of Noses which follows. Two generations ago one Dr. Ferriar made a little reputation for himself by pointing out appropriated passages; but an examination of his book shows that Sterne is no more amenable to the charge of plagiarism than are most eminent writers; that he has himself suffered far more than he gained by theft; that the little he has borrowed is inferior to the strictly original portions of his work; that in several places, as in a passage from Baconiana and in the Languedoc proverb, " God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb," he has disclaimed the authorship, by italicizing the quoted words; and that in all the cases of general parallelism which have been pointed out, the resemblance is so slight as to raise a doubt whether Sterne had ever seen that which he is accused of stealing, or his improvements are so decided as to entitle him to the credit of originality. His most valuable appropriations consist of quotations found in Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, which he did not take the pains to verify. The sayings of ancient philosophers which garnish Mr. Shandy's remarks upon Master Bobby's death come from Burton, but the picture of an English father thus consoling himself, with Uncle Toby by his side, and Mrs. Shandy, who had not yet heard the news, at the keyhole, is Sterne's own.

"I have friends, - I have relations, I have three desolate children,' says Socrates.

"Then,' cried my mother, opening the door, 'you have one more, Mr. Shandy, than I know of.'

"By Heaven! I have one less,' said my father, walking out of the room.

"They are Socrates's children,' said my Uncle Toby. He has been dead a hundred years ago,' replied my mother.

"My Uncle Toby was no chronologer; so, not caring to advance one step but upon safe ground, he laid down his pipe deliberately upon the table, and rising up and taking my mother most kindly by the hand, without saying another word either good or bad to her, he led her out after my father, that he might finish the éclaircissement himself."

Sterne's offences against the good manners of literature, though less numerous than may be supposed by strangers to

his writings, are still so grave in the eyes of this generation as to close Tristram Shandy to many readers. They may be attributed, in part, to his familiarity with the writers of the Middle Ages; in part to his intimacy with John Hall Stevenson, whose "Crazy Tales" are pronounced "infamous" by those who have had the opportunity and the courage to read them; in part to the conversation he must have heard in boyhood, the foulness of which can only be imagined by those acquainted with the talk at English mess-tables to-day, and acquainted, too, with the foul deeds which Marlborough's soldiers did not blush to perform; and in part to the manners and taste of the century which Sterne reflected, without being moved to reform it. His first two volumes had received the unqualified indorsement of the bench of bishops, who had followed up their commendation by subscribing for Parson Yorick's sermons. The passages condemned by more squeamish critics were those most admired by the wits into whose society Sterne was thrown in London. The very journals which censured him on this score quoted the most objectionable passages, and complained that the books were read by young ladies openly. The Rev. Dr. Dodd, one of his most violent assailants, was a Tartuffe, who ended his days upon the scaffold; and even Goldsmith said things in "The Citizen of the World" similar to some of those he could not pardon in Sterne, and included in his "Beauties of English Poetry," published for the use of schools in 1767, Prior's coarse translation of one of the coarsest stories in the Italian jest-books. The generation which could read the Crazy Tales,* devoured "Tristram Shandy" the more greedily because of its license. "The men of genius are to a man on my side," writes Sterne a month before his death to Dr. Eustace of America, adding that all who found fault with the book on this score were

"either hypocrites or Tartuffes." "It cannot be said," says Scott," that the licentious humor of Tristram Shandy is of the kind which applies itself to the passions, or is calculated to corrupt society. But it is a sin against taste, if harmless as to morals."

*Gray to Dr. Wharton: "Yet I remember you all read Crazy Tales without pasting down a leaf."

This "sin against taste" is fatal to some readers' enjoyment of Sterne's writings, while to others it is a condiment, disagreeable in itself, but not impairing their relish of the dish it seasons. Thackeray says that "the foul eyes of the satyr leer out of the leaves constantly; " but Paley regarded the perusal of Tristram Shandy as the summum bonum of life; and Mendelssohn, to whom Goethe had said of the Sentimental Journey that it was "impossible for any one better to paint what a froward and perverse thing is the human heart," found it "very subtile and beautifully conceived and expressed." Some of Sterne's highest compliments are from those who could not appreciate him. Voltaire coupled his name with that of Shakespeare in the prediction that the works of neither would be found worthy of a translation into French. 66 "Il y a chez Sterne les éclairs d'une raison supérieure, comme on en voit dans Shakespeare." Walpole, who read with satisfaction the Crazy Tales and the Sofa of Crebillon fils, saw as little merit in Don Quixote as in Tristram Shandy. Dr. Johnson spoke with hardly more contempt of Sterne than of Fielding and Smollett, and thought sixty pounds "no mean price" for the Vicar of Wakefield. Sterne's merits as a writer cannot be better summed up than they are in the opening sentence of Mr. Walcknaer's notice of him in the first edition of the Biographie Universelle : “Moraliste d'autant plus persuasif qu'il raconte et n'enseigne pas; satirique d'autant plus malin que c'est en agitant les grelots de la folie qu'il décoche les traits les plus acérés; narrateur d'autant plus pathétique qu'il met plus de simplicité dans les paroles et semble contenir davantage sa pénétrante sensibilité, qui se trahit par des reticences; bouffon d'autant plus divertissant qu'il l'est sans le vouloir et qu'il ne fait que céder à l'humeur joviale dont il est animé ; enfin auteur d'autant plus aimable qu'il cause toujours et ne compose jamais."

ADAMS SHERMAN HILL.

ART. II. —1. Observations and Discussions on the November Meteors of 1867. United States Naval Observatory, Washington. 8vo pamphlet.

2. Meteoric Astronomy. By DANIEL KIRKWOOD, LL. D. Philadelphia. 1867. 12mo.

3. A Treatise on Meteorology. With a Collection of Meteorological Tables. By ELIAS LOOMIS, LL. D. New York. 1868. 8vo.

If we watch the heavens on a cloudless night, we shall frequently see an appearance as of a star suddenly coming into view, moving rapidly for a second or so, and as suddenly disappearing. These appearances may be seen three or four times an hour in the evening, and they gradually increase in frequency throughout the night. They have been seen from time immemorial, and are familiarly known as shooting-stars. In general they are so minute as hardly to attract attention. But they sometimes have fallen in such numbers as to fill the beholders with terror, and alarm them with the notion of the end of the world. We have in the annals of India and China records of such showers of meteors extending back to a very remote period. The researches of Edward Biot, Quetelet, Professor H. A. Newton, and others, have brought to light many of these old accounts, some specimens of which we shall present to the reader.

An Arab historian says: "In the year 599, on the last day of Muharram, stars shot hither and thither, and flew against one another like a swarm of locusts; this phenomenon lasted until daybreak; people were thrown into consternation and made supplication to the Most High; there was never the like seen except on the coming of the messenger of God, on whom be benediction and peace."

Another record says, that in the year 763 "the stars were suddenly seen to fall from the heavens in such numbers that people were frightened, thinking the end of the world had come.'

On the 21st of October, 855, "a great fall of stars occurred

during the night, lasting from evening till daylight. At the same time there were earthquakes throughout the world."

The years 1094, 1095, and 1096 are remarkable for the recurrence of meteoric showers on the same dates in each. On the 10th of April, 1094, "stars were seen to fall from the heavens in such numbers that they could not be counted." In the following year they "fell like hail" from midnight until daylight on the 10th and 11th of the same month. The council of Clermont was then engaged in planning a crusade, and when the shower was found to spare the earth, it was concluded to betoken some great revolution in Christendom. Again, in the year 1096, on the same date, the stars "flew like dust in the wind, from cock-crowing till daylight."

"October 19, 1202.-The stars flew like grasshoppers from east to west. This lasted until daylight. The people were in distress."

In one of the old annals of Portugal there is an account which is remarkable for its accordance in certain respects with the modern theory of the November showers.

"In the year 1366, on the 22d of October, three months before the death of the king Don Pedro, there was in the heavens a movement of stars such as men never before saw or heard of. From midnight onward, all the stars moved from east to west; and afterward they fell from the sky in such numbers, that, as they descended low in the air, they seemed large and fiery, and the sky and the air seemed to be in flames, and even the earth seemed ready to take fire. Those who saw this sight were filled with great fear and dismay, thinking they were all dead men, and that the end of the world had come." That part of the heavens toward which the earth is moving rises at midnight, and crosses the meridian at six in the morning. This is also the point from which the meteors appear to come. Hence soon after midnight the meteors appear to move from east to west, while about daylight they fall from near the zenith like rain, in exact accordance with the above description.

Coming down to the times of more accurate observation and description, we find certain periods of the year to be remarkable for the frequency of meteors. The August meteors have been