Chapter V.

On the way home Mina opened her eyes, but she remained mute and mournful. But when, after she had been placed on a lounge in the lower hall of her dwelling, she saw that her father was about to direct Johann to hasten the arrival of a leech, she bent over to the old sculptor and retained him with a hand cold as ice.

"I would speak a word with Johann alone," she murmured. "Wilt thou permit me, my father?"

"Surely," replied the old man, fixing upon her a look of wonder, but hastening to leave the chamber.

Then Mina feebly called Johann, and made him a sign to sit at her feet.

"Thou saidst one day, my good brother Johann," said she, "that thou wouldst spare no effort, recoil from no risk to procure me joy or happiness."

"So said I; so will I do," answered the poor youth, bending on her a look full of emotion.

"Then, Johann, thou canst preserve my greatest happiness, cause my greatest joy. I know that I cannot deceive thee; I noted thy gaze when Hans Barthing spoke of the marriage of Otho and Gertrude. Know then, Johann, that the knight of Arneck is my true--my only love; and now I would know if he hath betrayed me. It is peace of heart I need for my cure, Johann, and not the skill of the leech. Depart then, good Johann, and go to Horsheim. There thou wilt easily learn who is the countess's betrothed. And thou mayest even, without being perceived, see them pass by together, speaking low, walking hand in hand, believing themselves alone. Thou wilt return and tell me all, Johann, and I will gain strength to live until thy return; for it would be too bitter to die if Otho remaineth faithful. Thou wilt go--wilt thou not, my brother--my only friend?"

Johann's only reply was a kiss imprinted on Mina's hand and a silent pressure of her taper fingers, while two great tears rolled from his eyes. Then he departed from the House of the Angel, and, after having called the physician, saddled his horse and left the town that very evening, following the line of the high hills which stretched away toward the Rauhe Alps, at the foot of which was the castle of Horsheim.

To be Continued.

{494}

Original.

Forebodings.

Pretty Nan to Flora said, "Prithee, why so gay?" Dark-eyed Flora bent her head: "_He_ is gone away."

"Strange!" quoth Nan. "If 'twere my heart, None could be more sad. Absence gives the keenest smart. Tell me, why art glad?"

Dark-eyed Flora, with a sigh, 'Gan to braid her hair, Whilst to Nan she made reply: "Hark! my sister dear.

"Chanced it on a summer morn, Laughingly I chose These long tresses to adorn With a beauteous rose.

"Of the flower he made request, I in wilfulness Did refuse, and as a jest Gave _it_ a caress.

"But I did not long deny. Said I: Plucked for you, Take; but care it tenderly, 'Tis my rose-love true.

"Nameless was the pain and dread Filled my aching heart. Soon I saw my rose-love dead, Idly torn apart.

"Thus he would my heart's love fling Coldly, idly by. Than to wear his wedding-ring, Rather would I die.

"Ah! the cruel, ugly smart! Fear my love did slay. Pined I sadly in my heart Till he went away.

"'Gainst the power of his voice All in vain I strove. Freed by absence, I rejoice, Now I dare to love!"

{495}

Abridged from The Dublin University Magazine.

The Minor Brethren.

[The ensuing portion of an article from which we have stricken out the remainder on account of its objectionable statements, although not strictly in conformity with the Catholic view of the lives of the saints, furnishes a graphic sketch of the life of St. Francis, and an evidence of the approximation many Protestants are making toward a more candid and reasonable view of Catholic subjects.--ED. C. W.]

The towns of Italy were in advance of those of other countries; many of them were beautifully built, and celebrated for their wealthy and powerful citizens. Such a town was Assisi in Umbria, and such a citizen was Pietro Bernadone when his son Francisco was born--Francisco Bernadone, afterward Pater Minorum, Pater Seraphicus, then St. Francis, with a place among the saints in the hagiology of the church, now high up on stained-glass windows of thousands of churches, in illuminated missals, imperishable in history, and honored by men of all subsequent times and creeds as a great reformer and benefactor to humanity, an ardent, enthusiastic Christian. We shall contemplate the character and work of St. Francis as the "SALT" infused into the world at one of those periods of its corruption, and in order to do this we shall endeavor to delineate the man as clearly as we can from the acts of his life and the emanations of his mind; then examine his great work, and its effect upon the church in general, and upon that of our own country in particular.

We shall endeavor to portray St. Francis, the founder of the Friars Minors, not according to the phantoms of imagination, or the caricatures of prejudice, but from the records of his life, and still more efficiently from his works and sayings. Fortunately the materials are ample. There is a life of St. Francis, written by Thomas of Celano, the probable author of the sublime mediaeval hymn, the "Dies Irae," and, as he was a follower and an intimate friend of the saint, he writes with authority. At the command of Gregory IX., he committed to writing his knowledge of the life of St. Francis, which work was called the "Legenda."

A second life was written by John of Ceperano; a third by an Englishman, being a metrical version of that of Celano; a fourth by three companions of the saint, (_a Tribus Sociis_,) Leo, Angelus, and Ruffinus, compiled at the command of the minister-general of the order, Father Crescentius; a fifth by the same Thomas of Celano, being a fuller sketch, at the request also of Crescentius; and a sixth, written at the request of nearly the whole order by St. Bonaventura, who, when a child, had seen the saint.

All of these biographies are extant in the Acta Sanctorum, written in what Carlyle would term "monk or dog Latin, still readable to mankind." [Footnote 146] His works are scanty, but such as they are, they bear the impress of the man's mind. It must be remembered that St. Francis made no pretensions to being a scholar, a theologian, or an author; in fact, he was a little inclined to deprecate these things; therefore, his literary remains are only a few letters, hymns, addresses, colloquies, predictions, and apothegms.

[Footnote 146: Past and Present.]

His father, though an avaricious man, yet lived in the profuse style characteristic of the leading Italian merchants, and young Francisco was brought up accordingly, so that his youth, up to the age of twenty-five, was spent in vanity. {496} During that time, he excelled all his companions in gay frivolity, and the vices common to a young man with a rich father, proud of his son. He was the admiration of all, and led many astray by his example. He dressed in soft and flowing robes, spent his time in jesting, wanton conversation, and singing songs. Being rich, he was not avaricious, but prodigal; not having to work for his fortune, he cheerfully set about spending that of his father.

An incident is recorded in the life by the three companions which is not mentioned by Thomas of Celano nor Bonaventura.[Footnote 147] It is, that during a disturbance between the citizens of Assisi and the people of Perugia, young Francisco was captured, and, with others, placed in prison. Whilst there his manner was so different from the rest, they being sad and he more gay than ever, that they asked him the reason. "What do you take me for?" said he. "I shall yet be adored all over the world." He spent nearly a year in this durance, and, when peace was declared, returned to Assisi, and devoted his attention to the sale of his father's wares, until his conversion, which happened some years later. During the interval he fell ill, and began to lament for the sin of his past life, and to make resolutions of amendment. He recovered, and, with the recovery, the penitence and the resolutions all vanished.

[Footnote 147: It is alluded to, however, in the life of St. Columba Reatina.]

He pursued his former life until a circumstance happened which very nearly changed his whole career. A certain nobleman of Assisi was about to undertake a military expedition against Apulia, and young Francisco was immediately fired with the longing to become a soldier. He had a mysterious dream, which he misinterpreted into an encouragement. After making all preparations, he set out and reached as far as Spoleto, where he had another dream which convinced him of his mistake, and sent him back to Assisi. From that time he began to reflect, and in the embarrassment of his thoughts would retire into solitary places, and pray to God to guide him and direct him what to do.

He spoke in enigmas, and told his friends that he should not go to Apulia, but would make his name famous at home. In reply, they demanded what were his plans? was he going to take a wife? "I am"--said Francisco--"I am going to take a more beautiful and noble wife than you have ever seen, who will excel in beauty and wisdom all women."

He now took to fasting, prayer, and almsgiving. The mysterious work had commenced; his whole nature changed; he isolated himself from all his companions, began to hear voices from heaven, to see visions, and to listen to calls from the Invisible.

Whilst in this state, he was one day returning from a neighboring market, where he had sold some of his father's goods, and passed by the church of St. Damian, which had fallen into ruins. A light flashed upon his mind. He had previously, when praying in the fields, heard a voice say to him, "Francis, go and repair my house," and therefore, without a moment's hesitation, he entered the church, found the old priest, bowed before him, kissed his hands, implored him to accept the money which he was taking home, and permit him to remain there. The cautious priest allowed him to remain, but refused to take his father's money, when Francisco, in a fit of indignation, threw it aside contemptuously.

By this time the father began to be uneasy about the fate of his eccentric son and set out to make inquiries for him. Francisco then retired to a neighboring cavern. Here he staid some time, but at last, resolving to brave it out, he returned, wasted and wan, to Assisi. The people thought him mad, and pelted him through the streets, when his father, hearing a noise, went out, and, recognizing his son, seized him, dragged him home chastised him severely, shut him up in a dark place, and firmly bound him, that he might be safe till he returned from a journey he was about to take.

{497}

In the father's absence, however, the mother, after trying in vain to reason with him, let him go, and he immediately returned to the church where he had been hiding. His father, upon his return, upbraided his wife for releasing his disobedient son, and resolved upon bringing the matter to a settlement.

To this end he went to the church, saw Francisco, and, finding him more obstinate than ever, decided upon letting him have his own way, but, with characteristic prudence, demanded the money from his son which he had received for his goods. This being restored, he was appeased, and then suggested that, as Francisco had devoted himself to poverty, he would not require any patrimony, and might release his father from all claim upon him. To this Francisco willingly consented. A formal document was prepared, and the parties appeared before the bishop, when Francisco not only renounced his inheritance, but, taking off his clothes, threw them to his father, with these words: "Up to now I have called thee my father on earth, but now I can securely say, My Father, who art in heaven." The bishop was so delighted that he embraced him, and gave him his cloak.

Thus was Francisco divorced from the world, from father, mother, and kindred, and married to poverty, to whom from this time forth he devoted his life. An incident is recorded of him here which was indicative of one portion of his great work. He was out alone on a certain day, when a wretched leper crossed his path. Francisco instinctively shrunk from the sight, but, suddenly recollecting that his object was to subdue himself, he ran after the leper, seized his hand, and kissed it.

From that time he resolved to adopt the care of the lepers as a peculiar portion of his work, and we find him shortly afterward entering the leper hospital and devoting himself to their service, washing their sores with his own hands, dressing them, and once even kissing them.[Footnote 148] Then he returned once more to Assisi, the scene of his youthful revelry, and in the garb of a mendicant begged in the streets from those who once knew him in luxury, for money to rebuild the church of St. Damian, as he felt the injunction to do so was still upon him.

[Footnote 148: Bonaventura says: "Educebat plagarum putredinem et saniem abstergebat."]

His enthusiasm told upon men's minds, and money flowed in rapidly, so that he not only rebuilt that church, but another also, St. Mary of Porzioncula, which he then frequented, and to which he was ever afterward deeply attached. One day when attending mass in this church, and the gospel was read, the words, "Take nothing for your journey, neither staves nor scrip, neither bread nor money, neither have two coats apiece," sank deep into his soul. He went out of the church, took off his shoes, laid aside his staff, threw away his wallet, contented himself with a small tunic and a rope for a girdle, struck out for the strict apostolic rule, and endeavored to persuade others to follow his example.

The first instance of the mighty contagion of that example occurred in the conversion of one Bernard de Quintavalle, a man of wealth and repute, who came to Francisco, and offered himself and his all to him. The saint proposed that they should go to the church of St. Nicholas and seek for guidance. They did so, and, when the mass was over, the priest opened the missal, after making the sign of the cross. The first response was, "If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor;" the second, "Take nothing for your journey;" and the third, "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me." "Let us obey the divine command," said Francis. Bernard immediately did so to the letter, and adopted the same dress as his master.

{498}

Thus was the foundation laid of that great order of Minor Brethren. It is possible that St. Francis, for we must call him now by his canonized name, had not dreamt of such a thing as founding an order; but converts increased; Peter of Catania and four others. Egidius Sabbatini, John de Capella, and Sylvester were then added, and they all retired to a hut in the plain of Rivo Torto.

When they numbered eight, St. Francis gave them a solemn charge, and dismissed them by twos in different directions to preach the gospel of peace and forgiveness. They met after a short time, and, as their numbers increased so rapidly, St. Francis drew up his first rule, which differed very little from that of the Benedictines, save that it enjoined at the outset a solemn injunction, ingeniously evaded afterward, that they should have no property, but live in obedience and chastity. "Regula et vita istorum patrum haec est scilicet vivere in obedientia et in castitate et sine proprio." Their clothing was to be of the poorest kind; for novices for one year, "duas tunicas sine caputio et cingulum et braccas et caparonem usque ad cingulum;" for those who were finally admitted, "unicam tunicam cum caputio et aliam sine caputio, in necesse, fuerit et cingulum et braccas." No brother should be called "prior," but all should be termed Minor Brethren, "fratres minores," and the one should wash the other's feet.

Humility was strictly enjoined. They were to live on charity; to beg their bread if necessary, and not to be ashamed, but rather to remember that our Lord Jesus Christ was not ashamed, was poor and a stranger, and lived on charity, both he and his disciples. They were stringently cautioned against women, or, as St. Francis ungallantly puts it, "A malo visu et frequentia mulierum." Wherever they went, they were to remember that, and no one of them was to counsel women in secret. They were to travel on foot; not to have any beast, save from extreme infirmity, or the most urgent necessity. [Footnote 149]

[Footnote 149: Quod nullo modo apud se nec apud alium, nec aliquo modo bestiam aliquam habeant.]

Having drawn up this rule, St. Francis, with two or three of his followers, went to Rome to procure the pope's sanction to the order. They met the pope on a terrace of the Lateran Palace, and threw themselves at his feet. He, annoyed at the interruption, turned away indignantly from these men with bare, unwashed feet and coarse attire, and bid them begone. They retired to pray, whilst Innocent III. in the night had a vision which induced him to send the next morning for those strange men whom he had repulsed. He received them graciously, approved of their rule, and they departed in joy to Assisi. His march back was a triumph. The people came out to meet him from the villages, and many deserted their homes to join him on the spot. The next step taken by St. Francis was to make a modification in his rule: he found many people were converted to his views, but from the ties of children and business occupations could not possibly follow him.

To meet such wants, he instituted what was called an Order of Penitents, by which those who joined were compelled to pray, to fast, and to live according to certain rules, and wore beneath their ordinary garb the penitential girdle. This Order included both sexes, and people of all classes. One member of it was, however, destined to greater things, the young and beautiful Clara, a daughter of the house of Ortolana. She had, from childhood, been brought up most religiously by her mother, and the weird eloquence of St. Francis finished the task.

An interview was arranged, and the saint suggested an elopement, which was successfully effected, and Clara was abducted by St. Francis to the church of Porzioncula. Many other young ladies soon followed, and it was then necessary to institute new rules for these fair converts. {499} The church of St. Damian, which St. Francis had rebuilt, was turned into a convent, with Clara (who was afterward canonized as St. Clara) as its abbess. A letter is extant in the works of the saint, which runs as follows: "Francis, to his very dear Sister Clara, and the Convent of the Sisters of St. Damian, health in Christ. Because by the inspiration of our Lord ye have made yourselves daughters and handmaidens of the Highest, of the most high King and heavenly Father, and have betrothed yourselves to the Holy Spirit to live according to the teaching of the gospel; it is my will, and I promise that I and my brethren will have always for you the same diligent care and special solicitude as for ourselves. Farewell in the Lord."

In the year 1216, the first general council of the new order was held in the Porzioncula, when Tuscany, Lombardy, Provence, Spain, and Germany were assigned to the principal followers of St. Francis as mission grounds. The saint himself took France as his own field of operations. At this point a meeting took place between St. Francis and one who stands in the church almost on an equality with him, Dominic, the founder of the order of Friars Preachers.

Three years after the first, the second council was held, and a grand sight it was--five thousand brethren encamped around the church. To this great body, infused with the spirit of one man, Ugolino was introduced, and made such a flattering speech, and gave such glowing predictions of their future power and glory, that St. Francis became alarmed, and quickly perceived that, if the protector were allowed to have free play, he would soon ruin his charge. He therefore interfered, reiterated the severity of their rule which forbade all dreams of glory or power, told them they must always be the Minor Brethren, the poor of the world, and after redistributing them amongst several countries, broke up the assembly never more to venture on another gathering into one spot of such inflammable materials. When they were all dispersed, their great founder went upon a holy mission to the army then under the walls of Damietta. He advised the Christians not to engage with the Saracens, and predicted their defeat if they did, but the army were too eager for plunder and bloodshed. They engaged, and six thousand slaughtered Christians fulfilled the prophecy.

Then St. Francis resolved upon taking a step which made his name still more famous in history. Confiding his project to only one, who was to accompany him, Illuminatus [Footnote 150] by name, St. Francis, although a reward was set upon the head of every Christian, wandered up to the lines of the enemy, was seized, and taken before the sultan. Strange to say, instead of ordering him to be executed, the sultan received him courteously, listened to his preaching patiently, and asked him to remain with him in his tent. St. Francis replied, "I will remain willingly with you, if you and your people will only become converted to Christ; but if you doubt, order a fire to be kindled, and I will enter into it with your priests, and see who is right." The sultan, who had perceived that one of the chief priests had vanished at these words, replied: "I do not think any of my priests would submit to the torture for the sake of their religion." Then said St. Francis: "If you will promise for yourself and your people to adopt the Christian religion if I come out uninjured, I will enter it alone." The sultan, however, declined, and after vainly offering rich presents to St. Francis, sent him back in safety to the Christian camp.

[Footnote 150: It is sometimes stated that St. Francis went alone, but the lives by St. Bonaventura, by the Tres Socii, and by St. Thomas of Celano, all mention this Illuminatus as his companion.]

{500}

After this memorable interview. St. Francis returned, preaching in all the countries as he passed through. One day after his return, as he was praying in the church of St. Mary, Porzioncula, a vision of our Saviour appeared, and promised that, to all who should thereafter confess their sins in that church, plenary remission should be granted. St. Francis immediately went to the pope at Perugia, and procured the granting of the indulgence, in consequence of which a ceremony is held to this day annually, in the church of St. Mary of the Angels, when the peasantry assemble to confess their sins and receive the promised indulgence.

Then comes the last great tradition of his life--the receiving the stigmata. It is recorded, and firmly attested by the great men who wrote his biography, that, on a certain morning, at the hour of the holy sacrifice, when St. Francis was praying on the side of Mount Avernia, Jesus Christ appeared to him under the form of a seraph crucified on the cross, and when the vision had disappeared, St. Francis was marked with the wounds of Christ in his hands, his feet, and his side.

Various grave discussions arose amongst the faithful about the truth of this legend. Only nineteen years after its presumed occurrence a Dominican preacher had declared openly his disbelief of it, but then he was a Dominican. The Bishop of Olmutz, however, followed in the wake, when Pope Gregory IX. (Ugolino of old) wrote, reproaching them with their want of faith; and Alexander IV., who succeeded, declared he had seen with his own eyes the stigmata of St. Francis.

Shortly after this incident, St. Francis sickened, and, exhausted by long fastings and vigils, wasted gradually, until, as Bonaventura says, he was only skin and bone--"quasi sola cutis ossibus cohaereret." One day, during his illness, a companion said to him: "Brother, pray to God that he may have mercy upon thee, and not lay his hand so severely upon thee." St. Francis reproved him for such a speech, and, though he was very weak, threw himself on the ground, and, kissing the earth, said: "I thank thee, O Lord God, for all my pains; and I pray thee, if it be thy will, multiply them a hundred-fold, because it will be most acceptable to me; for the fulfilment of thy will in me will be my supreme consolation." And his brethren noticed that, as his bodily pains increased, his joy was greater. He predicted the day of his death, and begged to be carried to his beloved Porzioncula, that he might yield up his spirit at that spot where he had first received divine grace. It was done, and he insisted upon being laid naked upon the bare ground, when he turned to his companions and said: "I have done my part; what yours is, may Christ teach you." When his last hour was come, he had all the brethren on the spot called to him, addressed them kindly on preserving their vows of poverty, and upholding the faith of the Catholic Church; he then laid his hands upon them, and pronounced his blessing upon all present and absent. "Farewell," said he, "all my sons; be strong in the fear of God, and remain in that always; and since future temptation and tribulation are near, blessed are they who continue in the things they have begun. But I hasten to God, to whose grace I commend you all." Then he called for a copy of the gospels, and asked them to read him that of St. John, beginning at the words, "Before the day of the passover," etc., when he suddenly broke out into the psalm: "Voce mea ad Dominum clamavi, voce mea ad Dominum deprecatus sum," continued to the words, "Me expect justi donec retribuas mihi," when, as they died away on his lips, the spirit of the great founder passed gently out of his poor emaciated body, and returned to its Maker.

Thus died St. Francis, in the odor of sanctity; and perhaps we cannot more appropriately conclude this brief outline of his life than by giving a translation of a sketch of his character and personal appearance, as written by one who knew him, Thomas of Celano, the author of the Dies Irae. {501} It forms a graphic portrait of the man, and may serve as a fair specimen of hagiography. In his life of the saint, he thus writes:

"Oh! how beautiful, how splendid, how glorious did he appear in the innocence of his life, in the simplicity of his words, in the purity of his heart, in his love of God, in brotherly charity, in fragrant obedience, in angelic aspect! Gentle in manners, placid in nature, affable in conversation, faithful in undertakings, of admirable foresight in counsel, able in business, gracious to all, serene in mind, gentle in temper, sober in spirit, stable in contemplation, persevering in grace, and in all things the same; swift to indulge, to anger slow, free in intellect, in memory bright, subtle in dissertation, circumspect in choice, simple in all things; rigid toward himself, pious toward others, discreet to everybody; a most eloquent man, of cheerful aspect, and benevolent countenance, free from idleness, void of insolence. He was of the middle stature, rather inclined to shortness; his head was of the medium size, and round, with an oblong and extended face, a small smooth forehead, black and simple eyes, dark brown hair and straight eyebrows; his nose was thin, well proportioned, and straight; his ears erect and small, and his temples were smooth; his tongue was placable, though fiery and sharp; his voice was vehement, though sweet, clear, and sonorous; his teeth well set, regular, and white; his lips of moderate size; his beard was black, and not very thick; his neck thin; his shoulders straight, with small arms, thin hands, long fingers and nails; he had thin legs, small feet, a delicate skin, and very little flesh. He wore a rough vest, took very little sleep, and though he was most humble, he showed every courtesy to all men, conforming himself to the manners of every one. As he was holy amongst the holy, so amongst sinners he was as one of them." [Footnote 151]

[Footnote 151: Thomas de Celano in Vita Sti. Francisci. Acta Sanct.]

Before we advance further, we must say a few words upon a subject well known to all who have investigated the originals of ecclesiastical history--the miracles attributed to the saints. Their biographies are spangled with miracles--that of St. Francis especially. The Acta Sanctorum is a compilation of some fifty or sixty folio volumes, containing sometimes five or six different lives of each saint, written by men in different ages and countries, ranging from the eighth to the fourteenth century. All these writers unite in one thing, the ascription of miraculous powers to the saints. The question then arises, can this be wholly and entirely false? can it be utterly without one grain of truth in it?--a tissue of falsehoods wilful, wanton falsehoods consistently written by men at vastly different times, and in remotely distant countries? We must premise at once that we are not for a moment going to defend the absolute truth of the wonders attributed to the saints. We do not believe for an instant that their bodies were sometimes lifted from the earth, and carried up into the sky, like St. Francis; or that they walked dry-footed over the sea, as did St. Birim, when he left the corporalia behind him at Boulogne; nor that commands and directions were given them direct from heaven, through the medium of crosses, images, or pictures; but we cannot help reflecting as to whether it is possible for such a systematic body of history to be handed down to posterity in one continuity of falsehood for some eight or nine centuries; or whether we may come to the conclusion that it is a superstructure of exaggeration built up upon some basis of truth. It may help us, perhaps, at the outset, to notice what were the characters of the writers of these lives; were they men likely to be deluded by fanaticism, or likely to lend themselves to the perpetration and perpetuation of wanton falsehood?

{502}

If we turn over the volumes of the Acta Sanctorum, we shall find, on the contrary, some of the brightest names in the annals of literature, piety, and philanthropy; some of the deepest scholars, the most acute reasoners, the most elaborate thinkers recorded in the annals of fame; of men whose works have been and still are the guiding lights of theological and philosophical investigation. There are Bridferth, Eadmer, Lanfranc, Anselm, William of Malmesbury, Thomas à Kempis, Bonaventura, and many others, all distinguished for intellect and piety. Some of them, too, were honored by a personal acquaintance with the subjects of their memoirs, as in the case of Bridferth, the contemporary of Dunstan, of Eadmer of Anselm, of Thomas of Celano and St. Francis. Can it be that these scholars, trained to philosophical investigation--these profound thinkers--these holy archbishops and bishops should connive together to delude posterity with a tissue of lies--of wanton lies, which might have been easily contradicted by contemporary writers, many of whom were bitter enemies both of the writers and their religion? Yet we find no such contradiction.

We have plenty of contemporary history handed down tolerably perfect as regards incidents, dates, accurate reports of great councils, descriptions of battles and sieges, lives of statesmen, warriors, and scholars, with views of both sides, debated, refuted, or confirmed. And are we to believe that in this matter of the lives of the saints only have all contemporary writers, friends and foes, scholars, holy men, great benefactors of their age, conspired successfully together to hand down an enormous fabric of falsehood, and at the same time secure the silence of all contemporary history? This is the great difficulty.

A distinguished English writer, the elder D'Israeli, has endeavored to account for these strange tales in the lives of the saints by suggesting they were written as exercises and religious theses, when each student filled up his outline with all the wonders he could invent to invest his subject with greater glory. That is a theory accepted by many who are already prejudiced toward its acceptation; but it is a frivolous theory, to which we object the improbability of these great men, whose names are already mentioned, being set down, some of them in the maturity of their lives, to write religious exercises of that nature. Is it not rather possible that there may be something in all this history which we can neither understand nor explain?

Let us examine for a moment into what we may venture to call the natural history of miracles. We find the Bible itself is an immense repertoire of miracles from Moses down to the apostles, and it contains no distinct announcement of a withdrawal of that power from the church. It was confirmed by Christ, who endowed his apostles with the same power, and who said one or two things in his addresses to them which, we think, will throw some light upon this vexed question.

It is quite certain that there have never been any miracles wrought in the world by any who did not receive the power from God. We are not prepared to estimate what degree of change was produced in the relations between man and God by the fall; we are certain of this, that a gap was placed between the two, so wide that Christ was sent to bridge it over; that an apostasy ensued, and a disunion so complete that his death alone was able to provide the means of reunion and reconciliation. Then it follows that faith was the only possible mode to man of recovery of what was lost by man; faith before the promise and faith after its fulfilment, and in the proportion of the strength of that faith, and the consequent change of life in the heart and nature of him who possessed it, was the reunion with God promised. But how does this bear on miracles? In this way. Turn to the Bible, and it will be seen that of every man who is recorded to have performed miracles, it is also recorded that he had this immovable faith, and that his life was ordered accordingly. {503} Faith, prayer, and fasting have ever been the elements of the life necessary to miracles, and we are not prepared, nor are we able to estimate what would be the result of such a course of severe discipline as some of the saints went through toward a recovery of that lost union with God. It is a singular fact that, in the life of Christ, we find it was only after his fasting and prayer in the wilderness that he began to perform miracles, as though during that severe trial of temptation, fasting, and prayer the perfect union between himself and his Father had been sealed by the final gift of miraculous power. And thus was it that, when in after times his disciples were unable to cast out the devils, and appealed to him for the reason of their inability, he replied, "This sort goeth not out but by fasting and prayer;" and we are told elsewhere that the disciples of Jesus did not fast. So that we find in the Bible there is a close connection between the active development of the spiritual, and the subjugation of the corporeal life, and the working of miracles.

All the prophets led that life, they were given to prayer, fasting, and solitude. It was the peculiar life of Jesus; retired to the mountains, the deserts, and by-places for prayer, and he attributed the miraculous power to the results of this life. [Footnote 152] Is it, then, possible for a man by strong faith, accompanied by fasting and prayer, in these later days to regain that close, mysterious communion with his Maker which should give him a supernatural power? We reply that we have not the means of answering the question, for the simple reason that we never have an opportunity of seeing it tried. Without wishing to insinuate anything invidious, have we any record in ecclesiastical or other history, of bishops, priests, or men of any class during the last 400 years spending whole nights in prayer, or consecutive days in fasting, such as we read, upon indisputable authority, was the practice in the olden times of the prophets, and the later times of men who devoted their lives to the imitation of Christ? [Footnote 153]

[Footnote 152: In the life of St. Francis we are told that "solitaria loca quaerebat," "una die dum sic sequestratus oraret," "cum die quadam egressus ad meditandum in agro," "dum per sylvam iter faciens."]

[Footnote 153: Our Protestant fasts are a "lucus a non lucendo," consisting of fish of various descriptions, curiously prepared by the protean art of cookery, with very substantial adjuncts, and accompanied by good wine. No miracles were ever wrought upon that diet.]

There are plenty of hints scattered throughout the Bible and Testament that there is a mysterious connection yet to be recovered between man and God, if men will only fulfil the required condition, and we repeat that it is not in our power to estimate the results of such a life as we have mentioned--a life of spiritual discipline, of development of the soul, and subjugation of the body--because we have no examples around us; but we ask, if such life were pursued, what is there to prevent our believing that to some extent the words of our Divine Master, who led that life himself, would yet be verified, and "this sort" would still "go out through fasting and prayer"? Nay, further, we may add in illustration that the phenomena which are recorded as attending the careers of such men as Whitefield, Wesley, and Irving have never yet been explained away by any scientific theory or law; so that, in conclusion, as we find in the Bible an emphatic and reiterated record of miraculous power accorded to persons of a certain habit of life and thought, as our Lord, when on earth, attributed that power to the pursuing of that peculiar life--as in every instance where miracles are attributed to men, they are proved to have led such lives--it cannot be thought too much to suggest that, making great deductions and allowances for exaggeration, there may be some basis of truth underlying that fabric of historical and traditional record of the lives of the saints.

Many of those incidents described so mysteriously are capable of explanation. It is often recorded of these men that they saw visions and heard voices. {504} For instance, it is said of St. Francis that, on one occasion, when he was long praying in a solitary place, the Lord appeared to him as if on the cross, and so visible was this [Greek text] to him that ever afterward, when any thought of Christ's sufferings came into his mind, he could not help bursting into tears; also, that one night the Lord appeared to him, and said, "Francisce, quis potest melius facere tibi dominus aut servus?" And again, on another occasion, "Francisce, vade et repara domum meam." Within the range of our own experience, who is there amongst us who has not had similar visions in the slumbers of the night, or heard similar voices in the day? Have we not had sweet converse with dear departed friends, and heard voices that have long been silent? What bereaved mother has not often heard the cry of her lost infant, or solitary widow seen the form of a lost husband in the phantasms of the night? If such things happen to ordinary men, we submit that we are unable to estimate the result of the mode of life and the severity of spiritual training which those men underwent, because it is foreign to our habits, and not within the range of our experience.

We now proceed to give a brief criticism upon the intellect of St. Francis. He has left very little behind him. Only a few sermons, hymns, letters, and sayings, from which we can glean that he must have been an earnest preacher of the true popular type, driving home his truths by familiar illustrations, the type of that peculiar preaching which rendered his order so popular, and paved the way for their marvellous success. We subjoin a few extracts, which illustrate not only his style, but the design of his order. In one of his epistles he says: [Footnote 154]

[Footnote 154: Ep. ii. Ad universes Christi fideles.]

"Let us not be wise and prudent according to the flesh, but simple, humble, and poor; and let us hold our bodies in contempt, because we are all miserable and putrid; as the Lord says through the prophet, I am a worm and not a man. We should never desire to be above others, but subjected and submissive to every human creature, for the sake of God. And upon all who do so, and persevere unto the end, the holy spirit will rest, and make in them his tabernacle and his mansion, and they shall be sons of the heavenly Father, whose works they do, and shall be the brides, brothers, and mothers of our Lord Jesus Christ. Brides are we, since faithful souls are joined to the Holy Spirit; brothers are we of Jesus Christ, when we do the will of his Father who is in heaven; mothers are we, when we bear him in our hearts and bodies through love, and bring him forth by the sacred operation of our example, which ought to shine before others. Oh! how glorious and great to have a Father in heaven! Oh! how holy to have a betrothal of the Spirit! Oh! how sacred, how delightful, well pleasing, peaceful, sweet, loving, desirable above all, is it to have a brother who has laid down his life for the sheep, and has prayed his Father for us, saying, 'Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me. Father, all those whom thou hast given me in the world are thine, and thou hast given them to me, and the word which thou hast given me I have given them, and they have received it, and know well that I came from thee, and have believed that thou hast sent me. I pray for them: I sanctify myself, that they may be sanctified as we are. And I will, O Father! that where I am there they may be also, and see my glory in my kingdom.'" [Footnote 155]

[Footnote 155: We translate from the Latin of St. Francis, which is somewhat different from our version.]

A graphic picture of a death-bed scene follows soon after the above beautiful passage in the same epistle.

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"The body droops, death draws near, relatives and friends come, and say, 'Arrange thy house.' And behold, his wife and his sons, his relatives and friends, pretend to weep; and he, looking up, sees them weeping, and is moved, and says, my soul and my body, and all my goods, I place in your hands. Verily, that man is cursed who deposits his soul, his body, and all his goods in such hands; or, as the Lord says by the prophet, cursed is that man who places his trust in man. And then they send for the priest, who says to him, 'Dost thou wish to receive absolution from all thy sins?' he replies, 'I do.' Wilt thou make restitution from thy substance for those things which thou hast obtained through fraud and deception?' He says, 'No.' 'Why not?' asks the priest. 'Because I have divided all amongst my relations.' And then his speech begins to fail, and he dies miserably. But let all men know that wherever any man dies in sin, without making satisfaction, which he can, but will not make, such a demon seizes his soul, and drags it from the body with such agony that no one can conceive who has not experienced it. And all his money, power, and knowledge, which he thought he had, are taken from him; and his relations and friends, to whom he has given his goods, take them, and divide them, and then say, Cursed be his soul, who might have given us more, and did not; who might have hoarded more, and did not. Worms destroy his body, demons his soul; and thus he loses both soul and body for the sake of this brief life."

Humility, deep and sincere, was the great characteristic of his life. He was in his own words, "Franciscus parvulus et vester servus in Domino;" "Homo vilis et caducus;" "minus servorum;" "indigna creatura Domini." Being asked, one day, why he wore such scanty clothing in the depth of winter, he replied, "If we are clothed within with the flame of our heavenly country, we shall easily bear this external cold." One of the brethren asked him why he scarcely took anything to sustain nature. "Because," said St. Francis, "it is difficult to satisfy the necessity of the body without indulging the longing of the senses."

On an occasion a brother asked him if he might have a psalter. "When you have got a psalter," replied St. Francis, "then you will want a breviary; and when you have got a breviary, you will sit in your chair as great as a lord, and you will say to your brother, 'Friar, fetch me my breviary.'" There was a competition amongst the brethren as to who should bring in the greatest number of female devotees, when St. Francis checked their ardor by the caustic remark, "I am afraid, my brethren, that when God forbade us wives the devil gave us sisters." Here we must take our farewell of the saint. Willingly would we devote more space to him; but we have much yet to say about his work, especially as it influenced the destinies of our own land. He was a great man, an enthusiast in the highest sense of the word; his character and career remind us forcibly of John the Baptist; his food was locusts and wild honey, his raiment was scanty, he was a voice crying in the wilderness of a wicked world, and his name will last for ever.

But we advance to investigate the doings of the order in England. At the second general chapter held by St. Francis, at Porzioncula, in the year 1219, when the brethren were divided into parties and sent out on their missions, England was one of the first mission stations assigned. France was the first, then came England, chiefly, it is thought, through the influence of an Englishman, one William, who was a follower of St. Francis. The honor of leading this mission was assigned to Brother Angnello [Footnote 156] de Pisa, who was made minister-general of the order in England.

[Footnote 156: _Angnellus_ sic, in Eccleston MSS., and in Monumenta Franciscana.]

His authority was as follows: "Ego Frater Franciscus de Assisio minister, generalis praecipio tibi Fratri Angnello de Pisa per obedientiam, ut vadas in Angliam et ibi facias officium ministeriatus. Vale. Anno 1219. Franciscus de Assisio." [Footnote 157]

[Footnote 157: Collectanea Anglo-Minoritica, p. 5.]

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They were also fortified with letters recommendatory from Pope Honorius, addressed to all "archbishops, bishops, abbots, priors, and other prelates of the church," enjoining them to receive the bearers as Catholics and true believers, and to "show them favor and courtesy." The actual date of their landing in England is disputed. Eccleston in his MSS., "De Primo Adventu Minorum," gives the year 1224, but the more probable date is 1220, which is given by Wadding, the annalist of the order, and confirmed by Matthew Paris, who under the year 1243 speaks of the Friars Minors, "who began to build their first habitations in England scarcely _twenty-four_ years ago." As they had no money of their own, and lived upon what was given them, they were transported to England from France by the charity of some monks of Fécamp. They were nine in number, four clergymen and five laymen. The former were Angnellus, a native of Pisa, Richard de Ingeworth, Richard of Devonshire, and William Esseby. The laymen were Henry de Cernise, a native of Lombardy, Laurence de Belvaco, William de Florentia, Melioratus, and James Ultramontanus. They landed at Dover and proceeded to Canterbury, where they were hospitably received and staid two days at the Priory of the Holy Trinity. Then four of them set out for London to present the apostolical letters to Henry III., who received them very kindly, which, as they did not want any money, he would be most likely to do.

The other five were housed at Canterbury at the Priests' Hospital, where they remained until a place could be procured for them; such accommodation was found in a small chamber beneath the school-house, where they remained shut up all day, and at evening, when the scholars had gone home, they entered the room, kindled a fire, and sat round it. The four monks who went to London were kindly received by the Dominicans, with whom they staid a fortnight, until one John Travers hired a house for them in Cornhill, which they divided into cells by stuffing the interstices with straw.

The citizens, at the instigation of one Irwin, who afterward became a lay brother, removed them to the butchery or shambles of St. Nicholas, in the Ward of Farringdon-within, close to a place called Stinking-lane, where they built a convent for them. The foundations were laid at Christmas, 1220, and it was five years in course of building. The different portions were built by different citizens. William Joyner built the choir, William Walleys the nave, Alderman Porter the chapter-house, Bartholomew de Castello the refectory, Peter de Haliland the infirmary, and Roger Bond the library; even in those days the citizens, when they did anything in the way of charity, did it royally. Two brethren, however, were sent on to Oxford, where they were also kindly received by Dominican friars, according to Eccleston; but a story is told in the annals of the order of the two brethren who were making their way toward Oxford, when they came to a sort of manor-house, about six miles from Oxford, which was a cell of Benedictine monks, belonging to the abbey of Abingdon.

Being very hungry and tired, they knocked at the gate; and the monks, from their strange dress and extraordinary appearance, taking them for masqueraders, admitted them, hoping for some diversion. But, when they found they were a new order of friars, they turned them out of doors; but one, more gentle than the rest, went after them, brought them back, and persuaded the porter to let them sleep in the hay-loft. Both versions may be right, as the circumstance occurred outside Oxford; and Eccleston's account commences with their advent in that city when they were received by the Dominicans, with whom they remained for about eight days, until a rich citizen, Richard Mercer, let them a house in the parish of St. Ebbs. Then the two brethren go on to Northampton, where they were received into an hospital. They procured a house in the parish of St. Giles, over which they appointed one Peter Hispanus as guardian.

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Then they went to Cambridge, where the townspeople gave them an old synagogue, adjoining the common prison; but afterward, ten marks being given them from the king's exchequer, they built a rough sort of oratory on a plot of ground in the city. After that another settlement was made in Lincoln, and gradually in many other cities; so that in thirty-two years from their arrival they numbered 1242 brethren in forty-nine different settlements. Their first convert was one Solomon, of good birth and connections.

When only a novice, he was appointed procurator of his house; that is, he had to go out to beg for it. The first place he went to was the residence of a sister, who gave him some bread, with the following remark: "Cursed be the hour when I ever saw thee!" So strict was their poverty, that one of the brethren being ill, and they having no means to make a fire, got round him, clung to him, and warmed him with their bodies, "sicut porcis mos est." [Footnote 158]

[Footnote 158: Eccleston de Adventu Minorum.]

They walked about barefooted through the snow, to the horror of the spectators. Brother Solomon injured his foot so severely that he was laid up for two years; and whilst ill the Lord appeared to him, accompanied by the apostle Peter. And by way of contrast, we are told shortly after that the devil appeared to one Brother Gilbert de Vyz, when he was alone, and said to him, "Do you think to avoid me? At least you shall have this," and threw at him a fistful of vermin, and then vanished: "et projecit super eum plenum pugillum suum pediculorum et evanuit," so states Master Eccleston.

The second convert was William of London; then followed Jocius of Cornhill, a clerk, who went to Spain, labored, and died; John, another clerk; Philip, a priest, who, being a good preacher, was sent to Ireland, and died there. Then came several magistrates, amongst whom were Walter de Burg, Richard Norman, Vincent of Coventry, Adam of Oxford; but one of the greatest accessions was in the person of Adam Marsh, better know as Adae de Marisco, who was destined to found that distinguished school at Oxford which boasts such names as Scotus, Occam, Roger Bacon, and others. Adam was called Doctor Illustris. After him came John of Reading, abbot of Ozeneyae, and Richard Rufus. Then came some military men, Dominus R. Gobion, Giles de Merc, Thomas Hispanus, and Henry de Walpole.

As their numbers continued to increase, people built churches and convents for them in all parts of the country. The master of the Priests' Hospital at Canterbury built them a chapel; Simon de Longeton, archdeacon of Canterbury, helped them; so Henry de Sandwyg, and a certain noble lady, Inclusa de Baginton, who cherished them in all things, as a mother her sons: "quae sicut mater filios sic fovit eos in omnibus."

Angnellus now set out upon an inspection of the different settlements, and, after pausing for a time at London, came on to Oxford, where, as things were promising and converts gradually coming in, he founded a community, over which he placed William Esseby as guardian of the house, which Ingeworth and Devonshire had hired. Adam of Oxonia joined the company, and then Alexander Hales, whom St. Francis, it is thought, admitted in the year 1219, as Hales passed through France on his way to England. Angnellus then conceived the idea of having a school of friars at Oxford, and built one near their house. He then addressed himself to Doctor Robert Grostete, one of the most distinguished lecturers in the university, to beg him to instruct the brethren. Grostete consented, and the school was soon thronged with ardent Franciscan converts, who listened with delight to the lectures of that man who, as bishop of Lincoln, was destined to such a glorious career.

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And now Angnellus was instant in encouraging the brethren to attend the lectures, and make progress in the study of the Decretals and canon law; and as he found them very diligent, he thought he would honor them with his presence at one of their meetings and see how they progressed; but when he arrived there, he was horrified, to hear that the subject under discussion by these young monks was whether there was a God!! _Utrum esset Deus_! Frightened out of his propriety, the good man exclaimed: "Alas! alas! simple brethren are penetrating the heavens, and the learned dispute whether there may be a God!" [Footnote 159] It was with great difficulty they calmed his agitation. He only submitted upon their promise that, if he sent to Rome for a copy of the Decretals, they would avoid such mighty questions, and keep to them.

[Footnote 159: "Hei mihi, hei mihi, fratres simplices coelos penetrant et literati disputant utrum sit Deus." See Wood, Antiq. Oxon, lib. i. p. x.]

The first Franciscan who taught in the school was William Eton, under the direction of Grostete, who was not a Franciscan: he was succeeded by Adam de Marisco, who is sometimes called the first of the order who taught; he was, however, the first who taught alone, the others teaching under the direction of Grostete. Sixty-seven distinguished men filled this chair, some of whose names have been immortalized.

The influence of the study of Aristotle was telling vitally upon the theology of the schools. At first his writings were studied through very imperfect translations made from the Arabic, with Arabic commentaries--then a mixture of Neo Platonism was infused, and the devotees of scholastic theology at Paris fell into such errors that the study of his works was prohibited by the synod of that place in the year 1209. Six years afterward this prohibition was renewed by the Papal Legate; but as men began to find that there was a great difference between the philosophy of Aristotle, filtered through Arabic commentators and Arabic translators, and Aristotle himself, a revival took place in favor of the Stagyrite, and Gregory IX., in 1231, by a bull modified the restriction. New translations were now made and purged from errors.

A new era in scholasticism commenced; the two rival orders, the Dominicans and Franciscans, began to apply the Aristotelian method to theological questions; Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas [Footnote 160] taking the lead in the former order, in opposition to the teaching of Alexander Hales.[Footnote 161] the Franciscan, who lectured at Paris. Bonaventura [Footnote 162] endeavored to amalgamate scholasticism with mysticism; but at length appeared John Duns Scotus, [Footnote 163] who lectured at Oxford, Paris, and Cologne, a Franciscan, and worthy opponent of the Dominican, Thomas Aquinas. We must not omit another distinguished member of the Oxford school who flourished at the same time, Roger Bacon, [Footnote 164] perhaps the most distinguished man of the age.

[Footnote 160: Doctor Angelicas.]

[Footnote 161: Doctor Irrefragabilis.]

[Footnote 162: Doctor Seraphicus.]

[Footnote 163: Doctor Subtilis.]

[Footnote 164: Doctor Mirabilis.]

He taught at Oxford. He, however, saw the prominent errors of the disputation of the times, and has left on record, in the preface to his Opus Majus, the following criticism, which is worthy of attention: "There never was such an appearance of wisdom, nor such activity in study in so many faculties, and so many regions, as during the last forty years; for even the doctors are divided in every state, in every camp, and in every burgh, especially through the two studious orders, (Dominicans and Franciscans,) when neither, perhaps, was there ever so much ignorance and error. The mob of students languishes and stupefies itself over things badly translated; it loses time and study; appearances only hold them, and they do not care what they know so much as what they seem to know before the insensate multitude."

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Again, in lib. ii., he says: "If I had power over the books of Aristotle, I would have them all burnt, because it is only a loss of time to study in them, a cause of error and multiplication of ignorance beyond what I am able to explain." We must give Roger Bacon the credit of speaking more particularly of the wretched translations in use, though his view of Aristotelian philosophy was strangely confirmed centuries afterward by his still greater namesake, Lord Bacon, who said, after many years of devotion to Aristotelianism, that it was "a philosophy only strong for disputations and contentions, but barren of the production of works for the benefit of the life of man." Thus were ranged under two scholastic standards the two great orders of mendicant friars, the Dominicans and the Franciscans; the former being called Thomists, and the latter Scotists. A fierce doctrinal controversy then raged between them, the animosity of which was heightened by a jealousy which had always existed on the part of the Dominicans from the time when St. Francis rejected their founder's overtures to unite the two orders.

In the year 1400 England maintained and included sixty convents; and at the time of the dissolution, the Franciscans alone of the mendicant orders had ninety convents in England, besides vicarships, residences, and nunneries.

To a generation of men who had heard no preaching, or, if any, nothing they could understand, the enthusiastic discourses of these men were like refreshing showers on a parched soil; for in the thirteenth century the sermon had fallen into such disuse that an obscure and insignificant preacher created a great sensation in Paris, although his preaching was rude and simple. Both doctors and disciples ran after him, one dragging the other, and saying, "Come and hear Fulco, the presbyter, he is another Paul." [Footnote 165] The Franciscans diligently cultivated that talent, and from the general favor in which they were held by nearly all classes of the community, especially by the common people, we may conclude that the style they adopted was essentially a popular and engaging style, in direct contradistinction to the scholastic discourses delivered at rare intervals from the pulpits of the churches. Then a Franciscan mingled amongst the poor; he too was poor, one of the poorest, and the poor saw their condition elevated to an apostolic sanctity; his raiment was coarse like theirs; his food also as coarse, for it was their food shared often with him at their own tables; they sat at his feet and listened to him, not in trembling servitude, as at the feet of one whom they had been taught to regard with superstitious awe, but as at the feet of a dear brother, one of themselves, who had hungered with them and sorrowed with them.

[Footnote 165: Vide Jacobi, a Vitriaco Hist. Occident, c, 6.]

Then the Franciscan preached everywhere--at the street corner, in the fields, on the hill-side; his portable altar was set up, the sacrament administered to the people, and the gospel preached as in the old apostolic times, by the river-side, in the high roads and by-ways, under the bare heavens. No wonder that they won the hearts of the degraded populations of the countries in which they settled, that the poor ran to them and flocked round them, and that the good and great were soon drawn over to their side; it was the revival of apostolic simplicity, and as the excited crowds were swayed under their fervent eloquence, and myriads of tearful eyes were turned up to their gaze, it was like the miracle in the wilderness, the rock had been smitten, and the waters gushed forth.

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The Souls of Animals

A number of years ago, when the census enumerators were going through Canada, they found an old lady in Quebec, who, to the question what religion she professed, replied that she believed in the transmigration of souls. To what particular form of the doctrine she clung; whether she believed, with the sages of the Ganges, that the soul begins its life in the mineral or vegetable world, and must pass through no fewer than eighty-eight progressive stages before it rises to human consciousness; or, with the priests of the Nile, that the spiritual part of a man has lived for three thousand years in the forms of lower animals before it gets a human body; whether she was a Pythagorean, or a Neo-Platonist, or a Cabalist; whether she refused animal food for fear of eating unwittingly the flesh of some deceased friend or relative, and could not see a roast chicken without thinking of a cannibal; these are curious questions which we fear will never be answered. Plato believed in ten grades of migrations, each of a thousand years, in which souls were purified and punished before their return to an incorporeal existence with God; and the more virtuously they lived, the fewer grades they had to pass through. For a good, honest philosopher, about three grades were thought sufficient. Porphyry taught that bodies themselves are punishments imposed upon souls for offences committed in a previous state of which we retain no consciousness. A gross, sensual, very material body indicated a very criminal career in the previous existence. A virtuous life led by degrees through the states of heroes, angels, and archangels; and an archangel, if he behaved himself, might hope to be absorbed, in the course of time, into the divine essence itself; while for the wicked there was a similar but descending scale of transformations into devils of various degrees of moral blackness. The Cabalists held that God created originally a certain number of Jewish souls, some of which are still on earth in human form, while there are always many others doing penance for their sins in the bodies of animals. So they were careful, we trust, in their treatment of dumb beasts, not knowing but any pig or jackass they encountered might be a Jew in disguise. A conscientious Cabalist would not dare turn a dog out of doors, for fear he might be kicking his grandfather, and ought to shun fish, flesh, and fowl as religiously as he would object to dining off a blood relation. The great Christian philosopher, Origen, himself believed in the transmigration of the souls of men into the bodies of the lower animals; and adopted this doctrine as the readiest way of explaining why there are so many imperfections in animated nature; the divine Creator purposely made animals imperfect, because he meant that bodies should be the instruments of punishment and expiation for sinful souls. The Gnostics, and Manichaeans, and some other heretical sects, had the same idea, and it was also a part of the doctrine of the ancient British Druids, as it is at the present day of the Druses and other tribes of Asia, as well as of some of the African nations. Fourier allowed the soul no fewer than eight hundred and ten lives, each of them averaging a hundred years in duration, and it was to pass one third, or twenty-seven thousand of all these years, on our earth. When all the transmigrations had been accomplished, the soul was to lose its separate existence, and become confounded with the soul of the planet. But the French philosopher did not stop here. {511} The body of the planet was to be in its turn destroyed, and its soul to transmigrate into a new earth, rising by successive stages to the highest degrees in the hierarchy of worlds.

Which of these many systems of metempsychosis was the one embraced by the eccentric old lady of Quebec we have, as we said before, no means of deciding, nor perhaps, since she appears to have founded no school of disciples, is the problem worth investigation. We can imagine what a singular position the solitary adherent of that old pagan creed must have occupied in the society of the quaint French city; how pious Catholics must have stared at her with mingled awe and horror as a relic of the times of Pythagoras and Plato, or perchance as an Indian Buddhist some centuries old, whom Time in his flight had forgotten to gather into his garner, where all her kith and kin had been laid asleep for ages. It was certainly a very uncomfortable belief, and, if it ever became general, it would play the mischief with family relations. Just think of the possibility of a man's being his own grandmother or his own posthumous son! It may have had its conveniences, but, upon the whole, we are glad it has died out.

We once heard an accomplished theologian maintain that, however philosophically absurd that doctrine might be, and however inconsistent with the spirit of Catholic teaching, there was yet no dogmatic decision which forbade a man's holding it, if he chose to be such a fool. A man might be a good Catholic and still believe that one of God's ways of punishing sin was to imprison the offending soul after death in the body of a beast; this might be a sort of purgatory. Perhaps he was right; but so we might say there is no article of faith which forbids us to believe that the moon is made of green cheese, that the earth is flat instead of round, that the Rocky Mountains are five thousand miles high, or that King Arthur was the first President of the United States. There is a sort of transmigration, however, in which reputable Catholic theologians are not altogether unwilling to believe; and this brings us to the statement of a fact which, for all that it is admitted by the mass of authorities on such subjects, will, no doubt, sound paradoxical to a great many of our readers; that is, that dumb beasts, if they have not borrowed the souls of human beings, have, at any rate, souls of their own. In our loose way of talking about things, we are but too apt to speak of the soul as one of the distinguishing prerogatives of man, and reason as another; whereas the fact is that man shares both these in common with the brute kingdom. Every animal has a soul, though not an immortal soul; and all the higher animals--probably _all_ animals--are gifted to a greater or less extent with reason. Deny souls to beasts, and you reduce them to a level with the vegetable creation, in which life and motion are merely the necessary operations of external laws which the plant has no power either to further or obstruct. Nor need we fear that, by admitting they have souls, we raise them too near an equality with ourselves. The divine gift of immortality, the power of knowing and loving God, the right to participate in his everlasting glory--these are distinctions which must separate us by an immeasurable gulf from all inferior creatures. If beasts have no souls, it will puzzle us to define the exact difference between a dead dog and a live one.

But we have wandered away, from our speculations about metempsychosis, and are apparently in danger of forgetting the proposition which we set forth in the last paragraph, namely, that there is a certain kind of transmigration of souls in which many good theologians seem very much inclined to believe. It is an open question whether the souls of animals pass from body to body; whether, for instance, when a dog dies, its soul is annihilated, or is transferred to the body of another brute just that moment born; whether the souls of the lower orders of creatures have only the brief life which appears to be granted them, or whether their existence may not be prolonged to the end of this world. {512} It certainly accords with what we know of the divine economy, in which everything has its permanent use and no created object seems ever to be destroyed, to suppose that, after a soul has performed its functions in the body of one beast, it may be designed by Almighty God to perform similar functions in the body of another. The plant which springs up, and blossoms, and withers, returns to life in other forms; a part of it is consumed as food and passes into the tissue of animals; a part crumbles away into vegetable mould and is assimilated by the parent earth; a part, dissolving into the constituents of the atmosphere, serves to nourish and increase other plants. The animal body itself, which decays and is changed to dust, is destined to live again in other shapes. Modern science has discovered that not even a motion is lost. The blow of the hammer which is struck upon the anvil is perpetuated in one form or another through all time. The heat of the fire which blazes for an hour and is then extinct was not created at the moment the fire was kindled, and will not be lost when the fire goes out. The sum of all the forces which act in nature is constant, unchangeable. Heat, electricity, magnetism, chemical action, may be expended and apparently lost, but it is only to manifest themselves in other ways. Nothing, in a word, seems to be destroyed, and, so far as our knowledge enables us to judge, God has never annihilated any material object which he has once created. And if matter is thus preserved through various changes, processes of decay and processes of renovation, why should not spirit be likewise kept in existence? The soul of man, after it leaves this body, has still eternal functions to perform in another world, either of punishment or of reward. What objection is there, then, to believing that the incorporeal part of the brute has permanent use in this world as long as the world endures?

Perhaps when we have learned to look upon the brute soul as something rather more honorable than we have been wont to regard it; as something which it is quite possible (we won't say probable) God may have designed to last till the very end of time, and not as the creature of one short day, we may be prepared to recognize in its true dignity the brute's power of reason, which seems naturally to follow from the possession of a soul. It is a common fallacy to distinguish the intelligent faculty in man as reason, and in dumb animals as instinct. The truth is, reason and instinct are two things quite different in kind; neither takes the place of the other, and each of them belongs both to man and to beast. Without aiming at strict philosophical accuracy, we may define reason as the faculty by which we weigh the relations of things, and freely and deliberately choose what we deem eligible, and reject what we consider hurtful. Instinct is an innate force or impulse inciting us under certain circumstances to act in a certain way. For example, if a man walking on a plank should feel it unexpectedly shift under his feet, he would catch at the nearest object, or endeavor to balance his body by stretching out his hands. These acts would be acts of instinct, done on the impulse of the moment, before reason had time to consider whether they ought to be done or not. Max Müller has some excellent remarks on this subject in his Lectures on the Science of Language. Instinct, he observes, is more prominent in brutes than in man; but it exists in both, as much as intellect is shared by both. "A child takes his mother's breast by instinct; the spider weaves its net by instinct; the bee builds her cell by instinct. No one would ascribe to the child a knowledge of physiology because it employs the exact muscles which are required for sucking; nor shall we claim for the spider a knowledge of mechanics, or for the bee an acquaintance with geometry, because _we_ could not do what they do without a study of these sciences. {513} But what if we tear a spider's web, and see the spider examining the mischief that is done, and either giving up his work in despair, or endeavoring to mend it as well as may be? Surely here we have the instinct of weaving controlled by observation, by comparison, by reflection, by judgment." Brutes indeed have all the faculties which pertain to reasoning beings. They have sensation, perception, will, memory, and intellect. They see, hear, taste, smell, and feel, just like ourselves. They experience sensations of pleasure and pain, a dog that is fondled or chastised behaving exactly as a child would behave under the same circumstances. They are able to compare and distinguish; they show signs of shame and pride, of love and hatred. To admit all this, and deny that they have souls and reason, is merely to dispute about terms.

An interesting little book has just been published in England on The Reasoning Power in Animals, by the Rev. John Selby Watson, and we purpose giving our readers a few illustrative anecdotes from this work, together with some instances that have fallen under our own observation, confirmatory of the principles we have stated in the preceding pages.

Seneca denied memory to beasts. When a horse, he says, for instance, has travelled along a road and is brought the same way again, he recognizes it; but in the stable he remembers nothing of it. This, however, cannot be proved. Almost every one has seen a dog dreaming, and acting over in his dreams what he has done in his waking moments. If he thinks of events and places in his sleep, why should he not think of them awake? And if a dog can think of them, why cannot a horse? The stories of the memory of elephants are numberless. One of these animals was being exhibited some years ago in the west of England, when a practical joker among the spectators dealt out to him in small quantities some gingerbread nuts, and, after he had secured the elephant's confidence, presented him with a large parcel weighing several pounds. The beast swallowed it at once, but, finding it too hot, roared with pain, and handed his bucket to the keeper, as if asking for water, and, as soon as he had quenched his thirst, hurled the bucket with great force at the joker's head, fortunately missing his aim. A year afterward the elephant returned to the same place, and among the spectators was the joker, again provided with sweet cakes and hot cakes. He gave the elephant two or three from the best packet, and then offered a hot one. But no sooner had the animal proved the pungency of it than he seized the coat-tails of his tormentor, and whirled him aloft in the air, until, the tails giving way, he fell prostrate to the ground, half dead with fright. The elephant then quietly inserted his trunk into the pocket containing the best nuts, and, with his foot on the coat-tails, leisurely despatched every one of them. When he had finished, he trampled the hot nuts to a mash, tore the coat-tails to tatters, and flung the rags at the discomfited joker. The old story of the elephant revenging himself by spirting dirty water over a tailor who had wounded him with a needle is too well known to be repeated. A similar story is related in Captain Shipp's Memoirs. The captain had given an elephant cayenne pepper with bread and butter, and six weeks afterward the animal remembered it and punished Captain Shipp by drenching him with dirty water.

Dogs have excellent memories, and every child is familiar with narratives of their recollecting murderers and leading to their detection. The celebrated story of the dog of Montargis, who killed the assassin of his master; of the dog who pointed out to Pyrrhus, King of Epirus, two soldiers who had slain his master, as related by Plutarch; of the dog of Antioch, commemorated by St. Ambrose; and of a dog who, according to Giraldus Cambrensis, in the thirteenth century, fought a public combat with a suspected murderer, a sort of wager-of-battle, in fact, in which the dog proved his case, are examples of this memory. {514} Benvenuto Cellini had a watch-dog that drove away a burglar who tried one night to break into the house, and some time afterward recognized the thief in the street and seized him. A lady removing from Poitou to Paris left a spaniel behind her. Ten years afterward she sent some clothes packed by herself to the person who had charge of the dog. The little creature no sooner smelt them than he gambolled round them and showed every mark of excessive joy.

The horse has an excellent memory both for persons and places. He never forgets a road he has once travelled. A horse accustomed to be employed once a week on a journey with the newsman of a provincial paper always stopped at the houses of the several customers, sixty or seventy in number. There were two persons on the route who took one paper between them, and each claimed the privilege of having it first on the alternate Sunday. The horse soon became accustomed to this regulation; and, though the parties lived two miles apart, he stopped at the door of each in his regular turn. Here was certainly a very remarkable exercise of memory. A wonderful example of the use of the same faculty is seen in the facility with which animals that have been carried away from home find their way back. The writer had a Newfoundland slut which was sent away with one of her pups a considerable distance by railroad, shut up in a box-car. A fortnight afterward Jet and her offspring were found at their old home, foot-sore and half starved. How they had made their way back over roads which they could only have seen in occasional glimpses from the door of the car always remained a mystery. But far more wonderful instances of canine memory than this are on record. A terrier that was taken from Arundel to London in a close cart, and tied up in the evening in a yard near Grosvenor square, was found at Arundel, sixty miles distant, the following afternoon. A Scotch dog having been taken to Frankfort, and having there seen its master drowned in the Oder, after having made ineffectual efforts to save him, found its way from Frankfort to Hamburg, from Hamburg to Hull, and from Hull to Edinburgh. Lord Lonsdale sent two hounds from Leicestershire to Ireland, and at the end of three weeks they reappeared in Leicestershire. A Mr. Edward Cook, having lived some time with his brother at Togsten in Northumberland, came to America, bringing with him a pointer dog, which, while shooting in the woods near Baltimore, he lost. Some time afterward Mr. Cook's brother, who continued to reside at Togsten, was aroused one night by the barking of a dog, which, on being let in, proved to be the lost pointer. He remained there until his master came back from America. By what vessel he had made his way across the Atlantic was never ascertained. The persistency with which cats will return to places from which they have been sent away is well known. Lord Brougham, in his Letters on Instinct, mentions one that was taken to the West Indies, and on the return of the ship to London, found her way through the city to Brompton, whence she had been taken. Mrs. Lee tells the following story in her Anecdotes of Animals:

"When living at Four Paths, Clarendon, Jamaica, I wanted a cat, and had one given to me which was nearly full-grown. It was brought from Morgan's Valley estate, where it was bred, and had never been removed from that place before. The distance was five miles. It was put into a canvas bag, and carried by a man on horseback. Between the two places there are two rivers, one of them about eighty feet broad and two and a half deep, and over these rivers there are no bridges. The cat was shut up at Four Paths for some days, and when considered to be reconciled to her new dwelling she was allowed to go about the house. {515} The day after obtaining her liberty she was missing, and upon my next visiting the estate she was brought from, I was quite amazed to learn that the cat had come back again. Did she swim over the rivers at the fords where the horse came through with her, or did she ascend the banks for a considerable distance in search of a more shallow place, and where the stream was less powerful? At all events, she must have crossed the rivers in opposition to her natural habits."

A farmer living on the borders of the New Forest in Hampshire, bought a mare near Newport, in the Isle of Wight, and took it home with him, crossing to the main-land in a boat. During the night the animal escaped from the enclosure in which the farmer had fastened it, and made its way home again, swimming across the strait. The nearest distance from the Hampshire coast to the Isle of Wight is five miles. A cow which had been sent to grass at a place twenty-one miles from her owner's residence remained there contentedly all summer; but, as soon as the grass began to fail, travelled home to her old pasturage. A cow was separated from her young calf and driven twelve miles to Smithfield to be sold, but early the next morning she was found at home, having escaped from the market and made her way through all the intricacies of London. Dr. John Brown, in one of his inimitable dog-papers, gives an instance of a dog finding his way home from a distance, under circumstances which almost seem to justify his notion that the canine race have an idea of humor. A Scottish shepherd, having sold his sheep at a market, was asked by the buyer to lend him his dog to take them home. "'By a' manner o' means take Birkie, and when ye'r dune wi' him just play so,' (making a movement with his arm,) 'and he'll be hame in a jiffy.' Birkie was so clever, and useful, and gay, that the borrower coveted him; and on getting to his farm shut him up, intending to keep him. Birkie escaped during the night, and took the entire hirsel (flock) back to his own master! Fancy him trotting across the moor with them, they as willing as he."

There are some well-authenticated instances of animals finding their way home by roads they never travelled before which are difficult of explanation. In March, 1816, an ass, the property of Captain Dundas, R. N., was shipped at Gibraltar on board the Ister frigate, bound for Malta. The vessel having grounded off Point de Gat, the animal was thrown overboard to give it a chance of swimming ashore--a poor one, for the land was some distance off and the sea running very high. A few days afterward, however, when the gates of Gibraltar were opened in the morning, the ass presented himself for admittance, and proceeded to a stable which he had formerly occupied. He had not only swum ashore, but, without guide, compass, or travelling map, and with no previous knowledge of the route, had travelled from Point de Gat to Gibraltar, a distance of more than two hundred miles, through a mountainous and intricate country intersected by streams; and he had done it in so short a time that he could hardly have made single false turn. What directed him on this wonderful journey it is impossible to conjecture, unless we suppose that he had the good sense to follow the line of the coast; and that he should have known that such a course would lead him home certainly argues a very large share of the reasoning faculty. In point of fact, however, there is a curious and incomprehensible instinct for finding the way which belongs not only to the lower animals, but to man himself in the savage state. The migrations of birds afford familiar examples of it, swallows especially, returning year after year to build their nests in the same place. Two or three years ago six swallows were taken from their nests at Paris, and conveyed to Vienna, where a small roll of paper with a few words written on it was affixed to the wing of each; and they were let go one morning at a quarter past seven. Two arrived at Paris a little before one; one at a quarter past two; and one at four. {516} The other two did not return at all, having perhaps met with some mishap. A falcon was taken from the Canaries to Andalusia and returned in sixteen hours, a distance of six hundred miles. Salmon are supposed to return in all cases to the river where they were bred. Crabs may be carried two or three miles out to sea, and they will find their way back to their old haunts. Mr. Jesse, in his Gleanings in Natural History, relates an extraordinary story of a tortoise which was captured at the Island of Ascension in the South Atlantic, and carried with several others to England. It had lost one fin, and was consequently named by the sailors the Lord Nelson. The voyage was very long, and most of the turtles died, and as the Lord Nelson seemed sickly when they drew near port, the sailors, in order "to give it a chance," threw it overboard in the English Channel, after it had been branded in the usual way, with certain letters and numbers burnt upon its under shell with a hot iron. Wonderful to relate, the same turtle was taken at the Island of Ascension two years afterward, having found its way three thousand five hundred miles through the watery waste to that little speck in the midst of the ocean. The unerring certainty with which bees fly in a straight line to their hives is proverbial, and bee-hunters discover the nests by catching two of the insects, carrying them to some distance apart, and letting them go. Each will at once take a straight line toward the nest, and by observing these lines and calculating where they ought to intersect, the honey is found. This instinct is the more remarkable as bees are very near-sighted, not being able, it is supposed, to see more than a yard before them. We have mentioned that savages have something of the same instinct, finding their way for long distances, not always by their acuteness of observation, but by an indescribable faculty which is like nothing so much as the instinct of birds. Mr. Jesse tells a story of a traveller in Australia, who lost his way in the interior, and was guided by one of the natives more than a hundred miles in a straight line to the place he wanted to reach. The savage, he was assured, could have led him almost as well blindfold, for he travelled as accurately when the sun was obscured as when it was visible, and was not assisted by marks on the barks of trees, or any of the other familiar landmarks of the wilderness. Our own frontiersmen have the same faculty to a greater or lesser degree. We ourselves, on two occasions, after a long day's hunt in the far West, in which we followed the game through so many twists and turns as to lose all idea of the points of the compass, were conducted by a trapper twelve or fifteen miles back to camp, on a perfectly dark night, across an utterly trackless prairie. There was neither tree, nor hill, nor footprint to mark the way, but our course was as straight as the bee flies. The trapper could not explain how he did it: it was by a species of instinct. The Newfoundland slut Jet, mentioned on a preceding page, once found her way to the writer's house, under circumstances which indicated the exercise of reason much more unmistakably than the instances just cited. The family were about moving from one house to another some two miles distant; but as the new dwelling was not ready for occupation when the lease of the old one expired, the furniture was stored in the neighborhood, and we all went away for a few weeks, leaving Jet behind. When we came to take possession of the new house, we found Jet there before us, although nothing belonging to us had yet been carried to the premises, and, so far as we knew, she had never been there in our company. Another dog belonging to us had been there, however, once or twice with one of the servants, and Jet perhaps had learned the secret from him. But it certainly showed great mental acuteness in the animal that she should not have followed the furniture, knowing apparently that it was only stowed away for a time, but, by putting this and that together, should have found out where her master meant to establish himself.

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The power of putting this and that together is emphatically a reasoning faculty; in other words, it is the power of tracing the relation between cause and effect. The literature of natural history abounds in examples of the possession of this faculty by animals, and so does the experience of every one who has ever kept dogs or horses. Jet had it to an eminent degree. When she was about to bring forth a litter, she always tried to dig a cave for them under the steps of the front door. This, of course, was forbidden, but she was resolute, and many a time she had her cavern nearly finished before she was detected. The bell-wire passed under the steps, so that in the course of her digging she was very apt to ring the bell, and it was some time before the servants found out whence the mysterious ringing originated; but, when the secret was discovered, Jet was pulled out and punished. Punishment did not break her of the habit; indeed, she was an incorrigibly obstinate dog, and never was broken of any trick she once set her mind upon; but after that, whenever she heard the bell, she ran out of the hole and hid at the corner of the house until the coast was clear, when she would go back to work, taking more pains to avoid the wire. If her master was at home and suspected who rang the bell, he often answered the door himself, and looking toward the side of the house he was sure to see Jet peeping cautiously round the corner with such a mischievous and comical expression in her eyes that he rarely refrained from a hearty laugh; whereupon the dog would pluck up heart, and come forward, grinning and apologizing, as if to say, "I am very sorry I've given you so much trouble; I didn't know it was wrong, and I won't do so again." She was a dreadful liar, (for dogs can lie with their eyes and faces, as well as men can lie with their tongues.) but it was all very funny. Her understanding the use of a door-bell reminds us of a story told of an Italian greyhound at Bologna, which was accustomed every morning to visit a dog of its own species at a neighboring house. At first it used to wait in the street until the door was opened, but after a time it learned to use the knocker. Mr. Nassau Senior, in one of his articles in The Quarterly Review, gives an instance from his own knowledge of the way in which a terrier used to obtain admission to the common-room at Merton College, Oxford, whose sacred threshold, be it known, dogs are strictly forbidden to cross. "The animal's cunning," says Mr. Senior, "would have done honor to an Old Bailey attorney." We give the narrative in his own language: "It happened one evening that a couple of terriers had followed their masters to the door, and while they remained excluded, unhappily followed the habits rather of biped than of quadruped animals, and began to quarrel like a couple of Christians. The noise of the fight summoned their masters to separate them, and as it appeared that the hero of our tale had been much mauled by a superior adversary, the severe _bienséances_ of the place were for once relaxed, and he was allowed to enjoy during the rest of the night the softness of a monastic rug and the blaze of a monastic fire, luxuries which every initiated dog and man will duly appreciate. The next day, soon after the common-room party had been assembled, the sounds of the preceding evening were renewed with tenfold violence. There was such snapping and tearing, and snarling and howling, as could be accounted for only by a general engagement:

'The noise alarmed the festive hall, And started forth the fellows all.'

But, instead of a battle royal, they found at the door their former guest, in solitude sitting on his rump, and acting a furious dog-fight, in the hope of again gaining admittance among the _quieti ordines deorum_. {518} We have heard that he was rewarded with both the _grandes_ and the _petites entrées_; but this does not rest on the same authority as the rest of the narrative."

Mr. Watson's book abounds with other instances of intelligence in animals, which it is almost impossible to avoid attributing to the operation of reason. He gives an anecdote, for instance, of an elephant which, seeing an artillery-man fall from the tumbril of a gun, in such a situation that in a second or two the wheel of the gun carriage must have gone over him, instantly, without any warning from its keeper, lifted the wheel with its trunk and kept it suspended until the carriage had passed clear of the soldier. Here the elephant manifestly reasoned for himself. A still more remarkable manifestation of the reasoning faculty is recorded of an animal of the same species. An elephant in a menagerie was trained to pick up coins with his trunk. On one occasion a sixpence was thrown down which fell a little beyond his reach (he was chained) and near the wall. After several vain attempts to pick it up, he stood motionless a few seconds, evidently considering how to act; he then stretched his proboscis as far as he could in a straight line, a little distance above the coin, and blew with great force against the wall. The blast of air, rebounding from the wall, caught up the sixpence and drove it toward him, as he evidently intended it should. Another elephant was once seen to blow a potato which was just beyond his reach against the wall, and catch it when it rebounded. The ingenuity displayed in these cases is something akin to the use of tools which has been declared a characteristic of man alone. This, however, is a mistake. The club which the gorilla is known to wield with such terrible power, the palm-branches with which elephants brush away flies, the stones which monkeys and even birds have been seen to use either in breaking open shells or keeping them distended while they extracted the shell-fish--what are these but tools? Foxes have been seen to set cods' heads as baits for crows, and pounce upon the birds when they came to eat them. The ingenuity of rats in getting at toothsome morsels is well known; there are many instances of their using their tails to extract oil from narrow-necked bottles--all these cases being equivalent to the use of tools. A Newfoundland dog at Torquay, wanting water, took a pail from the kitchen and carried it to the pump, where he sat down until one of the men-servants came out, to whom he made such significant gestures that the man pumped the pail full for him. The most remarkable part of the story is that, when the dog had finished, he carried back the pail to the place in the kitchen from which he had taken it. That was something all the same as a tool which the eagle of St. Kilda, mentioned by Macgillivray, used when, attacking two boys who had robbed her nest, she dipped her pinions first in water and then in sand, to give greater force to the blows which she struck with them. A rat has been seen conducting a blind companion by means of a stick, each of the animals holding one end of it in his mouth. Cats have often been known to learn the use of a latch; and a terrier pup, only two months old, belonging to the writer of this article, has so good an idea of the purpose of the same article that he manifests a desire to get out of the room by ineffectual jumps at the door-handle. A London pastry-cook had a number of eggs stolen from a store room at the top of the house; a watch being set for the thief, two rats were detected carrying an egg downstairs. One of the rats, going down one step, would stand on his hind-legs with his fore paws resting on the stair above, while the other rolled the egg toward him; then, putting his fore-legs tightly round it, he lifted it down to the step on which he was standing, and held it there till the other came down to take charge of it. Rats have been known to convey eggs up-stairs by a somewhat similar process.

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A very clear example of reasoning occurs in a story told of a water-hen, which, having observed a pheasant feed out of a box which opened when the bird stood on a rail in front of it, went and stood in the same place as soon as the pheasant quitted it. Finding that its weight was not sufficient to raise the lid of the box, it kept jumping on the rail to give additional impetus. This only succeeded partially; so the clever bird went away and fetched another of its own species, and the weight of the two had the desired effect. An anecdote is told by Mrs. Lee of a magpie which is almost enough to persuade one that the creature had the gift of language. The bird used to watch about a neighboring toll-gate at times when he expected the toll-keeper's wife to be making pastry; and, if he observed her so employed, he would perch upon the gate and shout, "Gate ahoy!" when, of course, if her husband were absent, she would run out to open it; the bird would then dart into the house and carry away a billful of her pie-crust, eating and chattering over it with the greatest glee. Surely no one will deny that in this case the bird exercised the faculty of reason.

Somewhat analogous to this case are the many stories related of animals apparently understanding what is said in their presence. In reality they probably have no conception of the meaning of the words uttered, but their keenness of observation enables them to detect slight changes in the tone of voice and notice little things which escape our coarser vision; and from trifling signs they draw reasonable conclusions. The writer had a cat which always knew when the servant was told to fetch food for her, though the experiment was often tried of giving the order in various tones of voice and without any look or sign that would be likely to attract pussy's attention. During our last war with England there was an old Newfoundland dog on board the British ship Leander, stationed at Halifax. He had been attached to the ship several years, and the sailors one and all believed that he understood what was said. He was lying on the deck one day when the captain in passing remarked: "I shall be sorry to do it, but I must have Neptune shot, he is getting so old and infirm." The dog immediately jumped overboard and swam to another ship, where being taken on board he remained till he died. Nothing could ever induce him to go near the Leander again, and if he happened to meet any of her boats or crew on shore, he made off as fast as he could.

Animals certainly have the power of communicating thoughts to each other, as the following story proves: "At Horton, in Buckinghamshire, (a village where Milton passed some of his early days,) about the year 1818, a gentleman from London took possession of a house, the former tenant of which had moved to a farm about half a mile off. The new inmate brought with him a large French poodle, to take the duty of watchman in the place of a fine Newfoundland dog which went away with his master; but a puppy of the same breed was left behind; and he was incessantly persecuted by the poodle. As the puppy grew up, the persecution still continued. At length he was one day missing for some hours; but he did not come back alone; he returned with his old friend, the large house-dog, to whom he had made a communication; and in an instant the two fell upon the unhappy poodle and killed him before he could be rescued from their fury. In this case the injuries of the young dog must have been made known to his friend, a plan of revenge concerted, and the determination formed to carry the plan into effect with equal promptitude." Count Tilesius, a Russian traveller, who wrote at the beginning of the present century, tells a wonderful anecdote of a dog of his which had been sadly worried by a larger and stronger animal. For some days it was observed that he saved half his food and laid it up as a private store. {520} When he had accumulated a large supply, he went out and gathered around him several dogs of the neighborhood, whom he brought to his home and feasted on his hoard. The singular spectacle of a dog giving a supper-party attracted the count's attention, and he determined to watch their proceedings. As soon as the feast was over, they went out in a body, marched deliberately through the streets to the outskirts of the town, and there, under the leadership of their entertainer, fell upon a large dog and punished him severely. This incident not only shows that dogs can communicate their thoughts to one another, and can follow out a fixed plan of action, but it looks very much as if they had what is generally supposed to be peculiar to man--namely, some idea of a bargain. They can be magnanimous in their behavior toward their fellows, and the measures which large dogs occasionally adopt to get rid of the annoyance of little curs display a great deal of judgment and good feeling. In Mr. Youatt's book, On the Dog, we have a story of a Newfoundland dog in the city of Cork which had been greatly worried by a number of noisy curs. He took no notice of them until one carried his presumption so far as to bite him in the leg, whereupon the large animal ran after the offender, caught him by the back of the neck, and carried him to the quay. There, after holding him suspended over the edge for a few moments, he dropped him into the river. But he had no purpose to inflict more than a mild punishment, for after the cur had been well ducked and frightened and was beginning to struggle for his life, the Newfoundland dog plunged into the water and brought him safe to land. That animal certainly showed good sense, a good heart, and a lively appreciation of what was just and proper. A very comical example of a dog's feeling of propriety is quoted by Mr. Watson from Jesse's Gleanings in Natural History. "A gentleman going out shooting obtained the loan of a pointer from a friend, who told him that the dog would behave very well as long as he killed his birds: but that, if he frequently missed, it would leave him and run home. Unhappily the borrower was extremely unskilful. Bird after bird was put up and fired at, but flew off untouched, till the pointer grew careless. As if willing, however, to give his client one chance more, he made a dead stop at a fern bush, with big nose pointed downward, his forefoot bent, and his tail straight and steady. In this position he remained firm till the sportsman was close to him, with both barrels cocked; he then moved steadily forward for a few paces, and at last stood still near a bunch of heather, his tail expressing his anxiety by moving slowly backward and forward. At last out sprang a fine old black cock. Bang, bang, went both barrels, but the bird escaped unhurt. This was more than the dog could bear; he turned boldly round, placed his tail between his legs, gave one long, loud howl, and set off homeward as fast as he could."

Perhaps, after all, one of the most curious exhibitions of reason is afforded by the crows, which, in the northern parts of Scotland and in the Faroe Islands, hold extraordinary meetings every now and then, apparently for the purpose of judging and punishing evil-doers among their community. The sessions are sometimes prolonged two or three days; and as long as they last, flocks of crows continue to arrive in great numbers from all quarters of the heavens. In the mean while, some of the assembly are active and noisy; others sit with drooping heads as grave as judges. When the gathering is complete, a very general noise ensues--we are tempted to call it _talking_--and then the whole body fall upon one or two individuals and put them to death. Justice thus vindicated, the convention straightway disperses. {521} Now, the crows show every appearance of having been summoned to these councils; indeed, it is almost inconceivable that they should meet by chance; but how the summons is given; how they know when all have arrived; what are the offences they punish; whether the criminals know the fate that awaits them, and are restrained by force from making their escape; and how the knowledge of the crime is dispersed amongst the whole assembly--these are curious questions to which we fear no satisfactory answer will ever be given. The idea of hundreds of birds sitting in deliberation, like a court of justice, is indeed marvellous. We can only say that the narrative, as we have given it, seems to be well authenticated, and we leave our readers to draw their own conclusions.

We think we have quoted anecdotes enough to prove that brutes have souls and reason; or, if they have not, that they are much more wonderfully made than man, since they can perform without assistance from the reasoning faculty actions which in us require the exercise of the highest intelligence. And although we do not go to the length of saying, with the Rabbi Manasseh of old, and Dr. John Brown, the author of Spare Hours, in our own day, that there is a next world for the brute creation; and do not believe with another modern writer (the Rev. J. G. Wood) that divine justice absolutely requires that God should make amends to animals in the future life for the sufferings they endure in this--perhaps our readers will agree with us that we have shown it to be no ways impossible that God may have designed the souls of dumb beasts to outlast in this world their perishable bodies; that the intelligent part of the sagacious dog may animate a long succession of Rabs and Pontos; and the spirit of the dead pet may return into bodily form to delight new generations of masters.

From The Month.

The Gladiators' Song.

Round about this grim arena, by the ghosts of thousands haunted, Beckoned by our slaughtered comrades, move we on with hearts undaunted-- _Ave, Caesar Imperator, morituri te salutant!_ Dark the world and always darker, none to comfort, none to love us, Grisly hell beneath us yawning, deaf or dead the gods above us-- _Ave, Caesar Imperator, morituri te salutant!_ Life and flesh and soul and sinew, beating heart and thought upsoaring-- Was the goblet of our being crowned but for this wild outpouring? _Ave, Caesar Imperator, morituri te salutant!_ Voices come through dreary silence, still for righteous vengeance calling-- So we chant our stern defiance false relentless Rome is falling! _Ave, Caesar Imperator, morituri te salutant!_ Countless years have tortured nations learned the truth of Roman mercies-- Ah! she falls in waste and carnage, 'mid the world's triumphant curses! _Ave, Caesar Imperator, morituri te salutant!_ Gleams of vengeance, long delaying, scantly sate the spirit's yearning-- Guessing, groping, craving, hoping, must we go without returning? _Ave, Caesar Imperator, morituri te salutant!_ Onward to our slaughtered comrades, round the arena, shadow-haunted, On to endless night or morning pass we on with hearts undaunted! _Ave, Caesar Imperator, morituri te salutant!_

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From Once a Week

Lakes of Lorraine.

On certain sultry and thunderous days in the middle of July, 1866, was celebrated, with fêtes and fireworks, illuminations by night, and brilliant shows by day, the first centenary of the union of the province of Lorraine to France. The scene was the city of Nancy, and splendor was added to the festival by the presence of the Empress Eugénie and the imperial prince, who lodged in the former palace of King Stanislaus of Poland, the last duke of Lorraine, and witnessed from its balcony the defiling of a long allegorical procession, representing in order the historical personages of the province, conspicuous among whom was the Maid of Orleans, personated by a youth of the town bearing in his hand a facsimile of her consecrated banner. The romance of the mediaeval spectacle was a little marred by certain laughable incongruities which the critical eye might detect; for instance, the arquebusiers of the sixteenth century were armed with percussion muskets; and the portly nymphs representing France and Lorraine seemed in consequence of the heat to be in somewhat too melting a mood for perfect dignity. The spectacle as a whole was, however, very imposing, and went off with a success peculiarly French, the clean and handsome city being crowded with well-behaved strangers from all the neighborhood, in such vast numbers that, in spite of their good behavior and good temper, they were fain to fight for their places in the trains, and one party had to wait till two A.M. at the station, after being in time to get away by ten at night. In bearing patiently such inconveniences in the pursuit of pleasure, our neighbors of the other side of the channel most undeniably surpass us. It was pleasant as a contrast to pass without let or hinderance the same station a few days later, following the line which runs parallel to the course of the Moselle past Épinal to Remiremont, on a visit to the lakes which lie in the country between that town and the terminus of St. Dié, which ends another branch of the Paris and Strasburg railway. Between Nancy and Épinal the stream of the Moselle is met winding through fertile meadows in a broad valley with low elevations on each side; near Épinal the scenery becomes more picturesque; there are more trees near the river, and the long level reaches are broken by occasional rapids with rocks about them. When Épinal is passed, the valley becomes narrower and prettier, shut in between two spurs of the Vosges, until the basin is reached, where Remiremont itself lies, and the waters of the Mosellote join those of the Moselle, each branch of the river from this point to the source having the character of a considerable mountain brook. The town of Remiremont itself resembles Freiburg in the Breisgau, minus its magnificent cathedral, in its size and general character, and especially in the abundance of fountains and runnels permeating the streets, which in their main portions are fronted with arcades like those of Bern or Bologna, a pleasant protection against sun and shower, and duly appreciated in the tempestuous summer of 1866.

The busy little town derives its euphonious name from one Saint Romary. In the circle of mountains enclosing the town one of conical shape is remarked, called Mont Habend, from _Castrum Habendi_, a camp erected on its site by the Romans.

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In the seventh century this holy mountain was the chosen retreat of two anchorites, Amé and Romary, who founded there two monasteries, one for women, another for men, and were canonized after their deaths. The monasteries were destroyed by the Huns in the tenth century, but the site of one was repeopled again by monks a century later, while the nuns, abandoning the mountain, fixed themselves in the valley. The convent of Remiremont was governed during its long existence by sixty-four abbesses, the last of whom, Louise Adélaide de Bourbon Condé, died in 1824. It was a foundation even more exclusive and aristocratic in its character than All Souls', Oxford. The abbesses were generally princesses, and royal honors were accorded them. When each abbess entered the town for the first time, a great holiday was kept, and the mayor, instead of presenting the keys of the city, offered her the wine of the spot in a cup of gold, which she just touched with her lips before she passed within the walls to be enthroned with great state in the palatial apartments prepared for her. One of the number of these religious princesses, Catherine de Lorraine, distinguished herself in 1637 beating off from the walls of Remiremont the great Turenne, who was endeavoring to take the town from the Duke of Lorraine.

The town is now famous chiefly for the production of some excellent cakes with the quaint name of "_quiches_" probably only a corruption of the German Küchlein.

To the guests at the baths of Plombières, the lake region which lies between Remiremont and St. Dié is better known than to the general world, as it lies out of the way of tourists' thoroughfares; but though it cannot quite compete in beauty with the English or Scotch lakes, or Killarney, it is well worth a visit to those who are not obliged to go a great distance to see it. Instead of going due east to the source of the Moselle and the pass over the main chain of the Vosges which leads to Wesserling, and thence by rail to Basel, the road to Gérardmer turns to the left along a valley parallel to the line of the mountains, and flanked by lower hills, well wooded, on its other side. The foregrounds have the usual broken and diversified character of a granitic country, and the height of the hills is sufficient to make the distant views in many parts highly pleasing. There is enough picturesque incident to beguile very pleasantly the eighteen miles or so which the diligence traverses to Gérardmer. The name, derived from Gérard, a duke of Lorraine, has been given to a fine oblong sheet of clear water, about two miles long, and half a mile broad, bounded for the greatest part of its circumstance by long slopes covered with meadows and white cottages at intervals, but on the east by a pine forest and rocks, which give a more savage aspect to its further banks. From the Swiss villas built on its banks, the numerous pleasure-boats, and the general lively aspect, it brings to mind the lake of Zurich in miniature. At its further end is an immensely long village, also called Gérardmer, the most distinguishing mark of which is an enormous wych elm of unknown antiquity, standing in the market place.

In the summer, Gérardmer is full of visitors, who are well entertained at the Hôtel de la Poste and the Hôtel des Vosges at a moderate rate. The latter of these is conducted by an indefatigable little landlady, who is full of civilities, assisted by a good-natured, gigantic husband, who seems to superintend the kitchen department, and generally was seen during our visit lounging somewhere about the entrance, conspicuous in white trousers and a shirt of violet flannel, trimmed with scarlet. The wide road beyond Gérardmer branches to the right and left. The left branch leads into a valley choked with a primaeval pine forest, in the depths of which roars the torrent of the Vologne. The trees are of immense size, and completely clad with pendants of moss and lichen, telling of a considerable elevation of site, and of such weird and grand forms as to make one wish that the art of forest culture which fells the trees at a premature age had never been introduced. {524} In one spot, not far from the so-called "Basse des Ours," or Bear Bottom, where the huge granite-blocks that have fallen from the crest of a mountain have been huddled together, a natural ice-house has been formed in the interstices, called "La glacière," and the fact of our finding no ice in it was accounted for by the summer not having been sufficiently hot to produce the necessary amount of evaporation. The road to the right passes over the torrent, by a bridge, and then divides again, its right branch leading over the mountains into the valley of Münster in Alsace, and its left to St. Dié. On the road to St. Dié two pines are seen which have grown together like Siamese twins.

Near the bridge is a cascade of singular beauty, which, from a peculiarity it possesses in changing its entire aspect as the spectator changes his ground, is called the _Cascade des Fées_. Not far from this cascade is a large slab of granite, and a fountain where Charlemagne is said to have dined when he passed out of Alsace over the Vosges into Lorraine, at a time when all the country was wild forest. A rough bridle road to the right leaves the main road to the Schlucht pass and the valley of Münster, and, making for a gap in the hill, soon discloses the beautiful piece of water called Longemer, or "The Long Lake," the Ullswater, as Gérardmer is the Windermere of Lorraine. It runs in a long trough between beautifully wooded steeps for about two miles, with a slightly serpentine direction, prettily broken by spits of grassy land with a few low trees upon them. At the upper end is seen, above woody heights, the bald summit of the Honeck, (Hoheneck, "The High Corner",) an eminence about four thousand feet high. At the lower end, shaded by lofty trees, is a little chapel on a tongue of land, dedicated to St. Bartholomew by an anchorite named Bilon, and near it a solitary villa belonging to a medical gentleman of the neighborhood, who spends his summer holidays in this Arcadian seclusion, boating and fishing in the lake and the clear stream that runs out of it. By a path to the right, following the sinuosities of the lake, a rocky barrier is reached, down whose face tumbles, among rocks and trees, a lovely waterfall; and when this is passed, another lake is disclosed, a round, low-lying basin, among dense woods and frowning escarpments, one of them called the Rock of the Devil, which bears the name of Retournemer, or "The Lake of Return." A solitary dwelling, backed by fine beeches and other trees, stands on the brink, the cottage of the forester, where the wanderer to this end of the world finds hospitable entertainment. But notwithstanding the impassable look of the scenery round, a zig-zag path through the trees climbs the height behind the house, and joins the road which leads to the Col de la Schlucht, where a beautiful view opens into Alsace, its most prominent objects being that long spur of the Vosges which terminates by Colmar, and on the other side a broken granite wall, crowned by a peculiarly imposing cap of rock, under which the road descends to the green slopes about Münster, which are variegated with acres of bleaching linen, the product of the weaving industry which pervades the whole country. On the Col itself is a spacious chalet or hotel, with excellent accommodation and abundant fare, to which appetites whetted by the bracing mountain air are inclined to do full justice. From this point, by walking up a long slope in a southerly direction, the top of the Honeck is reached, grazed over by herds of cattle tinkling with Alpine bells, and commanding a spacious view over the valley of the Rhine to the distant Black Forest, with tremendous precipices in the foreground on the side of Alsace. Instead of returning from this point direct to Gérardmer, I walked through a forest of apparently blasted horn-beam, as grisly as the trees in Gustave Doré's drawings, into a long valley, which led in course of time to a busy place called La Bresse, and thence, turning to the right, over a moderately high pass back to Gérardmer. {525} Besides the three lakes already mentioned, there is Blanchemer, or the "White Lake," in the valley of the Mosellote; the Lac de Corbeaux, so-called from an overhanging cliff frequented by ravens; the Lac de Lispach, rich in fish, divided by a ridge from Longemer, and the Lac de Marchet, on the flank of a mountain not far from Bresse. The so-called White, Black, and Green lakes belonging to Alsace are situated further to the north on that side of the Vosges chain which looks toward the Rhine. On one of the mounds of the Honeck mountain there is an abundant and perennial spring, called La Fontaine de la Duchesse, which perhaps possesses a higher claim to be the source of the Moselle than the more trifling stream which descends by Bussang, though the latter pours its contribution in a more direct line. The sources of rivers, whether small or great, are generally controvertible. Some consider the Inn, which rises in the Grisons, as having more claim to be the real Danube than the river which rises at Donaueschingen, and, between the rival claims of the Victoria Nyanza of Speke and the Albert Nyanza of Baker, the real head of mighty Nilus himself still remains an open question for geographers.

Original.

Columbus

Three Scenes.

'Tis midnight; through the lozenge panes Flashes a southern storm; And the lightning flings its livid stains O'er a bowed and wearied form. He stands, like a ship once staunch and stout By billows too long opprest; And a fiercer storm than whirls without Tears through his heaving breast. His hand is pressed on his aching brow, And veils his eyes' dark light, And a twinkling cresset's dim red glow, When the lightning pales, doth sadly flow O'er locks where many a thread of snow Tells of time's troubled flight. He stands--a fading, a clouded star, Half-hid in the rack of heaven's war; Or, like a vanquished warrior, one Whose heart is crushed, whose hopes are gone After many a gallant fight.

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He turns and he paces the damp stone floor, And his glance seeks the damper wall, Where the charts, o'er which he had loved to pore, Like arras rise and fall. There is his heart's most cherished store, There lie the fruits of his deepest lore, And his lips, as he views them o'er and o'er, His withered life recall:

"And was it all a dream? Is this the bitter waking? And is hope's heavenly beam For aye my soul forsaking? I thought to see the cross unfurled Upon the hills of a far-off world! To bear the faith of the Crucified Far o'er the wild Atlantic's tide! To see adored the Christian's God Where Christian foot hath never trod! Sure brighter dreams from heaven ne'er fell And I wake in this cold, dim cell!

"And were they, too, but dreams---- Those lands far in the West, Where robed in sunset beams The Seven Cities rest? Far, far beyond the blue Azores, I thought to press the ocean's shores; The heaving, restless main to span, And give--and give--a world to man! A new-born world of vernal skies Fresh with the breath of paradise-- A world that yet would place my name The foremost on the scroll of fame. And now I wake, poor, friendless, lone, 'Mid these dripping walls of stone.

"And was it but a dream I left fair Italy? To chase the churchyard gleam Of false expectancy-- That light which, like the swamp's pale glare, Lures but to darkness and despair? To crush the visions youth built up? Drink to its poisoned dregs the cup Of hope deferred and trust misplaced? To feel heart shrink and body waste? And still like drowning wretch to cry, 'One more effort and I die!'"

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II.

The drear, chill gray of dawning day Dies in a golden glow, And merrily on the dancing sea The rippling sunbeams flow; And they glance and glint, in many a tint, Over minaret and tower, Where the lofty cross shows the Paynim's loss And the wane of Moslem power. And waving high in the brightening sky, Floating o'er town and sea, And gleaming bright in the morning light, Spain's flag flaunts haughtily.

Who passes through the antique street Worshipped by all around? Whom do the thousand voices greet That to the heavens resound? Proud is the flash of his dark eye, Yet tempered with humility; The softened radiance, high yet meek, That doth the Christian soul bespeak; Proud is his heaving bosom's swell, And proud his seat in velvet selle; His very courser paws the earth As conscious of its master's worth.

And now his armed heel loud rings Through a high, carved hall, Where blazoned shields of queens and kings Hang fluttering on the wall. Around, the noblest of the land In deepest awe uncovered stand: Princes, whose proud sires had well Upheld the cross with Charles Martel; And knights, whose scutcheons flashed amid The fiercest fights where blazed the Cid; Soldiers, who by their sovereign's side Hurled back in blood the seething tide Of Moslem war; and churchmen sage, The men who smoothed that iron age. And all alone, 'mid that bright throng, _His_ voice arises clear and strong. He stands before a throne; even now His dark plume waves above his brow, As he, of all the courtier train, Rivalled the majesty of Spain. Fortune like this, what fate can mar? He stands--a cloudless, risen star.

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III.

Once more 'tis the mid hour of night; Once more the storm beats high; But now it whirls its fearful might Along the cloud-fraught sky Which spans the drear Atlantic's waste, All whitened with wild foam, That cleaves the air, as sea-birds haste At even to their home.

But even there, where nature's power Laughs puny man to scorn, Man lords it for his little hour O'er fellow-man forlorn. Within a Vessel's creaking sides A chained prisoner sits; Drooped, weary, careless what betides His tired soul, ere it flits Far from a world where gratitude Yields ever to the selfish brood That gold and thirst for honor bring To breast of peasant and of king. What now avails the world he gave To thankless Spain? It cannot save From slavish chains its whilom lord, Nor shield him from the hatred poured O'er his bowed head by those who late But formed the puppets of his state. Gone is his kindly mistress--laid To sleep among Spain's royal dead. Dead is her smile, her beaming gaze So full of hope when darkening days Hung o'er the crown she wore so well; Yea, dead is queenly Isabel! And where are now the crowds that hung Upon his steps when every tongue Shouted his praise? The station high Above all Spain's plumed chivalry? The high commands? Away! each thought With saddening memory so deep fraught! Call not pale flashes from afar To mock with light a fallen star! The past is dead, the future read, Ay! see a broken, moss-grown stone, And on it view a kingly meed Of thanks to genius shown-- Ay! trace o'er that forgotten grave-- "ANOTHER WORLD COLUMBUS GAVE TO CASTILE AND LÉON."

Front-de-boeuf.

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Original.

The Two Lovers of Flavia Domitilla.

by Clonfert.