from carrying off poor Christian women. A detachment of these honest defenders of our religion, noticing an old woman, a young girl, and the handsome Amurat, who had thoughtlessly kept on his turban, arrested all three. Heavens! what must have been the surprize of my wife, when she found the commander of the troop was no other than the officer, her former friend. When recovered from her astonishment, she had recourse to her ancient blandishments; but perhaps the season of love was passed, or that the commander in such a holy service had repented his former amours, for he said to her, in a tone to convince her that her smiles were vain, Madam, I am very sorry for you; but I am forced to execute my office: it pains me, I assure you, to deliver you up to the holy inquisition; and in spite of my pity, you must permit me to put on handcuffs.' My dear Don Pedro,' replied my wife, is there no method to soften you?' None, madam,' answered the officer. What,

not even with this gold,' continued my wife. The sight of gold has a charm, the effect of which is more rapid than light or thought. The hardened features of the stern countenance of the officer were instantly softened into smiles. He pocketted the gold, and sent my wife, daughter, and the two brats, back to me again in Murcia. But he was inflexible in detaining the handsome Amurat, in spite of the cries and lamentations of Ernestine, when he tore him from her." At the recital of this scene by the Minstrel, the amiable girl began to sob as loudly as at the moment of separation.

Evening prayers being ended, the steward hastily returned to the hall for strangers; but was not a little astonished to find all in tears, whom so very lately he had left full of gayety, when he had gone to attend his duty at chapel. "Ah, what sudden misfortune can have happened unto you, then, during the recital of three psalms, and the performance of a single obituary ?" "Reverend father," replied the Minstrel, you have lost nothing by your absence; it was only the relation of innocent amours of this simple girl, and some trifling chagrins which I experienced myself, that I have been telling during the time you were psalm-singing.' "Oh, if it is only that," said the steward, "I

have indeed lost nothing, and I am not sorry to have missed hearing of your grievances, for I like much better your gayeties." "As for gayety," answered the Minstrel," thank Heaven, I am well enough provided with that, and with patience too, as you shall hear.

"When I saw my wife and children return so melancholy in the evening, I was much surprised, and calmly asked them whence they came? My wife, gentlemen, does not want effrontery, and nothing embarrasses her; she plainly told me the whole of her plot, the carrying away my treasure, the meeting of the holy brotherhood, and added what had been the price for her fetters being struck off.

Vastly well, madam,' said I, and it is I then who pays for your folly; we have not now a maravidi, and your prank has made so much noise, we cannot longer remain here,-What's to be done? Resume your bagpipe," replied she, you know that that is our faithful nurse.'

"I resumed my pipes, and went playing away on all the high roads of Spain: but, sirs, one cannot hunt two hares at once; the time which I had given to physic was prejudicial to my first profession, which requires constant and perpetual cultivation. Add to this, that I was become somewhat asthmatical, and could no longer draw out those fine and lengthened tones which, in my younger days, went to the heart. The pipe, they say, resembles love, and youth is required in both. I hastened therefore to quit Spain, and on our arrival at the Pyrenees, we clambered over those black and formidable rocks, and crossed those immense heaps of snow, that have lain there since the creation of the world, as well as we could, and saw France once again. We prostrated ourselves before the first flower-deluce we saw. Were I to say that my talents received greater honour in France than in Spain, I should lie ; but this I am bound to say, that in France they were more ready to assist us with their charity.

"On approaching Berry, I recollected that my wife had told me that her relations held a very respectable situation at Châteauroux." At these words this discreet woman, wearied for some time by all the indiscretions of her husband quitted the apart

ment, under pretext to amuse her daughter, and to make the boys play on the pipes. When she was gone, the Minstrel thus continued," Sirs, my wife is a liar-no one had ever heard of her, nor of her relations, nor of the great state they kept at Châteauroux. It would seem that she had never before, any more than myself, set foot in Berry. Believe women who please on their word. My reverend father, you have acted wisely not to marry.

The Cambresian nodded his head by way of civility, thinking on the extraordinary adventures he had heard. But let us for a while leave the Hall of Guests at Vaucelles, and speak of other works connected with the subject.

HISTORY OF THE BERNACLE AND

MACREUSE.

ONE of the most singular instances of credulity on record, is that contained in the early history of the Tree Goose or Bernacle. There is nothing peculiar in the habits of this bird which would seem to account, in a sufficiently satisfactory manner, for the origin of those fictions which for so long a period constituted its natural history, and yet its alleged mode of production certainly surpasses in absurdity even the exploded doctrine of fortuitous generation. According to the accounts to which we allude, this bird was not produced, as in ordinary cases, from the egg of an animal like itself; but derived its origin, either from a sea shell found growing upon floating timber and the trunks of trees, from foam or slime generated on the ocean, or from certain fruits, which, falling into the water, were there metamor phosed into geese. These opinions were not, like many others, confined to the vulgar and uneducated. Grave historians handed down to posterity, as a truth, a fable which derived its origin from ignorance and credulity. Naturalists did not hesitate to copy the relations of preceding writers, or to increase their currency by the weight of their own authority; while physiologists, without inquiring into the truth of the facts advanced, reasoned regarding them with as much confidence as if they had formed the foundation of an established law of nature. The following curious acVOL. III.

count is given by Gerard, in his Herbal:

"Having travelled from the grasses growing in the bottom of the fenny waters, the woods and mountains, even unto Libanus itselfe; and also the sea and bowels

of the same, wee are arrived at the end of our history, thinking it not impertinent to the conclusion of the same to end with one of the marvels of this land (we may say of the world). The history whereof to set forth according to the worthinesse and raritie thereof, would not only require a large and peculiar volume, but also a deeper search into the bowels of nature, than my intended purpose will suffer me to wade inthe history thereof rough hewen, unto some to, my sufficiencie also considered; leaving excellent man, learned in the secrets of nature, to be both fined and refined: in the mean space take it as it falleth out, the naked and bare truth, though unpolished. There are found in the north parts of Scotland, and the islands adjacent, called Orchades, certaine trees, whereon do grow certaine shells of a white colour tending to russet, wherein are contained little living creatures; which shells in time of maturity doe open, and out of them grow those little living things, which, falling into the water, do become fowles, which we call barnacles; in the north of England, brant geese; and in Lancashire, tree geese: but and come to nothing. Thus much by the the other that do fall upon the land perish writings of others, and also from the mouthes of people of those parts, which may very well accord with truth.

"But what our eies have seen, and our hands touched, we shall declare. There is a small island in Lancashire, called the Pile of Foulders, wherein are found the broken pieces of old and bruised ships, some whereof have been cast thither by shipwracke, and also the trunks and bodies with

the branches of old and rotten trees, cast up there likewise; whereon is found a certain spume or froth, that in time breedeth unto certaine shells, in shape like those of the muskle, but sharper pointed, and of a whitish colour; wherein is contained a thing in forme like a lace of silke finely woven as it were together, of a whitish colour, one end whereof is fastened unto the inside of the shell, even as the fish of oistres and muskles are: the other end is made fast unto the belly of a rude masse or lumpe, which in time commeth to the shape and forme of a bird when it is perfectly formed the shell gapeth open, and the first thing that appeareth is the foresaid lace or string, next come the legs of the bird hanging out, and as it groweth greater it openeth the shell by degrees, till at length it is all come forth, and hangeth onely by the bill; in short space after it commeth to full maturitie, and falleth into the sea, where it gathereth feathers, and groweth to a fowle bigger than a mallard, and lesser than a goose, 4 Q

having blacke legs and bill or beake, and feathers blacke and white, spotted in such a manner as is our magpies, called in some places a pie-annet, which the people in Lancashire call by no other name than a tree goose; which place aforesaid, and all those parts adjoining, do so much abound therewith, that one of the best is bought for three pence. For the truth hereof, if any doubt, may it please them to repaire unto me, and I shall satisfie them by the testimonie of good witnesses.

Moreover, it should seem that there is another sort hereof, the history of which is true, and of mine own knowledge; for travelling upon the shore of our English coast, between Dover and Rumney, I found the trunk of an old rotten tree, which (with some help that I procured by fishermen's wives that were there attending their husbands' returne from the sea) we drew out of the water upon dry land. Upon this rotten tree I found growing many thousands of long crimson bladders, in shape likeunto puddings newly filled, before they be sodden, which were very clere and shining. At the nether end whereof did grow a shell fish, fashioned somewhat like a small muskle, but somewhat whiter, resembling a shell fish that groweth upon the rocks about Garnsey and Garsey, called a lympit; many of these shells I brought with me to London, which, after I had opened, I found in them living things without forme or shape; in others which were neerer come to ripenesse, I found living things that were very naked, in shape like a bird; in others, the birds covered with soft downe, the shell halfe open, and the bird ready to fall out, which no doubt were the fowles called barnacles."

He adds, in regard to the period of their exclusion,

66

They spawne as it were in March or Aprile; the geese are formed in May and June, and come to fulness of feathers in the moneth thereafter."

mine.

How such a fable could have originated, it is not very easy to deterThe reasons which seem to have induced authors to seek the origin of these birds elsewhere than in the ordinary course of nature, are the large flocks of them which are occasionally observed along the coasts and islands of the northern parts of Scotland and some other countries, where they are at the same time never known to deposite their eggs or rear their young; and this circumstance, combined with the peculiar appearance of the bernacle shell, no doubt, in the first place, gave rise to the belief at one time so common, more especially among the elder French writers, " que cette sorte d'oyes naissent sans pere et sans mere, sans etre ny pondus ny

couvés," Few subjects in natural history have been so much involved in error, or have given rise to a greater diversity of opinion, than this. At the present period it appears absurd that such opinions should ever have been uttered, or, being so, that they should have been deemed worthy of a serious refutation. Yet the fact is certain, that a few centuries ago, there have descended to our own times, who was scarcely an individual whose works did not either give credit to this fiction, or at least feel inclined to do so. We shall now give a few extracts from the different authors who have treated of this singular subject, at the same time acknowledging our obligations to the posthumous work of Monsieur de Graindorge, entitled, "Traité de l'origine des Macreuses," published at Caen by Dr Maloüin, in the year

1680.

Among the earliest notices of this opinion, is that given by Sylvester Giraldus, in his Topography of Ireland:

"Sunt et aves multæ quæ bernacæ vocantur, quas mirum in modum contra naturam natura producit. Non ex earum coitu ut assolet ova gignuntur, non avis in earum procreatione unquam ovis incubat, unde et in quibusdam Hiberniæ partibus, avibus istis tanquam non carneis quia de carne non natis jejuniorum tempore vesci solent.

Some years later, Vincent of Burof certain birds which appear to have gundy, bishop of Beauvais, speaking been Bernacles, makes the following observation :

"De iis itaque certum est, quod in orbe nostro circa Germaniam nec per coitum gig. nunt neque gignuntur: sed neque earum concubitum apud nos ullus hominum vidit, unde et carnibus earum in quadragesimâ nonnulli etiam Christiani in nostra ætate in locis, ubi avium hujusmodi copia est uti solebant: sed Innocentius Papa in Lateranen si Concilio Generali hoc ne ulterius fieret

coire vel ovare." The truth of this alleged circumstance in their history he contradicts on his own authority, treating it as quite absurd, “quia ego et multi mecum de sociis vidimus eas et coire et ovare, et pullos nutrire."

In this opinion he was, some time after, followed by Kircher (whom one has so seldom occasion to accuse of being incredulous), who doubted the relations of preceding writers and of his contemporaries, and gave it as his idea, that the eggs of these birds may occasionally float from the northern seas towards our coasts, and there hatching upon planks, trees, and the bottoms of ships, might thereby have given rise to the origin of the fable. To make use of Mathiew Wright's well-known expression when he was about to be hanged, we really think the remedy worse than the disease.

M. Graindorge observes, "Un medecin Anglois suivant l'opinion commune dit, Nidum barniclæ aut ovum nemo vidit, nec mirum, cum spontaneam habent generationem : et si le passage qu'on attribue a Isidore etoit de luy, mais il ne se trouve point dans ses ouvrages, il y auroit bien plus longtemps que cette opinion auroit cours.' Regarding the growth of the bernacle there were, properly speaking, three opinions entertained by the old naturalists, all of which, however, are founded on one belief, that this bird is produced by a mode of generation known in the schools under the name of equivocal or spontaneous. According to the first idea, it was maintained, that along the shores of Britain there are certain trees which, in due season, bear birds instead of fruit. Those who espoused the second doctrine, asserted that these birds spring up from the surface of decayed planks, to which they are fixed by the beak, and from which they detach them selves, as soon as they are full fledged, and capable of providing for their own sustenance; others again who inclined to neither of these theories, laboured to establish the existence of certain shells (the concha anatiferæ of authors) in which these birds were formed, and from which they were excluded whenever they had attained perfection.

It is amusing to observe with what implicit confidence these absurd fictions were received for a long period of time, and handed down progressively by different writers, for the most part with

out doubt or challenge. They even went so far as to publish engravings of this goose-bearing tree, with fruit in a state of maturity, ready to wing its flight into the air, or dive among the subjacent waves. Such representations may be found in the works of Aldrovandus, and among the figures of plants by Pena and Lobel.*

Munster, in his Universal Geography, mentions, that he found in Scotland certain trees, the fruits of which, on becoming mature, dropt into the

In Gerard's Herbal, there is an engrav

ing of the dragon tree, with a section of the fruit, in the interior of which is represented a fierce dragon, the figure of which is said to be always contained therein. He gives the following description of it :-" This strange and admirable tree groweth very great, resembling the pine tree, by reason it doth alwaies flourish, and hath its boughs which are bare and naked, of eight or nine or branches of equal length and bignesse, cubits long, and of the bignesse of a man's arme: from the ends of which do shoot out leaves of a cubit and a halfe long, and full two inches broad, somewhat thick, and raised up in the middle, then thinner and thinner like a two-edged sword: among which come forth little mossie flowers, of small moment, and turn into berries of the bignesse of cheries, of a yellowish colour, round, light, and bitter, covered with a threefold skin or film, wherein is to be seen, as Monardus and divers others report, the form of a dragon, having a long neck and gaping mouth, the ridge or back armed with sharp prickles, like the porcupine, with a long tail and four feet very easy to be discerned; the figure of it we have set forth unto you according to the greatness thereof, because our derstood; and also the leafe of the tree in words and meaning may be the better unhis full bignesse, because it is impossible to be expressed in the figure; the trunk or body of the tree is covered with a tough bark, very thin and easie to be opened or wounded with any small toole or instrument; which, being so wounded in the dog days, bruised or bored, yields forth drops of called dragon's tears, or sanguis draconis, a thick red liquor, of the name of the tree dragon's blood: divers have doubted wheth er the liquor or blood were all one with cinnabaris of Dioscorides (not meaning that cinabar made of quick-silver); but the received opinion is, they differ not, by reason their quality and temperature worke the like effect. This tree groweth in an island which the Portugals call Madera, and in one of the Canary Isles, called Insula Portus Sancti ; and as it seems it was first brought out of Africke, though some are of a contrarie opinion, and say that it was first brought from Carthagena in America, by the bishop of the same province."