by all the Italian powers except Florence, which, through fear of a restoration of the Medici, held by its alliance with France, and built the "Sala Grande" in the Palazzo Pubblico to accommodate its new council, and be a sign of its determination to keep its popular constitution. But France did not restore Pisa, and the disappointment increased the number of Savonarola's enemies. In January, 1495, "men went by night round San Marco, crying out reproaches, This hog of a friar should be burnt in his house,' and such like; and some wished to set fire to San Marco." But still the moral influence of Savonarola was powerful. Boys were formed into guilds for the promotion of morality. Loungers in the streets and gamblers fled when they heard the cry, "Here come the boys of the frate." Profligacy and vice were driven to lurk in darkness. "It was a holy time," says Landucci, "but it was short. The evil have been more powerful than the good. God be praised that I saw this short time of holiness. I pray God that he would restore to us that holy and shamefast life." The carnival of 1496 marked the highest point of Savonarola's moral reform. Rude joking was laid aside. Religious processions took the place of the ribaldry to which Lorenzo de' Medici had accustomed the Florentine people. The youth of Florence sang lauds in the streets, bearing olive-branches in their hands. "We seemed to see the crowds of Jerusalem who accompanied Christ on Palm Sunday crying, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.' And well could one recall the words of Scripture, Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise.' There were reckoned six thousand youths or more, all between the ages of six and sixteen. I saw these things and felt much pleasure, and some of my sons were amongst those blessed and shamefast bands." Special banks of seats were erected in the Duomo for these children, who were trained into a choir. "They sang with such sweetness that every one wept, and chiefly those of good intent, saying, This thing is from the Lord.' And note the wonder, that one could not keep any boy in bed the mornings that the frate preached. All ran before their mothers to the preaching. Truly the church was filled with angels." Landucci draws a beautiful picture of the power of moral earnestness working on the conscience of a people which had been awakened by calamity. But the anomalous

position of Florence in Italian politics was difficult to maintain. The powers of Italy were bent on severing the last tie between France and Italy, and the attitude of Florence was felt to depend entirely on the influence of Savonarola. Accusations of treachery were preferred against him. "The poor frate has so many enemies," exclaims Landucci piteously. How he himself bears witness to the truth of this may be shown on a future occasion.

From Chambers' Journal.

A DANCING EPIDEMIC.

IN this country, the tarantella is only known as one of those coquettish dances introduced on the stage from Italy; and in its native land, as a dance performed by the peasant girls to the accompaniment of the tambourine. But if this were all that the name recalls, it would scarcely be worthy of more than a passing notice, except by those who are devoted to the terpsichorean art. Connected as is the tarantella with one of the strangest epidemics, the dancing madness, formerly believed to have resulted from the bite of the tarantula spider, it offers us many points of interest, not only as a medical study, but also as an episode in philosophical history.

As the ancients had their Orpheus, who, by his musical powers, was said to be able to enchant not only living creatures, but even stocks and stones, so have the Ital ians, or rather they had, their tarantella fable, concerning a madness whose victims danced to the sound of music until they fell exhausted, and then danced again. The disease is known as tarantismus, and is conveniently classed with that peculiar nervous affection commonly called St. Vitus's dance.

The historian of civilization and of the inner life of the human race is often called aside to speculate on the origin of diseases whose birth is involved in obscurity, and which only come before the observer when they have attained their full strength, or when they have gained complete ascendency over men's minds and bodies. Italy in the early Middle Ages has been the theatre of many terrible epidemics. The Crusaders, for example, brought the Eastern plague; and between 1119 and 1340, no fewer than sixteen visitations of that fearful malady are recorded. The misery resulting therefrom was heartbreaking, the victims countless; scarcely

Meanwhile, tarantismus passed the boundaries of Apulia; and shortly after wards there was scarcely a corner of Italy where it was not too well known. As it spread, it obtained more believers; and the more credence it obtained, the more victims it attacked. This alone would tend to prove that the disease de pended greatly for its existence on the power of the imagination. Everywhere, as we suppose, it was the hysterical temperaments which suffered, for dull, heavy louts are rarely subject to affections of the nerves.

Of course, ordinary medical treatment failed to touch the disease; and this of itself would tend to exaggerate its power and frequency. Nothing brought relief but lively dance-music, and of this the old tunes "La Pastorale " and La Tarantola" were the most efficacious; the former for phlegmatic, the latter for excitable temperaments. When these tunes were played with correctness and taste, the effect was magical. The tarantanti danced energetically until they fell down exhausted. "Old and young, male and female, healthy and infirm, began dancing like machines worked by steam. Old writers would have us believe that even old cripples threw away their crutches and danced with the best. Hysterical females were the principal victims. Other ailments were forgotten, propriety of time and place ignored, and, soul and body, they delivered themselves up to this dancing frenzy. They shrieked, they wept, they laughed, they sang, all the time dancing like bacchantes or furies, till at last they fell down bathed in perspiration and utterly helpless. If the music continued, they at length arose and danced again, until once more they fell prostrate. These fits seem to have continued two or three days, sometimes four, or even six, for the relief seems to have been in direct ratio to the amount lost by perspiration. When the tarantant had by this means recovered, he or she remained free from the disease until the approach of the warm weather of the next year, and then was again relieved in the same manner. Once a tarantant, however, always a tarantant; one woman is mentioned as being subject to these attacks for thirty

summers.

We have described the commoner symptoms of tarantismus. Sometimes, however, the effects of the disease were ludicrous or curious enough. Black or sombre colors were generally obnoxious,

producing extreme melancholia; whilst scarlet or green, and occasionally blue, was much liked. When a person was under the influence of the paroxysm, and an object of the favorite color approached, the tarantant rushed to it, fondled it, kissed it, embraced it, whether it was a human being or an inanimate object. The patient was, in fact, entirely given up to a love-frenzy for this object, which was sometimes, as may be supposed, inconvenient enough; and yet nothing but physical impossibility could prevent these results. On the contrary, objects of the hated colors produced extreme melancholy; and not unfrequently brought on stupor. Some tarantanti affected churchyards and cemeteries; others were fascinated by the passing-bell. Another class conceived a passion for the sea, and would rush into its waves; whilst others of these waterlovers would carry about with them a glassful of the brilliant liquid, and would strive to the utmost not to spill the small. est drop, even when dancing; while, if they did not succeed in this gymnastic feat, they were seized with melancholy.

It was at length quite a profession to travel through the country in the early summer to cure the tarantanti. A pipe, a tambourine, and a knowledge of the favorite dance-tunes were all that was necessary. When the musicians arrived at a town or village, a fête, known as the women's carnavaletta, was held. Everybody hastened down to the spot where the dancing was going on, and the mere sight of this frequently so excited the spectators, that those who had never been suspected of tarantismus, would suddenly join in the proceedings and become tarantanti for life. And thus this epidemic went on increasing, until few persons could claim to be entirely exempt, and Italy seemed in danger of becoming a nation of frenzied hysterical dancers. But though the symptoms were distressing and marked enough while they lasted, yet the disease was harmless enough on the whole, for it is supposed that the mortality resulting therefrom never exceeded one in five hundred.

It was in the seventeenth century that the tarantismus epidemic reached its fullest development and its greatest extension, and then, as if by magic, it went out of fashion, as suddenly as a piece of millinery; for there is a fashion in disease as well as in the cut of a garment. No one was attacked; people wondered that such things had been possible; and they won

dered still more that they themselves had taken part in them. So thorough was the change in this respect, that, in the eighteenth century, doctors began to express doubts as to whether the disease had ever existed; and in our own days the name tarantella scarcely calls up an idea, except as connected with the coquettish dance of the peasant girl in her pictur esque Italian costume to the accompaniment of the tambourine. Nor was it in Italy alone where this dancing madness found its votaries, for even the stolid German at one time gave way to it.

From the description, it will be seen that tarantismus was a peculiar and hysterical development of the disease known as St. Vitus's dance; for, as might be expected, so far as the tarantula spider is concerned, the whole belief is a myth, an old wives' fable. Though it may not be pleasant to be bitten by one of these creatures, yet it is comforting to learn that at least the bite is no more noisome than that of the ordinary spider. We must therefore look for the origin of the disease in the state of the nerves. In an excitable, nervous temperament, worked to the highest pitch by brooding over diseases which had cut men down like grass before the mower's scythe, a trivial circumstance, such as the bite of an insect, may have an important result. It only requires a number of nervous, hysterical individuals to be in sympathy one with another to produce ridiculous results; then if, during the frenzy, one of these finds himself bitten or stung by some noisome creature, all the others immediately assume that they too are bitten or stung; community of suffering must have a common cause, say they.

It is probable that practical modern men and women will at once say: "Oh, this is all a myth; tarantismus never did exist or we should see examples of it to-day." But is the disease unknown to the modern practitioner? Surely not. It is unfrequent, it is true; but several cases have been reported in the medical literature of the day; and the leaping ague of the Scotch is certainly a similar disease. The more healthy accompaniments of modern life and our greater knowledge naturally have a tendency to prevent such epidemics attaining such a power as did tarantismus; but for all that, the subject is worthy our notice. Perhaps the dancing or jumping, the quivering or quaking, vhich occurs during the worship of some of our religious communities, Christian as well as heathen, may be more

nearly connected with tarantismus than is generally supposed. The excitement is there, and excitement is contagious.

From The Spectator.

THE CLERICAL CASTE IN SCOTLAND.

THE deaths, a short time ago, of such prominent leaders of the Free Church of Scotland as Dr. Begg and Sir Henry Moncreiff must have suggested this, among many questions, Is it not the cleri. cal rather than the aristocratic caste that really governs, and long has governed, the Scotch democracy? Dr. Begg belonged to the class familiarly and affec tionately known in the north as "sons of the manse." Although Sir Henry Moncreiff was only the grandson of the manse, his father having been an eminent judge, the bluest clerical blood in Scotland Howed in his veins. His grandfather, popularly known as "Sir Harry," was in his time recognized as the stoutest advocate of the special doctrines of Andrew Melville; spiritual independence viewed as an ecclesiastical dogma, rather than as a party rallying-cry, is less identified with the name of Chalmers than with his. The late leader of Free-Church conservatism was the seventh member and the third baronet of his house who has devoted himself to the work of the Presbyterian ministry. His father and his brother, whose successful legal careers seem, at first sight, inroads upon the Moncreiff clerical tradition, belong to the order of laymen laymen in the popular sense, not the academic who are more ecclesi. astical than ecclesiastics themselves. The elder judge played a great part in the "ten years' conflict" that led to the formation of the Free Church; the younger has long exercised a guiding influence in that Church, which has now reached middle age. So far as appearances show, too, the leadership of the Free Church is likely to remain with this caste. Princi pal Rainy, the successor both of Cunningham and Candlish, and whom the deaths of Dr. Begg and Sir Henry Moncreiff have left without a rival for the leadership of the Assembly of his denomination, is a grandson of the manse. Dr. Robertson Smith, who led the New Learning or young Free-Church Party till he was ejected from his chair, and Professor Candlish, who has taken his place, are sons of the manse. The influence of the clerical caste in Scotland is not confined