This is a digital copy of a book that was preserved for generations on library shelves before it was carefully scanned by Google as part of a project
to make the world's books discoverable online.
It has survived long enough for the copyright to expire and the book to enter the public domain. A public domain book is one that was never subject
to copyright or whose legal copyright term has expired. Whether a book is in the public domain may vary country to country. Public domain books
are our gateways to the past, representing a wealth of history, culture and knowledge that's often difficult to discover.
Marks, notations and other maiginalia present in the original volume will appear in this file - a reminder of this book's long journey from the
publisher to a library and finally to you.
Usage guidelines
Google is proud to partner with libraries to digitize public domain materials and make them widely accessible. Public domain books belong to the public and we are merely their custodians. Nevertheless, this work is expensive, so in order to keep providing tliis resource, we liave taken steps to prevent abuse by commercial parties, including placing technical restrictions on automated querying. We also ask that you:
+ Make non-commercial use of the files We designed Google Book Search for use by individuals, and we request that you use these files for personal, non-commercial purposes.
+ Refrain fivm automated querying Do not send automated queries of any sort to Google's system: If you are conducting research on machine translation, optical character recognition or other areas where access to a large amount of text is helpful, please contact us. We encourage the use of public domain materials for these purposes and may be able to help.
+ Maintain attributionTht GoogXt "watermark" you see on each file is essential for in forming people about this project and helping them find additional materials through Google Book Search. Please do not remove it.
+ Keep it legal Whatever your use, remember that you are responsible for ensuring that what you are doing is legal. Do not assume that just because we believe a book is in the public domain for users in the United States, that the work is also in the public domain for users in other countries. Whether a book is still in copyright varies from country to country, and we can't offer guidance on whether any specific use of any specific book is allowed. Please do not assume that a book's appearance in Google Book Search means it can be used in any manner anywhere in the world. Copyright infringement liabili^ can be quite severe.
About Google Book Search
Google's mission is to organize the world's information and to make it universally accessible and useful. Google Book Search helps readers discover the world's books while helping authors and publishers reach new audiences. You can search through the full text of this book on the web
at|http: //books .google .com/I
AN
ENGLISH LESSON BOOK,
roA
THE JUNIOR CLASSES.
i
Recently Published.
MISS AIKIN'S POETRY FOR CHILD T AN EARLY AGE. A new Edition, revise* nproved throughout by the Authoress, pric ilf-bound.
Also by Dr. AIKIN.
MORAL BIOGRAPHY; or Lives of Ex< ry Men : for the Instruction of Youth. In 18i ^ 3s. 6d. half-bound.
ited for Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Grc
AN
i
ENGLISH LESSON BOOK,
I-OR
THE JUNIOR CLASSES.
Br LUCY AIKIN.
LONDON:
FBINTED FOE LONGMAN^ BEES, OBHE, BBOWN, AND GREEN, FATEBNOSTEB ROW.
PREFACE.
The casual remark of a friend long ex- perienced in the business of education^ that a want was felt in schools of some set of lessons proper to succeed the spelling- books, first drew the attention of the author to the object of the following work.
It appeared to her almost self-evident, that for the use of pupils of that tender age, pieces written expressly must possess many advantages over the most judicious selections from the works of standard wri- ters, who composed without the purpose of adapting either their style or their reflec- tions to the capacity of childhood. Her own portfolio contained a considerable store of such pieces^ which had been designed as
a2
terest.
To revise these sketches, and to adt )ir number, has proved a welcome oc Hon and amusement to herself, dui state of indisposition which preclu< steady application to severer stud: )uld it also be found on trial adaptec purpose of supplying an useful £ eeable exercise in the art of reading, younger classes of learners, the sat ion of its Author will be complete.
CONTENTS.
page
The Honest Swiss 1
The Coral Island . ; 3
The Dog doing his Duty 8
The Lion at the Cottage Door .... 1 1
The King and the Snake 14
Why must we learn by Heart? ... 17
Truth above all Things ....:. 20
The pet Antelope 23
Lokman 26
Tlie King of Egypt and his Treasure-house 30
The King of Egypt and his Conqueror . 37
The Pearl of Price 43
Alp Arslan 54
The generous Rivals 58
The Magpie in the Gooseberry-bush . 62
The Islanders 67
The ancient Britons and Boadicea • . 74
London 82
The Burner and the Planter .... 90
1 ne gratetui, ana me more grateful
The Sloth
The Western Wilderness . . ,
Charles the Bold
Inference-making
(Vlan and his Servants ....
Dog and Man
The Cuckoo and the Magpie . .
Barneveldt ,
Qrotius • 1 . Mem and Birds ^ Plants ....
• • • • • .
AN
ENGLISH LESSON BOOK.
THE HONEST SWISS.
Switzerland is a small country ly^ ing amongst those high mquntains called the Alps, between France and Italy
It is divided into a number of little separate states called Cantons, which are all united together by a league, or agreement, to defend each other against the attacks of foreign enemies.
They have no king, and no great lords nor very, rich men among them ; but if none of them are very rich or great, few of them are miserably poof ; but each cultivates his own little farmi
2 THE HONEST SM'ISS.
and lives contentedly, though frugally, on the fruits of it ; and they are frank^ and honest, and kind-hearted ; and neighbours, being all nearly equals, agree together, and love and help one another like brothers.
In this country there lived, a great many years ago, two honest men whose lands lay near together ; but be tween them there was a small field to which both of them laid claim, and the question was, who had the best right to it. Each of them plainly and fairly told his neighbour his reason3 for thinking it ought to belong to him; but it was a puzzling matter ; and as they could not settle it between them- selves, they agreed to go before the judge at a certain time, and ask him to decide it for them.
On the appointed day, one of them came to his neighbour, as he waa
THE CORAL ISLAND. 3
working in his field; "Well ! " he said, " I am on my way to the judge, are you ready, that we may go together?" " It is very inconvenient for me to go today, neighbour," answered the rOther^ " I am busy with my hay. You know all that I have to say on my side, and I am sure you will tell it to the judge as fully and fairly as what you have to say on your own side ; do you go and speak for us both." The other consented, and when he returned in the evening, " Neighbour," he said, " I told the judge all our reasons on 'both sides ; he has decided for you ; the field is yours, and I give you joy of it.^
THE CORAL ISLAND.
A TALL ship from Europe crossing the Indian ocean to China or New
4 THE CORAL ISLAND.
Holland, will sometimes strike sud* denly upon a sunken rock, that is, a rock which does not rise to sight ahove the water, in a place where a few years before no rock was to be found. What are these new rocks do you suppose, or how are they produced? Wonder- ful to tell ! they are tfie ' itork of in- sects, formed by them out of matter collected in their own bodies, in the same manner as the spider forms its web, or the bee its comb, or the snail its shell. But the coral insects are moreextraordinary creatures thto these. They are of a great variety of shapes and sizes; the commonest is in the form of a star, with arms, or feelers, from four to six inches long, which it moves nimbly around in search of food. Others are sluggish creatures of the size and shape of a finger, and of a dark colour. Some are as fine as a
THE CORAL ISLAND. 5
thinead/ and several feet long, some* tiih€» blue and sometimes yellow ; others look like snails, others like very little lobsters. When they have built up any part of their sea-castle so high that it rises above the water at low tide, it appears, when dry, to be a firm and solid rock, very hard and rough ; but as soon as ever the tide rises again, and the waves begin to wash over it, the insects are seen thrusting out their bodies from thousands of Httle holes which were before invisible, and in a short time the whole rock appears to be alive with their countless multi- tudes. And so the rock goes on, rising taller and taller in a shape like a cauli- flower, till the water cannot reach its top even at high tide. Then they cant build it up no further, for they must be within reach of the water to get their food ; and when the insects die,
b2
6 THE CORAL ISLAND.
it becomes a bare, dead rock, with neither plant nor any living thing upon it.
; But presently the sea, in some great tempest, will throw over it some sea* weedsi and sand, and bones, and dead fishes, and perhaps the wreck of some lost ship which its waters have over- whelmed, and some fruits and berries and seeds will be mixed in the heap. All these thinga decaying together, will make a thin covering, of mould, in which some of the seeds will spring up. Then a cocoa-nut will float to it from some neighbouring shore, and it will take root, and thrive and multiply, for this plant loyes to grow in reach 9f salt water. When the cocoa-palms begin to wave their heads invitingly, birds will stretch their wings thither. The parrot and the dove will perch there, and within their bodies they will
THE CORAL ISLAND. 7
convey the seeds of other plants on which they feed, and when these spring up, doves and parrots will build their nests and nuike it their dweUingi Sea- birds will come there too, and lay their eggs, and insects will be wafted thither by tempestuous winds, and insect- eating birds will follow them; and thus it will become a little green islet, all alive and gay with beautiful winged creatures; but no beast can set his fi)ot upon it, and even man should be happen to discover it, will not take possession, for one thing it wants — a fountain of fresh water.
A little rain will lodge in the hollows of the rock, enough for the birds, but men and cattle must have a running spring.
THE DOG DOING HIS DUTY.
■i
r
Dr. Isaac Barrow, bom in the reign t>f King Charles the First, was one of the greatest scholars in England
He was a very great mathematician and divine, and was well acquainted with many other kinds of learning, and, what was better still, he was just and true ; kind and charitable ; and so up- right that nothing in the wbrld could tempt him to do anything which he thought ever so little wrong.
It is said indeed, that at his first school he neglected his learning very much, and was chiefly remarkable for a love of fighting ; but on being re^ moved to another school he amended his manners, and by diligence soon brought himself so forward in his stu- dies^ that his master made him a kind of tutor to a young nobleman who was
\
THE DOG DOING HIS DUTY. 9
one of his pupils. As for his love of fighting, though he was all his life re- markable for courage, he learned so to govern himself as never to show it but on proper occasions. When a young man, he travelled to France and Italy, and then sailed up the Medi- terranean sea to Smyrna, and after- wards to Constantinople. On his voy- age they were attacked by an Algerine corsair, or sea-robber, who, if he could have taken the ship, would have car- ried away all the crew and passengers and sold them for slaves. But Barrow, though a clergyman, stood manfully to his guTi, and assisted the sailors in beating off this barbarous enemy.
Another story is told of him which is still more to his honour. He had been to visit a friend, and slept at his house. In the morning, wishing to set out upon his return very early, he rose
wnen a great dog, kept as; a g taking him for a robber, flew upoi and tried to seize him by the tl Barrow struggled hard with the and at length succeeded in gettinj down, and holding him so tha could do him no harm. But he ( not let the dog go, because he m have flown upon him again ; ai last he grew so weary of holding that he began to study for some n of getting rid of him. He recolh Ihat he had a sharp knife in pocket, and at first he was temptc
.1
THE WON AT THE COTTAGE DOOR. 1 1
the dog, he is doing his duty, and it would be a crime in me to kill him.'f And. he patiently continued keeping down the animal, tired and worn as he was, till the servants at length got up and came to his assistance.
THE UON AT THE COTTAGE DOOR.
EvEftY part of the great continent of Africa lies scorching under the beams of a sultry sun. It has few ranges of lofty mountains for the snow and clouds to rest upon, and few great rivers, for these generally rise among the mountains. Nor is the land shaded in many places with thick forests ; but it abounds in sandy deserts, and in wide open plains, where vast herds of the different kinds of antelope, and other herbivorous, or plant-eating ani- ^
12 THE LIOK AT THE COTTAGE DOOR.
mals, pttze on the scanty herbage or browze among the prickly bushes ; ' roaming along continually from one side of the country to another in search of fresh pasture, or of springs or stand- tkg pools to slake their thirst. In dll iheir removals, these herds are followed by troops of savage beasts of different tribes which, rushing in among them, carry off numbers for their prey ; the terrible lion abounds through all the land.
The dwellings of man are thinly scattered among these burning wil- dernesses, which are scarcely fitted for his abode ; aiid the lion, who would fly from towns and cities, is often bold enough, when pressed by hunger, to enter the straggling villages, and prowl about the farm-yards and cottages. He will then devour not only, the catde, but the women and children,
tHE LION AT THE COTTAG£ DOOR. 13
and the men too if he finds them off i^ ' their guard ; and this, not only in the dusk or the darkness, but sometimes even at noon day.
. It was in the southern part of Africa, .a considerable distance up the coun- ^ ity from the Cape of Good Hope, that ft European settler met with the fol- lowing adventure. He was returning home in the middle of the day from his labour in the fields, when, on ap- proaching his cottage, he heard a cry of terror. Hastening onwards, he be- held an enormous lion crouching on the very threshold, and gently rocking his body from side to side, just in the lUtitude of a cat before she makes her spring at a mouse or a sparrow. The door was open, and he could see his wife sitting within, still and mute with dread, and all the little children hud died together in a heap and hiding
iiuocii, ue ran rounci to the bac le house, where he knew he had
loaded gun standing at ail o indow. He seized it, and poini just above the head of his hig^ )y, fired with so true an aim, t e ball struck the lion in the v iddle of the forehead, and killed 1
an instant
THE KING AND THE SNAKE. fC£ upon a time, says an anci<
1 •» •••
THE KlITO AND THE SNAKB. 15
psdace, and proclamation to be made, that any one who had received nm in*- jnry should come and ring the bell, and that then the king would heai^ his complaint and do him justice^ The bell one day was heard to ring ; and certain officers wenty as usual, td bring the ringer to the king ; but lo ! no man was there ; and th^ wondered greatly, for the bell still continued to ring. At last they espied a snake which had twisted herself around the rope, and they saw that it was she who rang the bclL Then she untwisted herself from the rope and glided away upon the ground, and they followed her; and she went to a hole under the wall in which she had her nest and her little ones ; but a hedgehog had crept into it, and he stuck up his thorny back, and would not let her enter ; therefore she had rung the bell to
16 THE KINO AND THK SNAKE.
call for justice upon hioL Then the officers went and told the king; and he commanded the hedgehog to be drag- ged forth, and thus the snake gained possession of her own hole again.
Not long afterwards, this just king was stricken stone blind, and none of his physicians could help him; but one day as he lay upon his couch sad and sorrowful, a snake was seen to creep forth out of a hole. And she glided along to the side of the couch, and climbed up; and in her mouth she bore a precious stone which had a virtue in it ; and she laid it upon the eyelids of the king, first on one, then on the other ; and immediately the king recovered his sight again as wdl as ever. And this was his reward, because he was not proud nor pitiless, but had listened to die cry of the poor and the helpless, when they called for justice.
17
"WHY MUST WE LEARN BY HEART?
** Pray, papa, may I ask you a ques- tion 1"-^" Certainly; for if I should not think propTer to answer it, I shall tell you so." — " I wish to know, papa, why I must get things by heart which lean find in my books wheneyer I want them ? I do not mean poetry, for I like learning that yery much ; but other things, which are stupid and tiresome." ^-^" Such things, I suppose, as the multiplication table and pence table, and columns of spelling ?" — " Yes, papa, those are the things I mean ; and Latin grammar, and names of coun- tries and chief towns. Surely I might as well look for them when I want them." — ^** You might do so, no doubt; but whether you might as well do so, is quite another question, which we will talk over by and by : now, if you
c2
Aft
»f attending to what he is doing he people and things before his las the foolish habit of lettin houghts run upon something eh hat he does not know where he rhat he is about, but goes on oan in a dream, neglecting am ;etting, and making all sorts of iers,
*^ A gentleman of this turn, s( ne evening, with two or three anions, to walk from a friend's h 'here he had been paying a vis
%e*
^%««W« J>«»«««M<« ^1p».»*«-A ..^ aa^-l^ -Xl
WHY ifUST WE LEARN BY HEART? 19
was* the.inalter. ^I have forgot my sticky said lie, and he turned back to fetch' k. ' After he had walked on a good way the second time, he fonnd himself very cold; ^ Bless me/ cried he, * where is my great coat?' Left behind i and he had to return again. ^ Welly'* said one of his companions, * I hope you are warmer now ! ' * Yesi excepting my hands, but they are quite numbed — I declare — I have left my gloves!' Another journey back for them. This time, he was quite sure he had got every thing he wanted, and he had nearly reached his home when, at a narrow turn of the road where it was quite dark, he knocked his nose against a post. ^ How stupid ! ' cried he^ * I quite forgot my lantern."*
^^ What a strange man, papa ! he must have wasted half his time in going back for things which he had
20 TRUIH ABOVE ALL. THINGS. >
•left behind."^ — " Yes ; and what would A school-boy do, wliav instead of having ready in his head the things which he wants to do his lessons withy should be obliged to stop continually to look &r them in his grammar, or hifil book of arithmetic, or his spelling dictibnary?" : — " He would lose his time too : I see it now, papa ; we must learn by heart to save ourselves trouble."^ — "You are right, it is much the shorter way."
TRUTH ABOVE ALL THINGS.
V. Truth is the highest thing that man can keep,"
says our good old English poet Geoffry Chaucer ; and in all times and places there have been some excellent people who have shown that they were re- solved to keep it whatever it might cost them.
TRUTH ABOVE ALL THINGS. 21
Abdool-Radir, a Persian boy, the son of a widow, desired leave of his mother to take a journey to Bagdat to seek his fortune ; she wept at the thoughts of the parting ; then, taking out forty of the gold coins called dinars^ she gave them to him, telling him that was the whole of his inhe- ritance. After this, she made him swear never to tell a lie; then she ^ bade him farewell.
The boy set out upon his journey. U.;i3n the roadi the party with which ''-' %to ttftvidted waft suddenly attacked by a great troop of robbers. One of them asked Abdool-Radir what money he had got " Forty dinars/' he answered, " are sewed up in my gar- ments." The robber took this for a jest, and laughed. Another asked him the same question, and he mad^ the same reply. When they began to di-
IS2 TRUTH ABOVE ALL THINGS.
Ivide the plunder among them, h^was Icalled to the chief, who was standing Ion an eminence, and he too asked him ■what he had got. ". I have told two lof your men already," said he, " that ll have forty dinars, carefully sewed lup in my clothes." The chief imme- Idiately ordered the clothes to be ripped ■up, and the gold was found. He was lastonished. " How came you," said ' to discover what had been so karefully
THE PET ANTELOPE. 23
And ;he. swore it ; and his followers^ all struck like him with sudden repent tance, made the same vow ; and as the first fruits of it, returned to the tnt-^ vellers whatever they had taken from
thRTOm .
THE PET ANTELOPE.
When the famous Buonaparte aftei^ oveironning Egypt had marched his army into Syria to attack the pasha, or governor of that country, his camp became a kind of fair, or market, to which the country people flocked in, to exchange such provision as they were able to supply to the soldiers, for money, or for various kinds of goods and trinkets which the French had brought with them« Among the rest, some young girls had gone to the camp with poultry, or fruit, or vegetables
in particular, who on seeing th< ornaments was seized with a longing to possess some of th kind ; — ^but what should she d had neither fruit nor poultry t to the market, the only thing t of her own in the world was tame antelope. It was the ] creature in the world ; so nir slender, so frolicsome; and knew her so well, that it won whenever she called it, eat le of her hand, and rub itself aga inviting: her to pat its head a
THE PET ANTELOPE. 25
the Deads were so beautiful, and all the girls had got them ! In short, she was tempted ; and she took her little pet antelope in her anns and carried it to the camp to sell it. An officer bought it very readily, and gave her in return a necklace and bracelets like those of her companions. She could not say much to him, because she did not understand his language, nor he hers ; but she had no doubt he Would love the pretty creature, and make a favourite of it, as she had done ; so, with a kiss and a sigh, she left it be- hind.
But when she got home, her heart smote her for what she had done; and, in the morning, when no pretty fuatelope came skipping forth to meet ^htitf she could not bear it ; so away she ran to the camp again to see it, and to beg to have it back. The offi-
— .««r •• V\^A4I> y CUM I»fl<
^ poor littb antelope hangi killed and ready to be roastiec it W9S certainly her own, for tl of riband were still in its ears, burst into a flood of tears, and ping off the worthless beads had cost her innocent little fa^ liis life, she threw them scomfv Jie ground, and hurried home vhelmed with shame and grief.
LOKMAN.
LOKMAN. i7
East as the inventor of many fables and parables ; and various ivories are told of his wisdom. It is' said, that he was a native of Ethiopia, and either a tailor, a carpenter, or a shepherd, and that aftenvards he was a slave in various countries, and was at lai^t sold among the Israelites.
One day, as he was seated in the toidst of a company who were all list- ening to him with great respect and attention, a Jew of high rank, looking earnestly at him, asked him, whether he was not the same man whom he had seen keeping the sheep of one of his neighbours. Lokman said he was. " And how," said the other, " did you, a poor slave, come to be so famous as a wise man?" — " By exactly observing these three rules," replied Lokman; "Always speak the truth without dis- guise, strictly keep your promises,
»A«C
uiiuuy wno will believe i but what they hold in their \ meaning, that he always exi things, and took great pains t out the truth.
Beinof once sent with some slaves to fetch fruit, his comps ate a great deal of it, and then i i¥as he who had eaten it ; on ^ le drank warm water to make h; ieky and thus proved that he hi ruit in hi« stomach; atfd the laves, being obliged to do the I ^ere found out.
XOKMAK. 29
yp without making faces or showing the lea^ dislike. Hi& master, quite surprised, said, " How was it possible for you to swallow so nauseous a fruit?" Lokman replied; " I have received so many sweets from you, that it is tibt wonderful that I should have swal- lowed the only bitter fruit you ever gave me." His master was so much struck by this generous and grateful answer, that he immediately rewarded him by giving him his liberty. > At this day, Ho teach Lokman' is a common saying in the East to express a thing impossible : it is said too that he was as good as he was wise ; and indeed it is the chief part of wisdom to be good. He was particularly re- markable for his love to God and his reverence of his holy name. He is reported to have lived to a good old age; and many centuries after, a tomb
d2
THE KING OF EGYPT
1 the little town of Ramlah, not far l-om Jerusalem, was pointed out as Lokman's.
KING OF EGYPT AND HIS TREASURE-HOUSE.
t'ou have all heard of the land of Egypt; that long narrow country, with ■s famous river Nile flowing through Idst of it from end to end, which
AND HIS TR£ASURE-HOUS£. 31
are almost solid masses of brick or stone, having only, a few small dark chambers, and low narrow passages within them ; and they seem to: have been raised as tombs, or monuments for the dead. Their founders must have been great kings, who could em- ploy thousands of labourers and heaps of treasure in the work ; and probably they thought to make their names fa* mous to all times by these amazing buildings, which stand now, after so many ageis, as firm, and almost as fresh, « as when they were first reared.
But the pride t>f man is foolishness and a vain dream ; the pyramids stand indeed, and. may stand as loAg as the world lasts ; but the names of their founders are either all lost and forgot ten, or if there be a dim and ^doubtful memory left of some of them, it is only a bare name which nobody cares for..
32 THE KING OF EGYI'T
• There are many other wonderful works of skill and labour in Egypt. Palaces of princes, with endless ranges of magnificent apartments, all painted within with figures the colours of which lire still fresh ; and vast temples built of stone, supported on many rows of massy pillars, with the walls covered over with curious carvings of men, and beasts, and birds, and other ob- jects ; which was a kind of writing used among them ; but no one now can understand it. Around the tem- ples also are many gigantic statues curiously wrought ; some of men, some of monsters ; especially of one kind called the sphinx, which has the body of a lion with the head of a woman.
But all these mighty piles lie now useless and ruined, and some of them half buried in the sands of the desert. The palaces are desolate ; and no one
AND HIS TH£ASUR£-HOUS£. 33.
goes up to worship in the ancient temples ; even the gods to whom they were dedicated are forgotten among the people. They serve now no other purpose than to draw the wonder of travellers, and to keep in memory the strange tales told in ancient books of the Egyptian princes of the days of old. One of these tales is the fol- lowing.
King Rhampsinites was possessed of a greater store of gold and silver than any Egyptian king before him ; and being more disposed to hoard up his money than to spend it, he deter- mined to build a strong treasure-house in which to keep it safely. Accord- ingly he caused his master-mason to contrive him one which seemed quite secure ; the walls were of thick stone, and there was but one door, which the king himself fastened up whenever *
I
34 THE KING OF EGYPT
lie came out, and sealed with his own seal.
But this master-mason was a great rogue, and he contrived to leave one of the stones in the wall loose^ so that he could take it out when he pleased, and get in to steal the treasure. He was seized with a deadly sickness himself soon after he had finished the building; but when he found his end 0raw near, he called his two sons and told them the secret of the loose stone, by which they might make themselves rich when they pleased. Very soon the king, who often went to count his Measure, discovered that some was ipissing; yet the seal remained un- broken on the door, and he could not imagine how it should happen. After- wards he missed more and morcf of his beloved gold, for the two brothers repeated their robberies night after
AND HIS TREASURE-HOUSE. 35
night. At last he caused some curious snares to be made, and set them round his treasure-chests to catch the thieves. That very night one of the brothers was taken in them ; and finding it im^ possible to get loose, " Brother," said he, ^^ there is but one thing to be done to save my honour and your life. I entreat and implore you to cut off my head and carry it away with you, that the culprit may not be known." The brother very reluctantly did as he ad- vised. ThiB next morning, great was the surprise and horror of the king> on coming to examine, to find the place all bloody and a headless thief caught in the snare. On recovering himself, he ordered the body to be hung up on the outside of the wall, and guards to vratch it, who were to examine the countenances of all who came; and if ady one showed signs of mournings
snould be embalmed with d spices to preserve them, and fully in the tomb. Accord mother of the young man, in of grief, declared to her othei if he did not contrive to bri bis brother's body, she woul to the king. The cunning pacify her disguised himself, i ing an ass with skins of win< is in bags of skin that manj/ keep their wine to this day —
AND HIS CONaU£ROR. 37
every way he could think of to dis- cover the offender ; but when he found all in vain, admiring the cleverness of the man, he promised him pardon and reward if he would confess, a^d in the end made him a great lord and maiy ried him to his daugrhter.
THE KING OF EGYPT AND HIS CONQUEROR.
After the kiqgs of Egjrpt had gone on. reigning for many ages in riches and prosperity, one of them named Amasis was so unfortunate as to give offence to Cambyses ki©g of Persia^ a very powerful priiOjce and of a very cruel and furious disposition. Accordr ingly Caxnbfsest raised a great axmy and marched to Egypt to revengt^ himself on Amasis ; and though thi$ king was dead, when he amyed^ h^
E
38 THE KING OF EGYPT
-would not be pacified, but made war on his son Psammenitus who succeeded him. He took the town of Pelusium which stands on the borders of Syria, and was called the key of Egypt, and after defeating the Egyptians in a great battle he made himself master of Memphis, the chief city, and«took king Psammenitus and all his great cap- tains prisoners.
Cambyses was particularly enraged with the Egyptians for barbarously putting to death a messenger of his, and all his ship's crew, and he de- termined on a striking act of ven- geance. Accordingly, having caused the unfortunate king with some of his chief men to be brought to a spot without the gates of 'Memphis, he there showed him the princess his daughter, in the dress of a poor slave coming with a j^her on her head to
AND HIS CONQUEROR. 39
draw water from the river, and fol- lowed by a train of ladies, daughters of the greatest families in Egypt^ all in the same miserable garb, bearing pitchers also, and filling the air as they pa33ed with sighs and lamentations.
The Eg3rptian nobles, on viewing this piteous sight, all broke into tears and groans, loudly lamenting the misery of their daughters; Psammenitus alone neither shed a tear nor uttered a com- plaint, but cast his eyes on the ground and remained silent and still. After the maidens came a train of youths with the king's only son at their head, all with bits in their mouths and hal- ters round their necks, about to be led to execution in revenge for the deaths of the Persian messenger and his crew. Again the Egyptian lords burst forth into clamorous grief, while Psamme- nitus sat like one without sense or
40 THE KING OF EGYPT
feeling. But soon after^ observing a courtier who had long been his con- stant companion and intimate friend, who tiow, stripped and plundered of "all that he possessed, was begging his bread from door to door, he also at length burst into tears, and calling on his friend by name, struck himself on the heaid like one distracted,
Cambyses, who had spies set upon ^he captive king to inform him of all his behaviour, on hearing these cir- cumstances sent a messenger to him ' to inquire, what might be the cause of this violent grief in one who had borne the calamities of his own family with so much composure. Psammenitus replied, that his distress for the fate of his own family was too deep to be ex- pressed by tears or any outward signs, it stunned and stupified him ; but the -affliction of his bosom friend was such
AND HIS CONQUEROR, 41
sls he was able to thiuk upon, and for that it was in his power to weep and to express his grief. Even the hard heart of Cambyses was moved by this sad answer; and he sent orders to spare the young prince of Eg3rpt j but it was too late, he had been put to death already. Then he gave the un- happy king his liberty, and seemed Inclined to let him rule the country as his lieutenant ; but soon after, suspect- ing him of some plot against him^ he put him to death.
As for Cambyses, he next marched his army to the south, to conquer Ethi- opia; but he had neglected to make stores of provision beforehand, and they could find no food by the way ; and first they killed their beasts of burden and ate them ; then they were driven to devour all the green herbs they could find ; last of all, shocking to tell ! they
e2
42 THE KING OF EGYPT
slew every tenth man, and his comrades fed npon his flesh. And then at length Cambyses, mad and obstinate as he was, fearing for himself, gave orders to march back again.
Another army he had sent to th^ Eastward to make conquests, but of this not a man returned again. What became of it was never known ; but in those deserts sometimes a violent wind arises, and sweeps up the sand with it in such prodigious quatititiei^, that it overwhelms men and horses and camels, and buries them alive ; and by this dreadful fate the army of Cambyses ' is believed to have perished.
After this, the king was told that his
own countrymen the Persians had re-
* belled against him and set up a new
; lung, who pretended to be prince Smer-
dis his brother; but Cambyses knew
too well that he had murdered his bro-
THE PEARL OF PRICE. 43
ther, so that this man was an impostor. H€ resolved to return to Persia directly to fight the usurper ; but> in mounting his horse, he happened to wound him- self in the thigh with his- own sword^ and died.
Sdch was the end of this wicked
and foolish conqueror, after all the
•dreadful mischiefs he had brought
upon his own subjects and upon the
^unfortunate Egyptians whom he had
1^0 cruelly insulted and oppressed.
THE PEARL OF PRICE.
r
AN EASTERN TALE.
In the days of old a wildgoose made her nest on the margin of the Caspian Sea, among the sedges, underneath a ' shelving bank. And she brooded cer- tain days over her eggs, and many
44 THE PEARL OF PRICE.
.young ones came forth. But behold there arose a mighty tempest, and the waves were lifted up, and dashed upon the bank, and it crumbled and fell down upon the nest, so that her mate was crushed to death, and all the young, saving one, which dived under the waters and escaped away, and in like manner the mother bird escaped also. And the mother loved the young one, that was left to her a widow, with exceeding love : and she fed him, and watched him day and night ; and he was now well nigh fledged. But the fowler spread his net, cunningly he spread it, and the young bird was taken and fell into the hands of the fowler. >Ajid the mother bird followed, and cried to the fowler to have pity, and mercy upon her which had but one young pne, and to spare and set him free. And the fowler answered and said,
THE PEARL OF PRICE. 45
u
Why should I set him free fov thee? Wliat gift wilt thou give ipe> if Lset liim free ? " And the bird made rqply, ^^ Behold, I would give my life for his ransom, say what is it that thoawouldst have of me." And the fowler said^ *' Stretch thy wing to th6>S9iath, and after many days thou wilt behold the city wh^re dwelleth the great king, ^ven the king of Persia. And thou wilt see him go forth in the morning, and call to him his beautiful steed that he loveth, and give him barley out of a golden dish. In all the world there is m barley like unto that for goodness, bring me one grain thereof in thy bill, that I may sow it, and it may bring forth abundantly ; then will I restore •unto thee thy young one.'*
And the bird stretched her wing to the South many days, and at la^t she stood before the Great King, even the
46 THE PEARL OF PRICE.
king of Persia, when he went forth with barley in a golden dish ; and she besought him that he would give her one barley-corn to redeem her young one from the death. But the great king frowned terribly, and he said, ** What gift hast thou brought? Darest thoir advance thy prayer unto the king without bringing with thee thy gift ? Stretch now thy wing towards the getting sun, and after many days thou shalt behold the orchards of the West ; bring to Qie in thy bill the fairest pomegranate of all those orchards, then will I give thee a barley-corn to iredeem thy young one."
And the bird stretched her wing Uy- ward the setting sun, and behold the planter was walking in his orchard, and she said, ^' Give me the fairest pomegranate of thy orchard to give to the Great King, so shall he give unto
THE PEARL OF PRICE. 47
jne the barley-corn to give unto th^ fowler to redeem my young one from the death." But he answered, " Bring me a gift. Seek thou the herdsmafi of the plain, bid him bring hither unto me an ox, to turn the wheel of the cistern which watereth my orchard, then will I give unto thee my fairest pom^ranate." And she sought oiit the herdsman, the master of an hun^ dred herds, and she entreated him to be merciful unto her, and to give the ox to the gardener. But he answered even as the rest, " Bring me a gift Go thou to the chief who dwelleth on the borders of the desert, let him send unto me one of his steeds of noble blood, and let him be bridled and sad'^ died for the course, — ^then shall the ox be thine."
.And the bird went, and besought the chief who dwelt on the borders of
4
48 THE PEARL OF PRICE.
the des^t to bestow upon her one of his steeds of noble blood, bridled and saddled for the course. But he mocked at her, and he said, ^^ Give thou first unto me the Pearl of Price to adomithe forehead of my bride, even the pearl of the princess Zobeid, the greatest pearl of the whole earth." The poor bird answered and said, ^^ Alas.! as easily^ might I give thee the earthJt- self ! ** But it was for the life of her young one, and there was no other help for him, and nothing had shiB to lose; she spread therefore her ivings and away to the dwelling of the jprin* cess Zobeid. And the princess was in a • fair garden adorned with great trees and with bushes, and with all sweet smelling flowers ; and she was sitting beside a fountain of clear water j ail^ she' held her young son in lier annsit And she said, '' What aileth
THE PEARL OF PRICE. 49
thee, poor bird ; why droopest thou thy wings, and wherefore bowest' thou thy head unto the earth ? Rest thyself on the fresh herbage and drink of the ibotttedn of dear water; afterwards tell unto me- thy grief." And the bird did as sh^ had said^ and she told her her grief. And the princess answered ' and said^ ** Didst thoii all this; poor crea*- ture ! Aiid stretchedst thou thy wings hither^ even from the Caspian Sea^ oh the fiirther side of all the land of Persia, only to seek for pity and for help, for thee and for thy Utile one, tmd foundest nothing in the heart of ttito, from high to low, from the Great Kling to the humble peasant, but cru- eliy and covetousness ! But I, that am a mother, even as thyself, of dti only deair little one, shall I not pity thee? \ Take my pearl,— a pea^l of price is light as a barley-corb weighed
And the bird took the pea billy rejoicing that she had i vour at the last. And she on her way, and sought out 1 of the borders of the desert, said unto him, ** Behold the Price, even the great pearl of cess Zobeid, give now unto th man thy steed of noble bloc bridled and saddled, that he i me his ox, and so I may red young one." Then the chief
THE PEARL OF PRICE. 51
9A thine entreaty ! " The bird answered him never a word* She spread her wings, and soared up over the plain, seeking far and near to find the master of an hundred herds. But behold the robbers had come down from the moun^ tains,^ and they had seized upon the herdsman, and bound him, and carried him away into captivity, him and all his household ; and his herds and his flocks they had driven away, and over the whole plain there was nought but loneliness and the stillness of deaths " The Pearl of Price is not for the herdsman" (so said the bird in the Au^ings of her heart); ^^ behold I will deliver it unto the planter, so shall he yield unto me the fairest pomegranate of his orchard. And she went: but lo, the earthquake had been there, and the earth had opened and swallowed up that orchard, with its trees, and its
" Let then the Pearl of Pi the Ghreat King, in exchan^ barley-corn to redeem the '. dear unto me.'' But woe proud who are hard of hear mighty who know not mercy greater and more powerful hath come up against him routed his hosts, and slaio tains, the king himself als< smitten with the edge of the s he hath put on his crown am
1 •
THE PEARL OF PRICE. 63
for many days. And when she draw- jeth near the margin of the Caspian sea, another bird cometh to meet her; and behold it is her own nestling, and they kiss one another with their bills an hundred times. " But where is the fowler," saith the mother bird ; " and how hast thou escaped out of his hands ? " " The officers have taken him^" saith the young bird, ^^ and the judg<^ hath judged him^ because he laid wait for the jtniveller to slay him, and his body now hangeth on a tree. And I took my flight, for there was none to stay me." " Then," saith the mother, *\ let us bear back to the princess Zobeid her Pearl of Price, for only she took pity on us." And they did as she had said. But |o ! the prince her husband was grown a great king, and Zobeid was s^ queen and sat on a throne, and all men did her homage.
F 2
j^wi auu lAUBcrcujiCy ana noc a gift again.
ALP ARSLAN.
About eight hundred years a lived among the Turks a gr qiieror to whom his people g name of Alp Arslan, that is, the Lion, on account of his fierce < battle. The vast kingdom ol he inherited from his uncle ; satisfied with that, hp aHo/^i^o-
ALP ARSLAN. 55
at their ears, as a token of their being
his slaves. After this, he made war
upon the emperor of Constantinople,
and gained a great victory, in which
the emperor was taken prisoner ; and
when he was brought before him, he
leaped from his throne and set his foot
upon his neck. Afterwards^ however,
he behaved generously to him, and set
him free for a ransom. Then Alp
Arslan determined to march all across
his kingdom of Persia, and conquer
the countries which lie to the East,
beyond the great river Oxus or Gihon ;
for even yet he did not think himself
^eat enough, or powerful enough, al-
,though he was ruler over the fairest
provinces of Asia, and although twelve
liundred princes, or sons of princes,
stood at the foot of his throne and
owned him for their lord and master.
And he collected a vast army and
: but be^ ' Oxua, it 1 a castle . its brave to defend ibie. It i mighty ce could It last k brought was pro- igry and bo knew luty, an-
ALP ARSLAN. 57
The guards would have seized him^ but the king bade them leave him alone; hewasreckoned the best archer of his time, and he chose to kill his enemy himself. But the arrow of Alp Arslan missed its aim ; and Joseph, rushing upon him gsye him a mortal blow before the guards could disarm him: Thekinglivedonlyafewhours: when he felt his end approachiiig, he said to those around him; ^^ I now recollect two pieces of advice given ine by a wise man : the first, not to despise any one ; the second, not to think too highly of myself : but I have done both; for yesterday surveying my numerous host from an eminence, I thought that there was nothing on earth which could resist me, nor any mortal who would dare to rise up against me; and today when I saw the man approach with his dr^wn
against destiny.
The body of this prince ti at Meruy a city of the kii Chorasan, and on his tomb i ten these words : " O ye i seen the grandeur of Alp Ars to the skies, come to Meru, will behold it buried in tl Now even this inscription is ^ the tomb itself has been destrc the very place of it is forgott
THE GEXEROUS RIVALS. 59
glorious in ancient times above all the other cities of Greece, or indeed of the virhole world, for the prodigious number of great and eminent men in eveiy line; statesmen, and captains, and philosophers, orators, and poets, and historians, who were bom and flou* rished in it By means of its excellent writers too, a great many of interesting stories concerning all these celebrated jpersons have been handed down even to our days ; so that their fame is stitl fresh, and we may almost fancy that we have known and conversed with them, though it is now above two thou- sand years since Athens was at the height of her power and prosperity^ and the most illustrious of her children lived and died.
There were anumgit the re»t two orators, or public §p§tik§f§f mtmd .Demosthenes and J^hin^^ \Mwmu
other with great offences* J nes accused iEschmes of bribe from Philip king of and iBschines accused Demo having broken the law by p the senate to decree him a gold for a reward. A day for ^chines to bring this cl for \Demosthenes to defen< before all the people. Eac himself to the utmost ; but ] nes, who was the more el the two; — indeed he is reckoned the greatest oratoi
THE GENEROUS RIVALS. 61
this, forgot all his anger against his accuser, and going to him, entreated him to aiccept of a present of money before his departure.
Poor ^chines was touched to the heart by this noble conduct : " Ah ! ^ cried he, " how do I grieve at quitting a country where I have found an enemy so generous that I despair of finding in any other place a friend to equal him ! "
It was to the island of Rhodes that iEschines banished himself; there he opened a school to teach the art of public speaking, and he began his lectures by reading his own oration against Demosthenes, and his in reply* The hearers gave great applause to his, but much greater to that of his rival. This was a severe trial ; but -ffischines stood it nobly : " Ah ! " he exclaimed, " what would you have thought if you
G
eacn ot tnem must otlen h; the name and the praise of i and what a satisfaction mus felt in hearing it without tl envy and malice, and not . a foe but a friend !
THE MAGPIE IN THE GOOS
BUSH.
" Can you build a house?"
THE GOOSEBERRY-BUSH. 63
haps. The cause of the difference is, that many kinds of creatures never could be taught, by others of their t>wn kind, things which it is yet ne- cessary for them to do. Most insects, for instance, never know a parent ; for the mother lays her eggs and then dies, Jong before they are hatched. Birds do know their parents ; they are care- fully fed, and attended, and taught to catch or choose their food, to fly, or to 4swim, according to their nature, both by father and mother. But when once they are fledged and full grown, and their education as it may be called, is finished, the old ones drive them away from the nest, and never take any fur- ther notice of them ; they seem entirely to forget that they are their cbil4rmi. This separation of the fftmili^n hftp- pens in the autumn ; 4urifi{( tb# wintefi the young bird« i?itb*<r Vi^i U^%^\(^t
64 THE MAGPIE IN
in little flocks, or else each lives alone, picking up its food where it can, and sheltering itself in some tree, or bush, or hole. In the spring they pair ; and then they begin to think of haying eggs and young ones, and it is neces- sary to set about building a nest. This they have notbeentaughttodo; the nest of their parents was made before they * capae into the world, and they have never seen the art practised by any Other bird. But the Author of Nature, who foriBsees and provides for all, has given to these creatures a power or faculty of doing all that it is necessary for them to do, without being taught, and without knowing beforehand the use or intention of what they are doing. This power we call instinct, and it is by it that the silkworm spins its web, and the bird builds its nest.
Generally, instinct directs the crea-
THE GOOSEBERRY-BUSH. 65
ture exactly, in every point, and one does
- not vary from another in the least ; thus
.every bee makes its cell in the same
shape, and every bird of the same kind
builds its nest in the same manner, and
.in the same sort of places. But there
are some curious instances in which
the creature seems not to be guided
. by its instinct ; but, like man, to learn
by trying one way after another ; and
:when it is prevented from going about
its work in the way pointed out to it
by nature, which is always the easiest,
.it is not left without the means of finds
.out for itself what is the next best way
of managing.
The jackdaw, wherever it can, makes its nest in a hole, of some high build- ing, out of the way of its enemies ; commonly in a church steeple : but in those parts of England where it hap- pens that the churches are very low,
66 THE MAGPIE IN
and without steeples, the jackdaw has taken up tihie fashion of sheltering it- self| and making its nest, in rabbit burrows.
Magpies always build in high trees, where there are any; but a traveller lately observed a pair who had hit upon a different plan. It was in one of th^ barest parts of Scotland; not a tree of any kind was to be seen for miles, but in a cottage garden there was a gooseberry-bush, and he ob- served a pair of magpies very busy .about it, going in and out continually. On inquiry, the owners of the cottage told him, that the birds had built there for seven or eight years ; and because in this loif bush they were in danger ivovfi the ^ttpicks of cats and dogs, they liad collected a great quantily of stalks and twigs, and the thorny sprays of the gooseberry itself; and twisted and
THE ISLANDERS. 67
matted them together so firmly round their habitation, that neither dog uor cat could break through. They were alsQ afraid pf having their eggs taJcen by the cottager's children ; and to pr^ vent this, they had stretched out their hedge just so far all round, as to be out of reach of their little arms.
So kindly and so admirably has every creature been provided with the measure of skill and cunning necessary to its life and safety.
THE ISLANDERS.
In a certain part of the world, sepa- rated by a narrow strait from the con- tinent, there lies a large Island, which some of its early discoverers have de- scribed as green and fertile, blessed with a healthful air and temperate cli-
68 THE ISLANDERS
-mate. In some parts there were ridges •of high rocky mountains, but for the most part it was a land gently varied with hill and dale, and watered with many softly flowing streams.
Thick forests of oak and other hardy trees darkened, and as it were encum- bered the face of the country, mingled with wide sandy wastes covered with heath and furze, stagnant pools, and rushy fens. The stag, the roebuck, and the urus, or wild bull, grazed the thick herbage of the valleys or broused among the tangled thickets ; there also roamed the bear, the wolf, the fox, and the wild cat. The wild boar haunted the reedy marsh, the badger made his home in the caves or amid the roots t)f fallen trees, the fish-devouring otter lurked under the fringed banks of the iake, and the industrious beaver formed liis curious dams across the streams.
THE ISLANDERS. 69
The eagle screamed from the lofiy rocks, the kite and buzzard hovered aroimd the skirts of the woods, while tbeiieron and the bittern sought their vprey amid the plashy pools, and gulls ' and cormorants nestled in the clifis, or rode upon the billows of the surround- ing o<iean.
In the northern parts of the island, the savage natives lived chiefly by hunting, and in times of scarci^ were driven to appease their hunger with ^e harsh or tasteless berries which wer^ the best fruit the land afforded, or sometimes with the roots or bark of trees. In the southern partd, where 'merchants or settlers from the conti- nent had introduced a rather more comfortable mode oi living, they fed cattle and nourished themselvel Mith the flesh and the milk ; but of the arts of making cheese and butter they were
great autlibrity over them, had invented a great numbc monies and sacrifices, whicb formed in secret groves, shade of mighty oaks ; an horrid altars they shed the of beasts alone, but often o: low men. It is said that th had among them a kind of but if they had, they carefu to themselves ; the rest of t high and lo^, were totally i
THE ISi:*ANDERS. 73
were found by the famous Julius Caesar, the first Roman emperor, when he landed among them rather less than nineteen hundred years ago . Find ing them so barbarous and so divided amongst themselves, he thought to make an easy conquest of them ; but with all their wants and their ignorance, they were a free and generous people ; and they fought so bravely for their native land, that he was obliged to go away at last without having won for the Romans a single foot of British ground : the Britons did indeed mdke a kind of promise to pay the Romans some tribute, but that they soon ex-^ cased themselves from performing. And thus things remained between them a long time, during which the Romans were too busy with civil wars to send any more armies abroad td mak^ fresh conquests. .
H
74
THE ANCIENT BRITONS AND BOADICEA.
Perhaps you will now like to hear something fiHther of the fortunes of our Islanders, and through what means civilised people became acquainted with them, and gradually taught them arts, and introduced things useful and convenient and elegant. Firsts it may be mentioned, that a good while before the Romans came hither, the Island had been visited by the Phoenicians^ a people who lived at the Eastern end of the Mediterranean sea ; the great and ancient cities of Tyre and Sidon, mentioned in Scripture, belonged to them, and they were the greediest tra- ding nation then in the world. In very early times they had sent out their
THE ANCIENT BRITONS, &C. 75
ships, and explored almost all the coasts and islands of the Mediter- ranean ; seldom attempting to make conquests, even where they found the people few and easy ta be subdued; but trading with them, and so growing rich themselves at the same time that they taught the use of many things to tribes of men who before were rude and destitute savages. > . In course ef time, these Phoenicians grew bolder, and passing the Pillars of Hercules, which was the name a.n- ciently given to the Straits of Gibral- tar, they entered the Atlantic ocean; and after creeping round by the shores of Spain and of France, then called Gaul, they at length discovered the Scilly Isles off the coast of Cornwall, to which the name of the Cassiterides was given. Here they found out mines of lead and tin, and in exchange for
76 THE ANCIENT BRITONS
these metals they probably gave toys and tools and ornaments, and perhaps woollen cloths — the same kind of ar- ticles with which in these later ages the English carry on trade with the Iqdians of North America and the simple natives of the South Sea Islands; This commerce the Phoenicians found so gainful, that they kept all knowledge of the pliace where they carried it on as much as possible to themselves ; and not being, as I said before, a conquer-^ ing people, th^ made no settlements } and it is even doubtful whether they ever landed on the main island of Great Britain or not. But the Gauls had great intercourse with the Southern coast. Caesar believed that the people of the county of Kent, which was al- most all he saw of the country, were settlers from Gaul, for the langus^e, religion, and manners seemed to be
AND BOADICEA. 77
the same. The rud^r tribes of the North appeared to be of the same blood as the Germans ; and there was a-^no- tion that the people of South Wales were a colony from Spain.
The Romans however were the great civilisers of the country ; but at the isame time they were its. conquerors and oppressors. It was about a hun- dred years after the attempt of Caesar before they set in earnest about sub- duing the BritonSy and it was a busi- ness which it took them many years hard fighting to accomplish ; for the brave Britons were continually taking up arms again to resist their invaders, long after the Romans reckoned them conquered. One of their most valiant leaders was Caradoc, called by the Ron^ans Caractacus, king of the Si- lures, the people of South Wales; and there are still to be seen on the borders
h2
78 THE ANCIENT BKITONS -
of that country, hills with the earth cut into deep ditches and thrown up in steep mounds all round them, which are known to have been his camps : and near them, commonly on lower ground, there are square spaces, also enclosed with mounds and ditches, which were the camps of the Romans. At length, however, Caradoq was beaten and obliged to take refuge with a British queen named Cartismandua. She basely gave him up to the Romans ; and he was sent with his wife, his son and daughter, and his brothers, to Rome, where the emperor Claudius received him in a kind of triumph ; but being moved, it is said, by a speech which he made on being brought be- fore him, and by the manly spirit with which he bore his misfortunes, the emperor granted him and all his family their lives and liberties*
AND BOADICEA. 79
The Britons had also a heroine among them named Boadicea, or Boji- duca, whose fame ought never to pe- rish. She was the widow of a king who reigned in Norfolk and some neighbouring counties, and who, on his death, left the Roman emperor an equal share in his fortune with his own daughters, hoping thus to engage him to protect them. But the Roman offi- cers, with the usual insolence of that overbearing people, seized upon the whole of what he had left, turning the widow and daughters out of doors; and on Boadicea's remonstrating, they causied her to be scourged with tods, and her daughters treated in the most brutal and insulting manner. The news of this barbarous and wick^ conduct so enraged the Britons, that they all, except the inhabitants of Lon- don, rose in arms, with Boadiqea for
80 THE ANCIENT BRITONS
their leader, and attacking the Romans by surprise, put them all, men, women and children to death wherever they could find them, to the number of seventy or eighty thousand, and Boa- dicea took and plundered London, and slew all whom she found in it. But now the chief commander of the Ro- mans, who had been fighting on the opposite side of the country, marched against them, with a much smaller, but better disciplined army ; and drew up his men to give them battle. Boadicea, confident of victory from her superior numbers, rode up and down in her chariot to exhort them to fight bravely ; and her noble figure, her fine counte- nance and her undaunted courage, won upon the hearts of her countrymen and added to the effect of the speech in which she exhorted them to avenge b^r injuries and their own, and at once
AND BOADICEA. 81
to punish the wickedness of their op- pressors and recover their own liberty for the future. For herself, she said, she was resolved to conquer or die ; the men might, if they pleased^ live and be slaves. At the end of her speech she let loose a hare, which she held in the fold of her robes; which was a sacred animal among them, and regarded as a sign of vic- tory. But the Romans by their supe- rior skill and discipline, put the Bri- tons to flight almost immediately ; they showed no mercy, and it is said that eighty thousand of the vanquished were put to the sword. Boadicea her- self escaped falling into their hands ; but she died soon after, either of grief or by poison.
After these things the Romans pos- sessed themselves of as much of the island as they thought worth having,
XX«I^O«SA« »«^^«Aa^Jl'
obliged them to withdraw thei and give up Britain entire some time after the lazy and c Britons were conquered by the the Angles, and other natio Germany. Vast numbers < were killed, and the rest dri' Wales ; and from the time of quest the southern part of th was called England.
LONDON. 83
engaged in wars with their neighbours, and wanting a place of safety in which to leave their wives, children and cattle, when they marched out to battle, de- termined to build a town. For this purpose, they fixed on a dry and healthy spot of ground, rising above the marshes which lay to the east of it ; with a broad and deep river to the south, and a great forest to the north and west, well stocked with stags and wild boars. Here they raised a great cluster of huts without windows or chimneys, and threw up a mud wall around them. And this was the origin of London ! The town was probably founded before the time of Caesar ; but he makes no mention of it. Not long afterwards, however, it grew a place of consequence ; foreign merchants found it out, and visited it by means of its noble river Thames ;
84 LONDON.
and the inhabitants soon became great traders. They exported cattle, hides, com, a few dogs, probably mastiffs, for which this country has always been famous, and what is shocking to tell — their own fellow-countrymen, whom they sold for slaves. In return, they imported salt, earthenware, works in brass, horse-collars, and toys of bone and amber.
The Romans possessed themselres of London among their first conquests ; probably there were a great number of Romans there when Boadicea took it, and made so great a slaughter and destruction. After this, the Romans sent a magistrate every year from Rome to be its governor, for they were afraid to trust the people to govern them- selves. By degrees it grew a rich and luxurious city ; the natives learned the fioman language and manners ; many
LONDON. 85
of them liked to wear the Roman dress, which was a long gown, called the tog^ and they began to imitate them in their great feasts and fine houses^ and delicate baths. At the same time they grew lazy and cow- ardly, aud quite reconciled to being a.CDQqwred people governed by fo- Tj^gaers, provided th^ could gadn ri0he$ and buy all these new bixuries which Ihey had become so fond of. . . In ,tite mecin time, the Romsui offi- C0irj3 wept on introducing into the coun^- try miaBy things really; useful and agx^eeable. You have heard that the ^i^anders had at first no fruits but a few poor berries ; such as bilberries^ black- berries, cranberries, hips and haws, cfrabs and aloes ; and perhaps a few wood, strawberries and wild raspber- ries; but the Romans soon planted some of the iin^^r kinds of fruits^ which they
86 LONDON.
bad themselves brought from the de^ lightful countries of Lesser Asia, when they had conquered and made them part of their great empire, LucuUus; a very rich Roman, famous for bis lux- urious table, had introduced the cherry into Italy from the kingdom of Pontus, of which he had been governor ; and not a great many years after, the cherry found its way into the remote Britain, which the Romans considered as al- most another world. Probably the peach, nectarine, and apricot soon foL lowed ; the apple was brought very early, and as a great favour, the Romans gave leave to the Britons to plant vines, which this proud people did not allow to all their conquered provinces.
Besides this, they built bridges, and made straight roads all across the coun- try from i^ide to side and from end to end, ' which were so firmly paved with stone,
XONDON. 87
that remains of them may be seen in many places to this day ; they also taught the arts of burning brick and mixing mortar ; and they raised tem- ples and other public buildings.
At last they took.awa:y the old earth mound which the Britons had thrown up round London, built a fort where the Tower now stands, and surrounded the town with walls so thick and strong, that they might still be standing if they had not been pulled down, for the sake of convenience, in modern times ; indeed it was only a very few years ago that the last remains of old London Wall were cleared away.
It is not well known who built this wall ; some think it was Constantine the Great, the first Christian emperor of the Romans ; it is certain, that it was in honour of his mother that the city was ordered to be called Augusta ; it
88 LONDON.
is often called so still by the poets^ who often like to mention things by old and unusual names ; but the old name of London soon came into common use again ; indeed most likely it wai} never quite left off.
Many Roman relics have been dug up in London from time to time, such as pieces of earthenware, beads, rings, coins, and various utensils. Under Bow church, were found the walls, windows, and pavement of a Roman templC) and near it the old Roman causeway, buried very deep in the soil ; two or three cemeteries, or placeig for the remains of the dead, have been discovered, which were filled with urns containing ashes and cinders of bones, for it was the custom of the Romans to burn their dead. In digging the foundations of the present St. Paul's, which was built on the place of an
\
LONDON. 89
older church, they found a large and very curious cemetery. First lay the jSaxons, who conquered Britain after die Romans; and they were in coffins made of stones hollowed out, or in graves lined with chalk-stones. Be- neath them had been the bodies of the Britons laid in rows, and their places were marked by pins of ivory or box- wood, which were thought to have fas- tened their shrouds — but both shrouds and bones had mouldered away. Under these again, were found Roman urns, and lamps, and lacrymatories, — that is, bottles to hold tears — and near these were vessels used in performing sacrifices.
And this is nearly all that can now be known of that ancient London; though it was made by the Romans a rich and great city, aud the capital of their Britannia.
I 2
coast of Lesser Asia, there wa cient times a magnificent temp in honour of the goddess Diana Ephesians looked upon it as thi of their city, and strangers cam far and near to behold it, and their devotions and make gifts goddess. At length, one unlucky flames were seen to burst forth the roof, and before they could 1 tinguished it was burned down ground.
THE BURNER AND THE PLANTER. 91
that by this act his name might be rendered for ever memorable. The rulers of the country, in hopes of dis* appointing him of this reward of his evil deed, made a law that his name should never be mentioned ; but even this law made it more celebrated, and it is known to this day, that the man who was possessed with this abominable ambition was one Eratosthenes, of whom nothing else is known.
Many other men have wished to be remembered after their deaths by use- less works, like the builders of the pyramids of Egypt, or by wicked ones, like all great conquerors, someofwhom, among the nations of the East, have reared vast pyramids of the skulls of their enemies killed in battle, as monu- ments of their great and glorious vic- tories. Other men have been content
92 THE BURNER AND THE PLANTER.
to know in their own hearts^ that they have endeavoured during life to do good works, the benefit of which will be felt by others after they are dead and gone ; and they have not so much cared whether their names would be remembered and honoured by their fellow^creatures or not ; knowing that there is One who takes account of all the works of the children of men. * Such must have been the humble coun- tryman of whom a writer has told the following story : " I very often remem- ber with pleasure an old man (I am sure near a hundred) whom I rode by in a journey to Devonshire, and ob- served in the midst of a field that had newly been ploughed, veiy busy with a stick and a basket. When I came up to the place he was at work in, I found he was making holes in the ground, and in every one of them
MARCO POLO. 93
planting an acorn. ' Friend^' said I, *■ is it for profit or for pleasure you labour?' * For neither, sir,' replied the honest old patriot ; ^ but here will be a grove when I want no shelter.' "
MARCO POLO.
You have heard, I dare say, of the famous and beautiful city of Venice, called the Queen of the Adriatic. It seems to rise out of the bosom of the sea itself; for it is built on several small low islands, with canals across and between them, which serve for streets ; so that no sound of wheels is to be heard in the place, but all the people go about in barges.
Some ages past, Venice was the most famous merchant-city not only of Italy
now are ; for it was before the \ guese had ventured to sail Africa by the Cape of Good and found out that way to the I They were carried overland, thousands of tedious miles, on the of camels, to some place on the of the Black Sea, or theMeditem to which the merchants of the We especially of Venice, sent large to fetch them, and to carry in exc the different kinds of eroods ma
MARCO POLO. 95
to distant lands, to buy and seW ; and sometimes in these travels of theirs they met with very curious adventures, as you shall hear. .
It was in the year 1250 that two brothers of a noble family named Polo, took their departure from Venice in a ship of their own, laden with various merchandize, and sailed to Constanti-r nople, intending to return in the course of a yeair. From Constantinople they took ship again, and crossing the Black Sea, travelled to the court of a certain Tartar prince who reigned over the country beyond, and having first gained his favour by a present of some fine jewels which they had brought with them, they were kindly entertained by him for the space of a twelvemonth, after which they desired to return home; but before they could .begin their journey a war broke out in the
«M.«,^^ , — ^
reached the famous city of Bocha the further side of the great kin of Persia. Here the king hbsp received them^ and not knowing else to do, or whither to betake selves, they tarried with him whole years.
After this time there came t ambassadors from the famous K Khan, chief of all the Tartars, mighty conqueror, whose dom stretched far and wide over th
MARCO POLO. 97
well knowing that their great master loved to talk with the men of distant lands, persuaded the two Polos to ride in their company to his court. They were another whole year on their jour- ney, the way was so long and so diffi- cult ; but at length they reached the end^ Kublay Khan made them very welcome^ and finding them men of skill, employed them in many services, s^nd especially in devising machines £qv attaqking a great city in China, .where he was then making his con- quests. And after they had followed his commands there for many years, he gave them in charge to carry a mes- sage from him to the Pope at Rome, cmd return to him again.
This business held them very long; and they now took an opportunity to pay a visit to their native city. There they found the wife of one of them dead; and
K
98 MARCO POLO.
her son Marco, who was not even bom at the time of his father's departure, now a youth of nineteen years of age ; for so long had their travel^s lasted. They took him back with them, and at last they all three reached the court of the great Khan. He caused young Marco to be instructed with other youths his servants, and then he sent him on many journeys and embassies from one end of his vast empire to the other, and afterwards he caused him to make different long voyages through the un- known seas of the further India, view- ing all its coasts and islands. And after he had made an end of the con- quest of China, and went and held his court in Cambalu, the chief city which is now called Pekin, he took Marco in his company, and made him governor over a province.
Thus it was that Marco learned
»
MARCO POLO. 99
the languages of thos6 far countries, and observed the different tribes and races of men who dwelt in them, and their various manners and customs, all new and strange to him. He also saw their many great and peopled cities, with stately palaces, and tombs, and tem- ples, glittering with gilded roofs; and their mighty rivers crowded with ships. He observed their wonderful beasts and birds, and trees of tall growth, with precious wood or fruits made to sup- port the life of man. He visited their shops and markets, and took note of all their heaps and stores of rich and precious merchandize ; — whatever the bountiful earth had freely brought forth, under the hot suns, or the art and labour of man had made and contrived ; and he wrote down the whole in a book.
At last, after these men had seen
wilting to lose them, giving then gifts at parting. They took ship China, with certain ambassadors an Indian king who were retui home. It was a voyage of eigl months through perils and hards before they could reach his cou and then a tedious and toilsome ney onwards; but they perform all ; and then embarking once s on the Black Sea, they sailed to stantinople, and reached their n
MARCO POLO. 101
. Tartars, and their features had passed away from the memory of all their friends, and they feared that none would own them. Therefore they sent round and invited all their family and kinsmen to a great feast; and when they were come, they all three appeared before them in rich dresses of crimson satin ; but these they soon stripped off, and gave them to the servants who waited, putting on richer ones of crim- son velvet ; and these again they strip- ped off and gave away in like manher,^ and appeared in robes of crimson da- mask richer still. Then, at last, Marco brought forth their Tartar dresses, made of felt, like a man's hat, and ripping them open, they drew forth an inesti- mable store of jewels which they had gained in their travels, and amongst them the old family jewels of the Polos. And when their kinsmen saw these,
k2
After this, Marco, being on a Venetian ship which was tak the Genoese in a sea-fight, was c prisoner to Genoa, where he la} before they would release him. the young men of that city would visit him in his prison, and as] to tell them stories of his travels at last they persuaded him to lei all be written down and publisl
Very great wonder did his s raise in all who read them; i
THE TWO LORD CLIFFORDS. lOS
Indian Sea ; or indeed, who had the slightest notion that there were any kingdoms and empires of civilised men to the east of the land of Persia. Little did they suspect that in those Eastern countries were numberless ancient and mighty nations, where millions of man- kind, feeding on rice and clothed in silk and in cotton, had flourished for ages, reading and writing, and build- ing great cities, and practising many curious arts, whilst the finest countries of Europe were still overrun by naked savages dwelling in caves and feeding on acorns.
THE TWO LORD CLIFFORDS
In the reign of King Henry the Sixth there began great civil wars in Eng- land ; that is, wars in which English- men fought with Englishmen, and not
friendSi and Deign oours a^aaaio*,
bours; nay, it has even been
that a brother has met his bro
battle, or a son his father, and <
killed the other without being
of it The cause of these troub
that some people wished King
and his family, who were of th<
of the dukes of Lancaster, to c
to rule over them ; and other
thought that Henry's cousin 1
duke of York and his childre t--A4 — «:«.k«. on/) cfmvf^ to mal
THE TWO LORD CLIFFORDS. 105
commander on the same side, and tvas killed by the Yorkists in a battle fought at St. Albans, and this had enraged the young lord so much that bethought he could never take sufficieht revenge upon them. Five years after, a battle was fought near Wakefield in York- shire, in which the Lancastrians won the day and the duke of York wa$ taken prisoner. His second son the earl of Rutland, a boy not twelve years old, was with him in the field ; i^nd when all was lost^ a priest who was his tutor endeavoured to escape with him into the shelter of the town. But the terrible lord Cliflford, observing the rich dress of the young earl, pursued him and overtook him on the bridge. The poor boy was too much frightened to speak a word ; but he fell down on his knees at Clifford'^ feet, and held up his clasped hand^v
hereaner. *"- —
Clifford cried, "Thy father slei
and so will I thee and all th And he struck his dagger mto t
boy's heart.
Then Clifford and some oth the duke of York who w priwner and seated him u ftnt.hiU,and they plaited a < irrMS and put it on his head mockery, and bending their k pretending to do him homt Li^ « Hail kinor without a K
THE TWO LORD CLIFFORDS. 107
woman, to whose eyes he well knew that the shocking sight would be welcome.
By these savage deeds Clifford gained the name of the Butcher, and it was not long before vengeance over- took him, for the next year, at the battle fought at Towton in Yorkshire, being surrounded by his enemies, he was wounded by an arrow in the throat and died on the spot.
The son of Richard duke of York was now king, under the name of Ed- ward the Fourth, and the widow of lord Clifford, fearing lest this prince should cause the young lord her son to be murdered in revenge for the death of his brother Rutland, sent him secretly away into Westmoreland, where the family estates lay, and had him brought up there among the moors and the moun- tains, like a poor shepherd boy. He was at this time only seven years old,
108 THE TWO LORD CLIFFORDS.
aad he grew up without knowing who he was, or the rank which he was born to. They did not even dare, it is said, to teach him to write, for fear it should be suspected that he was of higher birth than he seemed. , Four and twenty years did this young lord lead the innocent life of a ihepherd, unknown and forgotten, but at the end of that time Henry the Seventh came to the crown, and he, being of the house of Lancaster, re- stored to Clifford the estates and ho- nours of his family, which the Yorkists had taken 'away at his father's death. Yet this simple man had sense to know that he who had been bred like a shep- herd was not fit to come to the king's court, and appear like a lord ; and he went and lived retired in a small house ou.his. own estate, where he could im- prove his mind with reading, and amuse
COLUMBUS. 109
himself with studying astronomy ; for when he was a shepherd he had learned to observe the stars. And having been a poor man himself, he knew how to pity the poor ; and, in^ stead of being proud and hard-heaited like the former lords, he was so kind to his. poor tenants and servants an<} neighbours, and so humble and affable to all, that he lived to a good old agd beloved and respected ; and down to this very day a memory of him is kept' up among the shepherds of Westmore-s land, and he is called The good lord Clifford.
COLUMBUS.
It is now almost four hundred years) ago, that there was born in the cityjof Geppa in Italy, Christopher Golumbus/ His family were almost all sailors, and
i brought up for a sailor als jtnd after being taught geography ai larious other things necessary for ■ea-captain to know, he was sent ( loard ship at the age of fourteen.
His first voyages were short om
lip and down the Mediterranean ; b
degrees he began to want to s
jnore of the world, so he sailed in
he great Northern Ocean, as far
I Iceland, and a good deal furtht
in he entered on board a
COLUMBUS. Ill
ages to the Western coast of Africa, and to the Canaries and the Madeiras and Azoces, all of them islands^ lyit^g off that coast; and which were then the most westerly lands knoWn to Eu- ropeans.-
, In his visits to these parts one per- son informed him that his ship, sailing put further to the West than usual, had picked up out of the sea a piece of wood curiously carved, but plainly not with an iron tool: then he was told by others that carved pieces of wood of the same kind had been thrown on the coast of Madeira, and that very thick canes, like those which travellers had found in India, had been seen floating on the waves ; also, that grfeat trees, torn up by the roots, had often been cast on shore ; and once two dead bodies of men with strange features, neither like Europeans nor Africans.
the West) he looKea upuu tuc tokens, sent from some unk countries lying far awiay in that ter, to invite, and as it were be men from the East to go over tl to visit them, and make discovei When once this notion had hold of him, he was eager to sail und explore ; but as he had not i enough himself to fit out ship hire- sailors, he determined to g try to persuade some king, or
COLUMBUS. Ii3
dreaming with his eyes open, and no- body would give him a fair hearing. As they would have nothing to say to him there, away he went to the king of Portugal. He understood more af these matters than the Genoese; for the Portuguese were great discoverers at this time, and had lately found out the passage to India by the Cape of Good Hope ; so he ordered some skil- ful men to hear fully what Columbus had to propose. These men persuaded the king to be so dishonest as to steal Columbus's plan, and send out one of his own captains instead, to look out for countries in the West. But this captain met with contrary winds, and soon turned back without making any discoveries : and when Columbus found out how ill the king had used him, he would stay no longer in Portugal, but away he .went to Spain to make his
l2
114 COLUMBUS.
proposals to king Ferdinand and queen Isabella. They appointed some people, ,aftera time, to inquire into his schemes, and he was obliged to wait at their court for his answer.
The Spaniards are generally very dow and cautious about every thing ; and if Columbus had not been as wise and patient and constant, as he was brave, he would have given up the whole business in despair. Sometimes they gave him hopes and promises, then they made difficulties and objec- tions and would do nothing. At the end of five years, thinking it in vain to wait longer there, he had det^r- inined to go to England, whither he had sent one of his brothers before, who had been kindly received by king Henry the Seventh ; and he was just setting off, when a friend gave him some fresh hopes in Spain, and he
COLUMBUS. 115
agreed to stay there yet a little longer.
. This lUtle longer was spun out to two years ; but then at last he had his reward ; for queen Isabella stood his friend, and gave him three ships, very small ones indeed, for they carried all together no more than a hundred and twenty men ; and with these he set sail, in sight of a vast crowd, all praying for his success, but astonished at his boldness in tempting the perils of an untried ocean, and never expecting, and scarcely hoping, to see either him or any of his crews again.
Columbus first made sail for the Canaries ; where he repaired his ves- sels which were all old and crazy; then, taking leave of these last islands, he steered his course due West across the great Atlantic, where never ship bad ploughed the waves before. No
116 COLUMBUS.
sooner had they lost sight of land than the sailors' hearts began to fail them, and weeping and beating their breasts, they bewailed themselves like men condemned to die; but Columbus cheered and comforted them with hopes of the rich countries they were to dis- cover.
After a while theycame within those regions where the trade windy as it is called, blows constantly from East to West without changing, and this car- ried them on at a vast rate ; but after some time they found the sea covered with weeds, as thick as a meadow with grass, and the sailors fancied that they should soon be stuck fast, that they had reached the end of the navigable ocean, and that some strange thing would befall them. Still, however, Columbus cheered them on, and the sight of a flock of birds encouraged
COLUMBUS. 117
them. But when they had been three weeks at sea, and no land appeared, they grew desperate with fear, and plotted amongst themselves to force their commander to turn back again, lest all their provisions should be spent; or,, if he refused, to throw him over- board. Columbus, however, made them a speech which had such an effect upon them that they became tolerably quiet for a week longer. Several times in- deed they fancied they saw islands at a distance ; but they proved to be only clouds. Then they grew so vio- lent again, that he knew not how to appease them, and at last, they say, he was obliged to promise, that if they did not see land in three days he would consent to give it up and sail home again.
But he was now almost sure that land was not far off — the sea grew
COLUMBUS.
Ballower ; early every morning flock T land birds began to flutter arouni lem, and cheer them with their swee ■arblings ; and these little songster 11 left the ships in the evenings, as i \ roost on shore. One of the vessel pd picked up a cane newly cut, an) pother a branch covered with fresl md berries ; and the air blew sofle lid warmer, and the wind began t< That very night, therefore, Co IS ordered the sails to be takei
COLUMBUS. 119
foremost ship ; and at dawn of day they plainly saw a beautiful island, green and woody, and watered with many pleasant streams, lying stretched before them. Columbus was the first to leap on shore, to kiss the earth, and to thank God on his knees : his men followed ; and throwing themselves at his feet, they all thanked him for lead- ing them thither, and begged his for- giveness for their disrespectful and unruly behaviour. The poor inhabi- tants, a simple and innocent people with copper-coloured skins, came flock- ing down to the beach^ and paid ho- mage to the white men as to gods.
This was one of the West Indian islands called by the natives Guana- hani ; afterwards Columbus found se- veral other very large and fruitful isles; at length he landed upon the coast of the great continent itself; and
120 THE GRATEFUL
this is the history of the discovery of America, or the New World.
THE GRATEFUL AND THE MORE GRATEFUL.
. There was once in France a poor boy, the son of a butcher, named Amyot. When he was only ten years old, being threatened with a beating, he was so frightened that he ran away from home, and wandered on, not knowing what to do, or whither to go. At last he was found by a gentleman sitting by the road side, weary and forlorn, and very ill. The gentleman pitied him so much, that he took him up behind him on his horse, and car- ried him to the next town, which was Orleans, where he sent him to an hospital.
At the hospital they nursed him and
AND THE MORE GRATEFUL. 121
took care of him till he was quite wel)^ and then charitably supplied him with a little money to bear his expenses home again.
Amyot afterwards went to study at Paris^ and became a learned and dis- tinguished person ; and partly by his Own merit and diligence, partly by lucky chances, he got into favour with many great people, and at last with the king himself, who made him a rich man. But Amyot in the midst of all his good fortune and grand acquaintance, never, djaring his whole life, <;eased to re- member his first benefactors at Orleans, wha had taken pity on him when he was a poor forlorn little boy ; and when lie died, he left a large sum of money to the hospital where he had been sa kindly relieved. This showed a good heart, and proved that he had not grown proud with his success ; for if
tell you a stronger instance ot gi
than this.
There was once a great m
who was thought to be very r
he lived in .a fine house, fin
nished^ and kept carriages and
and gave great entertainmen
lived like a lord. And a great i
his neighbours, believing him
so rich trusted him with their
to keep for them ; and the.tra
and shopkeepers of all. kinds 1-Ai-i 1 ->- 1. -- 1 1-
AND THE MOR£ GRATEFUL. 123
then it was found that he had left no money at all behind him ; he had spent all that he had of his own, and all that , other people had trusted him with, and nobody could get payment for any of the things he had bought of them, and many were ruined by their losses. So every body said, very truly, that he was a bad dishonest man, and had cheated the whole town. And people were so angry with him, i and so ashamed of hirUi that his oldest ac- quaintance and most intimate friends, nay even his nearest relations, all re- fused to attend his funeral.
But there was a tradesman in the town, a plain, unlearned, working man, but one who had a heart to feel what was right and handsome, and a spirit to do it ; and he came forwards and said ; " This poor gentleman who is dead has been a true friend of mine.
couragement^ and recommea< to customers; and all the gc cebs I have had since was owing to him. Other peoj think of his evil deeds, but duty to remember his good one ever he may deserve from t was entitled to respect and g from me. Jwill attend his fui who will stay away."
And he followed the bod despised benefactor to the gra' in sight of every one.
125
THE SLOTH.
In the gloomy forests of Guiana, an extensive country which occupies a considerable portion of the Eastern coast of South America, — forests where enormous serpents make their home, and scorpions and many venoitious in- sects ; and where innumerable thorny bushes and dangerous swamps, or bogs, join to obstruct the steps of civilized man, there lives an animal, about the size of a moderate dog, called the Sloth. It is even here a scarce and solitary animal, for the native inhabitants of the country, the Indians, find its flesh so delicious that they never suffer it to escape when they meet it.
As soon « as ever one of these was taken alive and brought over to Europe, this name was given it, from the slug- gishness of its motions and the sleepi-
M 2
r
126 THE SLOTH.
ness of its air ; and many people won- dered how so awkward and helpless a creature could contrive to live; and pitied it as the lowest and most unfor- tunate of all the beasts of the earth. When set on the ground, either the fore legs seemed much too long, or the hind legs too short ; and both Were joined to the body in such a clumsy fashion, that instead of being able to stand up, the creature dropped with his belly to the earth. Then his feet ^nded in claws so enormously long, that he could scarcely have set his feet flat down, even if he had had soles to them; but he had none, and there- fore when he did attempt, to walk it was upon the tips of his claws. On a smooth floor he could not get on at all, unless he could catch hold of some- thing with his claws to pull himself along by. AH this while he would
THE SLOTH. 127
utter such strange and piteous cries, that people fancied his voice was given him for a defence, and served to frighten away the wild beasts, who would otherwise seize and devour him whenever they pleased, for it was plain he could not run away. It was found however that this strange animal had the power of living without food for many weeks together ; and also that he had great strength in his arms, as they might be called, and that he was as slow in loosening his grasp as in any other of his motions ; and he was known to hold a dog, which at- tacked him, fast hugged till it died of hunger, while the sloth himself suffered not in the least by his fast.
But at length it has been discovered for certain, that this Shth is no slug- gard at all, neither is he helpless nor miserable ; none of God's good crea-
1
128 THE SLOTH.
tures are created so; he made them all to be happy, each in its own way and according to its nature and capa- city, and to show forth his wisdom and goodness who breathed into them the breath of life. Hear how he has been described by a traveller who has had the courage to explore those dark and dangerous forests, and viewed hini wild and in his native haunts !
The Sloth is the only quadruped known, doomed to spend his whole life in the trees, and not like the mon- key and the squirrel upon the branches, but under them. He moves suspended from a branch ; he rests thus, and thus he sleeps ; and to do this he must be very differently formed from any other animal. It is to be observed, that he does not hang head downwards, like the vampire-bat ; when asleep he sup- ports himself in a kind of sitting pos-
THE SLOTH. 129
ture. He first seizes the branch with one arm, and then with the other, and after that brings up both his legs, one by one, to the same branch ; so that all four are in a line. He seems per- fectly at his ease in this position ; and indeed if we examine his fore legs, we shall immediately perceive by their .firm and fleshy texture, how very ca- pable they are of supporting the pen- dent weight of his body, both in climbing and at rest. It is plain 4oo from his whole form that he can n^ver be at ease in any situation where his body is higher than his feet, or above them. In climbing, he never uses bis arms both together, but first one and then the other, and so on alternately. If he had a long tail, he would be at a loss what to do with it in his pen- dent posture ; if he were to draw it up with his legs, it would interfere with
130 THE SLOTH.
them ; and if he let it hang down^ it would become the sport of the winds ; accordingly, what he has is a mere apology for a tail, scarcely exceeding an inch and a half in length.
There is this singularity in his hair, different from any other animal ; it is thick and coarse at the ends, and gra- dually tapers towards the root, where it becomes as fine as the finest spider's web. His fur is so much the hue of the moss which grows on the branches, that it is very difficult to make him out when at rest. There is a saying among the Indians, that when the wind blows, the sloth begins to travel. In calm weather he keeps quiet, probably not liking to cling to the ends of the boughs, which are thin and brittle, lest they should break with him in passing from tree to tree ; but as soon as the wind riseS;^ the branches of the
THE SLOTH. 131
neighbouring trees become interwoven, and then the sloth seizes hold of them and pursues his journey in safety. And in these forests there is seldom a whole day of calm ; for in hot climates like this, there is a wind called the ' trade- wind, which blows constantly every day at a certain hour; and this generally begins about ten o'clock in the morning ; so that the sloth may set , off after breakfast and get a con- sidei^ble way before d inner. He travels at a good round pace,' and if you were to see him pass from tree to tree, you wouldiiever think of calling him aSloth. This creature is the three-toed Sloth ; there is another kind somewhat smaller, but very like the first, which inhabitsr the same countries, and is distinguished chiefly by having only two toes, with long claws, on each foot. Of him the same writer tells the following story: *
132 ' THE SLOTlf.
One day, as we were crossing the river Essequibo, I saw a large ttea-toed sloth on the ground, upon the bank ; how he had got there nobody could tolh Be this as it may, though the trees were not above twenty yards iW>m him, he could not make his way through the sand time enough to eftcii{>6 before we landed.
As soon as we got up to him he threw himself upon his back, and de- f^ded himself in gallant style with hit fore legs. I took up a long stick whieh WM lying there, held it for him to hook on, and then conveyed him to a high and stately tree. He mounted with wonderful speed, and in about a minute he was almost at the top. He now virent off in a side direction, and caught hold of the branch of a neighbouring tree ; he then proceeded towards the heart of the forest. I stood
THE WESTERN WILDERNESS. 133
looking on^ lost in amazement at his singular mode of progress.
And so much for the poor despised sloth, who ought now to be honoured with a better name.
THE WESTERN WILDERNESS.
Towards the centre of North Ame- rica, there are wide tracts of country, stretching many hundreds of miles from North to South, and from East to West, which are almost uninhabited. On the Eastern coast of this vast con- tinent, which is washed by the Atlan- tic Ocean, lie the provinces of the' United States, peopled by a race of men who came at first from England, and who still speak our language and follow our manners.
The Western shores bounded by the
N
country is still left free to tl of native Indians who have ne subdued by Europeans.
These tribes however are fc the number of men in each tril small; for they destroy one by continual wars; and the far too wide for these poor hui keep as their own, or even to over, though they sometimes to great distances in pursuit c game. Thus it hannens tlii
THE WESTERN WILDERNESS. 136
Yet the land is fair and fertile ; and suited for men to till, and to plant, and to make their abode in : thick forests of stately trees, fit to build ships or houses, cover the face of the country in some parts, whilst in others wide grassy plains, fit to grow corn or feed cattle^ stretch as far as the eye can reach ; various wild fruits, and among the rest grapes of fine flavour, spread a feast for the beasts and the birds> which the traveller would gladly share* Many mighty rivers, so broad and deep, and of such a length of course, that the boasted streams of Europe are but brooks to them, overflow their banks every season, and nourish thou- sands of beautiful and sweet-smelling plants, good for food, or for physic, or other uses of man. Rugged moun- tains, barren sands, and dismal marshes are but sparingly intermixed ; and the
136 THE WESTERN WILDERNESS.
climate, though both very hot in sum- mer and very cold in winter, is healthy on the whole, and often exceedingly delightful. It is likely that, a few ages hence, Uie Americans of English blood will have spread themselves far and wide over this lovely wilder- ness; and towns, and villages, and pleasant farms will arise, and the busy hum of men will resound where now all is savage and rude, and no voice of speech is heard.
Meantime, though man is not here, vast multitudes of other living crea- tures, beasts, and birds, and fishes, and reptiles, and insects, innumerable tribes, possess the land, and live, and bring forth young ; and all are happy according to their natures. Prodigious herds of buflfaloes, or wild oxen, wander over the open country and quench their thirst on the margins of the rivers.
I
THE WESTERN WILDERNESS. 137
At some seasons of the year, the bulls fight furiously, rushing together with all their force, and each striving to gore the other with his horns; their frightful bellowing may then be heard for many, many miles together, re- sounding on all sides like peals of the loudest thunder ; and at that time nei- ther man nor beast dares venture near them. When these animals have eaten up the herbage or drunk the springs dry in one region, they move on to- wards another, like a great army on its march. They are followed and watched by bears and troops of large wolves, who seize upon those which fall sick, or lame, and lag behind, and devour them in numbers ;' but still the great host moves steadily along, fear- ing nothing. At length they reach the high steep banks of a river ; they rush on eager to drink ; those behind
N 2
138 THE WESTERN WILDERNESS.
press violently against those before, and push them on, in spite of them- selves, till they are driven over the edge of the bank, and are either maimed or dashed in pieces by the fall. Hundreds are sometimes killed in this manner : the eagles who build their nests in the islands of the river, watch them as they come tumbling over, and pouncing down, tear them as they lie with their sharp beaks and strong hooked talons.
There are also many different kinds of deer, and of antelopes, or roebucks, and goats, and a sort of sheep, all which creatures either pasture in the plains in herds, like the buffaloes, or wander ab6ut, in families or little troops, some feeding on the acorns, or brousing on the leaves of the fo- rests; others climbing the rocks to nibble on the short turf. These are
^
THE WESTKRN WILDERNESS. 139
preyed upon by smaller wolves, and by several animals of the tiger or cat kind.
In the grassy plains there are little creatures a good deal like marmots, which are sometimes called whistling hares ; they burrow in the ground, and throw up the earth in little hillocks, on which they sit whistling, or squeak- ing, with all their might ; they live a great number of them together, in towns or villages of their own ; yet it is very difficult to catch, or even to get a good view of them ; for they keep a sharp look out, and the mo- ment a man comes near, they leave off whistling, and all pop down into their holes in an instant. There are some other little burrowing animals, and three or four sorts of squirrels ; and a mouse which lays up great stores of a sort of bean for its winter provision '
J
140 THE WESTERN WXLDERNE5S.
but the poor Indians often rob its nest to keep themselves alive when game is scarce. Of bears there are different colours and sizes; some live a good deal on acorns. and various nuts and fruits, and on beetles, of which there are vast numbers; but. even these will feast on a fat beaver if he comes in their way. The largest kind, called the grizzly bear, is the most terrible beast of prey in that quarter of ..the world, except perhaps the great white bear of the North. It is very little less. than an ox; the print of its foot is twice as large as a man's ; it has a very thick shaggy coat, a savage eye, and a horribly wide mouth ; and its strength is prodigious.
A traveller in the wilderness being pursued by one of these terrible crea- tures, got up into a large tree; the grizzly bear cannot climb trees, like
CHARLES THE BOLD. 141
other bears, because he is too heavy, therefore he stood below, shaking the trunk with his enormous paws and trying to tear it up. He shook so vio- lently that the poor traveller lost his hold and tumbled down ; but very luckily he fell plump on the body of the bear, who was so frightened by the isudden blow, that he started up, and -ran away as fast as he could ; and you may believe that the traveller did not choose to run after him.
CHARLES THE BOLD.
Charles, duke of Burgundy, was a prince who deserved to be called the Bad, or, as he was sometimes called^ Rash, full as well as the Bold. He was violent, and impatient, proud, and hard of heart. It happened, that the
142 .CHARLES THE BOLD.
good and honest people of Switzerland did something which gave him great offence, and he threatened to make .war upon them. He was strong and powerful, and therefore the poor Swiss very humbly oflFered to do every thing
• they possibly could to satisfy him, and to repair any fault he thought they had committed against him ; but he would not listen to any thing they could pro- pose. . They then represented to him, that their country was small, and.bar- ren, and mountainous ; and that they themselves were so very poor, that if he could take them all prisoners and make them pay ransom, and they were to give him all that they had in the world to redeem their lives, they could
I not give enough to pay even for the spurs and bits of his grand war horses; so that it was not worth his while to fight with them.
k
CHARLES THE BOLD. 143
- But Charles was too fierce and too obstinate to be moved by any of their reasons or entreaties, and he marched an army to besiege a town of theirs called Granson. The garrison was obliged to surrender to his mercy, and mercy he had none, for he put them every man to death. Just after this cruel execution, the Swiss army came up, and he gave them battle. Partly by his own bad management, his men were beaten, and ran away as ftist as they could to save their lives ; leaving their camp, witb their tents arid every thing th^F had in thein to fall into the hands of the Swiss. '. There was plenty of rifch plunder, besides tents and clothes and otKer useful things; for the diike, out' of pride, had brought widi him his finest silver plate, atid all his grand otmaments and jewels. But the pbo1r Swiss knew so little about iVies.^ ^kl^
144 CHARLES THE BOLD.
things^ that they took the silver cups and dishes for pewter, and sold them almost for nothing ; and the soldier who had got the duke's best diamond, which was one of the largest in Europe, after tossing it carelessly about, sold it for one silver coin, worth about eighteen pence.
Charles the Bold slunk away from this unlucky field of battle, very much vexed and very much ashained, and all his enemies rejoiced and made a mock of him. But after a while he resolved to take his revenge^ and he marched forth against them again with a fresh army. This time the Swiss had * made themselves stronger than before ; for they had got horse' soldiers now to ride after their enemies if they should run away once more, and to kill or take them. And they fought so bi*avely that they gained another ^reat victory, and slew many thou-
CHARLES THE BOLD. 145
sands of the duke of Burgundy's men; and Charles himself, who had made quite sure of conquering that poor little peaceful country, was obliged to flee away and hide himself. Then the Swiss collected together the bones of all his men who had been slain into one great heap, and raised a building over them, and they put an inscription upon it saying thus : "Charles the Bold, dufce of Burgundy, having invaded this country with a mighty host, left this monument of his deeds behind him." This is called the battle of Morat, from the place where it was fought ; and the heap of bones with the in- scription was shown by the Swiss with honest pride for several ages ; but the French wickedly destroyed it somie years ago, when they invaded the country. Charles the Bdd mcJt with the fate he deserved, being defeated
o
INFERENCE-MAKING.
" What is the matter wil thumb, my dear, that you ha\ wrapped up?" said a lady om her little girl. " I have cut it, r with my new knife." " Ah ! ' were holding the knife in y hand.'' The little girl loob prised. " O no! indeed, mj she cried, " I never hold a 1 my left hand now." " No ? pr
INFERENCE-MAKING. 147
is told as an example of what is called, making an inference^ which is a way of finding out something which we do not know, from 3ome other thing which we do know. ' This.is a very curious and useful art, and it will be therefore worth while to give you a few more examples, that you may understand clearly what it is.
;; A dog, it is said, can make an in- ference ; for when he has lost sight of his master, and follows him by the scent, if he comes to a place whiere three roads part, he will smell at the first, and if the scent is not there, he will smell at the second, but if the scent is not there neither, he will run along the third road without smelling ; thinking thus with himself: My master is not gone this way, nor yet that way therefore he must be gone the third way, since there is no other.
148 IKFERENCZ-MAKING.
I have heard of a more 6ur30iis ior stance of a dog who had cunning enough to draw his master into a false inference. This dog, who was tied up in a yard at nighty had found out that his collar was so loose that he could slip his neck in and out as he pleased ; and he took advant^^ of this to go out in the dark and kill sheep* When he came back after committing this offence, he always put his neck into the collar again, that his master might say, " My dog is safe tied up here, as I left him, therefore it could not have been he who killed the sheep." At last, however, the rogue was closely watched, and his trick found out
Columbus, sailing along ah undis- covered coast, came to the mouth of a river larger than any he had ever seen, he inferred that the land must be a part of some mighty continent, and
INFERENCE-MAKING. 149
not an island ; because all the springs which could rise, and all the rain which could fall in an island, could never, as he calculated, supply water enough to feed so prodigiously broad and deep a river. He was right : this was the first discovery of the great continent of America, and the river was the Orinoko.
A farmer whose land lay near the sea in the marshes of Holland, walk- ing in his fields, spied a live herring in one of the ditches ; and he went directly and sold his estate. Knowing that the herring is a fish never found but in salt water, he inferred from seeing one there, that the sea had found a passage through, or under, the banks raised on the beach to keep it out ; and that it would soon swallow up that part of the country. And sd it proved ; it is now all a great bay
o 2
P50
IXFERESCE-SIAKISG.
;alied the Zuyder Zee. What t! butchman did was wrong; to sell i neighbour land which he belie? [vould soon be turned into water, ti 5rtainly not doing as he would ■lone by ; but his inference was a rig |ind a clever one.
There are some inferences whi Iny body may make who will thii Ind pay attention to common thin pass before his eyes ; others quires knowledge and book-learni
inference-making/ 151
" And you see very clearly now?" " O yes ! " " Well ; what colour is that gown ? " " Black, as a crow, my lord*" " Right And what colour is this cloak ?" " Red, my lord, red as blood." "I will have you whipped," said the duke, " for a rogue and a cheat ; if you had been born blind, and had but just now gained your eye-sight, you would be able to dis- tinguish the colours indeed, but how should you have known the names of them?" This was an inference which any person might make who had his wits about him ; but not so the others which I am going to mention.
Aristippus, a Grecian pkilosopherj which means a lover of wisdom, in passing over from Corinth to Asia, was shipwrecked on the isle of Rhodes. Observing, as they landed, some ma- thematical figures, such as squares,
162 INFERENCE-MAKING.
circles, and triangles, drawn upon the sands, he said to his companions, " Take courage ! I see the footsteps of men ! " inferring, not only that the island must be inhabited by human creatures, but that they could not be savages, since mathematics was known among them. The same Aristippus, having no doubt observed how many inferences his own knowledge had enabled him to make, more than others, said, that it was better to be poor than ignorant, for the poor man wanted only money, but the ignorant man wanted what distinguishes men from brutes.
Some years ago, a stone coffin was dug up in a field near London, and though there was not a single word of writing upoii it, there were persons capable of reading, by inference, very plainly, that the skeleton within had
INFERENCE-MAKING. 153
been a Danish lady of quality in the tim^ of paganiion, or heathenism. Ths^ she belonged to jsome one of the pagan nations who fonnerly possessed this island, was inferred from the placing of the coffin ; which was not laid with its head towards the East^ according to the custom of Christians, but towards the North. But that she was not one of the ancient Britons, was inferred again from its being known that they did not bury In coffins of any kind ; and that she was not a Saxon, although these people were pagans when they first conquered Britain, and were accustomed to use stone coffins, was inferred from her teeth being all filed to a point. This was known to be the mark by which, in ancient times, Danes of noble birth were distinguished from the common people. A Danish lady, therefore, she must have been.
tertainmg interences mey can and this ought to be an encourag to you to take pains to learn \ consider things.
MAN AND HIS SERVANTS
Man is said to be the king of lower animals, because there creature, however it may excel in strength or in swiftness, or h( fierce and savage it may be, wh is not able to conquer by means
MAN AND HIS SERVANTS. 155
spring of the tiger ; but he has Reason on his side; she teaches him to dig the pitfall, to set the trap and spread the snare ; to draw the bow and to load the gun ; and with the help of these, he dreads none of the beasts of the forest or the field. But if he can destroy these fierce creatures, he can- not make servants of them; and though he may indeed strip off* the lion's skin, when he has killed him, to serve him for a cloak, or make a meal on the flesh [of a fat bear, he would find these rather awkward animals to harness to a cart, or to milk, or to ride upon : But for the honour of it, a hunter would rather l)e clothed in a woollen blanket than a lion's hide : and except as a rarity, it is better to dine on beef and mutton than on wolf hams or tiger steaks : though there is an old story about a little boy who was fed
1-56 MAN AND HIS SEIIVANTS.
lion's marrow, which, they s Inade a great hero of him ; but tl J suspect, is little better than an ii Bale.
The earth abounds however with otl Ireatures, eaters of grass and boug Ind herbage, which, though large a ■trong, are so gentle and tractable tl pan has found it worth while to ft 1 to tame tliem, and to make the ; it were, a part of his househo! ; uses of these are various. T
MAN AND BJS SERVANTS. 167
with them into the thickest of the fight, trampling down whole nmks of men and horses. At other times, he carries a gay pavilion, covered with cloth of gold, thickly set with pre^ cious stones, and carefully closed on aH sides with silken curtains ; within which sit the queens and great ladies of the East, whose &ces no man but their husband is permitted ta behold. At other times again, he bears his bold nester to the chace of the tigeif: Uftfsd thm on high above the jaws of the savage animal, be throws^ his spear or aims with his g^ ; and when the tiger, fiuious with his wounds, icings deaperately up against his assaflant, his faidifbl elephant catches him on kta tusks and throws him in the air ; and at last tramples him^ under his heavy feet^ and beats hnn dowtt with hb trunk.
|158 MAN AND HIS SERVANTS.
The industrious camel is the serv
■ of the merchant and the pilgrim ; Iktieels down at the word of comma land receives his burden ; cloth, ors lor the rich shawls of Cashmeeij
■ gums, and drugs, and spices, or c ■perhaps, or bags of treasure, or i Ithe food and the jars of water wh I are to serve the travellers on tl |long and sultry march.
Many men and many camels jourc i; together, are called a caravan
MAN AND HIS SERVANTS. 159
upon by night, and a scanty draught • of muddy water. The camel is called in Arabia The Ship of the Desert, and but for it, the dwellers amongst the -sands would be cut off from all other lands, as if by an impassable ocean. Its milk is sweet and «nourishing, its flesh is wholesome food^ and cloth is woven of its hair.
What the camel is to the Arab, the reindeer is to the poor but contented Laplander; it is his only riches; he feed's on its flesh and its milk, makes his clothing and his bed of its skin, and . by harnessing it to his sledges, travels fast and far oVer the frozen hills of his bare and wintry land, clothed in almost perpetual snows.
Who shall number up the services of the noble horse, the most beautiful of quadrupeds, the pride and delight of his master beyond all other crea-
160 MAN AND HIS SZJSiV ANTS.
tures? He bears the huntsman in the chace of Uie swift ostrich or liie bounding antelope, of the fleet «tag or the hard-running fox. He whirls the light chariot along the level road, drags the heavy-laden waggon; at the sound of the trumpet bears the fierce solctier in pursuit of the flying foe ; or draws the slow plough of the peaceful fau9- bandman. Amcmg the Tartar tribes, the mare is made to yield her tnilk^ and the flesh is a favourite £mmL
Nor is the humble ass to be despiaed ; hard work and scanty fare are almost his constant lot, and often, alas i hard blows also ; yet he is a faithful servant to the poor, and the sick ai^ w^eak find a medicine in the milk.
Whole nations live by their flocks and herds ; from the days of Adam^s first children to the present hour, the ox, the sheep, and in some countries
MAN AND HIS SERVANTS. 161
the goat, have supplied food, cloth- ing, and numberless other articles of the greatest use and convenience to thousands and tens of thousands. The ox too is a fellow-labourer with man ; he draws the plough, treads out the corn, where that is the custom, and is sometimes yoked to the waggon or th^ cart ; nay, as there are some tribes of men who eat their horses, so are there others who ride upon their cows ; and what is much stranger, in ancient Egypt they made a god of a stupid ox, and in India, to the present day, they hold the ox to be a sacred animal, and would as soon think of eating a child as a piece of beef.
There is another creature which man feeds and lodges, though it is neither good to shear nor to milk, which nobody ever thinks of riding upon, or setting to draw a coach, and which
p2
162 MAN AND HIS SERVANTS*.
man, with all his ingenuity, could never persuade to work ; on which account the poor negro slaves say, that he is the gentleman of the world — this is the hog. But he makes amends to his feeder when he is dead, for then every part of him may be turned to some use or other.
And let us not forget the poor cat! that diligent mouse-hunter, that bold destroyer of the fierce rat, who was so prized among the Welch in ancient times, that he who killed the king's cat was obliged to pay as much corn as would completely cover her body when hung up by the tail. The fond^- ling purring cat, so pretty and frolic- some when a kitten ; the pet and play- thing of good children, but whom rude and naughty boys. so cruelly frighten^ and hunt, and torture. Surely poor Pussy is a faithful servant and honestly
MAN AND HIS SERVANTS. 163
earns a little of your milk at breakfast, and her dinner of bones and scraps.
These are all the principal fout- footed servants of man^ excepting one, of whom We will speak another time% Surely no one can leatn and consider how much we are obliged to these poor animals in bo many ways, and what faithfulness and attachment some of them show to their toaster when ht treats them kindly, without being dis- posed to be merciful towards them and to love them. We should never forget that they are in one sense our fellow-creatures, since the same great God who made us, made also them ; and that it is making a wicked return to him for his goodness towards u£(^ to beat and torment those beings whom he formed to be happy.
164
DOG AND MAN.
In the account I have given you of Man and his Servants, it was said that there was one more of them, whom we would speak of another time ; and this is an animal who lives on very different terms with his master from any of the rest, unless, in some degree, the cat. For them he incloses a field with hedges, or makes a fold, or builds a shed or a stable ; he ledds them out to pasture in the meadows, or feeds them in his farm-yard with hay, or straw, or turnips, or gives them com in their manger, or wash in their trough. But this creature he brings home to his own house and his chim- ney corner, feeds him from his table, and will sometimes let him sleep in his chamber, or even on his bed. Others are his slaves, his drudges, but
i
POG AND MAN. 165
iMs creature is his helper, his follower, liis companio&i end his friend. In a.11 climates, in all ages, as far as we kiiow^ k has been the same ; for where^ m the old warld or the new, has xsMl ht^ found without his faithful dog?
The natives of the West Indi4 Islands had tame dogs when the Sp^<- biards first went among them ; ai^d even the poor savages of New Holland have trained their dogs to follow them* The hunter had better be without hiit right haiud than his dog ; and from the wild Indian who roams the Ame^ rican wilderness bow in faahd, to the emperor of China, or the great king of Persia, with their army of followers driving the affrighted game, and sur^ rounding whole forests with their Qetd and toils, and from these again, to a king or nobleman of England galloping in chace of the stag or the fox ; or the
166 DOG AND MAN.
humbler sportsman who levels his fowling-piece at the pheasant or the partridge,— man is every where a hunter, and every where his hound or his spaniel is the sharer of his sport, his fatigues, and his dangers. Who but he, scents out the timid hare, and follows her through all her turns and doublings ? Who but he, pursues and overtakes, and seizes at last the crafty fox, or runs down the stately stag, and tears him as he stands at bay, in spite of his threatening horns ? He dreads not the wolf, nor the tusky boar, nor the huge bear, nor even the lion him- self, nor the still more terrible tiger. Let but his master cheer him on, and he rushes to meet the strongest claws or th^ fiercest fangs : though torn and Ibleeding, he returns again and again to the attack, and lays down his life with- out a murmur at the feet of his lord.
^
DOG AND MAN. 167
The, shepherd of every land must have his brave and faithful dog. Who else shall watch and guard the flock ( as they pasture by day, scaring away the eagle and the sharp-billed raven, and bringing them back when they stray ? . Who else shall guard the fold by night, waking when his master sleeps, and by his bark and his bite drivLg the fox or the hungry wolf from^their helpless prey ?
The herdsman too must have his dog to drive the herd. The gardener must' have him to keep watch about his tempting fruit-trees ; and the rich man will scarcely sleep in peace amid his treasures unless he knows that his faithful mastiff watches to seize the robber . if he should attempt to enter.- The schoolboy must have his terrier or his poodle for a playfellow. The. old lady must have her fat, barking
md forsaken, whom none of h creatures care fbr, if he hai dog, will stiU have one frienc him.
The dog is the wisest of i animals, unless, perhaps, the may dispute it with him ; ai not wise for his own interest or in the care of his youn; quadrupeds are, in some d^ he is capable of friendship, b< his own kind and with man, s seems to love like a fellow-< and at the same time to fear
DOG AND MAN. 160
by misfortune broken his leg, a suiv gf^pn, at hi% master's entreaty, set it fpr him, ^d soon made a perfect cure. 4-^ ^ttle while after, the surgeon, heaiv j^i^ qn^ d^ an extraordmary scraping ^t his d(K>r, on going to see what it iDig|[it be, fouxid it was the dog who ](iaji been his patient, bringing in with hi^L soiother dog of his acquaintance, wl^o h^d met ^rith the like accident, find begging him, by actions as plain as apy words, to cure him also*
In a ^.^Id and mountainous part of Scp.tland)t & Uttle boy, the son of a poor labourer, wandered from home and yvf^ lost. Gr^at search was made ^h^T ^im for several days, but all in y^fi. His father ai^d mother had al- xp^t given up th^ hope of finding him, ^bfn s^meboby took notice that at d^ne; tim^, wUep oatcakes, their only %)^ hfd been given to all the children
— *»**jr 9 VTA* .
the same, they followed him ; found that he went and dr down a steep place into a kii and there, looking over, they poor little boy sitting at the He had slipped down, and c climb up again ; but the good found him out, and every day 1 to feed him with his own din My last story shows, that has a just sense of his own and will not put up with ui usage. One night, a dog h
ifsttar* *»« *» -—
DOG AND MAN. 171
scolding hard at the dog, he went to bed again. Soon after, the dog barked again very loud, and then, finding that nobody attended to him, he came up stairs to the servant's room door, scratching and growling furiously. Again the man \Yent aiid . searched, but again finding nothing, he flew into a great passion, beat the dog cruelly, and shut him up in a shed.
The next morning, however, it was discovered that some of the outhouses had been broken into and robbed. The moment the dog was let out of the shed, resentful of the ill-treatment he had received, he rushed out of the yard, and was never seen by any of the family more.
I
172
THE CUCK60 AND THE MAGI»IE.
On^£ fine morning in Aprils a young cnckoo lately returned fix>m her travek in the South of Europe) pereh^ OH the bough of a budding elm, to Wittch a magpie \vho was busily ^tnployed in building her nest. Th^ magpie stopped to welcome the traveller; Aen, going on with her work again, " I guess, my dear," said she, " that you may want a lesson in building ; and if this be the case, you hate done well to come to me, for, without vanity I may say, that my nest is the ladmiration and envy of the whole grove. iThe story goes, that a gt^at-grandniOther of mine once attempted to teach the other birds her art; but the conceited things, fancying they had learned it all, flew away before they had seen her put the roof upon it : and from that
THE CUCKOO AND THE MAGPIE. 173
day to this, they have been obliged to content themselves with those little, open, boat-like things, where they sit shivering with cold and drenched with rain, whenever the weather happens to be foul. But you are a friend, and I will undertake to teach you my secret of roofing, if you desire to learn it." " Thank you," replied the cuckoo, tossing her head somewhat scornfully, " I am really much obliged by the oflFer, but you would have a miserable scholar in me : so far from staying to learn half the secret, — ^like the pupils of your worthy great-grandmother, I i^hould certainly be off as soon as I had seen you lay the first pair of cross sticks. In fact, I am afraid I am some- what of a fine lady ; I like my liberty, and I should really die of the fatigue of building a nest, and bringing up a brood, O that sitting upon eggs !
q2
little gaping throats t No ; ' things I never can submit to." pray/' said the magpie, '^ 1 you help it? Do you mean your eggs on the bare groi leave them to perish ? "
'^ No, I am not quite so hard as that neither/' returned th " but I will tell you what I hi thinking of : there are a vailt n\ sitting hens in all the gro hedges hereabouts ; — very pains-taking birds no doubt,—
^^11 i. _
AND THE MAGPIE. 175
are the best of creatilred I know, aiid nobody bitter acquaintdd with all the neighbours^ who are mostly strangers to me ; and therefore I called td invite ydu to take a fly with me^ and tell me a little who all the birds are, and which of them is most fit to be trusted in ^ matter so interesting to the feelings df a mother."
The magpie, being a noted gossip, and tery much inclined to speak ill of her neighbours, could nOt resist So tempting ah inyitation; and laying down out of her beak the bundle of thorns with which she was goiUg to complete the boasted^covering of her nest,away she flew ^ith my lady Cuckoo.
The pair first took their stand on the summit of a tall poplar, whence they commanded a view of a great congregation of rooks, settled, time out of mind, in an avenue of aged
"O©"
my neighbours the rooks," i magpie, ^^ I must not say n neighbours, for I have many a s and cuffing match with thei what wonder is it if they can peaceably with me, since tl always quarrelling with one ai And what wonder is it if they with one another, since they i greatest thieves that fly ? When of them are building, one is obliged to stav «nr1 wof-^i* «.i-
AND THE MAGPIE. 177
tfcej^get thfeir living?" " O ! by dig^ Iging for grubs and worms ; you may observe that the bills of the older oil^ %.i€ quite white with b^tig thrust iatd the ground." " Sudi kifed of food," tejoined the cuckoo^ " wOuld suit my k^hicken very wbll ; but as they seeta to be 86 fi^ce^ and so mtich Oa the alert, I believe I must ilot Ve)iture to l^y an egg among thim." " No, in- deed/' i^ied her frieAd, " I Would not advise you \ and indeed I believe we had better b* riioviiig off now, for fear of meeting with some afffont."
A §httrp iqueaking note now dr^w the attention of the cuekoo. " Ah, my little friend Wry-neck," cried ifehe, ** you h^ve (arrived here befoi^e me I see, pray how db all your affairs pros- pet?"
'' Pretty wIbU^ I thank you," he re- plied, ^^ thfe atits are beginning to be
1 178
THE CUCKOO
Ibusy ; and thanks to my long s] Itongue, I can reach them at the Bof their longest galleries, or at Ibottom of their deepest chambers,
Inest" Here the little bird stof
Ishort, and began twisting his i labout from side to side, in a very land ridiculous manner, at the s Itime raising his crest.
' What frightens you so mu<
Icried the cuckoo, " I see nothing
part, but a lazy buzzard sit
AND THE MAGPIE. 179
heard now and then from imschievous boys, when they have been pursuing us through the woods, and imitating the call of my mate?" That,". an- swered^ Mag, ," is the laugh of the woodpecker. See, there he is, that green-and-orange bird climbing up the trunk of. a tree, and balancing himself with his stiff . awkward tail, while he bores into the wood with his beak iii search of insects."
"Poor creature!" exclaimed the cuckoo, " he works hard for his living : my young one shall not have him for a teacher." " And if you did but see him fly ! " cried the magpie, " up and downj up and down, quite encumbered with the weight of his tail. . But pray listen to that; coo, coo, coo ! there is a silly pair ofringdoyes in those beeches, who go on singing that tiresome ditty to one another all the day long, Then thtey
180 THE CUCKOO
kiss and bill, so fond and so foolish ! And how do you think they feed their young ones? To be sure they may well spoil them, for they never have more th^ two at a tim^ They go and fill their crops with wheats pease, or barley — acorns and beech mast il^erve them in winter, — and then they give it back to the nestlings ready chewed."
'^ Enough to choke them," cried the cuckoo. ^^ No, I will have nothing to d;Q with such nasty nurses ai^ tbose. But what a fine mellow vd^ialle ifas there! Who is it that i^ngs so lend and so well ? "
*^ The blackbird," reptied the aia^ pie, '^ a s}iy creature^ who hjtiM Ym nest one does not know vidiere; he is a fine songster it must be confbwed, and that glossy black plumage set off with a yellow bill, is not amiss^^-^^^pity
AND THE MAGPIE. 181
he has such a dingy animal for his mate ! Ha ! there is the kingfisher hanging in the air just above the river, watching for fish." " What beautiful colours," cried the cuckoo, " what glossy green ! what rich azure ! what splendid orange ! Really, in England, I never saw anything so brilliant."
" I hope, however," interrupted the malicious magpie, ^^you do not pretend to admire her shape, with that thick body, that great spike of a bill, and that fbolish little stump of a tail, which looks as if it had passed through the talons of a hawL At least ycu will not be tempted to lay your egg in her nest ; she makes it at the end of a deep hole, and as she feeds ber young with fish, and never carries away the bones or scales, you may judge how sweet a house she has.
^^The sand-martins are arrived, I see;
R
182 THE CUCKOO
look, those little mouse-coloured birds ivhoare skimming over the water catch- ing gnats, and your favourite dainty the dragon-fly. Would not your little one fare well among them I wonder ? " " What kind of nests have they ? "
" Why, very slovenly ones, I must confess ; only a few goose feathers, and a little moss strown carelessly at the bottom of a long burrow which they scoop out in a sand-bank. No, I see it will never do ; I do not believe you could thrust yourself in ; besides, I may just whisper to you, that all swallows' nests swarm horribly with fleas. But suppose we take a turn among the hedges, they are swarming with little birds of difierent families, among whom you may soon make choice of a foster-mother."
As they fluttered along, the cuckoo discovered in the fork of an apple-tree.
AND THE MAGPIE. 183
a nest of neater workmanship than any she had yet observed. The outside was of moss and lichen, bound toge- ther with stalks of grasses ; then came a thick lining of wool and hair, and within that a still softer one of a kind of cotton pulled oflf the catkins of the sallow. Five small white eggs, prettily spotted with purple, lay in this warm bed.
" Whose nest is this?" cried she. " The goldfinch's," was the answer. " What ; that beautiful little bird with a ring of crimson feathers round his white bill, with white cheeks, black crown, brown body, and so much fine yellow in his wings ? "
" The same ; a conceited creature enough."
" Ah ! but they live on thistle seeds, I know ; dry, hard food, which would choke either me or my little one. I
wagtail, the hedgesparrow,- of these might jsuit you." *^ well, I dare say; and froi twittering and chirping thei some of them hereabouts."
" Ah, ha !" cried the mag] into that thick bush,— there, middle of it, do you see no
" Yes, I do now spy a how cunningly concealed 1 i
it belong to ? "
" To the redbreast ; thai
AND THE MAGPIE. 185
ingyoursize, you must have been rather cramped in so small a nest ; and how did the old bird contrive to find food for you, and for her own young ones also?"
" O ! I made those matters easy enough. As soon as I found that I wanted more room, I watched my op- portunity, and pushed the little robins over the edge of the nest ; — if they broke their necks in the fall, how could I help that? My foster-mother cer tainly never suspected me of the trick, for she was just as fond of me as a real mother, and went on feeding me after I had grown twice as big as her- self. No doubt my young one will follow my example, and its nurse will be vastly proud of having reared so fine a nestling."
So saying, the cuckoo flew upon the nest, and was about to drop her
r2
|186 THK CUCKOO AND THE MACP
y ; but before she had complt hhis act of miscliief, a weasel wlio '. Krept unobserved to the spot and ■ Dying in wait, seized her suddenly Ithe neck, gave her a fatal bite, ; |had soon sucked all the blood ou uier body. The magpie made a hi iflight to tlic top of a tall tree, with ■the least endeavour to save her 6 Ifriend.
" After all," said she to herself, " i rightly served,- — how monstrous
BARNEVELDT. 187
peck, when she could find them strag^ gling away from the hen. The farmer had long watched her proceedings, and was resolved to make an example of ier: ^cordingly, he no sooner saw her perched on the end of a barn, peeping about, and preparing to drop down on the poultry below, than reach- ing his gun, and taking good aim, he brought her dead to the ground.
Her body was nailed up against the barn-door, among owls and hawks; and instead of lamenting her fate, her feathered acquaintance rejoiced, one and all, in their deliverance from so malicious and quarrelsome a neigh- bour.
BARNEVELDT.
Nearly two hundred and fifty years ago, the Seven United Provinces, — or
the Second of Spain for thei but he was a cruel tyrant, and to make them Roman Cath< force, when they were Protes their hearts ; so they rebelled him ; and with some assistan the French, and more from o Queen Elizabeth, after a vc struggle of many years, they c armies entirely out of the cour made a government of the which was a republic, that is a ment without a king.
BARNEVELDT. 189
these quarrels were about religion, for they had two different sects among them ; but the disputes were rendered more violent by the ambition of Mau- rice prince of Orange, who had been their general in part of their wars -against the Spaniards, and hoped by assisting one of the sects to destroy the other, to get himself made king. • There was at this time among them jsl very wise and good man named Bameveldt, who had borne high offices in his own country, besides being often ambassador both in France and Eng- land, and was exceedingly, revered both at home and abroad. But be- cause Barneveldt was so wise and so good, and so much looked up to, Mau- rice knew that he could not make himself king whilst he and some ot his friends, who did not wish to have a king, were alive and in power and
Bameveldt and several othe put in prison on a charge o disturbances in the country, veldt was brought to trial ; ticular enemies were so unji act as his judges, and with \ proof against him, they foi guilty and condemned him t Prince Maurice was much by many great persons, and some of his own relations, t him ; but he unfeelingly ref less the family of Barneveli
T-!- J
BARNEVELDT. 191
pected a sentence of death he received it with composure, wrote a farewell letter to his wife, and then conversed with a clergyman who came to visit him. He also wrote a letter to prince Maurice, begging his forgiveness if he had given him just cause of offence, and asking some things for his chil- dren, but nothing for himself; and the prince would grant him no mercy since he was too high-minded to sub- mit himself to him.
On going to his death, he was at first troubled a little, and raising his eyes to heaven, he cried, " O God, what is man ! " But then, after pray- ing, he grew quite calm, and declaring his innocence, he laid his head meekly on the block, and it was cut off at one blow.
The people of Holland soon became sensible of the great cruelty and in-
they ever aiier nuuuuicvi u^a aa one of the best of men ai lovers of his country ; and Maurice never got over the i and disgrace of having been th causer of his death.
Some time after, two sons neveldt, who had. held gret of which Maurice had depriv were moved by anger and of revenge to lay a plot witi others to take away the life. This plot was discovc most engaged in it suffei
GR0TIU5. 19S
Maurice and begged his life. He told her, he was surprised at such an action in her, who had refused to beg the life of her husband. She nobly replied; *f I did not ask a pardon for my hus- band, because he was innocent ; I ask one lor my son, because he is guilty." But Maurice had a hard heart, and he was put to death.
GROTIUS.
I TOLD you that several of Bameveldt's friends were sent to prison with him, under the same unjust accusation. Among these was Grotius, an excellent man, and one of the very greatest scholars and brightest geniuses of his age; and you shall now hear what became of him. He was also tried in an unfair and unlawful manner, but instead of being condemned to die, he
15llt to IjrrOllUS u was iiut
a punishment, because he hac and noble-minded wife, who g to be shut up in prison with I she might comfort him with 1 pany and keep up his spirits, this, as he was so learned a had a constant resource in his and he wrote in prison som most famous works ; amongst he wrote a book on the laws land, by which he showed the wished to be useful to his cou: notwithstanding their hard t
GROTIUS. 196
his affectionate wife could not bear that he should remain a prisoner al- ways, and at last she thought of a scheme for his deliverance. He was allowed to borrow books of his friends, which he afterwards returned; sending them to the neighbouring town of Gorcum in a chest, which also carried his linen to wash. At first, his guards used regularly to examine this chest whenever it went out; but after a while, never having found any thing wrong in it, they grew more careless : this his wife observed, and she then persuaded him to try whether he could not contrive to bear to be shut up in it for a good while together, after holes had been bored in it to let in the air ; and he found that he could. Next, choosing a time when the governor of the castle was away, she told his wife that she was going to send off a
Il96 GROTIUS.
Igreat load of books ; and that she Iglad of it, for her husband had ir ■himself ill by studying so hard. T ■shepacked Grotius himself in thecli land two soldiers came and carrie Idown the ladder, but they found i Iheavy, that one of them said, in a 1 lof joke, that there must be an A Inian in it ; and he went and told Igovernor's wife of its unusual weij she, trusting to what Grot e had told her, would not alio
GROTIUS, 197
another boat, which conveyed him safely out of the country*
In the mean time, his wife contrived to conceal his escape by pretending that he was ill in bed, till she learned that he was out of reach of danger ; then she confessed the whole affair. The governor, in a rage, committed her to close confinement ; but she presented a petition to the Dutch States General, or parliament, for her release, and though there were a few mean-spirited people who wanted to keep her still in prison, all the rest were ashamed to punish a woman for having acted like a good and faithful wife ; so they set her at liberty, and she followed her husband to France, where he had taken refuge.
s2
198
MAN AND BIRDS.
I HAVE told you already by what •means man has subdued the beasts of the field, and made excellent servants of many of them ; now let us consider what he has been able to do with the fowls of the air, who seem as if they had only to spread their wings and soar away, to be as free from his do- minion as the free air itself. We shall find, however, that by his skill and cunning he has contrived to make even these wild and beautiful creatures tributary to him. He feeds- on their flesh and their eggs, he reposes, soft warm upon their down, he adorns himself with their graceful plumes and solaces himself with their music, and some of them he has even taught to do him service.
Before the invention of balloons,
MAN AI^D BIRDS. 199
there was once aa ingenious person who had a scheme of harnessing a team of wild geese to carry him up to the clouds in a flying chariot ; but, somehow, he could never get his plan to answer ; aild though the old poets assure us that Venus, the goddess of beauty, was accustomed to sail through the air in a car drawn either by doves or by sparrows, it does not appear that among mortals birds have ever yet been made animals of draught. Nei- *tiierhave I ever heard of a man's put- ting a saddle on the back of an ostrich, though the creature seems strong enough to bear it, and it is besides so swift, partly by the help of its wings, which it flutters as it runs, that the best horseman can scarcely keep pace with it.
There is a bird however, which, though unable to carry men from
d
AA *% AM ....-
even hundreds of miles off, to flj mediately back again, over sea land, and by a wonderful instin always finds the nearest way. I having observed this, will somef tie a letter under the wing of a pi and then let it loose ; and by means news has been carried thr the air faster than ship can s£ horse can gallop, and sometin places where neither ship nor ] man could gain admittance, a town has been so closely be.' -at~^^ TvioccAnorpr could
MAN AND BIRDS. 201
in the very market-place, and brought to the starving inhabitants the glad tidings of friends marching to their relief, and. encouraged them to hold but bravely yet a little longer.
The poultry in our farm-yards may be reckoned tame ; they know their feeder, and even if they wander abroad in the day, they always come home to roost in the evening; but, like th^ hog, they are oiily kept to be eaten> and are of little or no use to thei^ master while living, except by laying eggs. Yet the cock has been called the shepherd's clock, because he al- ways wakes and begins to crow as soon as ever the dawn appears ; and the goose is still more watchful than the dog, and would serve as well for a- sentinel: you may read that the city of Rome was once saved by its c ackling, when the enemy had nearly climbed
2 MAN AND BIRDS.
i walls by night, and nobody hei
;m but the wakeful goose. 1
komans, out of gratitude, paid gi
ispect to geese ever after.
In South America there is a b
Balled the agamy, something lik<
large fowl, but with much longer le
phich becomes tame almost as s(
i it is caught, and attaches itself
pan as faithfully as the dog itsi
Like the dog also, this bird will
t with the sheep, quite of its o
MAN AND BIRDS. 203
nerally choose some one of the family for its master and friend. It runs up to him the moment he appears, dances round him as he walks, follows him every where, and will pine if it is kept away from him. Indeed I have read of one which died of grief on being forsaken by a gentleman to whom it had attached itself.
The different kinds of hawks, or falcons, have been trained by man to assist him in the chace, and a good hawk has often been prized at a great sum of money.
The art of hawking was probably first invented among the natives of the wide plains of Tartary, which are ex- cellently suited for the sport ; and it is still practised by the emperors of China, the kings of Persia, and other Eastern monarchs in their great hunting par-^ ties. Some ages ago, it was the fa-
204 MAN AND BIRDS.
vourite amusement of all the nations of Europe. Nobody was reckoned a gentleman who did not know how to fly his hawk well, and a prince or a lord was scarcely ever to be seen with- out a hawk on his fist ; even ladies carried the smaller kinds as a mark ot their rank; for the common people were not allowed to keep them.
These birds were either taken in the nest, or caught when full grown, and taught with a great deal of pains to obey their master, and to fly at such game as he pleased.
The hawk was carried to the field with a hood over its eyes, but as soon as a partridge, a pigeon, a heron, or any other proper kind of game ap- peared in sight his eyes were unco- vered, and he was thrown off* the fist into the air. He went soaring up- wards, upwards, quite out of sight
MAN AND BIRDS. 205
sometimes, to pounce down with the more force upon his prey, which, on its part, tried to escape by the swift- ness of its flight. Meantime, the fal- coner, mounted on a fleet horse, gal- loped after them full-speed, looking upwards all the while : at last the hawk, with his cruel beak, would strike his prey in mid air, and bring it flut^ tering and bleeding to the ground.
The spirit and courage of these birds is so great, that they will attack any thing, and sometimes they were trained to assist in the chace of the wolf or the wild boar ; they always flew at the head of the beast and pecked at his eyes, buffeting him at the same time with their wings ; and when he was thus blinded, the hunters came up and easily dispatched him with their spears^
The Chinese keep tame pelicans to '
T
i
fasten an iron collar, so iignt can just dwallow a little fish, a great one ; the small ones lowed for his labour, but th ones, which stick in his thi master seizes for his share.
The eagle, which you kno king of birds, as the lion is o was found too large and too be trained to the sport like tl tribe ; but in the countries ai Alps and other high mountai these birds chiefly frequent, trived to make advantage
^f\r\
MAN AND BIRDS. 207
wings when spread, reach almost twice as far as a man can stretch his arms, and are capable of striking a terrible blow ; its hooked beak is so large and strong, that with a single stroke it will split the skull of a lamb, a kid, or a fawn, which it will afterwards clutch in its long thick talons and carry off through the air with ease ; nay, it is even said to have sometimes flown away with a child of ten years old. It makes its home among the rocks on the summit of lofty mountains ; and its sight is so piercing, that as it glances its eyes all around it from its lofty station, nothing which stirs below can escape it ; not the grey pigeon flitting among the thick branches, nor the timid hare as she steals forth to feed, nor the brown rabbit sporting on the heath ; — down it pounces in an instant, and with so
of thick sticks, or poies, idiu u« the ledges of a rock or the a some large tree, and covered \ thick bed of heath or rushes. Ith only one or two young ones at s and you will think they are w* when I tell you that in an ejnre^ many years ago in the Peak of shire, though there was but one a lamb, a hare, and three youn^ cocks, were found lying by if killed for dinner.
A French gentleman, wh aK/%va two hundred years ago,
MAX AND BIRDS. 209
on the borders of France and Spain, were handsomely entertained on their way at the house of a nobleman in a woody and mountainous region called the Gevaudan. On sitting down to table, they were surprised to observe that all the game and wild fowl of different kinds set before them wanted either a leg, a wing, the head, or some other part. The nobleman, seeing that they remarked it, told them that he hoped they would excuse this sin- gularity, as he had a strange fellow of a steward who always would insist on taking a taste of every thing which he had provided, before he served it up to his master's table. The visitors stared very much at this ; but at last their entertainer told them, that hia steward or provider was an eagle, and that all the choicest dishes of his feast
t2
0,\^\^^
ing stein»,
And thus by degrt c a tuft of grass ; or a i ^* ing on the ground ; or a ; a bush^ with a woody sl,e:/ crossing sprays; or vhfi a with a thick, solid tru:)Iv < asc bark, and mighty bn:M< hrs out from it, this wa; : ' t smaller boughs sho - , I branches; and little ^s < out from them again . .nd t of buds and green lea -: cow whole as with a leafy
'»>r»o l^
PLANTS. 211
best ftnd ddntiest of every thing to theif young ones ; and instead of com- plaining of their thefts, he, for his party was glad to live in their neigh-* bourhood, as they paid him such a handsome rent in game and wild fowL
PLANTS
The seed, when it is ripe, drops from the plant to the earth ; then the rain falling upon it, or some bird or beast treading on it> or some worm crawling over it, beats it down into the soft mold) which covers it, and thus it lies all winter safe and snug. When spring comes, with its warm showers and bright stin- shine, the seed begins to grow; it shooti downwards two or three Hula slender threads ; which are its rodts^ and which go on growing as ike pl^nt grows ; it
^hment from the sui^ ^ om the light dry sand ; others fron ae chalky or limestone. Some love .he marsh, others the borders of the running stream, others the sea-beach \ some bask in the sunny mead^ others hide themselves deep in the shad^ dell ; some climb the windy mountain and strike down their roots among th clefts of the hard dry rock.
In the dismal countries of the ve furthest North, where the earth bound with frost and covered with * ^proetual snow, the only ph
PLANTS. 215
little miserable herbs. Here neither bird nor beast which feeds on vege- tables can subsist, and even man finds it difficult to support himself.
A very little more to the Souths however, in Lapland and the North of Russia, nature has strown over the earth a kind of white lichen, or moss, which feeds the hardy reindeer, who scrapes away the snow with his hoofs to find it.
Woods of birch appear next, and those vast forests of pine and fir which supply us with masts of ships and with most of the deal which we use for such a variety of purposes ; and here the stag has leaves and young shoots on which to brouse, and the sheep and the ox find pasture on the herbage which springs up on the sunny side of the hill, or in the sheltered valley.
Then come the countries where corn
hemp tor corua^c o^v. .^. and flax for the finer linen, this we come to the lands of b aod wheat, and of rich grassy ^ows sprinkled with daisies and c foots and the sweet-smelling clovi the lands too, of the oak, the asl beech, the elm, the lime am poplar ; where the currant and { berry are natives ; where the on ^e fair with the apple, the pea the cherry; and where the ta flaunts from its pole in elegant fe I am sure you know that we ha
-■ •«»»i«» yxin
PLANTS. 217
of France, in Holland, in part of Ger- many, in Flanders, and also in Poland and the. South of Russia.
After these, come what we call the countries of the South ; where the rich clusters of the vintage crown the hills ; where the myrtle and the orange scent the air; where the tall maize is reaped, and the wet rice-field is tilled ; where the mild oil is pressed from the fruit of the olive ; where the chesnut is eaten as bread; where the peach and the almond, the fig and the pomegranate abound ; where the leaves of the mul- berry yield food for the silkworm, and where the fairest shrubs and flowers of our gardens, the lilac, the labur- num, the syringa and the jessamine, the jonquil and narcissus, the sweet pea and the lily, bloom wild in the thickets and shed their perfume over the meadows. Such are the Southern
u
)
218 PLANTS.
province9 of France ; Spain and Por- ^gal ; the sunny banks of the Danube, fair Italy, and lovely Greece.
iVnd all Aese are but a very £bw, >a sinall sample, Ijjke a handful taken ^p from among the sands of the sear shore, of the trees, and shrubs, and herbs, which the bountiful hand ik the great ai^d ^Qod God has scattered over our E^urope ; one quarter only, and that by fsx the smallest, of this , rich and fruitful globe. No man can know all the plants on the face of the earth, so va^t is their multitude
'* beyond tbe skill
Of botanist to number up their tribes."
But not to know, at least, those which give us shade or shelter, fruit to refresh us or food to nourish us, medi. cines to restore our health, or beautiful and fragrant blossoms to delight W9
PLANTS. 219
and adorn our dwellings — not to learn thus much : — ^not to observe and exa mine their curious structure j not to admire them ; not to wonder at their infinite variety and beauty, at their delightfulness and their innumerable uses both to man and to all the tribes of living creatures on the earth, is to be stupid, and insensible, and thank- less to Him who formed by his al- mighty word both them and us^
THE END.
Frioted by Richard Taylor, 2Kcd lion Coart» Fleet Street
L.. ■..