his hunger with unwholesome roots and bark when the meal of chestnuts and acorns, his most luxurious fare, was wanting. The severity of the forest laws visited upon the poacher, even when impelled by the pangs of starvation to trespass on the seignioral demesnes, the most barbarous of punishments. Around the monastery and the castle were visible the signs of unskilled and reluctant cultivation; but not far away was a wilderness diversified with vast forests, majestic rivers, and pestilential marshes. Intercommunication was irregular and limited to populous districts; many villages of no inconsiderable dimensions were as completely separated from the outside world as if they stood on islands in the midst of the ocean. Barter of commodities necessarily prevailed in the almost entire absence of money; there was no opportunity for the establishment of trade; no incitement to agricultural industry; no work for the artisan. The accumulation of property was effectually discouraged through the incapacity of the laborer to retain or enjoy it when his hopes were constantly frustrated by the insinuating artifices of the priest or the significant threats of the noble. The extortions of the inexorable tax-receiver, the inhumanity of licensed hirelings, the enormities countenanced by baronial tyranny, carried dismay into every hamlet. Epidemics appeared without warning, and spread with mysterious and appalling rapidity; the death-rate was frightful; fatal symptoms developed almost with the first attack, while in the ignorance of rational treatment the application of relics and the mummeries of the clergy proved signally ineffectual to avert what was considered the vengeance of Heaven.