Nous l'avons eu, votre Rhin allemand,
Que faisaient vos vertus germaines,
Quand notre César tout-puissant

De son ombre couvrait vos plaines?
Où donc est-il tombé ce dernier ossement?
Nous l'avons eu, votre Rhin allemand,
Si vous oubliez votre histoire,
Vos jeunes filles, sûrement,

Ont mieux gardé notre mémoire:
Elles nous ont versé votre petit vin blanc.
S'il est à vous, votre Rhin allemand,

Lavez-y donc votre livrée;

Mais parlez-en moins fièrement,
Combien, au jour de la curée,

Étiez-vous de corbeaux contre l'aigle expirant?
Qu'il coule en paix, votre Rhin allemand!
Que vos cathédrales gothiques

S'y reflètent modestement !

Mais craignez que vos airs bachiques

Ne réveillent les morts de leur repos sanglant. The only chanson de circonstance which has achieved any success in Paris is the 'Je suis Chauvin,' by Saint-Germain, of the Vaudeville, who sang it at a meeting of the Caveau before the news of disaster came :

LE CHANSON D'AUJOURD'HUI

M. de Clésien sent us, in the Indépendance Bretonne, a song, of which the following are the best stanzas:

Voici les Bretons, aujourd'hui Français,
Avançant toujours, ne cédant jamais! (bis)

Ils n'ont plus leur casque et le fier cimier,
Mais ils ont leur front dur comme l'acier.
En avant, Bretons, en avant toujours!
Notre chant guerrier vaut mille tambours !
Combattant joyeux, à pied, à cheval,
Lance ou chassepot, ça nous est égal!
Des pleurs ont coulé sur nos ceinturons,
Dans le sang prussien nous les laverons.
Femmes, mères, sœurs, soyez à genoux
Quand nous combattrons pour vous et pour nous.
L'amour du pays est un bel amour,

Et nous reverrons nos clochers à jour! When the false news of victory arrived, the populace was half frantic with joy; in the midst of the excitement, the tenor Capoul was recognized on the Place de la Bourse, and the mob insisted on his singing the 'Marseillaise,' which he did from the top of an omnibus (arrested for the purpose), with a terrific chorus of thousands of voices. A like scene occurred on the Boulevard, where Madame Sass roused the feelings of her rough-and-ready audience to a pitch of excitement which, under different circumstances, might have overturned a throne.

The revulsion of feeling, the fearful explosion of rage which occurred when the news was found to be totally unfounded, was dangerous. The Bourse got credit at once for its fabrication, and the berceau, or railed ring within which the agents de change transact business, was torn up from the floor and demolished. Difficulties occurred in

several quarters, and the anxiety of the Government was intense-a single spark thrown by accident or otherwise in that heated mass and all would have been in a blaze. The excitement has to a certain extent passed away, but the feverish thirst for news of a happy turn of fortune in the field is terrible, and we feel as if we were sitting on a mine with sparks all around us. The commencement of the arming of the fortifications of Paris, the announcement that 33,000 men will complete the defences in a week, the summoning

of every man under thirty years of age to join the garde mobile, and of all under forty-five to serve in the garde nationale, with Paris declared in a state of siege, and the head-quarters of the army removed from Nancy to Châlons-sur-Marne (half-way on the road to Paris), these facts have produced an impression on all classes of the population which is dreadful to regard and impossible to escape from.

When the defeats were first made known the despair of the people was indescribable, and the tone of the despatches from the frontier, of the ministerial mandates, and of the press, was not of a nature to rouse a spirit fitting the occasion. This was soon seen, and has to a great extent been corrected; and a writer in one of the Parisian papers had the happy idea of invoking the shade of the chansonnier of chansonniers-every line of which rings like a trumpet, and which no one but Béranger could have penned. The following stanzas might have been written to-day-had there been a second Béranger:

De la France !

Gai, gai, serrons nos rangs,

En avant, Gaulois et Francs!

Yes, says the journalist, M. Émile Blayet, "Serrons nos rangs! et que cette voix d'outretombe nous indique ce qu'il reste à faire."

All the theatres have given performances in aid of the fund for the wounded. At the Français a duologue, entitled 'Pour les Blessés,' written for the occasion by M. Eugène Manuel, was played by M. Coquelin and Malle. Favart; the former representing a wounded soldier, the latter his young nurse. The following are the most noticeable passages.

Le Blessé opens his eyes, sees near him the sweet devoted face of the young infirmière, and tells how he was wounded:

Nous avions combattu tout le jour sans relâche.
Dans nos rangs, pas un homme ébranlé, pas un lâche !
Et, quand on attaquait, nous entonnions ce chant
Qui vous fait triompher déjà, rien qu'en marchant.
A ce moment, chaque âme est ferme et bien munie:
Sous le regard de Dieu, seule, elle communie;
A ceux qu'on aime on donne un dernier souvenir.
Dieu seul dirait comment bat le coeur d'une armée
Qui court en frémissant à travers la fumée.
Le sacrifice est fait et la mort peut venir.
On ne se pose plus de problème inutile:
Pourquoi l'on meurt, pourquoi l'on tue ou l'on mutile,
Pourquoi ce but vivant qu'on vise à l'horizon.
Chacun boit d'un seul trait la coupe où l'on s'enivre;
On ne demande plus s'il faut mourir ou vivre:
Une force inconnue emporte la raison !

LA JEUNE FEMME.

Votre voix est trop animée.
J'ai peur d'avoir tant écouté.
Est-elle donc si bien fermée,
Hélas! la blessure enflammée
Qui saignait à votre côté ?..
LE BLESSÉ.

La plaine n'était plus qu'une paille hachée
Où le sang abreuvait la terre desséchée.
J'avais vu près de moi rouler de chers amis;
Mais j'avançais toujours: je me l'étais promis.
Nous franchissions vergers, ruisseaux, ravins, collines,
Hameaux, où le canon n'a laissé que ruines;

J'avais chaud, j'avais soif, et j'étais affamé.
Sur mon cœur j'avais mis un portrait bien-aimé,
Ma mère,
-un talisman sacré pour qui s'expose,
Quand d'un vieux bâtiment, dont la porte était close,
Un poste d'habits verts fit feu subitement;
Et, sans pousser un cri, je tombai lourdement.
(Elle lui prend la main.)

J'entendais le clairon, couché contre une haie:
Et tandis qu'à l'attaque on faisait rude accueil,
Je sentais s'écouler tout le sang de ma plaie.
Alors de mes vingt ans je pris tout bas le deuil,
Et je m'évanouis dans un rêve d'orgueil...

*

*

Other theatres have had their pièces de circonstance, or verses, but they are generally unworthy of notice from a literary point of view.

The war the other day furnished a good many spectators with the rare exhibition of a million of money. A foreign banker presented a draft for one million of francs and received the whole of it in five-franc pieces. The mass half filled the yard of the Banque de France, and was watched over by the Gardes de Paris while the banker got it conveyed away in furniture vans. The legal weight of a silver five-franc piece is 25 grammes, and a ton contains exactly one million grammes, so that the banker had just 25 tons of silver to carry away.

MR. J. P. COLLIER AND CHAUCER'S 'TESTAMENT OF LOVE.'

*

Y.

August 2, 1870.

SINCE my controversy with Mr. J. P. Collier in your columns about a year ago, as to whether he was the first person, as he claimed to be, who had stated publicly that the 'Testament of Love' was not Chaucer's, and whether his statement was of any value, his 'Bibliographical Catalogue,' 1865, has come into my hands; and at page 424 of vol. ii. is the following important contradictory passage on the question at issue, although Mr. Collier quoted in your columns a MS. entry of his, dated Oct. 20, 1855, saying that Chaucer did not write the Testament.' +

"He [Taylor the Water-Poet] summarily settles the disputed question of the place of Chaucer's birth, observing of Woodstock, 'The towne is a pretty market-towne, chiefly famous for the breeding of the famous Jeffrey Chaucer, the most ancient Archpoet of England.' Leland asserts that Chaucer was born in Oxfordshire or Berkshire; but how are we to reconcile this statement with that of the Poet himself, who, in his 'Testament of Love,' tells us that he was 'a Londoner'? This agrees with Stow, Speght's Chaucer, 1598, sign b. ii., who says that Chaucer's father, Richard, was a vintner in St. Mary Aldermary. We do not, of course, take Taylor to be any authority on the point."

Is Mr. Collier one, I ask, on the authenticity of the 'Testament of Love'? In 1855, he says, he wrote that it was not Chaucer's; in 1865, as against Taylor and Leland, he printed that it was Chaucer's; as against Mr. Bradshaw's proof to me in 1863-5, that Chaucer did not write the book, Mr. Collier produces a private entry in October, 1865, and a printed one in August, 1867, that the poet did not write it either, and that for many years he (Mr. Collier) had entertained that opinion. Black is white, and black is black: Mr. Collier can prove either assertion. F. J. FURNIVALL.

MONUMENTS OF THE DISCOVERIES OF THE
PORTUGUESE IN AFRICA.

A FEW notes from a learned paper upon this subject, read before the Royal Academy of Sciences, at Lisbon, on the 11th of March, 1869, by an officer of the Portuguese navy, Senhor Castilho, will perhaps be acceptable to many readers interested in the history of African discovery, to whom the original paper may not be readily accessible.

* I am ready to declare my belief that [Mr. Collier's] assertion is not worth a straw to Chaucer students, "F. J. F." in Athenæum, No. 2166, May 1, 1869, p. 607, col. 1.

+ If called upon to show how long this notion had possessed my mind, I might go back, not, like Mr. Furnivall, to 1863, but to 1855, when I first obtained Godfray's impression of Chaucer's works, printed in 1532, where the 'Testament of Love' originally appeared. I then read it with all attention; and I may here, perhaps, be allowed to quote my own memorandum upon the title-page, made as I proceeded with the perusal. It runs precisely thus: "It may be remarked how late in the sentence Chaucer often places the verb in this prose work: see folio cccxxx, &c. Query, Was it by Chaucer? Certainly not, Oct. 20, 1855." Mr. J. P. Collier in the Athenæum, No. 2167, May 8, 1869, p. 638, col. 3.

It was a custom of the early Portuguese navigators, Senhor Castilho tells us, to record the discovery of new territories by the erection thereon of simple crosses of wood, in some instances accompanied by a representation of the arms of Portugal, and the date of discovery, rudely graven upon some neighbouring tree. But they rarely determined the geographical positions of the new localities; and as these frail memorials soon disappeared, it was thought desirable to substitute for them some more permanent erections to establish the claim to priority of discovery, and to preclude the possibility of international disputes. Hence, in the reign of Dom John II. it became a usual practice to provide discovery ships with materials for the erection of monuments of marble or dressed stone in suitable situations, each padrão, or memorial column, being surmounted by a cross, as a symbol of the protection which was ever invoked for our conquests, and in the hope that communication might be thereby opened up with Prester John, who was reported to hold the Christian faith." It must be observed that these memorials have been generally described by English and French geographers as crosses, a term which has led to some misconception. The monuments described by Senhor Castilho as set up on the shores of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans are twelve in number. Of these, three erected by Diogo Cam, and three by Bartholemew Diaz, are referable to the reign of Dom John II., and the remaining six, planted by Vasco da Gama, to the reign of Dom Manuel. The learned and painstaking João de Barrós, who has been styled the Portuguese Livy, describes the memorials of Diogo Cam as follows:-They were double the height of a man, and surmounted by a cross of dressed stone. They bore upon one side the royal arms, and upon the opposite an inscription recording, in Portuguese and Latin, the discovery of the territory, "by order of the king," the date thereof, and the name of the commander by whom the column was erected. (J. de Barrós, "Da Asia.") Some writers assert that a third inscription, in Arabic, was added. Senhor Castilho observes, that the columns, which are still in existence, or were a few years back, agree satisfactorily with De Barrós' description. He gives the annexed details of the twelve columns above referred to, arranged in chronological order.

marino,' 1866,) this monument was composed of a cylindrical column, without pediment, 2 m. 64 in height, and Om. 2 to Om. 3 in diameter, terminating in a parallelopiped Om. 44 in height, and of Om. 50 side, formed of a single block-the whole of white veined marble. The armorial bearings were the same as in the preceding examples. The inscription was illegible. M. Rudzky found, surmounting the column, a rudely-fashioned cross of iron, much rusted, upon one of the arms of which, in copper letters soldered to the iron plate, was MERCURE, 27 Jer, 1848." This addition was removed forthwith, and on the subsequent visit of M. Lopez the cross itself had disappeared, but the column remained.

1. A column dedicated to S. Jorge, situated on what is now marked upon English charts as Turtle Point, on south side of mouth of Congo River. This monument had suffered much from the ravages of time, and possibly from the ill-usage of early Dutch settlers, and by order of the Portuguese Government, it was replaced by a new column, bearing a suitable inscription, on 13th September, 1859. Later official reports state that the new memorial was carried away by a flood in 1864. The date of the original was probably 1484, although most writers make it 1485.

The columns erected by Bartholemew Diaz, Senhor Castilho assumes to have differed little, if at all, from those of his contemporary Diogo Cam. They were:

name.

1. A column dedicated to S. Jago, erected at the end of the year 1486, or at the beginning of 1487, upon a spot designated "Serra Parda" (the brown hills). Much discussion has been caused by this M. Castilho refers the site to Point Bartholemew Diaz, in long. 15° 2′ or 16′ E., Greenwich, and lat. 26° 35′ S. on the south side of the bay containing the Shark, Seal, and Penguin Islands. This point, he says, has two small dark-coloured hillocks, which present the appearance of an island at a short distance. In confirmation of his supposition, he adds, that Captains Sir Home Popham and Thompson, of the British navy, when examining this coast in 1786, found remains upon this spot; and in 1845, when M. Saisset undertook to restore the monuments, he found stones, with traces of inscriptions upon them, on the hummocks aforesaid. These remains were, however, too fragmentary to allow him to carry his project into effect.

2. A column upon Cape St. Maria, now Cape St. Augustine, long. 12° 29′ 24" E., Greenwich, lat. 13° 27′ 15′′ S.; date 1485. Mr. Major (Life of Prince Henry,' pp. 331 and 346), to whose scrupulous exactitude M. Castilho pays the highest tribute, places the site on Cape Negro, lat. 15° 50′ 0′′ S. This is evidently an error. Senhor Castilho observes that no doubt can exist upon the subject, inasmuch as the column was seen by him on Cape St. Augustine (at the distance of a mile), in 1851, and was measured by one of his brother officers, M. Lopez, in 1854. It proved to be 2 m. in total height. It was cylindrical to a height of 1m. 7 from the ground, the remaining portion being worked to a four-sided prism of Om. 3 side. On one face were the arms of Portugal, and on the others some nearly illegible Gothic characters. Upon the W. face was "XXXI." in Roman letters; also "Serra do Pilar, 10.5.54-QC." On the E. face, EC. and an English name almost illegible. These, it need hardly be said, were modern embellishments.

3. A column on Cape Negro, long. 11° 53′ 54′′ E., Greenwich, lat. 15° 40′ 30′′ S., erected in 1485. According to MM. Cecille and Rudzky ('Annales Maritimes, 1137; Annaes do Conselho Ultra

2. A column dedicated to S. Cruz or S. Gregorio, generally asserted to have been erected on St. Croix (Cape Colony) in 1487. M. Castilho, after a careful collation of the accounts of the voyage, &c. of Mesquita Perestrello, who was despatched to visit this coast in 1575, is disposed to place it on the point of Cape Padrone (Padrão) long. 26° 35′ E., Greenwich, lat. 33° 45' S.; but he admits that the data are insufficient to enable us to arrive at any certain conclusion.

3. A column named after S. Filippe, chronologically the last erected by Diaz. Date, 1487. Site, indisputably the Cape of Good Hope itself.

The columns erected by Vasco da Gama probably differed little from the above. They are believed to have borne two escutcheons-one containing the quinas, or five small escutcheons placed crosswise which form the centre charge of the arms of Portugal; and the other, the "armillary sphere" of Dom Manuel, besides inscriptions. They were six in number.

Literary Gossip.

Worthing, August 9, 1870. A discovery I have recently made of a series of documents can hardly fail to interest many of your readers. They reveal the long-hidden mystery of the story of the establishment of the Globe and Blackfriars theatres. In the course of a long experience no papers have come to my hands which dissipate such a mass of conjecture, and throw 80 much new light upon the history of the Elizabethan stage. It is now certain that Shakespeare, who is more than once alluded to by name, was never a proprietor in either theatre. His sole interest in them consisted in a participation, as an actor, in the receipts of "what is called the house." This technical expression I do not recollect to have met with elsewhere, and it is at present a tiresome obstacle to the complete understanding of the position held by the great dramatist. Any one who can explain it would confer a real obligation. Does the phrase still linger in the theatrical vocabulary?

J. O. HALLIWELL.

A VOLUME of Essays, by Prof. Seeley, collected from magazines, is to be published in the autumn, when Prof. Seeley's lectures on Roman History will also appear.

of his edition of Plato-which may be expected WE understand that after the publication shortly-Prof. Jowett purposes to devote himself to a theological work.

WE submit the following Parisian mot to the consideration of Mr. Disraeli. A dramatic author accosts a critic, who had written a severe notice on the former's play, in the following terms :-"Vous éreintez ma pièce, et vous ne seriez seulement pas capable d'en écrire une scène."--"Pardon, cher monsieur, mais pourtant à la cour d'assises, le juré qui condamne n'est pas précisément forcé d'avoir commis le crime."

THE Rev. George Gilfillan is engaged on a new 'Life of Sir Walter Scott.' It will be published by Messrs. Oliphant, of Edinburgh.

In the Marquis of Lothian's volume of early Anglo-Saxon Homilies, the date of 971 A.D. has been found, but whether it is the date of the author or copier is not yet determined.

AN American Professor, who rejoices in the name of Sophocles, has published a lexicon of Greek of the Roman and Byzantine periods, which, according to the New York Nation, will "smite awe into the hearts of Tregelles and Tischendorf and Lachman." As we have not yet seen Prof. Sophocles' Dictionary, we cannot tell what effect it may produce on Dr. Tregelles or Dr. Tischendorf, but it must be

an extraordinary work if it affects Lachmann, as that great scholar died in 1851.

We also learn from the Nation, that Prof. Goodwin, of Harvard College, is editing an English version of Plutarch's Moralia,' founded upon the English versions of 1684-94, and the earlier one of 1603-57. An introductory essay by Mr. Emerson will be prefixed to the book, which will be in five volumes. THE first part of the Rev. W. W. Skeat's new edition of 'Barbour's Brus' will be ready in September.

THE public meeting of the five Academies of the French Institute, which was to have been held on the 13th of August, is postponed. WE hear that the able article on The Text of Chaucer,' in the last number of the Edinburgh Review, is from the pen of Prof. Baynes, of St. Andrews.

M. HECTOR MALOT has published another novel 'Une Bonne Affaire.' This is the third novel M. Malot has written within twelve months. Among other new novels we have 'Le Roman d'un libre Penseur,' by Mme. Audebert, and 'Un Millionnaire,' &c., by M. A. Assolant. THE Government of Madras have returned thanks to those gentlemen who have voluntarily undertaken to prepare lists of Sanskrit manuscripts. It is to be regretted there is only one non-official among them, Mr. Margochis, the Principal of the Trichinopoly High School.

PUBLICATIONS on the old French Revolution

continue. Two of the latest are M. Mortimer Ternaux's 'Massacres of September' (Sept. 2—6, 1792), and M. V. Delarue's 'First Disorders in Lille and its Environs, March to December, 1789.'

M. V. BOUTON has lately produced at Paris a fac-simile in folio, with comments, of a MS. illustration of a joust held at Tournay, in the year 1350.

THE Duc de Broglie's posthumous 'Views on the Government of France' has been edited by his son.

ONE sign of Denmark's looking to France

before the war is M. G. Brandes's work on M. Taine and modern French Esthetics, 'Den Franske Esthetik i vore Dage, en afhandling om H. Taine.' Another excellent Danish work we ought to have noticed earlier, The Life and Writings of Brunetto Latino,'-which, and not Latini, is the true form,-by Thor Sundby. It is a work of much research, done by a man who thinks for himself.

WE understand that Mr. Francis Parkman, of Boston, U.S., is engaged in preparing a new edition of his History of the Conspiracy of Pontiac, and the War of the North-American Tribes against the English Colonies after the Conquest of Canada.' This work, which was published as far back as 1851, will, in the new edition, be considerably augmented by materials obtained through a careful examination of the Bouquet and Haldimand collection of MS. documents which relate to the period of history in question, and were presented to the

British Museum in 1857.

HERR GUSTAV FREYTAG is one of the four German writers who are allowed to accompany the Prussian armies, in order to chronicle the events of the present campaign. THE funeral obsequies of M. Prévost-Paradol were celebrated, on the 8th instant, at the

Church of Notre-Dame-de-Lorette. The Académie was represented by M. Jules Sandeau and M. Patin. The discourse at the grave was pronounced by the former.

WE are advised from Valencia (Spain) that an important historical work is in the press, and will be shortly published, the subject being the "Germanias of Valencia" (the Junta which conspired against Charles the Fifth). The important documents now promised have been jealously guarded from inspection by succeeding governments; the last revolution having opened to historical students the archivos of the Crown and the Cathedral, the above mised volume is the result to be followed probably by many more of value to the historical student, anxious to verify those portions of less of facts." the history of Spain "written to order, regard

pro

SCIENCE

Revised

résumé of all that has been written on the subject; the second is an excellent catalogue of one of the finest collections existing of the early races of men; while the third is a valuable guide to a knowledge of the arts, the habits, and the occupations of the primitive inhabitants of these islands as illustrated by the contents of their graves.

There are many mysteries surrounding the origin of the human species. If we bring the question to the test of the evidences accumulated by the historical researches which peculiarly distinguish the present century, we find ourselves compelled to admit that there is unmistakable marks-as Bunsen especially has shown-that man's works have endured for not less than 20,000 years. The sermons in stones, however, which the geologist has taught us to read, lead us back still deeper into the dark arcana of time, and in geological formations belonging to ages far more remote than those which we call historical we dis

cover relics which can only be interpreted to indicate that the human animal then lived --not as an isolated individual—or as a single pair-but as groups of men and womencarrying on the battle of life over the plains of Europe and Asia. It is impossible to reconcile the hypothesis, which gives to man's creation a period no further removed from the present time than 7,000 years, with that view which gives at least 20,000 years to his being—or ological evidence which cannot reach a beginwith the deductions from geological and archæning, but which discovers nomadic racesmaking rude weapons, with much ingenuity, from well-selected stones, with which to slay the beasts of the forests for food, or to defend themselves from the attacks of their enemies:

these primitive men, be it remembered, dwelling upon lands which were yet subject to those great catastrophes which have brought our continents and islands to their present physical conditions.

It cannot but be evident to every one, who will dispassionately examine the flint implements and the bone tools found in the Drift formations, that they indicate the efforts of thought of rude races of men, whose mental powers were slowly being awakened by the necessities of the conditions in which they were placed. The conditions under which these relics are found being such, that none but those who perversely close their eyes to the glimmer of light which they afford, can doubt that they indicate an antiquity which cannot be reached by what we call historic time. It is not possible, in this place, to sketch out the attempts which have been made to reconcile that which is regarded as the teachings of inspiration and the whisperings of nature. M. Figuier has attempted this, and to his work we must refer our readers; but it must He has only collected together the evidences not be thought that he has solved the problem. which modern researches have accumulated; and this he has done with a considerable the inquiry respecting Primitive Man from amount of care. He endeavours to separate the Mosaic story of man's creation, by trying to prove to his readers that the question of the origin and age of man is independent of all not assume that the authority of Holy Writ is subordination to dogma, and that we must aim at seeking the real epoch of man's first in any way questioned by those labours which appearance upon earth.