privilege; but the abbess did not readily
suffer herself to be seen, for she was ashamed
(she said) of the recollections that her restored
beauty awakened.

Johannes Francus, in his Chemical Letters
says that, in the month of August in the
year fifteen hundred and seventy-two, he
saw at Paris, M. Guillaume Postel, and
talked to him, and that he then in his old
age had black hair, though he had been
grey fifteen years before. Such marvels—
thanks (or no thanks) to the hairdressers
—are not uncommon in the nineteenth
century. A like change happened to the hair of
John Montanus, and thrice it is said to have
happened to a deacon of Breslau; who
recovered each time, with his black hair, all his
teeth. In testimony hereof, an inscription
was put upon his tombstone which we
will quote, though it be Latin, because it
will amuse some readers, its oddity being
untranslateable:

Hic jacet Andreas canus simul atque Decanus
Qui ter nigrescit, dentescit, et hic requiescit.

There used to be many attempts made
to account for these stories; very few to show
that they were altogether false. Perhaps,
reasoned one learned man, the grey hairs
were caused by bad humours in the system;
and on the recovery of a more healthy dryness,
the black hair returned. Perhaps, others
argued, it was potable gold that had restored
youth; but then it was asked, what knew
the man of Bengal, or the lacquey found in
La Rioja about potable gold? Could it be
stellar influence? Nay, but many men are
born in the same moment. Why do not
the stars pour youth into the whole batch?
Possibly, said others, it happens with such a
men as with a taper made of good material
throughout; that, when the light is waning
and the taper seems to be on the point of
extinction, suddenly, by the kindling of new
material, although that be the last, the flame
shoots up and burns again for a long time
with its old vigour, and with unexpected
steadiness. Thus, then, a modern theorist
might say of the deacon lately mentioned
that he had his candle of life three times
snuffed.

It was also asserted that there are means
in nature of restoring youth. There was
said to be a fountain in the Island of
Bonica which restored youth to those who
drink its waters. Certain animals know
also herbs that restore youth to them,
and the stag recovers it by eating snakes,
as snakes themselves recover it by eating
fennel. Surely man may sometimes
fall upon such means, or be helped to them
by the aid of spirits. Thereto it was replied,
that if spirits could be of any service in this
matter, the witches whom they served would
not lie under the disadvantage of being
decrepit and ugly. As for the snakes, it is true
that capons had been fed upon them in order
that they might live to a great age without
becoming tough, and Italian ladies used to
eat snakes in order to retain their freshness
and their beauty. No doubt it is a great
purifier of the blood, and the old reasoners,
but it is very questionable whether we
know clearly enough what kind of snakes to
eat, and whether we would do well to eat
snakes indiscriminately. Roast hare is a
great preservative of beauty, and hares
are more plentiful than snakes; besides
being less dangerous to deal with. Pliny,
Theophrastus, and Galen, all tell of certain
nations by whom much snake-meat is eaten,
and it is not said in any case, that the people
of that nation renew their youth in any
extradordinary manner.

We leave these questions as we find them,
only to the veracious histories of the
rejuvenescence of men, saying nothing of the phoenix
—who, because he was caught in the time of
the Roman Emperor, Claudius, is no more to
be seen—we add the equally veracious doctrine
of the Jewish sages that the eagle renews
youth every ten years.

THE SAMARITAN INSTITUTION.

IN our number of the fourteenth of March,
eighteen hundred and fifty-seven, appeared
under the head of the Predatory Art, an article
in which Redpath, Saward, Robson, and others
were particularly animadverted on. We
regret that the writer of that article included
the case of the Secretary of the Samaritan
Institution.

That gentleman had perused certain ex
parte statements against the Secretary, and
had not seen a published contradiction of them
on oath. Further, he was not aware that,
at a large meeting presided over by the
clergyman of the district (who bore
testimony to the innocence of the Secretary,
and who was commissioned by the Rector
of St. Andrew's, Holborn, to do the same),
the Secretary's character was declared to
be exonerated from blame and even from
suspicion.

OUR BOYS AND GIRLS.

The reader has already been informed of
sundry particulars respecting our mental
habits, our merry-makings, and our mode
of life;* I now proceed to a peep at our
Grand Speciality—Our Boys and Girls; by
which I do not mean that we sell boys and
girls, or that we send them out as articles of
merchandise, as apprentices to chimney-sweeping
or cotton-growing, as serf tradesmen or
artists, or in any other American or Russian
sense. On the contrary, we welcome them
with open arms, and keep them here as long
as we can; which is far from saying, or thinking,
that we take them in.

*See Household Words, No. 359, Our Specialities, page
128; and No. 368, Our Ducasse, page 340.