one season in which there were as many
taken in a single morning.

The reward for captured locusts is not paid
until they are dead and buried. Dead and
unburied they soon putrefy under a hot sun,
and breed pestilence. There is a point in the
Island called Monte Solario, about eighteen
hundred feet above the level of the sea.
Thither the locusts are all taken after they
have been soaked in boiling water; and having
in that way killed them by the sackful, in a
deep pit they bury them.

          ETERNAL LAMPS.

When we hear the word Lamp, we
involuntarily recall that beloved lamp of our
childhood, burning in the secret mountain-cavern,
and throwing its magic radiance
over so many of our winter nights —the
Wonderful Lamp of Aladdin; or we enter
in imagination the chapel of the Nativity at
Bethlehem, where the many golden and
jewelled luminaries, presents from kings and
emperors, hang like low stars within their
own rich twilight; or we think of the lamps
borne before the bride and bridegroom in
ancient Judea, like the torch of Hymen at
the weddings of old Greece and Rome —or of
those seven crystal vessels of supernatural
flame which St. George found in the enchanted
castle, and which he extinguished by means
of a goblet of precious liquor, to the
instantaneous and utter destruction of that palace
of illusions. By the help of the same word,
moreover, we can, if it so pleases us, penetrate
into that mosque in the city of Fez, where
nine hundred brazen lamps are said to
burn every night; or can travel into the
obscure antiquity of Egypt (the native country
of these artificial illuminators, as some
think), and be present at the Feast of Lamps
there held annually, according, as Herodotus
reports. Our present business, however, is
not with any of these; but rather with that
''bright consummate flower" of all lamps —the
lamp which burns perpetually.

There are two kinds of Eternal Lamps—
one which is said to be found in tombs; and
one which the Rosicrucians and other mystical
philosophers conceived they could make, and
which was to be of use to them in their
scientific experiments. Of the former kind
we hear more frequently and have fuller
accounts, than of the latter. The poet Cowley,
in a note on this subject, expresses an opinion
that the idea of sepulchral lamps came from
the East, "where there was such infinite
expense and curiosity bestowed upon sepulchres."
Be this as it may, it is chiefly in connexion
with ancient Roman tombs that we
read of the discovery of Eternal Lamps.
According to the belief once entertained, the
Romans placed these lights in the mausoleums
of their friends and relations, as a
mark of honour; here it was asserted they
continued burning without any waste, and
in defiance of ordinary natural laws, as long
as the air was excluded from them; but,
immediately upon the opening of the tomb,
the rare and apparently supernatural flame
was extinguished. This circumstance
furnished Cowley with a simile in describing
the violent death of Ammon by the hand of
Jonathan:

'Twixt his right ribs deep pierced the furious blade,
And open'd wide those secret vessels where
Life's light goes out when first they let in air.

It is affirmed that, about the middle of the
sixteenth century, during the pontificate of
Paul III., an ancient tomb was discovered in
the Via Appia; which, from an inscription
upon it, was supposed to be the burial-place
of Cicero's daughter Tullia. In this sepulchre
was found the body of a woman, with her hair
done up in tresses, and tied with a golden
thread; also a lighted lamp, which, if the
story were true, must have been burning for
at least one thousand five hundred and fifty
years. But this admirable spectacle did not
last long. The contents of the mausoleum
were no sooner influenced by the exterior air,
than the light extinguished itself; and the
body —fading like a ghost before the eyes of
the beholders —fell into a heap of formless
dust.

Between four and five centuries previous to
this, a lamp, which had been burning for a
still longer period, is said to have been
unearthed in a tomb supposed to contain
the body of Pallas, the son of Evander,
mentioned by Virgil. It must have been
lying there for above two thousand two
hundred years. A countryman in the
neighbourhood of Rome, happening to dig a
little deeper than usual in his field, came upon
the body of a man taller than the city wall,
and enclosed in a stone coffin with an inscription
establishing the identity of the corpse.
An immense gash, measuring four feet and a
half, was in the middle of the beast —the
very gash inflicted by the spear of Turnus;
and over the head there was a burning lamp.
William of Malmesbury, whose history
contains an account of this matter, says that the
lamp was "constructed by magical art; so
that no violent blast, no dripping of water,
could extinguish it. While many were lost
in admiration at this, one person (as there are
always some people expert in mischief) made
an aperture beneath the flame with an iron
style, which introducing the air, the light
vanished." Some days afterwards, "the body
being drenched with the drip of the eves,
acknowledged the corruption common to mortals;
the skin and the nerves dissolving."
Considering that Pallas is a somewhat doubtful
historical character, and that there are good
reasons for believing that men taller than city
walls have never existed, it is perhaps
unnecessary to add that it would be exercising no
great amount of scepticism to discredit this
narrative. Eternal Lamp and all.