ing age; for example, nearly all school-books, and, above all, a Horn-Book. Down to the time of George II., there was perhaps no kind of book so largely and universally diffused as this said horn-book; at present, there is perhaps no book of that reign, of which it would be more difficult to procure a copy.

The annexed representation is copied from one given by Mr Halliwell, as taken from a blackletter example which was found some years ago in pulling down an old farm-house at Middleton, in Derbyshire. A portrait of King Charles I. in armour on horseback was upon the reverse, affording us an approximation to the date.

HORN BOOK.—17TH CENTUR

The horn-book was the Primer of our ancestors -their established means of learning the elements of English literature. It consisted of a single leaf, containing on one side the alphabet large and small-in black-letter or in Roman-with perhaps a small regiment of monosyllables, and a copy of the Lord's Prayer; and this leaf was usually set in a frame of wood, with a slice of diaphanous horn in front- hence the name horn-book. Generally there was a handle to hold it by, and this handle had usually a hole for a string, whereby the apparatus was slung to the girdle of the scholar. In a View of the Beau Monde, 1731, p. 52, a lady is described as 'dressed like a child, in a bodice coat and leading-strings, with a horn-book tied to her side.' A various

MIGRATORY BOGS.

kind of horn-book gave the leaf simply pasted against a slice of horn; but the one more generally in use was that above described. It is to it that Shenstone alludes in his beautiful cabinetpicture-poem, The Schoolmistress, where he tells of the children, how

'Their books of stature small they take in hand, Which with pellucid horn secured are,

To save from fingers wet the letters fair.'

It ought not to be forgotten that the alphabet on the horn-book was invariably prefaced with a Cross: whence it came to be called the Christ Cross Row, or by corruption the Criss Cross Row, a term which was often used instead of horn-book.

In earlier times, it is thought that a cast-leaden plate, containing the alphabet in raised letters, was used for the instruction of the youth of England, as Sir George Musgrave of Eden-hall possesses two carved stones which appear to have been moulds for such a production.

MIGRATORY BOGS.

On a bitter winter's night, when rain had softened the ground, and loosened such soil as was deficient in cohesiveness, a whole mass of Irish bog or peat-moss shifted from its place. It was on the 3d of January 1853; and the spot was in a wild region called Enagh Monmore. The mass was nearly a mile in circumference, and several feet deep. On it moved, urged apparently by the force of gravity, over sloping ground, and continuing its strange march for twenty-four hours, when a change in the contour of the ground brought it to rest. Its extent of movement averaged about a quarter of a mile.

Such phenomena as these, although not frequent in occurrence, are sufficiently numerous to deserve notice. There are in many, if not most countries, patches of ground covered with soft boggy masses, too insecure to build upon, and not very useful in any other way. Bogs, mosses, quagmires, marshes, fens-all have certain points of resemblance: they are all masses of vegetable matter, more or less mixed with earth, and moistened with streams running through them, springs rising beneath them, or rains falling upon them. Some are masses almost as solid as wood, fibrous, and nearly dry; some are liquid black mud; others are soft, green, vegetable, spongy accumulations; while the rest present intermediate characters. Peat-bogs of the hardest kind are believed to be the result of decayed forests, acted upon by long-continued heat, moisture, and pressure; mosses and marshes are probably of more recent formation, and are more thoroughly saturated with water. In most cases they fill hollows in the ground; and if the edges of those hollows are not well-defined and sufficiently elevated, we are very likely to hear of the occurrence of quaking bogs and flow-mosses.

In the year 1697, at Charleville, near Limerick, a peat-bog burst its bounds. There was heard for some time underground a noise like thunder at a great distance or when nearly spent. Soon afterwards, the partially-dried crust of a large bog began to move; the convexity of the upper surface began to sink; and boggy matter flowed

out at the edges. Not only did the substance of the bog move, but it carried with it the adjacent pasture-grounds, though separated by a large and deep ditch. The motion continued a considerable time, and the surface rose into undulations, but without bursting up or breaking, The pasture-land rose very high, and was urged on with the same motion, till it rested upon a neighbouring meadow, the whole surface of which it covered to a depth of sixteen feet. The site which the bog had occupied was left full of unsightly holes, containing foul water giving forth stinking vapours. It was pretty well ascertained that this catastrophe was occasioned by long-continued rain-not by softening the bog on which it fell, but by getting under it, and so causing it to slide away.

England, though it has abundance of fenny or marshy land in the counties lying west and south of the Wash, has very few such bogs as those which cover nearly three million acres of land in Ireland. There are some spots, however, such as Chat Moss in Lancashire, which belong to this character. Leland, who wrote in the time of Henry the Eighth, described, in his quaint way, an outflow of this moss: Chat Moss brast up within a mile of Mosley Haul, and destroied much grounde with mosse thereabout, and destroied much fresh-water fishche thereabout, first corrupting with stinkinge water Glasebrooke, and so Glasebrooke carried stinkinge water and mosse into Mersey water, and Mersey corrupted carried the roulling mosse, part to the shores of Wales, part to the isle of Man, and some unto Ireland. And in the very top of Chateley More, where the mosse was hyest and brake, is now a fair plaine valley as ever in tymes paste, and a rylle runnith int, and peaces of small trees be found in the bottom.' Let it be remembered that this is the same Chat Moss over which the daring but yet calculating genius of George Stephenson carried a railway. It is amusing now to look back at the evidence given, thirty-five years ago, before the Parliamentary Committee on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. Engineers of some eminence vehemently denied the possibility of achieving the work. One of them said that no vehicle could stand on the Moss short of the bottom; that the whole must be scooped out, to the depth of thirty or forty feet, and an equivalent of hard earth filled in; and that even if a railway could be formed on the Moss, it would cost £200,000. Nevertheless Stephenson did it, and expended only £30,000; and there is the railway, sound to the present hour. The moss, over an area of nearly twelve square miles, is so soft as to yield to the foot; while some parts of it are a pulpy Stephenson threw down thousands of cubic yards of firm earth, which gradually sank, and solidified sufficiently to form his railway upon; hurdles of heath and brushwood were laid upon the surface, and on these the wooden sleepers. There is still a gentle kind of undulation, as if the railway rested on a semi-fluid mass; nevertheless it is quite secure.

mass.

Scotland has many more bogs and peat-mosses than England. They are found chiefly in low districts, but sometimes even on the tops of the mountains. Mr Robert Chambers gives an

MIGRATORY BOGS.

account of an outburst which took place in 1629: In the fertile district between Falkirk and Stirling, there was a large moss with a little lake in the middle of it, occupying a piece of graduallyrising ground. A highly-cultivated district of wheat-land lay below. There had been a series of heavy rains, and the moss became overcharged with moisture. After some days, during which slight movements were visible on this quagmire, the whole mass began one night to leave its native situation, and slide gently down to the low grounds. The people who lived on these lands, receiving sufficient warning, fled and saved their lives; but in the morning light they beheld their little farms, sixteen in number, covered six feet deep with liquid moss, and hopelessly lost.' -Domestic Annals of Scotland, ii. 35.

Somewhat akin to this was the flowing moss described by Pennant. It was on the Scottish border, near the shore of the Solway. When he passed the spot during his First Journey to Scotland in 1768, he saw it a smiling valley; on his Second Journey, four years afterwards, it was a dismal waste. The Solway Moss was an expanse of semi-liquid bog covering 1600 acres, and lying somewhat higher than a valley of fertile land near Netherby. So long as the moderately hard crust near the edge was preserved, the moss did not flow over: but on one occasion some peat-diggers imprudently tampered with this crust; and the moss, moistened with very heavy rain, overcame further control. It was on the night of the 17th of November 1771, that a farmer who lived near the Moss was suddenly alarmed by an unusual noise. The crust had given way, and the black deluge was rolling towards his house while he was searching with a lantern for the cause of the noise. When he caught sight of a small dark stream, he thought it came from his own farm-yard dung hill, which by some strange cause had been set in motion. The truth soon flashed upon him, however. He gave notice to his neighbours with all expedition. Others,' said Pennant, received no other advice than what this Stygian tide gave them some by its noise, many by its entrance into their houses; and I have been assured that some were surprised with it even in their beds. These passed a horrible night, remaining totally ignorant of their fate, and the cause of their calamity, till the morning, when their neighbours with difficulty got them out through the roof.' About 300 acres of bog flowed over 400 acres of land, utterly ruining and even burying the farms, overturning the buildings, filling some of the cottages up to the roof, and suffocating many cattle. The stuff flowed along like thick black paint, studded with lumps of more solid peat; and it filled every nook and crevice in its passage. The disaster of a cow was so singular as to deserve mention. She was the only one, out of eight in the same cow-house, that was saved, after having stood sixty hours up to the neck in mud and water. When she was relieved she did not refuse to eat, but would not touch water, nor would even look at it without manifest signs of horror.'

6

:

The same things are going on around us at the present day. During the heavy rains of August 1861, there was a displacement of Auchingray

Jacob Grimm and his younger brother Wilhelm, natives of Hanau in the electorate of Hesse Cassel, now (1861) occupying professorships at Berlin, are distinguished as investigators of the early history and literature of Germany. They have produced numerous works, and finally have engaged upon a large Dictionary of the German Language. All my labours,' says Jacob Grimm, have been either directly or indirectly devoted to researches into our ancient language, poetry, and laws. These studies may seem useless to many; but to me they have always appeared a serious and dignified task, firmly and distinctly connected with our common fatherland, and calculated to foster the love of it. I have esteemed nothing trifling in these inquiries, but have used the small for the elucidation of the great, popular traditions for the elucidation of written documents. Several of my books have been published in common with my brother William. We lived from our youth up in brotherly community of goods; money, books, and collectanea, belonged to us in common, and it was natural to combine our labours. The publications of Jacob extend over fully half a century, the first having appeared in 1811.

MARESCHAL DUC DE LUXEMBOURG, 1695. Whatever glory or territory France gained by arms under Louis XIV. might be said to be owing to this singularly able general. It was remarked that each of his campaigns was marked by some brilliant victory, and as these were always blazoned on the walls of the principal church of Paris, he came to be called, by one of those epigrammatic flatteries for which the French are distinguished, Le Tapissier de Notre Dame. With his death the prosperities of Louis XIV. terminated.

MADEMOISELLE RACHEL.

The modern tragedy queen of France died at thirty-eight-that age which appears so fatal to genius; that is to say, the age at which an overworked nervous system comes naturally to a close. An exhausting professional tour in America, entered upon for needless money

ARREST OF THE FIVE MEMBERS.

making, is believed to have had much to do in bringing the great tragédienne to a premature grave. Rachel was the child of poor Hebrew parents, and her talents were first exercised in singing to a guitar on the streets of Paris. When at an early age she broke upon theatrical audiences in the characters of Roxane, Camille, and others of that class, she created a furore almost unexampled. Yet her style of acting was more calculated to excite terror than to melt with pity. She was in reality a woman without estimable qualities. The mean passion of avarice was her predominating one, and strange stories are told of the oblique courses she would resort to to gratify it. There was but one relieving consideraliberally in behalf of the poor family from which tion regarding it, that she employed its results in England in 1848 that Rachel had excited the she sprang. The feelings with which we heard greatest enthusiasm in the Théâtre Français by singing the Marseillaise hymn, and soon after that her lover M. Ledru Rollin, of the provisional government, had paid her song with a grant of public money, will not soon be forgotten. INTRODUCTION OF THE SILK MANUFACTURES

INTO EUROPE.

It was on the 4th of January 536, that two monks came from the Indies to Constantinople, bringing with them the means of teaching the manufacture of silk. Workmen instructed in the art carried it thence to Italy and other parts of Europe. In England, however, the manufacture was not practised till 1604; nor was there a silk-throwing mill in our island till 1714.

ARREST OF THE FIVE MEMBERS.

The 4th of January 1641-2 is the date of one of the most memorable events in English history the attempted arrest of the five members of the House of Commons-Pym, Hampden, Hollis, Haselrig, and Strode-by Charles I. The divisions between the unhappy king and his parlia ment were lowering towards the actual war which broke out eight months later. Charles, stung by the Grand Remonstrance, a paper in which all the errors of his past government were exposed, thought by one decisive act to strike terror into his outraged subjects, and restore his full authority. While London was on the borders of insurrection against his rule, there yet were not wanting considerable numbers of country gentlemen, soldiers of fortune, and others, who were eager to rally round him in any such attempt. His design of coming with an armed band to the House and arresting the five obnoxious members, was communicated by a lady of his court; so that, just as he approached the door of the House with his cavalier bands, the gentlemen he wished to seize were retiring to a boat on the river, by which they made their escape.

Mr John Forster has assembled, with great skill, all the facts of the scene which ensued. Within the House,' he says, but a few minutes had elapsed since the Five Members had departed, and Mr Speaker had received instruction to sit still with the mace lying before him, when *The Arrest of Five Members, by Charles I. A Chapter of English History re-written. By John Forster. 1860.