tion to insects. Nobody did in his means to show us Titus going mad. day. So the entomology of his plays is" Give me thy knife," he says to Marperhaps more peculiar than extensive. cus, "I will insult on him," and he InTitus Andronicus" we find (see stabs the dead fly repeatedly. above) Tamora encouraging her sons Alas, poor man! grief has so wrought on to the unremunerative task of robbing wasps of their honey, and later (v. 1) we read :

We'll follow where thou lead'st

him,

He takes false shadows for true substances, says his brother, as Titus, having done with the fly, rises to go. In another part of the play (iv. 4) the emperor, complaining of the popular agitation in favor of the ill-used Andronici, says: These disturbers of our peace Buz in the people's ears

further into the flora, the meteorology, the precious stones, and inanimate nature generally, of the play, I could easily treble the matter of this article, but my argument, I venture to think, requires no further strengthening.

Like sting bees on hottest summer's day Led by their master to the flower'd fields. Shakespeare had been reading translations of the classics in which are suggested both of the errors implied in the lines quoted. When Virgil or Ovid a frequent expression in Shakespeare speaks of leading bees to flowered fields and nearly always used in the same the poet refers to the practice in south- uncomplimentary sense to the fly as ern Europe, doubtless unknown to lying, mischievous, or annoying. Shakespeare, of transporting whole. If I were to follow out all my notes farms of hives on large-decked boats from pasturage to pasturage, but is it likely that the English dramatist, addressing audiences of bee-keepers (for bee-keeping was, in those days, an almost universal country practice) would speak of "stinging" bees "following their master," in a friendly spirit, and on the "hottest summer's day," too? Critics need hardly have discussed such nonsense. The other error, which Shakespeare's audience shared with him, was that bees had a king. Pliny is delightful on this theme, and Virgil has some charming references to the male monarch of the hive, and it is this mistake, a sufficiently simple one, and not the other, obviously foolish, that Shakespeare made. It was "the magister of the hive," "the master-bee," that led them. Not

the human owner of the hive.

As a matter of fact, Shakespeare has never yet been seriously approached on the side of his natural history. His references to nature in some departments have been catalogued, but there has never been any intention hitherto to establish the individuality or identity of the man Shakespeare from his natural history, nor to study it as a whole with relation to the writer. It may be a matter for surprise that it should have been left for me, an unaccredited student of the bard, and at the end of this century, to look at Shakespeare from a new point of view. But Else- the fact remains.

where, he makes the male bee produce honey, and calls the neuters, as every other poet does, she.

PHIL ROBINSON.

From Blackwood's Magazine. A LOST ENGLISH CITY.

There is a very striking passage in "Titus Andronicus" of which a fly is the subject. Shakespeare hated flies as heartily as Martin Luther — and ALONG the coast of East Suffolk, beespecially their buzzing. So in this tween the fertile, well-wooded country place, where Titus affects a great indig- and the North Sea, extends for many nation with his brother for killing a fly, | miles a strip of moor, now wider and and talks pitifully of its poor "father now narrower, and broken here and and mother," its "gilded wings," and there by patches of cultivation, an un"pretty buzzing melody," Shakespeare dulating waste of heath and gorse

bushes, dotted with little woods of fir, near the port of Orwell, and settling at a desolate district in winter time, Dunmoc, began to preach the faith of but when whin or heather is in blos- Christ to the heathen. Where he som, by no means devoid of beauty. landed the priory of St. Felix was To the eastward, where once projected founded afterwards. Modern golfers the southern horn of Sole Bay, the know the place well-it is called after moorland ends at a low cliff of crum- the saint - Felixstowe. bling sand. There are no buildings on the cliff save the stark walls and cracked tower of an old church, which, on the very edge, stands tottering to its fall, doomed to be undermined ere long by the encroaching sea.

master, who, by the custom, has become liable for the debt of his servant. Hence arise frequent cases of vendetta and of personal outrages. The dwellings of these miners are said to be very miserable, but the hours of labor are not excessive, and an eight-hours regulation would, it seems, have little oper

The question whether the hard and early labor undertaken by these carusi does or does not produce a physical degeneration has been much discussed, but apparently still remains sub judice.

As to the actual workers of the sulphur, their condition seems as bad as that of their carriers. Their wages oscillate between one lira fifty centesimi, and three lire a day, and this is subject practically to a heavy deduction of from twenty-five to fifty per cent. by reason of the prevalence of the truck system, that is the payment of the wages not in specie but in goods supplied by the masters. But what brings the greatest discontent into the mining district is this, that the price of sulphur has, for the last fifteen years, gone down almost incessantly, and with it the wages of the miners, so that they are now receiving about half only their former rates of wages; and there can be no doubt that a sudden fall from

certain new sources of trouble and new | knife, and pursues sometimes his runstrains were superimposed upon them. away servant sometimes the new The rural class in Sicily constitutes about three-fourths of the entire population, the rest consisting of the aristocratic classes, the galantuomini or classi dirigenti, which are very few in number, and the sulphur-miners. The sulphur-mines are found in the provinces of Girgenti, Caltanisetta, Catania, and Palermo, but chiefly in the two former.ation in the sulphur-mines of Sicily. The mines are worked by the men who actually extract the substance, and are known as picconieri; they employ youths between the ages of eight and twenty, who are known as carusi, who carry the substance from the place where it is dug to the calcherono, the place where the sulphur is melted and brought into the form of cakes. These workmen are all paid in proportion to the greater or less distance which the sulphur has to be carried and the length and steepness of the ladder which has to be ascended. The carusi have been objects of great sympathy on the part of many visitors to Sicily; and their lot is not an easy or light one; but, according to our author, their woes have been exaggerated. They receive from seventy centesimi to two lire a day (twenty-eight or twentynine lire go to our pound sterling), but few receive the larger figure. Sometimes the carusi are treated with great harshness by their masters, the picco- comparative comfort to actual poverty nieri; but sometimes, on the other hand, they receive much kindness. The power of the latter over the former class of workers is due to a custom by which, when a caruso engages himself to work with a picconiere, he receives from his master a sum of from fifty to one hundred and fifty lire; and this sum must be repaid by the caruso to his master before he can leave his engagement. The repayment of this sum is naturally often difficult, and sometimes the caruso breaks through his customary duty, runs away from one master and engages himself to another, leaving his old employer to his legal rights. But these have little attraction for the Sicilian picconiere; he more often resorts to the stick and the

is more productive of disturbance and outrage, than a long-continued and grinding misery; so that it is not wonderful that amongst the sulphur-miners there have been formed the combinations of workmen which are known in Sicily as "Fasci," and that in one place at least in the sulphur districts (Valguarnera), the discontent has shown itself in an outburst accompanied by conflagrations and brutal violence.

If we turn from the condition of the sulphur-miners to that of the rural population, we find a great complication. Some people write as though the landsystem of Sicily was one and indivisible; whereas, in fact, it differs from province to province, from circondario to circondario, from commune to com

sessed "sixteen fair ships, twenty her immemorial fair on each 25th of vessels trading to the North Seas, and July. No commercial business has twenty-four small boats employed in been done for generations. Not long the home fishery;" but in the twenty- ago, harvest-men went there to be fourth year of Edward I. a crushing hired. And the name still lives in the blow fell upon it. The town had built people's mouths; for by Dunwich fairand fitted out, at its own proper cost day, say old-fashioned farmers, their for defence of the realm, eleven ships turnip-sowing should be done. of war- one no doubt with the traditional name "Demoiselle of Dunwich

most of them having crews of seventy men. Four were sunk by the French, and many more were lost, costing the lives of five hundred Dunwich seamen, besides the value of ships and artillery.

From that time forth, calamity succeeded to calamity; till in the reign of King Edward III., "King of the Sea," his turbulent waves overwhelmed "by a private pique of nature," as Camden quaintly says - -no less than four hundred houses in one disastrous year. Then the harbor became useless, and the lucrative trade of the old town was diverted to a newly opened harbor at upstart Walberswick. This has, in its turn, silted up within the last few years.

Dunwich was, and is not.

Of her secular edifices none are left; of her fifty-two churches but one - the ruin on the cliff; and there does yet remain the skeleton of a 'spital, overgrown by ivy, and the walls, likewise made picturesque by ivy, and pierced by a picturesque gate, which surround it. This hospital was placed outside the old city- well on the landward side of it to receive poor lepers, who might not be suffered within the walls. The last mark of greatness left to Dunwich was that the poor village of some two hundred souls ranked as a corporate borough, and returned two members to Parliament. People profanely said that one human body incarnated the whole corporation. In one man resided the official persons of recorder, two bailiffs, a round dozen of aldermen, two dozen common councilmen, and a couple of magistrates; and the composite gentleman represented himself in the House of Commons.

And Dunwich yet pretends to hold

And one peculiar charm yet clings to poor Dunwich a wild white rose, the Dunwich rose, which graces no spo' in England but her desolate heath.

H. M. DOUGHTY.

From The Spectator.

THE STATE OF SICILY.

[FROM A CORRESPONDENT.] DR. NAPOLEONE COLAJANNI, a Radical member of the Italian Parliament, and a man long and familiarly acquainted with Sicily, has recently published at Rome a pamphlet entitled "In Sicilia," in which he discusses the causes of the recent troubles in the island, and the conduct of the government in relation to them. Dr. Colajanni is, we believe, a man who bears the reputation of honor and veracity; and his book, so far as it relates to the condition of the Sicilians - with which only we shall now deal - appears to us to bear internal evidence of a desire not to exaggerate, and of a general fairness of mind. We possess no knowledge of Sicily which could enable us to judge of the work from an independent point of view, and therefore it is well that the writer impresses us as a fair man, and that he often justifies his conclusions by reference to documents and the writings of others on the state of Sicily, amongst whom may be mentioned Signor Sonnino, the present minister of finance for Italy.

The troubles in Sicily, which have attracted so much attention recently, are, according to our author, the outcome not so much of any socialistic or other political excitement, as of certain recent economic changes operating on a society afflicted with many old infirmities, infirmities which seemed bearable to those accustomed to them till

miserable, but the hours of labor are not excessive, and an eight-hours regulation would, it seems, have little operation in the sulphur-mines of Sicily. The question whether the hard and early labor undertaken by these carusi does or does not produce a physical degeneration has been much discussed, but apparently still remains sub judice.

As to the actual workers of the sulphur, their condition seems as bad as that of their carriers. Their wages oscillate between one lira fifty centesimi, and three lire a day, and this is subject practically to a heavy deduction of from twenty-five to fifty per cent. by reason of the prevalence of the truck system, that is the payment of the wages not in specie but in goods supplied by the masters. But what brings the greatest discontent into the mining district is this, that the price of sulphur has, for the last fifteen years, gone down almost incessantly, and with it the wages of the miners, so that they are now receiving about half only their former rates of wages; and there can be no doubt that a sudden fall from

certain new sources of trouble and new | knife, and pursues sometimes his runstrains were superimposed upon them. away servant sometimes the new The rural class in Sicily constitutes master, who, by the custom, has beabout three-fourths of the entire popu- come liable for the debt of his servant. lation, the rest consisting of the aristo- Hence arise frequent cases of vendetta cratic classes, the galantuomini or classi and of personal outrages. The dwelldirigenti, which are very few in num-ings of these miners are said to be very ber, and the sulphur-miners. The sulphur-mines are found in the provinces of Girgenti, Caltanisetta, Catania, and Palermo, but chiefly in the two former. The mines are worked by the men who actually extract the substance, and are known as picconieri; they employ youths between the ages of eight and twenty, who are known as carusi, who carry the substance from the place where it is dug to the calcherono, the place where the sulphur is melted and brought into the form of cakes. These workmen are all paid in proportion to the greater or less distance which the sulphur has to be carried and the length and steepness of the ladder which has to be ascended. The carusi have been objects of great sympathy on the part of many visitors to Sicily; and their lot is not an easy or light one; but, according to our author, their woes have been exaggerated. They receive from seventy centesimi to two lire a day (twenty-eight or twentynine lire go to our pound sterling), but few receive the larger figure. Sometimes the carusi are treated with great harshness by their masters, the picco- comparative comfort to actual poverty nieri; but sometimes, on the other hand, they receive much kindness. The power of the latter over the former class of workers is due to a custom by which, when a caruso engages himself to work with a picconiere, he re-tions of workmen which are known in ceives from his master a sum of from fifty to one hundred and fifty lire; and this sum must be repaid by the caruso to his master before he can leave his engagement. The repayment of this sum is naturally often difficult, and If we turn from the condition of the sometimes the caruso breaks through sulphur-miners to that of the rural pophis customary duty, runs away from ulation, we find a great complication. one master and engages himself to an- Some people write as though the landother, leaving his old employer to his system of Sicily was one and indivislegal rights. But these have little at-ible; whereas, in fact, it differs from traction for the Sicilian picconiere; he province to province, from circondario more often resorts to the stick and the to circondario, from commune to com

is more productive of disturbance and outrage, than a long-continued and grinding misery; so that it is not wonderful that amongst the sulphur-miners there have been formed the combina

Sicily as "Fasci," and that in one place at least in the sulphur districts (Valguarnera), the discontent has shown itself in an outburst accompanied by conflagrations and brutal violence.