which belonged to certain Icelanders was stranded in Denmark, and the Danes took all the property and called it a wreck. Before the King set out he told a magician to go to Iceland in some altered shape, and to try to learn what he could tell him. Accordingly the magician set out in the shape of a whale; and when he came near to Iceland he went to the north around the land, where he saw all the mountains and hills crowded with the protecting deities of the island, some great, some small. When he came to Vopnafjörðr, he went in towards the land, intending to go on shore; but a huge dragon rushed down the dale against him with a train of snakes, paddocks, and toads, which blew venom towards him. Then he turned to go westward around the land as far as Eyjafjörðr, and he went into the fjord. Then a bird flew against him, which was so great that its wings stretched over the mountains on either side of the fjord, and many birds, great and small, with it. Then he swam farther west and south into Breiðifjörðr. When he came into the fjord, a large gray bull ran against him, wading into the sea, bellowing fearfully, and he was followed by a crowd of other protecting deities. When King Haraldr heard of the powerful guardian spirits of the island he abandoned his intended invasion.

In the preceding pages I think there is sufficient evidence of animal worship having been known among the old Scandinavians. In the first place, there are not few instances which show that animals were actually worshipped in Scandinavia within the historical period. In the second place, there is the changing of gods and men into animals. It was the belief of the Scandinavians that the gods habitually changed themselves into the shape of certain birds; e.g. that of the eagle and the

falcon. It must therefore have occurred to them, whenever they saw an eagle or a falcon soaring majestically in the air, that their god was in the very bird they saw. That this was actually the case we see from the many omens taken from birds. If the raven was not Óðinn himself, he at least brought a message from him. In either case they could not fail to look up to him as standing in a more intimate connection with the gods than they did themselves. It is indeed said, not that Óðinn became a bird, but that he assumed the shape of one. This, however, was the same thing to the believer; for we are never told that he had any means of knowing, when he saw an eagle, whether the god was in it or not. Thorgils Örrabeinsstjúpr, who was a converted Christian, verily believed that Thórr was in the bird that left his ship when he had successfully resisted the temptation to relapse into what he considered heathen practices;1 and if the Scandinavians could perhaps, according to their own belief, see Óðinn in any eagle, how could they fail to worship the bird? On the other hand, how could they call their gods by the names of certain animals unless they believed those animals to be sacred? That they considered various animals to be at least superhuman, we see from the many instances in which wizards. and witches assumed their shape, for they never did so until their own strength was insufficient. Böðvarr Bjarki was a match for twelve berserks in his human form, but when he assumed that of a bear he was a match for a whole army. This change, however, added not so much to the physical strength of a man as it did to his magical powers, which still further proves that animals were supposed to be in possession of supernatural faculties. We often

find two witches fighting, and when one of them resumes the shape of an animal, the other never dares to meet her without changing her shape also. Sometimes the greatest cowards became the most courageous as well as the strongest champions by drinking the warm blood of animals; for the Scandinavians believed the 'life of all flesh to be the blood thereof,' as well as the Israelites. A third proof of the regard in which animals were held by the Scandinavians is to be found in their personal names. There is a host of such names as Björn (bear), Úlfr (wolf), Hundingr (dog), Galti (hog), Vagn (whale), Ari and Egill (eagle), Valr (falcon), Hankr (hawk), Márr (gull), Svanr (swan), Ormr (worm, serpent), and many others. Although these names are now given without any respect to animals, we may be sure that such was not the case when they were first introduced. A child was called Bear because the bear was believed to be a mighty being, and it was thought that he would protect the child; the same was the case with the other animals. In the

same manner, after the introduction of Christianity, people named their children after the Evangelists, Apostles, and saints of the Church, in order that the child might be under the special protection of the saint after whom he was called.

There is one feature in the instances of actual animal worship recorded in the preceding pages which I should like to point out; namely, that it was the act of worshipping the beasts which made them powerful. An ordinary animal is filled with supernatural power, or fiendish power as Christians used to call it, when the animal is made an object of worship: I am inclined to think that this is because the worship was on its last legs, so to speak, when it was preserved from entire oblivion by the Icelandic saga writers. The faith of the animal worshipper himself had begun to waver: he doubted that his god was still in his ox or his dog; but he thought that by making an effort, by worshipping the animal in which his god used to dwell, and by consecrating it to him, he might call him back.

DNI. King of Spain and of his

ON CARLOS, the son of Philip

II. King of Spain and of his first wife Donna Maria of Portugal, was born at Valladolid on July 8, 1545. All the feasts and rejoicings were abruptly and painfully ended: the Queen, who appeared in good health, died four days after her confinement, before she was eighteen. History presents us with few personages the real facts of whose lives are so completely misrepresented as is the case with the Spanish Prince. Historians as eminent as Schiller, Alfieri, and Lord Russell, inspired by hatred of his father, have taken possession of the person of Don Carlos. They have made him an exaggerated victim of paternal hatred, an advocate for religious liberty-have endeavoured to prove that Isabel de la Paz was violently enamoured of him, and have even extended their patronage to his person, and represented him as full of charm and intelligence. By a simple narrative of the real events, M. Gachard in his important work on Don Carlos et Philippe II., and before him Prescott in his Life of Philip II., have shown the difference between this creature of imagination and the sickly youth who lived surrounded by doctors, and at the same time of habit so gross and gluttonous that a French ambassador, Fourquevaux, said he only had strength in his teeth.

From the moment of the Prince's birth, stories are told of his sanguinary instincts and of his moral and physical defects. Tiepolo writes to the Venetian Republic that he used to bite the breasts of his nurse; but this report, written eighteen years after the birth of Don Carlos, is no doubt an exaggeration.

1 Don Carlos et Philippe II. Don Carlos et Philippe II.

Charles V. ap

Philip II. and the Emperor Charles V. spared neither care nor expense on the Prince's education. Donna Leonor de Mascareñas, a noble Portuguese lady to whom the infancy of Philip II. had been intrusted, took charge of the Infante. The sisters of the King, and Donna Juana especially, tended him with the utmost care. pointed a train of officials and servants when he was four years old to attend on him. His household consisted of more than seventy members of the aristocracy. His four chief officers were, the Duke of Alva; Don Antonio de Rojas; Ruy Gomez, Prince of Eboli; and Don Juan de Benavides. His masters were the most learned men that Spain could produce.

Those who are of the opinion of M. Mérimée (Revue des Deux Mondes, April 1, 1859), that 'Don Carlos avait été systématiquement entouré d'imbéciles ou de coquins intéressés à le corrompre,' are completely mistaken. Munatoñes, one of his two instructors, was a distinguished ecclesiastic. The other, Honorato Juan, was first a soldier, a member afterwards of the Imperial Council, and a gentilhombre de corte finally, being a man of great learning, he took orders, and in 1564 was made Bishop of Osuna. Education, however, availed but little with the crooked nature of the royal pupil. Don Honorato, in a letter to the King in 1557, says:

:

In learning he advances very little, for he studies unwillingly; and so is it with the exercises of games and fencing: I am obliged to stimulate him with rewards. He rides sometimes, but I do not let him do so often, because he is too careless on horseback, and runs into great danger.

In March 1556 Don Carlos ap

ness which followed his life was despaired of. Gachard follows Tiepolo's account, who says: 'Il caso, per quel che ho per buona via inteso, passò in questo modo.' Don Carlos had taken a fancy to a daughter of one of the palace servants: the members of his household encouraged the intrigue; but Don Garcia de Toledo, his guardian, knowing that the lovers met at a small staircase on the garden side, ordered the door to be nailed outside. His precautions were useless. A midnight appointment was again made at the foot of the stairs. The Prince ran down alone in the dark, and so precipitately that his foot slipped and he fell, striking his head.

In a history of Alcalá which I have found among the MSS. of the National Library, Madrid, the story is told somewhat differently. The gardener, it is said, had a daughter of whom Don Carlos became enamoured. Her father sent her to the Prince's rooms with a basket of flowers. Don Carlos saw her from his room and ran after her; the girl, seeing herself pursued, ran down the stairs into the garden; Don Carlos chased her and fell.

Any way he received a wound in the back part of the skull, which almost cost him his life, and disturbed further his already imperfect sanity. The foreign ambassadors who noticed the accident speak severely of the ignorance of the Spanish doctors. Challoner, the English envoy, says: 'Now I believe that God's minister, Nature, hathe, in despite of the surgeons' inconsiderate dealing, doone more for the Prince than they were ware of. Among the physicians who tried their skill upon him was a Moor of the kingdom of Valencia, called Piterele, who at a moment of extremity was sent for by the King himself. The Prince, however, grew worse under his treatment; and the Licenciado Daza says in

his remarkable account of the illness that they determined to 'do away with the Moor and his drugs.' He was trepanned; and in one of the days in which the Prince was most ill the body of St. Diego de Alcalá was brought to his room that he might touch it.

He left his bed at the end of two months, and received the ambas sadors and other personages of the court who came to felicitate him on his recovery. Most of the sovereigns of Europe sent their congratulations by special messengers. He appeared at this official reception with his head covered and a bandage over one of his eyes. had vowed during his illness to give, if he recovered, to different churches four times his weight in gold and seven times in silver. His weight was ascertained, and amounted to no more than seventy-six pounds.

The Prince having regained his strength had to undergo further ceremonies. That at Toledo only comprehended the crown of Castille; and it was necessary that the same formality should be held in Aragon, Cataluña, and Valencia. Philip II. assembled the Aragonese Cortes at Monzon with the deputies of Valencia and Cataluña. But the King was obliged to go there alone. Don Carlos had had two attacks of fever brought on by gluttony, which prevented his accompanying his father. Philip proposed to the deputies that his son should receive their votes by proxy, but they would not consent, and the ceremony was postponed to the following year.

Recovered at last from his surfeit, Don Carlos went from Alcalá to Madrid in June 1564, to take part in some juegos de cañas, where, it is said, he gained great applause. His health continued to improve; but his person never developed itself as it ought to have done in a youth of that age. Every account of his contemporaries agrees about this. Dietrichstein,