SECTION VII.. _ecclesiastical Jurisdiction._

Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction.

The sovereign or State may, without doubt, give up to an ecclesiastical body, or a single priest, a jurisdiction over certain objects and certain persons, with a power suitable to the authority confided. I examine not into the prudence of remitting a certain portion of civil authority into the hands of any body or person who already enjoys an authority in things spiritual. To deliver to those who ought to be solely employed in conducting men to heaven, an authority upon earth, is to produce a union of two powers, the abuse of which is only too easy; but at least it is evident that any man, as well as an ecclesiastic, may be intrusted with the same jurisdiction. By whomsoever possessed, it has either been conceded by the sovereign power, or usurped; there is no medium. The kingdom of Jesus Christ is not of this world; he refused to be a judge upon earth, and ordered that men should give unto Cæsar the things which belonged unto Cæsar: he forbade all dominations to his apostles, and preached only humility, gentleness, and dependence. From him ecclesiastics can derive neither power, authority, domination, nor jurisdiction in this world. They can therefore possess no legitimate authority, but by a concession from the sovereign or State, from which all authority in a society can properly emanate.

There was a time in the unhappy epoch of the feudal ages in which ecclesiastics were possessed in various countries with the principal functions of the magistracy: the authority of the lords of the lay fiefs, so formidable to the sovereign and oppressive to the people, has been since bounded; but a portion of the independence of the ecclesiastical jurisdictions still exists. When will sovereigns be sufficiently informed and courageous to take back from them the usurped authority and numerous privileges which they have so often abused, to annoy the flock which they ought to protect?

It is by this inadvertence of princes that the audacious enterprises of ecclesiastics against sovereigns themselves have originated. The scandalous history of these attempts has been consigned to records which cannot be contested. The bull "In cœna Domini," in particular, still remains to prove the continual enterprises of the clergy against royal and civil authority.

Extract from the Tariff of the Rights Exacted in France by the Court of Rome for Bulls, Dispensations, Absolutions, etc., which Tariff was Decreed in the King's Council, Sept. 4, 1691, and Which is Reported Entire in the Brief of James Lepelletier, Printed at Lyons in 1699, with the Approbation and Permission of the King. Lyons: Printed for Anthony Boudet, Eighth Edition.

1. For absolution for the crime of apostasy, payable to the pope, twenty-four livres.

2. A bastard wishing to take orders must pay twenty-five livres for a dispensation; if desirous to possess a benefice, he must pay in addition one hundred and eighty livres; if anxious that his dispensation should not allude to his illegitimacy, he will have to pay a thousand and fifty livres.

3. For dispensation and absolution of bigamy, one thousand and fifty livres.

4. For a dispensation for the error of a false judgment in the administration of justice or the exercise of medicine, ninety livres.

5. Absolution for heresy, twenty-four livres.

6. Brief of forty hours, for seven years, twelve livres.

7. Absolution for having committed homicide in self-defence, or undesignedly, ninety-five livres. All in company of the murderer also need absolution, and are to pay for the same eighty-five livres each.

8. Indulgences for seven years, twelve livres.

9. Perpetual indulgences for a brotherhood, forty livres.

10. Dispensation for irregularity and incapacity, twenty-five livres; if the irregularity is great, fifty livres.

11. For permission to read forbidden books, twenty-five livres.

12. Dispensation for simony, forty livres; with an augmentation according to circumstances.

13. Brief to permit the eating of forbidden meats, sixty-five livres.

14. Dispensation for simple vows of chastity or of religion, fifteen livres. Brief declaratory of the nullity of the profession of a monk or a nun, one hundred livres. If this brief be requested ten years after profession, double the amount.

Dispensations in Relation to Marriage.

Dispensations for the fourth degree of relationship, with cause, sixty-five livres; without cause, ninety livres; with dispensation for familiarities that have passed between the future married persons, one hundred and eighty livres.

For relations of the third or fourth degree, both on the side of the father and mother, without cause, eight hundred and eighty livres; with cause, one hundred and forty-five livres.

For relations of the second degree on one side, and the fourth on the other; nobles to pay one thousand four hundred and thirty livres; roturiers, one thousand one hundred and fifty livres.

He who would marry the sister of the girl to whom he has been affianced, to pay for a dispensation, one thousand four hundred and thirty livres.

Those who are relations in the third degree, if they are nobles, or live creditably, are to pay one thousand four hundred and thirty livres; if the relationship is on the side of father as well as mother, two thousand four hundred and thirty livres.

Relations in the second degree to pay four thousand five hundred and thirty livres; and if the female has accorded favors to the male, in addition for absolution, two thousand and thirty livres.

For those who have stood sponsors at the baptism of the children of each other, the dispensation will cost two thousand seven hundred and thirty livres. If they would be absolved from premature familiarity, one thousand three hundred and thirty livres in addition.

He who has enjoyed the favors of a widow during the life of her deceased husband, in order to legitimately espouse her, will have to pay one hundred and ninety livres.

In Spain and Portugal, the marriage dispensations are still dearer. Cousins-german cannot obtain them for less than two thousand crowns.

The poor not being able to pay these taxes, abatements may be made. It is better to obtain half a right, than lose all by refusing the dispensation.

No reference is had here to the sums paid to the pope for the bulls of bishops, abbots, etc., which are to be found in the almanacs; but we cannot perceive by what authority the pope of Rome levies taxes upon laymen who choose to marry their cousins.

RIVERS.

The progress of rivers to the ocean is not so rapid as that of man to error. It is not long since it was discovered that all rivers originate in those eternal masses of snow which cover the summits of lofty mountains, those snows in rain, that rain in the vapor exhaled from the land and sea; and that thus everything is a link in the great chain of nature.

When a boy, I heard theses delivered which proved that all rivers and fountains came from the sea. This was the opinion of all antiquity. These rivers flowed into immense caverns, and thence distributed their waters to all parts of the world.

When Aristeus goes to lament the loss of his bees to Cyrene his mother, goddess of the little river Enipus in Thessaly, the river immediately divides itself, forming as it were two mountains of water, right and left, to receive him according to ancient and immemorial usage; after which he has a view of those vast and beautiful grottoes through which flow all the rivers of the earth; the Po, which descends from Mount Viso in Piedmont, and traverses Italy; the Teverone, which comes from the Apennines; the Phasis, which issues from Mount Caucasus, and falls into the Black Sea; and numberless others.

Virgil, in this instance, adopted a strange system of natural philosophy, in which certainly none but poets can be indulged.

Such, however, was the credit and prevalence of this system that, fifteen hundred years afterwards, Tasso completely imitated Virgil in his fourteenth canto, while imitating at the same time with far greater felicity Ariosto. An old Christian magician conducts underground the two knights who are to bring back Rinaldo from the arms of Armida, as Melissa had rescued Rogero from the caresses of Alcina. This venerable sage makes Rinaldo descend into his grotto, from which issue all the rivers which refresh and fertilize our earth. It is a pity that the rivers of America are not among the number. But as the Nile, the Danube, the Seine, the Jordan, and the Volga have their source in this cavern, that ought to be deemed sufficient. What is still more in conformity to the physics of antiquity is the circumstance of this grotto or cavern being in the very centre of the earth. Of course, it is here that Maupertuis wanted to take a tour.

After admitting that rivers spring from mountains, and that both of them are essential parts of this great machine, let us beware how we give in to varying and vanishing systems.

When Maillet imagined that the sea had formed the mountains, he should have dedicated his book to Cyrano de Bergerac. When it has been said, also, that the great chains of mountains extend from east to west, and that the greatest number of rivers also flow always to the west, the spirit of system has been more consulted than the truth of nature.

With respect to mountains, disembark at the Cape of Good Hope, you will perceive a chain of mountains from the south as far north as Monomotapa. Only a few persons have visited that quarter of the world, and travelled under the line in Africa. But Calpe and Abila are completely in the direction of north and south. From Gibraltar to the river Guadiana, in a course directly northward, there is a continuous range of mountains. New and Old Castile are covered with them, and the direction of them all is from south to north, like that of all the mountains in America. With respect to the rivers, they flow precisely according to the disposition or direction of the land.

The Guadalquivir runs straight to the south from Villanueva to San Lucar; the Guadiana the same, as far as Badajos. All the rivers in the Gulf of Venice, except the Po, fall into the sea towards the south. Such is the course of the Rhone from Lyons to its mouth. That of the Seine is from the north-northwest. The Rhine, from Basle, goes straight to the north. The Meuse does the same, from its source to the territory overflowed by its waters. The Scheldt also does the same.

Why, then, should men be so assiduous in deceiving themselves, just for the pleasure of forming systems, and leading astray persons of weak and ignorant minds? What good can possibly arise from inducing a number of people--who must inevitably be soon undeceived--to believe that all rivers and all mountains are in a direction from east to west, or from west to east; that all mountains are covered with oyster-shells--which is most certainly false--that anchors have been found on the summit of the mountains of Switzerland; that these mountains have been formed by the currents of the ocean; and that limestone is composed entirely of seashells? What! shall we, at the present day, treat philosophy as the ancients formerly treated history?

To return to streams and rivers. The most important and valuable things that can be done in relation to them is preventing their inundations, and making new rivers--that is, canals--out of those already existing, wherever the undertaking is practicable and beneficial. This is one of the most useful services that can be conferred upon a nation. The canals of Egypt were as serviceable as its pyramids were useless.

With regard to the quantity of water conveyed along the beds of rivers, and everything relating to calculation on the subject, read the article on "River," by M. d'Alembert. It is, like everything else done by him, clear, exact, and true; and written in a style adapted to the subject; he does not employ the style of Telemachus to discuss subjects of natural philosophy.

ROADS.

It was not until lately that the modern nations of Europe began to render roads practicable and convenient, and to bestow on them some beauty. To superintend and keep in order the road is one of the most important cares of both the Mogul and Chinese emperors. But these princes never attained such eminence in this department as the Romans. The Appian, the Aurelian, the Flaminian, the Æmilian, and the Trajan ways exist even at the present day. The Romans alone were capable of constructing such roads, and they alone were capable of repairing them.

Bergier, who has written an otherwise valuable book, insists much on Solomon's employing thirty thousand Jews in cutting wood on Mount Lebanon, eighty thousand in building the temple, seventy thousand on carriages, and three thousand six hundred in superintending the labors of others. We will for a moment admit it all to be true; yet still there is nothing said about his making or repairing highways.

Pliny informs us that three hundred thousand men were employed for twenty years in building one of the pyramids of Egypt; I am not disposed to doubt it; but surely three hundred thousand men might have been much better employed. Those who worked on the canals in Egypt; or on the great wall, the canals, or highways of China; or those who constructed the celebrated ways of the Roman Empire were much more usefully occupied than the three hundred thousand miserable slaves in building a pyramidal sepulchre for the corpse of a bigoted Egyptian.

We are well acquainted with the prodigious works accomplished by the Romans, their immense excavations for lakes of water, or the beds of lakes formed by nature, filled up, hills levelled, and a passage bored through a mountain by Vespasian, in the Flaminian way, for more than a thousand feet in length, the inscription on which remains at present. Pausilippo is not to be compared with it.

The foundations of the greater part of our present houses are far from being so solid as were the highways in the neighborhood of Rome; and these public ways were extended throughout the empire, although not upon the same scale of duration and solidity. To effect that would have required more men and money than could possibly have been obtained.

Almost all the highways of Italy were erected on a foundation four feet deep; when a space of marshy ground or bog was on the track of the road, it was filled up; and when any part of it was mountainous, its pretipitousness was reduced to a gentle and trifling inclination from the general line of the road. In many parts, the roads were supported by solid walls.

Upon the four feet of masonry, were placed large hewn stones of marble, nearly one foot in thickness, and frequently ten feet wide; they were indented by the chisel to prevent the slipping of the horses. It was difficult to say which most attracted admiration--the utility or the magnificence of these astonishing works.

Nearly all of these wonderful constructions were raised at the public expense. Cæsar repaired and extended the Appian way out of his own private funds; those funds, however, consisted of the money of the republic.

Who were the persons employed upon these works? Slaves, captives taken in war, and provincials that were not admitted to the distinction of Roman citizens. They worked by "corvée," as they do in France and elsewhere; but some trifling remuneration was allowed them.

Augustus was the first who joined the legions with the people in labors upon the highways of the Gauls, and in Spain and Asia. He penetrated the Alps by the valley which bore his name, and which the Piedmontese and the French corruptly called the "Valley of Aöste." It was previously necessary to bring under subjection all the savage hordes by which these cantons were inhabited. There is still visible, between Great and Little St. Bernard, the triumphal arch erected by the senate in honor of him after this expedition. He again penetrated the Alps on another side leading to Lyons, and thence into the whole of Gaul. The conquered never effected for themselves so much as was effected for them by their conquerors.

The downfall of the Roman Empire was that of all the public works, as also of all orderly police, art, and industry. The great roads disappeared in the Gauls, except some causeways, "chaussées," which the unfortunate Queen Brunehilde kept for a little time in repair. A man could scarcely move on horseback with safety on the ancient celebrated ways, which were now becoming dreadfully broken up, and impeded by masses of stone and mud. It was found necessary to pass over the cultivated fields; the ploughs scarcely effected in a month what they now easily accomplish in a week. The little commerce that remained was limited to a few woollen and linen cloths, and some wretchedly wrought hardwares, which were carried on the backs of mules to the fortifications or prisons called "châteaux" situated in the midst of marshes, or on the tops of mountains covered with snow.

Whatever travelling was accomplished--and it could be but little--during the severe seasons of the year, so long and so tedious in northern climates, could be effected only by wading through mud or climbing over rocks. Such was the state of the whole of France and Germany down to the middle of the seventeenth century. Every individual wore boots; and in many of the cities of Germany the inhabitants went into the streets on stilts.

At length, under Louis XIV., were begun those great roads which other nations have imitated. Their width was limited to sixty feet in the year 1720. They are bordered by trees in many places to the extent of thirty leagues from the capital, which has a most interesting and delightful effect. The Roman military ways were only sixteen feet wide, but were infinitely more solid. It was necessary to repair them every year, as is the practice with us. They were embellished by monuments, by military columns, and even by magnificent tombs; for it was not permitted, either in Greece or Italy, to bury the dead within the walls of cities, and still less within those of temples; to do so would have been no less an offence than sacrilege. It was not then as it is at present in our churches, in which, for a sum of money, ostentatious and barbarous vanity is allowed to deposit the dead bodies of wealthy citizens, infecting the very place where men assemble to adore their God in purity, and where incense seems to be burned solely to counteract the stench of carcasses; while the poorer classes are deposited in the adjoining cemetery; and both unite their fatal influence to spread contagion among survivors.

The emperors were almost the only persons whose ashes were permitted to repose in the monuments erected at Rome.

Highways, sixty feet in width, occupy too much land; it is about forty feet more than necessary. France measures two hundred leagues, or thereabouts, from the mouth of the Rhone to the extremity of Brittany, and about the same from Perpignan to Dunkirk; reckoning the league at two thousand five hundred toises. This calculation requires, merely for two great roads, a hundred and twenty millions of square feet of land, all which must of course be lost to agriculture. This loss is very considerable in a country where the harvests are by no means always abundant.

An attempt was made to pave the high road from Orleans, which was not of the width above mentioned; but it was seen, in no long time, that nothing could be worse contrived for a road constantly covered with heavy carriages. Of these hewn paving stones laid on the ground, some will be constantly sinking, and others rising above the correct level, and the road becomes rugged, broken, and impracticable; it was therefore found necessary that the plan should be abandoned.

Roads covered with gravel and sand require a renewal of labor every year; this labor interferes with the cultivation of land, and is ruinous to agriculture.

M. Turgot, son of the mayor of Paris--whose name is never mentioned in that city but with blessings, and who was one of the most enlightened, patriotic, and zealous of magistrates--and the humane and beneficent M. de Fontette have done all in their power, in the provinces of Limousin and Normandy, to correct this most serious inconvenience.

It has been contended that we should follow the example of Augustus and Trajan, and employ our troops in the construction of highways. But in that case the soldier must necessarily have an increase of pay; and a kingdom, which was nothing but a province of the Roman Empire, and which is often involved in debt, can rarely engage in such undertakings as the Roman Empire accomplished without difficulty.

It is a very commendable practice in the Low Countries, to require the payment of a moderate toll from all carriages, in order to keep the public roads in proper repair. The burden is a very light one. The peasant is relieved from the old system of vexation and oppression, and the roads are in such fine preservation as to form even an agreeable continued promenade.

Canals are much more useful still. The Chinese surpass all other people in these works, which require continual attention and repair. Louis XIV., Colbert, and Riquet, have immortalized themselves by the canal which joins the two seas. They have never been as yet imitated. It is no difficult matter to travel through a great part of France by canals. Nothing could be more easy in Germany than to join the Rhine to the Danube; but men appear to prefer ruining one another's fortunes, and cutting each other's throats about a few paltry villages, to extending the grand means of human happiness.

ROD.

The Theurgists and ancient sages had always a rod with which they operated.

Mercury passes for the first whose rod worked miracles. It is asserted that Zoroaster also bore a great rod. The rod of the ancient Bacchus was his Thyrsus, with which he separated the waters of the Orontes, the Hydaspus, and the Red Sea. The rod of Hercules was his club. Pythagoras was always represented with his rod. It is said it was of gold; and it is not surprising that, having a thigh of gold, he should possess a rod of the same metal.

Abaris, priest of the hyperborean Apollo, who it is pretended was contemporary with Pythagoras, was still more famous for his rod. It was indeed only of wood, but he traversed the air astride of it. Porphyry and Iamblichus pretend that these two grand Theurgists, Abaris and Pythagoras, amicably exhibited their rods to each other.

The rod, with sages, was at all times a sign of their superiority. The sorcerers of the privy council of Pharaoh at first effected as many feats with their rods as Moses with his own. The judicious Calmet informs us, in his "Dissertation on the Book of Exodus," that "these operations of the Magi were not miracles, properly speaking, but metamorphoses, viz.: singular and difficult indeed, but nevertheless neither contrary to nor above the laws of nature." The rod of Moses had the superiority, which it ought to have, over those of the Chotins of Egypt.

Not only did the rod of Aaron share in the honor of the prodigies of that of his brother Moses, but he performed some admirable things with his own. No one can be ignorant that, out of thirteen rods, Aaron's alone blossomed, and bore buds and flowers of almonds.

The devil, who, as is well known, is a wicked aper of the deeds of saints, would also have his rod or wand, with which he gratified the sorcerers: Medea and Circe were always armed with this mysterious instrument. Hence, a magician never appears at the opera without his rod, and on which account they call their parts, "rôles de baguette." No performer with cups and balls can manage his hey presto! without his rod or wand.

Springs of water and hidden treasures are discovered by means of a rod made of a hazel twig, which fails not to press the hand of a fool who holds it too fast, but which turns about easily in that of a knave. M. Formey, secretary of the academy of Berlin, explains this phenomenon by that of the loadstone. All the conjurers of past times, it was thought, repaired to a sabbath or assembly on a magic rod or on a broom-stick; and judges, who were no conjurers, burned them.

Birchen rods are formed of a handful of twigs of that tree with which malefactors are scourged on the back. It is indecent and shameful to scourge in this manner the posteriors of young boys and girls; a punishment which was formerly that of slaves. I have seen, in some colleges, barbarians who have stripped children almost naked; a kind of executioner, often intoxicated, lacerate them with long rods, which frequently covered them with blood, and produced extreme inflammation. Others struck them more gently, which from natural causes has been known to produce consequences, especially in females, scarcely less disgusting.

By an incomprehensible species of police, the Jesuits of Paraguay whipped the fathers and mothers of families on their posteriors. Had there been no other motive for driving out the Jesuits, that would have sufficed.

ROME (COURT OF).

Before the time of Constantine, the bishop of Rome was considered by the Roman magistrates, who were unacquainted with our holy religion, only as the chief of a sect, frequently tolerated by the government, but frequently experiencing from it capital punishment. The names of the first disciples, who were by birth Jews, and of their successors, who governed the little flock concealed in the immense city of Rome, were absolutely unknown by all the Latin writers. We well know that everything was changed, and in what manner everything was changed under Constantine.

The bishop of Rome, protected and enriched as he was, was always in subjection to the emperors, like the bishop of Constantinople, and of Nicomedia, and every other, not making even the slightest pretension to the shadow of sovereign authority. Fatality, which guides the affairs of the universe, finally established the power of the ecclesiastical Roman court, by the hands of the barbarians who destroyed the empire.

The ancient religion, under which the Romans had been victorious for such a series of ages, existed still in the hearts of the population, notwithstanding all the efforts of persecution, when, in the four hundred and eighth year of our era, Alaric invaded Italy and beseiged Rome. Pope Innocent I. indeed did not think proper to forbid the inhabitants of that city sacrificing to the gods in the capitol, and in the other temples, in order to obtain the assistance of heaven against the Goths. But this same Pope Innocent, if we may credit Zosimus and Orosius, was one of the deputation sent to treat with Alaric, a circumstance which shows that the pope was at that time regarded as a person of considerable consequence.

When Attila came to ravage Italy in 452, by the same right which the Romans themselves had exercised over so many and such powerful nations; by the right of Clovis, of the Goths, of the Vandals, and the Heruli, the emperor sent Pope Leo I., assisted by two personages of consular dignity, to negotiate with that conqueror. I have no doubt, that agreeably to what we are positively told, St. Leo was accompanied by an angel, armed with a flaming sword, which made the king of the Huns tremble, although he had no faith in angels, and a single sword was not exceedingly likely to inspire him with fear. This miracle is very finely painted in the Vatican, and nothing can be clearer than that it never would have been painted unless it had actually been true. What particularly vexes and perplexes me is this angel's suffering Aquileia, and the whole of Illyria, to be sacked and ravaged, and also his not preventing Genseric, at a later period, from giving up Rome to his soldiers for fourteen days of plunder. It was evidently not the angel of extermination.

Under the exarchs, the credit and influence of the popes augmented, but even then they had not the smallest degree of civil power. The Roman bishop, elected by the people, craved protection for the bishop, of the exarch of Ravenna, who had the power of confirming or of cancelling the election.

After the exarchate was destroyed by the Lombards, the Lombard kings were desirous of becoming masters also of the city of Rome; nothing could certainly be more natural.

Pepin, the usurper of France, would not suffer the Lombards to usurp that capital, and so become too powerful against himself; nothing again can be more natural than this.

It is pretended that Pepin and his son Charlemagne gave to the Roman bishops many lands of the exarchate, which was designated the Justices of St. Peter--"les Justices de St. Pierre." Such is the real origin of their temporal power. From this period, these bishops appear to have assiduously exerted themselves to obtain something of rather more consideration and of more consequence than these justices.

We are in possession of a letter from Pope Arian I. to Charlemagne, in which he says, "The pious liberality of the emperor Constantine the Great, of sacred memory, raised and exalted, in the time of the blessed Roman Pontiff, Sylvester, the holy Roman Church, and conferred upon it his own power in this portion of Italy."

From this time, we perceive, it was attempted to make the world believe in what is called the Donation of Constantine, which was, in the sequel, for a period of five hundred years, not merely regarded as an article of faith, but an incontestable truth. To entertain doubts on the subject of this donation included at once the crime of treason and the guilt of mortal sin.

After the death of Charlemagne, the bishop augmented his authority in Rome from day to day; but centuries passed away before he came to be considered as a sovereign prince. Rome had for a long period a patrician municipal government.

Pope John XII., whom Otho I., emperor of Germany, procured to be deposed in a sort of council, in 963, as simoniacal, incestuous, sodomitical, an atheist, in league with the devil, was the first man in Italy as patrician and consul, before he became bishop of Rome; and notwithstanding all these titles and claims, notwithstanding the influence of the celebrated Marosia, his mother, his authority was always questioned and contested.

Gregory VII., who from the rank of a monk became pope, and pretended to depose kings and bestow empires, far from being in fact complete master of Rome, died under the protection, or rather as the prisoner of those Norman princes who conquered the two Sicilies, of which he considered himself the paramount lord.

In the grand schism of the West, the popes who contended for the empire of the world frequently supported themselves on alms.

It is a fact not a little extraordinary that the popes did not become rich till after the period when they dared not to exhibit themselves at Rome.

According to Villani, Bertrand de Goth, Clement V. of Bordeaux, who passed his life in France, sold benefices publicly, and at his death left behind him vast treasures.

The same Villani asserts that he died worth twenty-five millions of gold florins. St. Peter's patrimony could not certainly have brought him such a sum.

In a word, down to the time of Innocent VIII., who, made himself master of the castle of St. Angelo, the popes never possessed in Rome actual sovereignty.

Their spiritual authority was undoubtedly the foundation of their temporal; but had they confined themselves to imitating the conduct of St. Peter, whose place it was pretended they filled, they would never have obtained any other kingdom than that of heaven. Their policy always contrived to prevent the emperors from establishing themselves at Rome, notwithstanding the fine and flattering title of "king of the Romans." The Guelph faction always prevailed in Italy over the Ghibelline. The Romans were more disposed to obey an Italian priest than a German king.

In the civil wars, which the quarrel between the empire and the priesthood excited and kept alive for a period of five hundred years, many lords obtained sovereignties, sometimes in quality of vicars of the empire, and sometimes in that of vicars of the Holy See. Such were the princes of Este at Ferrara, the Bentivoglios at Bologna, the Malatestas at Rimini, the Manfredis at Faenza, the Bagliones at Perouse, the Ursins in Anguillara and in Serveti, the Collonas in Ostia, the Riarios at Forli, the Montefeltros in Urbino, the Varanos in Camerino, and the Gravinas in Senigaglia.

All these lords had as much right to the territories they possessed as the popes had to the patrimony of St. Peter; both were founded upon donations.

It is known in what manner Pope Alexander VI. made use of his bastard to invade and take possession of all these principalities. King Louis XII. obtained from that pope the cancelling of his marriage, after a cohabitation of eighteen years, on condition of his assisting the usurper.

The assassinations committed by Clovis to gain possession of the territories of the petty kings who were his neighbors, bear no comparison to the horrors exhibited on this occasion by Alexander and his son.

The history of Nero himself is less abominable; the atrocity of whose crimes was not increased by the pretext of religion; and it is worth observing, that at the very time these diabolical excesses were performed, the kings of Spain and Portugal were suing to that pope, one of them for America, and the other for Asia, which the monster accordingly granted them in the name of that God he pretended to represent. It is also worth observing that not fewer than a hundred thousand pilgrims flocked to his jubilee and prostrated themselves in adoration of his person.

Julius II. completed what Alexander had begun. Louis XII., born to become the dupe of all his neighbors, assisted Julius in seizing upon Bologna and Perouse. That unfortunate monarch, in return for his services, was driven out of Italy, and excommunicated by the very pope whom the archbishop of Auch, the king's ambassador at Rome, addressed with the words "your wickedness," instead of "your holiness."

To complete his mortification, Anne of Brittany, his wife, a woman as devout as she was imperious, told him in plain terms, that he would be damned for going to war with the pope.

If Leo X. and Clement VII. lost so many states which withdrew from the papal communion, their power continued no less absolute than before over the provinces which still adhered to the Catholic faith. The court of Rome excommunicated the emperor Henry III., and declared Henry IV. unworthy to reign.

It still draws large sums from all the Catholic states of Germany, from Hungary, Poland, Spain, and France. Its ambassadors take precedence of all others; it is no longer sufficiently powerful to carry on war; and its weakness is in fact its happiness. The ecclesiastical state is the only one that has regularly enjoyed the advantages of peace since the sacking of Rome by the troops of Charles V. It appears, that the popes have been often treated like the gods of the Japanese, who are sometimes presented with offerings of gold, and sometimes thrown into the river.

SAMOTHRACE.

Whether the celebrated isle of Samothrace be at the mouth of the river Hebrus, as it is said to be in almost all the geographical dictionaries, or whether it be twenty miles distant from it, which is in fact the case, is not what I am now investigating.

This isle was for a long time the most famous in the whole archipelago, and even in the whole world. Its deities called Cabiri, its hierophants, and its mysteries, conferred upon it as much reputation as was obtained not long since by St. Patrick's cave in Ireland.

This Samothrace, the modern name of which is Samandrachi, is a rock covered with a very thin and barren soil, and inhabited by poor fishermen. They would be extremely surprised at being told of the glory which was formerly connected with their island; and they would probably ask, What is glory?

I inquire, what were these hierophants, these holy free masons, who celebrated their ancient mysteries in Samothrace, and whence did they and their gods Cabiri come?

It is not probable that these poor people came from Phœnicia, as Bochart infers by a long train of Hebrew etymologies, and as the Abbé Barrier, after him, is of opinion also. It is not in this manner that gods gain establishments in the world. They are like conquerors who subjugate nations, not all at once, but one after another. The distance from Phœnicia to this wretched island is too great to admit of the supposition that the gods of the wealthy Sidon and the proud Tyre should come to coop themselves up in this hermitage. Hierophants are not such fools.

The fact is, that there were gods of the Cabiri, priests of the Cabiri, and mysteries of the Cabiri, in this contemptible and miserable island. Not only does Herodotus mention them, but the Phœnician historian Sanchoniathon, who lived long before Herodotus, speaks of them in those fragments which have been so fortunately preserved by Eusebius. What is worse still, this Sanchoniathon, who certainly lived before the period in which Moses flourished, cites the great Thaut, the first Hermes, the first Mercury of Egypt; and this same great Thaut lived eight hundred years before Sanchoniathon, as that Phœnician acknowledges himself.

The Cabiri were therefore in estimation and honor two thousand and three or four hundred years before the Christian era.

Now, if you are desirous of knowing whence those gods of the Cabiri, established in Samothrace, came, does it not seem probable that they came from Thrace, the country nearest to that island, and that that small island was granted them as a theatre on which to act their farces, and pick up a little money? Orpheus might very possibly be the prime minstrel of these gods.

But who were these gods? They were what all the gods of antiquity were, phantoms invented by coarse and vulgar knaves, sculptured by artisans coarser still, and adored by brutes having the name of men.

There were three sorts of Cabiri; for, as we have already observed, everything in antiquity was done by threes. Orpheus could not have made his appearance in the world until long after the invention of these three gods; for he admits only one in his mysteries. I am much disposed to consider Orpheus as having been a strict Socinian.

I regard the ancient gods Cabiri as having been the first gods of Thrace, whatever Greek names may have been afterwards given to them.

There is something, however, still more curious, respecting the history of Samothrace. We know that Greece and Thrace were formerly afflicted by many inundations. We have read of the deluges of Deucaleon and Ogyges. The isle of Samothrace boasted of a yet more ancient deluge; and its deluge corresponds, in point of time, with the period in which it is contended that the ancient king of Thrace, Xixuter, lived, whom we have spoken of under the article on "Ararat."

You may probably recollect that the gods of Xixuter, or Xissuter, who were in all probability the Cabiri, commanded him to build a vessel about thirty thousand feet long, and a hundred and twelve wide; that this vessel sailed for a long time over the mountains of Armenia during the deluge; that, having taken on board with him some pigeons and many other domestic animals, he let loose his pigeons to ascertain whether the waters had withdrawn; and that they returned covered with dirt and slime, which induced Xixuter to resolve on disembarking from his immense vessel.

You will say that it is a most extraordinary circumstance that Sanchoniathon does not make any mention of this curious adventure. I reply, that it is impossible for us to decide whether it was mentioned in his history or not, as Eusebius, who has only transmitted to us some fragments of this very ancient historian, had no particular inducement to quote any passage that might have existed in his work respecting the ship and pigeons. Berosus, however, relates the case, and he connects it with the marvellous, according to the general practice of the ancients. The inhabitants of Samothrace had erected monuments of this deluge.

What is more extraordinary and astonishing still is, as indeed we have already partly remarked, that neither Greece nor Thrace, nor the people of any other country, ever knew anything of the real and great deluge, the deluge of Noah.

How could it be possible, we once more ask, that an event so awful and appalling as that of the submersion of the whole earth should be unknown by the survivors? How could the name of our common father, Noah, who re-peopled the world, be unknown to all those who were indebted to him for life? It is the most prodigious of all progidies, that, of so many grandchildren, not one should have ever spoken of his grandfather!

I have applied to all the learned men that I have seen, and said, Have you ever met with any old work in Greek, Tuscan, Arabian, Egyptian, Chaldæan, Indian, Persian, or Chinese, in which the name of Noah is to be found? They have all replied in the negative. This is a fact that perpetually perplexes and confounds me.

But that the history of this universal inundation should be found in a single page of a book written in the wilderness by fugitives, and that this page should have been unknown to all the rest of the world till about nine hundred years after the foundation of Rome--this perfectly petrifies me. I cannot not recover from its impression. The effect is completely overpowering. My worthy reader, let us both together exclaim: "O altitudo ignorantiarum!"

SAMSON.

In quality of poor alphabetical compilers, collectors of anecdotes, gatherers of trifles, pickers of rags at the corners of the streets, we glorify ourselves with all the pride attached to our sublime science, on having discovered that "Samson the Strong," a tragedy, was played at the close of the sixteenth century, in the town of Rouen, and that it was printed by Abraham Couturier. John Milton, for a long time a schoolmaster of London, afterwards Latin secretary to the protector, Cromwell--Milton, the author of "Paradise Lost" and "Paradise Regained"--wrote the tragedy of "Samson Agonistes"; and it is very unfortunate that we cannot tell in what year.

We know, however, that it has been printed with a preface, in which much is boasted, by one of our brethren, the commentator named Paræus, who first perceived by the force of his genius, that the Apocalypse is a tragedy. On the strength of this discovery he divided the Apocalypse into five acts, and inserted choruses worthy of the elegance and fine nature of the piece. The author of this preface speaks to us of the fine tragedies of St. Gregory of Nazianzen. He asserts, that a tragedy should never have more than five acts, and to prove it, he gives us the "Samson Agonistes" of Milton, which has but one. Those who like elaborate declamation will be satisfied with this piece.

A comedy of Samson was played for a long time in Italy. A translation of it was made in Paris in 1717, by one named Romagnesi; it was represented on the French theatre of the pretended Italian comedy, formerly the palace of the dukes of Burgundy. It was published, and dedicated to the duke of Orleans, regent of France.

In this sublime piece, Arlequin, the servant of Samson, fights with a turkey-cock, whilst his master carries off the gates of Gaza on his shoulders.

In 1732, it was wished to represent, at the opera of Paris, a tragedy of Samson, set to music by the celebrated Rameau; but it was not permitted. There was neither Arlequin nor turkey-cock; but the thing appeared too serious; besides, certain people were very glad to mortify Rameau, who possessed great talents. Yet at that time they performed the opera of "Jephthah," extracted from the Old Testament, and the comedy of the "Prodigal Son," from the New Testament.

There is an old edition of the "Samson Agonistes" of Milton, preceded by an abridgment of the history of the hero. The following is this abridgment:

The Jews, to whom God promised by oath all the country which is between the river of Egypt and the Euphrates, and who through their sins never had this country, were on the contrary reduced to servitude, which slavery lasted for forty years. Now there was a Jew of the tribe of Dan, named Manoah; and the wife of this Manoah was barren; and an angel appeared to this woman, and said to her, "Behold, thou shalt conceive and bear a son; and now drink no wine nor strong drink, neither eat any unclean thing; for the child shall be a Nazarite to God, from the womb to the day of his death."

The angel afterwards appeared to the husband and wife; they gave him a kid to eat; he would have none of it, and disappeared in the midst of the smoke; and the woman said, We shall surely die, because we have seen God; but they died not.

The slave Samson being born, was consecrated a Nazarite. As soon as he was grown up, the first thing he did was to go to the Phœnician or Philistine town of Timnath, to court a daughter of one of his masters, whom he married.

In going to his mistress he met a lion, and tore him in pieces with his naked hand, as he would have done a kid. Some days after, he found a swarm of bees in the throat of the dead lion, with some honey, though bees never rest on carrion.

Then he proposed this enigma to his companions: Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came forth sweetness: if you guess, I will give you thirty tunics and thirty gowns; if not, you shall give me thirty gowns and thirty tunics. The comrades, not being able to guess in what the solution of the enigma consisted, gained over the young wife of Samson; she drew the secret from her husband, and he was obliged to give them thirty tunics and thirty gowns. "Ah," said he to them, "if ye had not ploughed with my heifer, ye would not have found out my riddle."

Soon after, the father-in-law of Samson gave another husband to his daughter.

Samson, enraged at having lost his wife, immediately caught three hundred foxes, tied them two together by the tails with lighted firebrands, and they fired the corn of the Philistines.

The Jewish slaves, not being willing to be punished by their masters for the exploits of Samson, surprised him in the cavern in which he dwelt, tied him with great ropes, and delivered him to the Philistines. As soon as he was in the midst of them, he broke his cords, and finding the jawbone of an ass, with one effort he killed a thousand Philistines. Such an effort making him very warm, he was dying of thirst, on which God made a fountain spout from one of the teeth of the ass's jaw-bone. Samson, having drunk, went into Gaza, a Philistine town; he there immediately became smitten with a courtesan. As he slept with her, the Philistines shut the gates of the town, and surrounded the house, when he arose, took the gates, and carried them away. The Philistines, in despair at not being able to overcome this hero, addressed themselves to another courtesan named Delilah, with whom he afterwards slept. She finally drew from him the secret in which his strength consisted: it was only necessary to shave him, to render him equal to other men. He was shaved, became weak, and his eyes being put out, he was made to turn a mill and to play on the violin. One day, while playing in a Philistine temple, between two of its columns, he became indignant that the Philistines should have columned temples, whilst the Jews had only a tabernacle supported on four poles. He also felt that his hair began to grow; and being transported with a holy zeal, he pulled down the two pillars; by which concussion the temple was overthrown, the Philistines were crushed to death, and he with them.

Such is this preface, word for word.

This is the history which is the subject of the piece of Milton, and Romagnesi: it is adapted to Italian farce.

SATURN'S RING.

This astonishing phenomenon, but not more astonishing than others, this solid and luminous body, which surrounds the planet Saturn, which it enlightens, and by which it is enlightened, whether by the feeble reflection of the sun's rays, or by some unknown cause, was, according to a dreamer who calls himself a philosopher, formerly a sea. This sea, according to him, has hardened and become earth or rock; once it gravitated towards two centres, whereas at present it gravitates only towards one.

How pleasantly you proceed, my ingenious dreamer! how easily you transform water into rock! Ovid was nothing in the comparison. What a marvellous power you exercise over nature; imagination by no means confounds you. Oh, greediness to utter novelties! Oh, fury for systems! Oh, weakness of the human mind! If anyone has spoken of this reverie in the "Encyclopædia," it is doubtless to ridicule it, without which other nations would have a right to say: Behold the use which the French make of the discovery of other people! Huyghens discovered the ring of Saturn, and calculated its appearances; Hook and Flamstead have done the same thing. A Frenchman has discovered that this solid body was even a circular ocean, and this Frenchman is not Cyrano de Bergerac!

SCANDAL.

Without inquiring whether scandal originally meant a stone which might occasion people to stumble and fall, or a quarrel, or a seduction, we consider it here merely in its present sense and acceptation. A scandal is a serious indecorum which is used generally in reference to the clergy. The tales of Fontaine are libertine or licentious; many passages of Sanchez, of Tambourin, and of Molina are scandalous.

A man is scandalous by his writings or by his conduct. The siege which the Augustins maintained against the patrol, at the time of the Fronde, was scandalous. The bankruptcy of the brother La Valette, of the Society of Jesuits, was more than scandalous. The lawsuit carried on by the reverend fathers of the order of the Capuchins of Paris, in 1764, was a most satisfactory and delightful scandal to thousands. For the edification of the reader, a word or two upon that subject in this place will not be ill employed.

These reverend fathers had been fighting in their convent; some of them had hidden their money, and others had stolen the concealed treasure. Up to this point the scandal was only particular, a stone against which only Capuchins could trip and tumble; but when the affair was brought before the parliament, the scandal became public.

It is stated in the pleadings in the cause, that the convent of the St. Honoré consumes twelve hundred pounds of bread a week, and meat and wood in proportion; and that there are four collecting friars, "quêteurs," whose office it is, conformably to the term, to raise contributions in the city. What a frightful, dreadful scandal! Twelve hundred pounds of meat and bread per week for a few Capuchins, while so many artisans overwhelmed with old age, and so many respectable widows, are exposed to languish in want, and die in misery!

That the reverend father Dorotheus should have accumulated an income of three thousand livres a year at the expense of the convent, and consequently of the public, is not only an enormous scandal, but an absolute robbery, and a robbery committed upon the most needy class of citizens in Paris; for the poor are the persons who pay the tax imposed by the mendicant monks. The ignorance and weakness of the people make them imagine that they can never obtain heaven without parting with their absolute necessaries, from which these monks derive their superfluities.

This single brother, therefore, the chief of the convent, Dorotheus, to make up his income of a thousand crowns a year, must have extorted from the poor of Paris, no less a sum than twenty thousand crowns.

Consider, my good reader, that such cases are by no means rare, even in this eighteenth century of our era, which has produced useful books to expose abuses and enlighten minds; but, as I have before observed, the people never read. A single Capuchin, Recollet, or Carmelite is capable of doing more harm than the best books in the world will ever be able to do good.

I would venture to propose to those who are really humane and well-disposed, to employ throughout the capital a certain number of anti-Capuchins and anti-Recollets, to go about from house to house exhorting fathers and mothers to virtue, and to keep their money for the maintenance of their families, and the support of their old age; to love God with all their hearts, but to give none of their money to monks. Let us return, however, to the real meaning of the word "scandal."

In the above-mentioned process on the subject of the Capuchin convent, Brother Gregory is accused of being the father of a child by Mademoiselle Bras-defer, and of having her afterwards married to Moutard, the shoe-maker. It is not stated whether Brother Gregory himself bestowed the nuptial benediction on his mistress and poor Moutard, together with the required dispensation. If he did so, the scandal is rendered as complete as possible; it includes fornication, robbery, adultery, and sacrilege. "Horresco referens."

I say in the first place "fornication," as Brother Gregory committed that offence with Magdalene Bras-defer, who was not at the time more than fifteen years of age.

I also say "robbery," as he gave an apron and ribbons to Magdalene; and it is clear he must have robbed the convent in order to purchase them, and to pay for suppers, lodgings, and other expenses attending their intercourse.

I say "adultery," as this depraved man continued his connection with Magdalene after she became Madame Moutard.

And I say "sacrilege," as he was the confessor of Magdalene. And, if he himself performed the marriage ceremony for his mistress, judge what sort of man Brother Gregory must really have been.

One of our colleagues in this little collection of philosophic and encyclopædic questions is now engaged on a moral work, on the subject of scandal, against the opinion of Brother Patouillet. We hope it will not be long before it sees the light.

SCHISM.

All that we had written on the subject of the grand schism between the Greeks and Latins, in the essay on the manners and spirit of nations, has been inserted in the great encyclopædic dictionary. We will not here repeat ourselves.

But when reflecting on the meaning of the word "schism," which signifies a dividing or rending asunder, and considering also the present state of Poland, divided and rent as it is in a manner the most pitiable, we cannot help anew deploring that a malady so destructive should be peculiar to Christians. This malady, which we have not described with sufficient particularity, is a species of madness which first affects the eyes and the mouth; the patient looks with an impatient and resentful eye on the man who does not think exactly like himself, and soon begins to pour out all the abuse and reviling that his command of language will permit. The madness next seizes the hands; and the unfortunate maniac writes what exhibits, in the most decided manner, the inflamed and delirious state of the brain. He falls into demoniacal convulsions, draws his sword, and fights with fury and desperation to the last gasp. Medicine has never been able to find a remedy for this dreadful disease. Time and philosophy alone can effect a cure.

The Poles are now the only people among whom this contagion at present rages. We may almost believe that the disorder is born with them, like their frightful plica. They are both diseases of the head, and of a most noxious character. Cleanliness will cure the plica; wisdom alone can extirpate schism.

We are told that both these diseases were unknown to the Samartians while they were Pagans. The plica affects only the common people at present, but all the evils originating in schism are corroding and destroying the higher classes of the republic.

The cause of the evil is the fertility of their land, which produces too much corn. It is a melancholy and deplorable case that even the blessing of heaven should in fact have involved them in such direful calamity. Some of the provinces have contended that it was absolutely necessary to put leaven in their bread, but the greater part of the nation entertain an obstinate and unalterable belief, that, on certain days of the year, fermented bread is absolutely mortal.

Such is one of the principal causes of the schism or the rending asunder of Poland; the dispute has infused acrimony into their blood. Other causes have added to the effect.

Some have imagined, in the paroxysms and convulsions of the malady under which they labor, that the Holy Spirit proceeded both from the Father and the Son: and the others have exclaimed, that it proceeded from the Father only. The two parties, one of which is called the Roman party, and the other the Dissident, look upon each other as if they were absolutely infected by the plague; but, by a singular symptom peculiar to this complaint, the infected Dissidents have always shown an inclination to approach the Catholics, while the Catholics on the other hand have never manifested any to approach them.

There is no disease which does not vary in different circumstances and situations. The diet, which is generally esteemed salutary, has been so pernicious to this unhappy nation, that after the application of it in 1768, the cities of Uman, Zablotin, Tetiou, Zilianki, and Zafran were destroyed and inundated with blood; and more than two hundred thousand patients miserably perished.

On one side the empire of Russia, and on the other that of Turkey, have sent a hundred thousand surgeons provided with lancets, bistouries, and all sorts of instruments, adapted to cut off the morbid and gangrened parts; but the disease has only become more virulent. The delirium has even been so outrageous, that forty of the patients actually met together for the purpose of dissecting their king, who had never been attacked by the disease, and whose brain and all the vital and noble parts of his body were in a perfectly sound state, as we shall have to remark under the article on "Superstition." It is thought that if the contending parties would refer the case entirely to him, he might effect a cure of the whole nation; but it is one of the symptoms of this cruel malady to be afraid of being cured, as persons laboring under hydrophobia dread even the sight of water.

There are some learned men among us who contend that the disease was brought, a long time ago, from Palestine, and that the inhabitants of Jerusalem and Samaria were long harassed by it. Others think that the original seat of the disease was Egypt, and that the dogs and cats, which were there held in the highest consideration, having become mad, communicated the madness of schism, or tearing asunder, to the greater part of the Egyptians, whose weak heads were but too susceptible to the disorder.

It is remarked also, that the Greeks who travelled to Egypt, as, for example, Timeus of Locris and Plato, somewhat injured their brains by the excursion. However, the injury by no means reached madness, or plague, properly so called; it was a sort of delirium which was not at all times easily to be perceived, and which was often concealed under a very plausible appearance of reason. But the Greeks having, in the course of time, carried the complaint among the western and northern nations, the malformation or unfortunate excitability of the brain in our unhappy countries occasioned the slight fever of Timeus and Plato to break out among us into the most frightful and fatal contagion, which the physicians sometimes called intolerance, and sometimes persecution; sometimes religious war, sometimes madness, and sometimes pestilence.

We have seen the fatal ravages committed by this infernal plague over the face of the earth. Many physicians have offered their services to destroy this frightful evil at its very root. But what will appear to many scarcely credible is, that there are entire faculties of medicine, at Salamanca and Coimbra, in Italy and even in Paris, which maintain that schism, division, or tearing asunder, is necessary for mankind; that corrupt humors are drawn off from them through the wounds which it occasions; that enthusiasm, which is one of the first symptoms of the complaint, exalts the soul, and produces the most beneficial consequences; that toleration is attended with innumerable inconveniences; that if the whole world were tolerant, great geniuses would want that powerful and irresistible impulse which has produced so many admirable works in theology; that peace is a great calamity to a state, because it brings back the pleasures in its train; and pleasures, after a course of time, soften down that noble ferocity which forms the hero; and that if the Greeks had made a treaty of commerce with the Trojans, instead of making war with them, there would never have been an Achilles, a Hector, or a Homer, and that the race of man would have stagnated in ignorance.

These reasons, I acknowledge, are not without force; and I request time for giving them due consideration.

SCROFULA.

It has been pretended that divine power is appealed to in regard to this malady, because it is scarcely in human power to cure it.

Possibly some monks began by supposing that kings, in their character of representatives of the divinity, possessed the privilege of curing scrofula, by touching the patients with their anointed hands. But why not bestow a similar power on emperors, whose dignity surpasses that of kings, or on popes, who call themselves the masters of emperors, and who are more than simple images of God, being His vicars on earth? It is possible, that some imaginary dreamer of Normandy, in order to render the usurpation of William the Bastard the more respectable, conceded to him, in quality of God's representative, the faculty of curing scrofula by the tip of his finger.

It was some time after William that this usage became established. We must not gratify the kings of England with this gift, and refuse it to those of France, their liege lords. This would be in defiance of the respect due to the feudal system. In short, this power is traced up to Edward the Confessor in England, and to Clovis in France.

The only testimony, in the least degree credible, of the antiquity of this usage, is to be found in the writings in favor of the house of Lancaster, composed by the judge, Sir John Fortescue, under Henry VI., who was recognized king of France at Paris in his cradle, and then king of England, but who lost both kingdoms. Sir John Fortescue asserts, that from time immemorial, the kings of England were in possession of the power of curing scrofula by their touch. We cannot perceive, however, that this pretension rendered their persons more sacred in the wars between the roses.

Queens consort could not cure scrofula, because they were not anointed in the hands, like the kings: but Elizabeth, a queen regnant and anointed, cured it without difficulty.

A sad thing happened to Mortorillo the Calabrian, whom we denominate St. Francis de Paulo. King Louis XI. brought him to Plessis les Tours to cure him of his tendency to apoplexy, and the saint arrived afflicted by scrofula.

"Ipse fuit detentus gravi, inflatura, quam in parte inferiori, genæ suæ dextrae circa guttur patiebatur. Chirugii dicebant, mortum esse scrofarum."

The saint cured not the king, and the king cured not the saint.

When the king of England, James II., was conducted from Rochester to Whitehall, somebody proposed that he should exhibit a proof of genuine royalty, as for instance, that of touching for the evil; but no one was presented to him. He departed to exercise his sovereignty in France at St. Germain, where he touched some Hibernians. His daughter Mary, King William, Queen Anne, and the kings of the house of Brunswick have cured nobody. This sacred gift departed when people began to reason.

SECT.