indebted for their beautiful river to him for they reply to everything-that, at the alone.

All this is considered contrary to nature by our carping philosophers, who scruple to admit even what is probable, unless it is well supported by evidence.

period in question, gazettes and journals were not in existence. It is said in return, that there existed what was equivalent to them, and that is sufficient. Everything is impossible in the history of (Garagantua, and from this circumstance itself may be inferred its incontestible truth. For if it were not true, no person could possibly have ventured to imagine it, and its incredibility constitutes the great proof that it ought to be believed. Open all the Mercuries, all the Jour

They observe, that if the Parisians have always believed in Garagantua, that is no reason why other nations should believe in him; that, if Garagantua had really performed one single prodigy out of the many attributed to him, the whole world would have resounded with it, all records would have noticed it, and a hun-nals de Trevoux; those immortal works dred monuments would have attested it. In short, they very unceremoniously treat the Parisians who believe in Garagantua, as ignorant simpletons and superstitious idiots, with whom are intermixed a few hypocrites, who pretend to believe in Garagantua, in order to obtain some convenient priorship in the abbey of Thé-ing evidence as nearly approaching to

lême.

The reverend Father Viret, a Cordelier of full-sleeved dignity, a confessor of ladies, and a preacher to the king, has replied to our pyrrhonian philosophers in a manner decisive and invincible. He very learnedly proves, that if no writer, with the exception of Rabelais, has mentioned the prodigies of Garagantua, at least, no historian has contradicted them; that the sage de Thou, who was a believer in witchcraft, divination, and astrology, { never denied the miracles of Garagantua. They were not even called in question by La Mothe le Vayer. Mezerai treated them with such respect, as not to say a word against them, or indeed about them. These prodigies were performed before the eyes of all the world. Rabelais was a witness of them. It was impossible that he could be deceived, or that he would deceive. Had he deviated even in the smallest degree from the truth, all the nations of Europe would have been roused against him in indignation; all the gazetteers and journalists of the day would have exclaimed with one voice against the fraud and imposture.

In vain do the philosophers reply

which teem with instruction to the race of man, and you will not find a single line which throws a doubt on the history of Garagantua. It was reserved for our own unfortunate age to produce monsters, who would establish a frightful pyrrhonism, under the pretence of requir

mathematical as the case will admit, and of a devotion to reason, truth, and justice. What a pity! Oh for a single argument to confound them!

Garagantua founded the abbey of Thélème. The title deeds, it is true, were never found; it never had any; but it exists, and produces an income of ten thousand pieces of gold a year. The river Seine exists, and is an eternal monument of the prodigious fountain from which Garagantua supplied so noble a stream. Moreover, what will it cost you to believe in him? ought you not to take the safest side? Garagantua can procure for you wealth, honours, and inAluence. Philosophy can only bestow on you internal tranquillity and satisfaction, which you will of course estimate as a trifle. Believe, then, I again repeat, in Garagantua; if you possess the slightest portion of avarice, ambition, or knavery, it is the wisest part you can adopt.

GAZETTE :

A NARRATIVE of public affairs. It was at the beginning of the seventeenth century that this useful practice was sug{gested and established at Venice, at the

{

signations, with a strictness apparently somewhat inconsistent with the courtesies of polished society, bestowing the title of monsieur only on some particular descriptions of persons, and that of sieur upon others; the authors having forgotten that they were not speaking in the name of their king. These public journals, it

time when Italy still continued the centre of European negociations, and Venice was the unfailing asylum of liberty. The leaves or sheets containing this narrative, which were published once a week, were called Gazettes, from the word Gazetta, the name of a small coin, amounting nearly to one of our demi-sous, then current at Venice. The example was after-must be added, to their praise, have never wards followed in all the great cities of been debased by calumny, and have alEurope. ways been written with considerable correctness.

Journals of this description have been established in China from time immemorial. The Imperial Gazette is published there every day by order of the court. Admitting this gazette to be true, we may easily believe it does not contain all that is true; neither in fact ought it to do so. Theophrastes Renaudot, a physician, published the first gazettes in France in 1601, and he had an exclusive privilege for the publication, which continued for a long time a patrimony to his family. } The like privilege became an object of importance at Amsterdam, and the greater part of the gazettes of the United Provinces are still a source of revenue to many of the families of magistrates, who pay writers for furnishing materials for them. The city of London alone pub-the regular syntax of our language, and lishes more than twelve gazettes in the course of a week. They can be printed only upon stamped paper, and produce no inconsiderable income to the state.

The case is very different with respect to foreign gazettes; those of London, with the exception of the court gazette, abound frequently in that coarseness and licen{tiousness of observation which the national liberty allows. The French gazettes esta}blished in that country have been seldom { written with purity, and have sometimes been not a little instrumental in corrupting the language. One of the greatest faults which has found a way into them arises from the authors having concluded that the ancient forms of expression used in public proclamations and in judicial and political proceedings and documents in France, and with which they were particularly conversant, were analogous to

from their having accordingly imitated that style in their narrative. This is like a Roman historian's using the style of the law of the twelve tables.

The gazettes of China relate solely to In imitation of the political gazettes, that empire; those of the different states literary ones began to be published in of Europe embrace the affairs of all France in 1665; for the first journals countries. Although they frequently were, in fact, simply advertisements of abound in false intelligence, they may the works recently printed in Europe: to nevertheless be considered as supplying this mere announcement of publication good materials for history; because, in was soon added a critical examination or general, the errors of each particular review. Many authors were offended at gazette are corrected by subsequent ones, it, notwithstanding its great moderation. and because they contain authentic copies We shall here speak only of those literary of almost all state papers, which indeed gazettes with which the public, who were are published in them by order of the previously in possession of various joursovereigns or governments themselves.nals from every country in Europe in The French gazettes have always been which the sciences were cultivated, were revised by the ministry. It is on this completely overwhelmed. These gazettes account that the writers of them have al- appeared at Paris about the year 1723, ways adhered to certain forms and de- under many different names, as-" The

GENEALOGY.

}

Parnassian Intelligencer," " Observations duously and virulently circulated afteron New Books," &c. The greater num- werds. The Acts of the Apostles, howber of them were written for the single ever, inform us that the Jews of Antioch purpose of making money; and as money opposed themselves, blaspheming against is not to be made by praising authors, what Paul spoke to them concerning these productions consisted generally of Jesus; and Origen maintains, that the satire and abuse. They often contained passage in St. John's gospel-" We are the most odious personalities, and for a not born of fornication, we have never time sold in proportion to the virulence been in subjection unto any man,"-was of their malignity; but reason and good an indirect reproach thrown out by the taste, which are always sure to prevail at Jews against Jesus on the subject of his last, consigned them eventually to con- birth. For, as this father informs us, tempt and oblivion. they pretended that Jesus was originally from a small hamlet of Judea, and his mother nothing more than a poor villager subsisting by her labour, who, having been found guilty of adultery with a soldier of the name of Panther, was turned away by her husband, whose occupation was that of a carpenter; that, after this disgraceful expulsion, she wandered about miserably from one place to another, and was privately delivered of Jesus, who, pressed by the necessity of his circumstances, was compelled to go and hire himself as a servant in Egypt, where he acquired some of those secrets which the Egyptians turn to so good an account, and then returned to his own country, in which, full of the miracles he was enabled to perform, he proclaimed himself to be God.

SECTION I.

MANY Volumes have been written by learned divines in order to reconcile St. Matthew with St. Luke on the subject of the genealogy of Jesus Christ. The former enumerates only twenty-seven generations from David through Solomon, while Luke gives forty-two, and traces the descent through Nathan. The following is the method in which the learned Calmet solves a difficulty relating to Melchizedec. The orientals and the Greeks, ever abounding in fable and invention, fabricated a genealogy for him, in which they give us the names of his ancestors. But, adds this judicious Benedictine, as falsehood always betrays itself, some state his According to a very old tradition, the genealogy according to one series, and name of Panther, which gave occasion to others according to another. There are the mistake of the Jews, was, as we are some who maintain that he descended informed by St. Epiphanius, the surfrom a race obscure and degraded, and name of Joseph's father, or rather, as is there are some who are disposed to re-asserted by St. John Damascene, the present him as illegitimate. proper name of Mary's grandfather. This passage naturally applies to Jesus, As to the situation of a servant with of whom, according to the apostle, Mel-which Jesus was reproached, he declares chizedec was the type or figure. In fact, himself that he came not to be served, but the gospel of Nicomedes expressly states, to serve. Zoroaster, according to the that the Jews, in the presence of Pilate, Arabians, had in like manner been the reproached Jesus with being born of for- servant of Esdras. Epictetus was even nication; upon which the learned Fabri- born in servitude. Accordingly, St. cius remarks, that it does not appear from Cyril of Jerusalem justly observed, that any clear and credible testimony, that the it is no disgrace to any man. Jews objected to Jesus Christ during his life, or even to his apostles, that calumny respecting his birth which they so assi

On the subject of the miracles, we learn indeed from Pliny, that the Egyptians had the secret of dying with different

colours, stuffs which were dipped in the very same furnace, and this is one of the miracles which the gospel of the Infancy attributes to Jesus. But, according to St. Chrysostom, Jesus performed no miracle before his baptism, and those stated to have been wrought by him before are absolute fabrications. The reason assigned by this father for such an arrangement is, that the wisdom of God determined against Christ's performing any miracles in his childhood, lest they should have been regarded as impostures.

dispute, he shall not cry aloud, and no one shall hear his voice in the streets."

According to St. Jerome, there was in like manner an ancient tradition among the Gymnosophists of India, that Buddas, the author of their creed, was born of a virgin, who was delivered of him from her side. In the same manner was born Julius Cæsar, Scipio Africanus, Manlius, Edward VI. of England, and others, by means of an operation called by surgeons the Casarean operation, because it consists in abstracting the child from the Epiphanius in vain alleges, that to deny womb by an incision in the abdomen of the miracles ascribed by some to Jesus the mother. Simon, surnamed the Maduring his infancy, would furnish heretics gician, and Manès, pretended likewise with a specious pretext for saying, that both of them to be born of a virgin. This he became son of God only in conse- might, however, merely mean, that their quence of the effusion of the holy spirit, mothers were virgins at the time of conwhich descended upon him at his bap-ceiving them. But in order to be contism: we are contending here, not against vinced of the uncertainty attending the heretics, but against Jews. { marks and evidences of virginity, it will Mr. Wagenseil has presented us with be perfectly sufficient to read the coma Latin translation of a Jewish work en- mentary of M. de Pompignan, the celetitled Toldos Jeschu, in which it is re-brated Bishop of Puy en Velai, on the lated that Jeschu, being at Bethlehem in following passage in the book of ProJudah, the place of his birth, cried out verbs, "There are three things which are aloud," Who are the wicked men that too wonderful for me, yea, four which I pretend I am a bastard, and spring from know not. The way of an eagle in the an impure origin? They are themselves air, the way of a serpent upon a rock, bastards, themselves exceedingly impure! the way of a ship in the midst of the sea, Was I not born of a virgin mother? and and the way of a man in his youth." In 1 entered through the crown of her order to give a literal translation of the head !" passage, it would have been necessary, This testimony appeared of such im- according to this prelate (in the third portance to M. Bergier, that learned di-chapter of the second part of his work vine felt no scruple about employing it entitled Infidelity convinced by the Prowithout quoting his authority. The fol- phecies), it would have been necessary lowing are his words, in the twenty-third to say, "Viam viri en virgine adolescenpage of the Certainty of the Proofs of tula,"-The way of a man with a maid. Christianity :-"Jesus was born of a The translation of our Vulgate, says he, virgin by the operation of the holy spirit. substitutes another meaning, exact indeed Jesus himself frequently assured us of and true, but less conformable to the orithis with his own mouth; and to the ginal text. In short, he corroborates his same purpose is the recital of the apos-curious interpretation by the analogy betles." It is certain that these words are only to be found in the Toldos Jeschu; and the certainty of that proof, among those adduced by M. Bergier, subsists, although St. Matthew applies to Jesus the passage of Isaiah:-"He shall not

tween this verse and the following one: "Such is the life of the adulterous woman, who, after having eaten, wipeth her mouth and saith, I have done no wickedness."

However, this may be, the virginity of

Mary was not generally admitted, even It is well known that the Jesuit Sanat the beginning of the third century. chez gravely discussed the question wheMany have entertained the opinion, and the Virgin Mary contributed seminally in do still, said St. Clement of Alexandria, the incarnation of Christ, and that, like that Mary was delivered of a son, with- other divines before him, he concluded out that delivery producing any change in the affirmative. But these extravaganin her person; for some say, that a mid- cies of a prurient and depraved imaginawife who visited her after the birth, found tion should be classed with the opinion of her to retain all the marks of virginity. ¦ Aretin, who introduces the holy spirit on It is clear, that St. Clement refers here this occasion effecting his purpose under to the gospel of the birth of Mary, in the figure of a dove; as mythology dewhich the angel Gabriel says to her, scribes Jupiter to have succeeded with "Without intercourse with man, thou, a Leda in the form of a swan, or as the virgin, shalt conceive, thou, a virgin, most eminent authors of the church-St. shalt be delivered of a child, thou, a Austin, Athenagoras, Tertullian, St. Clevirgin, shalt give suck ;" and also to the ment of Alexandria, St. Cyprian, Lacfirst gospel of James, in which the mid- tantius, St. Ambrose, and others believed, wife exclaims, "What an unheard of after Philo and Josephus, the historian, wonder! Mary has just brought a son who were Jews, that angels had associinto the world, and yet retains all the ated with the daughters of men, and enevidences of virginity." These two gos-gaged in sexual connection with them. pels were, nevertheless, subsequently rejected as apocryphal, although on this point, they were conformable to the opinion adopted by the church the scaffolding was removed after the building was completed.

What is added by Jeschu―" I entered by the crown of the head"-was likewise the opinion held by the church. The Breviary of the Maronites represents the Word of the Father as having entered by the ear of the blessed woman. St. Augustin, and Pope Felix, say expressly, that the virgin became pregnant through the ear. St. Ephrem says the same in a hymn, and Voisin his translator observes, that the idea came originally from Gregory of Neocesarea, surnamed Thaumaturgos. Agobar relates, that in his time the church sang in the time of public service-"The word entered through the ear of the virgin, and came out at the golden gate." Eutychius speaks also of Elian, who attended at the council of Nice, and who said that the Word entered by the ear of the virgin, and came out in the way of child-birth. This Elian was a rural bishop, whose name occurs in Selden's published Arabic List of Fa

thers who attended the council of Nice.

St. Augustin goes so far as to charge the Manicheans with teaching, as a part of their religious persuasion, that beautiful young persons appeared in a state of na ture before the princes of darkness, or evil angels, and deprived them of the vital substance which that father calls the nature of God. Herodius is still more explicit, and says that the divine majesty escaped through the productive organs of demons.

It is true that all these fathers believed angels to be corporeal. But, after the works of Plato had established the idea of their spirituality, the ancient opinion of a corporeal union between angels and women was explained by the supposition, that the same angel who, in a woman's form, had received the embraces of a man, in turn held communication with a woman, in the character of a man. Divines, by the terms incubus and succubus, designate the different parts thus performed by angels. Those who are curious on the subject of these offensive and revolting reveries, may see further details in Various Readings of the Book of Genesis," by Otho Gualter; Magical Disquisitions," by Delvis, and the Discourses on Witchcraft," by Henry Boguet.

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