THE STRANGE RELIGIOUS CEREMONIES ONCE ADOPTED IN ENGLAND, CALLED THE DRUIDICAL MAXIMS OR RULES. 1.-NONE must be instructed in the sacred groves. 2.--Mistletoe must be gathered with reverence, and if possible in the sixth moon. 3.--Every thing derives its origin from heaven. 4. The Arcana of the Sciences must not be committed to writing, but to the memory. 5. Great care is to be taken of the education of children. 6. The powder of mistletoe makes women fruitful. 7. The disobedient are to be shut out from the sacrifices. 8.-Souls are immortal. 9. The soul after death goes into other bodies. -- 10. If the world is destroyed, it will be by fire or water. 11. Upon extraordinary emergencies a man must be sacrificed. According as the body falls, or moves after it is fallen, according as the blood flows or the wound opens, future events are foretold. 12.-Prisoners of war are to be slain upon the altars, or burnt alive inclosed in wicker, in honour of the gods. 13. All commerce with strangers must be prohibited. 14. He that comes last to the Assembly of the States ought to be punished with death. 15. Children are to be brought up apart from their parents, till they are fourteen years of age. 16.-Money lent in this world will be repaid in the next. 17.-There is another world, and they who kill themselves to accompany their friends thither, will live with them there. 18.-Letters given to dying persons, or thrown on the funeral piles of the dead, will faithfully be delivered in the other world. 19. The moon is a sovereign remedy for all things, as its name in Celtic implies. 20. Let the disobedient be excommunicated; let him be deprived of the benefit of the law, let him be avoided by all, and rendered incapable of any employ. 21.-All masters of families are kings in their own houses, they have a power of life and death over their wives, children, and slaves. These particulars may serve to give us some notion of the religion of the Druids, which for a long time kept its footing in Great Britain and Gaul, and thank God that we live in the light of other days. A YOUNG lady in the city says, the reason she carries a parasol is, that the sun is of the masculine gender, and she cannot withstand his ardent glances. IN Mexico they have a soap plant with which the women wash clothes. But that is nothing to the tree West, which produces sausages ready fried, and little cups to hold the gravy. THE VALUE OF A SHILLING. THE shilling is all-potent in England. It opens churches and towers-swings back the ponderous gates of the castle-introduces the stranger into the sacred places of old abbeys and convents— and bows the possessor obsequiously through the palaces of the nobles of the realm. It wins esteem and commands respect— attracts observation and hides defects. In a word, it is sovereign, and doubly blest is he who "In silken or in leathern purse retains ELOQUENT PREACHERS. JEROM MAUTIN DE NARNI, a famous Capuchin preacher, under the pontificate of Gregory XV., " having," relates Balzac, in his tenth discourse," been appointed to preach before the Pope and Cardinals, he struck such terror into his hearers, by showing the sinfulness of a neglect of duty, that no less than thirty bishops posted the next day to their dioceses. The effects of his oratory upon the people were no less extraordinary, and many went from the church crying for mercy as they walked along the streets. On another occasion the conversion of an entire city was the fruit of one of his Lenten sermons; and it was computed that during the Holy Week there were sold cords for the purpose of discipline to the amount of two thousand crowns, though this article of commerce was by no means an expensive one. Narni, however, saw so little real fruit produced by his eloquence, that he resolved to give over the profession, and retired to his cell, where he employed himself in writing the history of his order. PULPIT ELOQUENCE. THE first work in which mention is made of a species of pulpit eloquence, which may be styled, for want of a better term, cartarrhal eloquence, is "The Sermon preached on the fifth Sunday in Lent in the city of Bruges, Anno Domini 1500," by the celebrated Olivier Maillard. In the work we find marked in the margin, by the words Hem! hem! the particular spots of the sermon where it was fitting for, or even the duty of, the preacher to cough; An edition of the sermons of this preacher has been given by Crapelet. A YOUNG Thespian was once entrusted to deliver the following message to Lord Randolph in the play of Douglas :-" My lord, the banquet waits;" but having lost the run of the sentence, he called, amidst the roar of the audience, "Mr. Randolph, your supper has been ready some time." BAD books like intoxicating drinks are poisons. A CIRCASSIAN BEAUTY. WE left him to finish our circuit and walked on in search of the Circassian beauties of the market. Several turbaned slave merchants were sitting round a manghal or brass vessel of coals, smoking or making their coffee in one of the porticoes, and my friends addressed one of them with an enquiry on the subject. "There were Circassians in the Bazaar," he said, "but there was an express firman, prohibiting the exposing or selling of them to Franks under heavy penalties." We tried to bribe them. It was no use. He pointed to the apartment in which they were, and as it was on the ground floor, I took advice of modest assurance, sheltered my eyes with my hand and looked in. A great fat girl, with a pair of saucer-like black eyes, and cheeks as red and round as a cabbage rose, sat facing the window, devouring a pie most voraciously. She had a small carpet spread beneath her, with a row of fat red toes, whose nails were tinged with henna, just protruding on the other side from the folds of her ample trousers. The light was so dim that I could not see the features of the others, of whom there were six or seven in groups in the corners. And so faded the light colours of a certain boyish dream of Circassian beauty! A fat girl eating a pie! IF OLD FATHER NOAH. Though poets and painters make Bacchus divine, Come, drink thirsty topers, in bumpers of wine, When the waters subsided that cover'd the earth, From henceforth no water shall moisten my food; Come, drink thirsty topers, in bumpers of wine, you would enjoy your meals, be good-tempered. An angry man cannot tell whether he is eating boiled cabbage or stewed umbrellas. IN the music of silence there are a thousand varieties not in the knowledge of things without, but in the perfection of the soul within, lies the empire of man. IRRATIBILITY. IRRITATING after rolling all night in your berth at sea till you are miserably sick, to have a steward open your door in the morning and ask if you will have a fresh roll for breakfast. A PARLIAMENTARY MOVE. SIBTHORP is vastly indignant at the fuss that is being made about "moving the table," which, he says, any broker's man can do, but what is it, he asks, compared to the fact of his being able, any night he choose, to move the entire house." GOOD old Mrs. Call was quite hard of hearing, being somewhat advanced in years. Her daughter, Lydia, was a bonnie lass, who loved " a good time," and knew how to get it up. Lydia had arranged a junket, and the young men and maids were all on hand among the rest was the General, then one of 'em. In the midst of the fun in popped old Deacon L- to see how the widow fared. This was a wet blanket upon the merriment; and the deacon hung on till Lydia was out of all patience. She kept wishing and wishing he would go, and by and bye he gets up to depart. “Oh! deacon, deacon," said Dame Call, “ don't think of going before tea! Oh! do stop to tea, won't you?" The deacon so strongly urged, replied-" Well, I rather think I will, as the folks will not expect me home before dark.” "What did he say Lyddy ?" said the widow. Lydia had a ready answer:-" He says he will not to-day, as the folks expect him home before dark; why how deaf you grow mother!" "Oh! well come some other day, deacon, now do, won't you?" said she bowing the deacon out. "Smart gal, that," said the deacon, as he trudged along home, "she'll find her way through I'll warrant." A COUNTRY girl riding past a turnpike gate, without paying the usual fee, the tollman hailed her, and demanded it. She asked him-"By what authority he desired toll of her ?" He answered"The sign would convince her that the law requested threepence for a man and horse.' "Well," replied the girl, "this is a woman and mare, therefore you have no claim!" and she rode off, leaving him the laughing stock of the bystanders. A NICE young man scraped an acquaintance with a noble Polar bear, in Van Amburgh and Co's. menagerie, and commenced treating his shaggy white friend with choice candy. Bruin liked the sweet bite, but his friends fingers better, for he soon snapped off his friends right fore finger at the first joint, smooth as a knife could cut it, and then munched the morsel with the gusto of an epicure. To read much and practise nothing, is to hunt much and catch nothing. COTTAGE CONTENTMENT. I look not on the rich man's wealth For mansions proud and wide domains I only ask a lowly cot, Where nature wild and free A merry roundelay; Where violets blue breathe sweet perfume, And daisies glad the scene, Where cowslip rare, And primrose fair, Reflect their yellow sheen. A cot between whose straw thatch'd roof The swallow e'en might come, To take her rest And build her nest And make herself a home. And hold her tenancy at will, In undisputed right, Till wintry wind Should bid her find Security in flight. Ay! it were joy indeed to me, To roam abroad O'er verdant sward Or climb the mountain high. To stray through forests broad and dim, Or 'neath some shady bower, Where zephyrs play The live long day; Beguile a passing hour. Go, worldling, on amassing wealth: Your palaces and monuments Give, give, me but a humble cot, And that were wealth to me. ON a remarkable hot summer's day an Irishman, thinly and openly dressed, sitting down in a violent perspiration, was cautioned against catching cold. "Catch it," said he, wiping his face, "where? I wish I could catch it." THE smaller a man's mind is the more inveterate are his prejudices. |