informed that a Christian lady of rank, named Maximela, caused the body of St Andrew to be embalmed and honourably interred; and that in the earlier part of the fourth century, it was removed by the Emperor Constantine to Byzantium, or Constantinople, where it was deposited in a church erected in honour of the Twelve Apostles. The history of the relics does not end here, for we are informed that, about thirty years after the death of Constantine, in 368 A. D., a pious Greek monk, named Regulus or Rule, conveyed the remains of St Andrew to Scotland, and there deposited them on the eastern coast of Fife, where he built a church, and where afterwards arose the renowned city and cathedral of St Andrews. Whatever credit may be given to this legend, it is certain that St Andrew has been regarded, from time immemorial, as the patron saint of Scotland; and his day, the 30th of November, is a favourite occasion of social and national reunion, amid Scotchmen residing in England and other places abroad.

The commencement of the ecclesiastical year is regulated by the feast of St Andrew, the nearest Sunday to which, whether before or after, constitutes the first Sunday in Advent, or the period of four weeks which heralds the approach of Christmas. St Andrew's Day is thus sometimes the first, and sometimes the last festival in the Christian year.

Born.-Sir Henry Savile, eminent scholar and mathematician, 1549, Over Bradley, Yorkshire; Jonathan Swift, humorous and political writer, 1667, Dublin; John Toland, sceptical writer, 1669, Ireland; Mark

Lemon, dramatist and miscellaneous writer, 1809, London. Died.-Euripides, tragic dramatist, 406 B. c.; Edmund Ironside, colleague of King Canute, assassinated 1016; William Gilbert, celebrated writer on magnetism, 1603, Colchester; John Selden, politician, and legal writer, author of Table-talk, 1654, London; Maurice, Marshal Saxe, 1750, Castle of Chambord; James Sheridan Knowles, dramatist, 1862, Torquay.

SELDEN.

The seventeenth century was rich in great lawyers, but few could take precedence of John Selden. In the contests between the Stuarts and their parliaments he was constantly referred to for advice, and his advice he gave without fear or favour. James I., in 1621, cast him into prison for counselling the Commons to resist his will, and in 1629 Charles I. committed him to the Tower for a similar offence; yet neither the tyranny of the crown nor the applause of the people could make him swerve from his persistent integrity. He was not a cold-blooded reasoner, but a patriot, whose motto was 'Liberty above all;' nevertheless his proud distinction was, that in the tumults and excitement of a stormy age he preserved his reason and independence unimpaired. A mediator is usually an unpopular character, but Selden commanded the respect alike of Royalist and Roundhead. Clarendon writes of him: Mr Selden was a person whom no character can flatter, or transmit in any expressions equal to his virtue. He was of so stupendous learning in all kinds, and in all languages, that a man would have thought he had been entirely conversant among books, and had

* See p. 622 of this volume.

SELDEN.

never spent an hour but in reading and writing; yet his humanity, courtesy, and affability was such, that he would have been thought to have been bred in the best courts, but that his good-nature, charity, and delight in doing good, and in communicating all he knew, exceeded that breeding.'

Selden's learning was indeed prodigious. From his youth he was a hard student, and having a rare memory, he seldom forgot what he had read. While quite a young man, he had earned a high reputation as a jurist. He was no orator, but men resorted to him for his opinion rather than his rhetoric, and his practice lay rather in his chamber than in the law-courts. He wrote many books; and a History of Tithes, published in 1618, provoked much excitement in consequence of his denying the divine, while admitting the legal right of the clergy to tithes. He was summoned in consequence before the High Commission Court, but without further result than the exaction from him of an expression of sorrow for creating disturbance, no retractation being made of the opinion which he had expressed. Few except antiquaries at this day disturb Selden's works, but his memory is kept green in literature by means of a collection of his Table-talk made by Milward, his secretary for twenty years. Of this choice volume Coleridge in a somewhat extravagant vein says: "There is more weighty bullion sense in Selden's Table-talk than ever found in the same number of pages in any uninspired writer.' The Table-talk affords a fine idea of Selden, and confirms Clarendon's eulogy when he says: In his conversation Selden faculty of making hard things easy, and of presentwas the most clear discourser, and had the best ing them to the understanding of any man that hath been known.' Not unfrequently also, over some bright saying, will the reader be ready to exclaim with Coleridge: Excellent! Oh! to have been with Selden over his glass of wine, making every accident an outlet and a vehicle for wisdom." Throughout the Table-talk there are evidences of his independent and impartial temper; High Churchmen and Puritans suffer equally from his blows. Of women his opinion is generally contemptuous. For instance, he says:

frogs in Esop were extreme wise; they had a great "Of Marriage.-Marriage is a desperate thing. The mind to some water, but they would not leap into the well, because they could not get out again.'

The experience of his times would suggest this bit of wisdom about

'Religion.-Alteration of religion is dangerous, because we know not where it will stay; it is like a millstone that lies upon the top of a pair of stairs; it is hard to remove it, but if once 'tis thrust off the first stair, it never stays till it comes to the bottom.'

Thus would Selden have justified the execution of a witch:

'Witches. The law against witches does not prove there be any; but it punishes the malice of those people that use such means to take away men's lives. If one should profess that by turning his hat thrice, and crying "Buz," he could take away a man's life, though in truth he could do no such thing, yet this were a just law made by the state, that whosoever should turn his hat thrice, and cry "Buz," with the intention to take away a man's life, shall be put to

death.'

Here is an anecdote about King James: Judgments. We cannot tell what is a judgment of God; 'tis presumption to take upon us to know. Commonly we say a judgment falls upon a man for something we cannot abide. An example we have in King James, concerning the death of Henry IV. of France. One said he was killed for his wenching, another said he was killed for turning his religion. "No," says King James (who could not abide fighting), "he was killed for permitting duels in his kingdom.' The following have their application to the scruples and asceticism of the Puritans:

'Conscience.-A knowing man [a wise man] will do that which a tender conscience man dares not do, by reason of his ignorance; the other knows there is no hurt; as a child is afraid of going into the dark, when a man is not, because he knows there is no danger. Pleasure. 'Tis a wrong way to proportion other men's pleasure to ourselves; 'tis like the child's using a little bird, "O poor bird! thou shalt sleep with me!" so lays it in his bosom, and stifles it with his hot breath the bird had rather be in the cold air. And yet, too, it is the most pleasing flattery, to like what other men like.'

After a banishment of nearly four centuries, Cromwell allowed the Jews to settle in England. Selden no doubt approved his liberality, for, said he:

'Jews. Talk what you will of the Jews, that they are cursed, they thrive where ere they come, they are able to oblige the prince of their country by lending him money; none of them beg, they keep together, and for their being hated, my life for yours, Christians hate one another as much.'

In the following, he gives his judgment against those who hold that genius is an acquirement of education or industry:

:

'Learning and Wisdom.-No man is wiser for his learning it may administer matter to work in, or objects to work upon; but wit and wisdom are born with a man.'

These morsels may give some notion of the flavour of the Table-talk; there is no better book to have at hand and dip into at an odd half-hour.

Selden was born at Salvington, on the Sussex coast, near Worthing, in 1584. In the house where he spent his boyhood, on the lintel of the door withinside, is a Latin distich, rudely cut in capitals intermixed with small letters, reputed to have been the work of Selden when ten years old. The inscription runs :

'Gratus, honeste, mihi; non claudar, initio, sedeque : Fur abeas, non sum facta soluta tibi.'

Which may be rendered:

"Thou'rt welcome, honest friend, walk in, make free: Thief, get thee hence, my doors are closed to thee!' His father was a musician, or as he is called in the parish register, 'a minstrell. Young Selden was educated at Oxford, and from thence removed to London, and entered the Inner Temple in 1604. His early rise in life he owed simply to his own diligence and ability. When asked, in his old age, to whom he should leave his fortune, he said he had no relation but a milk-maid, and she would not know what to do with it. He died on the last day of November 1654, within sixteen days of the completion of his seventieth year. He was buried in the Temple Church, and Archbishop Usher

THE GREAT RAILWAY MANIA-DAY.

preached his funeral sermon, in the course of which he observed, that he looked upon the deceased as so great a scholar, that he was scarce worthy to carry his books after him.' In person Selden was tall, being in height about six feet; his face was thin and oval, his nose long and inclining to one side; and his eyes gray, and full, and prominent.

MARSHAL SAXE.

Though not a general of the highest order, Marshal Saxe is still the most distinguished commander that appeared in France during the greater part of the last century. The victory of Fontenoy, in which he repulsed the combined forces of England and Holland under the Duke of Cumberland and Prince Waldeck, was followed by a series of successes which compelled the allies to enter into negotiations with France for peace, resulting in the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748. Honours of all sorts were showered on him by Louis XV.; and among other rewards, the magnificent castle of Chambord, twelve miles from Blois, with an annual revenue of 100,000 francs, was bestowed on the hero of so many achievements.

Marshal Saxe was the natural son of Augustus II., king of Poland, and was born at Dresden on 19th October 1696. From boyhood he was inured to arms, having, when only twelve years of age, served under Count Schulembourg before Lisle. He first entered the French army about 1720, when the Duke of Orleans appointed him to the command of a regiment. Subsequently to this he succeeded in getting himself elected Duke of Catharine' I. in the Polish Diet, he was deprived of Courland; but through the influence of the Czarina his sovereignty, and compelled to retreat to France. After some vicissitudes of fortune, he took service, in 1733, again with France, under whose banners, with the exception of an interval spent in vainly prosecuting his claim to the duchy of Courland, he continued for the remainder of his days.

A foreigner by birth, Marshal Saxe was, in religious belief, a Lutheran; and as he died in the Protestant faith, it was impossible to bury him with all the rites and ceremonies due to his distin

guished position and services. A lady of rank remarked on hearing of his death: 'How vexatious that we cannot say a De profundis for him who made us so often sing Te Deum!' Louis XV., however, caused his corpse to be conveyed with great pomp from Chambord to Strasburg, where it was interred in the Lutheran church in that town.

THE GREAT RAILWAY MANIA-DAY.

Never had there occurred, in the history of jointstock enterprises, such another day as the 30th of November 1845. It was the day on which a madness for speculation arrived at its height, to be followed by a collapse terrible to many thousands of families. Railways had been gradually becoming successful; and the old companies had, in many cases, bought off, on very high terms, rival lines which threatened to interfere with their profits. Both of these circumstances tended to encourage the concoction of new schemes. There is always floating capital in England waiting for profitable employment; there are always professional men looking out for employment in great engineering

THE GREAT RAILWAY

MANIA-DAY.

By an enactment in force at that time, it was necessary for the prosecution of any railway scheme in parliament, that a mass of documents should be deposited with the Board of Trade on or before the 30th of November in the preceding year. The multitude of these schemes, in 1845, was so great, that there could not be found surveyors enough to prepare the plans and sections in time. Advertisements were inserted in the newspapers, offering enormous pay for even a smattering of this kind of skill. Surveyors and architects from abroad were attracted to England; young men at home were tempted to break the articles into which they had entered with their masters; and others were seduced from various professions into that of railway engineers. Sixty persons in the employment of the Ordnance Department left their situations to gain enormous earnings in this way. There were desperate fights in various parts of England between property-owners who were determined that their land should not be entered upon for the purpose of railway-surveying, and surveyors who knew that the schemes of their companies would be frustrated unless the surveys were made and the plans deposited by the 30th of November. To attain this end, force, fraud, and bribery were freely made use of. The 30th November 1845 fell on a Sunday; but it was no Sunday near the office of the Board of Trade. Vehicles were driving up during the whole of the day, with agents and clerks bringing plans and sections. In country districts, as that day approached, and on the morning of the day, coaches-and-four were in greater request than even at race-time, galloping at full speed to the nearest railway-station. On the Great Western Railway an express train was hired by the agents of one new scheme; the engine broke down; the train came to a stand-still at Maidenhead, and in this state, was run into by another express train hired by the agents of a rival project; the opposite parties barely escaped with their lives,

but contrived to reach London at the last moment. On this eventful Sunday, there were no fewer than ten of these express trains on the Great Western Railway, and eighteen on the Eastern Counties! One railway company was unable to deposit its papers, because another company surreptitiously bought, for a high sum, twenty of the necessary sheets from the lithographic printer; and horses were killed in madly running about in search of the missing documents before the fraud was discovered. In some cases the lithographic stones were stolen; and in one instance the printer was bribed by a large sum not to finish, in proper time, the plans for a rival line. One eminent house brought over four hundred lithographic printers from Belgium, and even then, and with these, all the work ordered could not be executed. Some of the plans were only two-thirds lithographed, the rest

miles in an hour and a half, nearly 80 miles an hour. An established company having refused an express train to the promoters of a rival scheme, the latter employed persons to get up a mock funeral cortège, and engage an express train to convey it to London; they did so, and the plans and sections came in the hearse, with solicitors and surveyors as mourners!

Copies of many of the documents had to be deposited with the clerks of the peace of the counties to which the schemes severally related, as well as with the Board of Trade; and at some of the offices of these clerks, strange scenes occurred on the Sunday. At Preston, the doors of the office were not opened, as the officials considered the orders which had been issued to keep open on that particular Sunday, to apply only to the Board of Trade; but a crowd of law-agents and surveyors assembled, broke the windows, and threw their plans and sections into the office. At the Board of Trade, extra clerks were employed on that day, and all went pretty smoothly until nine o'clock in the evening. A rule was laid down for receiving the plans and sections, hearing a few words of explanation from the agents, and making certain entries in books. But at length the work accumulated more rapidly than the clerks could attend to it, and the agents arrived in greater number than the entrance-hall could hold. The anxiety was somewhat allayed by an announcement, that whoever was inside the building before the clock struck twelve should be deemed in good time. Many of the agents bore the familiar name of Smith; and when Mr Smith' was summoned by the messenger to enter and speak concerning some scheme, the name of which was not announced, in rushed several persons, of whom, of course, only one could be the right Mr Smith at that particular moment. One agent arrived while the clock was striking twelve, and was admitted. Soon afterwards, a carriage with reeking horses drove up; three agents rushed out, and finding the door closed, rang furiously at the bell; no sooner did a policeman open the door to say that the time was past, than the agents threw their bundles of plans and sections through the half-opened door into the hall; but this was not permitted, and the policeman threw the documents out into the street. The baffled agents were nearly maddened with vexation; for they had arrived in London from Harwich in good time, but had been driven about Pimlico, hither and thither, by a post-boy who did not, or would not, know the way to the office of the Board of Trade.

The Times newspaper, in the same month, devoted three whole pages to an elaborate analysis, by Mr Spackman, of the various railway schemes brought forward in 1845. They were no less than 620 in number, involving an (hypothetical) expenditure of 560 millions sterling; besides 643 other schemes which had not gone further than issuing prospectuses. More than 500 of the schemes went through all the stages necessary for being brought before parliament; and 272 of these became acts of parliament in 1846-to the ruin of thousands who had afterwards to find the money to fulfil the engagements into which they had so rashly entered.

(DESCRIPTIVE.)

DARK December has now come, and brought with him the shortest day and longest night: he turns the mist-like rain into ice with the breath of his nostrils and with cold that pierces to the very bones, drives the shivering and houseless beggar to seek shelter in the deserted shed. He gives a chilly blue steel-like

ECEMBER

colour to the shrivelled heps and haws, and causes the half-starved fieldfares to huddle together in the naked hedge for warmth; while the owl, rolling himself like a ball in his feathers, creeps as far up as he can into the old hollow tree, to get out of the way of the cold. Even the houses, with their frosted windows, have now a wintery look; and the iron knocker of the door, covered with hoary rime, seems to cut the fingers like a knife when it is touched. The only cheering sight we see as we pass through a village, is the fire in the blacksmith's forge, and boys sliding-as they break the frosty air with merry shouts-on the large pond with its screen of pollard-willows, broken now and

then by the report of the sportsman's gun, and the puff of smoke which we see for a few moments floating on the air like a white cloud in the distant valley. We see the footprints of the little robin in the snow, and where it lies deep, the long-eared hare betrays her hiding-place by the deep indentments she makes in the feathery flakes. The unfrozen mere looks black through the snow that lies around it, while the flag-like sedges that stand upright appear like sharp sword-blades frosted with silver. The trees mirrored deep down seem as if reflected on polished ebony, until we draw nearer and look at the cold gray sky, that appears to lie countless fathoms below. When the wind shakes the frosted rushes and the bending waterflags, they seem to talk to one another in hoarse husky whispers, as if they had lost their voices through standing so long in the cold by the watercourses, and forgotten the low murmurings they gave utterance to in summer. We pity the few sheep that are still left in the fields, burrowing for the cold turnips under the snow, and almost wish their owners had to procure their own food in the same way, for having neglected to fold them. The falling snow from some overladen branch, under which we are passing, makes us shake our heads as we feel it thawing about the neck. Now the mole is compelled to work his way deeper underground in search of food, as the worms he feeds upon are only to be found beyond the reach of the frost, below which he must penetrate or starve, for his summer hunting-grounds are now tenantless. During a severe frost, myriads of fish perish for want of air in our ponds and rivers, and those who value their stock will not neglect to make holes through the ice, and throw food into the water, for unless this is done, they will devour one another. Cattle also gather about their usual drinking-place, and wait patiently until the ice is broken for them. That lively little fellow, the water-wagtail the smallest of our birds that walk-may now be seen pecking about the spots of ground that are unfrozen in moist places, though what he finds to feed upon there, unless it be loosened bits of grit and gravel, is difficult to ascertain. Many a shy bird, but seldom seen at any other season, now draws near to our habitations in search of food; and sometimes, when entering an outhouse, we are startled by the rush of wings, as the pretty intruder escapes by the open doorway we entering. The black-bird dashes out of the shed as the farmer's boy enters to fodder the cattle, frightening him for the moment, so unexpected and sudden is the rush; for cattle must now be attended to early and late, and the farmer finds plenty to do, although there is but little labour going on in the fields. Sometimes he has to hurry out half-dressed in the night, for there is a cry of 'murder' in the hen-roost, and he well knows that the fox has broken in someway, and will not retire supperless in spite of the loud outcry. The housewife, when she counts her chickens next morning, and reckons up her loss, wishes the old earth-stopper had been laid up with rheumatism instead of being out all night as he is, blocking up the fox-holes, while Reynard is out feeding, to prevent him from running in when he is hunted. Poor old fellow! we have often felt sorry for him, as we have passed him on a cold winter's night, with his lantern and spade, making the best of his way

are

to some fox's burrow, to block up the entrance, and have often wondered what the fox thinks when he returns home, and finds the doorway filled in with thorns and furze, over which the earth is shovelled. Though a thief, he is a beautifully formed animal, and I like to see him trailing his long bush through the snow, and to hear his feet stirring the fallen leaves as he steals through the wood.

How few and apt are the words Shakspeare has used to paint a perfect picture of winter in Love's Labour's Lost! He begins by describing the icicles hanging down the wall, and Dick the shepherd blowing his nails to warm them, with the same breath that he blows into his porridge to cool it. Next he tells us how Tom drags huge logs to the great hall-fire, which he would rear on the andirons, for grates and coal were not in use in Shakspeare's time; then follows Marian with her red, raw nose, the milk frozen in the pail she carries, pitying the poor birds she saw outside shivering in the snow. Neither do matters mend at church, where there is such a noise of coughing as to drown the parson's 'sixteenthly, one aisle answering to another, as if the congregation were playing at catching colds instead of balls, for as soon as one has ceased to cough, it is taken up by another, until it goes the whole round of the church. Outside, at night, the owl keeps crying, To-whit, too-whoo,' hidden, perhaps, among the ivy of centuries, which has overgrown the picturesque and ornamented gable. Every line here of the great poet is a picture of winter, though only painted in words; and so distinct is each outline, that any artist, with a poetical eye, might transfer every figure, with such action as Shakspeare has given to each, to canvas. Now is the time to sit by the hearth and peruse his immortal works; and few, we think, will read a page attentively without discovering something new some thought that assumes a fresh form, or presents itself to the mind in a new light. For out-of-door pleasure, at times, is not to be found, as the days are short, cold, comfortless, and almost dark; lanes, fields, and woods naked, silent, and desolate; while the dull gray sky seems, at times, as if sheeted with lead. What a brave heart the pretty robin must have to sing at such a season! and if anything can tempt us out of doors, it is a hope that we may hear his cheerful song.

Beside the song of the robin, the green ivy gives a life to the nakedness, especially when we see it clambering up a gigantic tree, whose branches are bald. In summer we could not see it for the intervening foliage, though it was then green with young leaves. We love to see it romping about our gray old churches, and old English manorhouses; sometimes climbing up the old square tower of the one, and burying under its closeclinging stems the twisted chimneys of the other, forming a warm shelter for the little wrens and titmice from the biting frosts and cutting winds of winter. Then there are the bright holly-bushes, with their rich clusters of crimson berries, which throw quite a cheerful warmth around the places in which they grow, and recall pleasant visions of the coming Christmas, and the happy faces they will flash upon when reflecting the sunny blaze from the snug warm hearth. Here and there, though never very common, we see the mirth-making