CHAPTER XV.

The women were together in Anna's parlor, and although not one of them, except Rita, knew of the events of the night before, they sat in oppressive silence, for even Maria was wanting in her accustomed loquacity.

"I don't know why," she said at last, "nor what is the matter with me, but my heart to-day feels as though it could not stay in its place."

"It is the same with me," said Elvira, "I cannot breathe freely. I feel as if a stone lay on my heart. Perhaps it is the air. Is it going to rain, Aunt Maria?"

"My poor child," thought Anna, "the remedy comes too late. Earth is calling her body and heaven her soul."

"Well, I feel just as usual," said Rita, who was in reality the one that could hardly sit still for uneasiness.

Angela had made her a rag baby, which she was rocking in a hollow tile by way of cradle, and the painful silence which followed these few words was only broken by the gentle voice of the little girl as she sung, in the sweet and monotonous nursery melody to which some mothers lend such simple enchantment, and such infinite tenderness, these words:

"I hold thee in my arms, And never cease to think. What would become of thee, my angel, If I should be taken from thee. The little angels of heaven--"

The childish song was interrupted by a heavy solemn stroke of the church bell. Its vibration died away in the air slowly and gradually, as if mounting to other regions.

"_His Majesty!_" said all, rising to their feet.

Anna prayed aloud for the one who was about to receive the last sacraments.

"For whom can it be?" said Maria. "I do not know of any one that is dangerously sick in the place."

Rita looked out of the window and asked of a woman that was passing, who was the sick person?

"I do not know," she answered, "but it is some one out of the village."

Another woman cried as she approached, "Mercy! it is a murder, for the magistrate and the surgeon have followed the priest as fast as they could!"

"God help him!" they all exclaimed, with that profound and terrible emotion which is excited by those awful words, a murder!

"And who can it be?" asked Rita.

"No one knows," answered the woman.

Then the bell tolled for the passing soul; solemn stroke; stroke of awe; voice of the church, which announces to men that a brother is striving in weariness, anguish, and dismay, and is going to appear before the dread tribunal--momentous voice, by which the church says to the restless multitude, deep in frivolous interests which it deems important, and in fleeting passions which it dreams will be eternal: Stand still a moment in respect for death, in consideration of your fellow-being who is about to disappear from the earth, as you will disappear tomorrow.

They remained plunged in silence, but nevertheless deeply moved, as happens sometimes with the sea, when its surface is calm, but its bosom heaves with those deep interior waves which sailors call a ground-swell.

And not they alone. The whole village was in consternation, for death by the hand of violence always appalls, since the curse which God pronounced upon Cain continues, and will continue, in undiminished solemnity throughout all generations.

"How long the time is!" said Maria, at length. "It seems as if the day stood still."

"And as if the sun were nailed in the sky," added Elvira. "Suspense is so painful. Perhaps robbers have done it."

"It may have been unintentional," answered Maria.

"Mamma Anna, who has killed a man, and what made him do it?" asked the little Angela.

"Who can tell," replied Anna, "what is the cause, or whose the daring hand that has anticipated that of God in extinguishing a torch which he lighted."

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At that instant they heard a distant rumor. People moved by curiosity are running through the street, and confused exclamations of astonishment and pity reach their ears.

"What is it?" asked Rita, approaching the window.

"They are bringing the dead man this way," was the answer.

Elvira felt herself irresistibly impelled to look out.

"Come away, Elvira," said her mother, "you know that you cannot bear the sight of a corpse."

Elvira did not hear her, for the crowd, that drawn by curiosity, sympathy, or friendship, had surrounded the body and its attendants, was coming near. Anna and Maria, also placed themselves at the grating. The corpse approached, lying across a horse and covered with a sheet. An old man follows it, supported by two persons. His head is bowed upon his breast. They look at him--merciful God! it is Pedro! and they utter a simultaneous cry.

Pedro hears it, lifts his head and sees Rita. Despair and indignation give him strength. He frees himself violently from the arms that sustain him, and precipitates himself toward the horse, exclaiming: "Look at your work, heartless woman! Perico killed him." Saying this, he lifts the sheet and exposes the body of Ventura, pale, bloody, and with a deep wound in the breast.

From the Dublin University Magazine.

IRISH FOLK BOOKS OF THE LAST CENTURY.

In the eighteenth century Ireland did not possess the boon of Commissioners to prepare useful and interesting school books. However, as the mass of the peasantry wished to give their children the only education they could command, namely, that afforded by the hedge schools, and as young and old liked reading stories and popular histories, or at least hearing them read, some Dublin, Cork, and Limerick printers assumed the duties neglected by senators, and published "Primers," "Reading-made-easie's," "Child's-new-play-thing," and the widely diffused "Universal Spelling Book" of the magisterial Daniel Fenning, for mere educational purposes. These were "adorned with cuts," but the transition from stage to stage was too abrupt, and the concluding portions of the early books were as difficult as that of the "Universal Spelling Book" itself, which the author, in order to render it less practically useful, had encumbered with a dry and difficult grammar placed in the centre of the volume.

Two Dublin publishers, Pat. Wogan, of Merchants' quay, and William Jones, 75 Thomas street, were the educational and miscellaneous Alduses of the day, and considered themselves as lights burning in a dark place for the literary guidance of their countrymen and countrywomen, of the shop-keeping, farmer, and peasant classes. In the frontispiece of some editions of the spelling-book grew the tree of knowledge, laden with fruit, each marked with some letter, and ardent climbers plucking away. Beneath was placed this inscription:

"The tree of knowledge here you see. The fruit of which is A, B, C. But if you neglect it like idle drones, You'll not be respected by William Jones."

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That portion of the work containing "spells" and explanations was thoroughly studied by the pupils. The long class was arranged in line in the evening, every one contributed a brass pin, and the boy or girl found best in the lesson, and most successful at the hard "spells" given him or her by the others, and most adroit in defeating them at the same exercise, got all the pins except two, the portion of the second in rank, (_the queen_,) and one, the perquisite of the third, (_the prince_.)

Every neighborhood was searched carefully for any stray copies of Entick's or Sheridan's small square dictionaries, (pronounced _Dixhenry's_ by the eager students,) for hard spells and difficult explanations to aid them in their evening tournaments.

The grave Mr. Fenning was censuruble for admitting into some editions the following jest (probably imported from Joe Miller) among his edifying fables and narratives:

"A gay young fellow once asked a parson for a guinea, but was stiffly refused. 'Then,' said he, give me at least a crown.' 'I will not give thee a farthing,' answered the clergyman. 'Well, father,' said the rake, 'let me have your blessing at all events.' 'Oh I yes: kneel down, my son, and receive it with humility.' 'Nay,' said the other, 'I will not accept it, for were it worth a farthing you would not have offered it.'"

We cannot, however, quit the school-books without mention of the really valuable treatise on arithmetic, composed by Elias Vorster, a Dutchman naturalized in Cork, and subsequently improved by John Gough, of Meath street, one of the society of Friends. "Book-keeping by Double Entry," written by Dowling and Jackson, was so judiciously arranged that it is still looked on as a standard work.

The same followers _longo intervallo_ of Stephens and Elzevir published, besides prayer and other devout books, a series of stories and histories, and literary treatises such as they were, printed with worn type, on bad grey paper, cheaply bound in sheep-skin, and sold by the peddlers through the country at a _tester_ (6-1/2d.) each. Of history, voyages, etc., the peddler's basket was provided with "Hugh Reilly's History of Ireland," "Adventures of Sir Francis Drake," "The Battle of Aughrim," and "Siege of Londonderry," (the two latter being dramas,) "Life and Adventures of James Freney the Robber," "The Irish Rogues and Rapparees," "The Trojan Wars," and "Troy's Destruction," "The Life of Baron Trenck," and "The Nine Worthies--Three Jews, Three Heathens, and Three Christians."

The fictional department embraced, chiefly in an abridged state, "The Arabian Nights," "The History of Don Quixote," "Gulliver's Travels," "Esop's Fables," "Adventures of Robinson Crusoe," "Robin Hood's Garland," "The Seven Champions of Christendom," "The History of Valentine and Orson," "The Seven Wise Masters and Mistresses of Rome," "Royal Fairy Tales," etc., etc.

In the department of the Belles Lettres may be classed, "Lord Chesterfield's Letters to his Son," "The Academy of Compliments," "The Fashionable Letter Writer," "Hocus Pocus, or the Whole Art of Legerdemain," "Joe Miller's Jest Book," etc.

The list would not be complete without mention of the books of ballads. These were sold in sheets, each forming 8 pages, 18mo, and adorned with cuts, never germain to the ballads they illustrated. Some of these sheets contained only one production, the "Yarmouth Tragedy," or some early English ballad sadly disfigured. One related how a "servant-man" was accused by an envious liveried brother, of being a confirmed card-player. On being examined he obtained a complete victory over the informer, convincing his master that what he, the master, called cards, was to him a prayer-book, a catechism, a calendar, and what not. The different numbers reminded him of the six days of the creation, the seven churches of Asia, the ten commandments, the twelve Apostles, etc. The {681} king recalled to him the duty he owed that supreme magistrate, the ace of hearts, the love due to God and our neighbor. "How, is it," said the master, "that you have always passed over the knave in your reckoning?" "Ah! I wished to speak no ill of that crooked disciple that went to backbite me to your honor." The reader anticipates the victory of the ingenious rogue.

The purchasers of these sheets sewed them as well as they could in a book form, but they were so thumbed and abused, that it is at this date nearly impossible to procure one of those repertories of song printed toward the close of the last or the beginning of the present century.

Of all these works that we delight in most at present, (it was not so when we were young,) is the unmatched "Academy of Compliments," which was the favorite of boys and girls just beginning to think of marriage, or its charming preliminary, courtship. Very feelingly did the writer in his preface insist on the necessity of eloquence. "Even quick and attractive wit," as he thoughtfully observed, "is often foiled for want of words, and makes a man or woman seem a _statute_ or one dumb." He candidly acknowledges that several treatises like his have been published, "but he assures the _courteous reader_ that none have arrived to the perfection of this, for good language and diversion."

This is the receipt for accosting a lady, and entering into conversation; with her:

"I believe Nature brought you forth to be a scourge to lovers, for she hath been so prodigal of her favor toward you, that it renders you as admirable as you are amiable."

Another form:

"Your presence is so dear to me, your conversation so _honest_, and your humour so pleasing, that I could desire to be with you perpetually."

The author directs a slight departure from this form, in case the gentleman has never seen the lady before, and yet has fallen passionately in love with her.

"If you accuse me of temerity, you must lay your own beauty in fault, with which I am so taken, that my heart is ravished from me, and wholly subjected to you."

Decent people would scarcely thank us for troubling them with many of the "witty questions and answers for the improvement of conversation." A few must be quoted, however, with discreet selection.

"Q. What said the tiler to the man when he fell through the rafters of his house?

"A. Well done, faith; I like such an assistant as thou art, who can go through his work so quickly.

"Q. What said the tailor's boy to the gentleman who, on his presenting his bill, said tartly, he was not running away?

"A. If you are not, sir, I am sorry to say my master is.

"Q. Why is a soldier said to be of such great antiquity?

"A. Because he keeps up the old fashions when the first bed was upon the bare ground."

THE BATTLE OF AUGHRIM.

It may appear strange that "The Battle of Aughrim," written by an adherent to the Hanoverian succession, should so long have continued a popular volume among the Roman Catholic peasantry. This has, perhaps, been due to the respectful style in which the author treated the officers of Irish extraction. All his contempt and dislike were levelled at St. Ruth, the French General, and his masters, English James and French Louis. Though the style of the rhymed play is turgid enough, there are in it occasional passages of considerable vigor and beauty, and a brisk movement in the conduct of the piece; and sentimental youth have an opportunity of shedding a tear over the ill starred love of _Godfrey_ and _Jemima_. It was scarcely fair of the author to represent St. Ruth as a stabber in cold blood, but hear the moving periods he makes Sarsfield utter:

"O heavens! can nature bear the shocking sound Of death or slavery on our native ground. Why was I nurtured of a noble race, And taught to stare destruction in the face? Why was I not laid out a useless _scrub_, And formed for some poor hungry peasant's cub. To hedge and ditch, and with unwearied toil To cultivate for grain a fertile soil, To watch my flocks, and range my pastures through, With all my locks wet with the morning dew, Rather than being great, give up my fame, And lose the ground I never can regain?"

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Those Irishmen, who, like ourselves, have read and enjoyed this drama in early boyhood, before the birth of the critical faculty, will find it out of their power to divest themselves of early impressions when endeavoring to form a just estimate of its merits. We vainly strive to forget the image of a comely and intelligent country housewife, spiritedly reciting the interview of the Irish and English officers after the day was decided, and bravely holding out the tongs at the point where Sarsfield presents his weapon. Talmash, Mackay, and Sir Charles Godfrey confront the Irish chiefs, Dorrington, O'Neil, and Sarsfield, and Talmash courteously addresses them.

"Take quarters, gentlemen, and yield on sight. Or otherwise prepare to stand the fight. Yet pray, take pity on yourselves and yield. For blood enough has stained the sanguine field. 'Tis Britain's glory, you yourselves can tell, To use the vanquished hospitably well.

_Sarsfield--_ Urge not a thought, proud victor, if you dare. So far beneath the dignity of war. I am a peer, and Sarsfield is my name. And where this sword can reach I dare maintain. Life I contemn, and death I recommend; He breathes not vital air who'd make me bend My neck to bondage, so, proud foe, decline The length of this, (_extending his sword_,) because the spot is mine.

_Talmash_.--If you are Sarsfield, as you bravely show, You're that brave hero whom I longed to know, And wished to thank you on the reeking plain For that great feat of blowing up our train. Then mark, my lord, for what I here contend; 'Tis Britain's holy church I now defend. Great William's right, and Mary's crown, these three.

_Sarsfield_.--Why, then fall on--Louis and James for me. (_They fight_.)

Sarsfield's declaration ends the animated discussion rather lamely; but what poet has maintained a uniform grandeur or dignity? The writer was a certain Robert Ashton. The play when printed was dedicated, circa 1756, to Lord Carteret, and if peasant tradition can be trusted, it was only acted once. The Jacobite and Hanoverian gentlemen in the pit drew their swords on one another, probably at the scene just quoted, and bloodshed ensued. This is not confirmed by the written annals of the time.

"The Siege of Londonderry" was, and still is bound up with "The Battle of Aughrim," but there is nothing whatever in it to recommend it to the sympathies of the populace. There is nothing but mismanagement and bad feeling on the part of the native officers from beginning to end; and if fear or disloyalty shows itself in one of the besieged, his very wife cudgels him for it.

There is something very naïve and old-fashioned in the observation inserted at the end of the list of the _dramatis personae:_

"Cartel agreed upon--No exchange of prisoners, but hang and quarter on both sides."

DON BELLIANIS OF GREECE; OR THE HONOR OF CHIVALRY.

The re-perusal of portions of this early favorite of ours has not been attended with much pleasure or edification. There is a sad want of style, accompanied by a complete disregard of syntax, orthography, and punctuation. The objects to be attained are so many and so useless, one adventure branches off into so many others, and there arc so many knights and giants to be overcome, and emperors so carelessly leave their empresses in the dark woods exposed to so many dangers, while they go themselves to achieve some new and futile exploit that the narrative has scarcely more continuity and consistence than a dream.

The author had ten times as many separate sets of adventures to conduct simultaneously as ever had the estimable G. P. R. James. So he was frequently obliged to suspend one series, and take up another, a mode of composition which all novelists who read this article, are advised to eschew. Leaving Don Bellianis investing the emperor of Trebizond, who stoutly disputed the possession of the fair Florisbella's hand with him, he proceeds to tell what happened at the joustings of Antioch in consequence of the happy union of Don Brianel and the peerless Aurora. Thither came {683} Peter, the knight of the Keys, from Ireland. He was son to the king of Monster, and, being anxious to seek foreign adventures, embarked at _Carlingford_, and performed prodigies of valor in Britain and France, and then sailed for Constantinople. Being within sight of that city, a storm forced his ship away and drove it to Sardinia, where Peter won the heart of the fair princess, Magdalena, by his success in the tournament, and his beauty of features when he removed his helmet after the exercise. The princess has a claim upon our indulgence, for as the text has it, "he looked like Mars and Venus together." The knights of those happy times being as distinguished for modesty as courage, the princess ran no risk in desiring an interview with the peerless Peter, and they vowed constancy to each other till death.

A neighboring king demanding the hand of the lady for his son, the lovers decamp, and find themselves on a strange island in a day or two. Peter having given the princess a red purse containing some jewels, she happened to let it fall by her, and it was at once picked up by a vulture, on the supposition of its being a piece of raw meat. Flying with it to a tree overhanging the river, and finding his mistake, he dropped it into the water, and there it lay on the sandy bottom in sight of the lovers.

The knight, arming himself with a long bough, and getting into the boat, would have fished up the purse, only for the circumstance of being unprovided with oars. The tide having turned, he was carried out to sea, and by the time he had got rid of his armor he was nearly out of sight of the poor princess, now left shrieking behind, who was conveyed away after a day and a night's suffering, in a ship bound for Ireland, where she took refuge in a nunnery, and in time became its superioress. This was near the palace of her lover's parents, and to match this strange coincidence by another equally strange, their cook, one day preparing a codfish for dinner, discovered within it the identical purse of jewels carried away by their son, and lost in the manner described in the distant Mediterranean. They gave him up then for lost, but he was merely searching through the world for his mistress, jousting at Antioch, killing a stray giant here or there, and rescuing from the stake at Windsor an innocent countess accused of a _faux pas_--all these merely to keep his hand in practice. Don Clarineo with whom he had fraternized at Antioch is also engaged on the same quest, and comes to Ireland in the course of his rambles. In that early time Owen Roe O'Neill was chief king, MacGuire, father of Peter, was king of Munster as before stated, Owen Con O'Neill and Owen MacO'Brien ruled two of the other provinces, but the territory claimed by each is not pointed out. The compiler was probably not well up in the old chronicles; he would else have given O'Brien the territory of Munster, and settled MacGuire somewhere near Loch Erin.

Be that as it may, the reigning king of Ulster refusing his fair daughter to the prince of Connaught, was minded to bestow her on the terrible giant Fluerston, whose inhospitable abode was in the mountains of Carlingford. The father of the rejected prince determined to resist this "family compact," sent out knights and squires to impress every knight errant they met into his service. Being rather more earnest than polite on meeting with Don Clarineo, he slew about a score of them, and after he succeeded in learning their business with him he was inclined to slay another score for their stupidity in not being more explicit at the beginning, whereas he would have devoted ten lives if he had them to the cause of prince _versus_ giant.

Having easily massacred the Carlingford ogre, he began to bestir himself in his quest for the lost princess, and so quitted the Connaught court which according to our author was held at that era in Dublin, and his {684} loyalty was suitably rewarded in discovering his own true love.

It was originally written in Spanish, and part translated into French by Claude de Beuil, and published by Du Bray, Paris, 1625 in an 8vo.

THE NEW HISTORY OF THE TROJAN WARRIORS AND TROY'S DESTRUCTION.

The compiler of this _Burton_ did not share in Homer's excusable prejudices in favor of his countrymen; he was a Trojan to the backbone. This might be excused in compliment to the noble and patriotic Hector, but he disturbs commonly received notions of family relationship among the ancients, a thing not to be pardoned.

After proposing the true histories of Hercules, Theseus, the destruction of Ilion, and other equally authentic facts, he proceeds to relate--

"How Brute, King of the Trojans, arrived in Britain, and conquered Albion and his giants, building a new Troy where London now stands, in memory of which the effigies of two giants in Guildhall were set up, with many other remarkable and very famous passages, to revive antiquity out of the dust, and give those that shall peruse this elaborate work, a true knowledge of what passed in ancient times, so that they may be able readily to discourse of things that had been obliterated from the memories of most people, and gain a certainty of the famous deeds of the renowned worthies or the world."

Our truthful historian then relates with many corrections of the legendary accounts of the lying Greeks, the histories of Hercules, Theseus, Orpheus, Jason, and the other Ante-Trojan heroes; and either through mere whim, or better information, tells us that Proserpine at the time she was snatched away to hell, was the bride of the enamored Orpheus, and the wicked King Pluto putting armor on his equally wicked followers--the giant Cerberus and others--and festal garments over the armor, carried her away despite the resistance of the bridal party. Orpheus obtained her, as mentioned by the fabulists, but looking back, Cerberus, who was close behind arrested her progress, and the unfortunate husband returned to upper air half-dead. Thereupon Theseus and Pirithous tried the adventure, but the giant Cerberus slew the last named, and would have slain Theseus, but Hercules closely following, gave the giant such a knock of his club as left him lying in a swoon for some hours. Advancing to the throne of the black tyrant, he administered another crushing blow on his helm, and leaving him for dead, conducted the trembling but delighted Proserpine to her mother and husband in the pleasant vales of Sicily, and "if they didn't live happy that we may!" As for the traitor Cerberus, he was presented to Hippodamia, the disconsolate widow of the murdered Pirithous, who found a melancholy satisfaction in putting him to death after first subjecting him to well-deserved tortures.

In the rest of the history of Hercules our compiler does not think it necessary to depart from the statements of the early writers. He gives him indeed as second wife, _Joel_, daughter of King Pricus, neither of whose names we recollect.

Our authority being keenly alive to the injustice done by Homer to the Trojans, corrects his statements on sundry occasions. Well disposed as we are to rectify prejudices, he has not convinced us that the knights on both sides, mounted, armed in plate, and setting their strong spears in rest, charged each other in full career in the manner of Cranstoun and William of Deloraine. These are his words:

"Hector and Achilles advanced in the front of either army, and ran at each other with great fury with their spears, giving such a shock as made the earth to tremble, with which Achilles was thrown from his horse; whereupon the noble Hector scorning to kill a dismounted man, passed on, making lanes through the enemy's troops, and paving his way with dead bodies, so that in a fearful manner they fled before him.

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"By this time Achilles being remounted by his Myrmidons, a second time encountered the victorious Hector, who notwithstanding his utmost efforts, again bore him to the earth, and went on making a dreadful havoc as before."

It is probable that this account of the death of Hector will prove the least digestible of his emendations to the admirers of the early Greek poets. The version here given appears to depend on the sole authority of our compiler, and we do not feel here at liberty to interpose in the literary quarrel sure to arise on the publication of this article:

"Hector, having taken prisoner Menesteus, Duke of Athens, who had on a curious silver armor, he was conveying him out of the battle when thinking himself secure, and being overheated with action, he threw his shield behind him, and left his bosom bare.

"Achilles, spying this opportunity, ran with all his might his spear at the breast of the hero, which piercing his armor, entered his undaunted heart, and he fell down dead to the earth. And this not satisfying the ungenerous Greek, he fastened his dead body to the tail of his horse, and dragged him three times round the city of Troy in revenge for the many foils and disgraces he had received of him."

The rest of the narrative corresponds tolerably with the old accounts, but we have not heart to accompany the author through the burning of Troy, the adventures of Eneas, and those of Brutus in his descent on Britain, and his victory over Albion, Gog, and Magog. Besides, the death of the "Guardian Dog of Troy" has disturbed our equanimity, for we acknowledge as great an esteem for Hector and as strong a dislike to the ruthless Achilles, as was ever entertained by the compiler of the "New History of the Trojan Wars."

The prejudices of the romancers of the middle and later ages in favor of the Trojans were probably due to the history of the war supposed to have been written by Dares, a Phrygian priest mentioned by Homer. It is in Greek, and the work of some ingenious person of comparatively recent times. It was translated by Postel into French, and published in Paris 1553. The first edition in Greek came out at Milan in 1477. Another spurious book on the same subject in Latin, was attributed to Dictys, a follower of Idomeneus, King of Crete. The first edition of it was printed at Mayence, but without date.

THE IRISH ROGUES AND RAPPAREES.

The literary caterers for our peasantry, young and old, hare been blamed for submitting to their inspection the lives of celebrated highwaymen, tories, and "rapparees." Without undertaking their defence we cannot help pointing out a volume appropriated to gentry of the same class in the _Family Library_ issued by John Murray, whom no one could for a moment suspect of seeking to corrupt the morals of families or individuals. We find in Burns' and Lambert's cheap popular books, another given up to these minions without an apprehension of demoralization ensuing among the poor or the young who may happen to read it. So it is probable that J. Cosgrave contemplated no harm to his generation by publishing his "Irish Rogues and Rapparees." It were to be wished that the motto selected for his work had either some attic salt or common-sense to recommend it:

"Behold here's truth in every page expressed; O'Darby's all a sham in fiction dressed, Save what from hence his treacherous master stole, To serve a knavish turn, and act the fool."

The reader will please not confound the terms "tory" and "rapparee." The tories, though that generic for Irish robbers is as old as Elizabeth, are yet most familiarly known as legacies left us by the Cromwellian wars, and chiefly consisted of those rascals who, pretending to assist the parliamentary cause, plundered the mere Irish farmers, and every one of both sides who had anything worth taking. They were a detestable fraternity. The rapparees were the Irish outlaws in the Jacobite and Williamite wars, including many a scoundrel no doubt, but many also who, while they supported themselves in outlawry, at the expense of those who in their eyes were disaffected to the rightful king, yet kept their hands unstained by {686} vulgar theft or needless bloodshed. Many who at first kept to the hills and the bogs as mere outlaws, and exacted voluntary and involuntary black mail for mere support, according as the assessed folk were Jacobites or Williamites, gradually acquired a taste for the excitement and license of their exceptional life, and became _bona fide_ plunderers, preferring (all other things being equal) to wasting the _Sassenach_ rather than the _Gael_, and that was all.

Such a gentleman-outlaw was Redmond Count O'Hanlon, who flourished after the conclusion of the Cromwellian wars. Redmond was worthy of a place beside Robin Hood and Rob Roy, and has been made the hero of two stories, one by William Carleton and the other by W. Bernard M'Cabe.

We now proceed to quote a few of the exploits of those troublesome individuals of high and low degree, who disturbed their country in the end of seventeenth and first half of the eighteenth century and furnished amusement to the peasantry and their children, during the golden days of the peddlers.

The great Captain Power of the South travelled northward to meet and try the skill of Redmond, and they had a shrewd encounter with broadswords for nearly half an hour, neither gaining a decided advantage. They swore to befriend each other in all future needs, and, in consequence, Redmond rescued his brother from the soldiers when they were conducting him to execution.

Power coming into Leinster, lodged at the house of a small farmer, whom he observed to be very dejected all the evening. On inquiry he found that his landlord and the sheriff were expected to make a seizure next day for rent and arrears amounting to £60. After some further discourse, Power offered to lend him the sum on his note of hand, and the offer was gratefully accepted. Next day the farmer, after much parleying, acknowledged that he had £60 given him to keep, and that he would produce it rather than have his little property distrained, and trust to God's goodness to be enabled to put it together again. The landlord, after sufficiently abusing him, gave him a receipt in full, and, parting company with the sheriff's posse, returned home. In a lonely part of the way, he was set on by Power and robbed of the £60 and his watch and other valuables. In a day or two the robber called on the farmer, said he was going away, and the promissory note would be of no use to him. So he took it out and tore it in pieces.

How the unreflecting hearts of the fireside group glow over such quasi-generous deeds of robbers, and how little they think on the selfish and abandoned and iniquitous portions of the lives of their favorites! "Bah! they took from the rich that could afford it, and gave to the poor that wanted it. Dickens a bit o' me 'ud betray Redmond O'Hanlon or Captain Power if I got a stocken' o' goold by it."

Strong John MacPherson is admitted among the Irish worthies by Mr. J. Cosgrave, though he was more probably a Highlandman. There was much of the milk of human kindness about strong John. If a horseman would not lend, (John merely requested a loan,) he never used the ugly words "stand and deliver," he pulled him off his horse and gave him a squeeze. If that failed, he carried him away from the highway, giving the horse his liberty, and rifled him in some quiet nook. Being set on one night by a crowd in an inn kitchen, he threw the hostess over his shoulder, and no better shield could be. Making his escape, he laid her on the ground, set his foot apparently on her body--it was only on her gown, however--and extorted twenty pieces from her friends before he released her.

Strong John was in no instance guilty of murder. He never even struck but in self-defence, and always betook himself to defence by a woman when practicable. He met the usual destiny of his tribe about 1678.

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Will Peters, born among the romantic scenery of the Slieve Bloom mountains, might have lived and died a respectable man, or at least have acquired the fame of a highwayman, had it not been for two trifling impediments. His father was a receiver of stolen cattle, which, being commonly kept in a neighboring field, whose owner remained out of sight, the crime could not be brought home to him. The other mischance consisted in his staying at school only till he had mastered "Reynard the Fox." It was the opinion of Mr. J. Cosgrave that if he had got through "Don Bellianis," the "Seven Champions," and "Troy's Destruction," he would have arrived at the honors of the high-road. After a few mistakes in his cattle-stealing apprenticeship, he became acquainted with the renowned "Charley of the Horse," and thus made use of him. He was placed in durance for stealing a sorrel horse with a bald face and one white foot, and committed to Carlow jail, the horse being intrusted to the care of the jailer. Peters' _pere_, on hearing of the ugly mistake, revealed the family sorrow to the great Cahir, and he being fully informed of the marks, color, etc., of the beast, sent a trusty squire of his to the assize town a few days before the trial, mounted on a mare with the same marks as those above noted. The jailer's man took the horse down to the Barrow's edge every morning to drink, and the agent, making his acquaintance, invited him to take a glass at a neighboring "shebeen" the morning before the trial. While they were refreshing themselves, the squire's double mounted on the mare approached where the horse was tied outside, substituted his own beast, and rode off on the other. The refreshed man, on coming out, observed nothing changed, and rode the new-comer home to the stable.

The trial coming on, the prosecutor swore home to his property, but Mr. William Peters said he was as innocent of the theft as the lord lieutenant. "My lord," said he, "ax him, if you plase, what did I steal from him." The answer came out that was expected, "a sorrel horse, such and such marks." "It wasn't a sorrel mare you lost?" "No." "My lord, will you plase to send for the baste, and if it's a horse, let me be swung, as high as Gildheroy." The animal was sent for, the whole court burst into a roar, and Will Peters demanded compensation, but did not get it.

Being taken up again he was executed, as far as hanging for fifteen minutes could effect it. However, being at once taken away by his people, he was resuscitated. Once more he was seized and conveyed to Kilmainham, whence he escaped rather than be transported.

Being at last secured in Kilkenny for running away with a roll of tobacco from a poor huckster-woman, he was once more placed on the drop and hung.

Such were the unedifying subjects presented to the consideration of the young in Mr. J. Cosgrave's collection. He certainly had no evil in his mind when composing it, but its moral effect was at best questionable. It would be a book very ill suited for rustic fire-side reading in our day. The same may be said of the "Wars of Troy," though no indication of evil intention is apparent. We subjoin the names of those books that still continue in print. Why they should still find buyers seems strange, when such care is expended in supplying useful, pleasant, and harmless reading for the lower classes. However, any evil inherent in them is slight compared to that of _some_ of the London halfpenny and penny journals. The following still form portions of the peddler's stock: "The Academy of Compliments," "The Arabian Nights," "The Battle of Aughrim," "Esop," "Gulliver," "O'Reilly's Ireland," "Hocus Pocus," "Irish Rogues," "James Freney," "Robin Hood's Garland," "Seven Champions," "Tales of the Fairies," "The Trojan Wars," "Valentine and Orson," and the "Seven Wise Masters and Mistresses of Rome," some of them absolutely harmless.

{688}

In the whole collection, there was not one volume racy of the Irish soil, or calculated to excite love of the country, or interest in its ancient history, or literature, or legends. The eighteenth century was certainly a dreary one in many respects. Formality, affectation, and cynicism prevailed in the manners and literature of the upper classes, and the lower classes were left to their own devices for mental improvement. It says something for the sense of modesty inherent in the Celtic character, that there were so few books of a gross or evil character among their popular literature.

Translated from the French.

ASSES, DOGS, CATS, ETC

I.

I am not a member of the society for the prevention of cruelty to animals, but I deserve to be; for no one has praised the worthy efforts of these gentlemen more than I have; and no one sees with greater satisfaction, how justice sometimes gets hold of those brutal drivers who wreak their uncontrolled anger upon their poor steeds, guilty only of not being able to help themselves. And if, even, in place of their being condemned to pay a paltry fine, they were paid back in kind for the undeserved blows which these afflicted animals receive from their hands, I for one would make not the slightest objection.

It would be contrary to the progress and civilization of the nineteenth century, I agree, but it would not be contrary to justice, civilized or uncivilized.

However, who knows how things may turn out? Considering the miseries and sufferings of those uncomplaining creatures when they are unfortunate enough to get under the lash of the unfeeling boors who ought to be in their place, it would not surprise me over much, if it should turn out that--

That--what?

Wait a moment, I'll tell you. One day, as I happened to be out walking along a certain road, I noticed an ass tied to a post, around which, within the full length of his rope, there was not a single blade of grass to crop. The poor fellow was slabsided, and his skin scraped, and half tanned by the frequent application of bark on the living wood; evidently getting few caresses of a softer kind, but enjoying in the most complete sense of the word, "the right to work." Naturally, I stopped a moment to bid him good-day and ask after his ass-ship's health, after which I plucked a fine thistle growing within tantalizing reach of his rope, and gave it to him. He gobbled it down with great gusto.

"How do you like that, my old chap?" said I to him, mechanically.

"First rate," said he, "hand us another."

I jumped back in astonishment.

"What! you can talk, can you, my Bucephalus, and in English too? That is something new."

"Not so new as you think, my dear sir, for I will let you into a little bit of a secret. Ass as I am, and as you see me to be, I was a man in my time and a butcher by trade. I had an ass that I treated most scurvily, just as they do me now; giving him his bellyful of blows and kicks, but of very little {689} else. Poor Jack--that was his name--kept Lent all the year round, it being in the interest of my customers, as I often said to myself, to quiet the qualms of conscience when I gave him but half what he could eat. Let him stuff himself said I, and he will get fat and lazy, the meat will come late to the cook, the cook will be late with the dinner, and the hungry family will lose their temper, and I shall lose their custom, while good doses of the oil of strap will help his digestion wonderfully, and keep him lively. However, this last end was not attained, for the poor ass kicked the traces--professional term, you understand--and went to the bone-boilers before his time. When it came to my turn to tie up--again professional--and go off the cart, my soul was condemned to go into an ass's body to suffer for a certain time the punishment of retaliation. Drubbing for drubbing, kicks of hobnailed shoes for kicks of peg boots, I got what I gave, and good measure too, I assure yon. Do you see that half starved, thin-flanked old horse over there? Well, he is a companion in misery to me. In his time he was a hack-driver, and many a time in his fits of anger and drunkenness, he made an anvil of the backbone or the jaws of his horses. Only in those times, now and then, you understand, but those times happened often enough, say once an hour or so, every day. As to hay and oats, he tried to teach them, but without success, to go without those articles of luxury. When his turn came to pay up old debts, his soul was condemned to go into that sorry old carcass, in which he passes many a miserable quarter of an hour. He is a ragpicker's property now. How do you like that specimen of 'the noblest conquest that man has ever made'? As to me, Sawney, at your service, I think the end of my punishment is not far off. It was given me to understand that when a benevolent gentleman would offer me a thistle for friendship's sake, it would end, and it is to you I owe this act of kindness, my dear Mr. Miller."

"Good again, you are a wiser ass than I took you for. How do you know my name, master Sawney?"

"This way, sir. The other day I chanced to be tied to a post, near a hedge, on the other side of which, in a meadow, some folks were having a little picnic on the grass. After a while a tall lady in spectacles took out some papers and began to read for the company. She seemed to be reading, from what I could make out, in some magazine or other. I soon understood that the subject was asses, and then of course I cocked up my ears to their full height. It was true, it was about us, abused and misunderstood beasts that we are. The articles read by the tall lady were so full of kindness, and contained such flattering remarks upon our species, that it almost brought the tears to my eyes. The name signed to those articles was Jeremiah Miller. Oh! said I to myself, that is a man whom one could call a man. There is one at least who understands us and loves us; I promise myself that if I ever have the good fortune to meet him I will give him--in lieu of anything better--my blessing. You see that when you spoke to me just now so kindly, I said to myself, I wonder if this be not Mr. Jeremiah Miller, and then I called you by that name, and I see that I have just hit it."

"But"--my reader will say "of course you don't tell this story for a true one! You would never have the face to ask us to believe that this brayer actually spoke to you?"

And, pray, why not? But, after all it is possible I fell asleep on a mossy bank, in a meadow, near where an ass was tied, and that I dreamed what I have told you. But dreams with the eyes shut are not always so very unlike the dreams we sometimes have when our eyes are open. As for myself, whenever I see a poor beast of burden brutally maltreated by another beast, who strikes and kicks as if he {690} meant murder, I allow my fancy to be tickled with a vision of this latter brute obliged to creep into the skin of a horse or ass, and take his turn at being unjustly whipped, without having any attention paid to his bray or his neigh of expostulation or defence. You see that I am in every respect worthy of figuring among the members of the society for the prevention, etc., etc., but--

II.

But--I hold to the great principles of '76, and first of all to that of equality. If we must have a law for the protection of domestic animals against the men who torment _them_, I would like to see a law devised to protect men against the animals who are a pest to poor humanity, for the shoe sometimes gets on the other foot.

For example; look at that pack of dogs of all sizes, of all tastes, (I mean human,) and in every stage of canine civilization, which their masters permit to run at large in the streets of our city, even in the worst of the dog days, without counting the free and independent dogs who know no master but themselves. You have a friend who is a diligent reader of the chapter of accidents in the daily papers. He tells you about this or that dog who was seen running mad, that he had bitten two or three persons, one of whom has since died of hydrophobia, and adds with a peculiar relish that "the dangerous animal is still at large!" These gentlemen--I mean the owners of the dogs--are provokingly careless and indifferent about the muck which their dogs are running in the midst of a population biteable to any extent. You are kindly informed that if you happen to get bitten by some suspicious-looking cur--and what cur is not of a suspicious character in these days--it will be necessary to squeeze the wound, wash it, then cauterize it with a red hot iron, or cut it out, and then, etc., etc. These are most excellent recipes, I have no doubt, but I think I know of a better, which would be to prevent the bites altogether.

But, you say, there is the proclamation of his Honor, the Mayor, and there is the police, etc., etc. Dogs at large are to be muzzled or held by a chain. Oh! yes; very fine, indeed, when they are. The proclamation is very good, but since the dog owners pay so little heed to it, it is not surprising that the dogs themselves pay no more respect to it than they do to the proclamations of patent medicines pasted on the lamp-posts or fences. As to the country places outside of the city, whither we of the heated streets and close shops fly to get a breath of fresh air, and a moment of repose--there you will see fat men and thin ladies who never dream, either asleep or awake, of muzzling their favorite bull-dogs, lap-dogs, pointers, setters, tan terriers or greyhounds. Muzzle _their_ dogs! that would make the poor dogs, and their owners too, very uncomfortable. A pretty piece of impudence indeed for a village constable to presume to carry out the law against the dog, errant in delicto, which is the property of a Mr. or a Mrs. or a Miss who is a "somebody," as if they were nobodies. Mr. Constable knows better than that, and so does Mr. Puffer, the magistrate.

Besides, there is a learned doctor of the society for the prevention, etc., who deplores with astonishment mingled with grief, etc., etc., that any one should be so inhumane as to gag "man's companion and friend" for the sake of the prevention of a few despicable cases of hydrophobia. He has never been bitten by a mad dog, and don't expect to be. He does not see why anybody else need expect to be.

Then there are our nurses and the children, whose daily promenade is embittered by the sight and often the attacks of some Snarleyow. "It was as good as a play," says Snarleyow's master; "Snarley nearly frightened them to death, I thought I should die of laughter to see them {691} scamper. It was great fun for Snarley." Very well, gentlemen, there is also something which is great fun for me too, and that is to kick Snarley whenever he presumes to be too "playful" with me or my particular friends the children.

Protect your "friends of man" if you will, gentlemen, but don't let them interfere with my friends, or---

III.

Permit me here to make a digression, which is not altogether one;

Man is defined, a reasonable animal.

Now the question arises whether woman is included in this definition. Don't get angry, ladies--the horrid men, you know, are so curious!

IV.

From the friend of man let us pass to the subject of the friend of woman. And here I find myself face to face with a celebrated document which produced such a deep, or rather such a lively impression upon the public, a few weeks since. Who is there in the whole five parts of the world that has not heard of the noted "cat trial"? That learned decision and sentence given by Squire Pouter, justice of the peace in Dullville, is yet ringing in my ears, by which were avenged, as far as a fine from five cents to a dollar could avenge, a litter of fifteen cats illegally drowned. Illegally!--that at least was the opinion of the wise magistrate, who rendered his judgment at great length, and after his well known comprehensive style, citing his authors, complimenting the one, and refuting the others, bringing under contribution the code of Justinian, the English common law, the state statutes, and the discussions of the Legislature at Albany. In short, our modern Solon decided as follows: The cat, in its nature, is both a domestic and wild animal. As a wild animal, it is true, it is lawful game for the hunter; but, as a domestic animal, it has a right to live, and is under the august protection of the law. Now, since the wild part of its nature revolts against captivity, it has a right to come and go according to its instinctive desire for daily exercise, and housekeepers are not bound in conscience to make a raid upon them in their tender feline infancy under pretence that some day or other they will make a raid upon their pantry. Raids of prevention in the times of peace are unheard of in the history of the republic. Therefore they are condemned (the raiders, in the present case, not the cats) to pay such and such fines, for the benefit of the fifteen victims, or their heirs or assigns. Yes, indeed, this splendid judgment made a good deal of noise, and well it might. I, who am speaking to you reside in my own house, and have no evil intentions toward any one, but--there are three cats who come each evening from as many points of the compass for the purpose of making strategic attacks upon my eatables. Infinite are the precautions that I am forced to take to save my daily bread from the enemy. I must keep up an incessant fight, and a running fire, not to speak of the difficulty I experience in vain attempts to sleep with one eye open and my ear, which is not on the pillow, on the alert. I will not speak of their defiant caterwauling and spiteful spitting when they find my barricades impassable; it is too painful a subject for me to dwell upon.

Who are the victims of oppression, most eminent and sage magistrate? Is civilized man positively to be given over in the name of the society for the prevention, etc., as a victim to the instincts and caprices of cats? Not at all, not at all, O illustrious Pouter! I will see you and the cats--well--some distance, if not further, first. Bring on your grimalkins, for my soul burns to avenge the rights of man!

{692}

It is not all. Here, for example, next door, lives Miss Lambkin; age unknown. She, by some unexplained perversion of taste, is keeping something in her house which is either an old sheep or a middle-aged goat. This cud-chewer, who lapses into ennui despite the charms of its mistress, bleats incessantly three times a minute, several thousands of times in the twenty-four hours. Is such an eternal see-saw of sound bearable? Is not my life a burden to me? Is not my liberty to think, to play my violin, to take my usual nap after dinner abridged by the liberty of Miss Lambkin's detestable foster child? And if I happen to be sick, or suffering from the tooth-ache or the headache, or melancholy, or perchance am sentimental, this beast, I suppose, must not be thwarted in its monotonous sing-song. _Mister_ Pouter, is there liberty for wolves? for most assuredly I shall soon play the part of one!

I have not finished yet. Since the first of May a family has come to live in the house on the other side of mine. With father, mother and furniture comes a tall, wasp-waisted damsel who now passes hours, yes, hours banging upon an aged piano. It is her method of bleating, and it is full as amusing as the other, if not a little less. Will the president of the society for the prevention, etc., inform us if there is any protection for aged pianos? A society for the _protection_ of men and pianos would find in me one of its most eloquent orators, diffuse writers, and active members. I would have all wandering Jews of unmuzzled dogs executed on the spot, knocked on the head or drowned, at choice. These at least have not the fifty cents in their pockets to pay for a living release.

As to the cats, I intend to memorialize the supreme court to declare the decision of our immortal justice of the peace non-constitutional. I wish it to be "legal" to kill, drown, or otherwise destroy any cat or cats found on strange premises, understood, of course that they are to be buried at the killer's expense, and the government not to be made liable to pay handsomely for public obsequies with military procession.

Bleating goats, or sheep, or parrots, _et tutti quanti_, to be invited to keep still, and not to speak until spoken to.

Lastly, as to the piano-bangers, I acknowledge the case is a little delicate, and any remedy whatsoever has its difficulties. I am not malicious, and am inclined to the side of resignation and toleration. For after all, you know, they are ladies, and when you say that, it is enough. Without association you cannot accomplish anything nowadays; and where in the world could be found a sufficient number of men to form a society for their protection against _them_. After that, I do not see that it is necessary I should say anything further.

From the Dublin University Magazine

CAROL FROM CANCIONERO.

"Vista ciegs, luz occura"--_Cancionero General_. Valencia, 1511.

Lightsome darkness, seeing blindness. Life in death, and grief in gladness, Cruelty in guise of kindness, Doubtful laughter, joyful sadness, Honeyed gall, embittered sweetness, Peace whose warfare never endeth, Love, the type of incompleteness, Proffers joy, but sorrow sendeth.

{693}

Translated from the French

THE PEARL NECKLACE.

There lived at Cordova, many years ago, an old Jew who had three passions: he loved science, he loved gold, he loved his only child, who bore the sweet name of Rachel. He loved science, not for its own sake, not because it was the means of the acquisition of truth, but for himself, that is to say, through pride.

He loved gold, a little perhaps because it was gold, very much because it gave him the means of providing luxuries for his darling child, greatly also because without it he could not have made the costly experiments necessary in the pursuit of science.

He loved his daughter alone, with the pure and disinterested, but passionate tenderness of paternal love. In a word he was a savant, a father, a Jew.

His name was Rabbi Ben-Ha-Zelah, and he practised medicine. He wrought such wonderful cures that very soon his fame spread throughout Spain, and from all parts of the kingdom the people came in crowds to consult him. He received his patients in the afternoon. In the morning he slept, it was said; but how his nights were passed none knew, and many were the speculations concerning it. This only was known, that they were passed in a secret chamber, of which he alone possessed the key, and it had been observed that this mysterious apartment was sometimes illuminated with many-colored flames, blue, or red, or green, while a dense smoke issued from the chimney.

The police of the kingdom at length resolved to penetrate the mystery, which seemed to them very suspicions. _Everything_ is suspicious to the police of _all_ countries.

One evening, Rabbi Ben-Ha-Zelah saw two dark, grave men watching his house. He listened and heard these words of sinister import:

"To-morrow, at dawn, we will know whether this wretch is a money-coiner or a magician."

The conscience of the poor old Jew did not reproach him, for his life was pure and innocent; but he had had great experience of the world, and held as on axiom that innocence is worth absolutely nothing in a court of justice. He went still further, he considered it an aggravating circumstance. He often quoted the old Arabian proverb: "If I were accused of having stolen and pocketed the grand mosque at Mecca, I would immediately run off as fast as I could." He said that justice was a game of cards--and he was no player.

What misanthropic ideas! How different would his conclusions have been had he lived nowadays! However, as he had not the happiness of living in that Eden of justice, France of 1866, he put the philosophy of the proverb into practice, and left Cordova that very night, taking with him all his treasures. The next morning at dawn the two dark, grave men, found an uninhabited, dismantled dwelling; which made them still more dark and grave.

II.

Rabbi Ben-Ha-Zelah, disguised as a merchant and mounted on a strong mule, passed rapidly through Spain. On either side of his saddle, and securely fastened to it was a long wicker {694} basket, in the shape of a cradle. Ben-Ha-Zelah looked from time to time at these baskets with satisfaction, mingled with sadness, and then urged on his mule, casting many a backward glance, to be quite sure he was not pursued. In one of the baskets were his treasures and his books; in the other slept peacefully the young daughter of the fugitive. Having reached a small seaport town, the old Jew took passage in a vessel which was about to sail for Egypt.

Rabbi Ben-Ha-Zelah had often heard of the caliph Achmet Reschid, who was celebrated throughout the East for his love of science, and the high consideration in which he held scientific men. As for impostors, charlatans and empirics, he held them in sovereign contempt and took real pleasure in impaling them.

This good prince reigned in Cairo. Thither Ben-Ha-Zelah bent his steps; for he believed himself, and with reason, to be a true savant.

The profound and extensive acquirements of the old Jew, together with his astonishing skill in everything appertaining to the healing art, soon made him as famous in Cairo as he had been in Cordova, and he was at once made court physician.

The caliph Achmet Reschid was never weary of admiring the almost universal knowledge of the old man, and often invited him to the palace to converse with him for hours upon the secrets and marvels of nature. Suddenly a terrible plague broke out in the city, and threatened to decimate the population. Ben-Ha-Zelah compounded a wonderful lotion, which cured six times in seven. He contended that in nothing could evil be conquered in a greater proportion than this; that a seventh was a minimum of disorder, of sorrow, of vice, in the imperfect organization of this world, and that when the proportion of evil in the human body, in the soul, in society, in nature, had been reduced to a seventh, all the progress possible in this world had been made.

However that may be, he was summoned one night in great haste to the palace; the wife and son of the caliph were stricken down by the pestilence. Ben-Ha-Zelah applied the miraculous lotion and the son was restored to health--but the wife died.

The caliph Achmet Reschid was overcome with gratitude for so signal a service and throwing himself into the arms of the old physician, exclaimed: "Venerable old man I to thee I owe the life of my son and my happiness! As a proof of my gratitude, I appoint thee Grand Vizier!"

The old Jew prostrated himself on the ground before his generous benefactor.

"Yes," continued the caliph, who had a truly noble heart; "yes, I need a friend in whom I can confide, as I have, one after another, beheaded all those whom I had in a moment of impulse honored with that title."

"Thanks, mighty caliph!" humbly replied Ben-Ha-Zelah. "How shall I find fitting words to thank my gracious prince for such unmerited condescension! Surely never did kindness like this rejoice the earth!"

"Thou sayest well and truly, child of Jacob," answered the puissant caliph.

Time, far from diminishing the love of the caliph for Ben-Ha-Zelah, only increased it. The jealousy of the courtiers had always succeeded in poisoning the mind of the caliph against any one on whom he had conferred the dignity of Grand Vizier; but the prudence of the old Jew baffled all their schemes, and Achmet Reschid had learned how to guard against calumniators. At the first word breathed against the new favorite that benevolent prince and faithful friend ordered the rash slanderer to be beheaded, and very soon the courtiers vied with each other in their praises of the Grand Vizier. The good caliph, seeing the harmony of feeling among his people with regard to the new favorite, congratulated himself on his firmness.

{695}

"I knew very well," said he, "that the whole court would at last do him justice. I talk of him with every one and no man says aught against him."

III.

As for Ben-Ha-Zelah, he seemed to be perfectly indifferent to the immense power which his favor with the caliph gave him in the state. In vain did the courtiers try to entangle him in the intrigues of the court. In vain did the noblemen of the kingdom, in hopes of gaining his protection, lay costly gifts at his feet. He gently refused them all. Devoid of ambition, and prudent to excess, the old Jew withdrew as much as possible from public affairs. He even begged the caliph to excuse his attendance at the palace, except at certain hours of the day, that he might devote himself more uninterruptedly to scientific pursuits. The love of the caliph grow day by day, and the courtiers as well as the common people, seeing the humility and disinterestedness of the Grand Vizier, acknowledged him to be indeed a sage.

At court, as everywhere else, he was clad in a coarse brown robe, and was in no way distinguishable from the crowd, had not the intellectual expression of his face, and the strange brilliancy of his eyes, revealed at a glance a superior mind. He might often be seen in the streets of Cairo, carrying in his own hands the metals, stones or medicinal plants, which he bought in the bazaars, or gathered in his solitary rambles. Wherever he went he heard his own praise; but never did he in any way betray that it was agreeable to him.

"No one is so poor and humble," said the common people to each other, "as the Grand Vizier of our high and mighty caliph."

The truth was, however, that with the exception of Achmet Reschid, no one in Cairo possessed such vast riches as the "poor" Vizier; but after the manner of the Jews he carefully concealed them, and lived in a very modest mansion situated outside the walls of the city. This humble dwelling was completely hidden by the palm and cedar trees which surrounded it, and for still greater security was enclosed by a high wall.

In this quiet and mysterious retreat, where he admitted no guests, he had centered all that made his life; there dwelt his child, the young Rachel, just budding into womanhood.

When, after passing weary hours in the unmeaning ceremonial of the court, he reached his garden gate, and stealthily opened it, his usually impassive face was suddenly illumined as with a sunbeam. It was as if he had passed from death unto life.

His daughter, clad like a queen of the east, ran to meet him, and embraced him so tenderly that it seemed as if a portion of her young life was breathed into the worn and exhausted frame of the aged father. Ben-Ha-Zelah forgot his sorrows and his cares, and seemed to revive as with the breath of spring. "I gave thee life, my daughter; thou dost restore it to me!" murmured the old man.

Rachel was just entering her sixteenth year. Her hair was of the beautiful golden color which people love. Her eyes, her voice, her smile, her bearing, carried with them an irresistible charm. She looked, it was a ray of light; she spoke, it was a strain of music; she smiled, it was the opening of a gate of Paradise. Her heart was pure and innocent as was that of the Rachel of old, whom Jacob loved. Can we wonder that the heart of her father was bound up in her? Who indeed, could help loving a being so pure and bright?

IV.

Ben-Ha-Zelah was old, but his was a vigorous old age--and the young daughter and aged father, as they walked under the grand old trees of the garden, made a beautiful picture. The long white head, piercing eyes, {696} eagle nose, and broad brow of the old man, formed a striking contrast to his humble dress, and when no longer under constraint, it revealed a mysterious and profound satisfaction in his own personality and intelligence. There was so much _pride_ that there was no place for _vanity_ in his soul.

What cared he for the admiration or contempt of others, the vain clamors of the multitude, whom he considered infinitely his inferiors? When he said to himself, "I am Ben-Ha-Zelah," the rest of the world no longer existed for him.

His pride was like that of Lucifer: it was not relative but absolute; he contemplated himself with a terrible satisfaction. Thence his disdain for all the miserable trifles which gratify the self-love of inferior men. The pride of _seeming_ comes when the pride of _being_ is not absolute.

Whence then came the gigantic pride of the old Jew?

Rabbi Ben-Ha-Zelah was the most learned man of his time.

He had carried his investigations far beyond those of the most scientific men of the age; he was well versed in physics, mechanics, dynamics, arithmetic, music, astronomy, medicine, surgery, and botany; but the science he most loved, was that which, at first known under the name of alchemy, was destined to become the greatest science of modern times--chemistry.

He passed night after night shut up in his laboratory, as he had formerly done at Cordova, seeking to penetrate one after the other all the mysteries of nature. There, bending over his glowing furnaces, surrounded with retorts and crucibles of strange shapes, filled with metals in a state of fusion, by all sorts of instruments and alembics, old Ben-Ha-Zelah interrogated matter and demanded the mystery of its essence; he pursued it from form to form, he tore it with red-hot pincers; he melted it in the glowing fires of his furnaces; he made it solid only to reduce it again to a liquid state, decomposing it a hundred times in a hundred different ways. He tortured it, as does the lawyer the prisoner at the bar, that he may wring from him his most hidden secrets.

Matter, thus pursued by the indefatigable alchemist, had revealed more than one of its mysterious laws, which he had made useful in the practice of his profession, so that he was considered in Cairo little less than a demi-god. However, in his labors he sought not the good of his fellow-men, but the barren satisfaction of the passion which was consuming him, _the pride of knowledge_; he sought to penetrate the secrets of the most high God. The promise of the tempter to our first parents; _Eritis sicut dei, scientes_, "You shall be as gods, knowing good and evil," had penetrated his soul; and he desired to plant in his garden that fatal tree to which the first-born of our race stretched out their guilty hands. Like his ancestor Jacob, he wrestled with Jehovah.

One can readily understand that the old man, absorbed in this gigantic struggle, was dead to all vanity, so far as men were concerned. He had reached such dizzy heights that he had almost lost sight of them. To him they were like the brute beasts which crossed his path; he believed them to be of an inferior nature to him, who had been gifted with such vast genius--such indefatigable industry. His high thoughts were not for such miserable pigmies.

Sometimes seating himself in dreamy mood in his garden, at the foot of a grand old cedar, his favorite seat, and taking in his hand a pebble, a blade of grass or a flower he was plunged in profound meditation.

What makes this "a body" thought he. This "body" is brown, heavy, hard, square, or has many other properties which come under my notice. But it is evident that neither the color, weight, cohesion, nor form constitute its _essence_. They are its manner of beings--not its being. If I modify it, destroy it even, it will still {697} be the same body, and I shall, after all, have only attacked its manner of being; the essence which heretofore has always escaped me--_the soul of the body_, if I may say so--will have suffered no change. It is as if I were suddenly to become hunchback, lame, idiotic--I would still be the same man. I must discover the substance _quod sub stat_; in the first place, what causes this to be; in the second place, what constitutes it a body; and finally, what makes it this particular body which I hold in my hand and not another.

The problem was formidable; it was the mystery of the omnipotence of the God who created the world, and nevertheless this unknown Prometheus shrank not from the task, and flattered himself he could wring from created matter the secrets of its Creator.

In his experiments' Ben-Ha-Zelah had started with the axiom that all bodies were formed from certain elements which were invariable, but combined in different ways. Moreover, his researches had proved to him that many elements, formerly believed to be primary, were composed of different elements into which they might again be readily resolved. So that seeing their number decrease as his investigations became more abstruse and his analyses more delicate, he had arrived at the conclusion that there existed an original and absolute substance of which all bodies, even those apparently the most different, were only variations.

He affirmed the identity of the base under the infinite variety of the forms. This primary substance which he considered as coëternal with God, was, he thought, that on which Jehovah breathed in the beginning, and in his Satanic pride he believed two things--first that the Almighty had combined the atoms of matter in so wondrously complex a manner only to conceal from man the secret of its creation--and secondly, that the Rabbi-Ben-Ha-Zelah would be able to baffle the precautions of the Almighty, and by analysis after analysis, at length succeed in finding the simple primary substance from which all things were originally formed.

Such were the thoughts which continually filled his mind--such the gigantic plan he had conceived. Again and again he said to himself that by taking from a body one after the other its contingent qualities, as one takes the bark from a nut, he would succeed at length in penetrating its most hidden depths, to that _matter essence_ from which was made, as he believed, all that existed in the universe.

He had inscribed on the door of his laboratory _Materia, mater_. And as soon as he should be able to imprison in his alembics this primary matter he could at will, disposing it after certain forms, make in turn bronze, stone, wood, or gold. Nay more, he hoped to surprise with the same blow the mystery of life--and then, thought he in his impious pride, I shall be a creator, like unto Him before whom every knee bends in adoration. I shall be God! _Eritis sicut dei_.

The old man, lost in the vain search for the absolute basis of matter, little suspected that the final word of all science is; "The essence of matter is immaterial."

However, he devoted himself most zealously to the great work he had undertaken, and passed night after night in the recesses of his laboratory which would have reminded one of the entrance to the infernal regions but for the sweet presence of the young and lovely Rachel, who glided in and out, bringing order out of confusion, and in the evening beguiled the long hours by singing to her father snatches of the old Hebrew songs of which such touching and beautiful fragments have come down to us.

{698}

V.

One night, Ben-Ha-Zelah, regardless of fatigue, was still bending over his glowing furnaces. For more than a week he had allowed himself no sleep, nor had he permitted his eyes to wander from the vast crucible which had been heated to white beat for six consecutive months. He had discovered phenomena hitherto unknown. His bony hands clutched convulsively the handle of the bellows, and his eager, care-worn face was illuminated with a two-fold radiance, that from the purple light of the furnace and from the interior flame which consumed his soul. He was motionless from intensity of emotion. At last then he was about to attain the aim and desire of his whole life!

The primary substance, the absolute essence of matter, he was about to seize it--to be its lord. The old man still watched; a whitish vapor rose slowly from the crucible; matter decomposed in this crucible seemed to be a prey to a fearful travail--to struggle in an internal conflict.

The old man raised his tall form to its full height and at that moment appeared like a second Lucifer. He shouted in triumph, "I have created!"

Then rushing to the casement he gazed upward to the starry heavens, not in prayer, but in defiance.

"I have created!" he repeated, "I have created! I have conquered! I am the equal of God!"

A noise, slight in reality, but to the excited senses of Ben-Ha-Zelah, louder than the crash of thunder, was heard behind him. He turned with agitated countenance. The crucible, unwatched during his delirium of pride, had fallen, and was shivered to atoms. All was lost; the creation of him who aspired to an equality with the Most High was but a heap of ashes.

Ben-Ha-Zelah was stunned by this unlooked-for calamity. He fell back fainting, as if, while he rashly sought to penetrate the mystery of life, pale death, entering his dwelling had touched him with her sombre wing.

VI.

When consciousness returned, the fire of the furnace, which had been fed with so much care for six weary months, was extinguished. Through the open casement he saw myriads of stars blazing in the firmament. The majestic silence of the night hovered over the unchanged immensity.

The old man was seized with an indefinable terror. He understood that he was punished for his pride, and he had a presentiment that the sudden failure of the labor and research of so many years was but the beginning of his punishment. It seemed to him that in the midst of the thick darkness the living God had looked into the depths of his guilty soul and had stretched out his all-powerful hand to smite him. Suddenly, as by a revelation, there came to him a knowledge of the point where God was about to strike him.

"My child! my child!" cried he, in a voice broken by terror and remorse.

He ran to the chamber of his daughter.

The old man opened the door gently, taking, in spite of his terror, a thousand paternal precautions not to awaken the sleeper. The trembling light of a small alabaster lamp cast its faint rays about the apartment. Gently he drew back the curtains of the bed and gazed fondly upon his child.

Rachel slept profoundly, her breathing was as peaceful as innocence. Ben-Ha-Zelah looked upon the sweet, calm face with a transport of delight. The tranquillity of this peaceful sleep of childhood was communicated to him, and for a moment stilled the agitation of his soul.

He leaned fondly over the sleeping form; listened joyfully to the calm breathing of his darling child, to the regular beating of her heart; then stooping, imprinted a kiss of fatherly love on the beautiful brow.

Rachel remained immovable, and her sleep was unbroken. "It is strange she has not awakened," said the old man to himself looking at her again. "Sleep is so like death."

{699}

As he allowed this thought to take form a vague terror took possession of him.

"Bah! she sleeps! I hear her breathing," said he aloud.

The secret indefinable fear which he could not banish, and for which he could not account, still remained; he could no longer contain himself.

"Rachel!"' cried he in a loud voice. The young girl slept on.

"Rachel! my child!" he cried again, at the same time shaking her gently by the arm.

Still the calm sleep was unbroken; and the peaceful breathing which at first had delighted the fond father now seemed like a fatal spell.

"Rachel! Rachel!"

He took her in his arms; he placed her on a couch; he tried to make her walk; and in vain essayed with his trembling fingers to open the sealed eyelids.

The young girl slept on; her respiration as calm, and the rhythm of her heart still preserved its frightful monotone. All the efforts of the despairing father were vain. Day dawned, night came, the next day, and weeks and months, and Rachel awoke not.

VII.

The distracted father, remembering that he was a physician, sought in medical science a remedy for this strange malady. He tried every known medicine, he essayed new ones; but nothing could break the fearful sleep. He no longer went to the palace of the caliph, but his days and nights were passed in his laboratory as they had formerly been at Cordova; his researches, however, were no longer to feed his pride. Sorrow concentrated his mighty genius on one thought--to discover a remedy for his idolized child. Bitterly did be expiate the old anxieties of his pride by the torturing perplexities of this new sorrow.

More than six months passed thus. A last and desperate remedy to which he had recourse, had, like all the others failed; Ben-Ha-Zelah on a night like that on which this weight of sorrow had come upon him, was in his laboratory bending as ever over his retorts. He had made every research, every experiment that genius, quickened by affection, could suggest, and had failed in all. Rachel still slept. Then the broken-hearted old man, convinced of his own impotence, let fall his arms at his sides and burst into tears.

At that moment he heard a voice which seemed to come at once from the depths of immensity, and from the inmost recesses of his own heart.

"All thy efforts are vain," said the voice. "Thou wilt cure thy child, only by passing about her neck, a pearl necklace, not the pearls which bountiful nature gives, and God makes, but pearls which thou thyself hast fashioned. Thou thoughtest thyself the equal of God, the equal of Him who created the world; and he punishes thee, by condemning thee to create only a few pearls, and he is willing to lend thee all the riches and treasures of his beautiful world. Go and seek! And when thou hast made enough of these pearls to fill the box beside thee, make a necklace of them. Put it on the neck of thy child, and she will awake."

It was not an illusion. The old man had seen no one, but the box was there beside him. It was a little box, of a wood unknown to him, which exhaled a delicious odor. On the lid inscribed in letters of gold, was a Hebrew word, meaning "Treasure of God."

Ben-Ha-Zelah, re-kindled the fires of his furnaces and again applied himself to explore the arcana of alchemy. He took from his coffers all the pearls he possessed, and after having analyzed them, tried in vain to form them again; but the secret of omnipotence which he attempted to grasp, fled from him. He decomposed precious stones and succeeded only in making a gross calcareous substance. Again and again he flattered himself, he had penetrated the mystery of the Creator; but all his hopes ended in nothingness. {700} Nature, which he had once attempted to conquer to satisfy his pride as a savant, he now wooed in vain to still the passionate yearnings of his fatherly heart.

One day he said to himself: "My knowledge is very little; and with the very little I know, I shall never succeed in solving this problem, and nevertheless it is possible!"

The voice which spoke to me is a voice which does not deceive.

Then an inspiration came to him which lighted with a pale ray of hope, the sorrowful face long unused to happiness. The idea occurred to him, that if he should go and study the shells of the Persian gulf where pearls are formed, he might succeed in winning from nature the mystery which he had so much interest in learning.

He set out the next morning on his long and wearisome journey, leaving his child to the faithful care of the old Jewish slave who had been so many years in his service, and in whom he reposed the most perfect confidence. She had been the nurse of Rachel, and loved her almost with a mother's love. He spent two months in studying the pearl oyster of the Persian gulf; but there, as in his laboratory, all his efforts were vain.

Providence, thought he, (he no longer said "nature,") Providence has secrets which will never be known to mortals!

Convinced of the utter folly of his painful researches--anxious, moreover, to see his poor child again. He sadly turned his face homeward.

VIII.

As he slowly and sadly pursued his way toward Egypt, he saw on the second day of his journey across the desert, a group in the distance, apparently just in his route; continuing to advance, he saw a dead camel covered with blood, beside him the dead body of a knight, pierced with sabre-strokes; on the road-side a woman, apparently dying, holding in her arms a young infant.

Ben-Ha-Zelah, moved with compassion, approached and accosted the woman. She told him that in crossing the desert with her husband and child, they had been attacked by brigands, who had killed her husband, left her mortally wounded, and had rifled them of all their treasures; even their water-bottles--more precious than all in the desert.

"I am dying," said she, "but my bitterest sorrow is in leaving my poor little babe, who must perish thus alone in the desert."

The poor mother for one moment thought of asking the kind old man to take her child, but she saw that one of his water-bottles had been broken by some accident, and that he had hardly enough water to cross the desert.

Ben-Ha-Zelah had had the same thought, but he calculated the quantity of water remaining to him, and and to himself that it was impossible.

The woman was dying.

There, in the presence of the mother's despair, with the wail of the infant so soon to be an orphan, in his ears, he thought of his own child.

"Woman," said he, "I will take your babe, and will care for him as for my own. I will save his life, even at the cost of my own."

The mother died, invoking blessings on his head.

Ben-Ha-Zelah resumed his journey across the desert, placing before him on the saddle, the infant, who at first wept, then laughed in infantile glee, then amused himself by teasing the patient nurse, pulling his beard, or tangling the reins of the camel. The old man who had become as gentle as a mother, sought every means which affection could suggest to amuse the helpless little creature, so strangely given to his charge--sometimes with the gold tassels of his bridle, sometimes with his bright fire-arms, sometimes by rattling in his ears the gold sequins in his purse. Again he would sing to him a lullaby, long-forgotten. {701} The child was pleased with each new amusement devised by the old savant, but it was only for a few moments, and was again looking about for something he had not yet seen.

How much we all resemble children!

Poor old Ben-Ha-Zelah knew not what to do to satisfy this restless craving for amusement. Suddenly he thought of the beautiful little box, which the child had not seen, and drew it out from the folds of his robe.

The child eagerly grasped this new plaything and turned it about in every possible way.

To the amazement of the old Jew, there was a slight sound, as of some small object rolling about in the box.

The child shouted with delight. The old man was breathless and trembling. He grasped the box convulsively from the hands of the infant, who held it out to him, smiling. He opened it. His blood froze in his veins, with an emotion not of terror but of joy and hope.

He beheld in the box a pearl, pure and more beautiful than any he had ever seen.

Speechless with emotion he could only raise his eyes to heaven in a wordless prayer of gratitude.

Then he heard a voice which seemed to fill the immensity of the desert, and nevertheless, was as low and sweet as the loving murmur of a fond mother.

"O Ben-Ha-Zelah! every tear which thou shalt dry, is a pearl which thou dost create."

Ben-Ha-Zelah looked about him. All around him was the desert. Before him, in his arms, the little babe, suddenly grown calm, and smiling in his face.

A few more days and his journey through the desert was ended. But many were the privations he endured that the helpless little infant, now so dear to him, might not want.

Ben-Ha-Zelah was rich, and now he was good. His goodness made use of his riches to dry the tears of misfortune--there are as many, alas! in this world of suffering, as there are dewdrops on a summers morning-- and very soon his box was quite full.

When he again saw his child, the mysterious sleep was unbroken. She came not to welcome him, but he put the pearl necklace about her beautiful throat, and she awoke, smiling.

"Oh! what a lovely necklace, papa," she cried.

"It is the first I have ever given thee, my darling," said the happy father, "but I hope it may not be the last. My pearl-casket is now empty, but I trust in God that I may fill it many times before I die."

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[ORIGINAL.]

THE GIPSIES. [Footnote 174]

[Footnote 174: "A History of the Gipsies: with Specimens of the Gipsy Language." By Walter Simson. Edited, with preface, introduction, and notes, and a disquisition on the past, present, and future of Glpsydom. By James Simson. 12mo, pp. 575. New York: M. Doolady. London: Sampson Low, Son, & Marston. 1866.]

About the beginning of the 15th century there appeared in Germany a strange mysterious people, such as had never been seen in Europe before;

A vagrant crew, far straggled through the glade, With trifles busied, or in slumbers laid.

No man knew who they were or whence they came. Their swarthy complexions, long black hair, sharp eyes, high cheek-bones, narrow mouths and fine white teeth, were marks of an eastern origin. They spoke a language which had never been heard in Europe before, and followed a strange way of life, which savored more of the rude nomadic habits of primitive Asia, than the comparatively civilized customs of the country into which they had come. They travelled about in bands or tribes, each under the command of a leader, slept at night in tents or abandoned out-houses, and occupied themselves by day in a simple sort of smith work, basket-weaving, tinkering, fortune-telling, juggling, and stealing. Vagabonds as they were, filthy in their habits, and addicted to the eating of carrion and other disgusting things, they were fond of wearing gay dresses, whenever they could beg, buy, or steal them, and many of the women, with their lithe and agile figures, were not without a certain dark sort of beauty which found many admirers.

Whether they knew anything about their own origin or not, is doubtful; but if they did, they kept it so carefully' secret, that the knowledge has been completely lost. At all events they made their first appearance in France in 1427, with a great lie in their months, and a forged confirmation of it in their pockets. They called themselves Christian pilgrims from Lower Egypt, who had been expelled by the Saracens. They had unfortunately committed a few sins on the way, and having confessed to Pope Martin V., his holiness had enjoined upon them as a penance to traverse the world for seven years without sleeping in beds. In support of this story they exhibited documents purporting to be issued by the holy see, but they had probably manufactured these testimonials themselves. However, the world was not very wise in those days, and the mysterious strangers were accepted for what they professed to be; and for some years the wandering penitents pursued a brilliant career of theft and imposture, while their leaders galloped over the continent with the high-sounding titles of dukes, counts, and lords of Little Egypt. When they first came to Paris they had among them a duke, a count, and ten lords. The authorities would not let them enter the city, but assigned them quarters at La Chapelle near St. Denis, where they were consulted on occult matters by great numbers of the citizens. But our Egyptian pilgrims were soon found to be such incorrigible rascals that the bishop of Paris caused them to be removed, and excommunicated those who had consulted them. Similar treatment was shown them in other parts of Europe. For a time their forged credentials had enabled them to obtain passports and letters of {703} security from various European potentates; but the wanderers everywhere made themselves nuisances, and were banished under threats of the severest punishments. Fortunately for them, however, these edicts were not published simultaneously all over Europe, so that they were not exactly driven into the ocean, but only exiled from one part of the continent to another. In Germany they were called _Zigeuner_, or wanderers; in Holland, _Haydens_, or heathens, in Spain, _Gitanos_; in Italy, _Zingari_; in France, Bohemians, because they entered that country from Bohemia. The name of gipsy, by which they were known in England and Scotland, is evidently a corruption of their self-chosen appellation Egyptians.

More than four hundred years have passed since these swarthy penitents made their seven years' pilgrimage of cheating and pilfering through Europe, and they are still a people as distinct from all other races in their essential characteristics as they were on the day they first humbugged our ancestors. The general improvement of society all over the world has compelled them to abandon many of their vagabond ways. They have no longer that complete organization in tribes and companies which they used to preserve; they no longer claim the privilege of governing themselves in all things by their own laws, and their earls and captains no longer exercise the authority of life and death over their subjects. A large gipsy encampment is a rare sight nowadays, and even the gipsy features, owing to frequent intermarriages between the tribes and the European race, are in a fair way of being obliterated. But there are still many thousands of gipsies roaming about Europe in small companies; they still preserve their ancient customs in secret; and under all the restraints of civilization, even the most orderly of them cherish their old vagabond propensities. The Gipsy physiognomy is quite as marked as the Jewish, and the gipsy race is far more distinctly separated from the rest of the world than are the children of Abraham. Their speech, which is not, as some people suppose, a mere farago of slang or thieves' latin, but a genuine language, has been handed down from mother to child, and is still a living tongue--a fact which is not a little remarkable, because the language has no literature, and can only be perpetrated by tradition. The gipsies have no written characters. And yet it would be hard to find a gipsy who cannot speak the language, though few of them are willing to acknowledge it.

The problem of the origin of this strange people has exercised learned brains ever since the civilized world became civilized enough to perceive that there was a mystery about their presence in the midst of Christendom. It seems to be pretty well agreed that they came into Europe from Hindostan; but why they came, and why they called themselves Egyptians are matters of dispute. Grellman in Germany, and Hoyland and Borrow in England have hitherto been the most esteemed authorities on the subject of gipsies; but we have now a new work, by Walter and James Simson, which promises to shove the older books aside. It is a rather outlandish production, but on that very account perhaps more appropriate to its subject, Mr. Walter having spent some seventeen years poking about gipsy encampments, peeping into their huts, studying their cookery, scraping up odds and ends of their language, learning how they picked pockets, told fortunes, robbed hen-roosts, stole horses, married their wives and divorced them, fought with each other, protected their friends, and pursued their enemies with unrelenting vengeance; having gathered up a great store of interesting anecdotes and historical notes, and got to know, in fine, more about the gipsies of Scotland than any other man, probably, who ever lived--having done all this, Mr. Walter Simson died one day and left an ill-digested manuscript {704} book on his pet subject, which Mr. James Simson took up, annotated, enlarged, and published. Mr. Walter's book, if it was not a model of literary neatness, was unpretentious, entertaining, and full of valuable information. Mr. James, however, must needs add to it, first an advertisement, then a preface, then an introduction, and lastly a long-drawn disquisition, all of which are tiresome to the last degree, and not worth a tenth of the space they fill. Besides, Mr. James Simson has a bad temper, and it is not pleasant to read his arguments, even when he argues against an imaginary adversary. He has a theory of his own about the origin of the gipsies, to which we do not purpose to commit ourselves; but it is curious enough to be stated, so that our readers may judge of it for themselves.

An intelligent gipsy once told Mr. Simson that his race sprang from a body of men-a cross between the Arabs and Egyptians--who left Egypt in the train of the Jews. Now we read in Exodus xii. 38, that "a mixed multitude went up also with them," [_i.e._, with the Jews out of Egypt;] and from the fact stated in Numbers xi. 4, that "the mixed multitude that was among them fell a lusting" for flesh, it would appear that these refugees had not amalgamated with the Jews, but only journeyed in company with them. Since this multitude were not children of the promise, and had no call from God to go out from among the Egyptians and journey to a land of peace and plenty, their condition in Egypt must have been a hard one, or they would not have entered upon a long and painful wandering to escape from it. No doubt, says Mr. Simson, they were slaves, like the Jews; probably descendants of the Hyksos, or "Shepherd Kings," who possessed the land before its conquest by the Pharaohs; perhaps descendents of these Hyksos by Egyptian women. God had promised Canaan, however, only to the Israelites; the "mixed multitudes" could have no share in the inheritance; so they probably separated from the Jews in the wilderness, and wandered eastward into Hindostan. Coming into that country from a long servitude, they would naturally have been timid of mixing with the native inhabitants, disposed to cling together for mutual protection, loose in their notions of right and wrong and the laws of property. Every man's hand would have been against them, and they would have been no man's friend. The lawless and migratory habits engendered by their isolation would soon have become fixed and hereditary; and so, to hasten to a conclusion, the mixed multitude of Egyptians would have grown to be, in the course of a few hundreds of generations, more or less, a race of horse-thieves and fortune-tellers.

This theory accounts for the fact that the gipsies call themselves Egyptians, while their language and many other peculiarities are strongly redolent of Hindostan. It is true that no Egyptian words have been detected in their speech, while its resemblance to Hindostance dialects is very strong; but then just think what an unconscionably long time it is since they came away from Egypt, and how easy it would have been for them, in the absence of an alphabet and a literature, to forget the language of captivity and acquire that of freedom.

Why they came out of Hindostan into Europe, or why they waited to come until the fifteenth century, is purely matter of conjecture. But that Hindostan was their last abiding place before their appearance in Germany, about 1417, there is, for various reasons which we need not here enumerate, no reasonable doubt.

Of their history and character in continental Europe, Mr. Simson tells us but little, and that little is not new. We pass at once therefore to the portion of his book which is devoted to the Scottish gipsies; and when we have read that, we shall have a pretty clear idea of the peculiarities of the race all over the world.

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It is not certain when they first appeared in Great Britain; but they were in Scotland at least as early as 1506 in which year they so far imposed upon King James IV., that his majesty addressed a letter of commendation to the King of Denmark, in favor of "Anthonius Gawino, Earl of Little Egypt, and the other afflicted and lamentable tribe of his retinue," who, having been "pilgriming" by command of the pope, over the Christian world, were now anxious to cross the ocean into Denmark. "But," concluded the Scottish monarch, with beautiful simplicity, "we believe that the fates, manners, and race of the wandering Egyptians are better known to thee than to us, because Egypt is nearer thy kingdom." We see from this that the vagabonds still kept up the fiction of a penitential pilgrimage, though it must have seemed a long seven years' wandering which, beginning about 1417, was not finished in 1506. In 1540 a still more remarkable document appears on record, being nothing less than a sort of league or treaty between James V. and his "loved John Faw, Lord and Earl of Little Egypt," whereby the officers of the realm were commanded to assist the said John Faw "in execution of justice upon his company and folk, conform to the laws of Egypt, and in punishing of all them that rebel against him." But this state of things did not last long. James, as we all know, liked to go a masquerading now and then, in the character of "the Gaberlunzie Man," [Footnote 175] or "the Guid Man of Ballangiegh," and on one occasion, while in this dignified disguise, he fell in with a gang of gipsies carousing in a cave, near Wemyss, in Fifeshire. His majesty heartily joined in the revels; but before long a scuffle ensued, in the course of which one of the men "came crack over the royal head with a bottle." Nor was this indignity enough, for suspecting that the "guid man" was a spy, the trampers treated him with the utmost harshness, and when they resumed their march compelled him to go along with them, loaded with their budgets and wallets, and leading an ass. The king passed several days in this disgusting captivity, but at length found an opportunity to send a boy with a written message to some of his nobles at Falkland. He was then rescued. Two of the gipsies he caused to be hanged at once; a third, who had treated him with some kindness, he let go free; and he caused an edict to be published banishing the whole race from the kingdom under penalty of death. James died the next year, however, and the edict was never enforced; nor were subsequent laws, of equal severity, able either to got the gipsies out of the country or to check their wandering and thievish propensities. A great many of the race attached themselves, nominally as clansmen, to chieftains and noblemen, who were willing and able to afford them protection. But a great many were nevertheless hanged merely for being "by habit and repute Egyptians." So they got to look upon themselves as a persecuted race. They learned to deny their origin, to keep their language a secret, and to resent with all the savage fierceness of their fiery natures, the slightest attempt on the part of the "gorgios," (as they called the Europeans among whom they had cast their lot) to pry into the hidden mysteries of gipsy life.

[Footnote 175: i.e. "Ragged begger."]

In this country we know little about gipsies except what we have learned from novels, and from those curious books by Mr. Borrow, on the gipsies of Spain, in which tact and fiction are so strangely blended that it is difficult to tell them apart. The gipsy, to the average American mind, is a dark-featured woman in a red skirt, and with a shawl drawn over her head; who tells fortunes and steals little babies; who lives in a tent and cooks her meals in the open air, with the aid of an iron pot suspended from two crossed sticks. And the picture is not very far from the truth after all; for all the actions it paints, the gipsies have many a time performed. {706} Child-stealing, however, they are not so much given to as we commonly suppose; for they have too many children of their own to indulge in such a costly luxury; nor do many of them profess palmistry, although the few who do lay claim to a knowledge of the mysterious art drive a thriving business in it. We purpose to collect from Mr. Simson's book on account of the Scottish gipsies as he found them; but we ought to warn our readers that the author wrote many years ago, and that the progress of society in Scotland has made great changes in the condition of the tribe. If wandering gipsies, however, are not so numerous as they were, and if they do not practice their peculiar arts and customs so openly as they formerly did, they are very far from being extinct; and, according to Mr. James Simson, have merely carried unsuspected, into the bosom of orderly and respectable society, the vagabond propensities, itching palms, savagery, wickedness, appetite for loathsome carcasses--nay, even that dark unwritten language, spoken by none but a gipsy of the true blood--which characterized them in the days of Meg Merrilies or the Gaberlunzie man.

The Scottish gipsies almost always traversed the country in bands of twenty, thirty, or more, though so many were seldom seen together on the road. While travelling they broke up into parties of twos and threes, having according to all appearance no connection with each other, and at night they used to meet in some spot previously agreed upon. It was not their general custom to sleep in tents. They preferred for their lodgings deserted kilns, or barns or out-houses. The usual way was for one of the women to precede them, if possible with a child in her arms, and coax from some tender-hearted farmer permission to shelter herself for the night in one of the farm buildings. When the family awoke in the morning they were pretty sure to find the one miserable vagrant surrounded by a gang of sturdy trampers, and some twenty or thirty asses tethered on the green. For twenty-four hours after their arrival they expected to receive food gratis from the family on whose land they halted. After that, no matter how long they remained, they provided for themselves. The farmers generally found it for their interest to treat the gipsies kindly, for these curious people never robbed their entertainers. A farmer's wife whom Mr. Simson knew, on granting the customary privilege of lodging to one of the tribe, added by way of caution: "But ye must not steal anything from me then." "We'll no play any tricks on you, mistress," was the reply; "but others will pay for that." The men of the band seldom or never set foot within the door of the farmhouse, but kept aloof from observation. They employed themselves in repairing broken china, and utensils of copper, brass, and pewter; and making horn spoons, wool-cards, smoothing-irons, and sole-clouts for ploughs, which the women then disposed of. A good deal of their time was passed in athletic exercises. They were famous leapers and cudgel players, and despite their instinct of retirement they could rarely resist a temptation "to throw the hammer," cast the putting-stone, or beat the farm laborers at quoits, golf, and other games. They were musicians, too, and their skill with the violin and the bagpipes often assured them a night's lodging or a hearty welcome at fairs, weddings, and other country merry-makings. Working in horn was their favorite and most ancient occupation, and such was the care they bestowed upon it that one tribe could always distinguish the handiwork of another. Their devotion to the art of tinkering obtained for them the name of Tinklers, by which they are generally known in Scotland. They were also great horse-dealers, or, what in their case meant very nearly the same thing, horse-thieves. They were not scrupulous as to how they obtained {707} the animals, but they were rare hands at selling them to advantage, though when a customer trusted to their honor many of them would serve him with strict honesty.

The women concerned themselves in domestic cares and in helping the men to sell the articles they had made. It was the women who managed all their intercourse with the farmers and other country people, and who did most of the begging. In this art they displayed an aptitude which partook of the character of genius. They never closed a bargain without demanding a present of victuals and drink, which they called "boontith"; and as they were ready enough to take by foul means what they could not get by fair, the closest-fisted housewife in Scotland seldom resisted their importunities very long. The fortune-telling, of course, fell to the women.

But petty larceny, after all, was their principal means of support. They were expert pickpockets and daring riflers of hen-roosts. The bolder spirits rose to the dignity of highwaymen, coiners, and cattle thieves. The children were trained from infancy to thievish pursuits, and almost every gipsy encampment was a school of practice like that kept by Fagin the Jew, to which poor little Oliver Twist was introduced by the Artful Dodger. When legitimate business was dull, they picked each other's pockets in a friendly way, just for the sake of keeping their hands in. Sometimes a pair of breeches was hung aloft by a string, and the children were required to abstract money from the pockets without moving the garments. If the young rascal succeeded, he was praised and rewarded; if he failed, he was beaten. Having passed through this stage of his probation, the neophyte was admitted to a higher degree. A purse was laid down in an exposed part of the encampment, in plain view of all the gang, and while the older members were busied in their daily pursuits, the children exercised all their ingenuity and patience to carry off the purse without being perceived. The instructor in this training-school was generally a woman. By the time he was ten years old, the gipsy boy was thought fit to be let loose upon the community, and became a member of an organized band of thieves. The captains, whose dignity was usually hereditary, dressed well, carried themselves gallantly, and could not be taken for what they really were, especially as they never showed themselves in the company of their men. The inferior thieves travelled to fairs, singly, or at most two together, and as fast as they collected their booty repaired with it to the headquarters of their chief. This latter personage always had some ostensible business--such as that of a horse dealer--and it was easy for the gang to communicate with him under cover of a bargain, without arousing suspicion! For ripping pockets open they had a short steel blade attached to a piece of leather, like a sail-maker's palm, and concealed under their sleeves; or the women wore upon their forefingers large rings containing sharp steel instruments which were made to dart forth by the pressure of a spring, when the hand was closed. Of the dexterity of these light-fingered gentry Mr. Simson tells the following story:

"A principal male gipsy, of a very respectable appearance, whose name it is unnecessary to mention, happened, on a market day, to be drinking in a public house, with several farmers with whom he was well acquainted. The party observed from the window a countryman purchase something at a stand in the market, and, after paying for it, thrust his purse into his watch-pocket, in the band of his breeches. One of the company remarked that it would be a very difficult matter to rob the cautious man of his purse, without being detected. The gipsy immediately offered to bet two bottles of wine that he would rob the man of his purse, in the open and public market, without being perceived by him. The bet was taken, and the gipsy proceeded about the difficult and delicate business. Going up to the unsuspecting man, he requested as a particular favor, if he would ease the stock about his neck, which buckled behind--an article of dress at that time in {708} fashion. The countryman most readily agreed to oblige the stranger gentleman--as he supposed him to be. The gipsy, now stooping down, to allow his stock to be adjusted, placed his head against the countryman's, stomach, and, pressing it forward a little, he reached down one hand, under the pretense of adjusting his shoe, while the other was employed in extracting the farmer's purse. The purse was immediately brought into the company, and the cautious, unsuspecting countryman did not know of his loss, till he was sent for, and had his property returned to him."

At one time the gipsies had all Scotland divided into districts, each of which was assigned to a particular tribe, and wo to the Tinkler who attempted to plunder within the limits of any other territory than his own! The chieftains issued tokens to the members of their respective hordes when they scattered themselves over the face of the country, and these tokens protected the bearers within their proper districts. A safe-guard from the Baillie family, who held a royal rank among the gipsies, was good all over Scotland.

Besides their common Scottish Christian and surnames, they had names in their own language, as well as various pseudonyms which they assumed from time to time in different parts of the country. When they were travelling they used to take new names every morning, and retain them till money was received in one way or another by every member of the company, or at least until noon-tide; for they considered it unlucky to set out out on a journey under their own names.

They appear never to have at a loss for "the best of eating and drinking," and might sometimes be seen seated at their dinner on the sward, and passing about their wine, for all the world like gentlemen. Sir Walter Scott's father was once forced to accept the hospitality of a party of gipsies carousing on a moor, and found them supplied with "all the varieties of game, poultry, pigs, and so forth." That rich and savory decoction known to the modern cuisine as _potage à la Meg Merrilies de Derncleugh_, is a soup of gipsy invention, composed of many kinds of game and poultry boiled together. Their style of cookery seems rather barbarous, but we must admit that it is admirably adapted to the wants of a rude and barbarous people, among whom ovens, spits, pots, and stew-pans are unknown and often unattainable luxuries. To cook a fowl, they wind a strong rope of straw tightly around the body of the bird, just as it has been killed, with its feathers on and its entrails untouched. It is then covered with hot peat ashes, and a slow fire is kept up around it till it is sufficiently done. When taken out, the half-burnt straw and feathers peel off like a shell, and those who have tasted the food thus prepared, say it is very palatable. One advantage the method certainly has: it affords a safe way of cooking a stolen fowl unperceived. Meat is roasted in a similar manner. The flesh is covered with a wrapping of rags, and then encased in well-wrought clay. Being now covered with hot ashes or turned before a fire, it stews in its own juices, which, being saved from escape by the clay, combine with the rags, Mr. Simson says, to form a thick sauce or gravy. A gipsy has a keen zest for this juicy dish; but we doubt whether most people would devour it with a very good appetite. Their favorite viand of all, however, can certainly not be relished outside of the tribe. This is a kind of mutton called _braxy_, being nothing less than the flesh of a sheep which has died of a certain disease. It has a _sharp_ flavor which tickles their palates amazingly. So fond of it are they, that Mr. Simson attributes the great number of gipsies in Tweed-dale partly to the abundance of sheep in that district, and the consequent plenty of braxy. "The flesh of a beast which God kills," say the gipsies, "must be better than that of one which man kills." Nevertheless they are not loath, on occasion, to take the killing into their own hands, by stuffing wool down a sheep's throat, so that {709} it may die as if by disease; and then they beg the carcass from the owner.

As far as can be ascertained, the gipsies have no religious sentiments whatever, so that an old proverb runs: "The gipsy church was built of lard and the dogs ate it." They have a word in their language for devil, but none for God. Of late years it has been common for them to have their children baptized, and sometimes they attend the service which seems to be most in repute in the place where they happen to be; but this is only because they do not want to be known as gipsies. They marry very young, seldom remaining single beyond the age of twenty. Their courtship used to be performed somewhat after the Tartar fashion, the most approved way of getting a wife being to steal one; not that the girl was unwilling, but they seemed to have a natural propensity to carry their dishonest practices into all the relations of life. One Matthew Baillie, a celebrated chieftain of the tribe in the latter part of the 18th century used to say that the toughest battle he ever fought (and he fought many) was when he stole his bride from her mother. The ceremonies of marriage are very curious, and also, we must add, very disgusting. The marital relation seems to have been on the whole pretty well respected, though there is an old reprobate named George Drummond, mentioned in Mr. Simson's book, who used to travel about the country with a number of wives in his company, and chastise them with a cudgel, so that the blood followed every blow. Sometimes, after he had knocked them senseless to the ground, he would call out to them, "What the deevil are ye fighting at--can ye no' 'gree? I'm sure there's no sae mony o' ye!" Divorces, however were very common, and were attended with great parade and many curious ceremonies. The act of separation took place over the body of a horse sacrificed for the occasion. The rites were performed if possible at noon, "when the sun was at his height." A priest for the nonce was chosen by lot, and the horse, which must be without blemish and in no manner of way lame, was then led forth.

"The priest, with a long pole or staff in his hand, [Footnote 176] walks round and round the animal several times; repeating the names of all the persons in whose possession it has been, and extolling and expatiating on the rare qualities of so useful an animal. It is now let loose, and driven from their presence to do whatever it pleases. The horse, perfect and free, is put into the room of the woman who is to be divorced; and by its different movements is the degree of her guilt ascertained. Some of the gipsies now set off in pursuit of it, and endeavor to catch it. If it is wild and intractable, kicks, leaps dykes and ditches, scampers about and will not allow itself to be easily taken hold of, the crimes and guilt of the woman are looked upon as numerous and heinous. If the horse is tame and docile, when it is pursued, and suffers itself to be taken without much trouble, and without exhibiting many capers, the guilt of the woman is not considered so deep and aggravated; and it is then sacrificed in her stead. But if it is extremely wild and vicious, and cannot be taken without infinite trouble, her crimes are considered exceedingly wicked and atrocious; and my informant said instances occurred in which both horse and woman were sacrificed at the same time; the death of the horse, alone, being then considered insufficient to atone for her excessive guilt. The individuals who catch the course bring it before the priest. They repeat to him all the faults and tricks it had committed; laying the whole of the crimes of which the woman is supposed to have been guilty to its charge; and upbraiding and scolding the dumb creature, in an angry manner, for its conduct. They bring, as it were, an accusation against it, and plead for its condemnation. When this part of the trial is finished, the priest takes a large knife and thrusts it into the heart of the horse; and its blood is allowed to flow upon the ground till life is extinct. The dead animal is now stretched out upon the ground. The husband then takes his stand on one side of it, and the wife on the other; and, holding each other by the hand, repeat certain appropriate sentences in the gipsy language. They then quit hold of each other, and walk three times round the body of the horse, contrariwise, passing and crossing each other, at certain points, as they proceed in opposite directions. At certain parts of the animal, {710} (the _corners_ of the horse, was the gipsy's expression,) such as the hind and fore feet, the shoulders and haunches, the head and tail, the parties halt, and face each other; and again repeat sentences, in their own speech, at each time they halt. The two last stops they make, in their circuit round the sacrifice, are at the head and tail. At the head, they again face each other, and speak; and lastly, at the tail, they again confront each other, utter some more gipsy expressions, shake hands, and finally part, the one going north, the other south, never again to be united in this life. [Footnote 177] Immediately after the separation takes place, the woman receives a token, which is made of cast-iron, about an inch and a half square, with a mark upon it resembling the Roman character, T. After the marriage has been dissolved, and the woman dismissed from the sacrifice, the heart of the horse is taken out and roasted with fire, then sprinkled with vinegar, or brandy, and eaten by the husband and his friends then present; the female not being allowed to join in this part of the ceremony. The body of the horse, skin and every thing about it, except the heart, is buried on the spot; and years after the ceremony has taken place, the husband and his friends visit the grave of the animal to see whether it has been disturbed. At these visits, they walk round about the grave, with much grief and mourning.

[Footnote 176: It appears all the gipsies, male as well as female, who perform ceremonies for their tribe, carry long staffs. In the Institutes of Menu, page 23, it is written: "The staff of a priest must be of such a length as to reach his hair; that of a soldier to reach his forehead; and that of a merchant to reach the nose."]

[Footnote 177: That I might distinctly understand the gipsy, when he described the manner of crossing and wheeling round the corners of the horse, a common sitting-chair was placed on its side between us, which represented the animal lying on the ground.]

"The husband may take another wife whenever he pleases, but the female is never permitted to marry again. [Footnote 178] The token, or rather bill of divorce, which she receives, must never be from about her person. If she loses it, or attempts to pass herself off as a woman never before married, she becomes liable to the punishment of death. In the event of her breaking this law, a council of the chiefs is held upon her conduct, and her fate is decided by a majority of the members; and if she is to suffer death, her sentence must be confirmed by the king, or principal leader. The culprit is then tied to a stake, with an iron chain, and there cudgelled to death. The executioners do not extinguish life at one beating, but leave the unhappy woman for a little while, and return to her, and at last complete their work by despatching her on the spot.

[Footnote 178: Bright, on the Spanish gipsies, says: "Widows never marry again, and are distinguished by mourning-veils, and black shoes made like those of a man; no slight mortification, in a country where the females are so remarkable for the beauty of their feet." It is most likely that _divorced female gipsies_ are confounded here with _widows_.--Ed.]

"I have been informed of an instance of a gipsy falling out with his wife, and, in the heat of his passion, shooting his own horse dead on the spot with his pistol, and forthwith performing the ceremony of divorce over the animal, without allowing himself a moments's time for reflection on the subject. Some of the country-people observed the transaction, and were horrified at so extraordinary a proceeding. It was considered by them as merely a mad frolic of an enraged Tinkler. It took place many years ago, in a wild, sequestered spot between Galloway and Ayrshire."

The burial ceremonies of the tribes are not very fully described; but we are told that the funeral is, or used to be, preceded by a wake, during which furious feasting and carousing went on for several days. In England, at one time, the gipsies burned their dead, and they still keep as close as they can to that ancient practice, by burning the clothes and some of the other effects of the deceased. It is the custom of some of them to bury the corpse with a paper cap on its head, and paper around its feet. All the rest of the body is bare except that upon the breast, opposite the heart, is placed a cockade of red and blue ribbons.

The country people stood in dreadful awe of the savage hordes, and in many places the magistrates themselves were afraid to punish them. Their honors did not disdain now and then to share a convivial bowl with the wandering Tinklers, and the man who sat to-day with his legs under the provost's mahogany, may have slept last night in a deserted lime-kiln, and dined yesterday off a "sharp"-flavored joint of "braxy." As we have said already, the farmers knew it was safer to be the friend of the gipsy than his enemy, for he was equally generous to those he liked, and vindictive toward those he hated. Mr. Simson tells many an anecdote of favors shown by the tribe to their neighbors and favorites. A widow who had often given shelter to a chief named Charlie Graham, was in great distress for want of money to pay her rent. Charlie lent her the amount required, then stole it back again from the agent to whom it had been pad, and gave {711} the widow a full discharge for the sum she had borrowed of him. This same Graham was hanged at last, and when asked before his execution if he had ever performed any good action to recommend him to the Mercy of God, replied that he remembered none but the incident we have just narrated. A dissolute old rogue of a gipsy, named Jamie Robertson, had been often befriended by a decent man named Robert or Robin Gray. One day a countryman passed him on the road, and as he trudged along was singing "Auld Robin Gray," which unfortunately Jamie had never heard before. The only Robin Gray he knew of was his kind-hearted friend, and he made no doubt the song was intended as an insult. When the unconscious stranger came to the words "Auld Robin Gray was a kind man to me," the gipsy started to his feet with a volley of oaths, felled the poor man to the ground, and nearly killed him with repeated blows. "Auld Robin Gray was a kind man to him, indeed," exclaimed Jamie in his wrath; "but it was not for him to make a song on Robin for that!" The gipsy chieftains often gave safeguards to their particular friends, which never failed to protect them from robbery or violence at the hands of any of the gang. These passports were generally knives, tobacco-boxes, or rings bearing some peculiar mark. To those who had ever injured them or their people, and to vagrants of another race who were found poaching on their allotted district, they were savagely vindictive. A man named Thomson, who had offended them by encroaching on one of their supposed privileges--that of gathering rags through the country, was roasted to death on his own fire.

"But the most terrible instances of gipsy ferocity were witnessed in their frequent battles among themselves--battles by the way, in which the women bore their full share of wounds and glory. It was in an engagement of this sort in the shire of Angus, where the Tinklers fought with Highland dirks, that the celebrated gipsy Lizzie Brown met with the mishap which spoiled her once comely face, and obtained for her the sobriquet of "Snippy." When her nose was struck off by the sweep of a dirk, she clapped her hand to the wound, as if little had befallen her, and cried out in the heat of the scuffle to those nearest her: "But in the middle of the meantime, where is my nose?" In the spring of the year 1772 or 1773 an awful battle was fought between two tribes at the bridge of Hawick:

"On the one side, in this battle, was the celebrated Alexander Kennedy, a handsome and athletic man, and head of his tribe. Next to him, in consideration, was little Wull Ruthven, Kennedy's father-in-law. This man was known all over the country by the extraordinary title of the Earl of Hell, [Footnote 179] and, although he was above five feet ten inches in height, he got the appellation of Little Wull to distinguish him from Muckle William Ruthven, who was a man of uncommon stature and personal strength. [Footnote 180] The earl's son was also in the fray. These were the chief men in Kennedy's band. Jean Ruthven, Kennedy's wife, was also present, with a great number of inferior members of the clan, males as well as females, of all ages, down to mere children. The opposite band consisted of old Rob Tait, the chieftain of his horde, Jacob Tait, young Rob Tait, and three of old Rob Tait's sons-in-law. These individuals, with Jean Gordon, old Tait's wife, and a numerous train of youths of both sexes and various ages, composed the adherents of old Robert Tait. These adverse tribes were all closely connected with one another by the ties of blood. The Kennedys and Ruthvens were from the ancient burgh of Lochmaben.

[Footnote 179: This seems a favorite title among the Tinklers. One of the name of Young, bears it at the present time. But the gipsies are not singular in these terrible titles. In the late Burmese war, we find his Burmese majesty creating one of his generals "King of Hell, Prince of Darkness."--See _Constable's Miscellany_.]

[Footnote 180: A friend, in writing me, says: "I still think I see him (Muckie Wall) bruising the charred peat over the flame of his furnace, with hands equal to two pair of hands of the modern day, while his withered and hairy shackle-bones were more like the postern joints of a sorrel cart-horse than anything else."]

{712}

"The whole of the gipsies in the field, females as well as males, were armed with bludgeons, excepting some of the Taits, who carried cutlasses and pieces of iron hoops notched and serrated on either side, like a saw, and fixed to the end of sticks. The boldest of the tribe were in front of their respective bands, with their children and the other members of their clan in the rear, forming a long train behind them. In this order both parties boldly advanced, with their weapons uplifted above their heads. Both sides fought with extraordinary fury and obstinacy. Sometimes the one band gave way, and sometimes the other; but both, again and again, returned to the combat with fresh ardor. Not a word was spoken during the struggle; nothing was heard but the rattling of the cudgels and the strokes of the cutlasses. After a long and doubtful contest, Jean Ruthven, big with child at the time, at last received, among many other blows, a dreadful wound with a cutlass. She was cut to the bone above and below the breast, particularly on one side. It was said the slashes were so large and deep that one of her breasts was nearly severed from her body, and that the motions of her lungs, while she breathed, were observed through the aperture between her ribs. But, notwithstanding her dreadful condition, she would neither quit the field nor yield, but continued to assist her husband as long as she was able. Her father, the Earl of Hell, was also shockingly wounded; the flesh being literally cut from the bone of one of his legs, and, in the words of my informant, 'hanging down over his ankles, like beefsteaks.' The earl left the field to get his wounds dressed, but, observing his daughter, Kennedy's wife, so dangerously wounded, he lost heart, and, with others of his party, fled, leaving Kennedy alone to defend himself against the whole of the clan of Tait.

"Having now all the Taits, young and old, male and female, to contend with, Kennedy, like an experienced warrior, took advantage of the local situation of the place. Posting himself on the narrow bridge of Hawick, he defended himself in the defile, with his bludgeon, against the whole of his infuriated enemies. His handsome person, his undaunted bravery, his extraordinary dexterity in handling his weapon, and his desperate situation, (for it was evident to all that the Taits thirsted for his blood and were determined to dispatch him on the spot,) excited a general and lively interest in his favor among the inhabitants of the town who were present and had witnessed the conflict with amazement and horror. In one dash to the front, and with one powerful sweep of his cudgel, he disarmed two of the Taits, and, cutting a third to the skull, felled him to the ground. He sometimes daringly advanced upon his assailants and drove the whole band before him pell-mell. When he broke one cudgel on his enemies, by his powerful arm, the town's people were ready to hand him another. Still the vindictive Taits rallied and renewed the charge with unabated vigor, and every one present expected that Kennedy would fall a sacrifice to their desperate fury. A party of messengers and constables at last arrived to his relief, when the Taits were all apprehended and imprisoned, but as none of the gipsies were actually slain in the fray, they were soon set at liberty. [Footnote 181]

[Footnote 181: This gipsy battle is alluded to by Sir Walter Scott, in a postscript to a letter to Captain Adam Ferguson, 16th April, 1819.

"By the by, old Kennedy, the tinker, swam for his life at Jedburgh, and was only, by the sophisticated and timed evidence of a seceding doctor, who differed from all his brethren, saved from a well-deserved gibbet. He goes to botanize for fourteen years. Pray tell this to the Duke, (of Buccleuch,) for he was an old soldier of the duke and the duke's old soldier. Six of his brethren were, I am told, in the court, and kith and kin without end. I am sorry so many of the clan are left. The cause of the quarrel with the murdered man was an old feud between two gipsy clans, the Kennedys and Irvings, which, about forty years since gave rise to a desperate quarrel and battle at Hawick-green, in which the grandfather of both Kennedy and the man whom he murdered were engaged."--_Lockhart's Life of Sir Walter Scott._ Alexander Kennedy was tried for murdering Irving at Yarrows-ford.

This gipsy fray at Hawick is known among the English gipsies as "the Battle of the Bridge."--Ed. ]

"In this battle, it was said that every gipsy, except Alexander Kennedy, the brave chief, was severely wounded, and that the ground on which they fought was wet with blood. Jean Gordon, however, stole unobserved from her band, and, taking a circuitous road, came behind Kennedy and struck him on the head with her cudgel. What astonished the inhabitants of Hawick the most of all, was the fierce and stubborn disposition of the gipsy females. It was remarked that, when they were knocked down senseless to the ground they rose again, with redoubled vigor and energy, to the combat. This unconquerable obstinacy and courage of their females is held in high estimation by the tribe. I once heard a gipsy sing a song which celebrated one of their battles, and in it the brave and determined manner in which the girls bore the blows of the cudgel over their heads was particularly applauded.

"The battle at Hawick was not decisive to either party. The hostile bands a short time afterward came in contact in Ettrick Forest, at a place on the water of Teema called Deephope. They did not, however, engage here, but the females on both sides, at some distance from one another, with a stream between them, scolded and cursed, and, clapping their hands, urged the males again to fight. The men, however, more cautious, only observed a sullen and gloomy silence at this meeting. Probably both parties, from experience, were unwilling to renew the fight, being aware of the consequences which would follow should they again close in battle. The two clans then separated, each taking different roads, but both keeping possession of the disputed district. In the course of a few days, they again met in Eskdale moor, when a second desperate conflict ensued. The Taits were here completely routed and driven {713} from the district, in which they had attempted to travel by force.

"The country people were horrified at the sight of the wounded Tinklers after these sanguinary engagements. Several of them, lame and exhausted in consequence of the severity of their numerous wounds, were, by the assistance of their tribe, carried through the country on the backs of asses, so much were they cut up in their persons. Some of them, it was said, were slain outright, and never more heard of. Jean Ruthven, however, who was so dreadfully slashed, recovered from her wounds, to the surprise of all who had seen her mangled body, which was sewed in different parts by her clan."

The Ruthvens mentioned in this extract belonged to a distinguished family among the gipsies. Their male head, in those days, was a man over six feet in height, who lived to the age of one hundred and fifteen. In his youth he wore a white wig, a ruffled shirt, a blue Scottish bonnet, scarlet breeches and waistcoat, a fine long blue coat, white stockings, and silver shoe-buckles. The male gipsies at that time were often very handsomely dressed, and so too were the women. A favorite color with them was green. Mary Yorkston, or Yowston, the wife of the same Matthew Baillie, whose rough manner of courting we mentioned just now, went under the appellation of "my lady," and "the duchess," and bore the title of queen among her tribe. Her appearance on the road, when she was pretty well advanced in life, is thus described: She was full six feet in height, of a stout figure, with harsh, strongly-marked features, and altogether very imposing in her manner. She wore a large black beaver hat tied down over her ears with a handkerchief; a short dark blue cloak, of Spanish cut; petticoats of dark blue camlet, barely reaching to her calves; dark blue worsted stockings, flowered and ornamented at the ankles with scarlet thread; and silver shoe-buckles. Sometimes instead of this garb she wore a green gown trimmed with red ribbons. All her garments were of excellent, substantial quality, and there was never a rag or rent to be seen about her person. Her outer petticoat was folded up round her haunches for a lap, with a large pocket dangling at each side; and below her cloak she carried, between her shoulders, a small pack containing her valuables. She bore a largo clasp-knife, with a long, broad blade, like a dagger, and in her hand was a pole or pike-staff that reached a foot above her head. The male branches of the royal gipsy family of the Baillies, a hundred years ago, used to traverse Scotland on the best horses to be found in the country, booted and spurred, and clad in the finest scarlet and green, with ruffles at their wrists and breasts. They wore cocked hats on their heads, pistols at their belts, and broad-swords by their sides; and at their horses' heels followed greyhounds and other dogs of the chase. They assumed the manners and characters of gentlemen with wonderful art and propriety. The women attended fairs in the attire of ladies, sitting their ponies with all the grace and dignity of high-bred women. Two chieftains of inferior degree to the Baillies were Alexander McDonald and James Jamieson, brothers-in-law, remarkable for their fine personal appearance and almost incredible bodily strength. They were often attired in the most elegant and fashionable manner, and McDonald frequently changed his dress three or four times in one market-day. Now he would appear in the best of tartan, as a Highland gentleman in full costume. Again he might be seen on horseback, with boots, spurs, and ruffles, like a body of no little importance. And not infrequently he wandered through the fair in his own proper garb, as a travelling Tinkler. He had a piebald horse which he had trained to help him in his depredations. At a certain signal it would crouch to the ground like, a hare, and so conceal itself and its rider in a ditch or a hollow, or behind a hedge. There was a gallant gipsy in the seventeenth century named John Faa, {714} who, if tradition is to be trusted, won the heart of a fair countess of Cassilis, so that she absconded with him. Many years later there was an extensive mercantile house at Dunbar, the heads of which, named Fall, were descendants of this same gay deceiver. One of the Misses Fall married Sir John Anstruther, of Elie, baronet, but her prejudiced Scottish neighbors could not forget that she carried Tinkler blood in her veins, and poor "Jenny Faa," as they persisted in calling her, was exposed to many an insult. Sir John was once a candidate for election to Parliament, and whenever Lady Jenny entered the burghs during the canvass, the streets resounded with the old song of "Johnny Faa, the gipsy laddie," which recounts how--

"The gipsies came to my Lord Cassilis' yett, And oh! but they sang bonnie; They sang sae sweet, and sae complete. That down came our fair ladie."

It was not all a romance of love, and fine dresses, and free ranging up and down the realm, this life of the gipsies. Magistrates were found pretty often, not only to punish their repeated crimes of robbery and murder, but even to put in force the old savage law against "such as were by habit and repute Egyptians"--namely, that "their ears be nailed to the tron or other tree, and cut off." It is an odd fact that in this act were denounced not only gipsies, but "_such as make themselves fools_," strolling bards, and "vagabond scholars of the universities of St. Andrew's, Glasgow, and Aberdeen, not licensed by the rector and dean of faculty to ask alms." There was an old John Young, an uncle of the Charlie Graham before mentioned, who had seven sons, and when asked where they were, he used to say "They are all hanged." It was a pretty family record, but a just one. Peter, one of the seven, was captain of a band of thieves whose exploits were long remembered in the north of Scotland. He was several times taken and sentenced to the gallows, but managed to escape. Once being recaptured at a distance from the jail out of which he had broken, the authorities were about to hang him on the spot, when some one in the crowd cried out, "Peter, deny you are the man;" whereupon he insisted that his name was John Anderson. Strange as it may appear, he managed to get off by this device, as there was no one present who could or would identify him.

Alexander Brown, a dashing fellow, but a dreadful rascal, and one of the principal members of Charlie Graham's band, after repeated escapes, was hanged at last at Edinburgh, together with his brother-in-law, Wilson. Martha Brown, the mother of one of the prisoners, and mother-in-law of the other, was apprehended in the act of stealing a pair of sheets, while attending their execution. When Charlie Graham was hanged, it was reported that the surgeons meant to disinter his body and dissect it. To prevent this his wife or sweetheart filled the coffin with hot lime, and then sat on the grave, in a state of beastly intoxication, until the corpse was destroyed.

The last part of the volume before us, namely, the editor's disquisition, we approach in fear and trembling. Old Mr. Walter Simson seems to have been a good sort of a gentleman, for whom we cannot help feeling a kindness, even though he did not write quite as well as Addison; but this Mr. James Simson, editor, is a terrible fellow. He assures us that all creation is full of unsuspected gipsies, who have crept into every circle of society, insidiously intruded themselves into the most respectable trades and professions; and contaminated the best blood in Christendom. No matter where we live now, or where our ancestors came from; it is quite possible--we are not sure that Mr. James does not consider it almost as good as certain--that we may all of us have some of that dark blood in our veins. Our great-grandfathers may have been {715} hanged for horse-stealing, and our grand-mothers, horrible thought! May have eaten "braxy."

England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, France, Spain, Germany, and Italy, all have contributed their quotas to the gipsy population of the world, and even America itself is infested with descendants of the vagabond tinklers of the last century. It is only about a fortnight since the newspapers told us of the arrival of a band of wandering "Egyptians" at Liverpool, on their way to the United States, fugitives from the advancing civilization of Scotland, to the new settlements and free woods and plains of the great west. Now and then, though not very often, gipsy encampments of the old orthodox kind are seen in this country, and there have been tented gipsies near Baltimore, says Mr. Simson, for the last seventy years. He adds that a colony of them has existed in New England for a hundred years, and "has always been looked upon with a singular feeling of distrust and mystery by the inhabitants, who are the descendants of the early emigrants, and who did not suspect their origin till lately. . . . They follow pretty much the employments and mode of life of the same class in Europe; the most striking feature being that the bulk of them leave the homestead for a length of time, scatter in different directions, and reunite periodically at their quarters, which are left in charge of some of the feeble members of the band." Pennsylvania and Maryland contain a great many Hungarian and German gipsies, who leave their farms to the care of hired hands during the summer, and proceed South with their tents.

"In the State of Pennsylvania, there is a settlement of them, on the J---- river, a little way above H----, where they have sawmills. About the Alleghany mountains, there are many of the tribe, following somewhat the original ways of the race. In the United States generally there are many gipsy peddlers, British as well as continental. There are a good many gipsies in New York, English, Irish, and continental, some of whom keep tin, crockery, and basket stores; but these are all mixed gipsies, and many of them of fair complexion. The tin-ware which they make is generally of a plain, coarse kind; so much so, that a gipsy tin store is easily known. They frequently exhibit their tin-ware and baskets on the streets, and carry them about the city. Almost all, if not all, of those itinerant cutlers and tinklers, to be met with in New-York, and other American cities are gipsies, principally German, Hungarian, and French. There are a good many gipsy musicians in America. 'What!' said I to an English gipsy, 'those organ-grinders!' 'Nothing so low as that Gipsies don't _grind_ their music, sir; they _make_ it.' But I found in his house, when occupied by other gipsies, a _hurdy-gurdy_ and tambourine; so that gipsies sometimes _grind_ music, as well as _make_ it. I know of a Hungarian gipsy who is a leader of a negro musical band, in the city of New-York; his brother drives one of the avenue cars. There are a number of gipsy musicians in Baltimore, who play at parties, and on other occasions. Some of the fortune-telling gipsy women about New-York will make as much as forty dollars a week in that line of business. They generally live a little way out of the city, into which they ride in the morning to their places of business. I know of one, who resides in New-Jersey, opposite New-York, and who has a place in the city, to which ladies, that is, females of the highest classes, address their cards, for her to call upon them."

We forbear quoting more about the American gipsies: the information becomes fearfully suggestive, and it is all the more terrifying because these people never acknowledge their descent, and however sharply we may suspect them, we have no way of bringing the offence home to them. The friend who shakes our hand today may be the grandson of a vagabond who camped on our grandfather's farm, stole our grandmother's eggs and poultry, and picked our great-uncle's pocket. The ancestor of that beautiful girl we danced with at the last ball may have had his ears nailed to the tree and then cut off, and the gentleman who asks us to dinner to-morrow, may purpose entertaining us with "sharps"-flavored mutton and a savory stew of beef juice and old rags.

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NEW PUBLICATIONS.

THIRTY YEARS OF ARMY LIFE ON THE BORDER. Comprising descriptions of the Indian Nomads of the Plains; explorations of new territory; a trip across the Rocky Mountains in the winter; descriptions of the habits of different animals found in the West, and the methods of hunting them; with incidents in the life of different frontier men, etc., etc. By Colonel R. B. Marcy, U.S.A., author of "The Prairie Traveller." With numerous illustrations. New-York: Harper & Brothers. 1866.

Colonel Marcy, as appears from the title of his book, has passed the greater portion of his life among the trappers and Indians of the frontier. His descriptions are consequently authentic, and his lively, picturesque style makes them also extremely interesting and agreeable. When we add to this the pleasant accompaniment of fine typographical execution and numerous spirited illustrations, we have said enough to recommend the book to the lovers of information combined with entertainment, and will leave the following specimen to speak for the whole work.

THE COLORADO CAÑON.

I refer to that portion of the Colorado, extending from near the confluence of Grand and Green rivers, which is known as the "Big Cañon of the Colorado." This cañon is without doubt one of the most stupendous freaks of nature that can be found upon the face of the earth. It appears that by some great paroxysmal, convulsive throe in the mysterious economy of the wise laws of nature, an elevated chain of mountains has been reft asunder, as if to admit a passage for the river along the level of the grade at the base. The walls of this majestic defile, so far as they have been seen, are nearly perpendicular; and although we have no exact data upon which to base a positive calculation of their altitude, yet our information is amply sufficient to warrant the assertion that it far exceeds anything of the kind elsewhere known.

The first published account of this remarkable defile was contained in the works of Castenada, giving a description of the expedition of Don Francisco Vasquez de Coronado in search of the "seven cities of Cibola"--in 1540-1.

He went from the city of Mexico to Sonora, and from thence penetrated to Cibola; and while there despatched an auxiliary expedition, under the command of Don Garcia Lopez de Cardenas, to explore a river which emptied into the Gulf of California, called "_Rio del Tison,_" and which, of course, was the _Rio Colorado_.

On reaching the vicinity of the river, he found a race of natives, of very great stature, who lived in subterranean tenements covered with straw or grass. He says, when these Indians travelled in very cold weather, they carried in their hands a firebrand, with which they kept themselves warm.

Captain Sitgreaves, who in 1862 met the Mohave Indians on the Colorado river, says "they are over six feet tall;" and Mr. R. H. Kern, a very intelligent and reliable gentleman, who was attached to the same expedition, and visited the lower part of the great cañon of the Colorado, says: "The same manners and customs (as those described by Castenada) are peculiar to all the different tribes inhabiting the valley of the Colorado, even to the use of the brand for warming the body. These Indians, as a mass, are the largest and best-formed men I ever saw, their average height being an inch over six feet."

The Spanish explorer says he travelled for several days along the crest of the lofty bluff bordering the cañon, which he estimated to be three leagues high, and he found no place where he could pass down to the water from the summits. He once made the attempt at a place where but few obstacles seemed to interfere with the descent, and started three of his most active men. They were gone the greater part of the day, and on their return informed him that they had only succeeded in reaching a rock about one third the distance down. This rock, he says, appeared from the top of the cañon about six feet high, but they informed him that it was as high as the spire of the cathedral at Seville in Spain.

The river itself looked from the summit of the cañon, to be something like a fathom in width, but the Indians assured him it was half a league wide.

Antoine Lereux, one of the most reliable and best informed guides in New Mexico, told me in 1858, that he had once been at a point of this cañon where he estimated the walls to be _three miles high_.

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Mr. Kern says, in speaking of the Colorado: "No other river in North America passes through a cañon equal in depth to the one alluded to. The description (Castenada's) is made out with rare truth and force. We had a view of it from the San Francisco mountain, N. M., and judging from our own elevation, and the character of the intervening country, I have no doubt the walls are at least fire thousand feet in height."

The mountaineers in Utah told me that a party of trappers many years since built a large row-boat, and made the attempt to descend the river through the defile of the cañon, but were never heard from afterward. They probably dashed their boat in pieces, and were lost by being precipitated over sunken rocks or elevated falls.

In 185- Lieutenant Ives of the United States Engineers, was ordered to penetrate the cañon with a steamer of light draught. He ascended the river from the gulf as high as a little above the mouth of the gorge, but there encountered rapids and other obstacles of so serious a character that he was forced to turn back and abandon the enterprise, and no other efforts have since been made under government auspices to explore it.

A thorough examination of this cañon might, in my opinion, be made by taking small row-boats and ascending the river from the debouche of the gorge at a low stage of water. In this way there would be no danger of being carried over dangerous rapids or falls, and the boats could be carried round difficult passages. Such an exploration could not, in my judgment, prove otherwise than intensely interesting, as the scenery here must surpass in grandeur any other in the universe.

Wherever we find rivers flowing through similar formations elsewhere, as at the "_dalles_" of the Columbia and Wisconsin rivers, and in the great cañons of Red and Canadian rivers, although the escarpments at those places have nothing like the altitude of those upon the Colorado, yet the long continued erosive action of the water upon the rock, has produced the most novel and interesting combinations of beautiful pictures. Imagine, then, what must be the effect of a large stream like the Colorado, traversing for two hundred miles a defile with the perpendicular walls towering five thousand feet above the bed of the river. It is impossible that it should not contribute largely toward the formation of scenery surpassing in sublimity and picturesque character any other in the world. Our landscape painters would here find rare subjects for their study, and I venture to hope that the day is not far distant when some of the most enterprising of them may be induced to penetrate this new field of art in our only remaining unexplored territory. I am confident they would be abundantly rewarded for their trouble and exposure, and would find subjects for the exercise of genius, the sublimity of which the most vivid imaginations of the old masters never dreamed of.

A consideration, however, of vastly greater financial and national importance than those alluded to above, which might and probably would result from a thorough exploration of this part of the river, is the development of its mineral wealth.

In 1849 I met in Santa Fé that enterprising pioneer, Mr. F. X. Aubrey, who had just returned from California, and en route had crossed the Colorado near the outlet of the _Big Cañon_, where he met some Indians, with whom, as he informed me, he exchanged leaden for golden rifle-balls, and these Indians did not appear to have the slightest appreciation of the relative value of the two metals.

That gold and silver abound in that region is fully established, as those metals have been found in many localities both east and west of the Colorado. Is it not therefore probable that the walls of this gigantic crevice will exhibit many rich deposits? Companies are formed almost daily, and large amounts of money and labor expended in sinking shafts of one, two, and three hundred feet with the confident expectation of finding mineral deposits; but here nature has opened and exposed to view a continuous shaft two hundred miles in length, and five thousand feet in depth. In the one case we have a small shaft blasted out at great expense by manual labor, showing a surface of about thirty-six hundred feet, while here nature gratuitously exhibits ten thousand millions of feet, extending into the very bowels of the earth.

Is it, then, at all without the scope of rational conjecture to predict that such an immense development of the interior strata of the earth--such a huge gulch, if I may be allowed the expression, extending so great a distance through the heart of a country as rich as this in the precious metals, may yet prove to be the _El Dorado_ which the early Spanish explorers so long and so fruitlessly sought for; and who knows but that the government might here find a source of revenue sufficient to liquidate our national debt?

Regarding the exploration of this river as highly important in a national aspect, I in 1858 submitted a paper upon the subject to the War Department, setting forth my views somewhat in detail, and offering my services to perform the work; but there was then no appropriation which could be applied to that object, and the Secretary of War for this reason declined ordering it.

CHRISTINE; A TROUBADOUR'S SONG, and other Poems. By George H. Miles. New York: Lawrence Kehoe. 1866.

Mr. Miles's poem, "Christine," has {718} been already before our readers, in the pages of the Catholic World, and we are sure that its appearance in book form will be welcomed by all who have perused its beautiful verses.

It is the work of an artist, and as such, one likes to have it, as it were, completely under view, and not scattered in fragments amidst other productions which intrude upon our vision, and interrupt its continuity.

Mr. Miles has given us a poem of no ordinary merit. Powerfully dramatic, it not only paints the scenes of the story in strong, vivid colors, but brings the actors into a living reality as they pass before us. Few writers of our day possess much dramatic power, and this accounts for their short-lived fame. He who would write for fame must give us pictures of real life, and not pure reflective sentiment.

Poetry and its more subtle-tongued sister, music, are as much nobler and worthier of immortality than are painting or sculpture, as the reality is superior to the image. Poetry and music are the true clothed in the beautiful, whilst painting and sculpture can only give us beautiful yet lifeless images of the true. The Psalms of David remain, but the Temple of Solomon and all its glory is departed. Poetry, the purest form of language, is also the best expression of divine, living and eternal truth, in so far as humanity can express it. Being the expression of absolute truth, poetry and music are the truly immortal arts which will live in heaven. No one ever yet imagined that the blessed, in presence of the Unveiled Truth, will express their beatitude in painted or sculptured images; but the revealed vision of the inspired poet, who drew his inspiration at the Source of truth, upon whose bosom he leaned, telling us of the saints, "harping upon their harps of gold," and "singing the song of the Lamb," finds a responsive assent in all our minds. Caught up into the embrace of the infinitely true, and the infinitely beautiful, they must necessarily give expression to that upon which the soul lives, and with which it is wholly enlightened.

There, too, they must possess a _quasi_ creative power of expression of the true, (in so far as they are thus endowed by virtue of their union with God, who is pure act, through the Word made Flesh,) just as we possess it here in germ by the dramatic form, which actualizes to us the otherwise abstract truth expressed. Hence the superiority of the dramatic, in which of course we include the descriptive, over the sentimental. Mr. Miles possesses this genius in no mean degree, as he has already shown in his "Mahomet." The poem before us abounds in dramatic passages of rare beauty. Let our readers turn to the third song, and read the flight of Christine. They will find it to be a description unsurpassed in the English language. The death of "faithful Kaliph," and the knight's tender plaint over his "gallant grey," forgetful of even his rescued spouse, introduced to us in the flush of victory over the demon foe, just when our stronger passions are wrought up to the highest pitch of enthusiasm, is one of those sudden and thrilling transitions from the sublime to the pathetic which may crown Mr. Miles as a master of the poet's pen.

"Raphael Sanzio" dying, the first of the additional poems, possesses much of the merit we have signalized, but its versification and wording are too harsh for the subject. It is not the death of him whom we have known as Raphael. It reads as though told by one who was forced to admire, yet did not love, the great artist. There is a charming little poem, entitled, "Said the Rose," which is worth all the minor poems put together, if poetry can be valued against poetry. We may say, at least, that it alone is worth many times the price of the whole volume; and our readers, who may have already enjoyed the perusal of "Christine" in our pages, will not fail to thank us for this hint to purchase the complete volume.

Mr. Kehoe, the publisher, is giving us some creditable books, as the "Life and Sermons of Father Baker," the "May Carols of Aubrey de Vere," and "The Works of Archbishop Hughes," bear testimony. The present one is got up in a superior manner, both in type, paper, and binding, and is a worthy dress for author's work.

HISTORY OF ENGLAND, FROM THE FALL OF WOLSEY TO THE DEATH OF ELIZABETH. By James Anthony Froude, M.A., late Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford. Vols. V. and VI. 8vo, pp. 474, 495. New York: Charles Scribner & Co.

Mr. Froude's thorough-going Protestantism is by this time too familiar to our {719} readers for them to expect a very lively satisfaction in reading the story of the reigns of Edward VI. and Mary which he has given in these volumes. We have neither the space nor the inclination to follow him in his review of those melancholy times. We prefer to accord a hearty recognition to the undoubted merits of his work; his graphic and picturesque style; his artistic eye for effect; his excellent judgment in the examination of old-time witnesses; and the rare self-control which in the midst of his abundance of hitherto unused material has saved him from encumbering his pages and overloading his narrative with facts and illustrations of only minor interest. He gives us sometimes little bits of truth where we had least reason to look for them. Cordially as he detests Mary the queen, he is tenderer than most historians of his ultra sort to Mary the woman. "From the passions which in general tempt sovereigns into crime," he says, "she was entirely free; to the time of her accession she had lived a blameless, and in many respects a noble life; and few men or women have lived less capable of doing knowingly a wrong thing. Philip's conduct, which could not extinguish her passion for him, and the collapse of the inflated imaginations which had surrounded her supposed pregnancy, it can hardly be doubted, affected her sanity. Those forlorn hours when she would sit on the ground with her knees drawn to her face; those restless days and nights when, like a ghost, she would wander about the palace galleries, rousing herself only to write tear-blotted letters to her husband; those bursts of fury over the libels dropped in her way; or the marchings in procession behind the Host in the London streets[!]--these are all symptoms of hysterical derangement, and leave little room, as we think of her, for other feeling than pity." The persecution, for which her reign is remembered was partly the result, Mr. Froude thinks, of "the too natural tendency of an oppressed party to abuse suddenly recovered power." Moreover, "the rebellions and massacres, the political scandals, the universal suffering throughout the country during Edward's minority, had created a general bitterness in all classes against the Reformers; the Catholics could appeal with justice to the apparent consequences of heretical opinions; and when the Reforming preachers themselves denounced so loudly the irreligion which had attended their success, there was little wonder that the world took them at their word, and was ready to permit the use of strong suppressive measures to keep down the unruly tendencies of uncontrolled fanatics."

Mr. Froude's history will be completed in two more volumes.

A GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH: from the Commencement of the Christian Era until the Present Time. By M. l'Abbé J. E. Darras. Vol. III. P. O'Shea, New-York.

The period comprised by the third volume of this admirable history extends from the pontificate of Sylvester II. A.D. 1000 to that of Julius II. a.d. 1513. To our mind the terrible struggle which the church sustained during those four eventful centuries is more wonderful than her deadly strife in the days of Roman persecution and martyrdom. The church is a divine-human institution; and inasmuch as it is human, it must suffer from human infirmity, but the Spirit of God abideth for ever in it, preserving the truth amidst heresies, the purity of the Christian law amidst moral degradation, and at last crowning. His spouse with new glories for her patiently borne sufferings.

On every page of the church's history, and on none more clearly than that which records her life from the eleventh to the sixteenth century, is that promise written, "And the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." We again add our cordial commendation of the work of M. Darras, and hope its publication will prove to the enterprising publisher as successful as it is opportune.

THE AMERICAN ANNUAL CYCLOPAEDIA AND REGISTER OF CURRENT EVENTS OF THE YEAR 1866. Vol. V. New-York: D. Appleton. 1867.

This is a valuable compendium of information respecting the current events of the year. It is particularly complete as regards American politics and the literature of the English language. On other topics it is more general and superficial, especially so in its history of the progress of science. For instance, there is no record whatever of the history of geology during the year. The great defect of the Cyclopaedia, as a whole, is an unnecessary minuteness in regard to {720} persons and things of our own time and country which have no real and permanent interest, and a corresponding lack of minuteness in regard to matters of other times and countries which are really important. It would be a good idea for the publishers to invite all the scholars in the country to send in a list of titles of articles whose absence they have noticed in consulting the work for information, and from these to prepare a supplementary volume. In regard to all questions relating to the Catholic Church, the Cyclopaedia is remarkable throughout for its fairness and impartiality--a merit which is to be ascribed in great measure to its learned and genial editor, Mr. Ripley.

AUNT HONOR'S KEEPSAKE. A Chapter from Life. By Mrs. J. Sadlier.

TEN STORIES FROM THE FRENCH OF BALLEYDIER. Translated by Mrs. J. Sadlier.

THE EXILE OF TADMOR, AND OTHER TALES. Translated by Mrs. J. Sadlier.

TALES AND STORIES. Translated from the French of Viscount Walsh. By Mrs. J. Sadlier.

VALERIA, OR THE FIRST CHRISTIANS, AND OTHER STORIES. Translated from the French of Balleydier and Madame Bowdon. By Mrs. J. Sadlier.

THE BLIGHTED FLOWER, AND OTHER TALES. Translated from the French of Balleydier. By Mrs. J. Sadlier.

STORIES ON THE BEATITUDES. By Agnes M. Stewart, authoress of "Stories on the Virtues," etc. New-York: D.J. Sadlier & Co. 1866.

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A FATHER'S TALES OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. First Series. By the author of "Confessors of Connaught."

RALPH BERRIEN, AND OTHER TALES OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. Second Series. By the author of "Grace Morton," "Philip Hartly," etc.

CHARLES AND FREDERICK, OR A MOTHER'S PRAYER, AND ROSE BLANCH, OR TWELFTH NIGHT IN BRITTANY.

THE BEAUFORTS. A STORY OF THE ALLEGHENIES. By Cora Berkley.

SILVER GRANGE. A CATHOLIC TALE, AND PHILLIPINE, A TALE OF THE MIDDLE AGES. Compiled by the author of "Grace Morton."

HELENA BUTLER. A story of the Rosary and the Shrine of the "Star of the Sea." Philadelphia: Peter F. Cunningham.

These volumes are a valuable addition to our list of books for Catholic children.

"Aunt Honor's Keepsake," by Mrs. J. Sadlier, presents a vivid picture of the wrongs and outrages suffered by Catholic children and parents from the agents of the so-called "Juvenile Reformatories." We also have a translation of several instructive tales from the French by the same talented writer. Agnes Stewart gives us a number of well-written stories on the beatitudes. We heartily commend this effort to provide suitable reading for Catholic children. It is a pressing want. Their active minds eagerly demand something to read. If we do not provide safe and proper reading for them, they will find that which is not so.

We have also an addition of six new volumes to the "Young Catholic Library," published by P. F. Cunningham, Philadelphia. The subjects are well chosen and most of the stories beautifully written. We notice, however, at times, a straining after high-sounding expressions--an absence of that simplicity so necessary in such tales for children. There is also a tendency in writers for children to sprinkle in so much of the romantic and unreal as to make their story a kind of "novelette." Such reading creates in the mind of the young a feverish desire for romance, which can only be satisfied in after years by the novel.

There is enough in the realities of life to startle and fix the attention of any child if properly presented. We trust a larger number of books suitable for children may be provided by those writers who have the time and talent requisite for the work. We know of no way in which they can more usefully employ their pen.

The style in which these volumes are issued makes them suitable for gift-books and is creditable to the publishers. We would also like to see some in plain, durable bindings, better suited for the hard usage they receive in a Sunday-school or parish library.

BOOKS RECEIVED

From D. & J. Sadlier &Co., New York. "The Bit O'Writin'," and Other Tales. "Mayor of Wind-Gap and Canvassing," by the O'Hara Family. 12mo, pp. 406 and 414 (The above are two new volumes of Banim's works.) Parts 21, 22, 23, and 24 of d'Artaud's Lives of the Popes.

From P. Donohue. Boston. Annual Report of the Association for the Protection of Destitute Roman Catholic Children in Boston, from January 1, 1865, to January 1, 1866. Pamphlet.

From P. F. Cunningham, Philadelphia. Alphonso; or, the Triumph of Religion. A Catholic Tale. 12mo, pp. 878.

From Robert H. Johnston & Co., New-York. The Valley of Wyoming: The Romance of its Poetry. Also specimens of Indian Eloquence. Compiled by a native of the valley. 12mo, pp. 153.

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THE CATHOLIC WORLD

VOL, III., NO. 18.--SEPTEMBER, 1866.

[ORIGINAL.]

THE DOCTRINE OF THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH CONCERNING THE NECESSITY OF EPISCOPAL ORDINATION. [Footnote 182]

[Footnote 182: "A Vindication of the Doctrine of the Church of England, or the Validity of the Orders of the Scotch and Foreign Non-Episcopal Churches." By W. Goode, M.A., F.S.A., Rector of All Hallows the Great and Less. London. 1852.

"Does the Episcopal Church teach the Exclusive Validity of Episcopal Orders?" By William Goode, M. A. New York. 185-

"Vox Ecclesiae; or, The Doctrine of the Protestant Episcopal Church on Episcopacy," etc. Philadelphia. 1866.]

Within the past few years, certain circles of the Protestant Episcopal Church have been thrown into no small commotion by a controversy which has arisen between the two great parties, into which she is divided, over the question, Whether or not it is her doctrine that episcopal ordination is necessary to constitute a valid ministry? The contest seems to have been opened by the Rev. William Goode, rector of All Hallows, London, who in the year 1852 published a treatise maintaining the negative of the proposition; "Is it the doctrine of the Church of England that episcopal ordination is a _sine qua non_ to constitute a valid ministry?" In support of his position, he adduced those articles and other formularies of his church, which relate to this subject; the testimony of those divines who drew up these standards, as interpreting the same, together with the sense in which they were received by their successors in the clerical office for the ensuing hundred years; and the conduct of the church toward the Continental Protestant societies and in the ordering of her own hierarchy for the same period of time. So successful was this author in his argument, and so triumphant was his vindication of this peculiar principle of the Low Church party, that his work was at once hailed by them, in England and in America, as the "End of Controversy" upon this point; was adopted by their publication societies as an "unanswerable defence of the validity of non-episcopal orders," and was claimed by one of their leading journals to be effectual in "banishing and driving away the last doubt, which hung upon some minds, from the boldness and continuity of assertion that the Episcopal Church disallowed the validity of other than episcopal orders."

{722}

How completely "banished and driven away" from some minds that last doubt was, events of a startling character soon made manifest.

"Certain clergymen of the diocese of New York adopted a course destined to change the settled practice of the church, if not to change its whole character. They turned their backs upon all existing laws and all previous usage in connection with such matters, and openly admitted to their pulpits ministers who had not had episcopal ordination. . . . . Of course, an innovation so startling and so daring occasioned much excitement. The Bishop of the diocese issued a pastoral letter, in which, in the kindest language and most reasonable spirit, he pointed out to those gentlemen the unlawfulness of their course. And _there_, if they had been lovers of order and of peace, the whole matter might have rested. But, however gentle the reproof or remonstrance, it was still an exercise of authority, and that was hard to bear. Therefore the reverend gentlemen rushed into print at once, and strove to give to the whole matter the air of simple controversy, on equal terms, between the Bishop and themselves. They represented him as the advocate of a narrow partisan policy, and not as their ecclesiastical superior to whom they had solemnly promised obedience, and whose duty compelled him to give them a reproof. Their 'letters,' 'reviews,' and 'replies to the pastoral' have been sent everywhere throughout the country, and have served to show that some Episcopalians pay but little respect 'to those who are over them in the Lord;' that they are not much disposed to 'submit to their judgment,' and 'to follow with a glad mind and will their godly admonitions.'" (Vox Ecclesiae, vi.)

Such was the state of affairs, when a reply to "Goode on Orders" issued from the Philadelphia press, professing to demolish its conclusions and to clear the doctrine of the Episcopal Church, on the point in question, from all ambiguity. This was the work of an elegant and judicious but anonymous writer, who, though disclaiming all tendencies to Puseyism, is, nevertheless, manifestly a High Churchman of strong and well-founded principles, and who has received on account of this reply, the highest commendations from many of the bishops and clergy of his church. His book is entitled "Vox Ecclesiae." The proposition he seeks to demonstrate is, "That the answer of the Episcopal Church to the question, 'What is the true and scriptural mode of church government, and what constitutes a true and proper organization?' would be, 'That episcopal government and ordination by bishops are the only modes of government or ordination recognized by that church as scriptural or proper.'" In support of this, he also, like his antagonist, relies upon the doctrinal and devotional standards of the church; her laws and principles as set forth in her canons and other official acts; those works which by her special endorsement have been raised to a semi official authority; and, lastly, the opinions of her eminent divines. The conclusion, which this exhaustive argument claims to have established, is that the church of England never recognized the validity of Presbyterian orders, _as such_, but, on the contrary, has ever held the doctrine of episcopacy by divine right and apostolical succession; a conclusion diametrically opposite to that of the first writer, whose book has, by this one, in the language of the American Churchman, been "So effectually answered that we believe it will ask no more questions for all time to come." This work in its time has received the highest encomiums from the Right Rev. Bishops Hopkins, Kemper, Atkinson, Coxe, Williams, Clark, and Randall, the Rev. Drs. Coit, Adams, Morton, Mason, Wilson, Meade, and other leaders of that party of the Episcopal Church, whose views it professes to embody, is already catalogued by them "among the best standard works of the church," and has been gratuitously circulated in its general seminary at New York, as a thorough antidote to the dangerous heresy of Mr. Goode.

From these two works, it might fairly be presumed, that we may, at last, gain a tolerably correct idea of the doctrine of the episcopal Church concerning the necessity of episcopal ordination. "Goode on Orders" is the "unanswerable" organ of one great party of that church. "Vox Ecclesiae" is the equally unanswerable organ of the other. And in these two great parties, and in the {723} undefinable middle ground between them, may be ranked at least ninety-nine one handredths of the laity and nearly all the clergy of that large and influential religious body.

To us Catholics it certainly, at first sight, seems a little singular, that in a church which bases upon an unbroken episcopal succession its whole claim to external unity with the primitive Catholic Church, there should be any doubt whether or not that church herself believes and teaches that such an unbroken succession is essential to the existence of a visible church; that in a denomination, which, for ages, has claimed superiority to other Protestant sects on almost the sole ground of her episcopally ordained ministry, there should be any controversy as to her doctrine on the necessity of such a ministry. But it is only one of those anomalies which meet us everywhere outside the Ark of Peter; which are the inevitable results of deviation, however slight, from the true source of apostolic unity. The ocean is as deep beneath the Ship of Christ as it is miles away. He that goes down under her very shadow is as effectually drowned as he that perishes beneath a sky whose horizon is unbroken by a single sail. It is as well among those who are most near us as among those who are most removed that we must look for the old marks of error, and this boldness of assertion and internal doubt is one of them. Before we close, it may be given us to show that this doubt is indeed well grounded and that this inconsistency is more consistent with the actual _status_ of the Episcopal Church than many, even of her enemies, would dream.

Upon that fundamental principle which underlies the whole fabric of an organized Christian society, namely, the necessity of some authoritative ordination, there seems to be no question in the Episcopal Church. That man cannot originate a church; that Christ did originate one; that, conveying his power of mission and orders to his apostles, he left it to them to convey to their successors; that by them and by their successors it ever has been so conveyed; and that, at this day, no man has any right or power to fulfil the office of a minister of Christ unless he has received authority through this source; are tenets common to all Christians who recognize a visible church and believe in and maintain a regular ministry. However they may differ as to the channel through which this power has descended: whether, like the Presbyterians, denying the existence of a third order in the ministry, they claim that priests and bishops are the same, and thus that presbyters are the appointed agents of Christ in perpetuating the line of Christian teachers, or whether, like denominations far more radical, they confer on individual preachers, of whatever grade, the right to raise others at their pleasure to the same dignities and power--this principle is still maintained. It is, therefore, but natural, that while Mr. Goode and his Low Church followers scout the title "Apostolical Succession" as "monstrous" and "heretical," their whole ailment should presuppose the existence of the very state of facts, to which, in its most general construction, that title is applied, and should admit the necessity of such a "succession," through some channel, as the basis of all external, collective Christian life. That the High Church party also abide in this doctrine every page of "Vox Ecclesiae" makes manifest, and from what one thus necessarily implies and the other expressly declares, we feel safe in concluding that "succession in the mission and authority of the apostles" is held and taught by the Episcopal Church as necessary to the existence of a valid ministry.

We may even go a step farther. If "tactual succession" signifies merely that some visible or audible commission must pass from the minister ordaining to the man ordained, without supposing any particular act or word to be necessary to such "tactual succession," we may regard this also as {724} being a point upon which Episcopalians raise no issue. The High Churchman may know no other "tactual" ordination than "the laying on of hands." Mr. Goode and his party might perhaps scruple to adopt such an interpretation, for, though scriptural and primitive, it is not of the essence of the ministerial commission. But that "succession," perpetuated by means of some actual commission, visibly or audibly moving from the ordainer to the ordained, is necessary, neither of these adversaries will deny.

Here, however, all acknowledged unity of doctrine ceases. "What is the appointed channel of this ministerial authority?" "Is it confined to one rank of the ministry, or possessed by two?" "Is _episcopal_ succession necessary to the validity of holy orders?" are questions on which their disagreement appears, to them, irreconcilable. The organs of both parties here speak with no uncertain sound. Each denounces the teachings of the other with unsparing acerbity. Mr. Goode characterizes the doctrines of his opponents as "at variance with the spirit of Christian charity" and "the facts of God's providence," as "having no foundation in Holy Scripture, and leading to consequences so dreadful that it is simply monstrous in any one to teach them." The "voice of the church" with equal plainness of speech replies, "He who looks upon Episcopacy as a thing of expediency, who talks of parity between bishop and presbyter, and who denounces 'Apostolical succession' as a _monstrous_ theory, has no place among them. HE IS NOT A LOW CHURCHMAN? he is not an Episcopalian in any proper sense at all." (p. 487.)

The formal statement of the Low Church doctrine, as explained by Mr. Goode, may thus be made: That the highest order of ministers, appointed by Christ or enjoying any direct scriptural authority, is that of presbyters or elders, in which order inheres, _ex ordine_, the powers of government and ordination; that the apostles, selecting from among the presbytery certain men called bishops, appointed them to exercise these powers; that, consequently, government by bishops and episcopal ordination rest upon apostolic precedent, and are sanctioned by the constant observance of fifteen hundred years; that this appointment, however, in no wise conferred upon such bishop any power of order which he had not before, or deprived the remaining presbyters of those equal powers which they possessed already: and, therefore, that ordination by presbyters alone, although not regular or in accordance with established precedent, is truly valid, and confers upon the person so ordained all the rights and authority of a minister of Christ. This doctrine is essential Presbyterianism. On the questions of historical fact--whether the apostles did appoint bishops and confine to them the office of ordaining others, and whether such practice was adhered to unvaryingly from their day till that of Calvin; as, also, on the relative weight and importance of such a precedent, if it does historically exist--they certainly disagree. But on the main question their decision is identical: that ordination is a power of the presbyter by divine institution and of the presbyter only, and that the episcopate, wherever it exists, possesses these powers solely by virtue of the presbyterate which it includes.

The doctrine of the High Church party, on the other hand, is thus laid down in "Vox Ecclesiae:" That Christ instituted, either by his own act or that of his apostles, three several orders of ministers in his church, and to the first of these, called bishops, and to them alone, intrusted the power and authority of ordaining pastors for his flock; that this episcopate is, therefore, of divine commandment, and cannot be neglected or abolished without sin, neither can any ordination be valid or confer authority to preach the word or minister the sacraments unless performed by bishops; that, consequently, presbyterian orders, being bestowed {725} by men who have no power or commission to ordain, are, _ipso facto_, void: EXCEPT in cases of real necessity, where, if episcopal ordination cannot be obtained, presbyters may validly ordain. This doctrine is, in the main, that which we have always supposed the great majority of Episcopalians help. As we have never seen the "exception" so fully stated in any authoritative work as it is in this, we give it in the author's own language, as it occurs in several portions of his book. Thus on page 62--

"'_Necessitas non habet legem_' was a Roman proverb, the propriety and force of which must be acknowledged by all. In reference to our present subject, one of the most eminent of the defenders of our church uses almost the very words, viz. '_Nisi coegerit dura necessitas cui nulla lex est posita_.' (Hadrian Saravia's reply to Beza.) The principle then is fully admitted. Necessity excuseth every defect or irregularity which it _really_ occasions." On page 313, an extract from the same Saravia is given, as follows: "Although I am of opinion that ordinations of ministers of the church properly belong to bishops, yet NECESSITY causes that, when they are wanting and CANNOT BE HAD, _orthodox presbyters can, in case of necessity_, ordain a presbyter;" and the author says of it, "We take this as Mr. Goode gives it." It is the strongest sentence in the whole passage, and yet it contains no more than what nine tenths of all Episcopal writers gladly allow, viz., (to use the words of Archbishop Parker,) "Extreme necessity in itself implieth dispensation with all laws." Again, on page 70, after noticing certain objections to this plea of necessity, put forward by individual writers in the church, he continues; "There is great force in these objections: nevertheless we think it far better to grant all that the foreign churches claimed in the way of necessity, inasmuch as the English Church certainly did so at the time." A still more definite statement of the same "exception" occurs on pages 82 and 83: "As regards the question before us, the High Churchman and the Low Churchman unite in considering episcopacy a divine institution, and a properly derived authority a _sine qua non_ to lawful ministering in the church. They also agree in believing that real necessity in this, as in every other matter, abrogates law and makes valid whatever is performed under it." We have no wish to multiply quotations, but on this important point we desire to fall into no error and to be guilty of no misrepresentation. We have preferred to give the "voice of the church" in its own words, rather than in ours, and have no hesitation in repeating the definition we have already given, as setting forth the High Church doctrine, strictly according to its acknowledged organ: "Episcopacy is a divine institution, and necessary, where it can be had. Where it cannot be had, presbyters may validly ordain."

The doctrine of the Episcopal Church, as a church, if, as a church, she has any doctrine on the subject, must lie within these definitions. Mr. Goode must be wholly right, and the "Vox Ecclesiae" wholly wrong, or _vice versa_, or else both must have the truth, mingled in each case with more or less of falsehood and confusion. If we can reconcile the two, or if the teaching of either has that in it which disproves itself, we may at last define the real position of their church upon the question which involves her life.

And here we must premise, that the words "order," "Office," etc., which seem to be the gist of much of this controversy, are names, not things. They mean, in the mouth, or on the pen, of any Individual, just what that individual means by them, no less, no more. They have never been defined authoritatively by Scripture or by any other tribunal to which these parties own allegiance. When Mr. Goode uses them, they may imply one thing. In the pages of "Vox Ecclesiae," they may signify another. The whole contest, therefore, so far as {726} it relates to the number of "orders," or whether that of the bishop is a different "order," or only a different "office," from that of the presbyter, is, in our view, one of names and titles only. The real question stands thus: "Has a bishop, by divine institution, a power which the presbyter has not, or is the same power resident in both, and ordinarily made latent in the one, and operative in the other, by virtue of ecclesiastical law and usage?" The answer to this question will show how far the High and Low Church party really differ from each other, and what is the variance, if any, between the "Vox Ecclesiae" and Mr. Goode.

It seems to us that the "EXCEPTION," which, equally with the rule, is admitted by the High Church doctrine to be fundamental law, answers this question once for all. For if, in any supposable emergency, presbyters may validly ordain, and if persons so by them ordained have power to preach the word and minister the sacraments, then either (1.) Necessity confers a power to ordain upon those who have it not, or else (2.) The power to ordain is resident alike in presbyters and bishops, and the restrictions on its exercise by presbyters are, by that necessity, removed. If the second of these positions truly represent the High Church theory, then, between them and Mr. Goode's adherents, there is no essential difference, and their war, with all its bitterness and pertinacity, is one of human words and human facts, and not of Christian doctrine. If, to avoid this fate, the first alternative be the one adopted, the following difficulties must be met and answered.

1. It overthrows the entire doctrine of "succession." This fundamental law of organic, collective, Christian life presupposes the existence of an unbroken chain of ministers, transmitting their authority, through generation after generation, from Christ's day to our own. It presupposes that every man, who has himself possessed and transmitted this authority, has received it in his turn from some other man who possessed it and transmitted it to him, and so on back to Christ himself. Christ thus becomes the sole source, and man the sole channel, of ecclesiastical authority, and the right or power of any individual to exercise the functions of the ministerial office depends on his reception of authority therefor from this only source and through this only channel.

But if necessity can also confer authority, or rather, to put the case in words more expressive of its real character, if, whenever the appointed channel cannot be had and necessity of ministers exists, God will himself from heaven confer the authority in need, the value of this "succession" amounts to nothing. Orders, wherever necessary, will be had as well without it as with it, and they who have it can never with any certainty deny the validity of orders which have it not. Christ still may be the sole source, but man is not the only, nay, nor the most perfect and available, channel of this authority. There is another, surer, nearer, more direct, conveying, only to proper persons, the gifts of God, and free from all the doubts and dangers which result from a residence of heavenly "treasure in earthen vessels," and the necessity which demands it is the sole condition of its use. The High Church party, if they adopt this position, must, therefore, become more radical than any Christian church upon the globe. They out-Herod even their great Herod, Mr. Goode, and are more dangerous to the cause of "apostolic order" and ecclesiastical authority than any Low Churchmen or Separatist that ever lived.

2. It elevates human necessity above divine law. The law, by which holy orders exist, and by which their transmission from man to man is regulated, is unquestionably divine. "Vox Ecclesiae" goes so far as to claim that their transmission, from bishop to bishop only, is of divine precept, but, waiving that, it is acknowledged by all parties, with whom we have to do at {727} present, that whatever be the human channel, it is of Christ's appointment, and rests upon divine authority. It is thus a _divine_ law which "necessity abrogates," a positive institution and command of God which is to be disregarded and disobeyed, and that because "necessity" demands it.

But this necessity is a merely human one. Orders confers on the ordained only the power to preach and to administer the sacraments, and it is only that those things may be done, that God's law is despised and set aside. Yet, though the eternal salvation of the human soul may ordinarily depend upon the preaching of the word and on the sacraments, still nothing is _absolutely_ necessary to eternal life that may not take place between the soul and God, independently of bishop, priest, or church. It is thus no necessity of _God's_ creation, no necessity inevitably involving the eternal destinies of man, that substitutes itself for the admitted law of God, but a mere earthly need, a need based upon human views and customs and opinions, which never received endorsement from on high, and finds no sanction for its existence in Holy Writ. There is no irregularity which such a position would not justify, no departure from God's ordinances which it could consistently condemn. It would come with fearful self-rebuke from that portion of the Episcopal Church, who for three hundred years have practically ignored their brother Protestants, because they judged of their own necessities and set aside the institutions of God in order that those necessities might be supplied.

3. It legitimates every form of error and schism. For, if "necessity _confers_ orders," the sole question in every case is, whether the necessity existed. If there was such necessity in Germany and Switzerland in the sixteenth century, then Lutheran and Calvinistic orders were as valid as Episcopal, and if that necessity continues, they are valid still. If there was such necessity in Scotland, after the abolition of the prelacy, and that necessity continues, the orders of the kirk are valid at this day. If there was such necessity when John Wesley ordained Dr. Coke, and that necessity continues, Methodist orders are as valid as his Grace of Canterbury's are. There is no stopping-place for these deductions. If "necessity confers orders," not even the channel of _presbyters_ is necessary. No human instrument at all stands between God and the recipient of his extraordinary favor. In every case where the necessity exists, there God confers the power of orders, and there is no sect so wild and heretical, no ministry so dangerous and erratic, that may not claim validity upon this ground, and that must not, on these principles, when necessity is proven, be adjudged legitimate.

But of this necessity who shall be the judge? Shall God, who, of course, knows all the circumstances of mankind and estimates them at their proper value? But then, to us his judgment is useless without expression, and his expression is _revelation_. Are those who allow the force of this plea of necessity prepared to admit all who claim it, for the sake of Christian charity, or will they demand a revelation from God to satisfy them that the "necessity" was _real_? Yet, if God be the only Judge, they must admit all or reject all until he speaks from heaven, and in the latter case, the "EXCEPTION" might as well have been left unmade. Or shall the church judge? And if so, what church? The church, from which Luther, and Calvin, and Cranmer, and Parker separated? She had her bishops ready to ordain all proper men, and if her judgment had been taken, there would have been no occasion for men to plead necessity. The church, from which came forth the Puritans and Methodists? She also had her bishops, and in her view no necessity could ever have existed. So with every church. None that are founded in Episcopacy could ever {728} admit a necessity without supplying it in the appointed way. And none that reject Episcopacy would care to inquire whether or not there was any such necessity. The church could, therefore, be no judge. She is, in every issue of this sort, a party, not an umpire; but, were she competent to judge, wherein is her decree less valid, when from Rome she excommunicates the Church of England, than when from London or New York she denies ministerial authority to Presbyterians and Universalists? Or is it the individual? There can be no doubt in this answer. It must be. No man can judge of a necessity except he who is placed in it. A little colony of Christians, cast away on some Pacific island, must decide for themselves, whether they will ordain a pastor for their flock or utterly dispense with Christian teaching. A man, whose creed differs from that of the church in which he lives, and yet who feels an inward call to preach the Gospel, as he understands it, must be the sole judge of the necessity of call, upon the one hand, which commands him to preach, and of conscience, on the other, which forbids him to subscribe the creed which is the unrelenting condition of his ordination by authority. Extend it to societies and communities of men, and the rule is the same. These societies become themselves the judges, whether or not, in their case, necessity exists, and no other can judge for them. The law is universal. If necessity be a justification, it must be necessity as judged of by the parties in necessity, and not as judged of by God, unknown to men, or by a church which either will supply the need or treat the whole matter as of little moment. There thus becomes no limit to necessities. They are moral as well as physical. They grow out of duties and responsibilities, as well as out of distances and years. Obedience to the voice of conscience is an indispensable condition of salvation, and no necessity is greater or more potent than the necessity of that obedience. When the Rev. Gardiner Spring was moved, as he believed it, by the Holy Ghost, to do the work of a minister in the church of God, there was not a regularly ordained bishop in the world who would have ordained him, while holding the doctrines he professed. In his case, without a violation of his conscience and the loss of his soul, bishops "COULD NOT BE HAD," and presbyters must have validly ordained. When Charles Spurgeon, rejoicing in the new-found light of the Gospel, burned to tell other men the good that God had done to him, the moral necessity was the same, a necessity which compelled him to disobey what he believed to be a command of God, or to receive orders from non-Episcopal hands. Is there any need of multiplying instances? Where is the imaginable limit to which validity must be acknowledged and beyond which it must cease? The High Churchman who starts with the admission, that in case of "necessity," God confers the power of order, can never stop till he has bowed the knee before every Baal which claims the name of Christian and opened the gifts of God to every man who demands priestly recognition at his hands.

There are other objections to this theory, equally insuperable with those already suggested. It can hardly be necessary, however, to mention them. No candid mind, after seeing the real bearing of this position on the whole question of a visible church, can hesitate a moment to reject it. There remains only the other alternative, namely, that necessity renders operation in presbyters a power possessed by, but latent in, them, by removing the restrictions which, in ordinary circumstances, apostolic precedent and ecclesiastical usage have imposed; and as this is essentially the position advocated by Mr. Goode, and as the difference between these parties is thus reduced, in every case, to a question of historic or contemporaneous fact, which no one but the individuals who plead it can adequately settle, we conclude that {729} the sole contest as to doctrine is one of words and definitions, and that on all material points of theory and faith they perfectly agree. We thus feel justified in the conclusion that the Episcopal Church of the present age has a doctrine concerning the necessity of episcopal ordination, and that her doctrine is no less, no more, than this: "The power of order is resident in bishops and presbyters both, _ex ordine_, and is operative, under ordinary circumstances, in bishops only, though in cases of necessity, presbyters may exercise that power and validly ordain."

This doctrine is logical, coherent, and conservative. No divine institution is thereby set aside for a mere human necessity. No destructive principle antagonistic to the doctrine of "succession" is thereby introduced; no gate is thereby opened for a multitudinous throng of orthodox and heretics, ordained and unordained, to bring disorder and confusion into the Church of God. However fatal to the high pretensions of the Episcopal Church in generations past, and to any claim of exclusive apostolicity at present, this doctrine is, nevertheless, most consistent with her actual _status_ in the religious world. Thoroughly Protestant in doctrine and in worship, all her affinities and tendencies are toward the Presbyterian and other non-Episcopal denominations of the age. No church on earth, whose episcopal succession can be traced to any apostolic source, has ever recognized hers as beyond question, or admitted her claim to be a portion of the Catholic Church of Christ. Her very episcopate itself is, practically, as the recent events in New York have shown, a rank of honor and of office not of power. Her alleged superiority, for her bishops' sakes, can never bring her one step nearer to the Catholic Church, while she retains her heresies or remains in schism; and, on the other hand, her alienation from her protesting sisters must increase with every generation while this allegation is maintained. Far better, far more accordant with her actual position, is her doctrine as thus evolved by Mr. Goode and "Vox Ecclesiae," and while its enunciation cannot change her in our estimation, it will doubtless draw nearer to her, in the bonds of love and brotherhood, all those by whom she is surrounded and to whose fraternity she naturally belongs. It is only a matter of regret that the barrier now destroyed was not broken down long ago, and that the good influences, which the Episcopal Church is so well calculated to exert, have not been working on the masses of our non-Catholic brethren in America during all the past eighty years.

Nothing now remains but to retrieve that past. Let it be understood that the Episcopal Church does not deny the validity of presbyterian orders, but that at most she holds them irregular, and only that when not given in necessity; that men of other denominations have clergymen and sacraments equally beneficial with her own. Let her throw open her doors to all religious bodies who thus preserve the "succession," and unite with them in prevailing on those to receive it who have it not, and make common cause with all such in stemming the tide of infidelity and "liberalism" which is deluging our land. Then may her self-adopted mission, however faulty in its origin, however riskful in its progress, fulfil at least one portion of the work of Christ's Church in the world, and, if she cannot feed men with the bread of truth, she may preserve them from the more fearful poisons.

In conclusion, we desire to correct an error into which the author of "Vox Ecclesiae" has fallen, concerning the view of this same question taken by Catholics. On page 57, he says:

"The exaggerated or Romish theory is, that the possession of the Apostolical Constitution and a properly transmitted succession is enough to constitute a true and perfect church. Thus succession is held to be everything," etc.

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In one sense of these words, namely, that to _be_ the actual organization founded by Christ and constituted, as he left it, in the hands of the apostles, is to be a true and perfect church; they are the faith of Catholics. But this is not the sense in which the author uses them. The idea he thus expresses is, that we regard an external succession in the line of apostolic orders as sufficient to make a man a priest or bishop, as the case may be, and that such a succession constitutes a church. This is a very prevalent, but very thoughtless, error. It is true that we believe apostolic orders, in the apostolic line, to be so absolutely necessary that no man, under any circumstances, can perform any I without them. But we do _not_ believe, that the possession of such orders by any organization makes it a true church. Cranmer was lawfully ordained as priest and bishop of the Catholic Church, and, whether as a schismatic under Henry, or a heretic under Edward, his orders went with him and rendered every act in pursuance of them valid. The bishops he consecrated were bishops, the priests he ordained were priests, and if Archbishop Parker were in fact consecrated by Barlow and Hodgkins, and either of them were consecrated by Cranmer, and if the English succession be otherwise unbroken, then every priest of that succession is a true priest, and every bishop a true bishop. Their acts are valid acts, whatever their doctrine or their schism.

But this does not make the Church of England "a true and perfect church." If the fact of her full apostolical succession were established to-day, beyond the shadow of a doubt, and we would it could be, her position would differ nothing, in our view, from that of the Arian and Donatist churches of the fourth century, or of the Greek Church for the past nine hundred years, churches whose orders were all valid, whose doctrines were more or less at variance with Catholic truth, whose sacraments conferred grace, but who were cut off from the body of Christ's Church by their state of schism.

The Catholic test of Catholicity is short and simple, "Ubi Petrus, ibi Ecclesiae," said Ambrose of Milan, (Comm. in Ps. xl.,) and wherever Peter is, Peter, who, "like an immovable rock, holds together the structure and mass of the whole Christian fabric," (Ambrosii serm. xlvii.,) and "who, down to the present time and forever, in his successors lives and judges," (Care Eph. A.D. 431, serm. Phil.,) wherever Peter is, there, and there only, do we see the church. Catholics, collectively and individually, say with St. Jerome, "Whoever is united with the See of Peter is mine," and, throughout the world, whatever church, society or man is joined by the bonds of visible communion with the Roman See, is in and of the body of the Catholic Church, they and none others. No union with that See is possible to those who do not profess, at least implicitly, the entire Catholic doctrine, and submit to the legitimate discipline of the church. No validity of orders without true doctrine, no truth of doctrine and validity of orders without union with the Apostolic See, can remedy the evil. To all outside that unity, however similar to us in one point or another, we must repeat the words which St. Optatus of Mela wrote to the African Donatists about A.D. 384:

"You know that the Episcopal See was first established for Peter at the city of Rome, in which See Peter, the head of all the apostles, sat, and with which one See unity must be maintained by all; that the apostles might not each defend before you his own see, but that he should be both a schismatic and a sinner who should set up any other against that one See." (Adr. Donat. ii.) Would that, of all who know the truth of that which Optatus has written, and whom a thousand hindrances are keeping from that rock of unity, we might say, as St. Cyprian wrote of Antonianus, in the first ages, to the Holy Pope Cornelius, (ad auton,) "He is in communion with you, that is, with the Catholic Church."

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From All the Year Round.

STATISTICS OF VIRTUE.

Small presents, it has been shrewdly said, prevent the flame of friendship from dying out. A Stilton cheese, a bouquet of forced flowers, a maiden copy of a "just-published" book, a _pâte de foie gras_, a basket of fruit that _will_ keep a day or two, a salmon in spring, or a fresh-killed hare in autumn--any thing that answers, as a feed of corn or a bait of hay, to one's own private hobby-horse--very rarely indeed gives offence.

Be the influence such offerings exert ever so small, it is attractive rather than repulsive in its tendency. They are silken fibres which draw people together, almost without their knowing it; and although the strength of any single one may be slight, by multiplication they acquire appreciable power. Even if they come from evidently interested motives, they are a tribute which flatters the receiver's self-esteem, for they are an unmistakable proof that he is worth being courted. They are a mutual tie which bind friendly connections into a firmer bundle of sticks than they were before. The giver even likes the person given to all the better for having bestowed gifts upon him. There may exist no thought or intention to lay him under an obligation; but there always must, and properly may, arise the hope of increasing his good-will and attachment. It is clear that, when it is desirable that kindly relations should exist between persons, any honorable means of promoting such relations are not only expedient but laudable. One stone of an arch may fit its fellow-stones perfectly, but a little cement does their union no harm.

As there is a reciprocal social attraction between individuals of respectability and worth, so also there ought to be a gravitation of every individual toward certain excellences of character and conduct. And here likewise small inducements, trifling bribes, minor temptations, help to increase the force of the tendency. Virtue is, and ought to be its own reward; still, an additional bonus of extraneous recompense cannot but help the moral progress of mankind. It sounds like a truism to say that a _motive_ is useful as a mover to the performance of any act or course of action. The fact is implied by the meaning of the word itself. If good deeds can be rendered more frequent by increasing the motives to their practice, the world in general will be all the better and the happier for that increase.

The problem in ethics to be solved, is, simply, _how_ men and women may be most easily led to behave like very good boys and girls. We urge children to do their best by rewards of merit. Why should not the minds of adults be stimulated by similar persuasive forces? Nor can worldly motives, if pulling in the same direction as moral and religious motives, be productive of anything but good. And we want motives to excite the good to become still more persistently and exemplarily good, all the more that terror of punishment is unfortunately insufficient to make the bad abstain from deeds of wickedness.

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With this view a philanthropic Frenchman, M. de Montyon, founded in 1819 annual prizes for acts of benevolence and devotedness, which, beside addressing our higher feelings, appeal to two strong passions, interest and vanity. And why should integrity pass unrewarded? Why should bright conduct be hid under a bushel? In a darksome night, how far the little candle throws his beams! So _ought_ to shine a good deed in a naughty world. Most undoubtedly, to do good by stealth is highly praiseworthy; but there is no reason why the blush which arises on finding it fame should necessarily be a painful blush. Far better that it should be a glow of pleasure.

More than forty years have now elapsed since these prizes for virtue were instituted, during which period more than seven hundred persons have received the reward of their exemplary conduct. The French Academy which distributes the prizes, has decided (doing violence to the modesty of the recipients ) to publish their good deeds to the world. After the announcement of their awards, a livret or list in the form of a pamphlet is issued, recounting each specific case with the same simplicity with which it was performed. These lists are spread throughout all France and further, in the belief that the more widely meritorious actions are known, the greater chance there is of their being imitated.

The awards made by the French Academy up to the present day to virtuous actions give an average of about eighteen per annum. These eighteen annual "crowns" have been competed for by more than seventy memorials coming from every point of France, mostly without the knowledge of the persons interested. In short, since the foundation of the prizes, the Academy has had to read several thousand memorials.

To Monsieur V. P. Demay (Secretary and Chef des Bureaux of the Mairie of the 18th Arrondissement of Paris) the idea occurred of collecting the whole of these livrets into a volume, so as to furnish an analytical summary of the distribution of the prizes throughout the empire, and of appending to it flowers of philanthropic eloquence culled from the speeches made at the Academic meetings. The result is a book entitled "Les Fastes de la Vertu Pauvre en France," "Annals of the Virtuous Poor in France."

No one, before M. Demay, thought of undertaking the Statistics of Virtue. The subject has not found a place on any scientific programme, French or international; whether through forgetfulness or not, the fact remains indisputable. And be it remarked that the seven hundred and thirty-two laureats to whom rewards have been decreed, represent only a fraction of the number of highly deserving persons. In all their reports ever since 1820, the French Academy has declared that it had only the embarrassment of choosing between the candidates while awarding the prizes, so equally meritorious were their acts. Therefore, to the seven hundred and thirty-two nominees ought to be added the two thousand four hundred and forty competitors whose cases were considered during that period, making altogether a total of three thousand one hundred and seventy-two instances of conduct worthy of imitation which had been brought to light by the agency of the prizes.

The book, not more amusing than other statistics, is nevertheless highly suggestive. Serious thought is the consequence of opening its pages. It is a touching book, and goes to the heart. After reading it, many will feel prompted to go and do likewise by some effort of generosity or self-denial. In any case, it cannot be other than a moralizing work to bring to light so many instances of devotion, and to set them forth as public examples.

In some of his speculations our author, perhaps, may be considered as just a little too sanguine. Certainly, if there are tribunals for the infliction of punishment, there is no reason why tribunals should not exist for the conferring of recompenses. How far they are likely to become general, is a question for consideration. Also, it is {733} true that newspapers give the fullest details of horrid crimes, while they are brief in their usual mention of meritorious actions. But before M. Demay, somebody said, "Men's evil manners live in brass, their virtues we write in water;" and it is to be feared he is somewhat too bright-visioned a seer, when he hopes that, through Napoleon the Third's and Baron Haussmaun's educational measures, coupled with the influence of the Montyon prizes, "at no very distant day, the words penitentiary, prison, etc., will exist only in the state of souvenirs--painful as regards the past, but consolatory for the future."

To give the details of such a multitude of virtuous acts is simply impossible. M. Demay can only rapidly group those which present the most striking features, and which have appeared still more extraordinary--for that is the proper word--than the others, conferring on their honored actors surnames recognized throughout whole districts. It is the Table of Honor of Virtuous Poverty, crowned by the verdict of popular opinion. Among these latter are (the parentheses contain the name of their department): the Mussets, husband and wife, salt manufacturers, at Château Salins, (Meurthe,) surnamed the Second Providence of the Poor; Suzanne Géral, wife of the keeper of the lockup house, at Florae, (Loèzre) surnamed the Prison Angel; David Lacroix, fisherman, at Dieppe, (Seine-Inférieure,) surnamed the _Sauveur_, instead of the _Sauveteur_ the rescuer, after having pulled one hundred and seventeen people out of fire and water --he has the cross of the Legion of Honor; Marie Philippe; Widow Gambon, vine-dresser, at Nanterre, (Seine.) surnamed la Mére de bon Secours, or Goody Helpful; Madame Langier, at Orgon, (Bouche-du-Rhône,) surnamed la Quéteuse, the Collector of Alms.

In the spring of 1839 almost the whole canton of Ax (Ariège) was visited by the yellow fever, which raged for ten months, and carried off a sixth of the population. It, was especially malignant at Prades. Terror was at its height; those whom the scourge had spared were prevented by their fears from assisting their sick neighbors, menaced with almost certain death. Nevertheless, a young girl, Madeleine Fort, who had been brought up in the practice of good works, exerted herself to the utmost in all directions. During the course of those ten disastrous months she visited, consoled, and nursed more than five hundred unfortunates; and if she could not save them from the grave, she followed them, alone, to their final resting-place. Two Sisters of Charity were sent to help her; one was soon carried off, and the second fell ill. The caré died, and was replaced by another. The latter, finding himself smitten, sent for Madeleine. One of the flock had to tend the pastor. Those disastrous days have long since disappeared; but if the traveller, halting at Prades, asks for Madeleine Fort's dwelling, he will be answered, "Ah! you mean our Sister of Charity?"

Suzanne Bichon is only a servant. Her master and mistress were completely ruined by the negro insurrection in St. Domingo; but the worthy woman would not desert them--she worked for them all, and took care of the children. On being offered a better place, that is, a more lucrative engagement, she refused it with the words, "You will easily find another person, but can my master and mistress get another servant?" The Academy gave their recompense for fifteen years of this devoted service. Her mistress wanted to go and take a place herself; she would not hear of it, making them believe that she had means at her command, and expectations. But all her means lay in her capacity for work, while her expectations were--Providence. It is not to be wondered at that she was known as Good Suzette.

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Such attachments as these on the part of servants are a delightful contrast to what we commonly see in the course of our household experience. They can hardly be looked for under the combined regime of register-offices, a month's wages or a month's warning, no followers, Sundays out, and crinoline.

We look for virtue amongst the clergy. The devotion, self-denial, and resignation often witnessed amongst them are matters of notoriety. Nevertheless, it is right that one of its members should find a place on a list like the present. In 1834, the Abbé Bertran was appointed cure of Peyriac, (Aude.) He was obliged, so to speak, to conquer the country of which he was soon to be the benefactor. For two years he had to struggle with the obstinate resistance which his parishioners opposed to him. His evangelical gentleness succeeded in vanquishing every obstacle; henceforth he was master of the ground, and could march onward with a firm step. At once he consecrated his patrimony to the restoration of the church and the presbyter. He bought a field, turned architect, and soon there arose a vast building which united the two extremes of life--old age and infancy. He then opened simultaneously a girls' school, an infant school, and a foundling hospital. He sought out the orphans belonging to the canton, and supplied a home to old people of either sex. To effect these objects the good pastor expended seventy thousand francs, (nearly three thousand pounds,) the whole of his property: he left himself without a sou. But he had sown his seed in good ground, and it promised to produce a hundred-fold. Rich in his poverty, his place is marked beside Vincent de Paul and Charles Borromeo.

Goodness may even indulge in its caprices and still remain good. Marguerite Monnier, surnamed _la Mayon_, (a popular term of affection in Lorraine,) seems to have selected a curious specialty for the indulgence of her charitable propensities. It is requisite to be infirm or idiotic to be entitled to receive her benevolent attentions. When quite a child, she selects as her friend a poor blind beggar, whom she visits every day in her wretched hovel. She makes her bed, lights her fire, and cooks her food. While going to school, she remarks a poor old woman scarcely able to drag herself along, but, nevertheless, crawling to the neighboring wood to pick up a few dry sticks. She follows her thither, helps her to gather them, and brings back the load on her own shoulders. Grown to womanhood, and married, Marguerite successively gives hospitality to an idiot, a crazy person, a cretin, several paralytic patients, orphans, strangers without resources, and even drunkards, (one would wish to see in their falling an infirmity merely.) Every creature unable to take care of itself finds in her a ready protector. Such are her lodgers, her clients, her customers! Ever cheerful, she amuses them by discourse suited to their comprehension. All around her is in continued jubilation, and Marguerite herself seems to be more entertained than any body else. It may be said, perhaps, that a person must be born with a natural disposition for this kind of devotedness. Granted; but his claim to public gratitude is not a whit the less for that.

Catherine Vernet, of Saint-Germain, (Puy-de-dôme,) is a simple lace-maker, who, after devoting herself to her family, has for thirty years devoted herself to those who have no one to take care of them. Her savings having amounted to a sufficient sum for the purchase of a small house, she converted it into a sort of hospital with eight beds always occupied. Situated amongst the mountains of Anvergne, this hospital is a certain refuge for _perdus_, travellers who have lost their way. It is an imitation of the Saint Bernard; and if it has not attained its celebrity, it emanates from the same source, charity.

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In looking through the lists and comparing the several departments of France, it would be hard to say that one department is better than another; because their population, and other important influential circumstances, vary immensely between themselves. But what strikes one immediately, is the great preponderance of good women--rewarded as such--over good men. Thus, to dip into the list at hazard, we have--Meuse, one man, five women; Seine, thirty-one men, ninety-eight women; Loire, two men, six women; Côte-d'Or, three men, eleven women; and so on. The nature of the acts rewarded--also taken by chance--are these: reconciliations of families in _vendetta_, (Corsica;) maintenance of deserted children; rescues from fire and water; faithfulness to master and mistress for sixteen years; adoption of seven orphans for fifteen years; maintenance of master and mistress fallen into poverty; devotion to the aged; nursing the sick poor; killing a mad dog who inflicted fourteen bites. When "inexhaustible charity" and "succor to the indigent" are mentioned, one would like to know whether they consisted in mere alms-giving. Probably not; because by "charity" Montyon understood, not the momentary impulse which causes us to help a suffering fellow-creature, and then dies away, but the constant, durable affection which regards him as another self, and whose device is "Privation, Sacrifice."

In the period, then, between 1819 and 1864 seven hundred and seventy-six persons received Montyon rewards, two hundred and eleven of whom were men, and five hundred and sixty-five women. In M. Demay's opinion, the disproportion ought to surprise nobody; for if man is gifted with virile courage, which is capable of being suddenly inflamed, and is liable to be similarly extinguished, woman only is endowed with the boundless, incessant, silent devotion which is found in the mother, the wife, the daughter, the sister. This dear companion, given by God to man, is conscious of the noble mission allotted her to fulfil on earth. We behold the results in her acts, and in what daily occurs in families. Abnegation, with her, is a natural instinct. "She may prove weak, no doubt; she may even go astray: but, be assured, she always retains the divine spark of charity, which only awaits an opportunity to burst forth into a brilliant flame. Let us abstain, therefore, from casting a stone at temporary error; let us pardon, and forget. Our charity will lead her back to duty more efficaciously than all the moral stigmas we could possibly inflict."

The years more fruitful in acts of devotion appear to have been 1851, 1852, and 1857, in which twenty-seven and twenty-eight prizes were awarded. Their cause is, that previously the Academy received memorials from the authorities only. But after making an appeal to witnesses of every class and grade, virtue, if the expression maybe allowed, overflowed in all directions. Lives of heroism and charity, hidden in the secrets of the heart, were suddenly brought to the light of day, to the great surprise of their heroes and heroines. During the same period there were distributed, in money, three hundred and sixty-four thousand francs, (sixteen thousand pounds;) in medals, four hundred and eighteen thousand five hundred and fifty francs, (sixteen thousand seven hundred and forty-two pounds;) total, seven hundred and eighty-two thousand five hundred and fifty francs, (thirty-two thousand seven hundred and forty-two pounds.) The Montyon prizes are worth having, and not an insult to the persons to whom they are offered. The sums of money given range as high as one, two, three, and even four thousand francs; the medals vary in value from five and six hundred to a thousand francs: but even a five hundred franc or twenty-pound medal is a respectable token of approbation and esteem. In some few cases, both money and a medal are bestowed.

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It may be said that the persons to whom these prizes are given would have done the same deeds without any reward. True; and therein lies their merit. And ought _money_ to be given to recompense virtuous acts? Yes, most decidedly; because it will confer on its recipients their greatest possible recompense--the power of doing still more good. Money gifts are not to be depreciated so long as there are orphans to sustain, sick poor to nurse, and infirm old age to keep from starvation.

Finally, is charity the growth of one period of life rather than of another? On inspecting the lists, we find children, six, twelve, thirteen years of age, and close to them octogenarians, one nonagenarian, one centenarian! If noble courage does not want for fulness of years, it would appear not to take its leave on their arrival.

[ORIGINAL.]

THE CHRISTIAN CROWN.

BY JOHN SAVAGE.

I.

Ten centuries and one had trod Jerusalem, since when, In mortal form, the Son of God Died for the sons of men.

II.

And they who in the Martyr found Their Saviour, wailed and wept, That gorgeous horrors should abound Where Christ the Blessèd slept.

III.

From clam'rous towns, and forests' hush. As cascades from the gloom Of caves, crusaders eastward rush To win the holy tomb.

IV.

Their corselets, steel and silver bright, 'Neath swaying plumes displayed, Now dance, like streams, in lines of light. Now loiter on in shade.

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V.

Their crosses glow in every form Inspiring vale and mart, As through earth's arteries they swarm, Like blood back to the heart.

VI.

Tis mid-day of midsummer's heat; Faith crowns the live and dead: Jerusalem is at their feet. Brave Godfrey at their head.

VII.

Within the walls, the ramparts ring As proudly they proclaim Great Godfrey de Bouillon as king! A king in more than name.

VIII.

The ruby-budding crown to bind About his head, they stood: Another crown is in his mind; For rubies, blobs of blood.

IX.

"No. no!" and back the bauble flings, "No gold this brow adorns Where willed He, Christ, the King of kings, To wear a crown of thorns."

X.

Let not the glorious truth depart Brave Godfrey handed down: A king whose crown is in his heart, Needs wear no other crown.

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From The Lamp

UNCONVICTED; OR, OLD THORNELEY'S HEIRS.