he resisted the general's supplications, and
when threats were used, he replied with the
bitterness of an irritated Corsican, and with the
authority of an aged relative, who was not to be
coaxed or flattered by the inconsiderate youth
and ambition of his great nephew: " General,
I have given you my answer, and I will not
swerve from it."

The disappointed general was forced to retire
without executing his mission, and his noisy
escort evacuated the village.

When Napoleon heard of the bad success of
his ambassador and this utter want of ambition
in a Buonaparte, he shrugged his shoulders with
contemptuous pity.

Mattea was married to the dragoon, and
became, in time, the wife of a colonel. Tommaso
was, in a few years, a captain in the Imperial
Guard.

And the good curé, Buonaparte, died before
the termination of the first empire, beloved and
regretted by all around him. Alas! he was,
after all,—says the French account from which
this little narrative is rendered into English—
the happiest of his family.

PUNGENT SALTS.

OUR British choral boast of " ruling the
waves" is a very old one. We can trace it
back to sturdy bloodthirsty ancestors among
the old vikings who never sought shelter of a
roof, who had no other kingdom to rule than
the sea. Sea-kings who shouted their song in
the midst of the tempest

   The force of the storm helps the arms of the rowers,
  The hurricane is carrying us the way we would go,

little dreaming of descendants in half a dozen
mild elderly gentlemen of the present day,
content to " rule the waves," from ten till four, at
The Admiralty, Whitehall, London, W.C.

Almost all the information we possess of our
piratical old ancestors, the wave-rulers of a
thousand years since (for the lines about " the
flag that's braved a thousand years the battle
and the breeze," are singularly correct in
their chronology) we derive from the Sagas, or
songs of the Skalds, a collection of strange
wild stories of adventure in verse or measured
prose, by the Scandinavian bards.

The profession of pirate, or viking, was held
highly respectable, and not disdained by men
of the highest rank. The qualification for the
service was the performance of some exploit
of personal prowess, which should entitle a man
to the confidence of a band of champions as
their commander. The law of bravery laid down
for the followers themselves was not unlike that
hinted at in the old schoolboy's rhyme—

                  Two skinny Frenchmen
                  And a Portugee,
                  One jolly Englishman
                  Whacked all three.

It was understood that any man ought to
beat a single enemy, that he ought to make a
respectable appearance against two enemies, and
to show fight against three; but that it would
not be disgraceful to run away from four. Each
viking governed his champions in his own
way, gaining greater fame in proportion as his
regulations were more strict and rigorous than
those of his compeers. For example. Half
and Hesrolf, both sons of a Norwegian king,
took to the profession. Hesrolf had a number
of ships which he manned indiscriminately with
serfs and freemen, ruling them mildly. Hesrolf
was beaten by almost every opponent. His
brother Half had only one ship, but he picked
twenty-three king's sons for his companions,
requiring each as a test of strength to lift a mighty
stone which twelve ordinary men could scarcely
stir. He forbade to his champions the society of
women or children; he made them bare them-
selves to the fiercest tempests, and would not
allow them to dress their wounds in battle till
victorious. For nearly twenty years Half
was the terror of the Western Seas, with a
reputation of never having been vanquished in
fight. So stringent was his discipline that
when returning home, his vessel overladen with
plunder and nearly foundering in sight of the
Norwegian shore, the crew drew lots who should
cast themselves into the sea to save their
viking his cargo. The losers jumped overboard
without a murmur, so that the ship, relieved
of their weight, came safely to land.

The viking could govern his vessel as a
clever rider controls his horse. It was required
of him to be able to run along the oars
while they were in motion, and to throw
three javelins to the mast- head, catching
each alternately in his hand without once
missing. He was not afraid of going out of
sight of land, and never thought of coming to
anchor when clouds hid the stars. True, he
had no compass, but there was always a cast of
hawks or ravens on board, and when in doubt
about the direction in which land lay, he had
only to loose one of these, satisfied that the
bird would instinctively make for the nearest
shore. Whither the bird flew he steered. It
was all one to the viking what land he reached,
so long as it was land and not his own land;
for his aim was plunder, and his creed was,
where there is habitable land there is sure
to be that. The birds seem to have had an
unfortunate propensity for leading these gentle-
men to Ireland and Britain. Ireland, indeed,
appears to have been the first of our islands
favoured with the visits of the northern
marauders, and Johnstone mentions a significant
fact in connexion with their visits. "The
fertile Erin," he says, "was long the great
resort of the Scandinavians, who, from the
internal dissensions of the natives, gained
considerable footing." Poor Ireland! She was
suffering from Fenians even in those days.
However, by way of compensation, Ireland
became a sort of Paris to the vikings, in
setting them the fashions; for they took to aping
Irish manners and talking Celtic, until the
celebrated Irish King Brian Boru drove them out