and its venom is said to be so exalted that if it bites a staff it will kill the person who makes use of it; but this,” Dr. Owen remarks, “is without a voucher.” Our author is not the sort of man to be humbugged, you see, with idle tales. It is no use telling him that the cockatrice is an illicit offspring of chanticleer, or that the alligators of the Nile are baked by the sun out of mud, or that the salamander is able to live in the fire. Nor will he credit Sir William Temple’s account of the conversation between Prince Maurice and the “Rational Parrot” of Brazil, and, remarking that it was believed in by Mr. Locke, thus moralises: “Wonder not, then, if you meet in this history with some romantic sentiments entertained by learned men concerning serpents when two such illustrious pillars of the commonwealth of letters gave way to a relation that has so much of the marvellous in it.”
In the second part of his work Dr. Owen bids farewell to the physical, and enters upon the supernatural history of serpents, discoursing in deliciously quaint language upon the character and appearance of the reptiles which we meet with in Scripture, beginning with the old serpent of Eden himself; and gravely argues that it was not a real terrestial creature which tempted mother Eve, but the Prince of Darkness in the guise of a serpent, or mounted upon one, as some Rabbinical writers say, “in bulk equal to a camel, and known by the name Sammael, an Evil Angel.” Most learnedly does he discourse touching the Pagan worship of serpents; but into this we cannot follow him. Who can say that future generations will not take up some of our scientific works, and derive as much amusement from the mistakes they may be found to contain, 120 years hence, as the reader may have now out of the honest Warrington doctor’s “Solo on the Serpent?”
RICHER THAN EVER.
A WIFE’S STORY.
A sneer upon another’s lip—
A foolish, fancied slight,
O’er the young summer of our lives
Had cast estrangement’s blight;
And courtesy usurped the place
Where wedded love should reign—
Ah! mocking wealth! thy gauds were flung
To such chilled hearts in vain!
There came an hour, the changeful god
Revoked his gifts and fled;
And Ruin, with her cruel eyes,
Sat brooding in his stead.
Then, to my couch at night he came,
And with a lingering kiss,
“Poor girl!” he said, “I never dreamed
Thy fate would change like this!
“The little fortune leaves is thine—
Myself, I will not care,
Where this now homeless form may stray,
Or what fresh sorrows bear.
“Yet hope my aimless life had stirred,
Couldst thou have loved as I”—
He paused. “Perhaps ’tis better thus;”
Yet ended with a sigh.
With joyful tears and broken words,
My arms were round him thrown;
Oh, ecstasy! what recked I else,
If he was all my own!
Now, blessings on my cottage home!
Where, when my babe’s at rest,
I fling my work aside to go
And lean upon his breast;
To press the hands that toil to make
My own a happy life;
And list unwearied to the voice
Which calls me dear, dear wife!
ANA.
Easterling Money.—A manuscript in the Cottonian Collection, “Faustina,” E. V., art. x., fol. 52 a, written by Arthur Argade, derives the term “sterling” money as follows:—“I suppose the name by meanes of Easterlings from vs, being Germaynes brought up in the mynes of sylver and copper there, were vsed here in England for the reducynge and refynynge the diuesyte of coynes into a perfect standard. As in the beginning of the Quene’s Mat. raigne they were brought hyther by Alderman Lodge (wth whom I was famylyarlye acquaynted) by her Mat’s. order for the refynynge of o base coignes. And this he toulde me, that the mooste of them in meltynge fell syke to death wth the saoure, so they were advised to drynke in a dead man’s skull for theyre recure. Whereupon he, wth others who had thoversyght of that worke, procured a warrent from the counsaille to take off the heades vppon London Bridge, and make cuppes thereof, whereof they dranke and found some reliefe althoughe the moost of them dyed.”
When Lord Erskine was admitted a freeman of the Fishmongers’ Company, I partook of the inauguration dinner, and, of course, he made a speech on the occasion. On coming home, he said to me, “I spoke ill to-day, and stammered and hesitated in the opening.” I said, “You certainly floundered, but I thought you did so in compliment to the fishmongers.”—M. J.
