And the skipper had ta'en his little daugh- But the father answered never a word, ter To bear him company. Blue were her eyes as the fairy-flax, Her cheeks like the dawn of day, And her bosom sweet as the hawthorn buds That ope in the month of May. The skipper he stood beside the helm, With his pipe in his mouth, And watched how the veering flaw did blow The smoke now west, now south. Then up and spake an old sailor, Had sailed the Spanish Main, I pray thee put into yonder port, 'Last night the moon had a golden ring, And a scornful laugh laughed he. And the billows frothed like yeast. Then leaped her cable's length. 'Come hither! come hither! my little daughter, And do not tremble so; For I can weather the roughest gale He wrapped her warm in his seaman's coat Against the stinging blast; He cut a rope from a broken spar, And bound her to the mast. O father! I hear the church-bells ringOh! say, what may it be?' "Tis a fog-bell on a rock-bound coast!' And he steered for the open sea. O father! I hear the sound of gunsOh! say, what may it be?' 'Some ship in distress, that cannot live In such an angry sea!' A frozen corpse was he. Lashed to the helm, all stiff and stark, With his face to the skies, The lantern gleamed through the gleam. ing snow On his fixed and glassy eyes. Then the maiden clasped her hands, and prayed That savéd she might be ; And she thought of Christ, who stilled the wave On the lake of Galilee. And fast through the midnight dark and drear, Through the whistling sleet and snow, Like a sheeted ghost the vessel swept Toward the reef of Norman's Woe. And ever the fitful gusts between A sound came from the land; It was the sound of the trampling surf On the rocks and the hard sea-sand. The breakers were right beneath her bows, She drifted a dreary wreck, And a whooping billow swept the crew Like icicles from her deck. She struck where the white and fleecy waves Looked soft as carded wool; i But the cruel rocks they gored her side Like the horns of an angry bull. Her rattling shrouds, all sheathed in ice, At daybreak, on the bleak sea-beach, To see the form of a maiden fair Lashed close to a drifting mast. The salt sea was frozen on her breast, The salt tears in her eyes; And he saw her hair, like the brown seaweed, On the billows fall and rise. Such was the wreck of the Hesperus, In the midnight and the snow! Christ save us all from a death like this On the reef of Norman's Woe! เ THE CORPUS MSS. THIS is an age essentially rationalistic and inquiring. Beyond the certainty of nothing being certain, there is no fact of which we can be so certain as to be certain of it. Have we grown up from boyhood in some fondly-cherished belief? Straight an academic, who has graduated at the London University, arises to assure us that we are quite in error. All very well, you know, twenty years ago, but no man of common sense will believe such stuff now o' days. Haven't you seen Professor Hitemhard's Inquiry? (last number of the Cabinet Cyclopædia). 'Egad! he handles it in pretty style-all a fallacy.'We are required to doff all our old poetic feeling, to cut the poor things, and in the street, too,' whilst we must, forsooth, cap the mammoths, megalotheria, and other beasts of burthen of the like nature. Pity the whole tribe of innovators is not in the transition state they are so fond of talking about ;-the end of the transit, Botany Bay. Thinking thus on these points, and being content to remain in my dark Egypt as compared with this so much talked-of Goshen, it was no small delight to me to find the wherewithal to crush one of the class of reptiles, whom my soul abhors, on their own dunghill. It is or ought to be known to all the male portion of the lieges, that of late years a strong attack has been made upon the earlier portion of the Roman History, by a certain stolid German, called Niebuhr, who has knit Romulus and Cheeks the Marine by an airy copula; and made Numa Pompilius, like Jack Robinson or Jim Crow, figure as the hero of a popular song. It had been better for this learned pundit had he been contented to stick to his meerschaum and sauerkraut amid the no-longer classic shades of Göttingen, Bonn, or any other of those studious universities. I will spare him, under the idea that before this Romulus has brought an action for defamation of character against him before my Lord Chief Justice Minos, and a respectable and enlightened jury of twelve ancient Romans, wrapped up in their visionary toga. But to the point, and let Dr. Arnold beware how he proceeds with his crude history-history, indeed! In the library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, it has been my good fortune to meet with some ancient Palimpsests, written over with monkish legends, similar to those recently brought before the public by Thomas Ingoldsby. Suspecting from their appearance that there was something in them more than met the eye, I instantly determined to apply to the very enlightened and liberal Master of the College, who received me with his usual urbanity. I stated the object of my visit, mentioning that I had discovered in the library of the college some MSS. which appeared to me to possess a good deal of interest, and I was therefore, anxious to try upon them Angelo Mai's Albolutrum or bleaching liquid, which the learned Abbe has already used with great effect in the noble library of the Vatican. The Master replied, with great courtesy, that he wished somebody would take the batch cheap, as, from the nature of the paper, they were scarcely capable of being applied to their usual purpose of gun-wads. Indeed, sir,' added he, 'to tell the truth, I should be glad to exchange the whole lot with Mr. Stevenson, for his magnificent collection of Romances, or any VOL. VI. 11 thing that the Fellows would read. I may tell you, sir,-but it need not go any further-that, except about this first of September, the building is a perfect vacuum,-a deserted cholera-hospital, sir; for the Fellows of this college, after they've taken the trouble to take a degree, never take anything else, except when they take wine with each other, when they're taking their whack out of a bottle of claret, or taking their leaves after they've taken their stipends,and occasionally they take a cold.-D'ye take me, Sir?' I responded, of course, to the Master's jocosity: When do the jokes of a great man ever fall upon a deaf ear?' and so ended my interview with this dignitary. I returned in triumph to my rooms, with the treasure under my arm, jostling into the gutter a shady-looking bachelor in a white hat, immersed in a Fellowship examination paper, and a college Tutor, who was walking down Trumpington Street, smiling at the lamp-posts. An unfortunate bedmaker was the next victim of my wrath, which attained its maximum in a kick to a poor animal of the dog species, which, despite threats on the parts of the college authorities, had been for some three terms snugly domesticated in my rooms. Now was the time for the grand projection, the liquid was applied, The under-writing appeared beautiful and distinct. Here is a specimen of it. [It must be premised that the spaces which appear unfill ed arise from the sporting propensities of the guardians of the library, and that in the original MS. these are of a circular form, the undoubted result of a gun-punch.] The Latin, as all scholars will perceive at a glance, is of the most early date: clearly as old as that of the song of the Fratres Ambarvales, or agricultural society. I found that my first glance set to rest one of the problems of classical antiquity. The treasure was neither more nor less than a Roman Newspaper. I had first cleaned what must have been a part devoted to the Sporting intelligence. The paragraph was in Uncial, or (for the benefit of the vulgar) Capital letters, and ran thus : 'ALBÆ. ROMVL SVBS (gunwad) TIO. ERIT. PR. K. IVNI. (gunwad) VETT (gunwad).' This is, evidently, if written correctly with the blanks filled up, 'Alba Romuli subscriptiva venatio erit pridie kalendas Junii' (the last word admits of dispute.) We should interpret the whole advertisement thus:-'The Royal Subscription Pack will throw off at Alba, May 30th, unless the weather prove vet;' or again, the last word may have this signification, that 'heavy vet' (in later times called Cerevisium,) would be provided for the sportsmen. Again, it may be a caution similar to those appended to such notices in our own days,'Ware-wheat,' equivalent to Take care not to ride over the young wheat.' The dreadful outrage perpetrated by the Fellows of Corpus has forbidden that this point should ever be set at rest. The whole advertisement is remarkable for many reasons, but chiefly for these; First, if Romulus kept a subscription pack of hounds, the fair inference is that such a person existed; secondly, if the pack were a subscription-pack, it clearly shows that there must have been certain well-defined relations even then existing between the several orders of the state, that whilst gentlemanly recreations were studiously promoted by this wise king, the rights of the citizen and the farmer were as carefully respected. The conduct of our William I. and Romulus presents some striking analogies and contrasts, which, with certain following advertisements, will go far to prove the existence of game-laws amongst the ancient Romans. Before proceeding, I will mention to my readers that it is not my intention to present them with any more examples of the newspaper in the uncial character: I shall merely give the substance in English, quoting the Latin where there seems any obscurity. Any gentleman who wishes to follow the subject out further, need only apply to Mr. Bentley, who will at once gratify him with a sight of facsimiles of the original MSS. But we will pass rapidly over the comparatively uninteresting advertising-sheet, and go at once to the 'leading article,' which we discovered in the next MS. to which we applied the 'Albolutrum.' We call it the leading article,' as, from the enlarged characters, and conceited tone of the writer, it evidently proceeded from the pen of one who filled a post corresponding to that of editor' of one of our own journals. It was a vigorous appeal to the Roman public on the important subject of the mode to be adopted of propagating their name and lineage by means of matrimony. It commenced 'POP. ROM.' evidently meaning 'Roman people!' and proceeded in the nervous terms which we subjoin, freely translated. With regard to "the Society for the Propagation of the Roman name," we would direct the attention of our readers to an article in our first page. We cannot suppose them to be ignorant of the object of that society,-sensible as they must be at every moment of the want which it proposes to remedy. There are other wants, which may not be felt at all times, by all ages, nor in all places; but the female sex rear our youth, delight our age, adorn our prosperity, cheer our adversity, delight us when at home, give us no trouble when abroad, spend the night with us, travel with us, rusticate (or perhaps we should say, are rusticated)."' Here we must pause a moment to draw some important inferences. Our readers will already, the learned at least amongst them, have detected the impudent plagiarism of Cicero in his celebrated apostrophe to literature in the oration for Archias the poet. It is word for word taken from this passage, substituting literature' for wives' and begins (for those who choose to refer to the passage), 'Nam cæteræ neque temporum sunt neque ætatum omnium neque locorum,' &c. This is in accordance with what might have been expected from Cicero, that greatest literary humbug of antiquity, that Dionysius Lardner of old Rome, who never signed his name to a familiar twopenny post communication to Athens, without attaching to it an alphabetical chaos of literary and scientific titles. The second, and perhaps more important inference, connected with this extraordinary extract, is as follows: -If men were rusticated (and 'rusticantur' is the word) in the days of Romulus, whence were they rusticated? From Universities! The conclusion is inevitable that there were Universities in ancient Rome! and more, that these Universities were unfettered by the monkish restrictions, which, in one point at least, turn our own into Trappist monasteries,-where female foot may never tread,-for bedmakers, if women they must be called, certainly deserve to be ranked as a separate species. The Roman undergraduate we see, when from the consequence of youthful indiscretion he was obliged for a while to quit his bowers of Academe, might still find solace in the arms of a loving wife, if the young man, amid that general dearth, was fortunate enough to have one. This example we strongly press upon the notice of Heads of colleges, and all bearing authority in our own venerated Universities.-We proceed with our extracts. 'For although we ourselves can never get at comforts of this sort, nor taste the reality of these blessings, yet we cannot help envying our neighbours when we see them thus enjoying themselves, we cannot, I repeat it, refrain from comparing the forlorn state of Rome with the domestic felicity of surrounding nations. What, we say,-(and we would carefully be understood not to reflect upon a certain [nes. cio quis] personage)—what can be the meaning of this ?-how long are we to writhe with grace, and groan in harmony? Rumours have reached us that an embassy has been despatched to the Sabines-we will be there. In the mean time, let petitions be drawn up,-let the people rise as one man, and sign his name. If any gentleman should happen to be without that convenience, or be, from an unhappy want of education, unable to go through with the ceremony, (if such a thing be possible in this free and enlightened city,) let him in the second case append his mark,-in the first, let him speedily be christened ("arrogetur," perhaps get himself into some family as a parish appren. tice). For those who will do neither, let them go hang (abeant in malam crucem). Again we repeat it, petition, petition, petition!" From the style and tone of the article, we should judge the writer to be an Irishman. Let not the unlearned reader start. General Vallancy has satisfactorily shown that in those early times there was a connection between Ireland and Phoenicia; and we ourselves are in a state to prove, from certain facts which we have brought to light in our investigation of the Corpus MSS. that the connection between Rome and Phoenicia was no less intimate. From these extracts, it is evident that the theories of Niebuhr are false ab initio. Here is Romulus, or at any rate here are his hounds; here is the dearth of women, which led that great king to plan the Sabine Abduction; here are important facts upon education, implying at the same time a high degree of civilisation amongst the refugees, the tenants of the asylum for the destitute, from whence Rome took her first beginnings; here, in a word, is a free press, a journal, with an Irishman at the head of it, in the reign of a powerful monarch, whose very existence this ignorant German has denied. To the smallest particular the newspaper resembles our own, even in point of arrangement. We find Triremes advertised, at the head of the first column, as about to sail for Corcyra; the closing line announces that it will be high water at the Sublician bridge at five-and-twenty minutes after eleven A.M.-I will proceed with extracts of more importance. Pass we to the Police report. [Facts again.] 'Three young men, of gentlemanlike and prepossessing exterior, were yesterday morning (the 10th kalends of May) brought before the honourable the city prætor, charged with being drunk and disorderly on the night preceding on the stairs of the Capitol, after the clock had struck twelve. The prisoners gave their names as Fabius, Lartius, and Manlius. This last individual, it will be remembered, was brought up, on a similar charge, some little time ago. The Lictor deposed in evidence, that as he was going his usual rounds to see if any person was troubling the city after the day's festival, he heard an unusual sound near the Capitol, and going up, he found the prisoners in |