* From a Glossary1 of hard words printed in the reign of James I., I find the true derivation of gossamere :—coma virginis, coma matris Dei,—God's Dame's Hair. So gossip is God's Sib, or Cousin, the still nearer baptismal relations being God-father, God-mother.-C. MS.

The French Decade.

We have nothing to say in defence of the French revolutionists, as far as they are personally concerned in this substitution of every tenth for the seventh day as a day of rest. It was not only a senseless outrage on an ancient observance, around which a thousand good and gentle feelings had clustered; it not only tended to weaken the bond of brotherhood between France and the other members of Christendom; but it was dishonest, and robbed the labourer of fifteen days of restorative and humanizing repose in every year, and extended the wrong to all the friends and fellow labourers of man in the brute creation. Yet when we hear Protestants, and even those of the Lutheran persuasion, and members of the Church of England, inveigh against this change as a blasphemous contempt of the fourth commandment, we pause, and before we can assent to the verdict of condemnation, we must prepare our minds to include in the same sentence, at least as far as theory goes, the names of several among the most revered reformers of Christianity. Without referring to Luther, we will begin with Master Frith, a founder and martyr of the church of England, having witnessed his faith amid the flames in the year 1533. This meek and enlightened, no less than zealous and orthodox divine, in his Declaration of Baptism", thus expresses himself :—

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"Our forefathers, which were in the beginning of the Church, did abrogate the sabbath, to the intent that men might have an example of Christian liberty. Howbeit, because it was necessary

1 The reader will do wisely to consult Nares and the like.

2 There is no particular reason that we see, for substituting "I" for we," as H.N.C. does, throughout.

that a day should be reserved in which the people should come together to hear the word of God, they ordained instead of the Sabbath, which was Saturday, the next following, which is Sunday. And although they might have kept the Saturday with the Jew as a thing indifferent, yet they did much better."

Some three years after the martyrdom of Frith, in 1536, being the 27th of Henry VIII., suffered Master Tindal in the same glorious cause, and he likewise, in his " Answer to Sir Thomas More," hath similarly resolved this point :-" As for the Sabbath,"-writes this illustrious martyr and translator of the Word of Life,—

"As for the Sabbath, we be lords of the Sabbath, and may yet change it into Monday, or any other day, as we see need; or we may make every tenth day holy day only, if we see cause why. Neither was there any cause to change it from the Saturday, save only to put a difference between us and the Jews; neither need we any holy day at all, if the people might be taught without it."

This great man believed that if Christian nations should ever become Christians indeed, there would every day be so many hours taken from the labour for the perishable body, to the service of the souls and the understandings of mankind, both masters and servants, as to supersede the necessity of a particular day. At present our Sunday may be considered as so much Holy Land, rescued from the sea of oppression and vain luxury, and embanked against the fury of their billows.

Ride and Tie.

"On a scheme of perfect retribution in the moral world," -observed Empeiristes, and paused to look at, and wipe his spectacles,

"Frogs," interposed Musaello, "must have been experimental philosophers, and experimental philosophers must all transmigrate into frogs."

"The scheme will not be yet perfect," added Gelon, "unless our friend Empeiristes is specially privileged to

become an elect frog twenty times successively, before he re-ascends into a galvanic philosopher."

'Well, well," replied Empeiristes, with a benignant smile, "I give my consent, if only our little Mary's fits do

Little Mary was Gelon's only child, and the darling and god-daughter of Empeiristes. By the application of galvanic influence Empeiristes had removed a nervous affection of her right leg, accompanied with symptomatic epilepsy. The tear started into Gelon's eye, and he pressed the hand of his friend, while Musaello, half suppressing, half indulging, a similar sense of shame, sportively exclaimed,— Hang it, Gelon! somehow or other these philosopher fellows always have the better of us wits, in the long run!"

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Jeremy Taylor.

The writings of Bishop Jeremy Taylor are a perpetual feast to me. His hospitable board groans under the weight and multitude of viands. Yet I seldom rise from the perusal of his works, without repeating or recollecting the excellent observation of Minucius Felix :-Fabulas et errores ab imperitis parentibus discimus; et quod est gravius, ipsis studiis et disciplinis elaboramus.

Criticism.

Many of our modern criticisms on the works of our elder writers remind me of the connoisseur, who, taking up a small cabinet picture, railed most eloquently at the absurd caprice of the artist in painting a horse sprawling. "Excuse me, sir," replied the owner of the piece, "you hold it the wrong way: it is a horse galloping."

Public Instruction.

Our statesmen, who survey with jealous dread all plans for the education of the lower orders, may be thought to

proceed on the system of antagonist muscles; and in the belief, that the closer a nation shuts its eyes, the wider it will open its hands. Or do they act on the principle, that the status belli is the natural relation between the people and the government, and that it is prudent to secure the result of the contest by gouging the adversary in the first instance? Alas! the policy of the maxim is on a level with its honesty. The Philistines had put out the eyes of Samson, and thus, as they thought, fitted him to drudge and grind

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Among the slaves and asses, his comrades,

As good for nothing else, no better service:

but his darkness added to his fury without diminishing his strength, and the very pillars of the temple of oppression—

"With horrible convulsion, to and fro,

He tugg'd, he shook, till down they came, and drew
The whole roof after them with burst of thunder,

Upon the heads of all who sat beneath;

Lords, ladies, captains, counsellors, and priests,
Their choice nobility."

Sam. Agonistes.

The error might be less unpardonable with a statesman of the continent; but with Englishmen, who have Ireland in one direction, and Scotland in another ;-the one in ignorance, sloth and rebellion, in the other general information, industry, and loyalty;-verily it is not error merely, but infatuation.

Tractors.*

"The Tractors are no new mode of quackery,-witness this extract from one of the rogues of the days of old: 'How famous is that martial ring, which, carried in some fit place, or rubbed on some such part, will allay and cure, &c.'”—R. S.

* Southey should have recollected that the very same philosophers and the same Medical Board, who denounced

animal magnetism in Paris, confirmed, after a series of experiments, the positive effect of iron applied externally to the body, in rheumatism, &c.-Perkins" Tractors have considerable, but not any peculiar powers.-C. MS.

Picturesque Words.

Who is ignorant of Homer's Πήλιον εἰνοσίφυλλον ? Yet in some Greek (MSS.) hexameters we have met with a compound epithet, which may compete with it for the prize of excellence in "flashing on the mental eye a complete image. It is an epithet of the brutified archangel, and forms the latter half of the verse,

Κερκοκερώνυχα Σατάν.

Ye youthful bards! compare this word with its literal translation, "tail-horn-hoofed Satan," and be shy of compound epithets, the component parts of which are indebted for their union exclusively to the printer's hyphen. Henry More, indeed, would have naturalized the word without hesitation, and cercoceronychous would have shared the astonishment of the English reader in the glossary to his Song of the Soul with Achronycul, Anaisthæsie, &c. &c.

Toleration.

The state, with respect to the different sects of religion under its protection, should resemble a well-drawn portrait. Let there be half a score individuals looking at it, every one sees its eyes and its benignant smile directed towards himself.

1 Southey writes to Coleridge, August 4, 1802, that he had seen "Perkins, the Tractorist, a demure-looking rogue."

2 There is a reference here in the original Omniana to an earlier page, where Southey writes:-" All painters represent the devil with a tail, and in one of the prints to the Dutch translation of Bunyan's Holy War, it may be seen in what manner his breeches-maker accommodates it."

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