may be reduced to powder. A more characteristic ordeal is that used in litigation concerning land, when a portion of earth from the disputed possession is swallowed by each claimant, in the belief that it will destroy him whose pretensions are false. On very solemn occasions, a sheep is killed in the name of Tari Pennu, the dreadful earthgoddess; rice is then moistened with its blood, and this is administered, in the full conviction that she will slay the rash litigant who insults her power by perjury.

The hill-tribes of Rajmahal, who represent another of the pre-Aryan Indian races, furnish us with further developments of the same principle, in details bearing a marked analogy to those practised by the most diverse families of mankind. Thus, the process by which the guilt of Achan was discovered (Joshua vii. 16-18), and that by which, as we shall see hereafter, Master Anselm proposed to identify the thief of the sacred vessels of Laon, are not unlike the ceremony used when a district is ravaged by tigers or by pestilence, which is regarded as a retribution for sin committed by some inhabitant, whose identification thus becomes all-important for the salvation of the rest. In the process known as Satane a person sits on the ground with a branch of the bale-tree planted opposite to him; rice is handed to him to eat in the name of the village of the district, and when the one is named in which the culprit lives, he is expected to throw up the rice. Having thus determined the village, the same plan is adopted with respect to each family in it, and when the family is identified, the individual is discovered in the same manner. Another form, named Cherreen, is not unlike the ordeal of the Bible and key, not as yet obsolete among Christians. A stone is suspended by a string, and the names of the villages, families, and individuals are repeated, when it indicates the guilty by its vibrations.

Thieves are also discovered and convicted by these processes, and by another mode known as Gobereen, which is a modification of the hot-water ordeal. A mixture of cowdung, oil, and water is made to boil briskly in a pot. A ring is thrown in, and each suspected person, after invoking the Supreme Deity, is required to find and bring out the ring with his hand,-the belief being that the innocent will not be burned, while the guilty will not be able to put his hand into the pot, as the mixture will rise up to meet it.

Reverting to the older races, we find no trace of formal ordeals in the fragmentary remains out of which Egyptologists thus far have succeeded in reconstructing the antique civilization of the Nile valley; but the intimate dependence of man on the gods, and the daily interposition of the latter in human affairs, taught by the prophets of the temples and reverently accepted by the people, render it almost certain that in some shape or other the divine judgment was frequently consulted in judicial proceedings where human wisdom was at fault. This probably took the form of reference to the oracles which abounded in every Egyptian nome. Indeed, a story related by Herodotus would seem to show that such an interpellation of the divine power was habitual in prosecutions when evidence of guilt was deficient. Aames II., before he gained the crown, was noted for his reckless and dissolute life, and was frequently accused of theft and carried to the nearest oracle, when he was convicted or acquitted according to the response. On ascending the throne, he paid great respect to the shrines where he had been condemned, and neglected altogether those where he had been absolved, saying that the former gave true and the latter lying responses.

The Semitic races, while not giving to the ordeal the

development which it has received among the Aryans, still afford sufficient manifestation of its existence among them. Chaldean and Assyrian institutions have not as yet been sufficiently explored for us to state with positiveness whether or not the judgment of God was a recognized resource of the puzzled dispenser of justice; but the probabilities are strongly in favor of some processes of the kind being discovered when we are more fully acquainted with their judicial system. The constant invocation of the gods, which forms so marked a feature of the cuneiform inscriptions, indicates a belief in the divine guidance of human affairs which could hardly fail to find expression in direct appeals for light in the administration of justice. The nearest approach, however, to the principle of the ordeal which has thus far been deciphered is found in the imprecations commonly expressed in contracts, donations, and deeds, by which the gods are invoked to shed all the curses that can assail humanity on the heads of those who shall evade the execution of their plighted faith, or seek to present false claims. Akin to this, moreover, was the penalty frequently expressed in contracts, whereby their violation was to be punished by heavy fines, the greater part of which was payable into the treasury of some temple.

Among the Hebrews, as a rule, the interposition of Yahveh was expected directly, without the formulas which human ingenuity has invented to invite and ascertain the decisions of the divine will. Still, the combat of David and Goliath has been cited as a model and justification of the judicial duel; and there are some practices described in Scripture which are strictly ordeals, and which were duly put forth by the local clergy throughout Europe when struggling to defend the system against the prohibitions of the Papacy. When the man who blas

phemed the Lord (Levit. xxiv. 11-16) was kept in ward "that the mind of the Lord might be showed them," and the Lord ordered Moses to have him stoned by the whole congregation, we are not told the exact means adopted to ascertain the will of Yahveh, but the appeal was identical. in principle with that which prompted the mediæval judgment of God. The use of the lot, moreover, which was so constantly employed in the most important and sacred matters, was not a mere appeal to chance, but was a sacred ceremony performed "before the Lord at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation" to learn what was the decision of Yahveh. The lot was also used, if not as a regular judicial expedient, at all events in unusual cases as a mode of discovering criminals, and its results were held to be the undoubted revelation of Omniscience. It is more than probable that the Urim and Thummim were lots, and that they were not infrequently used, as in the cases of Achan and Jonathan. And the popular belief in the efficacy of the lot is manifested in Jonah's adventure (Jonah i. 7), when the sailors cast lots to discover the sinner whose presence brought the tempest upon them. The most formal and absolute example of the ordeal, however, was the Bitter Water by which conjugal infidelity was convicted and punished (Numb. v. 11-31). This curious and elaborate ceremony, which bears so marked an analogy to the poison ordeals, was abandoned by order of R. Johanan ben Saccai about the time of the Christian era, and is too well known to require more than a passing allusion to the wealth of Haggadistic legend and the interminable controversies and speculations to which it has given rise. I may add, however, that Aben Ezra and other Jewish commentators hold that when Moses burnt the golden calf and made the Israelites drink the water in which its ashes were cast (Exod. xxxii. 20), he admin

istered an ordeal, like that of the Bitter Water, which in some way revealed those who had been guilty of idolatry, so that the Levites could slay them; and Selden explains this by reference to a tradition according to which the gold of the calf reddened the beards of those who had worshipped it, and thus rendered them conspicuous.

THE PROGRESS AND PROSPECTS OF LITERATURE IN AMERICA.

R. W. GRISWOLD.

[Rufus Wilmot Griswold is best known as the editor of several valuable compilations of American literature, entitled "The Prose Writers of America," ," "The Poets and Poetry of America," and "The Female Poets of America." In these works he shows excellent judgment and discrimination in his biographical and critical notices of the authors treated, and displays an attractive literary style of his own. From his introduction to "The Prose Writers of America," in which the conditions and prospects of American literature are treated at considerable length, we select a statement of his general views on the subject. He was born in Benson, Rutland County, Vermont, in 1815, and died in New York City in 1857.]

I NEED not dwell upon the necessity of Literature and Art to a people's glory and happiness. History with all her voices joins in one judgment upon this subject. Our legislators, indeed, choose to consider them of no consequence, and while the States are convulsed by claims from the loom and the furnace for protection, the demands of the parents of freedom, the preservers of arts, the dispensers of civility, are treated with silence. But authors and artists have existed and do exist here in spite of such