CARDINAL WISEMAN IN ROME.
"It was in the year 1863," says Monsignore Manning, in his funeral oration on the great prince of the Church whose loss the whole Catholic world is now deploring, "that the sovereign pontiff, speaking of the cardinal, described him as 'the man of divine Providence for England.'" And truly it seems to us that the direct inspiration of the Holy Ghost has seldom been so clearly apparent in the choice of a bishop as it was in the case of him who has filled the cathedral chair of Westminster for the last fifteen years. When we remember the peculiar circumstances under which he began his pastorship—the reaction which was steadily, though as yet almost imperceptibly, going on in favor of the Church; the doubt and perplexity and wavering with which a crowd of wandering souls were groping in darkness for the portals of divine truth; and then the outburst of anger with which the nation at large read the bulls of the Holy Father, raising up the English Church from the humiliation in which she had lain for three hundred years, we shall readily understand that a rare union of qualities was required in the man who should understand and direct those honest seekers after truth, and breast successfully that storm of popular fury. That Nicholas Wiseman, who had left England at the age of sixteen, and passed twenty years of his youth and early manhood at Rome—absorbed, just at the time when the character is most liable to be moulded by external associations, in the theological studies and ceremonies and sacred traditions of the ecclesiastical capital—that he, we say, should have displayed such a remarkable fitness for both these works, is not only an indication of the great qualities of the man, but an instructive commentary on the school in which he had been formed. It shows us that a Roman education, while it enlarges the view and sweeps away local prejudices, yet leaves untouched the salient points of national character. For his success in dealing with the Catholic movement which followed the emancipation act of 1829, Cardinal Wiseman was largely indebted to the quickness and accuracy of perception in theological matters which he had acquired during his long residence at the centre of the Christian Church; what helped him most in his victory over the burst of Protestant fury which followed the restoration of the English hierarchy, and found official expression in the ecclesiastical titles bill, was his thorough English boldness and honesty of speech and manly bearing. He appealed to his countrymen's traditional love of fair-play; they heard him; and before long all classes learned to love and respect him.
Of the twenty years' schooling by which he prepared himself for his work in England, the cardinal has left us some admirable sketches, scattered through his books. Dr. Manning alluded briefly to the influence of his Roman education. We propose to gather up what the cardinal himself has said about it; to paint with his own pencil a picture of his life of preparation; leaving other hands, if they will, to paint his subsequent life of labor.
Nicholas Wiseman was born at Seville, in Spain, on the second of August, 1802. His father was an English merchant, his mother an Irish lady. He lost his father in infancy, and at the age of six, in consequence of those wars of invasion which for a time made Spain no longer habitable, was taken to Ireland to be educated. After spending one or two years at a boarding-school near Waterford, his mother went with him to England, and [{118}] placed him at St. Cuthbert's college, Ushaw, near Durham. Dr. Lingard was then vice-president of the college, "and I have retained upon my memory," wrote the cardinal, nearly fifty years afterward, "the vivid recollection of specific acts of thoughtful and delicate kindness, which showed a tender heart, mindful of its duties amidst the many harassing occupations just devolved on him through the death of the president and his own literary engagements; for he was reconducting his first great work through the press. But though he went from college soon after, and I later left the country, and saw him not again for fifteen years, yet there grew up an indirect understanding first, and by degrees a correspondence and an intimacy which continued to the close of his life." [Footnote 38]
[Footnote 38: Recollections of the Last Four Popes. Leo XII. Chap. vii.]
It was in the course of the eight years which he passed at this reverend seat of learning—lineal descendant of the old English college of Douay—that he determined to become a priest. Here he first began to manifest that deep affection for the city of St. Peter which distinguished him down to the end of his life. "Its history," he says, "its topography, its antiquities, had formed the bond of a little college society devoted to this queen of cities, while the dream of its longings had been the hope of one day seeing what could then only be known through hearsay tourists and fabulous plans." But the hope was fulfilled soon and unexpectedly. In 1818, Pope Pius VII. restored the English college at Rome, "after it had been desolate and uninhabited during almost the period of a generation." Nicholas Wiseman was one of a band of young men sent out to colonize it. He gives a charming description of the arrival of the little party at their Roman home, and the delight and surprise with which they roamed, alone and undirected, through the solemn building, with its wide corridors; its neat and cheerful rooms; its wainscotted refectory, from whose groined ceiling looked down St. George and the dragon; its library heaped with tumultuous piles of unorganized volumes; its garden, glowing with the lemon and orange, and presenting to one's first approach a perspective in fresco by Pozzi; and, above all, its chapel, illuminated from floor to roof with saints of England and celestial glories;—or, better still, adjoining the college, the old roofless church of the Holy Trinity, where in generations long past many a pilgrim from the British Isles had knelt to pray when the good priests of his nation fed and lodged him on his visit to the tomb of the apostles. Pleasant must have been the meeting, on that December afternoon in the year 1818, between these six young men and their appointed rector Dr. Gradwell, who, being absent when they arrived, came home that evening and found himself at the head of a college, and his frugal meal appropriated by the hungry students.
The happiness of that day casts a glow over the page on which, when he was an old man, the cardinal recorded the incidents. On Christmas eve he was presented, with some of his companions, to the venerable Pius VII. We can imagine the feelings of awe with which he approached this saintly man, released only a few years before from the French captivity. "There was the halo of a confessor round the tiara of Pius that eclipsed all gold and jewels.…… Instead of receiving us, as was customary, seated, the mild and amiable pontiff rose to welcome us, and meet us as we approached. He did not allow it to be a mere presentation, or a visit of ceremony. It was a fatherly reception, and in the truest sense our inauguration into the duties that awaited us. .… The friendly and almost national grasp of the hand, after due homage had been willingly paid, between the head of the Catholic Church, venerable by his very age, and a youth who had nothing even to promise; [{119}] the first exhortation on entering a course of ecclesiastical study—its very inaugural discourse from him whom he believed to be the fountain of spiritual wisdom on earth;—these surely formed a double tie, not to be broken, but rather strengthened, by every subsequent experience."
Doubtless his early dreams of Rome were now surpassed by the reality of his daily life. It was unalloyed spiritual and intellectual enjoyment. Study was no task; it was only a sort of pleasure; and the hours of relaxation became a source of mental schooling, even while he was pursuing the most delightful recreations. It is not difficult to imagine how he must have spent his holidays—roaming through the field of art, or resting at some seat of the Muses, or wandering along the stream of time, bordered by monuments of past greatness—every footstep awakening the echoes of classic antiquity, or calling up the most sacred memories of the early suffering Church. Even the solitude of buried cemeteries, "where the tombs themselves are buried, where the sepulchres are themselves things decayed and mouldering in rottenness," is no solitude to him; for he peoples it with the shadowy forms of the Scipios and Nasones whose ashes are there deposited. How often, in after years, did he not recur with fond delight to the "images of long delicious strolls, in musing loneliness, through the deserted ways of the ancient city; of climbings among its hills, over ruins, to reach some vantage-ground for mapping the subjacent territory, and looking beyond on the glorious chains of greater and lesser mountains, clad in their imperial hues of gold and purple; and then perhaps of solemn entrance into the cool solitude of an open basilica, where the thought now rests, as the body then did, after the silent evening prayer, and brings forward from many well-remembered nooks every local inscription, every lovely monument of art, the characteristic feature of each, or the great names with which it is associated.…… Thus does Rome sink deep and deeper into the soul, like the dew, of which every separate drop is soft and weightless, but which still finds its way to the root of everything beneath the soil, imparting there to every future plant its own warm tint, its own balmy fragrance, and its own ever rejuvenescent vigor."
Such were his hours of recreation: still more delightful were his hours of study, especially in "the great public libraries, where noiseless monks brought him and piled round him the folios which he required, and he sat as still amidst a hundred readers as if he had been alone." Every day his love, his enthusiasm, for his work seemed to increase. So he passed six or seven years, "lingering and lagging behind others," and revelling in spiritual and intellectual luxury. "Every school-fellow had passed on, and was hard at his noble work at home, was gaining a crown in heaven to which many have passed." Our young student had kissed the feet of the dead Pius VII., as he lay in state in one of the chapels of St. Peter's; had mourned over the departure of the great minister Consalvi; had presented himself to Leo XII., and told him, "I am a foreigner who came here at the call of Pius VII., six years ago; my first patrons, Pius VII., Cardinals Litta, De Pietro, Fontana, and now Consalvi, are dead. I therefore recommend myself to your Holiness's protection, and hope you will be a father to me at this distance from my country." He had obtained the Holy Father's promise. Already he was known for a youth of marvellous talents and learning. He had maintained a public disputation in theology, and been rewarded for his success by the title of D.D. At last came the jubilee-year of 1825. "The aim of years, the goal of long preparation, the longed-for crown of unwavering desires, the only prize thought worthy of being aspired to, was attained in the bright jubilee spring of Rome. It marks a blessed epoch in a [{120}] life to have had the grace of the priesthood superadded to the exuberant benedictions of that year."
Fortunately for the English college,—and fortunately, perhaps we should add, for England,—he was not yet to depart for the field of his great labor. To use his own modest words, he was found to be at hand in 1826, when some one was wanted for the office of vice-rector of the English college, and so was named to it; and when, in 1828, the worthy rector, Dr. Gradwell, was appointed bishop, Dr. Wiseman was, by almost natural sequence, named to succeed him.
Thus he continued to drink in the spirit of catholicity, and devotion, and steadiness in faith, of which Rome is the fountain on earth. With reverent affection he traced out the mementos of primitive Christianity, the tombs of the martyrs and saints, the altars and hiding-places and sacred inscriptions of the catacombs. These holy retreats had for him a fascination such as no other spot even in Rome possessed. Again and again he recurs to them in his writings, lingering fondly around the hallowed precincts, and inspiring his readers with the love for them that burned so ardently in his own breast. One of the last pieces that came from his pen was the little story of a martyr's tomb, which we have placed in this number of our magazine.
Other studies were not neglected. While his companions were indulging in the mid-day sleep, which almost everybody takes in Rome, he was at his books. Often he passed whole nights in study, or walking to and fro, in meditation, through the corridors of the English college. The seasons of vacation he would often spend collating ancient manuscripts in the Vatican library, and one of the fruits of that labor was his Horae Syriacae, published when he was only twenty-five years old. In the same year (1827), he was appointed—though without severing his connection with the English college—professor of oriental languages in the Roman university. It is no doubt to these two events that he alludes in the following extract from his "Recollections" of Leo XII., though he tells the story as if he had been only a witness of the circumstances: "It so happened," he says, "that a person connected with the English college was an aspirant to a chair in the Roman university. He had been encouraged to compete for it, on its approaching vacancy, by his professors. Having no claims of any sort, by interest or connection, he stood simply on the provision of the papal bull, which threw open all professorships to competition. It was but a secondary and obscure lectureship at best; one concerning which, it was supposed, few would busy themselves or come forward as candidates. It was, therefore, announced that this rule would be overlooked, and a person every way qualified, and of considerable reputation, would be named. The more youthful aspirant unhesitatingly solicited an audience, at which I was present. He told the Pope frankly of his intentions and of his earnest wish to have carried out, in his favor, the recent enactments of his Holiness. Nothing could be more affable, more encouraging, than Leo's reply. He expressed his delight at seeing that his regulation was not a dead letter, and that it had animated his petitioner to exertion. He assured him that he should have a fair chance, 'a clear stage and no favor,' desiring him to leave the matter in his hands.
"Time wore on; and as the only alternative given in the bull was proof, by publication of a work, of proficiency in the art or science that was to be taught, he quietly got a volume through the press—probably very heavy; but sprightliness or brilliancy was not a condition of the bull. When a vacancy arrived, it was made known, together with the announcement that it had been filled up. All seemed lost, except the honor of the pontiff, to which alone lay any appeal. Another audience was asked, and [{121}] instantly granted, its motive being, of course, stated. I was again present, and shall not easily forget it. It was not necessary to re-state the case. 'I remember it all,' the Pope said most kindly; 'I have been surprised. I have sent for C——, through whom this has been done; I have ordered the appointment to be cancelled, and I have reproved him so sharply that I believe it is the reason why he is laid up to-day with fever. You have acted fairly and boldly, and you shall not lose the fruits of your industry. I will keep my word with you and the provisions of my constitution.' With the utmost graciousness he accepted the volume—now treasured by its author, into whose hands the copy has returned—acknowledged the right to preference which it had established, and assured its author of fair play.
"The Pope had, in fact, taken up earnestly the cause of his youthful appellant; instead of annoyance, he showed earnestness and kindness; and those who had passed over his pretensions with contempt were obliged to treat with him and compromise with him on terms that satisfied all his desires. Another audience for thanksgiving was kindly accorded, and I witnessed the same gentle and fatherly temper, quietly cheerful, and the same earnest sympathy with the feelings of him whose cause had been so graciously carried through. If this young client gained no new energies, gathered no strength from such repeated proofs of interest and condescension; if these did not both direct and impel, steer and fill, the sails of his little bark through many troubled waters; nay, if they did not tinge and savor his entire mental life, we may write that man soulless and incapable of any noble emotions."
We must not suppose, however, that all this while he was so lost among his books as to have forgotten that land for whose conversion he was destined to labor through the best part of his life. He told a dear friend how, having to wait one day at the Sapienza for the Hebrew lecture, he went into the Church of St. Eustachio to pray; and there, before the altar of the Blessed Sacrament and the altar of the Holy Virgin Mother, the thought came into his mind that, as his native country, in the oath which she imposes upon the chief personages of the state, solemnly abjures these sacred mysteries, it was his duty to devote himself to the defense and honor of those very doctrines in England. And no one who has read his sermons and lectures and pastorals can have failed to notice the burning love for the Eucharist and the Blessed Virgin which inspired him.
The time was not yet for his mission to England; and it is so hard, when the mind has been long running in one groove, to break out of it and take a totally different course, that perhaps he might have come in time to look upon the Roman theological schools as the ultimate sphere of usefulness for which God had destined him, had he not been suddenly called forth from his studious retirement by the voice of the supreme pontiff. It was in 1827 that Leo XII. determined to institute in the church of Gesù e Maria a course of English sermons, to be attended by all colleges and religious communities that spoke the language, and by as many other persons as chose to listen. It was intended, of course, principally for the benefit of strangers. His Holiness appointed Dr. Wiseman preacher. "The burden was laid there and then," says the cardinal, describing the audience at which he received this commission, "with peremptory kindness, by an authority that might not be gainsaid. And crushingly it pressed upon the shoulders. It would be impossible to describe the anxiety, pain, and trouble which this command cost for many years after. Nor would this be alluded to were it not to illustrate what has been kept in view through this volume—how the most insignificant life, temper, and mind may be moulded by the action of a [{122}] great and almost unconscious power. Leo could not see what has been the influence of his commission, in merely dragging from the commerce with the dead to that of the living one who would gladly have confined his time to the former,—from books to men, from reading to speaking. Nothing but this would have done it. Yet supposing that the providence of one's life was to be active, and in contact with the world, and one's future duties were to be in a country and in times where the most bashful may be driven to plead for his religion or his flock, surely a command overriding all inclination and forcing the will to undertake the best and only preparation for those tasks, may well be contemplated as a sacred impulse and a timely direction to a mind that wanted both. Had it not come then, it never more could have come; other bents would have soon become stiffened and unpliant; and no second opportunity could have been opened after others had satisfied the first demand."
From this time it would seem as if England had a stronger hold upon his heart than ever. The noble purpose—which worldly men have since laughed at as a wild dream—of devoting himself to the conversion of England, became the ruling idea of his life. And often alone at night in the college chapel he would "pour out his heart in prayer and tears, full of aspirations and of a firm trust; of promptings to go, but fear to outrun the bidding of our divine Master." He offered himself to the Pope for this great work; but still the time was not come; and he was told to wait.
But if he was not to go yet himself, he had his part to perform in making others ready. He well knew that to fit his pupils for their work, he must teach them something beside theology. Englishmen were a sort of Brahmins; the missionary who went among them must go as one versed in all learning, or he would not be listened to. He saw how the natural sciences were growing to be the favorite pursuit—we may almost say the hobby—of modern scholars, and in a preface to a thesis by a student of the English college he insisted on the necessity of uniting general and scientific knowledge to theological pursuits. As another instance of the personal influence which several successive pontiffs exercised over his studies, and the many kind marks of interest which contributed to attach him so strongly to their persons, we may repeat an anecdote which he tells in reference to this little essay. He went to present it to Pius VIII., but the Holy Father had it already before him, and said, "You have robbed Egypt of its spoil, and shown that it belongs to the people of God." The same idea which he briefly exposed in this essay, he developed more fully and with great wealth of illustration in a course of lectures on the Connection between Science and Revealed Religion, delivered first to his pupils and afterward to a distinguished audience at the apartments of Cardinal Weld. It was partly with a view to the revision and publication of these lectures that he visited England in 1835.
During his stay in London, he preached a series of controversial discourses in the Sardinian chapel during the Advent of 1835, and another in St. Mary's, Moorfields, in Lent, 1836. The latter were published under the title of Lectures on the Principal Doctrines and Practices of the Catholic Church. They exhibit in a remarkable degree the qualities, so rare in polemical literature, of kindness, moderation, and charity for all men. The odium theologicum, indeed, has less place at Rome than anywhere else in the Christian world. It was at the very centre and chief school of the science of divinity that he learned to fight against error without temper, and expose falsehood without hard language. "I will certainly bear willing testimony," he says, "to the absence of all harsh words and uncharitable insinuations against others in public lectures or private teaching, or even [{123}] in conversation at Rome. One grows up there in a kinder spirit, and learns to speak of errors in a gentler tone than elsewhere, though in the very centre of highest orthodox feeling." Dr. Wiseman went back to the English college, leaving among his countrymen at home an enviable reputation for honesty, learning, and good sense.
A few years more passed in frequent contact with the Holy Father, and under the continuous influence of the sacred associations with which eighteen centuries have peopled the Christian capital, and Nicholas Wiseman was then ready to go forth to his work. The recollection of numberless favors and kind words from the supreme pontiff went with him, and strengthened him, and colored his thoughts. He has told of the cordial and paternal treatment with which he was honored by Gregory XVI. in particular. "An embrace would supply the place of ceremonious forms on entrance. At one time a long, familiar conversation, seated side by side; at another a visit to the penetralia of the pontifical apartment (a small suite of entresols, communicating by an internal staircase) occupied the time. …… What it has been my happiness to hear from him in such visits, it would be betraying a sacred trust to reveal; but many and many words there spoken rise to the mind in times of trouble, like stars, not only bright in themselves, but all the brighter in their reflection from the brightness of their mirror. They have been words of mastery and spell over after events, promises, and prognostics which have not failed, assurances and supports that have never come to naught." [Footnote 39]
[Footnote 39: He gives an amusing account of a perplexing situation from which this same Pope once unwittingly delivered him, while he was engaged in his course of lectures on Science and Revealed Religion at the apartments of Cardinal Weld. "On one of the days of delivery," says he, "I had been prevented from writing the lecture in time, and was laboring to make up for my delay, but in vain. Quarter after quarter of each hour flew rapidly on, and my advance bore no proportion to the matter before me. The fatal hour of twelve was fast approaching, and I knew not what excuse I could make, nor how to supply, except by a lame recital, the important portion yet unwritten of my task—for an index to the lectures had been printed and circulated. Just as the last moment arrived, a carriage from the palace drove to the door, with a message that I would step into it at once, as His Holiness wished to speak to me. This was, indeed, a deus ex machina—the only and least thought of expedient that could have saved me from my embarrassment. A messenger was despatched to inform the gathering audience of the unexpected cause of necessary adjournment of our sitting till the next day. The object of my summons was one of very trifling importance, and Gregory little knew what a service he had unintentionally rendered me.">[
In 1840 it was determined to increase the number of vicars apostolic in England from four to eight, and Dr. Wiseman, at the same time, was appointed coadjutor to Bishop Walsh at Wolverhampton. "It was a sorrowful evening," he says, "at the beginning of autumn, when, after a residence in Rome prolonged through twenty-two years, till affection clung to every old stone there, like the moss that grew into it, this strong but tender tie was cut, and much of future happiness had to be invested in the mournful recollections of the past."
Here we leave him. It was not until ten years later that he became cardinal, but though from 1840 to 1850 he filled only a subordinate position, he was working hard and well during this period, and fast rising to be the foremost man of all the Catholics of England. And his work never ceased. He lived to see the hierarchy established, and the conversion of his countrymen making steady if not rapid progress; but his energy never flagged when a part of his task was done; he passed on from one labor to another, until that last day, when "he entered into the sanctuary of God's presence, from which he never again came forth."
From All The Year Bound.
THE NICK OF TIME.
Let us suppose a case that might occur if it has not occurred.
John Mullet, immersed (say) in the button trade at Birmingham, has made money in business. He bequeaths his property by will, and is in due time gathered to his fathers. His two sons, Jasper and Josiah, take certain portions; and other portions are to go either to the family of Jasper or to that of Josiah, according as either one of those brothers survives the other. Jasper remains in England; but Josiah goes out to Australia, to establish something that may make his children great people over there. Both brothers, twelve thousand miles apart, die on the same day, May 1st, one at noon (Greenwich time), the other at noon (Sydney time). Jasper's children have been on pleasant cousinly terms with Josiah's; but they are aware of the fact that it would be better for them that Josiah should die before their own father, Jasper. Josiah's children, on the other hand, be they few or many, although they always liked uncle Jasper, cannot and do not ignore the fact that their interests would be better served by the survivorship of Josiah than that of Jasper. The two sets of cousins, therefore, plunge into a contest, to decide the question of survivorship between the two sons of old John Mullet.
This is one variety of a problem which the courts of law and equity are often called upon to settle. Occasionally the question refers to two persons who die at the same time, and in each other's company. For instance: Toward the close of the last century, George Netherwood, his children by his first wife, his second wife, and her son, were all wrecked during a voyage from Jamaica to England. Eight thousand pounds were left by will, in such a way that the relations of the two wives were greatly interested in knowing whether the second Mrs. Netherwood did or did not survive her husband, even by one single minute—a matter which, of course, could not be absolutely proved. Again, in 1806, Mr. Mason and one son were drowned at sea; his remaining eight children went to law, some of them against the others; because, if the father died before the son, £5,000 would be divided equally among the other eight children; whereas, if the son died before the father, the brothers only would get it, the sisters being shut out. A few years afterward Job Taylor and his wife were lost in a ship wrecked at sea; they had not much to leave behind them; but what little there was was made less by the struggles of two sets of relatives, each striving to show that one or other of the two hapless persons might possibly have survived the other by a few minutes. In 1819 Major Colclough, his wife, and four children, were drowned during a voyage from Bristol to Cork; the husband and wife had both made wills; and there arose a pretty picking for the lawyers in relation to survivorships and next of kin, and trying to prove whether the husband died first, the wife first, or both together. Two brothers, James and Charles Corbet, left Demerara on a certain day in 1828, in a vessel of which one was master and the other mate; the vessel was seen five days afterward, but from that time no news of her fate was ever received. Their father died about a month after the vessel was last seen. The ultimate disposal of his property depended very much on the question whether he survived his two sons or they survived him. Many curious arguments were used in court. Two or three captains stated that from August to January are hurricane [{125}] months in the West Indian seas, and that the ship was very likely to have been wrecked quite early in her voyage. There were, in addition, certain relations interested in James's dying before Charles; and they urged that, if the ship was wrecked, Charles was likely to have outlived by a little space his brother James, because he was a stronger and more experienced man. Alas for the "glorious uncertainty!" One big-wig decided that the sons survived the father, and another that the father survived the sons. About the beginning of the present reign, three persons, father, mother, and child, were drowned on a voyage from Dublin to Quebec; the husband had made a will, leaving all his property to his wife; hence arose a contest between the next of kin and the wife's relations, each catching at any small fact that would (theoretically) keep one poor soul alive a few minutes longer than the other. About ten years ago, a gentleman embarked with his wife and three children for Australia: the ship was lost soon after leaving England; the mate, the only person who was saved among the whole of the crew and passengers, deposed that he saw the hapless husband and wife locked in each other's arms at the moment when the waves closed over them. There would seem to be no question of survivorship here; yet a question really arose; for there were two wills to be proved, the terms of which would render the relatives much interested in knowing whether husband or wife did really survive the other by ever so small a portion of time.
These entangled contests may rest in peace, so far as the actual decisions are concerned. And so may others of a somewhat analogous nature. Such, for instance, as the case of an old lady and her housekeeper at Portsmouth. They were both murdered one night. The lady had willed all her property to the housekeeper, and then, the lawyers fought over the question as to which of the women died first. Or, the case of a husband who promised, on his marriage-day, to settle £1,200 on his wife "in three or four years." They were both drowned about three years after the marriage; and it was not until after a tough struggle in chancery that the husband's relatives conquered those of the wife—albeit, the money had nearly vanished in law expenses by that time. Or, the case of a man who gave a power of attorney to sell some property. The property was sold on the 8th of June, but the man was never seen after the 8th of the preceding March, and was supposed to have been wrecked at sea; hence arose a question whether the man was or was not dead on the day when the property was sold—a question in which the buyer was directly interested. The decisions in these particular cases we pass over; but it is curious to see how the law sometimes tries to guess at the nick of time in which either one of two persons dies. Sometimes the onus of proof rests on one of the two sets of relations. If they cannot prove a survivorship, the judgment is that the deaths were simultaneous. Sometimes the law philosophizes on vitality and decay. The Code Napoleon lays down the principle that of two persons who perish by the same calamity, if they were both children, the elder probably survived the younger by a brief space, on account of having superior vital energy; whereas, if they were elderly people, the younger probably survived the elder. The code also takes anatomy and physiology into account, and discourses on the probability whether a man would or would not float longer alive than a woman, in the event of shipwreck. The English law is less precise in this matter. It is more prone to infer simultaneous death, unless proof of survivorship be actually brought forward. Counsel, of course, do not fail to make the best of any straw to catch at. According to the circumstances of the case, they argue that a man, being usually stronger than a woman, probably survives her a little in a case of [{126}] simultaneous drowning; that, irrespective of comparative strength, her greater terror and timidity would incapacitate her from making exertions which would be possible to him; that a seafaring man has a chance of surviving a landsman, on account of his experience in salt-water matters; that where there is no evidence to the contrary, a child may be presumed to have outlived his father; that a man in good health would survive one in ill health; and so forth.
The nick of time is not less an important matter in reference to single deaths, under various circumstances. People are often very much interested in knowing whether a certain person is dead or not. Unless under specified circumstances, the law refuses to kill a man—that is, a man known to have been alive at a certain date is presumed to continue to live, unless and until proof to the contrary is adduced. But there are certain cases in which the application of this rule would involve hardship. Many leases are dependent on lives; and both lessor and lessee are concerned in knowing whether a particular life has terminated or not. Therefore, special statutes have been passed, in relation to a limited number of circumstances, enacting that if a man were seen alive more than seven years ago, and has not since been seen or heard of, he may be treated as dead.
The nick of time occasionally affects the distribution or amount of property in relation to particular seasons. Some years ago the newspapers remarked on the fact that a lord of broad acres, whose rent-roll reached something like £40,000 a year, died "about midnight" between the 10th and 11th of October; and the possible consequences of this were thus set forth: "His rents are payable at 'old time,' that is, old Lady-day and old Michaelmas-day. Old Michaelmas-day fell this year on Sunday, the 11th instant. The day begins at midnight. Now, the rent is due upon the first moment of the day it becomes due; so that at one second beyond twelve o'clock of the 10th instant, rent payable at old Michaelmas-day is in law due. If the lord died before twelve, the rents belong to the parties taking the estates; but if after twelve, then they belong to and form part of his personal estate. The difference of one minute might thus involve a question on the title to about £20,000." We do not know that a legal difficulty did arise; the facts only indicate the mode in which one might have arisen. Sometimes that ancient British institution, the house clock, has been at war with another British institution, the parish church clock. A baby was born, or an old person died, just before the house clock struck twelve on a particular night, but after the church clock struck. On which day did the birth or death take place—yesterday or to-day? And how would this fact be ascertained, to settle the inheritance of an estate? We know an instance (not involving, however, the inheritance to property) of a lady whose relations never have definitely known on which day she was born; the pocket watch of the accoucheur who attended her mother pointed to a little before twelve at midnight, whereas the church clock had just struck twelve. Of course a particular day had to be named in the register; and as the doctor maintained that his watch was right, there were the materials for a very pretty quarrel if the parties concerned had been so disposed. It might be that the nick of time was midnight exactly, as measured by solar or sun-dial time: that is, the sun may have been precisely in the nadir at that moment; but this difficulty would not arise in practice, as the law knows only mean time, not sun-dial time. If Greenwich time were made legal everywhere, and if electric clocks everywhere established communication with the master clock at the observatory, there might be another test supplied; but under the conditions stated, it would be a nice matter of Tweedledum and Tweedledee [{127}] to determine whether the house clock, the church clock, or a pocket watch, should be relied upon. All the pocket watches in the town might be brought into the witness-box, but without avail; for if some accorded with the house clock, others would surely be found to agree better with the church clock.
This question of clocks, as compared with time measured by the sun, presents some very curious aspects in relation to longitude. What's o'clock in London will not tell you what's o'clock in Falmouth, unless you know the difference of longitude between the two places. The sun takes about twenty minutes to go from the zenith of the one to the zenith of the other. Local time, the time at any particular town, is measured from the moment of noon at that town; and noon itself is when the sun comes to the meridian of that place. Hence Falmouth noon is twenty minutes after London noon, Falmouth midnight twenty minutes after London midnight; and so on. When it is ten minutes after midnight, on the morning of Sunday, the 1st of January, in London, it is ten minutes before midnight, on Saturday, the 31st of December, at Falmouth. It is a Sabbath at the one place, a working-day at the other. That particular moment of absolute time is in the year 1865 at the one, and 1864 at the other. Therefore, we see, it might become a ticklish point in what year a man died, solely on account of this question of longitude, irrespective of any wrong-going or wrong-doing of clocks, or of any other doubtful points whatever. Sooner or later this question will have to be attended to. In all our chief towns, nearly all our towns indeed, the railway-station clocks mark Greenwich time, or, as it is called, "railway time;" the church clocks generally mark local time; and some commercial clocks, to serve all parties, mark both kinds of time on the same dial-face, by the aid of an additional index hand. Railway time is gradually beating local time; and the law will by-and-by have to settle which shall be used as the standard in determining the moment of important events. Some of the steamers plying between England and Ireland use Greenwich time in notifying the departures from the English port, and Dublin time in notifying those from the Irish port; a method singularly embarrassing to a traveller who is in the habit of relying on his own watch. Does a sailor get more prog, more grog, more pay, within a given space of absolute time when coming from America to England, or when going from England to America? The difference is far too slight to attract either his attention or that of his employers; yet it really is the case that he obtains more good things in the former of these cases than in the latter. His days are shorter on the homeward than on the outward voyage; and if he receive so much provisions and pay per day, he interprets day as it is to him on shipboard. When in harbor, say at Liverpool, a day is, to him as to every one else who is stationary like himself, a period of definite length; but when he travels Eastward or Westward, his days are variable in length. When he travels West, he and the sun run a race; the sun of course beats; but the sailor accomplishes a little, and the sun has to fetch up that little before he can complete what foot-racers call a lap. In other words, there is a longer absolute time between noon and noon to the sailor going West, than to the sailor ashore. When he travels East, on the contrary, he and the sun run toward each other; insomuch that there is less absolute time in the period between his Monday's noon and Tuesday's noon than when he was ashore. The ship's noon is usually dinner-time for the sailors; and the interval between that and the next noon (measured by the sun, not by the chronometer) varies in length through the causes just noticed. Once now and then there are facts recorded in the newspapers which bring this [{128}] truth into prominence—a truth demonstrable enough in science, but not very familiar to the general public. When the Great Eastern made her first veritable voyage across the Atlantic in June, 1860, she left Southampton on the 17th, and reached New York on the 28th. As the ship was going West, more or less, all the while, she was going with or rather after the sun; the interval was greater between noon and noon than when the ship was anchored off Southampton; and the so-called eleven days of the voyage were eleven long days. As it was important, in reference to a problem in steam navigation, to know how many revolutions the paddles made in a given time, to test the power of the mighty ship, it was necessary to bear in mind that the ship's day was longer than a shore day; and it was found that, taking latitude and longitude into account, the day on which the greatest run was made was nearly twenty-four and a half hours long; the ship's day was equal to half an hour more than a landsman's day. The other days varied from twenty-four to twenty-four and a half. On the return voyage all this was reversed; the ship met the sun, the days were less than twenty-four ordinary hours long, and the calculations had to be modified in consequence. The sailors, too, got more food in a homeward week than an outward week, owing to the intervals between the meals being shorter albeit, their appetites may not have been cognizant of the difference.
And this brings us back to our hypothetical Mullets. Josiah died at noon (Sydney time), and Jasper died on the same day at noon (Greenwich time). Which died first? Sydney, although not quite at the other side of the world, is nearly so; it is ten hours of longitude Eastward of Greenwich; the sun rises there ten hours earlier than with us. It is nearly bed-time with Sydney folks when our artisans strike work for dinner. There would, therefore, be a reasonable ground for saying that Josiah died first. But had it been New Zealand, a curious question might arise. Otago, and some other of the settlements in those islands, are so near the antipodes of Greenwich, that they may either be called eleven and three-quarter hours East, or twelve and a quarter hours West, of Greenwich, according as we suppose the navigator to go round the Cape of Good Hope or round Cape Horn. At six in the morning in London, it is about six in the evening at New Zealand. But of which day? When it is Monday morning in London, is it Sunday evening or Monday evening in New Zealand? This question is not so easy to solve as might be supposed. When a ship called at Pitcairn Island several years ago, to visit the singular little community that had descended from the mutineers of the Bounty, the captain was surprised to find exactly one day difference between his ship's reckoning and that of the islanders; what was Monday, the 26th, to the one, was Tuesday, the 27th, to the other. A voyage East had been the origin of one reckoning, a voyage West that of the other. Not unlikely we should have to go back to the voyage of the Bounty itself, seventy-seven years ago, to get to the real origin of the Pitcairners' reckoning. How it may be with the English settlers in New Zealand, we feel by no means certain. If the present reckoning began with some voyage made round Cape Horn, then our Monday morning is New Zealand Sunday evening; but if with some voyage made round the Cape of Good Hope, then our Monday morning is New Zealand Monday evening. Probabilities are perhaps in favor of the latter supposition. We need not ask, "What's o'clock at New Zealand?" for that can be ascertained to a minute by counting the difference of longitude; but to ask, "What day of the week and of the month is it at New Zealand?" is a question that might, for aught we can see, involve very important legal consequences.
From the Dublin Review.
RECENT DISCOVERIES IN THE CATACOMBS.
The chromo-lithographic press, established at Rome by the munificence of Pius IX., has issued its first publication, four sheets in large folio, Imagines Selectae Deiparae Virginis in Caemeteriis Suburbanis Udo depictae, with about twenty pages of text from the pen of the Cavaliere G. B. de Rossi. The subject and the author are amply sufficient to recommend them to the Christian archaeologist, and the work of the artists employed is in every way worthy of both. It is by no means an uncommon idea, even among Catholics who have visited Rome and done the catacombs, that our Blessed Lady does not hold any prominent place in the decorations of those subterranean cemeteries. Protestant tourists often boldly publish that she is nowhere to be found there. The present publication will suffice to show, even to those who never leave their own homes, the falsehood of this statement and impression. De Rossi has here set before us a selection of four different representations of Holy Mary, as she appears in that earliest monument of the Christian Church; and, in illustrating these, he has taken occasion to mention a score or two of others. Moreover, he has vindicated for them an antiquity and an importance far beyond what we were prepared to expect; and those who have ever either made personal acquaintance with him, or have studied his former writings, well know how far removed he is from anything like uncritical and enthusiastic exaggerations. Even such writers as Mr. Burgon ("Letters from Rome") cannot refrain from bearing testimony to his learning, moderation, and candor; they praise him, often by way of contrast with some Jesuit or other clerical exponent of the mysteries of the catacombs, for all those qualities which are calculated to inspire us with confidence in his interpretations of any nice points of Christian archaeology. But we fear his Protestant admirers will be led to lower their tone of admiration for him, and henceforward to discover some flaw in his powers of criticism, when they find him, as in these pages, gravely maintaining, concerning a particular representation of the Madonna in the catacombs, that it is of Apostolic, or quasi-Apostolic antiquity. It is a painting on the vaulted roof of an arcosolium in the cemetery of St. Priscilla, and it is reproduced in the work before us in its original size. The Blessed Virgin sits, her head partially covered by a short slight veil, holding the Divine Infant in her arms; opposite to her stands a man, holding in one hand a volume, and with the other pointing to a star which appears between the two figures. This star almost always accompanies our Blessed Lady in ancient paintings or sculptures, wherever she is represented either with the Magi offering their gifts, or by the manger's side with the ox and the ass; but with a single figure, as in the present instance, it is unusual. Archaeologists will probably differ in their interpretation of this figure; the most obvious conjecture would, of course, fix on St. Joseph; there seem to be solid reasons, however, for preferring (with De Rossi) the prophet Isaias, whose predictions concerning the Messias abound with imagery borrowed from light, and who may be identified on an old Christian glass by the superscription of his name. But this question, interesting as it is, is not so important as the probable date of the painting itself; and here no abridgment or analysis of' De Rossi's arguments can do justice to the moderation, yet irresistible force, with which he accumulates proofs of [{130}] the conclusion we have already stated, viz., that the painting was executed, if not in Apostolic times and as it were under the very eyes of the Apostles themselves, yet certainly within the first 150 years of the Christian era. He first bids us carefully to study the art displayed in the design and execution of the painting; he compares it with the decorations of the famous Pagan tombs discovered on the Via Latina in 1858, and which are referred to the times of the Antoninuses; with the paintings in the pontifical cubiculum in the cemetery of St. Callixtus, and with others more recently discovered in the cemetery of Pretextatus, to both of which a very high antiquity is conceded by all competent judges; and he justly argues that the more classical style of the painting now under examination obliges us to assign to it a still earlier date. Next, he shows that the catacomb in which it appears was one of the oldest,—St. Priscilla, from whom it receives its name, having been the mother of Pudens and a contemporary of the Apostles (the impress of a seal, with the name Pudens Felix, is repeated several times on the mortar round the edge of a grave in this cemetery); nay, further still, it can be shown that the tombs of Sts. Pudentiana and Praxedes, and therefore, probably, of their father St. Pudens himself, were in the immediate neighborhood of the very chapel in which this Madonna is to be seen; moreover, the inscriptions which are found there bear manifest tokens of a higher antiquity than can be claimed by any others from the catacombs: there is the complete triple nomenclature of pagan times, e.g., Titus Flavius Felicissimus; the epitaphs are not even in the usual form, in pace, but simply the Apostolic salutation, Pax tecum, Pax tibi; and finally, the greater number of them are not cut on stone or marble slabs, but written with red paint on the tiles which close the graves—a mode of inscription of which not a single example, we believe, has hitherto been found in any other part the catacombs. This is a mere outline of the arguments by which De Rossi establishes his conclusion respecting the age of this painting, and they are not even exhibited in their full force in the present publication at all. For a more copious induction of facts, and a more complete elucidation both of the history and topography of the catacombs, we must be content to wait till the author's larger work on Roma Sotterranea shall appear.
The most recent painting of the Madonna which De Rossi has here published is that with which our readers will be the most familiar. It is the one to which the late Father Marchi, S.J., never failed to introduce every visitor to the catacomb of St. Agnes, and has been reproduced in various works; the Holy Mother with her hands outstretched in prayer, the Divine Infant on her bosom, and the Christian monogram on either side of her and turned toward her. This last particular naturally directs our thoughts to the fourth century as the date of this work; and the absence of the nimbus and some other indications lead our author to fix the earlier half of the century in preference to the later. Between these two limits, then, of the first or second, and the fourth century, he would place the two others which are now published; he distinguishes them more doubtfully, as belonging respectively to the first and second half of the third century. In one, from the cemetery of Domitilla, the Blessed Virgin sits holding the Holy Child on her lap, whilst four Magi offer their gifts; the other, from the catacomb of Sts. Peter and Marcellinus, represents the same scene, but with two Magi only. In both there is the same departure from the ancient tradition of the number of the wise men, and from the same cause, viz., the desire to give a proper balance and proportion to the two sides of the picture, the Virgin occupying the middle place. Indeed, in one of them, it is still possible to trace [{131}] the original sketch of the artist, designing another arrangement with the three figures only; but the result did not promise to be satisfactory, and he did what thousands of his craft have continued to do ever since, sacrificed historic truth to the exigencies of his art.
We trust our readers will be induced to get this valuable work and to study it for themselves; the text may be procured either in French or in Italian, so that it is readily accessible to all. At the same time we would take the opportunity of introducing to them another work by the same indefatigable author, which is also published both in French and in Italian. At least, such is the announcement of a prospectus now lying before us, which states that the French translation is published by Vives, in Paris. We have ourselves only seen the original Italian. It is a short monthly periodical, illustrations, Bollettino di Archeologia Cristiana, and is addressed not merely to savans, Fellows of Royal Societies, and the like, but rather to all educated men who care for the history of their religion and are capable of appreciating its evidences. De Rossi claims for the recent discoveries in the Roman catacombs the very highest place among the scientific events of the day which have an important religious bearing, and we think that the justice of his plea must be admitted. Unfortunately, however, the vastness of the subject, the multiplied engagements of the author, and (not least) the political vicissitudes of the times, have hitherto prevented the publication of these discoveries in a complete and extended form. We are happy to know that the work is satisfactorily progressing; but meanwhile he has been persuaded by the suggestions of many friends, and by the convenience of the thing itself, to publish this monthly periodical, which will keep us au courant with the most important additions that are being made from time to time to our knowledge of those precious memorials of primitive Christianity, and also supply much interesting information on other archaeological matters. In these pages the reader is allowed to accompany, as it were, the author himself in his subterranean researches, to assist at his discoveries, to trace the happy but doubtful conjecture of a moment through all its gradual stages, until it reaches the moral certainty of a conclusion which can no longer be called in question; e.g., the author gives us a portion of a lecture which he delivered on July 3, 1852, to the Roman Pontifical Academy of Archaeology. In this lecture he maintained, in opposition to the usual nomenclature of the catacombs, and entirely on the strength of certain topographical observations, that a particular cemetery, into which a very partial opening had been made in 1848, was that anciently called by the name of Pretextatus, and in which were buried St. Januarius, the eldest of the seven sons of St. Felicitas, Felicissimus and Agapitus, deacons of St. Sixtus, Pope Urban, Quirinus, and other famous martyrs. Five years passed away, and this opinion had been neither confirmed nor refuted; but in 1857, excavations undertaken for another purpose introduced our author into a crypt of this cemetery, of unusual size and richness of ornament, where one of the loculi bore an inscription on the mortar which had secured the grave-stone, invoking the assistance of "Januarius, Agatopus (for Agapitus), and Felicissimus, martyrs!" This, of course, was a strong confirmation of the conjecture which had been published so long before; but this was all which he could produce in the first number of his Bollettino in January, 1863. In the second number he could add that, as he was going to press (February 21), small fragments of an inscription on marble had been disinterred from the same place, of which only single letters had yet been found, but which, he did not hesitate to say, had been written by Pope Damasus and contained his name, as well as the name of [{132}] St. Januarius. In March he published the twelve or fourteen letters which had been discovered, arranging them in the place he supposed them to have occupied in the inscription, which he conjecturally restored, and which consisted altogether of more than forty letters. In April he was able still further to add, that they had now recovered other portions; amongst the rest, a whole word, or rather the contraction of a word (episcop. for episcopus), exactly in accordance with his conjecture, though, at the time he made the conjecture, only half of one of the letters had yet come to light.
We need not pursue the subject further. Enough has been said to satisfy those of our readers who have any acquaintance with the catacombs, both as to the kind and the degree of interest and importance which belong to this publication. Its intelligence, however, is by no means confined to the catacombs. The basilica of San Clemente; the recent excavations at San Lorenzo, fuori le mura; the postscript of St. Pamphilus the Martyr at the end of one of his manuscript copies of the Bible, reproduced in the Codex Sinaiticus lately published by Tischendorf; the arch of Constantine; ancient scribblings on the wall (graffiti) of the palace of the Caesars on the Palatine, etc., etc., are subjects of able and learned articles in the several numbers we have received. With reference to the graffiti, one singular circumstance mentioned by De Rossi is worth repeating here. Most of our readers are probably acquainted with the graffiti from this place, published by P. Garrucci, in which one Alessamenus is ridiculed for worshipping as his God the figure of a man, but with the head of an ass, nailed to a cross. P. Garrucci had very reasonably conjectured that this was intended as a blasphemous caricature of the Christian worship; and recently other graffiti in the very same place have been discovered with the title Episcopus, apparently given in ridicule to some Christian youth; for that the room on whose walls these scribblings appear was used for educational purposes is abundantly proved by the numerous inscriptions announcing that such or such a one exit de paedagogio. We seem, therefore, in deciphering these rude scrawls, to assist, as it were, at one of the minor scenes of that great struggle between paganism and Christianity, whereof the sufferings of the early martyrs, the apologies of Justin Martyr, etc., were only another but more public and historical phase. History tells us that Caracalla, when a boy, saw one of his companions beaten because he professed the Christian faith. These graffiti seem to teach us that there were many others of the same tender age, de domo Caesaris, who suffered more or less of persecution for the same cause. Other interesting details of the same struggle have been brought together by De Rossi, carefully gleaned from the patrician names which appear on some of the ancient grave-stones, sometimes as belonging to young virgins or widows who had dedicated themselves to the service of Christ under the discipline of a religious community. That such a community was to be found early in the fifth century, in the immediate neighborhood of S. Lorenzo fuori le mura, or, at least, that the members of such a community were always buried about that time in that cemetery, is one of the circumstances which may be said to be clearly proved by the recent discoveries. The proofs are too numerous and minute for abridgment, but the student will be interested in examining them as they appear in the Bollettino.
Another feature in this archaeological publication is its convenience as a supplement to the volume of Christian Inscriptions published by the same author. That volume, as our readers are already aware, contains only such inscriptions of the first six centuries as bear a distinct chronological note by the names of the chief magistrates, or in some other way. Additional specimens of these are not unfrequently discovered in the excavations still [{133}] in progress on various sides of the city; and these De Rossi is careful to chronicle, and generally also to illustrate by notes, in the pages of his Bollettino. The chief value of these additions, perhaps, is to be found in the corroboration they uniformly give to the conclusions which De Rossi had already deduced, the canons of chronological distinction and distribution which he had established, from the larger collection of inscriptions in the work referred to—whether as to the style of writing or of diction and sentiments, etc.—canons, the full importance of which will only be recognized when he shall have published the second volume of the collection of epitaphs bearing upon questions of Christian doctrine and practice.
In the earlier numbers of the Bollettino for the present year there is a very interesting account of the recent discoveries in the Ambrosian basilica of Milan, where there seems no room to doubt but that they have brought to light the very sarcophagus in which the relics of the great St. Ambrose, as well as those of the martyrs Sts. Gervasius and Protasius, have rested for more than ten centuries. The history of the discovery is too long to be inserted here, and too interesting to be abridged. One circumstance, however, connected with it is too important to be omitted. The sarcophagus itself has not yet, we believe, been opened; but, from the two sepulchres below and on either side of it, where the bishop and the martyrs were originally deposited, and where they remained until their translation in the ninth century, many valuable relics have been gleaned. We will only mention one of them--viz., portions of an ampulla such as are found in the catacombs, and concerning which Dr. Biraghi, the librarian of the Bibliotheca Ambrosiana (to whose zeal we are indebted for the whole discovery, and for the account of it to his learning), assures us that it has been subjected to a chemical examination, and is shown to have contained blood. This, as De Rossi truly remarks, is the most notable instance which has yet come before us of this ampulla having been placed in the sepulchre of famous and historical martyrs, and it is of very special importance as throwing a flood of light on those words of St. Ambrose about these relics so often quoted in the controversy on this subject—Sanguine, tumulus madet; apparent cruoris triumphales notae; inviolatae reliquiae loco suo et ordine repertae. And it is certainly singular that this discovery should have been made at a moment when the validity of these ampullae, as sure signs of martyrdom, has been so much called in question. The Sacred Congregation of Rites had only recently reaffirmed their former sentence on this matter; and this fact now comes most opportunely from Milan to add further weight to their decision, by giving a historical basis to an opinion which before had been thought by some rather to rest upon theory and conjecture. It will go far, we should think, toward rehabilitating in the minds of Christian archaeologists the pious belief of former ages upon this subject, wherever it may have been shaken.
MISCELLANY.
SCIENCE.
The Mason-Spider of Corfu.—A correspondent of a London journal gives an interesting account of certain habits of this insect, which belongs to the mygalidae family. The mygales are chiefly found in hot climates, and include the largest specimens of spiders known. They are called mason-spiders, from the curious manner in which they build their houses. "The mygale nest," says the correspondent, "varies much in size, from one inch in length to three or four, and even six or seven inches. In the West Indies, where the spiders are crab-like, the insects measure six inches over. One nest, especially mentioned and minutely described by Mr. Oudouin, was three inches and a quarter long and eight-tenths of an inch wide. The nest, of cylindrical form, is made by boring into the earth; making his excavation, the next thing, having decided upon the dimensions of his habitation, is to furnish it, and most beautiful are his paper-hangings. The whole of the interior is lined with the softest possible silk, a tissue which the 'major domo' spins all over the apartment until it is padded to a sufficient thickness and made soft enough. Silk lining like this gives the idea of the mygale having a luxurious turn. This done, and the interior finished, the mygale shows his peculiarity by taking steps to keep out the
of intruders by making not only a door, and that self-closing, but a door with swinging hinge, and sometimes one at each end of his nest, which shows that he has a very good opinion of his own work within, and knows how to take care of it. Not having met with any case where any one had seen the positive operation of making the door of these nests, I thought the details would be interesting, the more so as they corroborated preconceived ideas of their construction, and were noticed by a friend quartered at Corfu, who brought home the nest with him. The following is the description he gave me:
"Lying out in one of the sandy plateaux covered with olive groves with which Corfu abounds, enjoying his cigar and lounging about in the sandy soil, he came to a spider's nest. Examining it, he found the lid or door would not open, and seemed held firmly within by the proprietor—as if Jack were at home—so he applied forthwith the leverage of a knife-blade, upon which the inmate retired to his inner chamber. The aggressor decided not to disturb him any more that day, but marking the place—most necessary thing to do—thought he would explore further the next day, if fine.
"Accordingly, the next day my friend called early, intending to take off the door and to watch the progress of restoration, and how it would be accomplished. After waiting a long time, out came Monsieur Mygale, and looking carefully round, and finding all quiet, commenced operations by running his web backward and forward across the orifice of his nest, till there was a layer of silken web; upon this he ejected a gluten, over which he scratched the fine sand in the immediate neighborhood of his nest; this done, he again set to work—webbing, then gluten, sand; then again web, gluten, sand, about six times; this occupied in all about eight hours. But the puzzling part was that this time he was cementing and building himself out from his own mansion, when, to the astonishment and delight of his anxious looker-on, he began the finishing stroke by cutting and forming the door by fixing his hind legs in the centre of the new covering, and from these as a centre he began cutting with his jaws right through the door he had made, striking a clear circle round, and leaving about one-eighth of the circumference as a hinge. This done, he lifted the door up and walked in. My friend then tried to open the door with a knife, but the insect pulled it tight from the inside. He therefore dug round him and took him off bodily—mygale and nest complete. The hinge is most carefully and beautifully formed; and there appears to be an important object in view when the spider covers over the whole of the orifice, for immediately the door is raised it springs back as soon as released; and this is caused by the elasticity of the web on the hinge and the peculiar formation of the lid or door, which is made thicker on the lower side, so that its [{135}] own weight helps it to be self-closing, and the rabbeting of the door is wonderfully surfaced. Bolts and Chub locks with a latch-key the mygale family do not possess, but as a substitute the lower part of the door has clawholding holes, so that a bird's beak or other lever being used, Mons. Mygale holds on to the door by these, and with his legs against the sides of his house, offers immense resistance against all comers."
Instinct of Insects.—One of the regular course of free scientific lectures delivered at the Paris Sorbonne this last winter, under the auspices of the Minister of Public Instruction, was by the distinguished naturalist M. Milne-Edwards, on the instinct and intelligence of animals. Taking for his text the saying of Linnaeus, Natura maxime miranda in minimis, he spoke principally of the instinct of insects, and especially of solitary bees. These hymenoptera, in fact, afford one of the most striking examples known of that faculty which impels an animal, either for its own preservation or for the preservation and development of its offspring, to perform the most complicated and intelligent actions, readily and skilfully, yet without having learned how to do them. One species, the carpenter-bee (xylocopa), bores in the trunks of trees galleries running first horizontally and then vertically to a considerable depth. She then collects a quantity of wax and honey. The honey she kneads into a little ball of alimentary matter, in the midst of which she deposits her first egg. With the wax she constructs a horizontal partition, formed of concentric annular layers; this encloses the cell. On this partition she deposits a second egg, enclosed like the first in the provision destined for the support of the future larva; and over it builds another partition of wax; and so on, to the top of the vertical cavity. Then she dies; she never sees her offspring. The latter, so long as they remain larvae, feed upon the honey which the maternal foresight provided for them; and so soon as they have passed through their second metamorphosis and become winged insects, issue forth from their retreat, to perform in their turn a similar labor.
Another species of solitary bee, whose larva is carnivorous, resorts to a still more wonderful, but, it must be confessed, very cruel, expedient to supply the worm-like progeny with food. She constructs a gallery or tunnel in the earth, and crowns it with a chimney curved somewhat like a crosier, so as to keep out the rain. Then she goes a-hunting, and brings back to her den a number of caterpillars. If she kills them at once, they will spoil before her eggs are hatched; if she lets them alone, they will run away. What shall she do? She pierces the caterpillars with her venomous little dart, and injects into them a drop of poison, which Mr. Claude Bernard no doubt will analyze some day. It does not kill, it only paralyzes them; and there they lie, torpid and immovable, till the larvae come into the world and feast off the sweet and succulent flesh at their leisure.
Everybody is familiar with the habits and wonderful industry of hive-bees, wasps, and ants. These insects seem to be governed by something more than blind instinct: it is hardly too much to say that they give indubitable signs of intelligence. They know how to modify their course according to circumstances, to provide against unexpected wants, to avert dangers, and to notify to each other whatever is of consequence to be known by their whole community. Huber, the celebrated bee-keeper of Geneva, relates the following anecdote: One of his hives having been devastated one night by a large sphinx-moth, the bees set to work the next morning and plastered up the door, leaving only a small opening which would just admit them, one at a time, but which the sphinx, with its big body and long wings, could not pass. As soon as the season arrived when the moths terminate their short lives, the bees, no longer fearing an invasion, pulled down their rampart. The next season, as no sphinx appeared to trouble them, they left their door wide open.
Ostrich-keeping.—By late news from the Cape of Good Hope we learn that the farmers of that colony are beginning to find it profitable to keep flocks of ostriches, for the feathers of those birds are worth £25 sterling the pound. For thirty-five ostriches, there must be three hundred acres of grazing-ground. The plucking takes place once in six months; the yield of feathers from each bird being worth from £10 to £12, 10s. The original cost of the young ostriches is said to be £5 each. Some of the [{136}] farmers who have tried the experiment are of opinion that ostrich-feathers will pay better than any other produce of the colony.
Extraordinary Inland Navigation.—We hear from South America that a steamer built in England for the Peruvian government, for the exploration of rivers, has penetrated the great continent from the Atlantic side to a distance of ninety-five leagues only from the Pacific, or nearly all across. The vessel, which draws seven feet water, steamed seven hundred leagues up the Amazon, two hundred up the Ucayati, and thence into the Pachitea, which had never before been navigated except by native canoes. What a magnificent extent of inland navigation is here opened to commercial enterprise! The mind becomes somewhat bewildered in imagining the future of those vast river-valleys when hundreds of steamers shall navigate the streams, trading among millions of population dwelling on their banks.
Is the Sun getting Bigger?—It is known that various speculations have been put forward as to the cause or source of the sun's heat. Among those who consider that it consists in the falling of asteroids or meteorites into the sun, is Mr. J. R. Mayer, of Heilbronn, who states that the surface of the sun measures 115,000 million square miles, and that the asteroids falling thereon form a mass every minute equal in weight to from 94,000 to 188,000 billion kilogrammes. It might be supposed that this enormous shower would increase the mass and weight of the sun, and by consequence produce an appreciable effect on the motion of the planets which compose our system. For instance, it would shorten our year by a second or something less. But the calculations of astronomers show that this effect does not take place; and Mr. Mayer states that to increase the apparent diameter of the sun a single second by the shower of asteroids would require from 33,000 to 66,000 years.
Teaching the Deaf and Dumb to Speak.—Dr. Houdin, director of an institution for the deaf and dumb at Passy, lately announced to the French Academy, that after twenty-five years' experience he had proved the possibility of communicating the faculty of speech, in a certain degree, to deaf mutes. A commission appointed by the Academy and the Faculty to investigate the subject, reports that the learned doctor has really succeeded in several instances in teaching these unfortunate beings to speak and even comprehend spoken language so well that it is difficult to believe that they are not guided by the ear. The patients conversed with the members of the commission, and answered the different questions put to them. They were found to be perfectly familiar with the use and mechanism of speech, though destitute of the sense of hearing, and they comprehended what was said to them, reading the words upon the lips of the speaker with a marvellous facility. Thus they become fit to enter into society and capable of receiving all manner of instruction.
But here is another case still more wonderful. What would you do if you had to instruct and prepare for first communion a child who was at the same time deaf, dumb, and blind? The case is not an imaginary one; it has occurred in an asylum for deaf-mutes at Notre Dame de Larnay, in the diocese of Poitiers. A nun was there charged with the instruction of a child in this unfortunate state, to whom she could appeal only by the sense of touch. Yet the child, who astonishes everybody by her sensibility and intelligence, has come by that means to a knowledge of the spiritual life, of God and his divine Son, of religion and its mysteries and precepts—has been prepared, in fine, for a worthy reception of the Eucharist.