"Der.—Tey will fight for tee, King Yamish, and for my mishtress tere." [Footnote: 203]
[Footnote 203: As out of all late or still living writers, not natives of Ireland, there are not three who quote our peasant-pronunciation correctly, so it is more than probable that Jonson, acute as his observation was, mistook the pronunciation of his own day.]
After much soft-sawder about their love and their loyalty to Shamus, six men and boys danced to bagpipes and other rude music. Then the Irish gentlemen danced in their mantles to the sound of harps; and one of them called on a bard to celebrate the fame of him who was to make Erin the world's wonder for peace and plenty:
"Advance, immortal bard; come up and view
The gladdening face of that great king, in whom
So many prophecies of thine are knit.
This is that James, of which long since thou sungst,
Should end our country's most unnatural broils."
Would he had done so! Ben was not so blind but that he could spy out some little defects in Solomon and his queen. As he could not apply his talents to their correction, he recompensed himself in unmerciful handling of court vices. Toward the end of James's reign he enjoyed a competent fortune, and owned an extensive library. Distress and illness succeeded; but Charles I. being made aware of his forlorn condition, granted him an additional pension, and that tierce of canary, whose successors have been drained by all poet-laureates since his day. A blue marble stone lies over his remains in the north aisle of Westminster Abbey. The epitaph, RARE BEN JONSON, was cut in the flag at the order and charge of Jack Young (afterward knighted). Eighteen-pence requited the sculptor.
Whether we have improved on the feats of artists of another kind, in Queen Anne's reign, is questionable. At Bartholomew Fair, in the reign of that good-natured sovereign, a girl, of ten years, walked backward up a sloping rope, driving a wheelbarrow behind her. [{845}] Scaramouch danced on the rope with two children, and a dog, in a wheelbarrow, and a duck on his head. Our authority leaves us in some doubt as to the relative positions of man, children, dog, duck, and wheel-barrow, and whether the duck took position on head of dog or man. The eighteenth century was inaugurated by an intelligent tiger picking the feathers from a fowl in such style as to elicit the hearty applause of a discerning public. Continental sovereigns of our own time prefer the stirring spectacle of men and horses gored by sharp horned bulls. The tiger merely removed the feathers from the skin of the dead fowl; the viscera of the living quadruped follow the thrust of the bull's horn.
Translated from Etudes Religieuses, Historiques, et Littéraires, par des Pères de la Compagnie de Jésus.
THE ORIGIN AND MUTABILITY OF SPECIES.
Origines et Transformations de l'homme et des autres êtres. lre partie. Par TRÉMAUX. Paris: Hachette. 1865.
Anthropology is a recent science, and yet its votaries have produced numerous treatises. The delicate questions which it raises have given birth to various and contradictory opinions. The most important problem of this science is that which relates to the origin of man. At what epoch did man for the first time tread the surface of our globe? How did he appear? What cause produced him? Two first class scholars, Humboldt and Bompland, said, not long ago, "The general question of the origin of the inhabitants of a continent is beyond the limits prescribed to history, perhaps it is not even a philosophical question." Bolder than they, the anthropologists put a question a thousand times more complex, as to the origin of the whole human race, and they do not hesitate to believe that, sooner or later, science will be able to answer it with certainty. As to the present, we may say, Quot capita, tot sensus; the most opposite ideas divide the world, and it is the main discord which pervades science. These last words are those of M. Trémaux. To remedy this confusion, the learned traveller puts forth a new idea, which in his opinion should, in throwing light on all the aspects of the question, cause the discord to vanish; trace the way we ought to follow; and at no very distant day arrive at a complete solution. It remains to be seen whether these happy auguries will be realized, or if, on the contrary, the theory of M. Trémaux, added to the others, will not have the fatal effect of increasing the confusion it would abolish.