Chapter V: Appendix: Great Precedence Question 287 (4)

In boasting of the gigantic steps which the art of road-making has taken in our time, we cannot afford to depreciate either the genius or the magnificence of the ancient Romans in this matter. If we have our railway under the cliffs of Dover, Trajan had his road under 2000 feet of perpendicular cliff along the Ister; if we have our 12,000 miles of rails, the Romans had their 4000 miles of chosen road, reaching from one extremity of the empire to the other; if we have our leviathan bridges and viaducts, the Romans had theirs over greater rivers and wider vales than we have to deal with; and, finally, if we had our glass bazaar, one-third of a mile long, in Hyde Park, they had a golden palace, which reached a whole mile on the Esquiline Hill. If we rise superior and look down upon the works of the Romans, it is not so much that we have gained in unskilful labour, as in science. Without the iron and the science, their works would be as great as ours; it is in mental rather than in any physical energies, that we have the pre-eminence.

We may acquire some idea of this branch of Roman economy from the following details:--From the wall of Antonius to Rome, and from thence to Jerusalem, that is, from the north-west to the south-east point of the empire, was measured a distance of 3740 English miles; of this distance 85 miles only were sea-passages, the rest was the _road of polished silex_. Posts were established along these lines of High road, so that a hundred miles a day might be with ease accomplished. A fact related by Pliny affords an example of the quickest travelling in a carriage in ancient times. Tiberius Nero, with three carriages, accomplished a journey of 200 miles in twenty-four hours, when he went to see his brother Drusus, who was sick in Germany.--_Rev. R. Burgess, B.D._

_Domestic Life of the Saxons._

Were it possible for an archæologist to report the gossip of the Saxon hinds over their ale or mead, we should have learnt more of their daily life from such a specimen of their conversation than from all the cautious inferences from manuscripts and records. Let us conceive the presence of a modern reporter in the mead-hall of Hrothgar, and we may be certain that his literal transcript of a single hour’s talk there would be worth all that we can now learn from the Romance of Beowulf. “Then,” says the poem, “there was for the sons of the Geats (Beowulf and his followers altogether), a bench cleared in the beer-hall; there the bold spirit, free from quarrel, went to sit; the thane observed his office, he that in his hand bare the twisted ale-cup; he poured the bright sweet liquor; meanwhile the poet sang serene in Heorot (the name of Hrothgar’s palace); there was joy of heroes.” Although our conceptions of the scene are faint and vague, the antiquary is enabled to represent certain items as “the twisted ale-cup,” a favourite fashion of our forefathers, many of whose ale-cups, as discovered in their barrows or graves, are incapable of standing upright, implying that their proprietors were thirsty souls, and that it was not, as we supposed, the Prince Regent who first invented _tumblers_. From the mead-hall and the other Saxon houses of the period, we also get the type of the modern English mansion, with its _enceinte_ and its lodge-gate, as distinguished from its hall-door. The early Saxon house was the whole enclosure, at the gate of which--the _ostium domus_--beggars assembled for alms, and the porter received the arms of strangers. The whole mass enclosed within this wall constituted the burgh, or tun, and the hall, with its duru, or door _par excellence_, was the chief of its edifices. Around it were grouped the sleeping chambers, or _bowers_, as they were designated till a late age, with the subordinate offices. Mr. Wright (in his able work on the _Domestic Life of the Middle Ages_) draws many of his inferences from the description of the mead-hall of Hrothgar, and adds that he believes Bulwer’s description of the Saxonized Roman house inhabited by Hilda is substantially correct. Still, though we can identify to this day the Saxon derivatives of many of our houses and much of our crockery-ware, this helps us little as regards the sentiments of the originators of these familiar types. They have left us some memorials of their manners; but, substantially speaking, their sentiments on a great variety of subjects are lost to us, and there is little trace of them, even in their barrows and sepulchral surroundings.--_Times review._

_Love of Freedom._

There is something absolutely touching in the simplicity of the following incident, derived from Aelfric’s _Colloquium_, composed in the eleventh century. A teacher examines a ploughman on the subject of his occupation. “What sayest thou, ploughman; how dost thou perform thy work?” “O, my lord,” he answers, “I labour excessively: I go out at dawn of day, driving my oxen to the field, and yoke them to the plough: there is no weather so severe that I dare rest at home, for fear of my lord; but having yoked my oxen, and fastened the share and coulter to the plough, every day I must plough a whole field (acre?) or more.” The teacher again asks, “Hast thou any companion?” “I have a boy who urges the oxen with a goad, and who is now hoarse with cold and shouting.” “What more doest thou in the day?” “Truly, I do more yet. I must fill the oxen’s mangers with hay, and water them, and carry away their dung.” “O, it is a sore vexation!” “Yea, it is great vexation; because _I am not free_.”

The Anglo-Saxon clergy went so far as to make the giving of Freedom an Atonement for all Sins, by encouraging the manumission of theows gratuitously, as an action of merit in the eyes of the church. Among the early benefactors of the abbey of Ramsey, it is recorded that Athelstan Mannesone manumitted thirteen men in every thirty, “for the salvation of his soul,” taking them as the lot fell upon them, and “placing them in the open road, so that they were at liberty to go where they would.” Many, indeed, were freed, from feelings of piety. Thus it appears from the celebrated “Exeter book” in the cathedral, that, at Exeter, on the day when they removed the bodies of bishops Osbern and Leofric from the old minster to the new one, William, bishop of Exeter, “proclaimed Wulfree Pig free and sackless of the land at Teigtune,” and “freed him for the love of God and of St. Marie, and of all Christ’s saints, and for the redemption of the bishops’ souls and his own.” Sometimes a man who had no theow of his own, bought one of another person, in order to emancipate him, “for the love of God and the redemption of his soul.” Such were the fruits that ripened from Roman teaching in the olden time!--_Archæologia_, vol. xxx.

_The Despot deceived._

Nothing can be more erroneous than the notion that the despot, though he may himself oppress his people, can prevent others from doing the same. He is cheated by his subordinates, and they cheat the people.--_Archbishop Whately._

_True Source of Civilization._

The killing of animals for food is, after all, merely the resource of the savage, and domesticated animals and cultivated plants are indispensable to the earliest advances of civilization. It may be safely averred, says Mr. Craufurd, that no people ever attained any great civilization without, for example, the possession of some cereal, and without having domesticated the horse, or the ox, or the buffalo. No evidence exists of a people emerging from barbarism whose food consisted of the cocoa-nut, the banana, the date, the bread-fruit, sago, the potato, the yam, or the batata. Such articles are too easily produced, require too little skill and ingenuity to raise; and when they fail, there is nothing to fall back upon--nothing between the people cultivating them and starvation. The higher, too, the cereal the better, wheat standing at the top of the list in temperate regions, and rice in warm ones. Thus, the cereals of Egypt, nurtured by the mud of the Nile, created a respectable civilization among a very inferior race. It was because the Egyptians, says Mr. Craufurd, besides the date, possessed wheat, barley, pulse, and the ox, and that nature dressed and irrigated their country, that the Egyptians became numerous and civilized.

_The Lowest Civilization._

The South Sea Islanders who scalded their fingers in Captain Cook’s tea-kettle, and to whom pottery and warm water were luxuries also, were certainly low in the scale of civilization, but they were not nearly so low as the Terra del Fuegans at this moment. Mr. Darwin describes the state of these wretched creatures as the extreme of misery, and as affording him the most curious and interesting spectacle he had ever beheld. “I could not have believed,” says he, “how wide was the difference between savage and civilized men.” Their land, we should remember, is a land of rain, sleet, snow, and storms, unsheltered from the cold of the South Pole, and one thick murky mass of forest. The “climate (where gale succeeds gale, with rain, hail, and sleet) seems blacker than anywhere else. In the Straits of Magellan, looking due south from Port Famine, the distant channels between the mountains appear, from their gloominess, to lead beyond the confines of the world.” In this terrestrial limbo live human beings who are clad, for this inclement temperature, in a single otter-skin, which they lace across their breast by strings, and, according as the wind blows, shift from side to side. He pictures the state of these poor creatures at night, some half-a-dozen of them sleeping together naked on the wet ground coiled up like animals. “Whenever it is low water they must rise to pick shellfish from the rocks; and the women, winter and summer, either dive to collect sea-eggs, or sit patiently in their canoes, and with a baited hair-line jerk out small fish. If a seal is killed, or the floating carcass of a putrid whale is discovered, they are feasts. Such miserable food is assisted by a few tasteless berries and fungi.” Mr. Snow, who brings us our latest reports from the Fuegans, visited them in 1855. At present, however, their condition in the scale of humanity is almost as low as it can be; for though they possess the capacity of kindling a fire by the friction of two sticks (an accomplishment of which, by the way, all savages that we know of are capable), and though they can form canoes by hollowing out logs of wood, they cultivate no plant and domesticate no animal, and have, as we see, no other art of civilized life.--_Times journal._

_Why do we shake Hands?_

“It is,” replies Dr. Humphry, in his clever volume, _The Human Foot and the Human Hand_, “a very old-fashioned way of indicating friendship. Jehu said to Jehonadab, ‘Is thine heart right as my heart is with thine heart? If it be, give me thine hand.’ It is not merely an old-fashioned custom; it is a strictly _natural_ one, and, as usual in such cases, we may find a physiological reason, if we will only take the pains to search for it. The animals cultivate friendship by the sense of touch, as well as by the senses of smell, hearing, and sight; and for this purpose they employ the most sensitive parts of their bodies. They rub their noses together, or they lick one another with their tongues. Now, the hand is a part of the human body in which the sense of touch is highly developed; and, after the manner of the animals, we not only like to see and hear our friend (we do not usually smell him, though Isaac, when his eyes were dim, resorted to this sense as a means of recognition), we also touch him, and promote the kindly feelings by the contact and reciprocal pressure of the sensitive hands. Observe, too, how this principle is illustrated by another of our modes of greeting. When we wish to determine whether a substance be perfectly smooth, and are not quite satisfied with the information conveyed by the fingers, we apply it to the lips and rub it gently upon them. We do so, because we know by experience that the sense of touch is more acutely developed in the lips than in the hands. Accordingly, when we wish to reciprocate the warmer feelings, we are not content with the contact of the hands, and we bring the lips into the service. A shake of hands suffices for friendship, in undemonstrative England at least; but a kiss is the token of a more tender affection.”

Dr. Humphry is no friend to Palmistry; for, he observes: “You will estimate the value of the science of Cheiromancy when you hear that equal furrows upon the lower joint of the thumb argue riches and possessions; but a line surrounding the middle joint portends hanging. The nails, also, come in for their share of attention: and we are informed that, when short, they imply goodness; when long and narrow, steadiness but dulness; when curved, rapacity. Black spots upon them are unlucky; white are fortunate. Even at the present day Gipsies practise the art when they can find sufficient credulity to encourage them.”

_Various Modes of Salutation._

Of all the different modes of salutation in various countries, there is none so graceful as that which prevails in Syria. At New Guinea the fashion is certainly picturesque; for they place upon their hands the leaves of trees as symbols of peace and friendship. An Ethiopian takes the robe of another and ties it about his own waist, leaving his friend partially naked. In a cold climate this would not be very agreeable. Sometimes it is usual for persons to place themselves naked before those whom they salute as a sign of humility. This custom was put in practice before Sir Joseph Banks when he received the visit of two Otaheitan females. The inhabitants of the Philippine Islands take the hand or foot of him they salute, and gently rub their face with it, which is at all events more agreeable than the salute of the Laplanders, who have a habit of rubbing noses, applying their own proboscis with some degree of force to that of the person they desire to salute. The salute with which you are greeted in Syria is at once most graceful and flattering; the hand is raised with a quick but gentle motion, to the heart, to the lips, and to the head, to intimate that the person saluting is willing to serve you, to think for you, to speak for you, and to act for you.--_Farley’s Syria._

_What is Comfort?_

Could any one really be satisfied with the attainment and diffusion of any conceivable amount of Comfort? Or do the whole series of influences which the popular sentiment almost deifies really affect very deeply the standing calamities and the standing complaints of life? It is not difficult to bring the question to a fair test. If all the causes which we see at work around us were to continue to operate for an indefinite length of time in the utmost vigour, they would probably not raise the average standard of comfort for the whole population above the point at which the average of the better-paid professional classes stands at present. The wildest dreams of the most sanguine believer in progress on Christian principles would be more than realized if he ever saw ordinary day-labourers as well off and as intelligent as ordinary lawyers, doctors, and merchants are at present. Take, then, one reasonably prosperous person of this kind, and see whether he is in such an entirely satisfactory condition. It is clear that he is not. He neither knows whence he comes nor whither he is going, nor for what purpose he lives; or at least his knowledge upon these subjects is so indefinite, so much involved in metaphors and mysteries, that it is little more than enough to make visible the darkness in which he stands. He passes through life in a round of occupations which often fatigue and hardly ever satisfy large portions of his mind; and the very comforts which have been provided for him by so infinite a multiplicity of social devices, as often as not operate to choke and strangle his energies. We need not detail the features of a familiar picture. Every one knows the gloomy side of life, and though it is not the whole truth, it is right that its existence should be recognised. It is an insulting affectation to keep it out of sight, and to persist in crying up progress and improvement as if there was no undying worm and unquenchable fire.--_Saturday Review._

_What is Luxury?_

Luxury is the indefinite and comprehensive term of reproach with which the vulgar, in all ages, brand whatever is beyond their own tastes and habits. What is luxury to one is but refinement and civilization to others. The higher orders mingle up with their disgust at the boorish and noisy pastimes of the lower, a kind of latent feeling of their immorality: the lower revenge themselves by considering as things absolutely sinful the more splendid entertainments and elegant festivities of their superiors in wealth and refinement.--_Quarterly Review._

_What do we know of Life?_

The condition of our life is that we stand on a narrow strip of the shore, waiting till the tide, which has washed away hundreds of millions of our fellows, shall wash away us also into a country of which there are no charts, and from which there is no return. What little we know about that unseen world comes to this--that it contains extremes of good and evil, awful and mysterious beyond all human expression or conception, and that those tremendous possibilities are connected with our conduct here. It is surely wiser and more manly to walk silently by the shore of that silent sea, than to boast with puerile exultation over the little sand-castles which we have employed our short leisure in building up. Life can never be matter of exultation, nor can the progress of arts and sciences ever really fill the heart of a man who has a heart to be filled. In its relation to what is to be hereafter, there is, no doubt, no human occupation which is not awful and sacred, for such occupations are the work which is here given us to do--our portion in the days of our vanity. But their intrinsic value is like that of schoolboys’ lessons. They are worth just nothing at all, except as a discipline and a task. It is right that man should rejoice in his own works, but it is very wrong to allow them for one instant to obscure that eternity from which alone they derive their importance. Steam-engines and cotton-mills have their greatness, but life and death are greater and older. Men lived, and died, and sorrowed, and rejoiced before these things were known, and they could do so again. Why mankind was created at all, why we still continue to exist, what has become of that vast multitude which has passed, with more or less sin and misery, through this mysterious earth, and what will become of those vaster multitudes which are treading and will tread the same wonderful path?--these are the great insoluble problems which ought to be seldom mentioned, but never for an instant forgotten. Strange as it may appear to popular lecturers, they really do make it seem rather unimportant whether, on an average, there is or is not a little more or less good nature, a little more or less comfort, and a little more or less knowledge in the world. Men live and die in India, and China, and Africa, as well as in England and France; and where there is life and death there are the great essentials of existence, and the eternal problems which they involve. This page of beautiful philosophy is from the _Saturday Review_.

_The truest Patriot the greatest Hero._

Is he not in reality the truest _patriot_ who fills up his station in private life well; he who loves and promotes peace both public and private, who knowing that his country’s prosperity depends much more on its virtues than its arms, resolves that his individual endeavours shall not be wanting to promote this desirable end? And is he not the greatest _hero_ who is able to despise public honour for the sake of private usefulness, he who has learnt to subdue his own inclinations, to deny himself those gratifications which are inconsistent with virtue and piety, who has conquered his passions and brought them low even as a child that is weaned: is not such a man greater than he that taketh a city, sheddeth blood as it were water, or calls for the thundering applause of assembled multitudes? But if persons in general held these sentiments, if utility were substituted for show, and religious usefulness for worldly activity, how very little our public men would have to do! Truly they would be driven to turn their swords into ploughshares, and study the Gospel instead of the statutes.

_The old Philosophers._

Horace Walpole, who possessed great knowledge of life, though himself disfigured by arrogant conceits, has left this satirical view of the wisdom of the ancient philosophers:

“I thought that philosophers were virtuous, upright men, who
loved wisdom, and were above the little passions and foibles
of humanity. I thought they assumed that proud title as an
earnest to the world, that they intended to be something more
than mortal; that they engaged themselves to be patterns of
excellence, and would utter no opinion, would pronounce no
decision, but what they believed the quintessence of truth; that
they always acted without prejudice and respect of persons.
Indeed, we know that the ancient philosophers were a ridiculous
composition of arrogance, disputation, and contradictions! that
some of them acted against all ideas of decency; that others
affected to doubt of their own senses; that some, for venting
unintelligible nonsense, pretended to think themselves superior
to kings; that they gave themselves airs of accounting for all
that we do and do not see--and yet, that no two of them agreed
in a single hypothesis; that one thought fire, another water,
the origin of all things; and that some were even so absurd and
impious as to displace God, and enthrone matter in his place. I
do not mean to disparage such wise men, for we are really obliged
to them: they anticipated and helped us off with an exceeding
deal of nonsense, through which we might possibly have passed if
they had not prevented us.”

_Glory of the Past._

To be honoured and even privileged by the laws, opinions, and inveterate usages of our country, growing out of the prejudice of ages, has nothing to provoke horror and indignation in any man. Even to be too tenacious of those privileges is not absolutely a crime. The strong struggle in every individual to preserve possession of what he has found to belong to him, and to distinguish him, is one of the securities against injustice and despotism implanted in our nature. It operates as an instinct to secure property, and to preserve communities in a settled state. What is there to shock in this? Nobility is a graceful ornament to the civil order. It is the Corinthian capital of polished society. _Omnes boni nobilitati semper favemus_ was the saying of a wise and good man. It is, indeed, one side of a liberal and benevolent mind to incline to it with some sort of partial propensity. He feels no ennobling principle in his own heart who wishes to level all the artificial institutions which have been adopted for giving a body to opinion and permanence to fugitive esteem. _It is a sour, malignant, and envious disposition, without taste for the reality, or for any image or representation of virtue, that sees with joy the unmerited fall of what had long flourished in splendour and in honour._ I do not like to see anything destroyed, any void produced in society, any ruin on the face of the land.--_Burke._

_Wild Oats._

We are more familiar with Wild Oats in a moral than in a botanical sense; yet in the latter it is an article of no small curiosity. For one thing, it has a semi-inherent power of moving from one place to another. Let a _head_ of it be laid down in a moistened state upon a table, and left there for the night, and next morning it will be found to have walked off. The locomotive power resides in the peculiar hard _awn_, or spike, which sets the grain a-tumbling over and over sideways. A very large and coarse kind of wild oats, brought many years ago from Otaheite, was found to have the ambulatory character in uncommon perfection. When ordinary oats is allowed by neglect to degenerate, it acquires this among other characteristics of wild oats.--_R. Chambers._

_How Shyness spoils Enjoyment._

Mr. Arthur Helps writes upon this everyday hindrance to happiness: “I believe if most young persons were to tell us what they had suffered from shyness upon their entrance into society, it would well deserve to be placed next to want of truth as a hindrance to the enjoyment of society. Now, admitting that there is a certain degree of graceful modesty mixed up with this shyness, very becoming in the young, there is at the same time a great deal of needless care about what others think and say. In fact, it proceeds from a painful egotism, sharpened by needless self-examinations and foolish imaginations, in which the shy youth or maiden is tormented by his or her personality, and is haunted by imagining that he or she is the centre of the circle--the observed of all observers. The great cause of this shyness is not sufficiently accustoming children to society, or making them suppose that their conduct in it is a matter of extreme importance, and especially in urging them from their earliest youth by this most injurious of all sayings, ‘If you do this or that, what will be said, what will be thought of you?’ Thus referring the child not to religion, not to wisdom, not to virtue, not even to the opinion of those whose opinion ought to have weight, but to the opinion of whatever society he may chance to come into. I often think the parent, guardian, or teacher, who has happily omitted to instil this vile prudential consideration, or enabled the child to resist it, even if he, the teacher, has omitted much good advice and guidance, has still done better than that teacher or parent who has filled the child to the brim with good moral considerations, and yet has allowed this one piece of arrant worldliness to creep in.”

“_Custom, the Queen of the World._”

Sir William Hamilton, in his _Metaphysical Essays_, has the following passage characterizing this universal rule:--

“Man is by nature a social animal. ‘He is more political,’
says Aristotle, ‘than any bee or ant.’ But the existence of
society, from a family to a state, supposes a certain harmony of
sentiment among its members; and nature has, accordingly, wisely
implanted in us a tendency to assimilate in opinions and habits
of thought to those with whom we live and act. There is thus, in
every society great or small, a certain gravitation of opinions
towards a common centre. As in our natural body, every part has
a necessary sympathy with every other, and all together form,
by their harmonious conspiration, a healthy whole; so, in the
social body, there is always a strong predisposition, in each
of its members, to act and think in unison with the rest. This
universal sympathy, or fellow-feeling, of our social nature, is
the principle of the different spirit dominant in different ages,
countries, ranks, sexes, and periods of life. It is the cause
why fashions, why political and religious enthusiasm, why moral
example, either for good or evil, spread so rapidly and exert
so powerful an influence. As men are naturally prone to imitate
others, they consequently regard, as important or insignificant,
as honourable or disgraceful, as true or false, as good or bad,
what those around them consider in the same light. They love and
hate what they see others desire and eschew. This is not to be
regretted; it is natural, and consequently it is right. Indeed,
were it otherwise, society could not subsist, for nothing can be
more apparent than that mankind in general, destined as they are
to occupations incompatible with intellectual cultivation, are
wholly incapable of forming opinions for themselves on many of
the most important objects of human consideration.

“If such, however, be the intentions of nature with respect
to the unenlightened classes, it is manifest that a heavier
obligation is thereby laid on those who enjoy the advantages
of intellectual cultivation, to examine with diligence and
impartiality the foundations of those opinions which have any
connexion with the welfare of mankind. If the multitude must
be led, it is of consequence that it be led by enlightened
conductors. That the great multitude of mankind are by natural
disposition only what others are, is a fact at all times so
obtrusive that it could not escape observation from the moment a
reflective eye was first turned upon man. ‘The whole conduct of
Cambyses,’ says Herodotus, the father of history, ‘towards the
Egyptian gods, sanctuaries, and priests, convinces me that this
king was in the highest degree insane, for otherwise he would
not have insulted the worship and holy things of the Egyptians.
If any one should accord to all men the permission to make free
choice of the best among all customs, undoubtedly each would
choose his own. That this would certainly happen can be shown
by many examples, and among others by the following. The King
Darius once asked the Greeks who were resident in his court, at
what price they could be induced to devour their dead parents.
The Greeks answered, that to this no price could bribe them.
Thereupon the king asked some Indians who were in the habit of
eating their dead parents, what they would take not to eat but to
burn them; and the Indians answered even as the Greeks had done.’
Herodotus concludes this narrative with the observation, that
‘Pindar had justly entitled Custom--the Queen of the World.’”

_Ancient Guilds and Modern Benefit Clubs._

The guilds in our mediæval towns, in the opinion of Mr. T. Wright, F.S.A., were derived from the municipal system of the Romans. We know that such guilds existed in the Roman towns, and with much the same objects. All people have, at all times, placed great importance in the ceremonies attending the interment of the dead; and the process of burial among the Romans was one of great expense, which could be met by families which were wealthy, but it must have been very onerous, falling all at once, on men of very limited means; to avoid the inconvenience of which they _clubbed together_, in a spirit which exists to the same degree in modern times; so that the expense on each occasion, instead of falling upon one, was distributed among the members of the club. This was the great object of the Roman guilds, and the second seems to have been drinking and sociality. People clubbed together to be merry while alive, and to be buried when dead. While they still remained attached to their old customs in burial, they were now taught the duty of investing money in the foundation of obits, or perpetual prayers for the dead; but this being looked upon as a superstitious usage, was the cause of their dissolution after the Reformation. In the successive changes of society, they embraced from time to time other objects; but the two grand objects of the Roman, Saxon, or Mediæval guilds, seemed to have been alike the respectable burial of their deceased members, and the promoting of convivial intercourse--the leading features of a modern Benefit Society.

_The Oxford Man and the Cambridge Man._

If stated very briefly, the chief difference may be said to be that the Cambridge man is more practical. Whether there is something in the method of training pursued, or whether the different degrees of importance assigned to the various branches of education may be the cause, or whether the pitting of man against man in examination may operate still more powerfully, the fact soon forces itself on the attention of all close observers. If two school-friends part, and meet again after spending a year at the respective universities, they are soon conscious that they no longer work exactly in the same way. The Cambridge student has learned to regard everything as a task which he must honestly and steadily get through. To do it, and not to think about it, is his aim. Still less does he occupy himself with thinking about doing it. He is too busy and methodical for the agreeable but delusive pleasure of secondary reflection. He has to master a subject, and all he cares is to master it, and to go through it, so that he may satisfy the practical test of being examined in it and answering creditably. When he leaves college and commences a profession, he works in the same way. A law student from Cambridge, for instance, has generally no very romantic views either of his profession or of himself. Here is a very complex, confused, various piece of learning which he has undertaken to acquire. To do the thing well, he must work hard, and must utterly disbelieve that any knowledge will come unless it is painfully obtained. He must cultivate a legal memory, note carefully up all that he thinks he ought to know, and prepare himself to be able to pass an imaginary examination at the shortest possible notice. The Oxford student, on the other hand, is more inclined to speculate about law, to dally with its details, and to despise its confusion. Cambridge men, so to speak, approach law in a humble attitude, and are consequently, perhaps, as a rule, better lawyers after the received English fashion. A boating man who has shaved through a pass at Cambridge, will probably read law precisely in the same way as a boating man who has shaved through a pass at Oxford. But if we compare the general body of men who have taken fair degrees or been accustomed to read, we shall find that there is a difference in the manner in which the one and the other set approach a subject like law, and that difference may fairly be described by saying that the Cambridge manner is the more practical.--_Saturday Review._

“_Great Events from Little Causes spring._”

Exemplifications of this poetic saw are very numerous in the highways and byeways of History, ancient and modern; all tending to show the springs which have set the world in motion, and how the most trivial circumstances have occasioned the subversion of empires, and erected new ones in their stead. Infinite are the consequences which follow from a single, and often apparently a very insignificant, circumstance. Paley himself narrowly escaped being a baker; here was a decision upon which hung in one scale, perhaps, the immortal interests of thousands, and in the other, the gratification of the taste of the good people of Giggleswick for hot rolls. Cromwell was near being strangled in his cradle by a monkey; here was this wretched ape wielding in his paws the destiny of nations. Then, again, how different in their kind, as well as in their magnitude, are these consequences from anything that might have been, _à priori_, expected. Henry VIII. is smitten with the beauty of a girl of eighteen, and ere long--

“The Reformation beams from Bullen’s eyes.”

_The Mission of St. Augustine_ is one of the most striking instances in all history of the vast results which may flow from a very small beginning,--of the immense effects produced by a single thought in the heart of a single man, carried out conscientiously, deliberately, and fearlessly. Nothing in itself could seem more trivial than the meeting of Gregory with the three Yorkshire boys in the market-place at Rome; yet this roused a feeling in his mind which he never lost; and through all the obstacles which were thrown first in his own way, and then in that of Augustine, his highest desire concerning it was more than realised. From Canterbury, the first English Christian city--from Kent, the first English Christian kingdom--has by degrees arisen the whole constitution of Church and State in England, which now binds together the whole British empire. And from the Christianity here established has flowed, by direct consequences, first, the Christianity of Germany--then, after a long interval, of North America--and, lastly, we may trust, in time, of all India and all Australasia.--_Stanley’s Historical Memoirs of Canterbury._

_Wars have frequently been brought about by trivial causes._ In the cathedral of Modena, in the marble tower called “La Ghirlandina,” is kept the old worm-eaten wooden bucket which was the cause of the civil war, or rather affray, between the Modenese and Bolognese, in the time of Frederic II., Nov. 15, 1325. It was long suspended by the chain which fastened the gate of Bologna, through which the Modenese forced their passage, and seized the prize, which was deposited in the cathedral by the victors, the Geminiani, as a trophy of the defeat of the Petronii, with wonderful triumph. The event is the subject of Tassoni’s Secchia Rapita, or Rape of the Bucket, the first modern mock-heroic poem.

When the palace of the Trianon was building for Louis XIV., at the end of the park of Versailles, the monarch went to inspect the work, accompanied by Louvois, secretary-at-war, and superintendent of the building: Louis remarked that one of the windows was out of shape, and smaller than the rest, which Louvois denied. The king had the window measured, and finding that he had judged rightly, treated Louvois with contumely before the whole court. This treatment so incensed the minister, that when he returned home, he was heard to say, that he would find better employment for a monarch than that of insulting his favourites. Louvois was as good as his word, for by his insolence and haughtiness he insulted the other powers, and occasioned the bloody war of 1688.

An instance pregnant with mightier results could not, perhaps, be quoted than the following:--When many Puritans emigrated, or were about to emigrate, to America, in 1637, Cromwell, either despairing of his fortunes at home, or indignant at the rule of government which prevailed, resolved to quit his native country, in search of those civil and religious privileges of which he could freely partake in the New World. Eight ships were lying in the Thames, ready to sail: in one of them, says Hume, (quoting Mather and other authorities,) were embarked Hazelrig, Hampden, Pym, and Cromwell. A proclamation was issued, and the vessels were detained by Order in Council. The King had, indeed, cause to rue the exercise of his authority. In the same year, Hampden’s memorable trial--the great cause of Ship-money--occurred. What events rapidly followed!

At the beginning of the reign of Elizabeth, when the Protestant religion was restored, the question whether there should be Saints’ Days in the Calendar was considered by the Convocation, and sharply and fully debated. The Saints’ Days were carried only by a single vote: 59 members voted for Saints’ Days, 58 for omitting them.--_Literary Remains of H. Fynes Clinton._

Bishop Burnet relates that the Habeas Corpus Act passed by a mere mistake; that one peer was counted for ten, and that made a majority for the measure.--_Earl Stanhope’s Speech_, 1856.

_The House of Brunswick and the Casting Vote._--Sir Arthur Owen, bart., of Orielton, in the county of Pembroke, is the individual who is asserted to have given the casting vote which placed the Brunswick dynasty on the throne of England. A lady, in 1856, residing at Haverfordwest, remembered her grandmother, who was staying at Orielton, at the time when Sir Arthur Owen rode to London on _horseback_, for the purpose of recording his vote: he arrived at the precise juncture when his single vote caused the scale to preponderate in favour of the descendants of the Electress Sophia. (_I. Pavin Phillips_, _Haverfordwest_.--_Notes and Queries_, 2nd S. No. 31.) Another account, which Mr. Phillips thinks the correct one, states that Sir Arthur Owen made the number even; and that it was Mr. Griffith Rice, M.P. for Carmarthenshire, who gave the _casting vote_. (See Debrett’s _Baronetage_, 1824.)

_The Discovery of America_ is referred to by Humboldt as a “wonderful concatenation of trivial circumstances which undeniably exercised an influence on the course of the world’s destiny:”

Washington Irving has justly observed that if Columbus had
resisted the counsel of Martin Alonzo Pinzon, and continued to
steer westward, he would have entered the Gulf Stream and been
borne to Florida, and from thence, probably, to Cape Hatteras
and Virginia,--a circumstance of incalculable importance, since
it might have been the means of giving to the United States of
North America a Catholic Spanish population, in the place of the
Protestant English one by which those regions were subsequently
colonised. “It seems to me like an inspiration,” said Pinzon
to the Admiral, “that my heart dictates to me that we ought
to steer in a different direction.” It was on the strength of
this circumstance that in the celebrated lawsuit which Pinzon
carried on against the heirs of Columbus, between 1513 and
1515, he maintained that the discovery of America was alone
due to him. This inspiration Pinzon owed, as related by an old
sailor of Moguez, at the same trial, to _the flight of a flock
of parrots_ which he had observed in the evening flying towards
the south-west, in order, as he might well have conjectured, to
roost on trees on the land. _Never has a flight of birds been
attended by more important results._ It may even be said that it
has decided the first colonization in the New Continent, and the
original of the Roman and Germanic races of men.

The Act to recharter the first Bank of the United States was defeated by the casting vote of Vice-president Clinton (_ex-officio_ President of the Senate), and the Tariff Act of 1846 was ordered to be engrossed by the casting vote of Vice-president Dallas.

That _the Past is the Guide for the Present_ is thus argued:--Every political treatise referring to events which have engrossed the attention of the day, either as modifications or as changes of our social system, must be valuable in later years. It must necessarily recommend or condemn measures on account of their probable operation in the time to come; it must in some degree be a prophecy, or else it is practically worthless. The politician studies the past merely as his guide for the future. If he is learned, wise, and at all an adept in the science which he professes--than which no other is of so momentous an import--he will consider past history as the barometer which must guide him in predicating the approach either of a tempest or a calm. Temporary clamour or occasional obstruction will not lead him to forsake clear principles of action, or to recommend a grand constitutional remedy in the case of a trifling local disease. He must look forward beyond the sphere of immediate action--resolute in this belief, that one false step, however small, may upset the equilibrium of the State.--_Blackwood’s Magazine_, 1850.

_Great Britain on the Map of the World._

We see two little spots huddled up in a corner, awkwardly shot off to a side, as it were, yet facing the great sea, on the very verge of the great waste of waters, with nothing to protect them: not like Greece, or Italy, or Egypt, in a Mediterranean bounded by a surrounding shore, to be coasted by timid mariners, but on the very edge and verge of the great ocean, looking out westward to the expanse. If she launch at all, she must launch with the fearless heart that is ready to brave old ocean,--to take him with his gigantic western waves--to face his winds and hurricanes--his summer heats of the dead-still tropics--his winter blasts--his fairy icebergs--his fogs like palpable darkness--his hail-blasts and his snow. Britain has done so. From her island-home, she has sailed east and west, north and south. She has gone outwardly, and planted empires. The States themselves, now her compeer, were an offshoot from her island territory. Her destiny is to plant out nations, and the spirit of colonization is the genius that presides over her career. She plants out Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the Cape. Ceylon and the Mauritius she occupies for trade. India she covers with a network of law, framed and woven in her Anglo-Saxon loom. She clutches China, and begins at last to break up the celestial solecism. She lays hold of Borneo, and straightway piratical prahus are seen wrecked and stranded on the shore, or blown to fragments in the air. She raises an impregnable fortress at the entrance of the Mediterranean, and another in its centre, as security to her sea-borne trade. She does the same in embryo at the entrance to the Red Sea. Westward from Newfoundland, she traverses a continent, and there, in the Pacific, Vancouver’s Island, which may one day become the New Great Britain of new Anglo-Saxon enterprise, destined to carry civilization to the innumerable islands of the great sea--bears the union-jack for its island banner, and acknowledges the sovereignty of the British Crown. At Singapore, she has provisionally made herself mistress of the Straits of Malacca; and thousands of miles away on the other hand, at the Falkland Islands, near to the Land of Fire, the British mariner may hear the voice of praise issuing in the Anglo-Saxon tongue. In addition to this, she has representatives at every court, and consuls at every sea-port. Her cruisers bear her flag on every navigable sea. Europeans, Asiatics, Africans, Americans, and Australians, are found wearing her uniform, eating her bread, bearing her arms, and contributing to extend her dominion.--_North British Review._

_Ancient and Modern London._

It is interesting, beyond a merely antiquarian point of view, to trace the progress of London from a walled town, covering about 700 acres, with a population half mercantile, half military, living in a labyrinth of courts and alleys, the majority being, as appears from an old proclamation, “_heaped up together, and in a sort, half smothered_.” Let us compare this with the majestic city of our day, spreading over more than 120 square miles, and containing 2600 miles of streets, flanked by 360,000 inhabited houses, with a population of 3,000,000, and an assessed rental of 13,000,000_l._

Modern London embraces important portions of the four adjacent counties, and has swallowed up not only the old district, which is still designated “the City,” and its ancient suburbs, but numberless places formerly existing as distinct towns, villages, and hamlets, which in days gone by had their separate systems of local government. Under the present regulations, the Central Criminal Court district extends over an area of more than 700 square miles, including all Middlesex, and parts of Surrey, Kent, Essex, and Hertfordshire; which is also about the area of the Metropolitan Police District.--_Alexander Pulling_; _Law Magazine_, N.S., No. xxviii.

_Potatoes the national food of the Irish._

There is one instance, and only one, of a great European people possessing a very cheap national food. In Ireland the labouring classes have for more than two hundred years been principally fed by potatoes, which were introduced into their country late in the sixteenth or early in the seventeenth century. Now, the peculiarity of the potato is, that until the appearance of the late disease, it was, and perhaps still is, cheaper than any other food equally wholesome. If we compare its reproductive power with the amount of nutriment contained in it, we find that one acre of average land sown with potatoes will support twice as many persons as the same quantity of land sown with wheat. The consequence is, that in a country where men live on potatoes, the population will, if other things are tolerably equal, increase twice as fast as in a country where they live on wheat. And so it has actually occurred: until a few years ago, the population in Ireland, in round numbers, increased annually three per cent.; the population of England during the same period increasing one and a half per cent.--_Buckle’s History of Civilization._

_Irish-speaking Population._

There were in Ireland at the time of the Census of 1861, 1,105,536 persons who spoke Irish. 163,275 of them spoke Irish only; the other 942,261 spoke both Irish and English. Of those who spoke Irish only, 3,075 were in the civic districts and 160,200 in the rural districts. That the number is declining is obvious from the circumstance that the proportion under 20 years of age was less than a third. 77,818 were in Connaught (in a population of less than a million), 62,039 in Munster, 23,180 in Ulster, only 238 in all Leinster.

_Our Colonial Empire._

The Colonies of Great Britain comprise altogether 3,350,000 square miles, and cost us for management 3,350,000_l._ per annum, or just about a pound a mile. They have an aggregate revenue of 11,000,000_l._, and owe among them 27,000,000_l._, or just two years and a half’s income. They import goods to the amount of 60,000,000_l._ yearly--half from ourselves, and half from all the rest of the world. They export produce to the value of 50,000,000_l._, of which three-fifths come to this kingdom; and all this is done by a population which is under 10,000,000 in the aggregate, and of which only 5,000,000 are whites. Add to these figures, says the _Spectator_, 900,000 square miles for India, and 200,000,000 of people with a trade of 71,000,000_l._, and we have a result that _the Queen reigns ever nearly one-third of the land of the earth, and nearly a fourth of its population_. If a British vizier under the Emperor should, as it seems probable, rule China, Englishmen will directly control _more than half the human race_!

Our Colonies may be grouped or classed as North American, Australian, Mediterranean, Atlantic, West Indian, Eastern, and African. In extent of territory no Colonies approach those of Australia. The palm of debt belongs to Canada, that of cost to the Mediterranean settlements, that of commerce to the Australian Colonies again. This great show of trade is owing to the precious character of their produce. Of the gross exports of 50,000,000_l._ they claim 22,000,000_l._, and cost little or nothing for garrisons all the while. In 1860, 250,000_l._ paid the entire military expenditure on this group of our dependencies; but New Zealand, which only stood at 100,000_l._ then, is probably not managed for that figure now. We can see but little trace of its gold-fields in the return before us, which throws all the weight upon New South Wales and Victoria. The former of these settlements exported in 1860 produce to the value of 5,000,000_l._; the latter (and here come the gold-ships) no less than 13,000,000_l._ worth of goods. Three-fourths of this, too, came to England, whereas in the export-trade of New South Wales three-fourths went to foreign countries. Victoria also imported very largely from us, as did the other Colonies of the group, standing, in the whole, for more than half the sum total of this column.

Taking population and area into consideration, the trade done by the West Indies is not a bad one. There are but 54,000 white people in all these islands, yet they export goods to the value of 6,000,000_l._, and import about the same. Most of the settlements are somewhat in debt--Jamaica above the others; but even Jamaica does not owe three years’ income, whereas Canada owes eight. The total revenue of the West Indian Colonies in 1860 was not quite a million; the total debt was not quite a million and a half. But the most curious specimen in the return is Heligoland. The area of this British Colony is one-third of a square mile. On that territory a population of 2,172 souls maintains itself, and buys 13,000_l._ worth of foreign produce every year. Heligoland has also a revenue; but Heligoland has a public debt likewise, and is behind the world to the extent of nearly 5,000_l._