the Son of God, and Plato's declaration | in a human voice, and plucked objects that man should assimilate himself to out of people's hands, "with other inthe Deity; that God is the source of dications of innocent mirth," as Lord good, but not of evil, and that regeneration is a gift of God; that the soul is immortal, and that there is a future retribution for all, we are justified in calling Plato a forerunner of Christ.

From The Illustrated London News.
OLD SUNDAY READING.

Chesterfield says of Mr. William Herbert's practical jokes. He threw stones about but hurt nobody, and never tore any books. Even the Bishop of Mascon was interested in him, and he finally left the house without doing any mischief. That is all.

66

John and Ann Lambert of Winlingtou, were also vexed by a bogle in December, 1758. They had taken the SUNDAY is no longer kept, in literary house of Mr. Henry Cooke, a Catholic, matters, with the old strictness. In lately deceased. The sprite began the childhood of men now middle- with rattling the latch and beating the aged, books which were reckoned walls; then he appeared as a man in really "Sunday books were neither grave-clothes; next as a square light, numerous nor entertaining. Still, few framing the face, as white as chalk,' could deny that Wesley's Magazine or of a man. This was not in Mr. the Arminian Magazine was a Sunday Cooke's house, but in another, to book. Apparitions run wild in the which the Lamberts had retreated. wastes of the Arminian Magazine. Here the spectre jumped on Mrs. "With my latest breath" (says the Lambert, and “ came " in a surplice, editor) "will I bear my testimony with a wig, saying "Meet me at one against giving up to Infidels one great o'clock, and I will tell you what I proof of the Invisible world; I mean want," but he never did tell. Next he that of Witchcraft and Apparitions. I made a noise as of heavy artillery, and do not think any unprejudiced man can appeared in a working dress. Presdoubt of the truth of the following nar- ently he took to throwing the little rative." Professor Huxley, one fears, children about the room, and shaking will not be so (6 unprejudiced " as to the bed. The afflicted parents reaccept "The Evil Spirit of Mascon," moved to a third house, at the other however Mr. Robert Boyle, F.R.S., end of the town, where he scratched, found that it overthrew his "settled and showed a great light. He then, indisposedness to believe strange for the first time in this "variety enthings." M. Du Moulin, the trans-tertainment,” appeared as the late Mr. lator of the tale from Pereaud, thinks Cooke, and he made a noise like grindthat Satan is shy of showing himself, ing a hand-mill. He next "killed a for fear he should convince Atheists, cat in an uncommon manner," but and, indeed, this consideration must be what uncommon method of killing a a great check on his activity. How-cat he adopted we do not learn. Now ever, at Mascon, in 1612, he could not he showed as a "brown and white refrain, but drew a lady's curtains calf,” and next disappeared under the with great noise and violence; he also bolster as a small black four-footed pulled her blankets off, knocked on all beast." The calf, by the way, swelled the walls, and so disturbed a Protes- to the size of a horse, "swelling wisitant minister that he called in M. bly before their wery eyes." Mr. François Tornus, a notary and a Cath- Lambert now saw him as Henry olic. At first, for his own reasons, Cooke, standing beside the fire. This Satan would not show off before mem- was the day before the account was bers of the Church, but, in about a written, and we are not informed as to week, he took to whistling, and even whether this very versatile sprite persang a little song about one and ten-severed in his manifestations.

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pence. He next gossiped very freely The Arminian Magazine presently

tells us how to cure children of sleep- We do not hear that a subscription walking. It suffices to place a tub of was raised for these afflicted spinsters. cold water in their rooms. If they Meanwhile, at Manchester, the Wesonce walk into that, they will be cured leyans were holding love feasts, in of somnambulism. At Newry, in Ire- which they frequently "roared out." land, Frances and Elizabeth Dixon Mr. G. was converted after " roaring were much disturbed from 1779 till like a bear" and rolling up and down 1785. A dog "appeared," and "a the floor for several days. It is hoped little old man's head." Their own dog that now he will be an ornament was much alarmed, and died. Their to religion." Nobody can deny that cat "struggled with some invisible Arminian children had lively reading agent," and "scratched Fanny Dixon provided for them, ghosts being interterribly." Stones were thrown about, spersed with an account of the salt and poor Fanny was badly hit. An in- mines at Wiliska, in Poland. Edifying visible hand tugged at her petticoats; death-beds are common, and "experiunseen persons walked to and fro, ences of young Christians. One of puffed and snorted; "little creeping these, with other boys, used to pray things like clocks (!) seemed to be daily in a woodyard, but being derunning over them," also "things as tected, took to drinking in the same large as lapdogs." "They are reduced secure retreat. That Mr. Wesley was to great want, being incapable of earn- a good man we are all agreed, but one ing their living. They still say: 'Let is not so certain that he would shine the Lord do as seemeth him good."" as editor of Good Words.

ANDREW LANG.

THE VANILLA BEAN. -The so-called | the stigma. The work is so easily done vanilla bean is not a bean at all, as is well that one person can fertilize a thousand known, but the fruit of a climbing orchid flowers in a morning. The pods require a (Vanilla planifolia), the capsule or pod of month to reach full size, and six months which is about three-eighths of an inch in more to ripen. The process of curing is diameter and from six to ten inches long, long and complicated, and the aroma of and has a certain resemblance to the so- vanilla is said to be produced only by fercalled catalpa bean. The plant in its mentation. In the island of Réunion, in native home, in Mexico and tropical Amer- the Indian Ocean, where the plant is grown ica, climbs over trees and shrubs by means extensively, the pods are placed in a basket of slender rootlets sent out from the joints and plunged for half a minute in hot of the stem. It is not a true epiphyte, water, then placed on a mat to drain and however, but always maintains its connec-exposed between woollen blankets to the tion with the soil. In its wild state it sun for six or eight days, and kept in climbs to a height of twenty feet, but in closed boxes during the night to promote a cultivation it is kept within bounds, so that slight fermentation. When the pods are the unripe pods are not injured when the perfectly cured they are a dark chocolate others are gathered. When the plants color, pliable and free from moisture. were first introduced into the West and When finally prepared, the pods are tied East Indies, they grew vigorously and pro- up in bundles, packed in air-tight boxes, duced an abundance of flowers, but no and when in prime condition they are corpods. It was discovered that the particu- ered with a frosting of needle-like crystals lar moth which fertilized the flowers in of vanillic acid, which when pressed be Mexico was absent from its new home, and tween the fingers gives off the character artificial pollination was resorted to, after istic odor. The supply of London comes which the plants produced abundantly. largely from Mauritius and Seychelles, and With a long splint of bamboo the lip of the the greater part of the vanilla imported flower is lifted away, and the pollen is into France comes from Réunion. transferred from the pockets and applied to

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A SINGLE lark to the immense white pall My one star charms the twilight of their That hung above the earth, embracing all,

21

From Temple Bar.
ERASMUS AND THE REFORMATION.

sup

tory or for literature. There is, I
pose, only one other man of letters,
and certainly no other historian, whose
death would have caused so real and
widespread a sense of loss. And his
one living rival as a master of English
has long ceased to write, while Mr.
Froude published his last, and not
least vigorous, volume only the other
day. Indeed, it seems that his illness
was originally caused by overwork in
connection with its production.

WHEN Lord Salisbury appointed Mr. Froude to be Professor Freeman's successor at Oxford, there were certain writers in the press who affected to treat the appointment as an insult or a joke. By this time probably they have come to see that to send the most distinguished man who in our time has made history his life-work to fill the greatest chair of history in the English world was not, after all, so very unrea- He had held the professorship less sonable. Not that Mr. Froude was than three years, but had had time to merely a man of great ability, who hap- completely refute those who had met pened to work at history. On the con- his name with prophecies of failure. trary, he was a born historian. Few He is said to have proved an admirable men have ever received from nature ahead of his faculty, and of course his fuller measure of one of the gifts most lectures attracted large audiences. But essential to a great writer of history, these were services of which only Oxthe rare narrative gift, which makes ford could reap the benefit. The outhis pages so full everywhere of move-side world will rather remember that ment, and color, and life. And, if he was a great artist by birthright, he knew how to make himself also a great discoverer. Only historical specialists can claim to judge this part of his work; but the value of his laborious researches among the Spanish archives, opening out, as they did, almost a new world for students of English history in the sixteenth century, has been universally recognized. Still, no doubt, considering Mr. Froude's age, it was the man of genius, rather than the student, whom Lord Salisbury had in his mind when he made the appointment. Part, at least, of a professor's business is to arouse interest in his own branch of study, and for that pur-end. There is all the old vigor and pose it is something to have a man who could not be uninteresting if he tried. Two distinguished historical students had held the chair before him; and there were others who could fill it after him; surely it would have been a mistake to miss the opportunity of filling the necessarily short interval with a man who was not only a student and a historian, but also a name and a orce in English letters.

he distinguished his two years' tenure of the chair by the publication, first, of the brilliant lectures on English seamen, which have appeared from time to time in Longman's Magazine, aud then of last year's lectures on Erasmus, which were issued in the autumn as a book. Neither the one course, nor the other, adds much perhaps to already existing knowledge; but there must be room by the side of the book which interprets and publishes new material for that other sort of book which brings new light and new life to the old. And both show that Mr. Froude retained this latter power, which was indeed his special gift, up to the very

mastery of style; the strong convictions do not fail of the old trenchant and almost defiant expression; and the keen interest he takes in his subjects, which always made his work so fascinating, is as evident as ever, making us feel as if his own life and personality were bubbling up from every page. It is curious that he should have gone back in his last book to Erasmus, an old subject with him; and one can only be glad that he was able to finish

And now his death has come to show ow very short that interval was to be; a piece of work so admirable in itself, and there is only one feeling about it and so thoroughly congenial to his mong those who care either for his-tastes and temperament.