stained his practice in preserving and dressing his patient so ill; and that his abuse was great and deserved punishment. Then he went about to blear their eyes with a little beggarly eloquence, the which he had learned amongst a sort of treacherous runa

gates, counterfeit landlopers, sophysticall mounty banks, cosening quacksalvers, and such like falseengling deceivers, with their paradoxical innovations, whose native soile is to them a wilde cat, and who abuse all good artes wheresoever they come or abide. But to avert circumstances, I say, he vanished awaye in darkness, as may appear in my former bookes, where I have more at large spoken of him and other like abusers, whose bloudy hands without knowledge doe hazard the lives of many."

Well done, Mr. Clowes! But how about the arrow-head? He tells

us:

"I did put down a probe into the bottome of the wounde, where, manifestly, I did feele the head fixed in the bone, and by reason the orifice of the wound was so straight and swolne that I could not dilate any instrument sufficiently to apprehend and take hold of the arrowehead; therefore I was driven to make a reasonable large incision downe to the bottome, and then did put into the place of my incision a dilatorium to open the wound, and so presently took holde of the arrow-head with a rostrum gruinum, and then moved it by little and little, so very gently, with safety I tooke out the

arrow-head."

So much about the penetration of an English arrow! It was pretty considerable, as Master Withipole could have testified. As regards distance and accuracy of aim, it was enacted in the reign of Henry VIII., that no one, under a penalty, should practice archery at a shorter distance than 220 yards; and we learn, amongst other anecdotes of the skill of Cornish archers during the reign of the same monarch, that one of them, to show his skill, shot a sparrow from the back of a cow.

The drawbacks to military archery really consisted in the liability of the string to break; its relaxation in rainy weather; the greater influence of the wind on arrows than on musket balls; and, lastly, the defenceless condition

of archers when their store of arrows was shot away. Comparatively few persons may be prepared to hear that the bayonet was attached to the long bow more than forty years before the method was discovered of attaching it to the musket. Such, however, is the fact. In the reign of Charles I. improvements effected in the musket began to elbow the long-bow so uncomfortably, that advocates of the latter endeavoured to increase its efficiency by arming one end with a pike and here, by the way, one cannot or dagger a bayonet in point of fact: resist improving the occasion, by desiring the reader to figure to himself how stiff a bow must be made in order to render it a fitting handle for a pikehead. The combination was invented by one William Neade, who has given a full exposition of his views in a book called the Double-armed Man. For some reason the double arm never came into use. The day of the bayonet was at hand. Already had matchlocks given place to spanner or wheel

locks.

Already had the weight of muskets been so considerably reduced, that they could be shouldered without a rest. The weight of the musket was gradually being lowered to the standard weight of a pike-handle, so that no great stretch of ingenuity was wanting to show how-by thrusting a dagger into the muzzle, the musket would become a pike. According to Père Daniel, bayonets of this description were introduced into France about 1671. At last followed the discovery of fixing the bayonet laterally, as on modern fire-arms. Such bayo nets were first used under Marshal Castenat, in 1693, at the battle of Marsaglia, when the slaughter which followed was immense. Ten years after followed the battle of Spires, and, in 1705, the battle of Calcinata, both very bloody, owing to the new bayonet. Military men could no longer resist the great fact. In France pikes had been abolished by royal ordinance with the advice of Marshal Vauban, in 1703. They were laid aside in England about the same time.

J. S.

ONCE more did Gerald find himself alone and penniless upon the world. He was not, however, as when first he issued forth, timid, depressed, and diffident. Short as had been the interval since that time, his mind had made a considerable progress. His various readings had taught him much; and he had already learned that in that mutual assurance company we call Life men are ever more or less dependent on their fellows. "There must, then," said he to himself, "be surely some craft or calling to which I can bring skill or aptitude, and some one or other will certainly accept of services that only require the very humblest recognition.' He walked for hours, without seeing a living thing the barren mountain was not even sheep-walk; and, save the path worn by the track of smugglers, there was nothing to show that the foot of man had ever traversed its dreary solitudes. At last, he gained the summit of the ridge, and could see the long line of coast to the westward, jagged and indented with many a bay and promontory. There lay St. Stephano: he could recognize it by the light cloud of pale blue smoke that floated over the valley, and marked where the town stood; and, beyond, he could catch the masts and yards of a few small craft that were sheltering in the offing. Beyond these again stretched the wide, blue sea,

VOL. LI.-NO. CCCV.

marked at the horizon by some far away sails. The whole was wrapt in that solemn calm, so striking in the noon of an Italian summer's day. Not a cloud moved; not a leaf was stirring; a faint foam line on the beach told that there the waves crept softly in, but, except this, all nature was at rest.

In the dead stillness of night our thoughts turn inward, and we mingle memories with our present reveries; but in the stillness of noonday, when great shadows lie motionless on the hill-side, and all is hushed save the low murmur of the laden bee, our minds take the wide range of the world-visiting many lands-mingling with strange people. Action, rather than reflection, engages us; and we combine and change and fashion the mighty elements before us as we will. We people the plains with armed hosts; we fill the towns with busy multitudes-gay processions throng the squares, and floating banners wave from steeple and tower; over the blue sea proud fleets are seen to move, and thundering echoes send back their dread cannonading: and through these sights and sounds we have our especial part-lending our sympathies here, bearing our warmest wishes there. If we dream, it is of the real, the actual, and the true; and thus dreaming, we are but foreshadowing to ourselves the inci

33*

dents and accidents of life, and garnering up the resources wherewith to meet them. Stored as was his mind with recent reading, Gerald's fancy supplied him with innumerable incidents, in every one of which he displayed the same heroic traits, the same aptitude to meet emergency, and the same high-hearted courage, he had admired in others. Vain-gloriousness may be forgiven, when it springs, as his did, out of thorough ignorance of the world. It is, indeed, but the warm outpouring of a generous temperament, where self-esteem predominates. The youth ardently desired that the good should prosper and the bad be punished; his only mistake was, that he claimed the chief place in effecting both one and the other.

Eagerly bent upon adventure-no matter where, how, or with whom he stood on the mountain's peak, gazing at the scene beneath him. A waving tract of country, traversed by small streams, stretched away towards Tuscany, but where the boundary lay between the states he could not detect. No town or village could be descried; and so far as he could see, miles and miles of journey yet lay before him ere he could arrive at a human dwelling. This was indeed the less matter, since Tina had fastened up in his handkerchief sufficient food for the day; and even were night to overtake him, there was no great hardship in passing it beneath that starry sky.

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Many there must be," thought he, "campaigning at this very hour, in far away lands, mayhap amid the sand deserts of the East, or crouching beneath the shelter of the drifted snows in the North; and even here are troops of gipsies, who never know what means the comfort of a roof over them." Just as he said these words to himself, his eyes chanced to rest upon a thin line of pale blue smoke that arose from a group of alders beside a stream in the valley. Faint and thin at first, it gradually grew darker and fuller, till it rose into the clear air, and was wafted slowly along towards the sea. "Just as if I had conjured them up," cried Gerald, "there are the gipsies; and if there be a Strega in the company, she shall have this crown for telling me my fortune! What marvels will she not invent for this broad

piece-what dragons shall I not slay -what princesses not marry; not but in reality they do possess some wondrous insight into the future! Signor Gabriel sneered at it, as he sneered at every thing; but there's no denying they read destiny, as the sailor reads the coming storm in signs unseen by others. There is something fine, too, in their clanship: how, poor and houseless, despised as they are, they cling together, hoarding up their ancient rites and traditions-their only wealth-and wandering through the world, pilgrims of centuries old." As he descended the mountain-path, he continued thus to exalt the gipsies in his estimation; and with that unfailing resource in similar cases, that what he was unable to praise he at least found picturesque. The path led through a wood of stunted chestnut trees, on issuing from whose shade he could no longer detect the spot he was in search of; the fire had gone out, and the smoke ceased to linger over the place.

"Doubtless, the encampment has broken up; they are trudging along towards the coast, where the villages lie," thought he, “and I may come up with them to-morrow or next day," and he stepped out briskly on his way. The day was intensely hot, and Gerald would gladly have availed himself of any shade, to lie down and enjoy the “siesta hours in true Italian fashion. The only spot, however, he could procure likely to offer such shelter was a little copse of olives, at a bend of the river, about a mile away. A solitary rock, with a few ruined walls upon it, rose above the trees, and marked the place as one once inhabited. Following the winding of the stream, he at length drew nigh, and quickly noticed that the grass was greener and deeper, with here and there a daffodil or a wild flower, signs of a soil which, in some past time, had been cared for and cultivated. The river, too, as it swept around the base of the rock, deepened into a clear, calm pool, the very sight of which was intensely grateful and refreshing. As the youth stood in admiring contemplation of this fair bath, and inwardly vowing to himself the luxury of a plunge into it, a low rustling noise startled him, and a sound like the sharp stamp of a beast's foot. He quickly turned,