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1856.]

The Close of the Assembly.

attendance of strangers is small. The Assembly adjourns, to meet again at eight in the evening: and at all hours, down to eleven or twelve p.m., numbers of people are pouring in; till at midnight on that final evening the house is nearly as much crowded as upon its opening day. It is always a matter of great interest to many to witness the ceremonies with which the Assembly is closed. The business still consists of questions of no great interest, which are arranged very much by the old gentlemen around the table. At length daylight begins to look through the windows; and the pale wearied faces of the members and spectators look strange and spectral. It was half-past two in the morning before the last item of business at the recent Assembly was finished, and the Moderator rose to give his concluding address. This was brief, occupying just a quarter of an hour: it was characterized by much clearness and good sense, and expressed with a certain quaintness of style which seemed to us very appropriate to the occasion. There was a pause when the address was ended, and every one present rose to his feet as the Moderator continued: Right Reverend and Right Honourable, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, the great Head of the Church, I now dissolve this Assembly; and appoint the next meeting to be held in this place, on Thursday, the twenty-first of May, 1857.'

Turning to the Commissioner, the Moderator shortly told him that the proceedings of the Assembly were at an end; thanked him for his attention during its sittings; and expressed the hope that his Grace might be able to report favourably to the Queen of the order with which things had been done. The Commissioner addressed the Assembly, and ended by saying, 'Right Reverend and Right Honourable, in the Queen's name, I now dissolve this Assembly, and appoint its next meeting to be held in this place, on Thursday, the twenty-first of May, 1857.' It was curious to see the little proof of the mutual jealousy of the Church and the State, in this form of dissolving the present Assembly, and appointing the time of

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meeting of the next; the Moderator doing so in the Saviour's name, without the least recognition of the Queen's power to interfere; and the Commissioner doing so in the Queen's name, without any notice of the previous words of the Moderator. Long may the spiritual and temporal powers work together harmoniously as now, without hitch or hindrance!

The Moderator next offers a prayer, and the proceedings of the Assembly are finally closed by singing part of a psalm, and by the benediction pronounced by the Moderator. From time immemorial the same psalm has always been sung, and it was a touching thing to see the tears stealing down the cheek of many a venerable member, to whom these words brought back Assemblies long ago, and suggested, perhaps, the thought of future Assemblies, when he should have changed his simple pulpit for his quiet grave. It may interest our readers to know the words which have so lively an interest for every Scotch minister, and which are always understood in Scotland as a supplication for the welfare of the Church:

Pray that Jerusalem may have

Peace and felicity:

Let them that love thee and thy peace,
Have still prosperity.

Therefore I wish that peace may still
Within thy walls remain ;
And ever may thy palaces
Now, for my friends' and brethrens'
Prosperity retain.
sakes,

Peace be in thee, I'll say:
And for the house of God our Lord,
I'll seek thy good alway.

Rough and rugged in their uncompromising literalness, these words look nothing as we transcribe them here. We can only assure our readers that there was a very remarkable power in them as we heard them read and sung in the Assembly Hall, at 3 a.m., on the morning of the third of June.

On the evening of the day after the Assembly, the Moderator gives a dinner-party to some seventy or eighty guests. The leading men of the Assembly and of Edinburgh are invited, but not the Commissioner. The entertainment completely eclipses the dinners given by his Grace; but by long-estab

lished etiquette, there is no dessert, -we presume by way of having some point of inferiority to the banquets of Holyrood.

And so the General Assembly is over. The Commissioner becomes plain my Lord again. The Moderator puts off his court dress and cocked hat, and becomes once more the plain parish priest. The members return to their homes,-insignificant units singly, though together constituting a court invested with powers which, if exercised, would excite a revolution. The two or three poor wretches who have been deposed, go home, with sinking

hearts, to tell their children that they must quit the manse, and go down to the lowest depths of poverty and shame. The beefeaters and pursuivants become street porters once more. The Assembly Hall is silent and deserted. And the Southron who, for reasons quite sufficient to himself, meanwhile sojourns in the North, and has beguiled the tedium of unemployed days by watching the Assembly's proceedings, and putting many questions concerning them to many friends, betakes himself to his temporary home, and jots down his recollections for the amusement of the readers of Fraser.

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ESIDES the particular functions already assigned to rings, there were various others, now to be glanced at ere we close our dacty lotheca, and proceed at once to the interesting subject of gems.

An anulus was often presented to friends on gala days, particularly on birthdays, as we learn, not only from that line in Propertius,

Et natalitia tandem cum sardonyche albus,

but also from a passage in Plautus' Curculio, where a soldier, on seeing a ring which he had formerly bestowed as a birthday keepsake, exclaims,

By Jupiter! the very ring, I swear, Myself did send thee on thy natal day, Well-known to me as self.

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Menander.

nus convictus ad prolem, nunc autem hunc do tibi temperentiæ;' he adds, which is very much to the lady's credit, that she received it with the same docile obedience, if not complacency, with which she had formerly accepted the pronubus.

A ring transferred from the finger of a patriarch, king, or other potentate, might prove protective of life, as in the case of Tamar;† or procure relief under other necessitous circumstances, as in that of Shakspeare's Helen.

King. This ring was mine; and, when
I gave it Helen,

I bade her, if her fortunes ever stood
Necessitate to help, that by this token
I would relieve her. Had you that
craft, to 'reave her

Of what should stead her most?
Bert. My gracious sovereign!

King. You got it from her! she called

the saints to surety,

That she would never put it from her finger,

Unless she gave it to yourself in bed, (Where you have never come) or sent it

us

Upon her great disaster.+

Constantine dealt largely in these annular safeguards, which not only + Gen. xxxviii. 25.

All's Well that Ends Well.

1856.]

Uses to which Rings were put.

guaranteed personal security to his numerous protégés, but also commanded immediate attention to any petition sealed with them; and speedy redress in cases of complaint.

In any contention for priority among soldiers when contemplating an enterprize of more than common daring, the matter was often settled -as in Homer's day-by lot, recourse being had on such occasions to rings, hence called anuli ad sortes, or lot rings. Plutarch furnishes, in his life of Timoleon, an instance in point. This general having vanquished Icetes, and driven him as far as the river Damyrias in Sicily, the Syracusan pretender crossed over, and stationing his forces on the opposite bank, made a demonstration of opposing his pursuer's further progress. This so incensed Timoleon's troops, that they would have rushed tumultuously forward in a body, vieing with each other in their eagerness to punish such audacity. Timoleon, foreseeing the danger to be apprehended from so unorganized an attack, stopped the foremost, and bidding all throw their rings into a helmet, commanded each to take his place in the attack according to the order of the lots. The first ring, however, drawn being an intaglio which bore a military trophy for device, so excited the troops that, breaking loose from all subordination, and without waiting for further instructions, they forded the river, made a most furious attack upon the enemy, completely routed them at every point, took many stands of arms, and slew a thousand of them.

But

Memorial rings, or else the money to purchase them, were sometimes left by persons in legacy. Petrarch's will affords so striking an instance in point, as more than to compensate for its want of a classic antiquity. After bequeathing to his valued

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friend, Joanni de Centaldo, a sum sufficient for the purchase of a winter flannel dressing-gown to assist him in his studies and nocturnal lucubrations;' to 'Maestro Thomas Bambasia of Ferrara, a lute, to be employed by him in celebrating, not the evanescent and empty vanities of time, but the praises of the eternal God;' he leaves to Maestro Joanni di Horologia,' last in the list, but first in his affections, fifty ducats in gold,' to buy a small memorial ring of himself; and he touchingly concludes by regretting the meanness of these several legacies, which his friends well know how to appreciate, esteeming them, not as an expression of the measure of his wishes, but of his means. *

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Another use to which a ring might be occasionally put, was the placing it on the lips of a chatterbox, as an intimation to hold his tongue. Thus, when Hephaestion had possessed himself of the contents of a private and confidential' note from Olympias to her son, Alexander, fearing lest through the leakiness of his friend they might become public, drew off his signet, and placing it on Hephæstion's lips, gave him, by this silent appeal to silence, plainly to understand, that whatever information might have been so picked up must be kept close within the barrier of his teeth.

Rings were often indicative of station, or of a particular craft or calling. Magistrates adopted an official ring; physicians, as we have seen, wore them from the time of Hippocrates, who enjoined them as an essential part of a doctor's toilet. Lawyers would not undertake a brief without a sardonyx on finger; and when too poor to own, would, like Paulus, borrow for the occasion. Ancient musicians invited attention to their particular art by the blaze of costly jewelry which they bore

Domino Joanni de Contaldo seu buccatto verecunde admodum tanto viro tam modicum lego quinquagenta florenos auri di Florentia, pro una veste hiemale ad studium, lucubrationesque nocturnas. Magistro Thomæ Bambasia di Ferrara lego lentam meam bonam, ut eam sonat non pro vanitate, sæculi fugacis, sed ad laudem Dei æterni. Prædicti autem mei amici de parvitate hujuscemodi legatorum non me accusent sed fortunam, si quid est fortunæ ; propter hunc respectum distuli ad ultimum, quem primum esse decuit, magistrum Joanniam di Horologio physicum cai lego quinquaginta ducatos auri pro emendo sibi unum parvum anulum digito gestandum in memoriam mei.

on both hands.* Seleucus passed a law requiring all ruffiani and women who made merchandise of their virtue, to declare their vocation by wearing a garish costume and gold rings; following which precedent, procuresses in the reign of Elizabeth adopted without legal compulsion a gold ring, with the much more appropriate than captivating device of a death's-head.+ Finally, conjurors had their ring, through which, amongst other feats, it was their custom to draw an egg, prepared for the purpose by long maceration in vinegar.

In

Mention has already been made of a great variety of articles, the guardianship of which might safely be intrusted to sealing-wax. some few cases, however, the generally useful practice of sealing was found to be unavailing; and notoriously so in regard to women, sacks, and temples. That these last were not impervious to chicanery, even while the impression of the royal signet remained unbroken on the outside, we are taught in the book of Bel and the Dragon :—

Then said the king (Astyages) unto Daniel, 'Thinkest thou not that Bel is a living god? Seest thou not how much he eateth and drinketh daily?' Daniel smiled. Now the priests of Bel were

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threescore and ten, besides their wives
and children. And the king went with
Daniel into the temple of Bel. Then
the priests said, 'Lo! we go out; but
thou, oh! king, set on meat and make
ready the wine, and shut the door fast,

and seal it with thine own signet.'
Then went they out and shut the door,
and sealed it with the king's signet, and
so departed. And in the night came
the priests with their wives and children,
and, as they were wont to do, did eat up
all. In the morning betime the king
arose, and Daniel with him. And the
king said, 'Daniel, are the seals whole?'
And he said, 'Yea, oh king! the seals
are whole.' And as soon as he had
opened the door, the king looked upon
the table, and cried with a loud voice,
'Great art thou, oh! Bel, and with thee
there is no deceit at all.' Then laughed
Daniel, and held the king that he should
not go in, and said, 'Behold now the
pavement' (which to catch both the
young and old birds, he had strewn not
with chaff but ashes,) and mark well.
whose footsteps are these.' Then Daniel
went in, &c.

Aristotle mentions among his 'wonderful hearsays,' a temple similarly bewitched at Elis, wherein were kept three large wine vessels, generally empty, but instinct, it seems, with a power conveyed to them from the priests, of filling themselves, on suitable occasions, with wine. These vessels were the

Pliny tells us of one, Nichomachus, a musician, who wore an immense number of rings, very gorgeous and costly, but selected without knowledge or taste. Ismenias, a famous 'Theban' flute-player, was desirous of methodising the practice amongst his auletic brethren, proposing that the number each wore should be settled by a scale of merit; as, however, he was a very vain man, and would certainly have monopolised most of the rings to himself, his proposal obtained' no support. Plutarch relates that this famous musician being at Cyprus met a gem merchant, who offered him an engraved emerald, which he bought without demur, though at an enormous price. After he had sold it, the dealer, who seems to have been a man of some conscience, went to Ismenias to return part of the purchase-money, which he in a passion refused-'It was an impertinence prompted by envy to make such a tender-what business had the dealer to depreciate the stone after he had bought it; he would not take back one obolus, no, not if all Cyprus were to come and beg him.'

+ The same device was worn by John Bunyan, whose ring, with his initials and memento mori for legend, were discovered in enlarging the foundations of the Bedford prison, where he was immured many years. The effigy, as worn by these abandoned women, was not intended as a memento mori, but as an incentive to make the most of life: interea dum fata sinunt, jungamus amores.

Plutarch says in Egypt victims before sacrifice were always sealed on the forehead by the mystæ or priests, who were called in consequence Sphragista or sealers. This ceremony was considered imperative, and capital punishment followed any omission. The seal used was remarkable: it represented a man, with a knife before, and his own hands tied behind him, clearly indicating a persuasion, both of the vicarious nature of sacrifice, and the need of an atonement. At Lemnos the priests of Diana made a paste with a certain earth, mixed with the blood of goats, on which material they impressed their seal, which bore upon it the device of. a goat.

1856.]

The Custom of Sealing Sacks.

wonder of the townsfolk, and whenever a foreigner of distinction visited Elis, his friends would take him to the temple, to be introduced to the priests, who in their turn would introduce him to the three enchanted vats; after which the whole party were wont to leave the building together, the stranger putting his seal on the door to prevent ingress. The guardians of the sacred edifice then admonished him to return at an appointed hour, when it was invariably found, in strict conformity to their vaticinations, that the wax remained untouched without, but that the vessels were full of grapejuice within. As there was neither police at Elis, nor a 'second Daniel' to discover the secret doors, these automaton vats continued long to replenish themselves, and to enjoy a reputation the true claimants to which no stranger durst dispute; and few of the Elians, had they known the truth, would have been disposed to divulge a secret so profitable to their city.

If the interior of temples could not be rendered secure by a seal on the outside, the like instrument was as little capable of preventing free access to any lady, if she had a mind to be accessible. Two thousand years before Love' had taught the fair to laugh at locksmiths,' he had instructed them to make merry at the expense of 'sealing wax.'

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Nec mille excubiæ, nec te juvata signabunt

Limina;

sings Propertius; and Menander tells the same sad story of the sex in Greek:

Who, to secure his wife's obedience, Commits to wax her frail allegiance, Acts like a fool, though wise he'd seem, Reposing in a dotard's dream.

The unsafe custom of sealing the mouths of sacks to prevent the contents from being filched, is a very ancient one: Numerum impressit acervis-He registered the number of his sacks with a seal,' says Virgil; and many centuries before Virgil, Job had said, in allusion to the same custom, My transgression is sealed up in a bag, and thou sewest up mine iniquity;' and in Moses' song there is the following allusion to the sealing wine-skins-Their

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wine is the poison of dragons and the cruel venom of asps. Is not this land in store for me, and sealed up among my treasures ?' Whether Joseph's brethren sealed the sacks in which they carried money and brought back corn out of Egypt, does not appear; but we should scarcely think that merely tying the mouths of them would have proved sufficient security, even in the times and in the tents of the patriarchs. It is on record that the glory of one not inconsiderable hero was tarnished by yielding to the temptation of opening sacks at the wrong end. Lysander, so runs the tale, when he had taken Athens and spoiled the Athenians, sent a large collection of gold coin and other costly plunder, by the hands of General Gylippus, for deposition in the Lacedæmonian treasury. On the arrival of the military envoy and his delivery of the gold and valuables, it appeared that a great many items had been entered in the invoice which were not to be found in the bags; and as the gold had not burnt a hole through by the way, it was at first suspected-and afterwards proved -that Gylippus had tampered with the contents of the sacks, while under his custody, by unstitching them; and after extracting from each a portion of the stores to fill a private one of his own, had sewed the seams afresh to prevent suspicion. A servant being put into the witnessbox to tell all he knew of the transaction, replied to the querist in waggish mood, that he believed there were only a number of owls concealed in the bags, which (the currency being Athenian) was certainly the case; though whether those predatory birds would, in the absence of mice, have filled their maws with these golden effigies of themselves, and thus occasion the disappearance of so many gold pieces, seems more than doubtful. Lacedæmonian legislature, ferring virtue in their countrymen to any opulence in the State, nobly rejected wealth which had already caused the disgrace of one illustrious name, and which might, if kept among them, produce yet further mischief.

The

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The following is the abstract of a case related by Apuleius, showing

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