'Well, how? what then? speak out, you dunce!'
'Why then,' said John, 'we shook him once.'
'Shook him? how?' Bolus stammered out.
'We jolted him about.'

'What! shake a patient, man! a shake won't do.'
'No, sir, and so we gave him two.'

'Two shakes!

"Twould make the patient worse.'

'It did so, sir, and so a third we tried.'
'Well, and what then?'

Then, sir, my master died.'
G. Colman (1733-1794).

61. A HUNT IN A HORSE-POND.

Pray what is there to be found in a horse-pond except mud, dead dogs and cats, and duck-weed? the reader may ask. Pray what is to be found in that trumpery ball they call the earth? the 'man in the moon' may demand of his neighbour Saturn as they both come out for their evening stroll. The answer to such questions is simply 'life;' life in all diversity of form, beautifully and wonderfully arranged, each individual deriving benefit from the well-being of the mass; the mass itself prospering in ratio with the individual.

To the inhabitants of the pond, the pond is the world; to the inhabitants of the world, the world, as compared to space, is but a pond; and when the adventurous lizard has made a voyage of discovery round his pond, he has as much right, comparatively speaking, to boast of his performance to his fellow-lizards, as Captain Cook had, when he first sailed round the world, to write two thick volumes for the information of his fellow-men. Well, let us have a look at the pond-world; choose a dry place at the side, and fix our eyes steadily upon the dirty water : what shall we see? Nothing at first; but wait a minute or two; a little round black nob appears in the middle; gradually it rises higher and higher, till at last you can make out a frog's head, with his great eyes staring hard at you; not a bit of his body do you see, he is much too cunning for that, he does not know who or what you are; you may be a heron, his mortal enemy, for aught he knows. You move your arm, he thinks it is the heron's bill coming; down he goes again, and you see him not;

a few seconds, he regains courage and reappears, having probably communicated the intelligence to the other frogs; for many big heads and many big eyes appear in all parts of the pond, looking like so many hippopotami on a small scale. . . Soon a conversational 'wurk, wurk, wurk' begins; you don't understand it; luckily, perhaps, as from the swelling in their throats it is evident that the colony is outraged by the intrusion, and the remarks passing are not complimentary to the intruder. . . These frogs are all respectable, grown-up, well-todo frogs, and they have in this pond duly deposited their spawn, and then, hard-hearted creatures ! left it to its fate; it has, however, taken care of itself, and is now hatched, at least that part of it which has escaped the hands of the gipsies, who not unfrequently prescribe baths of this natural jelly for rheumatism.

The tadpoles are cannibals. You ask a proof : last year I went with a tin quart pot in my hand, toe-biter hunting on Clapham Common, and brought home exactly a quart of tadpoles; these I emptied into a tub in the beer-cellar; there they lived, being fed on meat several days, till one evening, on sending for a glass of the all-refreshing fluid, up comes John with half a smile on his face, and simpers out, ‘If you please, sir, I have brought the beer, but I have upset the tadpoles.' On arriving at the scene of the disaster, there were the poor things high and dry on the floor. I restored them to their tub, but forgot to put back their meat. The next morning, I found some had not recovered their accident, and round the bodies of their departed brethren were crowded the cannibal survivors, eating and pulling away, each for himself.

Come again to the horse-pond a few weeks after the tadpole era, and you will find hundreds of lively little frogs, no longer black specks, but having lost their gills, and their tails, and their ferocious appetites, sent forth to fight their way in the world.-Curiosities of Natural History.

62. THE JEWS.

'The Jews, independently of the capital qualities for citizenship which they possess in their industry, temperance, and energy and vivacity of mind, are a race essentially monarchical, deeply religious, and, shrinking themselves from converts as

from a calamity, are ever anxious to see the religious system of the countries in which they live, flourish; yet, since your society has become agitated in England, and powerful combinations menace your institutions, you find the once loyal Hebrew invariably arrayed in the same ranks as the leveller and the latitudinarian, and prepared to support the policy which may even endanger his life and property, rather than tamely continue under a system which seeks to degrade him. The Tories lose an important election at a critical moment; 'tis the Jews come forward to vote against them. The Church is alarmed at the scheme of a latitudinarian university, and learns with relief that funds are not forthcoming for its establishment; a Jew immediately advances and endows it. Yet the Jews are essentially Tories. Toryism, indeed, is but copied from the mighty prototype which has fashioned Europe. And every generation they must become more powerful and more dangerous to the society which is hostile to them. Do you think that the quiet humdrum persecution of a decorous representative of an English university can crush those who have successively baffled the Pharaohs, Nebuchadnezzar, Rome, and the feudal ages? The fact is, you cannot destroy a pure race of the Caucasian organisation. It is a physiological fact; a simple law of nature, which has baffled Egyptian and Assyrian Kings, Roman Emperors, and Christian Inquisitors. No penal laws, no physical tortures, can effect that a superior race should be absorbed in an inferior, or be destroyed by it. The mixed persecuting races disappear; the pure persecuted race remains. And at this moment, in spite of centuries, of tens of centuries, of degradation, the Jewish mind exercises a vast influence on the affairs of Europe. I speak not of their laws, which you still obey : of their literature, with which your minds are saturated; but of the living Hebrew intellect.

'You never observe a great intellectual movement in Europe in which the Jews do not greatly participate. The first Jesuits were Jews that mysterious Russian diplomacy which so alarms Western Europe is organised and principally carried on by Jews; that mighty revolution which is at this momeut preparing in Germany, and which will be, in fact, a second and greater Reformation, and of which so little is as yet known in England, is entirely developing under the auspices of Jews, who almost monopolise the professorial chairs of Germany. Neander, the

founder of Spiritual Christianity, and who is Regius Professor of Divinity in the University of Berlin, is a Jew. Benary, equally famous, and in the same university, is a Jew. Wehl, the Arabic Professor of Heidelberg, is a Jew. Years ago, when I was in Palestine, I met a German student who was accumulating materials for the History of Christianity, and studying the genius of the place; a modest and learned man. It was Wehl; then unknown, since become the first Arabic scholar of the day, and the author of the life of Mahomet. But, for the German professors of this race, their name is Legion. I think there are more than ten at Berlin alone.

'A few years back we were applied to by Russia. Now, there has been no friendship between the Court of St. Petersburg and my family. It has Dutch connections, and our representations in favour of the Polish Hebrews, a numerous race, but the most suffering and degraded of all the tribes, have not been very agreeable to the Czar. However, I resolved to go myself to St. Petersburg. I had, on my arrival, an interview with the Russian Minister of Finance, Count Cancrin; I beheld the son of a Lithuanian Jew. The loan was connected with the affairs of Spain; I resolved on repairing to Spain from Russia. I travelled without intermission. I had an audience immediately on my arrival with the Spanish Minister, Senor Mendizabal; I beheld one like myself, the son of a Nuevo Christiano, a Jew of Arragon. In consequence of what transpired at Madrid, I went straight to Paris to consult the President of the French Council; I beheld the son of a French Jew, a hero, an imperial marshal, and very properly so, for who should be military heroes if not those who worship the Lord of Hosts?'

'And is Soult a Hebrew ?'

'Yes, and others of the French marshals, and the most famous; Massena, for example; his real name was Manasseh : but to my anecdote. The consequence of our consultations was that some Northern Power should be applied to in a friendly and mediative capacity. We fixed on Prussia; and the President of the Council made an application to the Prussian Minister, who attended a few days after our conference. Count Arnim entered the cabinet, and I beheld a Prussian Jew. So you see, my dear Coningsby, that the world is governed by very different

personages from what is imagined by those who are not behind the scenes.'

'You startle, and deeply interest me.'

'You must study physiology, my dear child. Pure races of Caucasus may be persecuted, but they cannot be despised, except by the brutal ignorance of some mongrel breed, that brandishes fagots and howls extermination, but is itself exterminated, without persecution, by that irresistible law of Nature which is fatal to curs.'

But I come also from Caucasus,' said Coningsby.

'Verily; and thank your Creator for such a destiny and your race is sufficiently pure. You come from the shores of the Northern Sea, land of the blue eye, and the golden hair, and the frank brow: 'tis a famous breed, with whom we Arabs have contended long; from whom we have suffered much : but these Goths, and Saxons, and Normans were doubtless great men.'

'But so favoured by Nature, why has not your race produced great poets, great orators, great writers?'

'Favoured by Nature and by Nature's God, we produced the lyre of David; we gave you Isaiah and Ezekiel; they are our Olynthians, our Philippics. Favoured by Nature we still remain : but in exact proportion as we have been favoured by Nature we have been persecuted by Man. After a thousand struggles; after acts of heroic courage that Rome has never equalled; deeds of divine patriotism that Athens, and Sparta, and Carthage have never excelled; we have endured fifteen hundred years of supernatural slavery, during which, every device that can degrade or destroy man has been the destiny that we have sustained and baffled. The Hebrew child has entered adolescence only to learn that he was the Pariah of that ungrateful Europe that owes to him the best part of its laws, a fine portion of its literature, all its religion. Great poets require a public; we have been content with the immortal melodies that we sung more than two thousand years ago by the waters of Babylon and wept. They record our triumphs; they solace our affliction. Great orators are the creatures of popular assemblies; we were permitted only by stealth to meet even in our temples. And as for great writers, the catalogue is not blank. What are all the schoolmen, Aquinas himself, to Maimonides? and as for modern philosophy, all springs from Spinoza.