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itself, but from the wisest of all human motives. When Mahomet was perfectly settled in his new government, he la mented that his subjects were all drunkards-here was the abuse of the thing, and being determined to get rid of the evil which had turned his men into beasts, he fashioned a Homily in his Koran, denouncing heavy punishments against those who indulged with the tempter; sobriety s on followed, and though they are permitted to solace with rich sherbets, a drunken Turk at this day is hardly to be seen. All nations on the various branches of the Rhine, from the Vogelbourg to the German Ocean raise vineyards in abundance, and the Rhenish of their presses is the delight of the priesthood, as well as the laity. France enjoys it to the highest degree, and we of these islands may find a pleasure in the bounty, so long as temperance fills the cup and returns the stopper.

I shall follow up these observations with an exemplary detail on the story of Joslyne de Barham a lay brother at the Abbey of Saint Radagand.

(To be Continued.)

ON THE DRAGON OF THE ANCIENTS.

Before the Egyptians were become acquainted with the exact time of the periodical overflowing of the Nile, they frequently found their harvests destroyed by the then unlooked for inundation. They therefore regarded that river as the enemy of agriculture or husbandry. Agriculture or husbandry was symbolized as a child, the son of Osiris and Isis, or the Sun and Earth; and, thus personified, was denominated Horas. The Nile was characterized by a crocodile, &c. The character of a crocodile was hence considered as the symbol of any enemy,

In commemorating the general deluge, they also symbolized that event by a water monster killing Osiris, or the Sun.Hence the water-monster, the crocodile, or dragon, became the representation of the enemy of the Sun. The Sun the Egyptian confounded with Ham, and Ham they confounded with the Almighty: hence those signs became indicative of the enemy of the Almighty, or of the evil principle, or the devil.

Moses, we are told, was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians; and almost every page of the pentateuch reminds

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us of the idolatry of the Israelites. And mention is expressly made by the prophet Amos (chap. v. 25, 26) and from him by St. Stephen (Acts, ii. 47 43) of the images, the types or symbols, which they brought out of Egypt.

The convertible use of the terms, Ob, Peten, Python, Typhon, &c. so often made, both by the sacred and prophane writers, corroborates this idea.

The words Satan and Devil, also signifying an enemy, accuser, or adversary, and so frequently occurring in the scriptures, and which are applied even to men (see among other instances, 2 Sam. xix. 22; and John, vi. 7; 2 Tim. iii. 3, &c.) add strength to our conjectures.

The crocodile was peculiarly descriptive of the Nile; and was, therefore, more generally and longer adopted as the representative of that river, the original foe. The emblem of the winds was a bird; or in compound symbols, the wings of one. When the Egyptians had at length ascertained the annual inundation of the Nile, they exhibited to the public view, the symbol of a crocodile with wings upon his back, in order to indicate to the people, that the Etesian winds had set in, and that, in consequence, the Nile was about to overflow.

The crocodile with wings, strongly agrees with our representation of the dragon; and the crocodile is evidently the Tannim, the Leviathan, &c. of the scriptures. The name of the Leviathan has allusion to its scales; now the whale (as we frequently render the word) has no scales; but the scales of the crocodile are proverbial. "A flame goeth out of his mouth," says Job. The crocodile from long repression of breath in the water is remarked by naturalists, as emitting it so as to resemble smoke and is not the dragon of romance represented as belching out fire? The Tannim of Ezekiel too has feet; and so, it should seem, had the Leviathan of Job (ch. xli. ver 30.) The feet of the crocodile resemble those of the imaginary dragon; but whales have no feet.

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Again, the Tannim of Ezekiel are described as being in the river of Egypt," where whales are not known, but crocodiles are numerous.

Eve, Heva, Chavah, the name af the first woman, signified in several of the oriental languages, a serpent: it also signified life or to cause to live; and so Moses himself interprets it:

And he called her name Eve, because she was the mother of all living." Hence the Mosaic Allegory of the fall. The serpent became the symbol of the tempter, or enemy. It had before been considered as the emblem of life; but Moses, in order to counteract such idolatry, represented it as the introducer or author of death. Thus the serpent was confounded

with the dragon; and hence we find the terms Tannim, Nachash, and Leviathan, used often for each other (compare Gen. ii. 1; Ex. vii. 9, 10, 15, &c.) and equally translated in the Septuagint by that of ApenovTV (See Psalm 1xxiv, 13, 14; Ezek. xxxii, 2; Job, xli. 1; Isaiah, xxvii, 1, Job, xxvi, 13; Amos, íx, 3, &c.

ON THE ORIGIN AND DESIGN OF CARDS,

ABOUT the year 1390, cards were invented to divert Charles VI. then King of France, who was fallen into a melancholy disposition.

That they were not in use before appears highly probable; 1st, because no cards are to be seen, in any painting, sculp ture, tapestry, &c. more ancient than the preceding period, but are represented in many works of ingenuity since that age; 2dly, no prohibitions relative to cards, by the King's edicts, are mentioned, although, some few years before, a most severe one was published, forbidding by name all manner of sports and pastimes, in order that the subjects might exercise themselves in shooting with bows and arrows, and be in a condition to oppose the English. Now it is not to be presumed, that so alluring a game as cards would have been omitted in the enumeration, had they been in use. 3dly, In all the eclesiastical canons, to the said time, there occurs no mention of cards, although, twenty years after that date, cardplaying was interdicted the clergy, by a Gallican, synod. About the same time is found, in the account book of the King's Cofferer, the following charge: Paid for a pack of painted leaves, bought for the King's amusement, three livres.' Printing and stamping being then not discovered, the cards were painted, which made them so dear: thence, in the above synodical canons, they are called pagellæ pictæ, painted little leaves. 4thly, About thirty years after this, came a severe edict against cards in France; and another by Emanuel, Duke of Savoy; only permitting the Ladies this pastime, pro spinulis, for pins and needles.

Of the Design of Cards.

The inventor proposed, by the figures of the four suits, or colours, as the French call them, to represent the four states or classes of men in the kingdom.

By the Cœurs (Hearts) are meant the Gens de Cœurs, choir men, or ecclesiastics; and therefore, the Spaniards, who certainly received the use of cards from the French, have copa's or chalices instead of hearts.

The Nobility, or prime military part of the kingdom, are represented by the ends or points of lances or pikes; and our ignorance of the meaning or resemblance of the figure induced us to call them Spades. The Spaniards have espada's (swords) in lieu of pikes, which is of similar import.

By Diamonds are designed the order of citizens, merchants, and tradesmen, carreaux (stones). The Spaniards have a coin, dineros, which answers to it; and the Dutch call the French word carreaux, stienen, stones and diamonds, from the form.

Trefle, the trefoil-leaf, or clover-grass, (corruptly called Clubs) alludes to the husbandmen and peasants. How this suit came to be called Clubs I cannot explain, unless, borrowing the game from the Spaniards, who have basto's (staves or clubs) instead of the trefoil, so gave the Spanish significa¬ tion to the French figure.

The history of the four Kings, which the French in drollery sometimes call the cards, is David, Alexander, Cæsar, and Charles; which names were then, and still are, on the French cards. These respectable names represent the four celebrated monarchies of the Jews, Greeks, Romans, and the Franks under Charlemagne.

By the Queens are intended Argine, Esther, Judith, and Pallas, (names retained on the French cards) typical of birth, piety, fortitude, and wisdom, the qualifications residing in each person. Argine is an anagram for Regina, Queen by descent.

By the Knaves were designed the servants to Knights; (for knave, originally, meant only servant; and in an old translation of the Bible, St. Paul is called the knave of Christ) but French pages and valets, now indiscriminately used by various orders of persons, were formerly only allowed to persons of quality, Esquires (Escuires) shield or armour-bearers.

Others fancy that the knights themselves were designed by those cards, because Hogier and Lahire, two names on the French cards, were famous Knights at the time cards were supposed to be invented.

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ENORMOUS TIGRESS.

On the 17th May 1815, the inhabitants of Chittagong, in the East Indies, were alarmed by an unwelcome visitor, whose movements we regret to state were accompanied with melancholy effects.

This was a tigress, discovered first amongst some cattle which were grazing at the mouth of the river. As soon as she was observed, the natives in the vicinity assembled with all speed, and advanced against her in defence of their cattle. Irritated by the attempt to deprive her of her prey, she sprung furiously on the person that approached nearest to her and wounded him severely. The immediate attack, however, of the crowd was successful in rescuing the man from ber grasp, although not until he had been lacerated so dreadfully that little hopes were entertained of his recovery.

On this the tigress finding herself hemmed in on all sides, and without any way of avoiding the multitude except by the river, immediately took to the water, and swam with the flood tide about five miles, closely pursued by the natives in their boats, until she landed under a tree in Mr. Rae's dock yard. Here she laid herself down, apparently much fatigued, but, before the people in the yard could get their fire arms ready, she had considerably recovered her strength. Several shots. were fired at her, and two of them penetrated her body, one of which lamed her. Rendered desperate by this, she advanced against her new opponents, and singling out a Mr. Earle, an European gentleman, in the yard, who was provided with a cutlass, she sprung upon him before he could make use of his weapon, knocked him down with her forepaw, seized his head in her mouth, bit off a considerable part of the skin of his forehead, and wounded him in several places.

After this she sprung upon a native, fractured his skull, and otherwise lacerated him so dreadfully, that the poor fellow died the next day. She then entered a thicket or jungle where she was allowed to remain unmolested.

On the morning of the following day, the 18th, she had got about a mile farther from the water side, and near to the Sepoy's village. Here she was again surrounded by about a thousand natives, when a fortunate shot laid her prostrate, and prevented farther injury. She was found to measure eight feet from the nose to the tip of the tail, and to have stood about four feet high,

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