366 DREAM OF THE NOON-TIDE. begs that powerful monarch to protect the Italian people, who were utterly abandoned by those who ought to be their defenders. The pious King, after paying his homage to the Pope, sets out for Italy with his army, defeats the invading Lombards, and places the Pope at the head of the conquered provinces. the city with an army of 500,000 men, Pope | time to be lost, crosses the Alps in person, Leo the Great went out to meet him without approaches Pepin, King of France, and any troops at his back, but by his mild eloquence he disarmed the indomitable chieftain, and induced him to retrace his steps. Thus he saved the city from pillage, and the people from destruction. The same Pope Leo also confronted Genseric, the leader of the Vandals; and although he could not this time protect Rome from the plunder of the soldiers, he saved the lives of the citizens from slaughter. Such acts as these were naturally calculated to bind the Roman people more strongly to the Popes, and to alienate them from those who were their nominal rulers. Charlemagne, the successor of Pepin, not only confirms the grant of his father, but increases the temporal domain of the Pope by donating him some additional provinces. This small piece of territory the Roman Pontiffs continued to govern from that time till 1870, with the exception of brief intervals of foreign usurpation. And certainly, if ever any Prince merited the appellation of legitimate sovereign, that title is eminently deserved by the Bishops of Rome. DREAM OF THE NOON-TIDE.1 When o'er the mountain steeps In the early part of the eighth century, Leo Isauricus, one of the successors of Constantine in the imperial throne, not content with his civil authority, endeavored, like Henry VIII., to usurp spiritual jurisdiction, and, like the same English monarch sought to rob the people of their time-honored sacred traditions. A civil ruler dabbling in religion is as reprehensible as a clergyman dabbling in politics. Both render themselves odious as well as ridiculous. The Emperor commanded all paintings of our Saviour and His saints to be removed from the churches on the assumption that such an exhibition was an act of idolatry. Pope Gregory II. wrote to the Emperor an energetic remonstrance, reminding him that dogmas of faith are to be interpreted by With the heavy scent of blossoms as they pass,— the Pontiffs of the Church and not by Emperors," and begging him to spare the sacred paintings. But the Pope's remonstrance and entreaties were in vain. This conduct of the Emperor tended to widen still more the breach between himself and the Roman people. Soon after, an event occurred which abol When soft the shadows lie, Then, when the silent stream Lapses as in a dream, And the water-lilies gleam Up to the sun; When the hot and burdened day Rests on its downward way, ished forever the authority of the Byzantine And the plodding ant may dream her work is done,— Emperors in Italy, and established on a sure and lasting basis the temporal sovereignty of the Popes. In 754. Astolphus, King of the Lombards, invaded Italy, capturing some Italian cities, and threatening to advance on Rome. Pope Stephen III., who then ruled the Then, from the noise of war The sounds of love and fear, Church, sent an urgent appeal to the The willing thrall of trances sweet I lie. In this emergency, Stephen, who sees no Some melancholy gale 1 Publishers: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston. YOU CAN'T CATCH THE WIND IN A NET. And o'er my thoughts are cast Tints of the vanished past, Renewed to splendor in my dreaming eyes. As poised on vibrant wings, To the red flowers, So, lost in vivid light, So, rapt from day and night, Enraptured o'er the vision-freighted hours. ROSE TERRY COOKE. 367 When they catch live red herrings on Newmarket heath he will bring out a good thing, and line his pockets with gold; up till now, he says, he has been unlucky, and he believes that if he were to make a man a coffin he would be sure not to die. He is going to be rich next year, and you will then see what you shall see: just now he would be glad of half-a-crown on account, for which he will give you a share in his invention for growing wheat without ploughing or sowing. It is odd to see this wise man at times when his wits are all up in the moon: he is just like Chang, the Chinaman, who said, "Here's my umbrella, and here's my bundle, but where am I?" He cannot find his YOU CAN'T CATCH THE WIND IN spectacles, though he is looking through A NET. [REV CHARLES HADDON SPURGEON, the distinguished Baptist preacher, was born at Kelvedon, Essex, Eng land, June 19, 1834. His congregations at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, London, are doubtless the largest in the world. Besides his sermons, which are regularly printed, he has published numerous other works. From his John Ploughman's Talk, we extract as follows:] them; and when he is out riding on his ass, he pulls up and says, Wherever is that donkey?" I have heard of one learned man who boiled his watch and stood looking at the egg, and another who forgot that he was to be married that day, and would have lost his lady if his friend had not fetched him out of his study. Think of that, my boy, and don't fret yourself because you are not so overdone with learning as to have forgotten your common sense. but short of will, and so his buds never come to flowers or fruit. He is like a hen that lays eggs, and never sets on them long enough to hatch a single chick. Some people get windmills in their heads and go in for all sorts of silly things. They The regular wind-catcher is soft as silk talk about ruling the nation as if men were and as green as grass, and yet he thinks to be driven like sheep, and they prate of himself very long-headed; and so indeed reforms and systems as if they could cut he would be if his ears were taken into the out a world in brown paper, with a pair of measurement. He is going to do-wellscissors. Such a body thinks himself very there's no telling what. He is full of wishes deep, but he is as shallow as a milk-pan. You can soon know him as well as if you had gone through him with a lighted candle, and yet you will not know a great deal after all. He has a great head, and very little in it. He can talk by the dozen, or the gross, and say nothing. When he is fussing and boasting of his fine doings, you soon discover that he makes a long harvest of very little corn. His tongue is like a pig's tail, going all day long and nothing done. This is the man who can pay off the national debt, and yet, in his little shop, he sells two apples in three days: he has the secret of high farming, and loses more at it than any man in the county. The more he studies, the more he misses the mark; he reminds me of a blind man on a blind horse, who rode out in the middle of a dark night, and the more he tried to keep out of ditches the more he fell in. Moonshine is the article our friend deals in, and it is wonderful what he can see by it. He cries up his schemes, and it is said that he draws on his imagination for his facts. When he is in full swing with one of his notions, he does not stick at a trifle. Will Shepherd heard one of these gentry the other day telling how his new company would lead all the shareholders on to Tom Tiddler's ground to pick up gold and silver; and when all the talk was over, Will said to me, "That's a lie with a lid on, and a brass handle to take hold of it." Rather sharp this, of Will, for I do believe the man was caught on his own hook and believed in his own dreams; yet I did not like him, for he wanted us poor fellows to put our little savings into his hands, as if -368 ARAGO'S PRESENTATION TO NAPOLEON I. we could afford to fly kites with laborers' wages. What a many good people there are who have religious crazes! They do nothing, but they have wonderful plans for doing everything in a jiffy. So many thousand people are to give half-a-crown each, and so many more a crown, and so many more a sovereign, and the meeting-house is to be built just so, and no how else. The mischief is that the thousands of people do not rush forward with their money, and the minister and a few hard-working friends have to get it together little by little in the old-fashioned style, while your wonderful schemer slinks out of the way and gives nothing. I have long ago found out that pretty things on paper had better be kept there. Our master's eldest son had a plan for growing plum-trees in our hedges as they do in Kent, but he never looked to see whether the soil would suit, and so he lost the trees which he put in, and there was an end of his damsons. "Circumstances alter cases; WITHOUT AND WITHIN. [PIETRO ANTONIO DOMENICO BONAVENTURA METASTA#10, a celebrated Italian poet, born at Assisi, January 13, 1698. Besides sonnets, lyric poems and cantatas he composed sixty-nine lyric dramas. He became poet laureate at the court of Charles VI. of Germany. Died April 12, 1782.] Ir every man's internal care The fatal secret, when revealed, Would prove that only while concealed FORGIVENESS. ARAGO'S PRESENTATION TO NAPOLEON I. [DOMINIQUE FRANÇOIS ABAGO, the celebrated French astronomer and savant, was born at Estagel, near Perpignan, February 26, 1786; died in 1853. When only 22 years of age, he received a government appointment with Biot to an important astronomical work. As professor in the Polytechnic school, Paris, his lectures were in high repute. With Gay-Lussac he founded the Annales de Chimie et de Physique. He received the Copley medal for his discovery of magnetism by rotation. In 1809 he was elected a member of the Institute, although under the age required by the rules. In his Autobiography, M. Arago narrates the following circumstances attending his election to the Institute. He was then only 23 years old, and La Place was disposed to oppose his election on the ground of age. Arago's services to science have just been recapitulated :-] M. de Laplace, without denying the importance and utility of these labours and these researches, saw in them nothing more than indications of promise; M. Lagrange then said to him explicitly : : "Even you, M. de Laplace, when you entered the Academy, had done nothing bril liant; you only gave promise. Your grand discoveries did not come till afterwards." Lagrange was the only man in Europe who could with authority address such an observation to him. M. de Laplace did not reply upon the ground of the personal question, but he added, "I maintain that it is useful to young savans to hold out the position of member of the Institute as a future recompense, to excite their zeal." You resemble," replied M. Halle, “the driver of the hackney coach, who, to excite his horses to a gallop, tied a bundle of hay at the end of his carriage-pole; the poor horses redoubled their efforts, and the bundle of hay always flew on before them. After all, his plan made them fall off, and soon after brought on their death." Delambre, Legendre, Biot, insisted on the devotion, and what they termed the courage, with which I had combated arduous difficulties, whether in carrying on the [SAADI, or SADI, a Persian poet of whom very little is observations, or in saving the instruments, known. Born 1184; died about 1262.] The sandal tree perfumes when riven The axe that laid it low, Let man who hopes to be forgiven, Forgive and bless his foe. and the results already obtained. M. de Laplace ended by yielding when he saw that all the most eminent men of the Academy had taken me under their patronage, and on the day of the election he gave STUDY OF THE HEAVENS. 369 me his vote. It would be, I must own, ation of your white hair. Here!" and he subject of regret with me even to this day, passed the book to an aide-de-camp. after a lapse of forty-two years, if I had become member of the Institute without having obtained the vote of the author of the Mécanique Celeste. Poor M. Lamarck, who, at the end of each sharp and insulting sentence of the Emperor, tried in vain to say, "It is a work on natural history which I present to you," The members of the Institute were al was weak enough to fall into tears. ways presented to the Emperor after he had The Emperor immediately afterwards confirmed their nominations. On the ap-met with a more energetic antagonist in pointed day, in company with the presi- the person of M. Lanjuinais. The latter dents, with the secretaries of the four classes, had advanced, book in hand. Napoleon and with the academicians who had special said, sneeringly: publications to offer to the Chief of the State, they assembled in one of the rooms of the Tuileries. When the Emperor returned from mass, he held a kind of review of these savans, these artists, these literary men, in green uniform. I must own that the spectacle which I witnessed on the day of my presentation did not edify me. I even experienced real displeasure in seeing the anxiety evinced by members of the Institute to be noticed. "You are very young," said Napoleon to me on coming near me; and without waiting for a flattering reply, which it would not have been difficult to find, he added,"What is your name?" And my neighbor on the right, not leaving me time to answer the simple enough question just addressed to me, hastened to say, "His name is Arago." "What science do you cultivate?" My neighbor on the left immediately replied, "He cultivates astronomy." "What have you done? My neighbor on the right, jealous of my left hand neighbor for having encroached on his rights at the second question, now hastened to reply, and said,— "He has just been measuring the line of the meridian in Spain." The Emperor imagining, doubtless, that he had before him either a dumb man or an imbecile, passed on to another member of the Institute. This man was not a novice, but a naturalist well known through his beautiful and important discoveries; it was M. Lamarck. The old man presented a book to Napoleon. "What is that?" said the latter, "it is your absurd meteorology, in which you rival Matthieu Laensberg. It is this annuaire which dishonors your old age. Do something in natural history, and I should receive your productions with pleasure. As to this volume, I only take it in considera VOL. VII. "The entire Senate, then, is to merge in the Institute?" "Sire," replied Lanjuinais, "it is the body of the state to which most time is left for occupying itself with literature." The Emperor, displeased at this answer, at once quitted the civil uniforms, and busied himself among the great epaulettes which filled the room. STUDY OF THE HEAVENS. burgh, Scotland, Dec. 26, 1780. She not only possessed [MARY SOMERVILLE, F. R. 8. G., was born at Jed a mathematical mind of the highest rank, but was an accomplished artist and musician, and was endowed with all the qualities that are most lovely in her sex. She died November 29, 1872, at the advanced age of 92 years, with scarcely any abatement of her mental powers. Among her works are Mechanism of the Heavens, Connection of the Physical Sciences, and Microscopical and Molecular Science.] The heavens afford the most sublime subject of study which can be derived from science: the magnitude and splendor of the objects, the inconceivable rapidity with which they move, and the enormous distances between them, impress the mind with some notion of the energy that maintains them in their motions with a durability to which we can see no limits. Equally conspicuous is the goodness of the great First Cause, in having endowed man with faculties by which he can not only appreciate the magnificence of his works, but trace, with precision, the operation of his laws, use the globe he inhabits as a base wherewith to measure the magnitude and distance of the sun and planets, and make the diameter of the earth's orbit the first step of a scale by which he may ascend to the starry firmament. Such pursuits, while they ennoble the mind, at the same time in 193 370 HOW THE EMPEROR OF TARTARY GOES A-HUNTING. culcate humility, by showing that there is a barrier, which no energy, mental or physi cal, can ever enable us to pass: that how- HOW THE EMPEROR OF TARTARY ever profoundly we may penetrate the depths of space, there still remain innumerable systems, compared with which, those which seem so mighty to us must dwindle into insignificance, or become even invisible; and that not only man, but the globe he inhabits, nay, the whole system of which it forms so small a part, might be annihilated, and its extinction be unperceived in the immensity of creation. THE OLD OAKEN BUCKET. How dear to this heart are the scenes of my childhood, When fond recollection presents them to view! The orchard, the meadow, the deep-tangled wildwood, And every loved spot which my infancy knew ;— GOES A-HUNTING. [MARCO POLO, the famous traveller, who has been called “the Medieval Herodotus," was born in Venice about 1254. His graphic descriptions of manners and customs among the Asiatics, were wonderful revelations in his time, and continue to excite interest. He died, about 1325.] He takes with him full 10,000 falconers, and some 500 gerfalcons, besides peregrines, sakers, and other hawks in great numbers; and goshawks also to fly at the water-fowl. But do not suppose that he keeps all these together by him; they are distributed about, hither and thither, one hundred together, or two hundred at the utmost, as he thinks proper. But they are always fowling as The wide-spreading pond, and the mill which stood they advance, and the most part of the by it, The bridge, and the rock where the cataract fell; The cot of my father, the dairy-house nigh it, And e'en the rude bucket which hung in the well. The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket, The moss-covered bucket which hung in the well. That moss-covered vessel I hail as a treasure; For often, at noon, when returned from the field, I found it the source of an exquisite pleasure, The purest and sweetest that nature can yield. How ardent I seized it, with hands that were glowing! And quick to the white-pebbled bottom it fell; Then soon, with the emblem of truth overflowing, And dripping with coolness, it rose from the well; How sweet from the green, mossy brim to receive it, And sighs for the bucket which hangs in the well; ALL men are mad in more or less degree, BOILEAU, 1631-1704. quarry taken is carried to the Emperor. And let me tell you when he thus goes afowling with his gerfalcons and other hawks, he is attended by full 10,000 men who are disposed in couples; and these are called Toscaol, which is as much as to say, "Watchers." And the name describes their business. They are posted from spot to spot, always in couples, and thus they cover a great deal of ground. Every man of them is provided with a whistle and hood, so as to be able to call in a hawk and hold it in hand. And when the Emperor makes a cast, there is no need of his following it up, for those men I speak of keep so good a lookout that they never lose sight of the birds, and if these hawks have need of help they are ready to render it. All the Emperor's hawks, and those of the barons as well, have a little label attached to the leg to mark them, on which is written the names of the owner and keeper of the bird. And in this way the hawk, when it is caught, is at once identified and handed over to its owner But if not, the bird is carried to a certain Baron who is styled the Bularguchi, which is as much as to say, "The Keeper of Lost Property." And I tell you that whatever may be found without a known owner, whether it be a horse or a sword, or a hawk, or what not, it is carried to that Baron straightway, and he takes charge of it. And if the finder neglects to carry his trover to the Baron, the THE wisest man is generally he who latter punishes him. Likewise the loser of thinks himself the least so. BOILEAU. any article goes to the Baron, and if the |