death, without exception, all those who had assisted at his funeral.

The Goths had previously done the same for Alaric, who died in the year 410, at Cosenza, a city of Calabria. They turned for some days the course of the river Vasento, and having caused a trench to be dug in its former channel, where the stream was usually most rapid, they buried the king there along with immense treasures. They put to death all those who had assisted in digging the grave, and restored the stream to its former bed.

CXXIV. RATS.

There are no rats in the district of Buchan, in Scotland; and if they are brought thither from other places, they do not live. There are no serpents nor venomous insects in the Orkneys; and in the isle of Guernsey, there are no serpents, toads, nor spiders.

CXXV. ANTIPATHIES.

Some natural antipathies are extremely singular. Some faint away at the smell of roses. Erasmus, who was born in Rotterdam, had such an aversion for fish, that he could not taste it without a fever. The smell of apples was sufficient with Duchesni, secretary to Francis I., to cause a violent discharge of blood from the nose. And a gentleman, at the Court of the Emperor Ferdinand, used to bleed copiously at the nose whenever he heard a cat

mew.

* The information contained in this article, is probably new to our northern readers.

[77]

VIGNEUL MARVILLIANA.

[THE very interesting miscellany, entitled Melanges d'Histoire et de Litterature, published under the name of Vigneul Marville, is the production of a Carthusian Monk, Dom Noel d'Argonne, born at Paris in 1634. He is the author also of a very useful work on the reading of the fathers. His miscellany is full of original anecdote-of interesting critical remarks and occasionally of valuable historical observations. He died in 1705.]

CXXVI. A FAIR EXCHANGE.

BREBEUF, when young, had no taste for any author but Horace. One of his friends, named Gautier, on the contrary, liked nothing but Lucan. This preference was the cause of frequent disputes. To put an end to these, at last they agreed that each should read the poem which his companion preferred, examine it, and estimate its merits impartially. This was done, and the consequence was, that Gautier, having read Horace, was so delighted with him, that he scarcely ever left him; while Brebeuf, enchanted with Lucan, gave himself so wholly up to the study of his manner, that he carried it to a greater extent than Lucan himself, as is evident from the translation of that poem which he has left us in French verse.

CXXVII. LATE INSTRUCTION.

Socrates, in his old age, learned to play upon a musical instrument. Cato, aged eighty, began to learn Greek; and Plutarch acquired Latin in his old age. John Gelida of Valentia, in Spain, did not begin the study of belles lettres till he was forty years old. Henry Spelman, having neglected the sciences in his youth, resumed them at the age of fifty, with wonderful success. Fairfax, after having been General of the Parliamentary Army in England, went to Oxford, and took his degree as Doctor of Law. Colbert, when Minister of State, and almost sixty years old, returned to his Latin and his law, in a situation where he might have been excusable in neglecting both; and M. Le Tellier, Chancellor of France, resumed the study of logic, that he might dispute with his grandchildren.

CXXVIII. P. CORNEILLE.

Pierre Corneille, who has given such splendour of expression to the thoughts and sentiments of his heroes, had nothing in his external appearance that gave any indication of his talent, and his conversation was so tiresome, as to weary every one who listened to it. A great princess, who had felt a great curiosity to see him, used to say, after the visit was over, that Corneille ought never to be heard but at the Hotel de Bourgogne.

Nature,

which had been so liberal to him in extraordinary gifts, had denied him more common accomplishments. When his friends used to remind him of these defects, he would smile gently, and say, "I am not the less Pierre Corneille.'

The theatre.

CXXIX. DEDICATIONS.

Authors are frequently but very ill repaid by those to whom they dedicate their books. The only reward which Theodore Gaza received from Sixtus IV. for his dedication of the Treatise of Aristotle, on the Nature of Animals, was the price of the binding of his book, which the Pope generously repaid to him. Tasso was not more successful with his dedications. Ariosto, in presenting his poems to the Cardinal d'Este, was saluted with a sarcasm, which will be remembered as long as his works. Our historian Dupleix, a very fertile author, presenting one of his books to the Duke d'Epernin, that nobleman, turning abruptly towards the Pope's nuncio, who was present, remarked, "This is one of your breeding authors; he is deivered of a book every month."

CXXX. IMPRISONED AUTHORS.

Numerous examples prove, that confinement is not injurious to study. It was in prison that Boethius composed his excellent book on the Consolations of Philosophy. Grotius wrote in prison his Commentary on St. Matthew. Buchanan, in the dungeons of a Portuguese monastery, composed his beautiful paraphrase of the Psalms of David, which Nicholas Bourbon preferred to the Bishopric of Paris.* Pelisson, during five years' imprisonment, resumed his studies in Greek, philosophy, and theology, with a diligence which produced the greatest success. It is said that it was on board the galleys in Barbary, that Michael Cervantes composed his Don Quixote, the masterpiece of Spanish literature.

A mistake.

prison.

Buchanan's psalms were not composed in

CXXXI. POVERTY OF AUTHORS.

Rarely does good fortune accompany merit. Homer, poor and blind, recited his verses in squares and highways, to gain his bread. Plautus, the comic poet, lived by turning a mill-wheel. Xelander sold, for a little broth, his Commentary upon Dion Cassius. Aldus Manutius was so poor that he was rendered insolvent merely by the small sum he bor rowed to enable him to transport his library from Venice to Rome. Sigismond Galenius, John Bodinus, Lelio Giraldo, Ludovico Castelvetro, Archbishop Usher, and a multitude of other learned men, died in poverty. Agrippa died in the hospital; Cervantes is believed to have died of hunger. Paolo Borghese, who had written a Jerusalem Delivered on the plan of Tasso, was acquainted with 14 trades, and could not make a living by them all. Tasso was reduced to such extremity, that he was obliged to borrow a crown from a friend for his week's subsistence, and to beg his cat, in a pretty sonnet, to lend him the use of her eyes during the night, "Non avendo candele per scriver suoi versi." And how melancholy is it to see Cardinal Bentivoglio, the ornament of Italy and the belles lettres, and the benefactor of the poor, after so many important services rendered to the public, by his embassies and his writings, languishing in poverty in his old age, selling his palace to pay his debts, and dying without leaving wherewithal to bury him!

In France, André Duchesni, the learned historian; Vaugelas, one of the most polished of writers, and amiable of men; Baudoin, of the Academie

* Probably a mistake for Camoens. Though Cervantes died in indigence, there is no reason to think he actually died of hunger.