These tulips afterwards were sold according to the weight of the roots. Four hundred perits* of " Admiral Leifken ” cost 4,400 florins; 446 ditto of "Admiral Von der Eyk," 1,620 florins; 106 perits "Schilder" cost 1,615 florins; 200 ditto "Semper Augustus," 5,500 florins; 410 ditto "Viceroy," 3,000 florins, &c. The species Semper Augustus" has been often sold for 2,000 florins; and it once happened that there were only two roots of it to be had, the one at Amsterdam and the other at Haarlem. For a root of this species, one person agreed to give 4,600 florins, together with a new carriage, two grey horses, and a complete harness. Another agreed to give for a root twelve acres of land: those who had not ready money, promised their moveable and immoveable goods, houses and lands, cattle and clothes. A man whose name Munting once knew, but could not recollect, won by this trade more than 60,000 florins in the course of four months. It was followed not only by mercantile people, but also by the first noblemen, citizens of every description, mechanics, seamen, farmers, turf-diggers, chimney-sweeps, footmen, maid-servants, and old clothes-women, &c. At first, every one won and no one lost. Some of the poorest people gained in a few months, houses, coaches and horses, and figured away like the first characters in the land. In every town some tavern was selected which served as a 'Change, where high and low traded in flowers, and confirmed their bargains with the most sumptuous entertainments. They formed laws for themselves, and had their notaries and clerks.

During the time of the tulipomania, a speculator often offered and paid large sums for a root which he never received, and never wished to receive. Another sold roots which he never possessed or delivered. Oft did a nobleman purchase

A perit is a small weight, less than a grain.

of a chimney-sweep tulips to the amount of 2,000 florins, and sell them at the same time to a farmer; and neither the nobleman, chimney-sweep, or farmer, had roots in their possession, or wished to possess them. Before the tulip-season purchased, bespoke and

was over, more roots were sold and promised to be delivered, than in all probability were to be found in the gardens of Holland; and when " Semper Augustus" was not to be had, which happened twice, no species perhaps was oftener purchased and sold. In the space of three years, as Munting tells us, more than ten millions were expended in this trade in only one town of Holland.

We

To understand this gambling traffic, it may be necessary to make the following supposition. A nobleman bespoke of a merchant a tulip-root, to be delivered in six months, at the price of 1000 florins. During these six months that species of tulip must have risen or fallen, or remained as it was. shall suppose that at the expiration of that time the price was 1,500 florins in that case the nobleman did not wish to have the tulip, and the merchant paid him 500 florins, which the latter lost and the former won. If the price was fallen when the six months were expired, so that a root could be purchased for 800 florins, the nobleman then paid to the merchant 200 florins, which he received as so much gain; but if the price continued the same, that is 1,000 florins, neither party gained or lost. In all these circumstances no one ever thought of delivering the roots, or of receiving them.

At length, however, this trade fell all of a sudden. Among such a number of contracts many were broken; many had engaged to pay more than they were able; the whole stock of the adventurers was consumed by the extravagance of the winners; new adventurers no more engaged in it; and many, becoming sensible of the odious traffic in which they had been concerned, returned to their former occupations. By these means, as the value of tulips still fell, and never rose, the sellers wished to deliver the roots in natura to the purchasers at the prices agreed on; but as the latter had no desire for tulips at even such a low rate, they refused to take them or to pay for them. To end this dispute, the tulip-dealers of Alkmaar sent in the year 1637 deputies to Amsterdam; and

a resolution was passed on the 24th of February, that all contracts made prior to the last of November, 1636, should be null and void; and that, in those made after that date, purchasers should be free on paying ten per cent. to the vender.

[Thus, the tulipomania was not a passion for tulips, any more than the railway mania is a passion for railways. The former only was what the latter is, a passion for gambling. By the tulipomania very many were ruined. But let it not be forgotten, that even where gambling does not ruin the circumstances, it tends to ruin the soul. Under every form, therefore, most entirely avoid it: avoid it as you would avoid the plague. The physical plague can only destroy the body, and may liberate the soul for heaven. The mortality of a moral plague is the second death, the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone !]

PORTFOLIO MISCELLANIES.

[IN the course of years, an old study recluse will have met with many curious pieces, on various subjects, some of which, at all events, will be so far interesting and useful to younger readers as to furnish them with information, and sometimes, to supply materials for reflection, suggesting important trains of thought. Occasionally, some of these notices shall be given to the readers of "The Youth's Instructer." They will be found, not unfrequently, to be taken from authors to whose works our young friends, generally at least, have not access. Their worth will not be at all the less for this. Our object will be answered if that kind of growth be promoted to which the significant, not to say solemn, language of the Apostle refers, “IN UNDERSTANDING BE YE MEN." Very much are they mistaken who fancy that Christianity is the religion of little minds, only fit for such, best relished by them, and fixing bonds on them, as the Chinese do on the feet of their female infants, to perpetuate their narrowness. The contrary of this is the case. The "wise and prudent," from whom the deep things of evangelical truth are concealed, are the proud professors of an earthly, and merely human, philosophy: the "babes" to whom they are revealed, are not the wilfully VOL. XI. Second Series.

B

ignorant, the mentally slothful, whose pride, in point of fact, is in proportion to their indolence, but the truly humble, who are willing to be taught of God, and who say, "What I see not, show thou me." Religion, rightly understood, contributes to mental expansion and enlargement: it must do so. Let the leading ideas of the Gospel be recollected, and can the mind be called to the contemplation of subjects more noble and sublime? By the true Christian fully yielding to the influence of scriptural teaching, nothing that is really knowledge, which he has the opportunity of gaining, will be despised, that is, the knowledge of truth, in some or other of its forms. And he is best prepared for such attainment, inasmuch as he understands that great principle of all genuine wisdom, that all truth is related to God. Historical truth, for instance, is viewed in its connexion with the providential department of the divine kingdom. Scientific truth, likewise, is seen to refer to the kingdom of God in nature, in its existences and laws. The kingdom of God in redemption, indeed, is that which is most important, and must be studied by those whose circumstances prohibit them from going further. And this is a way in which the wayfaring man, though a fool, shall not err. But they who are not thus restricted, will remember the very significant language of the Psalmist: "ALL thy works praise thee, O Lord!" Nor will they omit what follows: "And thy saints shall bless thee;" that is, they shall speak good of his holy name, doing intentionally what inanimate nature does by unconscious reflection of the glory that shines upon them. And the subject of their speech (does not this suggest to us the conversation of heaven?) declares the subject of their thoughts; for they belong not to the mere babblers who speak of the things they know not: "They shall speak of the glory of thy kingdom, and talk of thy power;" and this, not only because they delight to behold the works of Him whom they love and adore, and whom they can only know by the operations in which he reveals himself; but that the careless and ignorant of their fellow-men may be impressed, and brought to glorify God for themselves; "to make known to the sons of men his mighty acts, and the glorious majesty of his kingdom." Speaking

colloquially, what God has thought it worth his while to do, shall they think it not worth their while to observe and study? No, Christianity is not the religion of mental littleness, but of intellectual greatness. Some Christians, through circumstances which they cannot control, are wise unto salvation, without being able to acquire any other wisdom. Let them thank God that the wisdom they have is the best of all. But if they truly know the Gospel, that which they have not, they will be far from despising. They who do thus despise, do so partly from misapprehension, but partly, likewise, from mental slothfulness. They will be found to be such as are censured by the Apostle in the Epistle to the Hebrews: they have need of milk, and not of strong meat. (Chap. v. 12-14.) Let the young Christian seek daily food for his mind, as well as for his body, only taking due care that it be "sanctified by the word of God and prayer.”

We have made a longer introduction than we intended; but we wished to show fully what is our object, not only in this, but in every department of our Numbers; and, once for all, to suggest the proper subjects, and the right principles and method, of the studies of Christian youth.-ED. Y. I.]

THE STREAM OF THE LANGUAGE OF THE OLD ROMANS FLOWING INTO THE MARSHES OF THE GOTHIC INVASION OF THE EMPIRE. -When a powerful people have passed away, and the language which they used is no longer spoken, that language remains as the monument of another age, in which we admire the great works of a pencil or a chisel now broken. To say how the idioms of the inhabitants of Ausonia became the Latin idiom; how much it retained of the character of the tribes by whom it was formed; what it lost or gained by the establishment of despotic government, and, at a later period, by the revolution produced in the religion of the state; to say how the nations conquered, and conquering brought to this idiom their crowd of foreign locutions; and then, how the wrecks and fragments of this idiom formed the basis of the

* We want a good English word for debris. By some sciences, geology especially, it has been naturalized. Broken remains, though the original idea, combined with that of mixture, reads rather awkwardly.