Masonic Notes And Queries.

nobility , but not for four descents . The Chaplains must also be of noble extraction . The Dones , or Demi-Crosses , are not strictly members of the body , may marry , and wear a gold cross of three tranches ; those of the knights having four . The Grand Master is chosen by the Priors . There are servants of the office who are employed in the hospitals . The chief end of this Military Order is to defend the innocent , and protect and cover Christendom from the

insults of the Mahometans , in imitation ot the Maccabees , who , with the zeal of mrrtyrs , defended the people of God in the old law . " Raymond du Puy was the first Grand Master after they commenced knights . He drew up the Statutes of the Order , and died in 1160 . In proof that this Order has produced many great heroes , who have achieved glorious military exploits , it is only necessary to read the Abbe Vertot's History . " The Knihts of Malta are obligedafter professionto wear a

g , , white cross , or star , with eight points , sewed on the left side of thencloak or coat ; but , before their vows , they wear a gold cross , with eight points , enamelled with white , hanging . bya black ribbon . The knights may defer their vows , and seldom make them until sure of a Cornmandery . The languages now subsisting are called Provence , Auvergne , France , Italy , Arragon , Germany , and Castile . France alone having three languages , it is the most powerful in the Order . In Spain other military reliious orders flourishsuch as Alcantara

g , and Calatrava , instituted upon the taking of those towns from the Moors ; they are subject to the Cistercian rule , but the knights are not hindered by their vow from marrying once . In Portugal , that of Avis is likewise under the Cistercian rule ; it was re-established after the victory of Evora over the Moors , and confirmed by Innocent IV . in the year 1234 . " —Ex . Ex .

Notes On .Literature-. Science And Art.

NOTES ON . LITERATURE-. SCIENCE AND ART .

A Letter to N . W . Senior , Esq ., one of H . M . Educational Commissioners , by Edwin Chadwick , Esq ., C . B ., published as a parliamentary paper , remarks : — " The most wasteful element is niggardliness in the disguise of economy , which , looking no further than immediate payments , especially for school teaching , deems all service cheap where the pay is low . Alarm at increased

educational expenditure is really alarm at the diminution of waste , and at the increase . of productive power . The adverse feeling and false economy which passes , as a matter of course , and without dissatisfaction , an expenditure of two millions per annum on penal . administration , with only a partial repression of crime , which goes on with an excess of nearly an equivalent amount for the relief of pauperism , of crime and pauperism utterly preventible by an improved training and education—which neglects

or refuses to correct the misapplication of an annual income of nearly a million per annum , derivable from educational charities—¦ which yet begrudges and would stay an annual expenditure of three quarters of a million , that influences directly the future productive power of at least one third of the population—is surely akin to the economy of the Welsh farmers , who rebelled against the payment of sixpence as a toll , by which sixpence three sixpences were saved in horseflesh . "

Bro . George Augustus Sala's clever papers on Hogarth are about to be collected from the Comhill Magazine , and published in two volumes . "VVe understand that much additional matter , a list of Hogarth's works , and an appendix , will be added . M . A . Thiers , in the nineteenth volume of his History of the Consulate and the Empire , of . which an English translation has

recently been issued , thus explains the contrast which all must have observed between the commencement and the close of "the Hundred Days .- "— "This contrast may easily be exjilained ; from Porto Ferrajo to Paris , from the 26 th of February to the 20 th of March , Napoleon stood in opposition to the faults of the Bourbons , and besides he enjoyed a succession of successes from Porto Ferrajo to Cannesfrom Cannes to Grenoblefrom Grenoble to and from

, , Lyons , Lyons to Paris . It seemed as if fortune had returned to associate with her favourite ; sometimes bringing a favourable wind to his flotilla , and sometimes bringing to meet him men who could not withstand his influence . But having once entered Paris , it was no longer the faults of the Bourbons that stood opposed to him , it was his own , the . faults that had accumulated during his first reign ,

to remedy which all his genius and repentance seemed unavail'iig . The Treaty of Paris , which he had so obstinately refused in 1 S 1-1 , and even sacrficed his cvown rather than accept , he now accepted without hesitation , and offered terms of peace to Europe with a humility that well became his glory . 'No , 'replied Europe ; ' you oilier peace , but not sincerely . " And she repulsed the suppliant with proceedings so rude as oven to forbid his couriers to pass the frontiers .

Napoleon next addressed himself to France with a sincere oiler of liberty ; for though his temper abhorred restraint , his genius enabled him to see that he could no longer govern without the nation , and that liberty was the only choice left him . France did not reply in the same terms as Europe but she seemed to doubt ; and to convince her of his sincerity , Napoleon was obliged to convoke the Chambers at once—those Chambers filled with excited , violeut , and implacable parties , who offered him no support against Europe ,

but their divisions . Repelled by Europe , received with distrust by France at a moment that he needed all the support she could give . Napoleon after twenty clays of joy , sank into a state of gloomy sadness , which he could only shake oft' when extracting from our military ruins the herioc but unfortunate army of Waterloo ! He fcrimphed through the faults of the Bourbons , but sunk beneath his own ; and after having presented to the world so many glorious and instructive spectacles , he offered another more deeply moral and tragic—genius sincerely but vainly penitent . "

Mr . A . Gilchrist , the biographer of Etty , is preparing for publication a Life of William Bla 7 ce , 't \\ e poet and painter , who was born in London in 1757 , and died on ihel 2 th of August , 182 S . Mr . C . W . Cope ' s fresco painting of " Charles the First erecting his Standard at Nottingham , " has been placed in the Peer ' s Corridor of the new palace at Westminster .

Mr . Thomas Wright , the eminent antiquary , is editing a new edition of the late Mr . Thomas Crofton Croker's Fairy Legends and Traditions , of the South of Ireland . The Malion Messenger of the 2 nd inst . has a leader on Foxhunting , which is termed : — "The support of whole districtsiving labour and bread to the manaffording a market for

g poor ; hay and corn to the farmer ; for horseflesh to the knacker and the dealer ; and promoting health , enjoyment , and good feeling between twenty different classes . " And it adds : —• " The commonest cry in the world is ,. that such and such a county is not a country for foxhounds ; and the doctrine is easily established by destroying the foxes , and asserting that they never have a run . It may be perfectly true that , in the sense of Leicestershire , Northamptonshire , OxfordshireWarwickshireYorkshireand some othersthey are not

, , , , quite fox-hunting countries ; but if a man who hates the sight of a hound , and whose heart is set upon ( preserving pheasants for his own pleasure without any regard to his neighbour ' s recreation , is to be the judge of a fox-hunting country , they will speedily be reduced in number . The fact is , that it is the fashion to declare that a woodland country ought not to be hunted . We take , the liberty of differing from this opinion , and of stating that there is as much real sport in hunting a fox over the crags and moorlands

of Bilsdale , through the deep woodlands of Buncombe Park , or on the hills of Yorkshire , as in the scent-carrying pastures of Holderness itself . There is not the pace , and the jumping , and . the excitement of a five-and-twenty minutes burst in the open ; but there ' s a patience , a woodcraft , and observation , and a capacity for sport which increases with its difficulties . Fox-hunting is the great national sport of this country ; and wherever a master can be found with sufficient courage to undertake the responsibilities of office , and a fair show on paper of subscribers can be met with , it is the duty of all classes , and their interest too , to support it in every way . "

A new people's edition of our late immortal brother , Sir Walter Scott ' s Waverley Novels is about to be issued , in fire volumes with a portrait of the author , and a hundred large woodcuts . The following , remarks by Atticus , in the Critic , will not be without their interest for the true Craftsman : — " To literature , as to all the liberal hearts and utterances , proportion is indispensible . In the absence of proportion , literature in the Middle Ages , could

not be arrayed in its loftiest attributes . The chain of classical tradition had never been quite broken in Italy ; and the Spaniards had learned the secret of proportion from the Arabs ; for the Arabs —though they are popularly placed among the Orientals—were , like the Jews their brethren , always free from Eastern exaggerations . The languages of Italy and Spain were already formed , their literatures already developed , while the North was still groping-, stumbling , toward culture , and altogether rude in speech . The