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prodigious difference between the oblat Examination of the Vassalage of Naples of a saint and the feudatory of a bishop.

Baronius, in his Acts, relates the pretended homage done by Robert, Duke of Apulia and Calabria, to Nicholas II.; but this deed is suspected like many others: it has never been seen, it has never been found in any archives. Robert entitled himself duke by the grace of God and St. Peter; but certainly St. Peter had given him nothing, nor was that saint king of Rome.

The other popes, who were kings no more than St.Peter, received without difficulty the homage of all the princes who presented themselves to reign over Naples, particularly when these princes were the most powerful.

and England.

It may be asked, which was the most valuable, the donation of Robert Guiscard or that of John Lackland; both had been excommunicated, both had given their states to St. Peter, and became only the farmers of them. If the English barons were indignant at the infamous bargain of their king with the pope, and cancelled it, the Neapolitan barons could have equally cancelled that of baron Robert; and that which they could have done formerly, they certainly can do at present.

Were England and Apulia given to the pope, according to the law of the church or of the fiefs,-as to a bishop or a sovereign? If to a bishop, it is pre

Donation of England and Ireland to the cisely contrary to the law of Jesus, who

Popes by King John.

so often forbids his disciples to take anything, and who declares to them that his kingdom is not of this world.

If as to a sovereign, it was high treason to his imperial majesty: the Normans had already done homage to the emperor. Thus no right, spiritual or temporal, be longed to the popes in this affair. When the principle is erroneous, all the deductions are so of course. Naples no more belonged to the pope than England.

In 1213, King John, vulgarly called Lackland, or more properly Lack virtue, being excommunicated, and seeing his kingdom laid under an interdict, gave it away to Pope Innocent III. and his suc-3 cessors. "Not constrained by fear, but with my full consent and the advice of my barons, for the remission of my sins against God and the church, I resign England and Ireland to God, St. Peter, There is still another method of proSt. Paul, and our lord the Pope Inno-viding against this ancient bargain; it is cent, and to his successors in the apostolic chair."

He declared himself feudatory lieutenant of the pope, paid about eight thousand pounds sterling in ready money to the legate Pandulph, promised to pay a thousand more every year, gave the first year in advance to the legate who trampled upon him, and swore on his knees that he submitted to lose all, in the event of not paying at the time appointed.

The jest of this ceremony was, that the legate departed with the money, and forgot to remove the excommuni

cation.

the right of the people, which is stronger than the right of the fiefs. The people's right will not suffer one sovereign to belong to another, and the most ancient law is to be master of our own, at least when we are not the weakest.

Of Donations made by the Popes. If principalities have been given to the bishops of Rome, they have given away many more. There is not a single throne in Europe to which they have not made a present. As soon as a prince had conquered a country, or even wished to do it, the popes granted it in the name of St. Peter. Sometimes they even made the first advances, and it may be said that

they have given away every kingdom but that of heaven.

should have enjoyed the same exception; so that in six years after the general law. a particular one was obliged to be made for Artois.

Few people in France know that Julius II. gave the states of King Louis XII. to the Emperor Maximilian, who These new edicts concerning donacould not put himself in possession of tions and testaments, were principally them. They do not sufficiently remem-made to do away with all the commenber that Sixtus V., Gregory XIV., and tators, who had considerably embroiled Clement VIII. were ready to make a the laws, having already compiled six present of France to whomsoever Philip commentaries upon them. II. would have chosen for the husband of his daughter Clara Eugenia.

As to the emperors, there is not one since Charlemagne that the court of Rome has not pretended to nominate. This is the reason why Swift, in his Tale of a Tub, says, "that lord Peter became suddenly mad, and that Martin and Jack, his brothers, confined him by the advice of their relations." We simply relate this drollery as a pleasant blasphemy of an English priest against the bishop of

Rome.

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It may be remarked, that donations, or deeds of gift, extend much farther than to the particular person to whom a present is made. For every present there must be paid to the farmers of the royal domain-the duty of control, the duty of "insinuation," the duty of the hundredth penny, the tax of two sous in the livre, the tax of eight sous in the livre, &c.

So that every time you make a present to a citizen you are much more liberal than you imagine. You have also the pleasure of contributing to the enriching of the farmers-general; but, after all, this money does not go out of the kingdom like that which is paid to the court of Rome.

DRINKING HEALTHS,

WHAT was the origin of this custom? Has it existed since drinking commenced? -It appears natural to drink wine for our own health, but not for the health of others.

The propino of the Greeks, adopted by the Romans, does not signify "I drink to your good health," but I drink first that you may drink afterwards-I invite you to drink.

In their festivals they drink to celebrate a mistress, not that she might have good health. See in Martial,

Naevia sex cyathis, septem Justina bibatur.
Six cups for Naevia, for Justina seven.

In France, jurisprudence was uncertain on this object, as on almost all others, nntil the year 1731, when the equitable chancellor d'Aguesseau, having conceived the design of making the law uniform, very weakly began the great work, by the edict on donations. It is digested in forty-seven articles; but, in wishing The English, who pique themselves to render all the formalities concerning upon renewing several ancient customs, donations uniform, Flanders was excepted { drink to the honour of the ladies, which from the general law, and in excepting they call toasting; and it is a great subFlanders, Artois was forgotten, which ject of dispute among them whether a

lady is toast-worthy or not-whether she is worthy to be toasted.

They drank at Rome for the victories of Augustus, and for the return of his health. Dion Cassius relates, that after the battle of Actium the senate decreed that, in their repasts, libations should be made to him in the second service. It was a strange decree. It is more probable that flattery had voluntarily introduced this meanness. Be it as it may, we read in Horace :

Hine ad vins redit lætus, et alteris
Te mensis adhibet Deum,
Te multâ prece; te prosequitur nero
Defuso pateris: et labirus tuum
Miscet aumen; uti Graecia Castoris
Et magni nemor Herculis,
Longas o utinam, dux bone ferias
Praestes Hesperiae: dicimus integro
Sices mane die, dicimus uvidi,

Quum sol oceano subest.

To thee he chants the sacred song,
To thee the rich libation pours;
Thee placed his household gods among,
With solemn daily prayer adores:
So Castor and great Hercules of old

Were with her gods by graceful Greece enroll'd.

Gracious and good, beneath thy reign
May Rome her happy hours employ,
And grateful hail thy just domain

With pious hymn and festal joy:
Thns, with the rising son we sober pray,
Thus, in our wine beneath his setting ray.

It is very likely that hence the custom arose, among barbarous nations, of drinking to the health of their guests; an absurd custom, since we may drink four bottles without doing them the least good.

This

The dictionary of Trevoux tells us that we should not drink to the health of our superiors in their presence. may be the case in France or Germany, "but in England it is a received custom. The distance is not so great from one man to another at London as at Vienna.

Bishop of Cork in Ireland, a great enemy to William in Ireland, sa'd, "that he would put a cork in all those bottles which were drank to the glory of this monarch." He did not stop at this silly pun: he wrote in 1702 an episcopal address, to show the Irish that it was an atrocious impiety to drink to the health of kings, and, above all, to their memory; that the latter, in particular, is a profanation of these words of Jesus Christ: "Drink this in remembrance of me."

It is astonishing that this bishop was not the first who conceived such a folly. Before him, the Presbyterian Prynn had written a great book against the impious custom of drinking to the health of Christians.

Finally, there was one John Geza, vicar of the parish of St. Faith, who published "The Divine Potion to preserve Spiritual Health, by the Cure of the inveterate Malady of Drinking Healths; with clear and solid Arguments against this Criminal Custom; all for the Satisfaction of the Public, at the request of a worthy Member of Parliament, in the Year of our Salvation 1648."

Our reverend father Garasse, our reverend father Patouillet, and our reverend father Nonotte, are nothing superior to these profound Englishmen. We have a long time wrestled with our neighbours for the superiority-To which is it due?

THE DRUIDS.

The Scene is in Tartarus.-The Furies entwined with Serpents, and Whips in their Hands.

If is of importance in England to Druid, and thou, detestable Grecian COME along, Barbaquincorix, Celtic drink to the health of a prince who pre-hierophant, Calchas; the moment of your tends to the throne; it is to declare your- just punishment has returned again; the self his partisan. hour of vengeance has arrived-the bell has sounded!

It has cost more than one Scotchman and Hibernian dear for having drank to the health of the Stuarts.

All the Whigs, after the death of King William, drank not to his health, but to his memory. A tory named Brown,

THE DRUID AND CALCHAS.

Oh, heavens! my head, my sides, my eyes, my ears! pardon, ladies, pardon!

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DRUID.

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orpheus.

My friends, I am a priest like you selves, but I never deceived any one; cut the throat of either boy or girl in a life. When on earth, instead of maki the gods hated, I rendered them b loved, and softened the manners of t men whom you made ferocious. Ish exert myself in the like manner in he I met, just now, two barbarous prie whom they were scourging beyond me sure; one of them formerly hewed king in pieces before the Lord, and t other cut the throat of his queen and › vereign at the horse gate. I have ter

Never, never; dear lady, a little mercy, nated their punishment; and, hav I beseech you.

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Wretch! Wilt thou again cut the throat of a beautiful girl, in order to obtain a favourable gale, instead of uniting her to a good husband?

CALCHAS AND THE DRUID.

played to them a tune on the violin, th have promised me, that when they ret into the world, they will live like hot

men.

DRUID AND CALCHAS.

We promise the same thing, on word of a priest.

ORPHEUS.

Yes, but "Passato il pericolo, gabb il santo."

[The scene closes with a figure Dos performed by Orpheus, the C demned, and the Furies, to light agreeable music.]

EASE.

EASY applies not only to a thing e done, but also to a thing which app

Oh, what torments! and yet we die to be so. The pencil of Correggi

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easy, the style of Quinault is much m easy than that of Despreaux, and style of Ovid surpasses in facility the Persius.

This facility in painting, music, quence, and poetry, consists in a nat

and spontaneous felicity, which admits of nothing that implies research, strength, or profundity. Thus the pictures of Paul Veronese have a much more easy and ess finished air than those of Michael Angelo. The symphonies of Rameau re superior to those of Lulli, but appear ess easy. Bossuet is more truly eloquent and more easy than Flechier. Rousseau, in his epistles, has not near be facility and truth of Despreaux.

The commentator of Despreaux says, that this exact and laborious poet ught the illustrious Racine to make erses with difficulty, and that those hich appear easy are those which have een made with the most difficulty." It is true, that it often costs much ains to express ourselves with clearness, also that the natural may be arrived by effort; but it is also true that a appy genius often produces easy beaues without any labour, and that enthujasm goes much farther than art.

Most of the impassioned expressions our good poets have come finished rom their pen, and appear easy as if hey had in reality been composed withut labour; the imagination, therefore, ften conceives and brings forth easily. is not thus with didactic works; which equire art to make them appear easy. for example, there is much less ease than rofundity in Pope's Essay on Man. Bad works may be rapidly constructed, hich, having no genius, will appear easy, d it is often the lot or those who, with at genius, have the unfortunate habit of mposing. It is in this sense that a perotage of the old comedy, called the Itaa, says to another,

dius allowed himself to be governed by Agrippina: easy applied to Claudius is only a lenitive; the proper expression is weak.

An easy man is in general one possessed of a mind which easily gives itself up to reason and remonstrance-a heart which melts at the prayers which are made to it; while a weak man is one who allows too much authority over him.

ECLIPSE.

In the greatest part of the known world every extraordinary phenomenon was, for a long time, believed to be the passage of some happy or miserable event. Thus the Roman historians have not failed to observe, that an eclipse of the sun accompanied the birth of Romulus, that another announced his death, and that a third attended the foundation of the city of Rome.

We have already spoken of the article entitled the VISION OF CONSTANTINE, of the apparition of the cross which preceded the triumph of christianity; and under the article PROPHECY, we shall treat of the new star which enlightened the birth of Jesus. We will, therefore, here confine ourselves to what has been said of the darkness with which all the earth was covered when he gave up the ghost.

The writers of the Greek and Romish churches have quoted as authentic two letters attributed to Dionysius the Areopagite, in which he relates, that being at Heliopolis in Egypt, with his friend Apollophanes, he suddenly saw, about the sixth hour, the moon pass underneath the sun, which caused a great eclipse. Afterwards, in the ninth hour, they perThe term easy is an insult to a woman,ceived the moon quitting the place which but is sometimes in society praise for man; it is however, a fault in a states

“Then makest bad verses admirably well."

The manners of Atticus were easy; he was the most amiable of the Romans; the easy Cleopatra gave herself as easily to Anthony as to Caesar; the easy Clau

she occupied and return to the opposite side of the diameter. They then took the rules of Philip Aridæus, and, having examined the course of the stars, they found that the sun could not have been naturally eclipsed at that time. Further, they observed that the moon, contrary to

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