surprise. With regard to the resemblance of the disputed child to the Troelles, the wife of Brunot did not deny that there was a seeming likeness between them; and for this she could only account by the circumstance of her having been much struck, before the birth of the child, by seeing the corpse of another infant of the Troelles, and gazing on it long. The Brunots also dwelt on the fact of no claim having been made for two whole years. The court, after hearing long pleadings on both sides, came to the conclusion, that the children had never been exchanged that the dead child was that of the Troelles ; and, accordingly, the decree of the judges was, that the shoemaker Brunot and his wife should keep the infant.

To this case, the compiler of the Causes Célèbres adds an anecdote, which seems to have suggested the plot of Miss Edgeworth's excellent story entitled Ennui. A nurse, into whose charge was given the child of a rich noble, had an ambition to see her own son a lord. She accordingly exchanged the one infant for the other, and, in time, the changeling became inheritor of the wealth of his supposed ancestors. The real heir, having the claims of a foster-brother upon his substitute, went to him, and was taken into his service. Distinguishing himself highly by his probity and good conduct, the servant became his master's intimate friend, and was treated by him more as a real than as a foster-brother. In the course of time, the nurse was taken ill. She then sent for her real son, the seeming gentleman of birth, and disclosed the whole secret to him. Going home immediately afterwards, he there took an opportunity of telling the story, as if it had occurred to third parties, and concluded by asking his servant and foster-brother what he would have done had he been the true heir, and had learned the secret from the supposed one. 'I would have halved my fortune with the other,' was the immediate answer. • Then your

sincerity must now be tested. You and I are the true parties to whom I alluded.' The real heir did not shrink from his word, but shared his means fairly with his former master.

THE SHEPHERD'S DOG:

A TRUE STORY.

"TWAS in the flowery month of June,
When hill and valley glow
With purple heath and golden whin,
White thorn and crimson rose;

When balmy dews fall soft and sweet,
And linger half the day,

Until the sun, with all his heat,
Can scarce clear them away;

Amid the Grampian mountains dun,
A shepherd tended sheep,
And took with him his infant son,
Up to a craggy steep.

The sheep lay scattered far and wide;
The sky was high and clear;
The shepherd's dog pressed close beside
The child so fair and dear.

The father and his darling boy
Lay dreaming on the hill,
Above them, all was light and joy;

Around them, all was still.

When, hark! a low and distant bleat
Broke on the shepherd's ear,
He quickly started to his feet-

Dark mists were gathering near.

The shepherd knew the storm might last
Through all the day and night,
And feared his sheep, amid the blast,
Might stray far in their fright.

He kissed, and charged his boy to stay
Behind the craggy steep;

And with his dog he went away
To gather in his sheep.

An hour had scarcely passed, when back
To the same spot he came,

Called on his boy; while rock to rock
But echoed back his name.

No trace, no track, no sound was there!
He searched, he called in vain ;
Then home he rushed in wild despair,
Immediate help to gain.

He gathered friends and neighbours round-
They scaled the craggy height;
But he they sought could not be found,
Although they searched all night.

Three days and nights they still sought on;
Their efforts all were vain :

The shepherd's son was surely gone,
Never to come again.

Meantime, the shepherd's dog was seen,

When given its morning cake,

With the whole cake his teeth between,
The hillside road to take.

The shepherd, wondering what this meant-
His son still in his mind-
After the dog one morning went,
Which flew as fleet as wind.

Up, up, a high o'erhanging crag,
The dog in haste hath gone,
Then gave his tail a joyous wag;
The shepherd followed on.

A rocky ledge at length he gained,
His heart beat thick with joy,
For lo! the cave above contained,
All safe, his darling boy!

The bread the hungry infant took,
The dog lay at his feet;

The cake in two the child then broke,
And then they both did eat.

Such feasts of love are seldom seen
In gay and festal halls,

As this poor shepherd saw within
That cavern's rocky walls.

WONDERFUL CURERS.

WONDERFUL cures were abundant in the days of antiquity. It is probable that Esculapius himself, if any such person ever existed, was chiefly, if not solely, one who performed cures by working on the imagination of his patients. The numerous and noted body of priests who ministered in his temples in ancient Greece and Italy, were unquestionably healers of this order. Amulets, consisting of precious stones or certain plants, worn on the body; charms in the form of words, prayers, and music; and the practice of magical rites-were all of them familiar modes of cure among the ancients, and continued to be so among many of the most advanced modern nations till a recent period. Indeed, the separation of genuine medicine from superstitious practices, is, even in England, a comparatively modern event; that is to say, amongst the learned, for the more ignorant people of all ranks yet put trust in quack medicines. There seems a good reason for this. Medicine is exactly one of those sciences in which the relation of cause and effect is of the sufficient degree of

obscurity to call for the exercise of our sense of wonder. To the great mass of mankind, the change produced in a diseased body by the natural operation of a chemical substance, vegetable or mineral, must appear nearly as wonderful as the supposition that three unintelligible words pronounced over it will effect a cure. They do not trace the steps of the process in the one case more than the other; and it is an inability to trace these steps, as Dr Adam Smith, in his History of Astronomy, has clearly shewn, which produces the sentiment of wonder. Accordingly, pretensions to miraculous curing have been at all times a ready means of imposing upon mankind.

Till the early part of the eighteenth century, it was the custom of at least the sovereign of Great Britain, if not for several other European monarchs, to go periodically through the ceremony of touching, for the king's evil or scrofula. It was supposed that a real sovereign-that is, one possessing a full hereditary title, or, in other words, reigning by divine right- was able to cure a person afflicted with that disease, by a mere touch of his hand. In England, the ceremony had been in vogue for many centuries. It was generally supposed to have been first practised by Edward the Confessor; and there is good evidence that it was in use in the thirteenth century. In the fifteenth, during the reign of Edward IV., we find the learned legal writer, Sir John Fortescue, speaking of the gift of healing as a privilege which had from time immemorial belonged to the kings of England. He attributes the virtue to the unction imparted to their hands at the coronation. Even the powerful mind of Elizabeth was not superior to this superstition, and she frequently came before her people in the character of a miraculous healer. There was a regular office in the English Book of Common Prayer, for the performance of the ceremony. The persons desirous of being cured appear to have been introduced by a bishop, or other high dignitary of the church. Prayers were said, and every effort made to produce in the patients a firm reliance on the power of the Deity, as about to be manifested through the royal hand. At the