figure with shoes and the cobbler's craft comes out in a number of tales about the Wild Huntsman. In Northern Germany, one of the many forms of the Ewig-Jäger is called Schlorf-Hacker,— a ghastly figure in rattling shoes or slippers that jumps pick-aback upon men's shoulders. In Glarus, the departed spirits of the Wild Chase are actually called "Shoemakers," as if they had been contributors to Vidar's shoe. A full explanation of this symbolism—for it can be nothing else—is still wanting. But the importance of the shoe, both in the Germanic creed and in the Ahasverus legend, is undeniable, and it clearly forms a thread of connection between the two circles of mythology.

When the real meaning of a myth is lost, popular fancy always tries to construct some new explanation. Even at a seat of English learning, the old Germanic Yuletide custom of the Boar's Head Dinner - originally a holy supper of the heathen Teutons -is interpreted now as a festive commemoration of the miraculous escape of an Oxford student from the tusks of a bristly quadruped. Nothing can be made out more clearly than that the banquet in question is the remnant of a sacrificial ceremony once held in honor of Fro, or Freyr, the god of Light, whose symbol and sacred animal was the sun boar, and who was pre-eminently worshiped at the winter solstice. But how few there are, even among the most learned, who know this simple fact, or who have ever been startled by the palpable impossibility of the modernizing explanation of the Boar's Head Dinner!

We cannot wonder, therefore, that the restless chasing of the Wild Huntsman-though he still bears here and there the name of Wotn, or Wodan, and though he be replaced in other districts. by a Wild Huntress, who is called after one of the names of Wodan's consort - should be explained now as the expiation of the crime of hunting on a Sunday, committed by some nobleman or squire in defiance of the orders of the Church. The details of this Christianizing explanation vary in every locality. Men are always ready to explain, offhand, that which they do not understand in the least. Yet the great heathen Germanic traits of the Wild Chase are preserved without change in places lying far asunder. In the same way there has been a Boar's Head Dinner, until a comparatively recent time, in more places than one in England; and at Court there is still, at Christmas, a diminished survival of the custom. But only at Oxford the impossible story

of the student is told.

So, also, there are different tales accounting for the peregrinations of that mythic figure which is variously known as the horseflesh-eating Eternal Hunter who insulted Christ, as the Pilgrim from Rome, as Pilatus the Wanderer, as the hill-enchanted and forest-haunting Jew, as Ahasver, Buttadeus, and so forth. But again, the chief characteristics of the Restless Wanderer remain everywhere the same; and in not a few districts this form is inextricably mixed up with that of the Wild Huntsman, who also dwells in a hill and haunts a forest, and whose Wodan or Godan name may in Germany have facilitated the transition to a Jude.

When we keep these things in mind, we shall see how useful it is to study the creed of our forefathers as a means of dispelling the dark shadows of present bigotry. Such fuller knowledge of a collapsed circle of ideas which often show so remarkable a contact with the Vedic religion enables us to enjoy, as a weird poetical conception, that which otherwise would only strike us as the superstition of a contemptible religious fanaticism. For all times to come, a Great Breath, a Mahan Atma, will rustle through the leaves, rage across hill and dale, and stir river and sea with mighty motion. In so far, there will never be a lack of an EterIf we understand the myth in this natural sense, a curse will be removed; a feeling of relief will be created in bosoms yet heavily burdened with prejudices; and evidence will have been furnished that a grain of sense, however laid with absurdities, is often to be found in cruel fancies in which the human mind seems to have gone most wildly astray.

nal Wanderer.

ANICIUS MANLIUS SEVERINUS BOETHIUS

(c. 475-525 A. D.)

HE great work of Boethius,- his "Consolations of Philosophy," -was the last product of Roman civilization. It was written after the Goths had conquered the Roman Empire, and it is possible that if Boethius had not been imprisoned by Theodoric, the Ostrogoth, it might never have been written at all,- for it is said that he wrote it in prison at Pavia. He was born at Rome 475 A. D. (conjecturally). His father was consul in 487 A. D., and in 510 Boethius himself succeeded to the office which brought him close to Theodoric, the Ostrogoth. For a time Theodoric held him in high favor, but afterwards suspected him of treason and sent him to prison in Pavia, where he was put to death 525 A. D. Besides his "Consolations of Philosophy" and his "Meters," which were translated by Alfred the Great, he wrote on Music, Mathematics, and Logic. His miscellaneous essays on such topics were held in high favor during the Middle Ages, but he is remembered now almost wholly by his "Consolations of Philosophy."- the work which made him, in Gibbon's estimation, "the last Roman whom Cato or Tully could have acknowledged as a countryman."

WHAT IS THE HIGHEST HAPPINESS?

HEN Wisdom had sung this lay he ceased the song and was silent awhile. Then he began to think deeply in his mind's thought, and spoke thus: Every mortal man troubles himself with various and manifold anxieties, and yet all desire, through various paths, to come to one end; that is, they desire, by different means, to arrive at one happiness; that is, to know God! He is the beginning and the end of every good, and he is the highest happiness.

Then said the Mind: This, methinks, must be the highest good, so that man should need no other good, nor moreover be solicitous beyond that,—since he possesses that which is the roof of all other goods; for it includes all other goods, and has all of them within it. It would not be the highest good, if any good

were external to it, because it would then have to desire some good which itself had not.

Then answered Reason, and said: It is very evident that this is the highest happiness, for it is both the roof and floor of all good. What is that, then, but the best happiness, which gathers the other felicities all within it, and includes, and holds them within it; and to it there is a deficiency of none, neither has it need of any; but they all come from it, and again all return to it; as all waters come from the sea, and again all come to the sea? There is none in the little fountain which does not seek the sea, and again, from the sea it arrives at the earth, and so it flows gradually through the earth, till it again comes to the same fountain that it before flowed from, and so again to the sea.

Now this is an example of the true goods, which all mortal men desire to obtain, though they by various ways think to arrive at them. For every man has natural good in himself, because every man desires to obtain the true good; but it is hindered by the transitory goods, because it is more prone thereto. For some men think that it is the best happiness that a man be so rich that he have need of nothing more; and they choose life accordingly. Some men think that this is the highest good, that he be among his fellows the most honorable of his fellows, and they with all energy seek this. Some think that the supreme good is in the highest power. These desire, either for themselves to rule, or else to associate themselves in friendship with their rulers. Some persuade themselves that it is best that a man be illustrious and celebrated, and have good fame; they therefore seek this both in peace and in war. Many reckon it for the greatest good and for the greatest happiness, that a man be always blithe in this present life, and fulfill all his lusts. Some, indeed, who desire these riches, are desirous thereof, because they would have the greater power, that they may the more securely enjoy these worldly lusts, and also the riches. Many there are of those who desire power because they would gather overmuch money; or, again, they are desirous to spread the celebrity of their name.

On account of such and other like frail and perishable advantages, the thought of every human mind is troubled with solicitude and with anxiety. It then imagines that it has obtained. some exalted good when it has won the flattery of the people; and methinks that it has bought a very false greatness. Some

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with much anxiety seek wives, that thereby they may, above all things, have children, and also live happily. True friends, then, I say, are the most precious things of all these worldly felicities. They are not, indeed, to be reckoned as worldly goods, but as divine; for deceitful fortune does not produce them, but God, who naturally formed them as relations. For of every other thing in this world man is desirous, either that he may through it attain to power, or else some worldly lust; except of the true friend, whom he loves sometimes for affection and for fidelity, though he expect to himself no other rewards. Nature joins and cements friends together with inseparable love. But with these worldly goods, and with this present wealth, men make oftener enemies than friends. By these and by many such things it may be evident to all men, that all the bodily goods are inferior to the faculties of the soul. We indeed think that a man is the stronger, because he is great in his body. The fairness moreover, and the vigor of the body, rejoices and delights the man, and health makes him cheerful. In all these bodily felicities, men seek simple happiness, as it seems to them. For whatsoever every man chiefly loves above all other things, that he persuades himself is best for him, and that is his highest good. When, therefore, he has acquired that, he imagines that he may be very happy. I do not deny that these goods and this happiness are the highest good of this present life. For every man considers that thing best which he chiefly loves above other things; and therefore he persuades himself that he is very happy if he can obtain what he then most desires. Is not now clearly enough shown to thee the form of the false goods, that is, then, possessions, dignity, and power, and glory, and pleasure? Concerning pleasure, Epicurus the philosopher said, when he inquired concerning all those other goods, which we before mentioned; then said he that pleasure was the highest good, because all the other goods which we before mentioned gratify the mind and delight it, but pleasure alone chiefly gratifies the body.

But we will still speak concerning the nature of men, and concerning their pursuits. Though, then, their mind and their nature be now dimmed, and they are by that fall sunk down to evil, and thither inclined, yet they are desirous, so far as they can and may, of the highest good. As a drunken man knows that he should go to his house and to his rest, and yet is not able to find the way thither, so is it also with the mind when it