to her, went a long distance to call and ask leave to look for a last time on the countenance of his former mistress. The boon was readily granted. Just as he was about to leave the room he took from under his coat some fresh snowdrops that he had carefully guarded there, and reverently laid them on her bosom. Then in a broken, pleading voice, as if fearful that he had taken too great a liberty, he said to her daughter, the sole witness of the act,She was so fond of them,' and hurried out of the house. His simple devotion was so spontaneous, so unstudied and reverent that it was impossible not to be moved by it. And yet it all lay under a rough exterior, and sprang from the impulse of a rude, uncultivated nature. 'Le cœur a ses raisons, que la raison ne connaît point. In some parts of Italy, notably in Tuscany, the periwinkle-the identical flower with which they crowned poor Simon Fraser in mockery, on his way to execution 50-from a custom dating from remote antiquity, of weaving it into garlands for the dead, especially children, is even now called Fior da morte; though the once familiar homely name is, I hear, gradually disappearing, passing out of the broad sunlight of the people's vocabulary into the comparative obscurity of botanical dictionaries. But this must not be taken as evidence that in the very cradle of the Feralia care for the dead has really waxed faint and cold with the lapse of time, though perhaps the Violares Dies are not kept up in all their pristine outward loveliness. During the trasporto, or carrying of the dead from the house, flowers are used in abundance, and beautiful garlands are placed on the bier. So that the spirit which moved Æneas at his father's grave-purpureosque flores jacet '—yet lives in his descendants, if it be dwarfed in some respects; and Italians still urge, with the noblest poet of their land Manibus date lilia plenis : Purpureos spargam flores, animamque nepotis His saltem accumulem donis. ར. I cannot well end my paper without a reference to Land Tenures, for in England we have had instances of them quite as curious as those by which the nobles of Mexico became tenants in chief. For instance, lands and tenements in Ham, in Surrey, were formerly held by John 6 50 He was the eldest son of Simon Fraser, the ancestor of the baronial houses of Saltoun and Lovat; and a faithful adherent of Sir William Wallace. His death [in 1306] was as ignominious as his valour and patriotism had been great. He was carried to London heavily ironed, and his legs tied under his horse's belly, and as he passed through the city a garland of periwinkle was in mockery placed on his head.' Aungier, Chroniques de London. See also Political Songs of the Reign of Edward I. of Handloo of the men of Kingston on condition of rendering to the said men three clove gillyflowers at the king's coronation. Again, in his letter to Cromwell on the dissolution of the monastery of St. Andrew at Northampton, Robert Southwell wrote, "There have growne no decay by this priour that we can lerne, but surely his predecessours pleasured moche in odoryferous savours, as it shulde seme by their converting the rentes of their monastery, that were wonte to be paide in coyne and grayne, into gelofer flowers and roses.'52 And more remarkable still are the terms of Sir Christopher Hatton's lease of the greater part of Ely Place, viz. a red rose, ten loads of hay and ten pounds per annum. In addition to which Bishop Cox, Queen Elizabeth's victim in the hard bargain, reserved to himself and his successors the right of walking in the gardens and gathering twenty bushels of roses yearly. - The Baillée des Roses, which existed in France up to the end of the sixteenth century, consisted of a tribute of roses due from the peers of France to Parliament, and was rendered in the months of April, May and June on a day when the sitting was held in the great hall. The peer whose turn it was to pay the tribute had to see that on the appointed day all the rooms of the palace were strewed with roses, flowers and sweet herbs: before the sitting commenced he was bound to enter every chamber with a large bowl of silver borne before him. containing as many crowns of roses and bouquets as there were members of Parliament and officers attached to its service; and when the roses had been distributed to the various claimants of the homage and the audience was ended, he gave a great feast to the presidents, councillors, clerks and ushers of the court. The origin of this custom is quite unknown. It existed not only at the Parliament of Paris, but was maintained at all the other Parliaments of the kingdom, especially that of Toulouse; and the tribute was obligatory on the children of the king, princes of the blood, dukes, cardinals and other peers. There is said to have been an edict of Henry the Third relating to it; but of this I have not been able to find any trace. The part that flowers played in the Wars of the Roses needs but a passing allusion; their use, however, in the Guelph and Ghibelline disturbances that long distracted Italy is less known. Then party spirit ran so high in Bergamo, and factions were so keen about their floral badges that they even introduced them into the churches and stamped them on the chalices and sacred vestments and altars. Those were the days when men attached a party meaning to the very forms of drinking-glasses, to apples and peaches and other fruits. After this we cannot but acknowledge that Imperialists, Legitimists, Republicans, one and all, have exhibited a laudable restraint in their use of the violet, white blossoms and immortelles. 51 Excerpta Historica, p. 21. 52 Wright, Letters relating to the Suppression of Monasteries. · And now I must end. We have seen the savages of Florida offering gifts of fair flowers to their divinity, the sun; we have seen the broken-hearted Tonga chief wreathe the head of his dead child with the brightest flowers, and, unselfish in his sorrow, bid his people deck themselves gaily with blossoms and rejoice because her spirit was at rest; we have seen the barbarous Mexicans, discriminating between their various beauties, make-amidst the most revolting sacrifices of human life-oblations of flowers to the god or goddess to whose special worship appropriate kinds were dedicated; we have seen the followers of Bouddha and Brahma outstripping both the far-away savage and the bloodthirsty barbarian in the lavishness of similar gifts; we have seen, too, that the Egyptians were little, if they were at all, behind Brahmin and Buddhist; and in the ceremonial of the chosen people we have at least caught a glimpse of like practices; then, turning to the cultured Greeks and warlike Romans, we have seen the same rites upheld with all the intensity of which the keen sense of beauty of the one and the strong nature of the other made them capable, so that the very life of the people, in the temple, in the field, in the home, was bound up and interwoven with flowers; 53 and finally, coming to the Christian era after the first shrinking from everything suggestive of idolatry, we have seen the rulers of the early Church boldly incorporate these observances, stripped of their heathen attributes, with its ritual. There are those by whom the strange sequence, the long roll of Credos and Glorias lying before us in almost unbroken historical continuity, will be simply put aside as affording but a fresh proof of the unexhausted and inexhaustible superstition of our race. But, treat them as we may, these time-honoured, hoary customs-as sentimental fancies, antiquarian curiosities, aberrations of the human mind, the fact remains-stultify it if we can—that from the earliest and most archaic times, in all countries and places, throughout the ups and downs of civilisation, even in this great century of scientific enlightenment, young and old, rich and poor, the simple and the lettered, the sovereign and the subject, have ever sought to give expression to the deep-rooted and most cherished beliefs and aspirations of mankind, as well as to the joys and sorrows that stir our daily life, through the frailest yet most fair of all the things of earth. They labour not, neither do they spin, but I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory was arrayed as one of these.' 33 Nineteenth Century, Sept. 1878. AGNES LAMBERT. THE POUND OF FLESH. THE scholars who, in a recent Westminster Play, evoked four ghosts from ancient Greece to decide on the reliques exhumed by Dr. Schliemann, might well try their mediumship upon the equally mysterious past of their own country. They would confer a large benefit if they could evoke the ghost of William Shakespeare, and bring him before the footlights just now, in order that we might pelt him with questions which have long been accumulating. For one, I should like to put to him the question,-What do you think of Mr. Irving's Shylock? We know that no such figure appeared on Shakespeare's own stage at the Globe. Shylock, as acted by Shakespeare's friend Burbage, was a comic figure. His make-up consisted of exceedingly red hair and beard, a false nose preternaturally long and hooked, and a tawny petticoat. Such a figure must have been largely meant to make fun for the pit and gallery, of which Shakespeare was rarely oblivious, and Burbage never. But a conventional stage figure is generally an evolution, and this farcical Shylock was no exception. The famous Isaac of Norwich was a typical Jew in his time. A thirteenth century caricature, preserved in the Pell Office, shows us the popular notion of him. He is pictured as a three-faced idol surrounded by devils. The three faces are not specially ugly or comical, but repulsive enough; and we may detect in the figure the reflection of a period when the diabolical theory of the Jew was serious, and no laughing matter. Similarly, in the old Miracle Plays, Satan was a serious figure, though he gradually became a mere laughing-stock like Pantaloon in the pantomimes. The stage-Jew shared the same decline as the stage-devil-his supposed inspirer. In his malignant and formidable aspect he was, indeed, in Shakespeare's day, the main figure of a popular play— Marlowe's 'Jew of Malta;' but even he had the long nose and sundry grotesque features; and it can hardly be doubted that in the still more ludicrous make-up of Shylock, who succeeded Marlowe's Barabas in public interest, the Globe Theatre followed the popular feeling. Mr. Swinburne, in his graphic and subtle 'Study of Shakespeare,' seems to regard Marlowe's Jew as the real man, and Shakespeare's a mouthpiece for the finest poetry. To this I can only half subscribe. Marlowe's Barabas, the Jew of Malta, is closely related to the figure of Isaac of Norwich surrounded by devils. He is no man at all, but an impossible fiend. He kills and poisons christians without any motive. As Charles Lamb wrote: 'He is just such an exhibition as, a century or two earlier, might have been played before the Londoners, by the royal command, when a general pillage and massacre of the Hebrews had been previously resolved on in the cabinet.' The average christian murdered the Jew because he did not look upon him as a man, actuated by human feelings and motives, but as a miscreant-the word means 'misbeliever 'which then meant an agent of Antichrist, instigated by his paternal devil. In the character of Shylock Shakespeare retained the grotesquerie which might please the rabble, at the same time turning their scowl to laughter. Even now, while Mr. Irving is giving his powerful and pathetic impersonation, the occasional laugh reminds us how easily some parts of the text would lend themselves to a farcical interpretation, if the painted nose and comic gestures were present. But it is much more remarkable to observe how rare and superficial are these ludicrous incidents. The farcical Shylock has passed away from the English stage through force of the more real character which Shakespeare drew, and as I believe meant to draw; and if that grotesque figure of the old Globe should be acted now, he would be hissed in any theatre; and the ghost of Shakespeare, were he present, would probably join in the sibilant chorus. Shakespeare may not have intended all the far-reaching moral belonging to the ancient legend of the pound of flesh, but surely no one can carefully compare his Shylock with the Barabas of his contemporary without recognising a purpose to modify and soften the popular feeling towards the Jew, to picture a man where Marlowe had painted a monster, if not indeed to mirror for christians their own injustice and cruelty. Let us take our stand beside Portia when she summons the Merchant and Shylock to stand forth. The two men have long legendary antecedents, and have met many times before. Five years ago Miss Toulmin Smith made the discovery that the story of the Bond was contained in the thirteenth-century English poem, Cursor Mundi, there interwoven with the legend of the Finding of the Holy Cross. In a valuable paper read to the New Shakespeare Society, April 9, 1875, that lady quotes the story. A christian goldsmith, in the service of Queen Eline (mother of Constantine), owes a sum of money to a Jew; if he cannot pay it at a certain time he is to render the weight of the wanting money in his own flesh. The bond is forfeit ; the Jew prepares to cut the flesh; but the judges decide that no |