485 Long time upon the bed of pain he lay And of dark plots might shuddering Europe tell. parte que le puso Dios al hombre en la fabrica de su cuerpo mas cerca de la tierra, son los pies: quiso sin duda que fuera la parte mas humilde de su fabrica: pero los galanes viciosos les quitan la humildad con los aliños, y los ensobervecen con el cuydado. Enfada esto á Dios tanto, que aviendo de hazer al hombre animal que pisasse la tierra, hizo la tierra de tal calidad, que se pudiesse imprimir en ella la huella del hombre. Abierta dexa su sepultura el pie que se levanta, y parece que se levanta de la sepultura. Tremendad crueldad es enloquecer con el adorno al que se quiere tragar la tierra á cada passo."El dia de Fiesta. Obras de D. Juan de Zavaleta, p. 179-180. "In comes the shoemaker in the odour of haste and fatigue. He takes the shoes off the last with as much difficulty as if he were skinning the lasts. The gallant seats himself upon a chair; the shoemaker kneels down, and takes possession of one foot, which he handles as if he were sent there to administer the torture. He puts one shoeing-skin in the heel of the shoe, fits the other upon the point of the foot, and then begins to guide the shoe over the shoeing skin. Scarcely has it got farther than the toes when it is found necessary to draw it on with pincers, and even then it is hard work. The patient stands up, fatigued with the operation, but well pleased that the shoes are tight; and by the shoemaker's directions he stamps three or four times on the floor, with such force that it must be of iron if it does not give way. "The cordovan and the soles being thus beaten, submit; they are the skins of animals who obey blows. Our gallant returns to his seat, he turns up the upper leather of the shoe, and lays hold on it with the pincers; the tradesman kneels close by him on both knees, rests on the ground with his left hand, and bending in this all-four's position over the foot, making an arch with those fingers of the right hand which form the span, assists in drawing on the upper part of the cordovan, the gallant pulling the while with the pincers. He then puts himself on one knee, lays hold of the end of the foot with one hand, and with the palm of the other strikes his own hand, as hard as if he were striking a ball with a racket. For necessity is so discreet that the poor man inflicts this pain upon himself that he may give none to the person of whose custom he stands in need. "The end of the foot being thus adjusted, he repairs to the heel, and with his tongue moistens the end of the seams, that they may not give way for being dry. Tremendous vanity, that one man should allow the mouth of another to be applied to his feet that he may have them trimly set out! The shoemaker unfolds the heel, turns round with the shocing-skin in his hand, and begins to fit the second part of the shoe upon the foot. He desires the gallant to put the end of the foot down, and the gallant does as he is desired. He draws the shoe towards him with such force that the person who is thus being shoed is compressed in an unseemly manner between the shoemaker's body and the back of the chair. Presently he tells him to put his heel down, and the man is as obedient as a slave. He orders him then to stamp upon the ground, and the man stamps as he is ordered. The Then He goes gallant then seats himself again; the cruel operator draws "If they who wear tight shoes think that thereby they can lessen the size of their feet, they are mistaken. The bones cannot be squeezed one into another; if therefore the shoe is made short, the foot must be crooked at the joints, and grow upward if it is not allowed to grow forward. If it is pinched in the breadth, the flesh which is thus constrained must extend itself in length. They who are shod thus miserably remain with just the same quantity of foot. "Of all animals, man is the one to which, in proportion to its size, nature has given the largest feet; because as his whole body is to be supported upon them, and he has only two, she chose that he should walk in safety. He who wishes to abbreviate them acts as if he were inclined to fall, and to fall into vices which will do him more injury than if he fell upon stones. The feet are the part which in the fabric of the human body are placed nearest to the earth; they are meant therefore to be the humblest part of his frame, but gallants take away all humility by adorning and setting them forth in bravery. This so displeases the Creator, that having to make man an animal who should walk upon the earth, he made the it. The foot which is lifted from the ground leaves its own earth of such properties, that the footsteps should sink into grave open, and seems as if it rose from the grave. What a tremendous thing is it then to set off with adornments that which the earth wishes to devour at every step!" 1" Vede quanto importa a lição de bons livros ! Se o livro fora de cavallerias, sahiria Ignacio hum grande Cavalleyro; foy hum livro de vidas de Santos, sahio hum grande Santo. * A piece of hare's skin is used in Spain for this purpose, as it appears by the former extract from Tom Nash that squirrel's skin was in England. + Which is used to drive in upon the last to raise a shoe higher in the instep. By gentleness and pious art subdued, I love thus uncontroll'd, as in a dream, Se lera cavallerias, sahiria Ignacio hum Cavelleyro da ardente espada; leo vidas de Santos, sahio hum Santo da ardente tocha." - Vieyra, Sermam de S. Ignacio, t. i. 368. See, says Vieyra, the importance of reading good books. If it had been a book of knight-errantry, Ignacio would have become a great knight-errant; it was the Lives of the Saints, and Ignatius became a great saint. If he had read about knights, he might have proved a Knight of the Burning Sword: he read about saints, and proved a Saint of the Burning Torch. Nothing could seem more probable than that Cervantes had this part of Loyola's history in his mind when he described the rise of Don Quixote's madness, if Cervantes had not shown himself in one of his dramas to be thoroughly imbued with the pestilent superstition of his country. El dichoso Rufian is one of those monstrous compositions which nothing but the antichristian fables of the Romish church could have produced. Landor, however, supposes that Cervantes intended to satirize a favourite dogma of the Spaniards. The passage occurs in his thirteenth conversation. "The most dexterous attack ever made against the worship among catholics, which opens so many sidechapels to pilfering and imposture, is that of Cervantes. "Leopold. I do not remember in what part. "President. Throughout Don Quixote. Dulcinea was the peerless, the immaculate, and death was denounced against all who hesitated to admit the assertion of her perfections. Surely your highness never could have imagined that Cervantes was such a knight-errant as to attack knight-errantry, a folly that had ceased more than a century, if indeed it was any folly at all; and the idea that he ridiculed the poems and romances founded on it is not less improbable, for they contained all the literature of the nation, excepting the garniture of chapter-houses, theology, and pervaded, as with a thread of gold, the beautiful histories of this illustrious people. He delighted the idlers of romance by the jokes he scattered amongst them on the false taste of his predecessors and of his rivals; and he delighted his own heart by this solitary archery; well knowing what amusement those who came another day would find in picking up his arrows and discovering the bull's eye hits. "Charles V. was the knight of La Mancha, devoting his labours and vigils, his wars and treaties, to the chimerical idea of making all minds, like watches, turn their indexes by a simultaneous movement to one point. Sancho Panza was the symbol of the people, possessing sound sense in all other matters, but ready to follow the most extravagant visionary in this, and combining implicit belief in it with the grossest sensuality. For religion, when it is hot enough to produce enthusiasm, burns up and kills every seed intrusted to its bosom."-Imaginary Conversations, vol. i. 187. Benedetto di Virgilio, the Italian ploughman, thus describes the course of Loyola's reading, in his heroic poem upon that Saint's life. "Mentre le vote indebolite vene Stass' egli rinforzando à poco a poco Far as tradition lends one guiding gleam ; But now in quest of no ambitious height, In measured strains I tell a Tale of Paraguay. "Quinci comanda, che i volumi ornati "I volumi vergati in dolci canti "Il volume, che spiega in ogni parte "Tutto giocondo à contemplar s' appiglia Tra gli altri osserva con sua meraviglia Onde del buon Gieso nacque la pianta. "Contempla dopo il Serafico Magno "Quinci ritrova il Celestin, che spande "Quivi s'avisa, come il buon Norcino E con aita del motor divino Guastò tempio sacrato al cieco Averno, Por di novo l'eresse à l'alta prole Divíno essempio de l'eterno Sole. A TALE OF PARAGUAY. CANTO I. 1. JENNER! for ever shall thy honour'd name Among the children of mankind be blest, Who by thy skill hast taught us how to tame One dire disease, 1.. the lamentable pest Which Africa sent forth to scourge the West, As if in vengeance for her sable brood So many an age remorselessly opprest. For that most fearful malady subdued Receive a poet's praise, a father's gratitude. 2. Fare promise be this triumph of an age "Legge come Brunone al divin Regge “E tra i Romiti mira Ilarione, E di Vienna quel si franco e forte "Mentre in questo penetra e meglio intende "Qual duro ghiaccio sovra i monti alpini "Com' altri nel cristallo, o nel diamante Till evil from the earth shall pass away. The hideous malady which lost its power A feeble nation of Guarani race, Thinn'd by perpetual wars, but unsubdued, Among those tracts of lake and swamp and wood, Where Mondai issuing from its solitude Flows with slow stream to Empalado's bed. It was a region desolate and rude; But thither had the horde for safety fled, And being there conceal'd in peace their lives they led. Nel specchio di sua mente, indi l' errante Per imitar ne l' opra e ne gli effetti I celesti guerrier del libro letti." Ignatio Loiola, Roma, 1647, Canto ii. The Jesuits, however, assure us, that Loyola is not the author of their society, and that it is not allowable either to think or say so. "Societas Jesu ut à S. Ignatio de Loiolâ non ducit nomen, ita neque originem primam, et aliud sentire aut loqui, nefas." (Imago primi Sæculi Soc. Jesu, p. 64.) "Jesus primus ac præcipuus auctor Societatis" is the title of a chapter in this their secular volume, which is a curious and very beautiful book. Then follows "Beata Virgo nutrix, patrona, imò altera velut auctor Societatis." Lastly, "Post Christum et Mariam Societatis Auctor et Parens sanctus Ignatius." "On the 26th August, 1794, the French plundered the rich church of Loyola, at Azpeitia, and proceeding to Elgoibas, loaded five carts with the spoils of the church of that place. This party of marauders consisted of 200. The peasants collected, fell upon them, and after an obstinate conflict of three hours recovered the whole booty, which they conveyed to Vittoria in triumph. Among other things, a relic of Loyola was recovered, which was carried in procession to the church, the victorious peasants accompanying it."- Marcillac, Hist. de la Guerre de l'Espagne, p. 86. 1 Vaccination. It is odd that in Hindostan, where it might have been supposed superstition would have facilitated the introduction of this practice, a pious fraud was found ne. cessary for removing the prejudice against it. Mooperal Streenivaschary, a Brahmin, thus writes to Dr. Anderson, at Madras, on vaccine inoculation. "It might be useful to remove a prejudice in the minds of the people, arising from the term cow-pock being taken literally in our Tamul tongue; whereas there can be no doubt that it has been a drop of nectar from the exuberant udders of the cows in England, and no way similar to the humour discharged from the tongue and feet of diseased cattle in this country."- Forbes's Oriental Memoirs, vol. iii. p. 423. 2 Mackenzie gives a dreadful picture of the effect of smallpox among the North American Indians: - 5. There had the tribe a safe asylum found Amid those marshes wide and woodlands dense, With pathless wilds and waters spread around, And labyrinthine swamps, a sure defence From human foes, . . . but not from pestilence. The spotted plague appear'd, that direst ill, . . . How brought among them none could tell, or whence; The mortal seed had lain among them still, And quicken'd now to work the Lord's mysterious will. 6. Alas, it was no medicable grief Which herbs might reach! Nor could the juggler's power With all his antic mummeries bring relief. From death; the strong man sunk beneath its rage, And death cut short the thread of childhood and of age. 7. No time for customary mourning now; With hand close-clench'd to pluck the rooted hair, To beat the bosom, on the swelling brow Inflict redoubled blows, and blindly tear The cheeks, indenting bloody furrows there, The deep-traced signs indelible of woe; Then to some crag, or bank abrupt, repair, And giving grief its scope, infuriate throw The impatient body thence upon the earth below. 8. Devices these by poor weak nature taught, "The small-pox spread its destructive and desolating power, as the fire consumes the dry grass of the field. The fatal infection spread around with a baneful rapidity, which no flight could escape, and with a fatal effect that nothing could resist. It destroyed with its pestilential breath whole families and tribes; and the horrid scene presented to those who had the melancholy and afflicting opportunity of beholding it, a combination of the dead, the dying, and such as, to avoid the horrid fate of their friends around them, prepared to disappoint the plague of its prey, by terminating their own existence. "The habits and lives of these devoted people, which provided not to-day for the wants of to-morrow, must have heightened the pains of such an affliction, by leaving them not only without remedy, but even without alleviation. Nought was left them but to submit in agony and despair. "To aggravate the picture, if aggravation were possible, may be added the putrid carcasses which the wolves, with a furious voracity, dragged forth from the huts, or which were mangled within them by the dogs, whose hunger was satisfied with the disfigured remains of their masters. Nor was it uncommon for the father of a family, whom the infection had not reached, to call them around him, to represent the cruel sufferings and horrid fate of their relations, from the influence of some evil spirit, who was preparing to extirpate their race; and to incite them to baffle death, with all its horrors, by their own poniards. At the same time, if their hearts failed Distract itself by sense of fleshly pain From anguish that the soul must else endure. Easier all outward torments to sustain, Than those heart-wounds which only time can cure, And He in whom alone the hopes of man are sure. 9. None sorrow'd here; the sense of woe was sear'd, Its fatal course, rest cometh at the end! 10. Who is there to make ready now the pit, The house that will content from this day forth Its easy tenant? Who in vestments fit Shall swathe the sleeper for his bed of earth, Now tractable as when a babe at birth ? Who now the ample funeral urn shall knead, And burying it beneath his proper hearth Deposit there with careful hands the dead, And lightly then relay the floor above his head? 11. Unwept, unshrouded, and unsepulchred, The hammock where they hang, for winding shet And grave suffices the deserted dead : There from the armadillo's searching feet Safer than if within the tomb's retreat. The carrion birds obscene in vain essay To find that quarry: round and round they be The air, but fear to enter for their prey, And from the silent door the jaguar turns away. them in this necessary act, he was himself ready to perion the deed of mercy with his own hand, as the last act of hiaffection, and instantly to follow them to the common pr of rest and refuge from human evil." 11 may be forgiven for not having strictly adhered t natural history in this instance. The liberty which The taken is mentioned, that it may not be supposed to be arisen from ignorance of this animal's habits. The jaguar will not attack a living horse if a dead one near, and when it kills its prey it drags it to its den, but said not to eat the body till it becomes putrid. Ther caught in large traps of the cage kind, baited with stirr meat, and then speared or shot through the bars. The Clacaquines had a braver way of killing them: they provoked 2. animal, fronted it, received its attack upon a thick trunchan which they held by the two ends, threw it down t teeth were fixed in the wood, and ripped the creature before it could recover. (Techo, p. 29.) A great print made by their skins. The jaguar which has once t human flesh becomes a most formidable animal; such a bet is called a tigre cevado, a fleshed tiger. There was " which infested the road between Santa Fé and Santiago F had killed ten men; after which a party of soldiers were se to destroy it. The same thing is said of the lion and t beasts of prey, probably with truth; not, as is vulgarly sta posed, because they have a particular appetite for this k food, but because, having once fed upon man, they from d 12. 13. But nature for her universal law Hath other surer instruments in store, Whom from the haunts of men no wonted awe Withholds as with a spell. In swarms they pour From wood and swamp: and when their work is o'er, On the white bones the mouldering roof will fall; Seeds will take root, and spring in sun and shower; And Mother Earth ere long with her green pall, Resuming to herself the wreck, will cover all. time regard him like any animal of inferior strength, as their natural prey. "It is a constant observation in Numidia," says Bruce, that the lion avoids and flies from the face of men, till by some accident they have been brought to en gage, and the beast has prevailed against him; then that feeling of superiority, imprinted by the Creator in the heart of all animals, for man's preservation, seems to forsake him. The lion having once tasted human blood, relinquishes the pursuit after the flock. He repairs to some high way or frequented path, and has been known, in the kingdom of Tunis, to interrupt the road to a market for several weeks; and in this he persists, till hunters or soldiers are sent out to destroy him." Dobrizhoffer saw the skin of a jaguar which was as long as the standard hide. He says, also, that he saw one attack two horses which were coupled with a thong, kill one, and drag the other away after it. A most unpleasant habit of this beast is, that in cold or wet weather he chooses to lodge within doors, and will steal into the house. A girl at Corrientes, who slept with her mother, saw one lying under the bed when she rose in the morning: she had presence of mind to bid her mother lie still, went for help, and soon rid the house of its perilous visitor. Cat-like, the jaguar is a good climber; but Dobrizhoffer tells us how a traveller who takes to a tree for shelter may profit by the position: "In promptu consilium; urina pro armis est: hac si tigridis ad arboris pedem minitantis oculos consperseris, salva res est. Quâ datâ portå fuget illico." (i. 280.) He who first did this must have been a good marksman as well as a cool fellow, and it was well for him that he reserved his fire till the jaguar was within shot. Dobrizhoffer seems to credit an opinion (which is held in India of the tiger also), that the jaguar's claws are in a certain degree venomous; the scar which they leave is said to be always liable to a very painful and burning sense of heat. But that author, in his usual amusing manner, repeats many credulous notions concerning the animal: as that its burnt claws are a remedy for the tooth-ache; and that it has a mode of decoying fish, by standing neck-deep in the water, and spitting out a white foam, which allures them within reach. Techo (30.) says the same thing of a large snake. An opinion that wounds inflicted by the stroke of animals of this kind are envenomed is found in the East also. Captain Williamson says, " However trivial the scratches made by the claws of tigers may appear, yet, whether it be owing to any noxious quality in the claw itself, to the manner in which the tiger strikes, or any other matter, I have no hesitation in saying, that at least a majority of such as have been under my notice died; and I have generally remarked, that those whose cases appeared the least alarming were most suddenly carried off. I have ever thought the perturbation arising from the nature of the attack to have a considerable share in the fatality alluded to, especially as I never knew any one wounded by a tiger to die without suffering for some days under that most dreadful symptom, a locked jaw! Such as have been wounded to appearance severely, but accompanied with a moderate hæmorrhage, I have commonly found to recover, excepting in the rainy season: at that period I should expect serious consequences from either a bite or a scratch."- Oriental Sports, vol. i. p. 52. Wild beasts were so numerous and fierce in one part of Mexico, among the Otomites, that Fr. Juan de Grijalva says Oh better thus with earth to have their part, Age after age preserved by horrid art, In ghastly image of humanity! 1 Strange pride that with corruption thus would vie! And strange delusion that would thus maintain The fleshly form, till cycles shall pass by, And in the series of the eternal chain, The spirit come to seek its old abode again. in his time, in one year, more than 250 Indians were devoured by them. "There then prevailed an opinion," he proceeds, " and still it prevails among many, that those tigers and lions were certain Indian sorcerers, whom they call Nahuales, who by diabolical art transform themselves into beasts, and tear the Indians in pieces, either to revenge themselves for some offences which they have received, or to do them evil, which is the proper condition of the Devil, and an effect of his fierceness. Some traces of these diabolical acts have been seen in our time, for in the year 1579, the deaths of this kind being many, and the suspicion vehement, some Indians were put to the question, and they confessed the crime, and were executed for it. With all this experience and proof, there are many persons who doubt these transformations, and say that the land being mountainous produces wild beasts, and the beasts being once fleshed commit these great ravages. And it was through the weak understandings of the Indians that they were persuaded to believe their conjurors could thus metamorphose themselves; and, if these poor wretches confessed themselves guilty of such a crime, it was owing to their weakness under the torture; and so they suffered for an offence which they had never committed." Father Grijalva, however, holds with his Father S. Augustine, who has said concerning such things, "hæc ad nos non quibuscunque qualibus credere putaremus indignum, sed eis referentibus pervenerunt, quos nobis non existimaremus fuisse mentitos." "In the days of my Father S. Augustine," he says, "wonderful things were related of certain innkeepers in Italy, who transformed passengers into beasts of burden, to bring to their inns straw, barley, and whatever was wanted from the towns, and then metamorphosed them into their own persons, that they might purchase, as customers, the very commodities they had carried. And in our times the witches of Logrono make so many of these transformations, that now no one can doubt them. This matter of the Nahuales, or sorcerers of Tututepec, has been confessed by so many, that that alone suffices it to make it credible. The best proof which can be had is, that they were condemned to death by course of justice; and it is temerity to condemn the judges, for it is to be believed that they made all due inquiry. Our brethren who had been ministers there, and are also judges of the interior court (that is of the conscience), have all held these transformations to be certain: so that there ought to be no doubt concerning it. On the contrary, it is useful to understand it, that if at any time in heathen lands the devil should work any of these metamorphoses, the Indians may see we are not surprised at them, and do not hold them as miraculous, but can explain to them the reason and cause of these effects, which astonish and terrify them so greatly." He proceeds to show that the devil can only exercise this power as far as he is permitted by God, in punishment for sin, and that the metamorphosis is not real, but only apparent; the sorcerer not being actually transformed into a lion, but seeming as if he were so both to himself and others. In what manner he can tear a man really to pieces with imaginary claws, and devour him in earnest with an imaginary mouth, the good friar has not condescended to explain. Historia de la Orden de S. Augustin en la Provincia de N. España, pp. 34, 35. The more ghastly in proportion as more of the ap |