there be snakes and specially along the banks of Euphrates that will not touch the Syrians lying along asleep: nay, if a man that leans upon them be stung or bitten by them, he shall find no hurt or mischief thereby. But to men of all other nations whatsoever they are most spightfully bent; them they will with great greedinesse eagerly assail, and fly upon them, yea, and kill them with great pain and anguish; and therefore it is that the Sirians destroy them not." Saint Patrick enjoys the reputation of having charmed all the reptiles out of the Emerald Isle; but one huge fellow is said to have given him so much trouble that he was obliged to have recourse to stratagem to get rid of him. It is more than probable that this legend had its origin in a superstition rife amongst the ancients, which is amusingly described by Lucian. Ion is made to say, "I was a boy about fourteen when somebody came and told my father that his vine-dresser, Midas, one of our stoutest and most laborious servants, lay in a deplorable condition about the time of full market, bit by a viper, and his legs were beginning to mortify. It seems whilst he was industriously at work, tying his vines to their trellices, the reptile crawled up to him, bit him by the great toe, and instantly slipped away and retired into a hole. In a word, the poor fellow now lay there crying out, and ready to expire with pain. While the man was stating these particulars, we saw the poor Midas borne on a plank by two of his fellow labourers. He was swelled all over, discoloured black and blue, apparently gangrenous, and panting for breath. One of the standers-by, seeing my father much concerned at this accident said to him, 'Take heart, I will go and fetch in a moment a Babylonian-one of those who pass under the name of Chaldeans. He shall presently set the man on his legs again.' To be brief, the Babylonian came and recovered Midas. This he positively did by means of a charm which drew the venom out of the body, and a scrap that he had broke off the tomb-stone of a virgin lately deceased, which he tied about the bad foot. Besides this, however, I know several other facts of this Babylonian which may with truth be called supernatural. One morning early he came to our estate, and, after having walked thrice round the field with a torch in his hand and purified it with sulphur, he pronounced seven sacred names out of an old book, strange to us, with a loud voice, and thereby immediately drove all the snakes and reptiles and every other species of vermin, whatsoever they were out of our enclosure. Attracted by the force of his conjuration, as if drawn by a rope, there came about him innumerable asps, serpents, vipers, efts, adders, darters, cowsuckers, and toads. One old dragon staid behind, probably because, from extreme age and decrepitude, he was no longer able to creep out of his cave, and therefore did not obey the mandate. Ye are not all here,' said the magician. He then nodded to one of the youngest serpents to come forward, and dispatched him to the old dragon, who, not long after, came. Being now all collected, the Babylonian blowed upon them, and immediately, by one puff of his breath, they were all burnt to ashes!" These Chaldeans, or Hyperboreans, seem to have been famous for sorcery even from the time of Moses. Cleodemus, the friend of the same Ion whom we have just quoted, is made to say, that after a long struggle he yielded to conviction that there were magicians, on seeing a certain foreigner (he gave himself out for an Hyperborean) fly in the air. What could I do, since I saw him in broad daylight travelling through the air, walking on the water, and with an easy pace promenading in the fire." Eucrates favours his friends with a remarkable example of his own experiences in the wonderful. "It was during the vintage, about noon, having dismissed the labourers from their work, I rambled all alone in the wood, absorbed in profound thought, about some particular affairs." Whilst thus engaged he heard the barking of dogs and a noise of thunder and beheld a woman of half a stadium-about three hundred feet in height-advancing towards him. This was the goddess Hecate. Presently she stamped upon the ground, it opened, she leaped into it, and disappeared. However, this was a chance not to be lost by such a shrewd fellow as Eucrates, who says he "plucked up courage, and stooping down looked into the abyss, holding with my arm round a tree that grew near, to prevent my falling in, in case I should be seized with giddiness. And now I saw all that is to be seen in Tartarus-the fiery billows of Phlegethon, the Stygian Lake, Cerberus, the souls of the departed, so distinctly that I recognised among them several of my acquaintance. My father I could not mistake, because he was dressed precisely in the same garments in which we buried him." His friend Ion pertinently asks, "What were the souls doing?" "What were they doing? They were lying according to their families and guilds upon flowery beds of asphodel, and passing the time agreeably with their friends and relatives." This was satisfactory; but his friend pressed him still further by asking "Did you not see Socrates and Plato among the dead?" "Socrates? Yes; though not clearly. I only conjectured it to be him by his shining pate and protuberance of belly. But Plato I could not discern; for I should be sorry to tell my friends anything more than the bare truth"-which was very considerate on his part. With the ancients the harmless innocent chameleon had the misfortune to possess above all other animals an evil reputation, and certainly no creature was ever more maligned or more cruelly used. "There is not a creature in the world (says Pliny) thought more fearfull than it: which is the reason of that mutabilitie whereby it turneth into such varietie of colours. Howbeit of exceeding great power against all the sorts of hawkes or birds of prey, for, by report, let them fly and soar never so high over the chameleon, there is an attractive virtue that will fetch them down, so as they shall fall upon the chameleon and yield themselves willingly as a prey to be torne, mangled, and devoured by other beasts." The "attractive virtue" may exist, but the result happens to be just the other way; for if either party is torn and devoured, it is the poor chameleon; for to a gourmet of an eagle, or a hawk with a delicate stomach, a nicer little treat could scarcely be found. Democritus ascertained "That if one burn the head and throat of the chamelion in a fire made of oken wood, there will immediately arise tempests of rainy stones and thunder together, and the liver will do as much if it burne upon the tiles of a house." Pretty well this, Master Chameleon, but your wonderful powers are by no means at an end yet; and you really must be a terrible fellow, for it seems that if you are brought into a house where a lady is about to increase her family, she is sure to die! However, you have some redeeming qualities, for it seems "that the right eie of this beast, if it be pulled out of the head whilst it is alive, taketh away the pearl, pin, and web in man or woman's eies; so it be applied thereto with goat's milk. The chamelion's tongue pulled out of the head whilst the chamelion is quicke, promiseth good successe in judiciall trials. The heart bound within black wooll of the first shearing is a most soveraigne remedie against quartan agues. The right foorfoot hanged fast to the left arm, within the skin of a hyæna, is singular against the perils and dangers by theeves and robbers, as also to skar away hobgoblins and night-spirits. But the left foot they use to torrifie in an oven, with the herb called also chamelion, and with some convenient ointment or liquor to make in certain trosches, whereof if a man do carry any in a box of wood about him he shall go invisible !" Every atom of the reptile's body seems to have been gifted with marvellous powers, but the tail was perhaps the most highly endowed of all. In fact, we never fully appreciated the value of that appendage until we became aware of what might be done with it in the following way. "The like wonders they report of the chamelion's taile, namely, how it will stay any violent streame of river; stop the course and inundations of waters, and, withall, bring sleep and mortifie serpents. The same being aromatized or spiced with cedar and myrrh, and tied fast to a branch of the date tree, growing double or forked, will divide the waters that be smitten therewith, so as a man may see whatsoever is in the bottom." After that, we think our little scaly friends, the chameleons, at the Zoological Gardens, are deserving of at least a bow for the honour and credit of the race. The next observation we especially address to the manufacturers of cutlery at Sheffield, as it nearly concerns their interests. Nasally speaking, male goats have ever enjoyed a considerable reputation for being "strong," and no man can gainsay it; but their blood was formerly supposed to be stronger still. For verily," says Pliny, "the bloud of a buck goat is so strong that there is not anything in the world wil either sharpen the edg of any yron tools sooner, or harden the same when it is keen than it. And as for the ruggedness of any blade, it will take it away more effectually and polish it better than the very file!" But it seems to have been used for another purpose. "Drusus, sometime a tribune of the commons in Rome, drank goats' bloud to make himselfe look pale and wan in the face, at what time as he meant to charge Q. Cæpio his enemy with giving him poison." As it doubtless disagreed exceedingly with him, he was probably rendered as pale as his heart could desire. When travelling in Scotland a year or two ago, an island in Loch Lomond was pointed out to us as being the "location," as brother Jonathan would say, to which ladies too fond of Bacchus were sent, and kept in retirement until they had overcome their bibbing propensities. Mighty useful, no doubt, is a little discipline, when timely applied. The Romans, it appears, were in the habit of applying much severer discipline to cases of this description. We read that, "Egnatius Mecennius killed his own wife with a cudgell, for that he tooke her drinking wine out of a tun" (oh fie! Mrs. Mecennius!); and Fabius Pictor, in his Annals, reports, "that a certain Romane dame, a woman of good worship, was by her owne kinsfolke famished and pined to death for opening a cupboard wherein the keis of the wine sellar lay!" If we may judge from the statement of Erasmus, kissing, or as Sam Slick has it, "saluting" was in great vogue among our ancestors in England. Says he, with watering mouth, "Sunt hic nymphæ divinis vultibus, blandæ, faciles. Est præterea mos nunquam satis laudandus ; sive quo venias omnium osculis exciperis-sive discedas aliquo, osculis dimitteris; redis, redduntur suavia; venitur ad te, propinantur suavia : disceditur ab te, dividuntur basia; occurritur alicubi, basiatur affatim : denique quocumque te moveas suaviorum plena sunt omnia." This highly exciting amusement was in favour with the Romans; but alas! for the frailty of human nature-on very different grounds-for ladies were saluted (we blush to write it) to ascertain if their breath smelt of temetum! which was the slang term for wine, answering to Mr. Richard Swiveller's expression, "the rosy." From this word temulentia, the Latin for being "in one's cups," or "happy," arose. Whilst speaking of good things, we should like to know how many of our readers are aware who was the illustrious inventor of the famed Perigord Pie? In days of yore it seems to have been a very vexed question who this benefactor was. Let us hear what Pliny says. "Our countrimen and citizens of Rome, believe me, are wiser nowadaies, who know, forsooth, how to make a dainty dish of their liver. For in those geese that are kept up and cram'd fat in coup, the liver grows to be exceeding great; and when it is taken forth of the belly it waxeth bigger still if it be steeped in milk and suet mede together. Good cause therefore it is that there be some question and controversie about the first inventor of this great, good, and singular commoditie to mankind. Whether it were Scipio Metellus, or M. Šestius. But to leave that still undecided, this is certainly known, that Messalinus Cotta, son to that Messala the orator, found out the secret to broile and fry the flat broad feet of geese, and together with cocks' combs, to make a savoury dish thereof." An ancient notion, which has held its ground with remarkable tenacity, is that of the existence of a race of men with tails-not pig-tails,-but genuine caudal appendages of liberal dimensions. We can well understand how formerly, when human and comparative anatomy were little understood, such a belief should have existed; but it is curious how, ever and anon, the same idea keeps starting up in enthusiastic minds. The late Lord Monboddo was a firm believer, and the very plausible reason assigned by his lordship for the absence of tails in people generally was, that nurses and mothers pinched them off when the infants were born. However, he shrewdly observed, that "he believed, if the truth were known, many more people have tails than is imagined." The immense dimensions of the breeches of the Dutch boors has been supposed to have reference to these ornaments, which are imagined by the Monboddos to lie perdu in the ample folds of those vestments. We certainly little imagined, when smiling at these eccentricities of the old Scotch judge, that in the year of grace 1852, a statement would appear before the scientific world, backed by all the weight of a communication to the Parisian Academy of Sciences, that in that fruitful land of marvels, the interior of Africa, there actually does exist a race of bashaws-men with real tails, which "They can switch, As a gentleman switches his cane." A Mons. Castelnau has made this startling revelation on the authority of a slave named Mahommah, who told him that he with his tribe, the Haoustas, after crossing some lofty mountains, arrived at a spot where a band of the Niam Niams (as these tailed gentry are called) were sleeping in the sun. Creeping silently towards them, they massacred every one, and, on examining the bodies, each was found to have a tail at least a foot in length by an inch in diameter, smooth and glossy. Other bands were afterwards met and slain-all similarly furnished. One of these parties was occupied in eating human flesh, and the heads of three men suspended to stakes were roasting in a fire, round which the party were seated. This grill of the human heads is a masterly touch, but we regret that Mohammah does not inform us of the effect of pleasure or of fear upon the tails; whether a cheerful Niam wagged his, or a desponding Niam hung his. But after all, we fear that Mohammah was, as the Persians say, "laughing at the beard" of Monsieur Castelnau, when he fitted him with this narrative, which we regard as a pleasant fiction, if intended in reality to be applied to human beings. One of the most popular poetic ideas has been happily expressed by Orlando Gibbons in his beautiful madrigal : "The silver swan who living had no note, When death approached unlocked her silent throat, Thus sang her first and last, and sang no more." Plato, who mingled the keenest observation with the most profound reasoning, puts into the mouth of Socrates an allusion to this myth, not less graceful than happy. It is in the Phædo, that admirable and touching narrative of the death of Socrates, who, in a last striking conversation immediately before his death, thus comforts his sorrowing friend. "Simmias, with difficulty indeed could I persuade other men that I do not consider my present condition a calamity, since I am not able to persuade even you; but you are afraid lest I should be more morose now than during the former part of my life. As it seems I appear to you to be inferior to swans with respect to divination, who when they perceive that they must needs die, though they have been used to sing before, sing then more than ever, rejoicing that they are about to depart to that deity whose servants they are. But men, through their own fear of death, belie the swans too, and say that they, lamenting their death, sing their last song through grief, and they do not consider that no bird sings when it is hungry or cold, or is afflicted with any other pain, not even the nightingale or swallows or hoopoes, which, they say, sing, lamenting through grief. But neither do these birds appear to me to sing through sorrow, nor yet do swans; but in my opinion, belonging to Apollo, they are prophetic, and foreseeing the blessings of Hades, they sing and rejoice on that day more excellently than at any preceding time!" There is equal truth and elegance in these remarks, for though the song of the swan is imaginary, yet the above reasoning is perfectly just. The song of birds is melody poured forth in love, in triumph, but never in sorrow. The cuckoo and the nightingale, the blackbird and lark, bid welcome to the spring with their pleasant roundelays; and we see "The lofty woods, the forests wide and long, Adorned with leaves and branches fresh and green, |