fevers, &c., would affect one of them, whilst the other enjoyed perfect health. Judith, in her twenty-second year, fell into a species of lethargy, and appeared to be dying; and Helen was simultane ously attacked by a slight fever, attended with faintings, which reduced her to such a state of debility, that scarcely three minutes before the decease of her sister, she was struggling for life; indeed, both expired nearly at the same instant, though in the perfect possession of their mental faculties. For. Lit. Gaz.

THE ERRORS OF ANCIENT AND MODERN TRAVELLERS.

The individuals who, in ancient times, sought for a personal acquaintance with distant regions were few; and they were not generally very accurate observers. If we may credit Diodorus Siculus, who was a traveller as well as an historian, there were nations which had not the use of speech, and which lived promiscuously with other animals. Some, according to the same author, subsisted entirely in trees; not occasionally, like a tribe of South America, in order to escape the periodical intindations of the Orinocobut habitually, like monkies. Herodotus tells us of Troglodytes, inhabitants of Africa, who, instead of speaking, made a noise like a bat, and were hunted as beasts by the neighbouring nations. It is probable that these, and similar descriptions, which are all wanting in that minuteness that characterises historical truth, may be classed with the exaggerations of later travellers, who have suffered them selves to be imposed upon by the ignofant or the designing. Even the acute Sir Walter Raleigh, in his History of Guiana, alludes to men" whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders ;"-in Hakluyt's Collection of Voyages, published in 1598, we find a nation "reported to have their eyes in their shoulders, and their mouths in the middle of their breasts;❞—and as late as the time of Linnæus, a well-compacted story of men with tails found a place in that naturalist's highly valuable work, the "Amoenitates Academice." Such relations doubtless belong to a state of infrequent and imperfect intercourse with distant countries; just in the same way that the belief that the elephant had no joints in its legs, and the hyaena no vertebræ in its neck, could only be received before Natural History was established as a science.

The New Zealanders.

SUPERSTITIONS OF THE IRISH.

The superstitious opinions entertained by the Irish are generally of a harmless

kind, that the mind rather lingers on with pleasure that turns from in disgust; but there is one superstition I have not yet named, of so horrible and diabolic a nature, it was long before I could believe in its extensive existence; of which fact, however, minute inquiry and subsequent evidence have fully convinced me. I allude to the belief that the left hand of a corpse, if dipped into the milk-pail, has the effect of making the milk produce considerably more cream and of a richer and better kind than it would have done without this spell. In the year 1816, I saw a woman who had been apprehended and taken into custody, on a charge of raising cream by means of a dead man's hand, and two hands, in a shocking state of putrefaction, were exhibited as evidences of the fact; it was afterwards, however, proved that these hands had been conveyed into the dairy by some person who wished to injure the poor woman; but the circumstance was sufficient to prove the existence of the superstition, which then became a general subject of conversation in the neighbourhood where it occurred.

Snatches from Oblivion.

Out of the old fields cometh the new corn. SIR EDWARD Coke,

EVILS OF THE COMMONWEALTH.

A singularly curious tract, printed in the first volume of the Harleian Miscellany with this title, Awake, O England'; or, the Peoples' Invitation to King Charles: being a recital of the Ruins over-running the People and their Trades; with an opportune Advice to return to obedience of their Kings, under whom they flourished,"—contains the following relation of the many miseries the people of England suffered during the Republican form of Government, and their regret at the issue of the change: the lament of the nation runs thus:

"When we paid ship-money, which amounted not to so much as one of our Friday-night suppers, in the whole year, by the pole, we had safeguard to our seas, our wool went to the workmen, our cloathing passed by the merchants to all parts of the world; returns were made of all things we wanted at easy rates, even to richness, glory and plenty; our navigation was as sure as our travel from one market to another; our meanest seamen, who took charge, had noble receptions at home and abroad; we enjoyed our houses and lands in peace, and had no com

plaining in our streets; our woods were guarded by laws, and supplied by plantation; our fleets were formidable upon all seas, and our people of all conditions, as well civil as soldiery, brought honour and dignity to our kingdoms. Instead of these rejoicings, we are filled with howlings; our trades are generally lost, and there is none to give us work.

"If we look into our neighbour na tions, we are the subjects of their mirth, and the song of the scornful; we (as if we were all guilty) are stiled murtherers, king-killers, and the very abjects among them trample upon us; for the blasphe mous people among us have committed so horrible treasons as ought not once to be named among us; if we turn our eyes and ears from these dismal spectacles and groans, we presently encounter another object of our sorrows, the body of our trades is anatomised, dissected, and, from the most intrinsick secrets thereof, is dis covered to foreigners; al! workings in wool, which, together with that material have, by the providence of our ancestors, been, with all their wisdom, restrained from other nations, are now so much at liberty, and, by false-hearted Englishmen, made so familiar to strangers, as not only our mysteries are laid open, but our materials are made theirs, and that trade of cloathing, which, in one valuable kind or other, maintained eleven or twelve parts of our kingdoms, is almost totally lost to England, which, for many hundreds of years, hath made them be both loved and feared of all other nations.

"As for our fleets, which were formidable, and our navigation, which was honourable throughout the world, our ships are now daily brought into captivity, insomuch as, through our short and improvident war, made with Spain, above 2000 English vessels have been carried into their ports, and all the goods in them are made prizes; many, who have been very able merchants, who have not only kept hospitality at home to the great relief of the needy, but have built and maintained tall ships abroad, to the honour and strength of our kingdom, and to the increase of mariners and trade, have in these times been and still are brought to compound their debts, not with more disrepute to their credit than grief. to their hearts, and ruin to their families."

Ellustrations of History.

INTRODUCTION OF GLASS. This serviceable and beautiful material, though applied about the twelfth century

to the decoration of churches, was not very commonly used in dwelling-houses till the century before the last. The windows of the middle ages were of lattice, either formed of wicker, or fine rifts of oak, in chequer-wise. In the description of England, prefixed to Hollinshed's, Chronicle, chrystal, and even beryle, we are told, was sometimes used by our princes and nobility; of which last a particular example then existed in the windows of Sudley Castle. But in regard to glass, even after it had begun to be used in windows, it was still preserved with. great care, as a precious rarity. The Survey of Alnewick Castle, Northumber land, 1567, recommends, that, for fear of injury during the absence of the owner, the glass of the windows should be taken down, and laid up in safety, as its decay was costly and chargeable to be repayred. And even Carew, in his Survey of Cornwall, when he gives a representation of a common Cornish house, acknowledges that glass windows then were but of late introduction. He wrote his Survey in the last year of Queen Elizabeth's reign. The Cornish houses then seemed to be on the same style and footing with the Scotch hovels of modern times, without chimneys or windows: the smoke passing through a hole in the roof, or at the door.

committed by him or his companions during the night, evaded all pursuit and completely set the police at defiance. So great was the terror created by these wretches, that the villagers dreaded the return of night, and often formed parties to watch until day-break.

Duval had long observed that an aged couple dwelt at a lonely cottage, at least a mile from any human habitation. Report said that they were rich, and the ruffian determined at once to extort from them a confession of their wealth and the place where they had concealed it. Pierre Dudon and his aged partner had just sat down to their supper, when Duval and his band surrounded the house, and having forced open one of the shutters, they rushed in and secured their victims. Resistance was vain. The aged Pierre was seized and bound in an instant, and on refusing to disclose where his money was hidden, his feet were immediately brought in contact with the fire. The wretches, however, were disappointed: the old man bore the torment with surprising fortitude.

"Hoist him up into the chimney," cried 123

Duval," and smoke the old rogue to death."

This brutal command was immediately obeyed, and the aged sufferer was suspended over the fire until life appeared extinct it was then that his wife yielded to their entreaties, and disclosed the secret which her husband had so obstinately refused to reveal. Their object gained, Duval and his companions quitted the house, leaving their victim in a dying state. Pierre Dudon expired on the fol. lowing day of the injuries he had received, and his murderer, anticipating the inevit able result of such a guilty career, shortly after quitted his associates and joined the French army, then about to march for Spain to the succour of the odious Ferdinand.

It was here that one day Duval, with several of his brother soldiers, met in a wine house: each boasted of his exploits, and amongst the rest Duval, who, half intoxicated, roared out that he, when in France, had been a chauffeur, and that he had once smoked an old rogue of a miser to death. Unluckily for the ruffian, one of his comrades, named Jean Pêrigord,

who had not made so free with the winecup as the others, paid particular attention to his relation he had been an inhabitant of the village which had been the scene of Duval's exploits, and perfectly well remembered the murder of the old cottager. He, however, had the prudence to remain silent, and pretending not to notice the subject, quitted the place and committed the whole to paper.

Upon the return of the French army, Perigord hastened to the scene of Duval's atrocities, and instantly laid the whole before the Maire of the Commune. The result was the apprehension of Duval and three of his associates. The evidence against them was complete: the widow of Pierre Dudon identified them, and they suffered death by the guillotine in the presence of an immense concourse of the peasantry, to whom they had once been so terrible.

This instance of retributive justice bears a strong resemblance to a well-known anecdote of some sixty years ago, but the reader may be assured of its authenticity. ALPHA.