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stand-up fight is actually begun, the com- mind to abandon all hopes of escape, his batants retain the power of hitting or parry-courage is all but certain to fail him. He ing a blow. For the most part an amateur strikes a little on one side, or he shoots fight is a confused struggle, half-wrestle and from a couple of yards' distance instead of half-scramble, with shut eyes and indiscrimi-placing the muzzle in actual contact with nate pulling and hauling. The prevailing the object. Easy as it looks to bring down sentiment of each combatant is mortal fear a king at six feet, it is next to impossible of a blow from the other. As a rule, the in practice. The assassin's hand shakes till dispute ends like that of two street dogs, the blow is really struck at random. Killeach trying to edge off whilst showing a ing kings would apparently require as much front to his enemy. When we take a man practice as walking on the tight rope, or out of a crowd, and set him upon a task standing at the top of an acrobatic pyrawhich requires steadiness of hand and eye, mid, and fortunately there are fewer opporany approach to coolness is still less com- tunities of practising the art. The crime is mon. Most men can be hung with tolerable to other murders what Blondin's crossing calmness, because all that is required is a Niagara was to a mountaineer crossing the certain power of keeping still. When it ridge of the Weissthor; and easy and even is a question of shooting a man without inviting as it looks in theory, it is, like most much risk to yourself, we may also expect other feats of manual dexterity, of a diffia fair degree of delicate execution. An culty which can only be appreciated by acIrishman will bring down a landlord with tually trying the experiment. We may asgreat certainty from behind a hedge, sume that most of the aspirants to the glowhen he knows that his friends will be ries of criminality are men of more than much more likely to applaud than to be- average determination, and yet more than tray him. But to kill a royal person, when nine out of ten break down at the critical you must take your life in your hand, is a moment. If it is humiliating to the befeat which seems to be altogether beyond lievers in the frequency of heroic courage, the average capacity. Even when a man is the general cowardice of mankind has at a thorough fanatic, and has made up his least some advantages in practice.

From Harper's Weekly.

THEODORE WINTHROP.
KILLED AT GREAT BETHEL, JUNE 10, 1861.
How often in the strange old days,

Before the war's sharp summons blew,
We strolled through all these woodland ways,
While loud the bluebird sang and flew !

How gayly of a thousand things

We talked, and rustling through the leaves, We sang the songs of other springs,

And dreamed the dreams of summer eves!

To this bold height our footsteps came,
Our eyes beheld that distant sea;
To-day I sit and call his name,

And know he will not answer me.

O friend, beyond this voice of mine,
Beyond these eyes, this baffled hand,
Immortal in a youth divine,

I see thy gracious figure stand.

We do not count each other lost,
Divided though our ways may be;
Two ships by different breezes tost,
Still sailing the familiar sea.

No cloud of death can long obscure,
Nor touch with any doubt or fear,
The love that keeps the old faith pure,
·Contented whether there or here.

Staten Island, June, 1868.

G. W. C.

THRIFT.

My ships are blown about the world,

From Heart's Content to iceless Ind;
The tides play out, the winds come down,
And perils follow tide and wind.

When Fancy tricks me into dreams,
I see my love in royal rooms,—
More than a queen when all are queens,
And kings beside her seem like grooms.

Meanwhile she spins her wheel indoors,
Beginning when the days begin;
"We shall not want"-her very words-
66 Though never ship of thine come in."
Atlantic Monthly.

ROADSIDE THEATRES.

BY J. R. LOWELL.

I LOVE to enter pleasure by a postern,

Not the broad popular gate that gulfs the mob;
To find my theatres in roadside nooks,
Where men are actors, and suspect it not;
Where Nature all unconscious works her will,
And every passion moves with human gait,
Unhampered by the buskin or the train,
Hating the crowd, where we gregarious men
Lead lonely lives, I love society,
Nor seldom find the best with simple souls,
Unswerved by culture from their native bent,
The ground we meet on being primal man,
And nearer the deep bases of our lives.

From The Cornhill Magazine.

A GROUP OF VAGABONDS.

lettre-de-cachet against her husband. who happened to be a staunch Burgundian, herself being strongly attached to the opposite party, in the person of one of its officers.

took a series, distributed over twenty-eight years, to induce the saints to provide him, as they did at length, with a son and heir. WHATEVER pilgrimages might have been Gibbon hints that Peter the Hermit became at an earlier period, they were anything but a pilgrim in order to escape from matrimony. disagreeable during the Middle Ages. Bit A certain Guy of Crema went all the way to by bit our ancestors eliminated harsh devo- Ararat to procure a piece of the ark for his tion, and substituted amusement, until they wife to wear as a talisman against too great became the orthodox means of spending a an increase of family. The cross of the good holiday. Between the tenth and the fifteenth thief, Dismas, preserved by the Cypriotes, centuries they teemed with pleasant variety, was in great request among pious cut-purses. crowding the highways with temporary Count Gillibrand, of Sponheim, travelled to devotees ("innumerabilis multitudo cœpit Iona to entreat St. Columba for a favourable confluere: ordo inferiores plebis, medio- issue to his feud with his neighbor the Archcres, reges et comites, præsules, mulieres bishop of Treves; and a dame of Paris multæ nobiles cum pauperioribus," as Gla- tramped to Rheims to procure a spiritual ber hath it), and tempting a great many people to pass their lives in wandering from shrine to shrine. And, considering the scenes through which they wound, the adventures that befell, and the benefits that A troop of pilgrims was never wanting in they promised these excursions had obvi- comic materials. It was always sure to ously sufficient attraction to rouse the vag- abound in flirtation, fun, and frolic, and esabond in the steadiest temperament. Nor pecially in eccentricity; and was, indeed, were the varied characters and strange ex- about as queer a hotch-potch of persons as periences of the people they threw together could possibly be contrived. The characcalculated to allay the disposition. Here ters of many were just as odd as their mowas one who had knelt at Compostella, there tives, and the following, well known in their another who had bathed in the Jordan, and time, may be taken as average specimens. yonder a third who had climbed the precipices Here plodded the merchant Sæwolf, who of Sinai. This one had strained at the oar in endeavoured by frequent pilgrimage to atone the galleys of Barbary, that one -like Sir for his much-regretted but unconquerable John Mandeville-had served some out-propensity to cheating. By his side went landish potentate, and their neighbor, blue- the monk Romanus of Evroult, afflicted, eyed and large of limb, had wielded the poor man, to the annoyance of his brother Varangian axe at the palace-gate of Byzan- monks, with inveterate kleptomania as retium. All these had much to tell that was garded their breeches, and who was, therewell worth listening to, and long practice fore, condemned to this species of exile from had enabled them to deliver it with the best his convent. And wherever the spirit of effect. They drew the long-bow, indeed, mischief found amplest scope, there marched without scruple, and enlarged concerning Arlotto il Piovine, the most celebrated droll magician and marvel until wonder's self was and incorrigible vagabond of his age, the sated. But this was no more than was ex-perpetrator of more loose jests and ridicupected. Indeed, they could not otherwise have won a hearing, for our fathers were too fond of gorgeous accessories in all things to tolerate even truth in unembellished form.

Anything and everything, from a scolding wife to a homicide, was a sufficient excuse for pilgrimage. It was the best possible preparation for a dangerous enterprise, and the most approved form of thanksgiving for success or escape from peril. The Lord of Joinville stalked in his shirt to every shrine within twenty leagues of his castle previous to joining St. Louis in one of his disastrous crusades. A pilgrimage was the first act of Columbus on recrossing the Atlantic. Louis VII. got rid of a bad wife by means of one such promenade, engaged in another out of gratitude for getting a good one, and under370

LIVING AGE.

VOL. X.

fous pranks than even Rabelais, and, according to his countrymen, the father of all the "Joe-Millerisms" that have been handed down to them from the Middle Ages. The following is anything but a fair sample of his "facetia." It is, however, relateable, which is much, and in some degree characteristic, which is more: "Ask the countrywoman yonder," said he one day to a comrade when bewildered in the outskirts of Florence. The latter did so, and the dame put down her basket of eggs to reply. Just then a blind beggar came stumping up the narrow path at the tail of his dog. Quick as a Napoleon Messire Arlotto fixed the opportunity, pulled a piece of pudding out of his wallet, and dangled it enticingly on the farther side of the basket. The cur of course sprang at the dainty, regardless of

consequences, and down went his master in their efforts to be graphic wrapped the among the eggs.

And thrse bands contained a sufficient admixture of the tragic to satisfy the keenest lovers of sensation. In their skirts generally skulked one or two like a pair of noble Breton brothers, who, for manifold misdeeds, had been condemned to wander in their shirts, barefoot, besprinkled with ashes, and heavily ironed," until it should please God to release them from the burden of their chains." During four years of hardship and peril they bore these fetters about with them, from Mount Ararat to Loch Derg, until, in the course of time and many a weary march, the iron had eaten deeply into their flesh. At last, when every foreign saint had proved obdurate, a countryman took pity on their plight, and their chains dropped off one fine morning at the tomb of St. Marcellinus. These impedimenta did not always betoken a thrilling story and a sincere -conversion. Even so early as the days of Charlemagne we find them denounced as, in too many cases, the insignia of imposture. No doubt the palmers prayed heartily enough at the shrine when they reached it. But it does not appear that they harassed the saints overmuch as they trudged along. On the contrary, we have good reason for suspecting that songs, legends, some broadly humorous, some quaint and marvellous, stirring tales of individual adventure, and the notes of the bagpipe and flute, were the means most frequently adopted for beguiling the way; that most of them were very much of the earth earthy so long as they kept in motion; and that if by chance they raised their eyes to heaven, it was generally, like the group described by Cervantes, to take aim at it with the end of a bottle.

The scrip and staff were just as often assumed for the purpose of committing new sins as of getting rid of old ones. A shrine was considered an excellent place of assignation, and a pilgrimage a choice means of reaching it undetected. The monkish writers greatly bewail the prevalence of the practice, and take good care to record and enlarge upon the judgments that, now and then, overtook the transgressors. Many a congregation has been edified with the story of Ansered of Sap, which told how a certain dame agreed to meet that profligate youth in the course of such an excursion how she failed to keep tryst - how the disappointed swain returned to find the cause, and how he had his brains dashed out for his pains by another of her wicked paramours with whom he happened to surprise her; and too often have the good fathers

moral so closely up in the naughtiness that it became very difficult to distinguish it. Among other mischances this bad habit was exceedingly prolific of soiled reputations. A bishop of the period writes as follows concerning our pilgrim countrywomen: " Perpaucæ enim sunt civitates in Longobardia vel in Francia aut in Gallia, in qua non sit adultera vel meretrix generis Anglorum, quod scandalum est turpitudo totius ecclesiæ." And the example of Eleanor, the divorced of Louis VII. and the wife of Henry II., showed that the errant dames of other lands were not a whit more immaculate. Not unfrequently an inconvenient spouse was inveigled into pilgrimage that the partner left at home might have full scope for indulgence or elopement. This particular phase of the subject has given birth to innumerable lays and legends in every Christian tongue; and it has furnished the annalists with an excuse, sufficiently plausible, to divert general attention from the very decisive, but not very creditable, part played by the Church in the conquest of Ireland. The rape of Devorghal, however, had really nothing to do with that event; for Macmurchad, the perpetrator of the outrage, made his peace with the injured husband full sixteen years before a Norman fort was planted on Irish soil. Occasionally a husband or wife turned pilgrim in order to fasten an ugly charge upon some unfortunate wight, and thus give a colouring of justice to the active malice of a long-meditated revenge. Such was the origin of the quarrel fought out in 1638 in presence of Charles VI., between_the Knight de Carouge and the Squire le Gris. The wife of the former complained that Le Gris had abused her during the pilgrimage of her husband. The accused denied the charge, and the evidence adduced in his favour went far towards proving it an utter fabrication. The lady swore positively that the crime had been perpetrated on a certain day and at a certain hour, and she was sufficiently circumstantial and ingeniously minute in detail to give a very plausible aspect of truth to her story. But though Le Gris failed to account for himself at that particular instant, it was shown that he was many leagues away in attendance on his lord so shortly before and after that the swiftest horse could scarcely have traversed the distance within the time. Nevertheless, as the lady persisted in the accusation, and had powerful friends at her back, it was agreed that the matter should be decided in the lists. There was a goodly attendance at the scene, and conspicuous among

the crowd appeared the prosecutrix robed | skull of St. Anne, as they wrote, had never in black. The cause is good," was her once left their possession, and never should. reply to the last appeal of her husband, and As a matter of course every company of the fight began. Le Gris soon fell beneath pilgrims had its sprinkling of loose characthe practised strokes of the knight; but ters, whose blandishments were only too even then, with his antagonist's foot on his successful. This, however, was very natubreast and his sword at his throat, he con- ral. The conscience, whose catalogue of tinued to asseverate his innocence. De Carouge ran him through and trailed his corpse by the heels to the gibbet, according to the statute in that case made and provided, much to the satisfaction of the spectators, who hailed the event as the judgment of heaven. But time, a little later on, told a very different tale. The lady being afflicted with an incurable and most painful malady, and conceiving that her perjury had called down the vengeance of heaven, made a clean breast of it, confessing her crime and acknowledging the innocence of the unfortunate squire.

But a more singular misuse of pilgrimage remains to be told. There are several instances extant of persons who undertook these excursions for the express and only purpose of stealing relics. A certain knightly devotee, who went forth to assist in transferring the remains of a celebrated saint to a new and gorgeous shrine, managed to convey a rib into his sleeve during the ceremony, and to carry it off undetected. And Stephen, chanter to the monastery of Angers, trudged barefoot through the whole length of France and Italy all the way to Apulia, in order to purloin an arm of St. Nicholas, the miraculous power of which had brought much glory and gain to the Abbey of Bari, and all but succeeded in the attempt. But unfortunately for him his money ran short in the very nick of time, and in trying to dispose of the silver that enclosed the relic the poor man was detected and the booty reclaimed. There was, however, some little excuse for these holy thieves. By this time it had become almost impossible to procure a genuine relic in any other way; for the graves of martyr and saint had been so thoroughly ransacked, that not even a toenail with any pretence to occult power remained unappropriated, and the few who endeavoured to procure these things in the regular way of traffic invariably found themselves swindled. Like the Knight Albert of Stein, for instance, who employed a large portion of his wealth-the plunder of many campaigns-in purchasing the skull of St. Anne. This he deposited with much pomp in the principal church of Rome, and received the next morning a small note from his chapmen, the monks of Lyons, apprising him that he was done," for the true

66

sins was so soon to become a tabula rasa,
could not be expected to scruple much
about adding a few more to the list. Nor
was the fact that his old score had ceased
to stare a man in the face, at all likely to
deter him from commencing to run up a
new one. But these reprobates were not
altogether without their uses.
The occa-
sional conversion of one of the most aban-
doned, at the close of a licentious campaign,
tended greatly to maintain the miraculous
repute of the saint who had interposed to
effect it. And though these converts were
something given to backsliding, one or two
of them, like St. Mary of Egypt, made
such progress in grace as eventually ren-
dered them good subjects for canonization,
enshrinement, and pilgrimage also.

It was not difficult to graduate a pilgrimage according to inclination or iniquity. It might be made as short as a hunting mass, or as long as the Midgard serpent that was said to encircle the world. Cologne and Compostella, Sinai and Ararat, the most famous places of resort, formed the extremities of an enormous quadrangle, enclosing the Mediterranean; while fanes of lesser but still sufficient note were plentifully strewn between. In most countries hospitals were maintained at every stage for the accommodation of the pilgrim; and chivalry in arms kept watch and ward wherever he was in danger of pagan insult or aggression. For him the Teutonic brotherhood guarded the German forests; for him the knights of Santiago patrolled the Moorish frontier; and for him the galleys of St. John maintained ceaseless and most gallant warfare with the merciless rovers of the Mediterranean. Kings and councils took care of his interests while engaged in these holy excursions, and hedged his household and estate from all assault. Debtors were forbidden to dun and enemies to assail, and the severest form of excommunication was denounced against his wife did she dare to contract another marriage during his absence. Of course there were exceptional places and periods wherein pilgrimage became unusually perilous, — as, for instance, when about the middle of the fifteenth century a certain Italian nobleman established himself in a strong castle on the road to Loretto, and amused himself for some time with robbing the male pilgrims

and outraging the women. But these hitches in that pleasant life were few and far between. Generally speaking the pilgrim was a complete illustration of the eastern proverb, for, no matter where he was thrown into the ever-flowing Nile of pilgrimage, he was pretty sure to emerge with a fish in his mouth and a loaf in his hand.

The sites of some prominent shrines were designated by great events; but by far the greater number owed their repute to the possession of relics. A goodly number of these relics, too, like Sir Boyle Roche's bird, had the faculty of gracing two places at once. The holy stairs-those which originally led to Pilate's judgment seatmight be contemplated at Rome as well as at Bonn. The holy cross existed in a complete state at Constantinople, and in fragments all over the world. One monastery displayed the head of a saint, another his head, and a third his head. And there were several examples of holy men who were first distributed piecemeal among forty or fifty different abbeys, and then were yet to be seen, unmutilated, under the guardianship of some unusually favoured community. But it was not indispensable that relics should always be saintly; it was sufficient if they happened to be very extraordinary. Thus, in one quarter might be seen the plume of a phoenix, presented by one of the Popes; in another the mark that Cain bore about on his forehead; and in a third the tip of Lucifer's tail, lost in conflict with a Syrian hermit.

waves of the Jordan. But unquestionably the oddest prayer ever made at a shrine was that of the good Knight Ralph, who "entreated that his body might be overspread with the foul disease of leprosy, so that his soul might be cleansed from sin," and who, obtaining his desire, died six years afterwards in the odour of sanctity.

The medieval pilgrim believed as implicitly as Elian or Pliny that the vipers of Sicily could distinguish between legal and illegitimate children; he looked upon Etna and Vesuvius as the outlets of Pandemonium; and he attributed more virtues to the diamond than ever the ancients dreamed of. According to him that gem preserved the health of its wearer, developed and cherished wit in him, secured his triumph in a good cause, baffled enchantments, dispersed phantoms, paralysed wild beasts, tamed lunatics, and grew moist in the presence of poison; that is, it displayed all these admirable qualities if it had been obtained uncoveted and unpurchased, as a free gift. But it was in favour of his shrine that the pilgrim chiefly delighted to expand his credulity. Marvellous were the things related of those places. In this respect St. Patrick's Purgatory bore away the palm from even the Virgin's house at Loretto, and the convent of Sinai - though the former was transported through the air from Palestine; and though the future head of the latter house was always pointed out by the spontaneous ignition of his lamp, and the deaths of his brethren portended by the When relics were not attainable, or were mysterious extinction of theirs. It appears likely to be overshadowed by noted matter that the greatest obstacle to the conversion of the sort in the neighbourhood, recourse of the Irish was their disbelief in future was had to picture, statue, and trick, with punishment; they would not credit the exvery substantial results. Thus, one place istence of Tartarus unless they saw it. accumulated liberal crowds by a weeping This was a source of much trouble to the Madonna; another by a crucifix exuding great missionary. At length he received a blood or oil; a third by a figure which revelation which turned his perplexity to groaned; while the good fathers of Bres-joy. lau, more original still, attracted and perplexed their visitors by a clever carving, which purported to represent "the Devil wheeling his grandmother in a barrow."

Nor were shrines sought, saints invoked, and relics kissed on merely spiritual grounds. For all possible temporal afflictions from a pestilence to a plague of rats - there existed special remedies; and every calamity sent forth crowds to profit by them. St. Lambert was the chosen physician of the epileptic; St. Odille of the blind; St. Blaise was infallible in the cure of sore throats; a journey to the shrine of St. Appolonia never failed to remove the toothache; and the barrenest stock grew prolific of olive-branches when washed by the

He was shown a cave in a desert

place, and informed that whoever would spend a night within its precincts should behold the torments of the wicked and the enjoyments of the blessed, and return cleansed of all sin. Immediately St. Patrick enclosed the cave, built an oratory in its neighbourhood, and committed it to the custody of a company of monks. Thenceforth, down even to this very hour, the place became a noted resort of pilgrims. Few, however, were found daring enough to penetrate the dismal vault. Still, the feat was attempted on rare occasions, and yet more rarely achieved, for it was fraught with unexampled terror and exceeding peril. Conspicuous among the few who ventured to explore its recesses and returned to tell

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