swoop with her apron on the jackdaw | hope she's got some conduct along with her pecking at the fast-ripening apples. grandeur. Poor soul," she goes on pres"Well, Dennis," she sets her apron ently, "she won't come to much, let her straight"of course I didn't like it; it weren't in nature that I should." Mr. Fagg had raised his fat forefinger as he began, and he holds it so raised during his wife's interruption. He brings it down emphatically on her arm. "The day after Mr. Whitmore sends for you, Kitty, Mrs. Bright, she drives over to see Bobby; that's how she got the news of Miss Nuna's baby so soon. Between ourselves, Kitty, she were a bit huffed she warn't sent for in your place, that she were -no, no; Mr. Whitmore knew what he was about, I'm thinking Mrs. Fagg's lips twitched with impatience, but she held her tongue," and, says she, mind you, Kitty, it musn't be mentioned to a soul, Mrs. Bright let it out quite unawares,but Patty have done well, after all; she have gone and married some grand gentleman up in Scotland." A movement in Mrs. Fagg, as if her cap and the rest of her apparel bristled like the crest of an angry dog. 66 Who told Mrs. Bright?" Dennis sniggers most ungratefully at her sharp question. Don't excite yourself, old woman, there's no mistake. Mr. Will found out Roger in London, that time he went to take care of Miss Nuna, and the old man told him all about Patty. Roger died quite lately, so Mrs. Bright says, and he's left all he's got to Miss Nuna." be where she will; Patty Westropp ain't one as 'ud ever like to be guided: she'd bite against any curb but her own will." Maurice Downes has taken his wife to his home in Scotland; his hope is that, severed from all outward temptations to frivolity, Patty may be brought to love him truly; but it is for him a weary waiting, and at times he feels how doubtful is the end. It is past sunset; soft wreaths of mist float up to the terrace of a gray old-fashioned dwelling, float up till the pine-trees in the steep valley below loom through it like grey phantoms. Before the mist rose there had been the glimmer of a tarn among the monotonous, blue verdure; but that is veiled by the soft wreaths, rising higher and higher towards the granite mountain beyond. Its summit is reddened with a faint glow of sunset, and between this and the wreathing mist, the rugged granite is awful in dark, stupendous grandeur. Patty paces up and down the long terrace; the glow does not reach her face; it is pale and sad. Her black velvet gown trails as she walks, and she has drawn her black lace shawl over her head, for the air grows chill. "How will it end?" she says,-her under-lip droops more heavily than it did three years ago. "Maurice says good peo "And did you hear the name of the gen-ple are always happy. I'm sure trying to tleman as have married that girl?" be what he calls good makes me miserable." "No; "- Dennis looks disappointed "she don't know it. Mr. Will won't tell, she says; anyway, Patty's a grand lady, and lives in the Highlands of Scotland." 66 'Well,”— Mrs. Fagg gives a little gasp; "I'm glad to hear she's so far off, and I Courage, Patty; the glow is on the summit of the mountain-the troubled mists, the rugged cliffs, come first- but, these once past-there is the soft warm light above! EFFECTS OF SWINGING IN DEPRESSING THE TEMPERATURE OF THE BODY. -Dr. Wjatscheslaw Manasseïn gives the results, in one of the last parts (Band iv. Heft vi.) of Pflügers Archiv, of a considerable number of experiments on rabbits, which he subjected to the action of swinging, the swing making from 30 to 40 double vibrations in the minute. In all instances the maximum depression being 19.2 Centigrade, the minimum 03 C., and the average 0.66 C. The effects were fully marked in about 15 minutes, and lasted for about two hours. The ten dency to sleep was always distinctly expressed. The depression in the temperature of the body was not occasioned by the mere renewal of the air in contact with the surface, as this was carefully guarded against by enveloping the animal in wood. The experiments have a practical side, as showing that swinging has the same effect in depressing the animal temperature in rabbits made ill (feverish) by the injection of fœtid pus into their vessels. Their temperature may in such case even be lowered to the normal degree. DRAVIDIAN FOLK-SONGS. during the past few years thrown vast light upon this dark subject. It proves by irrefragable evidence - drawn from those unconscious but most truthful witnesses, grammar and vocabulary - that both Wilkins and Caldwell were wrong. The application of the famous laws so firmly established by Grümm and Bopp proves beyond doubt that Wilkins and Carey were in error in supposing that Tamil is derived from Sanscrit, and that Caldwell and Rask were equally wide of the mark in asserting that it is Scythic or Turanian. It becomes clear that the Dravidians represent lineally an offshoot from the great parent stock which left the fatherland vigour, and about the same period that From The Cornhill Magazine. and therefore farthest from their Aryan fellow-subjects. The science of language, To the majority of English readers which seems to have sprung into the world "Dravidian " will be a new name. Yet it like Minerva, fully grown and armed, has belongs to some twenty millions, nay, nearly thirty millions, of prosperous cousins and fellow-subjects of ours. They are a group of closely-related nations who have been recently discovered to be also closely related to John Bull and his many descendants. The second city in her Majesty's dominions, in point of population, is a Dravidian city, and is supposed to contain some 700,000 souls. The city is Madras; the people occupy the southern portion of the peninsula of India, extending from Cuttack and Juggernauth, of famine and religious celebrity, to that Cape Comorin which was for so many ages the goal of European navigators. The nations forming the Dravidian race long before Sanscrit was grown into speak languages known as Tamil, Telugu, Canarese, and Malagalim tongues of which competition-wallahs talk glibly, but of which the ordinary Briton has never heard, except, perhaps, from some missionary platform or charity-serving pulpit. In early Sanscrit literature the people were called Dravidas, and were said to be degenerate Kshatryas, members of the second or soldier caste; so that their relationship to the Sanscrit-speaking people was fully This most interesting discovery impels admitted. Men like Sir W. Jones, Dr. us to ask a host of questions of the stranCarey, Sir Charles Wilkins, and others ger. If the Dravidas are such near who flourished fifty years ago, followed cousins, we wish to know how they think this lead, and classed the Dravidas among with regard to morality, to religion, to Aryan nations. Then another school domestic life. Are they fit for the high grew up, headed by_that_eminent and de-privilege we cannot deny them? We voted missionary, Dr. Caldwell, who as- have been looking round for the best serted that the Dravidas were a Turanian means of answering such queries, and are people, an offshoot of the Finnish tribes, fortunately reminded of the old saying and condemned them to banishment from that their proverbs and folk-songs are the the great Aryan family. This theory was best evidences of the inner life and thought started because it seemed clear that the of peoples. What, then, are the folk-songs Dravidian tongues were not derived from of the Dravidas? First they are But Sanscrit, and if not, they could only be no, they shall describe themselves, and we accounted for as a far-journeyed colony of will plunge in medias res, by quoting some Scythians, who, in some lucky moment, that refer to death, a subject which forms had been able to overpass the Aryan bar- a very fair test both of poetic feeling and rier, which, resting on the precipices and moral depth. more than Russian cold of the Hindu Koosh, has in all other instances repelled Turanian attacks. This theory found wide acceptance because it seemed utterly incredible that any nation could be found in South India related to, but not descended from, the Vedic heroes and priests. It shut up the doors of sympathy and fellowfeeling between the Dravidian peoples and their English conquerors, and relegated the former to that particular human race which is lowest in the scale of morality, THE NEARNESS OF DEATH. I. "Oh, what is food to me! Death stands so near! Morn, noon, and night his angels cause me fear. In one short day they snatched, as past they ran, My friend, my foe, the young, the grey-haired man. hand is upon ourselves. The song just quoted is a sort of dialogue winding up with a moral, and each of the first four verses represents a different person, of . whom one clings to his wealth, another to his family, and a third to his business. That which follows is the utterance of one who sees his neighbour writhing: probably of some poor debtor who thinks it plea sant to see his stern creditor brought up sharp by a sterner bailiff than ever dodged and Purandala is a the poor poet. Yama is the God of Death, common Canarese name for Vishnu. The following is a literal translation, as indeed they all are, and exhibits not only the utterance but the form of the original. DEATH. two evils CRY FOR HELP. I. How many births are past, I cannot tell, But this alone I know, and know full well, That trouble sore embitters all the way. Of elephants the king, canst help me now? large. Thou holdest up the earth and wave, II. Great Lord, my boyish years were one long Although they seemed to pass in play. For observant reader will have noticed, even | ment of cultivation. But ordinary care in but The man whose time must be devoted to the support of his family? In a large collection of folk-songs from all the chief Dravidian languages, not one may be called immoral, not one cheerful. Of course there are a host of expressions that we should call improper, and that would make a boarding-school mistress faint with alarm, but they are no more immoral than that Queen Elizabeth should have beefsteaks and beer for breakfast. It is improper to call a spade a spade in the hearing of one who would speak of it as an instru Is nought but pain, in that it brings disdain Chorus. O Vishnu, help, &c. III. But now, in age and feebleness extreme, All men are one and equal? On thy throne, The next song is very popular, and again How To CROSS THE SEA OF SIN. I. OUR life is but a sea of sorrow: To touch the heart of Lakshmi's God. The dreadful sea of sin? O sons, shout loud "Narayana," 1 II. Don't be too fond of wife and girls, Of Maya never be the slave, Else thou wilt not the death-god brave, III. Some play at dice and some at chess. Some plague the wife and she plagues some; Some with great wealth their souls would bless : To one sure end they all will come. The infernal king will catch them all Lay all your hopes of future grace. IV. The strength obtained through food will fail, Not one of these will serve you well V. In pride or strength, in hate or love, Or else your hopes will come to dust. Chorus. O sons of mine, &c. We conclude this set with two other songs in which the peculiar style of thought is matched by the mode of the versification. We wonder whether any other nation ever found pleasure in thus rhyming its own miseries? It must not be supposed that because the poet places his agonies in a somewhat ludicrous light, that they are any the less real writhings. A long and intimate intercourse with the people themselves has made it very clear that we have in these lyrics the real and true expression of an almost universal feeling. The heart is sad, but then life is pleasant, and even the mournful widow may be made to smile by the antics of an orphan child, whose merriment at such a time is after all the deepest sorrow. The excellent Vishnu Your joy is great. Chorus. Never, O my soul, &c. The deity mentioned in all the songs is Vishnu, the second member of the Hindu triad. He is known by many names, as Narasimha, Runga, "the disk of the sun," &c. The last song that need be quoted is entitled "The Painful Servant,” and vividly portrays the fact that every earthly blessing brings pain and sorrow with it, while every earthly evil is but a faint foretaste of the worse things that await the soul in the unseen world: |