"Inopem me copia fecit."

"Valere. Il eft un peu capricieux, comme je vous ai dit, et parfois, il a des moments où fon efprit s'échappe, et ne paroit pas ce qu'il eft. Lucas. Oui, il aime à bouffoner; et l'on diroit parfois, ne v's en déplaifir, qu'il a quelque petit coup de hache à la tête.

Valere. Mais, dans le fond, il est tout fcience; et bien fouvent, il dit des chofes tout à fait relevées.

Lucas. Quand il s'y bonté, il parle tout fin droit, comme s'il lifoit dans un livre."

"Omne

Humanum genus eft avidum nimis auricularum."

AKE the world through and it
liftens to ftories as children do.
Nothing arrefts the attention fo
much as rhythm, and cadence,-

next to which comes a clearly detailed narra-
tive. In all early accounts of nations, whe-
ther we look to Greece or Rome, we have
myths that almost
almoft run into verfe,-and

Ovid. Met. iii.
466.
Moliere, Le
Médecin Malgré
Lui, Act ii. Sc. i.

Lucret. Lib. iv. 598.

II. ix. 189.

Hawes, Paftime

of Pleasure,
p. 115, Southey.

although there is nothing gained by the late excellent Dr. Arnold's introductory chapters to his Roman History, and the old story might as well have remained as it was, his view nevertheless was correct. Look again to the collections of the Rhapsodifts, and to the various controverfies relative to the Homeric Poems, and the fame inference is ready at hand. What the son of Peleus did with his beautiful lyre, that the old collectors did.

“ Τῇ ὅγε θυμὸν ἔτερπεν, ἄειδε δ' ἄρα κλέα ἀνδρῶν."
And paffing by the Eddas and the Nibe-
lungen Lied, and all other affortments of early
verse in other nations, we have but to look
to the early Ballads in our own, and we shall
find that the listeners hang upon the voice
of the reciter. I am still old enough to
recollect the recital of Welsh Poems in the
out-of-the-way bofom of Carnedd Lewellyn,
-and if my old friend JOHN PRICE fees these
pages he will recollect how, on a fummer's
night, the men of the household told their feats
in profe alfo till the peat fire was fmothered
in its afhes; and how the Lark was our clock
next day,

"When the little byrdes fwetely did fing
Laudes to their Maker, early in morning."

Nothing ever has, or ever will, command attention like a well-fuftained narrative. The fenfes are lulled by it, and the ear is pleased. The man that can fing the best song in a Parish, and the man who can tell the best ftory, will hold his place, even if he have fometimes to fit upon PENNILESS BENCH. As he proceeds, the hearts of thofe around him warm, and he reaps the benefit of his gift,-efpecially if he be a bit of a wag or a wit, and knows how to carry the houfe with him. Vaftly clever was it of Bacchus in difguife, and in a Sober fit, to fay of his father,

66 Moriensque mihi nihil ille reliquit Præter aquas."

Such a sense of the ridiculous always carries weight, and is as good as a fmall freehold to many a poor wight! But, the evil is that it frequently leads to careless habits, and indifference on many points. Still, as faid at starting, the world at large liftens to stories and anecdotes, and when they are told with discretion, they lend an elasticity to every-day life, and do much good by replacing morofenefs with Chriftian cheerfulness.

Some fuch fentiments as these I had given vent to in the prefence of the old Vicar, and

Ovid. Met. iii.

590.

he faid, "I have whole note-books full of Parish stories, such as you have often heard me repeat," "-the preceding chapter contains a fample," but numbers of them are of a facred almost, certainly of too private a character to be told lightly. Some few my wife has written down at different times, and you will find several in that portfolio to which no need of concealment attaches. Pick and choose at your leisure.”

I took him at his word, and the first story I lighted upon was a curious one in many refpects, especially as relating to the Con

--

feffional. On referring to my old friend about it, he told me that it was a very old ftory, but he did not recollect to have seen it in print, and that he had heard it told in the North of England as well as in the South. Dennis Brown, who had refided many years in Rome, told it to him, either in 1849 or 1850, when the Roman Catholics last made a push with Cardinal Wifeman as foreman. He likewise faid he had entitled it,

GIVING THE SACK', AND THE CONFESSIONAL.

"Some eighty or a hundred years ago, the

1 This, in Suffex, as well as in Northamptonshire, and other counties, is a common phrafe for "to be difcharged." The original is

body of a man was found in the Tiber, at Rome. It was recognized as that of a common Porter well known about the city, but a ftranger thing was that a fecond body, (alfo that of a man,) was found at the same time, tied up in a fack which was ftrongly ftitched on to the collar of the coat of the Porter. This body was not fo eafily recognized, but the ftrangeness of the circumftances fet all the authorities immediately to work in the greatest earnest, and excited much intereft in the city. Before long, fufpicion arofe, which attached itself to a woman of doubtful character who lived in the outskirts, and whofe husband had all at once disappeared. All however that was known was this, that fhe had lived unhappily with him. Nothing could be dif covered, or brought home to her beyond the fact that he was gone, and of course fhe maintained that he had left her, and that she was a much injured person. And thus, as there was no proof, after a while the talk of the affair was dying out, when all at once it was fanned into a flame again,-the suspected house was revifited, and the woman actually

perhaps to be fought in the Anglo-Saxon, and Suio-Gothic “Sack,”caufa, reatus. So "Saklös," immunis à culpâ. See Ihrc in v.