God. I should fear that his conclusions would be equally prejudicial to the wellbeing of yourself and your sister or niece, Madame Sarah, my mother. Once more I say, show me a lettre-de-cachet for cutting my throat, signed by God's own hand, and countersigned by Raphael, Michael, or Belzebub. If not, father your most obedient: I will go to Pharoah of Egypt, or to the king of the desert of Gerar, who have both been in love with my mother, and will certainly be kind to me. Cut my brother Ishmael's throat, if you like; but rely upon it, you shall not cut mine."" "Good; this is arguing like a true sage. The Encyclopædia itself could not have reasoned better. I tell thee, thou wilt do great things. I admire thee for not having said an ill word to thy father Abraham-for not having been tempted to beat him. And tell me :-hadst thou been that Cram, whom his father the Frankish King Clothaire had burned in a barn; a Don Carlos, son of that fox Philip the Second; a poor Alexis, son of that Czar Peter, half hero half tiger." "Ah, sir! say no more of those horrors; you will make me detest human nature." FAVOUR. Of what is understood by the Word. FAVOUR, from the Latin word favor, rather signifies a benefit than a recompense. That man is in favour with the king, but he has not yet received any kindnesses from him. We say that he has been received into the good graces of a person, not he has been received into favour; though we say to be in favour, because favour is supposed to be an habitual taste; while to receive into grace, is to pardon, or, at least, is less than to bestow favour. To obtain grace is the effect of a noment; to obtain favour is a work of time. Nevertheless, we say indifferently, do me the kindness and do me the favour, to recommend my friend. Letters of recommendation were formerly called letters of favour. Severus says, in the tragedy of Polyeuctes :— Je mourrais mille fois plutot qu'abuser We have the favour and good-will, not the kindness of the prince and the public. We may obtain the favour of our audience by modesty, but it will not be gracious if we are tedious. This expression, 'favour,' signifies a gratuitous good-will, which we seek to obtain from the prince or the public. Gallantry has extended it to the complaisance of the ladies; and though we do not say that we have the favours of the king, we say that we have the favours of a lady. The equivalent to this expression is unknown in Asia, where the women possess less influence. We earnestly beg a favour: we merit and loudly demand a recompense. The god Favor, according to the Roman my- Formerly, ribbands, gloves, buckles, thologists, was the son of Beauty and and sword-knots given by a lady, were Fortune. All favour conveys the idea of called favours. The Earl of Essex wore something gratuitous; he has done me a glove of Queen Elizabeth's in his hat, the favour of introducing me, of present-which he called the queen's favour. ing me, of recommending my friend, of correcting my work. The favour of princes is the effect of their fancy, and of assiduous complaisance. The favour of the people sometimes implies merit, but is more often attributable to lucky acci dent. Favour differs much from kindness. FAVOURITE. THIS word has sometimes a bounded and sometimes an extended sense. Fa vourite' sometimes conveys the idea of power; and sometimes it only signifies a man who pleases his master. Henry III. had favourites who were only playthings, and he had those who governed the state, as the dukes of Joyeuse and Epernon. A favourite may be compared to a piece of gold, which is valued at whatever the prince pleases. An ancient writer has asked, "Who ought to be the king's favourite?-the people!" Good poets are called the favourites of the muses, as prosperous men are called the favourites of fortune, because both are supposed to receive these gifts without labouring for them. It is thus, that a fertile and well-situated land} is called the favourite of nature. The woman who pleases the sultan most, is called the favourite sultana. Somebody has written the history of favourites; that is to say, the mistresses of the greatest princes. Several princes in Germany have country houses which they call favourites. A lady's favourite is now only to be found in romances and stories of the last century. FEASTS. SECTION I. A POOR gentleman of the province of Hagenau, cultivated his small estate, and St. Ragonda, or Radegonda, was the patron of his parish. Now it happened, on the feast of St. Ragonda, that it was necessary to do something to this poor gentleman's field, without which great loss would be incurred. The master, with all his family, after having devoutly assisted at mass, went to cultivate his land, on which depended the subsistence of his family, while the rector and the other parishioners went to tipple as usual. The rector, while enjoying his glass, was informed of the enormous offence committed in his parish by this profane labourer, and went burning with wine and anger to seek the cultivator. "Sir, you are very insolent and very impious to dare to cultivate your field, instead of going to the tavern like other people." "I agree, sir," replied the gentleman, " that } it is necessary to drink to the honour of the Saint; but it is also necessary to eat, and my family would die of hunger if I did not labour." "Drink and die then," said the vicar-"In what law, in what book is it so written?" said the labourer "In Ovid," replied the vicar—“ I think you are mistaken," said the gentleman; " in what part of Ovid have you read that I ought to go to the tavern rather than cultivate my field on St. Ragonda's day?" It should be remarked that both the gentleman and the pastor were well educated men. "Read the metamorphoses of the daughters of Minyeïs," said the vicar-"I have read it," answered the other, "and I maintain that they have no relation to my plough." "How, impious man! do you not remember that the daughters of Minyeïs were changed into bat having spun on a feast day?" "The case is very different," replied the gentleman, "these ladies had not rendered any homage to Bacchus. I have been at the mass of St. Ragonda, you can have nothing to say to me; you cannot change me into a bat." "I will do worse," said the priest, "I will fine you." He did so. The poor gentleman was ruined: he quitted the country with his family-went into a strange onebecame a Lutheran-and his ground remained uncultivated for several years. This affair was related to a magistrate of good sense and much piety. These are the reflections which he made upon it: "They were no doubt innkeepers," said he, "that invented this prodigious number of feasts; the religion of peasants and artisans consists in getting tipsy on the day of a saint, whom they only know by this kind of worship. It is on these days of idleness and debauchery that all crimes are committed; it is these feasts which fill the prisons, and which support the police officers, registers, lieutenants of police, and hangmen; the only excuse for feast-days among us. From this cause catholic countries are scarcely cultivated at all; whilst heretics, by daily cultivating their lands, produce abundant crops." I have been married fifteen years: so that I annually reckon twenty-four livres for the expenses of her confinements and baptisms, one hundred and eight livres for two nurses, having generally two children out at nurse, and sometimes even three. I pay fifty-seven livres rent and fourteen taxes. "My income is then reduced to four hundred and thirty-six livres, or twentyfive sous three derniers per day, with which I have to clothe and furnish my family, buy wood and candles, and support my wife and six children. It is all very well that the shoemakers should go in the morning to mass on St. Crispin's day, because crepido signifies the upper leather of a shoe; that the brush-makers should honour St. Barbara their patron; that those who have weak eyes should hear the mass of St. Clara : that St. — should be celebrated in many provinces; but after having paid their devoirs to the saints they should become serviceable to men, they should go from the altar to the plough; it is the excess of barbarity, and insupportable slavery, to consecrate our days to idleness and vice. Priests, command, if it be necessary that the saints Roche, Eustace, and Fiacre, be prayed to in the morn-keepers. ing; but, magistrates order your fields { to be cultivated as usual. It is labour that is necessary; the greater the industry the more the day is sanctified. SECTION II. Letter from a Weaver of Lyons to the Gentlemen of the Commission established at Paris, for the Reformation of Religious Orders, printed in the public papers in 1768: "I look forward to holidays with dismay. I confess that I often almost curse their institution. They could only have been instituted by usurers and inn My father made me study hard in my youth, and wished me to become a monk, showing me in that state a sure asylum against want; but I always thought that every man owes his tribute to society, and that monks are useless bees. Notwithstanding, I acknowledge drones who live upon the labour of the that when I see John C... with whom in the college, possessing the first place I studied, and who was the most idle boy among the premontres, I cannot help regretting that I did not listen to my father's advice. "Gentlemen,-I am a silk weaver, and have worked at Lyons for nineteen years, My wages have increased insen- "This is the third holiday in Christsibly; at present I get thirty-five sous mas, I have pawned the little furniture per day. My wife, who makes lace, I had, I am in a week's debt with my would get fifteen more, if it were possible tradesmen, and I want bread-how are for her to devote her time to it; but as we to get over the fourth? This is not the cares of the house, illness, or other all; I have the prospect of four more things, coutinually hinder her, I reduce next week. Great God! Eight holidays her profit to ten sous, which makes forty-in ten days; thou canst not have comfive sous daily. If from the year we manded it! deduct eighty-two Sundays, or holidays, "One year I hoped that rents would we shall have two hundred and eighty- diminish by the suppression of one of four profitable days, which at forty-five the monasteries of the capuchins and sous make six hundred and thirty-nine cordeliers. What useless houses in the livres. That is my revenue; the follow-centre of Lyons are those of the Jacobins, ing are my expenses: "I have eight living children, and my wife is on the point of being confined with the eleventh; for I have lost two. nuns of St. Peter, &c. Why not establish them in the suburbs, if they are thought necessary? How many more useful inhabitants would supply their places! "All these reflections, gentlemen, have induced me to address myself to you who have been chosen by the king for the task of rectifying abuses. I am not the only one who thinks thus. How many labourers in Lyons and other places; how many labourers in the dom are reduced to the same extremities as myself? It is evident that every holiday costs the state several millions (livres). These considerations will lead you to take more to heart the interests of the people, which are rather too little attended to. dren before marriage. These children he solemnly acknowledged in the face of the church. None of the formalities prescribed by the laws were wanting at this recognition. His successor Alphonso d'Este, was acknowledged Duke of Ferking-rara; he espoused Julia d'Urbino, the daughter of Francis Duke d'Urbino, by whom he had the unfortunate Cæsar d'Este, the incontestible heir of all the property of all the family, and declared so by the last duke, who died the 27th of October, 1597. Pope Clement VIII.surnamed Aldobrandino, and originally of the family of a merchant of Florence, dared to pretend that the grandmother of Cæsar d'Este was not sufficiently noble, and that the children which she had brought into the world ought to be considered bastards. The first reason is ridiculous and scandalous in a bishop, the second is unwarrantable in every tribunal in Eu "I have the honour to be, &c. "BOCEN." This request, which was really presented, will not be misplaced in a work like the present. SECTION III. The feast given to the Roman people by Julius Cæsar and the emperors who succeeded him, are well known. The feast of twenty-two thousand tables served by twenty-two thousand purveyors: the naval fights on artificial lakes, &c. have not however been imitated by the Herulian, Lombard, and Frankish chieftains, who would have their festivity equally celebrated. FERRARA. WHAT We have to say of Ferrara has no relation to literature, but it has a very great one to justice, which is much more necessary than the belles-lettres, and much less cultivated, at least in Italy. Ferrara was constantly a fief of the empire, like Parma and Placencia. Pope Clement VIII. robbed Cæsar d'Este of it by force of arms, in 1597. The pretext for this tyranny was a very singular one for a man who called himself the humble vicar of Jesus Christ. Alphonso d'Este, the first of the name, Sovereign of Ferrara, Modena, Este, Carpio, and Rovigno, espoused a simple gentlewoman of Ferrara, named Laura Eustochia, by whom he had three chil rope. If the duke was not legitimate, he ought to have lost Modena and his other states also; and if there was no flaw in his title, he ought to have kept Ferrara as well as Modena. The acquisition of Ferrara was too fine a thing for the pope not to procure all the decretals and decisions of those brave theologians, who declare that the pope can render just that which is unjust. Consequently he first excommunicated Cæsar d'Este, and as excommunication necessarily deprives a man of all his property, the common father of the faithful raised his troops against the excommunicated, to rob him of his inheritance in the name of the church. These troops were defeated, but the Duke of Modena soon saw his finances exhausted, and his friends become cool. To make his case still more deplorable, the King of France, Henry IV. believed himself obliged to take the side of the pope, in order to balance the credit of Philip II. at the court of Rome; in the same manner that good King Louis XII. less excusably dishonoured himself by uniting with that monster Alexander VI. and his execrable bastard the Duke of Borgia. The duke was obliged to return neither the property nor the ears of any and the pope caused Ferrara to be in-one for fear of thine own." vaded by Cardinal Aldobrandino, who? entered this flourishing city at the head of a thousand horse and five thousand foot soldiers. It is a great pity that such a man as Henry IV. descended to this unworthiness which is called politic. The Catos, Metelluses, Scipios, and Fabriciuses would not thus have betrayed justice to please a priest-and such a priest! From this time Ferrara became a desert; its uncultivated soil was covered with standing marshes. This province, under the house of Este, had been one of the finest in Italy; the people always regretted their ancient masters. It is true that the duke was indemnified; he was nominated to a bishopric and a benefice; he was even furnished with some measures of salt from the mines of Cervia. But it is no less true that the house of Modena has incontestable and imprescriptable rights to the duchy of Ferrara, of which it was thus shamefully despoiled. FEVER. It is not as a physician, but as a patient, that I wish to say a word or two on fever. We cannot help now and then speaking of our enemies; and this one has been attacking me for more than twenty years; not Fréron himself has been more implacable. I ask pardon of Sydenham, who defined fever to be "an effort of nature, labouring with all its power to expel the peccant matter." We might thus define the small-pox, the measles, diarrhoea, vomitings, cutaneous eruptions, and twenty other diseases. But, if this physician defined ill, he practised well. He cured, because he had experience, and he knew how to wait. Boerhaave says, in his Aphorisms:“A more frequent opposition, and an increased resistance about the capillary vessels, give an absolute idea of an acute fever." These are the words of a great master; but he sets out with acknowledging that the nature of fever is profoundly hidden. He does not tell us what that secret principle is which develops itself at regular periods, in intermittent fever-what that internal poison is, which, after the lapse of a day, is renewed-where that flame is, which dies and revives at stated Now, my dear reader, let us suppose that this scene took place at the time in which Jesus Christ appeared to his apostles after his resurrection, and that Simon Barjonas, surnamed Peter, wished to possess himself of the states of this poor Duke of Ferrara. Imagine the duke coming to Bethany to demand justice of the Lord Jesus. Our Lord sends imme-moments. diately for Peter and says to him, “Si- { mon, son of Jonas, I have given thee the keys of heaven, but I have not given thee those of the earth. Because thou hast been told that the heavens surround the globe, and that the contained is in the, containing, dost thou imagine that king- Every animal that does not perish suddoms here below belong to thee, and that denly, dies by fever. This fever seems thou hast only to possess thyself of what- to be the inevitable effect of the fluids ever thou likest? I have already for- that compose the blood, or that which is bidden thee to draw the sword. Thou in the place of blood. The structure of appearest to me a very strange compound; every animal proves to natural philosoat one time cutting off the ear of Mal- ¿ phers, that it must, at all times, have enchus, and at another even denying me.joyed a very short life. We pretty well know, that we are liable to fever after excess, or in unseasonable weather. We know that quinquina, judiciously administered, will cure it. This is quite enough: the how we do not know. Be more lenient and decorous, and take Theologians have held, or have pro |