pressed your hand!"-"There is death in was gone; yet this was, I believe, before the consumption showed itself distinctly. August 16. 1832. CHRIST'S HOSPITAL. - BOWYER. THE discipline at Christ's Hospital in my time was ultra-Spartan; - all domestic ties were to be put aside. "Boy!" I remember Bowyer saying to me once when I was crying the first day of my return after the holidays," Boy! the school is your father! Boy! the school is your mother! Boy! the school is your brother! the school is your sister! the school is your first cousin, and your second cousin, and all the rest of your relations! Let's have no more crying !" No tongue can express good Mrs. Bowyer. Val. Le Grice and I were once going to be flogged for some domestic misdeed, and Bowyer was thundering away at us by way of prologue, when Mrs. B. looked in, and said, "Flog them soundly, sir, I beg!" This saved us. Bowyer was so nettled at the interruption that he growled out, "Away, woman! away!" and we were let off. August 18. 1832. ST. PAUL'S MELITA. THE belief that Malta is the island on which St. Paul was wrecked is so rooted in the common Maltese, and is cherished with such a superstitious nationality, that the Government would run the chance of exciting a tumult, if it, or its representatives, unwarily ridiculed it. The supposition itself is quite absurd. Not to argue the matter at length, consider these few conclusive facts:The narrative speaks of the "barbarous people," and "barbarians,” "* of the island. Now, our Malta was at that time fully peopled and highly civilized, as we may surely infer from Cicero and other writers.+ * Acts xxviii. 2. and 4. + Upwards of a century before the reign of Nero, Cicero speaks at considerable length of our Malta in one of the Verrine orations. See Act. ii. lib. iv. c. 46. "Insula est Melita, judices," &c. There was a town, and Verres had established in it a manufactory of the fine cloth or cotton stuffs, the Melitensis vestis, for which the island is uniformly celebrated :— "Fertilis est Melite sterili vicina Cocyræ Insula, quam Libyci verberat unda freti.” Yet it may have been cotton after all— the present product of Malta. Cicero describes an ancient temple of Juno situated on a promontory near the town, so famous and revered, that, even in the time of Masinissa, at least 150 years B. C., that prince had religiously restored some relics which his admiral had taken from it. The plunder of this very temple is an article of accusation against Verres; and a deputation of Maltese (legati Melitenses) came to Rome to establish the charge. These are all the facts, I think, which can A viper comes out from the sticks upon the fire being lighted: the men are not surprised at the appearance of the snake, but imagine first a murderer, and then a god from the harmless attack. Now in our be gathered from Cicero; because I consider his expression of nudatæ urbes, in the working up of this article, a piece of rhetoric. Strabo merely marks the position of Melita, and says that the lap-dogs called κυνίδια Μελιταῖα were sent from this island, though other writers attribute them to the other Melite in the Adriatic. (lib. vi.) Diodorus, however, a Sicilian himself by birth, gives the following remarkable testimony as to the state of the island in his time, which, it will be remembered, was considerably before the date of St. Paul's shipwreck. "There are three islands to the south of Sicily, each of which has a city or town (ódiv), and harbours fitted for the safe reception of ships. The first of these is Melite, distant about 800 stadia from Syracuse, and possessing several harbours of surpassing excellence. Its inhabitants are rich and luxurious (τοὺς κατοικοῦντας ταῖς οὐσίαις εὐδαίμονας). There are artizans of every kind (παντοδαποὺς ταῖς ἐργασίαις); the best are those who weave cloth of a singular fineness and softness. The houses are worthy of admiration for their superb adornment with eaves and brilliant whitewashing (οἰκίας ἀξιολόγους καὶ κατεσκευασμένας φιλοτίμως γείσσοις καὶ κονιάμασι περιττότερον).” — Lib. v. c. 12. Mela (ii. c. 7.) and Pliny (iii. 14.) simply mark the position. ED. Malta there are, I may say, no snakes at all; which, to be sure, the Maltese attribute to St. Paul's having cursed them away. Melita in the Adriatic was a perfectly barbarous island as to its native population, and was, and is now, infested with serpents. Besides, the context shows that the scene is in the Adriatic. The Maltese seem to have preserved a fondness and taste for architecture from the time of the knights-naturally enough occasioned by the incomparable materials at hand.* August 19. 1832. ENGLISH AND GERMAN. - BEST STATE OF SOCIETY. Ir may be doubted whether a composite language like the English is not a happier * The passage which I have cited from Diodorus shows that the origin was much earlier. - ED. |