them out, comparatively speaking, from all human investigation as to their habits and modes of life. There is something obviously suggestive of mysteriousness connected with this circumstance. The finny tribes do not come in direct contact with man, like terrestrial animals. The powers of procreation, movements, and instincts generally, of the inhabitants of the deep are in great measure hidden from actual observation, and the element they live in has, besides, in its own nature, something awful and impressive, to the rude and uncultivated imaginations of men. The irresistible and impetuous torrent is invested with a power which strikes the mind with fear, and its natural hostility to the mind of man gives additional impressiveness to its movements. Even the most cultivated and enlightened mind feels an awful grandeur in the contemplation of moving waters, and it is chiefly this circumstance that has led untutored man in all ages and countries to people the banks of streams with divinities, fairies, and genii. There must have been a portion of this impressiveness and mysteriousness carried to the account of the animated beings that inhabit the great abyss of waters, and the natural bias given to the mind to consider everything connected with such an element as possessing virtues which do not generally belong to objects and animals more directly open to observation and control.

It may, likewise, be worthy of remark, that the connexion subsisting between Christianity and angling may have added a portion of strength to the natural feelings respecting waters and their inhabitants. The apostles come to us as the poor fishermen of Galilee, having their distinct calling, of an interesting and momentous character, connected with movements of waters and the taking of fish. These circumstances may not have been altogether inoperative in the middle ages, when science and investigation lay as it were asleep, and inquiries into the operations of nature were by no

common.

means

In treatises on angling and fish, in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, we find many curious and scattered remarks on the medical properties of the finny race. Caspar Schwenkfeld, in his Therio Trophæum Silesiæ,' already noticed, says,—'All fish, by reason of the nature and custom of the elements from which they have sprung and derive their virtue, and on account of their cold and gelatinous nature, are very difficult of digestion. They likewise generate cold and phlegmatic blood, from whence many similar grievous disorders date their origin; for they weaken the nerves, and prepare them for paralysis; and as they injure the more cold and damp

stomachs, so, on the contrary, they greatly benefit the more bilious and warm.'

In the 'Histoire des Poissons,' Paris, 1585, we find, that the liver of the sturgeon, when steeped in cold water for a length of time, was an effectual remedy for cramps in the stomach. It is recommended to be applied externally, and with a tight bandage. The pike was long celebrated, in many parts of Germany and France, for its charms and medicinal excellencies. A little bone in the form of a cross, which is said to be discoverable in the head of this fish, was long worn by the credulous as a sort of talisman against witchcraft and enchantment. The heart of this fish is recommended to be eaten against the paroxysms of fevers; his gall to be used as a liniment in affections of the eyes; his mandibula dried into dust against pleurisy; and little fishes found in his belly were prescribed, when dried, as a draught for persons in consumptions.

The roe of different kinds of fish has been a fruitful topic of conjecture. The eggs of the barbel were long considered in the north of Europe as noxious, and those who partook of them copiously would shrink up in great danger of life.' In some parts of Saxony and Dalmatia, the roe of the trout, when beaten up with olive oil, and rubbed on the eyes, was said to be a certain method of seeing the departed spirits of our friends after death. In those localities in France where there are extensive marais, or tanks of water, superstitious opinions on the medicinal properties of fish extensively prevail among the country people. Many of the intestinal portions of the large eels, found in the waters near Arras, in the Pas-de-Calais, are used both for charms to heighten the complexion of young women, and to cure various cutaneous disorders.*

In Great Britain, during the last century, we find many prescriptions in verse, on the medical properties of fish. Take the following as samples:

'A RECIPE FOR WEAK NERVES.

'Take wormwood root,
And gall of trout,
And place them on the fire;
With brain of pike,

Or, if you like,

Take dung out of the bire.

* Histoire des Poissons, p. 64.

In the northern parts of England it is a common thing among young lads to tie a piece of eel-skin around their ankles, to keep away cramps and pains. There is an old ditty to this effect in some localities of the country.

'Around the shin

Tie the skin,
Of full-grown river eel;
And every sprain,
And cramp and pain,

Will fly unto the deil.'

ART. III.-The Idol Demolished by its own Priest. An Answer to Cardinal Wiseman's Lectures on Transubstantiation. By James Sheridan Knowles, Author of Virginius,' &c. London: James

2. The Doctrines and Practices of Popery Examined. In a Course of Lectures by Ministers in Glasgow. Glasgow and London: Collins. 3. Romanism in Rome. A Lecture by Henry Isaac Roper. London: Snow. 1852.

It is a remarkable sign of the times in which we live, that the attention of almost all classes is eagerly directed towards the present position and policy of the Romish church. At no period, probably, since the seizure of the abbey-lands and of monastic property generally by Henry VIII., or since the evermemorable trial of the bishops, in the reign of James II., has the public mind in this kingdom been so continuously and greatly disquieted by that policy, as during the last four years. Indeed, the grand questions which are waiting for final settlement in our day are,-Whether private judgment in matters of religion is the right of every individual, whatever may be the accidents of his position or intelligence-in fact, liberty of conscience, which the late pope, Gregory XVI., in his famous Encyclic Letter,' of August, 1832, styled, 'absurd, erroneous, and delirious, derived from the corrupt source of indifferentism. For the liberty of error is death to the soul;'-or, whether the church-i. e., the corporation of priests, is of necessity the ultimate court of appeal for us in all that pertains to religious belief and duty. It would almost seem to them who watch the signs of the age, as if the spirit, which filled the old Tridentine conclave, were again risen to lord it over the consciences of men ;-the old lust for spiritual supremacy, which, in the day of its power, kindled so many wars, and desolated so many fair tracts of country;-that hierarchical tyranny, slowly but persistently working its will, and which had its developments in a Borgia, a Leo, and a Caraffa, names hateful to all who love freedom either of mind or of body. In fact, the policy of the Romish church seems to have lost much of that secresy and shrewd Jesuitism, which in a former age, all but universally, characterized it. Whether the genius of the age prevents such action at present, or that the course is so plainly marked for the carrying out the designs of the Sacred College, we profess not to decide; but certainly the proceedings of the ultra

montane prelates are marked by a boldness and energy which are quite new in the modern history of the Vatican diplomacy. Such outspoken boldness has increased the public uneasiness, which in some quarters amounts to positive alarm, and will probably strongly react, and to its disadvantage, on the Catholic church in this country. The late elections have shown most clearly, not only that the public regard with much suspicion the movements of the Romish priesthood among us, but that they do so because the nation as a whole is intensely Protestant; and that at no time, within the memory of the oldest citizen, has attachment to the principles of the Reformation been so strongly expressed, and in so many ways, as in the present day. The pulpit, always so strong and successful an instrument for assailing the errors and exhibiting the perfidious cruelties of Romanism, is mightily supplemented by the wider-ranging press; and while the errors and iniquities of the Italian church are exposed, and a nation warned against them as by a trumpettongue, sound information on the great matters in dispute between ourselves and the papists is conveyed forcibly, cheaply, and successfully even to the poorest of the people. The greater portion of the British public are being taught, by these means, the foundation-truths of Protestantism, and the results of this instruction will be such as our ancestors could not have anticipated, even in the hour of their most sanguine hope, when they endured their fiery trials, and struggled against that church whose whole history proclaims her to be the enemy of human freedom. Now, for such a state of things, the Romish church has herself alone to blame. During the last few years, we repeat, she has strangely departed from that quiet and sagacious policy which she had formerly adopted, and with success, for so many years. We know not whether Cardinal Antonelli's temperament is so impetuous, that it compels him to rush to grand results rather than quietly to work his way to them-that ancient policy of his church-for he is the presiding genius in the papal cabinet, and is pope, in fact, though not in name; or, whether the personal vanity and ambition of Dr. Wiseman have overruled better counsels, and induced a bolder policy in the Vatican. From whatever cause, the Catholic church has completely, and for her own interests, we think, most unwisely changed her line of policy; so that instead of secret-mining Jesuitism, and an entire accommodation to our national tastes and prejudices, we have now a presumption and an arrogance in her clergy, unequalled since the days when the Spanish Philip shared the throne of an English queen. The famous Pastorals' of the Westminster cardinal, the offensive arrogance of his claims, and the general bearing of himself and his clergy would almost