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even looking at or speaking to him; but as soon as she had drank the blood she immediately recognized him, informed him of what had occurred at her death, and of many things relating to his family. This, however, would seem to be confined chiefly to the dead in Homer; for when the apparition of Darius was called up by Atossa, there was no sacrifice, and the libations consisted only of honey, milk, flowers, &c., yet the spirit, immediately on its appearance, recognized his wife and the attendant Persians, and addressed them. (See the Perse of schylus, 1. 677.)

VII.

It is afraid of a drawn sword, and will not

it, but roves about at the gates, in a restless condition. - (Dissert., p. 221.)

Long before the time of Homer the being deprived of sepulture was regarded as the greatest misfortune. The author of Ecclesiastes says that an untimely birth (meaning never to have been born) is better for a man And than to have no burial. (c. vi. 3.) among the instances recorded of Tobit's devotion, one is, that if he saw any of his kindred dead, or cast about the walls of Nineveh, he buried them. (c. i. 17.) And when he confesses his fear of death, he adds this reason, "lest I should bring my father's and my mother's life, because of me, to the grave with

approach the man who threatens it. — (Dissert., sorrow: for they have no other son to bury p. 220.)

This fear is very consistent with the notion entertained by the ancients, that the departed spirit retained a material body. Hence the ghosts of the Greek chiefs and Macedonian phalanx fled at the sight of Eneas and his glittering weapons. (En. vi. 490.) When Marcellus, in "Hamlet," inquires whether he shall strike the ghost with his partisan, Shakspeare makes him add immediately,

We do it wrong, being so majestical,
To offer it the show of violence;

For it is, as the air, invulnerable,
And our vain blows malicious mockery.
(Act. 1, sc. i.)

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them."

(vi. 14.)

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Dr. Jortin adds, "it does not appear that Homer thought other men to consist, like him, of the ñux, fʊxè, and donor, but that in them the x and y were the same;" yet Achilles, in the twenty-third Iliad, says, Ο πόποι, ἦρά τις ἐστὶ καὶ εὶν είδαο δόμοισι ψυχὴ καὶ εἴδωλον, ἀτὶς φρένες οὐκ ἔνι πάμπαν. (L. 103.)

As heaven attests, there is then in the mansions of the dead the SPIRIT, and its IMAGE, but the INTELLECTUAL PART of man is not with it. It must be observed again that nothing of this is expressed in Pope's translation. Plutarch says, that the gv, or intellectual part of man, is a part of the 4x or soul, but superior to it, and separable from it. He makes the living man consist of three parts, coμ1, tux, g; that, by the first death, he becomes two out of three, viz., tʊxù and egñv; and by the second death, he becomes one out of two, viz. gr. The door or image of Iphthima was raised by Minerva, even during her lifetime. (Od. iv. 795.) And Ulysses feared that Persephone had sent the mere image of his mother to delude and distress him. (Od. xi. 212.) This ideer, or spectral appearance, seems to resemble the wraith of the Scottish superstition, which is believed to be sometimes the messenger of good and sometimes the presager of death. Apollo raised the image of Eneas' dead body to deceive the Greeks (Il. v. 449); and a belief is still prevalent in the west of England that, as an omen of death, an individual will sometimes see the spectral appearance of his own corpse.

XII.

The shades form themselves into little socie

ties, and keep company with their countrymen, friends and acquaintances. (Dissert., p. 223.)

XIX.

In Homer we find punishments expressly threatened only to the perjured, and indirectly to the wicked, and rewards promised to none; unless, perhaps, by way of inference, we should allow to his virtuous shades the poor negative rewards of not being tormented with Tantalus and Tityus. — (Dissert., p. 236.)

So the ghosts of the departed monarchs of the earth are described as being assembled together in the realms of death, and as rising up from their thrones to receive the King of Babylon; to receive and insult him: "Art thou become like unto us? Is thy pride brought down to the grave? Is the vermin By the Mosaic Law the sin of wilful perbecome thy couch, and the earth-worm thy jury was not to be expiated by sacrifice (Lev. covering? How art thou fallen, O Lucifer, v. 1), he shall bear his punishment, being so son of the morning!" (Is. xix. 10. Bp. understood. Lowth.)

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Aïdes, or the region of the dead, is represented by Homer, as a gloomy, melancholy place where there is no joy and contentment, and where even the heroes are disconsolate, and out of humor with their condition. (Dissert., p. 231.)

XX.

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The heavenly messengers that appeared to Abraham, ent in his presence (Gen. xviii. 8), but the angel refused the kid offered by Manoah (Judges xiii. 15, 16); and the angel that appeared to Tobit, reminded him, All these days did I appear unto you; but I did neither eat nor drink. (ch. xii. 19.)

Ovid makes Jupiter say,

Contigerat nostras infamia temporis aures;
Quam cupiens falsam, summo delabor Olympo,
Et Deus humanâ lustro sub imagine terras.
Met. i. 211.

The wickedness of the age has reached me; in the hope that it may be untrue, I will descend It is so represented by Job: Before I go from Olympus, and although a god, will traywhence I shall not return, to the land of dark-erse the earth under the human form; which, ness, and the shadow of death; where the it has been observed, is very like the circumlight is darkness. (ch. x. 21, 22.)

XV.

As deep beneath these mansions as the earth is beneath the heavens, lies Tartarus, where Saturn, Japetus, and other ancient gods are confined, and never see the cheerful light of the sun, or feel the refreshing breezes of the air. (Dissert., p. 225.)

Homer's idea of Tartarus is said to have been derived from the Egyptians, who are supposed to have possessed by tradition a knowledge of the fall of the angels, and the punishment of the condemned.

XVI.

They who are punished there, as Tantalus, Tityus, Sisyphus, are persons who had been guilty of particular impieties against the gods. (Dissert., p. 229.)

XVII.

There is only one crime specified in Homer for which men would be punished hereafter, and that crime is perjury. (Dissert., p. 230.)

XVIII.

stance recorded in Genesis. "Because their
sin is very grievous; I will go down now, and
see whether they have done altogether accord-
ing to the cry of it which has come unto me."
that the gods assumed the form of men.
(ch. xviii. 20, 21.) The Egyptians believed
In the Odys-
(Diod. Siculus, Lib. i. c. 12.)
sey, Minerva descends no less than nine times
under different forms; seven under the human
form, once as an eagle, and once as light. Plato
reprobates the superstition, and on this ac-
count passes a severe censure on Homer. Ho-
mer, however, described theology, in all like-
lihood, very much as he found it, and exhibits
therefore the opinions which were common
in Greece and the neighboring nations at that
early period; these opinions were probably
derived from still more ancient nations, and
originated possibly in corrupt tradition from
the histories of the Old Testament. The gods
of Homer resemble mankind in their passions
and feelings, and certainly to a gross excess;
but still, it may be remarked, that in every re-
ligion under heaven, even the Christian, inan-
kind, in forming their idea of the Deity, are
very prone to transfer to him their own pecu-

The office of punishing perjury is given to the liar passions, and ascribe to Him such attri

Furies. (Dissert., p. 230.)

butes as are in sympathy with their own dis

positions; and which are grounded, therefore, | tercourse was prevalent in Europe in the midit may be presumed, in many cases, rather dle ages; which is apparent in the fabliaux on the character of the individual than on of the Troubadours. Guy de Lusignan is rereason and religion. Persons of a tender and lated to have had several children by Melusina, compassionate temper dwell chiefly on the the elf; and it was generally credited in Scotmercy and benevolence of God; those of a land that Geoffrey Plantagenet, the ancestor sterner nature, on his inflexible justice, and of the English sovereigns, had married a dæconsequent severity: the latter attach them- mon. (See Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, selves to Calvinism, the former class with ii. 183.) Shakspeare alludes to the superstiArminians. Men of a philosophic turn and tion in his "Tempest," in which Prospero addisciplined habits of thought, look upon purity dresses Caliban: of heart and the exercise of moral virtue as

what can alone be acceptable to a perfect
Being. Those of an uninformed and con-
tracted mind think to merit His approbation
and conciliate His favor by fervid expressions
of homage, and the punctilious observance of
ceremonies and form. National character
will be found always to exert its influence on
national religions.
The Northern Indians, it
has been observed, whose lives, from habit
and necessity, are devoted to activity and for-
titude believe their gods to be characterized by
precisely the same qualities; while the Siamese,
whose hot climate and despotic government
induce the idea that happiness consists in
ease and safety, believe the Supreme Being
to live forever in a state of indolence and
security.

In Homer every quality and attribute of man is represented by a deity, implying that the godhead is everywhere present: all is conceived in the spirit of poetry and wisdom; and even in those parts which appear least rational, there are shadowed forth many mysteries of natural and religious philosophy Diodorus remarks that Homer obtained his learning and theology from Egypt. Mr. Howell, in his Interesting Historical Events," refers the Egyptian philosophy to the doctrines of the Shastah; and whatever age may be assigned to Zoroaster and the Magian doctrines, there can be no doubt of their very great antiquity according to Aristotle, as quoted by Bryant, the Magi were prior to the Egyptians. (Anc. Myth. ii. 390.) It is therefore no matter of surprise that there should be so many resemblances between the notions of the Hebrews, and those of Homer and the Greeks.

Thou poisonous slave, got by the devil himself
Upon thy wicked dam.

The foul witch Sycorax, who, with age and envy,
Had grown into a hoop,
The blere-eyed hag was hither brought with

child.

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Meyer, the historian of Flanders, relates that
in 1459 many persons of both sexes were con-
demned for this offence ON THEIR OWN CONFES-
SION, and burnt at Artois; and Bodin, who
was chief justice in eyre, wrote his work on
Dæmonomania in consequence of having had
to try a female named Harvilleria of Compeign
for the same thing. The poor being at last
confessed that she had permitted such inter-
course from an early age; and her enlight-
ened judges debated the question whether she
should be burnt alive, or in mercy strangled
first; the burning her alive was ultimately
execution on the third of April, 1578. The
determined on, and the sentence carried into

demnation sufficiently betrays the real cause
of her calamities, and which, no doubt, in
this and most other instances, arose from that
"heaviest of human afflictions," the frequent
and the natural result of superstition. (See
and also Lib. ii. c. 8.)
Bodinus De Magorum Dæmonomaniâ, præf.;

confession she made before and after her con

XXI.

The Elysian fields were situated beyond the sea, and bounded by the sea, and separated from the earth in which others dwell. But we are regions; only we find that they were men and not told who were the inhabitants of these happy not ghosts. (Dissert., p. 239.)

XXII.

Homer hath not affirmed directly, and in so many words, that the soul is immortal; but this doctrine seems manifestly deducible from his system and connected with it. (Dissert., p. 245.)

With respect to the gross superstition noticed in the above passage by Dr. Jortin, this may also be traced to the earliest history of mankind. It was spoken of in the apocryphal book of Enoch, and possibly originated in the misinterpreted passage in Genesis (vi. 2). The Rabbins held that when Adam was expelled from Paradise, he continued a hundred Hercules is described by Homer as being and thirty years under excommunication, and in heaven and united to Hebe. (Od. xi. 603.) during that time maintained an intercourse Perhaps the moral of the fable was intended with female angels, and thence originated to show that his soul possessed immortal dæmons. Augustine speaks of the sin alluded youth.

to as being so well known that no rational Although it did not fall within Dr. Jortin's person would deny it. The belief in such in-plan to enter upon the subject, it may be also

collected from Homer that dæmons attend upon mankind to seduce them to evil, and involve them in sufferings. When Ulysses returned to the isle of Aolus, he was asked,

Πῶς ἦλθες, Οδυσεῦ; τίς τοι κακὸς ἔχρεε δαίμων. (Od. x. 64.) What dæmon could'st thou meet To thwart thy passage, and repel thy feet? (Pope.) And, in excuse for Helen, Menelaus says, ἦλθες ἔπειτα σὺ κεῖσε· κελευσέμεναι δέ σ ̓ ἔμελλεν δαίμων ὃς Τρώεσσιν ἐβούλετο κύδος ορέξαι.

(Od. iv. 275.) Some dæmon, anxious for the Trojan doom, Urged you with great Deïphobus to come.

(Pope.)

In the Aulularia of Plautus, Lyconides pleads the same influence in excuse for having seduced the daughter of Euclio,

Deus impulsor mihi fuit; is me ad illam illexit. (Line 691.)

The doctrine is also taught in the Scriptures: evil spirits were sent among the Egyptians. "He cast upon them the fierceness of his anger, wrath, &c., by sending evil angels among them." (Ps. lxxviii. 49.) See also the Book of Wisdom, xvii. 3, 4.

The Siamese impute many of their diseases to the influence of evil spirits. (Picart's Relig. Ceremon.) So the sick father in the Odyssey,

κείται κρατέρ' αλγεα πάσχων, δερὸν τηκόμενος, στυγερός δέ οἱ ἔχραι

μων. (Lib. v. 395.) Which is very similar to the passage in St. Luke's Gospel, of the sick woman Whom Satan hath bound, lo, these eighteen years.' (Luke xiii. 16.)

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Animals had the power of perceiving the presence of inhabitants of the other world. When Minerva assumed the form of a beautiful matron, the dogs of Eumæus forbore to bark, and retreated whining. (Od. xvi. 157.) Dogs are still believed to detect the presence of death before he is manifest to others, a superstition which may have originated in the above.

Sometimes the eyes of man were opened so that they could see spiritual agents.

̓Αχλύν δ' αυ τοι απ' ὀφθαλμῶν ἔλον, ἡ πρὶν ἐπεπ,
Οφρ' εὖ γινώσκης ἡμὲν θεὸν ἡδὲ καὶ ἄνδρα.

(II., v. 127.) Yet more, from mortal mists I purge thine eyes, And set to view the warring deities. (Pope.)

So the eyes of the young man were opened by Elisha: "And Elisha prayed-and the Lord opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.” (2 Kings vi. 17.) C.

NICKNAMES.

THE Débats has had an agreeable article on the nicknames given by the Americans to their great men. Some of these names are even more graphic and descriptive in French than in English. Dan-le-Noir is a little softer than Black Dan, which, I think, needed softening. Le Divin is hardly equal to the Godlike, and Le Grand Explicateur is certainly inferior to the Great Expounder —just as explaining is subordinate to expounding. Le Garçon de Charrette is a fair rendering of the Wagon Boy, and Mr. Corwin may be as proud of one as the other. Old Rough and Ready is translated by Vicuz Rude et Pret-a-tout. This is energetic and sug"gestive, but has the misfortune to resemble the slang sobriquets of the Paris desperadoes and of Van Buren is to It was no doubt through the agency of evil the more flashy swell-mob. spirits that it was believed persons had the be known in France as Le Petit Sorcier, which is as good as the original. Benton is Frenchified power to curse armies and individuals. When into Vieux Lingot. I frankly confess I cannot Aterus, the tribune, could not prevent Crassus put this back again into any English which from leaving Rome, being about to attack the strikes me as the true original. I never heard Parthians, as a last resource he ran before Benton called Old Ingot in my life. That is the gate of the city, and placing a censer what you get by staying away from home. You there with fire in it he sprinkled incense, and do not recognize your countrymen when you hear offered libations, and as Crassus approached them called by name. Old Ingot, Old Junk of uttered the most fearful imprecations. (Plu- Gold, Old Bullion; none of these affect me like tarch, Crass. 19.) Thus Balaam prepared | old acquaintances. Scott's immortal hasty plate of sacrifices previous to his cursing the Israelites. soup is so disfigured that it means quite another (Numbers xxii.) thing. It is rendered by Vite, une assiette-deas if the gensoup: Quick! a plate of soup here eral was calling to the sutler for his dinner on a Débats states, indeed, that this is the meaningdrum-head, in the midst of a raking fire. The

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In Lesinky's Voyage round the World there is an account of a religious sect in the Sandwich Islands, who arrogate the power of praying people to death. The sufferer redescriptive of a battle, interrupted by an imceives notice when the litany of death is about provised repast." The French are not particuto commence, and such is the power of imag-larly good at nicknames. The Little Corporal is ination that it seldom fails, it is said, of pro- perhaps their triumph in this line of invention. ducing the effect. - Correspondence of the NY. Times.

From Chambers' Journal.

LAMARTINE'S HISTORICAL WORK.

THE History of the Restoration of Monarchy in France, just completed, may be called Lamartine's greatest work; we should be glad to learn, that it has also been the most successful. As an account of the transactions which closed the Bonapartean wars, and placed the Bourbons on the throne of France, it has to drag its way through numberless party intrigues and squabbles, and to discuss various measures of state policy; yet, like its lively and fascinating writer, it is never dull, and may, for the most part, he read as pleasantly as a romance. The work, however, has other merits. While undoubtedly rhetorical, Lamartine is candid and impartial. Sometimes he falls into error; but it is chiefly in details. As a Frenchman, his observations on England and Englishmen are surprisingly correct. His own countrymen have the most reason to blush under his strictures.

Originally a legitimist, and now a republican, Lamartine is prepared to be strictly impartial towards Bonaparte. Rising above the illusions which obscure the understanding of so many, he speaks of the great Napoleon exactly as he deserves -an ambitious and selfish man, who caused the death of millions of human beings to promote what he called the glory of France, but which was, in reality, the glory only of the army, with himself at its head. Beyond this barren bequest, Napoleon left little but his name; yet, as he at least did not retrograde into antiquated imbecilities, or conduct his administration through palace intrigues, he has in late times been identified with liberalism and progress. A perusal of M. Lamartine's amusing work will, we think, satisfy the most sceptical, that the permanent reign of the Bourbons was an impossibility. The fault was less in the family itself than in its immediate followers. From the day that Louis XVIII. arrived at the Tuileries, all the affairs of the government were managed or deranged by courtiers, as the case might be. The best intentions of the king were continually upset by coteries of meddlesome old ladies and gentlemen, secretly working for some rival interest. One can see that, with the form of a constitution under the charter, no party knew what a constitution was. In Great Britain ministers hold their place in virtue of possessing parliamentary majorities; and the consequence is, that court intrigue, to install this or that officer of the crown, is totally unknown. In France, under the Bourbons, this great and safe principle was reversed. All was made to depend on court manœuvre. Lamartine gives an account of the strange and underhand means adopted to

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remove M. Decazes from the confidence of Louis XVIII. This most able minister, sagacious, moderate, and practical, had the misfortune not to be of noble birth, and the whole influence of the old royalists was accordingly employed to ruin him. Princes and priests, decayed noblemen and titled ladies, conspired to destroy his fame by the most unscrupulous calumnies. Every plan failing in its aim, a plot was at length devised to sap the king's confidence in the favorite. It consisted in employing a lady of beauty and accomplishments to ingratiate herself with the king; and having done so, she was gradually to whisper malignant untruths into the royal ear. This base scheme was partially successful in its operation; but what really ruined Decazes, was the industriously-circulated and greedily-believed falsehood, that he was concerned in the assassination of the unfortunate Duke de Berry. The account of this sad tragedy may be taken as a specimen of the work before us.

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For a number of years, a fanatic named Louvel, by trade a working-saddler, had meditated the murder of the Bourbons, by killing them off one by one, as circumstances favored the enterprise. With this terrible crime constantly before him, he purchased two daggers, and frequently left his employment to wait for his victims. At balls, operas, hunting-parties, did this man, for years, lurk about in the expectation of getting near a Bourbon- the king, Count d'Artois, Duke d'Angoulême, Duke de Berry-it was all the same which. No one knew his intentions. In the mean time, the Duke and Duchess de Berry, solely occupied with their happiness, and strangers to all political factions, gave themselves up, with all the eagerness of their youth and natural dispositions, to the pleasures and fêtes which the carnival multiplied, during the last days of the theatrical season at Paris. Beloved and popular amidst that world of art, of music and the dance, which prolongs the opera-nights till day, they delighted in the enjoyments of this popularity. On the 13th February (1820), they purposed going to the Royal Theatre, where they had not been for some days before. Being both eager and curious in pursuit of amusements, it might be supposed that they would not allow this festive season to pass without making their appearance there. While they were enjoying the prospect of the evening's pleas ure, and were occupied with their toilet and with the costumes for the night, the assassin, who watched their door, and almost read their very thoughts, conjectured on his part that the attraction of pleasure was about to deliver his prey into his hands."

He had already, for two evenings before, been watching the doors of the opera-house, and now he attended to execute his purpose.

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