father of his subjects; and to the pres- if his offering for a sacrifice of peace ent day the sovereign is addressed as the offering unto the Lord be of the flock, father and mother of the people; and he male or female, he shall offer it without in turn, reversing the compliment, speaks blemish. It he offer a lamb for his offerof the people as his father and mother. ing, then shall he offer it before the Lord. Thus when the present Queen of Mada- And he shall lay his hand upon the head gascar was crowned, addressing the peo- of his offering, and kill it before the tabple, she said, "O ye under heaven here ernacle of the congregation; and Aaron's assembled, I have father and mother, sons shall sprinkle the blood thereof round having you; therefore may you live, and about upon the altar. And he shall offer may God bless you." Then, referring to of the sacrifice of the peace offering, an the judges and officers, and explaining offering made by fire unto the Lord: the their relation to the people, she said, "I fat thereof, and the whole rump, it shall have made them fathers of the people, be taken off hard by the backbone; and and leaders to teach them wisdom." The the fat that covereth the inwards, and all Malagasy are firm believers in the doc- the fat that is upon the inwards. . . . trine of divine right. The sovereign is, And the priest shall burn it upon the in their eyes, in very truth God's vicege- alter; it is the food of the offering made rent. Indeed, until within the past few by fire unto the Lord" (ver. 6-11). We years, it was customary to salute him as may just mention also, that the same God; or God seen by the eye. The late part of the fowl is usually given by chilQueen Rasoahery was the first who for- dren or servants to their father, or supebade these blasphemous appellations. riors. When the queen goes abroad she The very belongings of the sovereign are is attended by above a thousand soldiers, treated with respect. It is no uncom- and a great number of camp attendants. mon thing, while being carried about the She is carried in a palanquin, as the roads streets, for your bearers suddenly to run are to bad too allow carriages to be emoff to some side path to be out of the ployed. When a carriage which had way. On looking for the cause of this, it been presented to Radama I. was carried will be found that a small procession is up to the capital, he seated himself in it; passing along, consisting of a forerunner and instead of being drawn in it by his with a spear, who duly shouts out to the faithful subjects, they lifted it, wheels passengers to "Clear the way!" Be- and all, and he had the satisfaction of enhind are two or four men, it may be, car- joying a carriage drive after a fashion alrying water-pots filled with water for royal use, and followed again by an officer armed with a spear. The summons to get out of the way is obeyed by a rush to the side of the road, and the passers-by stand uncovered until the procession has passed. This is to prevent the water, or whatever else it may be, being bewitched. The Queen, and ON THE LEGENDS OF CERTAIN PLANTS. some of the higher members of the royal SOME plants are emblematical on acfamily who have principalities in distant count of certain events or customs; of parts of the country, in addition to a these are the national emblems. The good many other feudal rights, which I rose of England became especially fahave got no time to mention, are entitled mous during the wars of the Roses, after to the rump of every bullock that is which the red and white were united; killed in the island. The actual rump is and the rose of both colours is called the conveyed to officers appointed to receive York and Lancaster; but when these it. This is a custom curious to all, and flowers first became badges of the two is deeply interesting to the student of houses we cannot discover. The thistle antiquities. Why, the very name anato- is honoured as the emblem of Scotland, mists give this part is suggestive. It is from the circumstance that once upon a called the sacrum, or sacred part-the time a party of Danes having approached part devoted to the gods in Greece and the Scottish camp unperceived, by night, Rome. But tracing this up to a higher were on the point of attacking it, when source, we find that, in the Levitical law, one of the soldiers trod on a thistle, which this part was specially directed to be caused him to cry out, and so aroused the offered up to the Lord. Thus we read enemy. The shamrock of Ireland was in the third chapter of Leviticus" And held by St. Patrick to teach the doctrine together novel. The palanquin is preceded by attendants dancing, shouting, and singing, with music. From Hardwicke's Science Gossip. of the Trinity, and chosen in remem-old British caldron of Ceridween), which brance of him: it is always worn by the contained decoctions of all kinds of Irish on St. Patrick's day. The leek, in plants, mystically prepared, were looked Wales, as a national device, has not been to as all-powerful remedies when applied satisfactorily explained, otherwise than with strange rites and incantations, as the result of its having the old Cymric Some plants have been famous on ac colours, green and white. In France, count of their poisonous qualities, which the fleur-de-lis is so called as a corruption in various cases have made them histori of Fleur-de-Louis, and has no connection cal. The hemlock (Conium maculatum) with the lily, but was an iris, chosen as was formerly used in Greece as the state an emblem by Louis VII. when he went poison, for it was the custom to put pristo the Crusades, and afterwards named oners to death by its means, and it is be after him. The olive is deemed an em- lieved that Socrates, Theramenes, and blem of peace; probably because, on ac- Phocion were all condemned to drink it. count of its durability of growth, it was The darnel (Lolium temulentum) is a large planted both in Greece and Italy to mark grass, flowering in July, which grows the limits of landed possessions. Very among barley and wheat, possessed of many plants owe their celebrity to the poisonous properties; it is supposed to healing properties with which they are be the tares referred to in the parable. probably endowed, as their common The monkshood (Aconitum napellus) is a names indicate. Of these are self-heal, very poisonous plant, even the odour of woundwort, liverwort, lungwort, eye- its leaves and blossoms having an injuri bright, loose-strife, flea-bane, salvia, from salvo, to heal; potentilla, from potential, &c. But in many instances these properties used to be exaggerated and distorted in such a manner that the application of certain plants in wounds and illness, merely as a charm, superseded their being used in a way that might be beneficial; and the witches' caldrons (like those mentioned in " Macbeth," and the rows. ous effect on some people; its old name of wolfsbane was given to the plant, be cause hunters dipped their arrows in its juice to make them more deadly. The upas-tree of Java has a great notoriety for the terrible effect it is supposed to have in causing the death of any one who lies under its shelter, and its milky gum is also used by the natives for their ar TEMPLE OF DIANA. -The Temple of Di- the platform, measured at the lowermost step, ana, about which there has been so much con- was 238 feet 3 1-2 inches English. The evi tention among the learned for so many genera-dence as to its length is not at present so contions, is now proved to be octastyle, that is, clusive, and the dimension given on my plan having eight columns in front. It has eighteen may have to be corrected when the wester columns on the sides, and the intercolumnia- and eastern extremities have been more thor tions of the latter are chiefly three diameters, oughly explored. The dimensions of the Tem making the temple diastyle. The statement | ple itself from plinth to plinth, "out to out, of Pliny, as to its having had one hundred are 163 feet 9 1-2 inches by 308 feet inches columns (externally), is correct, and as many The height of the platform was 9 feet 53 as twenty-seven of these might have been the inches. The interior appears to have been contributions of kings. Of the position of adorned with two tiers of elliptical columns ! the thirty-six columnæ cælata (sculptured col- Ionic and Corinthian, fragments of these har umns), I may obtain further proof before the ing been found near the walls of the cella. excavations are completed. Allowing for the projection of the sculpture on these columns, which, in the fragments lately found, is as much as thirteen inches, the diameter of the columns was about 5 feet 10 inches. The dimensions of the Temple given by Pliny, viz., A KIEL Professor of Philosophy has, ac 220 feet by 425 feet, were evidently intended cording to the German papers, given a ball, to apply to the raised platform upon which to celebrate the 2,302nd anniversary of the the Temple was built. The actual width of birth of Plato! Athenæum. Atheneum Fifth Series, No. 1528.-September 20, 1873. CONTENTS. I. A CENTURY OF GREAT POETS, FROM 1750 DOWNWARDS. Johann Friedrich Schiller,. Blackwood's Magazine, II. INNOCENT: A Tale of Modern Life. By Mrs. Graphic, Spectator, 757 . 758 PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY BY TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION. For EIGHT DOLLARS, remitted directly to the Publishers, the LIVING AGE will be punctually forwarded for a year, free of postage. But we do not prepay postage on less than a year, nor when we have to pay commission for forwarding the money; nor when we club the LIVING Age with another periodical. An extra copy of THE LIVING AGE is sent gratis to any one getting up a club of Five New Subscribers. Remittances should be made by bank draft or check, or by post-office money-order, if possible. If neither of these can be procured, the money should be sent in a registered letter. All postmasters are obliged to register letters when requested to do so. Drafts, checks and money-orders should be made payable to the order of LITTELL & GAY. DIFFERENT PATHS. I LATELY talked with one who strove And thus it was I answered him: "Strike not away the staff I hold, You cannot give me yours, dear friend; Up the steep hill our paths are set In different ways, to one sure end. What, though, with eagle glance upfixed On heights beyond our mortal ken, You tread the broad sure stones of Faith More firmly than do weaker men; To each according to his strength; And broader pathway thro' the snow. And when upon the golden crest We stand at last together, freed From mists that circle round the base, And clouds that but obscure our creed; We shall perceive that though our steps Have wandered wide apart, dear friend, No pathway can be wholly wrong That tends unto one perfect end." LONG AGO. Two Roses bloomed upon a tree: Yet touch a chord by kindred feeling known, Call on an echo deep in kindred heart, Blood will assert an innate power its own, And wake the spirit for the champion's part. Our own, our own. God-given, holy chain, Linked as mere babies on our mother's knee, Soldered by mutual hope and joy and pain, Reaching from birth unto eternity. Tinsley's Magazine. LOVE'S QUEST. (FOR A MURAL PAINTING.) WHENAS the watches of the night had grown To that deep loneliness where dreams begin, I saw how Love, with visage worn and thin, With wings close-bound, went through a town alone. Death-pale he showed, and inly seemed to moan With sore desire some dolorous place to win; Sharp brambles passed had streaked his dazzling skin, His bright feet eke were gashed with many a stone. And, as he went, I, sad for piteousness, Might see how men from door and gate would move Their white leaves touched with every sway. To stay his steps; or womankind would press, ing. I bent to gather one, while She Plucked off the other, gently saying, To both for Death to smite them both." Lost Love! Dead Love! They come and go No sun is like the once bright sun That shone upon that golden weather, In which she said those flowers were one, And Death should spare or smite together. Athenæum. KINDRED. E. W. H. With wistful eyes, to balconies above, And bid him enter in. But Love not less, APART. AUSTIN DOBSON. From Blackwood's Magazine. A CENTURY OF GREAT POETS, FROM 1750 DOWNWARDS. JOHANN FRIEDRICH SCHILLER. THERE is something attractive and interesting, not only to the critic but to the general public, in that close contact and juxtaposition of two great writers in almost any department of literature, which permits every reader the privilege of contrast and comparison, and seems to enlarge his powers of discrimination by the mere external circumstances which call them forth. It would be difficult to overestimate how much Goethe has done for Schiller and Schiller for Goethe in this way. They have made a landscape and atmosphere for each other, rounding out by the constant variety and contrast, each other's figures from the blank of the historical background — impressing upon our minds what one was and the other was not, by an evidence much more striking than that of critical estimate. We have not in England any parallel to the group they make, or to the effect they produce. Wordsworth and Coleridge might have faintly emulated it had their intercourse been longer and fuller; but Wordsworth and Coleridge, or Byron and Shelley, or any other combination in our crowded poetical firmament, would be but two among many - not The Two, the crowned and undisputed monarchs of a national literature, as are this German pair, men of the same age, the same inspiration, to whom the great task has been given, consciously and evidently, of shaping the poetry of a people. To us, with our older traditions and long-accumulated, slowly-growing wealth, the position altogether is remarkable enough to call forth an interest more curious and eager than is generally excited by literary questions. The poetry of a nation, according to our experience, is its oldest and most assured inheritance, something so deeply bedded in our heart and life that we cannot point out to ourselves where it began, or call up before our minds any conception of those dim ages when it was not. Shakespeare himself, the greatest glory of our English tongue, stands centuries back, and has been the birthright of many generations of Englishmen; yet even he was far from being the founder of our national poetry. But here not so far parted from absolute sight and touch one of them still living within the recollection, or at least within the lifetime, of a great many of us-stand the two men who have created German poetry. Were it possible that instead of the slow and gradual growth of character and expression which makes us out of children become men, the expansion of a human soul could come about in a day or a moment like that of a flower, it would scarcely be more surprising, more interesting, than are the phenomena which attend this other development, the birth of poetry — in a race which it is now the fashion to consider one of the most poetic races of humanity. A hundred years ago, however, that race had done little more than babble in vague ballad strains and preludes of verse. It had its Minnesingers, it is true, great enough to charm the literati of the present day who take to themselves the glory of having disinterred them; but great poems never need disinterring. Germany lay silent in a rich chaos of material, fanciful, superstitious, sentimental, transcendental, but with no literature in which to express itself, no poetry-a Memnon's head, quivering with sound suppressed, which as yet no sun-touch had called forth. But that the image is trivial for so great an occurrence, we might say that the curtain rolled visibly up from the dim world, thus lying voiceless, revealing in a moment the two singers, whose office was to remake that world, and give its darkness full expression. The curtain rolls up slowly upon nothing - an empty stage, a vast silent scene; when, lo, there enters from one side and another, on either hand, a poet and the poetry of Germany is created under our eyes. A most curious, memorable sight as ever came to pass in this world, and all the more notable that the doers of it are not one nor many, but two, magnifying, revealing, expounding each other, and by their mutual presence making the mystery clear. What would it have been in England had Shakespeare and Milton instead of |