emissaries to warn his customers that what he sold was "tripher," or unclean meat, the consequence being that all his customers left him, and he had to close his shop. At the close of the plaintiff's case, Baron Martin held that there was no evidence to go to the jury, and even had there been any proof of the alleged slander, he should have ruled the communication to have been privileged. Jacob Grimm on the English Language. THE following passage from a treatise "On the Origin of Language," delivered in 1851 before the Royal Academy in Berlin, by the celebrated philologian, Jacob Grimm, will be interesting to every Englishman. After passing in review the various languages which have prevailed in the world, from the earliest ages to the present time, and endeavouring to show that the fulness of vocal sounds, and the variety and richness of inflexion, which distinguish the languages of antiquity, are more than compensated for in the dialects of modern Europe by a freer use of particles and medial sounds, he proceeds to pass the following judgment on the English language:-"As the four or five cases of the Greek and Latin noun appear in themselves inferior in power to the fourteen of the Finnish language, and yet the latter, with its more apparent than real elasticity, is able to do far less; so the injury done to our modern European languages by the loss of the redundant forms of the Greek verb, which we either paraphrase or leave altogether unexpressed, is not nearly so great as is generally supposed. In regard to the importance and the results of these inquiries, I may, I think, conclude my task with one remarkable and decisive example. No modern language has derived a greater degree of power and strength, from its disregard of all the laws of sound, and the dropping of nearly all inflexions, than the English. This language owes to its abundance of free medial tones, which may be learned indeed, but which no rules can teach, a power of expression such as never, perhaps, was possessed by any human tongue. Its altogether intellectual and singularly happy foundation and development arose from a surprising alliance between the two noblest languages of antiquity-the German and the Romanesque--the relation of which to each other is well known to be such that the former supplies the material foundation, the latter the abstract notions. Yes, truly, the English language, by which, not in vain, the greatest poet of modern times-I can only mean Shakespeare-was begotten and nurtured with strength; the English language, I say, may with good reason call itself an universal language, and seems chosen, like the English people, to rule, in future times, in a still greater degree, in all the corners of the earth. For in richness, in sound reason and flexibility, no modern language can be compared with it; not even the German, which is torn as we ourselves are torn, and must shake off many a weakness before it can enter the lists with the English. Yet it offers many pleasing reminiscences, and who would wish to rob it of hope? The beauty of human speech bloomed not in its earliest but in its middle period, its noblest fruits will be gathered by posterity." The Present War. "I SEE it is still mooted, Is this war to be regarded as religious? I have already previously written that I do not so view it as regards the immediate parties engaged in it. At the same time, the more one inquires how France could have perpetrated so great a blunder as to engage in this war, the more they will find that it rested on the idea of South German inaction, or even support. The Ultramontanes in Bavaria had got the upper hand, and the opportunity was not to be lost of using such valuable allies. Rome had long been using every intrigue to separate the South from the North. A young king had been surrounded by basest intrigues-never had Jesuitism more skilfully woven its web-but the manliness of the young king and the noble principles of Prince Hohenlohe baffled the dark plot and saved the rupture of Germany. The Papal intrigue has ended in a great united Germany, the guiding power and intelligence of which is Protestant Prussia. What issues this war may have on Catholicism in Germany I shall not venture to say, although there are already indications of the likely issue; but this is too large a subject on which to enter in my present letter."-Letter from Berlin in “Daily Review.” Garments rolled in blood. A FIELD of battle is first a terrible, then a pitiable, then a loathsome sight; and the field or fields on which the battle of Sedan was fought have now reached the loathsome stage. On the ground nearest the city the dead men, only two days after the fight, had, for the most part, been buried. The dead horses had been skinned, cut up, and partially eaten. The huge red carcases were lying about everywhere, amid smashed helmets, broken muskets, rusty sabres, torn knapsacks, stray epaulettes, and battered accoutrements of all kinds-a slaughterhouse and a depot for marine stores combined.-Foreign Correspondence of Times. Egypt rising in the latter day.-The Suez Canal. WITH respect to the canal itself, he was decidedly of opinion that, with proper supervision and the use of the necessary means, it could be kept open and available for the largest sea-going ships. No doubt the advantages of this means of communication would be reaped first by those nations nearest to it, and he looked for the resuscitation of great commercial relations on the coast of Africa, Arabia, and Persia, which existed for so many ages, and which were only put an end to by the disturbances and bad government which succeeded the dark ages in this country, when Europe was in a state of transition, and the last was for the most part in the hands of Mohammedans. Italy, Austria, and France would also doubtless participate in its benefits, and the greatest enthusiasm existed respecting the canal in Russia, where the merchants of Odessa anticipated direct trade by it with India, instead of by Trebizond and the steppes of Siberia. He believed, however, that England would be most benefited by the canal, and that it would be productive of even greater advantages to this country than resulted from the discovery of the route to India round the Cape. In a long journey a few more hundred miles were not of much moment, and though the Portuguese and the Spanish had a full fortnight's advantage over England in their position, both countries had been beaten by England in the trade to the East and West Indies. One special feature in connexion with the Suez Canal was, that it gave iron steamships a great advantage over wooden vessels, and England possessed great resources and facilities for building iron steam-vessels. England had also special advantages in all that concerns commerce and navigation; and above all, the Government is in accord with the commercial people of the country. England in the past had beaten nations which had the advantage both of situation and climate, and he did not think this country would be wanting in the race that would have to be run by those nations which would derive the greatest advantage from the Suez Canal.-Sir Bartle Frere. Jewish Emigration. ONE of our Jewish contemporaries calls attention to the fact that a large immigration of indigent Jews may shortly be looked for. It is known that several hundred families are to be sent to New York from Western Russia, where toleration is no longer to be enjoyed. It is also stated that the sub-committees on the Russo-Prussian frontiers will soon organise a general fund for the exportation of Jews to this country. Nearly all these immigrants will be poor, but they will here find perfect freedom to do and think as they please. Owing to this very freedom, a large section of the Jews themselves begin to talk of modifying their ancient faith. It has survived eighteen centuries of persecution, but liberty is acting upon it as a powerful solvent. Nothing is more curious in our history than the disintegration of mere creeds, which we find perpetually going on around us. The Jews are likely to furnish the most striking and instructive example of all; and it is to be hoped that some of them will contrive to give us a clear and thoughtful history of a movement which is accomplishing what the Pharaohs tried to do and failed.-New York Times. Absinthe. A TERRIBLE account of the ravages of absinthe-drinking in France appears in the Pall Mall Gazette. The infatuation spreads. "Paris actually has its clubs of absinthe-drinkers, the members of which are pledged to intoxicate themselves with no other stimulant, and even to drink no other fluid-the only pledges, it is believed, which they do not violate." [The siege of Paris has dried up this "fluid."] Correspondence. To the Editor of the "Quarterly Journal of Prophecy." REVIVAL OF PAGANISM. SIR,-The following laudation of the gods of Greece and Rome is worthy of your notice :— "Dante Allighieri and the Prime Minister.—It is gratifying (!) to see Mr Gladstone follow in the track of Dante Allighieri, though, perhaps, he may not be fully aware of the fact. That the gods of High Olympus are, as your reviewer of Mr Gladstone's work states, 'mysterious yet comprehensible symbols of truth and reality,' was the conviction of Dante, as also that under the so-called fables of the ancients, historical and philosophical truths lay concealed. It was this conviction which led him, in the 'Divina Commedia,' to introduce passages and illustrations from these sources, with as much apparent gravity and earnestness as he did from the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures: a practice that has often been a source of some misgiving to pious students, not so far advanced in classical culture as himself, and may have helped to give rise to the erroneous notion that Dante was not a sincere Christian, nor an orthodox believer. Boccaccio, in his Life of Dante, expressly relates that, having applied his acute intellect to study the admirable artifices of the poets, and, in a short time, finding them not to be merely fabulous, as it is said, made himself familiar with them all, and especially with the most famous. And knowing that these poetic fictions are not mere vain and silly fables, as many affirm, but that, under their sweet exterior, historical and philosophical truths lie concealed, in order that he might have a complete knowledge of them, with an equable distribution of his time, he gave himself to the study of both. In helping to brush away the clouds of ignorance which have so long obscured the wisdom of the ancients, and in seeking to set Zeus before the public gaze in unveiled majesty, Mr Gladstone has rendered a service also to the memory of Dante, in placing before us, in a stronger light, the colossal figure of the great Christian poet, which, like that of the 'gran veglio,' in the cavern in Crete, grows greater and brighter with the course of ages." The apostle spoke of the gods of Greece as "devils" (1 Cor. x. 20). What shall we say of such palliations of Pagan obscenities ?-Yours, &c., CHRISTIANUS SUM. Poetry. THE SUPPER OF THANKSGIVING. FOR the bread and for the wine, For the pledge that seals Him mine, We give Thee thanks, O Lord. For the body and the blood, We give Thee thanks, O Lord. For the chalice, whence we sip We give Thee thanks, O Lord. For the feast of love and peace, We give Thee thanks, O Lord. For the Paschal Lamb here given, Only bread and only wine We give Thee thanks, O Lord. For the words that turn our eye We give Thee thanks, O Lord. For the words that fragrance breathe, These poor symbols underneath, Words that His own peace bequeath, We give Thee thanks, O Lord. For the words that tell of home, We give Thee thanks, O Lord. Till He come, we take the bread, We give Thee thanks, O Lord. We give Thee thanks, O Lord. For that coming, here foreshown, We give Thee thanks, O Lord. PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE AND COMPANY EDINBURGH AND LONDON |