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this man do? Jesus saith unto him, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? Follow thou Me. Then went this saying abroad among the brethren, that that disciple should not die: yet Jesus said not unto him, He shall not die; but, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee ?"1 The opinion seems never to have wholly ceased; Saint Augustine and Saint Jerome wrote against it; more lately, it was revived by James Le Fevre d'Etaples and Florentinius, whom Tillemont has refuted.2

It was, perhaps, the origin of the many legends of the Wandering Jew, of whom, says Sir Thomas Browne, "there is a formall account set downe by Matthew Paris, from the report of an Armenian Bishop; who came into this kingdome about foure hundred yeares agoe, and had often entertained this wanderer at his table. That he was then alive, was first called Cartaphilus, was keeper of the Judgement Hall, whence thrusting out our Saviour with expostulation for His stay,3 was condemned to stay untill His returne; was after baptised by Ananias, and by the name of Joseph; was thirty yeares old in the dayes of our Saviour, remembered the Saints

1 St John's Gospel, cap. xxi. v. 21-23.

2 Butler's Lives of the Saints, vol. ii. p. 1087.

3" Vade quid moruris?" "Ego vado, tu autem morare donec venio."

that arised with Him, the making of the Apostles' Creed, and their severall peregrinations.”1

To this pair of immortals, a third has been added by a learned Frenchman, Jacques d'Auzoles, sieur de La Peyre, who was called by his admirers The Prince of Chronologists. It was the misfortune of this gentleman to be haunted by Melchisedec. He published at Paris a work on the Epiphany, proving that the three Magi who came to worship the Infant Saviour at Bethlehem, were Enoch, Elias, and Melchisedec, and that the gifts which they laid at His feet were the offerings which Abraham had made to Melchisedec. Having thus established that the mysterious High Priest was on earth at the beginning of the Christian era, Monsieur Jacques probably found little difficulty in demonstrating that he was alive in 1622. Such at least was the scope of a work on Melchidesech, which he gave to the world in that year,2 and which I beg to suggest to our Romance writers as an unpolluted well of fiction. Dr Croly and others have exhausted the Wandering Jew; but the lively and interesting subject of Melchisedec is yet untouched.

1 Sir T. Browne's Vulgar Errors, b. vii. c. 17, p. 379. It is said that the immortal Wanderer appeared in Saxony in the year 1604. Cluveri Hist. Epitome, p. 637, edit. Amstel. 1668.

2 Biog. Univ. t. lvi. p. 585...

LVI.

RATS.

"Now, Muse, let's sing of Rats."-GRAINGER.

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"THERE are no rats in the district of Buchan, in Scotland; and if they are brought thither from other places, they do not live," says Urban Chevreau. Professor Moir1 is mistaken in thinking this information new to Scotsmen; for Chevreau derived it from honest Hector Boece. "Nullus in hac regione mus major conspicitur," says that lover of the marvellous; "nec si importetur vitam ducere illic potest." Nor was Buchan the only district which was thought to be free from this odious animal. "Ther is not a ratt in Sutherland," says Sir Robert Gordon, "and if they doe come thither in shipps, from other pairts (which often happeneth), they die presentlie, how soone they doe smell of the aire of that cuntrey. And (which is strange) there is a great store and abundance of them in Catteynes, the verie nixt adjacent province, divyded onlie by a little strype or brook from Southerland."3

1 Table Talk, or Selections from the Ana, p. 76. Edinb. 1827. Constable's Miscellany, vol. x.

2 Boetii Scot. Hist. fol. 5. edit. 1575. The Bishop of Ross confirms the tale: "Nullus in hac regione mus major quem ratum dicunt, vel gignitur, vel aliunde importatus vivit."-Leslaeus, de Rebus Gestis Scotorum, p. 30.

3 Genealogy of Earl. of Sutherland, p. 7. Edinb. 1813.

Sir Robert lived in the days of Charles I., but his credulity is kept in countenance by Pennant, who, even so recently as 1769, was informed "that no rats had hitherto been observed in Breadalbane ;"1 and by the Reverend Norman M'Leod, who was minister of the parish of Morven, in Argyllshire, in the year 1794.

"It has been remarked of old," writes this gentleman, "that rats would not live in Morven ; this remark seems to be confirmed by several circumstances consistent with the knowledge of most of the inhabitants now alive. A few years ago, some vessels were put ashore by stress of weather in Lochalin Bay; by which circumstance, a vast number of rats flocked to the houses on each side of the harbour. So numerous and mischievous were they, that it was apprehended they would spread and overrun the whole parish; yet it happened that in a few years they disappeared, and none now are to be seen from one end of the parish to the other."2

The parish of Roseneath was equally blessed: "Here rats cannot exist," says the minister; "many have at different times been accidentally imported from vessels lying upon the shore; but were never known to live twelve months in the place. From

1 Pennant's Tour in Scot. ap. Pinkerton's Voyages and Travels, vol. iii. p. 48.

2 Stat. Acc. Scot. vol. x. p. 269. Edinb. 1794.

a prevailing opinion that the soil of this parish is hostile to that animal, some years ago, a West India planter actually carried out to Jamaica several casks of Roseneath earth, with a view to kill the rats that were destroying his sugar-canes. It is said this had not the desired effect; so," the reverend clergyman speculates, we lost a very valuable export. Had the experiment succeeded, this would have been a new and profitable trade for the proprietors; but, perhaps, by this time, the parish of Roseneath might have been no more!"1

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For the destruction of mice, Weckerus gives many recipes, which will doubtless be found equally potent against rats. "If you wish," says he, " to make mice blind, mix bruised sea-lettuce with bran and sweet wine, and lay it in their way; and the moment they taste it they will lose their eyesight. If you desire to drive them from your house, catch one, and skin his head; all the others will instantly scamper off. Or if you are bent on exterminating them utterly, take two or more live ones, place them in a pot, and hang it over a fire of ash-wood. Then you shall see sport; for as the pot gets warm, and the little captives begin to squeak and pipe, all the mice in the neighbourhood will rush to the spot, and dash headlong into the fire, as if to rescue their

1 Statist. Acc. of Scot. vol. iv. p. 76.

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