traditional literature, of which we are afraid the last
remnants have reached us in the Collections of
Mr. Dasent and Mr. J. F. Campbell, there are
vestiges of much goodness surviving in an era
of Force, and serving to initiate an Intellectual
cycle, the culmination of which has been
reserved for the present epoch. The era of brute
power was dark enough, but the cloud had a
silver lining which it graciously turned forth
upon the night. Nevertheless, the intellectual
aspects are rude and elementary, and appear
to have been as little moral as they were
scientific. The social state, in the traditionary
records, scarcely exists, and the rights of
property are slenderly regarded. At any rate, the
intellectual instinct is not identified with
honesty, and the law of meum and tuum is violated
with impunity. The Master Thief is a clever
fellow, and a leading hero in all the tales. He
simply makes brute power ridiculous by the
exercise of his wit, and takes advantage of the
blindness and stupidity of his opponent. And
power, on the part of the latter, is exerted with
as little reference to morality. With power it
is a mere question of overreaching or strength.
Everywhere there is preoccupation by a
barbarous race which the new-comers have to
circumvent by skill or courage. Individual
cunning or strength has to prove itself a match
for numbers, and at length, whether in life or
death, it conquers; in the first it is the hero
who triumphs, in the second his cause.

With certain modifications, however, these
tales of the past are also those of the present.
Looking to facts now occurring, and to
history, says one of the collectors of these old
stories, traditional fictions look very true, for
battles are still a succession of single combats,
in which both sides abuse each other, and after
which they boast. War is rapine and cruel
bloodshed, as described by old fishermen in
Barra, and by the Times' correspondent at
Tetuan. It is not, he sagely adds, altogether
the chivalrous pastime which poets have sung.

It is true that now, except with the very
ignorant, iron weapons are no longer magical,
horses no longer hallowed, birds no longer
soothsayers, oak-trees, wells, swine, and apples
no longer sacred, nor combs wonderful; yet,
as among the Scythians, the Iron Sword is with
many a god, and the various accessories of
privileged wealth objects of great veneration. The
only difference that seems to exist is that they
are not so rare as in the days of the times of
old when Ossian sang and Fingal fought. It
was natural that the Iron Sword should be
worshipped by a people with whom Iron was
rare, as a mystic personage, that shone, that
cried out, and wherewith the lives of men were
bound up. But there is no such excuse now
for the superstition, nevertheless it has still its
worshippers—men and governors of states who
appeal to it and perish by it, as if a supernatural
virtue belonged to the material. Surely,
the smith should still have his place in the
pantheon of nations.

In the past, the man of the sword was a
civiliser. The evil powers, it was thought,
could not resist iron; and these were the skin-
clad warriors who shot flint arrows, and whose
remains are even now traceable in various parts
of Europe. We meet with them in tradition
as bogles and demons, even as fairies; and
the swordsman was the champion of Heaven
who successfully resisted the Devil. The fiend
was always painted as a fool, and got the worst
of the fight. "In all probability," says the
critic, "the fiend of popular tales is own brother
to the Grugach and Glashan, and was once a
skin-clad savage, or the god of a savage race."
We know that Mahomet resisted the idolators
of his age, and spread his own doctrine by
means of the soldier; and long before his day
the worship of the scimitar prevailed with a
people who are classed with the Indo-European
races, and whose influence has survived with us
for more than two thousand years, and identified
itself, perhaps, with all magic swords from
the time of Herodotus down to the White
Sword of Light of the West Highlands.

But the moral is reversed when the man of
Iron has superseded the man of Stone, and in
turn become himself the tyrant. It is then
that Intellect separates itself from Violence,
and depends on moral means for achieving
moral ends. From these means fraud is
gradually eliminated, for fraud is only force in a
more subtle guise. Yet for a long period
strength will be regarded with especial favour;
nay, still is so regarded. The muscular athletes
of the present day are the most popular
performers at the music-halls. Leotard and Avolo
are more highly esteemed than the most
accomplished tenor. It is little more than a century
ago since the town was thoroughly excited by
the feats of a Samson of the day. It was just
at the time when Admiral Vernon had achieved
a great naval victory by the reduction of Porto
Bello, and the capture of the seaport of
Carthagena, in Spain, which last event, in those
days of slow travelling, took more than a month
in reaching England. A man named Topham,
celebrated for his muscular power, determined
to take advantage of the occasion, and
announced, in honour of the victory, a grand trial
of strength. On the 28th of May, 1741, the
performance came off in the thoroughfare now
known as Bath-street, Clerkenwell, in which
street three hogsheads of water, together
weighing one thousand eight hundred and
thirty-six pounds, were placed on a timber
frame. Standing above them, Topham, by means
of a stirrup over his shoulder, fastened to a
strong cord, contrived to lift the cumbrous load
several inches, in the presence of Admiral
Vernon himself, who had mingled with the crowd.
The performance became so popular that
Topham's portrait was frequent on signboards in
and about the metropolis. Though only about
five feet ten inches in height, this man's strength
was indeed extraordinary. He could pull
against a horse with his feet placed against a
low wall, roll up a pewter dish with his fingers,
and lift with his teeth a table six feet long, with