In the survey of the domestic every-day life, and manners and customs of the ancients, already published (“Transactions,” vol. ii., pp. 393–438), we obtained a view of the earliest mode of living adopted by the inhabitants of this planet. We beheld the people at first rudely dressed in wild skins, or covered with garments made of leaves, but gradually obtaining a more refined character, as the progress of civilization which is marked by nothing more clearly than by that of costume, advanced among them; until, influenced and moulded by the classical taste of the people of Greece and Rome, it eventually assumed that form and appearance which are so striking and so beautiful, far exceeding anything which even the science and civilization of modern times have succeeded in producing. We also peeped into the dwellings of the people by whom the earth was originally inhabited, — our primeval ancestors. We first of all found them in rude caves, habitations formed and provided for them by Nature herself. Sometimes they lived in groves. Afterwards they built for themselves tents and huts, which in form imitated their original dwellings. As the tide of civilization rolled on they by degrees effected improvements in their mode and style of living, until at length, among certain nations where civilization had attained a high rank, more especially in Egypt, in Greece, and in Rome, stately cities and superb dwellings were raised, in which the humble and scanty fare provided by Nature was exchanged for luxurious feasts. i now propose to inquire into certain peculiar habits connected with the ordinary occupations and manner of daily life of the people of the ancient world, affording also some account of those amusements by which mainly they were diverted.

When on the 24th June, A.D. 1497, John Cabot and his son Sebastian, the rich Venetian merchants of Bristol, in their ship the Matthew, came upon the island of Newfoundland, St. John's, and the continent of North America, it was thought they had added a lustre to the reign of their royal patron, Henry VII., and a promise of wealth to his kingdom by their discoveries, such as England had never before dreamt of. Their voyage seemed as important as that of Christopher Columbus, in a different latitude, some five years before, and it has proved so in the result. It is probable, however, that these adventurous Venetians may have heard of the voyage of their countrymen, Nicolas and Antonio Zeni, to the same lands in A.D. 1380, and who published a map of them, though some take this account of the Zeni to be spurious, and written after the voyage of the Cabots.

How much the English Law, in the present day, is indebted to the Roman, appears to be still a point on which writers differ. Professor Stubbs, in his edition of “Documents Illustrative of English History,” holds that the debt is slight; or, at all events, that few remains exist, in modern times, of laws that had their origin in the days of the Roman occupation of Britain; while Mr. Finlason, in his preliminary essay to the last edition of “Reeves' History of English Law,” argues, on the other hand, that we derive much of our system of jurisprudence and many of our present laws from this source. M. Guizot holds the same on behalf of the origin of the old French laws.

The Earl of Glencairn, Henry Balnaves and John Davidson merit commemoration apart from their poetry. While denouncing in a poetical pasquinade the illegal traffic of the Church of Rome, Lord Glencairn protested against the rapacity of the Reforming nobles. As a statesman he rendered invaluable aid to the Protestant cause by resisting the attempts of Mary of Guise to check the spread of the Reformed doctrines. In opposing the efforts of Queen Mary to crush the Reformed preachers, and in supporting her dethronement, he occupied a foremost place. He conspicuously upheld the government of the infant King James.

The custom of distinguishing men occupying positions of power as chiefs or rulers of the people by some outward symbol of authority, such as the mace or the sceptre (terms in-deed often used as synonymous), denoting the dignity of their office, is one undoubtedly of very great antiquity, both amongst savages in all ages, like the aborigines of Australia and New Zealand, and from the times of the polished ancient Greeks and Romans down to our own day.

A Bohemian nobleman, Christopher Harant, of Polzitz, is one of those travellers to whom we are indebted for our knowledge of the state of Palestine, Egypt, and other Eastern countries whilst the Turkish power was still the dread scourge of Christendom. In those days pilgrimages were not made at ease by the aid of railways and steamboats, but in disguise and at the risk of life. Harant himself was originally a Catholic, but eventually joined the Utraquist communion, and was beheaded along with Bohemia's best and noblest, Ferdinand II., on June 21, 1621. Bohemia's liberties were then destroyed, her language and literature proscribed, her population reduced by exile and war from four millions to eight hundred thousand, and Jesuit supremacy culminated in the canonization of St John Nepomucen, the pseudo-protomartyr of the confessional, and the basis of an extraordinary blunder of the most untrustworthy of chroniclers, Hayik, crystallized in a fiction written by the Jesuit Balbinus, and finally accepted as genuine history by the Roman Curia.

The different sciences, arts, and manufactures possess respectively their own peculiar records. Such records, when derived from legitimate sources, and arranged with chronological accuracy, constitute what is known under the term history. In these notes my aim is to present in a concise form some points of interest in common with one of the most important branches of political economy. Since labour is the only source of wealth, provident action on the part of the masses is the mainstay of national prosperity. Under this view Life Assurance becomes not simply an important element in the welfare of individual families, but a subject of corresponding interest to society. It is impossible to trace with any degree of accuracy the origin of the system. If the division of human life into four equal parts may, with any degree of reliability, be ascribed to Pythagoras, then its rude beginning may be ascribed to the Phoenicians. It is certain that by a law which was in force among the Romans, known as the Falcidian, which obliged a testator to leave one-fourth of his property to his direct heirs, a table was framed by Ulpian (A.D. 364), which gave rise to the doctrine of annuities. In Mr. Walford's valuable “Insurance Guide,” there is to be found information which will interest antiquaries.

Though we may justly pride ourselves on possessing the greatest historical writers in Hume, Robertson, Gibbon, Grote, Thirlwall, Buckle, &c., there is scarcely a civilized country in this nineteenth century in which the study of universal history is so utterly neglected as in our own. Fostered by a certain learned caste, afraid that too much light thrown on the past might injure their interests in the present, a general opinion has gained ground that history, if studied from a universal or general point of view, can but produce a creditable kind of ignorance and nothing more. Bolingbroke, in opposition to this, tells us that the study of history seemed to him of all others “the most proper to train us up to private and public virtue.” I could quote a number of authorities, both ancient and modern, especially Scottish, German, French, Italian, and American writers, who place the study of history in the van of all studies. The Greek word ἱστορειν means to learn by inquiry, and ἱστορ⋯α is therefore information acquired by inquiry. All our sciences, however, whether abstract or concrete, speculative or technical, are but informations resulting from inquiry. The great question which presents itself in taking the historical development of humanity as a subject for research will be, whether such inquiry can be conducted on a strictly scientific basis.

Malta, formerly called Melita, is an island of great value and strength. Oval in figure, its area would probably be found to involve the measure of one hundred square miles. Separated from Gozzo—the fabled isle of Calypso, by a channel between four and five miles broad, in the centre of which is an islet called Cumino or Cumina, it seems likely that at some remote period the three islands constituted one. In many parts of Gozzo excavations have led to such important discoveries that this smaller island is by many deemed a fine field in which lovers of antiquities would reap signal success: especially in reference to the period when Gozzo, as well as Malta, was under the sovereignty of the Knights.

Professor Huxley, in his recent address to the students of Aberdeen University, drew attention to the growing desire for a knowledge of art and of art history, and trusted the day would not be far distant when a chair for this important branch of study wou ld be founded in each university and school of art throughout the length and breadth of the land. It is scarcely credible that, with the immense facilities within the grasp of the Royal Academy, this body has hitherto allowed the teaching of art history and æsthetics to be entirely neglected. And who will not agree that these two most important branches of an art education are simply a necessity? Historical painting—acknowledged to be the highest, most elevating, and instructive form of pictorial representation—can never attain that degree of excellence of which it is capable, unless the art student passes through a thorough course of historical teaching during his academical career. Many of the art monstrosities to be found in, and supposed to adorn, the metropolis, would never have been called into being had the study of æsthetics held a place in the academy curriculum.

Sir Audley Mervyn, though of not a very lofty style of character, played no undistinguished part in Ireland in the great era of the war, or rebellion, of 1641.

He was already well known as an able lawyer and an active member of the Irish Parliament at the time of the outbreak. He had been selected by the House of Commons, in the month of March, 1641, to conduct their impeachment of Sir Richard Bolton, Lord Chancellor; Bramhall, Bishop of Deny; Sir Gerrard Lowther, Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas; and Sir George Radcliff, Privy Councillor. These were friends and ministers of the Earl of Strafford, then under impeachment by the Commons of England. The proceedings in Ireland were only in aid of the measures of Pym and the other parliamentary leaders in England, and were abandoned after Strafford's fall. Audley Mervyn, then a representative in Parliament for the county of Tyrone, was selected for a kind of eloquence much admired in that day. It was full of farfetched similes, allusions to Scripture, and physical incidents, and stuffed with quotations taken alternately from the Roman poets and from the law-Latin of Coke upon Littleton.