CANDLES IN THE CHURCH.
In the formulæ of Marculphus, edited by Jerome Bignon, he tells us, with respect to lights, that the use of them was of great antiquity in the church; that the primitive Christians made use of them in the assemblies which they held before day out of necessity; and that afterwards they were retained even in daylight, as tokens of joy, and in honour of the Deity. Lactantius says, speaking of the absurdities of the wax lights in Romish churches, "They light up candles to God, as if he lived in the dark; and do they not deserve to pass for madmen who offer lamps and candles to the author and giver of light?" It is really astounding to our ideas that wax candles as long as serjeants' pikes should be held as necessary in the worship of God. That it is so held, and that by a large class of Christians, every one must allow, for they may have occular demonstration of the singular fact. The show is however extremely imposing. Thirty-five thousand seven hundred and fifty pounds of wax lights were burned every year, for nine hundred masses said in the castle of Wittemburgh! Philip Melancthon speaks of a Jesuit who said that "he would not extinguish one taper, though it were to convert all the Huguenots" (Protestants).
A RICH AND CRUEL CRIMINAL.
John Ward, Esq. of Hackney, Member of Parliament, being prosecuted by the Duchess of Buckingham, and convicted of forgery, was first expelled from the House, and then stood on the pillory on the 17th of March, 1727. He was suspected of joining in a conveyance with Sir John Blount, to secrete £50,000 of that director's estate, forfeited to the South Sea Company by Act of Parliament. The Company recovered the £50,000 against Ward; but he set up prior conveyances of his real estate to his brother and son, and concealed all his personal, which was computed to be £150,000. These conveyances being also set aside by a bill in chancery, Ward was imprisoned, and hazarded the forfeiture of his life, by not giving in his effects till the last day, which was that of his examination. During his confinement, his amusement was to give poison to dogs and cats, and see them expire by slower or quicker torments. To sum up the worth of this man, at the several eras of his life; at his standing in the pillory, he was worth above £200,000; at his commitment to prison, he was worth £150,000.
FOOD OF THE ANCIENTS.
The diversity of substances which we find in the catalogue of articles of food is as great as the variety with which the art or the science of cookery prepares them. The notions of the ancients on this most important subject are worthy of remark. Their taste regarding meat was various. Beef they considered the most substantial food: hence it constituted the chief nourishment of their athletæ. Camels' and dromedaries' flesh was much esteemed, their heels most especially. Donkey-flesh was in high repute: Mæcenas, according to Pliny, delighted in it; and the wild ass, brought from Africa, was compared to venison. In more modern times we find Chancellor Dupret having asses fattened for his table. The hog and the wild boar appear to have been held in great estimation; and a hog was called "animal propter convivia natum;" but the classical portion of the sow was somewhat singular—"vulvâ nil dulcius amplâ." Their mode of killing swine was as refined in barbarity as in epicurism. Plutarch tells us that the gravid sow was actually trampled to death, to form a delicious mass fit for the gods. At other times, pigs were slaughtered with red-hot spits, that the blood might not be lost. Stuffing a pig with assafœtida and various small animals, was a luxury called "porcus Trojanus;" alluding, no doubt, to the warriors who were concealed in the Trojan horse. Young bears, dogs, and foxes, (the latter more esteemed when fed upon grapes,) were also much admired by the Romans; who were also so fond of various birds, that some consular families assumed the names of those they most esteemed. Catius tells us how to drown fowls in Falernian wine, to render them more luscious and tender. Pheasants were brought over from Colchis, and deemed at one time such a rarity, that one of the Ptolemies bitterly lamented his never having tasted any. Peacocks were carefully reared in the island of Samos, and sold at such a high price, that Varro informs us they fetched yearly upwards of £2,000 of our money.
THE EARLIEST ENGLISH BIBLE.
The first translation of any part of the Holy Scriptures into English that was committed to the press was the New Testament, translated from the Greek, by William Tyndale, with the assistance of John Foye and William Roye, and printed first in 1526, in octavo.
Tyndale published afterwards, in 1530, a translation of the Five Books of Moses, and of Jonah, in 1531, in octavo. An English translation of the Psalter, done from the Latin of Martin Bucer, was also published at Strasburgh in 1530, by Francis Foye, in octavo. And the same book, together with Jeremiah and the Song of Moses, were likewise published in 1534, in duodecimo, by George Joye, sometime Fellow of Peter-House in Cambridge.
The first time the whole Bible appeared in English was in the year 1535, in folio. The translator and publisher was Miles Coverdale, afterwards Bishop of Exeter, who revised Tyndale's version, compared it with the original, and supplied what had been left untranslated by Tyndale. It was printed at Zurich, and dedicated to King Henry the Eighth. This was the Bible, which by Cromwell's injunction of September, 1536, was ordered to be laid in churches.