Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863

The doctor thus addressed was a cow doctor, but, accustomed to attending brutes, his advice was worth something in the present case; so he also recommended shaving and blistering.

'I'll go git the barber right off the reel, sha'n't I?' asked the doctor, to which the legislator assenting, it chanced that in fifteen minutes his head was as bald as a billiard ball, and in a few more was covered with a good-sized fly blister.

'Ouch – good woman – how it hurts!' he cried. But that was only the beginning of it.

'Ee-ea-ah!' he roared, as it grew hotter and hotter. One might have heard him a mile. The neighbors did hear it, and rushed in. The joke was 'contaminated' round among them, and they enjoyed it. He had disgusted them all.

'Golly! what a big head!' cried a bystander.

The legislator took another look at the glass. They held it about a yard from him.

'It's gittin' smaller, ain't it?' he groaned.

'Yes, it's wiltin',' said the landlady. 'Now go to bed.'

He went, and on rising departed. Whether he ever became an honest man is not known, but the legend says he has from that day avoided 'bust-head whiskey.'

Don't you see it, reader? The landlady had shown him his face in a convex mirror – one of those old-fashioned things, which may occasionally be found in country taverns.

WAR-WAIFS

The chronicles of war in all ages show us that this internecine strife into which we of the North have been driven by those who will eventually rue the necessity, is by no manner of means the first in which brother has literally been pitted against brother in the deadly 'tug of war.' The fiercest conflict of the kind, however, which we can at present call up from the memory of past readings, was one in which Theodebert, king of Austria, took the field against his own brother, Thierri, king of Burgundy. Historians tell us that, so close was the hand-to-hand fighting in this battle, slain soldiers did not fall until the mélée was over, but were borne to and fro in an upright position amid the serried ranks.

Although many and many of England's greatest battles have been won for her by her Irish soldiers, it is not always that the latter can be depended upon by her. With the Celt, above all men, 'blood is thicker than water;' and, although he is very handy at breaking the head of another Celt with a blackthorn 'alpeen,' in a free faction fight, he objects to making assaults upon his fellow countrymen with the 'pomp and circumstance of war.' A striking instance of this occurred during the Irish rebellion of 1798. The 5th Royal Irish Light Dragoons refused to charge upon a body of the rebels when the word was given. Not a man or horse stirred from the ranks. Here was a difficult card to play, now, for the authorities, because it would have been inconvenient to try the whole regiment by court martial, and the soldiers were quite too valuable to be mowed down en masse. The only course left was to disband the regiment, which was done. The disaffected men were distributed into regiments serving in India and other remote colonies, and the officers, none of whom, we believe, were involved in the mutiny, were provided for in various quarters. The circumstance was commemorated in a curious way. It was ordered that the 5th Royal Irish Light Dragoons should be erased from the records of the army list, in which a blank between the 4th and 6th Dragoons should remain forever, as a memorial of disgrace. For upward of half a century this gap remained in the army list, as anybody may see by referring to any number of that publication of half-a-dozen years back. The regiment was revived during, or just after, the Crimean war, and the numbers in the army list are once more complete.

notes

1

This alliance may be fanciful (though we observe some of the best German lexicographers have it so); a better origin might, perhaps, be found in the Sanscrit mri, etc.

2

'Les Orientals,' par Victor Hugo. Le Feu du ciel.

3

The 'by' may, however, have the force of going or passing, equivalent to 'fare' in 'farewell,' or 'welfare,' i. e., may you have a good passage or journey.

4

'Past and Present,' pp. 128, 129.

5

Compare with this the Latin mundus, which is exactly analogous in signification.

6

En-voir.

7

Perhaps nothing could better prove how profoundly religious were the Latins than a word compounded of the above; namely 'profane.' A 'fanatic' was one who devoted himself to the fanum or temple – 'profane' is an object devoted to anything else 'pro'—instead of– the 'fanum,' or fane.

8

The word is more properly oriental than Greek, e. g., Hebrew, pardes, and Sanscrit, paradêsa.

9

See the Italian setvaggio and the Spanish salvage, in which a more approximate orthography has been retained.

10

Ovid. Metamorphoseon, lib. xi. v. 183.

11

Hæc autem erat Gnosticorum doctrina ethica, quod omnem virtutem in prudentia sitim esse credebant, quam Ophitæ per Metem (Sophiam) et Serpentem exprimebant, desumpto iterum ex Evangelii præcepto; estote prudentes ut serpentes, – ob innatem hujus animalis astutiam? – Von Hammer, Fundgruben des Orients, tom. vi. p. 85.

12

New Curiosities of Literature. By Geo. Soane, London, 1849.

13

Developpement des Abus introduits dans la Franc Maçonnerie. Ecossois de Saint André d'Écosse, &c., &c. Paris, 1780.

14

'Tota hæc humanæ vitæ fabula, quæ universitatem naturæ et generis humani historiam constituit tota prius in intellectu divino præconcepta fuit cum infinitis aliis.' – Leibnitz, Theodicæa, part 11, p. 149.

15

Tickner and Fields' edition of Waverley Novels, Boston, 1858.

16

The Poetry of the East. By William Rounseville Alger. Boston. Whittemore, Niles & Hall, 1856.

17

Μἡνιν αειδε θεἁ, Πηλιἁδεω, Ἁχιλἡος,
Ουλομἑνην, ἡ μυρἱ Ἁχαιοἱς αλγε ἑθηκεν,
Πολλἁς δ' ιφθἱμους ψυχἁς Ἁἱδι προταψεν
Ἡρὡων, αυτοὑς δἑ ελὡρια τεὑχε κὑεσσιν

    Κ. Τ. Λ.