Memoirs Of The Freemasons Of Naples.

under the papal authority , and was willing to do anything so long that it would grant him indulgences for his self-gratification . His education was scarcely superior to the lazzaroni , and he would make them often his companions . Like the rest of the Bourbons , he had a passion

for hunting , shooting , and fishing , and he now obtained a dispensation from tlie PopeaSo shoot or \ fishupon Sundays and his supreme delight was to cut up , as a butcher , the game ( wild boars and stags ) which he had killed . Once it had been raining sadly during the " carnival , " and the King was very much afraid of his brilliant spectacle

being frustrated by the weather ; therefore he had " five hundred masses said for obtaining fine weather for that one day . " It did not rain , and he went about telling every one by what power the weather was changed , and extorting them , when in difficulties , to seek the priests ' aid . A number of instances of his coarseness and vulgarity are given by Mr . Swinburne in The Courts of JEwrope , which we forbear to quote ; but the following

anecdote may be extracted as presenting a farcical scene : — 'The other day the King met an old woman near Caserta , of whom he bought a turkey . She , not knowing the blackguard-looking fellow she was with to be the Sovereign , accompanied him towards the palace with his purchase . As soon as he appeared there , the drums beat and tlie guards turned out ; upon which the old

woman , who knew the signal , pulled him back and told him to get out of the ivay , for that' Son Pazzo ' was coming , who would run over them , and that he made nothing of trampling people under his horses' feet ; that he was constantly running about instead of minding his business , ancl that everything went'al diavolo . ' There

is no justice , added she , no law , and all things are extremely dear . Tlie King conducted her iu , and you may suppose that she was nearly frightened out of her wits when she found out who it was by his reception at the gate . His Majesty , who was extremely diverted at her terror , made her repeat it all to the Queen , who gave her some money . " ( To be continued . )

Classical Theology.—Xliii.

CLASSICAL THEOLOGY . —XLIII .

X-. VESTA AXD DucEiraEit . Meirpo / j . avTeia , or the black art ( necromancy ) , tlie consulting with the dead , was a heathen divination , in the course of wliich inquiries were made by the supposed magician , and answers obtained from deceased persons .

The methods in use were various . Sometimes , especially amongst the Thessaliaus , a bone or vein of a corpse was used as the means or medium , or else some one was bled , ancl the warm blood transfused into tlie arteries of a dead body , wliich they essayed , by such means , to restore to life . We read in Lucian that Erictho , the

witch of Ihessaly , used such practices . In these unhallowed rites , by spells and mystical concoctions , by friction of the nerveless hands , and by attempted inflations of the decaying lungs , these ancient mystics essayed to reproduce tlie vital spark . It is difficult to discriminate here between imposture and knowledge ;

probably there was a mixture of both , the former greatly predominating . The wise men or skilled beldames of those olden times ivere , no doubt , as well acquainted with the remedies for suspended animation as our surgeons of the present day . An opportune restoration at times of the seeming dead to warm and breathing life , and to the

embraces of those who loved them , would seem to the ignorant bystanders , if not a manifestation of Divine powers , at least an evidence of supernatural knowledge . The quacks of old were as ready to appropriate a lucky hit as the professors of our own day , and one simple ( or accidental ) success became the peg whereon to hang

an unlimited amount of imposture . Mention is made , and the purport of these ancient proceedings explained in classic language in the poet ' a well-known lines : —

" Dum vocem defuncto in corpore quinrir ,, Protinus adstrictus caluit cuor atrarque fovit Vulnere . " * * * * "Whilst ho seeks answers from the lifeless form , The cold gore liquefies and grows more warm , The ghastly wounds more red . "

Similar attempts at resuscitation have been resorted to , we are aware , for other purposes by modern experimentalists . The magical practices of old may indeed fairly be considered comparatively harmless , however wicked in their intent , to the barbarous custom of

vivisection , whicli modern anatomists have not blushed to adopt . But the dealers of old in magic ancl enchantments did not stop here . Ulysses , as we are told in the ninth book of the Odyssey , by sacrificing black sheep in a ditchand pouring out libations of their

blooden-, , deavoured to inveigle a ghost into a social conference . The experiment was so successful that the King of Ithaca had the honour of receiving the spirit of Tiresias , which , after partaking of the "gory cup , " became willing to rep ] } ' to his interrogations , and to enter into talk with the wise monarch . Similar incantations are described as

being performed by iEson , in Valerius Elaccus ; by Nero , in Pliny ; also Seneca ( Ordip . v . 517 ) has represented Tiresias himself consulting the manes in a dark and dismal grove , as though such places were their habitual habitations .

Incantations and adjurations addressed to Hecate and the most potent of the infernal deities , with ceremonies in accordance , were customary in raising the ghosts of the dead . More terrible ordeals even , as it were , to " pass children through the fire to Moloch , " and " to sell them unto devils , " were resorted to ; and we are informed by Gregory Nazianzem "of virgins and boys

being slaughtered at the invocations of disembodied souls . " The object of this was twofold : to ingratiate the favour or " good offices" of unclean spirits , and to obtain at the last gasp of the sacrificed a response relative to some inquiry or event of futurity . There were many other occult forms and ceremonies

in use appertaining to the parcnlalia , which were investigations at the obsequies , or divining solemnities at the funerals of deceased relations . These cannot justly be termed magical , but were rather mystical celebrations . It would be a long and unprofitable work to enumei-ate them all ; and as for those unholy rites—those wherein

the Sticciibi and Ineubi were concerned , they comprised an amount of profanity and horrors too revolting to be entertained as a subject of civilised inquiry . Our object is therefore only briefly to take notice of some few of the most refined investigations of magic by incantations and divinationswith reference to what has been

intro-, duced into our former chapters . Snio / iavTeia and Voxo / j-avreia were so called divinations , in wliich the living souls of the dead were supposed to appear in shadows or dark shapes , and airy figures of light forms , upon the performance of certain ceremonies