spiritual being, and to honour him as such, we are apt to form too low an idea of their character from judging them by the standard which Christianity has produced; without sufficiently considering that the new principle required them to dismiss all the ideas and practices in which they had been brought up; and that all the nations known to them were wholly immersed in idolatry, and afforded no example of worship or conduct in any degree resembling that which was required from themselves.

It may be well to recapitulate the history of this chapter: Moses having been more than a month absent in the mount, the people despaired of his return. And as he was the agent through whom their deliverance had been effected, and had stood as it were between them and God, there seemed a vacancy in their system, which, as the priesthood and the regular course of religious service were not yet established, led them to think of a system of their own, or rather of a partial adaptation of their new principles to the practices with which they were familiar. They therefore applied to Aaron to give effect to their intention. His duty seems to us sufficiently clear; and although his easy compliance on this occasion has been extenuated by some writers, the culpability of his conduct is unquestionable, for we are told in Deut. ix. 20, that the Lord was very angry with him, and would have destroyed him, had not his brother interceded on his behalf. It is possible that his own faith failed; and that, concurring in the belief that Moses was dead, he shrunk from the task of attempting to control the inclinations of a multitude, whose unruly disposition had already been sufficiently manifested; and he may have satisfied his conscience by resolving on the half measure of keeping the Lord as much as possible in their view, as the ulterior object of the homage paid to the image. Hence he no sooner perceived the feeling with which the people received the golden calf, than he proclaimed the feast to be held on the morrow in honour of Jehovah. It is also thought by some, that, in the first instance, his meeting their proposal by demanding their precious personal ornaments with which to manufacture the image, was in the hope that their unwillingness to comply, would lead them to forego their

intention. Their zeal, however, was not to be thus repulsed. But there is no end to such conjectures. We must be content to know that he acted wrong, whatever were his motives. Moses directly charges him with his crime in verse 21; and the excusatory narrative which he gives in reply, with the confused account, with which it terminates, of his own share in the transaction, as if conscious of error but fearful to avow it, affords not the only instance resulting from a comparison between Moses and Aaron, in which we are led to perceive the wisdom of God in entrusting his great mission to the former, anxious as he was to decline it, rather than to his elder and more eloquent brother.-Knight's Illustrated Commentary.

CONVENTUAL LIFE IN THE TWELFTH CENTURY. EXTRACT XVIII.

THE ancient customs of the Cellarer, which we have seen, were these. The Cellarer was to have his messuage and barns near Scurun's well, at which place he was accustomed to exercise his jurisdiction upon robbers, and hold his Court for all pleas and plaints, also at that place he was accustomed to put his men in pledge, and to enrol them and renew their pledges every year, and to take such profit therefore as the Bailiff of the town was to take at the Portman-moot, which messuage with the adjacent garden, now in the occupation of the Infirmarer, was the mansion of Beodric, who was of old time the lord of that town: hence the town also came to be called Beodriches worth, whose demesne lands now are in the demesne of the Cellarer. And that which is now called averland, was the land of his rustics. And the total amount of that tenement of his and his churls, was three hundred and thirty acres of land, which are still the fields of this town, the service whereof, when the town was made free, was divided into two parts, so that the Sacrist, or the Town Bailiff, was to receive a free annual payment, to wit, of each acre twopence; the Cellarer was to have the ploughings and other services, to wit, the ploughing of one rood for each acre

without meals, (which custom is still observed,) and was to have the folds where all the men of the town, except the Steward who has his own fold, are bound to put their sheep; (which custom, also, is still observed;) and was to have averpeni, to wit, for each thirty acres two pence; which custom was done away with before the decease of the Abbot Hugh, when Gilbert of Alveden was Cellarer. Furthermore, the men of the town were wont upon the order of the Cellarer to go to Lakenheath, and bring back a day's work of eels from Southrey, and often, indeed, used to return empty, and thus to be harassed, without any profit to the Cellarer; therefore, it was settled between them, that each thirty acres, from thenceforth, should pay one penny by the year, and the men were to remain at home. But in fact, at this time, those lands are subdivided into so many parts, that it can hardly be ascertained by whom that annual payment is to be made; so that I have seen the Cellarer, in one year, take twenty-seven pence, but now he can hardly get ten pence and a halfpenny. Also the Cellarer was wont to exercise authority over the ways without the town, so that it was not lawful for any one to dig for chalk or clay without his licence. He also was accustomed to summon the fullers of the town, that they should furnish cloth for carrying his salt. Otherwise he would prohibit them the use of the waters, and would take the webs he found there; which customs are still observed. Also whosoever bought corn, or indeed anything from the Cellarer, was accustomed to be quit from toll at the gate of the town when he went homewards, wherefore the Cellarer sold his produce dearer; which usage is still observed. Also, the Cellarer is accustomed to take toll of flax at the time of its carrying, to wit, one truss from each load. Also, the Cellarer alone ought, or at least used to have, a free bull in the fields of this town now many persons have bulls. Also, when any person surrendered his burgage-land in alms to the Convent, and this was assigned to the Cellarer, or other official, that land ought, thenceforth, to be quit of haggovele, and most ́especially so to the Cellarer, on account of the dignity of his office, for he is the second father in the monastery, or even as a matter of reverence to the Convent, for the estate of those

who procure our provisions ought to be favourable; but the Abbot says that usage is unjust, because the Sacrist loses his service. Also, the Cellarer was accustomed to warrant to the servants of the court-lodge, that they should be quit of scot and tallage; but now it is not so, for the burgesses say that the servants of the court-lodge ought to be quit only so far as they are servants, but not when they hold burgage in the town, and when they, or their wives, publicly buy and sell in the market. Also, the Cellarer was used freely to take all the dunghills in every street, for his own use, unless it were before the doors of those who were holding averland; for to them only was it allowable to collect dung and to keep it. This custom was not enforced in the time of Abbot Hugh up to the period when Dennis and Roger of Hingham became Cellarers, who, being desirous of reviving the ancient custom, took the cars of the burgesses laden with dung, and made them unload; but a multitude of the burgesses resisting, and being too strong for them, every one in his own tenement now collects his dung in a heap, and the poor sell theirs when and to whom they choose. Also, the Cellarer was wont to have this privilege in the market of this town, that he and his purveyors should have pre-emption of all the provisions for the use of the Convent, if the Abbot were not at home. Also, that the purveyors of the Abbot, or Cellarer, whichever of them first came into the market, should buy first, either the latter without the former, or the former without the latter. But if both were present, then preference was to be given to the Abbot. Also, in the season when herrings are sold, the purveyors of the Abbot should always buy a hundred of herrings for less than the others by a halfpenny; and so of the Cellarer and his purveyors. Also, if the bulk of the fish or other provisions should first come into the court-lodge, or into the market, and that bulk should not have been discharged from the horse, or from the cart, the Cellarer, or his purveyors, might buy the whole and take it home with them without paying toll. But the Abbot Sampson commanded his purveyors that they should give preference to the Cellarer and his men, because, as he himself said, he had much rather himself should go without, than his Convent. Therefore the

purveyors, "in honour preferring one another," if they find that there is any one thing to be bought which is not enough for both parties, buy it between them, and divide it, share and share alike, and so between the head and the members, and the father and the son, there remains a jarring concord.

CHRONICLES OF THE KINGS OF NORWAY. [IT is time that we brought our extracts on this subject to a conclusion. Those we have furnished will have shown our readers what these Northmen were. In their character there was much capable of contributing to the formation of a very different one, retaining the good, but casting off, ultimately, (we trust the rejection will be complete,) all that was bad. We see the intention of Providence in reference to a future people, in a future age. A nation had to be built up of such materials as that, according to the usual laws of human nature, the national character might exhibit boldness and enterprise, frankness and courage; subjection to their Chiefs, capable of becoming an enlightened order, with that love of personal freedom which might issue in enlightened freedom. Left to themselves, however, these Northmen would have become increasingly savage. Letters would have been despised, improvement impossible, deterioration necessary and certain. A new principle, connected with mighty power, and containing itself, whenever its natural development was allowed, all the elements of the purest and highest civilization, was demanded. And it was given. Christianity was introduced. Its introduction harmonized with the character of those among whom it obtained a dwelling, rather than with its own proper character, and the designs of its Author. But what then? Human corruptions had almost extinguished the Missionary zeal of the Church. Utterly extinguish it, indeed, they could not; but they changed very awfully its character. Christianity, essentially aggressive, always awakens some kind of zeal. Where truth works not on spiritual love, it influences human passion, and this operates according to its own nature. The barbarous professors of the north knew that the idol-taies of their fathers were false, and they set to work to remove