From Public Opinion.
MADEMOISELLE FINETTE.

IN the last days of his life, Lamartine, the French poet and statesman, lived in the Bois de Boulogne near Paris, in a little house given him by the nation. Though much tormented by creditors, he lived in comparative comfort, surrounded by five or six greyhounds, to which he was greatly attached, and cultivating roses, cabbages, and little literature. His favorite greyhound was a particularly slender and graceful one named Mademoiselle Finette. The care of her was the first duty of his servants, who were permitted to speak of and to her only in the formal third person.

One day, during a fearful rain-storm, Mademoiselle Finette was taken very

"Only three years! Do you think it is the croup, Monsieur de Lamartine;" "The croup? Oh, I think not; but here we are."

Lamartine tiptoed into a darkened chamber, the young doctor followed him, impressed and solemn, toward a curtained bed.

"Here is our little sufferer," said the great man, with a deep, poetic sigh. "You shall see if I had not ample cause to call you in haste."

"Run and fetch a veterinary surgeon instantly," he commanded; "Made- He lifted the silk curtain, and there, moiselle Finette is very ill !" curled up and shivering on a satin covThe girl started off and began inquir-erlet, lay the greyhound. ing for the nearest doctor. She was "What!" exclaimed the doctor,

Is Mademoiselle Finette

referred to Dr. Ixe, a young physician" it's a dog!
who had lately established himself in a greyhound, sir?"
the neighborhood. He had had eight
patients, and four of the eight had
quickly passed beyond the reach of med-
ical attendance.

"Who wants me such a day as this ?" said Doctor Ixe sharply, as the girl rung his bell.

"Oh, it's Monsieur de Lamartine, sir," she said, "and you must come right off; Mademoiselle Finette is very ill! "

"Lamartine ! " The young doctor was in a flurry. In spite of the weather, he put on his best frock-coat, his most resplendent necktie, and his handsomest pair of gloves, and hastened to Lamartine's cottage. What an opportunity! Physician to the family of Lamartine; for-he said to himself - Mademoiselle Finette is evidently one of the great

"Certainly," said Lamartine; "but
what's the matter with you, sir?"
"I — I'm not a veterinary surgeon ! "
said Doctor Ixe.

"What are you, then ?”
"I am a physician, Monsieur de

Lamartine."

The poet was in fresh alarm, though he could not quite help laughing at the blunder. However, Doctor Ixe volunteered to do what he could for Mademoiselle Finette, and his services were accepted. He treated the dog faithfully and she recovered. From that time the young doctor had a powerful friend. He met people of distinction at the poet's house; and whenever any one was ill, Lamartine exclaimed: " Why don't they try Doctor Ixe? He cured Finette !"

WESTMINSTER, OCTOBER 12, 1892, . 386 LORD TENNYSON,

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We dream the mouth still full of sleeping Fame loved him well, because he loved not

Son well-beloved, 'tis thine, who loved No "moaning of the bar"! Sail forth,

From the great song whereby alone we Not dirge, but proud farewell, from each

Hail poet of God and name as one should Lamping thy tuneful soul to that large

From The New Review. THE FORERUNNERS OF COLUMBUS.

and floods, combined with volcanic eruptions, by which a mass of land was

How often has America been discov- overwhelmed. So it is more than likely ered and re-discovered? The question that there is a strong basis of truth in is very allowable when we remember the ancient reports which Solon brought the ancient classic tales of the Atlantis from the land of the Nile.

and a large western continent. Solon brought such a report from Egypt as stated by Plato. Plutarch, who evidently had still other sources at his command, even gives the names of the Egyptian priests from whom Solon obtained the information. Aelian, in his "Historical Miscellanies," transcribes from Theopompos, an historiographer of the fourth century before our era, a curious tale which the Phrygian king, Midas, is said to have heard from the demigod Seilenos. In it the following occurs: Europe and Asia, as well as Lybia (Africa), are islands round which the ocean flows. Only that which lies beyond them is to be called a continent. Its vastness is immense."

It is remarkable, too, that long before the discovery of America by Columbus, Mexican, Brazilian, and Peruvian gods were represented as white-skinned, and with long, waving hair and beard, whilst the native races that worshipped them were red-skinned and nearly beardless. But it is not my object here to go through the many vestiges of an apparently pre-historic intercourse between our part of the world and the Transatlantic continent. It is enough to say that so great a scholar and explorer as Alexander von Humboldt declared it to be an error to suppose that the ancient tales of the Atlantis were absolute fiction, mere poetical romances. On the contrary, he thought that "they merit a serious consideration on the part of those who strive to penetrate through the darkness of historical traditions.' "" (Examen Critique de l'Histoire de la Géographie du Nouveau Continent.)

There are Irish and Welsh tales concerning an early intercourse of this

The classic stories concerning the Atlantis are overlaid with fabulous details and mythological impossibilities. But still there is mention made of isles lying before the colossal western continent in which we seem to recognize a vague knowledge of the Bahamas, of country with the great western contithe Antilles, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Caribbean Sea. We also hear of a part in those distant lands where the sun only sets, during thirty days, for a single hour, and of strange atmospheric phenomena peculiar to the North. All this seems to show that the state of things in the Arctic regions may have become known, at an early time, to the dwellers round the sunny Mediterranean coast. Perhaps the Davis Straits and the St. Lawrence Gulf are faintly traceable in these dim tales. Is not, I may add, the Land of the Midnight Sun, on the European side, with its huge and warlike race, its fjords, and its elk or reindeer, also indicated in the tenth and eleventh songs of the Odyssey?

nent. It was when speaking of them that Humboldt was led to make the above remarks. I may point out here that in the Irish "Lay of Oisin on the Land of the Young" there is a mythic description of a country which lies opposite Ireland, on the other side of the ocean, "right due west, at the mouth of the great sea." It is as if some enormous American bay were meant. In this connection it is well to remember that the Northmen, after having found the Transatlantic coast, gave the name of Ginnunga Gap (the Yawning Gap or Abyss) to some large gulf in the west. The Edda speaks of a yawning abyss before the world arose. This mythological idea was geographically Again, the classic myths speak of the transferred to the configuration of the sunken Atlantis which disappeared in New World, in accordance with a prethe ocean waves. Strangely enough, vailing Germanic custom, just as the there are traditions among the Amer- name of Asgard, the heavenly castle of ican aborigines of terrible earthquakes the Asa gods, still exists to this day in

north England, in the name of a country | between Virginia and Florida are desigplace, Aysgarth.

nated by the name of White Man's Land. They are actually called Great Ireland, and it is asserted that they had been populated by Irishmen. According to documents had discovered Vinland, probably as early as 982, Ari Marson, of the powerful Icelandic family of Ulf Squint-eye, had been driven by storms when sailing from Iceland southwards to the coast of the White Man's Land. He was baptized there at Christmas, and, as he was not allowed to go away, men from the Orkney Islands and Iceland afterwards recognized him there.

The Lay of Oisen on the Land of the Young" is written in Keltic; but the Fianna heroes it treats of are clearly marked, in their names and character-reaching up to the year 1064, before Leif istics, as being of Germanic stock. I think there is good ground to believe that Norse rovers had appeared in Ireland long before the historical conquest in the ninth century. In Keltic garb the poem, at any rate, records the deeds or mythical performances of Northern Who knows whether the idea of eternal youth in that happy land in the West did not arise from the fact, apparently now well ascertained, of red-skin Indians in Central and Southern America sometimes reaching the age of one hundred and fifty or one hundred and sixty?

men.

From the fantastic domain of old Irish tradition or fiction, in which also occurs the tale of St. Brendan, who was said to have been in the great western land in the sixth century, we may proceed to a somewhat more definite statement of old Icelandic writers. They speak of the existence of a White Man's Land (Hvitramannaland) or Great Ireland (Irland it mikla) on the other side of the Atlantic. Here again Humboldt may aptly be quoted. When discussing the Norse discovery of America he says:

There is less certainty as regards the traces which are believed to have been found of an even earlier Irish discovery of America before the year 1000. The Skraelings (Eskimos) told the Northmen, who had settled in Vinland, that "farther towards the South, beyond the present Chesapeake Bay, there dwelt white men who walked about in long white garments, carrying before them poles to which cloth was attached and calling out with loud voices." This report was interpreted by the Christian Northmen as meaning Church processions, in which banners were borne and hymns sung. In the oldest sagas, in the historical accounts about Thorfinn Karlsefne, and in the Icelandic "Book of Land Settlement" those Southern coasts

1 Laoidh Oisin air Thir Na N-Og. Publications of the Society for the Preservation of the Irish Language.

The old Icelandic account of this story is very precise. It is founded on the testimony of Rafn, a contemporary of Ari Marson, who had frequently made the journey to Illmyreek, that is Limerick, in Ireland. Thorkell Gelberson, the uncle of the famed Icelandic historian, Ari Frode, who himself was descended, in the fourth degree, from Ari Marson, refers to countrymen of his who had been present when Thorfinn Sigurdson gave an account of Ari Marson's adventure to the Jarl of the Orkneys.

"The White Man's Land" — the great Danish scholar, Karl Christian Rafn,2 writes" is probably the same as that in which Björn Asbrandson, with the surname of Breidwikingakappi, who was a member of the famous heroic league at Jomsburg under Palnatoke, spent the evening of his life. His history is a highly romantic one. An illicit love affair with Thurid, the sister of the powerful chieftain Snorre Gode, at Frodaa, in Iceland, had been the cause of his being prosecuted. He saw himself compelled to seek safety in flight. In the year 999 he sailed away with a north-east wind.

"Now we read in the 'Eyrbyggia Saga,' that Gudleif Gadlangson, the brother of Thorfinn, who was the forbear of the historian, Snorre Sturlason, had made a commercial voyage to Dyflin (Dublin). Intending to return to Iceland by sailing round the western Irish coast, he was cast away southwestward by storms, and thus got to a 2 The Discovery of America in the Tenth Century.