trary to what was generally believed. If in the common opinion any object was black, he would maintain that it was white, which is the less to be wondered at as we find him perpetually contradicting himself.

elements. Neither hath he any money nor riches, nor doth he take, or require any bonds from men sealed in their blood. But there are other spirits, which do such things, such as the Sylphes or Pygmies." Unfortunately this useful class of acquaintance is lost to us; they have Treasure-seeking. It appears that there are all gone somehow, and somewhere, but how, or two sorts of hidden treasures, gold namely, that where even our Doctor can not surmise. He" is made, coyned, and hid by the nymphes and says, however, that "the mountain of Venus,* in Sylphes,"* which he says is very hard to be got Italy, was much possessed with these spirits, at, and metals in their natural state, which are for Venus herself was a nymph, and that moun- to be found by proceeding as follows:-" first tain was by a comparison, as her kingdome and under an influence of the Moone, or Saturne, paradise; but she is dead whereby her kingdome and when the moon transits Taurus, Capricorne, ceaseth to be. But where, or in what place is or Virgo is a good time to begin to seeke or there any mention heard to be made of them as digge after treasures. Neither need you use in former time, when Danhauserus and many any other ceremonies, nor to draw any other others entered in unto them? Neither did they circles, or to use any inchantments whatsoever; invent these fables; they were of such a nature onely those that dig must be of a cheerful and condition that they loved all men who loved minde, free and alienated from any evil thoughts them, and hated them that hated them. Where- and cogitations, and not to be moved, nor feare fore they gave arts and riches in abundance to any phantasies, visions, or imaginations of the them, who prescribed and bound themselves to spirits; although they should corporally appeare them, and they know both our minds and yet they are onely visions. Therefore those that thoughts, whereby it comes to pass that they dig ought to discourse, sing, and be cheereful, are easily moved by us, to come to us." Para- and not to be affrighted by anything, but to have a celsus, however, does not recommend his friends good courage; and by no means soever let them to have any thing to do with such dangerous cha- keepe silence as some perfidious negromancers racters notwithstanding their amiability; he men- have taught. tions these facts only as a point of natural history that people may learn to distinguish between the devil and these semi-homines, and not in Hamlet's phrase, mistake “a hawk for a handsaw," for, in addition to the other differences pointed out, the gentleman in black has no body, unless when he borrows one for the nonce from the four elements; neither does he die, whereas the Pygmies are clearly subject to the rules of mortality. Still it is advisable to be cautious how you enter into any contract with such a capricious and despotic race, who have a wonderful fancy for twisting the necks of any one that presumes to thwart them. Men have often been found in this plight, whence ignorant people, knowing nothing of the Pygmies, have laid all the blame upon the devil, though, if he had the inclination, he has not the power to do any thing of the kind. Paracelsus was at least original in his doctrines, and indeed one part of his system consisted in asserting the direct con.

*This "Mountain of Venus" is often mentioned by the dealers in the supernatural. Tieck in his tale of the "Faithful Eckhart," places him there as a monitor to warn people off such dangerous premises.

+ Paracelsus of "Occult Philosophy." Eng. trans. p. 57.

And

"Now when they come neere to the place where the treasure is that it is almost detected, and do heare many noises, and strange visions and horrible sights are seene, which oftentimes happens to be, it sheweth that the Pygmies and Sylphes are there, who do envy that men should have those treasures, and will not willingly part from them, especially if it be their own, or such as they brought thither. Such treasures are to be left, if the keepers thereof consent not. although they may be gotten and taken away as a robbery from those keepers, yet they have an art whereby they can change these treasures, in this way gained, into a vile and base matter, as into earth, clay, dung, and such like things, as I have seene by examples."† A better mode of keeping people honest than this of the Sylphs could hardly have been devised, for who would steal, when the booty was to be so profitless?

Of Tempests." The original of tempests is certainly nothing else but the appearance of spirits; and lightning, or coruscation, preceding the presence of them; whereby it may be cer

tainly known whether those tempests will pass away with or without danger; and that after this manner is to be understood; to wit, as a stranger will not enter into any one's house, unless first he speake, so these spirits do not appear unto us without speaking first. But their voice is thunder, which as we see, immediately follows every flash of lightning. The ringing of bells do availe nothing in these cases, although I do not reject them, especially in such tempests as are caused by majician's enchantments, by reason of the spirits by them raised in the air. For the spirits do love silence and quietness, whereby it comes to pass that great noises, as the sounds of bells and trumpets do partly diminish of and disperse tempests by them stirred up. But in thunders and haile they do no good,

as the monks and sacrificers have to their loss too often found. And for this cause they used ceremonies, wherewith they seduced the vulgar and common people, persuading them that besprinkling places with holy water, as they call it, preserved them safe from thunder and haile; likewise by burning holy candles, or some palme, or other herb by them sanctified, or with the perfume of frankincense, or myrrhe of these sacrificers they were preserved secure."

Trarames is the
It springeth up

of them have their Evester.
shadow of an invisible essence.
with the reason and imagination of intelligent
and brute creatures. The Evester maketh to
prophecy; Trarames giveth sharpnesse of wit.
To foretell what shall befall a man, beast, tree,
&c., is by the shadowy Evester; but the reason
why it should be so is from the Trarame. Some
Evesters have a beginning, some have not. Such
as have a beginning may be dissolved, with the
surviving eternal."—And much more there is to
the same purpose, but as this sort of intellectual
food is somewhat hard and indigestible, it is as
well not to indulge too much in it.

It may be supposed that Paracelsus could not broach these wonderful mysteries, without impertinent enquiries being made as to where he got his knowledge. To all such carpers he replies by putting in his turn divers pithy questions, which, if his data were only true, would be sufficiently ingenious. In the tone of a man who feels he has the best of the argument, he demands, "which of your authors or writers taught the bear, when his sight is dimmed by reason of the abundance and superfluity of his blood, to go to a stall of bees, which by their stinging him pierce his skin, and cause an effusion of the superfluous blood? what physician prescribed the herb, dittany, to be a medicine for the hart? or who taught the serpent the virtue of briony and dragon-wort? who taught the dog to take grass for his cordial and purge? and who prescribed the salt-sea-water to the stork?"-As Shakspeare's clown says, "I hope here be truths," and with them I leave Paracelsus to the judgment of my readers.

Great is the indignation of our philosopher at such monkish tricks, for he had no faith in priests, whatever he might have in old women, and he argues reasonably enough that if these sacrificers wished to drive away the spirits they should use assafœtida and not sweet perfumes. But he has a more effectual remedy-" note," he says "that to place a preservative in the centre of a house, garden, or a field, avayleth not at all;" it must be placed at the four angles, east, west, north, and south, upon the very obvious principle, that it is safer to stand upon four legs than two, and these said legs or pillars are to be of mugwort, St. John's wort, perriwinkle, celandine, rue, and many such herbs THE GRANDS JOURS were a sort of special crimi

and roots, especially if they be gathered under the right influence, for that is a main point. Yet better even than these are coral and

azoth.

Evestrum and Trarames.-The "Evestrum, or Evester, according to its essence is either mortal or immortal. It is a thing like a shadow on a wall. The shadow riseth and waxeth greater as the body doth, and continueth with it even unto its last matter. The Evestrum takes its beginning at the first generation of everything animate and inanimate, sensible and insensible, and whatsoever casteth a shadow, all

LES GRANDS JOURS.

nal assizes, of two kinds, the one ROYAL, the other, SIGNIORAL ; but the latter appears to have been, though so similar in name, yet very different in its uses from those ordered by the monarch, of which indeed they are but an imitation. They were established, in virtue of an ordinance of Roussillon, which forbids the nobles to have two classes of jurisdiction in the same place, and there was a power of appeal from them to the parliament. The right of holding these Signioral courts was also accorded in ancient days by the king to the princes of the blood royal, and sometimes in virtue of a special

The Royal Grands Jours date from the early times of the French monarchy; they were ordinary, but sovereign, tribunals, established by the kings in the form of solemn and especial sessions, and over which they themselves presided to pronounce definitive judgment in all criminal, as well as civil, cases. Under the monarchs of the first and second race, they were composed of a certain number of persons chosen and deputed by the sovereign, such as the commissioners, called Missi Dominici.* These judges were sent into the remote provinces to enquire into the conduct of the dukes, counts, and other principal nobles, to receive any complaints made against them, and to reform whatever abuses had crept into the administration of justice or the finances, to the detriment of the public weal. They used formerly to be held at stated periods, and in some respects they bore a resemblance to the assizes. The object of both was the same, but they differed essentially in the extent of their power, the Grands Jours pronouncing judgment without appeal, besides that, while the assizes were each attached to its particular jurisdiction, the former, as we have already seen, were an extraordinary tribunal, without any fixed establishment, and were constituted by letters patent submitted to the form of registration.

authority to that effect they were constituted | Languedoc. About this period the wars both courts of final judgment. civil and foreign, which had for thirty years before desolated France, had produced a general state of license wherein the strong universally plunThis evil was dered and oppressed the weak. not a little aggravated by the marauding habits of the nobles, the almost total want of roads making it difficult to get at offenders, and the general want of strength in the government. The laws were thus in many places reduced to a dead letter, and the most frightful disorder reigned in every department, but more particularly in Auvergne, which being remote from the central power of government could get little aid from the provincial judges. With them bribery and the influence of rank or connexions was unbounded, and under the circumstances just mentioned they might be well called devoid of all responsibility. To such a height had this evil attained, that Louis XIV. at length resolved to interfere, and on the thirty-first of August, 1665, he established a sitting of the Grands Jours at Clermont in Auvergne. The account of their proceedings we owe to the Abbe Flechier, afterwards Bishop of Nismes, who accompanied one of the members, M. de Caumartin, in the capacity of tutor to his son, from whom the father was unwilling to be separated. According to the details afforded by him, this tremendous tribunal struck a wholesome terror into offenders, many of whom preferred being convicted of contumacy to bearing the probable results of its judgment. Nor had they who remained and appeared any great cause to rejoice in the wisdom of their election. Punishments of all kinds were dealt out with an unsparing hand, and the executions even were numerous, proving plainly enough that the social ulcer was both deep and dangerous. But amidst these details we have others of a less gloomy nature, the Abbe amusing himself mightily with the gossip of the town and the awkward manners of the provincials. "When the ladics of the city," says the author of the Abstract, "cane to visit the commissioners, the Abbe Flechier, who observed everything with inquisitive eyes, was present, and the manner in which he paints this scene, so novel to him, is exceedingly pleasant. The ladies arrived in troops that they might keep each other in countenance and be less remarked. Their manner of presenting themselves, their awkward and confused air, their armis hanging straight down, or crossed immovably upon the bosom, their costume in which the fashions of the

We find it recorded of Louis XII. that he re

vived them to repress the continued attacks of the nobles upon his authority, commanding by an especial ordinance that they should be held once a year in all the towns and villages where it previously had been the custom to establish them. In a short time however they would seem to have fallen again into disuse, the last that were ever held being at Clermont for Auvergne in the end of the year 1665 and the commencement of the year 1666, as also at Limoges for Limousin in 1668, and at Puy-en-Velay for

There appears to have been no difference in the judicial powers of the two, the Missi Dominici," or Royal Legates, being of the same class and having the same objects as the nobles and men of influence deputed to hold the Grands Jours. Du Cange tells us that the Missi Dominici were sent "ut in comitum et judicum pravitates inquirerent," that they should enquire into the corruptions of the magistrates and judges—“in ipsos etiam episcopos et abbates inquirebant," they looked after the bishops and abbots- curabant ut provinciæ latronibus ac prædatori bus purgarentur," they took care that the provinces sould be cleared from thieves and robbers-and finally "seligebantur ex ditioribus et honoratioribus palatii, ne

si pauperiores essent, muneribus corrumperentur," they were chosen from the richest and most respected of the court, lest if they were poor they should be corrupted by

presents.

VOL. II. NO. XIV. FEBRUARY, 1846.

G

day were carried to excess, as is the habit of the prisons were full and the condemnations provincials, when they plume themselves on numerous and how the alarm reached its dressing well, the affectation of standing in a height when instead of confining themselves, as circle, according to the rank of their husbands, had been expected, to lay criminals, the judges set or the date of their marriage; nothing, in short about reforming the clergy, and rectifying the that can complete the picture of perfect absur-abuses that had crept into the chapters and dity, escapes his observations." Much more monasteries of both sexes. But even the epitome of these things is much too long for our purpose, and the reader therefore is referred to

there is to the same effect-how the judges gave

balls to the ladies, or accompanied them to the
theatre, in the evening, and the next morning the works of Flechier himself.
dealt out justice upon all offenders

THE OREGON TERRITORY.

THE OREGON TERRITORY. By Alexander Simp- | some distance, but who in fact never went farson. 8vo. 2s. 6d.