In Iceland they are not numerous; but every flock has a trained ram, which, let the night be ever so dark and tempestuous, leads the sheep to their fold. In many countries shepherds know the countenances of every sheep; and among the Peruvian mountains, they not only observe their increase and decrease, but keep a strict account of the day on which every lamb is ewed; and on which every sheep dies. Pales, the Roman goddess of shepherds, and whose annual festival was on the 21st April, was unknown to the Greeks; whose chief rural deity was PAN;-a name synonymous with universal nature. When the Tuscan and other Italian peasants wanted a good crop of corn, they offered ears of corn; and when a good vintage, branches of grapes: but if they desired a good lambing season, they offered large pails of milk. In the early ages of mankind, says Porphyry, every man was a priest in his own family; and the only sacrifices were fruits and vegetables. A few vestiges of this patriarchal mode of life still remain. They are found in Java; in some parts of America; and even in Greenland; where examples are occasionally presented of the manners and customs of ancient times. . It is curious, however, to remark, that countries, once occupied chiefly by shepherds, are in the present age occupied in the same manner. It is not thus with the other pursuits of life. The Dutch now live like gardeners, and fishermen; their Batavian ancestors like herdsmen and the Britons, once living like hunters and hewers of wood, are now merchants, manufacturers, and agriculturists. V. It is also curious to remark, that the hunting and shepherd states 1 were never known to exist in any quarter of the torrid zone. But in Tartary they have prevailed from the earliest ages: and it is said, that when Ghengis Khan conquered China, there was a deliberation in his council, as to the propriety of destroying all the Chinese; in order that the whole of that immense empire might be converted into pastures for flocks and herds. So agreeable is the shepherd's life, that even Jews have taken to it. In the government of Cherson2 there is a body of them, consisting of four thousand; who, having left their native trades in Poland, cultivate the soil, given them by Alexander, emperor of Russia; and live in the patriarchal manner of former ages. Spenser seems to have taken great pleasure in painting this mode of life. The time was once, in my first prime of years, To follow sheep and shepherd's base attire. And leaving home, to royal court I sought, And in the prince's garden daily wrought: There I beheld such vainness, as I never thought! Kaims, i. p. 103. Second Ed. Solomon, the converted Polish rabbi, Letter to the Rev. C. S. Hawtrey, dated Kremenchug, May 24, O. S. 1819. With sight whereof soon cloy'd, and long deluded From native home, and spent my youth in vain, And this sweet peace, whose lack did then appear. I from thenceforth have learned to love more dear Faerie Queene, B. vi. Cant. ix. St. 24, 25. VI. In Spain the country has received great injury, not so much from the number of Merino flocks, as from the custom, which has prevailed, for many centuries, of traversing every year the plains and mountains of the two Castiles, Biscay, and Arragon; Leon, Estremadura, and Andalusia. In these peregrinations, they do so much injury, that in one province (Estremadura), there are only 200,000 inhabitants; when it is capable of maintaining upwards of two millions. In 1778 there were seven flocks, which amounted in number to no less than 220,0001. Of these the Duke of Infantado had one flock, consisting of forty thousand; the six remaining flocks consisted of thirty thousand each; belonging to the Countess of Campo Negretti; the Marquis Perales; the Duke of Bejar; and the convents of Guadaloupe, Paular, and the Escurial. The mesta seems to have obtained, also, in ancient Italy; for the shepherds used to drive their flocks into Calabria in summer, and into Lucania in winter. This 1 Dillon, Trav. Spain, p. 47, 4to. " is what Horace probably alludes to, when he says that his sheep fed in agris longinquis1. In ancient Britain, too, the shepherds, called Ceangi, traversed the plains with their flocks and herds; and vestiges of them2 remain even to the present day. 3 CHAPTER V. ZENO3 was accustomed to call the vine," the flower of beauty." The painter says, "open thine eyes, and I will delight thee;" the philosopher," attend, and I will instruct thee;" the musician, "listen, and I will subdue thee." The passions of the soul, assuredly, are more obsequious to music than to any other art. other art. This power to subdue has procured music, it must be confessed, too much attention in this age of flippancy and refinement. Young ladies play airs, as spiders spin cobwebs-to catch flies. The flies are caught. But Crabbe shall tell us the result."Full well," says he, "Full well we know, that many a favourite air, That charms a party, fails to charm a pair. And as Augusta play'd, she look'd around, To see if one was dying at the sound. But all were gone—a husband, wrapt in gloom, Music gives an ambrosial character to every thing. But of all instruments the Eolian harp, for a time, gives the Epist. viii. 1. 6. 2 Baxter, Gloss. Britt. p. 75. 3 Diog. Laert. lib. vii. sec. 23. VOL. II. X greatest play to the imagination of the poet'. Nature operates upon this instrument invisibly; and the soul seems at one moment to be wafted to the empyrean; at another it is hushed into the melody of tranquillity ;sounds become, as it were, embodied; and the soul almost visible. It has been justly observed, that of all relaxations for the poor, the most delightful would be that of music. This art it is, that gives such a charm to the winter evenings of the French and German peasantry. A taste of this kind it would be wise in masters and magistrates to encourage; since it would tend to soften their hearts, and civilize their manners. The German with his flute, the Frenchman with his violin, the Spaniard with his guitar, and the Italian with his mandolino, are far more graceful to the imagination, of English boxers and wrestlers. hoped, English lands may be more farmers again be known; the peasantry again smile; have than whole groupes One day, it One day, it may be equally divided; small The Javanese have a tradition, that their first idea of music arose from the circumstance of some one of their ancestors having heard the air make a melodious sound, as it passed through a bamboo tube, which hung accidentally on a tree, and was induced to imitate it. Thus they fable that music came from Heaven. In some of the Austral Asian Islands they have a curious species of Eolian instrument, formed of bamboo. Mons. Labillardiere listened to one hanging vertically by the sea-shore. It elicited some fine cadences, intermixed with discordant notes. "I cannot convey a better idea of this in "than by comparing its notes to those of the Har * Raffles' Hist. Java, i. p. 472. + Voy. in Search of La Perouse, by D'Entrecasteaux. Vol. i. 349–350. |