ENTERTAINING VARIETIES. 403 



harmless pleasures and abstinence from injurious ones : Epicurus. Self-improve- 

 ment : Hobbes. An income of five thousand pounds: Richard Porson. Suc- 

 cess : Bolingbroke. The citizenship of an illustrious state : Sophocles. Health, 

 books, and solitude : Zimmermann. Health, wealth, and a liberal education : 

 D'Alembert. Day-dreams for those who still hope ; resignation and a padded 

 easy-chair for those who know better : Schopenhauer. Visions of glory before 

 the battle of life ; a comfortable lazaretto after the inevitable thrashing : Id. 

 Virtue and resignation : Seneca. Freedom from the tyranny of kings and vices : 

 J. J. Rousseau. A good bank-account, a good cook, and a good digestion : Ed- 

 mond About. Fortitude in adversity, moderation in prosperity : Anaxagoras. 

 Peace : Buddha. 



In an article on English Poetry the " Quarterly Review " declares that 



the historic method shows "how the mind and spirit of the English people in 

 each age is reflected in the poetry of that age as it is nowhere else reflected " ; 

 and again, " how truly England's poetry has mirrored the historic condition of the 

 several ages which produced it." The " Quarterly " thus illustrates its theory: 

 14 No English poet has more historic value than Chaucer, for none more faith- 

 fully reflects all the mingled influences that swayed his time. Though belonging 

 by birth to the middle class, Chaucer's sympathies, as those of Shakespeare and 

 of "Walter Scott, were with the aristocrats. He soon became a gentleman and a 

 courtier, and saw life from that side." This looks much as if Chaucer's poetic 

 mirror was somewhat warped, and this is still further confirmed by what the 

 "Quarterly " says: "Wide as was Chaucer's genial humanity, he still looked at 

 life through the eyes of the well-to-do, even of the aristocratic class with whom 

 he was so much associated. No one would guess from his poems that he lived 

 in what a modern historian has called ' a time of shame and suffering, such as 

 England had never known; when her conquests were lost, her shores insulted, 

 her fleet sunk, her commerce destroyed, her people exhausted by the long and 

 costly wars with France, and by the ravages of pestilence.' None would guess 

 from his poems that his was the day when the black-death swept off half the 

 population of England, and when the peasant revolt threatened revolution." 



The Age of Faith. The credulity of the patristic era may be inferred 



from the superstitions of the so-called philosophers of that age. Celsus, Lucan, 

 and Apuleius, then hailed as morning-stars of rationalism, would now be in dan- 

 ger of a strait-jacket. The elder Pliny has been called the Roman Humboldt, 

 and his " Natural History " a thesaurus of universal knowledge. The value of 

 that treasury may be estimated by the following specimen-bricks : Among the 

 fercB naturm of Africa he mentions a catoplus, "an animal found only in Ethio- 

 pia. All who behold the eyes of this beast fall dead on the spot. Luckily, the 

 creature has' a heavy head, which is always weighed down to the earth. Were 

 it not for this circumstance it would prove the destruction of the human race. 1 '' 

 " The bodies of whelks and oysters," the Roman Humboldt assures us, " are in- 

 creased- in size and again diminished by the influence of the moon. Certain 

 accurate (!) observers have found out that the entrails of field-mice correspond 

 in number to the days of the moon's age." The flight of ravens, too, is influenced 

 by the changes of the lunar phases, though their observance of certain days may 

 be due to a religious sentiment. In the case of barn-yard fowls there is no room 

 for any such doubt. They are religious birds. By way of establishing this point 

 he thinks it sufficient x to mention that chickens throw dust over their bodies in 

 the manner observed by the augurs in the week of purification. During the fort- 



