 Section 23 of Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Volume 1. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by J. C. Guan. Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Volume 1, Section 23. Selected works by Jean-Louis Rodolphe Agassi. 1807-1873 At first, when a mere boy 12 years of age writes The Great Swiss Naturalist, I did what most beginners do. I picked up whatever I could lay my hands on and tried to buy such books and authorities as I had at my command to find the names of these objects. My highest ambition at that time was to be able to designate the plants and animals of my native country, correctly by a Latin name, and to extend gradually a similar knowledge in its application to the productions of other countries. The same to me in those days, the legitimate aim and proper work of a naturalist. I still possess manuscript volumes in which I entered the names of all the animals and plants with which I became acquainted, and I well remember that I then ardently hoped to acquire the same superficial familiarity with the whole creation. I did not then know how much more important it is to the naturalist to understand the structure of a few animals than to command the whole field of scientific nomenclature. Since I have become a teacher and have watched the progress of students, I have seen that they all begin in the same way. But how many have grown old in the pursuit without ever rising to any higher conception of the study of nature, spending their life in the determination of species and in extending scientific terminology. Long before I went to the university and before I began to study natural history, under the guidance of men who were masters in the science during the early part of this century, I perceive that the nomenclature and classification, as then understood, formed an important part of the study, being in fact its technical language. The study of living beings in their natural element was of infinitely greater value. At that age, namely about fifteen, I spent most of the time I could spare from classical and mathematical studies in hunting the neighboring woods and meadows for birds, insects, and land and freshwater shells. My room became a little menagerie, while the stone basin under the fountain in our yard was my reservoir for all the fishes I could catch. Indeed, collecting, fishing, and raising caterpillars, from which I reared fresh, beautiful butterflies, were then my chief pastimes. What I know of the habits of the freshwater fishes of Central Europe, I mostly learned at that time. And I may add that when afterward I obtained access to a large library and could consult the works of botch and lessiped, the only extensive works on fishes then in existence, I wondered that they contained so little about their habits, natural attitudes, and mode of action, with which I was so familiar. It is this way of looking at things that gives to Agassiz's writings the literary and popular interest. He was born in Mortier, Canton Freiburg, May 28, 1807, the son of a clergyman, who sent his gifted son to the universities of Zurich, Heidelberg, and Munich, where he acquired reputation for his brilliant powers and entered into the enthusiastic, intellectual, and merry student life, taking his place in the formal jewels and becoming known as a champion fencer. Agassiz was an influence in every centre that he touched, and in Munich, his Roman laboratory, sick with clouds of smoke from the long-stemmed German pipes, was a gathering place for the young scientific aspirants who affectionately called it the Little Academy. At the age of 22 he had published his Fishes of Brazil, a folio that brought him into immediate recognition. Cuvier, the greatest histiologist of his time, to whom the first volume was dedicated, received him as a popl and gave him all the material that he had been collecting during 15 years for a contemplated work on fossil fissures. In Paris, Agassiz also won the friendship of Humboldt, who, learning that he stood in need of money, presented him with so generous a sum as to enable the ambitious young naturalist to work with a free and buoyant spirit. His practical career began in 1832 when he was installed at Neuchâtel, from which point he easily studied the alps. Two years later, after the Poisson fossile, Fossil Fishes, appeared, he visited England to lecture. Then, returning to his spectresque home, he applied himself to original investigation, and through his lectures and publications won honors and degrees. His daring opinions, however, sometimes provoked ardent discussion and angry comment. Agassiz's passion for investigation frequently led him into dangers that imperiled both life and limb. In the summer of 1841, for example, he was lowered into a deep crevice bristling with huge stalactites of eyes to reach the heart of a glacier moving at the rate of 40 feet a day. While he was observing the blue bands on the glittering eyes, he suddenly touched a well of water, and only after great difficulty made his companions understand his signal for rescue. These alpine experiences are well-described by Mrs. Elizabeth Gary Agassiz, and also by Edouard Désor in his séjour dans les glaciers, sojourned among the glaciers, Neuchâtel, 1844. Interesting particulars of these glacial studies, etudes des glaciers, were soon eschewed, and Agassiz received many gifts from lovers of science, among whom was numbered the King of Prussia. His zoological and geological investigations were continued, and important works on fuzzle molluscs, tertiary shells, and living and fossil echinoderms date from this period. He had long desired to visit America when he realized this wish in 1846 by an arrangement with the Lowell Institute of Boston, where he gave a series of lectures, afterwards repeated in various cities. So attractive did he find the fauna and flora of America, and so vast a field did he perceive here for his individual studies and instruction that he returned the following year. In 1848, the Prussian government, which had borne the expenses of his scientific mission, a cruise along our Atlantic coast to study its marine life, released him from further obligation that he might accept the chair of geology in the Lawrence Scientific School of Harvard University. His cruises, his explorations, and his methods, combined with his attractive personality, gave him unique power as a teacher, and many of his biographers think that of all his gifts, the ability to instruct was the most conspicuous. He needed no textbooks, for he went directly to nature, and did not believe in those technical, driest-dust terms which led to nothing and which are swept away by the next generation. Many noted American men of science remember this awakening influence of his laboratories in Charleston and Cambridge, his museum at Harvard, and his summer school at Peneke's Island in Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts, where natural history was studied under ideal conditions. It was here that he said to his class, a laboratory of natural history is a sanctuary where nothing profane should be tolerated. Witcher has left a poem called The Prayer of Agassiz, describing the Isle of Peneke's ranged about by sapphire seas. Just as he was realizing two of his ambitions, the establishment of a great museum and a practical school of theology, he died December 14, 1873, at his home in Cambridge and was buried at Mount Auburn, Peneke's pine trees sent from Switzerland, while a boulder from the glacier of the hour was selected to mark his resting place. Agassiz was greatly beloved by his pupils and associates and was identified with the brilliant group Emerson, Longfellow, Holmes and Lowell, each of whom has written of him. Lowell considered his elegy on Agassiz written in Florence in 1874 among his best verses. Longfellow wrote a poem for the 50th birthday of Agassiz and Holmes, a farewell to Agassiz on his departure for the Andes, whose affectionate and humorous train thus closes. Till their glorious raid is o'er and they touch our ransomed shore, then the welcome of a nation with a shout of exultation shall awake the dumb creation and the shapes of buried eons join the living creature's peons, while the mighty Megalosaurus leads the Paleozoic chorus. God bless the great professor and the land its proud possessor. Bless them now and never more. Numerous biographies and monographs of Agassiz exist in many languages, a complete list of which is given in the last published Life of Agassiz by Jules Marcoux, New York and London, 1896, and also in the Life of Agassiz by Charles Elf Holder, New York, 1893. Complete lists of Agassiz's works are also given in these biographies and these titles show how versatile was his taste and how deep and wide his research. His principal contributions to science are in French and Latin, but his most popular books appeared in English. These include The Structure of Animal Life, Methods of Study, Geological Sketches and Journey in Brazil, the latter written with Mrs. Agassiz. His contributions to the natural history of the United States plant to be in ten large books, only reached four volumes. In his researches concerning Falsal Fishes, Agassiz expressed the views that made him a lifelong opponent of the Darwinian theories, although he was a warm friend of Darwin. Considering the demands upon his time as teacher, lecturer and investigator, the excellence not less than the amount of the great naturalist work is remarkable and one such admiration that he was made a member of nearly every scientific society in the world. One of his favorite pastimes was Deep Seed Dredging, which embraced the excitement of finding strange specimens and studying their singular habits. Of his love and gift for instructing, Mrs. Agassiz says in her life, Boston, 1885, teaching was a passion for him and his power over his pupils might be measured by his own enthusiasm. He was intellectually as well as socially, a democrat in the best sense. He delighted to scatter broadcast the highest results of thought and research and to adapt them even to the youngest and most uninformed minds. In his later American travels, he would talk of glacial phenomena to the driver of a country stage coach among the mountains or to some workmen splitting rock at the roadside with as much earnestness as if he had been discussing problems with a broader geologist. He would take the common fisherman into his scientific confidence, telling him the intimate secrets of fish culture or fish embryology, till the man in his turn grew enthusiastic and began to pour out information from the shores of his own rough and untaught habits of observation. Agassiz's general faith in his susceptibility of the popular intelligence, however untaught, to the highest truths of nature, was contagious and he created or developed that in which he believed. The following citations exhibit the powers of observation and that happy method of stating scientific facts which interest the specialist and general reader alike. With what interest do we look upon any relic of early human history, the monument that tells of a civilization whose hieroglyphic records we cannot even decipher, the slightest trace of a nation that vanished and left no sign of its life, except the rough tools and utensils buried in the old site of its towns or villages, arouses our imagination and excites our curiosity. Men gaze with awe at the inscription on an ancient Egyptian or Assyrian stone. They hold with reverential touch the yellow parchment roll whose dim, defaced characters record the meager learning of a buried nationality and the announcement that for centuries the tropical forests of Central America have hidden within their tangled growth the ruined homes and temples of a past race stirs the civilized world with a strange, deep wonder. To me it seems that to look on the first land that was ever lifted above the wasted waters to follow the shore where the earliest animals and plants were created when the thought of God first expressed itself in organic forms to hold in one's hand a bit of stone from an old sea beach hardened into rock thousands of centuries ago and studded with the beings that once crapped upon its surface or were stranded there by some retreating wave is even of deeper interest to men than the relics of their own race for these things tell more directly of the thoughts and creative acts of God. The statement that different sets of animals and plants have characterized the successive epochs is often understood as indicating a difference of another kind than that which distinguishes animals now living in different parts of the world. This is a mistake. They are so-called representative types all over the globe united to each other by structural relations and separated by specific differences of the same kind as those that unite and separate animals of different geological periods take for instance mud flats or sandy shores in the same latitudes of Europe and America. We find living on each animals of the same structural character and of the same general appearance but with certain specific differences as of color, size, external appendages, etc. They represent each other on the two continents. The American wolves, foxes, bears, rabbits are not the same as the European but those of one continent are as true to their respective types as those of the other. Under a somewhat different aspect they represent the same groups of animals. In certain latitudes or under conditions of nearer proximity these differences may be less smart. It is well known that there is a great monotony of type not only among animals and plants but in the human races also throughout the arctic regions and some animals characteristic of the high north reappears under such identical forms in the neighborhood of the snow fields and in the mighty mountains that to trace the difference between the ptymingans, rabbits and other gnawing animals of the alps for instance and those of the artyx is among the most difficult problems of modern science. And so is it also with the animated world of past ages in similar deposits of sand, mud or lime in adjoining regions of the same geological age the remains of animals and plants may be found while at greater distances but under similar circumstances representative species may occur. In very remote regions however whether the circumstances be similar or dissimilar the general aspect of the organic world differs quickly remoteness in space being thus in some measure an indication of the degree of affinity between different faunae in deposits of different geological periods immediately following each other we sometimes find remains of animals and plants so closely allied to those of earlier or later periods that at first sight the specific differences are hardly discernible the difficulty of solving these questions and of appreciating correctly the differences and similarities between such closely allied organisms outlines the antagonistic views of many naturalists respecting the range of existence of animals during longer or shorter geological periods and the superficial way in which discussions concerning the transition of species are carried on is mainly owing to an ignorance of the conditions above alluded to my own personal observation and experience in these matters have led me to the conviction that every geological period has had its own representatives and that no single species has been repeated in successive ages the laws regulating the geographical distribution of animals and a combination into distinct zoological provinces called faunae with definite limits are very imperfectly understood as yet but so closely are all things linked together from the beginning till today as I am convinced we shall never find the clue to their meaning till we carry on our investigations in the past and the present simultaneously the same principle according to which animal and vegetable life is distributed over the surface of the earth now prevailed in the earliest geological periods the geological deposits of all times have had their characteristic faunae their zoological provinces presenting special combinations of animals and vegetable life over certain regions and their representative types reproducing in different countries but under similar latitudes the same groups with specific differences of course the nearer we approach the beginning of organic life the less marked do we find the differences to be and for a very obvious reason the inequalities of the earth's surface her mountain barriers protecting whole continents from the arctic winds her open plains exposing others to the full force of the polar blasts her snug valleys and her lofty heights her table lands and rolling prairies her river systems and her dry deserts her cold ocean currents pouring down from the high north on some of her shores while warm ones from the tropical seas are after influence to the others in short all the contrasts in the external configuration of the globe with the physical conditions attendant upon them are naturally accompanied by a corresponding variety in animal and vegetable life but in the Silurian age when there were no elevations higher than the Canadian hills when water covered the face of the earth the exception of a few isolated portions lifted above the almost universal ocean how monotonous must have been the conditions of life and what should we expect to find on those first shores if we are walking on a sea beach today we do not look for animals that hound the forest or roam over the open plains or for those that live in sheltered valleys or in inland regions or on mountain heights we look for shells for mussels and barnacles for crabs, for shrimps for marine worms for starfishes and sea urchins and we may find here and there a fish stranded on the sand or strangled in the seaweed let us remember then that in the Silurian period the world so far as it was raised above the ocean was a beach and let us seek there for such creatures as God has made to live on seashores and not belittle the creative work or say that he first scattered the seeds of life in meager or stinted measure because we do not find air-breathing animals when there was no fishing atmosphere to feed their lungs insects with no terrestrial plants to live upon reptiles without marshes birds without trees cattle without grass things in short without the essential conditions for their existence I have spoken of the Silurian beach as if there were but one not only because I wished to limit my sketch and to attempt at least to give it the vividness of a special locality but also because a single such shore will give us as good an idea of the characteristic fauna of the time as if we drew a material from a wider range there are however a great number of parallel ridges belonging to the Silurian and Devonian periods running from east to west not only through the state of New York but far beyond through the states of Michigan and Wisconsin into Minnesota one may follow nine or ten such successive shores in unbroken lines from the neighborhood of Lake Champlain to the far west they have all the irregularities of modern seashores running up to form little bays here and jutting out in promontories there although the early geological periods are more eligible in North America because they are exposed over such extensive tracts of land yet they have been studied in many other parts of the globe in Norway, in Germany in France, in Russia in Siberia, in Kamchatka in parts of South America in short wherewith the civilization of the white race has extended Silurian deposits have been observed and everywhere they bear the same testimony to a profuse and varied creation the earth was teeming then with life as now and in whatever corner of its surface the geologists finds the old strutter the dead fauna as numerous as that which lives and moves about it nor do we find that there was any gradual increase or decrease of any organic forms as the beginning and close of the successive periods on the contrary the opening scenes of every chapter in the world's history have been crowded with life and its last leaves us full and varied as its first voices from methods of study there is a chapter in the natural history of animals that has hardly been touched upon as yet and that will be especially interesting with reference to families the voices of animals have a family character not to be mistaken all the cannidae bark and howl the fox, the wolf the dog, have the same kind of utterance though on a somewhat different pitch all the bears growl from the white bear of the Arctic's nose to the small black bear of the Andes all the cats meow from our quiet fireside companion to the lions and tigers and panthers of the forests and jungle this last may seem a strange assertion but to anyone who has listened critically to their sounds and analyzed their voices the roar of the lion is but a gigantic meow bearing about the same proportion to that of a cat as its stately and majestic form does to the smaller softer more peaceful aspect of the cat yet notwithstanding the difference in their size who can look at the lion whether in his more sleepy mood as he lies curled up in the corner of his cage or in his fiercer moment of hunger or of rage without being reminded of a cat and this is not merely the resemblance of one carnivorous animal to another for no one was ever reminded of a dog or wolf by a lion again all the horses in donkey's ney for the bray of a donkey is only a harsh ney pitched on a different key it is true but a sound of the same character as the donkey himself is but a clumsy and dwarfish horse all the cows low from the buffalo roaming the prairie the mosque ox of the arctic ice fields or the yak of Asia to the cattle feeding in our pastures among the birds the similarity of voice and families is more marked we need only recall the harsh and noisy parrots so similar in their peculiar utterance or take as an example the webfooted family do not all the geese and the innumerable hooves of ducks quack does not every member of the crow family call whether it be the jackdaw the jay or the mac pie the rook in some green rookery of the old world or the crow in our woods with its long, melancholy call that seems to make the silence and solitude deeper compare all the sweet warblers of the songster family the nightingales the thrushes the mockingbirds the robins they differ in the greater or less perfection of their note but the same kind of voice runs through the whole group these affinities of the vocal systems among the animals form a subject well worthy of the deepest study not only as another character by which to classify the animal kingdom correctly but as bearing incorrectly also on the question of the origin of animals can we suppose that characteristics like these have been communicated from one animal to the other when we find that all the members of one zoological family however widely scattered over the surface of the earth inhabiting different continents and even different hemispheres speak with one voice must we not believe that they have originated in the places where they now occur with all their distinctive peculiarities who taught the American thrush to sing like his European relative he surely did not learn it from his cousin over the waters those who have us believe that all animals originated from common centers and single pairs and have been then distributed over the world will find it difficult to explain the tenacity of such characters and their recurrence and repetition under circumstances that seem to preclude the possibility of any communication or any other supposition than that of their creation in different regions where they are now found we have much yet to learn from investigations of this kind with reference not only to families among animals but to nationalities among men also the similarity of motion in families is another subject well worth the consideration of the naturalist the soaring of the birds of prey the heavy flapping of the wings of the gallinacious birds the floating of the swellows with their short cuts and angular turns the hopping of the sparrows the deliberate walk of the hens and the struts of the cocks the waddle of the ducks and geese the slow heavy creeping of the land turtle the graceful flight of the sea turtle under the water the leaping and swimming of the frog of the lizard like a flash of green or red light in the sunshine the lateral undulation of the serpent the dot of the pickerel the leap of the trout the rush of the hawk moss through the air the fluttering flight of the butterfly the quivering poise of the hummingbird the arrow-like shooting of the squid through the water the slow crawling of the snail on the land of the sand crab the backward walk of the crawfish the almost imperceptible gliding of the sea anemone over the rock the graceful rapid motion of the pleurobrachia with its endless change of curve and spiral in short every family of animals has its characteristic action and its peculiar voice and yet so little is this endless variety of rhythm and cadence both of motion and sound in the organic world understood that we lack words to express one half of its richness and beauty formation of coral reefs from methods of study in natural history for a long time it was supposed that the reef builders inhabited very deep waters for there were sometimes brought up upon sounding lines at depths of many hundreds or even thousands of feet and it was taken for granted that they must have had their home where they were found but the facts recently ascertained respecting the subsidence of ocean bottoms have shown that the foundation of a coral wall may have sunk far below the places where it was laid and it is now proved beyond the doubt that no reef building coral can thrive at a depth of more than 50 fathoms though corals of other kinds occur far lower and that the dead reef corals sometimes brought to the surface from much greater depths are only broken fragments of some reef that has subsided with the bottom on which it was growing but though 15 fathoms is the maximum depth at which any reef builder can prosper which will not sustain even that degree of pressure and this fact has as we shall see an important influence on the structure of the reef imagine now a sloping shore on some tropical coast descending gradually below the surface of the sea upon that slope at a depth of from 10 to 12 or 15 fathoms and 2 or 3 or more miles from the mainland according to the loving of the shore we will suppose that one of those little coral animals to whom a home in such deep waters is congenial has established itself how it happens that such a being which we know is immovably attached to the ground and forms the foundation of a solid wall was ever able to swim freely about in the water till it found a suitable resting place I shall explain hereafter when I say something of the mode of reproduction of these animals except for the moment my unsustained assertion and plant our little coral on this sloping shore some 12 or 15 fathoms below the surface of the sea the internal structure of such a coral corresponds to that of the sea anemone the body is divided by two partitions from top to bottom leaving open chambers between while in the center hangs the digestive cavity connected by an opening in the bottom with all these chambers at the top is an aperture serving as a mouse surrounded by a wreath of hollow tentacles each one of which connects at its space with one of the chambers all parts of the animal communicate freely with each other but though the structure of the coral is identical in all its parts with the sea anemone it nevertheless presents one important difference the body of the sea anemone is soft while that of the coral is hard it is well known that all animals and plants have the power of appropriating to themselves what they need each selecting from the surrounding elements whatever contributes to its well being now corals possess in an extraordinary degree the power of assimilating to themselves the lime contained in the salt water around them and as soon as our little coral is established on a firm foundation a lime deposit begins to form in all the walls of its body so that its base its partitions and its outer wall which in the sea anemone remains always soft becomes perfectly solid in the polyp coral and form a frame as hard as bone it may naturally be asked where the lime comes from in the sea which the corals absorb in such quantities as far as the living corals are concerned the answer is easy for an immense deal of lime to the ocean by rivers that wear away the lime deposit through which they pass the Mississippi whose course lies through extensive lime regions bring down nearly lime enough to supply all the animals living in the Gulf of Mexico but behind this lies a question not so easily settled as to the origin of the extensive deposits of limestone found at the very beginning of life upon earth this problem brings us to the threshold of astronomy for the base of limestone is metallic in character susceptible therefore of fusion and may have formed a part of the materials of our earth even in an incadescent state when the world were forming but though this investigation as to the origin of lime does not belong either to the naturalist or the geologist its suggestion reminds us that the time has come when all the sciences and the results are so intimately connected that no one can be carried on independently of the others since the study of the rocks has revealed a crowded life whose records are hoarded within them the work of the geologist and the naturalist has become one and the same and at that border land where the first crust of the earth was condensed out of the igneous mass of materials which formed its earliest condition their investigation mingles with that of the astronomer and we cannot trace the limestone in a little coral without going back to the creation of our solar system when the worlds that compose it were thrown off from a central mass in a gastric's condition when the coral has become in this way permeated with slime all parts of the body are rigid with the exception of the upper margin the stomach and the tentacles the tentacles are soft and waving projected or drawn in at will they retain their flexible characters for life and decompose when the animal dies for this reason the dried specimens of corals preserved in museums do not give us the least idea of the living corals in which every one of the millions of beings composing such a community is crowned by a waving wreath of white or green or rose colored tentacles as soon as the little coral is fairly established and solidly attached to the ground it begins to bud this may take place in a variety of ways dividing at the top or budding from the base or from the sides till the primitive animal is surrounded by a number of individuals like itself of which it forms the nucleus in which now begin to bud in their turn each one surrounding itself with enumerous progeny all remaining however attached to the parent such a community increases till its individuals are numbered by millions and I may have myself counted no less than 14 millions of individuals in a coral mass of parrots measuring not more than 12 feet in diameter the so-called coral heads which make the foundation of a coral wall and seem by their massive character and regular form especially adapted to give a strong solid base the coral structure are known in our classification as the astraeans so named on account of the little star-shaped pits covered upon their surface each one of which marks the place of a single more or less isolated individual in such a community end of section 23 recording by JC Guan Montreal May 2010 section 24 of library of the world's best literature ancient and modern volume 1 this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Nicholas James Bridgewater library of the world's best literature ancient and modern volume 1 section 24 selected epigram by Agathias Agathias 536-581 Agathias tells us in his proemium that he was born at Merina Asia Minor that his father's name was Memnonius and his own profession the law of the Romans and practice in courts of justice he was born about AD 536 and was educated at Alexandria in Constantinople he studied and practiced his profession and won his surname of Scholasticus a title then given to a lawyer he died it is believed at the age of 44 or 45 he was a Christian as he testifies in his epigrams in the sketch of his life prefix to his works Niber collates the friendships he himself mentions with his fellow poet Paulus Silentiarius with Theodorus the Dechemvir and Macedonius the ex-concel to these men he dedicated some of his writings of his works he says in his proemium that he wrote in his youth the Daphniaca a volume of short poems in hexameters set off with love tales his anthology was a collection of poems of early writers and also compositions of his friend Paulus Silentiarius and others of his time a number of his epigrams preserved because they were written before or after his publication of the Kiklus have come down to us and are contained in the Anthologia Graica his principal work is his Historia which is an account of the conquest of Italy by Narces of the first war between the Greeks and Franks of the great earthquakes and plagues of the war between the Greeks and Persians and the deeds of Belisarius in his contest with the Huns of all that was happening in the world Agathius knew between 553 and 558 AD while he was a young man he tells us for instance of the rebuilding of the great church of Saint Sophia by Justinian and he adds, if anyone who happens to live in some place remote from the city wishes to get a clear notion of every part as though he were there let him read what Paulus Silentiarius has composed in hexameter verse the history of Agathius is valuable as a chronicle it shows that the writer had little knowledge of geography and was not enough of a philosopher to look behind events and trace the causes from which they proceeded he is merely a simple and honest writer and his history is a business like entry of facts he dwells upon himself and his wishes with a minuteness might seem self-conscious but is really naive and goes so far in his outspokenness as to say that if for the sake of a livelihood he took up another profession his taste would have led him to devote himself to the muses and graces he wrote in the Ionic dialect of his time the best edition of his Historia is that of Nibur 1828 those of his epigrams preserved in the greek anthology have not infrequently been turned into English the happiest translation of all is that of Dryden in his life of Plutarch on Plutarch Keronean Plutarch to thy deathless praise does Marshal Rome this grateful statue raise because both Greece and she thy fame have shared their heroes written and their lives compared but thou thyself couldst never write thy own their lives have parallels but thine has known all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org library of the world's best literature ancient and modern volume 1 section 25 selected works by Grace Aguilere Grace Aguilere 1816 to 1847 50 years ago a Jewish writer of English fiction was a new and interesting figure in English literature Disraeli indeed had flashed into the literary world with Koningsby that eloquent vindication of the Jewish race his grandiose tan creed had revealed to an astonished public the strange life of the desert of the mysterious fastness whence swept forth the tribes who became the Moors of Spain and the Jews of Palestine Disraeli however stood in no category and established no precedent but when Miss Aguilar's stories began to appear they were eagerly welcomed by a public with whom she had already won reputation and favor as the defender and interpreter of her faith the youngest child of a rich and refined household Grace Aguilere was born in 1816 at Hackney near London of that historic strain of Spanish Jewish blood which for generations had produced not only beauty and artistic sensibility but intellect her ancestors were refugees from persecution and in her burned that ardor of faith which persecution kindles fragile and sensitive she was educated at home by her cultivated father and mother under whose solicitous training she developed an alarming precocity at the age of twelve in a heroic drama on her favorite hero Gustavus Vassa at fourteen she had published a volume of poems at twenty-four she accomplished her chief work on the Jewish religion The Spirit of Judaism a book republished in America with preface and notes by a well-known rabbi Dr. Isaac Leaser of Philadelphia although the Orthodox priest found much in the book to criticize he was forced to commend its ability it insists on the importance of the spiritual and moral aspects of the faith delivered to Abraham and deprecates a superstitious reference for the mere letter of law it presents Judaism as a religion of love and the Old Testament as the inspiration for the teachings of Jesus written more than a half century ago the book is widely read today by students of the Jewish religion four years later Miss Aguilere published The Jewish Faith its spiritual consolation moral guidance and immortal hope and The Women of Israel a series of essays on biblical history which was followed by essays and miscellaneous so great was the influence of her writings that the Jeuesses of London gave her a public testimonial and addressed her as the first woman who had stood forth as the public advent of the faith of Israel while on her way to visit a brother then residing at Svalbach, Germany she was taken ill at Frankfurt and died there at the early age of 31 the earliest and the best known of Miss Aguilere's novels is Home Influence which rapidly passed through 30 editions and is still a favorite book with young girls there is little incident in the story which is the history of the development of character in a household of six or seven young persons with very different endowments and tendencies it was the fashion of the day to be didactic and Mrs. Hamilton from whom the Home Influence radiates seems to the modern reader somewhat inclined to preach in season and out of season but the story is interesting and the characters are distinctly individualized while at least one episode is dramatically treated the mother's recompense is a sequel to Home Influence wherein the further fortunes of the Hamilton family are so set forth that the worldly-minded reader is driven to the inference that the brilliant marriages of her children are a sensible part of Mrs. Hamilton's recompense the story is vividly and agreeably told of a different order is The Days of Bruce a historic romance of the late 13th century which is less historic than romantic and in whose mirror the rugged chieftain would hardly recognize its angularities The Vale of Cedars is a historic tale of the persecution of the Jews in Spain under the Inquisition it is told with intense feeling with much imagination and with a strong love of local color it is said that family traditions are woven into the story this book as well as Home Influence had a wide popularity in a German version in reading Grace Aguilera it is not easy to believe her the contemporary of Courier Bell and George Eliot both her manner and her method are earlier her lengthy and artificial periods the rounded and decorative sentences that she puts into the mouths of her characters under the extremist pressure of emotion or suffering the italics, the sentimentalities are of another age than the sign language and hard sense of Jane Eyre or Adam Beatty doubtless her peculiar sheltered training her delicate health and a luxuriant imagination that had seldom been measured against the realities of life account for the old fashioned air of her work but however antiquated the form may become the substance of all her tales is sweet and sound their charm for young girls is abiding their atmosphere is pure and the spirit that inspires them is touched only to find issues the citation from the Days of Bruce illustrates her narrative style that from women's friendship her habit of disquisition and the passage from Home Influence her rendering of conversation the greatness of friendship from women's friendship it is the fashion to deride women's influence over women to laugh at female friendship to look with scorn on all those who profess it but perhaps the world at large little knows the effect of this influence how often the unformed character of a young, timid and gentle girl may be influenced for good or evil by the power of an intimate female friend there is always, to me, a doubt of the warmth the strength and purity of her feelings when a young girl merges into womanhood passing over the threshold of actual life only the admiration of the other sex watching, pining for a husband or lovers, perhaps and looking down on all female friendship as romance and folly no young spirit was ever yet satisfied with the love of nature friendship or love gratifies self-love for it tacitly acknowledges that we must possess some good qualities to attract beyond the mere love of nature Coleridge justly observes that it is well-ordered that the amiable and estimable should have a fainter perception of their own qualities than their friends have otherwise they would love themselves now friendship or love permits their doing this unconsciously mutual affection is a tacit avowal an appreciation of mutual good qualities perhaps friendship yet more than love for the latter is far more an aspiration a passion than the former and influences the permanent character much less under the magic of love a girl is generally in a feverish state of excitement often in a wrong position deeming herself the goddess her lover the adore whereas it is her will that must bend to his herself be abnegated for him friendship neither permits the former nor demands the latter it influences silently often unconsciously perhaps its power is never known till years afterwards a girl who stands alone without acting or feeling friendship is generally a cold unamiable being so wrapped up in self as to have no room for any person else except perhaps a lover whom she only sees in values as offering his devotion to that same idol self female friendship may be abused may be but a name for gossip letter writing romance nay worse for absolute evil but that Shakespeare the mighty wizard of human hearts thought highly and beautifully of female friendship we have his exquisite portraits of Roslyn and Celia Helen and the Countess undeniably to prove and if he who could portray every human passion every subtle feeling of humanity from the overwhelming tempest of love to the fiendish influences of envy and jealousy and hate from the incomprehensible mystery of Hamlet's wondrous spirit to the simplicity of the gentle Miranda the dublike innocence of Ophelia who could be crushed by her weight of love but not reveal it if Shakespeare scorned not to picture the sweet influences of female friendship shall women pass by it as a theme to tame the idol for their pens the order of knighthood from the days of Bruce a right noble and glorious scene that the great hall of the palace present the morning which followed this eventful night the king surrounded by his highest prelates and nobles mingling and indiscriminately with the high-born dames and maidens of his court all splendidly attired occupied the upper part of the hall the rest of which was crowded by both his military followers and many of the good citizens of scone who flocked in great numbers to behold the august ceremony of the day two immense oaken doors at the south side of the hall were flung open and through them was discerned the large space forming the palace yard prepared as a tilting ground where the new-made knights were to prove their skill the storm had given place to a soft breezy morning the cool freshness of which appeared peculiarly grateful from the oppressiveness of the night light downy clouds sailed over the blue expanse of heaven tempering without clouding the brilliant rays of the sun every face was clothed with smiles and the loud shouts which hailed the youthful candidates for knighthood as they severally entered told well the feeling with which the patriots of scotland were regarded some twenty youths received the envied honour at the hand of their sovereign that day but our limits forbid a minute scrutiny of the bearing of any however well deserving save of the two whose vigils have already detained us so long a yet longer and louder shout proclaimed the appearance of the youngest scone of the house of bruce and his companion the daring patriotism of Isabella of Buchan had enshrined her in every heart and so disposed all mentored her children the name of their traitorous father was forgotten led by their godfathers Nigel by his brother-in-law Sir Christopher Seton and Alan by the Earl of Lennox their swords which had been blessed by the abbot at the altar slung round their necks they advanced up the hall there was a glow on the cheek of the young Alan in which pride and modesty were mingled his step at first was unsteady and his lip was seen to quiver very bashfulness as he first glanced round the hall and felt that every eye was turned upon him but when that glance meant his mother's fixed on him and breathing that might of love that filled her heart all boys tremors fled the calm stayed resolve of manhood took the place of the varying glow upon his cheek the quivering lip became compressed and firm and his step faltered not again the cheek of Nigel Bruce was pale his firmness in the glance of his bright eye and a smile unclouded in its joints on the lips the frivolous lightness of the courtier the mad bravado of night errantry which was not uncommon to the times indeed were not there it was the quiet courage of the resolved warrior the calm of a spirit at peace with itself shedding its own high feeling and poetic glory over all around him on reaching the foot of King Robert's throne both youths knelt and laid their sheaths' swords at his feet their armor-bearers then approached and the ceremony of clothing the candidates in steel commenced the golden spur was fastened on the left foot of each by his respected godfather while outlaw, hay, and other nobles advanced to do honor to the youths by aiding in the ceremony nor was it warriors alone is this permitted lady demanded the king smiling as the countess of Buchan approached the marshal group and aided by Lennox fastened the polished cuirass in the form of her son is it permitted for a matron to arm a youthful knight is there no maiden to do such inspiring office yes, when the knight is one like this my liege she answered in the same tone let a matron arm him good my liege she added sadly let a mother's hand and wrap his boyish limbs in steel let a mother's blessing mark him thine and Scotland's that those who watch his bearing in the battlefield may know who sent him there may thrill his heart with memories of her who stands alone of her ancestral line that though he bears the name of common the blood of fife flows reddest in his veins arm him and welcome noble lady into the king an abuzz of approbation ran through the hall and may the noble spirit and dauntless loyalty inspire him he shall not need a trusty follower while such as he are around us yet in very deed my youthful knight must have a lady fair for whom he tilts today come hither, Isolene that look is barely inclined to envy thy sweet frenter office and nothing loath to have a loyal knight thyself come, come, my pretty one, no blushing now Lennox, guide those tiny hands alight laughing and blushing Isolene the daughter of Lady Campbell a sister of the Bruce a graceful child of some thirteen summers advancing nothing loath to obey her uncle's summons and an arch-smile of real enjoyment irresistibly stole over the continents of Allen dispersing the emotion his mother's words produced nay, tremble not, sweet one, the king continued in a lower and yet kinder tone as he turned from the one youth to the other and observed that Agnes, overpowered by emotion had scarcely powered to perform her part despite the whispered words of encouraging affection Nigel murmured in her ear one by one the cuirass and shoulder-pieces the grieves and gauntlets the gorgette and brassards the joints of which were so beautifully burnished that they shone as mirrors and so flexible that every limb had its free use envelope those manly forms their swords once again girt to their sides and once more kneeling the king descended from his throne ultimately dubbing them night in the name of God St. Michael and St. George the culprit and the judge from home influence Mrs. Hamilton was seated at one of the tables on the deus nearest the Oriole window the light from which fell on her giving her figure though she was seated naturally enough in one of the large maroon velvet oaken chairs an unusual effect of dignity and command and impressing the terrified beholder was such a sensation of awe that had her life depended on it she could not for that one minute have gone forward and even when desired to do so by the words I had desired your presence, Ellen, because I wished to speak to you come here without any more delay how she walked the whole length of that interminable room and stood facing her aunt she never knew Mrs. Hamilton, for a full minute, did not speak but she fixed that searching look to which we have once before eluded upon Ellen's face and then said in a tone which, though very low and calm expressed as much as that earnest look Ellen, is it necessary for me to tell you why you are here, necessary to produce the proof that my words are right and that you have been influenced by the fearful effects of unconfessed and most heinous sin little did I dream its nature for a moment Ellen stood as turned to stone as white and rigid the next she had sunk down with a wild bitter cry at Mrs. Hamilton's feet and buried her face in her hands is it true, can it be true that you, offspring of my own sister dear to me, cherished by me as my own child you have been the guilty one to appropriate and conceal the appropriation of money which has been a source of distress by its loss and the suspicion thence proceeding for the last seven weeks that you could listen to your uncle's words absolving his whole household as incapable of a deed which was actual theft and yet by neither word nor sign betray remorse or guilt could behold the innocent suffering the fearful misery of suspicion loss of character without the power of clearing himself and stand calmly, heedlessly by only proving by your hardened and rebellious temper that all was not right within Ellen, can this be true yes, was the reply but with such a fearful effort that her slight frame shook as with an aug thank God that it is known I dare not bring the punishment on myself but I can bear it this is mere mockery Ellen how dare I believe even this poor evidence of repentance with a recollection of your past conduct what were the notes you found Ellen named them where are they this is but one and the smallest Ellen's answer was scarcely audible used them and for what there was no answer neither then nor when Mrs. Hamilton sternly reiterated the question then she demanded how long have they been in your possession five or six weeks but the reply was so tremulous it carried no conviction with it since Robert told his story to your uncle or before before then your last answer was a falsehood Ellen it is a full seven weeks since my husband addressed the household on the subject you could not have so miscounted time with such a deed to date by where did you find them Ellen described the spot and what business had you there you know that neither you nor your cousins are ever allowed to go that way to Mrs. Langsburg's cottage and more especially alone if you wanted to see her why did you not go the usual way and when was this you must remember the exact day your memory is not in general so treacherous again Ellen was silent have you forgotten it she crouched lower at her aunt's feet the answer was audible no then answer me Ellen this moment and distinctly for what purpose were you seeking Mr. Langsburg's cottage by that forbidden path and when I wanted money and I went to ask her to take my trinkets my watch if it must be and dispose of them as I had read of others doing as miserable as I was and the wind blew the notes to my very hand and I used them I have been mad then I have been mad since I believe but I would have returned the whole amount to Robert if I could have but parted with my trinkets in time to describe the tone of utter despair the recklessness as to the effect of her words would produce as impossible every word increased Mrs. Hamilton's bewilderment and misery to suppose that Ellen did not feel was folly it was the very depth of wretchedness which was crushing her to earth she answered an unanswered question but deepened the mystery and rendered her judges task more difficult and when was this Ellen I will have no more evasion tell me the exact day but she asked in vain Ellen remained moveless and silent as the dead after several minutes Mrs. Hamilton removed her hands from her face and compelling her to lift up her headgast certainly on her death-like countenance for some moments in utter silence and then said in a tone that Ellen never in her life forgot you cannot imagine Ellen that this half confession will either satisfy me or in the smallest degree redeem your sin one and one only path is open to you for all that you have said and left unsaid but deepened your apparent guilt and so blackened your conduct that I can scarcely believe I am addressing the child I so loved and could still so love if but one real sign be given of remorse and penitence one hope of returning truth but that sign that hope can only be a full confession terrible as is the guilt of appropriating so large a sum granted it came by the nearest chance into your hand dark as is the additional sin of concealment while an innocent person was suffering something still darker more terrible must be concealed behind it or you would not, could not obvietly silent I can believe that under some heavy pressure of misery some strong of excitement the sum might have been used without thought and that fear might have prevented the confession of anything so dreadful but what was this heavy necessity for money the strong excitement what fearful and mysterious difficulties have you been led into to call for either tell me the truth Ellen the whole truth let me have some hope of saving you and myself the misery of publicly declaring you the guilty one and so proving Robert's innocence tell me what difficulty what misery so manned you so as to demand the disposal of your trinkets if there be the least excuse the smallest possibility of your obtaining in time forgiveness I will grant it I will not believe you so utterly fallen I will do all I can to remove error yet to prevent suffering but to win this I must have a full confession every question that I put to you must be clearly and satisfactorily answered and so bring back the only comfort to yourself and hope to me will you do this Ellen oh that I could was the reply in such bitter anguish Mrs. Hamilton actually shuttered but I cannot, must not, dare not Aunt Emmeline meet me, condemn me to the severest sharpest suffering I wish for it, pine for it you cannot love me more than I do myself but do not, do not speak to me in these kind tones I cannot bear them it was because I knew what a wretch I am that I have so shunned you I was not worthy to be with you oh sentence me at once I dare not answer as you wish dare not, repeated Mrs. Hamilton more and more bewildered and to conceal the emotion Ellen's wild words in agonized manner had produced adopting a greater sternness you dare commit a sin from which the lowest of my household would shrink in horror and yet you dare not make the only atonement give me the only proof of real penitence I demand this is a weak and wicked subterfuge, Ellen that will not pass with me there can be no reason for this fearful not even the consciousness of greater guilt for I promise forgiveness if it be possible on the sole condition of a full confession once more will you speak your hardy-hood will be utterly useless for you cannot hope to conquer me and if you permit me to leave you with your conduct still clothed and in this impenetrable mystery you will compel me to adopt measures to subdue the defying spirit which will expose you and myself to intense suffering but which must for submission at last you cannot inflict more than I have endured the last seven weeks remember, Ellen, almost inarticulately I have borne that I can bear the rest then you will not answer you are resolved not to tell me the day on which you found that money the use to which it was applied the reason of your choosing that forbidden path permitting me to believe you guilty of heavier sins than may be the case in reality listen to me, Ellen it is more than time this interview should cease but I will give you one chance more it is now half past seven she took the watch from her neck and laid it on the table I will remain here one half hour longer by that time this sinful temper may have passed away and you will consent to give me the confession I demand I will not believe you so altered in two months as to choose obduracy and misery when pardon and in time confidence and love are offered in their stead get up from that crouching posture it can be but mock humility and so only aggravate your sin Ellen rose slowly and painfully and seating herself at the table some distance from her aunt leaned her arms upon it and buried her face within them never before and never after the hour appears so interminable to either Mrs. Hamilton or Ellen it was well for the firmness of the former perhaps that she could not read the heart of that young girl even if the cause of its anguish had been still concealed again and again did the wild longing turning her actually faint and sick with its agony come over her to reveal the whole to ask but rest in mercy for herself pardon and security for Edward but then, clear as if held before her in letters of fire she read every word of her brother's desperate letter particularly, breathe it to my uncle or aunt for if she knows it he will and you will never see me more her mother pallidous death seemed to stand before her freezing confession on her heart and lips looking at her threateningly as she had so often seen her as if the very thought were guilt the rapidly advancing twilight the large and lonely room all added to that fearful illusion and if Ellen did succeed in praying it was with desperate fervor for strength not to betray her brother if ever there were a martyr's spirit it was enshrined in that young frail form Aunt Emmeline, Aunt Emmeline speak to me but one word only one word of kindness before you go I do not ask for mercy there can be none for such a wretch as I am I will bear with that one complaint one murmur, all you may inflict you cannot be too severe nothing can be such agony as this utter loss of your affection I thought the last two months that I feared you so much that it was all fear, no love but now, now that you know my sin it has all come back to make me still more wretched and before Mrs. Hamilton could prevent or was in the least aware of her intention Ellen had obtained possession of one of her hands and was covering it with kisses while her whole frame shook with those convulsed but completely tearless sobs will you confess, Ellen, if I stay will you give me the proof that it is such agony to lose my affection that you do love me as you profess that it is only one sin which has so changed you one word and tardy as it is I will listen and I can forgive Ellen made no answer and Mrs. Hamilton's newly raised hopes vanished she waited full two or three minutes then gently disengaged her hand and dress from Ellen's still convulsive grasp the door closed with a sullen seemingly unwilling sound and Ellen was alone she remained in the same posture the same spot till a vague cold terror so took possession of her but the room seemed filled with ghostly shapes and all the articles of furniture suddenly transformed to things of life and springing up with the wild fleet step of fear she paused not till she found herself in her own room where flinging herself on her bed she buried her face on her pillow to shut out every object oh how she longed to shut out thought End of section 25 recorded by J. Martin section 26 of library of the world's best literature ancient and modern volume 1 this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by J. Martin library of the world's best literature ancient and modern volume 1 section 26 selection from Crichton by William Harrison Ainsworth William Harrison Ainsworth 1805 to 1882 in the year 1881 at a commemorative dinner given to her native novelist by the city of Manchester it was announced that the public library contained 250 volumes of his works which passed through 7,660 hands annually so that his stories were read at a rate of 20 volumes a day throughout the year this exceptional prophet who was thus not without honour in his own country was the son of a prosperous attorney and was himself destined to the bar but he detested the law and he loved letters and before he was 20 he had helped to edit a paper had written essays, a story and a play none of which fortunately for him survived and had gone to London ostensibly to read in a lawyer's office and really to spin his web of fiction whenever opportunity offered Chance connected the fortunes of young Ainsworth with periodical literature where most of his early work appeared his first important tale was Rookwood published in 1834 this describes the fortunes of a family of Yorkshire gentry in the last century but its real interest lies in an episode which includes certain experiences of the notorious highwayman Dick Turpin and his furious ride to outrun the hue and cry Sporting England was enraptured with the dash and breathlessness of this adventure and the novelist's fame was established his second romance, Crichton appeared in 1836 the hero of this tale is the brilliant Scottish gentleman whose handsome person, extraordinary scholarship great accomplishments, courage, eloquence, subtlety and achievement gained him the so-bray of the admiral the chief scenes were laid in Paris at the time of Catherine de Medici's rule and Henry III's reign when the air was full of intrigue and conspiracy and when religious quarrels were not more bitter and dangerous than political wrangles the inscrutable king the devout Queen Louise of Lorraine the scheming Queen Mother and Marguerite of Valleos, half saint, half proplicate a pearl of beauty and grace Henry of Navarre, ready to buy his Paris with sorter mass well-known great nobles priests, astrologers, learned doctors foreign potentates, ambassadors, pilgrims and poisoners passed before the reader's eye the pictures of student life at a time when all the world swarmed to the great schools of Paris to explain the hero and the period when in 1839 Dickens resigned the editor-ship of Bentley's miscellany Ainsworth succeeded him the new whip wrote the old one afterward having mounted the box drove straight to Newgate he there took to Jack Shepard and quick shank the artist and aided by that very vulgar but very wonderful dressman he made an effective story of the burglar's and house-breaker's life everybody read the story and most persons cried out against so ignoble a hero, so mean a history and so misdirected a literary energy the author himself seems not to have been proud of the success which sold thousands of copies of an unworthy book and placed a dramatic version of its vulgar adventures on the stage of eight theaters at once he turned his back on this profitable field to produce in rapid succession Guy Fawkes, a tale of the famous gunpowder plot The Tower of London, a story of the Princess Elizabeth the reign of Queen Mary and the melancholy episode of Lady Jane Gray's brief glory Old St. Paul, a story of the time of Charles II which contains the history of the plague and of the great fire The Miser's Daughter Windsor Castle, whose chief characters are Catherine of Argonne, Ambelin, Cardinal Woolsey and Henry VIII St. James, a tale of the court of Queen Anne The Lancashire Witches The Star Chamber, a historical story of the time of Charles I The Constable of the Tower The Lord Mayor of London Cardinal Pole, which deals with the court and times of Philip and Mary John Law, a story of the great Mississippi bubble Tower Hill, whose heroine is the luckless Catherine Howard The Spanish match, a story of the romantic pilgrimage of Prince Charles and Stiney Buckingham to Spain for the fruitless wooing of the Spanish princess and at least ten other romances many of them in three volumes all appearing between 1840 and 1873 Two of these were published simultaneously in serial form and no year passed without its book to the end of the novelist's long life Whatever the 20th century may say in the story of Annesworth historic romances many of them have found high favor in the past Concerning Crichton, so good a critic as Father Prout wrote Indeed, I scarcely know any of the so-called historical novels of the frivolous generation which has altogether so graphically reproduced the spirit and character of the time as this daring and dashing portraiture of the young Scott and his contemporaries The author of Waverly praised more than one of the romances saying that they were written in his own vein Even Magnon, the satirical thought the novelist was doing excellent service to history in making Englishmen understand how full of comedy and tragedy were the old streets and the old buildings of London and if Annesworth the writer received some buffettings Annesworth the man seems to have been universally loved and approved All the literary men of his time were his cordial friends Prout wrote for him the bonnets of Bonnie Dundee and objected to being paid Dickens was eager to serve him Talford, Burham, Hood, Howitt, James, Gerald delighted in his society At dinner parties and in country houses he was a favorite guest Thus easy in circumstances surrounded by affection Happy in the labor of his choice passed the long life of the upright and kindly English gentleman who spent the most illustrious years in recording the annals of tragedy wretchedness and cron The students of Paris from Crichton Toward the close of Wednesday the 4th of February 1579 a vast assemblage of scholars was collected before the gothic gateway of the ancient College of Nevere So numerous was this concourse that it not merely blocked up the area in front of the renowned seminarian question but extended far down the rue de la montagne Saint Genevieve in which it is situated Never had such a disorderly route been brought together since the days of the uproar in 1557 when the predecessors of these turbulent students took up arms marched in a body to the pre-Aul clerics sent fire to three houses in the vicinity and slew a sergeant of the guard who vainly endeavored to restrain their fury Their last election of erector Monsieur Adrien D'Ambrose Pater Eredotium as he is described in his epitaph when the same body congregated within the cloister of the Matherins and thence proceeded into multuous array to the church of Saint Louis in the isle of the same name had been nothing to it Every scholastic hive sent forth its drones Cervan and Montague Clooney, Harcourt the four nations and a host of minor establishments in all amounting to forty-two each added its swarms and a pretty buzzing they created The fair of Saint Germain had only commenced the day before but though its festivities were to continue until Palm Sunday and though it was the constant resort of the scholars who committed during their days of carnival ten thousand excesses it was now absolutely deserted The Palm de Pin, the Castel the Magdalene and the Mule these capital caverns celebrated in Pantigirl's conference with the Lemosin student who had conferred upon them an immortality like that of our own hostel the mermaid were wholly neglected The dice box was laid aside for the nuns and the well-used cards were thrust into the doublets of these thirsty tipplers of the schools But not alone did the crowd consist of the brawler, the gambler, the bully, and the debauchee though these it must be confessed predominated it was a grand medley of all sex and classes The modest demeanor of the retiring pale-browed student was contrasted with a ferocious aspect and reckless bearing of his immediate neighbor whose appearance was little better than that of a bravo The brave theologian and embryo a classiatic were placed in juxtaposition with the scoffing and licentious acolyte while the lawyer in posse and the lawbreaker in essay were numbered among a group whose pursuits were those of violence and fraud Various as were the characters that composed it not less diversified were the costumes of this heterogeneous assemblage Subject to no particular regulations as to dress or rather openly infracting them if any such were attempted to be enforced each scholar to whatever college he belonged attired himself in such garments as best suited his taste or his finances Taking it all together the mob was neither remarkable for the fashion nor the cleanliness of the apparel of its members From rebellious we learn that the passion of play was so strongly implanted in the students of his day that they would frequently stake the points of their doublets at trick-track or trumidane and but little improvement had taken place in their morals or manners some half-century afterward The buckle at their girdle the mantle on their shoulders the shirt on their back often stood the hazard of the dye and hence it not infrequently happened that a rusty, poor point, and ragged chossias were all the covering which the luckless dicers could enumerate owing no doubt to the extreme rarity and penuary of money in their pouches Round or square caps hoods and cloaks of black, grey, or other somber hue were, however, the prevalent garb of the members of the university But here and there might be seen some gayer specimen of the tribe whose broad-brimmed, high-crowned felt-hat and flaunting feather whose puffed-out sleeves and exaggerated ruff with starched plates of such amplitude that they had been not inappropriately named plat de Saint-Jean-Baptiste from the resemblance which the wearer's head bore to that of the saint when deposited in the charger of the daughter of Herodias were intended to ape the leading mode of the elegant court of their sovereign, Henri Trois To such an extent that these insolent youngsters carried their license of imitation that certain of their members, fresh from the Fair of Saint-Germain and not wholly unacquainted with the hypocrites of the subtlers crowding its mark were around their throats enormous collars of paper cut in rivalry of the legitimate plates of Muslim and bore on their hands long hollow sticks from which they discharged peas and other missiles in imitation of the sarbicans or pea-shooters then in vogue with the monarch and his favorites Thus fantastically tricked out on that same day, nay only a few hours before and at the fair above mentioned had these factious weights with more merriment than discretion ventured to exhibit themselves before the courtage of Henri and to exclaim loud enough to reach the ears of royalty a la frae un connode levue a piece of pleasantry for which they subsequently paid to dear notwithstanding its shabby appearance and detail the general effect of this scholastic rabble was striking and picturesque the thick mustaches and pointed beards with which the lips and chins of most of them were decorated gave to their physiognomies a manly and determined air fully borne out by their unrestrained carriage and deportment to a man almost all were armed with a tough vine-wood bludgeon called in their language an esthac volant tipped and shot with steel a weapon fully understood by them and rendered by their dexterity in the use of it formidable to their adversaries not a few carried at their girdles the short rapier so celebrated in their duels and brawls were concealed within their bosom a pondered or a two-edged knife the scholars of Paris have ever been a turbulent and ungovernable race and at the period of which this history treats and indeed long before were little better than a license toward of robbers consisting of a pack of idle and wayward youths drafted from all parts of Europe as well as from the remote or provinces of their own nation there was little in common between the massive students and their brethren accepting the fellowship resulting from the universal license in which all indulged hence their thousand combats among themselves combats almost invariably attended with fatal consequences in which the heads of the university found it impossible to check their own scanty resources ecked out by what little they could derive from beggary or robbery formed their chief subsistence for many of them were positive mendicants and were so denominated and being possessed of a sanctuary within their own quarters to which they could at convenience retire they submitted to the constraint of no laws except those enforced within the jurisdiction of the university and hesitated at no means of enriching themselves at the expense of their neighbors hence the frequent warfare waged between them and the brethren of Saint Germain and de Pré whose monastic domains adjoined their territories and whose meadows were the constant battleground of their skirmishes according to Dulaire presque toujours des theatres de tomalté de galanterie, de combat, de duo, de debauches, et de sedition hence their sanguary conflicts with the good citizens of Paris to whom they were wholly obnoxious and who occasionally repaid their aggressions with interest in 1407 two of their number convicted of assassination and robbery were condemned to the gibbet and the sentence was carried into execution but so great was the uproar occasioned in the university by this violation of its immunities that the province de Paris, Gouliam de Tignanville was compelled to take down their bodies from Mont-Faissant and see them honorably and ceremoniously interred this recognition of their rights only served to make matters worse and for a series of years the nuisance continued unabated it is not our purpose to record all the excesses of the university nor the means taken for their suppression vainly were the civil authorities arrayed against them vainly were bulls thundered from the Vatican no amendment was affected the weed might be cut down but was never entirely extirpated their feuds were transmitted from generation to generation and their old bone of contention with the abbot of Saint-Germain the pré-auclairique was after an uninterrupted stripe for thirty years submitted to the arbitration of the Pope who very equitably refused to pronounce judgment in favor of either party such were the scholars of Paris in the sixteenth century such the character of the clamorous crew who besieged the portals of the College of Nevers the object that summoned together this unruly multitude was it appears a desire on the part of the scholars to be present at a public controversy or learn a disputation then occurring within the great hall of the College before which they were congregated and the disappointment caused by their finding the gates closed and all entrance denied to them occasioned their present disposition to riot it was in vain they were assured by the Hall-Bergiers stationed at the gates and who with crossed pikes strobe to resist the onward pression of the mob that the hall and court were already crammed to overflowing that there was not room even for the soul of the foot of a doctor of the facility and that their orders were positive and imperative that none beneath the degree of a bachelor or Lysentate should be admitted and that a group of Martinets and newcomers could have no possible claim to admission in vain they were told this was no ordinary disputation no common controversy where all were alike entitled to license of ingress that the disputant was no undistinguished scholar whose renown did not extend beyond his own trifling sphere and whose opinions therefore few would care to hear and still fewer to Opigan but a foreigner of high rank in high favor and fashion and not more remarkable for his extraordinary intellectual endowment than for his brilliant personal accomplishments in vain the trembling officials sought to cinch their arguments by stating that not alone did the conclave consist of the chief members of the university the senior doctors of theology, medicine and law the professors of the humanities, rhetoric and philosophy and all the various other dignitaries but that the debate was honored by the presence of Monsieur Christ de Thau first president of parliament by that of the learned Jacques Augustine of the same name by one of the secretaries of state and governor of Paris Monsieur René de Villiquet by the ambassadors of Elizabeth Queen of England and a Philip II King of Spain and several of their suit by Abbe de Brantome by Monsieur Mérion the court physician by Cosmo Ruggieri the Queen Mother's astrologer by the renowned poets and masqueriders Maitre Rosnard Bife and Philippe Desport by the well-known advocates of parliament Monsieur Eten Pascue but also and here came the gravament of the objection to their admission by the two as special favorites of his majesty and leaders of affairs the seniors of Joyeuse and Dépinon it was in vain the students were informed that for the preservation of strict decorum they had been commanded by the rector to make fast the gates no excuses would avail them the scholars were cogent reasoners and a show of staves soon brought their opponents to a non-plus in this line of argument they were perfectly aware of their ability to prove a major to the wall with them to the wall quite a hundred infuriated voices down with the harbored heirs down with the gates down with the disputants down with the rector himself deny our privileges to the wall with old Adrian D'Ambrose exclude the disciples of the university from their own halls curry favor with the court minions hold a public controversy in private down with him we will issue a mandance for a new election on the spot whereupon a deep groan resounded throughout the crowd it was succeeded by a volley of fresh execrations from the rector and an angry demonstration of bludgeons accompanied by a brisk shower of peas from the Sarbaques the officials turned pale and calculated the chance of a broken neck in reversion with that of a broken crown in immediate possession the former being at least contingent appeared the milder alternative and they might have been inclined to adopt it had not a further obstacle stood in their way the gate was barred with inside and the verges and beetles who had the custody of the door though alarmed at the toment with all positively refused to unfasten it again the threats of the scholars were renewed and further intimations of violence were exhibited again the peas rattled on the hands and faces of the harbored heirs till their ears tingled with pain Pray to us of the king's favorites cried one of the foremost of the scholars a youth decorated with a paper collar they may rule within the precincts of the Louvre but not within the walls of the university Magre, blue, we hold them cheap enough we need not the idle bark of these full fed court lap dogs what to us is the bearer of a cup and ball by the four evangelists we have none of them here let the Gascon cadet de Pernon reflect on the fate of Quaith and Magaron and let our gay joyous beware of the dog's death of Saint-Macron place for better men, place for the schools away with frills and sarbacans what to us is the president of parliament or a governor of the city shouted another of the same gentry we care nothing for their administration we recognize them not saving their own courts all their authority fell to the ground at the gate of the rue Saint-Jacques when they entered our dominions we care for no parties, we are tremors and steer a middle course we hold the gassards as cheap as the Huguenots and the brethren of the league weigh as little with us as the followers of Calvin only our sovereign is Gregory XIII Pontiff of Rome, away with the guys and the Brunets away with Henri of Nevers, if you please cry to scholar of Parkour if you list, but by all the saints not with Henri of Lorraine he is the fast friend of the true faith no, no live the guise, live the Holy Union away with Elizabeth of England cried a scholar of Clooney what doth her representative hear seeks he has spouse for her among our schools she will have no great bargain I own if she bestows her royal hand upon our Duke d'Anjou if you value your buff jerkin nothing sliding of the Queen of England in my hearing returned a bluff broad-shouldered fellow raising his bludgeon after a menacing fashion he was an Englishman belonging to the Four Nations and had a huge bulldog at his heels away with Philip of Spain and his ambassador cried a Bernardin by the eyes of my mistress cried a Spaniard belonging to the College of Narbon with huge mustaches curled half way up his bronze an insolent visage and a slouched hat puffed over his brow this may not pass muster the representative of the King of Spain must be respected even by the academics of Lutasia which of you shall gain say me what business has he here with this sweet on occasions like to the present returned the Bernardin tainted you this disputation is one that little concerns the interest of your politic king and me thinks Dom Philippe or his representative has regard for little else than whatsoever advances his own interest your ambassador have I doubt not some latent motive for his present attendance in our schools perchance return the Spaniard we will discuss that point anon and what doth the pander of the saberite within the dusty halls of learning ejaculated a scholar of Le Mans what doth the jealous plaited slayer of his wife an unborn child within the reach of free spoken voices and may have of well directed blades me thinks it were more prudent to tarry within the bowers of this harem than to hazard his perfumed person among us well said rejoin the scholar of Clooney down with Rene de Vicuere although he be governor of Paris what title hath the abbey de Brontome to a seat among us said the squint of Harcourt faith he hath a reputation for wit and scholarship and gallantry but what is that to us his place might now be filled by and what in the devil's name brings Cosmo Ruggeri thither asked the Bernardin what doth the wrinkled old dealer in the black art hope to learn from us we are not given to alchemy and the occult sciences we practice no hidden mystery we brew no philatries we compound no slow poisons we vend no waxen images what doth he hear I say tis a scandal in the rector to permit his presence and what if he came under the safeguard of the authority of his mistress Catherine de Medici shall we regard her passport down with the heathen abbey his abominations have been endured too long they smell rank in our nostrils think how he ensnared LeMol think on his numberless victims who mix the infernal potion of Charles the Ninth let him answer that down with the infidel the Jew the sorcerer the steak were too good for him what doth he say I down with the accursed astrologer echo of the whole crew he has done abundant mischief in his time a day of reckoning has arrived hath he cast his own horoscope did he foresee his own fate ha ha and then the poets cried another member of the four nations a plague on all three would they were elsewhere in what doth this disputation concern them Pierre Ronsard being an offshoot of the same college hath indubitably acclaim upon our consideration but he is old and I marveled that his gout permitted him to hobble so far oh the mercenary old scribbler his late verses halt like himself yet he lowereth not the price of his masks besides which he has grown moral and unsays all his former good things won't you your superannuated bards ever recant the indiscretions of their nonage the gout took to psalm writing in his old age as to BAEF his name will scarce outlast the scenery of his ballads his plays are out of fashion since the glows he arrived he deserves no place among us and Philip Desportes owes all his present preferment to the Vicomte Joyeux however he is not altogether devoid of merit let him wear his bays so he trouble us not with his company room for the sophisticers of Narbonne I say to the dogs with poetry Morbleux exclaimed another what are the sophisticers of Narbonne to the discretists of the Sorbonne who will discuss you a position of Cornelius Lapid or sentence of Peter Lombard as readily as you would a flask of Hippocrates or a slice of botargo I and cried trancy to a thesis of Aristotle though it be against rule I say continued he addressing his neighbor a scholar of Montague his modest gray capuchin procured for him this appellation are we then the men to be thus scurvely entreated I see not that your merits are greater than ours returned he of the capache though our boasting be less the followers of the lowly John Sadelechon are as well able to maintain their tenets in controversy as those of Robert de Sorbonne and I see no reason why entrance should be denied us the honor of the university is at stake and all its strength should be mustered to assert it rightly spoken returned the Bernarden and it were a lasting disgrace to our schools where the arrogant Scott to carry off their laurels when so many who might have been found to lower his crest were allowed no share in their defense the contest is one that concerns us all alike we at least have a case of need I care not for the honors of the university rejoined one of the Ecosians or scotch college then existing in the Rue de Armadier but I care much for the glory of my countrymen and I would gladly have witnessed the triumph of the disciples of Rutherford and of the classic Buchanan but if the arbitrament to which you would resort is to be that of voices merely I am glad the rector in his wisdom has thought fit to keep you without even though personally inconvenienced by it name a God what fine talking to us retorted the Spaniard there is little chance of the triumph you predicate for your countrymen trust me we shall have to greet his departure from the debate with many hisses and few cheers and if we could penetrate through the plates of yawn iron door and gaze into the court it can seals from our view we should find that the loftiness of his pretensions has already been humbled and his arguments graveled you think of comparing a poor student from the college of St. Andrew with the Ruddite doctors the most Ruddite university in the world always accepting those of Valencia and Salamanca it needs all that country's assurance to keep the blush of shame from mantling in thy cheeks the seminary you revile replied the Scott Haudley has been the nursery of our Scottish kings nay the youthful James Stewart pursued his studies under the same roof beneath the same wise instruction and at the self-same time as our noble and gifted James Crichton whom you have falsely denominated an adventurer but whose lineage is not less distinguished than his learning his renown has preceded him hither and he was not unknown to your doctors when he affixed his program to these college walls Hark continued the speaker exultingly and listened to yawn evidence of his triumph and as he spoke allowed and continued clapping of hands proceeding from within was distinctly heard above the roar of the students that may be at his defeat muttered the Spaniard between his teeth no such thing said the Scott I heard the name of Crichton mingled with applaudits and who may be this phoenix this gargantua of intellect who is to vanquish us all as Spaniard did Thomas at the Englishman asked the Sarbonist Scott who is he that is more philosophic than Pythagoras ha who is more studious than carnandes said the Bernardin more versatile than Alcibides said Montague more subtle than Averos cried Harkort more mystical than Plontes said one of the four nations more visionary than our timidora said Clooney more infallible than the Pope said LeMond and who pretends to dispute de omnisque billy shouted the Spaniard et qualibete ente out of the Sobranist mine ears are stunned with your voice siphirations replied the Scott you ask me who James Crichton is and yourselves give the response you have mockingly said he is a rabah abbas a projie of written learning and you have unintentionally spoken the truth he is so but I will tell you that of him of which you are wholly ignorant look his condition is that of a Scottish gentleman of high rank like your Spanish grande he need not doff his capped kings on either side hath he the best of blood in his veins his mother was a steward directly descended from that regal line his father who oath the fair domains of Ilocke and Clooney was Lord Advocate to our Bonnie and Luckless Mary whom Heaven a-sullinized and still holds his high office me thinks the affairs of Crichton might have been heard of here I'll bet they are well known to me who being an Aglavia of Balfour have often heard tell of a certain contract or obligation whereby fast I interrupted the Spaniard he'd not thine own affairs worthy Scott tell us of this Crichton ha if you lack further information respecting James Crichton's favor at the Louvre his feats of arms and the esteem in which he is held by all the dames of honor and attendance Catherine de' Medici and moreover he had it was somewhat of sarcasm with her fair daughter Marguerite de Vallejo's you will do well to address yourself to the king's buffoon Maltred Chico whom I see not far off few there army thinks who could in such short space have won so much favor or acquired such bright renown huh mother of the Englishman your scotsmen stick by each other all the world over this James Crichton may or may not be the hero he has wanted but I shall mistrust his praises from that quarter till I find their truth confirmed he has to be sure acquired the character of a stout swordsman said the Bernardin to give the poor devil his due he has not met with his match of the sale de arms although he has crossed blades with the first in French replied Aguilvy I have seen him at the manage said the Sorbonneist go through an equitation and being an odd altogether unskillful horseman myself I can report favorably of his performance there is none among your youth consider steed like him returned Aguilvy nor can any of the jousters carry off the ring with more certainty at the lists I would feign hold my tongue but you enforce me to speak in his praise body of Bacchus exclaimed the Spaniard half unsheathing the lengthy weapon that hung by his side I will hold you a wager ten rose nobles to as many silver reels of Spain that with this staunch Toledo I will overcome your vaunted Crichton in close fight in any manner or practice a fence or degradation which he may appoint sword and dagger or sword only stripped to the guard or armed to the teeth by our Saint Trinidad I will have satisfaction for the Camalchus affront he has put upon this very learned gymnasium to which I belong and it would gladden me to clip the wings of this loud crowing cock or any of his dunghill crew added he with a squirmful gesture at the Scotsman if that be all you seek you shall not need to go far in your quest returned Aguilvy tarry till this controversy be ended and if I match not your Spanish blade with a Scottish broadsword and approve you as recant at heart as you are boastful and injurious of speech may Saint Andrew forever after his protection the devil exclaimed the Spaniard thy Scottish saint will little avail thee since thou hast incurred my indignation b'take thee therefore to thy pattern nostres if thou hast grace with all to mutter them for within the hour thou art assuredly food for the kites of the pre-aulclerics sans ha look to thyself vile braggart rejoined Aguilvy squirmfully I promise thee thou shalt need other intercession than thine own to purchase safety at my hands courage master Aguilvy said the Englishman thou wilt do well to slit the ears of this Spanish squash-buckler I warrant me he hides a craven spirit beneath that slashed poupon thou art the right man to make him eat his words be discreet in what he may he is at least thy countrymen and in part mine own and as such I will uphold him said Aguilvy against any odds bravo my valourous Don Diego Caravaggio said the so-bonus slapping the Spaniard on the shoulder and speaking in his ear shall these scurvy Scots carry all before them I warrant me know we will make common cause against the holy beggarly nation and in the meanwhile we entrust thee with this particular quarrel see thou acquit thyself in it as beceemeth a descendant of the Sith account him already at base to return Carajava to Palau I would the other were at his back that both might be transfixed at a blow to return to the subject of difference said the so-bonus who was too much delighted with the prospect of a duel to allow the quarrel a chance of subsiding while it was in his power to fan the flame to return to the difference said he allowed glancing at Aguilvy it must be conceded that as a wasler this chryton is without a peer none of us may presume to cope with him in the matter of the flask and the flagon though we number among us some jolly toppers Friar John with a priestess of Bubak was a washy-biber compared with him he worships at the shrines of other priestesses besides hers of Bac Bac if I be not wrongly informed added Montagu who understood the drift of his companion else wherefore are rejoiner to his cartels return the so-bonus do you not call to mind that beneath his arrogant defiance a learned body affixed to the walls of the Sorbonne it was written that he who would behold this miracle of learning must hide to the tavern or Bordel was it not so my Hildago I have myself seen him at the tumultive tavern of the Falcon return Karajava and at the lupinarian haunts of the Shumped Galard and the Val d'Armor you understand me ha ha ha ha Carousel scholars James Crichton is no stoic the disciple of Epicurus Velum pelum impignet Velum pokulum ha ha to his said he had dealings with the evil one observed the man of Harcourt with a mysterious hair and that like Jean de Arc he had surrendered his soul for his temporal welfare hence his wondrous lure hence his supernatural beauty and accomplishments hence his power of fascinating the fair sense hence his constant run of luck with the dice hence also his invulnerableness to the sword to his said also that he had the familiar spirit who attends him in the semblance of a black dog said Montague or that of a dwarf like the sooty imp of Cosmo Ruggieri said Harcourt is it not so he asked turning to the scott he lies in his throat who says so cried Aglavi losing all patience to one and all of you I breathe defiance and there is not a brother in the college to which I belong who will not maintain my quarrel a loud laugh of derision followed this sally and ashamed of having justly exposed himself to ridicule by his island unworthy display of passion the Scotsman held his peace and endeavored to turn a deaf ear to their taunts the gates of the college of Navarre were suddenly thrown open and a long continued thunder of applause bursting from within announced the conclusion of the debate that had terminated in favor Crichton could no longer be doubted as his name formed the burden of all the plaudits with which the courts were ringing all was excitement there was a general movement Aglavi could no longer restrain himself pushing forward by prodigious efforts he secured himself a position at the portal the first person who presented himself to his inquiring eyes was a gallant figure in a glittering steel corslet crossed by a silken sash who bore at his side a longsword with a magnificent handle and upon his shoulder a lance of some six feet in length headed with a long scarlet tassel and brass half-moon pendant is not Crichton victorious as Aglavi of Captain Larchant for he it was he hath acquitted himself to admiration reply the guardsmen who contrary to custom of such gentry for captains of the guard have been fine gentlemen in all ages did not appear to be displeased at this appeal to his courtesy and the rector hath adjudged him all the honors that can be bestowed by the university hurrah for old Scotland shouted Aglavi throwing his bonnet in the air I was sure it would be so this is a day worth living for Hic olam me meniste juve bit thou at least shall have reason to remember it muttered Carvalja who being opposite to him heard the exclamation and he too perchance he added frowning gloomily and drawing his cloak over his shoulder if the noble Crichton become patriot of yours you are in the right to be proud of him replied Captain Larchant for the memory of his deeds of this day will live as long as learning shall be held in reverence never before hath such a marvelous display of universal redition been heard within these schools by my faith I am absolutely wonder-stricken not I alone but all in proof of which I need only tell you that coupling his matchless scholarship with his extraordinary accomplishments the professors in their address to him at the close of the controversy have bestowed upon him the appellate of admirable an appellation by which he will ever after be distinguished the admirable Crichton echoed Aglavi hear you that a title adjudged to him by the whole conclave of the university hurrah the admirable Crichton tis a name we'll find an echo in the heart of every true scott by st. Andrew this is a proud day for us in the meantime said Larchant smiling at Aglavi's exultations and describing a circle with the point of his lance I must trouble you to stand back miss you scholars and leave free passage for the rector and his train archers advance and make clear the way and let the companions of the Crichton de Prenon and the Vicompe des Joyeuses be summoned as well as the guard of his excellency Seigneur René de Velacré patience miss you as you will hear all particulars anon so saying he retired and the men at arms less complacent than their leaders soon succeeded in forcing back the crowd end of section 26 recorded by J. Martin