Chapter VII: Rome (3)

There is one earnest word which has yet to be addressed to those who have satisfied their consciences that they may with propriety indulge their inclination to use fermented liquors in moderation habitually. Have they also satisfied themselves that they can keep to the moderation their consciences allow? Have they taken fairly and sufficiently into consideration their own powers to resist urgent allurements? Have they well weighed the possible influence, in their own case, of the enticements which agreeable flavors and pleasurable exhilaration necessarily bring into operation? Have they sufficiently pondered upon the admitted truth that there scarcely ever yet was a confirmed drunkard who did not begin his vicious career by a very moderate employment of the seductive liquors? If they have done this, then let them still nevertheless go one step further and carefully determine also for their own case, what moderation is, and while doing this, let them never forget that when the thirsty man drinks a pint of table beer, he pours a teaspoonful of ardent spirit into his blood; when he drinks a pint of strong ale he pours two tablespoonfuls of ardent spirit into his blood; when he drinks four glasses of strong wine, he pours one glass of ardent spirit into his blood; when he drinks two glasses of rum, brandy, or gin, he pours from three-quarters of a glass to a glass of ardent spirit into the channels of his supply-pipes.

The habitual drinker of port wine has a more or less strong fancy that his favorite and so-called “generous” beverage fills him with “spirit” and “fire.” This fancy is indeed not without some ground. Government has recently caused a very careful examination to be made of the strength of the port wines that are furnished to the English markets, and the investigation has disclosed the startling and unexpected fact that the weakest of these wines contains 26 per cent.; ordinary specimens of them from 30 to 36 per cent.; choice specimens 40 per cent.; and what are called the finest wines as much as 56 per cent. of proof ardent spirit. The port wine drinker therefore actually receives even more “spirit” and “fire” with his ruby drink than he is himself aware he has bargained for. There are rich flavor and delicious odor, no doubt, in his wine, and so much the greater is his danger. These serve only to conceal a wily enemy who is lurking beneath. A bottle of ruby port wine in the stomach commonly means half a bottle of poisonous fiery spirit in the blood, and heart, and brain.

THE PARIS WORKMAN.

By R. HEATH.

Like all the inhabitants of Paris, the workmen dwell in houses of five or six stories high. The ground floor is let out in shops, between which the principal staircase is entered by a narrow passage. At the back there is a small court-yard, skirted on one side by a wing from the main building, of from two to three stories high. Each flat of the main building and of its wing is occupied by several tenants, so that such buildings contain on an average 50 different tenants, with as many as from 120 to 150 inhabitants. In one that I have visited there were 47 tenants, the total number of persons in the building at night being 114.

Workmen inhabit all quarters of Paris, the better sort preferring to live at some distance from their work. The northeast of Paris is, however, peculiarly their quarter; the suburb of St. Antoine and that of St. Martin, with the districts known as La Villette and Belleville, are almost entirely inhabited by workmen, and the tradespeople who supply their wants. The neighborhood of the Canal Saint Martin is altogether a different Paris to that usually seen by the visitor. It has more of the cheerless look of our own manufacturing districts; however, the bright sun of Paris, the rows of trees, and the fountains prevent it from looking gloomy or sad.

In this neighborhood lodging is not so dear as in the older parts of the city. In very miserable and dirty streets in the Latin quarter, the workman has to pay as much as thirty dollars a year for a single room; two rooms cost him fifty-six dollars a year; and two rooms and a little place, which he can use as a kitchen, seventy-two dollars a year. This is enormous, and amounts to about twenty per cent. of his income, supposing him to work full time, and not to belong to one of the more skilled trades.

The question of rent is one of the greatest grievances of which Paris workmen have to complain. It keeps them in poverty and anxiety, and, it is alleged, often drives the whole family to moral ruin; the wife selling her honor to obtain means, and the husband giving himself up in despair to drink.

How impossible it is to settle questions which affect the tenderest feelings of humanity by an assertion of the rights of property, the following story strikingly illustrates:

During the siege of Paris the people universally fell into poverty. On its termination a certain landlord, unable to get his rents, determined to eject all the defaulters. He sent an order to his agent to turn them out and sell their goods. One was a widow with two children. Her husband had died of a cold caught in the trenches. In her grief the poor woman had vowed she would never be married again, and as a sort of testimony of the truth of her intention she had had their walnut bedstead sawn in half. When the time came for the expulsion the proprietor arrived, and seeing the best piece of furniture spoiled, upbraided her with ruining his goods.

She found hospitality elsewhere, but the loss of the old home and the household gods turned her brain. The insurrection of the Commune broke out. She was one of the first to rush to the scene and to join the insurgents. She and her children were seen wherever there was peril. She mounted the barricade, and planted the flag of the Commune in the teeth of the besiegers. In one of the last days of the defence her eldest son was separated from her in the struggle, and the youngest was killed at her feet. Frantic, she seized the body of the child, and springing up a barricade, hurled it upon the bayonets of the soldiers, then tearing open her dress she cried wildly, “Kill me! kill me!” She fell over the stones, but was not dead. “Finish her!” cried the young officer in charge.

A workman’s rooms are generally poorly furnished, but clean; the custom being to spend a disproportionate amount of income on food and clothing.

Living does not seem so costly in Paris as in London, yet it is generally thought dear. Nevertheless the workman can not be said to fare badly.

There are various modes and hours of taking meals in Paris, depending chiefly on the nationality; for it must never be forgotten that Paris is a cosmopolitan city, and contains large numbers of workmen of German, Belgian, and Italian origin.

The French mode is for the workman to leave home fasting, taking his first two meals at a restaurant or cabaret near the place where he is working. The second meal is eaten about ten or eleven o’clock in the morning, and consists of a plate of meat and vegetables and half a bottle of wine. Any one walking about Paris at this hour of the day must have observed workmen seated alone or in groups at the little tables outside the restaurants, eating their breakfast.

The variety offered and the prices may be judged from the following bill of fare, exposed in a street peculiarly frequented by workmen:

cents.
Radishes, sardines, butter 3
Soup 3
Common wine 7
Beef 6
Mutton stew 7
Leg of mutton 8
Stewed rabbit 12
Chops 8
Goose and veal 12
Potato stew 3
Salads and fruits 3
Cheese and sweetmeats 3
Coffee 4

The workman’s wife has, with her children, an early meal of milked coffee or soup, the children taking with them to school sandwiches of bread and cheese, or something from the previous day’s dinner. The mother takes a similar breakfast in the middle of the day, the whole family looking forward to the third meal, indiscriminately called dinner or supper, as the principal one of the day. This consists of soup, meat, vegetables or salad, cheese or prunes, and fresh fruit according to the season.

Two or three times a week the kettle is put on, and rich soup and boiled beef obtained. Thin soup is made from the water in which the vegetables have been boiled, or with onions, of which the Paris workman is fond. Wine is generally drunk at supper, but when it is very dear a home-made wine is obtained from raisins, or the wife and children drink water in which liquorice root has been steeped.

Nearly every district in Paris has excellent markets, at which all kinds of meat and poultry, vegetables and dairy produce, can be bought at reasonable prices. There are special days in which it is known certain articles will be fresh and abundant.

In addition to the ordinary butchers’ shops, which in Paris are always peculiarly clean and well arranged, there are special shops for the sale of the flesh of horses, asses, and mules. These shops are called horseflesh shops. There is nothing in the least revolting in their appearance, the joints looking like ordinary meat, only a little darker. It strikes the eye at first as strange to see, “Ass, best quality,” but it is a matter of habit.

The economical wife knows all the various pieces of meat which are nourishing, some of which are little heard of in England, such as beef’s stomach, veal’s mouth, sheep’s foot.

Vegetables are always plentiful in Paris, owing to the quantity of market-garden land round the city, and for the same reason there is a constant supply of salads all the year round, but then the Parisians will make a salad of the leaves of the lamb’s lettuce and the dandelion.

Another help in the domestic economy of the workman’s home is the existence of the co-operative stores for the sale of provisions. In 1870 there were three or four hundred such societies in Paris.

The clothing and linen in a workman’s home are said to equal in value his furniture. His own clothing costs him about $24 a year; washing and mending raising the cost by $12; the clothing of his wife and two children would be about $44 more.

The workman’s wife is extremely industrious, rising early and always assiduously engaged in domestic duties, or in some work by which she adds to the income.

Many workmen with small families are able to save sufficient to set their wives up in business as washerwomen, or in a fruit or newspaper stall. Often she undertakes the duties of a housekeeper, _i. e._, acting as general servant for the first few hours of the day in some family of the middle class. When she thus works she has to send her children to the crib or to the asylum; but this is not frequent, as the families of workmen in Paris are usually very small.

Those who have the largest are generally of German origin, coming from Alsace, Belgium, and countries bordering on the Rhine. That very large families sometimes are found among workmen in Paris is proved by one case where a day laborer, a native of the department of the Haut-Rhin, received a prize of $600 for bringing up a family of fifteen children respectably on a wage of fifty cents a day. In the end he was assisted by his son, who was able to earn as a skilled workman more than his father.

As a rule the workman leaves the management of the children and the spending of the money entirely to his wife. He gives her all the wages on pay-day, and she doles out to him every morning the sum necessary for his meals.

Sometimes she finds a great deficit when this time comes. Then she weeps and upbraids him, while he, confessing his fault, says reproachfully of himself, “One must not deceive when one has five or six children.”

It does not appear to be easy to outwit a French woman. Occasionally a drinking husband will try to hide a piece of money in some out of the way place, as, for instance, the peak of his hat. But his wife ransacks his clothes while he is asleep and finds the missing coin. This position of affairs being well known, the workman who will not be entrapped into drinking, or who, being one of a social gathering, insists on going home early, is chaffed as a man who buttons up his coat with pins.

It is certainly a fact that feminine influence is very powerful in Paris, and that what the mother is the home becomes. Thus while Paris workmen almost universally absent themselves from the churches, and throw all their influence politically against the priests, their children go in crowds to make their first communion, and to this end are placed under the priests for religious instruction.

To see the street in front of a Paris church on Whit Sunday, no one would believe religion was a matter not only of indifference, but of contempt, to the Paris workman. The road seen from a balcony is like an immense field of snow-drops. Hundreds of white-robed children float about among crowds of smiling parents and friends. And yet there is hardly anything in it beyond a domestic rite, something which it is respectable to go through at a certain age.

“I will sell my clothes, but my child shall not be different from others,” says a mother, who, no more than her husband, considers the spiritual aspect of the ceremony.

The domestic affections of the workman, where he has not been demoralized by licentiousness or vice, are strong, and his sense of duty to his relatives unusual. Thus it would seem not at all uncommon for a workman to support his wife’s mother, even when she lives far away. A workman who had done this for some time fell, through the state of public affairs, into such distress as to be obliged to earn his bread by selling journals in the street. After a time he recovered his position; but all through his period of poverty, the mother-in-law was allowed to believe that no change had taken place in his circumstances. Another workman, who had originally been in business as a butcher, partly ruined himself by undertaking the charge of his wife’s family. However, he never forsook the mother-in-law, but when he had a numerous family and only the small and precarious wages of a day laborer, she remained as much part of his family as the children.

The workman is careful of his children. He will fetch his daughter, apprenticed to dressmaking, from her work in the evening, and likes to have his son follow the same business as himself. He respects his own art, and has no desire to see his boy made into a clerk. If his wife is foolish enough to express such a wish he rates her soundly. “Does she want to make a skip-kennel (errand boy) of him because one gets dirty in factory work?”

“Thou knowest,” he concludes, “I always consider what thou sayest, but candidly, thou art unreasonable—wouldst thou then have him die of hunger when he is grown up? To slave at a desk is a miserable business; one ought to have a manual trade, with that a man always has his living at his fingers’ ends. Why! thou hast never said I was too dirty for thee; ah! I should like to see him a clerk. And to think that there are people who pretend that the woman has as much judgment as the man. Yes, yes, thou art a very good sort of a woman, but at bottom thou knowest nothing. Henri shall be a mechanic; the devil may burn me if ever he becomes a scribbling puppet.”—_Good Words._

A PROPHECY.

By the REV. BENJAMIN COPELAND.

O, happy, happy, happy boy!
Let me tell you all your joy;
Let me whisper in your ear
All the secret of the seer.
Let me tell your fortune fair
To the wide and wandering air,
To the gentle, genial air;
Let me share my rapture rare
With the social, songful air;
Whatsoe’er the world may say,
You shall have the right of way.
You shall laugh, and you shall play,
And, in merry roundelay,
Dance with jolly faun and fay.
You shall have the wealth of May
For your dowry every day.
Nature, from her frailest spar,
To her oldest, utmost star,
All her miracles shall bring
For your blissful wondering;
You shall be her priest and king.
Knowing what was never known,
Reaping what was never sown,
You shall feel the world your own,
On your universal throne.
And, in holy place apart,
(Blessed are the pure in heart!)
In a halo of delight,
Jubilant with glorious might,
You shall walk with God in white.
This is all was shown to me
Of the child’s futurity.
What the youth and man will be,
Sealéd is in mystery.
Scarcely can his angel see,
Face to face with deity,
Farther into certainty.
_God exceed the prophecy!_
God be better to the boy
Than the poet’s dream of joy.

TALES FROM SHAKSPERE.

By CHARLES LAMB.

THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA.

There lived in the city of Verona two young gentlemen, whose names were Valentine and Protheus, between whom a firm and uninterrupted friendship had long subsisted. They pursued their studies together, and their hours of leisure were always passed in each other’s company, except when Protheus visited a lady he was in love with; and these visits, and this passion of Protheus for the fair Julia, were the only topics on which these two friends disagreed: for Valentine, not being himself a lover, was sometimes a little weary of hearing his friend forever talking of his Julia, and then he would laugh at Protheus, and in pleasant terms ridicule the passion of love, and declare that no such idle fancies should ever enter his head, greatly preferring (as he said) the free and happy life he lead, to the anxious hopes and fears of the lover Protheus.

One morning Valentine came to Protheus, to tell him that they must for a time be separated, for that he was going to Milan. Protheus, unwilling to part with his friend, used many arguments to prevail upon Valentine not to leave him; but Valentine said, “Cease to persuade me, my loving Protheus, I will not, like a sluggard, wear out my youth in idleness at home. Home-keeping youths have ever homely wits. If your affection were not chained to the sweet glances of your honored Julia, I would entreat you to accompany me, to see the wonders of the world abroad; but since you are a lover, love on still, and may your love be prosperous!” They parted with mutual expressions of unalterable friendship. “Sweet Valentine, adieu!” said Protheus; “think on me, when you see some rare object worthy of notice in your travels, and wish me partaker of your happiness.”

Valentine began his journey that same day towards Milan; and when his friend had left him, Protheus sat down to write a letter to Julia, which he gave to her maid Lucetta to deliver to her mistress. Julia loved Protheus as well as he did her, but she was a lady of a noble spirit, and she thought it did not become her maiden dignity too easily to be won; therefore she affected to be insensible of his passion, and gave him much uneasiness in the prosecution of his suit. And when Lucetta offered the letter to Julia, she would not receive it, and chid her maid for taking letters from Protheus, and ordered her to leave the room. But she so much wished to see what was written in the letter, that she soon called in her maid again, and when Lucetta returned, she said, “What o’clock is it?” Lucetta, who knew her mistress more desired to see the letter than to know the time of day, without answering her question, again offered the rejected letter. Julia, angry that her maid should thus take the liberty of seeming to know what she really wanted, tore the letter in pieces, and threw it on the floor, ordering her maid once more out of the room. As Lucetta was retiring, she stopped to pick up the fragments of the torn letter; but Julia, who meant not so to part with them, said, in pretended anger, “Go, get you gone, and let the papers lie; you would be fingering them to anger me.”

Julia then began to piece together as well as she could the torn fragments. She first made out these words, “Love-wounded Protheus;” and lamenting over these and such-like loving words, which she made out though they were all torn asunder, or she said, wounded (the expression “Love-wounded Protheus,” giving her that idea), she talked to these kind words, telling them she would lodge them in her bosom as in a bed, till their wounds were healed, and that she would kiss each several piece, to make amends. In this manner she went on talking with a pretty lady-like childishness, till finding herself unable to make out the whole, and vexed at her own ingratitude in destroying such sweet and loving words, as she called them, she wrote a much kinder letter to Protheus than she had ever done before.

Protheus was greatly delighted at receiving this favorable answer to his letter; and while he was reading it, he exclaimed, “Sweet love, sweet lines, sweet life!” In the midst of his raptures he was interrupted by his father. “How now!” said the old gentleman, “what letter are you reading there?” “My lord,” replied Protheus, “it is a letter from my friend Valentine, at Milan.” “Lend me the letter,” said his father; “let me see what news.” “There are no news, my lord,” said Protheus, greatly alarmed, “but that he writes how well beloved he is of the Duke of Milan, who daily graces him with favors; and how he wishes me with him, the partner of his fortune.” “And how stand you affected to his wish?” asked the father. “As one relying on your lordship’s will, and not depending on his friendly wish,” said Protheus.

Now it had happened that Protheus’s father had just been talking with a friend on this very subject: his friend had said, he wondered his lordship suffered his son to spend his youth at home, whilst most men were sending their sons to seek preferment abroad; “some,” said he, “to the wars, to try their fortunes there, and some to discover islands far away, and some to study in foreign universities; and there is his companion Valentine, he is gone to the Duke of Milan’s court. Your son is fit for any of these things, and it will be a great disadvantage to him in his riper age, not to have traveled in his youth.”

Protheus’s father thought the advice of his friend was very good, and upon Protheus telling him that Valentine “wished him with him, the partner of his fortune,” he at once determined to send his son to Milan; and without giving Protheus any reason for this sudden resolution, it being the usual habit of this positive old gentleman to command his son, not reason with him, he said, “My will is the same as Valentine’s wish:” and seeing his son look astonished, he added, “Look not amazed, that I so suddenly resolve you shall spend some time in the Duke of Milan’s court; for what I will I will, and there is an end. To-morrow be in readiness to go. Make no excuses, for I am peremptory.” Protheus knew it was of no use to make objections to his father, who never suffered him to dispute his will; and he blamed himself for telling his father an untruth about Julia’s letter, which had brought upon him the sad necessity of leaving her.

Now that Julia found she was going to lose Protheus for so long a time, she no longer pretended indifference; and they bade each other a mournful farewell with many vows of love and constancy. Protheus and Julia exchanged rings, which they both promised to keep forever in remembrance of each other; and thus, taking a sorrowful leave, Protheus set out on his journey to Milan, the abode of his friend Valentine.

Valentine was in reality what Protheus had feigned to his father, in high favor with the duke of Milan; and another event had happened to him, of which Protheus did not even dream, for Valentine had given up the freedom of which he used so much to boast, and was become as passionate a lover as Protheus. She who had wrought this wondrous change in Valentine, was the lady Silvia, daughter of the duke of Milan, and she also loved him; but they concealed their love from the duke, because although he showed much kindness to Valentine, and invited him every day to his palace, yet he designed to marry his daughter to a young courtier whose name was Thurio. Silvia despised this Thurio, for he had none of the fine sense and excellent qualities of Valentine.

These two rivals, Thurio and Valentine, were one day on a visit to Silvia, and Valentine was entertaining Silvia with turning everything Thurio said into ridicule, when the duke himself entered the room, and told Valentine the welcome news of his friend Protheus’s arrival. Valentine said, “If I had wished a thing, it would have been to have seen him here!” and then he highly praised Protheus to the duke, saying, “My lord, though I have been a truant of my time, yet hath my friend made use and fair advantage of his days, and is complete in person and in mind, in all good grace to grace a gentleman.” “Welcome him then according to his worth,” said the duke; “Silvia, I speak to you, and you, sir Thurio; for Valentine, I need not bid him do so.” They were here interrupted by the entrance of Protheus, and Valentine introduced him to Silvia, saying, “Sweet lady, entertain him to be my fellow servant to your ladyship.”

When Valentine and Protheus had ended their visit, and were alone together, Valentine said, “Now tell me how all does from whence you came? How does your lady, and how thrives your love?” Protheus replied, “My tales of love used to weary you, I know you joy not in a love-discourse.” “Ay, Protheus,” returned Valentine, “but that life is altered now. I have done penance for condemning love. For in revenge of my contempt of Love, Love has chased sleep from my enthralled eyes. O gentle Protheus, Love is a mighty lord, and hath so humbled me, that I confess there is no woe like his correction, and no such joy on earth as in his service. I now like no discourse except it be of love. Now I can break my fast, dine, sup, and sleep, upon the very name of love.”

This acknowledgment of the change which love had made in the disposition of Valentine was a great triumph to his friend Protheus. But “friend” Protheus must be called no longer, for the same all-powerful deity, Love, of whom they were speaking, (yea even while they were talking of the change he had made in Valentine) was working in the heart of Protheus; and he, who had till this time been a pattern of true love and perfect friendship, was now, in one short interview with Silvia, become a false friend and a faithless lover; for at the first sight of Silvia, all his love for Julia vanished away like a dream, nor did his long friendship for Valentine deter him from endeavoring to supplant him in her affections; and although, as it will always be, when people of dispositions naturally good become unjust, he had many scruples, before he determined to forsake Julia, and become the rival of Valentine, yet he at length overcame his sense of duty, and yielded himself up, almost without remorse, to his new unhappy passion.

Valentine imparted to him in confidence the whole history of his love, and how carefully they had concealed it from the duke her father, and told him, that despairing of ever being able to obtain his consent, he had prevailed upon Silvia to leave her father’s palace that night, and go with him to Mantua; then he showed Protheus a ladder of ropes, by help of which he meant to assist Silvia to get out of one of the windows of the palace, after it was dark.

Upon hearing this faithful recital of his friend’s dearest secrets, it is hardly possible to be believed, but so it was, that Protheus resolved to go to the duke and disclose the whole to him. This false friend began his tale with many artful speeches to the duke, such as that by the laws of friendship he ought to conceal what he was going to reveal, but that the gracious favor the duke had shown him, and the duty he owed his grace, urged him to tell that, which else no worldly good should draw from him; he then told all he had heard from Valentine, not omitting the ladder of ropes, and the manner in which Valentine meant to conceal them under a long cloak.

The duke thought Protheus quite a miracle of integrity, in that he preferred telling his friend’s intention rather than he would conceal an unjust action, highly commended him, and promised him not to let Valentine know from whom he had learned this intelligence, but by some artifice to make Valentine betray the secret himself. For this purpose the duke awaited the coming of Valentine in the evening, whom he soon saw hurrying toward the palace, and he perceived somewhat was wrapped within his cloak, which he concluded was the rope ladder.

The duke upon this stopped him, saying, “Whither away so fast, Valentine?” “May it please your grace,” said Valentine, “there is a messenger, that stays to bear my letters to my friends, and I am going to deliver them.” Now this falsehood of Valentine’s had no better success in the event than the untruth Protheus told his father. “Be they of much import,” said the duke. “No more, my lord,” said Valentine, “than to tell my father I am well and happy at your grace’s court.” “Nay, then,” said the duke, “no matter; stay with me awhile. I wish your counsel about some affairs that concern me nearly.” He then told Valentine an artful story, as a prelude to draw his secret from him, saying, that Valentine knew he wished to match his daughter with Thurio, but that she was stubborn and disobedient to his commands, “neither regarding,” said he “that she is my child, nor fearing me as if I were her father. And I may say to thee, that this pride of hers has drawn my love from her. I had thought my age should have been cherished by her child-like duty. I am now resolved to take a wife, and turn her out to whomsoever will take her in. Let her beauty be her wedding-dower, for me and my possessions she esteems not.”

Valentine, wondering where all this would end, made answer. “And what would your grace have me do in all this?” “Why,” said the duke, “the lady I would wish to marry is nice and coy, and does not much esteem my aged eloquence. Besides, the fashion of courtship is much changed since I was young; now I would willingly have you to be my tutor to instruct me how I am to woo.” Valentine gave him a general idea of the modes of courtship then practiced by young men, when they wished to win a fair lady’s love, such as presents, frequent visits, and the like. The duke replied to this, that the lady did not refuse a present which he sent her, and that she was so strictly kept by her father, that no man might have access to her by day. “Why then,” said Valentine, “you must visit her by night.” “By night,” said the artful duke, who was now coming to the drift of his discourse, “her doors are fast locked.”

Valentine then unfortunately proposed that the duke should get into the lady’s chamber at night, by means of a ladder of ropes, saying, he would procure him one fitting for that purpose; and, in conclusion, advised him to conceal this ladder of ropes under such a cloak as that which he now wore. “Lend me your cloak,” said the duke, who had feigned this long story on purpose to have a pretence to get off the cloak; so, upon saying these words, he caught hold of Valentine’s cloak, and throwing it back, he discovered not only the ladder of ropes, but also a letter of Silvia’s which he instantly opened and read; and this letter contained a full account of their intended elopement. The duke, after upbraiding Valentine for his ingratitude in thus returning the favor he had shown him, by endeavoring to steal away his daughter, banished him from the court and city of Milan forever; and Valentine was forced to depart that night, without even seeing Silvia.

While Protheus at Milan was thus injuring Valentine, Julia at Verona was regretting the absence of Protheus, and her regard for him at last so far overcame her sense of propriety, that she resolved to leave Verona, and seek her lover at Milan; and to secure herself from danger on the road, she dressed her maid Lucetta and herself in men’s clothes, and they set out in this disguise, and arrived at Milan soon after Valentine was banished from that city, through the treachery of Protheus.

Julia entered Milan about noon, and she took up her abode at an inn; and her thoughts being all on her dear Protheus, she entered into conversation with the inn-keeper, or host, as he was called, thinking by that means to learn some news of Protheus. The host was greatly pleased that this handsome young gentleman (as he took her to be), who from his appearance he concluded was of high rank, spoke so familiarly to him; and being a good-natured man, he was sorry to see him look so melancholy; and to amuse his young guest he offered to take him to hear some fine music, with which, he said, a gentleman that evening was going to serenade his mistress.

The reason Julia looked so very melancholy was, that she did not well know what Protheus would think of the imprudent step she had taken; for she knew that he had loved her for her noble maiden pride and dignity of character, and she feared she should lower herself in his esteem; and this it was that made her wear a sad and thoughtful countenance.

She gladly accepted the offer of the host to go with him, and hear the music; for she secretly hoped she might meet Protheus by the way. But when she came to the palace whither the host conducted her, a very different effect was produced to what the kind host intended; for there, to her heart’s sorrow, she beheld her lover, the inconstant Protheus, serenading the lady Silvia with music, and addressing discourse of love and admiration to her. And Julia overheard Silvia from a window talk with Protheus, and reproach him for forsaking his own true lady, and for his ingratitude to his friend Valentine; and then Silvia left the window, not choosing to listen to his music and his fine speeches; for she was a faithful lady to her banished Valentine, and abhorred the ungenerous conduct of his false friend Protheus.

Though Julia was in despair at what she had just witnessed, yet did she still love the truant Protheus; and hearing that he had lately parted with a servant, she contrived, with the assistance of her host, the innkeeper, to hire herself to Protheus as a page; and Protheus knew not she was Julia, and he sent her with letters and presents to her rival Silvia, and he even sent by her the very ring she gave him as a parting gift at Verona.

When she went to that lady with the ring, she was most glad to find that Silvia utterly rejected the suit of Protheus; and Julia, or the page Sebastian, as she was called, entered into conversation with Silvia about Protheus’s first love, the forsaken lady Julia. She putting in (as one may say) a good word for herself, said she knew Julia; as well she might, being herself the Julia of whom she spoke: telling how fondly Julia loved her master Protheus, and how his unkind neglect would grieve her. And then she, with a pretty equivocation, went on: “Julia is about my height, and of my complexion, the color of her eyes and hair the same as mine;” and indeed Julia looked a most beautiful youth in her boy’s attire. Silvia was moved to pity this lovely lady, who was so sadly forsaken by the man she loved; and when Julia offered the ring which Protheus had sent, refused it, saying, “The more shame for him that he sends me that ring; I will not take it, for I have often heard him say his Julia gave it to him. I love thee, gentle youth, for pitying her, poor lady! Here is a purse; I give it you for Julia’s sake.” These comfortable words coming from her kind rival’s tongue cheered the drooping heart of the disguised lady.

But to return to the banished Valentine, who scarce knew which way to bend his course, being unwilling to return home to his father a disgraced and banished man. As he was wandering over a lonely forest, not far distant from Milan, where he had left his heart’s dear treasure, the lady Silvia, he was set upon by robbers, who demanded his money. Valentine told them he was a man crossed by adversity, that he was going into banishment, and that he had no money, the clothes he had on being all his riches. The robbers, hearing that he was a distressed man, and being struck with his noble air and manly behavior, told him, if he would live with them and be their chief, or captain, they would put themselves under his command, but if he refused to accept their offer they would kill him. Valentine, who cared little what became of himself, said he would consent to live with them and be their captain, provided they did no outrage on women or poor passengers. Thus the noble Valentine became, like Robin Hood, of whom we read in ballads, a captain of robbers and outlawed banditti; and in this situation he was found by Silvia, and in this manner it came to pass:

Silvia, to avoid a marriage with Thurio, whom her father insisted upon her no longer refusing, came at last to the resolution of following Valentine to Mantua, at which place she had heard her lover had taken refuge; but in this account she was misinformed, for he still lived in the forest among the robbers, bearing the name of their captain, but taking no part in their depredations, and using the authority which they had imposed upon him in no other way than to show compassion to the travelers they robbed. Silvia contrived to effect her escape from her father’s palace in company with a worthy old gentleman, whose name was Eglamour, whom she took along with her for protection on the road. She had to pass through the forest where Valentine and the banditti dwelt; and one of the robbers seized on Silvia, and would also have taken Eglamour, but he escaped.

The robber who had taken Silvia, seeing the terror she was in, bid her not to be alarmed, for that he was only going to carry her to a cave where his captain lived, and that she need not be afraid, for their captain had an honorable mind, and always showed humanity to women. Silvia found little comfort in hearing she was going to be carried as a prisoner before the captain of a lawless banditti. “O Valentine,” she cried, “this I endure for thee!” But as the robber was conveying her to the cave of his captain, he was stopped by Protheus, who, still attended by Julia in the disguise of a page, having heard of the flight of Silvia, had traced her steps to this forest. Protheus now rescued her from the hands of the robber, but scarce had she time to thank him for the service he had done her, before he began to distress her afresh with his love suit; and while he was rudely pressing her to consent to marry him, and his page (the forlorn Julia) was standing beside them in great anxiety of mind, fearing lest the great service which Protheus had just done to Silvia should win her to show him some favor, they were all strangely surprised with the sudden appearance of Valentine, who having heard his robbers had taken a lady prisoner, came to console and relieve her.

Protheus was courting Silvia, and he was so much ashamed of being caught by his friend, that he was all at once seized with penitence and remorse; and he expressed such a lively sorrow for the injuries he had done to Valentine, that Valentine, whose nature was noble and generous, even to a romantic degree, not only forgave and restored him to his former place in his friendship, but in a sudden flight of heroism he said, “I freely do forgive you; and all the interest I have in Silvia, I give it up to you.” Julia, who was standing behind her master as a page, hearing this strange offer, and fearing Protheus would not be able with this new found virtue to refuse Silvia, fainted, and they were all employed in recovering her; else would Silvia have been offended at being thus made over to Protheus, though she could scarcely think that Valentine would long persevere in this over-strained and too generous act of friendship. When Julia recovered from the fainting fit, she said, “I had forgotten, my master ordered me to deliver this ring to Silvia.” Protheus, looking upon the ring, saw that it was the one he gave to Julia, in return for that which he received from her, and which he had sent by the supposed page to Silvia. “How is this?” said he, “this is Julia’s ring; how came you by it, boy?” Julia answered, “Julia herself did give it me, and Julia herself hath brought it hither.”

Protheus, now looking earnestly upon her, plainly perceived that the page Sebastian was no other than the lady Julia herself; and the proof she had given of her constancy and true love so wrought in him, that his love for her returned into his heart, and he took again his own dear lady, and joyfully resigned all pretensions to the lady Silvia to Valentine, who had so well deserved her.

Protheus and Valentine were expressing their happiness in their reconciliation, and in the love of their faithful ladies, when they were surprised with the sight of the Duke of Milan and Thurio, who came there in pursuit of Silvia. Thurio first approached, and attempted to seize Silvia, saying, “Silvia is mine.” Upon this Valentine said to him in a very spirited manner, “Thurio, keep back; if once again you say that Silvia is yours, you shall embrace your death. Here she stands; take but possession of her with a touch! I dare you but to breathe upon my love.” Hearing this threat, Thurio, who was a great coward, drew back, and said he cared not for her, and that none but a fool would fight for a girl who loved him not.

The duke, who was a very brave man himself, said now in great anger, “The more base and degenerate in you to take such means for her as you have done, and leave her on such slight conditions.” Then turning to Valentine, he said, “I do applaud your spirit, Valentine, and think you worthy of an empress’s love. You shall have Silvia, for you have well deserved her.” Valentine then with great humility kissed the duke’s hand, and accepted the noble present which he had made him of his daughter with becoming thankfulness; taking occasion of this joyful minute to entreat the good-humored duke to pardon the thieves with whom he had associated in the forest, assuring him that when reformed and restored to society, there would be found among them many good, and fit for great employment, for the most of them had been banished, like Valentine, for state offences, rather than for any black crimes they had been guilty of. To this the ready duke consented; and now nothing remained but that Protheus, the false friend, was ordained, by way of penance for his love-prompted faults, to be present at the recital of the whole story of his loves and falsehoods before the duke. And the shame of the recital to his awakened conscience was judged sufficient punishment; which being done, the lovers, all four, returned back to Milan, and their nuptials were solemnized in presence of the duke, with high triumphs and feasting.

* * * * *

A SCOTCH PRAYER.—The following prayer was written about 1804, at a time when Britain was threatened with a French invasion, Napoleon having assumed full authority:

“God bless this house, and all that’s in this house, and all within twa miles ilka side this house. O bless the cow, and the meal, and the kail-yard, and the muckle town o’ Dumbarton.

“O God! bless the Scotch Greys that are lien’ in Hamilton Barracks. They are brae chiels—they are not like the English whalps, that dash their foot against a stone, and damn the saul of the stone—as if a stone had a saul to be saved.

“O build a strong deak [dyke] between us and the muckle French, but a far stranger one between us and the wild Irish.

“O Lord! preserve us frae a’ witches and warlocks, and a’ lang-nebbed beasties that gang threw the heather.

“O Lord! put a pair o’ branks about the king o’ France’s neck—gie me the helter in my ain hand, that I may lead him about when I like: for thy name’s sake. Amen.”

CONSTANT CHANGE IN WORDS.

By JOHN PEILE, M. A.

Words are subject to an incessant change. Substantives, for example, are the names of things actually existing, or of qualities of those things. When I say an oak, I mean an oak and not a beech; goodness is not badness; and if these things don’t change, how can the names which express them change without causing utter confusion? Perhaps variations so violent as these are not very common, and yet both these changes have occurred in language. The very same word which to the Greeks meant an oak, to the Romans meant a beech, though an oak never yet changed into a beech. _Schlecht_ in German first of all meant “straight.” Now the “straightness” of a visible object, such as a line, is the most obvious metaphor by which to express the moral idea of “straightforwardness” and simplicity of heart and purpose, just as our common word _right_ means originally that which is straight, the Latin _rectus_. But then simpleness may shade into the folly of the simpleton; and lastly the fool in worldly wisdom may give his name to the fool of whom Solomon spoke; and by some such process as this _schlecht_ in modern German means “bad” only. After seeing this change of nouns, can we wonder that verbs can vary their meaning by imperceptible degrees so much that the first sense would be altogether unrecognizable unless we had the history of the word recorded by its use in successive writers?

Great changes of language are sometimes due to great convulsions in history; as when the Roman civilization was destroyed by nations comparatively uncivilized and the language of the Romans remained modified in different ways in the countries of which they were the lords no longer. Such great changes do not often take place; yet just as surely, though more slowly, a gradual change goes on in the most peaceful times, of which you cannot have a better example than in your own English. “Well,” you say, “surely English has not changed much in the last three hundred years. We can read Shakspere without any difficulty.” That is saying a little too much; we are so familiar with the best parts of Shakspere that perhaps we are hardly conscious of the difference; the words have a well-known sound, and if we are not students of language we may not examine them very carefully. But open your Shakspere almost at random and you will soon find out, if you really consider, how much is now obsolete, how many words have passed out of use or are used in a different sense. I have opened on “Macbeth,” Act. i. Sec. 7, and there I find in Lady Macbeth’s speech:—

“His two chamberlains
Will I with wine and wassail so convince
That memory, the warder of the brain,
Shall be a fume, and the receipt of reason
A limbec only.”

Now look at a few of the words here. (1) “Chamberlain,” as we all know, etymologically a man of the chamber; it comes from _camera_, a chamber, originally a vault; the root of this is _cam_—to be bent or crooked, which is supposed to be the origin of the name of our most crooked river. The old sense of “chamberlain” has not quite died out of our recollection; yet when we speak of the Lord Chamberlain—the only person to whom the title is now applied—we don’t think of a man whose business it is to guard his king’s sleep when on a journey, or, generally, of a bed-room attendant, but of one whose best known duty is the censorship of plays. (2) “Wassail” is a word which we should expect to find in a historical novel, but not to hear in every-day talk. We feel pretty sure that it has something to do with good cheer, but we may not know that it was originally a drinking of health; that _was_ was the imperative of the verb _was_ “to be,” which we have turned into an auxiliary verb to mark past time; and the last syllable is our word _hale_—healthy, which we have pretty well restricted to the description of an elderly man, whom we call “hale for his years;” though we are familiar with the word in corrupted form _whole_, which we have in the Bible, “I have made a man every whit whole on the Sabbath day.” (3) “Convince” has wavered much in sense; we use it now simply for persuading a person, but the primary meaning was “to overpower,” which it has here; in the Bible phrase “Which of you _convinceth_ me of sin?” we have the same special sense of overcoming by testimony, which _convincere_ had in Latin.

So again (4) “Warder,” like “wassail” is a word with which we are familiar from books, but which we should not ourselves use without the appearance of affectation; we should use the equivalent “guard.” We have here a couple of words identical in meaning, just as we have _wise_ and _guise_, _warrant_ and _guarantee_, _wager_ and _gaze_, and others which explain the riddle, such as _war_ and French _guerre_, _warren_ and French _garenne_. It is well known that in all these the _w_ marks the Teutonic word introduced alike into England by the Anglo-Saxons and into France by the Franks, which the earlier inhabitants of France were unable to pronounce without letting a _g_ escape before it; and so they produced the second form beginning with _gu_. Some of these second forms were brought into England by the Normans, and existed there by the side of the English word brought long before; but as there was no distinction in sense, one form generally fell into disuse, only to be revived for a special purpose, as by Sir Walter Scott, to give a mediæval look to his poems.