United States or Brazil ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


The bull, in spite of the redoubled pricks of darts, stood motionless; but when three servants had taken the wounded man in their arms, he rushed at that group with the swiftness of a whirlwind, overturned it, and began to dig the ground with his forefeet tremendously. There was confusion in the audience: women screamed, men imprecated, and hurled at the bull whatever each one found nearest.

Phaedra saw in Hippolytus, the son of Theseus, a youth endowed with all the graces and virtues of his father, and of an age corresponding to her own. She loved him, but he repulsed her advances, and her love was changed to hate. She used her influence over her infatuated husband to cause him to be jealous of his son, and he imprecated the vengeance of Neptune upon him.

She had cursed her lovely sister who needed her protection and care, and even Pollux, her childhood's playfellow; and a thousand times had she imprecated the ruler of human destinies. All this she now keenly felt with all the earnestness natural to her, but she was soothed by the tidings that there was One who had redeemed the world, and taken on Himself the sins of every repentant sinner.

The indications furnished by this part of Roman Testamentary Law are of a very different kind. It is remarkable that a Will never seems to have been regarded by the Romans as a means of disinheriting a Family, or of effecting the unequal distribution of a patrimony. The rules of law preventing its being turned to such a purpose, increase in number and stringency as the jurisprudence unfolds itself; and these rules correspond doubtless with the abiding sentiment of Roman society, as distinguished from occasional variations of feeling in individuals. It would rather seem as if the Testamentary Power were chiefly valued for the assistance it gave in making provision for a Family, and in dividing the inheritance more evenly and fairly than the Law of Intestate Succession would have divided it. If this be the true reading of the general sentiment on the point, it explains to some extent the singular horror of Intestacy which always characterised the Roman. No evil seems to have been considered a heavier visitation than the forfeiture of Testamentary privileges; no curse appears to have been bitterer than that which imprecated on an enemy that he might die without a Will. The feeling has no counterpart, or none that is easily recognisable, in the forms of opinion which exist at the present day. All men at all times will doubtless prefer chalking out the destination of their substance to having that office performed for them by the law; but the Roman passion for Testacy is distinguished from the mere desire to indulge caprice by its intensity; and it has of course nothing whatever in common with that pride of family, exclusively the creation of feudalism, which accumulates one description of property in the hands of a single representative. It is probable,

These savages, thought I, will soon be holding communication with some of my own countrymen perhaps, who with ease could restore me to liberty did they know of the situation I was in. No language can describe the wretchedness which I felt; and in the bitterness of my soul I imprecated a thousand curses on the perfidious Toby, who had thus abandoned me to destruction.

Starting out in all directions from the high grass and underwood, appeared a crowd of squaws with their children, who gave whoop after whoop, and, brandishing boughs of trees, imprecated curses upon the destroyers of their rancheria. Captain Sutter and his party of trappers were somewhat startled at this proceeding, and the question immediately occurred to them as to where the men could be.

When warned of his danger, and admonished to consider what would be his portion, should Jesus prove to be the Messias, he seems to have derided the friendly warnings, and imprecated on himself the vengeance of the Nazerene! to have defied him to do his worst! to pour his curse upon him!

He had no sooner concluded than all eyes were turned upon the Cid, who, in deep, solemn tones, and with the most impressive earnestness of manner, imprecated on the head of his king every curse that heaven or hell could inflict, if, in taking that oath, he had committed perjury. The awed assembly then broke up. Rodrigo, from that hour, was hated by the king and shunned by the court.

These savages, thought I, will soon be holding communication with some of my own countrymen perhaps, who with ease could restore me to liberty did they know of the situation I was in. No language can describe the wretchedness which I felt; and in the bitterness of my soul I imprecated a thousand curses on the perfidious Toby, who had thus abandoned me to destruction.

Ives pay him the three thousand guineas. The curses which Mac Fane continually coupled with my name, and the rancour, the thirst of blood which preyed upon him, were incredible. He a hundred times imprecated eternal damnation to his soul if there were the least danger. Clifton would in reality be an accessary before the fact, and therefore obliged to silence. Beside 'He would do him!