of religion, but goe to bed to their rest, to rise betime the next morning to their labour.'

6

This, it must be confessed, is singular philosophy; in another sentence we are told that the eyes of the people of Norfolk decay very speedily, in consequence of the dryness of the air, while on the adjoining page is the truly rational remark-'I have oftentimes wished for a mappe of England, coloured according to the colours of the earth, with markes of the fossiles and minerals,' which may be regarded as one of the earliest hints at what are now common-geological maps. Aubrey then goes on to speak of the damage done by Oliver's wind;' the hurricane commonly reported to have blown at the time of Cromwell's death, but which Thomas Carlyle shows was four days earlier. He describes echoes and sounds as moving in spheres similar to the circles produced from the fall of a stone into water; and relates of a petrifying rivulet near Devizes, that it seems to prove that stones grow not by apposition only, as the Aristotelians assert, but by susception also; for if the stick did not suscept some vertue by which it is transmuted, we may admire what doth become of the matter of the stick.' Then we read- My Lady Coeks of Dumbleton told me that ladies did send ten miles and more for water from a spring on Malverne Hill, in Worcestershire, to wash their faces, and make 'em faire;' followed by thirty-two 'quaeres for the tryall of mineral waters,' among which are 'How much heavier 'tis than brandy? How it boyles dry pease? How blood lett whilest the waters are dranke lookes, and how it changes? In what time they putrefy and stink?'

It seems to have been the practice at that time, as it is now, to secure the presence of a great personage at the commencement of any important undertaking. Thus we read-On Munday morning, the 20th September (1669), was begun a well-intended designe for cutting the river (Avon) below Salisbury, to make it navigable to carry boats of burthen to and from Christ Church. This work was principally encouraged by the Right Reverend Father in God, Seth, Lord Bishop of Salisbury, his lordship digging the first spitt of earth, and driving the first wheelebarrow.' The tides of the Severn served as 'weather prognosticks' to the dwellers on the banks of the river:

If it raineth when it doth flow,

Then yoke your oxe, and goe to plough;
But if it raineth when it doth ebb,
Then unyoke your oxe, and goe to bed.'

In the chapter on soiles,' we read that 'wet and dirty lands, to poore people, who have not change of shoes, the cold is very incommodious, which hurts their nerves exceedingly. Salts, as the Lord Chancellor Bacon sayes, do exert (irradiate) raies of cold. Elias Ashmole, Esq. got a dangerous cold by sitting by the salt sacks in a salter's shop, which was like to have cost him his life. And some salts will corrode papers, that were three or four inches from it. The same may be sayd of marble pavements, which have cost some great persons their lives. Edmund Waller, Esq. the poet, made a quaere, I remember, at the Royal Society, about 1666, whether Salisbury Plaines were always plaines? In Virginia, the natives did burn down great woods, to cultivate the soil with maiz and potato-rootes, which plaines were there made by firing the woods to sowe corne. They doe call these plaines savannas. Who knowes but Salisbury Plaines, &c. might be made long time ago, after this manner, and for the same reason? As to the greene circles on the downes, vulgarly called faiery circles (dances), I presume they are generated from the breathing out of a fertile subterraneous vapour. (The ringworm on a man's flesh is circular. Excogitate a paralolisme between the cordial heat and the subterranean heat to elucidate this phenomenon.) Every tobacco-taker knowes that 'tis no strange thing for a circle of smoke to be whiff'd out of the bowle of the pipe; but 'tis donne by chance. If you dig under the turf of this circle, you will find at the rootes of the grasse a hoare or mouldiness. But as there are fertile

steames, so contrarywise there are noxious ones, which proceed from some minerales, iron, &c. which also, as the others, appear in a circular form.' The phenomenon of fairy rings was explained by the celebrated Wollaston forty years ago: he shows it to be caused by the decay and annual growth of certain species of fungi.

A curious botanical fact is recorded-The spring after the conflagration at London, all the ruines were overgrown with an herbe or two, but especially one with a yellow flower; and on the south side of St Paul's Church it grew as thick as could be; nay, on the very top of the tower. The herbalists call it Ericoleirs Neapolitana-small bank cresses of Naples.' This plant, it appears, had never before been seen about London, except near Battle Bridge. The next may be set down among feats of the marvellous- Edmund Wyld, Esq., R.S.S., hath had a pott of composition in his garden these seven yeares, that beares nothing at all, not so much as grasse or mosse. He makes his challenge, if any man will give him xxli. he will give him an hundred if it doth not beare wheate spontaneously; and the party shall keep the key, and he shall sift the earthcomposition through a fine sieve, so that he may be sure there are no graines of wheate in it. He hath also a composition for pease; but that he will not warrant, not having yet tryed it.'

We are informed, under the head 'minerals and fossils,' of the means resorted to by an eminent physician for making aperient pills-In the parish of Great Badminton, in a field called Twelve Acres, the husbandmen doe oftentimes plough up and find iron bulletts as big as pistoll bulletts; sometimes almost as big as muskett bulletts. These bulletts are Dr Th. Willises aperitive pills: he putts a barre of iron into the smith's forge, and gives it a sparkling heat: then thrusts it against a roll of brimstone, and the barre will melt down into these bulletts; of which he made his aperitive pills. In this region is a great deal of iron, and the Bath waters give sufficient evidence that there is store of sulphur; so that heretofore, when the earthquakes were hereabouts, store of such bulletts must necessarily be made and vomited up.' In the next paragraph we read that the holly may be taken as an indication of the presence of coal below the surface, as that tree delights in the effluvium of this fossill.' 'I doe believe that all chalke was once marle; that is, that chalke has undergone subterraneous bakings, and is become hard: e. g. as wee make tobacco-pipes. The millers in our country use to putt a black pebble under the pinne of the axis of the mill-wheele, to keep the brasse underneath from wearing; and they doe find by experience that nothing doth weare so long as that. The bakers take a certain pebble, which they put in the vaulture of their oven, which they call the warning stone; for when that is white, the oven is hot. There was a time when all pebbles were liquid. Wee find them all ovalish. How should this come to passe? As for salts, some shoot cubicall, some hexagonall. Why might there not be a time, when these pebbles were making in embryone, for such a shooting as falls into an ovalish figure? Anno 1665, I desired Dr W. Harvey to tell me how flints were generated. He sayd to me that the black of the flint is but a natural vitrification of the chalke; and added that the medicine of the flint is excellent for the stone, and I think he said for the greene sicknesse; and that in some flints are found stones in next degree to a diamond.' Here we see the great discoverer of the circulation of the blood, with all his philosophy, approving remedies for disease which the most ignorant would now not dream of.

In a subsequent chapter on plants, Aubrey, while relating that wild strawberries were plentiful in certain parts, says 'I have heard Sir Christopher Wren affirm, that if one that has a wound in the head eates them, they are mortall. Methinks 'tis very strange;' and adds,

Quære, the learned of this?' Then we are told that meadows producing yellow flowers are better than those which grow white flowers, as the latter are produc't by

a cold hungry water;' and that tobacco is onely in gardens for medicine; but in the neighbouring county of Gloucester it is a great commodity.' In a memorandum appended to this, the author says Mr Michael Weekes, of the custome-house, assures me that the custom of tobacco is the greatest of all other, and amounts now (1688) to four hundred thousand pounds per annum.' At the present time, the tobacco duties produce about three and a half millions annually. The cutting down of the forests seems to have caused much popular discontent; on the destruction of Pewsham Forest, by the Duke of Buckingham, the poor people' made a rhyme

When Chipnam stood in Pewsham's wood,
Before it was destroyed,

A cow might have gone for a groat a yeare-
But now it is denied.'

'The metre,' observes Aubrey, is lamentable, but the cry of the poor was more lamentable. I knew several that did remember the going of a cowe for 4d. per annum. The order was, how many they could winter they might summer; and pigges did cost nothing the going. Now, the highwayes are encombred with cottages, and the travellers with the beggars that dwell in them.' When describing reptiles and insects,' the author gives the following as a remedy for the plague and other diseases: Take twenty great fatt toades in May they are the best: putt them alive in a pipkin, cover it, make a fire round it to the top, let them stay on the fire till they make no noise,' &c.; and says that it is recommended by Dr Thomas Willis. The prejudice against rooks and crows is not a modern error. The parliament in James I.'s reign passed a bill authorising the destruction of the birds, on which Aubrey writes I have heard knowing countreymen affirme, that rooke-wormes which the crows and rooks doe devour at sowing time, doe turne to chafers, which I think are our English locusts; and some yeares wee have such fearful armies of them, that they devour all manner of green things; and if the crowes did not destroy these wormes, it would oftentimes happen. Parliaments are not infallible, and some think they were out in this bill.'

The' aire' of Wiltshire was considered favourable to longevity; if, however, the following couplet were true, the morals of the people were questionable :

'Salisbury Plain,

Never without a thief or twain.'

:

When the hen doth moult before the cock, The winter will be as hard as a rock; But if the cock moults before the hen, The winter will not wet your shoes' scame.' After this, there is an anecdote of Wren which deserves quotation. It ought never to be forgot,' writes Aubrey, what our ingenious countreyman, Sir Christopher Wren, proposed to the silke-stocking weavers of London, anno domini 16—; namely, a way to weave seven paire or nine paire of stockings at once (it must be an odd number). He demanded four hundred pounds for his invention; but the weavers refused it because they were poor, and besides, they sayd it would spoile their trade. Perhaps they did not consider the proverb, that " Light gaines, with quick returnes, make heavy purses." Sir Christopher was so noble, seeing they would not adventure so much money, he

breakes the modell of the engine all to pieces before their faces.'

Under the head of agriculture are mentioned the first watering of meadows, and manuring land with soap ashes.' The wages of a seedsman' were L.5 yearly, and of a servant-maid' from L.1, 10s. to L.2. The fall of rents was attributed to the decay of the Turky. trade;' and it was debated whether it would not be the better way to send our wooll beyond the sea again, as in the time of the staple? For the Dutch and French doe spin finer, work cheaper, and dye better.' Through such darkness as that shown by our quotations has science and every branch of industry had to struggle to their present degree of perfection. While looking back with a smile on the follies of our ancestors, we will do well to remember that for them the folly was wisdom, and that our own knowledge may at some future day appear equally deficient to our successors.

LABOURING SOCIETIES.

Ir is a mistake to suppose that labouring for a common stock is a notion of modern times. It has been acted upon in many countries at various stages of history. The North American Indians were found living under a system of communityship, and in a perfect equality. The Caribbees of the West India islands, in like manner, laboured the land in common, and drew each from public granaries what he required. The institutions of this nature formed by the Jesuits in Paraguay, form one of the most singular chapters in history. The mass of the people, amounting to 300,000 families, were content to work under the care of their religious superiors, receiv ing in return such supplies of necessaries as were deemed suitable to their deservings, while the aged and other wise disabled were likewise handsomely provided for. This system lasted for several ages, and was only broken up by the intrusion of the Portuguese government. It appears that in India, Ceylon, and some other countries, such communityships existed in more or less perfect form in early ages.

Amidst all the changes of dynasties and governmental systems which have taken place in Europe since the middle ages, there have survived certain patches (if we may so call them) of the working population, which held by old primitive arrangements of the nature of Communityship. The accounts we have of them seem to lead the mind back into the very first forms of society. One is found in the province of Nivernois, in France, though dwindled away into a mere speck. Once it comprehended a large district, where all the people worked together on land held as common property, under masters whom they elected. An old writer, speaking of them, says In these communities, the children are prized who can yet do nothing, from the expectation of what they will perform in future; those who are in vigour, for what they do; the old for their advice, and for the remenbrance of what they have done.' Now there is but one

family which keeps up the old system-one named Jault, said to number less than forty persons, but pos sessing property worth L.8000: they live amicably in one house, having a large hall for meals, and separate apartments for each married couple and their children, after the manner of certain charitable foundations in our own country.

The Gothic nations in ancient times had a system of common ownership, of which we are supposed to have a faint trace in England in the unenclosed commonsmay we add, in Scotland, in those pastures and hill bogs which still belong as common property to the inhabi tants of burghs? The system was developed in great vigour in the province of Friesland, the most northerly district of Holland. There the land was divided into portions called theels, part of which were held by individuals, part by the public. An individual's theel went to his youngest son, or, failing sons, to his daughter, while the other sons were provided for out of the theels held in common. No head of a family could have more

than one, nor could he sell his theel. Whether as a consequence of this mode of living or not, at least contemporaneously with it, the people exhibited a remarkable spirit of independence, exempt from feudal and priestly domination, and possessing a house of parliament, while there was as yet no such thing in England. They held the emperor in no fear, and allowed of no dignitaries among themselves. Their common greeting to each other was, Health, thou noble freeman!' These moral characteristics remind us much of those of the North American Indians under a similar arrangement. It has been well remarked that the Frisons show how little exclusive liberty is to the mountains; for here she flourished in almost unparalleled vigour among the fens of the Netherlands.

In France, but more in Italy, there is a system of farming known by the name of Metayer, or Mezzeria, which is as yet little known amongst us, though exceedingly remarkable. It may be said to reign chiefly in Tuscany. There it has survived the Roman domination and all subsequent vicissitudes, and is still almost the only plan of cultivation in use. Under this arrangement, the owner of the soil provides the land, houses, utensils, and seed, while the tenant contributes the labour. Out of the crop there is set aside a sufficiency for next year's seed, and for the support of the cultivators and their cattle; the remainder is divided between the proprietor and cultivator. The money arising from the sale of cattle is in like manner divided. With these benefits, and raising clothing for his family, which they work up with their own hands, the metayer peasant possesses a degree of animal comfort such as is rarely matched, and perhaps nowhere exceeded, amongst the labouring classes in the various countries of Europe. Though under no permanent engagement with the landlord, they generally remain on the ground from generation to generation. The system, however, has its drawbacks. The cultivator, living in a home apart from his neighbours, has little intercourse with them; and accordingly, prejudices and ignorance mark the tribe in an especial manner. In such a system of small farms, the benefits of science fail to be taken advantage of. It has even the effect of limiting the local range of industry in a surprising manner; for the plains of Tuscany, though the most fertile portion of it, are, in comparison with the hills, in a state of neglect, merely because extensive combinations of labour are there necessary. Tending, moreover, to the production of nothing beyond what is required for local consumption, it admits of no comforts which require the intervention of commerce.

According to Dr Bowring-'The erroneous self-sufficing principle pervades everything, even to the extent that a single field should produce everything, that one man should do everything: there is no such thing as division of labour-no intermediate branch of occupation. The same individual who has planted a vine, or sown his field, must sell the final produce to the consumer; the labour of the Tuscan proprietor is therefore so complicated, that it is impossible to get through it. The result of all this is, that out of the gross produce, the net revenue to the Tuscan proprietor is most miserable. The gross produce in itself is large-very large in proportion to the natural productiveness of the soil; but it is small considered in relation to the expenses incurred, to the capital absorbed, and to the labour bestowed upon it. Regarding man as an instrument of labour, our agriculture is costly in the extreme; but under any other system, man would do less, and cost more. The cultivator is always on the spot-always careful; his constant thought is, this field is my own. He works for his own advantage, not as a mercenary, nor as a slave or machine; his loss of time is the least possible, as he has the distribution of his hours, and chooses his opportunities: while proceeding to his field, he pulls up the weeds, he gathers together the manure that may have fallen on the roads, which contributes to the increase of his dunghill; the amount of labour

bestowed by the cultivator would prove too costly to the proprietor if obliged to pay for it; it would not answer his purpose. It is always ruinous in the end to cultivate land in Tuscany by day-labourers: on the other hand, were the labourer to be paid his wages in money, they would prove inadequate to his support. Under the existing system, if his profits are small, they are direct, and in the shape of produce, his household wants are fully and completely supplied, and at no expense. It is not possible for the cultivators to make a rapid fortune, but the better class of them possess their little capital of money. The marriage portions they give their daughters are a proof of this: these are considerable, and always increasing. It is true the landlord frequently assists; and not only the head of the family, but the other members also, both girls and boys, to whom they leave slight bequests by way of dowry, or who enter into small speculations, have all a little stock of money laid by. It is, I consider, the great and only advantage of Tuscan economy, that it insures the subsistence of a large number of labourers, and insures this in a mode independent of men and events, and free from the vicissitudes of commerce and the uncertainties of trade or of ruinous changes.

The labourer in general is happy and virtuous; the unvarying nature and quietude of his life, and the dependence, free from all servility, in which he stands in relation to his employer, foster his habits of morality, whilst they maintain his dignity as a man. ... The peasantry is beyond dispute the best class in Tuscany, and all the good that is said, and has been said of the Tuscans, is due to the peasantry. A peasant who should be reduced to work as a day-labourer would feel himself miserable and degraded; it would be a descent from a high elevation in the social scale.'

America is said to contain upwards of a dozen societies who labour for a common good. They are mostly of German origin, and profess a religious basis for their union. The most noted community of the kind is that of the Rappites, which took its rise, rather more than forty years ago, in a German congregation which had emigrated under the care of their pastor, Mr Rapp, and which was first led to this mode of life by the text in Acts iv. verse 32, as to the early believers having all things in common.' The Rappites were first settled in Pennsylvania; they were miserably poor, and encountered great difficulties, particularly from their own ignorance. Their plan, however, prospered, and in 1814 they sold their possessions for 100,000 dollars, and migrated to a place called Economy, on the Ohio, where they speedily acquired immense wealth, much more indeed than, with their habits, there is any occasion for. It appears that this body has been held together by the influence of their pastor, Rapp, who contrived from the first to make them believe that they are exalted above all the ordinary people of the world. Ignorant, puffed up with self-conceit, and perhaps misled by the very success they have met with in the realisation of wealth, they submit to a whim of their superior, positively forbidding marriage. A restraint so contrary to nature, and not upheld by any strong religious sanction, must of course be precarious, and it remains to be seen, now that Rapp is dead, whether the society will long subsist in its present form. Meanwhile there is no reason to believe that the opulence is owing in any peculiar degree to their exemption from the charge of young families, for it appears that hosts of children under widowed mothers are quartered upon them. Miss Martineau reported, a few years ago, that what was vital in the Rappite system was dreadfully incumbered with what was dead. Their spiritual pride,' she says, their insane vanity, their intellectual torpor, their mental grossness, are melancholy to witness. Reading is discouraged among them. Their thoughts are full of the one subject of celibacy; with what effect, may be easily imagined. Their religious exercises are disgustingly full of it. It cannot be otherwise; for they have no other interesting subject of