Facts and Fancies For the Curious by, Charles C. Bombaugh

OUR NATIONAL AIRS — An Air of Twelve Nations — Hail Columbia — The Star-Spangled Banner — The Red, White, and Blue — Yankee Doodle

The air of the German national hymn, “Heil Dir im Sieger Kranz,” was appropriated by English loyalty to royalty for the stirring verses of “God save the King.” When Samuel F. Smith wrote his patriotic song, “My country, ’tis of thee,” in 1832, it was sung in Boston to the same tune under the name “America.” Following England’s example of appropriation and adverse possession, we have held on to our stolen air ever since, although it is a never-ending reminder of God save the King, meaning the king of Great Britain.

According to a French journal, the Charivari, Handel copied the tune from a St. Cyr melody, the authorship of which is claimed for Luille. The common account attributing it to Dr. Bull is so far discredited as to make it unworthy of notice. Besides Germany, England, and the United States, it figures among the patriotic or national airs of nine other nations. In Bavaria it is “Heil! unserm König, Heil!” In Switzerland it is “Rufst du, mein Vaterland.” It is in use to various sets of words in Brunswick, Hanover, Wurtemberg, Prussia, Saxony, Weimar, and Norway.

The Rhode Island State Society of the Cincinnati, composed of descendants of Continental officers of the Revolution, was so strongly impressed with the incongruity of singing Smith’s national song to the air of the 40British national anthem on the Fourth of July, the date of the annual reunion, that a prize was offered for an original substitute. In response to the circular inviting composers to compete, five hundred and seventeen compositions were sent in and considered. The committee awarded a gold medal to Mr. Arthur Edward Johnstone, of New York. While the aim of the Society was to provide a tune for its own use on its Fourth of July and other patriotic celebrations, it has no desire to monopolize the air which was selected, but freely offers this stirring and dignified strain to popular acceptance.

The statement that the air of the German national hymn was due to French inspiration is confirmed in the “Memoirs of Madame de Gregny,” in which we find the canticle that used to be sung by the young ladies of St. Cyr whenever Louis XIV. entered their chapel to hear morning mass. The first stanza was as follows:

The words were written by de Brenon, and the music, as stated, was by Luille, who was a distinguished composer. German sensitiveness over this French origin may find an offset in the allegation that neither the words nor the music of the Marseillaise hymn were composed by the Strasburg soldier Rouget de l’Isle. In the memoirs of Baron Bunsen it is authoritatively 41stated that the melody, which is found among the folk-songs of Germany, was written by a composer named Holzman, in 1776, when de l’Isle was a mere child.

The music of Hail Columbia was written as a march, and went at first by the name of “Washington’s March.” At a later period it was called “The President’s March,” and was played in 1789, when Washington went to New York to be inaugurated. A son of Professor Phyla, of Philadelphia, who was one of the performers, says it was his father’s composition. It had a martial ring that caught the ear of the multitude, and became very popular. Mr. Custis, the adopted son of Washington, says it was composed in 1789 by a German named Fayles, leader of the orchestra and musical composer for the old John Street Theatre in New York, where he (Custis) heard it played as a new piece on the occasion of General Washington’s first visit to the theatre. The two names, Phyla and Fayles, are most likely identical, and confused by mispronunciation, and the stories do not materially contradict each other.

After Joseph Hopkinson wrote the national ode for adaptation to the tune of the President’s March, it became known as Hail Columbia, and was first sung at the Chestnut Street Theatre, Philadelphia, in 1798.

The stirring and popular air, originally a convivial song, applied to Key’s immortal verses, is attributed, upon what appears to be good authority, to a famous English composer, Samuel Arnold, who was born in 42London in 1739. His compositions include forty-seven operas, which were popular in his day, though they have not outlived that period, four oratorios, and numerous sonatas, concertos, overtures, and minor pieces. At the request of George III. he superintended the publication of the works of Handel in thirty-six folio volumes. In 1783 he was made organist and composer of the Royal Chapel, and, ten years later, organist of Westminster Abbey, where he was buried when he died in 1802.

But this alleged authorship of the song and the music was disputed by the Anacreontic Society of London. In the second half of the eighteenth century, the jovial association known as “The Anacreontic” held its festive and musical meetings at the Crown and Anchor Tavern in the Strand, a house of entertainment frequented by such men as Dr. Johnson, Boswell, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and Dr. Percy. At one time, the president of the Anacreontic was Ralph Tomlinson, Esq., and it is claimed that he wrote the words of the song adopted by the club, while John Stafford Smith set them to music. The style of this merry club will be best exemplified by the first and last stanzas of the song:

43This sets Jove and the gods in an uproar. They fear that the petitioners will become too jovial. At length they relent. There are six stanzas, and the last is as follows:

The last two lines of each stanza were repeated in chorus. In this country, “To Anacreon in Heaven” was first adapted to a song written for the Adams campaign by Robert Treat Paine. It was entitled “Adams and Liberty,” and was first sung at the anniversary of the Massachusetts Charitable Fire Society in 1798.

After the rout at Bladensburg and the capture of Washington by the British forces, the invaders, under General Ross and Admiral Cockburn, proceeded up the Chesapeake to attack Baltimore. Its brave and heroic defenders were reinforced by volunteers from neighboring sections. Among the recruits from Pennsylvania who hastened to offer their services was a company from Dauphin County under the command of Captain Thomas Walker. When Francis Scott Key, while detained as a prisoner on the cartel ship in the Patapsco, saw “by the dawn’s early light” that “our flag was still there,” he was inspired to write his splendid verses, and on his release and return to Baltimore, one of the mess of Captain Walker’s company, who had been fortunate enough to 44obtain a rude copy, was so impressed with its inspiriting vigor that he read it aloud to his comrades three times. Its effect was electric, and at once the suggestion was made that a suitable air be found to which it could be sung. A young man named George J. Heisely, then from Harrisburg, though he had formerly lived in Frederick, and was well acquainted with Mr. Key, was so devoted to music that he always carried his flute and his note-book with him. Taking them out, he laid his flute on a camp barrel, and turned over the leaves of his note-book until he came to Anacreon in Heaven, when he was immediately struck with the adaptability of its measure. A strolling actor, a member of the company from Lancaster, named Ferdinand Durang, snatched the flute, and played the air, while Heisely held up the note-book. On the following evening Durang sang the Star-Spangled Banner for the first time on the stage of the Holliday Street Theatre.

It is stated that “Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean,” or the “Red, White, and Blue,” was written and composed in 1843 by David T. Shaw, a concert singer at the Chinese Museum, Philadelphia. The statement is also made that the authorship of the words and music was traced to Thomas A. Becket, an English actor then playing at the Chestnut Street Theatre. Whether the words were written by Shaw or for him, it is clear that the Columbia, Gem of the Ocean of Shaw is a “dodged” version of the English original “Britannia, the Pride of the Ocean,” which Shaw had the credit of writing. An English commentator says that “the word Britannia fits the metre, whereas Columbia is a lumbering 45word which cannot be pronounced in less than four syllables; that while an island may properly be styled a ‘gem of the ocean,’ the phrase would have been absurd when applied to the United States of that day, and is even more incorrect now when the vast mass of land comprised in its territory is only partly surrounded by three oceans; and there are two Columbias, the South American Columbia and British Columbia. The United States of America was never known by such a title.”

American philologists have endeavored to trace the term Yankee to an Indian source. It is not Indian, however, but Dutch. If one might characterize the relations between New England and the New Netherlands in the early colonial period, he would say with Irving that “the Yankee despised the Dutchman and the Dutchman abominated the Yankee.” The Dutch verb “Yankee” means to snarl, wrangle, and the noun “Yanker,” howling cur, is perhaps the most expressive term of contempt in the whole language. Out of that acrimonious struggle between Connecticut and New Amsterdam came the nickname which has stuck to the descendants of the Puritans ever since.

The adoption of the air of Yankee Doodle has been credited to Dr. Shackburg, a wit, musician, and surgeon, in 1755, when the colonial troops united with the British regulars in the attack on the French outposts at Niagara and Frontenac. It was aimed in derision of the motley clothes, the antiquated equipments, and the lack of military training of the militia from the Eastern provinces, all in broad contrast with the neat and orderly appointments of the regulars. Be this as it may, 46the tune was well known in the time of Charles II., under the name “Lydia Fisher’s Jig.” Aside from the old doggerel verses, commencing “Father and I went down to camp,” there is no song; the tune in the United States is a march. It was well known in Holland, and was in common use there as a harvest-song among farm-laborers, at a remote period.

A late number of the Frankfurter Zeitung furnishes some interesting information in a paragraph which is translated as follows by the United States Consul at Mayence, Mr. Schumann:

“In the publication Hessenland (No. 2, 1905) Johann Lewalter gives expression to his opinion that Yankee Doodle was originally a country-dance of a district of the former province of Kur-Hesse, called the “Schwalm.” It is well known that the tune of Yankee Doodle was derived from a military march played by the Hessian troops during the war of the Revolution in America. In studying the dances of the Schwalm, Lewalter was struck by the similarity in form and rhythm of Yankee Doodle to the music of these dances. Recently, at the Kirmess of the village of Wasenberg, when Yankee Doodle was played, the young men and girls swung into a true Schwälmer dance, as though the music had been composed for it. During the war of 1776 the chief recruiting office for the enlistment of the Hessian hired soldiers was Ziegenhain, in Kur-Hesse. It, therefore, seems probable that the Hessian recruits from the Schwalm, who served in the pay of Great Britain in America during the Revolutionary War, and whose military band instruments consisted of bugles, drums, and fifes only, carried over with them the tune, known to them from childhood, and played it as a march.”

OUR HISTORIC CHARACTERS — Washington — Franklin — Hamilton — Jefferson — The Portrait of a good man by the most sublime of Poets, for your Imitation. [2] — A Decalogue of Canons for Observation in Practical Life. — Marshall — Jackson — Webster — Lincoln at Gettysburg — Grant at Appomattox — Last Words

Washington was a vestryman of both Truro and Fairfax parishes. The place of worship of the former was at Pohick, and of the latter at Alexandria. Mount Vernon was within Truro parish, and in the affairs of the church Washington took a lively interest. The old Pohick building became so dilapidated that in 1764 it was resolved to build a new church. The question as to location was discussed in the parish with considerable excitement, some contending for retention of the old site and others favoring a more central position. At a meeting for settling the question, George Mason (the famous author of the Bill of Rights of Virginia) made an ardent and eloquent plea to stand by the old landmarks consecrated by the ashes of their ancestors, and sacred to all the memories of life, marriage, birth, and death. In reply to this touching appeal Washington produced a survey of the parish, drawn by himself with his usual accuracy, on which every road was laid down, and the residence of every householder marked. Spreading his map before the audience, he showed that the new location which he advocated would be more conveniently reached by every member of the parish, while to many of them the old site was inaccessible. He expressed the hope that they would not allow their judgment to be guided by their feelings. When the vote was taken, a large majority favored removal to the proposed 48locality. Thereupon George Mason put on his hat and stalked out of the meeting, saying, in not smothered tones, “That’s what gentlemen get for engaging in debate with a damned surveyor.” But, notwithstanding this little tiff, the owners of Gunston Hall and of Mount Vernon had the highest respect and warmest affection for each other.

One of the greatest blessings which a man can possess—especially if he is a public man—is an imperturbable temper. It is a remarkable fact that those who have most signally manifested this virtue have been men who were constitutionally irritable. Such was the case with Washington, whose habitual composure, the result of strenuous self-discipline, was so great that it was supposed to be due to a cold and almost frigid temperament. By nature a violently passionate man, he triumphed so completely over his frailty as to be cheated of all credit for his coolness and exasperating trials.

His biographers record very few instances of violent outbreak of anger, even under excessive provocation. One of the few was in the well-known disobedience of orders by General Charles Lee, at the battle of Monmouth, and his ordering a retreat by which the day was nearly lost. It was a betrayal of confidence which was subsequently explained by the verdict of a court-martial convened to inquire into his misconduct. When Washington, who was hurrying forward to his support, met the retreating troops struggling and straggling in confusion, and realized the situation, he rode at Lee as if he meant to ride him down. He was like a raging lion. Demanding the meaning of the rout, he accompanied his questions with imprecations whose crushing force was terrible.

49Another instance of justifiable wrath following the libellous attacks of Bache, Freeman, and the French Minister Genet, is noted as follows in McMaster’s “History of the People of the United States,” which we copy from that admirable book by permission of the publishers, D. Appleton & Company:

“For a while Washington met this abuse with cold disdain. ‘The publications,’ he wrote to Henry Lee, June 21, 1793, ‘in Freneau’s and Bache’s papers are outrages on common decency. But I have a consolation within that no earthly effort can deprive me of, and that is, that neither ambition nor interested motives have influenced my conduct. The arrows of malevolence, therefore, however barbed and well pointed, never can reach the most vulnerable part of me, though, while I am up as a mark, they will be continually aimed.’ But as time went on, the slanders daily heaped upon him by the National Gazette and the General Advertiser irritated him to such a degree that every allusion to them provoked a testy answer or a show of rage. One of these outbursts took place at a cabinet meeting held early in August, and has been described with manifest delight by Jefferson. The matter discussed was the conduct of Genet, and, in the course of some remarks, Knox spoke of the recent libel on the President. In a moment the face of Washington put on an expression which it was seldom given his friends to see. Says Jefferson, ‘He got into one of those passions when he cannot command himself, ran on much on the personal abuse which had been bestowed on him, and defied any man on earth to produce one single act of his since he had been in the government which had not been done on the purest motives. He had never repented but once having 50slipped the moment of resigning his office, and that was every moment since; and, by heavens! he would rather be in his grave than in his present situation. He would rather be on his farm than be emperor of the world; and yet they were charging him with wanting to be a king.’”

This reference to a dictatorship recalls the incident which shook to its centre his evenly balanced and self-controlled nature. Discontent among officers and soldiers over arrearages of pay, the neglect of Congress to make provision for the claims of their suffering families, and increasing distrust of the efficiency of the government and of republican institutions, led to an organized movement for a constitutional monarchy, and to make Washington its king. A paper embodying the views of the malcontents was drawn up, and presented to the Chief by a highly esteemed officer,—Colonel Nicola. Washington’s scornful rebuke, dated Newburgh, May 22, 1782, expressed surprise and indignation. Said he, “No occurrences in the course of the war have given me more painful sensations than your information of the existence of such ideas in the army, ideas which I view with abhorrence and reprehend with severity. I am at a loss to conceive what part of my conduct could have given encouragement to an address, which to me seems big with the greatest mischiefs that can befall my country. If I am not deceived in the knowledge of myself, you could not have found a person to whom your schemes are more disagreeable. Let me conjure you, if you have any regard for your country, concern for yourself or posterity, or respect for me, to banish these thoughts from your mind, and never communicate, from yourself or any one else, a sentiment of the like nature.”

51While colonel of the Virginia troops in 1754, Washington was stationed at Alexandria. At an election for members of the Assembly Colonel Washington, in the heat of party excitement, used offensive language toward a Mr. Payne. Thereupon that gentleman struck him a heavy blow and knocked him down. Intelligence of the encounter aroused among his soldiers a spirit of vengeance, which was quieted by an address from him, showing his noble character. Next day, Mr. Payne received a note from Washington, requesting his attendance at the tavern in Alexandria. Mr. Payne anticipated a duel, but instead of pistols he found a table set with wine and glasses, and was met with a friendly smile by his antagonist. Colonel Washington felt that himself was the aggressor, and determined to make reparation. He offered Mr. Payne his hand, and said: “To err is human; to rectify error is right and proper. I believe I was wrong yesterday; you have already had some satisfaction, and if you deem that sufficient, here is my hand—let us be friends.” The amende honorable was promptly accepted.

Another case of offence, with prompt regret and reparation, occurred at Cambridge, in 1775, when the army was destitute of powder. Washington sent Colonel Glover to Marblehead for a supply of that article, which was said to be there. At night the colonel returned and found Washington in front of his head-quarters pacing up and down. The general, without returning his salute, asked, roughly, “Have you got the powder?” “No, sir.” Washington swore the terrible Saxon oath, with all its three specifications. “Why did you come back, sir, without it?” “Sir, there is not a kernel of powder in Marblehead.” Washington walked up and 52down a minute or two in great agitation, and then said, “Colonel Glover, here is my hand, if you will take it and forgive me. The greatness of our danger made me forget what is due to you and myself.”

In his “Memories of a Hundred Years,” Edward Everett Hale says, “It is with some hesitation that I add here what I am afraid is true, though I never heard it said aloud until the year 1901. It belongs with the discussion as to the third term for the Presidency. The statement now is that Washington did not permit his name to be used for a third election because he had become sure that he could not carry the State of Virginia in the election. He would undoubtedly have been chosen by the votes of the other States, but he would have felt badly the want of confidence implied in the failure of his own ‘country,’ as he used to call it in his earlier letters, to vote for him. It is quite certain, from the correspondence of the time, that as late as September of the year 1796, the year in which John Adams was chosen President, neither Adams nor Washington knew whether Washington meant to serve a third time.”

In delineating the characteristics of Washington, Edward Everett says, in his masterly way:

“If we claim for Washington solitary eminence among the great and good, the question will naturally be asked in what the peculiar and distinctive excellence of his character consisted; and to this fair question I am tasked to find an answer that does full justice to my own conceptions and feelings. It is easy to run over the heads of such a contemplation; to enumerate the sterling qualities which he possessed and the defects from which he was free; but when all is said in this way that can be said, with whatever justice of honest 53eulogy, and whatever sympathy of appreciation, we feel that there is a depth which we have not sounded, a latent power we have not measured, a mysterious beauty of character which you can no more describe in words than you can paint a blush with a patch of red paint, or the glance of a sunbeam from a ripple with a streak of white paint thrown upon the canvas; a moral fascination, so to express it, which we all feel, but cannot analyze nor trace to its elements. All the personal traditions of Washington assure us that there was a serene dignity in his presence which charmed while it awed the boldest who approached him.”

Benjamin Franklin is probably the best specimen that history affords of what is called a self-made man. He certainly “never worshipped his maker,” according to a stinging epigram, but was throughout his life, though always self-respectful, never self-conceited. Perhaps the most notable result of his self-education was the ease with which he accosted all grades and classes of men on a level of equality. The printer’s boy became, in his old age, one of the most popular men in the French Court, not only among its statesmen, but among its frivolous nobles and their wives. He ever estimated men at their true worth or worthlessness; but as a diplomatist he was a marvel of sagacity. The same ease of manner which recommended him to a Pennsylvania farmer was preserved in a conference with a statesman or a king. He ever kept his end in view in all his complaisances, and that end was always patriotic. When he returned to his country he was among 54the most earnest to organize the liberty he had done so much to achieve; and he also showed his hostility to the system of negro slavery with which the United States was burdened. At the ripe age of eighty-four he died, leaving behind him a record of extraordinary faithfulness in the performance of all the duties of life. His sagacity, when his whole career is surveyed, was of the most exalted character, for it was uniformly devoted to the accomplishment of great public ends of policy or beneficence.

During a part of his reign, George III. was in the habit of keeping a note-book, in which he jotted down his observations of men and passing events. In the volume dated 1778, among the names to which the king attached illustrative quotations, was the name of Benjamin Franklin, with the following passage from Shakespeare’s Julius Cæsar, ii. 1:

With regard to the charge frequently made against him of scepticism and infidel leanings, Franklin’s own refutation should suffice. In a letter written in 1784 to his friend William Strahan, in England, he said, referring to the successful outcome of the Revolutionary struggle,—

“I am too well acquainted with all the springs and levers of our machine not to see that our human means were unequal to our understanding, and that, if it had 55not been for the justice of our cause, and the consequent interposition of Providence, in which we had faith, we must have been ruined. If I had ever before been an atheist, I should now have been convinced of the being and government of a Deity. It is He that abases the proud and favors the humble. May we never forget His goodness to us, and may our future conduct manifest our gratitude!”

In a letter to Whitefield, written shortly before his death, he said,—

“I am now in my eighty-fifth year and very infirm. Here is my creed: I believe in one God, the Creator of the universe. That He governs by His Providence. That He ought to be worshipped. That the most acceptable service we can render Him is by doing good to His other children. That the soul of man is immortal, and will be treated with justice in another life respecting his conduct in this. These I take to be the fundamental points in all sound religion.”

Add to such testimony the closing lines of his famous self-written epitaph: “The work itself shall not be lost, for it will (as he believed) appear once more in a new and more beautiful edition, corrected and amended by the Author.”

In discussing the qualities of the founders of our republic, Colonel T. W. Higginson draws a good portraiture of Alexander Hamilton.^[1] Washington being President, Adams and Jay having also been assigned 56to office, there naturally followed the two men who had contributed most in their different ways to the intellectual construction of the nation. Hamilton and Jefferson were brought together in the Cabinet,—the one as Secretary of the Treasury, the other as Secretary of State,—not because they agreed, but because they differed. Tried by all immediate and temporary tests, it is impossible to deny to Hamilton the position of leading intellect during the constitutional period; and his clear and cogent ability contrasts strongly with the peculiar mental action, always fresh and penetrating, but often lawless and confused, of his great rival. Hamilton was more coherent, more truthful, more combative, more generous, and more limited. His power was as an organizer and advocate of measures, and this is a less secure passport to fame than lies in the announcement of great principles. The difference between Hamilton and Jefferson on questions of finance and State rights was only the symbol of a deeper divergence. The contrast between them was not so much in acts as in theories; not in what they did, but in what they dreamed. Both had their visions, and held to them ardently, but the spirit of the nation was fortunately stronger than either; it made Hamilton support a republic against his will, and made Jefferson acquiesce, in spite of himself, in a tolerably vigorous national government.

There is not a trace of evidence that Hamilton ever desired to bring about a monarchy in America. He no doubt believed the British constitution to be the most perfect model of government ever devised by man, but it is also true that he saw the spirit of the American people to be wholly republican; all his action was 57based on the opinion that “the political principle of this country would endure nothing but republican government.” He believed—very reasonably, so far as the teachings of experience went—that a republic was an enormous risk to run, and that this risk must be diminished by making the republic as much like a monarchy as possible. If he could have had his way, only holders of real estate would have had the right to vote for President and Senators, and these would have held office for life, or at least during good behavior; the President would have appointed all the governors of States, and they would have had a veto on all State legislation. All this he announced in Congress with the greatest frankness, and having thus indicated his ideal government, he accepted what he could get, and gave his great powers to carrying out a constitution about which he had serious misgivings. On the other hand, if Jefferson could have had his way, national organization would have been a shadow. He accepted the constitution as a necessary evil.

“Hamilton and I,” wrote Jefferson, “were pitted against each other every day in the Cabinet, like two fighting-cocks.” The first passage between them was the only one in which Hamilton had clearly the advantage of his less practised antagonist, making Jefferson, indeed, the instrument of his own defeat. The transfer of the capital to the banks of the Potomac was secured by the first of many compromises between the Northern and Southern States, after a debate in which the formidable slavery question showed itself often, as it had shown itself at the very formation of the constitution. The removal of the capital was clearly the price paid by Hamilton for Jefferson’s acquiescence in his first 58great financial measure. This measure was the national assumption of the State debts to an amount not to exceed twenty millions. It was met by vehement opposition, partly because it bore very unequally on the States, but mainly on the ground that the claims were in the hands of speculators, and were greatly depreciated. Yet it was an essential part of that great series of financial projects on which Hamilton’s fame must rest, even more than on his papers in the Federalist—though these secured the adoption of the Constitution. Three measures—the assumption of the State debts, the funding act, and the national bank—were what changed the bankruptcy of the new nation into solvency and credit. There may be question as to the good or bad precedents established by these enactments; but there can be no doubt as to their immediate success.

It is difficult to say what this accomplished man might have done as a leader of the Federal opposition to the Democratic administrations of Jefferson and Madison, had he not, in the maturity of his years, and in the full vigor of his faculties, been murdered by Aaron Burr. Nothing can better illustrate the folly of the practice of dueling than the fact that, by a weak compliance with its maxims, the most eminent of American statesmen died by the hand of the most infamous of American demagogues.

Among the voluminous writings of that great statesman, Thomas Jefferson, none is of more universal interest than his “Rules of Life,” as embodied in the following letter:

This letter will, to you, be as one from the dead. The writer will be in the grave before you can weigh its counsels. Your affectionate and excellent father has requested that I would address to you something which might possibly have a favorable influence on the course of life you have to run; and I, too, as a namesake, feel an interest in that course. Few words will be necessary, with good dispositions on your part. Adore God. Reverence and cherish your parents. Love your neighbor as yourself, and your country more than yourself. Be just. Be true. Murmur not at the ways of Providence. So shall the life into which you have entered be the portal to one of eternal and ineffable bliss. And if to the dead it is permitted to care for the things of this world, every action of your life will be under my regard. Farewell.

Monticello, February 21, 1825.

1. Never put off till to-morrow what you can do to-day.

2. Never trouble another for what you can do yourself.

3. Never spend your money before you have it.

4. Never buy what you do not want because it is cheap; it will be dear to you.

5. Pride costs us more than hunger, thirst, and cold.

6. We never repent of having eaten too little.

7. Nothing is troublesome that we do willingly.

8. How much pain have cost us the evils which have never happened.

9. Take things always by their smooth handle.

10. When angry, count ten before you speak; if very angry, a hundred.

When John Marshall became Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court only six decisions had been rendered on Constitutional questions by that tribunal. Not only were the Federal Constitution and the laws enacted under it in their infancy, but an absolutely new question in political science was presented,—the question whether it was possible to carry out successfully a scheme contemplating the contemporaneous sovereignty of two governments, State and federal, distinct and separate in their action, yet commanding with equal authority the obedience of the same people. Viewed against this sombre background of an untried and difficult experiment, Marshall’s services assume heroic proportions. On account of the lack of precedent an opposite decision might in many cases have been given, which, as a matter of pure law, could have been well supported. Much depended, therefore, on the spirit in which the work should be approached. Marshall brought to the task a mind which had been trained in forensic strife with the ablest bar that Virginia has ever known. In the Virginia Legislature, in Congress, and in the Constitutional Convention of Virginia he had become familiar with the fundamental principles of government. The temper in which Marshall assumed the responsibilities of his judicial station was exemplified in his remarks during the trial of Aaron Burr: “That this Court dares not usurp power is most true. That this Court does not shrink from its duty is no less true. No man is desirous of placing himself in a disagreeable situation. No man is desirous of becoming the peculiar subject of calumny. No man, 62might he let the bitter cup pass from him without reproach, would drain it to the bottom. But if he has no choice in the case—if there be no alternative presented to him but a dereliction of duty or the opprobrium of those who are denominated the world—he merits the contempt as well as the indignation of his country; who can hesitate which to embrace?”

There is no doubt that under Marshall the United States Supreme Court acquired the energy, weight, and dignity which Jay had considered indispensable for the effectual exercise of its functions. During the thirty-four years that he presided over the court, twelve hundred and fifteen cases were decided, the reports of which will fill thirty volumes. In something more than one hundred cases no opinion was given, or, if given, was reported as “by the Court,” per curiam. Of the remainder, Marshall delivered the opinion of the court in five hundred and nineteen. Of the sixty-two decisions during his time, on questions of constitutional law, he wrote the opinion in thirty-six; in twenty-three of the latter, comprising most of his greatest efforts, there was no dissent.

Contemporaries and later students concur in the opinion that the original bias of Marshall’s mind was toward general principles and comprehensive views rather than to technical and recondite learning. His argumentation was, as Mr. Phelps has said, “that simple, direct, straightforward, honest reasoning that silences as a demonstration in Euclid silences, because it convinces.” His reasoning was, for the most part, simple, logical deduction, unaided by analogies, and unsupported by precedent or authority. Marshall’s type of mind presented a strong contrast to that of Justice Story, whose 63concurring opinion in the Dartmouth College case bristled with authorities: “When I examine a question,” said Story, “I go from headland to headland; from case to case. Marshall has a compass, puts out to sea, and goes directly to his result.”

After the sedate, passionless, orderly administrations of Monroe and Adams, there was a popular demand for something piquant and amusing, and this quality was always found in Old Hickory. Friends and foes alike declare that Andrew Jackson was in many ways far above the imitators who have posed in his image. True, he was narrow, ignorant, violent, unreasonable; he punished his enemies and rewarded his friends. But he was, on the other hand,—and his worst opponents did not deny it,—chaste, honest, truthful, and sincere. For a time he was more bitterly hated than any one who ever occupied his high office, and we may be sure that these better qualities would have been discredited had it been possible. It was constantly reiterated that his frequent and favorite oath was “By the Eternal,” yet neither his nephew and secretary, Mr. Donelson, who was associated with him for thirty years, nor Judge Brackenridge, of Western Pennsylvania, who wrote most of his State papers, ever heard him use such an expression. With long, narrow, firmly set features, and a military stock encircling his neck, he had one advantage for the social life of Washington which seemed difficult of explanation by anything in his earlier career. He had at his command the most courteous and agreeable manners. Even before the 64election of Adams, Daniel Webster had written to his brother: “General Jackson’s manners are better than those of any of the candidates. He is grave, mild, and reserved. My wife is for him decidedly.” But whatever his personal attractions, he sacrificed his social leadership at Washington by his quixotic attempt to force the Cabinet ladies to admit into their circle the wife of Secretary Eaton, a woman whose antecedents as Peggy O’Neill, an innkeeper’s daughter, made her a persona non grata. For once, Jackson overestimated his powers. He had conquered Indian tribes, and checked the army of Great Britain, but the ladies of Washington society were too much for him. At the dinner-table, or in the ball-room, every lady ignored the presence of “Bellona,” as the newspapers called her.

The two acts with which the administration of President Jackson will be longest identified are his dealings with South Carolina in respect to nullification, and his long warfare with the United States Bank. The first brought the New England States back to him and the second took them away again. He perhaps won rather more applause than he merited by the one act, and more condemnation than was just for the other.

Among the amusing anecdotes of Jackson, it is related that when he was military commander in Florida during the administration of President Monroe, he tried at a drumhead court-martial and hanged two Englishmen who had incited, it is said, an insurrection among the Indians. President Monroe feared that Great Britain would make trouble about this, and summoned the general to Washington before the Cabinet. John Quincy Adams, then Secretary of State, who had 65instructed Jackson to govern with a firm hand in Florida, defended him, and read a long argument in which he quoted international law as expounded by Grotius, Vattel, and Puffendorff. Jackson listened in sullen silence, but in the evening, when asked at a dinner party whether he was not comforted by Mr. Adams’s citation of authorities, he exclaimed, “What do I care about those old musty chaps? Blast Grotius, blast Vattel, and blast the Puffenchap. This is a fight between Jim Monroe and me, and I propose to fight it out.”

Senator George F. Hoar, in describing the personal appearance of Daniel Webster in the prime of life, says, “He was physically the most splendid specimen of noble manhood my eyes ever beheld. He was a trifle over five feet nine inches high and weighed one hundred and fifty-four pounds. His head was finely poised upon his shoulders. His beautiful black eyes shone out through the caverns of his deep brows like lustrous jewels. His teeth were white and regular, and his smile when he was in gracious mood, especially when talking to women, had an irresistible charm.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson thus speaks of Mr. Webster’s appearance at the dedication of the Bunker Hill monument, in 1843: “His countenance, his figure, and his manners were all in so grand a style that he was, without effort, as superior to his most eminent rivals as they were to the humblest. He alone of all men did not disappoint the eye and the ear, but was a fit figure in the landscape. There was the monument, and there was Webster. He knew well that a little more or less of 66rhetoric signified nothing; he was only to say plain and equal things—grand things, if he had them; and if he had them not, only to abstain from saying unfit things—and the whole occasion was answered by his presence.”

The masterly address on that June anniversary closed with these sentences:

“And when both we and our children shall have been consigned to the house appointed for all living, may love of country and pride of country glow with equal fervor among those to whom our names and our blood shall have descended! And then, when honored and decrepit age shall lean against the base of this monument, and troops of ingenuous youth shall be gathered around it, and when the one shall speak to the other of its objects, the purposes of its construction, and the great and glorious events with which it is connected, there shall rise from every youthful breast the ejaculation, ‘Thank God, I also am an American.’”

In reviewing Mr. Webster’s “Speeches and Forensic Arguments,” Edwin P. Whipple says, “Believing that our national literature is to be found in the records of our greatest minds, and is not confined to the poems, novels, and essays which may be produced by Americans, we have been surprised that the name of Daniel Webster is not placed high among American authors. Men in every way inferior to him in mental power have obtained a wide reputation for writing works in every way inferior to those spoken by him. It cannot be that a generation like ours, continually boasting that it is not misled by forms, should think that thought changes its character when it is published from the mouth instead of the press. Still, it is true that a man who has 67acquired fame as an orator and statesman is rarely considered, even by his own partisans, in the light of an author. He is responsible for no ‘book.’ The records of what he has said and done, though perhaps constantly studied by contemporaries, are not generally regarded as part and parcel of the national literature. The fame of the man of action overshadows that of the author. We are so accustomed to consider him as a speaker, that we are somewhat blind to the great literary merit of his speeches. The celebrated argument in reply to Hayne, for instance, was intended by the statesman as a defence of his political position, as an exposition of constitutional law, and a vindication of what he deemed to be the true policy of the country. The acquisition of merely literary reputation had no part in the motives from which it sprung. Yet the speech, even to those who take little interest in subjects like the tariff, nullification, and the public lands, will ever be interesting from its profound knowledge, its clear arrangement, the mastery it exhibits of all the weapons of dialectics, the broad stamp of nationality it bears, and the wit, sarcasm, and splendid and impassioned eloquence which pervade and vivify, without interrupting, the close and rapid march of the argument.”

Considered merely as literary productions, Webster’s speeches take the highest rank among the best productions of the American intellect. They are thoroughly national in their spirit and tone, and are full of principles, arguments, and appeals, which come directly home to the hearts and understandings of the great body of the people. They contain the results of a long life of mental labor, employed in the service of the country. They give evidence of a complete familiarity 68with the spirit and workings of our institutions, and breathe the bracing air of a healthy and invigorating patriotism. They are replete with that true wisdom which is slowly gathered from the exercise of a strong and comprehensive intellect on the complicated concerns of daily life and duty. They display qualities of mind and style which would give them a high place in any literature, even if the subjects discussed were less interesting and important; and they show also a strength of personal character, superior to irresolution and fear, capable of bearing up against the most determined opposition, and uniting to boldness in thought intrepidity in action. In all the characteristics of great literary performances, they are fully equal to many works which have stood the test of age, and baffled the skill of criticism.

At the consecration of the National Cemetery at Gettysburg, November 9, 1863, Hon. Edward Everett was the orator of the day, and President Lincoln made the dedicatory address. Concerning Mr. Lincoln’s appearance on that memorable occasion, Mr. Edward McPherson, Clerk of the National House of Representatives, in a newspaper report, said that Mr. Lincoln never showed more ungainliness of figure, “slouchiness” of dress, and angularity of gesture, all of which appeared in striking contrast with the elegance and grace of person, speech, and manner that characterized Mr. Everett. But although every one admired the rhetorical effects produced by Everett during his oration of ninety minutes’ length, they had not been “aroused to enthusiasm, nor melted to tenderness.” “But,” says Mr. McPherson, 69“as Mr. Lincoln proceeded no face ever more unmistakably mirrored a conviction than did Mr. Everett’s, that by these few but weighty sentences, all memory of what he had said was erased. It is part of the current mention of the times that Mr. Everett, in congratulating Mr. Lincoln at the close of the exercises, laughingly, but with a sense of its truth, remarked, ‘You have said all on this occasion that will be remembered by posterity.’”

Hon. James Speed, formerly Attorney-General, under Lincoln, says that Lincoln showed him a letter from Everett, eulogizing the Gettysburg speech in the very highest terms, and that a year or two after the death of Mr. Lincoln, there were present at his house in Washington, Senator Sumner, Governor Clifford, of Massachusetts, and others, and Mr. Lincoln’s Gettysburg speech became the subject of conversation. “Mr. Sumner said, and others concurred in what he said, that it was the most finished piece of oratory he had ever seen. Every word was appropriate—none could be omitted and none added and none changed.”

He also says,—

“I recollect that soon after its delivery, at my house in Louisville, Robert Dale Owen, who was present with others, took from his pocket a speech which he had cut from a newspaper, and read it aloud saying it would be translated into all languages in the world, being the very finest oration of the kind that had ever been delivered. He said there were utterances in it which would become familiar to all the people of the world as household words. I recollect further that Judge S. S. Nicholas, of Louisville, an accomplished man and a fine writer, upon first seeing the speech, spoke of it in terms of the highest praise, saying he did not 70believe a man of the education and culture of Mr. Lincoln could have written it. He believed, until corrected by me, that it had been written by another hand.”

One of the most remarkable tributes that has been paid was that of the London Quarterly Review, which said, substantially, that the oration surpassed every production of its class known in literature; that only the oration of Pericles over the victories of the Peloponnesian war could be compared to it, and that was put into his mouth by the historian Thucydides.

A greatly admired personal tribute to Lincoln is that of James Russell Lowell in the Harvard Commemoration Ode, July, 1865. It is especially noteworthy for its broad significance, its tender pathos, its discriminating appreciation, and its grand American sentiment, closing as follows:

71Governor Andrew, in an address to the Legislature of Massachusetts, following the assassination of Lincoln, after describing him as the man who had added “martyrdom itself to his other and scarcely less emphatic claims to human veneration, gratitude and love,” continued thus: “I desire on this grave occasion to record my sincere testimony to the unaffected simplicity of his manly purpose, to the constancy with which he devoted himself to his duty, to the grand fidelity with which he subordinated himself to his country, to the clearness, robustness, and sagacity of his understanding, to his sincere love of truth, his undeviating progress in its faithful pursuit, and to the confidence which he could not fail to inspire in the singular integrity of his virtues, and the conspicuously judicial quality of his intellect.”

At the dedication of the Mausoleum erected at Riverside Park, New York, in memory of General Grant, Colonel Charles Marshall, who had been Chief of Staff to General Lee, the Confederate commander, was the orator. In the course of his address he said,—

“When General Grant first opened the correspondence with General Lee which led to the meeting at Appomattox, General Lee proposed to give a wide scope to the subject to be treated of between him and General Grant, and to discuss with the latter the terms of a general pacification.

“General Grant declined to consider anything except the surrender of General Lee’s army, assigning as a reason for his refusal his want of authority to deal with political matters, or any other than those pertaining to 72his position as the commander of the army. The day after the meeting at McLain’s house, at which the terms of surrender were agreed upon, another interview took place between Grant and Lee, upon the invitation of General Grant, and when General Lee returned from that meeting he repeated, in the presence of several of his staff, the substance of the conversation, in one part of which, you will see, as we all did, the feeling that controlled the actions of General Grant at that critical period.

“The conversation turned on the subject of a general peace, as to which General Grant had already declared the want of power to treat, but, in speaking of the means by which a general pacification might be effected, General Grant said to General Lee, with great emphasis and strong feeling: ‘General Lee, I want this war to end without the shedding of another drop of American blood’—not Northern blood, not Southern blood, but ‘American blood’—for in his eyes all the men around him, and those who might be then confronting each other on other fields over the wide area of war, were ‘Americans.’

“These words made a great impression upon all who heard them, as they did upon General Lee, who told us, with no little emotion, that he took occasion to express to General Grant his appreciation of the noble and generous sentiments uttered by him, and assured him that he would render all the assistance in his power to bring about the restoration of peace and good-will without shedding another drop of ‘American blood.’ This ‘American blood,’ sacred in the eyes of both these great American soldiers, flows in the veins of all of us, and let it be sacred in our eyes also, henceforth and forever, 73ready to be poured without stint as a libation upon the altar of our common country, never to be shed again in fratricidal war.

“It is in the light of this noble thought of General Grant that I have always considered the course pursued by him at the moment of his supreme triumph at Appomattox, and, seen in that light, nothing could be grander, nobler, more magnanimous, nor more patriotic than his conduct on that occasion.

“Look at the state of affairs on the morning of the 9th of April, 1865. The bleeding and half-starved remnant of that great army which for four years had baffled all the efforts of the Federal government to reach the Confederate capital, and had twice borne the flag of the Confederacy beyond the Potomac, confronted with undaunted resolution, but without hope save the hope of an honorable death on the battle-field, the overwhelming forces under General Grant.

“At the head of that remnant of a great army was a great soldier, whose name was a name of fear, whose name is recorded in a high place on the roll of great soldiers of history. That remnant of a great army of Northern Virginia, with its great commander at its head, after the long siege at Richmond and Petersburg, had been forced to retreat, and on the 9th of April, 1865, was brought to bay at Appomattox, surrounded by the host of its great enemy.

“There was no reasonable doubt that the destruction of that army would seal the fate of the Confederacy and put an end to further organized resistance to the Federal arms, and no doubt that if that remnant were driven to desperation by the exactness of terms of surrender against which its honor and its valor would revolt, that 74resistance would have been made, and that General Grant and his army might have been left in the possession of a solitude that they might have called peace, but which would have been the peace of Poland, the peace of Ireland. Under such circumstances, had General Grant been governed by the mere selfish desire of the rewards of military success, had he been content to gather the fruits that grew nearest the earth on the tree of victory, the fruits that Napoleon and all selfish conquerors of his time have gathered, the fruits that our Washington put away from him, what a triumph lay before him!

“What Roman triumph would have approached the triumph of General Grant had he led the remnant of the Army of Northern Virginia, with its great commander in chains, up Pennsylvania Avenue, thenceforth to be known as the ‘Way of Triumph!’

“But so simple, so patriotic was the mind of General Grant that the thought of self seems never to have affected his conduct.

“He was no more tempted at Appomattox to forego the true interests of his country for his own advantage than Washington was tempted when the time came for him to lay down his commission at Annapolis. I doubt if the self-abnegation of Washington at Annapolis was greater than that of Grant at Appomattox, and it is the glory of America that her institutions breed men who are equal to the greatest strain that can be put upon their courage and their patriotism.

“On that eventful morning of April 9, 1865, General Grant was called upon to decide the most momentous question that any American soldier or statesman has ever been required to decide. The great question was, 75How shall the war end? What shall be the relations between the victors and vanquished?

“Upon the decision of that question depended the future of American institutions. If the extreme rights of military success had been insisted upon, and had the vanquished been required to pass under the yoke of defeat and bitter humiliation, the war would have ended as a successful war of conquest—the Southern States would have been conquered States, and the Southern people would have been a conquered people, in whose hearts would have been sown all the enmity and ill-will of the conquered to the conquerors, to be transmitted from sire to son.

“With such an ending of the war there would have been United States without a united people. The power of the Union would then have reposed upon the strength of Grant’s battalions and the thunder of Grant’s artillery. Its bonds would have stood upon the security of its military power, and not upon the honor and good faith and good-will of its people. The federal government would have been compelled to adopt a coercive policy toward the disaffected people of the South, which would soon have established between the government and those States the relations between England and Ireland, and some Northern Gladstone would be demanding for the Southern people the natural right that the English Gladstone claimed for the Irish against their haughty conquerors.

“Does any man desire to exchange the present relations between the people of the Northern and Southern States for the relations of conqueror and conquered? Does any wish to have a union of the States without a union of the people?

76“General Grant was called upon to decide this great question on the morning of April 9, 1865. The Southern military power was exhausted. He was in a position to exact the supreme rights of a conqueror, and the unconditional submission of his adversary, unless that adversary should elect to risk all on the event of a desperate battle, in which much ‘American blood’ would certainly be shed.

“The question was gravely considered in Confederate councils whether we should not accept the extreme risk, and cut our way through the hosts of General Grant, or perish in the attempt. This plan had many advocates, but General Lee was not one of them, as will be seen by his farewell order to his army.

“Under these circumstances General Lee and General Grant met to discuss the terms of surrender of General Lee’s army, and, at the request of General Lee, General Grant wrote the terms of surrender he proposed to offer to the Confederate general. They were liberal and honorable, alike to the victor and the vanquished, and General Lee at once accepted them.

“Any one who reads General Grant’s proposal cannot fail to see how careful he is to avoid any unnecessary humiliation to his adversary. As far as it was possible, General Grant took away the sting of defeat from the Confederate army. He triumphed, but he triumphed without exultation, and with a noble respect to his enemy.

“There was never a nobler knight than Grant of Appomattox—no knight more magnanimous or more generous. No statesman ever decided a vital question more wisely—more in the interest of his country and of all mankind—than General Grant decided the great 77question presented to him when he and General Lee met that morning of April 9, 1865, to consider the terms of the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia. The words of his magnanimous proposal to his enemy were carried by the Confederate soldiers to the furthest borders of the South. They reached ears and hearts that had never quailed at the sound of war. They disarmed and reconciled those who knew not fear, and the noble words of General Grant’s offer of peace brought peace without humiliation, peace with honor.”

Iconoclasts overshadow with their doubts and questionings the alleged dying words of eminent men, but the following appear to be authentic. George Washington, “It is well.” John Adams, “Independence forever.” Benjamin Franklin, in severe suffering, “A dying man can do nothing easy.” Thomas Jefferson, “I resign my spirit to God, my daughter to my country.” John Quincy Adams, “It is the last of earth; I am content.” John C. Calhoun, “The South! the South! God knows what will become of her.” William H. Harrison, “I wish you to understand the true principles of government. I wish them carried out. I ask nothing more.” Daniel Webster, “I still live.” James Buchanan, “O, Lord Almighty, as Thou wilt.” William McKinley, “It is God’s way. His will be done, not ours.” Henry Ward Beecher, “Now comes the great mystery.”

OUR WONDERLANDS

In repeated statements in the consular reports concerning the large extent of tourist travel in Switzerland, we are told that the “money-making asset” of that little republic, the greater portion of whose area is covered with mountains, is “scenery.” We go to Europe to see the accumulated treasures of centuries, to review the lessons of the past in historic localities, to observe social and industrial conditions, to enjoy musical and dramatic art, to study the development of the fine arts, to note the later acquisition of scientific research. But, as our consuls at Geneva and Lucerne and Berne and Zurich tell us, we go to Switzerland for “scenery.”

Switzerland is two hundred and ten miles in length. The Grand Canyon of the Colorado River in northern Arizona is two hundred and nineteen miles long, twelve to thirteen miles wide, and over a mile deep. If the main ranges of the Helvetian Alps, between the centre and the southern frontiers, running from the Bernese Oberland to the Grisons, could be lifted up and dumped into the colossal chasm of Arizona, there would still be left room in which to bury the Jura of the western border. Thousands of American tourists gaze with awe upon the panoramic displays from the view-points of the passes of the Simplon, the Furca, the St. Gotthard, and the Splügen, and from the ascent of the Rigi, Pilatus, Jungfrau, or Matterhorn. Many of our adventurous fellow-citizens contest the palm for hardihood 79and endurance with experienced Alpine climbers; but how few there are who are ambitious enough and venturesome enough to incur the hardships and to risk the dangers of scanning at close range, or from points of vantage, the towers, the temples, the terraces, the ramparts, the pyramids, the domes, the pillars, the buttresses, the buttes, the palisades, the white marble walls, the red sandstone steps, the green serpentine cliffs of the Grand Canyon.

Excursion parties go by way of the Williams branch of the Santa Fé to the rim of the Bright Angel trail because of its accessibility and hotel accommodation, and content themselves with descent of the zigzags to the deeply embedded river, or a drive of a few miles along the brink. But the earnest and determined explorers who follow the hazardous footsteps of the early pioneers, or of the later topographical engineers, are few and far between. There is nothing on earth that even remotely approaches this stupendous chasm in startling surprises, in grandeur and sublimity, yet our tourists ignore its indescribable wonders and go to the Alps for scenery that suffers by comparison.

When it comes to the question of orographic magnitude, our own physical geography gives a decisive answer. The great curve of the Alpine chain stretches from the shores of the Mediterranean to the plains of the Danube—a little more than six hundred miles in length. The narrowest width of the Rocky Mountains, from base to base, is three hundred miles, whereas, at their greatest width, between Cape Mendocino and Denver, the space enclosed by the two outer scarps of the plateau is nearly one thousand miles in breadth. If in measuring the area of the Rocky Mountains we 80include the long Coast Range, the Sierra Nevada and its northern continuation, the Cascade Range, according to the extent of surface they cover, we have a million square miles as the result, more than one-fourth of the territory of the republic.

With such immense differences in view, the vastly greater capabilities of the Rockies for scenic display are apparent. In the endless succession of views from the heights of Pike’s Peak, or Mt. Shasta, or Mt. Lowe, one can forget his most inspiring and exciting experiences in the Alps. Professor J. D. Whitney declares that no such views as those from Pike’s Peak, either for reach or magnificence, can be obtained in Switzerland. Even with the ever-increasing facilities of transcontinental travel, we but dimly realize the majestic proportions of the Rocky Mountain system, which, with its towering snow-capped peaks, its precipitous rock walls, its volcanic vestiges, its abysmal glens and canyons, and its splendid waterfalls, glorifies every landscape, and solves problems, as nowhere else, in chemical, physical, and dynamical geology.

As to comparative altitudes, it may be noted that Mount St. Elias, of the Alaska Coast Range, is three thousand five hundred feet higher than Mont Blanc, “the monarch of mountains,” as Byron calls it, while its namesake, the Sierra Blanca, the monarch of the Rockies, is nearly as lofty with its triple peak. The Rock of Gibraltar towers to the height of twelve hundred feet; its massive counterpart in the Yosemite, El Capitan, is three times as high as Gibraltar, while the great cliff known as Cloud’s Rest, admittedly the finest panoramic stand-point on earth, is more than six thousand feet high and ten thousand above sea level. 81As to glaciers, while it is worth a trip across the Atlantic to see the ice masses of the Rhone glacier from the Furca Pass, or the motionless billows of the Mer de Glace at Montanvert, they are overmatched in Alaska by the Muir, the Guyot, the Tyndall, and the Agassiz.

As to lakes, every school child knows that Lake Superior is the largest body of fresh water in the world. It is large enough to bury the whole of Scotland in its translucent depths. The area of the Lake of Geneva is greater than that of the Yellowstone Lake; but while the former is only twelve hundred feet above the sea, the latter is seven thousand seven hundred and forty feet—nearly a mile and a half—above the level of the sea. As to salt lakes, the Caspian Sea is not as salt as the ocean, while our American Dead Sea, the Salt Lake of Utah, has six times the saline strength of the waters of the ocean.

There is a lake in Italy—Castiglione—whose turquoise hues, paler than those of the Blue Grotto of Capri, command merited admiration. Yet the prismatic lakes in the Yellowstone Park are numerous, particularly in the Midway Geyser Basin, where they reflect with remarkable brilliancy different colors of the spectrum, prominently among them emerald green, peacock blue, and golden yellow. The most beautiful mirror lakes are in the Sierra Nevada region, and the gem of all mirrors is that of the Yosemite Valley, of which Mr. Hutchings, the historian and geographer of the valley, says,—

“There is one spot of earth known to man, where one mountain four thousand two hundred feet high, Mt. Watkins; another over six thousand feet, Cloud’s Rest; and another five thousand feet, the Half Dome, are all perfectly reflected upon one small lakelet. Here, moreover, 82the sun can be seen to rise many times on a single morning.”

In the lake district of the north of England there are sixteen lakes, with many attractive features, but largely centres of pilgrimage as the homes of Southey, Wordsworth, Coleridge, De Quincey, and Harriet Martineau. Our Canadian neighbors, in the highlands of Ontario, can point to eight hundred lakes in the Muskoka region, with five hundred islands studded with beautiful villas and summer hotels. Two of the Swiss waterfalls, the Falls of the Rhine at Neuhausen, with a plunge of eighty feet in three leaps, and the falls of the Aar at Handeck, with a broken plunge of two hundred feet, are said to be the largest in Europe. The former is surpassed in picturesque beauty by the Virginia Cascade of the Gibbon River in the Yellowstone Park, and the latter is not worth naming in the same week with the Lower Falls of the Yellowstone River, as, with a magnificent sweep of three hundred and ten feet, the heavy downpour, with its clouds of snowy spray, enters the canyon which is the culmination of all the bewildering “formations” of the great national reservation.

The cascades of the Reuss, near Andermatt, are justly famous for their tumultuous rush, but the rapids of the Gardiner River in the Yellowstone, and the Merced in the Yosemite, are more boisterous and more beautiful. The much vaunted Giessbach in the Bernese Oberland has a total fall of one thousand one hundred and forty-eight feet, but it is broken into seven sections. Of the various falls in the Yosemite Valley, the highest has a descent of two thousand six hundred feet, with only two interruptions, the upper division having a clear plunge of one thousand six hundred feet. Among great cataracts, 83as every one knows, Niagara holds the supremacy. In the majesty and sublimity reflected in the overwhelming torrents that are hurled over its precipice, in the resistless energy of its roaring rapids and its turbulent whirlpools, it sets its own standard, and “bears no brother near the throne.”

Caves and grottoes, calcareous and basaltic, are widely spread throughout Europe, but, numerous as they are, if they were all grouped together they could be packed in the heights and depths of the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky. Of that stupendous cavern, with a main avenue of six miles and branches of more than a hundred miles in extent, Bayard Taylor said,—

“No description can do justice to its sublimity, or present a fair picture of its manifold wonders. It is the greatest natural curiosity I have ever visited, and he whose expectations are not satisfied by its marvellous avenues, domes, and sparry grottoes, must be either a fool or a demigod.”

The historic caves of Europe abound with the remains of ancient cave-dwellers which are of great interest to archæologists, but the lofty and almost inaccessible abodes of the cliff-dwellers in Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona present a wider range of curious inquiry to the student of remote antiquity. Scientists propose to make more extended and comprehensive investigation of these hewn-out homes of the cliff-dwellers in the far West than has yet been made by neglectful explorers. In the ruins of the habitations of a long extinct race in Mancos Canyon, Colorado, they will find abundant material for anthropological research. Perched on narrow ledges seven hundred feet above the valley are numerous ancient dwellings, with well built sandstone 84walls, with rooms in a good state of preservation, and with scattered specimens of fine pottery and fragments of implements of war and peace. Here and there are watch-towers commanding views of the whole valley.

In the Chaco Canyon are ruins of pueblos still more extensive, once the homes of thousands of people who lived thousands of years ago, and, according to Hayden, in the Geological Survey for 1866, “pre-eminently the finest examples of the works of the unknown builders to be found north of the seat of ancient Aztec empire in Mexico.” A few miles southeast of Flagstaff, Arizona, are more of these retreats far up on rocky crags, and within a similar radius northward are many cave dwellings, but they only stimulate conjecture; they have left behind neither history nor tradition.

The pride of Vernayaz in the Rhone Valley is the Gorge du Trient. Very pretty, and very interesting, what there is of it, but a comparison with Watkins Glen reminds one of Hamlet’s “no more like my father than I to Hercules.” In the splendid description of Watkins by Porte Crayon it appears that that enthusiast was so fascinated by its wonderful succession of attractions, especially those between Glen Alpha and the Cathedral Cascade, that he prolonged his stay, climbing its ladders and descending its stairways again and again. Half an hour would have sufficed for a visit to the Trient.

The boast of the Splügen is the gorge of the Heinzenberg range, through which the four-mile Via Mala runs, and which is the outlet of the Hinter Rhine. Yet this narrow defile between ridges twelve to fifteen hundred feet in height is completely overshadowed in the length and height and ruggedness of the rock walls of 85the Arkansas, Eagle, and Grand River Canyons, through which the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad passes in Colorado. Our natural bridges have no transatlantic rivals. They are distinctly our own, without duplications abroad. For any favorable comparison with the majestic arch over Cedar Creek, in Virginia, two hundred feet from the summit of its wonderful span to the surface of the stream below, we must look to its resemblances in Walker County, Alabama, and Christian County, Kentucky. California abounds with rock bridges, notably those over Lost River, Trinity River, and Coyote Creek, while the arches at Santa Cruz are well known to all visitors.

Travellers over the St. Gotthard Railway, between Goschenen and Altorf, are apt to regard the forward and backward turns of its loops with wonder at the constructive genius which so boldly and skilfully triumphed over formidable natural obstacles. Yet its loops cut a small figure and look tame enough when placed in contrast with the coils and spirals and sharp curves and bends in the dizzy alignment of the Marshall Pass, the Veta Pass, the Ophir Loop, and the Toltec Gorge. Stupendous and awe-inspiring beyond description are these supreme achievements of modern engineering.

The woodlands of England, and prominently among them Sherwood Forest, boast of very old and very large oaks, elms, and yews. Visitors to Stoke Pogis church-yard, the scene of Gray’s Elegy, will remember the Burnham Beeches, near Slough. The Methuselah of the forests is the Greendale Oak of Welbeck, through which, a hundred and fifty years ago, an arch was cut ten feet high and six feet wide. The largest tree, the Swilcar 86Oak of Needwood Forest, is twenty-one feet in girth. But in age and dimensions they shrink before the giant growths of California. Of the surprises of the far West, few, if any, are as profoundly impressive as the Sequoias of the Mariposa, Calaveras, and South Park groves, more than eighteen hundred in number. Even the stately redwoods of Vera Cruz, of the sempervirens family, on the Coast Range, though inferior in diameter and height to the gigantea, or “big tree” group, amaze all beholders. The “Wawona” in the Mariposa Grove, twenty-seven feet in diameter, has been tunnelled to admit the passage of stage coaches. The age of the “Grizzly Giant” is estimated at 4680 years. Still older is the prostrate monarch of the Calaveras Grove, known as the “Father of the Forest,” with a circumference of a hundred and ten feet, and a height when standing of four hundred and thirty-five feet. Hundreds of these time-defying veterans had attained a considerable growth before the siege of Troy.

Next to the big trees in point of popular and scientific interest are the fossil forests, especially those in the northeastern part of the Yellowstone Park. The geological agencies through which the trees were petrified must have extended through periods of many thousand years. It was a tedious process, the percolation of silicious waters until the arboreal vegetation was turned to stone by the substitution of agate and amethyst and jasper and chalcedony. Some of the petrifactions are perfect. The rings of annual growth indicate for the large trees an age of not less than five hundred years.

The monoliths, which in the form of castellated rocks, chimney rocks, and cathedral spires, serve as landmarks of nature’s handiwork, are very imposing. The sugarloaf 87columns among the fantastic sandstone erosions of Monument Park, and the Tower Rock, prominent in the Garden of the Gods at Manitou, are frequently visited. Not less interesting are the Witches’ Rocks in Weber Canyon, Utah, the Monument Rock in Echo Canyon, the Buttes of Green River, and the Dial Rock and Red Buttes, Wyoming. One pinnacle, in Kanab Canyon, just north of the Arizona line, is eight hundred feet in height.

Among the noteworthy creations of the artist-gardeners of Europe, who have not learned “the art to conceal art,” are the Palmgarten at Frankfort, the Boboli Gardens at Florence, the Pallavicini at Genoa, and the Parterre at Fontainebleau. Their redundant embellishment and sharp-cut box hedges, their long perspective of vistas and alleys, the mathematical precision of their terraces, their ponds and fountains and grottoes and stone carvings become wearisome by familiarity. For landscape gardening that never tires we turn to the floral wealth in the grounds of the Hotel del Monte on the bay of Monterey, a hundred and twenty-six acres of fairy-land. Between the prodigal liberality of nature and the prodigal expenditure of cultivated taste, and in view of its alluring surroundings of ocean, mountain, and forest scenery, it is justly regarded as the loveliest and most favored spot in existence.

The Yellowstone National Park is the crowning wonder of our wonderlands. Within an area of 3312 square miles, exclusive of the additional tract known as the Forest Reserve, it includes several ranges of high mountains, three large rivers with their tributaries, thirty-six lakes, and twenty-five waterfalls. The ancient volcanic energy whose subterranean outpourings disappeared 88in remote ages, leaving the scars and cones behind, has been replaced by eruptive geysers, or water volcanoes, in frequently described groups or basins, together with thousands of non-eruptive hot springs, and the calcareous terraces with their exquisite incrustations. Champlin says that the geysers at the headwaters of the Yellowstone and Missouri rivers are the most wonderful on the globe, those in Iceland and New Zealand sinking into insignificance when compared with them. The usual tour of a week or ten days terminates in a visit to the climax of scenic grandeur, the canyon of the Yellowstone River, with its walls of gorgeous coloring, “all the colors of the land, sea, and sky,” as Talmage said.

No description of this canyon, however complete in its details, no effort of the photographer or the landscape artist, however painstaking and elaborate, can give an adequate idea of its marvellous beauty and impressiveness. Twenty years ago one of the leading landscape painters of Germany went to the Yellowstone Park to sketch the views of the canyon from Point Lookout, below the Falls, and Inspiration Point, three-quarters of a mile beyond. In the fascination of the scene he remained for hours, silenced and bewildered, and finally gave up all attempt to delineate it on canvas. He returned again and again, several summers in succession, but was never able to “screw his courage to the sticking-point.” The artist Moran, with injudicious boldness, attempted what his superior had found beyond his reach, and, as was to be expected, with resultant failure and disappointment.

So with the indescribable beauties of the Yosemite Valley and the wonders of the Grand Canyon of the 89Colorado River. No stereoscopic reflex, no moving panorama, no vitagraph can even faintly approach the point of adequate representation. The only way to realize such sublimity is to stand in its presence, awed and abashed by creations whose stupendous character has no rival in the world. “None but itself can be its parallel.”

In the midst of a desolate alkali plain, in the Bad Lands of Arizona, is a formation of rock about an acre in extent, from fissures in which emanate melodious sounds, as though unseen hands were playing upon an instrument underneath, or the wind were sweeping among organ-like stalactites in a subterranean cavern. But while such “shallows murmur, the deeps are dumb.” In the presence of the might and majesty of the marvels and miracles of creation, silence is more eloquent than speech. The still, small voice of nature’s teachings, “from all around, earth and her waters and the depths of air,” speaks to us beyond the power of words.

As to our mineral springs, they are like the stars for multitude, presenting every variety. Some of our thermal springs, for example the hot, vaporous sulphur caves of Glenwood, Colorado, are constantly demonstrating their restorative efficiency. There is no need of resort to the hot waters of Carlsbad or the cold waters of Marienbad, to Aix la Chapelle or Kissingen.

As to ideal retreats for campers and fishers, limitless fields for hunters, and favoring chances for seekers of precious metals, the boundless continent is theirs; they are welcome guests of Lady Bountiful.

OUR LANGUAGE — Lingua Anglicana — The Alphabet — Phonetic Changes — Americanisms — Spelling Exercises — A Spelling Lesson — Dream of a Spelling-Bee — The Longest Words — Trifles — A Perplexing Word — Verbal Conceits — Philological Contrarieties — The Aspirate — Alliterative Tribute to Swinburne — Vulcan — Compressing the Alphabet — Alphabetical Fancies — Palindromes — Words Wrong, Pronunciation Right — The Power of Short Words — Legal Verbosity — Prayers Constructed with Elaborate Skill — Its — Rough — Either and Neither — If — Words that will not be put Down — Changes in Pronunciation — Pronunciation of Proper Names — Bryant’s Index Expurgatorious — Stilted Scientific Phraseology — Metaphorical Conceits — Guess — A Message from England

“The Egyptian Origin of our Alphabet” was the subject of a paper read before the New York Academy of Sciences by Dr. Charles E. Moldeuke, the Egyptologist. Two large charts on the wall showed in forty parallel columns the evolution of the various letters of the alphabet from the Egyptian hieroglyph through the Phœnician, Hebrew, and Greek to the Latin forms.

The common opinion, said the lecturer, that the Phœnicians invented the alphabet, is entirely unfounded; they merely adopted twenty-two letters from the Egyptians in 600 B.C. and then spread them as their own alphabet through Greece and Italy. The letters 91we use now go back to Egypt before the time of Moses and have represented practically the sounds in the same order for six thousand years.

No nation keeps the sound of its language unaltered through many centuries; sounds change as well as grammatical forms, though they may endure longer, so that the symbols do not retain their proper values; often, too, several different sounds come to be denoted by the same symbol; and in strictness the alphabet should be changed to correspond to all these changes. But little inconvenience is practically caused by the tacit acceptance of the old symbol to express the new sound; indeed, the change in language is so gradual that the variations in the values of the symbols is imperceptible. It is only when we attempt to reproduce the exact sounds of the English language of less than three centuries ago that we realize the fact that if Shakespeare could now stand on our stage he would seem to us to speak in an unknown tongue; though one of his plays, when written, is as perfectly intelligible now as then.

Professor W. D. Whitney remarks that the intent of the alphabet is to furnish a sign for every articulate sound of the spoken language, whether vowel or consonant; and its ideal is realized when there are practically just as many written characters as sounds, and each has its own unvarying value, so that the written language is an accurate and unambiguous reflection of the spoken. This state of things is not wont to prevail continuously in any given language; for, in the history of a literary 92language, the words change their mode of utterance, or their spoken form, while their mode of spelling, or their written form, remains unaltered; so that the spelling comes to be historical instead of phonetic, or to represent former instead of present pronunciation. Such is, to a certain extent, the character of our English spelling, but very incompletely and irregularly, and with intermixture of arbitrariness and even blunders of every kind; it is an evil that is tolerated, and by many even clung to and extolled, because it is familiar, and a reform would be attended with great difficulties, and productive for a time of yet greater inconvenience.

Richard Grant White classifies so-called Americanisms as follows:

1. Words and phrases of American origin.

2. Perverted English words.

3. Obsolete English words commonly used in America.

4. English words American by inflection or modification.

5. Sayings of American origin.

6. Vulgarisms, cant, and slang.

7. Words brought by colonists from the continent of Europe.

8. Names of American things.

9. Individualisms.

10. Doubtful and miscellaneous.

All words and phrases that could by the largest and most liberal use of the term be called Americanisms may be properly ranked in one of these classes.

The following short sentence was dictated by the late Lord Palmerston to eleven Cabinet ministers, not one of whom, it is said, spelled it correctly:

“It is disagreeable to witness the embarrassment of a harassed pedler gauging the symmetry of a peeled potato.”

Lord Cecil, in the House of Commons, quoted the following lines, which he said were given as a dictation exercise by an assistant commissioner to the children of a school in Ipswich:

The absurdity of that Indian grunt in our language, “ugh,” is shown in the following:

Hugh Gough, of Boroughbridge, was a rough soldier on furlough, but a man of doughty deeds in war, though before he fought for this country he was a thorough dough-faced ploughman. His horse having been houghed in an engagement with the enemy, Hugh was taken prisoner, and, I ought to add, was kept on a short enough clough of food, and suffered from drought as well as from hunger. Having, on his return home, drank too large a draught of usquebaugh, he became intoxicated, 94and was laughing, coughing, and hiccoughing by a trough, against which he sought to steady himself. There he was accosted by another rough, who showed him a chough which he had caught on a clough near, also the slough of a snake, which he held at the end of a tough bough of eugh-tree, and which his shaggy shough had found and had brought to him from the entrance to a sough which ran through and drained a slough that was close to a lough in the neighborhood.

The most skilful gauger we ever knew was a maligned cobbler, armed with a poniard, who drove a pedler’s wagon, using a mullein-stalk as an instrument of coercion, to tyrannize over his pony shod with calks. He was a Galilean Sadducee, and he had a phthisicky catarrh, diphtheria, and the bilious intermittent erysipelas. A certain Sibyl, with the sobriquet of “Gypsy,” went into ecstasies of cachinnation at seeing him measure a bushel of peas; and separate saccharine tomatoes from a heap of peeled potatoes, without dyeing or singeing the ignitible queue which he wore, or becoming paralyzed with a hemorrhage. Lifting her eyes to the ceiling of the cupola of the Capitol to conceal her unparalleled embarrassment, making a rough courtesy, and not harassing him with mystifying, rarefying, and stupefying innuendoes, she gave him a couch, a bouquet of lilies, mignonette, and fuchsias, a treatise on mnemonics, a copy of the Apocrypha in hieroglyphics, daguerreotypes of Mendelssohn and Kosciusko, a kaleidoscope, a dramphial of ipecacuanha, a teaspoonful of naphtha, for deleble purposes, a ferrule, a clarionet, some licorice, 95a surcingle, a carnelian of symmetrical proportions, a chronometer with a movable balance-wheel, a box of dominoes, and a catechism. The gauger, who was also a trafficking rectifier and a parishioner of a distinguished ecclesiastic, preferring a woollen surtout (his choice was referable to a vacillating occasionally occurring idiosyncrasy), wofully uttered this apothegm: “Life is checkered; but schism, apostasy, heresy, and villany shall be punished.” The Sibyl apologizingly answered, “There is a ratable and allegeable difference between a conferrable ellipsis and a trisyllabic diæresis.” We replied in trochees, not impugning her suspicion.

The following sentence won a prize offered in England for the longest twelve-word telegram: “Administrator-General’s counter-revolutionary intercommunications 96uncircumstantiated. Quartermaster-General’s disproportionableness characteristically contra-distinguished unconstitutionalist’s incomprehensibilities.” It is said that the telegraph authorities accepted it as a despatch of twelve words.

The statement, upon the publication of a new English dictionary, that the longest word in the language is “disproportionableness” was met by pointing to a still longer word employed by the Parnellites at the time of the disestablishment of the Irish Church, in 1S71,—“disestablishmentarianism,” which found its way into the House of Commons, and another, quoted from a theological work,—“anthropomorphologically.” These are likely to hold the record, at least outside of the names of chemical compounds and their derivatives, such as trioxymethylanthraquinonic, or dichlorhydroquinonedisulphonic, which outstrip all reckoning.

There is an old farce called “Cryptochonchoidsyphonostomata” which was revived by Mr. Charles Collette, a London actor, several years ago, and was extensively advertised in the London press, to the dismay of the compositors and proof-readers.

One of the funniest long words is necrobioneopaleonthydrockthonanthropopithekology. That, of course, is not an English word, though it is in an English book,—Kingsley’s “Water Babies.” It means the science of life and death of man and monkeys in by-gone times, as well as one can make it out. It is a word invented by Kingsley.

The clown Costard, in Love’s Labour’s Lost, addressing the schoolmaster, says, “Thou art not so long by the head as honorificabilitudinitatibus.”

97In Beaumont and Fletcher’s Mad Lover, the Fool says,—

Referring to Shakespeare’s appropriation of this ponderous word, which first appeared in a volume entitled “The Complaynt of Scotland,” published at St. Andrew’s in 1548, a commentator says,—

“The splendid procession-word honorificabilitudinitatibus has been pressed into the service of the Baconian theory as containing the cipher initiohi ludi Fr. Bacona, or some other silly trash. The word was no doubt a stock example of the longest Latin word, as the Aristophanic compound ὀρθοφοιτοσυχοφαντοδιχοταλαιπωροι is of the longest Greek word, and was very probably a reminiscence of Shakespeare’s school-days, as the distich

is of our own.”

A smart girl in Vassar claims that Phtholognyrrh should be pronounced Turner, and gives this little table to explain her theory:

An ignorant Yorkshireman, having occasion to go to France, was surprised on his arrival to hear the men 98speaking French, the women speaking French, and the children jabbering away in the same tongue. In the height of the perplexity which this occasioned he retired to his hotel, and was awakened in the morning by the cock crowing, whereupon he burst into a wild exclamation of astonishment and delight, crying, “Thank goodness, there’s English at last!”

An Irish gentleman writes to Truth to say that he has never found a Frenchman who can pronounce this: “Thimblerig Thristlethwaite thievishly thought to thrive through thick and thin by throwing his thimbles about, but he was thwarted and thwacked and thumped and thrashed with thirty-three thousand thistles and thorns for thievishly thinking to thrive through thick and through thin by throwing the thimbles about.”

Scene at Continental kursaal: English party at card table—“Hello, we are two to two.” English party at opposite table—“We are two to two, to.” German spectator, who “speaks English,” to companion who is acquiring the language—“Vell, now you see how dis is. Off you want to gife expression to yourself in English all you have to do is to blay mit der French horn!”

In the “Reminiscences of Holland House” is the following anecdote of Voltaire: “While learning the English language (which he did not love), finding that the word plague, with six letters, was monosyllabic, and ague, with only the last four letters of plague, dissyllabic, 99he expressed a wish that the plague might take one-half of the English language, and the ague the other.”

“Bob,” said Tom, “which is the most dangerous word to pronounce in the English language?”

“Don’t know,” said Bob, “unless it’s a swearing word.”

“Pooh!” said Tom, “it’s stumbled, because you are sure to get a tumble between the first and last letter.”

“Ha! ha!” said Bob. “Now I’ve one for you. I found it one day in the paper. Which is the longest word in the English language?”

“Valetudinarianism,” said Tom, promptly.

“No, sir; it’s smiles, because there’s a whole mile between the first and the last letter.”

“Ho! ho!” cried Tom, “that’s nothing. I know a word that has over three miles between its beginning and ending.”

“What’s that?” asked Bob, faintly.

“Beleaguered,” said Tom.

A gentleman, having an appointment with another who was habitually unpunctual, to his great surprise found him waiting. He thus addressed him: “Why, I see you are here first at last. You were always behind before, but I am glad to see you have become early of late.”

When Mr. Justice Hawkins of the English Queen’s Bench was a leader at the bar, he appeared in a shipping case before the late Baron Channel, who was a little shaky with his aspirates. The name of the vessel about which the dispute had arisen was Hannah; but Hawkins’s “junior,” in utter desperation, said to him, “Is the ship the Anna or the Hannah, for his lordship says one thing and every one else says another?” “The ship,” said Hawkins, in reply, “was named the Hannah, but the H has been lost in the chops of the Channel!”

In “Much Ado About Nothing,” where Beatrice is touched with her first love longing for Benedict, occurs this passage:

“Beat. ’Tis almost five o’clock, cousin. ’Tis time you were ready. By my troth I am exceeding ill; heigh ho!

Margaret. For a hawk, a horse, or a husband?

Beat. For the letter that begins them all, h.”

This is supposed to be a poor pun on ache, but be that as it may, it seems clear that Margaret must have been supposed to sound the aspirate clearly in each of the words she used. Had she said, “For an ’awk, an ’orse, or an ’usband,” Beatrice’s joke about the letter h, which in that case would not have been used at all, would have been absurd. On this single illustration one might build quite an argument to show that Shakespeare did not drop his h’s.

When the following sentence of forty-eight letters first appeared, it was regarded as the shortest in the 102English language capable of containing all the letters of the alphabet:—

“John P. Brady gave me a black walnut box of quite a small size.”

But this was improved upon by a sentence of thirty-three letters containing the twenty-six letters of the alphabet:

“A quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.”

Another sentence of thirty-three letters is the following:

“J. Gray—Pack with my box five dozen quills.”

With a change in construction this is reduced by one letter, making thirty-two:

“Pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs.”

A gentleman travelling in a railway carriage was endeavoring, with considerable earnestness, to impress some argument upon a fellow-passenger who was seated opposite to him, and who appeared rather dull of apprehension. At length, being slightly irritated, he exclaimed, in a louder tone, “Why, sir, it’s as plain as A B C!” “That may be,” quietly replied the other, “but I am D E F!”

This alphabetical rhyme on “Naughty Janie” appeared in Longman’s Magazine:

A laughable incident once took place upon a trial in Lancashire, where the Rev. Mr. Wood was examined as a witness. Upon giving his name, Ottiwell Wood, the judge, addressing the reverend parson, said, “Pray, Mr. Wood, how do you spell your name?” The old gentleman replied, “O double T, I double U, E double L, double U, double O, D.” Upon which the astonished lawyer laid down his pen, saying it was the most extraordinary name he had ever met in his life, and after two or three attempts, declared he was unable to record it. The court was convulsed with laughter.

A saloon-keeper, having started business in a place where trunks had been made, asked a friend what he had better do with the old sign, “Trunk Factory.”

“Oh,” said the friend, “just change the T to D, and it will suit you exactly.”

A palindrome is a word, sentence, or verse that reads the same, forward and backward, from left to right, or from right to left. The Latin language abounds with palindromes, but there are few good ones in English. The following will serve as specimens.

The last has been extended to: “No, it is opposed; art sees trade’s opposition.” In Yreka, California, is a baker’s sign which maybe called a natural palindrome: “Yreka Bakery.”

The following is an illustration of pronunciation and spelling in the use of wrong words which have the same pronunciation as the right words, and which, properly read, would sound right. A rite suite little buoy, the sun of a grate kernal, with a rough about his neck, flue up the rode swift as eh dear. After a thyme he stopped at a gnu house and wrang the belle. His tow hurt hymn, and he kneaded wrest. He was two tired to raze his fare pail face. A feint mown of pane rows from his lips. The made who herd the belle was about to pair a pare, but she through it down and ran with all her mite, for fear her guessed would not weight. Butt, when she saw the little won, tiers stood in her eyes at the site. “Ewe poor dear! Why, due yew lye hear! Are yew dyeing?” “Know,” he said, “I am feint two thee corps.” She boar him inn her arms, as she aught, too a room where he mite bee quiet, gave him bred and meet, held cent under his knows, tied his choler, rapped him warmly, gave him some suite drachm 105from a viol, till at last he went fourth hail as a young hoarse. His eyes shown, his cheek was as read as a flour, and he gambled a hole our.

Secretary Stanton, while in charge of the War Department during our sectional conflict, had a curt way of doing things and a desire to attain his ends by the shortest possible roads. Hence his fondness for monosyllables. Ex-Governor Letcher, of Virginia, was taken prisoner during the war and confined in prison in Washington. After the lapse of two months and a half, he managed to get released on parole, and this was Stanton’s characteristic order and the whole of it,—

Washington, D. C., July 25, 1863.—John Letcher is hereby paroled. He will go home by the same road he came here, and will stay there and keep quiet.

Twenty-one words in all, besides the proper names and date, and eighteen of them monosyllables.

During the life of John Bright the Pall Mall Gazette said, “An admirer of Mr. Bright writes to a Manchester paper that he discovered the secret of the power this great speaker possessed of riveting the attention of his audience. This he believes to lie in the fact that he used monosyllables very largely. The grand passage in Mr. Bright’s speech on the Burials bill describing a Quaker funeral begins, ‘I will take the case of my own sect,’ and on counting the words of that remarkable oration it will be found that out of one hundred 106and ninety words one hundred and forty-nine, more than seventy-five per cent., were monosyllables. On this it is urged that those in charge of youth should teach them the use of monosyllables. An American journal lately mentioned a school where such pains had been taken to instruct the boys in the art of public speaking that if they had learned nothing else they had acquired the greatest contempt for all the devices of stump oratory. The prescribed course of study leaves much to the imagination, but doubtless includes the translation into monosyllables of the ponderous verbiage which passes current in most political assemblies as genuine eloquence. It would, however, be cruel to insist on the introduction of such teaching into any of the ‘standards.’ Many are obliged to speak who have less to say than Mr. Bright, and to them the sesquipedalia verba are indispensable.”

An old Missouri deed for forty acres of land is a good illustration of legal verbiage. It conveys “all and singular—appurtenances, appendages, advowsons, benefits, commons, curtilages, cow-houses, corncribs, dairies, dovecotes, easements, emoluments, freeholds, features, furniture, fixtures, gardens, homestalls, improvements, immunities, limekilns, meadows, marshes, mines, minerals, orchards, parks, pleasure grounds, pigeon houses, pigstyes, quarries, remainders, reversions, rents, rights, ways, water courses, windmills, together with every other necessary right, immunity, privilege and advantage of whatsoever name, nature or description.”

Dean Goulburn points out that the words employed in the Collects in the Book of Common Prayer are the purest and best English known, “representing to us our language when it was in full vigor and just about reaching its prime;” and that in the arrangement of the words, the balancing of clauses, and the giving unity to the whole composition, the composers and translators have been as happy as in their choice of words. “Let any one,” he adds, “try to write (say) an epitaph with as much unity of design, as much point, as much elegance, and as much brevity as the Collects are written with, and in proportion to the difficulty which he finds in achieving such a task will the elaborate skill with which these prayers have been constructed rise in his estimation.” Dean Goulburn has not exaggerated the rhythmical movement and the singular felicity of expression which mark the Collects; indeed, one has only to compare them with the prayers published on special occasions by modern archbishops, or with any modern forms of prayer, to see their superiority, not only in choice of language, but in compression of thought.

The word ITS, the possessive case of the neuter pronoun it, originally written his, appears neither in Cruden’s nor in Young’s Concordance. It was not known to the translators of King James’ version of the Bible, who had to resort to circumlocution for want of that little pronoun. It has been assumed, therefore, that it is not to be found in the Sacred Scriptures. Nevertheless, 108it occurs in the fifth verse of the twenty-fifth chapter of Leviticus, as follows:

“That which groweth of its own accord of thy harvest thou shalt not reap.”

Dickens, in “All the Year Round,” objects to the “softening of ruffian into rough, which has lately become popular.” Yet the use of the noun rough as applied to a coarse, violent, riotous fellow, a bully, instead of being a recent creation, dates back to the Elizabethan period. In Motley’s “History of the United Netherlands” in the description of the death of Queen Elizabeth (iv. 183), we are told:

“The great queen, moody, despairing, dying, wrapt in profoundest thought, with eyes fixed upon the ground or already gazing into infinity, was besought by the counsellors around her to name the man to whom she chose that the crown should devolve. ‘Not to a Rough,’ said Elizabeth, sententiously and grimly.”

Richard Grant White, in his “Words and Their Uses,” says, “The pronunciation of either and neither has been much disputed, but, it would seem, needlessly. The best usage is even more controlling in pronunciation than in other departments of language; but usage itself is guided, although not constrained, by analogy. The analogically correct pronunciation of these words is what is called the Irish one, ayther and nayther; the 109diphthong having the sound it has in a large family of words in which the diphthong ei is the emphasized vowel sound—weight, freight, deign, vein, obeisance, etc. This sound, too, has come down from Anglo-Saxon times, the word in that language being aegper; and there can be no doubt that in this, as in some other respects, the language of the educated Irish Englishman is analogically correct, and in conformity to ancient custom. His pronunciation of certain syllables in ei which have acquired in English usage the sound of e long, as, for example, conceit, receive, and which he pronounces consayt, resayve, is analogically and historically correct. E had of old the sound of a long and i the sound of e, particularly in words which came to us from or through the Norman French. But ayther and nayther, being antiquated and Irish, analogy and the best usage require the common pronunciation eether and neether. For the pronunciation i-ther and ni-ther, with the i long, which is sometimes heard, there is no authority either of analogy or of the best speakers. It is an affectation, and in this country, a copy of a second-rate British affectation. Persons of the best education and the highest social position in England generally say eether and neether.”

When Philip of Macedon wrote to the Spartan ephors, “If I enter Laconia I will level Lacedæmon to the ground,” he received for answer the single but significant “If.” This is, perhaps, the finest example of laconic utterance on record, and was, indeed, worthy of the people who gave not only a local habitation but name to pithy and sententious speech.

Allusions to the introductions and changes of words meet us constantly in our reading. Thus “banter,” “mob,” “bully,” “bubble,” “sham,” “shuffling,” and “palming” were new words in the Tatler’s day, who writes: “I have done my utmost for some years past to stop the progress of ‘mob’ and ‘banter,’ but have been plainly borne down by numbers, and betrayed by those who promised to assist me.” Reconnoitre, and other French terms of war, are ridiculed as innovations in the Spectator. Skate was a new word in Swift’s day. “To skate, if you know what that means,” he writes to Stella. “There is a new word coined within a few months,” says Fuller, “called fanatics.” Locke was accused of affectation in using idea instead of notion. “We have been obliged,” says the World, “to adopt the word police from the French.” We read in another number, “I assisted at the birth of that most significant word flirtation, which dropped from the most beautiful mouth in the world, and which has since received the sanction of our most accurate Laureate in one of his comedies.” Ignore was once sacred to grand juries. “In the interest of” has been quoted in our time as a slang phrase just coming into meaning. Bore has wormed itself into polite use within the memory of man. Wrinkle is quietly growing into use in its secondary slang sense. Muff may be read from the pen of a grave lady, writing on a grave subject, to express her serious scorn.

Tea was pronounced tay. In Pope’s “Rape of the Lock,” we have:

Also, in the same poem:

a rhyme which cannot be accounted for by negligence in Pope, for Pope was never negligent in his rhymes.

A hundred and fifty years ago, are was pronounced air. Note, for example, the following couplet of George Withers:

The Mexican Indians pronounce the name of their country with the accent on the second syllable (the penult), Mex-i´co. The Dakotas pronounce their name Dak´o-ta. The accent on Wy-o´ming is on the second syllable, though Campbell places it on the first:

Goldsmith, in The Traveller, accents the penult in Niagara:

Moore, in “The Fudge Family,” conforms to the modern pronunciation:

112In Braham’s song, “The Death of Nelson,” the second syllable is accented:

But Byron, in “Childe Harold,” lays stress on the last syllable:

Repeated in “Don Juan,” i. 4; also in the Prologue to Scott’s Marmion.

In the “Lay of the Last Minstrel,” Carlisle is accented on the first syllable:

Pope, in his translation of the “Iliad,” says,—

Shakespeare employs the name as a dissyllable:

Lady M. Wortley Montagu following Spenser’s “Then came hot Ju´ly boiling like to fire,” accented July on the first syllable:

During William C. Bryant’s editorial management of the New York Evening Post, he attached to the walls of the rooms of the sub-editors and reporters a list of prohibited words. It would be a substantial benefit to 113“English undefiled” if a similar list were adopted and insisted upon by every American newspaper. For our newspapers have a manifest influence in determining the growth and character of our language, and it behooves them to do their best to preserve its purity. But this is a far less easy thing to do than most persons would imagine; and, if forbidden words do occasionally slip into the columns of the newspaper, it must be a blemish such as, in some shape and degree, is supposed to be inseparable from all human productions. Most of the writing on the modern daily newspaper is necessarily the work of that enterprising, wide-a-wake class known as reporters. They “shoot on the wing,” look more to present effect than to classic correctness in their writing, and are, none of them, purists in literary style.

The English language has never had any well defined and universally recognized laws of its own. In its literature it began with the time when every writer was a law unto himself, and it has never fully outgrown that condition. Nor can all the Trenches and Goulds and Grant Whites in existence mould it into any arbitrarily correct shape. It is a mixture of various tongues, and is drawing to itself, every year, a considerable number of additional words from the most diverse and curious sources, and especially from the other leading languages. It may in time—who knows?—become the universal language, the one which is to be the lingual Moses to lead the world out of the wilderness of the curse of Babel, and give to all people a common vehicle of communication. In this view of the case, the liberties taken by the ingenious and inventive newspaper reporter may be regarded as important and useful. The dictionaries wait upon the newspapers, and slowly accept and take to themselves, 114as English words, the intruders which a year or two before looked so strange in the newspapers, but which custom has rendered not only familiar, but seemingly necessary.

Here is Mr. Bryant’s list of forbidden words:

115To this list might be added without as the synonym of unless,—e. g., “I would not proceed without he agreed;” directly for as soon as,—e. g., “I gave him the letter directly I saw him;” apprehend for think, fancy, believe, imagine; from hence, from thence, from whence; mutual applied to persons (“our mutual friend”) instead of limiting it to actions, sentiments, affections; try and for try to; but that,—e. g., “he never doubts but that he knows their intentions;” widow-lady or widow-woman, though those who use these expressions never say widower-gentleman or widower-man. To the phrase in Mr. Bryant’s list in our midst, which is no better than in our middle, and very different from “in the midst of,” etc., may be added the never ending, still beginning in this connection, instead of “in connection with the foregoing,” etc. Even more careless and more thoughtless on the part of our best writers and speakers—not the vulgarians who use like in place of as—is the constant misuse of the phrase of all others. As Mr. Gould remarks, “How one thing can be of other things, is the question. One thing can be above other things, but it cannot be of them. A thing can be of all things, the most; or of all things, the richest, etc., or, of a class, the best; but the introduction of ‘others’ into the phrases in question excludes from the ‘class’ or from the ‘all,’ the very thing named.” A common blunder is the use of the past for the present tense when the writer or speaker wishes to express an existing fact,—e. g., “the truth was that A struck the first blow,” instead of the truth is. What is the more remarkable is the use of a verb in the past tense with an infinitive in the past tense, which is frequently met with in English literature. For example, Dr. Johnson says, “Had this been the fate 116of Tasso, he would have been able to have celebrated the condescension of your majesty in noble language.” Alison says, “It was expected that his first act would have been to have sent for Lords Grey and Grenville.” How much more simple as well as more correct to say to celebrate and to send.

The “big words” of science are often necessary and useful, expressing what cannot be made clear to the student in any other way, but they are sometimes mere verbiage and mean no more than their common equivalents. It goes without saying that in this latter case the true scholar uses the short, plain word. He who writes in six-syllabled words for the mere pleasure of astounding the multitude is not apt to have very much solid thought to express. Some good advice on this subject, which is worthy the serious attention of other scientific men than students of medicine, was given to the students of the Chicago Medical College by Dr. Edmund Andrews, in an introductory address, from which the following paragraphs are taken:

It is amusing and yet vexatious to see a worthy medical gentleman, whose ordinary conversation is in a simple and good style, suddenly swell up when he writes a medical article. He changes his whole dialect and fills his pages with a jangle of harsh technical terms, not one-third of which are necessary to express his meaning. He tries to be solemn and imposing. For instance, a physician recently devised a new instrument, and wrote it up for a medical journal under the title, “A New Apparatus for the Armamentarium of 117the Clinician,” by which heading he doubtless hopes to make the fame of his invention “go thundering down the ages,” as Guiteau said.

Another writer wanted to say that cancer is an unnatural growth of epithelium. He took a big breath and spouted the following: “Carcinoma arises from any subepithelial proliferation by which epithelial cells are isolated and made to grow abnormally.” Now, then, you know all about cancer.

A writer on insanity illuminates the subject as follows: “The prodromic delirium is a quasi-paranoiac psychosis in a degenerate subject. A psychosis of exhaustion being practically a condition of syncope.”

The following is an effort to say that certain microbes produce the poison of erysipelas: “The streptococcus erysipelatosus proliferating in the interspaces of the connective tissue is the etiologic factor in the secretion of the erysipelatous toxins.”

A large cancer of the liver was found at a postmortem examination and reported about as follows: “A colossal carcinomatous degeneration of the hepatic mechanism.”

Still, the man of big swelling words is not always up in the clouds. If called to a case of accident, he examines the injury, and may inform the family in quite a simple and dignified manner that their father was thrown sidewise from his carriage breaking his leg and putting his ankle out of joint, but if he writes out the case for his medical journal, he gets up straightway on his stilts and says, “The patient was projected transversely from his vehicle, fracturing the tibia and fibula and luxating the tibio-tarsal articulation.”

Your man of solemn speech is peculiar. He does not 118keep a set of instruments—not he—he has an armamentarium. His catheters never have a hole or an eye in them, but always a fenestrum. In gunshot injuries a bullet never makes a hole in his patient, but only a perforation. He does not disinfect his armamentarium by boiling, but by submerging it in water elevated to the temperature of ebullition. He never distinguishes one disease from another, but always differentiates or diagnosticates it. His patient’s mouth is an oral cavity. His jaw is a maxilla. His brain is a cerebrum, his hip-joint is a coxo-femoral articulation. If his eyelids are adherent, it is a case of ankylosymblepharon. If he discovers wrinkles on the skin, they are corrugations or else rugosities. He never sees any bleeding, but only hemorrhage or sanguineous effusion. He does not examine a limb by touch or by handling—he palpates or manipulates it. If he finds it hopelessly diseased he does not cut it off—that is undignified. He gets out his armamentarium and amputates it.

A Chicago critic addicted to figurative fancies was very much affected by the play of Arrah na Pogue. “There are passages in it,” he writes, “which thunder at the heart like the booming of the Atlantic tide, and drown it in floods of bitter tears.” This idea of being drowned in floods of tears, by the way, has been always very popular with struggling muses who long to launch into bolder strains. Lee describes a young lady with an exuberance of tears:

Cowley makes a sighing lover sigh in an excessively gusty manner:

But Shakespeare, who always surpasses, unites the tears and sighs, and makes a perfect rain tempest:

The play mentioned by a Chicago critic could hardly have been as affecting as the oratory of a preacher who is described by an admiring editor. “I have,” he says, “repeatedly heard the most famous men in America, but there are times when the flame of his pathos licks the everlasting hills with a roar that moves your soul to depths fathomed by few other men.” Evidently this preacher should go to Congress; he is imbued with the spirit of oratory, and would be an antidote, on the principle of “similia similibus curantur,” for a politician who, in announcing himself a candidate for Congress, remarked in his card: “I am an orator, and yearn to roar in the capitol, and clap my wings like Shakespeare’s rooster, or the eagle on his celestial cliff, gazing at the prey my arrows did slay.”

An excellent specimen of hyperbole is mentioned by a Houston (Maine) paper, which says, on the question of 120a new town-hall, that one gentleman urged the measure in order, as he expressed it, “that the young men of our town may have a suitable place to assemble, and be so imbued with the spirit of liberty and patriotism that every hair of their head will be a liberty-pole with the star-spangled banner floating from it.”

A Leavenworth paper thus confusedly mixed things animate and inanimate: “The fall of corruption has been dispelled, and the wheels of the State government will no longer be trammelled by sharks that have beset the public prosperity like locusts.” And a Nebraska paper, in a fervent article upon the report of a legislative committee, said, “The apple of discord is now fairly in our midst, and if not nipped in the bud it will burst forth in a conflagration which will deluge society in an earthquake of bloody apprehension.”

In the words of an English poet is this rather too exaggerated hyperbole:

But these metaphorical rhapsodies were eclipsed soon after our Civil War by The Crescent Monthly in an article on Lee’s surrender. The writer thus laughs to scorn all competitors:

“The supreme hour has now come when, from across Fame’s burning ecliptic, where it had traced in flaming sheen its luminous path of glory, the proud Aldebaran of Southern hope, in all the splendors of its express, Hyades brightness, should sink to rest behind lurid 121war-clouds, in the fateful western heaven, there to bring out on death’s dark canopy the immortal lights of immortal deeds, and spirits great and glorious shining forever down upon a cause in darkness, like the glittering hosts upon a world in night.”

This gushing sentence comes from a novel called “Heart or Head:”

“And she, leaning on his strong mind, and giving up her whole soul to him, was so happy in this spoiling of herself, so glad to be thus robbed, offering him the rich milk of love in a full udder of trust, and lowing for him to come and take it!”

A grotesque simile is sometimes very expressive. We may mention those of Daniel Webster, who likened the word “would,” in Rufus Choate’s handwriting, to a small gridiron struck by lightning; of a sailor, who likened a gentleman whose face was covered with whiskers up to his very eyes, to a rat peeping out of a bunch of oakum; of a Western reporter who, in a weather item on a cold day, said that the sun’s rays in the effort to thaw the ice were as futile as the dull reflex of a painted yellow dog; and of a conductor who, in a discussion as to speed, said that the last time he ran his engine from Syracuse the telegraph poles on the side looked like a fine-tooth comb.

Similes of a like character are often heard among the common people, and are supposed to be the peculiar property of Western orators. Instances: As sharp as the little end of nothing; big as all out-doors; it strikes me like a thousand of bricks; slick as grease, or as greased lightning; melancholy as a Quaker meeting by moonlight; flat as a flounder; quick as a wink; not 122enough to make gruel for a sick grasshopper; not clothes enough to wad a gun; as limp and limber as an india-rubber stove-pipe; uneasy as a cat in a strange garret; not strong enough to haul a broiled codfish off a gridiron; after you like a rat-terrier after a chipmunk squirrel; useless as whistling psalms to a dead horse; no more than a grasshopper wants knee-buckles; no more than a frog wants an apron; don’t make the difference of the shake of a frog’s tail; soul bobbing up and down in the bosom like a crazy porpoise in a pond of red-hot grease; enthusiasm boils over like a bottle of ginger-pop; as impossible to penetrate his head as to bore through Mont Blanc with a boiled carrot; as impossible as to ladle the ocean dry with a clam-shell, or suck the Gulf of Mexico through a goose-quill; or to stuff butter in a wild-cat with a hot awl; or for a shad to swim up a shad-pole with a fresh mackerel under each arm; or for a cat to run up a stove-pipe with a teasel tied to his tail; or for a man to lift himself over a fence by the strap of his boots. A simile resembling these was used by Lady Montague when, getting impatient in a discussion with Fox, she told him she did not care three skips of a louse for him, to which he replied in a few minutes with the following:

There is another class of similes scarcely as pertinent, as, for instance: straight as a ram’s horn; it will melt in your mouth like a red-hot brickbat; talk to him like a Dutch uncle; smiling as a basket of chips; odd as Dick’s hatband; happy as a clam at high water; 123quicker than you can say Jack Robinson; like all possessed; like fury; like blazes; like all natur’; like all sixty; as quick as anything; mad as hops; mad as Halifax; sleep like a top; run like thunder; deader than a door-nail. Thunder is a very accommodating word. A person may be told to go to thunder, or may be thundering proud, or thundering sensible, or thundering good-looking, or thundering smart, or thundering mean, or thundering anything; and anything may be likened to thunder. The epitaph quoted from a tombstone in Vermont over a man’s two wives was quite proper, but was rendered ludicrous by this common use of the word:

“Dead as a door-nail” would not seem to be very expressive, and yet it has long been used. In “Henry IV.” we read the following dialogue:

Dickens, in his “Christmas Carol,” wonders why Scrooge should be dead as a door-nail rather than any other kind of nail. Probably the explanation is in the fact that proverbs are often pointed by alliteration, and that door-nail gratifies this conceit while any other nail would not.

The word guess, popularly supposed to be a Yankeeism, is as old as the English language, not only in its true and specified sense, but in use for “think” or “believe.” Wycliffe, in his translation of the Bible, 124says, “To whom shall I gesse this generacion lyk?” Chaucer frequently uses it in the modern sense, as, for example, in describing Emelie in “The Knighte’s Tale:”

Spenser uses it in a similar way in the “Fairie Queene.” Bishop Jewell, Bishop Hale, John Locke, and other sixteenth century writers, left well known passages in which it occurs. Shakespeare, as every student of the great dramatist knows, used it repeatedly. Examples of such use may also be found in some modern English novels.

FIRST THINGS — First Marriage in the American Colonies — First Blood of the Revolution — The Oldest Buildings in America — First Duel Fought in New England — First Person Cremated in America — Old-Time Journalism — The First American Book — The Pioneer Furrier — College Papers — Damnatus — A Virginia Abolitionist — Suspension Bridge — Millions for Defence — Machine Politics — Anæsthesia — Anthracite Coal — Petroleum — Photography — Old Hickory — Eagle, the Emblematic — John Bull — The First Riddle — Boycott — Vivisection — Auld Kirk — Beer — Honeymoon — Gringo — Erasure — The Thimble — Bank Notes — Anno Domini — The Oldest Declaration of Independence — Punctuation — Sleeping-Cars — Eve’s Mirror — Order of the Garter — Coffee — Billiards — Cheap Postage — Postage Stamps — A Boston “Merchantman” — Theatrical Deadheads — Dollar — Marriage in Church — The Degree of M. D. — The Title of “Reverend” — The First Christian Hymn — Mother Goose and Mary’s Lamb — The Umbrella — Equal Mark — Cardinal’s Red Hat — An Old Proverb — The Stereoscope — The Dark Horse — The First Gold Found in California — The Flag of the United States — National Political Conventions — The First United States Bank — The Oldest Living Things

In 1609, at Jamestown, Virginia, the first Christian marriage ceremony was performed, according to English rites, when Anne Burras became Mrs. John Leyden. This was eleven years before Mary Chilton—as Mr. Winthrop relates—was the first person to set foot on Plymouth Rock.

The “First Blood of the Revolution” has been commonly supposed to have been shed at Lexington, April 19, 1775, but Westminster, Vermont, files a prior claim in favor of one William French, who, it is asserted, was killed on the night of March 13, 1775, at the king’s court-house, in what is now Westminster. At that time Vermont was a part of New York, and the king’s court officers, together with a body of troops, were sent on to Westminster to hold the usual session of the court. The people, however, were exasperated, and assembled in the court-house to resist. A little before midnight the troops of George III. advanced and fired indiscriminately upon the crowd, instantly killing William French, whose head was pierced by a musket ball. He was buried in the church-yard, and a stone was erected to his memory, with this quaint inscription:

126“In Memory of William French Who Was Shot at Westminster March ye 12th, 1775, by the hand of the Cruel Ministeral tools of Georg ye 3rd at the Courthouse at a 11 o’clock at Night in the 22d year of his age.”

An adobe structure is pointed out in Santa Fe, New Mexico, which is said to have sheltered Coronado in 1540.

The United States barracks at St. Augustine, Florida, are composed in part of an ancient Franciscan monastery, under the name of the Convent of St. Francis, which was completed in the latter part of the sixteenth century.

The following account of the first duel in New England, and probably in this country, which occurred at Plymouth, June 18, 1621, is here given verbatim et literatim:

“The Second offence is the first Duel fought in New England, upon a Challenge at Single Combat with Sword and Dagger between Edward Dotey and Edward Leister, Servants of Mr. Hopkins: Both being wounded, the one in the Hand, the other in the Thigh; they are adjudg’d by the whole Company to have their Head and Feet tied together, and for to lie for 24 Hours, without Meat or Drink; which is begun to be inflicted, but within an Hour, because of their great Pains, at their own and their Master’s humble request, upon Promise of better Carriage, they are Released by the Governor.”

The first person cremated in the United States, according to wishes and desires expressed by himself, was Colonel Henry Laurens, one of the Revolutionary patriots. He was born in Charleston, South Carolina, in the year, 1724, and died on his plantation near that place on December 8, 1792. His will, which he had requested to be opened and read the next day after his death, was supplemented with the following:

“I solemnly enjoin it upon my son, as an indispensable duty, that, as soon as he conveniently can after my decease, he cause my body to be wrapped in twelve yards of tow cloth, and burned until it be entirely consumed.”

The request was carried out to the letter, and was the beginning of cremation in America.

Curious reading at the present day is the editorial in the first issue of The Universal Instructor in all Arts and Sciences and Pennsylvania Gazette, published by Keimer, in 1729:

“We have little News of Consequence at present, the English Prints being generally stufft with Robberies, Cheats, Fires, Murders, Bankrupcies, Promotion of some, and Hanging of others; nor can we expect much better till Vessels arrive in the Spring when we hope to inform our Readers what has been doing in the Court and Cabinet, in the Parliament-House as well as the Sessions-House, so that we wish, in our American World, 128it may be said, as Dr. Wild wittily express’d it of the European, viz.,

“In the mean Time we hope our Readers will be Content for the present, with what we can give ’em, which if it does ’em no Good, shall do ’em no Hurt. ’Tis the best we have, and so take it.”

The first book printed in the Anglo-American colonies was the Bay Psalm Book. It was printed at Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1640. It is a thin volume, about the size of an ordinary 12mo of the present day. So rare is it that the compiler of a catalogue of scarce books remarks in a note that any comments on its importance “would be sheer impertinence.” The acquisition of a copy must always be “the crowning triumph to which every American collector aspires.” Another copy of the same work, printed several years later, supposed to be the second edition, and the only known copy of that date, went for $435.

In a New York paper printed on the 10th of January, 1789, may be found the first piano-forte advertisement ever published in that city. It reads:

“John Jacob Astor, at No. 81 Queen st., next door but one to the Friends’ Meeting House, has for sale an assortment of Piano Fortes of the newest construction, made by the best makers in London, which he will sell on 129reasonable terms. He gives cash for all kinds of Furs, and has for sale a quantity of Canada Beaver, and Beaver Coating, Raccoon Skins, and Raccoon Blankets, Muskrat Skins, etc., etc.”

The first college paper, says the Harvard Crimson, was not established by the oldest university, but by one of her younger sisters, Dartmouth. There appeared in 1800 at that institution a paper called the Gazette, which is chiefly famous for the reason that among its contributors was Dartmouth’s most distinguished son, Daniel Webster. A few years later Yale followed with the Literary Cabinet, which, however, did not live to celebrate its birthday. It was not until 1810 that Harvard made her first venture in journalism, and then Edward Everett, with seven associates, issued the Harvard Lyceum.

A St. Louis newspaper, relieved to find that it can say “tinker’s dam” without being guilty of profanity, shows its gratitude by proving the same innocence for the “continental dam.” At the close of the Revolutionary War, it says, the government called in all the continental money. With it were found a large number of counterfeits, on each of which, as received, was stamped the word “Dam,” a contraction of the Latin damnatus (condemned). Hence the force of the expression, “not worth a continental dam,” for if a genuine continental note was worth but little, a continental “dam,” or counterfeit note, must have been utterly worthless.

Richard Randolph, brother of John Randolph, of Roanoke, died in 1790, leaving a will by which he left four hundred acres to his slaves, whom he freed. The will gave the reason for his act as follows:

“In the first place, to make restitution, as far as I am able to an unfortunate race of bondmen, over whom my ancestors have usurped and exercised the most lawless and monstrous tyranny, and in whom my countrymen by their iniquitous laws, in contradiction of rights, and in violation of every sacred law of Nature, of the inherent, inalienable, and imprescriptible rights of man, and of every principle of moral and political honesty, have vested me with absolute property. To express my abhorrence of theory, as well as infamous practice, of usurping the rights of our fellow-creatures, equally entitled with ourselves to the enjoyment of liberty and happiness. For the aforesaid purposes, and with an indignation too great for utterance at the tyrants of earth, from the throned despot of a whole nation to the more despicable, but not less petty tormentor of a single wretched slave whose torture constitutes his wealth and enjoyment, I do hereby declare that it is my will and desire, nay, most anxious wish, that my negroes, all of them, be liberated,” etc., etc.

The first American suspension bridge was erected in 1801, by James Finley, across Jacob’s Creek, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania. It had a span of 131seventy feet, and cost six thousand dollars. In 1809 a suspension bridge was built over the Merrimac River. It had a span of two hundred and forty-four feet, and cost twenty thousand dollars.

On one occasion in Charleston, South Carolina, Thomas S. Grimke, addressing himself to General C. Cotesworth Pinckney, asked permission to put a question to him. The old General replied, “Certainly, sir.”

“General,” said Grimke, “we would like to know if the French Directory ever actually proposed anything like tribute from the United States to you, when Minister?”

“They did, sir,” he answered; “the question was, What will the United States pay for certain political purposes, etc.?”

“What was your answer, General?” asked Grimke.

“Not a sixpence, sir,” answered General Pinckney.

“Did you say nothing else, General?”

“Not a word, sir.”

“Was there nothing about millions for defence, but not a cent for tribute?”

General Pinckney: “I never used any such expression, sir. Mr. Robert Goodloe Harper did at a public meeting. I never did.”

“Did you ever correct the report of Mr. Harper’s speech, General?”

“No, sir. The nation adopted the expression, and I always thought there would have been more ostentation in denying than in submitting to the report. The nation adopted it.”

The term “machine politics” has been traced to Nathaniel Hawthorne, who said, in one of his notebooks, “One thing, if no more, I have gained by my custom-house experience—to know a politician. It is a knowledge which no previous thought or power of sympathy could have taught me; because the animal, or the machine rather, is not in nature.”

Dr. Marion Sims summarized as follows the successive steps leading up to practical demonstration:

1. That since 1800 the inhalation of nitrous oxide gas produced a peculiar intoxication, and even allayed headache and other minor pains.

2. That Sir Humphrey Davy proposed it as an anæsthetic in surgical operations.

3. That for more than fifty years the inhalation of sulphuric ether has been practised by the students in our New England Colleges as an excitant, and that its exhilarating properties are similar to those of nitrous oxide gas.

4. That the inhalation of sulphuric ether, as an excitant, was common in some parts of Georgia forty-five years ago, though not practised in the colleges.

5. That Wilhite was the first man to produce profound anæsthesia, which was done accidentally with sulphuric ether in 1839.

6. That Long was the first man to intentionally produce anæsthesia for surgical operations, and that this was done with sulphuric ether in 1842.

1337. That Long did not by accident hit upon it, but that he reasoned it out in a philosophic and logical manner.

8. That Wells, without any knowledge of Long’s labors, demonstrated in the same philosophic way the great principle of anæsthesia by the use of nitrous oxide gas (1844).

9. That Morton intended to follow Wells in using the gas as an anæsthetic in dentistry, and for this purpose asked Wells to show him how to make the gas (1846).

10. That Wells referred Morton to Jackson for this purpose, as Jackson was known to be a scientific man and an able chemist.

11. That Morton called on Jackson for information on the subject, and that Jackson told Morton to use sulphuric ether instead of nitrous oxide gas, as it was known to possess the same properties, was as safe, and easier to get.

12. That Morton, acting upon Jackson’s off-hand suggestion, used the ether successfully in the extraction of teeth (1846).

13. That Warren and Hayward and Bigelow performed important surgical operations in the Massachusetts General Hospital (October, 1846) on patients etherized by Morton, and that this introduced and popularized the practice throughout the world.

Anthracite coal was first experimentally burned, and its value as a fuel and marketable commodity tested, in the old Fell House, Wilkesbarre, Pennsylvania, in February, 1808. The experiment was conducted in a 134very primitive sort of grate built for the purpose by Judge Jesse Fell, then one of the leading men in the community. He had written in letters to relatives describing the achievement, and for some time had contended that if properly ignited the “stone coal,” as it was then called, would burn, but his friends laughed at him. Nevertheless he studied the problem until he decided that it was necessary to have a draft to keep it burning. He then had the grate built of ten-inch bars, forming the front and bottom of a box that he set in brick, and in this he placed the stone coal, lighting it from below by means of splinters of wood and keeping up such a draft with a bellows that the coal soon glowed red hot. He found, too, that when red hot it quickly ignited other coal placed upon it, and, proud of his success, he told his neighbors. They would not believe him until they had, as he wrote, “ocular demonstration of the fact.” Day after day the old room in the tavern was crowded with the people of the little village and the travellers who passed through, and soon to all parts of the region where outcroppings of coal had been discovered the news was borne.

In the Massachusetts Magazine, published in 1789, occurs the following reference to the existence of oil-springs in Pennsylvania:

“In the northern part of Pennsylvania there is a creek called Oil Creek, which empties into the Allegheny River. It issues from a spring, on the top of which floats an oil, similar to that called Barbadoes tar, and from which one may gather several gallons a day. 135The troops sent to guard the western posts halted at the same spring, collected some of the oil, and bathed their joints with it. This gave them great relief from the rheumatism with which they were afflicted. The water, of which the troops drank freely, operated as a gentle purge.”

The curious book of Peter Kahm, entitled “Travels in North America,” and published in 1772, gives a map in which is set down the exact location of the oil-springs.

But there is still earlier reference to the oil supply in a letter written by a French missionary, Joseph de la Roche d’Allion, who had crossed the Niagara River into what is now New York State. In this letter, written in 1629, nearly a century and a half before Kahm’s book appeared, he mentions the oil-springs, and gives the Indian name of the place, which he explained to mean, “There is plenty there.” The letter was printed in Sagard’s “Historie du Canada,” in 1632.

M. Niepce, of Chalon-on-the-Saône, was the first to enjoy the satisfaction of producing permanent pictures by the influence of solar radiations. This was accomplished in 1815; and the name chosen to designate his process was heliography. Niepce afterwards learned that Daguerre had been conducting experiments of a similar character, and they formed a partnership. The former, however, died in 1833, and a new deed of partnership was signed between his son Isidore and M. Daguerre, which resulted in the publication, in July, 1839, of the process known as the daguerrotype. But 136this was not done until the French government had passed a bill securing to M. Daguerre a pension of six thousand francs, and to Isidore Niepce a pension of four thousand francs, both for life, and one-half in reversion to their widows. This action of the French government was based upon the argument that “the invention did not admit of being secured by patent, since, as soon as published, all might avail themselves of its advantages; it therefore chose to enjoy the glory of endowing the world of science and of art with one of the most surprising discoveries that honor their native land.”

Visitors to the exhibit of the University of the City of New York at the World’s Fair in Chicago will remember the faded daguerrotype of Miss Elizabeth Catherine Draper, a fair young woman in a huge poke bonnet, the inside of which was filled with roses.

Its history was thus given, at the time, by Chancellor MacCracken of the University:

“The daguerrotype is a picture of Miss Elizabeth Draper, and was taken by her brother, John Draper, in 1840, when he was a professor in our university. Previous to that time Daguerre had made experiments in photography, or sun pictures, as they were then called; but he never got beyond landscapes and pictures of still life.

“When Professor Draper first tried to photograph a person, his idea was that the face should be covered with flour, that the outlines might be more distinct. After many failures he decided to try one without anything on the face, and this picture of his sister was successful at the first trial. Delighted with his victory, Professor Draper sent the picture to Sir William Herschel, 137the great English scientist, that his achievement might be known on the other side of the water. Sir William acknowledged the gift and sent congratulations in a letter, which was fortunately preserved in Professor Draper’s family.”

How General Andrew Jackson got this title is told by Captain William Allen, who was a near neighbor of the general, and who messed with him during the Creek War. During the campaign the soldiers were moving rapidly to surprise the Indians, and were without tents. A cold March rain came on, mingled with sleet, which lasted for several days. General Jackson got a severe cold, but did not complain, as he tried to sleep in a muddy bottom among his half-frozen soldiers. Captain Allen and his brother John cut down a stout hickory-tree, peeled off the bark, and made a covering for the general, who was with difficulty persuaded to crawl into it. The next morning a drunken citizen entered the camp, and, seeing the tent, kicked it over. As Jackson crawled from the ruins, the toper cried, “Hello, Old Hickory! come out of your bark, and jine us in a drink.”

The Etruscans were the first who adopted the eagle as the symbol of royal power, and bore its image as a standard at the head of their armies. From the time of Marius it was the principal emblem of the Roman Republic, and the only standard of the legions. It was represented with outspread wings, and was usually of 138silver, till the time of Hadrian, who made it of gold. The double-headed eagle was in use among the Byzantine emperors, to indicate, it is said, their claim to the empire both of the East and West. It was adopted in the fourteenth century by the German emperors, and afterwards appeared on the arms of Russia. The arms of Prussia are distinguished by the black eagle, and those of Poland bore the white. The white-headed eagle is the emblematic device of the United States of America, is the badge of the order of the Cincinnati, and is figured on coins. Napoleon adopted the eagle for the emblem of imperial France; it was not, however, represented in heraldic style, but in its natural form, with the thunderbolts of Jupiter. It was disused under the Bourbons, but was restored, by a decree of Louis Napoleon, January 1, 1852.

Mrs. Markham, in her “History of England,” says, “I am told this name cannot be traced beyond Queen Anne’s time, when an ingenious satire, entitled the ‘History of John Bull,’ was written by the celebrated Dr. Arbuthnot, the friend of Swift. The object of this satire was to throw ridicule on the politics of the Spanish succession. John Bull is the Englishman, the frog is the Dutchman, and Charles II. of Spain and Louis XIV. are called Lord Strut and Louis Baboon.”

The first recorded riddle was that propounded by Samson to the thirty companions who came to the marriage 139feast of his wife,—afterwards burned to death with her father by the Philistines,—and for the answer to which he promised to give them thirty sheets, and thirty changes of garments. “Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came forth sweetness.” For the outcome, see the Book of Judges, xiv. 12–20.

Captain Boycott was the agent of an estate in Ireland, and the tenants having become dissatisfied with his management asked the landlord to remove him. This he declined to do, and thereupon the tenants and their friends refused to work for Boycott, and made an agreement among themselves that none of them, their friends, or relatives should assist or work under him at harvest. His crops were thus endangered; but assistance arriving from Ulster, the harvest was gathered under the protection of troops. The tenantry then decided to still further extend their system of tabooing by including all persons who had any dealings with Boycott. All such were not only to be ignored and treated as total strangers, but no one was to sell to them or to buy of them.

Although cutting operations on living animals for the purpose of acquiring physiological knowledge were practised to a small extent as far back as the time of the Alexandrian school of medicine, William Harvey was the first to make any great and conclusive discoveries as the results of experiments on living animals. Harvey had a favorite dog named Lycisca, whose experience 140in vivisection was made the subject of a poem by a sympathizer, which is thus referred to by a recent English writer:

“This discovery of the circulation of the blood, in 1620, is attributable to our countryman Harvey, ascertained by experiments on a dog, whose name, Lycisca, and whose sufferings and whose usefulness to mankind, have been immortalized and handed down to posterity in some beautiful touching lines.”

If anyone will turn to the author of “Our Ain Folk,” he will learn why Scotch whiskey is called “Auld Kirk.” An old Glenesk minister used to speak of claret as puir washy stuff, fit for English Episcopawlians and the like; of brandy as het and fiery, like thae Methodists; sma’ beer was thin and meeserable, like thae Baptists; and so on through the whole gamut of drinks and sects; but invariably he would finish up by producing the whiskey bottle, and patting it would exclaim, “Ah, the rael Auld Kirk o’ Scotland, sir! There’s naething beats it.”

A recently published German work on the chemistry of beer, by M. Reischauer, states that the use of beer dates from very early times. Tacitus says, in his book on the manners of the ancient Germans, “Potus humor ex hordeo aut frumento, in quandam similitudinem vini corruptus;” and also that these Germans were indeed simple and moderate in their food, but less so in the use of this drink from barley or wheat. Diodorus Siculus 141(30 B.C.) affirms that Osiris even (1960 B.C.) introduced a beer made from malted grain into Egypt. Archilochus (720 B.C.) and Æschylus and Sophocles (400 B.C.) refer to a barley wine (vinum hordeaceum), and Herodotus (450 B.C.) relates that the Egyptians made wine from barley. The Spaniards knew beer, Pliny reports, as “celia” or “ceria;” the Gauls under the name “cerevisia.” In England and Flanders beer was commonly in use at the time of the birth of Christ; while old books represent Gambrinus, King of Brabant (A.D. 1200), as the inventor of beer. It is certain that beer was known to the Chinese from very early times. In the Middle Ages there was a celebrated brewery at Pelusium, a town on one of the mouths of the Nile.

The word “honeymoon” is derived from the ancient Teutons, and means drinking for thirty days after marriage of metheglin, mead, or hydromel, a kind of wine made from honey. Attila, a celebrated king of the Huns, who boasted of the appellation, “The Scourge of God,” is said to have died on his nuptial night from an uncommon effusion of blood, brought on by indulging too freely in hydromel at his wedding-feast.

The term “honeymoon” now signifies the first month after marriage, or so much of it as is spent from home. John Tobin, in “The Honeymoon,” thus refers to it:

When the American army invaded Mexico a favorite song in the camps was Burns’s “Green grow the rushes, O.” The Mexicans heard it repeated over and over, and finally began to call the Americans by the first two words, which they pronounced “grin go.” Hence “Gringo.”

One of the earliest references to the use of india-rubber for the removal of pencil marks occurs in a note to the introduction of a treatise on perspective by Dr. Priestley, published in 1770. The author remarks, at the conclusion of the preface, “Since this work was printed off I have seen a substance excellently adapted to the purpose of wiping from paper the marks of a black-lead pencil. It must, therefore, be of singular use to those who practise drawing. It is sold by Mr. Nairne, mathematical instrument maker, opposite the Royal Exchange. He sells a cubical piece of about half an inch for 3s., and he says it will last several years.”

There is a rich family of the name of Lofting, in England, whose fortune was founded by the thimble. The first ever seen in England was made in London less than 200 years ago by a metal worker named John Lofting. The usefulness of the article commended it at once to all who used the needle, and Lofting acquired a large fortune. The implement was then called the thumb-bell, it being worn on the thumb when in use, 143and its shape suggesting the rest of the name. This clumsy mode of utilizing it was soon changed, however, but the name, softened into “thimble,” remains.

The oldest bank note probably in existence in Europe is one preserved in the Asiatic Museum at St. Petersburg. It dates from the year 1399 B.C., and was issued by the Chinese government. It can be proved from Chinese chroniclers that as early as 2697 B.C. bank notes were current in China under the name of “flying money.” The bank note preserved at St. Petersburg bears the name of the imperial bank, date, and number of issue, signature of a mandarin, and contains even a list of the punishments inflicted for forgery of notes. This relic of 4000 years ago is probably written, for printing from wooden tablets is said to have been introduced in China only in the year A.D. 160.

The first sovereign who adopted the phrase, “In the year of our Lord,” was Charles the Third, Emperor of Germany, 879. It is now the accepted mode of designating the year in all Christian countries.

The original manuscript of the Declaration of Independence made and signed by the revolutionary patriots of Harford County, Maryland, at a meeting held at Harford Town on March 22, 1775, is still in existence. 144This declaration is older than that of Mecklenburg, North Carolina, which was made in May, 1775, and antedates by more than a year the Declaration of Independence by the Continental Congress, July 4, 1776. Harford Town is Bush of the present day, and the house in which the meeting was held was an old tavern stand, the ruins of which are yet to be seen at Bush.

The invention of the modern system of punctuation has been attributed to the Alexandrian grammarian Aristophanes, after whom it was improved by succeeding grammarians; but it was so entirely lost in the time of Charlemagne that he found it necessary to have it restored by Warnesfried and Alouin. It consisted at first of only one point used in three ways, and sometimes of a stroke formed in several ways; but as no particular rules were followed in the use of these signs, punctuation was exceedingly uncertain until the end of the fifteenth century, when the learned Venetian printers, the Manutii, increased the number of the signs and established some fixed rules for their application. These were so generally adopted that we may consider the Manutii as the inventors of the present method of punctuation; and, although modern grammarians have introduced some improvements, nothing but a few particular rules have been added since their time.

The first sleeping-cars ever designed were used on the Cumberland Valley Railroad, between Harrisburg and Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. They were built in the 145year 1838, and ran for several years. One end of the car was arranged in the ordinary way, with day seats, the other end was fitted up with eighteen sleeping-berths for the night, which were changed for the day’s running, so as to make omnibus-seats on each side of the car. There were three lengths of berths, and three tiers on each side. The top tier of berths hoisted on a hinge, and was secured by rope supports to the ceiling of the car. The middle tier consisted of the back of the omnibus-seat, hinged, and supported in the same manner. The lower tier was the day seat along the side of the car. At that period, there were two coach-loads of passengers arriving by turnpike road nightly from Pittsburg; and they were very glad to have the benefit of the sleeper during the four hours then occupied between Chambersburg and Harrisburg, on the old plate rail. There was no charge for sleeping accommodations.

If we are to believe Milton, our mother Eve was the first of the race to use a mirror:

In 1669 Soliman Agu, ambassador from the sultan, Mahomet IV., arrived in Paris, and established the custom of drinking coffee. A Greek, named Pasco, had already opened a coffee-house in London in 1652. The first mention of coffee in the English statute-books occurs in 1660, when a duty of fourpence was laid upon every gallon made and sold.

The game of billiards was invented about the middle of the sixteenth century by a London pawnbroker named William Kew. In wet weather this pawnbroker was in the habit of taking down the three balls, and with the yard-measure pushing them, billiard-fashion, from the counter into the stalls. In time, the idea of a board with side-pockets suggested itself. A black-letter manuscript says, “Master William Kew did make one board whereby a game is played with three balls; and all the young men were greatly recreated thereat, chiefly the young clergymen from St. Pawles: hence one of ye strokes was named a ‘canon,’ having been by one of ye said clergymen invented. The game is now known by the name of ‘bill-yard,’ because William or Bill Kew did first play with the yard-measure. The stick is now called a ‘kew,’ or ‘kue.’” It is easy to comprehend how “bill-yard” has been modernized into “billiard,” and the transformation of “kew,” or “kue,” into “cue” is equally apparent.

The idea of cheap postage was suggested by a trivial incident. Rowland Hill, who was the father of cheap postage, on one occasion saw a poor woman, whose husband had sent her a letter, take it from the carrier, look earnestly at the outside, and then hand it back, declining to receive it, as the postage was too great. He expressed his sympathy; but, when the postman was gone, she explained to him that the letter was all on the outside. Her husband and herself had agreed on certain 148signs and tokens, to be conveyed by various changes in the address; so that she could thus tell whether he was sick or well, or was coming home soon, or similar important intelligence. Mr. Hill thought it a pity that the poor should be driven to such expedients; and accordingly, in 1837, he urged, in the most strenuous manner upon the government of Great Britain, a system of cheap postage, which, two years later, was adopted.

The postage stamp made its first appearance in 1839. Its invention is due to James Chalmers, a printer of Dundee, who died in 1853. England adopted the adhesive stamp, according to a decree of December 21, 1839, and issued the first stamps for public use on May 6, 1840. A year later they were introduced in the United States and Switzerland, and soon afterwards in Bavaria, Belgium, and France.

Captain Kempthorn, in Longfellow’s “New England Tragedies,” back in 1665, the time of Quaker persecution, coined a now familiar phrase. He speaks of

In the National Museum at Naples is a case of theatre tickets found in the tragic theatre at Pompeii. They are variously made in bone, ivory, and metal. To this 149day the upper gallery of an Italian theatre is called the pigeon loft. The little tickets for the Pompeiian gallery were in the shape of pigeons, while varying devices were used for other parts of the house. But what attracts the most curious attention is a set of diminutive skulls modelled in ivory. These were used solely by those having the privilege of free admission, a fact suggestive of the possible derivation of the term deadhead.

Few persons have ever troubled themselves to think of the derivation of the word dollar. It is from the German thal (valley), and came into use in this way some 300 years ago. There is a little silver mining city or district in northern Bohemia called Joachimstal, or Joachim’s Valley. The reigning duke of the region authorized this city in the sixteenth century to coin a silver piece which was called “joachimsthaler.” The word “joachim” was soon dropped and the name “thaler” only retained. The piece went into general use in Germany and also in Denmark, where the orthography was changed to “daler,” whence it came into English, and was adopted by our forefathers with some changes in the spelling.

Not until the time of the Reformation was marriage sanctioned as a rite to be fittingly performed within a church. Prior to this the customary place was at the door of the church, and not within the sacred enclosure. This rule appears to have been transgressed, but until 150the first Prayer Book of Edward VI. (1549), the rubric of the Sarum Manual was in use, which directed that the man and the woman about to be married should be placed before the door of the church. It was considered indecent to unite in wedlock within the church itself. Chaucer, in his “Canterbury Tales” (1383), alludes to this custom in his “Wife of Bath:”

So late as 1559 Elizabeth, daughter of Henry II. of France, was married to Philip II. of Spain by the Bishop of Paris at the church door of Notre Dame; while Mary Stuart had been married the year before to the Dauphin on the same spot.

The degree of Doctor of Medicine was first conferred near the beginning of the fourteenth century. The first recorded instance occurred in the year 1329, when Wilhelm Gordenio received the degree of Doctor of Arts and of Medicine at the College of Asti, Italy. Soon after this date the degree was conferred by the University of Paris.

An interesting contribution to the history of the title of “Reverend” as applied to clergymen is made by the Rev. Brooke Lambert in a letter to the London Times. Mr. Lambert says,—

151“The registers of the parish of Tamworth contain some interesting particulars as to local usage. These registers date back from the reign of Philip and Mary, 1556. The first title given in them to a clergyman is the old title ‘Sir,’ with which Shakespeare has made us familiar. In May, 1567, we have an entry ‘Sir Peter Stringar, curate.’ The clergyman who succeeded him is called ‘Sir Richard Walker,’ but there are other contemporaneous entries, such as ‘sacerdos,’ ‘clericus,’ ‘preacher’ and ‘verbi minister.’ These latter seem to have obtained till, in King James’s reign, we have the prefix ‘master,’ which, as we know, was applied to the great divine, Master Hooker, and this practice seems by our registers to have been continued through the commonwealth, though ‘Minister of the Gospell’ is sometimes added. We have, however, in 1657 the first use of the word ‘reverend,’ evidently in this case as a special mark of respect, not as a formal title. On ‘11 June, 1657, was buried our Reverend Pastor Master Thomas Blake, minister of Tamworth.’ In 1693 we have a clergyman by name Samuel Collins. I had noticed with curiosity an erasure before his name in each of the casualties, baptismal or funereal, recorded in our register. At last, in 1701, I was lucky enough to find an unerased entry, and it appears that the obnoxious word was the title ‘Revd.’ (so written) prefixed to his Mr. However, he seems not to have been able to hold to this title. One of his children, baptized in 1706, is baptized as the child of plain Samuel Collins, minister; and when he died, in 1706, he was buried without the title ‘reverend’—as Mr. (i.e., Master) Samuel Collins, minister of Tamworth. Henceforward the same address is used till November, 1727, when we have the baptism 152of Anne, daughter of ‘ye Rev. Mr. Robert Wilson, minister of Tamworth,’ and after that date the prefix ‘reverend’ never seems to have been omitted.”

In the works of Clement of Alexandria is given the most ancient hymn of the Primitive Church. Clement wrote in the year 150, and the hymn itself is said to be of much earlier origin. The first and last stanzas rendered into English may serve to show the strains in which the happy disciples were wont to address their loving Saviour:

Many suppose “Mother Goose” to be an imaginary personage, but she was a real woman, and her maiden name was Elizabeth Foster. She was born in 1665, married Isaac Goose in 1693, a few years later became a 153member of the Old South Church, of Boston, and died in 1757, at the age of ninety-two. Her songs were originally sung to her grandchildren. They were first published in 1716 by her son-in-law, Thomas Fleet, of Boston.

The “Mary” that “had a little lamb” was Mary Elizabeth Sawyer, a Massachusetts girl; her lamb was one of twins forsaken by an unnatural mother. Mary took it home and cared for it herself. They became fast friends, and when Mary started to school her pet missed her very much, so one morning it followed her. At school she tucked it under her desk and covered it with her shawl, but when she went out to her spelling-class the lamb trotted after her. The children laughed wildly, and the teacher had the lamb removed from the room. On that morning a young student named Rawlston was a visitor at the school. The incident awakened his poetic genius, and a few days later he handed Mary the first three verses of the poem. He died soon after, ignorant of the immortality of his verses.

Baltimore was foremost in introducing several things now in universal use. Its enterprise started the first steam passenger railway in this country; it was the first to demonstrate, in connection with Washington, the practicability of the Morse telegraph system; it was the first to burn carburetted hydrogen gas as an illuminant; it built the first merchants’ exchange, and originated various manufacturing industries. All this is matter of notoriety, but it is not generally known that a Baltimorean displayed the first umbrella seen in the United 154States. It was in 1772 when he appeared on the streets walking under an umbrella which he had purchased from a Baltimore ship that had come from India. It is related that at sight of the innovator with his novel weather shield women were affrighted, horses became frantic runaways, children stoned the man, and the solitary watchman was called out. However, in spite of so hostile a reception, an account of the umbrella episode which reached Philadelphia had the effect of begetting for the new article an enthusiastic adoption. New York later received the innovation with cordiality, and it was not long before the umbrella was universally adopted, not alone for utility, but in some instances as a badge of dignity of the village sage. Considering the indispensability of the umbrella to the social life of the day, the Baltimorean who had the courage to take the initiative in umbrella-carrying deserves at least a commemorative tablet.

In Robert Recorde’s “Whetstone of Witte,” a treatise on algebra written about the year 1557, he says, “To avoide the tediouse repetition of these words, is equalle to, I will sette, as I doe often in worke use a pair of parallel lines of one lengthe, thus: =, because no two things can be more equalle.” This was the origin of this common arithmetical sign.

The red hat was granted to cardinals by Pope Innocent IV. at the Council of Lyons, A.D. 1245, and allowed to be borne in their arms at the same time, as an 155emblem that they ought to be ready to shed their blood for the Church, especially against the Emperor Frederick II., who had just been deposed, and his subjects absolved from their allegiance by that Pope and Council. Varennes, however, looking for a less temporary reason, quotes Gregory of Nyssen to prove that this color was the mark of supreme dignity, and appeals even to the prophet Naham, ii. 3, “The shield of his mighty men is made red, the valiant men are in scarlet.” Hence he concludes that “the royal priesthood” belongs to the cardinals, and that they are the chief leaders of the church militant.

The proverb “those who live in glass houses should not throw stones” has been traced to the royal pedant James I. Seton says, “When London was for the first time inundated with Scotchmen, the Duke of Buckingham, jealous of their invasion, organized a movement against them, and parties were formed for the purpose of breaking the windows of their abodes. By way of retaliation, a number of Scotchmen smashed the windows of the duke’s mansion in St. Martin’s Fields, known as the ‘Glass House,’ and on his complaining to the king, his Majesty replied, ‘Steenie, Steenie (the nickname given to Villiers), those who live in glass houses should be careful how they fling stanes.’”

But the idea is more than two centuries older than the time of James I. It occurs in Chaucer’s “Troilus and Creseide,” where his use of verre, instead of glass, suggests that the proverb was originally current in Old French.

In the spring of 1893 the Boston Transcript gave an account of the stereoscope, for which Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes had furnished the original model. Some inaccuracies having crept into the article, the doctor gave his story of the invention as follows:

“The instrument in common use at that time was a box with a hinged flap on its upper wall, which opened to let the light in upon the pictures. I got rid of the box, made some slots into which the lower edge of the stereograph was inserted, stuck an awl underneath for a handle, and with the lenses and an upright partition my stereoscope was finished. The slide afterwards substituted for these was suggested by one of Mr. Joseph Bates’s employees. The hood was a part of my original pattern, made of pasteboard, and shaped to fit my own forehead.

“I tried hard for some time to give my contrivance away to the dealers, but without success. The Messrs. Anthony, of New York, who were always polite and attentive, did not care to take up the new model. The London Stereoscopic Company, speaking through the young man who represented them, assured me that everything which might, could, or would be novel or interesting in the stereoscopic line was already familiarly known in London. One of the great houses of Philadelphia also declined my gift of a model out of which I thought they might make some profit. At last Mr. Bates thought he would have a few made and see if they would sell. So he put a dozen or thereabout on the market, and they were soon disposed of. The dozen was followed by a hundred, and by and by the sale went 157into the thousands, and I was told that I might have made more money by my stereoscope if I had patented it than I was ever going to make by literature. But I did not care to be known as the patentee of a pill or of a peeping contrivance.

“The above is the true story of the origin of the stereoscope with which my name is associated.

There lived in Tennessee an old chap named Sam Flynn, who traded in horses and generally contrived to own a speedy nag or two, which he used for racing purposes whenever he could pick up a “soft match” during his travels. The best of his flyers was a coal-black stallion named Dusky Pete, who was almost a thoroughbred, and able to go in the best of company. Flynn was accustomed to saddle Pete when approaching a town and ride him into it to give the impression that the animal was merely a “likely hoss,” and not a flyer. One day he came to a town where a country race-meeting was being held and he entered Pete among the contestants. The people of the town, not knowing anything of his antecedents, and not being overimpressed by his appearance, backed two or three local favorites heavily against him. Flynn moved among the crowd and took all the bets offered against his nag. Just as the “flyers” were being saddled for the race old Judge McMinamee, who was the turf oracle of that part of the State, arrived on the course, and was made one of the judges. As he took his place on the stand he was told how the betting ran, and of the folly of the owner of the strange entry 158in backing his “plug” so heavily. Running his eye over the track, the judge instantly recognized Pete, and he said, “Gentlemen, there’s a dark horse in this race that will make some of you sick before supper.” The judge was right. Pete “the dark horse,” lay back until the three-quarter pole was reached, when he went to the front with a rush and won the purse and Flynn’s bets with the greatest ease.

The existence of gold in California has been known since the expedition of Drake in 1577; being particularly noticed by Hakluyt in his account of the region. The occurrence of gold upon the placers was noticed in a work upon Upper California, published in Spain in 1690, by Loyola Cavello, at that time a priest at the mission of San José, Bay of San Francisco. Captain Shelvocke in 1721 speaks favorably of the appearance of the soil for gold, and of the probable richness of the country in metals. The “Historico-Geographical Dictionary” of Antonio de Alcedo, 1786, positively affirms the abundance of gold. The favorable appearance of the country for gold was noticed by Professor J. D. Dana, and recorded in his geological report. In Hunt’s Merchants’ Magazine for April, 1847, is a statement by Mr. Sloat respecting the richness of the country in gold, made from his observations there; and he predicted that its mineral developments would greatly exceed the most sanguine expectations.

The discovery which led to immediate development, and to an enormous influx of population, was made February 9, 1848, at Sutter’s Mill, on the American 159fork of the Sacramento River. The account of Captain John A. Sutter himself is as follows:

“While building a mill on American River, a man employed by me, by the name of Marshall, discovered yellow spots in the mill-race. He procured some of the yellow stuff, and remarked to several men that he believed it was gold; but they only laughed at him, and called him crazy. He came to my office next day; and seeing that he wanted to speak to me alone, and suspecting that he was under some excitement, I asked him, ‘What’s the matter?’ We went into a room and locked the door. He wanted to be very sure that no listeners were about; and, when satisfied, he gave me the stuff to examine; he had it wrapped up in a piece of paper. During our interview I had occasion to go to the door, opened it, and neglected to lock it again; and, while handling the open package, my clerk unexpectedly came in, when Marshall quickly put it in his pocket. After the clerk had retired, the door was again locked, and the specimen closely examined. Several tests that I knew of I applied as well as I could, and satisfied myself that it was really gold. One of these tests was with aquafortis, and the other by weighing in water. I told him it was gold, and no mistake, and hoped the discovery could be kept secret for six weeks,—until certain mills would be finished, and preparation made for a large additional population. I then had about eighty white mechanics employed. But the secret soon leaked out; was told by a woman employed as a cook,—of course she could keep no such golden secret.”

The cook here referred to was Mrs. Wimmer, the wife of one of General Fremont’s enlisted men. She has left on record her story of the discovery as follows:

160“We arrived here in November, 1846,” said Mrs. Wimmer, “with a party of fourteen families, across the plains from Missouri. On reaching Sutter’s Fort, Sacramento, we found Fremont in need of more men. My husband enlisted before we had got the oxen unyoked, and left me and our seven children at the fort in the care of Commissary Curtain. We drew our rations like common soldiers for four months. Captain Sutter arranged a room for us in the fort. As soon as Mr. Wimmer returned from Santa Clara, where he had been stationed during the winter, he joined three others and went over the mountains to what is now called Donner Lake, to fetch over the effects of the Donner family, after that terrible winter of suffering.

“In June, 1847, they loaded all our household plunder for Battle Creek, up on the Sacramento, to put up a saw-mill, but they changed their plans and went to Coloma. Captain Sutter and J. W. Marshall were equal partners and were the head of the expedition. After seven days of travel we arrived at sundown a mile above the town. Next morning Mr. Wimmer went out to select a site for the mill, and I a site for the house. He was to oversee the Indians, be a handy man about, and I was to be cook. We had from fifteen to twenty men employed. We soon had a log house—a good log house—and a log heap to cook by.

“They had been working on the mill-race, dam, and mill about six months, when, one morning along in the first week of February, 1848, after an absence of several days to the fort, Mr. Marshall took Mr. Wimmer and went down to see what had been done while he was away. The water was entirely shut off, and as they walked along, talking and examining the work, just 161ahead of them, on a little rough muddy rock, lay something looking bright, like gold. They both saw it, but Mr. Marshall was the first to stoop to pick it up, and, as he looked at it, doubted its being gold.

“Our little son Martin was along with them, and Mr. Marshall gave it to him to bring up to me. He came in a hurry and said, ‘Here, mother, here’s something Mr. Marshall and Pa found, and they want you to put it into saleratus water to see if it will tarnish.’ I said, ‘This is gold, and I will throw it into my lye-kettle, which I had just tried with a feather, and if it is gold it will be gold when it comes out.’ I finished off my soap that day and set it off to cool, and it staid there till next morning. At the breakfast table one of the workhands raised up his head from eating, and said, ‘I heard something about gold being discovered, what about it?’ Mr. Marshall told him to ask Jenny, and I told him it was in my soap-kettle.

“A plank was brought for me to lay my soap upon, and I cut it in chunks. At the bottom of the pot was a double-handful of potash, which I lifted in my two hands, and there was my gold as bright as it could be. Mr. Marshall still contended it was not gold, but whether he was afraid his men would leave him, or he really thought so, I don’t know. Mr. Wimmer remarked that it looked like gold, weighed heavy, and would do to make money out of. The men promised not to leave till the mill was finished. Not being sure it was gold, Mr. Wimmer urged Mr. Marshall to go to the fort and have it tested. He did so, and George McKinstry, an assayer, pronounced it gold. Captain Sutter came right up with Mr. Marshall, and called all the Indians together, and agreed with them as to certain boundaries 162that they claimed, and on the right of discovery demanded thirty per cent. of all gold taken out. They, in payment, were to give the Indians handkerchiefs, pocket looking-glasses, shirts, beads, and other trinkets.

“One day Mr. Marshall was packing up to go away. He had gathered together a good deal of dust on this thirty per cent. arrangement, and had it buried under the floor. In overhauling his traps, he said to me, in the presence of Elisha Packwood, ‘Jenny I will give you this piece of gold. I always intended to have a ring made from it for my mother, but I will give it to you.’ I took it and I have had it in my possession from that day to this. Its value is between four and five dollars. It looks like (pardon the comparison) a piece of spruce-gum just out of the mouth of a school girl, except the color. It is rather flat, full of indentations, just as the teeth make in a piece of nice gum. There are one or two rough points on the edge, which, with a little stretch of the imagination, give the appearance of a man’s head with a helmet on, and it can be easily identified by any one who has ever seen it.”

In Admiral George H. Preble’s “Origin and Progress of the Flag of the United States,” he says,—

In 1870, Mr. W. J. Canby, of Philadelphia, read before the Historical Society of Pennsylvania a paper on the “History of the American Flag,” in which he stated that his maternal grandmother, Mrs. John Ross (whose husband was a nephew of Colonel George Ross, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence), was the first maker and partial designer of the stars and stripes. 163The house where the first flag was made was No. 239 Arch Street, formerly 89, below Third, Philadelphia. It was a little two-storied and attic tenement, and was occupied by Betsy Ross after the death of her husband.

A committee of Congress, accompanied by General Washington, in June, 1776, called upon Mrs. Ross, who was an upholsterer, and engaged her to make the flag from a rough drawing, which, according to her suggestion, was redrawn by General Washington “then and there in her back parlor.” The flag as thus designed was adopted by Congress. Mrs. Ross received the employment of flag-maker for the government, and continued in it for many years.

It is related that when Colonel George Ross and General Washington visited Mrs. Ross and asked her to make the flag, she said, “I don’t know whether I can, but I’ll try,” and directly suggested to the gentlemen that the design was wrong in that the stars were six pointed, and not five pointed as they should be. This was corrected and other alterations were made.

The first national convention to nominate candidates for President and Vice-President met in 1831. The example was set, curiously enough, not by either of the regular political parties, but by the faction which came into existence solely to oppose the secret order of Masonry. It is worth while to notice that it was this movement which gave an opening to the public careers of two men who afterwards rose, one to the Presidency, the other to the Senate and the Secretaryship of State. These were 164William H. Seward and Millard Fillmore. The Antimasonic party grew out of the excitement produced by the mysterious disappearance of William Morgan, a member of the Fraternity who was supposed to have divulged its secrets. In September, 1831, a national convention of this party assembled at Baltimore, tendered the nomination to the famous Maryland lawyer, William Wirt, formerly Attorney-General, who accepted it, and Amos Ellmaker, of Pennsylvania, was added to the ticket as candidate for Vice-President.

The caucus system was now evidently extinct; no party would have dared attempt its revival. The system of national conventions, exemplified by the Antimasons, was seen to be the only feasible substitute. As the supporters of Jackson now called themselves “Democrats,” so his opponents adopted the designation of “National Republicans.” The latter party was first in the field to call a national convention, and this convention met at Baltimore in December, 1831. Its session was brief, for public opinion had already marked out Henry Clay as its candidate. Clay was nominated on the first ballot, and John Sergeant was given the second place on the ticket. Thus the opposition to Jackson, which was strenuous and hot, was yet divided at the start of the race between Clay and Wirt.

The Legislature of New Hampshire issued the first call at this time for a Democratic National Convention—the first of that long series of powerful and exciting conclaves which have so often designated our rulers since. This body met in May, 1832. The Democracy rallied in large numbers at Baltimore, which may be called the City of Conventions, as well as of Monuments, so often has it been chosen for their meeting-place. 165General Lucas, of Ohio, was chosen president. One of the first motions passed by this convention was to adopt the famous two-thirds rule, which more than once afterwards did deadly work with the aspirations of statesmen.

Immediately after the first Congress of 1791, Alexander Hamilton, Secretary of the Treasury, recommended a national bank as one of the means necessary to restore the credit of the government, and to act as its financial agent. The two Houses of Congress, on his recommendation, passed the first bank charter.

General Washington expressed serious doubts of the power to pass the law, and took the opinions of his Cabinet, in writing. Thomas Jefferson, Secretary of State, was against it. Edmund Randolph, Attorney-General expressed the same opinion; while General Henry Knox, Secretary of War, sustained Hamilton in its constitutionality. Washington referred the opinions of Jefferson and others to Hamilton for his reply, who gave an elaborate opinion, sustaining the right of Congress to establish the bank.

On consideration of the whole subject General Washington was of the opinion that the bank was unconstitutional, and that he ought to veto it, and called on Mr. Madison to prepare for him a veto message, which he accordingly did. Upon the presentation of that message, Washington again expressed himself in doubt, inclining to the impression that the power did not exist. Jefferson still adhered to his opinion that it was clearly unconstitutional, but he advised the President that in cases of great and serious doubt, the doubt should be weighed 166in favor of legislative authority. Whereupon Washington signed the bill.—Stephen A. Douglas.

The oldest living things on this earth are trees. Given favorable conditions for growth and sustenance, the average tree will never die of old age—its death is merely an accident. Other younger and more vigorous trees may spring up near it, and perhaps rob its roots of their proper nourishment; insects may kill it, floods or winds may sweep it away, or its roots may come in contact with rock and become so gnarled and twisted, because they have not room to expand in their growth, that they literally throttle the avenues of its sustenance; but these are accidents. If such things do not happen a tree may live on for century after century, still robust, still flourishing, sheltering with its wide-spreading branches the men and women of age after age.

There is a yew-tree in the church-yard at Fortingal, in Perthshire, which de Candolle, nearly a century ago, proved to the satisfaction of botanists to be over twenty-five centuries old, and another at Hedsor, in Buclas, which is three thousand two hundred and forty years old. How de Candolle arrived at an apparently correct estimate of the enormous age of these living trees is a simple thing, and the principle is doubtless well known to-day to all. The yew, like most other trees, adds one line, about the tenth of an inch, to its circumference each year. He proved this after an investigation extending over several years, and we know now, a hundred years later, that his deductions were correct. The old yew at Hedsor has a trunk twenty-seven feet in diameter, 167proving its great age, and it is in a flourishing, healthy condition now, like its brother at Fortingal.

Humboldt refers to a gigantic boabab tree in central Africa as the “oldest organic monument” in the world. This tree has a trunk twenty-nine feet in diameter, and Adanson, by a series of careful measurements, demonstrated conclusively that it had lived for not less than five thousand one hundred and fifty years.

Still, it is not the oldest organic monument in the world, as Humboldt declared, for Mexican scientists have proved that the Montezuma cypress at Chepultepec, with a trunk one hundred and eighteen feet and ten inches in circumference, is still older,—older, too, by more than a thousand years,—for it has been shown, as conclusively as these things can be shown, that its age is about six thousand two hundred and sixty years. To become impressed with wonder over this, one has only to dwell on that duration for a little while in thought.

The giant redwoods of California are profoundly impressive, not only by reason of their age and dimensions, but of their number. The sequoias of the Mariposa, Calaveras, and South Park groves are more than eighteen hundred in number. The age of the “grizzly giant,” in the Mariposa group, is four thousand six hundred and eighty years, while the prostrate monarch of the Calaveras grove, known as the “Father of the Forest,” with a circumference of a hundred and ten feet, and a height when standing of four hundred and thirty-five feet, is much older.

PROTOTYPES — Shylock — Figaro — The Malaprops — The Pen and the Sword — The Best Service — Mark Twain Accused of Plagiary — The Bill of Fare — Ancestry — Cinderella — Crossing the Bar — Fourth Estate — Ne Sutor Ultra Crepidam — Chestnut — Milton’s Indebtedness — An Expressive Phrase — Overstrained Politeness — The Next to Godliness — Punchinello — Workmen’s Strikes — The Standing Egg — Setting up to Knock Down — The Guilds of London — Rip Van Winkle — Menteith — The Christmas-Tree — Shallows and Deeps — Platform

The Ninety-fifth Declamation of “The Orator,” of Alexander Silvayn, treats “Of a Jew who would for his debt have a pound of the flesh of a Christian.” This is classed by J. Payne Collier among the romances, novels, poems, and histories used by Shakespeare as the foundation of his dramas. It first appeared in 1596. According to Gregorio Leti, the biographer of Pope Sixtus V, the question of Shylock’s Judaism had been anticipated by others. In the eleventh book of his history of the Pope, Leti tells the following story:

“In the year of 1587, ten years before the probable date of the production of Shakespeare’s play, a Roman merchant named Paul Maria Secchi, a good Catholic Christian, learned that Sir Francis Drake had conquered San Domingo. He imparts his news to a Jewish trader, Simson Ceneda, who either disbelieved it or had an interest in making it appear so. He obstinately contested the truth of the statement, and to emphasize his contradiction added that he would stake a pound weight of his flesh on the contrary. The Christian took him at his word, staking one thousand scudi against the pound of flesh, and the bet was attested by two witnesses. On the truth of Drake’s conquest being confirmed, the Christian demanded the fulfilment of the wager. In vain the Jew offered money instead of the stake he had agreed to. The Jew appealed to the governor, 169and the governor to the Pope, who sentenced them both to the galleys—a punishment they were allowed to make up for by a payment of two thousand scudi each to the Hospital of the Sixtine Bridge.” A more interesting fact connected with the “pound of flesh” is that the conception is found in different shapes in Hindoo mythology.

The music of the opera of “Le Barbier de Seville” (Il Barbiere di Siviglia) is by Rossini, and the words are by Sterbini. The music of “Le Mariage di Figaro” (Le Nozze di Figaro) is by Mozart, and the libretto by Lorenzo da Ponte. But both operas are based on Beaumarchais’s satirical comedies, which had acquired popularity all over Europe.

Theodore Hook’s series of “Ramsbottom Papers” were the precursors of all the Mrs. Malaprops, Tabitha Brambles, and Mrs. Partingtons of a later generation. Let Dorothea Julia Ramsbottom speak for herself, in a few sentences from her “Notes on England and France:”

“Having often heard travellers lamenting not having put down what they call the memorybilious of their journey, I was determined, while I was on my tower, to keep a dairy (so called from containing the cream of one’s information), and record everything which occurred to me.

“Resolving to take time by the firelock, we left Montague Place at 7 o’clock by Mr. Fulmer’s pocket thermometer, and proceeded over Westminster Bridge to 170explode the European continent. I never pass Whitehall without dropping a tear to the memory of Charles II., who was decimated after the rebellion of 1745, opposite the Horse Guards.

“We saw the inn where Alexander, the Autograph of all the Russias, lived when he was here; and, as we were going along, we met twenty or thirty dragons mounted on horses. The ensign who commanded them was a friend of Mr. Fulmer’s: he looked at Lavinia as if pleased with her tooting assembly. I heard Mr. Fulmer say he was a son of Marr’s. He spoke as if everybody knew his father: so I suppose he must be the son of the poor gentleman who was so barbarously murdered a few years ago near Ratcliffe Highway: if so he is uncommon genteel.

“Travellers like us, who are mere birds of prey, have no time to waste: so we went to-day to the great church which is called Naughty Dam, where we saw a priest doing something at an altar. Mr. Fulmer begged me to observe the knave of the church; but I thought it too hard to call the man names in his own country.”

Dr. Draper, in his “Intellectual Development of Europe,” says,—

“Within twenty-five years after the death of Mohammed, under Ali, the fourth Khalif, the patronage of learning had become a settled principle of the Mohammedan system. Some of the maxims current show how much literature was esteemed.”

“The ink of the doctor is equally valuable with the blood of the martyr.

171“Paradise is as much for him who has rightly used the pen, as for him who has fallen by the sword.”

When General R. B. Hayes was nominated by the Republican party for the Presidency, he made use, in his letter of acceptance, of the expression, “He serves his party best who serves his country best.” A clue to this phrase, which was frequently repeated afterwards, will be found in Pope’s translation of the tenth book of Homer’s Iliad, where Nestor goes through the camp to wake up the captains, and arousing Diomed says,—

The similarity of the last line to the celebrated expression used by President Hayes is striking. It is probable he was at some period of his life a close reader of the Iliad, and that this expression found a lodgement in his mind, to crop out in a slightly modified form after many years.

Mark Twain having dedicated a recent book of his “to Mr. Smith wherever he is found,” will, doubtless, be interested to learn that the gentleman in question is to be discovered in the current London Post Office Directory alone to the very considerable extent of sixteen 172and a half columns. But will Mr. Twain be surprised to hear that the notion of this Smith dedication of his is not a new one? Surely he must be aware that an earlier American humorist, Artemus Ward, prefaced one of his volumes with a similar inscription, and gave it additional point, too, by adding a sincere hope that every one of his “dedicatees” would purchase a copy of the book. So that, apparently, and not by any means for the first time, a stolen idea has been spoiled in the stealing.

A German gastronomical publication gives the following account of the origin of the menu: At the meeting of Electors in Regensburg in the year 1489, Elector Henry of Braunschweig attracted general notice at a state dinner. He had a long paper before him to which he referred every time before he ordered a dish. The Earl of Montfort, who sat near him, asked him what he was reading. The Elector silently handed the paper to his interrogator. It contained a list of the viands prepared for the occasion, which the Elector had ordered the cook to write out for him. The idea of having such a list so pleased the illustrious assembly that they introduced it each in his own household, and since that time the fashion of having a menu has spread all over the civilized world.

On one occasion Mr. John Bright said, in the course of a speech, “The noble lord comes of a race distinguished, I am told, as having come over with the Conqueror. I never heard that any of them have since been 173distinguished for anything else.” This sentiment, though probably Mr. Bright knew it not, found epigrammatic expression in France more than a century ago, in a distich composed when A. Courtenay, in compliment to his birth, was elected a member of the Academy:

The phrase, “I am my own ancestor,” is traced to Andoche Junot. When Junot, a soldier who had risen from the ranks, was created Duke of Abrantes, a French nobleman of the old régime sneeringly asked him what was his ancestry. Junot replied, “Ah, ma foi, je n’en sais rien; moi je suis mon ancêtre.” (Faith, I know nothing about it; I am my own ancestor.) The Emperor Tiberius, however, thus described Curtius Rufus: “He seems to be a man sprung from himself.” A similar reply is attributed to Napoleon, as he is said to have told his prospective father-in-law, the emperor of Austria, when the latter tried to trace the Bonaparte lineage to some petty prince: “Sire, I am my own Rudolph of Hapsburg.” (Rudolph was the founder of the Hapsburg family.)

The story of Cinderella is not the invention of some imaginative genius, but is founded on fact. According to Strabo, the story is as follows: One day a lady named Rhodopis was bathing in the Nile, and the wind carried one of her sandals and laid it at the feet of the king of Egypt, who was holding a court of justice in the open 174air not far away. His curiosity was excited by the singularity of the event and the elegance of the sandal, and he offered a reward for the discovery of the owner. Rhodopis claimed it, and it was found to fit her exactly. She was very beautiful, and the king married her. She lived two thousand years before the Christian era, and is remembered in history as the “Rosy-cheeked Queen” of Egypt.

Did Tennyson find the suggestion for one of his latest poems, “Crossing the Bar,” in the letter written by the Rev. Donald Cargill in 1680 to a friend who was under sentence of death? Thus it runs: “Farewell, dearest friend, never to see one another any more, till at the right hand of Christ. Fear not, and the God of mercies grant a full gale and a fair entry into His kingdom, that may carry you sweetly and swiftly over the bar, that you find not the rub of death.”

Carlyle, in the fifth lecture on “Heroes and Hero Worship,” said, “Burke said there were three estates in Parliament, but in the reporters’ gallery yonder there sat a fourth estate more important far than they all.” This was in 1839 or 1840.

John Randolph had had a discussion with a man named Sheffey, who was one of his colleagues, and who had been a shoemaker in early life. Sheffey had made 175a speech which excited Randolph’s jealousy, and Randolph, in replying to him, said that Sheffey was out of his sphere, and by way of illustration had told the story of the sculptor Phidias. “This sculptor,” said Randolph, “had made a noted figure, and having placed it on the sidewalk, he secured a hiding-place near by, where, unobserved, he might hear the criticisms of those who passed upon his statue. Among those who examined the marble was a shoemaker, and this man criticised the sandals and muttered over to himself as to where they were wrong. After he had gone away, Phidias came forth and examined the points that the shoemaker had objected to, and found that his criticism was correct. He removed the statue to his studio and remedied the defects. The next day Phidias again placed it upon the street and the shoemaker again stopped before it. He saw at once that the defects he had noticed had been remedied, and he now began to criticise very foolishly other points about the statue. Phidias listened to him for a time, and then came forth with a Latin phrase which means ‘Let the shoemaker stick to his last.’ And so,” concluded Randolph, “I say in regard to my colleague.”

The slang term “chestnut,” as applied to ancient jokes or moss-grown anecdotes, though credited to a Philadelphia actor, may be traced to a remote period. Ovid, in his “Art of Love,” says, “Let your boy take to your mistress grapes, or what Amaryllis so delighted in; but at the present time she is fond of chestnuts no longer.” This is plainly a reference to a line in the 176Second Eclogue, in which Virgil tells how chestnuts pleased Amaryllis. The idea obviously was that for weariness and satiety the chestnut had lost its allurement.

A reverend gentleman named Edmunson is endeavoring to rob the author of “Paradise Lost” of all the honor which belongs to originality of conception. He has published a work to prove that Milton was largely indebted in the composition of his great poem to various poems of a Dutch rhymester of the same period, one Joost Van den Vondel, and that Samson Agonistes was inspired by a drama by Vondel on the same subject.

Mr. Lincoln has often been credited with the expressive phrase, “Of the people, by the people, for the people.” It was not original with him, however; Theodore Parker first used it, and often used it during the last decade of his life. A lady who was long a member of Mr. Parker’s household, and who assisted him in his intellectual work, says that the idea did not spring at once to his mind in its perfect conciseness; he had expressed it again and again with gradually lessening diffuseness before he gave the address to the Anti-Slavery Society, May 13, 1854, where it appears thus: “Of all the people, by all the people, and for all the people,” as published in Additional Speeches, Vol. II., page 25. “But that,” she adds, “was not quite pointed enough for the weapon he needed to use so often in criticising the national action, to pierce and 177penetrate the mind of hearer and reader with the just idea of democracy, securing it there by much iteration; and I can distinctly recall his joyful look when he afterwards read it to me in his library, condensed into this gem: ‘Of the people, by the people, for the people.’”

Maunsell B. Field, in his “Memories,” relates that General Winfield Scott told him that during the last war with Great Britain (1812–14), before an action began between the two armies, it was customary for the respective commanders to ride forward, accompanied by their staffs, and formally salute each other. Each then returned to his own lines, and the battle opened.

This serves as a reminder of the old story of Fournier (L’Esprit dans l’histoire): “Lord Hay at the battle of Fontenoy, 1745, called out, ‘Gentlemen of the French Guard, fire first.’ To which the Comte d’Auteroches replied, ‘Sir, we never fire first; please to fire yourselves.’”

The proverb “Cleanliness is next to godliness” first made its appearance in “Beraitha” as the last Mishna of Sota, chapter ix. Mishna (instruction) is a word applied by the Jews to the oral law, which is divided into six parts. The Jewish Talmud is a commentary on the Mishna. The references to that are: Talmud Jerus, Skakalim, chapter iii., page 6; Talmud babl. Ab. Sarah, page 20 b; Jalket, sh. Isaiah No. 263; and Alfassi ab; Sarah, ibid. loc. Here it reads as follows: “Phinehas 178ben Yair says, The doctrines of religion are resolved into (or are next to) carefulness; carefulness into vigorousness; vigorousness into guiltlessness; guiltlessness into abstemiousness; abstemiousness into cleanliness; cleanliness into godliness (equal to holiness),” etc., etc. No translation can render it exactly; it is literally “cleanliness next to (or akin to) godliness;” and this saying is older than the gospels.

The Punch and Judy idea is over two thousand years old. The Celestial Emperor Kao Tsu (206 B.C.) was shut up in the City of Peh-têng by an army of barbarous Huns. “With his Majesty was a statesman, Ch’ ên P’ing, who, happening to know that the wife of the besieging chieftain was a very jealous woman, devised a scheme. He caused the portrait of a very beautiful girl to be forwarded to her, with a message that if her husband would permit the emperor to go forth unharmed, the young lady should become his property. The chieftain’s wife never mentioned the portrait to her husband, but at once began to persuade him to raise the siege, which, in fact, he would have done forthwith had he not been privately informed of the picture and warned at the same time that the whole affair was simply a ruse. Thereupon he sent to say that it would be necessary for him first of all to have a glimpse of this beauty in the flesh; and later on he repaired by agreement to the foot of the city wall, where he beheld the young lady moving about and surrounded by a number of attendants. His suspicions being thus allayed, he gave orders to open a passage through his lines to the Emperor 179Kao Tsu and suite, who promptly made the best of their way out. At the same time the Hun chieftain entered the city and proceeded to the spot on the wall where the young lady was awaiting him, still surrounded by her handmaids; but on arriving there he found that the beauty and her attendants were simply a set of wooden puppets which had been dressed up for the occasion and were worked by a concealed arrangement of springs.

Mrs. Oliphant, in “The Makers of Florence,” relates that in the course of the construction of the massive dome of the Duomo, of the many difficulties with which Brunelleschi had to contend, “the greatest was a strike of his workmen, of whom, however, there being no trades’ unions in those days, the imperious maestro made short work.”

The well-known trick of Columbus in making an egg stand on end during a dispute after his return from his first voyage was anticipated by Brunelleschi, the architect of the magnificent dome of the Duomo in Florence. During the heated controversy which preceded his selection over his competitors, “he proposed,” according to Vasari’s amusing account, “to all the masters, foreigners, and compatriots, that he who could make an egg stand upright on a piece of smooth marble should be appointed to build the cupola, since in doing that his genius would be made manifest. They took an egg accordingly, and all those masters did their best to 180make it stand upright, but none discovered the method of doing so. Wherefore Filipo (Brunelleschi), being told that he might make it stand himself, took it daintily into his hand, gave the end of it a blow on the plane of the marble, and made it stand upright. Beholding this the artists loudly protested, exclaiming that they could all have done the same, but Filipo replied, laughingly, that they might also know how to construct the cupola if they had seen the model and design.”

This was in the year 1420, fifteen years before Columbus was born.

The great English statesman, John Bright, once playfully suggested that the appointment of a certain gentleman to the Chief Secretaryship of Ireland was intended as a punishment to that country for some of its offences. What was thus said half in jest a sacred writer states here in all seriousness: “That such a prince as Zedekiah was raised to the throne was itself a token of divine displeasure, for his character was such as to hasten the final catastrophe,”—that which came to pass was “through the anger of the Lord.”

With regard to the origin of the London guilds there are two opposing parties, one of which holds that these organizations had their origin in certain mutual benefit associations of the Roman Empire, while the other insists on their spontaneous generation from the needs of Teutonic society in the Middle Ages. One thing is 181certain, without the culture of the Roman Empire there would have been no Teutonic nor Celtic nor Iberian civilization in modern Europe, and chivalry, knighthood, and the guild system, as well as every other step toward modern refinement, owe their existence in a near or remote degree to what preceded them, to the civic life that descended in unbroken continuity from Babylon to Treves. It would have been a remarkable thing if mediæval Europe had not retained a reminiscence more or less distinct of the well-drilled, well-mounted, well-armed, imperturbable Romans, the men “under authority,” scattered in villages and outposts, or collected in garrisons, and had not tried to create defenders of the same kind. Equally strange would it be if such organizations as the Collegia Opificum pervaded the urban life of the imperial dominions without leaving an impression on the people. The similarity of the guilds to their Roman prototypes is very remarkable. The objects of both were common worship, social intercourse, and mutual protection. It is confessed that modern historians have exaggerated the breach in continuity between the Roman and the barbarian world; it is even acknowledged that in one or two Gallic towns certain artisan corporations may have existed without interruption from the fifth to the twelfth century; and that Roman regulations may have served as models for the organization of serfs, skilled laborers on the lands of monks and nobles. But it must be pointed out on the other hand that until the twelfth century the demand for skilled labor in Europe was comparatively meagre and that the stream of ancient tradition was really growing weaker with every decade. What can be insisted on is simply a 182certain economy of intellectual effort, for the sake of a human animal, the mediæval Celt, Saxon, Norseman, Hun, etc., with whom intellect does not seem to have been a strong point. His invention may not have been put to the test in the matter of guilds. What he needed had happily survived his own clumsy race as well as the indifference of Romans and Provincials. Even in England one can ascend much beyond the twelfth century by the discovery of a rare notice now and then of a Knights’ Guild or a Frith Guild in Saxon London.

The classical scholar will regard Rip Van Winkle as a resuscitation of Epimenides, who lived in the Island of Crete six centuries before the Christian era. The story is, that going by his father’s order in search of a sheep, he laid himself down in a cave, where he fell asleep, and slept for fifty years. He then reappeared among the people, with long hair and a flowing beard. But while poor Rip, after his twenty years’ slumber, awoke to find himself the butt of his village, Epimenides had absorbed a wonderful degree of knowledge.

The German legend on which Washington Irving’s story is founded is given by Otmar in his “Volks-Sagen,” entitled “Der Ziegenhirt.” Peter Klaus, a goatherd of Sittendorf, is the hero of the tale, the scene of which is laid on the Kyffhäuser.

Benedict Arnold, the traitor whose betrayal of trust and attempt to sacrifice his country will, through all 183time, be regarded as the highest height and the lowest depth of infamy, had a fitting prototype in Sir John Menteith, who betrayed the great defender of Scotch liberty, Sir William Wallace, into the hands of the English invaders, and, with the deliverance of his person, the surrender of the liberty of his country, leaving a name and memory loaded with disgrace. Sir Walter Scott, in his “Tales of a Grandfather,” says,—

“The King of England, Edward I., possessed so many means of raising soldiers, that he sent army after army into the poor, oppressed country of Scotland, and obliged all its nobles and great men, one after another, to submit themselves to his yoke. Sir William Wallace alone, or with a very small band of followers, refused either to acknowledge the usurper Edward, or to lay down his arms. He continued to maintain himself among the woods and mountains of his native country for no less than seven years after his defeat at Falkirk, and for more than one year after all the other defenders of Scottish liberty had laid down their arms. Many proclamations were sent out against him by the English, and a great reward was set upon his head; for Edward did not think he could have any secure possession of his usurped kingdom of Scotland while Wallace lived. At length he was taken prisoner, and shame it is to say, a Scotsman, called Sir John Menteith, was the person by whom he was seized and delivered to the English. It is generally said that he was made prisoner at Robroyston, near Glasgow, and the tradition of the country is that the signal for rushing upon him and taking him unawares, was that one of his pretended friends, who was to betray him, 184should turn a loaf which was placed on the table, with its bottom or flat side uppermost. And in after times it was reckoned ill-breeding to turn a loaf in that manner if there was a person named Menteith in company; since it was as much as to remind him that his namesake had betrayed Sir William Wallace, the champion of Scotland.

The Christmas-tree came in with the movements of the transition from the mediæval to the modern period. Previous to that epoch, the fir or spruce-tree, with its pendant decorations, its toys and baubles, its stars and crosses, its spangles and tinselry, its glittering emblems, and the wax candles lighting its branches were unknown. For a long time it found its highest expression in the tannenbaum of Germany, and German antiquaries claim that it was a relic of the Saturnalia, and was implanted in Teutonic soil by the conquering Legions of Drusus, about the commencement of the Christian era. The myth which connects it with St. Winfred goes forward to the eighth century. While the famous missionary was hewing down the sacred oak that had been the object of idolatrous worship, a tornado blasted it. But just behind it, unharmed by the whirlwind, stood a young fir tree pointing a green spire to the stars. Winfred turned to his followers, and said,—

“This little tree, a young child of the forest, shall be your holy-tree to-night. It is the wood of peace, for your houses are built of it. It is the sign of an endless life, for its leaves are always green. See how it points upward to heaven. Let this be called the tree of the 185Christ-child; gather about it, not in the wild woods, but in your own homes; there it will shelter no deeds of blood, but loving gifts and acts of kindness.”

It is noteworthy that the first description of a Christmas-tree in German literature is to be found in “The Nut-Cracker” of Hoffman, whose strange stories remind us of our own Edgar Poe. But whatsoever the German pedigree, the tree had a Roman prototype, as we learn from the Georgics of Virgil. It was customary to suspend from the branches of trees in the vineyards oscilla or sigilla, which were little figures, or faces, or heads of Bacchus, made of earthenware or marble (some of which are preserved in the British Museum), to be turned in every direction by the wind. Whichsoever way they looked when blown by the air currents, they were supposed to make the vines in that quarter fruitful. The oscilla were frequently given as toys to children. Virgil says of the Roman youth—to use Dryden’s translation,—

Antiquarians who are not satisfied to let the origin rest with this feature of the sixth and seventh days of the Saturnalia have undertaken to trace the tree to the ancient Egyptians, and also to the Buddhists.

“The shallows murmur while the deeps are dumb” seems to be an adaptation from Quintus Curtius Rufus: “Altissima quæque flumina minimo sono labuntur.” 186The line is to be found in “The Silent Lover,” usually attributed to Sir Walter Raleigh, sometimes entitled “Sir Walter Raleigh to Queen Elizabeth”:

The lines—

are to be found in “Fame,” translated from Schiller, one of the Hymns of the Ages.

In Carlyle’s “Letters of Oliver Cromwell,” vol. iii, p. 89, is a passage in which Cromwell uses the word platform in the modern American sense of a creed, or theory, or declaration of principles. He charges Governor Dundas (Edinburgh Castle) and the Presbyterian ministers with “darkening and not beholding the glory of God’s wonderful dispensations in this series of His providences in England, Scotland, and Ireland, both now and formerly, through envy at instruments, and because the things did not work forth your platform, and the great God did not come down to your minds and thoughts.”

FORECASTS — Sic Vos Non Vobis — The Moons of Mars — The Suez Canal — The Panama Canal — Foreshadowing of the Germ Theory — The Telephone — Stenography — The Great Fire of London — The Plague of London — The Reformation — Emancipation — The French Revolution — The White Lady

The iconoclasts are turning their attention to the claims of Harvey and Jenner. They declare that the claim of Andrea Cesalpino, of Avezzo, one of the famous scientists of Italy in the sixteenth century, to the prior discovery of the circulation of the blood, has been established. And as to Jenner, they bring forward this inscription in the graveyard of Worth Maltravers, Dorsetshire, to show that he was anticipated by several years:

“Sacred to the memory of Benjamin Jesty, of Downshay, died April 16, 1816, aged 79. He was born at Yetminster, in this county, and was an upright, honest man, particularly noted for having been the first person known that introduced the cow-pox by inoculation, and who, for his great strength of mind, made the experiment from the cow on his wife and two sons in the year 1774.”

The “strength of mind” referred to would be laughable were it not for the fact that Jesty had already caught the cow-pox from his cows, and so did not need to be inoculated for it.

The following passage, from Voltaire’s “Micromegas Histoire Philosophique,” is curious in view of the discovery of the two moons of Mars, several years ago, by 188Professor Asaph Hall, of the National Observatory, Washington. The work describes a journey, throughout the solar system, of Micromegas, a philosopher of Sirius, and a being of enormous proportions, who is accompanied by an inhabitant of Saturn, the latter intermediate in size between the great Sirian and the inhabitants of our earth. The extract is from the third chapter:

“Departing from Jupiter, our voyagers traversed a space of a hundred millions of leagues, and coasted the planet Mars, which, as is well known, is about one-fifth of the dimensions of our little globe. They saw two moons which attend this planet, and which have escaped the observations of our astronomers. I know very well that Father Castel will write, good-humoredly, of course (et même assez plaisamment), against the existence of these two moons; but I am in accord with those who reason from analogy. Philosophers of this sort know how difficult it would be for Mars, which is so distant from the sun, to get on with less than two moons, at all events.”

Voltaire’s philosophical romance, published in 1752, was imitated from Swift’s “Gulliver’s Travels.” It is therefore easy to trace the quotation to the Voyage to Laputa (Chapter III.) in which Swift, writing in 1727, says,—

“Although their largest telescopes do not exceed three feet, they show the stars with great clearness. This advantage has enabled them to extend their discoveries much farther than our astronomers in Europe; for they have made a catalogue of ten thousand fixed stars, whereas the largest of ours do not contain above one-third part of that number. They have likewise discovered two lesser stars, or satellites, which revolve 189about Mars, whereof the innermost is distant from the centre of the primary planet exactly three of his diameters, and the outermost five; the former revolves in the space of ten hours, and the latter in twenty-one and a half; so that the squares of their periodical times are very near in the same proportion with the cubes of their distance from the centre of Mars; which evidently shows them to be governed by the same law of gravitation that influences the other heavenly bodies.”

In the second part of Marlowe’s “Tamburlaine the Great,” written in 1587, there is a remarkable forecasting of one of the greatest enterprises of modern times, the Suez Canal. In the catastrophe of this powerful drama, Tamburlaine (the historical Timour, or Tamerlane, the “Scourge of God”) being about to die, is made to review his conquests. He calls upon his attendants for a map that he may see how much of the world is left for him to conquer, and may exhibit his plans to his sons for them to execute when he is dead. Placing his finger on the map, he exclaims:

Eckermann, in his “Conversations,” under date of February 21, 1827, says,—

“Dined with Goethe. He spoke with admiration of Alexander von Humboldt, whose views as to the project for making a passage through the Isthmus of Panama, appeared to have a particular interest for him. ‘Humboldt,’ said Goethe, ‘has, with a great knowledge of his subject, given other points where, by making use of some streams which flow into the Gulf of Mexico, the end may be, perhaps, better attained than at Panama. All this is reserved for the future and for an enterprising spirit. So much, however, is certain, that if they succeed in cutting such a canal that ships of any burden and size can be navigated through it from the Mexican Gulf to the Pacific Ocean, innumerable benefits would result to the whole human race, civilized and uncivilized. But I should wonder if the United States were to let an opportunity escape of getting such work into their own hands. It may be foreseen that this young State with its decided prediction to the West, will, in thirty or forty years, have occupied and peopled the large tract of land beyond the Rocky Mountains. It may, furthermore, be foreseen that along the whole coast of the Pacific Ocean, where nature has already formed the most capacious and secure harbors, important commercial towns will gradually arise for the furtherance of a great intercourse between China and the East Indies and the United States. In such a case it would not only be desirable, but almost necessary, that a more rapid communication should be maintained between the eastern and western shores of North America, 191both by merchant ships and men-of-war, than has hitherto been possible with the tedious, disagreeable, and expensive voyage round Cape Horn. I therefore repeat that it is absolutely indispensable for the United States to effect a passage from the Mexican Gulf to the Pacific Ocean; and I am certain that they will do it.’”

Dr. Samuel Johnson, in a letter to Mrs. Thrale, under date of November 12, 1781, in the course of a sympathetic reference to a friend of theirs who was suffering from dysentery, expressed the opinion that the specific cause of that disease, one of the oldest of which we have any record, was an amœba or animalcule. He says, “If Mr. B—— will drink a great deal of water, the acrimony that corrodes his bowels will be diluted, if the cause be only acrimony; but I suspect dysenteries to be produced by animalculæ which I know not how to kill.” Long before Johnson’s time, Morgagni’s investigations had shown the character of the inflammation of the lower intestines, but that a century before the revelation of pathogenic micro-organisms Johnson should have suspected causal relations between amœboid cells and an infectious disease is very curious. Even the term he employed is used in classification, as of the two forms of dysentery which are recognized, one is known as amœbic, and the other as bacillary.

More than two centuries ago, Robert Hooke, in the preface to his “Micrographia,” said,—

192“And as glasses have highly promoted our seeing, so ’tis not improbable but that there may be found many mechanical inventions to improve our other senses, of hearing, smelling, tasting, touching. ’Tis not impossible to hear a whisper at a furlong’s distance, it having been already done; and perhaps the nature of the thing would not make it more impossible, though that furlong should be ten times multiplyed. And though some famous authors have affirmed it impossible to hear through the thinnest plate of Muscovy glass; yet I know a way by which ’tis easie enough to hear one speak through a wall a yard thick. It has not been yet thoroughly examin’d how far Otocousticons may be improv’d, nor what other ways there may be of quick’ning our hearing, or conveying sound through other bodies then [than] the air: for that is not the only medium. I can assure the reader, that I have, by the help of a distended wire propagated the sound to a very considerable distance in an instant, or with as seemingly quick a motion as that of light, at least incomparably swifter then [than] that which at the same time was propagated through the air; and this not only in a straight line, or direct, but in one bended in many angles.”

A curious little book has been dug from out the dust of two centuries, and has been partially republished by the German newspapers for the purpose of proving that there is nothing new under the sun. The little book is entitled “Foolish Wisdom and Wise Foolishness,” and was written by an old-fashioned German political economist named Becher. At the time of its publication 193the book was regarded as something of a Munchausen narrative of the author’s travels through Europe. During his wanderings Becher became acquainted with most of the learned men on the Continent, and acquired much information concerning the scientific work of his day. He describes crude conceptions of the phonograph and the telephone by a Nuremburg optician named Fraur Gründler. He gives foreshadowings of an air-gun, aërial navigation, a universal language like Volapuk, and other things which would have gladdened Wendell Phillips when he was preparing his famous lecture on “The Lost Arts.”

During his tour of inquiry Becher discovered that in several regions outside of Germany many men had learned “to write down what others said, with wonderful rapidity, by means of strange characters.” “Englishmen have discovered a kind of tachygraphy,” he explains, “or an art which enables them to write as rapidly as the fastest speakers can talk. They have brought this wonderful art to such a degree of perfection that young persons often write out full sermons without a mistake. Orations in Parliament can be written out by this means as rapidly as they are delivered, which I regard as a very useful invention.” So much for stenography two centuries ago.

The ever-memorable fire which destroyed fifteen of the twenty-six wards of the city of London, an area of four hundred and thirty-six acres, broke out at two o’clock on Sunday morning, September 2, 1666. On the preceding Friday London was forewarned of this calamity by 194a Quaker from Huntingdon, named Thomas Ibbott. Entering London on horseback, he dismounted and turned his horse loose; then, unbuttoning his garments, he ran about the streets, scattering his money and crying out, “So should they run up and down scattering their goods, half-undressed, like mad people, as he was a sign to them,”—a prediction to which no attention was paid at the time, but which was verified during the four days’ conflagration.

Astrology, with its terrestrial theory of the heavens, its belief in planetary influences upon the earth and its inhabitants, and the arbitrary signification it gave to the astral bodies, singly or in conjunction, was largely concerned with the propagation of superstition. It accounted for and predicted the great plague of London, in 1665, by a conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter in Sagittarius on the 10th of October, and a conjunction of Saturn and Mars in the same sign on the 12th of November. It took no note of the real causes of that and all other pestilences,—accumulation of sewage and filth, contamination of air and water, effluvia from putrefactive matter, noxious gases, soil exhalations, and overcrowding of man and beast. If, however, in his dealings with simple unsupported superstition the astrologer failed in his reasoning and his conclusions, we must credit him with laborious attempts to find some rationale.

An instance of a dying man punning upon his own name is furnished in the case of John Huss, the Bohemian 195Reformer. Huss was burned at the stake, in Constance, July 6, 1415, the anniversary of his birth. Shortly before he was overcome by the heat of the flames, he said, “It is thus that you silence the goose (huss = a goose), but a hundred years hence there will arise a swan whose singing you shall not be able to silence.” On November 10, 1483, was born Martin Luther, who is generally regarded, and rightly so, as having fulfilled this remarkable prophecy to the letter.

The following lines, prophetic of our Civil War, were written in 1850 by James Russell Lowell, in his “Capture of Certain Fugitive Slaves near Washington:”

In the “Memoirs of Madame Du Barry” is the following anecdote:

“The duchess (de Grammont) related that one evening, when M. de Carotte was at a large party, of which she made one, he was requested to consult the planets and make known what would be the destiny of the persons assembled there. This he evaded by every possible pretext, until, finding they would take no excuse, he declared that, of the whole of the company then before him, not one would escape a violent and public death, from which not even the king and queen would be exempt.”

The cholera was raging in Bavaria; several of the small mountain villages had been depopulated. King Ludwig, Queen Therese, and the Court remained at Aschaffenburg, as the pestilence was peculiarly fatal at Munich, a place Queen Therese disliked very much, when, unexpectedly, either on account of some state ceremonial or from one of his usual fits of restlessness, Ludwig announced that the Court would return to Munich in three days. On the evening before they started, the queen and several of her ladies were sitting in one of her apartments in the palace, the last but one of the suite. She was in low spirits, and all were unhappy at the prospect of the return to Munich. It was a warm summer evening, drawing towards dusk. Presently a lady, dressed in white, came into the room, and, making a slight reverence to the queen, passed on into the inner room, which opened from the one in which they were sitting. A few moments after she had passed it struck all present that they did not recognize her; also, that none of the other ladies on that day were wearing white dresses. The queen and some others arose from their seats and went into the room to see whom it might be, and found it empty! There was no mode of egress except the door by which they had entered, and the room was on the second story, so that no one could have got out of the window. Suddenly all felt that it must have been “the White Lady,” whose visit is believed to foretell the death of one of the Bavarian royal family, and some of the ladies fainted. The court went to Munich on the next day, according to appointment, and three days after Queen Therese died of cholera.

MISCELLANEA CURIOSA — Loyalty to Prince, Disloyalty to Self — Singular Expedient — Queer Parliamentary Enactment — Bolingbroke’s Favorite Desk — Fourth of March — The Powwow — The Flowering Dogwood — Offensiveness Punished — Ropes made of Women’s Hair — Premonitory Caution — Realism — He couldn’t have shot him — Cromwell’s Grace — The Ocean Depths — Pleasant Reading — Bismarck in the Language of the Spirits — The Age of Niagara Falls — Tools of the Pyramid Builders — A Distant World — A Matter of Form — Sweet Auburn — Importance of Punctuation — Bottled Tears — As you read it — A Story of Witchcraft — Circumstantial Evidence — A Little Beggar’s Charity — Jack Sprat — Franklin’s Brown Coat — Sources of History — A Long Name — Hero Worship — Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes? — None Such — The Ants’ Habits — Caroline Herschel’s many Years — Constitution of the Early Church — “ Home, Sweet Home ” — Marriage in Undress — A City in Darkness — The Graffiti at Pompeii — Superstition — An Itemized Bill — Latin Pronunciation — Prevention better than Cure

A case of disinterested generosity and moral delinquency without a parallel is that recorded of a Scotch peasant, who sheltered the Pretender, Prince Charles Edward, after his defeat at Culloden Moor, in 1746, when the price of thirty thousand pounds was set upon his head, and who was afterwards hung for stealing a cow!

A strange story is that related in a paper on “English and Irish Juries,” in All the Year Round. The presiding judge in the case, Sir James Dyce, chief justice of the Court of Common Pleas, astonished at the verdict of acquittal in so plain a case, sought an interview with the foreman, who, having previously obtained a promise of secrecy during his lifetime, confessed that he had killed the man in a struggle in self-defence, and said that he had caused himself to be placed on the jury in order to insure his acquittal.

When the bill was in Parliament for building the famous bridge at Gloucester, there was a clause enacting that the commissioners should meet on the first Monday in every month, “except the same should fall on Christmas 198day, Ash Wednesday, or Good Friday.” The blunder as to the last two is palpable, and a moment’s reflection would show that Christmas Day can never fall on the first Monday of the month. The mistake passed unobserved, and still stands in the Act.

Among the satirical prints brought out in connection with the famous Treaty of Utrecht, in 1713, was a picture in which was represented what was said to be a very remarkable incident in the life of Lord Bolingbroke. In this picture he is seen sitting up in bed in a sort of dressing-gown. Leaning over the bed is a female as scantily attired as a Venus, and upon that part of her figure from which the Venus Callipyge took her name, Bolingbroke is signing a paper. This incident furnishes a strange picture of the manners of the times and of the recklessness of Bolingbroke.

Several years ago an English journal, The Owl, published the following singular paragraph:

“It is not perhaps generally known to our readers that the reason which the founders of the American republic had for selecting the fourth of March for the inauguration of their President, was to avoid the occurrence of a dies non by the incidence of that date on a Sunday. By calculation it was ascertained that for many hundreds of years the quadrennial recurrence of that day in the year of election invariably falls on a week day.”

199In the face of this absurdly incorrect statement, and before it was written, the fourth of March fell twice on Sunday,—in 1821 and in 1849,—so that Monroe’s second inauguration and General Taylor’s inauguration each took place on Monday, March 5.

The mysterious performance known as the powwow among the North American aborigines dates back to time immemorial. David Brainerd says, in his Indian Narrative, “At a distance, with my Bible in my hand, I was resolved if possible to spoil their spirit of powwowing, and prevent their receiving an answer from the infernal world.” Elsewhere, speaking of the Delaware Indians and their medicine men, he says, “They are much awed by those among themselves who are called powwowers, who are supposed to have a power of enchanting or poisoning them to death.” The Esquimaux also have a sorcerer or diviner who conjures over the sick. Dr. Kane, in his “Arctic Explorations,” says of this Angekok, as he is called, that “he is the general counsellor who prescribes or powwows in sickness and over wounds, directs the policy of the little state, and is really the power behind the throne.”

A correspondent wrote to the New York Sun urging the claims of the dogwood flower (Cornus florida) to be chosen as the national flower, and in support of the claims told the following story:

“A British army was marching upon Washington’s 200camp, expecting to find him with a small force. In the distance, about where they expected to find the camp, the British scouts saw a hill covered with dogwood trees in blossom. They mistook the trees for tents, and returned with the report that Washington’s army was so large that its tents whitened the hills. The British were not prepared to meet a large army, and so retired, leaving Washington and his little army in peace.”

The following story of the Paris Commune was vouched for by an English spectator: “As several Versaillese were being led away to be shot, one man in the crowd that accompanied them to see the shooting made himself conspicuous by taunting and reviling the prisoners. ‘There, confound you,’ said one of the prisoners at last, ‘don’t you try to get out of it by edging off into the crowd and pretending you are one of them. Come back here; the game is up; let us all die together;’ and the crowd was so persuaded that the communard’s vehemence was only assumed to cloak his escape that he was marched into file with the prisoners and duly shot.”

Speaking before a meeting of the Methodist ministers, Bishop Fowler told of a new heathen temple in the northern part of Japan. It was of enormous size, and the timbers for the temple from their mountain homes were hauled up to the temple and put in place by ropes made from the hair of the women of the province. An edict went forth calling for the long hair of the women 201of the province, and two ropes were made from these tresses—one seventeen inches in circumference and fourteen hundred feet long, and the other ten to eleven inches around and two thousand six hundred feet long.

“To paint cuirassiers,” said Meissonier, “I must needs see them.” He accordingly took a dozen of this corps to his country home, where they were required to charge down the park every morning, but the evolution did not last long, and, before the artist had sketched an outline of the group, the gallant fellows were out of sight. “You must follow them by train,” said a friend. No sooner said than done. An engineer was summoned, rails were laid down, rolling stock purchased, and for 202several weeks Meissonier accompanied the charge of his models by train. But it was summer, and historical accuracy required that the cuirassiers should dash over snowy ground. Thousands of bushels of flour were then laid down in the park, and the cuirassiers as they charged became enveloped in clouds of farina. The illusion was complete, the studies admirable, and the finished picture sold.

Mr. William Hemphill Jones, formerly Deputy Comptroller of the Treasury, was the man to whom General Dix telegraphed, “If any one attempts to haul down the American flag, shoot him on the spot.” The order was grand, but it becomes almost ridiculous when you see the amiable gentleman to whom it was sent, and imagine him receiving it alone and unarmed, as a treasury clerk sent to New Orleans on public business, and surrounded by an infuriated mob. Never was a man more powerless to obey an order.

Oliver Cromwell usually said the following grace before meals: “Some people have food, but no appetite; others have an appetite, but no food. I have both. The Lord be praised!” or words to this effect.

Burns’s version, which he calls the Selkirk grace, is as follows:

The greatest depths known of the sea is in the South Atlantic Ocean, midway between the island of Tristan d’Acunha and the mouth of the Rio de la Plata. The bottom was there reached at a depth of 40,236 feet, or eight and three-quarter miles, exceeding by more than 17,000 feet the height of Mount Everest, the loftiest mountain in the world. In the North Atlantic Ocean, south of Newfoundland, soundings have been made to a depth of 4580 fathoms, or 27,480 feet, while depths equalling 34,000 feet, or six and a half miles, are reported south of the Bermuda Islands. The average depth of the Pacific Ocean between Japan and California is a little over 2000 fathoms; between Chili and the Sandwich Islands, 2500 fathoms; and between Chili and New Zealand, 1500 fathoms. The average depth of all the oceans is from 2000 to 2500 fathoms.

The late Abraham Hayward, distinguished in his time as a man of letters, was instrumental in making public the fact that Lord Beaconsfield, in his speech on the Duke of Wellington’s death, had cribbed from M. Thiers a considerable part of his eulogium. On the night when this discovery was first unfolded, in the London Globe, Mrs. Disraeli, unconscious of the coming storm, went out to a party, and, entering the room, announced in loud tones, proud of her lord’s new honor, “I left the Chancellor of the Exchequer reading the evening paper.” “Oh, what delightful reading he will find in it!” responded a malicious Whig peer.

On the eve of the Franco-German War, Napoleon III., as superstitious a man as his uncle, was present at a table-turning seance at the Tuileries, when a courtier, expecting doubtless some fulsome bit of flattery from the oracle, asked the question, “Who is to be the victor in this war?”

Two sharp raps were the immediate answer, but no one present could interpret them in accordance with the usual code of signs. A second time the inquiry was made and received the same distinct reply, to the emperor’s evident displeasure.

At last when a third trial had brought the same persistent result, he could stand the experiment no longer, and, with an irritated “What can a double rap signify but bis-mark?” he left the room.

The last word on this much-discussed subject, which is of great geologic importance, because the falls have been made to serve as a sort of standard by which all geologic time is measured, comes from J. W. Spencer, who concludes from the measured rate of recession during forty-eight years, together with other geologic data not usually taken into account, that the falls are thirty-one thousand years old, and the river thirty-two thousand; also that the Huron drainage was turned into Lake Erie less than eight thousand years ago. He thinks that the lake epoch began fifty thousand or sixty thousand years ago, and that the falls have about five thousand years more to live, at the end of 205which time the lake waters will discharge into the Mississippi.

Mr. Petrie’s researches at Gizeh show that the Egyptian stone-workers, four thousand years ago, had a surprising acquaintance with what have been considered modern tools. Among the many tools used by the pyramid-builders were both solid and tubular drills and straight and circular saws. The drills, like those of the present time, were set with jewels (probably corundum, as the diamond was very scarce), and even lathe-tools had such cutting edges. So remarkable was the quality of the tubular drills and the skill of the workmen that the cutting marks in hard granite give no indication of wear of the tool, while a cut of a tenth of an inch was made in the hardest rock at each revolution, and a hole through both the hardest and softest material was bored perfectly smooth and uniform throughout.

It is impossible for the finite mind to comprehend the vastness of the spaces that separate us from the stars, even from those that are nearest. Some idea of our marvellous distance from Sirius, the nearest fixed star, and which shines brightest in the heavens, is given by this illustration. A scientific writer says that if people on the star Sirius have telescopes powerful enough to distinguish objects on our planet, and are looking at it now, they are witnessing the destruction of Jerusalem, which took place more than eighteen hundred years ago. 206The reason of this is that the light which the world reflects, travelling as it does at the rate of one hundred and eighty-six thousand miles per second, would take over eighteen centuries to reach the nearest fixed star.

The following is a brief extract from a law paper, for the full understanding of which it has to be kept in view that the pleader, being an officer of the law, who has been prevented from executing his warrant by threats, is required, as a matter of form, to swear that he was really afraid that the threat would be carried into execution:

“Farther depones, that the said A. B. said that if deponent did not immediately take himself off he would pitch him (the deponent) down stairs,—which the deponent verily believes he would have done.

“Farther depones, that, time and place aforesaid, the said A. B. said to deponent, ‘If you come another step nearer, I’ll kick you to hell,’—which the deponent verily believes he would have done.”

Thousands of American tourists, while in London, stand reverentially beside the grave of Oliver Goldsmith in the old burial ground of the Temple, or curiously examine the room in Wine Office Court in which he wrote the “Vicar of Wakefield.” But how many of all these thousands have ever visited the locale of the “Deserted Village?” Lissoy, the Auburn of the poet, is on the road that runs from Athlone to Ballymahon, 207not more than fifty or sixty miles west of Dublin, yet there is nothing in Westmeath to attract strangers. The general impression is that when the “one only master,” General Napier, grasped the whole domain, and dispossessed and removed the cottiers to make room for his projected improvements, the village was dismantled and effaced. It is said, however, that a descendant of General Napier afterwards did something in the way of restoration. Be this as it may, the ruined walls of the alehouse, the “busy mill,” and the “decent church” on the hill are still standing.

The dowager Czarina is a great favorite in Russia. Among other stories illustrating her character is this: She saw on her husband’s table a document regarding a political prisoner. On the margin Alexander III. had written, “Pardon impossible; to be sent to Siberia.” The Czarina took up the pen and, striking out the semicolon after “impossible,” put it before the word. Then the indorsement read, “Pardon; impossible to be sent to Siberia.” The Czar let it stand.

In Persia the past and the present are linked by the belief that human tears are a remedy for certain chronic diseases. At every funeral the bottling of mourners’ tears forms a prominent feature of the ceremonies. Every mourner is presented with a sponge with which to mop off the cheeks and eyes, and after the burial the moistened sponges are presented to the priest who 208squeezes the tears into bottles which he keeps for curative purposes. This is one of the most ancient of the Eastern customs; it is referred to in the eighth verse of the fifty-sixth Psalm, where David says, “put thou my tears into thy bottle;” and according to the testimony of a physician recently returned from a visit to Persia, the custom is still practised by the Persians as it was thousands of years ago.

It is said that a professed atheist once had a motto on one of his walls bearing the words “God is Nowhere.” His little daughter, just beginning to read, came into the room and began to spell, “G-o-d God, I-s Is, N-o-w Now, H-e-r-e Here—God is now here.” The father was at once aroused and excited. We do not ask which was right, but notice that the meaning depends on how you read, and the possible meanings are as opposite as the poles.

When Lord Chief Justice Holt presided in the Court of King’s Bench (1690), a poor decrepit old woman was brought before him charged with witchcraft. “What is the proof?” asked his lordship. “She has a powerful spell,” answered the prosecutor. “Let me see it.” The “spell” was handed up to the bench. It proved to be a small ball of variously colored rags of silk, bound with threads of as many different hues. These were unwound and unfolded, until there was revealed a scrap of parchment, on which were written certain characters now nearly illegible from constant use. “Is this the spell?” asked the judge. The prosecutor replied that it 209was. After attentive scrutiny of the charm, the judge, turning to the old creature, said, “Prisoner, how came you by this?” “A young gentleman, my lord, gave it to me to cure my child’s ague.” “How long since?” “Thirty years, my lord.” “And did it cure the child?” “Oh, yes, sir; and many others.” “I am glad of it.” The judge paused a few moments, and then addressed the jury as follows: “Gentlemen of the jury, thirty years ago, I and some companions, as thoughtless as myself, went to this woman’s place, then a public house, and, after enjoying ourselves, found we had no means to discharge the reckoning. I had recourse to a stratagem. Observing a child ill of an ague, I pretended I had a spell to cure her. I wrote the classic line you see on that scrap of parchment, and was discharged of the demand on me by the gratitude of the poor woman before us for the supposed benefit.”

At a table-d’hôte at Ludwigsburg one of the company showed a very rare gold coin, which was passed around for inspection. After conjectures as to its origin and value, conversation drifted to other subjects, and the coin was temporarily forgotten. After awhile, the owner asked for it, and to the surprise of all, it was not to be found. A gentleman sitting at the foot of the table was observed to be in much agitation, and as his embarrassment seemed to increase with the continuance of the search the company was about to propose a very disagreeable measure, when suddenly a waiter entered the room, saying, “Here is the coin; it was found in one of the finger-glasses.” The relief to all was manifest, 210and now the suspected stranger broke his silence thus: “None of you can rejoice more than myself at the recovery of the coin, for I have been placed in a painful situation. By a singular coincidence I have a duplicate of the very same coin in my purse (here showing it to the company). The idea that on the personal search which would probably be proposed I would be taken for the purloiner of the coin, added to the fact that I am a stranger here, with no one to vouch for my integrity, was distracting. The honesty of the servants, with a lucky accident, has saved my honor.” The friendly congratulations of the company soon effaced the unpleasant effect of their unwarranted suspicions.

A touching little begging story with a good moral is told by the Pittsburg Telegraph. A young man who had been on a three days’ debauch wandered into the office room of a hotel, where he was well known, sat down, and stared moodily into the street. Presently a little girl of about ten years came in and looked timidly about the room. She was dressed in rags, but she had a sweet, intelligent face that could scarcely fail to excite sympathy. There were five persons in the room, and she went to each begging. One gentleman gave her a five-cent piece, and she then went to the gentleman spoken of and asked him for a penny, adding: “I haven’t had anything to eat for a whole day.” The gentleman was out of humor, and he said, crossly: “Don’t bother me; go away! I haven’t had anything to eat for three days.” The child opened her eyes in shy wonder and stared at him a moment, and then 211walked slowly towards the door. She turned the knob, and then after hesitating a few seconds, walked up to him, and gently laying the five cents she had received on his knee, said with a tone of true girlish pity in her voice, “If you haven’t had anything to eat for three days, you take this and go and buy some bread. Perhaps I can get some more somewhere.” The young fellow blushed to the roots of his hair, and lifted the Sister of Charity in his arms, kissed her two or three times in delight. Then he took her to the persons in the room, and to those in the corridors and in the office, and told the story and asked contributions, giving himself all the money he had with him. He succeeded in raising over forty dollars and sent the little one on her way rejoicing.

Enthusiasts in folk-lore have undertaken to prove that subtle allegories or abstruse theological dogmas are the basis of popular tales. That in the celebrated story of Jack Sprat, for example, it is possible to discern an emblem of a rapacious clergy and an equally greedy aristocracy devouring the substance of the commons.

When Benjamin Franklin, as minister to France, was formally presented to Louis XVI., he gained admiration for republican simplicity by appearing in a plain, ordinary suit. But when Nathaniel Hawthorne made the discovery that Franklin’s tailor had disappointed him of the gold-embroidered court costume he had ordered, simple-minded republicans were considerably disconcerted.

Early in the sixteenth century four Franciscan monks, living in a monastery in Donegal, compiled from a tangled web of tradition, song, story, and legend, the annals upon which all subsequent histories of Ireland have been based.

Probably the longest name in the world is attached to the daughter of Arthur Pepper, laundryman. The name of his daughter, born 1883, is Anna Bertha Cecilia Diana Emily Fanny Gertrude Hypatia Inez Jane Kate Louisa Maud Nora Ophelia Quince Rebecca Sarah Teresa Ulysses Venus Winifred Xenophon Yetty Zeus Pepper, one title for every letter of the alphabet.

Among the Acul Mountains, in Hayti, there has been found, in an old house, a bust of Lord Nelson. It is of white marble, somewhat stained by time and neglect. Nelson is represented in his costume of admiral, and bears on his breast five decorations. One, in commemoration of the battle of Aboukir, has the inscription, “Rear Admiral Lord Nelson of the Nile.” Another medal bears the words, “Almighty God has blessed his Majesty’s glory!”

This bust, interesting in its artistic and historical association, was found on an altar devoted to the fetish worship, where for half a century it has been reverenced as the Deity of the Mountain Streams. The 213names of the sculptors were Coale and Lealy, of Lambeth.

Thus for fifty years a bust of an English admiral has been worshipped as a heathen idol.

During the contest over the will of Samuel J. Tilden, himself an eminent lawyer, it was noted, among some of the failures of great lawyers to draw wills that will be indisputable, that Baron St. Leonards, Lord High Chancellor of England, who was the author of treatises on the law of property, to-day accepted as authorities, wrote a will which was overthrown by the courts. Intending testators may well wonder wherein safety and certainty for testamentary bequests may be found.

The stone in the Washington Monument contributed by the government of Switzerland bears this inscription: “This block is from the original chapel built to William Tell, in 1338, on Lake Lucerne, Switzerland, at the spot where he escaped from Gessler.” Since it was sent here the Historical Society of Switzerland has demonstrated that no such persons as Tell and Gessler ever existed.

Among the many mistakes prevalent in regard to the habits of animals and insects is the notion that ants in general gather food in harvest for a winter’s store. This is quite an error; in the first place, they do not live on 214grain, but chiefly on animal food; and in the next place, they are torpid in winter and do not require food. There is in Poonah a grain-feeding species which stores up millet seed, but certainly our ants have no claim to Jane Taylor’s stanza,—

The life of Caroline Herschel, one would imagine, was anything but favorable to long-lasting. Insufficient sleep, irregular and hasty meals, long fasts, excessive toil, both bodily and mental, were the conditions of her life—at least, during the fifteen years she was her brother’s housekeeper and astronomical assistant. A lady who devoted herself to hard work, one of the necessities of which was that she had to spend the whole of every starry night, covered with dew or hoar frost, on a grass-plot in the garden, would not, one would think, be likely to make old bones. At the age of eighty-two, however, according to her nephew’s account, she skipped up two flights of stairs and ran about like a girl of twenty. She died at the age of ninety-eight.

Dean Stanley once remarked that the most learned of all the living bishops of England (Dr. Lightfoot) has, with his characteristic moderation and erudition, proved beyond dispute, in a celebrated essay attached 215to his edition of “St. Paul’s Epistle to the Philippians,” that the early council of the Apostolic churches of the first century was not that of a single bishop, but of a body of pastors indifferently styled bishops or presbyters, and that it was not till the very end of the apostolic age that the office which we now call Episcopacy gradually and surely made its way into the churches of Asia Minor; that Presbytery was not a later growth out of Episcopacy, but that Episcopacy was a later growth out of Presbytery; that the office which the apostles instituted was a kind of rule, not of bishops, but of presbyters; and that even down to the third century presbyters as well as bishops possessed the power of nominating and consecrating bishops.

“Clari; or, The Maid of Milan,” produced in 1823, contains one piece that is known in every English-speaking country,—“Home, sweet home.” Clari is a beautiful peasant girl, who has exchanged her father’s lowly cottage for the splendor of the duke’s palace and become his bride. But she pines for the simple life she has led, and as she enters, fatigued and melancholy, she sings this song. The words are by John Howard Payne, an American, and though the music was called by Bishop a “Sicilian air,” it is now generally agreed that it was really composed by him. “It is the song,” says Clari, “of my native village,—the hymn of the lowly heart, which dwells upon every lip there, and like a spell-word brings back to its home the affection which e’er has been betrayed to wander from it. It is the first music heard by infancy in its cradle; and 216our cottagers, blending it with all their earliest and tenderest recollections, never cease to feel its magic till they cease to live.” The air is heard again during the play; a chorus of villagers sing it when Clari revisits her home.

About a year before Payne’s death at Tunis, where he was serving as American Consul, he wrote the following letter:

My Dear Sir,—It affords me great pleasure to comply with your request for the words of “Home, Sweet Home.” Surely there is something strange in the fact that it should have been my lot to cause so many people in the world to boast of the delights of home, when I never had a home of my own, and never expect to have one, now—especially since those here at Washington who possess the power seem so reluctant to allow me the means of earning one! In the hope that I may again and often have the gratification of meeting you, believe me, my dear sir,

A century ago the law of Maine obliged a husband to pay all the debts of his bride in case she brought him any clothing. As outer clothing was legal property which could be taken for debt, an unfortunate couple who were deeply in love resorted to the experiment described in the following certificate of marriage to be found to-day in the ancient records of Lincoln County:

From record of return marriages to the Court of Sessions, Lincoln County, under date of July 7, 1775:

This is to certify that John Gatchell and Sarah Cloutman, both inhabitants of Kennebec River, a little below Fort Halifax, and out of the bounds of any town, but within the county of Lincoln, were first published, as the law directs, at said court and there married; said Cloutman being in debt was desirous of being married with no more clothes on her than her shift, which was granted, and they married each other on the 21st day of November, A.D. 1767.

The Romans, after they had attained a high culture, when they had filled their city with noble architecture, sculpture, engineering, monuments, and other accompaniments of maturity, had no system of street-lightning. Not a trace of anything of the kind has been discovered. It is referred to in no extant books. It is, in short, as certain as anything can be, short of absolute demonstration, that the masters of the world endured dark streets to the end. They had plenty of good oil-lamps in their houses. They even invented mechanical lamps, something like the Carcel burners, for use in their libraries. But after sunset it was always dangerous to walk the streets of Rome, and the Roman police (who were called “cops” in the slang of the period) had enough to do. In fact, they had more than enough to do, for they combined the functions of policemen and firemen. Rome had a regular body of 218men, some nine thousand strong. The police were well treated, if they were worked hard. Their quarters were palaces of marble and stone; spacious, airy, furnished with everything which could conduce to the comfort and even luxury of the inmates. Those old Roman roundsmen and policemen were, like all the ancient Italians, greatly addicted to scribbling on the walls. These scribblings, after being buried for twelve or fifteen hundred years or so, are now being uncovered and deciphered. They are called graffiti and from them many intimate details of the old life may be gathered. The police of ancient Rome were very human. They set down their complaints and their opinions of their captains and superintendents, their poor jokes (funny enough to them, no doubt) and all their little affairs.

August Mau, of the German Archæological Institute in Rome, says, “The graffiti form the largest division of the Pompeiian inscriptions, comprising about three thousand examples, or one-half of the entire number; the name is Italian, being derived from a verb meaning to scratch. Writing upon walls was a prevalent habit in antiquity, as shown by the remains of graffiti at Rome and other places besides Pompeii, a habit which may be accounted for in part by the use of the sharp-pointed stylus with wax tablets; the temptation to use such an instrument upon the polished stucco was much greater than in the case of pens and lead-pencils upon the less carefully finished wall surfaces of our time. Pillars or sections of wall are covered with scratches of all kinds,—names, catchwords of favorite lines from 219the poets, amatory couplets, and rough sketches, such as a ship, or the profile of a face. The skit occasionally found on walls to-day,—

has its counterpart in a couplet which has been preserved:

“Taken as a whole, the graffiti are less fertile for our knowledge of Pompeiian life than might have been expected. The people with whom we should most eagerly desire to come into direct contact, the cultivated men and women of the ancient city, were not accustomed to scratch their names upon stucco or to confide their reflections and experiences to the surface of a wall. Some of the graffiti, to judge from the height at which we find them above the floor, were undoubtedly made by the hands of boys and girls; for the rest, we may assume that the writers were as little representative of the best elements of society as are the tourists who scratch their names upon ancient monuments to-day. Nevertheless, we gain from these scribblings a lively idea of individual tastes, passions, and experiences.”

Here and there in the collection we find imitations of the jests of Hierocles, and sometimes we are amused by inconsistencies and contradictions which remind us of the modern Hibernicism. Of this character is a Greek line scratched upon a wall on the Palatine hill in Rome: 220“Many persons have here written many things; I alone refrain from writing.”

As to the amusing superstitions we so often witness in people of intelligence and impressible nature, the question, even for those who indulge in such fancies, is not whether they are reasonable. Lord Byron would not commence an undertaking of any kind on Friday. But even Byron, with his remarkable sensitiveness to impressions, and his habit of brooding over the mysteries of life, would not venture to assert that such conduct is reasonable. The “Autocrat of the Breakfast Table” says, “Jeremy Bentham’s logic, by which he proved he couldn’t possibly see a ghost, is all very well—in the daytime. All the reason in the world will never get impressions of childhood out of a man’s head.” Elsewhere, Dr. Holmes says, “We are all tattooed in our cradles with the beliefs of our tribe; the record may seem superficial, but it is indelible. You cannot educate a man wholly out of the superstitious fears which were early implanted in his imagination; no matter how utterly his reason may reject them, he will still feel as a famous French woman did about ghosts, ‘Je n’y crois pas; mais je les crains,’—‘I don’t believe in them; but I am afraid of them, nevertheless.’”

An old church in Belgium decided to repair its properties and employed an artist to touch up some of its old paintings. Upon presenting his bill, the committee 221in charge refused payment unless the details were specified, whereupon he presented the items as follows:

A French savant, M. Garaud, has just published a book which professes to settle the vexed question of pronunciation of Latin by the ancient Romans. He says: “The patois of Pamiers, in the Department of Ariège, is nothing else than Latin exiled on the borders of the Ariège. It has been brought there with its original pronunciation and accentuation. Without the aid of any book the ear has sufficed to preserve its first form 222and intonation after eighteen centuries’ use. The most delicate inflections of the voice have been kept. Thanks to the instinct of harmony and the love of sonority, Latin pronunciation has been exactly transmitted to us.”

We learn from the parish records of Oberammergau that when the plague of 1633 was sweeping the by-ways of the Bavarian Tyrol, eighteen peasants met together and vowed that if the plague were stayed they would, once in ten years, present in living pictures the Passion of Christ. That vow has been faithfully kept. On Fish Street Hill, in London, where the great fire of 1666 started, the citizens erected a commemorative monument as an expression of their gratitude that the fire had destroyed the last vestige of the pestilence which, in the course of a few months, had carried off sixty-eight thousand five hundred and ninety-six of the inhabitants of the metropolis. We who live in an age of broader enlightenment have learned that the line of practical beneficence leads to prophylaxis rather than to religious vows or sacrificial offerings, and points to higher promise and larger performance. We, too, are building a monument, but it will be more enduring than stone or bronze, and will immortalize its trust in one word, SANITATION.

FACETIÆ — The Old Cock — Already had One — Ask Papa — Too Mild — The Eye of the Fly — Yale’s Way — Canard — Sothern’s Practical Joke — High Art Advertising — An Admissible Explanation — Second- or Third-Rate — The Wounded Amazon — Mr. Evarts’s Jocularity — Worse than Worst — A Poet-farmer in a Fix — A Venerable Joke — The Graduate — Coldblooded Criticism — Mock Heroics — Unwilling Willingness — Companion Pictures — Juxtaposition — Niagara — Compliant Courts — A Modern Judge on Portia’s Judgment — A Legal Dilemma — Virgil’s Æneid Dissected — Relative Size — The Cardinal’s Curse — The Berners Street Hoax — The Point of View — Vicissim — Jack and Jill — High Diddle Diddle, the Cat and the Fiddle — Mary’s Little Lamb — The Meeting

Many years ago the only inn at Keswick was called the “Cock,” and was much frequented by the visitors to the Lake district. But the late excellent Bishop of Llandaff, Dr. Richard Watson, happening to reside in the neighborhood, and being universally esteemed and loved, the landlord, out of compliment to his lordship, changed his sign to the “Bishop’s Head.” Another inn was shortly after opened in the village, and the proprietor selected the “Cock” as his sign. The landlord of the old inn, finding that the rival establishment, owing to its name, threatened to deprive him of many of his customers, in consequence of the guide-books recommending the “Cock” as the best inn, wrote under the bishop’s head at his door, “This is the original Old Cock,” to the great amusement of the bishop, who used to relate the story with much glee.

The following story is told by General Harry Heth: “One day General Gordon and I were ordered to attack General Grant’s lines near Petersburg, and we accordingly moved out toward the front. Gordon, you know, was a preacher, and a man of pious devotional habits. Just before the action began, he said, ‘General, before we go into action, would it not be well to engage in 224prayer?’ ‘Certainly,’ I replied, and he and his staff retired into a little building by the roadside, and I and my staff prepared to follow. Just then I caught sight of my brother, who was with some artillery a little way down the road, and, thinking to have him join us, I called out to him by name. ‘Come,’ said I, pointing to the building we were just entering. ‘No, thank you,’ he answered, ‘I have just had one.’”

A stanza went the rounds among the public men of Washington, the authorship of which, from the fact that it was first heard among senators and cabinet officers, is credited to various statesmen. Secretary Shaw recited it at a cabinet meeting, and was said to be its author, but he disclaimed the honor. It is:

When his friends secured for him a commission in the army they confidently expected him to develop a military genius of the first order.

Great was their chagrin, then, when, in the thick of his first battle, a courier having dashed up and asked him how long he could hold his position, he did not reply:

“Till hell freezes over!”

But merely:

“As long as may be necessary!”

225Now, of course, there was nothing for his friends to do, in simple justice to themselves, but advise him to resign and engage in trade.

Sydney Smith jokes have a delicate flavor of age, but an anecdote in “Memories of Half a Century” has not been told so often as some of the classic tales. Sydney was a guest at the dinner of an archdeacon, and a fellow-guest, whose hobby was natural history, was a bore, if once started on his subject. Smith promised to try to keep him in check. The naturalist got his opening.

“Mr. Archdeacon,” said he, “have you seen the pamphlet written by my friend, Professor Dickenson, on the remarkable size of the eye in a common housefly?”

The archdeacon courteously said he had not. The bore pursued his advantage.

“I can assure you it is a most interesting pamphlet, setting forth particulars, hitherto unobserved, as to the unusual size of that eye.”

“I deny the fact!” said a voice from the other end of the table. All smiled, save the bore.

“You deny the fact, sir?” said he. “May I ask on what authority you condemn the investigations of my most learned friend?”

“I deny the fact,” replied Smith, “and I base my denial on evidence wedded to immortal verse well known to every scholar, at least, at this table.”

The emphasis laid on scholar nettled the naturalist by its implication. “Well, sir,” he said, “will you have the kindness to quote your authority?”

226“I will, sir. The evidence is those well known, I may say immortal, lines:

The guests roared, and during the rest of the dinner nothing further was heard on the subject of natural history.

Once when President Dwight was at the head of Yale he was asked to lead in prayer at some religious gathering in Boston. Among his hearers was President Eliot, of Harvard. President Dwight ended his supplication by repeating the Lord’s Prayer, and spoke a certain part of it as follows: “Thy will be done in heaven as it is on earth.” At the close of the meeting President Eliot, of Harvard, was greeted by a friend, who said, “Dwight seemed a little lame on the Lord’s Prayer. He put earth ahead of heaven. Did you notice it?” “Yes,” replied Eliot, “but I didn’t pay any attention to it. That’s the way they are taught to say it down at New Haven.”

A canard, meaning in French, a duck, has come to mean in English a hoax or fabricated newspaper story. Its origin is amusing. About fifty years ago a French journalist contributed to the French press an experiment, of which he declared himself to have been the author. Twenty ducks were placed together, and one of them, having been cut up into very small pieces, 227was gluttonously gobbled up by the other nineteen. Another bird was then sacrificed for the remainder, and so on, until one duck was left, which thus contained in its inside the other nineteen! This the journalist ate. The story caught on, and was copied into all the newspapers of Europe.

A Dublin paper relates, as follows, one of the practical jokes of Edward A. Sothern, the comedian: He called upon an undertaker one day, and ordered, on a most elaborate scale, all that was necessary for a funeral. Before the preparations could have gone far, he reappeared with great solicitude to ask how they were progressing. Again, at a brief interval, he presented himself, with an anxious face, to inquire when he could count upon possession of the body—a question which naturally amazed the undertaker, who was at a loss to discover his meaning. “Of course, you provide the body,” said Sothern. “The body?” cried the undertaker. “Why, do you not say,” exclaimed the actor, exhibiting a card of the shop, “‘All things necessary for funerals promptly supplied?’ Is not a body the first necessity?”

That German tradesmen are rapidly rising to the higher flights of the advertising art is shown by the following ingenious paragraphs from the advertisements in the Berliner Tageblatt and the Wiener Vorstadt-Zeitung: “A German Knightly landowner wishes to find 228a female life-companion who resembles, externally as well as in character, the heroine of Sacher-Masoch’s novel, ‘Frau von Soldan,’ published in the April number of Auf der Höhe, by E. L. Morgenstern, Leipzig. Address Karl Egger, Beiderwiese, near Passau.” An enterprising Viennese tailor has hit upon this: “How to become a houseowner: Quite lately a gentleman made his fortune on the Weiden in an astonishing and absolutely original manner. At my shop he purchased a morning suit for ten florins, a dress suit for nineteen florins, a pair of summer trousers for three florins, and a complete costume for his little son at the low figure of three florins and a half. Having reflected that, had he bought these articles in any other shop, he would have been obliged to pay at least twenty florins more for them, he resolved to invest his savings to that amount in a ticket for the Crown Prince Rudolph Lottery. At the next drawing his number came out the first prize of twenty thousand florins, which sum this lucky person forthwith invested in a comfortable mansion. Thus, through dealing at my establishment, he became a houseowner and a wealthy man.”

The late Dr. Yandell was fond of telling the following joke: A lady patient one morning greeted him with the remark, “Doctor, I had such a singular dream about you last night.” “Indeed. What was it?” “Why, I dreamed that I died and went to heaven. I knocked at the Golden Gate, and was answered by Peter, who asked my name and address and told the recording angel to bring his book. He had considerable difficulty 229in finding my name, and hesitated so long over the entry when he did find it, that I was terribly afraid something was wrong; but he suddenly looked up and asked, ‘What did you say your name was?’ I told him again. ‘Why,’ said he, ‘you have no business here. You’re not due these ten or fifteen years yet.’ ‘Well,’ said I, ‘Dr. Yandell said——’ ‘Oh, you’re one of Yandell’s patients, are you? That accounts for it. Come right in! Come right in! That man’s always upsetting our calculations in some way.’”

Bishop Lawrence, of Massachusetts, tells this joke on himself with keen relish. It was at the time when there was a vacancy in the bishopric, and Dr. Brooks was the most prominent candidate. Mr. Lawrence, then the Dean of the Theological School, in Cambridge, was walking with President Eliot of Harvard University, and the two were discussing the situation. “Don’t you hope Brooks will be elected?” asked the Dean. “No,” said Dr. Eliot; “a second- or third-rate man would do just as well; and we need Brooks in Boston and Cambridge.” Phillips Brooks was elected, and a little later Dr. Eliot and Mr. Lawrence again discussed the matter. “Aren’t you glad Brooks was elected?” queried the Dean. “Yes, I suppose so,” said Dr. Eliot, “if he wanted it; but, to tell the truth, Lawrence, you were my man.”

Gibson’s Wounded Amazon is a poem in marble, but how many of its admirers would ever suspect the 230grotesque suggestiveness of which it was the outgrowth? “Yes,” said Gibson to a friend who went to his studio to see the statue in clay, “I call it a Wounded Amazon, but that statue is a proof of how useful it is for an artist to keep his eyes open. Now, how do you think I found that pose? I was going along the street, and I found a girl catching a flea. Yes, I did; she was catching a flea! I stopped and said to myself, ‘That’s a pretty pose—a very pretty pose indeed,’ and I took it down. Then I thought it over; I sat up and worked it out, and there it stands now as my Wounded Amazon. But it is the very pose of the girl catching the flea, nevertheless. A very pretty pose it is, you see; and, as I said, it shows that an artist must not fail to keep his eyes always open.”

A friend read to Mr. William M. Evarts the statement of a newspaper that, in reply to the question “What part of the turkey will you have?” Mr. Evarts answered that it was “quite inconsequential to one of his recognized abstemiousness and supersensitive stomachic nervation whether he be tendered an infinitesimal portion of the opaque nutriment of the nether extremities, the superior fraction of a pinion, or a snowy cleavage from the cardiac region.” Mr. Evarts said that this was an attempt at condensing one of his despatches protesting against the dismemberment of Turkey. It was founded on an incident which occurred at one of his Thanksgiving dinners at home. “I had a roasted New England goose, well stuffed with sage, with plenty of apple-sauce and the usual accompaniments. 231At the close of the meal I said, ‘My children, you now see the difference between the condition of affairs before and after dinner. You then saw a goose stuffed with sage; now you see a sage stuffed with goose.’”

Two comedians having laid a wager as to which of them sang the best, they agreed to refer it to an arbitrator. A day was accordingly set, and both parties executed to the best of their abilities. When they had finished, he proceeded to give judgment in the following manner: “As for you, sir,” addressing himself to the first, “you are the worst singer I ever heard in all my life.” “Ah,” said the other, “I knew I should win the wager.” “Stop, sir,” said the arbitrator; “I have a word to say to you before you go, which is this, that as for you, you cannot sing at all.”

Long Island has a poet named Bloodgood H. Cutter, who, when an infant, “lisped in numbers.” He is a member of the agricultural profession, a practical farmer, and alternates between cultivation of his extensive family manor and his favorite muse monthly. One day the Long Island Byron, when on the way to the New York market, had the misfortune to break his tackling through the antics of his spirited team, that was drawing a big load.

Just at this moment, as the poet was in the road lugubriously viewing his ruptured tackling and broken traces, there appeared on the spot a wagon-load of his 232neighbors on their way home. “By Jove!” said S., “there is our rhyming neighbor Cutter, broke down; bet you the dinners all round at Tony’s that when we stop he will tell his trouble in good rhythm.” “Done,” said B. “I take that bet. Drive up and decide it.” Bloodgood looked around, saw a chance of relief, and his countenance radiating like an Edison lamp, opened his lips thusly:

A roar went up that could have been heard a mile. “All right, Bloodgood, that Christian duty shall be ‘did.’” They fixed him up and he went on his way rejoicing. In due time Tony Miller’s elegant dinner for four was partaken of, and B. footed the bill.

The framework of jokes is handed down from one generation to another, like andirons and spinning-wheels. For instance, a Hartford paper, learning that there is a coin in Southern Russia so small that it takes two hundred and fifty of them to be worth one dollar, remarks that they must be very convenient for charitable purposes. The joke appears in every age, without much alteration. It is first noticed in English literature 233after the ascension of James I. to the throne had brought in a horde of hungry Scotch place-hunters, to the great disgust of the English, who wanted all the places themselves. Jokes at the expense of the Scotch, of course, became very popular, and this was one of the most popular: “Why are they coining farthings again?” “To give Scotchmen an opportunity to subscribe to benevolent objects.”

Mr. Longfellow sent this little verse to the Columbus, Ohio, school children, who celebrated his birthday:

Whereupon a Cincinnati paper chaffed the poet in this fashion: “Certainly, Mr. Longfellow; but if you sung it you told it, didn’t you? It is rather your point to tell a thing in singing it! Why, then, ‘sung or told?’ And why the back in the third line? Break that back. Could one repay you forward? And is not a sign also a salutation?”

Dr. Guernsey, in an article on faith cure, in the Medical Times, cites a case in which will power appears to have successfully supplied the place of faith. Among the parishioners of the Rev. Dr. Taylor, of New Haven, was an invalid lady, who finally took to her bed, where she continued to receive her pastor’s visits. One bitter cold night she sent for him to console her dying moments, and declared herself ready to depart in peace. “If it is His will,” she said, “that I shall go to hell, I can still say, ‘Thy will be done.’” The physician who was present became a little impatient. “Well,” said he, “if that is God’s will, and both you and your family are reconciled to it, I do not know that I ought to object.” In a moment the woman was on her feet shouting, “I won’t die and I won’t go to hell!” She afterward enjoyed comfortable health for years.

The Rev. Dr. John Hall once suggested that an artist might paint “Enchantment” as “a bright young girl, on the deck of an ocean steamer at the wharf, chattering to the friends around her, grandly directing her bouquets to be sent to her room, full of the joys of the voyage and her first trip to Europe.” He adds that a companion picture might be called “Disenchanted,” representing the same girl, “like Jonah, gone down to the sides of the ship, not like him, asleep, but with great inward trouble, like that in the venerable sea story, ‘The first hour I feared I would die; the second hour I feared I would not.’ The faded bouquets, disordered garments, and a very crowded foreground would complete the scene.”

Dr. Henry Gibbons describes a kiss as “the anatomical juxtaposition of two orbicularis oris muscles in a state of contraction.” Upon this, a newspaper editor remarked, “A kiss may be one of those things, but it doesn’t taste like it. We once heard a young man describe a kiss as ‘bully,’ and he had quite as much experience in the osculatory business as Dr. Gibbons, but he didn’t have so much education.”

An American tourist was visiting Naples and saw Vesuvius during an eruption. “Have you anything like that in the New World?” was the question of an Italian spectator. “No,” replied Jonathan; “but I 237guess we have a mill-dam that would put it out in five minutes.”

Edwin Booth, as Richelieu, once said, in a Chicago theatre,—

And, after a solemn pause, somebody in the gallery said, “Most any Chicago Judge.”

The Home Secretary lately ventured to assert that Lord Bramwell entertained so vast a reverence for all kinds of property that if he had been called upon to decide the legal dispute in “The Merchant of Venice,” he would infallibly have declared that Antonio’s pound of flesh must be given to his creditor. Lord Bramwell, with the frankness which usually characterizes him, has met Sir William Harcourt’s little joke by an answer delivered from the judicial bench. In the course of an Appeal Court case the learned judge took occasion to respond to the witty illustration of the Home Secretary. Far from expressing the slightest shame or penitence for the views which he holds as to the sacredness of property of all descriptions, Lord Bramwell actually seems to glory in them. The session of the Court of Appeal was probably the earliest opportunity that was presented to him of answering Sir William Harcourt’s banter; but at all events, he seized on the opportunity and turned it to the best account. Portia’s statement 238of the case would, Lord Bramwell tells us, have induced him to give the pound of flesh to the usurer, except for one little flaw in her argument. The flesh had not been “appropriated,” and could not, therefore, be regarded as property to which Shylock had a good legal right until it had been cut from Antonio’s quivering body. Supposing Lord Bramwell to have been sitting in banco with the Doge of Venice on the occasion of the famous trial, and the pound of flesh had been lying on a table ready cut; in that case the decision of the English judge would have been in favor of the plaintiff’s claim to the possession of the horrible piece of “property.” But then, as Lord Bramwell truly remarks, in order to get the flesh, assault, and even murder, would have had to be committed, and therefore the contract was null and void from the beginning. The moment Shylock had advanced toward his victim, knife in hand, he would have been technically guilty of an assault with intent, and would have been obliged to appear at the police court of the period next morning to hear what the sitting magistrate thought of the offence.

At an examination for admission to the bar of Ohio, the examiner propounded this question: “A great many years ago there lived a gentleman named Lazarus, who died possessed of chattels, real and personal. After this event to whom did they go?” The student replied, “To his administrators and his heirs.” “Well, then,” continued the examiner, “in four days he came to life again; inform us, sir, whose were they then?” Which interesting inquiry we submit to the lawyers. I am not 239a lawyer, but I see no difficulty in the inquiry. Lazarus died and was buried. As soon as he died, his property, if he left no will, vested in his heirs. The law gives no man the right to die for four days and then come to life again. Legally Lazarus couldn’t rise. I have no doubt the Supreme Court would decide that the Lazarus who rose was not the Lazarus who died; he was a new Lazarus. The new Lazarus would, of course, feel within himself that he was the old Lazarus, and go around boring his legal friends talking about his legal wrongs; but every lawyer would leave him as quickly as possible, saying, in parting, “It’s a hard case; but if your heirs can prove your death, and they came in legally under the statute, there is no way to make them disgorge. All you can do is this—you’re a young fellow about sixty; hire out as a clerk, try to save something from your salary so as to go into business again, build up a grand estate, and perhaps your heirs will recognize your identity.”

In an English college journal our old and highly polished friend P. Virgilius Maro is quite thoroughly shaken up. After a little general discussion of the poet, the writer proceeds to quote a large number of passages in which Virgil is inconsistent and oftentimes contradictory. Take, for instance, the following:

“Down comes blind Cyclops to the shore—

‘He washes with its water the gore that trickled from his scooped-out eye.’ Now would anybody but a madman 240go and bathe a bleeding wound in the sea—the sea, of all places? Why, he would have made his head smart for a year; but Virgil wanted him down on the shore, and must make him do something. Note, too, ‘fluidum cruorem.’ Now, in line 645 of the same book (III), the fugitive tells Æneas that they put out the Cyclops’s eye three months ago, and so, according to Virgil, the wound bleeds incessantly for three months (three days of bleeding would, according to modern doctors, have taken the life of even a stout Cyclops), and then the giant comes down to the shore and bathes in salt water.... Again, in the celebrated athletic sports in Book V., everybody is rewarded with a prize. One man gets a prize because he comes in first; the second man gets one because he would have been first if something hadn’t happened, and the last man gets one because he fell down. The only parallel to such a practice is one afforded by Artemus Ward, who, in command of a volunteer force, makes all his men captains, to prevent jealousy. In V, 456, Virgil, after carefully telling us that Dares is wonderfully nimble and Entillus wonderfully slow, lets the slow man chase the fast one, æquore toto, hitting him all the while.”

Before the ocean leviathans of the Cunard and White Star steamship lines were built, an inquirer asked whether the “Great Eastern” was the largest vessel ever built. The editor replied, “An impression has got abroad that she is, but such is not the case. The ‘Mayflower,’ in which the Pilgrim fathers came to this country, was the largest ship that ever ploughed the waters. 241The old furniture scattered over this country, brought over by the ‘Mayflower,’ would fill the ‘Great Eastern’ a dozen times or more.”

“The Jackdaw of Rheims” is better known than the majority of the “Ingoldsby Legends,” with the dreadful curse which the cardinal called down upon the thief who had stolen his ring:

In twitting again at Holy Church, Mr. Barham makes Pope Gregory, in setting a penance for Sir Ingoldsby Bray, break out in the following extraordinary though highly entertaining dog Latin:

In point of audacity and ingenuity in the line of practical joking, Theodore Hook is unrivalled. The most famous of his hoaxes was played on Mrs. Tottingham, an old lady living at No. 54 Berners Street, Oxford Road, London. The date of its occurrence was November, 26, 1810, so long since that the elders have forgotten it, and the later generations have never heard of it. For the sake of the latter, it is worth while to recall such a laughable incident.

In walking down Berners Street one day with a companion, their attention was attracted to the neat and modest appearance of the house referred to. “I’ll bet you a guinea,” said Theodore, “that in one week that nice quiet dwelling shall be the most famous in all London.” The bet was taken. In the course of the next four or five days, Hook wrote and despatched more than a thousand letters, conveying orders to tradesmen of every sort, all to be executed on one particular day, and as nearly as possible at one fixed hour. From wagons of coal and potatoes to books, prints, feathers, ices, jellies, tarts, anything and everything available was ordered from rival dealers scattered from Wapping to Lambeth, from Whitechapel to Paddington. In 1810 Oxford Road was not approachable from Westminster, or Mayfair, or from the city, otherwise than through a complicated series of lanes. Imagine the crash and jam and tumult that followed! Hook had provided himself with a temporary lodging on the opposite side of the street, and there, with a couple of trusty allies, he watched the development of the drama. But, for prudential reasons, some of the dramatis personæ were seldom, 243if ever, alluded to afterwards. Hook had no objection to open references to the arrival of the Lord Mayor and his chaplain, invited to take the death-bed confession of a peculating common councilman, but he would rather have buried in oblivion that precisely the same sort of liberty was taken with the Governor of the Bank of England, the Chairman of the East India Company, the Lord Chief Justice, a cabinet minister, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and his Royal Highness the Commander-in-Chief. They all obeyed the summons—every pious and patriotic feeling had been most movingly appealed to. We are not sure that they all reached Berners Street, but the Duke of York’s military punctuality and crimson liveries brought him to the point of attack before the poor widow’s astonishment had risen to terror and despair. No assassination, no conspiracy, no royal demise or ministerial revolution was a greater godsend to the newspapers than this daring piece of mischief. In Hook’s own theatrical world he was instantly suspected, but no sign escaped either him or his confidants. Beyond that circle the affair was serious. Fierce were the growlings of the doctors and surgeons, scores of whom had been cheated of valuable hours. Attorneys, teachers of all kinds (male and female), hair-dressers, tailors, preachers, and philanthropists had been victimized, and were vociferous in their complaints. The tangible material damage done was itself considerable. Beer casks and wine casks were overturned, glass and china were smashed, harpsichords and coach-panels were broken, and men and horses, under the resistless pressure of a countless multitude, were thrown down and trampled upon. It was a field-day for the pickpockets. A fervent hue and cry arose for 244the detection of the trickster, but he disappeared and did not return to his accustomed haunts until the storm had blown over.

A class of schoolgirls, highly educated on the newest principles, were pouring forth to the Bishop of Manchester a list of Latin words, with the English equivalents, and they came to the word which we elders should call vicissim, “We-kiss-im,” said the girls; “we-kiss-im—by turns.” “Oh, do you?” answered the bishop; “then I don’t wonder at your adopting the new pronunciation.”

FLASHES OF REPARTEE — Hereditary Transmission — Fitting Answers — Left-Handed Compliments — Not Beyond Reach — Limitation of Authority — Like Topsy — Opposite Effects — Maternity — Date of Possession — The Old Dominion — No Jury Then and There — Each His Own Way — Nature’s Painting — A Boomerang — Relationship — Decay’s Effacement — A Woman’s Revenge — Best for Her — Ecclesiastical Tit-for-Tat — Even Chances — A Quick-Witted Damsel — Meeting an Emergency — Declined with Thanks — A Courteous Retort — Bearding the Lion — Distinction With a Difference — Future Provision — Sumner’s Legal Learning — Walk vs. Conversation — The Last Chance — Divine Knowledge — A Quaint Reproof—Acceptability Without a Dress Suit — Marriage in Heaven — Force and Argument — The Condemned Jester — Marjorie

Madame Bonaparte (Betsy Patterson) once attended a state dinner, and was escorted to the table by Lord Dundas. He had already received some of her sarcastic speeches, and in a not very pleasant mood asked her whether she had read Mrs. Trollope’s book on America. She had. “Well, madame,” said the Englishman, “what do you think of her pronouncing all Americans vulgarians?” “I am not surprised at that,” answered sprightly Betsy Bonaparte. “Were all the Americans descendants of the Indians or the Esquimaux, I should be astonished; but being the direct descendants of the English, it would be very strange if they were not vulgarians.” There was no more heard from Lord Dundas that evening.

One sultry evening, Phœbe Cary, dressed as usual in a close-fitting bodice, entered the room where John G. Saxe and others were seated. Saxe greeted her with, “Miss Phœbe, why do you dress so closely in such hot weather? Look at me.” He had on a linen duster, and was fanning himself industriously. Phœbe replied instantly, “I never feel comfortable with loose sacks around me.”

On another occasion, at the tea-table, the question arose about the number of children John Rogers had—“nine 248small children and one at the breast.” The company were evenly divided whether there were nine or ten. Phœbe was appealed to, when she said, “Ten, of course.” “How do you reach such a positive decision?” some one asked. “Don’t nine and one to carry make ten?” was her reply.

Leyden, having had a quarrel with the author of “The Pleasures of Hope,” once said to Sir Walter Scott,—

“You may tell Campbell that I hate him, but that he has written the best poetry that has been written for fifty years.”

Scott conveyed the message with fidelity, and Campbell replied,—

“Tell Leyden that I detest him, but I know the value of his critical approbation.”

Rev. Dr. Bethune asked a morose and miserly man how he was getting along. The man replied, “What business is that of yours?” Said the doctor, “Oh, sir, I am one of those who take an interest even in the meanest of God’s creatures.”

Pope Paul IV. was so shocked at Michael Angelo’s undressed figures in his famous “Last Judgment,” that he employed Daniele da Volterra to clothe them; and he, in consequence, received the nickname of “Il 249Braghettone” (the breeches-maker). Michael Angelo, with his usual wit, punished Messer Biagio da Cesena, master of the ceremonies (who first suggested to the Pope the impropriety of nude figures), by painting him in hell, with ass’s ears, as Midas.

The story goes that Biagio implored the Pope to insist upon the removal of this caricature, whereupon Paul IV. replied:

“I might have released you from purgatory, but over hell I have no power!”

When General Schenck was United States minister to England, the wife of a British cabinet officer assured him that “England made America all that she is.” “Pardon, madam,” said the general, “you remind me of the answer of the Ohio lad in his teens who, attending Sunday school for the first time, was asked by the teacher, ‘Who made you?’ ‘Made me?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Why, God made me about so long (holding his hands about ten inches apart), but I growed the rest.’”

“The matrimonial fever seems to be raging in this vicinity,” said a smart young man to a young lady in a street car.

“Are you sure it only seems to be?” said she, not wishing to commit herself.

“It is raging about as bad as the yellow fever in the South last year,” said he, further pushing his opportunity.

250“Yes,” she replied, in a utilitarian tone of voice, “but it has just the opposite effect upon the population.”

“I never could bear children,” said a crusty old maid to Mrs. Partington. “Perhaps, if you could, you would like them better,” mildly replied the old lady.

“Don’t you think,” said a husband, mildly rebuking his wife, “that women are possessed by the devil?” “Yes,” was the quick reply, “as soon as they are married.”

When a distinguished French abbe was making a visit to this country in the early days of our national history, he happened to be dining with some Washington celebrities, of whom John Randolph, of Roanoke, was one, and the place of whose residence was not known to the foreigner. The question was put to the abbe:

“And how were you pleased with the South?”

“Exceedingly; but I confess to having been a little disappointed—I had heard so much—in the Virginia gentlemen.”

“Perhaps you were unfortunate in your circle,” broke in Randolph, with a sneer. “You did not come to Roanoke, for instance.”

“True,” said the abbe, covering his evident annoyance at the rude tone with his usual calm smile. 251“True; the next time I visit Virginia I shall certainly go to Roanoke.”

“Gentlemen,” answered Randolph, emphasizing the word, “do not come to Roanoke unless they are invited!”

It was a cruel thrust, but the abbe took it in the same placid manner; and lifting his gray head, paused for a moment to give due emphasis to his words, and then replied, looking inquiringly at the other guests:

“Said I not, messieurs, that I was disappointed in Virginia gentlemen?”

Allen, the Quaker, waited upon the Duke of Sussex to remind him of his promise to present a petition to abolish capital punishment. The duke did not seem to like the job, and observed that Scripture has declared, “Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed.” “But please note,” replied the Quaker, “that when Cain killed Abel he was not hung for it.” “That’s true,” rejoined the duke, “but remember, Allen, there were not twelve men in the world then to make a jury.”

Among the anecdotes recalled by the death of M. Leverrier is one which describes M. Villemain, the secretary of the French Academy, as declaiming in the library one day in a vigorous manner against Napoleon III. Leverrier, who was an ardent imperialist, chanced to overhear some of his remarks, and demanded, 252“How dare you speak thus of the emperor in a public building?” Villemain looked up carelessly and replied, “And pray who may you be?” “You know me, sir,” said the astronomer. “Your face may be familiar to me, but I don’t exactly recall your name.” “Leverrier is my name.” “Oh, yes, Leverrier. Astronomer, I think? In his day I was intimately acquainted with M. Laplace; he was an astronomer, too,—and a gentleman.” “Sir,” said Leverrier, “I despise wit, but if you continue speaking thus I warn you that I shall report your words to the proper authorities.” “Well,” said Villemain, shrugging his shoulders, “every one has his way of making a living.”

A young lady with very rosy cheeks, walking down Charles Street in Baltimore, overheard a clubman say, “By Heaven, she’s painted.” Turning quickly around, she said, “Yes, and by Heaven only.”

Some years ago several army officers were stopping at a hotel in Washington. Among them were a Captain Emerson and a Captain Jones. Emerson and Jones used to have a good deal of fun together at the dinner-table and elsewhere. One day at the dinner-table, when the dining-hall was well filled, Captain Jones finished his dinner first, got up, and walked almost to the dining-hall door, when Emerson called to him in a loud voice: “Hallo, captain! see here. I want to speak to you a 253minute.” The captain turned and walked back to the table and bent over him, when Emerson whispered, “I wanted to ask you how far you would have gone if I had not spoken to you.” The captain never changed a muscle, but straightened up and put his fingers into his vest pocket and said, “Captain Emerson, I don’t know of a man in the world I would rather lend five dollars to than you, but the fact is I haven’t a cent with me to-day,” and he turned on his heel and walked away. Emerson was the color of a dozen rainbows, but he had to stand it.

In an action that was tried in an English court, when the question in dispute was as to the quality and condition of a gas-pipe that had been laid down many years before, a witness stated that it was an old pipe, and therefore out of condition. The judge remarking that “people do not necessarily get out of condition by being old,” the witness promptly answered, “They do, my lord, if buried in the ground.”

Sophie Arnould was a last century favorite, whose voice gave way in youth, and of her the Abbe Galiani caustically said, “She has the finest asthma I ever heard.” But the lady revenged herself, if not on him, on the religious order to which he belonged. Hearing that a capuchin had been eaten by wolves, she exclaimed, “Poor beasts! what a dreadful thing hunger must be!”

An old bachelor, picking up a book, exclaimed, upon seeing a woodcut representing a man kneeling at the feet of a woman, “Before I would ever kneel to a woman I would encircle my neck with a rope and stretch it!” And then, turning to a young woman, he inquired, “Do you not think it would be the best thing I could do?” “It would, undoubtedly, be the best for the woman.”

Two young men who had been chums in college entered the ministry. One became a Baptist, the other an Episcopalian. They did not meet again for several years. When brought together once more, the Baptist invited the Episcopalian to preach from his pulpit, which, though out of the usual course, he did, to the great satisfaction of the congregation. Sermon over, the two divines ducked their heads behind the breastwork of the preaching desk, and held the following colloquy: “Fine sermon, Tom; much obliged. Sorry I can’t repay your kindness for preaching by asking you 255to stay to our communion. Can’t though, you know, because you have never been baptized.” “Oh, don’t concern yourself about that, Jim. I couldn’t receive the communion at your hands because you have never been ordained.”

He was an entire stranger to the girls present, and the boys were mean and would not introduce him. He finally plucked up courage, and, stepping up to a young lady, requested the pleasure of her company for the next dance. She looked at him in surprise, and informed him that she had not the pleasure of his acquaintance. “Well,” remarked the young man, “you don’t take any more chances than I do.”

A young lady was sitting with a gallant captain in a charmingly decorated recess. On her knee was a diminutive niece, placed there pour les convenances. In the adjoining room, with the door open, were the rest of the company. Says the little niece, in a jealous and very audible voice, “Auntie, kiss me, too.” What had just happened may be easily imagined. “You should say twice, Ethel dear; two is not grammar,” was the immediate rejoinder. Clever girl that!

It is related of Compton, the English comedian, that he happened to stop at a hotel where a meeting of clergymen had just been ended, and the preachers were 256about to dine. The landlord, seeing his white tie and long black coat, mistook him for a minister, and said he was sure the Dean would be pleased to have the visitor dine with them. “I thank you,” answered Compton, who was very hungry. “I have no card. You can say, the Rev. Mr. Payne, who is passing through the town.” The Dean not only invited Compton to dine, but seated him at his right, and, through courtesy, asked him to say grace. Compton felt a cold chill run through him, but, with perfect presence of mind, he recalled the opening part of the church service, and solemnly said, “O Lord, open thou our lips, and our mouths shall show forth thy praise.”

When Mr. Wilberforce, the great anti-slavery advocate (the father of the late Bishop of Winchester), was once a candidate for parliamentary honors, his sister, an amiable and witty young lady, offered the compliment of a new gown to each of the wives of those freemen who voted for her brother, on which she was saluted with the cry of “Miss Wilberforce forever!” when she pleasantly observed, “I thank you, gentlemen; but I cannot agree with you, for I really do not wish to be ‘Miss Wilberforce’ forever.”

A good illustration of “the retort courteous” was given to Count Herbert Bismarck, the rough-and-rude son of Prince Bismarck, on the occasion of the German Emperor’s visit to Rome. At the railway station Count 257Herbert pushed rudely against an Italian dignitary, who was watching the proceedings. The dignitary, greatly incensed, remonstrated forcibly against such unceremonious treatment, whereupon Count Herbert turned around haughtily and said,—

“I don’t think you know who I am. I am Count Herbert Bismarck.”

“That,” replied the Italian, bowing politely, “as an excuse, is insufficient, but as an explanation it is ample.”

(Snoggs, the Lion Comique of the music halls, has made himself unendurably offensive by his vulgar familiarity.) Lion Comique: “Dunno me? Well, you ought to; my name is in the papers often enough.” Irritated Swell: “I daresay; but I seldom if ever read the police reports!”

Dr. St. John Roosa, of New York, in the course of a speech which he made at the dinner of the State Medical Society, emphasized a point by telling a story. A person not entirely well up in music asked a professor of music if Mendelssohn was still composing. “No,” was the reply, “he is still decomposing.”

A refractory Boston youngster was being sharply rebuked by his mother for his numerous transgressions.

“Harry, Harry,” she exclaimed, “if you behave in 258that way, you will worry your father and mother to death; and what will you do without any father and mother?”

“The Lord is my shepherd,” said the small boy; “I shall not want.”

Which went to prove that his Sunday-school training had not been entirely lost on him.

When Charles Sumner visited Europe the first time, he took with him letters from Judge Story. At one time he was invited to sit with the Lord Chief-Justice of the King’s Bench. During the trial a point arose which seemed a novel one. The Lord Chief-Justice turned to Sumner and asked him if there were any American decisions on that point. “No, your lordship,” he replied, “but this point has been decided in your lordship’s court in such a case,” giving him the citation. This remarkable readiness gave him éclat throughout the kingdom.

A tutor of one of the Oxford colleges who limped in his walk was some years after accosted by a well-known politician, who asked him if he was not the chaplain of the college at such a time, naming the year. The doctor replied that he was. The interrogator observed, “I knew you by your limp.” “Well,” said the doctor, “it seems my limping made a deeper impression than my preaching.” “Ah, doctor,” was the reply, with ready wit, “it is the highest compliment we can pay a 259minister, to say that he is known by his walk rather than by his conversation.”

Some years ago Phillips Brooks was recovering from an illness, and was denying himself to all visitors, when Robert G. Ingersoll called. The bishop received him at once. “I appreciate this very much,” said Mr. Ingersoll, “but why do you see me when you deny yourself to your friends?”

“It is this way,” said the bishop; “I feel confident of seeing my friends in the next world, but this may be my last chance of seeing you.”

An itinerant called on John Bunyan one day with “a message from the Lord,” saying he had been to half the jails in England in search of him, and was glad at last to find him. To which Bunyan replied, “If the Lord had sent you, you would not have needed to take so much trouble to find me out, for He knew that I have been in Bedford Jail these seven years past.”

Ramsay, in his “Scottish Characteristics,” says, “A well-known member of the Scottish bar, when a youth, was very foppish, and short and sharp in his temper. He was going to pay a visit in the country, and was making a great fuss in preparing and putting up his 260habiliments. His old aunt was much annoyed at all this bustle, and stopped him with the somewhat contemptuous question, ‘Whaur’s this you’re gaun’, Robbie, that ye mak sic a grand wark about yer claes?’ The young man lost temper, and pettishly replied, ‘I’m going to the devil.’ ‘’Deed, Robbie, then’, was the quiet answer, ‘ye needna be sae nice; he’ll juist tak’ ye as ye are.’”

Many persons who have seen the following lines of Dr. Trapp on a regiment being sent to Oxford, and at the same time a valuable library sent to Cambridge, by George I. in 1715, have not seen the answer which they provoked:

261The answer came from Sir William Browne, a physician of Lynn in Norfolk:

Horace Smith, one of the authors of the “Rejected Addresses,” tells us that a king of Scanderoon had a jester who played audacious tricks on the royal family, the courtiers, and persons of great distinction. But at length, emboldened by long tolerance of his freaks and hoaxes, the buffoon went too far:

THE WORD-TWISTING OF THE PUNSTERS

A nephew of Mr. Bagges, in explaining the mysteries of a tea-kettle, describes the benefits of the application of steam to useful purposes. “For all which,” remarked Mr. Bagges, “we have principally to thank—what was his name?” “Watt was his name, I believe, uncle,” replied the boy.

Of Dr. Keate many anecdotes are afloat among old Etonians. One was told that is well worth repeating. A boy named Rashleigh, with all the others of his class, was set to write a theme on the maxim: Temere nil facias. When the time came for giving in the papers, Rashleigh appeared without his. “Where is your theme, sir?” asked the formidable Doctor. “I haven’t done it, sir,” answered Rashleigh. “Not done your theme, sir?” “No, sir!” persisted he, undaunted by the near prospect of the “apple twigs.” “Why, you told me not to do it!” “I told you!” “Yes, sir; you said, Temere nil facias—do nothing, Rashleigh.” And the headmaster was so taken by the Latin pun that the apple twigs were allowed to repose on the shelf.

“So old Scrapetill is dead at last,” observed David from the interior of his evening paper; “oceans of money, too.” “What did he do with it?” queried Dora. “Oh, left it here and there,” said David. 264“That scapegrace son gets a quarter of a million. If he doesn’t paint the town red, now, then I’m a Canadian.” “I should think,” mused Dora, softly, as she helped herself to another needleful of silk—“I should think that anybody with a quart of vermilion might paint a town very red indeed.” And David was so astounded that he put his paper in the fire and laid a fresh stick of wood in the very centre of the plush-covered table.

Punning would not be so bad were it not so infectious. Puns leave germs which lie in idle minds until they fructify and bear a baleful crop of more puns. The other day some of us got to talking about that witty old cynic, Dean Swift, when one of the company took advantage of the opening and gave us this jeu de mot of his: “Why,” asked the Dean, “is it right, by the lex talionis, to pick an artist’s pocket?” It was given up, of course, and the answer was: “Because he has pictures.” A silence fell about the table round, until, one by one, we saw it. Then one thoughtful man observed, “It was impossible to give the answer—because the Dean had contrived to reserve the answer to himself. I could not, for instance, say that it is right for me to pick an artist’s pocket, because he has picked yours.” Here is another conundrum, founded upon a pun, which only the propounder can solve: An old man and a young one were standing by a meadow. “Why,” asked the young man, “is this clover older than you?” “It is not,” replied the other. “It is, though,” returned the man, “because it is pasturage.” Thereupon an abstracted looking person, who had not followed the line of remark, and who had not understood the illustration, startled us all with this irrelevant inquiry, “Why cannot 265a pantomimist tickle nine Esquimaux? Give it up? Why it’s because he can gesticulate.”

“In St. Mary’s Church, Nottingham, England, on the tombstone of Mary Angell are these lines:

The stone is an old one, and the punning epitaph is according to the spirit of the times, when so many queer inscriptions were put on monuments.”

A young minister of high-church tendencies was called to preside over a congregation that abhorred ritualism and was a stickler for the simplest of services. 266He asked Bishop Potter of New York what would be the result if he went in for ritualism just a bit.

“Suppose I should burn a pastille or two during the service, what do you think would happen?” he inquired. “I dearly wish to try the experiment.”

“Your congregation would be incensed, your vestrymen would fume, and you would go out in smoke,” replied the Bishop.

Gustave Doré bought a villa on the outskirts of Paris, and wrote over the entrance the musical notation, “Do, Mi, Si, La, Do, Re.” This being properly interpreted, is “Domicile a Doré.”

Sentimental young lady to perfumer: “I don’t think you forwarded the scent I meant; it seems entirely different from that I ordered.”

Perfumer, who is fond of punning: “Madam, I am sure that what you meant I sent; the scent I sent was the scent you meant, consequently we are both of one sentiment.”

A duel was fought in Texas by Alexander Shott and John S. Nott. Nott was shot, and Shott was not. In 267this case it is better to be Shott than Nott. There was a rumor that Nott was not shot, and Shott avows that he shot Nott, which proves either that the shot Shott shot at Nott was not shot, or that Nott was shot notwithstanding. Circumstantial evidence is not always good. It may be made to appear on trial that the shot Shott shot shot Nott or, as accidents with fire-arms are frequent, it may be possible that the shot Shott shot shot Shott himself, when the whole affair would resolve itself into its original elements, and Shott would be shot, and Nott would be not. Apparently the shot Shott shot shot not Shott, but Nott; anyway, it is hard to tell who was shot.

On the death of Lord Kennet, in 1786, Sir William Nairne was raised to the bench under Lord Dunsinnan—a circumstance which called forth a bon mot from the Duchess of Gordon. Her grace, happening to meet his lordship shortly after his elevation, inquired what title he had assumed. “Dunsinnan,” was, of course, the reply. “I am astonished at that, my lord,” said the duchess, “for I never knew that you had begun sinning.”

A noted Washington wag and beau of many years ago signed his name “A. More.” Mrs. John Washington had invited him to a formal dinner party at Mount Vernon. The company all arrived except Mr. More, but knowing his queer ways the hostess did not wait for him. After she was seated some time a huge envelope was handed her, in which she found an enormous leaf of a sycamore tree. The interpretation was “Sick.—A. More.”

268A young lady of Louisville, having received urgent proposals of marriage from an old gentleman, sent the following answer by mail:

Madame Cresswell, a woman of infamous character, bequeathed ten pounds for a funeral sermon, in which nothing ill should be said of her. The Duke of Buckingham wrote the sermon, which was as follows: “All I shall say of her is this—she was born well, she married well, lived well, and died well; for she was born at Shad-well, married to Cress-well, lived at Clerken-well, and died in Bride-well.”

In 1835 John Howard Payne spent some time in the South and formed the acquaintance of a daughter of Judge Samuel Goode, of Montgomery, Alabama. An old autograph album of hers contains the following lines in Payne’s handwriting and over his signature:

On the next page is a response, written by Mirabeau B. Lamar, afterwards President of the “Lone Star Republic” of Texas. It runs as follows:

The wife of an optical instrument maker tried, on landing at New York, after a European tour, to smuggle under her dress a quantity of artificial eyes. In reply to the usual question whether she had anything to declare, she said, “No,” most positively; but on the officer shaking her dress the deception was exposed, and in spite of her “No’s,” the eyes had it. But how absurd of the fair smuggler to hope to escape detection when every eye was upon her!

270On the marriage of Ebenezer Sweet and Jane Lemon a wag said,—

And George D. Prentice once said,—

A Mr. J. Lemon, of the North Carolina Legislature, has abandoned the Whigs and joined the Democrats. That’s all right enough. If the Democrats think they can recruit their strength with Lemon-aid, they are welcome to try the experiment.

A young man in one of our Western towns had patronized the arts so far as to buy a picture of the Temptation of Adam and Eve. Some one asked him if it was a chaste picture. “Yes,” he said, “chased by a snake.” This would have been witty if he had known it, but he didn’t.

271When the fleet commanded by Lord Howe was stationed at Torbay, some time previous to his defeat of St. André (1794), the inhabitants used to play upon his name, saying,—

After the great victory over the French, the following toast was much in vogue:

May the French know Howe to be master of the seas.

“How is it that you can tell such whoppers?” asked a caller, addressing the editor of the fish-story department.

“Well, you see,” replied the editor, “our wife’s name is Anna.”

“What has that to do with it?”

“A great deal. When we are writing fish stories we usually have Anna nigh us to help us.”

Two Quaker girls about to do some ironing on the same table, one asked the other which side she would take, the right or left. She answered promptly: “It will be right for me to take the left, and then it will be left for thee to take the right.”

How a French marshal conveyed an order under cover of a cough, in 1851, is told as follows:

The prevalence of coughs and colds at the present moment reminds me of the fact that it was a cough which was mainly responsible for the immense amount of bloodshed that attended the coup d’état whereby Napoleon III. obtained his throne.

272That unscrupulous but brilliant adventurer, General, and afterward Field Marshal, de St. Arnaud, had charge of the military operations. But he was unwilling to assume the direct responsibility of ordering the troops to fire upon the people, being not altogether certain as to the result of Napoleon’s memorable enterprise.

When the moment for action arrived and the mob began to show signs of sweeping aside the troops, the brigadier generals under his orders sent an officer to him at head-quarters to ask him what they were to do, whether they were to fire on the populace or give way.

Strangely enough, St. Arnaud was seized at that moment with a violent fit of coughing which lasted for several minutes. Finally when it ceased the General just managed to gasp the words, “Ma sacrée toux!” (my cursed cough).

The officer having waited until the General had recovered his breath repeated the question. Again St. Arnaud was seized with a violent fit of coughing, which terminated, as on the previous occasion, with the parting exclamation of “Ma sacrée toux!”

The officer was no fool; he could take a hint as well as anyone else, and saluting he left St. Arnaud’s presence. On returning to the brigadiers and colonels who had sent him for instructions he was asked what reply St. Arnaud had made.

“The General’s only words and commands were massacrez tous!” (massacre everybody).

These commands were obeyed to the letter, and many thousand people were shot down and bayoneted in consequence.

273The word-twisters do not hesitate to invade the cemeteries and leave their mark on tombstones. Here is one of Dr. Dibdin’s epitaphs:

Cecil Clay, the counsellor of Lord Chesterfield, directed this whimsical pun upon his name to be put on his tombstone:

On an Oxford organist:

On a Norwich celebrity:

In All Saints’ Church, Hertford, we are told “Here sleeps Mr. Wake.” The inscription over the bones of Captain Jones, the famous traveller and story-teller, winds up with “He swore all’s true, yet here he lies.” On the slab of a cockney cook is written, “Peace to his hashes.” Of a drunken cobbler, a friend to awl, who toward the close of life repented of his evil courses, it was said, “He saved his sole by mending at the last.” Of John Potter, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1736, it is recorded, “Potter himself is turned to clay.”

274A well known anecdote of Dr. Johnson’s dislike of punning is told in the following way: “Sir,” said Johnson, “I hate a pun. A man who would perpetrate a pun would have little hesitation in picking a pocket.” Upon this, Boswell hinted that his illustrious friend’s dislike to this species of small wit might arise from his inability to play upon words. “Sir,” roared Johnson, “if I were punish-ed for every pun I shed, there would not be left a puny shed of my punnish head.”

Two merchants of a Scotch town were noted for many sharp bargains. One of them was named Strong and the other answered to the name of Wiley. One Sunday the good old minister greatly surprised his hearers by invoking “a blessing upon us, for our enemies are wily and strong, as Thou knowest, O Lord.” Notwithstanding the solemnity of the occasion, few could resist a smile, feeling how applicable it was.

Among a party dining with W. S. Caine, M.P., was Rev. Dr. John Watson (Ian Maclaren). Mr. Caine offered to give fifty pounds to a hospital fund through the man who would make the best pun on his name within five minutes. Cogitation became active, and then, just as the time was about to expire, and Mr. Caine thought he would escape, Mr. Watson said, “Don’t be in such a hurry, Caine.”

Daniel Webster, when a young man in New Hampshire, indulged in a form of pleasantry on one occasion, unusual with him even in his lightest moods. Party spirit running high in Portsmouth in the days of the 275embargo, great efforts were made at an annual State election by both parties to carry the town. The Republicans succeeded in electing their moderator, Dr. Goddard, a position of potentiality, because he decided, in case of a challenge, the right to vote. A man’s vote was offered on the part of Mr. Webster’s friends which the Republican party objected to, and the moderator was appealed to for a decision. The doctor hesitated; he did not wish to decide against his own party, and still he was too conscientious to make intentionally a wrong decision. He seemed at a loss what to do. “I stand,” said he to the meeting, “between two dangers; on the one side is Scylla, on the other, Charybdis, and I don’t know which to do.” “I fear then,” said Mr. Webster, “that your Honor will take the silly side.”

In the way of oddities among the books may be noted a short man reading Longfellow; a burglar picking at Locke; a jeweller devouring Goldsmith; an artilleryman with Shelley; an omnibus driver calling for one Moore; a nice young man going to the Dickens; a laborer at his Lever; a young woman with her Lover; a Tom studying Dick’s works; a lancer learning Shakspeare; a servant looking for the Butler; a miller deep in Mill; a glazier’s hour with Paine; a hedger absorbed in Hawthorne; a Dutchman interested in Holland; a domestic man with Holmes; a bookseller trying to save his Bacon; a woman in Thiers; a lazy man’s Dumas; a determined man with Kant; a corn-doctor with Bunyan’s Progress; a philologist contemplating Wordsworth; a minstrel reading Emerson; a Catholic at Pope; a creditor pleased with Sue; a jolly fellow laughing over Sterne.

CLEVER HITS OF THE HUMORISTS — Mistaken Vanity — Toast — The Preferred Beverage — Identified — An Uncivil Retort — Unmistakable Legality — A Very Long Bill — Whittier’s Impromptu — Seeing is Believing — A Killarney Echo — Not Rousseau — Love of Specie-s — His Station — Frankness — Double X — Met the Emergency — A Similar Privilege — Caderousse’s Wager — According to Agreement — A Pulpit Wager — Rhus Toxicodendron — Mark Twain Convinced — Motto for a Tavern Sign — A New Light — Schweininger’s Thrust — Significant Change — The Remedy — Botanical Misnomer — Not Interchangeable — Business Economy — Completing an Unfinished Stanza — Sonnet to a Cow — Xanthippe Vindicated — Democritus at Belfast [3] — Christmas Chimes — The Nestling Shuttlecock — Proverbial Philosophy in New Dress — Theory and Practice

It is told of Père Monsabre, the famous Dominican preacher, that one day, as he was on the way to officiate in the church, a message came to him that a lady wanted to see him. She was worrying about an affair of conscience, she felt that she must see him, she feared that she was given up to vanity. That very morning, she confessed, she had looked in her looking-glass, and yielded to the temptation of thinking herself pretty.

Père Monsabre looked at her and said quietly, “Is that all?”

She confessed that it was.

“Well, my child,” he replied, “you can go away in peace, for to make a mistake is not a sin.”

In the days before the war, days famous for generous but unostentatious hospitality in the South, a brilliant party was assembled at dinner in a country homestead. Across the table wit flashed back and forth, and, when the merry party had adjourned to the broad veranda, the guests began to vie with one another in proposing conundrums.

Mr. Alexander H. Stephens offered one which puzzled the whole company. “What is it that we eat at breakfast and drink at dinner?”

277For some time no answer came, and the bright eyes of the Southern orator began to sparkle with triumph, when Colonel Johnston, taking up the Commonplace Book of the hostess which lay conveniently by, wrote, impromptu, upon the fly-leaf the following answer:

Near Invermark, on Lord Dalhousie’s estate, a fountain was some years ago erected to commemorate a visit paid to the place by the Queen. It bears this inscription, in gold letters, “Rest, stranger, on this lovely scene, and drink and pray for Scotland’s Queen—Victoria.” A Highlander was shocked one morning to read the following addenda, traced in a bold hand, suggestive of the London tourist, immediately underneath the original: “We’ll pray for Queen Victoria here, but go and drink her health in beer.”

In a very scarce book, Hal’s “Parochial History of Cornwall,” published at Exeter in 1750, mention is made of Killigrew, the celebrated Master of the Revels temp. Charles II., though he never was formally installed 278as Court Jester. The following anecdote will show that, at all events, he deserved the appointment, even though he did not get it: When Louis XIV. showed him his pictures at Paris, the King pointed out to him a picture of the Crucifixion between two portraits. “That on the right,” added his Majesty, “is the Pope, and that on the left is myself.” “I humbly thank your Majesty,” replied the wit, “for the information; for though I have often heard that the Lord was crucified between two thieves, I never knew who they were till now.”

The attention of a tourist was attracted to the following epitaph in an English church-yard:

Whereupon the irreverent visitor scribbled underneath:

On one occasion when Daniel Webster and Rufus Choate were pitted against each other in court, Mr. Choate had lucidly, with great emphasis, stated the law. Mr. Webster, than whom a greater master of attitude, 279gesture, and facial expression never existed, turned on him the gaze of his great eyes, as if in mournful, despairing remonstrance, against such a sad and strange perversion. “That is the law, your Honor,” thundered Mr. Choate, catching the glance, advancing a step, and looking full in Webster’s face—“that is the law, in spite of the admonishing and somewhat paternal look in the eye of my illustrious friend!” And it was the law, as affirmed by the court.

Mr. Nathan Appleton and Mr. Longfellow, travelling in Switzerland, reached Zurich, where the landlord charged very exorbitant prices for their entertainment. Mr. Appleton wrote his name on the books and paid while demurring at the price charged.

“I have put my name on the books,” said Mr. Longfellow, “and if you will allow me I will treat the innkeeper as he deserves.”

The name of the inn was the “Raven.” He took the book aside, and wrote these lines:

John G. Whittier often wrote impromptu verses in albums and elsewhere, bright with a gayety that does not often appear in his more important works. In the album of a young lady—who with her friends had been 280rallying him on his bachelorhood—he wrote the following lines:

A good-natured Anglican parson was riding one day in a jaunting-car near the Lakes of Killarney, whose famous echoes sometimes repeat a sound as many as eight times. Wishing to “take a rise out of the driver,” the clergyman said,—

“Do you know, Pat, that there are none but Protestant echoes here?”

“No, sir, I niver h’ard it, and I don’t believe it aither,” was the reply.

“Well, you shall hear it very soon,” said the Anglican. Arriving at a favorable spot he called out softly, raising his voice to a loud pitch on the last word: “Do you believe in Pio Nono?” and the echo replied,—

“No, no! No, no! No, no!”

Pat was delighted at the joke, and, rubbing his hands gleefully, said,—

281“Bedad, whin I drive one of the raal clargy here won’t I have the sport out of him?”

The Russian poet Puschkin was plagued day after day by a certain Ivan Iakowlewitsch (John, James’s son) to give him his autograph. Puschkin always excused himself, but the petitioner was one of the men who never take a hint. The poet at last consented, in no good humor; he seized the book out of the man’s hand, and scribbled off the following lines:

Sydney Smith, preaching a charity sermon, frequently repeated the assertion that of all nations, Englishmen were most distinguished for generosity and the love of their species. The collection happened to be inferior to his expectations, and he said that he had evidently made a great mistake, and that his expression should have been that they were distinguished for the love of their specie.

At a banquet in London Ambassador Choate sat next to a distinguished nobleman, who during the course of the conversation had occasion to inquire,—

282“And to what station in your country, Mr. Choate, does your Mr. Chauncey M. Depew belong?”

“To the Grand Central Station, my lord,” readily replied the diplomat, without a quiver.

The noble Englishman’s face clouded for a moment with uncertainty.

“I’m afraid you don’t know what I mean,” added Mr. Choate, about to go to his rescue. But milord quickly smiled a glad smile of intelligence.

“Ah! I see, I see, Mr. Choate!” he exclaimed. “Mr. Depew belongs to your grand, great middle class!”

That was a frank reply to a friend’s intimation of his approaching marriage: “I should make my compliments to both of you; but as I don’t know the young lady, I can’t felicitate you, and I know you so well that I can’t felicitate her.”

A wealthy brewer in Montreal built a church and inscribed on it: “This church was erected by Thomas Molson at his sole expense. Hebrews xi.” Some wags altered the inscription so as to make it read: “This church was erected by Thomas Molson at his soul’s expense. He brews XX.”

At a French provincial theatre, in a military play, the actor who was credited with the part of a general slipped on the stage and fell ignominiously at the very 283moment when he was supposed to be conducting his troops to battle. With ready wit, however, he saved himself from ridicule by exclaiming, “Soldiers, I am mortally wounded, but do not stay to aid me. Pass over my prostrate body to victory.”

In Carlsbad, Bohemia, is a restaurant keeper, who, when he finds any distinguished person dining at his establishment, presents himself in a dress coat, with many bows, and asks the honor of an autograph. Rothschild, the banker, signed himself simply “R. de Paris.” Oppenheim, a rich banker of Cologne, was subsequently appealed to. He looked at the list and asked who “R. de Paris” was. “That,” said the restaurant man, with pride, “is the Baron Rothschild of Paris.” “Ah!” said Oppenheim, “what Rothschild did, I can do,” and signed himself “O. de Cologne.”

The following curious anecdote is related in the Événement: Some young men were conversing in a private room of the Maison d’Or. Among them was the Duke de Gramont-Caderousse, who died at the age of thirty-two. Some one reproached him with being too much in favor of the people, and with being imbued with the new democratic ideas. After having replied according to his conscience, he exclaimed, “Well, gentlemen, I’ll wager that, without having done anything to merit it, I will get myself arrested before an hour.” “Without having done anything to deserve it?” 284“Nothing.” The bet was taken—fifty louis. Caderousse jumped into a cab, drove to the Temple, and soon returned in a sordid costume—a tattered cap on his head, trousers in rags, hobnailed boots, torn, muddy, down at the heels. He rubbed his face and hands over with dirt and then begged some one to follow him. Thus prepared, he entered a café on the Boulevard Poissonnière, seated himself at a table, and called out, “Waiter, a bottle of champagne!” The man hesitated a moment, and then said in an undertone, “That costs twelve francs.” “Well,” replied De Gramont, “I have money to pay with.” And he drew from his pocket forty bank-notes of a thousand francs each, which he laid on the table. The master of the establishment sent at once for some sergents de ville, and in a few minutes the pretended vagabond was saying to the commissary of police, “I am the Duke de Gramont-Caderousse. I had laid a wager that I should be arrested without having done anything to deserve it.... I have won, and I have only now to thank you.”

The parson wanted to furnish hymn-books for his congregation, and was told by a speculator that he would provide books, provided they included with the hymns advertisements. On the first Sunday after the new books had been distributed the congregation found themselves singing,—

Many humorous stories are told of Lorenzo Dow. He preached once from the text from St. Paul, “I can do all things.” “No, Paul,” he said, “you’re wrong for once. I’ll bet you five dollars you can’t,” and he took a five-dollar bill from his pocket and laid it on the desk. He continued to read, “through our Lord Jesus Christ.” “Oh, Paul,” said he, “that’s an entirely different thing,—the bet is off.” “This,” says an English writer, “beats any anecdote ever told of Spurgeon.”

The San Francisco manufacturer of a lotion advertises as follows:

A story is told that on one occasion Charles Dudley Warner, who was neighbor and friend to Mark Twain, wanted him to go walking, and Mark, as usual, refused. Dudley insisted, but to no purpose.

“You ought to do it,” he said finally. “It’s according to Scripture.”

“No ‘Mark-the-perfect-man’ chestnuts on me,” replied the wily humorist. “Where’s your authority?”

286“The fifth chapter of Matthew, verse the forty-first,” said Mr. Warner, “which reads thus: ‘And whoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him, Twain.’”

Mr. Clemens went with Mr. Warner that time.

Lockhart, in his “Life of Sir Walter Scott,” tells a story of a Flodden boniface who asked Scott for a motto from his poems to put on the sign-board of his house. He says:

“Scott opened the book (Marmion) at the death-scene of the hero and his eye was immediately caught by the inscription in black letter,—

“‘Well, my friend,’ said he, “‘what more would you have? You need but strike out one letter in the first of these lines and make your painter-man, the next time he comes this way, print between the jolly tankard and your own name,

“Scott was delighted to find, on his return, that this suggestion had been adopted, and for aught I know, the romantic legend may still be visible.”

A widower, in his great bereavement, expressed his feelings by having engraved on the tombstone of his wife the line, “My light has gone out.” As he was 287about to marry again, he asked the advice of Bishop Henry C. Potter as to whether or not he should have the inscription erased, as it seemed at variance with the new conditions. “Oh, no,” said the bishop, “I wouldn’t have it taken off; just put underneath it, ‘I have struck another match!’”

When Bismarck made the acquaintance of his last doctor he was sick and peevishly declined to answer questions. “As you like,” said the doctor; “then send for a veterinary surgeon, as such practitioners treat their patients without asking them any questions.” The Chancellor was captured.

A French paper revives the story of Alexandre Dumas being one day the guest of Dr. Gistal, an eminent medical man of Marseilles, who after dinner requested the novelist to enrich his album with one of his witty improvisations. “Certainly,” replied Dumas, with a smile, and drawing out his pencil he wrote, under the eyes of his entertainer, lines which may be imitated as follows:

“You flatterer!” here exclaimed the doctor, mightily pleased; but the poet went on—

Goldy’s touching lines, “When lovely woman stoops to folly,” fare sadly in the hands of a silk dyer, who sends about a circular with this parody:

In one of the early comic annuals there are some amusing lines of Hood’s describing how a country nurseryman had made a large sum out of the sale of a simple little flower which he sold under the name of the “Rhodum Sidus.” This charming name had proved quite an attraction to the ladies, and the flower had become the rage of the season. At length a pertinacious botanist, who found that the flower was a not uncommon weed, insisted on knowing where the nurseryman had got his name from; he elicited the following reply:

A rather amusing incident occurred recently at a show in Paris, where the wonderful “Performing Fleas” were exhibited. One of the dear creatures, which acted 289as coachman to the great flea-coach, managed to hop off his box, and elected a rather stout lady, standing near, as his first resting-place. The proprietor of the show, who had spent much time and patience upon the education of his insect, was in despair, and the lady was asked if she would mind making a search for the missing pet. She accordingly retired to a private room, and in a few minutes returned triumphant, carefully holding the captive in the most approved style. She handed him to the showman, who started and changed color, and returning the flea to the lady remarked: “Je vous remercie, Madame, mais celle la est à vous, pas à moi!” (Thank you, Madame, but that’s not mine.)

Two commercial tourists, chancing to meet in an inn of a country town, began, after lighting their cigars, a dispute as to the relative extent of the business of their respective houses. One, zealous to prove the superiority of the establishment he represented, after enumerating extraordinary instances, reached the climax with the assertion that the business of his house was so extensive, that in their correspondence alone, it cost them over five hundred dollars a year for ink.

“Pooh, pooh,” said the other, “why, we save that much yearly by just omitting the dots to the i’s and the strokes to the t’s.”

It is related that Dr. Mansel, of Trinity College, Cambridge, by chance called at the rooms of a brother Cantab, who was absent, but had left on his table the opening of a poem, in the following lofty strain:

Here the flight of the poet, by some accident, stopped short, but Dr. Mansel, equal to the occasion, completed the stanza in the following facetious style:

The admirers of Sorosis have waited patiently for that sisterhood to discuss and vindicate the character of that long maligned and grossly misunderstood victim of history, Xanthippe. But Sorosis procrastinates, and fails to declare that Socrates would have tried any woman’s temper.

291Xanthippe has been called a shrew, a harridan, a scold, a virago, a termagant. Her temper has been represented as hasty, and her poor, patient husband, Socrates, has commanded not only respect for his genius, but pity for his domestic woes. It is extraordinary that such a misconception of the facts arose. It is remarkable that hitherto not one apologist for Xanthippe has arisen.

But the champion of woman, of womanhood—yea, even of woman’s rights—cannot study the facts preserved in history concerning this ill-assorted pair without perceiving the gross injustice done to a simple-minded and worthy dame. Reduced to its simplest terms, our proposition is that Xanthippe lived and died a victim to the Socratic method.

Ladies, put yourselves in her place. Married to an ugly man in the bloom of her youthful beauty,—to a man conspicuously ugly, with a flat nose, thick lips, bulging eyes, so ugly that the handsome Alcibiades compared him to Silenus,—we see at the outset that it was clearly a mariage de convenance. Think of the discoveries the poor girl made after the wedding! Her homely husband refused to wear shoes or stockings when the courting days had passed. He not only never dressed for dinner, but even refused to change his clothes at all, day in and day out. Having once secured a housekeeper he rarely stayed at home, was constantly off in the city, loafing in the market-place, disputing with every comer. He had given up his trade as a sculptor as soon as he had her dowry to spend, and spent his time gadding about with young men and neglecting the proud, fair girl at home.

It was common talk that at the banquets, for which he forsook his home, he drank more than any one else present. 292The misguided man, moreover, seems to have had a devil, or demon, constantly instigating him to some singular deed or remark. No wonder Xanthippe’s beauty faded! No wonder that the being looked at askance at every meeting of the Society of Athenian Dames she attended resulted in her gradually isolating herself from social affairs! Confined to the narrow limits of her small home, soured by neglect, yet ever faithful to the satyr Socrates, who left home early and drank till the wee sma’ hours at night, it is evident that the trials she contended with were great. But, you say, she must, as a cultivated, ambitious woman, have greatly enjoyed and as greatly profited by the opportunities of converse, infrequent but priceless, with the great dialectician when he actually was in the bosom of his family. That is the very point at issue. Our contention is that Socrates’s conversation, if he conversed with his wife at all, was the very straw that broke the camel’s back. Imagine being kept awake every night, say from two to four by a husband, more or less the worse for wine, and obliged to converse with him in question and answer, and being constantly held down to rigid logical rules of expression! What woman could endure having to voice her complaints in logical phrase? How the war-horse of dialectics would snort in the excitement of battle at hearing the feminine argument “Because” advanced in answer to some impertinent question on his part.

It is undoubtedly true, and Plato incidentally corroborates it, that one day when Xanthippe was out of wood, and the week’s ironing was all waiting to be done, Socrates, in sheer laziness, and from no ascertainable motive but pure cussedness, stood still for twenty-four 293hours continuously. His apologist adds that he was entranced in thought, and a partial public has believed it. But tell me, oh twentieth century wife, what effect it would have had on your nerves and temper if your Thomas or Jack were to treat you so?

If he had only brought his friends home occasionally and brightened Xanthippe’s life somewhat in that way! Even the rough, uncouth Xenophon would have been better than nobody. But this garrulous Greek seems to have had no redeeming domestic features—unless we except what Xenophon records in his Memorabilia (II. 2) as to his admonishing his eldest son, Lamprocles, to be grateful to his mother, which was only decent in the old man, as we infer from the context that Xanthippe had furnished Lamprocles with liberal pocket-money.

We have a profound sympathy with Xanthippe. If she became a shrew, it was Socrates’s fault. But it does not appear that she ever failed in the great duties of womanhood. And it ill beseems either the man or his apologists to malign a hard-working, much-abused woman whose defects of temper were not congenital, but created and increased by this malicious maieutic philosopher himself.

The amusing verses of Peter Pindar (Dr. John Wolcot) on the King and the Apple Dumplings have been so much copied in school books and collections of humorous poetry that most readers are familiar with the monarch’s questioning:

But Pindar’s “King of France and the Fair Lady” is seldom, if ever, found outside of his now scarce poetical works:

Doctor (to brother physician)—“Yes, sir, the sovereign remedy for all ills is fresh air and plenty of it. People don’t let enough air into their houses. Well, I must hurry off; I’m on an errand.”

Brother Physician—“Going far?”

Doctor—“No; only down to the hardware store to get half a mile of weather-strips.”

THE HITS OF THE SATIRISTS — Thanks for Victory — Battle Prayer — Silly Newspaper Queries — Puffery Extraordinary — Beaconsfield — Burns’s Impromptu — The Prince Regent — The American Eagle — The Drama as an Instrumentality — Compliments to Boswell — Forbidden Fruit — A Statesman as a Scientist — Lardner’s Mistaken Prediction — The Lawyers and the Playwrights — Bancroft as a Historian — Unsuspected Turns — Plain Speaking — Stanhope — Pens Dipped in Gall — Samuel Rogers — Junius on the Duke of Bedford — Ruskin on the Bicycle — A Serious Interruption — Imitation of Shakespeare’s Commentators — Wordsworth’s Horse — A Sylvan Reverie — Carlyle as a Masquerader

Mr. Punch mercilessly satirized the despatches of a great royal soldier, a religiously minded man, as follows:

The following has been shrewdly suggested as a good form for a battle prayer:

O God, we who are about to plunge into battle pray Thee that Thou wilt be with us and so direct our guns that we may mow down the enemy like chaff. May we kill hundreds outright and maim many more, thereby causing gloom and desperation to settle upon the hearts and the hearthstones of our enemies.

O Thou God of Battles, enable us to make many widows and orphans; let there be hundreds of homes desolated; let there be devoted sons left to mourn the fathers that we shall kill; let there be distracted wives and mothers to cry unceasingly at the loss of the light of their homes and the support of their declining years.

O God, if there be good men on the other side who pray to Thee for success, turn Thou their prayers to empty words.

299Let it be given to us to sink more skips and to cause more misery than our enemy, with all his striving, can do; and this we ask for the sake of Christ, who labored to bring peace and good-will to earth. Amen.

Those who are blessed with a keen sense of humor will appreciate the playful ridicule in a specimen letter published in the New York Evening Post:

“To the Editor:

Having for a long time been a reader of your valuable paper, I write to ask if you will have the kindness to inform me through the columns of the same who is the author of the following pathetic poem:

Commenting upon this thrust at silly queries, the editor remarks: “It shows what a newspaper has practised upon it daily in one form or another; yet the writers of communications quite as absurd as the foregoing wear very solemn faces, and enter long complaints against the editors for declining to print queries which would merely make the public laugh, or may be answered by consulting the nearest dictionary, or are of no possible interest to anybody save the querist himself. A bit of satire like ‘Neptune’s’ is a word to the 300wise; we almost despair, however, of its producing any effect upon the foolish.”

A manufacturer of patent medicines wrote to a friend living on a farm in the West for a good strong recommendation for his (the manufacturer’s) “Balsam.” In a few days he received the following:

“Dear Sir,—The land composing my farm had hitherto been so poor that a Scotchman could not get a living off it, and so stony that we had to slice our potatoes and plant them edgeways, but hearing of your balsam, I put some on a ten-acre lot surrounded by a railroad fence, and in the morning I found that the rock had entirely disappeared, a neat stone wall encircled the field, and the rails were split into oven wood, and piled up systematically in my back-yard.

I put half an ounce into the middle of a huckleberry swamp; in two days it was cleared off, planted with corn and pumpkins, and a row of peach-trees in full blossom through the middle.

As an evidence of its tremendous strength, I would say that it drew a striking likeness of my eldest son out of a mill-pond, drew a blister all over his stomach, drew a load of potatoes four miles to market, and eventually drew a prize of ninety-seven dollars in a lottery.”

Among the abundant political satires aimed at Beaconsfield was the following, in which will be recognized his well-known passion for alliteration:

A specimen of Burns’s facility in impromptu satire, when provoked by anything which he considered mean, is one of the memories of Brownhill Inn. It is related that he was washing at the horse-trough, having apparently been drinking all night. Just then a black-coated parson, who had slept at the inn, came out and ordered his horse. Before he mounted he said to the hostler, taking fourpence out of his pocket, “You see, I ought to give you all this fourpence, but I shall want to pay threepence for the ferry hard by, so I can only give you a penny.” Burns, who had been looking on all the time, roared out,—

He then gave the hostler sixpence.

Byron’s “English Bards and Scotch Reviewers” maintains its place in the forefront of commingled ridicule and censure, but nothing in that famous satire, or its sequel, “Hints from Horace,” approaches in caustic severity his castigation of that royal voluptuary, the Prince Regent, afterwards George IV. Byron chanced to see him standing between the coffins of Charles I. and Henry VIII., and thereupon penned the following epigram:

Benjamin Franklin, in a letter to his daughter, Mrs. Sarah Bache, written in the seventy-eighth year of his age, regrets, in a characteristic passage, that the bald eagle had been preferred to the turkey as the national emblem. “For my own part,” said he, “I wish the bald eagle had not been chosen as the representative of our country; he is a bird of bad moral character; he does not get his living honestly; you may have seen him perched on some dead tree where, too lazy to fish for himself, he watches the labor of the fishing-hawk; and 303when that diligent has at length taken a fish, and is bearing it to his nest for the support of his mate and young ones, the bald eagle pursues him, and takes it from him. With all this injustice he is never in good case, but, like those among men who live by sharping and robbing, he is generally poor and often very lousy. Besides, he is a rank coward; the little king bird, not bigger than a sparrow, attacks him boldly and drives him out of the district. He is, therefore, by no means a proper emblem for the brave and honest Order of the Cincinnati of America, who have driven all the King birds from our country; though exactly fit for that order of knights which the French call Chevaliers d’Industrie. I am, on this account, not displeased that the figure is not known as a bald eagle, but looks more like a turkey. For, in truth, the turkey is, in comparison, a much more respectable bird, and withal, a true original native of America. Eagles have been found in all countries, but the turkey was peculiar to ours. He is besides (though a little vain and silly, ’tis true, but none the worse for that) a bird of courage, and would not hesitate to attack a grenadier of the British guards, who should presume to invade his farm-yard with a red coat on.”

The political satirical drama founded by Aristophanes was copied in England in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The Greek comic poet introduced real characters on the stage for the purpose of satirizing them. His freedom and boldness in depicting corrupt men and corrupt measures were prominently shown in his caricature of the coarse and noisy Cleon, when that Athenian 304leader was at the height of his power and insolence. In a similar way the first Earl of Shaftesbury was assailed by Dryden in an opera entitled “Albion and Albanis.” “The subject of this piece,” as Baker says, in his “Biographica Dramatica,” “is wholly allegorical, being intended to expose Lord Shaftesbury and his adherents.” But there is a more violent and virulent satire upon the same individual in Otway’s play of “Venice Preserved.” In reference to the former, Baker quotes Dr. Johnson as truly describing those portions of the play, now never represented, and in which the leading character was Antonio, as “despicable scenes of vile comedy.” All the vices assigned to Antonio were intended to depict Anthony, Earl of Shaftesbury; and it was on account of these very scenes that the play was a favorite with Charles II. Both political parties, at that period of English history, were merciless in their treatment of each other, and made use of the forms of a drama to gratify their detestation of their adversaries.

In a copy of Boswell’s “Tour to the Hebrides,” Horace Walpole wrote the following stinging lines:

Among the poems attributed to Lord Byron is one commencing with—

305Reference to the sentiments expressed in his poem “The Waltz” makes it probable that the lines came from his pen. The subject of waltzing serves as a reminder of an impromptu addressed by an indignant lover to his betrothed and her partner:

In the “Crotchet Castle,” published in 1831, is a merciless exposure of astonishing inaccuracies in some papers on scientific subjects, written by Lord Brougham for the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. Among the sarcastic thrusts is the following:

“I suppose the learned friend [Brougham] has written a sixpenny treatise on mechanics, and the rascals who robbed me have been reading it.

“Mr. Crotchet: Your house would have been very safe, doctor, if they had had no better science than the learned friend’s to work with.”

Few men have presented as prominent a target for irony as Dr. Dionysius Lardner, in view of his alleged statement, in 1836, that steam navigation for a voyage across the Atlantic was impracticable. What he said, according to the report of his address in the London Times, August 27, 1836, was that by collation of the amount of coal needed per horse-power, the speed obtainable, 306and the number of hours needed for the distance, no vessel could stow away enough coal to carry her through a voyage of three thousand miles, and that two thousand miles was the longest possible run. Brunel, the chief engineer of the Great Western Railway, pointed out an arithmetical error in the “demonstration” which vitiated the whole of it, and the learned doctor sat down suddenly without acknowledgment of his palpable error.

Samuel Hand, Esq., in the course of an address before the New York State Bar Association said, “It must be confessed that in modern times there has been strongly impressed upon the world’s imagination a dark view of the lawyer and his pursuits. Hear Ben Jonson describe us in the age of Shakespeare:

“Turning to the contemporary dramatists, Boucicault and others, we find the advocate generally handsomely 307used, but the attorney most outrageously maltreated and abused. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine anything more revolting than the figure usually cut by a stage attorney. He is depicted as meanness itself—vulgar, impudent, prying, without modesty or veracity, to whom honor is nothing but a word, offering his person to be kicked and himself to be reviled, if, by that means, any money can be made. I do not know how it may be with others, but when this libel on us appears on the stage I can hardly keep my countenance. It is needless to say that, whatever else may be true of us, these disgusting pictures are not even good caricatures. They have not the merit of suggesting the reality. It is difficult to conjecture how they could have originated, or what circumstances retain them in dramatical composition, for they have not the most remote resemblance, even in caricature, to the real average attorney, either English or American.”

In the Critical and Political Essays of Severn Teackle Wallis, in his day the leader of the Maryland bar, is a severe arraignment of Bancroft as a historian. Mr. Wallis charges the author of the “History of the United States” with such trespasses as “misstatement, omission, garbling, perversion, and suppression;” the indictment is sustained, and the conviction is complete. A single paragraph will serve as a specimen of his vigor.

“Every one who knows anything of our revolutionary history is aware of the feeling which from time to time was manifested in the Continental Army against some of the troops and officers from New England. 308The attempts of modern historians and lecturers in that quarter to conceal the traces and evade the justice of this feeling are equally notorious. The controversy between Lord Mahon and Mr. Sparks is familiar to our readers. Those who have taken the pains to read what Washington did actually think and write upon the subject will remember how often, in the bitterness and sadness of despair, and with the fierce indignation of his own burning and unselfish patriotism, he denounced the trading spirit, the littleness, the cowardice, the mean cabals and interests by which the troops in question so frequently imperilled the great cause. In the face of facts so generally known and incontestable, we confess our amazement at finding, on page 335 of the volume of his history now under review, the broad statement by Mr. Bancroft that ‘it was on the militia of these (the New England) States, that Washington placed his chief reliance.’ Nor is this inconceivable assertion guarded by qualifications of any sort, as to time, or place, or occasion. On the contrary, it is coupled with an observation ascribed to the British commander-in-chief, that the New England militia, ‘when brought into action, were the most persevering of any in all North America,’—the purpose of combining the two statements being, of course, to perpetuate it as a historical fact, attested by the heads of both armies, that the troops from New England were the right arm of the one and the terror of the other. It is the misfortune of criticism that its decorum has no language by which falsifications of the sort can be properly characterized. Happily, on the other hand, it is but seldom called to expose anything so gross. Mr. Bancroft did himself infinite injustice by not adding to it at once, 309that John Adams was the unswerving friend and stay of Washington in the dark hours of doubt; that the Declaration of Independence was signed in Boston, and the sword of Cornwallis surrendered on Bunker Hill.”

When Charles Lamb was invited, at a public dinner, to say grace, and responded with the remark, “Is there no minister present? Then let us thank God!” he was a satirist, and knew it. When a sheriff up in Vermont, in opening the county court, cried, “All persons having causes or matters pending therein, draw near, and they shall be heard, and God save the people!” he was a satirist and didn’t know it.

An elderly resident of a village in Western New York still tells with glee the story of his aspirations to become justice of the peace many years ago, when his youthful temper was not always under control. He says he went to the leader of the dominant party in the town, still well remembered for his prominence in that locality and with whom he was on familiar terms, and told him that he would like to get the nomination for justice of the peace. The answer he got, pronounced with great deliberation and dignity, was “A——, you are just as fit for justice of the peace as hell is for a powder house.”

Lord Chesterfield’s “Letters to his Son,” though unrivalled as models for epistolary style, have incurred 310strong reprehension on two grounds: first, because some of their maxims are repugnant to good morals; and, secondly, as insisting too much on manners and graces instead of more solid acquirements. What effect these lessons in the art of dissimulation, these precepts for uniting wickedness and the graces, had upon Philip Stanhope, for whom they were designed, may be inferred from the following stanzas:

Theodore Hook declared that Shelley’s “Prometheus Unbound” was the most appropriate of titles, rattling off his criticism in the lines:

Erskine is the author of an ill-natured couplet concerning Sir Walter Scott’s “On Waterloo’s Ensanguined Field:”

Samuel Rogers, the London poet and banker, was the victim of a woman’s unsparing wit, when Lady Blessington wrote of his exquisitely illustrated “Italy” that 311“the work would surely have been dished had it not been for the plates.” Tom Moore once experienced a savage dislike for a cross-eyed woman, who was said to be a poetess, and sneeringly observed that “instead of her gazing at one muse at a time, she had an eye for the whole nine at once.” Garrick was a relentless critic of Sir John Hill, who was a doctor and dramatist:

The great lake poets, Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Southey, were satirized by a cynical author, who wrote:

It was one of Pope’s observations: “We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.” Swift, who was the keenest of English satirists, remarked in the same vein: “A man of business should always have his eyes open, but must often seem to have them shut.” Satire has its place, and the foibles of individuals and races may be dealt with most effectively at times with the pen dipped in gall, but in general its use is to be deplored, not alone in criticism, but in all the relationships of life.

Captain Medwin, in his “Life of Shelley,” copies the following verses on the poet-banker Rogers, which he attributes, whether justly or not, to Byron:

“The author of the ‘Pleasures of Memory,’” remarks William Howitt, “has never met with that species of Mohawk criticism, that scalping and scarifying literary assault and battery, which so many of his contemporaries have had to undergo.” Nevertheless, it would be hard to find in the wide range of Satanic literature a scarification as intense and as sweeping as that in the lines above quoted.

“My lord, you are so little accustomed to receive any marks of respect or esteem from the public, that if in the following lines a compliment or expression of applause should escape me, I fear you would consider it as a mockery of your established character, and perhaps 313an insult to your understanding. You have nice feelings if we may judge from your resentments. Cautious, therefore, of giving offence where you have so little deserved it, I shall leave the illustration of your virtues to other hands. Your friends have a privilege to play upon the easiness of your temper, or probably they are better acquainted with your good qualities than I am. You have done good by stealth. The rest is upon record. You have still ample room for speculation when panegyric is exhausted....

“Let us consider you, then, as arrived at the summit of worldly greatness; let us suppose that all your plans of avarice and ambition are accomplished, and your most sanguine wishes gratified in the fear as well as the hatred of the people. Can age itself forget that you are now in the last act of life? Can gray hairs make folly venerable? Is there no period to be reserved for meditation and retirement? For shame, my lord! Let it not be recorded of you that the latest moments of your life were dedicated to the same unworthy pursuits, the same busy agitations, in which your youth and manhood were exhausted. Consider that though you cannot disgrace your former life, you are violating the character of age and exposing the impotent imbecility, after you have lost the vigor of the passions.

“Your friends will ask, perhaps, Whither shall this unhappy old man retire? Can he remain in the metropolis where his life has been so often threatened, and his palace so often attacked? If he returns to Woburn, scorn and mockery await him; he must create a solitude round his estate if he would avoid the face of reproach and derision. At Plymouth his destruction would be more than probable; at Exeter, inevitable. 314No honest Englishman will ever forget his attachment, nor any honest Scotchman forget his treachery, to Lord Bute. At every town he enters he must change his liveries and name. Whichever way he flies, the hue and cry of the country pursues him.

“In another kingdom, indeed, the blessings of his administration have been more sensibly felt, his virtues understood; or, at worst, they will not for him alone forget their hospitality. As well might Verres have returned to Sicily. You have twice escaped, my lord; beware of a third experiment. The indignation of a whole people, plundered, insulted, and oppressed as they have been, will not always be disappointed.

“It is in vain, therefore, to shift the scene; you can no more fly from your enemies than from yourself. Persecuted abroad, you look into your own heart for consolation, and find nothing but reproaches and despair. But, my lord, you may quit the field of business, though not the field of danger; and though you cannot be safe, you may cease to be ridiculous. I fear you have listened too long to the advice of those pernicious friends with whose interests you have sordidly united your own, and for whom you have sacrificed every thing that ought to be dear to a man of honor. They are still base enough to encourage the follies of your age, as they once did the vices of your youth. As little acquainted with the rules of decorum as with the laws of morality, they will not suffer you to profit by experience, nor even to consult the propriety of a bad character. Even now they tell you that life is no more than a dramatic scene, in which the hero should preserve his consistency to the last; and that as you lived without virtue, you should die without repentance.”

This is what John Ruskin thought of the bicycle: “Some time since I put myself on record as an antagonist of the devil’s own toy, the bicycle. I want to reiterate, with all the emphasis of strong language, that I condemn all manner of bi-, tri-, and 4–, 5–, 6–, or 7–cycles. Any contrivance or invention intended to supersede the use of human feet on God’s own ground is damnable. Walking, running, leaping, and dancing are legitimate and natural joys of the body, and every attempt to stride on stilts, dangle on ropes, or wiggle on wheels is an affront to the Almighty. You can’t improve on God’s appointed way of walking by substituting an improved cart-wheel.”

An amusing story about the late Baron James de Rothschild, who was as sarcastic as he was shrewd, is now going the rounds of the French press. It is to the effect that the baron was playing whist one night, “a financier’s game”—for moderate stakes, that is—with the wealthy Marquis d’Aligre and a party, when the marquis, having let a louis fall on the floor, insisted on stopping the game until he found it. The baron, learning the cause of the interruption, exclaimed in a pathetic tone, “A louis on the floor? Ah! that is a serious matter,” and coolly taking a hundred-franc note from his pocket, rolled it up, lighted it at a candle, and held the blazing paper down to the carpet with profound gravity to help the marquis in his search!

“Stilton Cheese.”—So, some of the old copies; yet the 4to, 1600, reads “Tilton.” But I confess the word Tilton gives me no idea. I find Stilton to be a village in Huntingdon, famous for its cheese—a fact which clearly evinces the propriety of the reading in the old copy, and justifies my emendation.

Here we have a very critical note! The word Tilton can give Mr. Theobald no idea. And it is true, words cannot give a man what nature has denied him. But though our critic may be ignorant of it, it is well known that in the days of chivalry Tilting was a very common amusement in England; and I find that, during the performance of these martial exercises the spectators were frequently entertained with a sort of cheese, which, from the occasion on which it was made, was called Tilting, and by corruption Tilton cheese. Mr. Theobald’s emendation, therefore, as needless and truly absurd, ought by all means to be rejected.

The emendation, in my opinion, is not more absurd than the remark which the learned annotator has made upon it. There is, indeed, a stupid error in some of the old copies. But discordant opinions are not always nugatory, and by much agitation the truth is elicited. I think Mr. Theobald’s alteration right.

Stilton is a village in Huntingdon on the great North road. Tilton, though not so well known, is a village in Leicester. In an old collection of songs, black-letter, 317no date, we read “Tilton’s homely fare,” which all critics will allow can only mean cheese. In an old MS. of which I remember neither the date nor the title Tilton is said to abound in rich pasturage; both which circumstances make it highly probable that our author wrote, not as Mr. Theobald supposes, Stilton, but Tilton; though I confess the passage is not without difficulty.

Scene, Hawarden Park. [Mr. Gladstone discovered engaged in felling a tree, surrounded by fourteen hundred liberals of Bolton. He strikes a few blows; the crowd cheer vociferously. Mr. Gladstone pauses from his labors, reflects a few moments, and then sings sotto voce:]

He was a masquerader of great ability and still greater erudition. If we read his works with careful scrutiny we find nothing new in them except his odd and barbarous way of expressing his ideas. His originality is in his language, which is a miserable model, affording the reader no improved forms of expression. He assumed the character of a censor; but he told the public no new truths, and sought to keep alive the public interest in his writings by his savage personalities. He seems to have masqueraded in the character of Dr. Johnson; but he could not come up to his original except in what was offensive. If he was a smasher of idols, he immediately set them up again for men’s worship after he had cemented the pieces together in ridiculous shapes.

EVASIONS OF AMBIGUITY — The Greek Lexicographers — The Religion of Wise Men — A Deceiver — An Acknowledgment — An Artful Dodger — Rouge — A Difference — Which? — Divine Service — Doubtful Compliment — King or Pretender? — A Legal Question — A Judge Like Solomon — The Butchers — Meeting the Difficulty — A Tough Witness — Shifting Responsibility — Erskine’s Pleasantry — Mortuary Word-Play

Dr. Henry Liddell, who had become celebrated by his Greek lexicon, was at one time headmaster of Westminster. One day he required the boys in his class to write an English epigram, each to choose his own subject. Among those that were handed in was the following:

Dr. Liddell, on receiving it, only said, “I think you are rather severe.”

John Toland, in his “Clidophorus” (key-bearer), relates an incident which he was told by a near relation of old Lord Shaftesbury. The latter conferring one day with Major Wildman about the many sects of religion in the world, they came to the conclusion at last that notwithstanding the infinite divisions caused by the interest of the priests and the ignorance of the people, 323all wise men are of the same religion; whereupon a lady in the room demanded with some concern what that religion was? To whom the Lord Shaftesbury straight replied, “Madam, wise men never tell.”

When Johnny was questioned as to why his engagement with Miss H. had been broken off, he rolled his eyes, looked very much pained, and groaned, “Oh, she turned out a deceiver.” But he forgot to mention that he was the deceiver whom she had turned out.

Richard Brinsley Sheridan, the author of “The School for Scandal,” had a very ingenious manner of answering applicants for literary notice at his hands. He generally wrote, “I have received your book and no doubt shall be delighted after I have read it.” But whether he meant satisfaction with the volume or satisfaction at the close of a tedious task was what no one could find out.

When Talleyrand was Minister for Foreign Affairs, and there was a report in Paris of the death of George III., a banker, full of speculative anxieties, asked him if it was true. “Some say,” he replied, “that the King of England is dead; others say that he is not dead; but do you wish to know my opinion?” “Most anxiously, Prince.” “Well, then, I believe neither. I 324mention this in confidence to you; but I rely on your discretion: the slightest imprudence on your part would compromise me most seriously.”

On another occasion, when Talleyrand sat at dinner between Madame de Staël and Madame Récamier, the celebrated beauty, Madame de Staël, whose beauties were certainly not those of the person, jealous of his attentions to her rival, insisted upon knowing which he would save if they were both drowning. After seeking in vain to evade her, he at last turned toward her and said, with his usual shrug, “Ah, madame, vous savez nager” (you know how to swim).

St. Francis de Sales being consulted by a lady on the lawfulness of wearing rouge, replied, “Some persons may object to it, and others may see no harm in it, but I shall take a middle course, by allowing you to rouge on one cheek.”

A judge, reprimanding a criminal, called him a scoundrel. The prisoner, “Sir, I am not as big a scoundrel as your honor”—here the culprit stopped, but finally added—“takes me to be.” “Put your words closer together,” said the judge.

A certain lawyer was compelled to apologize to the court. With stately dignity he rose in his place and said, “Your Honor is right and I am wrong, as your 325Honor generally is.” There was a dazed look in the judge’s eye, and he hardly knew whether to feel happy or fine the lawyer for contempt of court.

A lady who greatly admired Dr. Chalmers’s preaching, and was much addicted to pursuing popular orators, sent him her compliments one Sunday morning and begged to know if he intended to preach that day at St. George’s. The worthy doctor answered, “Tell Lady —— that there certainly is to be Divine Service in St. George’s Church to-day.”

At a printers’ festival the following toast was offered: “Woman! second only to the press in the dissemination of news.” The ladies are yet undecided whether to regard this as a compliment or otherwise.

The following epigram, though popularly attributed to Jonathan Swift at the time it appeared, was written by John Byron. On one occasion, during the rising of 1745, when Manchester had eagerly embraced the cause of Prince Charles, Byron, in a mixed company, being asked to drink the king’s health, cautiously replied,—

In the Greek Anthology we are told of an unhappy man who went to Diodorus for advice and instruction about the children of a female slave. The following metrical version of the case is by Merivale:

Two cows went astray at Newport News, Virginia. One belonged to a negro, and the other to a white man named Shields. A cow answering the description of either of the two animals was purchased by a farmer not long after. The bereaved men heard of the purchase, and each claimed the animal and presented proof 327equally convincing. The case came up before a judge and the jury heard the evidence, but as the witnesses for each party described the same cow, they were unable to give a decision. Then the judge said he would turn the cow out on the green. If she went toward the negro’s farm she should be his, if she went toward Shields’s farm she should be his. The cow was turned out, but she found the grass so satisfying that she went neither way.

When Napoleon I. came, after a series of victories, to visit annexed Belgium, he found, on entering Ghent, a triumphal arch erected by the guild of butchers, inscribed: “The little butchers of Ghent to Napoleon the great” (butcher). The deacon of the guild had asked a clever nobleman (who loathed Napoleon) to write the inscription, the sarcasm in which the worthy deacon did not detect.

Merivale tells a story of a Quaker who lived in a country town in England. He was rich and benevolent, and always responsive to appeals for purposes of local charity and usefulness. The townspeople wanted to rebuild their parish church, which was falling into decay, and a committee was appointed to raise the funds. It was agreed that the Friend could not be asked to subscribe towards an object so contrary to his principles; but then, on the other hand, so true and public-spirited a friend to the town might take it amiss if he was not at least consulted on a matter of such general 328interest. So one of their number went and explained to him their project; the old church was to be removed, and such and such steps were to be taken towards the construction of a new one.

“Thee is right,” said the Quaker, “in supposing that my principles would not allow me to assist in building a church. But did thee not say something about pulling down a church? Thee may put my name down for a hundred pounds.”

Not even a lawyer, however skilful in cross-examination, can make a witness tell the truth, provided the witness wishes to evade it. It is impossible to put the question in such exact language that it will demand the desired answer. It was necessary, on a certain occasion in court, to compel a witness to testify as to the way in which a Mr. Smith treated his horse. “Well, sir,” said the lawyer, with a sweet and winning smile—a smile intended to drown all suspicion as to the ulterior purposes—“how does Mr. Smith generally ride a horse?” The witness looked up innocently and replied: “Generally a-straddle, sir, I believe.” The lawyer asked again: “But, sir, what gait does he ride?” The imperturbable witness answered, “He never rides any gate at all, sir; but I’ve seen his boys ride every gate on the farm.” The lawyer saw he was on the track of a Tartar, and his next question was very insinuating. “How does Mr. Smith ride when he is in company with others? I demand a clear answer.” “Well, sir,” said the witness, “he keeps up with the rest if his horse is able to, or if not he falls behind.” The lawyer by this 329time was almost beside himself, and asked: “And how does he ride when he is alone?” “I don’t know,” was the reply, “I never was with him when he was alone,” and there the case dropped.

There is something of the shrewd humor of the Oriental cadi, says the Pall Mall Gazette, in the decision of a Russian stipendiary magistrate, a report of which comes from Odessa. It appears that a new cemetery was about to be opened near that city, and that two Greek merchants, each anxious to secure the most comfortable or most distinguished resting-place, were allowed by some official blunder to buy the same allotment. When the mistake was discovered neither would yield his claim, and the matter was referred to the district judge. Greek had met Greek, and the tug of war threatened to be severe, when the magistrate, with an astuteness worthy of Solomon, arranged the matter in the simplest way possible, by applying the rule, “First come, first served,” and suggesting that whichever died first should have the right to the coveted resting-place. The parties went away reconciled and happy. It is not stated whether they had to find sureties to guarantee that neither would take an unfair advantage of the other by committing suicide.

Lord Erskine was in the habit of making a very effective pause in all letters replying to solicitation for subscriptions. He wrote:

“Sir: I feel much honored by your application to 330me, and I beg to subscribe”—here the reader had to turn over the leaf—“myself your very obedient servant,” etc. One of the best instances of this form of pause occurred in a letter received by a popular physician. This gentleman was pleased with a certain aërated water, and by his recommendations he managed to secure for it some celebrity. For this he expected neither reward nor thanks. Imagine his surprise, therefore, when he received one day from the makers of the aërated water an effusive letter, stating that his kind recommendations had done so much good that they ventured to send a hundred—(here the page turned over). “This will never do,” said the doctor. “It is very kind, but I will never think of accepting anything.” Here he turned the page and found the sentence ran—“of our circulars for distribution.”

Equivocal forms of expression find their way into church-yard literature, as in the following examples:

Maria Brown, wife of Timothy Brown, aged eighty years. She lived with her husband fifty years, and died in the confident hope of a better life.

Here lies Bernard Lightfoot, who was accidentally killed in the forty-fifth year of his age. This monument was erected by his grateful family.

COMICAL BLUNDERS — Disinfecting a Telegram — The Wrong Man Made a Count — Stiefel — A Happy Thought — Couldn’t Fool Him — Gibson’s Venus — Highgate — Both Sides — A Hopeless Case — A Question of Capacity — An Unexpected Reception — Half-Truths — The Happening of the Unexpected — A Great Mind — Psoriasis — Exchanging Errors — Betting on the Lord’s Prayer — Contradictory Phraseology — Individuals — Infelicities — A “Sufficient” Guide-Post — Faux Pas — One Form of Vanity — “Beats,” Not Turnips — Reasonable Excuse — Sending a Postscript — Didn’t Understand Quakerese — John the Baptist — A German Pickwick — Not a Chiropodist — Unfamiliar Familiarity — Alleged Danger of Rapid Movement — Aaron and Hur — Twenty Dunkards with an R — The Economy of Nature — Desirable Uniformity — False Doctrine — Poor Children — Help from Above — Minding One’s Business — Direct Information — Mistranslation — Misplaced Zeal — Before Railroads — The Wrong Word

The Milan journal, Pungolo, relates that a Turin merchant, who had correspondents in the French Department of Bouches du Rhône, received at his private house, at Pinerolo, a telegram from Marseilles. Upon reading it he discovered, to his great annoyance, that it must have been sent off some twenty-four hours before it was delivered to him. He called upon the telegraph clerk to account for the delay, and the honest man at once confessed that the despatch had indeed lain for a day and a night in his office. He went on to gravely explain that, as it had come from a place where cholera was known to be raging, he had felt himself bound, in compliance with the regulations of the Italian sanitary authorities, to disinfect it by exposing it to the fumes of burning sulphur!

When King Gustavus III., of Sweden, was in Paris, he was visited by a deputation of the Sorbonne. That learned body congratulated the king on the happy fortune that had given him so great a man as Scheele, the discoverer of magnesium, as his subject and fellow-countryman. The king, who took small interest in the progress of science, felt somewhat ashamed that he should be so ignorant as never even to have heard of 332the renowned chemist. He dispatched a courier at once to Sweden with the laconic order, “Scheele is to be immediately raised to the dignity and title of a count.” “His majesty must be obeyed,” said the prime minister, as he read the order; “but who in the world is Scheele?” A secretary was told to make inquiries. He came back with very full information. “Scheele is a good sort of a fellow,” said he; “a lieutenant in the artillery, a capital shot, and first-rate hand at billiards.” The next day the lieutenant became a count, and the illustrious scholar and scientist remained a simple burgher.

M. Bouchitté, a learned Frenchman, has made a curious blunder in “The Dictionnaire de la Conversation.” He has compiled a biography of Jacob Böhme, and supplements it by a list of the numerous writings of the philosophical shoemaker. Among these he cites “Reflections sur les bottes d’Isaie.” The notion of a shoemaker devoting some time to reflections on Isaiah’s boots appears sufficiently in accordance with a well-known axiom invented for the instruction of the craft. But the fact is that what Jacob wrote was an essay on the theological dissertation of Professor Isaias Stiefel. Now, Stiefel is German for boots, and to that extent M. Bouchitté was correct enough in supposing that Jacob Böhme had been casting reflections on Isaiah’s boots.

At a dinner party in “town,” in August, there were two sisters present, one a widow who had just emerged from her weeds, the other not long married, whose husband 333had lately gone to India for a short term. A young barrister present was deputed to take the widow in to dinner. Unfortunately he was under the impression that his partner was the married lady, whose husband had just arrived in India. The conversation between them commenced by the lady’s remarking how hot it was. “Yes, it is very hot,” returned the young barrister. Then a happy thought suggested itself to him, and he added, with a cheerful smile, “but not so hot as the place to which your husband has gone.” The look with which the lady answered this “happy thought” will haunt that unhappy youth till his death.

It was in Pittsburg, and Mr. Irving was playing Shylock, when from the gallery “a voice fell like a falling star,” “Great gosh!” It fell from a countryman from Moon township, who, when the play was over, went to the stage door and wanted to thrash the actor. But he didn’t. Later, at a hotel, he was asked if he saw Shylock. “Yes, I seen him,” said he, “and it’s not the first time, either.” “When did you see him before?” “Why, I seen that fellow in Moon township last week peddling notions. It’s the same Jew, and you can bet a hundred if he ever comes out there again we will not split hairs with him about a pound of flesh, for Frank McGinnis and I will skin him alive.” “You are certainly mistaken about the man.” “No, sir. He was trading cuff-buttons for wool, and he had the same pair of scales and the same ugly look.” “But that Jew on the stage was Henry Irving, the celebrated English actor.” “That’s enough; you can’t fool me. I know 334my man, and I’ve been in the same fix myself as that young Antonio. That young fellow, Antonio, had been out ‘log-rolling,’ and having some fun with the boys, and that sheeny Shylock had lent him some money and then wanted the earth, and he would have killed the young fellow with that carver if I hadn’t been right there.” Critics will please never again say that Mr. Irving’s representations are “not natural.”

When the Viceroy of Egypt was in London, at the time of the great exposition, Gibson’s beautiful statue of Venus was on exhibition. The viceroy stopped in front of the statue one day, and continued for some time to contemplate its beauties and to study the features. Upon one of his aides remarking to him that the afternoon was passing away and that much remained to be seen, the viceroy said: “No, do not disturb me. I wish to be able to recognize her, for I am going to dine with her this evening.” It was then revealed that the Egyptian ruler confounded Gibson’s Venus with the wife of Milner Gibson, a member of the cabinet, at whose house he was engaged to dine that evening. The nude statue he took for a life-like representation of the charms of his hostess.

An amusing story is told of the daughter of a well-known London alderman, who was recently taken in to dinner by a judge who figured prominently in the Tichborne trial. The conversation turned on the young lady’s usual place of residence, which happened to be 335Highgate. “Don’t you think Highgate pretty?” she asked. Unfortunately, she was slightly uncertain in her aspirates. His lordship gave her one hurried glance of intense astonishment. “You get pretty?” he replied, gallantly, recovering his presence of mind. “No, Miss ——, I think you were always pretty.” However horrified at the compliment, the young lady quite justified it by her profuse blushes.

“Was your room on the port or the starboard side of the vessel?” asked an old traveller of a new one, who had just returned from his first trip to Europe. “Oh, I had the same room both ways,” was the answer. “It was on the port side going over, and so of course it was on the starboard side coming back.”

A certain Philadelphia gentleman was ordered by his physician to travel for the benefit of his health. He went to England, and after tiring of London he decided to hire a trap and see the beauties of interior England in dignified ease and luxury. Just then he fell in with a hearty, good-natured Englishman, and as they soon became fast friends the American invited the other to attend him on his coaching trip.

The son of John Bull accepted, and during the days that followed, each frequently and in a joking manner improved every occasion to laud his own country and express his contempt of the other. On the evening of the fourth day, as they were driving along a dusty road, the American pulled the horses up suddenly and proceeded 336to read a sign, “To Manchester 20 miles,” and underneath were the words, “If you cannot read this sign, apply for information at the blacksmith shop.”

“Well, I’ll be darned,” said the American, “if that isn’t the most ridiculous sign I ever saw.”

“Jove, old man,” replied the Englishman, “that sign is all right, isn’t it? I don’t see anything the matter.”

“You don’t, eh? Well, then, you just sleep over it and see what you think of it in the morning.”

The next morning the Englishman came down beaming.

“I say, old man,” he said, wisely, “that was a funny sign to put up, for don’t you see the blacksmith might not be in after all, you know.”

A gentleman in Ireland having built a large house was at a loss what to do with the rubbish. His steward advised him to have a pit dug large enough to contain it. “And what,” said the gentleman, “shall I do with the earth which is dug out of the pit?” To which the steward replied, “have the pit made large enough to hold all.”

One Sunday, during Mass in the chapel of the little village of Glengariff, three ladies of the Protestant faith were obliged to take shelter from one of those heavy summer showers which so frequently occur in the south of Ireland. The officiating priest, knowing who they were, and wishing to appear respectful to them, stooped 337down to his attendant, or clerk, who was on his knees, and whispered to him,—

“Three chairs for the Protestant ladies.”

The clerk, being an ignorant man, mistook the words, stood up, and shouted to the congregation,—

“Three cheers for the Protestant ladies!” which the congregation immediately took up, and gave three hearty cheers, while the clergyman stood dumfounded.

Mr. D., an Irish gentleman, was invited to dinner, on one occasion, by a well known Scottish resident, at whose generous table he met quite a number of the host’s countrymen. The conversation turned on Irish bulls, of which one and another repeated several, until the whole company was in a roar of laughter. Our Irish friend kept quiet until his patience was exhausted. Then he blurted out: “Stay, Mr. C., an’ do ye know what I think?” “Why, indeed, what do you think, Mr. D.?” “Shure, sir, and do ye know that I think, indade, that not more than one-half of these lies that they tell about the Irish are true.” This may be said to have “brought down” the table.

A witness was once examined before a Parliamentary Committee with the following result. Sergeant A. (to witness): “And on Thursday, the thirteenth, you say you called on Mr. Jones?” Witness: “I did.” Sergeant A.: “And what did he say?” Sergeant B. objected to this question. Sergeant A. argued that it 338could be put, and cited several precedents. The juniors hunted up all the cases. Sergeant B. replied at length, and stated his precedents. These arguments lasted two hours. The committee then retired to consider whether the question should be put or not, and after an absence of about an hour they returned, and stated that it might be asked. Up then rose Sergeant A., and said to witness: “And on Thursday, the thirteenth, you say you called on Mr. Jones?” Witness: “I did.” Sergeant A. (with an air of triumph): “And what did he say?” Witness: “He wasn’t at home.” Tableau!

There are some curious blunders in indexing books. A seeker of knowledge, running his eye down an index through letter B, arrived at the reference, “Best, Mr. Justice, his great mind.” Desiring to be better acquainted with the particulars of this assertion, he turned to the page referred to, and there found, to his entire satisfaction, “Mr. Justice Best said he had a great mind to commit the witness for prevarication.”

That reverend wag, Sydney Smith, while looking throughout the hot-house of a lady who was very proud of her flowers, and who had a habit of inaccurately using a profusion of botanical terms, inquired of her, “Madam, have you the Septennis psoriasis?” “No,” said she, “I had it last winter, and I gave it to the Archbishop of Canterbury; it came out beautifully in the spring.” For non-medical readers it maybe noted that “Septennis psoriasis” is the seven-year-itch.

In the perusal of a very solid book on the progress of the ecclesiastical differences of Ireland, written by a native of that country, after a good deal of tedious and vexatious matter, the reader’s complacency is restored by an artless statement how an eminent person “abandoned the errors of the Church of Rome and adopted those of the Church of England.”

A Western ranchman, as an old story goes, bet a pal five dollars that he could not repeat the Lord’s Prayer correctly. The bet was accepted, and after a few moments’ thought, the challenged party repeated the lines, “Now I lay me down to sleep,” etc. “Well, I swear,” said the loser, as he handed over the V; “I didn’t think you could do it.”

This story has a very old English counterpart, which was originally told as follows:

A reprobate fellow once laid an associate a bet of a guinea that he could not repeat the Creed. It was accepted, and his friend repeated the Lord’s Prayer. “Confound you,” cried the former, who imagined that he had been listening to the Creed, “I had no idea you had such a memory; there’s your money.”

Judge Brackenridge, of Western Pennsylvania, used to relate the following:

I once had a Virginia lawyer object to an expression in one of the acts of the Assembly of Pennsylvania, 340which read, “that the State-house yard in the city of Philadelphia should be surrounded by a brick-wall, and remain an open inclosure forever.”

But I put him down by citing one of the acts of the Legislature of his own State, which is entitled, “A supplement to an act entitled an act making it penal to alter the mark of an unmarked hog.”

A clergyman in Massachusetts, more than a century ago, addressed a letter to the General Court on some subject of interest which was then under discussion. The clerk read the letter, in which there seemed to be this very remarkable sentence: “I address you not as magistrates, but as Indian devils.” The clerk hesitated and looked carefully, and said, “Yes, he addresses you as Indian devils.” The wrath of the honorable body was aroused; they passed a vote of censure, and wrote to the reverend gentleman for an explanation, from which it appeared that he did not address them as magistrates, but as individuals.

One cannot help smiling at the infelicity of the tablet recently set up in the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York, in memory of Dr. John Hall. It simply gives the dates of his birth and death, and says that he was “pastor of this church from November 3, 1867, to September 17, 1898,” and then ends with this singular text, “There remaineth therefore a rest for the people of God.” That his departure should give rest to the people of God is what some who remember the dissensions 341in that church the last year or two of his life do not like to have suggested. That is not what the committee meant by the Scripture passage; neither did Cowper mean by the lines,—

what the little girl supposed who asked her mother why any saint should want to get on Satan’s knees.

Two gushing Boston girls were walking one day in the suburbs of the Hub, when they stumbled on a little old-fashioned mile-stone, forgotten in the march of improvement. One of them stooped, and, parting the grass, discovered the half-effaced inscription “I. m. from Boston,” upon which she exclaimed ecstatically, “Here is a grave, perhaps, of some young girl, who wished it written on her tombstone, ‘I’m from Boston.’ How touching! so simple, and so sufficient!”

Rev. Dr. Wolcott Calkins, in The Congregationalist, tells an interesting story of his visit to Mr. McCall, the missionary to the French. Mr. McCall told him amusing stories, among which was one about an Englishman who undertook to address a meeting in one of the Salles, in broken but voluble French. After a while his preparation appeared to have run out and he faltered, till in desperation he exclaimed, “Mes chers amis! Je regrette beaucoup de ne pas connaître mieux la belle Française!” That was the end of the meeting. The 342smile broke into laughter and the whole audience, was soon in a tumult. The Englishman didn’t know that he had expressed regret for his lack of acquaintance with the beautiful French woman.

A sturdy peasant from the Tyrol, says the Fremdenblatt, was standing at a shop-window in Vienna, looking at a reproduction of the fine group, by Rauch, of “The Three Graces.” The peasant did not seem insensible to the perfection of form, but after awhile he burst forth, “What fools these girls are! They have not got money enough to buy themselves a suit of clothes; yet what little they have, they spend to get their photograph taken.”

The angry mother of a small girl, a pupil in a New York grammar-school, indignantly demanded of the principal that the music-teacher in that school be discharged. When asked why she wanted the teacher dismissed, the mother said that in the midst of a lesson the day before, she had asked the child to tell her how many turnips were in a peck. This, she added, was probably done to humiliate her daughter.

Thinking this a most peculiar question for the teacher to ask, the principal sent for her. The astonished teacher could not remember asking such a question; but on learning the name of the pupil a light dawned on her. “Oh,” said she, “your daughter misunderstood me. I asked her how many beats there were in a measure.”

The following is said to have been the postscript to a letter received lately by a sporting nobleman in Lancashire from his steward: “I beg your lordship will excuse me for having taken the liberty of writing this in my shirt-sleeves, but the excessive heat has compelled me to be guilty of this disrespect.”

The wife of an Irish gentleman having been suddenly taken ill, he ordered a servant to get a horse ready to go for the doctor. By the time, however, that the horse was ready, and the note to the doctor written, the lady recovered from her sudden indisposition. Thereupon he added the following postscript to his note, and sent the servant off with it: “My wife having recovered, you need not come.”

There was a queer scene at the home of a Quaker family living in Philadelphia. The lady of the house had advertised for a servant girl, and a promising one, lately arrived, applied.

“Whin do ye have your washin’ done?” asked the girl.

“We would wish to have thee do it every Second-day,” answered the Quakeress.

“Ivery second day? May the saints presarve us! Sure it’s not meself that will wash for ye ivery other day in the week!” said the girl, as she took her departure.

A colored minister of the Baptist persuasion, in order to strengthen and confirm the faith of his congregation, took as the text of his discourse the first verse of the third chapter of Matthew: “In those days came John the Baptist preaching in the wilderness of Judea.” “Oh,” said he, “how I like to read these precious words in the blessed Bible. You don’t read anywhere in it about John the Presbyterian, or John the Methodist, or John the Episcopalian. No, it is John the Baptist. Oh, how I like to read that.”

Germany has a Pickwick indeed, without guile, according to a story told by the Schweizerische Dorfkalender. The antiquarian stood before a stable-door, in rapt delight, contemplating a stone fixed in the archway, which bore the inscription 1081. Calling the tenant farmer, he said, “Am I not right, my friend, in supposing that you procured this stone from the castle ruin on the hill yonder?” “It may be,” replied the owner, “that my grandfather fetched it when he built the stable.” The professor asked what he would take for the stone. “Since you seem to have a fancy for it,” said the farmer, “pay me down 40 guldens, and I will leave it at your house.” “That is rather a large sum,” said the professor; “never mind; bring it to me to-morrow morning, and you shall have the 40 guldens.” On the next morning, when the peasant brought the stone upon the truck, the zealous antiquarian eagerly turned it over to refresh his eyes with a sight of its 345chronological inscription. “Why,” cried he in amazement, “what is this? This is not the right stone. Yesterday I read the date 1081, while this bears the date 1801, which proves that the other was exactly 720 years older than this.” “The Herr Professor must not trouble himself about that small matter,” replied the boor. “You see, sir, the masons turned the stone upside down when they set it in the doorway, because it fitted better that way. You can turn it whichever way you like now it is your own, but, of course, I must have the 40 guldens.” The money was paid.

During his first visit to Paris Herr Lasalle, the distinguished German, presented himself at the house of a well-known lady, to whom he had sent letters of introduction in advance. When the servant opened the door and received his card, she conducted him to the boudoir and told him to be seated, saying, “Madame will come immediately.”

Presently the lady entered. She was in déshabillé, and her feet were bare, covered only with loose slippers. She bowed to him carelessly, and said, “Ah, there you are; good morning.”

She threw herself on a sofa, let fall a slipper and reached out to Lasalle her very pretty foot.

Lasalle was naturally completely astonished, but he remembered that at his home in Germany it was the custom sometimes to kiss a lady’s hand and he supposed it was the Paris mode to kiss her foot. Therefore he did not hesitate to imprint a kiss upon the fascinating foot so near him, but he could not avoid saying, “I 346thank you, madame, for this new mode of making a lady’s acquaintance. It is much better and certainly more generous than kissing the hand.”

The lady jumped up, highly indignant. “Who are you, sir, and what do you mean?”

He gave his name.

“You are not, then, a corn doctor?”

Professor Phelps used to tell with glee of the way he gained a reputation for knowing a thing he hated. He took a walk with Professor Newton, who lived in the world of the higher mathematics, and started off at once to discuss an abstruse problem. Mr. Phelps’s mind could not follow, and wandered off to other things. At last he was called back when the professor wound up with “which you see gives us X.” “Does it?” asked Mr. Phelps, politely. “Why, doesn’t it?” exclaimed the professor, excitedly, alarmed at the possibility of a flaw in his calculations. Quickly his mind ran back and detected a mistake. “You are right, Mr. Phelps; you are right,” shouted the professor. “It doesn’t give us X; it gives us Y.” And from that time Mr. Phelps was looked upon as a mathematical prodigy, the first man who ever tripped the professor.

In the Archives of the Nürnberg Railway at Fürth, which was the first line constructed in Germany, a protest against railroads has been found, drawn up by the Royal College of Bavarian Doctors. In it occurs the following passage: “Travel in carriages drawn by a 347locomotive ought to be forbidden in the interest of public health. The rapid movement cannot fail to produce among the passengers the mental affection known as delirium furiosum. Even if travellers are willing to incur the risk, the government should at least protect the public. A single glance at a locomotive passing rapidly is sufficient to cause the same cerebral derangement; consequently it is absolutely necessary to build a fence ten feet in height on each side of the railway.”

Said a well-known clergyman, “Coming home from a service where I had preached from the words, ‘And Aaron and Hur stayed up his hands,’ one of the congregation, a prominent man in the town, said to me, ‘I wonder you don’t touch on the argument in favor of female influence in that text to-night.’ I replied that ‘I don’t see where it comes in.’ ‘Why,’ said he, ‘it says her stayed up his hands as much as Aaron did.’ He thought Hur was the pronoun of her for she. I made the best of it by admitting frankly, ‘I never thought of it before.’ But it taught me to be very careful to explain terms, if a man who ought to be as intelligent as any one of my hearers could make such a blunder.”

A party of twenty-five Dunkards was en route to the General Conference, via St. Louis. No agent accompanied them, and a telegram was sent to Union Depot Passenger Agent Bonner to “meet twenty Dunkards.”

The religious education of the telegraph operator who 348received the message had been neglected. He had never heard of the Dunkards, and, supposing a mistake had been made, he just inserted the letter “r,” and when Bonner received the message it read “Meet No. 4. Twenty drunkards aboard. Look after them.”

Bonner was somewhat taken aback. He did not know but that an inebriate asylum had broken loose, but any way prompt action was necessary. The twenty drunkards must be desperate men, or the despatch would not have been sent, and murder might have been committed on the road.

Bonner posted off to police head-quarters, and his story did not lose in the telling. The chief of police, alive to the exigencies of the situation, made a special detail of ten policemen and a patrol wagon.

The policemen were drawn up in a line at the depot, and intense excitement prevailed among the numerous depot loungers, a rumor having gained currency that a band of desperate train robbers was on the incoming train.

In due time the train arrived, but no party of roystering drunkards alighted. The party on the train was composed of several pious-looking gentlemen with broad-brimmed hats, who stood around as though expecting some one.

Bonner approached one of them and said, interrogatively,—

“Had any trouble on the road?”

“No, brother,” said the gentleman, “none that I know of. And now I’ll ask you a question. Do you know a gentleman named Bonner?”

“Yes, I am Mr. Bonner,” was the answer.

“Well, these brethren and myself are Dunkards, and 349you were to meet us and put us on the right train. Didn’t you get a telegram?”

Bonner was completely done for. He excused himself, and, calling the sergeant of police aside, he told him that it was all a mistake, and he and his men could go back to head-quarters. Then he disposed of his religious friends, went around and cussed the telegraph operator, after which he had to “set ’em up” for the whole police force on the promise to keep mum.

A young man on a Staten Island boat explained to his fair companion that Robbin’s Reef Light-house was built upon a rock in the bay.

“Ah, yes,” said she. “Funny that the rock should be just where they wanted a light-house, wasn’t it?”

Mr. Colville was reading to his wife from a newspaper on Saturday morning, when he saw this paragraph: “Mr. and Mrs. James Clark, of Pulaski, New York, both came into the world on the same day, both died on the same day, and both were killed by a cancer.”

“Well, I declare! wasn’t that singular?” observed Mrs. Colville. “Born on the same day, died on the same day, and with the same disease. Now, if they’d only been married on the same day, the thing would have been complete.”

“What’s that?” suddenly interrogated Mr. Colville, looking curiously at her over the top of the paper.

“I say,” she repeated, “if they’d both been married 350on the—why, to be—” she embarrassingly added, as she caught the amused expression of his face—“that is—I wonder if I thought to put on the dish-water,” and she hastened into the kitchen to attend to it.

A woman in a village in Kent lost three children from diphtheria, and when the clergyman’s wife went to condole with her, she railed against the doctors, and said she couldn’t think how they could go to church, and say that prayer, and then go and practice on the people as they did. In answer to the question what prayer she meant, she said, “Why they pray to be delivered from false doctoring, heresy, and schism, and then they go about and do false doctoring, and kill the children.”

A Mobile paper, speaking of Dan Bryant, says, “Bryant died, and, after a life of great profit, left his wife and five children as poor as they were when he was married.” It is a very expressive sentence so far as the children are concerned.

The wife of Emile de Girardin had the most absolute faith in his powers. A few days after the revolution of 1848 a lady who was greatly distressed about political events and troubled as to the future went to see Mme. de Girardin, whose parlor was exactly underneath her husband’s study and workroom. “Oh, my dear friend,” said the visitor, “what terrible times we 351live in! What awful events! Who then can extricate us from them?” “There is only one. He who is above (là haut) can do it!” responded gravely Mme. de Girardin. “Yes, that’s so—the good Lord; you are right!” “No; I am speaking of Emile!”

An old dial in the Temple, London, bore the curious motto, “Begone about your business.” The maker, wishing to know what motto the benchers required for the dial, sent his lad to ascertain it. The boy applied while the benchers were dining, and one of them, annoyed at the unseasonable interruption, said, shortly, “Begone about your business.” The lad, thinking that this was the desired motto, reported it to his master, and the dial accordingly bore this novel inscription as long as the building upon which it was placed remained. The United States cent, which is usually called the Franklin cent, because its maxim was suggested by the philosopher, bore another legend, “Mind your business.” This has often been misquoted and altered to “Mind your own business,” which, of course, has an entirely different sense.

The late Mrs. Jane W—— was equally remarkable for kindness of heart and absence of mind. One day she was accosted by a beggar, whose stout and healthy appearance startled her into a momentary doubt of the needfulness of charity in this instance. “Why,” exclaimed the good old lady, “you look well able to work.” “Yes,” replied the supplicant, “but I have 352been deaf and dumb these seven years.” “Poor man, what a heavy affliction!” exclaimed Mrs. W——, at the same time giving him relief with a liberal hand. On returning home she mentioned the fact, remarking, “What a dreadful thing it is to be deprived of such precious faculties!” “But how,” asked her sister, “did you know that the poor man had been deaf and dumb for seven years?” “Why,” was the quiet and unconscious answer, “he told me so.”

A daughter of James Fenimore Cooper once remarked that the translator who first rendered her father’s novel, “The Spy,” into the French tongue, among other mistakes, made the following: “Readers of the Revolutionary romance will remember that the residence of the Wharton family was called ‘The Locusts.’ The translator referred to his dictionary and found the rendering of the word to be Les Sauterelles, ‘The Grasshoppers.’ But when he found one of the dragoons represented as tying his horse to one of the locusts on the lawn, it would appear as if he might have been at fault. Nothing daunted, however, but taking it for granted that American grasshoppers must be of gigantic dimensions, he gravely informs his readers that the cavalryman secured his charger by fastening the bridle to one of the grasshoppers before the door, apparently standing there for that purpose.

“Much laughter has been raised at a French littérateur who professed to be ‘doctus utriusque linguæ.’ Cibber’s play of ‘Love’s Last Shift’ was translated by a Frenchman who spoke ‘Inglees’ as ‘La Dernière Chemise 353de l’Amour;’ Congreve’s ‘Mourning Bride,’ by another, as ‘L’Epouse du Matin;’ and a French scholar included among his catalogue of works on natural history essays on ‘Irish Bulls’ by the Edgeworths. Jules Janin, the great critic, in his translation of ‘Macbeth,’ renders ‘Out, out, brief candle!’ as ‘Sortez, chandelle.’ And another, who traduced Shakespeare, commits an equally amusing blunder in rendering Northumberland’s famous speech in ‘Henry IV.’ In the passage

the words italicized are rendered, ‘ainsi douleur! va-t’en!’-‘so grief, be off with you!’ Voltaire did no better with his translations of several of Shakespeare’s plays; in one of which the ‘myriad-minded’ makes a character renounce all claim to a doubtful inheritance, with an avowed resolution to carve for himself a fortune with his sword. Voltaire put it in French, which retranslated, reads, ‘What care I for lands? With my sword I will make a fortune cutting meat.’

“The French translator of one of Sir Walter Scott’s novels, knowing nothing of that familiar name for toasted cheese, ‘Welsh rabbit,’ rendered it literally by ‘un lapin du pays de Galles,’ or a rabbit of Wales, and then informed his readers in a foot-note that the lapins or rabbits of Wales have a very superior flavor, and are very tender, which cause them to be in great request in England and Scotland.”

“I was once sent to attend a man who had taken laudanum,” said the doctor. “I hurried to the place and 354found the would-be suicide being walked up and down the room as fast as they could walk by two friends of his. As they put him down on a chair for me to treat him one of them remarked, ‘Awful glad to see you, doctor; we’ve been walking Jim up and down for an hour and a half. It’s been terrible hard work to keep him alive all this time.’

“I made a slight examination; took my hat and started to go, when one of the pedestrians said, ‘What’s the matter, doctor? Ain’t you going to give him anything?’ ‘He’s been dead for an hour,’ I replied, and left.”

A party of cultivated people were standing before an ancient cathedral admiring its grandeur, which several centuries of existence had failed to dim. The noise of the cars in the immediate vicinity so annoyed one of the ladies that she impulsively said, “I wonder why they built the cathedral so near the railroad!”

This is on a par with another innocent party’s commendation of the wisdom of Providence in making rivers flow past the largest towns.

A young Methodist missionary who had been stationed in Brazil long enough to acquire familiarity with Brazilian Spanish, after a brief absence in the United States, returned with his bride. She, anticipating the need of learning the Spanish language, studied diligently, and, for a time, there was some hesitation and embarrassment, but no trouble. Thinking she was getting along famously, she soon gained more confidence.

355So all went well till the young couple set up an establishment and secured a man-servant with the fine manners of a Spanish grandee. The reverend gentleman’s wife stood in awe of him from the start. And her greatest trial was when her husband would be detained from home during the dinner hour, when she had to dine alone, except for that grand man-servant. One day that functionary was standing elegant and impressive, when she had occasion to ask him to hand her the cheese. The man stood immovable like a lay figure in a clothing-house. She felt sure that he had heard her, and she became angry when he made no move to do her bidding.

She repeated her command, as she thought, “Give me the cheese,” This time the grandee of a man-servant perceptibly laughed, but was immovable. In indignation, supposing him to be impertinent, or worse still, crazy, she rushed to the front door to call assistance, when she met the belated missionary, her husband, and promptly explained the situation.

“What did you say, my dear,” was his smiling query.

“‘Give me the cheese,’ was what I said.”

“Yes, but the word,” he insisted. ·

“I said beso,” replied the wife, still puzzled.

Then the unfeeling missionary fairly roared with laughter. His wife had begun to think that he, too, had gone mad, when he managed to keep calm long enough to explain. It was only a mistake in the sound of one letter that she had made, but it was a funnily fatal one that time. She should have said “queso” instead of “beso.” And instead of asking the man-servant for the “cheese” she had asked him without any qualification for a “kiss.”

MISSING THE POINT OF THE JOKES

A gentleman in conversation with his wife at dinner, said, “Mary, I heard a good conundrum down town to-day. If the devil should lose his tail, where would he go to get it repaired?” The answer was, “In the place where they re-tail bad spirits.” In the course of the evening a lady visitor dropped in, and Mary remarked, “Oh, I must tell you a good thing my husband got off at dinner. If the devil should lose his tail, where would he get it repaired?” The lady confessed her inability to answer, whereupon Mary said, “Why it’s where they sell liquor by the glass.”

“I’ve been digging over my garden,” said Brown, “and I’m all worn out.” “Ah!” remarked Fogg; “a new variety of earthenware, eh?” Fenderson, who was present, thought it was a good joke, and seeing Smith a short time afterward, of course he had to tell it. “I say, Smith,” said he, “Fogg just got off a neat thing. Brown was saying that he was all worn out digging in his garden, and Fogg asked him if that wasn’t a new kind of crockery-ware. What do you think of that?” “I don’t see the point.” “Darned if I do, either, now; but I thought I did when Fogg told it.”

A college professor, on parting with a student who had called on him, noticed that he had a new coat, and remarked that it was too short.

357The student, with an air of resignation, replied, “It will be long enough before I get another.”

The professor enjoyed the joke heartily, and going to a meeting of the college faculty just afterwards, he entered the room in great glee and said, “Young Sharp got off such a good joke just now. He called on me a little while ago, and as he was leaving I noticed his new coat, and told him it was too short, and he said, ‘It will be a long time before I get another.’”

No one laughed, and the professor, sobering down, remarked, “It don’t seem as funny as when he said it.”

Sam Ward was once seated opposite a well-known Senator at a dinner in Washington. This Senator was very bald, and the light shining on the breadth of scalp attracted Ward’s attention.

“Can you tell me,” he asked his neighbor, “why the Senator’s head is like Alaska?”

“I’m sure I don’t know.”

“Because it’s a great white bear place.”

The neighbor was immensely tickled, and he hailed the Senator across the table:

“Say, Senator, Ward’s just got off a very smart thing about you.”

“What is it?”

“Do you know why your head is like Alaska?”

“No.”

“Because it’s a great place for white bears.”

A few miles beyond Hammersmith, a village on the banks of the Thames, in England, is another village 358called Turnham Green. One day at a tavern the peas were of an unmistakable yellow, and one of the guests said to the waiter that he ought to send them to Hammersmith.

“Why?” asked the waiter. “Because,” returned the wag, “that’s the best way to Turnham Green.”

This was overheard by Oliver Goldsmith, who, a few days afterwards, undertook to palm the bon mot off as his own; therefore, calling the waiter to him, he pointed to the peas, which were very far from green, and told him to take them to Hammersmith.

“Why?” asked the other. “Because that is the way to make ’em green.”

As the point of the joke was lost, nobody laughed, whereat Goldsmith said in an angry tone, “Why don’t you laugh? That was an excellent joke when I heard it a week ago, and I laughed heartily at it.”

An unfortunate attempt at reproducing another’s wit was made by a man who had more money than education. He did not understand the pun, but judged from the applause with which it was greeted that it must be excellent. During the dinner at which he was a guest, a waiter let a boiled tongue slip off the plate on which he was bearing it, and it fell on the table.

The host at once apologized for the mishap as a lapsus linguæ (slip of the tongue). The joke was the best thing at the dinner, and our friend concluded to bring it up at his own table.

He accordingly invited his company, and instructed a servant to let fall a roast of beef as he was bringing it to the table.

359When the “accident” occurred, he exclaimed: “That’s a lapsus linguæ.”

Nobody laughed, and he said again, “I say that’s a lapsus linguæ,” and still no one laughed.

A screw was loose somewhere; so he told about the tongue falling, and they did laugh.

A red-haired lady, who was ambitious of literary distinction, found but a poor sale for her book. A gentleman, in speaking of her disappointment, said: “Her hair is red [read] if her book is not.” An auditor, in attempting to relate the joke elsewhere, said, “She has red hair, if her book hasn’t.”

“Why is this,” said the waiter, holding up a common kitchen utensil, “more remarkable than Napoleon Bonaparte? Because Napoleon was a great man, but this is a grater.” When the funny man reproduced it in his circle, he asked the question right, but answered it, “Because Napoleon was a great man, but this is a nutmeg grater.”

A man who owns a book store facetiously remarked that he couldn’t leave Chicago this summer because he kept stationery. Smarty heard him, and he went away to spring a joke. This is the way he sprung it: “Mitchell can’t go out of town this summer. Why?” “Don’t know.” “Because he sells books and papers.” And he never can understand why the other fellow didn’t laugh.

In a certain court in Maine the proceedings were delayed by the failure of a witness named Sarah Mony to 360arrive. After waiting a long time for Sarah the court concluded to wait no longer, and wishing to crack his little joke, remarked, “This court will adjourn without Sarah-mony.” Everybody laughed except one man, who sat in solemn meditation for five minutes, and then burst into a hearty guffaw, exclaiming, “I see it! I see it!” When he went home he tried to tell the joke to his wife. “There was a witness named Mary Mony who didn’t come,” said he, “and so the court said, ‘We’ll adjourn without Mary-mony,’” “I don’t see any point to that,” said his wife. “I know it,” said he, “I didn’t at first; but you will in about five minutes.”

It is interesting to observe how the old stories turn up, in brand-new clothes, but the same old stories. A Boston paper said that Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes and the venerable Dr. Peabody, of Cambridge, once had an appointment to see a statue of Eurydice. Dr. Holmes arrived first, and when a few moments later his friend drove up in a cab he greeted him with the very obvious pun: “Ah, you rid, I see.” Dr. Peabody was wonderfully pleased with this sally, and on his return attempted to repeat it to his family. “Dr. Holmes was extremely witty this afternoon,” he said. “We went to see the Eurydice, and when I drove up he said just as quick as a flash, ‘Ah, Doctor, I see you came in a buggy.’” The same week that this appeared in print the following appeared in a New York weekly journal: Speaking of how some people always misquote, a Southern lady once told the following: “A cavalry officer, bespattered with mud, entered an opera box during the representation of ‘Orpheus and Eurydice,’ and exclaimed: ‘Well I have just ridden ten miles to see 361Orpheus—’ ‘And Eurydice,’ remarked a young belle, amid much laughter. Having occasion to visit the opposite box, he was asked what caused all that laughter, whereupon he laughed heartily and said, ‘Oh, that Miss Eyre is the wittiest girl I know; when I said I had come to see Orpheus,’ she said, ‘And I presume that you came on horseback, Captain.’”

Fenderson heard a good joke the other day about a man who had two cork legs, the key of the same being that he was born in Cork. Fenderson determined to spring it at the supper table. And this is how he did it: “I heard a funny thing to-day. It was about a man who had two cork legs, and he got along just as well as anybody else, and he suffered with cold feet, too. They were cork legs, you know, because he was born in Dublin. Good joke, eh? No? It doesn’t seem to be much of a joke, that’s a fact; but you’d ought to hear the fellows laugh when they heard it last night. I laughed myself, but there doesn’t seem to be much in it, after all. I guess the fun was in the way that chap told it.”

EVEN HOMER SOMETIMES NODS — Jugurtha — Completing a Sentence — Racine vs. Voltaire — A Chinese Cycle — Watts vs. Cowper — Bret Harte’s Astronomy — Wolseley’s Mistake — Johnson’s Error — Milton’s Italian — Milton as a Botanist — Dante as a Naturalist — Cassio or Iago? — In Time of Peace Prepare for War — Collins vs. Prior — Gladstone’s Heber — Balboa — Cenotaph — Bishop Ken’s Doxology — St. Paul to the Ephesians — Byron’s Greek — Triple Error — Mistakes of Our Best Writers

The effect of Mr. Longfellow’s fine poem, “Jugurtha,” is impaired by a curious mistake. The first of the two stanzas composing it are as follows:

As a matter of fact, Jugurtha’s exclamation when thrust into the cold, dark prison was “Heracles, how cold your [plural, humon] bath is!” (see Plutarch, Marius, c. 12). “Heracles” (the Greek form of Hercules) is the ordinary Greek interjection, not an address to a god. The most natural explanation of this odd mistake seems to be the following: Mr. Longfellow substituted the name of one god for another by a slip of the memory. When Apollo thus replaced Heracles, it was natural to make the further supposition that he was directly addressed, and that the ambiguous “your” was singular.

Senator Hoar of Massachusetts, knew his Bible very well, from cover to cover, and drew upon it for philosophy 363and illustration with great facility. Only once in a great while was he caught tripping in this field. One such occasion was while the Senate was discussing the Chinese treaty of 1881. He quoted against the exclusion policy St. Paul’s declaration, “For God hath made of one blood all the nations of the earth.”

Senator Miller, of California, exclaimed,—“Go on—quote the remainder of the sentence.”

“There is no more of it,” said Mr. Hoar.

“Oh yes there is,” rejoined Miller, “for the Apostle added to the words which the Senator had just quoted, ‘and hath determined the bounds of their habitation.’”

When Louis Napoleon was in temporary exile in New York, he complied with the request of a young lady for his autograph in her album as follows:

The Prince and future Emperor thus attributed to Racine a couplet which should have been credited to Voltaire.

A Chinese scholar has pointed out that when Tennyson wrote “Locksley Hall” he could not have been aware of the exact nature of a Chinese cycle. “Better,” he exclaimed, “fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay.” It being granted that Cathay is poetical 364English for China, it was stated, with the complete concurrence of an eminent mandarin who was present, that a Chinese cycle consists, and has for some centuries consisted, of sixty years. By these cycles the lapse of time has been computed in China during the whole of the present dynasty. The poet, therefore, was less complimentary to Europe than he probably intended to be when he said that fifty years of Europe was only equal to sixty years of China.

Few hymns are better known than Cowper’s “Light Shining Out of Darkness,” commencing

In the “Student’s English Literature,” published by Murray in 1901, this is part of what is said of Isaac Watts:

“His hymns are well known to all Englishmen—few hymns can surpass ‘God moves in a mysterious way’ for a certain majesty of simple sound.”

This ascription to Watts of Cowper’s stately and sonorous hymn is very strange, to say the least.

There is a little discrepancy in the poem by Mr. Bret Harte, entitled “Her Letter,” beginning with the lines:

365A girl in New York writes to her lover, who is supposed to be a miner in the far West. Yet, in the concluding stanza, she bids him good night, as follows:

It is a little difficult to imagine how it could be sunrise in California at the conclusion of an evening party in New York, even though the dancers had prolonged their amusement until compelled to “chase the glowing hours with flying feet.” And, furthermore, this is improbable because the writer is represented as writing by artificial light. Evidently “Old Folinsbee’s Daughter” had had more training in sentiment than in astronomy.

Lord Wolseley ends his “Decline and Fall of Napoleon” with the following words:

“So wrote the finger on the wall about the proud King of Babylon. It might with equal truth have been written of him whose overthrow at Waterloo is thus described in verse:

Wolseley’s assumption that Byron referred to the defeat at Waterloo is incorrect. The “Ode to Napoleon” was written in 1814, and the date of Waterloo is June, 1815. The reference is to Napoleon’s abdication in April, 1814, and the “sullen isle” in stanza xiv, is Elba, not St. Helena.

The great lexicographer in dealing with the word Confection has the following:

If we may trust the concordances, there is nothing of the sort in the works of Shakespeare. In Latham’s edition of the Dictionary it is omitted. Johnson can hardly be charged with inventing quotations; but he often trusted his memory in a very haphazard fashion.

Mark Pattison, in his Milton (“English Men of Letters”) series, says,—

“To the poems of the Horton period belong also the two pieces ‘L’Allegro’ and ‘Il Penseroso,’ and ‘Lycidas.’ He was probably in the early stage of acquiring the language when he superscribed the two first poems with their Italian titles. For there is no such word as ‘penseroso,’ the adjective formed from ‘pensiero’ being ‘pensieroso.’ Even had the word been written correctly, its signification is not that which Milton intended,—viz., thoughtful or contemplative, but anxious, full of cares, carking.”

Milton was in error when he wrote,—

The trees of Vallambrosa, being pines, do not fall thick in autumn, and the brooks, consequently, are not strewed with them.

Dante says in the “Inferno” (Canto xvii),—“As at times the wherries lie on shore, that are part in water and part on land, the beaver adjusts himself to make his war,” etc.

Bevero should be lontra, the otter. The latter answers to the description, seeking his prey half on land and half in water, and living on the fish he cunningly catches, whereas the subsistence of the beaver is drawn exclusively from the vegetable kingdom. The otter is carnivorous; the beaver derives his nutriment from the bark of deciduous trees, preferably, as shown by their cuttings, birch, poplar, willow, maple, and ash, together with the roots of the pond lily, and also the coarse grasses that grow on the margins of their ponds.

John Hill Burton, in the Book-Hunter, speaking of purloining from books leaves of whose intrinsic value the owner is ignorant, says,—

“The notions of the collector about such spoil are the converse of those which Cassio professed to hold about his good name, for the scrap furtively removed is supposed in no way to impoverish the loser, while it makes the recipient rich indeed.”

It is not Cassio, but Iago who says that good name in man and woman is the immediate jewel of their souls, the loss of which enriches not others, but makes them poor indeed. The error is worth correcting; for there 368is no more exquisite touch of art, no finer exhibition of subtle and profound knowledge of man than the teaching by the lips of this supreme scoundrel the wide difference between the intellectual perception of a moral sentiment and its actual possession.

When the honorary degree of LL.D. was conferred by the University of Pennsylvania upon President Roosevelt, he made an address in acknowledgment of the distinction, and in honor of the date, which was Washington’s birthday anniversary, in the course of which he gave out the subjoined maxim as one of those in which Washington in his Farewell Address bequeathed to his fellow countrymen for their instruction and guidance:

“To be prepared for war is the most effective means to promote peace.”

This maxim appears neither in Washington’s Farewell Address nor in any other speech or writing of the Father of his Country. The passage which President Roosevelt probably had in mind, and which he quoted from memory without verifying either its source or its exact language, occurs in Washington’s first annual address or message to Congress, delivered on January 8, 1790, nearly seven years before the Farewell Address was written. What Washington said about preparation for war was this:

“To be prepared for war is one of the most effective means of preserving peace.”

The difference between the foregoing and the incorrect version presented at Philadelphia by Mr. Roosevelt is not merely verbal. Washington declared that adequate 369provision for the common defence was “one of the most” effective means of preserving peace. Washington as quoted by Mr. Roosevelt is made to declare unqualifiedly that such provision is the “most” effective means of promoting peace. The significance of the misquoted superlative is obvious.

When Mr. Lowell was our Minister at the Court of St. James, he made an address on Coleridge, in Westminster Abbey, in the course of which he quoted the following couplet, attributing it to Collins,—

The lines thus incorrectly quoted are by Prior, and will be found in his “Solomon.” The monarch is speaking of a female slave who had a real affection for him,—

Mr. Gladstone, in his well-known article, entitled “Kin Beyond Sea,” misquoted the couplet from Heber’s “Palestine.” Instead of the lines,—

as incorrectly given by Mr. Gladstone, they should read,—

Why is it that well-informed people so persistently forget the name of the man who first discovered the Pacific Ocean? Keats, “on looking into a volume of Chapman’s Homer” thought of the oceans and the stars, and sang,—

Next came the German Emperor, crediting Sir Francis Drake with, having first seen the “great water.” For the benefit of such as fall into this error, it may be stated that the first European to see the Pacific Ocean from the American continent was Vasco Nuñez de Balboa, who beheld it from the eminence now known as Culebra, about half way across the Isthmus of Panama. Neither Cortez nor Sir Francis Drake, had any share in its achievement.

A Boston journal quoted from a letter of the Rev. W. C. McCoy on a newly dedicated monument as follows: “The moss-grown cenotaphs of Ancient Roman valor held no dust more sacred than do the unmarked graves where sleep your honored dead to-day.” This would be very fine were it not for the erroneous and misleading use of one word. A cenotaph happens to be a monument erected at some place other than the spot where sleep the bones of him whose valor it illustrates.

A sermon of the late Rev. Dr. T. De Witt Talmage has this glowing passage:

“When Cromwell’s army went into battle, he stood at the head of them one day, and gave out the long-metre Doxology to the tune of the “Old Hundred,” and that great host, company by company, regiment by regiment, battalion by battalion, joined in the Doxology:

“And while they sang they marched, and while they marched they fought, and while they fought they got the victory.”

It seems a pity to destroy a good story, but chronology is very despotic. Oliver Cromwell died in 1658. Bishop Ken, who has always been credited with this grand doxology, was born in 1637, and was then, therefore, only about twenty-one years old. Hymnologists give 1697 as the year in which Bishop Ken wrote the Doxology as the last verse of his morning and evening hymns. This would place the composition about half a century after Cromwell’s last battle in the civil war, and some forty years after his death.

In the first edition of Dombey and Son (ch. xii.), Dr. Blimber, the master of a select school at Brighton, is made to say to one of his offending pupils, “Johnson will repeat to me to-morrow morning, before breakfast, 372without book, and from the Greek Testament, the first chapter of the First Epistle of Saint Paul to the Ephesians.” In imposing this penalty, the pompous pedagogue overlooked the fact that there is but one Epistle to the Ephesians in the New Testament. Mr. Dickens’s attention must have been awakened to his error, as it was corrected in subsequent editions.

In Prof. Albert H. Smyth’s “Life of Bayard Taylor” occurs this sentence: “At the Piræus Taylor saw Mrs. Black, ‘The Maid of Athens,’ to whom Byron sang in impossible and ungrammatical Greek.”

The allusion is evidently to the concluding line of the stanzas,

which means simply, “My life, I love thee.”

Ought not Professor Smyth to have stayed his pen from this unnecessary impeachment of Byron’s knowledge of Greek, when he remembered that the poet had lived on familiar terms with Greeks long before he went to fight and die for the independence of their famous land? The line given above is colloquial modern Greek, exactly suited to the character of the poem, and was not intended for ancient classic Greek.

In the “Heart of Midlothian” (ch. 1.) is the following passage respecting Effie Deans:

“She amused herself with visiting the dairy, in which she had so long been assistant, and was near discovering herself to May Hettly, by betraying her acquaintance 373with the celebrated receipt for Dunlop cheese, that she compared herself to Bedreddin Hassan, whom the vizier, his father-in-law, discovered by his superlative skill in composing cream-tarts with pepper in them.”

Brewer, in his “Reader’s Hand Book,” points out several errors in these few lines: (1) “cream-tarts” should be cheese-cakes; (2) the charge was that he made cheese-cakes without putting pepper in them, and not that he made “cream-tarts with pepper;” (3) it was not the vizier, his father-in-law, but his mother, the widow of Noureddin, who made the discovery, and why? For the best of all reasons—because she herself had taught her son the receipt of Damascus. See “Arabian Nights” Noureddin Ali.

Brewer also shows that Thackeray, in “Vanity Fair” (ch. 3) repeated at second-hand Scott’s allusion to Bedreddin, instead of quoting directly from the original. He makes Rebecca Sharp say, “I ought to have remembered the pepper which the Princess of Persia puts in the cream-tarts in the ‘Arabian Nights.’” Aside from this repetition of Scott’s blunders, it was not a princess, but Bedreddin Hassan who was the confectioner. Nor could it have been a princess of Persia, for Bedreddin’s mother was the widow of the vizier of Balsora, at that time quite independent of Persia.

Besides the rhetorical blunders and inaccuracies of our best writers, their pages are sprinkled with violations of the plainest grammatical rules. Take, by way of illustration, a few specimens from some of the masters of the English language:

374Blair, the rhetorician, says, “The boldness, freedom, and variety of our blank verse is infinitely more favorable than rhyme to all kinds of sublime poetry.”

Latham, the philologist, says, “The following facts may or have been adduced as reasons on the other side.”

Addison says, “I do not mean that I think any one to blame for taking due care of their health.”

Junius says, “Both minister and magistrate is compelled to choose between his duty and his reputation.”

Dryden says, “The reason is perspicuous why no French plays when translated have or ever can succeed on the English stage.”

Gibbon says, “The use of fraud and perfidy, of cruelty and injustice were often subservient to the propagation of the faith.” And again, “The richness of her arms and apparel were conspicuous in the foremost ranks.”

Macaulay says, “The poetry and eloquence of the Augustan age was assiduously studied in Mercian and Northumbrian monasteries.”

THE STRETCHES OF POETIC LICENSE

In descriptive poems which are written to embalm the story of actual occurrences, our poets sometimes draw upon their fertile fancies for the materials they employ, accepting flying rumors of incidents or experiences, the verification or contradiction of which is within easy reach. Take, for instance, such as relate to our recent sectional conflict. Whittier says, in “Barbara Frietchie,” in speaking of the flag,—

And farther on he says,—

That there is no semblance of truth in these statements is proved by numerous witnesses. One of them, a near relative of Dame Barbara, testifies thus: “As to the waving of the Federal flag in the face of the rebels by Dame Barbara on the occasion of Stonewall Jackson’s march through Frederick, truth requires me to say that Stonewall Jackson, with his troops, did not pass Barbara Frietchie’s residence at all, but passed up what is popularly called ‘the Mill Alley,’ about three hundred yards above her residence, then passed due west toward Antietam, and thus out of the city.” “Again,” continues the witness, “the poem by Whittier represents the venerable lady (then ninety-six years of age) as nimbly ascending to her attic window and waving her small Federal flag defiantly in the face of Stonewall 376Jackson’s troops. Now what is the fact? At the period referred to, Dame Barbara was bedridden and helpless, and had lost the power of locomotion. She could only move as she was moved, by the help of her attendants.”

So much for one of the best of poets as a chronicler. Mr. T. B. Read, in describing Sheridan’s ride from Winchester to Cedar Creek, on the gigantic black horse whose neck, in the language of Job, was clothed with thunder, and the glory of whose nostrils was terrible, says,—

It is a matter of acceptation among military men that the retreat had been checked, the lines re-formed, and the tide of battle turned by General Wright before Sheridan’s arrival on the scene of action. All he had to do was to encourage with cheering words, and to infuse into the shattered ranks his own sanguine spirit.

Bret Harte undertook to make a hero of John Burns of Gettysburg, who “stood there heedless of jeer and scoff, calmly picking the rebels off.” Gettysburg people, who know whereof they speak, say that so far from Burns playing the hero in the manner indicated, he was driving his cows, and unwittingly got within the Confederate lines. Realizing his unpleasant position, he scampered homeward in such haste that he scratched his face and tore his clothes in the brambles—the nearest approach to bullet marks of which he could boast.

Even when our poets turn back to earlier periods for inspiration, their little discrepancies are not beyond 377danger of exposure. In Mr. Longfellow’s beautiful “Hymn of the Moravian Nuns of Bethlehem, at the Consecration of Pulaski’s Banner,” he says,—

After this introduction follows the hymn:

and after the hymn, the couplet:

There was no sisterhood, properly speaking, at Bethlehem during the Revolution. The inmates of the Sisters’ House were under the care of a Mother Superior, but they were bound by no vows, and were free to leave if they wished. They abounded in good works, were full of the spirit of devotion, and had morning and evening prayers in the chapel. But there was no cowled head in that little chapel, no swinging censer, no altar; these were not in accord with the Moravian mode of worship. Famous needlewomen were those good sisters, and they excelled in embroidery. Pulaski, during a visit to Bethlehem, admired their work, and ordered for his legion a cavalry guidon of crimson silk. When finished, he paid for it; it was a commonplace business 378transaction, with no thought, on either side, of presentation or consecration. The noble Pole was mortally wounded at the siege of Savannah and was buried in the Savannah River. Whether the guidon, miscalled a banner, was used as his shroud, those who have seen it in the rooms of the Maryland Historical Society in Baltimore, can testify.

Even the novelists claim indulgence in this sort of license. In that fanciful story of Bulwer-Lytton, “The Last Days of Pompeii,” for example, he says (Book v. ch. vi.),—

“The air was now still for a few minutes; the lamp from the gate streamed out far and clear; the fugitives hurried on—they gained the gate—they passed by the Roman sentry; the lightning hashed over his livid face and polished helmet, but his stern features were composed even in their awe! He remained erect and motionless at his post. That hour itself had not animated the machine of the ruthless majesty of Rome into the reasoning and self-acting man. There he stood amid the crashing elements; he had not received the permission to desert his station and escape.”

In a foot-note the novelist adds,—

“The skeletons of more than one sentry were found at their posts.”

Very pretty. As Mrs. Browning says, “Beautiful indeed, and worthy of acceptation.” What a pity that we have to fall back upon the mistrustful “Se non è vero è ben trovato.” Not that we question the likelihood of such stern and unflinching obedience of orders in any age of the world, but we want trustworthy evidence. In the case of the boy “who stood on the burning 379deck,” commemorated by Mrs. Hemans, we have such evidence. It is a feature of British naval history that Casabianca, the young son of the admiral of the Orient, at the battle of the Nile, stood at his post, and perished when the flames of the burning ship reached the magazine.

Moore says in his “Irish Melodies”:

Very pretty as a poetic fancy, but as a matter of fact the sunflower does not turn either to the rising or the setting sun. It receives its name solely because it resembles a picture sun. It is not a heliotrope or turnsun.

Female birds in general do not sing, but as poets are not naturalists, they fall into a common error, as the following quotations show:

“But the nightingale, another of my airy creatures, breathes such sweet loud music out of her instrumental throat, that it might make mankind think miracles had not ceased.”—Walton, “Angler.”

MISQUOTATION

The inscription on the tomb of Sir Christopher Wren, the architect of St. Paul’s Cathedral, closes with the notice to the reader, “Si monumentum requiris, circumspice.” In Murray’s “Hand Book of London” is a blunder of too frequent recurrence elsewhere, the substitution of quæris for requiris.

Bishop Berkeley wrote, “Westward the course of empire takes its way.” In the epigraph to Bancroft’s “History of the United States” it is “the star of empire,” a change that is frequently repeated.

In Measure for Measure the Duke Yincentio says,—

Many people in quoting this, say Venice in place of Vienna.

Gray says in the “Elegy,” “They kept the noiseless tenor of their way,” usually quoted “the even tenor.”

Pope says, “A little learning is a dangerous thing.” Often misquoted “knowledge.”

In his “Satires,” Pope says, “Welcome the coming, speed the going guest.” But Pope himself, in his translation of the Odyssey, says, “Speed the parting guest,” so that we are left to take our choice.

In connection with this dual reading may be recalled a quotation which is a misquotation in one way, but not 381in another. In Habakkuk it is written, “Write the vision and make it plain, that he may run that readeth it.” This is commonly turned into the phrase “that he who runs may read.” But Cooper says in his “Tirocinium,”—

Butler says in “Hudibras,” “He that complies against his will is of his own opinion still.” Many continue to say, “A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still,” regardless of the difference in sense as well as in words.

Lorenzo says, in the “Merchant of Venice,” “The man that hath no music in himself,” etc. Commonly changed to “music in his soul.”

The line in Milton’s “Lycidas,” “fresh woods and pastures new,” is usually misquoted, “fresh fields,” etc.

Prior’s “fine by degrees and beautifully less” is usually rendered “small by degrees,” etc.

Francis Quarles wrote:

Usually quoted:

The latest editor of Burns does a good service by correcting an absurdity in the most familiar song in the 382language which has puzzled every generation since Burns’s death, namely:

He says “willie-waught” is neither Scotch nor sense; that the hyphen is simply misplaced, and the line should read:

i.e., good-will draught. This is obvious when pointed out, for “gude-willie” and “ill-willie” are familiar compounds. But it is odd that every other editor should have servilely followed the misprint.

In the “Heart of Midlothian” (ch. 47), Scott says, “thus our simple and unpretending heroine had the merit of those peacemakers, to whom it is pronounced as a benediction, that they shall inherit the earth.” The Master said (Matt. v, 9), “Blessed are the peacemakers; for they shall be called the children of God.” It is “the meek” who shall inherit the earth.

Sir Walter Scott says in “The Antiquary” (ch. x), “The philosopher who appealed from Philip inflamed with wine to Philip in his hours of sobriety, did not choose a judge so different as if he had appealed from Philip in his youth to Philip in his old age.” This “philosopher” was a poor old woman.

FALSITIES AND FALLACIES — False Ascription — The Lentulus Letter — Scott’s Fabrications — William Tell — The Finding of Moses — A Historic Phrase Disputed — The Maelstrom — Don’t Give Up the Ship — Specific Gravity — Pocahontas — The Penn Treaty — The Good Old Times — Shakespeare’s Defiance of Historical Fact — The Bacon Humbug — Stratford-on-Avon — L. E. L. Assumes a Virtue — The Burning of Rome , A.D. 54 — Mummy Wheat — Anglo-Saxon as a Race Term — Guillotin

Büchmann in his “Geflügelte Worte” (“Winged Words”), Berlin, 1882, says, “Universally, yet without the least warrant, the following lines are ascribed to Martin Luther:

Weib, wife, was originally written weiber, women. It was changed by Th. Weyler in his “Thinkers’ and Poets’ Words.”

Even the Luther Room in the Wartburg, says Büchmann, has the couplet on the wall. Its first appearance in literature was in 1775, in Der Wandsbecker Bote of Matthias Claudius, a popular German writer, who incorporated it in a humorous toast or “health.” Roeseler (Berlin, 1873) credits Claudius with the authorship of the couplet, but according to Redlich (Hamburg, 1871), the author was John Henry Voss, who cited it in the Muses’ Almanac (Hamburg, 1777), and repeated it in a published collection of his poems. When it appeared in the Almanac the Hamburg pastors were so incensed at Voss’s slur upon Luther that they defeated his election as a teacher in the Johanneum.

The letter alleged to have been sent to the Senate of Rome by Publius Lentulus, “President of Judea in the reign of Tiberius Cæsar,” describing the person of Jesus Christ, is now generally admitted to have been written by a monk in the fourteenth century. In the works of the Greek historian, Nicephorus, who lived in that century, and whom Weismann considers a credulous, uncritical writer, is a description of the personal appearance of Jesus Christ, for which no authority is given, and which is said to be derived from the ancients. This passage bears a strong resemblance to the apocryphal letter of Lentulus, and possibly served as a basis for it. It is most likely that the letter was a Latin translation or adaptation of the description given by Nicephorus. Dr. Edward Robinson, after a thorough examination of the evidence, sums up the case very pointedly as follows: “In favor of the authenticity of the letter (Epistola Lentuli) we have only the purport of the inscription. There is no external evidence whatever. Against its authenticity we have the great discrepancies and contradictions of the inscription; the fact that no such person as Lentulus existed at the time and place specified, nor for many years before and after; the utter silence of history in respect to the existence of such a letter; the foreign and later idioms of its style; the contradiction in which the contents of the epistle stand with established historical facts, and the probability of its having been produced at some time not earlier than the eleventh century.”

The earliest appearance of the clumsy forgery was in the MS. writings of St. Anselm, who lived in the 385eleventh century. No Publius Lentulus can be identified as “President of Judea” in the reign of Tiberius. Judea had but two procurators in his reign, Valerius Gratus, from 16 to 27 A. D., and Pontius Pilate, from 27 to 37 A. D. Not only is there no contemporary witness in profane history to the appearance of Jesus, but there is none to his existence, except, perhaps, Josephus (“Antiquities,” xviii. 3). But even this has certainly been interpolated, and is regarded as spurious in toto by some of the most careful scholars. In fact, it is generally acknowledged that there is no contemporary allusion to Christ in secular history—although some defend the genuineness of the passage relating to Him in Josephus. The earliest authentic allusion to the founder of Christianity is in Pliny’s famous letter to Trajan, and in the “Annals” of Tacitus—both written in the first quarter of the second century.

Lockhart, in his “Life of Sir Walter Scott,” thus refers to the source of a large number of the mottoes in the Waverly Novels:

It was in correcting his proof-sheets of the “Antiquary” that Scott first took to equipping his chapters with mottoes of his own fabrication. On one occasion he happened to ask John Ballantyne, who was sitting by him, to hunt for a particular passage in Beaumont and Fletcher. John did as he was bid, but did not succeed in discovering the lines. “Hang it, Johnnie,” cried Scott, “I believe I can make a motto sooner than you will find one.” He did so accordingly; and from that hour, whenever memory failed to suggest an appropriate epigraph, he had recourse to the inexhaustible 386mines of “Old Play” or “Old Ballad,” to which we owe some of the most exquisite verses that ever flowed from his pen.

Baring-Gould long ago demolished what was left of the Tell myth. Nevertheless, at the Schiller centennial, in Berlin, it was proposed to commemorate the occasion by giving to one of the principal streets of the suburb of Rixdorf the name of that William Tell whom Schiller contributed so much to glorify by his drama. Whereupon several of the town councillors arose and called attention to the fact that the Tell of Schiller and of patriotic Helvetian tradition had been shown to be a myth, not only by trustworthy investigators outside of Switzerland, but so acknowledged by Swiss antiquarians themselves.

Sir Lawrence Alma Tadema, the distinguished Anglo-Dutch painter and Royal Academician in London, has put an end to our illusion that Moses as a child was found in the bulrushes. Sir Lawrence painted a picture of “The Finding of Moses,” which proved to be one of the features of the Royal Academy exhibition, and on attention having been drawn to the fact that there are no bulrushes in the painting, Sir Lawrence immediately proved that there were no such things as bulrushes in Egypt, and especially not on the Nile. Sir Lawrence explains that he had assured himself of this fact while in Egypt, which he had visited in order to get the local color before painting the picture, which had already been purchased by Sir John Arid, the constructor 387of the great Nile dam. The picture possesses special interest for Sir John Arid in view of the fact that it is his own daughter who sat for the figure of Pharaoh’s daughter. Our illusion about the bulrushes seems to have originated in a faulty translation of the passage in Exodus xi. 3. The bulrush of Egypt is the papyrus (cyperus papyrus).

At a memorable anniversary banquet of the Veterans of the Mexican war, L. B. Mizner, of Solano, in the course of an eloquent address, took occasion to correct a fabrication which had passed into history, attributing to General Taylor, the hero of Buena Vista, the slang admonition, “A little more grape, Captain Bragg.” Such language was unworthy of the man and the historic moment when the result of the most desperate and memorable battle of the war was wavering in the balance, and nothing, said Mr. Mizner, would have been more foreign to the character of General Taylor in his manner in trying emergencies than such an exclamation. “Holding the position of an interpreter on the staff of General Taylor,” said the speaker, “I was seated on my horse immediately near him, when Captain Bragg dashed hurriedly up, saluted the General and reported, ‘General, I shall have to fall back with my battery or lose it.’ Several of his guns had already been dismounted, a large part of his horses killed, and about thirty of his men were prostrate on the heath. On receiving the report General Taylor turned on his horse and surveyed the situation for a few seconds—he required no field-glass, for the scene 388of conflict was not far removed—and the reply was, ‘Captain Bragg, it is better to lose a battery than a battle.’ This was the interview on which was based the famous slang phrase that was never uttered by the General to whom it was imputed. Captain Bragg returned to his battery with renewed determination, and by the efforts of that gallant officer and his brave command the tide of battle was turned, and the greatest victory of the war was won.”

When the elders of the generation now passing away read Schiller’s tragic story of “The Diver,” they recall the teachings in their childhood’s geographies of the Maelstrom off the northwestern coast of Norway. A late report on the fisheries of the Lofoten Archipelago says that the Maelstrom is only one of many whirlpools between the islands, and that it is so lightly regarded by the sailors that they pass and repass it in their little vessels at all stages of the tide, only avoiding it in fogs or storms. So far from drawing whales into its vortex, it is a favorite resort of the fish, and the fishermen reap a rich piscatorial harvest from its bosom. Even in stormy weather the rate of the tide does not exceed six miles an hour.

Among famous battle sayings is the well-known phrase attributed to the dying Lawrence. Some years ago a daughter of the late Major Benjamin Russell, for many years editor of the Boston Centinel, a bright, interesting woman and a brilliant raconteur, told numerous 389anecdotes of her father, who was a strongly individualized and notable character for a long period. Among them was the following:

“The battle between the Chesapeake and the Shannon took place just off the Massachusetts coast, and a sailor in some way got ashore and hurried to Boston with the news. It was in the night and he went straight to the Centinel office, where he found Major Russell, to whom he told the story, including the death of Lawrence. ‘What were his last words?’ said the major. ‘Don’t know,’ said the man. ‘Didn’t he say, “Don’t give up the ship?”’ ‘Don’t know,’ said the man. ‘Oh, he did,’ said the major, ‘I’ll make him say it’—and he did—so much for history.”

At the time of the battle of Allatoona Pass, General Sherman sent a dispatch to General Corse, saying, “Hold Allatoona, and I will assist you.” But the genius of history, with his facile pen, made Sherman say, “Hold the fort, for I am coming.”

Considering the vigorous condition of the myth of the Connecticut Blue Laws, in spite of the repeated exposure of its falsity, this gem from “A General History of Connecticut,” written by the original Blue Law manufacturer, the Rev. Samuel Peters, is valuable. It is quoted in Goodspeed’s catalogue, and is part of the veracious author’s description of the Connecticut River:

“Two hundred miles from the Sound is a narrow of five yards only, formed by two shelving mountains of solid rock, whose tops intercept the clouds. Through this chasm are compelled to pass all the waters which 390in the time of floods bury the northern country. Here water is consolidated without frost, by pressure, by swiftness, between the pinching sturdy rocks to such a degree of induration that an iron crow floats smoothly down its current—here iron, lead, and cork have one common weight; here steady as time and harder than marble, the stream passes, irresistible if not swift as lightning.”

The rescue of Captain Smith by Pocahontas, according to his assertion, took place in 1607, when she was a child not quite ten years of age. No mention was made of it until eight years afterwards, and the first circumstantial account of it was not published until seventeen years later, when it appeared in Smith’s “General Historie of Virginia.” According to the 1624 folio, Smith’s narrative of the tableau in which he was a central figure runs thus:

“A long consultation was held, but the conclusion was, two great stones were brought before Powhatan; then as many as could, layd hands on him [Smith], dragged him to them, and thereon layd his head, and being ready with their clubs to beate out his braines, Pocahontas, the King’s dearest daughter, when no intreaty could prevaile, got his head in her armes, and laid her owne upon his to save him from death; whereat the Emperor was contented he should live to make him hatchets, and her, bells, beads, & copper; for they thought him as well of all occupations as themselves. For the King himselfe will make his owne robes, shoes, bowes, arrowes, pots; plant, hunt, or doe anything so well as the reste.”

391Captain Smith’s “True Relation” was published in England in 1608, and his “Map of Virginia,” with memoranda of his observations, in 1612. In neither of them, nor in contemporary writings, such as the narrative of Wingfield, the first President of the Colony, is there any reference to his deliverance from savage clubbing. Smith’s first reference to it was in 1816 in a letter addressed to the Queen in behalf of “the Lady Rebecca,” or Pocahontas. The outward and visible motive of the invention was commendable enough. In the earnest expression of his regard for her, and of his acknowledgment of her touching friendship for him, he found the surest medium for the promotion of her welfare in attracting to her the special sympathy and attention of the English Court. Whether or not he was too gallant to seek prestige for himself, it is certain that he had little need of it, for his whole life was crowded with strange adventure.

Our great painters sometimes usurp the functions of the historian, but with their anachronisms and audacities they do more to perpetuate the memory of scenes which never occurred than tradition-mongers and story-tellers are capable of doing. The apocryphal character of some of the scenes in the Rotunda of the Capitol at Washington has often been noted. West’s familiar painting of Penn’s treaty with the Indians under the elm at Shackamaxon is a notable example of this class. As a mere work of art it has been subjected to scornful criticism, because of its improbable groupings, and, as Mr. Bancroft says, “the artist, faithful 392neither to the Indians nor to Penn, should have no influence on history.” As to the conference, it has been utterly demolished by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. No treaty of amity was made in 1682. The earliest formal agreement to live in friendship and peace, on record, was in 1701, and that was made, not with the Delawares, but with the interior tribes,—the Susquehannas, Minnequas, and Conestogas. Penn was a methodical man, and careful to preserve the evidences of his purchases of lands from the Indians. They are to be found in the minutes of the Provincial Council and in the books of the Recorders of Deeds in the various counties of the Province. But the treaty of 1682, if there had been such an agreement, was of immeasurably more value than any of them. It was a covenant for quiet possession of those lands which might thereafter be acquired under covenant of title. Conceding the great importance of the treaty, it can scarcely be conceived that all proof connected with it should be allowed to perish. There is nothing to be found in the Archives of Pennsylvania, in the writings of William Penn himself, or of his friends and contemporaries, to show that such an event ever took place. The only plea under which it can be sheltered is a letter preserved in the State records at Harrisburg, under date of April 21, 1682, which Penn gave to Lieutenant-Governor Markham previous to the first voyage, and was addressed to the Indians, offering them peace, friendship, and protection. There is an endorsement upon this letter, stating that Thomas Holme, his Surveyor-General, “did read this letter to the Indians,” and as he lived in the house near the elm which stood where the monument has since been erected, this circumstance 393may have given early currency to the Penn treaty story, which has since been strengthened by West’s picture. Holme probably did call the Indians together beneath the great elm, as it was a spot likely to be selected for the purpose, and there read them the letter from Penn, month of August following, but this is all there ever was of a treaty.

What fallacies and sophistries are comprehended in that oft-repeated phrase, “The good old times.” There are still people who sigh for the grand old days of Good Queen Bess! Glorious days, truly, when the common people lived like swine and starving wretches were hung for stealing a loaf; when the filthy rushes on palace floors bred pestilence; when gluttony and drunkenness and brutality were masked under courtly manners; when conversation among the highest class was spiced with profanity and vulgarity; when the coin was clipped and debased; when the whole kingdom was overrun with thieves and highwaymen; when royal usurpations and proclamations assumed the force of law; and when the Crown compelled plunder of church property, iniquitous taxation, coercion of juries, and arbitrary imprisonment. In our daily life we are in the enjoyment of material comforts and conveniences, at home, in business, in travel, in distant communication, in the market, in commerce, in government, the cheapest of which the royal revenues of Queen Bess could not have purchased. Edmund Burke lamented that the age of chivalry passed away with Marie Antoinette. He forgot that her Court was itself grossly immoral, and the 394passionate admirers of chivalry seem to forget that the knights were not all Sidneys or Bayards. St. Palaye says in his “Memoirs of Chivalry” that never was there greater corruption of manners than in the times of knight-errantry,—never was the empire of debauchery more universal. St. Louis discovered a sink of iniquity close to his own tent in the most holy of the crusades. The intelligent reader of “Ivanhoe” knows full well that the thrilling scene between the Templar Bois-Guilbert and Rebecca, as she stood upon the verge of the parapet ready for the fatal plunge, is not a mere fancy sketch. How few ever stop to consider why the most honorable order of British knighthood is called the Order of the Bath. Dean Stanley says “it is because the knights who enlisted in the defense of right against wrong, truth against falsehood, honor against dishonor, were laid in a bath on the evening before they were admitted to the Order, and thoroughly washed, in order to show how bright and pure ought to be the lives of those who engage in a noble enterprise.” What gave the symbol special significance was the fact that it was the one wash of a lifetime. Dr. Playfair, in speaking of the causes of epidemics, says, “Think of 33 generations, who, like Oppian, never washed at all!”

The audacity of Shakespeare in constructing the plots of certain of his plays, in “defiance of the possibilities of history and the capacities of human nature,” has been sharply commented upon by Dr. Van Buren Denslow and other recent writers. Attention has been drawn to the fact that at no period in the administration of the 395civil law in Italy during the Middle Ages could the validity of the bond given to Shylock by Antonio, in the “Merchant of Venice,” have been made the subject of grave judicial investigation. Dr. Denslow thinks that the “literary audacity” shown in the “Merchant of Venice” pales before the “crude and barbarous vigor” with which all the legal ideas of the Danes and of every other race are defied in “Hamlet,” and all the possibilities of Scotch history, habits, and character are trampled under foot in “Macbeth.” Concerning “Hamlet” he says,—

It is contrary to the principles of human nature everywhere that the affection of parents for their brothers and sisters should exceed that for their children, and especially for their sons. This being true, the law of inheritance of thrones and rank, which is always fashioned after the law of descent of lands and goods, would necessarily require that when Claudius Hamlet, King of Denmark, the father of young Hamlet, died, leaving a son of full age, the crown should descend directly to the son, and if young Hamlet were a minor the late queen consort would be regent merely.

But the play of “Hamlet” opens one month after Claudius’s death, with his brother enthroned instead of his son, and the former queen consort to Claudius Hamlet is now consort to his surviving brother.

Furthermore, this impossible mis-descent is assumed by all the persons of the drama to be a mere matter of course, and the younger Hamlet’s entire calamity is pictured as being his loss of his father, with no allusion whatever to his loss of a throne.

It is not indicated whether the queen had been a queen jointly regnant with the elder Hamlet or a queen 396consort to him; but the assumption of the text is that her entire dignity had been derived through her husband, not that she was queen regnant in her own right nor that these successive husbands were mere kings consort, deriving their positions through her. The new king assumes all the attributes of a monarch, as if his brother’s death were absolutely all that was needed to make him king. He sends commissioners to Norway, and, according to the words of Rosencrantz, this king was assumed to have power to assure the crown to Hamlet at his death, and had done so before discovering whether his own incestuous marriage to his brother’s widow would have issue.

It was impossible that the Ghost should have assumed that his demise would have devolved the crown on his brother, impossible that young Hamlet should assume it, impossible that any portion of the people of Denmark or of any other kingdom on earth should have assumed it, and therefore impossible that the murder should be assumed to be commissible with the motive assigned, viz., of succeeding to the throne or the queen. She would have been only dowager queen and young Hamlet would have been king.

In “Macbeth” we have the like assumption on the part of a Scottish captain who has just won in a recent skirmish the title of “Thane,” that if he can assassinate his king, Duncan, though Duncan’s two athletic sons, Malcolm and Donalbain, survive and are in full health, yet Macbeth will then become king. No election or proclamation by the army, no renunciation by the heirs-apparent, no concurrence of the nobles is called for. To Lady Macbeth the succession appears assured as soon as she learns that Duncan is about to sleep 397under their roof. Nothing but murder is required to win a crown for a person between whom and the throne there stand two male heirs, both on the ground, one General Banquo, as distinguished as himself, and many earls and notables. Succession by assassination was at all times as foreign to the Scotch character and history as cannibalism. Hospitality to guests, and especially at night, is an inborn and deeply felt religion among the Scotch people. In a country where hospitality is thus sacred and assassination is a thing unknown, the hideousness of murdering a king by night to get his throne is a foreign travesty on its face. Such crimes might occur in Northern Africa or Southern Asia, and even in Italy. During the invasion of Italy by the Lombards events occurred from which the criminal atrocity and ferocity of Macbeth might have been drawn. But to locate them in Scotland at any period is simply to transfer to the atmosphere of the Highlands a kind and form of depravity which, while it never existed in its fulness anywhere, never found any type or suggestion among the Scots.

The tremendous energy of Shakespeare’s tragedies lifts them above dramatic criticism, and makes them the standard. Their heroes are not men, their heroines are not women. Both are survivals over into the modern stage-life of the artist-made gods of the mythological pantheon. Richard III. is a better Satan than Milton drew. Macbeth is a better Belial. It is a proof of the moral advance of this age that the good taste of society revolts from the notion that Shakespeare’s men were human. It does not greatly care for monstrosities of any kind in fiction, any more than for tortures in a theory of destiny. It prefers a drama 398whose characters are not revolting and do not rape for the graceful form of History.

The three plays cited furnish strong proofs, if any were needed, that the author of the plays could not have looked at his plots through a legalist imagination like that of Lord Bacon, the first lawyer in his day of the kingdom. They are the product of an imagination in which the descent of a throne to a brother, or to a successful chieftain in preference to a son, creates no sense of incongruity.

In the course of a newspaper discussion of the authorship of the poems and plays attributed to Shakespeare, the assertion that present day scholarship is almost unanimous in discrediting the editors of the First Folio (1623) brought out from Mr. William Winter, the accomplished dramatic critic, the following sharp reply:

“There is no disposition on the part of the defenders of Shakespeare to make use of ‘intemperate language.’ Indeed, considering their provocation, they have displayed uncommon patience. The most ‘intemperate language’ that has been used in the Shakespeare-Bacon controversy, has been used by Baconians, such as the late Mr. Donnelly and the present Mr. W. H. Edwards. A little acerbity, as remarked by Andrew Lang, is, perhaps, unavoidable in such a discussion. To those who believe—having every reason to believe, and no reason whatever to doubt—that the plays were written by Shakespeare, the attempt to ruin his renown seems nothing less than a criminal desecration.

“It has not been said and it is not thought, by any 399person acquainted with the subject, that the First Folio of Shakespeare was thoroughly edited, or that it is free from defects; but it is confidently maintained that Heminge and Condell, in their association with that book, were entirely disinterested and absolutely honest, and that without compensation and probably at a pecuniary loss, they rendered a service to literature such as entitles them to everlasting gratitude and esteem.

“Certain commentators, like Spalding, Wright, and Madden, have been pleased to impugn the integrity of Heminge and Condell, but, in so doing, they have gone much further than there was ever any warrant for them to go. Heminge and Condell did not ‘fail in their duty;’ the First Folio is not ‘dishonest;’ and to say, or to insinuate, that it has been discredited is to use the language of gross injustice and sheer extravagance.

“The primary defect in the First Folio—the defect to which all modern editors of Shakespeare have called attention, and the point upon which so much stress is now laid—is the discrepancy between a few words of the preface and the contents of the book. In their ‘Address’ or preface, Heminge and Condell say, ‘We have scarce received from him (Shakespeare) a blot in his papers.’ It has been found, however, that several of the plays were, in fact, reprinted from earlier quartos, and that, in some cases, earlier quartos that were not consulted contain a better text than the Folio. This is the sum of all the fault that can be imputed to Heminge and Condell, except, indeed, that the proofs of the Folio were not carefully read and scrupulously corrected; but Heminge and Condell were not men of letters.

“The late J. O. Halliwell-Phillipps was an implicit believer in William Shakespeare as the author of the 400plays; he never wavered in that belief; he is acknowledged as ‘the most competent Shakespeare worker who ever lived.’ The language of Halliwell-Phillipps accordingly, with reference to the First Folio and to Heminge and Condell, ought to carry some weight. These are his words,—

“‘These estimable men who are kindly remembered in the poet’s will are not likely to have encouraged the speculation from motives of gain.... When we find Heminge and Condell not only initiating and vigorously supporting the design, but expressing their regret that Shakespeare himself had not lived to direct the publication, who can doubt that they were acting as trustees for his memory, or that the noble volume was a record of their affection? Who can ungraciously question their sincerity?... What plausible reason can be given for not accepting the literal truth of their description of themselves as ‘a pair so careful to show their gratitude to the dead?’... Heminge and Condell speak of themselves as mere gatherers, and it is nearly certain that all that they did was to ransack their dramatic stores for the best copies of the plays that they could find, handing those copies over to the printers, in the full persuasion that, in taking this course, they were morally relieved of all further responsibility.... Out of the thirty-six dramas that they collected one-half had never been published in any shape.... There is nothing to show that fair copies were ever made in those days for the prompters.... So far from being astonished at the textual imperfections of the Folio, we ought to be profoundly thankful for what is, under the circumstances, its marvellous state of comparative excellence. Heminge and Condell 401did the best they could, to the best of their judgment. It never could have entered their imagination that the day would arrive for the comfort of intellectual life to be marred by the distorted texts of ‘Hamlet’ or ‘Lear.’ There cannot, indeed, be a doubt that, according to their lights, they expressed a sincere conviction when they delivered the immortal dramas to the public as being ‘absolute in their numbers, as he (Shakespeare) conceived them.’... There is nothing in the writings of Heminge and Condell to warrant a suspicion that there was a single wilful misrepresentation of facts.... Statement ... that the entire volume was printed from the author’s own manuscripts would have been a serious misrepresentation, but the language of Heminge and Condell does not necessarily, under any line of interpretation, express so much, and in all probability they are here speaking themselves in their managerial capacity, referring to the singularly few alterations that they had observed in the manuscripts which he delivered to them for the use of the theatre.... Nor, in our measure of gratitude for the First Folio—the greatest literary treasure the world possesses—should we neglect to include a tribute to Ben Jonson.’

“The First Shakespeare Folio distinctly and unequivocally declares that its contents (all the Shakespeare plays except ‘Pericles’), were written by William Shakespeare—then, 1623, deceased—and it is prefaced with a noble tribute to him, by his great contemporary Ben Jonson, and with a portrait of him, authenticated by Jonson’s verses. The authenticity of that book was not questioned by any person living at the time of its publication, nor was its validity assailed until many generations had passed away. It remains 402authentic; and no amount of pettifogging as to its defects—all of which are easily comprehensible and explicable—will ever destroy its force as conclusive evidence of the authorship of Shakespeare.

“It is not forgotten (strange if it were, considering how continuously and strenuously the fact is proclaimed!) that actors and dramatic authors, in the time of ‘Eliza and our James,’ were legally liable to severe penalties for satire of ‘the great.’ What of it? Penal legislation did not make actors less industrious in their vocation, or authors less prolific, or the theatre less popular. Shakespeare, Greene, Heywood, Marlowe, Lyly, Nash, Lodge, Ford, Beaumont and Fletcher, and all the rest, continued to write plays, and continued not to be ashamed of them or afraid of the law. Nature also has laws; and the product of the English poetic drama, between 1580 and 1640, surpasses, in wealth, variety, and splendor, every kindred product in the history of mankind.

“Direct, conclusive, final evidence that Henry Chettle referred to Shakespeare, in the apology that he made for having published Robert Greene’s attack on ‘Shakescene,’ does not exist: that is to say, the name of Shakespeare is not actually mentioned by Chettle; but, if ‘imputation and strong circumstance, which lead directly to the door of truth,’ are evidence, the rational conclusion is irresistible that the reference was to Shakespeare. Upon a careful reading of Greene’s ‘Groats-worth of Wit’ and Chettle’s ‘Kind Heart’s Dream,’ no other conclusion seems possible. Shakespeare scholars have invariably accepted it.

“Inquiry as to the authenticity of the Beaumont and Fletcher Folio of 1647 need not here be pursued. There 403might be a time to consider ‘analogy’ between the circumstances of that book and those of the First Folio of Shakespeare, if, primarily, it could be shown that Beaumont and Fletcher were actors, that they bequeathed money to two fellow-actors with which to buy memorial rings, and that those two fellow-actors, ‘careful to show their gratitude to the dead,’ collected and published their plays, as a duty of affectionate friendship and ‘to do an office for the dead.’ At present the two books stand before the world in a totally different light,—for the Beaumont and Fletcher Folio of 1647 (on its face authentic) was introduced by a stationer who had never known or seen those authors and knew nothing about them or their works, save what he had gleaned at second-hand.

“No case can be made for Bacon as the author of Shakespeare by aspersing the memory of Heminge and Condell, or by assailing the authenticity of their Folio. The Baconian delusion is not a product of scholarship, but of perverse incredulity and crazy and mischievous conjecture. Delia Bacon went mad over it years ago, and since her time there has been a procession of harmless lunatics steadily moving in the same way. Every little while some new crank starts up with a theory that something well known to have happened ‘never could have happened,’ and upon that gratuitous assumption a prodigious structure of phantasy is very soon reared. Lately, for example, it has impressed several persons as remarkable that a scantily educated youth, reared in a little rural village, and adventurously migrating to the capital to seek his fortune, should have acquired, so soon and so readily, the correct style that appears in the poems of ‘Venus and Adonis,’ ‘Tarquin and Lucrece,’ 404and the Sonnets. Instances of admirably correct versification made by novices, illiterate as well as scholastic, throughout the history of poetical literature, meantime, causes no surprise. The youthful achievements of Cowley and Pope and Chatterton are taken quite as a matter of course. James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, who had no education at all, nevertheless could, and did, write verse as harmonious, as correct, and as finished as that of Sir Walter Scott, who possessed every advantage that education could bestow. ‘He lisped in numbers, for the numbers came.’

“That which has happened to others, however, must not—in the reasoning of these censors—happen to Shakespeare. He alone, of all men, must be thought to have developed by rule and line. The dominant fact, all the same, remains unchanged,—the decisive fact of Shakespeare’s colossal, transcendent poetic genius, the instantaneous insight and intuition whereby he grasped all knowledge of human nature, and the faculty of clear, fluent, illuminative expression, whereby he was able to utter all things in a language of imperishable beauty. Nothing indeed could be more preposterous than the wild theory on which the whole Baconian fabric of detraction reposes,—the theory that because, to prosaic perception, a certain thing seems unlikely to have happened, therefore it never did happen. Byron mentions a certain Abbé who wrote a treatise on the Swedish Constitution, proving it to be indissoluble and eternal, just as Gustavus III. had destroyed it: ‘Sir,’ said the Abbé, ‘the King of Sweden may overthrow the Constitution, but not my book.’ Shakespeare, of course, ought not to have been able to write the ‘Venus,’ or the ‘Lucrece,’ or the Sonnets, or the Plays, or anything else, 405and he would not have been had he possessed a properly respectful prescience of the doubts of Mr. Hallam, the mental perplexities of the portentous Owen, and the excruciating divinations of Mrs. Gallup—that oracular dame whose fiery-footed steeds are just now prancing over the mangled remains not merely of the philosopher Bacon, but of Queen Elizabeth and all her ‘spacious times.’ But, unhappily for these distressed beings, Shakespeare did write all those things, and the fact of his authorship of them remains as solid and permanent as any fact ever was, since the beginning of recorded time.

“All the ciphers that ever a perturbed ingenuity has read into Elizabethan literature cannot shape the uncontroverted and incontrovertible truth that is written in marble over that sacred tomb in Stratford Church: ‘Shakespeare, with whom quick Nature died; Nestor in wisdom, Socrates in genius, Virgil in art.’ And if anything were needed utterly to discredit and finally to explode the Bacon humbug, it would be supplied by the monstrous story that Mrs. Gallup’s reckless and mischievous fancy has evolved, and that Mr. Mallock later has had the astounding effrontery in some sort to countenance,—a story that covers Queen Elizabeth with shame, that makes Essex and Bacon her children (their father being Leicester), so that Bacon becomes practically the murderer and defamer of his own brother, and while darkening Bacon’s already tarnished reputation with unspeakable infamy, capsizes all authentic records of Elizabeth’s time, taxes even the credulity of ignorance, makes common sense ridiculous, and turns all knowledge to laughter and contempt.”

A London editor, in commenting upon the work of the Stratford iconoclasts, says it is deplorable to have doubts started as to whether the Shakespeare Museum contains a single genuine relic; whether Anne Hathaway’s cottage is not, after all, a simple fraud; and Mary Arden’s farm a disreputably unhistorical building. Anne Hathaway’s cottage is a place which every Shakespeare-loving visitor to his native town makes a point of inspecting. It has been good enough for all the myriad tourists of all nationalities that have flocked to see it; yet a dark rumor has been going about seriously affecting its bona fides as a genuine article. Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps, the Shakespearian critic, we are told, is of opinion that the probabilities are decidedly against the so-called cottage ever having contained the woman who, at the age of twenty-seven, married William Shakespeare when the latter was only nineteen. Here is a pleasing illusion dissipated at once. Those who have visited the spot can no longer, as they recall that lowly cot nestling among its trees and ascend again in fancy the creaking wooden staircase, picture to themselves the May mornings when the Bard of All Time must have gone the same round on a courting expedition, and probably sat under the eaves with his arm round his future bride. The sighing tourist will whisper, What next? Well, the next surprise in store for him is the disestablishment and disendowment of the old farmhouse still shown as that in which the poet’s mother, Mary Arden, lived. Its history is now said to be altogether inconsistent with the theory that any of the ancestors of the Shakespeare stock ever resided 407there. In addition to the attack on the Bard’s wife, his mother too meets with this tragic fate. We are on the high road to having it proved that no such person as Mary Arden ever lived; that, in fact, Shakespeare was such a wonderful man that he never had a mother at all. This about the cottage and farmhouse is distinctly bad news for those who some time ago spent their money on the “Shakespeare Fund,” which went to purchasing for the good of the nation all the spots considered to be traditionally connected with the life of the master-poet. It is also bad news for the tourists and pilgrims. Will they care to go to the shrine of the great dramatist if a cloud of doubt surrounds some of its most cherished monuments?

The people of the little old market-town on the quiet Avon are resentful over this scepticism. The Stratfordians would be the last people in the world to admit the truth of the story about Anne Hathaway’s cottage or Mary Arden’s farm, even when backed up by such a competent critic in these matters as Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps. They have hitherto found the fame of the Prince of Poets exceedingly useful to their small borough. Shakespeare represents bread-and-butter to many of the excellent burghers and burgesses. They owe to him their winter’s stock of coals and their weekly supply of cabbages and candles and household matches. Should any ruthless hand remove from them this source of legitimate gain, then the contiguous workhouse would soon feel the result. This idea, therefore, about Anne Hathaway’s cottage must be regarded simply with disgust by every loyal citizen of the good Warwickshire town. In private they all probably wish to goodness that these pestilent critics were at the 408bottom of the sea, with their destructive doubts and depressing hypotheses. With one accord, no doubt, the Stratford folk would combine to duck the unfortunate author of the latest Shakespearian heresy in the reedy Avon if they could lay hands on him. Such theories, they think, ought to be put down with a strong hand. What is Parliament about that it allows honest people’s bread to be thus taken out of their mouths? They would boycott the theory-mongers if they could. It would, indeed, be an evil day were the last of the tourists to appear at Stratford. What, no more American enthusiasts? No more smoke-dried pedants and musty students of “First Folios?” No more excursions to the local shrine and personally-conducted mobs of open-mouthed worshippers all gone “away in the ewigkeit?” Such an idea is enough to cause an effusion of blood on the brain of those who have lived all their lives in the shadow of the church where the poet’s dust rests, and where the remarkable effigy is to be seen which is still considered to be one of the best portraits extant of the sublime genius.

When a theory like this is once started, no human being can tell how far the stone will roll, or what will be the ultimate result. What would be the effect on the Shakespeare-worshipping tourist if everything at Stratford were shown to him as being only doubtfully connected with the Bard? For example, instead of the guide-post pointing the way to Anne Hathaway’s cottage, it might be sadly truthful to say, “To the reputed cottage of Anne Hathaway,” and Mary Arden’s farm ought to be ticketed as an “uncertain” building. Shakespeare’s tomb in the church would have to be pointed out as the tomb “either of Shakespeare or 409somebody else;” and if Shakespeare never wrote his own plays, it really does not much matter whose sepulchre it may be. That famous curse on the person who moves his bones would pass unnoticed; for who would care for a curse launched by somebody who was not Shakespeare, but a local versifier who flourished three hundred years ago, or perhaps the tombstone man himself, who may have charged a little more if he carved a quatrain of his own invention on the stone? Then, supposing the Shakespeare Museum were to experience a breath of the same critical spirit, where would the ring be that the Bard wore, the chair, the books that he might have used, and so on? That ancient chair was described by Washington Irving years ago. He says it is the most favorite object of curiosity in the whole of the house. He draws a picture of how Shakespeare may have sat in it when a boy, watching the slowly-revolving spit with all the longing of an urchin; or of an evening “listening to the gossips and cronies of Stratford, dealing forth church-yard tales and legendary anecdotes of the troublesome times of England.” Yes, no doubt he may have done so; and it is because of that delightful possibility that everybody used to sit down in his chair, to its great detriment. Americans are particularly anxious, the custodian asserts, to take a seat where the Bard of Avon had once sat. No sooner did they get into the room than they raced for the chair. After a severe scuffle one proud man succeeded in being the first to sit down in it; but after this sort of thing had gone on for some time, the chair was found to be so rickety that henceforth nobody was allowed to touch it. Washington Irving rather cruelly remarks that the chair partook of 410the volatile nature of the Santa Casa of Loretto or the Flying Chair of the Arabian Enchanter, for “though sold some time ago to a Northern Princess, it has found its way back again to the old chimney-corner.” This is one of those critical calumnies which need to be indignantly refuted. To doubt Shakespeare’s chair means a depression in the relic and tourist trade at Stratford; and, after all, what does it matter if the chair is a modern one, supposing that everybody believes it to be that in which Shakespeare sat while he composed “Macbeth”? The ordinary tourist does not ask for doubts—he wants certainty. Dogmatism is what is required at literary shrines; not a halting, hesitating statement that “Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps thinks this,” and “Mr. Somebody Else thinks that,” but a downright positive assertion of fact. Anne Hathaway’s cottage will lose half its attractions if the miserable carping spirit of a regard for historic accuracy comes in. There is nothing like resolute, good-humored credulity in such matters.

William Howitt remarks, “I met Letitia E. Landon in company at a time when there was a report that she was actually though secretly married.^[4] Mrs. Hofland, on entering the room, went up to her in her plain, straightforward way, and said, ‘Ah, my dear, what must I call you, Miss Landon, or whom?’ After well-feigned surprise at the question, Miss Landon began to 411talk in a tone of merry ridicule at this report, and ended by declaring that as to love or marriage, they were things she never thought of. ‘What then have you been doing with yourself this last month?’

“‘Oh, I have been puzzling my brain to invent a new sleeve; how do you like it?’ showing her arm.

“‘You never think of such a thing as love!’ exclaimed a sentimental young man; ‘you, who have written so many volumes upon it?’

“‘Oh, that’s all professional, you know,’ exclaimed she, with an air of merry scorn.

“‘Professional!’ said a grave Quaker who stood near; ‘why dost thou make a difference between what is professional and what is real? Dost thou write one thing and think another? Does not that look very much like hypocrisy?’

“To this the astonished poetess made no reply, but by a look of genuine amazement. It was a mode of putting the matter to which she had evidently never been accustomed. And, in fact, there can be no question that much of her writing was professional. She had to win a golden harvest for the comfort of others dear to herself; and she felt, like all authors who have to cater to the public, that she must provide, not so much what she would of her free-will choice, but what they expected of her.”

None of the stereotyped falsities of history have been reiterated with more persistence than that which represents the Emperor Nero on the summit of the tower of Mæcenas fiendishly fiddling and singing his verses 412while Rome was burning. Aside from the anachronism as to fiddling—the violin only dates from the middle of the sixteenth century—and admitting that the classic lyre of antiquity was meant, we have the authoritative statement of Tacitus that at the time of the fire Nero was at his villa at Antium, fifty miles from Rome. There is little doubt that Nero was the most depraved representative of pagan sensuality, but on the occasion of a conflagration which was planned and prompted by him for a wise purpose, he exhibited qualities greatly to his credit. Lanciani says that Nero conceived the gigantic plan of renewing and rebuilding the city, and as it was “crowded at every corner with shrines and altars and small temples which religious superstition made absolutely inviolable, and as the work of improvement was fiercely opposed by private owners of property, and gave occasion to an endless amount of lawsuits, and appraisals, and fights among the experts, he rid himself of all these difficulties in the simplest and easiest way.” Of the fourteen regions or wards into which Rome had been divided by Augustus, three were completely destroyed, and seven for the greater part, without any loss of life. In the work of reconstruction, the architects, Severus and Celer, were ordered to draw their plans in accordance with the best principles of hygiene and comfort. In anticipation of the lengthy period that would be required for clearing and rebuilding, Nero caused an enormous number of tents and wooden booths to be secretly prepared for the houseless multitude, and ordered fleets of grain-laden Mediterranean vessels from Sardinia, Sicily, Numidia, and Egypt to be conveniently near to prevent famine. This comprehensive provision for material improvement was 413made by a broad-minded, public-spirited man, who was in advance of his age, and who transformed narrow lanes into broad avenues, filthy slums into shaded squares and fountains, and shabby houses into magnificent public and private buildings.

In how many sermons has the indestructibility of truth been illustrated by the wheat wrapped up with an Egyptian mummy and germinating after thousands of years! Yet this pleasing story has met with well-founded refutation. Sir J. D. Hooker, of London, an eminent authority on growth in the natural world, being appealed to, says: “The story of Egyptian mummy wheat having germinated has never been confirmed, and is not credited by any one who is warranted by knowledge and experience in such matters to give an opinion. Innumerable attempts to stimulate mummy wheat into vitality have each and all failed.”

The term Anglo-Saxon as descriptive of Englishmen or Americans, is as incorrect as the use of the word Gothic in differentiation of pointed architecture. Mr. S. D. O’Connell, of the Bureau of Statistics, Washington, in a letter on the misuse of the term, says that among ethnologists the phrase Anglo-Saxon is never used as descriptive of a race, or of English institutions. Hence, he remarks, “no well-educated person of the present generation can be excused for using it descriptively of the English-speaking peoples; because there 414never was an Anglo-Saxon race nor an Anglo-Saxon institution to impart dominating influences to our civilization. The dominating influences must be traced to some other source than that of barbarian Teutonic tribes, even if we should grant the development of our civilization to the dominating influences of the people of the British Isles, who, in the early settlements of this part of the continent, so largely colonized it. Our British ancestors, after the invasion of the Romans, adopted the civilizing influences of the more civilized peoples of Europe, and whatever dominating influence the English-speaking peoples have to-day is due, to some extent at least, to that civilization, and to the vigor of the people, which no distinct race can claim as its own.

“‘The truth is,’ as the Chicago Tribune has said, ‘that to plume ourselves upon our Anglo-Saxon extraction is ridiculous. Compared with us, the Romans, who first comprised all the vagabonds of Italy, and finally incorporated into the empire all the semi-barbarians of Europe, were a homogeneous race.’ That paper humorously cites Defoe’s ‘True-Born Englishman’ of his day:

“Anything more motley and heterogeneous than the English people, even before the Norman invasion, made up as they were from the veins of ancient Britons, Romans, Picts, Scots, Danes, Angles, and Saxons, it would be hard to conceive. This mixture of races and bloods shows plainly that the idea of an Anglo-Saxon race is sheer nonsense. How much more nonsensical it is to use the term ‘Anglo-Saxon’ in race classification of the American people, when they have compounded and are daily more and more compounding the confusion of its British blood with infusions from the veins of all other nations.

“Of course we have an Anglo-Saxon strain in our blood, as we have the Norman, a mixture of the Teutonic and Celtic, the old British—that is, the Celtic—the Germanic, and the Latin, so called. But which strain is the predominant one it is difficult to say. The best ethnologists incline to the opinion that it is the Celtic.

“Out upon this cant about ‘races,’ and especially the gabble about ‘Anglo-Saxon institutions,’ which we hear so often from persons who know little or nothing of the forefathers and forerunners of the English-speaking people, and less of their own, or of the science which is concerned with the natural history of man.

“The fiction that credits to Anglo-Saxon blood all the enterprise, progress, and best institutions of the centuries past has been the cause of more persecution in the name of religion, and bloodshed in the name of God, 416than the most malevolent influences that have ever caused brethren to imbrue their hands in the blood of brothers since the first murder. It has created and still sustains the most bitter and unjust and unfounded prejudices against the people of Ireland and their descendants everywhere among English-speaking peoples. Leaders of thought and educators should teach the English-speaking people of this land of liberty and constitutional equality—as the great leaders of thought in Great Britain and Ireland are now doing—that there is no distinction of race or blood or origin among the English-speaking peoples of to-day, nor has there been for long centuries past; that the great landmarks of our civilization were erected upon and the foundations of our political institutions laid in the Christian religion; and that to its benign and dominating influence are to be attributed the greatness and progress of the English-speaking peoples among the nations of the earth.”

It is a remarkable instance of the vitality of a popular error that Thackeray, who was well acquainted with French history should, in his “Philip,” chapter XVI, have fallen into the mistake of supposing that Dr. Guillotin perished by the instrument which bears his name, but which he did not, as Thackeray says, invent. Thackeray does not actually assert that Guillotin died on the guillotine, but he puts it in the form of a question, the answer to which is, of course, intended to be yes: “Was not good Dr. Guillotin executed by his own neat invention?” Now nothing is more certain than that Guillotin survived the great revolution many years, and died a natural death in 1814.

LEGENDARY LORE — Ilium Fuit — A Marred Destiny — Robinson Crusoe — Macaulay in the Role of a Pickpocket — A Minister’s Messenger and What He Saw — Tobacco in Diplomacy — The Mystery of the Dauphin — The Sistine Madonna and La Fornarina — The Letter M — The Iron Maiden — The Value of Practical Knowledge — The Marseillaise — Shakespeare and Burbage — A Circassian Legend — General Grouchy at Waterloo — Acadia — Wolfe at Quebec — The Chien d’Or — Maximilian at Queretaro — The Thieves’ Market — Amulets and Talismans — Christmas Observances — What Language did Jesus Speak? — Royalty’s Family Names

There is a radical change of opinion with regard to the Iliad. Those who have regarded Homer as a mere myth-collector, and the story of the siege of Troy as a figment of a fertile fancy, have learned that not only do the later critics concede that Homer was a true poet, but that Dr. Schliemann has conclusively proved that he sang of a real Troy and an actual war. How comprehensive the work of critical research has been may be seen in a single incident. A Glasgow surgeon, named Wolfe, reinforced by Mr. Gladstone, has shown that Homer had an ocular defect, that form of amblyopia known as color-blindness, the evidence of which is gathered from the treatment of colors in the Iliad.

At Pevensey is the beach on which the Norman Conqueror landed. The castle on the cliff of Hastings marks the spot where he first planted his standard. From that place it is easy to trace his line of march till he saw Harold with the English army facing him on the fatal hill of Senlac. The battle-field is as well-marked as that of Waterloo, and fancy can recall the charges of the Norman cavalry up the hillside against the solid formation and the shield wall of the Saxon precursors 418of the British infantry. The ruins of Battle Abbey, the religious trophy of the Conqueror, are still seen, and the site of the high altar exactly marks the spot where the fatal arrow entering Harold’s brain slew not only a king, but a kingdom, and marred the destiny of a race. We are on the scene of one of the great catastrophes of history. Had that arrow missed its mark, Anglo-Saxon institutions would have developed in their integrity, the Anglo-Saxon tongue would have perfected itself in its purity, Anglo-Norman aristocracy would never have been, or have left its evil traces on society, the fatal connection of England and France, and the numerous French wars of the Plantagenets would have been blotted out of the book of fate.

Dr. Edward Everett Hale has observed a curious feature in “Robinson Crusoe.” He says: “Readers who are curious in English history must not fail to observe that Robinson Crusoe was shipwrecked on his island on September 30, 1659. It was in that month that the English Commonwealth ended and Richard Cromwell left the palace at Whitehall. Robinson lived in this island home for twenty-eight years. These twenty-eight years covered the exact period of the second Stuart reign in England. Robinson Crusoe returned to England in June, 1687; the Convention Parliament which established William III. met in London at the same time. All this could not be an accidental coincidence. Defoe must have meant that the ‘true-born Englishman’ could not live in England during the years while the Stuarts reigned. Robinson 419Crusoe was a ruler himself on his own island, and was never the subject of Charles II. or James II.”

In clever sketches of social life in Rome, Mr. T. Adolphus Trollope repeats a story that was told during “A Moonlight Visit to the Coliseum,” showing how Lord Macaulay had once robbed a man there of his watch. One night, while strolling under the dark arches, all of a sudden a man in a large cloak brushed past him rather rudely, as Macaulay thought, and passed on into the darkness. Macaulay’s first impulse was to clasp his hand to his watch-pocket; and sure enough he found that his watch was not there. He looked after the man, who he doubted not had stolen his watch as he brushed past him, and peering into the darkness could just distinguish the outline of a figure moving farther away. Macaulay without the loss of a second rushed after him, overtook him, and seizing him by the collar demanded his watch. Macaulay could at that time speak very little Italian, and understood none when spoken. So he was obliged to limit his attack on the thief to a violent shaking of him by the collar and an angry repetition of the demand, “Orologio! orologio!” The man thus attacked poured forth a torrent of rapidly-spoken words, of which Macaulay understood not one syllable. But he again administered a severe shaking to his captive, stamping his foot angrily on the ground, and again vociferating “Orologio! orologio!” Whereupon the detected thief drew forth a watch and handed it to his captor. Macaulay, satisfied with his prowess in having thus recaptured his property, and not caring for the 420trouble of pursuing the matter any further, turned on his heel as he pocketed the watch, and saw nothing more of the man. But when he returned to his apartment at night, his landlady met him at the door, holding out something in her hand, and saying, “Oh, sir, you left your watch on the table, so I thought it better to take care of it. Here it is.” “Good gracious! What is this, then? What is the meaning of it?” stammered Macaulay, drawing from his pocket the watch he had so gallantly recovered in the Coliseum. It was a watch he had never seen before. The truth was plain: he had been the thief! The poor man he had so violently attacked and apostrophized in the darkness and solitude of the Coliseum arches had been terrified into surrendering his own watch to the resolute ruffian who, as he conceived, had pursued him to rob him. The next morning Macaulay, not a little crestfallen, hastened to the office of the questor with the watch and told his story. “Ah, I see,” said the questor; “you had better leave the watch with me. I will make your excuses to the owner of it; he has already been here to denounce you.”

At the moment when his soldiers were entering Strasburg, the Roi Soleil started out from Fontainebleau to take possession in person of his new conquest. The day before—that is to say, on the 29th of September, 1681—Louis XIV. had announced to his court in the presence of the German Ambassador that he had made up his mind to go to Strasburg, in order to receive the oath of fealty which the treaty of Nimègue gave him 421the right to exact from the city. It was a coup de théatre and no mistake. But how happened it that the king was so well informed as to the actual condition of affairs at so distant a point? Well, the story runs as follows:

One evening the Minister Louvois sent for a young man who had been recommended to his good graces and said,—“Sir, you will get into a post-carriage which you will find at my door. My servants have exact instructions what to do. You will proceed to Bâle without stopping and you will reach there about two o’clock to-morrow. You will proceed immediately to the bridge which crosses the Rhine. You will remain there until four o’clock. You will carefully notice all that you may see there. You will then again get into the carriage, and without losing a minute will return and report to me what you may have seen.” The young man bowed and started at once. The day after the next day at two o’clock he reached Bâle, and at once hastened to take up his station on the bridge. Nothing extraordinary attracted his attention. It was market-day, and some peasants were passing and repassing, bringing vegetables and taking back their empty carts. A squad of militia passed. Townfolk crossed the bridge, talking of the news of the day, and a little man, wearing a yellow coat, leaned over the railing and amused himself by dropping stones into the water, as if to create circling eddies, which he watched with a satisfied look. Four o’clock struck, and the Minister’s messenger started on his return to Paris. Very late in the evening the young man, greatly disappointed at the result of his mission, arrived at the house of Louvois. The Minister was still awake and rushed to meet his protégé.

422“What did you see?” he asked.

“I saw peasants going and coming; a squad of militia passed over the bridge; citizens who walked along discussing the day’s news, and a little man wearing a yellow coat, who was amusing himself by dropping stones into the water.”

The Minister had heard enough, and he hurried to the king. The little man in yellow was a secret agent, and the stones dropped into the water was a signal that all difficulties had been overcome, and that Strasburg belonged to France.

The “herb of peace” has played an important rôle in politics and diplomacy during the last two hundred years in the history of the world, and its influence upon the course of public events has been almost invariably of a beneficial character. Not only have its narcotic properties tended to soothe the angry passions of those intrusted with the conduct of international relations, but it has also afforded them the opportunity of thinking before they spoke, and allowed time for those second thoughts which in statecraft, at any rate, are always best. People are often disposed to make fun of the so-called “pipe of peace” and to regard it as a mere form of speech originating with the red Indians. But tobacco, whether taken in the form of a pipe, a cigar, a cigarette or snuff, has proved a powerful and effective aid to peace, and as such its use deserves to be fostered and propagated by all patriotic and law-abiding citizens, in lieu of being condemned as noxious. The value placed by people in the eighteenth century and in the 423early part of the nineteenth upon snuff as a preventive of violence is shown by the German historian Jacoby, who, writing of his times, declares: “Whenever any one displays signs of temper the snuff-box is handed to him, and we all have too much self-control, even under the most trying circumstances, ever to resist the power.”

Even women in those days who did not take snuff kept boxes for the purpose of averting quarrels among their admirers, and it was universally regarded as one of the most efficacious aids to the maintenance of friendly and agreeable intercourse. Nowadays snuff has gone out of fashion, and, as a rule, cigarettes have supplanted tobacco in its powdered form in what has been described as “diplomatic machinery.” The statesman or the ambassador who could formerly conceal his embarrassment and collect his thoughts for an appropriate answer during the slow and stately process of taking a “prise,” is now enabled to do so while breathing out nicely distanced rings of fragrant Turkish tobacco. Indeed, the cigarette proves perhaps a more effective ally in a moment of difficulty than the pinch of snuff. For whereas you cannot indefinitely prolong the process of inhaling the latter, it is always possible to gain time with a cigarette by letting it go out and then having to relight it. To-day there is scarcely any foreign minister or diplomat who is not provided with his cigarette-box, which he regards, not in the light of an object of personal luxury, but as part and parcel of the most indispensable paraphernalia of his office. It is worthy of note that the Russians, who devote more attention and importance to the study of diplomacy than any other Western nation, are always 424provided with finer cigarettes than any of their foreign colleagues, while one of the reasons why the late Khedive was subject to so much bullying and badgering by the various ministers and consuls accredited to his court was because his cigarettes were so execrable that it required the strongest dose of courtesy possible to make even a pretence of smoking them, the result being that he had to bear the full brunt of every disagreeable first thought that came into the mind of his foreign visitors, his cigarettes offering no inducement for them to reflect before speaking, and tending, moreover, to irritate rather than to soothe their tempers.

It is a peculiar fact that all women who have achieved fame in diplomacy, such as Princess Pauline Metternich, Princess Lise Troubetskoi, the late Princess Leopold Croy, Mme. de Novikoff, etc., have all been inveterate consumers of cigarettes, and each of those just mentioned has availed herself with signal advantage of the opportunity afforded by toying with a fragrant papilletto to reflect before speaking, which women, as a rule, alas! so seldom do. Apparently it is with the hope of encouraging women who are not, like Mme. de Novikoff and Princess Lise Troubetskoi, professed diplomats, to think before speaking, and thereby avert a goodly portion of the trouble which befalls man, that several of the governments of Continental Europe are encouraging the use of tobacco among the fair sex by providing smoking apartments for women on all the state railroads. And we even find that solemn and august functionary, the Speaker of the British House of Commons, the living embodiment of all that is most time-honored, old-fashioned, and ultra-respectable in the English Parliament, turning a deaf ear to the protest 425raised of late years in certain of the London newspapers against the now frequent spectacle offered on summer nights of women in full evening dress sitting out on the riverside terrace of the palace of Westminster puffing at their post-prandial cigarette. “The First Commoner of the Realm” is, like his predecessor, Lord Peel, apparently of the opinion that the weed, first dedicated to England’s “Virgin Queen,” is infinitely more effective and less injurious to high-strung feminine nerves than chloral, morphine or alcohol. The easiest-tempered and most tractable women of the universe are those of the Orient, who smoke all day long, and the same may be said of the women of Southern Europe. With the exception of the present Czarina of Russia, Queen Alexandra, and the Queen of the Netherlands, nearly all the women of the reigning houses of the Old World smoke.

The story, according to which the Dauphin, son of King Louis XVI. and Queen Marie Antoinette, was done to death in the Temple prison by his brutal jailer Simon and the latter’s wife, has long since been exploded. It has been definitely established on the most incontrovertible evidence that the Dauphin did not die in the Temple at the hands of the Simons. The latter were not ignorant brutes, but well-to-do people, Simon being a member of the “Conseil Général” of the Seine, and, moreover, he resigned his guardianship of the Dauphin in January, 1794, eighteen months before the royal lad’s alleged death. There is abundant evidence to show that the Prince escaped, and that several members of the Royalist party were concerned in his flight.

426The Dauphin eventually, after all sorts of adventures, when the star of Napoleon was on the wane, went to Berlin—he was about twenty-nine years old at the time—with a view of putting forward his claims for recognition as a member of the house of Bourbon. His uncles, the Comte de Provence (afterward King Louis XVIII.) and the Comte d’Artois (subsequently King Charles X.) were in receipt of handsome allowances from the Prussian, Russian, and English governments, and the Dauphin hoped that he, too, might be provided for in a similar way. The Prussian government, however, was committed to the Comte de Provence, and the chief of the Berlin police forced the Dauphin to surrender to him all the papers establishing his identity, and then furnished him with a passport describing him as a native of Weimar. These papers were never returned to him, in spite of all his efforts to recover them, and they remain at Berlin to this day. Eventually he made his way to Holland. The Dutch authorities, who are the most strict in the world in all matters relating to the assumption of unauthorized names and titles, not only permitted him to figure on the marriage and death registry at Delft as “Louis of Bourbon, son of King Louis XVI. and Queen Marie Antoinette,” but likewise allowed his sons and grandsons to serve under the royal name of Bourbon in the Dutch Army.

True, the Duke of Orleans, like his father before him, denounces the claims of these Dutch Bourbons, now established at Paris in the wine business, as ridiculous, and stigmatizes the alleged Dauphin as having been an impostor. Yet, in spite of all the efforts, and the large amount of money spent by Louis XVIII., Charles X., King Louis Philippe, and the Comte de Paris, no one 427has ever succeeded in finding out who the alleged Dauphin could possibly have been, if not the son of the ill-fated Queen Marie Antoinette.

It was natural that the brothers of Louis XVI. refused to recognize the alleged Dauphin as their nephew, since by their recognition he would have become an obstacle in the way of their accession to the throne of France on the restoration of the Bourbon dynasty. Moreover, they had always been among the most bitter enemies of Marie Antoinette, insisting that her children were the offspring of another man instead of their eldest brother. There is, however, evidence to the effect that they provided for the lad’s maintenance after his escape from the Temple, on the understanding that he should be kept in the background, being unwilling that any personage should be appealed to in the matter. But when he grew up, they denounced him as a fraud.

It may be remembered that the Vatican, when asked in 1826 for a permit of consecration of the Chapelle Expiatoire at Paris, erected over what was understood to be the remains of King Louis XVI., of his queen, and of their son, only granted it on the condition that the name of the Dauphin was removed, taking the ground, set forth in an official dispatch, which is on record, that it could not lend itself to the comedy of consecrating a memorial chapel to a living person.

That the Prussian government or the Prussian crown have among their archives papers proving the usurpation of the French throne by Louis XVIII., the escape from prison of the Dauphin, and his identity with that Louis Bourbon who died at Delft, and to whom the president of the Berlin police had given a passport as “Naundorff,” a citizen of Weimar, where, by the by, 428no such person had ever been born or lived, has long been known. The Russian imperial archives and those of the Vatican are likewise known to possess equally conclusive documentary evidence upon the subject, and the attitude of the papacy toward the Dutch Bourbons has always been particularly considerate.

People who are not content to accept the old-fashioned traditions concerning pictures and artists will be pleased with some recent discoveries about Raphael made by the art critics. These ingenious persons have practically exhausted Leonardo da Vinci, who for many years was their favorite quarry, having proved to their own satisfaction that nearly every picture ascribed to him was painted by some one else. They have now turned upon Raphael, and in the merciless but scientific dissection of his works and his life not only the authenticity but the fame of his Sistine Madonna has been placed in question. The chain of circumstantial evidence, it is true, seems incomplete in parts, but the missing links will be supplied by that faith which science often demands no less than legend.

Raphael has the unusual distinction of having had an excellent reputation among his contemporaries. He was a hard worker, and his private life was so uneventful as to excite no comment. This was hardly artistic, so, fifty years after his death, Vasari supplied him with a nameless mistress, a baker’s daughter, “La Fornarina,” whom the painter saw and loved in her father’s garden, near the Church of Santa Cecilia, in the Trastevere quarter at Rome. In another fifty years this story 429had grown into the well known tale of the painter’s passionate love bringing about his early death, and the beautiful, sensuous face of “La Fornarina” in the Uffizi Gallery at Florence made it credible. Sentimental persons looked on her portrait and then on Raphael’s own, and had no doubts.

Then came the critics. They proved that it was not Raphael but Sebastian del Piombo who had painted the portrait, and that it represented not “La Fornarina” but an entirely different woman, a beauty of Bologna. Their scepticism, however, stopped short of rejecting the whole story. They cling to that in all its details, and one of them, Signor Valeri, of Rome, has just confirmed it by discovering “La Fornarina’s” name. His method is interesting.

First, he found in somebody’s manuscript life of Goethe that “La Fornarina’s” Christian name was Margarita; next, in a census of Rome made in 1518, two years before Raphael’s death, kept in the Vatican library, he discovered that a baker named Francesco, from Siena, kept a bakery near the Church of Santa Cecilia; finally, he searched in the registers of the nunnery of Santa Apollonia, and found there under the date August 18, 1520, four months after Raphael’s death, the name of “Margarita, daughter of the late Francesco Luti of Siena,” as having been received into the convent as a nun. Therefore this Margarita Luti or Luzzi must necessarily be “La Fornarina.”

This demonstration was hardly needed by the art critics, whose faith in the existence of the Fornarina was unshaken. Having discredited the Uffizi portrait, they looked around among Raphael’s other paintings for her features. For a time they inclined to the 430“Veiled Woman” in the Pitti Gallery, but finally settled on the Sistine Madonna as representing the painter’s beloved. The evidence for the identification is of the slightest, and surely the simple peasant girl, whose innocence and loveliness alone the painter has transmitted to us, might have been left unsmirched. Such as it is, however, the identification is shaken by another art critic. A lynx-eyed young German iconoclast has cast doubts on the authenticity of the Dresden Gallery’s treasure, and declares boldly that the picture is not the “Madonna di San Sisto,” and that in all likelihood Raphael never painted it. His attack is backed by such a display of erudition that the director of the gallery went to Italy to find out if there might not be some foundation of truth in it.

While critics wrangle over unessentials, however, the Sistine Virgin, the loveliest creation of Raphael’s genius, will grace our homes, the most overpowering figure known to the tablets of art.

Napoleon I. was a fatalist, and among his superstitions was a firmly-rooted notion that places and persons whose names began with the letter M possessed immense power over his fortunes for good or for evil. An ingenious Frenchman, evidently inclined to believe that there was some good ground for Napoleon’s faith, makes up the following strange list of M’s: Six Marshals—Massena, Mortier, Marmont, Macdonald, Murat, and Moncey—without counting twenty-six division Generals. Moreau betrayed him. Marseilles was the place where he encountered the greatest difficulties at 431the commencement of his career. Marbœuf was the first to suspect his genius and to shove him ahead. His most brilliant battles were Montenotte, Mantua, Millesimo, Mondovi, Marengo, Malta, Mont Thabor, Montmirvil, Mormans, Montereau, Méry, Montmartre (assault), Mont-Saint-Jean, the last at Waterloo. At the siege of Toulon his first point of attack was Fort Malbousquet. There he singled out Muiron, who covered him with his body on the bridge of Arcole. Milan was the capital of his new kingdom. Moscow was the last town that he took. Menon made him lose Egypt. Miollis was selected to capture Pius VII. Malet conspired against him. Metternich beat him diplomatically. Maret was his secretary and his confidant. Montalivet was his Minister, and Montesquin his first Chamberlain. In March, 1796, he married Josephine, and in March, 1810, he married Marie Louise. In March, 1811, the King of Rome was born. Malmaison, a well-named unlucky house, was his last residence in France. He surrendered to Captain Maitland. At Saint Helena, Montholon was his companion in captivity and Marchand his valet de chambre. He died in May, 1821. The letter M also comes to the front in the career of Napoleon III. He married the Countess de Montijo. Morny is not forgotten. In the war of the Crimea we find Malakoff and Mamelon. In the Italian campaign we find Montebello, Marignon, Magenta, Milan, Mazzini. Toward the close of his career Mexico appears with Maximilian, Méjia, and Miramon. In the war with Germany he pinned his faith upon the mitrailleuse, and the names of Moltke and Metz are conspicuous enough in the history of that campaign.

The “Torture Chamber” in the five-sided tower of the old burgh was for many years one of the show-places of Nuremberg. The collection of instruments of fiendishness, made by a Franconian nobleman, numbered between five and six hundred. There were all sorts of repulsive contrivances,—racks, wedges, hammers, clubs, pulleys, thumb-screws, iron boots to crush the limbs, metal collars for the neck, brass masks for the head, copper boilers for scalding water, and headsmen’s axes. Their removal, by purchase, has served as a reminder of the wisdom of the clause in the Constitution of the United States (Art. viii.) forbidding the infliction of “cruel and unusual punishments.”

The central jewel, the Kohinoor of the relics of barbarism and diabolism, is one of the most awful graven images it ever entered into the heart of men to conceive, the world-infamous Eiserne Jungfrau, the “Iron Maiden,” of Nuremberg. This monstrous invention was an improvement in ferocity upon the brazen bull into which the ancient tyrant, after heating it red hot, was wont to thrust his naked victims. Many Americans have seen the Iron Maiden; all Americans ought to see her. The sight of the hideous figure is an excellent tonic for young Yankees of both sexes suffering from “over-culture,” and seduced into a fit of moonlit mediævalism by the picturesque and romantic attractions of such “quaint old towns of art and song” as the city of Hans Sachs and Albert Dürer. For the Iron Maiden was no ingenious toy devised to amuse the idle and frighten the thoughtless into good behavior. Clasped in her stifling embrace, pierced in all parts 433of the human body not absolutely vital by the sharpened spikes set into the steel valves which had closed upon him, a living man, many a wretch yielded up the ghost in torments not to be conceived of adequately save by the imagination of an Edgar Poe. And this not by the edict of a despot mad with unbridled power, but in the normal course of justice, or of religious persecution, as justice and religion were understood and administered during the “good old times.”

In the piazza before St. Peter’s, at Rome, stands the most beautiful obelisk in the world. It was brought from the circus of Nero, where it had lain buried for many ages. It was one entire piece of Egyptian marble, seventy-two feet high, twelve feet square at the base, and eight feet square at the top, and is computed to weigh above four hundred and seventy tons, and it is supposed to be three thousand years old. Much engineering skill was required to remove and erect this piece of art; and the celebrated architect, Dominico Fontane, was selected and engaged by Pope Sixtus V. to carry out the operation. A pedestal thirty feet high was built for its reception, and the obelisk brought to its base. Many were the ingenious contrivances prepared for the raising of it to its last resting place, all of which excited the deepest interest among the people. At length everything was in readiness, and a day appointed for the great event. A great multitude assembled to witness the ceremony; and the Pope, afraid that the clamor of the people might distract the attention of the architect, issued an edict containing regulations 434to be kept, and imposing the severest penalties on any one who should, during the lifting of the gigantic stone, utter a single word. Amidst suppressed excitement of feelings and breathless silence the splendid monument was gradually raised to within a few inches of the top of the pedestal, when its upward motion ceased; it hung suspended, and could not be lifted further; the tackle was too slack, and there seemed to be no other way than to undo the great work already accomplished. The annoyed architect, in his perplexity, hardly knew how to act, while the silent people were anxiously watching every motion of his features to discover how the problem would be solved. In the crowd was an old British sailor, who saw the difficulty and how to overcome it, and with stentorian lungs he shouted, “Wet the ropes!” The vigilant police pounced on the culprit and lodged him in prison; the architect caught the magic words; he put this proposition in force, and the cheers of the people proclaimed the success of the great undertaking. Next day the British criminal was solemnly arraigned before his Holiness; his crime was undeniably proved, and the Pope, in solemn language, pronounced his sentence to be—that he should receive a pension annually during his lifetime.

Rouget de l’Isle wrote only six of the seven verses of the “Marseillaise,” the last being the work of the Abbé Antoine Pessonneaux, in a moment of patriotic ecstacy. In its completed form the hymn was first sung at the opera in Paris, the members of the Convention being present. After the verses of Rouget de l’Isle had been 435sung a group of children appeared on the stage and gave the last verse, beginning “Nous entrerons dans la carrière,” which was wildly applauded. Not long after this the Abbé came near being guillotined at Lyons. One of the historians relates the event as follows: “The committee met in the Town Hall, which resembled a ‘funeral chapel,’ and sat round a table covered with black cloth. There was the president, who had three judges on each side of him. They all wore a little silver hatchet round the neck,—terrible emblem of their functions. There was a stool for the prisoner, and behind this a rank of armed soldiers awaiting the sign which decided the fate of the accused. If the judges spread out their hands on the black cloth, that signified acquittal; if they raised their hands to their foreheads, that meant that the prisoner was to be shot; if they touched the silver hatchet, he was to be guillotined. Few questions were asked, and the fate of the accused was generally known beforehand. The sentence of the court was immediately executed amid cries of anguish, despair, ‘Vive la République,’ and the howling of the ‘Marseillaise.’ A citizen, pale, but calm, in presence of almost certain death, had just been brought before the tribunal. His crime was flagrant; he was a priest. The president asked, ‘Who art thou?’ The accused drew himself proudly up, and said, ‘I am the Abbé Pesonneaux, author of the last stanza of the ‘Marseillaise.’’ There was a good deal of commotion in the court, and after some hesitation the judges stretched their hands out on the black cloth, which was the pollice verso of the Republic. Without saluting or thanking, the Abbé slowly withdrew. Forty years afterwards the Government of Louis Philippe gave 436Rouget de l’Isle a pension of £4 a month, and the Abbé Pessonneaux had some idea of applying also for aid, but he changed his mind, and died peacefully in Dauphiny in 1835.”

In that old book, “A General View of the Stage,” we are told that one evening when Richard III. was to be performed, Shakespeare observed a young woman delivering a message to Burbage in so cautious a manner as to excite his curiosity, and prompt him to listen. It imported that her master was gone out of town that morning, and her mistress would be glad of his company after the play; and to know what signal he would appoint for admittance. Burbage replied, “Three taps at the door, and, it is I, Richard the Third.” She immediately withdrew and Shakespeare followed till he observed her go into a house in the city; and inquiring in the neighborhood he was informed that a young lady lived there, the favorite of a rich old merchant. Near the appointed time of meeting, Shakespeare, anticipating Burbage, went to the house, and was introduced by the concerted signal. The lady was very much surprised at Shakespeare’s presuming to act Burbage’s part, but as he who had written Romeo and Juliet, we may be certain, did not want wit or eloquence to apologize for the intrusion, she was soon pacified, and they were mutually happy, till Burbage came to the door, and repeated the same signal; but Shakespeare, popping his head out of the window, bade him begone; for that William the Conqueror had reigned before Richard III.

A man was walking along one road, and a woman along another. The roads finally united, and the man and woman reaching the junction at the same time, marched on from there together. The man was carrying a large iron kettle on his back; in one hand he held by the legs a live chicken, in the other a cane, and he was leading a goat. Just as they were coming to a deep, dark ravine, the woman said to the man,—

“I am afraid to go through that ravine with you; it is a lonely place and you might overpower me and kiss me by force.”

“If you were afraid of that,” said the man, “you shouldn’t have talked with me at all. How can I possibly overpower and kiss you by force when I have this great iron kettle on my back, and a cane in one hand, and a live chicken in the other, and am leading this goat? I might as well be tied hand and foot.”

“Yes,” replied the woman, “but if you should stick your cane into the ground and tie the goat to it, and turn the kettle bottom side up and put the chicken under it, then you might wickedly kiss me in spite of my resistance.”

“Success to thy ingenuity, oh, woman!” said the rejoicing man to himself. “I should never have thought of this expedient.”

And when he came to the ravine he stuck his cane into the ground and tied the goat to it, gave the chicken to the woman, saying, “Hold it while I cut some grass for the goat;” and then, lowering the kettle from his shoulders, imprisoned the fowl under it, and wickedly kissed the woman, as she was afraid he would.

The question, “What part had Grouchy in Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo?” or, “was his failure to arrive in time the reason why the battle was lost?” is not satisfactorily answered in “Grouchy’s Memoirs.” The battle of Ligny was fought June 16, between the French and the Prussians under Blücher; on the same day the French manfully engaged the English at Quatre Bras; June 18, the battle of Waterloo was fought, which ended, by the timely arrival of Blücher on the battle-field, in the total rout of the French. It is claimed that Grouchy, who commanded the French right wing of 32,000, might either, by engaging the Prussians, have prevented them from appearing in time on the battle-field and wresting the hard-fought victory from the hands of Napoleon, or that he might have appeared on the battle-field himself in time to crush Wellington before Blücher could possibly be on the battle-field. Let us hear now what the French General says in his “Memoirs,” which is, in substance, as follows: “The French victory over the Prussians at Ligny had filled Napoleon with the greatest joy and a false feeling of security. He looked on the Belgian campaign as virtually won. Instead of turning his victory at Ligny to account and preparing for all eventualities, he rode to Fleure, about three miles back of Ligny, and went to bed, leaving Grouchy, the commander of the right wing, behind, without any positive orders. Grouchy followed Napoleon to Fleure, in order to call his attention to the critical state of affairs. He arrived early in the morning of the 17th in Fleure, but as Napoleon had given the strictest orders not to 439awaken him under any circumstances, he was not admitted to an audience of the Emperor before 1 o’clock P. M. of that day. The Emperor paid no attention to the General’s protestations, but repeated his orders to pursue and watch the Prussians. But this was simply impossible, because Blücher was ahead of him by a sixteen hours’ march, and had an array of 80,000 fresh troops. Moreover, in order to pursue Blücher, it would have been necessary for the right wing of the French army to withdraw far from the point where a conflict might come at every moment. All these reasons were strongly urged by the Marshal, but to no purpose; the Emperor repeated his orders to march toward Namour, saying that he knew that the Prussians would take their position on the Muse (Maas). With these instructions the Marshal retired, and the roar of cannon the next day satisfied him that a great battle was in progress. To hasten to the field of action was actually impossible, as his positive instructions had taken him to Namour, southeast of Ligny and farther off from Waterloo or Belle Alliance by fifteen English miles. Moreover, the terrain between Namour and Waterloo was marshy and without any passable roads, so that he could not have arrived on the battle-field before the action was over. Again, his avant guard had already engaged the Prussians, and to attempt to pass with 32,000 men, worn out by long marches, an enemy of 80,000 fresh troops, seemed to the Marshal too hazardous an enterprise; hence he did not make the attempt.”

So far the Marshal. If he tells the truth, if every statement made by him is according to facts, every unprejudiced reader will readily admit that the Marshal’s reasons for non-action were sufficient to justify 440his conduct, even in the absence of treasonable designs.

But where did the real fault lie? Who committed it? Even if the battle of Waterloo had remained indecisive, or even if it had been won by Napoleon, it might have retarded the sinking of his star, but would not have prevented it. Napoleon had taught the nations of Europe his own tactics; the French Republicans had filled all Europe with an abhorrence of their professed principles, and Napoleon had shown himself during his whole reign an unmitigated despot, whose only god was ambition, and who stooped short of nothing in order to carry out his designs.

But if the battle of Waterloo was lost through any one’s fault, that fault was Napoleon’s. He overrated his own victory, looking upon the Prussian army as crippled, disabled for the time being, while it had merely been pushed by sheer force from the battle-field. The French army was as much used up as the Prussian, being unable to pursue, while the Prussian army took all its baggage and wounded away and retired with such dispatch and order that Napoleon, sixteen hours after the close of the battle, did not even know which direction Blücher had taken.

Napoleon had said of the Bourbons that they had not learned anything nor forgotten anything; the same remark may be applied to himself with equal justice. He knew neither the newly awakened spirit of the different German peoples nor the wants and desires of France. All the battles he fought after his Russian campaign, even those he won, were hotly contested, for him bare of fruits; had he understood the signs of the times, he would have known that a nation manifesting such patriotism 441as the Prussians did in 1813 could, indeed, be annihilated, but not conquered; he would have known that Blücher was his most formidable opponent, and as a wise man he would neither have called him the drunken huzzar nor treated him as such. Of all Generals that fought Napoleon, Blücher seems to have been the only one that was not afraid of him; this Napoleon either knew not or was too proud to admit, hence his defeat and ruin.

Victor Hugo settles the question in very laconic and magisterial fashion. After his glowing description of Waterloo in “Les Misérables,” he says,—

“Was it possible that Napoleon should win this battle? We answer no. Why? Because of Wellington? Because of Blücher? No. Because of God.

“For Bonaparte to be conqueror at Waterloo was not in the law of the nineteenth century. Another series of facts were preparing in which Napoleon had no place. The ill-will of events had long been announced. It was time that this vast man should fall.

“Napoleon had been impeached before the Infinite, and his fall was decreed.

“He vexed God.

“Waterloo is not a battle; it is the change of front of the universe.”

The first successful attempt at colonization in Nova Scotia was made in 1633, when Isaac de Razilly and Charnisay brought out some families from France. These were the progenitors of the Acadian race. Very capable people they were,—though for a time they suffered much during the winters. Yet they kept up bravely, 442and barred out the sea, and felled the forests, and cultivated the marshes. They increased and multiplied, so that by-and-by we find them holding all the valley from Port Royal to Piziquid. They spread also round the head of the Bay of Fundy. Their great achievement was reclaiming thousands of acres where formerly the salt waves ranged at will. Their system of dike-building was remarkable for strength and durability. They did not pay much attention to things extraneous, and could not at all understand the inexorable law of race-conflict which brought the English against them.

This struggle, and the events connected therewith, forms the most striking period of Nova Scotian history. The whole subject is shrouded with a mist of controversy, of which the end is not yet. But this is of small consequence to the romancer. Of course we have had the great romance of the Acadians,—the tale of “love that hopes, and endures, and is patient.” Evangeline is a very charming (if very unhistorical) heroine, and the poem shows how much can be made by an artist out of good material. Yet Longfellow’s work has by no means exhausted the possibilities of that exciting period. There is a strong dramatic value in the opposition of the Acadians and English, and the vast background of the Anglo-French war.

That war presents many opportunities to the story-writer. The time was pregnant with fate; the destiny of three nations hinged upon the outcome. A striking work of fiction lies in the power of him who can read and weigh musty archives, who has an eye for effective incident and the skill of a literary craftsman. Beauséjour, Grand Pré and Louisbourg call up memories that loom large and are lit with battle-fires.

443Francis Parkman, in his account of the Acadian exile, says:

“In one particular the authors of the deportation were disappointed in its results. They had hoped to substitute a loyal population for a disaffected one; but they failed for some time to find settlers for the vacated lands. The Massachusetts soldiers, to whom they were offered, would not stay in the province, and it was not till five years later that families of British stock began to occupy the waste fields of the Acadians. This goes far to show that a longing to become their heirs had not, as has been alleged, any considerable part in the motives for their removal.

“New England humanitarianism, melting into sentimentality at a tale of woe, has been unjust to its own. Whatever judgment may be passed on the cruel measure of wholesale expatriation, it was not put in execution until every resource had been tried in vain. The agents of the French court—civil, military, and ecclesiastical—had made some act of force a necessity. With their vile practices they produced in Acadia a state of things intolerable and impossible of continuance. They conjured up the tempest, and when it burst on the heads of the unhappy people, they gave no help. The government of Louis XV. began with making the Acadians its tools, and ended with making them its victims.”

On the 12th of September, 1759, General Wolfe’s plans for the investment and attack of Quebec were complete, and he issued his final orders. One sentence in them curiously anticipates Nelson’s famous signal at 444Trafalgar. “Officers and men,” wrote Wolfe, “will remember what their country expects of them.” A feint on Beauport, five miles to the east of Quebec, as evening fell, made Montcalm mass his troops there; but it was at a point four miles west of Quebec the real attack was directed.

This point, near the village of Sillery, was a ravine, since called Wolfe’s Cove, running from the shore of the St. Lawrence up to the Plains of Abraham, and guarded on the heights by a company of Bougainville’s men. It was selected under the advice of Major Robert Stobo (the name given by Gilbert Parker, in “The Seats of the Mighty,” is Moray), who, five years before, as Parkman says, in “Montcalm and Wolfe,” had been given as a hostage to the French at the capture of Fort Necessity, arrived about this time in a vessel from Louisbourg. He had long been a prisoner at Quebec, not always in close custody, and had used his opportunities to acquaint himself with the neighborhood. In the spring of this year he and an officer of rangers named Stevens had made their escape with extraordinary skill and daring; and he now returned to give General Wolfe the benefit of his local knowledge.

At two o’clock at night two lanterns appeared for a minute in the main-top shrouds of the “Sunderland.” It was the signal, and from the fleet, from the Isle of Orleans and from Point Levis, the English boats stole silently out, freighted with some three thousand seven hundred troops, and converged towards the point in the wall of cliffs agreed upon. Wolfe himself was in the leading boat of the flotilla. Suddenly, from the great wall of rock and forest to their left, broke the challenge of a French sentinel: “Qui vive?” A Highland 445officer of Fraser’s regiment, who spoke French fluently, promptly answered the challenge: “France.” “A quel regimént?” “De la Reine,” answered the Highlander.

On the day before, two deserters from the camp of Bougainville had given information that at ebb tide a night convoy of provisions for Montcalm, to meet the necessities of the camp at Beauport, would be sent down the river. As the men stationed at the various outposts were expecting fresh supplies, it was easy to deceive the guard at Sillery, and, after a little further dialogue, in which the cool Highlander completely blinded the French sentries, the British were allowed to slip past in the darkness. The cove was safely reached, the boats stole silently up, twenty-four volunteers from the Light Infantry leaped from their boat and led the way in single file up the path, that ran like a thread along the face of the cliff. Wolfe sat eagerly listening in his boat below. Suddenly from the summit he saw the flash of the muskets and heard the stern shout which told him his men were up. A clear, firm order, and the troops sitting silent in the boats leaped ashore, and the long file of soldiers, like a chain of ants, went up the face of the cliff, Wolfe amongst the foremost, and formed in order on the plateau, the boats meanwhile rowing back at speed to bring up the remainder of the troops. Wolfe was at last within Montcalm’s guard!

When the morning of the 13th dawned, the British army, in line of battle, stood facing the citadel. Montcalm quickly learned the news, and came riding furiously across the St. Charles and past the city to the scene of danger. He rode, as those who saw him tell, with a fixed look, and uttering not a word. The vigilance of 446months was rendered worthless by that amazing night escalade. When he reached the slopes Montcalm saw before him the silent red wall of British infantry, the Highlanders with waving tartans and wind-blown plumes—all in battle array. It was not a detachment, but an army.

The discord and jealousies of divided authority were at once apparent. Vaudreuil, the governor, failed to send reinforcements to the support of Montcalm, to meet the crisis, and the struggle was soon ended. Fifteen minutes of decisive fighting transformed New France into British territory.

On the Rue Buade, a street commemorative of the gallant Frontenac—says Kirby, in his “Romance of the Days of Louis Quinze in Quebec”—stood the large imposing edifice newly built by the Bourgeois Philibert, as the people of the colony fondly called Nicholas Jaquin Philibert, the great and wealthy merchant of Quebec, and their champion against the odious monopolies of the Grand Company favored by the Intendant. The edifice was of stone, spacious and lofty; it comprised the city residence of the Bourgeois, as well as suites of offices and ware-rooms connected with his immense business. On its façade, blazing in the sun, was the gilded sculpture that so much piqued the curiosity of every seigniory in the land. The tablet of the Chien d’Or—the Golden Dog—with its enigmatical inscription, looked down defiantly upon the busy street beneath, where it is still to be seen, perplexing the beholder to guess its meaning, and exciting our deepest sympathies 447over the tragedy of which it remains the sole, sad memorial.

Above and beneath the figure of a couchant dog, gnawing the thigh bone of a man, is graven the weird inscription, cut deeply in the stone, as if for all future generations to read and ponder over its meaning,—

Or in English,—

On the 10th of June, 1864, an assembly of notables in the city of Mexico tendered the crown to Maximilian, the Archduke of Austria. On the 12th he was crowned Emperor. On the 3d of October Maximilian, at the instance of Bazaine, made the fatal mistake of publishing a decree declaring all persons in arms against the Imperial Government bandits, and ordering them to be executed. On the 21st, under this cruel decree, Generals Felix Diaz, Arteaga, Salazar, and Villagomez were shot at Uruapam. Time, which at last “makes all things even,” proved by its reprisal that this was “a game that two could play at.”

On November 6, 1865, the United States, through 448Secretary Seward, sent a dispatch to Napoleon III. protesting against the presence of the French army in Mexico as a grave reflection against the United States, and notifying him that nothing but a Republic would be recognized. In November, 1866, Louis Napoleon ordered the evacuation of Mexico by his troops, and their departure meant the withdrawal of support from Maximilian. In the face of formidable resistance to his usurpation he refused to abdicate. With the restoration of the authority of Juarez, and the rising of the Mexican people, he was confronted with an empty exchequer and dwindling followers. He made his last stand against the Mexican army at Queretaro, where he was basely betrayed by Colonel Lopez, a Spaniard and an officer in his own army. Through this treachery General Escobedo gained access to the city at night, and captured Maximilian as he attempted to escape from his head-quarters in the old convent of La Cruz, and with him Generals Miramon and Mejia.

The date of this arrest was May 15, 1867. On June 14th, a court-martial was convened at 10 o’clock, A. M., based on the law which provided for the execution on the spot of capture of all caught bearing arms against the government. At 10 o’clock, P. M., on the 15th, sentence of death was pronounced, and at once approved by General Escobedo, who ordered the execution to take place next day, but a telegram from Juarez, at San Luis Potosi, postponed it till the 19th.

The morning of the execution dawned bright and beautiful, and Maximilian remarked, “I always wished to die on such a day.” With Father Soria he left the convent at 6 A. M., in a carriage, and was driven to Cerro de las Campañas, beyond the western limits of 449the city, Mejia and Miramon following in other carriages. Arrived at the “Hill of Bells,” the prisoners were placed against a low wall of adobe erected for the purpose. Maximilian was expected to occupy the centre, but he stepped to the right and placed Miramon in the centre, saying, “A brave soldier must be honored by his monarch even in his last hour; therefore, permit me to give you the place of honor.” An officer and seven men stood only a few yards away. The Emperor went to them, took each soldier by the hand, gave each a piece of gold, saying: “Muchachos (boys), aim well, aim right here,” pointing to his heart. Then stepping back to his place in the line, he expressed the hope that his blood might be the last to be shed. Truly, a sad end for a prince of the house of Hapsburg, and a weary life of mental alienation for Carlotta.

Tradition has it—and most happily for romance in this fascinating Mexican land, traditions in most cases are still as good coin as fact—that the “Thieves’ Market,” in the City of Mexico, stands on the grounds of what was once a part of the spacious gardens of the “new house” of Montezuma. In the days long gone by, this garden, of spacious proportions, was the scene of many dark and dismal crimes, and many were the robberies and acts of violence that occurred there, for it was on a highway much used, and when night had fallen was very dark and dangerous.

The tale goes of the murder by a powerful officer of the sweetheart of one of his retainers, a crime that rankled in the breast of the poor Indian until, not long 450afterward, he took his revenge, and his master lay dead, killed in a drunken stupor by the wronged servant. The wronged man, rifling the master’s pockets, carried away with him from the house all the trinkets and valuables on which he could lay his hands. Then he hied himself to the protecting shade of Montezuma’s gardens, where he hid himself under the trees until the coming day should waken the city and he could pass beyond the guard without molestation. But when he had been hidden only a short while, the alarm having spread, a servant more zealous in his own interests than to revenge his master’s murder, found the guilty man and quickly and thoroughly dispatched him.

A neighboring gully, which had perhaps served a similar purpose before in these thrilling days, concealed the body, and the third murderer made away with the goods, this time to keep them safe and secure until the excitement had blown over.

Then, on the very spot which he had stained with the blood of his fellow servant, the wretch set up a tiny stand, with the twice stolen goods as the basis of a little stock, which he sold to the tourists of that day as they passed by the stand in their visits to the famous gardens.

From this rather thrilling beginning grew a classic market, until to-day there is the world-famed “Volador,” where things fly in and out, once and for many long centuries truly a “thieves’ market.” It is not so many years ago that one counted this market as one of places wherein to look for goods that had flown away from the house in some mysterious fashion, but that day is past.

The amulet, and its astrological expression, the talisman, may be traced far back in the mists of antiquity to the prehistoric flint arrowhead. The one, wrought in a great variety of significant and suggestive forms out of precious gems, and of amber, agate, jasper, and carnelian; or metal, particularly gold, oxidized silver, and bronze, or wood, or parchment, is worn as a remedy for or a preservative against disease, or poison, or accident, or calamity, or bad luck, or the evil eye, or witchcraft, and is supposed to exert a constant protective power while suspended from the neck, affixed to the bosom, or other part of the body, or carried in a pocket. The other is a charm consisting of a magical image, usually of a planet engraved under carefully regulated observations of the configuration of the twelve constellations forming the circuit called the Zodiac, the sign, seal, or figure of the heavenly body being supposed to receive benign influence therefrom, and thereby produce under special conditions desired results for the wearer, especially in averting evils, such as disease or sudden death. Unlike the amulet, it was not usually worn on the person, but deposited in a safe place. Many of the varied forms of the amulet were credited with specific virtues. The old abracadabra, for instance, (the name of the supreme deity of the Assyrians), written on parchment, and suspended around the neck by a linen thread, was regarded as an infallible cure for intermittent fevers, dysentery, and toothache. Certain gems were believed to possess specific powers. The emerald, for example, was an antidote to poison and a preventive of melancholy, and the amethyst was a security 452against intoxication. The coins of St. Helena, the mother of Constantine, were reputed in the Middle Ages to be efficacious in epilepsy. A piece of paper on which the names of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus and their dog were inscribed, pasted on the wall of the house, was believed to afford protection against ghosts and demons. In one of Sir Walter Scott’s tales of the Crusaders, called “The Talisman,” we are gravely told that the famous talisman which in the hands of the Sultan wrought such marvellous cures, is “still in existence, having been bequeathed to a brave Knight of Scotland, the Laird of Lee, in whose ancient and honored family it is still preserved; and although charmed stones (continues Sir Walter) have been dismissed from the modern pharmacopœia, its virtues are still applied to for arresting hemorrhage, and as an antidote to hydrophobia.” A charm made of heliotrope, or bloodstone, was also used to stop hemorrhage, and in some countries, including England, it is still used to check bleeding of the nose. A favorite signature on the parchment to counteract the bite of a mad-dog was pax, max, and adimax. This was considered quite irresistible. For a fracture or a dislocation, the magic restorative was araries, dandaries, denatas, and matas. The absurd theory known as the “doctrine of signatures” is traced back to the Chaldeans. It is based upon external natural markings or symbolical appearances of a plant, mineral, or other substance, indicating its special medicinal quality or appropriate use. Boyle says in his Style of the Holy Scriptures, “Chemists observe in the book of Nature that those simples that wear the figure or resemblance (by them termed signature) of a distempered part are medicinal for that part of that 453infirmity whose signature they bear.” Butler says in “Hudibras,”—

The amulet appears to have been a favorite charm in the early periods of the history of Assyria, Egypt, Arabia, Persia, and Judea. Judging by the multitudinous collections in European museums, as well as by the traditions of centuries, it must have been universally worn in ancient times. In the Pompeiian section of the National Museum, at Naples, many thousands of the charms worn in the first century of the Christian era are preserved. Their use is still prevalent in Asiatic countries and in some of the South American republics. In Rio Janeiro the jewelers keep them for sale in large numbers and in great variety. Some of the old favorites show remarkable vital tenacity. There is the three-pronged red coral, for instance, which was considered possessed of the power of keeping off evil spirits, and neutralizing the malignity of the evil eye. Paracelsus directed it to be placed around the necks of infants as a protective against convulsions, sorcery, and poisons. We still find coral necklaces encircling the necks of infants in evidence of the abiding faith of fond mothers and cautious nurses. In the West Indies the negroes wear strings of red coral as a guard against the mischievous influence of the fetish known as Obi or Obiism. In other cases we see necklaces of amber or of white bryony on the little ones as a preventive or remedy for inflamed eyes. In the old days it was a 454frequent custom to enclose the amulet in the shell of a hazel-nut as a preservative. May we not trace to that usage the modern fashion of stowing in an inside pocket a buckeye or horse-chestnut? Or to go further, the habit of carrying a potato for its alleged power of absorption in rheumatic conditions? Those who treasure the rattles of a snake, or a rabbit’s left hind foot, which is a favorite mascot, especially if the rabbit is killed at midnight in a country graveyard, may find prototypes three thousand years old. Among the German people may often be noticed a ring of brass on the middle finger, or a ring of steel on the little finger, worn, as they say, to prevent cramps.

In a recently published little volume entitled, “What They Say in New England,—a book of old signs, sayings, and folk-lore,” will be found a chapter devoted to this sort of absurdity. Half a dozen citations will serve as specimens. To keep off rheumatism, wear an eel-skin around the waist. To prevent cramps, wear an eel-skin around the ankle. Another preventive of rheumatism is to wear a red string around the neck. To prevent cramps in a child, tie a black silk cord around its neck. To avoid the itch, wear sulphur in a bag around the neck. To prevent fits, carry an onion in the pocket.

Out of the customs, practices, and ceremonies in the observance of the Feast of the Nativity, for hundreds of years, we have sifted and saved what is worth keeping. In the changes that have been wrought, the new Christmas is better than the old, better in itself, better for the time in which we live. It is not so picturesque, but it 455is imbued with more of the spirit of charity and fraternity, of the love that warms and the kindness that cheers, of thoughts and things that win us from ourselves to human fellowship, of peace on earth and good will to men. From hall to hovel, from childhood’s playthings to the touching pledges of later life, its passing moments are the brightest of the year. From the stately temple, with its “long-drawn aisle and fretted vault,” its “gules and or and azure on nave and chancel pane,” to the little meeting-house with its severe simplicity and lack of adornment alike, as

Reference is often made to Walter Scott as by far the best of the descriptive poets of the Old Christmas. Says he, in closing his lines in “Marmion,”—

But when it comes to delightful description of the later Christmas, our own Washington Irving is the Laureate. In the Sketch Book he shows in his admirable way how this kindliest of seasons is pervaded and irradiated with the brotherhood which is the essential spirit of Christianity. In its gifts, its symbols, its gracious influences, its blessings, and benedictions, he sees nothing doctrinal, or dogmatic, or theological, but only mouldings to newer forms of the old faith; only the message which leads men and women and children to 456step aside from their own paths of pleasantness and peace, and go out on a mission of love and mercy into a world which knows more of the darkness of adversity than of the sunshine of happiness. In a letter written by Charles Dickens to Irving, in 1841, it is apparent that Bracebridge Hall made a very strong impression upon him, and it was manifest afterwards that Irving’s sketches served as the prototype of the Christmas scenes at Dingley Dell in the Pickwick Papers, and the forerunner of a series of Christmas stories commencing with the Christmas Carol in prose. The elders who, years ago, when Mr. Dickens visited this country, heard him read with dramatic force the closing chapters of the Carol, detailing the softening influences which metamorphosed the miserly Scrooge into a benefactor, and lifted Bob Cratchit’s family with his crippled boy, Tiny Tim, out of the depths of depressing poverty, will never forget the pathos which he threw into the last line, the invocation of Tiny Tim, “God bless us, every one.” These stories, however, started a flood-tide of Christmas editions of daily papers, pictorial papers, class papers, and monthly magazines, to the point of wearisome superfluity. They contain nothing pertaining to the Christmas season, and in respect to such absence are like Thackeray’s “Christmas Books.” In the Kinkleburys, Thackeray himself says, “Christmas Books are so called because they are published at Christmas.” As to the bibliography of Christmas, with the embodiment of songs, hymns, carols, legends, stories, comedies, myths, sermons, customs and usages, its magnitude is such that a reviewer would hardly know where to begin or where to end.

Art has found no higher expression than in its perpetuation 457of the portraiture of the Madonna and the Child. The great masters who thus immortalized the trust committed to them, found no more inspiring subject than the Motherhood and the Childhood whose sacredness appeals to all hearts through the never-ending, still-beginning succession of the ages. As we gaze on these spiritual faces, with their transcendent beauty, their unclouded serenity, their heaven-reflected radiance, on the canvas of Raphael and Angelo and Guido and Murillo and Rubens and Titian and del Sarto and Carlo Dolce, we are reminded that though there was no room for the mother in the inn, she was exalted above all women, and though there was no cradle but a feeding-trough for the child, that manger, in the divinely-appointed time, was transformed into an everlasting throne.

Dr. Gustav Dalman, Professor of Theology in the University of Leipzig, one of the most distinguished Orientalists of Europe, in a recently published work begins by setting forth the reasons for believing that Jesus spoke the Galilean dialect of the Aramaic language, and then proceeds to discuss from this point of view the meaning of the utterances attributed to Jesus in the synoptic Gospels. The evidence for the primary hypothesis is of several kinds. Professor Dalman adduces, for example, the custom which in the second century after Christ was represented as very ancient, of translating into Aramaic the text of the Hebrew Pentateuch in the synagogues of the Hebraists of Palestine. By Hebraists the author desires to distinguish from the 458Hellenistic Jews who spoke Greek, those who spoke, not Hebrew, but Aramaic. Attention is next directed to the Aramaic title for classes of the people in Palestine, and for feasts—titles that are attested by Josephus and the New Testament. Thus the words for pharisee, priest, high priest, Passover, Pentecost, and Sabbath used by Josephus and by the authors of the New Testament, are not Hebrew, but Aramaic. Then, again, there are traditions dating from a period considerably antecedent to Christ that John Hyrcanus heard in the sanctuary a divine voice speaking in the Aramaic language, and that in the temple the legends on the tokens for the drink offerings and on the chests in which the contributions of the faithful were deposited were in Aramaic. Moreover, there are old official documents in the Aramaic language.

These include, first, the “Roll Concerning Fasts,” a catalogue of days on which fasting was forbidden, first compiled in the time of the rising against the Romans, 66–70 A.D., and, secondly, the Epistles of Gamaliel II. (about 110 A.D.) to the Jews of South Judea, Galilee, and Babylon. Both of these documents were destined for the Jewish people, and primarily, indeed, for those of Palestine. A like inference as to the use of Aramaic in Palestine may be drawn from the language of the public documents relating to purchase, lease-tenure, debt, conditional betrothal, refusal of marriage, marriage contract, divorce, and renunciation of levirate marriage. The Mishna gives the decisive formulæ of these documents, which were important for securing legal validity for the most part, though not always in Aramaic, thus implying that this was the language commonly in use. Cumulative testimony is furnished 459by the unquestioned adoption, in the time of Jesus, of the Aramaic characters in place of the old Hebrew in copies of the Bible text. The change of character naturally presupposes a change of language. Stress is laid by Professor Dalman on the facts that the Judaism of the second century of our era possessed the Bible text only in “Assyrian,” i.e., Aramaic handwriting, and that even the Alexandrian or Septuagint translation had been based upon Hebrew texts in this character. It has further been observed by students of the Talmud that the syntax and the vocabulary of the Hebrew of the Mishna proved themselves to be the creation of Jews who thought in Aramaic. We observe, finally, that it was customary in the first century of our era for writers to call the Aramaic “Hebrew.”

Josephus, indeed, showed himself quite capable of distinguishing the language and written character of the “Syrians” from those of the “Hebrews.” Nevertheless, between Hebrew and Aramaic words he makes no difference. The “Hebrew” in which Josephus addresses the people of Jerusalem—the incident is recounted in his history of the Jewish war against the Romans—is even called by him his paternal tongue, though in the circumstances nothing but Aramaic can have been used. Again, in the Johannine Gospel, the Aramaic terms Bethesda, Golgotha, and Rabbouni are called “Hebrew.” Aramaic, too, must be meant by the “Hebrew tongue” in which Paul spoke to the people of Jerusalem (Acts xxi., 40; xxii., 2), and in which Jesus spoke to Paul (Acts xxvi., 14). Hellenistai and Hebraioi were the names, according to Acts vi., 1, of the two parts of the Jewish people as divided by language. But, if it were possible to characterize 460Aramaic as Hebrew, it is clear that Aramaic was the every-day speech of the Jewish people in the first century of our era; in so far, at least, as it was not Greek.

In Professor Dalman’s opinion the facts adduced do not justify us in drawing a distinction between Judea and Galilee, as if Hebrew was at least partially a spoken language in the former region. That Aramaic had at least a distinct predominance in Judea may be inferred with certainty from the place names in Jerusalem and its environs. The author of this book can find no ground for the belief expressed by another Orientalist that Hebrew was the language of the mother of Jesus, inasmuch as she belonged to South Palestine.

There is even less ground for supposing that Hebrew was the vernacular in Galilee. During the rising of the Maccabees the Jewish population in Galilee was so inconsiderable that Simon, about 163 B.C., had no other means of protecting them from their ill-disposed neighbors than by transporting them to Judea. John Hyrcanus (B.C. 135–105) appears later to have conquered Galilee and to have forced its inhabitants into conformity to Judaism; but, under the circumstances, the Hebrew language was not to be looked for. What is true of Galilee in general is true of little Nazareth in particular, to which has been wrongly attributed an isolation from intercourse with the outer world. As a matter of fact, Nazareth had on the one side Sippori (Sepphoris), the then capital of Galilee, and on the other, in close proximity, the cities of Yapha and Kesaloth, and it lay on the important highway of commerce that led from Sepphoris to the plain of Megiddo and onward to Cæsarea. Dalman points out that the actual discourses of Jesus in no way give the impression 461that He had grown up in solitude and seclusion. It is merely true that He, like the Galileans generally, would have little contact with literary erudition. The fact implies that from this side he did not come into contact with the Hebrew language. The Aramaic was the mother tongue of the Galileans, as of the people of Gaulonitis; and, according to Josephus, natives of Syria were able to understand it. From all these considerations the conclusion is drawn that Jesus grew up speaking the Aramaic tongue, and that He would be obliged to speak Aramaic to His disciples and to the people in order to be understood. Of Him, least of all, who desired to preach the Gospel to the poor, or, in other words, to people that stood aloof from the pedagogic methods of the scribes, is it to be expected that He would have furnished His discourse with the superfluous and, to his hearers, perplexing embellishment of the Hebrew form.

The English royal family are frequently spoken of as Guelphs, just as the Russian imperial family are known as Romanoffs, the Portuguese as Braganzas, etc. Such statements are founded in error. Queen Victoria, for example, was originally Miss Azon von Este. She was descended, as were the other members of the House of Brunswick-Lüneburg and Hanover, from Azon, Margrave of Este. King Edward VII, the son of Prince Albert of Saxe-Cobourg, has naturally his father’s family name. Descended from the Wettins, a line founded in the 12th century, his actual name is Albert Edward Wettin.

PARALLEL PASSAGES — Shakespeare’s Repetitions — Lightning. — Children. — Calumny. — Boabdils. — Compulsion. — Effect of Ill News. — Resignation. — Allusion to an Old Proverb. — Prayer. — Early Hours. — Fortitude. — Posthumous Fame. — Mercy. — Madness. — The King’s Name. — Object of Imitation. — Woman. — “ Bad Epitaph and Ill Report. ” — Remembrance of Past Feats. — Perverted Reason. — Deceit. — Thereby Hangs a Tale. — DUO CHE INSIEME VANNO. — Dante.

One of the most elegant of literary recreations is that of tracing poetical or prose imitations and similitudes; and there are few men of letters who have not been in the habit of making parallel passages, or tracing imitation in the thousand shapes it assumes.—D’Israeli.

This thought was anticipated in “Cupid’s Whirligig,” a play by Edward Sharpham, first printed in 1607: “Man was made when Nature was but an apprentice, but woman when she was a skilful mistress of her art.”

So wrote Addison, in the well-known hymn. Young writes in the “Christian Triumph,”—

463These writers were contemporaries. Did the same thought occur to each independently, or did one borrow from the other?

In Dr. Johnson’s epitaph on Goldsmith, in Westminster Abbey, occurs the expression, “Nihil tetigit quod non ornavit.”

The Archbishop of Canterbury, in drawing a comparison between the eloquence of Cicero and that of Demosthenes, says, “He adorns everything he touches.”

Falstaff, in the Second Part of “King Henry IV.,” act i, scene 2, says, “I am not only wit in myself, but the cause that wit is in other men.”

If Plato may be believed, Socrates made use of a similar expression about two thousand years before Shakespeare was born. Speaking to Protagoras, Socrates says, “For who is there but you? who not only claim to be a good man, for many are this, and yet have not the power of making others good. Whereas you are not only good yourself, but also the cause of goodness in others.”—Jowett’s Translation.

464Time flies, my pretty one! These precious hours are very sweet to thee; make the most of them. Now, even now, as thou twinest that brown curl on that finger—see! it grows gray!

I will not argue the matter; time wastes too fast. Every letter I trace tells me with what rapidity Life follows my pen; the days and hours of it, more precious—my dear Jenny—than the rubies about thy neck, are flying over our heads like light clouds of a windy day, never to return more; everything presses on—whilst thou art twisting that lock,—see! it grows gray!

Sir, for a quart d’ecu^[5] he will sell the fee simple of his salvation, the inheritance of it, and cut the entail from all remainders.

Many witty authors compare the present time to an isthmus or narrow neck of land, that rises in the midst of an ocean, immeasurably diffused on either side of it.

The Rev. John Beecher, who may be remembered in connection with a criticism upon one of Lord Byron’s poems, was the author of this passage: “As ships meet at sea a moment together, when words of greeting must be spoken, and then away again in the darkness; so men meet and part in this world.”

Cowley, in his “Davideis,” says of the Messiah:

And Pope, in his “Essay on Criticism,” referring to the Grecian and Roman poets, says:

In the ballad of Lochinvar, in “Marmion,” are the following lines:

In Samuel Lover’s song, “Rory O’More,” we also find this:

In the Greek “Anthology” is an epigram by an unknown writer, which is thus translated:

Burns reproduces this thought in a song sent to his friend Thomson:

Douce, in his “Illustrations of Shakespeare,” quotes from Marlowe’s translation of Ovid’s “Art of Love:”

and says that from these lines of the “Ars Amatoria” Shakespeare took

Christopher Marlowe died in 1593, and the earliest quarto edition of Romeo and Juliet appeared in 1597.

Eve, in “Paradise Lost,” addressing Adam, says:

468Wesley echoes this couplet, hymn 214, in addressing Christ:

Cowley, in a paraphrase of one of Horace’s Epodes, says:

These lines appear in Pope’s “Windsor Forest” thus modified:

In Thomson’s “Seasons” we find in Winter the expression, “contiguous shade,” and in Summer the line,

Cowper, in “The Task,” has a line which he evidently owes to Thomson,

Churchill says in “The Farewell”:

Cowper, who admired Churchill’s poetry as strongly as he detested his principles, says in “The Task”:

469But several years before Churchill wrote “The Farewell,” the profligate Bolingbroke concluded a letter to Dean Swift as follows: “Dear Swift, with all thy faults I love thee entirely; make an effort and love me with all mine.”

There is a well-known anecdote of Marshal Blücher, who, on his progress through London, is recorded to have expressed his wonder and cupidity at the wealth of the metropolis in some such words as “Was für Plunder.” In Malcolm’s “Sketches of Persia” is the following:

Seeing my [Afghan] friend quite delighted with the contemplation of this rich scene [Calcutta], I asked him, with some exultation, what he thought of it. “A wonderful place to plunder,” was his reply.

The purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first and now, was and is to hold, as ’twere, the mirror up to nature.

True, said the knight, the ornaments of comedy ought not to be rich and real, but feigned and artificial, like the drama itself, which I would have thee respect, Sancho, and receive into favor, together with those who represent and compose it; for they are all instruments of great benefit to the commonwealth, holding, as it were, a looking-glass always before us, in which we see naturally delineated all the actions of life.

Pitiful enough were it, for all these wild utterances, to call our Diogenes wicked. Unprofitable servants as we all are, perhaps at no era of his life was he more decisively the Servant of Goodness, the Servant of God, than even now when doubting God’s existence.

I am not unmindful of the saying of an eminent Presbyterian, Dr. Norman Macleod, that many an opponent of dogma is nearer to God than many an orthodox believer; 471or of the words of Laertes on the dead Ophelia and the priest:

The life of a man of virtue and talent, who should die in his thirtieth year, is, with regard to his own feelings, longer than that of a miserable, priest-ridden slave who dreams out a century of dulness.

The most striking scene in “Ivanhoe” is where Rebecca, pursued by Front de Bœuf on the tower of the castle, threatens to throw herself from the battlement saying, that “the Jewish maiden would rather trust her 472soul with God than her honor to the Templar.” Sir David Dundas tells a story of a Scotch laird who, to escape a criminal indictment, disappeared in 1715. Thirty years afterwards, 1745, he returned, and was arrested and tried for his life. The prosecution relied on the evidence of an ex-bailiff of the laird, who had undertaken to identify him. After gazing at him, he told the judge that he was “verra like his maister,” but on looking at him “weel he doubted, indeed he felt sure that he was not his maister at all,” and as there were no other witnesses, the case broke down. The Presbyterian minister of the place vented his indignation on the witness in the strongest terms,—

“Where, you perjured villain, do you expect to go after death, lying to God as you have done to-day?”

“Weel, weel, meenister,” was the reply, “what you say may be a’ verra true, but you see I’d raither trust my soul with my Maker than my maister with thae fellows.”

In the altercation between Dr. Johnson and Beauclerk (April 16, 1779) as reported by Boswell, Beauclerk said:

“Mr. —— (Johnson’s friend Fitzherbert), who loved buttered muffins, but durst not eat them because they disagreed with his stomach, resolved to shoot himself; and then he ate three buttered muffins for breakfast before shooting himself, knowing that he should not be troubled with indigestion.”

In “Pickwick Papers,” chap, xiv, Sam Weller says:

“‘How many crumpets at a sittin’ do you think ‘ud kill me off at once?’ says the patient.

473“‘I don’t know,’ says the doctor.

“‘Do you think half a crown’s worth ‘ud do it?’ says the patient.

“‘I think it might,’ says the doctor.

“‘Three shillins’ worth ‘ud be sure to do it, I s’pose,’ says the patient.

“‘Certainly,’ says the doctor.

“‘Wery good,’ says the patient.

“‘Good night.’

“Next mornin’ he gets up, has a fire lit, orders in three shillins’ worth o’ crumpets, toasts ’em all, eats ’em all, and blows his brains out.”

Washington Irving’s “Pride of the Village,” in his “Sketch Book,” has for its backbone the pathetic story of a blasted life and a broken heart, which, it seems likely, may have afforded to Tennyson the suggestion for his exquisite May Queen, inasmuch as Irving’s “Pride of the Village” was also “Queen of the May,” “crowned with flowers and blushing and smiling in all the beautiful confusion of girlish diffidence and delight.” And then in a later scene we see her wasted and hectic. “She felt a conviction that she was hastening to the tomb, but looked forward to it as a place of rest. The silver cord that had bound her to existence was loosed, and there seemed to be no more pleasure under the sun.” The Laureate’s May Queen is touched by the sweetness “of all the land about and all the flowers that blow;” and the “Pride of the Village” would “totter to the window, where, propped up in her chair, it was her enjoyment to sit all day and look out upon the landscape.” The May Queen of the poet exults in the honeysuckle that “round the porch has woven its 474wavy bowers,” and she is anxious when she is gone little Effie should “train the rose-bush that she set about the parlor window,” and to Irving’s “Pride of the Village” “the soft air that stole in [through the lattice] brought with it the fragrance of the clustering honeysuckle which her own hands had trained round the window.” The May Queen reaches forward to view her grave “just beneath the hawthorne shade” and wills that Effie shall not come to see her till it be “growing green,” and in Irving’s sketch “evergreens had been planted about the grave of the village favorite, and osiers were bent over to keep the turf uninjured.”

The trapper had remained nearly motionless for an 475hour. His eyes alone had occasionally opened and shut. Suddenly, while musing on the remarkable position in which he was placed Middleton felt the hand which he held grasp his own with incredible power, and the old man, supported on either side by his friends, rose upright to his feet. For a moment he looked around him as if to invite all in presence to listen (the lingering remnant of human frailty), and then, with a fine military elevation of the head, and with a voice that might be heard in every part of that numerous assembly, he pronounced the word “Here.”

At the usual evening hour the chapel bell began to toll, and Thomas Newcome’s hands outside the bed feebly beat a tune, and just as the last bell struck, a peculiar sweet smile shone over his face, and he lifted up his head a little and quickly said, “Adsum,” and fell back. It was the word we used at school when names were called, and lo, he, whose heart was as that of a little child, had answered to his name, and stood in the presence of the Master.

In the Greek Anthology, likening Death to a healer of pain and sorrow is expressed in an epigram of Agathias:

I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country. Nathan Hale, “Last Words,” Sept., 1776.

The following paraphrase is from the German of Lessing:

Similar is the last stanza of Goldsmith’s “Elegy on the death of a Mad Dog” in the “Vicar of Wakefield:”

The Countess [Amy Robsart] stood in the midst of her apartment like a juvenile Pythoness, under the influence of the prophetic fury. The veins in her beautiful forehead started into swollen blue lines—her cheek and neck glowed like scarlet—her eyes were like those of an imprisoned eagle.

479Drayton, in one of his Elegies, says:

And the bard of Twickenham tells us

With hands clasped before him, and forefingers pressed against his lips, he travelled slowly with his eye along the great rows of shelved volumes on the walls, as though seeking temporary company in their familiar forms and titles.

Many another lonely man, unable to enjoy that strangely soothing companionship for the solitary, which nature gives in the murmuring and music of the woods, has found in his library a forest as tranquilizing to the fevered mind, and discovered between its unfading leaves the birds that make tenderest music for the soul.

Among the epigrams of Leonidas of Tarentum, in the Greek Anthology, is one which becomes especially interesting 480if we take into account the writer’s history, and bear in mind that he had experimental knowledge of exile, from having been carried away captive by Pyrrhus. Its subject is “Home, sweet home.”

No one can help comparing this with Goldsmith’s “Traveller”:

and with the even more familiar lines of the same poem, commencing with

The attention of Prof. Blackie and other literary and patriotic Scotchmen has been called to the following communication addressed by Mr. J. A. Neale to Notes and Queries: A somewhat extensive study of English literature has revealed to me many instances of imitation and plagiarism; but I have never met with a more remarkable example than this afforded by the following epitaph, published in an old edition of “Camden’s 481Remains,” and a poem by Burns entitled “The Joyful Widower.” I give the epitaph and the poem in full.

One, to show the good opinion he had of his wife’s soul departed, who in her lifetime was a notorious shrew, writes upon her this epitaph:

Hamlet. Be thou chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny.

Gonzago. I have great comfort from this fellow; methinks he hath no drowning mark upon him. If he be not born to be hanged, our case is miserable.

Sir Toby Belch. To be up after midnight, and to go to bed then, is early; so that to go to bed after midnight, is to go to bed betimes.

Benedick. Every one can master a grief but he that has it.

Benedick. If a man do not erect in this age his own tomb ere he dies, he shall live no longer in memory than the bell rings and the widow weeps.

Hamlet. There’s hope a great man’s memory may outlive his life half a year, but, by’r lady, he must build churches then, or else he shall suffer not thinking on.

Polonius. Though this be madness, yet there’s method in it.

King Richard. Is not the king’s name forty thousand names? Arm, arm, my name.

King Richard. Besides, the king’s name is a tower of strength, which they upon the adverse faction want.

In “Othello,” act iii, scene 1:

Clown.—O, thereby hangs a tail.

First Musician.—Whereby hangs a tale, sir?

In “Merry Wives of Windsor,” act i, scene 4, Mrs. Quickly remarks:

Well, thereby hangs a tale; good faith, it is such another Nan.

In “As You Like It,” act ii, scene 7, in the middle of Jaques’s first speech:

489And in the “Taming of the Shrew,” act iv, scene 1:

Grumio. First, know, my horse is tired; my master and mistress have fallen out.

Curtis. How?

Grumio. Out of their saddles into the dirt. And thereby hangs a tale.

In that collection of pleasant stories entitled “Count Lucanor,” whose composition enlivened the chivalric leisure of the Prince Don Juan Manuel, perhaps the pleasantest and certainly the quaintest, is that which tells how Don Alvar Fañez won his wife and how implicitly she obeyed him. The most noticeable feature in it, however, is the curious resemblance it bears to a scene in “The Taming of the Shrew,” as the reader will see from the following passages:

“Alvar Fañez was a very good man, and was much honored. He colonized the village of Ysca, where he resided, together with Count Pero Anzurez, who had with him three daughters.

One day Don Alvar Fañez paid an unexpected visit to the Count, who, nevertheless, expressed himself much gratified, and, after they had dined together, desired to be informed the cause of his unexpected visit. Don Alvar Fañez replied that he came to demand one of his daughters in marriage, and requested permission to see the three ladies, that he might speak to each of them separately, when he would select the one he should desire in marriage. Now the Count, feeling that God would bless that proposition, agreed to it.

Thereupon Don Alvar presents his case to the eldest 490daughter, premising that he is old, enfeebled by wounds, and with a bad habit of getting drunk and kicking up an awful row, which, however, he very sincerely regrets when he gets sober. The young lady, not greatly dazzled by this alluring prospect, refers him to her pa, to whom in the meantime she imparts with much fervor her resolution rather to die than marry the good Don. The same result occurs with the second daughter; when Vascuñana, the youngest of course, “thanking God very much that Don Alvar Fañez desired to marry her,” accepts him. Then Don Alvar in turn “thanks God very much that he had found a woman with such an understanding,” and after this mutual thanksgiving they get married and live happily, Vascuñana, as a good wife should, thoroughly believing in her husband, and letting him have his own way always. In this state of affairs, it happened one day when Don Alvar Fañez was at home, there came to visit him a nephew of his who was attached to the king’s household. After he had been in the house some days, he said to Don Alvar Fañez, “You are a good and accomplished man, but there is one fault I find with you.” His uncle desired to know what it was. To which the nephew replied, “It may be but a small fault, but it is this, you study your wife too much, and make her too great a mistress of you and your affairs.”

“As to that,” Don Alvar Fañez replied, “I will give you an answer in a few days.”

After this, Don Alvar Fañez made a journey on horseback to a distant part of the country, taking with him his nephew, where he remained some time, and then sent for his wife, Vascuñana, to meet him on the road as he returned. When they had journeyed some 491time without conversing, Don Alvar Fañez being in advance, they chanced to meet a large drove of cows, when Don Alvar said to his nephew, “See what famous mares we have in this country.”

The nephew, on hearing this, was surprised, and thought he said it in jest, and asked him how he could say so when they were but cows. At this his uncle feigned to be quite astonished, saying, “You are mistaken or have lost your wits, for they certainly are mares.” The nephew, seeing his uncle persist in what he had said, and that, too, with so much energy, became alarmed, and thought his uncle had lost his understanding. The dispute, however, continued in this manner until they met Doña Vascuñana, who was now seen on the road approaching them. No sooner did Don Alvar Fañez perceive his wife than he said to his nephew, “Here is my wife, Vascuñana, who will be able to settle our dispute.”

The nephew was glad of this opportunity, and no sooner did she meet them than he said, “Aunt, my uncle and I have a dispute. He says that those cows are mares; I say that they are cows. And we have so long contended this point, that he considers me as mad, while I think he is but little better. So we beg you will settle our dispute.”

Now, when Doña Vascuñana heard this, although they appeared to her to be cows, yet, as her husband had said to the contrary, and she knew that no one was better able than he to distinguish one from the other, and that he never erred, she, trusting entirely to his judgment, declared they were, beyond all doubt, mares, and not cows. “It grieves me much, nephew,” continued Vascuñana, “to hear you contest the point; 492and God knows, it is a great pity you have not better judgment, with all the advantages you have had in living in the king’s household, where you have been so long, than not to be able to distinguish mares from cows.” She then began to show how, both in their color and form, and in many other points, they were mares and not cows; and that what Don Alvar said was true. And so strongly did she affirm this that not only her nephew, but those who were with them, began to think they were themselves mistaken, until Don Alvar explains the reason and the nephew quaintly declares “himself much pleased” and acknowledges “that Don Alvar was not too considerate or loving.”

After this, Don Alvar Fañez and his nephew proceeded. They had not, however, journeyed long before they saw coming towards them a large drove of mares.

“Now, these,” said Don Alvar Fañez, “are cows, but those we have seen, which you call cows, were not so.”

When the nephew heard this, he exclaimed, “Uncle, for God’s sake! if what you say be true, the devil has brought me to this country; for certainly, if these are cows, then I have lost my senses, for in all parts of the world these are mares and not cows.” But Don Alvar persisted that he was right in saying they were cows and not mares. And thus they argued until Vascuñana came up to them, when they related to her all that had passed between them.

Now, although she thought her nephew right, yet, for the same reason as before, she said so much in support of her husband, and that, too, with such apparent truth and inward conviction, that the nephew and those with the mares began to think that their sight and judgment 493erred and that what Don Alvar had said was true; and so the debate ended.

Again Don Alvar and his nephew proceeded on their road homeward, and had proceeded at a considerable distance when they arrived at a river, on the banks of which were a number of mills. While their horses were drinking, Don Alvar remarked that river ran in the direction from which it flowed, and that the mills received their water from a contrary point. When the nephew heard this he thought to a certainty he himself had lost his senses, for, as he appeared to be wrong with respect to the mares and cows, so might he be in error here also, and the river might really run toward and not from its source. Nevertheless, he contended the point. When Vascuñana, on her arrival, found them again warmly disputing, she begged to know the cause. They then informed her; when, although, as before, it appeared to her that the nephew was right, yet she could not be persuaded that her husband was wrong, and so again supported his opinion; and this time with so many good arguments, that the nephew and those present felt that they must have been in error. And it remains a proverb to this day that, “If the husband affirms that the river runs up to its source, the good wife ought to believe it and say that it is true.”

Now, when the nephew heard all this, supposing that Don Alvar Fañez must be right, he began to feel very unhappy and to suspect that he was losing his senses, etc., etc.

Compare with this story “The Taming of the Shrew,” act iv., scene 5, A Public Road.

Enter Vincentio, in a travelling dress

The resemblance between the English dramatist and the Spanish story-teller is certainly odd, the more so because there is hardly any possibility that either was indebted to the other. Shakespeare’s play was first printed in 1664, and founded on an older play at that, “The Taming of ‘a’ Shrew,” while El “Conde Lucanor,” written in the fourteenth century, was not published till near the close of the sixteenth, in the folio of Seville, 1575. Both writers seem to have drawn their materials from a common stock. Indeed, the story in one form or other was probably in vogue through all the languages of Europe.

THE WIT OF THE EPIGRAMMATISTS — Jowett — Whewell — The Four Georges — The Ladies — Sarcastic — Gay With One Leg — “ Never Cut Themselves ” — Jenner’s Quacks — Loud Snoring — Bacon and Shakespeare — History — Fitness — Concerning Welsh Poets — Bulwer Lytton — Hic, Hæc, Hoc — Complimentary — A Crier — A Double Prize — War and Peace — Not Conclusive — Appropriate Petition — Expectancy — Keenness of Edge — Revenons à Nos Moutons — The Division of Labor — A Contrast — Lis et Victoria Mutua — The World, the Flesh, and the Devil — Horse-Breaker and Gray Mare — Washington — On Mackintosh — Ended in Smoke — Dryness — Debtor and Creditor — Why no Last Will and Testament — From the Dutch of Huijgens — Three Sportive Fishers — Ghosts — A Gamester’s Marriage — Changed Conditions — Distinction With a Difference — Better Late Than Never — None Missing — Four Kinds — To the Pretty Girl Who Lent Me a Candle — On “ Quodcunque Infundis Ascescit ” — Two Watering Places — Glen Urquhart — A Friend in Need — Retaliation — Not Distinguishable — A Bar Sinister — Communism — The Busy Bee — The Winning Team — Spirits

The waggish collegians at Oxford aimed their pleasantries right and left at the dons of Balliol. A well-remembered hit at Dr. Jowett was:

Another, aimed at Dr. “Whewell, Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, was:

The well known epigram on the Four Georges, the new Georgic, as Thackeray facetiously called it, commonly commenced with the lines:

But, as originally written by Walter Savage Landor, after hearing Thackeray’s lectures on the Georges, the epigram was in the following form:

The author of this epigram on Women prudently remains in concealment:

This has been capped by a later rhymester, as follows:

Written on a Fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge, named Sheepshanks, who had spelt the Satires of Juvenal as Satyrs:

The Marquis of Anglesey, who lost a leg at the battle of Waterloo in 1815, survived with an artificial substitute until 1854. Some amusing lines were written on his loss, which apparently did not affect him very much physically:

Jenner was much given to versification. On one occasion he sent a brace of ducks, with the following lines, to Lady Morgan:

Lady Morgan’s reply:

Sir Archibald Geikie, in his recently published “Scottish Reminiscences,” says that when he came to write down the many good stories and personal anecdotes which he had received by word of mouth he was surprised to find there was hardly a single one of them that had not already appeared in print. For example, the Scottish story about the man who snored so loud in church that “he waukened us a’,” he discovered in an epigram of the Restoration, about a sermon by South:

Froude in 1869, as Lord Rector of St. Andrew’s University, delivered an address on the demoralizing effect of the Church on history. Soon after Charles Kingsley, his brother-in-law, resigned the professorship of 500history at Cambridge, saying that no honest man could teach history any more. Thereupon these lines appeared, which are ascribed to Stubs, the Bishop of Oxford:

Suggested by the oratorical exploits of a lawyer in court who has a fluency of tongue without a counterpoise of brain, and, as a consequence, uttered more than he knew or the court could understand. Some one who listened to his ambitious eloquence in behalf of his client and witnessed the nervous gymnastics with which he scratched his back as he proceeded, wrote as follows:

W. S. Landor’s depreciation of the “Last Days of Pompeii,” written in 1869:

Frederika Bremer’s only attempt at poetry in English was written at Niagara, September 11, 1850. The Swedish novelist was there with James Russell Lowell and his wife. It was presented to Mr. Lowell with a gold pen. Here it is:

Sydney Smith sent to Mrs. John Murray (wife of the publisher) the following epigram on Professor Airy, of Cambridge, the great astronomer and mathematician, and his beautiful wife:

Dr. Donne’s punning epigram, remarks Leigh Hunt, is false in its conclusion:

No, because he may lean, or be held up.

The following verses were written upon the occasion of the conference of knighthood upon Sir Fielding Ould, the second master of the Dublin Lying-in Hospital:

A clergyman with a cough preached recently to an irritated congregation at St. Patrick’s, Dublin. The next morning’s post brought him the following communication:

In a discussion upon refractory rhyming in the London Athenæum, it was contended that there is no word that will rhyme with step. This ex cathedra decision evoked the following lines:

The following lines were written under a picture of Mount Vernon by an English minister, Rev. William Jay, many years ago:

This castigation, by Charles Lamb, of the author of “Vindiciæ Gallicæ,” followed his acceptance of an office which gave great offence to his friends, while his enemies branded him as a traitor to his principles. 507Mackintosh asked Dr. Parr how Quigley (an Irish priest who had been executed for high treason) could have been worse. Parr replied, “I’ll tell you, Jemmy; Quigley was an Irishman—he might have been a Scotchman; he was a priest—he might have been a lawyer; he was a traitor—he might have been an apostate.”

Upon the fly-leaf of an old book of sermons, an irreverent wag penned the following comment:

Many years ago a New England trader wrote this note to a dilatory debtor:

Froude once asked Charles Kingsley to come to him in Ireland, where there was better fishing than in Snowdon, North Wales, the region which Kingsley and Hughes had been thinking of visiting for sport. Kingsley sent Froude’s letter to Hughes with a postscript, of which this is a part:

In the visitors’ book at Drumnadrochit Inn, Glen Urquhart, John Bright left the following lines:

An empty-headed youth having caught a young lady off her guard on the first of April, she retorted in the following lines:

David Garrick, while performing in Sheffield, and observing that the cellar of a Quaker meeting-house was leased to a wine merchant, wrote the following:

ENIGMAS — Archbishop Whately’s — Charles James Fox’s — Hallam’s — Lord Macaulay’s — Dr. S. Weir Mitchell’s — Miss Seward’s — Palindromic Enigma — A Fugitive Sigh — Arithmetical Puzzle — What Becomes of the Pins? — Charades — Richard Porson’s Charades — Genealogical Puzzle — Marigold — Sir Hilary’s Prayer

A London journal offered a prize of £2 2s. for a reasonable solution of “What becomes of the pins!” The following reply captured the ducats:

“A surface ten miles square contains 310,000,000 square yards. Assume this as the area of London. To include the area of floor surface in houses, it may safely be trebled—say 1,000,000,000 square yards. If every 518five square yards contained one stray pin, who would be aware of it? Here, then, we have in London alone a receptacle for 200,000,000 of stray pins unperceived by anybody. The answer, therefore, is that thousands of millions of lost pins can be, and are, scattered about the land unnoticed. Half of these, being out of doors, are gradually destroyed by rust; the other half pass out of doors by degrees.”

Winthrop Mackworth Praed, who seems to have had a special fondness for charades, left nearly forty excellent ones in his published works, the solution of which, in every case but one, is clear and satisfactory. The exception is “Sir Hilary’s Prayer at Agincourt,” as follows:

When this appeared, several answers followed. That which was usually accepted was Good Night. Not 522satisfied with this, an English lady wrote to the Princess Mele, Praed’s daughter, at Naples, presuming that she would be able to speak with full knowledge of the subject. In her reply she said,—“As to my dear father’s charade, Sir Hilary, there is not the smallest question that the answer is Good Night—an unsatisfactory answer, as he himself felt, but that that was the word in his mind when he wrote the charade there cannot be the shadow of a doubt.”

Nevertheless, as the Lord Chancellor said, we doubt. A far better solution of the prayer is Aide, Dieu! Help, Lord! Aid is needed for the small band of young men who are to march out to fight at dawn; the dew (Dieu) will fall in a cold and quiet cloud on the bodies of the slain; and Adieu (with which Aide-Dieu will, even when spoken with no inordinate rapidity, be almost identical in sound) is expressive of the sorrowful parting.

A distinguished Boston clergyman, desiring to inform his mother of an interesting domestic event, sent her a postal card containing the following directions:

VOICES FROM GOD’S ACRE — The Blue and the Gray — George Eliot — Scott — Queen Elizabeth — Samuel Johnson — Beust — Elihu Yale — John Harvard — Cheyne — Huxley — André — Stevenson — Prince Christian — Condell and Heminge — Shakespeare’s Doctor — Little Ruth — Longfellow and Brooks — Grateful Memory — From Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage — Somebody’s Darling — Bismarck — A Husbandman

The following lines are from “A Dirge,” by Rev. George Croly, an English clergyman and voluminous writer:

From Plato:

In the last two lines of the “Elegy to the memory of an unfortunate lady”:

Pope apparently had in mind the friendly admonition of Horace to Torquatus (Carm. iv. 7):

524Over the grave of Dean Alford in the church-yard of St. Martin’s, Canterbury, is the following inscription, prepared by his own hand: “The inn of a traveller, on his way to the New Jerusalem.”

Daniel Webster’s epitaph, written by himself, at Marshfield, is as follows:

In Greenmount Cemetery, Baltimore, on the monument to the memory of the great tragedian, Junius Brutus Booth, is the following inscription:

Which may be translated: Thus I depart from life, as one leaves an inn, into the dusky realm of a most renowned leader; thence I go beyond the stars.

The inscription on the Soldiers’ Monument on the Common, in the City of Boston, is as follows:

To the men of Boston who died for their country on land and sea in the War which kept the Union whole, destroyed slavery, and maintained the Constitution, the grateful city has built this monument that their example may speak to coming generations.

It is hinted in the Boston newspapers that the inscription from the pen of President Eliot, of Harvard University, was suggested to him by the following lines sent to him by Professor James Russell Lowell:

The woman’s Confederate monument in Charleston, S. C., bears an inscription beginning thus:

This monument perpetuates the memory of those who, true to the instincts of their birth, faithful to the teachings of their fathers, constant in their love for the State, died in the performance of their duty; who have 526glorified a fallen cause by the simple manhood of their lives, the patient endurance of suffering and the heroism of death, and who in the dark hours of imprisonment, in the hopelessness of the hospital, in the short, sharp agony of the field, found support and consolation in the belief that at home they would not be forgotten.

The inscription on the granite obelisk which forms George Eliot’s gravestone, besides recording her pseudonym and real name, with the dates of birth and death, bears the first lines of her poem, commencing:

At Avignon, France, is the marble sarcophagus of John Stuart Mill and his wife, on the top of which is the following eulogy:

Her great and loving heart, her noble soul, her clear, powerful, original intellect, made her the guide and support, the instructor in wisdom, and example in goodness, as she was the delight of those who had the 527happiness to belong to her. As earnest for the public good as she was generous, and devoted to all who surrounded her, her influence has been felt in many of the greatest improvements of the age; and will be in those still to come. Were there even a few hearts and intellects like hers, this earth would soon become the hoped-for heaven.

Sir Walter Scott died at Abbotsford, September 21, 1832, aged 61 years, and was interred in the family burying-ground in Dryburgh Abbey on September 26, 1832.

Among the complimentary epitaphs which were composed for Queen Elizabeth was the following, as quoted in Camden’s Remaines:

528The great Tudor queen, who was not deficient in taste, would assuredly have been displeased with such “fustian stuff” as this. What she really wanted may be gathered from Bacon’s “Character of Queen Elizabeth,” where he says:

“She would often discourse about the inscription she had a mind should be on her tomb. She gave out that she was no lover of glory and pompous titles, but only desired her memory might be recorded in a line or two which should very briefly express her name, her virginity, the time of her reign, the reformation of religion, and her preservation of the peace.”

The Royal Commission on MSS. unearthed at Spencer House, St. James’s, London, the following epitaph by Soame Jenyns on Dr. Johnson:

Count Beust directed that above his tomb should be inscribed:

The founder of Yale University is buried in the church-yard of Wrexham, North Wales, ten miles from Hawarden. His tomb in front of the church door is inscribed with these lines:

In 1828 the Alumni of Harvard University erected a monument to the memory of its Founder at Charlestown, Mass. On the eastern face of the shaft, and looking towards the land of his birth and education, is this short inscription in his mother tongue:

On the twenty-sixth day of September, A. D. 1828, this stone was erected by the graduates of the University of Cambridge, in honor of its founder, who died at Charlestown on the twenty-sixth day of September, A. D. 1638.

On the opposite face of the shaft, and looking westward towards the walls of the University which bears his name, is another inscription, which, in consideration of his character as the founder of a seat of learning is expressed in the Latin tongue:

In piam et perpetuam memoriam Johannis Harvardii, annis fere ducentis post obitum ejus peractis, Academiæ quæ est Cantabrigiæ Nov-Anglorum alumni, ne diutius 530vir de litteris nostris optime meritus sine monumento quamvis humili jaceret, hunc lapidem ponendum curaverunt.

Dr. Cheyne, Physician-General to the Forces in Ireland, in his directions for interment after death, included the following epitaph:

Reader! the name, profession, and age of him whose body lies beneath are of little importance; but it may be of great importance to you to know that, by the grace of God, he was led to look to the Lord Jesus as the only Savior of sinners, and that this “looking unto Jesus” gave peace to his soul.

The followers of Professor Huxley and the Christian world at large read with interest these lines, which have been engraved upon his tomb:

When Dean Stanley was invited to send an inscription for the André Monument at Tappan, it was a delicate and difficult task to avoid wounding the sensitiveness of either country, and he showed good taste not only in the composition of the English inscription, but 531also in the selection of the Latin one. In the latter case, however, the Dean was more happy in what he omitted than in what he admitted. He selected this very appropriate verse from Virgil: “Sunt lacrimæ rerum, et mentem mortalia tangunt.” But the whole of the beautiful quotation stands (Æneid i, 461–2):

which Dr. Anthon translates: “Even here has praiseworthy conduct its own reward, (even here) are there tears for misfortunes, and human affairs exert a touching influence on the heart.” What a bitter sarcasm the verse would have breathed if it had been cut in the André monument!

The inscription on the tomb of Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson, the Scottish poet and novelist, who died at Apia, Samoa, on December 3, 1894, reads:

The grave of an Indian apostle, St. Acpinquid, is on a high hill at York, Me. He was converted and passed fifty years in preaching to the sixty-six Indian tribes of the country, and died on the 1st of May, 1662, at the age of ninety-four. His funeral was conducted with 532great pomp, and the Indians sacrificed 25 bucks, 67 does, 3 ermines, 22 buffaloes, 110 ferrets, 832 martins, 240 wolves, 82 wildcats, 482 foxes, 620 beavers, 500 fishes, 99 bears, 36 moose, 50 weasels, 400 otters, 520 raccoons, 112 rattlesnakes, 2 catamounts, 900 musquashes, 69 woodchucks, 1500 minks and 58 porcupines. His tombstone bears the inscription:

The cross erected over the grave of Prince Christian Victor in the Pretoria Cathedral burial-ground is one of early Irish design with kerb of granite, and the railing is of metal from old British guns. The inscription records that the Prince was a grandson of Queen Victoria, and on the three sides of the base are inscribed texts with the various campaigns of the Prince:

533The designs have been carried out from suggestions made by Princess Christian.

The epilogue to Dryden’s “Tyrannic Love,” intended to be spoken by Eleanor Gwyn, when she was to be carried off by the pall-bearers, closes as follows:

Thus we have the real character of the actress, and the character she represented in the play.

This inscription on a Connecticut tombstone: “Here lies the body of Jonathan Richardson, who never sacrificed his reason at the altar of Superstition’s god, and who never believed that Jonah swallowed a whale.”

An enthusiastic materialist put a headstone over the grave of his wife in a cemetery at Nievre, France, upon which there is the following inscription: “Deprived of all vitality, here lie the remains of the material that formed Madame Durand. No cards and no prayers.”

Hibernicisms, it seems, sometimes find their way into France. Upon a tombstone in the cemetery of Pagny-la-Violle may be read the following inscription: “To the memory of Claudine Menu, wife of Stephen Etienne Renard, died January 28th, 1855, aged 44 years, regretted by her four children, Anne, Pierre, François and Barbe, all dead before her.”

When “Tom” Corwin, disappointed and discouraged by the poor result of his mission to Mexico, was on the 534point of sailing for home he wrote to a cousin in Ohio, saying that he had accomplished all that he could, and when he got back to his country he should want something to do. He suggested that he had in youth some skill in imparting knowledge, and might teach a country school. But in case he should die before he arrived at home, he asked that no costly monument should be placed above him, and that a simple stone should bear only this inscription: “Thomas Corwin, born July 29, 1794; died ——. Dearly beloved by his family; universally despised by Democrats; useful in life only to knaves and pretended friends.”

The greatest smoker in Europe died at Rotterdam, and left behind him the most curious of wills. He expresses the wish in his last testament that all the smokers of the country be invited to attend his obsequies, and that they smoke while following in the funeral cortége. He directs that his body be placed in a coffin, which shall be lined with wood taken from old Havana cigar boxes. At the foot of his bier, tobacco, cigars, and matches are to be placed. And the epitaph which he requests shall be placed upon his tombstone is as follows:

In the city of Amsterdam, Holland, is an epitaph with words signifying in English “exactly” under a 535carving of a pair of slippers. The inscription is over the grave of a rich old man, who, believing that he would only live a certain number of years, divided his fortune into yearly instalments, determined to have a good time. He calculated about right, and when he was dying he paid all his debts and found that he had nothing left but a pair of slippers.

The Florenca Illustrated of Leopoldo del Migliore, a famous antiquarian, informs us that the first inventor of spectacles was Signor Salvino Armato, which is confirmed by the inscription on his tomb:

[Here lies Salvino Armato D’Armati of Florence, the inventor of spectacles. May God pardon his sins. The year 1317.]

In the church-yard of St. Mary the Virgin, Aldermanbury, are interred two of the personal friends and stage associates of Shakespeare, Henry Condell and John Heminge, to whom the world owes a debt for the loving trouble they took in collecting the works of the great bard and publishing them in book form. With a modesty somewhat uncommon in that age, they refused to be regarded as editors, but, in their own words, they “but collected (the plays) only to keep the memory of so worthy a friend alive, as was our Shakespeare, by the 536offer of his plays to your most noble patronage.” On the front of the granite monument of these two Elizabethan actors is a tablet with the following inscription:

“To the memory of John Heminge and Henry Condell, fellow actors and personal friends of Shakespeare. They lived many years in this parish and are buried here. To their disinterested affection the world owes all that it calls Shakespeare. They alone collected his dramatic writings regardless of pecuniary loss, and without the hope of any profit, gave them to the world. They thus merited the gratitude of mankind.”

On the left tablet is the following:

“The fame of Shakespeare rests on his incomparable dramas. There is no evidence that he ever intended to publish them, and his premature death in 1616 made this the interest of no one else. Heminge and Condell had been co-partners with him at the Globe Theatre, Southwark, and from the accumulated plays there of thirty-five years with great labor selected them. No men then living were so competent, having acted with him in them for many years, and well knowing his manuscripts. They were published in 1623 in folio, thus giving away their private rights therein. What they did was priceless, for the whole of his manuscripts, with almost all those of the dramas of the period, have perished.”

Under this heading the Allgemeine Wiener Medizinische Zeitung says that a gravestone in the church-yard of Fredericksburg bears an inscription which is thus translated:

537“Here lies Edward Heldon, a medical and surgical practitioner, the friend and companion of William Shakespeare, of Avon. He died after a short illness in the year of our Lord 1618, in the seventieth year of his age.”

In St. Stephen’s church-yard, Launceston, Cornwall, is an epitaph whose quaintness reminds us of the appeal in the inscription on the gravestone of Shakespeare, in the Stratford Church, though without its blessing and menace:

In Ickworth Church, Suffolk, is the following tribute to Lady Elizabeth Mansel:

In the cemetery at Staten Island: “In Loving Memory of Arthur Winter, Dear Child of William Winter and Elizabeth Campbell Winter.

Inscriptions from Mount Auburn Cemetery:

540Uhland’s beautiful epitaph on an infant was once pronounced by a critic in Blackwood to be untranslatable. The following version, attempted many years ago, is perhaps rather a paraphrase than a translation, and yet it follows pretty closely the words as well as the spirit of the original:

Better than this in spirit, by all that makes Christian faith and hope better than vague questioning, and fully equal to it in poetic merit, is the following by F. T. Palgrave:

Another infant epitaph is striking in its simplicity and very solemn in its teaching:

Of all the marbles that fill Westminster Abbey with the glory of great memories, says Dr. Oliver Wendell 541Holmes, not one speaks a language so eloquent as the bust of Longfellow. For it announces itself as a pledge of brotherhood recorded in the most sacred shrine of a great nation with which we have sometimes been at variance, but to whose home and race our affection must ever cling, so long as blood is thicker than water. The seemingly feeble link of a sentiment is often stronger than the adamantine chain of a treaty.

It is the province of literature, especially poetry, which deals with the sentiments common to humanity, to obliterate the geographical and political boundaries of nations, and make them one in feeling. The beautiful tribute of Englishmen to an American poet, giving him a place in their proudest mausoleum, by the side of their bravest, best, noblest, greatest, is a proof of friendship and esteem so genuine that it overleaps all the barriers of nationality.

To this tribute to Longfellow is now added a gracious memorial, by English people, of Phillips Brooks, in St. Margaret’s, Westminster, the parish church of the House of Commons. Dean Farrar, in speaking of the bishop’s unique personality, said he was “of all modern ecclesiastics the most famous.” The memorial window, remarkable for its highly artistic features, presents several impressive scenes, with texts representing the joyful, cheerful side of Christianity. Underneath are the words, “In Memory of Phillips Brooks, D.D., Bishop of Massachusetts, honored and beloved, A. D. 1894,” and again, below this, is a quatrain in Latin elegiacs, written by the late Dr. Benson, formerly Archbishop of Canterbury:

Thus freely Englished by the son of the writer:

Tennyson’s epitaph on Sir John Franklin, the Arctic explorer, in Westminster Abbey:

Fixed in the wall of Freshwater Church as a memorial to Lionel Tennyson is a marble tablet on which these lines are inscribed:

The signature “A. T.” is not needed to show whose was the pen that traced them.

543Sir Vincent Eyre, a retired Major-General of the Indian army, found the grave and tombstone of Keats, the poet, who died in Rome in 1821, and who was buried in the old cemetery for English Protestants, wholly neglected. The inscription on the stone: “Here lies one whose name was writ in water,” was almost illegible from dirt and decay. He made a collection, repaired the grave, cleaned the tombstone, and placed a medallion of Keats on the wall near the grave, with the following acrostic:

Longfellow on Bayard Taylor:

544Among the shortest epitaphs are “Resurgam,” “Miserrimus,” and Shelley’s “Cor cordium;” and, in a very different spirit, such as Thorpe’s Corpse, Finis Maginnis. A military epitaph on the tomb of a Captain in the cemetery of Montparnasse:

In the Witchurch graveyard, Dorsetshire, is this concatenation of names:

Arabella Jennerenna Raqustenna Amabel Grunter, daughter of John Grunter.

In Axminster church-yard:

Anna Maria Matilda Sophia Johnson Thompson Kettelby Rundell.

It is related of the poet Uhland that the King of Prussia offered him the Order Pour le Mérite, with flattering expressions of royal regard. Uhland, however, declined to accept it. While he was explaining to his wife the reason which moved him to refuse the distinction, there was a knock at the door. A working-class girl from the neighborhood entered, and presenting Uhland with a bunch of violets, said, “This is an offering from my mother.” “Your mother, child?” replied the poet; “I thought she died last autumn.” “That is true, Herr Uhland,” said the girl, “and I begged you at the time to make a little verse for her grave, and you sent me a beautiful poem. These are the first violets which have bloomed on mother’s grave; I have plucked them, and I like to think that she sends them 545to you with her greetings.” The poet’s eyes moistened as he took the posy, and putting it in his button-hole he said to his wife, “There, dear woman, is not that an order more valuable than any King can give?”

Over a sarcophagus in an English church are two winged angels, in attitude as if just descended from heaven, and holding by either side a scroll upon which is written in golden letters the following legend:

“In holiness and purity live, and in a high enlightened love, do ye to others as we would that they should do unto you. Peace be with you. Amen.”

The first and last stanzas of an exquisite little poem by Miss Marie Lacoste, of Savannah, Georgia, commemorating an incident unfortunately too common in both armies during the sectional conflict, are as follows:

“I have only one ambition left, I should like to have a good epitaph.”

In answer to a suggestion of the Pall Mall Gazette to meet Prince Bismarck’s wish, the following epitaphs, among others, were received and published:

The following lines on an agriculturist were written by Canada’s lyrist, C. G. D. Roberts:

The Vienna Freie Fresse, found in Austrian cemeteries some curious epitaphs, translated as follows:

On a carter killed in a runaway:

“The road to eternity is not long. He started at 7 o’clock and arrived at 8.”

On a man of letters:

“Here lies the best man in the world. He deprived himself of sleep to bestow it upon others.”

One tomb bears a bas-relief depicting a peasant impaled on the horns of a bull. Below is the inscription:

“It was a bull’s horn that sent me to Heaven. I died in a moment, leaving wife and child. Oh, bull, bull! To think that I owe to you everlasting repose!

This does not speak well for the married life of F. K.:

“Here rests in God F. K., who lived 26 years as a man and 37 years as a husband.”

THE HONEYED PHRASE OF COMPLIMENT

As the beautiful Duchess of Devonshire was one day stepping out of her carriage, a coal-heaver, who was accidentally standing by, and was about to regale himself with his accustomed whiff of tobacco, caught a glance of her countenance, and instantly exclaimed: “Love and bless you, my lady, let me light my pipe in your eyes.” The duchess was so delighted with this compliment that she frequently afterwards checked the strain of adulation, which was so constantly offered to her charms, by saying, “Oh, after the coal-heaver’s compliment, all others are insipid.”

Another compliment, true and genuine, was paid by a sailor, who was sent by his captain to carry a letter to the lady of his love. The sailor, having delivered his missive, stood gazing in silent admiration upon the face of the lady, for she was very beautiful.

“Well, my good man, for what do you wait? There is no answer to be returned.”

“Lady,” the sailor replied, with becoming deference, “I would like to know your name.”

“Did you not see it on the letter?”

“Pardon, lady, I never learned to read. Mine has been a hard, rough life.”

“And for what reason, my good man, would you like to know my name?”

“Because,” answered the old tar, looking honestly 551up, “in a storm at sea, with danger or death before me, I would like to call the name of the brightest thing I’d ever seen in my life. There’d be sunshine in it, even in the thick darkness.”

Tom Hood wrote to his wife: “I never was anything till I knew you—and I have been better, happier, and a more prosperous man ever since. Lay that truth by in lavender, and remind me of it when I fail. I am writing fondly and warmly; but not without good cause. First, your own affectionate letter, lately received; next, the remembrance of our dear children, pledges of our dear old familiar love; then a delicious impulse to pour out the overflowing of my heart into yours; and last, not least, the knowledge that your dear eyes will read what my hands are now writing. Perhaps there is an afterthought that, whatever may befall me, the wife of my bosom will have this acknowledgment of her tenderness, worth, and excellence, of all that is wifely or womanly, from my pen.”

Samuel Rogers once told Dean Stanley that when he was a boy he remembered being present at Sir Joshua Reynolds’s last lecture, and at the end of the lecture he saw Mr. Burke go up to Sir Joshua, and on that solemn occasion quote the lines from “Paradise Lost”:—

Among the candidates for the St. Louis Post Office was Miss Phebe Cozzens. During a call upon President Hayes a day or two after his inauguration, she told him 552that General Grant, when he had so much trouble to find a suitable man to make Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, assured her that if the Senate refused to confirm Judge Waite, he would nominate her. President Hayes replied that she certainly would have made a most charming Chief Justice, and that if she had held the office when he took the oath he should have been tempted to kiss her instead of the Bible.

Whittier was so well pleased at the manner in which Lizzie Barton Fuller rendered some of his poems at a public meeting at Amesbury, Massachusetts, that he wrote her the following grateful acknowledgment:

Among the tributes to Rev. James Freeman Clarke, on the occasion of the seventieth anniversary of his birth, in Boston, were the following lines in a poem read by Mrs. Julia Ward Howe:

One of the South American representatives at the St. Louis Louisiana Purchase Exposition, Señor Zotoza, paid the following compliment to the women of the United States:

“Among modern women none take a higher rank; and, indeed, justice compels me to say the American woman stands at the very head of her sex for her virtues, for her independence, her individuality, and for all those qualities which make the equal of man in intelligence and force of character, and the superior in every other quality. To her, with her virtues, no less than to the opposite sex, do the United States owe that freedom and prosperity which are the admiration and wonder of all nations.”

THE MAZES OF OBSCURITY

Two young lawyers had a difference as to the meaning of an obscure passage in the “Christian Year,” and resolved to appeal to the author. Mr. Keble wrote back that neither had hit upon the right interpretation, but he really couldn’t now say exactly what he meant himself.

A story is told of Jacob Boehme, the cobbler, famous for his profound philosophical works. On his death-bed his disciples came to him, eager to obtain explanations of obscure passages in his writings before he was taken away. One passage puzzled him, and he said: “My children, when I wrote that I understood its meaning, and no doubt the omniscient God did. He may still remember it, but I have forgotten.”

Some of Klopstock’s admirers made a journey from Gottingen to Hamburg to ask him to explain a difficult passage in his works. Klopstock received them graciously, read the passage, and said: “I cannot recollect what I meant when I wrote it, but remember it was the finest thing I ever wrote, and you cannot do better than devote your lives to the discovery of its meaning.”

Robert Browning was similarly cornered more than once, to his own confusion as well as to the discomfiture of his worshippers.

In the line of “advanced thought,” a Boston evening paper published the following advertisement:

555“A lady of Emersonian thought and sentiment would delight to assist as far as is possible, unjoyous human lives through intuitional and other suggestions, as also by importations of that healthful and invigorating life which nature and the soul ever offer.”

It is not ungracious to say that a large majority of our citizens fail to comprehend what the fair lady is driving at. “Emersonian thought” is good. Ralph Waldo Emerson himself was interviewed on the subject, but he could not throw any light on the mysterious object of the advertiser. Emerson says there are no doubt not a few “unjoyous human lives,” but he is not aware that any application of his usual style of diction to such mortals could add any happiness to them, for the reason that the “unjoyous” souls might not be able to comprehend the meaning of his language.

Ogilvie, in his “Philosophical Essays,” gives some definitions, of which the following is a specimen:

“A coincidence between the association of ideas, and the order or succession of events or phenomena, according to the relation of cause and effect, and in whatever is subsidiary, or necessary to realize, approximate and extend such coincidence; understanding by the relation of cause and effect, that order or succession, the discovery or development of which empowers an intelligent being, by means of one event or phenomenon, or by a series of given events or phenomena, to anticipate the recurrence of another event or phenomenon, or of a required series of events or phenomena, and to summon them into existence, and employ their instrumentality in the gratification of his wishes, or in the accomplishment of his purposes.”

556The following passage is taken at random from Thomas Carlyle’s “Sartor Resartus”:

“Gullible, by fit apparatus, all Publics are; and gulled with the most surprising profit. Towards anything like a Statistics of Imposture, indeed, little as yet has been done; with a strange indifference, our Economists, nigh buried under tables for minor Branches of Industry, have altogether overlooked the grand allovertopping Hypocrisy Branch; as if our whole arts of Puppery, of Quackery, Priestcraft, Kingcraft, and the innumerable other crafts of that genus, had not ranked in productive industry at all! Can anyone, for example, so much as say, what moneys in literature and shoeblacking are realized by actual Instruction and actual jet Polish; what by fictitious persuasive Proclamation of such; specifying in distinct items the distributions, circulations, disbursements, incoming of said moneys, with the smallest approach to accuracy? But to ask, How far, in all the several infinitely complected departments of social business, in government, education, in manual, commercial, intellectual fabrication of every sort, man’s Want is supplied by true Ware; how far by the mere Appearance of true Ware:—in other words, To what extent, by what methods, with what effects, in various times and countries, Deception takes the place and wages of Performance; here truly is an Injury big with results for the future time, but to which hitherto only the vaguest answer can be given. If for the present, in Europe, we estimate the ratio of Ware to appearance of Ware so high even as at One to a Hundred (which considering the Wages of a Pope, Russian Autocrat, or English game preserver, is probably not 557far from the mark),—what almost prodigious saving may there be anticipated as the Statistics of Imposture advances, and so the manufacturing of shams (that of Realities rising into clearer and clearer distinction therefrom) gradually declines, and at length becomes all but wholly unnecessary!”

The characteristic feature of the paraphrase is verbosity. The professed design of the paraphrast is to say in many words what his text expresses in few; accordingly all the writers of this class must be at pains to provide themselves with sufficient stock of synonyms, epithets, expletives, circumlocution, and tautologies, which are, in fact, the necessary implements of their craft. The following will serve as an example. In Matthew vii, 24, 25, the words of Jesus Christ are: “Therefore, whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him to a wise man, who built his house upon a rock; and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house, and it fell not; for it was founded upon a rock.” Now let us hear the paraphrast, Adam Clarke: “Wherefore he that shall not only hear and receive these my instructions, but also remember, and consider, and practice, and live according to them, such a man may be compared to one that builds his house upon a rock; for as a house founded upon a rock stands unshaken and firm against all the assaults of rains, and floods, and storms, so the man who, in his life and conversation, actually practices and obeys my instructions, will firmly resist all the temptations of the devil, the allurements of pleasure, and the terrors of persecution, and shall be able to stand in the day of judgment, and be rewarded of God.” Commenting 558on this verbosity, Dr. Campbell, of Aberdeen, says: “It would be difficult to point out a single advantage which this wordy, not to say flatulent, interpretation has of the text. Is it more perspicuous? It is much less so; although it is the chief, if not the sole end of this manner of writing, to remove everything that can darken the passage paraphrased, and to render the sense as clear as possible. A deficiency of words is often the cause of obscurity, but this evil may also be the effect of exuberance. By a multiplicity of words the sentiment is not set off and accommodated, but like David equipped in Saul’s armor, it is encumbered and oppressed.”

Mr. Ruskin gives an answer to the question often asked as to the meaning of the title of his pamphlets that is just about as hazy and hard to understand as the pamphlets themselves. With regard to the Fors Clavigera, for example, he says: “That title means many things, and is in Latin because I could not have given an English one that meant so many. ‘Fors’ is the best part of three good English words—force, fortitude, and fortune.... ‘Clavigera’ may mean either club bearer, key bearer, or nail bearer.... ‘Fors,’ the club bearer, means the strength of Hercules, or of deed; ‘fors,’ the key bearer, means the strength of Ulysses, or of patience; ‘fors,’ the nail bearer, means the strength of Lycurgus, or of law. Briefly, the first ‘fors’ is courage, the second patience, the third fortune.”

In 1880 Dr. Greenhill, of Hastings, England, wrote to Cardinal Newman, asking him to explain the meaning of the couplet in “Lead, Kindly Light”:

To this request the following characteristic reply was received:

“You flatter me by your question, but I think it was Keble who, when asked in his own case, answered that poets were not bound to be critics, or to give a sense to what they had written; and, though I am not, like him, a poet, at least, I may plead that I am not bound to remember my own meaning, whatever it was, at the end of fifty years. Anyhow, there must be a statute of limitations for writers of verse, or it would be quite a tyranny if, in an art which is the expression, not of truth but of imagination and sentiment, one were obliged to be ready for examination on the transient state of mind which came upon one when homesick or seasick, or any other way sensitive or excited. Yours most truly,

One of the most remarkable of the Oxford sermons of the famous ecclesiastic quoted in the foregoing paragraph, John Henry (afterwards cardinal) Newman, entitled, “On the Development of Christian Doctrine,” explains how science teaches that the earth goes round the sun, and how Scripture teaches that the sun goes round the earth, and it ends by advising the discreet believer to accept both.

IDEAL PHYSICAL PROPORTIONS — The Perfect Woman, Nobly Planned — Grecian and American Standards — The Venus de Medici a Questionable Type

Using the head-length as a unit of measurement, a prominent portrait painter tabulates as follows the proportions of a perfectly formed woman:

A woman should measure in height 5 feet 5 inches.

Eight heads is the proper height,—that is, the head measured from the top of the forehead to the tip of the chin.

From shoulder to shoulder she should measure 2 of her heads.

Her waist should measure 1½ heads.

Her hips should be twice as broad as the length of her head.

Under the arms the bust measurement should be 34 inches; outside the arms, 42 inches.

Upper arm should be 12 inches long; the forearm, 9 inches long.

A more reliable authority, Dr. George McClellan, in his splendid quarto, “Anatomy in its Relation to Art,” with due regard to the mean or average of the anthropometric scale, makes the height 7½ heads; the width between the shoulders equal to the width between the hips, and each equal to the length of 1¾ heads.

The measurements of “the statue that enchants the world,” the Venus de Medici, are: Height, 63 inches; breadth of neck, 4 inches; breadth of shoulders, 16 inches; waist, 9½ inches; hips, 13 inches.

561Professor Gottfried Schadow of the Royal Academy of Arts, in Berlin, gives in his figure of an artistically formed woman, the following measurements: Height, 63½ inches; breadth of neck, 3¾ inches; shoulders, 15 inches; waist 9 inches; hips, 13½ inches.

Professor Sargeant, with several thousand tabulated life measurements in hand, produced a composite figure of the young American girl with these measurements: Height, 63½ inches; breadth of neck, 3.8 inches; girth of neck, 12.1 inches; breadth of shoulders, 14.7 inches; breadth of waist, 8.6 inches; girth of waist, 24.6 inches; breadth of hips, 13.1 inches; girth of hips, 35.4 inches; girth of calf, 13.3 inches; girth of upper arm, 10.1 inches; girth of thigh, 21.4 inches, and forearm, 9.2 inches.

Miss Anna Wood has given measurements closely similar to those of Professor Sargeant, in her composite figure of the Wellesley College girl, being averaged from the measurements of over 2,000 young women.

Given the height, proportion, and weight of an average physique for the man and woman, what should be the attitude or posture of such an individual, especially when standing? By posture is meant a position of equilibrium of the body which can be maintained for some time, such as standing, sitting, or lying.

For the maintenance of the erect posture the following conditions must be realized: (1) The corresponding halves of the body must be in the same anatomical relation; (2) the centre of gravity of the whole body must fall just in front of the last lumbar vertebra. That the first of these two conditions may be realized there must be a well-developed and symmetrical skeleton and a corresponding symmetrical development of the muscles 562on the two sides of the body. That the second condition may be realized, there must be such a development of the extensor muscles on the back of the body as will be sufficient to antagonize the flexor muscles on the front of the body.

These conditions are not always realized, and hence certain physical defects are observable, such as obliquity of the head, elevation or depression of the shoulder, curvature of the spine, and so forth.

An old Spanish writer said that “a woman is quite perfect and absolute in beauty if she has thirty good points.” Here they are:

Three things white—the skin, the teeth, the hands.

Three black—the eyes, the eyebrows, the eyelashes.

Three red—the lips, the cheeks, the nails.

Three long—the body, the hair, the hands.

Three short—the teeth, the ears, the feet.

Three broad—the chest, the brow, the space between the eyebrows.

Three narrow—the mouth, the waist, the instep.

Three large—the arm, the loin, the limb.

Three fine—the fingers, the hair, the lips.

Three small—the bust, the nose, the head.

What are the measurements of the physically perfect man? Opinions differ. Ralph Rose, a young athlete from the University of Michigan, has been brought forward and presented to critical inspection as a fair type of the perfect athlete, according to the practical American anthropometric system of averages, and therefore it may be of interest to compare him with 563the ideal of youthful strength and beauty of classic art, as shown in the statue of the Apollo Belvedere. A glance at the subjoined table where the measurements of young Rose are set over against those of a model of the Apollo of like height—that is, 77 inches, or 6 feet 5 inches—shows how far the college chart standard differs from the ideal of the Greek artist.

The measurements of the Apollo Belvedere’s limbs correspond in a general way with those of the American athlete, but in some particulars Rose falls somewhat short of the Greek divinity. Rose’s shoulders are 4 inches narrower, his chest 5 inches less from side to side and 1.3 inches less through. His neck, too, measures nearly an inch less around.

This shows that Rose’s figure and development are far from the Greek ideal. He is not so clean cut. His shoulders are much narrower and his waist larger. His chest shows larger to the tape, but this is due to the big 564breast and shoulder muscles that enable him to throw the weights. If the Greek god could put off his marble solidity and blow on a lung tester he would reveal far greater lung capacity than could the young American. The measurements from breastbone to backbone and from side rib to side rib tell the true story of chest capacity.

This famous statue, when found in the seventeenth century in the Villa of Hadrian, near Tivoli, was broken into eleven pieces; only the hands and a portion of the arms were wanting. It was taken to Florence by Cosmo de Medici, and placed in the tribune of the Uffizi.

Lübke, in his “History of Art,” says: “The goddess displays the lineaments of her shapely form to the eye completely nude, yet not in naïve self-forgetfulness, or in the sublime abandon of conquest, but with conscious premeditation; not without a certain shame-faced coyness which is expressed in the position of the arms, with their effort at concealment of the bosom and thighs, and in the coy turning of the head to one side. With all the delicacy and perfection of artistic finish, with all the noble rhythmical proportion of the limbs, this trait, which betrays the calculating coquette, has but a cold effect.”

Nathaniel Hawthorne says: “She is very beautiful, very satisfactory, and has a fresh and new charm about her, unreached by any cast or copy. I felt a kind of tenderness for her—an affection, not as if she were a woman, but all womanhood in one. Her modest attitude—which, 565before I saw her, I had not liked, deeming it might be an artificial shame—is partly what unmakes her as a heathen goddess, and softens her into woman. There is a slight degree of alarm, too, in her face; not that she really thinks that anybody is looking at her; yet the idea has flitted through her mind and startled her a little. Her face is so beautiful and so intellectual that it is not dazzled out of sight by her form. The world has not grown weary of her in all these ages, and mortal man may look on her with new delight from infancy to old age.”

If anything is safe in this iconoclastic age it might be supposed to be such reputation for beauty and grace. Connoisseurs of all nations have joined in doing homage to the ancient sculptor’s skill. How many visitors to the Uffizi Gallery in Florence have stood, Murray or Appleton in hand, gazing at the undraped figure without a thought of questioning these learned persons! But of late years there have been sceptics daring enough to class this with the Apollo Belvedere as a sample of ancient art that has been “monstrously overrated,” and now comes no less an authority than Holman Hunt to assure us that the Venus de Medici, to use a popular phrase, “won’t do.” There is a little anecdote attaching to this expression of opinion.

Some years ago, at the house of Sir Richard Owen, the great naturalist, Mr. Hunt met that professor of sanitary science, the late Sir Edwin Chadwick, who began a conversation thus: “As a Commissioner of Health, I must profess myself altogether opposed to the artistic theory of beauty. There is the Venus de Medici, which you artists regard as giving the perfect type of female form. I should require that a typical 566statue with such pretensions should bear evidence of perfect power of life, with steady prospect of health and signs of mental vigor; but she has neither. Her chest is narrow, indicating unrobust lungs, her limbs are without evidence of due training of muscles, her shoulders are not well braced up, and her cranium, and her face, too, are deficient in all traits of intellect. She would be a miserable mistress of a house and a contemptible mother.” But the listener assured the sage critic that he had made a most artistic criticism of the statue, and that his auditor would join in every word as to his standard of requirements. Mr. Hunt was aware, he said, that he was talking heresy to the mass of persons who accepted the traditional jargon of the cognoscenti on trust, but in his opinion “the work belongs to the decadence of Roman virtue and vitality, and its merit lies alone in the rendering of a voluptuous being without mind or soul.” If no authorities of equal weight will stand forth in defence of this marble lady, it is to be feared that the famous Venus de Medici will soon be ranked among impostors. The strange part of the matter is that it has taken more than two hundred years to find her out.

FAMOUS BEAUTIES — Cleopatra — Phryne — Isabella of Castile — Diana of Poitiers — Ninon de L’Enclos — Mary Stuart — Pompadour — Eugénie

What was her inner character? A voluptuous woman of the East, say the Romans, eager to enchain any master of a Roman army by the foulest arts; the Roman oligarchy not only hated but dreaded Cleopatra. To them she was the representative of that “regal” sway, that rule by volition instead of by traditional order, which, with their statesmanlike instinct, they saw the triumphant aristocrat whom their system tended to produce would ultimately desire. They cursed her as the greatest of Asiatic harlots, whereas she was more of a Greek, and much more like Mary Stuart as her enemies have painted her, a woman unscrupulous in gratifying her fancies, careless even of murder when needful—Cleopatra murdered her brother-husband, just as Mary murdered her cousin-husband—but who used her charms chiefly as instruments to attain her ends, which were, first of all, the empire of the East, which her ancestors had striven to acquire—and very nearly acquired. She always selected as a lover the head of the invading Roman army, and always used him to help her in founding, as she hoped, the empire of the East. Her attractive power was probably not her beauty. Her coins do not reveal a beautiful woman, but a broad-browed, thoughtful queen; and Plutarch, in describing 568her, evidently speaks on the authority of men whose fathers had studied her face. He says,—

“Her actual beauty, it is said, was not in itself so remarkable that none could be compared with her, or that no one could see her without being struck by it, but the contact of her presence, if you lived with her, was irresistible: the attraction of her person, joining with the charm of her conversation and the character that attended all she said or did, was something bewitching. It was a pleasure merely to hear the sound of her voice, with which, like an instrument of many strings, she could pass from one language to another; so that there were few of the barbarian nations that she answered by an interpreter; in most of them she spoke herself, as to the Ethiopians, Troglodytes, Hebrews, Arabians, Syrians, Medes, Parthians and many others, whose language she had learned.”

This Athenian hetæra was a creature of surpassing physical perfection. She acquired so much wealth by her charms that she offered to rebuild the walls of Thebes if she might put on them this inscription: “Alexander destroyed them, but Phryne rebuilt them.” Apelles’ celebrated picture of Venus Anadyomene was from Phryne, who entered the sea with hair dishevelled for a model. She is shown rising from the sea, and wringing the water from her hair with her hands. The Cnidian Venus of Praxiteles was also taken from the same model. Among his most celebrated works the Cnidian Aphrodite stands first, as one of the most famous art creations of antiquity. “The old authors,” says 569Lübke, “are filled with its fame; and they relate that the Bithynian king, Nicomedes, offered the people of Cnidos the payment of their whole state debt in exchange for this work. The artist had represented the goddess entirely nude, but had modified this bold innovation by making her left hand about to take up a garment, as though she had just emerged from the bath, while with her right she modestly shielded her person. The quiet of her posture was enlivened by a delicate sense of life, which gave to the outlines of the beautiful form a pleasant look of animation: the glance of the eyes had that liquid, melting expression, which, far removed from the mere craving of desire, might best convey the tender longing of a goddess of love. However numerous may be the copies of this famous statue that have come down to us, they can, at best, only convey to us the outward characteristics of its attitude, not the exquisite purity of the work of Praxiteles himself.”

William W. Story’s beautiful lines on Praxiteles and Phryne are well worth quoting here:

Irving says in his “Life of Columbus”: “Contemporary writers have been enthusiastic in their descriptions of Isabella, but time has sanctioned their eulogies. She is one of the purest and most beautiful characters in history. She was well-formed, of middle size, with great dignity and gracefulness of deportment, and a mingled gravity of sweetness of demeanor. Her complexion was fair, her hair auburn; her eyes were of a clear blue, with a benign expression; and there was a singular modesty in her countenance, gracing, as it did, a wonderful firmness of purpose and earnestness of spirit. Though strongly attached to her husband, and studious of his fame, yet she always maintained her distinct rights as an allied prince. She exceeded in beauty, in personal dignity, in acuteness of genius, and in grandeur of soul. Combining the active and resolute qualities of man with the softer charities of woman, she mingled in the warlike councils of her husband, engaged personally in his enterprises, and in some instances, surpassed him in the firmness and intrepidity of her measures; while, being inspired with a truer idea of glory, she infused a more lofty and generous temper into his subtle and calculating policy.

“While all her public thoughts and acts were princely and august, her private habits were simple, frugal, and unostentatious. In the intervals of state business, she assembled around her the ablest men in literature and science, and directed herself by their counsels, in promoting letters and arts. Through her patronage, Salamanca, the great seat of learning in Spain, rose to that height which it assumed among the learned institutions 572of the age. She promoted the distribution of honors and rewards for the promulgation of knowledge; she fostered the art of printing recently invented, and encouraged the establishment of presses in every part of the kingdom.

Prescott, in his “History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella,” in describing the personal appearance of the queen, says: “She was exceedingly beautiful; ‘the handsomest lady,’ says one of the household [Oviedo], ‘whom I ever beheld, and the most gracious in her manners.’ The portrait still existing of her, in the royal palace, is conspicuous for an open symmetry of features indicative of the natural serenity of temper, and that beautiful harmony of intellectual and moral qualities which most distinguished her. It is not easy to obtain a dispassionate portrait of Isabella. The Spaniards who revert to her glorious reign are so smitten with her moral perfections, that even in depicting her personal attractions, they borrow somewhat of the exaggerated coloring of romance.”

Francis I. and his son Henry II. of France were both controlled, even in the most important affairs, by female influence, and by shallow-minded and incapable favorites. The mistress of the former was the Duchess d’Etampes, and that of the latter, Diana of Poitiers, widow of Louis de Brézé, grand seneschal of Normandy. Henry was the junior of Diana by nearly twenty years, but this difference did not prevent her, at the age of forty, from attaching herself to the dauphin. While Francis lived, the two favorites divided the court, but 573upon the accession of the dauphin as Henry II. Diana became virtual mistress of the kingdom, Henry being a man of dull understanding and feeble character, and her rival, d’Etampes, was sent into exile. The young queen, Catherine de Medici, was noted for her beauty and accomplishments, but both were unavailing against the complete ascendency of Diana. Her wonderful beauty and her fascination were such that the king gave her many public tokens of his infatuation, admitted her to his councils, and created her Duchess of Valentinois. She retained her power over the royal lover until his death, even at the age of sixty, ruling him with the double force of her beauty and her intellect.

This modern Aspasia, like her Greek prototype, was remarkable not only for her beauty and wit, but for her fondness for cultivated society. Both of them, though of easy virtue and devoted to pleasure to the end of life, held receptions which were frequented by the most intellectual men and women of the period in which they lived. Ninon had a constant succession of lovers, but at the same time her society was courted by Mme. de Lafayette, Mme. de Sully, Mme. Scarron (afterward De Maintenon), and Christina of Sweden, and among her most favored admirers were the great Condé, La Rochefoucauld, Villarceaux, and D’Estrées. She was regarded as a model of refinement and elegance in her manners. She lived to the age of ninety, yet preserved her beauty and fascination to the last. She had lovers for three generations in the family of Sévigné. She had two illegitimate sons, one of whom, in ignorance of his 574birth and relationship, was the victim of an unhallowed passion for his mother. He was then nineteen years of age, and Ninon was fifty-six. While urging his love, she found that the only way to check his importunity was to disclose her secret. Thereupon he blew out his brains, but the tragedy made little impression upon Ninon, as she was dead to the instincts of maternal tenderness.

Of all unsolved problems of history, says Lyman Abbott, there is none more perplexing, none more seemingly insoluble, than that afforded by the career and character of Mary Queen of Scots. Time has done nothing to detract from the peculiar witchery of her charms, or the romantic interest which attaches to her strange adventures. Her admirers are as enthusiastic three centuries removed from her as were those who fell beneath the peculiar spell of her presence—a spell which few were ever able wholly to resist. The controversy which waged about her while living continues as hot, and almost as bitter, over her grave. History can come no nearer a verdict than could her own contemporaries. Its only answer, like theirs, is, “We cannot agree.”

The difficulties which beset any attempt to tell correctly the story of her career, to analyze aright her character, are very great. The student of history finds no impartial witness; few in her own time who are not ready to tell and to believe about her the most barefaced lies which will promote their own party. During her life she was calumniated and eulogized with equal audacity. Since her death the same curiously contradictory 575estimates of her character have been vigorously maintained—by those, too, who have not their judgment impaired by the prejudices which environed her. On one hand, we are assured that she was “the most amiable of women;” “the upright queen, the noble and true woman, the faithful spouse, and affectionate mother;” “the poor martyred queen;” “the helpless victim of fraud and force;” an “illustrious victim of statecraft,” whose “kindly spirit in posterity and matchless heroism in misfortune” award her “the most prominent place in the annals of her sex.” On the other hand, we are assured by men equally competent to judge, that she was “a spoiled beauty;” “the heroine of an adulterous melodrame;” “the victim of a blind imperious passion;” an “apt scholar in the profound dissimulation of that school of which Catherine de Medici was the chief instructor;” “a bad woman disguised in the livery of a martyr,” having “a proud heart, a crafty wit, and indurate mind against God and his truth;” “a bold, unscrupulous, ambitious woman,” with “the panther’s nature—graceful, beautiful, malignant, untamable.”