear no winter, Old Roof Tree. INSCRIPTIONS. 635 On a pane of glass in an old window in the coffee-room of the White Lion, Chester, England : — Right fit a place is window glass To write the name of bonny lass ; And if the reason you should speir, Why both alike are brittle geir, A wee thing dings a lozcn lame — A wee thing spoils a maiden's fame. Tourist's wit on a window pane at Lodore: — When I see a man's name Scratched upon the glass, I know ho owns a diamond, And bis father owns an ass. On a pane of the Hotel des Pays-Bas, Spa, Belgium : — 1793. I love but one. and only one ; Oh, Damon, thou art he. Love thou but one and only one, And let that one be me. MEMORIALS. An English gentleman, who, in 1715, spent some time in prison, left the following memorial on the windows of his cell. On one pane of glass he wrote : — That which the world miscalls a jail, A private closet is to me; Whilst a good conscience is my bail. And innocence my liberty. On another square he wrote, Mutare vel timcre spcrno, and on a third pane, sed victa Cafoni.*- A IMr. Barton, on retiring with a fortune made in the wool- trade, built a fair stone house at Holme, in Nottinghamshire, in the window of which was the following couplet, — an humble acknowledgment of the means whereby he had acquired his estate : — I thank God, and ever shall ; It is the sheep hath paid for all. ♦Lucan's Pharsalia. (Lib. 1.) 636 inscriptions. francke's encouraging discovery. It is said that when Francke was engaged in the great work of erecting his world-known Orphan-House at Halle, for the means of which he looked to the Lord in importunate prayer from day to day, an apparently accidental circumstance made an abiding impression on him and those about him. A work- man, in digging a part of the foundation, found a small silver coin, with the following inscription : — " Jehova, Conditor, Condita Coronide Coronet." (May Jehovah, the builder, finish the building.) golden mottoes. A vain man's motto, — Win gold and wear it. A generous man's motto, — Win gold and share it. A miser's motto, — AVin gold and spare it A profligate's motto, — Win gold and spend it. A broker's motto, — Win gold and lend it. A fool's motto, — Win gold and end it. A gambler's motto, — Win gold and lose it. A sailor's motto, — Win gold and cruise it. A wise man's motto,— Win gold and use it. POSIES FROM WEDDING-RINGS. Portia. A quarrel, ho, already ! What's the matter ? Gratiano. About a hoop of gold, a paltry ring That she did give me : whose posy was For all the world like cutler's poetry Upon a knife:* Love vie, and leave me not. — 3Ierchant of Venice, Act V. Hamlet. Is this a prologue, or the posy of a ring? — Hamlet, Act III. sc. 2. Jacques. Tou are full of pretty answers : have you not been acquainted with goldsmiths* wives, and conned them out of rings? — As You Like It, Act III. sc. 2. The following posies were transcribed by an indefatigable collector, from old wedding-rings, chiefly of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Tho orthography is, in most casesj altered : — * Knives were formerly inscribed, by means of aqua-fortis, with short sen- tences in distich. INSCRirTIONS. 637 Death never parts Such loving hearts. Lovo and respect I do expect. No gift can show The love I owe. Let him never take a wife That will not love her as his life. In loving thee I love myself. A heart content Can ne'er repent In God and thee Shall my joy be. Love thy chaste wife Beyond thy life. 1681. Love and pray Night and day. Great joy in thee Continually. My fond delight By day and night. Pray to love ; Love to pray. 1647. In thee, my choice, I do rejoice. 1677. Body and mind In thee I find. Dear wife, thy rod Doth lead to God. God alone Made us two one. Eternally My love shall be. All I refuse, And thee I choose. Worship is due To God and you. Luve and live happy. 1689. Joy day and night Bo our delight. Divinely Irnit by Grace are we ; Late two, now one; the pledge here see. 1657. Endless my love As this shall prove. Avoid all strife 'Twixt man and wife. Joyful love This ring doth prove. In theo, dear wife, I find new life. Of rapturous joy I am the toy. In thee I prove The joy of love. In loving wife Spend all thy life. 1097 In love abide Till death divide. In unity Let's live and die. Happy in thee Hath God made mo. Silence ends strife With man and wife. None can prevent The Lord's intent God did decree Our unity. I kiss the rod From thee and God. In love and joy Be our employ. Live and love ; Love and live. God above Continue our love. True love will ne'er forget. 54 638 INSCRIPTIONS. Faithful ever, Deceitful never. As gold is pure. So love is sure. Love, I like thee. Sweet, requite me. God sent her me, My wife to be. Live and die In constancy. My beloved is mine, And I am hers. Within my breast Thy heart doth rest. God above Increase our love. Be true to me That gives it thee. Both heart and hand At your command. My heart you have. And yours I crave. Christ and thee My comfort be. As God decreed, So we agreed. No force can move AflSxed love. For a kiss Take this. The want of thee Is grief to me. I fancy none But thee alone. One word for all, I love and shall. Your sight. My delight. God's blessing be On thee and me. I will be yours ■While breath endures. Love is sure Where faith is pure. Thy friend am I, An so will die. God's appointment Is my contentment. Knit in one By Christ alone. My dearest Betty Is good and pretty. Sweetheart, I pray Do not say nay. Parting is pain While love doth remain. Hurt not that heart Whose joy thou art. Thine eyes so bright Are my delight. Take hand and heart, I'll ne'er depart. If you consent. You'll not repent. 'Tis in your will To save or kill. As long as life, Your loving wife. If you deny, Then sure I die. Thy friend am I, And so will die. Let me in thee Most happy be. God hath sent My heart's content. You and I Will lovers die. Thy consent Is my content. INSCRIPTIONS. 639 r wish to thee All joy may be. In thee my lore All joy I prove. Beyond this life Lf.ve me, dear wife. Love and joy Can never cloy. The pledge I prove Of mutual love. I love the rod And thee and God. Desire, like fire, Doth still inspire. My heart and I, Until I die. In its circular continuity, the ring was accepted as a type of eternity, and, hence, the stability of affection. This is love, and worth commending, Still beginning, never ending. This ring doth bind Body and mind. Endless as this Shall bo our bliss. — Taos. Bliss. ITItf I do rejoice In thee my choice. Love him in heart, Whose joy thou art. I change the life Of maid to wife. Endless my love For thee shall prove. Not Two, but One. Till life be gone. Numbers, vi. 24, 25, 26. Constancy and Heaven are round, And in this the Emblem's found. Or, as Herrick says, — And as this round Is nowhere found To flaw or else to sever. So let our love As endless prove, And pure as gold forever. LADY KATHERINE GREY's WEDDING-RINO. The ring received by this excellent woman, who was a sister of Lady Jane Grey, from her husband, the Earl of Hertford, at their marriage, consisted of five golden links, the four inner ones bearing the following lines, of the earl's composition : — As circles five by art compact shewe but one ring in sight, So trust uniteth faithfull mindes with knott of secret might, Whose force to breake but greedio Death noe wight possesseth power, As time and sequels well shall prove. My ringo can say no more. 640 PARALLEL PASSAGES. iJatallel ^assagesJ, INCLUDING IMITATIONS, PLAGIARISMS, AND ACCIDENTAL COINCIDENCES. Pretensions to originality are ludicrous. — Byron's Letters. An apjjle cleft in two is not more twin Than these two creatures. — Twelfth Night, V. 1. Milton "borrowed" other poets' thoughts, hut he did not borrow as gipsies borrow children, spoiling their features that they may not be recognized. No, he returned them improved. Had he " borrowed" your coat, he would have restored it with a new nap upon it ! — Leigh Hunt. Man wants but little here below, Nor wants that little long. — Goldsmith: Hermit, Evidently stolen from Dr. Young : — Man wants but little, nor that little long. — Night Thoughts. Be wise to-day : 'tis madness to defer. — Night Thoughts. But Congreve had said, not long before, — Defer not till to-morrow to be wise ; To-morrow's sun to thee may never rise. — Letter to Cobham. Like angels' visits, few and far between. — Campbell : Pleasures of Hope, Copied from Blair : — like an ill-used ghost. Not to return ; — or if it did, its visits, Like those of angels, short and far between. — Qrave. But this pretty conceit originated with NoRRis, of Bemer ton, (died 1711,) in a religious poem : — But those who soonest take their flight Are the most exquisite and strong : Like angels' visits, short and bright, Mortality's too weak to bear them long. — The Parting. Dear as the light that visits these sad eyes. Dear as the ruddy drops thai warm my heart. — Gray's Bard. Gray himself points out the imitation in Shakspeare :— You are my true and honorable wife ; As dear to me as are the ruddy drops That visit my sad heart. — Julius Cuesar, Act II. Sc. 1. PARALLEL PASSAGES. C41 Otway also makes Priuli exclaim to his daughter, — Dear as the vital warmth that foods my life, Dear as these eyes that weep in fondness o'er thee. — Venice Preseried. And leave us leisure to be good. — Gray : Ode to Adversity. And know, I have not yet the leisure to bo good. — Olduam. Thou tamer of the human breast, Whose iron scourge and torturing hour The bad affright, afflict the best. — Gray: Ode to Adversity. When the scourge Inexorably, and the torturing hour, Calls us to penance. — Milton : Paradise Lost. Lo, where the rosy-bosomed hours, Fair Venus' train, appear ! — Gray : Ode to Spring, The graces and the rosy-bosomed hours Thither all their bounties bring. — Milton : Comus. En hie in roseis latet papillis. — Catullus. Full many a gem, of purest ray serene. The dark, unfathomed caves of ocean bear; Full many a flower is born to Jalush unseen. And waste its sweetness on the desert air. — Gray : Elegy. There kept my charms concealed from mortal oyo. Like roses that in deserts bloom and die. — Pope: Rape of the Lock. In distant wilds, by human eye unseen. She rears her flowers and spreads her velvet green; Pure gurgling rills the lonely desert trace, And waste their music on the savage race. — Young. And, like the desert's lily, bloom to fade. — Shenstone : Elegy IV. Nor waste their sweetness on the desert air. — Churchill, Gotham. Which else had wasted in the desert air. Lloyd : Ode at Westminster School And leaves the world to darkness and to mo. — Gray : Elegy. And left the world to wretchedness and me. — M^ss : Beggar's Petition, The swallow oft beneath my thatch Shall twitter from her clay-built nest, Ac. — The Wish. Doubtless suggested to Rogers by the lines in Gray's Elegy :— The breezy call of incense-breathing morn. The swallow twittering from her straw-built shed, Ac. The bloom of young desire and purple light of love. — Gray. Lumenquo juvcntae purpurcuin. — Virgil. jEn. I. 590. 2Q 54* 642 PARALLEL PASSAGES. And quaff the pendent vintage as it grows. Gray: Alliance of Education and GovemmenL For this expression Gray was indebted to Virgil : — Non eadem arboribus pendet vindemia nostrls, &c. — Georg. ii. 89. The attic warbler pours her throat. — Gray • Ode to Spring. Is it for thee the linnet pours her throat? — Pope : Esaai/ on 3faii, Gray says concerning the blindness of Milton, — lie passed the flaming bounds of space and time : The living throne, the sapphire blaze, Where angels tremble while they gaze, He saw; but, blasted with excess of light, Closed his eyes in endless night. (Dr. Johnson remarks that if we suppose the blindneas caused by study in the formation of his poem, this account is poetically true and happily imagined.) Hermias, a Galatian writer of the second century, says of Homer's blindness, — When Homer resolved to write of Achilles, he had an exceeding desire to fill his mind with a just idea of so glorious a hero : wherefore, having paid all due honors at his tomb, he entreats that he may obtain a sight of him. The hero grants his poet's petition, and rises in a glorious suit of armor, which cast so insufferable a splendor that Homer lost his eyes while he gazed for the enlargement of his notions. (Pope says if this be any thing more than mere fable, one would be apt to imagine it insinuated his contracting a blind- ness by too intense application while he wrote the Iliad.) Hume's sarcastic fling at the clergy in a note to the first volume of his history is not original. He says, — The ambition of the clergy can often be satisfied only by promoting igno- rance, and superstition, and implicit faith, and pious frauds; and having got what Archimedes only wanted, — another world on which he could fix his en- gine, — no wonder they move this world at their pleasure. In Dryden's Do7i Sebastian, Dorax thus addresses the Mufti :— Content you with monopolizing Heaven, And let this little hanging ball alone ; For, give you but a foot of conscience there, And you, like Archimedes, toss the globe. PARALLEL PASSAfiES. 643 Dryden says of the Earl of Shaftesbury, — David for him his tuneful harp had strung, And Ileaven had wanted one immortal song. — Absalom and Aohitujyhel. Pope adopts similar language in addressing his friend Dr Arbuthuot : — Friend of my life ! which did not you prolong, The world had wanted many an idle song. For truth has such a face and such a raien, As to be loved needs only to be seen. — Dkydkn. Vice is a monster of such hideous mien, As to be hated needs but to be seen. — Pope. Great wits to madness nearly are allied. — Dryden: Aha. and Achu. Seneca said, eighteen centuries ago, — Nullum magnum ingenium absque mistura dementife est : — De Tranquil. ; and Arktotle had said it before him {Prohlemata). Praise undeserved is satire in disguise. — Pope : Imit. Horace. Sir Walter Scott says in his Woodstock, — in the sceno where Alice Lee, in the presence of Charles IT. under the as- sumed name of Louis Kerneguy, describes the character she supposes the king to have : — Kerneguy and his supposed patron felt embarrassed, perhaps from a con- sciousness that the real Charles fell far short of his ideal character as de- signed in such glowing colors. In some cases exaggerated or inappropriatt praise becomes the most severe satire. Ye little stars, hide your diminished rays. — Pope : Epistle to Bathurst. At whose sight all the stars Hide their diminished heads. — Milton. Laugh where we must, be candid where we can, But vindicate the ways of God to man. — Pope : Essay on Man. And justify the ways of God to man. — Milton : Paradise Lost. On Butler who can think without just rage, The glory and the scandal of the age? — Oldham : Satire against PoeU-y. Probably borrowed by Pope in the following lines : — At length Erasmus, that great injured name, 'Che glory of the priesthood and the shame. — Essay on Criticiatn, 644 • PARALLEL PASSAGES. And more true joy Marcellus, exiled, feels. Than Caesar with a senate at his heels. — Pope : Essay on Man. Drawn from Bolingbroke, who plagiarized the idea froia Seneca, who says, — Marcellus, happier when Brutus approved thy exile than when the com- monwoallh approved thy consulship. For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight : lie can't be wrong whose life is in the right. — Pope : Eseay on Man. Taken from Cowley : — His faith perhaps in some nice tenets might Be wrong: his life, I'm sure, was in the right. Is it, in heaven, a crime to love too well ? — Pope : Elegy. Imitated from Crashawe's couplet: — And I, — what is my crime ? I cannot tell, Unless it be a crime to have loved too well. Lamartine, in his Joceli/n, has the same expression : — Est-ce un crime, men Dieu, de trop aimer le beau ? A wit with dunces, and a dunce with wits. — Danciad. This smart piece of antithesis Pope borrowed from QuiNC- tilian, who says, — Qui stultis eruditi videri volunt; eruditi stulti videntur. Dr. Johnson also hurled this missile at Lord Chesterfield, calling him " A lord among wits, and a wit among lords." The earl had oifended the rugged lexicographer, whose barba- rous manners in company Chesterfield holds up, in his Letters to his son, as things to be avoided. Fair tresses man's imperial race ensnare, And beauty draws us with a single hair. — Pope : Bape of the Lock. This has a strong afl&nity with a passage in Howell's Letters : — 'Tis a powerful sex : they were too strong for the first, for the strongest and for the wisest man that was : they must needs be strong, when one hair of a woman can draw more than a hundred i^air of oxen. Princes and lords may flourish or may fade ; A breath can make them, as a breath has made. — Goldsmith : Deserted Vil. Probably from De Caux, an old French poet, who says, — C'cst un verre qui luit, Qu'un souffle peut d6truire, et qu'un souffle a produit PARALLEL PASS AGES. 045 Kings aro like stars, — they riso and set, — they hare The worship of the world, but no repose. — Shelley : IleUan. Stolen from Lord Bacon : — Princes are like to heavenly bodies, which cause good or ovil times, and which have much veneration, but no rest. — Of Empire. Burke, in speaking of the morals of France prior to the Revolution, says, — Vice itself lost half its evil by losing all its grossness. This statement — the falsity of which is apparent — is dis- proved by a score of contradictions. Let Lord Bacon suffice : — Another fof the Rabbins] noteth a position in moral philosophy, that men abandoned to vice do not so much corrupt manners as those that aro half good and half evil. — Advancement of Learning. Things not to be trusted : — A bright sky, A smiling master. The cry of a dog, A harlot's sorrow. Howilt' a Literature and Romance of Northern Europe. Grant I may never bo so fond To trust man in his oath or bond. Or a harlot for her weeping, Or a dog that seems a-sleeping. Apemantus' Grace. — Timon of Athens. The collocation of dogs and harlots in both passages is very remarkable. All human race, from China to Peru, Pleasure, howe'er disguised by art, pursue. Wakton: Universal Love of Pleasure, 1748. Let observation, with extensive view. Survey mankind, from China to Peru. Dr. Johnson: Vanity of Human Wishes, 1749, Shakspeare's dreamy Dane says, — Man delights not me, nor woman neither. A sentiment very nearly expressed in Horace's Ode to Venus : — Me nee femina, nee puer, Jam nee spes animi credula mutui. Nee curtare juvat mere, Ac. — Lib. IV. (As for me, neither woman, nor youth, nor the fond hope of mutual inclination, &c. delight me.) 646 PARALLEL PASSAGES. The world's a theatre, the earth a stage, Which God and nature do with actors fill ; Kings have their entrance with due equipage, And some their parts play well, and others ill. Thomas IIeywood: Apol(..jy for Actors, 1612. All the world's a stage. And all the men and women merely players : They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his life plays many parts. Shakspeare : As You Like It. Palladas, a Greek poet of the third century, has thfi fol- lowing, translated by Merivale : — This life a theatre we well may call, Where every actor must perform with art. Or laugh it through and make a farce of all. Or learn to bear with grace his tragic part. Pythagoras, who lived nearly two centuries later, also said, — This world is like a stage whereon many play their parts. Among the epigrams of Palladas may be found the ori- ginal of a modern saw, the purport of which is that an igno- ramus, by maintaining a prudent silence, may pass for a wise man: — Shakspeare uses it in the Merchant of Venice : — my Antonio, I do know of these That therefore only are reputed wise For saying nothing. — Act I. Sc. 1. We come crying hither: Thou knowest the first time that we smell the air We wawl and cry. When we are born, we cry that we are come To this great stage of fools. — King Lear, IV. 6. Turn porro puer, Vagituque locum lugubri complet, ut aequum est Cui tantum in vita restet transire malorura. LucuETius : De Her. Nat. The undiscovered country, from whose bourn No traveller returns. — Hamlet, Act III. Qui nunc it per iter tenebricosura Illuc unde negant redire quemquam. — Catullus. PARALLEL PASSAGES. 647 A similar form of expression occurs in the Book of Job, x. 21, and xvi. 22; but it is probable, from this and other passages, that Shakspeare's acquaintance with the Latin writers waa greater than has been generally supposed. One of the com- mentators on Hamlet, in pointing out the similarity of ideas in the lines commencing, " The cock, that is the trumpet to the morn," &c. (^Act /.) and the hymn of St. Ambrose in the Salisbury collection, — Prceo dioi jam sonat, Noetis profunda) pervigil ; Nocturiia lux viautibus, A nocte noctem segregans. Hoc cxcitatus Lucifer, Solvit polum caligine; Hoc omnis errorum chorus Viam nocendi deserit. Gallo caneute s])es redit, Ac, has the following remark. " Some future Dr. Farmer may, per- haps, show how Shakspeare became acquainted with this pass- age, without being able to read the original; for the resem- blance is too close to be accidental. But this, with many other passages, and especially his original Latinisms of phrase, give evidence enough of a certain degree of acquaintance with Latin, — doubtless not familiar nor scholar-like, but sufficient to give a coloring to his style, and to open to him many treasures of poetical thought and diction not accessible to the merely English reader. Such a degree of acquirement might well appear low to an accomplished Latinist like Ben Jonson, and authorize him to say of his friend, — Though thou hadst small Latin and less Greek ; — yet the very mention of his 'small Latin' indicates that Ben knew that he had some." Mr. Fox, the orator, remarked on one occasion that Shak- epeare must have had some acquaintance with Euripides, ibr he could trace resemblances between passages of their dramas : e.g. what Alcestis in her last moments says about her servants is like what the dying Queen Katharine (in Iknrj the Eljhth) says about hers, &c 648 PARALLEL PASSAGES. That Sliakspeare " may often be tracked in the snow" of Terence, as Dryden remarks of Ben Jonson, is evident from the following : — Master, it is no time to chide you now: Afiootion is not rated from the heart. IC love hath touched you, naught remains but so, — Jiedime te captuin quaiii queaa 7iiimmo. — Taming of the Shrew, I. I. The last line is manifestly an alteration of the words of Par- meno in The Eunuch of Terence : — Quid agas, nisi ut te redimaa captum quam queas minimo ? — Act I. So. 1. In another play Terence says, — Facile omnes, cum valemus, recta consilia, aegrotis damus; Tu si hie sis, aliter censeas. — Andrian XI. 1. Shakspeare has it, — Men Can counsel and give comfort to that grief Which they themselves not feel ; but, tasting it, Their counsel turns to passion. * * * »' » 'Tis all men's ofBce to speak patience To those that wring under the load of sorrow ; But no man's virtue, nor sufficiency. To be so moral when he shall endure The like himself — Much Ado about Nothing, V. 1. Apropos of this sentiment, Swift says, — I never knew a man who could not bear the misfortunes of others with the most Christian resignation. — Thoughts on Various Subjects. And La Rochefoucauld, — We have all of us sufficient fortitude to bear the misfortunes of others. — 3/a.c. 20. FalstafF says, in 1 Henry IV. ii. 4, — For though the camomile, the more it is trodden on, the faster it grows, yet youth, the more it is wasted, the sooner it wears. Shakspeare evidently here parodied an expression in Sir John Lyly's Euphues : — Though the camomile, the more it is trodden and pressed downe, the more it .spreadcth ; yet the violet, the oftener it is handled and touched, the sooner it withurclh aud dec-aicth. PARALLEL PASSAGES. G4'J Two verses in Titus Andronicus appear to have pleased Shakspeare so well that he twice subsequently closely copied them : — She is a woman, therefore may be wooed, She is a woman, therefore may be won. — Titus Andron. 11. 1. She's beautiful, and therefore to be wooed ; She is a woman, therefore to be won. — First Part Henry VI., V. 3. Was ever woman in this humor wooed ? Was ever woman in this humor won? — Richard III., I. 2. Though Shakspeare has drawn freely from others, he is him- self a mine from which many builders have quarried their ma- terials. — a Coliseum " from whose mass AValls, palaces, half cities, have been reared." Ilonor and shame from no condition rise : Act well your part, there all the honor lies. — Pope : Essay on Man. This is only a new rendering of the thought thus expressed by Shakspeare : — From lowest place when virtuous things proceed, THe place is dignified by the doer's deed.— ^^Z'* Well that Ends WeU, 11. 3. Let rusty steel a while be sheathed, And all those harsh and rugged sounds Of bastinadoes, cuts, and wounds, Exchanged to love's more gentle style. — ffudibras, P. II. c. i. Our stem alarums changed to merry meetings. Our dreadful marches to delightful measures. — Richard III., I. 1. The military figure of Shakspeare's musical lines, — Beauty's ensign yet Is crimson in thy lips and on thy cheeks, And Death's pale flag is not advanced there. — Romeo and Juliet, V. 3, is closely imitated by Chamberlain : — The rose had lost His ensign in her cheeks ; and tho' it cost Pains nigh to death, the lily had alone Set his pale banners up. — Pharonidas. A dream Dreamed by a happy man, while the dark east Is slowly brightening to his bridal moru. — Ten.nyson. Copied from the Merchant of Venice: — 650 PARALLEL PASSAGES. Then music is As those dulcet sounds in break of day, That creep into the dreaming bridegroom's ear And summon him to marriage. — IIL 2. How can we expect another to keep our secret if we cannot keep it our. solves? — La Rocuefoucadld, J/ar. 90. Toute revelation d'un secret est la faute de cclui qui I'a confi6. — La Bru- TERE : De la Societe. I have played the fool, the gross fool, to believe The bosom of a friend would hold a secret Mine own could not contain. — Massinger : Unnatural Combat, V. 2. Ham. — Do not believe it. Ro8. — Believe what? Ham. — That I can keep your counsel, and not mine own. Shakspeark: : Hamlet, IV. 2 Anger is like A full-hot horse, who being allowed his way, Self mettle tires him.— //en;-?/ VIII. I. 1. Let passion work, and, like a hot-reined horse, 'Twill quickly tire itself. — Massinger : Unnatural Combat. Is this the Talbot so much feared abroad That with his name the mothers still their babes ? — Henry VI. IL 3. Nor shall Sebastian's formidable name Be longer used to lull the crying babe. — Dryden: Don Sebastian, Chili's dark matrons long shall tame The froward child with Bertram's name. — Scott: Rnkeby. It were better to be eaten to death with rust than to be scou cd to nothing by perpetual motion. — Henry IV., Second Part, I. 2. Reversed by Byron : — Better to sink beneath the shock Than moulder piecemeal on the rock. — Giaour, 'Tis her breathing that Perfumes the chamber thus. — Cymheline. No lips did seem so fair In his conceit — through which he thinks doth fly So sweet a breath that doth perfume the air. Marsto.v: Pygmalion's Iinar/c. Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just; And he but naked, though locked up in steel. Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted. — 2 Henry VI. Ill 2. PARALLEL PASSAGES. (]51 I'm armed with more than comploto ste«l — The justice of my quarrel. — Maulowe: Lust'ii Dominion. All that glisters is not gold. — Merchant of Venice, II. Yet gold all is not that doth golden sceme. Si'EN.ser: Faerie Queene, II, Double, double, toil and trouble. — Macbeth. IlcJi'Of, TTOviO, Ttovov (ptpit. — SoPHOCLES : Ajitx. We shall not look upon his like again. — Hamlet, 1. Quaudo ullum inveniet parem? — Horace. None but himself can be his parallel. — TnEOBALn. Quajris AlcidaB parem? Nemo est nisi ipse. — Seneca : Hercules Furena. The following song from Shakspeare's Measure for Men- sure, commencing as follows, is copied verbatim in Beaumont and Fletcher's Blood// Brother: — Take, ! take those lips away, That so sweetly were forsworn ; And those eyes, the break of day, Lights that do mislead the morn. But my kisses bring again, Seals of love, but sealed in vain. The following line occurs both in Pope's Dunciad and Addison's Campaign: — Rides on the whirlwind, and directs the storm. Ben Jonson borrowed his celebrated ballad To Celia, — Drink to me only with thine eyes, <&c., from Philostratus, a Greek poet, who flourished at the court of the Emperor Severus. In Milton's description of the lazar-house occurs the fol- lowing confused metaphor : — Sight so deform what heart of rock could long Drij-eijed behold ? Derived from a similar combination in Tibullus : — Flebis; non tua sunt duro praecordia ferro Vincta, uec in tenero stat tibi corde silcx. — Fd. l. 6.3. 652 PARALLEL PASSAGES. When Christ, at Cana's feast, by power divine, Inspired cold water with the warmth of wine, See! cried they, while in redd'ning tide it gushed, The bashful water saw its Grod and blushed. — Aaron IlitJ. Lympha pudica Deum vidit et erubuit.* — Richard Crasaawb. Fond fool ! six feet shall serve for all thy store. And he that cares for most shall find no more. — Hall. Ilis wealth is summed, and this is all his store : This poor men get, and great men get no more. G. Webster: Viitoria Corombouu, God made the country, and man made the town. — Cowper : Task, God the first garden made, and the first city Cain. — Cowley. Hypocrisy, detest her as we may. May claim this merit still, — that she admits The worth of what she mimics with such care, And thus gives virtue indirect applause. — Cowper : Task. Lo vice rend hommage ^ la vertu en s'honorant de ses apparences. — Massilloh. Love is sweet Given or returned. Common as light is love, And its familiar voice wearies not ever ; They who inspire it most are fortunate. As I am now ; but those who feel it most Are happier still. — Shelley: Prometheus Unbound. It is better to desire than to enjoy, to love than to be loved. — It makes us proud when our love of a mistress is returned : it ought to make us prouder still when we can love her for herself alone, without the aid of any such selfish reflection. This is the religion of love. — Hazlitt: Cha- racteristics. People who are always taking care of their health are like misers, who are hoarding up a treasure which they have never spirit enough to enjoy. — Sterne: Koran. Preserving the health by too strict a regimen is a wearisome malady. — La Rochefoucauld : Max. 285. * It is not a little singular that Mr. Arvine, in his excellent Ci/clopsedia, gives Milton and Drydon, while boys at school, equal credit for originating, t)( tlie name way, this beautiful idea. PARALLEL PASSAGES. 653 The king can make a belted knight, A marquis, duke, and a' that, — * » « The rank is but the guinea stamp, The man's the gowd for a' that. — Burns. I weigh the man, not his title; 'tis not the king's stamp can make the me- tal better or heavier. Your lord is a leaden shilling, which you bend every way, and debases the stamp he bears. Wycherly : Plain Dealer. Titles of honor are like the impressions on coin, which add no value to gold and silver, but only render brass current. — Sterne: Koran. Kings do with men as with pieces of money : they give them what value they please, and we are obliged to receive them at their current, and not at their real, value. — La Rochefoucauld: Max. 160. Kossuth's " To him that wills, nothing is impossible,"* is thus expressed by La Rochefoucauld : — Nothing is impossible : there are ways which lead to every thing ; and if we had suflScient will, we should always have sufficient means. — Max. 255. Shelley gives the idea as follows : — It is our will That thus enchains us to permitted ill. We might be otherwise : we might be all We dream of, happy, high, majestical. Where is the beauty, love, and truth we seek But in our minds ? and if we were not weak. Should we be less in deed than in desire ? Julian and Maddolo To most men, experience is like the stern-lights of a ship, which illumiuo only the track it has passed. — Coleridge. We arrive complete novices at the different ages of life, and we often want experience in spite of the number of our years. — La Rochefoucauld : Max, l.^O. The same idea may be found in the Adelphi of Terence, Act V Sc. 2, V. 1-4. For those that fly may fight again. Which he can never do that's slain. — Hudihras. Ho who fights and runs away May live to fight another day. — Sir John Minnes. * Mirabeau's hasty temper is well known. " Monsieur le Compte," said hia Becretary to him one day, " the thing you require is impossible." " Impossi- ble !" exclaimed Mirabeau, starting from his chair: "never again use that foolish word in my presence." 55» 654 PARALLEL PASSAGES. But Demosthenes, the famous Grecian orator, Lad said, long before, — 'Avijp 6 (feuycuv xal izaXcv [La'/^rjaerai. She could love none but only such As scorned and hated her as much. — HudihraB. Horace, in describing such a capricious kind of love, uses the following language : — Leporem venator ut alta In nive sectatur, positum sic tangere nolit ; Cantat et apponit : meus est amor huic similis ; nam Transvolat in medio posita, et fugientia capiat. — Satires, Book I. ii., which is nearly a translation of the eleventh epigram of Callimachus. What woful stuff this madrigal would be In some starved hackney sonneteer, or mo 1 But let a lord once own the happy lines, How the wit brightens I how the stylo refines! Pope : Essay on Criticism. MoLliiRE has the same sentiment : — Tous les discours sont des sottises Partant d'un homme sans €clat,' Ce seraient paroles esquises, Si c'ltait un grand qui parlat. It may also be found in Ennius, Euripides, and othe^ writers. The last notability who has expressed the idea is Emerson, who says, — It adds a great deal to the force ot an opinion to know that there is a man of mark and likelihood behind it. Others may use the ocean as their road, Only the English make it their abode : — We tread the billows with a steady foot. — Waller. Campbell adopts the thoughts of these italicized words in the Mariners of England : — Britannia needs no bulwark, No towers along the steep : Her march is on the mountain-waves, Her home is on the deep. PARALLKL PASSAGES. 055 Now folds the lily all her sweetness up, And slips iuto the bosom of the lake ; So fold thyself, my dearest, thou, and slip Into my bosom, and bo lost in me. — Te-nnyson : Princess. And like a lily on a river floating. She floats upon the river of his thoughts. Longfellow : Spanish Student. You must either soar or stoop, Fall or triumph, stand or droop; You must either serve or govern. Must be slave or must be sovereign; Must, in fine, bo block or wedge. Must be anvil or be sledge. — Goethe. In this world a man must be either anvil or hammer. Longfellow : Hyperion. Lockliart says, in his Life of Sir Walter Scott, " It was on this occasion, I believe, that Scott first saw his friend's brother Reginald (Heber), in after-days the Apostolic Bishop of Cal- cutta. He had just been declared the successful competitor for that year's poetical prize, and read to Scott at breakfast, in Brazennose College, the MS. of his Palestine. Scott observed that in the verses on Solomon's Temple one striking circum- stance had escaped him, namely, that no tools were used in its erection. Eeginald retired for a few minutes to the corner of the room, and returned with the beautiful lines, — No hammer fell, no ponderous axes rung : Like some tall palm the mystic fabric sprung. Majestic silence !" &c. CowPER had previously expressed the same idea : — Silently as a dream the fabric rose: No sound of hammer nor of saw was there ' Ice upon ice, &c. — Palace of Ice. Milton had also said, — Anon out of the earth a fabric huge Rose like an exhalation. — Paradise Lost. Speech is the light, the morning of the mind: It spreads the beauteous images abroad Which else lie furled and shrouded in the soul. — Dryden evidently had in mind the language of TllEMlsTO- CLES to the Kins: of Persia : — 656 PARALLEL PASSAGES. Speech is like cloth of arras opened and put abroad, whereby the imagery doth appear in figure, whereas in thoughts they lie but in packs {i.e. rolled up, or packed up). Silence that spoke, and eloquence of eyes. — Pope : Homer's Iliad, Book XIV. Voltaire, in his (Edipus, makes Jocasta say, — Tout parle contre nous, jusqu'a notre silence. ]n Milton's Samson Atjotiistcs we find, — The deeds themselves, though mute, spoke loud the doer. "A sorrow's crown op sorrow." A similar thought may be found in Dante : — nessun maggior dolorc, Che ricordarsi del tempo felice Nella miseria. — Inferno, Canto v. 121. ( There is no greater pain than to recall a happy time in wretchedness.) Also Chaucer : — For of Fortune's sharps adversite The worst kind of infortune is this : A man to have been in prosperite And it remember when it passid is. Troilus and Cresside, B. III. The same thought occurs in the writings of other Italian poets. See Marino, Adone, c. xiv. ; Fortinguerra, Ricci- ardetto, c. xi. ; and Petrarch, canzone 46. The original was probably in Boetius, de Consol. Philosoph. : — In omni adversitate fortunae infelicissimum genus est infortunii fuisse feli- cem et non esse. — L. ii. pr. 4. The famous pun in the imitation of Crabbe in the Rejected Addresses : — The youth, with joy unfeigned. Regained the felt, and felt what he regained, and of Holmes in his Urania : — Mount the new Castor : — ice itself will melt; Boots, gloves, may fail ; the hat is always ftlt, had been anticipated by Thomas Heywood in a song : — But of all felts that may be felt. Give me your English beaver. PARALLEL PASSAGES. 657 Falstaff's pun : — Indeed I am in the waist two yards about; but I am now about no wante ; I am about thrift, — {Meny Wives of Windmr.) had also been anticipated, and may be found in Heywood's " Epigrammes," 1562 : — " Where am I least, husband ?" Quoth he, " In the waiH ; Which cometh of this, thou art vengeance strait-hiced. Where am I biggest, wife ?" " In the waste," quoth she, " For all is waste in you, as far as I see." The same play on the word occurs subsequently in Shir- ley's comedy of The Wedding, 1629 : — He is a great man indeed ; something given to the waist, for he lives within no reasonable cotnpasa. Moore, in his song Dea7' Harp of my Country, sings, — If the pulse of the patriot, soldier, or lover Have throbbed at our lay, 'tis thy glory alone ; I was but as the wind passing heedlessly over, And all the wild sweetness I waked was thy own ; — an idea probably caught from Horace's Ode to Melpomene : — Totum muneris hoc tui est, Quod monstror digito preetereuntium Roman ae fidieen lyrre : Quod spiro, et placeo, si placeo, tuum est. ( That I am pointed out by the fingers of passers-by as the stringer of the Roman lyre, is entirely thy gift: that I breathe and give pleasure, if I do give pleasure, is thine.) Now, by those stars that glance O'er Heaven's still expanse. Weave we our mirthful dance. Daughters of Zea! — Moore : Evenings in Greece. Beneath the moonlight sky The festal warblings flowed Where maidens to the Queen of Heaven Wove the gay dance. — Keble : Christian Year. Her 'prentice ban' she tried on man, An' then she made the lassies, 0. Burns : Qreen Grow, dhe, Man was mnde when Nature was but an apprentice, but woman when she was a skilful mistress of her a,rl.— C,ipiiVs Whirlig!Seipovatii r.iri XprjaS' i^iXiat KUKai, — MeNANDER. Bonos corrumpunt mores congressus mali. — TEnTCLLiAN : Ad Uxorem He that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow. — Eccl. i. 18. From ignorance our comfort flows, The only wretched are the wise. — Prior. Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise. — Gray : Ode to Eton. A little learning is a dangerous thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring. — Pope : On Criticism. A little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism, but depth in phi- losophy bringeth men's minds about to religion. — Bacon : On Atheism. In Paradise Lost, Book V. 601, we find the expression — Thrones, dominations, princedoms, virtues, powers; and in Book I. 261, tbis powerful passage put in the mouth of Satan : — Here we may reign secure, and in my choice To reign is worth ambition, though in Hell ; Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven. In Stafford's Niohe, printed when Milton was in his cradle, (1611,) is the following: — True it is, sir, (said the Devil,) that I, storming at the name of supremacy, Bought to depose my Creator; which the watchful, all-seeing eye of Pro- vidence finding, degraded me of my angelic dignities — dispossessed mo of all pleasures; and the seraphs and cherubs, the Throne, Domimitions, Virtues, Powers, Princedoms, Arch Angels, and all the Celestial Hierarchy, with a shout of applause, sung my departure out of Heaven. My alleluia was turned into an eheu. Now, forasmuch as I was an Angel of Light, it was the will of Wisdom to confine me to Darkness and make me Prince thereof. So that I, that could not obey in Heaven, might command in Hell ; and, believe me, I had rather rule within my dark domain than to re-inhnbit Caelum empyream, and there live in subjection under check, a slave of the Most High. Cajsar said he would rather be the first man in a village than the second man in Rome. A fellow-feeling makes one wondrous kind. — Garrick. I would help others out of a fellow-feeling.— Burton : Anat. of Met Non ignara mali, miseris succurrere disco. — Virgil: jEu. I. And learn the luxury of doing good.— Goldsvith : Traveller. For all their luxury was doing good. — Garth : Clarcmont. He tried the luxury of doing good. — Ckabbe : Tales 670 PARALLEL PASSAGES. The cups that cheer but not inebriate. — Cowper : Winter Evening. Tar water is of a nature so mild and benign, and proportioned to the human constitution, as to warm without heating, to cheer but not inebriate. — Bishop Berkeley: Siris. The dome of thought, the palace of the soul. — Byron : Childe Harold. Tea does our fancy aid, Repress those vapors which the head invade, And keeps the palace of the soul. — Waller: On Tea, None knew thee but to love thee. — Halleck : On Drake. To know her was to love her. — Rogers : Jacqueline. Sullen, like lamps in sepulchres, your shine Enlightens but yourselves. — Blair: Grave. Dim lights of life, that burn a length of years. Useless, unseen, as lamps in sepulchres. . Pope : Elegy on an Unfortunate Lady, The curfew tolls the knell of parting day. — Gray : Elegy. And pilgrim, newly on his road, with love Thrills, if ho hear the vesper bell from far. That seems to mourn for the expiring day. — Dante, Gary's Tran«. Even in our ashes live their wonted fires. — Gray : Elegy. Yet in our ashen cold is fire yrecken. — Chaucer. 'Eoo-ar nJi7 yg KaKvddnvin viKpdvff oOtv 6' CKonTOv ci; to I^^v dipiKCTO ivraiff dm\eav nNETMA fiiv Trpd^ 'AIOEPA TO a'ona S tti rnN. — EuRIPIDES : StippHces. ( Let the dead be concealed in the earth, whence each one came forth into being, to return thence again — the spirit to the spirit's source, but the body to the earth.) The resemblance between tbe above and the beautiful ex- pression in the "Preacher's" homily is very remarkable: — Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was, and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it. — Eccles. xii. 7. ']"Ta/iCpai, Ti it T(j; ri 6' oo rif ; Siciof ofap a:>9fiamoi. — PlJJDAR. (Things of a day! What is any one? What is ho not? Men are the dream of a shadow.) Man's life is but a dream — nay, less than so, A shadow of a dream. — Siu John Davihs. PARALLEL PASSAGES. 071 Where highest woods, iinponotrablo To sun or starlight, spread their umbrage broad And brown as evening. — Milton. The shades of eve come slowly down. The woods are wrapped in deeper brown.— Scott: Lna(ron 696 HISTORICAL SIMILITUDES. saint, Kentigern, thus told in the Acta Sanctorum : A queen who formed an improper attachment to a handsome soldier, put upon his finger a precious ring which her own lord had con- ferred upon her. The king, made aware of the fact, but dis- sembling his auger, took an opportunity, in hunting, while the soldier lay asleep beside the Clyde, to snatch off the ring, and throw it into the river. Then returning home along with the soldier, he demanded of the queen the ring he had given her. She sent secretly to the soldier for the ring, which could not be restored. In great terror, she then despatched a messenger to ask the assistance of the holy Kentigern. He, who knew of the affair before being informed of it, went to the river Clyde, and having caught a salmon, took from the stomach the missing ring, which he sent to the queen. She joyfully went with it to the king, who, thinking he had wronged her, swore he would be revenged upon her accusers ; but she, affecting a forgiving tem- per, besought him to pardon them as she had done. At the same time, she confessed her error to Kentigern, and solemnly vowed to be more careful of her conduct in future." In 1559, a merchant and alderman of Newcastle, named Anderson, handling his ring as he leaned over the bridge, dropped it into the Tyne. Some time after, his servant bought a salmon in the market, in whose stomach the lost ring was found : its value enhanced by the strange recovery, the ring became an heirloom and was in the possession of one of the Alderman's decendants some forty years ago. A similar accident, ending in a similar way, is recorded to have happened to one of the dukes of Lorraine. DEATH PROrHECIES. Monk Gerbert, who wore the tiara as Sylvester II., a man of whom it was said that — thanks to the devil's assistance — he never left anything unexecuted which he ever conceived, anti- cipating Roger Bacon, made a brazen head capable of answering like an oracle. From this creature of his own, Gerbert learned HISTORICAL SIMILITUDES. (597 he would not die until he had performed mass in Jerusalem. He thereupon determined to live forever by taking good care never to go near the holy city. Like all dealers with the Evil One, he was destined to be cheated. Performing mass one day in Home, Sylvester was seized with sudden illness, and upon inquiring the name of the church in which he had officiated, heard, to his dismay, that it was popularly called Jerusalem; then he knew his end was at hand; and it was not long before it came. Nearly five hundred years after this event happened, Master Robert Fabian, who must not be suspected of inventing history, seeing, as sheriff and alderman, he was wont to pillory public liars, wrote of Henry IV., "After the feast of Christ- mas, while he was making his prayers at St. Edward's shrine, he became so sick, that such as were about him feared that he would have died right there ; wherefore they, for his conifort, bare him into the abbot's place, and lodged him in a chamber; and there, upon a pallet, laid him before the fire, where he lay in great agony a certain time. At length, when he was come to himself, not knowing where he was, he freyned [asked] of such as were there about him what place that was ; the which shewed to him that it belonged unto the Abbot of Westmin- ster; and for he felt himself so sick, he commanded to ask if that chamber had any special name. Whereunto it was answer- ed, that it was named Jerusalem. Then said the king, ' Laud be to the Father of Heaven, for now I know I shall die in tliis chamber, according to the prophecy of me beforesaid, that I should die in Jerusalem;' and so after, he made himself ready, and died shortly after, upon the Day of St. Cuthbert, on the 20th day of March, 1413." BATTLES. Three of the most famous battles recorded in English history were marked by a strange contrast between the behavior of the opposing armies on the eve of the fight. At Hastings, the Saxons spent the night in .singing, feasting, and drinking; while 5i) 598 HISTORICAL SIMILITUDES. the Normans were confessing themselves and receiving the sac- rament. At Agincourt, " the poor condemned EngUsh " said their prayers, and sat patiently by their v?atch-fires, to " inly ruminate the morrow's danger ;" while the over-confident French revelled the night through, and played for the prisoners they were never to take. " On the eve of Bannockburn," says Paston, who fought there on the beaten side, " ye might have seen the Englishmen bathing themselves in wine, and casting their gor- gets; there was crying, shouting, wassaihng, and drinking, with other rioting far above measure. On the other side we might have seen the Scots, quiet, still, and close, fasting the eve of St. John the Baptist, laboring in love of the liberties of their country." Oar readers need not be told that in each case the orderly, prayerful army proved victorious, and so made the treble parallel perfect. BISHOP HATTO. The legend of Hatto, bishop of Mayence, has been preserved in stanzas which are well remembered by school children. To avoid the importunity of the starving during a period of famine, the wicked prelate collected them into a barn, " And while for mercy on Christ they call, He set fire to the barn, and burnt them all." Thereupon he was attacked by an army of mice, and escaped to his tower (the Miluseschloss) on a rock in the Rhine. But they quickly followed him and poured in by thousands, "in at the windows and in at the door," until he was overpowered and destroyed. "They gnawed the flesh from every limb, For they were sent to do judgment on him." The same story is told of the Swiss baron, von Griittingen, who was pursued and devoured by mice in his castle in Lake Constance. It is also told, with a variation, of the Polish King Popiel. When the Poles murmured at his bad government, and sought redress, he summoned the chief remonstrants to his palace, poisoned them, and had their bodies thrown into the lake Gopolo. He sought refuge from the mice within a circle of lire, but was overrun and eaten by them. puoTOTYrEs. go:) THE OLDEST PROVERB. It appears from I Samuel xxiv. 13, that the oldest proverb on record, is, "Wickedness proceedetli from the wicked;" since David, in his time, declared it to be " a proverb of the ancients ;" consequently older than any proverb of his son Sulonion. SHAKSPEARE SAID IT FIRST. In one of Clough's letters he tells an amusing story of a Calvin istic old lady, who, on being asked about the Universal' ists, observed, — "Yes, they expect that everybody will be .sjived, but we look for better things." How like this is to the admirable confusion of Sir Andrew Aguecheek, who, in his letter of challenge, {Twelfth Nijht, iii. 4,) concludes thus: — "Fare thee well, and God have mercy upon one of our souls! He may have mercy upon mine; but my liope is better!" Cinderella's slipper. A story somewhat similar to that of Cinderella has been handed down from the Greek. It is reported of Rhodnpis, — a Thracian slave, who was purchased and manumitted by Char- axus of iMytilene, and afterward settled in Egypt, — that one day, while she was in the bath, an eagle, having flown down, snatched one of her slippers from an attendant, and carried it to ^Memphis. Psamtuitichus, the king, at the time, was sitting on his tribunal, and while engaged in dispensing justice, tlie eagle, settling above his head, dropped the sandal into his bosom. Astonished by the singularity of the event, and struck by the diminutive size and elegant shape of the sandal, the king ordered search to be made for the owner throughout the land of Egypt. Having flmnd her at Naucmtis, she was presented to the king, who made her his (£Uecu. 700 PROTOTYPES. CURTAIN LECTURES. Jerrold, in his preface to the later editions of Mrs. Caiidlc^s Curtain Lectures, makes this curious statement: — It has happened to the writer that two, or three, or ten, or twenty gentlewomen have asked him... What could have made you think of Jlrs. Ciiadle? Hnn could such a thinrj have entered any man's miud? There are subjects that seem like rain-drops to fall upon a man's head, the head itself having nothing to do with the matter . . . And this was, no doubt, the accidental cause of the literary sowing and expansion — unfolding like a night-flower — of Mrs. Caudle . . . The writer, still dreaming and musing, and still following no distinct line of thought, there struck upon him, like notes of sudden household music, these words — Curtain Lectures. Nevertheless, this phrase may be traced back more than two centuries, while the idea will be found in the Sixth Satire of Juvenal, who says: — Semper habet lites, alternaque jurgia lectus, In quo nupta jacet: minimum dormitur in illo, &c. Stapylton's translation of this passage was published in 1647:— Debates, alternate brawlings, ever were I' th' marriage bed : there is no sleeping there. In the margin of the translation are the words Curtain- Lectures. Dryden in his translation of the same passage (published 1693) introduces the phrase into the text: — Besides, what endless brawls by wives are bred; The Curtain-Lecture makes a mournful bed. And Addison, in the Tatler., describing a luckless wight undergoing the penalty of a nocturnal oration, says : — I could not but admire his exemplary patience, and discovered, by his whole behavior, that he was then lying under the discipline of a curtain lecture, THE CHARGE OP THE LIGHT BRIGADE. The metre, movement, and idea of Tennyson's Charge of the Six Hundred at Balaklava, are evidently derived from Michael Drayton's Battle of Agincourt, published in 1627. The first, middle and last stanzas of Drayton's poem run thus : — rROTOTYI'ES. 701 1. Fairc stood the Wind for Franco When we our Suyk'S advance, Nor now to prove our chance Longer will tarry ; But putting to the iMayno, At KaiLi; the Mouth of S'l/nr, With all his Marliall Truyue, Landed King Harry. 8. They now to fight arc gone, Armour on armour shone, Drumme now to Druuime did gronc, To heare was wonder: That with the Crycs they make, The very earth did shake, Trumpet to Trumpet spake, Thunder to Thunder. 15. Upon Saint Crispin's day Fought was this Noble Fray, Which Fame did not delay To England to carry; when shall English Men With such Acts fill a Pen, Or England breed againo Such a King IIarkv ! THE FAUST LEGENDS. About the middle of tlic thirtccntli century bcjran to spread the notion of formal written airreements between the Fiend and men who were to be his exclusive property after a certiiiu time, durinj.' which he was to lielp them to all earthly good. This, curiou.s to say, came with Christianity from the East. The first instance was that of Tlu-ophihis, vicedominus of the Bishop of Adana, a city of Cilicia, in the sixth century, whose fall and conversion form the oritrinal of all the Faust legends. The story of Tht'ophilus may be found in various works, among them Ennomoser's Uulv^rsal Ilxstori/ of Magic, which was translated by William Ilowitt. 702 PROTOTYPES. AIR CUSHIONS. Ben Jonson, in the Alchemist, makes Sir Epicure Mammon, in his expectation of acquiring the secret of the philosopher's stone, enumerate to Surly a list of anticipated luxuries. Among these indulgences is this prophetic forecast of modern inflated India-rubber beds and cushions: — "I will have all my beds hloicn vp, not stuffed; Down is too hard." THE CAT IN THE ADAGE. Lady Macbeth thus taunts her husband : — Wouldst thou have that AVhich thou estcem'st the ornament of life, And live a coward in thine own esteem; Letting f dure not wait upon I would, Like the poor cat i' the adage? The adage is thus given in Hey wood's Proverbs, 1566: — " The cat would eate fishe, and would not wet her feete." The proverb is found among all nations. The Latin form of media3val times was as follows : — " Catus amat pisces, sod non vult tingere plantas." The Germans say : — "Die Katze hatt' die Fische gern; aber sie will die Fusse nit nass machcn." And the Scotch have it: — " The cat would fain fish eat, But she has no will to wet her feet." CORK LEGS. A gentleman, in Charleston conceived a very decided liking to a young lady from Ireland, and was on the eve of popping the question, when he was told by a friend that his dulcinea had a cork leg. It is difficult to imagine the distress of the young Carolinian. He went to her father's house, knocked PROTOTVrES. 703 impatiently at the door, and wlicn admitted to the fair one's presence, asked her if what he had heard respecting her were true. " Yes, indeed, my dear Sir, it is true enough, but you have heard only half of my misfortune. I have got two cork legs, having had the ill-luck to be bom in Cork." This is the incident on which is founded Hart's aiVerpiccc called Perfictlon. THE pope's bull AGAINST THE COMET. When President Lincoln was fii-st asked to issue a proclama- tion abolishing slavery in the Southern States, he replied that such an act would be as absurd as the Pope's bull against the comet. The comet referred to is Ilalley's. Concerning its first authenticated appearance, Admind Smyth, in his Cycle of Celestial Objects, says : — In 1456 it came with a tail fiO° in lenjrth, and of a vivid brightness; which splendid train aflfrighted all Europe, and si)rcad consternation in every quarter. To its malign influences wcro imputed the rapid successes of Mahomet II., which then threatened all Christendom. The general alarm was greatly aggravated by the conduct of Pope Cali.vtus III., who, though otherwise a man of abilities, wa.s but a poor astronomer; for that pontiff daily orJered the church bolls to be rung at noontide, extra Ave Marias to te rppeatc vit divorsi no PROTOTYPES. fied American history, has its archetype in the Church whose progress in this country it was designed to oppose. In Italy there was formerly a strange order of monks calling themselves Fratres Ignorantlx, " Brothers of Ignorance." They used to bind themselves by oath not to understand nor to learn any thing, and answered all questions by saying, Nescio, " I do not know." Their first proposition was, " Though you do not un- derstand the words you speak, yet the Holy Ghost understands them, and the devil flees." In opposing mental acquirements, they argued thus : — " Suppose this friar studies and becomes a learned man, the consequence will be that he will want to be- come our superior : therefore, put the sack around his neck, and let him go begging from house to house, in town and country." THE ORIGINAL OF BUNYAN's PILGRIM's PROGRESS. The Me of Man, or the Legal Proceedings in Manshire against Si7i, wherein, hy toay of a continual Allegory, the chief malefactors disturbing both Church and Coinvfionwealth are detected and attached, toith their arraignment and judicial trial, according to the laws of England ; the spiritual use thereof, with an apology for the manner of handling most necessary to be first read, for direction in the right use of the allegory. By the Rev. Richard Bernard. An allegory with the above title, originally published more than two hundred years ago, was reprinted in Bristol, England, in 1803. In a note to this edition, addressed to the reader, the editor states that the work is prized as well on account of the ingenuity of the performance as the probability of its having suggested to Mr. John Bunyan the first idea of his Pil- grim's Progress, and of his Holy War, which was intimated on a leaf fticing the title-page, by the late Rev. Mr Toplady. The editor says, "That Bunyan had seen the book may be • inferred from its extensive circulation, for in one year only after its first publication it ran through seven editions." He then proceeds to the internal evidence, and points out a sup* PROTOTYPES. 71 1 posed s.'niilarity between the characters in the two worlcs, aa between Wilful Will of the one and Will-be-Will of the othcrj Mr. Worldly Wiseman of Bunyan and Sir Worldly Wise of Bernard ; Soul's Town of Bernard and Bunyan's Town of Man's Soul, kc. That the book has no very high order of genius to commend it is evident from the fact that it has passed into comparative obscurity. The world docs not suffer the works of true pro- phets to die. Still, there is enough in it to render it worthy of being held in remembrance ; and, antedating Bunj-an as it does, passing through seven editions immediately after its first publi- cation, presenting some striking analogies with the great master of allegory, and sinking into obscurity before the brighter and more enduring light of the Bedford tinker, its author deserves honorable mention for his attempt to present religious truth in a striking and impressive form at a period when such attempts were rare. Southey, in his Commonplace Book, gives a long quotation from Lucian's Ilrrmotimus, to show how ]?unyan was antici- pated, in the main idea of his allegory, by a Greek writer, aa far back as the second century. Another claimant for this Telemachusof Protestant religious literature has recently been brought to light by Catherine Isabella Curt, who has just published in London a translation of an old French manuscript in the British Museum, which is almost word for word the Pilgrim's Progress. The manuscript is the work of a clergyman, G de Gridevillc, who lived in the fifteenth century. Its title, in Norman English, is rijl0 verse, to •which the followinjr line was added : — Pro solo pmiclo cnruit iMiirtinus Ascllo. (For a single stop Martin lost AsoUo.) Tlie word Ascllo having an equivocal sense, sigiiifyiiiLT an as? as well as the name of the abbey, its former signitiriition has been adopted in the proverb. A nice point has recently occupied the attention of the French courts of law. Mons. de M. died on the 27th of February, leaving a will, entirely in his own handwriting, which he concludes thus : — " And to testify my affection for my nephews Charles and Henri de M., I bequeath to each d'ciix [i.e. of /Ac;n] [or deux, i.e. tico'] hundred thousand francs." The paper was folded before the ink was dry, and the writing is blotted in many places. The legatees assert that the apostrophe is one of those blots ; but the son and heir-at- law maintains, on the contrary, that the apostrophe is inten- tional. This apostrophe is worth to him two hundred thou- sand francs ; and the difficulty is increased by the fact that there is nothing in the context that affords any clow to the real intention of the testator. Properly punctuated, the following nonsense becomes sensible rhynie, and is doubtless as true as it is curious, though as it now stands it is very curious if true : — I saw a pigeon making lireaJ ; I saw a girl composed of tlircad; I saw a towel one milo square; I saw a mcntlow in tbc air; I saw a rocket walk a mile; I saw a pony make a file ; I saw a blacksmith in a box; I saw an or:inge kill an o.x ; I saw a butcher made of itfcl ; I saw a penknife dance a reel ; I saw a sailor twelve feet high ; I saw a ladder in a pic ; I saw an apple fly away ; 740 LITERAUIANA. I saw a sparrow making hay; I saw a farmer like a clog; I saw a pupjiy mixing grog; I saw three men who saw these too, And will confirm what I tell you. Tlie following is a good example of the unintelligible, pro- duced bj the want of pauses in their right places : — Every huly in this land Hath twenty nails upon each hand; Five and twenty on hands and feet, And this is true without deceit. Punctuated thus, the true meaning will at once appear : — Every lady in this land Hath twenty nails : upon each hand Five; and twenty on hands and feet; And this is true without deceit. The wife of a mariner about to sail on a distant voyage sent a note to the clergyman of the parish, expressing the following meaning : — A husband going to sea, his wife desires the prayers of the congregation. Unfortunately, the good matron was not skilled in punctua- tion, nor had the minister quick vision. He read the note as it was written : — A husband going to see his wife, desires the prayers of the congregation. Horace Smith, speaking of the ancient Oracles, says, " If the presiding deities had not been shrewd punsters, or able to inspire the Pythoness with ready equivoques, the whole esta- blishment must speedily have been declared bankrupt. Some- times they only dabbled in accentuation, and accomplished their prophecies by the transposition of a stop, as in the well- known answer to a soldier inquiring his fate in the war for which he was about to embark. Ibis, redibis. Nunqua>[ IN BELLO PERiBis. (You will go, you will return. Never in war will you perish.) The warrior set off in high spirits upon the faith of this prediction, and fell in the first engagement, l.!TtUARIANA. 711 when his widow had tlic satisfaction of being inforuicd that he should liave put tlic full stop after the word niiuqimm, whieli would probably have put a JuU stop to his cnteriirise and saved his life." INDIAN IIERALDUY. A sanguine Frenchman had so high an opinion of the plea- sure to be enjoyed in the study of heraldry, that he used to lament, as we are informed by Menage, the hard case of our forefather Adam, who could not possibly amuse himself by in- vestigating that science or that of genealogy. A similar instance of egregious preference for a favorite study occurs in a curious work on Heraldry, published in Jion- don, in 1682, the author of which adduces, as an argument of the science of heraldry being founded on the universal propen- sities of human nature, the fact of having seen some American Indians with their skins tattooed in stripes parallel and crossed (harries). The book bears the following title : — IittroiJnctio ad Latinam Blasoniam. Authore Johanne Gibbono Armorum- servulo quern a viantlUu cUcunt Cseruleo. The singular and amusing extract appended is copied from page 156 : — The book entitled Jews in America tells you that the sachem and chief princes of the Nunkyganses, in New Eng- land, submitted to King Charles I., subscribing their names, and setting their seals, which were a bow bent, ciiaroed AVlXn AN ARROW, A T REVERSED, A TOMAHAWK OR HATCHET ERECTED, such a One borne barrywise, edge downward, and a FAWN. A great part of Anno 1650, till February tlie year following, I lived in Virginia, being most hospitably enter- tained by the honorable Col. K. Lee, sometime secretary of state there, and who after the king's martyrdom hired a Dutch vessel, freighted her himself, and went to Brussels, surrcmlered up iSir William Barclaie's old commission (for the govern- ment of that Province), and received a new one from his pre- sent majesty (a loyal action, and dosiTving my commemora- tion) : neither will 1 omit his arms, being (Jli,. A I'kis. cheuI'Y, 742 LITERARIANA. OR, Bl between eight billets Arg. being descended from the Lees of Shropshire, who sometimes bore eight billets, some- times ten, and sometimes the Fesse Contercompone (as I have seen by our office-records). 1 will blason it thus : In Cli/peu ru- tilo ; Fasciam pluribus quadratis auriet cyani, alternis sequis- que spaciis (ducter tnplici positis) con/ectam et inter octo Fiinthides argenteas collocatam. I say, while I lived in Vir- ginia, I saAV once a war-dance acted by the natives. The dancers were painted some party per pale Gul. et sab. from fore- head to foot (some party per pesse, of the same colors), and carried little ill-made shields of bark, also painted of those colors (for I saw no other), some party per fesse, some per pale (and some barry), at which I exceedingly wondered, and concluded that heraldry was engrafted naturally into the sense of the human race. If so, it deserves a greater esteem than is now-a-days put upon it. the anachronisms of shakspeare. Poets, in the proper exercise of their art, may claim greater license of invention and speech, and far greater liberty of illus- tration and embellishment, than is allowed to the sober writer of history ; but historical truth or chronological accuracy should not be entirely sacrificed to dramatic effect, especially when the poem is founded upon history, or designed generally to repre- sent historical truth. In the matchless works of Shakspeare we look instinctively for exactness in the details of time, place, and circumstance ; and it is therefore with no little surpricC that we find he has misplaced, in such instances as tlie follow- ing, the chronological order of events, of the true state of which it can hardly be supposed he was ignorant. In the play of Coriolanus, Titus Lartius is made to say, addressing C. Marcius, — Thou wast a soldier even to Cato's wish. It is a little curious how Marcius could have been a soldier to " Cato's wish," for Marcius, surnamcd Coriolanus, was ban- ished from Kome and died more than two hundred years be- fore Cato's eyes first saw the light. In the same play Mene- IITER-UilANA. 743 nius says of Marciiis, " lie sits in his state as a thing made for Alexander," or like Alexander. The anachronism made in this case is almost as bad as that just given, for Coriolanus waa banished from Rome and died not far from B.C. 490, and Alexander was not born until almost one hundred and fifty years after. And the poet in the same play makes still an- other error in the words which he puts in the mouth of Mene- nius : — " The most sovereign prescription in Oalcn is but em])i- rieutic." Now, as the renowned " father of medicine" was not born until a.d. 130, of which fact it seems hardly probable that Shakspeare could have been ignorant, he has overleaped more than six hundred years to introduce Galen to his readers. Id the tragedy of Julius Cscsdr occurs a historical inac- curacy which cannot be excused on the ground of dramatic effect. It must be imputed to downright careles.sness. It is in the following lines : — DnitM. IV'iico .' coiint tbo cl(),;k. Cas/)iits. The clock lias stricken llircc. Cassius and Brutus both must have been endowed with the vision of a prophet, for the first striking clock was not intro- duced into Europe until more than eight hundred years after they had been laid in their graves. And in the tragedy of Kiiti/ Lear there is an inaccuracy, in regard to specUicles, aa great as that in Julius Cvcmr respecting clocks. King Lear was king of Britain in the early Anglo-Saxon period of English history; yet Gloster, commanding his son to show him a letter which he holds in his hands, says, "Come, let's see: if it be nothing, I shall not want spectacles." It is generally admitted that spectacles were not worn in Jjurope until the end of the thirteenth or the commencement of the fourteenth century. iShak.speare also anticijiates in at least two plays, and by many years, the important event of the first use of cannon in battle or siege. In his great tragedy of Madieth, he speaka of cannon -'overcharged with double cracks;" and Kiuij John says,— •744 LITERARIANA. Be thou as lightning in the eyes of France, For ere thou canst report, I will be there; The thunder of my cannon shall be heard. Cannon, it will be recollected, were first used at Cressy, in 1346, whereas Macbeth was kiUed in 1054, and John did not begin to reign until 1199. In the Comedj of Errors, the scene of which is laid in the ancient city of Ephesus, mention is made of modern denominations of money, as guilders and ducats; also of a striking clock, and a nunnery. shakspeare's heroines. Ruskin says : — Shakspeare has no heroes — he has only hero- ines. There is not one entirely heroic figure in all his plays, except the slight sketch of Henry the Fifth, exaggerated for the pur- poses of the stage, and the still slighter A'^alentine in the Two Gentlemen of Verona. In his labored and perfect plays you have no hero. Othello would have been one, if his simplicity had not been so great as to leave him the prey of every base prac- tice around him; but he is the only example even approxima- ting the heroic type. Hamlet is indolent and drowsily specula- tive; Komeo an impatient boy. Whereas there is hardly a play that has not a perfect woman in it, steadfast in grave hope and errorless purpose. Cordelia, Desdemona, Isabella, Hermione, Imogen e. Queen Katherine, Perdita, Silvia, Viola, Rosalind, Helena, and last, and perhaps loveliest, Virgilia, are all faultless. SHAKSPEARE AND TYPOGRAPHY. The great Gaxton authority in England — Mr. William Blades — has turned his attention to Shakspeare, and applies his know- ledge as a practical printer to the poet's works, in order to see what ac({uaintance they show with the compositor's art. The result is strikingly set forth in a volume entitled " Shakspeare and Typography.'''' Many instances of the use of technical terms by Shakspeare are cited by Mr. Blades, such as the following : — 1. " Come we to full points here? And are el ceteras nothing? — 2 Henry 1 v., ii. 4," LITKUAHIANA. 745 2. "If a book is folio, and two pnjjcs of typo have been oomposod, they are placed in proper position upon the imposing stone, and enclosed within an iron or steel fraiue. culled a 'chase,' small wedges of hard wood, termed 'coigns' or 'quoins/ being driven in at opposite sides to make all tight. ]5y the n)ur ojiposiiig coi'/ii» M'hich the world together joins. — Pericles, iii. 1. This is just the description of a form in foUo, where two quoins on ouc side are always opposite to two quoins on the other, thus together joining and tightening all the separate stamps." shakspeare's sonnets. Schlegcl says that sufficient use lias not been made of Shakspeare's Sonnets as important materials for his biography. Let us see to what conclusions they may lead us. In Sonnet XXXVII., for example, he says : — As a decrepit father takes delight To see his active child do deed." of youth, So I, made lame by fortune's dearest sjiitc, Take all my comfort of thy worth and truth. And again, in Sonnet lxxxix., — Say that thou didst forsake me for some fault, And I will comment upon that offence; Speak of my lamencxa, and I straight will halt, Against thy reasons making no defence. Was Shakspcare lame? '"A question to be asked;" and there is nothing in the inquiry repugnant to poetic justice, for he has made Julius Ca!sar deaf in his left car. "Where did he get his authority ? hamlet's Af'.E. Shakspeare's Ilamlct was thirty years old, as is indicated by the text in Act. V. Sc. 1 : — Ham. IIow long ha.«t thou been a gravc-maktr? 1 Clo. Of all the days i' the year, I came to't that day that our la.-ss. Pure wit is often ill-natured, and has a sting; but wit, sweetened by a kind, loving expression, becomes humor. AVit is usually brief, sharp, opigninimalic, and incisive, the fewer words the bettor; but hunif)r, consisting more in the manner, is diffuse, and words are not spared in it. Carlyle Siiyi'i " The essence of humor is sensibility, warm, tender fellow- feeling with all forms of existence;" and adds, of Jean I'aul's humor, that "in llichter's smile itself a touching pathos n)ay 752 LITERARIANA. lie hid too deep for tears." Wit may be considered as the dis- tinctive feature of the French genius, and humor of the English ; but to show how difficult it is to carry these distinctions out i fairly, we may note that England has produced a Butler, one of i the greatest of wits, and France a Moliere, one of the greatest | of humorists. Fun includes all those things that occasion kugh- ... I tor which are not included in the two former divisions. Buffoon- | ery and mimicry come under this heading, and it has been ob- ' served that the author of a comedy is a wit, the comic actor a humorist, and the clown a buffoon. Old jests were usually tricks, and in coarse times we find that little distinction is made between joyousness and a malicious delight in the misfortunes of others. Civilization discountenances practical jokes, and refinement is required to keep laughter within bounds. As the world grows older, fun becomes less boisterous, and wit gains in point, so that we cannot agree with Cornelius O'Dowd when he says, "The day of witty people is gone by. If there be men clever enough nowadays to say smart things, they are too clever to say them. The world we live in prefers placidity to brilliancy, and a man like Curran in our present-day society would be as unwelcome as a pyrotechnist with a pocket full of squibs." This is only a repetition of an old complaint, and its incorrectness is proved when we find the same thing said one hundred years ago. In a manuscript comedy, " In Foro," by Lady Iloustone, who died near the end of the last century, one of the characters observes : "Wit is nowadays out of fashion; people are well-bred, and talk upon a level; one does not at present find wit but in some old comedy." In spite of Mr. Lever and Lady Iloustone, we believe that civilized society is specially suited fin- the display of refined wit. Under such conditions satire is sure to flourish, for the pen takes the place of the sword, and we know it can slay an enemy as surely as steel. This notion owes its origin in part to an error in our mental perspective, by which we bring the wit of all ages to one focus, fancjing what was really far apart to have been close together, and thus comparing things LITKUAUIANA. 7,"):] wliioh posscjis no proper cleiucnts of cimiparison, and placing as it were in opposition to each other the aceumulated, broad, and well-storied tapestry of the past with the fleetiiii; niDnienta of our day, which are but it^ still aecuniulatiii<^ frintrc. Charles Lanilt will not allow any ureat antiijuity lor wit, and apostro- phizing candlo-lii^ht aays: *'Tliis is our jxiculiar and household jtlauet; wanting it, wiiat savage, unsocial nights must our an- cestors have spent, wintering in caves and unilluiuined fastnesses! They must have laid about and grumbled at one another in the dark. "What repartees could have passed, when you must have felt about for a smile, and handled a nciglibor's check to be sure he understood it! Jokes came in with Cimdles." AN OLD PAPKR. The most amusing and rcniarkable paper ever printeil was the Muse Ilisturiquc, or Rhyming Gazette of Jacques Loret, which, for fifteen years, from 1G50 to lG(i5, was issued weekly in Paris. It consisted of 550 verses summarizing the week's news in rhyme, and treated of every class of subjects, grave and gay. Loret computed, in l()t!3, the thirteenth year of his enterprise, that he had written over 800,000 ver.scs, and found more than 700 different exordiums, f!jr he never twice began his Gazette with the same entire- in mulicr. He ran about the city for his own news, never failed to write good verses upon it, and never had anybody to help him, and his prolonged and al- ways equal performance has been pronounced unique in the history of journalism. COMFORT FOR r.OOIv LOVERS. Mr. Ru.skin vigorously defends the bibliomaniac, in his *SV- sanic and LUirs. We have despised lit4'rature. What do we, as a nation, care about books'/ How much do j'ou think we spend altogether on our libraries, public or private, as compared with what we spend on our horses ^ If a man spends lavishly on his library you call him mad — a bibliomaniac. Rut you never call one a horse-maniac, though men ruin I hem-el ve.i IS 754 LITERARIANA. every day by tlieir horses ; and you do not hear of people ruin- ing themselves by their books. Or, to go lower still, how much do you think the contents of the book-shelves of the United Kingdom, public and private, would fetch as compared with the contents of its wine-cellars? What position would its ex- penditure on literature tiike as compared with its expenditure on luxurious eating? We talk of food for the mind as of food for the body ; now, a good book contains such food inexhaustibly — it is a provision for life, and for the best part of us ; yet how long most people would look at the best book before they would give the price of a large turbot for it! Though there have been men who have pinched their stomachs and bared their backs to buy a book, whose libraries were cheaper to them, I think, in the end, than most men's dinners are. We are few of us put to such trial, and more the pity ; for, indeed, a pre- cious thing is all the more precious to us if it has been won by work or economy; and if public libraries were half as costly as public dinners, or books cost the tenth part of what bracelets do, even foolish men and women might sometimes suspect there was good in reading, as well as in munching and sparkling ; whereas the very cheapness of literature is making even wiser people forget that if a book is worth reading it is worth buying. LETTERS AND THEIR ENDINGS. There is a large gamut of choice for endings, from the official "Your obedient servant," and high and mighty "Your humble servant," to the fiiendly "Yours truly," "Yours sincerely," and " Yours affectionately." Some persons vaiy the form, and slight- ly intensify the expression by placing the word "yours" last, as " Faithfully yours." James Howell used a great variety of end- ings, such as "Yours inviolably," "Yours eutu-ely," "Your en- tire friend," " Yours verily and invariably," " Yours really," " Yours in no vulgar way of friendship," " Youi-s to dispose of," "Yours while J. H.," "Yours! Yours! Yours!" Walpole writes: "Yours very much," "Yours most cordially," and to I.ITERAUIANA. 755 Ilannali More, in 1789, " Yours more and more." i\Ir. Bright, some years ago ended a controversial letter in the following biting terms: "I am, sir, with whatever respect is due to you." The old Boiu-d of Commissioners of the British Navy u.sed a form of subscription very different from the ordinary oiEcial one. It was their habit to subscribe their letters (even letters of re- proof) to such officers as were not of noble families or bore titles, '' Your affectionate friends." It is said that thb practice was discontinued in consequence of a distinguished captain adding to his letter to the Board, " Your affectionate fi-iend." lie was thereupon desired to discontinue the expression, when he re- plied, " I am, gentlemen, no longer your affectionate friend.' STUDIES AND BOOKS. Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. Their chief use for delight is in privatcness and retiring; for orna- ment, is in discourse; and for ability, is in the judgment and disposition of business, for expert men can execute and per- haps judge of business one by one; but the gencnd counsels, and the plots and marshalling of affaii-s, come best from tho.se that are learned. To spend too much time in studies is sloth; to use them too much for ornament is affectation ; to make judg-ment wholly by their rules is the humor of a scholar: they perfect nature and arc perfected by experience, — for natu- ral abilities are like natural plants, that need pruning by .study ; and studies themselves do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in Ity experience. Crafty wise men contemn studies, simple men admire them, and wise men u.se them; for they teach not their own use; but that is a wis- dom without them, and above them, won by ob.servation. Head not to contradict and confute, uur to believe and take for granted, nor to find talk and discour.se, but to weigh and con- sider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; i.e., some books are to be read only in parts, others to be read, but not curiously, 756 LITERATI. and some few to be read vrliolly and with diligence and atten- tlon. Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man ; and therefore, if a man write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit j and if he read little, he had need have much cunning to seem to know that he doth not. — Lord Bacon. Hiterati. ATTAINMENTS OF LINGUISTS. Taking the very highest estimate which has been offered of their attainments, the list of those who have been reputed to have possessed more than ten languages is a very short one. Only four, in addition to a case that will be presently mentioned, — Mithridates, Pico of Mirandola, Jonadab Almanor, and Sir William Jones, — are said in the loosest sense to have passed the limit of twenty. To the first two fame ascribes twenty- two, to the last two twenty-eight, languages. Miiller, Niebuhr, Fulgence, Fresnel, and perhaps Sir John Bowring, are usually set down as knowing twenty languages. For Elihu Burritt and Csoma de Koros their admirers claim eighteen. Renaudot the controversialist is said to have known seventeen; Professor Lee, sixteen ; and the attainments of the older linguists, as Arius Montanus, Martin del Rio, the converted Rabbi Libettas Cominetus, and the Admirable Crichton, are said to have ranged from this down to ten or twelve, — most of them the ordinary languages of learned and polite society. The extraordinary case above alluded to is that of the Car- dinal Mezzofanti, the son of a carpenter of Bologna, whose knowledge of languages seems almost miraculous. Von Zach, who made an occasional visit to Bologna in 1820, was accosted by the learned priest, as he then was, in Hungarian, then in good Saxon, and afterwards in the Austrian and Swabian dia- lects. With other members of the scientific cores the priest conversed in English, Russian, l\)lish, French, and Ilungariiui. Von Zach mentions that his German was so natural that a cul- tivated Hanoverian lady in the company expressed her surprise that a German should be a professor and librarian in an lUilian university. Professor Jacobs, of Gotha, was struck not only with the number of languages acquired by the " interpreter for Babel," but at the facility with which he passed from one to the other, however opposite or cognate their structure. Dr. Tholuck heard him converse in German, Arabic, Spanish, Flemish, English, and Swedish, received I'roni him an original distich in Persian, and found him studying Cornish. He heard him say that he had studied to some extent the Quichus, or old Peruvian, and that he was employed upon the Bimbarra. Dr. Wiseman met him on his way to receive lessons in California Indian from natives of that country. He heard "Niggei Dutch" from a Cura^oa mulatto, and in less than two weeks wrote a short piece of poetry for the mulatto to recite in his rude tongue. He knew something of Chippewa and Delaware, and learned the language of the Algonquin Indians. A Ceylon student remembers many of the strangers with whom Mezzofanti was in the habit of conversing in the Propaganda, — those who.sc vernaculars were Peguan, Abyssinian, Amharic, Syriac, Ara- bic©, Maltese, Taniulic, Bulgarian, Albanian, besides others already named. His facility in accommodating hini.self to each new colloquist justifies the expression applied to him, as the " chamelion of languages." Dr. Russell, Mezzofanti's biographer, adopting as his defini- tion of a thorough knowledge of language an ability to read it fluently and with ease, to write it correctly, and to speak it idiomatically, sums up the fullowing estimate of the Cardinal's acquisitions : — 1. Languages frequently tested and spoken by the Cardinal with rare excellence, — thirty. 2. Stated to have been spoken fluently, l)ut hardly sufiiciently tested, — nine. 'S. Spoken rarely and less perfectly, — eleven 04 758 LITERATI. ■4. Spoken imperfectly 3 a few sentences and conversational forms, — eight. 5. Studied from books, but not known to have been spoken, — fourteen. 6. Dialects spoken, or their peculiarities understood, — thirty- nine dialects of ten languages, many of which might justly be described as different languages. This list adds up one hundred and eleven, exceeding by all comparison every thing related in history. The Cardinal said he made it a rule to learn every new grammar and apply him- self to every strange dictionary that came within his reach. He did not appear to consider his prodigious talent so extraor- dinary as others did. '' In addition to an excellent memory," said he, " God has blessed me with an incredible flexibility of the organs of speech." Another remark of his was, " that \ when one has learned ten or a dozen languages essentially dif- ■^ fcrent from one another, one may with a little study and atten- tion learn any number of them." Again he remarked, " If you wish to know how I preserve these languages, I can only say that when I once hear the meaning of a word in any Ian guage I never forget it." And yet it is not claimed for this man of many words that "^^ his ideas at all corresponded. He had twenty words for one idea, ieut air. Wlicn they were delivered to Touson, he asked if Mr. Drydcn Lad said any thing more. *' Yes," answered the bearer : " he said, ' Tell the dog that he who wrote those lines can writo more like them.' " Jacob immediately sent the money. ijJcrsoual ^kctdjris anti HnrrtiotcsJ. ANECDOTE OF WASHINGTON. During General Washington's administration, he almost daily attended his room, adjoining the Senate-chamber, and often arrived before the Senate organized. On one occasion, but before his arrival, Gouverneur Morris and some other senators were standing together, conversing on various topics, and, among them, the natural but majestic air of General Washing- ton, when some one observed there was no man living who could take a liberty with him. The sprightly and bold Morris remarked, "I will bet a dozen of wine I can do that with im- punity." The ?jet was accepted. Soon after, Washington appeared, and commenced an easy and pleasant convereation with one of the gentlemen, at a little distance from the others. While thus engaged, Morris, stepping up, in a jocund manner, familiarly tapped Washington on the shoulder, and said, — " Good morning, old fellow !" The General turned, and merely looked him in the face, without a word, when Morris, with all his a.s9umed effrontery, stepped hastily back, in evident discomposure, and said : — " Gentlemen, you have won the bet. I will never take such a liberty again !" The writer obtained this fact from a member of the Senate who witnessed the occurrence. 764 PERSONAL SKETCHES AND ANECDOTES. ANECDOTE OP LAFAYETTE. Shortly after Lafaj^ette's second return from America, he was at Versailles when the king was about to review a division of troops. Lafayette was invited to join in the review. He was dressed in the American uniform, and was standing by the side of the Due de Conde, when the king, in his tour of conversa- tion with the officers, came to him, and, after speaking on seve- ral topics, asked him questions about his uniform and the mili- tary costume in the United States. The king's attention was attracted by a little medal, which was attached to his coat in the manner in which the insignia of orders are usually worn in Europe ; and he asked what it was. Lafayette replied that it was a symbol which it was the custom of the foreign officers in the American service to wear, and that it bore a device. The king asked what was the device : to which Lafayette answered that there was no device common to all, but that each officer chose such as pleased his fancy. "And what has pleased your fancy ?" inquired the king. " My device," said the young general, pointing to his medal, " is a liberty-pole standing on a broken crown and sceptre." The king smiled, and, with some pleasantry about the republican propensities of a French mar- quis in American uniform, turned the conversation to another topic. Conde looked grave, but said nothing. NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. The name Napoleon, being written in Greek characters, will form seven different words, by dropping the first letter of each in succession : — NaTToXecDV, 'ArzoXicDV, IIoXzMV, ^OXswv, Aituv, 'Ewv, ^Qv. These words make a complete sentence, meaning. Napoleon, the destroyer of whole cities, was the lion of his people. MILTON AND NAPOLEON. Napoleon Bonaparte declared to Sir Colin Campbell, who had charge of his person at the Isle of Elba, that he was a great admirer of Milton's Paradise Lost, and that he liad read PERSONAL b'KETCUKS AND ANKCDOTKS. 7G5 it to some purpose, for that the plan of the battle of Austerlitz lie borrowed from the sixth book of that work, where Satan brings his artillery to bear upon Miehael and his angelic host with such direful eflect : — " Training his dev'lish enginery impaled Ou every side with shoduwiug equudruns deep To hide the fraud." This }ieiD mode of warfare appeared to Bonaparte so likely to succeed, if applied to actual use, that he determined upon its adoption, and succeeded beyond expectation. By reference to the details of that battle, it will be found to assimilate so com- pletely with Milton's imaginary fight as to leave no doubt of the assertion. PERSONAL APPEARANCE OF NAPOLEON. Captain Maitland gives the following description of the pei- son of Napoleon, as he appeared on board the Bdlcrophon, in 1815:— He was then a remarkably strong, well-built man, about five feet seven inches high, his limbs particularly well formed, with a tine ankle and a very small foot, of which he seemed very vain, as he always wore, while on board the ship, silk stockings and shoes. His hands were also small, and had the plumpness of a woman's rather than the robustness of a man's. His eyes were light gray, his teeth good; and when he smiled, the ex- pression of his countenance was highly pleasing; when under the influence of disappointment, however, it assumed a dark and gloomy cast. His hair was a very dark brown, nearly ap- proaching to black, and, though a little tliin on the top and front, had not a gray hair amongst it. His complexion wa-s a very uncomnjon one, being of a light sallow color, differont from any other I ever met with. From his being corpulent, he had lR. franklin's wife. Franklin, in a sketch of his life and habits, relates the fol- lowing anecdote of his frugal and afi"ectionate wife. A wife could scarcely make a prettier apology for purchasing her first piece of luxury. We have an English proverb, that says, — "He that would tbrivu Must ask his wile." It was lucky for me that I have one as much disposed to in- dustry and frugality as myself. She assisted me cheerfully in my business, and in stitching pamphlets, tending shop, purchas- ing old linen rags for the paper-makers, &c. We kept no idle PERSONAL SKETCHES AND ANECDOTES. 767 servant ; our table was plain and simple ; our furniture of the cheapest. For instance, my breakfast was for a long time bread and milk (no tea), and I ate it out of a two-penny eartlien porringer, with a pewter spoon. But mark how luxury will enter families, and make a progress in spite of principle : being called one morning to breakfast, I found it in a china bowl, with a spoon of silver. They had been bought for me without my knowledge, by my wife, and had cost her the enormous sum of three-and-twenty shillings, for which she had no other excuse or apology to make but that she thought her husband deserved a silver spoon and china bowl as well as any of his neighbors. This was the first appearance of plate or china in our house, which afterwards, in the course of years, as our wealth increased, augmented gradually to several hundred pounds in value. MAJOR ANDRE. In a satirical poem written by Major Andre some time prior to his arrest as a spy, he, curiously enough, alludes to the means of his own death. A newspaper published soon after the llevolutionary War gives some extracts from the poem, and calls it a "remarkable prophecy." Could the ill-starred poet and soldier have looked into futurity and seen his own sad end, he would hardly have indulged in the humor which is in- dicated in his poem. The piece was entitled " The Cow-Chase," and was suggested by the failure of an expedition undertaken by Wayne for the purpose of collecting cattle. Great liberties wer(! taken with the names of the American officers employed on tKe occasion, — Harry Loe and his dragoons, And Prootor with his cannon. But the point of his irony seemed particularly aimed at Wayne, whose entire baggage, he asserts, was taken along, comprising His Congress dollars and his prog, His military speeches, His corn-stalk whiskey for his grog, Black stockings aud blue breeches. 768 PERSONAL SKETCHES AND ANECDOTES. The satirist brings liis doggerel to a close by observing tliai it is necessary to check the current of his satire, — Lest the same warrior-drover AYayne Should catch and hang the poet ! AN ENGLISH VIEW OF ANDRE AND ARNOLD. Many historians have been inclined to blame Washington for unnecessary severity in not acceding to the request of the pri- soner (Andre), that he might be shot instead of hanged. We cannot agree with them : the ignominious death was decided upon by Washington — after much and anxious deliberation, and against his own feelings, which inclined to grant the prayer — as a strictly preventive punishment ; and it had its effect. The social qualities and the letters of Andre, although they are always brought forward in his favor, do not extenuate but rather aggravate his crime, as they show that, whatever his moral principles may have been, he had the education of an English gentleman. If any thing, his memory has been treated with too great leniency. If monuments are to be erected in Westminster Abbey to men of such lax morality, it is time for honesty to hide its head. The conduct of Sir Henry Clinton, in receiving x\rnold when he fled to the English ranks, and giving him a high command, is only in keeping with his countenance of the plot that cost Andre his life. Arnold, who seems to have been a miserable scoundrel, born to serve as a foil to the virtuous brightness of George Washington, might have redeemed his character by giving himself up in place of Andre, who was entrapped by Arnold's cowardice and over-caution ; but such a piece of self- sacrifice never entered his head. A villain himself, he never believed in the success of the struggle of honest men, and his conduct after obtaining the protection of Sir Henry Clinton proves this beyond a doubt. Let him rest with all his British honors thick upon him. — English N'ewspa^pe^'. PERSONAL SKETCHES AND ANECDOTES. 7G9 FLAMSTEED, THE ASTRONOMER ROYAL. In the London Chronicle for Dec. 3, 1771, is the following anecdote of Dr. Fhimsteed : — He was many years Astronomer Royal at Grrcenwich Obser- vatory; a humorist, and of warm pa.ssions. Persons of his profession are often supposed, by the common people, to be capable of foretelling events. lu this persuasion a poor washer- woman at Greenwich, who had been robbed at night of a large parcel of linen, to her almost ruin, if forced to pay for it, came to him, and with great anxiety earnestly requested him to use his art, to let her know where her things were, and who had robbed her. The Doctor happened to be in the liumor to joke: he bid her stay: he would see what he could do; perhaps he might let her know where she could find them; but who the persons were, he would not undertake; as she could have no positive proof to convict them, it would be useless. He then set about drawing circles, squares, &c., to amuse her; and after some time told her if she would go into a particular field, that in such a part of it, in a dry ditch, she would find them all tumbled up in a sheet. The woman went, and found them ; came with great haste and joy to thank the Doctor, and offered him half-a-crown as a token of gratitude, being as much as she could afford. The Doctor, surprised himself, told her: "Good woman, I am heartily glad you have found your linen ; but I assure you I knew nothing of it, and intended only to joke with you, and then to have read you a lecture on the folly of applying to any person to know events not in human power to tell. But I see the devil has a mind that I should deal with him: I am determined I will not. Never come or send any one to me any more, on such occasions; for I will never attempt such an affair again whilst I live." LORD nelson's SANG-FROID. Jack was what they called loblolly boy on board the Victor]/. It was his duty to do anything and everything that was required 2 Y (;•. 770 PERSONAL SKETCHES AND ANECDOTES. — from sweeping aud washing the deck, and saying amen to the chaphiin, down to cleaning the guns, and helping the doc- tor to make pills and plasters, and mix medicines. Four days before the battle that was so glorious to England, but so fatal to its greatest hero. Jack was ordered by the doctor to fetch a bottle that was standing in a particular place. Jack ran oflF, post-haste, to the spot, where he found what appeared to be an empty bottle. Curiosity was uppermost; ''What," thought Jack, " can there be about this empty bottle ? " He examined it carefully, but could not comprehend the mystery, so he thought that he would call in the aid of a candle to throw light on the subject. The bottle contained ether, and the result of the examination was that the vapor ignited, and the flames extended to some of the sails, and also to a part of the ship. There was a general confusion — running with buckets and what-not — and, to make matters worse, the fire was rapidly extending to the powder-magazine. During the hubbub, Lord Nelson was in the chief cabin writing dispatches. His lordship heard the noise — he couldn't do otherwise — and so, in a loud voice, he called out, "What's all that infernal noise about?" The boatswain answered, "My JiOrd, the loblolly boy's set fire to an empty bottle, and it's set fire to the ship." " Oh !" said Nelson, "that's all, is it? I thought the enemy had boarded us and taken us all prisoners — you and loblolly must put it out, and take care we're not blown up! but pray make as little noise about it as you can, or I can't go on with my dispatches," and with these words Nelson went to his desk, aud continued his writing with the greatest coolness. Crabb Robinson, in his Diary, speaking of Goethe as the mightiest intellect that has shone on the earth for centuries, says: "It has been my rare good fortune to have seen a large proportion of the greatest minds of our age, in the fields of poetry and speculative philosophy, such as Wordsworth, Coleridge, Schiller, Tieck, but none that I have ever known came near him." I PERSONAL SKETCHES AND ANECDOTES. 771 MARTIN LUTHER Roma orbem domiiit, llomain sibi Papa subcgit; Viribus ilia suit, fraiidibus isto suis, Quanto isto major Lutherus, major et illii, Istum illamquo uiio qui domuit calamo. — Beza. (Rome won the world, the Pope o'er Rome prevailed, And one by force and one by fraud availed : Greater than each was Luther's prowess shown, Who conquered both by one poor pen alone.) Luther, in the lion-hearted daring of his conduct and in tbo robust and rugged grandeur of his faith, may well bo considered as the Elijah of the Reformation ; while his life, by the stern and solemu realities of his experi- ences, and the almost ideal evolutions of events by which it was accompanied, constitutes indeed the embodied Poem of European Protestantism. R. Montgomery. Heine sketches the following unique portrait of Luther : — lie was at once a mystic dreamer and a man of action. His thoughts had not only wings, they had hands likewise. lie spoke, and, rare thing, he also acted ; he was at once the tongue and the sword of his age. At the same time he was a cold scholastic, a chopper of words, and an exalted prophet drunk with the word of God. When he had passed painfully through the day, wearing out his soul in dogmatical instruc- tions, night come, he would take his flute, and, contemplating the stars, melt in melodies and pious thoughts. The same man who could abuse his adversaries like a fish-fag knew also how to use soft and tender language, like an amorous virgin. He was sometimes savage and impetuous as the hurricane that roots up oaks, then gentle and murmuring as the zephyr that lightly caresses the violets. He was full of the holy fear of God, ready for every sacrifice in honor of the Holy Spirit; he knew how to vault into the purest regions of the celestial kingdom ; and yet he perfectly knew the magnificence of this earth : he could appreciate it, and from his mouth fell the famous proverb : — AVer nicht liebt Wein, Weil)er, and Gesang, Der bleibt ein Narr sein Lebenlang. (Who loves not woman, wine, and song, Remains a fool his whole life long.) 772 PERSONAL SKETCHES AND ANECDOTES. In short, he was a complete man. To call him a spiritualist would be to commit as great a mistake as it would be to call him a sensualist. What shall I say more ? He had something about him clever, original, miraculous, inconceivable. In an article on John de Wycliffe, in the North British Re- view, is the following paragraph : — Abundant as is our historical literature, and fond as our ablest writers have recently become of attempting careful and vivid renderings of the physiognomies of important historical per- sonages, we are still without a set of thoroughly good portraits of the modern religious reformers of difterent nations, painted, as they might be, in series, so that the features of each may be compared with those of all the rest. Wycliife, Huss, Savona- rola, Luther, Zwingle, Calvin, Knox, and Cranmer, — all men coming under the same general designation, — all heroes of the same general movement; and yet what a contrast of physi- ognomies ! Pre-eminent in the series will ever be Luther, the man of biggest frame and largest heart ; the man of rich- est and most original genius; the great, soft, furious, musical, pliant, sociable, kiss-you, knock you-down German. None of them all had such a face ; none of them all said such things ; of none of them all can you have such anecdotes, such a col- lection of ana. Luther, says another writer, speaking of his fondness for music, was not solely nor chiefly a theologian, or he had been no true reformer. As the cloister had not been able to bound his sympathies, so the controversial theatre could not circum- scribe his honest ambition. He in whom " the Italian head was joined to the German body" would not only free the souls of men, but win the hearts of women and little children. Much had he to feel proud of during his busy life. It was no light thing to have waged successful combat with the most powerful hierarchy that the world had ever seen, or to have held in his hands the destinies of Europe. But dearer to his kind heart was the sound of his own verses sung to his own meludies, which rut^c from street and market-place, from higli PERSONAL SKETCHES AND ANECDOTES. , , A way and byway, chanted by laborers going to their daily work; during their hours of toil, and as they returned honie at even- tide. How would it have gladdened his heart to have heard these same hymus, two hundred years later, sung by the luiucra of Cornwall and Gloucestershire ! "I always loved music," said he : "whoso has skill in this art is of a good temperament, fitted for all things." Many times he exemplified this power in his own person. When sore perplexed and in danger of life, he would drive away all gloomy thoughts by the magic of his own melodies. On that sad journey to Worms, when friends crowded round him and sought to change his purpose, warning him, with many tears, of the certain death that awaited him, — on the morning of that memorable IGth of April, when the towers of the ancient city appeared in sight, — the true-hearted man, rising in his chariot, broke forth with the words and music of that Marseil- laise of the Reformation, £in' /estc Burg ist unscr Gott, which be had improvised two days before at Oppcnheim, — the same stirring hymn that Gastavus Adolphus and the whole Swedish army sang a century later, on the morning of the battle of Lutzea : — A safe stronghold our God is still, A trusty shield and weapon ; He'll help us clear from all the ill That hath us now o'ortaken. The ancient Prince of hell Ilath risen- with purpose fell. Strong mail of crafl and power He weareth in this hour; On earth is not his fellow. With force of arms wo nothing can, Full soon were wu down-ridden; But for us fights the proper man, Wh easy to come to the utterance ; of wonderful knowledge, both in learning and affayres; skilfull not only in Latino and Greeke, but alsoe in divers foraigne languages. In Paul Heintzner's Travels, 1698, is the following descrip- tion : — She was said to be fifty-five years old. Her face was rather long, white, and somewhat wrinkled ; her eyes small, black, and gracious; her nose somewhat bent; her lips compressed; her teeth black (from eating too much sugar). She had ear- rings of pearls, red hair (but artificial), and wore a small crown. Her breast was uncovered (as is the case with all unmarried ladies in England), and round her neck was a chain with pre- cious gems. Her hands were graceful, her fingers long. She was of middle size, but stepped on majestically. She was gra- cious and kind in her address. The dress she wore was of white silk, with pearls as large as beans. Her cloak was of black silk, with silver lace, and a long train was carried by a marchioness. She spoke English, French, and Italian; but she knew also G-reek and Latin, and understood Spanish, Scotch, and Dutch. Wherever she turned her eyes, people fell on their knees. When she came to the door of the chapel, books were handed to her, and the people called out, " God save the Queen Elizabeth !" whereupon the Queen answered, " I thanke you, myn good peuple." Among the spirited repartees and impromptus of the rjueen which have descended to our time is her ingenious evasion of a direct answer to a theological question respecting the sacra- ment of the Lord's Supper. On being asked by a Popish priest whether she allowed the real presence, she replied, — Christ was the word that sp.ake it : He tooii the bread and brake it ; And what that word did uake it, That 1 believe aud take it. In an old folio copy of the Arcadia, preserved at Wilton, have been found two interesting relics, — a lock of Queen Elizabeth's hair, and some lines in the handwriting of Sir l*hilip Sidney. The hair was given by the (juccn to her young 776 PERSONAL SKETCHES AND ANECDOTES. hero, who complimented her in return as follows : — Her inward worth all outward worth transcends; Envy her merits with regret commends ; Like sparkling gems her virtues draw the light, And in her conduct she is always bright. When she imparts her thoughts, her words have force, And sense and wisdom flow in sweet discourse. The date of this exchange was 1583, when the queen waa forty and the knight twenty-nine. Elizabeth's hair is very fine, soft, and silky, with the undulation of water ; its color, a fair auburn or golden brown, without a tinge of red, as her detractors assert. In every country under the sun, such hair would be pronounced beautiful. shakspeare's ortuodoxy. The numerous biographers of the immortal bard have said little or nothing of his religious character, leaving the in- ference that he was indifferent to religion and careless as to the future. They seem to forget such passages as his beau- tiful reference to Palestine in Henry IV. : — Those holy fields, Over whose acres walked those blessed feet Which, fourteen hundred years ago, were nailed. For our advantage, on the bitter cross. Shakspeare's will, written two months before his death, (April, 1616,) is remarkable for its evangelical character. He says ; — " First, I commend my soul into the hands of God, my Creator, hoping, and assuredly believing, through the merits of Jesus Christ, my Saviour, to be made partaker of life ever- lasting; and my body to the earth whereof it is made." Nor should we overlook the bond of Christian sympathy with his parish minister, Rev. Richard Byfield, whose church he constantly attended during his retirement at Stratford. OLIVER CROMWELL. The subjoined sketch of the person and character of the great Protector is from a letter of John Maidstone to Gover PERSONAL SKETCHES AND ANECDOTES. ,,i nor Wiuthrop, of Connecticut, written soon after Cromwell'd death : — Before I pass furtlier, pardon me in troubling yuu with the character of his person, which, by reason of my nearness to him, I had opportunity well to observe. Ilis body was well compact and strong; his stature under six feet (I believe about two inches); his head so shaped as you might see it a storehouse and shop, both a vast treasury of natural parts. His temper exceeding fiery, as I have known ; but the flame of it kept down for the most part, or soon allayed with those moral endowments he had. He was naturally compassionate toward.s objects in distress, even to an eflfemiuate measure, though God had made him a heart wherein was left little room for any fear but what was due to himself, of which there was a large proportion ; yet did he excel in tenderness towards suf- ferers. A larger soul, I think, hath seldom dwelt in a house of clay than his was. I do believe, if his story were impar- tially transmitted and the unprejudiced world well possessed with it, it would add him to her nine worthies and make that number a decemviri. He lived and died in comfortable commu- nion with his seed, as judicious persons near him well observed. He was that Mordecai that sought the welfare of his people, and spake peace to his seed ; yet were his temptations such as it appeared frequently that he that hath grace enough for many men may have too little for himself; the treasure he had being but in an eartlien vessel, and that equally defiled with original sin as any other man's nature is. The following newspaper notices in relation to Cromwell's head are interesting : — The curious head of Cromwell, which Sir Joshua Reynolds has had the good fortune to procure, is to be shown to his ma- jesty. How much would Charles the First have valued tlui man that would have brought him Cromwell's head ! — Septem- ber, 1786. The real embalmed head of tlic powerful and renowned 778 PERSONAL SKETCHES AND ANECDOTES. usurper, Oliver Cromwell, styled Protector of the Common wealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland ; with the original dyes for the medals struck in honor of his victory at Dunbar, &c., &c., are now exhibiting at No. 5 in Mead Court, Old Bond Street (where the Rattlesnake was shown last year). A genu- ine narrative relating to the acquisition, concealment, and pre- iiervation of these articles to be had at the place of exhibition. — Mornwg Chronicle, March 18, 1799. Cromwell died at Hampton Court in 1658, giving the strongest evidence of his earnest religious convictions and of his sincerity as a Christian. After an imposing funeral pa- geant, the body having been embalmed, he was buried in Westminster. On the restoration of the Stuarts he was taken up and hung in Tyburn. Afterwards his head was cut off, a pike driven up through the neck and skull, and exposed on Westminster Hall. It remained there a long while, until, by some violence, the pike was broken and the head thrown down It was picked up by a soldier and concealed, and afterwards con- veyed to some friend, who kept it carefully for years. Through a succession of families, which can easily be traced, it has- come into the possession of the daughter of Hon. Mr. Wilkinson, ex-member of Parliament from Buckingham and Bromley. The head is almost entire. The flesh is black and sunken, but the features are nearly perfect, and the hair still remains. Even the large wart over one of the eyes — a distinctive mark on his face — is yet perfectly visible. The pike which was thrust through the neck may still be seen, the upper part of iron, nearly rusted off, and the lower or wooden portion in splinters, showing that it was broken by some act of violence. It is known historically that Cromwell was embalmed ; and no per- son thus cared for was ever publicly gibbeted except this illus- trious man. It is a curious keepsake for a lady; but it is care- fully preserved under lock and key in a box of great antiquity, wrapped in a number of costly envelopes. And when it is raised from its hiding-place and held in one's hand, what a world of thouirht is sufr."estcd ! personal sketcues and anecdotes. 779 tope's skull. William Howitt says that, by one of those acts wliich neithei Bcience nor curiosity can excuse, the skull of Pope is now in the private collection of a phrenologist. The manner in whicli it was obtained is said to have been this : — On some occasion of alteration in the church, or burial of some one in the same spot, the coffin of Pope was disinterred, and opened to see the state of the remains. By a bribe to the sexton of the time, possession of the skull was obtained for the night, and another skull was returned instead of it. Fifty pounds w^ere paid to manage and carry through this transaction. Be that as it may, the skull of Pope figures in a private museum. wickliffe's ashes. The Council of Constance raised from the grave the bones of the immortal Wickliffe forty years after their interment, burned them to ashes, and threw them into a neighboring brook. "This brook," says Fuller, "conveyed his ashes into Avon, Avon into Severn, Severn into the narrow seas, they into the main ocean ; and thus the ashes of Wicklifi'o are the em- blem of his doctrine, which now is dispersed all the world over." "So," says Foxe, "was he resolved into three elements, earth, fire, and water, thinking thereby utterly to extinguish both the name and doctrine of Wickliffe forever. liut as there is no counsel against the Ijord, so there is no keeping down of verity. It will spring and come out of dust and ashes, as ap- peared right well in this man; for, though they digged up big body, burnt his bones, and drowned his ashes, yet the word of God and truth of his doctrines, with the fruit and success thereof, they could not burn. They to this day remain." Cardan, and Burton, the author of the Amitomy <>/ Milun chulij, who were famous for astrological skill, botli suffered a voluntary death merely to verify their own predictions. 780 PERSONAL SKETCHES AND ANECDOTES. TALLEYRANDIANA, A banker, anxious about the rise or fall of stocks, came once to Talleyrand for iuformation respecting the tinith of a rumor that George III. had suddenly died, when the statesman replied in a confidential tone: "I shall be delighted, if the iuformation I have to give be of any use to you." The banker was enchanted at the prospect of obtaining authentic intel- ligence from so high a source ; and Talleyrand, with a mysterious air, continued: "Some say the King of England is dead, others, that he is not dead: for my own part, I believe neither the one nor the other. I tell you this in confidence, but do not commit me." During Talleyrand's administration, when the seals of private letters were not very safe, the Spanish Ambassador complained, with an expressive look, to that Minister, that one of his des^ patches had been opened. "Oh I" returned the statesman, after listening with profound attention, " I shall wager I can guess how the thing happened. I am convinced your despatch was opened by some one who desu-ed to know what was inside." When Louis XVIII., at the Restoration, praised the subtile diplomatist for his talents and influence, he disclaimed the com- pliment, but added, what might serve both as a hint and a threat: "There is, however, some inexplicable thing about me, that prevents any government from prospering that attempts to set me aside." After the Pope excommunicated his apostate Abbe, that un- worthy son of the church wrote to a friend, saying: "Come and comfort me: come and sup with me. Everybody is going to refuse me fire and water; we shall therefore have nothing this evening but iced meats, and drink nothing but wine." When the Abbe Dupanloup told him, during his last hour, that the Archbishop of Paris had said he would willingly die for him, the dying statesman said, with his expiiing breath: "He mi2;ht make a better use of his life." PERSONAL SKETCHES AND ANECDOTES. 781 He proposed that tlie Duchess de Bcrri should be threatened for all her strange conspicuous freaks, thus : " Madame, there is no hope ibr you, you will be tried, condemned, and j)ardoued!" Speaking of a well-known lady on one occasion, he said em- phatically : — "She is insufferable." Then, as if relenting, he added: "But that is her only fault." Madame de Stael cordially hated him, and in her story of Dilphim was supposed to have painted herself in the person of her heroine, and Talleyrand in that of a garrulous old woman. On their fir-st meeting, the wit pleasantly remarked, "They tell me that we are both of us in your novel, in the dis- guise of women." While making a few days' tour in England, he wrote this note to a gentleman connected with the Treasury : — " My dear Sir, " Would j'ou give a short quarter of an hour to e-xjilain to mo the Cnancial Eystem of your country ? " Always yours, "TALLETnAND." PORSON. A favorite diversion of Porson, when among a party of literary men, was to quote a few lines of poetry, and ask if any of the company could tell where they came iVom. He frequently quoted the following lines without finding any one able to name the author: — For laws that arc inanimate. And feel no sense of love or hate, That have no passion of their own. Or pity to bo wrought upon. Are only proper to inflict Revenge on criminals us strict: But to have power to forgive Is empire and prerogative; And 'tis in crowns a nobler gem To grant u pardon than condemn. 782 HISTORICAL MEMORANDA. The lines remind the Shakspeare student of a similar verse in Measure for Measure, (Act III, Sc. 2.): — He that the sword of state would bear, Should be holy as severe; Pattern in himself to know, Grace to stand, and virtue go, ^hut threw, For Liberty and his Countrys Good he Lost his Life his Dearest blood." THE "tea-party" AND THE "TEA-BURMXG." The world has runj; with tlic story of the " Boston tea- party," how iu the darkness of night ccrtiiin men disguised as Indians tlircw overboard the cargo which bore the obnoxious duty, and kept their secret so well that even their own families were not trusted with it. It was a resolute and patriotic act, and answered its purpose. But why all the darkness, the dis- guise and mystery ? Because the number of those who opposed the act, either fi-om loyalty to Great Britain, from timidity, or from pecuniary interest in the cargo, was so great, that only by such means could the deed be done and the doers of it escape punishment. How does this compare with the " tea-burning" in Annapolis in the same year ? Here the course to be taken was publicly and calmly discussed in open assembly; the resolution arrived at was openly announced, and carried out in the face of day, the owner of the vessel himself applying the torch. This was the Maryland way of doing the thing; and it may well be asked whether the calm judicial dignity of the procedure, the unanimity of sentiment, the absence alike of passion and of concealment, are not far worthier of commemoration and ad- miration than the act of men who, even for a patriotic purjiosc, bad to assume the garb of conspirators and do a deed of darkness. The local historians thus tell the story :- On the 14th of October, the brig Pegg>' Stewart arrived at Annapolis, having in its cargo a few packages of t*.'a. The duty was paid by the owner of the vessel. The people were outraged at the attempt to fix upon them tlie badge of servi- tude, by the payment of the tax. 784 HISTORICAL MEMORANDA. A meeting was held, at wliicli it was determined that the tea should not be landed. The owner, fearing further trouble, proposed to destroy the tea. But that was not sufficient pun- ishment. The oft'ence was a grave one, for had this attempt succeeded, it would have been followed by others more aggres- sive, and thus the very principle which was contended for would have been overthrown in the end. It was the head of the ugly beast that was thrust in the door, and it must not only be put out, but driven out by blows, lest growing bold, it should push its whole body io. After much discussion it was proposed to burn the vessel. The meeting did not consent to this, but many expressed their determination to raise a force to accomplish the brig's destruction. Acting under the advice of Mr. Carroll of Carrolltou, the owner, seeing that the loss of his property was certain, and wil- ling to repair his good name, even by that loss, proposed to de- stroy the vessel with his own hands. In the presence of the assembled multitude he set fire to it, with the tea on board, — expiating his offence by the destruction of his property. The striking features of this transaction were not only the boldness with which it was executed, but the deliberation and utter carelessness of concealment in all the measures leading to its accomplishment. It was not until the 28th of November that the Dartmouth arrived in Boston harbor, and not until the 16th of December that protracted discussion ended in the overthrow of its cargo. The tea-ship sent to South Carolina arrived December 2d, and the tea-ship to Philadelphia, December 25th. The cargo of the former perished in storage; that of the latter was sent back. THE UNITED STATES NAVY. A South Carolina correspondent of the American Etsforical Record writes as follows concerning the inception of the Navy: — A few years ago, while looking over a volume of manuscript niSTORICAL MEMORANDA. T-S') letters in the Charleston (South Carolina) Lihrary, I found a leaf of cotirse foolscap, with the fullownig endorsement: — ORIGIN OF THK NAVY. At a caucus in 179-i, consisting of Izard, Morris, and Ells- worth of the Senate, Ames, Sedgwick, Smith, Dayton, kc. of the Representatives, and of Secretaries Hamilton and Knox, to form a plan for a national navy. Smith began the figuring aa Secretary of the meeting. Hamilton tlien took the ]ien, and instead of minuting the proceedings, he amused him.self by making a variety of flourishes during the discu.ssion. In con- sequence of the plan adopted at this meeting, a bill was reported for building six frigates, which formed the foundation or origin of the American Navy. The "figuring" on the top of the page consists of five lines, and is as follows : — First cost of a frigate, 44 guns, of 1,300 tons, and provision for six months.. SlyO.OOO 350 men 51,000 Provision for six months 11,000 Total $212,000 Then follows an estimate of the annual cost of such a vessel. The rest of the page below these estimates is occupied by bold flourishes, which seem, if they mean anything, to imitate a drawing of a peacock's tail " in its pride." Similar scratching, but to a less extent is on the other side of the page. The only letter addressed to Shak.«peare, which is un- doubtedly genuine, is that now in the museum at Stratlord, from I'lichard Quinn, the actor, asking for a loan of £20. This letter is endorsed: "To my lovinge good fTriend and countrcyman, Mr. William Shackespere deliver Thecs." If the writer .spelled names no better than other words, this affords little aid to tho solution of the pcriilexing question, for notwithstanding the outrageous fashion in which our forofathera spelled English, ho is considerably ahead of his age in this respect. 2 Z C6» 786 HISTORICAL MEMORANDA. QUAKER " MALIGNANTS." There has been discovered in Boston the following letter relative to William Penn, written "September ye 15, 1G82." by Cotton Mather, to ''ye aged and beloved Mr. John Ilig- ginson": — There bee now at sea a shippe (for our friend Mr. Esaias Holcraft, of London, did advise me by ye last packet that it wolde sail some time in August) called ye Welcome, R. Grecnaway, master, which has aboard an hundred or more of ye heretics and malignants called Quakers, with W. Penne, who is ye chief scampe at ye hcdde of them. Ye General Court has accordingly given secret orders to Master Malachi Huxett, of ye brig Porposse, to waylaye ye said Welcome as near the coast of Codde as may be, and make captive ye said Penue and his ungodlie crew, so that ye Lord may be glorified and not mocked on ye soil of this new countrie with ye heathen worshippe of these people. Much spoyl can be made by selling ye whole lotte to Barbadoes, where slaves fetch good prices in rumme and sugar, and we shall not only do ye Lord great service by punishing ye wicked, but shall make great gaync fur his ministers and people. Master Huxett feels hopeful, and I will set down ye news he brings when his shippe comes back. Yours in ye bowels of Christ, Cotton M.^ther. AN AMERICAN MONARCHY. After the downfall of Napoleon I., in 1815, several young Americans who subsequently earned high position as writers and statesmen, among them Irving, Everett, Ticknor, Legare, and Preston, (afterward Senator from South Carolina,) went to Europe for the benefit of foreign travel. While abroad, they took an opportunity to pay a visit to Sir Walter Scott, and Mr. Preston relates that during the evening, in the course of con= versation, Sir Walter gave an account of a curious discovery he had made. Not long after it had been divulged who was the author of the "Waverley Novels," Scott was the Kegent's (afterward George the Fourth) guest in the royal palace, where, one day, the latter ordered the key of a certain room to be given to the great writer, saying that it opened the door of the Stuart I UISTORICAL MEMORANDA. 7S7 Chamber, where all the papers concerning the Stuarts and theh- pretenders were kept. George gave Scott full permission to rummage among all these records, and to use what he liked for his works. "I depend on j'our discretion," he said, and Scott went. He spent several days in this curious chamber, and, so he told ]^reston, one day stumbled upon what seemed to him a remarkable paper. It consisted of a call and petition, by Scottish in America, chiefly, however, by the Gaelic Scottish who had a settlement — "saddle-bagging" as it is sometimes expressed in the West — in North Carolina, addressed to the Pretender (Prince Charles Edward, grandson of James the Second), as he was then called, to come to America and assume the crown of this realm. The question whether tliis country had not best be turned into a monarchy was seriously and very naturally mooted, in the earliest days of our national existence, but until this sin- gular revelation was made, it was not known that such a positive offer, a very strange one, to say the least, had been made. THE STAR SPANGLED BANNER. The following description of the significance of the different parts of our national flag was written by a member of the com- mittee appointed by the Continental Congress to design a flag for the young Republic: — The stars of the new flag represent the new constellation of States r'ujing in the 'West. The idea was taken from the constellation of Lyra, which in the land of Orpheus signifies harmony. The blue in the field was taken from the edges of the Covenanter's banner, in Scotland, significant of tho league-covenant of the United Colonics against op])reBsion, incidentally involving the virtues of vigilance, perseverance and justice. The stars were disposed in a circle symbolizing the perpetuity of the Union ; tho ring, like the serpent of the Egyptians, signifying eternity. The thirteen stripes showed with the stars, the number of tho United Colonics, and denoted the subordination of tho States to the Union, as well as equality among themselves. Tho whole was the blending of tho various (lag.s of the army and the white ones of tho floating batteries. Tho red color, which in Roman days was the signal of defiance, denoted daring; and tho white purity. 78b HISTORICAL MEMORANDA. THE FRENCH TRICOLOR. The French tricolor, so far from being a revolutionary flag, is more ancient than the white flag, and was, in fact, the flag of tlie House of Bourbon. Clovis, when he marched through Tours to fight the Visigoths, adopted as his banner the scope of St. Martin, which was blue, and thus blue was, so to speak, the first French color. The oriflamme, which was the particular flag of the Abbey of St. Denis, and was red, became to a certain extent the national flag, when St. Denis came under the pro- tection of the kings of France, the kings still preserving their blue flag studded with golden Jiciirs dc lis. The white flag (which was also the banner of Joan of Arc) has in all countries, and through all tunes, been the sign of authority. And when Louis XIV. destroyed the functions of the colonels-general of the different corps that bore the wliite standard, the color became the emblem of Royal authority. Nevertheless, it is useless to dispute the fact that the tricolor took its rise as the badge of the National Guard at the French Revolution, and that it will be as difficult to separate it from the idea of revo- lution as to separate the white flag from the idea of legitimacy. THE POLITICAL GAMUT. In 1815 the French newspapers announced the departure of Bonaparte from Elba, his progress through France, and his entry into Paris, in the following manner : — March 9. The Anthropophagus has quitted his den. — March 10. The Corsican Ogre has landed at Cape Juan. — March 11. The Tiger has arrived at Gap. — IMarch 12. The Monster slept at Grenoble. — March 13. The Tyrant has passed through Lyons. — March 14. The Usurper is directing his steps towards Dijon, but the brave and loyal Burgundians have risen en masse, and surrounded him on all sides. — IMarch 18. Bona- parte is only sixty leagues from the capital; he has been UlSTORIOAL MEMORANDA. 789 fortunate enough to escape the hands of his pursuers. — >Iarch 19. Bonaparte is advancing with rapid steps, but he will never enter Paiis. — March 20. Napoleon will, to-morrow, be under our ramparts. — March 21. The Emperor is at Fontaincbleau. — March 22, His Imperial and Ivoyal Majesty yesterday evening arrived at the Tuilerics, amidst the joyful acclamations of his devoted and faithful subjects. The Journal chs Dcbafs, in reference to the escape from Elba, spoke of Napoleon on the 9th of March, as "the Poltroon of 1814-'^ On the 15th it said to him, '■'■ Scourgi' of grnrratiom thou shalt reign no more!^' On the IGth he is "a Robcapirre on horseback^'; on the 19th, " the adventurer from Corsica" ; but on the 21st, we are gravely told that " the emperor /tos pw' sued his triumphal course, having found no other enemies than the miserable libels which iccre vainly scattered on his path to impede his progress,^' THE FLIGHT OF EUGENIE. The following particulars of the flight of the Empress of France from Paris, in consequence of the subversion of the Napoleonic dynasty by the capitulation of Sedan, were fiir- nished by the late Bishop 31cllvaine, of Ohio, who obtained them from one who aided the flight of Eugenic, and are there- fore stamped with the essentials of authenticity. The safety of the Empress had been assured to her by Gonc- ral Trochu, who had solemnly promised to inform her of the approach of danger. For some unexplained reasons he failed to do so, and when on Sunday the mob began to assemble about the Tuilerics, three of her friends, Prince Metternich, the Spanish Ambassador and M. Lesseps, formed a plan for licr escape, and went to her rescue. M. Lesseps stood outside and harangued the mob for the purpose of detaining them, while the two other gentlemen went in search of tlie Empress. They fuund lier partaking of a very frugal lunch with one of her ladies, and her feai-s could not be aroused. Seeing it impossible to persuade 790 HISTORICAL MEMORANDA. her, the two gentleuien used force to remove her. At this she consented to make a slight preparation, and without at all changing her dress, (for the mob had already entered the Palace), catching up a small leathern reticule, she put into it two pocket-handkerchiefs, and two books, the New Testament and a prayer-book. On her head she put a riding hat, and then by that time thoroughly aroused, she fied through the Palace, through long corridors, up and down flights of stairs, through chamber and salon, a long distance before they came down to the Rue Rivoli, on which side of the Palace the mob had not col- lected. Here a cab awaited her. She, with the lady in attend- ance, was put into it. "Now," said the friends, "we must leave you; too well-known, our attendance would bring destruction upon you ! Make good speed I " Yes, good speed, for she heard the cries of the furious mob, and as she was entering the cab a little boy exclaimed, "There is the Empress," and she tbought all was lost ; but it proved that there was no one there to take notice, and so the two ladies drove off. Soon they came into tbe midst of the excited crowd, and the lady accompanying her questioned on this side and the other the meaning of it all, and appeared to be lost in wonder at the proceedings, while the Empress sank back out of sight in the carriage. They had a long ride out beyond the Champs Elysees to the quieter parts of the city, when they alighted, dismissed the cab, to avoid giving any clew in case of pui-suit, and walked some distance. AVhere should she go? To whom flee? What friend trust? There was but one to whom she would venture, and that one an American gentlemen of some note, who. with his wife, had long been a friend of both Emperor and Empress. So they took another cab for the house of this gentleman (whom we will call >Ir. W ), arriving there to find him away from home, and his wife absent fiir the summer at a small seaport on the coast. The servant under these circumstances was extremely ungracious, and quite refused to admit these strange ladies, and when at last, upon their insisting, they were admitted to the mSTORICATi MEMORANDA. 701 house, she wiis unwilling to show them into an apartnicnt suitable for them, and it was not without some iliilirulty that they were allowed to wait in the library for the owner's return. When at last he returned and entered the room, judi;e of his surprise at the sight of the Empress. " You must get me im- mediately out of France, — this very night," exclaimed the Em- press the moment she saw him. Out of France that very night? He told her it was impossible. He was expecting a party of friends to dinner, but would i)lead sudden business and excuse himself, and make preparations as quickly as pos.siblo for her flight; but, in the meantime, she must be (juiet and rest. This she was prevailed upon to do, and, supplying hei-self from Mrs. W 's wardrobe, retired for the night. The dinner party, receiving the excuses of the host, and overcome with a sense of mystery, soon withdrew in spite of the cordial message and wishes of the gentleman that they would make themselves merry in his absence. At four o'clock in the morning a carriage stood at the door, into which Mr. W put the two ladies, and, driving himself, they set off on their way out of France, pursuing quiet streets, confining their course to unfrequented roads and lanes of the country, and avoiding the more public highways, until the horses were worn out. They were then near a little village ; and the question arose how to get a carriage brought to them, and explain why they could not go to it. Mr. W went to the inn and, having found a private carriage which was waiting over there, agreed with the servant to come out a mile or so and carry his party, Mr. W 's two sisters — one of whom was very lame indeed, and could not walk a step — some miles on, till the}' should come to a railway. This done and the lame lady with much difficulty put into the carriage by her " brother" and "sister," they proceeded for a distance until they came to a railway, where they left the carriage to break up the clew, and rode a short distance in the rail-car without attracting attention. TIi«n they took another carriage, riding in roundabout ways, until at 792 HISTORICAL MEMORANDA. the end of two days they reached the little seaport where Mrs. W was spendin aw- PI 6 HISTORICAL MEMORANDA. ful — wretched wastes, beggarly and plundered ; half-burned cot- tiiges and trembling peasants gathering piteous harvests ; gangs of such tramping along with bayonets behind them, and cor- porals with canes and cats-of-nine-tails to flog them to barracks. By these passes my lord's gilt carriage, floundering through the ruts, as he swears at the postillions, and toils on to the Residenz. Hard by, but away from the noise and brawling of the citizens and buyers, is Wilhelmslust or Ludwigsruhc, or Mon- bijou, or Versailles — it scarcely matters which — near to the city, shut out by woods from the beggared country, the enor- mous, hideous, gilded, monstrous marble palace, where the prince is, and the Court, and the trim gardens, and huge foun- tains, and the forest where the ragged peasants are beating the game in (it is death to them to touch a feather); and the jolly hunt sweeps by with its uniform of crimson and gold; and the prince gallops ahead putting his royal horn; and his lords and mistresses ride after him; and the stag is pulled down; and the grand huntsman gives the knife in the midst of a chorus of bugles; and 'tis time the court go home to dinner; and our noble traveller, it may be the Baron of Pbllnitz, or the Count de Konigsmarck, or the excellent Chevalier de Seingalt, sees the procession gleaming through the trim avenues of the wood, and hastens to the inn, and sends his noble name to the mar- shal of the court. Then our nobleman arrays himself in green and gold, or pink and silver, in the richest Paris mode, and is introduced by the chamberlain, and makes his bow to the jolly prince, and the gracious princess ; and is presented to the chief lords and ladies, and then comes supper and a bank at Faro, where he lo.scs or wins a thousand pieces by daylight. If it is a German court, you may add not a little drunkenness to this picture of high life; but German, or French, or Spanish, if you can see out of your palace-windows beyond the trim-cut forest vistas, misery is lying outside ; hunger is stalking about the bare villages, listlessly following precarious husbandry; ploughing stony fields with starved cattle ; or fcarlully taking HISTORICAL MEMOIIANDA. ,S 1 7 in scanty harvests. Augustus is fat and jolly on his throne ; he can knock down an ox, and cat one almost ; his mistress, Aurora von Konigsmarck, is the loveliest, the wittiest creature; his diamonds are the biirgest and most brilliant in the world, and his feasts as splendid as those of Versailles. As for Louis the Great, he is more than mortal. Lift up your glances re- spectfully, and mark him eyeing IMadame de Fontanges or Madame de Montespan from under his sublime periwig, as lie passes through the great gallery where A'illars and Veudome, and Berwick, and Bossuet, and ^lassillon arc waiting. Can Court be more splendid; nobles and knights more gallant and superb; ladies more lovely ? A grander monarch, or a more miserable starved wretch than the peasant his subject, you can- not look on. Let us bear both these types in mind, if we wish to estimate the old society properly, llemcmbcr the glory and the chivalry? Yes I Remember the grace and beauty,' the splendor and lofty politeness; the gallant courtesy of Fonte- noy where the French line bids the gentlemen of the English guard to fire first; the noble constancy of the old king and ^'il- lars his general, who fits out the last army with the last crown- piece from the treasury, and goes to meet the enemy and die or conquer for France at Denain. But round all that royal splendor lies a nation enslaved and ruined; there are people robbed of their rights — communities laid waste — faith, justice, commerce trampled upon, and well-nigh destroyed — nay, in the very centre of royalty itself, what horrible stains and meanness, crime and shame ! It is but to a silly harlot that some of the noblest gentlemen, and some of the proudest wo- men in the world are bowing down ; it is the price of a mi.sera- blc province that the king ties in diamonds round his mis- tress's white neck. In the first half of the last century this is going on all Europe over. Saxony is a waste as well as I'i- cardy or Artois; and Versailles is only larger and not worse than Ilerrcnhausen. 31] ^0 818 HISTORICAL JfEMORANDA. THE BITER BIT. Jerry White, the Chaplain to Cromwell, carried his ambition so far a.s to think of becoming son-in-law to his Highness, by marrying his daughter, the lady Frances ; and as Jerry had those requisites that generally please the fair sex, he won the affections of the young lady : but as nothing of this sort could happen without the knowledge of the watchful father, who had his spies in every place, and about every person, it soon reached his ears. There were as weighty reasons for rejecting Jerry as there had been for dismissing His Majesty Charles II., who had been proposed by the Earl of Orrery as a husband. Oliver therefore, ordered the informer to observe and watch them nar- rowly ; and promised that upon substantial proof of the truth of what he had declared, he should be as amply rewarded as Jerry severely punished. It was not long before the informer ac- quainted his Highness that the Chaplain was then with the lady; and upon hastening to his daughter's apartment, he discovered the unfortunate Jerry upon his knees, kissing her Ladyship's hand : seeing which, he hastily exclaimed, " What is the mean- ing of this posture before my daughter Frances ?" The Chap- lain, with gi-eat presence of mind, replied, "■ May it please your Highness, I have a long time courted that young gentlewoman there, my lady's woman, and cannot prevail : I was therefore humbly praying her Ladyship to intercede for me." Oliver, turning to the waiting-woman, said: — "What is the meaning of this? He is my friend, and I expect yon should treat him as such: " who, desiring nothing more, replied, with a low courtesy, " If Mr. White intends me that honor, I shall not oppose hira." Upon which Oliver said, "We'll call Goodwin: this business shall be done presently, before I go out of the room." Jerry could not retreat. Goodwin came, and they were in- stantly married, — the bride, at the same time, receiving £500 from the Protector. Mr, Jerry White lived with this wife (not of his choice) more than fifty years. Oldmixon says he knew both hira and IIIsn»lU(AI- MKMttllANhA. 819 Mrs AYhite, ;ind ho;u\l (bo story (old wIk'ii they wore juv.si'iit; ut which (iiue Mrs. Whito acknowledged "there was some(hiiig ill it." THE LAST NIGIIT OF THE GIRONDISTS. Of all the prisons of Paris, the Coneicrgerie is the most inter- esting, from its antiquity, a.ssociations, and mixed style of archi- tecture, — uniting as it were the liorrors of the dungeons of tlic Middle Ages with the more luimane system of confiuemont of the present century. It exhibits in its mongrel outline the pro- gressive ameliorations of humanity toward criminals and offen- ders, — forming a connecting link between feudal barbarity and modern civilization. Situated in the heart of old Paris, upon the He do la Cit6, separated from the Seine by the Quai de r Horologe, it is one of a cluster of edifices pregnant with .sju- venii-s of tragedy and romance. Those buildings are the Sain to Chapelle, the Prefecture de Police, and the Palais de Justice, formerly the residence of the French monarchs. The Concier- gcrio, which derives its name from coiickrt/*; or keeper, was anciently the prison of the palace. It is now chiefly u.sed aa a place of detention for persons during their trial. Recent altera- tions have greatly diminished the gloomy and forbidding effect of its exterior; but sufficient of its old character remains to per- petuate the a.ssociations connected with its former uses, and to preserve for it its interest as a relic of feudalism The names of the two turrets flanking the gateway. Tour de C(?.>- ber of beiLst^. The boxes which govern the world are the cartridge-box, the ballot-box, the jury-box, and the baud-box. There are certain things upon which even a wise man must be content to be ignorant. " I cannot fiddle," said Themistocles, "but I can take a city." Sir Thomas Overbury said of a man who boasted of his an- cestry, that he was like a potato — the best thing belonging to him was under the L'round. "Go and see Carlini" (the famous Neapolitan comedian), said a physician to a patient, wh.o came to consult him upon habitual depression of spirits. "I am Carlini," said the nrm. The words Abstemiously and FacctiousJi/ cont;iin all the vowels in consecutive order. "When Mr. Pitt's enemies objected to George III. that he was too young, his Majesty an.swered: "That is an objection the force of which will be weakened every day he lives." Prayer moves the hand That uiuvcs the universe. 8?1 MULTUM IN PARVO. The clock that stands still, points right twice in the four-and- twcnty hours; while others may keep going continually, and he continually going wrong. The Mexicans say to their new-born offspring, ''Child, thou art come into the world to suffer. Eudui'e, and hold thy peace." Balzac makes mention of a man who never uttered his own name without taking oft' liis hat, as a mark of reverence for the exalted appellation. Gibbon says: As long as mankind shall continue to bestow more liberal applause on their destroyers than on their benefactors the thirst of military glory will ever be the vice of the most exalted characters. In the works of Prof Thomas Cooper it is said, — Mankind pay best, 1. Those who destroy them, heroes and warriors. 2. Those who cheat them, statesmen, priests and quacks. 3. Those who amuse them, as singers, actors, dancers and novel writers. But least of all, those who speak the truth, and instruct them. Wax-lights, though we are accustomed to overlook the fact, and rank them with ordinary commonplaces, are true fairy tapers, — a white metamorphosis from the flowers, crowned with the most intangible of all visible mysteries — fire. An illustration of false emphasis is supplied by the verse, (I. Kings^xiii. 27,) "And he spoke to his sons, saying. Saddle me the ass. And they saddled 7tm." Shakspearc, in the compass of a line, has described a thorough- ly charming girl : — Pretty, and witty; wild, and yet, too, gentle. Mi:i,TUM IN r.VRVO. ^2') The foundation of domestic h.ippinoss is confidoncc in tlic virtue of woman ; the foundation of political liapjiincss is re- liance on the intOLrrity of man ; the foumlation of all real hajipi- ness, temporal and spiritual, present, and eternal, is faith in the mercy of God through Jesus rhri>t. and Ilini crucitied. Buckingham's Epitaph on Thomas Jiurd Fairfax: — llo mi<^ht have been n King, But that he understood IIow much it is a meaner thinp To be unjustly groat, than honorably good. A favorite exclamation of the Parisian mob, who must always have a "wre" something or other, became during the Kevolu- tion, "vive la mort!" Alphonso, King of Aragon, in his judgment of human life, declared that there were only four things in this world worth living for: "Old wine to drink, old wood to burn, old books to read, and old friends to converse with." David refers to a good old form of salutation and vale ten plagues that make Egypt iani uiouu. 844 LIFE AND dp:atu. A STORY OF LONG AGO. The long time ago of wliicli I mean to tell, says Jean In- gelow, was a wild night in March, during which, in a fisher- man's hut ashore, sat a young girl at her spinning-wheel, and looked out on the dark driving clouds, and listened, trembling, to the winds and the seas. The morning light dawned at last. One boat that should have been riding on the troubled waves was missing — her father's boat I and half a mile from the cot- tage her father's body was washed upon the shore. This happened fifty years ago, and fifty years is a long time in the life of a human being ; fifty years is a long time to go on in such a course as the woman did of whom I am speaking. She watched her father's body, according to the custom of her people, till he was laid in the grave. Then she laid down on her bed and slept, and by night got up and set a candle in her casement, as a beacon to the fishermen and a guide. She sat by the candle all night, and trimmed it, and spun ; then when the day dawned she went to bed and slept in the sunshine. So many hanks as she spun before for her daily bread, she spun still, and one over, to buy her nightly candle ; and from that time to this, for fifty years, through youth, maturity, and old age, she turned night into day, and in the snow-storms of Winter, through driving mists, deceptive moonlight, and solemn darkness, that northern harbor has never once been without the light of her candle. How niany lives she saved by this candle, or how many meals she won for the starving families of the boatmen, it is impossible to say ; how many a dark night the fishermen, de- pending on it, went fearlessly forth, cannot now be told. There it stood, regular as a lighthouse, and steady as constant care could make it. Always brighter when daylight waned, they had only to keep it const;intly in view and they were safe ; there was but one thing that CDuld intercept it, and that was the ruck, lluwcver far thi-y might have stretched out to sea, they I.IFK ANn PF.ATir. g4r, had only to bear down strai.Lrht fi)r that lii^htcd window, and they were sure of a safe entrance into the harbor. Fifty years ot life and labor — 6fty years of sleepin"; in the sunshine — tifty years of watehini: and self-denial, and all to feed the flame and trim the wick of that one candle! IJut if we look upon the recorded lives of great men and just men and wise men, few of them can show fifty years of worthier, certaiidy not of more succc.'sslul labor. Little, indeed, of the "midnight oil" consum(>d during the last half eenturj- so wor- thily deserved trimming. Ilapjiy woman — and but for the dre:\ded rock her great charity might never have been called into exercise. But what do the boatmen and the boatmen's wives think of this? Do they pay the woman? No, they are very poor; but poor or rich they know better than that. Do they thank her? No. Perhaps they feel that thanks of theirs would be inade- quate to express their obligations, or, perhaps long years have made the lighted casement so familiar that it is looked upon as a matter of course. Sometimes the fishermen lay fish on her threshold, and set a child to watch it for her till she wakes; sometimes their wives steal into her cottage, now she is getting old, and spin a hank or two of thread for her while she slumbers ; and they teach their children to pa.ss her hut quietly, and not to sing and shout before her door, lest they should disturb her. That is all. Their thanks are not looked for — scarcely supposed to be due. Their gniteful deeds are more than she expects and much as she desires. How often in the far distance of my English home, I have awoke in a wild Winter night, and while the wind and storm were ari.sing, have thought of that northern bay, with the waves dashing against the rock, and have jiicturcd to niy.sclf the casement, and the candle nursed by that bending, aged figure! How delighted to know that through her unliririg charity the rock has long since lost more than than half its terror, 71* 846 LIFE AND DEATH. and to consider that, curse though it may be to all besides, it has most surely proved a blessing to her. You, too, may perhaps think with advantage on the charac- ter of this woman, and contrast it with the mission of the rock. There are many degrees between them. Few, like the rock, stand up wholly to work ruin and destruction; few, like the woman, "let their light shine" so brightly for good. But to one of the many degi'ees between them we must all most cer- tainly belong — we all lean towards the woman or the rock. On such characters you do well to speculate with me, fur you have not been cheated into sympathy with ideal shipwreck or imaginary kindness. There is many a rock elsewhere as peril- ous as the one I told you of— perhaps there are many such women ; but for this one, whose story is before you, pray that her candle may burn a little longer, since this record of her charity is true. THIS IS NOT OUR HOME. Among the beautiful thoughts which dropped like pearls from the pen of that brilliant and talented journalist, Grcorgc D. Prentice, the following sublime extract upon man's higher des- tiny is perhaps the best known and most universally admitted. Coming from such a source we can well appreciate it, for that distinguished man had attained a position among his fellows which would have satisfied almost any earthly ambition. Yet all this could not recompense him for the toils and ills of life, and in the eloquent passage subjoined he portrays, most beautifully, the restless longings of the human heart for something higher and nobler than earth can alTord. " It cannot be that earth is man's only abiding place. It can- not be that our life is a bubble Ciist up by the ocean of eternity to float a moment upon its waves and sink into nothingness. Else, why these high and glorious aspirations which leap iike angels from the temple of our hearts, forever wandering un- satisfied ? Why is it that the rainbow and cloud come over us with a beauty that is not of earth, and then pass ofi' to leave us I,U-E AND PKATU. S |7 to muse on tluMr lovolino, are set above the ,L,'nuj|i ol' our liuiited taeulties, tbrevor mockiug us with their uuapi>n>ai'h- able glory? And, finally, why is it that the bright li»rms of humau beauty are presented to our view and taken IVuui us, leaving the thousand streams of our attections to How back in Alpine torrents upon our hearts? We were boru for a higher destiny tliau earth. There is a re;iluj where the rainbow nevi-r fades, where the stars will be spread out before us like the islands that slumber on the ocean, and where the beautiful beiu-s that p:uss before us like shadows, will stay forever in our preseuec.' ILL SLCCLSS IN LIFK. One of our best American writers, Ceo. S. Ilillard, forcibly and truly says : — I confess that increasing years bring with them an increasing respect for men who do not succeed in life, as those words are commonly used. Heaven is said to be a }»lace for those who have not succeeded on earth; and it is sure tliat celestial grace does not tlnive and bloom in the hot bhizc of worldly jiros- perity. Ill success sometimes arises from a superabundance of qualities in them.selves good — from a conscience too sensitive, a taste too fastidious, a self- forgetful ne.^s too romantic, and modesty too retiring. I will not go so far as to say, with a living poet, "that the world knows nothing of it^ great nun," but there are forms of greatness, or at least excellence, which " die and make no sign ;" there are martyrs that mi.ss the palm but not the stake, heroes without the laurel, and conquerors with- out the triumph. FUTLIUTV. " Life is sweet," said Sir Anthony Kingston to Bi.shop Hooper at the st;ike, "and death bitter." "True, friend," he replied, "but consider that the death to come is more bitter, and the life to come is more sweet." 848 I'IFE AND DEATH. THE HEART. In his charming Hyperion, Mr. Longfellow says : — The Uttle I have seen of the world, and know of the history of mankind, teaches me to look upon the errors of others in sorrow, not in anger. When I take the history of one poor heart that has sinned and suifered, and represent to myself the Etrugglas and temptations it has passed, — the brief pulsations of joy, — the feverish incjuictude of hope and fear, — the te;irs of regret, — the feebleness of purpose, — the pressure of want, — the desertion of friends, — the scorn of a world that has little charity, — the desolation of the soul's sanctuary, — threatening voices within, — health gone, — happiness gone, — even hope, that remains the longest, gone, — I would fain leave the erring soul of my fellow-man with Him from whose hands it came, Even as a little girl, Weeping and laughing in her childish sport. EVENING PRAYER. The day is ended. Ere I sink to sleep, My weary spirit seeks repose in Thino. Father, forgive my trespasses, and keep This little life of mine. With loving kindness curtain thou my bed. And cool, in rest, my burning pilgrim feet; Thy pardon be the pillow for my head; So shall my sleep be sweet. At peace with all the world, dear Lnrd, and thee, No fears my soul's unwavering faith can shake; All's well ! whichever side the grave for mo The morning light may break. BEAUTIFUL THOUGHT. On the shores of the Adriatic sea the wives of the fisher- men, whose husbands have gone far off upon the deep, are in the habit, at even-tide, of going down to the sea-shore, and singing, as female voices only can, the first stanza of a beautiful hymn ; after they have sung it they will listen till they hear, borne by the wind across the desert sea, the second stanza sung LIFE AXn DEATH. .S l'.> by their gallant Imsbanils, as tlu-y arc tosscpy. Perhaps, it' we Tustcu, we, too, might hear ou this desert world of ours some whispt, 183. Tennyson's English, 194. English Words and Fokms op Expression, — That, Page 185. That mine adversary, 195. Ye for the, 185. Epigrams, 515. Affinities, 524. Apollo, in return for a sketch of, 525. Author, to a living, 518. Bed, to our, 517. Blades of the shears, 523. Bonnets, 521. Butler's monument, 518. Campbell's album verse, 521. Clock, the, 525. Commissary Goldie's brains, 519. Compliment, overdrawn, 518. Crier who could not cry, 524, Dentist, definition of, 522. Determination, a funny, 526. Double vision utilized, 527. Dum viviraus, vivaraus, 516. D.D., on a certain, 521. Eternity, 518. Eve and the apple, 523. Fell, 520. Fiddler, on a bad, 521. Fool and poet, 516. Fools, abundance of, 527. Friend, to Dr. Robert, 516. Friend, to a capricious, 519. Friend in distress, 522. German tourist, suggested by a, 518. Giving and taking, 519. Goodenough, 523. Hog vs. Bacon, 522. Hot corn, 521. Impersonal, 524. Invisible, 524. Lady who married a footman, 521. Late repentance, 517. EpiGRAsrs,^ Law, after going to, Page 526. Lawyer, on an ill-read, 520. Lover to his mistress, with a mirror, 519. Marriage a la mode, 526. Marriage of Webb & Gould, 526. Martial's, on Epigrams, 515. Masculine, 525. Medical advice, 522. Mendax, 520. ^lidas and modern statesmen, 515. Molly Aston, to, 516. One good turn deserves another, 520. One ignorant and arrogant, on, 516. Pale lady with red-nosed hus- band, 517. Parson and butcher, 525. Portmanteau, clergyman's, loss of, 518. Queen Bess on Drake's ship, 524. Queen, the frugal, 519. Quid pro quo, 527. Reception, a warm, 522. Reflection, a, 523. Rogers on Ward's speeches, 526. Same jawbone, 526. Selvaggi's distich to Milton, 517. Amjilification, by Dryden, 517. Simplicity, prudent, 522. Sleep, inscription on a statue of, 516. Snow, that melted on a lady's breast, 517. Songsters, bad, 520. Terminer sans oyer, 527. To , 519. Wellington's nose, 520. What might have been, 523. Wi.iows, Pago 525. Womau, — coulra. 527. pro, 527. Woiuau's will, 520. World, the, 527. EgnivoiirF., 64. Ac;c of Fronch actresses, 71. Double-faced creed, 66. Fatal double meaning, 68. Handwriting on the wall, 71. Houses of Stuart and Hanover, 68. Ingenious subterfuge, 65. Love-letter, 65. Loyalty or Jacobinism, 09. Neat evasion, 70. New Regime, 68. Patriotic toast, 70. Revolutionary verses, 67. Richelieu's letter to the French ambassador, 64. Triple platform, 61. Faceti.e, 482. Assoi^iation of ideas, 491. Brevity, 4S4. False friend, a, 488. Gasconade and hoaxing, 489. Jack Robinson, 492. Jests of Hierocles, 482. Mathews and the silver spoon, 4S9. Old Nick, 488. P. and Q., 491. Relics, 490. Royal quandary, 490. Russian jester and his jokes, 492. Same joke diversified, 486. Syllogism, 488. Titles for library-door, 482. Fabrications, 269. Ballad literature, 274. F\nuirATiO!ts, — Doscriplivm of tho Saviour's person, Page 269. Franklin's purablo, 275. Hoax on Waller Scott, 269. Ireland's forgeries, 270. Lilt'rary sell, 271. Moon hoax, 270. Mrs. Heninns's forgeries, 271. Sheridan's Greek, 27:(. Fauiliaii QroTATioss fiiom Un- FAMILIAK SUUKCKS, 556. Fanciks of Fact, the, 406. Aerolites, 443. Alligators swallowing stones, 4 IS. Ainoricu's discoverers, fate of, 446. Amount of gold in the world, 42.3. Antipathies, 471. Army of women, 446. Auditoriums of last century, 409. Back action, 408. Boer-casks, capacious, 425. Bills for strange services, 407. Black hole at Calcutta, 427. Broken heart, a, 4rs, 368. epigram, 371. forged bank-note, 367. piano-forte, 367. prayer in Congress, 370. printing by steam, 373. reporters, 371. telegraphic message, 373. thanksgiving proclamation, 368. Flag of England, 365. Foolscap paper, 366. Friction matches, 365. Humbug, .340. India-rubber, 364. Kicking the bucket, .140. La Marseillaiso, 350. Mind your P's and Q'.k, 331. News,"372. Nine tailors make a man, 346. Old llun.lred, .349. Onler of (be L'arU-r, 345. 862 INDEX. Okigin op Things Famimar, — Pasquinades, Page .'541. Postpaid envelopes, 349. Potato, the, .343. Royal saying, 340. Signature of the cross, 348. Skedaddle, 366. Stockings, 344. Sub rosa, 33S. Tarring and feathering, 344. Turkish crescent, 348. Turncoat, 364. Uncle Sam, 357. Various inventions and cus- toms, 358. Viz., 347. Word Book, 346. Yankee Doodle, 353. 0. S. AND N. S., 325. Gregorian calendar, 325. Eesults of change in style, 326. Palindromes, 59. Parallel Passages, 640. Historical similitudes, 679. Shaksperean Resemblances, 677 Plagiarismof Charles Reade, 677 Paronomasia, 155. Bon, the sailor, 162. Book-larceny, 164. Classical puns and mottoes, 1 72. Court-fool's pun on Laud, 181. Dr. Johnson's pun, 160. Epitaph on an old horse, 165. Erskine's toast, 160. Holmes on Achilles, 162. Grand scheme of emigration, 1 66 Marionettes, 168. Miss-nomers, the, 180. Mottoes of English peerage, 174. Old joke versified. 161. Perilous practice of punning. 167 Plaint of the old p;inf)or, 163. Printer's epita|iii, 161. Pauon'omasia, — Pungent chapter, Page 157. Russian double entendre, 171 Sheridan's com]>liment, 162. Short road to wealth, 159. Sonnet, 168. Sticky, 162. Swift's Latin puns, 169. Sydney Smith's pun, 160. Tom Moore, 161. To my nose, 163. Top and bottom, 161. Unconscious puns, 171. Vegetable girl, the, 164. Whiskers vs. razor, 162. Winter, 160. Women, 162. Jeux de Mots, 175. Anagrammatic, 175. Iterative, 175. Bees of the Bible, 179. Catalectic monody, 177. Crooked Coincidences, 131. Fair letter, 176. Franklin's Re's, 179. November, 178. On the death of Kildare, 177. Schott and Willing, 177. Swarm of Bees, 179. Turn to the left, 177. Write written right, 177. Spiritual, 175. Persian Poetuy excerpta from, 511. Beauty's prerogative, 511. Broken hearts, 511. Caliph and Satan, 513. Double plot, 512. Earth an illusion, 511. Folly for one's self, 512. Fortune and worth, 511. From Mirtsa Schaffy, 512. Generous man, to a, 511. lli^ivon an echo of earth, 511. Impossibility, the, 512. 8G3 Persian PoKTitv, EXCKiiPT A FRUM,— Moral iitinosiihoro, a, PagcSlI. Proiul humility, 512. Si>ber tlruiikennoss, 512. Wiiio-drinker's niotaphors, 512. AVorld's unapprociatioii.tho, 513 Personal Sketches and Axec- noTEs, 763. Andr6 Major, 757. Andre and Arnold, 768. Bonaparte, name in Greek, 7fi4. personal a ppeara iice of, 7(55. Milton and Napoleon, 764. opinion of siiioide, 765. Cromwell, Oliver, 776. Elizabeth, Queen, 774. Flamsteed, the astronomer, 769. Franklin's wife, 766. Lafayette's republicanism, 764. Luther, 771. Kelson's sang-froid, 769. Pope's skull, 779. Porson, 781. Shakspeare's orthodoxy, 776. Talleyrandiana, 7><0. Washint^ton's dii^nity, 763. Wicklifle's ashes, 779. Prototypes, 699. Air cushions, 702. Cat in the adage, 702. Charge of Light Brigade, 700. Cinderella's slipper, 699. Consequential damages, 705. Cork-legs, 702. Curtain lectures, 700. Excommunication, 706. Falls of Lanark, 706. Faust legends, 701. [707. Franklin, Turgot's njtigraph on, Know-Nothing-!, the, 709. Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence, 708. Napoleon L, 706. Oldest proverb. 699. Old ballads, 715. PlIOTOrVPES, — Original .Shylock, Pngo 705. rUgrim'a Progress, original of, 710. Plagiarism, groat literary, 715. Pope's bull against the comet, 703 Proverb m isnscri boil to Defoe 7 1 3 Robinson Crusoe : who wrote it, 712. Scandinavian skull-cups, 714. Sliakspeare saicl it first, C99. Swapi)ing horses, 703. Trade-unions, 704. Use of language, 714. Wandering Jew, 716. Wooden nutmegs, 703. PrRlTAN PkcI LIAIIITIES, 150. Baptismal names, 150. Connecticut Blue Laws, extracts from, 153. Punishments, 151. Similes, 151. [152. Virginia penalties in old times, Puzzi.KS, 290. Bonaparteaii cypher, 292. Book of riddles, 299. Canning's riddle, 294. Case for the lawyers, 293 Chinese tea-song, 298. Cowper's riddle, 294. Curiosities of cipher, 301. Death and life, 29S. Galileo's logn£;ra|)h, 297. Newton's riddle, 294. Number of the beast, 297. Persian riddles. 29.S. Prize enigma, 2!*4. Prophetic distich, 29f.. Quincy's comparison, 295. Rebus, the, 299. Bacon motto, 299. French, 291. Singular intermarriages, 294 What is it? 299. Wilbcrforcc'8 puzzle, 301. 8G-i Reason Why, Page 310. Boston, 311. Cardinal's red hat, 312. Cutting off with a shilling, 312. Genealogy, 313. Huguenots, 311. Juggler's mystery, 314. Koast beef of England, 313. Royal demise, 311. Sensible quack, 313. Weathercocks, 312. AVhy Germans eat sauer-kraut, 310. Why Pennsylvania settled, 311. Refractory Rhyming, 534. Sexes, the, 501. Female society, 505. Hai^py woman, character of, 502. Letter to a Bride, 507. My Mother, 50G. Parallel of the sexes, 505. Praise of women, 504. Wife,— mistress,— lady, 505. Sonnets, 551. Ave Maria, 553. Dyspepsia, 552. Humility, 553. In a ftishionable church, 551. Kose, about a, 552. Proxy saint, the, 552. Writing a sonnet, 551. Tall Writing, 212. Anatomist to his dulcinea, 221. Borde's prologue, 215. Burlesque of Dr. Johnson's style, 217. Chemical valentine, 220. Clear as mud, 218. Domicile erected by .lohii, 212. Foote's farrago, 210. From the Curiosities of Adver- tising, 213. From the Curiosities of the Post-office, 214. Tall Writing, — Indignant letter, Page 219. Intramural restivation, 220. Mad poet, tlje, 21G. News2)aper eulogy, 218. Ode to Spring, 221. Pristine proverbs for precocious pupils, 222. Spanish play -bill, 215. Transcendentalism, definition of, 212. Triumphs of Ingenitty, 395. Choosing a king, 402. Discovery of the planet Nep- tune, 395. Discoverj' of Vulcan, 39G. King John and the abbot, 403. Lesson worth learning, 402. Stratagem of Columbus, 399. Valentines, 544. Burns, verses of, 546. Cardiac effusion, 547. Colored man's valentine, 549. Cryptographic correspondence, 544. Digby to Archabella, 548. Egyptian serenade, 549. Lover to his sweetheart, 547. Macaronic, 548. Macaulay's valentine, 545. Moore, verses of, 549. Strategic love-letter, 544. Teutonic alliteration, 540. Written in synipatiictic ink, 544. Petitions, 550. Maids and widows, the, 550. Maladroit appeal, 550. Weather-Wisdom, 317. Davy on weather-omens, 317. Sheridan's rhyming calendar, 317. Signs of the weather, 320. Unhnky days, 324. ' \ I I