Certe populi qui despicit arctos
  Felices errore suo, quos ille timorum
  Maxumus, haud urget Lethi metus:  inde ruendi
  In ferrum mens prona viris, animae capaces
  Mortis, et ignavum rediturae parcere vitae.

Lucan.  Phars.  L. i.

  Thrice happy they beneath their northern skies
  Who that worst fear—­the fear of death—­despise—­
  Hence they no cares for this frail being feel,
  But rush undaunted on the pointed steel;
  Provoke approaching fate, and bravely scorn
  To spare that life which must so soon return.

The Druids were wont to teach in small cells, but lived in large buildings and fared sumptuously.  Some of the cells are remaining to this day, as at Ty Iltud, in Brecknockshire.

From these observations it is apparent that a portion of men extraordinary in their vast power over the human mind, and possessed of superior knowledge, were here before Caesar’s arrival, and that our ancestors were not such barbarians as the proud Roman would lead us to consider them.[11]

[11] See also “the Druids and their Times,” from the German of
Wieland, p. 20 of the present volume.

SELIM.

* * * * *

CURIOUS CUSTOM RELATING TO INHERITANCE.

Salmon, in his History of Hertfordshire, imagines that the East Saxon and Mercian kingdoms were, in the upper part of this county, separated from each other by the Ermin-street; and in the lower part, in the parish of Cheshunt, by a bank, which anciently reached from Middlesex through Theobald’s Park, across Goffe’s Lane, to Thunderfield Grove, over Beaumont Green, to Nineacres Wood.  There is a custom in the manor of Cheshunt, he says, “by which the elder brother inherits above the bank, and the youngest below it, in the same fields;—­which could not have been introduced but from the different laws of a different government.”

P.T.W.

* * * * *

ANECDOTE GALLERY.

* * * * *

ANECDOTES OF THE BAR.

(By a retired Barrister.)

Mr. Justice Lawrence possessed the advantage of a very handsome person, accompanied with a great share of dignity of manner.  His deportment was haughty; but it was one of pride unmarked with insolence.  He knew what was due to the station which he filled, and he exacted the respect to which it was entitled.  He crushed assumption and forward impudence by a look, and brought them down to the level of their own insignificance.  I recollect an instance of this on one occasion, when I attended him as counsel on a summons.  The Attorney on the opposite side was a Mr. Tomlinson, a man then in extensive practice, but forward, assuming, and self-sufficient.  He made some observation which offended the learned judge.  He rose haughtily from his chair, and without uttering a word, fixed his eyes on Tomlinson, and waved his hand towards the door.  Contempt could not have been conveyed half so expressively by any words which he could have used.  Tomlinson understood his meaning, and instantly retired.