in French; we took the pretty brood by their napes and plunged them bodily into the charming sea of the first ode of Horace. A lesson would consist of as many lines as make a period, or to a semi-colon, if the period would carry us too far. This was carefully translated, and no point of sense or construction left in doubt. Then each in turn would read it over, following exactly the teacher's words. Then, for relaxation, a general skipping about among the words, catching up first one, then another, giving each its meaning, until all were used up. Then, as careful a putting back the English into Latin, and more play with the words, this time giving the Latin equivalent for the English; then, a few comfits and plums of etymology, with pretty tales about the birth, death, and experience, of some of the most interesting of the words, -and the hour was over. This was the teacher's day, but the next was the scholars', when with eager hearts, they gave him back all his translations and facts, and won his cordial praises. And so on, alternating day by day with giving and taking, until the whole ode was learned from beginning to end, from end to beginning, inside out and outside in, up-side down and down-side up, through and through, word by word, and phrase by phrase, and, finally, committed to memory, and written off, punctatim et literatim, by each fair nymph with a white hand on the black-board! Now, all this, including the preliminary reading of Esop and the rest of the small-talk, was well over by the Christmas Holidays, school term having begun in the middle of September, and by that time the girls had such facility that we concluded to go at Virgil. So, on the first day after the Holidays, we began with "arma virumque," &c., and finished the last line of the first book of Eneis by the end of the third week in June. Bright, steady, funloving, good girls, how you did enjoy it, and how the teacher enjoyed it, too! But, don't think, dear reader, that we made play of it, and called it study. The scholars did their full share of work, and learned thoroughly well all that was set them to do, and the good results of this winter's faithful drilling were shown the next winter, when the second book of Eneis was easily and pleasantly accomplished in a way we never saw matched by any class of boys in an ordinary experience of boys' schools. As we have said, the only difficulty seems to be, that time is wasted in studying the classics, because the

so-called students do not learn the classics. If they could learn them, and did learn them, we should think no one who knows anything about them, would doubt that they would make acquaintance with an inexhaustible treasure-house of wit and wisdom.

As

The old cook-book lies before us which we have so often seen in dear Aunt Katrina's hands, in the cheerful days that are no more. A little duodecimo, of something over three hundred pages, fearfully dog's-eared, browned, as if it had been subjected to some of its own directions, and with the first and last dozen pages torn roughly away-the cover long before had disappeared—it is, still, much more curious and entertaining reading than (to us) the last of Wollop's novels-those studies of still-life, or the last of Pewk's poems, those studies of no life at all. our copy of this quaint old book has lost its title-page and preface-if ever it had the latter-we should never have known who wrote it, had it not been for an appendix beginning at the 267th page, which has its own "To the Reader," in which the authoress apologizes to the buyers of previous editions for making the present more valuable by additions; thanks the public for so speedily buying up six editions of the book, and flatters herself that the additions she makes to this, the seventh, "will meet with the same approbation, being the fruits of a good intention, and presented to the curious with sincerity."-The writer's name is Elizabeth Raffald, and she dates her appendixpreface from Manchester, December, 1777. We judge by the title-page to the appendix, that the name of the book is "The Experienced English House-Keeper," and it may be, for all we can say, a work that many an old house-keeper is as familiar with as with her garter; only it happens that we have never met it before. A curious feature in it is a copper-plate of "a new-invented stove," which appears to be the first notion of our modern range, although it is impossible to believe that Mrs. Raffald or anybody else could ever have made any practical use of it. But, probably, it worked just well enough to set some one to contriving how to better it. In reading over the multifarious recipes the book contains, one is struck by two things, viz. the immense amount of leisure that women must have had in those days to enable them to prepare and cook all these elaborate dishes, and the immense amount of vitality with which the people of those days

must have been endowed, to enable them to digest the dishes after they had eaten them. One of the most portentous of these recipes is "To draw a Turtle a hundred weight," which must have taken every minute of time one able-bodied person had at command between getting up in the morning and the din ner-hour, and yet it is only supposed to be a single course. Beside, it is only one of many every bit as elaborate and indigestible. Some of the dishes are very funnily named: "To Dress Cod-sounds like little Turkeys." This, we are told, is a pretty side-dish for a large table, for a dinner in Lent! "To boil a Pike with a Pudding in the Belly, "To Marinate Soles." What the word marinate means, we do not know, and wish somebody who does, would help us to a definition. It is probably a corruption of some French word. "To dress Perch in Water Tokay;" "To pitch-cock Eels." After a very good recipe for cooking "Spinage," we are told that "it will eat exceedingly mild, and quite a different taste from the common way." Then again, we have "To dress a Calf's Head Surprize," a handsome top-dish at small expense, but, whether it is the calf or the eater who is to be surprised, we are not told. "To make a Porcupine of a Breast of Veal," "Bombarded Veal," "To make a Frycando of Veal," "To Dress Scotch Collops the French Way," "To Disguise a Leg of Veal," "Mutton Kebobed," "To Dress a Lamb's Head and Purtenance," "To Marinate a Goose," "Pigeons transmogrified," and " Pigeons surprised." But the authoress shows her fancy best in the lighter dishes, the pastries and confections. Thatched-House Pye," "To make a Quaking Pudding," "To Spin a Gold Web for Governing Sweethearts," "To Spin a Silver Web for ditto," "To make a Hen's Nest," "To make Blomange," &c., "To make a Desart Island," "To make Moonshine," "Solomon's Temple in Flummery," "To make a Syllabub under the Cow," "To make Violet Cake," which begins, "Take the finest Violets you can get, beat them fine in a mortar, &c." One wonders whether a syllable has been left out in "To make a Drunken Loaf," which, we are told, "is a pretty dish for supper!" Under the head of "Little Savory Dishes," we have, "To make a Solomongundy." Is this our Salmagundi?"To make an Amulet," i. e. Omelet. Mrs. Raffald does not appear to have been what we call an educated woman, and her spelling and grammar are sometimes very funny in conse

"A

quence. Nor does her book contain much that is useful to us of this day and generation. But it gives us many hints as to the way of life among the English of that period, at a time when Richardson and Fielding divided the lovers of fiction, when hospitality was not dead and laid away in its coffin, and when there were yet women in the world with souls not above house-keeping.

Aunt Katrina was such a one, Heaven bless her, and who shall fitly speak her modest virtue? She sleeps in peace, after her peaceful life, in the cool vault under the twin shadow of the mighty pines that whisper back their low response to the plashing waves of the river. How clearly memory brings back her slender figure which yet kept a due proportion with her stature, her plain dresses of brown, in winter, or of fresh, cool, grays in summer, her snowy caps whose frills shaded that plain but kindly face, where all the lines showed the influence of good sense, unfailing sweetness of disposition, and a mind concerned only with humble thoughts. What a charm her presence threw about the old cottage, with its wide porch, whose walls were thickly mantled with Virginia creeper, and the old time climbing white-rose, which, with the damask roses that lined the garden walls, were the last representatives of a delicious rose that modern gardens know nothing of. Here dwelt the old, old, grandmother, the still stately relic of a noble womanhood long since past her ninetieth year, but with force still to rule her little kingdom, and keep the wild brood of grand-children in a state of delighted awe. And Aunt Katrina was the old lady's right hand, the dispenser of her bounty, the one who with a soft authority kept the old ways, and continued the fading charm that made the house, and the life that was lived in it, a bright green spot of fairy land in this work-a-day world. Here was the garden with the "Grandmother's Woods " creeping down to the edge of a rocky ledge that sheltered it on the North, and with all the South and East open to the influence of the sun. Here grew

the earliest strawberries, the earliest peas, here were old-time fruits and flowers that are out of fashion now-the Katharine pear, the Morello and Cornelian cherries, the Bullet apple, tall white lilies, holly-hocks, damask roses, Neapolitan violets, a garden of delights where no stuck-up gardener ever intruded, but fruits and flowers grew as they liked, and all of us pulled and played with them as we liked, for old Matthew was well disposed, and

was proud to have the products of his skill gathered and eaten, and, strange to say, never thought it necessary to have his permission asked by their owners to do what pleased them with the pears and roses. And on the other side the house, in the midst of the shrubbery, was Aunt Katrina's "laboratory;" proud name for the little four-square hut over which a Remus of a white rose briar leaped and laughed, but which we human children never approached without a pleasant sense of mystery that made us less frolicsome. Here, with Mrs. Raffald at hand or in hand, Aunt Katrina passed many a serene morning making her sweetmeats and jellies, distilling fragrant waters, rose, orange-flower, or lavender, or busied in deeper mysteries, the results of which were destined, when revealed to our expecant eyes at dessert or at the tea-table, to increase tenfold our admiration for her talents and our respect for her learning! The dear old lady is gone. She sleeps, as we have said, surrounded by many of those she loved in life, and who loved her with a steady devotion. How little she really knew, outside the narrow walk of her daily life of routine! How slender were her accomplishments-she knew scarcely more of geography than the fact that St. Thomas, where she was born, was one of the Danish West Indies, scarcely more of history than the dim outline of our Revolutionary War. Doubtless, her spelling was defective, and she knew, like Chaucer's boy, "small grammere," but she had the accomplishment to love and to be loved, and to fill, with conscience and regularity, the full round of her modest, yet not unimportant duties. Thou torn and dismantled dog's-eared book, better than all the forced and fantastic recipes is the memory of Aunt Katrina, that hides like a faded violet between thy yellowing leaves!

Mere chance has acquainted us with an extremely curious mechanism for keeping women at home. It is so subtle in its mode of operating, indeed, that we fear its intention will never be discovered until too late; and its beauties are accordingly now dragged blushing to the light, to prevent its modesty

an

from destroying its usefulness. One would imagine that the baby, the dinner, the shirts and stockings, might moor our housekeepers securely enough within the harbor of home. But no, there is a Company-it is called Accident Insurance Company, - shy thing! It does good by stealth, and will (we fear) swear to find it fame,-it should be called a 66 Company for teaching women to stay at home, where they belong." It issues tickets for twenty-five (or other number of) cents, the bearer to be reimbursed some handsome amount in case of accident while travelling, during the agreed term and under the agreed conditions. Very well; all right, so far. Now, however, for the shy benevolence. The conditions are stated in the ticket at considerable length, and in quite fine print; so that ladies, in particular,-for ladies are not apt to waste their time in perusing dry and solid-looking masses of fine type-shall not see what the conditions are. One condition fixes one point, and another another; and afar off at the very end, hidden away, as it were, in the shadiest nook, is this little modest flower of a stipulation:"No policy payable to FEMALES except in case of DEATH."

The imagination pictures some lady who has supposed herself dealing with honest people; who has bought an Accident Insurance ticket of this band of social benefactors; and who has been maimed to permanent helplessness by a railroad crash. After months of confinement, broken and crippled, she crawls out to the Accident Insurance Company's office, makes proof of her harms, shows her ticket, and asks for her insurance money.

"Broken arm, Madam?" says the polite and gentlemanly President- -! "Foot amputated? Will have to use crutch for life? No doubt, madam, looks so, certainly. Very sorry, madam; but you must stay at home, unless you are a man; or else you must get killed before you come here for money."

And he points out to the foolish gadding creature the Social Reform element in the "Conditions: "-"No policy payable to FEMALES except in case of DEATH."

OF

THE believers in the metamorphosis of humanity, who think that the world has changed, are apt to fancy that monkhood is one of the institutions of the past. They imagine that its remains are slowly dying out, and that a comparatively short time will see the last of that powerful organization which was one of the great primal forces of mediæval Christianity, and through which the loftiest aspirations and the meanest passions of our nature were so successfully turned to account by the skilful men who controlled it. The philosophers and sociologists who indulge in these speculations know little of what is passing around them. It is true that the French Revolution secularized the immense monastic possessions of France and turned their whilom owners adrift, as Henry VIII., two hundred and fifty years before had relentlessly done in England, and as, some seventy years later, a united Italy has recently ventured to do; yet monachism is a hydra which quietly and energetically seeks to replace each decapitated head with two new ones. As long as it continues to respond to a want in the human soul it will flourish, and the world will yet have to undergo a long course of education before that want will cease to be felt.

It is impossible to conceive of a more thorough uprooting than that which was inflicted on the religious congregations of France by the storms of the Terror. Their wealth sequestrated, their establishments broken up, their institutions prohibited, their persons subjected to every outrage, it would seem impossible that they could again take root in a soil over which so fierce a deluge had passed. Yet stealthily they have returned, and imperceptibly they have increased until the old territory is reoccupied. Readmitted under sufferance and barely tolerated by the law, they have succeeded in establishing an unwritten code which favors them; and in spite of the unyielding bureaucratic tendencies of French institutions, no one dares to make them conform to the exigencies of the written law. Conscious of the prejudices existing against them in the minds of a large portion of society, they carefully conceal their progress; but that progress has already been sufficient to render them virtually masters of the situation. In their schools more than half of the children of France are educated; by their confessors a large proportion of the faithful are ruled; through their systems of charity countless thousands call them blessed. The present generation and the next are

VOL. IV.-65