bare-footed as well as bare-legged, and the infants they carry in their arms are entirely naked. No doubt they belong to the lower classes of society. In our last cut (page 356), we have seen a woman leading by the hand a child of a more advanced age, who is similarly naked. These examples would seem to show that, among the lower orders of Anglo-Saxon society, the children were allowed to go naked until the age when they could be left to walk about by themselves.

As stated before, the wife, though above all the rest of the family, was inferior to and dependent upon her husband. He was the sole possessor, and everything in the house originated from him. If he made war, the spoils taken from the enemy, as far as his followers were concerned, belonged to him, and he distributed them among his warriors. The duty of distributing his gifts appears to have been considered to belong to his wife, and was performed at the great feasts. Then the chieftain's wife, the lady of the household, from time to time, rose from her seat and crossed the hall, and not only served the ale or mead to the guests, but delivered to them the presents destined for them by her husband; and in this she was assisted by her daughters, or by some other noble females attached to her person. In the poem of Beowulf, Hrothgar's queen is represented as performing this office :—

Hwílum mæru cwén,
friðu-sibb folca,
flet eall geond-hwearf,
badde byras geonge;
oft hió beáh-wriðan
secge sealde,

ær híc to setle gong.
Hwílum for dugude
dóhtor Hróðgáres
eorlum on ende
ealu-wæge bær,
pa ic Freáware
flet-sittende
nemnan hyrde,
þær hió gled-sinc
hælepum sealde.

At times the great queen,
the peace-tie of peoples,
all traversed the hall,
her young sons addressed;
often she a ringed wreath

gave to the warrior,

before she returned to her seat.

At times before the nobles

Hrothgar's daughter
to the earls in order
bore the ale-cup,
whom I Freáware

the court residents

heard name,

where she bright treasure

gave to the warriors.

"Beowulf," 1. 4038.

On reading this, we more fully understand the force of the passage of the Gnomic Poem in the Exeter Book, which tells how an earl's

wife-earl was the title assumed by the head of the family-was

If the head of the family had store of bread, it showed that he possessed broad lands, and that he cultivated them. There were three words in the Anglo-Saxon language, which indicated, almost poetically, the position of the different parts of the family towards each other. The chieftain himself was called the hlaf-ord, the origin or source of the bread, he to whom it belonged; his wife was the hlaf-dig, the distributor of the bread; his retainers and his servants, and all who lived at his table, were called hlaf-atas, eaters of the bread. The two former words, hlaford and hlafdig gradually took a nobler place in our language, and are now represented by the well-known words lord and lady.

It has been supposed that it was only towards the tenth century that the women of the household gained the right of sitting at table with the men, and that this is evidence of a great advance in their social position. This, however, may be an assumption founded too hastily upon our mere want of knowledge. We must bear in mind that the dinners described by the poets and other early writers are usually great feasts, more or less of a ceremonial character. The guests seem not generally to have taken their ladies with them, and the ladies of the household who were worthy to accompany their chief and his lady were few in number; and it is not stated by the writers who describe these scenes that they were not in the hall. I have shown, in a previous chapter (STUDENT, No. III., p. 172), that, according to the ideas of the Scandinavian mythology, the gods and goddesses sate together in hall, without any distinction. We find several pictures of table scenes in the later Anglo-Saxon manuscripts, of which we give one in the accompanying cut. It is taken from the manuscript of Alfric's translation of Genesis (MS. Cotton., Claudius, B. IV., fol. 36, v°), where it is intended to represent the feast given by Abraham on the occasion of the birth of his child. The guests are seated at a long table, and are in the act of drinking from the ale-cups, and pledging each other. It will be seen that men and women are here mixed together without any order, the latter distinguished by having their heads always covered with the head-rail.

It may be doubted, indeed, whether this picture of the two sexes sitting together indiscriminately at table be a proof of

an improvement in woman's position in society; but there can be no doubt, that for this improvement she was indebted in a great measure to the interference of the Christian clergy. They laboured to destroy, or at least to diminish, the old patriarchal spirit, and to emancipate the female sex from the too great authority of fathers and husbands. Some old customs were abolished at an early period after the introduction of Christianity. Among these was polygamy, which certainly existed among some branches of the German race, and which we have seen was practised among the gods of Scandinavian fable. There can hardly be a doubt of its existence among the Anglo-Saxons, at least in their earlier times, because at a later period we find it forbidden by law. One of the code of laws of the Northumbrian priests prohibits, "with God's prohibitions, that any man have more wives than one."* This prohibition, it will be remarked, belongs to the ecclesiastical law; it is not found in the secular laws. It appears to have been the usual custom throughout the Germanic race, when a head of a family died, leaving a wife by a second marriage, that the son and heir married his step-mother. Perhaps she was considered as a part of the father's property, and therefore of the son's heritage. This practice was proscribed by the Church. Ethelbert, King of Kent, the first Anglo-Saxon king who embraced Christianity, took a second wife after the death of his first queen, the Frankish princess, Bertha. His son, Eadbald, was in his heart * "Ancient Laws and Institutes of England," vol. ii., p. 301. VOL. I.-NO. VI.

G G

opposed to the new faith. When Ethelbert died, in 616, and Eadbald succeeded to the throne, the latter at once rejected Christianity, and, returning to the customs of his ancestors, married his father's widow. The well-known miracle by which King Eadbald was converted and reformed is related by Bede, who tells that he abjured the worship of idols, and renounced his unlawful marriage"-unlawful, of course, only under the ecclesiastical laws. At a later date, Ethelwulf, King of Wessex, the father of Alfred, in his old age took for his second wife Judith, the daughter of Charles the Bald, of France. On his death, in the year following (857), his son Ethelbald, who succeeded him, married his widow, Judith. The clergy were indignant, and Swithun, Bishop of Winchester, persuaded him to separate himself from her.

(To be continued.)

STEIN ON THE INFUSORIA.-BOUNDARIES OF

THE GROUP.

THE second part of Dr. Friederich Stein's great work on the organization of Infusoria, "Der Organismus der Infusionsthiere," contains a great mass of important matter. We propose, from time to time, to lay some of his principal facts, observations, and theories, before our readers.

Referring to the classification of Infusoria, he recites Lachmann's observations on the outward openings of the contractile vesicles of an Acineta which he discovered on a water-beetle, and observes that Lachmann rightly concluded that these organs are not to be regarded as heart-like centres of a circulatory system, but as excretory organs. Lachmann differed afterwards from the opinion of his friend Claparède, and wished to replace the Rhizopod-Infusoria in the class of Infusoria. The only definite reason for this course (with which Joh. Müller coincides) is, that the Rhizopod-Infusoria possess, like all real Infusoria, contractile vessels; but the undoubted Rhizopods do not possess them. It is not clear why this reasonthe correctness of which is not at all yet decided-should be made thus decisive, as it is opposed by an equally important one, which, in an equal degree, demands and justifies the connection of the Rhizopod-Infusoria with the other Rhizopods, namely, that all real Infusoria move by means of cilia; but that, on the contrary, the Rhizopod-Infusoria move, like all other Rhizopods, by means of pseudopodia. All the rest of their organization, and especially their

manner of taking food, and the rejection of the indigestible remains, speaks clear enough for the connection of the Rhizopod-Infusoria with the true Rhizopods. The Infusoria which take solid food, and which are certainly the greater number, possess always on invariable parts of the body a mouth and an anus; the Rhizopods and Rhizopod-Infusoria, on the contrary, are able to take in and excrete solid matter at all parts of the surface of their bodies, or, at any rate, throughout a larger or smaller portion of their surface; but in no case has a real mouth or anus been discovered.

Even the Acinetans, who do not possess a real mouth or anus, stand, as regards taking food, in a totally different relation to the Rhizopod-Infusoria, and these latter could, were they to be arranged with the Infusoria, only be placed between the Acinetans, and the Flagellate-Infusoria, because the Acinetans take only fluid food with the widened points of their suckers. And then would it be possible to separate animals who are in most regards so similar to each other as the genus Euglypha, Duj.; Cyphoderia, Schlumb. (Lagynis, Schultze), Trinema, Duj.; and Coryzia, Duj., on one side, and the genus Gromia on the other, without a violation of nature? Therefore it is not to be doubted that Rhizopod-Infusoria are to be ranked with the class of the Rhizopods.

E. Haeckel also defends this position in his masterly Monograph of the Radiolaria. On the other hand it seems to him indeed as if the Rhizopod-Infusoria formed a thoroughly distinct division of organisms, sharply opposed to the general mass of all the other Rhizopods, there being no possibility as yet of placing them in a systematical position, as their animal nature is even not yet sufficiently settled. It would be conceivable to doubt the animal nature of the Amoba,* considering the facts known with regard to the Myxomicetes; but it appears very strange that Haeckel raises also doubts concerning the animal nature of the Arcellinæ, in which he differs from all hitherto received opinions. Proceeding from a theoretical point of view, Haeckel has arrived at very singular notions concerning the limits between the animal and vegetable kingdoms which should have aroused his misgivings with regard to the principles from which he took his departure, as they are in contradiction to the results of all the modern researches on Infusoria. In fact, Haeckel comprises in the class of the Infusoria only my orders of the Peritrichal,† Hypotrichal, Heterotrichal, and Holotrichal * Dr. Wallich's researches are quite sufficient to decide the animal nature of the Amœbæ.-ED.

+ For explanation of these divisions see STUDENT for May.-ED.