monk has got half-way to Rouen by this time: I sent him adrift down the river, tied up in a sack." "What monk?” "Him your Majesty pointed at." "Ha! Pasque Dieu !" cried the King, with his usual oath; "you villain, you have drowned me the best priest in my kingdom. But it cannot be helped now; so we will have half-a-dozen masses said for his soul, and then no more about him. It was that dog of a captain, not the poor monk, that I commended to your care; therefore, gossip, be a little more particular in future."

In the letters of Madame Charlotte Elizabeth, Duchess of Orleans, another whimsical mistake is recorded, arising from misconception, but which, unlike the foregoing, ended without mischief. A celebrated physician, named Chirac,

was called in to attend a sick lady just as he had heard of a ruinous fall in the Missisippi stock, in which he had embarked large sums. Full of this absorbing intelligence, he entered the chamber of the invalid, and feeling her pulse, muttered to himself, "Terrible, terrible! How they sink! Down, down, down!" Scared at these ominous words, the unhappy patient screamed out, rang her bell furiously, and summoned all her people about her. "I am a lost woman," said she, in tears; "the doctor has told me that my pulse is sinking down to an extreme." Pardon me, Madam," said the physician; "I spoke of the public funds your pulse is in an excellent state, and you will be well to-morrow morning."

READER, have you ever met with "Les Histoires Prodigieuses," of Pierre Boiasteau? This collection was first published in 1560, and soon became popular. Various editions were rapidly dispersed. It was reprinted in 1571 and 1576, and, at length, augmented by the industry of two subsequent compilers, it appeared again in 1598, in six volumes, which are very rare. There has been no modern reprint or translation. A glance at some of its contents may give an idea of the taste and knowledge of the general reader of that period.

Boiasteau informs us, in his advertisement, that he was not satisfied with consulting a few authorities, for the purpose of collecting strange and ad、 mirable materials, but that he specially read all authors who have written particular treatises on prodigies. In the first history are contained some very extraordinary illusions of Satan. Here are collected a variety of anecdotes of the ancient oracles, and marvellous descriptions of Indian idols, all of which he attributed to the machinations of the evil one. The second relates the curses and punishments of God sent to the miserable city of Jerusalem, with many prognostications minutely described. The author says his facts are collected chiefly from Josephus and Eusebius.

There are chariots flying in the air, swords of fire, and armies combating in the skies.

In another book he gives the history of "Nebuchadnezzar," with a philosophical discourse, showing what punishments may be inflicted on those who abuse their powers. This, he says, is an excellent lesson for voluptuous princes. He next proceeds to the origin of monsters, and the prodigious affections of several ancient philosophers. Here are introduced indecencies of too gross a nature to particularise. Then comes a chapter on "Rejuvenescence in certain animals." The author observes that the hart every year sheds his horns, the eagle its feathers, and the serpent its skin. He believes, with Pliny, that the crow and phoenix live six hundred years. A long section treats on the virtues of the viper, the broth of which, he declares, restores to old age the vigour of youth.

Some curious particulars are collected concerning plants and their propensities, which, for aught we know to the contrary, may have furnished Dr. Darwin with the groundwork of his whimsical poem. It is certain that the ancients, particularly the Greeks, are much given to botanical studies. Monarchs have written treatises on these subjects as well as philosophers. Many plants, formerly, took the name of some sovereign; such as the Gentian Root, from Gentius, King of Illyricum; the Lymachia, from Lysimachus, King of the Macedonians; the Achillea, from

Achilles ; and the Artemisia, from the Queen of Caria.* The names were probably given by students to flatter their royal patrons; but it must be remembered that Solomon was as great an amateur of botany as any fashionable lady of the present day. Honest Boiasteau also tells us that if the fire of a glass-house be kept up, without extinction, for a longer term than seven years, there is no doubt but that a salamander would be generated in the cinders. This idea was more generally credited than people can now believe. Then follows a receipt to make a basilisk, "I deny not," says Boiasteau, "but that a living creature may be gene. rated, that shall poison one by seeing and touching, as if it were a basilisk. But take heed, you that try to produce this creature, that you do not endanger yourself, which I think may easily come to pass. Infuse fruitful eggs, where you have a liquid moisture of arsenic, or serpent's poison, and other deadly things, and let the eggs lie therein for some days; set them under hens that do cluck, but shake them not in your hands, lest you destroy the mischief sought for. There is no greater cause to be found to produce divers monsters than by eggs." Our own amusing antiquarian, John Aubrey, is quite as credulous, and equally quaint in his narrations. The learned Godwin, in his Synopsis of Hebrew Antiquities,” tells us how the Jews of old compounded the teraphim, a receipt which may very profitably accompany that for the formation of a basilisk. These teraphim were a species of image endued by magic art with the power of prophesying. "The teraphim have spoken vanity." Zech. x. 2. According to Rabbi Eliezer, "they killed

a man that was a first-born son, and wrung off his head, and seasoned it with salt and spices, and wrote upon a plate of gold the name of an unclean spirit, and put it under the head on a wall, and lighted candles before it, and worshipped it."

The narrations of Boiasteau concerning spectres and apparations are, as may be expected, voluminous, and have furnished subsequent collectors with at least one-half of their most popular stories. On the subject of echoes he becomes quite rational, and for once accounts for an apparent phenomenon by natural causes. There are echoes which repeat more than one or two words at a time. These were supposed to be the voices of demons, and led to mischievous consequences. An Italian counsellor lost himself on a dark night. He came to a river, and hesitated to pass over. Perplexed, he cried out, with the usual exclamation of persons in trouble, Oh! An echo immediately repeated the word. The traveller thought that some one heard him, and called out, "onde debbo pas sar?" The echo answered " passar." The man agitated, inquired, Qui ?" (Here?) The echo replied, "Qui." Still doubtful, he repeated, "Debbo pussar qui?" And immediately the double echo repeated, "passar qui.” The poor lawyer plunged into the river with his horse; after a violent struggle, and imminent danger of his life, he got safely over. Arriving at Bologna he informed the authorities that the banks of the river were haunted by a demon. It was long before the demon was discovered to be an echo. The pages of Boiasteau will amply repay idle scholars who are fond of the marvellous, and have time at their disposal. J. W. C.

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THE white stubble-fields are bleaching in the sun, for the harvest is all reaped. It is noon, an Autumn noon, not sultry and fervid, as the noon of Summer, for the heat is tempered by the fresh breeze that drives the light clouds across the sky, and the shadows scud down the hill side and sweep over the fields. Look at the harvestmen, brown-browed and warmed with their manly toil, as they build up the stacks in the fields; and see the gleeful maidens flinging the golden shocks into the wains. The song of birds is hushed at this hour, for they seek the deep shady solitude of the woodlands; but the merry laugh, and the rustic jest, and the snatch of song, break the silence pleasantly. These are the voices of light hearts-the hymn of labour-the prayer which man, who toils, offers up to God with the sweat of his brow and the swing of his arm. Oh, wonderful mystery of Divine love, that has thus turned the primal curse into a blessing! Speculation is at fault to imagine how man could be happy, if his wants were all supplied to his hand without labour. Hope, expectancy, desire-all would die in full fruition. Art, science, civilisation would have had no existence; there would have been no progress, no emulation, no ambition. The sweets of rest would have been untasted, for there would have been no toil to induce it. The proud sense of physical power would have been unfelt, for there would have been no obstacles to overcome. The charities of life would have withered, for they would have had no objects for their exercise; Friendship would have missed its holiest mission; Love would have languished without its ennobling sacrifices, its purifying struggles; and Humanity would have been but half developed, for it would have no foes to conquer, no triumphs to achieve, no heights to attain, climbing ever, day by day, to that still-distant summit which, though shut out by clouds from the wayfarer's vision, has the sunlight of God's glory shining down eternally upon it. Toil on, then, man, ever hopefully, cheerfully, steadily with

your hand, with your heart, with your intellect. Sow, that you may live to reap reap, that you may live to sow again. Plough the land and plough the sea delve, and mine, and forge. Philosopher, search out the secrets of nature, and subdue the elements to

your control. Artist, ply your pencil and your chisel, catching the light of God's wisdom, and the majesty of his creative power, as you reproduce the gifts of beauty- the harmonies and contrasts of form and colourwhich he has poured forth with such prodigal beneficence all around you. Minstrel, ring forth from your lyre the echoes of those songs which float from heaven, and flood the world which are heard in the thunderclap and the ocean-boom in the winds and the avalanche in the song of the birds and the chirp of the grasshopper. Poet, commune with God, with nature, with your own soul; and then bring forth from the treasure-house of your mind things old and new." Reverence your gift and approve your divine mission; be the minister of art and the interpreter of nature. Man, labour in your own sphere, whatsoever it be. Forward and higher — forward and higher stillso shall you at last as gods, knowing good and

66

be evil."

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We, too, have our allotted labournot of the brow or the muscle, but of the thought and the brain. Let us address ourselves to it. Leaving the harvestmen to their hot toil in the sunny fields, let us seek the shade of denseleaved trees, and there gather in our harvest, which many a hand has sowed -a harvest of varied fruits and varied qualities, for seeds of many kinds have been sown to produce it, and it has sprung from soils of diverse kinds, and grown up under the influence of diverse climates.

There are many volumes lying before us, more than we can hope at the present to discuss; for the press pours forth its tomes upon us in an affluence that forces us to the necessity of selection. To-day we mean to look over some of the poetical works that for

months past have been soliciting our notice.

"Indian Leisure.' What an awful idea!—what a picture of weariness and languishment rises up before us! A tropical sun blazing down upon the parched earth, undimmed by a cloud, unrefreshed by a breeze! A vision of musquitos and misery, cigars and sofas, Bass's pale ale and Guinness's XX. porter. Truly, the gallant captain's leisure must have been uninterrupted, his ennui desperate, when he betook himself to such a task as a translation of all that Petrarch has written in Italian; sighs without ceasing sonnets without number— canzones, ballads, and madrigals to no end. We scarcely ever met a man or woman who would venture to boast having read them all, and yet here is one who has translated them from cover to cover. We can understand and applaud the criminal who preferred the galleys to the drudgery of reading Guicciardini throughout we can't understand, though we can profourdly admire, the courage and per severance of the warrior who has struggled day by day through some three hundred sonnets, and heaven knows how many odes, of the everwailing Italian. Yet, as an Indian leisure is probably a severer trial on humanity than years of toil at the galleys, we doubt not that he did well to exchange it for the labour of reading and translating the amorous and platonic cleric of Vaucluse. One thing is certain and we acknowledge it gratefully that while the world would have lost the labour of the galley-slave, and been nothing the better of his reading, society has lost nothing by our author's abandonment of his Indian leisure, and, perhaps, been a gainer by his literary labour of love. Looking at the task which he has voluntarily assigned himself, we are disposed to judge of its performance with considerable lenity. The sonnet is, under all circumstances, a difficult achievement. It is restricted in rhyme - it demands great nicety of rythm and cadence, and much skill in bringing it to its close. All these requirements are more difficult to accomplish in our tongue than in the Italian- so much

His

so, that few have been eminently successful in constructing sonnets in Eng lish; and our own Byron did not hesi tate to speak slightingly of it as a vehicle for the British poet. The sonnets of Petrarch owe as much of their success to the harmonious flow of the line, and the graceful turn of expres sion, as to the sentiment, which is often conceited, and not unfrequently exag gerated, and even unnatural. And it is a remarkable fact, that during his life, and for a considerable period after his death, his celebrity was mainly based upon his Latin compositions. The lapse of time has, however, wrought a striking mutation. Latin treatises and philosophical dialogues are seldom taken down from their dusty repositories in our public libraries: there are few who have not some acquaintance with his odes and sonnets. We have qualified ourselves to pronounce upon Capt. MacGregor's performance, by reading no small number of his translations side by side with the originals. In general, he has rendered them faithfully, though rarely poetically; he is often prosaic in the extreme, and sometimes misses the spirit and tone, sometimes even the point, of the original. Take, for instance, the sonnet addressed to the River Rhone, when the poet was forced to stop and rest on his journey down it ere he could reach Avignon, where his mistress resided. Here is the translation

The original, which the line we have italicised purports to represent, runs thus

"Vattene innanzi : il tuo corso non frena

Nè stanchezza nè sonno."

The poet prays the river to precede him, as neither weariness nor sleep delays its speed, as they do him. The translator has missed the point of the word innanzi, and thus destroyed the beauty of the passage. Again, the fourth last line is a weak rendering of Petrarch'sS

"Forse (O! che spero) il mio tardar le dole."

The poet does not say the thought is vain, but he hopes it may be true that his lady grieves at his tardiness and not his absence. While the concluding line of the sonnet, which should be full and vigorous, is feeble, and curt, and commonplace, when compared with the original

"Lo spirto e pronto ma la carne e stanca."

Had we "Irish leisure" to undertake a translation of Petrarch, we would venture to render the portion of the sonnet on which we have commented somewhat after this fashion

Glide on before me-thy unbridled motion,

Nor weariness, nor slumber checks; but ere Thou pourest his tribute to the kingly Ocean, Pause where the greenest meads, the balmiest air

Are glassed on thee. There, on thy left bank biding,

Shines my sweet living sun with tender ray:

Perhaps, blest thought! even now my slowness chiding:

Kiss her soft foot or snow-fair hand, and say

Each murmuring kiss for lover's words I give her

The spirit willing speeds, the weary flesh lags ever.

Let us at random take another of these sonnets; it is on the death of Laura-a very sweet and pensive one, and withal, full of natural passionate feeling. Captain MacGregor has rendered it with sufficient verbal accuracy, but, to our thinking, he has egregiously failed in preserving the plaintive tone of the original. We shall give the original and the author's translation, and let the reader judge for himself:

VOL. XLIV.-NO. CCLXII.

"Alma felice, che soventi torni

A consolar le mie notte dolenti Cogli occhi tuoi, che Morte non ha spenti, Ma sovra 'l mortal modo fatti adorni; Quanto gradisco ch' i miei tristi giorni

A rallegrar di tui vistà consenti! Così incomincio a ritrovar presenti Le tue bellezze a suo' usati soggiorni. La 've cantando andai di te molt' anni,

Or, come vedi, vo di te piangendo ; Di te piangendo no, ma di miei danni. Sol un riposo trovo in molti affanni,

Che quando torni, ti conosco e 'ntendo All' andar, alla voce, al volto a' panni."

"Blest Spirit! who so oft in pity here

Descendest to console my desolate nights, With star-like eyes, by death unquenched and clear,

Which immortality now better lights; That still thou deignest my gloomy life to cheer

With thy sweet sight a grateful joy excites,

For thus thy beauty, ever new and near,

In each old haunt my faithful love re

quites;

Those haunts, thine own, in hope and pride, where late

Of thee I sang, where now I mourn for thee,

For thee-Ah no! but for my own hard
fate.

Yet 'mid my many woes one balm I see,
That I, in these thy visitings below,
From gait, speech, mien, and dress, thy
presence feel and know."

Come, now, let us see if we cannot at least catch something more of the tone and passion of the Italian, and yet not depart much from the words of the sonnet. Here, then, is our own rendering:

Spirit beatified! that ofttimes bending

Over thy lover lone, to cheer my nights Of sighs and ceaseless tears with those pure lights

That death could quench not, but new lustre lending,

Made bright past mortal orbs. How fervently

I bless the vision that doth deign to