ment of his wonder. A cross, rudely constructed of two unplaned and unpolished pieces of wood, bound together with a cord, in a sufficiently clumsy fashion, stood at the head of the grave; and at its foot, with their backs turned towards the baron, were two kneeling figures-the one, a grey-headed friar, bowed almost to the ground with weight of years the other, a graceful looking young person, whose fair hair hung in thick curls upon his shoulders, and who appeared to follow, in silence, the prayers which his aged companion was rapidly and indistinctly pouring forth for the departed.

The baron had no proof that this latter was the Minnesanger's son, and yet he could not doubt it for a moment. The conviction operated on him strangely, bringing a powerful revulsion of feeling. It could not be said that his former sanguinary purpose towards the poor boy revived, or that he actually resumed the unrelinquished obligation of his vow; but certainly his recent relentings of mind became on a sudden far less decided, and the long habit of ill-will which he had cherished towards the individual now before him was beginning again to assert its power.

The office was at length over, and the monk and his young companion rose from their knees.

Tarry here, my son," said the old man, "until my return. I will make what speed these old limbs will allow, for I would not that thou shouldst linger in this neighbourhood longer than is needful."

"Father," said the youth, "it vexeth my soul to hide me from the lord of yon castle, as if I were the felon manslayer that he is. Oh, father, should not he tremble before me, rather than I before him? Which of us hath a father's murder to avenge? Which of us a mother's cowardly persecution ? And to think that I-Ishould skulk here, within sight of his walls, within sight of that tower, by the side of this grave, and, with all around me that speaks to me of what I owe him, should care chiefly that his eye, the assassin's eye, light not on me! His eye! Should not the sight of me blast it? Should not he hide his grey felon-head from mine eye rather? Father, I say again, let me with you to the castle, not to beg but to claim to demand-a hallowed grave for the bones of my parent; ay, and to demand somewhat more-vengeance for his death”,

Boy, boy," cried the priest, "what frantic folly is this? Needs it, indeed, that I reply to these words of unreason? Rest thee: be obedient, if not to me, yet at least to thy mother, whose behest thou knowest I do. Thou wilt be thy father's avenger! And had he, then, who slew him, thinkest thou, nothing to avenge? Enough I go, not, indeed, wholly to beg, but to claim, for thy parent's bones a grave in consecrated ground-yet not to claim it in thy name, poor youth! but in the name of holy charity and of him whom I serve. Be content: thou goest not with me. It was not to lead thee into the lion's jaws that I engaged to thy mother."

The old man was turning away, when the youth, seizing his hand, exclaimed

"Hear me, father: it is not as the kid faces the lion, but as the hunter faces the crouching, dastard wolf, that I would face the caitiff-lord of that castle; but I obey. Yet hear me further, while I swear by that holy symbol which thy own hands have placed there, over the unblest clods that cover my parent's bones"—and he stooped down and kissed the cross.

"Beware what thou swearest," exclaimed the priest.

"I swear," cried the youth, impetuously, "that I leave not this place until these bones be honoured with the burial of a Christian man—and, further, I swear that if thou speed not in thine errand-if yon robber refuse"

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Stop, stop, thou hast sworn too much already. Most rashly hast thou sworn. Add not another word, I charge thee: I charge thee by the obedience thou owest as Christian man to God's priest-by the obedience thou owest as child to parent, to thy mother who committed thee to me, and who by me forbids thee to do aught against him against whom she has, though innocently, done too much-who forbids thee likewise, by me, to peril that young life of thine, which is more to her than her own life"

"And which is less to me than a dog's life," muttered the boy, "seeing I lead it in shame. I obey thee, father, and crave your pardon for my rude address just now: but what I have sworn I have sworn, and will keep."

"Thou hast sworn, indeed," said the old man, sighing heavily; "and evil, I fear me, will come of it."

With these words he turned away, and with hasty though feeble steps proceeded towards the castle, passing so near the place where the baron stood, that had not his eyes been bent on the ground, and his mind wholly absorbed in the thought of his errand, he must have seen that nobleman, who, however, saw him, and now recognised him for the old confessor, who had unaccountably disappeared at the same time with the lady and her child. It was some nineteen years since the baron had seen the old man, but though his head was now bowed down with the burden of all those years, and all his movements told of increased and increasing infirmity, the face was unaltered: indeed, for the last five and twenty years it had been unalterable, looking as old as it was well possible for a face to look. Nineteen lustres would have wrought no change there.

The baron had heard much, as the reader will perceive, that was not in tended for his ear; neither did he, as to the application of what he heard to himself, form any very striking exception to the general rule about listeners. When the youth spoke, the baron started, such recollections rushed upon him at the sound of those clear, silvery tones. It was not very decidedly in the boy's favour, however, that he, being the Minnesanger's son, should speak with the voice of the baron's wife. Yet for a moment the old warrior's stern heart felt softened. It was, in fact, "a toss-up" whether those well-remembered and once so much loved accents were to conciliate him towards the speaker or to awake in him deadlier hatred. The matter decided the point; there was nothing conciliating in that; and the baron felt really pleased as his old favourite purpose of vengeance began to stir in his heart, and to tingle along his veins, and to beat, as if claiming his attention, more and more strongly in his pulse. The more the boy called names, the more the baron was pleased with him; and at the moment of the oath, he could hardly refrain from crying, "Go it," or from cuffing the old priest when that reverend man interfered to prevent any more swearing just then. He would fain have heard what was to happen should the "robber" refuse the request about to be made, more in the nature of a claim, it seemed, than of a petition, upon him. It was very well,

however, as it stood, though it might have been better; and no sooner was the good father out of sight than our baron stepped forward and confronted the boy, on whom he gazed with his old peculiar grim smile, fixing his eyes on the fair face before him until surprise and anger at so discourteous a demeanour coloured it with a haughty flush.

"You are uncivil, friend," said the youth, sharply: "pass on your way, or I may be forced, as you wish, apparently, to recognise me when we meet again, to help your recollection even more effectually than this unmannered perusal of my features can do."

"Good sooth, fair mistress," said the baron, in a tone of mock gallantry, "there needeth small help to remember so comely a face: nevertheless, were I a younger gallant, I might crave, to the end of surer recognition, a salute of those dainty lips, but my time for such toyings hath been. Beshrew me, pretty one, but that boyish-I may scarce call it masculine-attire becometh thee bravely. What! I warrant me, thou keepest tryst here with some gamesome page from the old towers up yonder, and hast put thyself in this trim masquerade to cheat prying eyes, or 'scape rude hands, if any other than he thou favourest should chance to come in thy way. See, now, how little thy so promising device hath stood thee in stead. Ah, pretty rogue! those fair curls, those blue eyes, those smooth cheeks, that slim form, will not pass for the qualities of a lubberly boy. counsel thee to go home to thy mother, pretty lass, to thy mothersince thy truant comes not to tryst."

I

Rage held our stripling speechless : at length he spoke, and then not without swearing. The baron laughed.

"I begin," said he, "to suspect thou mayest be a 'boy' after all; that oath came out so roundly. And now, I bethink me, thy face hugely resembles that of a certain wanton woman, who bore a brat to a vagabond rhymer in these parts, it may be some sixteen years ago. The dog's bones lie buried here," continued the baron, spurning at the grave: "the female dog, as I learn, yet liveth, and kennelleth in too good a place for her, even in the religious house at Villich. Art thou a whelp of that breed ?"

"Now, by heaven, foul slanderer! thou shalt wash out thy base words

with the blood of thy false heart. My mother (that I should name her to ears like thine!) is a most pure and unhappy lady, most unlike the drab that brought thee forth, and as for my father".

"And as for thy father?-come, why dost thou stop? Hast nothing to say of thy father? Though, sooth to say, I suspect I could myself give the latest intelligence of him. Boy, knowest thou I was thy father's most particular friend. Alas! to me were his last words spoken. My arms were the last that supported him. My eyes were the last that his eyes met. It was a moving scene, i' faith. I had some trouble with him, but I took it willingly. I charged myself with his burial, too: had him buried here."

During this speech the boy grew paler and paler, and his eyes were fixed with a strange lustreless glare on the baron's. At that moment he looked like the unhappy Minnesanger while sitting beneath the parapet of the tower, before the baron's chirurgery had recalled him to sensation. But it was the deadly inspiration of revenge, not the stupor of fear, that had possession of the Minnesanger's son. He drew the sword, apparently more a thing of ornament than of offence or defence, that was at his side. "Draw," he said, in a piercing whisper; and as the baron, perhaps with some return of his remorseful feelings, delayed to obey, he smote him smartly with the flat of his sword, first on one cheek, then on the other, whispering, in the same piercing tone, as he struck, Liar! coward!" then, with a sharper stroke on the mouth, he screamed out, in tones of agony, as if he felt how terribly the blow he now gave the baron recoiled on himself, "Cuckold! cuckold! cuckold!" There scarcely needed this: the baron's sword was in his hand, and scarce half a dozen passes been made before his vow was accomplished; the Minnesanger's son was slain on the grave of his father.

What boots it to tell how the old confessor came hastening back,-haing, indeed, not got so far as to be out of hearing of the clashing swords, and how his words awakened the baron to keener remorse than that under which he had issued from his castle that morning; or why go now into details of the escape and bringing up of the boy-how he had been hurried, with his nurse, on board a small vessel even then on her voyage down the

Rhine, and got into the Low Countries, and thence into France-how he had been conveyed to a convent of the order to which the old confessor belonged-placed, with the young Andernacherinn, in the house of one of the vassals of the convent until he was of an age to be taken under the tuition of the holy fathers, from which, having completed his twelfth year, he passed into the retinue of a neighbouring seigneur, amongst whose followers he was received as the orphan of a noble but fallen house-how his nurse had told him just so much of the history of his parents as to satisfy him that they had been the most ill-used lady and gentleman in the world, and the baron a mere butchering villain-how he had had continual letters from his mother, but had never seen her until the day before that of his rencontre with the baron, when the two passions of pity and revenge took entire possession of his soul? Is not our story long enough without dilating further on these things? Rests now no more to be said save that a fair stone-cross rose, in a few days, on the spot whereon that young blood was shed, and that the evening of the day on which the structure was completed, the passing bell of the convent of Villich announced the departure of the soul of a sister, who, death-smitten from the hour wherein the death of the boy came to her ears, had yet, as it were, refused to die until that tribute were paid to the memory of what she had held most precious. The cross stands to this day, and is named Die Hochkreutz bey Bonn.

The baron had the remains of the Minnesanger removed to consecrated ground, and deposited in one sepulchre with those of the boy. The old confessor, now reinstated in the castle, laid it on him as a periance to spend the hour of nightfall, once in each month, on the top of the watch-tower, where, it was said, the minstrel's ghost used regularly to come, in a state of what the "free and enlightened" would call "immortal smash," and stay with him for company. The baron also laid on himself a penance of his own. He was getting into years, and had promised himself that the evening of his life should be given to repose, but his conscience, he found, would not suffer him to take his ease while his victim yet walked, a disconsolate ghost, above ground. He therefore returned to the road, and pursued his

regulations of the Grecian republics are familiar to every general reader. And though among the Romans the preservation of health was less minutely regulated by law, it was yet superintended with a care unknown in modern legislation. We need but appeal in proof of this assertion to their gymnasia, their public baths, their magnificent system of sewerage, and their still more splendid and costly public works for ensuring an abundant supply of water to the inhabitants of their towns, undertakings which even still in many instances, confer inestimable benefits on the existing generation, and are living evidence of the great importance attached by the Roman authorities to the maintenance of the public health, and of the wise and practical methods which they adopted to ensure it. Did space permit, we might further illustrate their provident watchfulness over the public health, by adducing a celebrated example of salubrity being conferred on the inhabitants of an entire town by a judicious change in its locality. But a still more remarkable fact implying indeed a most advanced state of the science of preserving the health of communities is afforded by the sanatory condition of the Roman troops, whether on naval or military service. We do not read that then, as in modern times, whole armies were disabled by disease, and that expeditions involving the honour, safety, nay, even the very existence of a nation, were frustrated by ravages of disease, incident on the ignorance or neglect of preventive medicine.

In the present day we hear so much of the march of intellect, we know so much of the progress that has been made by human science generally, and by practical medicine, in common with other departments of knowledge, that it might naturally be anticipated, that political medicine had participated in that onward course, which, whether for ultimate good or evil, so peculiarly marks the present era. And this anticipation would seem the more reasonable, inasmuch as political medicine being as it were a creation of civilization, increases in importance, and becomes the more useful and necessary, precisely in the proportion that population augments, and that our social condition and state of civilization become more complex and refined. A short examination of facts, however, will soon convince us that matters are situated in a way far different from that in which we might naturally expect to find them. The truth is that political medicine has

well nigh fallen into neglect and desuetude. We find indeed its name and shadow interwoven with customs and laws constituting the very essence of our civil and personal liberty, or professing to guarantee the physical welfare of both the community and the individual: but it is only the name and shadow that are there, marrow, pith, and substance are well nigh gone, and only enough remains to make us regret what might be.

It is by no means our intention to enter into a history of state medicine, for by this name the branch of science in question is most familiarly known. But we shall briefly examine a few of its most important applications, which will exemplify on the one hand the incalculable benefits that it actually has conferred on the human race, and on the other the terrible evils which are allowed to exist from its being imperfectly administered or even utterly neglected.

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Indisputably, the greatest triumph that preventive medicine has hitherto achieved consists in the discovery of vaccination, a discovery which has become interwoven with the social policy of every civilized community, and whose practice is even enforced by the legislature of every European nation except the one which gave it birth. In England consequently vaccination has never accomplished the full measure of good which it might have produced, for its protective tendency has been stantly marred by perverse ignorance, unchecked by any efficient legislation, assiduously labouring to perpetuate the deadliest scourge of the human race, by an obstinate persistence in the practice of inoculation. But notwithstanding such a disadvantage, vaccination has even in England produced such results, that, to use Dr. Maunsell's words, "It cannot but serve our hearts to contemplate their magnitude, and to endeavour to appreciate the greatness of the blessing which Jenner was the fortunate instrument of conferring on his species."

We shall let Dr. Maunsell himself recount a few, and but a few, of those results :

"From an examination of the London bills of mortality, during a period of fortytwo years, Dr. Jurin found, that one in fourteen of all who were born died of small-pox; by Frank, Süssmilch, and Black, the general mortality of the human race from this disease was estimated at about eight or nine per cent. Duvillard states, that of 100 born, only four reached