"C'est des contraires que resulte l'harmonie du monde."

And Burke, in nearly the same words, in his _Reflections on the French
Revolution_:

"You had that action and counteraction, which, in the natural and in
the political world, from the reciprocal struggle of discordant powers,
draws out the harmony of the universe."

Nor does the sentiment belong exclusively to the moderns. I find it in
Horace's twelfth Epistle:

"Nil parvum sapias, et adhuc sublimia cures,
. . . . . .
Quid velit et possit rerum concordia discors."

{545}

Lucan, I think, has the same expression in his _Pharsalia_; and it forms
the basis of Longinus's remark on the eloquence of Demosthenes:

[Greek: "Oukoun ten men phusin ton epanaphoron kai asundeton pantei
phulattei tei sunechei metabolei? houtos autoi kai he taxis atakton,
kai empalin he ataxia poian perilambanei taxin."]

It may be said that, as Pope adopted the thought from Horace or Lucan, so a
poet of the fifteenth century (such as the supposed Rowley) might have
taken it from the same sources. But a comparison of the line in _The
Tournament_ with those in _Windsor Forest_ will show that the borrowing
embraces not only the thought, but the very words in which it is expressed.

HENRY H. BREEN.

St. Lucia.

* * * * *

FOLK LORE.

_Legend of Llangefelach Tower._--A different version of the legend also
exists in the neighbourhood, viz. that the day's work on the tower being
pulled down each night by the old gentleman, who was apparently
apprehensive that the sound of the bells might keep away all evil spirits,
a saint, of now forgotten name, told the people that if they would stand at
the church door, and throw a stone, they would succeed in building the
tower on the "spot where it fell," which accordingly came to pass.

CERIDWEN.

_Wedding Divination._--Being lately present on the occasion of a wedding at
a town in the East Riding of Yorkshire, I was witness to the following
custom, which seems to take rank as a genuine scrap of folk-lore. On the
bride alighting from her carriage at her father's door, a plate covered
with morsels of bride's cake was flung from a window of the second story
upon the heads of the crowd congregated in the street below; and the
divination, I was told, consists in observing the fate which attends its
downfall. If it reach the ground in safety, without being broken, the