death. The magistrates protected those who were destitute of friends, or incapable of labour. When Ulysses was disguised as a mendicant, and presented himself to Eurymachus, this prince observing him to be robust and healthy, offered to give him employment, or otherwise to leave him to his ill fortune. When the Roman emperors, even in the reigns of Nero and Tiberius, bestowed their largesses, the distributers were ordered to exempt those from receiving a share whose bad conduct kept them in misery; for that it was better the lazy should die with hunger than be fed in idleness.

Whether the police of the ancients was more exact, or whether they were more attentive to practise the duties of humanity, or that slavery served as an efficacious corrective of idleness; it clearly appears how little was the misery, and how few the numbers of their poor. This they did too, without having recourse to hospitals.

At the establishment of christianity, when the apostles commanded a community of wealth among their disciples, the miseries of the poor became alleviated in a greater degree. If they did not absolutely live together, as we have seen religious orders, yet the rich continually supplied their distressed brethren: but matters greatly changed under Constantine. This prince published edicts in favour of those christians who had been condemned in the preceding reigns to

.

slavery, to the mines, the galleys, or prisons. The church felt an inundation of prodigious crowds of these miserable men, who brought with them urgent wants and corporeal infirmities. The christian families were then not numerous; they could not satisfy these claimants. The magistrates protected them: they built spacious hospitals, under different titles, for the sick, the aged, the invalids, the widows, and orphans. The emperors, and the most eminent personages, were seen in these hospitals examining the patients; they assisted the helpless; they dressed the wounded. This did so much honour to the new religion, that Julian the Apostate introduced this custom among the pagans. But the best things are seen continually perverted.

These retreats were found insufficient. Many slaves, proud of the liberty they had just recovered, looked on them as prisons; and under various pretexts, wandered about the country. They displayed with art the scars of their former wounds, and exposed the imprinted marks of their chains. They found thus a lucrative profession in begging, which had been interdicted by the laws. The profession did not finish with them: men of an untoward, turbulent, and licentious disposition, gladly embraced it. It spread so wide that the succeeding emperors were obliged to institute new laws; and individuals were allowed to seize on these mendicants for

VOL. I.

A A

their slaves and perpetual vassals: a powerful preservative against this disorder. It is observed in almost every part of the world, but ours; and prevents that populace of beggary which disgraces Europe. China presents us with a noble example. No beggars are seen loitering in that country. All the world are occupied, even to the blind and the lame; and only those who are incapable of labour live at the public expense. What is done there may also be performed here. Instead of that hideous, importunate, idle, licentious poverty, as pernicious to the police as to morality, we should see the poverty of the earlier ages, humble, modest, frugal, robust, industrious, and laborious. Then, indeed, the fable of Plato might be realized: Poverty may be embraced by the god of Riches; and if she did not produce the voluptuous offspring of Love, she would become the fertile mother of Agriculture, and the ingenious parent of the Arts and Manufactures.

SOLOMON AND SHEBA.

A RABBIN once told me of an ingenious invention, which in the Talmud is attributed to Solomon; and this story shows that there are some pleasing tales in that immense compilation.

The power of the monarch had spread his wis

dom to the remotest parts of the known world. Queen Sheba, attracted by the splendour of his reputation, visited this poetical king at his own court; there, one day to exercise the sagacity of the monarch, Sheba presented herself at the foot of the throne; in each hand she held a wreath; the one was composed of natural, and the other of artificial flowers. Art, in the labour of the mimetic wreath, had exquisitely emulated the lively hues of nature; so that at the distance it was held by the queen for the inspection of the king, it was deemed impossible for him to decide, as her question imported, which wreath was the production of nature, and which the work of art. The sagacious Solomon seemed perplexed; yet to be vanquished, though in a trifle, by a trifling woman, irritated his pride. The son of David, he who had written treatises on the vegetable productions "from the cedar to the hyssop," to acknowledge himself outwitted by a woman, with shreds of paper and glazed paintings! The honour of the monarch's reputation for divine sagacity seemed diminished, and the whole Jewish court looked solemn and melancholy. At length, an expedient presented itself to the king; and one it must be confessed worthy of the naturalist. Observing a cluster of bees hovering about a window, he commanded that it should be opened: it was opened; the bees rushed into the court, and alighted imme

diately on one of the wreaths, while not a single one fixed on the other. The baffled Sheba had one more reason to be astonished at the wisdom

of Solomon.

This would make a pretty poetical tale. It would yield an elegant description, and a pleasing moral; that the bee only rests on the natural beauties, and never fixes on the painted flowers, however inimitably the colours may be laid on. Applied to the ladies, this would give it pungency. In the "Practical Education" of the Edgeworths, the reader will find a very ingenious conversation about this story.

HELL.

OLDHAM, in his "Satires upon the Jesuits," a work which would admit of a curious commentary, alludes to their "lying legends," and the innumerable impositions they practised on the credulous. I quote a few lines in which he has collected some of those legendary miracles, which I have noticed in the article LEGENDS, and the amours of the Virgin Mary are detailed in Vol. II. art. Religious Nouvellettes.

Tell, how blessed Virgin to come down was seen,
Like play-house punk descending in machine,
How she writ billet-dour and love-discourse,

Made assignations, visits, and amours ;