out over the sick-bed. Once more did a simple
curé struggle to the room, and protest firmly
that the king must be told of his danger. "You
shall be flung from the window," said one of
the unholy crew about the bed, "at the first
word." "If I am not killed by the fall," said
the courageous priest, "I shall enter by the
door again." At last it was done, the confession
made, Viaticum administered; and then the
Crew, seeing the game was up, fled. Fled! not
one remained of the whole company of demireps
and noble valets; while miserable Heliogabalus
writhed and tossed in his fiery bed, and roared
and shrieked to God for mercy, and bathed
himself in holy water, and called himself the greatest
sinner in the world. Then the black spots of
gangrene broke out all over him, and his flesh
literally rotted from his bones, and he raved
and shrieked on for mercy. In all this horrid
scene I see one glimpse of light, which shows
me four figures kneeling by him always, never
quitting him night or day: the three outraged,
insulted, angelic daughters, and a faithful priest.

Is it not awful, terrible, this end of Heliogabalus
the Well-Beloved? We may hope, we may
charitably pray, but we fear. That frightful
agony, as he passed out of the threshold of his
life, may have done something; but there stands
against him, immutable, the old warning, coming
true almost always, that trees must lie—even
royal oaks—as they fall. This vile nightmare
of a drama is done at last. Hearken how the
dirge rises, the priests sing Dies iræ as the
procession moves on to Saint-Denis. Hearken,
too, how the populace howls and spits and
insults the body, and sing vile songs as it passes.
It is very terrible! Requiescat in pace! Now
the black folds of the curtain have come down,
let us hurry away and see the new king.

PEACOCKS.

AMONGST the multitude that raised their
voices against last year's drenching summer—and
everything with a voice complained, excepting
ducks and cabmen—the loudest in objurgation
was the Peacock. No living animal, not even
the finest lady, had greater reason to complain;
for it is only when the sun shines brightest that
Juno's bird can display his magnificent plumage
to the greatest advantage. The fine lady has
other opportunities besides the flower-show and
the race-course, but the Peacock depends
entirely upon out-of-door opportunities; June and
July are blanks to him unless he can stalk abroad
in full meridian blaze, dazzling all eyes with the
splendour of his array.

"The Peacock," says Pliny, in his dissertation
on "Foules" in general, "far surpasseth all the
rest of this kind, as well for beauty as also for
the wit and understanding that he hath; but
principally for the pride and glory he takes in
himself. For, perceiving at any time that he is
praised and wel liked, he spreadeth his taile
round, shewing and setting out his colours to
the most, which shine again like precious stones:
and namely when he turns them against the sun,
as his manner is; for so he giveth them a more
radiant and glittering lustre. And for the same
purpose also with his taile representing fish shels,
he gives a certain shadow to the rest of his
feathers, which seem the brighter when they be
a little shadowed: and withall, he sets all those
eyes of his feathers together in a ranke, and
gathereth them round, knowing full well that
he is the more looked on for them; and therein
he taketh no small joy and pleasure. On the
other side, when he hath lost this taile, which
usually he moulteth every yere when trees shed
their leaves, until such times as trees blossom
new, and his taile be grown again, he hath no
delight to come abroad, but, as if he were
ashamed or mourned, seeketh corners to hide
himselfe in."

I have been waiting for a bright day, to say
something about this seasonable bird, and almost
feared that, to do so, I should be obliged to
emigrate to some clime where the sun does not
"disdain to shine;" but my patience is at last
rewarded: "Somer," as the Saxon poet says,
"ys ycomen in," and even as I write I see a
Peacock flaunting on the gravel-walk before my
study-window. That I do not hear him is the
best possible sign of fine weather, there being
no surer indication of the reverse than his
prophetic scream. That scream is one of the bitter
drops in the Peacock's cup of joy. It was on
account of his untunable voice, according to
the fabulist, that he made his complaint to Juno.
"Goddess!" he cried, "not without reason do I
murmur against my destiny: the voice which
you have bestowed on me displeases all nature."
And the learned Aldrovandus is of the same
opinion. "The Peacock," he says, "though he
be a most beautiful bird to behold, yet that
pleasure of the eyes is compensated with many
an ungrateful stroke upon the ears, which are
often afllicted with the odious noise of his horrid
(Tartareus) voice. Whereby, of the common
people in Italy it is said to have the feathers
of an angel, but the voice of a devil and the
guts of a thief." There is also another
drawback on the Peacock's claim to unqualified
admiration, even to his own, in the ugliness of his
feet, the cause of which dispensation we learn
in a curious Rabbinico-Mussulman legend, told in
the Mantic Uktaïr, or Language of Birds (a
mystical work by the Persian poet, Ferriduddeen
Attar, translated by M. Garcin de Tassy).
This legend informs us that Satan was
introduced into the terrestrial paradise, under the
form of a serpent with seven heads, through the
agency of the Peacock; and that the proud bird
was, in consequence led from Eden, and
deprived thenceforth of the joys of the Sidra
and the Tuba, the two trees which confer
immortality and perpetual happiness. The
Peacock itself makes confession of its transgression
in the following terms: "In order to form me
the painter of the invisible world (the Deity)
gave his pencil to the Jinns. Although I am
the Gabriel of birds, my lot has been much
inferior to that of the archangel, for, having
contracted a friendship with the serpent in the