HISTORICAL ANECDOTES.

MAHOMETAN HISTORY OF THE CREATION AND FALL OF MAN.

THE Mahometans believe that the world was inhabited before the creation of man by the genii, and that God having ordered them to prostrate themselves before Adam, and acknowledge him as their superiour, the Peris or good genii obeyed, whilst the bad genii, or Dives, at the head of whom was Eblis (the devil) rebelled, in consequence of which they were driven from paradise, and have ever since continued the enemies of the human race. They say that God, when he resolved to create Adam, sent the angel Gabriel to the earth to bring seven handfuls of the different strata of which the terrestrial globe was composed, against which the earth. remonstrated, under the apprehension that the creature for the formation of whom she was to furnish materials would rebel, and draw on her the wrath of God: Gabriel, moved with compassion, carried her remonstrance to heaven. Michael was then sent, and after him Asrafel, who both returning with reports of the earth's reluctancy, the Supreme being, displeased at her obstinacy, dispatched Azrael, who seized by force the seven handfuls of her mass, and bore them to heaven: in consequence of which, Azrael, who, in the execution of this office had dis

played the sterr unfeelingness of his nature, had the charge consigned to him of separating the souls from the bodies or this new creation, and thence received the appellation of the angel of death. From the different colours and qualities of the earths made use of in the creation of man arise, say the Mahometans, the different colours and temperaments of his posterity.

Eblis, being full of resentment against this -new creature, associated himself with the serpent and the peacock, who, after various arts, having at length prevailed upon Adam and Eve to eat of the forbidden fruit, the glorious robes with which they had been clothed immediately drop-ped off, when, struck with shame and surprise, they hid themselves among some fig-trees,where -they did not long remain before they heard the awful voice of God pronouncing their banish ment from paradise. They were all in consequence thrown headlong to the earth: Adam fell upon a mountain in the island of Serendib or Ceylon (now called Pico d'Adam); Eve at Gidda, on the Red Sea; Eblis at Missan, near Bissora ; Hindostan received the peacock, and Ispahan the serpent. Adam, after suffering much, as a punishment for his disobedience,was at length admitted to meet Eve on Mount Arafat,from whence he conducted her to Serendib, where they passed the remainder of their lives.

The moral of this verse seems to recommend a cheerful enjoyment of the present hour, with

out indulging too great curiosity, or giving way to melancholy, by thinking too despairingly on the time to come; for Adam, not contented with the delights of paradise, but wishing to pry into futurity, was suddenly punished for his presumptuous folly, and banished for ever from those mansions of bliss.

PRESERVATIVE

AGAINST EARTHQUAKE AND THUNDER.

PHILLIP the second of Spain is well known to have expended enormous sums in the erec tion of the convent and palace of the Escurial. He very cautiously provided by the best means against all the ordinary accidents to which such a building was liable. There were two accidents, however, to which every edifice, constructed partly of wood, and raised upon the surface of the earth, is unavoidably exposed: and these are earthquake and lightning. After much reflection on the best method of averting these evils, the sagacious monarch and his counsellors at last hit upon expedients which they deemed infallible. One of these consisted in enclosing, with the utmost solemnity, certain small portions and splinters of the hair, nails, and bones which formerly belonged to St. Laurence, in the urns, placed along the roof of the building. This was to serve as a sure preservative against lightning, while earthquake was

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carefully averted by enclosing certain frag ments of the oaken staff, woollen hose, and hairy mattrass of the same martyr, in the cubes and thombs which formed the corner stones and buttresses of the edifice.

PLATÒ

ONCE made a voyage to Sicily, and was introduced to Dionysius, tyrant of Syracuse. Discoursing with him one day on happiness, justice, and real greatness, he maintained that no human being could be so abject and wretched as an unjust prince... Dionysius exclaimed in a rage, You talk like a dotard.'-' And you like a tyrant,' said Plato. This had very nearly cost him his life. Dionysius would not suffer him to go on board a vessel returning to Greece, until the captain had promised either to throw him into the sea or sell him for a slave. He was sold, ransomed by his friends, and brought back to his country. Af terwards Dionysius, not wishing to lose the friendship of the Greeks, wrote to him, desir ing him to spare him in his writings, and re-, ceived this contemptuous answer: I have not leisure to remember Dionysius.'

SAPPHO.

ALCAUS, the lyrist, conceived a passion for Şappho, and one day wrote to her: I wish

to explain myself, but shame restrains me. She answered Your forehead would not blush, were not your heart culpable.'

She used to say, I am actuated by a love of pleasure and of virtue; without virtue nothing. is so dangerous as riches; and their union constitutes happiness.'

HERALDRY

HAS ever been a favourite science; the ear◄ ly ancients cultivated it with avidity. It was communicated to the Europeans by the eastern nations, at their emigration at the decline of the western empire. In a very scarce book, written in the fifteenth century, by a prioress of Sopewell-nunnery, on Heraldry, the following curious paragraph occurs:

Of the offspring of the gentilman Jafeth, come Habraham, Moyses, Aron, and the profettys, and also the kyng of the right line of Mary, of whom that gentilman Jhesus was born, very God and very man. After his manhode kyng of the land, jude and of Jews, gentilman by his moder Mary, prince of cotearmour, &c. &c. &c.

FREDERICK THE GREAT

WAS fully sensible of the contagious nature of liberty. He knew that the spirit of freedom vas epidemical, and he did not choose to em