fate. I was a prophet when I told that God would not long bear with their mad and furious blasphemies, mocking him as they did. Surely this is to show that God manifests by such wonders of his wrath, the hatred which he bore to those accursed spirits.'

LUIGI CORNARO (1466 — 1566), whose family gave three doges to the oligarchy, was born at Venice, but was deprived, through the jealousy of his relations, of the dignity of a noble Venetian, and retired to Padua. By living freely in his youth he injured his health, rather than his fortune, which was large, and of which he eventually made good use, by encouraging the arts, and relieving the distressed. Being wholly given over by his physicians at the age of 40, he resolved to try what diet would do; and he has written a book to show how, by limiting his supply of food to 12 ounces of solid animal and vegetable nutriment, and 14 ounces of liquid daily, he restored his health, and eventually lived to 100, practically illustrating the axiom, that no man ever repented of having eaten too little. He curiously tells that, when advised by his anxious friends, at 80, to add four ounces to his daily allowance, he fell into a fever, which he recovered only by returning to his accustomed quantity of food. Cornaro's case would seem to establish one fact connected with the animal economy; namely, that it is far more necessary to pay attention to the quantity than the quality of food for the preservation of health. Yet the lively old Venetian warmly attacks the axiom, that what the taste approves, the stomach will digest,' and sensibly enough-as the maxim is of that usual order condemned by the witty Montesquieu : 'Il y a des choses, que tout le monde dit, parcequ'elles ont été dites une fois,'-and for no other reason whatever. Mr. Abernethy, the founder of scientific surgery, by constantly recommending the perusal of Cornaro's book to his patients, occasioned it to be suddenly

in wonderful demand in England, and to run through several editions. Cornaro married a lady of the family of Spittemberg, at Udina, by whom he had an only daughter, Clara; and though aged at her birth, he lived to see his offspring to the third generation. He died at Padua, aged exactly 100, 1566. His book is, in one respect, highly valuable; inasmuch as it holds out comfort for those advanced in years, and, like the ancient philosophy, places much of the pleasure of life in the serenity, cheerfulness, dignity, and wisdom of a wellordered old age. Among its maxims to enforce a spare diet, in order to insure such blessings, are two, which all would do well to remember: Qui multum vult comedere, comedat parum'-and-Plus juvat cibus qui superest comedenti, quàm qui ab illo comestus.'

LUDOVICO ARIOSTO (1474-1532) was born at Reggio, of a noble family; and devoting himself to the muses, kept about the court of his relative, the duke of Ferrara, and at length resided with cardinal Hippolito d'Este, the duke's brother. After being some time governor of a province in the Appennines, he built himself a house at Ferrara; and, with the exception of being called forth to be crowned at Mantua with the laurel by Charles V., passed the remainder of his life there, in the quiet composition of his works, dying, aged 58, 1532. His great production is the Orlando Furioso,' which for invention, facility, and poetical beauties of every kind, must ever maintain a lofty rank among the productions of human genius. It is a tissue of chivalric adventures in love and arms, with all the wild accompaniments of enchantment, transformation, supernatural events, and sometimes of even moral and religious allegory. There is, however, much licence in the work; and the attacks on the then pope and clergy are acknowledged by historians as highly unjust.

CORREGIO (1496-1534), properly Antonio Allegri, was born at Corregio

in Modena, of poor parents, and displayed from almost infancy a talent for painting. His poverty never permitted him to see Rome, so that he had not the advantage of the finest models; and his native genius was therefore displayed by his labours for the cathedral of Parma. That edifice is filled with the productions of his easel; and his greatest work, the Assumption of the Virgin, embellishes the interior of the dome. A story is told of the ingratitude of the canons, who not only refused to pay the painter the agreed price of his performances, but liquidated the debt in copper money: this Corregio is stated to have carried home on his head on a sultry day to his starving family at Corregio near Parma; an exertion which, together with slaking his thirst on the way in a cold spring, brought on a pleurisy, of which he died, aged 38, 1534. The paintings of Corregio, among which are the Holy Family, Magdalene, Notte, and St. Jerome, are celebrated for the colouring of the flesh, masterly foreshortening, and generally tasteful arrangement. Annibal Caracci, half a century after, made him his model; and the great Titian, parodying the speech of Alexander, declared that were he not Titian, he should wish to be Corregio.'

JULIO ROMANO (14921546), whose proper name was Pippi, the favourite disciple of Rafaelle, was born at Rome, and distinguished himself both as a painter and architect. He was patronized by Leo X. and Clement VII.; and after adorning the churches of the Capitol with his highly finished paintings, went to Mantua, whose edifices his genius in like manner beautified, and where he died, aged 54, 1546. His most famous work as a painter is a saloon, wherein the destruction of the giants by Jupiter is represented in fresco. He was defective in colouring; but his designs display extraordinary fertility of invention, and grandeur of taste, united with a vast fund of know

ledge respecting everything connected with his art.

LOUIS BRABANT.-This person, the fool of Francis I. of France, was the first who occasioned ventriloquism to be made a matter of philosophical investigation, by his successful practice of the art. He died, aged 46, in the same year with his royal master, 1547. Some faint allusions to ventriloquism are to be found in ancient authors; and there is little doubt that the responses of the oracles were often delivered by ventriloquists. The term implies 'speaking from the stomach; but the proficients appear to speak more frequently from the pockets of their neighbours, or from the roof or distant corners of the room, than from their own mouths or stomachs. Louis Brabant obtained a rich wife by making a voice seem to come from the ceiling, directing the mother of his bride to give her daughter to him; the ventriloquist exhibiting no change of countenance as he sat in the room, and his lips remaining closed and motionless. The marriage-contract requiring some show of money on his own part, Brabant went to work upon a fresh subject, -one Cornu, an old banker at Lyons, who had accumulated immense wealth by usury and extortion, and was known to be haunted by a remorse of conscience on account of the manner in which he had acquired it. Having contracted an intimate acquaintance with this man, he, one day while they were sitting together in the usurer's back parlour, artfully turned the conversation to religious subjects, spectres, the pains of purgatory, and the torments of hell. During an interval of silence between them, a voice was heard, which, to the astonished banker, seemed to be that of his deceased father, complaining of his dreadful situation in purgatory, and calling upon him to deliver him instantly, by putting into the hands of Louis Brabant, then with him, a large sum for the redemption of Christians in slavery

with the Turks. An old usurer is naturally suspicious. Accordingly the wary banker made a second appointment with the ghost's delegate, for the next day; and to render any design of imposing upon him abortive, took him into the open fields, where not a house, or a tree, or even a bush or pit were in sight, capable of screening any supposed confederate. This extraordinary caution excited the ventriloquist to exert all the powers of his art. Wherever the banker conducted him, his ears were saluted with the complaints and groans, not only of his father, but of all his deceased relations, imploring him, in the name of all the saints, to have mercy on his own soul and their's, by effectually seconding with his purse the intentions of his worthy companion. Cornu could no longer resist, and accordingly carried his guest home with him, and paid him 10,000 crowns down; with which the ventriloquist returned to Paris, and married. The secret was afterwards disclosed, and reached the usurer's ears, who was so much affected by the loss of his money, and the mortifying railleries of his neighbours, that he took to his bed and died. A Scotsman a few years ago became celebrated as a ventriloquist, and once at Edinburgh astonished a number of persons in the fish-market, by making a fish appear to speak, and give the lie to its vender, who affirmed that it was fresh, and caught in the morning. Mons. Alexandre, a still more recent exhibitor, is thought to have taken the palm even from Brabant. A coach was passing out of a town in Yorkshire, empty inside, and having five outside passengers, besides the coachman. On a sudden a voice was heard calling out to the driver to stop the man accordingly drew up, descended from his box, but looked about in vain for his expected passenger. He remounted, and be gan to move onwards, when three or four voices were heard, exclaiming, 'Stop! stop!' An old woman's and

a child's were particularly audible. Again the coach stopped, again the conductor descended - no human creature was to be seen. The passengers, as well as the coachman, began to express some alarm, fearing something beyond natural agency. However they drove on, and were just beginning to ascend a hill, when a voice, as if from the inside, cried out, Put me down here! I must get out! The coachman knew no one could be inside, and vociferating pretty heartily, the devil!' leaped from his seat, and ran up the hill with all his might, leaving the affrighted passengers to shift for themselves. At length M. Alexandre, who was one of them, convinced the rest of his powers, told who he was, and undeceived poor Jehu, when they got to a neighbouring inn, to which he had fled for refuge. Another of his attempts was attended with disastrous consequences, and is thus related by Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd.

There were three men and a very handsome girl loading an immense cart of hay. We walked on, and at length this moving hay-stack overtook us. I remember it well, with a black horse in the shafts, and a fine light grey one in the traces. We made very slow progress; for Naesmith would never cease sketching, or stopping us to admire the scenery of nature. Indeed our progress was so slow, that up came the great Lothian peasant sitting upon the hay, lashing on his team, and whistling his tune. We walked on side by side for awhile, I think about half a mile, when all at once a child began to cry in the middle of the hay. I declare 1 was cheated myself; for though I was walking alongside of Alexandre, I thought there was a child among the hay; for it cried with a kind of half smothered breath, that I am sure there never was such a deception practised in this world.

What is the meaning of this?' said Terry, you are smothering a child among your hay.' The poor fellow,

the drunken man's voice at the top of the chimney. Such a state of amazement as Jane was in I never beheld. 'But ye need nae be feared gentlemen,' said she, for I'll defy him to win down. The door's boltit an' lockit, an' the vent o' the lumb is nae sae wide as that jug.' However, down he came, and down he came, until his voice actually seemed to be coming out of the grate. Jane ran for it, saying, He is winning down, I believe after a'! he is surely the deil!' Alexandre went to the chimney, and in his own natural voice ordered the fellow to go about his business, for into our party he should not be admitted; and, if he forced himself in, he would shoot him through the heart. The voice then went again, grumbling and swearing, up the chimney. We actually heard him hurling down over the slates, and afterwards his voice dying away in the distance, as he vanished into Mr. Trotter's plantations.'

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CONTEMPORARIES. Hernan Magellan, a Portuguese, in the service of Charles V. of Spain, was the first to conduct an expedition round the world; in which he discovered the straits at the south of South America, which bear his name, 1519. He lost his life in a skirmish with the natives of one of the Philippine Isles, 1521. Desiderius Erasmus, born at Rotterdam, became a monk and polemical writer. His share in effecting the Reformation, by his numerous works, was great, insomuch that it was said 'he laid the egg which Luther only hatched; but he aimed at purifying, not separating from the Church, and died in her communion. He was an admirably free Latin writer, and is now best known by his Enchiridion Militis Christiani." He frequently visited England, on whose great men he relied for support, was some time lady Margaret's professor of divinity at Cambridge, and died poor at Basle, aged 69, 1536. Bartolomeo de Las Casas, a noble and excellent Spanish prelate, famous for his attempts to relieve the native Indians of the

Spanish colony of Hispaniola from the oppressive system of repartimientos, adopted by Fernando of Aragon, and enforced by the governor, Albuquerque. The unfortunate creatures were sold in lots, like cattle, to the highest bidders; and so great became the mortality among them, that between 1508 and 1516, their number was reduced from 60,000 to 14,000. It was just before Las Casas' time that African negroes had been occasionally used at Hispaniola; and as every one of them was able to do the work of four native Indians, the practice of stealing slaves from the old world became soon after established throughout the West Indies. Las Casas, though he sailed to and from his native country several times for the sole purpose, was at last unable to effect his benevolent object. He was made bishop of Chiapa, in the newly-conquered empire of Mexico, 1540, by Charles V.; but died a monk at Madrid, aged 92, 1566. Francesco Berni, of Tuscany, became secretary to cardinal Ippolito de Medici, and took orders. He is only known as the founder of Italian jocose poetry, from him styled 'Poesia Bernesca,' and died, aged 46, 1536. Peter Bembo, born of a noble family at Venice, became secretary to pope Leo X., and was made a cardinal by Paul III. He contributed greatly to elevate the style and imagery of Italian poetry, and wrote Latin with classic purity; but his works are all too secular for an ecclesiastic. He died, aged 77, 1547. Nicolao Machiavelli, born of noble parents at Florence, became a distinguished diplomatic character; and was especially employed by his state to keep Louis XII. on its side, against Cesare Borgia. Having, in 1501, passed three months in the camp of the latter, he obtained an insight into a system of policy which he afterwards set forth in his 'Del Principe.' After embroiling himself in the parties of his country, he died, aged 58, 1527. Machiavelli's book was clearly written against his conscience, to support the