relates, that the Phoenicians, in their first voyages into Spain, having amaffed more filver than their fhips could contain, took the lead from their anchors, and put filver in its place. We may obferve further, that the first anchors had only one flook. It was not till many ages after, that Anacharfis invented one with two. All these different kinds of anchors are ftill in use in some countries. The inhabitants of Iceland, and of Bander-Congo, ufe a large ftone with a hole in the middle, and a flick thruft through it. In China, Japan, Siam, and the Manillas, they have only wooden anchors, to which they tie great ftones. In the kingdom of Calicut they are of stone. The ignorance of the first ages, and of many nations to this day, of the art of working iron, has been the occafion of all these rude and clumfy contrivances. Though the firft navigators coafted along the fhores, and took all poffible pains not to lofe fight of land, yet, in the very firft ages, they muft frequently have been driven off to fea by ftorms. The confufion and uncertainty they found themselves in when these accidents happened, would put them upon ftudying fome method of finding where they were in thefe circumftances. They would foon be fenfible, that the infpection of the heavenly bodies was the only thing that could afford them any direction. It was in this manner, probably, that aftronomy came to be applied to navigation. From the first moment men began to obferve the motion of the heavenly bodies, they would take notice, that in that part of the hea→ vens where the fun never paffes, there are certain ftars which appear conftantly every night. It was eafy to discover the pofition of these ftars in respect of our earth.. They appear always on the left hand of the obfervator, whose face is turned to the east. Navigators were foon fenfible that this discovery might be of great advantage to them, as thefe ftars constantly pointed out the fame part of the world. When they happened to be driven from their course, they found, that, in order to recover it, they had only to direct their fhip in fuch a manner, as to bring her into her former pofition, with refpect to those stars which they faw regularly every night. Antiquity gives the honour of this discovery to the Phoenicians, a people equally industrious and enterprifing. The Great Bear would probably be the first guide which thefe ancient navigators made choice of. This conftellation is eafily diftinguished, both by the brightness and peculiar arrangement of the ftars which compofe it. Being near the pole, it hardly ever fets, with refpect to thofe places which the Phoenicians frequented. We know not in what age navigators firft began to obferve the northern stars, for the direction of their courfe; but it must have been in very ancient times. The Great Bear is mentioned in the book of Job, who feems to have converfed much with merchants and navigators. The name by which that conftellation was known among the ancient inhabitants of Greece, and the tales which they related about its origin, prove that it It was obferved for the direction of navigators in very remote ages. The But the obfervation of the stars in the Great Bear was a very im perfect and uncertain rule for the direction of a fhip's course. truth is, this conftellation points out the pole only in a very vague and confufed manner. Its head is not fufficiently near it, and its extremities are more than forty degrees diftant from it. This vaft extent occafions very different af pects, both at different hours of the night in the fame feafon of the year, and in the fame hour in different feafons. This variation would be confiderably increased, when it came to be referred to the horizon, to which the courfe of navigators must neceffarily be referred. They must have made an allowance for this variation by guefs; which could not but occafion great miftakes and errors in thofe ages, when they were guided only by practice inftead of geometrical rules and tables, which were not invented till many ages after. It must have been long before navigation arrived at any tolerable degree of perfection. There is no art or profeffion which requires fo much thought and knowledge. The art of failing is of all others the moft complicated, its most common operation depends upon various branches in different fciences. It appears, however, that, even in the ages we are now examining, fome nations had made fome progrefs in maritime affairs. Thefe difcoveries can be afcribed to nothing, but that love to commerce with which thefe nations were animated, and their great ardor for the ad vancement of it. VOL. XII. Origin of the Cuftom of faluting those who fneeze. From Dr. Nu gent's Hiftory of France. HE common practice of faluting thofe who fneeze, is generally dated from the age of Brunehaut, and the pontificate of Gregory the Great. It is faid that in the time of that holy prelate, there was fo contagious a malignity in the air, that thofe who unluckily happened to 'fneeze, expired directly. This made the religious pontiff enjoin the faithful certain prayers, accompanied with wishes, that they might be faved from the dangerous effects of the corruption of the air. This is a fable, invented contrary to all the rules of probability; it being certain, that this cuftom fubfifted from the most remote antiquity, in all parts of the known world. was We read in mythology, that the firft fign of life given by the man whom Prometheus formed, freezing. This pretended creator, as we are told, ftole part of the rays of the fun, and with them filled a phial, which he fealed hermetically. He then returned with fpeed to his favourite work, and prefented to it his flafk open. The folar rays had loft nothing of their activity; they immediately infinuated themselves into the pores of the ftatue, and made it fneeze. Prometheus, tranfported at the fuccefs of his machine, had recourfe to prayer, and uttered wishes for the prefervation of that extraordinary being. His creature heard him, he remembered the wishes, and took particular care, upon fimilar occafions, to apply them to his defcendants; who, from father to fon, have, to this day, preferved it in all their colonies. The Rabbins, in fpeaking of this cuftom, do not give it the fame antiquity: they tell us, that after the creation, God made an univerfal law; the purport of which was, that every living man fhould fneeze but once; and that, at the fame inftant he fhould render his foul to God, without any previous indifpofition. Jacob, whom this abrupt manner of quitting the world by no means fuited, and who defired to have it in his power to make his confcience eafy, and fettle his family affairs, humbled himself before the Lord, expoftulated with him once again, and prayed with the utmost earneftness, to be exempted from the general law. His prayers were heard, he fneezed, but did not die. All the princes of the earth being informed of the fact, ordered with one accord, that for the time to come, fneezing thould be accompanied with thank giving, and wishes for the prolongation of life. We may trace from these fictions, the origin of that tradition and hiftory, which place, long before the establishment of Chriftianity, the rife of this piece of civility, which is at laft become one of the duties of focial life. It was looked upon as very ancient in the time of Ariftotle, who did not know its origin, and has investigated the reafon of it in his problems. He maintains that the firft men, prepoffeffed in favour of the head, as the chief feat of the foul, that intelligent fubftance, which governs and animates the whole mafs, have carried their respect for it fo far, as to ho nour even a fneeze, one of its manifeft and fenfible operations. This has given rife to the different forms of compliments, ufed on like occafions, among the Greeks and Romans; as live: be well: may Jupiter preferve you. I To M. COLOMIES. SIR, THANK you for communicating to me your studies. I have lately been informed by M. de la Motte le Vayer, that you have fent to the prefs fome pieces in which you mention me as your authority for what you advance, concerning the lofs fuftained in our days of what is wanting in the common editions of Livy's Roman hiftory; I believe I told the story to you as I did to many others; I did not indeed fee the battledoors that were made of the skins, on which the loft Decades of that author were written; but I heard it from the mouth of a perfon of unquestionable veracity, almoft forty years ago, who was then governor to the marquis de Rouville. This gentleman affured me, in the moft folemn manner, that being with his pupil at one of his eftates near Saumur, and having an inclina tion to make him exercife himself at Tennis, he ordered fome battledoors to be bought for him at that city. On examining the parchment of these, he imagined that he faw upon the greater part of them the Latin titles of the eighth, tenth, and eleventh Decades of Livy, which made him ardently defirous of examining this matter to the bottom. Having immediately gone to the fhop-keeper from whom the battle Form of the Anathemas denounced against Robbers in the middle Ages. doors had been bought, he was told. A LL ftates are, that the apothecary of the abbey of Fontevraud having found, in the corner of a chamber in that abbey, a large pile of parchment MSS. and having read upon feveral of them, that they were the history of Livy, he begged them of the abbefs, telling her, that as the book was already in print, they were of no value; but that the parchments might be of fome fervice to him. The abbefs readily granted his request; and he fold them to the fhop-keeper, who ordered a great number of battledoors to be made of them, whereof he fhewed the gentleman upwards of twelve dozens, befides thofe which he had already difpofed of, and fent to other places. The remaining ones bore, fome in one place, and fome in another, the fame titles and Latin words, which confirmed the fufpicions raised by the firft; namely, that they were the loft Decades of Livy's hiftory. I take pleasure, Sir, in confirming to you, by this detail, what I told you in general, upon this fubject; that you may not be accufed of having, without reafon, named me as your authority; mean while, continue your labours, and oblige the public by your valuable pro at different with robbers, but they abound most under a feeble form of government, incapable of framing or executing falutary laws for fuppreffing them. It appears from a letter of Lupus, abbot of Ferrieres, in the ninth century, that the highways were fo much infested with banditti, that it became neceffary for travellers to form themfelves into companies or caravans, that they might be fafe from the affaults of robbers. The numerous regulations published by Charles the Bald, in the fame century, difcover the frequency of thefe diforders; and fuch acts of violence were become fo common, that by many they were hardly confidered as criminal; and for this reafon the inferior judges, called Centenarii, were required to take an oath, that they would neither commit any robbery themfelves, nor protect fuch as were guilty of that crime. The hiftorians of the ninth and tenth centuries give pathetic defcriptions of their outrages. They became fo frequent and audacious, that the authority of the civil magiftrate was unable to reprefs them. ecclefiaftical jurifdiction was called in to aid it. Councils were held with great folemnity, the bodies of L 2 The the the faints were brought thither, and, in prefence of their facred reliques, anathemas were denounced against robbers, and other violators of the public peace. One of thefe forms of excommunication, iffued in the year 988, is ftill preferved, and is fo fingular, and compofed with eloquence of fuch a peculiar kind, that it will not perhaps appear unworthy of a place here. After the ufual introduction, and mentioning the outrage which gave occafion to the anathema, it runs thus: • Obtenebrefcant oculi veftri, qui concupiverunt; arefcant manus, quæ rapuerunt; debilitentur omnia membra, quæ adjuverunt. Semper laboretis, nec requiem inveniatis, fructuque veftri laboris privemini. Formidetis, & paveatis, a facie perfequentis, & non perfequentis hoftis, ut tabefcendo deficiatis. Sit portio veftra cum Juda traditore Domini, in terra mortis ac tenebrarum; donec corda veftra ad fatisfactionem plenam convertantur. Ne ceffent a vobis hæ maledi&tiones fcelerum veftrorum perfecutrices, quamdiu permanebitis in peccato pervafionis. Amen. Fiat, Fiat.' Bouquet. Recueil des hift. tom. x. p. 517. Englished. may May your eyes, that have coveted, be darkened; may the hands be withered up, that have robbed; may all the limbs be infeebled that have helped. May ye always labour, yet never find reft; and ye be deprived of the fruit of your labour. May ye be in fear and dread from the face of the enemy, whether he purfues or does not purfue you, that, by wafting away, you may at length be confumed. May your portion be with Judas, who betrayed our Lord, in the land of death and darkness; till your hearts are converted to make full fatisfaction. May these curfes, taking vengeance of your wickedness, never cease their effect on you, fo long as you remain in the fin of robbery. Amen. So be it, So be it." Report of a Journey into the North of Ireland, written to Juftice Cary, by Sir John Harington, 1599. H AVING expected shipping till the 8th of this month, and meeting with none convenient, in refpect that all were taken up with fick foldiers, or with my Lord Lieutenant's horfes, I was defirous to make fome ufe of the time that I fhould ftay here, and therefore was eafily perfuaded to go with Sir William Warren, my kind friend, with whom I had been formerly acquainted in England, and to fee fome part of the realm northward, and the arch-rebel himself, with whom Sir William was to treat. But staying at Dundalk till the 15th of this month, and no news certain of the earl's coming, I went to fee the Newry, and from thence to Darlingford by the narrow water, and was hindered by waters that I could not come back to Sir William Warren before his fift meeting with the earl Tyrone, which was on the 17th day; what time how far they proceeded I know not, but it appeared that the earl was left in good difpofition, becaufe he kept his hour fo well, the next. morning. And, as I found after, Sir William had told him of me, and given fuch report of me above my defert, that next day, when |