him. But, his speed being surpassed by that of his pursuers, he had the mortification to learn that they were rapidly approaching him; and, to elude their pursuit, he sought shelter in the obscurity of some dark recess, accompanied by his faithful friend Terentius.-The horsemen arrive; they burst in upon the fugitives; when Terentius taking advantage of the darkness, presents himself to them as Brutushoping, by that pious artifice, to save Brutus's life at the expense of his own. The leader of the party, however, happening to recognize him, spared his life, and contented himself with killing Brutus.* GENEROSITY. A TRAIT of generosity, of a different kind, is recorded of Fabius Maximus, the celebrated general, who in the second Punic war, saved Rome from destruction, by judiciously manoeuvring with Hannibal, instead of suffering him to join battle. Fabius had agreed with Hannibal on an exchange of prisoners, with a proviso, that in case of a greater number being released on either side, a pecuniary ransom should be paid for the supernumeraries, at a certain stipulated rate.—The number of the Roman prisoners proving to be the greater, Fabius wrote to the senate, to make provision for the payment of the ransom. But that assembly, after long and repeated debates on the subject, showing little disposition to fulfil the agreement because concluded without their sanction; Fabius felt indignant at such shameful tergiversation in a business in which he considered his own personal honour to lie at stake as well as that of the republic. He therefore dispatched his son to Rome, with orders to sell his estate; paid to Hannibal the produce of the sale, and redeemed the public faith at his own private expense. It may, in this transaction, be curious to notice the value set on men and land at the period in question, viz. about two hundred and fifteen years before the birth of Christ. According to Livy (22, 24), the number of prisoners to be ransomed was two hundred and forty-seven; the price two pounds and a half of silver per head and the estate, according to Valerius, consisted of only seven Jugera, which (if I calculate right) was somewhat less than four English acres * The received opinion is, that Brutus died on his own sword.-Ed. and a half; whence we may conclude that an English acre, even of poor infertile land (for such that of Fabius is described) was, at that time, worth at least one hundred and thirty-six pounds of silver :-this, however, on the supposition that the estate alone produced the whole sum requireda fact, which neither Valerius nor Livy has directly asserted. BRITISH FISHERIES. WE are yet imperfectly acquainted with the natural history of the herring. Its winter habitation has generally been supposed within the arctic circle, under the vast fields of ice which float on the northern ocean, where it fattens on the swarms of shrimps and other marine insects, which are said to be most abundant in those seas. On the return of the sun from the southern tropic towards the equator, the multitudinous host issues forth in numbers that exceed the power of imagination. Separating about Iceland into two grand divisions, the one proceeds to the westward, filling in its progress, every bay and creek on the coast of America, from the straits of Bellisle to Cape Hatteras; the other, proceeding easterly, in a number of distinct columns of five or six miles in length, and three or four in breadth, till they reach the Shetland islands, which they generally do about the end of April, is there subdivided into a number of smaller columns, some of which taking the eastern coast of Great Britain, fill every creek and inlet in succession from the Orkneys down to the British channel; and others branching off to the westward, surround the coast of the Hebrides, and penetrate into the numerous firths and lochs on the western shores of Scotland. Another shoal, pursuing the route to Ireland, separates on the north of that island into two divisions, one of which passing down the Irish channel, surrounds the Isle of Man; the other pours its vast multitudes into the bays and inlets of the western coast of Ireland. The whole of this grand army, which the word herring emphatically expresses, disappears on the arrival of the several divisions on the southern coasts of England and Ireland, about the end of October, to which period, from its first appearance in April, it invites the attack of a variety of enemies, besides the fishermen, in every point of its route. In their own element the herrings furnish food for the whale, the shark, the grampus, the cod, and almost all the larger kind of fishes; and they are followed in the air by flocks of gulls, gannets, and other marine birds, which continually hover about them, and announce their approach to the expectant fisherman. To keep up this abundant supply, and to provide against all the drains which were intended to be made upon it, nature has bestowed on the herring a corresponding fecundity, the spawn of each female comprehending from thirty to forty thousand eggs. Whether these eggs are deposited in the soft and oozy banks of the deep sea, abounding with marine worms and insects, and affording food for winter's consumption, or whether they lie within the arctic circle amidst unremitting frost, and six months perpetual darkness, is yet a doubtful point; but the former will probably be considered as the less objectionable conjecture. The esculent fish, next of importance to the herring, in a national point of view, is the cod-fish, which is also considered among the number of those which migrate from the north, in a southerly direction, to nearly the same degree of latitude as the herring. But there is reason to believe that its constant residence is on the rough and 'stony banks of the deep sea, and that it is rarely found beyond the arctic circle, and there only sparingly, and in the summer months. On the great bank of Newfoundland, on the coasts of Iceland, Norway, Shetland, and the Orkney islands, on the Well-bank, the Dogger-bank, the Broad Forties, on the northern, western, and southern coasts of Ireland, the cod is most abundant, and of the best quality in some or other of these situations, the fisheries may be carried on with certain success and to great advantage, from November to MidsumOn the western coasts of Scotland and Ireland all the different species of the cod genus, usually known under the name of white fish, are plentifully dispersed. Every bank is, in fact, an inexhaustible fishery; for with fewer enemies than the herring to pray upon it, the cod is at least a hundred times more productive. The fecundity of this fish, indeed, so far exceeds credibility, that had it not been ascertained by actual experiment, and on the best possible authority, it would have been considered as fabulous to assign to the female cod, from three to four millions of eggs. mer. Not only the hake, sometimes known by the name of Poor John, but more commonly by that of stock-fish and the ling, are to be reckoned among the valuable products of the British fisheries, especially as articles of foreign consumption, but we may also include the haddock, which is another species of cod, as equally important for the supply of the home market. Haddocks assemble in vast shoals during the winter months in every part of the northern ocean, and bend their course generally to the southward, proceeding beyond the limits of the cod and the herring; but it is remarked that they neither enter the Baltic nor the Mediterranean. The two dark spots a little behind its head are supposed to have gained the haddock, in days of superstition, the credit of being the fish which St. Peter caught with the tribute money in its mouth, in proof of which the impression of the Saint's finger and thumb has been entailed on the whole race of haddocks ever since. Unfortunately, however, for the tradition, the haddock is not a Mediterranean fish, nor can we suppose it to have belonged to the lake of Tiberias. The truth is, the Italians consider a very different fish as that which was sanctified by the Apostle, and which, after him, they honour with the name Il Junitore, a name that we have converted into Johnny Dory, with the same happy ingenuity that has twisted the girasole, or turnsol, into a Jerusalem artichoke. Several other kinds of white fish, as turbot, plaice, sole, and whitings, are plentifully dispersed over various parts of the British seas, so as to afford an ample supply for the home market, the whole year round, without the smallest danger of that supply being exhausted or diminished. The mackarel fishery in the English Channel continues about four months in the year, commencing in April or May. This too, is a fish of passage; but contrary to the course of the herring, is supposed to visit the British seas in large shoals from the southward. The mackarel is chiefly caught for immediate consumption, but is sometimes pickled for winter use. Its fecundity is very great, each female depositing The pilchard, like the herring, of which it is a species, is a fish of passage. It makes its appearance in vast shoals, on the coasts of Devonshire and Cornwall, and in the neighbourhood of the Scilly islands from July to September. About the time that the pilchards are expected on the coast, a number of men called huers, post themselves on the heights to look out for their approach, which is indicated by a change in the colour of the water. The boats in the mean while, with their nets prepared, are held in readiness to push forth in the direction pointed out to them by the huers. On the coast of Cornwall alone, fifty or sixty thousand hogsheads of this fish are annually salted for home consumption. But of all others, the salmon may, perhaps, be considered as the king of fishes; and no part of Europe is more bountifully supplied with it than the coasts of Great Britain and Ireland. At certain seasons of the year, whole shoals of this noble fish approach to the mouths of rivers, which they ascend to considerable distances, surmounting every obstacle in order to find a safe and convenient spot to deposit their spawn. From January to September they are in high season, but in some part or other of the coast are fit for use every month in the year. The salmon fishery is of great value, whether for home consumption or exportation. Prodigious quantities are consumed fresh in the London market, and in almost all the sea-port towns in England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland; but a far greater quantity is salted, dried, or pickled in vinegar. The lochs and friths of Scotland and Ireland are visited by salmon in such copious shoals that more than a thousand fish have sometimes been taken at a single draught. The two most productive fisheries are that of the Tweed, near Berwick, and of the Bann near Colerain; at the latter of which, Mr. Young says 1450 salmon have been taken at one drag of a single net. The salmon also frequents the coast of Norway and Iceland in the summer months in prodigious quantities. Hooker describes the salmon fishery in the river Lax Elbe on the latter island, where women as well as men, took with their hands, in a few hours, 2200 salmon. The banks of the North sea, and the rocky coasts of the Orkneys, and the eastern shores of Britain, afford in abundance, two articles of luxury for the London market, though but sparingly drawn from those sources-we allude to the turbot and lobster. For a supply, however, of the former we have always had recourse to the Dutch, to whom we paid about 80,000l. a year; and for about a million of the latter taken on the coast of Norway, the Danes drew from us about P 3 |