counsel of the old men of Israel.

And at this day, in Palestine, the women, assembled near the tombs of their relatives, dance in a mournful manner, and utter cries of lamentation.*

We also know, that the first christians held among themselves agape, or feasts of charity, in memory of the last supper which Jesus celebrated with his apostles, from which the pagans took occasion to bring against them the most odious charges; on which, to banish every shadow of licentiousness, the pastors forbade the kiss of peace, that concluded the ceremony, to be given between persons of different sexes.t But various abuses, which were even then complained of by St. Paul, and which the council of Gangres, in the year 324, vainly undertook to reform, at length caused the agape to be abolished in 397, by the third council of Carthage, of which the forty-first canon ordained, that the holy mysteries should be celebrated fasting.

It will not be doubted, that these feastings were accompanied by dances, when it is recollected that, according to Scaliger, the bishops were called in the Latin church præsules,' (from præsiliendo') only because they led off the dance. Héliot, in his History of the Monastic Orders, says also, that during the persecutions which disturbed the peace of the first christians, congregations were formed of men and women, who, after the manner of the Therapeutæ, retired into the deserts, where they assembled in the hamlets on Sundays and feast-days, and danced piously, singing the prayers of the church.

In Portugal, in Spain, and in Rousillon, solemn dances are still performed in honour of the mysteries of christianity. On every vigil of a feast of the Virgin, the young women assemble before the doors of the churches dedicated to her, and pass the night in dancing round, and singing hymns and canticles in honour of her. Cardinal Ximenes restored in his time,

Le Brun's Travels.

+ Thomassin, Disciple of the Church, part iii. ch. xlvii, no. 1. Corinthians, xi.

in the cathedral of Toledo, the ancient usage of the Mosarabian mass, during which dances are performed in the choir and the nave, with equal order and devotion. In France too, about the middle of the last century, the priests and all the people of Limoges might be seen dancing round in the collegiate church, singing "Sant Marcian, pregas pernous, et nous epingaren per bous"-that is, "St. Martial, pray for us, and we will dance for you."

And lastly, the jesuit Menestirer, in the preface to his Treatise on Ballets, published in 1682, says, that he had himself seen the canons of some churches take the singing-boys by the hand on Easter-day, and dance in the choir, singing hymns of rejoicing. What has been said, in the article CALENDS, of the extravagant dances of the feast of fools, exhihits a part of the abuses which have caused dancing to be discontinued in the ceremonies of the mass, which, the greater their gravity, are the better calculated to impose on the simple.

MASSACRES.

It is perhaps as difficult as it is useless to ascertain whether 'mazzacrium,' a word of the low Latin, is the root of 'massacre,' or whether massacre' is the root of 'mazzacrium.'

6

A massacre signifies a number of men killed. There was yesterday a great massacre near Warsaw-near Cracow. We never say-There has been a massacre of a man; yet we do say-A man has been massacred: in that case it is understood that he has been killed barbarously by many blows.

Poetry makes use of the word 'massacred' for killed, assassinated.

Que par ses propres mains son père massacré.-Cinna.

An Englishman has made a compilation of all the massacres perpetrated on account of religion since the first centuries of our vulgar era.*

See the work entitled "Dieu et les Hommes," ch. xlii.

I have been very much tempted to write against the English author; but his memoir not appearing to be exaggerated, I have restrained myself. For the future I hope there will be no more such calculations to make. But to whom shall we be indebted for that?

MASTER.

SECTION I.

How unfortunate am I to have been born! said Ardassan Ougli, a young icoglan of the grand sultan of the Turks. Yet, if I depended only on the sultanbut I am also subject to the chief of my oda, to the cassigi bachi; and when I receive my pay, I must prostrate myself before a clerk of the teftardar, who keeps back half of it. I was not seven years old, when in' spite of myself I was circumcised with great ceremony and was ill for a fortnight after it. The dervise who prays to us is also my master; an iman is still more my master, and the mullah still more so than the iman. The cadi is another master, the kadeslesker a greater; the mufti a greater than all these together. The kiaia of the grand vizier with one word could cause me to be thrown into the canal; and finally, the grand vizier could have me beheaded, and the skin of my head stripped off, without any person caring about the

matter.

Great God, how many masters! If I had as many souls and bodies as I have duties to fulfil, I could not bear it. Oh Allah! why hast thou not made me an owl? I should live free in my hole, and eat mice at my ease, without masters or servants. This is assuredly the true destiny of man; there were no masters until it was perverted; no man was made to serve another continually. If things were in order, each should charitably help his neighbour. The quicksighted would conduct the blind; the active would be crutches to the lame. This world would be the paradise of Mahomet, instead of the hell which is formed precisely under the inconceivably narrow bridge.

Thus spoke Ardassan Ougli, after being bastinadoed by one of his masters.

Some years afterwards, Ardassan Ougli became a pacha with three tails. He made a prodigious fortune, and firmly believed that all men except the grand Turk and the grand vizier were born to serve him, and all women to give him pleasure according to his wishes.

SECTION II.

How can one man become the master of another? And by what kind of incomprehensible magic has he been able to become the master of several other men? A great number of good volumes have been written on this subject, but I give the preference to an Indian fable, because it is short, and fables explain everything.

Adimo, the father of all the Indians, had two sons and two daughters by his wife Pocriti. The eldest was a vigorous giant, the youngest was a little hunchback, the two girls were pretty. As soon as the giant was strong enough, he lay with his two sisters, and caused the little hunch-back to serve him. Of his two sisters, the one was his cook, the other his gardener. When the giant would sleep, he began by chaining his little brother to a tree; and when the latter filed from him, he caught him in four strides, and gave him twenty blows with the strength of an ox.

The dwarf submitted, and became the best subject in the world. The giant, satisfied with seeing him fulfil the duties of a subject, permitted him to sleep with one of his sisters, with whom he was disgusted. The children who sprung from this marriage were not quite hunch-backs, but they were sufficiently deformed. They were brought up in the fear of God and of the giant. They received an excellent education; they were taught that their uncle was a giant by divine right, who could do what he pleased with all his family; that if he had some pretty niece or grandniece, he should have her without difficulty, and not one should marry her unless he permitted it.

The giant dying, his son, who was neither so strong or so great as he was, believed himself to be like his father, a giant by divine right. He pretended to make all the men work for him, and slept with all the girls. The family leagued against him: he was killed, and they became a republic.

The Siamese pretend, that on the contrary the family commenced by being republican; and that the giant existed not until after a great many years and dissensions: but all the authors of Benares and Siam agree, that men lived an infinity of ages before they had the wit to make laws, and they prove it by an unanswerable argument, which is, that even at present, when all the world piques itself upon having wit, we have not yet found the means of making a score of laws passably good.

It is still, for example, an insoluble question in India, whether republics were established before or after monarchies; if confusion has appeared more horrible to men than despotism? I am ignorant how it happened in order of time, but in that of nature we must agree that men are all born equal: violence and ability made the first masters; laws have made the present.

MATTER.

SECTION I.

A polite Dialogue between a Demoniac and a Philosopher.

DEMONIAC.

YES, thou enemy of God and man, who believest that God is all-powerful, and is at liberty to confer the gift of thought on every being whom he shall vouchsafe to choose, I will go and denounce thee to the inquisitor; I will have thee burned. Beware, I warn thee for the last time.

PHILOSOPHER.

Are these your arguments? Is it thus you teach mankind? I admire your mildness.