brethren, visited their cells himself, and dined with them. He encouraged them to the utmost of his power, and soon established a mission for them in Augsburg.

This was a most extraordinary progress of the society in so short a time. As late as the year of 1551 they had no firm station in Germany: in 1566 their influence extended over Bavaria and Tyrol, Franconia and Suabia, a great part of the Rhineland, and Austria; they had penetrated into Hungary, Bohemia, and Moravia. The effects of their labors were already perceptible; in the year 1561, the papal nuncio affirms that "they gain over many souls, and render great service to the Holy See." This was the first counteracting impulse, the first anti-Protestant impression, that Germany received.

Above all, they labored at the improvement of the universities. They were ambitious of their rivalling the fame of those of the Protestants. The education of the time, being a purely learned one, rested exclusively on the study of the languages of antiquity. These the Jesuits cultivated with great ardor; and in a short time they had among them teachers who might claim. to be ranked with the restorers of classical learning. They likewise addicted themselves to the strict sciences; at Cologne, Franz Koster taught astronomy in a manner equally agreeable and instructive. Theological discipline, however, of course continued the principal object. The Jesuits lectured with the greatest diligence, even during the holidays; they re-introduced the practice of disputations, without which they said all instruction was dead. These were held in public, and were dig. nified, decorous, rich in matter: in short, the most brilliant that had ever been witnessed. In Ingolstadt they soon persuaded themselves that they had attained to an equality with any other university in Germany, at least in the faculty of theology. Ingolstadt acquired (in the contrary spirit) an influence like that which Wittenberg and Geneva possessed.

The Jesuits devoted an equal degree of assiduity to the direction of the Latin schools. It was one of the principal maxims of Lainez, that the lower grammar-schools should be provided with good masters. He maintained that the character and conduct of man were mainly determined by the first impressions he received. With accurate discrimination, he chose men who, when they had once undertaken this subordinate branch of teaching, were willing to devote their whole lives to it; for it was only with time that so difficult a business could

be learned, or the authority indispensable to a teacher be acquired. Here the Jesuits succeeded to admiration; it was found that their scholars learned more in one year than those of other masters in two; and even Protestants recalled their children from distant gymnasia and committed them to their

care.

Schools for the poor, modes of instruction suited to children, and catechizing, followed. Canisius constructed his catechism, which satisfied the mental wants of the learners by its wellconnected questions and concise answers.

The whole course of instruction was given entirely in that enthusiastic, devout spirit which had characterized the Jesuits from their earliest institution.

THE LAST YEARS OF QUEEN JOHANNA.

(From the "History of the Latin and Teutonic Nations.")

THE old hereditary faction of the Nuñez and Gamboa, whose heads were Najara and the Condestable, had already again showed themselves among the grandees. What was next to come depended chiefly upon the Queen's state of health. The disease from which she was suffering first declared itself on Philip's journey to Lyons; that is, in the year 1503. After taking leave of him with many tears, she never more raised her eyes, or said a word save that she wished to follow him. When she learnt that he had obtained a safe-conduct for her also, she heeded her mother no longer; but ordered her carriage to proceed to Bayonne; thencefor horses were refused her she attempted to set out on foot; and when the gate was closed, she remained, in spite of the entreaties of her attendant ladies and her father confessor, in her light attire, sitting upon the barrier until late into the November night; it was only her mother who at length contrived to persuade her to seek her chamber. At last she found her husband. She found him devoted to a beautiful girl with fair hair. In a momentary outburst of jealous passion, she had the girl's hair cut off. Philip did not conceal his vexation. Here who can fathom the unexplored depths of the soul, see where it unconsciously works, and where it unconsciously suffers; who can discover where the root of its health or sickness lies? her mind became overshadowed. In Spain her love for Philip, and in the Netherlands her reverence for her father, were her guiding passions: these two feelings possessed her whole being,

alternately influenced her, and excluded the rest of the world. Since then, she still knew the affairs of ordinary life, and could portray vividly and accurately to her mind distant things; but she knew not how to suit herself to the varying circumstances of life.

Whilst still in the Netherlands, she expressed the wish that her father should retain the government in his hands. On her return to Spain, she entered her capital in a black velvet tunic and with veiled face; she would frequently sit in a dark room, her cap drawn half over her face, wishing to be able only to speak for once with her father. But it was not until after her husband's death that her disease became fully developed. She caused his corpse to be brought into a hall, attired in dress half Flemish, half Spanish, and the obsequies celebrated over it. She never, the while, gave vent to a sob. She did not shed tears, but only sat and laid her hand to her chin. The plague drove her away from Burgos, but not away from her loved corpse. A monk had once told her that he knew of a king who awoke to life after being fourteen years dead. She took the corpse about with her. Four Frisian stallions drew the coffin, which was conveyed at night, surrounded by torches. Sometimes it halted, and the singers sang wailing songs. Having thus come to Furnillos, a small place of fourteen or fifteen houses, she perceived there a pretty house with a fine view, and remained there; "for it was unseemly for a widow to live in a populous city." There she retained the members of the government who had been installed, the grandees of her court dwelling with her. Around the coffin she gave her audiences.

In Tortoles the King met his daughter. As soon as they set eyes on each other, the father took off his hat, and the daughter her mourning-veil. When she prostrated herself to kiss his feet, and he sank on one knee to recognizer royal dignity, they embraced and opened their hearts to each other. He shed tears. Tears she had none, but she granted his desire; only she would not consent to bury the corpse. "Why so soon?" she inquired. Nor would she go to Burgos, where she had lost her husband. He took her to Tordesillas. Here the queen of such vast realms lived for forty-seven years. She educated her youngest daughter, gazed from the window upon the grave of her dear departed, and prayed for his eternal happiness. Her soul never more disclosed itself to the world.

GEORGE RAWLINSON.

RAWLINSON, GEORGE, an English Orientalist and historian; brother of Sir Henry Rawlinson; born at Chadlington, Oxfordshire, November 23, 1812. He took his degree at Oxford in 1838; became a Fellow and tutor of Exeter College; was Bampton lecturer 1859-61, and Camden Professor of Ancient History from 1861 to 1874, when he was made Canon of Canterbury Cathedral. His principal works are "Historical Evidence of the Truth of the Christian Records" (1860); The Contrasts of Christianity with Heathenism and Judaism" (1861); "Manual of Ancient History" (1869). His great work is "Seven Great Monarchies of the Eastern World." These are I. Chaldæa; II. Assyria; III. Media; IV. Babylonia; V. Persia; VI. Parthia; VII. The Sassanian or New Persian Empire. The History of the first five Monarchies was published from 1862 to 1867; of the sixth, in 1873, and of the last, in 1875. His "History of Phoenicia " appeared in 1890. "The Story of Ancient Egypt," written by Canon Rawlinson in collaboration with Arthur Gilman for the "Story of the Nations Series," was published in 1887.

THE LAND OF THE CHALDEES.

(From "Chaldæa.")

THE broad belt of desert which traverses the eastern hemisphere from west to east, reaching from the Atlantic on the one hand nearly to the Yellow Sea on the other, is interrupted about its centre by a strip of rich vegetation, which at once breaks the continuity of the arid region and serves also to mark the point where the desert changes its character from that of a plain at a low level to that of an elevated plateau or table-land. West of the favored district, the Arabian and African wastes are seas of sand, seldom raised much above, often sinking below, the level of the ocean; while east of the same, in Persia, Kerman, Seistan, Chinese Tartary, and Mongolia, the desert consists of a series of plateaus having from 3,000 to nearly 10,000 feet of elevation.

The green and fertile region which is thus interposed between the "highland" and the "lowland" deserts participates curiously enough in both characters. Where the belt of sand is intersected by the valley of the Nile, no marked change of eleva tion occurs; and the continuous low desert is merely interrupted by a few miles of green and cultivated surface, the whole of which is just as smooth and as flat as the waste on either side of it. But it is otherwise at the more eastern interruption. There the verdant and productive country divides itself into two tracts running parallel to each other, of which the western presents features not unlike those that characterize the Nile valley, but on a far larger scale; while the eastern is a lofty mountain region, consisting, for the most part, of five or six parallel ranges, then mounting, in many places, far above the region of perpetual snow.

It is with the western, or plain tract, that we are here concerned. Between the outer limits of the Syro-Egyptian desert, and at the foot of the great mountain-range of Kurdistan and Luristan, intervenes a territory long famous in the world's history, and the site of three of the seven empires of whose history, geography, and antiquities it is proposed to treat. Known to the Jews as Aram Naharaim, or "Syria of the Two Rivers" to the Greeks and Romans as Mesopotamia, or "The Between-River Country," to the Arabs as Al-Jezireh, or "The Island," this district has always taken its name from the streams which constitute its most striking feature, and to which, in fact, it owes its existence. If it were not for the two great rivers — the Tigris and the Euphrates with their tributaries, the northern part of the Mesopotamian lowland would in no respect differ from the Syro-Arabian desert on which it adjoins, and which in latitude, elevation, and general geological character it exactly resembles. Toward the south the importance of the rivers is still greater; for of Lower Mesopotamia it may be said with more truth than of Egypt, that it is an "acquired land," the actual "gift" of the two streams which wash it on either side; being, as it is, entirely a recent formation - a deposit which the streams have made in the shallow waters of a gulf into which they have owed for many ages. .

The extent of ancient Chaldæa is a question of some diffi culty; for from the edge of the alluvium to the present coast of the Persian Gulf is a distance of above four hundred and thirty miles, while from the western shore of the Bahi-i-Nedjil to the