Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB
[merged small][merged small][graphic][merged small]

66

A FABLE, TO SHOW THE DISADVANTAGES OF DECEPTION. A GROOM, whose business it was to come up to him. But the animal shook take care of a certain horse, let the ani- his head, saying, "Nay, master groom; mal go loose into the field. After a you told me a lie the other day, and I while, he wanted to catch him, but the am not so silly as to be cheated a second brute chose to run about at liberty, rather time by you.' than be shut up in the stable; so he pranced round the field and kept out of the groom's way. The groom now went to the granary, and got the measure with which he was wont to bring the horse his oats. When the horse saw the measure, he thought to be sure that the groom had some oats for him; and so he went up to him, and was instantly caught and taken to the stable.

Another day, the horse was in the field, and refused to be caught. So the groom again got the measure, and held it out, inviting the horse, as before, to

But," said the groom, "I did not tell you a lie; I only held out the measure, and you fancied that it was full of oats. I did not tell you there were oats in it."

66 Your excuse is worse than the cheat itself," said the horse. "You held our the measure, and thereby did as much as to say, 'I have got some oats for you.'"

Actions speak as well as words. Every deceiver, whether by words or deeds, is a liar; and nobody, that has been once deceived by him, will fail to shun and despise him ever after.

[graphic][merged small]

THE DRUIDS were a remarkable race of priests, who first came into Europe with the Celts, the first settlers of that quarter of the globe, and who seem to have exercised almost unlimited sway in civil and religious matters. Of their origin and history very little is known; but the early writers have given such accounts of them as to make it evident that their influence among the Gauls and Britons was very great. At the time they flourished, Christianity had not penetrated into those countries, and the religion of the Druids was exercised there without check or control. The best account of them is given by Julius Cæsar, who conquered Gaul and a part of Britain about fifty years before Christ;

but these countries were so wild and uncultivated, and the manners of the people so barbarous, that all the intelligence he could collect respecting this singular race of men, is far from satisfying our curiosity.

The Druids appear to have exercised the office of civil magistrates, as well as that of ministers of religion. Neither their laws nor precepts of religion were committed to writing, but were preserved in poems, which were learned by heart, and recited on special occasions. They had the power of life and death over the multitude; and such was the superstitious terror with which they inspired the people, that their orders were always implicitly obeyed. The

most characteristic part of their religious worship was their veneration for the oak tree, and the mistletoe, which is a plant that grows on the trunks of the oak. No ceremony was performed by the Druids without some part of this tree being used to consecrate it. They wore garlands of oak leaves upon their heads, for they believed that everything which grew upon this tree came from heaven.

The ceremony of gathering the mistletoe was always performed with much solemnity, and in such a manner as to strike the multitude with awe. This plant is very rare, and when any of it was discovered, the Druids set out with great pomp to procure it. This was alalways done on the sixth day of the moon, a day which they deemed of particular sanctity. When they arrived at the oak on which the mistletoe grew, a great banquet and sacrifice was prepared under the tree. Two white bulls were tied by the horns to the trunk of the tree. One of the priests, clad in a white garment, then mounted the tree, and with a golden knife cut off the mistletoe, which was received by another priest in a white cloak. They then offered up their prayers and sacrifices. The mistletoe, besides being an object of religious veneration, was considered an antidote to poison, and to possess many other vir

tues.

The Druids performed their worship in the deepest recesses of the woods, far from human dwellings; a circumstance which added to the superstitious awe with which the common people regarded them. One of these spots is described by the poet Lucan. This wood, according to his account, had never been touched by the axe since the creation. The trees of it grew so thick and were so interwoven, that the rays of the sun could not penetrate through the branches, and a

damp and chilling darkness reigned throughout. Nothing was to be seen in the neighborhood except a multitude of altars, on which human victims had been sacrificed, and the blood of which had stained the trees of a horrid crimAncient traditions affirmed that no bird ever perched upon their branches, no beast ever walked under them, no wind ever blew through them, and no lightning ever struck them.

son.

The idols which these gloomy recesses contained, were a species of rude and shapeless trunks, having some resemblance to the human figure, and covered with a tawny yellow moss. If the superstitious belief of the multitude might be credited, these mystic groves were frequently shaken by some unearthly movement, and dreadful sounds issued from the caverns and hollows which abounded in them. Sometimes, we are told, the woods would be wrapt in a flame of fire without being consumed; and sometimes the oaks would be twined round with monstrous dragons. At the hours of noon and midnight the priests entered these gloomy abodes, to celebrate their mysteries with trembling and terror.

Such appalling accounts of these frightful regions, probably originated with the Druids themselves, who wished to deter the multitude, by every sort of dreadful description, from penetrating into the secrets of their superstitious practices.

Plutarch informs us that a Roman commander named Demetrius was sent by one of the emperors to an island of the Druids, for the purpose of making discoveries, but that the Roman adventurers were repulsed by a strange phenomenon. Immediately on their arrival, says the account, the heavens grew black; the winds arose; strange apparitions were seen in the sky; a dreadful tem

pest sprung up, and the heavens were filled with fiery spouts and whirlwinds. The Romans desisted from their attempt, in the dread of being destroyed for their sacrilegious invasion of a consecrated spot. Probably all this was nothing more than an ordinary_thunder-storm, which the fright of the Romans magnified into a supernatural occurrence.

The Druids were also addicted to the horrid practice of sacrificing human victims. These were sometimes criminals who had offended either the laws or the religious prejudices of the Druids. It often happened that, when a man's life was in danger, from sickness or any other cause, the Druids undertook to secure his safety by a human sacrifice to their false deities. When criminals could not be found, innocent persons were taken for victims. Huge hollow piles of osier twigs, bark or hay were erected, and filled with these unhappy wretches; after which the whole was set on fire and consumed. Under the guidance of the Druids, the people at their funerals burnt the bodies of the dead, and threw into the blazing pile all their most valuable property, and even their servants and slaves. Sometimes the near relatives of the deceased burnt themselves with their friends, in the manner practised at the present day by the Hindoo widows.

The Druids extended their worship over the greater part of the modern kingdom of France, which was then named Gaul, the southern part of the island of Great Britain, and the island of Hibernia, now Ireland. Their most celebrated abode was the island of Mona, now called Anglesey, on the coast of Wales. In this island are some remains of the Druidical superstition, consisting of immense blocks of stone, supposed to have been altars. The cel

ebrated structure in the south of England, known by the name of Stonehenge, is also considered a remnant of Druidical architecture, though we are not positive that the Druids ever performed their worship in temples.

From all the accounts transmitted to us by the ancient writers, it is pretty evident that the Druids were possessed of considerable knowledge for so barbarous an age, and that they made all possible use of this knowledge to perpetuate their authority and keep the rest of the people in ignorance of the true character of their religious mysteries. Their influence, wherever they prevailed, was very great. When the Romans invaded Britain, they found the inhabitants almost entirely subject to their control. The Druids_offered an obstinate resistance to the Romans, and incited the Britons, on many occasions, to revolt against them. The Romans perceived at length that the subjugation of the island would never be effected until the Druids were entirely extirpated. They therefore waged a war of extermination against them, put them to death in every quarter, and the last of the race having fled for shelter to Anglesey, the Romans crossed over to that island, destroyed their idols, cut down their groves, and burnt the priests to death, as they had been accustomed to burn their victims. Such was the end of the race and religion of the Druids.

PLAIN DEALING.-An impertinent fellow asked Lord Guilford, who that plain lady was before him. "That lady," said his lordship, "is my wife. It is true, she is a plain woman, I am a plain man, you are a plain dealer, and that is the plain truth."

[graphic]

Hospital of the Invalides, where Napoleon's body is now entombed, Paris.

The Re-entombment of Napoleon.

Of all the great and remarkable men of modern times, Napoleon Bonaparte was the most wonderful. He was a son of a lawyer of Corsica, an island in the Mediterranean sea, belonging to France. From a humble station he rose to be the emperor of France, and the greatest general of modern times. He hurled kings from their thrones, and put others in their places. He dismembered empires, and created new ones. He made the whole earth ring with his mighty deeds. But one thing he could not do he could not conquer himself. His ambition led him on from one step of injustice to another, till the embattled armies of Europe appeared in the field against him. He was defeated, dethroned, and taken on board a British ship to the rocky and lonely island of St. Helena, where he died in 1821.

After being entombed for almost twenty years, the king, Louis Philippe, sent out a ship to bring back his body to France, to be re-entombed in the capital of the empire of which he once swayed the sceptre. The hearts of many of the French people adore the name of Napoleon; and the ceremony of his re-entombment, which has just taken place at Paris, is the theme of the following lines.

Sound the trumpet, roll the drum !
Come in long procession, come!

Come with sword and come with lance,
Children of heroic France;
Come from castle's frowning wall,
Come from the ancestral hall,
Come, poor peasant, from thy shed,
Cowled monk and crowned head!
From the hamlet's green retreat,
From the city's crowded street,
From the proud Tuilleries' door
Let the royal escort pour;
Duke and baron, king and queen,
Gather to the august scene;
In your purple pomp arrayed,
Haste to swell the grand parade.
Brow of snow and locks of gold,
Matron, maiden, young and old!
Sound the trumpets, roll the drum,
For Napoleon's ashes come!

Sound the trumpet, roll the drum!
Let the cannon be not dumb;
Charge your black guns to the brim,
Invalides! to welcome him!
War-worn veterans, onward march
To Etoiles' towering arch.
Let the column of Vendome,
Let the Pantheon's soaring dome,
Champs de Mars and Elysees,
Hear the clang of arms to-day;
Let the Luxembourg once more

« ZurückWeiter »