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on which the church stood is now within the farm of Bogardo, and the immediate site of the church is staked out by a rustic railing. The holder of this farm in 1849, had the graveyard or old burying ground trenched, with a view of growing corn upon it, and during operations, the old tiled pavement of the church was discovered, and, also, two coffin slabs, one of which had entombed a man of arms; the other, one of the vicars of the parish. These monumental remains now lie within the railing, but no other vestige of the church is extant.

The first of these coffin covers, as here represented,

them to Cardinal Beaton; but as this particular class of coffin slabs is ascribed to the fourteenth Century, it is possible, it may refer to either Philip the Forester, or to Sir David de Annand, as being the most likely of Sir Alexander Lindsay's predecessors who were buried at Finhaven.

The other slab found in the old burying ground at Finhaven, clearly indicates the status and character of the person it commemorates.

has the cross and sword incised, while the circular cross head decorated with the very unusual number of eight floriated points is executed in low relief. No example of this kind is described or figured in Boutell's Christian Monuments in England and Wales.* Of whom this mark of Christian remembrance was intended to commemorate, there is much perplexity of doubt-certainly it was not Sir Alexander Lindsay, or any of his descendants; he was buried where he died in the Isle of Candia, and none of his successors were interred at Finhaven till a comparatively late date. Lindsay's predecessors in the lordship of Finhaven are satisfactorily traced from the year 1250, when Cumyn, Earl of Buchan, then proprietor of the lands, and forester of the Royal Hunting Forest of Plater, within the boundary of which the lands and church of Finhaven were comprised, granted annually a certain surcharge out of them, to the monastery of Aberbrothoc. Philip, through whose boldness Robert the Bruce was enabled to capture the castle of Forfar from the English, was forester in 1308. Bruce's natural son, who fell at Dupplin, in 1332, held the same lands and office at the time of his death, and he was succeeded in them by Hew de Polayne, William Earl of Ross, and Sir David de Annand. This last was the immediate predecessor of Sir Alexander Lindsay, the rebuilder of the church.

To which, or, if to any of these earlier barons, the coffin lid pertains is alike matter of great uncertainty ; the Annand family held possessions in the district for a longer period than any other, since they also possessed the lands of North Melgund in the adjoining parish of Aberlemno till 1542, when a female descendant sold

To the labours of this able reverend antiquary, the Editor gladly refers; his Monumental Brasses of England, 1849: and his Christian Monuments, embodying descriptions of Slabs devoid of Effigies, and Semi-effigial Monu-in ments, 1854, should be found in every gentleman's library: of the figure, the following inscription remains -they may now be secured, but the day is near at hand, when they will be no longer procurable.

It is very rudely incised, and in much the same style in the year 1400, in memory of an old monk of that of sculpture as the one at Cupar Angus, placed there place On the margin left blank in the woodcut, old English characters commencing above the head

HIC IACET HONOVRABILIS VIR DNS RECHERD' BR... VICARIVS DE FINHEVYN QVI OBIIT 20 DIE

The stone has been much broken, and unfortunately that part containing the last letters of the surname is defaced and partly wanting, and what may be deemed singular, neither the month or year appear to have been chiselled to record his decease. The arms on the shield at the feet of the effigy appear to be a rude representation of those of the Bruce family, a conjecture based on an old monument to William Bruce of Earlshill at Leuchars, in Fifeshire, which has much the same arms, with a fleur de lis in chief for a difference. Possibly the vicar of Finhaven was a cadet of that ancient family, although, as from the following remarks it will be seen, I have failed to discover any one of that name as a prebendary of Finhaven.

and trees do move and run themselves. Thus it goeth when we give up ourselves to our own foolish fancies and conceits. This fool (Copernicus) will turn the whole art of astronomy upside down; but, the Scripture showeth and teacheth another lesson, when Joshua commanded the sun

to stand still, and not the earth.

HISTORY OF REYNARD THE FOX.

Goethe's German version of the long celebrated and widely known fable or story of Reynard the Fox having been rendered popularly familiar by Mr. Arnold's translation, the general acceptance with which it has been welcomed, has induced the following remarks as illustrative of its history.

Enquiries of no common difficulty have occupied the attention of many erudite and learned men, and the origin of the story of Reynard the Fox, seems to be unearthed amid the fragrancy of Oriental literature; in the Anvár-i Suhailí, or the Lights of Canopus, the Persian version of the Fables of Pilpay; the original compilation of which was in Sanskrit, by Vishnu Sharman, whom, Sir William Jones asserts, we ridiculously call Pilpay. The author, or the work, appears however to have been named Bidpai, and possibly explains the cause of the misnomer. In the Sanskrit, or Persian, instead of the Fox, the Jackall is the hero of the tale, and the humour of the story is nearly evaporated by making the said hero a good and virtuous beast, instead of a bad and hypocritical one.

The earliest recorded name of the parish priests of Finhaven, is that of John de Monte Alto, a cadet of a Norman family, who held the neighbouring lordship of Ferne, etc. He in 1379, was an attesting witness in the transfer of some contiguous lands, between his brother of Ferne and Sir Alexander Lindsay. John Knycht held the cure in 1435; and in 1474, John Lok was prebendary. In 1510, the office was held by Henry Quhyt (or White), who on the establishment of the College of Justice, in Scotland, in 1532, was one of its original members. According to Henry White's obitus, he died in June 1541, devising by his last will and testament, the revenues of certain properties towards the maintenance of a priest for saying masses for his soul, which were to be annually celebrated with lighted tapers, etc, on the Sabbath following the feast of All Whence or whatever may be the source of this fable Saints, at the altar of St. Catherine, in the cathedral of or story, it certainly in its outline contains the germ of Brechin. The names of subsequent prebendaries present the extant History of Reynard the Fox; the second nothing in elucidation of those of their predecessors, and part of that history being in fact simply a skilfully diin the absence of other confirmative evidence I am dis- versified repetition of the first; both parts containing posed to consider the slab with its effigy, as belonging to particulars of Reynard's disgrace, and subsequent pardon some vicar who officiated at Finhaven, in the inter- and favour. vening period between the time of Monte Alto and Knycht.

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EARLY EDUCATION.-Choose I etimes the courses and Vocations you mean your children should take, for then, they are most flexible; not regarding altogether the disposition of the children, as thinking they will take but to that to which they have a mind. It is true, that if the affection, or the aptness of the child be extraordinary, it would be wrong to cross it; but, generally, the precept will be found optimum elige; suave et facile illud faciet consuetudo-choose what is best, and custom will make it pleasant and easy.-Bacon.

COPERNICUS OPPOSED TO THE BIBLE.

LUTHER, in his Table Talk, noticesI am now advertised that a new astrologer is risen who presumeth to prove that the earth moveth and goeth about not the firmament; the sun and moon, not the starslike as when one sitteth in a coach, or in a ship that is moved, thinketh he sitteth still and resteth; but the earth

Many opinions have been entertained and expressed as to the intention and purport of the story of Reynard the Fox; it is clearly a general satire upon all persons and things, and upon the clergy in particular, hence possibly siders that in the earlier versions no genuine satire its adoption and commendation by Luther. Grimm conwas intended, that is, so far as satire upon then existing persons or contemporary things. As an instance, he holds that the story of the Wolf's becoming a monk, had not originally a satirical allusion to the monks, but is a perversion arising from his being de cribed as grey, and hence old, and in consequence called grey coat, etc. In the meaning of the names borne by the principal characters in the poem, Grimm observes these appellations are of three kinds-firstly, Animal names having a meaning in themselves, unlike names of men. condly, Proper names of men, given to animals on account of their meaning. Thirdly, Similar names given to animals with reference to some Historical Personages; though, as he says, it is not easy to distinguish between the second and third of these classes. These names have been appropriated to personages historically known, and have even been adopted with modifications by writers of

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eminence, but these adaptations have generally exploded by reference to the chronology of the periods in which these persons supposed to be so personified existed. Grimm's opinions are notwithstanding entitled to much respect, as it must be confessed he has succeeded in satisfactorily disposing of various theories which have at times been advanced in elucidation of the allegorical meaning of the poem

Till Grimm took up the subject it was universally believed the Low German or Saxon poem, Reynke de Vos, printed at Lübeck, in 1498, in quarto, was the original story, while it was even then a diversified opinion whether the authorship rested with Heinreck von Alckmer, or Nicholaus Baumann, writers who were said, or supposed to have lived at the close of the fifteenth or commencement of the sixteenth century; but this was an erroneous acceptation, the manuscript of a much earlier Flemish version, attributed to the middle of the thirteenth century, or earlier, was purchased by the Belgian Government, at the sale of Mr. Heber's library. The author of this Flemish version is said to have been named Willem die Madock (or Matoc), or Willem van Uterhoven. From this, a version in prose and verse was printed in quarto, by Gheraet Leeu at Gouda, in 1479; Caxton translated this volume and printed it in 1481, in one of the chapels attached to Westminster Abbey. Leeu's edition of Die Historie van Reynaert de Vos was again printed at Delft in Holland, in 1485, and amid the facilities proffered by the extension of the art of printing, translations in most of the continental tongues became disseminated, and created a generally extended ramification of the Reynardine fables. They are subsequently found in all languages, and editions of multitudinous places and dates-no story was more popular, it diverted childhood, pleased if it did not instruct those of maturer years, and was the amusement and solace of greatly advanced age.

Fashion and the quest of novelty during the eighteenth century seem to have caused a partial forgetfulness of Reynard by the generality of readers, till it was awakened by the pictorial display of stuffed animals sent by Hermann Ploucquet of Wurtemberg, to the memorable Exhibition in Hyde Park, in 1851, when several of the groups were in positions conformably to Kaulbach's Illustrations to Goethe's poem of Reincke Fuchs. Admirable in themselves, they induced a more general attention to the story, and the several versions of it; to satisfy which, various publications have emanated, and elicited the certainty of the public desire to obtain a popular version, and one that should be deemed an ornament in the library. Mr. Arnold's translation is wholly

Alkmer was the author of the version printed in 1498, from its rarity long almost unknown. It was reprinted at Rostock, in 1517, without name of Editor or Printer. There were three subsequent editions, printed at the same place in 1522, 1539, and 1543, all in quarto, the former of these was edited by Baumann, and while the Lubeck edition was undiscovered, Baumann was by many held as the writer.

based on Goethe's poetical recital adopting the usual heroic couplet as the most familiar representative of the hexameters of his original, and in all respects is fully such as is required by the reading public; while the engravings from the designs of Mr. Joseph Wolf, are pre-eminently distinguished for their admirable excellence of artistic skill, and the generally forcible illustrations they render to the unequivocally broad Hudibrastic humour of the work.

SCHOLA SALERNITANA.

The authority of Muratori, and of Gibbon, to prove who was the King of England to whom the verses of the Schola Salernitana were dedicated, having been more than once quoted, it may not be amiss to place before the readers of Current Notes who have taken an interest in the discussion, the words of these two celebrated authors, in order that they may of themselves judge of the credibility which their opinions invests the side to which they are really inclined. Muratori's words are

Nel Secolo XI., la Città di Salerno singolarmente fiorì per l'Arte della Medicina, e abbondò d'uomini molto rinomati in essa del che fa tuttavia testimonianza il Libro intitolato La Scuola Salernitana, che alcuni credono dedicato, circa l'anno 1099, a Roberto, figlio di Guglielmo Primo, Re d'Inghilterra; ma altri più probabilmente a Edoardo Re d'essa Inghilterra, prima dell' anno 1066; giacchè la dedica del Libro il chiama Angliæ Regem. Fors'egli ricercò il parere di quei medici per conservare la Sanità; giacchè si grande era il credito di essa Città per la Medicina, che anche uomini di alto affare passavano in essa per isperanza di guarire i loro Mali.†

Gibbon's words, which are of similar import, may be thus quoted—

Salerno was enriched by the practice, the lessons, and the writings of Constantine, an African Christian, the pupil of Avicenna. The School of Medicine long slept at the name of a university; but her precepts are abridged in a string of aphorisms, bound together in the Leonine verses, or Latin rhymes of the twelfth century. Muratori carries their antiquity above the year 1066, that of the death of

Edward the Confessor, the Rex Anglorum to whom they were addressed.*

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THE BRONZE GALLEY AT SEBASTOPOL.

On the hill to the right of Fort Nicholas, which projects out into the harbour, as seen from the western heights of Sebastopol, towers prominently a majestic monumental trophy, surmounted by a bronze galley of elegant form and elaborate enrichment. Upon the entry of the allies, many were the conflicting assertions made respecting its purpose; by some it was heedlessly said to have been commemorative of the Empress Catherine; by others that it was a symbolic emblem of Sebastopol. The position of this magnificent structure was doubtless intended to serve for more than its apparent intention, and the following observations, forwarded by a respected correspondent, seem to proffer conjectures in aid of a very satisfactory elucidation.

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The bronze galley of Sebastopol is in all likelihood the Labarum of the Eastern Empire. Its origin was this. The Ark of Noah, that supernatural abode wherein wood, couched upon water, accomplished the rescue of our race, was the elected Symbol in the early Ages of the Visible Church; the place of safe sojourn for man, the exile upon Earth! Thus, the actual and the emblem shape of the Ark, graphic or graven, was that of the ancient vessel of every land, double prowed, to glide every way as the church would move; and crescentformed, the Image of the Moon in her youth, that mystic Lady of the Sea! So was traced on Egyptian walls, the galley of Ogyges; and so in their marbles was shown the antique vessel of the Phoenicians and the Greeks, until the boat of Gennesaret took up and delivered onward the symbolic form to signify the Nave or the Church of the Apostles, on every shore and sea. Therefore, it was, that when Constantine framed his supernatural banner, he pourtrayed thereon a Crescentship lifted on high upon the stock and transome of a Cross, and underneath he wrote the legendary Promise of Victory from God, in such a sign-IN HOC, VINCEthe starry words he saw in dreams of night.

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The word Labarum is a name of very harassed import among learned men, but the nearest approach to its origin appears to be traceable in the dialect of Armenia, and around Mount Ararat, where the vessel of Noah stood still. There, they to this day call the Ark “ Baris," and possibly some Eastern prefix or change may constitute the total name. Be this as it may, we know that Constantine did lift the Labarum; that his Arkite Ensign was so called, and that it was a Church-crested Cross.

and though they seem to belong to Scotland, they are Arbroath, and elsewhere, which shows they had a sigfound in various places in this country, as at Keilor, nification which was generally understood at the time they were chisell'd on the hoary rocks on which they remain as a puzzle and wonder to all who behold them.

Should any of your numerous readers be able to give am sure, create much gratification to many in this part a satisfactory explication of these characters, it will, I of the kingdom, and in particular to Twynholm, Nov. 1.

J. M.

FREDERICK THE GREAT AND TOTTLEBEN. Considerable interest is at this moment attached in reference to the ancestry of General Tottleben, the able defender of Sebastopol by his masterly application of means for repelling the invincibility of the Allies. The following letter from Frederick the Great, addressed to the Grand Bailiff and the Burgomasters of Antwerp, in interest of one of his officers, Colonel Tottleben, appears to relate to the General's grandfather(?), who would seem to have been a Prussian. The whole is a love affair, sufficiently romantic in its commencement, but gradually involving the parties in an unpleasant situation. Colonel Tottleben had carried off the ward of some rich burgo master of Amsterdam, who had designed her and her fortune for one of his own family. The Colonel is pursued and taken at Weimar, and every means used to bring him to destruction; he is incarcerated and tried for the offence, and would, without a defence, have been condemned, if some friend had not furnished him the means of procuring legal assistance, by which his case is

placed in its true light. It is shewn that the young lady, who was an orphan born in the East Indies, had been encloistered without receiving the education proper to her station, and treated harshly because she would not receive the husband proposed for her. The monarch enters into the detail of the case, and asserts that the Burgomasters unjustly charge Tottleben with having obtained the protection of his ministers by corruption, for that he was recommended to his notice by the same friend who had furnished him with the means of defence; and that after having investigated the original papers of the process, the King offered to become the mediator between the Colonel and the guardians of his wife, and to be trustee for the assurance of the whole principal of her fortune against all accidents; thinking that the young people had already been too much persecuted for an affair which has happened a thousand times without the same stir having been made.

MESSIEURS, J'ai recu la lettre que vous m'avez ecrite en date du 23 Juillet passé, pour me prevenir contre le Colonel de Tottleben, et pour l'accuser de rechercher ma protection par des corruptions et par d'autres voyes illicites. Vous alleguez en preuve une de ses lettres, que vous avez interceptée, et ou il remercie son Correspondant, de l'avoir mis en etat par ses avances de vaincre ses ennemis à Weimar, et de se procurer un acces salutaire à Berlin. Trouvez bon, que je vous dise, que je n'y saurois voir la noirceur, que vous pretendez y trouver. Vous avez fait poursuivre le Colonel de Tottleben jusqu'à Weimar, et vous l'avez fait encoffrer comme un criminel, pour une affaire, qui s'est pratiquée mille fois parmi vous, sans que vous vous soyez jamais avisés d'en faire tant de bruit, et de pousser les choses à des semblables extremités. Obligé donc de se defendre, le pouvoit il sans argent, tandisque vos commis en repandoient à pleines mains pour le ruiner? Sorti ensuite victorieux de l'accusation, que vous aviez intentée contre lui, par le secours d'un ami, qui a bien voulu risquer quelques avances, pour lui faire soutenir les fraix de la prison et de la procedure, faute de quoi, il n'auroit jamais pû ni se justifier, ni se rendre ici, n'est il pas naturel, et dans l'ordre, qu'il en marque sa reconnoissance à son bienfaiteur et qu'il avouë, que c'est à ses secours, qu'il est redevable de sa victoire à Weimar, et du bon accueil qu'il a trouvé à Berlin. Car quant aux corruptions, dont vous le chargez d'avoir voulû user auprès de mes ministres, je suis bien aise de vous avertir, que ceuxci n'entrent absolument pour rien dans l'affaire du dit Colonel, et que ce n'est ni par leur canal, ni sur leur rapports, que j'en ai pris connoissance, mais que cet officier s'etant addressé immediatement à moi pour demander ma protection, je ne la lui ai accordée, qu'apres, qu'il ni eut mis devant les yeux les pieces originales du procès de Weimar. C'est là que j'ai compris clairement, qu'il n'est question dans cette affaire, ni de rapt, ni d'enlevement, comme il vous plait de le qualifier, et que tout ce qu'on peut reprocher au Colonel de Tottleben, c'est d'avoir sauvé une orfeline etrangere, qui l'en avoit solicité elle même et qui s'etoit jettée de pleingré entre ses mains, pour se soustraire, elle et son bien, à la cupidité de ses Tuteurs, qui l'avoient sequestrée du commerce du monde, et comme encloitrée, sans lui donner meme une education convenable à son etat uniquement pour s'accommoder de ses richesses, en la donnant à quelcun de leur Famille, pour lequel elle avoit une aversion insurmontable. S'il l'a epousée ensuite,

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cela s'est fait de son libre consentement, et avec toutes les formalités, qui rendent le marriage valide en tout païs du monde. L'unique defaut qu'on pourroit y objecter, c'est celui du consentement des Tuteurs: Mais outre que selon vos propres loix, ce consentement n'est pas d'une necessité absolue, et que les Tuteurs ne peuvent pas le refuser, à moins d'alleguer des raisons tres graves, contre la personne de l'epoux, il est à observer, que les deux epoux sont tout a fait estrangeres à vôtre egard, que l'epouse etant née aux Indes, ne s'est jamais fait inscrire au nombre de vos habitans, que si vous l'avez considerée, comme sujette de votre ville, cette sujettion n'a eté que temporaire, et n'a pu avoir de force, que durant le tems, qu'elle y a demeuré, et que ce lien cesse naturellement dés qu'elle transporte d'ailleurs son domicile l'administration de ces biens par la chambre des orfelins ne l'attachant pas plus à vos loix, que tant d'autres etrangers, qui ont du bien dans votre banque, et dans vos avoir des raisons, pour obliger les deux Epoux à se conautres fonds publics. Supposé neantmoins, que vous croyiez former à vos loix, ils ne seront pas difficulté de s'y soumettre, et comme ils m'ont representé, que le credit de leur partie, dont la superiorité ne s'est manifesté que trop dans toute la procedure, les empechoit de comparoitre personnellement, et que par la meme raison aucun Avocat ni Procureur n'osoit se charger, de leurs interets, c'est sur leurs instances, que j'ai charge et autorisé mon Intendant des Domaines le Sr. Douglas de faire toutes les demarches, que vos ùs et coutumes exigent pour legaliser le mariage en question, aussi bien que de convenir avec vous, en y interposant même mon nom, s'il le faut, de toutes les precautions, que vous jugerez necessaires, par rapport au bien de la femme du Colonel de Tottleben, de maniere que son Capital lui reste assuré contre toutes sortes d'evenements. Comme cet arrangement satisfait et remedie à toutes les objections, qu'on a faites jusqu'ici contre le marriage en question, je me promets de vôtre equité, que vous vous y preterez avec plaisir, et que vous rendrez prompte et impartiale justice aux deux Epoux, qui n'ont que trop souffert jusqu'ici par les persecutions de leur partie. Vous augmenterez par là la reputation de sagesse, et d'integrité, que vous vous etes acquis à juste titre, et vous ne laisserez pas de m'obliger tres particulierement, et de m'engager à m'employer avec plaisir toutes les fois, que je trouverai occasion de contribuer à vôtre satisfaction et à vos avantages. Sur ce je prie Dieu de vous avoir en sa sainte et digne garde. à Berlin 3 Aout, 1751.

Jedenia

frequently in the history of the wars of that period; Subsequently, as Count Tottleben, he is mentioned and appears to have entered into the Russian service. A portrait before the writer is designated, Le Comte de Totleben, General d'Armée au service de S.M.I. de Russie, etc.

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