CALCHAS. Mercy! two vipers are penetrating my eye-balls! DRUID. A serpent is devouring my entrails! CALCHAS. Alas, how am I mangled! And must my eyes be every day restored, to be torn again from my head! DRUID. Must my skin be renewed only to dangle in ribbons from my lacerated body? TISIPHONE. ORPHEUS. My friends, I am a priest like yourselves, but I never deceived any one; or cut the throat of either boy or girl in my life. When on earth, instead of making the gods hated, I rendered them beIt will teach thee how to palm off a loved, and softened the manners of the miserable parasitical plant for an univer- men whom you made ferocious. I shall sal remedy another time.-Wilt thou exert myself in the like manner in hell. still sacrifice boys and girls to thy god I met, just now, two barbarous priests Theutates, priest?-still burn them whom they were scourging beyond meain osier baskets io the sound of a sure; one of them formerly hewed a drum? king in pieces before the Lord, and the other cut the throat of his queen and so DRUID. Never, never; dear lady, a little vereign at the horse gate. I have termimercy, I beseech you. Wretch! Wilt thou again cut the throat of a beautiful girl, in order to obtain a favourable gale, instead of uniting her to a good husband? not. CALCHAS AND THE DRUID. nated their punishment; and, having played to them a tune on the violin, they into the world, they will live like honest have promised me that when they return men. DRUID AND CALCHAS, We promise the same thing, on the word of a priest. ORPHEUS. Yes, but "Passato il pericolo, gabbato il santo." [The scene closes with a figure Dance performed by Orpheus, the Condemned, and the Furies, to light and agreeable music.] EASE. EASY applies not only to a thing easily done, but also to a thing which appears Oh, what torments! and yet we die to be so. The pencil of Corregio is easy, the style of Quinault is much more easy than that of Despreaux, and the style of Ovid surpasses in facility that of Persius. This facility in painting, music, eloquence, and poetry, consists in a natural and spontaneous felicity, which admits of nothing that implies research, strength, or profundity. Thus the pictures of Paul Veronese have a much more easy and less finished air than those of Michael Angelo. The symphonies of Rameau are superior to those of Lulli, but appear less easy. Bossuet is more truly eloquent and more easy than Flechier. Rousseau, in his epistles, has not near the facility and truth of Despreaux. The commentator of Despreaux says, "that this exact and laborious poet taught the illustrious Racine to make verses with difficulty, and that those which appear easy are those, which have been made with the most difficulty." dius allowed himself to be governed by Agrippina; easy applied to Claudius is only a lenitive: the proper expression is weak. An easy man is in general one possessed of a mind which easily gives itself up to reason and remonstrance-a heart which melts at the prayers which are made to it; while a weak man is one who allows too much authority over him. ECLIPSE. IN the greatest part of the known world every extraordinary phenomenon was, for a long time, believed to be the passage of some happy or miserable event. Thus the Roman historians have not failed to observe, that an eclipse of the sun accompanied the birth of Romu It is true, that it often costs much pains to express ourselves with clearness, as also that the natural may be arrived at by effort; but it is also true that alus, that another announced his death, happy genius often produces easy beauties without any labour, and that enthusiasm goes much farther than art. Most of the impassioned expressions of our good poets have come finished from their pen, and appear easy as if they had in reality been composed without labour; the imagination, therefore, often conceives and brings forth easily. It is not thus with didactic works, which require art to make them appear easy. For example, there is much less ease than profundity in Pope's Essay on Man. Bad works may be rapidly constructed, which, having no genius, will appear easy, and it is often the lot of those who, with out genius, have the unfortunate habit of composing. It is in this sense that a personage of the old comedy, called the Italian, says to another, "Thou makest bad verses admirably well." and that a third attended the foundation of the city of Rome. We have already spoken of the article entitled the VISION OF CONSTANTINE, of the apparition of the cross which preceded the triumph of christianity; and under the article PROPHECY, we shall treat of the new star which enlightened the birth of Jesus. We will, therefore, here confine ourselves to what has been said of the darkness with which all the earth was covered when he gave up the ghost. The writers of the Greek and Romish churches have quoted as authentic two letters attributed to Dionysius the Areopagite, in which he relates, that being at Heliopolis, in Egyyt, with his friend, Apollophanes, he suddenly saw, about the sixth hour, the moon pass underneath the sun, which caused a great eclipse. Afterwards, in the ninth hour, they per ceived the moon quitting the place which she occupied and return to the opposite The term easy is an insult to a woman, but is sometimes in society praise for a man; it is however, a fault in a states-side of the diameter. They then took the man. The manners of Atticus were easy; he was the most amiable of the Romans; the easy Cleopatra gave herself as easily to Anthony as to Gæsar; the easy Clau rules of Philip Aridæus, and, having examined the course of the stars, they found that the sun could not have been naturally eclipsed at that time. Further, they observed that the moon, contrary to her natural motion, instead of going to the west to range herself under the sun, approached on the eastern side, and that she returned behind on the same side; which caused Apollophanes to say, "These, my dear Dionysius, are changes of divine things:" to which Dionysius replied "Either the author of nature suffers, or the machine of the universe will be soon destroyed." judge of the accuracy of these two quotations of reasoning. It is true that the Paschal Chronicle of the Greeks, as well as St. Jerome Anastatius, the author of the Historia Miscella, and Freculphus of Luxem, among the Latins, all unite in representing the fragment of Phlegon in the same manner. But it is known that these five witnesses, so uniform in their dispositions, translated or copied the passage,_not_from Phlegon himself, but from Eusebius; while John Philoponus, who had read Phlegon, far from agreeing with Eusebius, differs from him by two years. We could also name Maximus and Ma Dionysius adds, that having remarked the exact time and year of this prodigy, and compared them with what Paul afterwards told him, he yielded up to the truth as well as his friend. This is what led to the belief that the darkness happening at the death of Jesus Christ waslela, who lived when the work of Phlecaused by a supernatural eclipse; and gon still existed; and the result of an what has extended this opinion is, that examination of the whole is, that five of Maldonat says it is that of almost all the the quoted authors copy Eusebius. PhiCatholics. How is it possible to resist loponus, who really saw the work of the authority of an ocular, enlightened, Phlegon, gives a second reading. Maxand disinterested witness; since it wasimus a third, and Malela a fourth; so supposed that when he saw this eclipse, that they are far from relating the passage Dionysius was a Pagan? in the same manner. As these pretended letters of Diony- In short, the calculations of Hodgson, sius were not forged until towards the Halley, Whiston, and Gale Morris, have fifteen or sixteenth century, Eusebius of demonstrated that Phlegon and Thallus Cæsarea was contented with quoting the speak of a natural eclipse which hapevidence of Phlegon, a freed man of the pened on the 24th of November, in the Emperor Adrian. This author was also first year of the two hundred and second a Pagan, and had written the history of Olympiad, and not in the fourth year, as the Olympiads in sixteen books, from Eusebius pretends. Its size at Nicea in their origin to the year 140 of the vulgar Bithynia was only, according to Whisera. He is made to say, that in the ton, from nine to ten digits; that is to fourth year of the two hundred and se- say, two thirds and a half of the sun's cond Olympiad, there was the greatest disk. It began at a quarter past eight, eclipse of the sun that had ever been and ended at five minutes past ten; and seen; the day was changed to night at between Cairo in Egypt and Jerusalem, the sixth hour, the stars were seen, and according to Mr. Gale Morris, the sun an earthquake overthrew several edifices was totally obscured for near two minutes. in the city of Niceas in Bithynia. Eu- At Jerusalem the middle of the eclipse sebius adds, that the same events are re-happened about an hour and a quarter lated in the ancient monuments of the after noon. Greeks, as having happened in the eigh- But what ought to spare all this disteenth year of Tiberius. It is thoughtcussion is, that Tertullian says, the day that Eusebius alluded to Thallus, a Greek historian already cited by Justin, Tertullian, and Julius Africanus; but neither the work of Thallus, nor that of Phlegon, having reached us, we can only became suddenly dark, whilst the sun was in the midst of his career; that the Pagans believed that it was an eclipse, not knowing that it had been predicted by the prophet Amos in these words, "I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the clear day."-"They," adds Tertullian, "who have sought for the cause of this event, and could not discover it, have denied it; but the fact is certain, and you will find it noted in your archives." ECONOMY (RURAL). THE primitive economy, that which is the foundation of all the rest, is rural. In early times it was exhibited in the patriarchal life, and especially in that of Abraham, who made a long journey through the arid deserts of Memphis to buy corn. I shall continue, with due respect, to discard all that is divine in the history of Abraham, and attend to his rural economy alone. He went from Sodom into the desert of Gerar, without forming the least establishment. When he turned away Hagar and the child Ismael, it was still in a desert, and all the food he gave them was a morsel of bread and a cruse of water. Origen, on the contrary, says that it is not astonishing foreign authors have said nothing about the darknesses of which the evangelists speak, sinee they only appeared in the environs of Jerusalem; Judea, according to him, being desig- I do not learn that he ever had a nated under the name of all the earth, in house; he quitted the most fertile counmore than one place in scripture. He try of the universe, and towns in which also avows, that the passage in the gos-there were commodious houses, to go pel of St. Luke, in which we read that in wandering in countries, the languages of his time all the earth was covered with which he did not understand. darkness, on account of an eclipse of the sun, had been thus falsified by some ignorant Christian, who thought thereby to throw a light on the text of the evangelist; or by some ill-intentioned enemy, who wished a pretext to calumniate the church, as if the evangelists had remarked an eclipse at a time when it was very evident that it could not have happened. { "It is true," adds he, "that Phlegon says that there was one under Tiberius: but as he does not say that it happened at the full moon, there is nothing won- His wife died in a place called Kirderful in that." gath-arba, or Hebron; he had not six "These obscurations," continues Ori-feet of earth in which to bury her, but gen, were of the nature of those which covered Egypt in the time of Moses, and were not felt in the quarter in which the Isarelites dwelt. Those of Egypt lasted three days, while those of Jerusalem only lasted three hours; the first were after the manner of the second and even as Moses raised his hands to heaven, and invoked the Lord to draw them down on Egypt, so Jesus Christ, to cover Jerusalem with darkness, extended his hands on the cross against an ungrateful people, who had cried-' Crucify him, crucify him!'" 66 We may, in this case, exclaim with Plutarch, the darkness of superstition is more dangerous than that of eclipses. When he was about to sacrifice his son Isaac to the Lord, it was again in a desert. He cut the wood himself to burn the victim, and put it on the back of Isaac, whom he was going to immolate. was obliged to buy a cave to deposit her body. This was the only piece of land which he ever possessed. However, he had many children; for, without reckoning Isaac and his posterity, his second wife Keturah, at the age of one hundred and forty years, according to the ordinary calculation, bore him five male children, who departed towards Arabia. It is not said that Isaac had a single piece of land in the country in which his father died; on the contrary, he went into the desert of Gerar with his wife Rebecca to the same Abimelech, King of Gerar, who had been in love with his mother. This king of the desert became also amourous of his wife Rebecca, whom her husband caused to pass for his sister, as Abraham had acted with regard to Sarah and this same King Abimelech forty years before. It is rather astonishing that in this family the wife always passed for the sister when there was anything to be gained; but as these facts are consecrated, it is for us to maintain a respectful silence. Scripture says that Abraham enriched himself in this horrible country, which became fertile for his benefit, and that he became extremely powerful. But it is also mentioned that he had no water to drink, that he had a great quarrel with the king's herdsmen for a well; and it is easy to discover that he still had not a house of his own. family in abundance. His land will daily improve; he will support them without fearing the irregularity of the seasons and the weight of taxes, because one good year repairs the damages of two bad ones. He will enjoy in his domain a real sovereignty, which will only be subject to the laws. It is the most natural state of man; the most tranquil, the most happy, and, unfortunately, the most rare. The son of this venerable patriarch seeing himself rich, is disgusted with paying the humiliating tax of the taille. Having unfortunately learned some Latin, he repairs to town, buys a post which exempts him from the tax, and which bestows nobility. He sells his domain to pay for his vanity; marries a girl brought up in luxury, who dishonours and ruins him: he dies in beggary, and his only son wears { a livery in Paris. ECONOMY OF SPEECH His children, Esau and Jacob, had not a greater establishment than their father. Jacob was obliged to seek his fortune in Mesopotamia, from whence Abraham came; he served seven years for one of the daughters of Laban, and seven other years to obtain the second daughter. He THIS is an expression consecrated in fled with his wives and the flocks of his its appropiation by the fathers of the father-in-law, who pursued him. A pre-church and even by the primitive propacarious fortune, that of Jacob. Esau is represented as wandering like Jacob. None of the twelve patriarchs, the children of Jacob, had any fixed dwelling, or a field of which they were the proprietors. They only reposed in their tents like Bedouin Arabs. TO SPEAK BY ECONOMY. gators of our holy religion: it signifies the application of oratory to circumstances. For example :-St. Paul, being a Christian, comes to the temple of the Jews to perform the Judaic rites, in order to show that he does not forsake the Mosaic law; he is recognised at the end of It is is clear that this patriarchal life a week, and accused of having profaned would not conveniently suit the tempera- the temple. Loaded with blows, he is ture of our atmosphere. A good culti-dragged along by the mob; the tribune vator, such as Pignoux of Auvergne, must of the cohort (tribunis cohortis) arrives, have a convenient house, with an aspect and binds him with a double chain. The towards the east ; large barns and stables: next day this tribune assembles the counstalls properly built; the whole amount-cil, and carries Paul before it, when the ing to about fifty thousand francs of our high priest Ananias commences proceedpresent money in value. He must sow aings by giving him a box on the ear; on hundred acres with corn, besides having which Paul salutes him with the epithet good pastures, he should possess some of "of a whited wall." acres of vineyard, and about fifty for in- "But when Paul perceived that the ferior grain and herbs, thirty acres of one part were sadducees and the other wood; a plantation of mulberries, silk-pharisees, he cried out in the council, worms, and bees. With all these advant- "Men and brethren, I am a pharisee, the ages well economised, he can maintain a son of a pharisee; of the hope and resur |