tyranny. He soon forgave his sister and friend; and they were publicly wedded at Greenwich on the 13th of May.

It was during the festivities on this occasion (at least we believe so, for we have not the chivalrous Lord Herbert's life of Henry the 8th by us, which is most probably the authority for the story; and being a good thing, it is omitted, as usual, by his historians) that Charles Brandon gave a proof of the fineness of his nature, equally just towards himself, and conciliating towards the jealous. He appeared at a tournament on a saddle-cloth, made half of frize and half of cloth of gold, and with a motto on each half. One of the mottos ran thus:Cloth of frize, be not too bold,

The other:

Though thou art match'd with cloth of gold.

Cloth of gold, do not despise,

Though thou art match'd with cloth of frize.

It is this beautiful piece of sentiment which puts a heart into his history, and makes it worthy remembering.

ON THE HOUSEHOLD GODS OF THE ANCIENTS.

The Ancients had three kinds of Household Gods,-the Daimon (Dæmon) or Genius, the Penates, and the Lares. The first was supposed to be a spirit allotted to every man from his birth, some say with a companion; and that one of them was a suggester of good thoughts, and the other of evil. It seems, however, that the Genius was a personification of the conscience, or rather of the prevailing impulses of the mind, or the other self of a man; and it was in this sense most likely that, Socrates condescended to speak of his wellknown Dæmon, Genius, or Familiar Spirit, who, as he was a good man, always advised him to a good end. The Genius was thought to paint ideas upon the mind in as lively a manner as if in a lookingglass; upon which we chose which of them to adopt. Spenser, a most learned as well as imaginative poet, describes it in one of his most comprehensive though not most poetical stanzas, as

That celestial Powre, to whom the care

Of life, and generation of all

1

That lives, pertaine in charge particulare;
Who wondrous things concerning our welfare,
And straunge phantomes doth lett us ofte foresee,
And ofte of secret ills bids us beware:

That is our Selfe, whom though we do not see,
Yet each doth in himselfe it well perceive to bee.

Therefore a God him sage antiquity

Did wisely make.- -Faerie Queene, Book 2, st. 47.

Of the belief in an Evil Genius, a celebrated example is furnished in Plutarch's account of Brutus's vision, of which Shakspeare has given so fine a version (Julius Cæsar, Act 4, Sc. 3.). Beliefs of this

:

kind seem traceable from one superstition to another, and in some instances are no doubt immediately so. But fear, and ignorance, and even the humility of knowledge are at hand to furnish them, where precedent is wanting. There is no doubt, however, that the Romans, who copied and in general vulgarized the Greek mythology, took their Genius from the Greek Daimon and as the Greek word has survived and taken shape in the common word Dæmon, which by scornful reference to the Heathen religion came at last to signify a Devil, so the Latin word Genius, not having been used by the translators of the Greek Testament, has survived with a better meaning, and is employed to express our most genial and intellectual faculties. Such and such a man is said to indulge his genius :—he has a genius for this and that art:-he has a noble genius, an airy genius, an original and peculiar genius. And as the Romans from attributing a genius to every man at his birth, came to attribute one to places and to soils, and other more comprehensive peculiarities, so we have adopted the same use of the term into our poetical phraseology. We speak also of the genius, or idiomatic peculiarity, of a language. One of the most curious and edifying uses of the word Genius took place in the English translation of the French Arabian Nights, which speaks of our old friends the Genie and the Genies. This is nothing more than the French word retained from the original translator, who applied the Roman word Genius to the Arabian Dive or Elf.

One of the stories with which Pausanias has enlivened his description of Greece, is relative to a Genius. He says that one of the companions of Ulysses having been killed by the people of Temesa, they were fated to sacrifice a beautiful virgin every year to his manes. They were about to immolate one as usual, when Euthymus, a conqueror in the Olympic Games, touched with pity at her fate and admiration of her beauty, fell in love with her, and resolved to try if he could not put an end to so terrible a custom. He accordingly got permission from the state to marry her, provided he could rescue her from her dreadful expectant. He armed himself, waited in the temple, and the Genius appeared. It was said to have been of an appalling presence. It's shape was every way formidable, it's colour of an intense black; and it was girded about with a wolf-skin. But Euthymus fought and conquered it; upon which it fled madly, not only beyond the walls, but the utmost bounds of Temesa, and rushed into the sea.

Collectively

The Penates were Gods of the house and family. speaking, they also presided over cities, public roads, and at last over all places with which men were conversant. Their chief government however was supposed to be over the most inner and secret part of the house, and the subsistence and welfare of it's inmates. They were chosen at will out of the number of the gods, as the Roman in modern times chose his favourite saint. In fact, they were only the higher gods themselves, descending into a kind of household familiarity. They were the personification of a particular Providence. The

most striking mention of the Penates which we can call to mind is in one of Virgil's most poetical passages. It is where they appear to Æneas, to warn him from Crete, and announce his destined empire in Italy. (Book 3, v. 147.)

Nox erat, et terris animalia somnus habebat.
Effigies sacræ divôm, Phrygiique Penates,
Quos mecum a Troja, mediisque ex ignibis urbis
Extuleram, visi ante oculos adstare jacentis
In somnis, multo manifesti lumine, qua se
Plena per insertas fundebat luna fenestras.
'Twas night; and sleep was on all living things.
I lay, and saw before my very eyes

Dread shapes of gods, and Phrygian deities,
The great Penates; whom with reverent joy
I bore from out the heart of burning Troy.
Plainly I saw them, standing in the light
Which the moon poured into the room that night.

And again, after they had addressed him,

Nee sopor illud erat; sed coram agnoscere vultus,

Velatasque comas, præsentiaque ora videbar:
Tum gelidus toto manabat corpore sudor.

It was no dream: I saw them face to face,
Their hooded hair; and felt them so before

My being, that I burst at every pore.

The Lares, or Lars, were the lesser and most familiar Household Gods; and though their offices were afterwards extended a good deal, in the same way as those of the Penates, with whom they are often wrongly confounded, their principal sphere was the fire-place. This was in the middle of the room; and the statues of the Lares generally stood about it in little niches. They are said to have been in the shape of monkies; more likely mannikins, or rude little human images. Some were made of wax, some of stone, and others doubtless of any material for sculpture. They were represented with goodnatured grinning countenances, were clothed in skins, and had little dogs at their feet. Some writers make them the offspring of the goddess Mania, who presided over the spirits of the dead; and suppose that originally they were the same as those spirits; which is a very probable as well as agreeable superstition, the old nations of Italy having been accustomed to bury their dead in their houses. Upon this supposition, the good or benevolent spirits were called Familiar Lares, and the evil or malignant ones Larvæ and Lemures. Thus Milton, in his awful Hymn on the Nativity :

In consecrated earth,
And on the holy hearth,

The Lars and Lemures moan with midnight plaint.
In urns and altars round,

A drear and dying sound

Affrights the Flamens at their service quaint;

And the chill marble seems to sweat,

While each peculiar Power foregoes his wonted seat.

But Ovid tells a story of a gossiping nymph Lara, who having told Juno of her husband's amour with Juturna, was "sent to hell"

by him, and courted by Mercury on the road; the consequence of which was the birth of the Lares. This seems to have a natural reference enough to the gossiping over fire-places.

It is impossible not to be struck with the resemblance between these lesser Household Gods and some of the offices of our old English elves and fairies. But of them, more by and by. Dacier, in a note upon Horace (Book 1, Od. 12.) informs us, that in some parts of Languedoc, in his time, the fire-place was still called the Lar; and that the name was also given to houses.

Herrick, an excellent poet of the Anacreontic order in the time of Elizabeth, whose works we shall often have occasion to recommend to the reader, and who was visited perhaps more than any poet that ever lived with a sense of the pleasantest parts of the cheerful mythology of the ancients, has written some of his lively little odes upon the Lares. We have not them by us at this moment, but we remember one beginning,

It was, and still my care is,
To worship you, the Lares.

We take the opportunity of the Lars' being mentioned in it, to indulge ourselves, and we hope our readers, in a little poem of Martial's, very charming for it's simplicity. It is an Epitaph on a child of the name of Erotion.

Hic festinata requiescit Erotion umbra,
Crimine quam fati sexta peremit hiems.
Quisquis eris nostri post me regnator agelli,
Manibus exiguis annua justa dato.

Sic Lare perpetuo, sic turba sospite, solus
Flebilis in terra sit lapis iste tua.

THE EPITAPH OF EROTION.

Underneath this greedy stone,

Lies little sweet Erotion;

Whom the fates, with hearts as cold,

Nipt away at six years old.

Thou, whoever thou mayst be,

That hast this small field after me,

Let the yearly rites be paid

To her little slender shade;

So shall no disease or jar

Hurt thy house, or chill thy Lar;
But this tomb here be alone,
The only melancholy stone.

We understand that many of our readers mistook the story of the Beau Miser in our last number for a true one, or at least for one founded on fact. We wish to correct this mistake; and shall make a point hereafter of so wording any thing we write in the shape of a narrative, that a mere fiction shall not be confounded with our personal experience. For we would keep the truth of our testimony undisputed.-The fact is, that the story was originally intended to be one of a series told by an imaginary set of persons, after the fashion of the Decameron; and the manner of it became modified accordingly.

Orders received by the Booksellers, by the Newsmen, and by the Publisher, Joseph Appleyard,

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There is a bird in the interior of Africa, whose habits would rather seem to belong to the interior of Fairy-land; but they have been well authenticated. It indicates to honey-hunters where the nests ef wild bees are to be found. It calls them with a cheerful ery, which they answer; and on finding itself recognized, flies and hovers over a hollow tree containing the honey. While they are occupied in collecting it, the bird goes to a little distance, where he observes all that passes; and the hunters, when they have helped themselves, take care to leave him his portion of the food. This is the CUCULUS INDICATOR of Linnæus, otherwise called the Moroc, Bee Cuckoo, or Honey Bird.

There he arriving round about doth flie,

And takes survey with busie curious eye:

Now this, now that, he tasteth tenderly.-SPENser.

No. VI. WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 17th, 1819.

SOCIAL GENEALOGY.

Ir is a curious and pleasant thing to consider, that a link of per sonal acquaintance can be traced up from the authors of our own times to those of Shakspeare, and to Shakspeare himself. Ovid in recording with fondness his intimacy with Propertius and Horace, regrets that he had only seen Virgil. (Trist. Book 4. v. 51.) But still he thinks the sight of him worth remembering. And Pope, when a child, prevailed on some friends to take him to a coffee-house which Dryden frequented, merely to look at him; which he did, to his great satisfaction. Now such of us as have shaken hands with a living poet, might be able perhaps to reckon up a series of connecting shakes to the very hand that wrote of Hamlet, and of Falstaff, and of Desdemona.

With some living poets, it is certain. There is Thomas Moore, for instance, who knew Sheridan. Sheridan knew Johnson, who was the friend of Savage, who knew Steele, who knew Pope. Pope was intimate with Congreve, and Congreve with Dryden. Dryden is said to have visited Milton. Milton is said to have known Davenant; and to have been saved by him from the revenge of the restored court, in return for having saved Davenant from the revenge of the Commonwealth. But if the link between Dryden and Milton, and Milton and Davenant is somewhat apocryphal, or rather dependent on tradition (for Richardson the painter tells us the latter from Pope, who had it from Betterton the actor, one of Davenant's company), it may be carried at once from Dryden to Davenant, with whom he was unquestionably intimate. Davenant then knew Hobbes, who knew Bacon, who knew Ben Jonson, who was intimate with Beaumont and Fletcher, Chapman, Donne, Drayton, Camden, Selden, Clarendon, Sydney, Raleigh, and perhaps all the great men of Elizabeth's and James's time, the greatest of them all undoubtedly. Thus have we a link of "beamy hands" from our own times up to Shakspeare.

2nd Edit.