most, is as much as should be ventured upon. In public speaking, upon the contrary, eight or ten lines may be hazarded, and it is a chance if anything else in the speech be so well received; the reason of which difference is obvious, inasmuch as in the one case many persons lay a claim to the time of the audience besides him who is holding forth; and in the other, a number of folks who have no taste at all for poetry, are flattered by being presumed to have an exquisite appreciation of it.

'as Rogers says;' besides the advantage of setting the general reader thinking of who the deuce did write the Pleasures of Memory, and perhaps of even delighting him with the discovery.

We come now to the two highest branches of our subject-the one, that of introducing a quotation as something of our own; the other, that of introducing something of our own as a quotation. The first requires the very greatest delicacy of conduct. There are a number of sagacious people, it must be rememMost of us, without being such 'comparative sweet bered, in society, too lazy to say anything themselves, young' persons as Prince Hal was, have more or less who have their ears wide open, nevertheless, to all of his damnable trick of iteration;' and the humblest that is said by others. These are jealous and maliof us is ready to repeat somebody else's words, if it be cious men-not women, who, indeed, are industrious only to strengthen a position, or to avoid the responsi- enough in this respect-who will let you display all bility of having any opinion of our own. your stolen gems to the last jewel, and then turn An ignorant young friend of ours going in for exam-police-constable in the brutal overhauling of your ination, almost without a chance, for one of the open whole pack. Your bon mots, they will swear, were Jerrold's ; civil service appointments, remarked to us: 'I hope tees those in the Punch newspaper of 1852-which it the epigrams, Tom Moore's; and the reparfor the best, but expect the worst, as the old woman said is very likely they were. Now, as the true genius-as when she was buying the pound of tea.' Who was the old we remember to have read in every essay upon the woman in question, or what the particular tea, is writings of our greatest dramatist-makes everything immaterial; the quotation was as apt as though it he touches his own, whether it previously belonged to came from Machiavelli or Montaigne; and in the same anybody else or not, so the first-rate conversationalist manner, upon the very vaguest authority, we often may reproduce with effect the efforts of bygone wits, in get the most perfect illustrations. You force me to such a way that the parents themselves should not be proceed to extremities, as the nobleman said when he able to recognise their offspring. In ordinary cases, however, extreme precaution is by no means necessary, and cracked the periwinkle in the door,' is an admirable the most wholesale plagiarisms may be made by the instance of this; and similarly, the Man,' 'the Irish- self-possessed and dexterous, who have only to confess, man' (who is habitually employed in this capacity), upon detection, that 'of course the thing was Jerrold's; 'the Scotchman,' 'the Frenchman' (also a great they should have supposed everybody knew that; favourite), and the Poet,' are made use of when there was no more necessity for inverted commas, than memory fails as sponsors for fatherless sayings. All for saying "Macbeth" after quoting the dagger-scene. we sometimes get, after the delivery of an apo- It is sometimes expedient to borrow a great name to Finally, the reverse of this has to be considered. thegm, by way of acknowledgment to its proprietor, edit,' as it were, the production of one's own native as they say,' or 'as the saying goes,' which talent; and there are some people so conventional that is unsatisfactory, indeed; but in such a case the they will listen to nothing unless it be spoken by the plagiarism is not generally of great value. The Prince lips of authority, having less regard to the merit of Regent and Mr Theodore Hook are so continually a remark than to the fame of him who is supposed to invoked upon these occasions, that a true conversautter it; and there are others so miserably envious as tionalist would no more dream of referring to them the efforts of a contemporary to amuse or instruct to deride or treat with contemptuous indifference all than to Mr Joseph Miller himself: the very mention them. A judicious interposition of a supposititious of their names before a quotation has become a signal deus ex machina is, in these cases, not only expedient for inattention and contempt, and is almost as much but excusable. We may be (we are) very brilliant, and an assistance to it as the autograph of a bankrupt to yet need sponsors now and then to answer for us the back of a bill. Mr Charles Lamb has fallen very before an unbelieving world. Our bills may be good low, indeed, in the quotation market, and Sydney enough (they are), and yet require a good name at Dickens was Smith and Rochefoucauld are drugs. The most art- their backs to insure acceptance. ful thing exhibited by some quotators is the reverse telling this story the other night,' as Thackeray said to a friend of mine,' 'as Macaulay replied to his of this—namely, the ingenious concealment of an publisher,' are very good letters of introduction indeed. authority who is perfectly well known. For instance, These experiments are interesting, not only as illusin making use of that philosophical paradox, the trative of the weakness of human nature in our child is father to the man,' they would think it unwise, fellow-creatures, but also of its strength in ourselves. and, indeed, extravagant, to add, as Wordsworth We have to behold without a groan or outward sign of says,' displaying all that learning in an instant, like agony, one of our very best jeux d'esprit perhaps swept the flash of a cracker: they prefer to herald it with, up into the great treasure-house of an acknowledged ' as the bard of the lake-country has well expressed it;' and made absolutely dangerous for us to claim as genius, who has no need of an addition to his wealth, or, 'as the greatest metaphysical poet of the century has our own for evermore. We hear peals of laughter or remarked;' or, as the restorer of natural poetry truly murmurs of applause paid to persons who have neither sings;' or even with a combination of these three desire for nor right to them, while we sit poor and expressions, if they be of rank and wealth enough to unappreciated-mere spoons for ladling out that honey venture so far. A good deal of verbosity is permitted which we have in reality ourselves collected and hived to lords and capitalists in this respect. from the very first. How we long to cast off our disguise, and proclaim ourselves to be indeed the exceedingly clever fellows we are! But should we do so, we are well aware that joke of ours would be the very last that would be listened to. Moreover, in this secret knowledge of our actual merit,

is an

In writing, we need not point out to those who contribute to reviews, &c., how much more space can be profitably taken up by, as the graceful author of the Pleasures of Memory has told us,' than by,

CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL.

in this patient surrender of our laurels to other brows, is there not something generous, Spartan-like, besides a very exquisite flattery of our self-love?

CATTLE EPIDEMICS.

DURING the past spring and summer, the chief subject of interest to the agricultural mind,' both at home and abroad, has been the fact or the apprehension of some infectious disease, popularly called 'murrain,' among the horned cattle. On many parts of the continent, the prevalence of a very destructive epizootic Throughout Denmark and was no matter of doubt. Prussia, in the districts skirting the south shore of the Baltic, and in the Rhenish states of Germany, the cattle-breeders have suffered very severely from the ravages of a disease among their herds, whose cause and cure alike seem to have baffled research, but which was generally supposed to be disseminated The British farmers have been more by infection. frightened than hurt by this calamity; but as the countries where the murrain was most prevalent were precisely those from which the English market was chiefly supplied, an Order in Council was issued some months since, by way of precaution, prohibiting the import of live-stock, carcasses, or raw hides, from the Gulf of Finland, the Russian, Prussian, Mecklenburg, and Lubeck ports on the Baltic, and sundry other quarters whence infection might be apprehended. This regulation provoked much criticism. Medical authorities are indeed altogether at variance on the whole question of epidemics, either as regards man or beast. It is even contended that there is no such thing as infection-that cholera, yellow fever, or even the plague itself, have nothing contagious in their character, but spread merely through the medium of atmospheric miasmata, impure water, unwholesome conditions of heat, damp, dirt, and other 'predisposing causes,' wholly distinct from the influences by which, according to the ancient doctrine, epidemic diseases were diffused among a whole population.

superabundance of fresh meat, and especially of those
portions of the animal not fit for preservation, at these
autumnal slaughterings, a gross but most graphic
description may be found in Rabelais. Another and
more cleanly recognition of the annual event is given
in the old festival of Candlemas, when the accumulated
stock of tallow, from the summer pasturage of the
herds, was formally blest by the priest before its con-
version into candles for the long nights of winter. The
world in those days was a long way removed even
from the possibility of a 'fat-cattle show' at Christmas,
The cattle-murrains, in olden times, were attributed
in the Baker Street Bazaar, or elsewhere.
Homer describes
to moral and supernatural causes.
the vengeful Apollo visiting the Greeks before Troy
with a pestilence, which began with the dogs, and
It shewed some knowledge of the real
passed on through the horses and horned beasts to the
human race.
source of malady, that the calamity was assigned to
Among the Jews,
the divinity who governed the sun, the atmosphere,
and other climatic conditions.
an epidemic in cattle was attributed to some national
sin-the presence of an Achan in the camp, or the
rebellious idolatry of a king. In later times, many
singular accounts of epizootical disease are handed
down to us by historians; and if their narrative must
sometimes be considered more legendary than authen-
tic, they present at all events a vivid picture of the
vicissitudes to which society was exposed in times
when the production of food, whether for the human
race or for their flocks and herds, was so little under-
stood, and remained so much more completely at the
mercy of the season than at present. For the examples
we are about to give, let us at once confess our obli-
gations to the copious details so industriously collected
by the census commissioners of Ireland, touching
pestilences and famines, plagues, inclement seasons,
atmospheric phenomena, epizootic disease, and other
visitations, published in the fifth volume of their
elaborate Report to parliament.

Not to linger too long in the legendary periods of This When doctors differ so essentially, we shall not British, or rather Celtic history, we shall give but a presume to settle the controversy. Certain it is, that single specimen of cattle-murrain as recorded to have the so much dreaded murrain has not visibly extended occurred in these isles before the Christian era. to England; though whether the disease was kept at epidemic visited England and Ireland, so far as the arm's length by the Order in Council, or was safely vague annals of the event can be interpreted, at a The contemporary king of defied by the better feeding, the more careful breeding, period about contemporary with the last Punic Warand the greater skill in management practised by that is, 150 years B.C. English farmers, is still problematical. In many cases Ireland-for the histories of the period are all Irishof epizootic mortality occurring during several years was named Breasal, and surnamed Bod-hio-Bhadh, or 'Cow-destroyer,' in commemoration of the event. In past-ever since agriculture became a science-the most experienced practitioners have been altogether at his time, so the record runs in the Annals of Clonmacfault. The loss of many thousand sheep by the 'rot,' noise, there was such a morren of cows in the land as or of cattle by some mysterious 'complaint,' can some- there were no more then left alive but one bull and times be traced to the influences of weather or food, one heifer in the whole kingdom, which bull and heifer but just as often proves wholly inexplicable. Science, lived in a place called Gleann-Samasge.' It is menon these occasions, is totally bewildered; while the tioned, by way of testimony to the truth of this legend, that the locality named is to this day known to the most careful tending of the husbandman proves vain. One result, however, dominates over all morbologi- dwellers in the neighbourhood as Glensamish, or the cal theories-namely, that in modern eras the access Glen of the Heifer, and is situated in county Tyrone. of murrain among cattle has become as rare in recur- The description of some devastating catastrophe as rence and mitigated in severity, as that of 'plague, leaving only a single survivor, belongs to the hyperIt is bolical language employed by all oriental races and pestilence, and famine' among the human race. impossible to dissociate this undeniable fact from the their descendants. The image recurs more than once improvement in food and nurture which the advance in the book of Job. In the Celtic annals, from whence of agricultural science has enabled us to command. the above record is taken, it is subsequently stated as Three centuries ago, for example, the very idea of the consequence of an inclement season, that 'only keeping cattle in a state fit for the butcher through one' shock of corn was left in the fields, or only one' the winter months, had never dawned on the human fruit on the tree. Thus, in the time of Cairbre, the 'Cat-headed,' it is chronicled that the earth did not mind. Where was the food to come from, while the pastures were covered with snow, or iron-bound with yield its produce, insomuch that there used to be but frost? At that era, the fatted kine were all killed in one grain upon the stalk, one acorn upon the oak, November at latest; and the whole world, from the and one nut upon the hazel.' As a contrast to the lord in his castle to the servitor at his lodge-gates, calamitous visitation in the reign of Breasal, it is related that about fifty years afterwards, in the time lived upon salted meat until the ensuing May. the gluttonous feasts occasioned and justified by the of his successor, King Conaim, 'the cattle were without

Of

CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL.

place in the last century. Of them, the first began in 1711. In that year, as Short relates, a pestilential plague broke out among the cattle in Hungary, Italy, Germany, and Central Europe generally, of so infectious a character, that it spread from their saliva 'wherever they licked the grass, laid down their mouths, or came near other animals.' In Holland this epizootic lasted for three years, and killed 300,000 cows, oxen, and bulls. Passing into England, the disease reached its acme during the years 1713-14-15, contemporaneously with the accession of the House of Hanover. Great multitudes of cattle were lost in the metropolitan districts, and large sums were paid to various farmers and graziers by the state as compensation-money, in consideration of their submitting to various precautions intended to prevent the epidemic extending to other parts of the kingdom. Nevertheless, in 1715, it appears that the pestilence had spread over various counties previously unaffected. The second epizootic of the eighteenth century began in the celebrated year when the young Pretender Bascombe relates that the invaded Scotland, 1745. plague 'began in Turkey, thence passed over Europe, and ultimately spread to England.' Here, however, as elsewhere, we find many local circumstances to account for the calamity. The spring and summer of that year were most inclement-storms and floods are stated to have taken place all over the British Islands. In the Dublin district, 'there was not a brook or rivulet which was not swelled to an extraordinary height.' In natural sequence, we hear that corn, potatoes, and oats were very dear; then that 'there was a famine among the black-cattle;' and afterwards, of the frightful mortality of kine, sheep, and horses. But the infection doctrine still prevailed. In Faulkners' Journal it is told how, in 1747, from fear of contagion, the removal of horned cattle from one town to another was prohibited. Berkeley, the famous Bishop of Cloyne, wished to make this cattle-distemper a means of introducing his favourite remedy, tarwater. He writes: 'If I can but introduce the general use of tar-water for this murrain, which is in truth a fever, I flatter myself this may pave the way for its general use in all fevers whatever.' Continuing in 1751, of which the spring was stormy and cold, the summer wet,' the murrain proved unusually destructive. Webster reports of this year that there were 'great inundations in England and France,' and that a mortal distemper prevailed among horses and cattle in England; 30,000 cows are said to have died of it in Cheshire alone. During the following year, when the summer was again 'exceedingly wet,' a great rot occurred among the sheep, and we are informed by a journal of the period, that 'the distemper rages about the skirts (of London), insomuch that last Saturday several cows were buried in the fields at the The scourge ceased bottom of Gray's Inn Lane.' about a hundred years ago. In 1756, it is recorded that 'the mortality among the horned cattle, which hath raged more or less for these ten years past, seems to have departed.' This announcement appears in the Dublin Medico-Philosophical Memoirs; and the writer proceeds to explain the cause, according to the vague theories current at that day, by attributing the disappearance of the epizootic to certain heavy rains and overflowings of the meadows, which they think has washed off any remaining infection in the grass and herbage.'

The last record of epizootic for which we can afford
space, relates to an epidemic among a different species
Towards the
of animal to any before mentioned.
close of the last century, the cats were visited with
a strange pestilence. The feline race, in Ireland, are
reported to have died in numbers during the year
1797, of a mere murrain similar to that which
sometimes seizes and spreads among the black-cattle.'

Some of their skins being dried, and the hair taken
off by lime, 'appeared full of small holes, caused by
worms or insects. When seized with the distemper,
the poor animals appear to be in the greatest agony.'
Contemporaneously with this cat-murrain, mention
is made of a comet in the heavens, and a 'dreadful
gale in the Channel.' Evidently the year was an
ill-starred one for the witches. The cat-disease of
this year was epidemic in England, France, and
even America. Webster relates that in England a
soon after
The same cat-plague was
pestilence among cats swept away those animals in
thousands.
epidemic in France; it appeared in Philadelphia in
June, and was very fatal throughout the States. Fish
died in some of the rivers, and hydrophobia was again
epidemic.'

Modern improvements in agricultural science, if
they have not rendered murrain among cattle im-
possible, have at anyrate limited the range and largely
diminished the frequency of these visitations. There
is no doubt still plenty to do in the way of sanitary
reforms, both for man himself and the inferior animals
whom he has subdued to his use. Still, a great deal has
been already done in that direction-more, perhaps, in
proportion for the brutes than for their human keepers
and owners. By skilful crossing of breeds, we obtain a
far hardier and healthier stock; and wholesome fodder
is now procurable even in the most inclement seasons.
The epizootics which heretofore ravaged the flocks
and herds for years together, have almost disappeared
at anyrate from the more civilised countries of Europe.
As constituting so valuable a possession to a large
class of the community, and of nutritious food to all,
this comparative exemption of cattle from the murrains
which once so often nearly destroyed them, must prove
no small addition to the sum of human happiness.'

THE LAKE ON THE MOORS. We were a cosy little party of six-three on horseback, and three in a pony-carriage. We started courageously, in the teeth of sundry prophecies of rain, and of the moors being full of swamps from the rain that had already fallen. Cornish people have a natural talent for prophesying bad weather, so we declined to place too much stress on these forebodings; and though the sun only shone between great masses of cloud, and the blue sky only shewed itself in rifts, we declared that a cloudy day was better than one all sunshine; that even if it rained, we wouldn't mind; and, in short, we spoke so bravely, and looked so determined, that the foe succumbed, with a parting fire of, 'Well, don't blame me if you get drenched,' which we received with fortitude.

So, about two o'clock on this doubtful September afternoon, we set off to see the lake on the moors. Much had we heard of it, one of the most curious phenomena of this western land, which is so rich in marvels. We had heard that not only was it a large pool of water on the very highest ground upon the moors, completely isolated, and with no visible spring or source of supply, but-popular taste being always inclining to paint the lily, and add impossibility to the wonderful-that its waters were salt; that it ebbed and flowed with the tides of the sea; and that on its shores sea-weeds and shells, and other marine waifs and strays, were to be found. Happily, however, our ideas had been set to rights by the perusal of a very interesting record of the parish in which the lake is situated, and when we went on our way to see it, we were perfectly 'up' in what we were to expect. We knew that the lake was 'about a mile in circumference, surrounded with barren heaths and desolate moors;' that the road to it lay across the wildest and dreariest scene in Cornwall. Also we knew that there were

two traditions attached to the spot, both connected with a certain Tregeagle, who is to be heard of in many parts of Cornwall, and generally in connection with the most disreputable character known in modern or ancient history, and whose occupations are numerous enough, though always partaking of the same character. These appear chiefly to be of some such light nature as making trusses of sand, binding them with ropes of the same, conveying them from one place to another; or, as in the case of this moorland pool, dipping an unfathomable depth of waters dry, by means of a limpet-shell with a hole in it. As to the cause of his being appointed to such onerous commissions, we have said there are two legends of him connected with this one place. The first, which we indignantly scouted as being a great deal too legal for romance, and more like a law report than a tradition, affirms that he was a steward who defrauded his master by not entering a certain sum of money in his books. After his death, therefore, ensued a lawsuit; but when the cause was brought on at the assizes, the supposed debtor raised the spirit of Tregeagle, and brought him as a witness 'into court.' (Is any one credulous enough to believe in such a ghost as this? The idea is preposterous.) Being questioned concerning the affair in debate, proceeds this remarkable legend, Tregeagle admitted the payment, and the plaintiff was nonsuited. On returning from the bar, this singular witness was left behind in the court; for the defendant on being requested by some of the gentlemen of the long robe to take him away, replied sternly, that as he had been at the pains of bringing the witness, those who complained might

take the trouble to remove him.'

Hence, since they could not banish this perturbed spirit, there arose the necessity of finding some employment for it; and to empty the moor-pool, on the terms previously set forth, was the first task appointed. During this work, whenever the wind was easterly, the wicked one was thought to pursue him three times round the pool, from which place he was always obliged to escape to Roach Rock, where, on putting his head into one of the chapel windows, he was safe.'

So much for tradition number one. The second is the real and genuine one, which enlists our sympathies, commands our attention, and takes our credulity by storm. It is set forth in a ballad of some seventy verses (be not alarmed, good reader; we purpose not to quote it entire), which, whether or not it is veritably as ancient as its language would indicate, possesses much of those quaint and picturesque elements which generally distinguish old ballad poetry, and in which consists its most special and peculiar charm. So we will take it with us, and dip into it as we ride along these pleasant Cornish lanes, with their high banks, and whereon the various ferns flourish with tropical luxuriance, and where the honeysuckles are perpetual temptations to linger and gather, and so become possessed of their glories more than by the eye. To commence at the commencement, we learn that in Cornwaile's famed land, by the poole on the moore, Tregeagle the wickede did dwelle;' also, that he was a shepherd, that he grew ambitious, wished for wealth; and finally, one moonlit night, on the wide, lonely heath, made a compact with the Individual before alluded to in this chronicle, who appeared before him like a gigantic knight in armour, riding on a black steed, and with black lance, bugle, &c., and two hideous dogs, complete. The bargain concluded, Tregeagle became a grand knight, with a splendid castle, which stood exactly where the moor lake now appears-retainers, horses, huntsmen, minstrels, and every requisite for a nobleman's family, in those days. Not content with these possessions, however, he seems to have indulged a disposition the reverse of amiable; for we are told that

He marked each daye with some horrible deede;
Some mansyon must burne, or some traveller bleede,
Or hatefulle that daye to his sighte.

But now comes the 'central interest' of the story, which is thus ominously heralded:

It chaunced one evenynge as homewarde he wendes,
Deepe muttered the Hagg of the Storme;
Earth trembles as boundynge the skyes she ascendes-
The welkyn acrosse her blacke winges she extendes,
And nature with darkness deformes.

And nowe the bold hunters theye stoode alle aghaste,
Their stoute heartes with feare overawed:
The rede lyghtninges glared, the rayne poured faste,
And loude howled the demons that rode on the blaste,
And Terrour the tempeste bestrode!

Whene swifte frome the woode, and all wylde with
affryghte,

A damsele advancinge they spyed;

All whyte were her garments, her palfrey was whyte, Wyth sylver and golde, and wyth jeweles bedyghte, And a lyttle payge rode bye her syde. Tregeagle proffers the shelter and hospitality of his castle to the storm-surprised wayfarers, who prove to be Goonhylda the fayre, the daughter of Earl Cornwaile, who, with her trusty page, had lost the rest of the hunting-party with whom she had set forth in the morning. Of course, the wicked knight loves Goonhylda straightway, and while she is innocently full of gratitude to him for the kind hospitality he extends to her, he villainously causes her father to suppose that his child has been torn to pieces by the ravenous beastes of the nyghte.' This done, he proffers himself and his possessions to the 'fayre mayden than floweres the fayrest more fayre,' who, however, modestly informs him that she is already betrothed to a knight, and that since 'fayre is the daye and refulgente the morne,' she fain would hasten to depart home, and relieve her father's heart of fears for the safety of his Goonhylda. Upon which the treacherous knight shews himself in his true colours, smyles insydious, and bendes hys darke browe,' and boldly announces that she cannot be permitted to depart, and that he has prevented the possibility of rescue by causing the powerful Earl Cornwaile to suppose her dead. Affairs thus seem desperate enough for the unfortunate lady ; but all is not over, for the little payge,

Though few were his yeares,

Yet cunnyng and shrewde was the boye;
Where he satte in a corner, thys speech overheares,
And faythefulle as swift to the stable repayres,

And seyzes his courser wyth joye.

castle, spurs on his fleet horse to Duneoyd's high gate,
How this gallant little Roberto steals from the
and tells the earl the real state of the case; how the
old earl buckles on his armour, and summons his
horsemen so valyante and bold; and how the troop set
forward, and reach Tregeagle's gate before the 'greye
readily imagined, as detailed by the next half-dozen
morne peeped the easterne hills o'er:' all this can be
verses. But while they wait reply to the blast on the
horn with which they summon Tregeagle, the horrified
company hear instead that 'shrylle blast from the
confoundes.' It is the Black Hunter come to claim
farre dystante heathe, whych the eares of alle mortales
Tregeagle, the time stated in the terms of the bargain
between them having expired.

Then forthe came Tregeagle all palsyed wyth feare,
And fayne woulde more favoure have founde,

But loude roared the thundere, and swyfte through the
ayre

The rede bolte of vengeance shot forthe wyth a glare,
And strooke him a corpse to the grounde!