affording especial pleasure by the use of the
word "majesty." Never had such honour
been paid before. The old kings of
Portugal had simply been regarded as
"highnesses."

Even now the natural cautiousness of the
new king was not quite overcome. On his
way to the capital he pretended that he
was merely engaged in some field-sport,
lest he might awaken suspicion in an
unlucky quarter; but a courier from the
archbishop, who met him about half-way with
an important despatch, so completely
reassured him as to render further vacillation
impossible. He at once hastened to the
bank of the Tagus, and finding two fishermen
with a barque, crossed over to Lisbon,
and landed at the gate of the palace, where
an enthusiastic throng was ready to receive
him, nobody suspecting that the little
insignificant boat contained the object of their
anxiety. Indeed he passed through the
crowd unnoticed, and it was not till he had
been placed on the throne, which stood on
a sort of scaffold, that he was saluted amid
general acclamations as King of Portugal.
On the 15th of the month he was crowned
in the cathedral with all possible magnificence.
On this grand tableau let the curtain
fall.

A QUESTION OF PRIORITY.

BEFORE entering on the particular question
to which I am about to refer, let me preface it,
as the late excellent President Lincoln was
accustomed to preface his arguments, by "a
little story." The story occurs in that
delightful collection, the Arabian Nights, which
every sane man and woman and child has read,
or ought to read, and narrates how a certain
merchant fell into a very singular difficulty.
The merchant was engaged in eating dates by
the roadside under the shadow of a tree, thinking
harm of no one, and throwing away the
date-stones right and left. Suddenly a furious
genius of enormous stature started up, the
merchant knew not whence, with a naked
scimitar in his hand, and advanced towards
him, threatening to kill him.

"Of what crime, alas! can I, my good lord,
have been guilty towards you, to deserve the
loss of life?" said the merchant.

"I have sworn to slay thee, as thou hast
slain my son!"

"Good God!" answered the merchant, "how
can I have slain him? I do not know him, nor
have I ever seen him."

"Didst thou not," said the monster, "take
some dates from thy wallet, and throw away
the stones?"

"It is true," replied the merchant; "I don't
deny it."

"Well, then," said the genius, "thou hast
slain my son. Whilst thou wast throwing away
thy date-stones, my son passed by. One of them
struck him in the eye, and caused his death!"

Now I, as innocently as the good merchant,
got myself, unwittingly, into a similar dilemma,
by writing a paper in ALL THE YEAR ROUND
entitled, A Question of Ancestry: in which
I examined with, as I thought, the utmost
good faith and impartiality, the theory and
statements put forth in a very interesting
volume, entitled The Pedigree of the English,
by Dr. Thomas Nicholas (second edition), 1868.
The object of Dr. Nicholas's book was to show
that the English were not so much an Anglo-
Saxon as a Celtic people, and that the old
histories, based upon the sole authority of the
ignorant monk Gildas, were in this respect
untrustworthy. I thought the argument, as
stated and enforced by Dr. Nicholas, a very good
argument, and I adhere to that opinion still.
Eating, as it were, my dates, and throwing
away the stones—or, as it might be, rejecting
what was not to my literary palate—it appears
that an invisible genius—invisible and unknown
to me—of the name of Luke Owen Pike—a
Master of Arts, of Lincoln's-inn, Barrister-at-
Law —was passing by, and that he was hit very
hard indeed by the fact of my not noticing
a book on the very same subject which he had
published in the year 1866. My excuses to
Mr. Pike must be the same as those which
the merchant offered to the genius—that I did
not see his son, or, in other words, his book,
and that I was not aware of its existence. My
case, however, was not so bad as that of the
merchant. I did not slay Mr. Pike's mental
progeny, and have since had very great pleasure
in making its living acquaintance. By the
evidence of the title-page, it is clear that it
was published two years prior to the book of
Dr. Nicholas; Mr. Pike has an application to
the Court of Chancery pending, on the ground
that Dr. Nicholas has pirated his book. At
this present writing it is pending, but has not
been heard. The theory of both writers is
the same; the demolition of Gildas is equally
ruthless by both; and their belief in the
preponderance of the Celtic over the Anglo-Saxon
blood, in all except a very few counties, is
alike enthusiastic. Mr. Pike's book is entitled
The English and their Origin: a Prologue to
Authentic English History. Neither Mr. Pike
nor Dr. Nicholas has exhausted the inquiry, for
it has yet to be taken up by some one who
understands other branches of the old Celtic
language than the Welsh. Mr. Pike makes no
pretension to a knowledge of Erse and Gaelic, and
Dr. Nicholas makes very little. Mr. Pike rightly
says, in the concluding paragraph of his volume,
"The field is open, of course, to every student
to form his own ethnological conclusions. For
my own part, I shall be content if others are
found to do better what I have here attempted
to do. The road which I have passed over is
somewhat rugged in places, but it has been a
very pleasant road to me, and I have done what
little I could to make it smooth and pleasant