begun. The sovereign's motive was to have the whole East India trade near at hand, in Scheerau, like a snuff-mill; and I think we have got it with this distinction, that the Scheerau spice-islands are still better than the Dutch. In the latter, one is forced to wait for the ripening of the pepper, nutmegs, &c. &c. ; but on our islands all lies ready ripe and dry, and one has only to grind it for eating. The reason is, that we order all these things, in the proper time, from Amsterdam. The matter stands thus:

Either all or nothing is a royal monopoly. The jurist cannot consider it right that princes, while they claim as their prerogative the most precious and most scarce articles of produce, should leave those that are common, but, at the same time, much more profitable, in the hands of the children of the country, and thus weaken the treasury. He, the jurist, finds more consistency in the princes of southern Asia-despotic as they may be who do not take merely the game, or the salt, or the amber, or the pearls, but the entire land, and the entire trade, and farm out both by the year. The German princes are more entitled to adopt such a practice than all the rest, for while all the other European kingdoms have their Indian possessions, as New England, New France, New Holland; Old Germany has no New Germany, and the only land which a prince has to take is his own, unless, indeed, we learn to make a New Austria, or a New Prussia, out of Turkey or Poland.

upon

Hitherto, however, no sovereign perceived this, excepting him of Scheerau, who laid these principles before his privy-council; but, before it had come to the voting, had already decided that his people should take all their spices of him alone. He himself, like nature, produces his Moluccas the spice, which the land consumes; while through his agent of commerce, Von Röper, he has the seeds of these spices, peppercorns, nuts, &c., sent from Amsterdam. Because the Moluccas suffered from the contraband trade in spice, the country is surrounded by a pepper-and-cinnamon cordon of cadets and hussars. All that my Scheerau readers take from the shops, whether they belong to a great house, that employs more ships and travellers than I do compositors, or whether they are rented by some poor retailer, the very description of whom already moves my compassion, whose day-book is a slate, and whose stock-book is a greasy room door, and whose goods are carried not by ships, but as a land freight under the arm, or upon the shoulder, that is to say, on a stick placed across the shoulder ;--in both these cases does the Scheerau reader masticate the produce of Moluccas, that are close to his nose.

One who is capable of judging of such subjects, heartily applauds the spice-inspector, who writes in the Scheerau Intelligencer: First, that the country can now get pepper and ginger at a lower rate, the treasury alone being able to purchase them in larger, and consequently in cheaper portions; Secondly, that the sovereign now has it in his power to make the people of Scheerau the first of the Germans who shall leave off the use of these dainties, that send so much of our money to India; and, thirdly, that a new band of officials can earn a livelihood.

I need not defend our prince-when the Russian empress gives municipal rights to villages-for giving island rights to hills of rubbish, or for giving East Indian names to them, when every blockhead of a seacaptain can stand godfather to the greatest island, when, moreover, he rather discovers it than makes it. Our Sumatra is, in extent, somewhat more than a quarter of a square quarter-league,

and chiefly abounds in pepper ;-Java is larger, but is not quite finished ;-in Banda, which is three times as large as our concert-room, nature produces nutmegs ;-in Amboyna she produces cloves ;-upon Teidor stands the neat country-house of a well-known inhabitant of Scheerau; the little Moluccas, which are dotted about the pond, I could put into my waistcoat pocket, together with all their produce, but they have their use. He, who has never been in a seafaring town or harbour, may travel here to the one at Scheerau, and see on an afternoon what in our times the trade really is, which is raised by the united hands of all nations; here he may form a notion of a fleet of merchantmen, of which he has read so much, but only blindly, and which he can see here really sailing over our pond; he can see the so-called spice-fleet of the agent of commerce, Von Röper, which, like a hot climate, distributes among all the islands the spices that he has ordered. He (the spectator) may also alight upon some poor devils, who fetch from our East Indies, upon a little raft-wood, the few articles that they retail by the Kreutzer. On the harbour and on the shore, where he himself stands, he can remark what the coast-trade is, as the pedlar-women carry it on in gingerbread-and-wal-nuts on a small scale.*

BODY AND SOUL.

Gratings of flesh and bone stand between human souls; and yet men can fancy that there may be such a thing as an embrace upon the earth, when it is only the gratings that knock together, and behind them one soul only thinks upon the other.

HEARING A LADY SING.

Verily I will a thousand times rather-I well know what I ventureride with the liveliest woman in the principality of Scheerau quite through the latter, and lift her not only into, but what is far more dangerousout of the coach;-more than that, I will rather read to her with deep emotion the last works that we have in the poetical and romantic department,-nay, I will rather dance with her from one masquerade-room into another, and when we are seated, ask her if she is in good spirits,--finally, I will rather I cannot speak more strongly-clap on the doctor's hat, and press her weak hand to the bleeding-stick+ with my own, while she, not to see the arch of blood over her snowy arm, looks into my eye, growing paler and paler ;-I will rather, I promise-(in truth I am inflicting upon myself more and larger wounds than the bleeding mannikinț in the Almanac)-do all this, than hear the lovely one sing. In that case I should be lost; who would assist me, who would hear my signals of distress, when she, in the quietest attitude, snowed away her right snowarm softly upon some black ground, half-closed the bud of her rose-lips, dropped her dewy eyes upon her own thoughts, and there veiled them; when the soft downy bosom undulated like a white rose-leaf upon the waves of breath, floating up and down with them; when her soul otherwise encased in its triple covering of words, body, and attire, quitted all these veils, and sank in the sea of longing? I should dart after her!

"Pfeffernuss" means "gingerbread nut," and is so rendered above, but as the narrative relates to spice especially, I strongly suspect it should be rendered "pepper-pod."-J. O.

A stick held by the patient when bleeding, and turned round in the hand so as to promote the flowing of the blood.

In old German almanacs, I have heard, there was a figure of a little man with wounds to indicate the proper scasons for bleeding.-J. O.

THE LAST ADVENTURES OF HEREWARD, THE SAXON.

BY THOMAS WRIGHT, M.A.

IN 1072, the isle of Ely, defended by its surrounding marshes and the bravery of the Saxon outlaws who had fortified it against the Norman invaders, had already held out nearly three years against the repeated attacks of King William's armies. Treason, however, at last prevailed, where open force had been unsuccessful. The monks of Ely, wearied with the uneasy mode of life to which they were exposed, and alarmed still more by the intelligence that all the possessions of their monastery had been confiscated, entered into secret negotiations with the king, and it was agreed that they should admit the Normans into the monastery, which was the outlaws' chief fortress, while the Saxon insurgents were dispersed in search of provisions and adventures. It was probably their intention to capture Hereward, the great leader of the Saxon patriots; but he was secretly informed of the treacherous plan at the moment of its execution, and, assembling as many of his men as were at hand, he threatened to burn both town and monastery (as he had previously done Peterborough), unless the latter was immediately delivered into his hands. This bold demonstration was, however, too late, for the Normans had already gained the monastery, and the town was spared at the intercession of some of Hereward's friends. The Saxons made a desperate resistance, until, overpowered by numbers, a large part of them were put to the sword. One of the old chroniclers tells us that no less than a thousand of the insurgents were slaughtered on this occasion. Of those who were taken alive, many had their hands cut off, and their eyes put out, and were, in this condition, set at liberty. Such of their leaders as fell into the hands of the conqueror, were imprisoned in some of the strong castles which he had built in different parts of the island.

In one object, however, the Normans were unsuccessful. Hereward with only six of his companions bravely fought their way through the enemy, and escaped into the marshes where their pursuers were unwilling to follow. The Saxon fishermen of the fens were necessary to the Norman army which besieged the marshes, because they supplied it with much of its provisions, and they were, therefore, allowed to follow their occupation in peace; although they were devoted to the cause of their countrymen. One of these received the seven fugitives in his boat, concealed them at the bottom under a heap of straw and reeds, and proceeded with his cargo of fish to a point occupied by one of the numerous guards of Normans placed around the fens to hinder communication between the isle of Ely and the surrounding country. The fisherman and his companions were well known to the Norman soldiers, who were commanded by a knight of rank, and their arrival caused no suspicion. While they were occupied in landing the provisions, Hereward and his followers escaped from the boat, and concealed themselves in the adjacent bushes, until the Normans, in the greater security, because they supposed that the island and its defenders were already in the power of the invaders, had seated themselves negligently at their evening meal. Hereward fell suddenly upon them in this defenceless condition; all

who resisted were slain; a few made their escape; and the outlaws seized upon their horses, and thus mounted they proceeded to gather together their scattered companions, and to raise the standard of revolt in the wild woodlands which spread over much of the neighbouring counties of Huntingdon, Northampton, and Lincoln, and thither repaired such of the outlaws of Ely as had not been present in the disastrous struggle from which their chieftain had so narrowly escaped. The first hamlet they came to increased their number to eighteen; by the time they passed Huntingdon, Hereward had collected above one hundred brave men; and before the sun arose on the following morning, seven hundred Saxons, well armed, were assembled in the deep recesses of the Brumeswald, to resist the oppressors of their country. Their daring exploits, and the devastations they committed on the property of the Norman intruders, soon proclaimed to the mortified king that the capture of the Camp of Refuge at Ely had not subdued the spirit against which he was contending, and he ordered the entire forces of the counties of Northampton, Cambridge, Lincoln, Leicester, Huntingdon, and Warwick, to be raised under the command of Ivo Taillebois and the Norman Abbot of Peterborough.

Still, however, Hereward continued his desultory warfare, sometimes defeating the parties sent in pursuit of him, and sometimes deceiving them by clever stratagems, when his companions were not numerous enough to withstand them in fight. It is recorded that, among other tricks, the Saxons had the shoes of their horses frequently turned backwards, so that when the Norman soldiers fell into their track, they were sure to take the wrong direction in the pursuit. In this manner Hereward kept his enemies constantly on the alert; and his name was looked upon with such terror, that it was commonly said that three Normans would fly at the sight of one of the Saxons, and Hereward himself is reported to have beaten singly seven Normans on more occasions than one. His deeds were the admiration even of his enemies; some of the young Norman knights left their families, and took oaths of fidelity to the Saxon chieftain, in order, to be partakers in his adventures and in his fame.

One day Ivo Taillebois, hearing that Hereward, with no more than a hundred knights, and about two hundred footmen, were sojourning in a wood which might be easily surrounded, joined all the forces he could collect with those of the Abbot Turold, and they went together against him. Hereward for some time kept his enemies at bay with his skirmishing parties, but at length he was obliged to post his small army in the strongest position he could, and prepare for a general attack from an enemy far superior in numbers. It was agreed among the Normans that the Abbot of Peterborough, with some of the Normans of highest rank, should keep guard on the outside of the wood, whilst Ivo Taillebois, with the larger part of their army, penetrated into it to attack the outlaws in their intrenchments. For some time Hereward withstood the attack bravely and successfully; and then suddenly the Saxons gave way, and made a hasty retreat. The Normans, exulting in their victory, followed after; but while they were slowly forcing their way through the entangled thickets, Hereward and his companions, who had executed a new stratagem, turned them by a quick march, fell unexpectedly upon the party placed under the command of Abbot Turold, killed many of them, and mounting their footmen upon the Norman horses, carried the abbot and

the more wealthy of his companions into the deep recesses of their forest home, where it was in vain to pursue them, and they only released their captives on the payment of heavy ransoms. From the Abbot of Peterborough, who was an especial object of their hatred, the outlaws extorted the immense sum, at that time, of 30,000 marcs of silver.

his

No sooner had Abbot Turold thus obtained his liberty, than he showed eagerness for revenge; and he even offered the treasures and possessions of his church, to allure soldiers to join in this design. When Hereward heard of this, he determined to pay another visit to the abbey of Peterborough. Equally rapid in conceiving and in executing his plans, he suddenly made his appearance at night-fall of the very day on which he had received intelligence of Turold's proceedings. The abbot, fortunately for himself, escaped, and concealed himself from his pursuers. But the outlaws burnt the town, which was probably now inhabited entirely by Normans, and plundered the church of its treasures. These, however, were restored, in consequence of a dream which Hereward was said to have had the following night.

Hereward's next hostile expedition was directed against the town of Stamford, which had served as a place of refuge to some of his bitterest enemies. He marched, as usual, in the night, and his expedition was carried on with so much silence and secresy, that it was commonly reported and believed that the Saxons were attended on their way by spirits of the wood, bearing lights visible only to them, and that their guide was a large white wolf, which disappeared as the break of day found them at the end of their journey. The town, taken by surprise, was occupied without resistance; and in this instance Hereward exhibited his generosity by liberating and pardoning his enemies.

In the midst of these daring exploits, measures were suddenly taken to procure a reconciliation between Hereward and the Norman king, to which the former listened less from his despair of now being able to liberate his country from servitude, than by the persuasions of a beautiful and wealthy widow, with whom he appears to have carried on an intrigue, and who had great power at court. We are informed by his biographers that Hereward's first wife, Turfrida, whom he thus deserted after she had been his faithful companion and adviser in his misfortunes, was to be placed as a nun in the abbey of Croyland, that he was to receive his pardon, quit his lawless life, and be married to the lady Alfrida, for that was the widow's name. As the two first conditions were fulfilled, we are left to suppose that the marriage took place; but it is said, that he afterwards acknowledged that he was never fortunate in his undertakings after this act of weakness and ingratitude. He repaired to William's court with forty of his bravest companions, and was received with marked attention and favour by the conqueror. Yet the Norman barons never ceased to regard the Saxon soldiers with envy and hatred, which sometimes broke out into open broils, in which the impetuosity of Hereward's temper afforded a pretext to his enemies, who accused him before the king, and laid to his charge many crimes of which he appears to have been innocent, and he was committed to custody at Bedford, under the charge of Robert de Horepole, where he remained in chains a whole year.

As many of Hereward's friends and followers as had remained with him, when they heard of his imprisonment, again congregated in their old haunts, the woods, and held secret communications with him, by means of