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"Put thine own pride and cruelty in the stocks," retorted the good priest, angered beyond his Christian patience, and preparing to return to the sufferers for whom he had pleaded in vain. "I say there are eleven commandments, not ten, and that it were well for such flocks as you govern, if it were added, as it ought to be, to the others over the tables in church. Does your lordship remember-do you in fact know anything at all of Him who came on earth to do good to the poor and woful, and who said, 'Behold I give unto you a new commandment, LOVE ONE ANOTHER?'"

[graphic]

A JAR OF HONEY FROM MOUNT HYBLA.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTION.

66

A BLUE JAR FROM SICILY, AND A BRASS JAR FROM THE ARABIAN NIGHTS;" AND WHAT CAME OUT OF EACH.

[graphic]

ASSING one day by the shop of Messrs.

Fortnum

and Mason

in Piccadilly, we be

held in the

window a little blue jar, labelled "Sicilian Honey."-It was a jar of very humble pretensions, if estimated according to its price in the market. Perhaps it might have been worth, as a piece of ware, about three-pence; and, contents and all, its price did not exceed eighteen-pence. People who condescend to look at nothing but what is costly, and who

A

being worth a vast deal of money at their bankers, are not aware that they are poor devils as men, would have infallibly despised it; or, at the very utmost, they would have associated it in their minds with nothing but the confectioner or the store-room. On the other hand, it might have reminded a Cavendish or a Gower of his Titians and Correggios; and a Rogers would surely have looked twice at it, for the sake of his Stothard and his "Italy." And the poet and the noble dukes would have been right, not only in the spirit of their recollections, but to the very letter; for the deep beautiful blue was the same identical blue, the result of the same mineral, by which such an effect is retained in old pictures; and the shape of the jar was as classical as that of many a vase from the antique. Antiquity, indeed, possessed an abundance of precisely such jars. Furthermore, when you held the jar in the sun, a spot of insufferable radiance came in the middle of its cheek, like a very laugh of light. Then it contained honey-a thing which strikes the dullest imaginations with a sense of sweetness and the flowers; and in addition to the word "honey" outside, was the word "Sicilian"-a very musical and meminiscent word.

Now in consequence of this word "Sicilian," by a certain magical process, not unlike that of the seal of the mighty Solomon, which could put an enormous quantity of spirit into a wonderfully small vessel, the inside of our blue jar (for be sure we bought it) became enriched, beyond its honey, to an extent which would appear incredible to any readers but such as we have the honour to address, doubtless the most intelligent of their race.

To introduce it, however, even to them, in a manner befitting their judgment, it is proper that we call to their

recollection the history of a previous jar of their acquaintance, to which the foregoing paragraph contains an allusion.

They will be pleased to call to mind, that eighteen hundred years after the death of Solomon, and during the reign of the King of the Black Isles, who was (literally) half petrified by the conduct of his wife, a certain fisherman, after throwing his nets to no purpose, and beginning to be in despair, succeeded in catching a jar of brass. The brass, to be sure, seemed the only valuable thing about the jar; but the fisherman thought he could, at least, sell it for old metal. Finding, however, that it was very heavy, and furthermore closed with a seal, he wisely resolved to open it first, and see what could be got out of it.

He therefore took a knife-(we quote from Mr. Torrens's "Arabian Nights," not out of disregard for that other interesting version by our excellent friend Mr. Lane, but we have lent his first volume, and Galland does not contain the whole passage; he seems to have thought it would frighten the ladies of his day)-the fisherman, therefore, "took a knife," says Mr. Torrens," and worked at the tin cover till he had separated it from the jar; and he put it down by his side on the ground. Then he shook the jar, to tumble out whatever might be in it, and found in it not a thing. So he marvelled with extreme amazement. But presently there came out of the jar a vapour, and it rose up towards the heavens, and reached along the face of the earth; and after this, the vapour reached its height, and condensed, and became compact, and waved tremulously, and became an Ufreet (evil spirit), his head in the clouds, and his foot on the soil, his head like a dome, his hand like a harrow, his two legs like pillars, his mouth like a pit, his teeth like large stones, and his nostrils like basins, and his eyes were two lamps, austere and louring. Now, when the

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