Life grew slow in the little drowsy seaport; the old tales of the Symplegades were stale and tedious; the Argonauts had become spiritless and corpulent and lazy.  One night a great gale swept in from the sea:  the earth fairly trembled under the repeated shocks of the breakers.  Old people looked troubled and young people looked scared, and on the worst night of all the convent bell was heard to toll, and then everybody feared something dreadful was happening to the nuns, and everybody lay still and hoped it would soon be over.  The nuns wondered who rang the bell; and when every one had denied all knowledge of it, it was known that most likely the devil had rung it, for it was a dreadful night, and such a one as he best likes to be out in.

In the morning, when the wind and the sea had gone down somewhat, the wreckers found a stark corpse among the rocks under the headland, lying with its face to the tower.  It was dreadfully mangled:  no one could identify it as being any one in particular, and it was impossible to know whether death had occurred by accident or intentionally; so it was shrouded and put away out of Christian burial in the common field of the unfortunate.  The nuns sang a requiem, as was their custom, and Maud prayed earnestly for all followers of the sea; and the echo of her miserere is the saddest line in the story of Jason’s Quest.

CHARLES WARREN STODDARD.

FOREBODINGS.

  What weight is this which presses on my soul? 
    Powerless to rise, I sink amidst the dust: 
  The days in solemn cycle o’er me roll,
    While, praying, I can only wait and trust.

  —­Trust the dear Hand that all my life has led
    Through pastures green, by waters pure and still: 
  If now He leads me through dark ways and dread,
    Shall I dare murmur, whatsoe’er His will?

DEER-PARKS.

There is nothing in England at the present day much more distinctly an institution of that country than its deer-parks.  Although it seems probable that the Saxons had some sort of enclosed or partially enclosed chases where deer were hunted or taken in the toils, the regular and systematic enclosure of parks would appear to have come in with the Normans.  According to the old Norman law, no subject could form a park without a grant from the Crown, or immemorial prescription, which was held presumptive evidence of such a grant.

On the Continent there would appear to have been much more strictness in this respect than in England.  “In April, 1656,” says Reresby in his travels, “I returned to Saumur, where I stayed two months:  then I went to Thouars in Brittany, where the duke of Tremouille hath his best house.  Thouars is looked upon as one of the best manors in all France, not so much for profit (a great extent of land there sometimes affording not much rent), but for greatness of tenure; five hundred gentlemen,