kinds of black mail upon defenceless bachelors.
All that is reprehensible is, according
to the Behaviour Book, to give broad hints.
And this one permission is no small compensation
for the sternness with which American
etiquette denies ladies the luxury of biting
their nails, looking through keyholes, or
squirming—a process which consists of standing
upon one leg and kicking out with the
other. The gentleman who has enjoyed a
lump of rice thrust into his honoured mouth
by the condescending thumb of a pacha,
who has been kissed by a Prussian, and who ,
has turned his glass mouth downwards to
his host at a Scandinavian banquet, will yet
have something to learn from tne American
Behaviour Book. Even the conscientious
student of the Berlin Compliment Book can
hardly claim to be beyond the teaching of the
American Lady Chesterfield.

DRAGONS, GRIFFINS, AND SALAMANDERS.

BARTHOLOMEW DE GLANVIL, a learned
English Cordelier, who flourished in the middle
of the thirteenth century, in a book which
he wrote, having for its title De Rerum
Proprietatibus (of the properties or nature of
things) gave himself infinite trouble to ascertain
what was what on a multiplicity of subjects
which never had any real existence. Including
Natural History amongst his researches, he
went largely into the question of dragons,
griffins, salamanders, and other creatures of
the genus—Harris. In the chapter specially
devoted to the properties of beasts, which
have magnitude, strength and power in their
brutalities, he discourses as follows, on the
subject of the aforesaid apocryphal animals
which he, as well as everybody else at that
time, most implicitly believed in. Relying
upon the authority of Isidore of Seville, who,
being a Saint, was more behind the scenes
than most folks, he tells us that the dragon
is larger and longer than any other kind of
serpent. The members of this family, which
has furnished Art with so many striking
illustrations, reside, he says, in deep caverns,
from whence they frequently go flying forth,
troubling the air with their pestilential
breath, which they belch out in volumes of
mingled smoke and flame. In the glare of
the sun this vapour resembles fire; in the
shade it has the appearance of a dense grey
cloud. It would seem more natural that
these distinctions should be reversed, but
Glanvil must be allowed to tell his story
his own way. This poisonous breath is
of so mortal a nature, that whomsoever
it reaches experiences the sensation of
being burnt and scalded, the skin rising
instaneously into enormous blisters. It has
the property, also, of causing the sea when
they float over it—to swell as if under the
influence of a tempest. So much internal
caloric have these animals—so fully do they
justify the invocation of Richard the Third,
who calls on fair St. George, to inspire his
soldiers with the spleen of fiery dragons—that,
when they rise in the air, they whistle and
put out their tongues, drawing the wind
towards them, in order to cool the intense heat
generated by their venom. Sharp are their
teeth, and pointed; crested their heads; fearful
their talons, and tremendous the strength
that abides in their tails. Their caudal
extremity is, indeed, the dragon's chief
weapon, for, though they can poison their
antagonists, if they please, by simply breathing
upon them, they prefer the bolder course of
knocking them over with their tails. "There
is no beast, however monstrous," says Glanvil,
"that they cannot kill in this wise."

Antipathies between certain animals are,
as we know from old writers, very often very
strongly marked, but none exhibit so
marvellous a propensity for hating each other
as the elephant and the dragon. Dr. Johnson,
who liked a good hater, would have been
a great dragon-fancier; for I take it that the
originator of the quarrel began with the
winged perturbator, whose anger was a thing
to be feared.

"Come not between the dragon and his
wrath!" exclaims King Lear; and certainly,
after reading Glanvil's account of the way in
which he slays his foes, no one in his senses
would like to interfere in his feuds. He has
a motive for his enmity of the elephant,
which I should not exactly call hatred, but
self-interest. "The dragon," says Glanvil,
"desires the death of the elephant,
because the blood of that animal being cold"
(which it is not) "allays the great heat and
ardour of the dragon's poison, and therefore
he drinketh it." To get at his adversary is
the next thing; so the dragon settles upon a
tree in the forest which the elephant
frequents, and, when he perceives him approaching,
artfully lowers his tail, and twisting it
round the huge legs of the quadruped, throws
him to the ground and kills him. Should the
elephant, however, be up to that dodge, he
makes for the tree on which the dragon is
perched, and tries to uproot it; whereupon,
the dragon drops upon the elephant's
shoulders and bites him between the ears,
at the same time whisking his eyes out with
his formidable tail. A raw once established,
the dragon sucks the elephant's blood, at
leisure, until he falls; but if he is not nimble
he runs the risk of being crushed by the
descent of his foe,—"and thus," observes
Glauvil, "they are frequently both killed at
once."

The dragon is a thirsty soul, and St.
Jerome attests the fact when alluding to the
Prophet Jeremiah's description of the curse
of drought (chapter the fourteenth, verse
the sixth) he says, "Scarce can he assuage
his thirst when in a river." This perpetual
desire for drink is also a reason for his being
everlastingly wide awake. To catch a weasel
asleep, is a proverbial expression; but the