suits between landlords and priests, between the great and the little tithe-holders, between the pastor plaintiff and the flock defendants, in consequence of the third council of the Lateran, of which the said flocks defendant have never heard a syllable.

The king of Naples, this year (1772), has just abolished tithes in one of his provinces: the clergy are better paid, and the province blesses him.

The Egyptian priests, it is said, claimed not this tenth, but then it is observed that they possessed a third part of the land of Egypt as their own. Oh stupendous miracle! Oh thing most difficult to be conceived, that, possessing one third of the country, they did not quickly acquire the other two!

Believe not, dear reader, that the Jews, who were a stiff-necked people, never complained of the extortion of the tenths, or tithe.

Give yourself the trouble to consult the Talmud of Babylon; and if you understand not the Chaldean, read the translation, with notes of Gilbert Gaumin, the whole of which was printed by the care of Fabricius. You will there peruse the adventure of a poor widow with the high priest Aaron, and learn how the quarrel of this widow became the cause of the quarrel of Koran, Dathan, and Abiram, on the one side, and Aaron on the other.

"A widow possessed only a single sheep, which she wished to shear. Aaron came and took the wool for himself: It belongs to me,' said he, according to the law, Thou shalt give the first of the wool to God.' The widow, in tears, implored the protection of Koran. Koran applied to Aaron, but his intreaties were fruitless. Aaron replies, that the wool belongs to him.' Koran gives some money to the widow, and retires filled with indignation.

"Some time after the sheep produces a lamb; Aaron returns, and carries away the lamb. The widow runs weeping again to Koran, who in vain implores Aaron. The high priest answers: It is written in the law, Every first-born male in thy flock belongs to

6

God. He eats the lamb, and Koran again retires in

a rage.

"The widow, in despair, kills her sheep; Aaron returns once more, and takes away the shoulder and the breast. Koran again complains. Aaron replies: "It is written, Thou shalt give unto the priests the shoulder, the two cheeks, and the maw.'

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"The widow could no longer contain her affliction, and said, Anathema,' to the sheep: upon which Aaron observed, It is written, All that is anathema (cursed) in Israel, belongs to thee;' and took away the sheep altogether."

What is not so pleasant, yet very remarkable, is, that in a suit between the clergy of Rheims and the citizens, this instance from the Talmud was cited by the advocate of the citizens. Gaumin asserts, that he witnessed it. In the mean time, it may be answered, that the titheholders do not take all from the people: the taxgatherers will not suffer it. To every one his share is just.

CURIOSITY.

SUAVE, mari magno turbantibus æquora ventis,
E terra magnum alterius spectore laborem ;
Non quia vexari quemquam est jucunda voluptas,
Sed quibus ipse malis careas, quia cernere suave est.
Suave etiam belli certamine magna tueri
Per campos instructa tuâ sine parte pericli:
Sed nil dulcius est, bene quam munita tenere
Edita doctrinâ sapientum templa serenâ
Despicere undè queas alios, passimque videre
Errare, atque viam palantes quærere vitæ,
Certare ingenio, contendere nobilitate,
Noctes atque dies niti præstante labore
Ad summas emergere opas, rerumque potiri.
O miseras hominum mentes! ô pectora cœca!
'Tis pleasant, when the seas are rough, to stand
And view another's danger, safe at land:

Not 'cause he's troubled, but 'tis sweet to see

Those cares and fears, from which ourselves are free: 'Tis also pleasant to behold from far

How troops engage, secure ourselves from war.

* Deuteronomy, c. 18, v. 3, 4.

But above all 'tis pleasantest to get
The top of high philosophy, and set

On the calm peaceful flourishing head of it;

Whence we may view, deep, wond'rous deep below,
How poor mistaken mortals wand'ring go,
Seeking the path to happiness: some aim
At learning, not nobility, or fame;

Others with cares and dangers vie each hour
To reach the top of wealth and sovereign power.
Blind, wretched man, in what dark paths of strife
We walk this little journey of our life!-CREech.

I ask your pardon, Lucretius! I suspect that you are here as mistaken in morals, as you are always mistaken in physics. In my opinion it is curiosity alone that induces people to hasten to the shore to see a vessel in danger of being overwhelmed in a tempest. The case has happened to myself; and I solemnly assure you, that my pleasure, mingled as it was with uneasiness and distress, did not at all arise from reflection nor originate in any secret comparison between my own security and the danger of the unfortunate crew. I was moved by curiosity and pity.

At the battle of Fontenoy, little boys and girls climbed up the surrounding trees, to have a view of the slaughter. Ladies ordered seats to be placed for them on a bastion of the city of Liege, that they might enjoy the spectacle at the battle of Rocoux.

*

When I said, "Happy they who view in peace the gathering storm," the happiness I had in view consists in tranquillity and the search of truth, and not in seeing the sufferings of thinking beings, oppressed by fanatics or hypocrites, under persecution for having sought it. Could we suppose an angel flying on six beautiful wings from the height of the Empyreum, setting out to take a view, through some loophole of hell, of the torments and contortions of the damned, and congratulating himself on feeling nothing of their inconceivable agonies, such an angel would much resemble the character of Belzebub.

I know nothing of the nature of angels, because I am only a man; divines alone are acquainted with

* In his translation of the above passage of Lucretius.-T.

them: but, as a man, I think, from my own experience and from that of all my brother drivellers, that people do not flock to any spectacle, of whatever kind, but from pure curiosity.

This seems to me so true, that if the exhibition be ever so admirable, men at last become tired of it. The Parisian public scarcely go any longer to see Tartuffe, the most masterly of Moliere's master-pieces. Why is it? Because they have gone often; because they have it by heart. It is the same with Andromache.

Perrin Dandin is very unfortunately right when he proposes to the young Isabella to take her to see the method of " putting to the torture;" it serves, he says, to pass away an hour or two. If this anticipation of the execution, frequently more cruel than the execution itself, were a public spectacle, the whole city of Toulouse would have rushed in crowds to behold the venerable Calas twice suffering those execrable torments, at the instance of the attorney-general. Penitents, black, white, and grey; married women, girls, stewards of the floral games, students, lacqueys, female servants, girls of the town, doctors of the canon law, would have been all squeezed together. At Paris, we must have been almost suffocated, in order to see the unfortunate general Lally pass along in a dung cart, with a six-inch gag in his mouth.

But if these tragedies of cannibals, which are sometimes performed before the most frivolous of nations, and the one most ignorant in general of the principles of jurisprudence and equity;-if the spectacles, like those of St. Bartholomew, exhibited by tigers to monkeys, and the copies of it on a smaller scale, were renewed every day, men would soon desert such a country; they would fly from it with horror; they would abandon for ever the infernal land where such barbarities were common.

When little boys and girls pluck the feathers from their sparrows, it is merely from the impulse of curiosity, as when they dissect the dress of their dolls. It is this passion alone which produces the immense at

tendance at public executions. "Strange eagerness," as some tragic author remarks," to behold the wretched!"

I remember being at Paris when Damiens suffered a death the most elaborate and frightful that can be conceived. All the windows in the city which bore upon the spot were engaged at a high price by ladies; not one of whom, assuredly, made the consoling reflection, that her own breasts were not torn by pincers; that melted lead and boiling pitch were not poured upon wounds of her own; and that her own limbs, dislocated and bleeding, were not drawn asunder by four horses. One of the executioners judged more correctly than Lucretius; for, when one of the academicians of Paris tried to get within the enclosure to examine what was passing more closely, and was forced back by one of the guards; "Let the gentleman go in," said he," he is an amateur." That is to say, he is inquisitive; it is not through malice that he comes here; it is not from any reflex consideration of self, to revel in the pleasure of not being himself quartered; it is only from curiosity, as men go to see experiments in natural philosophy.

Curiosity is natural to man, to monkeys, and to little dogs. Take a little dog with you in your carriage, he will continually be putting up his paws against the door to see what is passing. A monkey searches everywhere, and has the air of examining everything. As to men, you know how they are constituted; Rome, London, Paris, all pass their time in inquiring what's the news?

CUSTOMS-USAGES.

THERE are, it is said, one hundred and forty-four customs in France, which possess the force of law. These laws are almost all different, in different places. A man who travels in this country changes his law almost as often as he changes his horses. The majority of these customs were not reduced to writing until the time of Charles VII. the reason of which probably was, that few people knew how to write. They then