'Well, my Lord of Austria.' M. de Metternich raised his head, looking sad as a German ballad. 'Austria is no more,' said he in a gloomy whisper. 'Austrians have destroyed it in destroying me. Diplomacy is no more, for I am the last diplomatist; and I! Oh, Talleyrand, thou hast done well to die! The great art of working the hinges upon which all politics turn is at an end for ever. The people break the hinges when they cannot open them, and the axe is a hammer that opens every lock. We have fallen upon evil times, when words are of no other use to statesmen than to express their thoughts, and that even when perhaps they have none to express. Pity me then; behold me reduced to swallowing my last refuge of diplomacy-that is to say, my Johannisberg wine, that wondrous beverage with which I have mystified all Europe for more than sixty years.' And M. de Metternich was silent, having nothing more to drink or to say. I now lost all trace of Henri and Matilda for some time, but rested satisfied that they had at length found the promised land, when this evening I received the following letter: 'BRESCIA, March 19. MY DEAR FRIEND-We have at length arrived in Italy, after having passed through twenty countries all in revolution. Up to this moment we have not had an hour's quiet, for wherever we turned, there burst the revolutionary waterspout. Whatever shore we reached, the waves broke in upon it, and drove us before them. We have been at Brescia about half an hour, and must leave it before the hour is over. We were afraid of Vienna-afraid of Milan. "No strangers!" was the cry there; and though I knew they meant the Austrians, yet I was not certain how far they might carry their nationality. We knew that Rome was celebrating a constitutional carnival; that Florence's Grand Duke was proclaiming constitutions; that Naples had a king to-day, and will have to-morrow a Masaniello. We thought of Monaco, but it appears a republic is proclaiming there. The republic of St Marine next occurred to us, but there they are seriously talking of proclaiming an emperor. A prophetic hurrah has reached us from the Don Cossacks. Asia has turned her eyes westward, and drawn the sword against the Emperor of all the Cossacks. Every day we see the moon rising, it appears to us under every form, and in every colour. I suppose you have it tricoloured in Paris? But it is not the honeymoon: alas! we know not where to find that! To what shore, favoured of Heaven, are we now to steer our frail bark of love, launched into the open sea in such stormy weather? We had joyfully cried out "land!" when we reached Brescia. Here in the fair fields of Lombardy, where spring has already come with her hands full of opening flowers and verdant foliage, we hope to forget the world and its revolutions; but hardly had we alighted from the diligence, than a huge creature, one of the rabble, collared me, and demanded if I were not the viceroy; for the report had been already spread that the viceroy, driven from Milan, was on his way to Brescia, which he believed to be friendly to him. "My worthy friend," said I, "you really wrong me. I have just come from a country where the very word royal is erased from the dictionary." Apropos of the dictionary, have you still an Academy? By this time the diligence was surrounded by a crowd, not less demonstrative in its greetings than my first friend. I commenced a parley with them, interrupted from time to time by a poor nervous Englishwoman, white as her country's cliffs, protesting that though she did come from Munich, she was not Lola Montès. In a few minutes, however, a diversion was effected in our favour by the arrival of a second carriage. The mob rushed towards it, and seizing upon a man who alighted from it, dragged him into the next square. They say it is the viceroy: I am not sure; but one thing is certain, that the revolution is here as well as everywhere else. Danton said "that we did not carry our country about with us on the soles of our shoes;" but methinks I must carry about with me dust pregnant with revolutions. 'At length, in utter despair, I thought of Ireland. "I have heard of no revolution in Ireland." "If not," answered Matilda, "then we must not go; a revolution there would imply quiet, for it implies change, and the usual natural state of that country is disturbance." 'Her woman's wit at last suggested, "Why not go back whence we came?" She is quite right. Will you, then, have the goodness to call at my house and tell my English servant-but I was forgetting that the cause of liberty, equality, and fraternity would be compromised by my retaining him in my service-but tell any of my people you can find that we are on our way to Paris, and hope to spend our honeymoon at home? 'Farewell. I have but time to add, health and fraternity, HENRI DELMASURES.' BISSET THE ANIMAL TRAINER. STERNE says it is easy to travel from Dan to Beersheba, and cry All is barren.' It is equally easy to glance at the capabilities of the brute creation, and cry All is instinct. But what this instinct is, and what affinity it bears to man's boasted prerogative of reason, are questions of a graver character-questions which have demanded and received the attention of some of the wisest of our race; but which have as yet received, and are perhaps at present capable of receiving, only vague and unsatisfactory replies. The actions of many animals, and even of insects, frequently exhibit an appearance of forethought and knowledge which may well excite our surprise. A remarkable instance of this appears in the construction of the honeycomb, which is formed, in every respect, on the most approved mathematical principles. The bottom of a cell must be composed either of one plane, perpendicular to the side partitions, or of several planes meeting in a solid angle in the middle point; otherwise the cells could not be similar without loss of room. For the same reason the planes, if more than one, must be three, and no more; and by making the bottom to consist of three planes meeting in a point, much material and labour is saved. The bees follow these rules with as much accuracy as if they had been regular students in geometry. Dr Reid, in the course of some perspicuous observations on this subject, observes-'It is a curious mathematical problem at what precise angle the three planes at the bottom of a cell ought to meet, to make the greatest saving in material and labour. It is one of those problems belonging to the higher parts of mathematics, called problems of maxima and minima. The celebrated M'Laurin resolved it by a fluxionary calculation, to be found in the Transactions of the Royal Society of London, and determined precisely the angle required. Upon the most exact mensuration which the subject could admit, he afterwards found that it is the very angle in which the three planes in the bottom of the cell of a honeycomb actually meet.' Though we apprehend there are few who would be disposed to dispute the doctor's pious and elegant remark, that the geometry is not in the bee, but in the Great Geometrician who made the bee,' it is a subject which, taken in connection with the many similar instances of skill and knowledge which meet us at every turn, is not only of deep interest in itself, but well worthy of the most searching investigation which our powers will enable us to give it. But there is something beyond this. It is sufficiently remarkable, and not too complimentary to our mental supremacy, that a philosopher of eminence, in solving a mathematical problem of acknowledged difficulty, should find that he had but discovered a principle which such an insect as the bee had long known and acted upon. But however surprising the acquisition of such know ledge may be, it is the common property of the race. All honeycombs are constructed on the same principle, and the latest structure boasts no superiority over those formed centuries ago. Thus, however astonishing the original acquirement, there is no power of progression manifested. No Christopher Wren or Inigo Jones has arisen among the bees to breathe over the cells an atmosphere of taste and elegance, and teach the plastic wax to assume hitherto unknown forms of grace and beauty. From this absence of improvement, many philosophers have attempted to draw the line at this point between instinct and reason. Smellie, in his Philosophy of Natural History,' says instinct should be limited to such actions as every individual of a species exerts, without the aid either of experience or imitation; and in accordance with the same views, Dr Gleig, in the Encyclopædia Britannica,' observes, that no faculty which is capable of improvement by observation and experience can with propriety be termed instinct. If we accept this view of the subject, it seems doubtful whether we are not compelled to allow the animal creation the possession of another faculty in addition to, and above, this supposed boundary of their intellectual nature. For though Smellie speaks of the improvement of instinct, the doctor very consistently remarks, that to talk of such a thing is to perplex the understanding by a perversion of language. And yet it is a fact, as remarkable as interesting, that the faculties of animals are capable of such improvement; and that this capability is not confined to the higher species, but extends downwards to those grades which had hitherto been considered as quite beyond the pale of civilisation. Of this we have had such abundant testimony, that almost every man's experience can supply him with the proof. Not only have the wild denizens of the woods been brought by Van Amburgh and others to a surprising state of docility and acquired knowledge, and the king of the forest been taught to leap through a hoop, the elephant to make as dexterous a use of his trunk as a chevalier d'industrie does of his fingers, and several of the nobler animals to sustain their parts with credit in the performance of a regular drama; but some of the very lowest classes have developed, in the process of teaching, such latent powers and capabilities, as not merely to excite our present wonder, but seem to warrant the conclusion, that as we increase the skilfulness of our training, these developments will be found to increase with it. We do not think that the philosophy of this part of the subject, considered apart, and as distinct from the ordinary manifestations of instinct, has hitherto met with the attention which it deserves. We cannot, however, with any degree of justice, make the same complaint of the teaching itself; for the number of practical professors has so increased of late years, that an exhibition of trained animals which, a century and a half ago, would have been considered as occupying the debateable land' somewhere on the road between cheating and sorcery, is now almost as essential a part of every country fair as those dear old associates of our childhood-the wonderful puppet-show, with its men something larger than trees, and its skies something deeper than thumb-blue, and the venerable but ever fresh, mirthful, and delightfully-ridiculous Punch and Judy. Among those who have directed their attention to the training of animals, there are few who have evinced more aptitude for the task, have prosecuted it with more ingenuity and patience, or produced more successful results from their labours, than a man of the name of Bisset, who was well known in London, and indeed in most parts of the kingdom, about the middle of the last century. We are not sure that we can claim for him the title of the father of the art; but it had certainly attracted little attention in this country before his surprising exhibitions gave it an éclat which it has never since lost, and which has now made it a regular branch of study among those who cater for the amusement of the public. Bisset was born in Perth about the year 1721, and brought up to the trade of a shoemaker. Possessing that kind of talent which forms what is usually called 'a clever man,' he soon became noted as a skilful workman in the neater branches of the trade, particularly in what is technically called 'women's work;' and as Perth did not offer the encouragement to which he now naturally looked forward, he removed to London, where he not only found a wider field for the exercise of his abilities, but was enabled to push his fortune in another and more tender way, by becoming acquainted with a young woman of property, whom he soon afterwards married. This addition to his worldly means enlarged his views for the future: he established himself as a broker, was successful in his new business, and in a fair way for quietly accumulating a competence for the comfort of his old age, and then dying with only his grandchildren's love for epitaph,' when a chance circumstance gave a new current to his ideas, or at least changed the even tenor of his way. In the year 1739, he accidentally read in the newspapers an account of some surprising feats of a horse exhibited at the fair of St Germain's; this seems to have awakened in him a spirit of emulation, and he determined to see what he could achieve in the same way. It is scarcely probable that this circumstance drew his attention to animal teaching for the first time: such an incident, like many extraordinary accounts in our own day, might have made a transient impression, but would scarcely have produced such immediate results. It seems more likely that an early partiality for animals had caused him to feel an interest in their habits and modes of action, which led to a more attentive observance of them than is ordinarily paid. The nature of his early occupation, while it employed his hands, had allowed full leisure to his thoughts; and these thoughts were no doubt often engaged upon instances of brute capability which he had casually observed, and sometimes, perhaps, upon the means of further developing that capability by tuition. However this may be, the account, if it did not first cause him to think, certainly first induced him to act; and he immediately began those experiments which have placed his name so high on the list of animal teachers. The first objects upon which he tested his powers were a horse and a dog; with which his success was so decided, as to strengthen the belief that his system of training was no sudden and immature impulse, but the result of close thought and patient observation. This success encouraged him to extend his experiments; and for his next pupils he selected two monkeys, which he trained to the performance of a regular exhibition; one of them going through a good imitation of biped dancing, and tumbling on the tight-rope, while his companion held a lighted candle in one paw, and played a barrel organ with the other. As these feats began to attract attention, and draw considerable audiences to witness them, he resolved to pursue his system on a more extended scale; and the result was equally creditable to his ingenuity and his patience. Having procured three young cats, he contrived to teach them not only so to strike the dulcimer with their paws as to produce a regular tune, but to add their most sweet voices' to the concert, singing first, second, and third, in the regular way. This performance was sufficiently striking in itself, and doubly so at a time when such things were strange. We who live in an age when even fleas are industrious'-that is, apart from, and over and above, their usual vampire vocation-when cats turn coachmen to doves, and birds die and revive again at bidding; when mice are dressed as ladies, and go to bed with lighted candles; and monkeys remind us of the enchanted prince in the Arabian Nights;' we have been too much accustomed to these things for them to inspire us with any vivid interest; but in that day, when they possessed all the charm of novelty, their exhibition drew such crowds, that Bisset was induced to transfer the performance from his own house to the Haymarket Theatre. There his feline protégés made their first appearance on any stage' in the famous Cats' predecessors; and being put upon his mettle by the assertion that, however successful with more docile animals, he would never be able to overcome the obstinacy of a pig, he immediately purchased a small black suckling for three shillings in Belfast market; and training it to lie under the kit whereon he again plied his original trade, he bent his energies to this new and more difficult experiment with all the zest which a huntsman feels when he knows he is on the track of an old fox. For seven months, every means which ingenuity or experience could suggest were tried, and tried in vain: the brain of the pig seemed incapable of containing any idea beyond that of wash; and he was on the point of relinquishing the experiment as hopeless, when a fresh method of teaching happened to strike him. Unwilling to acknowledge himself baffled, he put it in practice; and with such a triumphant result, that at the end of another six months his pupil was on the high road for becoming what is not unfamiliar to us in the present day, but was then, we believe, an unheardof wonder-a learned pig. Opera-a piece which, from its novel nature and inte- before he possessed a dog and cat, whose feats did as resting character, as an evidence that the brute creation | much honour to his powers of teaching as those of their possessed capabilities hitherto not only undeveloped, but undreamt of, brought such overwhelming audiences to the theatre, that in a very few days the fortunate maestro saw himself the possessor of nearly a thousand pounds. He now resolved to convince the world that however wonderful they considered it that such effects could be wrought on animals hitherto deemed to rank low in the scale of rationality, there was still in the lowest depth a lower deep,' from which equal food for astonishment might be drawn. He taught a leveret to bear its part in the singular concert, by beating on a drum with its hinder feet, and to play several marches in the same way. At subsequent exhibitions, sparrows, linnets, and canaries, spelt the names of the company, told the hour and minute of the day, and performed other feats of a similar nature; and as a crowning specimen of his power over the inferior races, he trained six turkeys to go through a regular dance; and one to fetch and carry like a dog, and, with blackened claws on a chalked board, to trace out the name of any person present that was placed before it. The means by which he contrived to accomplish such surprising ends, not merely with animals of recognised sagacity, but with creatures which had been deemed incapable of exhibiting a ray of intelligence, were of course known only to himself; and as the results appeared to warrant the presumption that he had found the golden key to the coffers of prosperity, he was naturally not anxious to peril his expectations by unlocking the secrets of the prison-house.' But though it is to be feared that, had his system of instruction been disclosed, it would not have been found to accord with the dictates of humanity-for he confessed that he had taught the poor turkeys on the Eastern method, by heating the floor beneath them-there is still much left for the results of ingenuity and patience, and much more for the existence of a capacity in the animals themselves, hitherto unsuspected, and perhaps even now capable of higher development under improved means. Bisset's own labours in the field, however, now received a premature check. He had gone on for some time reaping his golden harvest, and no doubt calculating that the same seed would always produce the same fruit. But the simple-hearted shoemaker had yet to learn the instability of the popular mind. The novel character of his early exhibitions had caught the attention of the town; they became the rage, and every one was eager to witness them: this zest had now begun to cool; the votaries of fashion had set up some other idol; and poor Bisset had the mortification to see the benches, which had once scarcely sufficed to accommodate the crowds that eagerly thronged to fill them, now gradually grow thinner and thinner. His exhibitions were more carefully got up than ever, and varied by every means which he possessed; but all would not do: the public curiosity was satisfied, and they would no longer draw. Bisset did not find the expense of his establishment decrease in the same ratio as its magnetic powers, and saw his guineas melt away like snow in the sunbeam, till he was at last compelled to dispose of a portion of his long-cherished animals, and descend to an itinerant exhibition of the rest. Even this resource seems to have been only partially successful; for we find him in 1775 abandoning London altogether, and travelling through a portion of the north of England; till at length, finding it impossible to rekindle the extinguished embers of excitement, he resolved upon a totally opposite course of life-by exchanging a profession whose aim was to raise the brute as near as might be to the level of the man, for one which too often debases the man to the level of the brute. He opened a public-house at Belfast, and for some time seemed not to have an idea beyond licensed victualling. But the habits of years are not to be eradicated in a moment: the old tree is not to be drawn out of the earth like the plant of yesterday. It was not long The hope of driving his pig to a good market'—the force of old habits-and perhaps the astonishment expressed at his success, and a little pardonable vanity in being able to show the world, which had neglected him, his ability to instruct and control an animal whose stupidity has long been an axiom, and whose obstinacy has passed into a proverb, succeeded in tempting him once more from his trade; and we find him in Dublin, in August 1783, exhibiting his pig at Ranelagh. His triumph over its native stubbornness had been complete; and besides manifesting a degree of docility and obedience more characteristic of a spaniel than its own species, it is recorded that it would cast up accounts with accuracy, spell the names of persons present without any apparent direction, point out the words they thought of, distinguish the married from the single, and kneel and make obeisance to the company at the close of the exhibition. These performances, which, after allowing for the usual charlatanism of such exhibitions, were still highly surprising, began to create what the newspapers call a sensation.' Some of the old tide of prosperity began to flow back; and Bisset already saw, in anticipation, the return of at least a portion of those guineas which had formerly weighed down his purse-strings. These expectations were strengthened when, on the weather's rendering it necessary that he should remove the animal into the city, and having procured the chief magistrate's permission, he advertised it for exhibition in Dame Street, many persons of distinction honoured him with their presence, and the applauses bestowed on his skill and patience were of the most flattering character. This event, however seemingly so auspicious, proved a fatal one for poor Bisset; for he had not occupied the room many days, when an officer-evidently one of those who consider that even a little brief authority' is worth nothing unless made the most of-broke into the apartment, under the pretext of its being an unlicensed exhibition, wantonly destroyed the apparatus which directed the performance, and loaded with coarse abuse the inoffensive proprietor himself, who in vain pleaded the magisterial permission as a sufficient sanction for his presence. A threat of a prison and the loss of his pig, if he dared to repeat the exhibition, was the only answer to his mild remonstrances; and the dread of the fulfilment of the menace, together with the destruction of his property, so terrified the poor man, that he lost no time in quitting a place where his hopes had been a second time so lamentably disappointed. He had scarcely regained his home, when the agitation of his mind, acting on a weak and enfeebled body, threw him into a fit of illness, which, in effect, brought both his interesting labours and personal anxieties to a premature close. For although he partially rallied, and being pronounced able to travel, had resolved to return to London, the scene of his early triumphs and his tran sient prosperity, a relapse of his illness overtook him at Chester, and a few days saw his quiet and harmless spirit removed to another world. SNEEZING. AMONG the many enchanting tales of the 'Arabian Nights,' in which our youthful fancy of old luxuriated, we remember there was one of a certain humpbacked schoolmaster, who gives the history of his unfortunate deformity. Among the various valuable precepts which he inculcated, those of politeness seem to have held a chief place; and when he sneezed, we are told the scholars were taught to clap their hands, and exclaim Long live our noble master!' One day the dominie and his pupils were walking in the country: the day was sultry, and they were all glad when at last they fell in with a well. But, if we remember aright, the bucket was at the bottom, and the worthy dominie resolved to descend and bring it up full. Having filled the bucket with the 'crystal treasure,' the master gave the word, and the youths forthwith commenced hauling him up again. When near the top, as ill luck would have it, their pre-voured to account for the existence of the wide-spread ceptor sneezed! Simultaneously the boys let go, and, clapping their hands, vociferated the accustomed Long live our noble master!' while the luckless dominie, bucket and all, went rattling down to the bottom again -breaking at once his back and many of his prejudices in favour of etiquette. When this tale first met our youthful eye, little reflective though we were, sneezing we thought was an odd thing to make the subject of compliment. But the discoveries of our maturer years have sufficiently proved how very ignorant we must have been to come to any such conclusion. Jewish rabbi and Christian pope-Arab novelist and classic author-the sands of Africa, even the savannas of the new world-all furnish proofs of the high importance attached to the sternutative functions. Records of this are found in all countries and in all times-except the antediluvian. And this brings us at once into contact with the Jewish rabbis those extraordinary fellows, who seem to have been better acquainted with Eden than ever were Adam and Eve-who know all the secrets of the Ark, and would beat Noah himself at an inventory of its furniture. Such extensive chronological attainments must be invaluable in searching out the origin of things; and we are glad we can derive the early history of sneezing from authorities so unimpeachable. As there is no mention in the Sacred Writings of illness among men until some time after the Flood, the rabbis declare that sickness was altogether unknown in the early world. How, then, it may be asked, did men die in those days? Why, they just sneezed, and expired. So say the rabbis. They tell us, moreover, that Jacob, disrelishing this speedy exit from life, earnestly desired that some warning should be given in order to prepare for the momentous change. This, say the rabbis, was the object for which he wrestled with the angel. His prayer was granted: he sneezed, and fell sick. The hitherto unheard-of circumstance of a man sneezing, and yet surviving, must, on the supposition of the rabbis, have made a great sensation among mankind: still more would the advent of disease-and thus associated, sneezing thenceforth ranked as one of the most important phenomena of the human system. So much for tradition. But mythology also pays a like homage to this wind of the head.' Sneezing is said to have been the first act of the first man made by Prometheus. After giving the last finish to his work, Prometheus, we are told, cudgelled his brains as to how he was to impart to it life and motion. The difficulty, however, was found to be a poser: he needed celestial aid to accomplish his purpose. Accordingly, conducted by the goddess Minerva, he skimmed lightly through the regions of several planets, and at last approached the sun. This was the stuff he wanted. Concealed under the mantle of his divine guide, Prometheus neared the resplendent orb, and filled with its liquid fire a phial which he had brought for that purpose, hermetically sealed it, and forthwith regained earth sound in limb and overjoyed in spirit. Applying the flask to the nostrils of his statue, he opened it, and instantaneously the subtle sunbeams insinuated themselves with such power through the pores of the spongy bone that the image sneezed. Upon this brain, the nerves, the arteries-and the image stood forth impulse the living principle was diffused through the as good a man as its manufacturer. It is added that Prometheus, overjoyed at the success of his experiment, broke into words of benediction and of prayer for the preservation of the wondrous work of his hands; and that this first man, awakening into consciousness while the words were being spoken, ever afterwards remembered them; and on every instance of sternutation in himself or his descendants, imitated the example of his artificer. It was thus that the poets of Greece and Rome endeacustom of saluting any one who sneezed; but the monks of the middle ages have not been behind-hand with them in the attempt. According to their legends, in the days of St Gregory the Great there reigned a deadly poison in instantly fell dead; and in consequence of the great morthe air of Italy, so that any one who sneezed or yawned tality, the Pope ordained that on all occasions when a yawn or sneeze occurred, the bystanders should repeat certain words of prayer, to avert danger from the luckless wight who had been seduced into so perilous an indulgence. But in this case the heathens have undeniably the advantage over mother church: in regard to truth, we believe they are pretty much on a par; but for the children of the Vatican to attribute to the sixth century the origin of what had existed for a thousand years before, is ignorance' beyond all hooping.' The custom was of long standing even in the days of Alexander the Great, whose preceptor Aristotle made it the subject of erudite remark. In all countries the spirit of the salutation was the same-from the terse Salve!' of the Romans, to the rather Irish Orientalism, May you live a thousand years, and never die!' and among the Greeks and Jews the very word was identical Live!' The Greeks have a capital story in one of their comedies of an old fellow called Proclus, who had a nose so very big that he could not blow it, as by no possibility could his hands reach to the end of his nasal protuberance; and to give posterity a still better idea of this formidable proboscis, the Greek dramatist adds, that when this Mr Proclus sneezed, he could not even cry 'God help me!' as the nose was too far off for the ear to hear. But far from being confined to classic ground and the realms of Asia, the practice existed even in the depths of barbarous Africa. Old accounts of Monomopata testify that whenever the king of that region sneezed, all those who were in the place of his residence, or even in the environs, were simultaneously apprised of it, either by signs, or certain forms of prayer made on his behalf, which instantly spread the intelligence from the palace to the city, and thence to the suburbs; so that nothing was heard around but devout wishes for the prince's health, and a kind of God save the king!' which every one was obliged to repeat aloud. extraordinary still, this piece of etiquette was witnessed by the Spaniards among the natives of the new world. The author of the History of the Conquest of Florida' informs us that the cazique of Guachoia having sneezed diately bowed low before their prince, venting aspirations in the presence of Soto, all the Indians present immethat the sun would preserve him, enlighten him, and be always with him. More A custom so singular and so universal could not fail which is its most visible manifestation. Acme then her head reflecting, Serve we Love, our only master: Love on the left hand aptly sneezed- with the classic ages; but the custom of saluting those who to attract the notice of ancient writers, who have endeavoured to deduce its origin from natural religion. The head, they said, is the principal part of man: it is the fountain of the nerves, of all the sensations-it is the dwelling-place of the soul, that divine particle which thence, as from its throne, governs the whole mass-that hence a peculiar dignity always attached to it, and men in early times used to swear by their head as by something sacred-that they never dared to taste or touch any kind of brain-that they even avoided naming the word, usually expressing it by a periphrasis, such as 'white marrow. From all this, it is added, it is not strange that their descendants should continue to reverence the brain, and attach importance to sneezing, As the ancients cannot now defend themselves, it would be ungenerous to make disparaging remarks on this theory of theirs; so we will rather pursue our theme, and find the sternutative function, in unholy wedlock with superstition, playing the part of an influential, but on the whole very harmless, familiar spirit. Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, all listened to its warning trump' as to the voice of a present deity; and there are on record endless instances in which a sneeze has deter-there is great reason to fear that we shall soon see this mined an embarrassed heathen in his line of conduct. One day, for instance, Xenophon was haranguing his troops, and just as he was impetuously exhorting them to adopt a hazardous, but in his view indispensable resolution, a soldier sneezed: spontaneously, says the historian, the whole army adored the deity; and Xenophon, skilfully profiting by the incident, wound up by proposing a sacrifice to the saviour god' who had thus counselled them to adopt the salutary plans of their general. In Homer, likewise, when Penelope, harassed by the importunities of her suitors, is venting imprecations against them, and breathing wishes for the return of her Ulysses, her son Telemachus interrupts her with a sneeze so loud, that it shakes the whole house: Penelope gives way to transports of joy, and sees in this incident an assurance of the speedy return of her long-absent husband. Even the wondrous demon of Socrates, which the sage so often consulted in the exigencies of his eventful life, was neither sylph nor salamander, if we are to trust a passage in Plutarch-neither genii nor conscience-it was a sneeze! respectable custom die out; for sneezings have become so frequent, and so much in vogue, that it is rare now-adays to see produced naturally those salutary functions which the human race has so justly deemed worthy of its respect. They are forced from nature whether she will be no doubt that superstition, from whatever cause arisor no, and it is no longer the same thing.'t There can ing, mainly engendered this respect for the function of times, it was frequently disregarded as a vulgar prejusneezing; and accordingly, by the learned even of ancient dice. But Clement of Alexandria, in his little treatise of politeness, goes further than this, and regards sneezing as a mark of intemperance and effeminacy: he says that it should be suppressed as much as possible, and is most unmeasured in his reprobation of those who seek to procure it by extraneous means. Though very many nowa-days set at defiance this anathema of the Greek Chesterfield, yet the usages of modern society coincide in the main with his suggestions; and when in company with those we respect, if sneeze we must, we at least endeavour to conceal it from observation. Aristotle of old declared sneezing to be a favourable It is true there is something rather anti-romantic in a sneeze; yet in olden times, when Venus was still queen which we generally regard it seems to confirm his deci symptom of health; and the rather humorous light in of beauty and love, a gallant would often not have ex-sion. It is a gentle stimulus to a languid system—it is changed the sound of its rasping blast for the softest breathings of Zephyr, or the sweetest song of the nightingale. Indeed, in the ever-shifting world of love-of all others the brightest, yet most troubled-this omen was regarded as the weightiest and happiest of all. Parthenis, a young Greek girl, who has rather foolishly allowed herself to get head and ears in love with a youth, after many sore struggles, and long irresolutions, resolves to write an avowal of her passion to her dear Sarpedon. Let us follow her to her bower or her boudoir. There she sits, the loving, foolish creature! with as heavy and anxious a heart as ever belonged to a sweet girl of sixteen. The gentle murmurs of the Egean come floating into the room; and as she looks up, the evening sunlight falls cheeringly on her pale cheek as it quivers through the vine trellis. Her eye is brimming, and her heart flutters as she resumes her stylus; for now she is at the very crisis of her letter, and is avowing her passion with guileless ardour, when a light, rapid convulsion shakes the stylus from her grasp. She has eneezed! It is enough! Parthenis is once more all joy: for she knows that at the same instant Sarpedon is thinking of her with sentiments as loving as her own. The heathen divinities themselves seem to have sneezed when more than usually pleased, and inclined to be beneficent; and the poets used to say of persons remarkably beautiful, that the Loves had sneezed at their birth.' Cupid appears to have been especially fond of thus testifying his approbation, as we learn from the sweet little poem of Acmé and Septimellus, from which the following lines are translated: and relieves us: such, say many, are the benefits of a 'Who shall decide, when doctors disagree?' Perhaps much, as Sir Roger de Coverley remarks, may be said on both sides. For ourselves, we are content to |