"What is meant by 'milch kine'?" is asked. Tower, as the deep-domed Epicurean Rings to the roar of an angel onset. The last word of line three, of course, should be "empyrean." From the same class came he who, giving the rule for an English word from prepositions governing the ablative, produced this new version of the concluding lines: One of the careless promptly answers, "Male cows." l. "Who was Herod's son?" A. "Herodotus." 2. "Derive Necto, I bind." A. "Neck-tie." 2. "What fruit did Aaron's rod bear?" A. "A kind of plum." 2. "What Italian poet did Surrey imitate?" Ans. 1. "Plutarch," leading to Ans. 2, "Pluto." Now for specimens of translations by the careless: "Cæsar duodecim millia passuum hac nocte progressus est," "Cæsar this night marched twelve million miles." This historical fact was received with perfect equanimity by the remainder of the form in whose presence it was propounded. A boy put a ready repartee, on the tu quoque principle, into the mouth of his teacher by translating "Dira viro facies," "You will make an awful man.' "" "Phi lippus Neapoli est," " Philip is Napoleon." ὦ χαιρ' Αθήνη, χαῖρε Διογενές τέκνον, “Ο hail Athene, daughter of Diogenes!" "Deformat faciem non una cicatrix," "Not a single cockatrice shows its ugly head." "Pecori vago, ""The wandering peccary." Aspice bis senos cycnos," "Behold two old poets"-such flowers of translation are culled from the careless. It was evidently one of the same desperate race who wrote, under dictation, this version of a stanza of Tennyson's on Milton: Whose Titan angels, Gabriel, Abdiel, Starred from Jehovah's gorgeous armouries, His super, subter, sub, addemus, Et in, de statu Nicodemus, where for "Nicodemus" the "PublicSchool Latin Primer" gives "si dicemus." 5. A large class is that of the Conceited-ignorant, productive of rich fruit in the way of scholastic facetia. From history papers by the conceited-ignorant we select a few examples of their involuntary witticisms: Q. "What were the causes of the great rebellion?" A. "The causes of the great rebellion were - the excommunication of England by the pope, the pulling down of churches by the Commonwealth, and then the kingdom rang with the cry No popery.' 2. "What do you know of Milton as an author?" A. "Milton's pen laboured in the reign of Charles, and he wrote Paridise Lost and Paridise Found." "Define democracy." A. "Government by dukes and dea cons.' στησόν με κἀξίδρυσον, ὡς πωθώμεθα not meaning to express himself in such a despairing way as one of the eccentric imagined, when he translated, "Place me and put me in a sitting posture, that we may moulder wherever we are." The next is rather wild : The following is also from a history | slander." The blind Edipus says to Anpaper by a conceited-ignorant: -"In the tigone, reign of Charles II. no one was allowed to hold a high position in the army or navy or in the Church. Consequently Buckingham and others had to leave, because they did not belong to the Church. Habeas Corpus Act was that no one need stay in prison longer than he liked." The next is from an essay on York: "There is something that it is noted for called the Euburacum of the Roman period. It is also noted for its cathedral, which is built in the most Gothic eficial stile in the world." Of Durham we are told that it is "celebrated as the place where the Venerable Archdeacon Beed died." So much for the conceited-ignorant. Only one class now remains, viz. :— 6. The Eccentric. - This class of boy exhibits perhaps more involuntary displays of humour than any other. The eccentric are boys who seem to suffer from an obliquity of mental vision. They see more in words than is meant. A thing goes into their heads one thing and comes out quite another. They are caught by a similarity of sound or form in words. One expression reminds them of another, for which it is at once mistaken. The eccentric are never dullards: they show very often a considerable amount of a perverse kind of ingenuity, as may be seen in their translations, e.g.: ἐχθβὰ γὰρ ἡ 'πιουσα μητρυία τεκνοὶς τοῖς πρόσθ', ἐχίδνης οὐδὲν ἠπιωτέρα. "For hateful is the stepmother who drinks before her children, and nothing is more soothing than an adder." 66 Purpureos quoties deperdit terra colores, Formosas quoties populus alba comas! How often is the earth discoloured with blood! How often have handsome people grey hair. We give a few more translations by the eccentric: ἀνωφελὴς κατ' οἶκον ἵδρυται γυνή, “ The useless woman sweats about the house." effulgent, ostroque decori," "The captains "Ipsique in puppibus auro ductores late with gold and purple on their sterns." themselves glitter from afar, decorated nos," "And the Britons with tails sepa- Ter circum Iliacos raptaverat Hectora muros, Companions that I have loved more than a dilexi fraterno more sodales, 66 brother. Trepidos cives," "Three-footed citi"Cæsar cohortatus suos," "Cæsar zens." having drawn up his men into cohorts." Pilumnusque illi quartus pater," "And Pilumnus his four father." 66 The next specimen points to a more primitive state of things than Xenophon meant to describe, Ovтоι áλкμúтaтоι hoav, καὶ εἰς χειρὼς ἤεσαν, “ These men were very warlike, and went on their hands." "Dido vento reditura secundo," "Dido soon to return with her second wind." "Effigies veterum avorum," "Likenesses of old birds." This would seem to be a disrespectful way of speaking of the great men of old. "Nulla mora est," "No woman is a character." Was this rendering sug-Dura fugæ mala, dura belli, gested by Pope's malicious line Most women have no character at all? Mille habet ornatus, mille decenter habet, Dura navis, The hard ship, and the hardship of flight and war. "Regio victu atque cultu vitam agebant," "They lived in a conquered and "Vitaverat mortem,” cultivated land." "He had survived death." Præsentemque viris intentant omnia mortem, And all things portend immediate death by poison. "Sedesque discretas piorum," "Reserved seats for the pious.” οὐ σθένω πόσι, "I do not groan for " Le husband." my mille romain était de mille pas," "The Roman mile was not a mile." It is chiefly in translations such as these that the eccentric show their wit. Now and then they are good in composition, as thus, "He complained that he was ill-used," 66 Questus est se illusum esse." "He swears that this is true," "Damnat hæc vera esse." Sometimes they are good as catechumens, e.g. — Q."What is a dependent sentence?" A. "One that hangs on by its clause." 2. "Derive Pontifex." A. "From Pons, a bridge, as we say Arch bishop." The following "character of Gideon" will repay examination. It is curiously ingenious, though very absurd. "Gideon was a true unbelieving Jew. Still he was a good man, though rather idolatrous.” This random collection of scholastic jests shall be concluded with two remarks. One has been made before, viz., that a large majority of these facetia are to the writer's knowledge genuine. He believes them all to be so, and has refrained from adding to the list others, the genuineness of which, though perhaps not doubtful, is not within his own personal knowledge. Who shall say, then, that a schoolmaster's life can never be amusing? Secondly, these jokes lose much of their flavour when thus printed one after another. Think how refreshing to the wearied examiner, sitting up half the night to look over papers, to come now and then across an oasis of this kind in the desert of stupidly correct or stupidly incorrect performances. In form, too, think how much the humour of the thing is enhanced by the innocent, or puzzled, or conceited, or sheepish, or desperate look of the victim as he utters his follies. Think how tickling the inappropriateness, the semiimpropriety, of these utterances in a scene where a certain amount of decorum must be observed, and then consider whether the hours spent by a schoolmaster in school have not their amusing side. He is like some of the books he uses. combines amusement with instruction. J. H. RAVEN. He From Fraser's Magazine. A MONK'S DAILY LIFE. WE have all some faint poetical, pictorial, or theatrical notion of monks. Ribera at the National Gallery shows us how they prayed with wan faces, half-darkened with the shadowing cowl. Sir Walter Scott has sketched them in a hundred picturesque ways before altars and beside graves. Novelists have given us many a good monk, and checkmated us with many a wicked one. In volume after volume we have had the murderous monk, the robber monk, the hermit monk, the bibulous monk, the felonious monk, and the poisoning monk, and yet, after all, we know very little how monks really lived, or how they spent their hours. We are apt to forget that the duties of monastic life were very varied · - that there was scope in the abbey and the priory for intellects of all degrees-that there were as many sorts of employment within a monastery as there are in a modern factory, and that monastic establishments were, as a rule, admirably governed, and conducted in a business-like way. Let us take, first, the sacristan. It was his duty to provide bread and wine, and wax lights for the high altar and the chantry chapels. He kept a tun of wine at a time in his exchequer, which was sometimes (as in Durham Cathedral) in the aisle of the church. He had to go his rounds daily, see to the great stained glass windows, and inspect the leaden roof; he had also to mind that the bells were sound, and the bell-ropes safe, and he attended the scrubbing and washing of the church. He spent many hours, we may be sure, on roof and tower, and in the dusty belfry among the bells, with none but the whirling martins witness of his peering watchfulness. The sacristan had also the responsible duty of nightly pacing nave and aisle, and locking up the keys of every shrine, which were required to be laid ready for the priests of each altar between seven and eight A.M. Severe punctilious men, no doubt, these sacristans were, with a due sense of the rich jewels and golden plate of the altars they locked up, and never tired of turning their torches or lanterns on dark corners where felons might lurk in ambush for gem-adorned pix or gilded chalice. To the sacristan the bishop, on his installation, always solemnly confided the great keys of the cathedral. Then there was the chamberlain, sometimes a prebendary, who provided the linsey-wolsey shirts and sheets for the | ham Priory) was to provide figs, nuts, and monks. He kept tailors at work, to make spices to comfort and console the digestheir woollen socks and underclothing; tions of the monks when worn out by the he was overseer over the dormitory, and prayers and austerities of Lent, and to kept it supplied with beds, linen, and keep constant fire in the common room, towels; he found shoes and gowns for the so that the brothers might warm themmonks; and provided for the accommoda- selves whenever they pleased. It was tion of that ceaseless flood of guests who his duty to always have a hogshead of poured into monasteries in the ages wine ready for the use of the brothers, before hotels. especially for the "O Sapientia," or annual festival between Martinmas and Christmas, when the prior and convent were modestly feasted on cakes and ale. The cellarer was a red-faced person, more busy with pots and pans than psalmbook or breviary; addicted to diving into subterranean cellars, and coming up repeating a holy text and wiping his blushing lips; he had charge of all the brimming granaries, bursting store-houses, and odorous cellars of the monastery. It was he who solemnly doled out flour to the bake-house, malt to the brewery, salt meat to the kitchen, cheese, wine, and beer to the refectory, hay to the stables, and wood to the ovens; and he had many obsequious, grumbling, and thirsty servants under him. The hospitalarius (hostler) presided in the guest-hall, and attended to the wants of pilgrims, and, indeed, of all strangers. 66 But, leaving the farm-servants, the shepherds, the swineherds, the red-faced cooks, etc., we must pass to the convent barber. Whether he was as nimble, gossiping, and sly as Figaro, or whether he was subdued by the cloister gloom into a sort of mere humble ecclesiastic, quite chapfallen, without joke or jibe, except in surreptitious whispers to younger brothers, we know not, but this is certain, that all his avocations were not of the liveliest, for in some monasteries at least it was his province to act as undertaker and grave-digger to the whole convent. To the almoner was confided the dis- It was his special duty, we are told, for tribution of the loaves and other alms of instance, when a grave and reverend prior the monastery to the jostling and quar- died to put boots on the corpse and to relling poor. Every cathedral was trustee wind it in a cowl. He had to remove the for endless bequests of this kind. There body, immediately after death, from the was also the pittancer, who gave out all prior's lodgings to the terrible apartment pittances or bequests for extra allowances in the infirmary called "the dead man's and indulgences to the brotherhood, on the chamber." The night before a funeral, seven great festivals or the anniversaries the barber with assistants helped to reof founders, when the convent held back move the body again from the dead man's its regular commons. To quote Mr. Val-chamber to a chapel opposite, where it entine Green, the pittancer was, in academic phrase, "the furnisher of the gaudies." The pittancer had also a good deal of country riding, for all the live cattle of the convent were under his care. The prior's chaplain had, besides his prayers, to act as steward to the prior. He received all the broad gold pieces paid to the prior by his tenants and purchased for him his fur robes, his pouches, shoes, and general raiment. He had to look after the hall-furniture, and to see that the prior's servants were honest, diligent, and good-tempered. He sometimes kept the prior's plate and treasure, and, in such cases, always gave it out and personally received it again. He had the right to engage and pay off all the prior's gentlemen and yeomen, and it was his duty to discharge (when he could) all the prior's debts. There was often attached to a monastery an officer who was called the master of the common room. His duty (in DurVOL. XIII. 628 LIVING AGE. was watched all night by the alms-children of the convent, who read David's Psalms over the waxen corse, while the monks sat bowed at its feet mourning silently. The next morning there was a solemn funeral service in the chapter room, amid fumes of incense and waving censers, and then the sable procession moved on in funeral march, through the prior's parlour into the cemetery garth of the monastery, where many previous priors, good and bad, lay under their grand marble stones. The barber had to take due care to lay on the prior's cold breast a silver or waxen chalice, and his own bed was generally held over the body by four monks, up to the edge of the grave. The tumbary had care of the tombs, and probably received and accounted for the offerings on the various shrines. This post was in the gift of the bishop. The precentor or chanter was a very pope among the chorister-boys. He had the direction of the whole choral service. He provided the missals and anthem-books, the chapel, and the watchful tumbarius and saw to the repair of the organs. He were called obedientaries, and were the was also the librarian and registrar of the principal fixed officers of the monastery convent, penned warrants and letters for under the prior. Imagine any morning of the chapter, and had custody of the ab- the week, at the same hour, the sacristan bey seal. The precentor had also the counting out huge candles for a Candlesupervision of the scriptorium or tran- mas festival, the chamberlain giving out scribing-room (in Worcester, a glazed-in robes to the monks, the almoner doling part of the cloister) where the novices his alms to a hungry crowd, the pittancer copied MSS. There is at present, in the buying his fowls and pigeons for a gaudy library of Benet College, Cambridge, a day, the coquinarius cutting up a fat deer, very fine manuscript Bible in folio on vel- the infirmarius feeling the pulse of a sick lum, clearly and beautifully written, which brother, the barber shaving a long-locked was copied in Worcester scriptorium in novice, the tumbarius watching the repair the reign of Henry II. The salary of a of a knight's tomb, and our readers will precentor, prior to 1314, was about 40s. see that the monk's life was neither a dull, per annum. a monotonous, nor an idle one, and that there was scope in a monastery for many tastes, tempers, and degrees of intellect. At Worcester there was also a magister capella, who it is supposed presided over the priests of the chapels in the cathedral, particularly St. Mary's and the infirmary. The bell-ringers were sometimes employed in cleaning the church, and taking care of the church - vestments and the church-plate. They slept over the vestry, or in some little rooms leading out of the aisles. It was the care of these men to brush those great masses of cloth-of-gold and rich coloured needlework which were worn by the abbots and bishops of the Middle Ages, and to polish those bowls and chalices that were sent by wagonloads to the goldsmith's furnace at the Reformation. Of the social importance of the coquinarius or kitchener no one can dispute who knows how often, when other vices are checked, the old Adam breaks out in gluttony. That fact is seen every day among "temperance" missionaries. The coquinarius had to roast the venison haunch, devise the "subtleties" of the dessert for the abbot, and frame the marchpanes and scented delicacies of powdered almond in fashion in the Middle Ages. It appears from the records of Evesham Abbey that he also marketed and bought meat and fish for the convent. He probably also hired the inferior cooks, and ruled the whole hot region of the kitchen with a rod of iron,- the spit. Those important officers the stern sub- prior, the pompous sacristan, the red-faced cellarer, the polite chamberlain, the courteous hospitalarius, the mild almoner, the cheery pittancer, the jolly coquinarius, the mournful infirmarius (who superintended the sick monks, provided physic and all necessaries, and washed and dressed the bodies for burial), the enthusiastic precentor, the stately master of The monk's life, we hold from these facts, was by no means necessarily an inactive one. If no student, and incapable of unceasing return to prayer and praise, the energetic monk had many openings for his surplus energy. He could sweep the church or toll the great bells; he could learn masonry, and study the structure of those beautiful arches which he helped to raise; or if of a financial turn there were the prior's accounts to keep and rents to regulate. He could cook, or brew, or wash, or dig, or build; he could work in the orchards or assist in the abbot's stables; he could drive the plough or wield the axe; he could visit the poor or tend the leper at the gate; he could lend the infirmary help, dig a grave, or make the robes of the brethren; he could fish for the convent, or tend the fowls and turkeys. For the studious in those wild times, the convent library must have been a foreshadow of paradise; there they could pore over the subtleties of Origen, or the glories of him of the golden mouth; they could spend years over the inexhaustible fathers; or could knot their brains with theological difficulties. The ambitious could study the various modes of attaining ecclesiastical power, and the enthusiast could think himself into trances such as had visited the saints of whom he read. The monastery treasury, the novices' school, and the singing-school were frequently situated in the cloister, or very near where the dormitory door opened. The rap of the ferule and the cries of the boys, were less disturbing there in the long arched walk where the studious and the contemplative loved to pace till their feet hollowed out the very stones. The abbey treasure was sometimes stored over |