KIDD'S OWN JOURNAL. 



335 



the ladies with the fate which awaited him, 

 and bade adieu to his bride. 



" What !" said the servant, " shall we 

 allow you to be hung for such a trifle ? No ! 

 No ! One body is like another. Let us hang 

 up our old master. No one will know the 

 difference." 



The mistress consented ; the " dear de- 

 parted" was suspended in place of the 

 thief ; and the soldier left the guard-house 

 for the palace of the Matron of Ephesus. 



The other story is from the Zadig of Vol- 

 taire, and illustrates the same characteristic 

 trait. 



One day, Zadig's wife Azora returned from 

 a walk, swelling with rage. " What is the 

 matter, my dear ?" said Zadig ; " what can 

 have happened to put you so beside your- 

 self?" 



" Alas !" said she, " you would be as 

 indignant as I am, if you had only seen what 

 I have witnessed. I went to console the 

 young widow Cosron, who not long since 

 erected a tomb to her husband near the 

 brook which flows through yonder meadow, 

 and vowed to the gods to remain at the tomb 

 so long as the waters of the stream should 

 flow by it.'' 



" There is an estimable woman for you ! 

 said Zadig ; " she sincerely loved her hus- 

 band." 



" Ah !" replied Azora, " if you only knew 

 what she was doing when I visited her !" 

 " Well, what, sweet Azora ? " 

 '' She was laboring to turn the course of 

 the stream !" Azora was so vehement in 

 her condemnation of the young widow's 

 conduct, and overwhelmed her with so many 

 hard names, that Zadig was displeased with 

 so great a parade of virtue. 



He had a friend named Cador, who was 

 one of those young men whom his wife 

 thought better behaved and more moral than 

 most others. He made him his confidant, 

 and promised him a large sum if his plan 

 succeeded. 



When Azora, who had been passing a day 

 or two at the house of a relation, returned 

 to town, the servants in tears announced to 

 her that her husband had died suddenly the 

 night before, and had been buried that 

 morning in the tomb of his ancestors at the 

 bottom of the garden. She raved, tore her 

 hair, and called the gods to witness that she 

 would not survive him. 



That evening Cador asked permission to 

 see her, and they wept together. The next 

 day they shed fewer tears, and dined toge- 

 ther. Cador informed her that his friend 

 had left him the greater part of his pro- 

 perty, and hinted that it would be his 

 greatest happiness to share it with her. The 

 lady wept, grew angry, but allowed herself 

 to be appeased. The conversation became 



more confidential. Azora praised the defunct, 

 but confessed that he had many faults from 

 which Cador was exempt. 



In the midst of the supper, Cador com- 

 plained of a violent pain in his liver. The 

 anxious lady rang for her essences, thinking 

 that perhaps one among them might be good 

 for the liver complaint. She regretted deeply 

 that the great Hermes was no longer at 

 Babylon ; she even deigned to touch the 

 side where Cador experienced such intense 

 pain. " Are you subject to this cruel 

 complaint ?" said she, compassionately. " It 

 sometimes nearly kills me," replied Cador, 

 " and there is only one remedy which soothes 

 it ; and that is to apply on my side the nose 

 of a man who died the day before." 



" That is a strange remedy !" said Azora. 



" Not so strange," he answered, l< as Dr. 

 Arnoult's apoplexy-bags."* 



This reason, and the great merit of the 

 young man, decided Azora. " After all," 

 said she, " when my husband passes from the 

 world of yesterday into the world of to- 

 morrow, over the bridge Tchinavar, the angel 

 Asrael will not refuse to admit him because 

 his nose is a little shorter in the second life 

 than in the first. 



So, taking a razor in her hand, she went 

 to the tomb of her husband, bathed it with 

 her tears, and approached to cut off his nose 

 as he lay extended in the coffin. Zadig 

 sprang up, holding his nose with one hand, 

 and seizing the razor with the other. 

 " Madam !" he cried, " say no more against 

 the widow Cosron ! The idea of cutting off 

 my nose is quite equal to that of turning a 

 water-course !" 



And that is the end of our other story. 



The most sincere of us, alas ! are always 

 hypocrites, but never so much as when we 

 bring our grief before the eyes of the world. 



* Dr. Arnoult was a Babylonian of those 

 days, who pretended to cure all diseases by means 

 of a bag suspended about the neck of the 



patient. 



A Preserved Specimen of the Hoopoe. 



Mr. C. Walford, of Witham, naturalist, has 

 recently shot a fine female specimen of the 

 Hoopoe ( Upupa Epops, Linn.) in the parish of 

 Little Braxted. These birds are very rarely 

 met with in England ; -but Mr. Walford had 

 suspected that they occasionally visited this 

 neighborhood, and had for several seasons looked 

 out for them. About two years since, he saw 

 one in Braxted Park, but could not succeed in 

 capturing it. Mr. W. has preserved this spe- 

 cimen, and it may he seen by those interested in 

 natural history. 



Insignificance, for lack of argument, gene- 

 rally has recourse to abuse. 



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